Remove menu bar items via command line I know that menu extras can be removed by command-dragging, but is there any way to use a defaults write or other command-line method?

Found a possible answer over on superuser.com:

#!/bin/sh

# Removes the Wifi menu from the menubar.
# This setting is set on a per-user basis, so needs to be run as the user
# Will require a logout. A 'kill SystemUIServer' might work?

OIFS="$IFS"

menutemp=$(defaults read com.apple.systemuiserver menuExtras)
menutemp2=$(echo $menutemp | sed 's/( //')
menutemp3=$(echo $menutemp2 | sed 's/ )//')

IFS=','
read -a menuitems <<< "$menutemp3"
IFS="$OIFS"

for (( i = 0 ; i < ${#menuitems[@]} ; i++ ))
do
    if [ "${menuitems[$i]}" = '"/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/AirPort.menu"' ]
    then
        /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Delete :menuExtras:$i" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systemuiserver.plist
    fi
done

Will test and update.


echo works incorrectly with GeekTool I am trying to use echo in GeekTool to print text without a newline like this: echo -n "test"

When I run that command in Terminal it prints this: test
In geek tool it prints this: -n test

What is going on and how can I fix it?

After some experimenting, I've found that GeekTool seems to replace the token "echo" with an internal function that doesn't accept the -n switch.

One solution:  Give GeekTool the full path to echo(1).  For example, /bin/echo -n "test" works where echo -n "test" does not.


Is using the Sprite Kit default spaceship image in my app a copyright infringement? I am developing a game using sprite kit.
When we create a new Spritekit project, by default a spaceship image is present in it.

I can delete the icon and make my own but I really like that icon for my spaceship-related game.

Can I use that sprite for my game or it will be a copyright infringement?

And what copyright usages are there on it, is it Public and does it have Attribution 3.0 license?

Until you can find an explicit statement from Apple saying the artwork is copyright free and suitable for public use assume it is copyright and do not distribute it.

Ideally, contact Apple Developer Technical Support or Apple's legal department and ask them directly.

Be careful of assuming a right to use Apple's artwork or images. Apple have previously rejected apps from the Mac App Store for this reason.


How to change triple or more click response? Let be clear. I upgraded from 10.6.8 to 10.11 (Snow Leopard to El Capitan) a couple of months ago.

I got used to it and even customized all the basic Trackpad and Accessibility settings but I still can't get used to how the triple click works.

In my previous macOS (like in other operating systems) when you quadruple click it's equal to a triple + single click, with the result of selecting whole paragraph and undo this action.

So by clicking x times it just cycles this 3 + 1.

But on El Capitan, after triple click I need to wait something that feels as long as 1-2 seconds before allowing single-click to undo whole paragraph selection.

This way if I quadruple click or triple click and failing to wait those 1-2 seconds I could endlessly be stuck in tapping/clicking with no effect and the best option is to press esc.

Is it possible to set this 3 + 1 click cycle back?

I finally discovered how to solve this a while ago, by chance.

I was exploring System Preferences > Accessibility and after finishing setting what I needed under the Keyboard section I took a look at the Mouse & Trackpad one.

The solution was to just increase the Double-click speed.

If I recall it right that option wasn't under Accesibility back on Snow Leopard and probably I touched it just once a lifetime ago  (if I had even touched it) and forgot it ever since.

The sort of things that happens when you don't create documentations


How can I get SnailSvn to run a custom diff command? How can I make SnailSvn use vimdiff or any custom diff script? It only has a predefined list of options.
To setup its diff support (for opendiff aka FileMerge), it asks you to copy the following script to:
~/Library/Application Scripts/net.langui.SnailSVN.DiffTool/difftool.sh
#!/bin/bash
pkill -nf ScriptMonitor
sh "$@"

The argument is a generated diff-cmd.sh file that looks something like this:
#/bin/bash
"/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/bin/opendiff" "/var/folders/nn/000000000000000000000000000000/T/net.langui.SnailSVNFree//r422640 Code.cs" "/Users/idbrii/code/game/Assets/Standard Assets/Unlit/Planes/Code.cs"

I tried to replace it with something like:
#!/bin/bash
args=$(grep opendiff "$@" | cut -d\  -f2-)
echo mvimdiff $args >> ~/snailsvndifftool.log 2>&1

But instead I get too many files -- despite files containing quotes, they're still split up by spaces.

With the help of this answer, I found eval:
#!/bin/bash
args=$(grep opendiff "$@" | sed -e 's,"/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/bin/opendiff",/usr/local/bin/mvimdiff,')
echo diff: $args >> ~/snailsvndifftool.log 2>&1
# What's this shady thing?
eval       $args >> ~/snailsvndifftool.log 2>&1

However, doing eval on arbitrary arguments seems unnecessarily insecure and I couldn't get arrays to work (i.e., mvimdiff ${args[@]}), so instead I force mvimdiff to be at the beginning of the line and only allow a set of characters:
#!/bin/bash

args=$(grep opendiff "$@" | sed -E 's,"/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/bin/opendiff",,; s/[^A-Za-z0-9.~/"_ -]//g; s,^,/usr/local/bin/mvimdiff,')
echo diff: $args >> ~/snailsvndifftool.log 2>&1
eval $args >> ~/snailsvndifftool.log 2>&1

There's probably something I'm missing, so I hope someone has a better answer.


Apple TV won't start Netflix Streams When playing some TV shows on Netflix on a new Apple TV, sometimes the show does not start playing. I get the spinning pinwheel for a "normal" period of time, then a black screen. If I press select, I can see the playback progress bar shows the proper length for the show I selected, but the only command it responds to is Menu.

If I switch over to the Roku that this the Apple TV is replacing, it can stream the same episode just fine. Ditto if I try streaming it over the Xbox or Blueray player.

Things I've tried

I've changed from Google's DNS, back to my ISP's (Time Warner), to OpenDNS and back to TWC's with no improvement. (on suggestion that the geo location was confused)

Tried switching from DHCP to static allocation, no improvement, so I switched back. During the process, I think I power cycled it 4 times or so and then it started playing.

Set Up

Apple TV -HDMI->    TV
         -TOSLINK-> Receiver

WiFi to Linksys WRT130 over N
Road Runner 10Mbit (when it isn't raining)

So I took the first ATV back to the Apple Store, and had a repair by replacement. It still had problems, so I started digging deeper.

Through some more specific testing, I narrowed down that it was only happening with movies that had Dolby Digital. In the settings, I had forced the Dolby on in the settings. Turning that off fixed it. It is still stable with Send data to Apple turned on, and switched back over to Google DNS.


Uploading photos from iPhone to iCloud Photos, using iOS 14 - is it working / what is the status? My iPhone has thousands of photos. I'd like to store them in iCloud Photos, to help me migrate to a new iPhone with less storage.
I've set it up, following the section in the iPhone User Guide and the Set up and use iCloud Photos support document.
Looking at my photos in a web browser at icloud.com/photos, it seems my iPhone has only uploaded some of my photos. I can only see about my last 6 months of photos there, but I have many more on my phone.
The documentation I've linked to above is extremely minimal for a complicated feature like this, and doesn't seem to help.
How can I tell the status of the iCloud Photos upload process on my iOS 14 iPhone?

On your iPhone, in the Photos app, at the bottom, select the Library tab. Then select All Photos.
Then swipe upwards.  This should reveal some hidden information about the status of the iCloud Photos upload, which I've highlighted with a red box in this screenshot:

Here, this uncovers that the iPhone has paused the upload, to save battery power. I'm not sure if it warns you about this - perhaps it doesn't, or do you eg have a kid that might have dismissed an alert without telling you?
If you press the blue Resume "button" / link, it'll continue uploading.
The iCloud Photos support document does have a hint about this in the (literally) small print. Emphasis is mine:

Your collection is uploaded to iCloud each time your device connects to Wi-Fi and your battery is charged. When you have iOS 11 or later, your library can be updated over mobile data also.

If you've spent a long time trying to figure this out before finding this information, don't blame yourself. In my opinion, this is an example of poor design from Apple - this feature has low discoverability.


For what does AppleTV have micro-USB port? I noticed that AppleTV has a micro USB port. How and why will one use it ?

Service & diagnostics, recovery etc.

See Restoring your Apple TV


Macbook Pro crashes when I remove power while hibernated I have a late 2013 Macbook Pro (MacBookPro11,3) running OS 10.9.3 that I want to keep as locked down as possible since I have sensitive company data on it. To that end, I have turned on FileVault, set DestroyFVKeyOnStandby 1 hibernatemode 25, and set a firmware password. I have turned off Wake for WiFi access, Power Nap, and graphics card switching.

This set up works most of the time. However, I have found that it always crashes under the following sequence:

Sleep by closing the lid and then Hibernate while connected to power
Remove power. The display backlight comes on; wait for it to go out.

Boom, no more waking, now I have to hit the power button to reboot the machine. (If I remove power but immediately open the lid, then fully wake the machine by entering the firmware password and then the FileValut password, I'm fine.)

Of course I'd like a solution that maintains the protection of the data while the computer is sleeping/hibernating, but I'd settle for theories about what the computer is trying and failing to do when power is removed while hibernating so that maybe I can figure out a solution from there.

I ran into a similar issue with my own late 2013 Macbook Pro running 10.9.3. In the end, I had to run the following commands with root privileges:

pmset -a darkwakes 0
pmset -a standby 0
pmset -a standbydelay 0
pmset -a lidwake 0
pmset -a acwake 0
pmset -a destroyfvkeyonstandby 1 hibernatemode 25

Once I did that, I found that I needed to wake the laptop by touching the power button (pmset -a lidwake 0 disables the automatic wake-up when you open the lid) but my MacBook Pro now hibernates properly and does not crash.

I have a post on the issues I had with 10.9.2 available here:

http://derflounder.wordpress.com/2014/02/12/power-nap-power-management-settings-and-filevault-2/


iOS 11 Takes Tons of Storage Storage shows that System takes about 12 Gb of storage.

Anyone else have System taking up 12 GB after installing, and know how to fix it?

Edit: storage taken up by system keeps rising. Reaching 13 GB.

  iPhone SE.
  Restart didn't help.

Pretty simple triage - the “system” either now contains an iOS update cached or a lot of user data, but you can convince yourself:

Backup the device
Erase all content and settings

Measure the space. If you feel it’s still taking a lot of space, put the device in recovery mode and restore it.

Once you’re OK with the space usage of the bare system, erase one more time and restore from your backup of choice or just sign in and set it up new if you want to start fresh.


How to submit UI ideas to Apple for consideration Doubletap (rapid-successive) of the iPhone's power button (aka "side" button) could be intepreted by the iPhone to invoke an app or action that is user-configured (camera, etc.).  Where is the appropriate forum to submit ideas as such ideas?

All suggestions or feedback should submitted to https://www.apple.com/feedback/.

Select "Feature Request" under "Feedback Type"


App Not Setup: This app is still in development mode, and you don't have access to it - App downloaded from Itunes Store NOTE: I did NOT create an app, I downloaded one from the Itunes store (Likie App) and trying to synch it to my FB. I received this error message instead...please help!

Go to your purchase history for the app and:

Contact the developer from the support link for that app.
If that fails after a reasonable amount of time (2 business days for paid apps, a week for free apps perhaps) - then use the report a problem link to report that app to Apple.


How do I get Time Machine to work during Power Nap I tested Power Nap on my MacBook Pro Retina (Aug 2012) and my Time Machine backup hasn't made any progress.  Even the hard drive light is out while the machine sleeps.

Energy saver is at the default setting of sleep after 15 minutes and Enable Power Nap is checked.

It just doesn't seem to work.  Are my expectations wrong?  Shouldn't it just back up while in "sleep" mode?

This is a newly re-installed OS with no special apps installed and no custom software besides MS Office.

Update:  My Mac is plugged into a Thunderbolt monitor (power and TB).  The drive is chained off the monitor.  Backups don't occur if the drive is directly connected (no monitor) nor through the monitor.  The laptop is always plugged in.

According to the Apple support doc, using Time Machine to back up in Power Nap requires the laptop to be plugged in:

  When your portable Mac is connected to a power source, it also downloads software updates, makes backups with Time Machine, performs Spotlight indexing, and can continue Mac App Store downloads.  It also updates Help Center.


Calendar facebook events I am on Mavericks and have my facebook account set up correctly as i get notifications for new comments and messages but for some reason the calendar app wont get my facebook events.

I am presented with "Enter the password for “my@email.com” in System Preferences.

My password is right as the other notifications work and everything seems to work on my iphone.

Any idea how to fix this?

Not sure you did this but

Go to System preferences
Open Internet Accounts
Pick Facebook
In the new window check the Calender
in the same window Click on Details and enter your credentials.
New Calender will show up in your Calender app
Facebook Events

That should be it.


Move disk to new hardware? I've got an OS X Snow Leopard Server config on a Mac Pro 1,1.  I can't upgrade any further on that hardware.

However, I've got a spare MacPro 3,1 and wondered if it would be "simple" to just move the disks to the new hardware?

I thought I'd ask first just in case the disks get updated with something which means I can't go back to the old MacPro.

Checking the specs of the the MacPro1,1 you should be able to upgrade to 10.7.5 if you upgraded it to at least 2 GB of RAM and you don't need Rosetta (for PPC-apps).

Since the preinstalled system on the MacPro 3,1 was 10.5.1 and both are equipped with a SATA (3 Gb/s) internal HD-interface, there shouldn't be any problem to move the "old" disks.

Your disks won't be updated with anything, except you initiate it yourself.


Remote desktop thru firewall via vpn Scheme:

My_macbook -> INTERNET -> Linux_Proxy_Firewall-> Lion_On_The_Internal_Network

So, need set up encrypted tunnel between my macbook and Linux firewall and want connect into the internal Lion via Apple Remote Desktop.

Looking for a simple, bulletproof - verified solution (so, from someone who really use it) for using ARD via VPN (road warrior config).

Probably here is a way setup tunnels with plain ssh(1) or with SshTunnelManager, but never tried it yet - so any advice and/or real experiences is welcomed...

Asking for real experience because here Apple wrote:

  When using VPN, you may need to set your router to allow a larger MTU
  and/or to disallow fragmented packets. For details, refer to the Admin
  Guide for your version of Apple Remote Desktop.

So... simple with ssh-tunnels:

Into the terminal:

ssh -N -p 22 -c 3des user@firewall.example.com -L 15900/10.1.1.1/5900 -L 13283/10.1.1.1/3283

Where:

user@firewall.example.com - is an valid username on the firewall, and
10.1.1.1 - is the address of the lion-server on the internal network

This will create two tunnels between local computer and remote firewall.
In the Remote Desktop.app you should manually add the remote server like this:

Now, you can observe/control the "internal-server" via tunnels thru firewall.example.com.


PostgreSQL- Cannot connect to server PREFACE: I just bought my first Mac laptop a week ago so that I could get some work done on my trip, but so far I've spent most of my time trying to solve an issue with PostgreSQL. Something went wrong and I don't know what caused it.

SPECS:

Macbook Air OS X Yosemite (10.10.5)

psql (PostgreSQL) 9.4.4 installed with Homebrew

ISSUE: I receive this error when attempting to connect to my database:

2015-09-28 16:18:18 ERROR  : ERROR:  could not open extension control file "/Library/PostgreSQL/9.4/share/postgresql/extension/postgis.control": No such file or directory
2015-09-28 16:44:23 ERROR  : Error connecting to the server: could not connect to server: Connection refused
    Is the server running locally and accepting
    connections on Unix domain socket "/tmp/.s.PGSQL.5432"?

I've tried a bunch of different things to fix it, but Ive gotten nowhere. As far as I can tell, /tmp/.s.PGSQL.5432 does not exist on my system, but I may not have found the correct search syntax. I've been using find ~ -name ".s.PGSQL.5432". How should I go about troubleshooting this?

EDIT: Following up on a comment:

Attempting to run pg_ctl -D /usr/local/var/postgres start results in the following experience:

$ pg_ctl -D /usr/local/var/postgres start
pg_ctl: could not open PID file "/usr/local/var/postgres/postmaster.pid": Permission denied
$ sudo pg_ctl -D /usr/local/var/postgres start
pg_ctl: cannot be run as root
Please log in (using, e.g., "su") as the (unprivileged) user that will
own the server process.
$ su PostgreSQL
Password:
bash-3.2$ pg_ctl -D /usr/local/var/postgres start
pg_ctl: could not open PID file "/usr/local/var/postgres/postmaster.pid": Permission denied
bash-3.2$ sudo pg_ctl -D /usr/local/var/postgres start

We trust you have received the usual lecture from the local System
Administrator. It usually boils down to these three things:

    #1) Respect the privacy of others.
    #2) Think before you type.
    #3) With great power comes great responsibility.

Password:
postgres is not in the sudoers file.  This incident will be reported.
bash-3.2$

It seems that it is asking me to run a sudo command from an unprivileged user account. I don't quite know what to do with that. Should this be placed in a seperate question?

This means that you don't have an instance of PostgreSQL running right now.

Try to rerun your instance of PostgreSQL:

pg_ctl -D /usr/local/var/postgres start


How can I disable the "No Backups for x Days" from Time Machine? Since I updated to High Sierra, I frequently get the "No Backups for x Days" notification. I used to be able to make this go away by turning off Time Machine in the System Preferences until I needed it, but there is no way to turn Time Machine off anymore. How can I get rid of these notifications?

Figured out the completely non-obvious solution. In the Time Machine preferences you have to right-click on the drive icon and then select "Stop Using {Drive Name} for Backup".

Extremely terrible UX, but at least it's doable!


Battery issue - backup problem? I recently bought a new iPhone 6, because my iPhone 5 had some weird battery issues: when I was on 3G or 4G, the battery would literally go down from 50% to 10% in like 10 minutes. On the Wi-Fi, it was pretty OK.

Right now, with my new Phone, I was expecting way better battery results. But weirdly enough, it's still pretty bad, though the phone is new.

I went to the Apple Store a couple of weeks back with my iPhone 5 and the guy told me that it may be a software issue (related to my backup, which I put on my iPhone 6) and not a hardware issue (don't worry I didn't buy the new iPhone just because of that).

Anyways, I was wondering if that could be a logical explanation?
And then, I would like to try completely factory restoring my phone to check but there are some settings like the wifi passwords, etc. that I'd like to keep...how can I transfer them without the backup?

Thanks a lot!

You should first make a full backup and restore the new iPhone to factory default. Don't worry about your settings, it's stored in the backup so you can place it back if you miss something. Or you could try this fix on the iPhone 5 first.

Problem resolved?
If the problem is gone you shouldn't place the back-up back, as something might be damaged inside. You can now manually download every app and add the Wi-Fi settings.

Unfortunately: You cannot put any part of your back-up back, as it's damaged somehow.

Please
Please don't worry about Wi-Fi settings. You can always ask everyone for their passwords (at least in my circles) they're given out pretty easily. You rather have a fully functional phone and battery rather than all Wi-fi passwords, don't you?

Please note I didn't add an answer to when restoring to clean default does not fix your issue.


Mac support for Blu-Ray I would like to buy an external Blu-Ray drive. I have a specific model in mind (the LG CP40NG10), but I'm open to suggestions if anybody has a different one they recommend.

The documentation says that it has "Mac support: Yes (DVD)", but does this imply that it has Blu-Ray support on Macs? There is a new Mac Blu-Ray player software package and tips to read video Blu-Ray discs with MakeMKV + VLC.

Does anybody know if it's possible to read Blu-Ray discs under OS X with this LG drive or where I can find a list of hardware supporting these two software products?

I have a MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo 2.53 GHz on OS X 10.6.8.

For this specific model according to "Allthingstech" (in a comment on web store):

  Allthingstech from Corona, California on 06/19/2012
  Purchased this for my new Macbook Pro with Retina Display. The MB can recognize the drive regardless what the Lg packaging says. Had to use third party software ( Mac Blu-Ray Player) for playback. (…) So far the drive has worked perfectly with stellar Bluray playback and absolutely no stuttering or lag.(…)

source

And OS X since Leopard can read Blu-Ray-Rom with any drive, the problem is to read protected video (all commercial Blu-Ray).


Installing 64-bit java on Mac OS X Lion? When playing Minecraft 1.0, a java-based game, when I switch the rendering options to "Far", the game shows a message saying that memory usage for the game might be too high in Far rendering mode, and that I'm running 32-bit java and should install 64-bit java for the Far mode to work properly.

I can't recall ever actually installing java on this Mac at all.

Is there a way for me to install 64-bit java on my Mac?

This is an June/July 2011 iMac with Mac OS X Lion, all updates installed.

Look for Java Preferences in Utilities. There you'll find order of Java binaries browser will use.


Combine powerpoint presentations without changing template/background? I have multiple powerpoint presentations that need to be combined into a single presentation. They have different templates/background slides. This seems to be rather straightforward to do on Windows, but I can't find any online documentation for how to do this on a Mac.

Unfortunately, this feature is not currently available in PowerPoint 2016 for Mac. If you would like to request this feature, please leave us your feedback at the PowerPoint for Mac User Voice Forum. This will help us prioritize new features in future updates.

https://support.office.com/client/Can-I-compare-and-combine-two-PowerPoint-2016-for-Mac-presentations-fc614567-0939-4842-aa24-5eca01a356a5?NS=MACPOWERPOINT&Version=16&AppVer=MPP160

The link in the help article goes to the general PowerPoint UserVoice page. The specific feature request on UserVoice can be found at:

https://powerpoint.uservoice.com/forums/288925-powerpoint-for-mac/suggestions/10966962-please-add-the-ability-to-compare-and-combine-two


I lost my iPad, can I track it if the battery is dead? If the battery is dead, how can I track my iPad? What if it says iCloud offline on device? Is it because my iPad is wiped or the power is dead?
- if so, how can I figure out the seriel number on my iPad to track it in that sort of way

You can only track it when it is online and connected to the internet.  If it's not online, it could be turned off, the battery could be flat, it could just be out of WIFI range, etc - could be anything.  Use iCloud.com and Find my iPhone to set it to alert when it comes online is all you can really do.

Your best hope is that you were using IOS7 on the device, and had it logged into iCloud, because that way no-one else can use it, even if they wipe the device, without they re-enter your own Apple ID iCloud login.


How can I make my finder refresh a NAS volume mounted using AFP? Regrettably I'm using a WD EX2 on my bridged home network (current and 4th gen Airport Extremes), and the finder doesn't refresh my AFP volumes. The NAS is attached on the 4th gen APE.

Anyone have a solution? I've been relaunching the finder and/or connecting/disconnecting. I'm using 10.10.5 on a late 2012 mac mini. Thank you.

I'm going to throw this out here as a workaround if you can't find a better solution.  Many years ago I had a similar situation and this was an issue with the version of Mac OS X at the time and Network Drives and the lack of a Refresh command in Finder, which it still doesn't have.  My workaround solution then was an AppleScript that I saved as an application and put it in the Finder Toolbar.  You could even use it in an Automator Service in Finder and also assign a keyboard shortcut to it if you want.

What this AppleScript does is creates a hidden file named ".refresh.tmp" and then deletes it, causing the Finder window to refresh/update.

My Refresh Finder AppleScript Code:

tell application "Finder"
    try
        delete (make new file at (front window) with properties {name:".refresh.tmp"})
    end try
end tell

I'm also including some AppleScript code I found on StackOverflow and has been posted on AskDifferent as well although I believe it originated on StackOverflow. Not that any of that really matters other then to give credit to someone other then me for it as I didn't write the code below.  It causes all Finder windows to refresh by toggling the View state between Icons and List views.

I use both, because when I have lots of Finder windows open I prefer to use my original solution on the Finder Toolbar, creating/deleting the hidden file, as it's much quicker and usually at that point my focus is on a single Finder window.  I have the Automator Service set to use a keyboard shortcut and the script I found on StackOverflow. Obviously you're free to choose how to use or not any of what's provided here.

Refresh Finder AppleScript Code found at: Automator Command to Refresh ALL Finder/all Finder Windows

tell application "Finder"
    set theWindows to every Finder window
    repeat with i from 1 to number of items in theWindows
        set this_item to item i of theWindows
        set theView to current view of this_item
        if theView is list view then
            set current view of this_item to icon view
        else
            set current view of this_item to list view

        end if
        set current view of this_item to theView
    end repeat
end tell

Either one of these AppleScripts can be saved as an AppleScript Application and or an Automator Service, the latter of which a keyboard shortcut can be assigned.

Also, as I do not like the generic icon assigned to either, I added a custom .icns file from the Internet, in this case a refresh symbol. (A .png file can be used as well.)

Creating the Refresh Finder AppleScript Application

Open Script Editor (or AppleScript Editor if applicable).
Copy and paste either of the scripts, from above, into the Untitled document window and then press Compile.
Press ⌘S to save and set the File Format: to Application saving it in the Applications folder as Refresh Finder.
Give the Refresh Finder application bundle a custom icon.  I used an icon of a refresh symbol found at IconArchive and used this one in particular clicking the 'Download ICNS' button.  I opened the downloaded "Iconsmind-Outline-Refresh.icns" file in Preview and copied it, pressing ⌘AC and then pasted it into the Get Info sheet of the Refresh Finder.app by first selecting the little icon in the upper left corner of the Refresh Finder Info sheet then pressing ⌘V. (In Applications select the Refresh Finder.app and press: ⌘I)
Now drag and drop the Refresh Finder application bundle from the Applications folder onto the Finder Toolbar where you would like it to be.

It's now ready to be used, click the Refresh Finder icon in the Toolbar and the Finder window(s*) (*depending on which code your selected) will refresh.

Creating the Refresh Finder Automator Service

Open Automator selecting Service.
Set Service receives selected to no input changing in any application to in Finder.
Add a Run AppleScript and then copy and paste the Refresh Finder AppleScript Code above into the Run AppleScript window overwriting the default code.
Save the Service pressing ⌘S naming it as Refresh Finder.
Open System Preferences and navigate to Keyboard  > Keyboard Shortcuts > Services and scroll to the bottom when under General you'll see Refresh Finder and select it.  Now click on add shortcut and press controlcommandR or: ^⌘R

It's now ready to be use as a Service, when Finder has focus, using the keyboard shortcut: ^⌘R

Note: You can also give the Refresh Finder Automator Service a custom icon as well.  The Service is located in ~/Library/Services and apply the icon in the same manner described above in step 4 of Creating the Refresh Finder AppleScript Application.


What does mkdir -p do? specifically the "-p" part? I have had some trouble understanding when manipulating my Terminal with the making of directories, and I've encountered with this "-p" option in the network trying to find easier ways to create directories. Any help? :/

Have you tried running the man mkdir command in Terminal? Doing so results in the following explanation for the -p option:

  Create intermediate directories as required.  If this option is
               not specified, the full path prefix of each operand must already
               exist.  On the other hand, with this option specified, no error
               will be reported if a directory given as an operand already
               exists.  Intermediate directories are created with permission
               bits of rwxrwxrwx (0777) as modified by the current umask, plus
               write and search permission for the owner.

So basically

mkdir foo/bar/baz/quizz

will fail unless the directories foo, foo/bar and foo/bar/baz already exist.

mkdir -p  foo/bar/baz/quizz

will create any missing directories in the path (as long as you have write permissions in the parent directory) and ensure that the permissions allow you to access them.


How to open different emacs version from the shell? I have two versions of emacs on my machine. One came preinstalled and I have just installed a newer version with homebrew.

If I type emacs in the terminal, the old version runs. If I type emacs-24.4 then the new version runs. What do I have to do to ensure typing just emacs runs the 24.4 version and not the older version?

To do this for just Emacs, use

alias emacs=/usr/local/bin/emacs

in your shell startup file which will make Emacs always run Homebrew emacs instead of whatever is first in your $PATH.

But the better way to do this is to make your shell always look for Homebrew versions of commands first, by putting /usr/local/bin first, or at least early, in your $PATH.

So if your $PATH is set like this:

export PATH="$PATH:/usr/local/bin"

change it to this:

export PATH="/usr/local/bin:$PATH"

/usr/local/bin is a directory containing symlinks to all Homebrew-installed commands, Emacs included, and your shell starts at the beginning of the $PATH to figure out what executable to use, so putting it first will in effect choose the Homebrew emacs first.

One last thing - please remove /usr/local/Cellar/emacs/24.4/bin from your $PATH. It's going to break when the next version of Emacs comes out. If you use /usr/local/bin instead, Homebrew will automatically manage the symlinks when you update things.


Font missing Characters Latin 1 Supplement. How to type them? I am typing in sanskrit, so, when typing in roman alphabet I need some supplements like  ā ṣ ḥ ś ī.

My font for the Roman alphabet is DV1-TTGanesh. When installing it (I have the copyright version), it says in the specification that it contains the Latin-1 supplement that covers those characters.

The thing is that when I write with that font, everything is ok until I try to use one of those letters that is composed of a dot and vocal, for example ī . Then, the font changes to Helvetica, for example.

At first I thought that the font didn't have those characters, and that was why it was changing the font.

But I figure out, that is not true. The reason is that I opened a text already written by another person, using DV1-TTGanesh, and those letters composed of 2 things, are nicely in the correct font, and are not changing.

So meanwhile, I have to copy the letter I need and paste everytime from one document to another.

So my question is, where are those letters? How can I find out how to write them? I use the keyboard screen but they are not there. There are just showing the elements separately.

Any clues?

To write transliterated sanskrit you normally use the ABC Extended (formerly called US Extended) keyboard layout.  To activate that you go to system preferences/keyboard/input sources and use the plus and add buttons, then you select ABC Extended in the "flag" menu at the top right of the screen.

The shortcuts for making the various diacritic marks you need are given in

http://symbolcodes.tlt.psu.edu/accents/codemacext.html

macron above is option a, then the base letter.  dot below is option x, then the base letter.  acute above is option e, then the base letter.  āḥś

From information you provided in the Apple forums, I think you may be using a Non-Unicode font, in which case the ABC extended keyboard will not produce what you need.  If this is the case, I strongly recommend you switch to Unicode, which has been the standard for this kind text for a long time already.  A non-Unicode font will make your work pretty much unusable for anything other than printing on paper.


Youtube slow on iPhone over wifi I received a new iPhone yesterday and connected it to my home Wifi network.

On content heavy sites it runs perfectly fine, but if I use either the Youtube site or the Youtube app I can't watch anything. It takes forever to watch 5 seconds of video.

My first question is, how can I be sure that my phone is using local Wifi for the internet connection and Youtube app (it says connected in the settings, but is there an icon in the display etc. to confirm Wifi connection)?

Any suggestions as to why Youtube runs slow when other heavy sites load without problem?

If you have a slow download speed then that might be the problem.

This is what you should do.

Go to the settings and choose "airplane mode" then activate the Wi-fi to force the phone to only use it.
Now you need to reboot the device by holding the "home" and "sleep/wake" at the same time for about 10 seconds. This resets the ram and gives you the best chances.

Your IPhone 4 has 512 mb ram which is plenty. and you are running 4.2.1 which is ok. (4.3 has a faster JavaScript motor but may give you worse battery life.)
Now choose a video clip and play it either from the youtube player or from Safari (it might be faster).

Goodluck!


Obtain Java 11 for macOS? I know in recent years the Java development cadence has changed, becoming much more rapid and more predictably scheduled. New plans were announced for regular Long-Term Support (LTS) releases. And I have heard Oracle changed their licensing terms for their Oracle-branded releases.

All of this has left me confused as to how and where I can obtain Java 11 or later for my Mac. Can someone give some general overview of my options?

tl;dr

If you are an end-user needing a free-of-cost JVM to run a Java app on your Mac (rather than a developer), my personal recommendation is to download an .pkg file from AdoptOpenJDK.

Open that file to run a macOS installer.

You will then find a JVM installed in /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines. Later, you can upgrade in the same manner, deleting the old JVM from that folder.

Details

Yes, there have been several major changes to the evolution of Java in recent years, and they can be a bit confusing.

Multiple vendors, both free and paid

First, know that there are new options available for those wishing to pay for commercially supported implementations of Java. And know that Java is still available freely without cost. For both a summary as well as the gory details, read this white paper published by major figures in the Java community: Java Is Still Free

OpenJDK

Secondly, know that all releases for Java 11 and later for macOS are based on the same codebase, the open-source project known as OpenJDK.

Apple contributes Mac-specific code to this project, and has staff working on this to make sure that Java continues to work well on macOS.

IBM, Oracle, and many other companies have contributed code and testing as well. Oracle has recently announced their intention to reach feature-parity between their own Oracle-branded Java releases and the OpenJDK product; this even included the donation of some of their previously-commercial tools such as Flight Recorder to OpenJDK.

The upshot is that you should see very similar behavior and features across the various sources of Java for macOS.

JVM bundled within desktop apps

If you make desktop apps to run locally on a Mac or other computer, you may continue to do so, and keep on using Swing and/or JavaFX as always. But the delivery of your app will change.

Java Applet and Java Web Start technologies are being phased out. Oracle will no longer encourage end-users to have a JVM by itself installed. Instead, Oracle advises building your app as a standalone executable with a JVM bundled inside. This has already been commonly done on Macs, especially so if delivering an app through the Apple App Store. That approach is the new normal, to be done across all platforms including macOS, Windows, Linux, etc.  The new Java Modularization technology that began with Java 9, including the jlink and jpackage tools, make it easier than ever to bundle a down-sized JVM with your app.

For more info, see the white paper Java Client Roadmap Update of 2018-03.

So, for the purpose of bundling with your app, you will need to consider redistribution/deployment rights when choosing a JVM vendor and product.

Choosing a vendor

Some major vendors of Java to consider for Java 11 and later:

Azul SystemsOffering two product lines, Zulu based directly on OpenJDK with possibly a few tweaks, and Zing a specially-enhanced version of the Java platform.
OracleOffering their own commercial product Oracle JDK and the quite-similar free-of-cost and GPL-licensed jdk.java.net.
AdoptOpenJDK.netOffering free-of-cost builds of Java based on OpenJDK. Choose between with the usual HotSpot engine (just-in-time compiler & optimizer) or the OpenJ9 engine from Eclipse (previously from IBM).

Here is a diagram chart that may help guide your decision-making. This chart is not necessarily complete or accurate. It is simply meant to help get you oriented. You should research further your options.


Safari, Yosemite: Where is "Reopen all windows from last session" stored? Title wraps up the whole thing, but to elaborate I have an applescript that deletes Safari's history folder, bookmark folder, and a few other boot cache items, but quitting Safari, running the script, then re-opening Safari I can still choose "Reopen All windows from last session" and get the very last page from the site I was just at - where is this info stored? If my gf catches me looking at porn again I could be in hospital for a month or more!

It's stored in ~/Library/Safari/LastSession.plist, where ~ is your home folder of course.


Correct way to provision multiple laptops? I work as a Linux system administrator but I also wear many hats. One of those hats is Apple laptop provisioning and maintenance.

In my naiveté with the Apple Way of doing things, I've been using the same Apple ID to provision new laptops. This has caused some problems, such as users not being able to perform software updates on their own laptop.

Using a separate apple ID for each laptop is untenable: it doesn't scale, isn't manageable, and is tied to users (i.e. owned by people), not to a central, shared management resource. Which is why using the same Apple ID made sense to me.

What is the recommended way to provision and update multiple laptops?

EDIT: I realized that this question doesn't quite address my real concern, which is the initial provisioning of Macbooks.

Does the Apple Volume Purchase Program help with intial "imaging" of
laptops?
How is imaging and initialization of laptops handled in
the Apple world? Does Apple have tools for this or third parties are
better?
How do people handle the installation of required
software and then hand that off to end users? I want my end users to perform their own updates. Does
VPP do this? (Example: I build a laptop with software XYZ on it, but I
don't have access to the end user's Apple ID to install it, so I
install it with my corporate Apple ID. How does the end user then
update package XYZ?)

I am primarily a Linux sysadmin, so this whole notion of having software maintained by an actual person vs maintained by a system user seems bonkers to me. So that's where my disconnect is.

Linux example:

Root installs package XYZ via Apt or Yum. The packages come from a package repository which is similar in many respects to Apple Store.
Root is a system user
Root access is granted to a real user. But there's no direct tie between the actual user, the system, and the package repository. i.e. Any user with root access can install and upgrade any package on the system. You never get these Apple messages that the wrong Apple ID was used to install software XYZ and you can't upgrade it.

The Apple suggested solution is to use volume purchase and let your users manage their AppleID and you manage the licenses.

https://www.apple.com/business/vpp/

There is a program for business and another for education. Past that, you might use MDM like jamf now to push those codes to the Macs and manage them remotely for security, password compliance and data protection.


spotlight search for folder within finder I hit cmd-shift-g for go to folder, but I have to type the full path

Is there some way for me to search a folder name and go straight there?

Like how automjump/z etc. work in the terminal

Yep, just search for what you want in the top right of the finder window. As long as you are not in gallery view mode, have your mac updated to the latest version, and have made sure the application is searching the whole mac, it should show a section called folders. There, it will show all of the folders that match your search.


iOS 9.3 update adds a passcode I just updated my iPad to iOS 9.3 today, and when it starts up it shows the 'slide to update", when I slide it requires me to enter my 4 digit passcode.  I never added a passcode, and now I have no access to my iPad.  Is this a known issue, or is this just me?  I can't find anything online about this.

I tried to change the password through iCloud.com, but the iPad isn't and won't connect to the internet.  I am about to try to restore through iTunes, but by what I remember you cannot restore without unlocking your device.  But before I try to restore, is there a way to change your password with the device locked?  I do have an iTunes account on the iPad (or at least there was an account on there, maybe the update logged me out). I just restored my iPad via DFU mode, so I don't need to change the passcode anymore.

So my 2 questions:

Is this a known issue/what happened?
Can I change the password?

Yes, there was a known issues, which is fixed with latest 9.3 update.

  Updating some iOS devices (iPhone 5s and earlier and iPad Air and earlier) to iOS 9.3 can require entering the Apple ID and password used to set up the device in order to complete the software update. In some cases, if customers do not recall their password, their device will remain in an inactivated state until they can recover or reset their password. For these older devices, we have temporarily pulled back the update and will release an updated version of iOS 9.3 in the next few days that does not require this step.”


MacBook Pro lost SSD during macOS High Sierra update I have a MacBook Pro 2013 with two hard drives. One of them is the original MacBook’s 500 GB HDD drive and I have extra SSD drive that I installed instead off cd rom. Mac OS is installed on both of drives but I use SSD as my system drive.

Today I started to install the new macOS High Sierra on the SSD system drive and after the first reboot the Mac showed a progress bar that wasn’t moving for 15 minutes. So I made reset (holding power button). Now my MBP restarted from HDD and I can’t find my SSD in Disk Utility. It is hard to say how I am worried now about data stored on SSD.

What should I do to finally boot from my SSD safely without loosing data?

Upated: Disk Utility shows the SSD drive but it doesn’t show any logic drives here:

Also I found some restoring software that shows my drive structure:

You should know that updating to High Sierra normally means to a change in the used disk format. (Apple introduced APFS for macOS High Sierra which will be used instead of HFS+). If you now updated the system on your SSD the SSD will probably be formatted as APFS and therefore the older version of OSX won't be able to read it's content.

Did you apply any encryption on the SSD system? Because I had trouble with my system too when the update produced a unknown failure and I tried to access the system partition using an El Kapitan system. (I was forced to wipe all data and sync back my time machine backup)

Maybe try to access the data by booting in recovery mode (because the recovery system should now also be upgraded to High Sierra)


My Mac 'dies' if it has less the battery level is below 3% My Mac 'dies' if it has less the battery level is below 3%. Is it possible to force it to hibernate when the charge is at 5%?

I have a Mid-2009 MacBook Pro with 683 load cycles and the latest SMC available (1.47f2)

The SMC and device firmware control power management and I've not seen any parameters you can simply adjust to change the thresholds but clearly, Apple could program that and push an update if you had infinite money or influence.

That being said, it's quite easy to run a background command to log the battery levels to a file and parse that file. Whether you prefer python or perl or simpler shell commands would influence the solution you implement.

So yes, it is possible to program such a tool, but you'd need some basic scripting knowledge to implement a higher limit to enter hibernation.


MacBookPro8,2 late 2011 GPU fix with EFI: how to do it on Catalina macOS 10.15 (dosdude1 patch)? This guide https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/295805/156133 is working fine on High Sierra. On Catalina installed with dosdude1 patcher (http://dosdude1.com/catalina/) I couldn't make it through, especially the thermal improvement.

I couldn't reload the AMDRadeonX3000.kext with sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions-off/AMDRadeonX3000.kext
. I've got this error:

/System/Library/Extensions-off/AMDRadeonX3000.kext failed to load - (libkern/kext) link error; check the system/kernel logs for errors or try kextutil(8).

I couldn't either create the sudo nano /force-iGPU-boot.sh, the permission being write only.

Does anyone have a solution how to run a broken GPU late 2011 on Catalina?

I'm having the same issue trying to load the AMDRadeonX3000.kext after boot.

I was able to create the force-iGPU-boot script though, by mounting the Catalina system disk as R/W in terminal:

sudo mount -uw /


How do I turn on my iPhone 4 if the home or power button doesn't work and connecting to a power source doesn't either? I've got an iPhone 4 and the lock (power) button and the home button doesn't work. My phone won't turn on and I've tried plugging it in to a power source but it still hasn't done anything. Can anyone help me?

If an iPhone is off, and you connect it to a power source (either a charger or computer), it will always turn on. !!!

If that is not working then something more serious is going on. Bring it in for repair.

Just in case it is locked-up, try holding the Home button for 30 seconds, but that might be a fruitless exercise.


How do I make TextEdit remember last Save As location in Mountain Lion? First off, I have disabled iCloud as default location for Save As dialogs in TextEdit.app:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSDocumentSaveNewDocumentsToCloud -bool false

… But still, I have one critical beef in TextEdit:

Save As… dialogs don't remember the last location where I saved a file! To the best of my knowledge, this used to be the case prior to (Mountain) Lion.

How can I restore this behavior?

Example use case:

Open TextEdit.
Type something.
Hit ⌘W.
Save As dialog appears; choose ~/Desktop.
Quit and reopen TextEdit.
Repeating steps 1–3 … it doesn't default to ~/Desktop! (It's always ~/Documents.)

There is software that can track this folder and augment the standard behavior that you are seeing.

I find Default Folder to be the best of class, and you can try it for free and then decide if it's worth paying once you've had a chance to kick the tires a bit.

http://www.stclairsoft.com/DefaultFolderX/


Outlook 2016 for Mac: Column View with Reading Pane on right How do you get the reading pane on the right while retaining a column view of emails in the centre?

Whenever I turn on the reading pane to show on the right side, the email list changes from Column View to a format I don't like, which shows each mail over a number of lines that includes a preview.  (I'm not sure what the name of this view is.)

On Outlook for the PC, this is not a problem, but on Mac it is for some reason?

You don't. This is a behaviour/design feature that Microsoft has seen fit to omit/break between their Windows and macOS versions of the product. There have been requests to resolve this, since Office 2013, however Microsoft are not listening or don't care.


How can I transfer a Live Photo from one .photoslibrary file to another? While on vacation, I imported my photos to my girlfriend’s laptop to free up space on my iPhone. She now has my Live Photos saved onto her laptop and I can view them when I open her Photos Library (.photoslibrary file).

Now that we are home, I’d like to transfer these Live Photos from her laptop (MacBook Pro) to my desktop computer (iMac) where all my photos are stored.

When I try to export the files on her computer, I get both a .jpg and a .mov file. I cannot import these to my Photos Library on my iMac as it will import them as a separate photo and video, not as a Live Photo.

Is there any way to transfer a Live Photo from one Photos Library to another?

The easiest way to transfer Live Photos is to use AirDrop.

Starting with macOS Sierra 10.12.3, Apple added a new Live Photos Smart Album to Photos. It can be accessed either from the Sidebar (⌘ cmd ⌥ opt s) or in Albums view (⌘ cmd 4).

Once you’re in there, select all the Live Photos you want to transfer, then right-click, Share → AirDrop.

To use AirDrop, you will need one of the following models of Macs:

MacBook Pro (Late 2008) or later, excluding the MacBook Pro (17-inch, Late 2008)
MacBook Air (Late 2010) or later
MacBook (Late 2008) or later, excluding the white MacBook (Late 2008)
iMac (Early 2009) or later
Mac Mini (Mid 2010) or later
Mac Pro (Early 2009 with AirPort Extreme card, or Mid 2010)

Apple has a support article that may help you identify which model Macs you have.

If your Mac doesn’t support AirDrop, but hers does, AND you’ve managed to free up space on your iPhone, she can also AirDrop those photos to your iPhone. You can then import them into your Mac by plugging in to USB.

Barring all of the above, then you can have your girlfriend send you those Live Photos by iMessage, then import them into your Photos Library.

As of macOS Sierra 10.12.4 and iOS 10.3.2, AirDrop and iMessage are the only built-in ways to share Live Photos while preserving their full quality. Using a Shared Photo Album will down-sample your photos to 2048 pixels on the long edge.


Switch windows of an application across desktops Is there a way (which does not cost a buck) to switch between windows across desktops with Option Tab? Not between apps, but between windows.

Meaning: if I have a Chrome window on desktop 1 and another on desktop 2, just by Option Tab'ing, I could switch across both.

Unfortunately I don't know a keyboard shortcut for that.

But using the mouse or trackpad, just click of the already active application icon in the dock. If that application has windows in various desktops, each click will cycle to the next desktop having some windows of that application.


What is process lsd on iOS? There is a process running on my iOS device (7.1.2) called 'lsd'. The file is in /usr/libexec/lsd. What is it and what does it do?

Device info:

iPad 2 (7.2.1)
Jailbroken

lsd in iOS is the LaunchServiceDaemon.
It provides according to Apple

  support for launching apps and matching document types to apps. As a result, the keys recognized by Launch Services allow you to specify the desired execution environment for your bundled code.

Despite the name nothing to worry about.


Backing up a disk image with Time Machine I'm storing backup of my Gmail account in a disk image, to cut on number of files on the main HFS+ volume. This makes Time Machine ignore the existence of this volume, just because it's in a disk image.

Is it possible to get Time Machine to treat the disk image as a regular disk, and get Time Machine to back it up as if it were a "physical" volume?

This is on Mountain Lion 10.8.2, on late 2009 white unibody Macbook.

To back up a disk image, you back up the .dmgfile itself, instead of the virtual disk the system shows you.

However, unless the disk image is a sparse bundle image. Time machine will have to backup the entire disk every time the disk changes.


External display connected via USB-C > VGA goes to endless sleep/wake loop I have a dell external display connected to my mb pro 2017 (Mojave), but whenever i try to sleep my mac (with sleep command), it goes to endless loop trying to sleep and then immediately wakes up, because external display won't sleep.

Is there any workarounds / apps to prevent this behavior?

I just had to put the mac in to sleep using external display. Also closing the LID won't work, you have to sleep the external display first, then you can close the LID.


How do I pin a website to the dock in OS X? In Windows, and every permutation of Linux I've tried, you can pin a website as a icon shortcut to the dock / start menu / quick menu.

How can I do this in OSX? I use a habitica for my to-do list and I need a one-click entry to it all times

Okay I just found a way.

You have to drag the website from Firefox left-hand side of the URL bar to your desktop. It will make a new file.

Move it into a permanent location, like Documents. Then drag that to the RIGHT-side of the dock. It will pin. Oddly it won't let you arrange it in the order you want to. It must stay on the right.

But the only catch is you cannot delete the file in Documents. If you do, it'll just show a question mark when you click the pinned icon.


Unable to open Anywhere option from Gatekeeper in order to open apps not from Mac App Store I was following this guide to open a Mac app from an unidentified developer.
So I open Terminal and enter the following code to get the Anywhere option
sudo spctl --master-disable

This leads to the following output
objc[7234]: Class SPExecutionPolicy is implemented in both /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SystemPolicy.framework/Versions/A/SystemPolicy and /usr/sbin/spctl. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
objc[7234]: Class AppWrapper is implemented in both /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SystemPolicy.framework/Versions/A/SystemPolicy and /usr/sbin/spctl. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
objc[7234]: Class AppWrapperPolicyResult is implemented in both /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SystemPolicy.framework/Versions/A/SystemPolicy and /usr/sbin/spctl. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
objc[7234]: Class AppWrapperPolicy is implemented in both /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SystemPolicy.framework/Versions/A/SystemPolicy and /usr/sbin/spctl. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
objc[7234]: Class SPLog is implemented in both /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SystemPolicy.framework/Versions/A/SystemPolicy and /usr/sbin/spctl. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
objc[7234]: Class MIS is implemented in both /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SystemPolicy.framework/Versions/A/SystemPolicy and /usr/sbin/spctl. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
objc[7234]: Class SPExecutionHistoryItem is implemented in both /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SystemPolicy.framework/Versions/A/SystemPolicy and /usr/sbin/spctl. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
objc[7234]: Class SPExecutionPolicyItem is implemented in both /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SystemPolicy.framework/Versions/A/SystemPolicy and /usr/sbin/spctl. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
objc[7234]: Class SPDeveloperPolicy is implemented in both /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SystemPolicy.framework/Versions/A/SystemPolicy and /usr/sbin/spctl. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
objc[7234]: Class GKScanResult is implemented in both /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SystemPolicy.framework/Versions/A/SystemPolicy and /usr/sbin/spctl. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.

but doesn't seem to enable the option in System Preferences.

So how can I enable "Allow apps downloaded from Anywhere" via Terminal? Using macOS Big Sur Ver 11.1

If you download an application from the internet, then the following steps can be taken to open the application. Here the Startup application is used as an example.
I downloaded the Startup application from the SourceForge project Startup for rEFInd. Here is my Downloads folder.

Note: In Finder preferences, I have Show all filename extensions checked off.

When I double clicked on Startup.app, I received the following popup.

I selected the Cancel button. Next, I opened the Security & Privacy pane of the System Preferences application, as shown below.

Here, I selected Open Anyway and the the following popup occurred.

Here, I selected Open and the application opened.

The above steps only had to be done once. Afterwards, the application could be opened by simply double clicking on the icon.

Note: The above steps did not remove the com.apple.quarantine extended attribute placed on any files or folders.
How to Avoid the Above Steps
When a file is downloaded, the extended attribute named com.apple.quarantine is placed on the file. This is what initially kept the Startup the application from opening. The following steps can be taken to remove the com.apple.quarantine extended attribute from the application.

If you want to test these steps, then you will probably what to put any existing Startup application in the trash, and download a new copy of the application.

Right click the application in the Finder window and select New Terminal at Folder, as shown below.

This will open a Terminal application window, as shown below.

Enter the following command, as shown in the image below.
xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine .

Next, close the Terminal application window. Now you can open the application normally.


iPhone says it is verifying update, but it's stuck on lock screen I can't unlock my iPhone and it has been saying it's verifying the update for hours now. I can't turn it off or restart it because the button is broken. I can't even unlock my iPhone or slide to power off when using AssistiveTouch.

How do I get around this problem?

Let the battery deplete. After the device shuts down on it own, leave it for a few mins and then put it on charge.

If that fails, you might have to repair the hardware or connect it to iTunes / Apple Configurator 2 to update over lightning connection.


Why does Google Drive create so many conflicted files? I have a Windows system and a Mac.
When I create a file (e.g. a.cpp) in Windows (with vim), Google Drive creates a lots of files like a (1).cpp, a (2).cpp ...
Some of them are delete by Google Drive after it creates them. Some are not.

Why does Google Drive generate so many files?

Also a.cpp is not the same as a.cpp in Windows. a (2).cpp in Mac is the same as a.cpp in Windows in some cases.

Why do the same files have different content?

When I check the access right of files, it should be something like

-rw------  ..................  a.cpp

However, when I create a file b.cpp in Mac it is

-rw-r--r-  ..................  b.cpp

Is it because of the accessing privilege problem?

I noticed the same issue, the problem it seems is when you 'edit' a file it get locked by the application and the google drive auto sync kicks in and creates a conflict file.

I notice this mostly with Photoshop files, as the files can get pretty large and the sync doesn't happen quickly like a simple text file and it cause a lot of duplicates.

My solution:  pause google drive while I am working on these files and when done, let them sync.


Does MacOS Support a Snapshot-Style Filesystem? I would like to perform daily snapshots that I can revert to if someone:

downloads Malware
installs buggy software
etc.

Does such a thing exist?  Is there a roadmap for it?

I have a Fusion drive so that would affect my personal situation but I am just asking the general question.

Apple's new file system, APFS, supports snapshots.  Per their documentation:

APFS is available in 10.12.x (Sierra) as a Developer Preview and as a released product in 10.13.x (High Sierra).

Earlier than Sierra, if you need to make a "point in time" backup, it's best to run Time Machine to ensure a good backup.


tree command shown Chinese character as unicode (env) ➜  zhuaxia git:(master) ✗ tree /tmp/test
/tmp/test
└── 谢211220_3_8
    ├── album_description.txt
    ├── cover.jpg
    ├── 谢211220;210\230浩231_3_8.mp3
    └── 谢211220_3_8.mp3

(env) ➜  zhuaxia git:(master) ✗ ls /tmp/test
谢安琪_3_8

Using tree command, some Chinese character is displayed as Unicode, but ls is OK.

I have problems same as you, but I did Google and found the answer! Just add the option

tree -N /name_of_directory

man tree reads:

-N     Print non-printable characters as is instead of as escaped octal numbers.

Tell me if this still does not work!

Also, you seem to use zsh?? I am not familiar with that. I use bash, though.


Scaling text in Keynote I have a complex drawing in Keynote, which I need to resize. I can do this by making the drawing into a group, but unfortunately it contains many text labels, which do not resize when I change the size of the group. I can change the font size, but it's quite hard to get the new font size to look the same as the old one. What usually happens is that the new text is slightly larger than the text boxes, so I end up having to manually resize each one in order to make it readable again.

Usually I get around this by taking a screenshot and inserting it into the presentation as an image. However, in this case I need the image to have a transparent background. I tried using Keynote's Instant Alpha feature, but it left white in the interiors of letters like "O" and "a", and manually removing that is just as much work as manually resizing all the text boxes.

So is there some kind of method or workaround for resizing the text of a keynote drawing along with the other elements, while keeping the background transparent?

My solution:

duplicate the slideshow,
resize the entire document (Document tab of the 'properties sidebar' > Slide Size dropdown)
copy the correctly sized elements back to the original doc.

Any variation of this will probably work - the key principle is that if you resize from the Arrange properties tab, objects will resize whilst text won't; if you resize the document: everything stays in proportion.

Using the accepted answer's method, I wasn't able to edit the content I'd pasted from preview (the pdf contains a rasterized png, I believe).


How to find purchased history from AppStore on Catalina OS? In previous versions in AppStore was a tab like "Purchased", but after update I don't see this tab...

Issue is that I paid for the app from AppStore, but after I reinstalled the OS, I wan't to get this application again because I have already paid for this, but in AppStore I don't have button get I can't see the button with price written on it... Like I need to pay again...

What am I doing wrong?

On the lower left hand corner of the App Store window, click the Sign In button.

Once signed in, click on your name in the lower left hand corner of the App Store window, as shown by the red arrow in the image below.


How to automatically fetch images from a website and update desktop image to match (in terminal)? I'm an astronomer, and I constantly (read: several times per day) check the same website to view the clear sky chart for my observatory. Specifically, the chart found on this webpage:

http://www.cleardarksky.com/c/YerkesObILkey.html

It would be incredibly handy if I were able to automatically set this image to be my laptop's desktop. I know I could set it manually each morning, but that is a hassle (and isn't as nerdy).

Unfortunately, I am not as versed in C and the command line as I perhaps should be. Is there any way to alter my bash profile to automatically download an image from a website and then set that image as my desktop, say, at midnight every 2 days? Barring obvious issues of image resolution and internet connection. A task like this is well out of my skill-set.

Even if this isn't possible/practical, I would be interested to know why not, just as a matter of curiosity.

If it matters, I'm running 10.13.1 High Sierra on a MacBook Pro.

You have a couple of options to tackle this:  AppleScript and a Bash (Terminal) script.  Since this needs to happen once per day (meaning scheduled) and you want to guarantee that the file gets downloaded the moment you're logged in so it can be there when you start and then once again every night at midnight,  I would do this in Bash.

Create the Script

The script is going to do two things:

Download the image
Set as the background image

The script is fairly simple.  It takes two arguments - URL and the location to save the file.  It will then download it to that folder location:

#!/bin/bash
#Bash Script to Download Forecast and Set as desktop background

#User Defined VARs below:

#URL to fetch image
url="http://www.cleardarksky.com/c/YerkesObILcsk.gif?c=2239204"

#Picture file Location
picFile="/Users/Thomas/Pictures/test.gif"

#Command to retrieve picture and save to defined location
curl -o "${picFile}" "$url"

exit

Save it in a convenient location; give it an obvious name like getSkyForecast.sh.  Make sure to make the script executable - chmod +x getSkyForecast.sh  If you don't do this, the script won't run.

Schedule the Script

The following is a bit more complex, because it will run upon login and every 24 hours.

Next, the script needs to be kicked off with launchd.  To do this, you need a plist (XML file that describes the job)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
"http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>com.user.getSkyForecast</string>
  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
      <string>/Users/USERNAME/Path_to_Scripts/getSkyForecast.sh</string>
  <key>RunAtLoad</key>
  <true/>
  </array>
  <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
  <array>
  <dict>
    <key>Hour</key>
    <integer>00</integer>
    <key>Minute</key>
    <integer>00</integer>
  </dict>
</dict>
</plist>

Save this file as com.user.SkyForecast and copy it to the ~/Library/LaunchAgents directory.

Load it with the command:

launchctl load com.user.SkyForecast

Set the background image

The easiest thing to do is just go into System Preferences and set the Background image to this file (run the script manually first so it creates the file).  When the script runs, it will change the file, not the name so the desktop image will change automatically.


How can I get iTunes Radio on my iPad? I can't find the iTunes Radio section in the music app. How can I get iTunes Radio to work?

It should appear as a Radio icon on the lower left. If it doesn't, try closing the Music app by swiping up from the App Switcher view, then re-starting, making sure that you are connected to the Internet when you open the Music app.

Also, make sure that you are using an Apple ID that is based in the US.


MacBook unusable due to kernel_task I've disabled hibernation, and removed the sleep image file. I shutdown my Macbook Pro (15" retina), unticked the box to open windows on restart, and started my MacBook again. As soon as I'd logged on I went to Activity Monitor and saw kernal_task is using 1GB of RAM.

This is a problem as I use parallels and when using Parallels, Parallels itself uses ~3.5GB of RAM and the kernel_task jumps up to over 2GB of RAM. So I have hardly any RAM left for the rest of the computer and it slows down to a crawl.

This has only been a problem since recently. Before I could run Parallels, Mail, Tweetbot, and Safari all at once (and in Parallels on Windows 7 I was using Visual Studio 2012 and/or SimCity). It was only once I ran SimCity along with the rest that it started slowing down. But now it slows down as I say above with nothing open in Windows 7 in Parallels, let alone VS2012 or SimCity.

Is there a way to see what the heck kernel_task is doing and to cut it down?

Will reinstalling OSX work (without wiping my hard drive first so I can keep my files)? I'd rather not do this as it takes about 24 hours to download OSX Lion on my connection.

EDIT: It's now ridiculous I can't open Parallels at all because after a few minutes the computer runs out of RAM and I'm forced to crash it by holding down the power button. I will offer a 500+ bounty (Can't atm because of the stupid 2 day wait) if that helps.

I know your post is from a while back, but if this is still an issue, try my suggestions in this post. If those don't work, D.W. posted some other useful links in his comments.

Hope you get this worked out :)

Vlad


How to detect when a process starts up on macOS? What I'm trying to do is: kill a process when it starts up. So I would like to find out that how to detect when a process starts up? Or how to block a process or an application from starting up?

Any suggestions would be appreciated?

Create the App

Open this in Script Editor and export it as a read-only application and make sure stay open after run handler is off

After exporting follow this
 guide to prevent it from show up in the dock.

# Block Apps By Josh Brown
# Last Modified: Aug 23 2018
global applist

on run
    set applist to {"Google Chrome", "App Store"} -- Apps to limit
    if checkapps() then
        killall()
    end if
end run
on is_running(appName)
    try
        if (the length of (do shell script "pgrep -x " & quoted form of appName) > 0) then
            kill(do shell script "pgrep -x " & quoted form of appName)
        end if
    end try
end is_running

on checkapps()
    set x to false
    repeat with a from 1 to length of applist
        is_running(item a of applist)
    end repeat
    return x
end checkapps

on kill(theID)
    do shell script "kill -9 " & theID
end kill

Create the LaunchDaemon

Note: You must be an admin to do this.

Save the following file to /Library/LaunchDaemons/

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>com.PlzUpvoteMy.answer</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
            <string>/usr/bin/open</string>
            <string>-W</string>
            <string>**/path/to/application.app**</string>
        </array>
        <key>RunAtLoad</key>
        <true/>
        <key>StartInterval</key>
        <integer>5</integer>
        <key>UserName</key>
        <string>**UserToBlock**</string>
    </dict>
</plist>

Change the permissions with the following command:

sudo chown root:wheel /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.MyName.plist

Load the Daemon

Note: You must be admin to do this.

To start the daemon use this command:

sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.MyName.plist

The program will scan for the apps every 5 seconds and close them if they are running.

To stop the Daemon use this command

sudo launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.MyName.plist


Bridge Wifi to Ethernet port on Mac, same IPs as rest of network I've got a point of sale terminal/pinpad connecting to the internet through the ethernet port on my Mac mini, which has internet sharing turned on. It works... but it takes almost 5 minutes for my POS software to talk to the terminal. It used to work perfectly and then a few days ago it just started taking it's sweet A$$ time. Nothing changed. No bloody idea. I digress.

I feel like if the pinpad was on the same network than it would fix the issue.

Tried creating a bridge via terminal. Pinpad didn't get an address, but it's using DHCP so maybe that's the issue.

Tried creating a bridge through system preferences but that killed the internet to the Mac and still didn't give access to the pinpad.

The Ethernet connection in Network Preferences is yellow and says "self-assigned IP"

Please help! Thanks a bunch.

In the end, after trying a dozen different things, this command in terminal fixed my problem.
networksetup -setv6off Wi-Fi


Monitoring tool for several Macs on a network? Is there a tool like iStats Menu 3 which could show me the same kind of information (hard drive statistics, sensors state, network usage) for every machine running OS X on my network?

Or even better, for every machine running any OS (or at least some kind of Unix)?

Apple's Remote Desktop does this (and more).


After installing Yosemite, opening iPhoto brings my iMac to a halt After installing Yosemite I attempted to open iPhoto on my 2008 iMac.

All my iMac does is show a white screen with a symbol of a file with a ? inside it. I cannot use my keyboard either.

What happened and how can I make iPhoto work again?

So everything was working fine, you opened iPhoto, and wham! ... a non-booting Mac? Something else has gone wrong here, and I doubt it's iPhoto. After installing Yosemite, did you do other things with it successfully, like browse the web, open a Word document?

From the screen you describe, the HD is the problem. Either it is completely dead, system files are missing/corrupted, a loose cable ... anything along those lines.

If you have a Time Machine backup of your HD, use OS X Recovery to recreate your startup disk.


Why can't I airdrop my notes from my mac to my iDevice? In Notes app I have some notes stored: On My Mac

my share menu though only gives me the following choices:

when I click More...

AirDrop is selected and at the top!

Mail and Messages shows up, but no AirDrop.

How can I AirDrop my Notes from mac to iDevice?

edit: already fixed in macOS High Sierra.

It appears that you cannot share notes via Airdrop from a Mac.

I have checked four Macs (all running either El Capitan or Sierra) and in each case I find the exact same situation as you. More specifically, trying to share a note does not give me the option of using Airdrop and if I click on the More... option I also see AirDrop listed with a ticked checkmark (greyed out just like in your screenshot).

This is not something I had noticed previously as I haven't tried to share a Note from any of my Macs.

Now, I also checked whether this is a known issue and found this discussion on Apple's website. Although it was started in January 2015, you'll see that the most recent post was (at the time of writing this) just over a week ago.

I'm not entirely sure why sharing notes via AirDrop from a Mac isn't an option (although the fact that notes are all stored within the Notes app and can be synced via iCloud may be part of the reason).

I suggest you send feedback to Apple.

If you do need a way to share your notes via Airdrop, then there's a few workarounds online (including within the above-mentioned discussion). The one I like most is to do as follows:

Within the Notes app, open the note you want to share
Go to File > Export as PDF...
Click Save
Within Finder, navigate to the exported PDF
Right-click on the file
Select Share > AirDrop


Audio Output Problem I am trying to help my dad with his Mac (OSX 10.9.2), the problem seems to be with the audio (or lack-thereof). The internal speakers are working (since hitting F11/F12 keys makes the "Beeping sound" (Increasing/Decreasing audio)) but other than that there isn't anything from the speakers or headphones off of any other source of possible audio (Youtube, iTunes, etc).

The output type is selected as:

What causes this and what is the best bet for a fix?

Reset the PRAM as suggested by some other sources on the internet. Working well now.

1) Shutdown

2) ⌘ + option + P + R before grey screen appears

3) Release keys when you hear the "start up sound" for the second time

4) You may need to reconfigure some settings


How does Parallels' CPU and ram usage work? When to shutdown virtual machine? I run Windows 7 using Parallels in host operating system OSX.
I have it configured to use 2GM ram and 2 cores on a Retina MacBook Pro with 8GB ram.

I'm curious under what conditions I will experience a performance hit either in terms of CPU usage. Ultimately, I'm interested in whether it is best when Windows 7 in parallels is not in active use, to:

(a) suspend Windows 7 in Parallels
(b) shut down Windows 7 in Parallels
(c) Quit parallels completely

Initial observations

Using the activity monitor, I noticed the following:

When idle the Windows 7 virtual machine prl_vm_app was using around 2GB of ram and 2 to 2.5% of CPU
When Windows 7 was suspended or turned off the process disappeared completely

In addition, when Parallels was running with a virtual machine runnning or not, it used around 200 MB and about 0.5% of cpu.

So my initial conclusion is that if you are short on ram, then suspending or shutting down the virtual OS is a good idea. There is also some small background CPU usage if you don't shut it down.
However, I'm worried that I'm missing something.

Questions

Does running a virtual machine running in Parallels on OSX use additional CPU or other resources over and beyond the CPU usage indicated in Activity Monitor? For example does it reserve cores?
Are there any good rules of thumb about whether or when to suspend the virtual machine?

Alright, let's see what we can do here!

1) Suspending vs. Shutting Down in Parallels
a) How it affects the host OS
Both options do not affect the host operating system - in your case, OS X - from a resource usage standpoint. Rather, they only affect how the guest OS will boot next time - (i.e. waking up from sleep vs. a cold boot).
When suspending, it works just like a physical Windows machine: it saves the current state of the operating system for later use. Unlike a physical machine, however, it uses no extra battery power, RAM, or CPU cycles to do so; Parallels unloads it from RAM and stores it purely on the hard disk (think of it closer to a Windows laptop "hibernating" than "sleeping").
b) How it affects the guest OS
On the other hand, both of these options have a more prominent effect on the guest OS. Aside from the standard reasons one might want to shut down a computer versus letting it sleep (updates, troubleshooting, etc.), there's one other reason to shut down the virtual machine: Parallels locks down quite a few of the guest OS settings (boot order, coherence mode, shared apps, etc.) and prevents them from being changed if the virtual machine state is anything other than shut down.
c) Which should be used?
In my personal experience with Parallels, I have found no issues with using sleep consistently between sessions. The only time I shut down virtual machines is if I want to change some of the Parallels settings for that particular guest OS or if I encounter an odd bug that can pop up in Windows from time to time.
2) Resource Usage
a) RAM
A set amount of RAM is reserved specifically for the guest OS - which you indicated to be 2GB; Parallels will not use significantly more or less.
b) CPU
i) Usage
CPU, like the guest OS hard disk, is used on an "as-needed" basis and is accurately reported in the Activity Monitor.
ii) Reservation or parking
Parallels will not reserve (or "park") cores; the option you see in the guest OS options (Hardware > CPU & Memory > CPUs) merely limits the number cores that the guest OS will have access to rather than purely reserving them exclusively. This way the guest OS can extensively use these assigned cores, and if the guest OS begins to have a large work load, the host OS can use the remaining cores to continue its business without having processes choked from the guest OS.

Hopefully that helps you out! If you have any questions or need clarification on any of that, comment and let me know!


Error: /usr/local must be writable! (update homebrew) I ran: brew update in terminal (Mac OS)
output: Error: /usr/local must be writable!

Anyway, as you can probably tell I am new to working with this. I searched this expecting it to be a common question but only saw not so helpful answers on github. Any help would be appreciated. *Note my terminal did recently switch to zsh with the last update (not too sure what that is).

Wound up just reinstalling homebrew with /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)" found at https://brew.sh/ . This cleared everything up and I can download packages. Still not sure why brew update didn't do the trick.


Will there be a performance benefit in the upgrade for iPod touch 5 to iPod touch 6 for the KNFB reader? A totally blind user wants to make use of the KNFB reader but does not want a cell phone, some of the reviews I have read suggest that it works best on the iPhone 6, other reviews suggest that that iPod touch 5 is a suboptimal version of the iPhone 5.  I have near zero knowledge about smart phones and less about apple devices.

Is it possible to tell if an iPod touch 5 will provide the same level of function with the KNFB reader as users are seeing with the app on the iPhone 6?

There is no iPod Touch 6. In fact, the iPod Touch hasn't been updated in 2 years and even at launch did not have as good a camera as the the iPhone 5 it was introduced with (the iPod Touch camera is coverable to the iPhone 4S or maybe even the iPhone 4?). I can't speak about the KNFB reader specifically, but the newest iPhone (6 and 6 plus) are much faster than the iPod Touch 5 from 2012, so no, the older hardware in the iPod Touch 5 cannot provide the same level of functionality.

Whether the functionality in the ipHone 6 is enough of an improvement to make the cost worthwhile is a question only the user can answer.


Script (tie-able to a keystroke) that slows down the mouse for fine movements? Or app that does this? Sometimes when doing graphics work one needs to briefly slow down the mouse movement to make fine pixel-by-pixel movements. One can chance this setting in System Preferences: Mouse, but it then becomes too slow for regular size movements amount the screen. Does AppleScript or any other program allow you to switch this mouse speed quicker than using System Preferences? (Ideally this'd be in a way that could be tied to a keystroke through some method.)

Get a gaming mouse that allows you to adjust sensitivity on the fly


Remove macOS from a APFS container? I'm interested in taking a look as macOS Mojave but am not willing to install it on my main production machine. However, I do not have another Mac to hand so have found myself upon this guide from Apple, walking you through the steps to install macOS Mojave on a seperate APFS volume on your normal Mac, easing many of the risks associated with running Beta software.

Whilst the guide makes it quite clear how to install Mojave on this new APFS volume, my question is: when I am done with macOS Mojave, how exactly would I remove this separate APFS volume and give it back to my normal installation of macOS High Sierra? Is this something easily done from Disk Utility or is is a slightly more complicated process involving the use of Terminal?

Thank you in advance for any help,
Kind regards, Rocco

This answer is a continuation of my answer to the question: APFS - Is it possible to install 2 macOS versions inside one APFS container?

You can use Disk Utility under High Sierra to remove the APFS volume containing Mojava. However, removing Mojave also requires steps where commands are issued in a Terminal application window. Below are the steps I used to remove the Mojava.

Open the Disk Utility application.
Get the file system UUID of the Mojave 1 volume . Right click the icon labeled Mojava 1 in the Disk Utility application and select Get Info. In my case, the file system UUID is 0FF6C520-6C07-40ED-9AED-FD6E28A6E406.
Use Disk Utility to remove the APFS volume containing Mojava. Right click on the icon labeled Mojava 1 in the Disk Utility application and select Delete APFS Volume....
Boot to macOS Recovery.
Open a Terminal application window.
Enter the command below to disable System Integrity Protect (SIP) on next restart.

sudo  csrutil  disable

Boot back to High Sierra.
Open a Terminal application Window.
Enter the commands below to remove Mojava from APFS Volume Preboot.

diskutil  mount  disk2s2
cd /Volumes/Preboot
rm  -Rf  0FF6C520-6C07-40ED-9AED-FD6E28A6E406
cd  ~
diskutil  unmount  disk2s2

Enter the commands below to remove Mojava from APFS Volume My Recovery.

diskutil  mount  disk2s3
cd  "/Volumes/My Recovery"
rm  -Rf  0FF6C520-6C07-40ED-9AED-FD6E28A6E406
cd  ~
diskutil  unmount  disk2s3

Reset the SIP settings, by entering the command given below.

sudo  csrutil  clear

Restart the Mac


Office 2016 does not work with MathType: Migration of Word documents with MathType equations As you may already know, the combination of Microsoft Office 2016 and MathType does not work on macOS. Design Science announced support of that combination, but that was early 2016.

I have lots of Word documents containing even more MathType equations. When I open such a document in Word 2016, I cannot edit the equations any more. Word complains about a missing server application when I double click on an equation.

I am afraid that one time Office 2011 will not work any more. Also, I do not want to be stuck with it.

Is there an option to migrate the documents to another application while preserving the alterability of the equations? Pages does not work. Is it possible to convert the documents to LaTeX?

I just received this note from Mathtype, much more reassuring than I was expecting. In the meantime, I might try doing my word+mathtype work in Parallels.

Actually some versions of Office 2011 do work on High Sierra, but not if you continue to update to the latest version of Office 2011. Naturally updates are important for security reasons, so we don't recommend our customers stay with an early version of Office 2011 forever (I'm using 14.7.2, and it works fine).

It shouldn't be long though. We're hard at work on MathType 6.8 (which we think the version number will be) for Mac. We've been working together with Microsoft on this, and we have early betas now that we're using and testing within the company. It does integrate into Word 2016, with a MathType tab and commands on the tab similar to those on Word for Windows. We do have some things to work on, but our progress so far has been encouraging -- over the last couple of months anyway.

You may have read about our merger with Maths for More, the company behind the WIRIS equation editor (http://news.dessci.com/mathtype-and-wiris-join-forces). One result of the merger is that you will soon see more frequent releases of MathType (monthly is our goal), but our highest priority right now is releasing a version of MathType for Office 2016 on the Mac. The company isn't projecting a release date other than "in coming months". I'll be more specific than that and say I estimate it will be 8-12 more weeks. We're maintaining a list of customers who have asked about it, and those on the list will be among the first to know when we have news to report.


Installing Xcode on OS X Yosemite I'm new to Mac OS X and I'm trying to install Xcode on OS X Yosemite.

First I tried using the AppStore, but when I click in "Install App" the App Store hangs (the little wheel in the top bar keeps spinning)

I tried installing using the command line by calling "gcc" to get the DevTools installation popup. Gcc and other utilities are installed, but not Xcode.

I searched the web and already rebooted the machine, cleared the Appstore cache but the installation doesn't start.

Has anyone had the same problem and/or knows how to solve it?

If you have an developer account (I think an arbitrary Apple ID is sufficient) you can download Xcode in various varieties including other developer tools at Downloads for Apple Developers.


Can I delete pictures on my old iPhone through my new one using the same iCloud? My mom got a hold of my phone and I need to delete some pictures is there anyway I can do so even if it means that I'll have to delete all my pictures?

If both devices have the same iCloud credentials and iCloud Photo Library is on in both of them, deletions are synced between devices.
The same principle applies to My Photo Stream.

You can even delete the images on iCloud, no need for a second iPhone.

You can download them from iCloud or copy them to a computer from the second device before deleting them.

If you are worried that someone may see them at all, go to the "Recently deleted" album and delete them from there as well.

The iPhone you want images to be remotely deleted on must connect to internet for this changes to occur.


Weird sudo behavior on MacBook Pro I have a company MacBook Pro. I am sudoer and I can do anything that requires admin privileges when I'm connected to the company network. But I can't when I'm home. How is that possible?

This special behavior is probably related to the sudoers file.

By modifying this file in /private/etc/ one can restrict the sudoers to particular networks or single IP-addresses:

The common user privileges specs are as following:

# User privilege specification
root    ALL=(ALL) ALL
%admin  ALL=(ALL) ALL
        |    |    |command
        |    |as user
        | hosts

This means: the users of the group admin can sudo any command as any user ("Runas") from all networks.

By specifying a restricted host/network in the host alias specification earlier in the same file this may be changed:

# Host alias specification

Host_Alias      COMPNET = 172.17.0.0/255.255.0.0

Modifying the user privilege specifications to:

root    ALL=(ALL) ALL
%admin  COMPNET=(ALL) ALL

doesn't allow you to execute sudo in your home network if the IP-address is not in the above range (e.g. your home network provides DHCP leases in the 192.168.0.0/24 range and none of the other interfaces have an IP in the above 172.17.0.0/255.255.0.0 network). Back in the company network (e.g. with a DHCP range 172.17.5.0/24) sudoing works again.


Where can I find El Capitan's default and beachball/busy cursors? I saw from this answer how I can get most of the cursors, but the busy and default cursors aren't there. Why is that?

The default cursor is available here:

  /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/EFILogin.framework/Versions/A/Resources/EFIResourceBuilder.bundle/Contents/Resources/loginui_cursor@2x.png

I can't seem to find the busy cursor, but I did find an older-seeming version of it here:

  /System/Library/Frameworks/GLUT.framework/Versions/A/Resources/waitCursor.tiff


Need help with applescript and wolfram alpha interface Okay so here's my code... My question is, can I determine what type of data it is before grabbing the text, because if I search something like "how many tablespoons in an ounce, it just gives me a bunch of useless code and doesn't grab the right text. Any help is appreciated, thanks!

    tell application "Safari"
    quit
end tell

set defaultAnswer to ""
set cancelButton to "Cancel"
set buttonResearch to "ReSearch"

display dialog "Query: " default answer defaultAnswer buttons {cancelButton, buttonResearch} default button buttonResearch cancel button cancelButton with icon 1
copy the result as list to {button_pressed, text_returned}

tell application "Dragon Dictate"
    set listening to false
end tell

if (button_pressed is buttonResearch) and (text_returned is not "") then
    set a to "http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i="
    set b to encode_text(text_returned, true, false)
    set c to a & b

    tell application "Safari"
        activate
        open
    end tell
    repeat
        if application "Safari" is running then exit repeat
    end repeat
    delay 1
    tell application "System Events"
        keystroke "m" using command down
    end tell
    tell application "Safari"
        tell window 1
            set current tab to (make new tab with properties {URL:c})
        end tell
    end tell
end if

say "let me look that up for you now"
delay 6

tell application "Safari" to set theString to (source of document 1)

(* Strip the text and only return the last line*)
set input to do shell script "echo " & (quoted form of theString) & "|sed -n \"/stringified/,/mInput/p\" | sed '$!N;$!D'"

global answer

set offSet1 to "\"stringified\": \""
set offSet2 to "\",\"mInput\""

my strip(offSet1, offSet2, input)

set mywordcount to count of words of answer

if mywordcount is greater than 50 then
    display dialog x
else

end if

tell application "Safari"
    quit
end tell

tell application "Dragon Dictate"
    set listening to true
end tell

on strip(offSet1, offSet2, thedata)
    (* Use the offsets of the pattens to match the text # thru # *)
    set textNumber1 to (offset of offSet1 in thedata)
    set theData1 to text -1 thru (textNumber1 + (count of offSet1)) of thedata
    set textNumber2 to (offset of offSet2 in theData1)
    set textString2 to text from word 1 to (textNumber2 - 1) of theData1
    set thedata to theData1
    set answer to textString2
end strip

-- encoding high-ASCII characters:
on encode_char(this_char)
    set the ASCII_num to (the ASCII number this_char)
    set the hex_list to {"0", "1", "2", "3", "4", "5", "6", "7", "8", "9", "A", "B", "C", "D", "E", "F"}
    set x to item ((ASCII_num div 16) + 1) of the hex_list
    set y to item ((ASCII_num mod 16) + 1) of the hex_list
    return ("%" & x & y) as string
end encode_char

-- TEXT ENCODING: encode spaces and high-level ASCII characters (those above 127)
-- encode_URL_A = encode most of the special characters reserved for use by URLs.
on encode_text(this_text, encode_URL_A, encode_URL_B)
    set the standard_characters to "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789"
    set the URL_A_chars to "$+!'/?;&@=#%><{}[]\"~`^\\|*"
    set the URL_B_chars to ".-_:"
    set the acceptable_characters to the standard_characters
    if encode_URL_A is false then set the acceptable_characters to the acceptable_characters & the URL_A_chars
    if encode_URL_B is false then set the acceptable_characters to the acceptable_characters & the URL_B_chars
    set the encoded_text to ""
    repeat with this_char in this_text
        if this_char is in the acceptable_characters then
            set the encoded_text to (the encoded_text & this_char)
        else
            set the encoded_text to (the encoded_text & encode_char(this_char)) as string
        end if
    end repeat
    return the encoded_text
end encode_text

Use the section's name to click on the "Copyable plaintext" button :

first section = pod_0100, second section = pod_0200,  third
   section = pod_0300

Use the button's index :

('action subpod-copyablept ')[0] = the first "Copyable plaintext" button in a section.
('action subpod-copyablept ')[1] = the second "Copyable plaintext" button in a section.

The answer of the popup window is appended to the end of the document.

EX ( query : "how many tablespoons in an ounce"):

if the script click on the first Copyable button in 'pod_0200' section, the
script return "2 tbsp  (tablespoons)"
if the script click on the first Copyable button in 'pod_0100' section, the
script return "convert 1 fl oz  (fluid ounce) to tablespoons"

--

if (button_pressed is buttonResearch) and (text_returned is not "") then
    set theUrl to "http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=" & encode_text(text_returned, true, false)
    tell application "Safari"
        tell window 1 to set current tab to (make new tab with properties {URL:theUrl})
        tell me to say "let me look that up for you now"
        tell document 1
            repeat -- wait until loaded
                delay 2
                if (do JavaScript "document.readyState") = "complete" then exit repeat
            end repeat
            do JavaScript "document.getElementById('pod_0200').getElementsByClassName('action subpod-copyablept ')[0].click()" -- show the popup window
            set theAnswer to do JavaScript "document.body.lastChild.getElementsByTagName('pre')[0].innerHTML;" -- get the answer in this popup window
        end tell
    end tell
    activate
    display dialog theAnswer
end if