is it possible to run a 4k display using an eGPU on a mid 2012 MacBook Pro (non retina) I'm interested in driving a 4k display by using an eGPU.

I've acquired a Sonnet Thunderbolt ePCI expansion chassis (see here) -- which will allow me to hook 1 double width ePCI card or two single width ePCI cards to my MacBook Pro via the Thunderbolt port.

Ideally I would like to hook an nVidea based GPU to this setup and then hook it to a 4k Monitor (so I can run CUDA stuff).

My primary need is screen real estate -- I do not need to be playing games -- but I do want a crisp display. I was thinking of a Samsung 40" 4K display like this.

Would appreciate if you answer addresses the following salient points:

Is this setup possible -- my research seem to indicate it is?
Is it stable -- does osx have bugs that make this setup non ideal.
Would nVidea based chip set be preferred (I also want to do CUDA stuff)
How do I find out if an nVidea card is supported by OSX
Any limitations on running the 4K display

Thanks.

Well, i guess you solved your problem by now, but I still wanted to answer, since I recently looked into eGPU options myself.

If your sole aim is to run a 4K monitor (and your GPU doesn't support it), you could probably also get a USB graphics adapter. You find a selection here. This certainly is a much cheaper option, but probably too slow to watch videos, etc.

If you are into some more horsepower and want to place a powerful GPU into your Sonnet case, I suggest you take a look at the TechInferno forum. There is a growing community building their own eGPU solutions. If you look at their table with implemented projects, you will also find a number of solutions that used the Sonnet housing.

However, be warned. It is more complicated than just placing a graphics card into your PCIe case. Usually these cases do not provide enough power to run a GPU, and you will have to provide an additional power supply. Since this is all non-standard solutions, you may even have to solder on rather expensive hardware. So proceed at your own risk...


Is there a hidden way to fast charge an iPhone/iPad from a newer USB-C Mac? I am charging my iPhone from a newer Thunderbolt 3/USB C enabled MacBook (in my case MacBook Pro 2016) with USB C to lightning cable from Apple.

What I know is:

For example there is an iPhone 8/8 Plus/X or a newer iPad Pro 13

with computer (default(?)) or iPhone charger wall plug: 5W (5V 1A)
with iPad charger or 2.4A powerbank USB A to lightning: 12W (5V 2.4A)
with MacBook charger wall plug (29W or larger) USB C to lightning: 29W fast charging

Anything I do from a 2016 MacBook Pro 15 it seems I get the default charging speed (5W) through USB C despite the same USB C to lightning cable with the MacBook wall plug can fast charge (29W).

The USB C/Thunderbolt 3 standard though supports 100W. Is there a (highly likely unofficial) way to tell my Mac that the iPhone/iPad plugged in via the USB C to lightning cable would like to take a faster charge?

So is there a way to charge from a Mac an iPhone/iPad with 12W or 29W instead of the "default" 5W?

No, a USB-C to lightning cable that is Apple certified will charge iOS devices at the fullest capacity the new MacBook Pro will provide to a USB and lightning connector.

That same cable will fast charge from USB-C PD compatible chargers like the Apple ones.

iOS doesn’t present as thunderbolt so you don’t get that amount of power over lightning connector.

The technical details are available to any organization that participates in the MFI program - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MFi_Program and the signaling between devices to decide to fast charge is somewhat sophisticated and possibly has an encryption / identity key (I haven't seen the specifications so that part is speculation).

There’s nothing hidden. Apple could decide to increase the charge since they control all the drivers and power management and SMC and lightning specifications. They just chose the 5w you are seeing.


Does Fantastical support viewing free/busy information from Google Calendar? Or said another way, can I see availability of invitees (and resources would be even better) when creating a new event in Fantastical. I don't see it in the interface anywhere and it is critical for me in scheduling meetings with coworkers.

Mac OS 10.10.5, Fantastical 2.1.5.

Fantastical mention free/busy information (aka availability) in the FAQ for the Mac version.

  Fantastical 2 does not currently support replying to Exchange
  invitations, marking Exchange events as private, or viewing the
  availability of other Exchange users.

They also answered this question about their iPad version through their Flexibits Twitter account back in April 2014.

  Sorry, Fantastical 2 for iPad won’t let you view free/busy time for
  meeting invitees.

Note they are talking about Exchange, but given it is arguably the most popular source of free/busy information its not a huge leap to assume the same for Google Calendar.

UPDATE 30 March 2016 Flexibits just released a new version of Fantastical for Mac (version 2.2) that includes support for viewing free/busy information. As above, they focus on Exchange support, but Google Calendar is mentioned too.

  ... new in version 2.2 is our spiffy invitee availability view. When
  using a compatible service — such as Google or Exchange — you’ll be
  able to see your invitees’ availability and let Fantastical instantly
  schedule a meeting for when you’re all free, saving you the time of
  coordinating with multiple people. (iCloud does not support
  availability.)


Mousekeys with External Keyboard I'm on a Macbook Pro with OS X 10.9.3.

Mousekeys works fine on the builtin keyboard but seems to have no effect on an external keyboard. How can I change this behavior?

The external keyboard has no numpad.

Thanks 13ruce1337, KeyRemap4MacBook did the job and I get to use hjkl!

The description of cmd + S + D and then holding S + D sounds very awkward in words but in practice it feels reasonable if you just want to click a single item. "High Speed Mode" is a nice convenience.


Error trying to update macOS Mojave I have the problem shown below when I try the update macOS:

I restarted the computer but I still have the same error. I tried to release the PRAM but it doesn't work. I don't know why I can't update. I try to update from macOS 10.14.6 to 10.14.6. I think maybe is a minor update because I also updated my MBP normally without any problem.

The latest 10.14.6 has sometimes its quirks to install.
I suggest to uncheck "automatically keep my mac up to date".

Download the COMBO update and install it,
https://support.apple.com/kb/DL2010?locale=en_US


Access to NAS mount during Power Nap wake up On my mac I have Time Machine configured to backup to a Sparse Disk Image Bundle that is located on my Raspberry pi, which it connects to over SMB and mounts on boot. As long as the mac is awake there is no problem at all to backup or retrieve files.

However, the problem occurs during sleep when Time Machine tries to backup during Power Nap. Once it wakes from sleep it displays the error message that TM backup failed and in the console I can find the somewhat more detailed message: "No destination resolvable"

To me it seems that during sleep the system dismounts all mounted volumes because it loses ethernet access at the point when it goes to sleep, but once it briefly wakes during Power Nap it does not remount the volume from the SMB share, but rather just looks for the previously mounted Sparse Disk Image Bundle at /Volumes/MyBackup/.

Once the system wakes fully from sleep it remounts the disk image without any problems.

So my questions is: is it possible to have the mac remount the Sparse Disk Image Bundle that is located on an SMB share to backup during Power Nap?

No - Power Nap is extremely selective about what activities it will take on and thus far, no third party hooks or API is provided by Apple to allow someone to easily modify what happens when the OS wakes from a nap.

Clearly, someone could reverse engineer things and come along with a solution, but that hasn't happened yet. If they do, we can surely come with a better answer but at the moment you get the behavior out of the box which isn't going to accomplish what you ask.


How can I avoid re-encoding of video in iMovie and use it for cutting only? I have a video that was created on a surveillance camera with the (for video) unsusual resolution of 1280x1024. It's encoded with H.264 and encapsulated in an MP4 AVC container. The quality is rather good, especially considering the difficult structures in the image (the fine steel structure of a radio telescope dish and dark branches against the sky).

I tried to cut it using iMovie, but all export methods I tried so far yield very bad quality videos. The comparison below shows the original footage (left) and the best result I achieved until now (right). This was created by using the built-in exporter and specifying a "large" video. Note the greatly decreased resolution and blurred structures.

There are many hints on the net that suggest using QuickTime export, but I was not yet able to get any better quality out of it. I tested:

DV output format -- blurry, and the aspect format changed even though I specified an output video size of 1280x1024
H.264 output -- extremely blurry, even on highest quality setting and with two-pass encoding

So my question is: How can I tell iMovie to simply cut the input video without re-encoding it, or alternatively: How do I tell iMovies built-in  exporter to use a different video format than "large" (720x576)?

File size is not an issue here.

Indeed, you should use QuickTime rather than iMovie: iMovie will import (and therefore usually encode) the movie, but will also force you to export, as you have noted.

The main interest of using QuickTime is to use its editing features.

Assuming you're using QuickTime X (Snow Leopard / Lion), open your movie file, and hit ⌘T (or Edit > Trim). The timeline will morph into a yellow double-ended scrollbar so that you can trim the sequence.

Adjust it to fit the sequence  you want, and validate the trimming with a click on the Trim yellow button. You can then simply save the file (⌘S), without the need for an export that will necessarily reduce quality.

Update seeing that you need to remove parts of the video.

You'll need the more advanced editing features of QuickTime 7. To install it on Snow Leopard or Lion, refer to Installing QuickTime Player 7 on Mac OS X v10.6 or Later on Apple's KB.

You'll then be able to open your video with QT7, select parts of your video with I (set input point) and O (set output point), and delete the part with a stroke of ⌫. Then, simply save the file, as said earlier.

You might need a license key for QT7, though (I don't remember if the latest versions of the OS need them or activate the Pro features for free).


Data voice call between two apple phones My girlfriend and I will be travelling in USA and using ATandT pay as you go sim cards while there. The only problem is that we don't get International calling.

So I want my gf to be able to use data to void call family on their iphones.

But I don't know anything about apple, so I am not sure what is the best method. What is important is that it uses data and does not default to the cellular system and cost us mucho denairo!!

Am I missing something obvious here or can you just use FaceTime Audio? Obviously it won't work if you use the keypad, but you can call from anywhere you have their contact card (Contacts, Phone, Messages, FaceTime, even Mail...)

You did say both parties have iDevices, right?


Why could turning off my external data store hang my Mac, and how do I fix it? I have a 2012 Mac Mini with 250GB SSD, and an external USB drive used for data files.
I run parallels but as far as I can tell the VM is actually on the built-in drive.

By accident I discovered that turning off the USB drive causes several apps including Chrome to instantly close; the Mac continues to run but comes to an ugly hung state with some apps still running, others unresponsive.

I also noticed if the USB drive is off/unplugged when I turn the Mac on, I get the "no drive" folder-with-question-mark hold screen.

Is this normal behaviour, I'd assume even an ugly device removal would not topple the system if it's just data files that are not in use at the time. I wonder if it indicates I have part of my Mac system files or core apps on the external drive. Is this likely or even possible - MacOS seems pretty strict on what you have to install on the primary/system drive.

I have tested further and discovered that if I turn the external drive off before booting the Mac it will not boot - I get the folder with a question mark in it screen. How do I figure out which system files are on the external drive and remedy this?

As requested:

>sudo systemsetup -liststartupdisks
/System/Library/CoreServices

>mount
/dev/disk1s2 on / (hfs, local, journaled)
devfs on /dev (devfs, local, nobrowse)
map -hosts on /net (autofs, nosuid, automounted, nobrowse)
map auto_home on /home (autofs, automounted, nobrowse)
/dev/disk0s2 on /Volumes/Data (hfs, local, journaled)

>diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Data                    999.9 GB   disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *256.1 GB   disk1
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS JDX_MX100_1             255.2 GB   disk1s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk1s3

I should say, this means absolutely nothing to me!

The command sudo systemsetup -liststartupdisks lists all bootable volumes and where to find the file boot.efi.

sudo systemsetup -liststartupdisks
/System/Library/CoreServices

The command mount lists all mounted volumes:

mount
/dev/disk1s2 on / (hfs, local, journaled)
/dev/disk0s2 on /Volumes/Data (hfs, local, journaled)

The first and the second command show that you have one bootable volume at

/System/Library/CoreServices

on disk1s2.

If you'd have second bootable volume on disk0s2 the first command would show a second entry like:

/Volumes/Data/System/Library/CoreServices

The command diskutil list is similar to mount but shows all partitions of all attached drives and disk images as well as the state/kind of the drive (internal|external|disk_image|APFS/CS_container).

Since your external drive contains the only boot volume with all required system files and folders, turning it off means crashing your Mac. Turning the Mac on without the system drive attached (the external drive!) means no bootable system volume (= ...get the "no drive" folder-with-question-mark hold screen...).

Solution: simply swap the drives! (Victim of a prank?)


Can't get past the system lock PIN code I locked my MacBook using Find My iPhone and now when attempting to start using it again, I cannot type my PIN into the unlock section. Nothing happens. I can't even click on sleep, restart, shut down or the internet options.

I tried Command-Option-R and Command-Option-R-P. Both just came up with a different password screen which I put the PIN into and then they went back to the PIN screen. I have no idea what else I can do.

There are multiple options available.

You can purchase a EFI Rom chip for your particular model computer, attach it to the logic board and it will bypass the system EFI.  http://www.cmizapper.com/components/chips.html
You can attempt to rewrite the existing EFI chip  https://ghostlyhaks.com/blog/blog/hacking/18-apple-efi-bypass
You can attempt to brute force the password with an Arduino Teensy https://github.com/orvtech/efi-bruteforce or similar. http://www.cmizapper.com/products/brutus.html


Why ALT+. (last parameter) does not work in Bash? I am used to it from Linux terminals. Using both Terminal and iTerm.

Try ESC. instead, this will work in both Terminal and iTerm.


Turn find my iPad off My iPad is showing my old Apple id, so I am unable to sign out of iCloud or turn off "find my iPad" I need to sign out so that I can type in my new Apple id. The system is only allowing my to reset my password or find my apple id

In order to turn off Find My iPad you have to have the password to your old AppleID. If you don't you may have to call Apple Support (or go by an Apple Store?) and have them reset the password to that account.

I believe that if you even try and just wipe the iPad it will require that password. No two ways about it you need that password.

Yes it is annoying but if anyone could simply turn off find my iphone/ipad that would negate it as a setting to help you find stolen devices.


iTunes Could not contact the iPad software update server because you are not connected to the internet I did a full restore on my iPad the other day and right before the end with error 6 on iTunes saying it couldnt contact the update server (even though it did it the first 3 times fine) and now my iPad can only boot into DFU mode... If I try to restore now I just get an error saying: "iTunes Could not contact the iPad software update server because you are not connected to the internet". I ping gs.apple.com, it just times out. I have looked in my hosts file, nothing in there. I have even tried it on a machine thats never even gone near my iPad before and it still does the same...

I have tried several different VPNs incase my ISP is blocking the connection, still no. I have tried Google DNS servers, still no. Any ideas?

Both machines I have tried are Macs running the very latest version of iTunes both on Mountain Lion. The iPad is 4th gen by the way. I should also mention, theres no firewall enabled on either machine and my router has never caused a problem with such things before.

Did this happen on March 11?
Many of Apple's login services went off line for several hours.
If it happened because of that, they might fix it for you for free.


How can I use a USBC DisplayPort monitor with my 12” MacBook and charge at the same time? I was hoping to get an Asus MB169C+ monitor to increase my screen real estate while traveling and working on my 12” MacBook.

However, I'm confused as to how I can charge my MacBook and use the display at the same time? I expect to have it setup for extended periods while traveling and would prefer not to run everything off the battery whenever I want to use the monitor.

Is this even possible? It seems like I would need some way of splitting power and also the usbc to DisplayPort connection, but continually more concerned at how limiting this single port system is.

If you intend to use the Asus MB169C+ while also charging your MacBook, you will need an adaptor, hub, dock, etc.

Here are some examples for you:

Hub+
Kadi Port
Arc Hub

NOTE: I have not used any of these personally - I have linked to them just to provide some examples of how you can achieve what you want. However, there are many products that will meet your needs varying from cheap to expensive.


How does Time Machine backup the snapshots made by Parallels 11 When setting up a VM in Parallels 11 (and previous versions)  one can enable "SmartGuard" and then further "Optimize for Time Machine"

What's not clear is exactly what's happening "under the covers" when Time Machine executes it's regularly scheduled backup, while the VM is running.

I'd be happy with Time Machine just backing up the snapshots such that if I do have to restore, I could go back to the last known good snapshot, but I've not been able to find any step by step on that.  (in fact I can't even find where the snapshot files are!)

Time Machine makes two passes on each file. If your file is open/locked/changing, then Time Machine will skip that file for that interval. Basically, it collects a list of all files needing backup and when it gets to the file - it might skip it and save it to try again once the first pass is complete. If the second pass fails, you miss that file.

Ideally, you would quit Parallels (or at least shut down the storage / finalize all the writes) and then make a backup to avoid missing files or having a file being saved in an "unusable" state.

It looks like the vendor is changing the default behavior to accommodate Time Machine according to:

http://kb.parallels.com/en/8827
http://kb.parallels.com/en/115052

It also gets complicated based on which other storage settings you use for the virtual disk technology - and I'll leave that for Parallels support to answer in a knowledge base article - but how Time Machine works is easily tested.

Run a backup and then run tmutil compare to see what files are different than the ones saved in a snapshot. Try restoring the Parallels VM to a new location and booting it. The problem with timing issues is you might get a sane backup 9 times out of 10 or 99,999 out of 100,000 - but it's really about how much data you can afford to lose.

Most people I know skip backing up virtual machines and implement an alternative method of saving user files off image (or syncing them) and/or setting a reminder to periodically make a snapshot backup of the state of the VM by scripting a shut down and then scripting a copy of the data files to a place where Time Machine will back up that periodic snapshot.

Once you have that set up, you can exclude the running VM files from Time Machine backup and save time/space on the backup media of incremental backups that might not actually be workable.

It looks like Smart Guard marks all the files excluded from Time Machine except the backup snapshots and the optimize scheduled snapshots automatically every 48 hours. You should be able to look at your Time Machine backups with a tool like BackupLoupe after running for a week and confirm that you are only getting backup snapshots and that they are happening every 48 hours.


Remove 3D shadow on vertical Dock in Yosemite I have an 11" Macbook Air + Yosemite with vertical dock.

The dock causes a large irritating shadow over any windows...

I have tried these (found on various sites - reference Mavericks):

defaults write com.apple.dock hide-mirror -bool true; killall Dock
defaults write com.apple.dock showshadow -bool NO; killall Dock
defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES; killall Dock

The shadow remains after running all of these.

Is it possible to remove the shadow? (I do not want to disable any other effect - only the dock shadow).

Thanks

I'm trying out cDock, and so far it seems to do the job.


missing /etc/ directory in homebrew I am currently working on setting up an IKEv2 VPN server with strongswan. I am working on a Mac running v10.11.16 (El Capitan). I have been referencing the following tutorial: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-set-up-an-ikev2-vpn-server-with-strongswan-on-ubuntu-16-04

I have run into issues with Step 4 of the tutorial. It seems that when I install strongswan using homebrew, the configuration files are not ending up in my etc/ folder, as they are supposed to. In fact, I can't seem to locate them anywhere on my machine. When I look in my /usr/local/opt directory, there is no etc directory included. It seems that my config files for strongswan are AWOL. Any ideas on where brew could be putting them?

If you've installed brew and strongswan to the default locations the standard "brew" etc location is /usr/local/etc/.

The folder contains all folders and sub-folders required by strongswan/ipsec etc.

Entering ls -Ral /usr/local/etc should reveal something like (slightly redacted by me to omit my user name and some unrelated folders were removed from the output):

total 40
drwxr-xr-x  12 user  admin  -  408 27 Feb 02:36 .
drwxrwxr-x  19 user  admin  -  646  7 Mär  2017 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  -  608 27 Feb 02:36 ipsec.conf
drwxr-xr-x  10 user  admin  -  340 27 Feb 02:36 ipsec.d
-rw-------   1 user  admin  -   48 27 Feb 02:36 ipsec.secrets
drwxr-xr-x   7 user  admin  -  238 18 Dez 05:13 openssl
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  -  281 27 Feb 02:36 strongswan.conf
drwxr-xr-x   9 user  admin  -  306 27 Feb 02:36 strongswan.d
drwxr-xr-x  17 user  admin  -  578 27 Feb 02:36 swanctl

/usr/local/etc/ipsec.d:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  10 user  admin  - 340 27 Feb 02:36 .
drwxr-xr-x  12 user  admin  - 408 27 Feb 02:36 ..
drwxr-xr-x   2 user  admin  -  68 27 Feb 02:36 aacerts
drwxr-xr-x   2 user  admin  -  68 27 Feb 02:36 acerts
drwxr-xr-x   2 user  admin  -  68 27 Feb 02:36 cacerts
drwxr-xr-x   2 user  admin  -  68 27 Feb 02:36 certs
drwxr-xr-x   2 user  admin  -  68 27 Feb 02:36 crls
drwxr-xr-x   2 user  admin  -  68 27 Feb 02:36 ocspcerts
drwxr-x---   2 user  admin  -  68 27 Feb 02:36 private
drwxr-xr-x   2 user  admin  -  68 27 Feb 02:36 reqs

/usr/local/etc/ipsec.d/aacerts:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x   2 user  admin  -  68 27 Feb 02:36 .
drwxr-xr-x  10 user  admin  - 340 27 Feb 02:36 ..

/usr/local/etc/ipsec.d/acerts:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x   2 user  admin  -  68 27 Feb 02:36 .
drwxr-xr-x  10 user  admin  - 340 27 Feb 02:36 ..

/usr/local/etc/ipsec.d/cacerts:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x   2 user  admin  -  68 27 Feb 02:36 .
drwxr-xr-x  10 user  admin  - 340 27 Feb 02:36 ..

/usr/local/etc/ipsec.d/certs:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x   2 user  admin  -  68 27 Feb 02:36 .
drwxr-xr-x  10 user  admin  - 340 27 Feb 02:36 ..

/usr/local/etc/ipsec.d/crls:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x   2 user  admin  -  68 27 Feb 02:36 .
drwxr-xr-x  10 user  admin  - 340 27 Feb 02:36 ..

/usr/local/etc/ipsec.d/ocspcerts:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x   2 user  admin  -  68 27 Feb 02:36 .
drwxr-xr-x  10 user  admin  - 340 27 Feb 02:36 ..

/usr/local/etc/ipsec.d/private:
total 0
drwxr-x---   2 user  admin  -  68 27 Feb 02:36 .
drwxr-xr-x  10 user  admin  - 340 27 Feb 02:36 ..

/usr/local/etc/ipsec.d/reqs:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x   2 user  admin  -  68 27 Feb 02:36 .
drwxr-xr-x  10 user  admin  - 340 27 Feb 02:36 ..

/usr/local/etc/openssl:
total 568
drwxr-xr-x   7 user  admin  -    238 18 Dez 05:13 .
drwxr-xr-x  12 user  admin  -    408 27 Feb 02:36 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  - 275049 18 Dez 05:13 cert.pem
drwxr-xr-x   2 user  admin  -     68  6 Aug  2016 certs
drwxr-xr-x  11 user  admin  -    374 14 Nov 16:29 misc
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  -  10835 18 Dez 05:12 openssl.cnf
drwxr-xr-x   2 user  admin  -     68  6 Aug  2016 private

/usr/local/etc/openssl/certs:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  2 user  admin  -  68  6 Aug  2016 .
drwxr-xr-x  7 user  admin  - 238 18 Dez 05:13 ..

/usr/local/etc/openssl/misc:
total 112
drwxr-xr-x  11 user  admin  -  374 14 Nov 16:29 .
drwxr-xr-x   7 user  admin  -  238 18 Dez 05:13 ..
-rwxr-xr-x   1 user  admin  - 5679  6 Aug  2016 CA.pl
-rwxr-xr-x   1 user  admin  - 5688 18 Dez 05:12 CA.pl.default
-rwxr-xr-x   1 user  admin  - 5175 18 Dez 05:12 CA.sh
-rwxr-xr-x   1 user  admin  -  119 18 Dez 05:12 c_hash
-rwxr-xr-x   1 user  admin  -  152 18 Dez 05:12 c_info
-rwxr-xr-x   1 user  admin  -  112 18 Dez 05:12 c_issuer
-rwxr-xr-x   1 user  admin  -  110 18 Dez 05:12 c_name
-rwxr-xr-x   1 user  admin  - 6419  5 Jun  2017 tsget
-rwxr-xr-x   1 user  admin  - 6384 18 Dez 05:12 tsget.default

/usr/local/etc/openssl/private:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  2 user  admin  -  68  6 Aug  2016 .
drwxr-xr-x  7 user  admin  - 238 18 Dez 05:13 ..

/usr/local/etc/strongswan.d:
total 64
drwxr-xr-x   9 user  admin  -   306 27 Feb 02:36 .
drwxr-xr-x  12 user  admin  -   408 27 Feb 02:36 ..
drwxr-xr-x  29 user  admin  -   986 27 Feb 02:36 charon
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  -  1792 27 Feb 02:36 charon-logging.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  - 10794 27 Feb 02:36 charon.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  -    65 27 Feb 02:36 pki.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  -    79 27 Feb 02:36 scepclient.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  -   173 27 Feb 02:36 starter.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  -   151 27 Feb 02:36 swanctl.conf

/usr/local/etc/strongswan.d/charon:
total 216
drwxr-xr-x  29 user  admin  - 986 27 Feb 02:36 .
drwxr-xr-x   9 user  admin  - 306 27 Feb 02:36 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  - 138 27 Feb 02:36 constraints.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  - 135 27 Feb 02:36 counters.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  - 278 27 Feb 02:36 curl.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  - 137 27 Feb 02:36 curve25519.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  - 215 27 Feb 02:36 eap-gtc.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  - 139 27 Feb 02:36 eap-identity.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  - 134 27 Feb 02:36 eap-md5.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  - 139 27 Feb 02:36 eap-mschapv2.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  - 245 27 Feb 02:36 kernel-pfkey.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  - 255 27 Feb 02:36 kernel-pfroute.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  - 132 27 Feb 02:36 nonce.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  - 301 27 Feb 02:36 openssl.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  - 248 27 Feb 02:36 osx-attr.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  - 130 27 Feb 02:36 pem.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  - 130 27 Feb 02:36 pgp.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  - 132 27 Feb 02:36 pkcs1.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  - 132 27 Feb 02:36 pkcs8.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  - 133 27 Feb 02:36 pubkey.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  - 283 27 Feb 02:36 revocation.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  - 491 27 Feb 02:36 socket-default.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  - 133 27 Feb 02:36 sshkey.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  - 986 27 Feb 02:36 stroke.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  - 132 27 Feb 02:36 unity.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  - 297 27 Feb 02:36 updown.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  - 221 27 Feb 02:36 vici.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  - 131 27 Feb 02:36 x509.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 user  admin  - 140 27 Feb 02:36 xauth-generic.conf

/usr/local/etc/swanctl:
total 32
drwxr-xr-x  17 user  admin  -   578 27 Feb 02:36 .
drwxr-xr-x  12 user  admin  -   408 27 Feb 02:36 ..
drwxr-x---   2 user  admin  -    68 27 Feb 02:36 bliss
drwxr-xr-x   2 user  admin  -    68 27 Feb 02:36 conf.d
drwxr-x---   2 user  admin  -    68 27 Feb 02:36 ecdsa
drwxr-x---   2 user  admin  -    68 27 Feb 02:36 pkcs12
drwxr-x---   2 user  admin  -    68 27 Feb 02:36 pkcs8
drwxr-x---   2 user  admin  -    68 27 Feb 02:36 private
drwxr-xr-x   2 user  admin  -    68 27 Feb 02:36 pubkey
drwxr-x---   2 user  admin  -    68 27 Feb 02:36 rsa
-rw-r-----   1 user  admin  - 14353 27 Feb 02:36 swanctl.conf
drwxr-xr-x   2 user  admin  -    68 27 Feb 02:36 x509
drwxr-xr-x   2 user  admin  -    68 27 Feb 02:36 x509aa
drwxr-xr-x   2 user  admin  -    68 27 Feb 02:36 x509ac
drwxr-xr-x   2 user  admin  -    68 27 Feb 02:36 x509ca
drwxr-xr-x   2 user  admin  -    68 27 Feb 02:36 x509crl
drwxr-xr-x   2 user  admin  -    68 27 Feb 02:36 x509ocsp

/usr/local/etc/swanctl/bliss:
total 0
drwxr-x---   2 user  admin  -  68 27 Feb 02:36 .
drwxr-xr-x  17 user  admin  - 578 27 Feb 02:36 ..

/usr/local/etc/swanctl/conf.d:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x   2 user  admin  -  68 27 Feb 02:36 .
drwxr-xr-x  17 user  admin  - 578 27 Feb 02:36 ..

/usr/local/etc/swanctl/ecdsa:
total 0
drwxr-x---   2 user  admin  -  68 27 Feb 02:36 .
drwxr-xr-x  17 user  admin  - 578 27 Feb 02:36 ..

/usr/local/etc/swanctl/pkcs12:
total 0
drwxr-x---   2 user  admin  -  68 27 Feb 02:36 .
drwxr-xr-x  17 user  admin  - 578 27 Feb 02:36 ..

/usr/local/etc/swanctl/pkcs8:
total 0
drwxr-x---   2 user  admin  -  68 27 Feb 02:36 .
drwxr-xr-x  17 user  admin  - 578 27 Feb 02:36 ..

/usr/local/etc/swanctl/private:
total 0
drwxr-x---   2 user  admin  -  68 27 Feb 02:36 .
drwxr-xr-x  17 user  admin  - 578 27 Feb 02:36 ..

/usr/local/etc/swanctl/pubkey:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x   2 user  admin  -  68 27 Feb 02:36 .
drwxr-xr-x  17 user  admin  - 578 27 Feb 02:36 ..

/usr/local/etc/swanctl/rsa:
total 0
drwxr-x---   2 user  admin  -  68 27 Feb 02:36 .
drwxr-xr-x  17 user  admin  - 578 27 Feb 02:36 ..

/usr/local/etc/swanctl/x509:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x   2 user  admin  -  68 27 Feb 02:36 .
drwxr-xr-x  17 user  admin  - 578 27 Feb 02:36 ..

/usr/local/etc/swanctl/x509aa:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x   2 user  admin  -  68 27 Feb 02:36 .
drwxr-xr-x  17 user  admin  - 578 27 Feb 02:36 ..

/usr/local/etc/swanctl/x509ac:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x   2 user  admin  -  68 27 Feb 02:36 .
drwxr-xr-x  17 user  admin  - 578 27 Feb 02:36 ..

/usr/local/etc/swanctl/x509ca:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x   2 user  admin  -  68 27 Feb 02:36 .
drwxr-xr-x  17 user  admin  - 578 27 Feb 02:36 ..

/usr/local/etc/swanctl/x509crl:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x   2 user  admin  -  68 27 Feb 02:36 .
drwxr-xr-x  17 user  admin  - 578 27 Feb 02:36 ..

/usr/local/etc/swanctl/x509ocsp:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x   2 user  admin  -  68 27 Feb 02:36 .
drwxr-xr-x  17 user  admin  - 578 27 Feb 02:36 ..


Why my Mac book pro shows status 'Battery is not Charging'? I have a MacBook Pro early 2015.Recently I am facing an issue with the battery.
It's not charging.
The MacBook works fine when connected to charger, but it turns off when the charger is removed.
I did a SMC reset, tried another charger too no results. I also tested my charger on another Mac which works just fine.
I took it to the Apple service centre and they said I need to replace the logic board which costs tons of money.
I am confused, do I really need to spend this much money if my laptop just works fine with charger plugged in?
Here is my battery status

Also status indicator

Please  suggest me what could be the best solution. Thanks in advance.

Your battery is almost EOL with 875 cycle counts.

I would say replace the battery (for about $100 or less)


Can you disable power from LG Ultrafine monitor to Mac? I am experiencing a potential known issue of second monitor not waking when system wakes from sleep.  I have done the perquisite resets of SMC and NVRAM and have been working with Apple support to a very deep level.  To no avail.  There seems to be an issue where system does not respond as expected when there are multiple power sources.  Is there a way to disable the power flow from the LG Ultrafine 4k monitors?  I will just rely on the wall.  I have a 2017 15" MBPro with Radeon Pro 560.  I have tested on MacOS 10.12.5 and MacOS 10.13 Beta (17A291m). Thanks!

Please disregard. the issue that led to this odd question has been resolved with an recent LG firmware update.

I have two UltraFine 4K monitors connected to a 2016 MBPro. When the Mac went to sleep both displays went to sleep, but only one would wake.

This has been resolved by the latest firmware.

1.) InstaLL LG Screen Manager. LG site still showing old version.
2.) It will push the most recent version. v2.06.
3.) Upgrade your monitor to the latest firmware. (3.11, 3.4, 5226, 3.04, 0.2f)


Does Mountain Lion remove headers in /usr/include? Is it just me or common to everybody that all the header files that was in the /usr/include is no longer there?

Which is causing boost bootstrap to fail with this error:

### Using 'darwin' toolset.
###
rm -rf bootstrap
mkdir bootstrap
cc -o bootstrap/jam0 command.c compile.c constants.c debug.c function.c glob.c hash.c  hdrmacro.c headers.c jam.c jambase.c jamgram.c lists.c make.c make1.c object.c option.c output.c parse.c pathunix.c regexp.c rules.c scan.c search.c subst.c timestamp.c variable.c modules.c strings.c filesys.c builtins.c pwd.c class.c native.c md5.c w32_getreg.c modules/set.c modules/path.c modules/regex.c modules/property-set.c modules/sequence.c modules/order.c execunix.c fileunix.c
In file included from command.c:17:
./jam.h:317:10: fatal error: 'sys/types.h' file not found
#include <sys/types.h>
     ^
1 error generated.[/code]

This also happened to me, upgrading to Mountain Lion removed commandline tools. I just needed to go to Xcode and install again. Solved.


Removing Messages from iCloud (but not locally) How do I remove my Messages from iCloud only?

I want to keep them on my local devices (where I have plenty of space), but remove them from iCloud (where I'm low on space).

First I would turn off Messages in iCloud.

You can turn off Messages in iCloud just for this Mac or for all devices where you use it.

Choose Messages > Preferences, click Accounts, then select iMessage in the Accounts list.

Deselect “Enable Messages in iCloud.”

Choose one of the following:

Disable All: Turns off Messages in iCloud for all your devices. Messages will no longer be stored in iCloud and will instead be stored on each device.

Disable This Device: Turns off Messages in iCloud for your Mac only.

Once that is done you can delete the messages in iCloud.


Time Entry on IPhone How can I enter times on an iPhone directly so that I do not have to go through the scrolling rotating standard time widget.

It is much quicker and easier to type 1545 rather than scroll from now until that time and fiddle about when you overshoot. I use Timer+ rather than the inbuilt timer to set alarms for say 20minutes for that reason but I can't choose alternatives in all cases e.g. Calendar

This can't be done at the moment. UIDatePicker has no standard option for typed dates/times and therefore it is down to the developer to implement such a thing. In the case of Apple's apps, they rarely go beyond the implementation available to others.

You can provide feedback to Apple regarding this at the following page:

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


Why can't I see subscript "s" (Unicode Character “ₛ” (U+209B)) even though I can see lots of other unicode characters? So you can copy paste even if you can't see it - subscript "s" (Unicode Character “ₛ” (U+209B))
My main meta question Should I edit the squares in this title? Is it just me who's seeing them? explains that when I view the site https://www.compart.com/en/unicode/U+209B
Question: I use unicode characters from compart.com and elsewhere frequently (greek letters, arrows, degrees symbol) and I've never had a problem, what is suddenly so challenging about this subscript s?

I see this in MacOS 10.11 and Chrome on a late 2012 MacBook Air

and this in MacOS 10.15 and Safari on a brand new 2020 MacBook Air

The display of any unicode character requires that your machine has a font installed which contains the glyph for it.  Apple doesn't provide fonts for all 130000 unicode characters.  For U+209b you need to download one.  A possible list is here.
And a font that can be used as a source for installing these glyphs is here: https://dejavu-fonts.github.io


Removing the automatic connection for 802.1X via terminal So in the spirit of this question I was wondering if it is possible to disable automatic 802.1X connection via terminal as well.
Am I right to assume that this is a computer setting (meaning that if I run this script with no user logged in it still disables it for all existing and future users)?

It took me some hours to learn that it's a boolean value (and not just 0 or 1 as 'defaults' would report) but finally i came up with the following LoginHook which does the trick. As LoginHooks get
executed as root user, you have to 'su' to the user currently being logged
in before running the script below. As Michele points out below, that username
is available as $1 to the Hook-Script running as root.
It seems to be a user byHost-Setting, although SystemPrefs would ask for a admin password to tweak this setting...
My hook script being executed in user-context looks like this:

#!/bin/sh

if [ `whoami` = "root" ]; then
  echo "$0: Must run as regular user, not root! QUIT."
  exit 1
fi

# write new setting
defaults write -currentHost com.apple.network.eapolcontrol EthernetAutoConnect -bool false

Using opensnoop(1) or fs_usage(1) I could not see any other files being modified. Hope it helps.


The keyboard and trackpad on my MacBook Pro 3,1 stopped working. How to solve this problem? The keyboard and trackpad on my macbook pro 3.1 stopped working after having frozen the operating system and reboot.

On my Mac I have Windows installed BootCamp and neither does the keyboard and trackpad.

However, I work a keyboard and mouse connect via USB external. You do not know if it really is a problem hardware or software.

For some possible solutions check out:

Solution 1

http://gigaom.com/apple/the-curious-case-of-the-missing-macbook-pro-keyboard-and-trackpad/

  If the warranty on your MacBook Pro is no longer valid, like mine,
  don’t worry. Simply take a small piece of paper, such as a Post-It,
  and fold it in half. Stick it over the spot on the ribbon cable. Then
  reinstall the removable battery. The battery should exert enough
  pressure on the piece of paper to keep the ribbon cable working.

  If your MacBook Pro is still under warranty, take it to an Apple
  service center. While Apple has not officially acknowledged that this
  is a widespread problem, it’s afflicted the machines of many owners,
  so surely it’s not unknown to them. Demonstrate the steps described
  above to whomever is helping you as letting him or her see the problem
  as it happens eliminates the guesswork and may help expedite the time
  needed for repairs.

Solution 2

http://jasonrobb.com/v2/2008/11/24/macbook-pro-unresponsive-keyboard-trackpad-solution/

  THE FIX? I rolled up a sticky note and placed it on top of the cable.
  When the battery is locked in place, it puts pressure on the cable,
  and makes the keyboard and trackpad functional.

Solution 3 (Apple)

Apple support forum dedicated solely to this issue:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1365569?start=270&tstart=0

  THE SOLUTION:

  This is a HARDWARE problem!

  After playing around with removing the battery and noticing that this
  often returned functionality to the keyboard I surmised that this had
  some sort of physical aspect. Sure enough, there is a section of
  copper colored tape/wiring exposed in the batter slot that is slightly
  bowed where it's smallest. When I depressed this with my finger tip on
  this portion to basically flatten it out flush against the housing; I
  found that all functionality was restored!


Open a URL in Chrome Canary as incognito I am currently using this Automator AppleScript to create a service to open a URL using Chrome Canary in incognito mode

on run {input}
    set theURL to input
    if application "Google Chrome Canary" is running then
        tell application "Google Chrome Canary" to make new window with properties {mode:"incognito"}
    else
        do shell script "open -a /Applications/Google\\ Chrome\\ Canary.app --args {URL:theURL} --incognito"
    end if

    tell application "Google Chrome Canary" to activate
end run

Google Chrome Canary will launch with a new window, but the URL does not load. What am I missing?

Thank you.

I do not have Google Chrome Canary installed but I do have Google Chrome installed and because you've not shown how on run {input} is actually receiving its input, what I'm presenting is being done in AppleScript Editor however you should be able to translate it to your use with Google Chrome Canary in Automator.

The following AppleScript code examples do what it is you're trying to do albeit in Google Chrome not Google Chrome Canary however change instances of Google Chrome to Google Chrome Canary as applicable and it should work as the examples do work as tested.

This first example uses the do shell script command in the else block:

set theURL to "http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/270413/open-a-url-in-chrome-canary-as-incognito"

if application "Google Chrome" is running then
    tell application "Google Chrome"
        activate
        make new window with properties {mode:"incognito"}
        open location theURL
    end tell
else
    do shell script "open -a 'Google Chrome' --args --incognito " & quoted form of theURL
end if

tell application "Google Chrome" to activate

Note: When used in a Run AppleScript action in Automator you may not need to use quoted form of with theURL, so the last part of the do shell script command will in that case just be: & theURL

This second example forgoes the use of the do shell script command in the else block:

set theURL to "http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/270413/open-a-url-in-chrome-canary-as-incognito"

if application "Google Chrome" is running then
    tell application "Google Chrome"
        activate
        make new window with properties {mode:"incognito"}
        open location theURL
    end tell
else
    tell application "Google Chrome"
        activate
        -- close window 1   # Uncomment this line if you want the normal window that opens first to be closed.
        make new window with properties {mode:"incognito"}
        open location theURL
    end tell
end if


What's the most recent version of OS X I can run on a 1999 iBook and where can I buy it? I've got a 1999 Blueberry clamshell iBook an I want to get it up and running agin. I'm wondering if I can get Mac OS 9 or OS X on it and more importantly where I could buy the software.

The maximum OS version is 9.2.2 for Classic Mac OS or OS X 10.3.9 (Panther). I'm not sure which one to recommend. OS 9 might be faster, but OS X is certainly more powerful and will be far better supported by software (though Panther is so old that you'll have to use old versions of many apps).

You'll probably have to go digging on Craigslist or eBay for install discs that old.


How to fix a hanging Logic Pro 9.1.5 on Snow Leopard? I'm using Logic Pro 9.1.5 on my MacBook Pro (2.4 Ghz CPU, 7200 RPM HDD). I have Snow Leopard.

When I'm doing nothing special, working on my project, Logic sometimes freezes and I'm stuck with a 'spinning wheel of death' for hours.

I uploaded a hang log file to see if someone can help me diagnose this and find a fix.
Hang log

I looked at your hang log (also called a sample). I have some experience reading samples for Mac OS X apps, and with Logic Pro 8. Unfortunately, I can't determine the problem from your log file.

If this problem is fully reproducible, it sounds like a bug. There may be nothing you can do aside from work on a different project or a new project within Logic. If you haven't already, report this to Apple via http://bugreport.apple.com/ .


How to install cURL on OSX with brew How can i get the newerst version of cURL instead of the old 7.24 that Apple provide.

user:~ kevinsimper$ curl --version
curl 7.31.0 (x86_64-apple-darwin12.4.0) libcurl/7.31.0 OpenSSL/0.9.8x zlib/1.2.5
Protocols: dict file ftp ftps gopher http https imap imaps ldap ldaps pop3 pop3s rtsp smtp smtps telnet tftp
Features: IPv6 Largefile NTLM NTLM_WB SSL libz

When i install with Brew I am notified that it is a keg-only and if i do

brew link curl --force

the version is stil 7.24, but the protocols have been updated.

Kuser:~ kevinsimper$ curl --version
curl 7.24.0 (x86_64-apple-darwin12.0) libcurl/7.24.0 OpenSSL/0.9.8x zlib/1.2.5
Protocols: dict file ftp ftps gopher http https imap imaps ldap ldaps pop3 pop3s rtsp smtp smtps telnet tftp
Features: AsynchDNS GSS-Negotiate IPv6 Largefile NTLM NTLM_WB SSL libz
user:~ kevinsimper$ which curl
/usr/bin/curl

If i then delete the "apple" curl, the function is not executable.

user:~ kevinsimper$ curl --version
curl 7.31.0 (x86_64-apple-darwin12.4.0) libcurl/7.31.0 OpenSSL/0.9.8x zlib/1.2.5
Protocols: dict file ftp ftps gopher http https imap imaps ldap ldaps pop3 pop3s rtsp smtp smtps telnet tftp
Features: IPv6 Largefile NTLM NTLM_WB SSL libz
user:~ kevinsimper$ brew install postgresql
==> Installing postgresql dependency: ossp-uuid
==> Downloading ftp://ftp.ossp.org/pkg/lib/uuid/uuid-1.6.2.tar.gz
Error: /usr/bin/curl is not executable

Add export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH to your .bashrc for example to use the bin installed with Homebrew.


Excel 2011 copy and paste beachball hang freeze issue The issue occurs for some users using Excel 2011 on OSX.

If the Excel spreadsheet is of any moderate size, say greater than 10 MB, when doing a simple copy and paste, there is sometimes a very long delay and the colored beach ball appears. It appears the program has hung.

Pressing command option escape, bringing up the dialogue box to force quit an application, shows Excel to not be responding. Yet if you wait long enough, the hang ends, all returns to normal, including the copy & paste being executed.

For a big Excel spreadsheet of around 100MB with multiple sheets and graphs, the wait time for a resolution (timed several times) is about 7.5 minutes.

This is a frustrating issue to pin down, as sometimes cut and paste in the same spreadsheet works fine.  If not, and you use Force Quit, then often recent work is lost.  This ill defined yet regularly recurring issue is a real productivity killer.

It is possible this issue only arises for Retina Macbook Pros.
This behavour and issue may be related to more general memory issues with
Excel 2011 on OSX.
Excel 2016 does not appear to show this issue, just Excel 2011.
The issue appears independent of Office update or OSX version from OSX 10.8.x to OSX 10.11.x

The best answer to this issue appears here: Excel 2011 copy and paste beach ball hang issue.

Essentially:

You need to do this every time you freshly open the Excel program.

On starting up Excel, and before opening your Excel spreadsheet, open a new blank Excel spreadsheet.
Perform a single copy and paste of an empty cell into another cell.
Do this twice. Doing it twice is important.
Close that spreadsheet, and without quitting Excel, open the spreadsheet you want to work on.

The problem should now not occur.

It seems that when a copy and paste is performed the first two times, Excel tries to do some mapping of all the relationships in the spreadsheet, and due to some coding issue, gets caught up in some long loops. Doing two copy and pastes first, with no big spreadsheets open satisfies this process with no vast spreadsheet to work through. Hence it avoids the long delay and apparent hang.


Using Carbon Copy Cloner 4 to create encrypted bootable HFS+ clones from APFS source Background

According to the Carbon Copy Cloner documentation CCC4 cannot clone the Recovery HD from an APFS source to an HFS+ target:

  Note: CCC v4 requires an HFS+ formatted source for creating Recovery HD volumes on HFS+ formatted destination volumes. If your source volume is formatted APFS, CCC v4 will not be able to create (or update) a recovery volume on the destination. CCC v5 adds support for APFS recovery volumes.

According to other CCC documentation, spinning platter target disks should be formatted as HFS+:

  Starting in macOS High Sierra, both APFS and Mac OS Extended (Journaled) are acceptable formats for a backup of macOS 10.13. Mirroring Apple's recommendations, we recommend that you choose APFS if your destination device is a Flash storage-based device (e.g. an SSD) and will be used to back up 10.13 or higher. Choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) if your destination device is a spinning-platter-based device (i.e. a hard disk drive, or HDD), or if you are backing up an operating system older than 10.13.

Anyone who's upgraded to High Sierra with an SSD internal disk knows that your startup disk was automatically updated from HFS+ to AFPS as part of that upgrade.

A Recovery HD on an external clone might not seem like that big of a deal: you could use a bootable USB thumb drive, or maybe Internet Recovery, if needed. However, FileVault requires a Recovery HD in order to encrypt the volume, according to Apple's support documentation:

  Without a Recovery System, FileVault won't encrypt your startup drive.
  https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204837

  You don't need a recovery system to install and use macOS, but without it you can't use FileVault, set up a firmware password, or use Disk Utility to repair the disk.
  https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201316

The Question

Given all of this, how can I create a bootable, encrypted clone of my APFS High Sierra source drive using Carbon Copy Cloner 4 (CCC4) and using external HFS+ disks?

Here's what worked

Download the High Sierra installer from the App Store.
Run the installer, choosing the external clone disk as the target. This will automatically create a new Recovery HD partition associated with the target disk.
Reboot from the external disk. Hold down option key during startup to select the boot disk.
Enable FileVault encryption as usual from the Security & Privacy panel in System Preferences.

Additional Notes

You can reboot from your internal drive for better performance, after enabling FileVault on the external. The encryption task will continue as long as you're plugged into power and the external disk is connected.
It may take several hours, or even days, before encryption is done, depending on the volume of data to be encrypted.
You can view encryption task progress using the Terminal command diskutil cs list

What didn't work

There are some articles posted about how to clone the internal disk Recovery HD volume to any other drive, but I didn't have success with them:

$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         499.4 GB   disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +499.4 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Mac-HD                  431.9 GB   disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 22.9 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                518.8 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      2.1 GB     disk1s4

$ sudo hdiutil create ~/Desktop/Recovery_HD.dmg -srcdevice /dev/disk1s3
hdiutil: create failed - No such file or directory

I didn't find any articles that specifically addressed the case where the source disk is APFS format.


Why are my iPhone notes being emailed to me? I just realized that some of the notes in my iPhone (i.e. in the standard "Notes" app) are emailed to me soon after I write them.

There is no "to" address in the email so I can't tell what address they're being sent to (I use different email addresses for everything).

I may decide that this is a useful feature but to be honest I'm a little creeped out by it.  How does it know what email address to send it to?  I'm assuming it's the one associated with my Apple id but like I said I don't know.

How can I stop it (if I decide I want to), and what options are there for controlling this (and where are they?).

I don't see any settings for this anywhere, in Settings or in the Notes app itself.

iOS uses mail to store notes similar to other office type software.

You can disable that by going to settings and turning off notes for any mail account where you are being creeped out.


Shortcut for dragging and dropping a tab on terminal Not sure if this is possible. But I was wondering if there is a shortcut for physically moving a tab on my Terminal.

Say I have these tabs on my terminal:

| tab A | tab B | tab C | tab D |

If I were to move from tab A to tab C, I would do command + ] or [ two times.
Well, I'm very lazy, so I would like to just do command + ] once. (This becomes especially useful when I have several tabs open) The only way to do that is to have tab C right next to A.

So, I'd like to have tabs in this order:

| tab A | tab C | tab B | tab D |

My question is, is there any way to get this done with a shortcut?

There is no such shortcut in Terminal (apart of dragging the tabs manually), however such feature works fine out-of-box in Term2 by hitting Shift-CMD-←/→.

Another way is to have tabs in separate windows (CMD-N)and switch between them by CMD-1,2,3, etc in order you like.

See also: Keyboard shortcut to jump between tabs on OS X Terminal


In my google chrome for mac, CMD + Shift + r to reload the current webpage does not work? This Google Chrome keyboard shortcuts support page, in the Mac > Webpage shortcuts section, indicates:

  Reload your current page, ignoring cached content:    ⌘ + Shift + r

But that keyboard shortcut does not work for me, my mac only beeps when I press those buttons.

⌘ + r works as expected, but ⌘ + Shift + r only beeps.

I'm lost how to fix this. Any ideas?

In most cases, the reason is, that another application does already listening to the same shortcut.

  In my case it was another running application called Be Focused (Pro) which uses the same shortcut (CTRL+CMD+R) defined as a global shortcut per default.

1.) Try to close a bunch of running applications

Try closing all other running applications. Even the apps which has only an icon in the macOS tray area.
Try the problematic shortcut after a restart of Google Chrome (chrome://restart)
If the shortcut works now, you know that at least one of the closed applications listening to that shortcut and prevents it from working in Google Chrome.

2.) Try to open program for program and test the problematic shortcut in Google Chrome (after a restart) if it still works.

  When you found the responsible application, try to adjust their shortcut configuration.


An "Untitled" app icon is created on iPhone home screen after restart even after deletion I have a white app icon titled "Untitled". When I click on it, it opens a Safari window with Untitled title window. After deleting it, if I restart the iPhone, it gets created again.

Is there a way to delete it permanently?

The procedure will require for you to SSH into your device.

Navigate to "private/var/mobile/library/webclips" and delete any clips (folders) entries.

By deleting these entries, it will eradicate the untitled icons appearing on your springboard.


iCloud PreferencesPane crashes after upgrade to Yosemite I just upgraded to Mac OS X Yosemite 10.10.

During the final step of the install, my network connection dropped while trying to set up the iCloud settings. As it says that I can skip this step and configure it later, I did.

Now, I am trying to set up iCloud and upgrade to iCloud Drive.

When I click on the iCloud icon in System Preferences, the App freezes (beach balling) and I am forced to force quit it.

In the Force Quit window, I see System Preferences (not responding) and right below it I see com.apple.preferences.icloud.remoteservice (not responding). If I Force Quit System Preferences, naturally, the whole app quits. If I force quit com.apple.preferences.icloud.remoteservice then I get a notice in the System Preferences app that says Preferences Error: Could not load iCloud preference pane.

In Activity Monitor, I can also see that both System Preferences and com.apple.preferences.icloud.remoteservice are not responding.

In console, I see the following crash report:

20/10/2014 01:46:04.026 System Preferences[4901]: ### com.apple.preferences.icloud instantiatePrefPaneObject exception:service com.apple.preferences.icloud.remoteservice failed to init an instance of iCloudRemoteViewService on behalf of <NSRemoteView: 0x7fb885309930> due to proxy-communications-error: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4099 "Couldn’t communicate with a helper application." (The connection from pid 0 was invalidated from this process.) UserInfo=0x618000467100 {NSDebugDescription=The connection from pid 0 was invalidated from this process.}

I am guessing something got corrupted when I skipped the iCloud setup during the last steps of the install process, and perhaps I need to reset/delete the iCloud preferences and let the system regenerate them.

How can I resolve this issue?

iCloud preferences seem to be spread across a few different plist files. The main one (funnily enough) seems to be called /Users/YOURUSERNAME/Library/Preferences/MobileMeAccounts.plist. That's the one that stores your account details (ID, UUID, DSID and AlternateDSID) and information about the services you have enabled or disabled.

You could try closing System Preferences entirely, renaming that file temporarily, restarting your Mac and then seeing if System Preferences can then open its iCloud pane.


Macbook Pro Airplay 2 support for Sonos Play:5 Speakers I am considering purchasing Sonos Play:5 which advertises support for Airplay 2. Will I be able to stream any audio I want from my Macbook Pro to the speaker?

All the examples I can find online seem to indicate support with the Homepod but I am unsure if this is a Homepod specific feature or an Airplay 2 feature.

I am looking at the following scenarios:

Netflix on Safari
Video files I have being played via VLC/MPV

All speakers with this label on the packaging, you can stream to from your MacBook without a Home Pod.

AirPlay 2 will work on the Sonos Play 5 second generation.

  Enjoy AirPlay 2 on your entire Sonos system. Even though AirPlay 2 is only supported on Sonos One, Beam, Playbase and Play:5 (2nd generation), grouping your other speakers to any of these and you can use AirPlay across your entire home sound system.

(Source)

From the System Requirements:

You can stream from:

  Mac or PC with iTunes 12.8 or later

To update your iTunes version see here.


Run script when new user logon the first time I want to run a couple of .sh scripts when the user first login after user creation to set the correct settings. I know there is a folder (/Library/StartupItems) that let you place script for running on every startup, but is there something like that for first time logon?

I don't know of a specific place on OS X, but a pretty common way to handle this is just to have the script run every time the user logs in, and check for the presence of a specific hidden file in the user's home directory. If the hidden file is there, do nothing and exit. If it's not there, run the first-time login procedure, and create the hidden file.

Note also the "/System/Library/User Template/[locale]" directory, which is the skeleton home directory used to create all new users' home directories. You may be able to use this to achieve what you want.

Have a look at: Modifying OS X User Template


Does Apple notify users before renewing an auto-renewable subscription? When an auto-renewable subscription is due for renewal, does Apple notify the user ahead of time, via a notification or email? Or is their credit card charged without their knowledge?

I'm considering using auto-renewable subscriptions in my app, so I want to understand this.

Apple sends an email notifying the user about an upcoming auto-renewal about a month in advance.

SOURCE: I use apps that auto-renew.


Problem to initiate update for iOS 8 I have a iPhone 5s, and have still not received any information about on-the-air update to iOS 8. So I decide to update manually through iTunes. iTunes gives me an assuring message

  iTunes will update your iPhone to iOS 8.0 and will verify the update with Apple.

and when I click OK, nothing happens. No user interface change, no network usage by iTunes, no error messages, nothing at all. And if I click Update button again, the above message shows up again.

Do anyone have a clue how to fix this?

Go into your iPhone's Settings. Select General -> Software Update. Here you can initiate an OTA update. (right now you will be placed in a waiting queue which could range from a few minute to a few hours due to demand).


iPod Touch "Location Services" Issues This post is meant to be informative as possible while leading up to my question.

When I first purchased my iPod Touch in 2009, Skyhook Wireless was responsible for maintaining the database used by Location Services on Apple devices without GPS.

Since there is no GPS radio in the iPod Touch, Location Services uses an online database of Lat/Long corresponding with the router's hardware MAC address at the Wifi access point.  I presume this data was gathered through iPhones' GPS data while connected to these Wifi access points.  I also think that Skyhook contracted vehicles similar to how Google gathers Streetview photos.

Regardless, this system worked great until you got into a rural area and connected to a router never exposed to one of these data gathering vehicles.  Therefore at my own home, also in a rural area, I could not use any Location Services enabled feature.

So back in 2009 the fix was simple, I had to manually add my router's MAC address along with my Lat/Long coordinates to Skyhook.  After a few weeks, the data was correctly added and so anyone connected to my Wifi was accurately shown on a map with a pin on my roof.  Any Location Services dependent feature was fully enabled while I was connected to Wifi at my home.

For an unknown reason and corresponding to an iOS version upgrade in Spring of 2010, Location Services stopped functioning from my home.  (still worked at most public and less rural locations)

As per postings in the Apple online forums, Apple stopped using Skyhook for Location Services and took this job in-house.

For many months following the Spring of 2010 my Touch could not find my location while at home.  To this day, I can confirm that my MAC address is still in the Skyhook database but it doesn't matter because Apple is no longer using Skyhook.  There is also no-place to report a router's MAC address with Lat/Long to Apple similar to this.

Suddenly late last year, while at home, Location Services started reporting my location on the main highway just 0.50 miles away.  So apparently one of the data gathering vehicles drove down this route and picked up my signal.

I was satisfied.  The map location was slightly wrong but the pinpoint was close enough that all Location Services dependent features were again useful to me from my home location.  Good enough.

Now this all brings us to today where it's suddenly broken again.  Location Services cannot find my location while I am at home and my Location Services dependent apps are useless.

Does anyone have additional information or updated news on this topic?
A URL similar to this one where one can manually submit a Wifi MAC address and Lat/Long to Apple?
If not Apple, what company took over maintaining Location Services from Skyhook for Apple?

I'm going to answer the first part of my own question.

After upgrading my iPod Touch to iOS 5, Location Services started working again.  Not only did it start working, it's showing the location as a point in the street in front of the house.

1)  The location I manually submitted to Skyhook in 2009 was in the street farther south, by the mailbox, so the old data point is not being used.  Not suprised since I have no reason to believe that Apple went back to Skyhook.  A visit to Skyhook's website verified that this point has not changed.

2)  The location that Apple started using last year was a point on the main highway 1/2 mile east of here.

So somehow Apple has independently obtained new data about my wifi location.  It's possible that during a recent party, somebody with an iPhone had connected to my Wifi and that data was sent back to Apple.  It's also possible that a Wifi data collection vehicle drove down this road.  It's very rural with only three homes on a one mile stretch, so although possible it's difficult to believe.

It was my previous understanding that Apple started requiring that devices be within range of several Wifi signals to improve Location Services accuracy.  Being in a rural location, it's nearly impossible for my iPod to pick up any Wifi signal other than my own.  With Skyhook, this was never an issue.

However, iOS 5 seems to heavily depend on Location Services so maybe they've changed something critical to how it functions in order to improve accuracy without requiring multiple Wifi signals.

I'm going to accept my own answer.  If anyone has a better answer to my original question, I'll consider accepting that instead.


How to translate these commands into AppleScript I'm very not tech savvy and I just heard about AppleScript that can automate some simple typing for me. I just want to continuously type in a loop. Could someone please help me translate the instructions below into an AppleScript loop? I appreciate it so much!

click the right arrow key
delay 2 seconds
type "l"
delay 2 seconds
type "c"
delay 2 seconds
type "cool!"
delay 2 seconds
hit return
delay 2 seconds
hit escape
delay 2 seconds
repeat this whole thing

Can anybody help me with that?
Further background information: I'm already in the program so I don't need this to open it up for me. I just need the script to immediately go to the right and then start typing.

Please help! So many thanks!

First of all, be careful with this kind of thing. System automation utilizing something like a virtual keyboard like this can lead to unfortunate side-effects if you end up sending key strokes to an unintended target.

However, here:

repeat
    tell application "TextEdit"
        activate
        tell application "System Events" to key code 124
        delay 2
        tell application "System Events" to keystroke "l"
        delay 2
        tell application "System Events" to keystroke "c"
        delay 2
        tell application "System Events" to keystroke "cool!"
        delay 2
        tell application "System Events" to keystroke return
        delay 2
        tell application "System Events" to key code 53
        delay 2
    end tell
end repeat

Let's go through this code:

First, we are doing a simple repeat without end. This is not a good idea, but you asked for it and that's what you get. If you wanted just a finite number of times, you could add # times after repeat. Ex: repeat 3 times. There are many other methodologies to repeat beyond this answer.

Then you are going to create a tell block and activate the application you are sending these commands to. If you do not do this, you will be sending keystrokes willy nilly to whatever happens to be the active application at the time.

You will then do a series of having the "System Events" application emulate a keystroke and delaying for a count. delay accepts decimals as well as integers for number of seconds. Note that for the Right Arrow and Escape I used key code 124 and key code 53 respectively. The list of key codes can be found in various locations online with a Google search for 'applescript key codes'. Here is a current one at the time this answer was written: http://eastmanreference.com/complete-list-of-applescript-key-codes/

Finally, you will end the tell block, no longer sending AppleScript to "TextEdit" and then you will end your repeat block.


How to search for files based on ACL or group permissions There are double entries for the group 'everyone' under permissions. This is the state of hundreds of files in the Documents Folder. I don't know how they got there and it's now a big problem for my workflow since upgrading to Mojave [10.14.6] as I have to enter a password if I want to move this file into another folder or move it to the trash.

I can remove the extra group this way:
Mac-Pro:~ user$ chmod -N /Volumes/Mountain_Lion/Users/rjrasch/Documents/Cantare\ Docs/Cantare\ Logo\ samples.pdf
Once I remove the ACL permissions with chmod -N I can move and/or discard the file without a password.

I noticed the man find page list -acl as a primary but I have not been able to create a valid command to locate other files that need this permission removed.
What Unix command do I need in order to search for other files in the Documents Folder so I can fix these types of permissions?

As said in the comments, the command to find and remove ACL permissions in the Documents directory is:
find ~/Documents -acl -execdir chmod -N {} \;


MacBook Air issue: Keyboard and in built mic failing The keys 9,o,l and . on the keyboard of my MacBook Air have stopped functioning all of a sudden. Instead of the intended characters, random characters from the same row as the faulty keys appear.

Also, the built-in mic is failing.

What could be the problem?

EDIT: The keyboard and mic problem started to appear after a defective screen panel was replaced a few days ago. I wonder how that could have caused the side effects I'm experiencing.

Well to me that sounds like hardware failure.  I'd suggest that you just take it in to your local Apple Store or AASP; I don't see why they WOULDN'T replace the necessary parts (I don't know the MBA assembly well) if it's under warranty.


EFI automounts on startup After upgrading to the newest El Capitan from 10.10. to 10.11.1 - I guess - the normally invisible EFI partition appears on the desktop as a regular volume on different machines, if I choose to show the volumes in the finder preferences.

When I start "First Aid" with Disk utility the EFI partition get ejected, but on the next start they will appear again. I can boot in Recovery Mode and El Capitan seems to work fine (as fine as it can).

But how can I get OS X not to autoload the EFI partition and hide it again?

  Admins Mac Pro:~ admin$ diskutil info /Volumes/EFI
  Device Identifier:        disk0s1
  Device Node:              /dev/disk0s1
  Whole:                    No
  Part of Whole:            disk0
  Device / Media Name:      EFI System Partition
  Volume Name:              EFI
  Mounted:                  Yes
  Mount Point:              /Volumes/EFI
  File System Personality:  MS-DOS FAT32
  Type (Bundle):            msdos
  Name (User Visible):      MS-DOS (FAT32)
  Partition Type:           EFI
  OS Can Be Installed:      No
  Media Type:               Generic
  Protocol:                 SATA
  SMART Status:             Verified
  Volume UUID:              0E239BC6-F960-3107-89CF-1C97F78BB46B
  Disk / Partition UUID:    BF3A02F5-1B7F-4F5C-9E27-2C3378181F53
  Total Size:               209.7 MB (209715200 Bytes) (exactly 409600 512-Byte-Units)
  Volume Free Space:        181.5 MB (181542912 Bytes) (exactly 354576 512-Byte-Units)
  Device Block Size:        512 Bytes
  Allocation Block Size:    512 Bytes
  Read-Only Media:          No
  Read-Only Volume:         No
  Device Location:          Internal
  Removable Media:          No
  Solid State:              No

Since El Capitan this is the behavior of Workgroupmanager for local accounts if you enable to manage internal harddrives to be only readable for some users. It doesn't matter which user logs in. If there is only one user managed, the EFI partition will show up on start for all useres. Disabling this in Workgroupmanager again hides the EFI partition, too.
Since Workgroupmanager was lastly updated on Mavericks it is still possible to manage e.g. USB shares to be only readable without having to install a OSX Server, as there is no on board solution for managing user accounts more differentiated than with System preferences.


Cleaning my Macbook Air I just used some Rubbing Alcohol (I didn't use too much and I put the stuff on a paper towel first) to wipe and clean the keyboard and backside of said keyboard of my Macbook Air. Now I'm obessively terrified at the thought that I may have just made a costly mistake. I want to say that nothing appears to be happening yet, but I don't want to jinx it. Should I not have done it????!!!!!

It’s difficult to answer your question as the answer is, to some extent, opinion-based.
In their support document, Apple used to explicitly discourage consumers: (source)

Don’t use window cleaners, household cleaners, aerosol sprays, solvents, alcohol, ammonia, or abrasives

However, it appears that Apple has since changed the wording, eliminating the »alcohol« part:

Don't use aerosol sprays, solvents, abrasives, or cleaners containing hydrogen peroxide that might damage the finish.

In a related support document, Apple suggests to use disinfectant wipes as long as they don’t contain bleach:
(Note: I’m not allowed to post more than two links as I’m a new user. However, just google for HT201294 and the document will turn up.)

Use a disinfectant wipe to wipe the area first, then use a damp, soft, lint-free cloth, and finally dry the area with another soft, lint-free cloth.
Do not use disinfectant wipes containing bleach or disinfectant sprays in general.

This suggests that Apple has stopped discouraging customers from using rubbing alcohol, or isopropyl alcohol. Note that rubbing alcohol seems to be an active ingredient in the disinfectant wipes recommended by Apple.
Apple suggests a few brands of disinfectant wipes (Lysol wipes or Clorox Kitchen Disinfecting wipes). Ultimately, it is up to you to choose a product that works best for you.


Force simple UNIX path names for optimal us of command line apps? I want to force myself to use folder/file names without spaces etc. so I'm 100% certain I can open and run them from the command line.

Some terminal apps which I use frequently hava a hard time recognisizing filenames that have spaces in them, and I want to prevent having to type \ every time.

Is there a way of forcing this (perhaps formatting my hdd in to a different file system)?

Unfortunately, you just have to remember to do it each time you make a file or directory. There's no way you can do this via software tools or by formatting to a particular file system. After the fact you can use software to convert spaces to '.' or '-' however.

Obviously what you describe is an excellent idea and good practice when working in a *nix environment. You'll probably find that the more time you spend in the Terminal, the more inclined you'll be to create short, non-spaced file names. Unfortunately Apple themselves make your task an impossible one in that they often use multi-word file or directory names.

As to the first part of your question: You can be sure that you'll always be able to manipulate files in the Terminal, even if they contain many spaces, etc. It's just a case of 'escaping' the spaces by typing a '\ ' where the space would be, as you point out.

Tab-completion can be a real time saver here, but it's generally better to avoid the problem in the first place.


Will my late 2012 macbook pro - 2.6 i7, 750gb HD, 16gb ram be fast enough for Yosemite? My late 2012 macbook pro - 2.6 i7, 750gb HD, 16gb ram OSX 10.9.5 has been running very slow of late.

Ive been trying to trouble shoot the issue for a while now, but together with the time spent trouble shooting and the time spent while the machine is running slow ( can take up to 20 - 30 mins to awake and be usable from sleep).

That Mac should have zero issues running Mavericks, Yosemite or (when it comes out) El Cap. it's a fast system with gobs of RAM and a nice big drive.

The sluggishness could be from a variety of sources but if you want to go ahead with a backup, wipe and restore that would be a good way to continue with your troubleshooting.


Is it possible to configure (or trick) internet recovery to load Lion instead of Mountain Lion? I have two machines this week that I needed to install Lion on and both were shipped with Lion and subsequently upgraded to Mountain Lion.

I tried wiping the drives, but Internet Recovery only offers a choice to download and install Mountain Lion. Is there a way to get Lion reinstalled instead?

I tried running the Install Mac OS X Lion app that I saved when I was using it to upgrade several Snow Leopard Macs to Lion last summer - but Apple has built in a check to prevent me from installing Lion onto an external drive while my mac currently runs Mountain Lion.

Is there an elegant way to instal Lion without needing a bootable Lion system to re-run the Lion installer (or download it from Internet Recovery)?

Yes - you can download the OS X Recovery Disk Assistant v1.0 and write a Lion specific Recovery HD to an USB drive with 1 GB of space on it. This will erase whatever information is on the USB partition, but then you can boot to a Lion Recovery HD and re-install Lion even if the Mac has Mountain Lion installed.


Which is faster: Encrypt empty external disk or leave data on disk while encrypting I'm trying to encrypt one of my 2 TB external drives using Finder > Right-click on drive name > "Encrypt"

I moved all the files (~1 TB) to another drive because I was thinking that an empty drive will be encrypted faster than encrypting the drive with the files in place.

However, I'm about four hours into the encryption process of the empty drive and it's only about 5% done.

Is there any advantage to encrypting the drive while it's empty, or does having files on the drive not make a difference in encryption speed?

This is on 10.12.3.

Leave the data on the disk being encrypted to achieve the fastest speed.

Full-disk encryption encrypts the entire disk, no matter what data is or isn’t there. Otherwise an adversary could easily determine which sections were blank, and attack only the ones that weren’t all 0s.

That’s one weakness of per-file encryption: allowing an attacker to determine what they want to target.

The way you chose to perform this operation, your empty disk will be fully encrypted once. Then once you move the 1 TB back onto it, encryption will be performed a second time on half of your drive.

This means it will have taken 50% longer to encrypt the drive vs. if you had left the files on the drive to begin with. Then add to that the amount of time required to shuffle the data back and forth, and you end up with a significant time loss.

Now since the process has already started, it’s more advantageous to let it complete before moving the files back over. Spinning hard drives really struggle with writing multiple areas of a drive at a time (which would occur if you encrypt one area while copying files to another).

If the external is an SSD, copying while the initial encryption takes place might not impact the process as much.


What are these “Power Events:” > “Next Scheduled Events:” that are showing up in my macOS system information? I am running macOS Catalina Public Beta 9 (10.15, 19A573a) on my MacBook Air (2019) and noticed these — at least to my eyes — odd entries under “Hardware > Power” when looking at system information. FWIW, I don’t recall ever seeing these under “Hardware > Power” when running macOS Mojave (10.14):

Power Events:

  Next Scheduled Events:

    appPID: 353
    Type:   Wake
    Scheduled By:   com.apple.alarm.user-invisible
    Time:   10/6/19, 6:27 AM
    UserVisible:    0

    appPID: 356
    Type:   Wake
    Scheduled By:   com.apple.alarm.user-invisible
    Time:   10/6/19, 7:47 AM
    UserVisible:    0

I have utterly no alarms or power events that I have set on my Mac and double checking under “Energy Saver” as well as my calendar shows nothing as well. And besides, I would never set up crazy early morning alarms like this anyway.

Is this something connected to me using macOS Catalina Public Beta? Since November 6th seems to be the date macOS Catalina will come out of beta.

FWIW, checking my running processes right now I see the following for those appPID values:

501   356 ??         0:03.06 /usr/libexec/UserEventAgent (Aqua)
501   353 ??         0:02.74 /usr/sbin/cfprefsd agent

Found some info on cfprefsd on this Other World Computing post and UserEventAgent on this How-To Geek post. And the information is useful as to literally what these processes do, but no real explanation as to why they are set in this case.

you can use terminal command:

sudo pmset schedule cancelall

Then you can resolve it


Enabling Folder Actions Within OS X? There is an element to OS X known as Folder Actions, which causes certain actions or events to occur when items are either added or removed from user specific folders.

How can I enable this ?

(I am using OS X 10.6.8, but if the activation differs for OS X 10.7.5 or 10.8.4 this is also welcomed)

Firstly, bear in mind that Folder Actions can be configured through AppleScript to perform a huge variety of actions, and that there are some default scripts among which you'll find the adding / removing action you mention.

Since 10.6 the Folder Actions Setup panel is accessible through any folder's contextual menu:

Do Control+click (or right click) on any folder for the contextual menu to show.
Choose Folder Actions Setup. ( If you've got any eligible services already, it would be slightly different as you'll have to go to choose Services and then Folder Actions Setup.)
Choose the add - new item alert script from the prompt window.
Select the Enable Folder Actions option in the upper-left side of
the setup's window.

You'll have, though, to edit the script for it to do something useful as, right not, it only displays an alert saying that an new item has been added to the folder.


What can be the different filetypes of videos shot using iPhone/iPod Touch? Is it mp4 or m4v or mov? I'm not sure. Please tell me what can be the different formats shot using iPhone or iPod Touch

THANX!!

The iPhone and iPod touch only shoots one format:

H.264 in a .mov container - at 1280x720 at 30 FPS.


How to know if the new MacBook is charging while turned off? I recently bought the new MacBook 12" and since it uses a USB-C port and not the traditional MagSafe one, I wanted to know if there is some way for me to know whether it is charging or not while it is switched off. I know that when we connect the charging cable we get a sound and the battery percentage shows up on the screen but I wanted to know if there is a way to know that in-between the charging without booting up.

Curiously, Mac portables has been designed to be put to sleep instead of shutdown for very long time (I occasionally reboot, but never shutdown my iBook G4, which is from 2004)

So the solution would be using it as how it was designed, put it to sleep, open lid to check.

Yay, that's the USB standard's issue. They should have spec in optional indicator and signaling to the USB connector.


Is there a way to send a growl notification when an application reaches a certain memory threshold? I've been noticing that Safari skyrockets in terms of memory usage. I've been getting some results by restarting it, but I'm wondering if there is an app or some easy script to run that would send a growl notification (or some other sort of notification) to inform me that it has reached, let's say 200MB, and then I would know that it might be time to restart it.

If you will run any "monitoring" program, will consume memory. My Safari after the restart occupiing 128MB RAM, now when writing this reply has 156MB - so 200MB will gain realy soon. I have usually 600+MB Safari and it is not problem (i have 4GB RAM).

Do you really want restart it after 200MB?

You can for example run the next shell script:

#!/bin/bash
mymax=200000       #in kb
checkinterval=60   #in seconds

while :
do
    ops=($(ps axu | grep Safari | grep -v grep))
    [[ ${ops[5]:-0} > $mymax ]] && growlnotify -a "Safari" -m "memory; ${ops[5]}"
    sleep $checkinterval
done

will every minute check your Safary memory usage. When the resident ram usage (rss) exceeds 200 kb the growl message will appear. For this you must have installed the "growlnotify" shell command from the Growl installation image -> Extras.

You can save the above into "safariwarn.command" and double click on it from the Finder. (will run as Terminal.app)

Or, it is possible run as an application what you can make with the Automator.app.


Macbook pro mid 2012: Can I install win 8.1 UEFI or will I have driver issues? I would like to install win 8.1 along my current OSX ML on my macbook pro, mid 2012.

I was told that UEFI installs have advantages over MBR but I have also heard that might bring drivers issues because Apple did not make UEFI drivers or something like that.

What do you guys think? Is it worth it? Am I going to experience frustrating issues?

Any MacBook Pro with model identifier of MacBookPro10 or less does not have an UEFI. MacBook Pro (15 and 13 inch, Mid 2012) computers have model identifiers MacBookPro9,1 and MacBookPro9,3, respectively. The MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012) has model identifier MacBookPro10,1. I assume your model does not have a Retina display, therefore I assume you should install using a BIOS/MBR booting.

I hear UEFI offers faster booting. I also hear this requires a single boot configuration. Well, you will being dual booting with OS X, so you can't take advantage of this feature anyway.

Another advantage to UEFI booting is access to a larger number of partitions. UEFI booting uses the GUID partitioning table (GPT). This has default limit of 128 partitions. BIOS booting requires Windows to use the MBR partitioning table. This limits Window access to only 4 partitions in  the GPT. On Mac computers, generally 3 partitions are used by OS X, leaving a single partition for Windows. There are ways around this single partition limit, but this requires abandoning the use of the Boot Camp Assistant.


Sync photo without syncing apps Is there a way to sync photos in PC to iPad, without syncing the apps? I want to manage the apps only in iPad. The problem is that when I turn off apps syncing, iTunes asks me "are you sure you want to remove 60 apps?". I don't want to remove all my apps.

iTunes will sync photos only if you turn on photo syncing in the "tab" for photos.

If iTunes is complaining about apps, it's likely that you once started to sync apps (or it got confused) - but it has nothing to do with app syncing. Sadly, if you want to use this iTunes library, you have to deal with the app issue or keep facing that alert.

Think of it this way. Your photos are in a room that happens to have some rotten food. You can either move your photos to a new room or deal with the rotten food by holding your nose or cleaning it up. One didn't cause the other, but they just ended up in the same room as you.


Override wallpaper with VMware AirWatch Agent I have a corporate MacBook Pro (2015), and it has VMware AirWatch Agent (2.3.3) installed.

I'm fine with that. It is their laptop and I still have Admin rights for my work.

Only thing is... they have locked my Wallpaper with something quite ugly and I can't change it in the normal way. This is literally the only setting I want to get around. Any idea how I could change it without uninstalling the agent?

In general, the success rate of overriding MDM enforced configuration changes is very low. Pragmatically:

You can remove the management profile and then make changes as you see fit.
You can request your device be moved to a different group under air watch that relaxes that restriction.

There could be a bug you could exploit, but Apple and/or air watch would likely patch that since it would also likely be a noticeable failure.


Can I disable speakerphone on HomePod? I really like my HomePod, but I never want to use it as a speakerphone.

When I'm on a call on an iOS device in my house, and tap the () icon to turn on speakerphone, the presence of the HomePod makes me navigate a menu instead of just toggling the speaker phone.

Is there a setting somewhere that'll let me disable this HomePod feature?

I suppose you've got two devices to play with in terms of the settings, your HomePod and the iPhone.

The first thing to check is your call routing settings on your iPhone:

Go to Settings > General > Accessibility
Tap on the Call Audio Routing option
Try changing these to see if you can achieve what you want

You can also try restricting it with a password, but this may not be an ideal solution in your case and may end up being worse. However, it's worth a try to see how it'll work in terms of the speakerphone function in case having a password changes the default behaviour:

Launch the Home app
Tap on the small arrow at the top right corner
Tap on Home Settings
Tap on Home
Now enable the Allow Speaker Access option (under the Speakers heading)
Finally, enable the Require Password option.

Now test this to see if it's a practical solution in your case.


Apple Mail / Maps 'NSWindow Frame' .plist Does anyone know where this string is located for Mail/Maps on Mavericks?

I looked in ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist and it only lists a few entries, no NSWindow Frame. Cannot find for Maps, possibly com.apple.GEO.plist?
No NSWindow Frame string there either.

Also, is there a way to set their window positions, so that they always open in the specified place?

defaults write...?

Those are in these locations on Mavericks:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Preferences
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Maps/Data/Library/Preferences

Note the capitalization - lowercase mail, capital Maps.

To read and set window frames:

defaults read com.apple.Maps "NSWindow Frame MapMainWindow"
defaults write com.apple.Maps "NSWindow Frame MapMainWindow" '2056 137 1000 712 1920 0 1440 878'

It seems though that some apps (maybe those with AppNap) don't obey the new preferences immediately, so you may have to log out and back in. Maps in particular doesn't seem to work properly, and in Mail, the main window is in a sub key. You could, for example, do:

defaults write com.apple.mail "NSWindow Frame Compose Window" '175 36 718 779 0 0 1440 878'

to set the compose window frame. It all depends on the key you're trying to set.


disable vibration alert selectively on iMessages When an iMessage comes in, I want to disable vibration. I just want the tone play. But when a call comes in, I want both vibration AND tone play simultaneously. Is there a way I can set that up on my iPhone (iOS 5.1). The reason I want no vibration with iMessages/SMS is to conserver battery. Let me know if vibration does not sap away my battery in which case I would not worry about this issue.

Sorry, don't think this is possible in any current version of iOS.

You could try setting up a custom vibration pattern that was close to non-existant:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/242238/how_to_use_custom_vibrations_in_ios_5.html


Configuring SSD over-provisioning on Mac OSX I'm in early investigation stages of adding a SSD drive to my MacPro.

Fragmentation problems can lead to serious performance problems on an SSD.  There are a couple answers to this problem:

TRIM - which is out because Apple has seen fit to disable it on non-Apple drives. I don't care to argue whether Apple did this out of greed or over-cautious technical concerns.  I'm not wild about hacking a kext to allow code that wasn't tested against my drive model to stand between my data and non-volatile storage.
Drive-based Garbage Collection (GC) - some drives are quite good at this given adequate over-provisioned scratch space.

How can I set the over-provisioning on a drive?  Is it as simple as partitioning the disk and leaving a portion of the disk unallocated? Is a specific partition table type required?

Solutions ranging from Disk Utility to fdisk are acceptable.

I can also be convinced that it's not necessary, but I'm still interested in the technical "how-to" of allocating extra over-provisioned space.

As a followup, I updated my 2011 MacBook Pro (not my Mac Pro) using an aftermarket SSD in December of 2014.

Drive Selection

Balancing budget vs performance vs reputation, I chose a Crucial M500 480GB — not a known high-performer, but with a decent reputation for reliability.  I’m not sure the power loss protection capacitors are needed in a laptop, but I liked having them.  It has on-drive garbage collection and TRIM support.  The drive internally has 32GB of over-provisioning.

Drive Installation

I installed the drive as a direct replacement to the internal spinning disk.

I did NOT allocate any additional over-provisioning using partitions.

I did NOT install any TRIM-enabling hacks.

Drive Usage

The machine is used primarily for OS X/iOS development so there’s a large amount of churn on the disk of varying sized files as compiled object files, podcasts, training videos, etc are downloaded or created, used and deleted.  Disk space usage ranges between 25-50%.

The difference in performance against the stock 7200RPM 750GB was pretty striking.  I have misplaced my measurements so I can’t be precise in the comparison.  “Striking” will have to do.

Performance

After 6 months of churning, performance still looks very good.

Tests using Blackmagic Disk Speed Test show a nearly identical read performance (-0.8%) and a very small decrease in write performance (-2.4%).  Some of this could be partially attributed to variability that comes with real-world testing, but I'm pleased that I've experienced only negligible performance impact due to the inability to turn TRIM on for the drive.

Currently, I'm seeing 470MB/s read and 393MB/s write performance and using 26% of the drive.
We’ll see how it holds up over the coming months.

Addendum:

As of OS X 10.10.4, Apple seems to have rendered this point moot.  Yay!

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/06/latest-os-x-update-allows-you-to-enable-trim-for-third-party-ssds/

Addendum 2:

Some drives are known to have TRIM bugs which may have serious implications.  This includes:

"Micron_M500*"
"Crucial_CTM500"
"Micron_M5[15]0*"
"Crucial_CTM550"
"Crucial_CTMX100"
"Samsung SSD 8*"
Sandforce drives such as OWC Electra

I personally am holding off on enabling until I can confirm firmware updates will address the vulnerability.

Addendum 3:

I found this little jewel for folks that still haven't enabled TRIM and are seeing performance issues on the Crucial drives.

  If TRIM is present it will handle this background cleanup, but if for any reason TRIM can't reach the SSD, Active Garbage Collection is there to take care of the drive.

  [...], you may simply need to force Active Garbage Collection to run on the drive by powering the SSD on and leaving it idle for 6 to 8 hours. After that, your drive’s functionality and performance should be restored.

  Follow these steps to trigger Active Garbage Collection on your Crucial SSD:

  [PC instructions]

  On a Mac, press the Options key while powering on to enter the Startup Manager screen. Leaving the Mac on that screen provides the SSD with power but keeps it in an idle state so Garbage Collection can function, just like the BIOS screen on a Windows laptop.

Crucial Forums: My SSD used to be so much faster...

Furthermore, if you disable "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible", the drives will have an opportunity to do Active Garbage Collection during idle periods.

Addendum 4:

A wonderfully educational article on arstechnica answers the original question of how to over-provision an SSD on OSX.

  It's also possible to emulate the beneficial effects of over-provisioning by simply using less than the stated capacity of an SSD—for example, by purchasing a 90GB SSD, creating a 30GB partition, and leaving the rest unallocated. The controller itself doesn't care about the logical constructs built by the operating system—it will happily continue to write to new fresh pages as long as they're available.

Solid State Revolution