Lost access to admin user account in my mac book pro I changed Account name property on my mac book pro in System Preferences-> User & Groups->  Advanced Options. I attached a picture of then the window (Not my account window, now i cannot access Advanced options). After changing the property, My admin account changed to Standard account. Even thought i can log in using my login, i cannot do any admin tasks since it says my password is wrong. It was the only admin account i had. So how can i regain my admin priviledges. I highly appreciate your help.

ps: My mac book pro running on High Sierra.

You can recover the admin privileges easily by rebooting into Apple’s Setup Assistant tool. This will run before any accounts have been loaded, and will run in “root” mode, allowing you to create accounts on your Mac. Then, you can recover your admin rights via the new administrator account. After that, you can reboot into your recovered admin account and delete the interim administrator account.

Start up the Mac whilst holding down ⌘-S. After a few moments, you'll see the Mac boot to the command line.

/sbin/fsck -fy

/sbin/mount -uw /

rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone

After that, simply enter reboot and your Mac will restart and boot normally. Only this time, Setup Assistant will launch. This will run before any accounts have been loaded, and will run in “root” mode, allowing you to create accounts on your Mac.


Cannot resize APFS container after updating to Big Sur I've installed Big Sur beta 2 and tried to use Boot Camp Assistant but I got the error "disk could not be partitioned". Also tried to partition manually but "a problem occurred while resizing APFS container structures". I don't use Time Machine but there were 3 snapshots starting with com.apple.os.update- that can't be deleted. I ran First Aid and fsck_apfs and no problem was found. Any other thing to try? Thanks!

Finally found a fix! Deleting snapshots using tmutil didn't work but I deleted them with diskutil from Recovery:  diskutil apfs listSnapshots <Macintosh HD's disk id> and then diskutil apfs deleteSnapshot <disk id> -uuid <snapshot uuid from the previous command> for every snapshot. I had 3, two of them were deleted and one returned "insufficient privileges" but it doesn't matter, now everything works. Do it at your own risk, I don't know whether it will work on your Mac.


Location services not working in OS X 10.10 Yosemite On my wifi network there are two Mac (MacBook,MacBook Pro) and two iPhones (iPhone4, iPhone 5).

The MacBook Pro has been updated to OS X 10.10 Yosemite.
The MacBook cannot be updated to OS X 10.10 Yosemite.

Location Services work fine on the phones (but they have GPS in any case).

On iCloud.com "Find my iPhone" finds all the devices, and gets a location for the iPhones and MacBook, but not the MacBook Pro. "Find my iPhone" can send an alert sound to the MacBook Pro and that works.

Also on the MacBook Pro the location is not found for the Weather or for Maps or for Google Maps in Safari.

Seems to me Location Services are not working for the MacBook Pro.

I have tried turning "Find my Mac" on and off with no result.

Got around to looking at this again, with some searching on the WWW and the assistance by telephone with a 'senior' apple advisor.

What I found on the WWW was reports of com.apple.geod showing  "not responding" in Activity Monitor.
This process is needed for Location Services, so if it is crashed location services won't work.

Force Quitting the process in Activity Monitor seemed to enable Location Services, but on restarting the Mac com.apple.geod crashed again.

So (on the advice of Apple) I removed com.apple.GEO.plist from MacBook Pro HD▸ Users ▸ username ▸ Library ▸ Preferences
(from hold down option Finder>Go>Library then select Preferences - if you don't hold down option, Library is a hidden folder).
Then I restarted the Mac. This time everything seemed to work. So maybe it is just a corrupt .plist file.
I get the "Location" icon in the menubar now.


Where can I find a comprehensive and detailed technical software manual for OS X? Are there books written for OS X (particularly the most current version) like the hundreds of thousands written for Unix? I'd like to know about the command-line utilities and the locations of system settings in text files. Unfortunately, the books you see coming out of O'Rielly have phrases like "For Dummies," "Pocket Guide," and "Learning" (shudder) in their titles.

Does such literature exist? I'm particularly interested in learning which plists control which system settings, but having usage examples of OS X-specific command line utilities and a list of differences between OS X and Unix (from a technical perspective) would be even better. Being able to manage my system configuration from the Terminal would be a lot more fun than from System Preferences... at least for me!

The Missing Manual series is pretty comprehensive for the whole OS, though they don't cover shell commands deeply.

The Mac OS X Command Line: Unix Under the Hood covers more of the specifics you are looking for.

Keep in mind that there technically is no difference "between OS X and Unix." Mac OS X IS a Unix


What is the best way to install Node js on OS X? I currently have installed node and npm with the installer provided from their website. Although I have homebrew installed as well, and running brew doctor seems to complain about some files installed by the node js installer at /usr/local/include/.

Is installing node through homebrew a better way (e.g. easier to manage, less errors and warnings, etc.)?

I find the best way to install Node.js is to use nvm, which allows you to install and manage multiple versions of Node.

I use Homebrew for pretty much everything else, but Node is easier to use through nvm, since it doesn't use global folders - everything is in your home directory, and you can easily switch between Node versions.

To install (check the website for the latest version):

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.31.0/install.sh | bash

There are some specific notes about OS X on the web site, please make sure to read through those, e.g. regarding the use of the ~/.bash_profile file.

After that, the nvm function will allow you to specify which version of node to install and use. In the simplest case, you run

nvm install node

which will install the stable version of Node.js.


How can I combine text messages from my old iPhone with my new iPhone? I just bought a new iPhone 5 and used it before restoring the backup from my old iPhone 4. Now I would like to restore the backup from my old phone without loosing the text messages already on my new phone. If I back up the new phone first and then restore the backup from the old phone, will the content from the new phone be lost?

When you restore the backup from your old phone all content currently on the phone will be erased.  There is no official or user friendly way to merge iOS backup files.  The methods that do exist are very hackie and involve jailbreaking your phone first but none of them are currently compatible with iOS 6.

While there is currently no way for you to merge the two SMS files together you don't have to completely loose the messages that are already on your phone.  You can use a program such as PhoneView or iExplorer to retrieve the SMS files from your new phone before you restore the backup and store them as a text file.  I personaly use PhoneView, but both programs (as well as a slew of others which I'm sure other folks will by happy to point out) work equally well.

As a final note, if merging the the text messages from the two backups is the only way to go for you, there is a method that is not currently compatible with iOS 6 but likely will be at some point in the future.  As I said above, it's hackie and may require a jailbreak but once it's updated to work with iOS 6 will do what you're asking for.  The script is available at https://smsmerge.homedns.org.  I have not used this personally and can't vouch for it's safety, security or effectiveness but it has a pretty long standing history and a decent reputation online.


Transfer software license/registration keys to a new Mac Where does OS X store license/registration keys for apps? Is there any way these can be moved over to a new Mac?

[Context: I did a clean install upgrade from OS X Mavericks to Yosemite. I would like to transfer the license keys of specific apps from my previous installation (which was backed up using a disk cloner) to the new one.]

There are a lot methods used and places where licenses and registration keys are stored:

User specific:

~/
~/Library/Application Support/Application or domain
~/Library/Preferences

This might be plist files, invisible .domain.plist and .random.plist files or files and folders containing files with random names. Also specific 'License'-files exist.
Machine specific:

/Library/Application Support/Application or domain
/Library/Preferences

This might be domain.plist or randomly named files, invisible .domain.plist and .random.plist files or files and folders containing files with random names. Also special 'License'-files exist.
Some licenses are bound to specific properties of the host (e.g. MAC-address) and can't be moved straight to a new Mac (e.g. iPartition)
Disk specific

Some Applications use unused/unvisible parts of partitions to store registrations. Also thumb-drives are used.

Some application even require to deactivate a registration before doing a new or clean install (AFAIR a lot of Adobe apps/suites)


Entourage window resizing issue Could someone tell me how to retain the email window to the full page size eachtime I open entourage.?

When I open the new email window it opens in a small window, in then have to drag the window to use it comfortably.

I close down reataining these sizes and when I open the entourage later it always goes back to the small window!

It is driving me crazy?

It's most likely that your Entourage preferences file is corrupted in some fashion. Try this:

Close Entourage.
Navigate to ~/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.Entourage.plist.
Move the file to the Desktop.
Open Entourage, resize the window to your preferred size. Entourage will automatically make a new preferences file.
Close and open Entourage again to test that the change sticks.

If all is well, you can trash the original com.microsoft.Entourage.plist file from your Desktop.


Airport Extreme: Macbooks cannot connect to disk drive over wifi; LAN iMac can Just bought an Airport Extreme. Connected a LaCie 2To hddrive (usb 2).

I have set up the drive without issue and can indeed see it in the Finder  and browse through the files via my iMac (which connects via LAN).

But on the two macbooks over Wifi, I can see the Airport Extreme in the Finder, and connect to the internet without problem. Everything seems ok, except that the HDD does not appear.

Any idea why?

On my MacBooks over Wifi, the HDD attached to the Airport does not mount in the same way as directly connected or even NAS drives. Rather than the drive, I get the Airport Extreme in the 'Shared' section of Finder. Selecting the Airport Extreme shows the drive as a folder, and opening that folder effectively 'mounts' it. Even then, the drive does not show as a drive within Shared or Devices, yet it is accessible.


How to configure postgresql in Lion I am new in mac os. I was trying to install Postgresql. Before i did not know there is a Postgresql already available with default installation. So, I downloaded Postgresql 8.4 and installed it. I changed the configuration as the instruction.

[sudo vi /etc/sysctl.conf]

kern.sysv.shmmax=33554432
kern.sysv.shmmin=1
kern.sysv.shmmni=256
kern.sysv.shmseg=64
kern.sysv.shmall=8192

I changed kern.sysv.shmall=33554432 and saved it. Then whenever I installed the postgresql 8.4 it shows an error. Now I do not know is it already installed or not? How can I check it?
After that, I found some command and execute those. But I do not know how to fix it?

Shahjalals-MacBook-Pro:~ shahjalal$ which psql
/usr/bin/psql

Shahjalals-MacBook-Pro:~ shahjalal$ psql
dyld: Library not loaded: /usr/lib/libpq.5.dylib
  Referenced from: /usr/bin/psql
  Reason: no suitable image found.  Did find:
    /usr/lib/libpq.5.dylib: no matching architecture in universal wrapper
    /usr/lib/libpq.5.dylib: no matching architecture in universal wrapper
Trace/BPT trap: 5

Shahjalals-MacBook-Pro:~ shahjalal$
Is there any gui interface to access postgresql? If Yes then how can i access it? I have a plan to install Postgis and PgRouting package in my PostgreSQL for one of my project.

First up, what's the error you're getting, and how are you getting it? Are you trying to re-run the installer?

In answer to two, take a look at http://www.jonathandean.com/2011/08/postgresql-8-4-on-mac-os-x-10-7-lion/ who seems to have gotten it sorted.

There absolutely is a GUI for PostgreSQL, it's called pgAdmin 3 (or pgAdmin III). If you successfully installed the OS X version of PostgreSQL from their site, then you should already have it (take a peek in Launchpad). If it's not there, you can get it at http://www.pgadmin.org/ but read the downloads page carefully---it isn't well sorted and the most up-to-date version is in the middle of the list.

As EmmEff said, in future Homebrew or MacPorts might be easier (especially if you like playing around!) since you can wipe the install cleanly.


iMessage is not functioning properly I just updated to iOS9 and all hell broke loose on iMessage-every now and then, messages that I receive would pop up on the screen for a second and then disappear! I have tried restarting iMessage multiple times but the issue seems to persist. And this has been occurring only since the update. What must I do to rectify this situation?

As one potential route to take, IPSWs (firmware files) for iOS 8.4.1 are still being signed as of the time of this posting (according to ipsw.me). If you act quickly, you could try downgrading and see if the problem persists.
From an article by Realty Today:

Back up your device data and settings so you don't lose them when you downgrade. There are two ways to back up. First is via transferring them to your computer. Plug in your device to a computer, open iTunes, and click Back Up Now on the device page. The second option is via iCloud. Go to Settings, iCloud, and tap the toggle button to turn on Backup. Ensure that you have enough space for all your data. Apple provides 5GB of free storage only.

Download the iOS 8.4.1 IPWS file that corresponds to your device model.

Plug in your iPhone to your computer, open iTunes, and go to the device page. Press Option/Alt on your keyboard (for Mac OS X) or Shift key (for Windows), then at the same time click Restore iPhone.

When the explorer box popped up, select the iOS 8.4.1 IPWS file you've downloaded then click Open to start the installation process.

When iOS 8.4.1 has been installed, iTunes will prompt you to restore backup. Click Yes to have your data and settings back.


Is it possible make Preview not enhance thin lines? Some PDF renderers "enhance" thin lines, i.e. make them thick enough to be clearly visible, no matter how far one zooms out.  Other PDF renderers do not artificially thicken thin lines.

Adobe Acrobat Reader allows one to choose between these two behaviors via an item in the application preferences.

The Preview application always enhances thin lines, and does not seem to provide an option to suppress this behavior.

Is there some hidden setting on the Mac which will prevent thin lines from being enhanced? (e.g. "defaults write ... ")

Preview's preferences used to contain a setting "Smooth text and line art", but it was removed from the app (around Sierra/High Sierra, I think, but can't be sure).

The plist data key associated with the preference was PVPDFAntiAliasOption. It's possible that this key will still work. You may want to try:

defaults write -app 'Preview' PVPDFAntiAliasOption 0

and then relaunch Preview. If this doesn't work, then Apple have indeed decided to permanently hold lines at any zoom level, and you'll need to use another PDF viewer for this purpose.


Running multiple git ssh logins via Terminal I recently set up an SSH key for by Bitbucket account, which works very nicely. But I also have other git repos like Github, GitLab (non ssh at the moment) and I came to push to one of those other accounts and I think the Terminal defaulted to use my bitbucket ssh keys.

So how would I force Terminal to either let me login with a username and password when using a github repo, or let me pick which ssh keys to use, say I had setup up keys for Gitlab and Github?

There a different ways of achieving this.

you could use the same key for all your git repos.
you could use different keys and specify which one to use when logging into a remote system:

$ ssh -i ~/.ssh/bitbucket-key user@host
$ ssh -i ~/.ssh/gitlab-key user@host

  -i identity_file

  Selects a file from which the identity (private key) for public key authentication is read. The default is ~/.ssh/id_dsa,
  ~/.ssh/id_ecdsa, ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 and ~/.ssh/id_rsa. Identity files
  may also be specified on a per-host basis in the configuration file.
  It is possible to have multiple -i options (and multiple identities
  specified in configuration files). If no certificates have been
  explicitly specified by the CertificateFile directive, ssh will also
  try to load certificate information from the filename obtained by
  appending -cert.pub to identity filenames.

I would create a key pair for each git repo, then in Bitbucket you would upload the key to the Bitbucket website. Gitlab and Github work the same way.

Once you uploaded your key to your repository it is enough to git push without need to specify your key.


Ideas for securing a MacBook Air? I am in the market for a new laptop and have my eye on the new MacBook Air (13" model). It's perfect in every way, except one. Unlike the white MacBook (RIP) and MacBook Pros, the Air lacks a Kensington lock slot. I spend a great deal of time in cafes and don't like worrying about my laptop while I'm going to the restroom or standing in line to get a refill, etc.

Do you have any ideas for securing the MacBook Air for use in a public area? I haven't found other options that I find satisfactory.

I understand the Kensington cable lock isn't a perfectly secure system. (What is?) But it's been enough of a deterrent that I've never had even a concern using my current MacBook in cafes since I got it in 2006. Whereas other friends have had their unsecured, unattended laptops stolen while working in local cafes, I've never had even a hint of a problem while using the cable lock on my MacBook.

Note: Services like Prey Project are great, and I'm signed up for the service, but I'm searching in particular for a deterrent that will make it so that I don't have to ever actually call upon the service.

It is so light, I just rarely need to leave it unsupervised. I'll hand it to the staff to set behind the counter if I need to leave to feed a meter or use the facilities on the rare occasion when I don't have a shoulder bag.

They are so light and thin, it's not a hassle carrying it.

If you must, audible alarms that plug into USB ports are available, but who wants to be the guy with the alarm going off unintentionally? Not recommended.

I would bet Kensington comes out with a leash that goes around the display hinge and tightens before college starts in the fall.


Where is the "i" icon? I'm attempting to manually re-pair my watch with my phone. After reading this help article, I am suppose to tap the info icon (described as an "i"), but I cannot find it on my watch home screen. Where does this button live?

In the illustration on the Help page in Apple Support you will see a picture of the watch face.  The 'Info' Icon should be at the top right corner.

EDIT: Pairing the watch only needs to be done if a reset is needed.  If you stray too far from you iPhone or it is otherwise disconnected, it will reconnect when both are again on and in range.  Be sure to keep Bluetooth turned on your phone.  For more information, see the User's Guide.


Not able to remote desktop from my mac to windows from iphone hotspot Okay, first off - here are the components:

iPhone 6 as my Personal Hotspot
MacBook Pro which's connected to the Personal Hotspot
Windows Machine which's also connected to the Personal Hotspot

Hence, both MacBook & Windows machine should be on the same network as they're both connected to the Personal Hotspot. However, when I try using Microsoft Remote Desktop on my MacBook to connect to the Windows Machine, it says Connection Refused.

Here's my configuration on MRD if any of you were wondering:

Below is the GW settings as my Wifi Router (Personal Hotspot) seemed to be using that address:

How Do I resolve this?

I solved this. It seemed FQDN is no more a thing. I tried putting the direct IP Address to the connection & used no gateway. It worked.

However, I am a little curious to know why MRD won't recon Computer Name while being on the same Network? That's what made me click to do more research. Not able to still digest a suitable answer.

In contrary to having used the personal hotspot, I started experimenting with a local vendor ISP & were assigned a static IP. I used the Computer Name & that worked but with personal hotspot - it didn't, I had to always use the direct IP.


DVD/CD Drive no longer shows in Finder I tried to drag a DVD to  VLC app. Instead the entire DVD/CD drive just disappeared from Finder.  The drive is still there: I can play a DVD on it. But it does not show up in Locations.
Update 6 months later   I have tried two different external Cd/DVD drive's: both can play DVD/USB's but neither show up in Finder.

Note that it is enabled in the Preferences:

How can the DVD/CD drive be re-added to Finder?  I am on  Catalina with a Macbook Pro 2020.
Update Here are the Sidebar settings - showing that the External disks and CDs, DVDs, Ipods are enabled:

Another update After removing plists per the accepted answer and killing Finder (and auto restart of same) we get the external drive and CD

The first thing to try is to test the problem in a new user account. If the DVDs show up in the Finder in a new user account, then you know the problem is somewhere in the original user account's Library: a corrupt or misconfigured preference, most likely.
If the problem still persists in a new user account, then you know it is at a System level: so either a bug in the OS itself, or some weird interaction with third-party software installed in /Library, or possibly a global preference that is similarly corrupt or misconfigured.
Going back to the user-level problem: if that is the case, then you need to 'hunt the thimble': find the file that's causing the problem. You can remove large swathes of files and folder from the User Library, test, and then restore them if nothing changes, or restore half of them if it does, and so on.
Likely candidates are user/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist, and com.apple.sidebarlists.plist in the same folder. You may need to look for other potentially relevant filenames.


Is it possible to change the gray color scheme of Lion? Seems to be too much gray in Lion.  Status bar, title bar, scroll bars, links bar, tabs, everything blends into itself.

I am guessing that is part of the design. Any options to changes these?

You can make a subtle change away from gray shifting towards blue with theOS preferences. Go to Apple Menu -> System Preferences...

Then click on General in the upper left

And then select Blue under appearance


Prevent Airport Utility from Opening Automatically My computer is connected to a (non-Airport) wifi network and is working properly.

However, someone else in my building uses an Airport. Every few hours, Airport Utility opens, and shows me this other network, as if I wanted to configure it. Is there some way I can either forget this Airport device, or disable Airport Utility from automatically opening?

OS X 10.10.5, Retina Macbook Pro 13".

Open AirPort utility and then open the preferences window.

Deselect the option to monitor base stations or select the option to only monitor base stations that you have set up.


Problems executing an osascript command via cron I have a little shell script which creates a new reminder for a project. This works pretty fine and I can execute in the command line newCfSamples "my new sample" and the reminder gets created.

I now have a little R script, which figures out what samples are new and it should create a reminder for this. This script works fine as well and creates the Reminders.

Both together, so cron is starting my R script fails at the point when it is executing my little newCfSamples script with the following error message: execution error: Reminders got an error: An error of type -1743 has occurred. (-1743).

I then started my script directly with cron and this also fails. Here is the complete error message.

Subject: Cron <madejung@madejung-2> /Users/madejung/bin/newCfSamples test
X-Cron-Env: <SHELL=/bin/sh>
X-Cron-Env: <PATH=/usr/bin:/bin>
X-Cron-Env: <LOGNAME=madejung>
X-Cron-Env: <USER=madejung>
X-Cron-Env: <HOME=/Users/madejung>
Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 15:42:00 +0200 (CEST)

290:540: execution error: Reminders got an error: An error of type -1743 has occurred. (-1743)

Would be great if somebody would help me get this running.

My newCfSamples script looks like this:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
# Make a new reminder via terminal script
# args: remind <title> <date> <time>
my_date=`date "+%d/%m/%Y"`
my_time='09:00'
osascript - "$1" "${my_date}" "${my_time}" <<END
on run argv
    set stringedAll to date (item 2 of argv & " " & item 3 of argv)
    tell application "Reminders"
        make new reminder in list "CF User Sample" with properties {name:item 1 of argv, due date:stringedAll}
    end tell
end run
END

I think I found the solution. As I mentioned in the above comments, I am using the GUI LaunchControl, I started the job once by hand with the menu Job -> Start and I got a little popup if R is allowed to access Reminders. I clicked yes and now it is working.

It looks like, this popup couldn't be displayed so I could never allow it.


Where is the video my sister sent to me on iMessage? I clicked save and can't find it I have an iPhone 3GS.  I just did the software update to iOS5.  My sister took a cute video of my kid and sent it to me on iMessage.  I tried to save it to my phone so I could upload it to the computer and/or facebook, and now I can't find it.  It is not in my camera roll or in my iCloud.

So the question is....where is the file and why can't i find it?

Check in your 'Videos' app; it should be saved in there.


Get per-core CPU usage in terminal in machine-readable format I need CPU utilization for each core. I want text-based output in the terminal. htop technically contains the information I need, but the output is not suitable for my use case as I need to pipe the output to another command for parsing. Is there a way to get this information in a more machine-readable text format?

EDIT: Any well known format would be nice, e.g. CSV/TSV, JSON, XML. Or something simple would be perfectly fine, like newline-delimited lines. Just something I can easily parse. I can possibly parse the htop output, as it is text. However, that feels wrong because it's sort of "graphical" looking and I can't be sure future versions won't change the look.

There are ways to get this information from htop, but they basically involve screen scraping, as it is designed primarily for interactive use.
Instead, check out the glances command-line tool, which can do what you want.
It can be installed via homebrew:
brew install glances
Something like the following may work for you:
glances --stdout now,percpu --time 10


Suspicious App Store purchase emails I have recently bought a new iPad. I’ve had the old one stripped of all my info.

I keep getting emails from App Store stating ‘ payment receipt from Apple’ (in US dollars), different amounts every time. I haven’t bought anything, I’ve checked my bank account (there’s no change)have removed my bank details and changed my Apple password.

Could this be a scam or hack??

The best thing to do is to check your purchase history.

There are some other things that can identify the email:

Genuine emails will contain your billing address:

  Genuine purchase receipts—from purchases in the App Store, iTunes Store, iBooks Store, or Apple Music—include your current billing address, which scammers are unlikely to have.

https://support.apple.com/kb/HT201679

You should report the email to reportphishing@apple.com

  If you receive what you believe to be a phishing email that's designed to look like it’s from Apple, please send it to reportphishing@apple.com.

https://support.apple.com/kb/HT204759

Importantly don’t open any attachments just in case, change your Apple ID password like you’ve already done and report the email immediately. You can also block the email.


How to report competing app which has bypassed In-App-Purchase and started using third party payment processor I have an App that sells subscriptions to access video content (similar to Netflix). When I tried to launch with a third party payment processing tool, Apple blocked my app until I've integrated In App Purchase and completely removed the third party payment processor.
A competing app offering the same exact service, however, has launched with In App Purchase. On a later update, the competitor removed the In App Purchase option and replaced it with a third party payment processor.
The competing app, according to App Store rules, is in violation of removing In App Purchase despite selling a purely digital service.
How can I report the competing app to Apple so that they would level the playing field? The competing app to have a 30% price/cost advantage as they don't have to pay the Apple Tax.
Any answers truly appreciated <3

Apple's App Store Review Guidelines changed in September last year, specifically regarding these types of apps, known as "reader apps". It might be that your app that was rejected earlier might be approved today.
I don't think Apple has any official contact for complaining about competitors. You have no proof that they are in violation of anything, as your competitor might have a special agreement with Apple that you know nothing of.
I would try submitting your app for approval again and see if you can pass the test this time around.


iPad to control Mac Pro computer audio system Technology
Mine

MacPro macOS
11.0.1 Big Sur

My wife's

iPad Pro
iPadOS 14.2

Stereo system
MacPro has a hardwired digital connection to my stereo system's DAC.
No other available inputs (wireless or bluetooth) into the stereo system.
So, I can not send music directly from any other device to the stereo system.  The stereo has no other inputs remote or otherwise.
I use Apple's Music app.
Works perfectly.
Goal
Enable my wife's iPadPro to remotely access my Mac Pro's Music app.
So she can play music on the attached stereo system.
Note: She has a different AppleID than I do, but I could let her use mine if it would help.
Thoughts appreciated.

This is kind of half an answer as it's been so long since I actually did this that the method is a bit hazy…
Apple's iTunes Remote - https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/itunes-remote/id284417350 There's a one-off sign in procedure to authorise 'foreign' remotes.


Can photos in messages be shared to Apple mail I often receive photos in Messages that I would like to forward to others via eamil. Currently I am using a copy/paste method but frequently I get multiple copies of the photo pasted.

Any suggestions on how I can message photos by sharing/exporting directly to Apple Mail from the Messages app?

Yes, there is an easier way to do this. Since it's not clear whether you're on a Mac or iPhone/iPad, I'll provide steps for doing this on both.

From a Mac:

Within your message (i.e. in the Messages app) double-click on the photo
The photo will open in a separate window
Click on the Share icon at top right of the window
Select the Mail option from the menu
This will now open a brand new email window with the photo already attached

From an iPhone/iPad

Within your message (i.e. in the Messages app) tap on the photo
The photo will enlarge
Click on the Share icon at bottom left of screen
Select the Mail option from the menu
This will now open a brand new email window with the photo already attached


Where is the original file for the default Contacts profile picture located? I'm trying to find where this icon is located. I've looked through /Applications/Contacts.app's Assets.car file and it wasn't in there. I've also looked through /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle and it's not in there either, though the base "human" image is in there, albeit in black.

Where might it be located?

The file is located in many, many different car files. Below is one of the car's and one pdf.

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/ContactsUICore.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Assets.car
/System/Library/Frameworks/ContactsUI.framework/Versions/A/Resources/silhouette_placeholder.pdf

Inside the car files there are black silhouette pdfs. My guess is that inverts it (to white) and then adds the background.

Heres my attempt at recreating it:


Special character codes are displayed in the Terminal for diacritics when connecting to an Ubuntu Server When I connect to an Ubuntu Server (ssh) and I try to see some text in the Terminal form the remote server, I get character codes instead of the appropriate text with diacritics.

for example for a git log on the server I get:

Author: Ionic<C4><83> Biz<C4><83>u <bizauionica@...>

instead of:

Author: Ionică Bizău <bizauionica@...>

When I do git log on my local machine in the Terminal, I get the correct diacritics.

I have no idea in which category this issue falls:

Terminal
bash
ssh
Ubuntu
git

I initially asked Ubuntu for this issue but they redirected me here.

Any ideas?

The LC_ALL variable having an empty value was causing the problem.

So the solution of this problem can be found on SO here:

On mac, the LC_ALL variable is not set by default. So writing:

export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8

in your ~/.bash_profile fixes the problem. I assume that You have a default SSH config that has LC_* in the SendEnv configuration.


How to Hide and show an app via a single shortcut? I'd like to show & give focus to and hide an app using a single shortcut. The app (or apps) i like to use this way do not natively support this on their own. Is this possible on macOS (10.15 in my case)? Maybe using some 3rd party app or Automations?

I'm using this with iTerm2, it's called "Show/hide all windows with a system-wide hotkey", also, Launchbar has this feature but i'd like the same behaviour in PCalc and/or Calcbot.

This answer is a step by step explanation of what ankii proposed in a comment.

First, open Script Editor and write an Apple Script to toggle the visibility of your application. The following code should work, just change the value of appName (currently set to Finder) to be the app you want.

set appName to "Finder"

tell application "System Events"
    if visible of application process appName is true then
        set visible of application process appName to false
    else
        set visible of application process appName to true
    end if
end tell

Save this Apple Script as an application (File -> Save -> File Format -> Application). I named it Toggle Visibility, but you can call it anything.

Next, open Automator and create a new Quick Action (previously a called a service). Change the values in the drop down menu so that "Workflow receives no input in any application" is displayed at the top.

Drag Launch Application from the list of options on the left (you can use the search bar to find it) into your workflow. Set the selected application to other, and find the Apple Script you saved as an application previously.

Go to File -> Save to save your Quick Action, and give it a name.

Finally, open System Preferences and go to Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> Services, and scroll down to the General Tab. There, you should see the name of your Quick Action you just saved. Click the check box to enable it, and add a keyboard shortcut to activate it. Make sure the shortcut you added doesn't conflict with other shortcuts on your computer.


Will SSD improve iPhoto and Aperture responsiveness? I have a late 2008 Macbook with Core 2 Duo and plenty of RAM and HD space. (8GB of RAM, max for my machine)

Every time I do some work in iPhoto and Aperture, my CPU usage goes up to around 60-80% eaten up by those apps. They weren't as responsive as when I was on Snow Leopard. This started happening since I upgraded to iPhoto '11.

I'm thinking of upgrading to an SSD, would that improve my iPhoto performance? I doubt it because it seems that iPhoto is CPU, not IO, bound. Has anyone else tried this?

The details you've provided aren't very clear.
1. Has this problem started to happen after upgrading to Lion?
2. What tasks in iPhoto are causing the slow down?
3. When it is running slow, how much free RAM does the system have?

It's likely that it's slowing down because you're low on RAM


How long should Boot Camp formatting selecting drive take? I'm trying to install Windows 7 using Boot Camp Assistant. Now the boot camp is on task "Formatting the selected drive" and it has been going on three hours and it is not even on the half way. How long this task should take normally, or is this normal? Or is task frozen somehow?

The formatting should only last seconds. The behavior which you're experiencing is not normal at all.

I would cancel the installation and verify the disk.


2010 Mac Pro beachballing/freezing My machine is a 2010 Mac Pro 2 x 2.66 6-core intel xeon with 32 GBs of ram running Mac OS X 10.8.3. Just the other day it started to beach ball after about an hour of use. It doesn't make any difference what I am doing on it whether it be CPU intensive or the machine is just idling, without fail after an hour goes by it starts to beach ball and becomes totally unresponsive. I let it sit for an hour the other day but it just kept beach balling, so all I can do is hold the power button to shut it down and then restart it, but after an hour the same thing happens again. I have had this Mac Pro for about a month and a half now and everything seemed to work really well up until a couple of days ago. The computer is running a 30" and 20" apple display and it has the ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024 MB, also my hard drive is a Crucial M4 500gb SSD, I have it installed with APRICORN VEL-SOLO-X2. If anyone has any ideas what could be causing this please let me know.

I found the CULPRIT, my SSD needed a firmware update.
Crucial Offers Firmware Update For Crucial m4 SSD BSOD


Disable cellular data before using app The Cellular Data settings on my iPhone allow me to selectively switch off cellular data usage on a per-app basis. However, it seems I must consume data using that app before it shows up on the menu so I can disable it.

Is there a way to disable cellular data for new apps before those apps use any data?

Without jailbreaking, this currently isn't possible. You can provide feedback to Apple regarding this on the following page:

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

If you're jailbroken, I refer you to a fantastic answer that I received to one of my prior questions, which whilst isn't quite a duplicate per the comments above, can answer the question.

Where are cellular data preferences stored in iOS?


What is this title in the watch command? android- Running the watch command I see this title:

Every 2.0s: ls                     android-94348784d7dfd533: Mon Feb  4 08:59:54 2019

The android portion is confusing me.  I don't understand what it is referencing. I have no processes, users or devices named android

Using watch version  3.3.15

That value is the machine's hostname. The network was assigning this hostname to the machine.


Is there a way to view history in the iOS twitter app? I read an interesting article in the iOS twitter app about a week ago. I forgot to star or retweet it and now I have no idea how to find it. Is there some way to view a web history in the Twitter app?

I posted a related question on programmers trying to find specific article, but it got closed :/

No. There isn't a way to view the history.


2009 wireless keyboard giving serious lag on macbook pro I've got a 2009 wireless keyboard connecting to a 2012 Macbook Pro running El Capitan, and it's giving me serious lags; occasionally sticking; sometimes just disconnecting.

Things I've tried thus far include

resetting PRAM
resetting the bluetooth keyboard
running it in safe mode

and nothing seems to solve the problem. Any thoughts on this? Am I doomed? What's the next troubleshooting step?

Thanks!

Without being cheeky, it could just be a sign of age. The keyboard itself is 9 years old and the MBP is 6 years old.

You did well to get so long out of the keyboard, but I wouldn't be too sure what specifically could be wrong with it or if it would be worth fixing.

I wouldn't rule out a hardware problem caused by 9 years of usage.


iTunes 12: How Do I Fix a Problem with a Podcast That iTunes Quit Downloading Episodes For? iTunes quit downloading episodes for one of my subscribed podcasts. The episodes are listed in the iTunes Store but they no longer download. I tried deleting the podcast and resubscribing but it quits at the same spot.

Is there a way for me to reset iTunes or the podcast to get this working? It's working for other subscribers but not for me. The same happens in the Podcasts app for iPhone.

Based on our troubleshooting in the Comments, the problem appears to be from the podcast provider's side.

Using two different podcast players in iOS, the last available episode for download was several weeks ago.  The latest version is not yet available.

By going directly to the podcast owner's site, the episode is playable directly from there.  It will not download to the podcast player, however. The OP will contact the podcast creator for further assistance.


Command line (or other way) to change proxy config in easy way At the company I work at we use the proxies to connect to the Internet. This works fine until I have to do XCode simulator work(in UIWebView, not Safari browser), at which time I have to turn off all the proxies.

But if I do this, I can't connect to the Internet in my mac book. So, I have to change it frequently. It is so boring.

I have to frequently access this System Preference to change these settings:

So, there are any easy way to change it with a keyboard shortcut? Can I create a command line script and start it with a keyboard shortcut? Is there a way to make the XCode simulator work with a proxy? Any ideas?

No need to create a script:

Create a proxyless network environment: in the Network pane of System Preferences, click on the “Profile” drop down and select “Manage Profiles…”. Duplicate your standard settings (by clicking on the cog wheel button at the bottom of the list). Give the duplicated profile a unique name (“Proxyless”, say). Disable all proxies in the settings for that profile.
Assign a keyboard shortcut to your new profile: in the Keyboard pane of System Preferences, create a new Application shortcut for “All Applications”. Name it like your profile (i.e. “Proxyless”), add the shortcut.

The shortcut will be activated once your switch applications at least once (it won’t be active while you are still in System Preferences).


Create globally available volume control for iTunes I'd like to change the volume on iTunes from the keyboard at anytime, regardless what app is currently being used.

I understand there are the keys at the top dedicated for system volume (this won't work for me) and that there are shortcuts within iTunes.  I'd like something similar that is globally available, whether or not iTunes is my current app.

Details on why I want this:

I use an external audio interface/driver/card that disables system volume control for the keyboard buttons, and is instead controlled by a hardware device.  This controls all volume, and I usually have two or three sound sources going - I'd like to have a dedicated control for iTunes... mapped to the system volume buttons would be the best, but any keys will work.

The best resource for anything like this is Doug's AppleScripts, in this case possibly the collection by Wally - Wally's Scripts v1.0

There is also a simple tutorial on how to make your own - Setting iTunes EQ and Volume with AppleScript

The only extra thing you need is to make these using Automator, as a Service, then use System Prefs > Shortcuts > Services to assign them global hotkeys [making sure to avoid other used key commands]


Disk Space - Mac Book Pro Disk Utility Info Shows:

Volume capacity : 250,790,436,864
Available space (Purgeable + Free) : 18,254,333,896
Purgeable space : 1,570,408,392
Free space : 16,683,925,504
Used space : 230,210,576,384

Df -h Shows:

Filesystem      Size   Used  Avail Capacity iused               ifree %iused  Mounted on
/dev/disk1s1   234Gi  214Gi   16Gi    94% 2372846 9223372036852402961    0%   /
devfs          189Ki  189Ki    0Bi   100%     653                   0  100%   /dev
/dev/disk1s4   234Gi  3.0Gi   16Gi    17%       3 9223372036854775804    0%   /private/var/vm
map -hosts       0Bi    0Bi    0Bi   100%       0                   0  100%   /net
map auto_home    0Bi    0Bi    0Bi   100%       0                   0  100%   /home

was is /private/var/vm on a 234gb partition? Does that mean this laptop has dual SSD drives?

And lastly, if I start putting files on that partition - will they keep or be erased and the path recreated on a reboot or power off/on??

The /private/var/vm is the macOS virtual memory. It's a special type of file, which is mapped on your Macbook's 234 Gb (formatted capacity) SSD. In short, virtual memory is used when your RAM is full of apps and portions of it is "swapped" to the SSD.
So, your Macbook Pro has only one SSD drive.

If you have Homebrew installed, you can install ncdu with this command in Terminal:

brew install ncdu

and then you can use it in the terminal with:

ncdu

to see where your Macbook's disk space went.

You can see additional options by pressing ? while running ncdu.


How to install apache24 and php55 from macports? I need apache24 because of some features what introduced in 2.3. And (unfortunately) need php too.

So decided to install the next ports:

apache24-devel
php55
and php55-apache2handler

For some reason the php55-apache2handler builds apache22. Is it possible to have an apache24 variant?

What are the steps to installing apache24 with php? I need compile everything compiled manually from sources.

As an alternative should I migrate to "homebrew"? Is here some macports based solution?

ps: using 10.9

That's a bug in the php55-apache2handler port: http://trac.macports.org/ticket/41478


Is it possible to configure Finder to report hard-links size only once? I've created multiple hard-links to a file in a folder to illustrate the issue.
~/Test $ ln original.pdf link1.pdf
~/Test $ ln original.pdf link2.pdf
~/Test $ ls -li
403963 .rw-r--r--@ 3 80k username 2017-11-29 20:17 original.pdf
403963 .rw-r--r--@ 3 80k username 2017-11-29 20:17 link1.pdf
403963 .rw-r--r--@ 3 80k username 2017-11-29 20:17 link2.pdf

You can see above they all have the same inode: 403963.
The du utility reports the total size of the folder as the size of the actual data pointed at by those links.
~/Test $ du -sh .
 80K  .

But Finder's adds up each of the link's size (plus something else) when reporting the folder size in the "Get Info" window. If you're wondering why it says "4 items", I guess it's because it also counts the folder itself. There are definitely only those three files in the "Test" folder.

Is there any option to configure Finder to count multiple hard links to the same inode only once?

The short answer is there is no option to configure Finder to count multiple hard links to the same inode only once. The Finder reports the sum of the current sizes of all files and folders contained within a folder. Extra storage required for versioning is not included and saving in storage though the use of copy-on-write or multiple hard links to the same file is not reported.
A longer Explanation of How APFS Allocates Storage
The size value displayed in OP's image is the sum of the sizes of the files in the folder. The OP wants this to be the space occupied by the files in the folder. This is what the OP thinks du -sh . command does, but this would be incorrect. Under APFS there is copy-on-write. The du -sh . command does not take this in account and thus can report an incorrect value.
Below is an example.
The commands below create a 60 MB file named original in a folder name test on a 100 MB APFS volume named question.
hdiutil create -size 100M -type UDIF -fs APFS -volname question ~/Desktop/question.dmg
hdiutil attach ~/Desktop/question.dmg
mkdir /Volumes/question/test
cd /Volumes/question/test
dd if=/dev/zero of=original bs=60000000 count=1

Below is an image from Get Info of the test folder and question volume. The test folder uses 60 MB and the question volume uses a slightly larger amount do to other smaller files and folders.

The output from the commands ls -li and du -sh . are given below. Here, the du -sh . command outputs 57 MiB with agrees with the 60 MB size of the original file. (57 MiB = 60 MB)
$ ls -li
total 117192
19 -rw-r--r--  1 davidanderson  staff  60000000 Jan  1 19:32 original
$ du -sh .
 57M    .

Next, the command show below was entered, which uses copy-on-write to make a copy of the original.
cp -c original copy

The image below shows the test folder has doubled in size. This is the sum of the sizes of the files original and copy. The volume question has not changed in size.

The output from the commands ls -li and du -sh . are given below. Here, the du -sh . command outputs the sum of the sizes output by the command ls -li. (114 MiB = 120 MB)
$ ls -li
total 234384
21 -rw-r--r--  1 davidanderson  staff  60000000 Jan  1 19:32 copy
19 -rw-r--r--  1 davidanderson  staff  60000000 Jan  1 19:32 original
$ du -sh .
114M    .

Next, the command show below was entered, which created a new hard link named link to the original file.
ln original link

Below is an image from Get Info of the test folder and question volume. Again, the used space in the question volume has not changed. The size of the test folder has tripled from the original size of 60 MB.

The output from the commands ls -li and du -sh . are given below.

The value output from the du -sh . command is neither the space occupied by the files nor is the value the sum of the file sizes.

$ ls -li
total 351576
21 -rw-r--r--  1 davidanderson  staff  60000000 Jan  1 19:32 copy
19 -rw-r--r--  2 davidanderson  staff  60000000 Jan  1 19:32 link
19 -rw-r--r--  2 davidanderson  staff  60000000 Jan  1 19:32 original
$ du -sh .
114M    .

Therefore, there would be no reason for an option to configure Finder to count multiple hard links to the same inode only once. In other words, there is no reason to create an option replicate a value with may not represent a meaningful value. The OP wants Get Info on folder to present the space used by the files in the folder. This would be a difficult (and therefore time consuming) value to determine. For example, the following command was entered to overwrite the first 30 MB of the original file.
dd if=/dev/zero bs=30000000 count=1 of=original conv=notrunc

The image below shows the test folder size is unchanged. However, the volume question used space has increased by approximately 30 MB.

The output from the commands ls -li and du -sh . are given below. The original and link files still have the same inode number, but now do to copy-on-write only the last 30 MB of these files is shared with the last 30 MB of the copy file. So, while the file sizes have not changed, 30 MB of disk space needed to be allocated to hold the 30 MB of zeroes written out by the dd if=/dev/zero bs=30000000 count=1 of=original conv=notrunc command. Again the ls -li command does not show any change.
$ ls -li
total 351576
21 -rw-r--r--  1 davidanderson  staff  60000000 Jan  1 19:32 copy
19 -rw-r--r--  2 davidanderson  staff  60000000 Jan  2 02:00 link
19 -rw-r--r--  2 davidanderson  staff  60000000 Jan  2 02:00 original
$ du -sh .
114M    .

Determining the amount of space used by a folder is more complicated than just looking at the file size and ignoring a size when a duplicate inode number is found. The Get Info for a volume can do this by simply subtracting the free space from the total space to get the used space. The Get Info for a folder would have to make sure a block or sequence of blocks are not be counted more than once. IMO, macOS does not do this because doing so would be to time consuming. To be fair, I could be wrong about this. For example, WGroleau has expressed essentially the opposite view.


Can't update/ download apps without a card I have a debit card and I've used it to buy items on the App Store. Now it's not accepting the debit card anymore and demands a new card to buy/update apps.

Debit cards are no longer accepted in the iTunes Store, it seems.

The available payment methods vary by country. You can typically use these methods:

Credit cards
Content codes
Store credit, including iTunes Store Gift Cards, Gift Certificates, and Allowances
ClickandBuy
PayEase
PayPal
UnionPay (requires SMS PIN for setup)

So if you can use PayPal as payment type in the iTunes store. Open a PayPal account, hook up your debit card. And you up and running again.

Source: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202631


Key combination to enable two-finger scrolling with mouse I am currently using a trackball and I am not satisfied with the scroll wheel. I wonder if there is a key combination to enable "free roaming, scrolling" mode, which locks the mouse and scrolls the screen according to the mouse motion, just like two-finger scrolling in trackpads. So that I will map the extra key on the trackball with that combination and scroll around with the ball while pressing that button.

Okay I actually found it. I installed Keyremap4Macbook and mapped CursorMove to ScrollWheel.


I've upgraded my iPhone 4S to iOS8 and now the GPS is always on I have determined that its Google Maps that is causing the GPS to be always on. Is there a way to select an option so that Google Maps only uses the GPS when the app is being used? The only options I see in Privacy > Location Services for Google Maps are "Always" or "Never".

In the meantime I've reverted to Apple Maps and deleted Google Maps to save my battery.

Did you try updating your app? In my version, it has "Never" and "While using the app" options under location settings.


Jailbreak and iOS 'hardware encrypted' data My understanding of reading apple security document below
http://images.apple.com/ipad/business/pdf/iPad_Security_Overview.pdf

is that using iphone4s or ipad3,

and setting a complex passcode,

the data on the iPhone/ipad is encrypted when iphone/ipad is locked.

If iPhone/ipad is jailbroken, does it mean the original data is lost ?

There are two partitions on all iOS devices. One is for the system, other is for the data. Jailbreaking only affects the System partition. So jailbreaking doesn’t affect your data.


Enabling The Emoji Keyboard in iOS 7? Emoji emoticons can be be an enhancing feature of a text-based conversation. Whilst having an android smartphone  it’s rather easy to add third-party emoji packs (due to the open source nature of android). iOS i believe is a more "closed" OS, things are not that easy (so i'm lead to believe).

However is there a hidden emoji feature within iOS 7 (without the need to jailbreak) that I can unleash on an iPhone 5/5S ?

Open the Settings app.
Tap on General.
Tap on International.
Tap on Keyboard.
Tap on Add New Keyboard.
Tap on Emoji.

To switch to it on the keyboard, tap the globe icon between 123 and the microphone icon.

I'd say that's easier than downloading a third-party anything on Android.  Plus it was included already 2 years ago with iOS 5.


Is there a way to replace Finder altogether? It seems that a rather large group of Mac users considers Finder to be a product that contains a number of conceptual failures and oversimplifications.

It is however not clear whether Finder can be completely replaced with other application.

Is it possible to remove it from the OS, including thing like file open dialogs etc?

There's an Apple-documented general overview of the technologies that specifically support kiosk on OS X —

Technical Note TN2062: Creating Kiosks

— with a section Replacing the Finder.

  … Is it possible to remove it from the OS,

I recommend not attempting to remove Finder.

  including thing like file open dialogs etc? …

Of possible interest, in Apple Support Communities:

preferring to not show the sidebar in expanded save dialogues


Avoid involuntary data pushing to iCloud during updates I run iCloud on iOS/macOS with only "Contacts" (and iMessage) enabled, because I don't want other data copied out of my device.

However, it seems that every time I upgrade iOS/macOS (and possibly when logging out/in of iCloud), that all other iCloud settings are forcibly enabled without my consent.

And you don't notice this until the device is up and running again, and then probably a lot of data has already been copied to iCloud before you manage to turn it off.

How can I make sure no data is copied to iCloud except what I have expressly chosen myself? Will it suffice to disable Wi-Fi before updates, since (I think) iCloud doesn't sync over Cellular Data.

Please provide step-by-step instructions for both iOS and macOS that are watertight.

This is a bug that affected the update to iOS 10.3. Apple has resolved this issue with iOS 10.3.1.

See also Apple Warns iCloud Users Some Disabled Services Were Accidentally Re-enabled in iOS 10.3

iCloud sync settings are not supposed to change after an iOS update. In the case of iOS 10.3 this was due to a bug.

To answer your question: You don't need to change any settings to prevent iOS to enable any iCloud sync settings with 10.3.1 and higher. Older iOS releases (10.2.1 and 10.3) can not be updated to any more.


Recover Picasa people/face data I had thousands of photos tagges with face info for family in Picasa (on Mac).

I thought this info was stored online.

Now I switched computers, and all the face info is gone. I'd hate to have to 'retrain' Picasa.

Is there any way to recover/restore this training?

I have a backup of old computer -- is it stored there somewhere?

From Picasa Resources

By default, Picasa stores the face tags in the (hidden) .picasa.ini files in the folder where the picture is located on your hard disk.
But... it is a lot safer that you let Picasa store the face tag information inside .jpg files:
start Picasa, go to "Tools"/"Options" in the menu. On the Name Tags tab, put a check mark by the Store name tags in photo option. When you have this option checked, any new faces that you tag will be stored inside the photo in the standard XMP Metadata section. This does not affect existing face tags.
Setting the previous option only takes care that all future name tags are added into the XMP metadata section. To have all existing face tags saved in the .jpg, go to "Tools"/"Experimental..."/"Write faces to XMP..." and choose "Write faces".  The Write Faces process will take some time, because it has to write all the face tags to all the photos in your photo collection, so take a break and let it do it's work.

In light of this - I would recommend finding the hidden files on your previous backup, and replacing them on your machine, or adding them if they don't exist. From there, you can follow the instructions above to write the data into the images themselves.


Is there a way to find out how many of each iPhone model is currently in use? I want to know how many users there currently are for each iPhone model and in which countries each one is used.

For instance-

World users for:

iPhone 8 = 411,912,030

iPhone X = 1,120,498,232

iPhone XR = 790,875,338

iPhone 11 = 429,938,274

iPhone 11Pro = 317,483,584

UK users for:

iPhone 8 = 1,912,030

iPhone X = 6,498,232

iPhone XR = 7,875,338

iPhone 11 = 9,938,274

iPhone 11Pro = 3,483,584

USA users for:

iPhone 8 = 13,912,030

iPhone X = 29,498,232

iPhone XR = 37,875,338

iPhone 11 = 49,938,274

iPhone 11Pro = 33,483,584

Australia users for:

iPhone 8 = 912,030

iPhone X = 1,498,232

iPhone XR = 2,875,338

iPhone 11 = 3,938,274

iPhone 11Pro = 4,483,584

Is there a way to find this information out?

Obviously I would like the data to update every now and then.

There is no publicly available data for this information. Apple doesn't (and is not obliged to) make this data public.

If you are an iOS app developer, you can integrate with one of the many analytics solutions available that can give you a limited idea about similar metrics, (but for users of your app).

You can also consider looking at a similar trend report from Mixpanel, one of the leading players in the business. This should help you get an idea about similar if not exact data that you are looking for.

The kind of data you are looking for is not something that's generally made available publicly, even if Apple, or some 3rd party company has access to it.

P.S.: No affiliation whatsoever with Mixpanel.


Browsing left (up) in column view with no horizontal scroll bar? Sometimes in an "Open" or "Save" dialog you want to go one directory up. It is in column view, but there simply is no column to the left and no horizontal scroll bar. Is there a way to go up one directory without browsing completely down again from the root directory?


Droid base and iPhone cable for charging? I just got an iPhone 5c.  I had a Droid.  I have several Droid charging cables.  The Lightening charging cable I got with my iPhone detaches on the other end to a USB port.  The Droid charging "bases"/wall outlets have USB ports.  Can I recharge my iPhone 5 by plugging the Apple Lightning cable into a Droid base?

In most cases yes you can.

But if the charger is too weak (less than 1 amps), it will charge your iPhone more slowly than the original charger.


How to stop macOS updates from taking over the rEFInd boot manager? I have rEFInd installed on the EFI partition of my 2015 MacBook Air. Every time I update macOS, it ends up taking over the bootloader and resetting it to using the macOS operating system. Afterwards, if I hold the option key while booting up my mac, there is no boot option for rEFInd that I can select. The only way I can bring rEFInd back is to boot up into recovery mode, manually mount my system partition with Disk Utility (as it is encrypted using FileVault), then open Terminal and reinstall rEFInd. It's quite a hassle.

Is there any better way to handle macOS updates?

I have read the section of the rEFInd manual named "Recovering from a Coup Using MacOS" but I didn't find any information in there that was pertinent to my situation. Note that I cannot disable System Integrity Protection (which one of the solutions there requires) as I need to keep it enabled for the software development I do on this system.

Below is the output from the command diskutil list disk0.

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *121.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         121.1 GB   disk0s2

I have Windows, Linux, and macOS 10.15 beta installed to an external drive, so my MacBook's internal drive just has macOS.

By default, rEFInd is installed in the EFI partition. Another option is to install rEFInd in a new small "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" volume. This will allow rEFInd to appear in the Startup Manager.

Below are the steps. The commands need to be entered into a Terminal application window.

Create the new volume. The diskutil command, shrinks the APFS container (121100M, i.e. 121.1 GB) by 300 MB (120800M) and creates the new 300 MB "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" volume labeled "Macintosh HD via rEFInd".

sudo diskutil ap resizeContainer disk1 120800M JHFS+ "rEFInd" 0

After the command completes, restart the Mac.

  Note:  If you get an error message which includes the phrase "perhaps caused by APFS Snapshot usage by Time Machine", then see Neil's own answer to the question: Can't resize APFS Container: Not enough free space in Container due to APFS limits or tidemarks.

Download the rEFInd Boot Manager software from this SourceForge web site. Enter the following commands to install the software to the "Macintosh HD via rEFInd" volume.

cd ~/Downloads/refind-bin-0.11.4
./refind-install --ownhfs /dev/disk0s3

  Note: The error message Could not set boot device property: 0xe00002bc was expected and can be ignored.

(Optional) Use the command below to navigate to the folder containing the refind.conf file.

cd "/Volumes/rEFInd/System/Library/CoreServices"

Add write permissions to the CoreServices folder and the refind.conf file.

sudo  chmod  a+w  .  refind.conf

Restart the Mac and immediately hold down the option key until the Startup Manager icons appears. Next, hold down the control key and select to boot from the rEFInd volume.


Prevent Safari from opening minimized window When I’m doing research for a project I’ll have one window with lots of tabs. When I’m doing other work, I like to minimize that window to save it for later.
What bothers me mightily is that I now have to always keep another Safari window non-minimized so that the minimized window(s) won’t suddenly be maximised again when clicking a link in another application or wanting a new Safari window by clicking the app icon. I want that minimized project window to always stay minimized unless I actively bring it forward.
Is there a way that Safari can treat that minimized window as “locked” in the dock? That it won’t be maximized when I click a link in another application or click the Safari dock icon?
I like this way of working with multiple windows, but I hate the fact that I can’t really close the active non-minimized window I’m now working in because it will make the minimized window reappear at some point.

One way is to use built-in way to open new window while clicking on link. ⌘ + , to open Safari preferences > Tabs and one can see following options:

So ⌘ + ⌥ + click will open link in new window and makes it active. By adding ⇧ will not make new window active.
Also - what action you call minimizing? Because I can't reproduce any sudden window opening if window is minimized (⌘ + M)


Numbers - Conditional Sum How should I write the conditional SUMIF if I want to SUM values in column C where column B is IP?

Ok, so it's something like this

SUMIF(B2:B37,"=IP",C2:C37)

Where B is the text column to test,=IP is the test condition, C are the values to sum.


Cannot install rvictl to capture network I'm trying to route my iphone traffic through my mac to view it with wireshark. However rvictl is not on my machine. I have:

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015)
El Capitan 10.11.6
XCode 7.3.1
XCode command line tools for XCode 7.3.1 (installed separately)

However rvictl is no where on my machine. Any idea how to get it?

I had to do this:

sudo /usr/sbin/installer -pkg /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Resources/Packages/MobileDeviceDevelopment.pkg -target /


Screen share between OS X and iOS Anyone knows any application that will allow me to share my OS X Lion screen with an iPhone? I don't care to have it over the Internet, WiFi is sufficient.

I've been using Remoter VNC for a while now and I'm quite happy with the result. Their website covers most of it's features, so I suggest you take a look and find out yourself if it fits your needs.


Data Recovery for Accidentally Erased Hard Drive I accidentally erased my hard drive in my 2010 MacBook Pro that had all of my information, photos, contacts, you name it... is there any way I can recover my data that was on my MacBook before I erased anything? I'm in desperate need of help to recover all my files.

There is a product called DiskDrill that I have used with good success.  You can use the product for free to see what it can find.  To actually recover your files, you will need to purchase a license.

The key to a successful recovery is to immediately stop modifying the drive.  You either need to get a new drive and connect your original drive via USB, or boot from external (USB) drive and run the recovery utility.  The more you modify your drive, the less chance of recovery.

My suggestion is now is a good time to get a new SSD and convert that older drive into an external USB so you can create an image (through DiskDrill) of the drive for recovery and then when you are done, set it up as a time machine back up.  A USB to SATA adapter can be had for less than $15 so this is a very cheap option.


How do I get two status-bar clocks with different timezones? I'd like to have one clock in my status bar set to the same timezone as my servers.  I've found three applications that will allow me to add another clock:

Day-O
MenuCalendarClock
iClock

but they all use the system time (which I'd like to keep as-is).  Are there any applications that allow timezone-munging inside the app, or will I need to write this myself?

Status clock is free, and available from the mac app store:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/status-clock/id552792489?mt=12

Worth a look too: https://github.com/palaniraja/mclock

Note: Loversclock, mentioned in another post, didn't download.


Disable a specific app from ever bouncing in dock I want to stop Filezilla from ever bouncing in my dock.  It just keeps bouncing and bouncing and derails from my work.

Is it possible to stop one app from bouncing?

It's all or nothing with the Dock. You have two options: disable bouncing for anything and everything by entering defaults write com.apple.dock no-bouncing -bool TRUE; killall Dock into a Terminal window, or modify & recompile Filezilla, which is not something anyone would want to do I guess. (A third option would be to get a new FTP client. Honestly, Cyberduck is really good.)


Mac Fuse doesn't work I have installed macfuse and fuse-ext2 multiple times and yet they don't seem to work. I want to be able to mount and edit a Raspberry Pi image file (NTFS) on an SD card. Unfortunately nothing appears of the image file in Finder. What am I doing wrong? One more thing: there's a file that should be edited to be able to write files on the target image. Every tutotiral mentions it yet it cannot be found :

System/Library/Filesystems/fuse-ext2.fs/fuse-ext2.util

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

What version of MacFUSE have you installed? MacFUSE is no longer maintained and has been replaced by Fuse for macOS.

The latest version is 3.5.4 and it's compatible with Mac OS X 10.5 and above and works on both PowerPC and Intel Macs.

If you require MacFUSE for your system, then there is a MacFuse google group that may be helpful, although I'm not sure how current it is since the onset of Fuse for macOS.


Smooth scrolling not working with Magic Mouse and macOS Catalina 10.15.3 Recently, smooth scrolling has stopped working on my MacBook Pro when scrolling with the Magic Mouse. Using the internal trackpad works fine and smooth scrolling behaves correctly.

I initially noticed this behavior in Chrome but it appears to affect all apps, including native ones like Pages or Safari.

I fixed this by deleting the mouse from Bluetooth settings, and then pairing it again using a lightning cable.


Add a word count feature that determines pay (for freelancer paid per word) I am a freelance writer and I frequently use Pages to draft my articles. I appreciate having the word count on the bottom of the document because I am often paid by the word. Periodically, I'll see how many words I've written, break out my calculator, and see how much money I've made for a bit of motivation.

However, I think it'd be really nice to have a little box next to word count that said how much money I've made so far. The function would get the current word count, I would pass it the constant of 'rate of pay per word,' and it would calculate how much I've made as I type.

I want to set the rate of pay per word in a drop-down or something and have the "money made" display next to the word count box.

I have some programming experience but I've never used Applescript or Automator. Can someone get me started with this? Thanks!

Update: I originally had this using a Table. But have now changed it to a Text Object.

Here is you start then.

Save this Applescript as a Stay Open Application.

on idle
    tell application "Pages"
        set ActualCount to count words of body text of document 1

        set calculation to ActualCount * 0.02

        set object text of text item 1 of document 1 to (ActualCount & " words  = £" & calculation as string)

    end tell
    return 5 -- runs every n# seconds

end idle

Now in your document add a Text Object.

In the Text Object Arrange tab in the Format inspector.

Set the Object Placement to Move with text.

And *Text Wrap to Above and Below

This will save the need to manually move the Text Object down the document as you go.

Now run the App. Start typing.

The one thing you will notice is that the real word count sees the word in the table. 329 That is why I have included the word count in the text objects results.  326 words  = £6.5


Best approach for: Dual boot Mac OS and Win 10 And shared files volume I've got a somewhat older macbook pro (mid 2014) and it starts lagging. And since I'm working professionally on it I'm thinking of buying a new macbook or Win laptop. But since I never had a clean install I first want to try a few things.

Clean up internals, new cooling paste and clean OS install. But since I'm also thinking of switching from Mac to Windows I also want a dual boot of Win10. So I can try working with Windows for a month. Since I will be switching between operating systems I want to have an additional volume for all my work files.

But I'm not sure how to partition the 1tb ssd.

What partitions would I need and what type
Would there be performance issues working on a volume type that one of both don't prefer?

I'm thinking of, first make 3 volumes, install Mac OS, then on create a boot camp with Boot Camp Assistant.

Any help would be welcome

Steps to do a clean install of macOS and Windows

To do a clean install of the current versions of macOS and Windows, preform the following steps.

Boot to a macOS installation media. For example, this could be a Mojave recover volume, internet recovery or a installation flash drive.
Use the Disk Utility to erase the drive and create a single APFS volume.
Install Mojave to this volume.
Use the Boot Camp Assistant to install Windows 10. Include space for the MS-DOS (FAT) or ExFAT volume to be shared.

Steps to create a shared volume

  This is to be done after installing macOS and Windows.

To create a MS-DOS (FAT) or ExFAT volume to be shared, preform the following steps.

Under Windows 10, open Disk Management. Highlight the BOOTCAMP volume and select Shrink Volume…, as shown below.

Select the desired size, as shown below. Next, select the Shrink button,

Highlight the unallocated space and select New Simple Volume…, as shown below.

When the image shown below appears, select the Next button.

When a image similar to the image shown below appears, select the Next button.

In desired select a different drive letter, then select the Next button.

Select FAT32 and enter a volume label, as shown below. When finished select the Next button.

When a image similar to the image shown below appears, select the Finish button.

The result is shown below.

If you wanted ExFAT format, then restart back to macOS. Use the Disk Utility to erase the volume. Enter a name and ExFAT format, as shown below. When finished, select the Erase button.

Note about the Golden Rule

There is a Golden Rule which can be loosely stated as:

  Never change the partitioning on a Mac from Windows.

In this case, the Golden Rule does not apply for the following reasons.

There no Mac OS Extended volumes on the drive.
Windows is installed to UEFI boot.


Preview does not save PDF form data I downloaded the 2012 IRS 1040 form to my Mac to ~Downloads/f1040.pdf, running OS X 10.7.5. Upon opening the pdf file in Preview (Version 5.5.3 (719.31)), I see fillable form data

I proceed to fill in more data, and eventually File -> Save a Version

Next I close the file, only to re-open it later and find all my entered data is missing. The IRS claims these forms are fill-in enabled:

  Beginning October 25, 2004, new fill-in forms were enabled with
  "document rights" which will allow you to save what you have filled in
  on your PC. Version 8.16 or later of Adobe Reader is required.

And inspecting the security of the PDF confirms this

Though, they also say Adobe Reader is required. My question is: what am I doing wrong? I expected saving a version to retain the filled in form information. A possible workaround would be File -> Export every time I want to save something, but this seems counterintuitive.

I've run into this with some forms, it's not always clear why (although in your case the DRM seems the likely culprit). The workaround for me has always been filling it out as normal, then using the print to PDF functionality (File → Print → PDF → Save as PDF). Certainly not the easiest, and it means you can't re-edit in some situations. But it's still better than dealing with Acrobat.

Alternatively, you could buy PDFPen, which is a pretty fool-proof way of dealing with any PDF form you can find.


Are these two optical drives interchangeable? I have two laptops:

MacBook 2,1
MacBook Pro 5,3

As the optical drive of the MBP has issues, I would like to use the optical drive from the MB.
The MB optical drive has an ATA interface, while the MBP drive uses SATA. Googling I find that these interfaces are not interchangeable.
However, both use the ATAPI protocol, so this made me doubt my earlier conclusion.

This is the information of the MB optical drive:

This is the information of the MBP optical drive:

Will I be able to swap-out the UJ-868 (MBP) drive with the GSA-S10N (MB) drive?

They are not interchangeable.

ATA is also referred to as PATA (Parallel ATtachment or IDE). SATA is is Serial ATA or Serial Attachment.  ATAPI (ATA Packet Interface) is just the drive communication protocol used to "talk" to the drives.

Using the "larger" drives as a visual reference since the micro connectors' size in a laptop can be deceiving, we can see the huge difference between a PATA connector and the SATA connector.

Even though they use the same protocol, the two are completely different.  A protocol is how devices communicate (what runs over the cable).

Let's use a more common interface, electricity, as an analogy.  Even though the exact same thing (electric current) runs through these devices, they are no way "compatible."  The first picture is a US 220V appliance outlet and the second is a common PC electrical plug.  If you were to get one connected to the other, it most definitely wouldn't work (ever again).


When I delete "Watch Me Do" from Automator, does it get deleted forever? Is Automator's "Watch Me Do" action permanently deleted when it is removed from the action sequence?

If you are referring to the changes you made being deleted (i.e., the stuff it watched you do), I expect it is permanently deleted.

The action itself (in the source list) oughtn't ever be deleted.


Charging an iPhone 4S with a Samsung USB charger I have an iPhone 4S that I charge via a USB cable (plugged into my laptop). I also have a Samsung USB charger with the following specifications: 5.0 V and 1.0 A.

Is it safe to plug my Apple USB cable into the Samsung charger and charge my iPhone like this?

Should I be worried that it might blow up?

If I use a charger with more/less Amperes, does it matter?

While I personally wouldn't attach a non A-branded charger to my iPhone, theoretically if the charger delivers 5V and does it on a USB connector, it really doesn't matter from where the power comes.

The more amps the faster your iPhone will charge.  I've been charging my iPhone with my iPad charger for years without any problems.

Currently Apple has 3 types of USB chargers

iPhone charger: 5 volts 1 amp = 5 watt
iPad 'old' type: 5 volts 2 amp = 10 watt
iPad 'new' type (from iPad 4 on): 5 volts 2.4 amp = 12 watt

The Samsung 1 amp charger you're talking about will give you the same results as the original iPhone charger.


Email notification issues (iPhone 4S with ios 5.1.1) I have 5 email accounts on my iPhone 4S.  One is my work email and is on a Microsoft Exchange.  The other 4 are personal accounts and are Gmail accounts.  I have turned on notifications so I will be notified of incoming emails.  The only account that sends me notifications is my work email.

Apple tells me that all accounts should be sending me notifications and that I may need a technician to complete a software configuration.  I have only had the phone 3 days and Apple wants to charge me $59 for them to reconfigure their software issue.

Has anyone else run into this issue, and if so, how have you been able to work around or correct the problem?

Thanks

Are you setting up your Gmail accounts as "exchange accounts? If not I would recommend doing so. Here is a quick walk trough. http://email.about.com/od/iphonemailtips/ss/Set_Up_Push_Gmail_in_iPhone_Mail_Step_by_Step_Screenshots.htm


Is it possible to keystroke special characters in AppleScript? The Bug:

For certain special characters and symbols, AppleScript will fail to keystroke the actual character, and will instead simply type the letter a.

An Example:

The following AppleScript code:

tell application "System Events" to keystroke "² ³ é ½ ₭"

types the following string of text (no matter what application that I am in):

a a a a a

A Workaround:

One can effectively "type" the text by placing the special characters on the clipboard, and then pasting the clipboard, like so:

set the clipboard to "² ³ é ½ ₭"
tell application "System Events" to keystroke "v" using command down

I avoid using the above method to put text on the clipboard in AppleScript, because it necessarily converts the clipboard to rich text, in the process.

I prefer to employ the method provided here, to ensure that plain text is placed on the clipboard. But, this method converts special characters to mojibake.

For example, using the same string as above, this method puts the following text on the clipboard:

¬≤ ¬≥ √© ¬Ω ‚Ç≠

You can manually account for this issue, however, by adding a replace_chars statement for each special character.

The Question:

Is there a way to type special characters via AppleScript, without having to involve the clipboard?

For example, is there some way that I can add the desired special characters to a "bank" or system file somewhere, so that the System Events application is familiar with them?

It's possible with CoreGraphics (CGEventPost), it's a C API (it doesn't work in a Cocoa-AppleScript), but it's possible to call an executable from an AppleScript.

Here is the method to create the executable with Xcode (Version 8.3.3):

You can do it yourself (you can download Xcode from the App Store), or ask a trusted person to create the executable.

1- Open Xcode, select menu "File" --> "New" --> "Project..."

2- Select macOS and Command Line Tool, click on the "Next" button.

3- Name it TypeCharacters, select Objective-C as Language, click on the "Next" button.

4- Save the project to the desired folder.

5- In the window of Xcode, select the main.m icon, clear the text in the window and paste one of these two codes:

The code need a loop because of a bug, the CGEventKeyboardSetUnicodeString() method truncates a string which exceeds twenty characters, or it's a limit (not documented).

This code use a loop to type a list of characters at each iteration, the list can contain one to twenty characters. (It's fast, 1 seconds to type 2400 characters in a TextEdit's document on my computer.)

#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>

int main(int argc, const char * argv[]) {
    @autoreleasepool {
        if (argc > 1) {
            NSString *theString = [NSString stringWithUTF8String:argv[1]];
            NSUInteger len = [theString length];
            NSUInteger n, i = 0;
            CGEventRef keyEvent = CGEventCreateKeyboardEvent(nil, 0, true);
            unichar uChars[20];
            while (i < len) {
                n = i + 20;
                if (n>len){n=len;}
                [theString getCharacters:uChars range:NSMakeRange(i, n-i)];
                CGEventKeyboardSetUnicodeString(keyEvent, n-i, uChars);
                CGEventPost(kCGHIDEventTap, keyEvent); // key down
                CGEventSetType(keyEvent, kCGEventKeyUp);
                CGEventPost(kCGHIDEventTap, keyEvent); // key up (type 20 characters maximum)
                CGEventSetType(keyEvent, kCGEventKeyDown);
                i = n;
                [NSThread sleepForTimeInterval:0.004]; // wait 4/1000 of second, 0.002 it's OK on my computer, I use 0.004 to be safe, increase it If you still have issues
            }
            CFRelease(keyEvent);
        }
    }
    return 0;
}

This code use a loop to type one character at each iteration (It's slower than the first code).

#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>
int main(int argc, const char * argv[]) {
    @autoreleasepool {
        if (argc > 1) {
            NSString *theString = [NSString stringWithUTF8String:argv[1]];
            UniChar uChar;
            CGEventRef keyEvent = CGEventCreateKeyboardEvent(nil, 0, true);
            for (int i = 0; i < [theString length]; i++)
            {
                uChar = [theString characterAtIndex:i];
                CGEventKeyboardSetUnicodeString(keyEvent, 1, &uChar);
                CGEventPost(kCGHIDEventTap, keyEvent); // key down
                CGEventSetType(keyEvent, kCGEventKeyUp);
                CGEventPost(kCGHIDEventTap, keyEvent); // key up (type the character)
                CGEventSetType(keyEvent, kCGEventKeyDown);
                [NSThread sleepForTimeInterval:0.001]; // wait 1/1000 of second, no need of this line on my computer, I use 0.001 to be safe, increase it If you still have issues
            }
            CFRelease(keyEvent);
        }
    }
    return 0;
}

Note : This code works on macOS Sierra and should work on El Capitan, but not on an older OS.

6- Select menu "Product" --> "Build".

7- Select the TypeCharacters icon in the Product folder, right-click and select the "Show in Finder" menu in the contextual menu.

8- From the Finder, move the "TypeCharacters" file to the desired folder, quit Xcode, that's all.

From an AppleScript, call the executable, like this

set myString to "ùéèà ² ³ é ½ ₭ "
do shell script "'/full path/of/TypeCharacters' " & quoted form of myString


Font Editor on OS X? I have some fonts that has the same name (but they are different in weight). The default OS X font controller won't let me change their name. What are the editors out there can do it?

There is a method to change the internal name of a font - so you can see it differently from within an app - but you'll need to use Terminal, but it is not very hard:

Make sure you are on an admin account
Install Xcode (You'll need to login with your Apple ID for free, I'm not sure if this is actually necessary, so do it last if the next few steps don't work. I have Xcode installed so I can't tell whether having it makes a difference)
Download TTX
Open Terminal (from Applications > Utilities)
Type cd with a space at the end, find the place at which you downloaded the fonttools-2.4 folder at (in step 3) and drag it onto the Terminal Window. Press enter
Copy and paste this: sudo python setup.py install
Enter your admin password when asked. You won't see it being typed it.

You've now installed TTX. Now I will tell you how to change the font name:
Type ttx with a space after it, find your font file and drag it onto the Terminal window. Press enter. OS X stores fonts at many places. Check here for more info.
Now, in the font directory you just dragged the file from, you will find a new *.ttx file. Open it in Textedit.
Press Cmd + F. Type in fullname in the Find box. You will find something like: <FullName value = "*" />
Copy the name in the quotes. Press Cmd + F again and paste this in the Find box. In the Replace box, type in your desired Font Name. Click Replace All.

  Note: If your font has a name that would commonly be used in a font file such as “Glyph” or “Asterisk” you may get some unwanted text replacement and possibly produce an unusable .ttx file. In these cases you should manually scroll through the font file and replace the instances where the name listed.

'Save As' the file. Leave the name as it is - or you can change it to anything because this is the file name not internal name. Make sure the filename is *.TTX. Save it in the desired location for the new font.
Go back to Terminal. Type ttx with a space after it, find your font file that you just saved and drag it onto the Terminal window. Press enter.

You will now find the new otf file in the same directory.

  Note. If you want to repeat this with a new file, start with step 8.

More info here (this is a little bit confusing, but it may help.)


No option to boot Windows in Startup Manager So basically I've got a Macbook Pro 2013 / 2014, I'm not sure which. It has a completely wiped hard drive, and I'm trying to install Windows on it. I have a Windows 10 Installer USB drive that works fine on other computers. By this I mean in other computers, the BIOS lists the USB drive as a boot option and works as expected.

But in the Macbook Startup Manager (accessed by holding the option key while the computer is booting), it is not an option.

If I use a live Linux USB (I've tried arch and debian) it works as expected, debian installed on the Macbook with no problems.

What can I do to fix this? Also keep in mind there is no operating system installed on the system, so I can't use any OSX utilities, but I can use Linux utilities.

Here are the steps I would use to install Windows 10 your Mac. I assume you have a Windows 10 iso file.

Install the current macOS operation system to your Mac. Currently this High Sierra version 10.13.2. The accomplishes two tasks. First, you will get all the logic board firmware updates. This is done in the background, so you will never know if a firmware update occurs. You used to have to manually install firmware updates, but as you can see from the legacy firmware update site, Apple now does update automatically. Second, you will get the latest version of the Boot Camp Assistant application. You can use this application to create the USB Windows 10 installer flash drive.

  Note: The newer Macs can install Windows 10 without the use of a USB flash drive.

Use the Boot Camp Assistant to install Windows 10.

If you do not want macOS installed on your Mac, then you can delete macOS during the installation of Windows 10. If you reach the window shown below, select "Custom: Install Windows only (advanced)".

Next, remove macOS by deleting all the partitions. The result should be the same as shown below.

With the unallocated space highlighted, select "Next". The windows installer will automatically create the correct partitions.

The answer to your question

You Mac will not boot from the flash drive because the drive is not FAT formatted using a MBR partitioning scheme. If your drive is FAT formatted using a MBR partitioning scheme, then the firmware on your logic board is not up-to-date.


iTunes downloads through manager When I download iTunes apps, music, etc.. content, the download speed fluctuates a lot and usually falls to around 64kbps. This is very impractical and time-consuming.
Whereas, if I download other files through my browser, I get 512 kbps (my actual connection speed. I use a broadband connected with a cable, not WiFi).

So, is there a way/software, which could capture/log the download link when iTunes starts the download, so I could copy that into my download manager and download at full speeds?
Maybe an IP connection logger, or firewall?
I would have to start the download via iTunes first though, since I need the validated, purchased app file.

Any other ideas?

No, Apple won't let you do that, in part because of the way they cache the downloads.


Are there iPhone applications like INFOMAPS? I am looking for iphone applications like this one.

What I am looking is an app that:
Shows me the map, with tram stops and metro stops.
And with hotspots or touristic places in the map, so that you know where to getdown of the tram and metro.

This is the best one I used it already for amsterdam, but they dont have many cities.

Anyone knows apps like these, let me know


Two Google Drive accounts I am trying to enable two Google Drive accounts (private and work) following these steps. In addition, I did chown to my main account (user), and chmod appropriately. However, it seems to me that the second account is not synced until I actually switch to that second user. Anyone with similar experience? Any solution? Thanks!

Two solutions:

(A) This one (Being a few terminal commands you can run)

OR

(B) Buying this app called Insynchq for $25/yr (15 day trial avail.)


2017 MacBook Air - MacOS Sierra reinstall fails I am trying to reinstall MacOS on a 2017 MacBook Air. I turn the computer on and go to internet recovery mode. I deleted the contents of the SSD using the disk utility. Then I went to “reinstall MacOS Sierra”. At the end of the install, I get the error “an error occurred while preparing the installation”. In the log file, I see the error “no app was found with bundle ID com.apple.installassistant.Sierra to upgrade to 12.6.03”
Please help! I come from the windows world and I am not sure where to go from here. If I make a boot image on a jump drive I would have to use a windows machine.

It sounds like you also deleted the recovery partition. Using a High Sierra installer on a USB stick is your best way forward. Ideally you'd do this on a Mac, but you can go to this page here, and just move the .app to a FAT-formatted, bootable, USB drive and your Mac will recognize it.


Notification when a special AppleID/device connects to internet? I like to know when my wife's iPhone is connected to wifi (Internet). It's for good! I'm not spying or anything! She is in a place where she doesn't have celular data connection. I like to know when her iPhone is connected to Internet via wifi so that we can communicate. Is there an app/website/service for this? I'm sure it's possible somehow using AppleID. I can think of two non-optimal ways now.

I can login to icloud.com using her AppleID user/pass and use Find My iPhone service to see if the phone is connected.
I can send a message via iMessage and check whether the message is delivered or not.

Both of these are polling methods. I'm looking for an interrupt based solution. Computer Engineers know what I'm talking about.

By default, iOS devices only connect to Apple's push notification servers when they connect to the network, so you would need to interact with that system as a paid developer or consumer of a MDM solution that allows you to send notifications and retrieve status when messages are sent and received to that phone.

It's not a hard engineering problem, but you need to get software installed on her device by jailbreaking or by means that Apple approves. An app that registers for a local notification and attempts to send a http request to your web server is all you'd need to track each poll interval that she has an internet connection.

Realistically, you will probably end up asking here to reply to a message you send and trusting that iMessage will send a "delivered" message to your phones promptly after her phone registers to the APNS servers and gets the messages that are queued for her device/account.


Lion to El Capitan upgrade stuck on restart I'm upgraded an late-2011 MacBook Pro from Lion to El Capitan. The install itself seemed to go fine. It got to the step where it restarts after the install and now it just hangs on this screen.

I've tried restarted a few times and it keeps coming back to this. Tried booting in safe mode as well, with no luck.

I get the startup chime, then this. It's sat on this for a few hours at this point with no additional progress.

Machine specs:

2.4 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5 Processor
4GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM
500 GB Hard Drive, 8x DVD/CD SuperDrive

I had the same issue with a MacBook Pro 15'' 2011 (A1286) that I tried updating from Lion 10.7.5 to El Capitan 10.11 (Specs. 4 GB, 500 GB HDD).

The answer is: you must be very patient: the upgrade took me one full day (~ 11 hours!).

Even if the progress bar is not updated, the update is being done in the background.

After a first attempt that I interrupted because I thought that the update was frozen, I made a second Internet recovery of Lion.
The previously downloaded installer of OS X El Capitan was kept in the Application folder after OS X Lion 10.7.5 was restored, so that I was not required to download it again.
(The Internet recovery of Lion lasted about 4 hours).

As a comment to your picture, if you wait about half an hour, to one hour, the progress bar should move to ~20%.

The estimated times will then be completely wrong and you simply MUST WAIT and be very patient, without shutting down your computer. For instance, when under the progress bar, a remaining duration of 31 minutes is displayed, it can last about 9 hours using a wired connection! For me, things went a little quicker at the end (12 minutes meant 1 hours, 7 minutes meant half an hour).

Sometimes, the screen will show greyed / disabled, like if the computer was frozen in some manner and there might be some kind of screen flashing / flickering. Simply wait until the installation ends and the background image of El Capitan displays.

Hope this will help others.