Buying an iPhone 6s from a small unauthorised seller. When does the warranty with apple start? Buying an iPhone 6s from a small unauthorised seller. When does the warranty with apple start? Does it start from the date he purchased/received the phone from phone company as a replacement/purchase or does it start when I open the product (it is sealed and never opened) and register it?

Thanks!

Since it was new in box and sealed, then the warranty starts as soon as you activate it.

The phone's serial number is tied to your Apple ID (which you'll need to activate it), and they'll know that it's a serial number that has never been used before.

The only issue you might run into is the country of origin.  Apple makes different models for different regions.  So if you live in the U.S., for example, and you bought it online, you might have difficulty with a warranty claim if it's a European model.  But other than that, you're good.


How to use Finder to find all files that do not match a certain criteria? How can I use Finder's search feature to find all files that do not match a certain criteria?

For instance, all files that don't end in ".txt" in the current folder.

Just typing the operand NOT before the criteria will do the trick.

So, in this case, typing NOT .txt will show all the files but the ones with the .txt extension.


Is it possible to enroll Apple Developer program without ID verification? I tried to enroll Apple Developer Program with a different name, and I got an email that I should upload an ID to verify my identity. Is it possible to enroll without ID verification?

In general, it seems to be a good idea that Apple is asking for your ID when you're trying to enroll with a different name than your own (I guess this is what you meant by a different name - unless you have two names somehow).

I have never heard of Apple asking for an ID, and then just somehow agreeing to go without ID for no apparent reason. But you could ask Apple to be allowed to enroll without showing an ID - they are afterall the only ones that can determine if you can enroll without it.

If you have problems with the ID, you might consider creating a limited liability company and applying for the developer program with that. However, it is usually not possible to create such a company without identifying yourself.


Secure access to data while retaining convenience and performance I am looking for a convenient solution to the following problem:

I have some large data (tens of GB) that resides on the hard drive of a Mac.  Access to the data needs to be restricted so even users with administrative privileges can't access it without a password.  At the same time, those people who do have access should have convenient and fast access: ideally, after unlocking them, the restricted files should be visible and accessible in the same way as any other file on the system.  It must be possible to run programs that process the data and accessing the files should not be much slower than usual file access.  Only read access is needed, not write access.

What sorts of convenient solutions are possible on a Mac (OS X 10.9)?

Is it for example possible (or advisable) to put everything in an encrypted DMG disk image?  It could be mounted after entering a password and used as a normal volume afterwards, but I'm not sure if other users who are logged in at the same time will be able to access it.  I am not deeply familiar with Mac specific technologies.  I understand that usually there is a tradeoff between security and convenience.

An encrypted disk image is useful to prevent anyone getting access to it unless you authorize it (by entering the password). Once you've authorized access to it, it's just another volume (disk) that's visible to the Mac and its users, just like any other file on your boot volume.

If you talk about other users, I assume you mean giving them access through network file sharing?

Now, you might have noticed that if someone connects to your Mac using file sharing, he has to enter your Mac's user name and password, right? Unless you allow Guest access, in which case anyone can connect as Guest. But Guests can only access certain shared (public) folders.

Now, you might also have noticed that you can create new users on your Mac, using the System Preferences, Users & Groups. If you create a new local user, he gets his own private folder area under /Users/. And now, if someone logs into your Mac, he can use either that new user name or yours. Eitehr will only give him access to that specific user's folders.

With that knowledge, you can now create a special user that only certain people may have access to. Tell them that user's name and password. Copy the to-be-protected files into that user's Documents folder. You can then also use Finder's "Get Info" on those files/folders to choose who has access to them, i.e. that the owner (that specific new user) can read, but not write. That way, no one can mess with the files, they're read-only. Make sure you apply these ownerships to all enclosed folders, using the gear icon in the Get Info window. Then test this and make sure that a remotely logged-in user can indeed only read but not modify those files.

Hope that helps.


how to create a dot file for default mac settings Background

I have a habit of creating new user profiles on my mac that serves different needs (ie recruiting, software development etc). I'm always thinking of ways to make creating a new user less expensive, one is saving all sorts of setting files and saving them in dropbox (ie alfred settings, slate settings, bash_profile, vimrc etc etc).

I also have many settings that I have to issue mac commands for (like this one):

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Documents/Screenshots
killall SystemUIServer

How can I save these in a "dot file", and simply have the system read them on load (ie like ~/.bash_profile)?

create a bash script for all the config commands, e.g.

#!/bin/bash

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Documents/Screenshots
killall SystemUIServer

store it in /usr/local/bin under whatever name you like
run it once for each new account


Was F5 function key assigned to widgets view in old OS X? I've a customer claiming that the default function for F5 key on his mac is to launch the widgets screen.

Is this true? Can be an old apple keyboard or an old OS X such as Snow Leopard with this default setting?

Was always F4, as far as I can recall.

My 08 keyboard has it printed on the key itself - same layout as this picture

Prior to the introduction of the aluminium keyboard in 2007, there were no icons printed on the keys, so it would be hard to say for certain - but as Snow Leopard was 2009, it would be unlikely it would be anywhere other than where the printed key indicates on anything later than Leopard, 10.5, which would have been roughly coincidental to the introduction of that keyboard design.

The Evolution Of Apple Design Between 1977-2008 would appear to support that.


I created free space and I don't know to recover it So I followed this answer here
Merge partitions with Macintosh HD

And I ended formatting my old bootcamp partition into free space.
But now I am unable to see the free space anywhere. When I go to disk utility it just says that I am using 200 GB of storage even though I have 256 GB with 50 GB just gone, somewhere.

Diskutil cs list
Shows nothing

Basically you need to enter the following commands in a Terminal application window. The first command removes the OSXRESERVED partition. This partition is for the Windows installation files. The second command expands the disk1 container to consumer the missing free space.

sudo  diskutil  erasevolume  free  none  disk0s3
sudo  diskutil  apfs  resizecontainer  disk0s2  0


Login problems with Automount and SMB shares I am using automount to mount a set of network shares on my macbook. My problem is that when these shares are not available, e.g. when I am out of the office using a different network, I cannot login to my mac. The login screen progress bar stays stuck forever (I've let it go well over 12 hours to test).

Currently, my /etc/auto_master looks like

#
# Automounter master map
#
+auto_master        # Use directory service
/net            -hosts      -nobrowse,hidefromfinder,nosuid
/home           auto_home   -nobrowse,hidefromfinder
/Network/Servers    -fstab
/-          -static
/-  auto_smb    -soft,noowners,nobrowse,rw

Network shares are mounted in the /etc/auto_smb map file, which looks like this:

/mount/mnt1 -fstype=smb ://<user>@<server>
/mount/mnt2 -fstype=smb ://<user>@<server>
/mount/mnt3 -fstype=smb ://<user>@<server>
/mount/mnt4 -fstype=smb ://<user>@c<server>

I am certain that automounter is the source of the problem, because if I comment out the last line of /etc/auto_master, I can log in normally no matter what network I am using.

Is there any way I can fix this so that automount fails gracefully on login when the mounts are not available?

I am using macOS Mojave 10.14.3

I have exactly the same problem. I follow the exact step described here: http://blog.grapii.com/2015/06/keep-network-drives-mounted-on-mac-os-x-using-autofs/

/Users/username/Desktop/Synology  auto_nas

Then I created the /etc/auto_nas with entry like the following

DSVideo -fstype=smbfs ://username:password@nas/video
DSPhoto -fstype=smbfs ://username:password@nas/picture

This creates a "Synology" folder on my Desktop with a DSVideo and DSPhoto subfolder which icon looks like a mounted disk as a subfolders.

It was working flawlessly with El Capitan MacBook Pro, however when I do the same with my iMac with Mojave 10.14.4, I experienced the same issue similar with yours in which my Mac would locked up just after login while loading Finder in which I could not launch any other applications.

I saw a silver lining after I read your post. It seems that adding nofail was able to prevent our Mac from being locked out if it fails to mount.

/-  auto_smb    -soft,noowners,nobrowse,rw,nofail

Now come to my suggestion for a possible solution. I have been reading forums for many many days. Can you try the following which might help you to mount your network drives?

Have you changed the ownership of your auto_smb to root access only?

sudo chmod 600 /etc/auto_smb

Have you followed this recommendation from Apple to disable a security feature so that you can connect without providing additional confirmation? https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207112

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.NetworkAuthorization AllowUnknownServers -bool YES

Alternatively, you can follow this instruction
https://gist.github.com/rudelm/7bcc905ab748ab9879ea

So instead of just using the following in your auto_smb:

/mount/mnt1 -fstype=smb ://<user>@<server>

You can add:

/mount/mnt1 -fstype=smbfs,soft,noowners,nosuid,rw ://username:password@<server>

Please let me know whether any of this works for you? Thanks.


Quit terminal but store the session for next start When I restart Mac, I have the option of restart the applications which will quit. This approach brings back all the terminal windows with all info such as terminal old commands and output, their current directory, etc from before quitting the application.

Is the above approach possible for manually quitting the terminal application using CMD+Q?

Application of this: This will allow me to quit the terminal when I am working on non-developer tasks but allow me to jump back easily, no more CD to each folder and history will allow me to get back in the zone of various tasks I was doing in each tab(db session, test data, git commit's etc).

There is a system-wide pref to let apps save their state at quit, similar to that for reboot 'reopen windows when logging back in'.

System Prefs > General - uncheck 'Close windows when quitting an app'

 Picture from El Capitan, but the pref has been there since maybe Mavericks


Weird files on my Desktop after installing programs My "problem" is resolved, but I still want to know what this was, as I am new to Mac OS.
After Installing a few programs, I had weird files/folders with what looked like a hard drive icon appearing on my Desktop (but not appearing in my Desktop folder in Finder). In this case it had to do with Android Studio ("Android Studio 4.0.1") and Google Drive ("Install Backup and Sync from Google"). (I also installed VSCode, but no such thing appeared on the Desktop).
See for yourself on the screenshots, (which were taken after I successfully installed the programs and moved them to my ~/Applications folder.
As I said they did not appear in my Desktop folder in Finder, but they did appear under Locations in finder. I pressed a button looking like an "eject icon" and they disappeared from both Finder locations and my desktop.
I'm just asking all this, because I want to be sure that I made no mistakes during the installation processes.

I assume you're new to Mac ;)
If you get an application from anywhere other than the App Store, it will come neatly wrapped inside a Disk Image file, .dmg.
You double-click it & it will mount just like a real disk or USB stick/SD card on your desktop. It won't show as present in your desktop folder as that's not really where it is. It is mounted at /Volumes in your OS, the same way all your other drives are mounted. Their appearance on the visible desktop is for convenience.
To all intents & purposes a mounted disk image behaves exactly like any other removable drive.
Normally, you open it [or it should open automatically] to show the contents.
Then there are two basic installation methods.
Simple drag & drop - there will be an app & an alias to your Applications folder. You drag the app to the alias & by the 'magic' of Mac aliases, that will copy it to your own Applications folder on your Mac.
Pic of a 'regular' app. Original .dmg file top left, mounted 'disk' right, then below a simple drag & drop installation.

Alternatively, a mounted disk image will contain an actual installer package you need to double-click & run. This is usually for more complex installations that need to ensure specific separate system components all go to the correct places. When you launch one of these you will be presented with an admin permissions dialog to allow the installer to do this.
Pic again with .dmg file to the left, mounted disk to the right & installation window below. Note: some of these more complex apps also need an uninstaller, conveniently packaged in the same .dmg. If an app doesn't have an installer, it shouldn't need an uninstaller.

With either type, once you have finished with it, you can then eject it, just like a real drive - either click in the window, then  Cmd ⌘   E  or right click & select "eject [name of 'disk']" or from any Finder window, sidebar etc where you can see the eject arrow ⏏
Once ejected, then you can either file it away for if you ever need it again, or throw it in the Trash. It's done with.
The app will now run from your regular Applications folder.
Note: Other than special circumstances, apps are not designed to actually run from the mounted disk image. Some will, some will complain, but generally you should avoid it. Run them from Applications after you have copied them over, or installed.


Sound effect to confirm text is copied to clipboard How do you set a sound effect to confirm text is copied to clipboard? I am looking for my mac to make a ding whenever I copy something.

I only know of one Clipboard manager for macOS that has the ability to play a sound when you copy/paste:  Copy 'Em for Mac ($10USD).
To be candid, when I was evaluating clipboard management tools, I didn't see many with this feature because it seems like it would get annoying very quickly.  Besides my extensive use of the clipboard which required me to look for a management tool (I settled on FlyCut†), having a sound every time something was sent to my clipboard - normally selecting and copy/cut, using the CLI tool pbcopy or from my password management or text expansion/replacement tools - I would imagine that my computer would sound like a telegraph operator keying out some Morse code.  You might be better served with something that gives you visual feedback rather than audible.

† Flycut is an open source tool that is "free" though the developers do accept donations and I highly encourage folks to send them some compensation if you find their app/utility of use to you. I prefer to support this type development effort because their code is open for all to see.


Backup data from Macbook pro which won't boot I have a 13" 2010 Macbook Pro which I am unable to boot. The most possible reason for it is that the Logic board has short circuited. I have detailed the problem in this separate post: Macbook Pro - Faulty keyboard short circuit at video connector

I am going to submit the laptop to service center but before that I need to take the backup of the data. Is it possible to do the backup? If so, how can I do that?

Surgery....

....pull out the hard drive, install it into an enclosure (a USB External hard drive enclosure) and simply plug it in as an external hard drive for another Mac without losing everything on the hard drive?

How to remove it:

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Unibody+Mid+2010+Hard+Drive+Replacement/4305


wget: ERROR cannot verify www.important_website certificate I am installing a large amount of files with wget and all of a sudden I get the error message:  cannot verify www.ncei.noaa.gov's certificate, issued by ‘CN=DigiCert SHA2 Secure Server CA,O=DigiCert Inc,C=US’.
Why did wget all of a sudden stop working?

It's not linked to wget but to your SSL certificates trust store (these are used to ensure encryption between client (you) and server via TLS). Either your store was damaged in some way, or the certificate in question is not valid anymore, and you receive this error as the connection can't be guaranteed. From testing, their certificate is still valid, so there are likely some issues with your ssl store.

You can also add this option --no-check-certificate to ignore such errors, which would solve your problems. However, do it at your own risk, as those certificates are there for a reason.


Get Info shows incorrect volume size for ZFS pool on MacOs Catalina I'm currently running ZFS on MacOS Catalina, version
zfs-1.9.4-0
zfs-kmod-1.9.4-0

After replacing my 3TB disks with 6TB ones ZFS sees the current sizing as
 SIZE  ALLOC   FREE  CKPOINT  EXPANDSZ   FRAG    CAP  DEDUP  HEALTH  ALTROOT
5.46T  2.59T  2.87T        -         -    15%    47%  1.00x  ONLINE  -

However Get Info on the volume shows 4.71TB with 2.97TB free. Any ideas why this is the case and should I be worried about the disparity in free space? i.e. could this cause issues down the track where the OS sees more available space than exists?

You don't need to worry, I think.
Short and quick explanation

Get Info's "Available" is correct, but "Capacity" is not what you intuitively expect it be. It's actually used space + available space of the corresponding ZFS dataset (not the pool! it's the dataset inside the pool).
Moreover, Get Info uses decimal units, zfs uses binary units.

A more detailed explanation follows.
There are two different things going on here.
Decimal units and binary units.
First of all, Finder's Get Info returns Kilobytes, Gigabytes and Terabytes in base 10 (KB, GB and TB), while command line tools such as df, zfs and zpool report values that use base 2 (KiB, Gib, TiB).
This means that 1GB = 1000^3 = 10^9 bytes, not the same number of bytes as 1GiB = 1024^3 = 2^30. In fact, 1GB = ~0.931GiB. Google provides a handy digital sizes converter to play with these conversions.
This is true of any filesystem you use on your Mac. On my system, I have a HFS+ partition. Its size is reported as such:

60GB by Get Info;
56G by df -h.

Capacity, as reported by the ZFS datasets to the OS, is not the underlying pool size, but something else.
ZFS is not just a filesystem, but a Volume Manager too. You could have any ZFS Dataset inside your pool, sharing the same available space, each consuming up a portion of it. You start with a root dataset, but you could add any number.
What does your "Get Info" report? Hint, it's not the size of your pool, even though intuitively, you were probably expecting that. My guess is, it probably reports a number regarding your root ZFS dataset (which is not the same as your pool!), and that number should be USED bytes + AVAILABLE bytes.
Let's check it on a real system.
I have a pool named Tank on my system. zpool list's output is:
NAME   SIZE  ALLOC   FREE
Tank  1.81T  1.32T   509G

I have three datasets inside it: the root, Tank, and two nested datasets, Tank/DataOne and Tank/DataTwo. zfs list's output is:
NAME           USED   AVAIL   REFER
Tank          1.32T    451G    336K
Tank/DataOne  45.9G    451G   45.8G
Tank/DataTwo  1.27T    451G   1.21T

Note that I don't keep any real data inside the root dataset. USED reports all space consumed by the datasets, its snapshots, its nested datasets and their snapshots. REFER reports space used by the filesystem itself at the current time (no snapshots, no nested stuff). You can see that most of the data is in DataTwo, with 0.06TiB of snapshots too. There are finer grained options to zfs list if you want to: zfs list -o space adds also the columns USEDSNAP USEDDS USEDREFRESERV USEDCHILD).
Let's go on and see what non-ZFS tools say. df -h output is:
Filesystem        Size  Used Avail
/dev/disk2s1      451G  336K  451G
Tank/DataOne      497G   46G  451G
Tank/DataTwo      1.7T  1.3T  451G

Get Info says:
Name     Capacity  Available
Tank     483.81GB   483.81GB
DataOne  533.02GB   483.81GB
DataTwo    1.82TB   483.81GB

Conclusions
You can easily see that the values of df's "SIZE" and Get Info's "Capacity" are the same number of bytes, with different units. Rounding up the results: 483.8GB = 451GiB, 533GB = 497GiB, and 1.82TB = 1.7TiB.
More important, let's see if the sum of zfs's AVAIL + REFER values equals df and Get Info values, or not.
NAME    AVAIL  + REFER
Tank     451G  +  336K = 451GiB = 483GB
DataOne  451G  + 45.8G = 497GiB = 533GB
DataTwo  451G  + 1.21T = 1.65TiB = 1.81TB

The last value differs slightly, but I think it's due to rounding ups here and there that skew the result. Apart from that, everything checks perfectly.


Native macOS window management I'm wondering if we'll ever see native window management in macOS just like Windows 10 offers it. What I mean by that is the Windows key + Arrow keys functionality for moving windows around, halfing windows on screen, moving across monitors, minimizing, maximizing, just with those two keys.

I enjoy using macOS on my MacBook on 1 screen with space swiping, but once I use multiple monitors it becomes really cumbersome to use. Tools like BetterTouchTool help but don't offer the ease the native Windows 10 window management offers.

Is there something inherently different with macOS that we can't get Windows 10-like window management?

There is nothing specific in macOS which prevents control of windows through the keyboard, it's just not provided out of the box.

Keyboard Maestro for instance provides several actions which allow to control windows via the keyboard (or other triggers):

I use this to put windows to the left (or right) half of the screen by pressing CtrlCmdLeft:


How does my Selfie Stick take a picture using the *headphone socket*? I just got a selfie stick, and it connects to my iPhone via the headphone socket.

Clicking a button on the stick causes a picture to be taken.

I'm wondering how that actually works. If the headphone socket is an output, how is the stick sending an input, and that too to take a picture?

Does the headphone socket have some sort of input 'mechanism' the stick uses??

Short answer: Your selfie stick is pretending to be a set of iPhone headphones and pressing the button on your stick is actually the same as pressing the volume up or down button which captures a photo. You can do the same with normal iPhone headphones, or by pressing the physical button on your iPhone.

Detailed answer:

Note: +(ve) and -(ve) refers to positive and negative respectively.

Depending on the model of iPhone you have, most modern iPhones since the iPhone 3GS have the ability to control the the volume of audio playback through the remote built in-line in compatible headphones.

The headphone jack on a typical music device would be either TS (mono) or TRS (stereo), meaning that it has a Tip section, Ring section and a Sleeve section.

Headphones are essentially speakers, and like most electrical devices they work on the idea of a circuit, from +(ve) to -(ve), so a stereo set of headphones is basically two speakers. One for each the left and right channels, so you need two wires, one for each, and a third that connects both back to the -(ve) side of the circuit. Thats why a stereo headphone jack is TRS (Tip, Ring, Sleeve).

The tip section of a headphone jack is always the left channel (or mono), the 1st ring section is the right channel, and the sleeve section is the -(ve) connection, this sleeve being -(ve) is important for later...

Even since the original iPhone there has always been a remote control inline with the right ear bud, and a microphone also. This allowed you to pickup calls hands-free and also play/pause, skip and rewind tracks by clicking the button.

To implement these extra features required a special type of headphone jack, a TRRS (Tip, Ring, Ring Sleeve) jack, it's no bigger than a normal jack and whats really clever is that the additional ring is in the section where the sleeve would be on a normal headphone.

The reason this is clever is that when you use your TRRS type headphones on a device which is a normal music player, the microphone bit just gets connected to -(ve) and is thus essentially disabled but the left and right channels are connected as normal so your smart iPhone headphones become normal headphones without any chance of the microphone or buttons becoming a problem.

Anyway, back to the original question, using some (to the non-layperson) basic electronics the extra Ring section can be used to send electrical pulses that send the volume up/down and play/pause buttons and microphone through this channel.

Since iOS 6, you have been able to use the volume up (and later down) button(s) on your iPhone, or headphones to capture a photo. This was in response to a number of third-party photo apps that popped up adding this feature with ever increasingly clever ways of hiding this from Apple's App Store reviewers.

So essentially the selfie stick is pretending to be a pair of Apple Headphones and pressing the volume up or down buttons. You can probably verify this by going into the Music app and pressing the capture button.


Record ipod gameplay I want to record Plants VS Zombies and upload the gameplay video on YouTube. Is there any program can do this?

Much appreciated for any suggestion.

For an unjailbroken iPhone, it is not possible to do it directly on the device.

However, if you jailbreak, you can get Display Recorder from the Cydia Store. It costs $4.99. There are other alternatives, but Display Recorder is so far the best I hae tried.


Mount Shared Drive via AFP in Terminal I want to mount an external drive, connected on computer A, to computer B.

I am able to access and mount the drive by connecting to the server through Finder (Command-K), but how can I do this exact action through the terminal? I've been using several formats of mount and mount_afp but nothing seems to work. Something along the lines of:

mount_afp -i afp://user:pass@ipaddress/Volumes/SharedDrive /Volumes/Shared

In Finder, I just type the IP of the Mac connected to the drive, input credentials, and mount the selected drive...but it's not working by simply entering the afp://ipaddress, just like the 'Connect Server' command through Finder, in the terminal.

How do I do the same connection with a bash command? The end result will be the mounted drive on B.

A couple of things you need to be aware of.

First - the AFP URL needs to contain the name of the share - not it's location on the server. Second, the mount point must be an empty directory that you have write permission to. So your commands might be :-

sudo mkdir /Volumes/mount
sudo mount -t afp afp://user:pass@ipaddress/SharedDrive /Volumes/mount


Can i restore a back up of the user folder to a fresh install without issues? Can i restore a back up of the user folder to a fresh install without issues?
I created the back up with the disk utility tool

I am fresh installing an iMac late 2015 because it's very slow.
I have backed up the /users/ folder and the /library/ folder.

I have a second question:
Is this a good way to handle this? Or is there any better way?
Would i be able to restore the users folder with time machine without bringing other applications etc?

How did you make a backup using Disk Utility? Did you mean you cloned your startup drive? If so, you did not just make a backup of your user folder you made a backup of your entire startup disk.

But to answer your original question...

The best way to do what your trying to do is to

Make a Time Machine Backup
Erase and Reinstall macOS
Use migration assistant to restore from a Time Machine backup where you can select what content (Your user folder) you would like to transfer

Note: Usually I would quote all this stuff but this is pretty standard information so I opted to just link it.


Move Documents folder to different drive I would like to move the Documents folder to a different drive. I am running OS X 10.9.4. I am trying to preserve space on my OS SSD.

There are many web pages that will walk you through this process, here is a good one:
http://www.maclife.com/article/howtos/how_move_your_documents_folder

Basically you create a symbolic link to a folder on an external drive.

Here is information on how to use the console to create a symbolic link:
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2001110610290643

And here is my take on it:

Attach external drive
Copy your Documents folder from your Mac to the external drive
Rename the Documents folder on the Mac to Documents-old
Open Terminal
Type in cd /Users/Your User ID/
Then ln -s /Volumes/External Drive Name/Documents Documents
Test it out for a while to verify that it works, when you are happy with it you can delete the Documents-old folder from the Mac


Installing Windows 7 on MacBook Air? Last night I was trying to install Windows 7 on my new MacBook Air, I started it and the Windows installation began. I deleted 80GB HD (preinstalled Mac OS) also deleted, but I could install windows completely. Now my MacBook is not starting or booting from external USB DVD rom, please help me out, not even booting from the original Mac CD which came with PC.

Create an image file from install DVD using Disk Utility. Restore this image to a USB flash drive. Then start the Macbook, press and hold "option" button. you will see the start up options. Select USB drive and complete installation.


iPhone available space: significant difference between iTunes and iPhone I am trying to update my wife's iPhone from iOS 7 (.x.x) to 8 (the latest). I was trying through iTunes because the iPhone says only around 300MB is available. iTunes shows around 7GB as available space. But when I hit update, it complains that at least 770MB should be available and it is not.

Is this a known issue that iTunes reports a larger available space than iOS? I have read about the "Other" storage space problem, but this is about "Free" space.

Also, is there a workaround to reclaim this "free" space?

This is a iPhone 5S, latest iTunes (12.0.1.26) on OSX Yosemite (10.10.1)

iPhone:

iTunes:

I had the same problem too. My iPhone 6 showed free memory at less than 200mb and iTunes showed more than 5.6GB.

To correct this problem: go to your device (iPhone) and go to settings, iTunes & App Store, click on your Apple ID and select Sign Out. Go back and Sign in again. This is a lot simpler than restoring your backup.


Safari search/url bar resets on change I'm using the latest Safari but have noticed this in previous versions too.

When I'm on some page, http://example.com/page/111

And I'm trying to type and go to another page http://example.com/page/222

(i.e. I go to the search bar and start typing 222 instead of 111) and then press enter, the page either changes to 222, or returns to 111 (in which case the URL in the search bar changes back to 111).

It's absolutely random from my point of view, but maybe I'm doing something wrong, or have a wrong setting?

To me this sounds like Safari is just prompting you with a URL, either from your visited history or from popular web page URLs.

And, as it's doing this, if you press enter it's reading that as you accepting its suggestion, in which case it populates the address bar with that URL and takes you to that page.

However, on other occasions, you've typed enough of the URL for Safari to know you're entering something different, or you've typed the whole URL in which case pressing enter is telling Safari to visit the URL you've manually entered.

If this is the case, then it's not a bug, it's just that you need to get used to this behaviour. Evenso, I think we all get caught out sometimes, especially if we press enter at the wrong moment.

You can test for this by entering a URL slowly and watching the address bar  - you'll see that it's suggesting a full URL path beyond the cursor and this suggested path will change depending on what you type, but if you press enter at any point Safari will interpret that as you wanting to go to the suggested path.


Display weather information in the Mavericks notification center? The weather display in the notification center is a great feature in iOS, and I would love to have it on my mac as well. Is there a technique or app that allows this?

Googling for the answer to this question has not turned up much, although there are suggestions that one might be able to kludge something together using Growl.

OS X Yosemite's Notification Center comes with a Weather widget preinstalled.

Additional locations can be added to the widget:


How can you active the Script Menu Bar with AppleScript? In AppleScript if you want to show the Script Menu in the menu bar you have to:

Click Applications
Scroll down and click Utilities
Click Script Editor (this was called AppleScript Editor in older OS X
versions)
Click the “Script Editor” menu item, then click “Preferences...”
On the Preferences dialog click “Show Script menu in menu bar”
If it isn’t selected, you’ll want to enable the “Show Computer scripts”
option

but is there a file in system that I can target to activate this in a script?  Trying to build an installer that will turn this on when if not active but I'm having issues trying to find where in the system I can hit this.  Dont mind a do shell but prefer not to use Automator.

10.13 (High Sierra) and before

If you do not want to have to go through Script Editor > Preferences > General to check the [ ] Show Script menu in menu bar check box, then here is one way of enabling the Script Menu using AppleScript:

tell application "System Events"
    if not (script menu enabled) then
        tell current application
            do shell script "open '/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/Script Menu.menu'"
        end tell
    end if
end tell

You could just use:

do shell script "open '/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/Script Menu.menu'"

However, since System Events has a script menu enabled property, it makes sense to check whether or not it's enabled first. Either way though, opening the target file loads the Script Menu and checks the [√] Show Script menu in menu bar check box in: Script Editor > Preferences > General

Also, from Terminal, you could just run:

open '/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/Script Menu.menu'

Opening the target file in any manner shown accomplishes the goal.

By the way, when the Script Menu is enabled the target plist file is:

com.apple.systemuiserver.plist

The key is a Boolean and is NSStatusItem Visible com.apple.scriptmenu, and will also have an element in the menuExtras Array as a String holding the pathname of the item.

Note that the information above was gathered under macOS 10.13.5.

10.14 (Mojave) and up

The script menu has been upgraded into a full-fledged application, instead of a .menu file. It is now located at /System/Library/CoreServices/Script Menu.app.

To activate it on 10.14+, the terminal/shell command changes to:

open '/System/Library/CoreServices/Script Menu.app'


OS X: How to lock down these frivolous protocols! I ran a port scan on my Mac (OS X 10.9.4 if its relevant) and i realised all these random protocols with next to no explanation on the internet.

2 of the most unusual protocols include ndl-aas and dec_dlm, And i recall that keeping track of these open ports on your computer is generally a good idea to maintain your computers security.

So my question

What are the purposes of the protocols ndl-aas and dec_dlm?
And how do I block access to these ports?

You can find more details about these services in SpeedGuide's Port Database or the IANA Service Port Registry:

ndl-aas/3128
dec_dlm/625

AFAIK neither port is used by OS X out of the box, so you probably have installed some additional stuff on your own (3128 is also used by squid for instance).

To check for processes actively listening on these ports, you can use lsof -i :3128 and lsof -i :625.


Stress testing a hard drive with lots of random reads and writes I would like to stress test a hard drive with a long series of random reads and writes for a specified length of time, but I'm not sure how I can do it on macOS. I'm specifically interested in random reads and writes (as opposed to sequential reads and writes) as I want to make sure all of the physical components in the drive are stress tested.

One utility I've seen recommended for doing this is fio. However, I'm not sure what the correct way to use it is, particularly since most of the tutorials I've found assume you are running Linux.

How can I do this? I'm open answers for how to use fio or answers that recommend using another utility that can accomplish the same task.

This seems to do the trick:

sudo fio --name=randrw --time_based --runtime=86400 --ioengine=posixaio --iodepth=64 --rw=randrw --bs=64k  --direct=1 --numjobs=8 --size=[size of disk] --filename=/dev/rdisk#

That should do a random read/write test for 24 The # can be obtained with diskutil list and [size of disk] is obtained with diskutil info /dev/disk#. I'm not sure if the --size argument is actually necessary but I included it anyway.


Trackpad gestures stop working From time to time, my Magic Trackpad gestures will stop working. I can restart to bring them back, but this is pretty disruptive.

Is there a process I can kill to bring them back?

(I've tried turning off the Magic Trackpad; unfortunately, it doesn't fix the problem.)

In 10.8, running killall Dock seems to bring back trackpad gestures.

When a reboot didn't fix this, I went to System Preferences → Trackpad → More Gestures and changed

Mission Control to ‘Swipe up with three fingers’, and
App Exposé to ‘Swipe down with three fingers’.

Those gestures now worked with 3 fingers. Then I changed it back to ‘Swipe up/down with four fingers’ on both and they started working again using the four-finger gestures.


10.9.2 What fonts can be deactivated? How? I'm looking for ways to manage my fonts on 10.9

Just now to fix a hang in Dreamweaver CC, I used Font Book (v5.0) File --> Restore Standard Fonts... That fixed the hang, but now the font menus in all my apps are cluttered with at least 60+ fonts, most of which I will NEVER use.

I understand there are some fonts required by MacOS -- fair enough, these can't be disabled in Font Book.

Some apps have additional requirements, and these are not always clearly documented.  Dreamweaver seems to need Tahoma and Verdana, maybe others.

Beyond those required by the system and my installed apps, I only need a small set of "generic" fonts, e.g. Times, Helvetica, Courier, Comic Sans, maybe a few more. (I'm a minimalist, get over it.)

Font Book preferences offers "Automatic font activation", which is described as follows:  "Activate fonts on your Mac whenever they’re needed by an app, even if you haven’t installed the fonts using Font Book."

This implies that I can start with no apps active, use Font Book to deactivate ALL fonts --excepting the required ones it won't deactivate-- and make a trip through (launch) all my apps.  Once that's done, I should be able to look in Font Book to see what's been activated -- in sum, all the fonts required by all my apps.  Correct? Is this a safe, reliable procedure?

(Yeah, I know, some apps have private font repositories and clog up font menus using those, but that's a separate annoyance.)

What is the safest procedure to deactivate fonts to declutter font menus?

Yes, automatic font activation should be perfect for this scenario. Disable all the fonts you can then open all your apps. Apps that require certain fonts will activate the fonts that you need.

Note that you should also try some documents including PDFs as they may use additional fonts that the app itself will not ask to be activated.


Cannot overwrite a file on an SMB network share After upgrading to OSX 10.10 Last week I upgraded to Yosemite and I work a lot with saving files to a network share, mainly updating existing templates. Usually I just copy the newest template to the network share and it asks if I want to Overwrite/replace. Now when I attempt that it never asks me if I want to overwrite. It just hangs. Then if I attempt to change the file on my desktop, like rename, I get the error -8076. To resolve that error I have to run killall Finder for it to release the file.

I am however able to delete the file and then copy up the new one but when working with 40-50 new files a day that is a burden especially with large files.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Try connecting to the drive with CIFS:\ instead of SMB:\. I have had the same issue and when trying it with the CIFS protocol it worked.


is it possible to open a file with commandline mate without focusing TextMate? Or if not, is there an easy way to return focus to iTerm/Terminal after opening a file/directory with mate?

an osascript works, although the amount of time from calling mate until iTerm is refocused is somewhat annoying

focus_iterm () {
  osascript -e "tell application \"iTerm\" to activate"
}
mateb () {
  mate $@
  focus_iterm
}


Is there a splitter for the Thunderbolt on my MacBook Air? My Macbook Air has only one Thunderbolt port, but I need to connect both to my internet cable and also to my VGA monitor. I have an adapter to do each, but obviously I can use only one at a time. What do I need to buy to be able to connect both the cable & the monitor?

You're looking for something like a HengeDock: http://hengedocks.com/pages/vertical-macbook-air


Mac Terminal or iTerm: Copy the current command but exclude prompt? I am using Terminal or iTerm (iTerm2). Let's say I've typed in a command but haven't hit enter yet. Or maybe I used the up arrow to navigate through my command history. How do I copy the current command to the MacOS clipboard? But I also don't want it to include the prompt. Is there a keyboard short cut to do this?

For example, let's say the terminal is showing this:

myhostname:Documents kevuser$ mkdir cool_directory_name

What is the keyboard shortcut to copy mkdir cool_directory_name to the Mac OS clipboard? Can I add that functionality somehow? It feels like every time I try to copy the whole line it includes the prompt part of the terminal, myhostname:Documents kevuser$, which I don't want to be copied and pasted.

Just use the command

 echo !! | pbcopy

The double exclamation points is “last command”. It’s then piped to the pbcopy command which puts it in your clipboard.

There’s no shortcut, but you can make an alias in your ~/.bash_profile or in your ~/.zprofile files, depending on your shell, that will execute the command with as easy to remember name

alias cplastcmd=‘echo !! | pbcopy’

If you want to copy text that you’ve entered but not executed you can use the following

^ ControlU :  Cut the line before the cursor and put it in the clipboard.
^ ControlK : Cut the line after the cursor and put it in the clipboard. Use with ^ ControlA to move to the beginning of the line.
^ ControlY : Paste the last command from the clipboard

Note:  The standard copy/paste keyboard shortcuts  ⌘ Command or ^ Control C and V don’t work in Terminal.

Finally, if you have a mouse with a third/middle button, you can simply select the text and press the middle button to copy and paste the selected text.


On Catalina, how can a cronjob get permission to touch files on a USB disk? I have a USB disk, that takes ages to spin up after it has gone to sleep. So in the past I used either a cron job to regularly touch a file on it, so it will never spin down.

*/5 * * * * /usr/bin/touch /Volumes/xxx/touch.txt >/tmp/stdout.log 2>/tmp/stderr.log

Only since Catalina, these jobs get a touch: /Volumes/xxx/touch.txt: Operation not permitted.
When I use the same command in the console, it works nicely.

I had to grant the terminal access full disk access. Is there a similar restriction on this cron task?

You need to grant cron full disk access. Drag /usr/sbin/cron into the Full Disk Access area in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy tab.
Source: https://twitter.com/DaveWoodX/status/1184235412509941761


Partition issues after deleting Core Storage Logical Volume Group. Everything prompts an unmount error I followed the instructions in Restore Macintosh HD to its original partition configuration to delete the Core Storage Logical Volume Group via terminal while pressing Cmd+R during startup.
These are the functions I used in terminal:

diskutil cs list
diskutil cs delete <Logical Volume Group UUID>

Now I cannot resize the partition via Disk Utility. The post mentioned that a red error message would appear when selecting the drive, but that didn't happen.  I'm stuck!

When I try entering "diskutil cs list" in Terminal it returns:

No CoreStorage logical volume groups found.

These are screenshots from the errors in Disk Utility:

After resizing the top partition by dragging down and clicking "Apply", an error message prompts: "Couldn't unmount disk". Also happens after I repair the disk.

When restarting the computer, a grey screen with error icon appears.

Boot into Recovery Mode (hold down Command+R on startup) . Restore your computer or try to partion it through the Recovery HD.


Xcode 4.6 not installing on my Mountain Lion I am updating my Xcode 4.5.x to Xcode 4.6 directly from Mac App Store. But I am unable to update it. First it downloads the new Xcode. After downloading, it starts installing. But while installing it gets stuck at 2 minutes and the installation time counter changes abruptly between 2 minutes to 17 minutes. After some time, the installation stops and the Xcode 4.6 download starts again. This process is repeating since last night. Anyone else having the same issue. I have updated my Xcode from App Store previously also, but never had any issues.

You can download the DMG separately this time. You do not have to go through the App store, but it requires a free Developer account.

1) Log into the Mac Developer Center
2) Scroll down to the "Xcode 4.6" section.
3) On the right there is a button to download Xcode 4.
4) Open the DMG.
5) Drag the old Xcode from the Applications folder to the Trash.
6) Drag the new Xcode from the mounted volume to the Applications folder.

This time it will download a DMG file instead of a link to the Mac App Store.

Either way you will have to download reinstall any extras from within Xcode itself. See the Preferences -> Downloads tab to finish the install.


iMac 27" Different Graphic Processors Just for my curiosity and knowledge, from a software and hardware standpoint, in reference to the iMac 27" graphic processor brand, what are the difference between:

The NVIDIA GeForce GT 755M with 1GB and the AMD Radeon R9 M290 with 2GB, in terms of speed, performance and responsiveness? And why does the iMac 27" Retina model have the AMD GPU and not the NVIDIA GPU?

I always use this site to give me an idea of relative speeds of graphics cards - http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php [click the G3D header twice to sort by speed]

It's not necessarily any absolute indicator of the suitability of any given card for a specific purpose, but it's enough to give them some kind of recognisable hierarchy.

From it, you'll see that the M290 is considerably faster than the 755M, though neither is exactly stellar in performance.

As to why, only Apple can know that. They periodically switch between AMD/ATI & NVidia & have done for many years.


Can we pair one remote with Mac, and one remote with AppleTV in the same room? I got AppleTV and it came with a remote.  Since the remote triggers action on both the AppleTV and iMac (they are in the same room), I disable the iMac from taking remote signal already.

But can I buy another Apple remote, and pair it with the Mac, so that this new remote will not trigger action on the AppleTV?  That is, one remote for the Mac, one remote for AppleTV, and they don't interfere with each other.

Update: I actually went down to Apple Store and got another remote, and paired it with the iMac, and confirm that this remote will not trigger any action on the Apple TV, so now each remote works independently... I just put a sticker on one of the remotes to tell which is which.

Yes. Follow the instructions in this Apple Support article for Macs or this other article for Apple TV.

Essentially, the procedure is this:

  Pairing your remote with your Mac:

  Log in on your Mac as an Admin user.
  Get very close to your Mac (about 3 or 4 inches away).
  Point the remote at the infrared sensor on the front of your Mac.
  Press and hold the Menu and Next/Fast-forward buttons simultaneously on the remote for 5 seconds.
  Your Apple Remote is now paired with your computer. You should see a chain-link style lock appear in the center of your screen for a moment.

  To pair your Apple TV with a remote:

  Choose Settings > General > Remotes from the main Apple TV menu.
  Choose Pair Apple Remote.


How do I maximize my privacy in iOS 8? I ordered an iPhone 6. I've used an Android phone for the last few years. What specific steps to I need to take to:

Keep my location from being disclosed
Disable ALL automated uploading or backing up of my info to the cloud
Prevent automated updating of things

Go to Settings → Privacy and you can find a wealth of information and options available.

Location Services

This option shows you a list of all the apps that are using location information on your device, regardless of purpose.

There is a killswitch at the top allowing you to completely disable location services throughout the device, for both third-party apps and system services (available at the bottom).
Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, Photos, Bluetooth Sharing, Microphone and  Motion Activity

These categories are all very similar and give you the ability to grant/remove the permission from all apps installed on your device. System apps can't be prevented from accessing the data though—you can't prevent the iOS Photos app from accessing Photos for example, but you can prevent third-party apps.
Twitter and Facebook

These categories allow you to prevent apps' access to your Twitter and Facebook accounts, should you have logged in with these accounts on your device.
Finally, Advertising

This category allows you to limit Ad Tracking as well as reset your Advertising Identifier, which should be self-explanatory.

You can prevent automatic downloads by going to Settings → iTunes & App Store and disabling automatic downloads for the various categories, including updates.


iTunes Producer unable to get password from my keychain When I try to open iTunes Producer, I get an error stating, "We are unable to retrieve your password from the security keychain." I recently deleted the folder in my keychain library while trying to fix another keychain problem that I was having. The previous problem was that a large number of programs (calendar, chrome, etc.) had problems with the keychain. I fixed that problem by resetting my iCloud and computer keychains.

I am currently running OS X Yosemite on my iMac and have not had any problems prior to these two keychain problems. I haven't downloaded anything that was even remotely dangerous. I've run keychain first aid and reinstalled the program. I've also deleted the library file again. At this point, I have no idea what to do. I've gone through and opened every other program on my computer with no problems at all.

Thank you for any advice. I've spent the last two days googling and I guess that I'm the only one to have ever encountered this problem :(

Looks like your Keychain has corrupted.

Do you get this error "Preferences Error: Could not load Accounts preference pane."

I have a solution here

Search for "Keychain Access" and a window as shown in the picture above would appear. Select the account which is troubling you.
Delete it/them and restart.
Moreover you can review any used accounts and remove them from here too.

Details here


iPad Air sold online as new: how can I be certain? I purchased an iPad Air 1, online from a reputable "group discount" website. Though the site sells certified refurbished and used Apple products, this product clearly stated "brand new". It arrived in the shrink wrapped Apple box and once opened,looked legitimately packaged new. I'm skeptible by nature, however felt questionable when noticed there was no manual or earbuds included. There was a new Apple charger in the box. Additionally,it arrived 100 % charged. (?) I recall having to charge every wireless purchase ever made!
  I'm not technically challenged, familiar to older iPads,and have purchased many Apple products in the past. However, they have always included an Apple manual,ear buds and it required to be fully charged. I had no problem registering the pad or assigning a password,however I want to be certain what I purchased is as advertised; Brand new and in perfect working condition. The product has a 30 day, no question, return policy and a one year Apple warrantee. Can anyone confirm how their iPad air appeared apon opening, what was included, did it require charging, and how can I scan it for prior use or refurburshing?

My iPad Air did not include earbuds - I don't think any iPad model has even included earbuds.

As far as I can remember, every iPad I have bought from Apple has been received ready to turn on. If not 100% charged, then 80% charged or similar.

iPads do not come with a big manual at all. There's a little booklet with a few "cards" that explain the buttons on the iPad - that's really all.

So all in all, none of those observations should lead you to conclude that your iPad was not new when you purchased it.

To be sure, I would go to the Apple Support site and check your warranty status with your serial number.


DuckDuckGo settings in iPhone & iPad I have DuckDuckGo installed as my default search engine in Safari on both my iPhone 6 and iPad mini 2 (both iOS 9.1). I also have it installed on my PC, but on my PC I'm able to customise the settings whereas on my Apple devices the customisations don't save and apply.

For example, if I use my device to click on the burger icon in DuckDuckGo search results > Advanced Settings > Advertisements, and change from ON to OFF, then click Save and Exit, the settings don't save and the search results still display ads. Is this a known bug, and if so, is there a solution for it?

On your iPhone and iPad, Go into Settings → Safari → Block Cookies, and choose an option other than Always Block. Your settings should then save.

You could also enable Cloud Save to sync your settings across your browsers and devices. The option is available through the same hamburger menu under Settings, and is not associated with a username or a personally-identifiable value.


Key binding in iTerm2 I am trying to bind a shortcut to perform cut command in iTerm2. Obviously, cut is bound to Cmd + x, but I would also like it to be bound to Ctrl + w.

I did this easily for paste by going to iTerm2 → Preferences → Profiles → keys and setting the action to paste.

But there is no cut action.

So how can I achieve this?

For some other actions which don't appear listed, I have used their escape code or hex code representation as shown in answers to the question iTerm - going one word backwards and forwards.

I wonder where can I find a list of these representations and their actions?

Ideally, I would like to have Ctrl + w cut the selected text, or if there is no selection, then the entire line. Is this possible?

My goal is to make iTerm2 work more like Emacs.

The escape sequences mentioned in that question correspond to zle (zshell line editor) widgets documented here.

They provide emacs(or vi) like editing functions. You can see which are currently bound to keys by typing bindkey command in zsh.

You can also write shell functions and then declare those as widgets which can then be key bound. Here is a guide to zle.

The slight complication is that Iterm2 will not, by default, pass alt or Cmd modified strokes through to the shell.

This can be configured in iTerm2 → Preferences → Profiles → keys.

An alt+ key  is equivalent to esc followed by key, hence to pass this to the sh you add a key bind to:

Action: Send escape sequence

Esc+: key


Can I use PayPal for non-US iTunes Store payments? Can I use PayPal for non-US iTunes Store payments?

I've heard US users can do so, but my PayPal and iTunes account are non-US

Payment methods vary greatly among the many iTunes stores around the world and are often fit to the local market. In Germany, for example, it's possible to pay via direct-debit, because this is a very common way to pay there. There are iTunes stores (additionally to the US one) which accept PayPal - UK comes to mind. In your case I would check my iTunes account to see whether it is possible to pay via PayPal.


Unzip .exe files on Mac Is there a method to unzip .exe file on a Mac OS X without downloading and/or buying applications that do this for you?

The files cannot be "converted," but you can extract them; if the .exe was originally written in Java, this SO question should help. Basically, it explains that some Java to EXE packagers/compilers make them difficult to extract for various reasons.

Note that extracting the .jar files may or may not be legal, depending on the license included with the application.

JAR files are Java ARchives that contain a Java program's resources and class files, and EXE files are compiled executables. Already-compiled EXE files cannot be extracted of their original .jar files, but if they were only wrapped, you should check out JSmooth.

If you merely want to run the EXE file on your Air, WineBottler is an excellent Wine wrapper that allows you to run Windows EXE files, or you can install Windows on a virtual machine or using Boot Camp.


How to tell can I tell if my iPhone 5c is 3G or 4G? I ordered an iPhone 5c for 4G usage. However, the phone I received displays a 3G on the top left of my screen.

Does 3G on the top left mean I'm using 3G?

Does this convert to 4G through proper configuration?

If you see a 3G at the top left it means that you are in an area which does not have 4G support.

When you are in an area with 4G (or, on Verizon, LTE) you will see that in the top-left corner instead.


Touch Bar stopped working after water damage I have a MacBook Pro (13", 2018) with a touch bar. I accidentally dropped a bit of water on my touch bar and it stopped working. It's been that way for a while now.

I tried opening the activity monitor to see if it pops up like how it does for the others, but nothing related to the touch bar is appearing to me. However, the fingerprint sensor still works.

How can I make the rest of the touch bar function again?

This sounds like you'll need an SMC/NVRAM reset.

Shut Down your Mac and unplug everything.
On your built-in keyboard, press and hold all of the following keys. Your Mac might turn on.

Control  on the left side of your keyboard
Option (Alt)  on the left side of your keyboard
Shift  on the right side of your keyboard

Keep holding all three keys for 7 seconds, then press and hold the power button as well. If your Mac is on, it will turn off as you hold the keys.
Keep holding all four keys for another 7 seconds, then release them.
Wait a few seconds, then press the power button to turn on your Mac.

If this still doesn't work, shut down your Mac, then turn it on and immediately press and hold these four keys together: Option, Command, P, and R.

You can release the keys after the Apple logo appears and disappears for the second time.

If ALL of that doesn't work, probably go to an Apple store (assuming they're still open where you live).

Sources:

Reset the NVRAM or PRAM of your Mac - Apple Support
How to reset the SMC of your Mac - Apple Support


What is the location accuracy of a wifi only iPad? what is the location accuracy of wifi version ipad?
If someone holds one iPad and walks in a big room, is there a way to detect the location of the iPad?

There is no GPS in the WiFI-only iPad. The accuracy of Location Services (the part of iOS that determines where you are) is dependent on a number of factors. iOS does account for this, though:

  Applications that can display your location on the screen, including Maps, indicate your current (approximate) location using a blue marker. If your location can’t be determined precisely, a blue circle also appears around the marker. The size of the circle depends on how precisely your location can be determined—the smaller the circle, the greater the precision.

(Source)

To answer your base question, though, no. There's really no way for the iPad to track fine movements (such as within a room, or even within a building) with great degrees of accuracy without the 3G model, which does include a GPS chip.

Location Services on the WiFi model is intended just to find your general location, so apps can tell you what is nearby. It isn't meant to tell you exactly where you are.


Spotlight crashing on `1` and only `1` I have a really weird spotlight problem and it is driving me insane.
When I open the spotlight search and type 1 the search box disappears as if it crashed. For example, if I intended to search for 1password, typing 1 will cause the box to disappear. However, if I type pass it works fine and finds the "1Password" app.
As far as I can tell this is the only character that triggers the crash.
I already tried the "disable indexing of bookmarks and history" fix and it doesn't help.
Is there some way to delete the spotlight index? Maybe that will help?
Any other clues I should look for?
I am on BigSur, but this also happened on Catalina, I was hoping the upgrade would fix it... but it did not. :(
Edit: adding the crash report
Process:               Spotlight [71310]
Path:                  /System/Library/CoreServices/Spotlight.app/Contents/MacOS/Spotlight
Identifier:            com.apple.Spotlight
Version:               1.0 (2150.7.5)
Build Info:            SpotlightUI-2150007005000000~3
Code Type:             X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process:        ??? [1]
Responsible:           Spotlight [71310]
User ID:               502

Date/Time:             2021-03-22 23:30:10.116 -0700
OS Version:            macOS 11.2.1 (20D74)
Report Version:        12
Bridge OS Version:     3.0 (14Y908)
Anonymous UUID:        xxxx

Sleep/Wake UUID:       xxxx

Time Awake Since Boot: 740000 seconds
Time Since Wake:       55000 seconds

System Integrity Protection: enabled

Crashed Thread:        5  Dispatch queue: com.apple.root.user-interactive-qos.overcommit

Exception Type:        EXC_CRASH (SIGABRT)
Exception Codes:       0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000
Exception Note:        EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY

Application Specific Information:
dyld3 mode
*** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInvalidArgumentException', reason: '-[__NSArrayM _fastCharacterContents]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x600002bb9e90'
terminating with uncaught exception of type NSException
abort() called

If you don't get the crash on a fresh user account, you might want to force the system to rebuild the Spotlight index:

From the Apple menu, go to System Preferences
In System Preferences, select Spotlight, and chose the Privacy tab on the Spotlight screen
Click the "+" icon at the bottom of the screen and add a folder (any folder) to the list of folders excluded from spotlight
Once you've added the folder to the list of folders excluded from Spotlight, select that folder from the list
Click the "-" icon to remove the folder from the list of excluded folders.
From the System Preferences menu, select Quit.

The change to the excluded folders list should start the (long) process of rebuilding the Spotlight index. I can't promise that this will fix your problem, but it has a good shot at it.


Can Backup Directories in ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup be removed I have configured my iPhone to backup on iCloud. When browsing the above mentioned directory on my MacBook I find some old files and directories from months ago which are using up 1.5GB of space.

Can these be safely deleted without incurring in problems?

Yes, these can be removed without issue. The usual way to remove backups is through the backups list in iTunes Preferences, which shows the name of the device and the backup date, but there's no problem with removing the folders manually in Finder too.


Make JSON files to have TextMate2 icon I have all the JSON files on my system set to open with TextMate 2.
When I get Info on one of these .js files, I see the TextMate 2 icon on the corner. But, how do I make for the TextMate icon to appear while in Finder's icon mode too?

I'm using Mountain Lion, if that makes any difference.

You must go to settings -> icons settings -> set files icons.


GPU memory is overloaded I'm using iStats Menu to monitor the loading of my MBP.
And when my external 4k monitor LG 27UK850-W is connected via USB type C I can see that my GPU Memory is overloaded (currently 744%), though Processor seems fine.

Is it a bug or it should be this way?

And of course, Fans are almost always on. Is it ok?

It appeared to be an "iStats Menu" issue
And it is fixed in the newest version


Mac won’t get connected to internet even it has signal My MacBook Air 2018 won’t connect to the internet even I’m using the same WiFi net on all my other devices and they work well.

It started after I deleted some daemon files that were signaled as malware.

Before that everything worked fine and I’ve already tried everything like changing dns, Ipv-6, restarting the computer.

Please help I don’t Know what to do anymore

Final solved the issue after tweaking every possible setup in my Mac. Somehow the proxy SOCKS was enabled and by default denying all SSL certifications.

Still don’t know how it was enabled and maybe the malware that I had activated it like another user commented before.

Thanks all by the way for your comments


Split tunneling In Mac OS X I have an VPN application that creates a logical interface in OS X programmatically.
Once created, its configured with private IP and parameters and the Routing Table is updated accordingly.

The initially presented 'default gateway of the physical interface' is deleted.
The 'default gateway of the logical interface is added' programmatically.

After sometime the Mac OS X system itself updates the routing table with the 'default gateway of the physical interface' and it looks like below

Destination  Gateway     Flags     Refs     use     Netif     Expire
--------------------------------------------------------------------
default      xxx.xx.x.x     UGSc     1        0        en3
default      yyy.yyy.y.y    UGScI    1        0        en1

en3: logical interface created by application
en1: physical interface

According to the above routing entries, all the traffic is routed to the logical interface created by application. This is ok in normal scenarios.

Requirement:

I need to route only specific destination IPs through the logical interface.
All remaining traffic should be routed through the physical interface directly.

Issue faced:

Once the default route for the logical interface is added, all the traffic is routed through. Got no control over it.
Even if the application is prevented from adding the route for logical interface, the Mac OS X system updates the routing table and sets the default to the logical interface only.

Hence not able to achieve the requirement.

Almost all vpn clients and servers support split tunneling. This is nearly always something you need to set up server side and not client side.

If you control the server side see Mac Pro: Splitting network traffic based on destination

If not, see Routing all traffic except a few IP-ranges though default gateway in Mountain Lion


How do I make a command run automatically when I open a new terminal window? How do I make a command run automatically (in my case: alias t="todo.sh") whenever I open a new terminal window? I've looked for many posts but they all have personalised commands, which then led to personalised answers. Can anybody help me with this?

Each shell has initialisation files which get run at each start (aka new Terminal tab/window). Put the command into the appropriate one and it will be available in new tabs.

for bash, use ~/.bashrc
for zsh, use ~/.zshrc

You can use echo $SHELL to determine which shell you are using.


Can I use the Bedtime alarm on iOS without using it as a morning alarm? I use Sleep Cycle as an alarm clock/sleep tracker, but it doesn't offer a bedtime reminder functionality. Is there any way to use the native Bedtime alarm on iOS 10 without using it as a wakeup alarm as well?

It doesn't seem like there's a way to do this natively. This is probably because the Bedtime feature is a supercharged alarm -- one which tracks your sleep (although it's not as advanced as Sleep Cycle) and shows you the bedtime notifications. Being able to remove the alarm notification completely would void this core functionality.

However, you could use some other app other than the Clock app for the reminder functionality.

You could simply use the Reminders app, which allows you to set daily recurring reminders. You could even set it to give you a "bedtime reminder" every weekday with a custom repeat option. The advantage of this is that it's completely native. From the notification, you can snooze the reminder by an hour (unfortunately the 15 minute snooze option was removed in iOS 10). A big advantage is that it will stay on the screen even if you unlock your phone, until you mark it as complete. This does not seem to be the case with the clock app's reminder. However, this can be a disadvantage as well, if you want it to dismiss automatically.

Another option would be to use an app such as Due, $4.99. It allows you to set a recurring reminder, but also allows you to snooze it from the lock screen. I haven't personally tried it, but it might allow you to customize the snooze duration. However, I wouldn't use the repeating reminder option, as it seems to have become broken due to iOS 10's new notification API.


Getting Sublime text to use the latest version of Ruby? I have multiple versions of Ruby installed on my machine. By using RVM, I am able to use Ruby 1.9.2 on the terminal. But whenever, I use Sublime Text, the text editor of my choice, it defaults to using Ruby 1.8.7. How do i change this behavior?

This worked for me.

Update ~/Library/Application\ Support/Sublime\ Text\ 2/Packages/Ruby/Ruby.sublime-build

{
  "env":{
      "PATH":"${HOME}/.rvm/bin:${PATH}"
  },
  "cmd": ["rvm-auto-ruby", "$file"],
  "file_regex": "^(...*?):([0-9]*):?([0-9]*)",
  "selector": "source.ruby"
}

  The env part will add rvm-auto-ruby into the $PATH and the cmd will execute rvm-auto-ruby yourfile.rb when you press Cmd-B. You and add options in between rvm-auto-ruby if you want, like this `”cmd”: [“rvm-auto-ruby”, “-S”, “$file”].

From here:
http://rubenlaguna.com/wp/2012/12/07/sublime-text-2-rvm-rspec-take-2/


Install SSD and Windows to Mac Pro 2012 I have what I believe is a Mac Pro from 2012. It has 2 CPUs, 12 GB of RAM a 5770 and no disks. I want to stick an SSD in it and install Windows. The Mac Pro does not currently have any disks and hence OS.

So I stick a (Windows layout) keyboard in a USB port turn it on. I'm not quite sure how to navigate Mac on boot. I hit alt when I heard the chime, and it's meant to show me the boot devices. After I let go of alt , I see the mouse cursor appear, but I do not see my brand new SSD I installed... does it only pick up drives with certain formats?

If I don't have access to another Mac device what can I do to get it to boot to a DVD or something containing Windows? How do I get it to detect a boot device (even if there is no OS on it)?

You have to install macOS first in order to run Bootcamp to install Windows.

Refer to this support document on how to boot into recovery mode and install macOS on your fresh drive.
In your case use CMD+ALT+R while booting to start the internet recovery.

Then you can follow this document on how to install Windows.


iOS simulator showing a bar at the bottom in my horizontally-view game I made a mobile game where the phone must be held horizontally. It seems that the iOS simulator draws a black line (representing the real-life microphone?) at the bottom of it, even though it should be on the "right wall" if you hold the phone like that.

Is this problem on my end (my code, etc.) or is it just a bug with the iOS simulator? This problem persists on other iPhone models as well.
I used Expo and React-Native to make this app.

In fact your assumption that there is a 'problem' is incorrect. This has nothing to do with your code, nor does the line represent the real-life microphone.
The black line you describe is displayed at the bottom of the screen by iOS to users to indicate they can swipe up from there.
This line can be either black or white, depending on what else is being displayed on the screen. The iOS Simulator is accurately simulating what will be seen by users on an actual hardware device.


Saving online videos (e.g. YouTube) and moving them to iPad for later offline viewing? I am looking for a solution that would allow me to save online videos, especially YouTube, to the iPad for later offline viewing.

Safari and Chrome
I had no luck getting any extensions working. YouTube intercepts right clicks on video and shows a youtube context menu instead of the native context menu and thereby blocking the download button.
Firefox
Download YouTube Videos as MP4 and FLV 1.3.8 is an extensions which is compatible with Firefox 11 (as of march 2012). It shows a download button below the Youtube video area.

The download format is .mp4 which is fine to use on an iPad.
Still, if you want to convert the downloaded video for your mobile devices, you can use a simple tool like the MiroVideoConverter, which is available in the Mac App Store for free.


Time Machine starts backup but stop and never starts again I had Time Machine configured and working, then one day it stopped working and got stuck on preparing backup. I ended up wiping the backup drive and had Time Machine start new. It finds the drive and begins to back up but then it never finishes, in fact it will start every hour but never finish.

I have exhausted everything on Google that I could find. Is there a way to wipe the Time Machine config files and start fresh on Mac OS?

This is a known bug. I'm aware it's been around for quite a while, since Sierra, and don't think it's been fixed as yet.

Try The Time Machine Mechanic (T2M2) which should give more information about the error. It also includes a help file with advice and resolutions.


How to connect 3 External Monitors in Macbook Pro 13 2017 without Touchbar I am currently connected to 2 external monitors + the Macbook Display.
I want to add additional monitors, so that I can have 3 external monitors along with the Macbook's display.

I know that you can only connect 2 external monitor for the 13' Macbook Pro as per this link, but you can connect an additional monitor using a USB display adapter.

I bought this adapter, but I am unable to connect to a 3rd monitor using either VGA, Display, or DVI.

Does anyone know how to connect more monitors using a USB display adapter?

According to Apple you have only two USB-C/Thunderbolt ports on that model of Macbook Pro.

The adapter your linked to is a Mini-Display Port to DVI adapter. your Mac does not have a mini DisplayPort, nor does it have a third port to plug it into.

Additionally the specifications say that it will support up to two external monitors. The highest resolution being of the 4K variety, so some good sized monitors, but only two of them. And as you have only two ports kinda hard to use a third adapter to connect a third monitor, even if the Mac supported three monitors, which it does not.

Granted you can daisy chain USB-C/Thunderbolt monitors and theoretically dasiychain three monitors that way but you still run into the spec that says it only supports two.

So no you can't use that adapter and you can't connect more than two monitors, according to the Apple specs.


SSD configuration software Both Intel and Samsung supply windows only configuration software for their SSDs (Intel® Solid State Drive Toolbox, Samsung Magician Software for PC).

Is there anyway to achieve the same functionality under OS X?
And/Or is this functionality actually needed?

To clarify using Intel as an example (but samsung has something similar), their configuration tool can:

  Check and tune system settings for optimal performance, power
  efficiency, and endurance

(Note that this is separate from firmware updates - which both companies do seem to support for OS X systems)

Both of those tools seem to provide some basic diagnostic information about your drive.

  The Intel® Solid State Drive Toolbox (Intel® SSD Toolbox) is drive
  management software that allows you to:
  - View current drive information for Intel® Solid State Drives (Intel® SSDs), including:

  Model number, capacity, and firmware version
  Drive health
  Estimated drive life remaining
  SMART attributes (also available for hard disk
  drives and non-Intel SSDs)
  Identify Device information (also available for hard disk drives and non-Intel SSDs)

You can get this with DiskDrill or Diskwarrior.  The free versions of both can give you what you are looking for.

The "tuning" is basically enabling/disabling TRIM support.  There are 3rd party utilities out there that can do it for you, but the reccomended way is doing it through OS X Terminal.  The linked article has a Word document that provides you the steps to to enable TRIM; I am direct linking it here


Desktop icons have disappeared after using HDMI cable (Yosemite) I had a strange issue recently where I had to reset PRAM after using an HDMI cable with my MBP (it had a blank screen on boot).

I feel like this is again related to the HDMI cable. After using it, all my Desktop icons have disappeared. I've run killAll Finder and rebooted and it hasn't restored them. Trying to avoid resetting PRAM again.

I had the same problem, I think. But my files were still in the finder under 'Desktop', just not on the actual desktop.
After trying a few of the above, I second-clicked the desktop and hit 'Clean up', and they all reappeared. So the simplest of all helped for me.


What causes PDF file size to increase when saving in Preview? It seems that making edits, annotations, or even just opening and saving a PDF file in Preview will cause a significant increase in file size. I've noticed that for some books I've scanned this also happens to improve page rendering time.

Can anyone shed some light as to what is going on to cause these changes? I am interested in synching annotations of PDF ebooks between Preview and the iPad (maybe GoodReader) but this may be too impractical with large PDF files.

In his little-known novel, PDF Karenina, Leo Tolstoy wrote,

  Optimally encoded PDF files are all alike; every sub-optimally encoded PDF file  is sub-optimally encoded in its own way.

It's hard for anyone to answer why your PDF files are larger after Preview modifies them. A PDF file consists of many different kinds of data: images, content streams, fonts, document overhead, color spaces, extended graphics states, and a cross reference table. Just like one sentence might be concise and another verbose, but both are valid English and say the same thing, so too one PDF file might have a more verbose way of representing the same content as a more concise PDF file. We'd have to look at your exact PDF files. It's likely that they were created by a variety of different pieces of software, some consise, some less so.

It also matters what version of Mac OS X and Preview you are using, because that determine the software that writes the new PDF file when you do a Save As in Preview.

I can, however, tell you what gets larger about some of my PDF files. This story applies to my computer, running Mac OS X 10.5.8 and Apple Preview 4.2 (469.5).

One file, Giulio.pdf, is a 22-page document with text as text, not scanned images. It is 461,092 bytes large. I opened it in Preview, did File... Save As..., and saved it under a new file name. The new file is 724,421 bytes, or 57% larger.

I opened each file with Adobe Acrobat Professional, version 8.3.1 for Mac OS. I did Advanced... PDF Optimizer... Audit Space Usage.... A small dialog box gave a break-down of how many bytes were due to each category of usage, plus the percent of the total file size for the category.

The original Giulio.pdf has 390,754 bytes (84.75%) devoted to content streams, and zero bytes devoted to images. It is in the PDF 1.4 format. The file saved by Preview has 675,846 bytes (93.29%) devoted to content streams, also zero bytes of images, and is in the PDF 1.3 format.  Preview made the content streams 285,092 bytes larger, and that represents 73% of the file size difference between the two.

I wondered if the PDF 1.3 file format was inherently less efficient for storing this kind of file. I opened the original Giulio.pdf in Adobe Acrobat Professional 8, and did Advanced... PDF Optimizer... Make compatible with: Acrobat 3.0 and later and pressed OK. I saved the resulting file under a new name. The resulting file is in the PDF 1.3 format, and was 452,356 bytes, or smaller than the original. Its content streams are 375,171 bytes (82.94%), a similar proportion, but smaller than the content streams of original file.

Thus it seems we can conclude that the Preview app on Mac OS X 10.5.8 is not as efficient as some other PDF creators at making concise content streams in PDF files, and the difference is enough to account for three-quarters of the size difference in a PDF file without images.

I did a similar experiment on form k.pdf, a 1-page document scanned from paper. The original file is 303,730 bytes, of which 298,197 bytes (98.18%) are images. A copy of this file created by Preview using Save As... is 300,601 bytes, or 1% smaller. This file size difference is more than accounted for by a smaller "document overhead" category of bytes in the file created by Preview.

Thus it seems we also can conclude that Preview doesn't always cause a PDF file to increase in size. It depends on the nature of the original PDF file, and how concise it was to start with.


Mail app always shows most recently read email When I open the Mail app on my iPad the last email read is always displayed. Is it possible to change this behavior?

There is no way to adjust this behaviour on iOS with the current version (iOS 6.1 and prior)


Can I change Apple IDs? I originally used my Apple ID with my daughter's iPod and now iPhone so that her purchases would be linked to my credit card. I now know that wasn't necessary.

I'd like to know how to change this so I can have her get her own Apple ID so her music, apps, etc. don't sync with my iOS devices.  Is there a way to do this?

You can sort of do this.

You can't make a new account for your daughter and then move existing purchases to be owned by your her new account.  You can use those purchases on her iPod though.

If she already has her own computer account and itunes install just move over to a new iTunes account and make new purchases there.  Change your password and move on.   She will no longer be able to buy with your account. You may need to log in every so often so she can get updates of the apps that were purchased by your account but otherwise things will work fine.

If you have to split her a new iTunes account out of your existing account it's a bit more complex.  There are a number of ways you can pull this off; here's how I would pull this off.

Make a computer account for your daughter.
Make a new Apple account for your daughter.
Change your password.
Authorize this new iTunes with your ID.  It's under Store->Authorize This Computer...  This lets her use content you've purchased with out logging in as you.
Use Home Sharing to move your old purchases to the new iTunes.
Sync her iPhone over to this new iCloud account.

At this point you can remove the purchases for her from your account.  They are in her account and will install and play on her iPhone.  She doesn't have for password and those apps you've already purchased for her are still owned by you.  They won't update without your password.   You'll have to log in for her every so often so that things can update. It'll prompt both on the phone and on the computer when it needs it.


where are the "best of the 90s", "billboard top 10 of 1982"-style suggestion lists in iTunes? I'm in the iTunes Store for the first time in forever, looking to buy some music.  (iTunes 11.0.2)

There used to be helpful lists like "best of the 90s", "billboard top 40" by year, and so on.

Where are all those helpful lists of songs?  They appear to be gone.  Please let me I'm wrong.

iTunes Essentials. Full list here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/essentials

Most popular lists are shown on the main page, and you can browse them all alphabetically.


Uploading to YouTube on iPod vs on Computer Is there a difference in resultant quality between uploading my video to YouTube directly from my iPod Touch, or first copying the (huge) MOV file over to my computer and then uploading it with my PC's browser?

I'm running iOS 4.3.3 and have the HD setting selected in the "Publish Video" screen. However, I noticed that the estimated MB displayed in the "Publish Video" screen, is smaller than the video's actual file size.

So is there a difference, or does it not matter?

(this question would also apply to the iPhone)

I believe you can easly test it. Upload same video to you tube via ihpone and pc. After that open that video and download it via jdownloader or internet download manager and look the sizes and bitrates.


Can I speed up the auto-dismissal of Notification Center banners? I like Notification Center, but banners linger a bit too long before auto-dismissing.

I'm aware of the popular two-finger swipe trick to immediately dismiss a banner, but I'm looking for an automated approach. Growl, for example, let you customize how long notifications stayed on the screen, but I don't see a similar option in the Notifications preference pane.

Is it possible to adjust this, like perhaps through a hidden preference?

Although I never usually have any luck finding them, I used MacWorld's guide, "How to find hidden preference settings", and I was able to find the hidden preference:

defaults write com.apple.notificationcenterui bannerTime <SECONDS>

Type the above into Terminal, replacing <seconds> with the number of seconds you want the banner to last for, and press return. Then, log out and log back in to reload Notification Center.


Is there any way to enable microsoft silverlight in IOS? Some websites need Microsoft silverlight for streaming. Is it possible  or is there any way to enable Microsoft Silverlight on IOS devices?

No. Silverlight is not supported on iOS devices.


Trying to buy OSX Mountain Lion, keeps trying to update I want to install OSX Mountain Lion on a hackintosh that I'm building, but I don't have a copy of ML. When I try to download it, it says that the update is free because I already have ML. How do I actually download the OS?

If you have Lion...

One thing you can do is buy and download lion and install that onto a flash drive. Boot to the flash drive, and then from that OS, buy and download ML to that flash drive. Then boot back into your normal OS, drag the file onto your desktop and you're done!


Can't turn off iTunes on MacBookAir I cannot quit from iTunes, possibly because there is a pop-up that will not cancel, despite dozens of times pressing the cancel button.  I turned off the machine and when I turned it back on, there was iTunes and the stubborn pop-up.  I'm using MacBookAir, bought in December 2019.

There can be multiple things happening here. If you have the spinny wheel, iTunes is obviously hanging/not responding. You can fully quit it by using Option + Command + Escape, selecting iTunes, and pressing Force Quit. If that doesn't work, you can open Activity Monitor (You can press Command + Space and then type Activity Monitor), find and select iTunes, and press the Stop symbol with an X in the center, and that should be the end of that. If none of this works, you can restart.


What is Process 644? I was trying to install the latest Adobe Flash player on my Macbook Pro running OS X.10.9.  The Adobe Installer stopped midway and informed me that "Process 644" is running and asked me to close it.

What is Process 644?

The PID of a process will almost always change each time it's run, so '644' is useless to anyone but you. To find the process given a PID, use

ps -p <pid>

Example:

ps -p 1
  PID TTY           TIME CMD
    1 ??        11:09.23 /sbin/launchd

Given the name of the process, you can now close the relevant app correctly — for example, the following tells you that it's Safari, which means you can open Safari and quit it.

ps -p 46239
  PID TTY           TIME CMD
46239 ??        74:37.08 /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari


Configure Finder dock icon to open another directory By default, the Finder dock icon opens All My Files directory.

How do I configure it to open a directory specified by me?

With Finder open, press Cmd+` to open the Finder Preferences window.

In this window you'll see a drop down list that lets you select where new Finder window open to when you open them.

There are some suggestions made when you click on the drop down list or you can choose Other... and pick any folder you like.


How to open migration assistant on an ipad How do I open migration assistant on an iPad-2?

I have tried in settings but can not find it.

If you still have the old iPad, make a backup via iTunes or iCloud, reset the new iPad if you have already activated it as a new iPad, and when asked, select the "Restore from backup" option.
Full instructions here: https://support.apple.com/kb/PH12521


YouTube doesn't work on a brand new MacBook YouTube doesn't work in Safari on mid-2013 MacBook Air 13".

I've tried enabling HTML5 video at http://www.youtube.com/html5, and some videos did start playing after that, but most videos still don't work.

What I've noticed is that if you're viewing a video that does in fact work, and go into the full-screen mode, then all subsequent videos (which are suggested after the original video ends) do work, but only whilst you're still within the full-screen mode -- as soon as you exit the full-screen mode, depending on the video, Adobe Flash might again be required right away, without any option of going back fullscreen.

How do I make YouTube work without Adobe Flash?  Clearly YouTube videos should all work without any exceptions, since they all are already encoded in H.264 just fine.

So this isn't a total solution but it should help.

You reported that even though you joined the html5 program the following video did not play in html5:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NV6Rdv1a3I

I was able to reproduce that result in Chrome.

Here's how I was able to get the video to play in html5:

In Chrome:

View > Developer > Developer Tools > Click on the little gear icon

In the resulting preference window:

Settings > Overrides > User Agent [X] > iPad -- iOS5

Then reload the video and it will be in HTML5.

Similar solution exists in Safari, but I have to walk the dogs. Back soon.


How to troubleshoot hanging macos login I have the following situation with my macOS 10.14.6:

A while ago I started experiencing my MacBook Pro hanged just after the login screen with user/password. Only the desktop and its icons show, the spinning wheel shows forever, I cannot do anything (no Cmd+Option+Esc, no way to go back to the login screen and switch user) and the only way to (gently) unlock it is to ssh to the machine from my smartphone and issue kill -9 -1 (ie, kill all the processes belonging to the user I'm trying to log in.
This happens only upon the first login after shutdown or reboot. Once I've unlocked the user with the killing, subsequent logins go well until the next reboot.
This happens only if, after reboot, I do the first login with a given account (the one I usually work with and which has many customisations), it doesn't happen if I first login with another (cleaner) account and then I login with the troubled one.
I've already tried the most trivial things: remove login items, stop a few launchd services, SMC reset, check the logs, use the ssh session and top to keep an eye on started processes. But no luck, I can't find what it is.
Somewhere I was suggested to login by clicking on the right arrow next to the password field and keeping the Option key pressed. Magically, this worked, but I suppose that key combination is to disable startup things I might need later.
Restarting in recovery mode doesn't make sense here: very likely it would work, but I wouldn't gain any particular info on the guilty process and it will keep hanging until I discover it.

So, my question is: as an advanced user how could I troubleshoot all the things that happen after login? Quite clearly, the graphical interface is waiting for some other program to finish (or some other signal), but how is it possible to know? Is there some tool (in addition to inspecting the logs, using top, ps, pstree)? Is there some technical documentation on how the whole thing works?

EDIT: since I'm receiving comments like "try this and that", note that I'm asking the highlighted question, not one of the many things I could try, many of which can already be found with Google, I already know (and tried) a number of them.

Magically, this worked, but I suppose that key combination is to disable startup things I might need later.

Well, if it works w/o apps startup when login, you can use bisection to find out what app causes trouble: disable all the startups then enable just a half of them, check if issue'd arise again or not, disable them again and enable those that weren't tried. If you found which half is causing troubles, repeat same procedure with its "suspects" — also splitting it in halves. That could allow you to narrow it down to a single app that being run on startup botches the login.


Macbook (8,1) Drivers for other Operating Systems I'm wanting to install a couple drivers like the keyboard, trackpad, airport card, etc to another operating system (Ubuntu 16.04 LTS). I saw some stuff about drivers for other models on the Ubuntu website but this model was never listed. Am I missing something?

I don't think you're missing anything, no. The Retina MacBook 8,1 is not listed as a compatible hardware model for Ubuntu 16.04.

Indeed the Ubuntu bug tracker has open bugs for support for stuff like keyboard, touchpad and others:

TouchPad doesn't work

Keyboard doesn't work

The same issues exists in the Linux kernel bug tracker, so they might be generic Linux issues and not Ubuntu specific.

I have seen reports from others that sound is not supported and that the SSD is hard to get working.

So all in all, unless you're willing to put in effort to fix these issues yourself - it is probably not going to be a good experience running Ubuntu natively on the MacBook.

Instead you could look at virtualized options.


Is there a way to prevent apps from staying in Dock after quitting? Certain OSX apps seem to have a tendency to stick around in the Dock, even though there's no user-facing setting to prevent this behavior. Is there a defaults command that prevents apps from enabling "Keep in Dock?"

I know about defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array (intentionally empty), but this has to be run manually, and repeatedly. Any ideas?

I think I understand your problem.. Open System Preferences, Click on dock, uncheck "Show recent applications in dock". This should probably solve your problem.


How can I get iPhone Mail to accept meeting invitations attached as .ics files? I love my iPhone and it changed the way I deal with email. However there is an annoyance: It seems that the iPhone mail app cannot deal with meeting invitations in .ics format (e.g. sent by Lotus Notes).

I use Gmail via IMAP. When I go to Gmail via PC/Browser it displays the meeting and I can accept the invitation. The Gmail iPhone page also displays it opposed to the iPhone mail client but I cannot accept it.

Is there any iPhone app / hack / workaround so I can accept invitations right inside iPhone mail or iPhone calendar (my Google calendar & contacts get pushed via Google Mobile / ActiveSync)?

When I receive an invitation to my Gmail account, it auto populates in my Google Calendar with a question mark beside it.

Unfortunately you can't accept - however it will now show in your calendar.

If the invite is sent from gmail, there is a link to select if you want to accept the invite.

Not exactly the full answer you're looking for but, hopefully this helps.


Productive use for old SO-DIMMs? Being the local geek, friends and family turn to me for upgrading RAM in their computers. They provide the new sticks and I keep the old ones. As such, I have accumulated quite the collection of DDR3 SODIMMs, consisting of pairs of 1GB and 2GB sticks.

Over the years I've made fishing lures, tie clips and other "cute" things. Unfortunately I haven't found a motherboard with 16 SO-DIMM slots. I'm hoping for a productive use for these sticks. Something to benefit my 2008 Mac Pro or another device on my network.

Preferably the uses would be something other than vaporware products and something I might actually purchase, PCIe based or as a stand-alone thing.

You could sell them on eBay. Some people have 5 to 10 year old computers that take smaller RAM upgrades.