How to move iPhone 3's Notes, Voice Memo to a computer before giving it away? I am giving away an iPhone 3 to a friend, and I can move all the photos and videos to a computer by copying the DCIM folder of the iPhone 3 (just like a USB flash drive or digital camera).

But I think the only other things are the Notes and the Voice Memos.  How can they be moved to the computer?  (I have been using the iPhone 4 for 1.5 years, so backing up the content of the iPhone 3 and restoring to iPhone 4 is not an option, I think, as it will wipe out my iPhone 4's content).

I know we can sync Voice Memos using iTunes, but I don't even have the computer that sync with the iPhone 3 any more, and it said that if I sync with any other computer, the content of the iPhone 3 will be replaced by the iTunes library on this new computer.  Can it still work?  As long as it doesn't remove those Voice Memos and still can move them to the new computer.

How about the Notes?  Is there a way?  I was going to email it... (not a perfect solution), but found that even though it connects to WiFi, but without a cell phone carrier any more, I can't send or receive data through WiFi either (see this related question posted by me:  When an old iPhone 3 can connect to WiFi but not associated with a Cell Phone carrier, can it still send files? ) Is it true?  Thanks for helping.

Are you getting a new iPhone?  Back up the old one, wipe it and sell it.  When you get the new one, you can restore your backup to the new phone.


How can I programmatically detect the presence of a VPN? I'd like to be able to programmatically detect the presence of a VPN on a Mac. Detecting if a VPN connection is active programmatically shows what the output of netstat -nr will look like when a VPN is active:

Internet:
Destination        Gateway            Flags        Refs      Use   Netif Expire
0/1                10.81.10.5         UGSc            5        0   utun1
...

Some of the information is significant for my purpose, the rest of it isn't. What exactly do I need to check? Only that Netif contains utun1? Or do I need to see 0/1 there too? Or if not, what then?

I am currently testing for the first and last data items in that line, and it seems to be working, but I'd like to reduce the probability of any false positives or negatives. In Ruby it is:

# This is determined by whether or not a line like the following
# appears in the output of `netstat -nr`:
# 0/1                10.137.0.41        UGSc           15        0   utun1
def vpn_running?
  run_os_command('netstat -nr').split("\n").grep(/^0\/1.*utun1/).any?
end

That's exactly what I have in my own code. In bash it looks like:

vpn=$( netstat -rn | grep utun1 | wc -l )
if [[ $vpn -eq 0 ]] ; then
    # no VPN active
else
    # VPN active
fi

It's been pretty reliable in my environment. I'd like to be able to discern different VPN configurations in effect, but not so much as to have to code it (yet).


Lost game progress after reinstalling app despite app having Game Center integration I used to play The Sims Freeplay on my iPad, but after playing the game for a week I deleted it, but I did not remove it from Game Center. I re-installed the game, but I couldn't continue my progress. Game Center is still showing the progress of my old account, but I couldn't continue it. Does Game Center save my The Sims Freeplay progress?

If it doesn't, why did it save for my Clash of Clans account? I re-installed the game and I still can continue my progress.

Game Center only saves games achievements; it never saves game progress. Game developers use different methods to store your progress:

iCloud Storage: Your data are stored locally on your iCloud account. Usually you just have to reinstall the game and you'll be able to continue the game without problems. E.g. Pocket Planes
Facebook Connect: The developers will connect your Facebook account and associate the game progress with your Facebook account. As long you don't delete your Facebook account, the progress is always be available once you connect the game with your Facebook account. E.g. The Sims Freeplay
Games Account: Companies like Gameloft let you save progress to your Gameloft account. You'll need to create a separate account for these type of games. EA Games and Gameloft are the common type of company that use this approach to let customers manage their games across devices.


How can I warp the border between two different sized monitors, so the mouse doesn't get stuck in the larger one? When the monitor on one side of the border has a resolution higher than the monitor on the other side, the mouse can only cross over to the other monitor at the part where their edges overlap, as in the configuration below.

This means that when the mouse is not in the overlapping area, for example in the upper area of the right monitor in the image, it can't cross over to the other monitor without moving to the overlapping area.

Is there a way to warp the border, so that the proportional position of the mouse on the departing side is converted to the same proportion on the arriving side?

It's just not possible, I'm afraid.

Even with this setup, though I can move the mouse freely between the two screens, if I have a window tight to the top of the right hand screen, I must drop it far enough to clear the menu bar before it will drag to the left screen.


Identify why I get a connection to ransomware server I received some waring that my 'PC' might be infected because it supposedly tried to connect to two ransomware server:

http://45.33.9.234/
http://79.170.40.167/

In practice I have a MBP with MacOS 10.12.6  Malwarebytes cannot find anything.  I am on a network but to print I need to switch to a different one, and I get these warning only when I switch to the printing network.  I am at loss why

I get the warning to start with
I get warnings only when I am on a specific network and not in the other

So, how do I check what is going on?  Get little snitch and keep an eye on what is doing what?  any other way to scan the system that is better than Malwarebytes?  Any log I can look into?

You receive this message when switching to only this network because it is likely your IT dept have a monitoring tool set upon it, which is using an API with this IP blacklisted for ransomware activity

The problem is this IP is shared across thousands of URLs and only a select few may be associated with ransomware


Cannot access a folder in terminal even though read, write and execute permissions are set for everyone I have created a folder with user 'afayes' called tempfolder in directory '/Users/afayes' and have set permissions to be able to read, write and execute for all users:

drwx---rwx    2 afayes  staff          64  6 Mar 15:16 tempfolder

I am trying to access the tempfolder with user called 'testuser'. From the directory '/Users/afayes' I am executing:

cd tempfolder/

I get the error

-bash: cd: tempfolder: Permission denied

When I try to access the same folder with another user called 'jenkins' I can access it. I don't understand why 'testuser' cannot access it.

The problem you are having is because it has no group permissions.

Execute chmod -R g+rwx /Users/afayes/tempfolder in the shell. At that point the permissions will be drwxrwxrwx and all will be well.


Locating the file in which a dictionary word is stored I misspelt the word "analogous", and I found that the system spellchecker offered "anbalagous" as a possible correction. As far as I can tell, "anbalagous" isn't a real word, so I figured I must have added it to the dictionary at some point by mistake.
However, it seems that "anbalagous" isn't in ~/Library/Spelling/LocalDictionary, so it's a bit of a mystery. Out of curiosity, I would like to check which file the word "anbalagous" appears in. So:

where are the spell check dictionary file(s) located on a Mac?

is there any location other than ~/Library/Spelling/LocalDictionary where custom words are stored for the system spell checker?

if (as I suspect) the dictionary is stored in a binary file, is there a way to see the list of words in it?

(Probably not but might as well check) does a Mac's spell checker dictionary contain the word "anbalagous" by default?

In case it makes a difference I'm still on OS X 10.11.

Through a process of elimination, I have determined that the word is (erroneously) in the system wide spell checker.

The file isn't in your local spell check dictionary.  This is easy to check - simply edit the file ~/Library/Spelling/LocalDictionary.  You can also issue the following command to search directly from the command line
% grep -i anbalagous < ~/Library/Spelling/LocalDictionary

Apple utilizes a spell checker called Hunspell which is an open source spell checker based on MySpell. (also found on https://opensource.apple.com)  The dictionary (en_US.dic) are plain text files and can easily be viewed/edited.  Issuing the following command on the downloaded dictionary file yields no results; it's not in the public dictionary from Hunspell.
% grep anbalagous < hunspell-en_US-2019.10.06/en_US.dic

AppleSpell appears to be their proprietary spelling and grammar checker product as it isn't found on https://opensource.apple.com/source/ (listing of open source projects used by Apple).  The version.plist file found in /System/Library/Services/AppleSpell.service/Contents makes reference to the "ProjectName" being "ProofReader".

There are additional word lists (spelling dictionaries) found in /usr/share/dict.  Searching each one for the word in question produced no result either. Eg:
% grep -i anbalagous < ~/usr/share/dict/words

On a FreeBSD 12-1 VM, I installed the hunspell and en-hunspell (en-US dictionary) ports.  Anbalagous is identified as misspelled; so the hunspell engine and dictionary appear to be working.

Finally, on a clean install of Catalina, I tested the word anbalagous and it doesn't trigger the spell check.  It appears it's in the spell check dictionary/word list supplied from Apple or there is possibly a bug in Apple's implementation of the spell checker.

Since I can't seem to find a dictionary with that misspelling and the open source tools which Apple bases their spell checker seem to function correctly, I filed a bug report with Apple at https://www.apple.com/feedback/macos.html; I encourage you to do the same.


Will this optical drive work with my MacBook 13in mid 2010 Hi I have a 13" MacBook mid 2010 and the optical drive went out so I've been looking for a new one. I found one that I'm interested in but was needing to know if it will work with my MacBook I provided the link to the one I'm looking at.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/2nd-9-5mm-SATA-SSD-Hard-Drive-Caddy-Bay-for-MacBook-CD-DVD-ROM-Optical-Bay-/131975475287?hash=item1eba59f057:g:IdkAAOSwpLNYBwIq

Unless I misunderstood your question, this is not actually a replacement Optical Drive. What you're linking to is a caddy that allows you to add a second HDD/SSD to your 13" MacBook by using the space your original Optical Drive was in.

Based on your question, you need something like this.

Anyone looking to replace one in a MacBook Pro (13" mid-2010) would need something like this.


How to isolate vocals with Logic I'd like to isolate the vocals on a track I have using Logic.  Can anyone provide some advice on how to do this please?

Playing with the equalizer seems to be effective, and there are some presets that help isolate vocals, or boost vocals.


Configure center mouse button to open new links I have a simple Logitech mouse with 2 buttons and central wheel button.

The central button opens some accessories (calculator and so on). I would like this button to open new links in chrome (as it does on Windows and Linux). Is there a way to configure that?

I've tried Logitech control center, but it can't find the attached mouse.

You can set the center mouse button or any other button to open links in a new tab in Logitech Control Center.

Just change the Assigned action of the "Switch Application Button" or "Center Mouse" button to "Advanced click." Under the "Configure Advanced Click" tab, select "click" under click type and select the "⌘" modifier.

Easy Peasy


Second monitor on iMac not working with Lion I have a mid-2011 Thunderbolt 21.5" iMac. A secondary monitor is connected to the iMac with a Mini DisplayPort-to-HDMI cable (a single cable, not an adaptor and cable).

When I was running Snow Leopard, the monitor worked just fine. After upgrading to Lion, the second monitor just has a black screen, and quickly goes into power save mode.

I have already tried resetting the NVRAM (as described here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379) and resetting the SMC (as described here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964).

Has anyone seen this problem? Any other suggestions for solutions?

As it turns out, it was the Mini DisplayPort-to-HDMI cable. I connected the secondary monitor with a Mini DisplayPort-to-HDMI Adapter and everything works fine.

To the best of my knowledge, the cable is fine, although, apparently, it is an unlicensed HDMI cable, and manufacturers can no longer sell them. Has Apple dropped support for these? Not sure. At least everything works again.


Is it possible to increase the font size in iTunes? How does one make the fonts that iTunes uses for things like app descriptions larger?  I know about Universal Access -> Zoom, but I'm looking for something a little more app-specific, like web browsers have.

It is possible to to change/customize every font/font-size within iTunes.app, that is used for the menu, pop-up dialogs, view-field etc..

In order to do so navigate to /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj and make a backup of Localized.rsrc first, just to be on the save side.

Then download ThemePark3.1 in order to open and edit the Localized.rsrc file. Once you edited the font(s)/size to your liking, you need to save your changes from within ThemePark.

It might be, that you also need to reboot first to see the changes!!

Edit:
There is also an iTunes.rsrc file under /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Resources/ which might be of help and lately .css stylesheet-files are being used for theming as well (in Linux (GTK3).

If that is also true for 10.7 (still running 10.6.8, therefore can only guess), please confirm this information!! Basically "simple" images can be drawn and rendered from code instead of using single image files, in png, tiff, jpg - format.

Those .css files also manage font information, like font-style, color values, size etc...


Can I take a still photo with my built-in webcam? I have a MacBook Pro at work, but am new to Macs and have never used the webcam outside of Skype. Is it possible to take a still photo with the webcam?


NeO outliner by d-lit forums/users I recently bought NeO and I am having a bit of trouble understanding it. I have tried googeling for resources, but NeO does not seem to have that many users. I am looking for a place to discuss NeO usage and/or pointers to documentation besides the included help file.

I don't know of any place specifically to discuss Neo, but I've been using it for a few years (used to be called Tao) and it is my most used application on my computer. I own licenses for Neo and OmniOutliner and Neo is just much much much more configurable and powerful. It has a bit of a learning curve, but it's an amazing piece of software. In the Windows world I used to use Ecco Pro, which is also amazing and free nowadays.


Does Thunderbolt support a net topology like FireWire? Does Thunderbolt support the same kind of network architecture that FireWire does?

If you have a Mac with two FireWire ports, you can daisy-chain FireWire devices in a loop with the Mac at both ends of the chain. Then you can disconnect any single connection in the chain, and all devices will continue to work so long as they're ultimately still connected to the Mac.

Now with the Retina MacBook Pro's two Thunderbolt ports, it's possible to try this out, but does anyone know if this should work?

Since Thunderbolt is based on PCI Express, it appears that it is possible to connect to multiple hosts using the PCI express standard. However there may be additional software or hardware  required to do such bridging of multiple hosts sharing multiple devices, whether this is true on Thunderbolt or not is not clear.

Things to look into are Non-transparent Bridging of PCI Express and subsequently Non-transparent Bridging of Thunderbolt.

PCI Express and therefore Thunderbolt are both peer to peer interfaces just like FireWire so thats a plus. However PCI express appears to have some host specific needs according to PCI Express Peer-to-Peer Interconnect from GE.

  Its low latency, high bandwidth, widespread support and costeffective silicon have made PCI Express ubiquitous. It can however, be used for more than merely communicating between a host and a peripheral: it has many advantages as a peerto-peer communications technology. Enabling this, however, demands an understanding of how PCI Express works. This paper outlines the complexities that need to be understood and overcome – and describes a GE software product that delivers a solution that masks those complexities from developers.

As of now the only thing that Apple has defined for connecting two Macs via Thunderbolt is Target Disk mode running over it.


Some of the keys on my keyboard are not working Some of the keys on my keyboard are not working all of a sudden. I have a 2013 macbook pro. Some keys like the 'o' key work if I hold them down long enough, and some like 'e' don't work at all. This change occurred all of a sudden. I've tried resetting my computer several times, but to no avail. Any suggestions are appreciated. Hopefully my keyboard isn't just dead :(
Update:
Without further input of my own, the problem has apparently resolved itself. The one physical change that may hint towards the underlying problem is that my laptop has cooled significantly since I made this post originally.

Probably just dead.  I suggest plugging in an external keyboard to test if it's software or hardware.  If on the external keyboard the same keys don't work, then you know it is a software issue.  Otherwise if the external keyboard works fine, it's a hardware issue.
You can also take it to an Apple Store to get it diagnosed, and if it is broken, fixed.


Transfer photos without backing up the iPhone I wanted to transfer a few photos from my computer to the iPhone and I though: lets do it quickly in a couple of minutes!

It was quite sad to realise iTunes only allows me to transfer photos into my iPhone 7 if I mark the checkbox "Sync Photos".
The, for a very strange reason, iTunes starts doing a backup of my iPhone when I click on "sync" in order to transfer the pictures.

Las backup I did took around 3 hours. And I definitely do not want to wait 3 hours to transfer 10 pictures...

Can someone explain me what am I doing wrong?
Because I seriously expect to be doing something very wrong... otherwise I ca not believe how bad Apple designed iTunes and the transfer of pictures/video.

I was forced to use Google Drive to transfer 10 pictures... quite sad...

Try AirDrop.

It's a very simple way to transfer any kind of files (not just photos) between devices. Just select the pictures, right-click them, select Share > AirDrop, and pick your iPhone. Make sure it's unlocked, or it won't show up.

Important note: To use AirDrop between Mac and iOS, your mac needs to be from 2012 or later (but not the mid-2012 Mac Pro) and running OS X Yosemite (10.10) or later, and your iPhone needs iOS 7 or later.


Mac Mail keeps losing the 2 factor auth passwords for Gmail My laptop (MacBook Pro late 2012 running OS X 10.10.5) has had an issue the last two mornings. When I turn it on I get a load of notifications saying that I need to re-enter the password for my internet accounts.

Digging a little deeper what has happened is the 2 factor auth passwords used for Mac Mail Gmail accounts have all been lost. Any ideas why this keeps happening overnight and what I can do to prevent it?

I've tried going to System Preferences > Internet Accounts and updating the passwords used to a Google app specific password (the system Google uses to get around applications that don't support their 2 factor auth) but when I do this it insists that I use a 2 factor login.

I had the same problem. I updated to Sierra and then Mail kept asking for password but did not help when I re-entered them. I dug deeper and found the ports needed to be corrected (in Mail Preferences). Did that and it works now.


My iPad lagging after 3 months' use, why? I have iPad 2 and writing has become totally bad with it now. Something is hooking up the resources or it is getting old after 3 months. How can I make it faster?

Back up your iPad, then power it off.

Start the device and run only the problematic writing app. Get benchmarks or some other definite measurement so you can then try things and know if it helps.

You might also try the above while the device is in airplane mode to ensure no background sync or network issue is affecting the performance of the device and app.

The most common fix is to restore the device to factory settings and repeat the one app only. If that app works, then you'll need to restore the backup and work out what is causing the issue.

If that app doesn't work, then you can blame that build of that app and run an older one (again looking to get it from a backup) or find a different app.

The troubleshooting process is the same for most any problem.

protect your data with a backup
measure
change something and re-measure
continue until you have isolated the problem


What could I benefit from replacing the AirPort Card in my '09 MacBook Pro? I have a Mid-2009 MacBookPro, I would like to upgrade the AirPort Card so that I can access continuity and instant hotspot features, but other than that what will Bluetooth 4.0 allow me and will the AirPort Card also improve my Wi-Fi range/speed on my laptop?

I upgraded the built-in WiFi cards for my 2008 and 2012 Mac Pros.  It got me Continuity and the higher 802.11ac speeds, along with AirDrop (peer-to-peer WiFi).

To enjoy 802.11ac speeds (up to 1300Mbps if you're sitting right next to it), you need to also upgrade your router or access point (hereafter referred to as AP).  You also have to have a fast enough Internet connection (or have high-speed internal network needs) to warrant anything faster than 802.11n, as most ISP's don't provide connections over 200Mbps.  (802.11n specs are 300Mbps on 5GHz band of RF throughput, which yields just over 150Mbps of actual data throughput on good days.)

You don't get improved range without improved antennas; in this case your laptop's antennas won't change, so the AP would have to have better antennas than what you have now.

-- And here's more nerdiness just in case anyone is curious... --

Speed is a combination of RF bandwidth (20MHz - 80MHz wide channels) and modulation (the way the bits are encoded into radio waves).  Higher modulation over larger swaths of RF bandwidth = awesome speed.

Because of WiFi regulations, the amount of power available for transmission is fixed.  Wider channels means less power (the power is spread across 80MHz channels in 802.11ac instead of 40MHz in 802.11n or 20MHz in 802.11g). The highest speeds are right next to the AP, naturally.

As the client radio (laptop or phone) gets further away from the AP (distance + obstacles), it will "downshift" from the higher bandwidths and modulations to the lower bandwidths and modulations until it eventually drops off.


How to drag window from anywhere on the window without using the title bar? I have made iTerm borderless, like this:

So, how can I move the window from anywhere inside the window and not just the title bar?

To move any window, including borderless ones such as iTerm, you can move the mouse to any edge of the window until the cursor become a double-arrow, then click and hold while moving the mouse in a direction opposite of what would change the window size.

As an example, if you mouse over the top edge while the cursor is a double-arrow then click, hold and drag upwards or downwards it makes the window larger or smaller respectively, however if you drag left or right the window moves and once moving you can drag it anywhere and then release the mouse when you have the window where you want it.

The same paradigm applies on any edge of the window, moving the mouse to any edge, to where the cursor becomes a double-arrow then click and hold, and move in a direction that will not make the window larger or smaller will move the window instead.

Update:

This answer was originally posted on Nov 21 '16 and the target OS was OS X 10.11 El Capitan and works as stated for that OS.

There have been recent comments about it on macOS High Sierra and if the Title Bar is showing then it can be moved as described however if the Title Bar is not showing then it can only be moved in the manner described from the top of the window. That said though I've noticed it can be a bit finicky but I can move it as described when tested under macOS 10.13.3 in reference to this update notice.


How to reset file icons associated with default program on El Capitan I've uninstalled my former default text editor which I used for many different file formats. Unfortunately the associated icons are not removed automatically. As a result, several file types still use the icon of the program, even though it's not on my machine anymore.

There a several similar questions around here and this one seemed to be most promising, but it doesn't work on El Capitan (version 10.11.5). Does anyone how I can achieve this on a current version of Mac OS X?

EDIT: After assigning a new default program (no matter if I do that via RCDefaultApp or Finder), the old icon remains. If, for instance, I choose Atom as the new default editor for XML files, the former editor icon (Emacs) is still there.

Run this command in Terminal: sudo rm -rf /Library/Caches/com.apple.iconservices.store
And G'bye atom icon.


How can I mirror my iPad display wirelessly? I am looking to display my iPad screen wirelessly to an external display to demo applications.  I found this video showing exactly what I want to do with an iPhone but no explanation as to what the hardware dongle used was.

The main thing is that there isn't a wire tethering the user to the external display.

This is possible using iOS 5 and an Apple TV using AirPlay.

This only works with iPhone 4S and iPad 2 and all video and sound are mirrored wirelessly to any TV that is connected via HDMI downstream from the Apple TV. You do need a wireless network for the two devices to communicate.

  Just double-click the Home button, swipe all the way to the right, and
  select AirPlay Mirroring.

Reference: http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/airplay.html


Cannot upgrade from iOS 8.0.2 to iOS 8.1 I have an iPad 2 and it currently has iOS 8.0.2, it says to install iOS 8.1 but when I click on update it brings up the agree or disagree the terms page as normal, and I click on agree and nothing happens, it just freezes and then times out!

What can I do about this?

Just fixed this by making sure I was signed into iTunes, then agreeing to updated iTunes terms and conditions, then hard-resetting. I had not been signed in before, so I suspect that was holding things up.


How do I fix Apple Music "Cloud Music Library is not responding"? After Apple System Status showed an iTunes outage today, my iCloud Music Library in Apple Music stopped working on my Mac. I saw the following dialog repeatedly:

I have no control over the firewalls in Cupertino , so how can I fix this?

After wrestling with this all day, even after iTunes status showed normal, I found this solution:

Open iTunes.
Press ⌘-, to open the Preferences dialog.
Uncheck Show Apple Music, acknowledge the dialog advising you you will stop using iCloud Music Library, then select OK.
Reopen the Preferences dialog.
Check Show Apple Music again as well as iCloud Music Library, then select OK.

This will restore iCloud Music Library.  Note: I could not immediately add music to my library after this without seeing more errors, but the next morning I found my add attempt had succeeded and everything seems to be in good shape.


Spotlight only working from the finder When I search from the finder spotlight is working as expected.

When pressing cmd+space and entering the same query I only get results from Safari's history.

Edit

The index is OK and the results are correct when searching with the Finder and with mdfind on the command line. Is only the spotlight window (cmd+space) that is not working.

Edit 2

Rebuilding the index does not change the behaviour

Any hint on how could I solve the problem?

You have some or more items disabled in System Preferences / Spotlight, I was able to replicate your issue completely by turning off everything but Bookmarks & History. Check the items you want searched and see if that shows documents and other things as well.


Dock is semi-functional after Mountain Lion upgrade So I updated to Mountain Lion recently, and as far as I can tell everything has been great. Except that Dock doesn’t really function as it is supposed to. It shows up, but when I launch an application from it, it does not recognize that the application is running. The only app that it recognizes as open is Finder.
Also (and I’m assuming that this is coming from the same problem), when I do ⌘ + tab it only shows Finder as an open application (like the Dock).
Is there a way that I can maybe restart the dock?
Thanks, Asher

Other than a reboot, you can try the following in Terminal.app

  killall Dock


Time machine backups and deleted files If I delete photos from my current iPhoto library which have been backed up on time machine, will it be possible to recover these photos from my time machine backup once they've been deleted from my hard disk/iPhoto library? or will time machine eventually delete them next time I backup?  does time machine keep my backups for a particular period of time before deleting them to make room for the next round of backups?

By default, Time Machine keeps the following backups:

Hourly for the current day
Daily for the past month
Weekly for all the other months

If there's space constraints then Time Machine will start to delete the backups, but otherwise it keeps them for as long as possible.

To get to the individual photos you will have to have iPhoto as the active window when you activate Time Machine from the menu bar. This lets you go back and see all of the photos. If you did it from the Finder it's more complex because iPhoto bundles its whole library into one big package.


iPod Touch will charge but won't play when connected to a Sony docking system I bought a Sony ICF-CS15iP docking system and my iPod will charge when I connect it, but it will not play music through the speakers. This is my 3rd docking system and I have had the same problem with the others - it will charge but not play.  I'm assuming it is my iPod that has something wrong with it. Should I call Sony and or Apple?? Thanks!
Note* I have a 4th gen iPod Touch

I found a product description on the Best Buy website:

  The ICF-CS15IP is Compatible with most iPod® and iPhone® models, including iPhone 4. Works with: iPod touch® 2nd, 3rd, & 4th generations, iPod nano® 3rd (video), 4th (video), 5th (video camera), & 6th generations, iPod classic®, iPhone® 4, iPhone 3GS, and iPhone 3G.

Your 4th generation iPod Touch is listed as supported by this device, so you should contact Sony and expect them to help you.


Is it possible to sort iTunes U other than "Released Date"? In iTunes > Library > iTunes U, the items are sorted by Released Date. How can I sort the items, say, by Name?

Sorting by "Release Date" is currently the only option for sorting iTunes U in iTunes.

The sorting of content is meant to be left up to the creator of the iTunes U collection/course.

The collections are automatically sorted alphabetically by collection name. If you click on the disclosure triangle for each collection, the lectures can then be sorted by release date in ascending or descending order.


Concisely starting Mac OS apps from the command line I do a fair amount of work in the command line, and I find myself defining a lot of aliases of the form:

alias skim='/Applications/Skim.app/Contents/MacOS/Skim'

Is there a way to add magic such that asking for executable "foo" automatically uses executable /Applications/Foo.app/Contents/MacOS/Foo? This is on OS X 10.6.

(I'm aware that I could do open foo.pdf, but Skim is not the default PDF reader, and I'd like a general solution - in some cases, it's not appropriate to set the application in question as the default handler for the file.)

Finally I got it:
Add this to your .bash_profile

function foomagick() {
    rm -f ~/.foomagick.tmp
    ls /Applications/ | grep "\.app" | grep -v iWork | while read APP; do
        # clean it up
        a=`echo $APP | sed s/\ //g`;
        a=`echo $a | sed s/\'//g`;
        echo alias ${a%.*}="'open -a \"${APP%.*}\"'" >> ~/.foomagick.tmp
    done
    source ~/.foomagick.tmp
    rm ~/.foomagick.tmp
}
foomagick()

Now the following work:

Skim # open Skim.app
Skim foo.pdf
FireFox http://google.com
FireFox google.com # ERROR. Looks for local file.

Edit by Reid:

I implemented the above as a Python script that makes wrapper scripts instead of aliases. You will need to put ~/bin/mankoffmagic in your path. If you want the wrappers to be updated automatically, run it regularly from cron or somesuch.

#!/usr/bin/python
#
# This script automagically updates a set of wrapper shell scripts in
# ~/bin/mankoffmagic which call Mac apps installed in /Applications.
#
# Inspired by mankoff's shell alias posted on apple.stackexchange.com; see:
# http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/4240/concisely-starting-mac-os-apps-from-the-command-line/4257#4257
#
# Notes/Bugs:
#
# 1. Does not follow symlinks (aliases?)
#
# 2. Assumes that application names do not contain double-quotes.
#
# 3. Not very smart about finding the actual binary (it guesses). This is
# wrong sometimes, e.g. Firefox. Probably a deeper understanding of the app
# package structure would fix this.

import copy
import glob
import os
import os.path
import re

BINDIR = os.path.expandvars("$HOME/bin/mankoffmagic")
APP_RE = re.compile(r'(.*)\.app$')
STRIP_RE = re.compile(r'[\W_]+')

def main():
   # We aggressively delete everything already in BINDIR, to save the trouble
   # of analyzing what should stay
   for f in glob.glob("%s/*" % BINDIR):
      os.unlink(f)

   # Walk /Applications and create a wrapper shell script for each .app dir
   for (root, dirs, files) in os.walk("/Applications"):
      dirs_real = copy.copy(dirs)  # so we can manipulate dirs while looping
      for d in dirs_real:
         #print "checking %s" % os.path.join(root, d)
         m = APP_RE.search(d)
         if (m is not None):
            #print "Found " + m.group()
            dirs.remove(d)  # no need to recurse into app
            create_script(root, d, m.group(1))

def create_script(path, appdir, appname):
   # remove non-alphanumerics and downcase it
   wrapper = STRIP_RE.sub('', appname).lower()
   wrapper = os.path.join(BINDIR, wrapper)
   fp = open(wrapper, "w")
   # Twiddle the comments in the script depending on whether you want to
   # invoke the binary or use "open" -- the former lets you use any
   # command-line args, while the latter is more Mac-like (app puts itself in
   # the front, etc.)
   fp.write("""
#!/bin/sh
exec "%s/%s/Contents/MacOS/%s" "$@"
#open -a "%s" "$@"
""" % (path, appdir, appname, appname))
   fp.close()
   os.chmod(wrapper, 0700)

if (__name__ == "__main__"):
   main()


Prohibitory sign showing on Mac startup While trying to install OS X El Capitan there was a brief power cut mid installation then the Mac tried to restart it first brought up the apple logo then brought up the prohibitory symbol. I can't get safe mode and I have done a hard restart all with the same thing can you help?

Sounds like the system files are corrupted, still try to boot into Recovery Mode by holding the Option key at startup until you see graphics of hard drives. Select Recovery with the arrow keys, then press Enter. Recovery mode will allow you to reinstall the OS.


Move external iTunes library files to different location without losing metadata I'm trying to move my iTunes library to a new location. I'm running iTunes without the "organize media" option because I keep my library (60000+ songs) on a second drive in my MacBook... I recently upgraded to a new MacBook with a lot less storage but found out that you can run iTunes from a WebDAV cloud server without any noticeable lag (Yep!). I already have an exact copy of my second drive on the server but now I would like to know the simplest way to change the paths for all tracks in bulk? I've found some solutions myself but it would take literally weeks to complete:

When playing a song that is not in its current position, iTunes will ask for the new location of this file and then will try to find other missing files in that same directory (so only that cd is imported). The importing itself is slow as well but that's probably due to the server.
Doug created a script that can change the location of selected files without losing metadata/rating but 500+ albums would take a too long :(

I hope there is a simpler and faster way changing the paths since this is the last step holding me back from running my library from a cloud server.
For those interested, I can't store the library files on the cloud server as iTunes rewrite the library file (200mb) every time you change a rating so I keep my libraries in sync with a bitbucket server and source-tree.

Thanks!

The locations are hard-coded, absolute not relative, so you need to find & replace
file:///Volumes/Macintosh HD/Users/[yourname]/Music/iTunes/
with the actual path - file:///Volumes/mountpoint...

This would have been a single step find/replace on the iTunes Library.xml [which it is far better to keep in its original location even without the added complexity of a remote write] using something like TextWrangler/BBEdit if the library was consolidated to start with. As it isn't, you might have multiple steps to do, depending on how broad your "path-scape" is.
.

It's been quite some time since I did this - the next step doesn't seem to work the same as it used to - see iTunes: Moving iTunes Files (Self Managed)

Breaking the .itl no longer works with recent iTunes versions - it just complains it's damaged & makes a new one itself, which loses everything.
I think last time I tried it I think I just left the .itl as it was & it ran OK (I'm open to correction on that if someone cares to try it, I'm not going to do it 'just to see' ;)

Related & possibly worth a read-through too, for general background & it also covers recent iTunes variations in method - How to share an iTunes library between Mac & Windows?

BTW, I think you ought to still be able to use 'Organise Media' using a remote library - though mine is just on a different drive, not a different server, so I haven't tested that scenario.


Exchange account in Mail has wrong username, but is not editable I recently set up a new iMac running Yosemite (10.10.1). After I signed into my iCloud account, my mail/calendar/contacts accounts were set up for me; so far so good.

The problem is that in Mail.app one of my accounts, which is Exchange-based, has the wrong User Name value -- it's got "jens" instead of "jens@example.com". This of course means Mail can't log into the account; if I enable it I just get endless enter-your-password dialog boxes.

The real problem is that I can't fix the first problem -- the User Name field in the account settings in Mail prefs is disabled! (So are many of the other fields like Email Address and Internal Server.) Maybe this is because the account is managed by the Internet Accounts system pref? But my other account, which uses IMAP, does have an editable User Name field...

What's even stranger is that the Calendar and Contacts apps can log into the Exchange server just fine, and if I look in their prefs for the account settings, they've got the correct username. It's only Mail that's got it wrong.

What I've tried so far:

Delete the Exchange account -- this pops up a stern warning that the account will be removed from all my other devices that use iCloud Keychain. No way; I don't want to risk screwing up email access on the other Mac and iOS devices where it's working fine!
Configure a new Exchange account to connect to the same server -- this doesn't work. Apparently Mail's new-account assistant realizes that there's already an account with this server/username and reuses it instead of creating a new one.
Find where the username is stored in Mail's user defaults and edit it -- I haven't been able to find it. Looks like Mail's storage of user defaults or accounts has changed a lot since the olden days, both due to sandboxing and to iCloud.
Look online for other people with my problem -- haven't found anything on Apple's (useless) support community site or here.

I've been looking for an answer to this as well. Here's how i resolved it.

I found the file that stores the username in ~/Library/Accounts/Accounts3.sqlite. I used the sqlitebrowser app from http://sqlitebrowser.org/ to open it.

Drag and drop Accounts3.sqlite to the dock icon to open the file.
Click the Browse Data tab.
Change the Table to ZACCOUNT.
I used the ZACCOUNTDESCRIPTION field to determine the right row to make the change.
Update the value in the ZUSERNAME field.

For me, entering the full email address didn't work. I used domain\user instead.


How to mount a .dmg file with JXA? I made the below AppleScript

tell application "DiskImageMounter"
    try
        open alias imagePath
    on error errText
        display dialog "Could not mount" & errText
    end try
end tell

I would like to remake it in JavaScript.  I tried to find the current API in the Script Editor library, but could not find how to control Disk Utility with JavaScript.

What is the syntax or reference to interface with Disk Utility or otherwise mount a disk image file from the JXA framework?

One wouldn't use DiskImageMounter to do this because, despite it giving the illusion that it's scriptable and loaded with commands in its AppleScript dictionary, it never returns a valid reference to any image that it opens; therefore AppleScript never gets informed it's done the job; and  DiskImageMounter sacks it off, quits, and invalidates the connection with AppleScript thus throwing an error.  And it does this every.  Single.  Time.  So, it is reliably balls.

The way to mount a disk image with AppleScript is to use an application I very rarely endorse using but for very few specific tasks, which is Finder.  DiskImageMounter is the only application less reliable than Finder, but Finder is a trier, and it does succeed with mounting volumes without causing too much of a stink:

set f to POSIX file "/path/to/diskimage.dmg" as alias
tell application id "com.apple.Finder" to open f

It, too, doesn't return a reference to the mounted volume, but you can get Finder to enumerate the disks already mounted beforehand, then enumerate them again afterwards, and the new one that appears will be your mounted volume:

set f to POSIX file "/path/to/diskImage.dmg" as alias
tell application id "com.apple.Finder"
    set ejectables to disks

    open f

    repeat until disks ≠ ejectables
        delay 1
    end repeat

    return the POSIX path of last item of (disks as alias list)
end tell

Finally...  The JXA:

Finder=Application('com.apple.Finder');
f=Path('/path/to/diskImage.dmg');
Finder.open(f);


Unable to launch app using "open" command in Terminal I have recently started using Terminal.app a lot. I figured that open command will be helpful in opening files like HTML, CSS files etc.

I have tried Visual Studio Code app from Microsoft. The app itself is running fine without installation. The problem is when I use command: open -a and press tab, the app Visual Studio Code does not appear.

I wonder if there is a way to install the app correctly? I read man open command depends on LaunchServices, and I can't find a way to register the app with this service.

The argument(s) to open -a command can be Tab autocompleted, if you specify the path from the parent directory, e.g. open -a /Applications.

Try running the following command-line to launch Visual Studio Code from Terminal:

open -a "Visual Studio Code"

To open a file named index.html with Visual Studio Code app using open command, type:

open -a "Visual Studio Code" index.html

Please note you need to enclose the name of the app which contains spaces into double-quotes.

Additionally, quoting from the man page:

  The open command opens a file (or a directory or URL), just as if you had double-clicked the file's icon. If no application name is specified, the default application as determined via LaunchServices is used to open the specified files.

The statement is referring to the case when you are attempting to open a file using the open command. To launch an app, the syntax is simply open command followed by space, followed by -a flag, another space then the name of the app (enclosed in " if the name contains spaces).

If you have not installed the app already, you should install it by copying the Visual Studio Code.app bundle into /Applications directory.


Create and distribute printers Is there a way to create a printer on a machine. Then bundle up the Printer bundle and create an installer out of it for multiple users at a location. To avoid having to explain to each user how to install a network printer?

This is one of those enterprise issues.
(10.6 specifically... at least for the next month)

If your Macs are part of the OS X Server's OD, then you can use Workgroup Manager to assign printers to either Groups of users or Groups of Machines.

If you want to manage the drivers and the detailed printer settings, this link might help.


Preventing other network users installing Remote Desktop 3 via the AppStore I have installed Remote Desktop 3 (purchased from the AppStore) on my administrators machine. However, if one of our employees installs Remote Desktop 3 themselves onto their machine on the network via the App Store, how I can prevent them also accessing all the machines on our network?

Or will I have to disable admin access to everyone's machines other than mine on the network?

How are they supposed to know the login credentials for the other machines? And if they do know the credentials, they could probably do whatever they want with ssh, vnc, afp, etc… anyway, so no need to prohibit ARD, really.

To make it more precise: if you cannot trust your users not to spy on each other, don´t let them know each others passwords!


How to delete certain cells from Numbers? So I have a large dataset with a lot of "noise" in it. I need to get rid of all these cells that have either "-999" in it or "888".
How can I programmatically do that using the numbers app so I am not doing this all day long?

The following example AppleScript code is one way to achieve what you are asking:
tell application "Numbers"
    tell document 1
        tell sheet 1
            tell table 1
                set the targetCells to a reference to (cells whose value is -999)
                set the value of the targetCells to ""
                set the targetCells to a reference to (cells whose value is 888)
                set the value of the targetCells to ""
            end tell
        end tell
    end tell
end tell

Notes:
The example AppleScript code, was tested in Script Editor under macOS Catalina with Language & Region settings in System Preferences set to English (US) — Primary and worked for me without issue1.

1  Assumes necessary and appropriate setting in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy have been set/addressed as needed.

Note: The example AppleScript code is just that and sans any included error handling does not contain any additional error handling as may be appropriate. The onus is upon the user to add any error handling as may be appropriate, needed or wanted. Have a look at the try statement and error statement in the AppleScript Language Guide. See also, Working with Errors. Additionally, the use of the delay command may be necessary between events where appropriate, e.g. delay 0.5, with the value of the delay set appropriately.


Memory exhaused error in Redsn0w When I tried to build a custom iOS 5.1.1 firmware (ipsw file) using redsn0w 0.9.12b1 almost in the beginning of the process I receive a message:

  Custom IPSW creating failed
  Memory Exhaused

What should I do? I tried to run redsn0w on Windows Vista and XP and and as Administrator and with no results. Always the same.

This is a tricky error. A couple options to try, based on successful reports from this thread and this one:

Run redsn0w as administrator and in Windows XP (SP2) compatibility mode. Also try other compatibility modes, such as Vista SP1.
Move redsn0w to a place where it will have a short file location - something like C:/redsn0w/redsn0w.exe - and put the stock IPSW in that directory too.

It'd be interesting to see if those steps work. If they don't, another option is to simply use sn0wbreeze instead, which is available here: http://www.ih8sn0w.com/ - it supports building custom firmware for the same devices that redsn0w does.


What gets copied (and what doesn't) during a Target Mode copy? I recently cloned my old, dying computer into a new one, using Target Mode and a Firewire 800 cable via Recovery Mode.
Everything looked perfectly identical. I launched Safari on the new computer, and all the tabs I was browsing were there.
But when I opened Chrome, there were no tabs open, and the extensions were uninstalled.
I'm trying to understand what happened, and where these files were copied for Target Mode to omit them.
Which files does Target Mode copy - and which files does it not copy - when cloning a hard drive with Recovery Mode?

Target Disk Mode just turns the whole Mac into an external drive. There's essentially no difference between doing that and taking the drive out and putting it in a FireWire drive enclosure.
There's nothing special about TDM that makes it not-copy certain files.
However, when using a cloning app, some files may or may not be included. These are usually just 'temporary' data, such as caches, or machine-specific files that the system will recreate if absent. There may be options in the cloning app to exclude other files.


OSX 10.9.5 automount AFP network volume? I'm having problems getting automount to mount an AFP share at startup.

If I, as a non-root user, issue the following command from my terminal:

mount -t afp afp://user:pass@server/share-name ./share-mount-point

It works fine, and I can interact with the files.

I'm trying to do the same with automount.  I've added the following to auto_master, and created auto_afp:

/etc/auto_master:

 /my/global/mount/point auto_afp

/etc/auto_afp:

 /my/global/mount/point -fstype=afp afp://user:pass@server/share-name

This fails.  I see that /my/global/mount/point is created by root, in group wheel, but is empty.

When I run sudo automount -vc, the same thing happens.  I get output like automount: /my/global/mount/point updated but there's no AFP share mounted there.

I'm not even sure where to start debugging here.

OK, I figured it out.  The keys in the auto_afp file are paths that are relative to the path specified in the top-level auto_master file.

So if your /etc/auto_master has: my/global/mount auto_afp

Then your /etc/auto_afp should have: point -fstype=....

Finally to get visibility into what automountd is doing, add AUTOMOUNTD_TRACE=2 to /etc/autofs.conf, watch /var/log/system.log with tail -f, and start navigating around your mount points.


Syntax highlighting in QuickLook I'm looking for a way to have syntax highlighting for my source codes in El-Capitan's QuickLook without installing TextMate. Previously I had TextMate and I got hooked to this feature.

Googling this bring some really old posts on web such as:

How do I get syntax highlighting of source code files within Quick Look back in Lion?

These are not maintained anymore based on their SVN/Git repo:QLColorCode and colorqc2

Surprisingly there are also some people who wants to get rid of syntax highlighting after installing TextMate:

Remove Quicklook Syntax Highlighting with TextMate2?

Having syntax highlighting is essential for me but I don't want to install a full featured text editor just to use on library of it!

My rationale in not installing TextMate on my El-Capitan is that I have RStudio and Atom which are way more customized/customizable than TextMate.

I would appreciate any suggestion/solution that is maintained properly, work with el-capitan.

Cheers,

Finally ... I found page providing some QuickLook solutions based on Homebrew's caskroom:

brew cask install qlcolorcode

This is based on a fork from and old repository but is maintained and developed quite well at least until today.

I gave it a shot and it works just fine, though I still prefer the dark theme of TextMate :)


How does iPhone manage duplicate photos? I end up with quite a number of duplicate pictures on my iPhone because of Photostream. For example, I take a picture which is saved in the Camera Roll. It is then automatically uploaded to my Photostream. Then, I share the photo to three different Photostreams. As a result I can see the same picture in 5 different places. I'm really tight on space on my device and wondering if this would make it more pronounced?

Is iPhone smart enough to manage duplicates? If not, is there an alternate way to manage duplicate photos at least somewhat?

If you go to Settings > General > Usage, it will show under Storage how much memory is used by Photos & Camera, and when you tap that, it will show you what portion is from your Photo Stream. Now, I had a shared photo stream with about 20 photos, and I actually deleted it, and when I checked I saw that Photo Stream storage did not go down. So I suspect if the same photo is in multiple photo streams, it does not use extra storage on your device. What it did imply, however, is that each photo in my Photo Stream is using about 1MB, and I know full sized photos from the iPhone are usually closer to 3MB. Apple says that photos downloaded to the Photo Stream on mobile devices are scaled down to use less space.

So this all indicates that the Photo Stream includes a duplicate copy of each photo, but a single photo in multiple photo streams does not increase storage.

What I personally recommend is importing photos and videos to iPhoto or Picasa and using that software to delete them from the iPhone every once in a while. This clears the camera roll only. That keeps storage down while still letting you view recent photos in your Photo Stream.


Understanding iPhone Provisioning Portal and how it works? The process of provisioning portal, certificates, provisioning profiles, etc are still confusing me. I read apple's documentations and googled a lot about it.. Nothing helped me..

I have a Mac and an iPhone. How can I install the application which I developed in Xcode in my device?

Could anyone give a simple steps to understand the work flow of Provisioning Portal process?

Thanks

I faced the same problem too when I started out.

For my first app, the steps at Provisioning unveiled worked perfectly for me.

The next thing you could try out is distributing your app wirelessly (along with the provisioning profile), which gets very exciting :)


Next/Prev buttons stopped working for the Music app on my 2015 MacBook Air Normally, when I press the button on my 3.5mm headphones, the Music app would pop up and start playing music. When a song was playing, I could pause it by clicking this button. However, since a recent reboot, this doesn't work anymore. The prev, next and pause buttons on the keyboard (f7, f8, and f9) also don't work anymore although they used to work. It is not because of the update to Catalina, because it has worked in Catalina before. Playing and pausing music on Youtube using this button still works.

Is this an update of the Music app (that replaced iTunes)? Is it some setting? Is there any way I can get it to work again? I really like being able to start the music without having to open the Music app and start a track.

To clarify:

Even if the Music app is active, it does not work
Both headphone button and keyboard buttons don't work anymore, although they used to work

Here's an imperfect potential solution (depends on how you want to use the feature) – see problem 3 below.

I created an applescript that uses keystrokes to tell apple music to play/pause. This way, you can just use automator to trigger it based on shortcuts (you can similarly bind fast forward and rewind).

Script is below:

on run {input, parameters}

    tell application "System Events"
        tell application "Music" to activate
        key code 49
        key code 48 using {command down}
    end tell

    return input
end run

Pop this into an automator workflow using the "Run AppleScript" action and you can create a shortcut. I'm having issues doing this now, but it's something you can probably research. I use keyboard maestro, which makes setting up shortcuts significantly easier.

To change to rewind and fast forward, just change the line key code 49 to key code 123 and key code 124 respectively (this is left and right arrow keys)

There are a few problems:

you may want to hide music instead of tabbing back to your original program. In that case, just replace key code 48 using {command down} with set visible of process "Music" to false and it'll hide the progam
you can't actually use the f8 key as a shortcut, but you could maybe bind it to something like command 8. You could also probably use Karabiner to rebind the f8 key to something else
This doesn't really fix the "why" of what's going on. I still don't know what's happening for sure, but it is a way for you to get it up and running (I still think you should try messing around with Karabiner to change the f8 key to like the keycode for play/pause. It may add clarity to what's happening).


Prevent mounted volumes/folders from clogging the desktop on log in I have a lot of volumes (folders) mounted from remote machines, about 10 of them, which I set to be mounted automatically when I'm logging in by adding them to the Login Items list in Users & Groups. Of course, I made sure to tick the Hide check box of each of the volumes, yet OS X opens each of the folders whenever I log in so I have to close them one by one manually.

When an application starts, the hide button makes sure no windows are drawn visibly. Can Finder be configured to respect the "hide" flag similarly?

Check this answer for two ways to hide Finder windows for windows opened with login items.


iPhone 4S' home button isn't working properly My iPhone 4S' home button isn't working properly. It works sometimes and sometimes it doesn't. Could it be because of the dust?

If dust is the problem how do I proceed with removing dust particles? And, if not, what can I do?

I don't know about the dust, but you could enable AssistiveTouch, which will place a round button on the screen, which gives you access to all the home button features, and more like volume, gestures, etc. To switch it on go to Settigngs -> General -> Accessibility Scroll down to AssistiveTouch and turn it on.


Managing a large number of parallel iCloud accounts I manage a large number (over 50) of unique iCloud accounts each with unique information, contacts, and an attached iPhone.
Currently any changes among the group's information has to be edited in manually, with contacts being the primary offender for time usage as I delete and then upload vCards for each account through the iCloud website.

Is there any workaround that Ask Different users know of? Any program that you have used or tried that could alleviate a bit of this workload?

Edit: As for clarification as to the system we have in place currently: we manage a number of field agents who need to be able to manage their own phone contacts on a parallel phone-by-phone basis, but all of the agents need to be able to contact one another, and the contact information among the agents changes frequently. It is a pain to update all of them manually through the current system we have in place. (iCloud) The number of agents we employ shifts with time, and we often deactivate phones and accounts, or even activate new ones, which would require an update to all of the phones' iCloud accounts, deleting outdated contacts and replacing them with the updated vCards. It feels as if there is a solution that could work better, but we have not been able to find it.

iCloud is hard to manage in enterprise setting. Even with Apple's own macOS server it is hard to manage this kind of thing. A better environment would be Office365 or Google Apps. In both systems it's really easy to manage large numbers of accounts. And add content to for example contacts.

If you really want to stick to iCloud. Make an Automator action would be the solution.

Login to an account
Delete content
Upload new content
Repeat with next account

Further more I highly recommand to give feedback on this matter to Apple.


Prioritize iPhone when connecting August EP650 Bluetooth headphones? Both my iPhone (6S+) and iPad (Pro 9.7") have been paired with my Bluetooth headphones (August EP650). When I power on my headphones, they always connect to the iPad... despite last being connected to the iPhone.

The iPhone is my primary listening device, so it becomes quite annoying to constantly connect the headphones manually.

How can I prioritize the connection to my iPhone?

To be clear, I still use the headphones on the iPad... just not as often… so I'd rather not forget the headphones on the iPad or disable Bluetooth.

These model headphones support Multipoint functionality, meaning you can connect them to two devices at the same time.

Using multipoint

The procedure for using these headphones in multipoint mode is as follows:

Hold the + and - buttons to put the EP650 into pairing
mode
Press the ▶ button to start multi-point pairing
Pair your headphones to your iPhone
Switch your headphones off
Press and hold the ▶ button until your headphones reenter pairing mode
Pair your headphones to your iPad
Use the Bluetooth menu on your iPhone to reconnect to your headphones

Now you can switch between your iPhone and iPad by pausing the music on the
currently connected device to play music on the second device. In this way, both devices can be connected simultaneously.

NOTES:

Switching devices can take up to 10 seconds.
When receiving a call on the iPhone, your headphones will automatically pause and resume once the call is finished, even if you were using the iPad at the time.


Group by subject in iOS Mail app How do I make the default Mail app on iOS group by subject? I've enabled "Organize By Thread" but that doesn't help.

On my Mac (OS X 10.9.4):

On my iPhone (iOS 7.1.2):

Mail on iOS, like on OS X, uses multiple factors to determine whether two or more emails are part of a thread. By not relying solely on the subject, Mail is able to keep a thread together even when other email programs/servers modify the subject (for example, adding "RE:"). This is seen by Apple as a feature and is not able to be modified.

Enabling Organise by Thread is the best you can do. If the emails still don't group together, then Mail is determining that the emails are not part of the same thread and this can't be changed.


I duplicate a file in photos app mac and it references the same file I duplicate a file in photos app for mac and it references the same file rather than export a new file. I use a referenced library.

Duplicating it simply duplicates the pointer within the library, it does not actually duplicate the underlying file. This occurs whether or not you have a referenced library. You can test this by using the Edit tools to make a change - such as cropping - then duplicating the image. The duplicated image has a "Revert to Original" button in Edit mode that takes you back to what the image looked like before the change, even though this "duplicate" image didn't even exist at that point in time.

Based on this, it appears the duplicate function is intended to allow you to maintain multiple versions of an image at the same time, but still allow you to do so non-destructively.

If you want to physically duplicate the file, you need to do so in Finder and then import that file into Photos.

@Tetsujin is correct about the hard link.


How can I trigger a Notification Center notification from an AppleScript or shell script? I'd love to be able to take advantage of 10.8's Notification Center features in AppleScripts and shell scripts I write.

Is there a built-in command or a third-party library I can use from either an AppleScript or shell script?

Ideally the type and icon of the notification could be controlled, but even just the ability to trigger a basic banner with a stock icon (but custom text) would be appreciated.

With Mavericks and later, you can do this using AppleScript's 'display notification':

display notification "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet" with title "Title"

That's it—literally that simple! No 3rd-party libraries or apps required and is completely portable for use on other systems. 10.9 notification on the top, 10.10 DP in the middle, 10.10 on the bottom.

AppleScript can be run from the shell using /usr/bin/osascript:

osascript -e 'display notification "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet" with title "Title"'

You can also customise the alert further by adding…

a subtitle

Append 'subtitle' followed by the string or variable containing the subtitle.

display notification "message" with title "title" subtitle "subtitle"

The above example produces the following notification:

sound

Append 'sound name' followed by the name of a sound that will be played along with the notification.

display notification "message" sound name "Sound Name"

Valid sound names are the names of sounds located in…

~/Library/Sounds
/System/Library/Sounds

Posting notifications can be wrapped as a command-line script. The following code can be run in Terminal and will add a script to /usr/local/bin (must exist, add to $PATH) called notify.

cd /usr/local/bin && echo -e "#!/bin/bash\n/usr/bin/osascript -e \"display notification \\\"\$*\\\"\"" > notify && chmod +x notify;cd -

This is the script that the above will add to notify.

#!/bin/bash
/usr/bin/osascript -e "display notification \"$*\""

Now to display a notification:

notify Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet
sleep 5; notify Slow command finished


Avoid using command for keyboard shortcuts I work with a disabled person who uses their communication-aid to control their iMac through keyboard and mouse commands.

I'm setting up keyboard shortcuts to launch applications directly using services in Automator, however the communication-aid doesn't have the ability to send the command key.

How can I get OSX to recognise other key combinations? (e.g. ctrl-alt-f to launch FireFox)

This article explains how to customize keyboard shortcuts.


How do I delete material in 'Video' in the imovie app When I open imovie there are three choices Video Projects of Theater.  I want to delete what is in the video file but can't work out how to do this as when I enter this there are all the video clips but no menu to do anything but view them.  Can anybody help please.

The videos in the "Video" section can be deleted from the "Photos" application.  iMovie can include those videos when making a project, but, it cannot delete them directly.


Switch to another desktop faster on macos high sierra On a macbook with macos high sierra, how do I switch between desktops faster by sliding 3 fingers across the touch pad?

Currently it takes ~1 second to switch to another screen. It does not matter if I slide the fingers or use Control+arrow, it takes the exact same time. I would like to make it faster. During the transition I can still type on the screen that I am switching from. I would like to make the transition faster or instantaneous, or at least make it so that I immediately start typing on the screen that I'm switching TO.

You can disable the animated Space transition effect and speed up switching by enabling Reduce motion under System Preferences → Accessibility → Display

However, this will have the side effect of turning off most user interface animations.


How to check how much "free" iGPU VRAM the system have in MB? How to check how much free iGPU VRAM the system have?
I thought it was a simple easy task, but so far I don't find any useful result by googling.
I knew how much VRAM I have. I knew I could run system_profiler SPDisplaysDataTyp at cml. I knew I could check GPU % of each application in Activity Monitor > % GPU Column. I knew there is Activity Monitor > Window > GPU History Window etc..
But none of them tell me how much iGPU VRAM the system uses and how much free VRAM is in MB value.
Do anyone know how to check the info?
CML way is preferred.
if not, Built-in tool is preferred.
if not, Open source tool is preferred.
if not, Free tool is prefered.
Thank you very much.
Edited: I don't want to use a paid app for this purpose.

You can check this using the iStats Menu program, which is a paid app that you can try for free for 14 days:
https://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus/
Note that you'll probably find that the VRAM is maxed out, and there's much you can really use this metric for unless you happen to be a developer actively developing your own software using the GPU. In that case, you should use the free Instruments tool from Apple instead.


Why 3G Consume More Battery than Wifi? From what I can recall, both 3G and Wifi should consume about the same about of battery when in operation. However, my field testing seems to indicate that 3G is more battery consuming than Wifi.

Is this result general? If yes, why this is so?

First of all, all wireless systems use the most power when transmitting, ie actively powering the antenna to upload data.

Now, just think of the ranges the different systems have to bridge. WiFi works well for like 30 meters, or 100 meters outdoors. Usually, the nearest cell tower is considerably farther away than those 100 meters, therefore, 3G needs more power than WiFi.

Add to this that 3G is capable of opening multiple connections at once, and the fact that 3G autmatically boosts power output on weak signals, 3G needs more power.


Bypassing Enrollment Server Reinstalling MacOS I have an iMac from my organization to be used at home. I'd like to reinstall its MacOS, however, when I reinstall it, it takes me to "enrollment server". I guess I need to either take it to my company or somehow connect with VPN. But, Is there a way to bypass that?

No, you shouldn't bypass the Enrollment Server option. I am pretty sure it is related to the MDM setup that you have in your iMac from the company.

Once your company's MDM is connected with Apple Business Manager of your company, it rollout Enrollment in the beginning once it hits the internet.

Your IT department must have something like this that enroll your devices to MDM.

Either your IT admin can give you the password if needed else, it should enroll in the company server without authentication once you hit the internet. Better to reach out to your IT department in this context.

I suggest not to look around to bypass as it is an MDM tool for inventory from your company with company policy.


No java installations was detected, although I have Java $ java -version
java version "1.6.0_65"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_65-b14-462-11M4609)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 20.65-b04-462, mixed mode)

$ which java
/usr/bin/java

$ ls /usr/libexec/java_home
/usr/libexec/java_home

But when I run some application from the terminal, is says in terminal:

No java installations was detected.
Please go to http://www.java.com/getjava/ and download

I had such problem in sbt run having $GREP_OPTIONS=--color=always --ignore-case. Unsetting the environment variable helped.

https://stackoverflow.com/a/47180447/907576


Every time I wake my Macbook it switches applications after wake. How do I fix this? Whenever I close my MacBook, and then come back after it's been asleep, I'll open it, and it'll make a sound while it's waking the harddrive, which is normal. But then after that it'll switch the whichever application is active with the second-most active on in the tab-switcher. Does anyone know what would cause this?

This Apple Support article overviews a similar issue. This is on a Early 2010 macbook pro, and OP on the linked thread tied the cause to the "require password after 5 minutes" setting in Security and Privacy. OP solved this issue by switching to "require password immediately"

Have you done all updates up to 10.7.5?


What is your preferred way to start a (shell) script from the GUI? I was wondering what ways there are to start a (shell) script from the GUI, e.g. double-clicking an icon in Finder or launching via Spotlight.

This is not about opening a terminal and "manually" launching the script.

I used to have .term files on the desktop, which launch a terminal session and can also be extended to execute a script upon launch. This is nice if you need interaction or want to monitor the output.

I also know about running a shell script from Applescript, and just read about the .command files.

What is your preferred way to start a (shell) script from the GUI, and why ?

And maybe you could also write if it shows output and allows interaction or is just an invisible wrapper to e.g. start a program with its own GUI.

You can use an app like Platypus.

  Platypus is a developer tool for creating application wrappers around scripts. In other words, it creates Mac OS X applications that execute a script which is bundled within the application. Command line scripts can thus be run transparently from the graphical window environment, integrating seamlessly with the user interface.


Is it possible to get font size in any apps in OS X? I want to get font size (and font family, if possible) that is used in any Mac applications. For example, in Calendar.app, you can find that the date is bold and bigger than any texts that is displayed on the app.

Is is possible to investigate the font in any texts in any applications in OS X? Or is there any app like the Chrome extension WhatFont, (which displays the font information including size and family under the cursor)?

WhatFont is not as magical as it seems - it's simply surfacing information already present in the web page coding (the font being used) in a way that is easy for non-technical users. There is no program that I am aware of that will identify fonts under the cursor when the information is not already available.

MyFonts has a service called WhatTheFont! where you can submit a screenshot and it will try to identify by matching your image against known samples in their database.


How to delete an album in the Photos app? How do I delete unwanted albums in the Mac Photos app?

Select the Album, hit the Delete / Backspace ⌫ Key, or right / control click on it and select "Delete Album"; click on the "Delete" button that appears on the confirmation dialog at the top of the app (Are you sure you want to delete this album?).


Using iWork from the Up-to-Date Program on another Mac I bought a new Mac and received three Mac App Store codes for the iWork apps from the Up-to-Date Program (http://www.apple.com/creativity-apps/mac/up-to-date/). I also have an older MacBook with Mavericks installed and I would like to use the iWork Suite on both computers.

My question: Are the App Store codes bound to the new Mac or can I download the Apps on both Macs after activating the code?

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer.

There are two angles to this - the practical "Will it work?" angle and the legal "Is this legally allowed by Apple?" angle.

Short answers - it will work; but it's not legally sanctioned by Apple.

Will it work?

Yes, once you redeem the codes on the Mac App Store, these applications will be tied to your iTunes Store Account's Apple ID.
These apps will henceforth show up in the Purchases tab of the Mac App Store on every Mac that you have.
Assuming the other Macs you own run OS X Mavericks 10.9 (which is the minimum requirement for the latest iWork releases), you would be able to install the latest iWork on them.

Is this legally allowed by Apple?

This is a bit more difficult to answer accurately. I can only provide some pointers on the different aspects and will try to add a score to make it easier to understand (positive means it's legally fine and negative means it's legally not fine).
Score: -2

Apple tries to follow a "what's paid for with the original product" approach when it comes up with software releases and updates. This has meant that Apple has charged owners of older systems for things like enabling WiFi 802.11n, FaceTime on OS X, etc., while giving these free for purchasers of newer Macs (this is similar to newer iOS devices getting iLife and iWork apps free whereas older devices still have to pay for them). From this angle, no, you do not qualify to run this license of iWork that you have been given on other Macs you own.
On a related note, if you look at past up-to-date programs from Apple for OS X, for example, the OS X Mountain Lion up-to-date program, it clearly states

  The OS X Mountain Lion software content code must be used solely with the products that qualify for this offer.
  This offer is limited to one OS X Mountain Lion content code per qualifying computer purchased.

Score: 0

This recent article titled Apple Offering 'Free' Updates to All Owners of Aperture, iWork, and iLife; Not Worried About Unethical Users states that Apple has intentionally allowed users of older versions of iLife, iWork and Aperture (including trial versions or illegally acquired versions) to upgrade to the latest version for free. According to the unnamed source in Apple:

  ...With Mavericks, we have changed the way we distribute updates for legacy versions of our apps
  ...
  ...when Mavericks discovers legacy apps installed on your Mac, it provisions them as a Mac App Store purchase using your Apple ID. It saves us a lot of time, effort, and bandwidth. After the provision is complete, it will appear in your Mac App Store history as though you have purchased the Mac App Store version of the app.
  While we are aware that this enables piracy of our apps for unethical users, Apple has never taken a strong stance or action against piracy in the past. We like to believe that our users are honest, even if that belief is in vain.

Total score: -2 (against installing it on the other Mac).
To summarize, Apple's past bevahior and past terms state that this is not legally sanctioned by Apple. Even the article cited above states that "We like to believe that our users are honest, even if that belief is in vain."

So if you'd like the bitter truth, in my opinion, you are not legally allowed to install iWork from the up-to-date program on any of your other Macs that do not qualify for the up-to-date program, even though it would work practically.


Three phantom monitors after upgrading to Mavericks I just upgraded my old Macbook Air (late 2010) from 10.6.8 to Mavericks 10.9.4. The OS now sees three ghost monitors that do not exist:

When I'm cordless, I can work around by mirroring the monitors, but I typically work with multiple monitors where mirroring is pointless.

I found a few references to this problem online (particularly here). I followed the directions from the first link (reset PRAM, detect displays, no joy).
Additional information

The other monitors are all called "built-in display".
Under the hardware system report (About This Mac-> More Info-> System Report -> Graphics Displays), I find only the LCD monitor attached to the Mac.
'Detect displays' still detects the same phantom displays.
An external monitor works, but I still see the three phantom monitors.

Questions
Are there any available solutions or workarounds? For example:

Can I use software to disable the extra monitors?
The poster in the second link above got joy with graphicsenabler = YES options in Chameleon. Can I replicate that setting that in my situation?

I came up with a workaround when I was finalizing the question: mirror only the phantom displays. To do this, go to System Preferences-> Displays and click Arrange (click gather windows if you don't see an option to mirror displays).

While holding the Option key, drag the windows that you wish to mirror on top of one another.  (In my case, I mirrored all of the phantom monitors on top of one another.) Release the option key and arrange the other monitors as you like.


Sorting by multiple criteria in iTunes So I have a playlist with a bunch of albums in it that I would like to sort by album name. This is mostly fine, except where you have two albums from different artists that have the same album name, such as here:

Note that 'Aphex Twin - Classics' and 'Ratatat - Classics' are being merged together.

This is in Album List view, sorting by Album. Album by Artist does not work as it primary sorts alphabetically by Artist instead of alphabetically by Album, which is what I want.

What I would expect to see here is 'Aphex Twin - Classics' first and then 'Ratatat - Classics', because iTunes should know that it has two albums but from different artists.

It looks like you can can set the 'Album Artist' in the id3 tags and it will then sort by that, which means to make this work correctly I'd have to retag all my music and copy the artist into the artist album tag (unless it already existed yadda yadda). This is less than ideal, is there another way?

(Thinking about this I'm imagine it happens because of how iTunes tries to deal with compilations, which imo really needs to be overhauled, but that's another story)

I believe that currently the only way to do this is by setting the Album Artist. Considering that you only need to set the Album Artist for albums that you are having problems with, and that you only need to copy and paste the artist name once for each album, it doesn't seem very tedious.


I have over 50,000 emails. How can I make the Mail app go faster? I have the macOS Mail app set up with my Google Gmail account using the IMAP integration. I have over 50,000 emails in my Gmail account, and the Mail application is starting to get a bit slow. For example, it takes several seconds to be able to open an email.

What are my options? I want to continue using macOS Mail, but I don't necessarily need access to all historical messages because I can log into the Gmail website for that.

I'm using Mail Version 13.4 (3608.80.23.2.2) on macOS Catalina 10.15.4 (19E287).

I would start by deleting the account and then recreating it.  However, before you do, make sure you set the "Download Attachments" option in the Account Settings

You have three options:

All - automatically downloads all attachments
Recent - mail from the past 15 months.
None - you have to manually download attachments.

So, as you're recreating your GMail account, select "Recent" or "None."  Then, as it synchronizes with your email account, it will only download the attachments that fit those rules.


How to decrease trackpad tracking speed on demand? I'm using separate magic trackpad and (still, but that's not a requirement) Mac OS 10.9.5. I'm looking for some convenient and free way to decrease tracking speed on demand, for example via additional gesture or a keystroke.

I'm a developer, so, quite often I need to precisely move cursor one-two pixels aside while inspecting layouts, picking colors, moving panels here there and currently with magic trackpad that's terrible.

One of good options I'm looking looks like this: scrolling while holding a key produces slow and precise mouse pointer movement.

Tried to search, but not very successfully:

MagicPrefs: nothing like that, but, seems some plugin may achieve that.
SmoothMouse: nope.
SteerMouse: paid, does not support Apple Magic Trackpad.
ControllerMate: paid, looks like this is what I need, but I didn't manage to achieve what I want (too much time spent).
iMouseFix: nope.

As an option I could make some script up and bind it to the keys, which will change tracking speed or an entire app, but I'm not sure about that and consider that as a last resort. Don't like additional mouse option for precise movements, also I rarely use macbook's built-in trackpad, so I need something universal.

BetterTouchTool is the free tool of your choice:

With a simple modifier key you may decrease or increase tracking speed temporarily after configuring the different speeds:

To toggle cursor speed, create a new gesture (optional with a modifier key) or a keyboard shortcut (no screenshot here - just choose the keyboard menu instead of the trackpad menu) and choose the predefined action -> Other Mouse Actions -> Toggle Mouse Speed.

I don't own a Magic Trackpad but this works at least with my MacBook Pro trackpad.


How secure is it to allow Safari to remember passwords on my iPhone? What key does it use to encrypt the stored passwords? If it uses the phone's unlock code, what key does it use for phones that don't have one set up?

If someone had access to the hard drive contents (e.g. by connecting it to a Linux machine), how easy would it be for them to decrypt the saved passwords?

Not a direct answer but I too had similar concerns. With IOS 4.2, they have enabled the remote wipe ability for all iphone4 users via MobileME. So at least, if you lose your phone, you can have it wiped out remotely.


Once I’ve lost Icon data stored in Resource Fork saving to NTFS, can those files be repaired? How can I repair the Icon in Resource Fork from a folder copied to a NTFS disk?

I recently backed up my dying SSD onto a NTFS drive using an older Snow Leopard Machine and almost all my data was saved. But all the folders lost their associated icons in this process. Some icon creators distribute their work in this way, assigning icons to folders and no contents in them.

I still have a file inside each folder named "Icon?" or "IconˆM" (when using the tab to complete its name in the terminal). This file is 0 bytes in size every time.

Is it possible to recover all these icons from all these folders containing the "Icon?" file?

Repairing would mean you have a backup of the data that was lost. The resource data is gone if the size of the file is 0 bytes.

Look for backup copies of the apps or installers / download the apps / folders icons from a file system where that data was encoded correctly or support data and resource forks natively.


Eclipse Fails To Launch Complaining of Incompatible Java VM I get the following error when trying to launch Eclipse, which I recently tried to install.

"Version 1.6.0_65 of the JVM is not suitable for this product.  Version 1.7 or greater is required."

I'm running Mountain Lion.

I have the most recent 1.8 installed from Oracle, and this is the install I would like Eclipse to be using.  The following image shows the info from the Java Control Panel including the version number and the install path.

Here's is the info on the Apple installed Java VM which is the one Eclipse is currently trying to use.

~> which java
/usr/bin/java
~> java -version
java version "1.6.0_65"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_65-b14-462-11M4609)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 20.65-b04-462, mixed mode)
~> ls -l /usr/bin/java
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  74 Oct 16  2013 /usr/bin/java -> /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/Current/Commands/java

From your comments you have  the Java 8 JRE which is only a web plugin you need to install the Java 8 JDK

Changing things in ~/.bashrc does not effect the environment of apps launched in the GUI


How can I replace Apple Emoji font on El Capitan from Sierra? I've got my hands on Apple Emoji TTC from Sierra and I'd like to install it on El Capitan, but since Apple Emoji TTF on el Capitan is a system file, it cannot be moved into trash, disabled or updated. Is it a possible operation at all?
I cannot upgrade to Sierra, but I'm also fed up with seeing symbols instead of emojis because my OS does not recognise them.

Even if you replace the system emoji font, this won't help with all emojis. This is because some emojis are combinations of characters and this may not be interpreted correctly if the codepoints are new.

If you still want to replace the emoji font, you need to disable System Integrity Protection to replace system files.

  To disable System Integrity Protection, you can do the following:

  Boot into the Recovery HD by restarting whilst holding ⌘R.
  Open Terminal (from the Utilities menu).
  Run the following command in Terminal:

csrutil disable

  Restart.

Source: Disable OS X El Capitan Rootless and permit write actions to System Integrity Protection locations


How to view high-res images in iPad 3 without downsampling? I'm Korean and I like reading web comics on the web. Korean web comics (or as called here "webtoons") tend to have large images, and something like 500x12000 JPEG images are not uncommon. But as you know, Safari on iOS downsamples JPEG images larger than 2 MP (or 5 MP in iOS 6) and even 5 MP is not enough in this situation.

I tried several alternative ways to view large images in my iPad with no luck.

"Save Image" in Safari and view it in Photos app
Use other browsers (Chrome, Opera Mini, Terra, Mercury, Puffin, etc.)
Use other apps (GoodReader, Evernote)
Download the image in PC, share it using Dropbox, view it in iPad using Dropbox app: the worst quality ever

I haven't tried the iPhoto for iOS yet since I don't want to pay for something that I'm uncertain whether it can solve my problem or not.

The image I've tried to view on iPad is this one, which is about 7.6 MP. Although the dimensions of the image are huge, the size of the image is only about 3.9 MB. I don't understand why this image should be downsampled to be viewed on the new iPad, considering its computing power.

I wish to know whether iPhoto can help or there is any way to view large images in my iPad at all. Thanks in advance for any help you are able to provide.

There are a handful of workarounds for saving images without being downsampled, use what works for you:

Tap and hold the image to save it to Photos app as high resolution, despite being downsampled in Safari
Save the image to iPhoto
When publishing images, use PNG or progressive JPG
Email images to the iPad

This is a well documented quirk in Safari on the retina iPad, it could be a bug or just a way to make the web browsing experience more fluid given current limitations of hardware. Who knows, but it’s easy to get around for now.

Source: OSXDaily

You can also report issue to Apple.


Windows 10 Boot Camp shuts down and boots into macOS overnight Only when I wake up in the morning I find my MacBook Pro 16” in Catalina. At night the computer is in Windows 10. This happens only overnight. Throughout the day my computer remains in windows 10. Even whilst asleep. Is there something causing the computer to shut down?

Is Windows set as the default boot source in macOS's System Prefs > Startup Disk?

If not, then Windows could be initiating the reboot for its own housekeeping purposes [which it tends to do a lot], but macOS is taking precedence at the actual reboot.


Are Macs vulnerable to the recent SSD encryption vulnerability? It was recently discovered that the hardware encryption of many SSDs is completely broken and cannot be trusted at all.

Can this affect Macs? Does MacOS trust the hardware encryption of the SSD drives, or does it always use software encryption? Is there a way to check whether SSD-based or software encryption is being used?

This does not affect Mac because Apple doesn't use the SSD's built in hardware encryption algorithm. Apple's FileVault uses  an XTS-AES 128 cipher that's  "tied" to a password and protects the boot partition of your drive (the EFI is not).

The SSDs mentioned in the article can have the master password "reset" by simply writing a single bit to the SSD's firmware.

Operating Systems like macOS and FreeBSD boot an un-encrypted partition first, then it boots the encrypted one based on a password/phrase/credential supplied by the user.

  Does MacOS trust the hardware encryption of the SSD drives, or does it always use software encryption?

It doesn't trust it nor distrust it.  It uses it's own encryption rather than what's included with the drive.

  Is there a way to check whether SSD-based or software encryption is being used?

For macOS through Sierra (10.12.x):

diskutil info diskX | grep -i encrypted

For macOS High Sierra and (10.13.x):

diskutil apfs list | grep -B6 FileVault


Is there a faster way to insert text at cursor in AppleScript than "keystroke"? This is for a .scpt file, triggered by a keyboard combo in FastScripts, entitled "Type As Single Line Plain Text."

The AppleScript code takes the clipboard text, removes all rich text formatting, and then removes all line breaks and indentations, setting this new string to a new variable, theClipboardTextWithoutAnyLineBreaksOrFormatting. Finally, I want the AppleScript to insert this new text at the blinking cursor.

But, I don't want to overwrite the original clipboard with this new, plain text string. I simply want the new string typed out at the blinking cursor, system-wide and in any application. keystroke does accomplish exactly what I want. It is just slow.

Here is the full script:

set theClipboardTextWithoutAnyFormatting to (the clipboard as text)

set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {return & linefeed, return, linefeed, character id 8233, character id 8232}
set theClipboardTextWithoutAnyLineBreaksOrFormatting to text items of (theClipboardTextWithoutAnyFormatting as text)
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {" "}

tell application "System Events" to keystroke theClipboardTextWithoutAnyLineBreaksOrFormatting

The problem with this method is that if theClipboardTextWithoutAnyLineBreaksOrFormatting contains a very long string, for example 2000 characters, then it will take a while for all of the text to be typed out, since it is being done manually in real time.

Is there a better way?

Yes.

User @jackjr300 has devised an ideal solution to this question here:

Is it possible to keystroke special characters in AppleScript?

This solution works system-wide and does not affect the clipboard.

The provided TypeCharacters Objective-C file is significantly (i.e., exponentially) faster at typing text than AppleScript's native keystroke command.


Git user.name continuously removed/reset At least once a day it seems that my Git global configuration value for user.name gets reset to a blank value. Of course I only find out when I go to commit and it barks at me. I've tried removing and readding, replacing all matching keys. Here are the following specs/configs I would think are relevant:

MacBook Pro 15,1 (2018)
macOS 11.1
iTerm2 v3.4.3
Git v2.24.3 (Apple Git-128)

I also have Oh My Zsh installed, master commit SHA b28665a.

I managed to fix this by manually removing the entry for "credential.helper=osxkeychain" in my global config file.


Is it possible to install Flash on a jailbroken iOS device? We all know iOS devices can't support Flash, but how much is just the restrictions placed on the OS? Is it possible to install it with a jailbroken device?


Not sure whats happening here (cant update past 10.15.1 - late 2012 mac mini) Consider the image

So I downloaded the delta and combo 10.15.2 update for mac osx. I first started noticing something odd when I re-installed catalina on my mac mini 2012 - which is supported.

As you can see I have over 900 gigs of space on this SSHD - it is a hybryd drive, never had an issue with updates previously, never had an issue till today.

For context, I did reinstall, what did that entail:

Erasing the HDD that contained the OS (the one highlighted).
Installing the OS to that HDD

I am not on beta preview or anything like that and the regular software update states:

I tried installing in safe mode, wouldn't let me. For the reason described above in the first image.

As far as I know there should be nothing wrong with the HDD or no "compatibility issues" with the HDD, previously I was on beta for the last OSX installation High Sierra and all the updates came through including the beta catalina updates and so on and so forth, the reason I decided to reinstall after so long was Catalina beta updates felt like windows vista - nothing would work properly.

I do use home brew and home brew cask to install things but out side of PHP, MYSQL, Atom, Imigmagick and a few other things related to web development I have not installed any software that would be "incompatible" with future updates.

I did originally try to go from 10.15.1 to 10.15.3 but someone on another stack question said no, go in order 10.x.1, 10.x.2 and so on.

So can some one tell me whats going on?

Please tell me this will not require me to erase and reinstall I would be very sad. While it wont take me long to get up and going again I would rather avoid that situation if at all possible.

PS: I don't know enough about bootable USB's when it comes to macs, and while I do back everything up.  I would also like to avoid that route as from other stack questions it seemed dangerous or could fail. If reformatting is the only option is there any steps I need to take to make sure the disk is compatible with future updates?

I found a solution:

So as unknown domain pointed out, I did originally after reinstalling catalina enroll in beta program only because my backups were in the beta installation.

But after realizing I could indeed get the info I needed from my backup disk with out having to be in the beta I unenrolled by clicking detail and restore to default.

As the internet points out that doesnt restore you back to non beta catalina. So what I did was redownload the catalina installation from the mac store and reinstall. I did not loose any data, it just installs it over top the beta version with out any data loss.

This solved my issue and now I am at 10.15.3 as we speak.

I can accept this answer in two days. I hope it helps others who might be in a similar situation.