How to move the web server folder for web sharing? How do I move the Library/WebServer/Documents folder, which contains files shown by http://localhost ? For instance, to the Desktop. Also, can the ~/Sites folder be moved too?

So the short answer with reply is, "Sure, but WHY?!?"

The WebServer for Mac OS X (I'm assuming 10.6 Snow Leopard Client for the details of the answer) is based entirely on Apache. There are tonnes of web resources for Apache.

The key to Apple's Web Services are in /etc/apache2

You can (with admin privs) modify the httpd.conf (again; loads of web refs on this file) specifically pointing DocumentRoot anywhere.

However; and this is the list of caveats of why this is a weird thing to do...

You have to be sure that the web process has the proper privs to read the directory in the location you may move it.
You run the risk of something getting access to other files around the moved location
This is non-standard configuration in the OS and is likely to break in a future verison
The location is non-user volatile; meaning that deleting a user won't accidentally delete the served root folder. (Apache will fail to launch) if it can't find a served root folder

On top of this; we talk about moving the ~Sites. When you generate a new user acct; the OS generates a virtual directory conf in the /etc/apache2/users directory. Apache is smart enough to expand the ~ into a user name. All the above Caveats hold.

The question is why do you want the root folder on your desktop? It would seem to be more convenient to do one or more of the following:

make an alias of /Library/WebServer/Documents on your desktop
Setup groups/acls on /Library/WebServer/Documents to assure the correct write access

Without knowing why you're motivated to do this; I can't really hazard any other suggestions.

If it's a question of moving your web services directory to a network share... Now your solution is more along the lines of OS X Server (10.6) or doing your own apache install.

Good luck.

You have to be sure that the web process has the proper privs to read the directory in the location you may move it.


(Catalina) Is there a progress status when updating iPhone? In the new Catalina MacOS iPhone interface (from the Finder).

Is there a way to see the progress (numerical or percentage) of the iPhone update download and update?

Currently, there's only a spinning indicator next to the iPhone entry in the Finder.

Try to run this command in the terminal to check for the file being downloaded.

ls -lah ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone\ Software\ Updates

My Results show the following while im trying to update my iphone to IOS 13.2.2

drwxr-xr-x@ 3 username  staff    96B Nov 15 20:55 .
drwxr-xr-x@ 4 username  staff   128B Apr 28  2019 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 username  staff   1.2G Nov 15 21:52 iPhone_5.5_P3_13.2.2_17B102_Restore.ipsw.download

The file being downloaded is the one containing the "13.2.2" in its name with a current size of 1.2 GBs, although this will not show you how much is left, but it will show that there is progress.

IOS(13.2.2) size is 4185242982 bytes(3.9 GBs)


I can pair my PlayStation DualShock 3 Controller, but why are the buttons mixed up? I was able to follow the steps here to connect my DualShock 3 controller to my MacBook running OS X 10.9.4, however now the direction pad, trigger, and shape buttons are all mismatched when I try using them in games or my web browser.

I've tried in Chrome, Firefox, and Portal 2. They all detect the controller but identify the wrong buttons when I press them.

How do I fix this?

Unfortunately there are few Mac games that come with PS3 controller support. Portal 2 isn't one of them—like most Steam games, it only natively supports the Xbox 360 controller.

You can map controller actions to keyboard and mouse events with software like ControllerMate. It has a learning curve, but it's very configurable. To make a Portal 2 configuration for your PS3 controller, the main problems are the analog sticks, which are sometimes difficult to work with in ControllerMate.

Here are two screenshots from my configuration that should help:

You can make a virtual mouse for the right stick with “Create Virtual Device”

There's some good documentation for all the building blocks here.


Do Mac disks need to be defragmented? I cannot find any defragmenting application on the Mac, so is defragmenting disks for Mac necessary?

If you are defragging Mac hard drive just to increase its performance, then you can resolve these issues very efficiently by the help of below mentioned free tips: -

1.Quit all the open apps to free up some memory. Many times, they become the primary cause of system slowdowns.

2.Reboot your Mac system. It will clear all the caches, free up memory and also allows the user to install any necessary core updates

3.Updates your Mac OS X to the latest version to perform better than the previous version and updating OS X will fix certain bugs

4.Try to make sure that you have at least of 10-15 % of your total hard drive is available at that time to adequate proper cache and other temp files

5.You also need to check for a failing drive using the help of Disk Utility. If the drive is failing and won’t repair, then you need to fix it using the help of proper methods like the one mentioned here.

Older version of OS X needs to be defragged, if necessary. You may consider one such application mentioned here. However, Mac OS Yosemite and its later version don’t need defragmentation.


Import .ACO color palette for Mac (for use with Keynote, Omnigraffle etc) I want to use my ACO color palettes from Photoshop to be available in Keynote, Omingraffle etc.

Is there any tool out there to export ACO files to whatever format that is needed to load that palette into Mac OSX system wide color palette?

Cannot find anything on the web that helps...

Thank you!

I've found at least two applications in the App Store that do this:

The simple Color Palette Importer (which worked perfectly for
me) lets you import Adobe's aco files more or less directly into the OSX color picker.
The more comprehensive (and more pricey) ColorSchemer Studio lets you import palettes from a number of different formats, including Adobe's ase and aco, and exports palettes to, among oter formats, Apple's clr.

These two are just the ones I found, but there are tons of different apps for managing colors/palettes in the App Store, so there may be other apps there that can do the job, too.


Can't open Preferences in Safari 11 I'm not sure what's going on, but suddenly I can't open Preferences in Safari. Nothing happens at all.

This might have to do with the fact that I installed Safari 12, then realized I couldn't downgrade, so I manually removed Safari 12 (after disabling SIP) via sudo rm -rf /Applications/Safari.app, then restored Safari 11 via Time Machine.

It works in every other way, except Preferences.

I would be willing to bet that Safari 11 can't read the Safari 12 preferences file(s). No doubt part of the upgrade process is to make changes to these files to reflect the differences between the two versions.

Of course Apple is not going to tell you about this because going back to an earlier version who would do that? (GASP!)

You are probably have to play the preferences dance, eg start removing preferences files associated with Safari until it starts working again on your Mac.

Open a Finder window, hold down Option and go to the "Go" Menu and select Library. In that folder find Preferences and then look for things that start with "Com.Apple.Safari" on my Mac it looks like this.

It could be a little different on your Mac any one (or all) of these files could be unreadable by your version of Safari. So quit the app, move one of these to the desktop and relaunch Safari, until it works.

More bad news: there is also a "Safari" folder in Library, any one or more of these files could also be a problem. SO you may have to repeat that routine again with the files in there.


find my iphone application My find my iphone was being used, not by myself. It could be my ex. Is there a way to see where that person used the find my iphone to figure out where i am? Maybe narrow it down to a certain State that someone had logged into, to use the find my iphone locator

Find my iPhone works with iCloud id, as explain here, So if you are using same iCloud ID and she knows the password then she can trace you, Its better to change your iCloud ID or at least change its password.

Or you can disable the location services to disable tracking by going in Setting > Privacy > Location Services


Can I change the color of the menubar in 10.9 Mavericks? Does anyone know how to change the color of the menubar in 10.9 Mavericks?  Ideally, I would love it if I could make it black with yellow text.

Any ideas?

You can change the colour of the menu bar to black with Obsidian Menu Bar, but this doesn't change the text colour:

  Obsidian Menu Bar

  A hack that makes your OS X menu bar black. And yes, it blends.
  Ready for 10.9.2!


How to upload many iPhone photo albums to iPhoto, Picasa or Google+? I'm back from trip to Egypt with 1600 pics on my iPhone. To maintain some coherence and not to lose track of everything I was seeing, I created daily or place specific folders on the iPhone.

I can go back and use the iPhone as guidance for manual album creation, but if I could just grab these albums would save a ton on time.

Is there any way to transfer these albums (not just the camera roll) to iPhoto, Picasa or Google+?

As a starting point you can export the photos into iPhoto and create events defined by date. You can then split the event as necessary to break out specific locations. Or use tags and smart albums to create subsets of photos for specific locations.


Does OSX 10.9.1 have fontconfig installed by default? I found at least the manual from my Macbook air.
I have installed XCode full package.

How can you see if you have fontconfig?
I cannot find any such command in terminal nor in Fontbook.

It's not provided by the system (nor the XCode installation). But you can get it with

MacPort (sudo port install fontconfig)
Homebrew (brew install fontconfig)


How do I save a text file using a variable using the "New Text File" action in Automator? I am new to Automator and writing with AppleScript. I wrote a program that collects URLs and stores them as a long, single string.

After the AppleScript portion of the workflow, I want to save the string as a text file, so I added the "New Text File" action from the library. However, I want the input of the "Save as:" field to be a variable.

Do any of you know if this is possible?

I just found the answer! You just need to drag the variable from the bottom of the screen into the desired text box.


iCloud Backup: "The last backup could not be completed" I don't exactly remember when this started but my iPad running iOS 5 started not doing backups to iCloud. When I press the "Back Up Now" button it starts working for a few seconds but then stops and shows the message from the title beneath the button.

I already tried reseting, restoring, deleting my iCloud account from the settings, using another iCloud account and now I'm pretty devastated.

Okay, I figured it out now.

After getting to replace my iPad due to a hardware defect I installed the iOS beta I have been using before and forgot to register the new device as a developer device as well.
Stupid mistake, took me weeks to identify the reason for this behaviour.


How to get p4merge to come up when I do git mergetool? I did setup p4merge using this in my .gitconfig:
[merge]
    tool = p4mergetool
    stat = true
[mergetool "p4mergetool"]
    cmd = /Applications/p4merge.app/Contents/Resources/launchp4merge "$BASE" "$LOCAL" "$REMOTE" "$MERGED"
    keepBackup = false
    keepTemporaries = false
    trustExitCode = false
    prompt = false
[diff]
    tool = p4mergetool
    renames = copies
    mnemonicprefix = true
[difftool "p4mergetool"]
    cmd = /Applications/p4merge.app/Contents/Resources/launchp4merge "$LOCAL" "$REMOTE"
    keepBackup = false
    keepTemporaries = false
    trustExitCode = false
    prompt = false

When I try to git mergetool in my project it can find the conflicted files and open p4merge tool but it open to choose the files, not with the conflicted file opened. How to solve this?
My versions:
Git 2.23.
Latest p4merge version P4Merge/MACOSX1015X86_64/2020.2/1999419.
macOS Mojave 10.14.6

I just solved it! The definitions of cmd should be
cmd = /Applications/p4merge.app/Contents/MacOS/p4merge "$BASE" "$LOCAL" "$REMOTE" "$MERGED"
...
cmd = /Applications/p4merge.app/Contents/MacOS/p4merge "$LOCAL" "$REMOTE"


Applescript : Click at position not working I'm trying to click on a Chrome extension ( Google Highlight  : https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/multi-highlight/pfgfgjlejbbpfmcfjhdmikihihddeeji) then click on the text box and past my variables.

here is my code

set NoteforGoogleCHrome to "My text should be there"

tell application "Google Chrome"
    activate
end tell
tell application "System Events"
    tell process "Google Chrome"

        delay 2
        click button 8 of toolbar 2 of window "myTab" of application process "Google Chrome" of application "System Events"
        delay 0.2
        keystroke tab
        delay 0.2
        keystroke NoteforGoogleCHrome
        delay 0.2
        keystroke space
    end tell
end tell

I tried this but this is most of the time failing.

When I'm trying to click on the text field (CLICK 2) I always have an error :

  click process "Google Chrome" at {4000, 114}      --> missing value

However if I do the same for CLICK 1 I have no error.

Can you give me some advice ?

The following works for me in macOS High Sierra 10.13.5 and Google Chrome 67.0.3396.99.

Example AppleScript code:

set NoteforGoogleCHrome to "click me"

tell application "Google Chrome" to activate
delay 0.5
tell application "System Events"
    click (every UI element of toolbar 2 of front window of application process "Chrome" whose help is "Multi-highlight")
    delay 1
    key code 48 -- # Tab Key
    delay 0.2
    keystroke NoteforGoogleCHrome & space
end tell

As you can see in the image below, it highlighted all occurrences of click and me.


How do you turn on "show pre-release updates" in yosemite? I accidentally turn off "Show Pre-Release Updates" settings in the system preferences. Change option does not appear in the relevant section.

What is your suggestion?

@Marksorry I can't comment your question directly, since I'd need 50 reputation to do so.For your question: Wen you quit your subscription for the seeds you basically uninstall a program on your Mac. You can re-download that program directly from Apple and install it. Since the Beta-Progamm is linked to your Apple-ID you have to log in with it. Once you downloaded that file (YosemiteBetaAccessUtility.dmg) you simply install it and you have access for the Pre-Release Updates again. Just open Appstore and install the updates.I found the file with the following steps:

Go to appleseed.apple.com
Click "first steps with OS X Yosemite Beta"
Scroll down the site till you find the button where you can download the Beta Access Utility.
Download and install
Restart if needed and it's finished


What is Shutdown Cause -108? My rMBP 15" just shut down by itself when idling, screen turned off.

When I rebooted it, I checked the Console to see why it shut down, and found this message: 10/27/12 1:21:36.000 AM kernel[0]: Previous Shutdown Cause: -108

What is Shutdown Cause -108?

According to this page, Shutdown Cause -108 seems to be due to a lack of memory.


OS X: CM Storm Devastator keyboard doesn't light up Using OS X Mavericks, the CM Storm Devastator keyboard backlight does not light up. The light is usually activated by scroll lock being enabled, but in OS X, there is no such thing as scroll lock.

I have created a fork of the apple LED test script specifically to turn on and off the LED Backlight on cmstorm keyboards. This should also work for anyone who needs to turn on scroll lock on their external keyboards (which is the backlight key for most keyboards).
To use it:

Download the binary and install it in your Applications folder
wget https://github.com/pykler/led-backlight-osx/blob/master/led-backlight-osx?raw=true -O led-backlight-osx
chmod +x led-backlight-osx
mv led-backlight-osx /Applications

Then you can either

run it on the terminal like so
   /Applications/led-backlight-osx # turns the backlight on
   /Applications/led-backlight-osx off # turns the backlight off

OR use an automator script as described in the following answer. Replace the automator script in step 11 with the following.
 ```/Applications/led-backlight-osx```

to create a script to turn it off create another automator script with the following
/Applications/led-backlight-osx off

The details for the automator script are in the edit below.

EDIT: to add this as a keyboard shortcut you must use Automator as in @AlexanderTaylor's answer, in summary:

Launch "Automator" from either Launchpad or Finder/Applications

Choose "Service" type (For Catalina, first choose "Quick Actions" on "New")

(On the left) "Library" -> "Utilities", drag "Run Shell Script" to the workflow pane.

At the top of the workflow pan, choose "no input" in "any application"

For "pass input" choose "as arguments"

For "shell" choose "/bin/sh"

Paste in this script:
 /Applications/led-backlight-osx

Click "File" -> "Save", save it as "CMStormLedOn"

Go to System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> Services -> CMStormLedOn and click on the shortcut ⌘+ScrLk. (it will show up as ⌘+F14)

Done. Now typing ⌘+ScrLk should turn those LEDs on.


OSX 10.9.5 cancel Finder operation causes dialog to never finish Whenever I cancel a Finder operation (e.g. Duplicate), the progress window that pops up never finishes.
The Blue/White progress is animated, the X is of course disabled, and it says "Stopping" under the progress bar.  But it never stops.

All I can do is force quit it, which causes Finder to close and my Mac to reboot.

Anyone able to help me resolve this?

Opening the "Force Quit" option from the 'Apple' icon in the task bar but then cancelling made it go away.

Cheers,
Nap

You might try

killall Finder && open /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app


How can I print e-mails landscape from Outlook 2010? Maybe I'm missing something but from the Print dialog in Office 2010 (OS X 10.7.3) I can't find where to set orientation?

It doesn't appear under Outlook, Layout, Color Matching, Paper Handling, Paper Feed, Cover Page or Printer Features.

This works in Entourage 2007 so I'm assuming that it work on Outlook 2010.

Try File > Page Setup then select Landscape. Or File > Print... > then select "Layout" > and change it Landscape.


How Do I fix The Audio in Windows 8? I have Windows 8 installed on my MAC but I don't have sound. The Internal speakers are not detected by Win8. In the charm, it show this; No speakers or headphones.

and in Driver manager The High definition audio controller is not working.

In Properties

And driver

Can anyone assist me with this issue?

Note:  I have no access to my MAC partition

Based on the model of your computer (iMac 27" Mid 2011) you should be using the drivers located at http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1720 on your copy of Windows 8/8.1.


Problems connecting to VPN on iOS 8 w/ OS X Server VPN Alright, so about a few hours ago I purchased OS X Server, being intrigued by it's VPN capabilities. I enabled VPN and set it up, however I'm unsure if I even did this correctly. I'm pretty sure I've set it up incorrectly or the information I'm putting in my connection on my iPhone 6 (Settings>General>VPN) is incorrect.

I'm unsure of what the "Account" and "Password" fields are. I put in the account name and password used to log into my computer (not the "Full Name", the one that appears in the home (terminal command: open $HOME -r ) directory) and it still isn't working.

I keep getting this error when trying to connect:
VPN Connection
The L2TP-VPN server did not respond. Try reconnecting. If the problem continues, verify your settings and contact your Administrator.

Well, I am the Administrator so I'm lost there. Basically I need some kind of tutorial that assumes I'm a full on retard. I've asked multiple friends of mine that were keen Apple users and searched around on Google for more than hour and I couldn't find anything that could help in my situation.

Setting up VPN isn't necessarily as straight forward as one would hope. The first issue is how to pass the connection from your router to the OS X Server. That is done via port forwarding in the router to your server's static (or reserved DHCP) IP address inside the network.

To make the connection work, you need to know your WAN IP address. If you're using dynamic IP addressing with your internet service provider, you need to have some means of updating DNS any time your IP address changes. DynDNS is such a service (there are others).

Once you've got DNS and port forwarding happening, then you'll be able to determine whether OS X Server and or or iDevices are configured correctly by carefully noting any successful connections vs. authentication failures.

Google/YouTube have a large number of videos regarding the configuration of VPN on OS X Server. They may prove useful to you.


How to use Boot Camp Assistant to create a dual OS X, Ubuntu system? I would like to use Boot Camp Assistant to partition my HD, reserving around 30 GB for Ubuntu. I would then have a dual OS X Yosemite and Ubuntu Linux system.

This used to be fairly easy. Boot Camp Assistant would partition the HD, then you could quit, and then using some boot manager software like rEFIt (now rEFInd), you could use that reserved space to install Ubuntu.

Now, I'm not so sure. Boot Camp Assistant gives me three options:

(1) Create a Windows 7 or later version install disk
(2) Download the latest Windows support software from Apple
(3) Install Windows 7 or later version

For (1), I need a Windows ISO image. I cannot do with without a Windows product key.

(2) just downloads Windows support software to a 16 GB USB port of mine, and then...Boot Camp Assistant quits.

(3) doesn't work, as apparently I need an installer disc.

How should Yosemite use Boot Camp Assistant to partition their HD? Why is Apple doing this to us?

Personally, I would avoid using BootCamp altogether.  I would look at VirtualBox as a free solution to run Ubuntu on your Mac.  If it does not provide everything you require, you might try a demo of VMWare Fusion for OS X.  It will support things like KVM Hypervisor in a VM, which VBox will not.

If you insist on a native Ubuntu running on bare metal, just use Disk Manager to resize your system partition, add a second partition and install Ubuntu on the second partition.  You will likely clobber your apple boot record, but you should be able to restore that by using the Recovery Boot Partition and repairing your OS X installation.

After you have Ubuntu installed on a partition, try to use the boot menu to select the partition from which you wish to boot.  You get the boot menu by pressing and holding the option key after the boot sound and before the grey screen.  It will present a list of system devices that are detected.  It will also include USB drives, if that is a path you wish to take instead.  Select the one from which you want to boot, and hit enter.

That should/might work.  I haven't used a dual-boot Mac in some time as I use VMWare instead.


Prevent Giant Tabs in Safari Using Sierra 10.13.6

I suddenly noticed today that my safari browser has giant tabs

I am pretty sure that earlier I had fixed sized tabs and not the ones which run across my entire screen.

Fixed-width tabs were used up until Safari 4. Starting with either Safari 5 or 6 (I'm not sure which because I can't find a screenshot of Safari 5's tab bar), the style switched to full-width. Safari 6 was released alongside macOS Mountain Lion in 2012.

So, unless you just upgraded from a version of macOS earlier than Mountain Lion, your tabs have always been full-width.

Unfortunately, I don't know of a way to change the style back to fixed-width if that's what you prefer.


Under what cases will I get iWork or iLife? After looking at various models of Macs and looking at Apple's iLife and iWork pages, I'm more confused than where I started.

Originally, I thought that nothing - just Lion - came with a new Mac. But then I saw something here that says that iLife is a part of every new Mac.

So I thought. But then I saw this that said that iLife is not a part of Lion. Huh? Then, to add to my confusion, I saw this, that said that iWork does not come with a new Mac. Hmm. So after doing some research, I've arrived at these conclusions:

Apple really needs a central place to see what comes with a new Mac and what doesn't.
iWork is seperate from iLife, but both can be bought from the Mac App Store.
iLife comes with Lion.
Nothing comes with iOS.
I'm really confused.

So: Under what cases would I get iWork or iLife?

[example answer] You get iWork if you buy XYZ and iLife if you buy ABC. Both come on the Mac Pro, and none are on the iPad by default; however you can get iOS versions through the App Store for $41.34 each. You can buy them for $700 each on the MAS. The MacBook Air comes with iLife but not iWork; so does the MacBook Pro.

Every new Mac (MBP, iMac, Mac Mini, MacBook Air, Mac Pro) purchased from Apple comes preinstalled with

the latest version of Mac OS X
the latest version of iLife
no iWork

Every new iDevice has:

the latest version of iOS
no iWork
no iLife

Every new copy of Lion has:

Lion
no iWork
no iLife


2008 iMac Running OS X 10.8.2 Won't Boot My 2008 iMac is having trouble booting—it never gets past the initial grey screen with the Apple logo and spinner.  After letting it try to boot (spinner working) for upwards of 10 minutes, I'll get the kernel panic "You need to restart" message, then a minute later it will go black, then restart.

In addition to this, the screen has "noise" pixels all over (not dead, but graphical noise).

I've tried doing a Safe Boot (holding Shift while booting), but it never made it all the way through the boot.

I've also tried booting into single user mode, but the pixel noise all over the screen limits my ability to read the output.

Out of desperation (since nothing else was working), I did a RAM swap, but that didn't help either.

Is there another way to approach this problem?

The graphical "noise" makes me think that either the graphics drivers have been corrupted (and by the sounds of it, likely more OS components), or there's a hardware defect.

Does the "noise" appear when the Apple logo is on screen, or just afterwards? If during the Apple logo, it's more likely a hardware problem, since that boot screen isn't based on the OS install. If afterwards, it may just be a problem with your install.
You can try booting off the Recovery Partition by holding down command-R when you boot.

If this goes well, then it's likely a problem with your boot partition being corrupted. The recovery partition includes Disk Utility, which will let you run a basic check of your boot partition, which may or may not be able to fix things.
If this fails, then you either have a hard drive issue, or some other hardware problem, in which case you're almost certainly going to need to consult an Apple Store or Service Provider.

You can also attempt to boot off an external drive as segiddins suggested in the comments.

Sorry I can't be definitive, but it's hard to say for sure without having the machine in front of me. Try some of these and let us know how it goes, and we can help narrow some things down for you.


Indenting code blocks using a Swedish keyboard? The shortcut for indenting a block of code is usually ⌘], which I cannot do on a Swedish keyboard.
Does anyone know any workarounds?

I'm not looking for a solution for any specific editor but a way of triggering this shortcut.

You can do that. Press alt, command and 9.


Is it possible to make an application’s window smaller than intended? I’ve always had issues with some application windows in macOS where I can’t make them smaller than a certain amount.
Audio Midi Setup is the perfect example of this.

If you look at the image posted, you’ll see that there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be shorter, there’s a lot of vertical space which is absolutely pointless.

Airdroid, same story, lots and lots of wasted space.

I find this infuriating as I really need some windows to be smaller in order to have my desktop tidy and the apps easily accessible without having them overlap.

Does anyone know of a way to “force” an application’s window on macOS to be smaller?

Thanks!

No.

You can't force an app window to get smaller than the minimum size it is programmed to be. There's no 3rd party app or macOS feature that can let you do otherwise.


Mac mini with Core 2 Duo will be good for Xcode? If I have a Mac mini mid 2010 with 4 gb ram and Intel core 2 duo, will it be enough to run Xcode with safari or chrome?

Simple answer: Mac mini mid 2010 with 4GB RAM and Intel C2D can open Xcode and Safari/Chrome side by side.

Ram replacement process can be found on iFixIt. if you decide more memory is needed for your workflow.


Can anyone guide me in installing a driver for Epson Stylus C59 in Mac Lion? I've got a new mac mini (the latest one mid-2011) and it has Lion in it. I have an old Epson Stylus C59 and would like to use it in this mac mini. However, the epson site has no installer for mac.

Has anyone come up with a workaround? Please share if you know. I know this printer is already old buy hey, it still works :)

UPDATE:
I found Gutenprint http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/MacOSX.php for Epson and the closest is Epson Stylus C50. Does anyone know if this works for Epson Stylus C59?

You may want to look at the following

OSX Supported Epson complete list

The closest I found that was support by OS X was Epson Stylus C60.

Epson Stylus C60 Ink Jet Printer Download page


How can I use an external hard drive as a secondary internal hard drive on OS X So I have a 2011 iMac that has a 500 GB. Hard drive inside. I could not buy a new computer but I bought a 2 TB. external hard drive that I connected using firewire, since it is almost as fast as firewire.

What I wanted to do is to have it act as an internal hard drive, automatically storing any new downloads to it. I thought I could do this because an iMac has two different SATA ports, but only one is occupied by the 500 GB. hard drive. Is there any way I can root the hard drive from the firewire port to make it act as if it was internal, an/or connected to the second SATA port?

The only way to do this is to move your users home folder over to the firewire drive.

see: http://chris.pirillo.com/how-to-move-the-home-folder-in-os-x-and-why/

Of course, this also means the firewire drive will now always have to remain connected, and you will lose some speed due to the fact you are interfacing with firewire and not sata.


Writing to a samba share from Yosemite - v. weird Yosemite 10.10.1 on a 2012 MBA

Samba 4.1.13 on a d-link NAS via the miracle of fun_plug

What works:

Saving a file to the share from an app's save dialog
Making new directories on the share from Finder
deleting files and directories on the share from Finder
Moving a file from one directory on the share to another in Finder

What doesn't work, and how:

Copying a file from my mac to the samba share in Finder: Finder Error -36 and a 0-byte file
Duplicating a file on the share in Finder: Finder Error -36 and a 0-byte file
cp $file /Volumes/$share/$file: "could not copy extended attributes to /Volumes/$share/$file: Operation not supported" BUT file is created properly on share.

my smb.conf:

[ global ]
netbios name = stuffbox
server string = DNS-325
workgroup = workgroup
security = user
unix charset = UTF8
encrypt passwords = yes
hide unreadable = yes
null passwords = yes
guest account = nobody
max log size = 10
local master = no
log level = 0
dns proxy = no
ldap ssl = no
use mmap = yes
use spnego = yes
socket options = IPTOS_LOWDELAY TCP_NODELAY SO_RCVBUF=131072 SO_SNDBUF=131072
max xmit = 131072
disable netbios = yes
strict allocate = yes
csc policy = manual
allocation roundup size = 1048576
create mask = 0777
directory mask  = 0777
force create mode = 0777
force directory mode = 0777
use sendfile = yes
deadtime = 10
smb passwd file = /ffp/lib/smbpasswd
disable spoolss = yes
nt acl support = yes
acl map full control = yes
strict allocate = no
load printers = no
admin users = sam
vfs objects = streams_xattr
unix extensions = no

[ Media ]
comment =
path = /mnt/HD/HD_a2/media
browseable = yes
public = yes
oplocks = no
map archive = no
read list = "nobody"
write list = "nobody","sam","@utmp","@sshd"
invalid users =
valid users = "nobody","sam","@utmp","@sshd"

I've played around with the veto files setting, to no avail. Totally at a loss here.

I'm not sure because i knever used the option, but maybe you can try "unix extensions = yes" ( Darwin is BSD )

I also suggest to use as less params as possible, it's easyer to find what went wrong that way. These are mine and it works.

   [sharename]
   comment = My Shared Volume
   browsable = yes
   read only = no
   writable = yes
   path = /home/dimitri
   guest ok = no
   create mask = 0750
   directory mask = 0755
   oplocks = no

keep it simple if you want to avoid a comples headache


How to prevent people from adding other people in an iMessage group? Is there some setting / block / third party app where I can prevent someone adding another person to group messages?

In short, no, it cannot be done.

No-one "owns" an iMessage group, it's entirely ad-hoc - so who would be the moderator of who can & cannot be in it?

What you can do is leave the room when you are invited or turn on do not disturb for a noisy room if you keep being added by “helpful” “friends”.


vim does not accept syntax in vimrc When I put the following in ~/.vimrc and save it,

  syntax on

vim get errors while opening. I think there are some vim configuration conflicts. Herewith the errors:

  Error detected while processing /Users/Home/.vimrc: line    1: E484:
  Can't open file /usr/share/vim/syntax/syntax.vim

I'd appreciate if you can help to get rid of this problem. I'm running osx snow loepard 6.8

A quick and dirty fix is to create the missing file with contents:

" Vim syntax support file
" Maintainer:   Bram Moolenaar <Bram@vim.org>
" Last Change:  2001 Sep 04

" This file is used for ":syntax on".
" It installs the autocommands and starts highlighting for all buffers.

if !has("syntax")
  finish
endif

" If Syntax highlighting appears to be on already, turn it off first, so that
" any leftovers are cleared.
if exists("syntax_on") || exists("syntax_manual")
  so <sfile>:p:h/nosyntax.vim
endif

" Load the Syntax autocommands and set the default methods for highlighting.
runtime syntax/synload.vim

" Load the FileType autocommands if not done yet.
if exists("did_load_filetypes")
  let s:did_ft = 1
else
  filetype on
  let s:did_ft = 0
endif

" Set up the connection between FileType and Syntax autocommands.
" This makes the syntax automatically set when the file type is detected.
augroup syntaxset
  au! FileType *    exe "set syntax=" . expand("<amatch>")
augroup END

" Execute the syntax autocommands for the each buffer.
" If the filetype wasn't detected yet, do that now.
" Always do the syntaxset autocommands, for buffers where the 'filetype'
" already was set manually (e.g., help buffers).
doautoall syntaxset FileType
if !s:did_ft
  doautoall filetypedetect BufRead
endif

which is valid (at the very least) for vim 7.0 through 7.3, as the file hasn't changed in years.

If you take a closer look, though, it is quite surprising that vim tries to open /usr/share/vim/syntax/syntax.vim: I checked the path of syntax.vim on different OS X versions and this is what I got:

OS X 10.8.3 "Mountain Lion"

/usr/share/vim/vim73/syntax/syntax.vim

Mac OS X 10.5.8 "Leopard"

/usr/share/vim/vim70/syntax/syntax.vim
/usr/share/vim/vim72/syntax/syntax.vim

I'd expect Mac OS X "Snow Leopard" to follow a similar pattern, so why is the path different? What has changed in vim, have you compiled a newer version or replaced it?

It could also be that /usr/share/vim/vim<version>/syntax/syntax.vim exists, in which case, as an alternative, you could create a link:

sudo mkdir -p /usr/share/vim/syntax/
sudo ln /usr/share/vim/vim<version>/syntax/syntax.vim /usr/share/vim/syntax/syntax.vim


Can I access an account that was created as a "Network Account"? I have a user account that I created on our network at work via Network Accounts. There are some files I want to retrieve from one of the users desktop. The user was created on the "Server" which is a Mac Mini.

The files are on this machine which is an iMac. I took this iMac home and it is no longer on the network. Is it possible for me to access the files on the desktop of this user?

I guess I could take this iMac back to work and hook back up to the network. I would like to avoid that if possible. I am running OSX 10.8.5.

You can use Back to My Mac and access it there. There is a support question on Apple's website that explains how to set it up on both Macs. I should tell you that the requirements are as follows:

Your Macs need to be running at least 10.7 or higher (you said your iMac is running 10.8.5, so your iMac should be good; don't know about your other computer though),
an iCloud account,
and both Macs need to be connected to a router that supports router that supports either Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) or NAT Port Mapping Protocol (NAT-PMP) with either of those features enabled (you can check your manual of the routers to know how, but most modern routers should have either one or both turned on).

I forgot to mention that you should also check off the "Screen Sharing" and "File Sharing" boxes from System Preferences > Sharing.

Be sure that when you have enabled Back to My Mac in the iCloud settings in System Preferences, it should not have a yellow warning sign. If it does, click on it and follow the instructions there.

When both Macs have been set up, go to the Mac that you want to use to access the other and go to Finder. You should see the name of the computer there. Click on it.

You should see a bar with two icons: "Share Screen…" and "Connect As…". Click on "Connect As…". You should now see a box with a username field and password field. Type in the account that you wish to access and click "Connect." You should be able to access the files from there.


How to not install MacPorts dependency if installed elsewhere? A common problem that I'm having with MacPorts is that I will go to install a port, and it will list a port as a dependency that I have installed outside of MacPorts.

For example:

I have Qt5 installed outside of MacPorts, and I absolute do not want MacPorts to install Qt4, but it is a dependency for the port I want. I want the port to use Qt5 libraries which I have installed in another location.

Also, I have Python 2.7.5 and Python 3 installed outside of MacPorts. However, when I go to install some ports that have Python as a dependancy, MacPorts tries to install port python27 — I do not want this port installed. I want to manage Python versions outside of  MacPorts.

What are my options?

In general, MacPorts uses only a small collection of “system” libraries and tools; it really has no facility for using separately built libraries, tools, environments, etc.

See the entries titled “Why is MacPorts using its own libraries?” and “Will MacPorts link to system libraries rather than its own?” in the MacPorts FAQ.

You might be able to adjust individual Portfiles to use your already-built stuff, but you will really be working “against the grain” of the MacPorts system; you will likely run into many difficulties when undertaking such an approach.

It might prove easier to just manually build the software that you are ultimately interested in; that way you have better control over which libraries it uses. If there are a lot of (non-Qt, non-Python) dependencies, and if you do not mind building them through MacPorts, then you could still use MacPorts to provide other dependencies:

 # make sure the list of other dependencies looks reasonable
port echo depof:someport and not python27 and not qt4-mac

# install the other dependencies
sudo port install depof:someport and not python27 and not qt4-mac

# configure; the way to specify the library locations will vary, but might be like this:
CFLAGS=-I/opt/local/include LDFLAGS=-L/opt/local/lib \
  ./configure --with-qt=/my/qt5/installation --with-python3=/my/python3/installation


Time Machine Backup to Airport Time Capsule When I backup using time machine to my Time Capsule, does this use network bandwidth? I'm uncertain as I could see it creating some sort of ad-hoc network between the computer and the disc to do the back up but I'm completely unsure. Just don't want to be backing up hundreds of gigabytes over a network connection

When backing up to a Time Capsule, it backs up over the network.

The first backup will be several hundreds of gigabytes; this takes a while. However, subsequent backups are smaller, since it only transfers files that have changed.

Also, if the Time Capsule is not available (eg MacBook taken offsite), then it creates local snapshots and waits for the Time Capsule to become available again. It won't attempt to transfer the data over your Internet connection.

More info:

HT202301: About Time Machine local snapshots
HT201250: Mac Basics: Time Machine backs up your Mac


How to prevent browser from redirecting AT ALL using terminal I have a very limited knowledge of this stuff so I hope this explanation makes sense....

My parents have somehow got on my MacBook, and made it so that they can change any setting and view/modify my or their own internet traffic. They can achieve all this from upstairs. And their modifications aren't always "live", ie: modifications in real time.

Sometimes the screen 'glitches' and I see something that is non standard, ie: some web error flashes up on screen when I try to load a certain page, before reverting to the usual 404 not found page.

Oh and my 2016 MacBook Pro thinks it's up to date and it's running OS is 10.3.3

I believe all my internet traffic is being run through a homemade proxy which is how they achieve evil tyrant overlord status.

If someone could help me restore the MacBook to out of the box factory settings, whose installer verifies itself that it is authentic apple software by communicating with apple servers, I'd be very grateful.

Thanks

My parents have somehow got on my MacBook, and made it so that they
  can change any setting and view/modify my or their own internet
  traffic.

At a very minimum, this is a function called (Apple) Parental Controls and they are working exactly as designed.  There are also tons of other 3rd party control/monitoring applications that do exactly this.

  I believe all my internet traffic is being run through a homemade
  proxy which is how they achieve evil tyrant overlord status.

If all your network traffic is being run through a proxy/firewall/content gateway, you won't be able to bypass it especially if it's an all-in-one device like a pfSense gateway.

  Oh and my 2016 MacBook Pro thinks it's up to date and it's running OS
  is 10.3.3

It indicates it's up-to-date, because it is up to date.  There's nothing "non-standard" about your install of macOS.

  If someone could help me restore the MacBook to out of the box factory
  settings...

There are many tutorials on this site and on the web in general on how to restore macOS to factory settings.  However, I'm refraining from answering in this context because this is (appears to be) your parents' computer and network and there is one fundamental rule that we as professionals abide by:

Their Network = Their Rules

Whether it's your parents or a network admin at your place of work, going around them won't do anything to win their trust.


Sandbox admin privileges I just downloaded the iAntivirus app from the Mac App Store. I wanted it to scan my whole hard drive for viruses, so it presented me with an Open dialog box pointing at the root of the hard drive (so that the computer can get access outside of its sandbox). I clicked ok, and the app started.

What I found odd was that I was never presented with a login box. The program was given access to files in the System folder, Library folder, etc. that only I could edit by typing in an admin username and password. Is this a security issue with sandboxing or is that the way it's supposed to work?

The App can have read/write access to a location if it gets your permission using an entitlement as part of the App Sandbox, in other words this is how its suppose to work. The App is code-signed and trusted, its asking your permission, in theory all should be good.

As noted in the Mac Technology overview:

  App Sandbox

  Introduced in OS X v10.7, App Sandbox provides a last line of defense against stolen, corrupted, or deleted user data if malicious code exploits your app. App Sandbox also minimizes the damage from coding errors. Its strategy is twofold:

  App Sandbox enables you to describe how your app interacts with the system. The system then grants your app only the access it needs to get its job done, and no more.

  App Sandbox allows the user to transparently grant your app additional access by using Open and Save dialogs, drag and drop, and other familiar user interactions.

Specifically a developer can implement the following entitlement as noted here in Enabling App Sandbox, this is exactly what you described in your question, so this is probably the entitlement that the A/V program developer had utilized to obtain just read and write access.

  com.apple.security.files.user-selected.read-write

  Read/write access to files the user has selected using an Open or Save dialog

Note that  this is not the same as true administrator user, since the program would not be granted the execute privilege.


Best way to move to a new Mac What is the best method for moving a user from an old Macbook Pro to a new Macbook Air?

Is it disk cloning?  Or the migration assistant from Apple?

I need to move all the data, applications, settings, etc.

From my point of view, best option is Migration Assistant.

You can select:

Which users you want to migrate.
If you want to migrate or no the installed apps.
Allow to migrate settings or not.
You can select other files.

You can use it with Wifi or Ethernet, FireWire or ThunderBolt.

Disk clone is an option for me, when the target machine have the same configuration as origin machine.


Can Time Machine back up to an external HD connected to another Mac? Is it possible to use Time Machine to back up to an external hard drive connected to a Mac on same wifi network?

Yes. I've been doing this since Snow Leopard. All my MacBook Pros in the house do their Time Machine backups to an external USB drive that's hanging off an iMac running the standard OS X install (i.e. not Server). At the time of writing the iMac has been upgraded to Lion as has one of the MacBook Pros.

First, configure your target machine (the one with the USB drive attached):

Format the drive as OS X Extended Journaled. Give it a useful name. I use 'Remote Backups'.
Go to System Preferences -> Sharing
Make sure File Sharing is turned on and has a check mark next to it
Under the 'Shared Folders' list click the + button and add your newly formatted USB drive to the list of shared folders
Select the drive in the list and under 'Users' make sure everyone shown has read/write access to the drive.

Now you need to configure your source machine (the one you want to keep it's Time Machine volume on this drive):

Open Finder on the machine. Find your target machine and click on it. Mount the drive on this machine.

If you're asked for a user name and password use the user name and password on your target machine that you used to login and setup the share. Make sure you save this user name and password to your keychain

Go to System Preferences -> Time Machine
Click Select Disk...
The list should include the mounted drive, select that. Pick your encryption options and hit the Use Backup Disk button

You're now all set up to use this remote drive as your Time Machine backup location. When Time Machine runs you'll see this drive appear as a mount on your system, and when it's done the mount will go away.

If you browse this drive from the target machine you'll see sparsebundle files, one for each machine that's doing a Time Machine backup to this drive, on the disk. These are the actual "disks" that Time Machine is using on each machine to keep the incrementals. If you click on one, it should mount and you should be able to browse it like normal.

If you have a complete disaster and need to do a fresh OS X install and recover from Time Machine you can point the recovery process at the remote drive and it will ask you to pick a sparsebundle from the drive to recover from. Or, and this is what I recommend, you can unattach the drive from your target and attach it via USB to your machine and do the restore over USB which is much faster.

I can confirm that complete restores from Time Machine backups kept in this manner work well. I've had to do two of them in the past few years on machines that keep their backups this way and both went smashingly well. Browsing Time Machine history in the Time Machine viewer can be a bit laggy, but it does work.


Why doesn't my new @me.com email address work? The Problem:

I've just updated to OSX 10.7.2, with iCloud support. Everything works fine. Except... when I try to enable 'mail and notes' under iCloud settings, it just gets stuck displaying 'starting'.

If I go to my mail app, I am greeted by the message

  Cannot send mail, failed to connect to the iCloud server.

When I try to use mail from iCloud.com, I am greeted by the message

  To use iCloud mail, create an @me.com email address by turning on mail in your iCloud settings, using iOS or OSX.

However, I am never prompted to create an @me.com email address when I turn on mail in iCloud settings.

-

What might have caused the problem:

A couple of months ago, I reserved my @me.com email address by creating it on my brothers laptop (because he's a developer). In fact, I can even log in to iCloud using this email address.

So basically, some part of Apple's database believes I have an @me.com address, but the mail portion of iCloud doesn't think this is the case and still wants me to create one.

-

I'm pretty stuck on this - any ideas or suggestions would be much appreciated.

-

Edit:

I had some ideas on a couple of things that might fix it, but don't know where to start on them.

Do iCloud settings have an associated .plist file? Sometimes
deleting/modifying .plist files can solve problems. I've had a look
for one but couldn't seem to find one easily - if there is one, where
might it be located?
If anyone else has this issue, what happens when you try using iCloud
mail from an iPhone/iPad etc?
Apple support is impossible to contact if you're out of the phone
support period (I'm still under warranty though). What ways might I
be able to contact Apple, in case it's an issue with their database?
Could I file a bug report somewhere, or send an email to some hard to
find email address?

You may just need to wait.

I transferred my MobileMe account to iCloud on iOS 5 launch day. I encountered the same issues that you seem to be having in that when I tried to use the mail app on iCloud.com it gave me same error message as you received. When I tried to turn mail and notes on in the iCloud system preferences, it just hanged on 'starting'. All other features were working correctly.

I just trumpet it up to high demand on Apple's servers and decided to wait. I just tried now and my email is working from both iCloud.com and mail.app.


Help identify this iPad drawing app I am trying to find a drawing app for iPad, and I came across this one being used to teach courses. Can anyone help identify the app?

Notability

This appears to be Notability by Ginger Labs:

  Combine handwriting, photos and typing in a single note to bring your projects to life. Use a wide range of note-taking and sketching tools to capture every detail. You can even add and annotate PDFs in Notability. It’s the perfect place to create and organize work, school, and life's information!


How can I download songs for offline play on my Mac but not my iPhone? Long story short I have more than enough space on my laptop to download my whole Apple Music library (which isn't very big at all) for offline play, but I have <1gb of space on my iPhone.
Is there a way to download songs for offline play on my Mac without having it also download them to my iPhone (both which obviously use the same Apple Music account)?

Apple doesn't make you download on both systems, you can store them in the cloud.

Select all the songs in iTunes on your mac, right click and select download.  Those will only download on your Mac.  If you want to download some or all on your iPhone then you will have to click the cloud icon for each song or an entire playlist to start the download there.


My Apple ID is locked but it also says it doesn't exist I’ve been trying to get my Apple ID unlocked, but every time I type it in at https://iforgot.apple.com, it says that there is no Apple ID associated with that email address.

How can I unlock my Apple ID?

Head on to Find Apple ID. Type in your name and email address to figure out if your actual Apple ID may be different from the email address you’ve been typing in.

If you’re unable to get your Apple ID back, Apple provides a few more steps you might try to recover your Apple ID if the one you’re trying isn’t the right one.

If everything else fails, you’ll need to contact Apple Support directly. Click through the links for Apple ID and pick the contact option that best suits you.


Foreign language entries appearing in Safari context menu I am getting some foreign language (Portuguese?) items appearing in my Safari 5.1.5 context menu, when I right-click on an element in a page (see below). My OSX 10.7.3 language is set to English. I have only 2 plugins enabled (AdBlock and UK Search), neither of which has caused problems before or coincided with this appearing.

Why is this happening, and how do I remove or translate these menu entries?

Try going to system preferences/language & text/language and using the Edit button to uncheck the box for Portuguese and restarting.

There are many reports of such mixed localization bugs in 10.7.


backing up to iCloud, and restoring from computer I have 60GB of photos on my iPhone, so I can't back it up to iCloud, I suppose even if I bought the max iCloud plan from Apple? If I turn on iCloud backup for this device and disable photos it can be backed up (at aprox 1.5GB).

With these iCloud settings, I assume manual backups to the computer will be unaffected, that is: they will still back up all data from the phone to the computer, including photos. Am I correct?

The plan is to use iCloud to restore my phone (contacts and apps) in case of emergency, but to have a main backup on my Mac to restore all photos etc. Am I on the right track here?

Thanks for reading.

So much confusion over iCloud, so little help from Apple.

iCloud was introduced as an sync service between all your Macs and iDevices. Yes, one can buy storage beyond the free 5GB ... but I'd look closely at the specifics of backing and and restore, and also give it a trial run. Too many posts on lost data and the like on Apple Discussions to think Apple's got the cloud down pat, not yet.

Backing up to your Mac, however, is solid, you've probably got more than enough free space (check that out.) In many cases, I just zip a copy of the relevant folder and drop it into ~/Users/Shared.

BUT, you really want a second location for irreplaceable things like photos. This could be on a portable USB drive, which could also serve as a clone--nothing like having a copy of your whole computer on a start-up disk. I recommend spending also a few bucks a month on off-site backups to A3, using Arq, by Haystack Software, for automatic timed backups of files that change. The restore function is easy and impeccable.


Is Soundflower 1.6.6 compatible with Mavericks 10.9? Is Soundflower 1.6.6 compatible with Mavericks 10.9?

I just fixed the latest code from cycling74's github (1.6.7) to build it and run it on Mavericks.

You can get it at https://github.com/crmne/Soundflower/releases


Mount a network (netatalk) AFP volume using a public key instead of an SSH login password? My Linux server does not allow SSH login with password because I have /etc/ssh/sshd_config with "PasswordAuthentication no".  I'm not going to be allowed to change that.  It's fine and convenient for SSH access as it forces me to set up authorized_keys, which are so convenient once you set them up. So they're set up and my Mac can SSH to my Linux server with no password, np.

However I just set up netatalk to have an AFP volume. The login for the AFP volume via netatalk is the SSH username:password. So theoretically you'd think it would support the same public key login that SSH supports as well. But Mac Finder always asks for a password. My mount_afp command doesn't seem to work.  "open afp ..." just opens Finder anyway. None of these in this MacWork Link seem to work without a password.

This differs from Automatically mount AFP for Time Machine (without saving a password in plaintext) in that that answer has the server using a password, but then the Mac side pulls that password directly from the keychain.

Any ideas?

I don't think this is possible (authentication with OpenSSL cert), based on the linux man page, and the Apple tech documentation listing out authentication methods.

If you linux sys admin wants to use passwordless auth, then you're limited to setting up kerberos.

Alternatively, you could do something like setup an ssh tunnel to connect to the server, and send your AFP traffic through it, and just have the server listen on localhost, limited to accepting local requests. It's still not secure, and still using password-based auth, but it's limiting that traffic to within the machine itself. Traffic out on the wire is SSH encrypted, and authed using your cert.

You can start an SSH tunnel as follows:

ssh -f -N -L 10548:[yourserver]:548 [user@yourserver] -i [path/to/your/ssh/key]

This will start an ssh tunnel in the background tunneling from 10548 on your local machine to port 548 on the server.

Then in macOS, in Finder, use the Connect to Server and connect to: afp://127.0.0.1:10548

Or - use something like FUSE and sshfs (not AFP, but it's trivial to setup).


Enabling Apache in Mac OS X Mountaion Lion This is my first Mac, it's Mountain Lion, and I know how to enable Apache through Preferences -> Sharing -> Web Sharing, but how the hell do I do it in Mountain Lion?

I find that that button no longer exists, so what's the Ternimal command to turn it on manually?

To start apache
sudo apachectl start

This will give you a basic Apache server with a DocumentRoot at  /Library/WebServer/Documents/

You can enable things like PHP and virtualhosts by making use of the configuration file, which must be edited as root:
/etc/apache2/httpd.conf

Restart the apache server (like after editing the config file) with
sudo apachectl graceful

Stop the apache server
sudo apachectl graceful-stop

I believe in order to use user directories (like allowing ~/Sites/ to be accessed at http://localhost/~username/) or to get httpd to run at startup, you will need to do a little tweaking. I unfortunately can't test how easy it is to get the full functionality of the previous versions back since my Apache configs did not come from a "clean" 10.8 install.


A WD hard drive can be detected by one Macbook but not another A WD My Passport hard drive (bought in 2016-7) can be detected by one Macbook (a 2018 15" MacBook Pro) but not another (not even in diskutil) (a 2013 11" Macbook Air). What is the explanation for this? Has it got to do with something along the lines of differences in design in the motherboard (eg. different voltage ranges for logic levels)

The common cause of a bus powered drive not operating is the computer isn’t getting enough power through the cable you are using to power the unit.

USB external hard drive is mounted on one MacBook Pro but not another
External hard drive not recognised by MacBook Pro.
USB Hard drive has very small chance of being recognized by Macbook Pro each time it is connected, but works with other machines

Swapping cables or using a powered hub or getting a new enclosure can help triage and isolate why this happens in many cases. Also, looking for a long running fsckprocess I’m case the “good” mac is actually triggering an “unclean mount” type check. That often delays a device from mounting, but you should see it in diskutil immediately which doesn’t match your case here.


I dropped my phone in the toilet how can I get my numbers off my IPhone, I dropped my iPhone in water and I need to get my phone numbers off my phone

I lost a phone in the pool once my "waterproof" Lifeproof case decided to open up underwater. Let it dry in rice for about 24 hours. DO MOT TRY TO TURN IT ON OR YOU WILL CORRUPT YOUR BOOT FILE!! Patience is key.

After it has dried out, plug it in to iTunes. Back it up. If you can't, take t to a repair shop (or Apple Store) and see if they can fix it.

I had my springboard booted up, but I opened the camera app and it crashed. Don't open anything that isn't necessary.


Whispersync-like experience for PDF or TXT files? When I start reading a PDF or TXT on my Mac and continue reading it on my iPhone, I have to waste time looking for exact place where I stopped reading on my Mac before continuing to read on my iPhone.

Is there a web-based app or a Mac/iOS app that would remember where I left off, the way Whispersync does in the Kindle app?

Here are a few options you could check out:

Instapaper

Acts a lot like Whispersync for any article you find on the web.
You can read via a nice iOS app or the web app.
You can also forward txt into your Instapaper account via email.
It's supported by a ton of additional iOS apps.
You can use actually link it right into your Kindle natively through Instapaper or using Ephemera.
It does NOT do PDF that I am aware of.

Simplenote

A slick app to sync text files across devices including your Mac and iOS devices.
It has lots of third party support.
It does not do PDF or any of the Whispersync-like reading progress syncing.

Good Reader + Dropbox

You can sync PDFs and other eBook formats easily between your Mac and iOS devices using Dropbox.
This solution will NOT do the Whispersync-like reading progress syncing.

As far as I have seen I think Instapaper is going to be your best option for getting a very similar experience to what you're looking for.


How do I add Unix executables to the Parental Controls 'Allowed Apps' whitelist? One example is some of Karabiner's executables, I get popups saying "You don't have permission to use the application "karabiner_grabber." as well as karabiner_console_user_server and a few others. They all appear to be located in /Library/Application Support/org.pqrs/Karabiner-Elements/bin.

If I select 'Always Allow' on the popup, it just comes up again within about 15 seconds.

The executables don't appear under the list in Preferences > Parental Controls > Apps > Limit Applications on this Mac > Allowed Apps

I can drag them in from Finder, but they disappear if I exit the preferences then go back in.

You could take the approach suggested here.
Open the terminal, then switch to your child's user account with:
su - [username here].
Go to the bin directory you mentioned above:
cd /Library/Application Support/org.pqrs/Karabiner-Elements/bin
Then, give all users permission to execute all the files in the bin directory:
chmod a+x *


Removing current Python version and using another Python version First of all I installed python 2.7 with manual. After I installed Python 2.6 with Macports with referenced this.

And after that I deleted my Python 2.7 files.

The main point is when I type python at terminal get this:

-bash: /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin/python: No such file or directory

But if I type the command python2.6 the Python works with all components (like PyQt).

So how can I activate python command?

I think you probably have two options, barring a reinstallation of 2.7, which might be the easiest thing to do.

You can include the following first line in every Python script:

#!/usr/local/bin/python2.6

Change the path to reflect the version and location of the Python you would like to use.

Alternately you could create a bash alias like:

alias python = '/path/to/pythonversion'

I would go with the first version myself.


Is there a known issue with MacBooks and bluetooth occasionally restarting? During the last 4 years I've had 3 different MacBooks (one personal, two from different jobs) that had the same issue: bluetooth randomly dropped all connections. I typically have a bluetooth keyboard, mouse and headphones connected but headphones are typically optional.
If it happened with one machine, I would blame myself for messing something up or maybe faulty hardware in that particular unit. However, this is my third macbook that's suffering from the exact same issue. Bluetooth either comes back after a few minutes or I restart the thing manually. It's a bit annoying during conference calls.
Is this by any means a known issue and something I could do anything about?

It's anecdotal, but I have never experienced such an issue on any of my Macs. I haven't heard others complain about it either.
As far as I understand, you're saying that Bluetooth stops working for a few minutes every once in a while - even with only a keyboard and a mouse connected - and it happens often enough that you're impacted even within a single conference calls.
I would try using wired devices and only having a single Bluetooth connected device. Try different combinations to see if you can single out a faulty device.
If that doesn't help, try going to other locations and see if the problems goes away. You might be dealing with interference from a noise source, which have affected all 3 Macs in the same way.


How does a Mac's Screen Sharing service work? What components does it have and how do they work? What protocols are supported? What I only know of is it is compatible with VNC (as a client and as a host).

I'm interested in knowing more technical details and play around with them.

If we are speaking only about Screen Sharing (SS) (forgetting ARD), it is working as follows:

First, there is a daemon configuration file (/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.screensharing.plist). It contains a record that tells launchd to start SS Server (and then SS Agent) every time when someone connects to port 5900. The server is located at /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/screensharingd.bundle, the agent is at /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ScreensharingAgent.bundle.

The SS Server is the main part of SS Service. It performs network interacting, implements used protocols, performs image encoding, authentication and so on. In turn, SS Agent impersonates current user and handles things like providing image of user screen, “pressing” keys, “moving” mouse.

(AFAIR, this separation began with Mac OS X 10.7. Formerly the service was monolithic, was named AppleVNCServer and has been always running while the “Screen Sharing” switch in System Preferences was on).

SS Service also can start the following helpers as needed:

SSPasteboardHelper (located in SS Agent bundle) — pastes pasteboard data to system pasteboard as it arrives from the client,
SSAssistanceCursor — appeared just recently, I’m wondering what it is for,
SSFileCopyReceiver / SSFileCopySender (in SS Server bundle) — is used for transmitting/receiving files.

As for protocols, SS Service uses the same RFB protocol as all VNC clients, but with some specific extensions.
The server reports that it supports protocol version 3.889 (most other servers report versions 3.3 to 3.8).
It also supports most common codecs — raw, ZLib, ZRLE — as well as Apple’s custom ones (black-and-white and grayscale ZLib, and “adaptive” codec that uses JPEG-like compression algorithm).
Also there are many Apple-specific protocol extensions, implementing drag-and-drop, files transmission, automatic pasteboard synchronization, transmission of gesture events, and so on.

This is a very general explanation, but if you ask a more specific question, I’ll be glad to help.


need suggestion, Common file system between MAC OS Mavericks and Windows 7 I have Mavericks on one HDD and Windows7 x64 on another HDD in same machine. Windows can't even see MAC partitions while MAC gains READ ONLY access to NTFS partition.

I want a robust and common file system for windows (data) partitions which can be accessed from MAC with full read and write support. My NTFS partitions are not huge as terabytes, in fact 50GB to 500GB max at the moment.

I have Googled and tried to analyze worthiness and reliability for the two solutions most commonly appearing
exFAT
NTFS drivers on MAC (paragon being recommended as faster)

I found cases with reliability issues and issues disk operations latency

I do have frequent power outages. I believe NTFS and HFS+ takes care and self heal upto some extent under such situations.

sigh! if MAC had native read/write support for NTFS this problem would have never existed for me.

please suggest a solution

Enable ntfs write support in Mavericks

You can enable write support for ntfs in Mavericks.

I have linked to instructions on how to do this, but the gist of it is to edit the /etc/fstab file and add a line for each ntfs drive you want to write to:

 LABEL=device-name  none    ntfs    rw,auto,nobrowse

changing "device-name" to the name of your ntfs drive.

This is a per device hack.

Third party software

Alternatively, there is a lot of third party software to give you full ntfs support, such as Paragon NTFS, or the open source NTFS-3G for FUSE which is utilized in the closed source Tuxera NTFS, or an old standard from Thursby Software, DAVE

MacPorts

NTFS-3G and OSXFUSE are available for a free, package managed source or binary installation using the missing package manager for OS X, MacPorts. It is based off of FreeBSD's ports system, which is based off the finest package management system known to exist, of course I mean, NetBSD's pkgsrc. It won't let you down!

Installing MacPorts, NTFS-3G and OSXFUSE is simple enough once xcode (for Mavericks 10.9 xcode_5.1.1.dmg) is installed. Install xcode, and then enter these commands in Terminal.app :

 curl -Ok https://distfiles.macports.org/MacPorts/MacPorts-2.2.1.tar.bz2
 tar xf MacPorts-2.2.1.tar.bz2
 cd MacPorts-2.2.1
 ./configure
 make
 sudo make install #not war!
 cd ..
 rm -rf Macports-*
 sudo /opt/local/bin/port -v selfupdate
 export PATH=$HOME/macports/bin:$HOME/macports/sbin:$PATH
 export MANPATH=$HOME/macports/share/man:$MANPATH
 sudo port -vsc install ntfs-3g     # osxfuse is a dependency, macports will install it for you when you instsall ntfs-3g
 diskutil quiet repairPermissions /

MacPorts is worth getting to know as it is a mature package manager for OS X that maintains thousands of open source software commands, utilities, and applications. It will not interfere with any other package system you happen to use, and it is very easy to completely remove, if necessary.

If for whatever reason you need to remove MacPorts...

to completely uninstall MacPorts

 sudo port -dfp uninstall --follow-dependencies installed

 sudo port -dfp uninstall all

 sudo rm -rf /opt/local

 sudo rm -rf /Library/Tcl/macports*

Really, its good stuff.


How can I remove an individual name from a Group on the Autofill feature of Mail? How can I remove an individual name from a Group on the Autofill feature of Mail?
I can remove the individual from the Group in Contacts, but when I use the same Group to create a new email, it keeps adding the removed address anyway!

You've edited the groups in the correct place — Address Book — but there's one more step you need to take. Mail.app reads the core data from Address Book when it starts up. After editing entries in Address Book you'll need to quit and restart Mail.app for any changes to be recognized by Mail.


Backup of a Debian machine to an Apple Time Capsule I have two Macs, backed up on a 3TB Apple Time Capsule. But I also have a Debian machine on the same local network, and I would like to back it up (at least one of its hard disks) on the same Apple Time Capsule. Is this possible?

To prevent misunderstandings: I found zillions of places on the Web where people explain how to use a Debian machine as a cheaper version of Apple Time Capsule. This is not what I need. What I need is to back up the Debian machine on a (real) Apple Time Capsule. Thanks in advance for any advice!

In AirPort Utility, turn off the backup feature, turn off disk encryption, and turn on disk sharing with a password. Now you can connect to the disk over the network using the AFP protocol.

In most graphical file explorers you can now connect to the disk using the address afp://<ip-address-of-airport>. To easily configure scheduled backups to the device, you can check out Déjà Dup (known as simply “Backup” in Ubuntu).

You cannot backuo your Macs using Time Machine and your Linux machine to the same device. The two setups are incompatible as Time Machine requires proprietary extension to AFP. I would recommend you get a cheap Raspberry Pi and a two-terabyte power-over-USB-external-disk to host your Linux backup needs. (Install openssh and ufw, and you’re basically done setting up a simplistic firewalled backup device on the cheap.)


How to find out MBA-2011 13" battery serial number on the battery? I'm aware of ability to find out the battery serial number via About This Mac.

Is it also written somewhere on a physical battery, to be read without turning Mac on? If so, where?

Of course I'm ready to open the bottom cover of the computer to physically see the battery (and most likely to detach the battery from the Air to see the number on it).

I have Macbook Air 2011 13".

To get access to the serial # on the battery you would have to take the MBA apart?

If you want to do that here are the instructions.

It is easier to use the About This Mac.


Virtual and native OS systems - Sierra, Mavericks and Windows/Bootcamp? I have a late 2011 MacBook Pro with 16GB RAM (system max) and a 1TB SSD.  The drive has two partitions – one running MacOS Sierra 10.12.5 and the second running Mavericks 10.9.5 (for purposes of keeping commercially licensed software that is now only available as monthly/annually-paid subscriptions). This is the most complex setup I've ever attained, just to give you an idea of my technical expertise.

I would like to install Parallels/Fusion/other so that I can access my legacy apps without a restart, and Windows (via Bootcamp or other option?), and achieve a setup in which ALL THREE of these scenarios are possible:

I can startup in Sierra and run Mavericks and/or Windows virtually as needed
I can startup in Mavericks and run my legacy apps natively
I can startup in a Bootcamp-based Windows mode (or other non-virtual method)

Before making any build changes that potentially “break” my current setup, I wanted to reach out for advice as to what is/isn't possible and the best method to achieve a system capable of accessing the three OS's.  As I've researched, part of what I'm struggling with is perhaps not fully understanding how virtualization works.  I'm not sure how much I can rely on it, hence keeping native bootable drives for each in my setup.

My questions are:

Can I use Parallels/Fusion/other to run my EXISTING Mavericks drive within Sierra or will I have to reinstall the OS and legacy applications through virtualization software?
Assuming a setup in which Mavericks can be run virtually in Sierra, will I be able to run Mavericks natively by rebooting to it as my Startup Disk if/when needed?
If I add a Bootcamp-built Windows partition, can it also be run virtually in Sierra (or do I have to choose one or the other)?

In my opinion a set-up covering all three scenarios is possible but it requires a lot of work and the whole thing is probably fragile and won't survive upgrades or special updates of either of the partitions.

Parallels Desktop as well as VMware Fusion allow to use the Boot Camp partition as virtual machine without losing the ability to boot to the physical volume. In the past this feature had some hick-ups though (e.g. loosing Windows activation).
Triple boot macOS 10.12/OS X 10.9/Windows should be covered by one of David Anderson's answers. One answer showing the basic approach can be found here: Installing Ubuntu on Mac with macOS and Windows already installed. Install a basic OS X system (Sierra), install Windows with the Boot Camp Assistant. Resize the Sierra partition without touching the Windows partitions, add a partition for Mavericks and install Mavericks (or backup & resize-clone your current Mavericks partition).
At least in VMware Fusion it's possible to boot another OS X partition as VM with a raw disk device - this is the method also used with the virtualized Boot Camp partition but not documented to work with OS X partitions:

Create a basic OS X 10.9 virtual machine without installing anything. Shutdown the VM and quit VMware Fusion. This will create a vmwarevm bundle. Open the package (right click > Show package bundle).

Open Terminal and enter diskutil list. Determine the partition numbers of the EFI, the Mavericks partition and the Mavericks recovery partition (probably disk0s1, disk0s4 and disk0s5). Unmount the Mavericks volume.
Change directory: cd "/Applications/VMware Fusion.app/Contents/Library/"
Create a raw disk with the disk number and the partition numbers found in the previous step (the EFI partition is required, the recovery partition probably not):

./vmware-rawdiskCreator create /dev/disk0 1,4,5 ~/Desktop/Virtual\ Disk sata

or without recovery partition

./vmware-rawdiskCreator create /dev/disk0 1,4 ~/Desktop/Virtual\ Disk sata

The command will create two files on your desktop: Virtual Disk-pt.vmdk and Virtual Disk.vmdk
Move the files into the 10.9 vmwarevm bundle (and replace the existing Virtual Disk.vmdk file):

Launch VMware Fusion and configure the OS X 10.9 VM (processors/RAM/network - bridged devices). Launch the VM.

This is tested with a full Mavericks system on an external thumb drive using an El Capitan host and it works. Mavericks and El Capitan both were and still are bootable as real systems.

If your SSD contains one or more CoreStorage Volume Groups it's more complicated. I would revert to the standard OS X partition scheme first.

Recommendation:

Virtualize everything except Sierra because a simple error/user mistake in the set-up outlined above may render all systems unbootable.


How can I delete local mail on mac and stop terminal saying "You have mail." I set up a wayward cron task and accidentally sent a lot of emails to the Mac's local mail server (when opening terminal, it says "You have mail."), they're all junk and I want to remove them. What is the best way to do so?
I have considered a couple of approaches, but I don't want to risk breaking something. Here are those 2 approaches:

simply deleting the file /var/mail/$USER
This approach:

Go to the Finder, hold down the Option key and click the Go menu. You'll see a Library folder in the list. Click that. (You can only see it when you hold down the Option key.)
Within, there's a Mail folder, then v2, then subfolders for accounts. Your old account folder may be there, although I've always experienced it being deleted when an account is removed.

I'm a little unsure about this because I don't see V2, but instead V8, and I have no idea what those files are:

So I am unsure of what to do. The goal is to safely remove any potential junk from my computer, and stop the "You have mail." message from appearing when I start the terminal.

Remove /var/mail/$USER. The other option would remove the actual mails you see in Mail.App, this is for sure not what you want.
If you keep getting mails in Terminal, run less /var/mail/$USER to see which processes are sending them.


How to disable iChat's popup "You are not connected to the internet"? I am tired of seeing the "You are not connected to the internet" message from iChat every time after I open my macbook. I use iChat for screen sharing. Is it possible to disable the annoying popup or should I just use another app for messaging and screen sharing?

You should probably use another app for screensharing and messaging.  If you choose to do this, I reccomend Adium for messaging and TeamViewer for screensharing.  I searched the contents of the whole iChat application, and I couldn't find anything, which leads me to believe that the pop up (I've had it too) is not actually part of the iChat application, but used by iChat.


Can I use Bluetooth and headphone jack simultaneously I have an iPhone 7plus. How can I simultaneously connect music to my headphone jack and my phone to a Bluetooth device? I am trying to play my music on my motorcycle through the stereo using the headphone jack while using my Sena Bluetooth headset to talk on the phone.

This can't be done on any of the current iPhones running any standard version of iOS.  Maybe if you edit your question and add what you're trying to accomplish by doing this, someone might be able to provide an alternative.


Normal Temparature of a Macbook Pro I received my Macbook Pro yesterday. I would like to know what is the normal temperature of a Macbook Pro. Here is mine

is this okay ?

This response assumes you got the MacBook Pro 13-Inch "Core i5" 2.4 Late 2013, which was released the day before you asked this question. That device used the 2-Core i5-4258U Intel cpu.
Given Table 28 of the v1 datasheet for 4th Gen Intel Core Processors, it seems the lowest maximum allowed temperature of the i5-4xxx line is 66.4C, well above your highest listed cpu temperature of 50C.
Here is a screen shot of the table for convenience:


Max memory for 21" 2007 iMac? Have a 2007 21" imac. friend installed 2, 4GB memory for me, Apple genius says that's what causing slow downs on my machine? when they tested it only had a 4GB & a 2GB cards, so someone along the way did a switch on me. Apple says my machine can only handle 4GB total. i wonder if that's true? seems like it ran quite well for a long time, & it used to corroborate that it had 8 GB memory, so something fishy has occurred. machine is running quirky & would like to have max memory. Would appreciate some knowledgeable input...

Crucial, UK state that 4GB is the maximum amount of RAM that your iMac officially supports.

If you put more in and it worked then this could be seen as a 'bug', and wouldn't be supported by Apple. Such abilities could also be revoked through software/firm was updates.


Cannot use iOS device as sound input According to this article https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/audio-midi-setup/ams59f301fda/mac
I should be able to use my iOS device connected via usb as a sound input.
But when I follow the instruction the input is shown and I have even enabled it, the bars are even moving but no sound is heard on the mac.

You need first something to capture the input, which can then be routed to an output.
Launch Quicktime Player, elect New Audio Recording & next to the red dot, select your input.
Turn up the volume slider underneath.
This should then route to your outputs, allowing playback. You don't even need to start the recording.
There will be latency, maybe as much as half a second.


Do Macs Have Custom Models of Intel Processors? Do Apple Computers use the same-exact Intel processors available to PC builders or are they custom models made just for Apple? For example, if a Mac is marketed as having an Intel i7 3.3 GHz x-generation processor and there is a matching processor listed on Ark for that chipset "generation," is it safe to assume that same-exact processor is in the Mac? Or does Apple get custom models within the chipset families just for their computers?

Also, is there a website where I can see the processor model numbers available in Macs so I don't have to spend time trying to match Apple's marketing to Intel's specs?

They are identical. Don't know if we are allowed to talk about it, but all I can say is to search osx86project or tonymacx86, you will see the hardware.

List of iMac and Macbook hardware and history.

If you search the Intel chips the Macs are using (eg. i7-4770HQ), you will see Windows laptops are using them as well.

Mactracker is an OSX App and an iOS App that has all the details from the first Mac to the last Mac.


Simple auto-typer with AppleScript I want to make a small application that will type the number 1, wait an interval, type the number 2, wait an interval, type number 3, wait an interval, etc.

This works for typing one number over and over:

on idle
    tell application "System Events"
        key code 18
    end tell
    return 2
end idle

But I'm struggling to get more than number to work:

on idle
    tell application "System Events"
        key code 18
    end tell
    return 2
    tell application "System Events"
        key code 19
    end tell
    return 2
end idle

This doesn't work. Nor does this:

on idle
    tell application "System Events"
        key code 18
        return 2
        key code 19
        return 2
    end tell
end idle

I don't know what else to try. Thank you!

Try using delay 2 instead of return 2 — return exits from the loop!


Viber sync from Mac to iPhone I have been trying to find a way to import my Viber chat from a previous (Android) phone to my latest device (an iPhone), but with no luck at all. I have successfully imported the chat history from the Android on my Mac but I did not find any way to get it on the iPhone.
I have read that Viber messages on IOS are stored on iCloud unlike Android and I thought that maybe thats what will Mac do too and so they will sync to the iPhone but this is not the case. I also found Backuptrans software but I do not want to pay just to get my chat on another device.
I have also seen this statement at help.viber.com

Your Viber account and chat history are connected to the platform that your phone uses, i.e. Android or iOS. There is no way to transfer content between the two platforms

But since 3rd party apps offer this functionality there is a way to achieve it.
I am looking for a way to import my chat history from either Mac or Android device to an iPhone.
Raw ideas or unfinished projects on how it could be done are welcome too and I am willing to contribute.

From https://help.viber.com/en/article/transfer-your-viber-history-from-one-device-to-another

Your Viber account and chat history are connected to the platform that your phone uses, i.e. Android or iOS. There is no way to transfer content between the two platforms


How to delete orphan images from Notes.app on Mac I have an image that shows in the “Browse attachments” view in the Notes app on Mac, but when I right-click on it and choose Show in Note, it doesn’t return any note, as it was deleted previously.

Is there a way to remove this orphan image? And if yes, how?

I solved this by going to Show in Note from iPhone — it showed an empty note and when I got back to the attachments view, the orphan one was gone. And it synced to the Mac as well.


Remove existing Facebook account from OS X I had synchronized my personal Facebook account on OS X Mountain Lion in System Preferences  > Mail, Contacts & Calendars through the Facebook tab. I removed it and synchronized my official account on it, but I'm still getting notifications for the personal account.

How do I remove the personal account details permanently and stop the notifications?

Update

I have upgraded my Mac to OS X Mavericks 10.9, but the problem exists on the upgraded OS X version too.

Edit

I have found another thing with my mac. This issue happens only for my official account. If i have synchronized any other accounts. It doesn't happen. Working fine. What may be the problem with this?

My suggestion would be to log out of the current Facebook account. Then go into your user's Library folder (holding down the alt / opt key while in the "Go" menu in Finder and you will see a new entry "Library"). In your Library folder enter the subfolder "Preferences" and delete these two files:

com.apple.accountsd.plist & com.apple.internetaccounts.plist (or just shove them over to the Desktop for testing)

Log out and back into the correct account and see if there are any notifications in Notification Center still listed. If yes, then download Onyx from http://www.titanium.free.fr/downloadonyx.php and let it do an automation where it clears all caches. When Onyx is done it will ask you to restart.

From here you should be good and there should be no trace of the original/old Facebook account. If however you notice anything still being left over, comment back with more information.


Trigger iOS Siri shortcut from a Mac I tried to ask Siri to run my shortcut from my MacBook pro but it did not work... Does anyone know if it is possible to run a IOS shortcut from a Mac?

No.

Apple's webpage on How to use Siri on your Mac has no indication that using Siri on your Mac can control your iPhone.


Adding non-Apple Store eBook to iPhone I have a number of eBooks (ePub) either from free sources such as Gutenberg, or purchased elsewhere.

I can open them easily enough on my iMac with eBooks, and I gather that they are in my library (when I try to add one manually, it tells me that it’s already there).

On my iPhone, however, I can’t see them at all.

How do I complete the processes?

I will readily consider a third party app.

I have the latest version of all software. In particular, iTunes 12.7, which is of no help to me at all.

The only way to get those books on your iPhone is to open them on the phone. My recommendation is to upload all of those books to a cloud drive, then download them from the drive and then open them via iBooks.


Why does traceroute from the command line work, but traceroute via Network Utility not work? I am diagnosing some mysterious network latency that comes and goes with my wife's MacBook Pro.

As part of this diagnostic work, I fired up Network Utility and used its interface to traceroute to trace the route to www.google.com.  Somewhat oddly, all of the results were of the * * * variety.

Suspicious, I opened up traceroute directly from Terminal and issued traceroute www.google.com.  There was a * * * from the second hop (right after my 10.0.0.1 entry) but then everything flowed normally.

I then eliminated DNS issues by using traceroute against the IP address directly.

This behavior happens on all Macs in our house, so it's not computer-specific.

Here is the output from the command line (which worked):

traceroute to 173.194.33.116 (173.194.33.116), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  10.0.0.1 (10.0.0.1)  115.994 ms  1.265 ms  1.816 ms
 2  * * *
 3  te-5-2-ur02.bremerton.wa.seattle.comcast.net (68.87.205.57)  14.209 ms  12.736 ms  11.514 ms
 4  ae-22-0-ar03.seattle.wa.seattle.comcast.net (69.139.164.153)  18.753 ms  14.804 ms  15.076 ms
 5  he-1-4-0-0-10-cr01.seattle.wa.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.94.237)  19.233 ms
    he-1-7-0-0-10-cr01.seattle.wa.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.91.165)  18.523 ms
    he-1-12-0-0-10-cr01.seattle.wa.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.93.173)  16.625 ms
 6  he-0-11-0-1-pe04.seattle.wa.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.85.38)  15.435 ms  21.009 ms  14.535 ms
 7  23.30.207.2 (23.30.207.2)  16.739 ms  14.500 ms  15.909 ms
 8  209.85.249.34 (209.85.249.34)  16.002 ms  17.200 ms  16.781 ms
 9  209.85.244.63 (209.85.244.63)  15.472 ms  17.927 ms  15.836 ms
10  sea09s16-in-f20.1e100.net (173.194.33.116)  15.860 ms  27.057 ms  16.399 ms

And here is the output from Network Utility:

Leaving aside the &)$(*^#& problem that I'm actually trying to solve, what would account for why the two traceroute invocations would produce different output?  If it matters, traceroute-via-Network-Utility never works; the command line always does.

Network Utility is using ICMP rather than the default UDP protocol used by traceroute. You can use the -I flag to get the same behaviour on the command line:

traceroute -I 173.194.33.116

I don't know of any way to force Network Utility to use UDP.

One explanation for this could be that your firewall/router is configured to block ICMP packets.


How to disable "Share Wi-Fi password" prompt Every few minutes I keep getting the following prompt (on all 3 of my devices - my iMac, Macbook and iPhone):

MacOS:

iOS:

Even if I click "Decline" or "Share" it still shows up every few minutes on all my devices. How do I stop this from happening?

I asked the question in Apple Support but no one knows the answer there either: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251248798?

This happens in one specific circumstance:

Another device is within bluetooth distance of your Mac and both have Bluetooth on.
The other device is scanning for Wi-Fi
You and the other person are signed in to iCloud and they are in your contacts.

You can remove their contact, sign out of iCloud, turn off wireless / Bluetooth or share the password. They could sign out of iCloud, turn off Wireless / Bluetooth.

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/share-a-wi-fi-password-on-mac-mchlp1179/mac

The share should send the password, but their device isn’t connecting, so escalate your steps or possibly vacate the area?

For iOS removing your contact from their contacts might do the trick as well.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209368

Worst case, your iCloud are not syncing identity records or her device needs other fixes. Tweaking these settings resolves the situation on machines without other problems.

Why we're not customer support for [company X or product Y]

If none of these help, working with Apple employees would be needed to look at why you can’t share between your two iCloud accounts. That prompt happens since your recipient keeps asking for the password and can’t share it. Focus on fixing the other machine and account is my advice if I understand your setup.


Tethering: Tell iPad to treat Wifi connection as mobile data? I am regularily tethering from my phone to my iPad. Basically this works fine -- except that, being on wifi, the iPad or various apps treat the data connection as if it was a flatrate. The same would probably apply when being in places, that apply a narrow data usage limit to their connections.

Is there some way to tell and iPad (mini) to consider certain Wifi networks as mobile data connection?

Update: I strongly prefer non-jailbreak solutions. if you know a jailbreak-only solution, please still state it for completeness, but I probably will not use it.

I know from personal experience as an iOS developer and having researched this topic before that it is not possible.

If the developer was savvy enough they can write code that differentiates a tethered connection from real Wifi.

That, however, would be app specific and furthermore unfortunately there is no blanket setting.


13" Retina MacBook Pro completely freezes Every once in a while, my 13" retina MacBook Pro completely freezes while I'm in the middle of working on something. And I do mean completely: it won't respond to any keyboard input, I can't even move the cursor, and even animations (like a scrollbar fading in/out) will freeze in place.

Usually if I just let it sit for 10 seconds or so, it'll "catch up" with itself and then work like normal. But other times it just hangs there indefinitely, and I have to force reboot it by holding the Power key to turn it off (which I did just now).

Here's my last log message before it froze and I rebooted:

9/17/14 12:59:06.812 PM com.apple.backupd[67739]: 1.48 GB required (including padding), 2.6 TB available
9/17/14 1:05:21.000 PM bootlog[0]: BOOT_TIME 1410973521 0

(Note the 6-minute gap there: it doesn't even record any log messages while it's frozen.)

Of interest, Time Machine says my last successful backup was at 11:23 AM, which means it froze while it was in the middle of the next backup (which would have started at 12:23, and did according to the logs).

Could that mean Time Machine has something to do with it? I haven't noticed any rhyme or reason as to when or how often the freezes occur.

Update: this just happened again, but this time it caught up after maybe 20 seconds or so. It definitely seems to have something to do with Time Machine: the freeze occurred at 5:43 PM, and after it unfroze, I checked and the last backup was performed at 4:43 PM. So it froze exactly when the backup was supposed to start.

I'm backing up to a NAS, so I wonder if it's having trouble connecting and that's causing the whole UI to lock up. It did start a few minutes later and now seems to be working fine.

Update 2: I've had this happen a few more times, and now it doesn't seem like it's related to Time Machine at all since the timing doesn't line up.

In the console, it says kernel[0]: Previous shutdown cause: -112 from when it froze yesterday, and kernel[0]: Previous shutdown cause: -128 from when it froze today. I can't find anything definitive about what either of those error codes mean.

I've experienced both the -112 and less often the -128 and submitted the error logs to engineering. I was told to contact AppleCare for hardware diagnosis and support.

It's estimated that the logic board would be replaced for $300 so I'm letting it ride a bit to make sure it's really not software before repairing that one machine.


Always sync 2 macbooks I have a MacBook Pro 13' and recently I received a MAcBook Air 11'. The Air is not big enough for me to use day to day but it can be helpful when I'm out of home.

What I'm wondering is 2 things:

What uses can 2 macbooks have?
How do you keep them sync so when I use the Air, everything from the Pro is there?

Thanks

The Air will make a great machine to throw in a bag and just get out of the house for a bit.

Depending on how much you need to keep in sync the way I prefer is to use Dropbox with symlinks to the relevant areas, lets me keep stuff like my Coda sites in check across my machines.