Does Frequently used Memoji History reset If not used This is a very important topic for me. The love of my life saw frequently used Memoji on my phone that she questioned.   I don’t blame her, I would have asked also. my question is how long do “Frequently used Memoji” stay listed when not used. These Memoji where from before I met her. Will the frequently used memoji reset to a default When not used or stay at the last used for ever?  Where do I find documentation on  the Algorithm to show her they are not recent and just last used from long ago?  Thanks.

The Memoji stickers can be deleted in any app, tap the three dots, then tap the core Memoji and delete it. I’ve never seen them time out or go away, just new ones pile on top of the old as you use them.

Tap the Memoji identity you with to duplicate or delete.

As for the overall keyboard, you can reset all of the word suggestions, etc in the settings app. But you circled the Memoji which just exist until you delete the identities in the keyboard overlay itself.

Settings > General > Reset > Reset Keyboard Dictionary


Increase fade in/out from/to black time in iMovie 10.1.4? Is it possible to increase the length of time that the fade in/out from/to black takes when editing a video in iMovie (added using the Settings pop-up menu in the video timeline(?) panel at the bottom of the iMovie window (apologies if I'm not using the correct terminology))?

(I have to say that I don't find the iMovie interface particularly intuitive and that it seems to be a little fiddly to try to change effects once you have added them to a video. I tried searching, but I couldn't find anything in the Help about this.)

No, you cannot change the fade time in Settings > Fade Out to Black.

Even the manual Transitions > Fade to Black does not work well because it fades to black too quickly (in about 1/3 of the duration of the transition), then it's black for the remaining 2/3 of the duration.

If you want a linear fade to black that you can set the duration, just add a Cross Dissolve to the end of the timeline and set the Duration of transition.


Transfer data from nonfunctional Mac to another Mac with an external drive I have to save data from a MacBook Air (13" Early 2015) that won't start. I was suggested to buy a Thunderbolt cable, to be able to connect the broken MacBook to another MacBook and see all the data as an external drive.

At this point, instead of transferring all data to the functioning MacBook, can I connect an external drive to the functioning one to transfer all the data from the broken MacBook there?

Going on the assumption that your MacBook Air won't "start" means it won't turn on I will assume you can't boot into Target Disk Mode.  So, to rephrase your question, Can you remove the drive from the dead MacBook and connect it to the functioning Mac to transfer the data?

The answer is yes.  You will need to basically do two things:

Remove the SSD
Install it into a USB enclosure

(You didn't specify which MacBook Air you have and it is very important as the drives are very different).

Removing the SSD
The procedure for removing the SSD for all MBAs is essentially the same - you remove the back cover, remove the retaining screws of the SSD and disconnect the SSD module.

Ifixt.com has excellent instructions and this procedure is rated as "moderate" (no idea why, it's super easy) and only 5-10 mins to complete.

Install in USB Enclosure

Next, you install it into the USB enclosure - just plug it in - it only goes in one way.  Reassemble the enclosure and plug in the USB cable and plug it into your Mac.

For the 2015 MBA (per your comments), you will need this enclosure.  The 2010, 2012 and 2013-15 MBA's all use completely different interfaces.  Make sure you select the one that is for your generation MBA.

You can then mount the drive and transfer your data.


Sierra / Mail.app workaround for missing "Display in Place / Display as Icon" choices? The "Display in Place / Display as Icon" choice in Mail.app (accessed via a right-click), previously removed from High Sierra, has now also disappeared in Sierra running Mail.app 10.3.

Is there a workaround? I have a 160K one page .pdf attachment that I'd like to display in full.

A successful workaround is displaying the visa on your computer, taking a screenshot (command + shift + 4) of the image, and attaching the screenshot to the email. In this case, the screenshot displays fully, showing the image within the email.


can I have mulitple apple ID's backed up to itunes? My husband's iphone, my daughter's iphone and my iphone/ipad all have separate apple ID's - so we have 3 apple ID's in our household.  I have itunes on my laptop and pack up my ipad and iphone regularly - they both have the same apple ID and my itunes account "knows" one is an iphone and one is an iPad.  How do I set up my husband's and daughter's iphones to back up?  Can I add them to my existing itunes account?  do I need to download separate itunes programs on to my laptop?  how do I keep them all straight on my laptop?  and when they are backed up, where do their photos and videos go?

This is a very common question and really there is no correct answer. iTunes belongs to the computer so you wouldn't run into an issue with less than five different accounts and even hundreds of devices would all sync with one PC and one iTunes library.

When I worked at a certain fruit stand, I would ask people to imagine for a moment sharing a sock drawer with the person(s) in question. Some people like their socks sorted by size and color or prefer them folded this way or that. Some people live on the beach where it's warm year-round and don't even need socks. Some like to keep everyone's stuff organized, others need space to do their own thing.

That being said, my default answer is to make each person their own user account on your computer and only connect one person's device to their account.

That way you can choose to share photos using a photo sharing option or share app purchases using family sharing or share music using home sharing. Throwing everything into one large pile is generally something that people regret and having things separate usually doesn't cause any practical problem whatsoever.  At worst, when you run into a practical problem, you'll have many options to solve that problem without throwing everything back together. Having things apart makes the problem clearer and the resolution smaller work to accomplish.

PCs work with multiple user accounts just about as easily as a Mac does in my experience, so I don't see any reason to deviate from my advice to Mac users if you're using the Windows operating system and iTunes. Also, you could try mixing everything if you make good backups of all the things before trying that option.


Problems with Apple Photos I recently spent hours organizing my folders and files with Mac Photo on one of my Macs. Now, a few days later, all my changes are gone and everything is back to the way it was before the big cleanup, and the way it is on my other Mac. Any idea why this happened and how I can prevent it from happening again?

I can't guess what corrupted the files or the database, but Time Machine would allow you to roll back whatever corruption or changes you don't like and get back to a point in time.

To do that, open Time Machine and restore the library file / overwriting the wrong version.


Is there a free program to join and cut AVI movie files? I have a camera and it creates an AVI file every 10 minutes when recording video. I would like to join files from the camera and sometime trim part of the video. I don't want re-encode the files if possible.

Is there a free program that will let me concatenate a split AVI files?

You can also use the concat demuxer with ffmpeg:

ffmpeg -f concat -i <(for f in $PWD/*.avi;do echo "file '$f'";done) -c copy output.avi

-c copy disables re-encoding the streams.

You can install ffmpeg with brew install ffmpeg after installing Homebrew.

See https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/How%20to%20concatenate%20%28join,%20merge%29%20media%20files for more information.


Can someone clarify how many (and what types) of display the new MacBook Pro can use? I have the new (late 2013) MacBook Pro 15" with Retina display, the model with Intel Iris Pro graphics and not Nvidia.

I was wondering, firstly, how many displays it can possibly drive at once without buying Thunderbolt displays. 1xHDMI and 2xThunderbolt adaptor?

And secondly, can this drive a 4K display properly? (When I say properly, I mean at a smooth frame rate, such as 30fps +). If I use a 4K display, how many other displays can I have attached? Could I have a 4K display + 1080p display? Two 4K displays? etc.

I'm going to start off backwards. 4k Display will require some sort of cable, wether DVI, Display port, or Thunderbolt that is from manufacturer to manufacturer and model to model different. According to the tech specs of 4K it is compatible with Display port 1.2.

According to : http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs-retina/

"Dual display and video mirroring: Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 2560 by 1600 pixels on up to two external displays, both at millions of colors"

This could however simply be that Apple has only tested it on displays with that resolution and once 4k displays are out in the real world people can test it.

So your MBP Retina can support 2 external displays and the use of the the clamshell display at the same time. Those external display can be attached via HDMI and Thunderbolt (adapters) or both via Thunderbolt adapters. But so far the tech specs limit the resolution to 2560x1600. It could also be that the resolution output could be enhanced with a software update (firmware update) at a later time.

Archived Specifications page:

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013) - Technical Specifications
Other MacBook Pro models.


iCloud two-factor authentication on OS X Yosemite I have 3 Apple devices, an iPhone and iPad both running iOS 11 and a MacBook Pro running OS X Yosemite 10.10.

On the iOS devices I am getting alerts to enable two-factor authentication for my iCloud account.

Will enabling it restrict me from accessing my iCloud account on my MacBook Pro?

As outlined in the Apple support document, Availability of two-factor authentication for Apple ID:

  Two-factor authentication is available to iCloud users with at least one device that's using iOS 9 or OS X El Capitan or later.

Since your iOS devices are running iOS 11, you should be covered.


Is it possible to remove or delete the "Music" folder? Is there anyway to get Music out of my way in my home directory?  Either deleting it, or moving it to someplace else.

Now, I know that this question has been asked before (I've read this one and this one too), so I know that some more details are needed or I'll get back bogus answers...  So: what I want is to rename or remove the actual folder, hopefully with any magical stuff that the OS is doing with it (like scanning it for changes, or worse: add meta-data files).

Symbolic links are unrelated here, since I want to move the actual directory to a place I don't really care about, I don't want to create some other name for it.  I also don't care what's visible in the Finder -- so flipping some hidden bit that makes it not show up there won't do me any good.  This is making it a very different issue from the ones in those other questions.

(The complete story is that I have recently started using a Mac, and I need to wire it into the network of file syncing that I do across many machines (using unison).  Naturally, I have music in a music directory, which collides with OSX's Music thing, so I need to get it out of my way.  That's why I don't care how it's shown in the Finder or if I'm losing some marvelous iTunes features.  (I will most likely not even notice it if both Finder and iTunes disappear from this machine.))

Do you have any indication that the OS will mind if you just rm -rf Music?

As far as I know, iTunes is the only app that uses that directory (at least on my machine, there seems to be nothing else in it).

So if you don't ever launch iTunes again, that directory should never reappear. If you want to guard against accidentally opening iTunes, you can move its library to a different location before removing the directory.


Whats a keyboard shortcut for cycling through open windows in Mail.app on Yosemite? I'd like to be able to cycle through open message windows in Mail.app using a keyboard shortcut. Is this possible without installing a third-party helper application

To cycle through windows of an active application You can use keyboard shortcut: ⌘ CMD+` - (` is the key with ~ tilde).


MacOS Mojave: Can not make changing background wallpaper Opening "SystemPreferences", then "Desktop & Screen Saver", and then the "Desktop" tab:

I would like to add my own folder holding pictures to display as a background, and to change these pictures in certain intervals.

I am able to add (with the "+" button) on the left the directory which holds by picture, but the checkboxes "Change picture" and "Random order" on the right are greyed out. How can I enable this?

You need to select any one photo in the folder you made to be able to see the change picture button, checking which will enable random too.

Other words, shift focus from side-bar of folders to photos.

Once you have moved to photos pane, enabled change, enabled random, background pictures will automatically be picked from the parent directory.


OS X 10.8 hosts file completely ignoring new entries. Help! I have a hosts file that I've added a couple URLs to a while back and it's been working fine, but any new entries now get completely ignored. I've added these to test it...

google.com      test-domain.com

google.com      www.test-domain.com

And I've read through a bunch of posts about this issue. It makes no difference if I put them at the top or the bottom of the file, nor if I follow the entries with 2 carriage returns.

I'm totally at a loss. Any ideas?

As far as I'm aware, the /etc/hosts file on UNIX systems is intended to map IP addresses to hostnames and vice-versa. You have not added IP address information for these hosts.

See the man page for more information by typing the following at the command line:

man 5 hosts

You haven't specified how you are attempting to use this file or the records inside of it, so it's hard to say why it was working previously.


Installation of a Radeon 4870 Graphics card I have a Mac Pro Model A1186. I am installing a Radeon 4870 Video Card. Where do I connect the 2 external power jumpers in the MAC Pro?I

If it's the 3,1 [Early 08] the connectors are just under the front fan assembly, near the top. Cables should already be in situ & just need disentangling.

Not sure on the earlier machines, but they haven't moved far from there on the 4,1 so it might be reasonably consistent across models

Picture, courtesy of iFixit of the 3,1 location...


How do I delete "Documents & Data" from iCloud? Apple currently has two types of storage in iCloud:

iCloud Drive, for Macs running Yosemite.
Documents & Data, for Macs running Mavericks or earlier.

I have one Mac running Mavericks, and the other running Yosemite, and I have upgraded to iCloud Drive. Does that mean that my data in (2) above is moved to (1), or that it's copied?

My goal is to delete all data stored in both (1) and (2). I deleted all my data from (1). Does it mean that all data stored in (2) is also deleted? If not, how do I delete all my data from (2)?

From my understanding, once you migrate to iCloud Drive, your old 'Documents & Data' storage is converted & no longer exists in its old location.

Mavericks/iOS 7 can't see iCloud Drive & Yosemite/iOS 8 can't see the old Documents & Data, migrated or not.

Refs:

http://support.apple.com/en-la/HT201104
http://support.apple.com/en-la/HT201385
http://www.cultofmac.com/296334/psa-shouldnt-upgrade-icloud-drive-ios-8-yet/
http://www.howtogeek.com/203304/everything-you-need-to-know-about-using-icloud-drive-and-icloud-photo-library/


Extract Installer Package Signing Certificates from xip archive It's possible to extract Code Signing Certificates (CSCs) from an .app or signed .dmg as ASN.1 (DER) with

codesign -d --extract-certificates prefix /path/to/file.dmg

After that you can do stuff with it using openssl, security etc.

My goal is to do the same for signed xip archives, which use Installer Package Signing Certificates (IPSCs). You can verify xip signatures with

pkgbuild --check-signature /path/to/archive.xip

But there doesn't seem to be an option to actually export the certificates the way codesign can do it with CSCs.

Is there a way to do it from the command line?

The eventual goal is to deal with xip archives that are signed with self-signed/self-issued IPSCs. It will be a script that first checks the signature with pkgbuild, and then, if the user wants to, it should export the certificates, and then add them to the keychain as trusted. I know you could always just dequarantine the xip file with the self-signed certificate, and this will be an additional option, but this is always on a per-file basis, so there also has to be the ability to extract the certificates (root/leaf) and import them into keychain as trusted (or trusted root). How I'll do the latter I don't know yet, but first thing's first.

Thank you for your help. (This is my first post at AskDifferent.)

I think it works with the following command:

xar --dump-toc="${HOME}/Desktop/header.xml" -f /path/to/your/archive.xip

This will write an xml file called "header" onto your desktop, and that one contains the X509 certificates. You only need to parse it; maybe jq will do the job best.

Edit: however, jq isn't native macOS, so it has to be with xmllint etc. This below works. It will put all certificates in your home folder.

FILEPATH="/path/to/your/archive.xip"
FILENAME=$(/usr/bin/basename "$FILEPATH")
/usr/bin/xar --dump-toc=- -f "$FILEPATH" \
    | /usr/bin/xmllint --xpath '//signature[@style="RSA"]' - \
    | /usr/bin/sed -n '/<X509Certificate>/,/<\/X509Certificate>/p' \
    | xargs \
        | /usr/bin/awk '{ \
                gsub("<X509Certificate>","-----BEGINCERTIFICATE-----"); \
                gsub("</X509Certificate>","-----ENDCERTIFICATE-----"); \
                print}' \
        | /usr/bin/awk '{gsub(" ","\n"); print}' \
        | /usr/bin/awk '{ \
                gsub("BEGINCERTIFICATE-----","BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----\n"); \
                gsub("-----ENDCERTIFICATE","\n-----END CERTIFICATE"); \
                print}' \
    | /usr/bin/csplit -k -s -n 1 -f "$FILENAME"-cert - '/END CERTIFICATE/+1' '{3}' 2>/dev/null
for CERT in *"-cert"* ; do
    if [[ $(/bin/cat "$CERT") == "" ]] ; then
        rm -rf "$CERT"
    else
        mv "$CERT" "$CERT.pem"
    fi
done


iTunes shows many of my apps with "Update" but when I synch nothing happens I have an iPod with iOS 6 (the latest it will support). iTunes shows many of my apps with "Update" but when I synch nothing happens.

I presume the Updates are not compatible with iOS 6. How do I stop this, and how to distinguish from real updates

The iPod you are using (presumably the iPod 4) is no longer taken into consideration when new apps are being developed, nor is the operating system on it as both of these are obselete. This is the reason nothing happens when you sync your iPod. However iTunes just thinks that an app you are using is out of date and should be updated, without considering the device attached. So there is probably no way to single out the incompatible updates.

Hope I helped!


Copy highlighted text and replace it using AppleScript I'm struggling to get a basic AppleScript script running correctly. Here is what I want to do:

User highlights text, shortcut key is pressed and then AppleScript will copy the selected text and type something before it and something after it.

Here is the script I have, it doesn't seem to execute correctly, anyone have an idea why?

on run
    tell application "System Events"
        keystroke "c" using command down
        keystroke "<answer>"
        keystroke "v" using command down
        keystroke "</answer>"
    end tell
end run

This might do the trick:

on run
    tell application "System Events"
        keystroke "c" using command down
    end tell

    tell application "Finder"
        set x to the clipboard
        set x to "Today " & x & " a sunny day"
        set the clipboard to x
    end tell

    tell application "System Events"
        keystroke "v" using command down
    end tell
end run

Though it might be better to write the script without using the clipboard (i.e., without copying and pasting), but that requires involvement of the application(s) you are working with, and you did not tell us which ones they are.


Bootcamp issue: The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition I tried installing windows 10 on mac but some sort of error occured and since then boot camp had been removing the partitions for hours. So I ran "diskutil eraseVolume fat32 BOOTCAMP disk0s3" on terminal as mentioned on another thread: Stuck on "please wait while Boot Camp Assistant is removing the partitions it created". Then I closed the Bootcamp window and reopened. Now that I click "Continue" on the Introduction, it prompts: "The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition. The startup disk must be formatted as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume or already partitioned by Boot Camp Assistant for installing Windows."

I no more want to install Windows. Please help me restore the storage used up for windows.

Thanks in advance.

(Running macOS Mojave(10.14.1) on Macbook Air(2017))

I had the same issue. I solved it with following steps:

Stop Bootcamp Assistant
Eject all external drives (USB sticks and
mounted ISO files)
Restart Mac
Relaunch Bootcamp Assistant

Normally you will be able to follow restore the previous state without Bootcamp partition.

By the way in my case the origin of the problem was probably the use of a MSDN ISO of Windows 10 including multiple installs.

I downloaded an ISO from https://www.microsoft.com/fr-fr/software-download/windows10ISO and could complete the Bootcamp Assistant.


What is a trustworthy 2x4GB RAM for MacBook Pro 15" 2.4Mhz Core i5? I'm looking to upgrade memory from 4GB to 8GB on my MacBook Pro 15" 2.4Mhz Core i5.

I've been looking at Mushkin 8GB RAM on NewEgg, but it's been getting bad reviews lately for not working properly with MacBook Pro Core i7. I'm not sure if it still works OK with Core i5...

Is there a trusted 8GB(2x4) RAM upgrade for MacBook Pro 15" 2.4Mhz Core i5?

I’ve always brought memory from OWC with success.


How can I verify if Apple is slowing down my phone because of an old battery? Apple has recently confirmed they're slowing down phones which have a battery that's too old. How can I verify if that's the case for my particular model? Is there an app that can tell me the current "slow down" stats?

iOS 11.3 brings iPhone Battery Health (Beta). This new feature made available in this update provides users with info about the health of their battery, allowing them to determine if the condition of their battery is affecting their iPhone's performance.

  Displays information on iPhone maximum battery capacity and peak performance capability
  Indicates if the performance management feature that dynamically manages maximum performance to prevent unexpected shutdowns is on and includes the option to disable it
  Recommends if a battery needs to be replaced

Go to Settings → Battery → Battery Health (Beta). If your battery is functioning correctly, you will see the left message. If not, you will see the right message and you can tap Disable to disable the performance management.

You can read more about this feature in the Apple KB article

iPhone Battery and Performance

Without updating to iOS 11.3, you can still determine battery health.

If you don't have one of these devices with at least this version of iOS, your device is not being slowed regardless of the state of the battery, unless you've enabled Low Power Mode either manually or when the battery reaches 20% (and disables at 80%).

iPhone 6, iPhone 6s, iPhone SE with iOS 10.2.1
iPhone 7 with iOS 11.2

If you have one of these devices, you can check if your battery is poor using an app:

 Battery Life

To know more accurately, you can run the Geekbench benchmark.

 Geekbench

Make sure Low Power Mode is disabled, then run the Geekbench benchmark (not the battery benchmark, that's for analysing your battery itself and not its effect on iOS) and note your score. If it's more than 500 points less than the expected number (given below), then this indicates a potential problem.

iPhone 6s: 2500
iPhone 7: 3500


Where is battery data stored on macbooks? Apps like CoconutBattery can display various data on a MacBook battery like

Manufacturing date
Design capacity
Current capacity
Wear level

Once you swap a battery the application can instantly detect and get data from the new battery. This makes me believe that the data is stored on the battery itself.

Where is all this (MacBook) battery data stored? On the battery itself?

That info is stored on the battery itself.  With the exception of current capacity which is calculated, everything else is stored on the battery’s control chip.

Usually, on the same PCB as the battery protection circuit there’s a control chip that balances the voltage, measures capacity etc.  It’s on this chip that things like the serial number, cycle count, etc, are stored.  This is why when changing out a battery this info is “reset” without having to do anything on your Mac.

As for utilities like Coconut Battery, they’re good, but you can get the same info for free with built in commands.


How to run a downloaded run-only Applescript I am trying to run an Applescript, but when I double-click it, it tries to open Applescript editor and informs me that it was saved as "run only". This is fine -- I just want to run it!

The script in question comes from here.

I did not write the script, I just want to run it. Looking at it with Textwrangler, I can see there are perl files and config XML files in it. The exact message I get when double clicking is, Unable to read the file because the script is not editable (it was saved as run-only).

I have tried using chmod to set it to executable, with no luck.

You could run it from the script menu by putting the script in ~/Library/Scripts/ and checking Show Script menu in menu bar in AppleScript Editor's preferences.


Updating 1Password macOS client broke Safari extension I recently started using 1Password on my MacBook Pro running macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 with Safari Version 11.1.2 (13605.3.8).

I have both the macOS app from the Mac App Store and the Safari extension for the app installed from 1Password - Safari Extension Gallery.

I have been looking forward to give 1Password a try for a very long while (which I finally did). I am quite satisfied with the feature set and simplicity of the product.

However, I updated to the latest macOS client released on the Mac App Store today, which broke the Safari Extension for me. The screenshot below shows the release notes.

Now, when clicking on the Safari extension button on the toolbar, with a website open (which is already added in the 1Password database), does the following instead of offering to fill the password:

Nothing happens for a few seconds.
Following alert is shown by Safari.

Irrespective of whether I click Allow or ignore the alert and wait, this error is shown.

The 1Password macOS app doesn't launch. Even clicking on Try Again does nothing.

The thing is, that, this setup was working flawlessly until I updated the macOS client.

What could have possibly gone wrong? I have not attempted any major salvage operations, as this is the first time I have setup 1Password app on my Mac.

I am thinking about doing a fresh install of the app and checking if the issue persists (thereby concluding that this is a bug in the app release).

I have already clicked on the support site link mentioned with the error message, and have reinstalled the extension, following by restarting the browser followed by restarting the Mac, but to no avail.

I have not taken any other steps on my own and though of seeking advice from experienced 1Password users. (I have been using the app for a couple days. I am currently under 1-month free trial with a high level of satisfaction and intend to convert to paid plan at the end of trial period expiry.)

Salvage Update: It is observed that that the mini app which is resident in the Menu Bar is no longer recognizing the browser extension and asking to install it. Clicking on the install browser extension button directs to the Agilebits Safari Extension Galley web-page which acknowledges the extension installation. Removing and re-installing the extension has no effect.

I've seen this one. It just means that the 1Password background app is either hung or quit somehow.

Usually a reboot does the trick, if not after a reboot launch the 1Password app, and see if that does it.

Still not working? Uninstall the extension and reinstall it. that should do it


How do I create an encrypted APFS volume from the command-line? I'm trying to automate creating an encrypted APFS image with files in it. What I have so far:

>>> hdiutil create -megabytes 1 -layout GPTSPUD -fs apfs -volname encryption encryption.dmg
    created: .../encryption.dmg

>>> hdiutil attach -stdinpass encryption.dmg
    /dev/disk2              GUID_partition_scheme
    /dev/disk2s1            Apple_APFS
    /dev/disk3              EF57347C-0000-11AA-AA11-0030654
    /dev/disk3s1            41504653-0000-11AA-AA11-0030654 /Volumes/encryption

>>> diskutil apfs deleteVolume disk3s1
    Started APFS operation
    Deleting APFS Volume from its APFS Container
    Unmounting disk3s1
    Deleting Volume
    Finished APFS operation

>>> diskutil apfs addVolume disk3 APFS encryption -nomount -stdinpassphrase
    Exporting new encrypted APFS Volume "encryption" from APFS Container Reference disk3
    Started APFS operation on disk3
    Preparing to add APFS Volume to APFS Container disk3
    Creating APFS Volume
    Created new APFS Volume disk3s1
    Disk from APFS operation: disk3s1
    Finished APFS operation on disk3

>>> hdiutil detach -quiet /dev/disk3

>>> hdiutil detach -quiet /dev/disk2

>>> hdiutil attach -stdinpass encryption.dmg

    hdiutil: attach failed - no mountable file systems

But the final attach command failed.

If I try to open the resulting DMG in Finder, it too tells me that there are no mountable file systems, so clearly I failed to add the volume, even though the addVolume command succeeded and said it successfully created the volume.

Maybe it didn't though, so does anyone know how to do this?

It seems that the volume was created correctly, but hdiutil attach just provides misleading output when you try to mount a disk with an encrypted volume on it. If you use -nomount and then proceed with diskutil commands instead, everything seems to work.

Here's the flow (there may be shortcuts but this is running from a script, so sometimes it detaches and reattaches because that's how the script is organised):

>>> hdiutil create -megabytes 1 -layout GPTSPUD -fs apfs -volname encrypted encrypted.dmg
    created: .../encrypted.dmg

>>> hdiutil attach -nomount encrypted.dmg
    /dev/disk2              GUID_partition_scheme
    /dev/disk2s1            Apple_APFS
    /dev/disk3              EF57347C-0000-11AA-AA11-0030654
    /dev/disk3s1            41504653-0000-11AA-AA11-0030654

>>> diskutil mount disk3s1
    Volume encrypted on disk3s1 mounted

>>> diskutil apfs deleteVolume disk3s1
    Started APFS operation
    Deleting APFS Volume from its APFS Container
    Unmounting disk3s1
    Deleting Volume
    Finished APFS operation

>>> diskutil apfs addVolume disk3 APFS encrypted -nomount -stdinpassphrase
    Exporting new encrypted APFS Volume "encrypted" from APFS Container Reference disk3
    Started APFS operation on disk3
    Preparing to add APFS Volume to APFS Container disk3
    Creating APFS Volume
    Created new APFS Volume disk3s1
    Disk from APFS operation: disk3s1
    Finished APFS operation on disk3

>>> hdiutil detach /dev/disk3
    "disk3" unmounted.
    "disk3" ejected.

>>> hdiutil detach /dev/disk2
    "disk2" unmounted.
    "disk2" ejected.

>>> hdiutil attach -nomount encrypted.dmg
    /dev/disk2              GUID_partition_scheme
    /dev/disk2s1            Apple_APFS
    /dev/disk3              EF57347C-0000-11AA-AA11-0030654
    /dev/disk3s1            41504653-0000-11AA-AA11-0030654

>>> diskutil apfs unlockVolume disk3s1 -stdinpassphrase
    Unlocking any cryptographic user on APFS Volume disk3s1
    Unlocked and mounted APFS Volume

>>> diskutil mount disk3s1
    Volume encrypted on disk3s1 mounted

>>> hdiutil detach /dev/disk3
    "disk3" unmounted.
    "disk3" ejected.

>>> hdiutil detach /dev/disk2
    "disk2" unmounted.
    "disk2" ejected.

>>> hdiutil attach -nomount encrypted.dmg
    /dev/disk2              GUID_partition_scheme
    /dev/disk2s1            Apple_APFS
    /dev/disk3              EF57347C-0000-11AA-AA11-0030654
    /dev/disk3s1            41504653-0000-11AA-AA11-0030654

>>> dd if=/dev/disk3 of=encrypted.img

    1968+0 records in
    1968+0 records out
    1007616 bytes transferred in 0.049776 secs (20242977 bytes/sec)

>>> hdiutil detach /dev/disk3
    "disk3" unmounted.
    "disk3" ejected.

>>> hdiutil detach /dev/disk2
    "disk2" unmounted.
    "disk2" ejected.


How to replace newline in Excel for Mac As it seems there are suggestions for how to replace a character or a string with newline in Excel for Mac, like this one. But trying to reverse the process does not work; e.g., to type CTRL+J or ALT+0010 etc. Any advice on how to replace newlines in cells with, for example, space?

Solution for some cases could be:
Copy cell(s) (⌘ + C), paste special (⌃ + ⌘ + V), select 'Values', click 'OK'
Caveats: there must be space at the end of line, otherwise there will be no separation between lines (it removes newline but doesn't replace); it doesn't work in-cell (source and destination cells must be different)


Is it ok to view Time Machine backup directly and store files inside backup.backupd? Suppose if I were to just view my Time Machine backup via Finder and just see its contents, no moving/renaming/deleting. Would just viewing the files affect my Time Machine backup and storing files inside backup.backupd? Because I just created a empty folder inside backup.backupd and I immediately deleted it.

It's perfectly reasonable to manually navigate your Time Machine backup with Finder, even though you would usually use the Time Machine app instead of Finder. Whilst it's not something to rely on, Finder will prevent you from making changes to a Time Machine backup.

I'd avoid storing your own files in Backups.backupd — put your own files outside this folder, there's no need to put your own files within the backups directory.


Airpods connect to iPhone perfectly but disconnect from MacBook after a few seconds Wanted to share as none of the usual troubleshooting tips helped me. Basically, my Airpods worked fine with my iPhone, but when I tried to connect them to my MacBook, they would connect (Bluetooth icon shows a device connected, Airpods play the connect sound), then disconnect a few seconds later (also playing the disconnect sound). In those few seconds they never showed up under output/input audio devices.

I tried without success:

Re-pairing Airpods with the MacBook
Un-pair and factory reset the Airpods (hold button until amber light flashes)
Delete the Bluetooth plist file on the MacBook

What to try next?

The fact that the Airpods connect to Bluetooth but never show up in Sound output/input devices indicate an issue with macOS system audio. Open a terminal and run:

sudo killall coreaudiod

Now try to connect the Airpods via Bluetooth. That should work. If not, try restarting the MacBook and connecting again.


iPhone 6 shows charging icon but not charging Recently my iPhone stopped charging at all. I took it to a local mobile shop in Pakistan; they changed my charger and it started charging, then all of a sudden it stopped. It shows the charging icon but the battery percentage was not increasing, rather decreasing.

They told me to change the port, so I did and now it is charging from only one side of the USB cable. I have tried different other cables as well and different other chargers too.

Maybe, the problem is that there is dirt/dust inside the connector (lightning) port.

Try cleaning with a toothpick (plastic is the best) to remove possible dirt from the port.


Can I update Macmini2,1 to OS X Mavericks? The title tells it all. I have an old Mac Mini2,1 which I'd like to run a software that requires at least OS X Mavericks. It possible to install that on this computer?

The detailed specifications from the 'About this Mac' section are as follows:

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: Mac mini
Model Identifier:   Macmini2,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed:    2 GHz
Number Of Processors:   1
Total Number Of Cores:  2
L2 Cache:   4 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed:  667 MHz
Boot ROM Version:   MM21.009A.B00
SMC Version (system):   1.19f2

Sorry, no.

Latest OS X that can support is Lion, 10.7.5

Ref: EveryMac


Saving OS X Spaces/Desktops For how I use my laptop, it would be extremely helpful to be able to use Spaces/Desktops in OS X to break up different projects. One project may have a couple of websites/URLs, a pdf and a spreadsheet. It would be very useful to be able to put these in a space, eg have a browser window with tabs for each site that's related the project, the local files, and anything else that's related (maybe an email, document, etc.), close the Space and then open it later as needed.

Is there a way to save Spaces/Desktops like this so that all files, browser tabs, etc. can be reopened at once by "opening" the Space/Desktop?

I am running Mavericks.

I use Yosemite but here can be found how to utilize in Mavericks:http://www.t-gaap.com/2013/10/29/managing-spaces-in-os-x-mavericksenter link description here

In Preferences check the Automatically Add box

Add several, I have 9 spaces I switch between in Yosemite:

You add a space by moving your cursor to the top right hot corner of your desktop and clicking the + sign.


Does iTunes 12 work with Mountain Lion? I have iTunes 11.4 running on Mountain Lion 10.8.5.  The iTunes permissions are constantly in need of repair and I'm considering moving to iTunes 12.  Can anyone tell me if they're using it on Mountain Lion, and does it work well or are there problems.
Thanks!

Yes, I administer a large number of Macs running 10.8.5 with iTunes 12 and have not had any reports of major problems.


Make a FaceTime call using AppleScript Is it possible to initiate a FaceTime call with "+1 (###) ###-####" when I execute an AppleScript?

Does FaceTime support AppleScript and how can I automate the start of a call?

This'll do it. You can input a phone number in most normal formats. Can't say I've tried them all:

set phone_num to text returned of (display dialog "Input a phone number to call:" default answer "")
do shell script "open facetime://" & quoted form of phone_num
tell application "System Events"
    repeat until (button "Call" of window 1 of application process "FaceTime" exists)
        delay 1
    end repeat
    click button "Call" of window 1 of application process "FaceTime"
end tell


Pictures folder appears as a bundle? I'm troubleshooting a relative's Mac and the Finder sees her "Pictures" folder as a bundle. When I right-click to see the package's content, I can see that the folder seems to have the same structure as an iPhoto Library.

What could have caused this, and how can I turn the Pictures folder back into a regular folder?

I know this is a little vague. Obviously, the person doesn't know anything about that, never realized that the pictures folder was weird, etc. So I'm kinda left in the dark too.

I'm still not sure how the Pictures folder came to believe it was an iPhoto bundle. Most of the cleanup was just restoring an older version of the Pictures folder from Time Machine.

To turn the Pictures bundle back into a folder, I took the SetFile executable from my Mac (ships with the developer tools) and executed SetFile -a b Pictures.

This is important, because Mac OS will prohibit most actions done against basic folders in the user directory structure. You cannot move or delete the Pictures folder (and if you sudo your way through it, you will be missing some extended attributes on your new folder), so turning it back to normal was an essential step.


Organizing skype downloads in subfolders with contact names I always wondered why skype don't put all my accepted downloads in subfolders with the name of my contacts!

If anybody have own solutions, share)

So I made a script and saved it as a folder action:

for f in "$@"
do
    userFolder=~/Downloads/Skype/`xattr -p com.apple.metadata:kMDItemWhereFroms "$f" | sed -e 's/0D//g' -e 's/.*\(5F 10\)...//' -e 's/00.*//'| xxd -r -p | sed -e 's@ (.*@@g'`
    mkdir -p "$userFolder"
    mv "$f" "$userFolder"
done

What it does:

gets where from field from file. In binary
deletes some binary-plist prefix
delete nulls at the end
creates string from binary with xxd
Gets the name of the contact from string.
creates a folder for that contact
moves file there.

If you have more elegant solution, I would be glad to see them :)
P.S. if you didn't know about where from filed you can find it in get info for some finder items.

To categorize existing downloads you can also add service.


How do I change between open Chrome screens on a macPro 10.13.3 using a windows keyboard This is weird. Ctrl + > works sometimes but not always.
When Ctrl + > (> = cursor control keys) works.
When Ctrl + > (> = cursor control keys) doesn't work, it brings up the notification sidebar.  I can't get to my Chrome screen unless I use the mouse to do so. I have changed the notification preferences and it still displays the notification sidebar.
Does anyone know why this happens and how I can fix it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_keys
Here is the URL I received the information from which I posted. I'm not a keyboard expert.  Do you have a solution to the problem?


Does anyone know of an app or applescript to make it easier to simply save and email? I find that several times a day I save a file then compose a new email, click the add attachment button, and try to find the file.

Does anyone know of an app or applescript to make it easier to simply save and email?

The app you want is called Mail. Seriously, what you need to do is save your file in whatever application you are using, then click the proxy icon (the little document icon found in the title bar of the window next to the document name) and drag it onto the Dock icon for Mail. This will create a new mail message with the file you just saved as an attachment.

No script or other app needed; awesomely, it's a native feature of OS X.


Is it possible to remotely switch on Find My Mac? My MacBook was stolen over a month ago. I stupidly hadn’t enabled Find My Mac, so I was unable to track it. I’ve just had a notification saying that the stolen MacBook has logged into my iCloud account.

Surely there is some way I can trace it now? Any ideas would be amazing, it's so frustrating feeling so helpless!

Unfortunately you cannot do this. Apple provides steps to Set up Find My iPhone on all of your devices, all of which require physical access to the device.

Since the notification email you received should have included an IP address, you could always try remoting into your MacBook Pro using Back To My Mac, Apple Remote Desktop, or some alternate method; and enabling Find My Mac that way.

However let’s face it: your chance of success here is extremely slim, and requires that you have allowed some kind of remote access to your MacBook prior to having it stolen.

Since the thief now has access to your iCloud account, your next step should be to head to id.apple.com and change your password immediately—before they do it for you.


Can I release Swift implementation of an application over the Xamarin implementation in Apple store? I developed an application that is currently implemented using Xamarin.iOS.
I've come to a point where I think it's better to rewrite my app using Swift.

My question is, can I release the application rewritten in Swift as a major update of the current application? Is Apple store capable of upgrading the app even if one implementation is written in Xamarin.iOS and the other one in Swift?

Sure - the store delivers binary content that it code signs as complete so it doesn’t matter how you got the submission to Apple.

Now, the end user experience could still be a mess if you don’t have a smooth migration plan for app data, settings and what happens when someone restores a backup from 6 months ago onto the new version of the app. Those things are hard to test, possibly difficult to program and not something that was designed into your data model currently.


What applications would be expected to setup a network interface "stf0" and "gif0" I've recently noticed that I have the following network interfaces setup on my mac:

Ethernet
Airport
Firewire
vmnet1
vmnet8
gif0
stf0

Obviously Ethernet, Airport, and Firewire are enabled by default.  I think vmware setup vmnet1 and vmnet8.  Where did gif0 and stf0 come from?  I'm sure I did not setup these interfaces myself, so now I'm getting paranoid about spyware.

What applications might have automatically setup these interfaces? How do I disable networking through them?  Or is this a common setup and I shouldn't worry about it?

/edit: gif0 appears to have the ip address 55.4.0.0 and stf0 appears to have the ip address 57.4.0.0.  Neither one of those is even remonetly similar to my actual ip address.  What's going on here?

/edit 2: ifconfig reveals that neither interface has the flag "up" so they are not in use.  Thanks for the help jjungnickel.

Those are Tunnel-Interfaces. They are commonly used to provide IPv6- or VPN-Services. They are usually always active, but not connected unless you set up your system to use them.

You can determine if an interface is enabled but not active by observing its flags using ifconfig <interfacename> to not contain UP.

You can look up the definition for those interfaces on the terminal with man gif or man stf, respectively.


iPhoto has missing photos but they can't be removed I have an iPhoto library of about 2100 photos. It's iPhoto 11, v9.4.1 (701.67).

At some point I imported some photo's from memory stick and played around with the 'store photos in library' vs. 'link to existing photos'.
Whatever was the cause, now every time I open iPhoto I get several messages telling me photos are missing and whether I can find them. I tediously selected some of them one by one (why isn't iPhoto smart enough to look for the others in the folder I just selected?? :/ ) but some I still cannot find.

I'd rather now remove them from my library, but every time I try to select a missing picture for deletion iPhoto freezes and I have to force-quit.

I tried the repair options with Cmd+Option, but those don't seem to help and the thumbnails rebuild will just ask me for the source of 100s of photos so I just cancelled that.

I also tried the script in: http://philatwarrimoo.blogspot.nl/2010/06/iphoto-script-to-remove-missing-photos.html but after some time iPhoto freezes again and the script times out.

Any ideas?

Your Library is corrupted.

Download iPhoto Library Manager and use its rebuild function. (In Library Manager it's the FIle -> Rebuild command) Note: this does not require purchasing Library Manager

This will create an entirely new library. It will then copy (or try to) your photos and all the associated metadata and versions to this new Library, and arrange it as close as it can to what you had in the damaged Library. It does this based on information it finds in the iPhoto sharing mechanism - but that means that things not shared won't be there, so no slideshows, books or calendars, for instance - but it should get all your events, albums and keywords, faces and places back.

Because this process creates an entirely new library and leaves your old one untouched, it is non-destructive, and if you're not happy with the results you can simply return to your old one.


Is this possible to link the value to a database in Apple's iWork suite? For example, I would like to make a Pages document that has a value that's linked to the company information and Keynotes and Numbers as well. So, when our company information changes, all the reference value can be changed. Is this possible to do? If not, does any office suite have this ability?

In any program to find out what fields/data can be inserted at a given point look for the menu item "Insert" if there is one you will see under that menu diffent types of data that can be inserted.  I pages you can "Insert" any of the information from the Addressbook.  In numbers it is much more limited.

AppleScript is most probley to best solution for other data and the apps you ask about.

Better app's for this sort of thing are OpenOffice and MS-Office.


How to change Default alert sound in iCal? I would like to change the default sound ("basso") that plays when an Alert is fired from iCal in the notification center?

I have tried changing the sounds in notification center, but it seems to be overridden by the iCal settings. Can the sound be changed to "glass" or any other?

One way, I can do it is by changing the Alert sound when I create a Calendar Event. This is just too cumbersome to do everytime.

Please assist.

There is a alternative way to do that.

Go to System/Library/Sounds and create a sound file with the same name as Basso.aiff and it will supersede Basso without the need for deleting a system sound file.


New hard drive, cannot reinstall OS X on a MacBook Pro 2010 Installed a new empty hard drive on a MacBook pro 2010, the old one is not usable any more, and I do not have the original DVD.

As show e.g. here, pressing Cmd+R during boot, I should get an image of earth with a dialog to choose network. In my case I only get the image of a blinking folder with a question mark.

I tried with Cmd+alt+R, with the same result.

Why is my Mac behaving differently? How can I reinstall OS-X, even the original version?

Could it be a BIOS issue?

It's quite possible that there's no recovery partition on the drive, since it is a completely empty drive. I would highly recommend using Disk Maker X to create a bootable USB disk. Here's what you'll need:

Another Mac with access to the App Store.
A USB drive/stick with a capacity of at least 8 GB. Also be sure it has absolutely no data on it, since it will be formatted.
An internet connection in order to download Disk Maker X onto the other Mac.

First, download macOS Sierra on the other Mac by searching for it on the App Store, but don't install it!
Next, download and install Disk Maker X on the other Mac.
Then, open Disk Maker X and follow the steps listed.
After that, make sure the Mac you're trying to fix is off. Plug in the USB Stick, then press Option and press the power key. Select the USB disk in the window that loads, follow the setup process, and you should be good to go! Let me know if you have any questions.


Xcrun missing, installing Xcode Command Line Tools not fixing issue I have a Mid 2015 MacBook Pro running macOS High Sierra 10.13.3.

I tried starting up a new project and none of my commands seem to work.

I always get this error:

xcrun: error: invalid active developer path (/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools),
missing xcrun at: /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/xcrun

Seems pretty straight forward, Xcode Command Line Tools missing. Except installing it seems to not work/have no effect.

I enter: xcode-select --install, press install, agree to the agreement, it downloads, installs, gives me a nice The software was installed but if I try any command again (like brew update or brew upgrade); I get the same error. (I tried rebooting, but to no effect).

How do I resolve this issue? All I could find on Google is people saying Install Xcode Command Line Tools.

Okay, After a full day of attempts, re-installing homebrew and all... found a solution which I should have tried a lot earlier in all honesty. Leaving it here if anyone else has the same problem in the future:

Doing xcode-select --install showed everything as being installed correctly but I just couldn't confirm that anywhere. I downloaded the CLT as a pkg from the apple developer website (https://developer.apple.com/download/more/) and installed it the old fashioned way. CLT is now installed and homebrew is detecting it just fine.

Brew Config now:

HOMEBREW_VERSION: 1.5.14
ORIGIN: https://github.com/Homebrew/brew
HEAD: 7fd6210127f088b6ee8708a1d7f4ec2df3fc5bb4
Last commit: 6 days ago
Core tap ORIGIN: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core
Core tap HEAD: 1f9ba958e21dce9673b932cfc1f55dd155f0df69
Core tap last commit: 31 hours ago
HOMEBREW_PREFIX: /usr/local
CPU: octa-core 64-bit haswell
Homebrew Ruby: 2.3.3 => /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.3/usr/bin/ruby
Clang: 9.1 build 902
Git: 2.8.1 => /usr/local/bin/git
Curl: 7.54.0 => /usr/bin/curl
Java: 1.8.0_77
macOS: 10.13.3-x86_64
CLT: 9.3.0.0.1.1521514116
Xcode: N/A
XQuartz: N/A

Thanks Nimesh for helping me!


Can I use my Macbook Pro Retina as extra monitor for my iMac through Thunderbolt I just bought a new late 2013 iMac and a new late 2013 Macbook Pro retina. Also bought an Apple thunderbolt cable.

Pressing CMD+F2 (enabling Apples "Target Display Mode") on my iMac lets me use the iMac as external monitor for the MB Pro, but I'd like it the other way around (which doesn't seem to work).

Does anyone know how I through Thunderbolt (for speed, am aware that apps like Air Display and Screen Recycler can do it through WiFi) so that my MB Pro becomes an extra external monitor for my iMac?

While this question addresses this problem for earlier hardware and software, I'm looking for a solution that supports using a thunderbolt cable and works with late 2013 Macs with OS X Mavericks.

If you really don't want to do it over the network, the retina MBP's display uses DisplayPort internally. You could disassemble your machine and use this pinout to connect it via Thunderbolt.


Local name changes every 10 - 20 minutes I have just bought a new MacBook Pro after my previous one died ( mother card seem to had been the problem). In this one like in my previous the computer's local hostname keeps telling me that the "MacBookPro-BC-617.local" is already in use on this network and changes the name of my MacBookPro-BC to 658.local.

This takes place every day and almost every 10 - 20 minutes. I'm using Mountain Lion. What could be causing this and how could I get rid of it?

This happened to me at work when we were using individual wireless access points, each acting as a DHCP server: the MBP was, at different times, catching its signal from these different access points, depending on the location and the strength of the various signals. We changed to use a central DHCP server, and set the access points to extend an existing network, and it solved this problem, as well as a similar issue where the user would get messages that the IP address was already in use.


Text is invisible in some apps in El Capitan I've recently updated my Mac Mini to El Capitan and I am having problem with some of my apps: text is not displaying inside them.
I am facing this issue with at least this apps: GitHub for Mac:

Finder (folder names at the left panel and tags are empty) and Mail app

I thought that it can be the font issue, so I tried to go to the Fonts app and remove all duplicates, remove all fonts with errors and then reboot - no luck, still the same.
What can cause such a behavior?
It seems to be the system-wide issue (I tried to run Finder in Guest user and the issue was still present).

I didn't get this error on my 10.11 mac, try restarting the app, or restarting your computer, it usually fix these kind of problem. If you know how to reproduce this problem, you can report it into Apple Bug Tracker.


How to install Ubuntu on a 1st gen Apple TV? I want to install Ubuntu on my 1st gen Apple TV.

How should I go about doing this, using as little third-party software as possible?

Most of the time when installing Linux on the Apple TV, you are doing it in order to unlock more capabilities when it comes to video playback and options; I assume this is what you are looking for. If you follow these recently updated instructions everything should go fine. Just be careful to read them thoroughly.
They will walk you through two different options: running from a USB stick and not touching the Apple TV hard drive, or installing Ubuntu (CrystalBuntu) on the Apple TV itself. I would highly recommend the first: In the case you don't like it, you can just power off, unplug the USB and, then restart; everything would be back to normal. It has both Mac and PC/Linux instructions in there depending on what you have to work with.

Install Instructions

I know that the link says things about XBMC but it is for installing Ubuntu on it so that you can run XBMC too, its a very good media player option. It involves installing Crystalbuntu, a port of Ubuntu with media player options using XBMC.

Here is a nice how to video as well that goes over the booting from a USB stick option:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJqyr0QRRvU

UPDATED

I understand that you want to do an install that will leave you with a desktop/server environment, which is also possible.

There are also a few other different options for installing a regular version of Linux, like Ubuntu 8.04 and even Arch Linux, with these, you will have a regular desktop and such, as you can see in this example video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ko0cwbGsKHU

This process, discussed here on Ask Different, goes over the way a bootloader can be copied and used to boot most versions of linux:

What Linux variants can be installed on an 1st generation Apple TV?

The direct page link is here:

http://code.google.com/p/atv-bootloader/wiki/InstallingLinux

This page, has talks about the atv (Apple Tv) Bootloaders and how to use them.

For simpler install though you can download and run there is the following link, which will install the OS of your choice on an USB Drive and do all the heavy lifting can be found here:

http://stmlabs.com/2011/03/28/crystalhd-released/

Here is a direct link to the installer download page with more instructions:

http://www.stmlabs.com/projects/crystalhd-for-appletv/

Also, if you google search "Install Linux on an Apple TV 1st Gen" you can find loads of helpful articles too.

I hope that this helps you out.


How I could redirect all my traffic to Tor network? I need to redirect all my traffic to Tor network. I have just installed Vidalia, but I think that I have not correctly configured my Tor-client. I have a Java desktop client that have to access to a website. This allows us to connect 50 times then it reject our connection. I would like to use Tor to  create more conecctions. How I can configure my tor-client correctly? Is there any online how-to? Are there other solutions?

You can't redirect ALL traffic into TOR - if you mean all traffic at the IP level. (so all icmp, tcp and udp traffic), because you need basic routing via the internet - e.g. you need route TOR packets to neigbohrs. TOR is an VIRTUAL network using onion routing (SOCKS), so you need explicitly route packets into TOR.

If you mean "route ALL web-browsing traffic" into tor-network, the easiest way is using Firefox and get a torbutton plugin into firefox.

After installing the plugin, it is enough:

start Vidalia, and
activate "torbutton" in the Firefox. (bottom right corner).

BTW, it is a good practice:
  - use Safari (or Chrome) for you common browsing, and
  - use Firefox for anonymous things (you can setup Firefox start into "private browsing" mode, you should disable cookies and so on...

BEWARE - if your browser gets a cookie via TOR and after it send this cookie via normal browsing session - you get the idea :)


Why do some windows not appear in the app switcher even when not hidden or minimized? The OS X app switcher doesn't include certain windows.

Example of a window not in the switcher and which I can't alt + tab to:

What are the rules for which windows don't show up in the switcher?

I'd like to change this behavior but before I can search for how to do that I need a way to refer to this behavior. "windows with property X don't show up in the app switcher". What is X?

The question here is, what exactly is this behavior?
I'll post another question for how to change this behavior and link it here if needed.

EDIT: Screenshot after pressing cmd + tab and holding cmd:

The switcher on OSX is not based on Windows, but on Applications. In this case, the item in switcher board should be system preference, not VPN login panel.


Wifi problems Mac OS X 10.8.2 MacBook Pro There are hundreds of threads regarding Mac OS X 10.8.2 wifi problems, but no thread is describing exactly my issue.

I have a MacBook Pro 2011 with OS X 10.8.2. Since around two months I have trouble with my wifi connection.

After booting the Mac, wifi is working as usual. Connecting automatically and everything. Without any notice it stops working from one moment to another. Sometimes two minutes, sometimes an hour, but always at some point the wifi stops working.

The system stops showing other networks within my area and only shows my network. Disabling and enabling wifi shows me the "wifi enabled" icon without a connection, but looking into the network preferences clearly states that the wifi is disabled. In addition I am not able to enable the wifi in the network preferences.

Things I have tried so far:

Reinstalling the system (Time Machine Backup)
PREM Reset (can't count how often)
SMC Reset
Keychain - deleting all wifi connections and information

I have the Checkpoint Endpoint Client E75 installed. It makes no difference if I use it or not. In addition I have the problem with every access point. I tried public hotspots, my companies wifi (Cisco hardware) and home network. Don't believe this is related to the protocol used by the router.

If this is in your home, do you have an older microwave oven nearby? Or a 2.4GHz cordless phone? Baby monitor? Anything else "wireless" (that's not a wireless router/access point)?

Have you tried changing the channel of the wireless on the router? Many newer routers will do a "site survey" and indicate an unused wireless channel.

I have had similar problems with wireless in the past and solved it by changing the wireless channel.


Downgrading an iPhone 4 from iOS 6 to iOS 5.1.1 using iTunes with a restore.ipsw file Can I downgrade an iPhone 4 from iOS 6 to iOS 5.1.1 using iTunes if I have a 5.1.1 restore.ipsw file? I have watched this video on YouTube and was wondering if that works for downgrade. I dont need to sync the phone with any of my files afterwards. I just need to have it as new with 5.1.1 software.

In short: not if you didn't bother about jailbreaking or never heard of TinyUmbrella.

Apple is very strict on installing iOS firmware. Everytime you do a restore, iTunes is verifying the firmware for the connected device with their own server by checking SHSH blobs at Apple's servers. An app like TinyUmbrella allows you backup your SHSH blobs (they are unique for every iOS device) locally or to saurik's server. This however only works the latest iOS version that is available for your iOS device.

read this: http://www.redmondpie.com/reminder-save-your-ios-5.1.1-shsh-blobs-now-before-its-too-late/ or this: http://www.saurik.com/id/12


Remove titlebar from window like Vimperator There's a plugin for Firefox called Vimperator which is what it sounds like -- a vim style interface for Firefox. It has the curious ability to nearly remove the titlebar of the Firefox window. This functionality is accessed with vim-style commands.

Default Firefox

set gui=all

Firefox with almost no titlebar

set gui=none

Does this depend on something special about Firefox or is it possible to apply this change to apps in general or maybe to apps that use a particular framework?

By possible, what I really mean is possible without modifying the source code of the program.

This is specific to Firefox and how plugins are able to interact with its windows.


If I buy an iPhone 5s, will I still be able to go on the appstore and download apps? Just don't know if the appstore will allow phones that aren't running the current OS to go on it

(I'm really only interested in this app - https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview )

Yes, the App Store is certainly supported on the iPhone 5S.

Note that the iPhone 5S does not supported the just released iOS 13 release. This means that apps that require iOS 13 or later won't be installable on the iPhone 5S. For the moment, only very few apps require iOS 13.

If an app does require iOS 13, and is not available for download, usually the publisher will let older versions of the app that does not require iOS 13 to be available for download on those older devices.

The app you mention (Scrivener) only requires iOS 9 - so it's not going to be a problem for you to download and run this app on the iPhone 5S. In the future it might be that you cannot update to the latest version of the app, if they release a version that requires iOS 13 though.


Apart from being able to encypt an entire volume, what are the other differences of FileVault 2 over FileVault? Does FileVault 2 in Lion have any other differences compared to the old version, FileVault in previous releases of the system?  Are there any additional benefits to using the new version?

Password less 'Guest' accounts can no longer be created since the whole disk is encrypted than just the User's home directory. It's sad that I could not find any information on the kb article in Apple about this.


Display protocol in Safari address bar Currently Safari shows the url of the open page without mentioning the protocol:

  apple.stackexchange.com/questions/ask

Is there a way to have Safari show the protocol in the address bar:

  https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/ask

You can temporarily display the protocol by activating the address bar with ⌘ Cmd-L and copy-pasting the current URL back to the address bar with ⌘ Cmd-C, ⌘ Cmd-V.

The protocol will, however, disappear again as soon as you load a new page by following a link on the page or pressing Enter in the address bar.


4K monitor @ 60hz with late 2016 MBP I have a new late 2016 MBP and a new Samsung u28ue590 4K monitor. According to Apples documentation:

  MacBook (Retina, 12-inch, Early 2016) and late-2016 MacBook Pro models support 60Hz refresh rates over HDMI when used with a supported HDMI 2.0 display, an HDMI Premium Certified cable, and a supported USB-C to HDMI 2.0 adapter

My setup have all those things I still cannot run my monitor at 60hz (it runs at 30hz by default, and I can't change it anywhere). Is it supposed to work out of the box or am I missing some configuration?

EDIT:
I have tried the following:

Boot in safe mode. This revealed the option to set the refresh rate, however only to 24hz, 28hz or 30hz. When booting normally this option was again not there.
Reset NVRAM. Did nothing.
Reset SMC. Did nothing.

I'm not sure this is a duplicate question as suggested in the comments as this monitor supports HDMI 2.0. If the monitor for some other reason doesn't support the 2016 MBP I would be interested in knowing that.

EDIT2:

I didn't manage to solve the problem with the current setup. It seems like Apple still has some work to do regarding HDMI 2.0 @ 60hz. It simply doesn't work out of the box, at least not with this monitor.
For the sceptics:

Safe mode reveals the option to change the refresh rate, but still doesn't allow more than 30hz.
Resetting NVRAM and/or SMC did not help.
I tried using another monitor (same brand), another late 2016 MBP, another Apple USB-C to HDMI adapter and several different HDMI cables.

However:
Using a USB-C to Displayport cable immediately solved the problem. I used this one: https://store.google.com/product/usb_type_c_to_displayport_cable


How can I resize OS X 10.7 Lion display screen resolution during install? I have a Mac Mini (2011) with no OS installed currently (drives are RAIDed and I lost Recovery HD partition).

When I boot, I start the Internet Recovery, which I am viewing through a Samsung P50 Plasma TV. The max. resolution of the TV is 1366x768 pixel.
After Recovery begins, it tries to open the installer with a resolution of 1920x1080 pixel and won't let me access some parts of the screen. Unfortunately, that also includes the "Continue" button and progress bar to install Lion.

Is there any way I can force a smaller resolution or get the window to move, so I can start the installation?

Ran into the same issue.  Followed YouTube video of installation in order to figure out the following:

Once the disc is booted, select Reinstall OS X.  You will then reach the screen where you cannot see the Continue button.  Using your keyboard, press TAB followed by SPACE.  You should then reach the User Agreement screen.  Press TAB, TAB, TAB and SPACE.  Click the Agree button which should be visible.  Click the installation drive and press TAB, TAB and SPACE.

This should get you to the point where Lion is installing.


How to repeat a key in mac while holding down? I've tried searching for an app or tools that can do this in macOS but I couldn't find any.

There seems to be a key repeat setting in system prefs but it seems to have no effect. For example in notes, if I hold a key it would not repeat?

Ideally I can have the key repeat behaviour on and off as I only want it during the day for work activities

There is a terminal command to set the option. Go to terminal and type

defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false

This actually turns it on. You have to restart your computer for this to take effect.  You turn it off by typing the same line with true instead of false.

defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool true


zsh-autosuggestions: How to install zpty module? I love zsh-autosuggestions and found in the README:

completion: Chooses a suggestion based on what tab-completion would
suggest. (requires zpty module)

With a web search I din't find out what zpty is and how to install it on macOS. Homebrew prefered.
zpty
zsh: command not found: zpty

If that matters, I am a oh-my-zsh user on latest macOS.

zpty is a module that comes bundled with Zsh since version 3.1. That text you quote just means that if you don't have Zsh 3.1 or later installed, you cannot use that particular feature of zsh-autosuggestions.
If you do have Zsh 3.1 or later installed, then there's nothing else you need to do to use that feature. zsh-autosuggestions takes care itself of loading zpty when it needs it.


Freeing up space on external hard drive after deleting time machine backups? I had a external hard drive in use for Time machine, but now use a different one, so wanted to free up the space. I removed the HD from the Time machine backup drives, then deleted the Backups.backupdb folder on the external HD. Yet when I view the HD’s "free space", for example in Disk Utility, the drive is still completely full without having freed up the ~500GB the backups took.

How can I get that space to free up?

After comments - it's odd that it didn't appear in Trash, but generally, Trash won't empty itself so after you throw anything out you need to empty it to free up the space.

Apple did add a "Remove items from Trash after 30 days" Finder pref in [I think] Sierra, but that wouldn't have helped in this instance.


iOS 9.3 on iPhone 5 (Night Shift option is unavailable) I recently updated my iPhone 5 to iOS 9.3 and there is a new functionality introduced as "Night shift" option.

However it is not available on my iPhone 5
Any thoughts as to why?

It's not an error – it's because of the processing architecture. The iPhone 5 is an older model, and Apple isn't going to support 32-bit devices for Night Shift.


Trying to reinstall OS X, asking for apple ID "temporarily not available" I have a computer (Mac OS X 10.9.x) that became corrupted so I have reformatted the hard drive and am attempting to reinstall the operating system. It asks me to log in with an apple ID so I logged in to one I haven't used in awhile. I get the error message:

  This item is temporarily unavailable. Try again later.

What can I do to get this computer up and running again? I have also tried using a different Apple ID, but when I went to reset my password, I don't receive the password reset email.

Thanks!

Mavericks was the operating system, which isn't available in the app store. I was able to boot into internet recovery mode via command+option+r and reinstall the original operating system. From there I will be able to upgrade to the latest. Also, apparently the HD corruption happened because we shouldn't have tried to upgrade from Mavericks.


Is there a way to display the date of the scheduled event on the calendar immediately following adding a date to the calendar? Maybe I was spoiled by using the calendar app on PalmOS, but on iOS when you add an event to the calendar it does not display the date that event was scheduled on immediately and automatically after typing in the event.  This means that if you enter an event in haste you get no warning if you have double booked something; you have to manually find that date and time to check if you have double booked.

Is there any way to display the date and time of the event in the context of that day after entering an event?

Not currently. You have to manually find the event in context to check for any double-bookings.

You can provide feedback to Apple here:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html


Erasing iPhone and backup I've got iPhone 4S and I wanna sell it...I have backed up contacts on http://icloud.com ...Does contacts remain on http://icloud.com after reseting all iPhone settings?

Yes, the contacts remain in iCloud. However, once you reset the iPhone to factory settings, the iPhone is no longer logged in to your iCloud account which means that there are no contacts appearing on the iPhone whatsoever.

You can further log in to your iCloud account on your computer via a web browser (icloud.com) and erase the contacts from there if you wish.


What causes an iPhone IP to keep changing when it hits a website repeatedly? My friend's iPhone 4 has a strange behavior. When on 3G, going to an IP detection website, his IP seems to be changing pretty much on every request! His phone is supposedly traveling all over the world at every http request.

It's not the carrier, because we tried to switch SIM cards and the issue is attached to the phone.

On Wi-Fi it seems to be OK.

His phone is jailbroken, however I couldn't see anything installed regarding this. But I'm no expert.

Anyone has seen this before? Is there a known application or setting that may create this? Where should he look?

The IP address will change as you move base stations or your data requests are load balanced by your provider. This is because it is not your IP address but the IP address used by the provider to service the internet request.

It will be the same when on Wifi since your routers external IP address will persist for its connection to the outside world. However if that changed (if you rebooted your router and don't have a statically assigned IP) then you would observe the same behaviour.

These changes should happen over half hour or longer intervals, so if you are seeing changes that are minutes apart, then the traffic is being routed to a service that is anonymizing the source IP and/or potentially being tampered with.

See the tor project for a description of how this works when people want to show up in web server logs as coming from many diverse IP addresses.


Why do my windows go dark when they're on my external monitor? Why is this happening? Has any one ever experienced anything like this before? Some windows stay dark on my external monitor and some come good after I let go of the cursor after dragging..

Check this thread out: https://discussions.apple.com/message/16608477

To quote: "...opening Display in System Settings, and choosing calibrate under Color seems to have fixed the problem."  I don't have my external monitor with me at the moment, but wil check when I'm at work tomorrow.


Fusion Guest OS Opening Files In Host OS MacBook Pro Early 2011 - Mac OSX 10.7.2
VMWare Fusion 4.0.2
Guest OS is Win7 64-bit, all the latest updates.  MS Office 2010 w/latest.

So, basically I'm using the Win7 guest OS for Outlook only (I need to run Taglocity, which doesn't work with Mac Office 2011).  Anyway, when I get emailed a URL I can click on it and the URL is opened in my default browser on the Host OS.  Love it!  I want to do the same thing for documents that I receive.  I want to be able to open an email attachment that is a PDF, DOCX, PPTX, etc. and have it open in the host appropriate Mac OSX app.  I feel like I should be able to do this, but can't quite get my mind around it.

In Fusion Preferences > Default Applications I have checked "Open your Windows files and Web links using Mac applications".  The second part of the "Web links" works fine.  But not the first!

Edit: I should also say that VMware tools are installed!

Can anyone help me out here?  How can I get my Host apps to be associated with file types in my Windows guest?

It should work automatically.  Try upgrading to Fusion 4.1.2.  Be sure to update the VMware Tools, too.


keyboard no longer repeats keys when held down I just wanted to make some input where I press a key and the auto-repeat function engages so I don't have to press the 0 key many times to make a long number.

10000000000000000000000000000

This has always worked without fail in the past, but it's not something I do often and I'm not sure where to look next to figure out what might be preventing this.

I've toggled the sliders to change the delay for key repeat, but the only thing I can hang my hat on is that perhaps Lion disables this with the new feature where you hold down some keys (like the vowels, but also some consonants) to get alternate accented characters.

s turns into ß or ś or š and so on....

Am I missing an obvious setting, or is this something that has moved to a hidden setting or is simply a bug that these controls are still around since key repeat is now deprecated?

Comments welcome if anyone doesn't have an answer, but can provide specifics where this does work for them. I've checked two Macs so I'm guessing it's not related to keyboard type or connection method.

The accented character selection when a key is held was one of the tiny things that changed in Lion. To disable it, run this in the Terminal:

defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false

I will admit, though, it is strange that there's a setting in System Preferences that only affects behavior accessed through a defaults write command.


How to get iMessages from receiver on OS X Mavericks? By imessage, I can send and get message from another Apple ID. Message history is storing in /Users/username/Library/Containers/com.apple.iChat/Data/Library/Messages  (on my mac)

In that directory, there are Archive and attachments (alias). I can see all my messages and my receiver's messages.

I wonder whether I get the messages from my receiver by specific language like php, javascript, or other thing else ? How can I get those messages ?

I couldn't figure out how to see only messages sent by other people, but you can see the text of all messages (and some other strings) by running:

for f in ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iChat/Data/Library/Messages/Archive/*/*.ichat;do plutil -convert xml1 "$f" -o -|ruby -rplist -e 'puts Plist.parse_xml(STDIN.read)["$objects"].select{|x|x.is_a?(Hash)&&x["NS.string"]}.map{|x|x["NS.string"]}';done

sudo gem install plist installs the plist gem.


View IE (6,7,8,9) on Mac? I am a web developer. I would like to view my web design on IE(6 - latest). Is there a quick way to view it?

Thanks in advance

EDIT:

I already have a Windows OS on my Mac using VirtualBox. However, I dont want to load such heavy program just to preview IE :(
I need an alternative or faster way to view IE

Wine claims to support IE 6, 7, and 8 with varying levels of efficacy.

It's not a simple solution, but it sure is a hell of a lot lighter-weight then a VM, and it effectively runs the full browser on OSX.

You need to be at least somewhat familiar with the command line to get anywhere with Wine, though.

Crossover Mac is basically a MacOS GUI for wine. It has the same capabilities as wine, but the GUI makes installing things much easier. On the other hand, it's not free.


Mac Processor upgrade I have Dual Core 2 Duo processor and need to upgrade with a newer processor. My Mac will not play videos so need to know how easily can upgrade the processor.

Apple hardware does not use processor sockets. The CPU is soldered to the logic board. Upgrading a logic board on an older machine is only theoretically possible if there were more powerful processor options created for the same generation of machine, and then the parts and labor cost usually makes this unreasonable compared to the cost of purchasing a new Mac. You will not ever be able to use a current-generation processor in a vintage machine.

If you are unable to upgrade to a new computer, you may be able to find opportunity for increased performance by maxing out your system's RAM and exchanging the internal HDD for an SSD. I highly recommend OWC (macsales.com) as a resource for parts and compatibility when it comes to making these kinds of upgrades to older machines.


Sync files between 2 macs I want to synchronise files normally stored on a desktop Mac - which is in use by my customer's partner under his AppleID, while using my laptop, logged under my customer's AppleID, while away from home.

What is the best way to do this?

You can use a 3rd party online storage and synchronization solution such as Dropbox.

Dropbox also offers support for shared folders, so you can have two separate Dropbox accounts one for your customers partner and one yourself, while having folder(s) shared among the two accounts.

Dropbox has native macOS, Windows and Linux clients available along with mobile apps for iOS and Android.

If you plan on creating new Dropbox accounts, consider leveraging Dropbox referral benefit which will offer additional bonus to both referrer and referee.


Is it possible to repartition hard drive from which Mac OS X boots? I have the following problem. I wanted to have dual boot to Ubuntu, so I've created 3 additional partitions using BootCamp (I probably created freespace with Bootcamp and then used Ubuntu installer to partition the free space, I cannot remember exactly, since this was 2 years ago). Now I want to remove these partitions to reclaim space, but the only thing I can is to reformat them to use MacOsX HPFS+. I tried booting from the Mac Os X install CD, but that did not help. When I try to remove partition by pressing - in Disk Utility it just throws some error about MediaKit. The only thing I am allowed to do is to reformat the disk entirely.

I've searched this site and in some answers I've found that you cannot change partition table on hard drives with MBR (i.e. if you have a mac os x boot on one partition, you cannot change the partition table). Is this really the case? Seems like a huge restriction on Apple's part.

Or is it that bootcamp (or ubuntu installer) has written wrong partition table, and now there is no way to change it?

I'm using udpated Snow Leopard.

Here is the output of diskutil:

ivrin:gdpp mpiktas$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *250.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            195.3 GB   disk0s2
   3:                  Apple_HFS disk0s3                 11.9 GB    disk0s3
   4:                  Apple_HFS Linux Swap              4.2 GB     disk0s4
   5:                  Apple_HFS freespace               38.0 GB    disk0s5

You should be able to repartition uour HDD using Disk Utility (see this related question). You should also be able to remove the BootCamp partition using the Boot Camp Assistant.


Access Applications directory in Terminal I'm really new to command line and I'm trying to access my Applications directory within Terminal.

By default, I am stuck in my user directory but Applications is a child of the "Macintosh HD".

Any tips on how to get to this directory as opposed to username>Applications?

In the Terminal you can type the absolute path...

cd /Applications

to access applications installed for all users.

If you want to access the root folder (named "Macintosh HD", in your case), it called / in Mac OS X (and other UNIX variants).

And cd, meaning change directory, is used to navigate.

Alternatively, you can use the shortcut ⌘+⇧+G in the Finder and type...

/Applications

You do not need to type out the whole name. Tab-completion automatically adds the last letters. You can invoke tab-completion by pressing ⇥ while typing /Applications.


Mail.app Conversation/Threading issues like RES: RES: RES: When using Gmail on Apple's mail, the conversations/threads are not being grouped properly when the subject field of the messages starts having many prefixes "RES" in the subject.

Some email clients (e.g. Mail in iPad), adds a "RE:" or "RES:" prefix every time when a message is replied. This, causes some subject fields having something like: "RES: RES: RES: RES: Original Subject".

When this situation happens, the conversations in Mail.app apparently break, that is, one email (or more) that should be grouped to a conversation is displayed as a different conversation.

This is an example that causes problem for me:

I send a message with subject "Test"
I receive a reply with subject (sent from other email client) "RES: Test"
I reply again (using Mail), then the subject becomes: "Re: RES: Test"
I receive a reply with subject (sent from other email client), and the subject now comes as: "RES: RES: Test"

At this point, I've got 3 different conversations where this should be grouped as one.
If I open Gmail, the conversation works perfectly, but in Mail it doesn't.
Is there anything I can do about it?

Using Mail.app 6.5

The threading does happen based on subject.  Re: is ignored; so Re: Re: Re: foo is the same as foo, and the same as Re: Re: foo.  That's why it works.

What is RES:?  Is it Re: in a different language?  That's why it's breaking - because RES is not being ignored and therefore looks like a different subject.

The person you're conversing with needs to use Re:, not RES:.  RES: may be inserted automatically by their email client; in which case you may need to find a different way to group the emails, perhaps by sender.

There are tools that can help, though.  With MailTags (http://www.indev.ca/MailTags.html) you can group/organize your email much differently or simply use the subject renaming feature.  With MailActOn (http://www.indev.ca/MailActOn.html) you can match a rule that moves the email to a specific folder ignoring the "RES" part, etc.  There are many options.

No, I am not affiliated with Indev, I just use and love their products.  :-)
Best of luck.


How do I, after opening the iOS 5 built-in dictionary, look up the definition of a word that appears in a dictionary definition? I can look up the definition of any word that I can select in iOS.  However, once the dictionary is open, I can't figure out how to further look up the definition of a word that appears in the dictionary definition.  This seems like basic dictionary software functionality.  Is there a way to do it?

Nope, there is no way to do it. I think that’s really stupid. Though I remember being able to do that in iBooks when it was first released, before iOS had a built in dictionary.


Cannot backup Time Machine to Synology NAS due to "... problem with username or password." I'm setting up a Synology NAS running DSM 6.1. I only have SMB enabled (up to SMB 3) and enabled Bonjour for Time Machine discovery. I've setup my shares, set quotes, granted appropriate user read/write access and when I configure the workstation to backup to the NAS, I see the backup targets.

However, when the backup starts, I immediate get an error that reads:

  The network backup disk could not be accessed because there was a problem with the network username or password. You may need to re-select the backup disk and enter the correct username and password.

I've verified the username and password are correct and have read/write access to the share, so I'm not sure what's wrong.

Workstations are running High Sierra. Others have had this problem too, with no solution.

One thing I've noticed while trying to to connect from multiple Macs is I am never asked for a username or password and end up getting another error that the machine cannot be found (after it shows up via Bonjour). If I first connect via Finder, enter the username and password, then select the Time Machine backup target will I get the error above.

Since posting this question I tried turning off SMB and enabling AFP only on the Synology NAS. In addition I enabled the Bonjour services for AFP. I connected to the NAS from the Mac using Time Machine and and the backups working just fine. Therefore, the problem appears to be SMB related.

Any one know what the issue is?

Remove the drive as your backup disk in Time Machine, then open your terminal and run. beware that running this command will remove any other existing time machine destination disks!

sudo tmutil setdestination smb://uruser:urpass@NAS_IPADDRESS/TimeMachineName

If you don't want to remove all the existing destinations, you can pass the -a argument.

sudo tmutil setdestination -a smb://uruser:urpass@NAS_IPADDRESS/TimeMachineName

Source


Applescript click automation in Google Chrome browser? Hello fellow programmers!

I would like to save some applescript code as an application, so that when I open the application it will go to Google Chrome and answer an incoming call in Google Voice.

I will have my gmail account already open in the chrome browser, so all that is needed is for the applescript application to tell google chrome to activate, then click in a particular area (where the button will appear) to accept the call.

How can I find out the coordinates of where I want the mouse to click? Because I am making a separate application to click elsewhere and end the call.

Can anyone tell me how I would code this in applescript? or is there an easier way?

The following code is similar to something I found, and it works, but i'm not sure where/if it is clicking...

tell application "Safari" to activate
tell application "System Events"
   tell process "Safari"
   click at {300, 100} -- {from left, from top}
   end tell
end tell

Thank you for your time,
-Sebastian

You can also click elements with JavaScript:

tell application "Google Chrome" to tell active tab of window 1
    execute javascript "document.getElementById('chrome-web-store-title').click()"
    --execute javascript "document.querySelectorAll('.tile-grid .most-visited')[3].click()"
end tell

Focusing an existing tab by URL:

tell application "Google Chrome"
    repeat with w in windows
        set i to 1
        repeat with t in tabs of w
            if URL of t starts with "https://mail.google" then
                set active tab index of w to i
                set index of w to 1
                return
            end if
            set i to i + 1
        end repeat
    end repeat
end tell


Is it possible to do a "clean" install of Lion? Is it possible to take a Lion install burned by the method outlined in this question and preform a clean install with it?

I just want to make sure that if I buy Lion from the App Store in the near future that when the mood strikes me I will be able to reformat and install Lion without some previous install of Snow Leopard.

Yes, it is possible. It is bootable, and will be able to do a complete clean install (with you having to format the hard disk first).

Also, if you have installed Lion already, you would be able to do a reinstall by holding ⌥ Option on bootup and selecting Recovery HD. Wait for it to load, and you will be able to see an option for reinstalling.


How do I refresh the devices in Image Capture? For some reason, Image Capture doesn't always update the list of devices after I plug in my iPhone. Sometimes restarting Image Capture works, and sometimes it does not. Does this have to do with the number of images on my iPhone, which is several hundred? The fact that there's a passcode on my iPhone?

Is there a steady way to make my iPhone appear?

Edit:

The iPhone is indeed visible in iTunes. Connecting via the other USB port makes it visible in Image capture as well - after a wait.

If you quit the application and re-start it, that seems to resolve any devices that connect and get missed when you plug them in after the application has launched and enumerated the connected USB devices.

Even if you have iTunes and Xcode and other apps running, I've not seen Image Capture fail to recognize connected devices if you restart the program and I have certainly seen it miss device connects on occasion when other apps are running and want to talk with an iOS device.

That being said, here are things to check:

Different USB ports and cables
Trust setting on the iOS device (Settings -> Reset -> Reset Location & Privacy.)
restart either the phone or the Mac or both
update software on the phone or the Mac or both (iTunes updates install sync software and drivers needed)
make a new account on the Mac (to test once)  in case image capture or your photo library settings or data are corrupt

See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202778 for trust issues and iOS.


How to run Windows on MacBook after installing it using Boot Camp Assistant? The following things I've done so far:

Download the ISO image of Windows from Microsoft.
Using Boot Camp Assistant I successfully installed Windows 10 on my MacBook.
Windows is running perfectly.
While in Windows there is Boot Camp Control Panel to restart the MacBook using OS X.
Now I am running OS X.

The question is:

How can I restart the MacBook to run Windows from OS X?

Two ways...

If you want it to restart in Windows every time until told otherwise
System Preferences > Startup Disk
Click on the Windows boot partition & hit Restart...

If you want to choose just this time, then back to Mac next reboot
At the boot chimes, hold the  Opt ⌥  key [ labelled  Alt ⌥  on some keyboards] until you see a choice of boot volumes appear on the screen.
Click Windows & then the arrow under it.

Number 1. is the equivalent of the Windows Boot Camp control panel, which makes the change "until told otherwise"


Moving a window between Spaces with Slate I'm currently using Slate as my main TWM but the only thing missing is moving app between spaces with key bindings.

I don't want to use the mouse, I know I can drag and drop the window and I can select the window and then switch to an other Space.

I want to do it with the keyboard, just switch the window on focus. Is it possible? Is there a better TWM for mac os than Slate?

Thank you.

There isn't a spaces support in slate for now. For more info take a look at this issue.
You can also use something like BetterTouchTool app for this functionality.