Will the Battery of my MacBook Pro 15" 2016 deteriorate if it is plugged in charging all day? I am using my MacBook pro 15" 2016 everyday and attached to it I have got a DELL Monitor 25" QHD. In order to use the monitor as main screen my MacBook pro needs to be plugged in charging all the time.

Will the battery of the MacBook deteriorate because of this?

Thanks

To my knowledge it is more or less a consensus that Li-Ion batteries require regular discharge to keep the electrons moving. This article is one of the most comprehensive I know on the issue. It states that one should avoid low and high temperatures, regular deep discharges, and permanent full charges. The author recommends to use the battery from time to time with shallow discharge cycles.


drive file stream has encountered a problem and has stopped I had installed Google Drive File Streaming and it was working fine until I upgraded to Mojave. Thereafter, I keep getting the error:
"drive file stream has encountered a problem and has stopped"
Dmesg reports:

Kext com.google.dfsfuse.filesystems.dfsfuse start failed (result 0x5).
Kext com.google.dfsfuse.filesystems.dfsfuse failed to load (0xdc008017).
Failed to load kext com.google.dfsfuse.filesystems.dfsfuse (error 0xdc008017).
syscall_extension_consume failed: 22syscall_extension_consume failed: 2

I have Virtualbox and Keybase installed, as well as OSXFuse. Not sure if they're competing / conflicting.

Any ideas?

had the same problem for weeks now and was just able to solve it by uninstalling VirtualBox


Why might an Apple TV stop playing purchased content from iTunes? I am trying to watch television shows that I just purchased through the iTunes store on my Apple TV. Every time I try to play any purchased shows on my Apple TV, it gives me the error message

  Authorization is required. To play this content on your Apple TV,
  choose Authorize This Computer from the Store menu in iTunes on your
  computer, then enter the Apple ID and password used for the purchase.

I have done this. I have restarted the Apple TV. I have deauthorized and reauthorized my computer. It still gives me this error message. I have tried signing out of and back into the Apple TV, and that doesn't work either. This is the first time I've seen this message in the year + I have had this Apple TV. Also, it was playing purchased content just fine last week. Something has apparently changed since then, and I can't figure out what.

How do I get my Apple TV to recognize this purchased content again?

The explanation I got from Apple is there is some maintenance being performed on an iTunes server this weekend, which is affecting AppleTV's ability to authorize content.  Even if you are streaming directly from your PC/MAC to the AppleTV, there is still some validation with the iTunes store that occurs.

In the meantime, you can use Airplay to continue to stream content to your AppleTV.  More info on using Airplay can be found here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4437.


iOS 12.2 Control Center Remote Control Finds no TVs We have two Apple TV 4s and a number of iOS devices. After the iOS 12.2 update, my iPhone XS would not find the TV called LIVING ROOM but would work with PORCH just fine. I uninstalled the Remote app, and restarted my Apple TV and my phone. Now, my iPhone does not see any Apple TVs in the house, even after reinstalling the Apple TV Remote app (which does work without any problems).

LIVING ROOM shows up just fine on my iPad. Both TVs show up on my wife's iPhone X.

I am open to suggestions for further troubleshooting that are short of restoring my iPhone from backup. I would prefer not to reset iPhone Networking Settings unless somebody is pretty sure that is likely to fix the issue.

I can’t say for certain which of these mattered but here is what led to this bing fixed for me.

Update to iOS 12.3
Update AppleTV to tvOS 12.3
Reset Network Settings on iPhone
Add AppleTV to a room in Home.app
Delete all paired “extra” remotes on AppleTV (apps and other devices)
Give iPhone new, not-previously used name
Re-pair iPhone Remote app (which, remember had worked this whole time) to Apple TV

I suspect it was steps 5-7 that were all I needed, and I’m bummed that I nuked my Network Settings, but the Control Cemter widget works for me now.


An app for looking at sound levels for surround sound channels? I have been creating 5.1 surround sound files from Apple Compressor, but need a way to visually see that the different channels are all working properly in the final file. I can't test with a physical surround sound speaker set-up.

Is there an app that can show the sound levels for each channel, like you can with mono/stereo files in Audacity?

I don't have access to a full video editor like Final Cut Pro, or Avid. I would happily pay for a smaller audio utility that lets you do this.

Try Soundtrack Pro from Final Cut Studio 2009. This is simple and robust application. There's surround 5.1 under its hood and moderate set of audio professional tools.


Is there a way to get the VLC app for iOS now? This app was taken down because of licensing reasons. People have reported that they were able to get the app loaded on new devices such as the new iPad (which was released after this app was removed) because the ipa was saved in their iTunes.

Now, I don't actually have the app. I did a long time ago on an iTunes installation (on windows) that is long lost in a dusty corner of a partition on one of my many many hard drives.

My understanding is that there is some sort of signing that happens where it's impossible to download the .ipa file from some source and get it to run on your iOS device unless you jailbreak and apply AppSync (which basically hacks and bypasses the app verification).

Does this mean that I am SOL for being able to watch my collection on my new iPad without either transcoding or streaming? I could settle for streaming but it really makes me sad that awesome software like this has been taken away from us.

As you state, VLC has been pulled from the app store because of incompatibility issues between its GNU license and the AppStore DRM.

If you have already bought it (even at 0 cost) you can still use it under the same account used to buy it. Because of DRM, apps can not be shared between users, so you can not use an .ipa from other user, just your own.

If its your case, VLC is available as a Cydia download for jailbroken devices. Otherwise there are good alternatives for a few bucks. You might wanna check out these:

GoodPlayer ($2.99)
CineXPlayer ($3.99)

I've used GoodPlayer and it works as expected, allowing you to play almost anything without reencoding.


Import lcr file into iTunes I have a mp3 song in iTunes, on some 3rd party music player apps, they have the lyric displayed on the control center. I think that is done using an .lcr file. So my question is, is it possible to import an .lcr file into iTunes? If it is, how to do it?

Thanks

As far as I know, iTunes doesn't support synced lyrics for music (they do for video.) If, however, you do want to import simply the raw lyrics, you could reformat the .lrc as plain lyrical text then add it under the "Lyrics" section of any given song. It might be possible to script it as well.

First, let's understand the .lrc file format. In essence, it's just plaintext with extra tags for information. Since the tags are enclosed with brackets ([]) (with additional timestamping enclosed in angled brackets (<>) for the enhanced format), all you have to do is remove anything that fits these criteria. From there, it's trivial to add lyrics. Simply right click on the song in iTunes, click "Get Info", then "Lyrics", then paste them in.

Alternatively, you could just Google the lyrics.


How to speed up my iMac (Mid 2007) running Lion I've had this 24" Al iMac since it came out in August 2007.

2.8 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo (X7900 Core 2 Extreme)
2GB 667 DDR2

The machine has never been rebuilt, and the profile is the original profile from my original iBook G4 back in 2004 (migrated to a MacBook and then to the iMac)

I'm loath to spend any money on the machine since it is coming up to 5 years old, and I want to save up for a new one later this year.

I want to know what software tweaks that I can use to speed up the iMac as it is now slow for much of anything except the basics.

I'm looking for ways to speed up the boot time, runtime memory efficiency, and responsiveness.

Edit for clarification purposes:
If you have any quick fixes, they would score higher for me than say having to rebuild the system (sorry Stuffe)

If you don't want to spent money, then that rules out hardware upgrades, which means you are down to software.  You are already running the latest OS (and anecdotally at least for anything reasonably up to date the received wisdom is that you gain a speed boost with new OS releases from Apple on the same hardware) which means you are down to configuration.

So, as you say you have never performed a rebuild and you have potentially 9 years of cruft kicking around gathering dust I would simply test out your backup strategy by ensuring you have copies of everything you need, and perform a fresh install, recovering back only that which you are sure you need and still use.


How can I stop my iPod connecting to my computer when I plug it in? Seems like a strange question, but here is the situation: when I arrive at work, I want to recharge my iPod. The easiest way to do that is via the USB connection on my computer.

But if I plug it in, I have the minor irritation that the iPod goes straight to the Do not disconnect screen (interrupting playback). I then have to go to the Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media option in Windows (Windows 7) to get what I really want: the iPod just charging as if plugged in to the mains.

Is there a simple way to prevent this? I don't have (or want) iTunes installed.

Sorry but it isn't possible from just a configuration change.  Neither the iPod nor Windows have options to not mount it.

I had the same requirement and ended up making my own USB cable that only passed the power but not the data connections.  If you look around online, you can find the same thing for sale for only a few dollars


Setting a durable pin-mark in maps by using Siri It's possible saying to Siri: "Show me my current location". Then it opens maps and marks the current position there.

One can then setting a persistent mark by using touch-screen.

Now I ask myself:
Is it possible to set this pin via Siri?

Or more precise: It there a command for saying "Hey Siri. Mark my current position in maps durable!"

I think this is not achievable via Siri, but you can still use Siri and a couple of taps to get what you're asking for.

"Hey Siri, where am I?"

All you have to do to Mark your current location, using Siri, is following these few simple steps:

Ask Siri "Where am I?" or similar questions;
It will pop you up a preview of your location in Maps, tap on that preview to get into it;
Tap the blue circle (which represents you) and tap on Mark my location.

That's it, if you want to use Siri and a shortcut to get in Maps at your current location, this are the steps to follow.

In case you would prefer to directly share your location, you'll want to follow the same exact steps, except the last one, where you'll have to Tap on Share my location, rather than on Mark my location, and that's it.

Hope this helped you out!


No 'Software Update' option in iPad from iOS 4 I'm helping my Dad over the phone to upgrade his iPad. He's a senior, and definitely not tech savvy.

When we go to Settings > General, there is no "Software Update" option. His current version is iOS 4. Where can I find the option to update the software wirelessly on iOS 4.0?

iOS 4 can't be updated over the air. OTA updating was introduced in iOS 5.

To update the iPad to iOS 5, you need to use iTunes. Connect the device to iTunes and it should prompt that a new version of iOS is available and allow the device to be updated.

Then, in the future, the device can be updated using Software Update from settings.


Why Does My iMac Wake Itself Up? I have an early 2009 24" iMac. Lately, when in sleep mode it will occasionally wake up for around ten seconds with the screen off, then go back to sleep. Wake on LAN is turned off so I can't figure out why this is happening!

There are a number of possible reasons, and the system actually logs the cause of each 'wake from sleep'.

Open a terminal and enter:

syslog | grep -i "wake reason"

(or, on Sierra or newer log show | grep -i "wake reason")

This may take some time to return a result, but when it does, you should get a series of lines that look something like the following:

  Jan 24 08:52:19 hostname kernel[0] : Wake reason: OHC1

Here are the possible 'Wake Reason' codes (lifted from OSXDaily)

OHC: stands for Open Host Controller, is usually USB or Firewire. If you see OHC1 or OHC2 it is almost certainly an external USB keyboard or mouse that has woken up the machine.
EHC: standing for Enhanced Host Controller, is another USB interface, but can also be wireless devices and bluetooth since they are also on the USB bus of a Mac.
USB: a USB device woke the machine up
LID0: this is literally the lid of your MacBook or MacBook Pro, when you open the lid the machine wakes up from sleep.
PWRB: PWRB stands for Power Button, which is the physical power button on your Mac
RTC: Real Time Clock Alarm, is generally from wake-on-demand services like when you schedule sleep and wake on a Mac via the Energy Saver control panel. It can also be from launchd setting, user applications, backups, and other scheduled events.

Happy hunting!


Can i apple remote desktop to a windows 10 machine? Can i use apple remote desktop to control a windows 10 machine on the same LAN ?

Why would you want to? To access a Windows 10 machine remotely, download "Microsoft Remote Desktop 10" for free from the Mac App Store. I should note that not all versions of Windows can be accessed remotely using "Microsoft Remote Desktop 10". For example, the Home versions of Windows will not work with this software.

BTW, many modern PCs are "Wake on LAN" (WOL) capable. If the remote PC is capable of this feature, then you do not have to leave the remote PC on all the time. You can allow the PC to enter hybrid or regular sleep mode, then send a packet over the internet to wake the machine. A Terminal application command for doing this is called wolcmd. This command can be downloaded for free from the website: Wake On Lan for Apple Mac OS X 10.6+. I setup a service, so I can issue this command from the menu bar.


OSX vs Vim: a war for the Function keys Is there a way to quickly toggle the "use F1, F2, etc as standard function keys" in OSX? I'm a vim user on a MacBook, and I'd like to use at least some of the function keys for vim mappings, but it's a big sacrifice in ease-of-use outside of Vim.

How do most people resolve this?

Palua

Palua lets you set the 'standard function keys' setting for individual apps only.

  With Palua, you just need one click - or one hotkey - to toggle the mode your Fx keys are.

KeyRemap4Macbook

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <appdef>
    <appname>TERMINAL</appname>
    <equal>com.apple.Terminal</equal>
  </appdef>
  <item>
    <name>FunctionforF4</name>
    <identifier>FunctionforF4</identifier>
    <only>TERMINAL</only>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::LAUNCHPAD, KeyCode::F4</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::F4, KeyCode::LAUNCHPAD</autogen>
  </item>
</root>

For other keys have a look at the key list.


2008 Mac Pro w/o Hard Drive - How do I install a new one? I have a 2008 Mac Pro that I bought w/o a hard drive. I have a hard drive to install, but can't figure out how to get it up and running since the hard drive doesn't have OS X on it... I created a bootable version of Sierra on an external drive and tried to boot from that drive, but just got an error and the machine shut off. What can I do?

Someone may come up with a better solution than this, but I've never found one in 9 years of owning an 08 Mac Pro...

Though, first of all, it cannot run Sierra, so you'll need El Capitan or older.

Your choices are:-

Get a boot image onto a spare hard drive in the same way you got it onto a USB stick & boot from that.
Get a bootable CD/DVD of Lion & work from there.

or I suppose a late 3

Take it to an Apple Store & they'll do it for you.

I have never been able to get an 08 to boot from a USB stick, no matter what I've tried. The 09's will, but not the 08's.

It's also too old to boot to Internet Recovery.


how to get JDK 7 for Mac OS High Sierra In order to run some tools for a project I'm working on, I need to install specifically JDK 7. I already have JDK 8 up and running.

I searched in Oracle and open-jdk web sites but seems to be deprecated, does anybody know where can I get it?

Thanks in advance for your answers/comments.

Umm...

Java SE 7 Archive Downloads

JDK 7 Installation for Mac OS X


Generic icons in Finder side bar? I am running into an issue whereby the icons for things like 'Music', 'Movies' and 'Pictures' in the windows of the Finder side bar are showing up as generic document icons. I should note, that device icons are displaying correctly.

Also, if I relaunch the Finder then the icons disappear and I need put them back, via the Finder preferences.

Can anyone suggest a solution?

I am using macOS X Sierra (10.12).

Below is screenshot illustrating what I am seeing:

Removing the files in ~/Library/Preferences, containing 'finder' in their name seems to have resolved the issue.


How to enable / disable accounts for Filevault2 pre-boot authentication? I just upgraded to macOS 10.14.3 from High Sierra. My Mac has multiple user accounts and so far (i.e. macOS 10.12) I could always manage which users were allowed to unlock the encrypted Filevault2 volume pre-boot (image downloaded from this website):

However, in Mojave I cannot find the option to do so anymore.

(How) Can I enable and disable individual accounts for FV2 unlocking in Mojave?

Update: After disabling one user using the command line, the dialogue is now available in the System Preferences.

I just remembered that there is a command line tool (fdesetup) to manage Filevault. Strange, Apple removed the option in System Preferences.

To remove the user "username":

sudo fdesetup remove -user username

To add the user "username":

sudo fdesetup add -usertoadd username

For more details:

man fdesetup


Windows 7 Bootcamp not recognising devices Has anybody encountered a problem with the USB driver when running Windows 7 on MacBook Pro 2010 (MC371)?

It doesn't recognize any USB drives or USB hard drives. I've tried both Windows Update and Bootcamp update - nothing helps. Where can I find a proper driver?

Is your Windows 7 64-bit? If so, you might want to install the drivers in the Mac OS X DVD.

D:\Boot Camp\Drivers\Apple64.msi


How to get rid of the "Other..."-Account on the login screen? Suddenly my MBP shows an "Other..."-Account on the login screen. I searched for a solution to get rid of it and found a couple of answers that say I have somehow activated/enabled the root user. All I did was using a couple of trivial sudo-commands at the command-line, but nothing experimental or which I am unfamiliar with...

The suggested solutions said I need to deactivate the root user in the Directory Utilities but it was not activated.

Are there any other solutions to get rid of this "Other..."-Account?

Have you tried the sudo /usr/bin/defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow SHOWOTHERUSERS_MANAGED -bool false in the terminal? This turns off showing some of the other user types.

Doing some additional research, it looks like this has been somewhat addressed in this post on https://superuser.com/questions/70156/hide-users-from-mac-os-x-snow-leopard-logon-screen


Firefox on macOS: Use native fullscreen on videos Is there a way to make Firefox use Mac's native fullscreen when watching a video (e.g. on Netflix)? The browser does go fullscreen, but it's not on it's own space on macOS.

I'm currently using Firefox 57 and macOS 10.13.1.

This is now supported in modern builds of Firefox (appears to be implemented since version 70). However, it is not enabled by default. Go into about:config and set full-screen-api.macos-native-full-screen to true.


Linking emails to calendar appointments I have an iPhone 4S. I schedule all my appointments through the iPhone calendar app. Typically I receive an email with all the pertinent information  and in turn, I have to transfer all of the information from the email to the calendar. When the appointment comes around, I have to search through my email files in order to locate any additional information. Is there a way to link emails to the calendar in order to easily access them when my appointment date comes up?

You cannot link the emails and iCal events, however you can create the event by tapping on the date within the e-mail. You can then double tab on the content of the email, select all, and the copy and paste into the notes section of the iCal event.


Internal SSD and SMART status I just ran Etrecheck on my iMac. I got a status report on my internal 250 GB solid state drive. The report stated the drive has SMART capability but that it was disabled.  Is this an issue I should be concerned with?  Does it affect the speed or other functionality of this drive. Most of my software is located on this drive.

Is [SMART being disabled] an issue I should be concerned with? Does it affect the speed or other functionality of this drive.

SMART is a monitoring and reporting tool.
From Wikipedia:

S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology; often
written as SMART) is a monitoring system included in computer hard
disk drives (HDDs) and solid-state drives (SSDs) that detects and
reports on various indicators of drive reliability, with the intent of
enabling the anticipation of hardware failures.

It has no effect whatsoever on the performance of your SSD.


How do I escalate a Mail UI/usability bug to Apple without having to include sysdiagnose data? I'm trying to file a Mail UI/Usability bug and it won't let me file it without filing a sysdiagnose. I see NO reason that Apple needs that private configuration data for a bug that has nothing to do with my individual machine's configuration.

How do I escalate this issue to Apple without having to include the sysdiagnose data?

Assuming you're referring to the Mail app on macOS, you can submit a bug report via the Mail feedback page.

In the Feedback Type drop-down list you'll have the option of selecting Bug Report as your feedback type. There's also a Design/Ease of Use option that may be relevant in your case.

You can also access Apple's main Product Feedback page if your feedback is about something else.


How do I join my Apple TV to a different home? I'm living in a shared house with a roommate. We each have our own Apple TV. Currently our Apple TVs (each linked to our respective Apple ID) show up in different homes in the Home app.
We want both Apple TVs to show up in the same Home. Ideally we just want one shared home between both of us.
How do I un-link my Apple TV from the current home, and then join it to my roommate's home?
When I go into "AirPlay and HomeKit" these are the only options I see:

Room: [Select a Room]
My Home: [Disabled]

I'm using Apple TV 4K (A1842) with tvOS 14.3.

I think you have to reset it to default and then set it up again as new.
Reset your Apple TV 4K or Apple TV HD
Go to Settings > System > Reset.
Choose a reset option:

Reset: This option is the fastest way to return your Apple TV to factory settings.  This option doesn't require an Internet connection.

Reset and Update: This option returns your Apple TV to its factory settings and installs software updates. This option requires an Internet connection.

Keep your Apple TV plugged into power until the Reset process finishes.
Source: Apple Support: Reset or restore your Apple TV to its factory settings


2013 MBP Hotspots in Backlight / Apple Warranty So last night I was playing Portal 2 in a rather dark room, and the combination of the dark colors in my screen with the darkness of the room allowed me to see quite a few "dead spots" in the backlight of my screen.  I've attached an Illustrator recreation of what the spots look like.

Dead Spot Image http://www.thoughtspacedesigns.com/images/deadspots.png

These spots don't seem to react to pressure on the screen at all, which would lead me to believe they've been there since I bought the thing, and weren't caused by pressure (just shooting in the dark though).  They really aren't all that noticeable, and again it took me til this point to even see a problem. I can't even see them in daylight conditions.  Regardless, the fact that I dumped over a grand on this computer and it's still under warranty makes me want to have this fixed.

So two questions stem from this:

1) Is this a common issue with the unibody MBPs?  Is it a known issue with this model year or a certain make?

2) Will this issue be recognized and covered by Apple under the standard one year manufacturer warranty?

Thanks in advance for any help!

1) I haven't seen many reports of flat spots like this over the past few refreshes of the MacBook Pro so I wouldn't consider it a widespread or known issue.  Only Apple will know for sure, and if it is then they would likely consider a Repair Extension Program (REP) to handle repairs for these symptoms outside of the 1 year warranty.  Only time will tell.

2) I would expect Apple to cover this so long as theres no signs of damage or trauma to the MacBook Pro.  AppleCare provides an extended warranty for failures and defects that are not a result of accidental damage. Ultimately it depends on the human being you end up dealing with but if I were you I wouldn't expect much pushback on having it repaired.


Access Lion SMB shares from Linux I have this fantastic new Lion server that I've gotten all setup with my user accounts, files, etc. File sharing is up and running, everything. Except for one problem: the users running Linux (we use both Linux and OS X clients) cannot authenticate and access the SMB shares.
All of the users' accounts are setup as network accounts (i.e. in Open Directory not the local user database)

Interestingly enough, if the user account is setup as a local account (not Open Directory) the user can authenticate just fine. And we can't switch away from Open Directory because we use the LDAP authentication for some of our other tools.

Does anyone have any ideas on what to do to get this working? I've been pulling my hair out trying.

Samba no more, for Lion Server mount.cifs needs extra options, "nounix,sec=ntlmssp"

  [root@50centos ~]#
  [root@50centos ~]# yum install samba-client samba-common cifs-utils
 ...
  [root@50centos ~]# mkdir /mnt/lion_smb
  [root@50centos ~]# mount -t cifs -o MikeCochran,trustno1,nounix,sec=ntlmssp //198.252.206.140/smb_share /mnt/lion_smb/

          =^..^=       `·.¸¸ ><((((º>.·´¯`·><((((º>

MikeCochran@stack:~$
MikeCochran@stack:~$ sudo apt-get install cifs-utils
  ...
MikeCochran@stack:~$ mkdir /mnt/lion_smb
MikeCochran@stack:~$ mount.cifs //198.252.206.140/smb_share /mnt/lion_smb/ -o user=MikeCochran,password=trustno1,nounix,sec=ntlmssp
MikeCochran@stack:~$
MikeCochran@stack:~$ mkdir /mnt/lion_smb_dup
MikeCochran@stack:~$ mount -t cifs //198.252.206.140/smb_share /mnt/lion_smb-dup -o username=MikeCochran,password=trustno1,nounix,sec=ntlmssp

apologies for the delay!!


Safari stops playing audio after user login This was happening since Sierra for me and it's still here now on Mojave. Every time, when closing my macbook over night (just switch user to login screen, no logout or shutdown), if I don't quit Safari, the next day when I login the audio is completely silent in Safari. The system audio is still working and songs in Finder/iTunes play normally, but not Safari.

But the really annoying part is that the only way (I found to work) to get the sound back was to restart the whole system. Restarting just Safari did nothing, logout/login did nothing, killall Safari nothing, etc.

Does this happen to anyone else too? Do you know of any way to fix the sound, other than rebooting the computer? Thanks!

Nevermind, found out what the issue was. I have Loopback installed for capturing system audio for screen recordings and it is set to start automatically on login, muting the audio from Safari but it then doesn't pass the audio through to the system output.


How do I re-add "free space" partition back into a single drive? I created a 75gb partition to run Bootcamp but don't use it. I removed the partition through directions that said it would go back to a single disk. It did not. I now have 75gb of "free space" that is inaccessible.  When looking at it in terminal it doesn't show that this free space exists. I've already tried reformatting the 'free space' as a MacOS (Journaled) but it wont stick. I Apply the changes and then try to quit disk utility and it tells me that my changes wont be saved if I leave. I apply again. same results. Terminal looks like this:

Any Help would be awesome. Thanks
I just want to play fortnite...

Welcome to SE.
With "Disk Utility.app" you should have the ability to shrink and to enlarge volumes. After doing so, the empty unassigned space can be used as before.


iCloud Keychain not syncing to Mac I've been using iCloud for many services such as Notes, Reminders, iCloud Drive and Keychain for a long time withh my Mac, iPhone and iPad.

A few weeks ago, I've noticed that new passwords have not been syncing to my Mac if I've registered somewhere on my iPhone.

I'v disabled iCloud Keychain, restarted, re-enabled it from here:

I've waited for hours on Wifi, plugged in etc, no avail.

Then I've tried logging out of iCloud on my Mac completely and logging in back again. I've got a confirmation on my iPhone for 6-digit number, took a few minutes to re-enable it, entered my passwords etc. In a few minutes everything including my iCloud Drive files, Notes, Reminders were back on my Mac, but my keychain is still not here. It's again been hours (plugged in, connected to Wifi) but here is my keychain on my Mac:

All the contents of my iCloud Keychain is available on my iPhone, and it has iCloud Keychain enabled too:

I've left both my Mac and iPhone plugged in, fully charged, connected to Wifi for hours, but I'm still not getting anything on my Mac.

How do I get my keychain back on my Mac (without resetting, of course)?

I solved the problem by deleting the keychain folder which is localised under ~/Library/Keychains
After deleting it, restart a device and enable iCloud keychain.


Outlook for Mac - only sync calendar not emails Our company has migrated our Gmail accounts to Office 365. In my local Outlook for Mac client, I've deleted my old account and added the new one. But there is still a single calendar out of my control that didn't get migrated AFAIK that I would like to have on my Outlook Calendar. But if I re-add my old account, I get double of all my old emails.
Is there a way to tell Outlook for Mac to sync just the calendar from a certain account and not the emails for that account? I know you can do this in the native Apple Mail/Calendar clients thru the Internet Accounts settings.

Short answer is no. When you add an account on Outlook it will add everything in the account that it has access to without a way of disabling one component.
Getting back to your question though, you could potentially add the Google calendar onto your Outlook web app (visit outlook.com and follow steps to add a shared calendar) - however that would only give you read access to the calendar.
So you have a lot of options of where to go from here:

You can export the Google calendar contents into an Outlook calendar and find a method of importing the events.

You can add the Google calendar as a read-only shared calendar inside the Outlook web app which will then sync to your Outlook desktop and Mobile clients.

You can add your Outlook Exchange account AND your Google calendars on the Apple Internet Accounts section and use the Built in Calendar app instead of the one inside Outlook.

You could go on your old Google Apps/G Suite account and move all your inbox items and sub folders into a Old Email folder of some sort, then at least it's out of your line of sight.

Keep in mind when IT decides to cancel the G Suite accounts your old calendar will be gone! So plan ahead.. it costs around $6/month per account, so it's only a matter of time before they decide the cost is not worth keeping it around.


CMD + = shortcut on non standard USA keyboard (bluetooth)? I need to execute a shortcut key of CMD + =, problem is that the = on my keyboard (non usa, european) it is obtained by pressing the Shift on the 0 (zero)  ...

So I tried doing CMD + Shift + 0 but this doesn't work, infact it does something completely different.

In xcode the shortcut is used to "Size to fit content"

Anyone know what the solution is ?

You could make your custom keyboard shortcuts.

Adding a Custom Keyboard Shortcut Command Set

Personalize your Xcode experience by adding your own set of keyboard shortcuts. Xcode provides a default set of shortcuts for most menu commands and common text editing commands. Many of these default shortcuts are based on the commonly used Emacs key bindings.

In the Key Bindings preferences pane, choose Manage Key Bindings from the Key Bindings set pop-up menu.

Click the Add button in the lower left of the dialog.

Choose Duplicate or a template option from the pop-up menu.
Name your new command set file.

You can override the default shortcuts by creating a new command set with your preferred shortcuts. This new set is stored in the folder ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/UserData/KeyBindings/ as a property list with the extension .idekeybindings.

source:https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/recipes/xcode_help-keybindings_preferences/articles/AddingaCustomKeyboardShortcutCommandSet.html


Replacement for CoRD (Microsoft RDP ) I've been using CoRD heavily over the last few years, in my day-to-day job where I need to connect to Microsoft RDP servers. CoRD is perfect for my needs, mainly as it presents a single "unified" view: rather than having lots of windows open, there's just one window for all connected servers, and I click between which one I want to view.

However, CoRD was a bit flaky on Yosemite, and is downright unstable on El Capitan. I've tried various other RDP packages, including the "official" Microsoft client, but none of them are as simple and/or useful as CoRD.

CoRD development seems to have been abandoned years ago. Does anyone know of an alternative RDP client that'll easily support multiple simultaneous connections, preferably in a single window?

I've found, and am now loving, Royal TSX. Not only does it do exactly what I loved CoRD for - multiple RDP connections in a single window - it has a plugin system that'll connect to VNC, TeamViewer, web pages etc, and more in the future. The RDP plugin is based on FreeRDP, and seems to support the latest RDP protocol enhancements.

Some of the functionality requires the companion server product, and it'll only do 10 connections in "free" mode ($29 for unlimited connections). But given that it's a stable, feature-rich client that is being actively developed, I can recommend it highly.


Adding external photos to iPhone library in correct order The last 3 years I've been making photos on my iPhones which have now turned into a nice collection on my phone. I love looking at those photos as they are all sorted by date, which is nice to scroll back into time.

Now I've also had another portable cam those years, which has made some nice pictures which I've got stored on my computer.

What I would like to achieve is: Add those photos which I've made on another none Apple devices to my library on my iPhone. And have them show up around the dates that they were taking in the library on the iPhone.

So external pics taken in Dec 2012 should show up together with iPhone pictures taken around those dates in my iPhone library.

I currently have an iPhone 5 and the latest iTunes on my Windows computer. How could I achieve this?

Many thanks!

Non tested manual method

create a new folder ALL_PHOTOS on your PC/Mac
copy all your iphone photos directly to ALL_PHOTOS
copy all your camera photos directly to ALL_PHOTOS (no subfolders)
go to iTunes, select your iDevice, go to Photos section, check 'Sync Photos' checkbox and choose the ALL_PHOTOS folder as your 'copy photos from' folder.
Sync

After sync done, all your photos should appear as a new album in Photos app. Then you can safely delete photos from Camera album on your iPhone. Repeat this procedure once in a while.

Downsides:
1. 100% manual, slow and boring procedure
2. an annoying problem with duplicate filenames can arise


What's a good solution for a couple extra hours on an 11" MacBook Air? My son has a MacBook Air which was required for school (a).

However, it sometimes comes dangerously close to running out of power near the end of the school day despite the fact that we've (I think) set it up correctly for low power consumption.

I have suggested taking the power adapter to school, or even getting a second one to carry in his backpack) but apparently many of the classrooms don't provide enough wall sockets, or don't have them handy to the desks.

The local Apple store was spectacularly unhelpful given that they only sell such devices for non-laptops.

What's a good solution for him to plug into his laptop during recess/lunch to get the battery levels up to a point where he'll easily see out the day? Something that would give an extra one to three hours would be ideal.

Additionally, if anyone has some really good tips for lowering power consumption, I'd be happy to hear them though, of course, my question is really about a suitable power device.

(a) I asked if a Linux laptop would be okay and they said yes, but my son would likely get beaten up in the playground :-)

I am able to actively use my MacBook Air for around 7-8 hours. It is just a basic advice but it works fine for me:

Lower the screen brightness - it's relatively easy to control brightness on MacBook (F1 or F2).
Lower the backlit of the keyboard or, as your son is using his laptop in school during the day, it even makes sense to fully turn off the backlit (F5 or F6).
When the battery is getting to 25-30% I would quit all the cloud based apps like DropBox, OneDrive or iCloud. In Dropbox you can just pause syncing, which is a really handy feature.
Quit all the unnecessary apps. For example if in the class kids had a need to use MS Word and in the next class they don't need to use it, then show your son how to quit programs what he's not using.

I'm not sure if this will give MacBook Air battery two extra hours of life, but I would say from an hour to hour and a half.

One more thing would be somewhat reasonable usage of the battery. Meaning not leaving laptop to charge for hours when the battery is full and vice versa draining the battery all the way to 0% and then start charging it. Li-ion batteries don't like to be fully drained. Charging the battery with the mentioned above mindset could help it live longer.


Why can't I go back with backspace in Safari 8? In every single browser on every single OS (with a keyboard) I've used, backspace would go (history.)back to the previous visited page in that tab. For some reason this doesn't work for me on my new MacBook with OSX Yosemite 10.10.1 in Safari 8.0.2. Is this normal behaviour (seriously, why?) or can I somehow enable it?
It does work in Chrome and Firefox on my MacBook.

I'm new to Mac and still need to get used to the multi-finger swipe on the trackpad, but I am aware that is another way to do this. Just want my old trusted backspace behaviour back. ;)

Not sure if you are asking what they are in Safari.

CMD + [ Go back (or cmd+alt+5)

CMD + ] Go forward (or cmd+alt+6)

But you can make it work using Terminal with following (Thanks to @Tetsujin research)

Terminal command to re-enable Backspace/Delete as "Back-Button":

defaults write com.apple.Safari com.apple.Safari.ContentPageGroupIdentifier.WebKit2BackspaceKeyNavigationEnabled -bool YES

Quit Safari, then copy & paste the command in a Terminal window (Applications → Utilities) and hit enter. Quit Terminal and restart Safari.

Terminal command to undo the set preference:

defaults write com.apple.Safari com.apple.Safari.ContentPageGroupIdentifier.WebKit2BackspaceKeyNavigationEnabled -bool NO


Facing Pages in Pages 6.x I think this question is fairly straight-forward: is there any way to get Pages 6.x (I have 6.2) to have facing pages? I typically word-process in Pages '09, however that doesn't have right-to-left support and I don't need Adobe InDesign for this project.

Facing pages are available in Pages 7.0.

  Turn on facing pages to format your document as two-page spreads.

This can be enabled as per the instructions in Set up your document in Pages

  Use facing pages

  You can set your document up as a two-page spread. Documents set up as two-page spreads can have different headers, footers, and master objects on left- and right-facing pages. Use facing pages for layouts for printed books, or for double-sided documents that you intend to print.

  Click , then click Document.
  Select Facing Pages.
  If you want different footers for the left and right facing pages:

  Click , then click Section.
  Select "Left and right pages are different."

  You can view facing pages as a two-page spread, or as a single page. Click Zoom, then choose Two Pages or One Page. If you're viewing your document as a two-page spread, choose Fit Spread to fit the two-page spread vertically on your screen.


Mounting an External HD Accessible Through Finder Good Afternoon All,

I am attempting to mount an external hard drive using ext4fuse.   I have installed ext4fuse using the following:

brew tap homebrew/fuse
brew install Caskroom/cask/osxfuse
brew install ext4fuse

mkdir /Volumes/Linux
ext4fuse /dev/disk2s1 /Volumes/Linux

This seems to work without issue and I can view the contents using sudo su, but not without.

I followed the instruction on another post which states:

"IMPORTANT: with ext4fuse by default you'll only be able to mount and see your files with sudo. To mount as regular user add your user to the operator group with sudo dscl . append /Groups/operator GroupMembership . Once you've done this you will be able to mount as a regular user and see the files from Finder."

Even following this instruction I have been unable to access this location from finder.

I would appreciate any help getting this problem fixed.

Thanks in advance.
Scott

ext4fuse /dev/disk2s1 /Volumes/Linux -o allow_other

Try with the '-o allow_other' argument? At least I can view my Ubuntu home dir in this way.

You may also want to use sudo.


Battery - Shut down or sleep an MBP For the lifetime of a battery, is it better to shut down or sleep an Mac book Pro? Could anyone be able to explicit a full answer to this question?

There are two factors that govern the life of a battery:

Age
Charge Cycles

The biggest factor is age.  Math Finds Top Culprit as Lithium Batteries Age

...a battery ages, or degrades, whether it is sitting on a shelf or
in use. The main cause of lithium-ion battery aging is the continuous
formation of the solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) layer in the
battery. The SEI layer must form for the battery to work because it
controls the amount of chemical reactions that occur in the battery.

The next is cycle count. A complete discharge and recharge is one cycle. A 20% discharge 5 times is one cycle, a 5% discharge 20 times is one cycle.
Whether that cycle takes a half day, a full day or a week all depends on how you use it; sleeping will put a very, small draw on your battery versus being off but the difference is almost negligible - I am assuming that you are not sleeping your MacBook for weeks at a time.
Even when you keep your MBP plugged in, you are reducing the per day cycle count; however you are not eliminating it.
Why does cycle count matter?  From the article again...

As the battery is continually used, however, small-scale side
reactions build up at the SEI layer, which decreases battery
capacity—how much of a charge the battery can hold.

Bottom line
It's doesn't matter.  You can expect to replace your battery somewhere between year 3 and 4.  Can you get longer?  Yes.  Can it be shorter?  Yes.  It's tough to know exactly when, but choosing "sleep" over "power off" isn't going to make a big difference.


A program like Skype with auto answer for iOS? I have build a robot with a head actually made of an iPod (with iOS 6). I would like to take control of the camera remotely so I can control the robot from afar.

The program I need is very much like Skype, but I need to automatically activate the call as the robot is unattended.

The camera should not be activated all the time.
Unlike most camera programs, it has to be like a Skype call (video and sound both ways).

Skype allows you to do that but only on desktop version!

I have searched for such a program/functionality and didn't find anything. I am actually thinking of adding one servomotor to answer the calls on the screen... ridiculous.

Ideally this program should work on my iPod with iOS 6 but a solution on iOS 8 or even Android interests me as well as a backup solution.

Any idea?

So I found another program that does almost everything and that is "usable" in my case, as Skype is not.

Babyphone 3g

Pros:

It has the auto answer feature.
The camera can be turned off when not used.
If the connection is bad, it offers to take pictures.

Cons:

Video is only one way (big down) but sound can be both ways.
The "babything" design which makes it look unapropriate for me when it is the best I found.
Not free (and probably pay for each separate device you want to connect, have to check that)

I am not sure I should answer my question or edit my question in that case...


New restored iPhone getting "iTunes couldnt not back up the iPhone because the backup session failed" I looked everywhere and I can't solve this.

I looked at Error trying to backup both iPhone4 and iPad (1) after 4.3/iTunes/XCode updates and didn't solve my problem

EDIT: I have a used phone (1st gen) that I restored using the restore feature in iTunes. I close iTunes and start again and I get this error.

What can I do?

I'm working through the same issue and it seems to have something to do with the sim card. Is your sim card valid? meaning do you plan to actually activate it for voice and data and use it as a real phone? In my case, I already transferred the number to my iPhone 4 and just want to give it to my kids to use as if it were an iPod touch. So I took it to the mac store and the genius had a few suggestions but didn't help very much, He suggested using iTunes 9.x which you can still download.  I tried that on an old mac I had but it didn't help.  He even suggested jail breaking it which I'm technically capable of doing, but from what I've read I think it has to first be functioning and connect with iTunes before it can be broken so it's a chicken and egg thing.  So here is what I think is happening, (no solution yet though). When the first iPhone was originally released, you used to have to take it home and hook it up to iTunes to activate it.  They didn't do anything for it in the store or activate it on the spot. So your phone is currently in the same state after the restore. It's trying to go through the setup process, but the number registered on the sim card is already disabled or somehow marked as invalid and some kind of unexpected error occurs that prevents it from continuing with the setup process.

Now here is an interesting thing...  even though I couldn't restore it, I offered to loan it to a friend 2 months ago who lost his iPhone. He just wanted something to use while he waited for the 4S to be released.  He went to the ATT store and told him he lost his original iphone and wanted to use my first-gen instead. They didn't even look at the phone, but they gave him a valid sim card to take home. He was able to do the setup process at home and use it just fine. So I suspect something about having a proper sim that is willing to be activated with a real account helped him get running.  However one other difference is that he is using iTunes on windows, I'm all mac... (Tried this on 3 different machines so far.. powerbook running snow leopard, and an iMac running lion, both with the latest iTunes, And finally mac mini running iTunes 9.2.x).

Update: I had a bootcamp partition running XP. Used it to download iTunes 9.x for Windows.  Still encountered similar errors. (Sorry, don't have exact code).  I still plan to try simcard replacement to activate old phone with current account.


What about generic lightning cables or adapters? Are lightning cables that are not manufactured by Apple (off-brand or generic) legal?
If not, when does it become okay to sell them? Because obviously the 30 pin adapter is everywhere..

It's pretty much impossible to say for sure at the moment, as the cables aren't publicly available yet, nor are the licensing agreements, but we can do some informed speculation.

From a legal standpoint, if Apple is granted patents on the connector, they could go after anyone who produces a copy without a license. So far I haven't seen any evidence they've applied for a patent on it (nor can I find any about the original dock connector), but that doesn't mean it hasn't/won't happen. However it's a timely process, as a patent won't be granted right away, and litigation also takes time.

It's also worth considering that there seem to be a lot of no-name manufacturers producing dock connectors, and I suspect that while the numbers may be large in the aggregate, the individual ones are small enough that it may not be worthwhile for Apple to pursue all the small entities in court. They don't seem to have made a dent in the off-brand market for cheap 30-pin dock connectors, based on searching Amazon.

Apple can (and almost certainly will) license third parties to manufacture their own cables and connectors—they do this currently with the Made for iPod/iPhone/iPad programs. Anything that has the "MFi" logo on it is made by a company that has paid license fees to Apple:

From a technical standpoint, how difficult it is to produce depends on what's inside the connector exactly.

Apple has used various methods in the past to restrict certain dock connector features (mostly using some resistors in the connector I believe), but it's also possible that they'll use some active circuitry to prevent unlicensed copies. However I'd bet against that, as they have to make massive quantities of these, and the cost and production constraints of even a simple chip could make things problematic.

The physical connector is also unlike most other connectors out there (which come in all sorts of different sizes and shapes, but are largely made out of stamped metal with pins or an array of contact points). Everything on the Lightning connector is flush, and knowing Apple, the tolerances are probably fairly small. It may be different enough that it takes a while for other manufacturers to reproduce it consistently, but eventually I'm sure it's doable.

So my guess is that yes, we'll see cheap generic Lightning connectors, but it may take a bit longer, and the supply may ebb and flow if Apple takes legal action.


how to reset security question I forgot the answer to my security question and no email to rescue mail received.

How can I change my rescue email? Or is there a way to change the answer to something like "used code for mobile No."?

If you cannot remember the answer, the only Way for you would be to get this rescue email going. You cannot change any details of your account without that email.

Try to rescue your email-account, you used to get the email.


Does Inkscape work properly with large files on Mac OS? I am not a Mac user yet, but I am used to working with Inkscape on Linux platforms. I use Inkscape to create website mockups and sometimes the files are big and require a lot of RAM.

I would like to know if someone has some experience working with Inkscape in Mac OS?

I am planning to buy a MacBook but I can't live without Inkscape.

Now that I have a Mac to test this with, working with Inkscape it seems to be ok. (I am a web designer and my files are usually several layouts inside the same workspace.)

I have been working on my MacBook Pro for 4 months now without any problems related to Inkscape.


Force Finder and Trash to stop using external drive so Disk Utility can erase I want to reformat an external disk, but in Disk Utility "Partition" is grayed out and when I click Erase it says it cannot unmount the drive.

I think Finder is not allowing the disk to be unmounted because I put a large directory from the external disk in Trash, told Finder to empty the trash, then cancelled. Now there is no option to "put back".

I'd rather not wait for the whole directory to be deleted from the external disk. Is there any way to force Finder to forget about the trash from the disk and stop using it, and allow Disk Utility to unmount it?

I shut down, unplugged the drive, started up, logged in, plugged in the drive and quickly opened Disk Utility and clicked erase, and it just worked.

I'm not sure if it matters that I did that fairly soon after logging in.

I'm not sure if it matters that I didn't open a Finder window or the Trash.


KeepAlive with NetworkState not working for agent I'm trying to automatically execute a Python script every day, but it requires an Internet connection (to send emails, etc.). So I fixed the date and hour at which it needs to be executed, but if there's no network available, I want it to be executed as soon as it finds a network. I thought that the following would do just what I need:

<?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.example</string>

    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/bin/python</string>
        <string>/path/to/my/script.py</string>
    </array>

    <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
    <dict>
      <key>Hour</key>
      <integer>10</integer>
      <key>Minute</key>
      <integer>30</integer>
    </dict>

    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <dict>
      <key>NetworkState</key>
      <true/>
    </dict>

  </dict>
</plist>

It works fine when I have an Internet connection at 10:30, but when I don't have network available but only get it back at, say, 11:00, it does not execute the script and does nothing for the rest of the day.

What did I do wrong?

Many thanks,

Check the manpage (man launchd.plist) to see if NetworkState is implemented.

For me, on macOS Mojave, it is not:

KeepAlive <boolean or dictionary of stuff>

This optional key is used to control whether your job is to be kept continuously running
or to let demand and conditions control the invocation. The default is false and therefore
only demand will start the job. The value may be set to true to unconditionally keep the
job alive. Alternatively, a dictionary of conditions may be specified to selectively control
whether launchd keeps a job alive or not. If multiple keys are provided, launchd ORs them,
thus providing maximum flexibility to the job to refine the logic and stall if necessary.
If launchd finds no reason to restart the job, it falls back on demand based invocation.
Jobs that exit quickly and frequently when configured to be kept alive will be throttled
to conserve system resources.

    NetworkState <boolean>
    This key is no longer implemented as it never acted how most users expected.


Avoiding maximized windows to overlap with the uBar's taskbar Is it possible to avoid maximized windows to overlap with the uBar's taskbar? By default when I maximize a window it will overlap with uBar's taskbar (but not with the Dock).

Example:

You can use BetterTouchTool (free):

When maximizing a window with BetterTouchTool, the maximized windows doesn't overlap with the uBar's taskbar.


How can I import my contacts and data from Basecamp to Proofhub? I've been using Basecamp as a project management tool since 2010.

It has a good interface and organisation of data, but sometimes you might not be willing to share the secrecy of a project with the clients. There is no such feature in Basecamp. That's why I am thinking to switch on Proofhub.

So, anybody please let me know is there any provision in Proofhub to import all the data and contact?

You can perform following steps to import data from basecamp to your proofhub account.

Go to

Settings tab
Proofhub settings
Import tab
You have an option there whether you want to import from basecamp next.
After selecting the appropriate option fill your basecamp details and then click on import project.
All your data will be transferred to your new home for project management. For more information you can follow at http://help.proofhub.com/account/import-basecamp/


Re-set up iMessages? I need help re-setting up iMessages.  I think I entered the wrong ID because now I can't get in.  It keeps telling me the Id or password is wrong, but I can't enter a new ID, just a new password.  How to re-set it up Please??  Thank you so much

EDIT: While the Messages app is active...

In the top left corner of your screen, click the bold Messages, then "Preferences", then the "Accounts" tab.

On the iMessage account, hit the "Sign Out" button. Then it will allow you to enter in your password as well as Apple ID again.


How to share files between OSX and Windows 8 dual boot? I'll be getting my first MacBook Pro today. Late 2013 with 256GB of SSD space.

For my development activities, I'll be needing Windows 8.1 running alongside OSX. I've done some reading on both Bootcamp and Parallels regarding this. The plan is to use Bootcamp and to have ~150GB for the Windows installation and Windows programs. The rest would be for OSX plus my 50GB worth of media content that I'd preferably share between both OSs.

Question: Would it be possible for my media files residing in one partition to be accessed by the operating system on the other partition? It's clear that Parallels could do this, but I'd be needing a good enough reason to invest in a license. Also I do not mind booting in an out of OSs once in a while. What I'm not clear of, is the file system compatibility between the two operating systems.

Just create a bigger partition for Windows (~200GB) then once windows is installed split the windows partition in two parts (150GB - 50GB) then format the little one in Exfat (which works with OsX > 10.6.8 and Wxp > SP2 and allow the use of big files).


Is there a way to auto-disconnect from WiFi when connectivity is low? I got a new router that is ridiculously good and has exceptional range.  A side effect of this is when I go for a walk, I have to be walking for at least 5-6 minutes at a brisk pace, before the WiFi connection on my iPhone 4S is lost.  Basically, beyond 100 yards/meters there will be 1 WiFi bar and it will be all but unusable (e.g. Web Browser times out, Siri doesn't work, etc...).  Under these conditions, I'd rather use 3G (ahem, 4G).

Is there a way to automatically disconnect from the WiFi when it gets down to 1 bar?

There isn't a way to specify this in the current OS, but I've found when I am in the margins of coverage - flipping AirPlane mode on and then off will prevent re-joining the Wi-Fi. Basically, the OS is trying to maintain an existing connection for as long as possible to avoid inconveniencing people who have spotty coverage or temporary disruptions and for you it's not so good.

When the signal is this low, the phone won't re-join until you get closer so you'll kick things to cellular data sooner than waiting to get out of range or it to eventually time out.


What does it mean when a process is surrounded by parens in `ps`? I sometimes try to kill -9 Finder.app when it's misbehaving and I'm in a Terminal. This normally works but every once in awhile it leaves behind the pid, even when run with sudo, and the COMMAND portion of the output changes to (Finder).

Interestingly enough, this process only appears in the output of ps, not in Activity Monitor.app. No idea how to explain that.

At that point, I'm in for a reboot given my current knowledge, but I don't understand why. Can anyone explain what's happening and maybe how I can restart Finder without rebooting?

EDIT: I will note that once I'm in this state, I can usually attempt to go through the regular ⌘⌥⎋ method and Finder.app will be there. Once I've force quit it though, the name disappears forever from the Force Quit dialog and the zombie pid sticks around anyway.

I'll also note that Finder.app is treated specially in that dialog, where the button text turns from Force Quit to Relaunch, so perhaps that shows that OS X treats killing the Finder as special?

When you see a process in parentheses/brackets it means that ps could not determine its command (which appear in the CMD column). This might explain why you don't see it in the Activity Monitor.

You can restart Finder also outside a shell. Just click on the Apple symbol in the top left corner of the MacOS task bar, click on Force Quit and select Finder (usually at the bottom)

Generally, I find top more convenient than ps, but I think both should work equally fine.


Mail shows stale inbox count I've had some odd behavior on my OS X mail client. Heres' my inbox:

Yet here is how many unread messages I have:

These values used to be synchronized. Note that the first value will not change even if I mark all other messages as read (subfolders included).

OS X 10.7.4
Mail = Version 5.2 (1278)

Try these two solutions:

From the Finder, ⌥-click the Go menu and select Library whilst still holding ⌥.
Move the folder ~/Library/Mail/ to the desktop or another convenient location.
Launch Mail.app.
From the File Menu choose Import Mailboxes…
Choose Import Data from Apple Mail.
Navigate to ~/Desktop or wherever you moved ~/Library/Mail/ to.
Click on Choose.
Wait until it imports.

or

In a Finder window, navigate to ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData, and delete any file that begins with Envelope Index, such as "Envelope Index" or "Envelope Index-shm" or "Envelope Index – awl". In my case, I had all 3 of these Envelope indexes, and moved them to the trash.

Note: When accessing Library, keep in mind that your home Library is hidden in Lion.  To access it, from the Finder, ⌥-click the Go menu and select Library whilst still holding ⌥.
Restart Mail. It will then rebuild a new list of messages, which can take some time, so be patient.

Another note for Exchange users: After removing the Envelope Indexes, my Exchange account email content was blank. To revive it, I had to delete my Exchange email account and add it again fresh.  After adding it from scratch (and the download took a while since I have about 12K messages), the mystery Unread Message notifications were gone.


How to delete Music Creation? I followed the guidelines here by doing the following:

1) Delete the GarageBand app from the Applications folder

2) Check the ~/Library folder for these files:

/Library/Application Support/GarageBand/
/Library/Application Support/Logic/
/Library/Audio/Apple Loops/

None of which were on my computer.

My Storage still shows 2.6G is being used by Music Creation. How can I get rid of this?

Check the root level /Library, not the User Library.


Trying to encrypt external HD . GPT scheme required . Do not want to erase data Hey so i'm trying to encrypt my external hard drive (Seagate) and I right clicked on it and selected Encrypt [name] from the menu.  Made my password but could not move forward because I got the error "A GUID Partition Table (GTP) scheme is required" so then I went into Disk Utility and tried to change the partitioning scheme but it looks like it will erase all my data.

How can I encrypt my external without erasing anything? I have a Mac (Mavericks)

This might answer your question - though it scares me to death - https://superuser.com/questions/495672/how-can-i-convert-a-mbr-partition-to-gpt-without-loss-of-data

Alternatively, iPartition can do it - but can't handle Core Storage Volumes, so it's usefulness may be short-lived as more of these come into use. [Unless they release an update, of course]

Either way, I'd make sure to have a backup before starting.


Can I use the new Lion OS X license on two machines, or do I have to buy one for each? I have 2 macbooks (the unibody and the one before that). Do I need to buy two licenses or can I just use one license for both machines?

Like everything else you purchase in the Mac App Store, you can install Lion on all of your Macs after buying it once. There is no activation process or DRM.

Here's the relevant excerpt from Lion's license agreement (emphasis mine):

  If you obtained a license for the Apple Software from the Mac App
  Store, then subject to the terms and conditions of this License and as
  permitted by the Mac App Store Usage Rules set forth in the App Store
  Terms and Conditions (http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/ww/) ("Usage
  Rules"), you are granted a limited, non-transferable, non-exclusive
  license:

  (i) to download, install, use and run for personal, non-commercial
  use, one (1) copy of the Apple Software directly on each Apple-branded
  computer running Mac OS X Snow Leopard or Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server
  ("Mac Computer") that you own or control;


How to stop macOS from asking if I want to set a default browser? Is there a mechanism I could disable to get rid of the dialog every time I run a new browser on macOS?

For Opera (and possibly for all Chromium-based browsers) it's enough to run the binary with --no-default-browser-check flag.


Can't download apps after changing Apple ID password I changed my Apple ID password, after that I can't download apps, even free apps. It says need verification of payment info. Now what to do...?

Go to AppStore > Store (top menu) > View my account and check your payment info - you might have a link there that will help you reauthenticate payment info. If that won't help - change something in payment info, that should trigger reauthenticate process.


Many 0.1 -6 mb + disk images on running "diskutil list"under "Recovery HD". Is it normal? There are about 10 of 7 of them and are images extremely small.Is it the requirement of system or the leftovers after formatting disks having other OSes?

Yes - the recovery HD layers many components to make a bootable system so I would call that normal / intended.

Since you are booting to a write restricted environment on an OS that typically wants to write log files, cache databases, system settings - those are likely created to be easily discardable without modifying the OS substantially for booting on Recovery HD as opposed to booting from a volume as normal.


Trigger refresh/update smart playlists in iTunes using Applescript? I keep live update turned off on most of my smart playlists because changing anything, such as ratings, for a currently playing song could cause the song to disappear from the playlist if it no longer meets the smart playlist's criteria.  The song stops playing and the playlist grinds to a halt.  So far, the easiest solution has been to have an Applescript run automatically in the middle of the night to quit iTunes and then launch it again, thus forcing all of my smart playlists to update.  This works.  It's also easy enough to right click on a smart playlist and select "Update Smart Playlist."  But what I'd rather do is use an Applescript to refresh all of my smart playlists and assign it a hotkey (using BetterTouchTool).

Is it possible to use Applescript to make iTunes smart playlists update?

Update Smart Playlist entry only resides in contextual menu; applescript cannot access that. There are two work-arounds I can think of: 1. BTT: hover over the playlist and invoke a combo right-click -> u -> return. Or:

tell application "System Events" to tell application process "iTunes"
    set frontmost to true
    repeat 2 times
        tell menu item "Edit Smart Playlist" of menu "File" of menu bar 1 to perform action "AXPress"
        tell checkbox "Live updating" of window 1 to perform action "AXPress"
        tell button "OK" of window 1 to perform action "AXPress"
    end repeat
end tell


Add casual material such as screenshot fast to Final Cut Pro video? How? From Desktop? I am able to add pictures from iPhone and Aperture to Final Cut Pro and I would like to fast add screenshots. I tried to do this from Desktop and no such option.

How can I fast add casual material such as screenshots to a FCP video?

Just drag the image in from Finder (including Desktop and Dock) to the timeline:


MacBook Pro early 2015 not turning on and not charging I'm far away from civilization thats why I need your help guys. My problem is: MacBook Pro 13" early 2015 is not turning on and charging and the trackpad is also dead.

Charger's LED does not shine by any light(red/orange/green) . But I tested my charger with another MacBook and charger is working.
I tried to connect another charger. First 1-2 minute I can see green light and then LED turns off.
Trackpad is not react to any action (like double click). Right now this is just some plastic area
Turn off and turn on battery connector also didn't help me.

The laptop did not receive any damage and was not flooded with water. Day or two before I got it from safe and checked my email then closed it and put to the safe again(hotel standard safe) (everything was okay but I didn't remember battery charge percent at that day) then I open and figured out that MacBook is dead.

Your MacBook is dead.

Without putting hands on, I would guess that you have an issue with the DC-in board.  It's the interface between your charger and the logic board and battery.

You have already done the requisite diagnostics:

Verified the your charger works
Verified that known working charger doesn't work on your MBP
Attempted to boot with battery disconnected

One final test you could attempt (if you have it available to you) is to use a battery from a known good MacBook Pro of the same model.  If it boots, you will verify that the logic board is functional and confirm it's the DC-in board.

As far as the trackpad goes, it has no relevance here.  It's ultimately a USB device and if the MBP has no power, the trackpad won't either.

If it is the DC in board, it's a relatively easy and inexpensive fix.  iFixit.com has excellent instructions.  It is still possible that it could be a logic board failure, but based on my experience that's it's unlikely.


Launchd won't load plists at boot I have a set of scripts that need to run on system boot and stay alive. I have the plist saved as /Library/LaunchAgents/net.vps.tunnel.plist and it has the proper permissions:

-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  516 Nov  6 22:03 net.vps.tunnel.plist

The script is stored in the root /Library/LaunchAgents, NOT the user ~/Library/LaunchAgents directory, so it's supposed to run on boot as the superuser. If I manually run the script via sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchAgents/net.vps.tunnel.plist it runs fine. But despite the fact that it is supposed to run on boot, it doesn't. When I check launchctl list immediately after boot, I see that it has not been loaded. Trying to start via sudo launchctl start net.vps.tunnel fails with the error "launchctl start error: No such process".

If I log in via the GUI, suddenly launchd loads all of the scripts. However, they run with my user permissions and some of them do not work properly. In the plists, I have specified the UserName key as a daemon user, but they all run under my user credentials.

Here's the plist file in question, located at /Library/LaunchAgents/net.vps.tunnel.plist and with -rw-r--r-- permissions for root:wheel:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC -//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd >
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
        <key>Label</key>
                <string>net.vps.tunnel</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
                <array>
                        <string>/Users/_tunnel/tunnel.sh</string>
                </array>
        <key>RunAtLoad</key>
                <true/>
        <key>WorkingDirectory</key>
                <string>/Users/_tunnel</string>
        <key>UserName</key>
                <string>_tunnel</string>
        <key>KeepAlive</key>
                <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

And here's the tunnel script, with permissions -rwxr-x--- for _tunnel:_tunnel:

#/bin/bash

logger "Opening VPS tunnel..."

ssh -i ./.ssh/id_rsa -gnN tunnel@********.com &
PID=$!
logger "VPS tunnel is now open."

wait $PID
logger "VPS tunnel is now closed."
exit 0

Try moving the plist to /Library/LaunchDaemons/. Agents (other than pre-login agents) are run only after a user logs in and they are owned by the user. Also the UserName key has no effect for agents.

See the Daemons and Agents tech note.


Bought a new iMac to replace the old, have two questions regarding file migration My old iMac died -- hard drive is on the fritz -- and the system is mostly unusable.
I just received my new iMac and would like to know the proper way to migrate my files from the old iMac to the new one:

Should I create a new Apple ID / login username or use the old?
Given that the old iMac is unusable, what is the best method for transferring my files to the new iMac? I assume iCloud would be best in this scenario since Migration Assistant requires the old system to be operational. FYI, I did not have Time Machine backing up to an external drive.

Thanks!

You want to use the same AppleID as before as both all your purchases and your iCloud Drive is linked to it. So once you've set the Mac up and added your AppleID credentials the content of your iCloud Drive should sync to your Mac (patience may be required, depending on your connection and the load on Apple's servers).


How to prevent cursor from getting stuck in corner in Mac OS Catalina? I have a dual monitor setup.
In previous versions of Mac OS, when I move the cursor from the left monitor to the right, it moves without any problem, regardless of how high or low on the screen the cursor is.

Ever since I installed Catalina, if the cursor is within an inch of the top or bottom of the screen, it won't move on to my other monitor. The cursor seems to move between monitors only if it is NOT in the top inch or bottom inch of the screen. Clearly this is an intentional "FEATURE" that was added in El Capitan

This is really annoying behavior. Is there some way I can revert it back to the behavior in Mavericks, El Captian, High Sierra (basically every version of Mac OS before this?)

I've tried looking in System preferences but can't find a setting for this.

I figured it out. Its the most dumb thing.

You go to System Preferences -> Display -> Arrangement. Make sure both monitors are "in line" with each other".

XD


Is a Lightning lead without rubber shielding dangerous? Unsurprisingly, the Lightning cable that came with my iPhone 5s ~18 months ago is really worn - to the point where all of the rubber cable has had to come off because it had been left around for a while and had gone all sticky (sooooo gross). The outer metal sheathing is still entirely intact.

The resulting cable looks like so.

It still charges (and syncs) my iPhone perfectly. Is this at all dangerous to use (I'm charging my phone from my MacBook)?

Cheers,
Dan

Such Voltage is not 'dangerous' but you should get a new one as soon as possible. Why risk a further damage to your iPhone, your Mac or your charger?


How can I gift a copy of an app that I already own? I own an app. I want to purchase an additional copy of that app for a friend using iTunes' gift functionality. In the iOS App Store and the iTunes store on a Mac, the gift option doesn't appear for apps that I already own. I can't believe that Apple doesn't let you purchase an additional copy of something that you already own as a gift for someone else.

App that I own

App that I don't

Am I missing something, or is app gifting really this half baked?

The gift function is embedded in the small triangle control to the right of the Buy|Download text - almost looking like it's the same button on iTunes for a computer.

Just click the square button and select Gift This App. On iOS you will want to press the rectangle with the arrow key and select Gift.


When was the butterfly keyboard introduced to the MacBook Air? When (what year & Model) was the butterfly keyboard introduced to the MacBook Air?  I would like to help a relative avoid purchasing such a keyboard.  Any references to support an answer are appreciated

I assume you're trying to avoid purchasing a model with a keyboard that is prone to errors. Apple's "Keyboard Service Program" for the MacBook Air lists the MacBook Air Late 2018 and Mid 2019 models as eligible.

The Mid 2017 MacBook Air and older have the old scissor-style keyboard.

The Late 2018 MacBook Air has the new butterfly style keyboard. It has the newer version of the butterfly style keyboard that has a membrane to keep dust from jamming the keys (as compared to older MacBook Pros that featured a butterfly style keyboard without that membrane). So does the Mid 2019 model.


Where is the unavailable disk space? I recently uninstalled a 120 GB windows 7 (installed and uninstalled via boot camp) on my Mac mini machine. I suspect that part of the disk space used in that installation has been made unavailable. Look at the following terminal commands:

$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            389.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3

$ df -h
Filesystem                       Size   Used  Avail Capacity  iused      ifree %iused  Mounted on
/dev/disk0s2                    362Gi  319Gi   43Gi    89% 83772049   11198653   88%   /
devfs                           200Ki  200Ki    0Bi   100%      693          0  100%   /dev
map -hosts                        0Bi    0Bi    0Bi   100%        0          0  100%   /net
map auto_home                     0Bi    0Bi    0Bi   100%        0          0  100%   /home

The results above show that I am missing 110 GB of disk space. I know that the operating system itself uses space, but I very much doubt that it is that much.

It looks like uninstalling Windows via bootcamp did not merge the space reclaimed by removing the old windows partition into your Macintosh HD one. In order to do that you can use the Disk Utility.

You can simply drag your Macintosh HD partition bigger and apply it. Here is a tutorial on how to resize partitions with Disk Utility


iPhone says "The Apple Id you entered Couldn't be found or was incorrect. Please try again." All of a sudden my iPhone 4 (iOS4.0.2) can no longer download apps. It says:

  The Apple Id you entered Couldn't be found or was incorrect. Please try again.

I know for certain that the password is entered correctly. I have only 1 iTunes ID. I downloaded an app successfully this morning, over 3G. But now I consistently get this message when I try to download any app! I'm still on 3G with adequate signal strength.

I've quit all running apps, I've restarted (twice) and even a hard reset. But still I get this message. I've also noticed that the battery level is falling rapidly (1% every 2 min's) despite no other running apps/wifi/Bluetooth, so it must be doing some heavy 3G traffic.

What's up? How can I solve this? Preferably without involving my PC at home because I will be travelling for the next few days...

My exact steps:

tap on App Store
find any (free) app, tap on Install. Itunes closes, I see a white placeholder app icon labeled Waiting..., and I'm asked my iTunes password.
I enter the correct password and tap OK.
The white placeholder icon is still Waiting... for a long time.
After ~5min's the correct app icon is show, but still labeled Waiting....
After additionally ~5min's there's a new popup with the text The Apple Id you entered Couldn't be found or was incorrect. Please try again. and buttons Cancel and Retry.

Note: I've seen entries like this one but they are based on working on a Macintosh. I'm at work so I hope for a mobile solution.

This might have been some kind of outage in the App Store, because it works now, following the exact same steps with the exact same conditions (location, network, etc.).


Cannot delete songs from iPhone On my iPhone I see a list of songs I cannot delete.
Here's what I tried:

Go to settings -> memory usage -> iTunes -> delete all music
Disable iTunes Match
Disable show all music
Connect to iTunes on the Mac and manually remove all synced songs
Swipe to delete does not work
The songs do not show any sort if cloud icons

iTunes shows 3.3GB of Audio on my device which I cannot get rid of.

Any other ideas what to try?

I finally fixed it by restoring from an iCloud backup. But I read that this does not seem to work for some users.

I personally think, iTunes' quality is really bad and I'm tempted to move over to Amazon's music service but I love the Apple ecosystem and they probably have other issues. Sigh.


3rd party SSD with High Sierra If I install High Sierra on a 3rd party SSD, will the main volume's file system be converted to APFS?

The hardware is a Early 2011 13" Macbook Pro with a Crucial M4 SSD.

If I install High Sierra on a 3rd party SSD, will it be APFS?

An SSD is a drive regardless of who makes it and will be compatible APFS.

In this article, about SSD support for OWC (3rd party) SSDs, there are two main take aways:

OWC shows up as both a rotational drive, which won't convert upon setup and as a RAID 0 array which won't convert at all.
A user in the forum confirms that the Crucial M4 in a 2012 MBP works without issue.

So, the issue is (IMO) not a High Sierra one, but one of the manufacturers in how they implement their SSD and present it to the OS.


Edit symlinked files in Dropbox I have a soft symlink between the Documents folder on my main computer and a folder in Dropbox, say dbDocs. If I now edit a document, say thesis.tex, in dbDocs from another computer, will the symlink on my main computer see that thesis.tex has changed and sync this file back to Documents? Or will the symlink just overwrite the newly edited file in dbDocs with the corresponding file from Documents?

The quick answer is that if you open Documents/thesis.tex after editing it in your Dropbox folder on another computer, you will see the changes. As @Mark said in a comment, a symlink is simply a pointer to another location on your computer. If that other location has its contents changed, those changes will be visible when using the symlink in Documents, just as they would if you examined the file directly in the Dropbox folder.


Can't change volume or mute Sony headphones connected to Mac I use some Sony headphones on an iMac and they've been working well for around 4 months.

Now, I start up my Mac to go to Safari and listen to some songs. I realize that my headphones are a bit loud. I hit F11 on my Apple keyboard to lower down the audio and for some reason it won't lower! I can hit the mute button and still nothing will happen.

Try holding down the fn button, located at the bottom far left corner of the keyboard. Your keys might have somehow got switched up because I have found that if the buttons at the top do not work, holding fn and pressing the button makes it work


Can I put my HD into an enclosure boot into it and expect all my apps / programmes to run? I’ve got to send my laptop, MBP mid 2012, running OSX 10.10, into a repair shop.

I use the computer for work so can’t really be without it. Could I take 5e HD out (this is one of the old MBPs with a removable HD), put it into an enclosure and 5en boot into it to work in from a Mac mini which is currently running 10.13 although I believe it had 10.10 on there at some point so the drivers should be there.

Would booting into the HD cause any issues with email accounts (imap accessed via Mac mail), Dropbox sync app, and other pieces of bought software that require a serial number ?

I also have file vault enabled on the drive but presumably as long as I know the password I can still boot into it.

The nice thing about macOS is that, so long as the machine you're transferring the drive to is old enough to recognise the OS on it [which it sounds like yours is], it will boot - & you wouldn't even know you'd changed machines.

I migrated my Mac Pro 3,1 to a 5,1 by simply doing that - swap the drive to the new machine. Done.


How do I set up SSH to open a single application? iMac 7,1 running OSX 10.10.3
Dell Inspiron 740, running Windows 7 Home Premium

My aging mother has a Windows PC and a Mac, which she prefers using. Sometimes my dad is using the Mac, so she's stuck using the Windows PC (it's specifically for her) until he's done. Her favorite part of the Mac is using the Mail app, which I've tried time and again to find an equivalent, but nothing's got everything. I've now had the thought to just set up PuTTY on her computer to open an Xsession via SSH, on a user specific to her, and have the Mail app open automatically. How do I set this up?

XQuartz, which is the OS X X-server implementation doesn't support native Aqua apps like Mail.app, just regular unix X-server apps - xterm, etc, so I don't think this will work for you.

However, OS X does come with VNC built in, if you want to share screens from Windows. It's under Sharing in System Preferences, check the box for 'Screen Sharing'. See this: Several users simultaneously on a Mac mini


What methods are there for making a screencast from an iPad 2 or 3 with iOS 5? I need to find a way to output, or possibly make an internal recording of, a screencast of everything on the iPad screen, so that I can record demonstrations of an app my company is developing.

Of course I could position the iPad on a table with a video camera over my shoulder, but there must be methods available now for providing video output that can be captured by another device, or making an internal screencast.

I'm not talking about streaming video from within an iPad app for display on an Apple TV or another device. I need to output or record everything on the iPad, and at a sufficiently high frame rate.

I know there are means of making a screencast from the iPhone Simulator on XCode in Mac OS X, but that does not meet my needs either.

Reflector App

I have purchased and evaluated a newly released program called Reflector App (which runs on your Mac) that does everything I need it to do. It costs US $15 and works using Apple Airplay on your iOS device, so it supports iPad 2, iPad 3, and iPhone 4S. It makes its own QuickTime recordings with audio and video. If you have a good connection with a WiFi N router (such as my Apple Time Capsule) and an Ethernet connection to your Mac, you get a frame rate good enough to record yourself playing Angry Birds, at full iPad screen size. It records audio and video from your iPad.

This app is quite new and small updates are being released frequently. The documentation is sketchy but the tech support via email is responsive.

You can download a trial version that will only work for 10 minutes total; after that you must pay for the app. It's not available in the Mac App Store and I suspect it won't be. You can purchase it directly from the web site.


How to re-install an OS on Mac My friend has a Mac book pro. I'm afraid I know nothing else about it.

For reasons unknown, and I dare not ask, she decided to rub a magnet over it, beside the touch pad.

She heard a strange noise, and powered it off. Then, when turning on, she just saw a question mark on the screen.

I'm guessing she's either wiped or destroyed the SSD. However, she's asked me to restore it and I know nothing about this.

Whilst my research shows me that files may have been synced to the Cloud (the cloud? Surely they mean to a server, using the technologies which have been available for years). But it doesn't state if the OS is backed up.

The computer didn't come with any discs.

On a Windows PC (which I have little experience with), I know that some times the OS isn't included but the serial number is, so you can get an ISO and re-install it that way.

Other PC's include the installation files on a partitioned hard drive.

My question is, is there a uniformed way Apple supply the OS with Mac products (unlike PC's)? If so, what is it?

The question mark comes up when the start up files have been messed up.

I do not know if you can repair the Magnet damage but you can try to restore.

Mac's have a Restore function build in (or online)

To access start computer and hold cmd-r

that will bring up the restore menu.

Depending on your computer model you might have the Internet restore option.

The sound you heard was the forced computer shut down.


Why are 2 Mac Pros on a separate subnet directly connected seeing very low transfer rates? I have two Mac Pros and as one is primarily utilized for storage, I thought connecting the two directly under a different subnet would be a worthwhile endeavor that would directly transfer data without having to pass through the switch and therefore augment speed.

Everything seems to work properly in the sense that I can connect via the static IP on the private subnet between the two machines and I likewise I can connect just fine outside of this subnet to the LAN and Internet by the 2nd ports that are connected to the network infrastructure.

Unfortunately, something strange is happening where transfer rates are exceptionally slow.  With the switch I normally get between 70-90 MB/s with AFP, whereas with the a crossover cable connecting them, I'm only seeing < 100 KB/s!

Any ideas as to what may be going on here?

My first guess would be the crossover cable you're using to connect them. Gigabit ethernet requires a different crossover wiring than 10- or 100-megabit ethernet, and if you have the wrong kind, the computers will either figure out the problem and switch to a slower connection, or just get massive amounts of errors. I don't have 2 Mac Pros handy to check myself, but you can check this in the Network Utility's Info pane: Select the relevant interface from the pop-up menu, then check the Link Speed listed on the left, and the error counts on the right.

If this is the problem, I'm pretty sure the fix is easy too: just use a straight-through CAT-5 (or 5e or 6) cable instead. Pretty much all modern network interfaces do auto-MDIX meaning that the interface can do the crossover internally. Again, I don't have Mac Pros handy to test, but I'm pretty sure their ethernet interfaces support this.


Dictionary lookup wider and taller (pop-up dictionary lookup styling) in OS X It's possible to change the font and the font-size for 3-finger lookup popup. You just need to edit css file for dictionaries you use, e.g.:

sudo vim /Library/Dictionaries/New\ Oxford\ American\ Dictionary.dictionary/Contents/Resources/DefaultStyle.css

find html.apple_client-panel body { and edit properties

Now I actually want to go further and make the entire popup area bigger - little wider and little taller. How can I do that?

First of all, find out dictionary path you want to modify. This is dependent on the dictionary you want to modify, but you path should look something like this:

/System/Library/Assets/com_apple_MobileAsset_DictionaryServices_dictionaryOSX/042bf65b3ae80e4564c339fcf00fa9924bd16dd3.asset/AssetData/Apple Dictionary.dictionary/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/AppleDictionary.css

Then open this file in any text/code editor you'd like, it could be even vim, like in the original question, and open it for modification, search for font-size parameter for body element, it could be defined in pt, px, em. If you want to deep into CSS details, you may read up tutorials or manual on the font-size. It appears to be regular CSS file, for definition of styles, so it's easy to work with it.

You may change the font-size, to make it bigger/smaller, it could achieved by modification of parameters in CSS:

body {
  ...
  font-size: 15pt; /* <== look for this parameter, and scale it up to your taste */
  ...
}

Or like this:

html.apple_client-panel body {
    ...
    font-size: 15px;
    ...
}

You may find some screenshots and additional explanation on apple.disscussions.

One also can play with line-height, if font-size haven't brought enough readability. If you want to change the window itself or spacing around text, then you may want to modify margin (margin-top, margin-bottom, etc) or padding (padding-left, padding-right, etc).

Tried to explain this to the guys, who are not web-developers themselves, hope this helps. Ask if you gotten additional questions to me, or search them on StackOverflow (it's for developers questions), but I think it will be straight-forward for you now.


what will happen if I will renew developer account 6 months later? I know that my apps in app store will not be available, until I renew.

But, from the developing perspective.
what will be the different when I'm developing apps ?
Can I develop and test notifications and iCloud in the development apps ?

See the Choosing a Membership page. Scroll down to Benefits and Resources.

I believe iCloud and Push Notification fall under the 'Advanced App Capabilities' section on that list.

With a free developer account you only have access to:

Xcode Developer Tools
Xcode Beta Releases
Developer Forums
Bug Reporter
Test on Device


AppleScript for locking the screen in Catalina Is there a way to build an AppleScript for locking the screen? I want to add a Quick Action (and the relative button on the Touch Bar as described here)

This solution i.e.,

tell application "System Events" to tell process "SystemUIServer"
    tell (menu bar item 1 of menu bar 1 where description is "Keychain menu extra")
        click
        click menu item "Lock Screen" of menu 1
    end tell
end tell

does not work in Catalina. After allowing accessibility for Apple Script Editor from Security and privacy, I still get this error in automator:

  Can’t get menu 1 of menu bar item 2 of menu bar 1 of application
  process "SystemUIServer". Invalid index.

You can use:

tell application "System Events" to keystroke "q" using {control down, command down}

You could also use the following instead:

tell application "System Events"
    set appName to (name of every application process whose frontmost is true and visible is true) as string
    click menu item "Lock Screen" of menu 1 of menu bar item "Apple" of menu bar 1 of application process appName
end tell

      Hint: Mouse over and horizontal/vertical scroll to see full code.

However, the first mentioned solution is more direct.


My iPhone 3gs "isn't eligible" when updating to 4.3.4 I get this error message in iTunes when trying to update my iPhone 3GS (non jailbroken) from 4.3.3 to 4.3.4:

Why is this? The iPhone 3GS is listed under “products affected” on the iOS 4.3.4 release notes.

Apple have now released iOS 4.3.5, so they may have disabled the authentication for 4.3.4, as they do with all legacy versions of iOS.. Try downloading and installing iOS 4.3.5.


Burn several hours of video to DVD using iDVD? I've got a movie in iMove and I'd like to burn it to DVD. I used the "iDVD" export option in iMovie, but then iDVD refused to burn the DVD on the grounds that the DVD didn't have enough space.

How do I burn a few hours (~5 GB) of video to a DVD? I'm okay lowering the quality a bit, if I knew where in iMovie or iDVD to do so.

For the easy solution, in iDVD, you have to go to the Project Info Window (Project|Project Info... menu) and select a Double-Layer disc in the DVD Type combobox.
A single layer disc is 4,2GB and an untouched 5GB movie file will obviously not fit on it.

If you don't have a double-layer capable burner, you will have to first reduce the quality of the video to reduce its size (through the widely used (and easy to use) Handbrake for example), putting the target size to circa 4GB. You will then be able to burn your file with iDVD or any other DVD authoring tool.

iDVD control of video file compression is too simple.
In iMovie, in Share|Export You have several size options. Putting the mouse pointer on the little information symbol at the end of each line will give you the approximative size of the output file. I don't know if there is a finer control of output. I usually do it via Handbrake, as stated above.


How to view all events on a calendar? Is there a way to view a list of all events on a particular calendar, in Calendar.app?

For some reason, I was sure there was a way to do this, but for the life of me I can't seem to find it today.

Two methods:

Enter "" in the search box, and all the events will be shown in the search results.
Go to Day view and scroll the list.


Can Apple Watch unlock signal be used to unlock other TouchID-protected apps? I imagine this wouldn't be too tough to do with Automater, but I haven't found any obvious answers to this online thus far.

For example, let's say I use an app that requires me to authenticate with TouchID, or I'm making a payment online with ApplePay. I should be able to verify my identify with my watch as well (this is how ApplePay works in the "wild" anyway).

Would love to hear any ideas about how to do this and would be up for collaborating on a solution as well.

No, this currently isn't possible.

We know Apple has the ability to use wifi/bluetooth to unlock your Mac with your Watch if you're close to it.  However, Apple has not made such a feature available to 3rd party developers as of this date.


How do I ONLY receive and send iMessage (not SMS)? Is this possible? I have an international phone plan that charges way too much money for international texts. I'd like to still be able to use iMessage instead of other texting apps, (but realize it will only be able to be with folks who have an iPhone and iMessage activated.)

I believe I've figured out my settings so I only send iMessage, but I can not figure out how to FORCE receiving texts only through iMessage and not SMS.
Is this possible?

Might this have changed recently?

It appears now one can select to "send as SMS" when iMessage is unavailable (Settings > Messages on iPhone).  Perhaps now there is also a way to only have texts sent as iMessages only when being sent internationally, yet also have domestic (within country) texts sent as either iMessage and/or SMS?