Are there any physical differences between the Verizon and AT&T iPad (3rd generation)? Should some buyers in the US be concerned which iPad they buy?

Assuming you don't prefer AT&T over Verizon while in the US, but instead want to be sure the device will have the correct antennas, not need messing with APN settings, configuration profiles and/or jailbreak the device when the time comes to use it outside the US of A.

Are there any internal antenna, firmware, or chipset differences to allow the Verizon iPad to work better with the legacy Verizon (non LTE) data networks? If so, is this better or worse for world usage or specific countries or locations?

My impression from Apple's marketing is that they are identical devices made from the same parts and manufacturing process and only get differentiated when the micro sim is inserted and it gets labeled a Verizon or AT&T iPad for sale in the US. Note: although I'm focused on US iPads, if an answer is general for iPads worldwide, awesome! However, I don't need that information for the purposes of this question.

Yes, the two models are physically different. The radio is different.
As per Apple's website, the radio frequencies aren't the same. The verizon iPad supports Verizon LTE, and as per this post, AT&T 3G. However, the Verizon iPad does not support all LTE frequencies that the AT&T iPad does.
From Apple.com:

Wi-Fi + 4G for AT&T model: 4G LTE (700, 2100 MHz); UMTS/HSPA/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
Wi-Fi + 4G for Verizon model: 4G LTE (700 MHz); CDMA EV-DO Rev. A (800, 1900 MHz); UMTS/HSPA/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)

Notice that there are some differences between the listed frequencies. They're nearly the same, but not quite.
Edit:
To confirm, the difference is a hardware difference, not a software imposed limitation on AT&T LTE. From the Macrumors article:

The Verizon iPad hardware supports only the 700 MHz band for LTE to match the carrier's technology, while the GSM version sold for use on AT&T's network supports both the 700 MHz and 2100 MHz bands as used by that carrier.

If you're looking to travel internationally, go with the AT&T iPad. (I got the Verizon iPad because I wanted the free hotspot feature, which AT&T does not offer for free at this time.)


USB LG Drive Not seen Have Imac with Maverick and Windows 7 running in Parallels 10. Have a LG USB disk drive that is seen by Win 7 and works with no problems. Spins up, displays and works. It is NOT seen by Imac. Every place I look shows no signs of USB drive. It is plugged in same USB port as when it is used in Win 7. How do I get Imac to see the drive?

I fixed this problem by changing the setting in Parallels under 'Preferences / Devices' to mirror windows-connected devices and then clicking the + button to add all devices that I wanted to access...note, just click the +, and the devices magically appear ;).  Also make sure that the USB drive is formatted as FAT32 or the mac won't see it!


Is there any way to lock my mac without sleeping and without the screen saver activating? I want my Mac to stay awake on the login screen, but without activating the screen saver.

I have tried a lot to no avail. I have tried to change Energy Saver settings, which only take effect when I'm logged in.

After press Control + Command + Q, these settings no longer apply.

You can disable the screen saver on the login window with this command in Terminal:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.screensaver loginWindowIdleTime 0

The settings you have in "Energy Saver Settings" are only for the logged in user, whereas the login screen runs in a different context. To change the settings for the login window context, use the command above.


Is there a way to edit google spreadsheets offline on iphone? I downloaded their app but it doesn't let me edit them when offline. But some websites seem to say it's possible to edit them offline.

Any ideas?

Not currently, but I'd assume Google is working on that to eventually allow you to.

  Offline editing isn’t currently supported.

(Source)


How do I click trust on my computer after accidentally click do not? I accidentally clicked 'do not trust' on my computer when I plugged in my iPhone and I want to know to to get the option to click trust again?

You should be prompted again if you unplug the phone and plug it back in.
You can also reset your trust settings in the Settings app under General then Reset.
Here's an explanation from Apple's support site:

If you tap Trust, the computer will be trusted until you untrust all computers or you erase the device. If you tap Don't Trust, you'll see this alert each time you connect your device to that computer.
If you're using iOS 8 or later: To untrust all computers, tap Settings > General > Reset > Reset Location & Privacy. This will also reset your location and privacy settings. You can also untrust all computers by tapping Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings. This will also reset your network settings.


Display emoji faces for correct & wrong commands in terminals I want to customize my terminal to display emoji faces, showing sad face for wrong command and happy face for right command that I enter. Is there any way that I can do this using my terminal bash.

Here is my PS1 from .bash_profile

export PS1="[\[\e[1;32m\]\@\[\e[m\]] [\[\e[1;34m\]\u\[\e[m\]➡ \[\e[1;31m\]\W\[\e[m\]]\$ "

Building on Maghin's post.

# Use echo -n to leave out the line end.
# Use -C option with hexdump to avoid big endian/little
# endian confusion.
mac $  echo -n  | hexdump -C
00000000  f0 9f 98 80                                       |....|
00000004
mac $  echo -n   | hexdump -C
00000000  f0 9f 98 b1                                       |....|
00000004

"Include non-0 exit codes in the subsequent bash prompt"
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5946873/include-non-0-exit-codes-in-the-subsequent-bash-prompt

Here is what I ended up with:

export PS1='\u $(highlightExitCode) \$ '

highlightExitCode()
    {
        exit_code=$?
        if [ $exit_code -ne 0 ]
        then
           echo -en '\xf0\x9f\x98\xb1 '
        else
           echo -en '\xf0\x9f\x98\x80 '
        fi

    }

A more straight forward alternative for the highlightExitCode function:

 highlightExitCode ()  {
   if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
     echo -n ' ';
   else
     echo -n ' ';
   fi
 }

The only problem is that the bad image appears until to you run a succesful command.


Unable to redirect SmartCard in Microsoft Remote Desktop for Mac. Option greyed out I've been using Microsoft Remote Desktop for Mac to connect to a windows machine.
I used to be able to redirect a smart card to the remote windows computer. I recently upgraded the RDP app on Mac and now the option to redirect a smart card is greyed out. I've tried removing and re-adding the card but no luck. Has anyone seen this behavior before?

This was addressed in version 10.6.3 of the Microsoft Remote Desktop for Mac.


How can I disable the system feedback when using the "fn" button on a Touch Bar-equipped MBP? I use Shush to auto-mute my microphone on voice and video calls, where I toggle my mic on by holding the fn key.  But on a Touch Bar equipped MBP, the system issues a click and pop noise when pressing and releasing the fn button, and it's driving me batty.

How can I disable this feedback noise?  (And how did you figure this out?)

Update: I should note a few settings:

System Preferences > Sound > Sound Effects > Play user interface sound effects is OFF
System Preferences > Keyboard > Dictation is OFF

How embarrassing: the clicks were due to Shush's audio cues. I thought I had disabled them.


How can I show the desktop from full screen apps? Is there a way to show the desktop from full screen apps? I'm used to do it with F11 but it doesn't work if you are running full screen apps. The same is true for hot corners.

I need this functionality for example when I'm writing a mail and I need to drag and drop an attachment from my desktop.

There doesn't seem to be a way to show the desktop straight from within the full screen app, but (depending on what methods you use for various kb/mouse shortcuts etc) it can still be done without exiting full screen (although someone may show that doing so would actually be quicker, perhaps, than my method below).

Let's say I have Safari full screen, and I want to view a screenshot by opening it in a new tab (not a particularly useful scenario, but involves dragging a Desktop icon into a full screen app as per your question).  Here how I would do it, noting that there are probably loads of other methods depending on your preferred input methods.  The bold bits are the actual actions I choose, the rest is commentary on why:

When I switch Safari full screen, it creates a new space to the right of the one I am in.
From within the full screen app, my desktop gesture of choice (5 finger trackpad spread) doesn't work (neither does F11, but then on my keyboard it's the volume down key, and I don't have "use all F1, F2, etc keys as standard function keys" preference option set, and the FN key is not located particularly well on a full size desktop keyboard, unlike the laptop ones)
So I 4 finger swipe to the right to show the previous screen before I went full screen (you may do ⌃Left Arrow)
Then I 5 finger spread on my trackpad to show the desktop (You may use F11 if it's not been commandeered by the volume down key or FNF11 or whatever the key happens to be depending on the age of your keyboard)
Then I hardware click with my thumb and hold the icon I wish to drag with my trackpad
Then I 3 finger swipe left (which exists the Desktop view and then swiped across a desktop in one movement)

If you are not using a trackpad you can hit F3 once to exit desktop mode, and F3 again to show Mission Control (your mapping and or keyboard layout may differ), then just hover over the required full screen desktop at the top until it flashes and switches you to it in a second or 2)

And I am left with the file still help under drag conditions to drop wherever I want within the full screen app

This method uses a variety of inputs including gestures and keyboard shortcuts that may not be available to you depending on your hardware.  For example, using the trackpad allows me to perform simultaneous gestures like swiping desktops whilst in the middle of a drag operation that would not be possible with a mouse (maybe with a magic mouse, I don't own one).  It's a case of knowing that gestures are actually pretty powerful when you understand that the hardware uses the multitouch to let you do a lots more than you might be used to.

This seems a whole load of hassle, but as actually quite quick once you get into it.  As to why you do it this way, I think you need to contemplate the nature of full screen of Mac OS X, and this means appreciating that when you go full screen you lose the whole desktop metaphor, and this includes the desktop in addition to resizable window edges, so you need to quickly nip into a windowed desktop to be able to see behind those windows to the desktop, if you see what I mean.


My SMC keeps corrupting, even after I reset it The SMC on my 2012-MPB keeps corrupting, causing the computer to not wake up or restart. I've tried resetting it multiple times, but the issue still occurs.
The only solution I've found is disconnecting and then reconnecting the internal battery, which is quite problematic. Is there anything I can do to solve this issue?

SMC problems could be related to the battery itself.  That age of laptop doesn't have a separate battery - as in the average non-Apple motherboard which has a CMOS battery on the motherboard, so SMC would be using battery power to store settings.

If the battery's shot, SMC loses it's settings at whatever point the battery drains itself.

See if you can borrow another of the same model with a healthy-ish battery to test with for a bit...


What shell command will clone a directory instead of making a deep copy? I wish to take an APFS clone snapshot of a large directory using a shell script. In Finder, I can just Cmd-C, move to the other folder, and Cmd-V and within a few seconds I have a duplicate that takes little extra disk space. Using the cp shell command, it takes ages and creates a copy that takes up disk space. What shell command can duplicate a folder "instantly" the same way Finder can?

The cp command now takes the option -c to create copy on write clones of files.

From the cp man file:

-c    copy files using clonefile(2)

For example: cp -c my-file my-file-clone


OS X Lion factory refresh problem I just bought a MacBook Pro from a buddy. He wiped the HD for me and returned it to factory settings. So now when I start it, it says I have to redownload OS X Lion. So once I start the download it asks for my Apple ID and when I type it in it says I never bought the software and stops downloading. So now I have a computer that doesn't technically work at the moment.

Any way to fix this problem would be greatly appreciated!

If your machine shipped with Lion (or later) preinstalled, you don't need to provide a user account and password as that serial number is used to validate ownership of the OS and the installer will re-download itself for free. This download happens from the Recovery HD and not from within the App Store.

If your machine shipped with an OS earlier than Lion (say it was shipped before Lion was released or just when Lion was released and the first user got a free upgrade to Lion), then your factory condition is before Lion. To get Lion, run 10.6.6 or later and log into the App Store app. You will need to purchase the Lion upgrade yourself or have an account that has that upgrade purchased already.

In summary, the only software license that transfers with the hardware is the shipping versions of the OS and not the upgrades that you apply after the initial purchase.


AppleScript - echo into openssl AES encryption - is there a way to crack/snoop thru logs? Don't know if this question is better off here, or in the Linux world...but I need a decent answer.. :)

I am using Applescript to pull data from fields in a spreadsheet or database, shove them directly into terminal for encryption.

My Applescript includes a line like:

echo "thisismydatastring and my saltbits"  | openssl aes-256-cbc -k thisismypassword -base64

My question:  is there a way one could filter thru log files to catch this plaintext instance of the password?

Is there a better way to prevent hacking?

If sending an "echo" into terminal is traceable, is there another way I could push something into Terminal where it doesn't hit any logs (and where AppleScript can get the results)?

I overcome the password issue in my bash scripts by sourcing (including) another file with a predetermined variable already set.

For example.  Say you have a "config" file  ~/config.conf and in it you assign some variables:

# Config file for MyScript.sh

$user = Me
$pass = S3cr3t5!

In your script you source the file so you can use the variables you defined:

#!/bin/bash

source /Path/to/config.conf

stuff= "thisismydatastring and my saltbits"

echo  $stuff | openssl aes-256-cbc -k $pass -base64

Personally, I like to keep the line that executes the command as clean as possible using variables (like stuff in the example above) so that it's easier to see what the command is doing and consequently easier to debug.

Is this safe from prying eyes?  Yes, for the most part.  You can set the permissions so that only the user can read and write the file and deny it to everyone else:

chmod 600 config.conf

Anyone snooping through logs (which is your question) won't be able to see the plain text passwords.


Is it possible to send message to shared iTunes library owners on the network? I wonder if this is a way (or an app) to send instant messages to iTunes library shared owners, visible on the network.

It would be really handy to be allowed to communicate with them :-)

I don't know about a specific app to send instant messages (I doubt one exists) BUT I like to rename my own shared library something akin to "if you don't stop stealing my internet I'll steal your credit card info".  Not that I actually know how to do that, but it usually scares them off my wireless.


Why does my battery drop with 1% within a minute after removing the charger? I just got a new iPhone 5S a week ago. Works perfectly aside from the fact that the battery tends to act weirdly. As mentioned in the title, when I remove the charger the battery percentage drop by a single percent, sometimes instantly and sometimes after a few minutes.

However, if I reboot my phone the percentage goes back up to 100% and stays there for a more normal amount of time. Not the biggest issue in the world, but still, annoying :)

Any suggestions?

Battery level indications are notoriously unreliable in most devices. That's why it's known as the indicator rather than the gauge, as the latter implies accuracy (same goes for car fuel tanks, which is why when there is less than approximately 30 miles of fuel left, my car then stops telling me the level and just says "Refuel!!"). It's very common to note unusual behaviour such as you describe, and other similar behaviour like the first 50% being used slower than the last 50%, etc.

In an attempt to improve the situation, Apple did something a little different with how the battery indicator value is commonly generated in iOS. But before I mention that, it's worth showing how a lot of other manufacturers do it (and indeed how Apple does it on OSX hardware still).

The normal method is to show 100% full when the battery stops charging. This is a physical measure, rather than a logical one, and relies on taking voltage/ampage readings and whether they have stopped increasing or reached expected levels, etc. On a Macbook, the behaviour shown by @Robuust' answer is because of this method of charging; because it's not good to keep topping up the battery to absolutely full when it has only lost a percent or so - it's better to use a bit more before starting to charge again. OSX won't bother charging a battery that was at 100% until it has dropped sufficiently to make charging it back up worth it without causing potential battery health issues. As such, if you unplug to walk to another room and drop from 100% to 98%, it will determine that it's not worth the potential shortening of a batteries long term life just to give you a 2% recharge. It will wait until a lower indication is reached, say 94%, and then when it drops below this threshold start to charge again.

This causes (or used to cause) endless user confusion; Why doesn't my battery get to 100%?!?! My battery is faulty...

So in iOS, they switched to a different method of reporting battery life. The genuine 100% charge state is still monitored in the same way, but the way it is reported to the user is different. The battery will show as full when in reality it's only, for example, say 95% full (I don't know the exacts, which probably changes model to model anyway). At this point you can safely unplug and use the device (there is no need to charge a modern battery all the way to prevent memory damage) although it might not be fully charged regardless of what it says. If you leave it plugged in however, it continues to charge. Physically as the battery reaches 100% charge, logically that is essentially going over the 100% level shown to the user, say to 105% (although this isn't shown, clearly). At the point that it reaches this genuine full mark it then runs on battery until the value is lowered back to 95% physical/100% logical. Then it charges up. It will use the top 5% or so of genuine physical battery charge to constantly run the battery through a small charge/discharge cycle, and display 100% at all times to the user, regardless of where it is in the cycle.

Actual physical battery capacity:

[0--------------------------------------------------100]

Logical user reported charge:

[--0---------------------------------------------100---]

Logical user accessible charge:

[--0------------------------------------------------105]

Keeping a battery active in this way is better for its health than charging it to full and keeping in charged to full. Batteries are designed to be used, which is why laptop batteries on machines that commonly stay plugged in often fail with relatively little use - you should use the battery regularly to keep it healthy.

A net result of the above operation is that sometimes when your phone is showing 100% it will drop to 99 relatively quickly, because it was at that point in the cycle where it had been running on battery and was about to start charging again anyway. Other times when you unplug, it has just finished charging to its genuine full charge, and therefore you get all the extra time it takes to discharge down from its logical 105% down to 99%, so it will show at 100% for ages before starting to drop more consistently.

The same happens at the bottom of the battery too, when it hits 0%, it doesn't just run out of juice and die, it knows it has enough power reserved to perform a clean shutdown, and hold enough stuff like the date/time etc., or to be able to flash you an I need power! icon when you try to turn it back on.

Finally, as to why you can seemingly recover charge after a reboot, it seems reasonable to assume that this is just an artifact of the process used to provide the user with a logical battery indication, rather than the real thing.  My physics isn't brilliant, but I believe that it's harder to record what the static voltage of a battery is when it's being used (as it's constantly draining), and during bootup it's probably actually using more power than when it's just sitting in your pocket and so on.  Tie in this with some algorithm that is adjusting for the general age and health of the battery anyway (If a battery has lost 20% of its capacity over the course of a couple of years, it won't simply get to 80% full and go no further, its physically capacity is reduced and the logical capacity needs adjusting to give the same 0-100% range, even if that range is now smaller) and it's easy to see there's plenty of room for the values to hop about a bit.

The key takeaway is that the numbers reported to the user are nothing more than a software adjusted "approximation" of available charge, and can vary on current usage etc.  It's not a defect :)


Operation could not be completed when I try to play a video on my camera roll I have a video recording on my iPod 4th generation and when I try to play it, it comes up with "Operation could not be completed" the recording was from 23rd November 2013 and I have tried many things since then and it still won't play. I have rebooted my iPod and I have sent the video via email to myself but I still cant play it. I dont want to delete this video as I know the video is important and I know where its from. What can I do to get it to play?

I like to use a VideoLan application.

It does not look like much but it works like charm and it is very easy to use.

You can download a Mac version here.

Or in your case the iOS version here.

It is a Video player that plays anything, it's safe to use, and I had it for years and play all my videos on it.

Since the Video was send to you it might be in a format that your iPod can not play. So use the VideoLan.

Feel free to Donate, to those hard working programers.


Any way to export multiple playlists to m3u at once? I can export a single playlist from iTunes to m3u format easily enough, but is there any way to do it en masse? I have about 40 playlists and it's exceedingly tedious to do it for all of them one at a time. I know you can dump the entire library database if you're just switching between macs but I use these all over the place. That library file is megabytes and megabytes and while I could conceivably reconstruct my playlists from the xml plist it's not ideal.

Just using iTunes by itself, I do not know of a way to export multiple playlists at the same time, as one can only select one playlist in the Sidebar at a time.
Normally to export a playlist in iTunes one would, e.g., select the target playlist in the Sidebar and then click: File > Library > Export Playlist…
This then brings up a Save dialog box, e.g.:

To semi-automate the process I assigned a keyboard shortcut of ⌘E to the Export Playlist… in System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > App Shortcuts, as shown the image below.
This allows me to easily bring up the Save dialog box without having to navigate the menus, and I can then just use the keyboard to easily walk through saving one playlist after the other.
It's easy to get into a rhythm, select the first playlist, then ⌘E > enter > down-arrow > ⌘E > enter > down-arrow > etc.

To further semi-automate the process, you can use a bit of AppleScript in Script Editor.
Example AppleScript code:
activate application "iTunes"
delay 1
tell application "System Events"
    repeat 1 times
        keystroke "e" using command down
        delay 0.5
        key code 36 # return key
        delay 0.5
        key code 125 # down-arrow key
        delay 0.5
    end repeat
end tell

Change repeat 1 times to the number of times you want it to repeat.
Then in iTunes select the first playlist on the Sidebar and then run the script from Script Editor.
This example AppleScript code assumes you've already once selected the Where: and Format: and will use the default names in the Save As:, none of which are the same, and there are no playlists currently at the Where: that would interfere with the limited example AppleScript code. Otherwise, additional coding will be necessary.
If you want to use the example AppleScript code without assigning a keyboard shortcut for the Export Playlist… command, then in place of keystroke "e" using command down use:
    click menu item "Export Playlist…" of ¬
        menu "Library" of ¬
        menu item "Library" of ¬
        menu "File" of ¬
        menu bar item "File" of ¬
        menu bar 1 of ¬
        application process "iTunes"

Note: The example AppleScript code is just that and does not contain any error handling as may be appropriate. The onus is upon the user to add any error handling as may be appropriate, needed or wanted. Have a look at the try statement and error statement in the AppleScript Language Guide. See also, Working with Errors. Additionally, the use of the delay command may be necessary between events where appropriate, e.g. delay 0.5, with the value of the delay set appropriately.


How to see whole network on a mac? I am new to the apple world and finding out some "how to stuff". One of the things I am looking for is the Microsoft equivalent of the "network center".

Everything works on my mac network-wise. However, I would like to see all devices in the network. For instance all my Sonos devices. If something is not working I was used to quickly open the network overview in Windows and see whether all devices where at least visible in the network.

How do I do this on a Mac?

In Finder, go to the highest level available by repeatedly pressing Command-Up, or by right clicking the current folder name in the title bar and selecting the bottom entry.

From this location (called "Arnoud's Macbook Pro" or something), you should see a folder called "Network." This will show you a variety of network shares.

To see every device advertising itself on the network, check out Bonjour Browser, which will display all registered zeroconf devices.


How to not pay for a song twice? What is an easy way to move a song I bought from iPhone 3 to iPhone 4 to iPad?

Do I need to move some files such as Mvx034f.mp3 over somewhere and rename it?

I think the only other way is to let Apple know I want to download it one more time, but that is ONE TIME ONLY.

Quite often, I leave the song in my iPhone 3 or iPod, and the old computer, and 2 years later, I want to hear that song again.  With a CD, that's no problem.  With the iTunes purchase = Pay Again and I want to avoid it.

The best thing to do is to make sure that you set up a proper sync relationship with all of your devices. If you buy something on the iPhone3, then sync it, iTunes will copy it back to your library on your Mac / PC.

After that, you'll be able to synchronize it back to other devices that are connected as long as they are authorized to play it if the song is protected with FairPlay.


App to Ensure Healthy Coffee Consumption? If I don't drink enough coffee my brain doesn't function.

If I drink too much coffee, I end up over-percolating my brain.

Is there an app that will recommend how much coffee you should consume to keep your consumption at the optimal rate, so that your brain functions but doesn't over-function?

Ideally, the app would go so far as to slide back your coffee consumption so that your body doesn't get used to an amount so that it requires more.

so there's an interesting web tool I would recommend: http://chartmyself.com/

You can use it to figure out just how much coffee you're drinking and how much you can get away with not drinking. There are articles on the site to recommend how to not drink too much :)


Discrepancies in available capacity of Macbook Air SSD I bought a MBA with an SSD advertised to be 256GB.

The actual unformatted capacity, according to the system info tool, is only 251000193024 bytes.

This is only 233 Gibi (2^30) bytes, or 251 Giga (10^9) bytes. Regardless of whether Apple means Giga or Gibi in their spec sheets, this capacity is still outrageously lower than advertised.

Is a part of the SSD reserved for some hidden function and is subtracted from the size that appears in the system info?

Or is Apple consciously cheating its customers?

It is interesting to note that Hard Drive Manufacturers use the correct meaning of "Gigabytes" when referring to hard drives, and not what most people think of as a GB which is actually a Gibibyte:

Gigabyte = 10 to the 9 bytes = 1000000000bytes = 1000 megabytes

Gibibyte = 2 to the 30 bytes = 1073741824bytes = 1024 mebibytes

Since Mac OS X also switched to this "proper" definition for storage units such as Gigabytes as of Snow Leopard, then the size of the drive should be understood in these terms, noting that on a Mac the OS and the Hard Drive will be talking the same language, there is no need to do the conversion from Gibibytes to Gigabytes.

The given size should be correct and accurate as reported on a Mac as they have a common understanding of what a Gigabyte is, and incorrect on Windows which uses the commonly misused Gibibyte structure on it's filesystems whilst users incorrectly assume it is measured in Gigabytes.

Technically manufacturers should use GiB not GB when marketting and packaging their drives, but they don't/won't, and use Gigabyte which they know practically everyone uses incorrectly.

In your case the available unformatted capacity is indeed low even for using the correct maths, but as referenced in another answer the size of 256Gb refers to the total storage capacity of the drive, and you have to not only accept that formatted capacity is lower, but also that the capacity that is available to format can also be lower, if portions are reserved for the purposes of replacing bad blocks through the lifecycle of the drive.

Lengthy comment follows after the first 2 comments below - too long for a comment tho, but not really part of the answer other than background info perhaps

The space reservation thing is not something I feel I can be canonical about, I know the theory, I can't really backup it up once and for all, especially because this is an Apple non-consumer drive.  However, almost all drives over provision, providing more space than they state in order to have capacity for replacing worn areas.

It's not 100% clear, but it certainly appears to be the case, that in the case of these Apple supplied drives, the provision of "backup" blocks is taken from the stated capacity from the off.  I think this is how most manufacturers do it, hence the fact that you see way more 60Gb drives than 64Gb etc.  The implication being that there is 64Gb of storage capacity, and 60 of it us user addressable.  Whether you call that a 60 or a 64Gb drive could potentially be taken either way.  I would call it a 60, but from a legal perspective I would imagine both cases are arguable accurate.  As for the instances you see where the available capacity is equal to or greater than the nominal capacity (in the case of the 128Gb drives you see) then it could simply be the case that some manufacturers are either more generous, or more worried about failure, than others and genuinely put in more chips worth, say 132Gb for example.

So in you case, you likley have a 256Gb drive in terms of chips, the fact that the user addressable space is lower, even before formatting is likely just how it is.  I have an Apple supplied 128Gb Air SSD which shows much the same behaviour:

APPLE SSD TS128C:

Capacity: 121.33 GB (121,332,826,112 bytes)
  Model:    APPLE SSD TS128C


How to remove time from the watch face? I have zero interest in knowing what time it is.
How can I remove the current time from the main screen on my Apple Watch?

You can’t easily get rid of the clock display unless you enable Voiceover in accessibility settings and also turn on Screen Curtain.

If there is anything displayed,  Apple provides no face that hides or eliminates time. If you want to minimize the pixels devoted to the time display - choose Modular faces.

The most pixels you can devote to things other than time is the Infograph face, but it has large analog hands displayed, probably not what you want.

A jailbreak would be needed to make your own face or subtract / color the time to be the same color as the background and basically erase it visually.


How to programmatically find the latest version number of Homebrew? How to programmatically find the latest version number of Homebrew?

I can find this on my local computer with brew --version and string process the result to get a version number. What's a good way to get it for the released Homebrew? I'd like to programmatically verify the homebrew is up-to-date for many computers.

I personally do not use Homebrew, so if there is a way using brew itself to get the latest version number available online, I don't know it.

Note that since Jun 27, 2012 and version 0.9.1 of Homebrew, the version numbering has maintained a set typical pattern of major.minor.maintenance, using only numbers separated by a period. So this is relatively easy to test that values returned from the command substitutions used to assign them to both the installed version and the latest release version variables follow this pattern.

Once tested, the version strings are converted to numbers so that a binary comparison can determine if the installed version is less than the latest release version, at which point one can take appropriate action.

The following bash script is an example of how one might code it:

#!/bin/bash

    # Get installed version number and latest release version number.

localHomebrewVersion="$(brew --version | awk '/Homebrew [0-9]/{print $2}')"
latestHomebrewRelease="$(curl -sL https://api.github.com/repos/Homebrew/brew/releases/latest | ruby -rjson -e 'puts JSON.parse($<.read)["name"]')"

    # Test that both variables hold the expected pattern.

if [[ $localHomebrewVersion =~ [0-9]\.[0-9]{1,2}\.[0-9]{1,2} ]] && [[ $latestHomebrewRelease =~ [0-9]\.[0-9]{1,2}\.[0-9]{1,2} ]]; then

        # Function used to convert string version numbers to numeric values for testing.

    function version { echo "$@" | awk -F. '{ printf("%d%03d%03d%03d", $1,$2,$3,$4); }'; }

        # Test to see if the installed version number is less than the latest release version.

    if [[ $(version $localHomebrewVersion) -lt $(version $latestHomebrewRelease) ]]; then
        brew update
    else
        echo "Homebrew is already up-to-date."
    fi

else
        # One or both of the command substitutions '$(...)' returned unexpected output for the version variables.

    echo "At least one of the version variables contains an unexpected value."
fi

Note: I've incorporated the command suggested in Synoli's comment to assign to the latestHomebrewRelease variable, as it certainly appears to be a more stable method to get the latest release version information.

Update: Added a test to see the version variables contain the expected pattern before testing if the installed version is less than the latest release version.


How to make [return] behave as a [return] within Messages, Skype… I am using Messages on both Macs & iPhones and I am typing a lot of E-mails.
Within all these environment I am used to the normal behaviour of the return key.

Within Messages this key doesn't behave as a return key thus causing me to prematurely send truncated messages.

I found this very similar question: How to insert new line on return key press in iMessage on Mac OSX and I already knew the workarounds proposed ctrl+return, alt+return. But these workarounds didn't answer the original question. Moreover I already use them but this still leave me with an
unacceptable error rate.

From my point of vue, the return should never be associated with a "function" within an environment where you
are at typing text. This is a huge ergonomic design error.

I tried to override the actual shortcut mapping with:

defaults write com.apple.iChat NSUserKeyEquivalents '{ "
" = "insertNewline:" ; }

Which is a silent failure.

I suspect that the syntax of the function might be wrong, but Messages doesn't write any error about this.

Is there a documentation about the exact syntax of internal Messages functions which can be called from a shortcut?

Is there any other correct way to make the return behave as a plain return?

Create a file (on a standard install, the directory KeyBindings doesn't exist):

mkdir ~/Library/KeyBindings

containing the following 2 remappings:

$ cat >~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict <<end_of_file
/* my keybindings */
{
        "\U000d" = ("insertLineBreak:") ;
        "@\U000d" = ("insertNewline:") ;
}
end_of_file

@ means cmd in this dictionary,
\U000d means Unicode of the standard return (== 0x0d).

Restart Messages and from now on,

return will put a real return,
cmd+return will send the message.

Drawback

This solution is applied to any application using ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict.

Advantage

This solution is applied to any application which does a non natural use
of the return in a text area.
Most notably I now have a Skype with which I don't send any more prematurely truncated messages.


How do I rename the Downloads folder (in Lion)? For whatever perverse reasons I wish to rename the Downloads folder to Temp. I would also be happy with a way of making it appear to me, in both the GUI and the CLI, as Temp. I am aware I can do this via Terminal with root privileges, but the fact that I need root privileges to do so suggests to me that something might break. Will something indeed break if I rename the folder, and if not, is there a gentler way of renaming it thansudo mv Downloads Temp?

I will also be happy (though less so) with confirmation that making Downloads into a symbolic link to a different folder won't break anything.

To extend the idea raised by cksum in a comment already:

Create a symbolic link to Downloads with the name you want: ln -s ~/Downloads ~/Temp
Hide the real Downloads folder from the Finder: chflags hidden ~/Downloads

All browsers etc. will still save to Downloads (so you don't have to reconfigure anything) but you can access your files in Temp without having to bother with Downloads any longer.


Improve GPS accuracy by disabling cellular data I need my iPhone 7 Plus GPS accuracy to be very precise (without continously changing the blue dot position). My cellular data connection is often sloppy. Does disabling cellular data improve GPS accuracy? Does the GPS depend on cellular data at all? I thought the GPS partially relied on cellular data to improve its accuracy.

Cellular has nothing to do with GPS - they are two distinct technologies.  So disabling cellular will not increase/decease the accuracy of GPS

I thought the GPS partially relied on cellular data to improve its
accuracy.

Cellular location data can augment GPS to improve the performance of location tracking (where you are), but it can't improve the accuracy of GPS.
There are four basic technologies that provide location data:

WiFi location data
Cellular location data
GPS (GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and QZSS
iBeacon (Apple centric Bluetooth Low Energy)

Focusing on WiFi positioning, cellular positioning and GPS, all of them work in tandem to get your position.
Your iPhone location sensor (Broadcom BCM4774) is the receiver that GPS uses.
Cell Phone Tracking
Basically, cellular location tracking is done at the cell cite - which antenna you're connected to; it approximates your location and augments it with GPS data.

A cell phone’s location can be detected through  cell site location
information (CSLI) or global  positioning system (GPS)  data.

WiFi Tracking
With WiFi positioning it takes a known quantity (the location of the associated AP) and measures the signal of the wireless client.

The most common and widespread localization technique used for
positioning with wireless access points is based on measuring the
intensity of the received signal (received signal strength indication
or RSSI) and the method of "fingerprinting".

GPS
GPS uses multiple signals to measure location.  However, multiple factors like signal strength blockage, weather, etc. affect the signal.  Accuracy, however, depends on the quality of the receiver (the chip in your phone) and the number of signals it uses.

GPS is good down to the cm (centimeter range) and even down to mm, but to get this type of accuracy, it depends on the sensor being used.


Huge camera roll backup but no pictures I have my iOS 6 phone synced with iCloud. I had a storage shortage on iCloud so I deleted pictures from my phone, however this does not solve the problem - my phone still complains that it doesn't have enough space on iCloud.

Sure enough, I checked the "Next Backup Size" (it's 5.6GB, I am on the free tier), the Camera Roll takes 4.2GB of this.

How do I clear up the next backup size? The photos are NOT available on my phone to begin with, so I'm not sure how to proceed.

You may have to remove the already backuped photos as well. On the iPhone

open Settings and go to iCloud -> Storage & Backup -> Manage Storage (right below available space)
tap on the name of your iPhone in the Backups section
de-select whatever seems appropriate in the Backup Options


Is there a way to tell which OS X processes are using the most power over time? My Android phone comes installed w/ an app that graphs out power usage of various components over time, so it's clear that the screen is the biggest user, followed by the phone, followed by Facebook etc.

Is there a similar app for the MacBook?  I'm following best practices yet only getting a couple of hours of time out of a new (reconditioned) 2013 Macbook Pro (Mt Lion) with a battery showing only 10 cycles and near max health on it.

Thanks

Activity Monitor has this feature. It can chart power consumption per process in the Energy tab. You can find it in /Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor.app.


Credit card purchases no longer shown in Wallet In the past, purchases I made with my American Express card would show up in the iPhone's Wallet. But now the transaction history is empty, even though I've made a number of purchases in the past few days.
I updated to iOS 14 last week. I don't know if this is when the problem started, as I don't check Wallet very often. Today is probably the first time I looked at it in a couple of weeks.
For some of the cards in my Wallet, Settings->Transactions says

Transactions shown are purchases made with this iPhone.

But it doesn't say that for the AmEx card. It just says "No transactions are available". I haven't made any purchases with the phone in a week or so, so I can't tell if they would show up or not.
I do have "Show History" enabled.
UPDATE:
I made an Apple Pay purchase today, and it shows up in the Wallet. So it seems that AmEx is like the other cards, only showing purchases made with the phone instead of all purchases.
Is this a recent change to the Wallet app?

I noticed a few days ago that the problem has cleared up. Maybe it was in the iOS 14.1 or 14.2 updates.


Finder: All my Files I have Outlook 2011 installed, and in the finder "all my files" shows me my e-mail messages, contacts and events. Are these Items saved as files on my mac? can I disable this?

The Finders function "All my Files" will show you all files that are saved on your hard drive.

If you delete them they are deleted. How ever, your email could download them again from the email server (like gmail) if you kept them there.


How can I prevent "Mail" from popping up alerts? I don't use Apple's Mail application at all on my Mac OS 10.7.2 System.

Every so often its icon starts bouncing in the dock and an alert comes up complaining about some configuration issue.

I went into the config dialog and set it to check for mail "manually," thinking that would prevent it from checking on its own, encountering issues, and annoying me with dialogs. But that didn't work. It's still unhappy that it can't reach my mobile me account.

One option would be to configure it properly to access my email accounts, but I specifically don't want it messing around with my email. I definitely don't want it downloading tons of email onto my hard drive.

I could just delete the app altogether, but I sort of want to keep it around in case I feel like using it at some point.

Is there a way to get it to just sit there and not do anything at all, ever?

I asked this question at Superuser a while ago and received a good answer (chmod):

https://superuser.com/questions/337134/how-do-i-stop-apple-mail-from-opening-because-of-ical-appointments


Unable to reinstall OS X on Macbook Air despite trying several different methods I'm out of ideas... Tried every suggestion I could find on the net, but nothing worked. Hoping someone here has a different idea.

The situation

I'm trying to reinstall OS X (Lion, or higher -- which version doesn't matter to me right now) on a Macbook Air, 11-inch, Late 2010 model.

The machine came with OS X Lion pre-installed, and has been upgraded up to El Capitan while I used it.

I recently decided to give the MBA away. Before doing so, I erased the default system/home partition with Disk Utility in Recovery Mode.

I have now been trying to re-install OS X on the MBA, but didn't succeed.

Things I tried already

Turning on the machine, i.e. regular startup: Bootup stops at question mark screen. No surprise, since the system partition has been erased.
Turning on with cmd-R, i.e. regular recovery mode. No visible progress for about 30 seconds, i.e. grey screen, then automatically switch to Internet recovery mode. Seems to suggest that there's no recovery partition, or it's not recognized, right?
Turning on with cmd-option-R, i.e. using Internet recovery mode directly. Mac OS X Utilities menus load, no problem here. Selecting option 2, "Reinstall Mac OS X", I am offered to install OS X Lion 10.7 (the original OS the machine was shipped with). Pressing "ok" is followed by message "To download and restore Mac OS X, you computer's eligibility will be verified with Apple". "ok", followed by progress report "Loading Installation Information", then dialog to confirm license agreement, then dialog to select installation disk. After that, I am asked to sign into the App Store. This step is not optional in my case, i.e. I cannot skip the app store sign-in. Once I sign in, installation fails with error message: "This item is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later."
Checking Disk Utility, I see there's no recovery partition. Not 100% sure why, since I didn't erase it, but given that I got the MBA from someone else as well, it is possible that partition was erased earlier.
Last thing I tried: Recovery Disk Assistant on my working Macbook Pro to create recovery USB. Using USB on MBA at boot up leads to the regular boot up progress bar going about halfway, then stopping at an error screen (box with an "X" inside). Perhaps because the computer I used to create the USB runs El Capitan, while MBA came with Lion.

Summary

Trying to re-install OS X on Macbook Air after erasing default system partition.

Recovery partition missing, so I have to use Internet recovery.

Internet recovery installation fails as follows:

(1) I am forced to sign into app store when reinstalling OS X Lion (weird, since other people suggest app store sign-in is not necessary when reinstalling original OS).

(2) After signing in, I get the error "This item is temporarily unavailable."

The best thing you can do is to create a bootable USB disk with any new OS X of your choice. Please see Apple support page to create a bootable disk. I guess, it will solve your installation issues with your MBA.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372


I don’t know if I am being hacked Basically I wanted to open my MacBook Air and when I started writing in my password all letters were in all caps. Therefor, I plugged in my keyboard and it worked on the email Registration but not on my password. I am wondering if someone might have hacked my password and if so what I could technically do to stop him. This is a very urgent problem as I need this laptop for my school work, thank you for anyone answering.
2-3 hours before this happened a small ball fell onto my keyboard

What you have described are not the symptoms of a hack. It sounds like something is broken on your keyboard, and something was dropped something on it. You will need to get the keyboard physically repaired.


Will I have to create separate Apple IDs for two iOS devices to message each other? I have one Apple ID that I use for both my iPhone and my wife's iPhone. In iOS5, if we want to message to each other using iMessage, will one of us need to create a separate AppleID? And if so, will that affect apps that we've downloaded to the device using the other Apple ID?

You don't have to create separate Apple ID's for the iPhone because iMessage also works by using the phone number.

However if you have two wi-fi only iPad's or iPod touch's then you will just have to use separate e-mail address.


How to copy folder items on disk mount automator i want to automatically copy a specific folder's items when a usb is inserted at any given time. Program logic:

Once usb is available
simply copy all content of (/Users/x/Documents/myfolder) to usb folder such as (/Volumes/BOSS/myfolder)
deletes copied contents from myfolder

What software or scripts could do this?

One way to do this is to use Automator:

create a Folder Action on /Volumes
trigger an Applescript or shell script when a new drive is mounted
do the copy
grab a coffee (optional).

You'll probably want to scrape the output of system_profiler SPUSBDataType to make sure you're not messing around with DMGs.

Oooh, option 2 from stack overflow (copy/paste as a block quote below):

  You can use launchd for that purpose. Launchd can be configured
  to automatically launch a program when a file path is modified.

  For example the following launchd config plist will launch the program
  /usr/bin/logger when the desktop folder of my user account is
  modified:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>logger</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/bin/logger</string>
        <string>path modified</string>
    </array>
    <key>WatchPaths</key>
    <array>
        <string>/Users/sakra/Desktop/</string>
    </array>
</dict>
</plist>

  To activate the config plist save it to the LaunchAgents folder in
  your Library folder as "logger.plist".

  From the shell you can then use the command launchctl to activate
  the logger.plist by running:

$ launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/logger.plist

  The desktop folder is now being monitored. Every time it is changed
  you should see an output in the system.log (use Console.app).  To
  deactivate the logger.plist, run:

$ launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/logger.plist

  The configuration file above uses the WatchPaths option.
  Alternatively you can also use the  QueueDirectories option. See the
  launchd man page for more information.


Reset USB bus without reboot (MacBook ignores display) I have a MacBook Pro and work with different external monitors. The monitors have a keyboard and a mouse attached. Frequently the MacBook does not recognize the USB devices in the display and the keyboard and mouse do not function. I have to reboot. Is there a way to reset the USB system without rebooting?

You could try restarting the usb daemon in terminal. Like so:
sudo launchctl stop com.apple.usbd; sudo launchctl start com.apple.usbd


How to install OS X Yosemite on MacBook (with empty hard drive) from Ubuntu or Windows? Every time I search for how to create and install OS X on a MacBook from Windows I get a lot of Hackintosh videos, videos saying to use a Mac to create the installer, or even how to install in VirtualBox which are not what I want to do.

I have a late 2010 MacBook that has no operating system on it. I know I can install and run Yosemite on it, but I don't have a spare Mac to create a USB installer.

I'm currently using Windows and Ubuntu. My MacBook's hard drive is empty and I'd like to be able to create the Yosemite installer on either Windows or Ubuntu to install Yosemite on my Mac.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

EDIT:
I purchased a USB installer from eBay. I got it in the mail today and when I tried installing from the USB it dropped at some package file. I now have a Recovery HD drive with Reinstall OS X as an option but after I sign into App Store it says, "This item is temporarily unavailable. Try again later". Same problem over and over all day..

You can possibly do an Internet Recovery with a new drive. Press Command + R on start up:

From Apple's website:

  Newer Macs include the ability to start up directly from an Internet-based version OS X Recovery. Your Mac automatically uses this feature when the Recovery System on the startup drive isn't available. For example, if your startup drive encounters an issue, or if your startup drive has been replaced or erased. Internet Recovery lets you start your Mac directly from Apple's servers. Starting up from this system performs a quick test of your memory and hard drive to check for hardware issues.

If this doesn't work, taking it to the Apple store will be your best bet.


Customize touch bar button when using the browser? Can I turn off the touch bar when I use the browser like Chrome or Safari?

Sometimes, I click the Reload button unknowingly when I fill the website form. This is a nightmare for me, especially for filling long questions.

I only found this article from official,
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207055#customize

But it doesn't mention how to customize setting except for default touch bar.

OSX: 10.14

Update

I want to get rid of the reload button like the following.

Menu Bar → View → Customize Touch Bar

Drag the reload button on your Touch Bar into the trash can on the far left side of your Touch Bar (or just off the Touch Bar).

More info from Google.


Which cryptographic method does iTunes use to encrypt Backups? I am writing a little cli tool to recover data from iTunes Backups. How does iTunes encrypt its Backups?

I do not think Apple is using a standard encryption, as the FBI demonstrated for us,  its so far, uncrackable, it contains your used passwords, and other sensitive information, how are you planning on decrypting this data?


Warning: xf : INO_EXT_TYPE_DSTREAM when running First Aid of Disk Utility I run Catalina and when I run First Aid on Disk Utility App, it returns

warning: xf : INO_EXT_TYPE_DSTREAM : found unexpected dstream associated with non-regular file

and

warning: found orphan dstream id object (id 125206461, refcnt 1)

Anyone can explain me, what is the meaning of those warnings?
My mac is randomly shutdown. Could it be possible because of those error?

Here are the complete First Aid Details :

Running First Aid on “Macintosh HD - Data” (disk1s1)

Verifying the startup volume will cause this computer to stop responding.

Verifying file system.
Volume could not be unmounted.
Using live mode.
Performing fsck_apfs -n -l -x /dev/rdisk1s1
Checking the container superblock.
Checking the EFI jumpstart record.
Checking the space manager.
Checking the space manager free queue trees.
Checking the object map.
Checking volume.
Checking the APFS volume superblock.
The volume Macintosh HD - Data was formatted by hfs_convert (748.1.46) and last modified by apfs_kext (1412.101.1).
Checking the object map.
Checking the snapshot metadata tree.
Checking the snapshot metadata.
Checking the extent ref tree.
Checking the fsroot tree.
warning: xf : INO_EXT_TYPE_DSTREAM : found unexpected dstream associated with non-regular file
warning: xf : INO_EXT_TYPE_DSTREAM : found unexpected dstream associated with non-regular file
warning: xf : INO_EXT_TYPE_DSTREAM : found unexpected dstream associated with non-regular file
warning: xf : INO_EXT_TYPE_DSTREAM : found unexpected dstream associated with non-regular file
warning: xf : INO_EXT_TYPE_DSTREAM : found unexpected dstream associated with non-regular file
warning: xf : INO_EXT_TYPE_DSTREAM : found unexpected dstream associated with non-regular file
warning: xf : INO_EXT_TYPE_DSTREAM : found unexpected dstream associated with non-regular file
warning: xf : INO_EXT_TYPE_DSTREAM : found unexpected dstream associated with non-regular file
warning: xf : INO_EXT_TYPE_DSTREAM : found unexpected dstream associated with non-regular file
warning: xf : INO_EXT_TYPE_DSTREAM : found unexpected dstream associated with non-regular file
warning: xf : INO_EXT_TYPE_DSTREAM : found unexpected dstream associated with non-regular file
warning: xf : INO_EXT_TYPE_DSTREAM : found unexpected dstream associated with non-regular file
warning: found orphan dstream id object (id 117115534, refcnt 1)
warning: found orphan dstream id object (id 118309624, refcnt 1)
warning: found orphan dstream id object (id 118703475, refcnt 1)
warning: found orphan dstream id object (id 121125034, refcnt 1)
warning: found orphan dstream id object (id 122691438, refcnt 1)
warning: found orphan dstream id object (id 122990318, refcnt 1)
warning: found orphan dstream id object (id 123417690, refcnt 1)
warning: found orphan dstream id object (id 124020790, refcnt 1)
warning: found orphan dstream id object (id 125203904, refcnt 1)
warning: found orphan dstream id object (id 125206461, refcnt 1)
warning: found orphan dstream id object (id 125975408, refcnt 1)
warning: found orphan dstream id object (id 126904909, refcnt 1)
Verifying allocated space.
Performing deferred repairs.
The volume /dev/rdisk1s1 appears to be OK.
File system check exit code is 0.
Restoring the original state found as mounted.

Operation successful.

Update : I can confirm that the random shutdown is not because of this issue. It because of logicboard issue.

Same here. Macbook Pro Retina, 2015, on Catalina 10.15. Mac locks up randomly about once a day, and I can't do anything except reboot via power button.

Ran First Aid from Recovery Mode on "Macintosh HD - Data" and got this same sequence along with "Too many warnings of this type generated; suppressing subsequent ones."

I tried Apple Support Communities and didn't find anything exactly the same. Most were Mojave-related but it sounds like a clean reinstall might be required.


What does it mean if I have lots of "Inactive" memory at the end of a work day? After a day's of work at my MacBook Pro running Mac OS X 10.6.5, Activity Monitor shows that the majority of my computer's 8 GB of memory is "Inactive", and only a tiny sliver of the pie chart is "Free". This is even when I have closed all applications, with only the Finder running.

What does that mean? Is the "Inactive" memory taken up by something? Or is it actually still available for applications to use? Thanks.

OS X, like most modern operating systems, uses a virtual memory system for managing memory. Among other purposes, this allows the operating system to treat the computer as having an unlimited pool of memory. To achieve this, the OS will page unused parts of RAM out to a disk store known as the swapfile.

Of course, RAM is not unlimited, so OS X groups RAM into four categories: wired, active, inactive, and free. Wired memory is required by the operating system, and can never be paged out of memory. Active memory is memory used by currently-running programs. Inactive memory was used recently by programs which have now been terminated (or haven't been unused in a long time). Free memory is, as the name suggests, RAM that is not being used.

When you launch a program, it gets loaded into active memory. When you quit a program, however, it doesn't get removed from RAM; rather, it gets bumped into inactive memory. This is why it is often faster to re-launch a program -- it is still in RAM (try this with a big program like Firefox).

Once all your memory is used (free memory is 0), the OS will write out inactive memory to the swapfile to make more room in active memory.

If a program gets paged out to the swapfile, and you re-launch it, it'll get pulled from the swapfile into active memory.

So in short, you actually shouldn't care if your free memory is low. In fact, you want it to be low -- free memory is wasted memory (as the OS isn't using it for anything).

When examining how much memory your computer is using, you actually want to pay attention mostly to Swap used, which tells you the size of the virtual memory swapfile, and Page ins, which tells you how often the OS has to pull memory from the swapfile into active memory.


Mac app for writing handwritten notes I would like to prepare hand-written notes (via One by Wacom tablet) for my educational purposes, therefore I would like to have a software which has

ability to create infinite long (or big enough) canvas, where I can write using my tablet.

This is something similar to Notes or Word app, where one can write as much as they want, and pages keep on increasing.

Sketchbook seems to be promising, but resizing of canvas is not available in free version.
Krita seems to be very bulky for such simple tasks.

Can anyone suggest a free software which can fulfill this need?

OneNote has full pen support and provides a canvas to type or draw on.


How to add a Python application to OS X right-click menu? I have made a Python-based application that plays a slideshow. I want to add shortcut on the right-click menu of a folder and play the slideshow.

How can I achieve this?

You can use a service created by Automator to call your python script.

Once your service is created, it will be available in the service submenu of your contextual menu.


What causes some Network Drives using SMB no longer connect to macOS Catalina? Running the release version of macOS Catalina some SMB shares will not connect when they did on Mojave. I noticed this first after updating to the Catalina 10.15 Beta (19A487l), I am no longer able to connect to my network drive via SMB.

This is the error:

  There was a problem connecting to the server "ServerName". The server may not exist or it is unavailable at this time. Check the server name or IP address, check your network connection, and then try again.

However, I am still able to connect to the network drive from a Windows 10 machine and a macOS Mojave machine.

Is anyone else having this issue? Is it an issue with Catalina or is there something else I can do to try to resolve this?

The solution is in Catalina release note

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos_release_notes/macos_catalina_10_15_beta_2_release_notes

NetBIOS is disabled in macOS 10.15 to speed up mounting, browsing, and connecting to SMB shares. Some older printers and file servers may require NetBIOS to connect. (51119111)

To enable NetBIOS, you can create or edit the /etc/nsmb.conf file. If your system doesn't already have an /etc/nsmb.conf file, use the following Terminal commands while logged in as an Administrator:

echo "[default]" | sudo tee -a /etc/nsmb.conf
echo "port445=both" | sudo tee -a /etc/nsmb.conf

To disable NetBIOS, you can safely delete the /etc/nsmb.conf file.


Font Browser on OSX? myfonts.com has a create feature where we can choose sample text and selected size while browsing hundreds of fonts. This makes my life much easier when I need to decide which font to use in my design. I like to know if there is a desktop application that does the same thing (either system app or App Store apps that runs on OSX).

For those who don't know what I ask, I did a screen shot to demonstrate what I meant by 'where we can choose sample text and selected size while browsing hundreds of fonts'.

Font Book in your Applications folder. Comes preinstalled with Mac OS X. Choose Custom (under the "View" option on screen top menu bar) and then type the text you want to preview. Then you can cycle through your installed fonts using the up/down arrow keys and the preview will display your custom text in the highlighted font.


Unable to access 10.2.3 16D17a machine over network I was in the midst of attempting to setup the built in apache webserver to do some light network file sharing to my iOS device that I didn't wish to sync, discovered that I can only access network related stuff from the machine itself and no other device on the network except the router can seem to discover the machine.

For example, I can access the built in webserver via it's IP and localhost (as well as *.local) if I do it directly on the same machine. If I try to access the webserver using the IP address or the .local address from my iPhone connected to the network, the page times out. I also cannot seem to ping the machine from my iPhone either, however when I ping the machine from the router, the router gets a response.

I also attempted to try installing MAMP and use the :8888 setting for Apache but it still can't be resolved from anywhere else on the network other than from the machine itself.

Curiously, I also cannot ping my iOS device from the macOS machine, only from the router. But, if I use canyouseeme.org to check if my running torrent app's forwarded port is working, the website is able to connect to the app on my machine.

The only thing to note is that both the iOS device and macOS machine are both on the latest beta versions available.

I do not feel as if this is a router issue as I've used the .local and IP address just fine to access previously configured apache setups on previous OS X versions. With most updates, it seems to reset the server configs and as such I have had to restore the settings. Up until now, this process has been working fine. I don't understand why this isn't working now, possibly a bug in the beta?

IP-addresses:

macOS Machine: 192.168.1.5
iPhone: 192.168.1.3

I believe I found a solution.

It appears that there may have been a change by Apple in how the Bonjour service handles router security.

I had changed my router to WPA2 due to needing to use the built in recovery system in the macOS bootloader, as it was not functional with WEP security.

I happened to notice that my AirPrint printer was no longer being seen on the network as well and I also couldn't ping it, so I changed the security back to WEP to test and Bonjour services started working again. I was able to print as well as access the apache server from my macOS machine from the iPhone across the network with the .local name.

Not being happy with having to use WEP again as it's far less secure than WPA2, I went about looking for a solution.

I have an Actiontec router used for my FiOS setup. It's a MI424-WR revision C with Firmware 4.0.16.1.56.0.10.14.4

Logged in and changed the following option:
Advanced -> IGMP Proxy -> Enabled

Bonjour services appear to be functioning properly now with WPA2 enabled. Apache server, AirPrint, Remote.app, etc. All work fine.


"Backups" are taking up over 60 G on my MacBook Pro Do I need to keep these backups as I use a Lacie external drive to backup? How do I get rid of them on my computer?

NB: For the purpose of this answer, I will assume you are using Time Machine.

No, these are Time Machine's "Mobile Backups". You can disable them by running, from Terminal.app: (you may be prompted for your password)

sudo tmutil disablelocal    # disables local backups

and if the above command didn't remove the backups after a while, from Terminal.app: (you may be prompted for your password)

sudo rm -rf /Volumes/MobileBackups/Computer/*    # removes the large backup directory

Time Machine keeps local backups on your computer as indicated in its preference pane:

  Local snapshots as space permits

Although these local snapshots are deleted automatically, they can be responsible (and they are) for consuming a lot of disk space.


Preferences changes using "defaults" not applied I'm a CLI enthusiast and, as such, I've been a extensive user of brew, cask, m, mas, softwareupdate and so on. I've even written some tutorials about them (check here and there).

Right now, I'm diving into defaults to alter my settings.

My problem is that some defaults set in CLI don't appear in GUI. For instance, I try to deactivate "three fingers lookup & data detectors" in System Preferences > Trackpad

Using diff and defaults read, I found that the settings is "TrackpadThreeFingerTapGesture" in "com.apple.AppleMultitouchTrackpad".

When the checkbox is checked, "defaults read com.apple.AppleMultitouchTrackpad TrackpadThreeFingerTapGesture" returns 2. That's the default value.
When it's no checked, it returns 0. That's what I want.

To test this out, I checked the setting in the GUI, then used these commands:

killall 'System Preferences'
defaults write com.apple.AppleMultitouchTrackpad TrackpadThreeFingerTapGesture -int 0
defaults read com.apple.AppleMultitouchTrackpad TrackpadThreeFingerTapGesture

The last commands returns 0, which is ok. But when I open the GUI, the checkbox is still checked! Reading the value again still gives me 0...

I even tried logging out after altering the value, the problem remains.

Can someone help?

The preference you wish to set is saved in ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost, so you have to add the switch -currentHost to the defaults command

Try the following code with Value set to 0, then set to 2 and see the difference

Value="0"; \
echo "before"; \
: read actual values; \
defaults -currentHost read -g "com.apple.trackpad.threeFingerTapGesture"; \
defaults read com.apple.AppleMultitouchTrackpad TrackpadThreeFingerTapGesture; \
: close System Preferenes; \
pkill -u "${USER}" \
      -f "^/Applications/System Preferences.app/Contents/MacOS/System Preferences$" 2>/dev/null; \
: set value in ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/.GlobalPreferences.#Hardware UUID#.plist; \
: where your hardware uuid can be determined with; \
: ioreg -c IOPlatformExpertDevice  -d 2 | awk -F'"' '/IOPlatformUUID/ { print $(NF-1) }'; \
defaults -currentHost write -g "com.apple.trackpad.threeFingerTapGesture" -integer ${Value}; \
: set value in ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist; \
defaults write com.apple.AppleMultitouchTrackpad TrackpadThreeFingerTapGesture -integer ${Value}; \
: kill the preference cache process; \
pkill -u "${USER}" -l "^/usr/sbin/cfprefsd agent$" 2>/dev/null; \
: wait a second otherwise you get errors on the defaults commands; \
sleep 1; \
echo "after"; \
: read set values; \
defaults -currentHost read -g "com.apple.trackpad.threeFingerTapGesture"; \
defaults read com.apple.AppleMultitouchTrackpad TrackpadThreeFingerTapGesture; \
: open trackpad preference; \
open "/System/Library/PreferencePanes/Trackpad.prefPane"

gives me

before
2
2
after
0
0

regards

Gerd


Menu Bar Display icon has disappeared from the macOS Menu Bar The Display icon has disappeared from my Menu Bar and I cannot figure out how to get it back.
The ability to add it to the toolbar has disappeared from System Preferences > Displays

I found an excellent article that contained instructions on how to add it back in this scenario:

For one reason or another, some menulet options remain hidden in
System Preferences by default. Interested users can find the full
collection in the System folder: Open a Finder window, from the menu
bar select Go -> Go to Folder..., and then navigate to
/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras.
Some of the extras in this folder are pretty obscure, but one or two
might come in handy – like Eject if you use an optical drive, or Ink
if you connect a graphics tablet to your Mac, for example. Just
double-click any that look useful and they'll be added to the menu
bar. They can be removed just as easily using the Command (⌘) key
method described above.

When I try this method, the Display icon does indeed show up on the Menu Bar again...
BEFORE:

AFTER:

However, when I try to click it, it immediately disappears.

What am I missing?
I'm running Catalina (10.15.6) on a 2015 Macbook Pro.

Looks like you have a lot of third-party widgets in your menubar. That's not inherently bad, but I'd suggest rebooting into safe mode and attempting to reproduce the behavior there.
Whether you can or cannot reproduce it, there's a chance this will resolve the behavior when you reboot again into normal mode. It's magical voodoo when this happens, but it has worked for me on similarly mysterious problems in the past.
If the problem disappears in safe mode and returns when you come back to regular mode, try disabling your third-party menubar widgets one at a time.


will my code keep running when Mac is in sleep mode? I am running a code with AMPL. its very heavy model. I am wondering will my code keep running if my Mac is in sleep mode or if I close lid?

my Mac is pro 13 inch 2019.

when I started run the code my Mac made a noise very loud. it is very hot now. when it goes to sleep mode I think it become colder!
That's why I am asking

In short... No.

It's an either/or.

Either your code is running...
...or your machine is asleep.

You cannot have both at once.

Whatever is running may prevent sleep, or it may not.
You can test for that in Activity Monitor [Applications/Utilities] If you right click any of the headers & add 'Preventing sleep' you'll be able to tell if anything will prevent it or will just allow the machine to sleep at the set time.


How to get the amount of selected files in automator I created a workflow to move items from one folder to another and I want to get a notification when it's done. I could create the workflow without problems but now I would like to show the number of moved files on the notification pop-up.

How can I get the number of files?

Basically I'm copying downloaded files to a "Downloads" folder on iCloud Drive. After the files are copied, I would like to show a notification saying "{NumberOfFiles} moved successfully."

You can use the following Apple Script to set a variable (named item_count) to the number of items returned from the previous action:

on run {input, parameters}
    set (value of variable "item_count" of front workflow) to (count of input)
    return input
end run

The list of items is simply passed through.

You could use it like this:


Where are the power-on jumpers on a mid-2013 MacBook Air logic board? I'm trying to locate the power-on jumpers on the logic board of mid-2013, 13" MacBook Air.  Similar to this question, but for the newer model MacBook Air.

I have disassembled and cleaned all components after I had a liquid spill. Computer seems to be charging ok now; previously was not. I suspect the keyboard is damaged but want to start computer to run a systems check.

They are located just above the airport card.  A small flat head or T7/T8 bit should work for bridging them.
You can see them in step 17 of iFixits Logic Board replacement guide:

Power Pads highlighted with a red square along the top edge of the Mac, picture courtesy of iFixit
Something to keep in mind is that a damaged or faulty keyboard could prevent a Mac from starting if the power button is always registering a press. If I were troubleshooting this I would first try to short it using the power pads. If that didn't work after a couple of attempts (the flat ones are more difficult to short) I would disconnect the keyboard's flex connection (to the right of the battery connection) and attempt it again.
Obviously, always use caution when working inside of a Mac that has power supplied to it.
Good luck!


How can I make the icon of a folder to be a given .icns file? I have a .icns file.
I want to make the icon of folder to be this .icns.

How can I make that?

EDIT

The .icns file that I use does not have the .icns file as its icon.

I have tried to copy the .icns file in Preview and paste it to the icon, but it copies the 1024x1024 image.

"Get Info" of the folder you want the icon to be replaced,
using Finder, drag and drop the *.icns file to the current top, i.e. smaller icon of the folder in the "Get Info" window.


Do SuperDrives work with IBM computers? Do Apple USB SuperDrives work with IBM compatible computers?

If not, are there any advantages for buying a SuperDrive compared to a generic USB DVD drive?

I am pretty sure the super drive is not different from any other optical drive.

I have removed the superdrive from my 2011 Macbook to make place for a second hard drive. I put the superdrive in a bay and can now use it as an external hard drive with my macbook or computer with another OS (such as Windows).

You could use any other external optical drive with your macbook. See for instance this post on macworld:

http://www.macworld.co.uk/feature/mac/what-mac-compatible-dvd-r-drives-can-you-get-we-take-look-at-apple-superdrive-alternatives-3500390/


Problems Reformatting SSD on mid 2015 Retina 15" MBP When I purchased the subject laptop last year I replaced the original Apple SSD with a non-Apple 2 TB SSD.  For years I have always kept OS and data on separate drives or at least separate partitions.  That always made backups and moving data to new machines simple for me.  This time I struggled to create that same arrangement, but it proved too difficult.
I sat down recently to attempt to resolve the mess I created.  It appears I had created a 1.05 TB and a .95 TB partition on the SSD.  The 1.05 TB partition contained a "container" that contained my OS and data in a couple of "volumes".  The remaining .95 TB partition of the SSD was simply a wasteland.
Over the last couple of days I have made numerous attempts to erase/reformat any or all of the SSD but the Disk Utility simply will not allow any of that (erase is ghosted).  I have tried changing the size of the first partition, but Disk Utility will not allow that either.  Next I tried a few things with diskutil in terminal but do not seem to be making any progress there either.  Command + R and Command + Option + R did not work for me because Disk Utility there only shows disk0/OS X Base System, neither of which can be erased, and Reinstall OS X cannot find any drive at all for the install.
So, in summary, help!  If I do a diskutil list in Terminal I see disk0 thru disk13... and that can't be right.  I want to reformat and start over but nothing seems to get me there.  Currently there is no important data on this machine.  Oh, laptop still works fine, I just can't live with system and data on same partition.
Some of my symptoms sound similar to Redrighthand's "MacBook-pro Internal PCIe Samsung 512g SSD no longer recognized on MBP (mid 2015 15" A1398)".
Thanks in advance for any help.  First screenshot below of diskutil list taken in recovery mode, second screenshot taken of terminal after normal boot.  Last two screenshots are of Disk Utility...

Turns out the obvious answer was always right in front of me.  I simply did not know enough about the changes made recently to move away from partitions and embrace containers and volumes.  After more study/research I decided I still prefer keeping my data completely away from OS, and therefore partitions over containers for my way of working (bought 1st computer in 1982, built/used/upgraded/repaired numerous PCs until purchased 1st Apple in 2012).
So, I created a 16Gig bootable thumb drive and followed Apple's instructions at  https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372.  Worked like a charm.


Macbook pro 13 2012 (HD4000) 8GB(1600 Mhz) single RAM stick issue I have a Apple Macbook Pro 13" 2012 IvyBridge HD4000 Model which came with
2GB x 2GB RAM.
I Recently bought a single stick of 8GB RAM 1600Mhz (which is compatible).
Gskill 8GB DDR3 FA-1600C11S-8GSQ Notebook Memory for Apple Mac
http://techshop.in/store/product_info.php?products_id=10064.

I removed both the old RAM DIMM's and placed the New 8GB RAM in upper slot and lower slot but when i boot the system after a few seconds or minutes the display gets
distorted and system does not respond and have to hard boot.

Is it because i'm using only one stick?
Do i need to buy another same kind of 8GB stick to make it work...

Please help.

It could be the RAM is just bad. It happens sometimes.

But try to rule this out. Reset SMC and NVRAM(why not?) and boot into Apple Hardware Test to check the memory.

Also you may try to use new 8GB stick paired with old working stick. If it will be OK than don't try to buy same second 8GB stick it will not work. Though it does mean you can use this module with different fully compatible one it's better to send it back.

Anyway I would recommend you are buying DDR3L. It's a new and improved standard your model of MBP supports.


Rip CD to FLAC on Mavericks I have a large collection of Audio CDs I would like to convert to audio files. My requirements are:

FLAC and MP3 support: I would like to keep a lossless version of the CDs in original quality.
CDDB / MusicBrainz connectivity: I would like to have the track and album filenames downloaded from the net, rather than type them manually.
OSX Mavericks compatibility
Reasonable GUI

Is there a good application for that, preferably using an open-source one?

X Lossless Decoder, Max. Both open source and for mac.


Find hidden file via SpotLight How do I search for a hidden file in macOS?

I know the Command Shift . shows hidden file on Finder, but I am looking for a way to search for it.

For Example, I want to look for .npmrc file, and it does not find it in SpotLight nor in Finder Search

If you are open to using third party software, you should try Funter, which is free. You can search hidden file in an easy way like SpotLight.

  Use Funter to show hidden files, switch hidden files visibility in Finder,
  hide files, copy, move or remove them.


Apple Backup Restore to Android After reading the articles in the the latest Apple event (September/15) I remember reading something about Apple introducing the ability to restore backed up media/contacts to an Android device. I am not sure if this is an IOS 9 feature or an ICloud feature.

Since I read this I cannot find the original article or any other reference to this functionality.

Perhaps someone read or saw something about this and could provide me with a link or more details.

As if Apple would ever provide a way for you to leave them.

What you may be thinking of is Apple's Move to iOS app that went live on Google Play on September 16th (also iOS 9's release date), which lets you transfer everything from an Android to a new iDevice, not the other way around.


Solution/Script to automatically sync Safari's Reading List to Read-it-Later services like Pocket or Evernote? MacOSX contextual menus allow me use Pocket [Formerly Read it later] to archive all, and also read, some of the enormous amounts of content that I come across daily on my browser of choice - Safari.

On iOS [iPad/iPhone] however, the native 'Add to Reading List' feature for Safari is the most tightly integrated option when 'long-clicking' a URL in many different apps, like Mail [all newsletters with links]. This has caused a lot of grief for me as half on my links are saved to the Safari Reading List, and half to a Read-it-later service like Pocket.

Consolidating it in a seamless way when using iOS is a challenge if you wish to avoid opening the webpage in safari first, then clicking a bookmarklet, etc.

Web-based trigger services like 'IFTTT' are only useful when the content has already made its way to Cloud services that it supports, like Pocket, Evernote etc.

One conceptual solution to this problem could be something along the lines of having a script run on my mac that is periodically looking for new items in the 'Reading List' plist file and extracting the url when it sees a new item added [since iCloud syncs iOS and MacOSX Safari]. Perhaps Alfred or some other automator service could then get it to a spreadsheet on the cloud which can then sync with IFTTT and Pocket etc.

Maybe this particular design is not technically feasible or outright wrong, but I would be really grateful if someone with more expertise or nous could suggest an implementation or similar solution.

TL;DR

How can I sync Safari's 'reading list' URLs to Pocket/Evernote etc automagically?

I had this same idea a few months ago. I came up with a solution that works, using Ruby.

I use this gist to parse the Safari Reading List plist file:
https://gist.github.com/andphe/3232343

Then I use the ruby Pocket gem to add each item to Pocket.

In the end, I went with Pinboard instead of Pocket, and I have a working project up on github that does exactly that, except using Pinboard.

The example code that you'd benefit from is:
https://github.com/prokizzle/pinboard_tools/blob/master/lib/srl_to_pinboard.rb

What you'd ideally do to make it automatic is have Hazel monitor the Safari Reading List plist file for changes, and then run the ruby script if it's recently modified. That way, every item will make it from SRL to your read later service of choice.

Hope that helps.


How switch to the India store for whatsapp update? I do not want to change my number. i just want to update whatsapp? change from U.S store to India store to update whatsapp without changing the number

If you originally downloaded WhatsApp from the Indian store, all you need to do is log into your Indian Apple ID account when prompted (after choosing to update WhatsApp).

Once you log in, the App Store will prompt you that the ID only works with the Indian App Store and will then switch over to that store and you can do the update. It will then stay logged into that account until the next time you change it by logging into another account.

The store you download the app from has absolutely no bearing on the number etc associated with your WhatsApp account.


Wireless sync of iPhone to wired mac Home network set up: Incoming line from the world goes to an Internet switch with local Wi-Fi. One of the switch lines runs to a second switch at the other end of the house. Most of our devices have hardwired connection. I really don't want Netflix on the AppleTV to fight for bandwidth with my laptop and my wife's iPad.

I also have a Mac Pro that is the center of my computing life. The Mac Pro has its Wi-Fi switched off.

I've told my iPhone and Mac to sync wirelessly. This isn't happening.

Do both computer and iOS device have to be using Wi-Fi for wireless sync to happen?

Is Apple networking smart enough to do the right thing if I have my desktop with two live ethernet connections. (This was a good way to get in trouble with just wired networks. Spanning tree and all that to shut down the extra link.)

Bonjour driver that is used to handle Wi-Fi sync between OS and iOS device requires WLAN connection.

If your Mac doesn't have Wi-Fi enabled, you may need some additional configuration. Check this article: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5092691

Also, Bonjour requires multicasting, so you will need to configure it if you have a mesh network. Check this article if the previous one won't help:
https://superuser.com/questions/328205/how-can-i-get-bonjour-to-work-over-my-wireless-network

Not sure about this one, but could be also useful:
https://community.cisco.com/t5/switching/routing-multicast-apple-bonjour-specifically-in-routed-vlan-d/td-p/1504513


Touch Bar not turning on after waking computer from sleep Specs:

MacBook Pro, late 2019, 16-inch
macOS Catalina v10.15.2

About 50% of the time (and increasingly more now), when I wake my computer from sleep, the touch bar does not wake up. It doesn’t light up or react to touches — it’s just a piece of black plastic. This is usually fixed by a restart, but when my computer goes to sleep again it’s a crap shoot of whether the touch bar will wake back up again. It’s getting really annoying to have to restart my computer after almost every time I wake it from sleep, especially just to access essential controls like volume and brightness.

Here are some things I’ve tried that didn’t work:

Force-quitting the TouchBarServer from the Activity Monitor
sudo pkill TouchBarServer
pkill "Touch Bar agent"
Resetting the SMC (shutting down, holding power button for 10 seconds until the fans spin, and then booting up again)

One thing I did notice is that the touch bar turns back on when I log out of my account or switch accounts, and when I log back in to my account again, the touch bar turns back off. This is really weird because I can’t think of a reason why this would be related to my user account. I haven’t tried deleting my account and creating a new one, because that’s a lot of work and I’m not sure it would even fix the problem. But I would be willing to do that if I knew it would definitely fix it.

I tried searching online but found nothing; it seems the community hasn’t come across this problem yet. Is this likely a common problem with new MBPs or Catalina, or is it just the luck of a draw with my machine?

I recommend you to reset NVRAM of your MBP.

This chip stores information on screen resolution and can often become corrupted. You can reset it by starting your Mac while holding down cmd + opt + P + R . You should hear the Mac chime, restart and chime a second time. Then you can release the keys you are holding.

More info here.


How do I get all my archived Gmail into iCloud mail? How do I get all my archived Gmail into iCloud mail?
I don’t just want it in the Mail client, I actually want it on iCloud servers for future reference.
For example, an email I sent using Gmail 10 years ago, should be accessible in iCloud mail on the web, iPhone and Mac apps.

Find a IMAP email client, like Thunderbird.
Configure both Gmail and iCloud mail as IMAP email accounts in Thunderbird.
After setup, you'll find both of you accounts in the left pane. Now you can drag and drop from Gmail to iCloud. Be patient as the process might take some time.
I haven't tested this with Thunderbird lately. You probably can use Apple Mail for this also.
A different way is to use Microsoft Outlook, configure both iCloud and Gmail. Let Gmail sync to the finish. Then you can export the mailbox and import it again into iCloud mail.
Exporting: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/export-or-backup-email-contacts-and-calendar-to-an-outlook-pst-file-14252b52-3075-4e9b-be4e-ff9ef1068f91
Importing: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/import-email-contacts-and-calendar-from-an-outlook-pst-file-431a8e9a-f99f-4d5f-ae48-ded54b3440ac


Selecting from a list of applications using an Apple Remote I have a 2009 Mac Mini running Mavericks that I am planning to use as a media center. There are a few apps that I would like to be able to launch using the Apple Remote (Plex, Netflix via Safari shortcut, etc.)

What's the best way to do this?

BetterTouchTool has a section for Apple Remote buttons that can be configured to perform a number of actions:


How to get particular folders from time machine backup? I'm going to perform a clean install of OS X. I have a Time Machine backup.

I want to restore just particular folders, not everything. Is that possible?

According to the Apple documentation about using TimeMachine and Migration Assistant you can select all, several or no User accounts to transfer; select all or no applications; select computer settings and sub-settings or none at all; and finally, other files and folders not explicitly chosen from above.

Additionally, under the User account migration you can chose to migrate
a subset of the Users' account folders, namely any mix of the folders Desktop, Document, Downloads, Movies, Music, Pictures, Public (if it exists), Sites (if it exists) and other files that may reside in the Users's account but not in the Apple default folders mentioned above.

Furthermore, there are arguments for and against migrating the contents of the Applications folder. Some power-users with full sets of installation CDs and DVDs, with all the documentation and serial numbers for the software they own, say it is best not to migrate the Applications folder and instead reinstall all non-Apple software titles from scratch, and to download new copies of other software. While this scheme may be time-consuming and cumbersome, it does guarantee fresh installs. Given the utility of Apple's App store being able to download up-to-date versions of software you have purchased through the store, this may not be as difficult as it seems. On the other hand, if you have a slew of software titles for which you no longer have the distribution media, or for software which is no longer available, migrating the whole Applications folder is your best bet.

Lastly, you can access the TimeMachine disk itself and copy over files & folders manually.


How do I sync apps to my iPhone with iTunes 12.7 or later? I’ve got an iPhone 4S that I still use, but the WiFi chip has died. I want to try the hairdryer and freezer trick (I used it once before) but in the meantime I want to be able to add apps to it through iTunes. However, somehow the Apps tab is gone. Is there a way to get it back?

Help would be appreciated a lot.

With the release of iTunes 12.7, Apple removed the ability to browse, download or install iOS apps via iTunes for macOS/Windows.

In case you wish to browse App Store on your Mac/Windows PC, you can still download the last version of iTunes (iTunes 12.6.3) with App Store built-in via the Apple Support article, Deploy apps in a business environment with iTunes.


Macbook Pro (Lion) is requring a password to undelete files. Is there a way around this? So a funny thing happened to me last night.  I was trying to clean files off my Macbook Pro.

I just purchased a new Macbook Retina and it has a smaller hard drive than my old Macbook Pro (I know cry me a river).

Anyway I was in Finder and I found a whole bunch of files and I selected them all and hit the good old delete key.

And gosh darn if my Mac didn’t immediately got to working whacking my files.
What I didn’t realize that I had a view of my entire network of files including my Dropbox documents, family pictures and even some naughty images from my college years (don’t tell my wonderful wife).

The total number of deleted files was over 4,000. I almost cried.

No big deal I just go to the Trash and undelete right? Not so fast Tonto!

I want to have the files moved back to their original location.  While the Lion supports this feature, it will only allow you do restore one file at a time.

With 4,000+ files my eyeballs would fall out by the time I finished.

Fortunately someone at Apple invented Apple Script.

And someone else wrote a script that will undelete files one file at a time.

I ran the script went to bed and found that it worked!!!!

Of the 4,000 file only 1,700 remained in my trash (Woo Hoo!!!).

The problem is the remaining files require me to enter a password before the restore can take place. I believe these files were created under a different owner.

My question is how can I get around this?

Is there a way to enter a super duper user mode that eliminates me having to enter a password for every file I want to undelete?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Applescript has a parameter administrator privileges which adding it to your script will execute the command as Administrator.

Extracted from Apple's Apple Script Language Guide:

  Execute the command as the administrator? Once a script is correctly authenticated, it will not ask for authentication again for five minutes. The elevated privileges and the grace period do not extend to any other scripts or to the rest of the system. For security reasons, you may not tell another application to do shell script with administrator privileges. Put the command outside of any tell block, or put it inside a tell me block.
  Default Value:
  false

So it should be something like do shell script "whatEver" with administrator privileges.


External Hard Drive Size Problem I recently bought a 4 TB Seagate Desktop Expansion external hard drive. However, after formatting it with Disk Utility the device still says 4 TB but the capacity says 1.8 TB. What is going on?

Did you completely wiped it via the Apple Disk utilities and formatted it Mac Journaled? It might look like you kept a partition of the disk (FAT32 or NTFS)


Is It Possible To Use Desktop Mac Apps On An iPad? Wouldn't it be cool, if you could somehow use the desktop software running on your Mac on your iPad !!!

Is this possible ?

Using remote desktop tools, yes.

For example, Remoter VNC, LogMeIn, and Teamviewer come to mind immediately.


Safe to Repair NTFS Drive/Partitions When Paragon Is Installed Is is safe to repair NTFS drive/partitions with Paragon installed? I don't have access to windows anymore and can't format them

It is safe to use Disk Utility to add/delete partitions on a drive that is partitioned in MBR or GUID. As long as paragon followed the standards, you won't have any issues.

Do note that NTFS volumes are left alone by Disk Utility so you won't be changing them - just deleting and erasing or working in the free space around them.