OSX Mavericks horizontal scrolling doesn't work well in Finder? I've noticed since updating to Mavericks last week (though this is a new Macbook, and I've been on Snow Leopard forever so not sure if this is 10.9 or 10.8 or what....) that horizontal scrolling in the Finder via two-finger trackpad movements is not working well.

I've tried turning inertia on and off, no difference.  Toggled everything in Trackpad in System Prefs, still no difference.  It seems "sticky" -- if I move my fingers continuously, the Finder scrolls in tiny fits and starts, but if i swipe, I get a normal inertia scroll.

Horizontal scroll works fine in Safari and Chrome, and in other programs; only Finder gives me trouble. Vertical scroll is fine in all contexts.

Has anyone else experienced this? I'm not having much luck Googling this, and wanted to check in here before posting as a bug / calling in a support ticket.

No. Horizontal scrolling is butter smooth in Finder for several of my machines. I've tried several different resolution settings on the Retina MBP as well as tried mouse and trackpad scrolling on older machines with less CPU / GPU power than the 13 inch MacBook Pro.

None lag in any manner scrolling horizontally as opposed to vertically in my experience. Due to the voting on this question, perhaps there are some issues for certain configurations or something else that I'm doing differently than you, but even for all different views (icon, list, hierarchical, etc...) and finder windows with a thousand files in the folder, I'm not able to see slowness when scrolling horizontally.


Safe Mode red sign disappears after login I am trying to use the Safe Mode on my MacBook Pro running macOS Sierra. I noticed the Safe Mode sign in Red color, displayed towards the top right corner on the login screen, however, after login, the sign disappeared.

I thought that once you are in Safe Mode, this will last until you restart your machine normally. I wonder why my Mac automatically exited from the Safe Mode (or not)?

I noticed the Safe Mode sign in Red color, displayed towards the top right corner on the login screen, however, after login, the sign disappeared.

  I thought that once you are in Safe Mode, this will last until you restart your machine normally.

The Safe Mode text in Red color is shown towards the top right corner only on the login screen and disappears once you login. This is by design. This doesn't mean that your computer has exited the Safe Mode. It's still running in Safe Mode.

  I wonder why my Mac automatically exited from the Safe Mode (or not)?

This is not the case. Your computer is still running in Safe Mode after you login from the screen indicating Safe Mode boot.

To further verify if your computer is running in Safe Mode (or not), go to Apple Menu → About This Mac → System Report..., and in the left sidebar, click on Software. In the right pane under System Software Overview, look for Boot Mode item and check its value.

A value Safe would indicate that the computer is running in Safe Mode.

Whereas a value of Normal would indicate that the computer is running in Normal Mode.


iPad app to mashup music I'm looking for a simple app that will just let me load tracks from my music library, chop some clips out of them, and assign those clips to a trigger pad. So then I can create "mashups" by holding down different combinations of trigger pads.

Any possibilities?

You have several options:

DM1
iMaschine
DrumOn
etc.

I have tested iMaschine years ago. I was very satisfied at the time. I'm not sure whether this App is still maintained. I have heard very good things about DM1, never really got the chance to test it though.


Are macos Mojave Security Updates Cumulative? I had upgraded to macOS Mojave on April 2020 and am still on it.
The Software Installations list on System Information lists the following security updates installed:

Security Update 2020-002
Security Update 2020-003
Security Update 2020-004
Security Update 2020-005
Security Update 2020-006

As you can see Security Update 2020-001, which was released on January 28, 2020 is missing from the list. I don't recall if I installed 2020-002 security update manually on it or through Software Update.
Now that Apple is releasing even Combo updates for the macOS, which are cumulative updates of point releases, is there any clarity on whether security updates are also now cumulative?

Yes, security updates are cumulative since the most recent point release. So, if you're downloading updates manually (to use with offline machines, or in some sort of automated deployment setup, etc), you'll want to install (1) the most recent "combo update" followed by (2) the most recent "security update".
Frustratingly, I have been unable to find any official confirmation of this from Apple, but I am relatively confident this is how things work based on my own use. If you try to install an OS X 10.9.5 security update (like 2016-004) before updating from 10.9.4 to 10.9.5, the installer will complain and won't run. However, installing security update 2016-001 followed by 2016-004 seems to have the same affect as just installing 2016-004—you end up on the same build version.


Make SCSI Appear as Internal Hard Drive I have the HighPoint RocketRAID 2720SGL Raid card running on my Mac and it shows as an external drive. I would like to make it appear as an internal drive.

Is this possible?

From:

To:

Here is the ouput from my System Profile:

Do you have the following files?

/System/Libraries/Extensions/HighPointIOP.kext
/System/Libraries/Extensions/HighPointRR.kext

If so, copy both of them to your desktop, then:

Open those kexts and edit the Info.plist. Change all the 'External' references to 'Internal'
Copy the modified kexts back to '/System/Libraries/Extensions/'  from your desktop.

Reinstall the kexts:

sudo chmod -R 755 /System/Libraries/Extensions/HighPointIOP.kext
sudo chmod -R 755 /System/Libraries/Extensions/HighPointRR.kext
sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Libraries/Extensions/HighPointIOP.kext
sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Libraries/Extensions/HighPointRR.kext
sudo rm -rf /System/Library/Extensions.mkext

After this:

go to your Disk Utility App and Repair your filesystem permissions.
Reboot.


csrutil is broken on Recovery HD I'm trying to turn off SIP on my MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013) but when I run OS X in Recovery Mode no csrutil is available—there is no such command in /usr/bin as well. So I tried to run it from /Volumes/Macintosh HD/usr/bin where I have installed OS X. Good news is that csrutil is there. Bad news is it's crashing:

http://pastebin.com/qXVAdkaK

dyld: Symbol not found: ___NSDictionary0__
    Referenced from: /Volumes/Macintosh HD/usr/bin/./csrutil
    Expected in:
    /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreFoundation.framework/Versions/A/CoreFoundation
in /Volumes/Macintosh HD/usr/bin/./csrutil
Trace/BPT trap: 5

Any ideas how to fix it?

The crsutil tool runs on 10.11 and not 10.10 or earlier.

You'd need to fully install 10.11 El Capitan on a USB drive and boot to that Recovery HD for the proper libraries to be present. When recovery is on a different raw disk than the volume, I suspect you won't get the changes you desire.


How can I lock my stolen iPhone? Last night my iPhone 5 (32 GB) was stolen.

How can I lock it so that the person won't be able to use it anymore?

If you had "Find my iPhone" enabled on your stolen phone, you can log into icloud.com with your AppleID and lock/purge the phone from there.

If you haven't enabled that option or if the phone is not connected to the internet there is no way to access the phone and purge its content.


IPhone 6 Camera Stopped Working after 8.4 Update After updating to 8.4 two weeks ago, both cameras stopped working.  The camera app shows a black screen and once you press any of the buttons the rest of them stop doing anything.  The shutter button 'clicks' but does nothing, then the settings randomly disappear.  No other modes work, though I can scroll through them.  I can not change to the front camera. Other apps that use the camera will open, but I only get grey screens. (Some crash right away.)
I've restarted, updated to 8.4.1, but nothing.  Any ideas?

I found this in the Apple forum. Try this

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203040


I can't open Network without my MacBook Pro crashing I'm aware of the spontaneous reboot glitch as it happened many times before I found Apple's specifics on how to stop it, but starting earlier today, when I try to open System Preferences my MacBook Pro as per this fantastic tip I received this morning - which runs OSX - immediately crashes and restarts.

Is there something I'm doing that's overloading my computer?  That's precisely what I was trying to subvert.

EDIT: Specifically the com.apple.preference.network.remoteservice consistently crashes if I try to open Network Preferences.

In the Apple discussion thread, gchard posted the same query.

Linc Davis had the answer:

How to return your Network settings to default and get rid of the infinite spinning wheel.


Mirroring two displays with different screen sizes I have an iMac 20" mid-2007 and an external 23.6" 16:9 aspect display, I would like to mirror displays keeping a 16:9 aspect on the external display, eventually stretching the image of the built-in 8:5 aspect display.

Is it possible?

Thanks

It is not possible. Apple explains well what happens when you mirror displays:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5019?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

"Your Mac will attempt to match the closest resolution between the primary (or built-in) and secondary displays. The usable resolution is the closest matching resolution for both primary and secondary display. If you choose a resolution that is not supported on both displays, the resolution will return to the closest matching resolution."

What are you doing that your only choice is to mirror the displays?

Cheers,

Dave


How do I automatically kill processes that leak memory? I have problems with processes that leak memory. They cause my hard drive to be filled with swap files in /private/var/vm.

I would like leaking processes to be killed at sight by the OS. I’m not interested in a dialog that appears after 20 minutes, suggests applications to kill, and doesn’t even show the one that is leaking.

I have tried setting the rss and data limits in /etc/launchd.conf but it didn’t seem to have an effect.

This is my /etc/launchd.conf:

limit data 8589934592 8589934592
limit rss 8589934592 8589934592

Here is the launchctl limit output:

% launchctl limit
    cpu         unlimited      unlimited
    filesize    unlimited      unlimited
    data        8589934592     8589934592
    stack       8388608        67104768
    core        0              unlimited
    rss         8589934592     8589934592
    memlock     unlimited      unlimited
    maxproc     709            1064
    maxfiles    256            unlimited

This is my .zshrc:

ulimit -t 600
ulimit -d 512000
ulimit -v 1024000

And the ulimit -a output (in ZSH):

% ulimit -a
    -t: cpu time (seconds)         600
    -f: file size (blocks)         unlimited
    -d: data seg size (kbytes)     512000
    -s: stack size (kbytes)        8192
    -c: core file size (blocks)    0
    -v: address space (kb)         1000
    -l: locked-in-memory size (kb) unlimited
    -u: processes                  709
    -n: file descriptors           256

Yet here is what top tells me about the process:

PID  COMMAND      %CPU  TIME     #TH  #WQ  #POR #MRE RPRVT  RSHRD  RSIZE  VPRVT  VSIZE  PGRP PPID
886  process      30.8  01:16.40 1/1  0    17   332  2259M+ 184K   2072M- 19G+   38G    882  885

It just seems that none of the documented memory limitation methods actually work. Is there an additional mechanism that I may have missed?

I would create a simple script which would filter process any process with a resident memory size (or perhaps total vm size, so including any paged out pages) bigger than a threshold that I define (depending on the amount of process, total memory available and perhaps also CPU availability). One can use a bit of bash script with either top or ps to dig out the list of process and memory size.

From this filtered list, I would use the leaks command (see man 1 leaks) per process PID. If the total amount of leaked memory reported by the command is higher than yet another threshold, I would then kill and respawn it.

NOTE: You should take care not to kill any OS/System processes without knowing what you do. To avoid this situation, you should perhaps filter out the list using a "white list" approach.


windows 10 bootcamp wireless display adapter macbook pro 2017 Has anyone got a stable setup for miracast to a microsoft wireless display adapter from a 13" macbook pro 2017?

Previous macbooks (air & pro) connect without issue.  The latest model will connect, but it is very intermittent, mostly can't see the adapter and mostly fails to connect when it can see it.

windows 10 is version 1709 and fully up to date.  macbook firmware and drivers are fully up to date and the microsoft wireless display adapter has latest firmware (V.2.0.8372).

Also - running the command:

netsh wlan show drivers

Shows:

Wireless Display Supported: Yes (Graphics Driver: Yes, Wi-Fi Driver: Yes)

Update: still the same situation in windows 10 version 1803 - wireless display adapter firmware version unchanged

This occurred for me once I updated the graphics driver from the Apple update.  It was working fine with a fresh install until that update was applied (May 2018).  I reloaded Windows in Bootcamp again and got the same result.


What do I do when OS X freezes? It happened to me twice recently. I was just using my iMac normally, like browsing the web, and it suddenly freezes. I can move the mouse, but I can't click on anything. Keyboard not functioning at all. I couldn't figure out what to do except for pressing the power button and reboot. What else can I do? Is there a way to diagnose and find out what is causing it?

A strategy to try when the freeze is actually happening is holding ⌘ Cmd and ⌥ Opt, then hitting ⎋ Escape.

If your keyboard input is still working, this should bring up the force-quit dialog (which can be navigated using the arrow keys and Enter).  This may allow you to close problematic applications without a hard shutdown using the ⌽ Power button.


iOS updates getting listed slowly When I check for updates on an iOS device of mine, the results takes quite a bit of time to get listed. And even sometimes they don't and I've to restart the app by killing it. Although the speed when downloading something from the App Store(whether it be a new app or an update) or any other Apple store is pretty good. It's just the updates trying to get listed that takes quite a bit of time.

This problem isn't just tied to me as well. It happens in other devices that belong to my other family members whom I use the same store account for purchases.

In my opinion, this isn't a network problem as well because everything other than trying to get the updates listed is pretty fast.

I would have said this is because I live in Turkey and I'm in the USA App Store with the help of store credits but then again everything other than trying to get the  updates listed is pretty fast!

Also our Mac updates show up pretty quickly.

So what do you think might be the problem?

I don't think that this is an issue with your network or your device. I have the same behavior on all my 5 iOS devices and so does everybody else I talked about this topic.

I guess the slowness comes from within Apple's datacenter(s). Checking for updates is a "bigger" process I guess (checking your apps, asking the database, etc.) than "just" downloading, which is pretty simple (establishing a connection, download the data). I just guess that checking for updates just needs some more web service requests than downloading. And since this is done by millions of users, the queue may take a while until your request is processed.

So my answer is: I think you can do nothing about it.


Certificates not updating I'm trying to visit my university research group's website at home. The website requires a username and password to view and probably has who knows what kind of security systems in place.

On Safari 10 and/or macOS 10.12, I could visit the website and enter my username and password; it wouldn't save the password despite repeated attempts on my part at making it do so, but at least I could visit the site.

On Safari 11 and macOS 10.13, however, I get the following message:

  This connection is not private

  This website may be impersonating [website] to steal your personal or financial information. You should go back to the previous page.

I have two options: "Show Details" and "Go Back". If I press "Show Details", I get the following message below the previous one:

  Safari warns you when a website has a certificate that is not valid. This may happen if the website is misconfigured or an attacker has compromised your connection.

  To learn more, you can view the certificate. If you understand the risks involved, you can visit this website.

If I click on "view the certificate", I can see the certificate details, where it explicitly says "This certificate is marked as trusted for [website]".

If I click on "visit this website", I am asked for my administrator password to change certificate trust settings. After entering my password, I am redirected to the original "This website may be impersonating [website]" message.

I don't have this problem with other browsers (e.g. FireFox) or other remote access clients (e.g. FileZilla), so it isn't a problem with the website, it is a problem with Safari.

I've tried deleting the certificate in Keychain Access and creating it again, and I have tried restarting my computer. I am the administrator (and sole user) of my computer. My internet connection is secure and doesn't have any firewalls (it's just a home wi-fi connection).

What can I do to regain access to my group's website and preferably force Safari to remember my login information?

Edit: I found a workaround which I’m not at all happy with, since it’s annoying and it needs to be done all over again every time I reboot my computer, so I’m looking for proper answer.

After searching for hours and trying several different "fixes" which didn't work, Trevor Da Silva's solution here worked.

The fix essentially consists of deleting the problematic site's certificate, opening the site in a private Safari window, choosing to trust it and then retrying in a regular Safari window.

Edit: This has to be redone every time the computer is restarted, so it isn't a true solution.


How do I set up a firmware password on a MacBook Air? I'm trying to follow the instructions for how to set up a firmware password, the problem is that they don't mention anything about Mac OS X 10.6.*, nor do they mention what to do with a MacBook Air, which doesn't come with an OS X DVD.

If I try searching for "firmware" in spotlight, it doesn't find any relevant application.

The MacBook Air should have come with a bootable USB flash drive for OS reinstalls. Use that and follow the same steps as 10.5.x.


How do I remove Podcasts from IOS Podcast app I've been using the IOS Podcast app and I'm trying to remove podcast from it. I had subscribed to a podcast, but now I unsubscribed and deleted the episodes. It still shows up in my podcast menu though. How do I remove it from the list of my podcasts?

Also, It does not show up on my podcast list on my mac iTunes, so I can't delete from there. Any ideas?

It's not a huge deal, but I download and try a ton of podcasts and the list builds up quick with podcasts I use and a bunch that I no longer listen to.

if you pull down on the list of podcast, there is an edit button in the top left corner. the podcast can then be removed by clicking the x


iOS iTunes Store app changed podcast page formatting The podcast page format changed recently. I was getting a format that listed the episodes in order and at right would be "download" button to download that episode to the Music app. Now it's a down arrow (but it does the same thing). I could press the episode title to listen, but that doesn't seem to work anymore. Also the new page format has a subscribe button that wasn't in the previous format. What's happened?

Was working as usual iTunes > Podcast then went to use an hour later and all podcasts are in the new format. I have no computer access and tried resets.

The iTunes Store app uses a web view, so Apple can update the how the app looks remotely without touching your phone.

Since all podcasts are free, there's no need for it to look the same as the music purchases. Tapping the podcast title should still work to play it.


how to install ubuntu 12.0 on MacOS with multi-boot menu Hey guys I need to install ubuntu on my Macbook but I have not got the ideas how to separate hdd disk in right order (size and disk formats and of course utilities). At now MacOS 's installed correct. My final goal - installed correct two OS with multi-boot (mac is primary one) Please give some correct steps how must i do it. Many thanks

Create an empty partition with Disk Utility under OS X, shrinking the existing OS X partition. It shouldn't destroy data, but make a backup (just in case).
Boot Ubuntu using Live CD or Live USB.
Run the installer, and choose to manually select the partitions. Choose the empty partition as the root mount point (/) and make sure Ubuntu doesn't touch any other partition. The installer should format the partition as ext4 or ext3. Make Ubuntu install the GRUB bootloader (just leave the default settings).
You'll need an EFI boot loader. rEFIt is no longer mantained; rEFInd did a good work with my installation. You can install it from OS X very easily.


OS-wide equivalent of "read later" list? Is it possible to set up a shortcut so that whatever is in my clipboard goes into a specific text-file ?

The idea is to have an OS-wide inbox where I can send anything (img, pdf, text, url) quickly. Much like a generalized "read later" feature.

Notes would be useful for this. There's a share extension for Notes which can be used by any app and which takes the current content straight into a note for you.

Depending on the app, the extension may be in a variety of places, but for example in Safari you can go to File → Share → Notes.


It is possible to use iPhone as BT headset for the computer? I would like to use my iPhone as an BT headset, is it possible to pair it with the computer and to have it used for computer calls?

Natively no, the iPhone is limited to what is parable to it, and the functions once it is paired.. With a jailbroken iPhone there may be some third party software out there.


Determine which application the media keys will control When you press e.g. the pause key, the Mac OS will send that to whichever running application is playing media. How can I programmatically find out what application this is? And is there any other information available, such as the name of the currently playing media?
I'm looking for a command line tool, an API, or a scripting interface; I'm not picky.

There was an app (no longer supported) called Media Key Forwarder that allowed users to decide which app would receive the Play/Pause command. Its code is open source.
It wasn't the only one: BeardedSpice also allows users to control the play/pause button behavior, and it's also open source.
I quickly browsed their source codes looking for a specific piece of code to embed here but it was not immediately obvious to me. Nonetheless, I think it's a good start and might help.


Want to cancel a 'Pending Erase' on iphone... Any suggestions? I lost my phone on vacation and activated 'Lost Mode' for a couple of days. The night before heading home I decided to do the Remote Erase ´cause I thought there's no way I'd get it back, I also called my carrier and canceled the data service on my number. The phone has been offline ever since but the hotel just called to say they found my phone at the spa and they are mailing it back to me. So I want to cancel the 'Pending Erase', all I care about is recovering all the pictures from that trip that I hadn't backed up on iCloud yet...
Will removing the device from my iCloud account work?
And if I don't have service on the phone, will the 'Erase iPhone' command still go through when I turn it on?
Please help! I have two days to figure this out

Cancel an erase
If your device is offline, the remote erase happens the next time it is online. If you find the device before it is erased, you can cancel the request.

In Find My iPhone on iCloud.com, click All Devices, then select the device.
If you do not see All Devices, it is because you have already selected a device. Click the name of the current device in the centre of the toolbar to access the Devices list, then select a new device.

Click Stop Erase Request, then enter your Apple ID password.

https://support.apple.com/guide/icloud/mmfc0ef36f/icloud


How to share an app with friends and family only I am currently developing an iOS app for one of my family members. The only thing is, I do not want it on the App Store.

How would I be able to share this with my family member? I know that I could use Cydia impactor or with a personal developer certificate, but this would require signing every few days if I remember correctly?

If you are registered as a paid Apple developer (either as individual or an organisation), you can use TestFlight to easily share your app with friends and family. You'll need the Apple ID of the person and can add them as a tester.

You can add upto 1000 Apple IDs as tester under TestFlight and release the app. The individual members can install the app on their personal devices.

Unlike using certificates and asking members to share their device UDIDs, this approach is seamless for both the parties. The shared app build remains valid for upto 90 days from the date of publishing. This process also makes it easy to push app updates.

The family members (testers) just need to have TestFlight app installed on their device to receive app builds and updates. This also works great for Apple TV apps.

Go through the TestFlight - Apple Developer documentation to learn more.


Is there a Terminal command to get the current front most app's title? I'm using Übersicht and I've created a custom menubar. I want to show the title of the current active app but my search-fu isn't great. I must be searching for it incorrectly so I figured I'd ask here.

Does such a command exist?

Well there is, however if you run it directly in Terminal it's just going to return Terminal, as that's the frontmost application process that's visible.

osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to get name of application processes whose frontmost is true and visible is true'

If you want the second most, use:

osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to get name of second application process whose visible is true'


Why are my maximize and minimize buttons grey? I have had my MacBook for a couple of months now, and the minimize and maximize buttons are all grey. They weren't like that when I got it. Does anyone know how to get the colors back?

In System Preferences, there is a setting for overall "Appearance." It would appear that your appearance has been set to "Graphite" instead of the default "blue." While the maximize and minimize buttons are not blue, when the appearance is set to blue, they are in color; when the appearance is set to graphite, they are grey.


Can I share my iPhone's WiFi connection to my Mac? I'd like to be able to share my iPhone's WiFi connection to my Mac.  I'm NOT asking to share the phone plan (the iPhone is actually being used as an old iPod).

My Mac can't connect to a wifi network because they require that you have some account that charges for it. However, the Wifi used to be free, and my iPhone still connected.  Is there a way to share the wifi connection over Bluetooth or something?

Thanks!

No. This isn't a function of the iPhone OS from Apple. If this isn't a short term need, there might be a jailbreak tweak to turn the OS into a fully functioning router / hotspot, but the hardware isn't designed to extend a network as your use case requires.


URL Scheme for switching between 3G and 4G Just wondering if there is a URL scheme to switch between 3G and 4G networks.

Do you have an app called Launcher?

  Launcher with Notification Center Widgets by Cromulent Labs
  https://appsto.re/gb/iLR81.i

You can create a custom URL Scheme and add it to your Today Widget

Paste the below into the URL textbox and give it a name.

Cellular/Mobile Data:

prefs:root=MOBILE_DATA_SETTINGS_ID

This gets you to the "Mobile Data" section.

I'll see if there is a path to "Mobile Data Options" -> "Voice & Data"

See this post: https://stackoverflow.com/q/8246070
You could try getting to the settings page for the network


Terminal command in Applescript not working I am trying to get a terminal command to work in Applescript and I get the error "Expected end of line but found identifier." How can I fix this?

This is my code

try
    do shell script "defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{"tile-type"="spacer-tile";}'; killall Dock" with administrator privileges
end try

You mustn't use some special characters (e.g. " or \) between the quotation marks after the do shell script part of Apple Scripts or you have to escape them with a back slash.

In your example the second quotation mark is interpreted as the end of the shell command: defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{ which is no valid line.

So escape the inner quotation marks with a back slash and your Apple Script should work:

try
    do shell script "defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{\"tile-type\"=\"spacer-tile\";}'; killall Dock" with administrator privileges
end try

If you have a shell command like this:

... awk '/disk/ {gsub("\"",""); print $NF}' ...

you would have to escape each " and \ with a back slash:

try
    do shell script "... awk '/disk/ {gsub(\"\\\"\",\"\"); print $NF}' ..."
end try


Disable Time Machine hourly backups Can the hourly backups by Time Machine be stopped? I'm on Lion and if it matters, each hour it tries to backup about 30GB  (I don't know where this 30GB comes from, as today I've only modified a few text files and browsed the web). This results in the computer slowing down noticeable and beachballing more often.

Or even better than stopping them completely change the hourlys to every 2-4 hours?

It is backing up to a TimeCapsule, so I think the network might be the reason it is slowing down noticeable, that and it's a late 2008 MacBook Pro.

To adjust the schedule in order to backup at a time more to your choosing than simply every hour, you can use the Time Machine Editor tool, which is available as a free download from:

http://timesoftware.free.fr/timemachineeditor/

  TimeMachineEditor is a software for Mac OS X Leopard, Snow Leopard and
  Lion that lets you change the default one-hour backup interval of Time
  Machine. You can change the interval or create a more sophisticated
  scheduling (see screenshot below).   This is useful if you don’t need
  to backup every hour and don’t want the performance penalty. This is
  also especially useful if you manipulate lots of data within one hour
  as you would spend the whole day backing up.

Changing your interval should not affect the daily or monthly backups, which are not actually any different to the hourly ones in any material way.

To get a better idea of what is causing large or lengthy backups, you can use the Backup Loupe software, available for free download at:

http://soma-zone.com/BackupLoupe/

  "With BackupLoupe you are able to answer questions like Why is Time
  Machine so slow? Why is my Time Machine drive already full? Which
  files are actually being backed up? Has a particular file/folder been
  backed up at all? How many revisions of a file/folder exist in Time
  Machine? A file/folder was deleted accidentally. When did this happen
  and where is the latest backup? Is my backup drive big enough? Should
  I consider buying a larger one? And if yes, when?"


Using dictation to transcribe audio files in batch? I have lots of audio files that I want transcribed. Dictation is the best transcriber I have found that will run on my MacBook (there exist others like PocketSphinx but this is no where near as accurate).

How can I use Dictation to transcribe audio files in batch?

You can use SFSpeechRecognizer (mirror) (requires macOS 10.15+): this is made for speech recognition and it's an SDK so you can write some code for batch processing.

  Perform speech recognition on live or prerecorded audio, receive transcriptions, alternative interpretations, and confidence levels of the results.

Note that
from https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2019/256/ (mirror):


Set imageView as a banner inside an app I wonder if Apple Review team allows such thing.
Imagine you have a imageView inside your app, and you set it as a static banner, without any clicking option etc.

Do you think Apple will allow sth like this?

To give you a better notion of what I mean:

The banner with "Amlozek" text is just a completely static ImageView that can have no interaction with user.

Do you think Apple would say "hey, you are placing ads inside your app omitting the official way to do that" or they just don't care about such small banners?

Apple don't restrict ads in apps to iAd. You're permitted to use other ad platforms. Therefore, there would be no reason for Apple to reject your app.


External hard disk(HHD) showing irregular capacities and partitions I tried to partition my external hard disk on Mac using disk utility.
First I have Erased newly added 2TB HHD with "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" with "GUID Partition ".
After that I have created three partition
PC - Exfat - 500 GB

Time Machine - APFS (Encrypted) -- 500GB

MAC - APFS -- 1TB

I was trying to use "Time Machine" partition as backup but it was failing and giving error so I have erased HDD again with "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" with "GUID Partition Map" but It got messed up.

Though I just have 2TB capacity it showing up to 3.5TB in total and irregular partitions ?
I have tried Erase few more time completely but given partitions are not going away.
How to restore to its original state no partition with "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" having GUID Partitions Map ?

You can restore your drive to its original state by following these steps:
WARNING: THIS WILL REMOVE ALL YOUR DATA FROM THE HARD DRIVE

Open Disk Utility
Click "View" in the menu bar
Click "Show All Devices"
Select your hard drive from the devices list(It will have a name like "2TB Hard Drive")
Click "Erase"


Invalid certificate for a specific website When trying to navigate to a specific website (amazon.com in my case) I always get the "NET::ERR_CERT_COMMON_NAME_INVALID" error in Chrome (and equivalent errors in Safari/other browsers). When clicking to see the cert I can see that it's trying to associate it with the wrong website (register.be.xfinity.com instead of amazon.com) - see screenshot:

The background story is that my internet access modem was temporarily disabled and always routed all access to that xfinity "activation" website and I guess at some point I clicked approve to update the cert from that fake website. I tried removing the cert from keychain and adding it back (importing exported one and marking it as trusted) but it didn't help.
How can I fix the issue? Help!
Thanks!

Try changing your DNS.
Go to System Prefferences -> Network -> Advanced -> DNS
Then write down every DNS entry in case something goes wrong, and remove every DNS entry from the list.
Add at least two DNS servers. My favorite are Cisco (1.1.1.1) and IBM (9.9.9.9).
Click Ok, then Apply.
Try visiting the website.


iPhone 4S speaker not working for apps but works for ringer I have an iPhone 4S and the speakers are not working for applications. The speaker works when doing voice calls on speaker phone, adjusting the ringer, and other default things.

However, when trying to have audio for YouTube and other applications it does not work.

It wasn't working for IOS 6.1.3 and I have now upgraded it to 7.0.4 with no luck. I then restored again with no luck.

I believe the fact that it works for the speaker phone and ringtone would suggest it is not a hardware problem but a software problem.

Any suggestions?

I had this very same issue, after some research on the Apple Discussions forums I found out that it was due to either the docking connector at at the bottom or the headphone port either needing to be cleaned or that one or both may have been damaged. If you have tried using headphones and can adjust the sound with headphones in this would lead me to believe that this is indeed the most likely scenario.

In my case it was likely to be water related (as my flatmate didn't screw the top on the water bottle in my gym bag and the water got in my phone). If it has been water damaged then you might be able to get some of the water out using silica gel (available on Amazon). Place the silica gel around the powered down phone and seal tightly and leave for at least 48hrs. This should absorb some of the water.

If the damage hasn't be caused by water, you could try cleaning the headphone port and dock connector. You can use a soft bristle toothbrush for the dock connector, again while the phone is off, and give it a decent clean, being careful not to press too hard. You could also use some alcohol here but be careful not to use too much.

The headphone connector can be cleaned using a Q-Tip and alcohol while the phone is off. It needs to be left to dry before turning it on again but it should clean up the headphone port nicely.

If none of this works then it is likely that there is something else wrong with the phone and it would probably be best to take it to Apple, or a third party repair company for them to have a look at it.


What do Verify Disk and Repair Disk actually do in Disk Utility? I've recently been suspecting problems with my hard disk and saw another answer here on AskDifferent recommending Drive Genius or Disk Warrior.

I thought I'd start thought by using the built in Disk Utility app.

How good is Disk Utility at possibly identifying hardware issue, and what do "Verify Disk" and "Repair Disk" actually do?

Disk Utility in many respect is powered by fsck, a command line utility that deals with file systems (not just the one found on OS X).

The option to verify (and repair) your disk deals with the health of the file system (HFS+) and the integrity of the data that resides on it, rather than the physical disk. It looks at how the data is stored and not if the drive is reporting mechanical errors (to some extent this is reported by the S.M.A.R.T status). However it should stand to reason that a hardware fault will likely permeate through the file system structure (though not always).

Is Disk Utility good at finding hardware issues? No, not really. It's meant more to isolate problems with your data set than it is your hardware. There of course is some continuity there but they are not monogamous.

DiskWarrior and Drive Genius will undoubtedly do a much better job diagnosing the physical health of your drive. But none are as powerful as the utilities released by your respective hard drive manufacturer. If you can use those, then all the better. Using multiple tools may also prove to be an affective strategy.

Another avenue which can help in discovery is to comb your Console's logs for anomalies. I've had a WD disk exhibit strange behaviors and first became cognizant of the problem by way of a single error during the initial boot up sequence. Google and WD's native Windows diagnostic tools helped me isolate the issue (to some degree).


Cannot access external drive I have a seagate 2013 or 2014 external hard drive which has been working fine up until yesterday.  The drive wont appear anywhere on my mac-  not on desktop, finder, disk utility wont ever finish loading when its plugged in.  I've gone into System Information and it appears whether or not the device is installed so not sure what that means.  I have tried a few tips I found to use Terminal- I've tried creating and naming the volume usb and then linking it to dev/disk 2 but nothing.  It will however let me eject the device via terminal which I hope is a good sign? I ran diskutil verifyDisk /dev/disk2 and i got the following:  "Problems were found with the partition map which might prevent booting.  Error: -69854: A disk with a mount point is required." I've read that I probably need to do something that would wipe out all the information on my external but first I would need to back up.  As I said before, I can't access my drive on any macs (i've tried 2 others) so is my next step to send it out for someone to recover the data?  I'm just trying to save myself some money because I'm currently furloughed but I do need the documents on my external.  Any advice would be great! I'm not knowledgable on any of this, I've just been doing alot of searching and trying different tips so please leave advices fit for a computer dummy! ha! Thanks!

I'd get the free app Mountain and see if it will mount the drive. Often when I've had troubles mounting a drive Mountain helped. The app has a free trail so it'll cost you nothing. Start the app from the menubar and it lists all the Volumes connected to your computer. Find the drive tyou want and click the mount  icon.


Prevent Mac terminal from changing tabs when reopened Whenever I open the terminal app after it was minimized, it often changes tab and go back to a particular tab (which tab in particular is not very important). Can someone suggest a workaround for this problem?

Currently on Mojave OSX (10.14.4) and had this problem with High Sierra too previously.

How about instead of minimising by pressing minimise button, using ⌘  H (COMMAND H) instead? Then it will not shift to the oldest tab.

Then, use ⌘ ⇥ (COMMAND TAB) to navigate the terminal.


Mac OS X Disk Imaging Software I'm looking for some good disk imaging software, so I can store some of my Mac's applications on a flash drive and then export them to a newer machine. Any recommendations? Also, are there any free ones available?

Use Disk Utility.

You can use the New Image button in the toolbar to make a new disk image.

If you can be a little more specific as to what you want to do, I can be more specific as to how you'd use Disk Utility to do it.


"macOS Catalina" could not be verified I'm trying to upgrade my MBP 2018 to Catalina, but everytime I finished download it, the error pop up as below:

I downloaded it almost 10 times, but no success

Finally I got MBP upgraded to catalina! This is how I succeed upgrade my MBP after many times redownload and reinstall failure:

Open System Preferences
Choose Sharing
Check on 'Content Caching'
In preference Cache, choose 'All Content'
First trial it gives me same error ("macOS Catalina" could not be verified).
Second Trial, because the failed download file 'cached' it took me about 10-15 seconds to redownload (get from the cache)
It's successfully verified and macOS Catalina installing!

Maybe it's only happen to my device (MPB 2018 with touchbar), but give it a shot!


Connect iPad/iPhone to WiFI, but not MBP? I have an iPhone and iPad that have permission to connect to WiFi W (Work).  I have a MiFi device (M), and I want my MacBook Pro to connect to M and not W.  How can I do this?  It seems that when Apple remembers a WiFi password (e.g., for W), it does it for all your Apple devices, including laptops.

Click the Apple on your MBP and select System Preferences... and then choose Network.

Click Advanced at the bottom and WiFi should be highlighted. In that is Preferred Networks. Select the work on and hit the - to remove it. Then connect to the MiFi and in that same area, click the +.

Should be all set then!


MacBook Pro (13inch, mid 2012) iPhoto photos I'm getting my MacBook Pro wiped at the end of the year because it's the school's computer. I was wondering if my iPhoto photos on my laptop will be wiped as well? I use Time Machine, so will that help me recover them?

If you've been using Time Machine to backup your MacBook Pro to an external hard drive then yes, your photos will be backed up as long as you haven't specifically excluded them from being backed up.

To check:

Go to System Preferences > Time Machine
Click on the Options button at bottom right
In the window that appears, make sure that your iPhoto Library is not listed and therefore excluded from your backups

As long as it's not listed, you'll be fine.

Another thing you can do is to also manually backup your iPhoto Library. The iPhoto Library is located within your Pictures folder.


MacBook Pro (Late2011) fails to boot and repair HDD volume: I have a MacBookPro ("late 2011"/ MD313LL/A) (i5, 4GB, 500 GB Toshiba HDD) with MacOSX 10.9.x on it.
The MacBook won't boot. In verbose mode I see the following information:

During boot, after mounting the drive fsck_hfs is being started, and it states "Incorrect number of thread records (4,23121)". Then the machine enters a repair, checking, failing loop that doesn't end successfully. It aborts after 3 or 4 attempts and machine is shut down.

(I have also started recovery mode and ran the Disk Check Utility from there but same result, Volume could not be repaired.

I booted a Linux live system and checked the HDD with a tool that read S.M.A.R.T. data. According to this, there is no issue with the drive at all.

What does Incorrect number of thread records (4,23121) mean?

Any ideas what to do will be appreciated.

The error that you are seeing, Incorrect number of thread records, means that there is a problem/corruption in the HFS catalog.

The Catalog File is another B-tree that contains records for all the
files and directories stored in the volume. It stores four types of
records. Each file consists of a File Thread Record and a File Record
while each directory consists of a Directory Thread Record and a
Directory Record. Files and directories in the Catalog File are
located by their unique Catalog Node ID (or CNID).
A File Thread Record stores just the name of the file and the CNID of its parent directory.

The Fix...
First and foremost.... you do have a (Time Machine) backup, right?
Next, (personally) I wouldn't repair this HDD.  I would get an SSD drive (see this answer for reference), do a clean install of macOS and then migrate your data back over.
Can you repair it?  It's possible.  It's unlikely that Disk Utility will have the capability of fixing it so you will need something like DiskDrill or DiskWarrior.  Even still, you are fixing a 6+ year old drive which is now outside it's useful life.
If the drive is still good (physically) but you can't repair the volume, you could format and reinstall macOS, but if this is the route you have to take, I would go with an SSD upgrade; thus my initial recommendation.


What does the “Current Period” data usage number mean? In the Settings app, under Cellular > Cellular Data Usage, I see a “Current Period” value of 6.8 GB. However, I’ve checked this number several times over the years, at all different points in my cellular billing cycle, and it always hovers around 6 GB. Is this really the amount of data that I’ve transferred using my data plan since my last bill? If not, what does the number mean?

Current Period refers to the period of time since the last reset. This is nothing to do with the cellular plan. You can see the beginning date of the current period by scrolling to the bottom and looking at the date under the reset option.

If you have never reset the counter, it has been counting up like the odometer of a car since you started the OS at a clean restore.


OS X Lion: app.log file in Applications Folder I noticed a file 'app.log' in my Applications folder. I delete it but it reappears after a couple of days. What is this and can I get rid of it?

Probably a bit sledgehammer-to-crack-a-nut, but if its happening fairly regularly and you can't figure out what's creating it another way, you could start a terminal prompt and leave the following command running

sudo opensnoop | grep -i app.log

This will monitor for app.log being created and tell you the process that created it (I'm assuming there won't be that many processes creating a file called app.log, but I guess you could narrow it down to /Applications if you wanted to). At least then you'll be armed with the knowledge of what is creating the file and can potentially do something about it.

For example, whilst running the above command, if you type

touch app.log

in another terminal tab or window, the original one running the opensnoop command displays

501  10576 touch          3 app.log
501  10099 mdworker       6 /Users/binarybob/Documents/app.log


How to prevent scrolling while entering text in a text entry box in a Fluid app? In my job, I have a number of "always-open" web applications that are part of my desktop layout.  I always have Trello open, plus two different Stack Exchange Chat rooms.  I also have another browser window that I use like everyone else, navigating to various sites in tabs, etc.

Because I always want to keep trello and chat open, and I never want to open links from those sites in those windows, Fluid is a near perfect solution, as it creates a native, OSX app for each window.  I click it, and it opens that site as a stand-alone app, which I can set to open all links in my "normal" browser, etc.  I LOVE IT, and was going to switch to the paid version and get my small team on it. (I have no affiliation, just a genuine fan).

But I've encountered an issue:

At seemingly random times, typing text in a text entry box causes the cursor to leave the box and the window to scroll back up most of the way to the top of the window.

I've tested this quite a bit, and know this:

I'm not accidentally hitting Control, Alt, etc. The only modifier key I'm using is Shift.
I can't seem to repro it even when using the same text in the same instance it happened.  After occurrences, I literally moved focus back to the box where it happened, deleted the text I was typing when it happened, and re-typed it, but it didn't occur.
It never seems to happen when I'm not typing text in the box, so I'm pretty sure the issue  is linked to that activity.
This has always happened to me in a Stack Exchange Chat window, but I don't use Fluid for any other "text-entry" sites, so that may not be relevant.  (It's not a problem for SE chat in normal browsers; I've logged thousands of hours doing the same thing in chrome and safari without incident).

Since each fluid instance is essentially an app, I thought there might be some hotkey setting somewhere I had set wrong, but can't find anything of the sort in the app or from online searches.

I have had this too. It is caused due the live spell checking service responding late while you are typing.

Apparently, while replacing a mistyped word, the service takes focus of the text box. Usually, this happens so quickly that you don't notice it. But sometimes, the service takes too much time (relatively) to process a word while you are still typing. And if you press Spacebar* when this happens, the page moves up/down.

When this first happened, I thought it  was totally dependent on the performance of your computer and there was no specific way to solve it.

Safe Reboot - try this first:

One day, I accidentally activated Safe Boot. For me, this stopped the problem from happening, even after I rebooted normally. Aside from its normal uses, Safe Boot also clears out caches, repairs permissions, and performs other maintenance tasks. That is why you see a progress bar on a Safe Boot.  But that method doesn't work for everyone.

Turn off AutoCorrect - here's a solution that should work if that doesn't solve it:

This solution requires you to turn off auto-correct for the app. You can still keep spell-check on, so it will still highlight misspellings; it just won't automatically change them.

Go to the affected app.
Click in the box where you're having trouble when you enter text, to put the cursor there.
In the menu bar, select Edit > Spelling and Grammar > Uncheck Correct spelling automatically.  You can leave Check spelling when typing checked, so it will continue to show you misspellings as you type.

* Pressing the Spacebar when a text box isn't in focus sends a scroll down action to the current page. And pressing Shift + Spacebar sends a scroll up.


On Mac OSX Yosemite why does my computer download 500MB every day whether I am using it or not? I have Mac OSX Yosemite, 10.10.1 and halfway through last month my computer decided to download about 500MB every day. I even quit all programs and it still downloaded 447MB.
I am seeing this number in the network section of Activity Monitor and the Process name listed is nsurlsessiond. What is this downloading and how do I stop it?

nsurlsessiond deals with iCloud & also Spotlight.

for Spotlight - Prefs > Spotlight > Search Results & switch off Spotlight Suggestions & Bing Web Searches.
iCloud, some suggestions…

Disable iCloud Photo Library, Photo Stream & iCloud Photo Sharing from
System prefs > iCloud - Photos [or equivalent, I can't remember the precise layout before Photos app]
If you have an iPhone, the same settings are in Settings > iCloud > Photos


How to reset NVRAM on iMac with bluetooth keyboard? I have a problem with a swipe back in Safari. On my MacBook I could fix it by resetting of NVRAM. I can't find out how to do it on iMac with a Bluetooth keyboard. Do I really need a cable keyboard in order to reset it?

This can be reset using Terminal.

Launch Terminal from the Utilities folder
Run the command:

sudo nvram boot-args=”-p -r”

Press Enter
Type your password
Press Enter again
Restart your computer

After a restart it should be reset.


How to fix Magic GarageBand missing files? I hadn't used the Magic GarageBand feature before today (I generally don't use GarageBand that often) and when I went to try it, everything seemed to work until I clicked Open in GarageBand in the lower right corner. When I do that I always get an error similar to:

I tried it with most of the generas, and all produce a similar error.

I reinstalled iLife '11, which didn't fix it. I tried manually uninstalling all of GarageBand (including the loops and instruments folders), then reinstalling iLife '11 and still have no change. Checked for updates in the App Store and it is running 6.0.5.

I searched around a little for those files and didn't find anything.

Update: I am running OS X 10.8.2 and if I log in as a new user it works fine. So it is probably an issue with my library folders . . .

The clue that explains how to fix your issue is that the applications works in a brand new user account. If it were a problem where the files were truly missing or a bug in the app - you would expect the same error in a new account. Unfortunately knowing that the problem lies in your library isn't much help due to the large number of files exist in most library folders.

To fix this, several different paths could be taken:

You can import the actual files into the new account from the old account and side step pinpointing which file is problematic.
You can call the engineers that have the source code (AppleCare in this case) and see if they have a knowledge base explaining which file or files or directory needs to be cleared from your library to avoid doing the work involved for one of the other DIY choices.
Do a search of your library files (I would do a binary search - eliminating half of the files each pass - or as close to half as you can manage without software to automate tracking which files were deleted and which were not) and testing to see if the error persists after you have removed one or more files from ~/Library
Use a tool like fs_usage to try to track each file the GarageBand app opens in hopes of isolating the ones from ~/Library that it needs to have reset to default.
Hope that something like user permissions in the Library folder can be seen to be off and adjusting them by hand (Disk Utility won't repair your home folder permissions or look deep in ~/Library to fix things sadly) or try throwing away simple things in ~/Library like the GarageBand plist files and cache directories.

Again, it's a bit like searching for a needle in the haystack and I realize this isn't the same as telling you "file X and cache directory Y are the culprit" since I don't actually have that level of detail on iLife 11 files.

Hopefully this will help you or someone else in narrowing down how to track corruption in a user account enough to decide to call the vendor or just spend the time you need to move music, photos, documents over to the new account and just hope the error doesn't crop up again.

I'd quit GarageBand app, make a back up of my system and then move these files/folders to the trash:

/Users/whatever/Library/Caches/com.apple.garageband
/Users/whatever/Library/Preferences/com.apple.garageband.LSSharedFileList.plist
/Users/whatever/Library/Preferences/com.apple.garageband.LSSharedFileList.plist.lockfile
/Users/whatever/Library/Preferences/com.apple.garageband.cs
/Users/whatever/Library/Preferences/com.apple.garageband.plist
/Users/whatever/Library/Preferences/com.apple.garageband.plist.lockfile
/Users/whatever/Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.garageband.savedState

If that doesn't remedy the issue, then I'd call Apple if I had AppleCare or could visit a genius bar and then just hand migrate my user files to a new account. The latter should take less than 20 minutes to plan and the files can copy while you are eating dinner. Having a good backup is mandatory for any delete / trial / hand migration just in case you find something you forgot to migrate days or months later.


Force-disconnect all remote users from Applescript or shell? I have a mac that I want to automatically restart every night, but it is regularly accessed remotely from other machines in the house, and if anyone is still connected when it needs to restart it displays a prompt that it will disconnect remote users if the restart is allowed, and then just sits there waiting for a response.

Is there any way, possibly using Applescript or shell, to force a restart and automatically disconnect any remote users?

The following example AppleScript code works for me in macOS Catalina to restart the system and click the Restart button on the "There is a user sharing this computer. If you restart they will be disconnected" dialog that shows if Users accessing File Sharing on the machine are connected.

tell application "Finder" to restart
repeat 5 times
    try
        tell application "System Events" to click UI element "Restart" of window 1 of application process "loginwindow"
    end try
    delay 1
end repeat

Obviously the number of loops is arbitrary as is the value of the delay command. As coded it's allowing for five seconds for the dialog to appear, if it at all does.


Charles not working on iPhone at Starbucks I'm using Charles to sniff out the traffic on my iPhone at Starbucks and for some reason it won't work with at&t wifi. Google Starbucks wifi does, however. I use my iPhone to connect to the same wifi network that my MacBook is connected to. Then, for the proxy settings on my phone, I enter my computer's local IP address and the port that I specified in the proxy settings on Charles. I'm aware that some wifi networks block certain ports, but even when I change the proxy settings on Charles so that it's dynamic and it finds an open port, it still doesn't work. Any ideas?

Client isolation. It is your enemy and your friend here. This makes it so not only can you not access your iPhone from your MacBook, but other devices on the network cannot access your MacBook or your iPhone either. There are a number of ways to implement client isolation on an IEEE 802.3 (Ethernet) network and even more ways on a IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi) network, but they all essentially accomplish the same task - clients are only allowed to communicate with the access point and/or gateway.


How to completely replace Helvetica with San Francisco in iOS 9, the system font had changed from Helvetica to San Francisco. I love the change! However, it doesn't change it in pages in Safari. Is there a way to change it to San Francisco? Thanks!

You can't change fonts without jailbreaking. If your device is jailbroken, you can copy your preferred SFUI font family from /System/Library/Fonts/CoreUI/ over the top of each Helvetica font in /System/Library/Fonts/Core/.


Homebrew vim already installed when brew update displays Vim as a updated formula simple questions,

when I run brew update here is the result

[admin@mb125:~/src/test] : brew update
Updated Homebrew from 16bd5c86 to 24073dc0.
==> New Formulae
mal4s  nbimg
==> Updated Formulae
aws-elasticbeanstalk   boost-bcp          ex-vi          libxml2            vim            youtube-dl

Great there is an updated Vim, let's update it.

[admin@mb125:~/src/test] : brew upgrade vim
Error: vim-7.4.052 already installed

so, how do I see what has been updated for Vim and why I can't upgrade it?

thanks

Formula updates don't necessarily mean the software which formula installs is updated. So, running brew upgrade without other parameters will bring brews which are outdated up to date whereas running brew upgrade <specific brew> might produce an error in case it's only the formula and not the brew which has been updated.


How can I run AirDrop from the Dock? Heading says it all. I just want to run AirDrop from the Dock like any other app.

Possible or not? How?

Actually, there’s an AirDrop app you can add to the Dock.

Follow these steps:

Within Finder, press the shiftcommandG keys
A Go to Folder window appears
Now copy and paste the file path below into the field

/System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Applications/
Click on the Go button
Now you’ll see a list of apps, including AirDrop
Drag the AirDrop app to your Dock

Now you can access AirDrop from your Dock whenever you want like any other app.


Can I use a PC3-10600 memory on a MacBook with PC3-8500 slots? I have a MacBook (13-inch, Late 2009) with the default 2GB of RAM, I want to update it to 8GBs, but I only found this model of memory to buy.

The question is since the memory is more "powerful" than the slot it will work? Will I have any issues? If not, what should I buy? only PC3-10600?

You should be able to use the faster RAM without a problem.  No guarantees when it comes to RAM compatibility that hasn't been vendor qualified (which is seldom an option) so make sure you buy from someone with a good return policy.

You might consider buying through somebody like OWC (macsales.com) that specializes in Mac parts.


How to export files from hard drive in Snow Leopard CD? I have a macbook 5,1 that won't startup. I'm going to reinstall Snow Leopard with the CD, but is there a way to export some of the files that are in it? I can't seem to gain access to them through the terminal in the SL CD:

cd Desktop outputs  No such file or directory

and

pwd outputs  var/root

if I cd ~/ then ls, there is only a Library folder, and no Users folder etc.

Keep in mind that you are booted to a different volume/system when you boot to the installer DVD.

With that in mind you can use ls /Volumes to get a list of volume names.

Presumably you will see Macintosh HD (or different name if you renamed the internal volume) listed, if so you can use cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD to switch to the internal drive. If your internal drive is named differently then keep in mind that spaces should be replaced with \ (a backslash followed by a space) in Terminal. Once you're in the correct volume your earlier commands should work as expected.

That same ls /Volumes command should show the path of your external hard drive as well.  You could copy the files using something along the lines of cp /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/file1.jpg /Volumes/Backup\ Drive/Folder1.

If you are attempting to copy everything from the hard drive you can use the following command to force a copy of everything, skipping over corrupted data that would otherwise cause the process to hang or stop...

cp -Rfv /original/data /destination/drive

or, following my previous example

cp -Rfv /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/ /Volumes/Backup\ Drive/


What's your strategy for archiving emails in Mail.app? Do you archive your Sent & Trashed emails too? I'm using Mail.app + IMAP email accounts for my email. I want to be able to archive all my email and make them searchable.

Currently I copy the previous month's email from my IMAP folders to local folders called 2010, 2011, etc. However I don't copy my Sent email, so I'm wondering what's the best way to archive them as well. Any suggestions? Please share!

I'd like a method that doesn't involve Gmail if possible, as I'm not a big fan of the company and the service.

I use Mail app's "smart mailboxes" instead of copying and moving the actual messages in Mail.
For example, to archive July 2011:

create a new smart mailbox,
name it "Mail Archive July 2011" or whatever,
set the find criteria to "Date Received is in the date range 1 Jul 2011 to 31 Jul 2011",
you will probably want to check the "Include messages from Sent"
Hit okay and in a moment you have a folder contain all of July's email
Right-click the smart mailbox and choose the "Archive" option and save.

After this you have the option of keeping the smart folder or deleting it. Spotlight (in OS 10.6.8) searches the .mbox archives Mail produces, so your archive remains searchable.


Can someone read production week from this serial? The serial looks like this

a13038xxxxxxxxxx

I know that I have to look for 3rd digit for the year, and 4th and 5th for week of that year to get the week when my iphone was made.

Do I count the first letter or not? Or I start form the first digit after the letter 'a'?

The iPhone 3GS model number is A1303, so I'm guessing that if you're looking at your serial number, it's somewhere with the model number appended to the beginning. To see just your serial number, go to Settings > General > About.

Once you have your serial number, the 3rd character will be production year, the 4th and 5th characters will make up the production week.

For additional info, check out "iPhone Serial Number Secret (Decode Color, Size, Production Year and Week)" on My Digital Life.


Include original picture's file on a iPhoto slideshow There is a simple way to include the original picture's file of a iPhoto slideshow?
I create a slideshow with iPhoto, select Share and iDvd. Now I have the slideshow on iDvd and I can burn or export in VIDEO_TS or .IMG. What is the best way to have the burned dvd video with the original picture's file inside too?

In iDVD, in the Advanced Menu, there is an option to Edit DVD-ROM contents.  There you can simply add whatever content you want, including dragging in the photos from iPhoto.


WiFi internet connectivity issue iPhone 8 Connected to AirPort Time Capsule 802.11ac (network name BZ), which is connected to a new cable modem (just moved to new building/ISP). Internet works fine on other devices (MacBook, tablet). iPhone 8 (iOS 11.4) will connect but says no internet. Airport utility shows active internet connection (see picture).

I tried restarting phone, forgetting network, and reset network preferences to factory defaults. Still no internet. iPhone will connect to other WiFi networks and gets internet with no problem. Any ideas? Thanks for your help.

Solved myself--Reset default settings on Time Capsule. Setting router mode to DHCP and NAT seemed to be the critical change.


How to simultaneously access IPv4 devices on 2 different 10/24 networks when using 2 active VPN connections? After a company is sold to different parties, you might end up with a situation where the old 10.0.0.0/8 network is split in two or more different networks, like 10.0.0.0/24 and 10.0.1.0/24.

Now I wish to access both networks at the same time using Mavericks built-in VPN client. One VPN network is on L2TP, the other PPTP.

However only the devices in the first established VPN connection can be reached, and not the computers on the second network. The only exception is the remote IP (gateway) of VPN connection #2.

How can I fix this set and forget?

Note: With set and forget I mean I don't want to have extra steps when "dialing" an already existing VPN connection profile.

Routing issue

The issue here is that both VPN connection profiles are in a 10 network, which officially comes with a /8 a.k.a. 255.0.0.0 a.k.a. 0xff000000 netmask. So when establishing both VPN connections at once, you end up with only one destination in the routing table for the 10-network. And that routing entry will route all 10.x.x.x traffic to the first established ppp connection, except for the local and remote IP addresses in the second ppp connection.

$ netstat -nr -f inet
Routing tables

Internet:
Destination        Gateway            Flags        Refs      Use   Netif Expire
default            192.168.0.1        UGSc           10        0     en0
default            10.0.1.1           UGScI           0        0    ppp0
default            10.0.0.1           UGScI           0        0    ppp1
10                 ppp0               USc             1        0    ppp0
10.0.0.1           10.0.0.12          UHr             2        0    ppp1
10.0.1.1           10.0.1.200         UHr             1        0    ppp0

Routing solution

The fix is to manually extend the routing table with the desired entries. There is no need to remove the 10 entry, only add new route entries. As long as the newly added route entries address a smaller subnet the entry will have preference. Read this as: when the subnet has a higher /X number. For example /24 is higher then /8 so a 10/24 entry will have preference over a 10/8 routing entry. Basically add a new routing entry after having established the second VPN connection, like: $ sudo /sbin/route -n add -net 10.0.2.0/24 -interface ppp1

Automation solution

It is cumbersome and can introduce mistakes when having to enter the route manually after having established the secondary VPN connection. Luckily there is a solution built-into the ppp daemon using if-up, as you can read in $ man pppd. Every time a ppp (VPN) connection is establish that uses IPv4 addressing, a script (/etc/ppp/if-up) is called where you can execute your custom rules/commands a.k.a. hooks.

The script below is extensively commented and should be self explanatory.

Your Mac might not have this script ($ ls /etc/ppp). In that case create it ($ sudo touch /etc/ppp/ip-up) with executable permissions ($ sudo chmod +x /etc/ppp/ip-up).

#!/bin/sh
#
# This script is run by the pppd after the link is established.
# It should be used to add routes, set IP address, etc.
#
# Tested with Mavericks (Mac OS X 10.9)
#
# This script is called with the following arguments:
# Arg   Name            Example
# $0    Script full location    /etc/ppp/ip-up
# $1    Interface name      ppp0
# $2    TTY device      <blank>
# $3    Speed           0
# $4    Local IP address    10.0.0.200
# $5    Remote IP address   10.0.0.1
# $6    LAN gateway     192.168.0.1
# source for $1-$6 is $ man -P 'less -p "    /etc/ppp/ip-up"' pppd

# ppp.log for non english systems do still have an english timestamp
export LC_TIME="C";

# Note: there is no static assignment for ppp0 to PPTP and ppp1 to L2TP
#       therefore $1 isn't useful to differentiate VPN networks

# To debug, uncomment the line below
#echo "$(date +%c) : \$5=$5" >> /var/log/ppp.log

# Add your routing table corrections here
# note: 2>&1 will redirect errors to the standard output
case "$5" in
10.0.0.1) OUT=$(exec /sbin/route -n add -net 10.0.0.0/24 -interface "$1" 2>&1) ;;
10.0.1.1) OUT=$(exec /sbin/route -n add -net 10.0.1.0/24 -interface "$1" 2>&1) ;;
esac

# If standard output is not empty, log it prepended by a timestamp
[ ! -z "$OUT" ] && echo "$(date +%c) : $OUT" >>/var/log/ppp.log

# There is automatic route removal on ppp disconnect.
# So no need to manually remove the above route(s) in /etc/ppp/ip-down

With thanks for the idea from jalbrecht2000 at http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20030906232648318


What happens when someone sends me an iMessage/SMS during a restore? The restore process can take some time. What happens if someone sends me a message during this time that my phone is unusable? Will I be able to see the message at the end of the whole process?

It's my understanding that when you restore your phone, your number will no longer be associated with iMessages until you reenable iMessages. What will happen if someone tries sending a text?

If I have the Messages set up with iMessages enabled on another device (e.g. MacBook), would I receive the messages there?

In my experience, when I send a user an iMessage while that user is unable to receive one, my iPhone (or whatever device as long as it is sending through my phone) will switch to SMS. When the message is sent as an SMS it will still arrive even after the recipient is re-connected.

Note: I haven't looked through docs - this is just what I have come to through observation.


What's the easiest solution for MDM without a dedicated OSX Server? I am the go-to support for whole lot of iOS devices in my family and have previously used Apple Configurator to apply new settings (such as VPN, email accounts, certificates) to new and existing devices.

I find this very cumbersome as it requires me to physically connect to each device and add/replace a profile. Therefore I want to replace my current solution and of course I thought of OSX Server (Server.app) first. Unfortunately the only "stationary computer" I could run an MDM solution on is a FreeNAS system – only mobile Macs here.

So the first question is, whether or not it is advisable to run Server's Profile Manager from a MacBook that is not always used from inside the same network, which has basically been answered as "not advisable" by this SX answer.

From that derives the second question: What is the easiest-to-handle MDM solution for managing not hundreds but tens of iOS devices? I figure that most MDM software is highly focused on enterprise-grade device numbers and management necessities. The only features I actually need is pushing profiles containing VPN, Email account and certificate.

tl;dr: What is the easiest-to-handle MDM solution for managing a bunch of iOS devices without using Apple Configurator?

Okay by now I figured out a way around the issue. My solution is to rebuild my FreeNAS server into an ESXi Hypervisor, which is capable of running OSX Server in a virtual machine. IMHO that creates quite a big overhead over running an MDM solution from a FreeBSD jail but it gives me a "native" Apple MDM, and the added ability to run other OSes in top of the ESXi aswell.

I see that this is not a generally applicable solution as it requires a server machine capable of running ESXi and a little bit of luck to get OSX to run on virtualized non-Mac hardware. But it works here so I mark this one answered.


Can I upgrade from 10.8 to 10.9 with a bootable usb installer? I've got a working bootable mavericks thumb drive, but I haven't the installer from Mac App store...

Can I upgrade from mountain lion to mavericks doing the installation from usb drive or  must I do a clean install?

Can I boot from usb drive and upgrade, or when I boot from usb I'm forced to format and do a clean installation?

Yes, simply run the installer from inside your existing OSX install.


How can I trick programs to believe that a recorded video is what is captured from my MacBook Pro camera in realtime? When sitting in daily long google meets meetings the thought struck me if there is a way to record a video that I could loop as my avatar. This way I could make biceps-curls while it looks as if I am sitting staring on my computer?! Not just nice for me to be able to exercise during meetings, also nice for my girlfriend who would get a ripped nerd as BF.
Does anyone have an idea of where I should start to look in to this? All the googling I have tried to find a starting point have rendered nothing as it is getting mixed up with kind of "How to use video in a google meeting"
All help is appreciated!

I would suggest installing OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) from this web site:
https://obsproject.com/
It allows you to create content in a variety of ways, including green screens, etc. In your case it is just a simply video you want playing.
If you have the very latest version of OBS a virtual camera plugin is included with the software. If you have an older version, you can download and install the same OBS Virtual Cam plugin from here:
https://github.com/johnboiles/obs-mac-virtualcam
When installed you'll have a VirtualCam option in the Tools menu in OBS, where you can start a virtual camera.
Finally in Google Meet select the virtual camera as your camera. Now the output from OBS is transmitted to meeting partners in Google Meet - and from OBS you can control whether the video is a pre-recorded file, your actual web camera, or something entirely else (like a still photo or similar).


How can I remap keys on an external keyboard, but keep the default layout on the internal? I have an external keyboard with Windows keys. I'd like to remap the keys so the layout of the keys on the bottom-left is identical to the internal keyboard on my MacBook Pro.

This...

ctrlfnwindowsaltspacebar

...should be this:

fncontroloptioncommandspacebar

I've succeeded in remapping the windows and alt keys to option and command, respectively, via the Keyboard pane in System Preferences, but switching the control and fn keys isn't possible that way. Does anyone know of a way to do this?

Note: I don't want to globally switch control and fn; I only want to switch them on the external keyboard. KeyRemap4MacBook only seems to be able to remap the internal keyboard. When I check "Don't remap internal keyboards," the internal layout is restored, but nothing changes on the external keyboard.

KeyRemap4MacBook also supports device-specific settings:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <devicevendordef>
    <vendorname>KINESIS</vendorname>
    <vendorid>0x05f3</vendorid>
  </devicevendordef>
  <deviceproductdef>
    <productname>ADVANTAGE</productname>
    <productid>0x0007</productid>
  </deviceproductdef>
  <item>
    <name>modifierkeys</name>
    <identifier>modifierkeys</identifier>
    <device_only>DeviceVendor::KINESIS, DeviceProduct::ADVANTAGE</device_only>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::CONTROL_L, KeyCode::FN</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::FN, KeyCode::CONTROL_L</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::COMMAND_L, KeyCode::OPTION_L</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::OPTION_L, KeyCode::COMMAND_L</autogen>
  </item>
</root>

You can see the vendor and product IDs from EventViewer.app. If it can't remap any keys on the external keyboard, try uninstalling other keyboard or HID drivers.

See the source for the key code values and predefined settings.


No Video Output on Second Screen During Startup? I have a 2018 Mac Mini with two screens attached; one is a 4k screen connected via HDMI, the other is an old 20" Cinema Display attached through a USB-C to DVI adapter.

Now, when started up this works great; the 4k screen looks amazing, and the old cinema display is a handy second monitor for throwing references, YouTube videos etc. onto to avoid cluttering my main workspace.

The problem is, during startup the Mac Mini only seems to want to output video to the cinema display; the 4k display receives no video at all. The only way to get output to the 4k display is to ensure the cinema display is physically disconnected during startup; even if I disconnect its power from the wall socket, as long as the USB-C to DVI adapter is connected to the Mac Mini, macOS still considers that monitor to be connected.

It also doesn't seem to matter how I setup the twin monitors; for example if I set the cinema display to mirror the 4k display (not that I want to do this) then I still only get output to the one screen during startup.

So my question is, is there some way I can set HDMI/my 4k display as the default for video output during startup? Some NVRAM setting or such?

The 'one screen at boot' is pretty standard behaviour, afaik. I see it on all the Mac Pros here.

Which screen that ought to be is dependant on which is set as Primary in System Prefs > Displays > Arrangement - it's the one with the menu bar, which can be dragged to another display to set Primary.

That it still displays the same behaviour with one screen switched off is because it still recognises it as being attached. When you detach it completely, then basically you get an "Oops, Primary is missing, let's find one we can use temporarily."


What to do when the Videos app freezes I started playing a video added from iTunes and about 10 minutes in the video stopped and the Videos app closed. Whenever I go back to the Videos app, it is a blank dark screen that won't respond to any input.

I tried doing a "force close" where I double hit the home button and then hold on a icon until I can press the minus. That didn't work. I restarted the iPad. Still nothing. I changed e settings so it doesn't start from where I left off. Still a dark screen.

It's an iPad 2 with whatever is the almost latest version. I'm on the road so I can't plug into my computer and get the latest version of iOS.

Since you don't have the ability to perform a full reset (well, you can, but you won't have any personal data on it anymore, including whatever videos you're watching), I have a couple of suggestions.

First is a strange bug that I know has affected some iPad users and so might be an issue for you; it's one of those "how can these two things possibly be related" bugs.

Launch the Settings app and choose General=>Reset=>Reset Network Settings. All this will really mean is you'll lose your saved WiFi networks. If that doesn't solve it then I'd try the next suggestion (below), and if it doesn't work then in this same area choose Reset All Settings; I suggest trying this one third just because it means all of your apps will lose their stored settings and revert to their defaults, which is a hassle to manually restore.

Second, is it possible that your iPad is full or near-full? I've heard of this problem when there's so little space left that the Videos app can't even clear out any caches and so is stuck.

If so then you might try deleting a few things that you can get to. For example, delete some files in the iPod app, or delete any particularly large apps that you can live without until you next synch. Large apps include complex games (pretty much anything that renders 3 dimensions like first-person shooter, racing games, etc.) and apps with a lot of documents like iBooks or Pages or what have you. You can also delete photos via the Photos app if you have a bunch of large ones that are stored elsewhere.

After clearing out some space, restart your iPad again.

If all three of those fail then you're pretty much stuck with resetting your iPad, but again, that wipes everything and returns the device to its factory settings, which is likely not ideal in your situations since a restore requires your computer.


How do I mount an Windows SMB server as a writeable volume on Lion? When trying to mount an Windows file service over SMB (Samba) in Lion I get the following error when trying to write:

  % touch testfile.txt
  touch: testfile.txt: Read-only file system

This happens both when connecting via Finder or mounting in the Terminal.

mount_smbfs -f 777 -d 777 //david.hall@fileserver1/wwwroot remote
Password for fileserver1:

I have no problem reading the files and my user do have permission to write to the directories in question.

I'm going to assume its windows server as you're mounting a wwwroot. Ensure your user david.hall has file permission access to the correct hierarchy not just share permissions. This is usually why stuff mounts as read-only from the win side.

OS X just mounts the share as normal unless you specify otherwise.


How to download files from MediaFire directly on iPad? I'm trying to download a .mp3 file from MediaFire on my Apple iPad, but whenever I click on "Download" button, a new tab opens and it plays the file.

I need to store this file in my iTunes instead of playing it, is that possible? Please note that I do not have access to a computer and I do not want to jailbreak my iPad.

It is not possible to download an mp3 file from a site like MediaFire and place it directly in the Music app on your iPad.

There are some app where you can download a file to listen it later, sorry i don't know the name of one of those apps.

The options you have are

to download it on a computer and sync your iPad
to jailbreak your device and use iFile to access the mp3 file


Time machine/capsule read-only error I just got a new logic board installed on my Macbook Air (running OS X 10.9.4). Before the repair, I used a time capsule for backup (which has plenty of storage left). When my newly repaired MBA came home from the shop and tried to complete a time machine backup to the capsule, a message popped up that asked if I wanted to restore my previous backups. I selected that option, but it did not complete the backup and now I get an error message that says, "time machine cannot complete the backup because the disk is read only". I performed some simple troubleshooting (i.e., turned time machine off and unplugged the capsule), but no luck.

I read on the Apple support page that I should try mounting the time capsule to my desktop and ejecting it from disk utility. If "mount" means connect, I cannot do that because it usually connects wirelessly and is not showing up in disk utility. (I don't know if it is relevant, but I use the time capsule for wireless internet, and it works just fine.)

Can anyone explain to me (in the simplest, non-jargony terms possible) how I might troubleshoot this problem? I appreciate your help!

Read only is a fail safe mode for the backups. It means there was a problem detected with the backup and you can only restore from it.

The system won't continue adding files since that would risk your losing even the ability to recover the files.

There is a procedure to re-attach a Mac to the existing backup once logic boards are replaced, but they assume that there isn't a failure of the backup at the same time.

You should have support from the people who replaced the logic board to help make sure you aren't just missing the steps to re-establish a backup, but if the backup were mine, I'd try backing up to a blank new USB drive and get a good backup now and then troubleshoot the Time Capsule to remedy the error causing the read-only status without risking your only backup. (Since the troubleshooting is to use Disk Utility to repair or erase the Time Capsule and then start over with an initial backup).


Does Apple allows restricting In-App Purchase DLC Non-Consumable Content to one device? I have been reading the review guideline: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/

I see section about for subscription its has to be available for all iOS devices of a single user:

Content subscriptions using IAP must last a minimum of 7 days and be available to the user from all of their iOS devices.

But does that apply to Non-Consumable Content as well?
I am worry Apple will reject our app because of this reason.

You are afraid Apple will reject your app because you use non-consumable content on only one device?

One of my project has in-app purchases only for 1 device. The app is already 6 years continuously reviewed and successfully deployed. Believe me, this is not an issue aslong you are not using a subscription.

The only problem you are facing is someone can buy the DLC also on a other device and it will auto unlock as it has already been purchased with the same Apple ID. There are ways to prevent this by securing your app via a database.


Services menu on right click in Apple Mail missing? In macOS Sierra, Mail app, I select a message and right click. The "Services" selection is missing.

I can select text within a message and right click, seeing the services menu, but I swear this worked before just fine and I've used it a ridiculous amount of times with specific apps.

This: Services submenu disappeared from contextual menu of right click did not help.

Might need to update your plugins for Sierra (if you use that Mac OS). I had the same issue with Omnifocus clip o iron and had to update it here: https://discourse.omnigroup.com/t/clip-o-tron-in-sierra/26977


Intel HD 3000 on MacOS Mojave I recently upgraded to MacOS Mojave using Dosdudes patcher and have been getting a few graphical anomalies in certain apps. I have included an example. It manifests as large black boxes over certain text or graphical windows/items and it doesn't seem to have much of a rhyme or rhythm  to when or where it appears. Restarting apps and switching from light to dark mode or vice-versa does temporarily fix the issues sometimes.

This is exactly why Apple made the cut-off for machines that don't support the Metal graphics framework.

You can expect all sorts of graphics glitches if you're trying to run an OS that expects hardware you don't have.


Windows Get Stuck in Top Left corner after upgrading to Mavericks I upgraded to Mavericks last week. I have a secondary monitor, and I use Spaces. Since the upgrade, I have a frequent problem where windows will get stuck partially exposed in the top left corner of the screen, under the finder bar. I can drag it to the right, but it automatically snaps back into the upper left.

The close, minimize, and zoom buttons are all off-screen. If the window is on my right monitor (which is the main display), the missing corner doesn't show up on my left monitor.

If I zoom (maximize) the window using a keyboard shortcut or the Window menu in the Finder bar, the window simply disappears off of my screen, seeming to slide upward, even though I have no spaces or displays "above" the one I'm working in.

If I go to Mission Control (Ctrl + Up), then the window appears there as partially out of the space.

This has happened to three separate applications so far (Chrome, Outlook, and Remote Desktop), so I'm pretty sure it's not application-specific.

If I quit the application (sometimes I have to force quit), the problem goes away, but it keeps happening. It seems to occur when I switch to the application after working in another.

There is a way to get the windows back to normal without quitting the app, but it's not ideal.

If you move the dock, the applications will move back into place, the easiest way is to click the  and go to dock, then change the position, then repeat to put it back to where you had it originally.

https://discussions.apple.com/message/23766770#23766770


Does Mail log errors into a console or text file? Does Mail log errors into a console or text file somewhere?

Start with:

/var/log/mail.log

most easily viewed with /Applications/Utilities/Console.app


Is it possible to get a virus on an iPad Air? I went on a website and some ads (the ones that open up another tab on your screen) popped up.

Then I did some research and it turns out the website I went to is fake and is known for hacking, however I did not enter any personal data so I just want to know if it's possible that either the website or the ads somehow got a virus into my iPad.

(note that I did not interact with the ads I just simply closed it after the page loaded!)

Short answer

The simple answer to your question is that anything is possible. However, is it likely? No.

Long answer

Technically speaking, a virus is just code that replicates itself by creating copies within other pieces of software. One of the best things about iOS is that it doesn't actually allow applications to directly access other software on the device. This makes it, well, almost impossible for a virus to replicate.

Note: - The only reason I don't say it's impossible is because I basically don't believe anything is impossible!

Now, in your case, you visited a website that is dodgy and the best thing to do in that situation is to immediately leave the website - and that's exactly what you did!

Also, viruses aren't the only things to be wary of. Malware, spyware, worms and trojan horses are all risks for computer users. However, because of the App Store, the risk of these things is extremely remote (from memory, the only reported cases involved the Chinese App Store, and Apple became aware of this very quickly and resolved it).

So, in a nutshell, I think the biggest risk you could have faced is malware. That's because dodgy websites are known to use pop ups to inform users that their device is infected with a virus, and then tricks them into installing malware on their device by pretending to help them make it more secure.

However, since you didn't click on anything or download anything the risk is almost nil.

You can rest easy.


Sync text files (.txt) between iPhone and Mac; and edit (in-place), and search them on iPhone I keep notes in text files (.txt) in a folder. I want to be able to edit and search these on my iPhone. I currently use VS Code to edit the text files on my Mac.

Currently, I sync them via Dropbox. The Dropbox iOS app allows me to edit text files on my iPhone, but I can't search the text files' contents, unless I upgrade to a paid plan (minimum C$16 / month).

I tried Google Drive, but it doesn't allow me to edit text files on iOS. But I can search them. So this is the opposite problem that I have with Dropbox.

Is there another solution that I can use, which allows me to edit text files on my iPhone, synced from my Mac, and search their contents? I'm willing to pay up to $10 for a one-time iOS app, or up to $5 per month, for this ability.

Evernote is the app you are looking for. It comes with native apps for macOS and iOS along with a nice and fully functional Web app. It supports attaching text files, in-place editing, and has an excellent search functionality.

The basic (free) version should suffice for your needs, and comes with free 60 MB of monthly uploads, 25 MB of maximum note size, and sync for 2 devices. The premium plan costs less than $5 a month and boasts of a whole lot of upgrades.

Disclaimer: I have no affiliation to Evernote, and use the app sparingly, but know that the said features work in a decent manner.


User permissions problem after restoring from Time Machine to a new user Mac OS X El Capitan My old MacBook Pro died so I did a restore from a Time Machine backup to an iMac. I did the restore to a new user so the info already in the iMac would not be lost.
Everything went smoothly and I have a clone from my MB Pro in the iMac.

But now when I try to save a PDF from Safari, the dialog box will not let me create a "new folder" (the button is "greyed out"?) and when I click return a dialog box appear with "Safari cannot export XXXX PDF because you don't have the permissions to do it".
I also later found out that it is asking for my password every time I want to move a file from one place to another, or if I want to change a file name.

How do I give full permissions to the new user?

In versions of OS X from Lion (10.7) and newer with a recovery partition, there is an additional Repair Permissions application utility. This tool is located inside Boot Repair Utilities. Here’s how to access it.

Restart OS X and hold down the Command and R keys.
You will boot into the Repair Utilities screen. On top, in the Menu Bar click the Utilities item then select Terminal.
In the Terminal window, type “resetpassword” (without the quotes) and hit Return.
The Password reset utility launches, but you’re not going to reset the password. Instead, click on the icon for your Mac’s hard drive at the top. From the drop-down below it, select the user account where you are having issues.
At the bottom of the window, you’ll see an area labeled ‘Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs’. Click the Reset button there.

Info gleaned and appropriated from this page.


User required in Profile Manager Exchange settings I'm working with Profile Manager in Lion Server 10.7.2

I want the user to be prompted during the installation, not set the value here. To have the user prompted both fields need to be left blank. The User field, however, requires a value.  Is there a workaround?

Also we are using Google Exchange as our exchange server.

You can use %short_name% and %long_name% to autofill some fields (such as email address, username, full name) in Profile Manager, and they will pull that information from your user directory.

If you're using Google Apps via Exchange ActiveSync, then that will only work if your on demand user accounts have the same short name as your Google Apps user accounts, or if you are syncing the two together.


Transfer contacts from local phone storage to iCloud account I just noticed that all my new contacts was saved to local phone storage instead of iCloud (I saw Settings – Mail, Contacts, Calendars – Contacts – Default account – “On iPhone”). How to transfer all my local storage contacts back to iCloud?

If you enable contacts in iCloud settings it should ask you to do so.
If it is enabled already, perhaps try to turn it off and on again?