Accidentally almost deleted iPhoto library I was emptying out folders and deleting unnecessary items and as I went to my pictures folder I simply just dragged everything to the trash not knowing that my whole iPhoto library was there.

When I hit empty trash a couple of seconds later I had realized what I had done and I hit cancel as it was in the process of deleting. Now when I try to open iPhoto it says "Your photo library is either in use by another application or has become unreadable". When I look at my picture space, it still basically has all the GB there, just a few missing.

Are my pictures still retrievable?

If you purely want to salvage your photos, then this is the easiest way without any other software.

Right-click on the iPhoto Library file and select Show Package Contents

Find the Masters folder and copy it somewhere, like your Desktop

Hold down Alt/Option key and open iPhoto again. This will bring up this window

Select New Library and import all the photos from the Masters folder that you copied to your Desktop in step #2

This should work, and create a new library with any photos that are still intact.


Disable Terminal's title bar directory on Lion i was wondering if there was any way of disabling the folder location on the titlebar of the built-in terminal application on Lion. I mean:

Any ideas ?

It's done in /etc/bashrc.  You probably don't want to mess with that file.  You can override what's done there by creating a file called .profile in your home directory that contains the following line:

unset PROMPT_COMMAND

This will remove the directory in the title bar after you restart Terminal.


Modifying Transliterator Rules I'm using the MacOS' Tamil language input tool. However this question can be answered in a generic way.

I am trying to make some changes in the rules under this folder.

/System/Library/Input Methods/TamilIM.app/Contents/Resources

How do start? Meanwhile I'm looking to solve the SIP issue by remounting the file system.

Will manually editing the Transliterator.txt file would work or do I have to compile the binary?

I think you should be able to just edit Transliterator.txt.  I did this once long ago and it worked.  But things may have changed since then...


Disabling the dialogs shown when opening an application for the first time on OSX I am making an app on osx 10.9 using python 2.7. But when it is launched first time, warning comes.

  You are opening the application MYAPP for the first time. Are you sure
  you want to open this application?

  The application is in a folder named Applications. To see the
  application in the Finder without opening it, click Show Application.

So, how to avoid this warning. Does I need to make some changes in info.plist of app.

I had gone through this Q&A but nothing is mentioned about app side changes.

I don't want user to use any sort of command to run or do changes manually. User can disable by "com.apple.LaunchServices LSQuarantine -bool NO" for all or "xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine Application.app" for particular app.

I had also signed the app with developer ID.

So, how to disable this dialog box from popping.

Simply right-click your application and choose "Open".  That immediately gets around Gatekeeper without disabling the feature (which is highly effective at keeping the mac safe from drive-by infections).


MacBook Pro doesnt boot after systemupdate / repairing volume doesnt work i have a problem with my MacBook Pro.
I installed a Systemupdate, reboot and then i had a loading screen which loads a long time.

Then i started the mac in verbose mode and there is...

hfs: mounted Macintosh HD on device rootdevice
AppLeUS8MultitouchDriver::checkStatus - received Status Packets Payload 2: device was reinitialized
/devirdiskOs2 (NO WRITE)
Root file system
Executing fsck.hfs (version hfs-226.1.1).
/devirdiskOs2
Root file system
Executing fsck.hfs (version hfs-226.1.1)
[...] Checks
** Checking catalog file.
Incorrect number of thread records (4, 22547)
Incorrect number of thread records (4, 22547)
[...] More Checks
Repairing volume.

The Checks and Repairs start three/3 times.

After that the MacBook turns off without any information.

I startet the HDD Recovery program, but there is the same in the error log.

I dont know whats up with the Hard Drive -.-

You can try boot your mac in recovery mode (hold command+R while booting), open Terminal, and running fsck to rebuild the btrees that hold the information of your files and directories structure.

To rebuild the catalog btree:

fsck -d -r /dev/disk0s2

Rebuild extents btree:

fsck -d -Re /dev/disk0s2

Rebuild attributes btree:

fsck -d -Ra /dev/disk0s2

Replace "disk0s2" by the id of the partition you want to fix. You can find out what's the id by running
    diskutil list

"-d" means show debugging information. This can be very useful to understand what the error is.


Google Calendar - iPad compatibility I'm trying to install Google Calendar app on my IPad Air 2.

Couldn't find it in App Store on my IPad. So I found it on a web page
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-calendar/id909319292?mt=8
then I sent this link to my IPad and App Store installed it on IPad but...
It was installed like for IPhone, everything was big and huge so i had to remove it.

It looks like there's no Google Calendar app for IPad. Am I right?

How to install Google Calendar on IPad?

There's no separate iPad version, no.

The iTunes Store Page you linked says compatible with iPad, but optimised for iPhone.
That's likely to mean it works, but won't look great.


How to secure Mac laptop while it is running processes such as wget, or some local node.js apps? I would like my computer to continue running processes until they're done. I typically just keep my laptop on, but if I leave turn it off. How can I leave though and secure it (like log off or something) while still keeping the code running? Does the code automatically continue running?

The "Lock Screen" feature is your friend:

all of your processes will continue to run, but your password will be needed to access anything.
Command+Control+Q if you need to dash off quickly.


ExFAT partition on External HDD not showing up on Bootcamp Windows 7 So I partitioned one of my external HDD's for my bootcamp windows, just so I could install some Windows files without having to resize my partition by erasing it and reinstalling. Using disk utility on the Mac side, I partitioned it to be half Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and the other half ExFAT.

Both drives show perfectly well on my Mac, but when I boot in windows, it only shows my read-only Mac OS Extended partition and when I open the partition display in windows, it says that there is only one partition (unknown) and it is all unallocated.

Also, it already has files on the mac side so I don't really want to reformat if possible.

--
Macbook Pro Late 2013 13" Intel i5 256GB

From the Tom's Hardware Forum:

  By default, the OSX disk utility creates a new partition as GUID. Windows can't read it. You need to create the partition type as MBR, which Windows can read. Then format as exFAT and both machines will read it.


Is there a GUI front-end to Apache for Mac OS X (Lion)? I am using the default Apache and PHP installs that are present in OS X Lion. But I would like to make some settings (like adding Virtual Hosts to Apache) using a GUI interface. Is there such a thing?

I know of OS X Server of course, and also I think MAMP Pro has this. But I would like to keep using the stock servers and not install another version if I don't have to.

There's no built-in GUI, but there are third party ones. One that I know of for managing virtual hosts is called VirtualHostX: http://clickontyler.com/virtualhostx/


How to delete hidden login iterms from backgrounditems.btm? CML way is prefered I am running MacOS Big Sur. I installed some apps downloaded online. I found out many apps were started automatically at startup.
By googling and examining my system, I figured out they were started from the file backgrounditems.btm which is located at ~/Library/Application Support/com.apple.backgroundtaskmanagementagent/. The file stores Login Items.
By running a python script downloaded online, I can see many Login Items registerd in the file backgrounditems.btm and they are NOT shown in System Preferences > Users > myuser > Login Iterms.
I tried the command osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to delete login item "name"' to delete the hidden login iterm, but failed with error message "36:73: execution error: System Events got an error: Can’t get login item "myapp.app". (-1728)"
These hidden login iterms are also NOT shown when I use the command osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to get the name of every login item'.
So my question is how to remove those unwanted login iterms to stop them autostart at my login. Command Line Way is prefered. I think some GUI apps such as ccleaner may do the job, but I don't want to install some GUI apps which may be autostarted themselves. Basically, I don't want to install an autostart iterm to remove autostart items.
Thanks a lot.
Update
I figured out the file is in a binary plist format.
Then I tried two tools.
One is the default cml tool plutil. Another one is a thirdy party tool ProperTree. Both can convert and open the binary plist as XML plain plist. But even with a plain plist format, it's kinda hard to understand it. The important sections are still coded in base64 format in xml.
I can decode base64 with many tools, but I still feel it's kinda too much work for this purpose. Do anyone know any easier way to remove hidden login iterms from the file? Thanks.

I don't think it is necessary to remove them using the commands. You can do it from settings.

Open System Preferences and click on Users & Groups, then click the Login Items >tab. You’ll see a list of apps (and even files and folders) that open every time you log in. - Macworld


All downloaded files cannot be opened as they are 'damaged and should be moved to the Trash' Everything I download will not open. OS X says the file is damaged and can't be opened and should be moved to the Trash. Like Adobe Reader, for PDF documents. JPEG files will not open. Office files will not open. Yet the thumbnail preview is perfect and I can flip the pages to see the information is there. I tried to download OpenOffice for the Office documents but it says the same thing, damaged, cannot open, should be moved to the Trash.

MacBook Air with Mountain Lion

The problem that you are running into is that Gatekeeper is trying to protect you from malware and not only  doesn't recognize the developer "signature" of the App you downloaded it "sees" the file was modified by someone/something other than the developer.

Gatekeeper options are found in Apple menu > System Preferences… > Security & Privacy > General tab (El Capitan shown below) under the header "Allow applications downloaded from:"

Even with Gatekeeper turned off, if you get the "Damaged App" message, you still won't be able to open the file

Per Apple's Support site:

  "Damaged" app. – The app has been altered by something other than the developer. This message will appear no matter the Gatekeeper option chosen.

Making Gatekeeper more friendly....

The solution to this is in the info.plist found inside the app.  If you set the following key values in info.plist, the App will revert to an "Unsigned App" and allow you to install it.

<key>CFBundleSignature</key>
<string>????</string>

Where is the info.plist file located?  It's located in the root folder of your App and will be prefaced with the App Name:   {My-App-info.plist}

NOTE:  You will need a program like TextWrangler (free) to open .plist files or the Property List Editor available in XCode.  (My preference is to go with TextWrangler)

Opening the file....

Once you edit that file and save it, you will be able to open it by Control clicking (or right clicking) the App and selecting open.

Standard Disclaimer

Gatekeeper is there to protect your Mac from the malware that's ever increasing on the Internet.  You should only use this solution with Apps that you fully trust.  If you are just randomly downloading software and using this solution to bypass Gatekeeper, you will end up with a compromised system.  So, use at your own risk.


Why do I see two icons for the same application? I have installed TinyGrab on my Mac, and set it to run on login. I now see two icons on the dock; when I close one, the other one closes too.

I have two user accounts on the Mac; while I see some processes that run under the other account, this is not true for TinyGrab. The processes that run under the other account are the following.

I noticed that the application has its settings for being executed at login, not just the option shown from the Finder, but unchecking one option unchecks also the other one.

Why do I see two icons? How can I avoid it happens?

I have checked, and there is just a copy of the application.

When I close the application, and I manually reopen it, there is just an icon on the dock; when I restart the Mac, there are two icons.

If I try closing one of the application from the icon from the dock, one closes while the other freezes, while I have to force it to quit, even though it doesn't quit when forcing to quit it either.

There are two things this could be.

You may be running two different instances of TinyGrab. Spotlight ignores quite a few locations on your Mac. To see where they live, right click each one and choose "Show in Finder" (it may be under options depending on your Mac OS version). If there is a second application, there is your problem! ;)
You are in fact running two instances of TinyGrab. The default is to only run one instance of any GUI application, but there are options to disable that. To see if this is the case, when both are running open Activity Monitor and search for the program. If you see two entries there, that is the issue. If this is the case you can check the preferences to see if there is a multiple instance option (I didn't find one).

Finally you can also try deleting ~/Library/Preferences/co.uk.keyoneproductions.TinyGrab.plist and see if that solves the problem. And if that doesn't, try removing your Dock preferences at ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist. Maybe try deleting ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginitems.plist as well, then logging out and back in?


Is there a way to prevent iTunes from renaming TV Show filenames? I have imported quite a few TV Shows into iTunes and I have noticed that iTunes renames the files in the style Episode number Episode name.m4v (e.g. 01 - My First Day.m4v).

This is not a useful way of naming the files as if the show has multiple seasons you can't order the files in Finder by season as you could if it was in the format Season number Episode number Episode name.m4v (e.g. S01E01 My First Day.m4v).

When files are imported or if the filename is changed myself in Finder, iTunes renames the file back to its format.

Is there a way to prevent iTunes from renaming these files?

If you don't want iTunes to manage your files at all then go to:
iTunes > Preferences > Advanced, and uncheck the Keep iTunes Media Folder Organised checkbox.

Alternatively, iTunes uses each item's Title to rename the file, so if you edit the info of a file within iTunes (CMD + I) you can set the title to something to your liking such as <show name> <season no.><episode no.> e.g. Silicon Valley S03E01.


App to remember open app/file & browser window and their placement Is the an app or utility for the Mac (Mavericks - in particular) that will allow me to save everything I have open (apps w/files, various browser windows & tabs) so that they can be reopened later?

I do a lot of research for various projects. Many times I can't complete the research in one sitting and have to try to remember what apps and more importantly what search rabbit trail I had gone down. It would be so much easier if I could take a "snapshot" of what is open, where it is at, save it as a profile / task group / desktop config (saving their size and location on screen) - call it what you want, then reopen it later.

Safari can save all open tabs from a single window & reopen them with one click. Bookmarks Menu->'Add Bookmarks for these n Tabs'.

Not certain for other apps, though as a workaround you could save copies of open documents all to the same project folder & reopen from there.


Contact names not showing in Messages on High Sierra I have my contacts stored on iCloud, so they sync between my iPhone and my MacBook Pro. On my iPhone, the Messages app displays the Contact Name, however on my MacBook Pro it does not. It just displays the telephone number (including country code).

Strangely, if I go into contacts and manually edit the number so that it is the country code (e.g. +44, rather just '0'), it then displays correctly with the name. However, ideally I would like not to have to edit all of my contact numbers to include the country code. Another strange behaviour is that for contacts where I have their photo, it displays the photo next to their telephone number, so it is recognising the number as belonging to that particular contact, it is just now showing the contact name.

This issue has only occurred recently after I signed out of iCloud on my MacBook Pro and then signed back in.

Does anyone know how I might be able to resolve this?

Kind regards,
Russell

The problem seems to be that the phone numbers in your contacts have lost the proper format. They should be in the form (123) 456-7890 and they have been formatted as 1234567890.  It seems that iOS does a really literal comparison and it can't resolve this difference.

I fixed this on my iPhone 5s running iOS 12 by changing my region from the US to Canada. That evidently forces a re-formatting of the erroneous numbers. Then I changed it back to the US. Note that my contacts were synced with Google/Gmail. I think this should also work for iCloud, but your mileage may vary.

Go to Settings app → General → Language & Region → Region, tap on Canada, then tap Done. (I bet selecting any different region would work). The change takes a bit of a time. When it is complete, look at your recent calls, voicemails and messages - they should be displaying names. Look at your contacts - phone numbers should be correctly formatted. If so, the problem should be fixed. In any case, change the region back to United States.


PC user wants Windows/Linux key mappings I'm a long-time PC and Linux user. Recently, I was given a mac mini (Yosemite) for my job. I've still got my full-size PC keyboard (with number pad).
There are several differences. The biggest one is control key is used as command on windows. The physical location of command (right below ZXCV keys) is physically discomforting for me to use.  It's just too tight of a space for two of my sausage fingers to fit in. So I remapped the ctrl-key to command. This works, and is comfortable, except when I need to use control, because I do a lot of terminal stuff (ctrl-X(background), D(EOF), C(break),O) I don't know where I remap actual control to.  I thought option as alt, but that does not work.
Additionally I use home and end keys quite a lot in terminal or chrome, and these don't function as in windows. Hitting end while typing in this box, it takes me to the bottom of the page. Hitting end in terminal takes me to the end of the scroll-back buffer. Previously, on my PC it would take me to the end of the current command, not the top of the scroll-back buffer.
Modifier keys (Sys Prefs: Keyboard: Modifier Keys):

CAPS: CAPS
Control: Command
Option: Option
Command: Control

Right of backspace I have:

Ins Home PgUp
Del End PgDn

Bottom Row of keys:

Ctrl Win Alt Space Alt Menu Ctrl

To recap:

Can I use Ctrl for both Option and Ctrl (when I set Ctrl to both Command and Control, it only does one)

How can I get home and end to work per line, not per screen

I' don't mind remapping the terminal key, is that is possible, though I am using iTerm as well as regular terminal.
Many thanks!

There are few 3d party application that can remap the keyboard to your liking.

An example is the Karabiner.

More simpler is if you just want to remap the control keys.

That can be done in the system preferences- Keyboard.


Can't access password protected smb share I have a Netgear Nighthawk R7000 Router with an attached HDD which I'm trying to access with the ReadyShare feature. I've created 3 shared folders:

no_pass (no password required)
pass_write (password required for write access)
pass_read (password required for read/write access)

The problem is that while I can access folder 1 (no password) fine, I can't connect to 2 or 3 in finder because I'm getting a permission denied error. When connecting to server, I've tried each of the following:

smb://readyshare(/share_name)
smb://admin@readyshare(/share_name)
smb://admin:password@readyshare(/share_name)

I've done all the above with cifs and replaced readyshare with the ip address but while 'no_pass' will mount without a problem, 'pass_read' and 'pass_write' give

Note: smb://readyshare or smb://192.168.1.1 will both show a list of the shared folders but again, only 'no_pass' will mount. The others give the same error above.

I can connect to all the folders using http or ftp so it doesn't seem to be an issue with the shares...

Any idea what's going on here?

(OS 10.10.2)

I had the same issue with my Netgear Nighthawk R8500 until I reduced the router's password to 14 characters, as suggested by user137327. Since the router's password is also used as the Samba password, perhaps the cause is related to the legacy of Samba and Lanman password limitations:

"passwords are limited to a maximum of only 14 characters"

"Many legacy third party CIFS implementations have taken considerable time to add support for the stronger protocols that Microsoft has created to replace LM hashing because the open source communities supporting these libraries first had to reverse engineer the newer protocols—Samba took 5 years to add NTLMv2 support"


Changing border colors Border may not be the correct term for what I'm describing but I would like to change the color layout in OS X.

That is, when I open a browser or the terminal, the borders are a light gray color. How can I change this color?

Not sure if this is what you're referring to but I prefer a more distinct border around icons in Safari and found this works for me in Yosemite.

System prefs>Accessibility>select "Increase contrast" & set Display contrast to Normal.
(note that this selection automatically selects "Reduce transparency)

While this does not change color,it does distinguish the icon borders.
Makes it easier on my old eyes!


MacBook Pro keeps returning to login screen I can login to safe boot without issue. I created a new admin account through safe boot, but upon first full login into this new account, the same behaviour as in the title showed up instantly.

I have tried Apple diagnostics boot which revealed no hardware issues. I have also tried deleting contents of /Library/Preferences and ~/Library/Preferences (for new account) but this does not seem to resolve the issue.

Macbook pro 15" (discrete graphics) late 2013 on OS X 10.10.3

I found this problem after not using my MacBook for a while.
I removed the battery. Pressed the on button for 30 seconds with the battery removed and power chord unplugged.
Put the battery back in. Restart, and mine was o.k


Change Network location from terminal I have a two locations set up on my macBook. One for normal use and another for when I use a proxy, which I start from the command line.  It would be very useful for me to be able to switch network location from the command line at the same time.  Is this possible?

Yep, pretty easy too.  You may need to 'sudo' the command depending on your system's configuration.

networksetup -switchtolocation "location name"

There are some other options, too:

networksetup -getcurrentlocation
networksetup -listlocations
networksetup -createlocation <location name> [populate]
networksetup -deletelocation <location name>
networksetup -switchtolocation <location name>


Cannot resize Macintosh HD using (supposedly) available free space I partitioned my hard drive in order to install Ubuntu, but I now would like to reclaim that space and add it back to my Macintosh HD. I managed to delete the Linux Filesystem and Swap, and Disk Utility shows that I have some free space:

However, I cannot resize my Macintosh HD (which is the 200 GB slice) using the simple method of clicking and dragging in Disk Utility. The output of some common disk usage tools is below:

I have tried repairing all disks and the problem persists. I am running OS X El Capitan Version 10.11.5. Any help is greatly appreciated.

This worked for me:

On the left is a list of drives your Macbook or iMac can see.  Select the drive from this left menu that has the partitions you want to combine.

In the top of the window will be five tabs/buttons.  Choose the middle one called “partition”.

Select the partition from the big block on the left that you want to remove.  With the partition selected hit the small “-” at the bottom left corner to delete the partition.  This small “-” is near the “+”.  This will bring up a message, okay that and it will delete the extra partition and leave empty space.

Now we need to fill that empty space with your main partition.  Still on this partition screen, you will see your main partition block has three small lines in the bottom corner.  Like the corner of a piece of paper when you are turning a page.  Click on here and you can drag the box size.

Drag the box size until it fills the space completely.  Hit apply and it will then make a big block, single partition


BBEdit: find / replace in selection Is there a way to find and replace a word only in the selected text in BBEdit? For example, if I have a large document, is that possible to select only one function which the matching words will be replaced in?

"Use Selection for Find" and "Use Selection for Replace" are right there in the Search menu.


A better usage of apropos for searching the man directory I will ask my question starting from a real example.
From the command line prompt, I want to search for a command line tool that will output information about my smart card.
Side Note: I already know that the command line tool that I am looking for is the system_profiler SPSmartCardsDataType but let's pretend I do not know yet.
Step #1
From the command line prompt I type the following: apropos smart card
Step #2
I receive the following result:
SmartCardServices(7)     - overview of SmartCard support
SmartCardServices-legacy(7) - overview of legacy SmartCard support
com.apple.ifdreader(8)   - SmartCard reader daemon
ctkahp(8)                - SmartCard Agent
ctkbind(8)               - SmartCard pairing tool
ctkd(8)                  - SmartCard daemon/agent
pam_smartcard(8)         - Smartcard PAM module
ssh-keychain(8), ssh-keychain.dylib(8) - smartcard/keychain support library

And of course I can use the SmartCardServices command line tool but this is not what I am looking for.
Question: How can I make a better search for a specific command line tool? I guess a search that will query the command line options too?
In my specific case if I search for the keyword smart card why the output does not show me at least the term system_profiler?
I hope I was clear, if not let me know and I can rephrase my question.  Once again, the above it is just an example, I use SmartCard because this is what I had issue in searching today, but it can be anything else.

apropos just looks in the command description, not the full man page. There are no specific commands to "intelligently" search within all man pages, but in a bind you can always run
cd /usr/share/man
zgrep -i smartcard man*/*

PS: This won't help for system_profiler though because the data types supported aren't listed in the man page at all.


MacBook Pro mid 2012 keyboard issue I'm using MacBook Pro 2012 model with macOS Catalina. A few keys (I don't know which ones exactly) key on my built-in keyboard seems to be pressed continuously. I have disabled the internal keyboard using kextunload in Terminal and currently using an external USB Windows keyboard.

Here's the issue:
Every time I restart my system, the built-in keyboard gets enabled automatically (So I have to use kextunload again and again). Also, during startup, I'm unable to start in safe mode or Recovery mode or change startup disk using an external keyboard (I guess this happens as a result of built-in keyboard getting enabled at startup and hence the pressing of some keys on it).

Is there a way to permanently disable the built-in keyboard and make the external keyboard as an only input source?

It has nothing to do with your build in keyboard. What u have encounter is due to MacOs Catalina. I have same problem. It started from bottom row of alphabetic of your keyboard. You get multiple Z after pressing the Z button once until you have to press the return key to stop it. It sorts of like a virus escalated to the rest of your buttons on the keyboard. Slowly all your small caps alphabetic auto Caps Lock although you have not activated the Caps Lock and numerics auto change to symbols without pressing shift button. The WORST OF ALL COMMAND button + R button (have been remove from your drive) after the update to MacOs Catalina that does not allow u to access to internet recovery utilities. Further Damage done by Catalina is that many apps not be able to support. So congrates! All u could do is to restart your macbook pro whenever should these problem arise each time.


Selling old MacBook. Best way to clear HDD? I'm selling my current MacBook (2011 MBP).

Since purchase I have had FileVault enabled (Mac OS X Snow Leopard), thus making me think that I can merely clear the data and not worry about having to use methods of secure wiping the disk.

I haven't researched more into the FileVault system, could someone enlighten me about the best method of deletion of data?

As you had FileVault enabled, the wipe procedure is simpler, as any erase will be a secure one, but this is the general procedure…

From Apple Support: What to do before selling or giving away your Mac

  What to do before selling or giving away your Mac

  When you get ready to sell or give away your Mac, there are some steps you should take. You'll want to back up your computer, disable some features and services, and erase the hard drive. This article shows you the steps you should follow.

  Moving to a new Mac?

  Learn how to move your files to your new Mac. Do this before you erase the hard drive or follow any other steps.

  1. Create a backup
  Be sure you have an up-to-date backup of your important files and data. Learn how to back up your data in OS X.

  2. Sign out of iTunes
  Open iTunes. From the menu bar at the top of your computer screen, choose Store > Deauthorize This Computer.
  When prompted, enter your Apple ID and password. Then click Reauthorise.
  Learn more about deauthorizing your computer using iTunes, including how to deauthorize all the computers you've used with your iTunes account.

  3. Sign out of iCloud
  If you use Find My Mac or other iCloud features on your Mac, you should first archive or make copies of your iCloud data.
  After that, choose Apple Menu > System Preferences, click iCloud, and then deselect the Find My Mac checkbox.
  Finally, sign out of iCloud. In System Preferences, click iCloud, and then click the Sign Out button.
  When you sign out of iCloud, you're asked whether you want to remove iCloud data from your Mac. Your iCloud data will remain on any other devices that are using the same Apple ID.

  4. See if you've registered your computer with Apple Support
  Sign in to supportprofile.apple.com with your Apple ID and remove the computer if you see it listed there.

  5. Sign out of iMessage
  If you're using OS X Mountain Lion or later, sign out of iMessage.
  In the Messages app, choose Preferences > Accounts. Select your iMessage account, then click Sign Out.

  6. Erase and reinstall OS X
  To reformat your hard drive and reinstall OS X, follow these instructions.
  After you reformat your hard drive and reinstall OS X, the computer restarts to a Welcome screen and asks you to choose a country or region. If you want to leave the Mac in an out-of-box state, don't continue with the setup of your system. Instead, press Command-Q to shut down the Mac. When the new owner turns on the Mac, the Setup Assistant will guide them through the setup process.


"Disk Utility stopped repairing Macintosh HD. Disk Utility can't repair this disk." What now? When I turned my computer on, it got stuck on a gray screen (nothing, no apple logo, but occasionally a spinning wheel, and I could move the mouse). I rebooted in recovery mode and got the various messages when I tried to repare using disc utility: "incorrect block count for file 0.indexDirectory (it should be 1508 instead of 754)" then "the volume Macintosh HD could not be verified completely." Then the alert that this disk could not be repaired.

Are there any steps I can take now? I have a couple of external hard drives so if nothing else, do you know how I can back up files from my computer? I don't have time machine or anything like that set up. I'm not very skilled with computers so anything will help, even if it's just "go see a professional." I have school assignments saved onto my hard drive so I'm really hoping I can salvage them.

With some minor skills and lots of luck you can try to repair it.

While holding the Command-S restart.

When it is done (if it boots) type "fsck -fy".

This will try to repair your disk.

You could spend $120 and get the more professional tool called DiskWarrior.

In any and all cases, back up your stuff.


AppleScript app started prompting to run or quit. How can I disable this? I'm not entirely sure why this has started happening since this is completely new behaviour and I haven't done any system updates but I have a nice little toolbar app for my Snow Leopard Finder.app that opens the existing folder/or files in TextMate.

It used to simply bring up TextMate with the chosen content but since today it instead gives me a prompt asking me to run or quit the script.

Here is what the popup looks like:

Now… this app/script isn't new, I trust the script and I don't want this popup everytime I use it.

So 2 questions:

How do I disable this annoying prompt?
Why am I all of a sudden getting it when yesterday everything was working fine?

Any insight would be much appreciated.

For reference the script in question is this one: OpenInTextMate
However the MateDot.app script I was using also is doing the same thing.

Thanks for reading.

Jannis

When you create a script in AppleScript Editor and then save it as an Application, there is an option to show a Startup Screen, as shown in the image below:

When that option is enabled, when you launch the script in the Finder, it will first show that initial dialog before continuing.

As long as the AppleScript script-application in question wasn't saved with the Run Only option (see the image above), you should be able to open the script in AppleScript Editor by dragging the script-application's icon onto AppleScript Editor's icon. (When a script is saved as Run Only, AppleScript Editor won't allow you to open it to see the source code). So, if you are able to open it OK, then you could Save a copy of it and make sure the Startup Screen option is disabled.

As for why this suddenly started happening when yesterday it didn't, I'm not sure. What version of OS X are you using?


Application appearing on all spaces in Lion I had a couple of applications set up to be on all spaces when I was running on Snow Leopard, but now that I'm on Lion I want to turn that off.

I can't work out how to do it. Does anyone know how? There doesn't seem to be an option in System Preferences for it. Perhaps there's a plist or something similar I can edit?

In the dock you can right click the application, go to Options and de-select the option there.


How do I fix a syntax error in .bash_profile I was installing ruby on rails along with homebrew the other day and was following a step by step list of what to do. I now have this bash syntax error every time I enter the terminal:

-bash: /Users/briggsmcknight/.bash_profile: line 6: syntax error near unexpected token `source'
-bash: /Users/briggsmcknight/.bash_profile: line 6: `if which rbenv > /dev/null; then eval "$(rbenv init -)"; fi source /Users/briggsmcknight/.bash_profile'

Could I get a small step by step breakdown of what I should do to fix this?
I believe the syntax error is by "fi" or "source", but do I just retype it again or what?

Edit the file with a GUI program e.g. TextEdit

Open TextEdit and select the home directory. .bash_profile is hidden so instead of a simple selection then you might have to hit CmdShift. to show .bash_profile When saving delete the .txt ending TextEdit adds or alter TextEdits's preferences.


Menu item screen capture results in monochrome image If I use the sequence Command-Shift-4 Spacebar to capture a menu selection, the resulting images are monochrome. I'm on Yosemite and the result is the same on two devices. Any idea what's going on? All other screen captures are in color. Skitch app Menu Snapshot option gives the same result.

BTW I've used to use the Comm-sh-4 crosshair capture but just at the very moment you lift the cursor to complete the drag, something causes the cursor to select the next menu item, so you capture the menu item without it being highlighted.

The screenshot isn't monochrome, but rather the highlight of the menu isn't ‘composited’ correctly in the screenshot. If you screenshot a menu with other colour in it (for example, System Preferences View menu), you'll notice those colours remain and just the highlight changes from blue to grey.

This bug has been around in macOS for as long as I can remember, and has been fixed in the developer preview of macOS 10.14 Mojave to be released later this year.


How to pick a color with DigitalColor Meter? I want to pick a color from screen using the DigitalColor Meter. However, I cannot seem to lock the mouse. How am I supposed to use this tool?

Once the DigitalColor Meter is running, you can pick a color on the current mouse position by using the shortcut:

⇧ + ⌘ + C

It will store the value in the clipboard. The standard is RGB values e.g.
   255 255 255

If you prefer hexadecimal notation, you can check this answer.


How can I copy files from my Mac to PC via Microsoft Remote Desktop? I installed Microsoft's Remote Desktop and connected to a PC. How can I share files between my Mac and PC?
When I use RDP on Windows, I can simply add a file to the clipboard and paste it inside the RDP window. The same thing doesn't seem to work in the mac version of RDP.
If I try to share one of my Mac's folders with the RDP computer, and then double click that drive in RDP it says:

\\tsclient\Downlo1 is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have access permissions.
Access is denied.

When copying files from Mac to PC using Microsoft Remote Desktop I prefer to share a subfolder, not the entire drive.

Here's how:

In Remote Desktop on your Mac select your PC in the "My Desktops" section.
Click the "Edit" button (pencil icon).
In the popup click the "Redirection" button (folder icon; see image below).
Check the "Enable folder redirection" box.
Click the "+" button at the bottom of that window and browse to the Mac folder you want to share.
Connect to the remote PC.
Look for your shared Mac folder in your PC's "My Computer"
directory (see image below).

Finally, as noted by @Bart and @robbpriestley in the comments below, if you are already connected to the remote computer you need to re-establish your connection in order to see the shared folder.


Can I check iPhone, iPad, Watch battery on Mac? My goal is to have battery status of other Apple device on my Mac (preferably on menubar). I'd like to have a glimpse of the battery status of my iPhone, iPad, Watch, and Airpods.

I'm a user of Bitbar and iStat menu, but I haven't found any widgets can wirelessly check other Apple device's battery status.

What I know is that I can click the Wi-Fi icon on menu bar and it will show my iPhone battery status. To show the percentage, I have to option + click the Wi-Fi icon and hover over my mouse on the iPhone hot spot section. It's pretty clunky, but I guess at least the API is there.

I am also open to third party apps which can let me see battery status across devices.

[This is not a final answer as long as this line exists]

Assumptions I am making:

I am assuming you are on the latest version iOS and macOS.
You have the same account logged into the iPhone as well as Mac.

Even if you keep personal hotspot toggled off — unless you’re sharing your cellular connection with someone else — the latest versions of iOS and macOS still see available hotspots from devices with the same iCloud accounts enabled as part of Apple’s Continuity feature.

Here is how to see the Battery Percentage of your iPhone on a macOS system:

Make sure you have same iCloud account logged into iPhone and macOS device.
Turn on Wi-Fi from macOS.
Then click on the Wi-Fi icon on the menubar and wait for your iPhone to appear on the list. You can now see the graphical indicator of your iPhone’s battery level.
But if you want to know the precise percentage of your battery level follow further steps.
Hold on option key.
Then click on the Wi-Fi icon on the menubar.
This time when your hover pointer over the device, you should be able to see the battery percentage of iPhone.


Can I deploy Retina with any JAVA version at all? I tried Java 7, then Java 6 (Apple's) but my Java (Swing) desktop applications
behave as if I had a MacBook Pro instead of a MacBook Pro Retina.

Is there any setting I need to change somewhere?

Must I wait till ORACLE implements it in Java 7?

Taken from the instructions for how to modify Eclipse’s plist to get retina display. I can verify, this works. Perhaps something similar can be done with your app, assuming that the Mac version has a plist.

Do "Show package contents" on the Eclipse.app.
Edit Contents/Info.plist.
Just above

</dict>
</plist>

Place this:

<key>NSHighResolutionCapable</key>
<true/>

Following were instructions on how to clear the cached version, but in a development environment while you are creating your apps, they are probably not useful.


How do I deactivate the dialog that appears when you hold a number key pressed? Possible Duplicate:
  How to turn off the iOS-style character picker menu

When I am writing and I hold number pressed, as when you write the number 9999999999, a dialog appears.

It ask me wether I want to write 9ª or 9º. I want none of them, I just want to write the number.

This is very annoying, how can I deactivate this behaviour altogether?

You need re-enable key repeat for this context menu to go away. It'll affect character keys as well as number keys.

Open Terminal.app
Enter the following to turn this context menu feature off and reenable the old key repeat behaviour: defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false

And you're done. Holding down any key now should repeat that key in the text entry window instead of calling up that context menu to select alternate characters.

To turn the context menu feature back on enter: defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool true instead.


Universal keyboard shortcut for searching/exploring on macOS, similar to Ctrl+E on Windows This was initially formulated as a question, then I found out the keyboard shortcut of macOS Chrome on its Google search functionality (inputs are never interpreted as website address even if the input is a website address, e.g., asp.net, Chrome will google asp.net instead of visiting it) on its address bar is the same across many macOS apps. I'll answer my own question :)

Anyway here's the question:

Windows has almost universal keyboard shortcut for searching/exploring, it's Ctrl+E. It always focus (or pop-up) the input to the app's search bar (if there's any), at least on many apps that I tried

E.g., on Windows, Ctrl+E works the same on Windows Explorer, Microsoft Store, OneNote, Visual Studio Code, Edge, Chrome, Firefox

Is there any similar universal keyboard shortcut in macOS?

On many macOS apps, Command+Option+F brings up the same Control+E functionality from their cousin apps in Windows, e.g., Finder, OneNote, Edge, Chrome, Firefox

One exception is Visual Studio Code for Mac (perhaps all IDEs, text editors), Command+Option+F brings up Find-and-Replace functionality instead.

Visual Studio for Mac, brings up Find-and-Replace functionality too. To move the focus on the search bar, press Command+. instead

On Visual Studio Code (explore actions / files):

Windows: Control+E
macOS: Command+P instead of Command+Option+F

Skype for Mac's Command+Option+F focuses the input on People, groups && messages search bar. Skype for Windows' Control+E is not working, perhaps the developers just forgot to implement it.

On Finder, Command+Option+F merely moves the focus (just like how Control+E on Windows apps behaves) on its search bar:

Finder's Command+F, has a bit different functionality. I prefer Command+Option+F though, it works how I expected it to behave, i.e., it just move the focus on search bar, just like when the search bar is clicked by mouse instead. Finder's Command+F:


macOS 10.13: FaceTime preferences greyed out I started Facetime and went to preferences to Signout from my old AppleID. After successfull signout I wanted to Login with the new one, but Facetime preferences are greyed out.

I'm on macOS High Sierra (10.13). Any ideas on how to fix this and get back to Facetime again?

Found the issue by accident. As I got an external monitor attached Facetime couldn't connect with the integrated Webcam of my Macbook. Therefore it didn't show up the login screen.

As I opened the Macbook the Webcam started working and I got the required Loginscreen to get back to Facetime again.


The minimize icon is gray It happens sometimes that the yellow circle in the top left of the windows, for minimizing, becomes gray for some windows. In particular it is gray for Finder, Safari, Calendar, iTerm2, Xchat Azure, Chrome, VirtualBox, and is still yellow for other windows, for example Mail, KeePassX, NoteBook, FreeMind, DjView, Lyx.

Obviously, when it is gray it is disabled.
The situation comes back to normal apparently without any reason.

The OS is Mountain Lion 10.8.5, and this is a screenshot

Well now I have to take a stab at this with the information and comments you have provided. I am going to guess that the OS is damaged, probably the WindowServer is screwed up (http://www.macinside.info/process.php?name=WindowServer).

This can be resolved with a reinstall of the OS. You should have any data loss but of course make sure you have an active backup of all files just to be on the safe side.

To test though you could turn off the OS function of restoring previous sessions and then restart the computer holding down the shift key. With the shift key held until you see the spinning gear. This starts your system in Safe mode where only Apple daemons are allowed to run. WindowServer is a part of the OS and if it is indeed damaged then the issue will appear (after some time maybe) in a Safe OS.


Grayed out folder won't open in finder I've never see this before.

Here's the facts:

It appears to be grayed out in the finder
I can not open it by clicking
I can move the folder
The permissions are set to 777 (overkill i know)
I can rename the folder with the mv command
I can view the contents of the folder with ls
When I ls (list) the contents of the parent dir I can see it without -a (show hidden files)
The date is set to from before I was born.
I believe this folder to have been a copy of another

I have a folder and I can't open it. It appears to be grayed out in the finder.

I had the same issue with an account folder, which I restored from a backup via rsync. The problem seemed to be the corrupt or missing creation date. After setting it manually the folder was acting normal again. I used the SetFile command from XCode's command line tools. So this should solve the issue:

SetFile -d '12/31/1999 23:59:59' will-not-open


How do I force iCal to sync? I've recently set up my Google Calendars to hook into iCal on OS X Lion.  I've noticed though that when I make a change in iCal, it doesn't sync instantly to Google Calendar.

I'm sure that iCal will eventually sync when it gets a chance, but because I don't leave iCal open all day, I'd like the ability to force it to sync before I shut down.

Is this possible?

As far as I am aware, invoking iCal's "refresh" function, under the Calendar menu should do all server side communication and updates.

Refresh will only update the calendar that hosts the event you currently have (or last had) selected. Refresh All will of course update all of your calendars. This should be a two-way process, and not just pulling down new changes, it should also send local changes back assuming it's not being done automatically.


Send email from Google-group-email In the mac mail app, it is possible to select the from-email in the dropdown menu.

The available from-email adresses correspond to the added acounts.

Adding accounts on a mac:

In Yosemite: System Preferences -> Internet Accounts -> +
In Snow Leopard: Mail app -> Accounts -> +

To add an account, you need the email-address and the password.

Adding accounts to a private gmail:

www.gmail.com -> Settings -> Accounts and import -> Send mail as: -> Add another email address that you own

Here no password is required - You just have to reply to a confirmation email.

I want to be able to write from a Google-group-email on my mac. The problem is that there is no password for this email. (It is not an account, that you can log into).
How can I add this email/account to my mac? -or solve the problem in an other way? -so that I can write from the mac mail app, and not just my private gmail webmail.

Additional informations about the Google-group-email:
I am the administrator of a Google Apps for Education domain. I am the owner of the group in this domain. The group has three members. The group has an email-address: my_example_group@my_example_domain.com. It is not possible to log into into this account. The emails send to the address is automatically forwarded to the three members.

As long as you are an "Owner" of said Google Group, you can just add the email as an "Alias" in the Mail.app.

Mail --> Preferences --> Accounts --> Select the account that "owns" the group i.e. "myfirst@email.com" --> Alias --> Edit Aliases

Simply add the email address of the owned Google Group.  In your example "mysecond@email.com".


Can I restore my regular iOS apps after jailbreaking? I'd like to have a go at jailbreaking my iPhone 4. I've backed up the phone in iTunes and transferred my apps to my computer, as I understand that the jailbreaking process is much quicker and more reliable on a totally wiped phone.

Once I've jailbroken the phone, can I then simply restore my apps, contacts and settings? If so, how? Also, can I still use the regular App Store on my jailbroken phone?

Yes, yes, and yes. You can essentially use just about any function of a iPhone exactly the same on a jailbroken iPhone.


How can I unlock an iPod touch which has VoiceOver enabled? My iPod touch 5th generation has VoiceOver enabled and is not letting me into my home screen. Triple-pressing the home button doesn't work. How can I unlock my device?

The main UX change you need to be aware of with VoiceOver enabled is that a single tap selects an element and a double-tap anywhere on the screen will cause a simulated tap on the element which is currently selected. This means that you need to tap once on what you want to select, then double-tap anywhere.

Select Slide to Unlock, then double-tap. Enter your passcode by tapping to select buttons and double-tapping to confirm. Continue with this through Settings to disable VoiceOver.


I've bought Mountain Lion, but where can I download it now? With the release of Mavericks, Mountain Lion seems to have disappeared from the AppStore. At least I could not find anything.

According to this thread:

  It's still possible to buy OS X Mountain Lion in the Apple Online
  Store > http://store.apple.com/us/product/D6377Z/A/os-x-mountain-lion

I have no intention of buying it again, so does anybody know a way to download it?

OS X Mountain Lion should still be listed in list of purchased applications in the OS X App Store application. You can download it from there.


How to add custom header when composing mails? For example, I would like to add the In-Reply-To field myself, because I want to respond to an archived message.

UserHeaders

For Apple's Mail.app, you can use the default UserHeaders to provide a dictionary of key value pairs to insert into the headers of outgoing e-mails.

To set the Disposition-Notification-To header to email@address the following command can be used:

 defaults write ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist UserHeaders '{"Disposition-Notification-To" = "email@address"; }'

On macOS 10.14, you will need to grant Terminal.app the Full Disk Access right in System Preferences.app > Privacy & Security before issuing the above command.

See Mail Receipt for an example of this default and notes about its application.


Error trying to make bootable Mavericks USB drive MBP 5,3 running 10.9.4 trying to make a bootable USB 2 drive b/c my wife's HDD on a similar MBP failed. New drive in the mail. I tried using a 4-5 yr old Lexar 8GB and got this vague error.

Since I just bought a new SanDisk 16GB I'm thinking maybe I needed a newer drive, but no go, same error. Have tried to erase, partition, repair, etc both USB drives in Disk Utility.

There is an automation tool called DiskMaker X. All you need for the program to work is the disk image that you are trying to make a usb of. It does all the work for you. Just make sure that you have a full image and not a partial one.


Dual external monitors: Blink on wake I have two HP 24es monitors connected to my MacBook Pro. The input to the monitors are via HDMI. One connects directly to the MacBook Pro via a HDMI cable. The other connects via a HDMI to DVI, DVI to DVI, DVI to DisplayPort, DisplayPort to Henge Docks to MacBook Pro.

Now in general the monitors work fine. The problem is after I've locked the laptop and the monitors have gone to sleep when I come back and the monitors wake up, they blink three times before settling down.

I am hoping to avoid this. I previously had different external monitors hooked up via DVI and those didn't have this issue.

My guess is that the HDMI talk through is more involved and is causing the blinking.

Any suggestions on how to avoid this? Different cables? Would I loose quality if I used the VGA port on the back of the monitors instead of HDMI?

I finally decided to give HP Support a call to see if they had a solution.  After an ungodly wait on an antiquated support call system with reminders every minute that all their agents were busy and with no indication of an expected wait time I managed to get through to them.

They recommended unplugging one of the two monitors to see if the problem would still occur.  It didn't.  Swapping it and trying the other monitor as the primary also didn't show the blinking.  Connecting them both back up to the macbook pro also then didn't show the problem !

Seems like the issue only happens when the monitor activates sleep mode.  I didn't realize that I had to wait for not only the screen to blank out but the monitor to say it is going to sleep.  The issue still occurs.  The HP monitor has a power control option and an auto-sleep mode.  Setting the auto-sleep mode to off prevents the problem from occurring.  I likely didn't have this issue with the old monitors as they didn't have a power saving sleep mode.  Unfortunately there is no auto-sleep mode delay.  My typical use case is locking the computer and going to grab a coffee which is typically a one minute away period but is quick enough for the monitors to auto sleep.  The blinking is annoying enough that I'll just keep the monitors setup with auto sleep set to off.  Ideally I'd be able to power save and have them auto sleep unfortunately it is just too annoying.

Do other people have auto sleeping monitors that when waking take 3 blinks and around 10 seconds for the monitors to settle back down?

Be interested to know if 2 external monitors on a macbook pro that have auto sleep will always have this issue, if the issue is HDMI related, or HP monitor limited.  I'll play around with this some more and see if having it only using a single monitor changes things, maybe try out the old vga cable (these monitors are at 1920x1080 so maybe I wouldn't see any difference not sure on the analog vs digital signal difference with the different cables).


Airport Express - WiFi network extension with wireless speakers Background: I am considering an Airport Express (AE) to my room, but I am getting confusing information about how it can operate in different circumstances. I already have a router, with WiFi and LAN ports.
The AE would be connected by cable to currently owned router and I would also like to connect my Mac by wire to the AE.

Question: What I want to do is extend WiFi signal in our flat and also have the possibility to use my speakers wirelessly. Is it possible with the current AE?

Yes you can use the Airport Express to extend the wifi signal from your other router:
You just have to change the settings for your device in the Aiport utility to extend a network instead of creating a new one.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4145#

Yes you can use your speakers wirelessly. You just need to connect them to Airport Express. Apples technique is called Airplay:
https://www.apple.com/airportexpress/


How to get rid of a widget stuck on the desktop instead of the dashboard? A long time ago I installed the Art Directors Toolkit widget. Today, when I restarted my computer after a power outage, there were 2 instances of the widget. The first one is in the dashboard and a second appears on the desktop, like any other application would appear. I don't know how to remove it. It has none of the usual dashboard buttons and it reappears if I relaunch the Dock.

Apple allows widgets to be displayed on the desktop in order to allow the people developing the widgets to test them without using Dashboard. Your system must have had that capability turned on somehow and that widget set to run on your desktop.
It's very easy to get the widget off of your desktop, and make it so that no other widgets will accidentally be relocated.

To get the widget off your desktop: click and hold on the widget, then press F12 to enter Dashboard. Once Dashboard is active, release the mouse from the widget. The widget is now docked in your Dashboard instead of on your desktop.

You'll probably have two copies of the widget in Dashboard now. You can get rid of one in the normal way (press the plus button at the bottom left and click the (x) on the widget).
You can also just hold down the option key over the widget and the (x) will appear.

Now, to prevent other widgets from escaping Dashboard in the future:
Open Terminal (/Applications/Utilities). Paste this in and press enter:

defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode NO

If, on the other hand, you want to run some widgets on your desktop, you can run the above command with YES instead of NO.
Then, activate Dashboard, click and hold on a widget, exit Dashboard, and release the widget.


AppleScript shell script How can I run a shell script on multiple different computers with the same code? If I have it run from

/users/'my name'/desktop/etc.

then it won't work when I use it on a different computer, because the user name will be different. Is there any way to run it directly without going through the user directory?

The AppleScript command I think you're looking for is:

(path to Desktop Folder) as text

or

(path to Desktop Folder)

But that would return an HFS path and the code you posted is a POSIX Path so you could change it to:

set homePath to POSIX path of (path to Desktop Folder) as text

As stated in the comment there is $USER for the terminal and per memory you can still call it in AppleScript with something like:

do shell script "$USER"

If path to desktop folder doesn't work you can try just path to desktop.

Edit

Addressing the comment. I was taught HFS path and alias path were the same, will make it another question for clarity.

Building the path as text is a habit when concat strings or if I was going to take the path and call it later in a do shell. For example:

(path to desktop folder)

in Script Debugger returns an HFS path. When you combine a directory as it was shown in the OP's question a compiling error occurs with:

(path to desktop folder & "foobar:")

and a

(path to desktop folder) & "foobar:"

when I've called paths using path to I've had to write them as:

(path to desktop folder as text) & "foobar:"

I was unfamiliar to short user name of (system info) and path to home folder but that's good to know. One issue with the question is the OP marks it with terminal and AppleScript so the solution is somewhat complicated.


Is there no such thing as Microsoft Internet Explorer for Mac OS X? This is my first Mac and I'm wondering: is there no Microsoft Internet Explorer for Mac OS X?

I am a web developer and I need IE (not really lol) but so as I Google it, I see some questionable websites coming up on my Google search but none of them the actual Microsoft site.

My main reason is that I need it for browser testing and whatnot and so I see Firefox, Chrome, Safari obviously, but no IE.

So the question is: is there/where do I get Internet Explorer for Mac?

Microsoft Internet Explorer for Mac is not available for the latest OS X versions (beyond OS X 10.4) as it was effectively replaced by Safari in 2003. As the Wikipedia page for Internet Explorer for Mac explains:

  As a result of the five-year agreement between Apple and Microsoft in
  1997, it was the default browser on Mac OS and Mac OS X from 1998
  until it was replaced by Apple's own Safari web browser in 2003.

  On June 13, 2003, Microsoft announced that it was ceasing further
  development of Internet Explorer for Mac and the final update was
  released on July 11, 2003. The browser was not included in the default
  installation of Mac OS X v10.4 "Tiger" which was released on April 29,
  2005. Microsoft discontinued support for the product on December 31, 2005 and removed the application from their Macintosh downloads site
  on January 31, 2006. Microsoft recommends "that users migrate to more
  recent web browsing technologies such as Apple's Safari."

Your best bet is to download the Windows version of IE and run it in a Virtual Machine (using something like VMware Fusion or Virtual Box).

Alternatively, the OSXDaily article on Internet Explorer for Mac the Easy Way: Run IE 7, IE8, & IE9 Free in a Virtual Machine describes a way to do this (I've not used it myself, but this does appear to circumvent the Windows 30-day trial period by using snapshots and possibly to comply with the EULA you should purchase a Windows licence and use that in a VM with a downloaded version of IE, as above, instead):

  We’re going to walk you through how to install Internet Explorer 7, 8,
  or 9 in a virtual machine running Windows, directly in Mac OS X – for
  free. This is achieved by using the freely available VirtualBox
  software from Oracle, and combining that with free Internet Explorer
  testing virtual machines from Microsoft, the trick is converting these
  free IE vm’s so that they work flawlessly under OS X (or Linux,
  technically), and that is all handled automatically with this method.


How can I circumvent XProtect and re-enable Java Applets? So, Apple has again updated their XProtect malware definitions to block Java Applets. Unfortunately, my wife's employer's VPN requires an Applet to be run in order to fully establish connectivity. She woke up this morning to discover she couldn't connect to work.

I have little hope that her employer's IT organization will do anything to resolve this anytime soon, so I'm trying to figure out a way to override XProtect and re-enable Applets. Yes, I understand the dangers associated with such.

I haven't yet tried updating the XProtect.meta.plist file to change the version information, but I suspect that wouldn't be a durable fix even if it did work temporarily, as the XProtect daemon would presumably re-download updated definitions.

Anybody knowledgeable on the inner workings of XProtect?

The computer is still on Snow Leopard, running Java 6.

You can disable the XProtect updates in System Preferences => Security => General, and there uncheck the box "Automatically update safe downloads list."

Now you can change the version info in /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources/XProtect.meta.plist


Lion drag and drop with trackpad? I have tap to click enabled. Is there a gesture that I can use to drag and drop? (especially in Finder). I do not want to over-ride the new three finger swipe for dektop change.

In Lion, you can enable traditional trackpad dragging in System Preferences > Universal Access > Mouse & Trackpad (tab) > Trackpad Options (button at bottom). You can also choose whether to use Drag Lock.

This is also where you go for various scrolling options (enable/disable, inertia, speed).


Is it possible to make a mbr legacy bootcamp win 10 from a gpt partitioned catalina hdd 10.15.7 with bootcamp 6? I tried to install win10 to ssd via efi boot on my macbook air 2012, it ran pretty well as far as performance, but because it's pre-uefi it makes it the garbage windows version with no sound, no proper graphics card, can't change brightness, it's awful, then I tried parallels, and I can tell already that it's going to suck how the mouse moves so that's out.
So, my only option is to try a legacy bootcamp partition install somehow sharing the same hdd as my macOS (which has plenty of room and is fast), but this is mostly a novelty thing, I have a windows laptop, so if there's a risk of mangling my mac I'll just get a newer macbook eventually
Is there a way to make an mbr bootcamp partition? if it's doable safely, any resources would be appreciated as I looked online and it's a mess of forum posts of peoples' problems.

Using the boot camp assistant, loading a usb 2.0 usb stick with the iso and drivers, partitioning the drive in boot camp assistant, then letting it reboot into the usb 2.0 installed windows fine on a 2012 macbook air with all windows functionality.
no need to mess around with efi and weird workarounds to get audio and having screwy drivers.


Ubiquity process root certificate not valid What are com.apple.ubiquity.... certificates in keychain? I have three of them and the Keychain access warns me that their root certificates are invalid. I previously had little snitch asking me about Ubiquity(ubd process) wanting to connect to configuration.apple.com. Anybody has any ideas about it? There are also other processes like AWACS that try to connect to Apple servers.

The certificates are probably self signed certificates that get generated to make each mac unique and avoid sending data in the clear between macs and macs/apple servers performing iCloud services.

As for the processes you mentioned, these belong to iCloud and back to my mac location services and are part of a normal installation of Lion. You'd need to checksum / verify binaries to be sure you are safe, but the presence of them shouldn't be startling as they are normal processes on Macs.


External Microphone input for MacBook Air 2012 I am trying to get an external microphone (this Sennheiser ME3) into the TRRS jack of my 2012 MacBook Air, through a headset splitter such as here.

(this is so that I can use speech recognition software -- the Sennheiser is especially good for speech recognition)

The first check I do is on the headphones: I go to System preferences -> Audio -> Output, and notice that inserting the splitter registers as "Headphones/Headphone port" whereas removing it registers as "Internal speakers/built-in". So, that is behaving correctly.

I also note that actually plugging and unplugging headphones into the other end of the splitter doesn't register.

I also check that audio output works correctly TRRS -> splitter -> my headphones.

However, audio input does not behave correctly. System preferences -> Audio -> Input does not change when I plug and unplug the splitter (which has the Sennheiser ME3 attached). It states "Internal microphone/Built-in" regardless.

I've also done a simple experiment to confirm that the MacBook is indeed receiving audio from the built-in microphone. I.e. it is completely ignoring the fact that the Sennheiser is attached. I did this by launching QuickTime and creating audio recording, then putting on the Sennheiser and counting "123" with my face next to the screen then "456" with my head as far from the screen as the cable permits. The first recording comes out much louder, so it is indeed using the internal microphone.

How can I get to take input from the Sennheiser?

Related questions:

MacBook Pro (mid-2012) Microphone Input

MacBook Air audio input/output, mic/headset

Recommendations for headset (+ mic ) for macbook in 2012

MacBook Air audio input/output, mic/headset

PS If all else fails I will try another splitter.

That TRRS socket actually has of odd configuration of 4 pins so that you can use the genuine Apple headphone/microphone all-in-one 4-pin combo that comes with iPods & iPhones etc. Generally they look like this:

Here is your microphone, right? The Sennheiser ME3. Notice there is a locking ring on that plug? Also, notice how there are two little black lines on the end there? That is the insulation separating the 3 conductive contacts aka 3 pins This is a TRS plug: ( - )( + )(⏚).

It comes with the following caveats:

  1. The plug on your microphone has a rotating "locking ring", you have probably found that the microphone isn't working, or works only
  sporadically depending on the connection. The issue is that locking
  ring prevents the non-standard plug from fully engaging when plugging
  into your sound card.
  2. Please note that all versions of the Sennheiser ME3 are wired differently than usual headset microphones and are not electrically
  compatible with many computer sound cards.

First of all, you're probably going to need something like this:

  3. Additional Note:  This adapter does not change the unusual wiring scheme used by Sennheiser in the manufacture of the ME3.  The ME3 is not compatible with all sound cards.  If you are having trouble, we recommend you interface your ME3 with an external USB sound adapter, such as the Andrea Pure Audio (MA) adapter, Buddy 7G or the SpeechWare MultiAdapter.

I don't know what's up with the strange wiring scheme. Maybe it's a stereo microphone, maybe it has something to do with their noise cancellation feature, maybe they use some weird shielding in their cable, maybe they're using balanced cables, maybe they just decided to use an odd wiring scheme and call it a proprietary connector, preventing people from using aftermarket accessories, maybe it was an accident. I can only speculate without digging deeper or seeing a schematic or something. If it were me, I would probably cut the plug off and wire it in a traditional manner. Apparently though, these are compatible with the Sennheiser ME3. They are known as The Andrea Pure Audio USB-SA Adapter & The Andrea Pure Audio USB-MA Adapter, respectively.

If by some miracle you have an ordinary connector, or you find a suitable line-level adapter to make things "normal", you're probably still going to want one of these;
1/8" TRRS male to 1/8" TS female input & 1/8" TRS female adapters:
Yes, it looks and sounds weird. The 4-conductor TRRS plug on this cable uses the CTIA standard configuration, which puts the microphone signal on the sleeve (versus being on the second ring in the OMTP standard). The CTIA standard has always been used by Apple and HTC, while older Samsung, Nokia & Sony Ericsson devices (for instance) initially used the OMTP standard.

Plug the 3.5mm (1/8") male TRRS plug into the audio jack on your laptop.
The smaller of the two 3.5mm (1/8") female jack bodies is the TRS stereo headphone output. Plug your standard earphones, headphones, speakers, or other output device into this jack.
The larger of the two 3.5mm (1/8") female jack bodies is the TS mono microphone input. Plug your (hopefully, now) "standard PC style microphone cable" into this jack.


Which version of iOS is the May 12 security paper referring to? Apple has published a paper on security controls in iOS, which specific version is this referring to?

The given information seems pretty generic to me. A statement of how Apple manages security with the iOS devices seems more plausible rather than how security is handled with a specific version of it.

iOS 5 is referred a couple of times in the paper, though, while no earlier version are, but in a very vague way.


iPad ID reset after homesharing I homeshared my iPad to my husband's computer via homesharing and all went well. But it reset the Apple ID on my iPad to my husband's email address. Now I can't access iStore with my own ID.

I checked that my ID and password was still stored under general in the iPad but this has not fixed the problem.

Any ideas?

Your best bet would be to go into Settings -> Store, log out of the account, and log into the account that you want to use to access the store. That should not affect your home sharing setup, and will allow you to use your account for the store.


iCloud Photo Library not optimizing My wife's 16gb iP5 is not optimizing iCPL she is now out of space. What do I need to do to fix this? I've read that if I turn off iCPL on her phone and then delete all the pictures in her photos app including Recently deleted then restart her phone and turn iCPL again it will revert to optimizing again. Is this an acceptable method for fixing this what I consider to be a still in beta Apple app.                 Very disappointing.

I turned iCPL, Photo Stream and iCloud Photo Sharing off in Settings/General/Photos & Camera, rebooted her phone and then turned on all that I had turned off. The phone then showed a spinning gear for about 5 minutes saying "Turning On" and after that I went to Settings/General/Usage/Manage Storage, and saw that her phone regained 2Gb of storage back from only having 388Mb available. I did not have to delete all of her photos after I turned iCPL off.


Is there a way to purchase the official Lion release when the Gold Master was previously installed? Is there a way to install the official release when you installed the Gold Master version? I can't purchase it from the app store because it think I have the app already intalled...

I wonder how you can purchase/install lion on x machines since your appstore login can be used at home, at works, etc...


Can I allow Mac using Internet Sharing via Thunderbolt to talk to other devices on network? Does my MacBook - which is connected via Thunderbolt bridge to an iMac with Internet Sharing - see devices on the network the iMac is connected to?

I can see a new subnet is created on the Thunderbolt bridge adapter: 192.168.2.x

My main network is 192.168.1.x - the iMac is connected to this on Ethernet adapter.

Can I let the MacBook connect to other devices on the 192.168.1.x subnet?
I want to connect to a network share on another device in this upstream network.

Ideally:

I would be able to assign the MacBook with an (additional?) IP
address in the 192.168.1.x range.
Bonjour would be able to find
devices on the upstream network that had file sharing enabled, and
show them in the Finder sidebar.

Enabling Inter Sharing on your iMac makes it a NAT router. Its main purpose is to connect the downstream networks (192.168.2.0/24) to other networks (like your main router connects your internal network(s) to the internet).

Your MacBook will connect to either other devices in the upstream network (192.168.1.0/24) or the Internet.

If you want to share a service on your MacBook (e.g. an Apache server) to the upstream network (192.168.1.0/24), you would have to forward the respective port on the iMac and add routes to the networks 192.168.2.0/24 on all other devices in the network 192.168.1.0/24.

Assigning an IP address of the 192.168.1.0/24 to the MacBook isn't possible.


How to specify "play next" in iTunes? When iTunes is playing songs from a Playlist, sometimes I just want to play a song from later in the playlist.  Is there a way to load songs into a queue, or to tell iTunes to play another song next?

I'm using iTunes 10.6.0.40 on Windows 7.

You could use iTunes DJ. Select the playlist that you want from the list in the left-hand corner.

Then, you can right click on a song, and select "Play next in iTunes DJ"


Will having too many running programs slow down my Mac? If I have movies, music, document, Photoshop...running on my Mac. I wonder to know whether they will slow down my Mac. I use Magican to monitor my Mac, it displays the programs are take high CPU usage.
If they will slow down the Mac, should I need to cut down some process?

No matter what platform you are on, if you have multiple programs all running at once, they are using resources and therefore yes, will slow down your computer. There is a big difference between many applications running, versus actively doing something.

For example, if you are watching a movie, playing music, and working in Photoshop, all are actively using resources and the system will have to share them.

If you are not actively using something, the a large amount of its resources are given back to the OS, and therefore while still running (and consuming resources), they are not consuming as much. For example - on a Mac you can close all the windows of an application, and most of its resources are released, but it is still consuming 'something'.

OS X Lion (10.7) takes this a step further with a new feature, called Automatic Termination. According to some of the dev documentation:

  When an application that supports sudden termination goes unused or
  has no open windows, Mac OS X may terminate it behind the scenes. When
  a user wants to use the application again, it usually relaunches
  instantly. Users who want to quit applications manually can still do
  so, but it is no longer necessary.

With Lion, applications that support this Resume/Automatic Termination feature will quit for you behind the scenes to gather resources back for the system if it starts running low. Preview and TextEdit are two apps I have seen this actually happen too. They won't do this if you are working in them, but if you leave TextEdit running and go off to other stuff, eventually it will quit itself for you.

So, the takeaway is this: Yes, too many processes running will slow down your Mac (and any computer for that matter). This is because resources are limited (obviously more RAM helps you run more stuff, but still a limit somewhere).


Unable to properly boot Power Mac G5 running Debian without a screen connected I’ve got Power Mac G5 running Debian 6 in headless mode as a media/home server.

When booting it without an attached screen, the fans ramp up from the idle speed to maximum over a couple of minutes. The red interior warning light is not lit.

The server is ping-able the entire time, but startup utilities such as SSH and other are never started; or at least they aren’t reachable.

If a screen is connected until the login-prompt appears, it works just fine. Connecting a screen after booting does nothing; it must be connected the entire time.

I do not know, nor am I able to test if this is a problem when running Mac OS X.

Has anyone experienced this before? And if so, is there a solution to this?

The server is ping-able the entire time, but startup utilities such as
  SSH and other are never started; or at least they aren’t reachable.

That happens because while a system might be pingable, that only happens at the most “embryonic” levels of any system booting into existence. This is why simply pinging a server is not the best way to determine overall system service state. And the reason services—such as SSH—are not starting is because the system is hanging due to it not knowing how to deal with being without a monitor attached; the keyboard should not play any factor in things.

What you are looking for is a way to run that Power Mac G5 as a headless system. To my knowledge, this can be done if Mac OS X is installed, but this cannot be done if another OS—such as Linux—is running.

That said, you can “trick” the Power Mac G5 to believe a display is installed by using a “headless dongle” which is a fairly common/simple hardware item in the server world. Most of these devices are based on VGA display settings and if you look at instructions—like these for a Mac Mini server—the concept is quite simple. By placing a 75-85ohm resistor between pin 1 and pin 6 on a VGA connecter on a machine you can “trick” the machine into believing a display is connected.

In your case, unclear on whether your Power Mac G5 has native VGA output or not, but if it does, then just find a 75-85ohm resistor, stick it between pin 1 and pin 6, and you should be good to go.

If your Power Mac G5 has a DVI connector, then you’ll need to get a DVI-to-VGA adapter and then set the 75-85ohm resistor on that. But the overall concept is the same.

There are also some online tutorials—such as this one for a “VGA dummy”, this one on Instructables and this one as well—that are a bit more elaborate. Heck, look at these instructions here from a user running Ubuntu on a Mac Mini who faced similar issues as you describe; note he used the three resistor setup:

Why do all of those tutorials require three 75-85ohm resistors for pins 1 & 6, 2 & 7 and 3 & 8 instead of just one for 1 & 6? Not clear myself. But the general concept of these devices are the same: A simple piece of hardware that “tricks” your computer—regardless of OS—to believe a display is attached to it.

Also, if you are running a server on hardware that uses an HDMI connector, you can use one of these similar dongles which runs around $15-20 (U.S.) a piece and works great. Allows you to have true HD resolution on a headless machine when you remote into it. Pretty sure your Power Mac G5 does not have an HDMI connector, but worth mentioning here for reference.


Possible to use Apple Watch to adjust volume of TvOS or Safari on MacOS? I want to use the wheel on the Apple Watch to adjust the volume of whatever I'm listening to... it could be

Air Pods paired to MacOS (iTunes works, but Safari or other apps don't)
Apple TV speakers
MacOS speakers on a MacBookPro

How can I use Apple Watch to change the speaker volume in the above situations?

This or this might help.

You can change the AirPod volume from the now playing app.

If you're controlling your now playing on your MBP through the watch, the same might apply - otherwise I don't think it's possible at the moment.


iPhone Proxy auto-configuration with username / password I'm looking for a way to include the username and password to an auto configurated setting for proxies on iOS. Any ideas?

HTTP GET logins have you include your username and password in the URL. For example, if you're using the fictional proxy that's located at www.an-example-proxy.com/proxy-login, and you were instructed to use port 3333, and your username is foo, and your password is bar, then you would put http://foo:bar@www.an-example-proxy.com:3333/proxy-login in the URL field on the Auto tab under Settings > WiFi > ESSID (Network Name) > HTTP Proxy (this doesn't sound too much like an automatically configured proxy to me, though, but this should get you logged on).


Is Apple throttling web apps on iPhone? According to the Register Apple is throttling web apps:

  If a web app is run from the iOS 4.3 home screen – in other words, if
  it is saved to the screen alongside local apps downloaded from the
  Apple App Store – and launched into full-screen mode, it runs roughly
  two to two and a half times slower than it does in the browser,
  according to various tests. It appears that whereas Apple has updated
  the iOS 4.3 Safari browser with its high-speed Nitro JavaScript
  engine, Nitro is not used when web apps are launched from the home
  screen.

Is this true?

It's more that Safari was being boosted in 4.3 and that that boost was not available to Web Apps on the homescreen

According to ArsTechnica this is fixed in iOS 5.


Unable to boot Windows 10 from Bootcamp external HDD I have installed Windows 10 Pro in Mac OS X El Capitan using Bootcamp, restored the same to external USB 3.0 HDD using WinClone Pro. Now I am getting error when booting to Windows.

Steps followed:

Disabled SIP in Mac from recovery mode, using the command csrutil disable (this is requested by WinClone)
Installed Windows in Mac using bootcamp, installed drivers
Partitioned the external HDD
Restored the bootcamp installation to external USB 3.0 HDD using WinClone Pro
Removed the internal bootcamp installation using bootcamp
Restarted to external bootcamp installation

I am using MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015).

Tried with F8 key, then safemode and it gives like the below:

Reference Video

When using the Winclone product to install Windows on a external USB drive, it is extremely important that you first read all the instructions provided by Winclone.

Winclone provides the Web page: Running Windows from an External Drive. This page provides links to two videos. The first link is the same as given in your question. The second link provides the answer to your posted question.


How to prevent Cmd-Q from typing "q" in the new foreground app? My background app (the one that gets activated when the current app quits) is some text editor. When I use the Cmd-Q shortcut to quit it and immediately afterwards let go of only the Cmd key, the text editor types a q character.

Of course I normally don't intentionally keep Q pressed. While using the Quartz keyboard layout I never even noticed this, but when I changed to the Dvorak layout, I occasionally saw this happen (probably because of the location of Q on the keyboard). It happens with both layouts though.

I'm pretty sure it's not a problem with specifically my Mac (EDIT: It only happens with my Logitech keyboard). It's quiet annoying, especially while coding since I quit the developing app a lot and the q in my source code makes it not compile anymore.

My questions are:

Does this only happen on my Mac? Can someone test this? It only happens with the Logitech keyboard.
How can I prevent this from happening? (other than always paying attention to let go of Q before Cmd)
Why is this even happening? I don't think it's supposed to be like this.

Tested and mine doesn't do this.
Try to turn off key repeat: (mine below is not off)

Maybe you have a non-Apple keyboard with anti-ghosting?


App to stream photos from my Network share to SmartTV via iPhone I have photos on my network drive. I want to stream them to a SmartTV;  something like:

On my iPhone
Open network share
Find folder with pics
Stream to DLNA/SmartTV

The only app I've found so far is iMediaShare. However, it is an old app - and have an issue with the slideshow: you need to manually list all files in the folder,  then start the slideshow (otherwise it will stream only first batch of files).

All other streaming apps do support streaming of my local iPhone Camera Roll, which is fine, but I don't need it.

Why do I need it?

The software in my TV and media player works slow, and are less responsive. It takes time to navigate to next photo.  It takes time to load stuff. I need to sit in the front of TV and see what is going on. I need to handle different remote controls/apps. Moreover, some of my shares are private, and I don't want TV to access them; but still want to stream some images from it. So, at the end: it is much more convenient for me to use it like described above.

Try Filpps Tv you can get from apple store


Cannot install libsodium via commandline I am trying to install libsodium using

./configure --prefix=/usr
make
sudo make install

In the install step, I get this error:

usage: install [-bCcpSsv] [-B suffix] [-f flags] [-g group] [-m mode]
               [-o owner] file1 file2
       install [-bCcpSsv] [-B suffix] [-f flags] [-g group] [-m mode]
               [-o owner] file1 ... fileN directory
       install -d [-v] [-g group] [-m mode] [-o owner] directory ...
make[4]: *** [install-nobase_includeHEADERS] Error 64
make[3]: *** [install-am] Error 2
make[2]: *** [install-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: *** [install-recursive] Error 1
make: *** [install-recursive] Error 1

Do I need a different verison of some package?

Try installing using homebrew:

brew install libsodium

Homebrew will deal with all the dependencies for you. You can also review the recipe used by homebrew's libsodium.


iPhone 3G upgraded to iOS 4, does it now support multitasking? Can anybody clarify the availability of multitasking on an iPhone 3G?

I went through several documents in Apple's HI guidelines, which state that:

  Multitasking is available on certain devices running ios4 and later.

What does it actually mean? I have an iPhone 3G which doesn't support multitasking, so now if I upgrade my iPhone 3G to iOS4 or later, will it support multitasking?

Only iPhone 3GS and later support multitasking.  iPhone 3G does not, regardless of which version of iOS is installed, unless you jailbreak it.


Configure OS X to pass incoming traffic to another server? I have a PC and a 2011 Mac mini on one wireless network, which does not have Internet access.  The Mac mini is also connected to another network which has Internet access.

Is there a way I can share access to a single IP using the Mac?  i.e., Forward all requests on ports XX-YY to AAA.BBB.CCC.DDD?

EDIT: I'd prefer a solution that is 100% command-line based.

OS X 10.11.3
I need the PC to be able to access resources on the Mac's network.
Internet sharing replaces the Mac's connection to the wifi network.

The PC is wired to a wireless router without internet.  The Mac is wired to a wireless router with internet.  The Mac is also wifi connected to the PC's wireless router.  The PC's wireless router is not capable of acting as a client.

An SSH tunnel will serve the purpose here, assuming that you configure a gazillion LocalForward ports.

Place these contents into your ~/.ssh/config file:

Host [hostname]
User [username]
Port [SSH port]              # (if using port 22, omit this line)
LocalForward 1 0.0.0.0:1     # Replace all these
LocalForward 2 0.0.0.0:2     # port numbers with
LocalForward 3 0.0.0.0:3     # the actual ports
LocalForward 4 0.0.0.0:4     # that you need.
LocalForward 5 0.0.0.0:5     #
LocalForward 6 0.0.0.0:6     # Format is like this:
LocalForward 7 0.0.0.0:7     # LocalForward [port] 0.0.0.0:[port]
LocalForward 8 0.0.0.0:8     #
LocalForward 9 0.0.0.0:9
LocalForward 10 0.0.0.0:10

... and so on for whatever ports you want.

This will set up listening ports on the Mac, and will forward the traffic on those ports to [hostname] over an SSH connection to [username] on port [SSH port] whenever you run this Terminal command:

ssh [hostname]

Keep in mind that [hostname] must be running an SSH server, and you will get a shell on the remote host in Terminal.  It's possible to configure a port-forward-only SSH server, but that is beyond the scope of this answer.  If you don't want a shell on the remote server, run this command instead:

ssh [hostname] sleep 3600

You will instead get a 1 hour connection, and no shell.  Don't close the Terminal window.  If you want, you can set it up such that you can close Terminal by running this:

nohup ssh [hostname] sleep 3600 &

Replace 3600 with the number of seconds you want the connection to last.


Is there a system keystroke (interrupt) I can press to force a coredump on OSX? How do I force MacOS to dump the state of the running processes and reboot without the need to open a windows or open a command line?  My system is effectively unresponsive to non-system interrupt activities (keystrokes take minutes to process - holding down the power button works).  Is there a key sequence that can tell MacOS to snapshot state and reboot for later diagnosis?  Does MacOS possibly store a system dump somewhere after a forced system reboot?

Sure. Here is the main list of shortcuts.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236

First get a sysdiagnose with shift - control - command - option - period

How do you get system diagnostic files from macOS?

Then choose whichever restart or shutdown option you want from Apple’s list.


Mac Pro Tower, randomly hanging convinced its a hardware problem but Apple think otherwise Just about ready to launch this machine out the window it's driving me crazy.

Ok so a rundown of what has happened thus far.

Bought a Mac Pro Tower around 2010, worked like a dream for 3 years then due to circumstances it had to be put into storage for the past 2 years.

Anyway when I got it out of storage a few weeks ago and fired it up I noticed that it keep randomly hanging and nothing would allow me to resume control. Due to the age of the machine I figured it could have been a failing HD, so replaced it with a new one and done a clean install of Snow Leopard.

That didn't make any difference, so after asking around on here I got told it could have been the PRAM battery, so I then replaced that too and again it made no difference.

At that point I took it into the Apple Store, it crashed twice when they loaded their own OS on it so they kept it in for further investigation. They then called me up to say that they couldn't find any hardware faults but that they did install a newer version of Snow Leopard.

So I have just got it home, set it up and it crashed yet again.

Any ideas what I should do now?

Yes - troubleshooting this could be easy if you take some time. Get a notepad and write down the times of the problems - day, minute, second. Over time a pattern will emerge.

Save the logs - after it crashes - run the command sudo sysdiagnose as this will package each crash and the logs for later analysis.

Pay attention to what crashes - is it a kernel panic, a freeze, an abrupt reboot. The steps to diagnose each is slightly different. We have a [chat] for getting troubleshooting help if you need a start.


Google Maps no longer loads on iPad? When I load the Google Maps app on my iPad, it simply quits before showing anything more than a grey screen, which I assume is a crash. Is there any way to fix this, or should I book an appointment at the genius bar?

If I do need to go to the apple store about it, how can I back up my data? I don't want to lose my files and Angry Birds progress if they need to wipe the iPad or something...

It may well be that your iPad simply needs to be restarted in order to clean up the system memory.
Optional App Report
You can force the app to quit (which may result in losing information about your last trip or pin drop) and send a crash report to Apple by forcing it to quit in a specific way:

Press and hold the power button on the top until "Slide to Power Off" appears
Don't slide to power off.
While "Slide..." is showing, press and hold the Home button.

This will force a "crash" to let Apple know exactly where the Maps app caused you to feel it needed a "force quit" and might help the engineers fix a bug if that's the cause.
Restarting the iPad

Press and hold the power button on the top until "Slide to Power Off" appears.
Slide to power off.
Turn the iPad back on by pressing and holding the power button until the Apple logo appears.

The iPad 2 needs a power off less often due to the extra memory it has, but both devices occasionally need the user to force quit a problematic app as well as a clean reboot.
If these don't solve the problem then I'd go with the other suggestions here, but a clean restart may well fix things.


Safari v5.1.2 crashes frequently I've noticed an enormous number of Safari crashes since switching to Mac OS X Lion, especially the new "reload all windows" crashes that leave Safari slow and unstable.  Any tips for handling those more gracefully?

There are admittedly many crashes attributable directly to Flash.  I'm happily minimizing my Flash exposure using ClickToFlash.  Any other suggestions?  Anyone seen a plugin that relaunches pages in another browser?

There are crashes that I cannot attribute to Flash, like this page.  Any idea what's wrong?

I use Lion but with chrome.

If i have 10 tabs or pages open and press cmd + Q to quit chrome, when i open the app back up all my tabs are still there.

Plus according to the new press release, chrome is supposed to be the fastest and most secure browser.


OS X Mail - Move mail out of inbox I created a bunch of smart boxes for diff kinds of emails...
but these email continue on showing up on the inbox...
I would like them not to appear on the inbox...

how can I do that?

A Smart Mailbox displays messages that are stored in other mailboxes
  and that meet certain criteria you specify.

Smart Mailboxes aren't really moving the messages anywhere. They're just referencing messages stored in other mailboxes.

I think what you should be using here are rules instead of Smart Mailboxes.

  You can create rules to help manage incoming messages and automate
  some tasks, such as replying to or forwarding messages. For example,
  you could create a rule to highlight messages from a specific person,
  or automatically move messages from your inbox to other mailboxes.

Use the same criteria you've specified for your Smart Mailboxes in the new rules to move messages from your inbox to other mailboxes.

Read more at Mail for Mac: Use rules to manage your inbox


VM software that can boot to Windows partition created by Boot Camp Does anybody know if any VM software can boot Windows from the other partitions on the internal HDD?

Here is what mine looks like:

HDD

OS X partition
Windows Boot Camp partition

Objective: Running OS X, but booting into windows through a VM environment from the HD installation.

Both VMWare Fusion and Parallels Desktop support running VMs directly from Bootcamp partitions. They also offer migration from a partition to a VM image if you ever want to go that route.

It appears that it's also possible with Virtualbox, but not a supported feature. I found this blog post detailing how to configure it (the post also lists several other sources that may be helpful).

Relevant support articles:

Launching your Boot Camp partition in VMware Fusion
Parallels: Using Boot Camp Partition in Virtual Machine