Sublime Text Ctrl C copy I am using a PC keyboard with a Macbook Pro, and I'm trying to get Sublime Text to behave like it does on Linux in terms of keyboard shortcuts. I copied the default keybindings file from Linux, which mostly worked, with the exception of Ctrl + C for copy.

I can't figure out why Ctrl + C doesn't work, since Ctrl + X cut, Ctrl + V paste, etc. all work. It seems like only copying is broken. I also tried going into Preferences > Keyboard > App Shortcuts, and added a shortcut for Sublime Text with ^C mapped to "Copy". Unfortunately, that didn't work either.

Does anyone know why this is happening and how I can fix it?

Update: I'm still not sure what the problem was, but deleting ~/Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3 solved it. It looks like my default Sublime packages got screwed up to the point where it was somehow overriding all the user provided keymaps, among other issues. But now that I've regenerated the folder, setting keybindings works like normal.

As for why only Ctrl+C was affected and not Ctrl Z, X, or V, it's because Sublime has a default shortcut for Ctrl+C defined on Macs (cancel_build), but no shortcuts for Ctrl+Z, X, or V. Other shortcuts which clash with a predefined shortcut such as Ctrl+K were also broken.


Downloading videos with Safari 7.0.1 on OS X mavericks In previous versions of Mac OS X, one could download videos in Safari with ⌥⌘A. How can this be done in Safari 7.0.1 on a OS X mavericks?

Option-command-A is just a shortcut for showing the resources tab of the web inspector. It still works, but you have to enable the develop menu first.

Check Preferences > Advanced > Show Develop menu in menu bar.
Open the resources tab of the web inspector.
Look for a resource for the video under the other folder. It's named videoplayback in YouTube. If it doesn't show up, try reloading the page.
Double-click the resource to open it.
Focus the location bar and press option-return to download the video. If you try to save the page, Safari only saves an empty file.

Note that some sites like twitch.tv use multiple resources for long videos.

Another option is to use youtube-dl. You can install it with brew install youtube-dl after installing Homebrew. Some examples:

youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1234567

youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1234567 --extract-audio

youtube-dl http://www.twitch.tv/b/1234567 -o ~/Downloads/'%(uploader)s %(title)s %(id)s.%(ext)s'

pbpaste|grep -o 'https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=[0-9]*'|parallel youtube-dl -o '%(id)s %(title)s.%(ext)s'

curl -s http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/users/someusername/uploads|grep -o 'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=[^&]*'|sort -u|parallel youtube-dl


how fast does sierra overwrite over a permanently deleted file? Recently I did a clean install of Sierra and I deleted a text file which is under 3MB.I scanned the disk immediately using data recovery software and I was surprised not to find the file there.Is this completely normal or not.

Before I did a clean install I did the same thing but the file was still there.

The OS, technically, has nothing to do with how fast something gets deleted; it's how quickly your drive implements the "erase" ATA command.

If you deleted a file by "moving" it into your Trash, it will be there until you empty the trash. However, if you deleted the file by using a Terminal command (rm for example), it's gone as you have bypassed the Trash altogether.

Now, if you are using a hard disk drive, there is a chance of recovery; the sooner you attempt recovery, the better the chances.  However, if you are using a solid state drive (SSD), it's gone for good.  The TRIM command to erase happens almost instantaneously; there's no remnants to recover because the block(s) that your data occupied are immediately marked as "new and unused" and the SSD is instructed to return zeros or random values if you attempt to read from it/them.   See this answer for additional details on this process.


Screenshot taking a very long time to appear on desktop I have just upgraded to High Sierra from Sierra, and immediately I noticed that screenshots would take a good 10-15 seconds before appearing on the desktop. How can I fix this?

I have the same problem here. It seems to be a refresh problem. The file is actually there, it just doesn't show up. If I open a Finder window in the desktop folder the same problem happens. But I can verify it's a refresh problem because if I go to other folder and come back the file is already there. I have an iMac with a Fusion Drive. High Sierra doesn't convert it to the new APFS file system. I'm guessing it has something to do with that. My guess is that High Sierra is prepared for APFS and that APFS treats file refreshing differently from the earlier MacOS file system. So whatever signal it's expecting from the file system, it is not receiving.


Drag & drop and cut & paste not working Possible Duplicate:
  Can anyone explain this clipboard behaviour?

This is weird. I'm on OSX Lion, and sometimes both drag & drop and cut & paste stop working, at the same time. They stop working in any program, not just the Finder. And it's not just the shortcut: if I try to right click and select "Copy" it doesn't work either.

This has happened three times so far. A reboot fixes it, but it's annoying at best. Anyone with the same problem? Any solution?

Well, since the question is “Anyone with the same problem”: yes, it seems at least another StackExchange user has the same problem in “Can anyone explain this clipboard behaviour?”.


How to download Mojave now that Catalina is available? I'm still running Mac OS 10.11 El Capitan.  I've decided to upgrade, but I don't want to lose 32-bit support, so Catalina is not an option for me.
I found this official Apple page: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210190
However, the link on that page to download Mojave (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/macos-mojave/id1398502828?ls=1&mt=12) doesn't work for me.  (I have iTunes 12.5.1.21.)  It only pops up a message from iTunes:

Item Not Available
The item you've requested is not currently available in the U.S. store.

How can I upgrade to Mojave?

Open the link in Safari so that it finds the Mac App Store to open the application.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210190

If you have failures after getting the Mac App Store to receive the link or the installer is too small or doesn’t work, this post is amazing and can help with different issues specific to machines and OS versions.

How can I download an older version of OS X/macOS?


Open Finder window from current Terminal location? If I am in a specific path in a Terminal window, how can I open that same window in a new Finder window?

Note: This is the opposite of opening a Terminal from Finder.

Typing open . in Terminal will open the current working directory in a Finder window.


How can I hide notifications for a short period? I use notifications heavily as a sort of todo list during the day (mostly Slack and email messages). But sometimes I want to hide these for a while to focus on the whole screen. If I disable notifications I often forgot for hours and find I missed something important. How can I hide the notifications for just 15 minutes and then have it reactivate?

One can use "Turn on Do Not Disturb" setting for needed time (From: to:), but this will come and bite you on following days if you forget to untick it.
I am not heavy notifications user but I simply ⌥ + click on Notifications Center icon to turn on / off notifications. Icon is dimmed when it's off and this visual clue is good enough for me (and I usually start worry when I have nothing to do for hours ;-)). Alternatively one can set own keyboard shortcut in System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> Mission Control -> Turn Do Not Disturb On/Off


Fan running almost constantly Quite recently, my late 2012 Mac Mini went from being virtually silent, to having the fan on quite hard nearly all the time, regardless what I'm doing. If I use some 3D rendering or similar then it understandably gets flat out, but if I am doing nothing at all the fan is still a constant whir. I am not using different applications to the past... basically browser and Parallels, but in my Parallels session all I run is RDP.

Chrome and related processes seem very high CPU% but I don't know if that's normal.

I'm slightly worried my CPU being flat-out risks damage and also that electrical use is high. What can I do to identify and address this issue?

I suspect that, for some reason, your system isn’t able to properly cool itself. I recommend trying to reapply thermal paste or bringing your Mac to an Apple Store so they can do it for you.


Chrome: Keyboard shortcut to leave address bar and focus browsing area? Related: Chrome: Keyboard shortcut to go to Address Bar?

You can go to address bar by ⌘+l / Ctrl+l, but how can I go back to, or focus, the browsing area again?

[EDIT:]
Does simply pressing Tab a few times work for you?
[/EDIT]

There doesn't seem to be such a shortcut. What you can do is press CTRL+F, search for a word close to where you are on the page and then Esc.

Of course this is not really convenient, so you could also do what this other answer suggests and type javascript: in the url bar, followed by Enter. This executes the javascript following the colon, so it does nothing. However, it DOES refocus the page.

This is still not convenient, but using AutoHotkey, you can remap any shortcut you'd like to do this. The AutoHotkey Script would probably have to simulate CTRL+L to make sure focus lies on the url bar, followed by javascript: and Enter.

I hope this helps. Sadly, AutoHotkey is only available for windows but there might be a similar tool for Mac.

Another option I just found out about: On windows, I can press Alt followed by Tab. This might work on mac as well.


How to update iOS11 Beta I have already installad iOS11 Beta 1 with Apple Beta Software Program.

But there are new beta releases (Beta 2 and Beta 3), when I navigate to settings-general-software update, it says,

  iOS 11.0 Your software is up to date

I have also checked version, it's 11.0 (15A5278f) which is actually Beta 1.

Why don't new updates appear in software update section? How can I install new beta versions?

I had the same problem.

On your phone log onto beta.apple.com with the AppleID you used to sign up for the public beta.

There should be a link, once you log on, to tap on to download the correct profile that will then kick off the next available IOS Beta release.


OSX - File Sharing - Permission problems I bought a Mac Mini (OSX High Sierra), also with the intention to use it as a file server.
I am very surprised that this seems to be an issue.

I am using Samba share that is also supposed to work for Windows.

I created 2 users on the Mac Mini --> User1 and User2.

When I now share a folder "User1-share" from the User1 account and give rw permissions to both users for this share, then these permissions do not seem to be inherited.
This means that if I create a file or folder in the shared folder via network with User2 from another mac, then User1 does not have permissions to write to this file.

This seems to have never really worked based on this article the problem exists since 2012?

Permissions for new files in shared directory

Is this a common problem and can't be solved. I hoped that maybe someone came around this already and knows the solution?

I am sure there is more info required to track down the issue and I am happy to provide it.

Thanks in advance for any help,

Chris

Buscar, thanks a lot and you were right with the ACL issue.
I would like to "vote up" your answer, but I can't do that if it's just a comment? At least I didn't figure out how.

In any case: I would recommend to look into this explanation and way forward:
https://gist.github.com/nelstrom/4988643

What needs to be done is this:
In OSX High Sierra:

Create a Share, e.g. /Users/admin/share.
Create a Group, e.g. "sharegroup", and share /Users/admin/share to that groupo and give read&write permissions.
Add users to the group, that are supposed to have access to the folder
run the following command from the github link above:

chmod -R +a "group:sharegroup allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,file_inherit,directory_inherit" /Users/admin/share

And after this small command, I could use the mac Mini as a "normal" file server. Several users could access the shared folder(s).

I did not (have to) run the other command that was stated in the github link:

 chown -R demo:sharegroup /Users/admin/share

I wasn't sure what it does.

If someone else should read this post and should (same as I) have an issue in understanding what ACL's are and what this setting change means, I personally found this forum thread helpful (but take care since the "chmod command" is faulty, when being copied and pasted):

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7566517?page=2


How do in-app purchases work for child accounts with Family Sharing? Our daughter has her own iPad that she uses with an Apple ID configured as a child account. Her app store purchases require authorisation from either myself or my wife. All three of us are in the same Family Sharing group.

Our daughter has recently started playing a new game, and wanted to purchase virtual "coins" from within the app. As this was an in-app purchase, it required authorisation. Things went something like this:

Daughter chose to purchase 1000 coins from within the app (cost: £0.99)
App asked for authentication via Touch ID
Daughter authenticated with Touch ID
App displayed dialog saying that the purchase needed authorisation
Dialog button was tapped to request authorisation
My wife and I both received a request to authorise the purchase
I provided my Apple ID credentials to authorise the purchase
Back on my daughter's iPad, a message indicated that the purchase had been approved
Another message then appeared indicating that something had gone wrong (I can't remember the exact wording, but it was pretty terse, something along the lines of "An error occurred"!)

Stupidly, figuring it was some kind of transient error, I tried a couple more times, the last time even trying to authorise the purchase directly on the iPad rather than via my phone. None of these attempts worked.

I've since found out that there are different types of in-app purchases, and that these coins are classed as "consumables" and cannot be transferred to other Apple accounts in the Family Sharing group. I suspect that if I installed the game on my phone I would now have 3000 coins waiting for me, but that doesn't help my daughter.

I have the following questions:

Should Apple allow people to authorise (ie. pay for) in-app purchases for child accounts, if those in-app purchases cannot be used by the intended recipient (the child)? At no point in the process was I warned that this would be the outcome.
Is there any possibility of a refund? Although only £2.97 out of pocket, I've still purchased something I have no intention of using on my own device. I don't even have the game installed on my own device.
If a refund is possible, who would I contact to obtain one: Apple or the app publisher?
Is there any way I can purchase the coins for my daughter's installation of the game?

In general I feel Family Sharing works well, but this seems like an edge case that isn't handled at all well by iOS.

Although they're related, you've actually asked a number of questions there. I'll deal with each of these briefly:

Question 1: This question is specifically off-topic. We don't answer questions like Why does Apple... or Should Apple... etc.

Question 2: Yes, it is possible you could get a refund. This will usually be in the form of a credit on your account.

Question 3: You need to contact Apple, not the App publisher.

Question 4: I suspect you have a few options. Since you have to contact Apple, I would just ask them what the best option would be. However, one option is to change the account details on the iPad temporarily so that it's your account that's logged into the App Store. Then try to make the purchase using your account. (You may need to delete the app and redownload it using your account). Once you've got the coins, log out of the App Store with your account and log back in with your daughter's. (NOTE: If you had to delete and reinstall the app for it to be associated with your account, this does mean you'd have to log back into your account again if/when she makes future purchases).


Apple Mail search & smart mailboxes stopped working Since I upgraded to macOS Catalina this weak, the following features of Apple Mail no longer work:

Search
Flagged Mail
Smart Mailboxes

I have tried reindexing everything using Spotlight and also rebuilding the mailboxes, but neither of these things works. What can I do? This seems like a real mess-up by Apple.

In such events where a problem arises due to multiple reasons, answers look like troubleshoot efforts. Cleaning up the comments, here's what I did on Mojave for an IMAP account:

Back up the relevant folder under ~/Library/Mail/ and then delete the original folder associated with the troubling account.
Hide the ~/Library/Mail/ from Spotlight index using Spotlight Preferences -> Privacy and revealing hidden folders in Finder layover.

Restart Mail and wait for all the mails to get downloaded. And remove the said folder from Privacy in Spotlight Preferences. Let the indexing be complete. If anything breaks, use the backup folder.

Do step one(backup) of above and take screenshots of Mail Preferences in case account specific settings like "rules" break down.
In Internet Accounts in System Preferences, remove the account. Wait for some reasonable time, and add it back.
Again if anything breaks(as OP says, smart mailboxes, not for me), replace the new folder under ~/Library/Mail/V6 with the backed up one.


iPhone No Service with warning icon I have an iPhone 7, after updating iOS 12, it loses cellular signal, displays No Service with a warning icon. And an alert said:

  Cellular update failed
  Your iPhone cannot make and recieve calls or access cellular data until it has been updated

So what caused this problem? I searched on Google and only get 1 post about this but no good answer of how to solve it.

Check for a cellular settings update:

  You can manually check for and install a carrier settings update with
  these steps:

  Make sure your device is connected to a Wi-Fi or cellular network.

  Tap Settings > General > About. If an update is available, you'll see
  an option to update your carrier settings.

Try updating your device:

  Plug your device into power and connect to the Internet with Wi-Fi.

  Tap Settings > General > Software Update.

  Tap Download and Install. If a message asks to temporarily remove apps
  because iOS needs more space for the update, tap Continue or Cancel.
  Later, iOS will reinstall apps that it removed. If you tap Cancel,
  learn what to do next.

  To update now, tap Install. Or you can tap Later and choose Install
  Tonight or Remind Me Later. If you tap Install Tonight, just plug your
  iOS device into power before you go to sleep. Your device will update
  automatically overnight.


Change low battery notification from 10% to 20%? (High Sierra) Is it possible to change the native low battery notification alert from 10% of remaining battery to 20%?

Check out this free app you can set up when to give a notification at which percentage also you can also add multiple percentage to notify you:https://github.com/codler/Battery-Time-Remaining/downloads


Whats a good software title to take video (mp4, avi, other..) and burn it to DVD I got some home brew videos from my webcam, and I got a couple movies on the drive I'd like to burn to DVD. The thing is, I don't know what's a good product for that, being a recent Mac convert and formally a heavy Windows user.

I keep finding things about iDVD when I search but from further reading iDVD is no longer available. So doing a quick search on google you get your standard "This app will do it all" type sites, usually really crappy software so I don't want to waste 20, 50, 100+ dollars on an app that I'll use once in a blue moon or on an app that's actually worthless.

If you're going to burn to DVD, you need a replacement for iDVD, and you don't want to spend beau coup cash, use Burn. Burn is free, and works swimmingly.


amplify sound output on Mac Possible Duplicate:
  Do you know a simple sound booster app for Mac?

Is there an app to amplify sound output on Mac OS X, I've put the volume to max and it's still quiet.

Boom is a simple program that does nothing except boost the system volume past its maximum. It can also increase the volume of audio files, although iTunes can also do this. It does cost money, but only $5.


Transferring data to a new external hard drive without breaking links I'm trying to migrate my data from an old external hard drive to a new one. When I copy and paste from within Finder, the data seems to expand to take up much more space, so I'm assuming some link structure is being lost. What's the most robust way to do this?

Details:

I have a Mac Pro running High Sierra with 1TB internally, plus a 4TB external drive that I use for data, including iMovie projects. It's formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). The external drive is now full, so I want to replace it with a new 10TB drive. I've formated the new drive identically, and now want to transfer all my files across to it. When I did this by copying and pasting within Finder, I noticed something strange - Disk Utility tells me that the space used on the old drive was 3.9TB, but on the new drive this had jumped to 5.2TB. Looking at the original folders individually, I see that they indeed add up to 5.2TB, which is clearly impossible since they fit on a 4TB drive. I notice that there's an iMovieEvents folder and an iMovieLibrary package, both of size 1.35TB, and I'm assuming that some links between these are using the same data twice. So how can I best copy the entire drive with all its link structures etc onto the new drive? Rsync? cp?
Thanks.

This might be due to the file system’s allocation size.

To check, use Get Info to get the space on disk for a tiny file on both disks.

For a more definitive answer, try this command in Terminal on each disk:

stat -f %k .

If the large disk uses a larger size, your small files will take extra space. That can be resolved, but it might not be worth the work.


Turn iPad into a one-click youtube player My grandma has an iPad but she doesn't know how to use YouTube to play her favorite songs. I'm trying to create a one-click solution that'll open YouTube and start her playlist. At the moment, I can create a home screen schortcut from Safari which loads the playlist in Safari. There're several problems with this:

For some reason it doesn't auto play the songs, even with the &autoplay=1 attached to the URL.
It doesn't load in the YouTube app. The webpage is not very grandma-friendly: she has shaky hands, her touch action to play the video tends to scroll the page instead. I've tried with youtube:// URL scheme, but it's impossible to add this URL to the home screen. Safari only allows me to do that after the page is fully loaded, and the URL textbox is not editable.
I live in a different country. It is best if I can change the playlist remotely upon request. I've tried creating a bitly short URL with the hope to be able to reconfigure it to a different playlist remotely. However, I haven't figured out how to add this bitly URL to the homescreen yet -- same reason as above.

Any suggestions? I have a hunch that there's an app to do this!

Okay never mind. I'm making a Github page to do this.

Put the following code to a HTML page, which loads the YouTube app upon open:

<script>
window.location.href="youtube://www.youtube.com/watch?v=[videoId]";
</script>

Host the page somewhere, for example github.io, and then add a shortcut on the homescreen.


MacBook Pro 2016 won't charge even on power adapter I'm using the CalDigit USB-C Dock and the Mac said it is using the power adapter, but my battery is slowly draining:

I did an SMC reset and reset PRAM (NVRAM) but still won't charge.

Why isn't my Mac charging?

As it turns out, the USB-C I was using is bad. I swapped the cable out for a different one, and the laptop started charging again through the dock.


Can't install OS X, shows a message to restart Macbook, repeats I have an installation disk for OS X but when I turn on the Macbook it shows the Apple icon, then goes to a screen of codes and an error message that tells me to restart my Macbook. Once I do, it then repeats and I don't know what to do, any advice?

Assuming that there is nothing more serious wrong with your computer, you should just be able to use either the recovery partition or internet recovery to install the OS.

You can start the process by holding down Command-R when you restart and the computer should give you the opportunity to download a Mavericks installer. This should happen whether there is a recovery partition available or not. If no recovery partition is available, the computer should use internet recovery.

More information is here: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4718

Also, it is unlikely that the Mac OS X 10.6.1 disc will work as new Macs will rarely allow old versions of the OS to be installed on them, although seeing a "screen of codes" seems less user-friendly than I would expect.


Does anyone know an AppleScript to save Stickies note state? I have some Stickies notes on different Desktop spaces. The problem is, every time I have to restart OS X, because of an OS update for example, a Stickies note does not restore to the Desktop space it was on before restarting. Thus, I have to move every Stickies note for each Desktop manually and I have 9 Desktop spaces to deal with. Why can’t they remember which Desktop they were before restarting?

Does anyone know an AppleScript to save Stickies note state?

UPDATE 1
Now I have one!! I have created one myself. https://github.com/lucasribeiroufrj/sortStickies.
Unfortunately It still needs an external dependence (cliclick) to work.

Since I could not find one, I have created one myself:

https://github.com/lucasribeiroufrj/sortStickies


How do you enable HiDpi mode for unsupported monitors like the Dell P2815Q in Mavericks? Has anyone figured out how to enable HiDPI mode for the Dell p2815Q on Mac OS X 10.9? I have tried Quartz Debug, default write commands at the terminal and SwitchResX, to no avail.

The answer is here:

Basically, per Apple’s website you:

Open Mac App Store

Download XCode (free)
Follow their instructions to download Graphics Tools for Xcode package
Run Quartz Debug, following the instructions here on StackExchange, making sure to note that you will have to make each settings change and log out of your account each time, and if your computer has multiple accounts you may have to do the same on each one! (What a pain!)
Somehow it should automagically work out that the next time you log in, you can choose HiDPI settings in your Displays control panel.


How to combine multiple pdf files based on location and name with command line? I have multiple folders with this structure:

Folder Name/ tmp

Other Folder name/tmp

and so on...

Inside tmp folder I have many pdf files with this name pattern:

pdf-name-1.pdf
pdf-name-2.pdf
.... and more

I’m looking for the way to joint all pdf files inside All tmp directories with this name structure, move original PDFs to trash and rename combined pdf with pdf-name.pdf

Is there any way to do it using command line or bash script in macOS?

Than you very much.

UPDATE FOR CLARIFICATION

I need to combine all PDFs inside its own tmp folder not All PDFs inside ALL tmp folders.

Although you specifically asked for bash script but as a supplemental answer you could consider using the python script below. Interestingly, a part of python project (Ipython) was specifically designed to replace bash.

from PyPDF2 import PdfFileMerger
import os

def merge_it(files,path):
    merger = PdfFileMerger()
    for file in files:
        merger.append(file)

    merger.write(os.path.join(path,"combined_file.pdf"))
    merger.close()

for path, dirs, files in os.walk(os.getcwd()):
    for dir in dirs:
        if dir == 'tmp':

            pdf_files = []
            for file in os.listdir(os.path.join(path,dir)):
                if file.endswith(".pdf"):
                    pdf_files.append(os.path.join(path,dir, file))
            merge_it(pdf_files,os.path.join(path,dir))

The thing this program demands is to hard-code the paths containing /tmp sub-folders. That can also be automated depending on how much automation you want. I won't recommend removing original pdfs unless they are occupying too much space.

UPDATE: Searches for all sub-folders having name 'tmp' in the current working directory and combines all pdf files inside each of the tmp folder.


How to text to an iPod (Sorry about the title, I had trouble figuring out what to name it).

Anyway, a few days ago, someone asked me if they could text me. I readily agreed but then discovered that they couldn't because if they sent to my email it went to my email.

I don't want that person's stuff in my email, I want it in my texts.

So, I did all that prefacing... All I would like to know is, what information does my friend need to be able to text me? (Yes, the person does have an Apple).

**I'm currently running iOS 8.3 on my iPod touch **

To receive messages on your iPod, as long as the other person is using a device which is iMessage capable, they will be able to send you texts via iMessage.

To set up iMessage:

On device, go to Settings -> Messages
Turn on iMessage
Once set up, make sure you choose your email address as one that can receive iMessages (tied to your Apple ID)
Have friend send messages to you via iMessage as they would a normal text to one of the addresses provided in iMessage setup

More information can be found here and here


Lost password on Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted) Drive. Want to reformat it I am using a Seagate Free Agent Desk external drive as my Time Machine on a modern iMac running Lion. I made the mistake of encrypting the drive, and I do not remember the password. I dont mind losing the data on the disk, and I just want to reformat it if possible in order to use it as a non encrypted drive. Any ideas on how to do this?

The encrypted volume's password is not required for erasing the disk, only to mount the encrypted volume on the disk. It's unclear whether you're being asked for the password only when connecting the disk, or when you attempt to erase it.
In Lion, you can use Disk Utility to erase an encrypted volume, but not in Mountain Lion. However, you can erase the encrypted volume with the diskutil cs delete command (see Terminal section below) in both versions.

Disk Utility (Lion only)
The following steps should work in Lion:

Connect the disk to your Mac.

When prompted to "Enter the password for the disk 'your disk'," click "Cancel". You don't need to mount the encrypted volume to erase the disk.

Open Disk Utility and locate your external disk on the left side. Its name will likely start with its capacity and include "Seagate" or "Free Agent" in the name. You should see your encrypted volume directly under the disk. The volume will be indented and grayed out.

Select the disk on the left side, not the volume.

Click the "Erase" tab, found between the "First Aid" and "Partition" tabs. If you don't see the "Partition" tab, and all the buttons under the "Erase" tab are grayed out, double-check that you've selected the disk on the left side, and not the disk's volume.

Choose a format and enter a name, then click "Erase".

If this doesn't work, let us know which step is not working and how.

Terminal (Lion & Mountain Lion)

With the encrypted disk connected, launch Terminal and enter the following command

diskutil cs list

You should see output describing the encrypted disk, starting with info about the Logical Volume Group:
CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
|
+-- Logical Volume Group 109FC023-5F18-438A-AF3D-14FF60334A0C
    =========================================================
    Name:         Le Disque
    Size:         68375502848 B (68.4 GB)
    Free Space:   0 B (0 B)
    |
…

If you have more than one encrypted disk, locate the Logical Volume Group with the name of the disk you want to erase.

Copy the UUID which follows the words "Logical Volume Group". In this example this is the UUID for the disk named "Le Disque":
109FC023-5F18-438A-AF3D-14FF60334A0C

Warning The next command will erase the disk specified by the UUID you enter. Make sure you've copied the correct Logical Volume Group UUID for the disk you want to erase, especially if you have more than one encrypted disk connected.
Enter the following command to erase the encrypted disk, replacing copiedUUID with the UUID you copied:
diskutil cs delete copiedUUID

When complete, the disk will be partitioned with one volume mounted, called "Untitled". You can then start using it or repartition or encrypt it in Disk Utility as needed.


Is it possible to have an Apple Genius replace my Fusion drive with an SSD in my iMac? Can I take my iMac to an Apple store and have the Geniuses replace its Fusion drive with a pure SSD?

Yes and no.

If it's under warranty, then it's a definite no, even if you're willing to pay for it.

If it's not under warranty, the answer gets a little more complicated because it depends on the exact model of iMac, its status (i.e. is it considered by Apple to be vintage or obsolete), and to some degree to your location.

The best answer we can give here is that you need to contact your nearest Apple Store and ask them.

My advice would be that if it is under warranty, to just leave things as they are. If it's a real issue for you, then you may have other options (such as using an external SSD as your boot drive, etc).


How to scan a folder for subfolders, and copy a file to every output I'm having a little bit of an issue here.
Here's the situation: We will be deploying a new application soon, and the server configuration resides in a simple XML file, located somewhere deep in the ~/library/Preferences. I want to create a bash/shell script that will basically copy the XML file at the right place, but for every user folder that exists.

I was able to use the below script for Windows, but I'm wondering if there is something similar for Apple.

Here's the Windows script:

$sourceLocation = "C:\Users\suptech\Downloads\TEMP"

$targetLocation = "C:\Users"

$result = @()

$result += get-ChildItem $targetLocation | Where-Object {$_.PSIsContainer}
$result | foreach-Object { copy-item $sourceLocation -Destination "C:\Users\$_\AppData\Roaming\TEST” -Recurse -Force}

Could someone help me ?

Thanks in advance! :)

Well, here's something that you can work with. It isn't tested in a real world environment and is offered AS IS- without any warranty.

# This script must run as root
if [ "$(id -u)" != "0" ]
then
    echo "This script must be run as root"
    exit 1
fi

source=/path/to/file
destination=Library/path/to/destination/directory

for u in /Users/*
do
    on=${u##*/}

    # If not a directory- do not process
    [ ! -d "$u" ] && continue

    # Check that the directory has a valid user name or do not process
    id "$on" >/dev/null 2>&1 || continue

    # Get the user's primary group id
    gn=$(id -gn "$on")

    # bug fix found by Alex Pilon
    # make destination directory if it doesn't exist
    install -o "$on" -g "$gn" -d "${u}/${destination}"

    install -b -o "$on" -g "$gn" -m 644 "$source" "${u}/${destination}"
done

Another solution based on bmike's suggestion

# This script must run as root
if [ "$(id -u)" = "0" ]
then
    : running as root
else
    echo "This script must be run as root"
    exit 1
fi

source=/path/to/file
destination=Library/path/to/destination/directory

dscl . -list /Users NFSHomeDirectory |
awk 'BEGIN { OFS=":" } / \/Users/ { print $1, $2 }' |
while IFS=: read u hdir
do
    # Get the user's primary group id
    gn=$(id -gn "$u")

    install -o "$u" -g "$gn" -d "${hdir}/${destination}"

    install -b -o "$u" -g "$gn" -m 644 "$source" "${hdir}/${destination}"
done


Multiple headphones on one computer At my workplace we pair program and sometimes need to get on a call with a remote team member. We also have quite a noisy office. We have USB headsets for these reasons. We, of course, use macs.

In addition to the remote calls it would be great fun to be able to have music playing through both people's headsets and be able to talk over it. So some sort of ducking would be useful.

We've tried creating an aggregate device as described here but it only sends audio from one mic, and you can't hear yourself talking. So unless you know some setting tweak we don't, an aggregate device won't work.

I'm very close to creating my own utility at this point, but before I dive in and hurt my brain learning OSX audio, does anyone know something that will achieve what I want?

I haven't tried this, but if you're willing to experiment:

Try using (no joke) Garageband with your aggregated device setup.  No need to hit the record button, but you can use the monitor function to hear yourself speak.  And since it presumably knows what to do with both mics, you might both be able to speak.

You may also use LineIn to be able to hear yourself speak.  And finally, soundflower may be useful if you need to shuttle audio from one app to another before making it to your headphones... like say background music from iTunes or whatever.

~~~

Update from OP:

  Thanks, I ended up going with something based on the ideas in your
  post but developed the solution on my own. Here it is:
  pivotallabs.com/ultimate-headphone-pairing


How do I do a COUNTIF on another table column in Numbers? I am on 2014 Macbook Pro running Mavericks.

I have two tables.

In table 1, I have a cell that should store the number of cells in column A of table 2.

In the same table 1, I have a different cell that stores the number of cells in column E of table 2 that matches the text "MATCHED".

How do I write the formula for each case?

The great thing about numbers is they offer a great how-to guide. If you don't know how to do something then all you have to is start typing a formula and it will begin to auto populate, click on it and the functions sidebar will open with the function. it will give you examples, what the parameters are etc.

That's just a tip, but your lucky I'm here:

Since you didn't specify what you want the cell of Table 1 to count in the column of table 2 I just counted all non-blank cells. You can alter with whatever text based of the countif function in the second example that compares against a string:

1 : Table 1 Cell that stores number of cells in column A of Table 2. As described since you didn't specific I just counted all non-blank cells :

=COUNTIF(Table 2::A,"<>"&"")

2 : Table 1 Cell that stores number of cells in Column E of Table 2 that matches text "MATCHED" :

=COUNTIF(Table 2::E,"MATCHED")

Instead of typing you can just do this:

Type into the cell = then type COUNTIF then click on the column header (E) it will select the entire column, then click on condition and type "MATCHED" then press enter! Your outcome will be based off this :


how to upgrade my Hard drive on MacBook pro I have a MacBook pro version 10.9.3 with 2.9 GHz Intel core i7 processor. 8GB of ram and a 750GB HD. I'm running windows through parallels and allocated 4GM of memory to it and a used my bootcamp image (400gb).

When running parallels both sides are slow. I thought that maybe buying a SSD would speed things up. Is this true? If So will I be able to back up my partition when upgrading? What would be the best way to go about it?

Thanks for any advice!

I thought that maybe buying a SSD would speed things up. Is this true?

The simple answer is yes. It sounds as though you may also be paging out due to RAM limitations as well, however. When you run out of RAM, your machine uses your drive as a  disk cache, essentially, which slows down your machine ( a HDD/SSD is meant to be a dedicated storage device, not temporary). That being said, upgrading to a SSD would still make the machine quicker even if you are paging out.

  If So will I be able to back up my partition when upgrading? What would be the best way to go about it?

Yes, you will be able to back up the other partition. I highly recommend following this clear and concise guide, by ASC member clintonfrombirmingham when doing so.


MacBook boots automatically when opening lid. Feature or problem? When my 13" Retina MacBook running Yosemite is powered off and I open the lid, it immediately starts booting up... without pressing the power button. Is this a new feature (maybe part of Yosemite) or is my MacBook misbehaving?

If it's a feature, I'm not necessarily sure that I dislike it... but I definitely find it jarring. Can I disable it?

(And yes, I can assure you, it really is shut down and not asleep.)

Rarely a Power button is broken, but it can happen, so you can not turn it off.

But to check your instant wake up with lid open check in the Console if it was just hibernating.

Open Console in your utility folder and look for times after you turned it OFF.

You might see some activity few hours later while you were sleeping, that would tell you it was just hibernating.

Something like 2/3/15 6:02:40.000 AM kernel[0]: Wake reason: EC.SleepTimer (SleepTimer) shows that mine was just hibernating -not off.

And here is a full sequence when Turning it OFF then 3 minutes later Turning in on with Power Button.

2/3/15 9:54:26.567 AM shutdown[529]: SHUTDOWN_TIME: 1422986066 567166

2/3/15 9:54:26.000 AM kernel[0]: Kext loading now disabled.

2/3/15 9:54:26.000 AM kernel[0]: Kext unloading now disabled.

2/3/15 9:54:26.000 AM kernel[0]: Kext autounloading now disabled.

2/3/15 9:54:26.000 AM kernel[0]: Kernel requests now disabled.

2/3/15 9:57:58.000 AM bootlog[0]: BOOT_TIME 1422986278 0


How can I download a PDF document that is embedded on a webpage in iOS? If I'm viewing a webpage which embeds a PDF document with the <object> tag (example), how can I download this page on the iPhone?

If I view a non-embedded PDF document (example), I can select the Open in... option and download it to an application such as Dropbox. I have not found a way to do this when the PDF is embedded.

If there was a way to figure out the PDF's address, I could copy and paste it into the address bar, but I haven't figured out a way to do this either.

So my questions are:

Is there any way to do this in Safari?
Is there any way to get the URL of the embedded PDF document?
Are there any 3rd party applications for iOS that allow me to download, or get the address of, the embedded document?

Use Google Chrome.  Chrome will have the disk save option icon at the bottom.  Chrome Web browser also has built-in print to PDF file.


iMac w/ Bootcamp and 2 external Mini DisplayPort? I know this does NOT work:
iMac Core i7 (late 2012) with Windows 7 Bootcamp and 2 external Thunderbold Displays.

Does THIS work?
iMac Core i7 (late 2012) with Windows 7 Bootcamp and 2 external Mini DisplayPort Displays?

Thanks!

Nope. Minidisplayport and Thunderbolt work off the same driver in Windows 7 as far as I'm aware, and the driver is garbage. So, if one doesn't work, since MDP and Thunderbolt use exactly the same interface to send video data, the other one won't work either.


Will my 2014 Mac Mini boot an SSD that already has Linux on it? I have an SSD from another computer that has Ubuntu Linux installed on it and fully working. It's a standard UEFI Ubuntu install using the GRUB bootloader, and the entire SSD is used (i.e. there are no additional partitions).

If I put this SSD into my 2014 Mac Mini, will it successfully boot?

I can put the SSD in most other semi-modern computers and it boots fine. For example I have done this in a Lenovo Thinkpad, Windows gaming PC, etc.

Just to clarify I'm not talking about installing Linux or reinstalling macOS - I'm talking about booting the Linux OS that's already installed on the SSD.

If the SSD will not boot, what do I need to do to make it boot?

There is no way to know in advance if you can boot the operating system on this SDD. The the only way to know for sure would be to try booting. The Mac Startup Manger is employed to either manually or automatically determine what code needs to be loaded in to RAM memory and executed in order to boot the computer. This Startup Manager does not recognize all the possible valid boot configurations and therefore may ignore the Grub and/or Ubuntu startup files stored on the SSD. One way to avoid this problem would be to first boot the a rEFInd USB flash drive image file. A link to download this file can be found at the Getting rEFInd from Sourceforge website. If rEFInd is necessary to boot Ubuntu, then you can either modify the name and location of the startup files on the SSD to avoid using rEFInd or install rEFInd on to the SSD.


Is my mac being hacked by a user called Guatoan? And how can I remove this user? I recently visited a website and on pressing a link another window automatically opened saying the website had found a virus on my laptop. Obviously this was a scam so I returned to the original website and tried the link again. This time the same thing happened so I closed the scam window and tried a third time. This time however the same scam page opened only an uncontrollable and loud beeping sound accompanied the warning and many files began to quickly and automatically download from the scam website and into my downloads folder on my dock. I was with a friend and she said that it looked like loads of circular coins were being downloaded. I immediately quit safari and permanently deleted the files that had downloaded from the scan website unfortunately without looking at what type of files they were. Then after searching online to find ways to identify and remove viruses and malware I downloaded Malwarebytes and Dr. Antivirus and did full scans where no threats were found. Then I wanted to see if my mac had been hacked by someone perhaps so i found advice on here:(https://www.techwalla.com/articles/how-to-find-out-if-your-computer-is-hacked) telling me to go into terminal and identify all the current users. All the users seem typical and normal except a user called "Guatoan" and I have no idea if this is normal or not and, if i am indeed hacked, if I can remove this user immediately? If anyone has had a similar experience or has any advice or knowledge regarding to anything I have said in this post that could help me understand better what is going on I would be extremely thankful! thank you very much

It’s not clear what user ID you are running - so to rule that out - what does this command show?

id

Next, you’ll want to inventory your backups to know if you can erase everything and or need to make a backup. Next you can inventory all the accounts - run this command

dscacheutil -q user | grep -A 3 -B 2 -e uid:\ 5'[0-9][0-9]'

This will fetch all the users with their respective directories.

Then you can delete the user using this. sudo is needed as the commands need to run as root.

sudo dscl . delete /Users/your user name(name from the output)
sudo rm -rf (dir from the output)

Only delete the dir if it is not one of the system ones - probably only do that if it is of for /Users/X where X is not one of your normal users.


How can I have a shortcut search for text in a note? Lets say I have a note with 3 letters (A, B, C.). I want to make a shortcut to do something if the passed note contains "B" for example. So I need to figure out how Shortcuts finds "B" in my note.

How can I accomplish this?

PS: I tried with "Match Text/Pattern" but don't know which pattern to use.

Note
(A, B, C.)
|
***Match Text
Pattern: 0-9a-zA-Z***
|
If
  (INPUT) - (Contains)
  (Value: B)
  |
  Show Result:
  This Works.
otherwise
  |
  Show Result:
  This does NOT Work.
End IF.

Still not sure I totally understood what you are looking for. So let me propose a solution below. If it doesn't work for your problem, please comment specifically on the proposed solution and explain where it doesn't meet your needs.

The shortcut

Its configuration

Make it accept text so we can pass Notes as input

Let's put it to work


How to make root volume writeable again in Catalina? After the installation of Catalina all User created folders from root are moved into a separate folder and the root folder is made readonly, containing only system default folders.

How is it possible to undo this and to make the root folder writeable again?

You can create a symbolic in root directory via synthetic.conf, as an example see below the creation of a symbolic link named bar at /, which points to System/Volumes/Data/bar, a writeable location at the root of the data volume.

echo -e 'bar\tSystem/Volumes/Data/bar' | sudo tee -a /etc/synthetic.conf

After executing the command above, you need to reboot to see effects.

SEE ALSO

man synthetic.conf


Does the new "Siri Page," on iOS 9, work with the iPhone 4s? I have an iPhone 4s which has the new iOS 9 downloaded on to it. The only problem is, is that the left most page, the one with predictive Siri, is not present. Is there some setting that is off, or is that feature just not available for the 4s?

Sorry, that feature is only present on iPhone 5 and later.


Mix two audio tracks - stretch one to sync with other I have two music tracks of the exact same music (I have rights to it) but each is incomplete.  One is missing the start, the other is missing the end.

Both were recorded from the same source, except due to inconsistencies with the recording hardware at the time, one was recorded just slightly faster than the other and so the overlapping parts are at slightly different speeds and pitches - otherwise they are identical.

I want to merge them together, effectively overlap them, into one complete version of the song, but need to adjust the speed and pitch of one to match the other.  (Then I can simply line up the overlapping parts and fade one in and the other out to get the result - good enough).

Of course, computers can adjust pitch and speed independently by applying clever algorithms, etc. (although sometimes this results in some quality loss) - unlike say speeding up or slowing down an analog tape or record player where changing the speed changes the pitch as well. This "non-clever" analog-type outcome is fine - in fact preferred (to avoid that potential quality loss) - because knowing that the original source for both tracks is the same, getting the speed right this way should get the pitch right anyway, and vice versa.

What app, if any, on Mac can help me achieve this (stretch/shrink an entire track uniformly, both pitch and speed, to sync with another), and what functionality or steps or whatever do I need to understand to do it?

I've tried GarageBand, but if that can do it, I can't figure out how. I'm probably missing something.  Or perhaps GB isn't the app for this...?  Perhaps Logic Pro can do this, but this project isn't worth the cost of that app, and surely some free or inexpensive app can do just this (simple?) task?

Any advice/direction/help most welcome. Thanks!

I suggest you try Audacity, which has very powerful audio editing tools, including the duration stretch/compress and pitch change functions. I've used it many times for a variety of audio tasks over the past 10 years or so. I cannot recommend it more highly. Catalina is not currently supported, however.

If you need to save to .mp3 and other formats, you will need the FFmpeg library (links on download page) for these functions.


Connect Windows 7 Laptop to Mac mini I have a Mac mini and a Windows 7 laptop.  I want to control the Mac mini through my Windows laptop.  Is there any solution in a way that I don't have to hook up the Mac with a monitor, keyboard, and mouse every time I want to connect?

I have a similar scenario in that I need to access a Linux system on my LAN from my MacBook Pro, so I use the free version of NoMachine. It's available for Windows, Linux and OS X.

You first have to hook up a monitor, keyboard, and mouse to get NoMachine installed and configured on the Mac and then connect at least once from the Windows system.  You could then shutdown the Mac mini, unplug monitor, keyboard, and mouse and then restart the Mac mini.  I'm assuming you also have it set to auto login.

It would need to be installed on both the Windows and Mac systems.


set custom file extension to open with specified program I want to have all files with an extension of .fw.png to open in Fireworks (not necessarily .png files though).

Is there a way to do this in Terminal?

No. OS X file types ignore strings before the final .

You could rename all files x.fw.png to x.fw_png and then map that file type to FireWorks using many existing answers here but totally reprogramming how the OS parses for file extensions would be a hard nut to crack.


mounting NFS v4 results in "Invalid argument" I recently bought a Synology NAS. I can mount via SMB and APS properly, but I can't make hard links. So I looked around and tried to use NFS. NFS ver3 does work, but Finder behaves strangely for some folders as if that folder can't be retrieved or the drive has freezed, but in terminal everything worked fine (note: using ffplay to play the file in the folder succeeded, but 'open' says that there are no such file). Then I realize that I can mount using NFS ver 4.1 as the NAS supports it. But then I run into this issue. The command I use to mount it is as follows:

nfsver 3:
mkdir /Volumes/File
mount_nfs -o rwsize=32768 -o locallocks -o namedattr -o noac -o rdirplus -o nfsv3 jin.local:volume1/File/ /Volumes/File

Output: mount_nfs: option nfsv3 deprecated, use vers=#

nfsver 4:
mkdir /Volumes/File
mount_nfs -o rwsize=32768 -o locallocks -o namedattr -o noac -o rdirplus -o nfsv4 jin.local:volume1/File/ /Volumes/File

Output: mount_nfs: option nfsv4 deprecated, use vers=#
mount_nfs: can't mount volume1/File/ from jin.local onto /Volumes/File: Invalid argument

You are trying to use:

  mount_nfs -o rwsize=32768 -o locallocks -o namedattr -o noac -o
  rdirplus -o nfsv3 jin.local:volume1/File/ /Volumes/File

Instead try:

  mount_nfs -vers=4  -o rwsize=32768 -o locallocks -o namedattr -o noac
  -o rdirplus jin.local:volume1/File/ /Volumes/File

or

  mount_nfs -vers=4,rwsize=32768,locallocks,namedattr,noac,rdirplus
  jin.local:volume1/File/ /Volumes/File


"New Item" in Finder's right-click menu In Windows when you're in File Explorer, you can right-click anywhere and create a new item of various types (there's then a submenu option to select which type: text file, ZIP file, etc., just to name a few). In Finder there seems to be no such option. I imagine the expected workflow on Mac would be to open an Application and create a new file from within the application, then save it. But I sometimes prefer this alternative workflow of creating a blank file first, and then opening it as the entrypoint into the application.

Is there some way to configure Finder to add a right-click option to create new, empty files?

1 - Create anywhere on your computer a Source folder with the files you want to use:

2 - Open Automator and create a new service:

3 - Set the Service to receive a folder in Finder as input:

4 - Drag a "Set Value of Variable" action to the workflow:

5 - Save a new variable "Storage":

6 - Now that we have the target location lets clear the memory placing an Applescript action using this code:

tell application "System Events"
    set the clipboard to {}
end tell

7 - Get the file you created using a "Get Specific Finder Item" action:

8 - Copy to the new folder using a "Copy Finder Item" action and dragging the Storage variable from the bottom:

9 - Save your workflow:

10 - Usage - select the folder you want, right click and find your service:

11 - Repeat the process for the zip file or other files you want.

Edit: if you know how to Applescript and want to improve further, you can use a dialog box to choose between several filetypes and build a single service, using a "choose from" command like this:

set fileType to (choose from list {"txt", "zip", "etc"} with prompt "Choose File")


Safari on iOS 11.1.2 is using the wrong email address If I go to a site where I am purchasing something and I click on Autofill, I’m presented with a pop up that has the following options:

Custom
Home
Work
Customize
Other Contact
Cancel

If I select home, it uses my work email.  If I use work, it uses no email.  If I click Customize and then click email, it shows several email addresses and the word “home” is next to my work email address.  I can click any of the listed email addresses to “check” it as the default.

How do I fix it so that my “home” email address is my personal email.  How do I fix it so that work uses my work email?

You can go to Contacts > find your name and click on it > click Edit > and you will see that you can choose which email you want to be your personal, work etc.


Java Applets refuse to work in Safari or Firefox Mac OS X 10.7.5
Safari 6.0.2
Firefox 18.0.1
Java 1.6.0_37 64 bit
Firefox Java Applet Plugin v 1.6.0.37

Safari Preferences has the "Enable Java" box checked. Firefox has the Java Applet Plug-in installed and enabled. I don't understand why Java Applets refuse to work in either browser.

What do I need to do get to them running?

Read this on Apple Insider. You probably don't have a Applet plugin installed on your system.


ReportPanic on OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 I run OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 on a first generation 27" iMac.
Over night the computer apparently crashed.

All applications I had open had gotten all jumbled in the restart so I pressed the F3 to see every thing and saw the following pop-up message:

I've seen these kind of messages before, but I had never seen them labeled as "ReportPanic".

Can someone explain what this is and what it means?  The label gives me pause.  Is this a real OS X message or a possible hack?

ReportPanic is the name of the application that saves your data and handles crashing. It is a normal OS X application.


Any way to make swipe up and down work consecutively? In Mountain Lion I could swipe up with three fingers to see all windows and then swipe down without lifting my fingers to go back to the normal screen.

From Mavericks, that does not work. I have to lift my fingers and then swipe down to go back to the normal screen. This takes more time and inconvenient.

Is there any way to make it work as was in the Mountain Lion?

Try the F3 button (for Exposé). Maybe you'd like the experience better. Now it is two key presses instead of needing to lift your fingers off the trackpad/ keyboard.


Install Snow Leopard without Leopard I have a MacBook, which was running Leopard.

It got corrupted, and even I want to upgrade to Snow Leopard.
So I purchased Snow Leopard Retail Box.

Now, I want to install Snow Leopard, but I cannot start Leopard.
How can I perform clean install of Snow Leopard, without needing Leopard.

Videos Links are welcomed too.

Insert the Snow Leopard DVD into your DVD drive. Reboot the computer and hold down the Option key (newer keyboard call it "Alt"). After a few seconds, the screen will show your hard drive(s) and the DVD. Select the DVD, this will start the Installer.

If your previous installation of Leopard was corrupted by a failing hard drive, you will not be able to install Snow Leopard though (the Installer won't let you). In that case you must first replace the drive.


Can't fix an user account in Mavericks (frozen) My regular user account on my Macbook Pro running Mavericks froze and I had to shut down the computer with the power button, but every time I restart the computer and login my user account it freezes and doesn't respond to any command. It stays with the spinning beachball and does not respond to any menu (not even force quit).
I have already tried safe boot, restart in recovery mode, checked the hard disk and permissions with disk utility and still have the same problem: can't use any programme on my user account. When logging with other user account the computer seems to work fine. Any thoughts on how to fix it? I need it fixed asap!!

First step I would recommend is to restore the users account permissions also called ACL's. The ACL's get messed up sometimes leading to kind of problems you are having.

To do that use the following steps:

Hold Command-R during restart.
Select Terminal and run resetpassword.
Select the account in question.
Do not reset the password.

Instead click on the Reset Home Folder Permissions and ACLs at the bottom right.


Keyboard Viewer via keyboard shortcut wont actually quit after closing it I managed to add a shortcut for keyboard viewer via BetterTouchTool. However, once I run Keyboard Viewer and close via the red X button, I cannot re-open it again via a shortcut. So I checked activity monitor and realised that it is actually still there, although I quit the application !

I tried displaying the keyboard viewer via the language selection button on the menu bar and then pressing Show Keyboard Viewer, the keyboard viewer opens every time. Also, I can re-open the application after closing it via a keyboard shortcut ONLY WHEN I open the viewer via the menu button or settings.

Why does the application not quit properly when assigned to a keyboard shortcut ?
Is there a way to force a specific app to force quit after some idle time ?

rMBP Mountain Lion OSX 10.8

open -a and launch seem to keep it open as well. But if you show the keyboard viewer from the input menu and close the window, the process is quit immediately. So one workaround might be to emulate clicking the menu item:

tell application "System Events" to tell process "SystemUIServer"
    tell (menu bar item 1 where description is "text input") of menu bar 1
        click
        click menu item "Show Keyboard Viewer" of menu 1
    end tell
end tell

  Also, I can re-open the application after closing it via a keyboard shortcut ONLY WHEN I open the viewer via the menu button or settings.

If all windows have been closed, activate doesn't usually open a new default window. reopen would do that, but it doesn't seem to work with KeyboardViewer.


Macbook Pro Touch Bar 15 inch 2018 ssd Upgrade Can i upgrade macbook pro (2018) ssd drive with a new one? When i google it, i found Samsung 970 Evo m.2 "NVMe" 1 tb may be supported. NVMe interface is required by macbook pro but is it enough?

It is not possible for ordinary users to replace the SSD in the 2018 MacBook Pro. You'll need specialized equipment and training in order to be able to replace the flash storage that is soldered directly on to the main board.

You can upgrade your storage by adding extra storage, such as for example a USB-C or Thunderbolt 3 connected external drive.


iOS Face ID validation invoked when browsing in Safari Update: The issue appears to have been resolved after upgrading to iOS 11.3. It was observed in iOS 11.2.

When browsing the Web on my iPhone X with Safari, when ever I go to one particular site I occasionally see what appears to be a Face ID validation scan being reported. For e.g., when I land on the website, I see the Face ID overlay superimposed with a spinning and rotating circle, and after a short time the Face ID happy face icon (the one which appears upon successful validation). It disappears a few moments later.

I have occasionally observed this on Slashdot website. It appears every time Safari is relaunched and the aforementioned site is opened. I have not seen this happening on any of the other websites that I browse on my iPhone. However, as I only regularly browse a handful of websites on my iPhone, there may be some reporting bias here.

I don't think this is an HTTPS issue as all the major websites that I visit run over HTTPS.

So, what is special about Slashdot and Face ID? Or is it something set up by Slashdot?

Face ID should only ask for verification in Safari when using Autofill to fill in a username/password.
I attempted to duplicate your issue myself with both Safari and Google Chrome, but received no such prompt for verification.
Do you have an account on this website?
If so, perhaps there is a login box somewhere on the website's home page that Autofill is attempting to fill.
If not, it may be a bug with the website, Safari, or your OS.
If it is a website bug, requesting the desktop version of the website and seeing if you are still promoted for Face ID could be a good test of that.
If all else fails and it annoys you too much, contact Apple.


Sync my husband's Exchange with my iPhone 7 plus I am trying to get my husband's exchange calendar synced with my iphone 7Plus.  Can someone please explain the steps to accomplish this? The tech people can't seem to figure it out, either.

You add it just like you would an email account. you will need his email address, password and possibly the active directory domain name depending on that version of Exchange they have.

Tap settings, scroll down and tap Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
Tap Add Account...
Tap Microsoft Exchange
Enter the mail address and the password and tap next
If everything is copacetic you'll get green checkmarks and then the screen to choose what parts of the account you want to add.

In your case turn off everything except Calendars and tap save.

Some versions of iOS and Exchange will REPLACE the current contents of your calendar for it's own information. So you may want to back up your calendar on your Mac before you do this, just in case.

Or you could use the free iOS Outlook client. I use it for my work email, it's a good client and helps to keep my work and personal info separate.


All applications got paused after disk space usage got near 99% and back to normal. What's next? Mac does some pretty fancy background stuff to try and keep enough disk space for whatever it needs. In my case, 512 gb ssd, it needs to have at least 20gb free to run smoothly, so I usually have 40. If it goes less than 1gb for whatever reason (and boy, it isn't that hard to happen), all apps get suddenly paused without a warning and even if I immediately free up space, all apps get into a weird paused state for ever. This is the second time it happened (because I keep on constant manual monitoring with CMD + F3) and first time I gave up on finding a simple and good resolution (the first time it ended up rebooting after some update after some days, and I even forgot I hadn't gave up on improving this question, among so many others)

So, one simple solution is rebooting. But then you can lose whatever you were working on. No good.

Another better solution is going to terminal and typing killall -CONT -c "app name" for each app and service. Nothing simple here and good luck finding them all with ps, activity monitor, Force Quit Applications (FQA) window list or whatever. Even if you do find 'em, this can't take less than a couple minutes for most heavy users.

Also, for whatever reason, some apps will continue to be listed as paused (on the FQA window) even if they seem to be running fine. Continuing the "odd enough" route of what status is this, there's a GUI'ed app for pausing and unpausing apps that won't even see them as being paused. Even if you go ahead and pause them to later unpause, they never get back.

Finally, I was looking for ways to write a script which would find the paused apps and kill -CONT them back again, but couldn't get such list in any way. launchctl or ps won't bring the "paused" or sometimes "not responding"-but-still-paused status.

I do remember unfortunately closing a window that did show up when the applications were first paused by the system which was very similar to the FQA window and did bring an extra button to unpause apps, but now I've got no clue what was its name or how to find it / trigger it again.

That's all I've got right now, and I'm almost giving up for good on this. Maybe the only good and simple solution is mixing up what I've got:

  Unpause the important apps, save stuff and reboot.

Any better idea?

To un-pause those paused/not responding applications after you free up some space, try to run this command:

pkill -CONT -u $UID

or (as suggested here):

kill -CONT -1

If this happens very often, consider adding the following alias into your shell rc file, e.g.:

alias unpause="pkill -CONT -u $UID"


How to remove windows partition without having to erase the other one? I have an imac late 2013 with a fusion drive. I've created a windows 10 partition and I'd like to delete it. I tried with bootcamp and disk utility but as you've probably heard before, it came up with that error  "the full size of the fusion drive is not available for partitioning".

I know that there are a lot of "solutions" out there but I couldn't find one that did not include to erase everything. I just want to erase the windows partition without having to erase the "macintosh hd" one.

Is there a genius out there who can help me ?

I had this same issue about 2 years ago and had to take it in to Apple to have mine fixed. The long and short of it is that your computers HD is really locked up and without the help of the Genius Bar it wont get fixed on your own. They had to work their magic for 5 days before they got it back to normal. Good luck.


Software Update doesn't show available updates OS X 10.8.4 (although this started in 10.8.3). When running Software Update GUI (that switches to App Store), it shows no updates, although some are available (e.g. Java when this was posted originally, or Security Update or Airport Utility later). Running

softwareupdate --list

returns

Software Update found the following new or updated software:
       * JavaForOSX-1.0
        Java for OS X 2013-004 (1.0), 65205K [recommended]

and then

sudo softwareupdate --install JavaForOSX-1.0

installs the update.

I tried cleaning the Software Update cache, it didn't help.

Any ideas what may be going on and how to fix it?

Edit: the same problem with Security Update 2013-03and currently with a new update that is available -- Airport Utility.

This sometimes helps me when I know that there is an update: Cmd-R. Since the iTunes/iBooks/Mac App Store are all web-based, it forces a refresh.

Your problem sounds more systemic than this, but it’s a quick thing to check (especially for those Java OS X update which hide from me sometimes).


After my MacBook Pro sleeps some gestures don't work anymore When I wake my MacBook Pro (mid 2012 - with Mountain Lion) from sleep, sometimes some complicated gesture doesn't work anymore with the Trackpad or Magic Mouse.

Changing screens (with 4 fingers with trackpad or with 2 fingers with the mouse), getting Mission Control with 4 fingers, dragging windows with 3 fingers: they all don't work.

Clicks, taps, two fingers gestures still work though.

I have tried to change the configuration of the trackpad but it doesn't work.

Changing screen with Ctrl + Left Arrow or Right Arrow still work too.

What can I do to restart these features without restarting the computer (when I restart of course it works again like a charm)?

A workaround is to bring up Terminal and then type "killall Dock" at the prompt which restarts the dock. This fixes the problem. It’s odd that Apple have failed to pick up this bug at the last update. It seems to be pretty commonplace.


Where does Google Drive File Stream store offline files and folders on a Mac? I use Google Drive File Stream for work, and there are certain mission-critical files that I need available for offline access.  File Stream makes this easy: control-click on the file, and choose "Available Offline".  Great!
But where are these files stored?  With the "old" Google Drive (now "Backup & Sync") there was a Google Drive folder at the top of my user directory; this folder was always available, whether Backup & Sync was running or not, and Time Machine would back it up for me (if I wanted it to).  With File Stream, I have no idea where those files are -- when the program is not running the "Google Drive" volume unmounts from my system, and the files appear to be completely inaccessible; moreover I don't think Time Machine backs them up.
Where is File Stream storing these offline files?  Is there a way to back them up, or to access them when the program is not running?
Just for clarity’s sake: I am interested in the answers to these questions on MacOS, specifically in Catalina, if that makes a difference.

By default, Google Drive for desktop (formerly known as Google Drive File Stream) stores cached files in ~/Library/Application Support/Google/DriveFS/$account_id/content_cache, where $account_id is the numeric ID of your google account. The files aren't encrypted or anything, but they don't have any metadata (or even their original filenames) so I don't think you'll find them terribly useful. The metadata seems to be stored in various SQLite databases in in the $account_id folder. In an emergency an expert might be able to reconstruct the original file names and folder structure.
If you want a full backup of your Google Drive, you can try backing up the Google Drive volume itself (/Volumes/GoogleDrive), while Google Drive for desktop is running.


possible to drive two external mointors with mid-2013 new macbook air? Is it possible to use a thunderbolt -> hdmi and usb -> hdmi adapter to drive two external monitors (non-thunderbolt) with the new macbook air? If not, has anyone had success with any other options?

Have a look here: Air powers three monitors.

It looks like it could be possible. I'm not sure about the HDMI adapting method though. I do not know of anyone doing that yet.


What's causing iTunes to randomly display a 4002 error? Once every day or two, iTunes seemingly randomly displays a 4002 error:

This is particularly puzzling to me, as the majority of the time (if not always) iTunes is in the background, and has been for a while. What exactly does the error signify, and how can I fix it?

I got rid of this pesky error by

turning iTunes Match off
quit iTunes
launch iTunes
turn iTunes Match on

The first time iTunes complained with error 5002 during Match startup, but then it worked.


Best document / book for Mac hardware? stackexchange.com

I am asking here for the sake of completeness. I've had fun asking this on various sites, each time having it closed, following peoples' recommendations, having it closed... It's been closed on StackOverflow, closed on SuperUser, closed on programers.stackexchange... perhaps it's found its spiritual home here?

I'm reading 'Mac OS X Internals' but it was published in 2007. It has an extensive section on Mac hardware (table of contents for Chapter 3) and I want to read it all ... except it's for PowerPC not Intel architecture and I would probably be wasting my time.

How much of the chapter is still relevant?
What's the best place to gain the equivalent knowledge about the Intel architecture? I basically want an Intel equivalent of that chapter.

I don't want to actually do any hardware tinkering, I just want a solid understanding of the hardware as a programmer.

I'm sorry that you've had such a difficult time asking this question on Stack Exchange. I haven't been able to find a better/more up-to-date book, but most of Mac OS X is CPU architecture-independent anyway, and the book you're reading does contain an appendix that discusses Mac OS X on x86 hardware and the corresponding similarities and differences between PowerPC hardware:

  Appendix A, "Mac OS X on x86-Based Macintosh Computers," highlights the key differences between the x86-based and PowerPC-based versions of Mac OS X. Besides this appendix, the book covers the details of several key x86-specific topics, such as EFI, GUID-based partitioning, and Universal Binaries. Most of Mac OS X is architecture-independent, and consequently, the majority of the book is architecture-independent.


Adding song to iTunes Playlist stuck on "in progress" or error 11.444 So, I'm trying to make a playlist for a party this weekend, and it's horrible. iTunes more often than not shows "in progress" when adding one single song (this shouldn't take longer than 1 second, I recon) and finally, it will just show a ! with "Due to error 11.444".

I can't find anything about this error, and I have quite some songs left to add, so I'm hoping to find a solution here.

Edit: The same seems to sometimes happen whenever I restart iTunes after I can't successfully add a song, but then with "Making your iCloud music library available"

Edit 2: Sometimes it also goes as expected for at least a few songs, only to result in the same "processing" and then ! again.

Here are some screenshots, where I tried to add 2 whole songs to the playlist:

Heb jij al een oplossing gevonden? Ik heb precies hetzelfde probleem en kom er ook niet uit. Fijne zondag en hartelijke groet, Dees


Can Apple Watch Series 2 control Homekit devices with Siri? Can the New Apple Watch 2 control Homekit enabled devices like the Philips Hue with Siri voice commands like the iPhone can?

I'm thinking of buying an Apple Watch and I need to know whether or not I can control my Hue bulbs with Siri right from the Watch.

Yes, even W original can!
Check this video https://youtu.be/pyQuP5MKsUs @4.05


How do I connect the location of a calendar event with the iPad maps app? I would like to be able to either navigate from a calendar event to its location within maps, or view all upcoming events on a map. Preferably, both.

How do I connect the location of a calendar event with the iPad maps app?

Sadly, (as of iOS 4), this cannot be done. The location field of an event does not recognise an address, no matter how perfectly you enter it.

[UPDATE] In iOS 5, the location field in any calendar event will (if properly formatted) hyperlink to the Maps app.


Magsafe "L" light takes few seconds before turning off after being unplugged I've bought the 85w Apple adapter from Amazon warehouse (used). It works fine but when I unplug it, the orange light stays on for few more seconds before turning off, while the old adapter turns off instantly. It only happens if i leave it plugged for few mins. I also tested it on another MBP and it does the same.
Is it faulty/should I return it?
thank you

It's nothing more than capacitor discharge.

The larger the capacitance, the longer it takes to dissipate once the power source is removed.

It's a power smoothing feature, not just in laptop chargers but many other electrical items.
Without it, small power fluctuations in the mains would cause computer glitches or crashes - or in simpler structures like LED lighting, flickering.


How to deep link to Notes app? With other apps, like twitter, for example, you could simply use twitter://xxxxx to link to it, but how do you do the same with the Notes app?

Thanks

The URL scheme for the Notes app is mobilenotes://

Source:

https://ios.gadgethacks.com/news/always-updated-list-ios-app-url-scheme-names-0184033/


Using 2010 21" iMac as second display I have a 15" Macbook Pro, late 2010, and a 21" iMac, late 2009. Can I link the iMac and use it with the Macbook Pro as a second display?

A friend may give me his desktop to use as a display. Believe it's a Dell. Would I be able to link that to either/both?

Both computers are running Mavericks.

Thanks,
Shayna

Yes, since OS X 10.9 Mavericks there is a function called Target Display Mode or short TDM. In short: this is a manner to use your iMac as screen for another Mac, not for PC's. You can connect your mac by miniDisplayport or Thunderbolt cables.

Unfortunately you need an 27-inch iMac Late 2009 or Mid 2010 to use mini display port, or an iMac-21 inch mid 2011 or iMac 27-inch Mid 2011 to use Thunderbolt.

All the requirements can be found here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3924

You surely can use a Dell screen, if you've got a minidisplayport or thunderbolt port, then you can buy a minidisplayport to HDMI/VGA/DVI... Best way is to check out which connections you've got on your iMac and then search for an transformer. (You just can use an minidisplay cable in an thunderbolt port). A workaround could be an USB display adapter, but those don't have the best preformance...

Good luck!


Is Apple ID still considered as linked with my MacBook if I totally reinstall my Mackbook but use another Apple ID? For example, suppose I don't unlink my Mackbook in Apple ID, but I totally reinstall my MacBook and start using with another Apple ID. My question is, is my Apple ID considered as linked with that MacBook? Or in other words, does Apple ID link to the hardware serial Id?

As far as the Mac is concerned, yes. So that purchased software, iCloud syncing, etc. will no longer be associated (or available to) you on that Mac under that old AppleID.

But you will still need to log into that particular iCloud account and go to settings and then My Devices and remove that device there as well.


LaCie Rugged Safe Firewire Write Speed / Faster from a windows virtual machine? I just bought a LaCie Rugged Safe Hard drive, and I am a bit disappointed by the sustained write speed that I measured.

Here is what I see  :

sustained read speed : about 55MB/s
sustained write speed about 12MB/s if the disk is formatted with HFS/journaled
sustained write speed about 20MB/s if the disk is formatted with HFS/Not journaled
sustained write speed about 55MB/s if the disk is formatted with HFS/Not journaled, but I write to it through a Parallels Desktop virtual machine !!!

Does anyone have a clue on a possible reason why the sustained write speed would be faster from a virtual machine?

Also, does anyone what I should do to have the same write speed from Mac OS?

Technical info

I do not need to connect the disk as a Virtual Machine device, I need only to access it as a disk that is shared by the host OS
The disk is connected via a firewire 800 cable
It is the most recent LaCie Rugged Safe 1Go drive
Here is the output of a mount command

$mount
/dev/disk2s2 on /Volumes/LaCie-Rugged (hfs, local, nodev, nosuid, noowners)

I would be wary of accepting any sustained write speed test results from inside a VM as fact. Most VM architectures execute clever caching and other algorithms when writing to virtual disks. Try running the "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1024k" command from inside an empty Linux VM against a large virtual disk to see exactly what I mean (speeds far higher than your physical storage).

How are you testing the firewire drive from within the VM? Is the drive being passed through to the VM as a firewire device in Windows or as some other device/drive?

More details would be very much appreciated.


Big Sur - unresponsive dialogs to mouse actions Sometimes at the beginning of 2021, I started to have a problem with the "File upload" dialogs in the web browser. The dialog is unresponsive to the mouse. I can use the keyboard for navigation, but the Tab key only switches between the left panel and the "Search" field and I'm unable to focus the main area with files. Thus I'm unable to select a file, but I can escape that dialog with Esc and, as this regards also "Save as" dialogs, I'm able to select some directory in left panel's "Favorites" and confirm with Enter.
As time passes, I realized, that this problem applies to almost all native dialogs. I'm currently unable to open e.g. Pages or TextEdit, as it starts with the "File open" dialog, which I'm unable to handle.
And yesterday, I needed to tweak some configuration in "Security & Privacy" in "System Preferences" and I realized it has the same symptoms. I can click on the top navigation panel and return back to the "System Preferences" main screen, but I'm unable to click on anything in the "Security & Privacy" main section. The keyboard navigation works, but, again, the Tab key only switches between the left list and the "Search" field, and I'm unable to click on "Click the lock to make changes" so, it's all helpless.
I Googled for similar issues, but so far found nothing heplful.
Does anyone have some idea where to look, what to try?

So I tested it in the "Safe mode" and no problem. After I restarted to normal mode, the problem is also gone ♂
Strange, I know I have quite a long uptime, but I installed an update to macOS 11.2.2 last week and the problem survived the installation of the update and restart.
Hope it will never return


Messages to another iphone sometimes green, sometimes green with 'sent as text message' I'm texting another iphone and think she has her imessage turned off and most of the time hasn't got wifi or data.

I have imessage turned on as well as wifi/data. Some of my texts that go through to her, are just green. However, others are green but with 'imessage' text above and then 'sent as text message' below. Why is this? Does this only happen when the recipient has wifi but also has their imessage turned off?

Thanks

'Send as test message' will appear when :

The other person is able to received an iMessage by a network connection but she turned off the feature.
When you want to send an in iMessage and the other person is able to received it, but you haven't a network connection.


Can upgrade to Mavericks harm Bootcamp NTFS data partition? I consider to upgrade from Mountain Lion to Mavericks. I have two Bootcamp Windows 7 partitions, one for boot & system, another for documents and data. Both Windows partitions are NTFS. OS X recovery partition was manually removed prior to installing Bootcamp/Windows.

Any risk that upgrade will break either of my Windows partitions? How to minimize the risk? It definitely happened last time I upgraded from Snow Leopard (or Lion?) to Mountain Lion.

One post suggests that it happens with any OS X upgrade, though I'm not sure it applies to my situation.

Update: Tried running upgrade, got this message: "Install Failed: OS X could not be installed on your computer. OS X can't be installed on the disk because a recovery system can't be created. Visit www.apple.com/support/no-recovery to learn more" which links to another support article (which is surprisingly for Lion) suggesting to manually shrink the OS X partition which will allow space for creating recovery partition. The question is still the same: will it hurt either of my Windows NTFS partitions?

This is how my partitions look on OS X side:

Usually OS X backups don't mess with the partitions, except for when they create a recovery partition. And since your recover partition has been (manually?) removed, OS X will probably try to add it again.

If you do the upgrade, definitively back up all your stuff (on the windows side as well!).

If you want to play it really safe:
1 - get an external (usb) drive
2 - copy your mac-partition to that drive (via disk utility or any other cloning software)
3 - boot from the external (usb) drive and run the update there
4 - clone the partition back form the external onto your internal drive


How to Launch Multiple Applications Together? I was wondering if there was an easy way to launch a specific Application whenever another Application is launched.  In other words, I want to launch multiple Applications together as a group.

To be more specific, I have  small app that downloads lyrics for the currently playing iTunes track, and another that writes the currently playing track to a file.  The problem is, I often forget to launch these apps when I start iTunes.  I would like them to open every time I open iTunes.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Save a plist like this as ~/Library/LaunchAgents/some.label.plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>some.label</string>
  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
    <string>bash</string>
    <string>-c</string>
    <string>if pgrep -x iTunes;then open -jga Some\ Application;open -jga Another\ Application;fi</string>
  </array>
  <key>WatchPaths</key>
  <string>~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iTunes.plist</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Then run launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/some.label.plist.

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iTunes.plist seems to be modified every time iTunes is opened. The program will be run every time ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iTunes.plist is modified (and there's at least 10 seconds from the last run), but it's probably better than running the program for example every 5 seconds.

For most applications, open -jg opens the application hidden and without making it frontmost. For some applications like TextEdit, it opens a new visible window if the application is open but has no windows, but you can use pgrep -x TextEdit||open -jga TextEdit or lsappinfo launch nofront=true launchandhide=true /Applications/TextEdit.app instead.


How to watch an iPhone rental on a Mac? I foolishly forgot that renting a movie on an iPhone meant you had to watch it on that phone.

Is there anyway to just watch it on a Mac (which is authorised on the same Apple ID)? Not neccessarily to transfer it?

I have airserver app on my Mac, but when I try AirPlaying it to the Mac, it opens a window that looks like QuickTime (but isn't), and says Can't play Content not authorized.

Or is it possible to delete it from my phone and redownload it on my Mac without paying again?

Do not delete the download or you will lose the rental.

The only method for transferring rentals is between two devices is when you start by renting it from a computer. This is detailed at the end of a quite large knowledge base article under the section worded Can I play my rental on more than one device?.

  If you download a rented movie on your iPhone 4 or later, iPad, iPod
  touch (4th generation or later), or Apple TV: It is not transferable
  to any other device or computer.

You can get help from Apple to accomplish this move if you are not certain if your software is the correct version or are having difficulties with your account. They might issue a one time refund, but this isn't intended to be something you can regularly do. If you have a TV and an Apple TV, your best alternative might be to AirPlay the movie, but on Lion, you will need third party software like AirServer to get video and music from your iOS device (your phone in this case) to play on the mac. Please research this option well (especially the returns policy before buying), since it says it plays videos and it may not work with protected content like a movie rental.


After updating to Lion, can't re-install Snow Leopard or Lion Here is my situation: I have a 2010 iMac that came with a Snow Leopard disc, which I installed. Then, when Lion was released, I upgraded to it. However, yesterday, I had to erase my entire HDD (because of a permanent kernel panic due to the removal of some vital OS stuff).

The problem is that now I can't install Snow Leopard again (so that I may upgrade to Lion) or install Lion without downloading it (my connection is VERY slow, it would take over a week possibly). I tried using the Snow Leopard disc, which I confirmed to work on a Windows machine, to install it. However, it just ejects the disc on my Mac, going to the new Lion thing after boot (where you can install it by downloading from Apple's servers). It does the same with a Lion disc that I burned myself. Holding C won't help, and the discs won't appear on the option boot screen.

What should I do? Is there any way to revert the firmware back to pre-Lion, so that I may install Snow Leopard and then upgrade?

Note: I only have a Windows machine working, not another Mac.

Firmware shouldn't have anything to do with it. I was able to install SL while I had Lion on. Maybe there is some problem with your disk drive on Mac?

I haven't tried it but you might be able to use the disc from a network device but you will have to find more info on it. Also you might be able to revert the system sometime back using Time Machine. Have you looked into that?


What's the racoon doing in my apple? I'm not normally one for paraniodly checking my activity monitor for rogue processes; but this one just has my internal nature-watcher all curious. Why is there a racoon running under my root user? What's it doing? Foraging? Looking for nuts and berries? Staring at headlights?

From Apple's documentation:

  racoon speaks the IKE (ISAKMP/Oakley) key management protocol, to establish security associations with
  other hosts.  The SPD (Security Policy Database) in the kernel usually triggers racoon.  racoon usually
  sends all informational messages, warnings and error messages to syslogd(8) with the facility
  LOG_DAEMON and the priority LOG_INFO.  Debugging messages are sent with the priority LOG_DEBUG.  You
  should configure syslog.conf(5) appropriately to see these messages.


Get notifications for high CPU usage My new laptop has an M1 chip and no fan, and this is great, but it also makes it hard for me to find out when the CPU has been running high (and consuming more battery than usual).
How can I make it show notifications whenever the CPU has been running high for a while?

I use iStat Menus.  This is the best paid app for showing, via the menubar, how your Mac is performing.  In addition it also can send notifications for a number of performance related events - and that includes high CPU.
Here is the preference screen for setting alerts:

You can download iStat Menus for free and use it for 14 days before deciding whether to pay.


Change keyboard shortcut for hard refresh in Google Chrome for macOS I'm used to using F5 to refresh a webpage in browser. On  Mac, I found a way to change the keyboard shortcut for refreshing. Under System Preferences → Keyboard → Shortcuts → App Shortcuts, I added Google Chrome.app with the Menu Title set to Reload This Page and the Keyboard Shortcut set to F5.

This all went very well, however I would also like to be able to do a hard reload by using Control + F5. I have googled for ages but unable to find a working Menu Title for hard refresh.

Does anyone know how to change the keyboard shortcut for a hard reload, or what the Menu Title for it is?

The Menu Title for hard reload in Google Chrome for macOS is Force Reload This Page with the default keyboard shortcut set to: Shift + Command + r. The Menu Title is revealed when the said key combination are depressed or when you search for matching title under Google Chrome Menu → Help → Search. (as user will not be initially aware of the shortcut.)

Menu Title revealed on key depression:

Menu Title revealed on searching:

When setting the keyboard shortcut, set Menu Title as: Force Reload This Page and register Control + F5 as the intended keyboard shortcut.

Reload This Page:

Force Reload This Page:

Keyboard shortcuts after assignment:


OS-level virtualization (containers) for OS X I wonder why, apart from good old chroot, no implementation of operating system-level virtualization (or containers if you prefer) exists for Mac OS X.

Could it be due to kernel limitations or license restrictions? Or simply no one has yet launched a similar project?

A key element required for containerization is isolation of networking and other services, but not just isolation but also virtualization.  FreeBSD Jails, Linux "containers" (or more correctly "namespaces"), and Solaris/illumos zones all offer some degree of "virtualization" of these operating system system services.

By virtualization, this means that these servers are available (or potentially available) to things inside the "container", but in a way that protects the other things on the same host outside the container.  (For example, a container may have its own TCP/IP stack, with its own IP address, ARP cache, etc.)

OS (operating system) virtualization is how we generally refer to this type of "light-weight" virtualization, where processes think they see a virtual kernel, but are all sharing the same real kernel under the hood; that kernel acts as a sort of hypervisor in ensuring that container/virtualization boundaries are not crossed.  (Put another way, the OS services are virtualized.)  Compare this to hardware virtualization, where what is virtualized is the hardware -- e.g. devices are emulated in software and presented to an operating system running in the container.  This is very powerful, but quite resource intensive -- each virtual machine must have its own copy of the operating system.

Recent macOS has native hypervisor support via Hypervisor.framework which allows software like "XHyve" [A port of FreeBSD’s BHyve] (docker on macOS uses this), but lacks the necessary services under the hood to fully virtualize operating system services.

In truth, a lot of what is needed is probably already present, since the work to provide sandboxes means that there are already logical points where system calls are intercepted and handled differently for different applications.  However, that's far from the complete story -- implementing true separate network, IPC, and other namespaces is quite a lot of work.

The best reason for why Apple has not done this is likely the same reason that Apple has not released a platform suitable for running macOS in the data center for many years -- lack of market demand, or perceived lack of market demand by Apple leadership.  The desktop and mobile focus where they have focused their attention simply don't need virtual macOS instances that much.  (This is sad, because I would love to have virtual macOS support -- for example running macOS on VMs at Travis CI is really time consuming compared to Linux containers).


Apple wireless keyboard without num keypad Does anyone know how to delete line breaks after text please?
I used to place the cursor after the last letter or symbol, take the page down to the bottom, and on the numeric keypad, hold down the delete key until the line breaks disappeared.
I've tried fn and backspace, but that doesn't take out the line breaks.

fn-delete (fn-⌫) should also be equivalent to forward delete (⌦).


Mac OS X 10.7.4 Mail Client triggers Opera for external links in email I would like to have Safari open any links in email messages. However it seems that Opera has hijacked this and I can't see any property that can change this. Any ideas?

It's a little counter-intuitive, but you can set the default web browser for email messages from within Safari, just select the Preferences -> General option and then choose an application from the "Default web browser" pop-up menu. Hope that helps.