recover partial backup data from a (potentially damaged) Time Machine disk I am on a MacBook Pro Retina 15-inch, late 2013, with OS X 10.9.5 Mavericks.

First of all, to clarify the question, my goal is to create a new, working Time Machine (TM) disk, that has as much as possible of the old backup data available.

Here are the details of the situation.
I had several years worth TM backups on a 500GB external disk. Few weeks ago I got a message from the system that the disk used for TM backup was about to die. So I used Disk Utility to create a disk image of the TM disk (on another, bigger, external disk).
This disk image creation happened overnight, so I didn't attend the whole process.
In the morning I found:

the disk image successfully created, with no error messages in Disk Utility,
the original TM disk completely dead.

(I give this detail because I am not sure of the "state of health" of the disk image, of its file system, etc., and I suspect that the problem could be due to  this.)

I have then bought a bigger 1TB external HD, and I am trying to copy the content of the TM saved disk image on it, so to have back a working TM disk, but with no success so far.

I have tried to copy the whole folder, both from the finder, with a (naive) drag and drop, or with rsynch. I have then understood that this type of "file level" method will not work, because of the heavy use of "aliases" (soft-links? hard-links?) used in the TM folder.
So I used Disk Utility to have a "Restore" of the disk image on the new HD.
After some failures, I learned that I hat to uncheck the "Ignore ownership on this volume" box in the info of the target disk, and also temporarily disable TM and Spotlight, to avoid any activity on the disks.
After Disk Utility successfully restored the saved disk image on the new HD, I receive an error about the newly created copy of the TM disk, saying:

  Error: Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.

I tried many times (as suggested in some posts), but after several attempts Disk Utility still is unable to repair it.

I am assuming that the disk image I managed to save contains damaged data, with maybe the file system messed up in some way.
So, before starting a fresh TM backup on the new empty TM disk, and loose all the old TM backups, my last attempt is to manually copy as much data as I can from the saved TM disk image (which I manage to mount and access via the finder).

So, my question is: what is the best way to copy the folders of a TM backup to a new TM backup disk, one by one, checking each time that the copy was successful, that the TM structure is in good shape, but that the "links" were copied as links, and not as actual files/folders, so to keep the "space efficient" feature of the TM folders structure?

Thanks!

The best thing to do, to avoid major data loss, is to:

copy personal files and folders from the TM disk image (they do not have symlinks, so no problem whatsoever). Obviously choose the latest backup.
from the TM disk image write down on a piece of paper an entire list of all the apps in the Application folder and reinstall them from scratch (depending on what the app is, it might not be self-contained, therefore it might include some symlinks and/or preferences)

Even if you can successfully restore from the TM, you must reinstall from scratch utilities like

Garageband/Logic additional instruments (if you have installed some)
Java
Adobe Flash Player/Shockwave Player
Microsoft Silverlight
XCode Command Line Tools


Force style of push notification? I was wondering - is there a way to force how a push notification will appear to the iPhone user? There are 3 options in settings for the user to choose - none, some kind of top banner that dissappears after a short time and an alert with buttons.

The problem is, while developing an application for iPhone, I found out that using the didReceiveRemoteNotification function did not return any results if I didn't click on that top banner. This doesn't seem to be firing up even when the application is taken to the foreground.

I need those data provided by this function to act upon in my application.

Thanks for your time!

Yep, there is no way for you to do this. Check this answer and the comments below. Probably you should implement another method to poll for events while app is running.

ps. A more appropriate place to ask this question would be StackOverflow.


Why is a Time Machine backup so slow over a fast network? Despite having a gigabit hardwired ethernet connection to my Macbook Air, when I have Time Machine backing up to an iMac also hardwired on the same switch in the same network, the transfer speed is often less then 1MB per second.
If/when I copy a file from the Air (Catalina 10.15.7) to my iMac (Mojave 10.14.6), I get a speed of about 65MB per second.  As it is, it takes about a month to get the 1Tb disk in my Air backed up, all that time sitting there with a wired connection and doing little else. If I could get 65MB/sec with Time Machine, it would take less than 5 hours to backup that 1Tb disk.
The backup disk is a 5Tb portable USB drive connected to the server (my iMac running Mojave) and configured to "share as a Time Machine backup destination".  Several Macs (High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina) are successfully (but slowly) backing up to it over WiFi.
How can I get the initial backup to go as fast as possible?

Time Machine is really poor at working over a network, and I’ve stopped doing this. The best way to run Time Machine now (macOS 11) is to give it a dedicated encrypted disk (which TM will reformat to APFS). The backups will be very fast and you will be hard pressed to notice them, but even backing up to an HFS+ local drive will be orders of magnitude faster than over your LAN.
(The reasons for this are somewhat opaque, but the backup process is very different when backing up over a network as your target is not a disk or even a network folder, but a sparse image file on the network and this makes, as you’ve seen, a huge difference. The behavior seems to have gotten worse in recent versions to the point where it’s just not worth it.)
Another option you might consider is to use a syncing tool to sync your data to a location on the target machine that is part of its regular backup. I’d do both, but then I’m a "three backups are the minimal starter set” sort of guy.


Why does iTunes not recognise a plugged in iPhone on Windows 8.1? I have iTunes 11.0.4.4 and have just installed Windows 8.1 - iTunes seems to work ok, but when I plug the iPhone in (iOS 6.1.4) it doesn't appear and be recognised.

The OS sees the phone and I can copy files from it, but iTunes doesn't react to it.

Are there any known issues with Windows 8.1 - am I paying the price for being on the bleeding edge?

This technique just worked for me on 11.1.3.8 (it broke on the Windows 8 to 8.1 upgrade):

Control Panel, uninstall "iTunes" and "Apple Mobile Device Support"
Plug out your iDevice(s)
Reboot (might be unnecessary, but Windows 2.0 trained me to do this all the time after driver changes)
Run the iTunes installer (you might already have downloaded it)
Plug in your iDevice(s)

At this point, my iPod and iPad were recognized and synced.  My library appears to be intact as well.

I subsequently rebooted and these devices are still found.


Xcode 11 jumps to every desktop in Mac Os Catalina I recently updated my macOS Catalina (10.15) and also updated my Xcode to version 11.1 and I'm having issue with the window. Suppose I switch from Desktop-1 to Desktop-2, the Xcode also automatically moves to the current(focused) desktop.
P.S Only Xcode is showing such kind of behaviour.

If you right click on the application icon on the dock, you can select Options > and change the "Assign To" from All Desktops to None.


How can I stop the Photos app showing the "What's New Photos" screen every time I launch it? I'm on macOS 10.13.3, and every time I launch the Photos app, I get the following screen, showing "What's New Photos". I have to click the "Get Started" button to access my library, which works every time, but is a bit of a nuisance.

This seems like a bug in the app, but perhaps there's some sort of work-around. Does anyone have any tips?

This problem eventually disappeared in some minor version upgrade of macOS Mojave I believe (possibly even the upgrade to Mojave itself). I then had the problem that occasionally Photos.app would "forget" that I had set my system photo library to one on an external drive, which was less bad, but still not ideal. Since upgrading to macOS, that problem has however been fixed too, I'm glad to say.


Is there a way to use my USB web Camera which I use with my windows PC to use with my iPad first edition? Is there a way to use my USB web Camera which I use with my windows PC to use with my iPad first edition?

Or any other camera to use with ipad first edition.

The iPad does not support using external cameras with it, as it does not have the drivers required.

Thus, the iPad cannot use an external camera. However, the new iPad 2 has cameras.


Natively Installed Ubuntu On iMac - Switch Back Or To Windows I natively installed Ubuntu a few months ago following this tutorial. I am now wondering if it is possible to go back to OSX or Windows?

Currently when I hold option key on boot, I get a grey screen and only wifi connection settings are shown.

If you wish to go back to Mac OS permanently, you might be able to restore from the OS X recovery partition if that is still present; hold Command-R while starting up to try and enter Recovery mode. See the short instructions from Apple, or this MacWorld article for a longer description. Please note that some of these options may delete your Ubuntu installation and any files in that OS.

If you departed from your linked tutorial and completely wiped the hard disk to install Ubuntu, the Internet Recovery mode--also described in both links above--may still work. (In fact, the Mac might have been showing you that WiFi connections screen because it's attempting to get to the internet for that purpose.)

If you want to preserve your dual-boot setup, try repairing the EFI bootloader by reinstalling rEFInd from inside Ubuntu. The process should be very similar to the instructions in your tutorial for installing rEFInd within OS X, as rEFInd's install script is stated to run within either.


Mac Wireless Mouse, not apple brand Which mouse is able connect to MBP 2011, But not apple brand.
I'm looking for mouse that can connect without need to use the USB port permanently.

You can connect any Bluetooth mouse to your MB's integrated bluetooth module. Personally I'd recommend Microsoft mice as they are of good quality. My father recently had some problems with a el cheapo china model, but if you pick a brand, you should not have a problem.

Make sure it has this logo on it, and not some "Yeah we do our own kewl 2.5 GHz radio" (actually there is no reason to do this, except not to pay a few cents for the Bluetooth license):


How i can log various information of files in directory? I'm looking for a way to get the following information via AppleScript:

all the information ls provides including the creation date/time of a file or folder
MD5 hash, Finder labels and Finder/Spotlight comments

into an output like

46737077 drwxr-xr-x 2 Jonas 68 Oct 4 15:39:34 2012 /Users/Jonas/Desktop/test/test.txt 5 md5_here finder_comment_here

What I currently have is some old code which needs tweaking (creation date/time is missing):

do shell script "find -x " & my_path & " -print0 | xargs -0 ls -d -F -P -l -T -a -e -i -o -p -q " & my_path user name "user" password "pin" with administrator privileges

and some basic looping code for the comments/labels

set results_list to "/Users/Jonas/Desktop/test1.txt /Users/Jonas/Desktop/test2.txt"
set comm to {}
set labels to {}
repeat with counter from 1 to count paragraphs in results_list
    tell application "Finder" to set end of comm to comment of item ((POSIX file (paragraph counter in results_list)) as string)
    tell application "Finder" to set end of labels to label index of item ((POSIX file (paragraph counter in results_list)) as string)
end repeat

but now I'm kind of stuck in combining this all together.

I am not sure if you need to have it in this particular way, but why not simply using something like

ls -l > logfile.txt

and add the necessary options to ls if you want it a little bit more specific


Mac Pro 2007/2008 fresh Snow Leopard install with GT120 graphics card? I have a Mac Pro from late 2007, early 2008 and I want to perform a clean install but nothing comes up on my monitor. The graphics card is an NVIDIA GT 120 and the hard drive is an Intel SSD. I am assuming the graphics card is the problem but all comments point to it being supported.

How do I do a clean Snow Leopard install with the given hardware?

The Apple NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 Graphics card is not compatible with the 2007/2008 Mac Pro, so in order to do the fresh install you will want to remove the GT 120 and re-install a compatible graphics card that will work with the 2007 / 2008 generation of Mac Pro.

As noted on Amazon the following system requirements are noted for the Apple NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 Graphics card.

  Product Features

  Requires Mac Pro (Early 2009 with 1066MHz DDR3 memory) with PCI Express 2.0 slot
  Requires Mac OS X v10.5.6 or later


Connect Apple Thunderbolt to Lenovo T420s I have an Apple Thunderbolt Display 27 inch, Part MC914LL/A and I'd like to know if there is a way I could connect it to my Lenovo T420s ThinkPad.

The cables in the top photo are of a MagSafe connector for an Apple laptop, (on the right,) and either a Thunderbolt or Apple DisplayPort connector, (on the left.)

The Lenovo has the standard VGA 15-pin and a DisplayPort (VESA) output which supports a single-link DVI-D 45J7915 cable. It is not compatible unless you can find a VESA DisplayPort to Apple Mini DisplayPort adaptor.

Perhaps the Lenovo 45J7915 cable <> M-M DVI-D cable <> Apple Mini DisplayPort/DVI would work for you. I cannot predict if it will.

YMMV.


When Organized by Conversation, Mail's Inbox sometimes sends out to wrong recipient When Lion's Mail Inbox is set to "Organize by Conversation", an odd behavior often occurs. If I hit Reply to the latest email from my correspondent, the recipient in the new email is me, not this correspondent.

I'm aware that any of the emails in the Conversation can be individually highlighted (seen as a blue line around that email), and that if this blue line is around one of the correspondent's emails, hitting Reply definitely sets the new email to be sent to this correspondent. However, if nothing is blue-highlighted, and I hit Reply, the new email is set to be sent to... me. Which of course isn't the objective.

Whew, that was harder to explain than the issue, but I hope my question is clear!

There are at least half a dozen threads on Apple Support about this, and was a bug that has been fixed as of 10.7.2.


How can I use a TP-LINK WiFi USB interface in OS X Lion? I happen to have a TP-LINK TL-WN821N (it's a WiFi USB stick) around. Is there any chance to get that working on a Mac mini running OS X Lion?

There are no official drivers but it seems there are some kind of drivers for the ATHEROS AR9170+AR9102 chipset from other vendors like Ralink.

Update: The below hack worked when using D-Link's DWA-130 Rev. D drivers instead of the DWA-160 ones. Compatible drivers using the same chipset were identified with the help of the WikiDevi database.

A quick Google search shows that someone has had success in using D-Links DWA-160 driver (which uses the same chipset), although not without some minor hacking to make the driver recognize the different hardware IDs:

Install driver package
Extract kernel extension from installer:

Show Package Contents of the installer
unarchive Archive.pax.gz
grab AtherosOtusMac.kext

Edit plist and change or add your device id and product id converted to decimal (illustrated below):

Show Package Contents of AtherosOtusMac.kext
Open Info.plist within (using either Xcode or a text or XML editor)
Open System Information, find your TP-Link under USB and note down Product ID and Vendor ID
Convert both numbers from hexadecimal to decimal (you can use Calculator.app)
Replace idProduct and idVendor on the first model with your numbers

Use kext helper to install your modified AtherosOtusMac.kext
use DWA-160.app (in /Applications/Utilies) to connect

Although considering the price of a new Wifi USB stick with OS X drivers, this may not be worth the effort, unless you're doing this sort of thing for fun :-)

Illustration of the plist step (with my USB mouse as example, because I don't have a TL-WN821N laying around):


How do I preserve file paths after cloning a failing external drive? I have a failing external drive with Mac backups as well as my iTunes library, Photos library, and other application files. I purchased a replacement drive recently and am ready to clone the files over to the new drive.

How do I make sure that, after cloning the drive, my applications will read their files from the new drive without me manually having to re-specify the file locations? I.E. not having to manually update the file locations of every song in my iTunes library, or similar actions for other applications.

I'm assuming it's something simple like: making sure the name of the partition on the new drive is the same as the partition of the old drive.

If by cloning you mean you're going to use software such as Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! to create an exact image of your external drive, and as long as you ensure the external drive maintains the same volume name, then you should have no problems.

Once you've made the copy, however, I would no longer keep the other external drive connected.

Libraries: iTunes and Photos

In your question you state:

  How do I make sure that, after cloning the drive, my applications will
  read their files from the new drive without me manually having to
  re-specify the file locations? I.E. not having to manually update the
  file locations of every song in my iTunes library.

Well, if you're only concerned about your Photos and iTunes library, then even if you didn't clone your external hard drive, you'd still be fine as you can manually set where the iTunes Library and Photos Library are located. This is a once off step. For example, once iTunes knows where it's Library is, it will find everything. You don't need to manually update the file locations of every song in your iTunes library.


security dump-trust-settings causes an error When I type security dump-trust-settings I get the following two errors:

Cert 1: GTE CyberTrust Global Root
SecTrustSettingsCopyTrustSettings: The specified item could not be found in the keychain.
Cert 2: Class 3 Public Primary Certification Authority
SecTrustSettingsCopyTrustSettings: The specified item could not be found in the keychain.

Is there a way to delete these certificates so that they don't cause an error (they seem to cause an error with Sublime Text Package Control)? They are not shown in the Keychain Access.

This is an open issue in the Package Control issue tracker now: https://github.com/wbond/package_control/issues/1002


How to monitor network traffic on a router from a Mac? A company has a High Speed internet connection (30 MB/s) which is enough for 10-15 computers. But for a week, there is almost no bandwidth "left", just checking email takes a long time or fails. Getting a website on screen is almost impossible. I checked with speedtest.net and now the speed is 3mb/s to 6 mb/s if not zero in the test time.

So the question is how I can monitor the in and out from the modem/router and analyze what IP take all the "juice" to take that bummer down in flame (or just find the program that make the internet choke). I have a Mac running 10.6.8 (the latest Snow Leopard release) and would like to better manage the network infrastructure and gain insight into how and when it becomes overloaded or performs poorly.

So in short, I need to track which IP or MAC address makes the most requests... And BTW, when there is no person at any computer (over the w-e) the line is fully used (as said by the internet provider (videotron) company) which is not supposed to happen!

NetUse monitor has been suggested by many, but I am still wondering about the features I need. Here is my problem and tell me how your software or other can help me.

Put a switch which can have ports configured in "span" mode so you can sniff all the traffic, (an old hub will also do the same job) between the router and the base station.

Plug in your laptop, install wireshark and sniff all the traffic.  Then analyse.

The other tool I use is MRTG, but you will need to set up SNMP on the Airport or the "spanned" switch, and monitor for a few days.

You can definitely use SNMP with an Airport extreme as documented here.


Why are updates so extremely large? I'm currently downloading the update for iMovie (2 GB) and Xcode (3.5 GB). Other similiar producs are maybe several 100 MBs, but for the full software, not just an update.

What makes those updates so extremely large?
Do they typically
replace existing files or do they actually consume additional 2 or 3 GB on my harddisk?

Almost all apps downloaded from the Apps Store are full (self-containing) updates or upgrades. They completely replace the updated app.

The only exception updating your system with the App Store.app are security updates (e.g Security Update 2015-002) or system updates (e.g. System Update 10.11.1 or Combo Update 10.10.5) which don't necessarily replace an app/framework/resource but often only parts of it.


Office 2008 in native languages I can't find how to buy it, so I assumed that on English is available.

Does anyone know if there are other languages available for this product, or like in Windows version a Profiling Tools that not only change the GUI locale but also adds the dictionaries in that language.

I'm currently searching the Portuguese version for a friend.

Office 2008 ships with a Portugese (and a Brazilian alternative) proofing tool as part of the package.

Source: Microsoft's list of proofing tools


How to best configure storage for pro level video editing? This is a general question about configuring a machine for video editing and hopefully can be useful over a longer amount of time since the discussion is about general architecture and not necessarily model specific.

I understand there are variables influencing performance of a video editing machine  - processor speed, the application's reliance on video board vs CPU for processing, amount of memory available, and storage drive throughput speeds (vs burst speeds.)   I am getting set to put together an order for a new iMac (27") and need help with drive configuration because that is the most costly portion - the additional money for a larger processor, memory and video board pales in comparison to the storage piece.

If it matters to the discussion I'll be doing hobby video editing - nothing longer than an hour or so. Typically lots of short clips and stills and transitions. I haven't settled on the software yet but it will need to be more complex than iMovie.

Just to be clear the components I'm considering when thinking about storage configuration are OS/application, source media, and export media. (if there is another variable I'm missing - such as temporary media -please educate me on that as well.

Here are my performance-related drive configuration questions:

Is it advantageous to split the application off onto a separate drive? Or can I have the application and one form of media on the same drive?
If I had to put the App and some media on the same drive, should that media be the source media or the export media?
Would a firewire 800 drive be fast enough as a drive to export to?
Would a firewire 800 drive be fast enough to use for my source media?
I'm fairly certain I don't want to have my source media and my export media on the same drive - is that correct thinking?
I don't think the iMac has an eSATA port for that type of external drive. Can one be added easily?
Is video editing application intensive enough to warrant an expensive electronic drive?

Thanks for the help!

Craig

Without more details about what camera you're shooting with, and what type of color space and compression you're working with, it's hard to give definitive answers for some of these questions. But...

1) Yes. In general you'd want to keep your app separate from the media. Usually you'd have OS X and your editing software of choice installed on the system's main internal drive. It would be kind of silly to have them installed on an external drive anyway.

2) The only situation where you should have the app and any media on the same drive is where the only drive you have is your internal drive and everything's getting stored there. This is fine for home use, but in a professional situation this would limit disk throughput prohibitively.

3) Depends on what format you're compressing to. It's all about bit-rate. FW800 is roughly 800 Mbits/second or 100 MB/s.

It's important to realize that, depending on your drive, this can be further limited by the drive's speed. Even though the FW800 connection can carry 100MB/s the drive may not be able to read or write fast enough to saturate it.

You really need to think about what format(s) you're exporting to, how fast the machine you're building can encode to those formats, and what kind of data rates that produces. That'll give you a number to shoot for.

If exporting HD in H.264 codec on a 2-core machine, even a USB 2.0 drive (max ~30MB/s) can usually keep up, so it really depends on what you're doing.

4) This is where you really need as much speed as possible. If your footage is coming mainly from compressed sources, like an HDSLR, or AVCHD or HDV camcorder this will reduce the amount of bandwidth you need. If you have uncompressed footage, it'll be exponentially greater.

Also, you need to know how many streams you want to be able to read from the disk at the same time when editing. Crunch the bit-rate numbers for the formats you're shooting in and you should get a total that you can try to equate to the speed of a source drive.

5) Because of the differences in speed requirements I just outlined, and the fact that during encoding, you'd be reading from and writing to the same drive, I'd say your instinct is right here. For consumer situations having everything on one drive is fine, it's just slower.

6) You could probably add eSATA to only the MacPro, but have a look at Thunderbolt instead. The drives are still expensive right now, but if you need something VERY high end, you can get insane speeds beyond eSATA or USB 3.

7) By electronic drive I'm assuming you mean an SSD. Having an SSD as your Mac is a great thing. It does so much for the user experience, that if you can afford it, just get it.

What I think you're asking though, is if you should use it as a scratch/temp disk? There's been some debate about the longevity of SSDs when it comes to high amounts of reads/writes (which is what a scratch drive does all day), so right now I'd still probably say it's not cost effective as a scratch drive.

If you're getting the iMac and want to trick it out, get the configuration with the SSD + internal HDD. Use the SSD for the OS and apps, and dedicate the HDD to be used as a scratch disk.

From there, for your externals, you have lots of choices. The iMac has one FW800 and two Thunderbolt ports. Something you didn't ask about, but is very important, is ingesting footage. When importing footage into the machine I assume you'd want that to be as fast as possible as well.

If your drives are on the FW800 bus, you'd want your card reader on the USB bus to maximize the bandwidth available. i.e. Read over USB, write over FW800, rather than trying to do both over either, essentially halving your bandwidth.

If you end up with thunderbolt drives, get a FW800 card reader, which will dramatically speed up your ingest (once your cards can keep up). The Thunderbolt bus has more than enough headroom at this stage (10Gb/s) to handle reading and writing at the same time, so no worries there.

Another thing you should think about is backup. If you can afford a pair of Thunderbolt RAID 5 arrays (one for source, one for export), do it. You'll thank yourself later.

I hope I provided some general advice, but there are lots of configurations you could put together. It really depends on your needs. You need to look at what you're shooting on and exporting to, and how you edit, then do some calculations.


Transfer downloaded iOS7 installer to home computer I am downloading the iOS7 update image for my iPhone over a high-speed connection. I want to update my wife's phone too, which is synched to her computer at home (where we have sloooow internet).

Is there a relatively painless way to transfer the installer to her computer at home on a usb drive, so we can update her phone as well?

Edit: mac on both ends and same model of iPhone.

I found the ipsw on my computer here:

~/Library/iTunes/iPhone\ Software\ Updates/iPhone5\,1_7.0_11A465_Restore.ipsw

I will try placing this in the same location on her computer and see if iTunes will recognize it.

You need to start by being aware that each different model of phone has a unique package for the iOS upgrades. So if you and your wife are not on the same model phone and the same carrier, there is a chance that your download won't work on her phone.

Assuming that you are on the same model phone (the size of the phone in GB doesn't matter), and if you are downloading your update via iTunes, then it will be stored on your computer somewhere. It will depend upon whether or not you are on a Mac or a PC, and which version of everything you have. A hard drive search for something like iOS_7* or ipsw should turn it up.

Copy that to your USB drive, and then copy it to your home computer. Open iTunes on your home computer with your wife's phone connected, and press and hold "Option" key on the keyboard (for a Mac) or the "Alt" key (for windows -- I think), and click the restore button. When it prompts you to a file, point to the file that you copied off of your USB drive.

Make a backup of the phone first. This method will cause iTunes to wipe the phone, and then you will need to restore it.


Customizing Finder like Windows File Explorer I am migrating from Windows to Mac OS X. I really like Windows file explorer. In the left panel, a tree of folders shows up, and in the right panel, files show up. In addition, I enjoy naming files very long such as project1_year1_this_project_is_about_something_ver_A01.docx,

and as I proceed I create:

`project1_year1_this_project_is_about_something_ver_A01.docx`
`project1_year1_this_project_is_about_something_ver_A02.docx`
`project1_year1_this_project_is_about_something_ver_A03.docx`
`project1_year2_this_project_is_about_something_ver_A01.docx`
`project1_year2_this_project_is_about_something_ver_A02.docx`
`project1_year2_this_project_is_about_something_ver_A03.docx`

In Mac OS X, it might look something like:

`project1_year.......docx`
`project1_year.......docx`
`project1_year.......docx`
`project1_year.......docx`
`project1_year.......docx`
`project1_year.......docx`

which is a total mess. I think I was able to adjust the column length, but I want to see long file names without adjusting it and when I save as a new file name inside software like MS Word.

Is there any workaround to make Finder look like what I want? (1) a tree of folders, and (2) long file names without showing any other file information column.

Go to List View.
Control-click on the bar that says "Name  Date Modified  Size  " etc.
Uncheck all the fields (Date modified, Size, Kind, etc.)

You should now have long filenames and expandable folders.


Dock shortcut for an interactive bash script I'm new to OSX and all I want it an application shortcut in Dock that opens the terminal and types the first command and waits for me to provide the password. Here is the script I want to run:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
sudo openconnect --user={username} {host}

And here is the AppleScript I created using Automator:

do shell script "/usr/local/bin/openconnect --user={user} {host}" with administrator privileges

But when I run it, it exits when it asks for username and password. What am I missing here?

Alright, I think I found the answer:

tell application "Terminal"
    do script "sudo /usr/local/bin/openconnect --user={user} {host}"
    activate
end tell


Installation of a .pkg file is nowhere to be seen I have gone through the install process of a .pkg file and when I look for it in /Users/~/Library/Application Support it's nowhere to be seen. I've only recently become a Mac user so it might be a newbie question but, how do I get to it?

MacBook Pro, OS X 10.7 Lion

The package contains some files to be installed somewhere in the file system, not necessarily in ~/Library/Application Support

A simple way to find out where files installed by the package will go in the file system is to use the suspicious package QuickLook plugin. Note that install script in the package might still alter the filesystem in other ways.


Time Machine Backup freezing computer Time Machine on my computer is trying to backup onto a external hard drive, but the only thing I get is the famous beach ball of death which makes my computer extremely slow.

When I go to cosole.app I see with regular intervals following messages:

2012/04/27 10:13:43     com.apple.backupd[425]  Error: (-36) Creating directory freds mac 39
2012/04/27 10:14:49     com.apple.backupd[425]  Error: (-36) Creating directory freds mac 40
2012/04/27 10:15:54     com.apple.backupd[425]  Error: (-36) Creating directory freds mac 41
2012/04/27 10:16:34     com.apple.service_helper[545]   com.apple.backupd-auto: Already loaded
2012/04/27 10:16:34     com.apple.service_helper[545]   com.apple.backupd-wake: Already loaded
2012/04/27 10:16:34     com.apple.service_helper[545]   com.apple.backupd-attach: Already loaded
2012/04/27 10:16:34     com.apple.service_helper[545]   com.apple.backupd-auto: Already loaded
2012/04/27 10:16:34     com.apple.service_helper[545]   com.apple.backupd-wake: Already loaded
2012/04/27 10:16:34     com.apple.service_helper[545]   com.apple.backupd-attach: Already loaded

Why does time machine have problems creating a directory if I was able earlier to make a full backup of my computer and what do those lines mean from the service helper?

I am running Mac OS X 10.6.8 on a MacBook 1.1 (late 2006) (I know, it's a little bit old, but 1 day ago it was able to do TM backups)

First, make sure your external drive is plugged into wall-power, not bus power.

Second, check your system.log for I/O errors.  If you find any, then one of your drives may be failing.  See my article Recover Failing Hard Drives

Third, verify both your boot drive and backup drive in Disk Utility.  Do not attempt this until you have confirmed that there are no I/O errors!  Verifying the backup drive may take a long time (twenty minutes or more) as there are a lot of hard-links to check.  Repair if needed.

If that checks out, try locating a folder named "freds mac"... unless that's the name of your boot volume.  If its not the name of your boot volume, then rename it and try the backup again.  For more Time Machine tips see my article Recommendations for System Backups: Time Machine Tips


not using Apple Mail, but using Calendar I use gmail through the web interface, but have Apple Calendar synchronising with google's calendar. I don't want to use Apple Mail for anything at all. Every time the calendar synchronises with Google, Apple Mail opens and asks me to set up an account. How do I stop Apple Mail from doing this?

I have Mac OS 10.8.3. In System Preferences, under Mail, Contacts & Calendars, I have my Google account specified, but with "Calendars & Reminders" checked and the remaining options (Mail, Messages and Notes) unchecked.

EDIT: after some poking around, it seems the problem is that Calendar wants to open Apple Mail to send me reminders about my events. Can I stop it from doing that?

In short, you don't. Calendar needs mail to send and receive appointments.

Have you tried simply telling Calendar to not use Mail for automatically retrieving CalDAV appointment requests via Mail?

Wanting to use Calendar for OS X implies you must use Apple's Mail for CalDAV appointment invitations as things stand today on Mountain Lion. You could either forego the Mail integration or select another Calendar like Fantastical or BusyCal.


How to stop Connection Line from snapping to object in Keynote In Keynote I am inserting multiple connection lines to a single image. As soon as I drag one end point near the image the end point of the connection line snapped onto the image.  I would like to have complete manual control over the positioning and depth of connecting lines. How do I stop Keynote from auto snapping my connection line?

As noted in the comments, to control the endpoints in the connecting line hold down the ⌘ while dragging the endpoint to the desired position on the object.


My cursor is wrong in certain apps (Safari, Chrome, Mail) I have this weird issue, where my cursor isn't changing to a pointer (or any other cursors) when I'm browsing the web or in Mail.

MBPr mid 2012, OS X Yosemite, Safari 8

Anyone knows how to fix this?

If Photoshop CC runs, the mouse pointer can show you wrong pointer in several different apps (Chrome, Mail, etc.). Close Photoshop CC and the cursor should be OK.

Reference: https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=357347


how do I upgrade my processor on my MacBook Air? I am trying to download a piece of equipment which requires at least a 1.8 Ghz processor. My MacBook Air has only 1.7 Ghz. Is it possible to upgrade it?

You don't. Mobile processors aren't necessarily made to be replaceable - often, they are soldered directly onto the logic board itself. Aside from the obvious voided warranty/extreme risk of damage to the board, you would need to either try the software for download to see if it'll actually run on your machine regardless of specs, or you will need to purchase a new laptop.


Batch change creation dates based on file names using setFile So I tried modifying the command I found here:  to work with my date format: 2015-12-31 22.07.29 and using setFile -d instead of touch.

Here's my script

for f in *; do
t="${t%%.*}"
t=“${t%%-*}”
m=“${t:5:2}”
d=“${t:8:2}”
y=“${t:0:4}”
h=“${t:11:2}”
m=“${t:14:2}”
s=“${t:17:2}”
date=“$m/$d/$y $h$m$s”
setFile -d $date "$f"
done

I try running the command in the folder with jpegs that have the wrong creation date but i get this error over and over

-bash: “”“”??: command not found
ERROR: invalid date/time

I'm a total noob when it comes to using terminal so I have no idea what's wrong with the formatting and what is causing the other error. Does anyone here know what I'm doing wrong?

To me it looks like the problem is with the quotes. Try to copy paste this into your script:

for f in *; do
t="${t%%.*}"
t="${t%%-*}"
m="${t:5:2}"
d="${t:8:2}"
y="${t:0:4}"
h="${t:11:2}"
m="${t:14:2}"
s="${t:17:2}"
date="$m/$d/$y $h$m$s"
setFile -d $date "$f"
done


Double encryption when using encrypted Time Machine on MacOS Extended encrypted? When I create a backup partition on an external USB drive formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted) and then use Time Machine to backup to this partition with Time machine's encryption enabled, are the files encrypted twice on different levels (application level and file system level)?

Right now I am very confused because Time Machine is "Decrypting ..." my drive, which should be encrypted due to the file system.

When use select Encryption in Time Machine it is actually the disk that is formatted as Encrypted - the same way you yourself could format an external USB drive as Encrypted. The files are not individually encrypted on two different levels.


How do you remove Safari 6 on Mac OS X 10.7.4 I understand there was a uninstaller for Safari 6 beta (is that available anywhere?) but it seems no longer available in the Apple Dev Center, and I am on Safari 6 release version.

I need to remove this and revet back to 5.1.7.

To downgrade Safari 6 on OS X Lion (10.7.4) to Safari 5.1.7:

Use Time Machine to have a fresh backup!
Get Pacifist.
Get Safari 5.1.7 for Lion here (apple.com)
or here (mirror).

$ md5 Downloads/Safari5.1.7LionManual.dmg
MD5 (Safari5.1.7LionManual.dmg) = 504bdd1629f660084725d9883629f58e (same for both download links)

Quit Safari if running.
Install Safari 5.1.7 using Pacifist. Select "Open Package", choose the 5.1.7 dmg from step 2. Click on the "Contents of Safari5.1.7LionManual.pkg", Click "Install" on the toolbar, Choose "Yes" or "Replace" when asked (select the box for all continuous questions).
Open a new Finder window and press Command ⌘+Shift ⇧+G (Or menu "Go" -> "Go to Folder...").
Paste /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/ in the goto field.
Rename the "SafariServices.framework" folder to "SafariServices.framework.disabled" (You will be asked for your admin password).
Use Finder go to again for /System/Library/StagedFrameworks/Safari/ folder.
Rename the "Safari.framework" folder to "Safari.framework.disabled".
Rename the "WebInspector.framework" folder to "WebInspector.framework.disabled".

  The last one (WebInspector.framework) and possibly the first one (SafariServices.framework) don't really need to be disabled; Safari 5.1.7 will start anyway (at least for me), but since they weren't there before 6.0, I disabled them, too.

Launch Safari.
If you're happy with your newly downgraded Safari, you might safely delete those .disabled folders/frameworks. They will be reinstalled if you ever choose to install Safari 6 again. Look for the disabled frameworks (e.g. "SafariServices.framework.disabled") and move them to the Trash. You will be asked for your admin user's password again.

If it doesn't work for some reason, you can re-install Safari 6 from Software Update.
Run Disk Utility and Repair Disk Permissions.


Why is Adobe Lightroom 6 incompatible with the upcoming macOS 10.15 (Catalina)? I receive a system warning that Adobe Lightroom 6.14 (perpetual license) is incompatible with future versions of macOS when starting it under macOS Mojave. Lightroom 6 is a 64 bit application, so where is the incompatibility?

Catalina drops support for more than just 32bit apps. Kernel Extensions are no longer supported for example. If Lightroom uses a kext, this will not work. Catalina also runs the system from a read only volume. If Lightroom requires modifying any of these folders, then you're out of luck.

However, I don't believe the above is the cause. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Lightroom 6 (what you're using) is Lightroom CC (2015) or earlier right? If that's the case, the last time I used Lightroom CC (2015) the main app is 64bit but parts of the app are 32bit. A quick search online suggests that the parts in LR that are 32bit include Adobe QT32 Server and dynamiclinkmanager.

I've not tested it, but I suppose there is a small chance that the app could run without these 32bit components. Maybe I should stop speculating.


Is Apple Watch accurate in measuring activity? I just got my first Apple Watch and I notice the activity app tells me I've completed various goals at very strange times. I'm not particularly active. I exercise 15-20 minutes 3 times a week. But, I'll be sitting on my sofa late in the evening and I'll get up to get something from the refrigerator and my watch will tell me "Congratulations! You reached your goal for X!". I'll turn over in bed and it will tell me "Congrats, you reach your goal for Y!"

This happens regularly that in periods of doing almost nothing the Activity app tell me I reach my goal.

That got me thinking how does it actually work? How does it know me lifting food to my mouth is different than me living a weight?

Is there any info on how accurate Apple Watch is knowing what the user is doing?

In terms of logging specific activity with the Activity app or third-party apps, I found it very accurate while using Apple Watch to train for triathlons.

For a passive activity like those you are describing, my understanding is AW is using the accelerometer together with HR measurements to determine activity and is not always accurate.  You can for example just wave your hand about to get a "stand hour" and I've noticed move data increasing while in the car.

This is not a problem specific to Apple Watch though, all other fitness trackers I have had given similar issues. I think generally it will get better over subsequent OS releases as the AI is further trained and improved. You can dig into the detail of what it thinks has happened by looking into the Health app on iPhone, selecting the category and drilling into "show all data"


MacBook Muted, some applications still provide sound I discovered this not so long ago, when I started using Skype. I get notification sounds even though my speakers are on mute. The same thing happens with email. Suddenly there's a notification/alert sound for everything during mute.
Is there a setting where I can disable this "feature"?

The most likely explanation for this is that you have multiple sound output devices. When you mute, only the current output devices is muted — the rest are not.

The next time you hear a sound when you think you shouldn't, go to Sound Preferences > Output and check your Output devices one by one. It's almost certain that at least one of them isn't muted (a headset, for example), and that's how you're hearing the mystery sound.


My headphones stopped working on my macbook air My headphones on my Macbook Air just stopped working! Like they are "stuck on mute". I take them out, no red light on the jack, and they work perfectly. But once I plug my Headphones in, the volume just stopped! I have tried messing around in preferences, nothing! I can't seem to find any solution for my problem. People have the jack red light problem, but I can't get my volume to work! In fact, just now while I'm writing this my volume isn't working! I can't seem to find anything to help me with this. Nor have I found anybody with the kind of problem I have. I would greatly appreciate your help anybody. But this has happened before, and simply restarting my computer worked. This time, nope. Zilch, Zero, No help at all.

Please try this command as admin in Terminal:

sudo killall coreaudiod

It will solve the problem without rebooting


Upgraded to iOS 7 "Could not activate phone" I have an iPhone 4S and I just upgraded to iOS7 through itunes, but with an "unknown error". I restored it and now it's saying it can't activate the phone.

Similar to this question here: iOS 7 activation problem

The difference is that I'm not getting any service-related issues. I have service/a wi-fi network, but the error I see is "Could not activate phone: Your iPhone could not be activated because the activation server is temporarily unavailable..." etc.

I've tried over wi-fi, through iTunes, and over cellular connection. I've restarted/restored my phone several times. Any other ideas?

The reason I'm asking is that almost all the threads I find through googling make these assumptions:

Some people use a copy-pasted assumption that "99.9% of the time this is because your phone has been jailbroken / hacked to use a different carrier etc." but I don't even know how to jailbreak a phone.
It assumes it is Sept. 18 when the update first came out, so the servers were overwhelmed. I would hope this would no longer be the case after almost a week.
It assumes that I'm a developer trying to use a beta, which I'm not.

This thread https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5318775?start=0&tstart=0 seems to indicate that I just keep having to try over the course of several hours/days until it gets through, so I will keep trying until I get a clear alternative.

As I posted elsewhere, after reading a million hints and trying everything, a guy said: Try a different computer. Even a friend's.

Went right through. Honest, it did.


Find original filename after Data Rescue recovery Recently, I lost 1,7TB on videofiles on my external hard drive. A terrible loss since it took me many evenings categorising all this data.
With a deep-scan with DataRescue 3, I was able to recover most of it, but they all have the same awful filename "M00001.avi", "M00002.avi",...

First question, is there any way to improve this results? Meaning to retrieve the file including the proper naming?

Data rescue is fairly sophisticated program on the Mac. If there were any traces the filename in the filesystem, that software puts the file name back when it performs a simple undelete. What you are seeing are video fragments of files that were found on the filesystem totally detached from a directory entry.

In short you're not going to be able to get the file names back without a backup or other source of the file names.

Hopefully, those AVI files are actually complete files and not just fragments of video content that it managed patch together with a proper header and a sequentially made-up filename.


Icon associated with extension I'm running Mountain Lion, and my question is how to "attach" an icon to an extension? For example, I want all .adm files has an icon like on the picture below. Unfortunately all I can is just attach an icon to proper file, not to all files that has such extension. Thus I want .adm extension has their own icon. .adm is opening in TextEdit, so please don't suggest me to open it in right app. Thank you in advance!

See this detailed answer for "How to set an icon for a file type on Mac?" on superuser.com.
In this case, you need to update TextEdit's resources and plist to get it to use your custom icon for a file type it does not know about. The LaunchServices database also needs to be updated for the changes to be seen.
Here's a small snippet from that answer (bold emphasis mine):

Icons for file types are handled by Launch Services (the service determining, among other things, which application handles a file type). The file icon is always provided by the application handling opening a file by default. This way, e.g. Preview provides PDF icons by default, and PNG icons, but if you change all PNG files to open using Pixelmator instead, these files get a Pixelmator-style icon afterwards.
What you need to do is add your file type definition to the application that opens it by default, or create your own "dummy" application for the file type.


How long do I have before the battery status changes from service recommended to replace now? I have an early-2015 MacBook Pro 13" whose battery status has changed from normal to 'service recommended' state. The cycle count is around 367 and the battery backup runs strong at around 4-5 hours. My understanding of the service recommended status is that the cells in the battery have begun deteriorating, resulting in less than optimal battery capacity and therefore charge backup. Is it possible to predict how long, if I were to keep going about my business, the battery has before it completely runs out?
We have authorized Apple resellers only here so options to get the battery officially serviced are limited. Last year, the battery on my personal early 2015 MacBook Pro 13", with half the cycle count of the battery on this work machine, suddenly changed to "change battery" status from normal, and stopped giving me any backup. I had to get the battery replaced with a non-Apple/OEM battery which didn't cost much, but only gave a two-hour charge backup.

It depends on how much you use it and even there is no way of really knowing.


Prevent itunes from synching apps I am looking for a way to prevent iTunes from synching app to the iphone.

Current situation:
I only back the iphone up with iTunes - icloud backup is not feasible to me - and connect it to iTunes a couple times a week.
During this time I add/delete apps on iphone: every time I synch it to iTunes it will copy every new apps AND install app that were present the last time I synched but have now been deleted.

How I wish it would behave:
every time I synch I would like only the app data to be backed up and the apps left alone.
Plus, I would like to regain the 4-5 gb of space that the useless ipa files are using in the main drive.

Any hint?

I have many devices that sync with my Mac and carry no apps on iTunes, so it's possible. I don't back any of them up to iTunes though and use iCloud for that.

Make a back up of your Mac/PC in case the iTunes changes need to be reversed.
Uncheck the box in iTunes that says "install new Apps automatically".
Choose to back the phone up to iCloud rather than to the computer
Delete all apps from iTunes so your Library looks like this when you view apps (you can move them to trash now or leave them in the library folder as you choose)

Test a sync of the phone to see if the apps transfer back

Going forward, purchased apps will not transfer back to iTunes from the device. Backups only back up user data and not apps - independent of whether apps themselves sync.

Once you've turned off syncing of apps for all iOS devices, you can empty the trash and rejoice that iTunes doesn't get apps unless you download them explicitly. Also, if you didn't move the apps to the trash, you can go in and delete or file them elsewhere since iTunes isn't tracking those files as part of your library now.


3D modeling application for Mac? Background: I recently upgraded my Mac, and it happens to have a pretty nice graphics card (not that my old one wasn't nice ... in 2006). While I didn't upgrade my Mac for this purpose, it has occurred to me that my life might be a tiny bit more efficient if I used some of this amazing graphics power that I now possess (and perhaps my old Wacom tablet) for sketching 3D designs, rather than my current method*.

So I hopped on over to the Mac App Store, typed in "3d modeling" (and every synonym I could think of), and was disappointed to see a pretty slim selection of apps.

Is there a good basic app for creating 3D objects?  Free is good, cheap is also good -- I don't mind paying but "3D modeling" frequently seems to mean "here's a $10,000 program that lets you make Lord of the Rings", and I'm sure it's amazing for that, but I don't need that.

I need: ability to create simple objects, mostly square or circular, including CSG, and to move them around and look at them from different angles.

I don't need: any particular file formats, or textures, or animation, or smooth organic surfaces like human faces.

If you think "designing a chest of drawers", that's about the level of sophistication that I'm looking for.  What TextEdit.app is for words, I want for 3D objects.

SketchUp is almost what I'm looking for, except it's kind of awkward and not entirely Mac-like, and to do any CSG you need the $500 "Pro" version (which I might get eventually, but it seems like there could well be something better and cheaper).

I'd almost be happy with something like POVRAY: the CSG is nice, the price can't be beat, but unfortunately it lacks any interactivity.

* (It involves whiteboards, paperboard and glue, and listening to old Yes albums while trying to visualize how things will fit together in space.)


Is there an easy way to determine if a music video is available for a song in my iTunes music library in the iTunes Store? I've got a lot of song in iTunes music library and would like to know for which songs there are music videos available. But, the only way I have found to do that is to manually search for videos for each song and this process is simply impractical.

I figure there must be an easy way to know if there is video which I can purchase for every song in my library.

You can try what this fellow suggested as an answer because I think you can easily import iTunes tracks to the Spotify application.

That's the only way I can think of.


Choosing the default application does not stay as default after reboot When I'm opening .avi files, I want to open them with VLC Media player, when right clicking the item, I see this:

As you can see QuickTime is the default player, I want to change it to VLC, so I change it:

After changing it, every .avi I open gets opened by VLC, however, when I reboot my Mac, the default goes back to QuickTime... how do I prevent this and keep VLC as the default.

I was doing it the wrong way like you try to for a long time and also have retreated to using RCDefaultApp in the past... but there's actually a way to do that natively which works.

Do the following:

1) right click your file
2) choose "Get Info"
3) in the popup find the "Open with" strip (this is by default closed) and open it
4) from the drop down choose the program you want to open that type of file
5) click "Change all..."

And that's the correct way to do it


How do you install an older version of Postgres (9.6) using homebrew? Homebrew's current version of Postgres is 10 when installed with:

brew install postgres

How do I install an older version of postgres? Specifically 9.6

You can find available versions to install using brew search:

$ brew search postgresql
==> Searching local taps...
postgresql        postgresql@9.4        postgresql@9.5        postgresql@9.6

To install one of these older versions, pass the full name into brew install:

$ brew install postgresql@9.6

It will give you instructions on how to add that PATH of that particular version to your bash environment, so you can use its psql etc.

If you still have psql booting up a newer version of postgresql, try this:

brew install postgres@9.6
cp -rf /usr/local/Cellar/postgresql@9.6/9.6.9 /usr/local/Cellar/postgresql/.
brew switch postgres 9.6.9


Is it ok to use 14w charger to charge ipad My old iPad charger broke so I had to get a new one and the one I got was a 2.8A/5V charger aka 14w charger.so is safe to use .

The answers is YES you can.

The charger can newer be to big, but it can be to small (not enough juice to charge the battery)

The battery charge is controlled by the battery. It will only take as much as it can handle.


loookup server IPs the website runs on with nslookup error - Got recursion not available from 192.168.1.1, trying next server I would like to lookup servers cnn runs on for educational purposes.

I issued nslookup www.cnn.com command in terminal and got an error:

;; Got recursion not available from 192.168.1.1, trying next server
Server:     2a00:ee0:d::13
Address:    2a00:ee0:d::13#53

Non-authoritative answer:
www.cnn.com canonical name = turner.map.fastly.net.
Name:   turner.map.fastly.net
Address: 23.235.43.73

192.168.1.1 looks like an address in a home network.

Although it lists one server, I don't believe they use just on. Is there something else I must do or is looking up the servers cnn runs on disabled by cnn.

The answer you got was correct.

www.cnn.com canonical name = turner.map.fastly.net.

A canonical name, or CNAME record is a record in DNS servers that define an alias for another domain.  In this case "www.cnn.com" points to the domain "turner.map.fastly.net".

As for your 192.168.1.1 server, that's most likely your router that is configured as a DNS cache or DNSMasq server.  The error message is fine, it's just telling you that the DNS server that you have listed first in the list of DNS servers doesn't support recursion.  It's not an issue.

My personal router is configured as a DNS relay and I don't get the error because it passes all DNS requests except for anything with my defined domain out to the public DNS servers.


Cut two pages by Preview at once When scanning documents, many pages in a row have the same problem. An example where a lot of white empty space in the corner:

The application Preview allows selecting the area in a row along the two pages.
However, when choosing to cut, only the page where you started get cropped.
I think this is a bug in design and should be fixed.
In the example, there are 277 pages. It takes hours of time if I cannot crop pages in a row.

Is there any way to cut pages in a row in Preview or other applications?

Yes, this can be achieved solely with Preview.

Show page thumbnails by clicking Thumbnails from the View Menu.

Show the Edit toolbar, and choose the Rectangular Selection tool.

Select the rectangle that you want to crop each page to.
Select (⌘-click) all the pages that you want to crop in the page thumbnails.

The pages don't have to be sequential, and you can select all pages with ⌘A.
Click Crop in the toolbar.


How to set "Go to address" to open the address in a new tab in safari I am a new Safari user, and I want the browser to open a new tab instead of the current tab when I select an address and click "Go to address", just like in Chrome. Can I achieve this without plugin?

You can use added hot-keys to make a whole set of different actions happen when you click a link.
This is the way I have mine set in Safari Preferences…

This way, a simple click will open the link in the current page,
 Cmd ⌘ /click will open it in a new Tab but not activate it &
 Cmd ⌘   Shift ⇧ /click will open it in a new Tab & also bring it to the front.
Setting the first dropmenu to 'Always' will also set a new Tab to be opened if you select the URL in another application & right-click select 'Open URL'


How to fix Java Install error for minecraft forge? I am trying to install minecraft forge 1.12.2-14.23.0.2552 on a Mac Mojave with java "java version "14" 2020-03-17". However, upon running

java -jar forge-1.12.2-14.23.0.2552-installer.jar

to install the client I see the following terminal output:

...
Checking "/Users/me/Library/Application Support/minecraft/libraries/com/typesafe/akka/akka-actor_2.11/2.3.3/akka-actor_2.11-2.3.3.jar" internal checksums
    checksums.sha1 was not found, validation failed
Downloading library com.typesafe.akka:akka-actor_2.11:2.3.3
Unpacking packed file akka-actor_2.11-2.3.3.jar.pack.xz
  Signed
  Checksum Length: 140942
  Total Length:    2606968
  Temp File:       /var/folders/0g/wwq2q6nn35n8vmrwhw5qfk601zlkw_/T/art9850699590461548829.pack
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: java/util/jar/Pack200
    at net.minecraftforge.installer.DownloadUtils.unpackLibrary(DownloadUtils.java:253)
    at net.minecraftforge.installer.DownloadUtils.downloadInstalledLibraries(DownloadUtils.java:89)
    at net.minecraftforge.installer.ClientInstall.run(ClientInstall.java:131)
    at net.minecraftforge.installer.InstallerAction.run(InstallerAction.java:43)
    at net.minecraftforge.installer.InstallerPanel.run(InstallerPanel.java:406)
    at net.minecraftforge.installer.SimpleInstaller.launchGui(SimpleInstaller.java:165)
    at net.minecraftforge.installer.SimpleInstaller.main(SimpleInstaller.java:51)
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: java.util.jar.Pack200
    at java.base/jdk.internal.loader.BuiltinClassLoader.loadClass(BuiltinClassLoader.java:602)
    at java.base/jdk.internal.loader.ClassLoaders$AppClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoaders.java:178)
    at java.base/java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:522)
    ... 7 more

How can I fix this problem?

The install is trying to use the Pack200 class, but this has deprecated for some time and has now been removed from Java 14 - see JEP 367

You will have to use an older version of Java to run the install.


Can't find uninstaller in Folx downloader.mac.dmg I'm new to OS X and I don't know too much about it.  After installing Folx on my Mac I realized I didn't like it.  I tried to remove it but the plugin didn't remove.  When I download any file with Safari it gives an error for the Folx plugin. I've searched and found this website that shows how to uninstall Folx.  I can't find the uninstaller file in downloader.mac.dmg.

How can I remove Folx completely?

OS X is a bit different. After putting the application itself in the trash, you should probably use safari preferences to remove the extension. Once you do that you do that, you might want to log out and back in.  Then empty the trash.

Alternatively you can look in the library folders - use finder go menu and choose "Go to Folder" and look in both below locations:

~/Library/Internet\ Plug-Ins
/Library/Internet\ Plug-Ins

Note the space is encoded with a \ but you can skip that most of the time if you are not pasting into terminal or scripting. Delete any plugins to be nuked and reboot if you removed any from the second system library folder. Then empty trash.


Disable Stand By Mode on Retina MacBook Pro? I learned that the retina MacBook Pro has a Deep Sleep Mode that is initiated when left idle for a long time. This, however, causes my laptop to take about 3-5 seconds to wake up after it sleeps, such as opening the lid.

Can I disable this Deep Sleep Mode?

I would also like to know the advantages/disadvantages of disabling it. Does it really save that much power? I would rather have a faster wake up time than saving 1% of battery or something.

To disable deep sleep, run the following command in Terminal:

sudo pmset -a standby 0

This is a description of "standby" (deep sleep) from the pmset man page:

 standby causes kernel power management to automatically hibernate a
 machine after it has slept for a specified time period. This saves power
 while asleep. This setting defaults to ON for supported hardware. The
 setting standby will be visible in pmset -g if the feature is supported
 on this machine.

 standby only works if hibernation is turned on to hibernatemode 3 or 25.

 standbydelay specifies the delay, in seconds, before writing the hiberna-
 tion image to disk and powering off memory for Standby.

Battery savings depend on how much time your Mac spends in standby. While in standby mode, your Mac consumes 0 power, it's as if it is shut down (note: not taking Power Nap into consideration).

My personal recommendation would be to set the "standbydelay" value to something bigger. 2 hours, for example. This means that if you open the lid back in less than 2 hours, your Mac would be in regular sleep and wake up instantly. If longer than 2 hours, your Mac would enter standby mode and consume no power, and waking up will take a bit longer.

Example for 2 hours:

sudo pmset -a standbydelay 7200


Kinesis Function Key Bindings I've a Kinesis Advantage Pro Keyboard and am using OS X Lion. I want to bind the function keys to what they are on the MacBook Pro - i.e. controls for brightness, mission control, etc.

How can I do that?

Check this question on SuperUser: https://superuser.com/questions/403493/kinesis-advantage-os-x-media-keys

Have you noticed sluggishness/hanging using the Advantage in Lion?  I've had issues with the shift key sticking (not physically, but it's like CAPS LOCK is on until I hit shift again), and delete key taking multiple presses to work, and other weirdness.


Using a Mac Mini at 1920x1200 I got a Mac Mini at about summer in 2011 and I'm looking to use it along with my main PC using a Dell Ultrasharp U2412M monitor. The monitor's DVI is used by my main PC, so I picked up a Mini DisplayPort to VGA adapter (at the time I didn't actually know the monitor had a DisplayPort on it, but I'd still need a Mini DisplayPort -> DisplayPort adapter) and tried it.

But I can only set the Mac Mini's resolution to 1920x1080 in System Preferences.

I tried modifying my com.apple.Boot.plist file in Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration, and it currently looks like this :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
        <key>Kernel Flags</key>
        <string></string>
        <key>Graphics Mode</key>
        <string>1920x1200x32</string>
</dict>
</plist>

That doesn't seem to have helped. Any further ideas?

Tha monitor has a DisplayPort connectiion as well as DVI. I'd suggest getting a mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable. That way you get the benefit of a digital connection and proper resolution. VGA isn't really designed for resolutions that high — it's possible, but often shaky.


Duplicate app icons in the Dock Sometimes when opening apps I get duplicate icons in the Dock for that app. This isn't really a problem, however I'm curious why macOS does this (I suppose this is more of a technical question).
This happens a lot especially with VS Code where I often launch the app with the code utility in the Terminal.
Why does macOS think these are different apps when they're the same binary?

I don't have a specific answer as to what causes macOS to do this, however there is an issue on the VS Code GitHub repository which has lots of discussions about this (for VS Code app at least).
It seems to have something to do with launching an app directly (executing the binary inside XYZ.app/Contents/MacOS) instead of via Launch Services (the open command).


What does a non-booting macbook displaying a lightning bolt mean? I returned to my MacBook after a few days of not using it, and there was a message that the system had run out of application memory (weird...). So, I followed the recommendation and Force Quit a bunch of applications. In order to just "start fresh", I decided to kill all applications and simply restart the whole machine.

Now that I've killed the applications and restarted the computer, it won't boot. It simply displays a gray circle with a white lightning bolt on it, moving around the screen, screensaver-style. If I unplug the AC power cord, a battery indicator is displayed at the bottom of the screen.

I attempted an SMC reset, but that doesn't help. What's going on, and what should I do?

That looks like the Thunderbolt logo. Your Mac probably thinks that is in Target Disk Mode.


When I power off the iPod, and restart it, does it re-open all previously open applications? On the last week I powered off the iPod at least once per day, but today I noticed that in the multitasking tray there were applications I have not used in the past weeks. Are those applications running, or the tray simply list them because I used them?

If those applications are really running, is there a way to stop the iPod from running the same applications that were running before I powered it off?

These applications are not necessary "running".  The multi-tasking tray doubles as a "recently used" list.   So although you may not have run these applications in the past week, they are listed in the order they last ran (however long ago that was).

So, to answer your question, no the iPod doesn't restart all previously open applications.


Best way to transfer files between iPhone and Windows PC Is there a software in Windows that will make file transfer between an iPhone and PC easier? I have tried iMazing. It's kinda great, but the problem is that when I am transferring files from my Windows PC  to iPhone, (videos to be precise), it doesn't transfer all the files that I need. I suspect it's the format.

The software you should be looking for is iTunes, specifically iTunes for Windows. You can download iTunes for Windows via:

direct download from Apple's website using this link.
Microsoft Store using this link.

If you wish to transfer and playback unsupported videos files on your iPhone, install VLC for Mobile on your iPhone and use iTunes File Sharing feature to easily transfer video files to your iPhone.

For detailed instructions regarding file sharing, refer to the Apple Support Article:

Use iTunes to share files between your computer and your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.


How to search for text within an app? I use several news apps on my iPhone X. When I read an article, I often want to search for a specific term within the article (similar to Ctrl-F, "Find", in a browser). How do I do that?

Apple doesn't index every bit of text in every app (that's not their own app, like Notes).  It's up to the app developer to add a search function or to explicitly make their content searchable by Apple.  The latter part is becoming more popular because the iOS Spotlight function is getting better.

For example, if I do a Spotlight search on my iPhone for 'plex', the results include the Plex app that I have in addition to several emails I've received from Plex.  These emails are in the Spark email app, so that means that developer added the code to make their content available to Spotlight searches.

At this point, it's hit-or-miss if your app supports this.  Often, the developer will indicate if this feature is available on their iTunes page.


Catalina Music app crashes on launch I seem to be encountering a rare issue. Every time I launch the Music app, it crashes immediately. I found one post (with no replies) in the Apple Developer Forums that describes the same behavior. Other than that, there seems to be no documented troubleshooting attempts for this problem.

Here's the header data of the crash report in case that helps.

Process:               Music [13614]
Path:                  /System/Applications/Music.app/Contents/MacOS/Music
Identifier:            com.apple.Music
Version:               1.0.4 (1.0.4)
Build Info:            MusicDesktop-1000004104000~12
Code Type:             X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process:        ??? [1]
Responsible:           Music [13614]
User ID:               501

Date/Time:             2020-03-26 11:59:11.132 +0100
OS Version:            Mac OS X 10.15.4 (19E266)
Report Version:        12
Bridge OS Version:     4.4 (17P4263)
Anonymous UUID:        FF0B6266-D3B2-D56E-EFD1-847258F220E2

Sleep/Wake UUID:       DD4C4B22-0AAD-4D6C-9137-61717713A2A4

Time Awake Since Boot: 8700 seconds
Time Since Wake:       1800 seconds

System Integrity Protection: disabled

Crashed Thread:        0  Music main  Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

Exception Type:        EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes:       KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000000000020
Exception Note:        EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY

Termination Signal:    Segmentation fault: 11
Termination Reason:    Namespace SIGNAL, Code 0xb
Terminating Process:   exc handler [13614]

After some annoying trial and error which convinced me that the new Music app - at least in its current state - is even worse than iTunes, I was able to resolve this issue by

Completely removing all files related to the Music app that App Cleaner was able to find, in particular including preference files and (maybe, see step 3) Music.app itself. Deleting the latter requires making the root volume writable via sudo mount -uw / and possibly disabling System Integrity Protection. I have that off always. Not sure if it's required.
Move the library folder and the library file Music Library.musiclibrary to a new location, e.g. ~/Desktop.
Delete the old Music.app and transfer a new copy from an unaffected Mac also running Catalina.

Note: I think this step might be unnecessary. Just listing it here for completeness since that was one of the steps I took but don't care to repeat the process without it to see if it still works.
Launch the new Music.app to confirm that it runs without crashing immediately, then close it again.
Move the library folder and file Music Library.musiclibrary to its original location, usually ~/Music.
Launch Music.app while holding alt to change libraries. Choose the original library location (not the library folder itself, i.e. in my case ~/Music).
Done. I was now able to launch Music.app again with all my songs in it.


Can I remove the Install OS X Yosemite app? I'm trying to free up some space on my MacBook and I found this in the Applications folder.

Can I delete it? I'm a iOS developer and I don't want issues.

Currently I'm running OS X El Capitan 10.11.3.

You are safe to delete the Yosemite installer. It should not harm your computer if you delete it.


Why do I feel 'electricity' when bridging my macbook and a double insulated charger? Let me set the scene:

Macbook with metal case plugged into the wall with 3 pronged plug
iPhone is plugged into an iPad charger with 2 prongs

When I touch both my iPhone and the case of my macbook I perceive a mild 'electric shock' which continues as long as I am touching both devices.

I assume that there is an air gap in the iPad charger so there should be no current flowing between the iPhone and the macbook.

I can't make any sense of what's going on and if someone could school me as to what's happening I'd be very grateful.

Most switching power supplies use an EMI filter on the front, that looks like this:

The "ground" is connected to the "ground" on the secondary side as well as the earth pin on the plug. If the plug has no earth pin (or the socket does not have it), then when you touch it and an earthed object, a small current flows trough caps C2 and C3.

In most power supplies there is also a small capacitor bridging the primary and secondary windings of the transformer (again, for EMI reasons).


Is there a way to mount a disk directly to a specific folder? Using Mac OS X 10.4

I made a script a while ago for my linux box in order to take archived data off of 300 floppies that automated the process. I would make an image of the floppy and copy the files directly off of the floppy. I managed to install xcode on the machine (in order to install ddrescue)

The thing is on a linux box I mounted each floppy to /media/floppy and unmounted it to ddrescue it and copied it directly to a usb drive.

I'm trying to port my script to the mac, and it seems that it's default behavior is to automatically mount each zip floppy to the /Volumes folder, which is fine, except it uses the volume's name as it's mount point folder name. So if a floppy's volume name is, "Jimmy Bo Bobs" it will mount to /media/Jimmy /Bo /Bobs.

So my question is I need to get the volume name either consistent to one name, or adaptable to the volume's name.

So my initial question is can I some how mount a drive to a specific folder, Like I would normally do in linux?

 #Linux
 mount /dev/sd1 /media/floppy
 #Mac
 diskutil mount /dev/disk1s1 /media/floppy #Doesn't work

If it's not possible, is there an easy way to extract the volume's name so that I can then link the script like this.

 Volumename=Jimmy Bo Bobs
 do stuff to /Volume/$Volumename

I'm guessing if it's not possible I'll have to grep the mount command to the /dev/ pointer and then somehow parse that string which is what I want to avoid since it would require even more research.

"So my initial question is can I some how mount a drive to a specific folder, Like I would normally do in linux?"

Absolutely. The caveat is that the user who is mounting the volume must be the mount-point owner. You do NOT need to be root or use sudo to mount a disk.

The first thing is to identify your raw device. diskutil list will do that nicely.

For example, if I have a FAT32 USB stick that I want to mount in my home dir, I list my devices and see that my raw device is /dev/disk5s1. As a normal user, I can mount it in my home directory by:

mkdir ~/mount
mount -r -t msdos /dev/disk5s1 ~/mount

If you then cd ~/mount ; ls, you'll see the contents of the USB stick.

In this example, I mounted it read-only, but you can mount your device any way you like.

When you're done with the device, don't forget to unmount it, e.g.:

diskutil unmount ~/mount


Divvy application not opening or showing any error message The window manager divvy is a big part of my workflow. When restarting my macbook yesterday it failed to open entirely. It doesn't give any feedback as to why it's not opening. I tried deleting the app and reinstalling it(via the appstore) to no avail. Was wondering if there was some sort of way to diagnose and fix a stubborn application. I'm on el capitan v10.11.1.

It's a known problem since 11/10. Update only needs to be approved by Apple. Should be available tomorrow. In the meantime you can use the demo version of the website.

https://twitter.com/MizageApps/status/664712553323335680

In the meantime, the developer recommends that you use the trail version.

https://twitter.com/MizageApps/status/664820916791054336


AppleScript - more than title I have a AppleScript that runs from a cron job. The script is:

tell application "System Events"
set frontApp to name of first application process whose frontmost is true
end tell
tell application frontApp
if the (count of windows) is not 0 then
    set window_name to name of front window
end if
end tell

(which I got from https://stackoverflow.com/questions/480866/get-the-title-of-the-current-active-window-document-in-mac-os-x in an example of one of many instances where SO has had the answer to a query ready for me)

I use the script to populate a file like this

l

2013-08-07_20:55:04convert - Linux Command - Unix Command
2013-08-07_20:56:05matlab graph colors.... - Stack Overflow
2013-08-07_20:57:06matlab graph colors.... - Stack Overflow
2013-08-07_20:58:07matlab graph colors.... - Stack Overflow
2013-08-07_20:59:08matlab graph colors.... - Stack Overflow
2013-08-07_21:00:10printing - Save MATLAB figure with different background color - Stack Overflow
2013-08-07_21:01:11matlab graph colors.... - Stack Overflow
2013-08-07_21:02:12Changing matlab b - Stack Overflow
2013-08-07_21:03:162013-08-07_21:04:17/Users/josephreddington/Downloads

to keep track of my time.  It works well but I have issues like - all I'm getting from the Apple Script is the title of the window i.e.

matlab graph colors.... - Stack Overflow

Whereas what I'd like is a little more information, like active application (Chrome) in this instance - can someone point me in the direction of either a) how to modify the script so that I get the application name as well as the window title, or b) where I find a handy API that tells me how to do a)

Cheers,

tell application "System Events" to tell (process 1 where frontmost is true)
    set o to name
    try
        set o to o & ":" & name of window 1
    end try
    o
end tell


Delete all apps from iTunes that aren't on my iPhone Possible Duplicate:
  Automated/Simple Deletion of Apps from iTunes Library

Is there a way to auto-delete apps from iTunes that aren't on my iPhone? I have about 200 of them and don't want to do it manually.

Thanks,
Kevin

Delete all the apps in iTunes.
Sync your iPhone and allow the sync of purchased apps to your iTunes library.

Actually, this answer already covers this.


Why does OS X Yosemite - Disk Utility has no options for me? I want run a First Aid on my hard drive, but Disk Utility does not allow me to provide permission to do this.

System Information
MacBook Pro 2012(MD101)
Running Yosemite

I don't have my mac on me, but I remember this happening to me in the past. See, I may be wrong, but I don't remember seeing those options available for me on my primary partition. Now, if you are trying to access DiskUtility from within the recovery partition OS, then you should be able to see all options. I highly doubt MacOS would let you erase or partition a primary partition (exception: the bootcamp app), while it's in use by the OS.

You can always run the first-aid, but not modify the partition table on the existing drive (while being used as the primary OS storage) without messing something up (e.g., from within Terminal)

Hope this helps.


Permission for drive I've installed Windows beside macOS. My MacBook now has two drives.

Drive "A" and Drive "B".
Drive "A" has macOS boot and Drive "B" Windows 7.

The problem now is that I can't modify drive A when I'm working with Windows 7. I have to log out from there, boot to macOS and then do the changes like cut, delete etc folders or files.

Is there any solution that would solve this problem (preferably without formatting the drive)?

When Macs were first able to run Windows 7 (SP1), the Boot Camp Support Software installed the software necessary to allow reading of Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volumes from Windows. Also, OS X (macOS) could read from Windows NTFS volumes.  Neither Apple nor Microsoft provided a way to allow writing to the other operating system's volumes.

  Unfortunately, as Apple has progresses toward the new APFS format, some (if not all) Windows Boot Camp installations have loss the ability to read from macOS volumes.

A possible solution would be to purchase a third party product such as the Mac ToolBox from Paragon Software.

Another possible solution would be to create another separate FAT32 or ExFAT formatted drive. You could  then use the drive for storage of files used by both operating systems or to transfer files between operating systems.

Finally, if you have a high speed internet connection, then you could copy small files to your iCloud drive and access the files from both macOS and Windows.


Function keys default I have a MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. Touch Bar shows default buttons for brightness, volume, play/pause, etc.

I know there is the option to add applications to the shortcut bar in system settings to have the function keys F1…F12 on the Touch Bar, but I want them ALWAYS.

I need them for programming (and I'm lazy and don't want to change my behaviour — imho it is part of the job of my computer to adapt to me, not the other way around) and so I have added PHPStorm to the apps, showing F1…

The problem is, when I'm in my browser, calendar etc. Play, etc. is showing. So I never know whether I have to push Fn or not to pause the music.

Is there any way to make the display of the Touch Bar consistent?
And consistently showing F1…F12?

You can only do that: How to use function keys on MacBook Pro with Touch Bar

  For some apps, you can make the function keys display permanently in
  Touch Bar:

  In System Preferences, choose Keyboard.
  Click Shortcuts.
  From the left sidebar, select Function Keys.
  Click the “+” symbol, then navigate to the app and select it.

  Now when you open or switch to this app, Touch Bar always displays the
  function keys.


Make Home Directories Not Persist? We have a Macintosh being used by many people. They use Active Directory so they can get their own home directory in which documents can be cached, credentials are partitioned from other users, etc. The machine is running 10.9.

The problem is that they periodically get a keychain error, where they're not synced after changing on the AD server. I don't know if the problem originates with a dialog box not being checked or a communication issue between server and machine (although there shouldn't be any problem with that...implementation of keychain and AD integration?)

We tried a solution suggested by an Apple engineer; turn off mobile accounts, hoping that there wouldn't be a keychain issue if the home directory doesn't persist on the Mac (no keychain file, no complaints about incorrect password.) The on-site IT person said that in testing, it appears that the home directories still persist across logoffs and restarts.

Using a local login doesn't have the keychain issue, but then users will log in and download documents, keep themselves logged into services like email, etc, making it easy to leak data to different people.

The onsite person wants to run a periodic script that just deletes home directories or the keychain files, but I'm afraid this is more of a band-aid rather than a solution to the problem.

Am I missing something with the not-creating-a-mobile-account settings to keep home directories from persisting? Or am I looking at the wrong approach to the problem? I'd prefer to have the OS solution rather than third party software if possible.

have you tried a guest account?  perfect for kiosk-type walk up and walk away needs.
they dont' have full permissions, and all their files disappear at log out.

does this sound like a  good fit?  in combination of a forced log out after x minutes idle.

http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11186


Catalina 10.15.5 Slow File Dialog Since the 10.15.5 Catalina update, file dialogs in my system are extremely slow. It can easily take a couple of minutes to be able to save something to the disk. Never had a similar problem before.

Ran a disk check, made sure that I have free disk space (more than 400GB).

Otherwise, the machine is running smoothly, without any other issues.

Tried googling around and found out that there was a similar issue back with Sierra. Tried to apply the proposed fixes, but to no avail.

In Safe Mode the problem doesn't appear to persist.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Machine specs: Mac (Retina 4K, 21.5-inch, 2017), 3,4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5, 8 GB 2400 MHz DDR4, 1TB Fusion Drive.

Update:
No finder extensions installed. No OneDrive/Dropbox/anything like that.

    kextstat | grep -v com.apple
    Index Refs Address            Size       Wired      Name (Version) UUID <Linked Against>
  102    0 0xffffff7f80f2d000 0x6c4000   0x6c4000   com.realtek.driver.RtWlanU (1830.32.b13) E254FC27-6491-3BC2-BBE8-1B529EA778CD <57 18 6 5 3 1>

Update 2:
It takes roughly 90 - 120 seconds to a Save or Open dialog to become active. While it's stuck, the CPU usage by the process gets close to 100%. Doesn't matter the application I'm using - QuickTime, Pages, Microsoft Word, Photoshop or Safari

Update 3:
Booted up in the recovery mode and reinstalled Catalina keeping all the computer data. The problem persists

Update 4:
Installed BitDefender Trial version in order to make sure there is no malware/virus/whatever on my machine. 90 minutes later - nothing found, but the problem persists.

Update 5:
Configured a new administrator account on the Mac. While configuring it, unchecked all iCloud features - the problem doesn't reproduce using that account.
Updated the new account with iCloud settings (photos sync, documents sync), the problem doesn't appear.

I spent about a year working with Apple technical support on something that sounds just the same. The good news is that, assuming your problem is the same as mine, there is an easy fix.  The challenge in diagnosis is that some interaction between iCloud and the Finder appears to be involved. iCloud's involvement is why problem persists across reinstalling the system, etc.

They fix was to delete either the dyld shared cache or the XPC cache. Unfortunately, I can't remember which it was and can't find my notes from then. But, since they are both just caches, there is no harm in deleting either or both.

The best way I found to do it is to download the Onyx app (free from https://www.titanium-software.fr/en/index.html). Under the "Maintenance" tab withing Onyx, you'll see the option to delete either or both of those caches. Do so, reboot and see if your problem is fixed. Once I did this, it fixed the problem entirely and it hasn't reappeared in over 2 years. There is probably a way to do this from the Terminal (indeed, Onyx is mostly just a wrapper over command line functionality), but Onyx worked great for me.  I hope this helps you.


How to type ə (the schwa character) on macOS? The wikipedia article for ə says, “In MacOS with the U.S. Extended keyboard, the letters Ə ə are made with Option+Shift+: followed by shift+A or a respectively.”

When I follow these instructions (on a Macbook Pro) I get: ÚA or Úa.

I know I can get it from the Emoji & Symbols panel, but I need a way to type it quickly.

"US Extended" is now called the "ABC Extended" keyboard.  Schwa is made exactly the way that article and you describe.

The results you are getting are what happens when you are actually using a different input source, such as US or US International PC.  Make sure that the "flag" menu at the top right of the screen says ABC Extended.

Note that selecting an item in System Preferences > Keyboard > Input Sources does not do anything, you need to have the keyboard you want shown in the menu bar, where you can also actually set them.

If you prefer to switch keyboards without using the "flag" menu, you can set a keyboard shortcut for this in System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Input Sources.


How to isolate the most disk-active process(es) in OS X? I have some process(es) performing a lot of drive access from time to time, however I've hitherto been unable to isolate which process or processes are performing the access.  What shell command can I issue to isolate the most disk access intensive processes?

After fiddling with making my own solution via fs_usage manipulation, I discovered the DTrace iotop script (man iotop).  This really seems to do the trick with regards to giving samples of filesystem activity at nice updated intervals and quickly allows one to isolate possibly misbehaving processes.

*NOTE: you must run it with sudo or as root user.

For example:

sudo iotop -C 5   # Simply gives an update every 5 seconds in default output format without clearing screen.
sudo iotop -CP 2  # Gives 2 second interval updates w/o clearing screen and I/O time based output.

Options:

iotop [-C] [-D|-o|-P] [-j|-Z] [-d device] [-f filename] [-m mount_point] [-t top] [interval [count]]

   -C     don't clear the screen
   -D     print delta times - elapsed, us
   -j     print project ID
   -o     print disk delta times, us
   -P     print %I/O (disk delta times)
   -Z     print zone ID
   -d device
          instance name to snoop (eg, dad0)
   -f filename
          full pathname of file to snoop
   -m mount_point
          mountpoint for filesystem to snoop
   -t top print top number only


Compile CFLite requires some unknown dependencies I've downloaded CoreFoundationLite - CFLite from apple open source of OSX version 10.10.5, and attempted to compile it on my own mac (I'm running 10.11.5 and Xcode 7.2.1). notice that this code compile under regular make, and doesn't use Xcode SDK ...

According the the README file, it should just require using the default makefile. However, it failed on the following issue :

/usr/bin/clang -O2 -arch i386 -arch x86_64 -c -x c -pipe -std=gnu99
Wmost -Wno-trigraphs -Wno-deprecated -mmacosx-version-min=10.10
-fconstant-cfstrings -fexceptions -DCF_BUILDING_CF=1
-DDEPLOYMENT_TARGET_MACOSX=1
-DMAC_OS_X_VERSION_MAX_ALLOWED=MAC_OS_X_VERSION_10_10
-DU_SHOW_DRAFT_API=1 -DU_SHOW_CPLUSPLUS_API=0 -ICF-Objects/normal
-DVERSION=1153.18 -include CoreFoundation_Prefix.h
 CFApplicationPreferences.c
-o CF-Objects/normal/CFApplicationPreferences.o

In file included from CFApplicationPreferences.c:30:
./CFInternal.h:759:10: fatal error: 'dispatch/private.h' file not found
#include <dispatch/private.h>

it seems like I'm missing dependency named libdispatch.
is it because this library was removed from 10.11.5 and exist in 10.10.5 ? where can i find it (couldn't trace it on apple source code)

You can find the files you need in the libdispatch-442.1.4 download at the open source site you linked above.

And libdispatch is included with 10.11.5 as well, as you can see on this page. https://opensource.apple.com/release/os-x-10115/

I don't have a Mac here to confirm, but I assume if you haven't installed Xcode (with its accompanying SDKs) then the headers won't be installed on your Mac.


Use MacBook Air or Pro for app development? I need to replace my old Mac and I am wondering which one should I get between:

MacBook Air or MacBook Pro

The primary goal will be to develop iPhone and iPad Apps and OSX Widgets.

Is there a better one I should get for these purposes?

This is a very difficult question to answer, it depends so much on what sort of development you are doing, even if you will have access to an external monitor or not.

Really, what I think you are asking is if an Air is capable of running Xcode for minor development tasks.  As if it isn't, you know that the Pro would be.

Certainly an Air is capable of running XCode, but on the smaller screens it's not going to be a comfortable experience as XCode does enjoy vast amounts of screen real estate if it can get it.

Also, the lack of a full size keyboard may be annoying when coding on a laptop keyboard, whether it's the Air or the Pro, I bought an external keyboard simply to have access to full size keys for forward delete, home/end etc etc.

So you may find that a Mini, with external kb/monitor may be your best alternative, depending on your financial limits etc.


Upgrade logic board of Macbook Unibody 4.1 I've recently found a (factory refurbished) logic board from a Macbook Unibody 5.2 (mid-2009; 820-2496-A) and want to replace the logic board of my Macbook Unibody 4.1 (early-2008) with it, so my Macbook can run a newer OS. I've already upgraded my Macbook with a 240GB SSD and 4GB 800MHz RAM.

Comparing pictures of the logic boards it seems like the connectors are the same, as well as everything else, except for the graphics chip (X3100 is my current, while the one on the new logic board is the x64-based GeForce 9400M). So visually it seems like the 5.2 logic board is perfectly compatible with the 4.1 version.

I'll probably receive the logic board just before Christmas (never know exactly this time of year), so I can try swapping the logic boards. Once I've succeeded (or failed) I will report to you guys here.

Has anyone tried doing this before? If it works, does my current OS X installation work with the new logic board or do I need to reinstall OS X?

I have received my new logic board today and installed it successfully. I also upgraded the Macbook with a 240GB SSD and 4GBs of RAM.

I only encountered 2 problems which can be worked around easily. The first one was the different SuperDrive connector. I simply didn't connect the SuperDrive, but you can easily order the right SuperDrive, since they're not that expensive. The second and most important problem I encountered was the different layout of the heat sink. This needs replacement as well in order to get it working properly. I'm still waiting for this part to be delivered. For now, my Macbook shuts down after a few minutes, because it gets too hot.

After I've received the right heat sink and installed Yosemite, I'll give you guys another update.


Any way to have CPU temperature in the menu bar? I tried SMC fan control and Temperature Monitor but it does not update the temperature and I do not wish to change the fan speed.

Temperature Monitor was last updated in 2009. So maybe it is not compatible with your OS.

I recently abandoned the fantastic MenuMeters (free) for iStat Menus 5, since the later provides even more info on practically all Mac sensors. Hardware Monitor and System Monitor are also capable of showing sensor information in the menu bar.