Does the Apple Remote (Aluminium) with IR still have a use? I'm wondering if I can still use the old Apple Remote (Aluminium) with IR to control some Apple devices?
I have the Retina MacBook (without IR)(how?), an iPhone and an Apple TV. Perhaps it can also pair with other (non-Apple) products.

Background
The Retina MacBook Pro does not have an IR sensor, just like the missing battery indicator. Apple really pushed hard to feature more Bluetooth heavy peripherals from that point. Looking back it seems like the right step forward. The Siri remote (just as an example) is able to transmit more complex data than the older, yet well-built aluminum IR remote ever could. The IR sensor has become obsolete because of features such as AirPlay and other mechanisms that put increasingly growing control into one place (the iOS device).

What can you try?

You may be able to pair the Apple Remote with your Apple TV if you
happen to have one that was released around the same time. This
tutorial should demonstrate how the Aluminum remote can be paired
with an Apple TV (2nd generation).   I have to be honest
in that I don't personally own an Apple TV or the remote for that
matter, yet at work, we have seamlessly paired various different
remotes (from different 2nd or 3rd generation
Apple TVs).
You will however not be able to pair the remote with the iPhone because much like the Mac, the iPhone does not have an IR sensor.
I fail to come up with everyday things that have an IR sensor capable of receiving signals from the Apple Remote but are non-Apple products. Correct me if I am wrong but I don't think that there are any devices worth controlling, let alone capable of receiving the signal. Yep, that's Apple for you.

Let me know if that was helpful in any way or if you come up with other ideas/products.


What's the PCI Compatibility for Mac Pro, Early 2008? I have a Mac Pro, Early 2008, (MacPro3,1) running Mojave. I'd like to add a PCI card for USB 3. Lots of USB cards advertise Mac Pro compatibility, but don't get specific as to models. What do I look for to verify that a card will work with my machine?

The everymac.com website reports the following (which basically is the same as Apple reports:

  This model has two PCIe x4 expansion slots and two PCIe 2.0 x16 expansion slots (in the default confugration one PCIe 2.0 x16 slot is occupied by the graphics card). Apple also reports that "all slots provide mechanical support for 16-lane cards [and supports] 300W combined maximum for all PCI Express slots."

Note: The two PCIe x4 expansion slots are actually PCIe 1.1 x4 expansion slots. PCIe 1.1 has the same data rate as PCIe 1.0.

Wikipedia offers a nice table which is repeated below.

Below is a quote from Wikipedia regarding USB 3.0.

  USB 3.0 adds the new transfer rate referred to as SuperSpeed USB (SS) that can transfer data at up to 5 Gbit/s (625 MB/s), which is about 10 times faster than the USB 2.0 standard.

Wikipedia also has the table shown below.

Almost everything made for PCIe and USB is as backward compatible as reasonably as possible. Which means some cards may work in your Mac, but not necessary at at a high enough speed to get the performance advantages of USB 3.

This OWC website offers a Allegro USB 3.0 4-Port card for $59 (USD) and explicitly states the card is for your model Mac. However, how the card preforms depends on the slot you use. Under "Bus Interface", the specifications state "PCI Express 2.0 x1", where "PCI Express means "PCIe" and "x1" means the card only has a single lane for data. According to the "PCI Express link performance" table, if you put the card in the PCIe 2.0 slot, then the transfer between the card and the Mac will occurs at 500 MB/s. According to the "USB 3.2 transfer modes" table USB 3.1 Gen 1 (or USB 3.0) transfers data a 625 MB/s. So the actual transfer rate to the Mac will be the lower of the two which is the PCIe speed of 500 MB/s. If you use one of the PCIe slots in your Mac, then the transfer rate will be only 250 MB/s.

This OWC website offers a Allegro USB-C 4-Port card for $149 (USD), which is also for your model Mac. Again, how the card preforms depends on the slot you use. Under "Bus Interface", this time the specifications state "PCI Express 2.0 x4", which means this card has a four lanes for data. According to the "PCI Express link performance" table, if you put the card in the PCIe 2.0 slot, then the transfer between the card and the Mac will occurs at 2 GB/s. According to the "USB 3.2 transfer modes" table USB 3.1 Gen 2 transfers data a 1.25 MB/s. So the actual transfer rate to the Mac will be the lower of the two which is USB speed of 1.25 MB/s. If you use one of the PCIe slots in your Mac, then the transfer rate will be only 1 GB/s. While this would not slow down a USB 3.1 Gen 1 (or USB 3.0) device, it would limit a USB 3.1 Gen 2 device from 1.25 GB/s to 1 GB/s.


How do I do Home and End in iterm2? Home and End do nothing in iTerm2, nor do ⌘← and ⌘→.

However, Ctrl-A and Ctrl-E do work.

Can Home and End do this?

Preferences->Keys_Key Bindings in iTerm2 do not offer a "Start of Line" or  "End of Line option.

Related: 1, 2

^ ControlA and ^ ControlE are keybinding in Bash and ZSH, not in iTerm (or Terminal).

If you want custom bindings within iTerm, you will need to bind the actual keyboard sequence in the keybinding.  "Start of Line" and "End of Line" are descriptors, not the actual key strokes.

So, to do this you'd need to send ^ ControlA for Home via their Hex Codes.  In this case, the codes would be 0x01 for "start of text" (^A) and 0x05 for "ENQ" (^E).

In the image below, you can add a new binding in Preferences → Keys → Key Bindings

Click on + to add a new binding
Click on Record in the dialog box
Press your desired key (Home in this case).
Select your Action (you can scroll or search).  Select "Send Hex Code"
Enter the Hex Code (0x01 for "start of text")
Test it out!


How to stop iOS from showing tomorrow's birthdays everyday My iPhone, for some reason (I haven't set up anything like that), shows the next day's birthdays everyday at 12:00 (at noon). How do I prevent that? I don't want to remove them from calendar, I just want to remove those annoying notifications.

(Default Alert Times for Birthdays is already set to "None")

iOS Calendar: Go to

preferences / mail, contacts & calendar / calendar / default alert times / birthdays

and select none. That should prevent your iOS calendar from
notify you whenever there is a birthday in your calendar.
Facebook: Maybe these notifications are from your Facebook app. Try turning these notifications off.

Also have a look at this (similar) question.


Can a disk's catalog directory be recovered after a Quick Erase? A disk's data directory seems to me to be the most vulnerable Achilles's Heel to protecting data.

With the 2 clicks of an accidental quick erase and format via Disk Utility, the roadmap to potentially multiple terabytes of data gets erased.

Even if zero data files were overwritten and all of the data files get recovered (though it may take days), (please, please correct me if I'm wrong) data recovery software can't retrieve the filenames, folder names, and the organizational, hierarchical structure, which then can only be painstakingly rebuilt by hand.

Relative to the size of the data, the directory is tiny. Wouldn't recovering a backup of the directory (that should always be automatically made as a fail-safe whenever an erase/format is done) make complete recovery fast and easy?

This seems waaayyyy too obvious to be overlooked, but everything I read indicates that with 1 click, it's gone and can't be recovered!

Is there any way to recover a disk's catalog directory after a Quick Erase?

That's how companies like
Prosoft (Data Recovery),
Micromat (Tech Tool),
Cleverfiles (Disk Drill) &
Alsoft (DiskWarrior)
make their money.

They each have different ways of protecting or recovering your data.

Data Rescue & Disk Drill are designed to recover files after the type of incident you mentioned.

Tech Tool goes further, by cataloguing each partition on every other partition, so it has a 'map' of where things were if anything goes wrong.

DiskWarrior concentrates on being able to rescue & rebuild damaged directory & filesystem information.

All are exemplary tools to use for different types of disaster & in my opinion all worth the expenditure.

However - nothing is better than a good backup strategy.
Time Machine in-house, for if a drive goes down.
Backblaze or CrashPlan for off-site backup, in case the worst happens & the house goes up in flames.

This is not a comprehensive list, just the ones I use or would recommend personally.


How to truly disable Ethernet and Firewire? I'm working on securing my Mac completely and utterly. I may be going to China for a business trip and I've been advised to do this but not provided steps that work for a Mac.

Is it safe to say that by setting "IPv4 Configure" to disabled that this will make it impossible for anyone to violate my Macbook through either Ether or Firewire? Should I do similar for an IPv6 setting?

Recommend taking a "throw-away" computer and not one you will continue using after returning.  You're not going to be able to secure it just by disabling access (even with restricting boot).


Creating a professional looking screencast? I'd like to create a professional looking demonstration of my app, just like this. I have captured a video using ScreenFlow, but I'm not how to add title screens where I want, like for example in the Sparrow app demo, they first show the name in huge bold text with black background, then "Navigate" and so on...which app should I use to achieve that?

Many thanks for your help.

ScreenFlow lets you do all of that. You can split your recording into as many pieces as you'd like, add text boxes (which can be full-screen with a background or can be transparent on top of your video), and transition between pieces of video, text boxes, or even just graphics of your own creation.

In a video I created for an app of mine in ScreenFlow I used Photoshop to create some still text screens in Photoshop (where I have super-picky-level control over the lettering) and then put them behind the app video capture. Here's what the timeline looks like in ScreenFlow:

You can see multiple tracks. The top one is my background music and the next is my voiceover, split up to allow for pauses while stuff happens on the screen. Below that is the text in the upper-right of the screen (you can see that I have it selected) with transitions from one screen of text to another, and then a graphic that shows the url for the app all of the time. Finally is the video track, which I've broken into pieces to allow for better flow.

The finished video shows all of it put together.


Will a MacBook with its lid closed (asleep) restart at the scheduled time? I think the title says it mostly. Will a sleeping MacBook Air with the lid closed restart automatically at the time scheduled in the energy saver pane?

Per this Apple KB article, the Mac must be awake for Energy Saver's settings to take effect:

  Your computer must be awake and you must be logged in for it to shut down at the scheduled time. If you are not logged in or the computer is in sleep, your computer will not shut down at the scheduled time

Source: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH3954


SSD upgrade for 2013 21" iMac? I have got an iMac (EMC 2638) here, with 1TB hard drive. I have read that there is a PCIe SSD slot on those iMacs as well, originally for the fusion drive. Is it possible to upgrade my iMac with such a SSD module? I don't care if it would work as a fusion drive, or simply have it as the main drive for OS and programs.

If this is possible, where can I buy such a SSD module? iFixit has repair instructions, but maybe I can let this be done by my local Mac shop.

It seems there is a workaround for this. One can buy an external Thunderbolt SSD, and set up a Fusion Drive. Since Thunderbolt is extremely fast, this is a low cost, low work solution that is very suitable for desktop machines like the iMac.

There are a lot of guides online on how to set up the disks.

It boils down to

Backing up your machine using Time Machine
Install OS X onto a third external drive.
Boot from said drive.
Create fusion drive over external SSD and internal HD.
Reboot from fusion drive and re-install OS X, restore from Time Machine

Maybe one can skip the install to external HD, since newer Macs come with Internet Recovery. This would save quite a bit of work.

Once in recovery, you can see your disks using diskutil list. Let's say you see the disks disk1s2 (internal HD, OS X partition) and disk2 (clean SDD).

Now you can create the Fusion Drive:

sudo diskutil cs create [ArbitraryName] disk2 disk1s2
sudo diskutil cs createVolume [UUID] jhfs+ [ArbitraryName] 100%

The output of the first command results in a UUID which you use in the second command.

After this, you should be able re-install or restore OS X onto the Fusion Drive.

I haven't tried this yet, it is merely a summary of the linked article! So be careful and make backups!


Why do my apps open in a single space when resuming? When I restart yosemite and I select 'reopen windows when loggin back in' I have a lot of apps that open in the same space.

For example when I have sublime text and libreoffice open in a space and restart, the space they they were on will be empty. They will all be on a single space but only in the mission control view and not in the actual space.

In contrast to safari and other osx native apps. I would just like to be able to shut down my macbook and resume in the exact same way. Is there a setting for the apps to resume in the space there were on, fully openened?

Not certain in Yosemite, but in Mavericks apps would only restore to the Space they were on if they were set to specifically open in a given Space - otherwise they would all huddle together on the front-most Space at launch.

Right click the app in the dock to set to 'This Desktop' once you have it in the correct one.

Quickly move an app to another Space by left-click-hold the top bar of any window then hitting your key-combo for the desired Space.


How to find out when and where backup recovery password was set for iPhone backups? I had to get my iPhone camera repaired and I had to back it up and erase it so that the repair shop could access the camera app without being able to access my data. After picking it up after the repairs I wanted to restore the backup but had to enter a password. All passwords I could think of are wrong. iCloud password, Mac password, iPhone passwords, pins, and all other sorts of passwords.
When and where was this hellish password set? There was no prompt asking me for a password before backing up my phone. I have spent hours entering passwords and nothing works. It is unbelievable that this is not using my Apple password, Mac password or any other device password.
I am starting to lose it. The thought of me losing all my data forever is just crushing me right now
Is there anything I can do to either recover the password or at least find out when and where it was set so that I can at least get a hint or reminder as to what the password could be?
Edit:
I should mention that I did look through my keychain and couldn't find anything with "Iphone backup" or "iOS backup". My Macbook pro is from late 2017 and I never did an iphone backup before. I really don't remember ever setting a password :/
A friend told me to call Apple. There is probably no chance they can help me in this, right?

The password used for local iPhone backups is set when enabling encrypted backups. When checking the box to use encrypted backups, a dialog asks you to enter a new password. This is independent to your Apple ID or other passwords.
Your Mac stores the password in the login Keychain and uses it for future backups. To get the password from the Keychain, open Keychain Access.app, search for ‘iPhone backup’ or ‘iOS backup’ and open the item, then choose ‘Show password’ and enter your Mac account password to view the backup password.


PDF metadata editor for iOS I have several PDF ebooks in my iBooks.

Some of them have their titles & authors visible. Some only displayed as "untitled".

Is there any PDF metadata editor for iPad?

I am a big fan of PDF Pen on the Mac and would encourage you to shoot them an email linking back to here. Adding that as a feature to their new iOS PDF editor might be something they can do quickly and really make it quicker to make these sorts of changes.


MacOS Calendar issue My Calendar app is configured to read more than one calendar (iCloud, Google, Exchange). If I create an event from my computer, it won't be visible on all other calendars, and if I create an event on any of my iOS devices I cannot see on the Mac Desktop Calendar.

I tried to remove Calendar from iCloud Settings on my Mac but, I did not get any luck.

First, check your iPhone:

For iCloud Calendar, check whether it is enabled on both devices under Settings > Apple ID > iCloud

For Google, check whether Fetch New Data is set to Push in Settings > Passwords and Accounts and also  under Gmail look, whether is it enabled or not.

For Exchange try the same.

Now check the same settings on your mac.


My macbook suddenly thinks its display is 800x600 I have not found anyone else online who had this problem, which is troubling.

Here is all I know:
I closed my macbook (running Leopard, a few years old).
I opened my macbook.
The display had changed completely.

What I mean by that is that the resolution severely decreased, and all of the icons on my screen grew significantly in size, even though they all fit on the screen. I am certainly not in "zoom mode" (ctrl+scroll). I checked "About This Mac" and under resolution, I found that it says, "800x600." What? My resolution is much above that. I have no idea what prompted this. I restarted the computer, but it did not help. This is very worrying.

Does anybody know what happened, or how to fix it?
Thanks

Simple solution. Head into system preferences and click on the display icon on the second row. Click on the display bar at the top (on the left of colour) and scroll through your different display options (I recommend 1280 X 800 but you can have whatever you want. Double click on the display option you want and there you go!


Can't find 'Apps & Data screen > Move Data from Android' option in IPhone XS I'm trying to move contacts from Android but can't find the option in the IOS device. I'm following this websites:

macworld
Apple

The articles you posted are for freshly setting up an iPhone.

You have two solutions:

Transferring your contacts using an account

You can send your contacts through WhatsApp or back them up using Google Cloud.

Set up again

You can return to the setup screen but this will erase all data.

To do this go to Settings -> General -> Reset -> Erase all content and settings


On iPhone/iPad, where are the screenshots of terminated apps stored? Are the screenshots of apps in the app switcher stored in RAM, or are they instead stored in flash, and streamed directly to the GPU via some kind of DMA (direct memory access) connection?

RAM is precious, and after a few days I end up with a lot of apps in my app switcher. Are all those snapshots constantly using up RAM?

They survive a restart so they canonically exist in storage.

Of course, everything you see on screen has to be in RAM, too; so the answer is both.


How can I mark a thread as read in Lion Mail? In Mail 5.0, when I view a message, it's marked as read. No surprises there.

When I get a few messages in the same thread, and I view the thread, the latest message is marked as read, but I can't figure out how to mark the earlier messages as read.

I've tried scrolling down to make sure Mail knows I've seen all the messages in the thread. I've also tried clicking the drop-down button to reveal all of the messages in the thread (in the middle "preview" column, or whatever it's called) and highlighting the message that's still marked as unread.

The only thing that seems to work is to right-click and select Mark > As Read.

Is that just a bug or am I doing something wrong?

In case you didn't know, when viewing the different messages in the right reading pane, if you select any of the individual messages they will be marked as read.  This gives you the ability to mark some as read and leaving others marked as unread.


Why does my iPhone use so much "other" space after upgrade to iOS 5? After upgrading my iPhone, there is about 10 gigabytes assigned to Other that I don't remember seeing before.

What could be causing this space to be filled?

It may be leftover data from a failed upgrade/sync.  I noticed the same thing on my iPad, which then disappeared once I re-synced it.


Why was my volume indicator sound suddenly muted and changed? Background

I'm on a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015) running 10.11.3 (15D21). I haven't changed any sound preferences. I bought the notebook brand new about 4 months ago. I only have a few apps installed (namely, Firefox, Affinity Designer, Sublime Text 3, and Transmit from Panic), so nothing specifically sound related, and all very common apps. I haven't changed any sound settings to cause this issue (at least not intentionally).

Before the issue

This is how the notebook has sounded up until today (watch @3:27): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOQOcCISgMI&t=207

After the issue

Today, the volume indicator was suddenly muted (not just SHIFT +  one-time muted, but permanently muted). I went to sound preferences and checked the Play feedback when volume is changed box to re-enable it, but now my volume indicator sounds like this (same video @0:15): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOQOcCISgMI&t=15.

Question

I'm not as concerned with switching back to the old sound (which is easy, via this and many other videos). My main question is why / how did this happen (the indicator change + muting)?

Extra

I did update to 10.11.3 on the 20th, and it's quite possible that I haven't changed my volume since then and simply did not notice that the 10.11.3 update included these changes (hopefully, this is the case), rather than it having just muted / changed today. I can't seem to find a detailed change log for this release though, to confirm that.

Same thing happened after I updated, so I think your "Extra" section is correct.


How to disable Wi-Fi and bluetooth using Apple Configurator? How do I disable Wi-Fi and bluetooth on my supervised devices using Apple Configurator?  I see options for deploying SSID setup uniformly but not the ability to disable.

We're attempting to use iPads with pre-loaded references in the classroom so we don't want the student to be able to get onto the internet or connect to any bluetooth devices.

Currently there is no way to disable either Wifi or Bluetooth using Apple Configurator profiles. Configurator has gotten much better over the past few years limiting various activities in academic environments, but it does not allow restrictions on a number of things that they deem important, like network & device connectivity.

Other activities, like installed new iOS updates, are also cannot be locked down. This bit us hard when 8.1 was introduced, as a number of our 1:1 students with managed iPads updated to 8.1 Several of the apps they need for their schoolwork needed updates as well and crashed, but because we restrict the App Store, we had to do a mass update with Configurator over the course of a day.


How can I find out how much toner is left in my printer, which is connected to an Airport Express via USB? My Samsung ML-2850D printer is connected via USB to an Airport Express. I print to it from my Mac over WiFi. I want to check how much toner is left, so I know if I need to purchase a new cartridge soon. However, when I check the Supply Levels via system preferences, it says "Information Not Available." What is the best way to reliably find out how much toner is left?

Attaching a printer using Airport does not provide the same capabilities as attaching through USB, and one of the things that will not work is querying the printer for paper/ink levels etc.

When you have the printer attached locally, the driver has the ability to talk over USB for lots of things, including these services, reading from a card reader that may be on the printer etc.  Once the printer is made wireless, these facilities are lost, and it effectively just becomes a dumb queue that you can drop a print into.  About the only feedback it can give is if the printer is offline or not.  If your printer is multifunction, you'll likewise lose the scanning/fax stuff also.

So unfortunately the only way is to hit up the printer direct, walk on over there and take a peek.


Disabling Command + Arrow scrolling When I press Command ⌘+↑ or Command ⌘+↓ on OS X 10.8.2 (Mountain Lion), it scrolls all the way to the top or the bottom of a window.

The problem is, in some programs, this results in crazy uncontrollable scrolling behavior, because for whatever reason the program doesn't signal to the OS that it's hit the end of its scrolling. It's driving me nuts.

Is there any way to turn off this behavior? I've searched System Preferences > Keyboard settings to no avail.

If your intention is to globally override this behaviour, this will do the trick:

Create a file called DefaultKeyBinding.dict and write on it the following:

    {
      "@\UF700" = "noop:";
      "@\UF701" = "noop:";
    }

@\UF700 is the Unicode value for Command+Up while
@\UF701 is for Command+Down.

Save it and place it under ~/Library/KeyBindings/. If the folder doesn't exist, just create it.

A different approach would be to override this shortcuts on each of the Applications you're having troubles with, assigning the problematic shortcuts to the Application's function you usually don't use, for instance.


Can’t Install Mac OS X Leopard/Snow Leopard on 2007 iMac A while ago, I upgraded the processor and RAM on my mid-2007 iMac so I could install macOS High Sierra. It now has an Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T9500 and 6 GB of RAM. Both the hardware and software upgrades went fine, but after using it for a while, I realized that the computer was much slower than before. Additionally, I didn’t like the iOS-inspired feel of High Sierra. Because of this, I decided to downgrade to Mac OS X Snow Leopard. I backed up my files, got my Snow Leopard Install DVD, and booted up the iMac. However, right after the language selection page, the installer read:

  Mac OS X can’t be installed on this computer.

I opened disk utility and formatted the hard drive in case that was causing the issue, but I received the same error. I would have tried my Leopard install DVD, but it is an upgrade disk, not an install disk. So, I got out the factory restore disks to install Mac OS X Tiger. This installer ran successfully, and the computer worked fine after the installation. However, when I put in the Leopard upgrade DVD, I got the same error. Same with the Snow Leopard install DVD. I have tried every solution I could find; resetting the PRAM, formatting the hard drive, updating all my software, etc. Nothing works. The only thing I didn’t try was bypassing the hardware check in the installer for two reasons: (1) I don’t know if it will be the same for an Intel iMac as it is for a PowerPC Mac, and (2) It is incredibly difficult to get the required files on the iMac since Tiger doesn’t support TLS 1.2. I suspect that the issue was the CPU upgrade. Should I try this solution, or is there something else? If the bypass is the way to go, is there a simple way to download XAR from the iMac? I have been trying to get this to work for weeks and it’s been incredibly frustrating.

OK, I just found out that the installer recognizes my processor speed as 800MHz for some reason. To fix it, the hardware check must be bypassed, same as would be done on a PowerPC model.


How to restrict "Remote Login" (ssh) access to only certain IP ranges? Can someone please tell me how to restrict SSH access only to certain IP ranges (e.g. local network) and not the whole Internet? I guess this has to be done via firewall.

From man sshd:

/etc/hosts.allow
/etc/hosts.deny
Access controls that should be enforced by tcp-wrappers are defined here.
Further details are described in hosts_access(5).

https://debian-administration.org/article/87/Keeping_SSH_access_secure offers these examples:

# /etc/hosts.allow
sshd: 1.2.3.0/255.255.255.0
sshd: 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0

# /etc/hosts.deny
sshd: ALL

The TCP wrapper program in Mac OS X is: tcpd


How to map CTRL + Left Arrow to Home with Karabiner-Elements I'm using Karabiner-Elements to map some keys with an external PC keyboard. I'd like to map CTRL + Left Arrow to Home and CTRL + Right Arrow to End. Is it possible to do this?

There's a complex rule for download that maps SHIFT + Left Arrow to End but I'm using CTRL.

Thanks!

You'd have to manually edit  ~/.config/karabiner/karabiner.json with e.g. BBEdit or TextEdit (better make a backup copy before you start!).

Be aware: your re-mapping would de-activate Apple's Spaces-switching feature!

Anyway, doing so you'd have to go to

"rules": [

and (assuming you mean the right control key) add s.th. like:

"rules": [
    {  "description": "Call it whatever you like…",
       "manipulators": [ {
                "type": "basic",
                "from": {
                    "key_code": "left_arrow",
                    "modifiers": {
                        "mandatory": [
                            "right_control"
                        ]
                    }
              },
              "to": [
                  {
                      "key_code": "home"
                  }
              ]
          },
          {
              "type": "basic",
              "from": {
                  "key_code": "right_arrow",
                  "modifiers": {
                      "mandatory": [
                           "right_control"
                      ]
                  }
              },
              "to": [
                  {
                      "key_code": "end"
                  }
              ]
          }
      ]
  }
]

Be aware that the right order and correct corresponding of open and closed brackets of both types is essential!
(As far as I can see there is no way to debug this behaviour; maybe apart from watching Karabiner-Element's open Window while saving the json-file. Your choice of editor can help though, even BBEdit can identify pairs of brackets …)

If what you did is correct, the new behaviour will work instantaneously once you saved the file!

So, if yours is the only Complex Modification, the closing "comma" must NOT be used here … but if you add yours to all previous ones this "comma" must instead be placed in front of your code (meaning: behind the last rule's finishing bracket.
… a bit tricky, this all.


Remote Management Wizard Not Showing On First Use I have a new MBP bought through Apple Business and registered in Apple Business Manager. ABM is integrated with Azure Intune. On first use the Remote Management interface popped up but failed to obtain automatic configuration settings. I tried a few times, in the end turned the machine off.

I rang Apple and they said reinstall macOS. I did so, and since then I've never had the Remote Management interface pop up. I just get the normal consumer experience which is useless to me.

Apple believe there's an issue with the Intune configuration. I'm not convinced as I followed the Intune documentation for setting this up and everything checks out. Syncs are occurring, the device is visible as pending enrollment, good signals on both Intune and ABM side.

I think the mac is stuck in consumer mode now and doesn't know to check for MDM settings?

I've tried deleting the Macintosh HD - Data volume, erasing the Macintosh HD volume and reinstalling. No change. If I continue the consumer setup experience I just get a normal, non-managed mac.

Any ideas on:

A - Is it stuck in consumer mode?

B - Should I try anything on the Intune side? I'm contemplating deleting all Device Configuration policies to simplify things so only the Enrollment program token profile is left.

I managed to reset the device so the Remote Management wizard comes back up on device setup. I believe the steps that fixed it were:

Turn off mac
Unassign device from MDM in ABM
Re-assign device to MDM in ABM
Assign profile again in Intune
Sync devices in Intune
Reinstall macOS via Delete Macintosh HD - Data volume delete method

Though now I'm left with an unusual credential prompt. I have no idea what identity it expects. ABM is federated with Azure AD and as this isn't an Office 365 login screen that rules out corporate credentials. It's not an ABM credential either. Hrm!


Can any Apple watch bands add extra features? I've got an Apple Watch series 3, and was wondering if any bands support extra "features", and don't just change the look?

For example, is it possible that any bands exist that enhance the vibration only mode so vibrations are stronger?

I have a vague recollection of several attempts at "feature" bands when the original Apple Watch was released but I'm not sure many of them even made it into production. The only one I'm familiar with that is a shipping product is the KardiaBand.

https://store.alivecor.com/products/kardiaband

It adds ECG features to Series 3 watches and predates similar features in the Series 4.


Applescript to open all files in a folder and convert to PDF with Preview I've written an AppleScript to do as the title describes. It is supposed to go to a given folder, open each of the files one at a time in preview, click "file" on the menu bar, then click "Export as PDF...", then click enter to accept the dialog that will open. Repeat until there's no more files left to automate.

tell application "Finder"
    set fl to files of folder POSIX file "/Users/username/Desktop/Folder" as alias list
end tell
repeat with f in fl
    tell application "Preview"
        open f
        tell application "System Events" to tell process "Preview"
            click menu item "Export as PDF..." of menu 1 of menu bar item "File" of menu bar 1
        end tell
        keystroke return
    end tell
end repeat

I get the following error when it runs, it opens the file in Preview and stops.
Any ideas?

The error isn't very descriptive.

It needs to be "Export as PDF…" not "Export as PDF...",  note that the first example has an actual ellipsis, not like in your code, the second example, three dots after PDF.

Also, as an example in Preview under macOS 10.12.5 Sierra that I tested this under, you can also use:

tell application "System Events" to tell process "Preview"
    click menu item 14 of of menu 1 of menu bar item "File" of menu bar 1
end tell

Note: Obviously under different versions of OS X/macOS "Export as PDF…" may be a different menu item number or that command may not exist in that form.

To address the comment, I'd use the following instead of what you currently have:

tell application "System Events"
    click menu item "Export as PDF…" of menu 1 of menu bar item "File" of menu bar 1 of application process "Preview"
    delay 0.2
    click button "Save" of sheet 1 of window 1 of application process "Preview"
end tell

Leaving out keystroke return from the code.

Note: The value of the delay command may need to be adjusted for your system.


Why is my iPhone 5S battery draining overnight and very quickly? A few days ago I was charging my phone in my car and it stopped charging, and I noticed that the cord had a little hole and smoke was coming out of there. I was buying some food from a local shop, and the guy working there knew me and said he had tons of cords, so he gave me one that he had at the store. After I started using this one, my battery has been going crazy. If I charge it to full power, I would wake up and find it under 10%. And if I charge it and use it during the day, it would drain very quickly. I thought the problem was because of the cord he gave me so I went to Best Buy to buy an Apple one and the guy there said that that was a long shot, and it's probably something else. I did use my uncle's iPad cord and the same problem is still there. I have no clue what happened. This battery thing literally happened overnight, it wasn't gradual and it's never been this bad. Can anyone help?
P.S. I have iOS 8.1.2 (not the latest one due to lacking storage)

In order for cables to smoke the current must have exceeded all limits of the design by 10x.

Since the battery is connected true it, it would have gotten a shock of its life, and now no longer been able to hold the charge.

The guy at Best Buy was right, it is not the cable any more since the damage was done.


iPhone builtin speaker partly not working I have an iPhone 6 that is running iOS 8.3
Last night I got in the rain and my phone got a little wet too. Later I noticed that when I try to speak on the phone I cannot hear a single thing, also if I try to play music or use siri I cannot hear anything, but if alarm sets off or a timer or I have an incoming call the sound is working.

I tried restarting my phone but the situation remains. Not sure what is up with my phone and don't really want to pay for speaker replacement. Has anyone experienced anything similar?

I have also noticed that when I try to increase/decrease volume it says Headphones, however the phone is not connected to any headphones neither wired not wireless

I just worked it out. The entire time Bluetooth was on. Usually when I turn off my car the phone automatically disconnects. I guess this time something went wrong. Even after restarting the phone away from the off car the phone still thought it was connected. All it took is to turn Bluetooth off


Printer and Scanner with Time Capsule I have a multi-function USB printer, Brother MFC-8440. Before buying a Time Capsule it was connected to a USB port on the Mac. After purchasing a Time Capsule I attached the printer to the USB on the Time Capsule. This allows printing to the networked printer from other systems on my LAN.

Note: prior to the Time Capsule the other systems were still able to print but had to print by connecting to the printer attached to the Mac; a different but equivalent functionality. But it seemed to be more trouble prone, requiring frequent setup of the printer on Windows machines.

However, after connecting to the Time Capsule, I have lost the ability to scan, as that function is not allowed via the Time Capsule. The workaround is to swap USB cables to connect the printer directly to the Mac. So I can scan, but the cable swap is annoying, and then the other machines cannot print until the cable is swapped back.

Is there a solution that would avoid the cable swap?

You could connect your multifunction printer via USB to a computer and use printer sharing to enable other machines to print through it. The downside is, as you point out, it is often less reliable, and you can only print from other computers when the host computer is on.

You could connect through your Time Capsule. Some multifunction printers only support scanning when directly connected to a computer.

You could get a new wireless multifunction printer that supports scanning wireless. This requires a more sophisticated machine, as the scanned documents have to go somewhere.

It is possible there is a way to make your multifunction printer work as a scanner while attached to the Time Capsule, but it's a property of the device, and you didn't specify what you're using.

So in the absence of more information in your question, this is my answer.


How to remove the "Could not connect to the iTunes store" error message when your network does not allow access to the iTunes Store Since the last update, iTunes is unusable for me on my iMac, because with every song change it shows a "Could not connect to the iTunes Store" error message. My network at work does not allow access to the iTunes store, but that is ok. I just want to listen to my local music connection there.
I have disabled the iTunes Store in the parental settings completely, but still, the error pops up with each and every song change. Any idea how to prevent iTunes from showing this popup?

There are two major annoyances here in iTunes imho
a) iTunes tries to access the store even if it is disabled completely in the settings and you're signed out
b) The error messages "staple" on top of each other, so iTunes diplays the same error 1000 times and you have to click them all away. This reminds me of Windows 95 times.

I traced the problem down to a TLS handshake (thanks to jonnydigitol below for the idea!) and a total of 63 packets between the host and 23.211.148.217, which is init.iTunes.apple.com - that is executed when iTunes is started. Once this handshake completes, all is fine and you can use iTunes. But you must tunnel traffic to this host on startup, otherwise you get the error with each and every song change as iTunes tries and tries to connect to init.iTunes and throws an error popup.

Consider the answer below by jonnydigitol - you can connect by mobile phone internet or a tunnel to init.iTunes.apple.com, start iTunes and never ever turn it off - then it keeps working without an internet connection "infinitely".

How to really 'fix' the issue by installing your own web server on localhost that answers the ping:

(Check that your iTunes is up to date, there might be a fix out already)

Open Applications->Utilities->Terminal and enter the following lines

If you do not have homebrew installed, first do this :

/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

Make sure openssl and node.js are installed

brew install openssl node wget

To redirect init.apple.itunes.com to local

echo '127.0.0.1 init.iTunes.apple.com' | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts

You will need to give your password. Next, create and register your own root certificate.

openssl genrsa -out rootCA.key 2048
openssl genrsa -des3 -out rootCA.key 2048

Enter any pass phrase you like

openssl req -x509 -new -nodes -key rootCA.key -sha256 -days 1024 -out rootCA.pem

Enter your pass phrase. Leave all lines empty except

Common Name (e.g. server FQDN or YOUR name) []:init.itunes.apple.com

And the same thing once more (same passphrase, same common name)

sudo security add-trusted-cert -d -r trustRoot -k "/Library/Keychains/System.keychain" rootCA.pem
openssl genrsa -out device.key 2048
openssl req -new -key device.key -out device.csr
openssl x509 -req -in device.csr -CA rootCA.pem -CAkey rootCA.key -CAcreateserial -out device.crt -days 500 -sha256
sudo security add-trusted-cert -d -r trustRoot -k "/Library/Keychains/System.keychain" device.crt

Note response and start your own https server that takes the ping

wget -O response.xml "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/initiateSession?ix=1"
echo "var t=require('tls');var f=require('fs');var xmlresp = f.readFileSync('response.xml');var options = {key:f.readFileSync('device.key'),cert:f.readFileSync('device.crt')};var server=t.createServer(options, function (request,response) {request.on('data', function (chunk) {request.write(xmlresp);});});server.listen(443, function() {});" > ims.js
sudo node ims.js

Leave terminal open or minimize it, open Safari

Go to https://init.itunes.apple.com

If you get a trust certificate warning, change the policy to "always trust". If the page loads infintely, everything is fine.

Open iTunes. The error should be gone.

For the future, if you want to use iTunes, open a Terminal and run

sudo node ims.js

Then start iTunes.

Alternatively, revert to an older version.

I had given up on the issue, submitted a bug report to Apple, and, after hearing nothing from them, rolled back to the previous iTunes and rebuild by complete library in an hour long effort. Everything works now again, but I'm really disappointed by Apple here. I'm not (yet) used to them releasing such bad code.

The only way out for me was to use Pacifist to unpack an older iTunes pkg  which I downloaded from Apple and extract the App, and then rebuild the complete iTunes library (which is HUGE). This is a kind of hacking I got used to being necessary on Windows systems sometimes, but i cannot remember I had to do such a thing on OSX ever. Until now. What's next, disassemble?

Apple, you have a software quality problem. Just my 2 cents.

News - Apple has processed my bug report and assigned it status "duplicate of 29741441 (OPEN)".


Lock events (or disable drag and drop) in iCal Drag & Drop in iCal is very convenient, but last time, I accidentally moved an appointment (or at least, I'm not sure, if I did...)

Is it possible to somehow "lock" important appointments?

Or alternatively, to lock all appointments/disable drag and drop?

You can't lock an event, but if you add an Invitee (yourself maybe) then it will prompt you after making any change.


Get my computer's current city and state from terminal How can I get my computer's location to the granularity of city and  country using the command-line?

I know I could get the IP of the correct network interface and do an IP lookup but I wonder if the system has a quicker way to access this. The system clock has the location so I am wondering if it's possible to get it that way.

Command line tool

I've made quick modification to an excellent robmathers app WhereAmI. You can find it on my github.

Once You compile it and run, that's the output:

Latitude: 40.714232
Longitude: -73.9612889
Accuracy (m): 65.000000
Timestamp: 30.04.2015, 11:37:45 CEST
Location: 277 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11211, United States

If You want only the city and the country - changes in parsing json should be made (or grep the output). Sample json data can be found here.

Note: This is very quick implementation, but there shouldn't be any errors

Info from preferences

You can get info from preferences by running:

defaults read /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist com.apple.preferences.timezone.selected_city

You'll need to parse the output, because it looks like:

{
CountryCode = PL;
GeonameID = 3081368;
Latitude = "51.1";
LocalizedNames =     {
    pl = "Wroc\\U0142aw";
};
Longitude = "17.03333";
Name = "Wroc\\U0142aw";
Population = 634893;
TimeZoneName = "Europe/Warsaw";
Version = 1;
}


Time Capsule slow on Ethernet I'm having issues with my just-purchased Time Capsule (2 TB). I have it in my room connected wirelessy to an existing network. I think this means I'm not taking full advantage of 802.11n, right? I'm doing the intial backup of some files. It is taking 20+ hours to transfer 40GB of data.

I expected the wireless transfer to be slow, but not so much! So I tried to connect to the Time Capsule from my MacBok Pro via Ethernet, but the connection speed didn't change, and this left me wondering: shouldn't be the connection via Ethernet be way faster? What is the proper way to configure this?

If you connected the Ethernet cable while the backup was running, it is probably still utilizing the wireless interface. It can not re-route an established connection in the middle of the backup.

Start by cancelling the backup. Then do one of the following:

Disable the Wi-Fi interface on the computer; OR...
Open Network in System Preferences; click on the cog button below the list of network interfaces; click on "Set Service Order"; drag the services so that Ethernet is on top of the list; click OK and Apply.

Now, restart the backup.


Why does Apple Activity Monitor report that my Mac with a dual-core Intel i5 Ivy Bridge CPU has 4 cores? I just got a new Apple MacBook Pro 13", mid-2012, which has a dual-core Intel i5 Ivy Bridge CPU. When I run Activity Monitor and turn on the Floating CPU Window, it shows a 4-bar graph (indicating 4 cores).

On my older MacBook Pro with an Intel Core 2 Duo dual-core processor, Activity Monitor only showed a 2-bar graph (indicating 2 cores).

Why does Activity Monitor seem to indicate that my Mac has 4 cores, when clearly it does not?

This is a technology called Hyperthreading those i5 chips support.

It means two threads can run simultaneously on each core resulting in two additional virtual cores. OS X's Activity Monitor only shows virtual cores, not physical cores. Likewise, a quad-core chip has eight virtual cores and that's what's presented in Activity Monitor.

To sum it up:

1 CPU
2 physical cores
4 virtual cores (2 per physical core)


How to make global keychain in Mac OS X Lion I need to create a keychain that can be used by any user.

When I check a keychain as shared in Keychain Acess->Edit->Keychain List, it just disappears and I can't see this keychain in the list anymore.

What's the problem? Thanks.

Create the new keychain in

/Library/Keychains/

like the System.keychain, this way any user can access the keychain.


Looking for an external bluetooth switch to run an applescript I'm looking for an external bluetooth button/switch that I can program to do something specific, like open up an app / run a script. Does anything like that exist? Even if it can only do 1 specific thing that would be enough.

Not exactly what your looking for but here's a script that will do something when a device is connected.

If you have a speaker (or other Bluetooth device) that connects automatically then you can use the on/off button as a switch.

Credit to Christian Stevenson on SO.

repeat
    set statusOld to checkStatus()
    set statusNew to checkStatus()
    repeat while statusOld is equal to statusNew
        delay 1 --for 1 second checks
        set statusNew to checkStatus()
    end repeat
    if statusNew is true then
        display dialog "Device Added - put some real code here"
    else
        display dialog "Device Removed - put some real code here"
    end if
end repeat

on checkStatus()

    (*Delete the 2 lines below when done testing*)
    --set myString to button returned of (display dialog "Connected?" buttons {"Yes", "No"})
    --set myString to "name: DR-BT101 Connected: " & myString

    (*uncomment line below when done testing*)
    set myString to do shell script "system_profiler SPBluetoothDataType"

    --initial check if it's not even there
    if myString does not contain "[Device Name]" then
        return false
    else

        --find out if connected/disconnected
        set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "name:"
        set myList to the text items of myString --each item of mylist is now one of the devices

        set numberOfDevices to count of myList
        set counter to 1
        repeat numberOfDevices times --loop through each devices checking for Connected string
            if item counter of myList contains "Christian’s AirPods" then
                if item counter of myList contains "Connected: Yes" then
                    return true
                else if item counter of myList contains "Connected: No" then
                    return false
                else
                    display dialog "Error Parsing" --this shouldn't happen
                end if
            end if
            set counter to counter + 1
        end repeat
    end if
end checkStatus


macbook 1,1 shut down prompt pops up Ok so my Dad got an old Macbook 1,1 (pretty sure that's one of the first models mid-06) and this macbook is having some issues. At first, after some inactivity (about 30 second to a minute) the dashboard and the shut down prompt would pop up. I got the dashboard to stop popping up by changing the settings, where it was set to pop up with f12, I changed it to f19. Boom the dashboard stopped coming up, but the little box that asked "are you sure you would like to shut your computer down" keeps coming up.

Now then my dad has replaced the battery, the hard drive, and reinstalled the os (which is snow leopard btw.) I ran the ASD, which was crazy to pull off, and the only thing that came back was a temp sensor- palm rest L test 1 - unable to read sensor. I would think though if that was the problem, that it was force shut down the mac, which it doesn't. Like I said before the prompt only comes up after inactivity, if I kept the eject button pressed down, the prompt doesn't pop up. Also if I keep the prompt on the screen and don't do anything after about 5 minutes, the mac makes a slight sound like the sound a computer makes if you keep a button pressed for too long. It has never done a forced shutdown on its own though.

So, I should tell you now, this is the first mac I've got down and dirty into. That being said I like to think I'm slightly above average, when it comes to computers and electronics. My gut (the microsoft guy in me as well) is telling me to do a complete format and reinstall (like you would do on a new pc.) My dad tells me you can't do that, though I haven't really looked into it. So I started looking into standard settings, power saver, screen saver, anything I could get to from the gui. I couldn't find anything that stuck out. I tried doing the option, command, p, r, and power button thing, however I saw that there are supposed to be three beeps, I only got one. Also didn't work. I did a couple of things in the terminal. Mostly to do with pmset command. I noticed when I did the command "sudo pmset -c powerbutton 0" nothing happened so I set the powerbutton to 1, I was under the assumption that when I did that the power button on the mac would send the computer to sleep. It didn't, the regular shut down prompt pops up, both after the button and after inactivity.

Oh, I just remembered I had a problem with being unable to unmount my flash drive, when trying to restore it. I had to go into the terminal and force unmount it. After I did I didn't have anymore troubles. Also it was having some difficulties loading disks, like after putting the disk in, it would try to read it and would kick it out after 30 seconds or so. I dunno if these have anything to do with the problem at hand though.

So help a brother out here, this macbook is supposed to be a gift to my aunt. My dad is fine with giving it to her with the prompt still popping up, but it seriously bugs me. I am open to most anything, just tell me how. Thanks in advance for your help.

Some info just in case, Macbook 1,1 (mid-06), Board f4208cc8, ask me for any info you need. Ill get it tomorrow. Also if you suggest running the aht, as well just give me a link. It needs ver. 3a104

The MS guy in you would be right - best thing to do to hand a Mac to a new owner is nuke & pave - though strictly it's step 5 - What to do before selling or giving away your Mac.

The latest OS that machine can run is 10.6.8 which is still available from the Apple Store [it's back from the days when you had to pay for the OS] so there's no real way round that; it won't boot from USB either, it's too old.

AHT should be on the disk too, & that's where you'd need to run it from. It's only built into the machines from much later.

Nuke & pave in itself may not fix the issue, but it would at least eliminate all but hardware as the cause.


Does Xcode save your answer to the system when agreeing to the License Agreement? Upon installing Xcode, it prompts a license agreement. When you press agree, you are never prompted the license agreement again. Does your answer get saved to the system, that way the application does not ask you again? If so, where does the system save the file to?

When you agree to the Xcode license, an entry is created in:

/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dt.Xcode.plist

As shown in the image below:

Or from Terminal using the defaults command:

$ defaults read /Library/Preferences/com.apple.dt.Xcode.plist
{
    IDELastGMLicenseAgreedTo = EA1478;
    IDEXcodeVersionForAgreedToGMLicense = "9.4.1";
}
$


I forgot the password for my me.com account. how can I get it? I am trying to get save on my iCloud but I can't remember the password of my me.com account.  how do I reset the password?  I tried everything I thought it might be.  I tried to change it but can't remember my hint.  It doesn't do any good to have an email sent to me when I can't remember the password for the account.  What do I do?

Go to https://iforgot.apple.com and follow the instructions there.


Are purchases from the App store single or mulitple user licencing I have two Macs, I haven't bought any software on the App store yet.

If I wanted to buy lets say for example Pages and Numbers, would I be able to install that on one Mac or two macs? just like I can if I download an app from the iTunes app store I can install on both iPad and iPhone for the single price?

Thanks

You can install software from the MAS on multiple Macs. The only limitation in the EULA is that the software either is used by one person on multiple computers, or by multiple users on a single computer. So installing for multiple users on different computers would be a breach of the EULA (even though technically still possible if both computers are linked to the same Apple ID for purchases).

See http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/us/terms.html

EDIT: I'll have to ammend my answer even though it was already accepted. While the above is true for commercial use, for personal, non-commercial use in one and the same household on the other hand the above EULA restriction is not true.


Downgrade iphone 5 back to ios 6 I have a question is there a way to downgrade from ios 7 to ios 6 with an iphone 5?

please tell me yes i hate this update lol

There doesn't seem to be much of solid chance of achieving this. I found this method on Lifehacker, and I haven't tested it, so try it at your own risk.

  The first step is (again, always) to back up your device. Next go get the build of iOS 6 that your phone runs. If you've got an iPhone 5, that means grabbing iOS 6.1.4, the CDMA flavor if you are on Verizon or Sprint, and the GSM flavor if you are on AT&T or T-Mobile. If you've got something else (iPhone 4S and below, iPads 2-4, iPod Touch 4 or 5, or iPad Mini) you'll want 6.1.3. The same CDMA/GSM logic applies.

  Did you back up your device yet? Back up your device.

  Now put your phone into Device Firmware Update (DFU) mode by plugging it into the computer and holding the home button and the power button for 10 seconds. Then let go of the power button and only the power button, and keep the home button pressed down for another 10 seconds or so. The screen will stay black, but iTunes will detect a phone in recovery mode. It's worth noting that this isn't strictly necessary, but it does make matters a little simpler.

  Ignore any restore prompt iTunes throws at you. Specifically this one.

  Open the panel for your iPhone and option-click/shift-click (OSX/Windows) on Restore iPhone.

  This will give you a dialog box popup; use it to go find that ipsw file you downloaded after you backed up your device. And bam, you should be good to go. If things aren't working, try booting up your phone, disabling Find My iPhone, and do it all again.

  There you go, back to skeumorphic goodness. Now just avoid installing iOS 7 for as long as you can bear it. And while you're doing that, try to make peace with the fact that iOS 7 is coming for you eventually, and there's pretty much nothing you can do to stop it.

Source


Wireless Keyboard Volume Down acting different Just for my curiosity and knowledge, on my mac wireless keyboard, has been a couple of days that every time I click on the Volume Down (F10) key, instead of rising down the volume it will move the application.

I made a small video so you can have an idea.  How can I change to default factory?

Most likely a change was made to the Fn key setting. The behavior you are seeing is "Show Desktop", but generally requires pressing Fn-F11 to activate. (Note on my keyboard Volume Down is F11. It may differ on yours, but the steps below don't chnage.)

To change this behavior:

Open System Preferences.
In the second section, click on Keyboard, then on the Keyboard tab if necessary.
Uncheck "Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys."


OS X right click/context menu via keyboard Is it possible to access the right click/context menu of the currently selected item (not the item under the mouse) by way of using a keyboard shortcut?

If not, is there any way to achieve this, either by Applescript or utility?

The context menu can primarily be opened by a right mouse click (or a control click) only.

However, if you want to right click on a specific area on the screen without using the mouse, you may use Mouse Keys from Universal Access settings in System Preferences. With it, you can control the mouse by using the keyboard number pad. When activated, a right mouse click then can be achieved by Ctrl+5 on a keyboard with a numpad or Fn+Ctrl+i on a laptop. This will allow you to 'right-click' your word.

Go to System Preferences --> Universal Access --> Mouse --> Enable Mouse Keys (ON)

Found on: https://stackoverflow.com/a/11238186/1919382


Terminal emulator that copies on select I'm a new Mac user (macOS Sierra on MacBook pro).

Coming from Windows, I used PuTTY as my terminal emulator which was fairly simple but quite useful.

I'm looking for a terminal emulation program that copies text to the clipboard upon selection (and not requiring my to hit CommandC), like in PuTTY.

Is there such an app?

Thank you.
Daniel

iTerm2 has this functionality.

It's actually really easy to use and works exactly like you describe - you select your type and then middle click to paste within iTerm.

iTerm2 has many more features that make it far and away better than PuTTY and the best part is that it's free (as in beer) like PuTTY.

Above screenshot, I have selected the content of my Guest directory.  No clicks or keyboard shortcuts have been pressed.

In the image below, I simply press CommandV and paste it from the clipboard to TextEdit.  This is out of the box functionality - I haven't made any modifications to key combinations within iTerm2.


How can I show the "Dimension" column in Finder? I clearly remember seeing Dimensions column in Finder to show image dimensions (width x height) but I can't find it now.

Does anyone know how to show this column?

When in icon view, you can use "Show item info" under view options just as user6124 described.

  Yes, but this is not the 'column' view. Thanks, but I knew this already. – Nimbuz (comment)

Column view, however, prefers to show as much of the current file tree path as possible at the price of extra info. You can enable the preview column from view options to show a preview of the selected image along with some basic information (including pixel dimensions) in the rightmost column.

The preview column only shows the info for the selected file (just one).

In list and cover flow views you can add more info columns to the list by right–clicking the list's titlebar and choose the extra data you want to see:

NOTE: The list of extra columns is relative to the folder's location. In order to get the dimensions available, the folder in question has to reside somewhere under ~/Pictures/. (Under ~/Music/ you could choose e.g. artist or album and under ~/Movies/ you could choose length or codecs and so on…)


Waranty and Apple Care plan after exchange of SSD? I might have to bring my Early 2013 MacBook Pro Retina in for service as the screen shows some strange smudging (I just post it here as it looks quite strange...).

But I replaced the internal SSD with a JetDrive 725 recently. Will my my AppleCare Protection Plan still be valid, or should I just put the original in again?

When I purchased my early 2013 MacBook Pro with Retina Display, as well as a previous MacBook Pro seven years earlier, I specifically asked about changing the HDD and RAM in the older one and the SSD in the newer one myself and in both instances I was told that it didn't void the warranty as long as there was no evidence that the work done by myself was the direct/indirect cause of a subsequent issue.  The problem with such a response is having to prove on my part that a subsequent issue was not the direct/indirect cause of the subsequent issue if Apple challenged repairing it under warranty.  The sales person and tech at the Genius Bar both said that Apple expects that some Users would upgrade parts like HDD/SDD and or RAM where applicable and said it doesn't directly void the warranty in doing so, except with the aforementioned caveat.

So I waited until the older one was out of warranty before I upgraded both the HDD and RAM.  The newer one I maxed out at the time so I doubt I'll pull the 750 GB SSD any time soon or within the warranty period.

Good luck with Apple!


Apps on my MacBook Pro How do I find my apps on my MacBook Pro? I downloaded them, and I tried looking in LaunchPad and my dock, but do not see them.

Open Finder, press Shift-Cmd-A and look for them
Press Cmd-Spacebar to open the Spotlight search window on top right and type (part of) the name (followed by Enter if found)


How do I create a custom resolution for my display in Lion, running in a virtual machine? I need to create a custom display resolution for my install of lion because it doesn't have the size I must have for a project.

Is there a way to create a custom resolution set in lion osx 10.7?

I'm running OSX under VMWare, and as long as you don't run the VM in full screen, Display Preferences shows the screen size as the current window size, minus any host window borders.

With this you can resize the window manually to get close to the resolution you require.

The caveat to this is that you can't "set" the screen size to an exact amount, but with a bit of playing about you can get the resolution within a few pixels.

You will need a monitor with a larger resolution as the VM window does take away some pixels, so if your monitor is only 1280 wide, you will never get a full 1280 width with this method.


What is com.apple.medialibraryservice.xpc? Occasionally when I am using iPhoto an app with a generic white Lego piece icon opens on the dock with the name "com.apple.MediaLibraryService.xpc".

Activity Monitor lists it as "(Not Responding)" and shows it using a pretty large amount of CPU time. When I quit iPhoto its % CPU drops to zero, but it remains in the dock and remains unresponsive in Activity Monitor.

It doesn't happen every time I use iPhoto, and there doesn't seem to be any particular action that triggers it to open. It does seem to correspond to a general slowing of responsiveness (already not great) in iPhoto. I am generally loathe to force quit something if I don't know what it is.

Does anyone know what this app does, why it is opening, and how to prevent it from hogging my CPU when I'm working?

The com.apple.medialibraryservice.xpc is a process used for a number of Apple-specific applications and services, including: indexing photos through iTunes (when syncing), and importing and exporting images in iPhoto.

Some users have reported that this happens when importing slo-mo videos into iPhoto from the iPhone 5s. This could be happening to you when syncing your iOS device--you can disable automatic syncing for iTunes as a temporary fix to see if helps your situation.


OS X - Rebinding special keys? I just transferred over from Windows to Mac OS X and it's great, I like it a lot. However, my day job is programming and I'm hungarian - you'll see in a bit why that is important -.
All the alphanumeric characters are on the right place after I've selected the hungarian keyboard layout, however for some reason Apple decided to go total nuts and change the position of all the special characters on the keyboard. As a programmer this is a really big turn off for me, since I have to use special characters all the time.
To give you an idea how big of a change they made:
Regular hungarian keyboard layout: Link
OS X hungarian keyboard layout: ... Had to remove the link since I can only post 2 links with such low reputation.

Despite the fact that the OS X special character positions are rather awkward (Alt + Shift + 3 for #, really, Apple?) technically, I could just "get used to them", however, I often have to use non-macintosh computers with the regular HU keyboard layout and switching between that and OS X's HU keyboard layout all the time would be really inconvenient.

Can you guys please help me deciding how to solve this problem? I suppose I should be rebinding my keys using something like Karabiner, but I'm not sure if this is the best/easiest solution.
Thank you in advance. :)

Edit: Problem solved! :) I made a custom keyboard layout using Ukelele. If someone else need the layout you can find it here: GitHub Repository

Seil and Karibiner also work for this use case:

https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/seil.html.en
https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/


Slow reboot after upgrading to OS X El Capitan I upgraded to OS X El Capitan a few days ago and was having issues with reboot and shutdown times. It could take up to a minute. So I cloned back OS X Yosemite from a backup and partitioned part of my SSD and installed OS X El Capitan to troubleshoot. Even on the partition OS X El Capitan still shuts down and reboots slowly. When it finally gets to the Apple logo it boots up fast.

Not that big of a deal, just was curious what was going on. OS X Yosemite works fine with no lag in reboot and shutdowns.

I have two boot volumes listed, El Cap that's on a partition, and Yosemite. I select the El Cap partition and it boots fine into El Cap after the restart. and when I'm completely shutdown and boot onto El Cap it boots fine, no lag. Its when I'm booted up into El Cap and do a restart or shutdown. That's where the lag is. I tried Verbose mode and when it started up, it did the white text on the screen then booted normally. I really don't know what I'm looking for here.

Here are few suggestions to troubleshoot the slow reboot issue:

After the system is booted, run:

sudo dmesg | less

and check for any errors.
Start up your Mac in safe mode (hold Shift after restart).
Start up your Mac in single-user mode (CMD-S) or verbose mode ( CMD-V).
Check for any suspicious messages in /var/log/system.log file during boot time. Or use the Console.app to check the logs during boot time.
Check the health of your battery using an app.
If you got any system crashes, please check for any shutdown causes.
Disable non-Apple kernel extensions (check by kextstat | grep -v com.apple).
Disable non-Apple services at startup (check by launchctl list | grep -v com.apple).
Make sure you don't use any custom boot arguments (check by nvram boot-args).
You can consider booting in verbose mode by: sudo nvram boot-args="-v".
Run Apple Hardware Test on your Mac (hold the D key during on reboot).
Book an appointment at Genius Bar and ask them to run the full hardware test using their macOS NetBoot Triage Image.


How to close applications on sleep? I have a password management application (KeePassX) of which backup I sync over Dropbox across several computers.

However the password database can be open only on one computer at a time for file locking reasons. Problems arise when one computer goes to sleep and the application is left open on this computer, the database locks are never removed and in the worst case there are unsaved changes in the database.

Would it be possible to make a program to prompt closure on sleep (like with shutdown) or record a macro which closes the program when the computer puts itself to sleep or is made sleep through Apple menu?

It's hard for me not to to question the validity of your setup (broken sync!), but ... for doing something on sleep or wake, you should try SleepWatcher by Bernhard Baehr (more context at Mac OS X Hints). It is using launchd for monitoring.

  [SleepWatcher] is a command line tool (daemon) […] that monitors sleep, wakeup
  […] of a Mac. It can be used to execute a Unix command when the Mac
  […] goes to sleep mode or wakes up, […]

If you have a bit of terminal experience, I think you can set it up. Make sure you read the well-hidden "Installation for new SleepWatcher users" section in ReadMe.rtf


2 Factor auth on multiple devices I've setup 2 Factor auth on all my apple devices (iMac, MacBook Air, iPhone, iPad Pro) but it doesn't work how I would expect and isn't like other services like Digital Ocean, CloudFlare etc.

For example, say I am using my MacBook Air and try to sign into beta.apple.com. I get the promo for

  Your Apple ID is being used to sign in to a new device (Do not allow, Allow).

If I click allow I see the verification code so I can enter it on the website. If my MacBook Air was stolen and they had my Apple password they would be able to gain access to my account.

This is unlike one of the services I mentioned above where I use Authy which is on my phone. The attacker would need access to both to be able to get in.

Why doesn't the verification code from apple get sent to separate devices, or use a third party app?

The verification code is available on all trusted devices. Since you're logged into iCloud in System Preferences, your Mac is a trusted device and can receive verification codes.

With other services that use 2FA, you've set up Authy, but you only have Authy on your phone. If you installed a 2FA code generator app on your computer, then you would be able to generate codes there too, as you can with iCloud.


PIP3 compile not working on Catalina On my Mac (OSX 10.15.7) I try to install something using pip3:
pip3 install ovirt-engine-sdk-python

I get a GCC error:
gcc -Wno-unused-result -Wsign-compare -Wunreachable-code -fno-common -dynamic -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -O3 -Wall -arch x86_64 -g -I/usr/local/opt/ruby/include -I/usr/include/libxml2 -I/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.9/include/python3.9 -c ext/ov_xml_reader.c -o build/temp.macosx-10.9-x86_64-3.9/ext/ov_xml_reader.o
    ext/ov_xml_reader.c:20:10: fatal error: 'libxml/xmlreader.h' file not found
    #include <libxml/xmlreader.h>
             ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    1 error generated.
    error: command '/usr/bin/gcc' failed with exit code 1

I suspect this has something to do with where the C headers are located, and GCC nog finding them...
The suggestion to work around this is to do:
export CPATH=`xcrun --show-sdk-path`/usr/include

But this does not work. I keep getting the error.
How do I get this to work?

I found out that this would work:
pip3 install --global-option=build_ext  --global-option="-I`xcrun --show-sdk-path`/usr/include/libxml2" ovirt-engine-sdk-python

This specifically adds the path to libxml2 to the include path. How to solve this in a more general way I do not know however.


Import menu item in Photos App Tab Bar When I open the Photos app on my iPhone 6s, it shows me an tab bar saying import:

When I tap on it, it shows a blank screen. Also it doesn't matter whether I tapped on it or not, about two seconds later it disappears. Also it appears both when It is plugged to my computer and when it is not plugged.

What is this tab bar item for? Thanks.

It's meant for the Lightning to USB Camera Adapter for connecting a camera to your iOS device and importing photos. It's only supposed to appear when the camera adapter is connected.


Which 13" MacBook Pro 2011 is right for me? I'm completely new to Mac (OS X) and I want to buy a 13" Macbook Pro 2011. I'm not sure if the "2,7 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7" is worth the +300€.
I want to order one of the two with a 128GB SSD for fast boots. I'm a developer (mainly web) so I need the book for programming and for the university later this year. I'm not going to install Windows or Linux on the machine. I need Mac OS X.

My questions:

Is there any advantage of a SSD in the Mac as long I don't plan gaming? Or do they boot up fast from some kind of sleep mode? I need a Notebook which starts really quick and does not loose battery when off (sleep mode etc.).
Is the i7 much better than the i5? I mean the only difference between the two books is only CPU and HDD.
Is 13" enough? I can't visit an Apple store since there aren't any in my region. My current notebook is a 15" one running Ubuntu and I think it shouldn't be much smaller. But the 15" Macbooks are too expensive for me and a 13" might be more portable. I'll connect the book to a larger screen @ home anyway.
Thanks.

I've ordered the cheapest 13" as my first mac.
I already have a 80 GB SSD which I will put in it immediately when it arrives. An SSD is beneficial to about everything you can do on your mac because the hard disk is usually the performance bottleneck.

Don't worry about the screen size and resolution if you'll hook it up to an external monitor anyway. I've played around with a 13" a lot this week and the screen size and resolution are fine for normal pc usage.

I would not pay extra for the upgraded CPU.
Remember that the cheapest 13" has about the same cpu speed as the previous generation's 17" flagship! (see benchmarks posted below)

So either way I would go with the cheapest version.
If you are unable/unwilling to open up your mac yourself I would take the SSD option. You can always get a nice little external HD with 1TB disk space for not much money, if you run out of SSD space.

Here are CPU benchmarks:


Is there a system freeze problem in Snow Leopard when there's no free memory? For many months, I chased after the cause of my computer, a late-2006 MacBook with Snow Leopard and all available updates installed, locking up, forcing me to restart.  It locked with a spinning cursor and didn't respond to ctrl-option-esc, or to anything other than a power switch forced restart.

I have lately discovered that the freezes were caused by running out of memory.  Using FreeMem Pro, I'm able to monitor memory usage, and to prevent the locks by freeing up memory when it grows short.

The problem seems to be related to gradual growth in the size of wired memory, which starts out at about 1/2 GB and grows to 1.5 GB or more.  (This model is limited to 2GB of physical RAM.)

In turn, the growth of wired memory use appears to be related to Safari.  Quitting Safari releases a big chunk of memory to free memory.  Relaunching Safari then begins chewing up wired memory once more.  I've scoured the Apple User Forums and other such resources where I found similar reports to mine but no worthy answers to WHY it occurs.

The answer is simple: Safari just needs (or wastes) a lot of memory! If you only have 2GB RAM, use Googles Chrome Browser or Firefox.

2GB of RAM is just not enough for todays Computer. Be sure to only open one app at the time, and close it when you are finish.

  An Operating System handles the RAM by itself. When it's out of RAM,
  it stores the user-cache-data on the Hard Drive, so the Computer gets
  very slow.

And for browsing: Websites with lots of flash content needs more memory, than simple text sites. I've had a MacBook Air with only 2GB of RAM, and it was just impossible to work with!


Why is there no bootable disk found when using windows install disk? I have created a partition of MS-DOS FAT on my Mac, then created a Windows 7 Install Disk on my Flash Drive.

When I try to boot using the Install Disk via rEFIt. It just says no bootable disk found.

Why would OS X display a message like that if I used Bootcamp to create the Windows 7 Install Disk?

i hade this problem a few times it's because os x somehow can't set the axtive flag which is needed by the bios/efi tho know at which disk thy should overgive the bootloader.

so you need to set the partition as active by hand via Terminal

Go to finder/Spotlight, and launch Disk Utility
Select the usb disk, and create a partition. Format it as MS-DOS FAT and select Options > MBR
Go to the Terminal, and type the following

diskutil list

locate the name of your usb device. In my case it was rdisk2. Depending on your OS version it could differ.

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/rdisk2

Make the partition active and unmount the disk

sudo fdisk -e /dev/rdisk2
print
f 1
write
print
exit
diskutil unmountDisk /dev/rdisk2

have a look here for a colorful howto: http://tech.anoj.net/2013/01/fixing-unetbootin-on-mac-os-x-to-create.html?m=1


iTunes always reset the "Automatically Back Up" option to "This Computer" So, this section of iTunes idevice option always keeps resetting to "This Computer" from "iCloud", whenever the sync finishes / the device is reconnected.

Is there any guess why this is happening, even though iCloud Backup is turned on in my idevice's settings? Any solution I can try to do?

Solved - it seems that this error happens when you restore your idevice from icloud backup.

Go to idevice's settings>iCloud>Backup and disable and reenable iCloud Backup, and iTunes will now remember this settings.

tl;dr: it didn't have something to do with iTunes, the idevice was the problem.


Siri is unable to hear me I’m unable to use Siri on my MacBook Pro with macOS Siera 10.12.4. It says that there is some “Siri Audio Problem.”
The issue goes away when I restart my Mac, only to return after a very short time.

I have Dictation off.

Here is what it looks like:

I encountered that bug again and solved it with the following Terminal command:

sudo kill -9 `ps ax|grep 'coreaudio[a-z]' | awk '{print $1}'`

Within 5 secs Siri works, no need to log out / reboot.

Can somebody please check whether this solution works for you as well or not. And maybe someone can come up with a clue of what to do with audio drivers to stop this from happening in the future?


How to "killall" Visual Studio Code in Terminal? I have a small shell script called "k" that i call everytime when i want to reset my complete Development Cycle:

killall node
killall Xcode
killall Terminal

How can i find out the final name of the "Visual Studio Code"-Prozess to kill it also this way?

I've tried:

killall "Visual Studio Code"

  No matching processes belonging to you were found

killall "Code"

  No matching processes belonging to you were found

Any ideas?
I am looking for a generic approach without any manually lookup of PIDs necessary.

This application looks like this in Activity Monitor:

I have Visual Studio Code, version 1.1.1, installed and on my system the following works for me:
kill -9 $(pgrep Electron)

Update: Just tested with Visual Studio Code, version 1.14.1, under macOS 10.12.5 and the above command closes Code and Code Helper that show in Activity Monitor.
PS: killall Electron also works.


Can I set up Contacts phone numbers format iPad iOS 9.  I use AT&T.  iPad Air 2
I spend a lot of time in Mexico where the phone number format is completely different from the one in the States, and in Contacts.  Also, Contacts will not let me add extension numbers.  Contacts' format is so frequently different from what I need that I really want to change the format preference to let me enter the phone number the way I want it to look.  I've  spent a reasonable amount of time over the years since I first bought the original iPad 2 trying to find a way to solve this problem.  I finally just put the numbers the way I want them in Contacts/Notes.  Is there a way to set up Contacts phone numbers the way I want them, even if I want them to be different every time?

International Numbers

To store international numbers in the Contacts app (without changing the whole phone in regional settings), you need to enter the country code when adding the number... and it will format it according to what is expected for that country.

Examples

Entering a standard US number, such as 3135551212 produces (313) 555-1212.

Entering the country code first, such as +13135551212 produces +1 (313) 555-1212.

For a Mexican phone number, entering +526241234567 produces +52 624 143 1234.

Etc... etc.    The trick is to use the plus symbol, plus the country code, in front of any international number.

Extensions

For extensions, the general rule is that you use a pause, or wait, in the phone number when you add it.

For an extension number that you type immediately after dialing the number, use Pause. This adds a “,” to the phone number.

For a prolonged pause (like when the IVR goes on for a while before asking you to choose a number), use Wait and then key in the number.


Preview is not responding since OS X Mavericks update Preview is not responding for me since the OS X Mavericks update. I cannot open JPEG images. If I try to go to full screen view, I just get the beachball and have to hard reboot. I am a photographer and use this feature extensively to check images. This worked fine before upgrade to OS X Mavericks.

Is there anything I can do to resolve this issue?

The first thing to try when encountering something like this is to move the preferences files to a new folder. I usually put them on the Desktop.

First, Quit Preview and then go to the Finder and move these files to the Desktop:

/Users/<short user name>/Library/Containers/com.apple.Preview
/Users/<short user name>/Library/com.apple.preview.*

Run Preview and see if it is fixed.

In the case of Preview, there probably isn't any information in these files that you will really miss, It should be stuff like the previously viewed files, and whatever is in the "Preferences" dialog.


Wifi network selection window won't close The network selection window that opens when you click the WIFI icon >> Join Other Network >> Show Networks, is stuck open. Clicking "Cancel" doesn't close it.

How could I fix this without restarting my mac? What process is responsible for that window? Can I (force) quit that process? Does it automatically restart, or do I have to manually restart it?

You can use UIElementInspector (more info here) to find out a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff for individual windows or other elements of the macOS user interface.

This shows that the dialog you are referring to is part of SystemUIServer. You can simply Quit (no need to Force Quit) the SystemUIServer process using Activity Monitor.app and it will automatically restart thanks to launchd.

SystemUIServer is responsible for the right side of the menu bar (menu extras/menulings) and a few other things. See this archived page for more info.


need for 1000 dpi non PDF image from powerpoint The journal does not want pdf nor 300dpi. They want 1000 dpi. How do I get there from mac powerpoint?

Journals ask for esoteric and often silly image requirements all the time*. Unfortunately you're starting with an image in PowerPoint. It isn't a graphics program though, it's a slide deck program and your options are limited. This time, you will need to export as a vector (PDF), open in Preview, and then export as the DPI desired by the journal.

Start here for help: Changing the target DPI when saving slides as images in PowerPoint 2011

Note that if your image is just that - an image, NOT a chart or graph or text, but literally a photo - exporting at higher DPI will just give you a blurrily-enlarged version of your current image, NOT a crisp, clear, high-resolution file. In that case, you'd need to re-create your image at a higher resolution starting from the original source files, which (if they are not at or above 1000 dpi) might literally be not possible.

...and next time, use a proper graphics program to create your images. If cost is an issue, open source ones exist, such as Inkscape or GIMP, that will get you closer to what a journal wants when it comes time to publish. The MS Office suite is ubiquitous but that doesn't mean it's the proper tool for the job.

(*The journal requirement is silly, really, because PDF is a vector format - which means it's resolution-independent, and looks good at any size. Most journals prefer vector images. Some refuse them, for no good reason. The ONLY time a vector isn't superior is where the original artwork is something other than lines and curves, such as photographs/photomicrographs. For graphs and charts, vector is much superior.)


What is the highest video resolution achievable with my MacBook? I know how to use QuickTime to record a movie with my Macbook camera. It seems the resolution is 1280x720. Is this the maximum? Does this depend on the used software?

In your about this Mac - choose your marketing name of your mac and then look it up in the manuals.

https://support.apple.com/manuals

Most integrated cameras are 1080 and not 4k - so you will want to get a Logitech or DSLR camera for your mac if you care about higher resolution or better low light controls.

https://www.wsj.com/video/series/joanna-stern-personal-technology/laptop-webcam-showdown-macbook-air-dell-xps-theyre-pretty-bad/


Macbook Air headphone buzzing noise When I plug my IE80 into my Macbook Air and play any audio, it has a hissing noise in the background. I tried the solution in How can I make my Macbook Pro's headphone jack stop "humming"? by changing audio MIDI setup and it did not work. So I am wondering whether there is some other ways to solve i

I glean from the official specs:

  sound pressure level: 125dB

This can mean just about anything, but if my hunch is right in that what they are trying to say is that their sensitivity is 125dB/mW, then this is indeed a highly sensitive set of IEMs, and I'm in no way surprised that they hiss to some extent when plugged into your MacBook Air.
While the MBA has pretty low noise levels as far as laptops go, it should still be more than high enough for the IE80s to pick up.

Just to be certain of course: See if the noise changes considerably by plugging and un-plugging the power supply. Also check how much noise you can hear through a more normal set of headphones (iBuds, PortaPros, something like that).

If the noise level is objectionably high only through the IE80s, even when running the Mac on battery power, your choices are essentially to either live with it, use other headphones, or buy a usb DAC/amplifier with a sufficiently low noise level. Something like those from Leckerton or JDS Labs, for example.


"Use Option as Meta key" with ability to type the # symbol I am using Terminal version 2.5, where I have two requirements:

I need to be able to type the Meta key.
I need to be able to type the # character, too (Option+3 for the UK keyboard layout)

How can I satisfy both of these? By default, (2) is satisfied, but (1) is not. I can then turn on "Use Option as Meta key", which satisfies (1), but breaks requirement (2).
How can I have both? (It shouldn't be so hard for me to just be able to type.)
Edit: what I'm looking for, for example, might be a way to just "Use Option as Meta key" for the left/right Option key, or a way to override the "Use Option as Meta key" for the sole exception of the # character.

iTerm 2 can be configured to only use one option key as meta:


Using Automator to save text to a SPECIFIED text file (not a new file) I know that there's a way to use Automator to save text to a new text file. But I want an Automator application that saves the text from clipboard to a GIVEN text file (by editing it, i.e. adding in the next line). Applescript would be okay too. Is there a way to do this?

You could use an Automator workflow/application using a Run Shell Script action with:
/usr/bin/pbpaste >> '/path/to/filename.txt'
echo >> '/path/to/filename.txt'

Notes:
Check out the manual page for: pbpaste
You can read the manual page for command in Terminal by typing command and then right-click on it and select: Open man Page
The echo >> '/path/to/filename' line adds a single line feed to the end of the file after the pasted text. You can add addition lines for more line feeds if you so choose.
In place of the echo command you can also use, e.g.:
printf '\n' >> '/path/to/filename.txt'

Adding additional \n for more line feeds, e.g. '\n\n'.
If you update the file while it's opened, it is not doing to show the updated contents, you need to close/reopen the file to see additional updates to it.

If you want to do it with AppleScript, then in place of the Run Shell Script action, use a Run AppleScript action with the following example AppleScript code wish uses a slightly modified handler from Reading and Writing Files:
set myFilename to (path to documents folder) & "Clipboard Text.txt"

set cbText to ((the clipboard) as text) & linefeed & linefeed

writeTextToFile(cbText, myFilename, false)

on writeTextToFile(theText, theFile, overwriteExistingContent)
    try
        -- Convert the file to a string
        set theFile to theFile as string
        -- Open the file for writing
        if theFile contains "/" then
            set theOpenedFile to open for access theFile with write permission
        else
            set theOpenedFile to open for access file theFile with write permission
        end if
        -- Clear the file if content should be overwritten
        if overwriteExistingContent is true then set eof of theOpenedFile to 0
        -- Write the new content to the file
        write theText to theOpenedFile starting at eof
        -- Close the file
        close access theOpenedFile
        -- Return a boolean indicating that writing was successful
        return true
        -- Handle a write error
    on error
        -- Close the file
        try
            close access file theFile
        end try
        -- Return a boolean indicating that writing failed
        return false
    end try
end writeTextToFile

Notes:
The handler from the linked Apple support document was modified to handle both POSIX and HFS+ file paths.


What are these private keys? If you run 'security find-identity -v /Library/Keychains/system.keychain' command from your terminal, you can see available/valid identities from your macbook with these private keys.

What are these private keys?

If i expose them, are my certs any good?

I am writing a script which collects certificate information from macbook. Is there any way to collect these info (Issuing CA, Issued-to User Name, Expiry Date, SHA1 or SHA256)?

Thank you.

Private keys are used for decrypting your data (message, email, picture, website, whatever you imagine). Anyone with public key can send you securely message because only you (the private key) can decrypt encrypted message. If you expose private key you will lose those privilege. Anyone on the route with private key can read what someone sent to you. But I don't have any experience with Keychain API so I can't answer your last question.


OS X Finder not showing correct file size - why and how "fix" it? I have a file that is 237153620 bytes long. Interestingly, Finder shows it as 237.2 MB. But we all know that's not true. Obviously it divides size in bytes with factor of 1000 (base 10) to get size in megabytes, instead of 1024 (base 2). Why is this so?

Some screenshots:

Edit: It was mentioned that switchDiskSizeBase could be used to switch between base 10 and base 2 file size, but it seems broken in El Capitan. (code sign failed when launching) Any idea on alternatives?

This is not a bug, so there is nothing to fix.  Apple (and pretty much every other computer company) moved over to base 10 to avoid confusion with the standards that we have with the metric system.

In metric:
    10 mm   = 1 centimeter
    1000 cm = 1 meter
    1000 m  = 1 kilometer

In base 2:
    1 byte  = 8 bits
    1 KB    = 1024 bytes
    1 MB    = 1024 kilobyte or 10242 = 1,048,576

So, in pretty much every other industry "Mega" meant 1 million of something, in computers it meant "1 million and 48 thousand, five hundred seventy six of something"

It wasn't until around 1998 that the IEC, IEEE and other standards organization wanted to address this ambiguity.  They clarified it by coming up with the "binary prefix" for the unit symbol.

1 Kilobyte = 1,000 bytes.
1 Kibibyte = 1,024 bytes

This was done for the sole purpose of making things easier to understand as they related to computers.

It's very easy to understand (using your file example) that you have a

0.237MB file
237.2KB file
2,272KB file

I don't have to break out a calculator to to do base 2 conversion.  It's very easy for me to understand that my 1/2 TB hard drive is 500GB and not 465.66GB


Don't have audio or video symbols on my Facetime I am a first-time user of Facetime.  My Facetime are activated but I can't make avideo or audio call.  The video or audio symbols are not available.  I goto Facetime setting and couln't sign in the account to view the account.  Message was"Unabe to contact the Facetime server".

What's wrong ?

My connection to the web is OK, my wife's Ipad facetime is functioning OK.

I still can't call on Facetime.

This Knowledge Base article from apple should help you. I believe the following section from the article should resolve your issue.

  Wi-Fi network issues

  If you encounter issues using a Wi-Fi network, use standard Wi-Fi network troubleshooting to resolve interference and other issues.
  If you are using router, firewall, or security software that restricts Internet access, verify that the ports documented in Using
  FaceTime behind a Firewall are open.
  FaceTime requires a broadband connection. Performance may vary according to network throughput and usage.

Read more of this Knowledge Base article - http://support.apple.com/ts3367


I want to copy data from a text box under Settings, but drag and drop doesn't work. Is there a quick way to do it which is not OCR-ing the screen? This is the text box. They're iCloud abbreviations.

I want to export them, but I don't know how to do it.

Can someone help me?

Unfortunately, I don't know if there is a way to do it through the UI.

Good news, though, is that this is stored in ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist. Here is a way to extract the information into a CSV file that you can open into a spreadsheet:

Open Terminal
Copy and paste the following line:

defaults read -g NSUserDictionaryReplacementItems | gawk '/replace|with/ {s = substr($0, index($0, "= ")+2 ); gsub(";", "", s); printf "%s, ", s }; /^ *with/ {printf "\n"};' > text.csv

Open text.csv with Numbers, LibreOffice, or Excel.