Changing the Apple ID on a 1st generation iPad We are trying to add apps to our 1st generation iPad. We reset to factory settings and need to add some apps to it. I tried signing in with the same Apple ID that is on our other iPad and my husbands iPhone. It says that I need to reenter the password and add a verification code that is found on our other devices. However, when we try to sign in again, it never gives us the option to enter the verification code so we have been unable to download any apps leaving this iPad virtually useless. All the apps require iOS 9 or higher and this generation's highest available version is iOS 5 so we can't download directly. I need to be able to change the Apple ID on the iPad so we can share apps between our devices.

The old iPad doesn't know about verification codes so doesn't know how to ask for it properly. You can still sign in by adding the verification code to the end of your usual password in the normal password box when trying to log in.


Can't resize external hard drive partition I remember very clearly back when I formatted the drive, that I chose everything that St. Steve prescribed me to, GPT table, HFS+ partitions, even though other platforms can't write to HFS+.

Now, surprise surprise, a year later when I have to partition the drive, Disk Utility says "This partition can't be modified", and diskutil(8) says "Volume format does not support resizing".

It's not encrypted, there shouldn't be anything in the way.

/dev/disk3
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *3.0 TB     disk3
   1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB   disk3s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Nemo                    3.0 TB     disk3s2

Unable to Resize Partitions talks in depth about resizing corestorage, which is irrelevant here.

(Originally posted as a comment)

Interesting point, I've just erased all partitions and started over, and I noticed that they couldn't be resized after being ejected. However, if I plug the disk back in without unmounting the partitions, they seem resizable.

So it might be just because I had the healthy habit under Linux to unmount my partitions before fiddling with them.


iOS Calendar is stuck One of my calendars is stuck on my iPhone. I tried to double-click the home button, but the Calendar app is not one of the icons showing in the task bar, so I can't close it manually. Can you assist?

Try restarting the phone.  This will close all apps.

Hold the lock button (on top of the phone) for 4 seconds, then swipe the red bar to turn it off.  When the spinning icon disappears, hold the lock button for 1 second, and an Apple logo will appear.  Try using your calendar again.


Which iPhone English dictionary gives the best pronunciation? I tried Merriam-Webster and Google Translate, both are far from satisfactory.

I would try the Dictionary.com app.

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=308750436&mt=8


Using video recorded by iPad how can I calculate the exact time duration between 2 frames? I shot a video with an iPad recently for a school project.

My teacher told me the iPad shoots at 30 fps, but opening the video afterwards VLC tells me the frame rate is 29.970030.

By watching the video and stepping through the frames, how can I calculate the exact time duration between 2 frames?

E.g. what's the time difference between frame 100 and frame 130? Is it 1 second (assuming 30 fps) or slightly more/less?

iOS' native camera app (iPhone/iPad) does not have a fixed frame rate.

I attached the details for a short clip I recorded. It varies between 28.571 fps and 30.000 fps

VLC displays a frame rate of 29.973708 fps for the same clip.


Why does extracting a large file with MacZip cause Mac OS 9 to hang? Why is it that I can perform multitasking when extracting .sit files with StuffIt Expander but extracting .zip files with MacZip causes Mac OS 9 to hang until extraction is complete?

In modern MacOS, the multi-tasking is controlled by the OS itself. It 'deals' out CPU cycles to the running processes.
Classic MacOS 9 used 'Cooperative multitasking', in which applications took turns on the CPU, and released control when they finished.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_multitasking
'Good' applications would provide code to ensure that they didn't hold on more than they needed.


Sending HTML mails (without a 3rd party app) I've been trying to send an html mail with images embedded.

Same as you would do if you embedded items into your stationary folder in outlook.

I don't want to use a 3rd party app...because i need to send this to a client and then they will forward to a whole bunch of people...so i can't send it via a 3rd party app because once you do, if you try forward it then all the images and formatting etc don't come with the mail.

Any ideas?

You can do this relatively simple from the command line. Save your HTML, but also include the necessary SMTP headers at the top in the source. For this example I'll save the source as example.html in my home directory.

~/example.html:

From: sender@example.com
To: recipient@example.com
Subject: Test email
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html

Hello world!

Now you can send this e-mail from Terminal.app by executing the following command:

cat ~/example.html | sendmail -t


How do you show only complete albums in iTunes 11? iTunes 11 seems to revolve around the screen that shows you all of the different albums that you own.  However, the vast majority of the albums iTunes is showing me are albums from which I own only one song, and it is making it difficult to find those albums that are actually complete.

In iTunes 11, how do you filter the albums displayed in the Albums pane?

Make a smart playlist with the following filter - Comments contains Full Album.
For each album I want to add, I click on Get Info and add Full Album to the comments field


How do I view 2 apps as a multitasking Split View on an iPad Air 2 running iOS 9? I've updated an iPad Air 2 to iOS 9 and can get the the Slide Over view to come out by swiping from right to left on the right hand side of the screen, but there does not seem to be a divider on the left side of the app that slides out that would allow me to stretch the app to take up 50% of the screen instead of 33% like I've seen in other iOS 9 multitasking videos.

I tried a mixture of the built in Apple apps (Notes, iBooks, Safari, Calendar, News) but none of them seem to have the ability to be stretched to take up 50% of the screen.

I double checked in the settings that the General > Multitasking > Allow Multiple Apps is set to on as well as Persistent Video Overlay (which does seem to be working as I can play video over the top of other apps).

Is there other settings I'm missing?

This is for sure an iPad Air 2, correct? It should have TouchID (a fingerprint sensor) on the front.

To verify the model, go to the settings app, General, About:

Model MH2P2LL/A is an iPad Air 2

Other ways to identify your iPad are at https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201471


Homebrew tap when there is no artifact for the current OS Let's say I have a formula like this:
class Foo < Formula
  desc "Foo desc..."
  homepage "https://foo.com"
  version "1.2.3"
  bottle :unneeded

  if OS.mac?
    url "https://foo.com/1.2.3/foo_macos_x86_64.tar.gz"
    sha256 "fake"
  end
  if OS.linux? && Hardware::CPU.intel?
    url "https://foo.com/1.2.3/foo_linux_x86_64.tar.gz"
    sha256 "fake"
  end

  def install
    bin.install "foo"
  end

  test do
    system "#{bin}/foo --version"
  end
end

This works fine on both macOS and Linux amd64, but if the user tries it on a Linux arm, for example, they'll get an error like:
formulae require at least a URL
Error: Cannot tap foo/foo: invalid syntax in tap!

Which is in fact what's happening, there is no URL for Linux Arm.
Is there a way to make this error better? Maybe somehow say which architectures and OSs are supported or something?

I am not overly familiar with Homebrew, but depends_on seems to allow you to specify an architecture. I think adding
depends_on arch: :x86_64

to your formula will solve the issue nicely.


I have an iPad mini 2, with ios 7.2, can i manually upgrade to 8.1.2 and still jailbreak it? I just bought my wife an iPad mini 2, ( it was still factory sealed) it has 7.2 on it and I'd  like to know if I can still update it to 8.1.2 and jailbreak it. I know downgrading from 8.1.3 can no longer be done but what about upgrading from older firmware to 8.1.2? It's this still possible even if apple is no longer signing it?

Thanks,

Ocha

No, you cannot. Apple is no longer signing the 8.1.2 update, as can be seen in the chart at The iPhone Wiki.

Edit: The screenshot got partially cut-off, but the upshot is that all devices that support 8.1.2 were listed under the same item, and all stopped signing on 10 February 2015.


iMac beachballing for no reason — I suspect it might be faulty hardware. What can I do to work around it? The Problem:

A couple of weeks ago, the iMac started "beachballing" regularly in normal use
There is no discernible pattern to what triggered a beachball. It could be switching between windows, trying to type, using Spotlight, opening or closing an application, or even just whilst idle.
Over the next few days, the hangs became so frequent it rendered the iMac effectively unusable
I tried literally everything I could think of to fix it (detailed below), but to no avail
The only thing that finally solved it was wiping the disk and reinstalling everything from a Time Machine backup
But about a week later, the same thing began happening again. I still couldn't figure it out, so was forced to reinstall (again!)
And now, yesterday, it's come back once more

I am at my wit's end. I work in IT, and rely on the iMac to be able to work from home whilst my country is in lockdown. My local Apple Store is obviously closed. Each Time Machine restoration takes almost 18 hours to complete, meaning I'm unable to work during that time (never mind the time waiting on the SBBOD to disappear).

The iMac:

2017 27-inch Retina 5K iMac
macOS Catalina 10.15.4
32GB RAM
4.2GHz i7 processor
Fusion Drive (APFS, comprised of a 128GB SSD + 2TB HDD)
T2 security chip

What I've Already Tried:

Checking Activity Monitor during beachballing

CPU: load is usually ~20%
Memory: 0 swap used, ~16GB free memory remaining

Signing out of iCloud
Disabling Spotlight indexing
Creating a new user account
SMC reset
NVRAM/PRAM reset
Disk Utility First Aid
Boot into Safe Mode
Boot into Recovery Mode, and use diskutil verifyVolume and repairVolume
Repairing Home Folder permissions
Checking Console and reviewing system.log and other files

No correlation between beachballing and log entries

Running a spindump via Activity Monitor

Worryingly, spindumps don't show up — they just result in a Crash Report appearing in Console (see here)

Running EtreCheck

No major issues found
No noteworthy minor issues found

Running DriveDx

The results for the SSD were fine
The results for the HDD do look a bit concerning — see here.

Running Apple's hardware diagnostic test at startup

No faults found

Reinstalling macOS

My Suspicions:

I found it interesting that reinstalling macOS does NOT fix the problem, but wiping the Fusion drive, reinstalling macOS, AND restoring from a Time Machine backup in one go DOES fix it (at least temporarily).

My DriveDx results seem to indicate the HDD is in a "failing" state. I don't know if this is just precautionary or if this could actually be causing it. It's hard to pin the blame on this directly, as the beachballs do not seem to correlate with disk I/O, but I can't say that for certain as I don't know enough about this area. I also would've assumed that the Apple hardware diagnostic test you can run at startup might have identified this if it really was a problem...?

So my hunch right now, in the absence of any more obvious clues, is that maybe this problem is caused by a failing HDD in the Fusion drive...? That might explain how wiping and reformatting the drive lets things work smoothly for a week or so, but after enough new sectors have been written to and data shuffled around on the disk, it starts to slow down after time. That's just a hunch!

What Next?

Do you have any other suggestions of things to check or try?
Are there any other clues I might have missed?
Do you think my hypothesis about the failing HDD is right?

If so, I understand the HDD in a Fusion drive is not user-serviceable...
So I would assume the next best alternative would be to buy e.g. 2TB Thunderbolt drive and use that as the startup disk, instead of the Fusion drive?
Is this possible? Are there any drawbacks? Any brands you'd recommend?

Thanks for reading this lengthy post. Any advice or guidance is really appreciated!

Jack

I'm just going to echo Allan's comment: if DriveDx says your drive is "failing" then it needs to be replaced. The only workaround is to remove the drive and stop using it.

Disk health checks have a low sensitivity but high specificity. In other words, it might report that a failing drive still looks healthy, but it will never report a healthy drive as failing. If it reports failing, we must trust that result.

The reason that wiping the drive helps, at least for a little while, is that it does more work to avoid using the parts of the drive that are already known to be bad. But the drive is like a rotting fruit
 -- even the good parts are going bad, so eating around the bad part doesn't help for long.


Spotlight constantly indexes MacBook Air (Lion). Takes up 50+% of cpu So I noticed my Air was running very slow. Opened Activity monitor and noticed a process mdworker taking up most of the space. I googled it and it seems to be related to Spotlight.

I opened Spotlight and there appears to be a progress bar along with the message that it is indexing my MacBook Air. I've let this run for ages now but it seems to be stuck at 95%. I tried restarting but I get the same thing. Force quitting mdworker does nothing as it just seems to start again.

Would anyone have any ideas on how to solve this? Thanks!

Try to erase the Spotlight index by either running sudo mdutil -Ea or by temporarily adding your startup disk to the privacy tab in the Spotlight preference pane.

If that doesn't work, try to run:

sudo lsof|grep mdworker

or

sudo mdutil -Ea;opensnoop -n mdworker

to see if the indexing hangs on some specific files.


Change default Preview window size? I'm working with LaTex and I'm using a text editor that, when I compile LaTeX files, runs a script to open the compiled pdf in Preview. The trouble is that Preview opens in the same default dimensions every time, which covers up other applications I have open.

It's not a huge deal, but it would be nice to have Preview open flushed right and as half the width of the screen every time. Since I'm opening and closing it so often, moving it and resizing it every time gets really annoying.

I realize this isn't a built-in option for Preview, but is there any way of doing it using Terminal or otherwise? I've googled around and haven't found any satisfactory answers yet.

You might want to check out this question: What window management options exist for OS X?

My recommendation, if you want it to be fully automatic, is to use Slate.

Slate is no longer in active development, but it still works and is highly customizable. Put this code in a .slate.js file in your home directory:

var rightHalf = slate.operation("move", {
   "x" : "screenSizeX/2+screenOriginX",
   "y" : "screenOriginY",
   "width" : "screenSizeX/2",
   "height" : "screenSizeY"
});
slate.on("windowOpened", function(event, win) {
    if (win.app().name() === "Preview") {
        win.doOperation(rightHalf);
    }
});


iPhone 6 -random issue- callers can't hear me Issues with volume .. Callers can't hear me. I can hear them when I cut on speaker. This is random.  Sometimes a reboot will help. May work several days and then go out again. Replaced sim are, factory reset, and still no luck.

This happened to me too on iPhone 6 plus for a while - I don't necessarily have a solution, but I do have a process that's slightly less annoying than a factory reset.

When you reboot - I assume you are just switching off & back on? Apologies if this is already how you're rebooting, but just in case it's not:

Instead, try quitting all your apps, then press the home & power buttons at the same time & hold down for about 10 seconds - it will reboot, but it's a hard reboot, and I found that this got rid of the problem for longer than a regular off & on reset.

I've also found that it comes & goes with software updates, and haven't had it for a while. Fingers crossed that today's IOS 10 doesn't have the issue!


Xcode 4.1 installation not customizable? Missing Installation Type Step? Any ideas on how to get around installing that huge iOS SDK in Xcode 4.1?

This Q&A suggests to deselect iOS SDK during installation, but the Xcode 4.1 (App Store-Version) Installer seems to have no "Installation Type" Step anymore.

You can control or right click to show package contents and run only select portions of Xcode 4.1.

The program Pacifist will let you look into the packages to see what each contains.

The installer has changed to remove the options - it's all or nothing. If space is tight on your boot drive, you will have to either install to another volume and move parts back or temporarily free up enough space to install and clean out what you don't want to keep.


Can I install Mac OS X on a blank SSD without any backups? I have a late 2012 mac mini whose hardrive was causing me lot of issues. I decided to move onto Linux and I have formatted the complete hard drive and installed Linux on it. I would like to get back to OSX and I have decided to upgrade my harddrive to an SSD.

The question is how can I do it. I do not have any backups. I do have access to a macbook pro which can be used to create a bootable USB stick.

Can i just boot using the option command and install Mac OS X from the USB onto the new SSD or should I be aware of any tricky situations?

If you have a bootable USB stick yes you will be able to install it onto the new SSD by holding down the option key at startup and selecting it.

The command to create an installer USB varies slightly on the version:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201372

Alternatively your Mac mini is recent enough that you use macOS Recovery over the Internet


Can someone help me evaluate if this is a scam for Mac support? My father-in-law purchased a $400 lifetime support contract with a company (Cyber PC Experts).

Recently his computer has been acting up—running very slowly—so he requested support. The service tech took control of his computer remotely (from India) and pretty much fixed the issue.

A few days later, he gets an email from them saying that they need to check his computer again because it was hacked.

They did a few things to his computer while he was watching to show that it was “hacked.” Then proceeded to try to sell him a ~$1000 software/config to clear current “hacks” and to thwart future hacks.

I wasn’t involved until I heard this and went over to his computer and took over the phone conversation with the tech that was remotely using his machine.

My father-in-law told me that they showed him an IP address and then showed him the geographic location of the IP address and said that was where the hacker was. They even zoomed in and showed the building. It was a location in Los Angeles… Where my father-in-law lives.

I used a website to “Find My IP” and it matched up with IP address that the tech was showing him. Basically I think it was the public address that our cable provider shows as public for our home. I tried to “Find My IP” using other computers at his home and it gave the same IP address.  So it was probably Time Warner’s data center.

The tech on the other end was also showing him the output of the netstat and top commands. They were telling him that there were a lot of “sleep”-ing processes and that supposeduly means his computer has been compromised. They also said that the high % of idle CPI cycles means that the computer was slowing down.

So, I basically kindly declined to buy the ~$1000 software to clean out his computer and prevent future hacks.

Am I right to call their bluff? Has anyone else encountered this kind of scam before?

Here are some report on Cyber PC Experts:

Complaint / review: Cyber PC Experts - Internet Scam | #1299834
Cyber PC Experts Reviews | Scambook

Your gut reaction feels correct. The description of sleeping processes and idle % CPU use is misleading.

The description of tracking IP addresses to a single location is unrealistic.

The costs involved are high. For that sum, consider suggesting your father-in-law engages a local Mac expert – or go to a local Apple Store for help.

Erase and Reinstall

If possible, back up your father-in-law's Mac to an external hard drive. Then erase and reinstall OS X:

  Before you begin, make sure your Mac is connected to the Internet.
  Restart your Mac. Immediately hold down the Command (⌘) and R keys after you hear the startup sound to start up in OS X Recovery.
  When the Recovery window appears, select Disk Utility then click Continue.
  Select the indented volume name of your startup disk from the left side of the Disk Utility window, then click the Erase tab.
  If you want to securely erase the drive, click Security Options. Select an erase method, then click OK.
  From the Format pop-up menu, select Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Type a name for your disk, then click Erase.
  After the drive is erased, close the Disk Utility window.
  If you’re not connected to the Internet, choose a network from the Wi-Fi menu.
  Select the option to Reinstall OS X.
  Click Continue and follow the onscreen instructions to reinstall OS X.

This should entirely remove any third party tools and processes that have been installed by the support company.

With the reinstalled OS X, only restore personal files and documents from the back up.

An Aside: Distractions and Blame

Please do not blame the father-in-law. We have not been asked to judge the company or individuals affected. @milesmeow asked for help to decide if their decision was defensible and if others have encountered this type of situation.


Confusion with sudo and multiple local accounts I am having difficulties figuring out why certain things are much more complicated on a mac terminal than a standard linux shell..

Say I have two local accounts, one administrator called "adm" and a standard user "usracc" and I want to be able to update the locate database with updatedb command. I need to simply run sudo updatedb, except usracc is not in the sudoers list.

Ok, I say and su adm then sudo updatedb which tells me that updatedb command is not found. So to recap:

my regular user account is not on the sudoers list (this is actually intentional, as I dont want to compromise the system if the password for this account is compromised).
my admin account can sudo but apparently not that particular command, which cannot be found for whatever reason.
when I su to my admin account I see; shell-init: error retrieving current directory: getcwd: cannot access parent directories: Permission denied which gets repeated everytime I try to get content assist with the tab key..

so with the root account disabled, apple sort of forces you to give sudo privilages to user accounts to be able to do simple stuff, how exactly does that help with security? Or have I completely misunderstood something here?

You aren't carrying forward your shell environment into the su adm session. so if you echo $PATH in the usracc account and the adm account, you'll find that they aren't equal (which is why adm can't find the updatedb command). All you need to do is tell su that you want to carry forward your env (su -m adm should do it) or just add the path to updatedb.

Though on my box updatedb is called /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb and is a script.


How can I block email signup overlays or javascript popups in Safari? Is there a Safari extension or something that will block the Javascript modal popups that are now ubiquitous (soliciting mailing list signups)?

Failing that, are there extensions that will simply block sites that utilize these modal popups? I'm ok with any of these options:

Block the modal popup
Close the tab immediately if a popup happens
Block/remove the site from search results

There are so many sites these days that I have no reason to spend time on a site that utilizes popups. I'd rather not know they even exist so if an extension can remove them from DuckDuckGo results that would be outstanding.

...are there extensions that will simply block sites that utilize
  these modal popups?

The problem here is that they are not pop-ups as what you are traditionally used to.  They are basically HTML elements that are overlayed over the parent HTML document.

Block the modal popup

What makes this extremely difficult to block is that site functionality may depend on it.  Some modals may contain nonsense while others might have important information (i.e. shopping cart, contact form, etc.)

Chrome/Firefox has a plugin called Behind the Overlay but results are spotty at best.  I don't know of any for Safari.

Closing the tab

This really wouldn't be workable since this isn't a popup of a new window/tab - it's an HTML element in the same document.  Closing the tab would close out the whole session on that webpage.

Block site from search results

This is a function of the search engine and not of Safari.  Most HTML 5 compliant sites now use these modals so blocking the sites would be counter productive.  However, if there is a site you wish to ignore because of their use of modals, you can exclude it in your search query (Bing, Google, DuckDuckGo)

Macbook Pro -apple.com


How can I enable syntax colouring in vim using Terminal? I am new to mac

I want to change the look of my Terminal.app window so that it look like Ubuntu's terminal

How can I configure my Mac terminal so that code in vim look colourful?
I.e. such that data type, special functions, header files have a different colour.

Run :syntax on inside vim or add syntax on to your .vimrc.


How do I merge the tabs of two safari windows when I have more than two open? So far, I know how I can merge all windows with all their tabs using:

I use different windows in safari to organize them by content. Sometimes it makes sense to merge the tabs of two windows. This very easy when you have only two Safari windows open.

How can I do this when I have more than two windows? I'm open to solutions using extensions.

First, if the tab bar isn't showing (it usually doesn't show unless there are multiple tabs in the window), select the 1st window you want to merge, then at the menu bar at the top of the screen click View->Show Tab Bar. Next drag the now visible tab bar to the window you want to merge with.


iOS7: How do I find a location in Maps and assign it as the location on a calendar entry? I like that the Calendar now allows assigning a location to an entry which can then be opened in Maps.

Unfortunately it appears to be confined to locations assigned to contacts - which make sense if you for instance need to meet at somebodys - but now I had the need to pinpoint a location on the map which I do not intuitively map to a contact (a cinema actually) and use that as the meeting location, and could not figure out how.

The search function in Maps found the cinema and allowed me to select it to see it on the map.  The pinhead was red and I could assign it to a contact, but not to a calendar entry.

Is this doable, and if so, how?

Tap the pinhead, click SHARE, click COPY TO CLIPBOARD, paste into location. It works for me, some may think too many steps, but it's okay!


How many worldwide average system processes and minimum process runs in Mac OS X? As I can check system processes in activity monitor, it is around 76 process running in my mac.
As I assume if number of running system processes increases then it impacts on Mac speed.
If number of running system processes is high then Mac speed will poor , if it is nearest to average running process then Mac speed can be fair , if it minimum then speed will be excellent
Can anyone recommend or help me to identify that least number of system process and average system process runs in Mac.

Your assumption about inferring total system performance from the number of running processes is incorrect. There is no such direct correlation.

The underlying operating system easily scales to thousands of (idle) processes without any noticeable effect on system performance on a modern Mac. Therefore it makes no sense to spend effort on reducing the number of processes as such.


High Sierra Freezes on Login I have a rMBP (late 2012 model) that I recently installed High Sierra on and enabled FileVault (this has apparently been known to cause some similar issues on older version of OSX, but I found no work around with High Sierra).

Currently when I try to log into my standard user on boot up, I get a progress bar that get to ~75% progress and then freezes (I have left it in this state overnight with the hopes that it was just slow - no luck).

Restarting the computer in recovery mode (cmd+R) causes a similar issue, where the progress bar gets to about 50% and then freezes (again I've let it sit here overnight with no progress), meaning I cant use the disk utility to repair the disk.

Safe mode (shift on startup) also doesn't do anything - progress bar freezes at ~75% on logging in.

Resetting the PRAM and SMC also don't appear to do anything.

Booting in single user mode (cmd+S) lets me attempt to repair the disk manually using:

/sbin/fsck -fy/

But it repeatedly returns the error:

warning: apfs_keylocker.pr_block_count is zero for encrypted fs (0x403)
** The volume /dev/rdisk1s1 could not be verified completely.
apfs_vfstop_unmount:1405: fake mount <ptr> going away

Running verbose mode (cmd+V) on startup runs until it reaches:

en3: promiscuous mode succeeded
IOConsoleUsers: time(0) 0->0, lin 0,lik 1,
IOConsoleUsers: gIOLockState 3, hs 0, bs 0, now 0, sm 0x0
Setting BTCoex Config: enable_2G:1, profile_2g:0, enable_5g:1, profile_5g:0

Where it locks up and freezes.

I have also tried reinstalling OSX from a bootable USB drive and via WiFi. In the case of the USB installer, the progress bar, once again, gets to ~75% and freezes. Using the WiFi method, I get a grey screen to appear with a pinwheel that spins for about 3 seconds before freezing and crashing.

From reading various forum posts, it seems like either my harddrive has finally died or FileVault and High Sierra aren't playing nice together. Ideally there is some work around that I've missed, but I do have backups, so I'm okay with wiping the harddrive completely, but as of now, I don't even see a way of doing that.

Any/all advice or input is appreciated and thanks in advance for any help!

I upgraded to High Sierra (iMac 27″ late 2013). I worked without problems for 5 days. Then the disaster: progress bar that gets to ~75% progress slowly (very very slowly) and then freezes.

I tried:

restart in safety Mode
reset PRAM
check HD with Disk Utility (no problems detected)
restart in recovery Mode and reinstall High Sierra from partition

but there was the same problem (progress bar that gets to ~75% progress and then freezes)

Yesterday I boot my iMac from an external HD (with Sierra OS) and now I'm working with this (I reinstalled only Adobe Suite).

I think that the solution is reinstall Sierra.


I can't change country/region of my Apple account! I can't change country/region of my Apple account. The steps I followed:

Tap on the App Store icon in your home screen
Tap on featured on the bottom left corner of screeen
Scroll all the way to the bottom where your Apple ID info is
Tap View Apple ID, you may have to enter your password
Once the page loads change your country/region

I do not seem to have the option to change country/region, it is there it is shown but I can't select and change it. It happens both on my iPhone and on my PC application of iTunes.

Is there any other way I can change it?

Go to https://appleid.apple.com/#!&page=signin

Login with your Apple ID
Enter your security answer if asked for
It will open a page with account settings
Click edit on first section where your address is shown
Modify your address and click Done

Vola... Your country is changed in Apple ID :) enjoy


Is a "listen again" service available for Beats 1? As a non-subscriber to Apple Music, I can listen live to Beats 1 but sadly the show I want to listen to (Zane Lowe) is on at times I am never free (5pm/am)

I understand you can see a playlist of past shows but am unclear if even paying subscribers can listen to previous shows on-demand... something which has become pretty standard in the UK through services such as iPlayer.

Is there a free/paid way to listen to Beats 1 radio shows on demand and if so, what are the details?

Yes, as an Apple Music subscriber, I can verify that paid Apple Music subscribers may go back and listen to replays of most Beats 1 shows on-demand. I personally use this feature to catch up on Zane Lowe all the time. It will allow you to go back and listen to shows up to a couple months old. For example, right now I could go back and listen to many shows from December 2015, but not any earlier.

This is part of the regular Apple Music service, so it also gives you access to on-demand tracks from (much of) iTunes, iTunes Radio, and For You.

$5 per month - student

$10 per month - individual

$15 per month - family


Customize Quick Look to allow me to view .yml files I would like to use "space" to preview *.yml files directly out of the finder on Mac OS X.

I think I have to tell finder to launch the text file quick view handler for files with that type and this has something to do with universal type identifiers (UTI.)

But that's as far as I was able to get.

Can anyone give me the magic formula? Thanks!!

I've had great luck with the free QLStephen plugin for Quick Look. It displays lots of other plaintext formats.
Probably worth a shot to see if it will work with YAML files.

You can get it here.


Microphone no longer works in Skype I tried going into System Preferences, Sound, and Input and making sure the "Internal Microphone" is highlighted but it still won't work. No one can hear me in any Skype calls I make.

Skype uses a separate audio configuration that can be different from the main system configuration. Go to Skype Preferences, then "Audio/Video", and check the settings there.


Car bluetooth Problem my year 2009 Mercedes C class can pair with my iphone 5 no problem at all
the car speaker can receive phone calls and I can talk hands free, also when I am using my iphone in the google map nav mode, the speaker speaks well through bluetooth connnection

the problem is when I listening music or watch videos, the speak doesn't work....

A common issue is the output selection in the media apps:

Make sure that on your phone, in the media screen, you have selected the correct output source (Bluetooth - Mercedes name) to play the audio (assuming audio is coming from the phone when it doesn't work)

If no audio comes (make sure volume is up) .. However, the Mercedes model / year may not support music playback.

As @tyson mentioned, inquire with the car manual for Bluetooth settings


Accidentally plugged in earphone jack into USB port! So I wanted to plug in my earphone jack into my Mac but I was not seeing so I accidentally and gently without that much force I put in my earphone jack into my  Mac left usb port but it did not touch the pins. So should I worry that I have damaged my Mac?

I wouldn't worry too much, the only two pins on a USB port that might have an ill effect if you short them together are the ground and power pins but they're located at either end of the connector so it's unlikely that would have happened with an earphone jack.

Additionally USB ports have over-current protection which is why from time to time you might see a message similar to "USB device was drawing too much power - USB devices have been disabled". In that case a reboot should re-enable the port. So unless you've physically damaged the connector, which it doesn't sound like you have, I don't see you'll have a problem.

Just to add a reference regarding shorting of pins from a publicly available standard, the Universal Serial Bus Revision 2.0 specification, sections 7.1.1 and 7.2.1.2.1:

Short Circuit Withstand

  A USB transceiver is required to withstand a continuous short circuit of D+ and/or D- to VBUS, GND, other data line, or the cable shield at the connector, for a minimum of 24 hours without degradation. It is recommended that transceivers be designed so as to withstand such short circuits indefinitely. The device must not be damaged under this short circuit condition when transmitting 50% of the time and receiving 50% of the time (in all supported speeds)...

Over-current Protection

  The host and all self-powered hubs must implement over-current protection for safety reasons, and the hub must have a way to detect the over-current condition and report it to the USB software. Should the aggregate current drawn by a gang of downstream facing ports exceed a preset value, the over-current protection circuit removesor reduces power from all affected downstream facing ports...


Install jdk 8 without admin privileges Is there a way to install or run jdk 8 without admin privileges? I would like to compile a java project I have that requires jdk 8 on a computer that has only jdk 6 installed. I am not an administrator on the computer.

You can use Pacifist to view the contents of the JDK installer package. You can use it to extract the files to your user library folder ~/Library instead of the system wide /Library.

The relevant subfolders in Library are Internet Plug-Ins, Java, and an alias in PreferencePanes.

See this screenshot for the path structure.

Moving the files can be done manually or by modifying the installer package.


Applescript to automatically add .noindex extension to a file? I'm interested in excluding certain files from Spotlight, and it was suggested to add the .noindex extension. I'd like to automate this. How is it possible to do via Applescript?

The following AppleScript will append the extension .noindex to any single file. To use this particular script, paste it into a new AppleScript document and save it as an Application. It will have a Application like icon with an arrow. This means the script is a droplet. To rename any single file, simply drop the file on top of this application's icon, and the file will have been renamed in under a second.

on open theFileToRename
    tell theFileToRename
        tell application "Finder"
            set theName to the name of file theFileToRename as string
            set extension to ".noindex"
            set the name of file theFileToRename to (theName & extension)
        end tell
    end tell
end open

If you don't want to use the functionality of Droplets, the following script will prompt you to select a file:

set extension to ".noindex"
set theFileToRename to (choose file with prompt "Select a file to append the \"" & extension & "\" extension to." without multiple selections allowed)
tell application "Finder"
    set theName to the name of file theFileToRename as string
    set extension to ".noindex"
    set the name of file theFileToRename to (theName & extension)
end tell

I hope this is useful to you.


iPhone and iPad recovery stops with error 14 yesterday I wanted to update both my iPad and iPhone to iOS 8.0. I usually do this wireless via the phone settings, but yesterday I chose to update from iTunes. So I connected my iPhone 5 to my PC, made a backup and started downloading the newest iOS.

After 30 minutes of downloading it told me something like "The firmware is damaged" and asked me to disconnect the phone from the PC and plug it in again. I've done that, and tried it again. Another 30 minutes later (the downloaded ISPW wasn't saved anywhere, iTunes just disregarded it) the same error popped up.

So I went ahead and downloaded the correct ISPW (iPhone5,2_8.0_12A365) via my browser, which worked. Next I shift-clicked the "Update"-button in iTunes, chose this .ispw and started the update. After fixing a error 3194 (by manipulating my PC's hosts-file) I got my iPhone to start updating for a couple of seconds. Then iTunes terminated the update with an error 14. Now my iPhone is stuck in restore mode and every time I try to update it, it either gets stuck while "restoring iPhone-software" at ~10% (I've been waiting for 20 minutes, the progress bar didn't even move a bit) or stops with the error 14 again.

With my luck I've tried the same thing with my iPad mini (Retina)... Same result, device is now stuck in restore mode and won't update due to error 14.

I've tried another PC, another cable, another USB port, switching it into DFU-mode (it jumps right back into restore), nothing worked.

I've been trying to fix it for the last 5 hours, but hadn't had any luck so far. I hope someone can assist me.

I experienced this (error 14) when updating my iPhone 6.  I backed up the phone and apps in iTunes while downloading the OS update to iTunes.  Then I chose the iTunes Update Now button.  It took 18 minutes to arrive at the error code 14.  My phone then disconnected from my computer and could not be SEEN by my computer until I plugged the USB cable into a different USB port and then plugged in the phone. I was only given a choice to quit or totally reset the phone.  I did a reset which resulted in a choice to have a new phone or to restore it.  The first and second restore attempts failed. I chose restore from the phone choices.

It worked when I used the restore button from iTunes instead of using the choice on the phone. There were approx. 10 apps that did not restore but as I write this the phone is downloading them from the apps store.  My contacts are complete, as are my pictures and other personal data.  Yuck!  Always back up your phone before OS Updates!!!


Why did Apple assign the wrong name to my AppleID, and how do I change it? I'm setting up an iPad for Mom's birthday. In the process, I created her an AppleID, and typed in her name. Signing into iCloud using her ID shows my name instead.  How do I fix this?

If the name on the Apple ID or the billing address is incorrect, you can fix it at https://appleid.apple.com

You can edit the name on the account here...

And you can edit the billing name here...

(Look for the Edit buttons.)


Will the absence of connected charger increase the cycle count? I'm a new MacBook user, so I may be relying on rumours instead of fact.

It sounds quite silly, but, from my perspective, if I always hold my laptop connected to a charger, then my battery is always around 100% and it seems like the battery cycle count is not growing at that time. And, if I take my laptop somewhere without a charger, then I get this 40-60% decrease, then I think it's at this moment the cycle count increases more than it would if it is connected to a charger.

I guess I'm a little confused by cycle counts. What are the facts about how they are measured?

I'm not entirely sure I understand your question, but one cycle is equivalent to a full discharge then recharge.

So, using your example, if you use the MacBook without a charger and its charge decreases by 40% and then you recharge it, that's effectively .4 of a cycle.

In other words, to use a simpler scenario, if you use half of your MacBook's charge in one day, and then recharge it fully, and then the next day you do exactly the same, those two days combined would count as one charge cycle.

So, some users may go through a cycle a day, others can use their MacBook for weeks before completing a cycle.

For more info on this refer to Determining battery cycle count for Mac notebooks.


How to change the home screen wallpaper randomly How can I set to change my iPhone's wallpaper automatically? I have an album called wallpapers and I want these wallpapers set as wallpapers on my home screen randomly.

I'm using iOS 13 and interested on some tweaks with shortcuts more than third party apps. If there are any third party app for this, those are also welcome.

As of iOS 13.1.2 there is no default way of doing this. However, a Photos & Video action called Set wallpaper to will be available in future for use with the Shortcuts app.

This action will allow users to set the Wallpaper for either their Lock Screen or Home Screen from a Photos album (which is what you're looking for) or from an online source.

I will update this answer once that action is available for the Shortcuts app.

In the meantime there are a number of apps available on the App Store that promise to change your Wallpaper. Some examples follow:

Shuffle Wallpapers
Vellum Wallpapers
Wallpapers & Backgrounds: HD
Wallpapers & Background Themes
Live Wallpapers Now

However, my understanding is that most apps use an online resource (a library of wallpapers) from where the wallpapers are downloaded. You'd need to check if any of them allow you to use a locally stored Photos album as your wallpaper source.

Disclaimer: I have not used any of the apps listed above, nor do I have an association with any of the developers. You will need to determine if any of them meets your needs and what cost, if any, they have.


Bluetooth Speaker microphones: Can they be used for "Hey Siri"? I'm considering purchasing a Bluetooth portable speaker that has a built-in omnidirectional microphone.

The advertising for the product says that the microphone can be used to "make calls" from a mobile device.

However, I can't find out from the support pages if the microphone is "always on", or if it's just used for Call Audio Routing – as in iOS's Settings > General > Accessibility > Call Audio Routing.

My aim, ultimately, is to use the Bluetooth speaker for playing audio from my iOS device, but also to use it as an always-on microphone that can accept "Hey Siri" voice detection commands.

Basically – an "Amazon Echo" device, but consisting of an iPad + Bluetooth speaker instead.

Is "Hey Siri" detection normally possible with mic-equipped Bluetooth speakers?

Specific case: I'm looking at a Bang & Olufsen Beoplay A1.

To corroborate, my BT speaker-with-mic (a FuGoo) and BT-capable car (a 2012 Mazda) will will route microphone input and speaker output to Siri, but only if she's summoned by button press (long press of the play/pause button on the speaker, long-press of the iPhone's home button in the car). Neither will work with "Hey Siri". I suspect that one obstacle is that neither device has its microphone continuously listening - they are only activated when needed (a call comes in or you trigger Siri manually).

I suspect if a BT speaker manufacturer could make "Hey Siri" work, they'd be sure to list it in their list of advertising bullet points.


Does FaceID consume a significant amount of battery throughout the day? The FaceID requires the TrueDepth camera to recognise your face, plus there's also one sensor which emits infrared rays to map your face. So my question is will both these things consume significant amount of battery from my iPhone X and will it be better to turn the Require Attention for FaceID off so that the battery consumption is reduced?

No - I tested this for several days with Face ID on and with Face ID off and I can't measure anything even close to 15 minutes or more difference in run times / overall battery difference.

My intuition is that whatever processing power is needed to power the infrared is more than counteracted by saving time unlocking where I'm tapping out my passcode to unlock the phone as opposed to having no passcode.

I disregarded entirely:

not having a passcode / unlock
disabling attention

My passphrase is something I type out with letters and numbers and not a numeric only short passcode, so ymmv but I'd be surprised if you have measurable differences on your device and iOS 11.


iMac G5 works very loudly. How to fix it? I only run Safari with maximum 3-5 tabs opened and the machine makes noise like a vacuum cleaner making it very hard to work on.
Any ideas how to fix it?

If you think that the fans are running at a higher speed that they should, you could try reseting the SMU.

If the issue is just with the sound being too loud, then the best option would be to open the computer and clean the dust, mainly from the fans and the ventilation-related. Even more, overheat could have caused the fans to slightly bend, making some annoying noises. If that is the case, the only option would be to replace it with a new one. Replacing the thermal grease could be helpful too, if you've got overheating issues.


Convert Mac Pro internal boot drive into an external harddrive without wiping I have a 2008 Mac Pro running Yosemite. I just purchased a solid state hard drive which I want to become my boot drive. I do not want to transfer the data from the original boot drive to the solid state drive; I just want to be able to access the data on it.

Is there a way to move it to another slot and not have it run as a boot drive, so I may access the contents?

and/or

Is there a way to essentially turn it into an external hard drive, so I can easily access the contents?

Thank you

You don't even need to move it to another slot. Install your SSD, set it up the way you want, then go to System Preferences -> Startup Disk and choose the SSD.

This isn't Windows, and it isn't 1993. You can have as many bootable volumes online as you have disk space for, Macs boot the one you want booted.


Using Apple Xserve Xeon Nehalem 2.26 "Quad Core" as a regular computer? I don't know much about servers so I figured that this would be the best place to find out more about them. I have a friend who has 3 Apple Xserves with Xeon Nehalem 2.26 quad core processors. So my question is can this Xserve be configured to work just like a normal apple computer? My friend tells me that it can be set up just like any other computer. If this is possible is there some documentation out there that would explain how to do this?

Yes just attach a keyboard and display see Apple's Xserver user guide and it is a normal Apple computer. OS X server includes all of normal OS X.

However, it will need to be in a rack and I suspect is noisy and now not that powerful compared with current desktops (and possibly even laptops)


Multi-view PDF reader (support for multiple screen views) I have two screens connected to my mac, and I would like to see different pages of the same PDF on each screen. Does Preview support this? If not, what alternatives do I have in OS X?

I am not aware of any PDF viewer which can have the same document open in two windows.

A workaround would be to use Acrobat for the main work, and Preview for "reference", accepting that Preview may not have write rights for the document.


Is it possible to use Apple Push Notification Service only for local network? I have an apsd process which stands for Apple Push Notification service daemon man_page_on_developers.apple.com (it has a name applepushserviced on osx 10.7 and lower). Is it possible to restrict it only for local APN server without having a connection to the apple global APN server?

Disabling the internet connection for this service would prevent you from receiving any notifications which use the Apple Push service. Restricting it to your local network would have the same effect as preventing it from connecting at all, since there is no local APN server.


How to transfer music from one iTunes Library to another on the same computer? I have a ton of music in my iTunes that is also on my iPhone.  I want to take my kids' music off my iPhone and put it on another device (a nano) that my kids will use.  My kids are young, so they can't have their own iTunes account.  I want to have just one iTunes account, but have different "libraries" to use on different devices.  I have figured out how to create a new library, but I can't figure out how to move music from one library to another on the same computer (e.g. how to get my kids' music from the library I have now with ALL my music to the library with music just for them).  Again, I want to use the same computer and the same iTunes account.  Thanks so much for your help.

The easiest way is to create a folder, say on the Desktop, then open that folder. In iTunes, create a playlist, and add all the music you want there. Select all these items, then drag them to the window you opened for the folder on the Desktop; the Finder will copy the music files. Next, quit iTunes, launch it and choose the second library, and add the files by dragging them onto the iTunes window. You can then go back and delete the files in the original library, if you want.


How do I change my language to spanish on Pages 8? My computer is a PowerPC running Pages 08. I am now living in Spain and would like to know how to change the language.
 I would like to have Pages 08 in English, but I would like it to spell check in Spanish.


Open Text File From Finder In Vim I do a lot of programming and just starting to do a bit of web development. At the moment I am going to be making a few files and folders, because of this, is there a way to open a application in vim (in terminal not visual vim) when double/right clicking the file in finder?

Thanks

Create an Applet. The script below should get you started. Save that Applet to place of your preference (/Applications/). Select any text file and press ⌘+I(nfo) > Open With: > Other > Select you Applet, then click change all. Now whenever you open any text file that applet will run, which will open the file in vim.

on open theFiles
    tell application "Terminal"
        activate
        -- If there are no open windows, open one.
        if (count of windows) is less than 1 then
            do script ""
        end if
        set theTab to selected tab in first window
        set filePath to POSIX path of item 1 of theFiles
        do script "/usr/bin/vim " & quoted form of filePath in theTab
    end tell
    return
end open

on run
    --  Handle the case where the script is launched without any dropped files
    open (choose file with multiple selections allowed)
    return
end run


Deleted Bootcamp partition and it just disappeared. Nothing to merge with OSX partition I had Windows 10 Bootcamp on my MacBook Pro 15" 2015. I just tried to remove the Bootcamp with Bootcamp assistant by clicking "restore" and it gave me an error saying "The disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition."

So I followed instructions given by this answer and I deleted the Bootcamp partition using Disk Utility.

The partition was successfully deleted and there was 200GB of unused space. I tried to merge it with my OSX partition and it gave me an error. Forgot what type of error exactly, something about one of partitions being broken (wrong amount of blocks or something?)

Now the problem is that the 200GB of unused space (previously used by Bootcamp) just disappeared. Nowhere to be seen.

What can I do to fix this? How can I get my OSX partition back to the original 500GB?

diskutil list

diskutil cs list

  No CoreStorage logical volume groups found

sudo fdisk /dev/disk0

sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk0

You show in your posted image that the partition is encrypted. I was unaware a partition could be encrypted without using core storage. Anyway, I believe the correct command to fix your drive is given below.

sudo  diskutil  resizevolume  /dev/disk0s2  R

The command should move /dev/disk0s3 to the bottom of disk0 while resizing /dev/disk0s2 to maximum size. I am not sure if the sudo prefix is required.


What is this blue half on my screen? In the midst of plugging in my monitor and three-finger swiping up to move Chrome to the second desktop I got this.

I couldn't access my top bar (with the time and battery) and if I clicked the side that is not blue the blue would switch to the other side.

Unplugged my monitor and it stayed on my laptop screen.

What did I do?

Thats a glitch in the split view feature.

I would suggest holding down the full-screen button   in the upper-left corner of Chrome. And select a different Window to enter split screen with. Then simply get out of split screen my click the same button on either of the windows. This should reset the feature.

If that doesn't work try running sudo killall WindowsServer and enter your password. This is what controls the split view function (no citation, it just appeared this way through minimal testing). This will log you out but hopefully fix the issue.


How to clean ._AppleDouble files from unix packages? Introduction

Here's my problem. On occasion, I create the odd deb package using dpkg-deb (e.g., dpkg-deb --build "folder" file.deb). The problem is that any file with an extended attribute, carries along an ._AppleDouble file to the package. So when the user installs the bit of software, their system is littered with ._AppleDouble files.

For example,

-rw-r--r--@  1 cksum  staff      18305  9 Sep 22:42 ScreenShot.png

would carry with it a ._ScreenShot.png file.

Current Method of Coping

Currently, I'm using the incredibly agonizing xattr command to list the extended attribute and then strip them. For example, the above would be carrying the following as shown by xattr,

com.apple.FinderInfo
com.apple.metadata:kMDItemIsScreenCapture
com.apple.metadata:kMDItemScreenCaptureType

In this case, I would have to strip the resources one at a time, again using xattr,

xattr -d com.apple.FinderInfo ScreenShot.png
xattr -d com.apple.metadata:kMDItemIsScreenCapture ScreenShot.png
xattr -d com.apple.metadata:kMDItemScreenCaptureType ScreenShot.png

This is quite arduous when you sometimes have dozens of files and has become far too much of a pain.

I'm aware of the utility BlueHarvest, but I'm not keen on paying for something I won't use all that much. Additionally, I've trialed the software and have noticed that unfortunately, it sometimes fails to remove them all. Lastly, it is more suited for the management of disks used by different operating systems than it is for local folders.

Ideal Solution

An ideal solution would be to continue using xattr (as it is the most reliable) but having the process automated. It is important that I remove the ._AppleDouble files before I package them. This, however, is not the only solution and I am certainly open to all manner of ideas. But I am hoping that I can accomplish my goal without the need to install additional programs or rely on daemons.

I need to learn proper xattr usage.

Apparently, xattr has a "clear" (-c) command that can be applied using a wildcard (*), as follows,

xattr -cr *

This results in a recursive removal of all ._AppleDouble files from the current folder on down (the -r flag does recursive, while the -c flag clears them), thus making the process a trivial one line command.

This does not however clear out the .DS_Store files. For that, you can employ the good old "find" command:

find . -type f -name .DS_Store -delete

This will find and delete any .DS_Store files from the current directory on down (recursively).

Lastly, we can bring it all together in the form of an alias that is called upon by simply typing "xat" (put the following in your .bash_profile):

alias xat='find . -type f -name .DS_Store -delete && xattr -cr *'

Now just run "xat" on any directory and it'll strip those pesky resource forks and remove those irritating .DS_Store files from anything inside of it.


macOS Sierra Dock open app indicator missing My Dock's open app indicator is suddenly missing. There is no more black dot at the bottom of my open app indicator.

What I did (but failed):

I am turning on my open app indicator in the system preference.
I have tried to remove ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist

When I move the dock position to Left or Right though, the indicator appears. Only when at the bottom it doesn't appear. Anybody knows why?

I am on macOS Sierra 10.12.6.

Adding picture.

This really doesn't show my point so well. When I took the screenshot, the open app indicator is there. But it doesn't show up in my real desktop.

I've seen that happen when a system isn't logged out for months, so the first thing I would do is save work and then log out.

When you log back in, consider holding the shift key (or not having all the apps re-start) as well if a quick log out and log in don't clean things.

On rare occasion the saved application state gets messed up and a cleaner log in can help.
On other rare occasions it’s genie effect and software bugs - Visual bug in Dock after macOS Mojave installation
Be sure it’s not just a display failure as well. I would rule that in or out with some tests below:

Start with logging out and then restarting with no accounts logged in. Should you have something you can reproduce right after a restart, would be when I would get a sysdiagnose of the dock process and get a support ticket in to Apple.

Lastly, since you were removing preference files from under the preference database engine, consider trying a new user account to be sure things are good. In that case, you can consider moving files and settings over to a new account or know that it's just a user library preference corruption issue.

If you reproduce this on a new account, a backup and reinstall of the OS would be my next step. Hopefully you don't need to do an erase install, so start with an in-place reinstall where your user data isn't erased.


Prevent restarting Mac by accident I recently tried different keystrokes to regain control of my mouse/keyboard from parallels, and I pressed something that cause my Mac to start shutting down. It didn't prompt me to confirm that I wanted to shutdown my Mac, it just started closing applications for the shutdown.

Question is there a way to require that the use respond to a confirmation dialog before shutting down / restarting their Mac?

Additional info- I was multi-tasking at the time, setting up a Linux KVM host , a Raspberry Pi image , among other things. I almost lost all of my work so I would like to put in a safeguard against accidentally restarting my Mac.

More than likely, you hit Control⌘ Command and the ⦿ Power button .

That's the only keyboard combination that will force restart a Mac without asking you to save unsaved documents.  The only other way to shut down a Mac without it prompting you is to hold the ⦿ Button for 5 seconds.

  Question is there a way to require that the use respond to a confirmation dialog before shutting down / restarting their Mac?

There are key combinations that already exist with confirmations:

Control⌘ Command⏏ Media Eject - Quit all apps, then restart your Mac. If any open documents have unsaved changes, you'll be asked whether you want to save them. *
Control⌘ Command Option ⦿ Power Button or Control⌘ Command Option ⏏ Media Eject - Quit all apps, then shut down your Mac. If any open documents have unsaved changes, you'll be asked whether you want to save them.*

* Doesn't apply to keyboards that have a Touch Bar.

It's probably best that you familiarize yourself with the keyboard shortcuts that are set by default in macOS


What is the security impact of installing a macOS configuration profile containing certificates? I want to install a configuration profile to automatically connect to my university network but along with the two wifi network configurations there are also two certificates, their description is "AC du fournisseur d'identité" (in English: CA of the identity provider), those are certificates "TERENA SSL CA 3" and "DigiCert Assured ID Root CA", both emitted by "DigiCert Assured ID Root CA".

What is the exact impact of this on the security of my system ?

Does it only sign the profile or does it install new trusted certificate emitters for the websites I can consult for instance ? (which would augment the risk of man in the middle attack)

Thank you

The file eduroam-OS_X-UdS.mobileconfig  contains five certificates. Three of them can be retrieved by entering openssl pkcs7 -inform DER -print_certs -in ~/Downloads/eduroam-OS_X-UdS.mobileconfig.

At least two of the three belong to the chain of trust to validate code signing of the mobileconfig file.

You can verify this by clicking on verified

The other two ("TERENA SSL CA 3" and "DigiCert Assured ID Root CA") are the chain of trust to validate the identity of your university's RADIUS server. By opening eduroam-OS_X-UdS.mobileconfig with a decent editor you can see and extract them. By saving each of them as a *.cer file you can compare and validate them yourself by opening them with Keychain Access.app: choose one of the two certs and right-click it > evaluate cert > Generic.

If the TERENA cert isn't evaluated successfully it doesn't catch the Digicert root certificate properly. Simply hit the button Go Back and repeat the step.

"DigiCert Assured ID Root CA" is a duplicate of a certificate already existing in your System Roots keychain and "TERENA SSL CA 3" is an intermediate certificate authority. Both are required to ensure the identity of the Radius server. If possible you should choose to "Validate the (RADIUS) Server Certificate" though. I don't know (and haven't been able to find) the DNS-name of your university's RADIUS server.

None of the certificates lower your system security. If everything is properly configured (especially on the server-side) an MITM shouldn't be possible: Security Considerations.

If something is configured improperly and you are a victim of an MITM your l'identifiant E.N.T and le mot de passe E.N.T will be "lost".


Can a Mail.app smart mailbox take *nesting* into account? I'm using the fairly old version 9.3 of Mail.app on a computer running El Capitan; I just set up my Gmail account with it, and it seems to be correctly syncing.
For organization purposes, I would love to have a smart mailbox that simply contains every message not in another specific mailbox (edit: that is, a folder), which I'll call A. The problem is that I don't keep any messages directly in A -- I keep them in A's sub-mailboxes (sub-folders) B, C, etc, and the sub-sub-mailboxes of those in turn. So the smart mailbox is not very useful.
Is there any way I can make my dream a reality: A mailbox that only lists messages that are not inside Mailbox A at any level?

A Smart Mailbox with the rule Any recipient does not contain [email address of mailbox A] should work. The use of subfolders shouldn't impact this.
Or just add Account [accountName] for each mailbox that you DO want to include (excluding mailbox A).


How can I tell if my iOS device is currently jailbroken? How can I find out if my iOS device has been jailbroken (with a drive-by exploit for example)?

Is there an app for that?

Basically, if you can execute arbitrary code or write to arbitrary disk locations, you're jailbroken.

iOS security researcher Stefan Esser (also knows as i0n1c) has developed an application called System and Security Info to determine if an iOS device is currently jailbroken by testing for the abilities that you gain from jailbreaking.

Update: Apple has taken down System and Security Info.


Why does Pages all the sudden need permission to print? I just tried to print something in Pages and got this:

The printer was paused, and I was asked to resume it, but this? Why?

Pages 4.3 on OS X 10.8.4.

Open keychain and find Pages.

Right click and click on Get info

in the you can set the access and change it to what you need.

this is an example only


How do I share Keynote presentations and perform collaborative editing on iCloud? Apple states that iCloud is the perfect platform for building presentations with the web-based keynote and for sharing and collaborating on documents.

I cannot figure out how to share a Keynote presentation so that two people can edit the document without having to email it back and forth. Is there a way to do this? I would also like to edit the document at the same time with someone else, as I can with Google.

I save the document on my Mac or my iPad and then quit keynote.

Then I open https://www.icloud.com/#keynote in Safari 9 on a computer (most other newishly updated browsers work too)

If you don't see the "coaching tips" - click the white ? in the white circle in the top right next to your name.

Double click your keynote you want to share. (It might take a while to load the first presentation - so be patient while it loads)
Now look in the "top bar" of the web browser window to the left of the ? are in order: your name, a wrench, and the share icon.
Click the box with the up arrow
Share away. This generates a URL you can copy to SMS/message/email/post as well as prompts you if you want read only or write access and lets you optionally set a password.

You can also share from iOS keynote and Mac keynote, but the steps there depend more on the version you are running.


Does free iWork on iOS entitle me to free iWork to Mac? I have recently become the proud owner of a new iPhone 5s and have benefitted from the free iWork apps that are available to new devices.

I also own a 2012 MacBook Pro running Mavericks. Now I have the iWork apps on my iPhone, does it entitle me to them on my Mac via 'purchased' or are they different apps altogether being on different platforms?

Actually no, iOS and OSX version of iWorks are 2 different softwares although linked by iCloud (AppStore & Mac AppStore "are" independent). iWork for OSX is free for every Mac bought after October 1st 2013.

There are some workaround to get the 3 OSX apps (Pages, Keynote & Numbers) for free without any illegal download.

Does Apple know that or do they do that on purpose ? That a good question that I do not know the answer.


Time Capsule (3rd Gen) seems to deny internet access to clients with a static IP address A bit of background on our: we have an Apple Time Capsule, 3rd generation, connecting to the internet through a cable modem (WAN IP is configured via DHCP).

As we can't get a signal across the house, but we do have interconnected Ethernet ports throughout the house, we've attempted to use a Buffalo (WZR-HP-G450H) router, running DD-WRT, wired to the TC and set up in bridge mode, as a repeater.

Our network was as follows:

192.168.0.1 : Time Capsule (Gateway, DHCP Server)
192.168.0.2 : Buffalo (Bridge / Repeater, DHCP Server turned off)
192.168.0.3 - 192.168.0.200 : DHCP Pool (Allocated by TC)
192.168.0.201 - 192.168.0.254 : Unallocated / Reserved

For some reason, this caused the internet to cut out every few minutes (all connections timed out, tested with ping 8.8.8.8). We called the ISP to come fix the problem, he (according to my mother) mumbled something about an IP conflict, and moved the TC over to the 10.0.0.x subnet, resulting in this setup.

10.0.0.1 : Time Capsule (Gateway, DHCP Server)
192.168.0.2 : Buffalo (Bridge / Repeater, DHCP Server turned off)
10.0.0.3 - 10.0.0.200 : DHCP Pool (Allocated by TC)
10.0.0.201 - 10.0.0.254 : Unallocated / Reserved

In theory, this works, although I can't access the Buffalo router's settings and I don't like that it's on a different subnet. I changed the Buffalo router back to 10.0.0.2, and the same problems ensued. Cue my mom complaining.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't see anything possibly wrong with the last setup. Additionally, while trying to set up an OpenVPN service on the Buffalo router, and after painstakingly experimenting with various port forwarding rules, I found that the Buffalo router couldn't access the internet.

I'll spare you the details, but it turns out I can't access the internet when I connect using a static IP, even if the settings are exactly the same each time. Some screenshots:

I'm convinced this has to with (or is the source of) all of our other network problems.

This problem is driving me nuts and I have absolutely no leads: I've called both my ISP and Apple Support and neither could give me any leads. If you have any ideas or pointers, I'd love to hear them.

It sounds like you want a similar setup (all in 10.0.0.x range) as I have.
- TC: connected to my modem.
- TC: Enabled DHCP server
- Linksys router (running DD-WRT): connected to the TC with a cable running from standard LAN to standard LAN port.
- Linksys router: WAN port disabled
- Linksys router: Wireless is set top bridge

Your theory sounds good. The only thing I can think of is you made a mistake with the configuration. I included some screenshots of my configurations:


Core Apps Not Launching After Installing OS X Mavericks I Installed OS X Mavericks about a week ago, It worked fine at first but all of a sudden no core Apps will load.

Mail, iCal, App Store, Maps, iMessage all quit and log a console message "Exited with Code 1"

I have tried: rebooting, resetting the NVRAM, and booting my OS in safe mode. None fix the problem.

I really don't know how to fix this without doing a clean install and wonder if anyone has a solution to this more narrow than reinstalling the OS cleanly?

I managed to fix the issue by reinstalling OS X Mavericks

Here's how to fix it

Restart your machine
On boot hold Command and R
Choose to Reinstall OS X

System will restart as usual after install and OS X will be fully functional

You will NOT lose any settings or personal data with this method

:)


My mom's MacBook Air is making rattling noises when it is moved ever since I dropped it. Diagnosis? It dropped like two or three feet. The noise is like a rattling of a beanbag, but I don't know the source.

At the risk of sounding obvious, something inside broke. If you are the handy type and have the tools you could open it up following the directions for your model on iFixit.com or take it to an Apple store (or other Apple dealer who does repairs) and see what they say.

Also do not power on a laptop with something rattling around in it after you dropped it. It could make the problem worse.


Configure the DHCP settings of WIFI Tethering (Personal Hotspot) When connecting my PC to the iPhone WIFI hotspot, it assigned a 192.168.2.x address to my PC.
I really need to change this to a different address range as it conflicts with one of our work subnets.

Is it possible to configure the iPhone's DHCP settings so it gives out different addresses?

The only settings that are user definable are the SSID, which is set at Settings > General > About > Name, and password, which is set at Settings > Personal Hotspot > Wi-Fi Password.
Address range is not modifiable.

Just checked my hotspot, and it matches what other users describe:

  The iPhone has a small DHCP address pool that can give out 16 addresses (172.20.10.0-172.20.10.15). Of these 16 addresses are 3 taken by the network, broadcast (172.20.10.0 and 172.20.10.15) and iPhone itself (172.20.10.1). Leaving 13 addresses for other devices.

Your defined range seems unusual.
Maybe it conflicts with your carrier address scope?

Some results from searching on the net: 1, 2 (too lousy to be called "References". It appears you cannot set the range on Android either).


MacBook Pro 2018 overheating The problem
When I use my laptop, it always heats up a lot in the center above the touch bar on top.
I can feel it quite heated below as well under the top center.
The CPU is fine (no processes going crazy).
Fans are not really loud at all and I suspect they are working below the speed they should be. This was an issue when I bought it as well.
SMC reset
I did (multiple) SMC resets when I first bought, as this was an issue straight away. After the reset it worked fine for a few weeks and then I'd do another reset. A year and a half later thouhg, when I do an SMC reset, I don't notice the heat going away and it's still working the same way.
P.S. Since I have been working from home, I often connect to an external monitor, no-surprise there that this causes heat. When I don't work with one, it's still warmer that it should be in my opinion.
Any idea what may be the causing the issue and how can I fix it?
My Macbook has the following specs:
MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2018)
Processor 2.6 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7
Memory 32 GB 2400 MHz DDR4
Graphics Radeon Pro Vega 20 4 GB
         Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB

An Intel CPU typically gets as hot as boiling water before 'overheating'.
Is it normal for a 15 inch rMBP to get extremely hot during use?
There are third-party utilities that can provide you with
accurate temperature data from the Mac's heat sensors.
https://www.google.com/search?q=mac+temperature+utility
Overheating usually involves high fan speeds and poor performance. (The Mac will ultimately shut off if the heat increases to levels that might damage the hardware.)
You can get utilities that will allow you to manage the fans, though bear in mind that Apple spends a lot of time on optimizing this. Higher fan speeds will reduce battery life and increase noise.
https://crystalidea.com/macs-fan-control/download
Note the warning on the webpage: "This program is for advanced users who know how to use it without doing harm to their macs. The authors are not liable for data loss, damages, profit loss or any other types of losses connected with the use or misuse of the program."
If it was uncomfortable to place your hands on the area in front of the keyboard, either side of the trackpad, then I would be worried. Otherwise, it's entirely normal for some parts of the Mac to get 'quite hot'.


How can I change a special app folder into an ordinary folder? Applications in MacOS are special app folders. I assume this is done by setting some special permissions. Its normally not possible to navigate into such special folder from within other applications: the open file dialog of the Finder does not allow it.

I have one such folder with a very big file. The file is too big to copy outside its containing app folder. So ideally I want to 'transform' the app folder into a normal folder, so that I can access the contents from another (normal, GUI) application.

Packages (‘app folders’) are displayed as packages only in Finder. To open a package as a folder in Finder, right-click on it and choose Show Package Contents.

For all other purposes they are normal directories.

/Applications ❯ ls Safari.app
total 0
drwxr-xr-x@   3 root  wheel    96B  6 Dec 23:39 ./
drwxrwxr-x+ 190 root  admin   5.9K  3 Mar 15:26 ../
drwxr-xr-x   10 root  wheel   320B  7 Nov 07:23 Contents/


Copy tunes to 2nd PC without syncing I just purchased an album on iTunes on work PC but can't sync because it will delete all my existing tunes from the iPad (I only sync with my music at home).

Can I copy the files to my home PC manually and sync there, or will that not work because of DRM issues ?

If you have the same iTunes account you bought the music from on the other machine, you'll be OK. Just go to that machine and choose Store -> Authorize this computer.... You can have up to 5 computers authorized to play your DRM'd music. Also, if you want to transfer music off an iPod, there are ways to do that without erasing it. Here's a link with info on apps for that.


Block all unknown numbers not in my Contacts from calling and messaging on my iPhone I know I can block a number from messaging/calling me, but I can only do this after the event. Is there a way I can stop unknown numbers from messaging/calling before the event, i.e. for numbers that aren't in my Contacts list? My iPhone is running iOS 11.2.6.

Yes, albeit with some trade offs. See this link for some information. If you go to Settings, hit General > Do Not Disturb > Allow Calls From and select Contacts Only. This setting applies to SMS messages as well. Hopefully this is useful.


How do I delete purgeable space detected by Disk Utility? I am French so I apologize in advance for any possible language errors. I'm running macOS Mojave (version 10.14.2).

Recently, I tried to run Bootcamp because I would like to install Windows. I went through the deletion of many files I didn't need to obtain more than 64 gigs of free space on the disk.

However, now that I would normally have the space to install Windows, Bootcamp tells me that there's not enough space on my disk because "The disk must have at least 40 GB of free space." I've checked Disk Dtility and it shows me there's 95,05 gigs that are purgeable. How to purge them?

I've searched for answers everywhere but it couldn't help me. It appears that the free space detected by the Disk Utility is different from the one shown by the global storage viewer. Pic related :

driveinfo free space analysis

I've also used "diskutil verifyVolume disk1" in terminal :

See Traderhut Games' answer from this answer:

In Terminal, run

df -h /

Filesystem      Size   Used  Avail Capacity iused       ifree %iused  Mounted on
/dev/disk1s1   466Gi  370Gi   64Gi    86%    xxxxx   xxxxxxxxx    0%        /

then, for the disk you wish to use, run:

diskutil secureErase freespace 0 /dev/disk1s1


Make dock appear on both screens at the same time I have an external screen connected to my mac.

I have my Dock configured to be always displayed (not hiding it below the screen)

How do I make the Dock appear on both screens at the same time?

tell application "System Events"
    tell dock preferences
        properties
    end tell
end tell

This is everything supported natively:

{minimize effect:genie, magnification size:1.0, dock size:0.321428567171,
autohide:false, animate:true, magnification:false, screen edge:bottom,
class:dock preferences object}

Plus, as purely a philosophical question, the Dock can not be displayed on both screes at the same time.

Suppose you have one Dock per display. If you have cursor focus on display 1 (i.e. Menu Bar is not greyed/faded out), you move the cursor to display 2 with its greyed out Menu Bar and click on a Dock to launch a new app.

Where should the new window go? It should go to display 1 because display 1 has the focus. Yet it should also go to display because it's where the Dock that launched it is at.

Take a step back, there is another question. What should happen when you click on Dock on an unfocused display? Shouldn't focus be switch to the Dock/display before anything else? So launching an app is a double click process. Or more precisely, single-click if the display is in focus, double-click if not. And how do you tell if the Dock is in Focus? Move your eyes all the way up to Menu Bar (or Window Bar of frontmost window).

This is not an issue on other OS's. This mess can be trace back to when OS X compromised window focus long ago by place Menu Bar on top instead of in window. Not able to have multiple Docks is one small ramification of that design decision.


Command + R not working on Snow Leopard reboot I am trying to install OSX (10.6) from disk, but before I do I want to format the hard drive which requires the Disk Utility from the disk.

I am pressing Command + R at start up, but the MacBook is still booting up normally. I've tried before the chime, after the chime, during the chime. Nothing.

I am using the 13" MacBook Pro Mac OS X Install DVD that came with the laptop.

Any ideas what's going on?

Command+R is used to enter Recovery Partition which comes with Lion and Mountain Lion.

To start up from the installation DVD (or any bootable CD or USB, for that matter) you must reboot holding down C before the chime and hold until the Apple logo appears.

You could, too, just let it boot normally, and then run the installer (once the DVD is mounted in Finder), which will, then, start up into the DVD.


Automator - Connect to Server at Startup based on MAC Address I've spent half of my day yesterday trying to figure this out, so I thought it may be useful for someone else in the same situation.
I wanted to automatically Connect to a Server at Startup but not based on the IP Address, but based on the MAC address of my device. This was needed because I change routers from time to time and this change gives a new IP Address to my server device.

The solution was to add a short shell script in the Automator application to get the IP address based on the MAC address.
ip_address=$(arp -a | grep "YOUR_MAC_ADDRESS" | cut -d "(" -f2 | cut -d ")" -f1)

url_beginning="afp://"

url_end="/YOUR_USER_NAME"

url="$url_beginning$ip_address$url_end"

echo $url

The code above will get the IP address (example: 10.0.0.5) of the device with the YOUR_MAC_ADDRESS MAC Address (example: 0:10:75:57:13:22). Then it will concatenate the correct URL (example: afp://10.0.0.5/YOUR_USER_NAME) and connect it as shown in the image below.


How do I send C-/ (that is, control-slash) to the terminal? I'm trying to run Emacs in a terminal. I've turned on the "use option as meta" in terminal preferences and so it's about 95% working right.

The key sequence ctrl-/ (or in Emacs notation C-/) is "undo". This key sequence just causes the terminal to ring a bell. How do I fix this?

Control-/ is not a part of the set of standard control codes. It is not directly representable as a keystroke in many terminal emulations. Such a keystroke is only properly detectable in certain platform-specific “scancode modes” or “GUI mode” (where the API tells you exactly which keys and modifiers are being used). Your terminal emulator is beeping because it is effectively an invalid keystroke.

The standard control codes only cover “Control” versions of

@ A–Z [\]^_ (ASCII 0 - 31), and
? (ASCII 127)

In most terminal emulator programs running with most US key layouts you may need to press Shift to generate some of the “Control codes”:

C-@ is ControlShift2 (since @ is Shift2)
C-^ is ControlShift6 (since ^ is Shift6)
C-_ is ControlShift- (since _ is Shift-)
However, C-? may not always be ControlShift/ (since ? is Shift/); C-? is usually generated by either Backspace (on Apple keyboards, the key labeled just “delete” without the additional symbol ⌦) or Delete (the one with ⌦ on Apple keyboards).

In tty-based Emacs, you can usually use C-_ for undo instead of C-/.


Can an Apple iPhone 8 charger at all charge a 12.9" iPad Pro 2nd Gen 2017 model totally out of juice after being unused for 1-2 months? Slow charge? Can an Apple iPhone 8 charger at all charge a 12.9" iPad Pro 2nd Gen 2017 model totally out of juice after being unused for 1-2 months?
Even if slow charge, just to check iPad is working?
What about via a Mac Book Pro?

Yes. Plug it in and then turn off the iPad.
A "normal" phone charger only has a power output of 5W, so it will be very slow, but provided the iPad doesn't need that power in use, you can charge it. To ensure, that you actually have more power input than usage you will very likely need to turn off the iPad and even then it will charge very slowly.
If you have a MacBook depending on the  exact model it will charge much quicker. Especially the "newer" ones with USB-C can charge the iPad at a descent rate, because they can provice much more power through the port. However, I would also plug in the MacBook because the iPad has a quite big battery. Be aware that plugging your iPad into your MacBook causes inefficiencies, i.e. you'll be drawing more power in total compared to simply charge the iPad from the wall plug.


How do I remove bookmarks from Terminal window? With El Capitan, the Terminal app can automatically create marks, and bookmarks. However, there seems no obvious way to delete a bookmark that one's created (by accident). How can one delete a Terminal window bookmark?

I double this is an issue still, however, I thought I would answer it for anyone else who comes across this minor problem.

In El Capitan, Bookmarks are not saved across different Terminal sessions. Therefore, after exiting/re-opening Terminal, your bookmarks are cleared. If you want to have the same effect as this, you may use CMD+K.


Preview randomly removing spaces between words Model Identifier: MacBookPro11,4
System Version: macOS 10.15.2 (19C57)

I have a document that I scanned with ABBYY FineReader (OCR). I need to copy some sentences/use text to speech on the doc. In preview, however, many of the words are mashing together (the spaces are being removed. Thus:

  "This statement introduces highly complex feature Romans. On the one
  hand, Paul is insistent"

becomes:

  "ThisstatementintroducesahighlycomplexfeatureofRomans.
  Ontheonehand,Paulisinsistent"

Now, it's very possible that that is how the metadata is normally read. For example, Skim also has the same problem. On the other hand, Adobe Acrobat Reader is including the spaces. Chrome also functions the way that Adobe does. The problem is that I don't know why preview is functioning the way it is.

My question(s) are the following (any of which will satisfy me):

why is this happening? Does Preview process text differently (or does Adobe have some kind of spell check)
is there a way to fix this (either by getting the metadata from adobe into preview or by getting preview to work correctly).

Solved (probably). I realized that I actually created the PDF from another PDF. The original PDF was poorly OCR-ed (Optical Character Recognition) and I believe that Preview was reading that OCR. I re-OCR-ed my new doc and I think that's where Acrobat was getting it. I just made a PDF of images from the old PDF and then re-OCR-ed it so that all the old metadata was gone. Thanks!


Windows 10 unable to install on partition formatted by Boot Camp Assistant I am trying to install Windows 10 on my iMac 27" (Mid 2011 - iMac12,2 - 3.4GHz -Core I7, OSX 10.11.6). When rebooting with the WININSTALL key, Windows Setup stops as it says it cannot install on the BootCamp Assistant generated partition (it is FAT32, wants NTFS). So I click the Formatbutton and he now says that the partition is MBR and he wants a GPT. So how do I make a GPT?

  Note: Regarding the Boot Camp Assistant application: I modified the info.plist file by removing the "Pre" in ' "PreUSBBootSupportedModels" ' so I could get the checkbox to install Windows on the key.

Next question, I tried partitioning manually as suggested in question: Boot Camp Assistance is stuck on create a partition?,
but the command:

sudo  diskutil  apfs  resizeContainer  disk0s2  180.8G  FAT32  BOOTCAMP  70G

fails as diskutil does not understand verbs apfs nor resizeContainer.
So I checked on my MBP running High Sierra and there apfs exists but not resizeContainer. Should I upgrade the iMac to High Sierra?

Here is my diskutil list:

diskutil list:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            967.3 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                32.0 GB    disk0s5

Here is a list of my WININSTALL:

total 3968
drwxrwxrwx  1 silvano  staff    32768 Feb  1  2014 $WinPEDriver$
-rwxrwxrwx  1 silvano  staff     3219 Feb  1  2014 AutoUnattend.xml
drwxrwxrwx  1 silvano  staff    32768 Feb  1  2014 BootCamp
-rwxrwxrwx  1 silvano  staff      128 Sep 30 18:00 autorun.inf
drwxrwxrwx  1 silvano  staff    32768 Sep 30 19:15 boot
-rwxrwxrwx  1 silvano  staff   397752 Sep 30 17:55 bootmgr
-rwxrwxrwx  1 silvano  staff  1236376 Sep 30 18:00 bootmgr.efi
drwxrwxrwx  1 silvano  staff    32768 Sep 30 19:15 efi
-rwxrwxrwx  1 silvano  staff    80696 Sep 30 18:00 setup.exe
drwxrwxrwx  1 silvano  staff    32768 Sep 30 19:15 sources
drwxrwxrwx  1 silvano  staff    32768 Sep 30 19:15 support

Your best course of action would be to install Windows 10 the same way Apple instructs you to install Windows 8.1. For these instructions, see the Apple website: Use Windows 8.1 on your Mac with Boot Camp. When using these instructions to install Windows 10, you might want to consider the following.

You need to burn the Windows ISO file to a DVD. Some Windows 10 ISO files are large enough that you will need a double layer (DL) DVD. Older versions of OS X used the Disk Utility application to burn the contents of an ISO file to a DVD. With the newer versions of macOS (OS X), you can burn the contents of an ISO file to a DVD directly from a Finder application window. You use the Boot Camp Assistant to download the Boot Camp Support Software to an external drive.
You already have a BOOTCAMP partition. Assuming your external drive installer has the correct Boot Camp Support Software, you should be able to install Windows 10 with using the Boot Camp Assistant. Insert the DVD and connect the external drive, restart the iMac and then immediately hold down the option key. When the DVD icon labeled "Windows" appears, select the icon then the arrow below the icon. If during installation, you boot back to macOS (OS X), goto Startup Disk under System Preferences. Select the Windows partition, then restart the iMac to continue installation.

If you do not want to use a DVD, then you can use the accepted answer to the question: How to install Windows 10 into a 2011 iMac without using the Boot Camp Assistant, an optical (DVD) drive or third party tools?. If you are using OSX 10.11.6, then you can skip step 3.

To be clear, Windows installations on this model Mac must use the legacy BIOS boot method. This requires the installation drive to contain partition entries in both the Master Boot Record (MBR) table and the GUID Partition Table (GPT). Windows will only see the MBR table entries and macOS (OS X) will only see the GPT entries. Therefore, Windows with think the drive is MBR partitioned, while macOS (OS X) will think the drive is GPT partitioned.


QuickTime add-ons? How to tell what's needed? I've been chatting on Chatzy via Firefox on the Mac lately, and every time I go there I get told that I need to update QuickTime components. Here's the dialog that comes up:

It then links me to this site, which offers a range of addons. However, there is no indication which of these things I need to run the page. I don't want to install all the extensions, obviously, but I would like to get the one I need. Is there any way to tell what's lacking?

Perian is frequently chosen, for being complete and suitable. A lot of people say it's one of those things you should put on every new Mac. VLC has browser plugins, but I've never noticed Perian not handling everything (not sure I would know, neither are bloated).


How to manage a huge folder collection in two places I have a huge collection of movies (over 2,000) on my external hard drive, and since my girlfriend doesn't like those old movies, she would like to make distinguish between the old movies and those from the last 5 years.

At this moment, every movie has it's own folder containing a movie file and a .srt file. Consequently I have a very long list of movies.

What I would like to do is to make two directories in the root, organized:

by year
by alphabet

The 'by year' folder would contain folders like "2012", "2011", etc., and the alphabet folder would simply contain all the movie folders in a long list.

Maintaining both these folders is obviously a very hard thing to do, not to mention the extra space it will require to have every movie-folder duplicated.

Is there a way to do what I want without duplicating every movie folder?

Create your 2012 movie folder.  Hold down the command key and left mouse click to select each movie folder that has a movie made in 2012.  Once you have them all selected (with the command key down) hold down the alt key, and "move" the aliases that are created for all of the movie folders you selected into the 2012 folder.  What this does is create a pointer to the original file/folder, it doesn't actually copy the folder and contents.  It's just a representation and "points" to the location of the original folder.  This way you won't waste space (it's like 1kb per alias).

Do this for each of the year folders, and each of the alphabet folders.  Seems like an easy way not to waste space.


How is the battery life on the new iPod Touch G5s? I had an iPod Touch G4 and the battery life was terrible.  Has there been any improvement in this area with the G5s?

Based on the Technical Specifications (5G, 4G) no big change is apparent, as the only difference between them is the lasting time while playing videos, as it's up to 8 hours (when fully charged) for the 5G while the 4G's is 7 hours.
They both share the following battery specifications:

Built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery.
Music playback time: Up to 40 hours when fully charged.
Charging times: Fast charge in about 2 hours (80% capacity), full charge in about 4 hours.


How do I silence my phone for ten minutes? How do I temporarily enable do-not-disturb mode for 10 minutes?

If I turn on do not disturb, silent mode, or airplane mode then I tend to forget to turn it off. If so, I miss important work messages.

I use WeChat and suffer from flurries of activity. Somebody will start a chat room, pull you in, and then your phone will beep and shake constantly for about 10 minutes.

Schedule DND on WeChat or iPhone. Can also mute a specific group on WeChat.

Otherwise ask Siri to "turn on do not disturb" and "set a timer for 10 minutes".


Will reinstalling OS from recovery mode preserve iTunes library? I have a Macbook Pro with a broken OS (computer was turned off during an  update and won’t boot any more).

The Macbook contains some user data that hasn’t been backed up in a while, including a valuable iTunes library.

Will those data be preserved when reinstalling OS X (Yosemite) from recovery mode, or is there an easy way to get hold of it again?

Reinstalling OS X or macOS from Recovery mode or an Installer will not delete any files.