Is it worthy to turn on File Vault? I'm the only user of my MacBook Pro 5,3 (mid 2009, Core2Duo 2.66 GHz, 4 GB RAM).

Is it worthy to turn on File Vault 2?  Any performance penalties considering my hardware specification?

I'm running Lion (upgraded from Snow Leopard) and considering upgrading to Mountain Lion.

What about my Time Machine backups? Should I preconfigure any thing?

Do you run the risk of loosing your computer? Is the information stored on your computer of high value to other persons?
If your answer is no to these questions you should not consider using FileVault 2 as it has some drawbacks:

The encryption happens on the fly. As your C2D processor does not support hardware accelerated encryption, your CPU load will increase. Newer CPU's like the Sandy-Bridge processors support that Apple ships support AES-NI instructions for hardware accelerated encryption.
Your I/O tasks will become slower for the same reason. Even witth AES-NI support the performance slightly decreases. But in your case the effect should be a lot bigger.
Auto-login is not possible with Filevault 2 enabled.

Time Machine
Time Machine does not encrypt backups per default. Even with FileVault 2 enabled. You will need to enable encryption with Time Machine. In Lion, FileVault 2 did not support encrypted wireless backups but work-arounds were possible. Mountain Lion supports wireless encrypted backups to Time Capsule.


if i have used someone elses apple id to download an app, will it erase when i update my phone on itunes? i used my friends apple id to download a music app that she had downloaded as i could not find it on my apple id, will it erase if i update my phone on my iTunes off my laptop?

The app will not be erased and you can use it. But as Tetsujin said, you cannot update the app to the latest version without your friend's app Apple Id.


Time Machine Extremely slow Mac mini Late 2012 OS 10.12 Sierra. I recently replaced fusion drive with a 1TB SSD and a 2TB disc Hdd as two separate internal drives. I restored using Time machine Backup from an external drive (which I curiously found to have been formatted Journaled Case Sensitive). I purchased a 5TB Seagate Backup+ Plus Hub external drive. As instructed I formatted it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as I usually do to set up a drive for time machine. It has been over 13 hours and it has only backed up 285GB of 1.6TB. I believe that using 3.0 hub should be much quicker. Yesterday after a similar event I stopped the BU and reformatted the drive and started the process over with stated results. Suggestions?

You mention that you thoughts a USB3 hub would be faster, do you have the Seagate drive connected directly to the Mac mini? Do you have anything connected to the USB ports on the front of the Seagate (the included USB hub)?


Default paper size for 4" x 6" label printer - Mac OS 10.15.7 I have two 4" x 6" label printers. Every time I print a label, I have to MANUALLY select 4" x 6" output (which is often forgotten -- screwing up several labels) ANNOYING!

So I remember -- head smack -- default paper size setting in System Preferences! But go there and there is no selection for 4" x 6"

I feel like I am not the first to have this issue.
How can I set a label printer to have 4" x 6" as its default media?

You should be able to define it as a Preset, directly from the main Print dialog.
[Example showing different settings/printer, just for locations]

Once you set the page size in the lower marked drop menu, you can then Save Current settings as Preset, from the top drop menu.
That info should then be retained.


Is there a way to set/unset the execute bit on a file in osx 10.6.8 without using terminal (or bypassing it)? I would like to do the following:

chmod +x filename.txt

without using the terminal.  Is there a way to bypass the terminal and invoke a kernel system call ? I'd rather not write a program to do this.  Instead I was wondering if I could somehow simulate a terminal with (perhaps) an application besides terminal to invoke system calls.

I have already tried doing Command Key + i on the file to show the information GUI.  However there is no option for setting the execute bit.

Would appreciate help from os x administrator experts in the community.

Keyboard Maestro can do this using the following macro, which runs chmod +x on each item in the current Finder selection:

Download Macro


iCloud on a broken device So two days ago, i dropped my (already cracked) iPhone 6 in water, and it was in there for over a minute. I ran home and in less than 5 minutes, it was in rice. After 24 hours, i tried turning it on, nothing happened. I tried charging it for about ten minutes, and nothing was happening, so i put it back in rice. And although how to fix my phone would be helpful to know, that's not my question. Ir seems pretty hopeless to recover the phone, I am a photographer and just want to know how to get the photos and videos off of there. I have iCloud turned o on it, but i am 95% positive i turned off photo sharing. Is there any way I can still recover the photos? My life will be ruined if I can't, i love my phone more than my family and don't know what to do. Any suggestions? (or just how to get the phone working again)

If you have iCloud backup and iCloud photos/Photo Stream turned on then the photos should be accessible to you when you restore your new phone from iCloud.

Photo Stream should also be available to you if you have iCloud photos turned on via icloud.com.

If not you may have to see if Apple or a 3rd-party repair shop can get your old phone working to get the pics off of it.


Merge existing iPhone contacts to my iCloud Due to switching between iOS and Android over the years my contacts have been strewn about between all the services I use. The current situation I'm dealing with is that about half of my contacts are on iCloud, and the other half are coming from my Gmail account that I setup through the Settings app. I'm kind of OCD with this stuff so I would prefer to have them ALL on either iCloud or Gmail.

I don't know of an easy way to do this. In the iPhone Contacts app I can turn on/off two groups, the iCloud group and Gmail group. But there is no "merge" or "sync" option. Am I SOL? Apparently you can do this easy with a Mac but I haven't had access to one since college.

I found a solution. I was lucky and actually had contacts in my Gmail account separate from my iCloud (no overlap or duplicates between the two). So I just exported from Gmail in vCard form and then used the iCloud web interface (www.icloud.com) to import them into my Contacts. Everything is working great now.


Notes Plus app not working for some reason the toolbar that is normally at the top of my notes plus app is at the bottom and the shade that you pull up so your palm doesn't Touch the glass is on the top. What can I do to straighten this out?

If your tool bar appears across the bottom of your "notes plus" app ,simply tap the picture of the wrench  down in the right-hand corner.Several pictures of hands showing ways to hold your stylus will appear. You simply choose one and a bar will then return to the top.


iPhone 12 mini: Screen too dark in sunlight I switched on and off the adaptive brightnes function.
The brightness is set to maximum.
But still, I hardly can see anything on the screen, as it is too dark.
My GF's Android next to it is about double as bright.
I realized it's really hot. Didn't do much with just sitting in the sun.
Any ideas what I could try to get it brighter?
Thanks

Ok. Had been too hot. Let it cool down solved the issue.


See a log of all DMG files that were mounted Today I saw for a very brief moment (like a fraction of a second) an alert telling me that some “BaseSystem.dmg” file was being mounted, even though I wasn’t trying to mount anything, nevertheless a strange image.

So my question is: Is it possible to see a log of anything (and everything) that was mounted on my system?

This is normal and you need not worry about it.

When certain system items are updated, a recovery partition is mounted to update the boot (or other) configuration.  It is then un-mounted, all without showing a icon for the drive on the desktop.

You can see the recovery partition by issuing diskutil list in a terminal window.

You should see something like:

/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS HARDDRIVE               499.7 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3

The Recovery HD is the one that is mounted.


New MacBook Battery and charging I bought a new battery as my old one cut out the system. Since installing the new one its been acting really strange. It's been sitting around 2-5% charge for the past few hours and now I've got it upto 11%. I've reset the SMC and the PRAM reset too and when I plug everything back up the MacBook run fine in start up then died due to the low % of battery.

As I said its at 11% just now and here is my log:

Battery Information:

  Model Information:
  Serial Number:    W01107AW7D3BA
  Manufacturer: TOP
  Device Name:  A1331
  Pack Lot Code:    3230
  PCB Lot Code: 30db
  Firmware Version: ddae
  Hardware Revision:    dac2
  Cell Revision:    2b39
  Charge Information:
  Charge Remaining (mAh):   589
  Fully Charged:    No
  Charging: Yes
  Full Charge Capacity (mAh):   5500
  Health Information:
  Cycle Count:  2
  Condition:    Normal
  Battery Installed:    Yes
  Amperage (mA):    -1564
  Voltage (mV): 11225

System Power Settings:

  AC Power:
  System Sleep Timer (Minutes): 16
  Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes):   0
  Display Sleep Timer (Minutes):    16
  Wake on AC Change:    No
  Wake on Clamshell Open:   Yes
  Wake on LAN:  Yes
  Current Power Source: Yes
  Display Sleep Uses Dim:   Yes
  PrioritizeNetworkReachabilityOverSleep:   0
  Battery Power:
  System Sleep Timer (Minutes): 15
  Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes):   10
  Display Sleep Timer (Minutes):    15
  Wake on AC Change:    No
  Wake on Clamshell Open:   Yes
  Display Sleep Uses Dim:   Yes
  Reduce Brightness:    Yes

Hardware Configuration:

  UPS Installed:    No

AC Charger Information:

  Connected:    Yes
  ID:   0x0100
  Wattage (W):  45
  Revision: 0x0000
  Family:   0x00ba
  Serial Number:    0x005b514c
  Charging: Yes

I was hoping someone could tell me from that if this battery is fine and just needs a proper good 100% charge or if I have to do anything else to the MacBook?

Thanks

Charger was replaced and now its working


Boot Camp Assistant crashes when partitioning drive (exception: EXC_BAD_ACCESS) I run Mountain Lion, a fresh install, brand new Macbook Pro. HD: Samsung 840 Pro 512 GB SSD.

When trying to go through Boot Camp Assistant / Setup it works fine until it wants to repartition my drive. It then quits unexpectedly and returns these errors:

Exception Type:  EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x000000000000003c

Everything else on this new machine works like a charm. I checked permissions, verified the disk - no issues whatsoever.

I tried running the Assistant as root - it also crashes when partitioning but then in the Terminal i get a

Segmentation fault: 11

Can anyone help me out with this?

Run Repair Disk on your boot partition. To accomplish this, reboot your Mac into the recovery partition, holding down ⌘R when you see the Apple logo. Select Disk Utility from the menu, then in the First Aid tab click Repair Disk. This may take some time. Partitioning trouble is usually a file system or disk hardware problem; this will solve the former, and a trip to the Apple store is usually needed to address the latter.


How do I save the photos I took on iPhone on my iPad? My photos come across through iCloud to my iPad.  I would like to keep them longer than a few months. I have plenty of storage, but the photos disappear.

Presumably you are referring to My Photo Stream, which deletes photos after 30 days or 1000 images, which comes first. You don't say which version of iOS you are running, but the below will work on v8.

You can save photos to your device from My Photo Stream by tapping the Share icon (an upward pointing arrow) from any photo, then tapping Save Image. You can also select multiple photos first (tap Select at the top right of the album view, then tap on images to select them), again followed by tapping the Share icon then Save Images.


Changed default mail client, but Spotlight still opens Mail.App; how to change it? Because of some other bugs with Mail.App's handling of certain email formats, I've installed Thunderbird to give that a try. I configured it to be the default (from the Mail.App preferences). That seems to work.

BUT if I search for an email via Spotlight (Thunderbird's search is...well, I'm using Spotlight), clicking on a found mail item from Spotlight still launches Mail.App.

I suspect it's a setting in a plist; how can I convince Spotlight to open Thunderbird instead of Mail.App?

The best way I've found to set any default app is with RCDefaultApp - freeware - old but still works in Yosemite.

It installs as a Control Panel item called Default Apps; you can then set many defaults - simplest are the 'Internet' ones, first tab - dial in your preferred app from the drop menu.
e.g.


Mac stuck at the loading bar, when trying to boot from macOS Catalina Patcher I want to install Catalina on a MacBook Pro (13-inch, Early 2011) with 10.13.6 (High Sierra) installed. Therefore I made a bootable USB drive with the macOS Catalina Patcher. First, I had the problem that the USB drive wasn't recognized. Now I used another USB drive and now it will let me boot from. But it always is stuck at the loading screen (nearly 100%). What I'm doing wrong?
I tried safe mode (with shift), reset the NVRAM/PRAM (with opt+cmd+P+R) and I don't see a value in reinstalling MacOs in my case.
What can I do to successfully boot from the USB drive?

Now I deleted the patcher and everything related to it from the machine. Then re-download the tool and also created the bootable USB drive again. I was able to boot from the drive and also install Catalina. But the MacBook again hang at nearly 100%. Then I restarted the machine and the setup dialog appeared! Yes, my MacBookPro8,1 is supported!
As an alternative I'd have tried another patcher.


MacBook Pro (2008?) running Lion 10.7.5 - how its 'obsolete' status will affect my photos etc I have a MacBook Pro (2008?) running Lion 10.7.5, which I have been told is obsolete.  Really?

Anyway I've just started to notice certain websites acting funny due to the old Safari Browser, so I am freaking out a little.  It has been suggested I do not run any updates just in case...

My question:  I have about 6k of photos in iPhoto which I am slowly trying to export to File Manager so that they are not lost.  Will my Time Machine backup be able to run/show all my iPhotos still in the application when I have heard that iPhoto is also obsolete?

Any suggestions out there would be most appreciated.  I am trying to export with filenames being the Date + extra info so they will sort by time not original filename from phone or scanner etc, which is why it's taking so long to double check!

Here's more information on vintage and obsolete products that may be of interest to you.

Your questions actually covers two main concerns. I'll try and address these below:

Web browsing: Many users of older Mac hardware and/or versions of the OS do tend to install additional browsers in order to be able browse more modern websites. Firefox in particular is useful for this, but others use Google Chrome. Either way, this addresses the websites acting funny issue in most cases.
Photos: In terms of iPhoto, this was superseded by the Photos app which was released with the OS X Yosemite 10.10.3 update in April 2015. In most cases users have just converted their iPhoto Library to become the Photos Library. In some cases, users still maintain both (although there is no need to do this - not only is it doubling up on valuable storage space, it's also a pain to do). Regardless, my point is that your iPhoto Library will not be lost because (1) it can be converted to the Photos Library in future and (2) you have Time Machine backups of your data. So, unless you have manually set your Time Machine backups to not backup your iPhoto Library, there's really no need to manually export all your photos from iPhoto.

Your MacBook Pro

As an aside, I wanted to add that all 2007-2008 era MacBook Pros are capable of running Mac OS X versions up to El Capitan 10.11.6. If your MacBook Pro is indeed one of these you may want to consider whether you'd like to upgrade your OS so you can have the benefit of a more modern browser and software such as Photos. In this way, when you do eventually upgrade your hardware, the risk of any software incompatibilities will be reduced.

Of course, before upgrading your OS you would need to confirm your model of MacBook Pro and its hardware configuration. You can do this by:

going to Apple > About This Mac to view your processor and memory details, and
to get the exact model, click on the  More Info...  button and look for the Model Identifier (it'll be something like MacBookPro5,1).


OSX 10.8 Contacts can't access Active Directory 2003 via LDAP I've recently upgraded to OSX 10.8 and have discovered that the Contacts Application can no longer access our Active Directory 2003 domain via LDAP. I have confirmed that the exact same settings work for OSX 10.7 and Mac OSX 10.6 which are [generalised to]:

Server: dc01.subdomain.domain.com.au
Port: 389
Searchbase: DC=subdomain,DC=domain,DC=com,DC=au
Scope: Subtree
Authentication: Simple
Username: domain\username
Password: password

If I do a search on the LDAP with these setting I just get a spinning progress indicator. Console doesn't seem to display any errors with contacts.

Does anybody know if there are any workaround to getting 10.8 contacts to read AD 2003 LDAP?

Try switching the port from 389 (Apple's default) to 3268.  I had the exact same problem until I switched the port number.

Credit the OS X Hints folks for solving this one.


Batch copy time creation and modification date from files using OSX First of all, I have asked the same question at stack overflow, but I am not sure if it's right over there. That's why I decided to post it here, too.
t'm having a hard time trying to copy the creation and modification date of some files to other files.
I have converted some MXF files to MOV, but unfortunately the new MOV-files don't have the same creation date.
Now I had a look around for similar questions and found different answers, but this seems to be the simplest:

    #!/bin/bash
    for f in *.MXF; do
     touch -r "$f" "${f%MXF}mov"
    done

Unfortunately it doesn't work for me – neither with Terminal nor Automator.
I saved the Code with TextEdit. In Terminal I ran chmod+x to make the file executable and put it in the folder where my MXFs and movs are.
But I'm just getting the following error:
touch: *.MXF: No such file or directory
I have also tried mxf instead of MXF.
This is the output of ls- l from the test folder

-rwxrwxrwx  1 username  staff  258458160  5 Jan  2014 570_0301.MXF
-rwxrwxrwx  1 username  staff  241431870  5 Jan  2014 570_0301.mov
-rwxrwxrwx  1 username  staff  974595120  5 Jan  2014 570_0306.MXF
-rwxrwxrwx  1 username  staff  911745994  5 Jan  2014 570_0306.mov
-rwxrwxrwx  1 username  staff  667679280  5 Jan  2014 570_0308.MXF
-rwxrwxrwx  1 username  staff  624468526  5 Jan  2014 570_0308.mov

Because I managed to get the modification date copied it seems that all the files already have the same date, but this doesn't cover the creation date.
Maybe someone could help me out? Will it change the modification and creation date? Because both are important...
Thank you very much in advance and all the best!

EDIT: Got the script working thanks to user3439894.
But it still doesn't update the creation date...
MXF: created 05.01.2014 06:49, modified 05.01.2014 06:50
mov: created 23.06.2016 05:34, modified 05.01.2014 06:50
Is there any way to correct this?

Since this is not working for you I'm going to suggest you do as fd0 suggested and use SetFile.  This will be used in conjunction with GetFileInfo, both of which are a part of Command Line Tools for Xcode.

You do not need to install the Xcode.app which is ~3.80 GB, just ~160 MB for Command Line Tools for Xcode.

In Terminal: xcode-select --install

See How to Install Command Line Tools in OS X Mavericks & Yosemite (Without Xcode), which is also for OS X El Capitan.

Here is a bash script to use with SetFile and GetFileInfo:

#!/bin/bash

for f in *; do

    if [[ -f $f ]] && [[ ${f##*.} == MXF ]] && [[ -f ${f%.*}.mov ]]; then

        cDate="$(GetFileInfo -d "$f")"
        mDate="$(GetFileInfo -m "$f")"

        SetFile -d "$cDate" -m "$mDate" "${f%.*}.mov"

    fi

done


Adjust Scroll Speed for Specific Application I recently bought my self an external mouse for my MacBook Pro Retina. It's great except I have one difficulty. In Safari and most apps the scroll speed is fine. But in some applications, the scroll speed is uncontrollable. Is there an app that lets me change the scroll speed for specific applications or something like that?

I have found an app called Smart Scroll which does what I need it to do. It allows you to change scroll speed for specific apps and a lot more options in general


Do USB-C to Thunderbolt 2 cables exist? I’m purchasing a 2017 MacBook Pro and plan to use my old Mid-2011 iMac as a monitor in Target Display Mode.

I’ve discovered I need a USB-C to Thunderbolt 2 connection to make this work, but I’m having some difficulty finding a cable that works. I tried a USB-C to Mini-Display Port (using my work laptop, same as I’m ordering) without success.

Does such a cable exist?

I’ve seen male USB-C to female Thunderbolt 2 adapters that would require a male to male Thunderbolt cable, but they’re pricey and I’d like some confirmation that they work before I purchase one.

Can anyone confirm that this setup would work please?

I don't think a straight-up cable exists, no. However, you can get an adapter/dongle that works perfectly well for your scenario. You'll need to Apple Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 adapter:

https://www.apple.com/us_smb_83039/shop/product/MMEL2AM/A/thunderbolt-3-usb-c-to-thunderbolt-2-adapter

You can read more about the adapter here:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT207266

Note that Target Display Mode is not using the same kind of signal as mini-DisplayPort - therefore a USB-C to mini-DisplayPort cable will not work! It needs to be an actual Thunderbolt 2 source.


Unable to download an app in iOS 12 I am unable to download an app that I wish to use on an iPhone running iOS 12. Tapping the download button shows the download progress indicator, but the app download doesn't start.

The app store page of the app shows the following message:

  The developer of this app needs to update it to work with iOS 11.

I am not using iOS 11, but iOS 12, running on an iPhone 8. So shouldn't the app download fine?

What can I do to install this app?

There is no way to download and install this app (unless the developer of the app updates it to work).

  The developer of this app needs to update it to work with iOS 11.

The above message is a bit misleading and is applicable for devices running iOS 11 and later.

The app in question is built in 32-bit mode only. An iOS app could be programmed by the developer in either 32-bit mode, 64-bit mode or both. (Note that only one single app is hosted on the App Store, no separate 32-bit and 64-bit version).

Apple started supporting 64-bit apps first with iPhone 5s which featured a 64-bit processor. All the subsequently released models of iPhone feature 64-bit processor.

Apple has stopped supporting 32-bit only apps starting with iOS 11. To run such apps on iOS 11 and later, the developer need to re-program it with support for 64-bit mode.

If you wish to use the app, your only resort would be to find an iOS device running iOS 10 or earlier (which supports the app), or contact the developer of the app and request them to update it with 64-bit support. You can find the contact information for the app developer on the App Store page of the app.

This is the official explanation by Apple as mentioned on the Apple Support page, About iOS 11 Updates:

  iOS 11 is performance optimized for 64-bit apps. 32-bit apps will need to be updated by the app developer to work with this version of iOS.

Again, the same is applicable for iOS 11 and later.


Problem internal partition macOS high sierra Please help me, this is my last year at university, and all my files and projects are on my device.  I had two sections 399 gigs for the Mac system and 100 gaps on which I installed Linux .. After a while I deleted the Linux and upon restart I couldn't log in and some solutions worked out but the problem still exists.

Update:

Thanks, the answer worked, but I have this problem: When I start my compute, it goes to EFI boot, I think it's for windows 10. I don't need it. I want to delete it and put my priority macOS. How i can do that? I'm soooo scare to do any things.

And, I can't see the 100 GB partition.

You made partition 2 type 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC. You should have made partition 2 type 7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC.

The commands to change the type are given below. I assume you are entering the commands from macOS Recovery or from a installation flash drive.

gpt remove -i 2 /dev/disk0
gpt add -i 2 -b 409640 -s 781050984 -t 7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC /dev/disk0

Update:

Do the following to make macOS the default.

Hold down the control key when you choose Untitled.

I am not sure what you did to merge the 100 GB partition back to the APFS container. This was in explained in my answer. However, the results you posted in your update look good.


How to remove icons showing question marks of deleted apps from Launchpad? I updated GIMP from MacUpdates since then I got two Gimp icons in Launchpad. I also deleted the Gimp.app from finder but now i get this question mark on the gimp icon in Launchpad. How to completely remove both of these icons?

What is the cleanup step, here?

[Worked] In Yosemite open Launchpad, hold down control key and click on icon you wish to remove. A question mark should appear over the icon. Just drag and drop to Trash.


Late 2006 MacBook doesn't turn on (fan spinning but no chime) My Late 2006 MacBook (MACBOOK2,1) doesn't boot anymore after I turned it off in ElementaryOS.
Symptoms :

Fan spinning
Sleep LED is on
Screen not turning on
No chime

And here are the specs :

CPU : Intel CORE 2 Duo 2.0GHz
GPU : Intel GMA950 (No GPU acceleration at all in my patched El Capitan install)
Model Identifier : MacBook2,1 (the Late 2006 one, not Mid 2007)
OSes : Patched OS X El Capitan and ElementaryOS

I only have my main Linux Desktop and a Snow Leopard USB Installer.
I've tried Resetting the PRAM/NVRAM and SMC without success. I've also tried inserting the ORIGINAL RAM that came with this Mac, still, without success. I've removed the HDD and plugged it into my main Linux Desktop and, everything was fine (the linux partition and OS X partition were mounted successfully).
I really think this is a hardware issue, but don't know how to fix it.
PS: This issue happened after another issue I had, the computer would turn on, with the chime, but the screen stays grey. I got this fixed by resetting the NVRAM/PRAM and booted into ElementaryOS. I turned it off and got this problem.

Hi, v64isgood_vitali64 (or just Vitali64) here

I've found an answer !
I taked apart my Mac and disconnected the NV/PRAM battery, waited a few minutes, reconnected it back and reassembled my macbook.
Conclusion : IT WORKS !
So I booted into the MacOSX Install USB and setted the date by  using the terminal bc it was set to 31 December 2000 which prevented El Capitan to work.
For those who want to know how to do that, HERE is an article from iFixIt that will explain how to achieve that on the particular model that I have.
I think that the Firmware had tried to apply the settings I had in OS X, into Linux, which corrupted the PRAM/NVRAM, and then just stayed in the black screen when turning on since...
I hope you're doing well and that this may fix your issue.


Bash automatically creating () and ()! files I noticed that the Yosemite system has been creating files with names just "()" and "()!" in places where I recently made bash commands and want to know why. I can't even delete them use rm as after I press enter the cursor just moves to the next line like a unfinished command. I tried google but I guess the keywords () is too general to give me back a meaningful answer.

Bash, by itself, will not create files like this. These files are probably created by you accidentally through incorrect typing/pasting of commands.

You can remove the files using rm:

rm '()' '()!'


How to stop apps from opening my browser I have installed few apps that after they auto update, they open up my browser on their maker's web site. It's very annoying and I don't know how to stop it. Viber is probably the worst, updates without permission and I have no idea how to stop it from opening their website.

Is it possible to block apps from opening Chrome/Safari or whatever my browser is?

For Google Chrome:

Quit Google Chrome.
With Finder selected, hit the Shift-⌘-G and enter the folder address

~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome.
Select the Default folder, and open the Preferences file in a text editor like Text Editor.
Search for the phrase “excluded_schemes,” which houses your list of protocol handler preferences in the text file.
Search for the offending protocol (like “itmss” for iTunes, or “slack” for Slack) and change its state from “true” to “false,” taking care not to remove any punctuation.
Save the file, and re-open Chrome.

For Safari:

I recommend for a tool NoMoreiTunes, a free Safari extension that stops iTunes or the App Store app from launching automatically when you visit a store page online.
To use the NoMoreiTunes extension, simply head over to the extension’s website and download the latest version.
Once downloaded, double-click on the extension file and Safari will detect and install it (you’ll need to verify the installation by telling Safari that you “trust” the extension).
With NoMoreiTunes installed, any time you navigate to an iTunes or App Store page in Safari, you’ll see a notification bar at the top of the window letting you know that the extension prevented the iTunes or App Store apps from launching. If, however, you’d actually like these apps to launch, you can click the button on the right side of the bar.


Change quality of built-in recording script I've recently bought ScreenFlow, but I noticed that the recording quality is horrible, and even worse when uploaded to Youtube.

After some research I have to the conclusion that it records using Mac OSX Mountain Lion's screen capturing script that most programs use to record the screen.

So my question is, how do I change the quality at which this script records? I don't mind hacking stuff.

If this is not possible, what would be a good stand-alone program that can record by it's own account, not depending on this screen capturing script.

Thanks for your help!

I downloaded a trial version of ScreenFlow, and it looks like there are a few ways to improve the video quality.

YouTube Export

If you're using the YouTube publishing option, be sure to check the Publish in 720p/1080p option:

If you don't have that selected, the video will be downscaled by YouTube to 360p. You may also want to check the Letterbox option to maintain the aspect ratio on YouTube.

Custom Export

You can gain more control over the export options by using the Export option, in the File menu (or ⌘E). There are various presets, I would suggest trying the Web - High option first, and see if that's to your taste. You'll also want to be sure to change the Dimensions settings, which by default are set to scale to 50%.

If you're wanting to put stuff on YouTube, I suggest exporting at your default resolution (i.e. 100% scaling) — YouTube will re-encode it anyway, but uploading the best source material is the best way to maintain quality. If you find the quality of the Web - High isn't sufficient, you can click the Customize… button, and increase the Datarate setting.

Lossless Export w/ 3rd Party Tools

Finally, if you're still not satisfied, you could ScreenFlow's lossless recording, and use an external tool to compress it. To enable lossless recording, open Preferences, click Advanced and change the Screen Recording Compression from Adaptive to Lossless. Then when you export, use the Lossless preset (or Lossless - ProRes, although this format is not supported by as many tools). Then use another tool, such as Handbrake to tweak the settings as you desire.

Hopefully you can find something amongst these options that will get you the output you desire.


Reinstall Purchased Mac App from AppStore After fresh install the Mac OS X Lion, when I tried to download again my purchased mac apps with App Store, I found that they are checked as installed.

How can I reinstall my paid apps?

In essence, unmount the volumes with those apps and the App Store will let you download things.

I noticed after the upgrade to lion when my TM volume was connected some apps in the app store appeared to be already installed. So try to disconnect or shut off your external HDD and restart the app store so you can reinstall your apps. After that you can re-activate your TM volume. This isn't normal, since spotlight shouldn't look inside the backup volume and see an app installed, but it happened once so it could happen to you as well.


How do I point Sonos to my music on an Airport Extreme connected hard drive? I am attempting to set up a music library to use on my wifi based Sonos system.  I have moved a copy of my iTunes music collection to an external USB 2.0 drive (Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Drive) which is attached to the USB input on my AirPort Extreme (ac version).

On my MacAir, I can see the drive as a shared drive, and I can access all the files, including the music files.

In my Sonos setup, I have tried to identify the drive and files as the source of my music.  In identifying the device type, I have chosen

on a networked device such as a networked attached storage (NAS) drive

I am then prompted to

Type the path to your networked share:

Examples are given, such as

\\MyNetworkedStorage\Shared\Music

But what is my path?  When I look at the description in Finder on the MacAir, all I see is Server followed by

afp://MyName's AirPort Extreme._afpovertcp._tcp.local/MAC FREE/free agent backup/FreeAgent GoFlex Drive/iTunes/iTunes Music

Clearly the formatting is different from the example paths offered. When I enter this entire string (and several shortened modifications), the dialog box does not recognize the string at all and no Next button appears.

When I modify the string and remove afp:, the Next button does appear. This is followed by a login for the Airport Express (which I input), but when I go to the next screen, I get the message

The computer [the address I put in follows] cannot be found.

How do I show Sonos where the networked drive and files are?

A Sonos requires that shared libraries are accessed over CIFS/SMB. From your path it looks like this link is for a share over AFP. Can you find a link for the SMB share from the airport extreme ? Looking at the Airport Extreme docs it seems that if you have an HFS formatted disk mounted then it will share over AFP and SMB

you could try (just a guess) as a link

  \MyName's Airport Extreme._smb._tcp.local\MAC FREE\free agent backup\FreeAgent GoFlex

You might also consider removing spaces in the paths as these tend to cause pain if the software is not expecting them


What is safe to delete in order for system to work properly? I'm looking for anything that can be deleted and that don't required by system to work properly.
So far I'm delete DVD Player.app, Chess.app, Photo Booth.app, Stickies.app, Dashboard, Launchpad.app and Mission Control.app (still works after reboot with gestures!)

In terminal.app:
sudo rm -rf DVD\ Player.app

What else ?

If you want to free up some disk space: How can I free up some disk space?

Most of the applications you'll delete are going to be restored the next time there is a software update, and even still it'll only save superficial amount of space. For example, the Mission Control, Launchpad, Dashboard, Time Machine, etc. apps are all less than half a meg, and only serve as links to call upon these features via Dock or Finder.

If you want to make a substantial cut on space without making your mac bulimic, i suggest Monolingual, which deletes unused language support (which is usually around 500 MB to 2 GB) and redundant app binaries.

Most Mac apps are "universal," meaning they support both Intel and (the older) PowerPC processor architectures, by having every application contain a binary compiled for each. If you're running an Intel Mac, monolingual can be used to delete the unused app binaries, saving 1-2 GB


How can I block specific telephone numbers on my iPhone 4? How can I block specific telephone numbers on my iPhone? I don't want to get call from specific numbers. if anyone call to me from the blocked number, he should receive a message that "this number does not exist" or "this number is busy" always.

There are applications that do this if you have jailbroken your iPhone.  Without jailbreaking however there isn't a way to block a single or specific incoming number.  I've known people that have requested their provider to block a certain number and without a very good (usually legal) reason, they won't do it.

The best thing you can do is record 30 seconds of silence in garage band and then use that as a ringtone for that specific number.  Then at least the phone won't alert you.


macOS, Use fn + Command keyboard shortcuts work Aside from switching between the playback/system control keys and the regular function keys, in macOS the fn key can be used to access keys not available on the keyboard. For example, if a dedicated ⌦ Delete key there isn't present, then fn+⌫ Backspace result in ⌦ Delete.
My problem is that this behaviour doesn't persist for keyboard shortcuts: when used in conjunction with ⌘ Command or ⌃ Control, fn is ignored. This generates a few inconsistencies.
For example, on my 2017 MacBook Pro ⌘ Command+⌫ Backspace will all previous characters in the current line. Given that fn+⌫ Backspace will delete the next character, I would expect ⌘ Command+fn+⌫ Backspace to delete the remaining portion of the line. However, fn gets ignored and this key combination ends up deleting the previous portion of the line.
How can I have access to the "hidden keys" accessible with fn even when ⌘ Command is pressed?
Edit: formatting

Even with both  Backspace ⌫  & Delete ⌦ keys,  Cmd ⌘  Delete ⌦  does not clear the line forward of the cursor, even though  Cmd ⌘   Backspace ⌫   clears it rearward.
It would appear the inconsistency isn't in the  Fn   key itself, but in the OS's usage of  Cmd ⌘   Delete ⌦ .
 Opt ⌥  Delete ⌦  deletes one word forward of the cursor, as does  Fn   Cmd ⌘   Backspace ⌫ .


Upgrading to Windows 10 using Boot Camp I want to upgrade Windows 7 on my macbook boot camp partition to Windows 10. However, my macbook is early 2008 and can only run Lion (which I believe is due to graphic requirements).

I have read David Anderson's reply with regard to upgrading the later 2008 macbook but Apple's support site re boot camp does not include my model macbook as being compatible with Windows 10.

However, the Windows 10 notification in Windows 7 tells me that all drivers etc. are compatible.

The catch 22 seems to be Windows 10 is happy with my Mac but OS X isn't willing to load the Windows 10 drivers from Lion.

Can someone report success or failure or point me a path to get Windows 10 running on an Early 2008 MacBook?

I upgraded to Windows 10 before Microsoft notified me to do so. I did not have a Product Key. I was able to boot the computer, but I had many problems. Windows 10 did activate. This allowed me to erase Windows and do a clean install. This resulted in an installation where the earlier problems did not reappear.

When I installed previous versions of Windows, I did not allow updates until I had installed the Boot Camp Support Software (BCSS). Windows 10 started downloading updates early, before I was able to install the BCSS. Some updates were drivers that failed to properly install.

I easiest way to fix this problem was to deny the computer access to the internet until I could install the BCSS. If you wait for the Windows installation to complete, you will have to create a local (offline) account. Once the BCSS is installed, you can connect to the internet and switch to a Microsoft (online) account. The window where you would make the switch is shown below.

The other option is to switch to audit mode during the Windows installation. This will allow the BCSS to be installed before you create your account. You and then enable access to the internet and complete the Windows install by directly creating a Microsoft account.

The BCSS for your Mac can be found at Boot Camp Support Software 4.0.4033. These drivers are for a 32 bit version of Windows 7. I assume you are running the 32 bit version of Window 7 and desire to upgrade to the 32 version of Windows 10. If not, let me know. You may be able to upgrade to a 64 bit version of Windows 10 for free.

If you do a clean install, you will probably need to run the BCSS in Compatibility mode. Right click on the icon next to the "setup" application and select properties. Next, click on the Compatibility tab. Mark the check box for "Run this program in compatibility mode for: Windows 7". Finally, click the "OK" button.

Also, note that if you have Windows 10 Pro or better, you can disable automatic downloading and installing of updates. You can also review and selectively disable (hide) updates.


iOS 14.5 - Podcast app does not show previously played episodes I updated my iPhone 7 to iOS 14.5. In the Apple podcast app, I am no longer able to find certain shows previously played episodes grouped together. Is there a way to see all the episodes of the show that I have listened to all grouped together even if I’ve deleted them from the downloads?
Before I updated iOS, I could see this information.

In iOS 14.5 there’s a setting to hide played episodes.
Check in the settings app under the podcast section if it’s turned on.


Lacie petitekey write protected I have a Lacie petitekey, and when I use it with my mac configuration (10.9.4) it says that the key is in read only.

I cannot format it as well, so I cannot really use it anymore regarding that it is impossible to put any data on it.

How can I be able to use it in write/read mode?

Apparently it was a failure of the key, I asked Lacie and they sent me another one.

So if you come across the same issue contact Lacie.


How to change the default text editing app in Quick Look? I want to customize which app is used to open all unknown plain text files from Quick Look. For example, for extension-less VERSION file, Quick Look shows Open with TextEdit:

I'd like to make VSCode the default editor for unknown file types.

BTW, to even achieve a textual preview of the VERSION file, I had to install https://github.com/whomwah/qlstephen.

UPDATE & solution: This question is indeed closely related to Replace Text Edit as the default text editor, the problem was that neither of the answers mentioned public.data which was necessary for the VERSION file in this example. (Without 'public.data', VSCode was offered for .txt files but not for extension-less files.)

I've updated this answer to that question to include info about 'public.data', in which case this question is really a duplicate of Replace Text Edit as the default text editor.

Extension-less files are tricky ones for OS to figure out if it is an executable or a text file. I have two README files, one of which is unix executable for some reason and I get a warning if I open it. Another is text file but still recognised as public.data as opposed to public.plain-text.

mdls path/to/file

gives you its kMDItemContentType. public.data files' QuickLook  are generated by

/Users/me/Library/QuickLook/QLStephen.qlgenerator

Run qlmanage -m to get a list.

Unless you can find a QuickLook generator by VSCode, which can preview public.data files, you don't have much to do.

I haven't used it, but this seems promising:
https://github.com/whomwah/qlstephen

OP's response

This worked: duti -s com.microsoft.VSCode public.data all

Replace Text Edit as the default text editor


What's the normal operating temperature for a unibody plastic Macbook? My Macbook seems to be running pretty hot lately.  iStat Pro is stating that my CPU temp is nearing 180 degrees F, and that the heatsink is approaching 150.  The laptop is noticeably warmer than normal on my lap even as I type this.

The usage patterns for the laptop really haven't changed all that much, except that my wife takes it to work with her now that she's started her new job as a realtor.

Thanks for any advice.

It's the fans. They are clogged with dust and other debris from the years of use. Notebooks are not air-tight and intake quite a bit of air over their lifetime (they need to push the air to the central components like the CPU/GPU to cool them). The units must be opened and cleaned periodically (depending on environment) to maintain peak operating performance. High fan speeds and poor thermal dissipation are signs that the fans aren't doing their job (they are likely clogged with dust and the exhaust is also likely blocked, preventing the output of the hot air blown off from the processing units). Computer fans work by pushing air taking from the environment onto the CPU/GPU. The hot air blown off the chips move through air vents in the back of the unit. Over time, dust settles on the fans, dropping their efficacy, and the vents, preventing the hot air from escaping. This bakes the components and results in the spike in over temperature.

Visit www.ifixit.com and pull up a guide on how to partially dismantle your notebook. If you are not technically proficient, bring it to a credible repair shop.

There are no "normal" operating temperatures for Apple notebooks, but there is an acceptable gradient. 82 degree Celsius is pushing the limits. The CPU's thermal threshold is 105 degrees Celsius (when that temperature is reached, the system will shutdown to prevent thermal damage).

And just an aside, regardless of locale, all temperatures should be reported as Celsius, never Fahrenheit when dealing with computer components. Official documentation always refers to Celsius.


What do you think about Apple's Ping service? Personally, I have not signed up the Ping service that is included in iTunes 10.  My main reason for avoiding it is the fact that Apple requires you to use your real, full name for registration.

What are your opinions of the service?

pros/cons
privacy or security concerns?
things you wish they had done/not done
things you'd like to see added
things you'd like to see removed

*note: this question is serious but also meant as a sort of experiment to see if a discussion question can be useful or relevant on the site. if you hate it or don't want any sort of discussion other than the occasional list question, vote to close but please post a comment explaining your reasoning

Primarily, I don't understand the purpose.  I don't know a single person in the world whose musical taste I trust, or that I think is similar to mine.  I've seen last.fm, facebook, twitter, etc., and they've taught me to ignore musical recommendations.

Malcolm Gladwell wrote a New Yorker article about how social network links have so little value because they're so easy.  I might get 50 musical recommendations on facebook this week, and I'd only have to click twice to listen, and I'm not going to listen to any of them.  But when the guy who lives next door hears me listening to Brahms, and stops in and says "You might like this other thing too!", and brings me a CD, I'll put it in my stereo and listen to it 2 or 3 times.

Second, the interesting music I'd want to share is largely not on iTunes.  It's the bootleg of some Asian singer whose recording you can't get here yet (and maybe never).  It's the Youtube video of some guy you kind of know playing at a club downtown last week.  It's the out-of-print-for-40-years LP on my shelf of an incredible and rare recording of a popular group, that I got at a garage sale once for $4.  It's the MP3 preview that some up-and-coming composer dropped on his blog to show you what he's doing.

Like everything Apple seems to do these days, Ping is probably great if you only care about recent mainstream name-brand consumer goods.  (Lady Gaga at the announcement!)  From a couple of longhairs who started out selling devices to let you make phone calls without paying, Apple has really turned into a company that doesn't care for the fringe -- even the legal fringe.

Third, it's part of iTunes.  Back in 2003, I thought iTunes was awesome.  These days, it's got so much crap in it, I don't even know how to do all the things I used to know how to do.  It's confusing and frustrating and I use it as little as possible -- only for feeding my iPod, for things that can't be loaded directly.  (iPods have gotten a lot more complex and confusing since 2003, too, but there's pretty much no competition in this space.)  So Ping would have to be pretty awesome for me to want to use iTunes more than once every couple weeks, and it's not.

So if I wanted to do something that I don't, but can do already in better ways, but now do it in an app I hate instead of on the web ... I guess Ping would be for me.

You know what would be a better thing to put in iTunes, since apparently it's no longer just about "tunes"?  Recipes!  I need to keep track of them somewhere, and iTunes might be better than a bunch of text files.  Plus, I actually do trust food recommendations from friends, so Ping-for-Recipes would actually be worth something to me.


Transfer statistics per process or destination, not interface I would like to log upload statistics for an application I run on my Mac.

Now, I know that with netstat -ib I can access statistics per network interface.
I also know that with lsof -i I can get a list of which connections each of the processes is maintaining. And finally I know that with iftop I can monitor in real time how much is flowing between my machine and a remote address. But none of this achieves what I am looking for.

I am looking to get columns similar to the Ibytes and Obytes columns I get from netstat -ib, but get those for a specific remote network address OR for a specific local process ID.

Best I've been able to come up with myself is to write a script that runs iftop -f "dst net REMOTE_IP" -t in the background, redirecting the output, and after a certain timeout kills the process, and then grep/awk my way through the redirected output. Hardly elegant.


Is there any App where I can show where I click on an non-jailbroken iPad? I am using a mirroring app to present to people in a different geographic location, and I need to show them where I am clicking using different Apps, I know that PPT and Keynote already have those capabilities, but we are using iBooks and other Apps (in-house developments)

Thank you in advance!

If you're willing to shell out $20, I believe Reflector can do it and it has nice graphics additions for screen recordings (someone correct me if I'm wrong).


Is there a `watch` command native to Darwin/OS X? I have a script that I'm trying to port from Linux to Darwin/OS X. The Linux version currently depends on the watch command, which doesn't appear to be installed on Darwin/OS X by default. What's the native alternative?

There is no native alternative. You must acquire watch from using Homebrew (brew install watch) or MacPorts (port install watch) if you require an actual executable.

You can however, emulate the function of watch. That can be accomplished in a standard bash while loop (from Stack Overflow by Daniel Pittman):

  You can emulate the basic functionality with the shell loop:

while :; do clear; your_command; sleep 2; done

  That will loop forever, clear the screen, run your command, and wait two seconds - the basic watch your_command implementation.

  You can take this a step further and create a watch.sh script that can
  accept your_command and sleep_duration as parameters:

#!/bin/bash
# usage: watch.sh <your_command> <sleep_duration>

while :;
  do
  clear
  date
  $1
  sleep
  $2
done

That, and other options, are available on Stack Overflow.


How to disable antialiasing (smoothing) in Preview for images? I'm using preview for my iOS development to calculate pixel distance from elements. But now, I don't even remember since when it started antialiasing the lines, even 1 pixel line becomes a blurry mess and you can't find out where it actually begins.

How do I return crisp look to my images when zoomed in Preview?

I have a different experience from what CousinCocaine reports in their answer. Using Preview Version 7.0 (826.4) on a PNG bitmap, it seems to depend on the zoomed image size rather than on whether the zoom level is a nice number.

Specifically, it anti-aliases the zoomed image if the zoomed image would occupy more than 64 megabytes (2^26 bytes), using 3 bytes (24 bit color) per pixel.  To add to the confusion, if the image has one small and one large dimension, the small dimension is increased to be 1/3 of the large dimension before doing this calculation.

For example, with a 720x720 image at a zoom level of 656%, the calculation is 720*720*6.56*6.56*3 < 2^26, so it doesn't anti-alias.  But at a zoom level of 657%, it does.

As you can see in the first screen shot, absolutely no anti-aliasing is performed. Each pixel has been zoomed to a 6x6, 7x7, or 6x7 rectangle, with no smoothing of pixels.

To see the pixels in those images clearly enough to count them, you don't need Preview -- just go to System Preferences, Accessibility, Zoom, and uncheck the box "Smooth images" (and also make sure at least one of the methods for zooming is enabled).  Then you can zoom in on pixels anywhere on your screen (and you can use the pixels in the mouse pointer to help with visually counting pixels).  But taking a screenshot while zoomed like this is buggy for me.

For PDFs, which probably doesn't apply to you, you could also try one of the following undocumented settings, which apparently also require restarting Preview:

defaults write com.apple.Preview PVPDFAntiAliasOption 0
defaults write com.apple.Preview PVPDFAntiAliasOption 1


(Batch) moving iTunes songs to ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Artist/SongName I have three albums by Jack Singer. They are in ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Jack Singer/SongName.

I also have one album by Jack Singer and his band. Those files are in ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Jack Singer and his band/SongName

I choose to ignore the distinction and rename the artist of the latter to become just Jack Singer. iTunes does not move the files. They remain where they are. Presumably this is done to avoid unnecessary Time Machine changes. But I would like to move the files to their canonical location before launching my first Time Machine backup after adding the new album.

How do I tell iTunes to move the files to ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Jack Singer/SongName, mirroring the name of the artist in the tag?

From the comments: Under Preferences -> Advanced, "Keep iTunes media folder organized" must be checked


Does Mac OS X allow for the creation of iso files and if so can they then be run on a virtual drive? Does Mac OS X allow for the creation of iso files (similar to that of Windows) and if so can they then be run on a virtual drive within the operating system ?

The usual format for this on OS X is a disk image (aka .dmg). To create them you can use Disk Utility.app (in /Appications/Utilities):

insert the DVD you want to create the image from
start Disk Utility
select "New Image" from the toolbar and pick the DVD as a source. The .dmg can be stored wherever you want to

To open/use it afterwards, just doubleclick it in Finder.


Can I delete the content of "~/Library/Mail Downloads"? Since I have to use Outlook from now on (policy of my employer), I have deleted all my accounts in Mac Mail. Nevertheless, there are a lot of files in the folder "~/Library/Mail Downloads". Why aren't they deleted as well? Can I delete them manually?

This directory is used to temporarily store attachments you open from Mail.app. They should be deleted automatically when you close the attachment. However, if you open an attachment, edit it and save it, then (in my experience at least) the attachment will tend to remain in that folder. Not all apps cause this (e.g. some Apple apps ask you to duplicate the attachment), but some do (MS Office seems to be a culprit for me). You can certainly delete these files manually now, although you might want to check you haven't accidentally saved something important there.


Locating Name Manager in Excel for Mac With named ranges it is more convenient to operate formulas. For instance, instead of typing =SUM(C20:C30) you can enter =SUM(FirstQuarterSales)

Where is Name Manager located in Excel 2016? I don't see any button in the Formulas Ribbon:

There is no special button for the Name Manager in any version of Excel for Mac. However, you can call it by pressing ⌘ + fn + F3.

The dialog window will appear, where you can enter name for a data range and a range of cells:

Another way is to click Insert>Name>Define and modify,add,or delete data ranges names.


Can I install/upgrade from SL to Lion on RAID0? I have a 2007 Mac Pro with a 3-disk RAID0 bootdrive.

I want to do a clean Lion install on the RAID volume but I'm not sure if there are any known issues with doing this. I seem to remember that last time I did something like this the installer crapped-out when it encountered the RAID. I got round this by doing a clean install on a different (single) drive, backing it up and then reinstalling it onto the RAID volume. Quite painful.

I understand that I'll have to create the Recovery HD on an external drive but this aside, does anyone have any knowledge they can share? I'm hoping that the lack of info online means that its perfectly fine and I'm worrying unduly ;-)

Thanks.

I think you should be fine. I upgraded to Lion on a Mac Pro that has a RAID 0. While the OS is installed to an SSD, not RAID, Lion still detected the RAID just fine. That's obviously a different scenario than what you have, but as the software RAID is handled at a higher level than the OS, I think you should be fine.

Obviously, have a backup ready to go just in case, but my guess is that your upgrade should go smoothly.


iTunes Match constantly have to sign out/in Running the latest version of mavericks and iTunes and my library is about 6000+ songs.

But after a few days of listening iTunes will prompt me to sign out and back in for match to work. Sometimes closing the app and opening it up again will avoid the issue. But typically after a week or two iTunes match will not work until I sign out and back in again. This typically solves the issue,

Here is the console log when I open iTunes and its prompting me to sign into iTunes match again because there was "an error".

7/22/14 10:09:51.961 AM iTunes[86044]: BUG in libdispatch client: kevent[EVFILT_WRITE] delete: "No such file or directory" - 0x2
7/22/14 10:09:57.764 AM gkbisd[256]: Unable to collect cdhash for /Applications/iTunes.app (error code 100024)
7/22/14 10:09:59.988 AM com.apple.usbmuxd[67]: LOCKDOWN_V2_BONJOUR_SERVICE_NAME is _apple-mobdev2._tcp,936707f4
7/22/14 10:09:59.989 AM com.apple.usbmuxd[67]: _SendAttachNotification Device 30:10:e4:83:bb:a6@fe80::3210:e4ff:fe83:bba6._apple-mobdev2._tcp.local. has already appeared on interface 4. Suppressing duplicate attach notification.
7/22/14 10:09:59.989 AM com.apple.usbmuxd[67]: _SendAttachNotification Device 30:10:e4:83:bb:a6@fe80::3210:e4ff:fe83:bba6._apple-mobdev2._tcp.local. has already appeared on interface 4. Suppressing duplicate attach notification.
7/22/14 10:09:59.990 AM com.apple.usbmuxd[67]: _SendAttachNotification Device 30:10:e4:83:bb:a6@fe80::3210:e4ff:fe83:bba6._apple-mobdev2._tcp.local. has already appeared on interface 4. Suppressing duplicate attach notification.
**** BAG END ****
7/22/14 10:10:01.932 AM iTunes[32751]: ApplePushService: APSConnection being used without a delegate queue
7/22/14 10:10:02.198 AM com.apple.SecurityServer[16]: Session 100169 created
7/22/14 10:10:37.194 AM iTunes[32751]: Entered:_AMMuxedDeviceDisconnected, mux-device:269
7/22/14 10:10:37.195 AM iTunes[32751]: Entered:__thr_AMMuxedDeviceDisconnected, mux-device:269
7/22/14 10:10:37.195 AM iTunes[32751]: tid:1f10b - Mux ID not found in mapping dictionary
7/22/14 10:10:37.195 AM iTunes[32751]: tid:1f10b - Can't handle disconnect with invalid ecid

It is this process behind it:

gkbisd[256]: Unable to collect cdhash for /Applications

You will need to disable this in your dameons,  Apple introduced a bug with 10.9.4 mainly that bug is this process,  which is screwing up the keychain of passwords.


unlocking iphone 5s from network Does anyone know how to unlock an iphone 5s from its network, so any sim can be used. I know I can pay someone on the black market to do it, but was wondering if someone knew how to do it themselves and could explain what needs to be done.

Thanks

As far as I'm aware only the phone company the handset it currently registered to can do this. It's a fairly straight forward process [in the UK anyway!].

I think there is possibly a method if you jail break the handset but this obviously carries other risks too.

Beware black market unlocking services, there are lots of scams out there!!


nobody user in terminal What's nobody phrase in Terminal (and iTerm)?

It sometimes changes to my Mac name. But why is it nobody and how to prevent it?

nobody is probably the hostname your system gets from a DHCP server. This also explains why sometimes you see the name you set yourself.

Check out Why is my host name wrong at the Terminal prompt when connected to a public WiFi network?


Size of Xcode app seems too big at over 12GB? Is this correct? Xcode in App Store listed at 4.51GB. The same version of Xcode on my iMac is over 12GB. I understand the value may be different on the App Store but this seems like a huge difference. Is this 12 GB size accurate?

App Store sizes are reported as the compressed download, which for Xcode is around 5 GB. Once downloaded, uncompressed and installed, over 10 GB is the size observed in Finder.


Can I launch the File (Save/Open) Dialog from the command line? Bash and vim's file completion facilities are effective for navigating through a few levels of a directory structure, but can be cumbersome when working with unfamiliar directories.  Alternatively, I use a fuzzy search plugin in vim, which is effective within a project, but less so across the full drive.

What I'd like to use in these situations is the osx file browser dialog.  I imagine this would be accomplished via the "Save As..." or "Open..." dialogs.  Is there any way to launch one of these dialogs from the command line and have it write the selection to stdout?

I found this question about displaying alerts. The answers are focused on using Automator.  Can we use a similar approach to achieve my goal?

Worst-case scenario, I imagine it wouldn't be too difficult to build, but I've been focused on web programming for the last 10 years or so.  Could someone point me in the direction of some relevant resources?  I imagine I'd need to build a native osx app in objective-c or Swift using Cocoa?

This can be done using AppleScript, like in the question you linked to. Watch out, this is not the same as Automator.

Example script:

osascript -e 'tell application (path to frontmost application as text)
set myFile to choose file
POSIX path of myFile
end'

This uses the simplest form of the choose file command, and puts the result in the variable myFile. The result will be of type alias, which has a POSIX path property, which we read in the next line. The result will be written to stdout.

Look here for all the possible optional options to the choose file command. You can e.g. provide a custom prompt text, choose a default location, or only allow certain file types.


How to add Mavericks Message into trusted devices in Facebook? One-liner: I've enabled SMS notice for new devices Login, and I got spammed every time I wake my Mac.

Facebook seemed to log devices accessing your account, users will be prompted about remembering that device with the named entered. But when Message logs in Facebook Chat, looks like it ignores that device registering step and go right through.

I want to know if I can log into Facebook somewhere to add the Message app as a known device, or some settings in the Message app that can prevent this issue...

Spamming myself just feels so dumb.

yes, you can generate an application specific password in security settings and type that in instead of your password. This is will ensure it works without pinging you again and again for the code.


Is there an app that shows iPhone call alerts on iPad? Is there an app out there that will allow me to see who's calling my iPhone from my iPad? This seems so simple, yet there doesn't seem to be anything in the App Store, leading me to believe it's not possible.

As you figured out yourself, apps allowed on the AppStore can't do that.

Worst, I'm not even sure something like that exist for jailbroken iDevices, since I did not find things like that.

Also related : iPhone ring notification on the computer.


Can Apps be side-loaded rather than uploaded to the iOS app store? If I create a simple App, would it be possible for me to install it in any other devices without having to upload it to the Apple Store and wait for the reviewing process?

Yes, there a couple of ways this could be achieved.

With a Enterprise Developer Account, you'll be able to Archive your App for in-house distribution, being eligible any device. Bear in mind that openly distributing your App this way will infringe Apple's agreement and your account could be suspended, as it's meant to be used for a company to distribute an App among its employees.
With a Regular developer account you could send an ad-Hoc
version of your App, which could be installed into any device
which has been previously registered in your Developer Account. You'll only be able to register 100 devices, though.

With either account, you'll be able to build a version of your App in any device.

Here's Apple's list of their different Developer Programs.


Changing the system language globally I just installed Mac OS X Lion on an iMac.

I noticed that the system language during installation and log in screen is Spanish (my primary language). But, once inside (desktop, etc) is English.

I want everything to be in English. Including the log in screen etc. How do I change that?

You can use this link How to change the language of the login window, I hope it will help you.


What's the equivalent of "do shell script" with javascript automations? (Yosemite) Support for javascript automations started with Yosemite.

How could I run using javascript an external command? (i.e. the equivalent of do shell script of applescript?

If you look in the StandardAdditions.sdef.

Menubar menu: Windows -> Library
Double click on: StandardAdditions
Change the dropdown to Javascript.

You will see that many of the script command change to the  camelHump syntax

app = Application.currentApplication()
app.includeStandardAdditions = true;

app.doShellScript('ls')


Move from Intel to M1 with TimeMachine I'm thinking about switching to new Mac with ARM in next months. I usually backup with TimeMachine my Mac. 3 years ago I moved from MacBook Air to MacBook Pro really smoothly using backup from TimeMachine. I'm now  asking if it will be as easy as last time doing it from an x86 Mac to a ARM one. For example all binaries files in my mac will not work on the new one, are they copied anyway? I know that Rosetta exists and it can run x86 binaries, but I definitely prefer pure ARM install of software instead of have the Mac full of old binaries. Does Time Machine copy smartly the applications or I need to do it manually? Is there a way to copy only the data and not the executable files?
Suppose that I have to transfer all the x86 executable files. Is there a script to clean the Mac from unnecessary files? This should be in another question, but since is quite related to what I'm talking about: how can I clean my Mac from old and uninstalled application data? My Library folder is full of files created by applications that I have uninstalled years ago (some of them were  uninstalled on the old mac and Time Machine brought their data on the new Mac) and I want to clean up it; I guess that this problem affects also other folders.
Thank you!

When you start up your new Mac for the first time, it will ask you if you want to copy files, settings and apps over from another Mac, or from a TM backup.
If you do this, everything should be fine. However, if you want to exclude Applications, you can do this as part of the process.


How can I set an external display (monitor) as the primary one? Currently the MacBook's display works as primary, so every application I open gets open on the 13" and I have to drag it to the 24". I also don't have access to the dock on my 24".

Is is possible to turn off the MacBook screen and use only the one attached via DVI?

(I've just connected my 24" HP LP2475w via Mini DisplayPort to DVI to my MacBook Pro 13", which works great except for this one thing.)

Under your System Preferences > Display, you've got this

Just drag the white bar to the other screen to set it as the main screen.

You might have to do that every time you reboot / reconnect the external screen.


External HD Shows up in Disk Utility, but I can't access it I have an External 1TB hard drive that has been corrupted, it was so corrupt that I had to abandon the files on it. So now I'm simply trying to erase it so I can begin using it again. But here's the problem; the External HD will show up in Disk Utility but it wont mount the (FAT32) partition. And even when I try to reformat the drive it simply won't do it.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, I've been trying to fix this for I don't know how long.

If you do not care about loosing the data already on it, try changing the partition scheme instead of formatting it.

Select the drive like in your screen shot, then click on Partition tab on the right, then select 1 partition from the pop-up menu on top of the graph. Then click Options at the bottom and select GUID (the first option) in the next window, close it, and then click Apply in the main window. You can also set the format of the partition before you click apply. It should already have selected Mac OS Extended. All this assumes of course that you wish to use this drive with a Mac and only a Mac… if you want to use it on a PC and a Mac, you'll have to select other options, but still possible.

If that still doesn't work, it's probable the drive is physically damaged.

What you have right now is a Windows Partition scheme and a FAT formatted partition. I could be mistaken, but I think FAT32 does not work on OS X. I'm only 50% sure though...


Files disappeared after Mavericks upgrade I upgrade my iMac to Mavericks last night and now I can't see any of my files.  None of the applications I use showed up (i.e. Photoshop and Lightroom), my desktop doesn't have any of my files, none of my iMovie projects show up.  If I do a search for them I can see them but I don't know where they are located. It says Desktop but my Desktop is blank. Its like I'm starting with a brand new computer and have to set everything up again.

There was a bug in a recent iTunes update causing the Users folder to disappear. You can read about it in this article meanwhile you can try updating again since a new update should have fixed it.
Just make sure to update iTunes, you can do this by going to the updates tab in the App Store, or by going to iTunes and in the menu clicking iTunes/ find new versions.


How to enable writing to coreduetd.log In Yosemite, there is a log file here:

/private/var/log/coreduetd.log

...but it's always empty.
How do I make the system write events to it, assuming there are any?

Unless you know that you've tinkered with the permissions on the file, it should be:

  -rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  0 Oct 18 11:02 /private/var/log/coreduetd.log

This logfile is empty on the 5 Yosemite Macs I have access to.


Equivalent to Windows' Baretail Is there any alternative to Windows' Baretail?

What I am looking for is a graphical Baretail?
Actually, I don't really care that it is graphical but I want to be able to have colors (lines with ERROR in red, lines with WARNING in yellow and so on...)
And I want it to behave like a "perfect" tail -f command meaning that I want it to be non-invasive (does not prevent the file deletion).
But always on the watch (if a file is deleted, and recreated and re-written in it then the tool would just start showing it again).

In any case, any tool that does a better graphical interpretation of tail -f is welcome.

Multitail

Install with

brew install multitail


Securely Deleting Text Messages from iPhone? I was under the impression that you can't recover "deleted files" from iPhones and their encrypted storage memory the same way you can from a computer.

But after doing some research, there seems to be a bunch of apps that can do just that.

So I'm wondering, is there a way I can securely delete specific messages (personal ones) from my phone, in a way that definitely cannot be recovered if my phone is imaged? I can't wipe the whole phone though, that's off the table.

Essentially what I'd like is the iPhone equivalent of "erase free space" that Disk Utility has, that overwrites all free space so nothing can be accessed.

The only way to be fully protected against this is to delete the messages from the phone, create a backup of the phone and then completely wipe the phone. You can restore the backup afterwards.

Because wiping the phone means that the encryption keys previously used are thrown out and new ones put in place, it is not possible for a (reasonable) attacker to get to the messages even if they should be available in encrypted form on the NAND flash.

If you know the file structure of the app that the messages are saved in, it is possible to create a somewhat weaker defense against outsiders accessing your now-deleted texts. For example if the messages are stored in a SQLite database (such as with for example the Messages app), you could jailbreak the phone, export the database to a dump text file (which wouldn’t contain the deleted messages), remove the original database and then fill up the disk with random bytes. When the disk is filled up, delete the file with random bytes and import your database dump as a SQLite database.

The above mentioned procedure is necessary because when you delete a single message from a SQLite database, it is not a file that is removed. It is merely space within a file that is marked as non-used at the application layer. The file is not shrunk nor does the operating system know that parts of the file are non-used. The above mentioned process forces these deleted areas to be made available to the operating system for overwriting.

In addition overwriting is in itself not a good protection on a NAND flash disk with wear-leveling (i.e. the flash storage in a modern iPhone is comparable to a SSD drive with its own controller, etc.). The reason being that even when you overwrite a data block on disk, the controller inside the flash storage might decide to simply “stow away” that physical block and map other physical blocks in instead. This is a byproduct of wear-leveling.


Impossible to redirect subprocess stderr on macOS Running following in Terminal on macOS Mojave

php -r 'foo();' 2>/dev/null

Produces

Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Call to undefined function foo() in Command line code on line 1

Error: Call to undefined function foo() in Command line code on line 1

Call Stack:
    0.0002     390016   1. {main}() Command line code:0

But on Ubuntu Xenial and FreeBSD it produces no output, which is expected, as I am silencing the error. I tried with zsh 5.7.1, default bash 3.2.57 and bash 5.0.11. I'm interested why is this the case on macOS.

Another interesting thing here is that when redirecting both stdout and stderr, then there is finally no output. But redirecting neither stdout nor stderr has the silence effect.

Some more info:

➜  ~ type php
php is /usr/local/bin/php
➜  ~ file $(type -p php)
php:                cannot open `php' (No such file or directory)
is:                 cannot open `is' (No such file or directory)
/usr/local/bin/php: Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64
➜  ~

This particular behaviour have nothing at all to do with any "impossibility" of redirecting subprocess stderr on macOS. It is not impossible, and works like you would expect - i.e. similar to Linux and FreeBSD.

The gotcha here is that you're using different PHP configurations on those setups. It seems you're not using the stock supplied PHP, but rather something else - but I'll explain according to the stock PHP considering that the same will apply to a custom install.

The way PHP works is that it outputs these types of errors messages according to the setting of the "display_errors" configuration directive. You can choose to either mute it completely (i.e. never output the error), output to stdout (the default) or output to stderr.

You'll commonly set the value of display_error in /etc/php.ini - if you haven't got a php.ini file, or display_errors is not set in it, it will default to stdout. If you're using a custom built php, the location of the php.ini file will vary.

You can test this out by performing the following in the Terminal:

php -r 'foo();' 2>/dev/null

Produces

Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Call to undefined function foo() in Command line code:1
Stack trace:
#0 {main}
  thrown in Command line code on line 1

However running:

php -d'display_errors=stderr' -r 'foo();' 2>/dev/null

Produces no output.

You can also use 1>/dev/null to redirect stdout, and then you'll see that the behaviour reverses between those two examples.

Note also that the setting "on" for display_errors is the same as "stdout".


If I buy a Mac that comes with Lion, can I install it on my old Macs too? Possible Duplicate:
  Does buying a new mac also get you Lion on your Apple ID?

If I buy a new Mac with OS X Lion, will I then be able to update my old computers to Lion via the Mac App Store without charge?

No - macs ship with one license to Lion - for that mac.

If you buy an upgrade outright, that applies to all your macs.


New Playlists aren't transferring to iPhone Every time I make a new playlist on my computer, then sync my iPhone to my computer, the playlists never appear on my iPhone.

Check to make sure that your entire library is set to sync to your phone. In iTunes, connect to your phone, select the Music tab across the top, then verify that Sync Music is enabled and the Entire Music Library radio box is selected. This allow all playlists that you create on your computer to sync to your phone.

Note that you must sync in order for playlists to transfer - after they have been created.


Time Capsule - what happens when full, if there is more than one system backup? I have a Time Capsule that was used for backing up several offline macs, when the local drive sizes were relatively small. (Lets say theres two old backups called "iMac" and "iBook".

Currently it backs up two relatively new devices (lets call them MacBook and Mini).

It has become full in the last year. I know that Time Machine discards older backups to keep the most current, but how does it decide what data to keep between the different systems?

Space will be reclaimed by Time Machine only using the older content from backups of the same computer. Consult this archived page from Pondini:

  Time Machine will, eventually, fill all the empty space available to it before it begins deleting old backups.  When multiple Macs are "competing" for the same backup space, there might be room for several months of backups for one, but only a few weeks for another.  This is especially likely to happen if you start backing-up a new Mac to a drive that already has a lot of backups from another Mac.  Time Machine on the new Mac will not delete backups from the other Mac(s), so when it needs space for new backups, it will delete the oldest backups from the new Mac instead.

With a Time Capsule or any network drive used as a disk for Time Machine, every computer backup is stored in its own sparse bundle disk image. This is how multiple computers can be backed up to one location. Within each sparse bundle disk image, linking is used to minimize the storage required for files or folders which have not changed between backups.

This archived page from Pondini explains how to manually delete from backups and also explains the structure.


Is it possible to remove the "Shared" folder under Users? Under "Sharing" in System Preferences, I do not have anything shared. However, I have a "Shared" folder under "Users". Is there a way to remove this folder?

Yes, it's possible, but that doesn't mean you should do it.

Finder/etc doesn't stop you deleting it, and it's not a 'system' directory (despite being created by the system), but is it causing a problem, enough that you want to delete it? Apps can depend on that directory and deleting it could cause problems, now or in the future. I don't have any examples of such applications, but that's not to say they don't exist or may exist in the future.


Can I "Add to Reading List" from a link context menu in Safari? I'm using Safari 13.0.1 on macOS Mojave 10.14.6. I can add the current web site to the reading list by pushing the sharing button and then selecting Add to Reading List.

Now I want to that without opening the page first. So the context menu of a link in Safari has a Share menu entry, but there's no Add to Reading List in its options. In System Preferences - Extensions - Share Menu, Add to Reading List is enabled. But it still doesn't show in a link's Share context menu. I disabled and enabled Add to Reading List to no avail —  other entries in there immediately hid and reappeared in a link's Share context menu when unchecking/checking them here.

So, can I get Add to Reading List into a link's Share context menu in Safari? If so, how?

Isn't there in the context menu?

Also some links are javascript instead of URL. Such a link might not be added to the reading list.


Do external DVD drives other than a SuperDrive work with the MacBook Air? I need to access a DVD using my MacBook Air, and am planning to buy an external drive. I'd prefer going for an option cheaper than the SuperDrive.

However it looks like the SuperDrive doesn't work with other machines, and this worries me that other drives won't work with this machine.

If I get a recently manufactured non-Apple external drive, can I expect it to work with my MacBook Air?

The SuperDrive does only work with the MacBook Air, but the MacBook Air supports a lot of other drives.

For example there is the Asus External-Optical-SDRW ($37,75). Cheap, fairly fast and not very ugly :)

Or the Samsung External-Optical-SE. ($45,80) A bit more expensive, but it support way more formats and speeds:


How can I get Windows to install in Legacy (BIOS) boot on my mid-2012 MBP I've got a 13" mid-2012 MBP running OS X 10.10.3 Yosemite. I've recently repaved it with a fresh install and now I'm getting round to Bootcamp`ing it. I've installed Windows 8.1 in EFI boot mode and discovered the well documented issue with the sound card not working. Following various online guides to install Windows in legacy boot mode, I've held option at boot and selected "Windows" on the USB thumb drive that Bootcamp Assistant created but all I get is a black screen with a white blinking cursor. I've left it for 10 minutes but still nothing (some reports say it boots to the installer after a while).

I believe the disk is hybrid MBR (due to Bootcamp Assistant), here's the output from fdisk

Gregs-MBP:~ greg$ sudo fdisk /dev/disk0
Password:
Disk:   /dev/disk0  geometry: 60801/255/63 [976773168 sectors] Signature:   0xAA55   Starting       Ending  #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1: EE 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [         1 -     409639] <Unknown ID>
2: AF 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [    409640 -  486812704] HFS+
3: AB 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [ 487222344 -    1269536] Darwin   Boot
4: 0B 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [ 488493056 -  488280064] Win95 FAT-32

How can I get Windows to install in legacy boot mode?

Note, I previously had Windows 8.1 working fine (audio and everything) and if I remember correctly I just ran Bootcamp Assistant and followed the instruction, no trouble.

Well I've finally found an answer: just use a Windows 8 install CD ROM with the standard 'install Windows 7 or later option' selected. Do not install Windows 8.1. It seems the problem is with the latter messing around Boot Camp normal procedures rendering audio and some other components unusable.

Where my MBP 13″ mid 2012 wouldn't complete my installation with Boot Camp before, now the installation starts in legacy via the CD, it just flows and at the end of it I get to install my version of the Boot Camp drivers found on the net and audio works fine.

What might have influenced the whole process was that I accidentally erased my whole disk, had to start from the recovery over the internet (Command + R at startup) and reinstall Yosemite and my files through my Timemachine backup). Maybe it fixes something with my old recovery and EFI partitions, but I can't know for sure.


My mac change the hostname when this message appears the hostname is changed to the machine, the text of the message says

Your computer name "C - " is already used on this network. The name was replaced by "C - + 1"

This is an issue with the network and the other devices.

The bonjour sleep proxy function allows other computers and devices to listen for your Mac while it sleeps and answer. When that gets confused, the other device “claims” your Mac name and the only thing your Mac can do is make a new name.

Computer name keeps changing OSX 10.10 (14A389)

You can confirm this shutting off every other device in the network and changing your Mac and then sleeping and waking it a few times.

Long term, figuring this out isn’t super easy, so knowing it doesn’t hurt things in general, can you live with this knowing why it happens?


No macOS update after 10.14.3 on early 2015 MacBook Pro? I have a MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015) 3.1 GHZ i7 (16 GB memory, ~380GB diskspace left). It is currently running Mojave 10.14.3. It seems like the latest version is actually 10.14.6, but when I go to System Preferences > Software Update... it says "Your Mac is up to date". (Under Advanced..., every box is ticked.)

Does my Mac not support the newer update? If it does, how do I make it see the update?

Have you tried this

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL2010?locale=en_US

It allows you to download the dmg and you can try to push manually. I think, your MBP 2015 should support the latest Mojave as you have installed its older version already.


Signature image not appearing in sent email If I create a signature with mac mail and attach a png file to the signature, when I send the email the image appears as a black box on the sent email (examples attached).

In mac mail itself the image appears correctly.

How can I get the image to be sent correctly?

This is the right (and best) way to create an HTML signature that includes images:
http://matt.coneybeare.me/how-to-make-and-html-signature-in-apple-mail/


why my Mac disk size become zero while Mac running long time? While my my Mac starts, it shows about 2GB free size but after running about 5-6 hours, I use Firefox and other apps at that time, then only leave the FF running (not close), other apps also in stop working mode I think. I close my Mac not shutdown. I do this because I am lazy to reboot my mac ... after about 5-6 hours, Mac report my disk size is full. I am confuse by this, anyone also face this type problem before?

My Mac is Mac OS X v 10.6.8.

A lot of temporary files and pages of virtual memory were paged to RAM. I know this could take up quite a bit of space, so it's non impossible that it used up the last few gigabytes with those processes open.


What happens if I use unencrypted time machine backup from a mac that has FileVault turned on? I just got a mac and it asked me if i want to use FileVault to have an encrypted disk. I choose yes so that is setup now.  I now just bought an external hard drive and I plugged it in for the first time and set it up with time machine.

I realized after it started backing up that there was an option stating: "Do you want to encrypt your backup?" and I did NOT have that checked.

So I didn't have that checked and I am trying to figure out a few things:

Is it redundant to do encrypted backup from an already encrypted computer using File Vault?
Given my computer is encrypted but my backup is not, does that create any problems?  Is the external hard drive basically the same as if my machine wasn't encrypted?
Should I chnage the time machine backup to be encrypted?  Is there any downside>?
Any other things to consider in this decision?

In your current setup your backups are not encrypted whatsoever. That means if someone steals your external disk your data is fully accessible to an attacker. That challenges the idea of using full disk encryption / Filevault2 in the first place.

I would recommend to either

Create an encrypted sparse bundle image on your external disk and use that as your backup drive. The process is somewhat tricky as it requires tinkering with the sparsebundle image. The process is explained here and here.
Encrypt the external disk entirely. The disadvantage is that you will need the password to open that disk on other Macs. The advantage is that the entire content will be encrypted. To do this simply right-click the disk and select Encrypt...

Either way make sure you note the encryption passwords for Filevault and the backup disk somewhere else than on your computer or the backup disk, as you risk locking yourself out of all your data and backups.

As mentioned in the comment there is the downside that encryption slows down disk performance. That is also true for Filevault2 disk in your Mac. But Intel CPUs are pretty optimized for encryption operations these days and performance degradation should be low.


TimeMachine backup shared network drive not listed under "select disk" I will use a shared network drive for TimeMachine backup. I can mount the drive via the Finder: Network -> MachineA -> Drive0. Get Info shows the drive is mounted as: afp://MachineA._afpovertcp._tcp.local/Drive0. This is the same way a second drive (call it Drive1) is mounted from a second mac server (call it MachineB). When I attempt to select Drive0 as the TimeMachine disk, it is not listed as an option, but Drive1 is! Incidentally, MachineA is currently using Drive0 as a TimeMachine backup disk. Call the client (to-be-backed-up) computer, MachineC.

What is required of a drive from a networking perspective for it to be listed as an option when "Select Backup Disk" is invoked? In other words, what do I need to check/ensure about the connection between MachineC and MachineA such that Drive0 is mounted/discovered in such a way that it will be listed as an option for selection in the TimeMachine preference pane?

(MachineA, 10.11; MachineB, 10.13; MachineC, 10.12)

The problem results from this detail: MachineA is currently using Drive0 as a TimeMachine backup disk.

  Note that the TimeMachine backup volume is "read-only" only for everyone user, but "read&write" for system and wheel users. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8216189

Thus, Disk0 was being shared as read only and hence the problem.

Looks like there is a fix for this in 10.13, a location can be shared as a TimeMachine backup destination:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202784

http://www.nandakusumadi.com/blog/2017/12/10/how-to-setup-shared-time-machine-drive


How to change Apple ID email address I have my iPhone 4s linked on to one icloud and would like to change the email address on my iCloud to a new email. I can  even make a new Icloud with the new email, however I want to keep the money on the account.

Don't change to a new ID - you cannot carry past purchases from one to the other without setting up Family Sharing

If all you need is to change the address which Apple uses to communicate with you, then that's all you need to do - change that Primary email address.
Your Apple ID itself doesn't have to be your current email address, or even actually an email address at all, once it's set up it's really just a "User Name".

So your Apple ID could be fred.bloggs@abc.com, but your Primary email address could be j.appleseed@xyz.co.nz - & nothing else would need to change.

Here's how to do it…

  Sign out of iCloud, the iTunes & App store, FaceTime, Find My Friends, Find My iPhone, and iMessage on each device that uses your
  Apple ID.
  Sign in to your Apple ID account page.
  In the Account section, click Edit > Change Email Address.
  Enter the email address you want to use as your Apple ID. A verification code will be sent to your new email address.
  Enter the verification code from the email into the fields provided and start using your updated Apple ID. Didn't get the email?

Source : Apple KB - Change your Apple ID


How do I uninstall Xcode? I now have two versions of Xcode installed:

Xcode 4 - installed in /Developer (bought from Mac App Store)
Xcode 3 - installed in /Developer-old (I believe it was installed from the second disc supplied with my MCB)

Since I don't use either of those at the moment, how can I completely remove both?
Would removing both folder just do the job?
What about associated Library stuff?

Xcode comes with an uninstaller. Just run

sudo <Xcode directory>/Library/uninstall-devtools --mode=all


How can I create an ad-hoc connection from my Macbook Pro wifi connection? My Macbook Pro using a Wifi internet connection & I would like to share this connection to other systems in my house. When I tried to configure by myself I don't see the usual "airport" option to create the ad-hoc connection.

How can I do this in lion OS X?

You can only share Internet from an Ethernet, Bluetooh, or FireWire connection over Wi-Fi.

That's because you can only use your Wi-Fi connection for one thing at a time. If you're connecting to the Internet over Wi-Fi you won't be able to share that connection over Wi-Fi.

If you've got Share your connection from: set to Wi-Fi, it's normal that To computers using: doesn't have a Wi-Fi option:


Is there anything like the clipboard manager Ditto for Mac? I'm looking for a clipboard manager like Ditto for Mac:

  Ditto is an extension to the standard windows clipboard. It saves each item placed on the clipboard allowing you access to any of those items at a later time. Ditto allows you to save any type of information that can be put on the clipboard, text, images, html, and custom formats.

Meaning Ditto can store about 40 items. Ditto has some extra utilities:

searching in items
parsing plain text
keeping images as well

If you just want clipboard history, check out Jumpcut. Manages your clipboard history just fine. To install:
brew install jumpcut

It’s also a common feature in applications like Alfred (as noted by Lauri Ranta), LaunchBar and Keyboard Maestro.


Does FileVault encrypt the disk instantly? I have recently found that FileVault is disabled on my machine. Although I remember that I set "encrypt" option when I was setting the machine up.

I opened System Preferences and enabled FileVault. To my surprise it didn't take any time. I didn't have to wait while the data is encrypted. It just got instantly enabled.

My configuration: MacBook Air 2018, 256Gb SSD, macOS Mojave 10.14.1

I understood that the disk is not encrypted because I was able to access the content from my home directory from a guest session.

How does it possible that turning on FileVault doesn't take any time?

You have a new Mac with an SSD and T2 chip so all data on it is encrypted always. Any election you make in FileVault just adds and removes user keys from the trust chain so that happens basically instantly. However, when a FileVault credentialed user isn’t created, the system unlocks itself so the encryption door is always wide open.

The next time you restart, the system will notice that the first per-user key is now active and change the boot process so that the system won't unlock that storage and start the OS until your key unlocks the storage. Keep in mind, FileVault by default on APFS is all or nothing. When you unlock the storage, any account can read any files it has permission and you need your password to keep other users (guests) off your files and session.

You can inspect this by looking at diskutil apfs list to examine each  APFS containers and synthesized volume encryption and lock status.

mac:~ me$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                         251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         250.0 GB   disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +250.0 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Mac                     191.7 GB   disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 65.4 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                1.0 GB     disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      3.2 GB     disk1s4

Be sure to restart your machine and test the guest session scenario again. Only a full “Guest account” that’s set up in user preferences will keep your data marginally protected when you have an unlocked / unencrypted synthesized Macintosh HD boot / OS / user volume.