Will an iPad with more RAM experience fewer app suspensions? My workflow requires me to frequently switch back and forth between Google Docs and other apps and this leads to my Google doc being repeatedly closed.
My understanding is that the cause is “app suspension”. There’s not enough memory for both apps, so, instead of using virtual memory, the brilliant engineers at Apple decided to just reclaim memory from the app not currently being used (as described in iOS always "resets" my apps after a while when they are minimized. How can I change that?)
My feelings / assessment include:

Multitasking was SOLVED by OSes in the 1980s.
This is intolerably frustrating.
I can't change the way the OS is written.
I can't change the way the app is written.
To my knowledge, all I can do is buy new hardware.
This iPad Air 2 has a measly 2GB of RAM.

My intuition is that an iPad with more RAM will experience app suspension less frequently, so I am considering purchasing a new model.  However, depending on the memory management scheme of the OS, I may or may not get the fewer app suspensions I desire.
I require more technical knowledge to help me make a good decision. How can I tell if paying for a newer iPad will address my needs?

Blame the apps, not the hardware is my overall message. The icons for some apps are larger in code size than the first version of Adobe Illustrator and the Google model of web apps and complicated iOS apps can bring down the newer iPad Pro. Look at their hesitance to update apps if you wonder how many components have to be reviewed for a quick update to list privacy concerns that most developers fixed in days.
I would put a few documents in Files storage and use the Apple apps to see how responsive the hardware is when the application saves state as the OS intends for the gloriously smooth multitasking experience you are right to expect on hardware faster in every respect than needed to juggle a dozen spreadsheets, documents and presentations. Try running apps in airplane mode so you get a sense of the actual hardware speed without network sync or delays (perhaps Google is sending telemetry or downloading parts of the app while you work rather than optimizing for your experience?).
In 2020, Apple is reminding developers they need to be detecting delays as short as 20ms in frame by frame animations - even one frame that’s late spoils our sense of delight.

https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/tech-talks/10855/

You are right to be absolutely brutal on developers that can’t handle an app suspend / resume cycle on an OS designed for power efficiency. The RAM constraint is there since it’s not needed if the app is designed and tested properly. Throwing more RAM at an app that doesn’t take advantage of hardware as capable as the iPad 2 isn’t effective. Worse, all RAM draws power so putting too much RAM in lowers battery life, for no gain in performance.
Even if you aren’t a developer, you can read Apple’s high level overview of what is needed to design a good app. Step one is design it to look great, step two is prepare for interruptions. Google missed or ignored step 2.

https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/ios/system-capabilities/multitasking/

Be prepared for interruptions, and be ready to resume. Your app can be interrupted at any time. When an interruption occurs, your app should save the current state quickly and precisely so people can seamlessly continue where they left off when they return.

You can look at memory allocations in Xcode if you don’t agree with this overview, but to make an incredibly responsive app requires very little RAM on iPadOS. Well written apps will perform magnificently on older hardware - even 5+ year old devices have a lot of life in the for the correct app lineup.


Modify touchbar on Mojave How do you change touchbar settings in OSX Mojave?
In previous versions of OSX, you would click 'Customize Control Strip'.

Customize control strip option is missing in Mojave

According to apples documentation, it should be easily done in the keyboard preferences under 'Touch Bar'. However there is no touchbar option
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/touch-bar-mchlbfd5b039/mac

You can set options that change what’s shown in the Touch Bar. For example, instead of showing app buttons and the collapsed Control Strip, you can have the Touch Bar show just the expanded Control Strip or just app buttons. You can also change what happens when you press the Fn key on the keyboard.
On your Mac, choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, click Keyboard, then click Keyboard.
Set options.
Touch Bar shows: Click the pop-up menu, then choose an option—App Controls, Expanded Control Strip, F1, F2, etc. Keys, or Quick Actions.
If you don’t want the Control Strip to be shown at the same time as app buttons or Quick Actions, deselect Show Control Strip.
Press Fn key to: Click the pop-up menu, then choose an option.
The options available depend on what you set for “Touch Bar shows.”
You can use the Automator app to create custom workflows for Quick Actions that are available in the Touch Bar, if you set the options for the Touch Bar to show them or added the Quick Actions button to the Touch Bar.
To always show function keys (F1, F2, etc.) in the Touch Bar for specific apps, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Keyboard, click Shortcuts, select Function Keys in the list on the left, then add the apps on the right.

Update
I looked at a coworkers laptop also running 10.14 Mojave and they do have a 'Customize Touch Bar' option.

As soon as I rebooted my Mac, the problem fixed itself.

Now my keyboard preference pane looks like it should and I’m able to modify the Touch Bar.


AppleTV streaming from Airport Shared Disk? I'm considering purchasing an AppleTV to listen to/watch content stored locally on my network on my television and stereo. If I have my media stored on an external hard disk connected to my Airport Extreme, is there any way to stream that data to an AppleTV?

If I need a machine to do this, can I use a MacBook to act as a "middleman" of some kind between the Shared Disk and the AppleTV in this situation?

Further to Paul's comment, if you place your iTunes library on the remote disc it will work fine, but obviously you won;t have access to it when you are on the move out of range of your home wifi.

But you can create multiple iTunes libraries, and have one on your macbook, and one on the remote disc.  Hold the alt/option key when starting iTunes to be presented options for creating/choosing an alternative library.

In order to stream from the library on the remote disc, you will need iTunes running, with the correct library selected.  You will also need Homeshare set up both in iTunes and your Apple TV.

Good luck.


Can files be exchanged between FAT32 and HFS+ partitioned drive? I just got a LaCie 1TB external hard drive and I have a MacBook Air with OS X 10.8.  I often exchange movie and music files with friends that have PCs.

If I were to partition my drive to have 250 GB formatted to FAT32, and 750 GB formatted to HFS+  to be able to exchange files with friends, can I also move files back and forth from the formatted FAT32 portion of my hard drive to the HFS+ portion of my hard drive?
And if I can do that, would the file exchange from the differently
formatted partitions

have to be done on a PC,
or could I do it on my Mac?

Also, is the HFS+ system compatible with the old school Mac
books?

I am not tech savvy, so I apologize for the verbose, non technical wording.

It might make sense to make the entire drive FAT32 to ensure readability between systems, unless there is a need for having multiple partitions not described in your question. As for the specific answers,

Yes, dependent on #2
The files MUST be moved on a Mac because a PC cannot read an HFS+ partition by default and even then, cannot read without special software. Your friends would only be able to read the FAT32 portion of the drive.
Yes, your older Macbooks should be able to read the partition, and compatibility exists all the way back to OS 8.1 (source)


How to delete App Documents and Data for iOS apps like Twitter? Some apps like Whatsapp, Twitter and Instagram end up storing a lot of Documents and Data, way more than their actual size.

I want the exact opposite of this: How can I delete an iOS app and preserve its data?

Is there a way to remove just the Documents and Data and leave the app installed?

Actually, most of that data is cached from the internet for the specific apps you mention. Twitter and Instagram cache images, tweets, posts, etc. from the Internet. There is currently no easy way to remove them, however, you can send feedback to Apple here, and tell them you want a way to delete app cache.

You can restore from iTunes to remove it, as it's not backed up. If you run out of space on your device, iOS will automatically remove the cache.


I mistakenly disabled all services in Yosemite (10.10), now it can't boot I ran:

sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/

by mistake, now my Mac does not boot... Any idea how to fix that?

OS version: Yosemite.

The command sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ will force-disable all launch daemons in /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ and add respective entries in a disabled.plist. The command – entered accidentally – doesn't affect the "unforced" load state of a system daemon but overrides any existing state (loaded/unloaded). Removing the disabled.plist will restore an almost default system configuration – except those daemons or agents which have been forced to one of the two states in the initial configuration of the system or after the installation of a third-party app. This can be salvaged by either restoring the file from a backup or – partly – by copying a disabled.plist file from a similar system.

To get your system booting again you have to remove this special file in Recovery Mode.

Boot to Recovery Mode
Open Terminal in the menubar Utilities > Terminal
cd to /Volumes/NameOfMainSystemVolume/private/var/db/com.apple.xpc.launchd
Replace NameOfMainSystemVolume by the name of your main volume (e.g. Macintosh\ HD)
list all files with ls -la. You will get a list containing ~20 files - all related to user IDs - and a large file disabled.plist (~10-15 KB)
remove the files with rm *.plist
Reboot, edit /private/var/db/com.apple.xpc.launchd/disabled.plist with sudo nano … and replace the existing content – probably some basic xml plist header and one or more daemon, which may have been added by the system while booting - by the following content:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>com.apple.ManagedClientAgent.enrollagent</key>
    <true/>
    <key>com.apple.ftpd</key>
    <true/>
    <key>com.apple.rpmuxd</key>
    <false/>
    <key>com.apple.usbmuxd</key>
    <false/>
    <key>com.apple.mrt</key>
    <false/>
    <key>com.apple.stackshot</key>
    <false/>
    <key>org.ntp.ntpd</key>
    <false/>
    <key>com.apple.pacemaker</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

This should be the default content of the file in Yosemite. If you had installed additional 3rd-party apps, it probably contained more daemons previously. E.g I had to remove a Little Snitch and a XQuartz related system daemon to get a somehow "default" disabled.plist.


MacBook Pro screen muddling up letters I got my MacBook Pro in December so I haven't had it for that long. After a while, on youtube the screen would act up a bit and move around or display transparent grey rectangles or a massive (transparent again) pause button.
Until one or two days ago. I think it may have started yesterday or it might have been the day before. The letters displayed on the screen are just weird lines and you can't even recognise what the text is supposed to say.

I'm not sure why this is happening and also I don't know if it's something internally or just something I've installed.

It looks like a weird browser extension to me.

Can you go to settings in Chrome, choose Extensions and deactivate all of them?


Where to put the .vimrc file for sudo in OS X Lion? I always put a .vimrc in my home folder for turning :syntax on. But in OS X Lion it seems that sudo vi foo.txt ignore or can't find this vim configuration anymore.

Has anyone experiences the same thing?

Try doing sudo visudo and making sure that this lines appears somewhere in there:

Defaults  env_keep += "HOME"

This should maintain the HOME directory and ~ should would as it did in Snow Leopard.


Terminal can't execute files In CWD I stated having this behaviour recently when I tried executing my sh script via sh my_script.sh.
It was a simple script with some pyinstaller command.
Now, the issue that I'm having is that my terminal is not able to access/read file in present directory.
If I give ls, I can see the file in the directory, but when I try to run that file, my terminal just shows
zsh: command not found: hulusubs_dl_osx
Binary file that I'm trying to run is hulusubs_dl_osx.
xonshiz@MacBook-Pro Downloads % ls
Bills
Notes
Some Important Things
hulusubs_dl_osx
xonshiz@MacBook-Pro Downloads % hulusubs_dl_osx
zsh: command not found: hulusubs_dl_osx
xonshiz@MacBook-Pro Downloads %

As you can see that the file hulusubs_dl_osx shows up, but when I try to access it, I get command not found error.
But, if I were to provide full path to that file, then terminal is able to run that file
xonshiz@MacBook-Pro Downloads % ls
Bills
Notes
Some Important Things
hulusubs_dl_osx
xonshiz@MacBook-Pro Downloads % hulusubs_dl_osx
zsh: command not found: hulusubs_dl_osx
xonshiz@MacBook-Pro Downloads % /Users/xonshiz/Downloads/hulusubs_dl_osx --version
2021.01.08.3
xonshiz@MacBook-Pro Downloads %

I can access my other installations like Python, brew etc., just fine. But, I can't access any file. It's not just the case with this hulusubs_dl file, but with any given file. I was able to run the file directly few days ago.
Does anyone have any clue what might be happening? What I might've changed that caused this?
P.S: I'm on Catalina

If no path is given (either an absolute or a relative one) the shell searches through the directories listed in $PATH to find commands to execute. If the current directory isn't included there, you need to use a relative path like
./hulusubs_dl_osx

In theory you could solve this by adding . to PATH but this is considered bad practice due to the potential security risk (imagine somebody putting a fake ls command in one of your directories).


How do I customise the Touch Bar to show the volume up button and the volume down button At the moment I have to tap twice to turn down the volume which is super annoying.
I just wanted to have 2 buttons on my Touch Bar like the old Macs. An up volume and a down volume but it seems apple wants us to annoying tap twice to allow this.

You can touch the volume button and start sliding your finger left or right to adjust the volume up or down.
No need to lift your finger.
The same goes for the brightness as well.


What is the real native maximum resolution of mid–2010 iMac's iSight camera? I had understood that the pre-2011 Macs & Apple displays have a built–in iSight camera which sensor is capable of VGA (640 x 480) resolution—unlike the FaceTime HD cameras, which replaced the built–in iSights, that are capable of SXGA (1280 x 1024) resolution.

I had also thought that, when importing feed from the camera to an iMovie-project, 640 x 480 is the native maximum of the camera and the other, WSVGA (1024 x 576), option is upscaled and cropped version of the 640 x 480 feed.

Moreover, when I open Photo Booth app, I'm stuck with one resolution which is for video 720 x 480 (DVD (NTSC)) and for pictures 1280 x 853.

There is still one more native way to record iSight video: QuickTime Player—with which the resolutios are as interesting as follows:

Normal: 640 x 480 (VGA)
High: 960 x 720
Maximum: 1280 x 1024 (SXGA)

This made me suspicious: it says maximum but the resolution is over 4 times what I had thought the max was.

Now: what is the real native maximum resolution that the (mid–2010 27" iMac's) built–in iSight camera is capable of? What is real and what is upscaled?*

If there are no definite & reliable specifications available, is there a way to confirm it by myself? Judging by  the lack of moiré pattern and other overall fidelity of the SXGA video recorded by QuickTime Player, it seems to me that it is not an upscale of the VGA feed.

Wikipedia's entry concentrates on the external iSight camera, and while it has a chapter on the built–in version, but, as of today and like the product entries in Wikipedia, it doesn't refer to any working sources.

*) Upscaled and cropped in case of non–4:3 resolutions—the CMOS sensors have almost definitely an aspect ratio of 4:3.

I think it's 1280x1024, as that's what the LED backlit MacBook Pro's and onwards used. The Lion version of Photo Booth uses the max resolution and crops it.

720x480 is actually a standard resolution - it's what most DVD's use.


copy and paste only images name not its path In Mac Systems - safari browser im accessing the xchange email. When I have 10-20 jpg or pdf files are there in finder, Im coping them and pasting in the email only for the txt message not attachment, i will get as full path for the individual images a lengthy one.

any fix??

I see what you are saying. If you select a picture file in Finder and Copy, then Paste into an Outlook message, you get text of the full path starting with "file://". That is because copying in Finder does not examine the contents of the file. It examines only the file handle and copies that path.

If you want to copy the contents of a file, whether it is a picture file, text file, or what, you must get access to those contents first. You must open the picture with something.

So whatever file you want to put in an email, double-click that file, then select all, then copy, then paste into the email.

The other option, as Kevin said, is to drag the file right into the email message. That will attach the file.  But it sounded like you wanted the content of the picture(s) in the body of the email.  My method above is how you do that.


What steps do I need to take to replace my Apple TV 4 remote? We broke our Apple TV 4 remote, and bought a replacement. However, the new one does not appear to control the Apple TV. Do I need to take any steps to get the new remote to control my existing Apple TV 4?

Make sure the old Apple TV Remote is out of Bluetooth range, then while in front of the Apple TV set top box press a button on the new remote. This should pair the remote to the Apple TV.

If not, try pressing Volume Up and Menu simultaneously on both remotes for 2-3 seconds, new and old, then do the aforementioned steps again with the new remote.


Get back some colors in Finder's sidebar Since Lion, every item in the Finder's sidebar are gray. I miss the colors, as they were helpful to quickly find a specific item.
The problem is the same in Open File dialog box.

Do you know of a way to get back some colors in the Finder's sidebar?

I'm ok to modify files owned by the System (such as system images), but I'm not ok to use SIMBL. This project seems nice, but I don't want to use it.

You aren't alone in wanting the color back.  Unfortunately, it looks as if the Finder code actually shifts the hue from the fully-colored icon resources that are included (see the Go menu in Finder, which has the colored versions).

According to a commenter on this MacThemes Forum thread, the developer documentation actually details how to shift the hue in the same way that Finder does; with the associated speculation that we'll see grey icons in every app that has a sidebar in the future.

Looks to me as if you can bite the bullet and use ColorfulSidebar (with SIMBL) or live with the grey.


Pages: rotate existing, wide table by 90 degrees so that the rows are now vertical possible? (equations in several cells) I have a complex table in Pages 8.2.1 and several cells have equation objects in them. The table has gotten too wide and I want to rotate it by 90 degrees.
From what I understand I can't rotate one page by 90 degrees, but Apple discussions post says (to a question asked March 2018):

We assume you are using Pages 5/6/7 because you can rotate Tables in Pages '08 or '09.

I haven't figured out how.
I found this: Pages '09 Hacks: lInsert pages at landscape format but a) I don't have version 9 yet and 2) I don't understand what it's saying. I'm new to pages and this is written with experienced users in mind.
If I just select a table the rotation field is dark in format/arrange:

I saw a hack in this answer:

Insert a shape near the table and change the fill to 'No Fill'
Select the shape and the table
Group the shape and table together
Rotate the group

If you ungroup the elements the table will revert back to the original rotation, but you can still resize etc the table from within the group.

but I haven't able to make use of it yet because when ever I select a shape the table deselects, I haven't been able to group them yet.
Question:

How can I rotate my preexisting wide table with equations in several cells by 90 degrees so that the rows are now vertical?
If and only if that's not possible, can I make my table tall and make all text reenter all text and equation objedts sideways?

In order to rotate a table, the document must be changed to a Layout type of document.  Also, be aware that this is a bit of a hack, your mileage may vary.
Note: It may be best to start with a new document or a copy of your current document to be safe.
Select Document to reveal the Document sidebar.

Next, untick the Document body checkbox.  You will see a dialog that asks you to confirm the change to your document.
Select Convert.
Add a new Table and edit its contents first.  You cannot edit the table once it has been grouped. ♂
Add a shape (hint: put the shape behind the table to hide it)
From the Format sidebar, choose arrange.
Select both the Table and the shape.  Shift+click or Drag selection.
Select Group.
Now Rotate the table.


Why am I having problems syncing non-itunes music to my iphone? I have an iPhone 4S with loads of music from CDs and such on my iTunes. I had an old iPod with the same account that it would all sync onto fine, however, when I try to sync it to my iPhone, nothing happens. The songs are definitely in my iTunes library. I have the settings for my iPhone to sync all songs when plugged in to the computer. Also, I have tried dragging the songs over to my iPhone where devices is shown in iTunes, and my iPhone doesn't highlight to accept songs.

Does anyone have a solution?

You need to make sure your iPhone is configured to sync music from iTunes:

Connect your iPhone to your computer
Start iTunes
Select you iPhone in Devices list
Select Music tab
Check the box Sync Music and select what you want to sync to your iPhone (all music / specific playlists)

Also make sure to "Sync only checked songs and videos" option is not checked on your iPhone Summary tab.

On your next sync (automatic or manual, depending on your settings) music should begin to sync to your iPhone.


Switching two MacBook motherboards I have two similar MacBooks that are off by one revision:

Black: Model 2,1 --- 2.16 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
White: Model 3,1 --- 2.2 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, 1GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

I want to upgrade my Black macbook (my primary laptop) with 4GB of RAM but model 2,1 can only make use of around 3GB (3,1 can take 4GB).

So what I want to do is swap the motherboards of each laptop. That way they both get an upgrade -- the Black Macbook moves up to 4GB and the white moves up to 2GB.

Is doing a motherboard swap on my own feasible? I've built my own desktops in the past and I'm not worried about what is what and what goes where. I'm just wondering about the difficulty of the job and/or if there's something I don't know about that would prevent this from working at all.

Oh yeah and also, from an aesthetic perspective I like the black one much more and don't want to just make the white one my primary laptop. It looks pretty worn and the girlfriend put some stickers on it, etc.

You can check out the directions on iFixit here.
There are a lot of steps, but none of it is really rocket science. They explain it in detail.

My bigger question would be whether the two boards are compatible.
Based on the specs for each one (2,1 / 3,1), the main differences are (respectively):

Processor: TS7400 / TS7500
Video Card (integrated): Intel GMA 950 / IntelGMA X3100
VRAM: 64MB / 144MB

I'm not sure how these effect logic board compatibility, but I'd be careful.

Also worth noting that the white 3,1 actually supports 6GB of memory (unofficially). Get it here.

Hope this helps.


how to change NFS share name as displayed in OSX without reconfiguring NFS server? I am mounting an NFS share named "storage" from my-host-here1.com. I also want to mount another NFS share named "storage" from my-host-here2.com.

I just want to know how can I change the share name as shown in Finder so it's easier for me to know which is which.

e.g.

"storage" from my-host-here1.com will be displayed as storage-here1
"stoarge" from my-host-here2.com will be displayed as storage-here2.

I set the auto-mounting by dragging the NFS share icon in my desktop to the login items in System Preferences.

I did search the net before creating this topic but not getting any luck.

Thanks very much :)

update: I am able to manually specify a share name when mounting via /etc/auto_master. BUT the share does not show in finder like shares (samba or NFS) made via Finder -> Connect to Server.

This is not possible, as far as I can tell. The answer from patrix will indeed mount the share at a different mount point (though you need to create the mount point), but no matter where you mount it, Finder will still show it by the 'Proper' name.

You can verify by doing Get Info on the mounted drive in /Volumes/; the "Name & Extension" section will show the custom name you specified, but the name at the top of the window (and in the Finder) will be the actual name of the share's final path component.


Unable to boot Mac. Single user mode not working I lost admin access when I tried to change user name on my Mac. I have entered into single user mode, entered all the commands suggested (including the spaces) and it isn't working. It continues to reboot with zero change. What can I do? I'm open to all suggestions.

did you do the single person commands?
did you type them correctly?

/sbin/mount -uw /
rm /var/db/.applesetupdone


Text file preview failing in Finder (perhaps due to Sublime Text?) I can no longer preview text files (e.g. .txt) in Finder.

All I get is a preview pane showing a black square and TEXT.

Other files such as .tex files show a normal preview of the contents just fine. I think this changed after I installed Sublime Text, although I could be wrong.

I've tried installing qlstephen but this hasn't helped my problem.

Any suggestions much appreciated!

OS X El Capitan (10.11.6) MacBook Pro Retina.

I had the same problem, without Sublime and I used this instead: https://github.com/sindresorhus/quick-look-plugins


FaceTime on Macbook without iPad interference Needed to collaborate with someone on a document, editing on Macbook Pro (MBP).  Made FaceTime audio call, but then switched to video.  Top of screen claimed "call failed" but we were still talking.  Then the iPad began begging me to answer the call!  It gave up and we were still on.  iPad was not a call from someone else.

Something else disconnected us, and when I called again, this time the iPad did not interfere.

Is the first just a fluke, or must I do something to prevent the iPad from trying to hijack a call on the Macbook?  (Hopefully something other than shutting it down!)

No - there's no cross talk possible since Apple uses different encryption keys for each device. All of them receive a notification / offer to start the call and continuity would allow you to hand off a call from one device to the other.

If you're distracted or worried, you can sign out of FaceTime / Messages on the device you want to be sure isn't bugging you, but architecturally - there's no downside / benefit to having more than one device signed in other than if your network can't handle the signaling items or can't NAT the traffic correctly.


Host name change notification from System Administrator root@server.com Our Mac OSX servers sends me this message every day:

Name: System Administrator
Email: root@server.SERVER.nl
Dept: Support

The host name of SERVER1 has changed to SERVER2. Some services may not work correctly until they have been updated to use the new configuration.

(in which, SERVER1 is the old host name and 2 the new host name of our server). What does it mean, and what could I do to solve this (get rid of this message). The server seems to work just fine, just as it did before.

I was having the same problem & found this thread on Apple Support Communities.

The short of it is that unless the name change is done through the command line with sudo changeip, it will forever complain about the change. The command goes like this:

sudo changeip OLDIPADDRESS NEWIPADDRESS OLDNAME NEWNAME

Use the same IP address and name in both spots and it's happy.


How to store Mac documents in the iCloud? So, iCloud is now available to all Mac and iOS5 users.

I don't (yet) have an iOS5 device, but i do have OS X Lion with iCloud installed. I've set it all up nice and (almost) easy. In iCloud PrefsPane I noticed there's an option to sync Documents & Data. This is what baffles me. How do I do that? How can I share Documents & Data between 2 Macs?

I understand that iOS5 iWork stores all documents in the iCloud, but what about Mac? How do I put files in the iCloud from Mac?

If I share a document via Share button in Pages/Numbers it goes to iWork.com, not the iCloud iWork.

You cannot treat iCloud as some sort of internet filesystem like Dropbox.  The only way to place data into the iCloud system is via an iCloud enabled app.  There is no generic way to access your iCloud files except via the application that put the files there in the first place.

So, in order to use iCloud, use iCloud enabled apps.  Use the same apps on 2 or more Macs, and that is how you share docs/data.

I'm not sure when the Mac iWork apps will get iCloud, I suspect in the next version which is now sorely overdue.


iPad Pro to LG Ultrafine 4K Using the Apple Lightning > HDMI display adapter and then an HDMI > USB-C adaptor, can I output my 9.7" iPad Pro to my LG Ultrafine 4K for word processing etc?

This question implies that it could be done, albeit at a 1600x900 resolution. Has anyone tried this? Does the Ultrafine scale up the resolution satisfactorily?

According to this article at Apple.com it should be possible to hook up an external display to an iOS device.

The only question that remains is if hooking up a couple of adapters in series will actually work. If no one here knows from experience, I would buy the adapters from a store with a good return policy and have at it.


Remove end-of-line hyphens in Word 2011 for Mac I have a Word file that was created from a 2-column, fully justified PDF file. Since I want to convert it next to a Mobi format via Calibre, I need to remove the end-of-line hyphens that break words, otherwise I'll get this in Mobi: “remo-ve".

Does Word 2011 for Mac allow to justify text without hyphenation?

About 2/3 of all end-of-line hyphens are followed by a space (weird!). I suspect this file is not behaving normally due to the fact that it comes from a PDF.

Things I’ve tried with no result:

Changed to left-align
Changed font size
In Tools/Hyphenation/Hyphenation zone, I increased the hyphenation zone to a whole inch
I played with a few of the Options related to the Hyphenation algorithm under Preferences/Compatibility
I right-clicked on paragraph, and under Line and Page breaks, selected "Don't Hyphenate".

Hyphens still there! I need a uniform solution, file is too big to go through the one by one.

You're right, the hyphens are artifacts from importing text from a PDF.

One way to do this (my preferred way, anyway) is to copy as plain text into a text editor such as Text Wrangler.  The hyphens generally have a space after them when importing so I do a find and replace starting with that pattern.  Then the resulting clean text can be imported or pasted into Word.  Not a application solution but it works pretty well for me.

Copy PDF content to clipboard
Paste as plain text into a text editor that supports find and replace (Such as Sublime Text, Text Wrangler, Atom or even VS Code.)
Do a Find and Replace of "- " Hyphen space without the quotes.
Replace with Null or empty string.  In other words, put nothing in the replace field.
Copy the resulted text to the clipboard
Paste the text into the Word document and apply desired formatting.


App Store "An Unknown Error Has Occurred", Apple Support fix was only temporary. How fix permanently? When opening an application installed from the App Store (TextWrangler) I am prompted to sign in. After entering the correct Apple ID and password I get an error, An unknown error has occurred. This only happens with one app, other apps installed are OK.

This error also occurs when I sign in to the App Store. So its not just affecting a single application.

This also seems to be affecting my iCloud login. It prompts for a password then just seems to hang.

I spoke with Apple Support yesterday. They had me delete all Caches from /Libary/Caches, ~/Library/Caches, and a few cookies then restart my iMac. This fixed the issue yesterday. Today I start my Mac and get the same error again. I called Apple Support and got the runaround, I was told to use ExpressLane which doesn't really seem to have a solution.

How can I permanently fix this error?

Previous attempt to identify/triage the error

Searching online turns up similar suggestions to clear caches and cookies, but also some more extreme suggestions involving network settings that I am hesitant to try.

Logs after starting TextWrangler and being prompted to login:

9/19/12 10:01:30.611 AM com.apple.backupd[889]: Couldn't find en0.
9/19/12 10:01:30.638 AM com.apple.backupd[889]: Backup completed successfully.
9/19/12 10:01:58.592 AM RockMelt[306]: Cannot find function pointer CMPluginInFactory for factory 3487BB5A-3E66-11D5-A64E-003065B300BC in CFBundle/CFPlugIn 0x796aa090 </Users/jon/Library/Contextual Menu Items/Google Notifier Quick Add CM Plugin.plugin> (not loaded)
9/19/12 10:01:59.885 AM RockMelt Helper[931]: Internals of CFAllocator not known; out-of-memory failures via CFAllocator will not result in termination. http://crbug.com/45650
9/19/12 10:02:00.615 AM RockMelt Helper[931]: CGSLookupServerRootPort: Failed to look up the port for "com.apple.windowserver.active" (1100)
9/19/12 10:02:07.797 AM WindowServer[89]: CGXDisableUpdate: UI updates were forcibly disabled by application "RockMelt" for over 1.00 seconds. Server has re-enabled them.
9/19/12 10:02:11.035 AM WindowServer[89]: reenable_update_for_connection: UI updates were finally reenabled by application "RockMelt" after 4.24 seconds (server forcibly re-enabled them after 1.00 seconds)
9/19/12 10:02:34.240 AM Blink Lite[310]:REDACTED
9/19/12 10:03:07.693 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[192]: ([0x0-0xae0ae].com.barebones.textwrangler[938]) Exited with code: 173
9/19/12 10:03:39.054 AM librariand[951]: MMe quota status changed: under quota
9/19/12 10:03:40.741 AM com.apple.security.pboxd[959]: Bug: 12B19: liblaunch.dylib + 23849 [224CB010-6CF8-3FC2-885C-6F80330321EB]: 0x25
9/19/12 10:04:00.293 AM Dock[205]: LaunchPad: __53-[LPAppManager(StoreSupport) _acceptStoreConnection:]_block_invoke_0 app store xpc message error: Connection invalid
9/19/12 10:06:11.123 AM TextEdit[949]: SCNetworkReachability server not available
9/19/12 10:06:11.124 AM TextEdit[949]: SCNetworkReachability server not available
9/19/12 10:06:11.130 AM TextEdit[949]: socket(PF_ROUTE) failed: Operation not permitted
9/19/12 10:06:11.000 AM kernel[0]: Sandbox: sandboxd(990) deny mach-lookup com.apple.coresymbolicationd
9/19/12 10:06:12.423 AM sandboxd[990]: ([949]) TextEdit(949) deny mach-lookup com.apple.SystemConfiguration.SCNetworkReachability
9/19/12 10:06:12.426 AM sandboxd[990]: ([949]) TextEdit(949) deny system-socket
9/19/12 10:08:22.725 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[192]: ([0x0-0xbd0bd].com.barebones.textwrangler[1015]) Exited with code: 173
9/19/12 10:09:00.951 AM Dock[205]: LaunchPad: __53-[LPAppManager(StoreSupport) _acceptStoreConnection:]_block_invoke_0 app store xpc message error: Connection invalid

I found a solution. Another forum post describing similar issues suggested deleting /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/NetworkInterfaces.plist. I backed that file up, deleted it, and restarted. I can now log in and out of AppStore, access all of my AppStore purchased apps, and it 'sticks' across shutdowns and restarts.

Process is pretty simple, I'll spell it out for future reference:

Open Terminal
cd /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration
cp NetworkInterfaces.plist ~/NetworkInterfaces.plist.bak - Make a hasty backup in your home directory
sudo rm NetworkInterfaces.plist delete the original
Restart your Mac
Open AppStore and try to sign in. It should work.

Apparently this works because the MAC address is used as part of the receipt/authorization process.


How to do Terminal.app Star Wars ASCII? I tried telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl and it said telnet: command not found. Is it deprecated? It is a bit trivial, but I thought it was worth asking about at least.

Yes, telnet is deprecated and is not included in High Sierra. If you want it, you’ll have to install it yourself, e.g. using Homebrew. See here for more details.


Deleted photos from phone when transfering to macbook, how to get back on phone? I transferred photos from my iphone to my macbook, but turns out the photos were deleted from my phone after the transfer. So now I have the photos on my macbook but not on the phone.

I'm trying to get those photos back on my phone.

I tried changing preferences such that icloud would work on my phone and macbook, but it did not work.

When plugging your iPhone into your MacBook, in iTunes when accessing your phone, you should be able to select 'Photos' from the Settings tab on the left, then press Sync Photos, then choose the photo folder that you want to sync back into your iPhone. Then press Apply.

Note: before choosing the folder, you need to create a separate folder containing all the pictures that you want to sync back.


mac osx lion security configuration guide I could find the security configuration guide for mac osx versions at http://www.apple.com/support/security/guides/ however, I can't find any for OS X Lion. Any one know if it is in the works or if it is moved else where?

Correct.  They're sadly slow to publish this info.  Try this: http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.21/21.02/Security/index.html

Cheers!


Can i manage Yosemite 10.10.2 clients with a 10.9.5 server with workgroup manager? I work at a university and a professor running a lab would like to keep Workgroup Manager but run Yosemite clients. I can not find any specific documentation on this. Except : "Note: Workgroup Manager and previous versions of Server app are not compatible with Yosemite." But I believe that is just that there is no Workgroup Manager that runs on a Yosemite server.

Late answer but I thought it might help. Yes, I believe you can still use WGM to administer / set prefs on Yosemite clients. But you should keep your server version as is. I still have OS X Leopard Server running as OD master and WGM for all my client machines running OS X Yosemite. I also use Profile Manager alongside WGM and it works without problems...


How can I setup Transmit along with Sidestep? I'm using Sidestep to securely connect the Internet from everywhere I am. I have my own server as an SSH proxy.

But I'm facing trouble with Transmit which doesn't seem to use the proxy settings defined by Sitestep.

I know there are some options available in Transmit to configure a proxy server, but since I really don't know much about proxy, SOCKS and stuff. I didn't succeed.

From all my tests, Transmit always seems to use the direct connection without going through the proxy.

Any hints?

Thanks,

Jérémy

So here it is: https://github.com/chetan51/sidestep/issues/34#issuecomment-3137335

In Transmit define

Proxy Type: SOCK 5
Proxy Host: 127.0.0.1
Proxy Port: 9050


Original El Capitan 10.11.0? I'm looking to upgrade my Yosemite system with El Capitan but I can only find 10.11.1 versions. Need the original. Any help? Any thoughts?

Assuming you "purchased" El Capitan during it's availability you can download it from the App Store in the usual way. You will actually get 10.11.6 - there are no reasons to install 10.11.0, and Apple does not have an all-versions archive.

If you did not get El Capitan while it was available then you can't get it. Sierra is the current offering, but wait a few weeks for 10.12.1.


Music is taking up all my iPhone 5 storage My storage is almost all used up and I cant update software or take pictures.  It looks like Music is taking up aLOT of space.  How can I make sure that if I delete off phone it doesn't delate on iTunes also?

Deleting music off your phone doesnt affect the itunes library's contents (in  your case Music)

So you can un-sync your music../ update your library.. and put whatever you want back on.


How can I report an app that contains ads but didn't provide a privacy policy url to Apple? How can I report an app that contains ads but didn't provide a privacy policy url to Apple?
I have tried to google myself, but I couldn't find a way to report it.

An app that doesn't have a privacy policy isn't necessary breaking any of Apple's rules or guidelines. The requirement that all these apps must have a privacy policy is quite new, and only apps or app updates submitted to the App Store after October 3rd 2018 need to comply.

You can use the following link to contact Apple's customer service:

https://getsupport.apple.com/

Choose "Apps and Software" and then "App Store".


macOS Sierra: Why do I have to enter the password for my private key? I recently upgraded my computer to macOS Sierra. Everything went fine, but somewhere along the way something got changed (probably something I did) and now every time I try to ssh into another machine the terminal prompts me to enter my password. If I type the password and enter it the ssh session works as normal. But why do I have to enter my password at all? What can I do to fix this?

Side note: I have tried changing the file permissions to no avail. They are currently 644 like the public key.

You need add your private key to ssh agent again. I faced same problem after Sierra update.

Here is a guide to add your key.


OS X Internet Recovery doesn't see SSD drive I wanted to do a clean install and booted from OS X recovery partition. In disk utility I selected "erase" option. SSD was working correctly before that.

Now, if i startup, the only way to proceed is with Internet Recovery  since I cannot boot from hidden recovery partition. After I wait several hours for the recovery image download, I cannot see the SSD either in disk utility or OSX reinstallation.

In terminal

diskutil list

Shows only recovery image 1.8 Gb or so.

So did erase option destroy my ssd?

I had the same problem as you. After I erased via Disk Utility, I reset my Mac Air (what was i thinking, right LOL). Now it won't boot again. (Folder with question mark keeps blinking on a black screen). I waited for the Internet recovery to finish (waited half an hour or so). Disk Utility pops back up again. i click reinstall OS. it doesn't show an option on which drive i'm supposed to reinstall the OS to. Uh-oh. I looked at "erase", it senses the drive. it's there. i can verify and repair it under erase, but when i try reinstalling a new copy of the OS, no SSD option shows up (where i can install the OS).

WHAT WORKED FOR ME:

I found that my problem was that I did not give a name to my SSD when I erased it the first time. i erased the SSD again (when the internet recovery was finished, but THIS TIME, i made sure to write a name for the SSD i was erasing. when i started the reinstall option again after erasing was finished, my SSD showed up as an option.


App from Mac App Store. What if I change Macs? The Mac App Store is really convenient, but under some circumstances, I am confused on how it manages the installation. Here I have two questions:

If I buy an app from the Mac App Store, then delete it, can I re-install it or do I have to buy it again?
If I buy an app from the Mac App Store, can I install it on more than one Mac? If I can't, can I delete it on the Mac that I purchased the app from, and then install it on another Mac?

There is no limit on installing one copy of each app on every Mac you own or control for personal use.

You only pay once and can re-download the app even if the developer changes prices later.


Restore backup from iPhone SE (iOS 13.4.1) to iPhone 6 (iOS 12.4.6) Got two iPhones:

iPhone SE on 13.4.1
iPhone 6 on 12.4.6

As far as I understand, both iOS versions are the latest ones for the respective model.

When trying to restore a backup from SE to 6, iTunes complains that the backup is not compatible and I should update the iPhone.

Kind of makes sense. To be honest, until yesterday I thought that iPhone 6 is newer than SE, but it seems that I was wrong there.

Is there a way to get "stuff" from SE to 6? In an ideal world, of course that would mean all apps and all data. But probably there is no sensible way to downgrade everything.

Would icould be able to serve as a "logical backup" for photos etc.?

You can’t get Apple to restore a newer OS to an older one. This is by design. Short of a jailbreak you will need a device that runs iOS 13.4.1 or newer to restore the data and then examine / export / sync or write by hand or manually any data for RE-entry in the 12.4.6 device.

iCloud sync is a very good way to go if you can borrow or rent a device assuming you don’t have both in hand and working.


dyld: Library not loaded: on OSX I just got a new MacBook Pro, installed Catalina, and used the Migration Assistant to transfer my files over to the new machine. I changed the computer name and home folder for my account from oldname to newname.

I have a rails project that I was working on, and rails s is what I use to start the dev server. But on this new machine, I get this:

dyld: Library not loaded: /Users/oldname/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.5.0/lib/libruby.2.5.dylib
Referenced from: /Users/newname/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.5.0/bin/ruby
Reason: image not found
Abort trap: 6

How would I fix this? The binary exists in the newname directory, but the oldname directory is gone.

If you're afraid of rebuilding all of the project, and there's no support available for such cases, make a bare bone clone of the required folders in /Users/oldname which contains all the files required by the project.

Warning: This requires root password, and by default, /Users/ only contains:

All user accounts
Shared
Guest if enabled.

So I am not aware of the ramifications of the same.


How to detect external VGA display on retina MBP running Sierra? I have a 15in Macbook Pro (Late 2013 model) which, until recently, had no problem detecting a VGA projector connected via an adaptor connected to either of the Thunderbolt ports. Today I tried it and it simply could not detect the projector display. The only difference I can think of is that I've upgraded to macOS Sierra since last I remember using this system.

I've tried some other combinations to see if I could figure out what the root cause is, but all of the following options work as expected:

connect an HDMI display to the HDMI port
connect an HDMI display to a Thunderbolt port via an adaptor
boot into Windows 10 (using Bootcamp) and connect the same VGA projector to a Thunderbolt port via the same adaptor

All this suggests it's not a problem with the adaptor, with macOS Sierra using external displays, or with the Thunderbolt ports - just with Sierra driving a VGA display.

Does anyone have any idea what the problem is and how I can fix it?

Edit: I've tried resetting the NVRAM/PRAM settings and I've clicked "Detect Displays" a few times in Display Prefs - no success.

Resetting MBP with display plugged in will detect it, they had the same issue with El Capitan as well. Hopefully Apple will fix this bug.


How to posterize image with Procreate How to posterize image using Procreate? Even Google is silent on that. Maybe they have a different name for that effect. I am looking for an effect which reduces the number of colors similarly as in GIF file.

Posterization: What, Why, and How:

Definition:

  Posterization in art is a method of reducing the tonal range in an image, that is, reducing the range of colors.  This converts areas with subtle gradations of color into flat areas of color without any gradations; what were gradations in the original photograph appear as sudden changes in color shade. This process has been and is a frugal method for printing posters in the limited number of shades of color one has available. (excerpted and paraphrased from Maini’s Mind)

Famous post-modern posterized artworks include Andy Warhol’s body of “Pop Art” work, which was first exhibited in 1961. His Campbell’s Soup Can corpus was part of the Pop Art movement which launched the Post-Modern Art Era.  (Widewalls.ch)

The Obama Campaign’s “Hope” poster in 2008 has prompted innumerable knockoffs, a worldwide phenomenon fueled by a plethora of apps and websites allowing anyone to easily create their own selfie “Hope Poster”.

Why Posterize?

  What would induce a creative individual to purposefully edit out, cut away, basically lose information and details from an image? Going from say 128 tones down to 4 changes everything. Practical applications include simplifying the composition by removing that which is cluttering and distracting, and the removal of the background of an image bringing the focus forward to the main subject. (excerpted and paraphrased from Maini’s Mind)

Because unpredicted shapes and ideas emerge in this process of simplification and reduction, the artist’s mind and hand are enabled to create something totally new:

  “Unexpected happenings are encouraged through a serendipitous, intuitive openness to possibilities. Although these efforts do not guarantee achieving the goal of each picture, fresh, exciting results are instigated whenever stepping off known paths.” (Bonnie R. Beaver)

How to Posterize a Photograph in Procreate

Through experimentation, I have found ways to achieve a range of posterization effects in Procreate using the Selection Tool. It seems as if the sky is the limit...

Step 1: Choose your Image and Palette; Make and Color Selections

Begin with an unedited photo. In my experience, if a filter or even Camera Roll editing have already been applied, it can be difficult to obtain nice clean lines and fields of color in the final result. The exact characteristics of the photo you choose turn out to be less important than you would think: take risks and expect the unexpected! What do you have to lose????

Many artists like to work out a palette concept before they begin painting. This is a fun and intuitive task in Procreate: here is a great tutorial. Don’t feel bound to a palette, however. In Step 4 below I will tell you how to easily play with your artwork’s colors once all of the areas have been selected and painted.

So onward: use the Automatic Selection Tool to choose several areas to transform into your first color choice. (Here is a Tutorial on Procreate’s Automatic Selection Tool) Here I have selected the fence for my first color. Choosing small details like this first, which you want showcased in your composition, sets them apart and thus keeps them from becoming buried in or morphed with other color choices later on

When you are satisfied with your area selections, choose a color and a brush, and paint the selected areas.

Step 2: Rinse, Repeat, Don’t Fret Too Much!

Repeat Step 1 for as many colors as you desire. Many artists like to choose an odd number of colors which is thought to add interest and harmony to an artwork.

To prevent any gaps in the final composition, which would allow the original photo to show through, try to select and paint every part of the image. But don’t fret about this too much either, as the next step will take you through an easy work-around.

Step 3: Check for and fix any missed areas.

Once you have all of the areas selected and colored, you will want to make certain you haven’t missed anything, as you don’t want any of your original photo to show on your finished artwork. Check closely by zooming in and examining the entire image.

If small areas are found, there are many possible ways to fix them: the easiest is to use the Color Drop tool to select the color you want to cover the hole with, make sure it is at maximum opacity, choose a pen, and paint over it.

If there are too many holes which are tiny (such as a grainy patch), they are in a tricky spot to paint over without messing up other elements of the image, or you just aren’t in the mood to paint over each of them individually (sometimes it is painstaking work), try this:

  Set your background to a bright color NOT USED in your artwork.
  Using the Automatic Selection Tool, choose everything in the image but those holes. (Alternatively, if the holes are only in one specific area, you can apply this technique to just that area of the artwork.) This may require some back-and-forth fussing with the Threshold level, which will over-select if left too high. Be precise with your stylus (this will be much easier with an Apple Pencil!) Remember you can always “Go Back” with the two-finger tap, at any stage...  Experiment and you will get the hang of it.
  Once you feel satisfied that the holes are the only areas not selected, select the brush tool, which will kick the Selection Tool into the mode showing the UN-selected (protected) area under undulating diagonal stripes. The holes at this point are UN-Selected, so using your finger or stylus, long-press the Selection (“S”) Icon, then click “Invert”. Now the holes should be free of the diagonal stripes, meaning they are “selected” and can thus be altered, and you can erase them. Because you changed the background color to a recognizable color against the rest of the image, you will be able to tell when you are erasing the holes.
  Create a new layer BELOW the image, and fill it with a color which will show through the holes and make them seamlessly blend into the work. You can even paint holes in different areas of of the image specific colors to get this to work.
  Merge down when you are happy.

Step 4: Tweak your color scheme to your heart’s content.

The beautiful thing about posterizing in Procreate is that it almost doesn’t matter at all what colors you pick initially, because you can change them so easily, with many different methods, including the Automatic Selection Tool, several different features under the Adjustments (“Magic Wand”) Icon, and even the Layer Modes which are located under each individual layer.

In my example above, I was underwhelmed by the final result, mainly due to the palette striking me as very blah. So as you can see, I changed it! Here is my final result: notice that the grass that was showing through has been replaced with black (a common color in posterized art, due to its high contrast).

Alternative Posterization Effects

Here are a few examples of posterized works in which I chose additional techniques which depart from the flat field effect. These involve the use of textured brushes to layer colors, and applying ombre effects to selected areas.

OMBRE EFFECT: For this piece, each selection area was painted with swooping horizontal stripes of graduated color, then made into an ombre using the Gaussian Blur tool, which is under the Adjustments Icon:

LAYERED COLORS: Here I brushed layered colors into selected areas with the “Canvas” Brush on partial opacity. Using a dark version of a complimentary color under a bright version of its counterpart can really make colors POP!

LAYERED COLORS, DIFFERENT BRUSH: Using the same technique but with the Nikko Brush:


Can I change the button "m" with space bar? My space bar won't work so I want to use the m button as space bar. Is there a way to do that? Maybe with the Automator using an apples riptide or something?

To make this work you have to use a third party tool: Karabiner.

I propose to use one of the option keys though: usually one of both is rarely used and you can use M as normal key.

Download, install and open Karabiner
Open in the menulet Karabiner -> Preferences
Enter "Space"

Enable the chosen keycode and close the window.


Reformat exFat with specific Device Block Size and Cluster Size I have an 512 GB SSD on my MacBook Retina with one of the volumes disks0s6 formatted with exFat to use it on both Mac and Windows.

diskutil info disk0s6:

   Device Identifier:        disk0s6
   Device Node:              /dev/disk0s6
   Part of Whole:            disk0
   Device / Media Name:      Basic data partition

   Volume Name:              WORK
   Escaped with Unicode:     WORK

   Mounted:                  Yes
   Mount Point:              /Volumes/WORK
   Escaped with Unicode:     /Volumes/WORK

   File System Personality:  ExFAT
   Type (Bundle):            exfat
   Name (User Visible):      ExFAT

   Partition Type:           Microsoft Basic Data
   OS Can Be Installed:      No
   Media Type:               Generic
   Protocol:                 PCI
   SMART Status:             Verified
   Volume UUID:              40CF8BFC-3143-3BB9-B659-DE1A62DCA9E6

   Total Size:               54.1 GB (54117007360 Bytes) (exactly 105697280 512-Byte-Units)
   Volume Free Space:        36.1 GB (36128292864 Bytes) (exactly 70563072 512-Byte-Units)
   Device Block Size:        512 Bytes

   Read-Only Media:          No
   Read-Only Volume:         No
   Ejectable:                No

   Whole:                    No
   Internal:                 Yes
   Solid State:              Yes

I have lots of small files in that volume and my small files took to much physical space so I want to reformat the volume with a minimum Device Block Size and Cluster Size so my small files won't take any additional space. How can I do that in OS X?

Here is an example of files in folder bower_components which is 46.1 MB taking 9.75 GBspace on the disk (printed from windows):

UPDATE 1

I didn't found a way how to check cluster size on Mac so I boot in Windows and run chkdsk on that drive:

As you can see 131072 bytes in each allocation unit - that is my current cluster size being created by Mac DiskUtil default

UPDATE 2

Just booted back to Mac and run the command sudo newfs_exfat -N /dev/disk0s6:

Reformatting existing ExFAT volume
Partition offset : 871407616 sectors (446160699392 bytes)
Volume size      : 105697280 sectors (54117007360 bytes)
Bytes per sector : 512
Bytes per cluster: 131072
FAT offset       : 2048 sectors (1048576 bytes)
# FAT sectors    : 3328
Number of FATs   : 1
Cluster offset   : 6144 sectors (3145728 bytes)
# Clusters       : 412856
Volume Serial #  : 0227bd88
Bitmap start     : 2
Bitmap file size : 51607
Upcase start     : 3
Upcase file size : 5836
Root start       : 4

So looks like chkdisk showed same 131072 bytes per cluster

The maximum allocation block (or cluster) count for exFAT is 2^32 = 4,294,967,296.

To get the minimal size of an allocation cluster on your partition divide the size of your partition through 2^32.

Examples:

for a 100 GB partition the minimal size is 100,000,000,000 bytes/4,294,967,296=~23.3 bytes. Since the smallest device block size is 512 bytes, the allocation block size can't be smaller.
For a 3 TB partition the minimal size is 3,000,000,000,000 bytes/4,294,967,296=~698.5 bytes. The minimal possible allocation block size is then 1024 bytes.

To format a partition use newfs_exfat [options] /dev/disk*s*

The following options regarding allocation block sizes are available:

 -b bytes-per-cluster
         File system block size (bytes per cluster).  Acceptable values
         are powers of 2 in the range 512 through 33554432.

 -c sectors-per-cluster
         Sectors per cluster.  Acceptable values are powers of 2 in the
         range 1 through 65536.

To reformat your exFAT volume first copy the content to another volume. Then enter:

diskutil list #to get the disk identifier of the exFAT partition
diskutil unmount /dev/disk0s6
sudo newfs_exfat -c 1 -v exFAT /dev/disk0s6
diskutil mount /dev/disk0s6

The command will create one allocation (or cluster) block/device block and rename the volume to exFAT.

Alternatively you may use

sudo newfs_exfat -b 512 -v exFAT /dev/disk0s6

Most modern HDDs or SSDs use device block sizes of 4096 bytes and the displayed device block size of 512 bytes is only a "logical" device block size probably for compatibility reasons. So a minimal allocation block size of at least 4096 bytes is recommended.

Also the default cluster block sizes of  various sized exFAT partitions in Windows "mention" at least 4 kb.

To get the current cluster block size (and other informations) of an exFAT volume do the following:

diskutil list #to get the disk identifier of the exFAT partition
diskutil unmount /dev/disk0s6
sudo newfs_exfat -N /dev/disk0s6
diskutil mount /dev/disk0s6


Is there a way of listening to your podcasts at a faster speed in itunes 10.5 I have a backlog of all my favourite podcasts and i was wondering if I could speed up the rate at which they play to say 1.5 or 2.0 of the normal speed

This feature is not available in iTunes, but you can choose the playback speed on the iPod or iPhone. By playing it there and synchronizing back to iTunes, it will mark your backlog items as played.


Where is the postfix log on Sierra? I am running OS X 10.12.3. I do not have the OS X Server package installed, but I know postfix comes as part of the standard (non-server) installation.

I have the occasional need to send emails from the command line and although I can send emails just fine using the 'mail' command, I cannot for the life of me find any kind of log that shows the progress and/or status of a sent mail item.

Despite what this answer says (mail and mailx fail to send emails to gmail), /var/log/mail.log does not exist, at least not on Sierra. I have scoured the config files in /etc/postfix trying to find a reference to a log directory but didn't find one. I've even tried using the -mtime option of the find command to locate any changed files immediately after sending an email, but to no avail. All that comes up are the temporary storage locations within /var/spool/postfix, but none of those files are actually just a plain old log file.

I read this post (Is there any documentation on the macOS Sierra new logging system?) about the new logging approach on Sierra, but it didn't solve my problem. I've checked system.log and although there are a few messages containing postfix, they are only about the service exiting, not about mail items being sent.

Does postfix even write a log entry on Sierra when you send an email?

Any info on this topic would be greatly appreciated.

This works for me:
log stream --predicate  '(process == "smtpd") || (process == "smtp")' --info

Explanation:
--predicate is used to filter the log. In this case it looks for the process "smtpd" or "smtp"
--info shows all messages down to info level, which is good for most purposes.
Hope this helps!


Using iMac (2010) as a display for my PC laptop with with VGA only output (female) I'm trying to figure out how to connect and use my PC laptop having VGA video output (female) to iMac 27 (2010). Found some articles about connecting PCs having miniDisplay port but it's not my case. Is it possible at all?

You can with hardware, but it's not going to be cheap.  The main issue is going from analog (VGA) to digital; it's much easier to convert one digital format to another.  One (clunky) solution would be to chain a VGA to DVI scaler ($330) to a DVI to Mini DisplayPort converter ($150).   If you get similar products on eBay, you can get a complete solution for a little under $250.

A better solution would be with software like ScreenRecycler or one of the recommended alternatives.  This way, you're effectively remotely viewing your screen - with a fast enough computer, this works well.


Mail/iCal: How to decline with text / answer mail? I am using Mail/iCal with a corporate Exchange server.  With Outlook (yuck!) or its "OWA" approximation, I can answer (accept/maybe/decline) with or without editing the reply mail.  In Mail or iCal, I know three working ways to accept/decline, but I don't see how to edit the reply.  (Plus, after declining, the mail/event is gone, so I also cannot reply to the mail anymore.)

At least on iOS devices, version 8.1.3, this is now directly possible when tapping "decline" using the provided comment field.


Mac OS 10.10 Yosemite: Where do I get the patch to fix the Meltdown exploit? All I found were articles on patch availability for El Capitan, Sierra, and High Sierra. Where do I get a patch to fix the Meltdown exploit? (type that into Google if you don't know what that is, it's been all the buzz in tech news last week)

Bonus points if there's also a patch to minimize the risk of the Spectre exploit.

There are no patches for Yosemite as Yosemite is no longer supported. You will need to upgrade to a newer macOS. You can find details of patches for Meltdown and Spectre released by Apple in the question Is there a Meltdown vulnerability fix already available for macOS?.


iTunes put a "1" at the end of many of my song and video titles. How can I fix this? I recently consolidated my iTunes Library and now many videos have a "1" at the end of the file name. And weirdly, in the media library, there are two files - one with the "1" and one without. Luckily only one video appears in iTunes. Is there some way to clean up my media folder AND the filenames in itunes?

I just use a quick and dirty AppleScript to do things like this:`

-- BP Jan 2014
-- Trims a set number of characters from the Start of track names in an iTunes playlist
-- Or trims a set number of characters from the End of track names in a playlist
-- Or adds a prefix to each track name in a playlist.
-- Or adds a suffix to each track name in a playlist.
-- Trims take precedence over adds
-- It's best to do just one operation at a time, and set all the other variables to "" or 0 as appropriate.
--------------------------------- User settable variables
set PlaylistName to "AAA" -- Just add the tracks you want to change to a single playlist. When dione, delete the playlist.
set trimInitialchars to 0 -- nonzero value takes precedence over any addstart value
set trimFinalchars to 0
set addstart to "" -- nonempty value wil overide addend
set addend to ""
--------------------------------- End of user settable variables
set trimstart to trimInitialchars + 1
tell application "iTunes"
    activate
    set tracklst to every track of playlist PlaylistName
    set trackcount to number of items in tracklst
    repeat with n from 1 to trackcount -- Do the whole playlist:
        set oldtitle to name of track named (name of item n of tracklst)
        if trimInitialchars is greater than 0 then -- Trim stuff from front of track names
            set name of (item n of tracklst) to (characters trimstart through length of oldtitle) as text
        else if trimFinalchars is greater than 0 then -- Trim stuff from front of track names
            set name of (item n of tracklst) to (characters 1 through ((length of oldtitle) - trimFinalchars) of oldtitle) as text
        else if addstart is not "" then -- Add something to front of track names
            set name of (item n of tracklst) to (addstart & oldtitle)
        else if addend is not "" then -- Add something to end of track names
            set name of (item n of tracklst) to (oldtitle & addend)
        end if
    end repeat
end tell`


Yosemite - Make Safari tab font bold or bigger I’ve updated my system to Yosemite and now I wonder if there’s a way to increase tab font size (or make it bold).

As Yosemite user, I understand your problem. What you could try to do to improve readability is to install good old Lucida Grande font as system:
project page on Github

It worked fine for me.


Disk Utility message "Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required" Finder crashed on a external drive which caused an abrupt eject. I rand Disk Utility over the drive and the operation finished with the message:

  Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required

Its a FAT32 partition, it already existed, and it was not bootable so its not clear to me what required updating.

What does the message "Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required" mean? Or how can I determine the changes were made?

The message from Disk Utility is simply there to tell you it's checking the hidden EFI partition (if present) and updating as necessary. In your case it won't be necessary so nothing will be updated.

Disk Utility performs this extra step if you run a disk repair on a parent disk rather than on one of the partitions within that disk.


Selling my broken Macbook. How to make sure there's no personal information on the hard drive? My Mac won't turn on but I'd like to sell it for spare parts. How can I make sure there's no personal information stored on the hard drive for the buyer to retrieve?

Depending on what model it is, if it has an Optical drive then you can insert the install disc that came with the machine and boot to the disc where you can use Disk utility to erase the drive.


Cloning OS X encrypted drive I've used dd on Linux to make a block for block bootable copy of a LUKS encrypted volume which created a bootable encrypted clone. I'm trying to achieve the same on a Filevault2 volume, disk0 as internal disk. I want to write this to an identically sized partition on an external USB disk.

I made the destination partition a GUID Journaled extended HFS+ journaled to match the original volume. The dd finished but the partition is unusable, doesn't unlock, mount or boot.

I'm thinking of reformatting the partition as DOS and writing over it with dd again. Would it be safe to hope the partition will inherit the desired scheme from the source? It takes 4 hours to write 250GB and wanted to see if anyone else had done this before.

Filevault2 reconfigures the single partition on disk0, to add the recovery partition after 10.7 giving you something like this:

/dev/disk0
#:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *250.1 GB   disk0
1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         249.2 GB   disk0s2
3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
#:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD           *248.9 GB   disk1

disk1 is the encrypted data of the core storage logical volume. This is similar to what happens in LUKS on Linux.

So my hope is to get this into a partition on a shared 1 TB external drive. Any thoughts on what format to make that partition would be appreciated.

Just to rectify one thing: disk1 is not the encrypted data. Disk1 is a mounted "virtual" volume with its own disk identifier. This volume is unlocked and as such unencrypted if you are a legitimate user. It's based on inferior encrypted data structures residing in disk0s2.

To clone (and subsequently decrypt) FileVault2 volumes successfully three objects/data structures are important:

Superior LVM structures in disk0s2 (the CoreStorage Volume Group)
The Recovery HD partition. It contains some intermediate keys which are necessary to extract the final keys to unlock the FileVault2 volume.
The encrypted data itself

To clone a FileVault2 volume you may either dd the CoreStorage LVG and the Recovery HD or copy the unlocked FileVault2 volume to a second volume with rsync or Disk Utility/a disk cloner like Carbon Copy Cloner.

dd:

Open Terminal and enter diskutil list.
Enter sudo gpt -r -vv show /dev/diskX with diskX: the disk with the CoreStorage LVG containing the FileVault2 Logical Family/Volume
Now attach a second (external) disk (diskY) and replicate the GUID partition table of the source (diskX) to the target disk (size, type etc.) with gpt.
Recheck the identity of the GUID partition table of diskX and diskY
Enter:
dd if=/dev/rdiskXs1 of=/dev/rdiskYs1 to copy the EFI partition
dd if=/dev/rdiskXs2 of=/dev/rdiskYs2 to copy the CoreStorage LVG
dd if=/dev/rdiskXs3 of=/dev/rdiskYs3 to copy the Recovery HD
done

Disk Cloner

This will not create an identical disk (same intermediate/final keys etc.) but a volume containing identical data.

Boot to a Recovery HD, an installer thumb drive or a second full-blown OS X volume.
Enter the unlock key of the FileVault2 volume while booting.
Attach the external disk and create a sufficiently dimensioned normal volume with an appropriate tool.
Open Disk Utility (or Carbon Copy Cloner if use a full OS X system)
Restore the source volume (the unlocked FileVault2 volume) to the destination disk.
Reboot to the external drive.
Open System Preferences -> Security and enable FileVault.


Mac mini Problem - Won't boot after upgrading to High Sierra (Bless) I bought a used Mac mini from a reliable source. He factory reset it, so we set about upgrading to the highest we can, High Sierra. I created a bootable USB on my iMac using the High Sierra installer. Inserted it, booted from it and installed the OS.

All looked good, and we got into the OS on first load. Upon restarting, it says “MacOS could not be installed on your computer. An error occurred while loading the installer resources”
"Quit the installer to restart your computer and start again". Weird, because the installation has finished and the USB drive is no longer in there.

It also mentioned something about bless but I can't remember what.

This machine has an SSD, I THINK when it arrived there were two partitions but only one now. I have no idea about SSDs, never used one before. Does it need a separate partition for booting or something?

Totally lost, would be very grateful for some help.

If you startup with the USB drive again, try to use the Disk Utility (available pre-install) to set the Startup/Internal Drive ("blessing" it).


Can I use Airport if the network needs daily authentication? Each day, in my company, I need to manually login via a web portal:

Do a google request -> leads to nowhere
Do the same request from HTTPS to HTTP
Be redirected to the login portal
Click login, an AUTH popup shows itself
Enter credentials.
Access to the web

Can the Airport Extreme be used in that condition?
Will it ask to do the same step for the first user connecting to the Airport Extreme in the morning?

Or will we have to each day, reconfigure the airport manually?

Thanks

The Airport line of devices do not support captive portals, if that's what you're referring to. There is no way to set one up to support this. That's more an enterprise feature, and wouldn't be found in most consumer APs.


How to gift an Apple TV show to someone else (living under Windows)? Is there a way to gift an Apple TV show to someone else?
And is it possible for them to watch it under Windows?
I would like to give the series "Calls" to someone else as a present.
That person, however, lives under Windows.
I guess I could give them an iTunes gift card. (But, maybe, there is a more "dedicated" way?)
But, would it be possible for them to watch the series somehow on Windows?

Apple has documented the various ways to access TV+ on https://support.apple.com/guide/tvplus/welcome/web.

On a Windows PC (including Microsoft Surface), Chrome OS device, or Android device, you can watch Apple TV+ in the Chrome and Firefox web browsers.
Go to tv.apple.com to subscribe to and watch Apple TV+ in a web browser.


Texting from iPad to Android device Can I send a text message from my iPad (iOS7) to someone with an Android device? (Samsung Galaxy 3).

You can't do it with the native messaging system (iMessage only works only with iOS device).

But you can do it with apps like Whatsapp.


Is it possible to upgrade the ram of MacBook pro 2017 from 8GB to 16GB in India? Config:
MacBook Pro (13-inch,2017, Two Thunderbolt 3 ports)
Processor 2.3GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5
Memory 8GB 2133 Mhz LPDDR3

According to EveryMac, for this model

8 GB of RAM is onboard by default, but it could be upgraded to 16 GB at the time of purchase for US$200. RAM cannot be upgraded later.


NetRestore image fails to install, no reason given I've got a Mac Mini running the latest version of OS X Server, and two iMacs. Both iMacs are the same model (Mid 2007 20-inch, 2 Ghz Core 2 Duo). On one of the Macs I have installed 10.9.4 and installed all of our software, and I used it to make the NetRestore image on the server. I've tried the image on other (newer) Macs around and it seems to work fine, but when I try to run it on this second iMac (which is identical to the original iMac that I made the image from), it fails. Does anyone have any ideas about what might be going on or how to go about fixing it?

I ran into the same issue, and finally figured out the trouble is related to the CoreStorage partition type that is shipping with Yosemite.

To solve the NetRestore issue, first boot into a recovery mode (either the built-in recovery drive, an external USB drive, or net recovery).

Open up Terminal, and run these two commands:

diskutil cs list
diskutil cs revert A-Long-string-of-hex-values

The first command will print a tree view of the CoreStorage drive.  Of note, you should see a few long UUID strings.  Likely there would be one for "Physical Volume", "Logical Volume Family", and "Logical Volume".  It is the string after the last one ("Logical Volume" which you should copy and paste as A-Long-string-of-hex-values in the second command.

See http://awesometoast.com/yosemite-core-storage-and-partition-woes/ and The OS X Man Page for diskutil for a bit more info.  (Note that some sources may use "coreStorage" in place of "cs" in the above commands.  According to the man page, the two are equivalent)


My Macbook Pro's headphone jack is buzzing/humming I have an audio problem with my new macbook pro 2017.

If there is an audio playing my headphone jack starts to buzz (headphones unplugged). When I stop playing audio, after a short period of time, it stops humming. When I plug the headphones and start playing the audio, headphone jack is not buzzing/humming. This is super weird. It looks like macbook for some reason thinks that it has plugged headphones even when it doesn't

Does anyone know how to deal with this problem?

Ok, I have fixed this problem by reinstalling the OS.


Can I deactivate the text marker function in iBooks? Is it possible to deactivate the text marker function in iBooks? I often use the dictionary lookup, but accidentally, I activate the marker function quite often.

Unfortunately there is no option to disable the text marker function.


Disable badge for specific app with a script I know that I can turn on/off the badge from the notifcation center, but is there a way to do it with a script?

If possible I would love to do for a specific app, otherwise it will be fun to turn it off for all the apps.

So far I was able to do this:

tell application "System Preferences"
activate
set the current pane to pane id "com.apple.preference.notifications"
tell application "System Events"
   tell process "System Preferences"
        select row 2 of table 1 of scroll area 1 of window "Notifications"
        click checkbox "Badge app icon"  of group 1 of window "Notifications"
   end tell
end tell

end tell

It has only one problem:

the list must stay the same and you have to know the Index. Is there a way to access by name?

PS: i've used the very handy http://pfiddlesoft.com/uibrowser/index-downloads.html for finding out how to identify objects

The following example AppleScript code works for me under macOS High Sierra:

Note: Change "Calendar" in set appName to "Calendar" to the appropriate target app.

set appName to "Calendar"

if running of application "System Preferences" then
    quit application "System Preferences"
    delay 1
end if
tell application "System Preferences"
    set the current pane to pane id "com.apple.preference.notifications"
    delay 1
    tell application "System Events"
        tell table 1 of scroll area 1 of window 1 of application process "System Preferences"
            repeat with i from 2 to (count rows)
                if value of static text 1 of group 1 of UI element 1 of row i is appName then
                    select row i
                    exit repeat
                end if
            end repeat
        end tell
        delay 0.2
        click checkbox "Badge app icon" of group 1 of window 1 of application process "System Preferences"
    end tell
    quit
end tell

System Preferences does not need to be visible for this to work and why there is no activate command in the example AppleScript code. Additionally if System Preferences is already open, it is first closed before the rest of the code is processed. This is done for a couple of reasons, the first of which was already stated and secondly seeing the UI Events processed is a visual distraction and can be annoying.

Also note that the value of the delay commands may need to be adjusted for your system, and or additional delay commands may or may not be needed. Adjust values of and or add/remove the delay commands as appropriate.

For a version that acts on multiple applications and or all applications in Notification Center in System Preferences, see my answer to: Remove multiple app badge icons with one script?

Note: The example AppleScript code is just that and does not employ any error handling and is meant only to show one of many ways accomplish a task. The onus is always upon the User to add/use appropriate error handling as needed/wanted.


Some .apps only open via sudo /Applications/*.app/Content/MacOS/* I have a few that after install will refuse to open - no error. The first time they may appear in the Dock for a second or two; then disappear.

It may or may not be a coincidence - but both have 'storage management' in common: SeafileClient and PydioSync. Perhaps more likely to be relevant - both are also using Qt. (It is a coincidence).

If I run in terminal from /Applications/[name].app/Contents/MacOS/[script name] then in some cases I see the process exit with an uncaught exception: NSException.

I can find no similar complaint for either, and have tried a couple of versions. In other words, I'm fairly sure it's something weird with my system.

I've recently reinstalled OS X, and am on 10.11.3. The issue persists after reboot.

After a bit more digging, I've found - bizarrely - that if I launch with sudo, they work fine. Completely fine. But after closing either via the app or the attached terminal, they still won't open normally.

I didn't do anything odd to install these - two were downloaded .dmgs, and one was an Homebrew Cask. Other apps function fine.

Any idea what may have caused this, or how to fix it?

Permissions set to 755 (anyone can execute) in all cases.

Did you perchance move your user directory? If so, I suspect what's happened is that the owner/group of those applications is not the same as "you", and that's why they work under sudo and not normally.

I had this happen to me when I got my new computer. For some reason the machine refused to use the user/group ID from the old machine, and thus I wasn't part of the user/group who had access to things. I was able to fix most of this by selecting my user folder, Get(ting) Info, and then using the gizmo at the bottom to take ownership of everything inside the folder.

I also recall that there were lingering effects elsewhere, but I don't specifically recall apps being a problem. Nevertheless, I think you want to check to see if you have write access to the various /library folders, both in your own user folder and the system folders. Just try saving a text file into the one in your user folder and see what happens.


Is it possible to turn off both 3G and LTE and only use 2G on an iPhone? Tomorrow, I am leaving the US and traveling internationally.  I added Sprint's "Global Roaming" plan to my phone.  The details of the plan are as follows: "Unlimited basic data with speeds up to 2G and unlimited text in any of our Sprint Global Roaming countries at no charge with calling for just $.20/min. For a full list countries, visit sprint.com/globalroaming" (emphasis added).

My question is - how can I turn off both 3G and LTE and only use 2G on my iPhone?  As far as I can tell, the only options are to turn off LTE or to turn off data completely.

It's important for me to figure this out because I don't want my phone accessing 3G and/or LTE while I'm abroad in case it puts outrageous charges on my phone bill due to 3G and LTE not being part of the "Global Roaming" plan.

Does anybody know if what I'm asking is possible?

(In case it helps, I have an iPhone SE running iOS 10.3.1.)

Settings → Cellular Data → Cellular Data Options → Voice & Data → 2G.

Depending on your locale, Cellular Data may be called Mobile Data, as shown in the screenshots (UK). This feature is dependent on carrier support. If the feature does not exist for you, contact your carrier.


iPhone 4s is locked after updating to iOS 8 I updated my iPhone 4s to iOS 8. Now my iPhone is locked, showing the iTunes icon and power cord picture. I tried to hold down buttons but it won't unlock. How do I unlock it?

The "Tunes icon and power cord picture" means the iPhone needs to be plugged into a computer running iTunes, and that should allow the system to finish whatever it needs to finish.


Part of Apple SSD not accessible after failed bootcamp attempt A couple of months back I tried installing windows through bootcamp on my system. For reasons I couldn't understand back then (and can't remember now), it failed. And as a result the total accessible size of my SSD somehow got reduced. Recently I upgraded to Catalina and it's still the same. I haven't tried formatting the SSD though. Disk Utility shows me the following:

Can someone please give me a pointer on what might be going wrong here?

[Edit]

diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *121.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI NO NAME                 209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         91.6 GB    disk0s2
   3:                        EFI NO NAME                 104.9 MB   disk0s3
   4:         Microsoft Reserved                         16.8 MB    disk0s4
   5:                        EFI NO NAME                 104.9 MB   disk0s5
   6:                        EFI NO NAME                 104.9 MB   disk0s6
   7:                        EFI NO NAME                 104.9 MB   disk0s7
   8:                        EFI NO NAME                 104.9 MB   disk0s8

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +91.6 GB    disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD - Data     46.8 GB    disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 83.1 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                528.5 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      2.1 GB     disk1s4
   5:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            10.7 GB    disk1s5

/dev/disk2 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *129.8 GB   disk2
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk2s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh SD            129.4 GB   disk2s2

diskutil info disk0s2 | grep -e Size -e Offset
   Partition Offset:          209735680 Bytes (409640 512-Byte-Device-Blocks)
   Disk Size:                 91.6 GB (91554295808 Bytes) (exactly 178816984 512-Byte-Units)
   Device Block Size:         512 Bytes

All the partitions after disk0s2 can be returned to free space. The commands to do so are given below.

sudo diskutil eraseVolume free none disk0s8
sudo diskutil eraseVolume free none disk0s7
sudo diskutil eraseVolume free none disk0s6
sudo diskutil eraseVolume free none disk0s5
sudo diskutil eraseVolume free none disk0s4
sudo diskutil eraseVolume free none disk0s3

Next, the following command adds the free space to the APFS container in the disk0s2 partition.

sudo diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0