How to use AppleScript application with "open file -a AppleScriptApp"? Some information about what I am trying to achieve

I am using emacs inside of terminal. I know about existence of cocoa versions of emacs (like GNU Emacs for OS X, Aquamacs and Emacs Mac Port). But I prefer to code inside of terminal.

Everything is fine in my setup except the fact that sometimes I want to open file inside of emacs from Finder or any other software. So I need find running process of emacs in terminal or create new one and open the fine inside of running emacs.

So basically I need to create an .app wrapper for opening files in terminal emacs.

Trying to get it done

As far as I understand, open -a my_emacs_app /path/to/file is the same as opening file in application from finder. So that's why I am testing my_emacs_app using open command.

My first attempt is to create application using AppleScript. Here is the code that process passed arguments:

on run argv
    if (count of argv) > 0 then
        -- get file path from argv
        -- and log to logfile for testing purposes
        return "defined"
    else
        -- no args means no file
        -- log to logfile that we can't extract file path
        -- from empty arguments
        return "failed"
    end if
end run

And actually it works when I try to run it using

$ osascript my_emacs_app.scpt /path/to/file

It opens the file and logs what expected to log file.

When I run it using

$ osascript my_emacs_app.scpt

It logs to file that no arguments were passed.
So I was happy with it. But remember, I need an .app wrapper. So I am exporting this script as application (and place it inside of /Applications/ folder). And then when I try to

$ open -a my_emacs_app /path/to/file

I see that application is executed for a short time and then is closed. But nothing good happens. I mean, file is not opened in emacs and nothing is logged into log file.

Does any one know, how to export such scripts?

After few different attempts and hacks I found good solution to solve my problem. First - implement the script. Then open the Automator.app and create new application. Then combine Get Specified Finder Items action and Run AppleScript. So now open -a my_automator_app /path/to/file will pass /path/to/file/ to my script. And that's cool.

P. S. in the argv will be stored the alias to the file, not the posix file path. To convert it from alias to posix you should use

set aliasPath to item 1 of item 1 of argv
set filePath to (the POSIX path of aliasPath)

Oh and don't forget that you might want to get the quoted form of filePath in case it contains some special characters (like space or ~).

You can get more information about alias/posix paths here


What is the correct RAM for a 2010 MacBook Pro? I bought a 2.4GHz mid 2010 MacBook Pro logicboard on eBay. Upon installing RAM, the computer beeps every five seconds indicating it doesn't detect RAM. I used standard 8500s 1066MHZ RAM with 8 modules on each side of the chip (2Rx4?). The seller claims the board will only work with RAM that has 4 modules on each side of the chip (1Rx4?). I guess the terminology here would be 1Rx4?

The RAM is good because both chips worked in an A1342 MacBook.

I understand Macs are particularly sensitive to RAM clock speeds and such but I'm concerned I bought a bad board. Any ideas? Thanks.

According to the free app MacTracker, a mid-2010 Macbook Pro has:  Memory Slots 2 - 204-pin PC3-8500 (1066 MHz) DDR3 SO-DIMM. And has a maximum memory of 8 Gigs. I've read that Macs are sensitive to memory chips too. So I'd make sure the numbers above were followed. I upgraded my iMac with chips from Crucial. Works fine.


How to debug .app that only successfully launches from Terminal? Recently, my Dropbox.app stopped launching correctly. If I double-click on the app or try to launch via spotlight, the app just silently dies within a second. I see it show up in Activity Monitor, but no messages are printed if I watch Console. There's no warning or error dialog.

If I use Terminal to issue something like:

open Dropbox.app

then it runs correctly.

I suspect my launch environment got messed up (perhaps python?). But I have no idea how to debug this since Console is revealing nothing.

What are some steps to debug an app that silently dies?

Is there a systematic way to toggle all environment preferences that are causing open Dropbox.app to succeed from Terminal?

You could start by tracing the executable:

% sudo dtruss /Applications/Dropbox.app/Contents/MacOS/Dropbox

It may be loading the wrong python, etc.  Sometimes a trace will give you a clue as to where your app is crashing, esp. if you only have an executable.

You can also look at how the executable was linked, maybe it's finding the wrong version of a library (ldd on linux, otool on osx):

% otool -TVLrH /Applications/Dropbox.app/Contents/MacOS/Dropbox


Mail.app showing odd characters instead of actual text I have this problem happening on a new 2011 Macbook Air with the latest version of Lion. When viewing emails, the text is coming through as odd characters that look like a capital A in a box (see image below). If I click Reply, and then convert the message to plain text, the entire text of the email displays fine. But in the message list, preview pane, and full message view, I get the odd characters any time I'm display rich text.

I've verified that my Mail.app is up to date, and in the Fonts & Colors preferences, the message font is set to 12pt Helvetica.

I can't say for certain, but I believe this started after I installed a trial of Microsoft Office for the Mac. The entire office suite (including Outlook, Word, Excel, everything) was installed.

We went digging through FontBook and found a bad copy of Georgia installed by Microsoft Office. After going through about a dozen duplicated font files, and removing the older versions of each, we restarted Mail.app. At this point everything is working perfectly.


What does MacBookProX,Y refer to? The MacBook Pros have long used a codename MacBookProX,Y.

Apparently the X refers roughly to a generation. One generation can possibly span more than one "early", "middle", "late" period of one year, or indeed may span more than one year.

The Y seems to distinguish screen size. It used to be that the Y increased with screen size. Nowadays that pattern no longer holds.

Some examples:

MacBookPro15,1

MacBook Pro "Core i7" 2.2 15" Touch/2018
...
MacBook Pro "Core i9" 2.4 15" Touch/2019

MacBookPro15,2

MacBook Pro "Core i5" 2.3 13" Touch/2018
...
MacBook Pro "Core i7" 2.8 13" Touch/2019

MacBookPro15,3

MacBook Pro "Core i7" 2.6 15" Touch/2018 Vega
...
MacBook Pro "Core i9" 2.4 15" Touch/2019 Vega

MacBookPro15,4

MacBook Pro "Core i5" 1.4 13" Touch/2019 2 TB
MacBook Pro "Core i7" 1.7 13" Touch/2019 2 TB

What does the MacBookProX,Y codename mean? In particular, and now that the logic board is entirely monolithic, but at least still replaceable, not glued, does the codename mean that one "chassis" (keyboard + screen) fits precisely boards of the same codename?

Related reference(s):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apple_codenames#MacBook_Pro

I would say there’s no consistency on when Apple revs major or minor and they often speed bump parts within the same X,Y family and have service bulletins to ensure compatible parts only get on compatible flavors of these.

You can count on larger numbers being released later and these are far easier to sort or compare in code, though, if you have to check you aren’t running on very old gear rather than check for specific functions / API to be available.

From my experience, these are monotonically increasing marketing numbers that let you guess the major CPU generation and sales period in a similar manner to the Marketing (Early / Mid / Late 2019) monikers that appear in all the Apple Documentation / technical specifications, etc..

Can a Mac's model year be determined with a Terminal Command?


How many hard drives are in this Mac mini? I just purchased a Mac mini and the seller assures me that there are two 1 TB hard drives inside, with a total storage space of 2 TB (picture from the listing).
At first, I was under the impression that there was a second drive without an OS and that the partitioning was done on that (Windows-format?) drive. However, after erasing the accessible drive following Apple's instructions, and restoring my data with Target mode, I do not see a second drive listed anywhere:

If I start the computer pressing ALT I see
this.
In the Storage tab I see
this.
In Recovery mode the Disk
Utility lists this.
The diskutil list command returns this in
Recovery mode (more images).

I really, really don't want to have to go through this process to figure out if the seller is saying the truth about there being two drives inside, since it might prevent me from returning it, but I'd like to know if what I bought matches the item description.
Possible hypotheses:

there is no second drive
there might be a second drive, but badly connected/wired in so undetectable
there is a second drive that is blank / oddly formatted / undetectable

How can I know if there is a second drive in the Mac mini?

You have one drive.
Your diskutil list command tells you everything you need to know:  there's only one entry that has a "physical" characteristic to it and it's disk0.
When you boot into Recovery, there are many RAM disks that get created and in your case they are disk1 through disk19.  If you notice on each identifier, it describes it as a "disk image" as in the example below:
/dev/disk1 (disk image):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        +2.1 GB     disk1
   1:                  Apple_HFS OS X Base System        2.0 GB     disk1s1

What you want to look for is anything that says "internal, physical" because if the seller assured you "there are two hard drives," you would have (in a Mac mini) two identifier with "internal, physical" descriptors like that of disk0:
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            999.3 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3

What the seller showed you was a (Bootcamp) partition.  When booted, the partitions appear to the OS as their own separate drives.


How to get local directory names into terminal window titles? The title of my terminal window is:

Terminal -- bash -- 130x39

This is how I see them listed in Terminal->Window and it is very hard to know which one is which.

When I use multiple terminals, the most important information is the local directory in each of them.

Is there any way to have that local directory appear in the titles, so I could see easily which terminal is from where?

Go to Preferences -> Profiles -> Window and check those things you would like to see in the terminal window title.


Change iPhone backup location permanently? I have 20GB left on my OSX Macbook Pro so I bought the Transcend JetDrive sd card for extra memory.

The iPhone iOS 10 back up takes about 80GB and would like to move it to that external memory drive. Moving is not a problem because I can manually locate the file, but is there a way to automatically backup my iPhone to that new location?

The usual solution to this is to use a symbolic link to redirect your iTunes backup folder to the external drive. There's a discussion of it here: Is it possible to backup iOS devices to an external drive?


What is nfsd on macOS? I have two questions regarding nfsd on OS X:

What is managing the start/stop phase of this daemon? Launchd? It has an enable and disable mode, but I don't know what does this do.
What is the default status of this service. Enabled or disabled? Should I leave it on disable if my /etc/exports file is empty?

nfsd is invoked by launchd while booting by the accompanying com.apple.nfsd.plist file in /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/.

As you can see close to the bottom of the following picture,

it's only kept alive, when /etc/exports exists. If the path doesn't exist, nfsd will not run.

So removing /etc/exports will disable nfsd temporarily until the path is recreated

or executing

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.nfsd.plist

will disable it permanently - even after reinstating /etc/exports (not recommended).


Mapping USB keyboard Fn key to Option key with DefaultKeyBinding.dict I have this usb keyboard and macOS 10.14.6. :

I'm using the file DefaultKeyBinding.dict to remap several keys on a MacBook Pro. Is there a way to specify that my right Fn key has to be bound to the Option  key.

I need this since I'm trying to have an Option key on the bottom right zone of the USB keyboard, mimicking the MacBook Pro  keyboard.

I'd prefer not to use external tools.

I don't find Modifier keys settings helpful for function keys:

Using Karabiner event, it seems like keystrokes on Fn keys are not detected by the Mac. Can I fix it?

Using Karabiner event, it seems like keystrokes on Fn keys are not detected by the Mac. Can I fix it?

You can’t remap the Fn key as it’s an internal keyboard modifier and not sent to the OS

See this answer from a similar question for full details.

Basically, if a scan code isn’t sent by the keyboard to be received by the OS (and the Fn code isn’t), nothing can be remapped.


Terminal window displays odd text after being resized If I open a terminal window, and then shrink it as far left as possible, and then enlarge it again, it displays some odd text, including some of the letters in my hostname:

Any way to fix this?
Note: I'm guessing this is a bug, since when I go fullscreen, and then go back to a window, it goes back to normal and won't happen again.
Update: Some other weird stuff happens when I resize the window from using commands within the window.

It's a bug caused by Terminal's automatic text rewrapping combined with your shell's SIGWINCH re-rendering. If you just want to clear the corrupted text, you can use Edit->Clear All (default shortcut  ⌘   +  K ) to clear the window, leaving only the prompt.


How should I go about tracking down my stolen iPhone 6 using Find My iPhone? I have used Find My iPhone to track down my iPhone 6.

It's running iOS 8 and the iCloud web app shows that someone has travelled a fair distance with it.

How should I go about protecting access to my data on the deviceas well as not ruin all chances of finding it.

My worry is sending a remote wipe will reduce the chance they can get my data but I won't be able to track the device further.

Remote-Lock the phone so they can't use it.
Visit your local police.


Is the iPhone 8 Plus case compatible with iPhone 7 Plus I am wondering if the new iPhone 8 Plus is case compatible with the iPhone 7 Plus, meaning that I can buy an iPhone 7 Plus case today and would be able to use with my new iPhone 8 Plus once I receive it?

The reason for my question is that I cannot find the physical dimension of these models on apple.com.

Actually, it seems that the iPhone 8 Plus is case compatible to the iPhone 7 Plus. I was checking the one of the iPhone 7 Plus cases and on apple.com. It stated that it is good for both of these models.

Also there is the phone comparison page on apple.com where the dimensions are listed.


What is in ~/Library/SOM? I scanned my disk to find stuff to delete with Disk Inventory X. I am mystified by this directory, ~/Library/SOM. It's really big and all the files are *.tmp. Any idea?

It appears to be detritus from "Screencast-O-Matic" an otherwise nice applications. For me it was over 70Gig!


how to set default all hotkey in mac I want to return default all keyboard hotkey

Now my mac

command + w is Screen Brightness up

command + e is Screen Brightness down

but i want to command + w is close this app (default)

can anyone help me?

My karabiner

You obviously mean: How do I do this with Karabiner Elements … ?!?

For one: "Cmd-W" is not default for closing apps, but "Cmd-Q" is.

But, if you really want "Cmd-W" to close an app, here is Karabiner Elements' code:

{ "title": "Make ''Cmd-W'' close the current app.",
  "rules": [
     { "description": "Makes ''Cmd-W'' the shortcut for closing apps.",
       "manipulators": [
        { "from": { "key_code": "w",
                    "modifiers": {
                        "mandatory": ["left_command"] }
                  },
            "to":[
                 { "key_code": "q",
                   "modifiers": ["left_command"],
                   "repeat": false }],
          "type":  "basic"
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}

Copy code to BBEdit (TextEdit) and save to ~/.config./karabiner/assets/complex_modifications as WhateverYouLike.json

Next open KE, tab "Complex Modifications", click [+ Add rule] at bottom, scroll down to WhateverYouLike.json and click [+ Enable].

That should be it … KE's modifications work without restart.

(Btw: the "repeat" part makes your shortcut close only ONE app, just to make sure …)


Alternative for Notepad++? I really love Notepad++ and I haven't found an alternative for it yet. TextMate and TextWrangler aren't quite there yet. Specifically,  two things that I want that are not in TextMate:

variable highlighting
bracket highlighting

Can you suggest an alternative editor for OS X?

It's not clear from your question what exactly you're missing -- I use Notepad++ on the PC and find both TextMate and TextWrangler to be reasonable replacements -- but you'll likely appreciate either TextWrangler's big brother BBEdit 9 or, if you can put up with its alpha nature, Sublime Text 2.


Minimum device requirements to enroll in the Apple Developer Program as an Organisation What are the minimum device requirements to enroll in the Apple Developer Program as organization?
We have an iPhone 6 and a MacBook Pro (mid 2012). The iPhone 6 runs iOS 12.4.9 and the MacBook Pro runs macOS Catalina 10.15.7.
We already have DUNS number and we meet all the requirements for Apple's registration as an organisation.

There's no minimum device requirements as such to enroll in the Apple developer program - all you need is 2-factor authentication enabled on your Apple-ID. Your iPhone 6 and MacBook Pro is able to support that without problems.


Will running a double monitor in clamshell mode put more stress on my computer? I'm wondering if my mid-2010 Macbook Pro will be more stressed than it should if I run a 22-inch monitor in clamshell mode.  It seems to be whirring more than usual when I do this, so am I better off just getting an iMac?

Not sure how to answer this objectively, but running it in "clamshell mode" is fine. I've been doing the same for a long time with my MacBook Pro with no issues.

If your external screen is bigger (resolution-wise) than your laptop's native screen, then it will of course need some more graphics power to run, but this is rarely an issue in practice.


how to capture folder as input and pass it to python script as argument How to capture folder as input and pass it to python script as argument?

This is what I have so far, but this is always taking the user home directory as input no matter which folder i right click > Services > testing_service (which you see below)

You need to tell it where to put the arguments.

for f in "$@"
do
    "/usr/local/bin/python" -i -o "~/Development/python/slideShow/scripts/slideshow" "$f"
done

…or, if you're only ever going to select one folder, you can simplify it a bit:

"/usr/local/bin/python" -i -o "~/Development/python/slideShow/scripts/slideshow" "$@"


Storing data on a external drive used for backup Is it safe to store data on HDD which I selected to use as a backup device in time machine? Or should I add another partition for that?

I do not know how does time machine behave when there is not enough space. Is it going to delete whatever it sees or just content from Backups.backupd folder.

Time Machine will only have access to its own backups.  So, anything besides Backups.backupdb will not be touched.

Keep in mind though that Time Machine is set to use up the entire drive eventually.  Having it shared with outside data may have adverse effects for either storing more of your data outside Backups.backupdb or for Time Machine (depending on which part fills up the remaining space first).

While it is safe to use a Time Machine-marked drive with other data, it is recommended to leave Time Machine alone on a separate partition and use a different partition for your "outsourced" data.


Is there a way to restrict Time Machine backups to a given size? I'm using a Time Capsule to do Backups, I've been doing this for a while now. The problem is that the backup begins small and with time it becomes huge. So restricting its size would make Time Machine use it's own space saving operations (I guess).

My idea would be to change the sparsebundle's size limit to a size much smaller than the hard drive's size. Since the sparsebundle is where the backups are done it should restrict available space and cause pruning when that limit is reached.

Would resizing the Sparsebundle cause any problem for the reliability or function of Time Machine?

You could try using the Disk Utility to make a partition of a given size, and then having Time Machine backup to that partition.


Different temperature reports by different apps? I was looking for a free app to display CPU temperatures, so I tried Fanny and Menumeters.

Both work OK but I noticed that Menumeters reports 5-10 Celsius less than Fanny. Any ideas why this happens? I thought all apps would get the information somewhere from the OS, so how come they report different values?

Any native way to check so I can compare and see which one is closer to reality?

I did some digging into the temperatures returned by the system management controller (SMC) of my macbooks - a MacBookPro2,1 and a MacBookPro11,2. As far as I know they are not published and below are the labels I could identify - mostly from this question on Stack Overflow Description for Apple's SMC Keys and iStat Pro.

As you can see apart from there being lots of choices of what to report (temperatures for CPU proximity sensor, individual core temperatures, package temperatures, CPU PECI sensor) their location doesn't remain constant between models.

If your app was designed to report label 2 which is "CPU 1 package" temperature on a MacBookPro2,1 and you ran it on a MacBookPro11,2 (with no other checks) you'd end up reporting the temperature of the first battery sensor instead.

If your apps are giving different temperatures they are either choosing a different sensor value to report as the temperature or (possibly) reporting the results of the wrong sensor.

Of the options in this question Can I get the CPU temperature and fan speed from the command line in OS X I'd be inclined to trust the sudo powermetrics option (as it is part of the OS) or Intel Power Gadget (as they made the CPU).

chip "applesmc-isa-0300"

# Macbookpro2,1
    label temp1 "Battery TS_MAX"
    label temp2 "CPU 1 Package"
    label temp3 "CPU 1 Proximity"
    label temp4 "CPU 1 Heatsink"
    label temp5 "GPU 0 Proximity"
    label temp6 "GPU 0 Discrete Thermal Diode"
    label temp7 "Mem Bank A1"
    label temp8 "TTF0:"
    label temp9 "Heatpipe 1"
    label temp10 "Heatpipe 2"
    label temp11 "Mainboard Proximity"
    label temp12 "Palm Rest"

chip "applesmc-isa-0300"

# Macbookpro11,2
    label temp1  "Battery TS_MAX"
    label temp2  "Battery 1"
    label temp3  "Battery 2"
    label temp4  "TBXT"
    label temp5  "CPU 1"
    label temp6  "CPU 1"
    label temp7  "CPU 1 Proximity"
    label temp8  "CPU Core 1"
    label temp9  "CPU Core 2"
    label temp10 "CPU Core 3"
    label temp11 "CPU Core 4"
    label temp12 "PECI GPU"
    label temp13 "TCMc"
    label temp14 "PECI SA"
    label temp15 "TCTD"
    label temp16 "PECI CPU"
    label temp17 "TH0A"
    label temp18 "TH0B"
    label temp19 "TH0F"
    label temp20 "TH0R"
    label temp21 "TH0V"
    label temp22 "TH0a"
    label temp23 "TH0b"
    label temp24 "TH0c"
    label temp25 "Mem Bank A1"
    label temp26 "Mem Module A1"
    label temp27 "PCH Proximity"
    label temp28 "PCH Die"
    label temp29 "Airport Proximity"
    label temp30 "Ta0P"
    label temp31 "TaSP"
    label temp32 "Heatpipe 2"
    label temp33 "Heatpipe 3"
    label temp34 "Palm Rest"
    label temp35 "Memory Proximity"
    label temp36 "Ts1s"


Width of the column view separation line in Finder I'm using Mac OS X lion. In Finder, I use the column view. I know how to set up the width, but the thin line you use to drag the columns has suddenly become thicker and very visible.

I know this isn't a huge problem, but I don't know how it happened and don't know how to change it back.

I hope you know what I mean and how to get it back to default.

You must have a mouse plugged in.
In System Preferences > General, under the "Show Scroll bars" section, there are three options:

Automatically based on mouse or trackpad
When scrolling
Always

Each act differently.

Automatically... with a mouse plugged in will show the scroll bars. When you are just on the trackpad, the scroll bars will be hidden until you scroll. This is the default setting.

When scrolling will always hide the scrollbars unless you are scrolling. If you are on a MacBook, this is probably what you are most used to seeing, so turn this on if you use a mouse occasionally and hate the look of the scroll bars. (This is how I have mine set).

Always will always show the scrollbars, so if you like them, they will always be there for you.

[Edit: I just saw that there was a response up at the top. Hopefully this here will help someone searching to find the answer quicker.]


Changing airport connection preference algorithm Airport connects to the network in order of preference that I have set. Is there a way to make it connect to the network that I was last connected to, instead of the one higher in the list.

For eg. I have 3 networks, in order, Wifi0, Wifi1 & Wifi2. If I am connected to Wifi1 and close the lid, open it back, it will connect to Wifi0. I want it to connect to Wifi1.

You can set another location (also called configuration) in the Network preference panel. In the Location1 configuration, you only keep the Wifi1, and do the same with a Location2. (I know this isn't what you're searching for, but it's a workaround).


How can I search for photos taken at a specific time? All my photos are in iPhoto and I want to be able to search for photos taken at a specific time. Happy to use an app or command to search at file system level from Terminal if I need to.

Smart Albums will let me do date, but not time.
Spotlight will let me search meta data, but I cannot figure out how I can do a fuzzy search on the kMDItemContentCreationDate field.

Any ideas?

OK, so it turns out Aperture can do it with a Smart Album.

Date lets you specify Capture Hour of Day

EXIF lets you specify Capture Hour of Day, Capture Minute of Hour and even Capture Second of Minute

Interestingly, iPhoto honours and displays this Smart Album but will not let you edit it.

Hope that's of help.


How does iCloud Keychain store unsecured wifi hotspot information? Setup

I connected to an XFINITY wifi hotspot (SSID xfinitywifi) roughly 2 hours ago on my iPhone 5S (iOS 7.1.2). These hotspots require no username or password (unencrypted), but do require authenticating with a Comcast username/password at the captive portal web page after connecting. (image below)

I have iCloud Keychain enabled on my iPhone and on my MacBook Pro (OS X 10.9.4). The information for xfinitywifi was automatically copied to my MacBook Pro. (image below)

I have Safari set not to remember usernames and passwords on either device (this is unrelated to wifi and my question below, but I thought it might potentially give clarity to some readers/answerers).

Question
How (or perhaps where) does iCloud store this unsecured hotspot network information for syncing with other devices which have iCloud Keychain enabled, especially devices running OS X?
On encrypted networks, the information is stored in the Keychain Access app as an "AirPort network password" keychain entry. However, there is no entry for xfinitywifi in Keychain Access. I even searched for various other related strings such as comcast, etc. but found no relevant entries (see screenshot below).

As one can see you have the "Remember Networks this computer has joined" Enabled.

When you join new network, that information is saved in the

com.apple.airport.preferences.plist

located in SystemConfiguration folder.

Obviously iCloud gets that file.

EDIT

Since you asked a new question and want to know how iCloud does that read this. (and click on User defaults database to expand)

Designing for Key-Value Data in iCloud

  To store discrete values in iCloud for app preferences, app
  configuration, or app state, use iCloud key-value storage. Key-value
  storage is similar to the local user defaults database; but values
  that you place in key-value storage are available to every instance of
  your app on all of a user’s various devices. If one instance of your
  app changes a value, the other instances see that change and can use
  it to update their configuration.

and


Discrepancy in iCloud backup sizes After recently deciding to try out iCloud backups on my iPhone 4S and iPad 2 (both on iOS 5.0.1), I ran into a problem that's making it difficult to trust these backups. The "Latest Backup" for each device never goes higher than 2.0 GB, while the "Next Backup Size" is reported as a higher number — 6.3 GB in the case of my iPhone. This next backup size matches what iCloud generally matches the cloud space reportedly occupied by the iPhone backup. This problem persists no matter how many times I delete and re-back up each device. If I turn off components of the backup (photos, for example, which is the largest item on my iPhone), then the total backup drops below 2 GB and starts to match up. So, questions:

Is anyone else seeing this behavior?
Does anyone have a "Latest Backup" larger than 2 GB, and therefore not seeing this problem? If so, what device and iOS version are you running?
Has anyone with this problem successfully restored from an iCloud backup? Or unsuccessfully, for that matter?

This issue appears to have been solved with the iOS 5.1 update.


How to block Facebook app and facebook.com from loading on an iOS device On a Windows or Mac computer, I'd edit the hosts file:

127.0.0.1     facebook.com
127.0.0.1     www.facebook.com
127.0.0.1   login.facebook.com
127.0.0.1   www.login.facebook.com
127.0.0.1   fbcdn.net
127.0.0.1   www.fbcdn.net
127.0.0.1   fbcdn.com
127.0.0.1   www.fbcdn.com
127.0.0.1   static.ak.fbcdn.net
127.0.0.1   static.ak.connect.facebook.com
127.0.0.1   connect.facebook.net
127.0.0.1   www.connect.facebook.net
127.0.0.1   apps.facebook.com

# Block Facebook IPv6
#fe80::1%lo0     localhost
::1     facebook.com
::1     www.facebook.com
::1     login.facebook.com
::1     www.login.facebook.com
::1     fbcdn.net
::1     www.fbcdn.net
::1     fbcdn.com
::1     www.fbcdn.com
::1     static.ak.fbcdn.net
::1     static.ak.connect.facebook.com
::1     connect.facebook.net
::1     www.connect.facebook.net
::1     apps.facebook.com
::1     edge-star6-shv-02-ams2.facebook.com

How would I do this on an iOS device (not jailbroken). Can I do this with a provisioning profile?

Not directly, but you could use a provisioning profile to assign a web proxy or custom DNS server to perform your filtering.


iPhone save PDF file and view it I have a PDF file on my Mac and I want to copy it into my iPhone and then read it.
How can I do that?

I already tried to plug the iPhone cable into my Mac, but it seems Finder doesn't let me save a file onto it. Before I had an iPhone, I used a Windows phone and could simply transfer my file to the phone and view it.

Do I need additional software? I have an iPhone 4S running iOS 5.1.

You need to use iTunes to transfer it to the app on your iPhone that will take ownership of it. The simplest solution is to use iBooks, which you can find in the App Store on your iPhone if you haven't downloaded it already:

Drag the PDF into iTunes
Select your device on in the left hand pane, then select "Books" on the top.
Make sure "Sync Books" is checked, and if you're syncing selected books, check the check box by the PDF you just added.
Hit Apply

The PDF should now be in iBooks on your iPhone.


MacBook Pro tries to shutdown every X hours My Macbook Pro is trying to shutdown itself every X amount of hours, is there a way to check in the logs what process is triggering the shutdown process?

I can see the following in the logs, but not much else:

Mar 28 11:10:09 cleanCaptureDirectories /Library/Logs/CoreCapture
Mar 28 11:10:09 numberOfDirArrayEntriesMax: 50, numberOfDirArrayEntries 0
Mar 28 11:10:09 cleanCaptureDirectories /Library/Logs/CrashReporter/CoreCapture
Mar 28 11:10:09 numberOfDirArrayEntriesMax: 50, numberOfDirArrayEntries 50
Mar 28 11:10:09 cleanCaptureDirectories /Library/Logs/CoreCapture
Mar 28 11:10:09 numberOfDirArrayEntriesMax: 50, numberOfDirArrayEntries 0
Mar 28 11:10:09 pruneDirectoryNDaysRead cap 7
Mar 28 11:10:09 CCDaemon::shutdown is fired
Mar 28 11:10:09 cleanCaptureDirectories /Library/Logs/CrashReporter/CoreCapture
Mar 28 11:10:09 numberOfDirArrayEntriesMax: 50, numberOfDirArrayEntries 50
Mar 28 11:10:09 cleanCaptureDirectories /Library/Logs/CoreCapture
Mar 28 11:10:09 numberOfDirArrayEntriesMax: 50, numberOfDirArrayEntries 0
Mar 28 11:10:09 cleanCaptureDirectories /Library/Logs/CrashReporter/CoreCapture
Mar 28 11:10:09 numberOfDirArrayEntriesMax: 50, numberOfDirArrayEntries 50
Mar 28 11:10:09 cleanCaptureDirectories /Library/Logs/CoreCapture
Mar 28 11:10:09 numberOfDirArrayEntriesMax: 50, numberOfDirArrayEntries 0
Mar 28 11:10:09 cleanCaptureDirectories /Library/Logs/CrashReporter/CoreCapture
Mar 28 11:10:09 numberOfDirArrayEntriesMax: 50, numberOfDirArrayEntries 50
Mar 28 11:10:09 cleanCaptureDirectories /Library/Logs/CoreCapture
Mar 28 11:10:09 numberOfDirArrayEntriesMax: 50, numberOfDirArrayEntries 0
Mar 28 11:10:09 cleanCaptureDirectories /Library/Logs/CrashReporter/CoreCapture
Mar 28 11:10:09 numberOfDirArrayEntriesMax: 50, numberOfDirArrayEntries 50
Mar 28 11:10:09 cleanCaptureDirectories /Library/Logs/CoreCapture
Mar 28 11:10:09 numberOfDirArrayEntriesMax: 50, numberOfDirArrayEntries 0
Mar 28 11:10:09 cleanCaptureDirectories /Library/Logs/CrashReporter/CoreCapture
Mar 28 11:10:09 numberOfDirArrayEntriesMax: 50, numberOfDirArrayEntries 50
Mar 28 11:10:09 cleanCaptureDirectories /Library/Logs/CoreCapture
Mar 28 11:10:09 numberOfDirArrayEntriesMax: 50, numberOfDirArrayEntries 0
Mar 28 11:10:09 cleanCaptureDirectories /Library/Logs/CrashReporter/CoreCapture
Mar 28 11:10:09 numberOfDirArrayEntriesMax: 50, numberOfDirArrayEntries 50
Mar 28 11:10:09 cleanCaptureDirectories /Library/Logs/CoreCapture
Mar 28 11:10:09 numberOfDirArrayEntriesMax: 50, numberOfDirArrayEntries 0
Mar 28 11:10:09 CCProfileMonitor::freeResources Entered
Mar 28 11:10:09 CCProfileMonitor::freeResources done
Mar 28 11:10:09 CCDataTap::profileRemoved, Owner: com.apple.iokit.IO80211Family, Name: AssociationEventHistory
Mar 28 11:10:09 CCLogTap::profileRemoved, Owner: com.apple.iokit.IO80211Family, Name: IO80211AWDLPeerManager
Mar 28 11:10:09 CCLogTap::profileRemoved, Owner: com.apple.driver.AirPort.Brcm4360.0, Name: DriverLogs
Mar 28 11:10:09 CCLogTap::profileRemoved, Owner: com.apple.iokit.IO80211Family, Name: OneStats
Mar 28 11:10:09 CCIOReporterFormatter::refreshSubscriptionsFromStreamRegistry clearing out any previous subscriptions
Mar 28 11:10:09 CCIOReporterFormatter::addRegistryChildToChannelDictionary streams 24
Mar 28 11:10:09 CCDataTap::profileRemoved, Owner: com.apple.driver.AirPort.Brcm4360.0, Name: StateSnapshots
Mar 28 11:10:09 CCLogTap::profileRemoved, Owner: com.apple.iokit.IO80211Family, Name: ControlPath

I've seen other answers but they are for Macs that power off completely, mine is not shutting down cause the iTerm popup is stopping it. But then all other apps are closed.

Check if a shut down schedule is set in System Preferences → Energy Saver → Schedule.


How to work remotely as a multiuser enviroment on Xcode, deployed on a Mac mini server I have many windows and mac system users in my office & and mac users use Xcode for development. I have a mac mini server with 16GB RAM, i want to use it as a xcode server, means is that possible some way that multiple window or mac user connect that mac mini server, work on xcode and logout when ever he wants. I also tried screen sharing for mac users and vnc for windows system but both ways are very slow to respond. I heard somewhere like Xcode server i searched for it but didn't get is properly. Can xcode server solve my problem? Please suggest any idea.

I'm not sure that Xcode Server provides that functionality. Xcode Server (part of macosx server)  is a continuous integration solution, which means that your developers work on their own machines with their local tools and push code to a repo accessed by the Xcode server, which builds & tests the newly submitted code.

see Xcode Continuous Integration for a far better explanation of the workflow.

I don't know of any solution (other than vnc/screen sharing) that will allow you to share the Xcode app on the server between multiple users.


How can I change permissions of mount point of a network resource on Mac OS X 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard)? I want to give another user permission to a mount point of a network resource. The directory mode is 700 and the owner is, of course, the logged in user who created the mount point.

I have programs running as different users which have to access the resource as well, but they are unable to. I would like to change the file mode of the mount point located in /Volumes/, but -probably for security reasons- this cannot be done by simply using the sudo chmod go+rx /Volumes/<mount point>/ command.

How can I give other users permissions to my mount point of a network resource?

EDIT:
Mounting is done the Mac way: via Finder. It's an AFP share (located on a Mac Server). Mount output: afp_4dskZR4jbiYw4tTvjg2EIbez-2.2d000004 on /Volumes/Work in Progress (afpfs, nodev, nosuid, mounted by foto5). I prefer to keep it the Mac way. I don't want to edit fstab manually to create static mount points (for example).

The syntax will vary upon the filesystem use, but if it's SMBFS or CIFS based, you will need to specify the mode of the mount point, e.g. -d=777. For example:

mount -o nosuid,-d=777 -t smbfs //domain;uid:passwd@server/share /Volumes/<mount point>

where:

domain = Domain or Workgroup
uid = Username
passwd = Password
server = Name or IP address of the server
esri = Name of the share


How to take pictures in the dark with an iPhone? The flash on my iPhone 4s works great at night. Problem is the picture is completely black up until the point the flash goes on and the picture is taken. So I don't know if I've got a good shot. Much worse is that it's always completely out of focus because the camera doesn't seem to have time to focus during that flash of light.

How do I take night pictures?

There are some apps that may help you with dark night photos (though I have no experience with these apps). Here you are:

NightCap: This app captures 15x more light to capture the best photos in low light situations. It also provides the best tools to help take the perfect shot day or night.
Camera Flash and Zoom: A full featured camera app with digital flash, 5x digital zoom, geotagging, preview before saving, quick and burst modes, and plenty more tools for night photography.
Night fast Snap!: Very suitable for night photography, you can take 30 clear photos in 2 seconds in the case of low light. The app only fires the shutter when it detects the iPhone is steady to ensure sharpness.


What software is available to customize the functionality of the Apple Remote? I am looking to change the functionality of the buttons on the Apple Remote. What software is available to do this?

The free BetterTouchTool can do this:

You can set up complex actions to be triggered by any of the buttons being either pressed or held.


How do I open an App Store link without starting the App Store app? When I search Google for an app, for example "Wakeout!", I get this search result:

When I click on it, this alert opens up:

I click Cancel, I don't want to open the App Store. But this is what I end up getting:

And now I'm stuck here. How can I display the page without starting the App Store app with Chrome?

Found the solution. You must mark the "Always allow apps.apple.com to open links of this type in the associated app" checkbox and click "Cancel" button. Then it will stop appearing.


How do I get these Internet/Wi-Fi details to give to tech support and is it safe? I have been having Internet connection issues for weeks and my ISP sent me a new Modem/Router today, but the issues are still there. The tech has opened up an online case I can respond to and attach screenshots if need be.

Now the tech is asking me for the RSSI, Noise and TX Rate values.

How do I get these details? And are they safe to give to him?

I’m using an iMac with macOS High Sierra installed.

Yes, those details are safe to provide. They are measurements of the quality of your wireless signal, and they contain no personal information.

You can view these and other details from the Wi-Fi icon in the menu bar. The trick is to press and hold the option key while you click on the icon (i.e. make sure you’re pressing the option key first before clicking on the menu bar). If you do you’ll see these values and more.

[UPDATE]

Prompted by Gordon Davisson's comment, this update adds more information about the options available under the Wi-Fi menu.

As mentioned previously, by holding down the option key while you click on the Wi-Fi icon you'll be able to see the values you were after and more. Some additional options include:

Enable Wi-Fi Logging
Create Diagnostics Report...
Open Wireless Diagnostics...

For a broad overview of these options you can refer to Check for Wi-Fi issues using your Mac.

In summary, however, selecting the Open Wireless Diagnostics... option will launch an application that helps users to diagnose common issues with their Wi-Fi connection. Note: This refers to your Wi-Fi connection and not your internet connection per se, although not having internet access on a device could be in fact related to your Wi-Fi connection.

While you can run through the Assistant that opens when you first launch Wireless Diagnostics, you can choose to ignore this and manually access additional utilities available under the Window menu (or by using the relevant optioncommand shortcut). One of the best things about this is you can actually open all of them simultaneously if you want to.

By using the Performance utility you'll get graphs of those values over time (along with "Quality", which is just the difference between RSSI and Noise). You can use these graphs to gauge how they change as a result of certain actions (e.g. moving your computer, checking to see how Noise reacts when using a microwave or cordless phone, etc). This is particularly handy to keep open so you can monitor it if you're having problems.


Reclaim disk space from old Windows partition? How do I reclaim the disk space used by my former Windows partition?

Clear free space in Disk Utility

  So I recently removed Windows 7 from my iMac, but Bootcamp didn't let me do it. I used Disk Utility instead. The old Windows 7 partition now shows up as free space. I want to reinstall Windows 7 again on my iMac, how do I set it up? Can I use the free space again? I want to give the Windows partition a bigger size than what the free space currently holds.

I'm having the exact same issue, but mine is 70 GB of data on 250 GB flash drive. I too am running OS X 10.10, Yosemite.

The accepted answer to the question above says restore the computer, but I don't want to lose my data or buy a Time Machine drive. What should I do?

I installed the Windows 10 Preview.
I then booted up into OS X.
I turned off FileVault, and removed my Windows partition via Boot Camp Assistant.

Finally, check disk utility and you'll see the free space went to your Mac partition.


How do I sync my Outlook calendar with my iPhone 4 How do I sync my outlook calendar with iPhone 4?

I failed to sync my outlook calendar with my iPhone 4.

Since I upgraded my iTunes to 11 there is no box to check for this option like in the old iTunes versions.

Use the iCloud Control Panel for Windows

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1455


One user can't open anything after Yosemite upgrade My Mac mini (early 2009) was getting slow, so I decided to do some upgrades. I got 8 GB of ram and a 128 GB SSD from crucial that their wizard verified as being compatible. I downloaded Yosemite from the app store and made a bootable USB drive following Apple's instructions. Then I did a time machine backup to an external drive. Finally I did the RAM and SSD install. I inserted the Yosemite USB drive I made earlier and did a fresh installation. On startup, I migrated files and settings from my time machine backup. I logged in to my primary account and did the software updates from the app store and rebooted. At this point my family started using the computer and is very happy with it. Startup, login, and application loads are very fast. There's no more freezes or beachballs.

However, one of the four user accounts is problematic. It takes several minutes to login and load the dock/ menu bar, versus seconds for all the other accounts. Clicking on anything in the menus/desktop/dock/dialogs results in a beachball for several minutes. No applications or files will open. Occasionally I'll get a "the application ... could not be opened" error dialog 10-20 minutes after trying to open something from the dock. How do I fix this account?

Some additional information: this computer does not have filevault encryption enabled, and there are no login items.

There is likely a corrupt preferences or other file in the user's ~/Library folder. Honestly your best bet is to create another users folder for that person, copy their files over and set up Mail, Messages, Safari and the like from scratch.

Once you have a working profile you can slowly migrate other things from the old to the new user folder (old Mail folders, Safari bookmarks, etc.) till you have enough restored for everything to work as necessary.

At that point you can delete the old user.


Is there a remote file transfer solution for TextMate? Currently doing some php in Eclipse but want to switch to something like Textmate because Eclipse runs like a fat dog. Eclipse has Esftp installed as well as subclipse. This way when i want to work on a new project, I connect to the SVN server and fetch the project from there. The project then has all the configuration already set for esftp most of the time so that you can just save changes to the server directly.

My question is can if I can assign a rootfolder for the project on a remote server as well after I've imported the project from SVN? So I can just upload changes to the server directly?

While TextMate doesn't have built-in FTP or SSH capabilities there are a few bundles for it that have tried to remedy this shortcoming.

In particular the FTP/SSH Bundle aims to provide what you seek: a way to define a "project" that can be synchronized (both up and down) with a remote file system. The bundle is a touch dangerous if you're using FTP as it requires your password be left in plaintext in the .ftpssh_settings file that you leave on disk at the root of your project folder to tell the plugin how to connect to your remote file system.

The other option, if you're not set on TextMate and just want something like TextMate, is to take a look at Sublime Text 2. I'll be honest, I was a die hard TextMate guy, but in the last six weeks Sublime Text 2 has won me over. The active development from the company on the product, the very active bundle community, and it's incredible speed when it comes to working on large files have really taken me in. There's an FTP, FTPS, SFTP plugin for ST2 that's a cut above the plugin for TM I mentioned above. It leverages keychain for password storage and doesn't require you keep your passwords in plaintext on disk for it to work. It also lets you set up mappings for remote <-> local connections directly from the editor UI.


How do I create new albums within my iPhone 3GS camera roll? I'm looking for a way to create new albums within the Photos app on my iPhone 3GS, preferably without having to connect the device to iTunes. Is this possible?

No, it's not possible to create new photo albums in the Photos app on the iPhone.  (Not on my iPhone 3GS running iOS 4.0.1 at least.  And it's not possible on my iPad either.)  See http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1413776 and http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/ios-apps/200714-creating-photo-albums-ipad.html.

This Apple Support FAQ describes how to sync photos: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1389.

I wouldn't be surprised if Apple adds this feature soon.  I expect they're working toward making the iPad work completely independently (without syncing), and the iOS (and app) features they add will likely also be added to the iPhone.


Why does Image Capture scan tiff files with different compression formats? I'm scanning some old family photos using Image Capture. I want a lossless image using TIFF and LZW compression. What I'm seeing, thanks to the tiffutil -info <file> command, is that the .tiff files that are being outputted are getting a mix of Compression Scheme: Lempel-Ziv & Welch encoding (aka LZW) and Compression Scheme: JPEG encoding.

Does anyone know why Image Capture would switch compression formats? I can't seem to find a pattern as to when it does this but it does seem dependent on the image being scanned.
Is there a way to force it to use LZW, always?
Why would anyone want a lossy compression (JPEG) inside a format (TIFF) generally known for being lossless?

Here are some examples of scanned images. The full TIFFs are available in this Dropbox folder.

1.tiff

2.tiff

Here is the corresponding tiffutil output:

1.tiff: JPEG compression support is not configured.
Directory at 0x8
  Image Width: 1515 Image Length: 2639
  Resolution: 600, 600
  Resolution Unit: pixels/inch
  Bits/Sample: 8
  Sample Format: unsigned integer
  Compression Scheme: JPEG encoding
  Photometric Interpretation: RGB color
  Alpha: Present
  FillOrder: msb-to-lsb
  Predictor: none
  Software: "Apple Image Capture"
  Model: "Brother HL-L3290CDW series"
  Orientation: row 0 top, col 0 lhs
  Samples/Pixel: 4
  Rows/Strip: 16
  Number of Strips: 165
  Planar Configuration: Not planar
  Profile Name: Scanner RGB Profile

*** 2.tiff
Directory at 0x8
  Image Width: 1520 Image Length: 2641
  Resolution: 600, 600
  Resolution Unit: pixels/inch
  Bits/Sample: 8
  Sample Format: unsigned integer
  Compression Scheme: Lempel-Ziv & Welch encoding
  Photometric Interpretation: RGB color
  Alpha: Present
  FillOrder: msb-to-lsb
  Predictor: horizontal differencing
  Host Computer: "Apple Mac OS X"
  Software: "Apple Image Capture"
  Make: "Brother"
  Model: "HL-L3290CDW series"
  Orientation: row 0 top, col 0 lhs
  Samples/Pixel: 4
  Rows/Strip: 21
  Number of Strips: 126
  Planar Configuration: Not planar
  Profile Name: Generic RGB Profile

I am encountering this same problem. I realised this when I tried to import my scanned photos into Lightroom and got an error that "The file uses an unsupported compression algorithm".
From some online research and then trying it out myself, it appears that Image Capture for some reason switches compression when the cropping box is at a non-zero angle.
I hope there is a fix for this, but I haven't been able to find any, which is frustrating. I'm now researching other scanning programmes, though the UI of most are not as friendly as Image Capture.


If I erase and sync my iTunes library on my iPhone will I also lose my pictures that are on iCloud? My hard drive failed on my computer and I can’t retrieve the original iTunes library. I lost all my music and photos that were saved on the computer as well. I still have 190 photos on my camera roll and about another 500 photos on iCloud.

I want to add new music to my iPhone, and was able to transfer the existing music to my new computer, but I’m having trouble transferring the photos from the iCloud albums to my new computer. I have Windows XP on my current computer so I can’t download the iCloud control panel and use that.

If I erase and sync my iTunes library, with my new library will I still have those 500 photos that are in my iCloud albums?

The photos won't be deleted from iCloud, as re-syncing your device won't delete, nor reset the Photo Stream.

Photos are deleted from the Photo Stream just by selecting the one you want to get rid of and taping the trash can icon, on iOS, or clicking Delete on the computer. There is, too, a Reset Photo Stream button in you account at iCloud.com.

Just keep in mind that photos are stored in iCloud for 30 days.


How to produce constant output in a Terminal window? Like when you do brew install wget or mysqld restart I want some lines of information constantly run through my terminal window. Is there maybe something I can monitor or any stream of information I can jump in? Is it maybe possible to watch the activity monitor processes in the terminal?

Why would I want to have that? Because it looks super cool when you have that Matrix-like code running over your monitor. And I could need that for some home movie scenes.

Pulling ideas from this unix.stackexchange.com Q&A about generating "hollywood" style terminal output.

The Slow Type

This script produces that delayed typing like effect you see in movies. Where the computer prints things in the terminal at some really awful and slow rate.

Save the following to a file named hollywood:

#!/bin/bash

while IFS= read -r line; do
    length="${#line}"
    bol=1
    for (( offset = 0 ; offset < length ; offset++ )); do
        char="${line:offset:1}"
        printf '%s' "$char"
        if (( bol )) && [[ "$char" == " " ]]; then
            continue
        fi
        bol=0
        sleep 0.05
    done

    if (( length == 0 )); then
        sleep 0.$(( RANDOM % 3 + 2 ))
    else
        sleep 0.$(( RANDOM % 7 + 3 ))
    fi

    printf '\n'
done

Set execute permissions on the file hollywood:

chmod +x hollywood

And then pipe it the output from dmesg to give it a large chunk of snazzy looking text to slowly print on the screen:

dmesg | hollywood

The Hex Dump

This dumps hex data to the screen. Looks impressive but is largely unintelligible to the masses.

hexdump -C /dev/urandom | GREP_COLOR='1;32' grep --color=auto 'ca fe'

The Matrix

Numbers. Numbers everywhere.

LC_CTYPE=C tr -c "[:digit:]" " " < /dev/urandom | dd cbs=$COLUMNS conv=unblock | GREP_COLOR="1;32" grep --color "[^ ]"

Unfortunately, with that one there isn't a good way to control the speed.

There's a better version of this available view Homebrew called cmatrix. You can install and run it with:

brew install cmatrix
cmatrix


Connecting MacBook Air to two VGA/DVI monitors I have a 13" MacBook Air (2012) and I would like to connect it to two external Lenovo Thinkvision monitors. Both monitors are identical. They have both a VGA port and a DVI port on the back (see photo).

I am not certain how the ports can be used properly to connect the two monitors together. What is the easiest way to use them both with a MacBook Air that has only one Thunderbolt port? Can I use a Thunderbolt to VGA adapter to connect to one monitor via a VGA cable and then use a DVI cable between the two monitors?

I would like to use both monitors without purchasing an expensive piece of hardware like the Matrox TripleHead2Go.

since they air only has 1 thunderbolt and some usb2 ports, you're pretty pinched.

you could get a thunderbolt dock along the lines of the caldigit unit..  this has an hdmi and a pass-through thunderbolt on it.

you can then get an hdmi-dvi cable for oen monitor and a thunderbolt to dvi adapter for the other.

another option would just be a thunderbolt hub.  neither solution is very cheap, but it willg et you wht you want.  there are also devices for usb-vga conversion, but that's a last resort, imho.

i'm curious how well these will be powered (how much resolution and how laggy) they will be, but it should work.


On the Mac, what if Disk Utility is used to mirror two hard drives, one is 1.5TB, and the other is 2TB? If I happen to have two external hard drives, one 1.5TB and then other 2TB, and use Disk Utility to mirror the two drives, will there be any problem?

Can it be mirroring just for the 1.5TB portion, while the remaining 500GB is for storing un-mirrored files?   (but will Mac OS X always try to mirror those files and try to copy into the 1.5TB drive?)

(will it be the same if the two drives are 2TB and 3TB, or if the drives are different brands, so the capacity might differ slightly?)

In this situation, I recommend using disk utility to partition the larger drive such that one partition matches the size of the smaller drive.  Then setup the partitions of the same size as a RAID1.  You will end up with a mirrored partition of 1.5TB and another un-mirrored partition of 0.5TB based on your first example.

Same thing will work for a 2TB + 3TB drive, but the mirrored/un-mirrored partitions will be 2TB and 1TB, respectively. Brand won't matter and you can use disk utility to find the exact sizes.


How to partially uncover bullet points in Keynote In Keynote '09 on the Mac, how can I create a list of bullet points such that:

At first, the bullets are all dimmed or grey
When I click, the next bullet becomes undimmed or black

This is similar to the 'appear' effect, which uncovers bullet points one by one. The difference is that I want the uncovered bullets to be partially visible instead of completely hidden.

I figured out a way to do this. It isn't perfect. It's limited to being useful against solid colour backgrounds. If you're using a gradient background or a complex image this won't work.

Add a mask in the form of a rectangle over top of each bullet point. You don't need to be super precise. Just get the rectangle to cover all of the bullet point text. Do one rectangle for each bullet you want to reveal. I used an obvious colour in the screen show below so you could see what I mean.

Open the Inspector window and select actions. For each rectangle set the action to dissolve and set the triggers to be however you'd like (on each key press, one after the other, etc.).

Now change the rectangle fill colour to match your background and set the opacity level of each rectangle to be something dim. 80% or so should do it.

Now when you play the slide, each click will cause a rectangle to disappear revealing the text below it at its full brightness.

Here's a Keynote presentation that illustrates the concept for you to play with. And here it is in action:


Blacking out a part of a PDF, or redaction of text What methods are there to blackout a part of a PDF?

I don't want to simply use Preview's annotation tools and then save the document, since then someone could open up the PDF and remove the annotation to reveal the part of the document which I'm trying to black out.

If you are looking for a no-cost way in Preview.app

File->Export (or save as)
Export PDF to TIFF file format (it's a multipage image format)
Open TIFF file
Export TIFF to PDF file format

Maintains page structure, OCR will be lost.


mcrypt for PHP 7.4 on Catalina First of all, I was born and raised using a PC so I'm kind of new to Mac. I was hoping if someone can help me out. I'm using Catalina and trying to get the PHP extension mcrypt installed. I've been trying to use homebrew and I'm seriously stuck. I've researched this like crazy and all the forums are years old or using Ubuntu. I realize that mcrypt is deprecated but Laravel requires it so here I am.

I installed PHP 7.4 using homebrew. I had to add a couple of path lines to my ~/.zshrc file because the terminal kept saying PHP was 7.3. I run brew install mcrypt and it downloads and "Pours" into /usr/local/Cellar/mcrypt/2.6.8. I try to update my 7.4 php.ini file with a dynamic library path. So I try adding extension=/usr/local/Cellar/php/7.4.5_2/pecl/20190902/mcrypt.so to the ini for PHP. I restart apache and I get:

Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library '/usr/local/Cellar/php/7.4.5_2/pecl/20190902/mcrypt.so' (tried: /usr/local/Cellar/php/7.4.5_2/pecl/20190902/mcrypt.so (dlopen(/usr/local/Cellar/php/7.4.5_2/pecl/20190902/mcrypt.so, 9): image not found), /usr/local/lib/php/pecl/20190902//usr/local/Cellar/php/7.4.5_2/pecl/20190902/mcrypt.so.so (dlopen(/usr/local/lib/php/pecl/20190902//usr/local/Cellar/php/7.4.5_2/pecl/20190902/mcrypt.so.so, 9): image not found)) in Unknown on line 0

I have no idea where to go from here. Anyone have a tip?

Thanks!

Don't know if this is the right way but I got it to work:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/54028143/mcrypt-php-extension-required-on-mac-os-x-mojave

The answer on there was to pretty much remove any link for mcrypt and then re-link it. I had issues with the autoconf which required some file permissions tweaking (sudo wasn't working). That answer was here. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16844826/error-when-trying-to-brew-link-autoconf

This was such a nightmare but that worked for me.


Format SD card with FAT and custom file allocation unit size I'm using Maverick (a offline mapping application) on my Android device which has thousands of files in the tile cache with a size of 168 byte. The SD card is formatted with a file allocation unit size of 32 KB. This results for each file in a huge waste of space:

168 Byte (33 KB on the volume)

You can imagine that a 2GB is full even if you want to store 50MB of real data. Is there software I can use on my Mac to change the file allocation unit size during formatting of the device?

Open up a terminal and check out the following command:

NAME
     newfs_msdos -- construct a new MS-DOS (FAT) file system

SYNOPSIS
     newfs_msdos [-N] [-B boot] [-F FAT-type] [-I volid] [-O OEM]
                 [-S sector-size] [-a FAT-size] [-b block-size]
                 [-c cluster-size] [-e dirents] [-f format] [-h heads]
                 [-i info] [-k backup] [-m media] [-n FATs] [-o hidden]
                 [-r reserved] [-s total] [-u track-size] [-v volume-name]
                 special [disktype]

In particular these parameters:

 -S sector-size
         Number of bytes per sector.  Acceptable values are powers of 2 in
         the range 128 through 32768.

 -a FAT-size
         Number of sectors per FAT.

 -b block-size
         File system block size (bytes per cluster).  This should resolve
         to an acceptable number of sectors per cluster (see below).

 -c cluster-size
         Sectors per cluster.  Acceptable values are powers of 2 in the
         range 1 through 128.

You should be able to perform a custom format with the options you need, obviously make sure you test this out thoroughly.


Why does Find My iPhone need to be disabled before restoring an iPhone? If I try to restore from iTunes, it tells me I have to turn off find my iPhone. Why is this so?

Disabling Find My iPhone is required because otherwise someone could steal a phone and wipe it, and the owner wouldn't be able to do anything about it. When you disable Find My iPhone, it requires your Apple ID and password.


How many 1080p Monitors i can connect to MacBook pro 13 inch 2019 model with 4 thunderbolt port? Can anyone please help me to connect my MacBook pro 13 inches with 4 thunderbolts to 3 external monitors ( one U2414H and two P2419H) ?

I tried connecting them using three type-c to HDMI convertors but I can only power any two of them with or without my built-in MacBook pro display.

any help would be appreciated, guys

my mac info:

The 13" MacBook Pro 2019 supports 2 external monitors (in addition to the built-in monitor).

If you want to connect more monitors, you'll external equipment such as a DisplayLink adapter or an eGPU for hooking up extra monitors.


Splitting shared Apple ID While similar to some questions, I think my question has some unique differences.

My family (mult iphones and iPads) with 6 people.  We have been sharing a single apple ID as we started before the family plan was available.

Finally time to split out.  We are setting up a new iphone 11.

I believe that the apps will still be shared as long as the new phone has a new apple ID connected to the family plan. (correct?)
But concerned about contacts, calendar, etc.  How can I properly get this  data over?

One thing I've considered is backing up the current phone, installing as is on the new phone with the shared apple ID - and then changing Apple ID on the new phone - but concerned that will then end up with problems.

Any advice from the community how to handle this?

Apps:
All Apps that are eligible for family sharing will be available on a new AppleID that is added to Family Sharing.
Keep in mind that In-App purchases are not shared. More detailed info is available in the Apple Support Article.
A desktop computer (preferably a Mac) would probably be the easiest way to properly distribute the content. Set up both the new and old AppleID and then use the appropriate Apps to move/copy the calendars/events/contacts/...


std::fstream and OSX - Why can I not load a file with my raw executable? I have a C++ project in XCode which uses std::fstream to work with a default text file.
I haven't specified a relative path so I expect that the file will need to be emplaced in the same directory as the executable (As in Windows). This would be my preferred method for now also.
The tricky part is that When I run the project from Xcode, I get the behaviour I expect - the text file is loaded and read. However if I run the executable from finder, I get nothing (Good Day Sir!).

This is the directory pointed to by Xcode under "Products" which takes me to the executable.
Has anyone experienced this behaviour before or know why this might be happening?

Your executable is looking in the current working directory (CWD).

When run from Xcode, Xcode actively changes the current working directory to where your executable has been built.

When run from the Finder on macOS, the current working directory will not be the directory of your executable. Thus the executable can not find the text file.

Use the getcwd or std::filesystem::current_path function to determine the current working directory from within your executable. See Get path of executable for ways to get your executable's path at runtime.


Unable to enable development on iOS 10.1.1 I am currently having an issue with Xcode 8.2.1 not being able to activate developing on my iPhone 7 Plus (on iOS 10.1.1). Whenever I try to deploy an application, it gives me the following error:

  An error was encountered while enabling development on this device. Please try rebooting and reconnecting the device. (0xE8000076)

In the iPhone's console, I found the following errors:

Does anyone have an idea what I could possibly do to solve this issue? Any solutions I have found so far did not work at all. And yes, I did already try rebooting and reconnecting multiple times.

Maybe you forgot to register your device with your develop account? I got that error code (0x8000076) when I forgot to register it. To double check:

Find the identifier of your iPhone

In Xcode open the devices window (Window - Devices)
Select your phone and find its identifier

Login to your developer account (https://developer.apple.com/account)
Navigate to your devices (https://developer.apple.com/account/ios/device/)
Find the identifier in the list of devices.
Check if the names are identical

If it is missing, create a new entry.


Why does "Recent Places" not include most recent places I have seen others asking about this but have never seen a good answer.

The idea of Recent Places or Recent Items is a good one, and is found in many contexts, operating systems, and softwares. However, in OS X it seems that usually a recently accessed file or folder is not in the list.

I have found this an annoyance since converting to Mac in February 2009. The problem has persisted through Leopard, Snow Leopard, Lion, and Mountain Lion.

Why is this so? It is really hit or miss whether something is there.

As a workaround, it would be nice to know what you have to do to "get something in the list." As an example, does it have to be done in Finder? Or does it have to change the metadata? Or what?

If I knew the workaround, it might be easy enough to always "do that thing" so that the expected entry in Recent Places is created.

To make something appear in the "Recent Places" dropdown (I've had the same annoying problem), it seems like you need to travel to that particular folder twice before it appears there. If you do that, you'll see it appears there. I guess the obvious reason is that Apple assumes if you go to a folder recently only once, that isn't enough to store it. But if you go there twice, that means you should have that stored. Makes sense, but there has to be some kind of workaround, because in a lot of real-life situations, this kind of functionality is really inconvenient. Sometimes I go to a folder twice if I know I will want to access it quickly soon. I'm sure there are solutions out there.


How to get rid of non default shortcut association Shortcut cmd+c brings up Finder window when trying to copy with shortcut. Edit command works from menu. I have tried resetting keyboard preferences to default. I have had same problem with earlier versions of OS 10 but need this function for Autodesk Fusion 360.
I'm on a MacBook Pro with macOS 10.12

Open system prefs>keyboard>shortcuts(tab)

You will see all the commands you can use in the computer. You can also set it back to default, or even customize to your style. There are many different tabs inside that setting panels for example: Accessibility, Screen shots, etc..


Navigating back after following link in iBooks I was reading a book in iBooks and clicked on a link in the text which took me to the index at the end of the book. Is there any way I can get back to where I was reading before I tapped on the link (without manually flipping through the pages/table of contents)?  There's no obvious back button that I can see.

I'm using iBooks 1.5, which I believe is currently the latest version.

If you touch the middle of the screen to show the buttons and controls, there should be a text link at the bottom left saying "Back to p. ###". It is beneath the dots and the slider to scroll quickly through the book. Touch it and you'll be back where you came from.


Move iTunes content from one machine to another I have moved my (smallish) iTunes library off my MacBookAir onto a NAS drive. This works fine. Now I want to move songs from my large iTunes library into the new library and just have one library shared across the two computers

I'm not afraid of the command line, but I wanted the easy way to do it.

The easiest way to do this is with iTunes.

Turn on Home Sharing for your iTunes account and enable the feature in iTunes on your NAS-connected machine and on your machine you wish to use as a source for material to copy.

Start iTunes on both machines.

From the MacBook Air machine, look for your other iTunes library under the SHARED section in the left-hand list of iTunes. Select your other machine's library and expand the library contents. Select 'Music' to show all the music in that library:

Select all the music in that library by clicking on the top song in the list and pressing Cmd-A to select everything:

Now click the 'Import' button in the bottom right corner:

iTunes will copy all the music from your large library in to your MacBook Air's library, storing the data on your NAS. You can speed the process along by doing the copy over a wired network connection instead of WiFi.

You can repeat this process for all content in the remote library, not just music.


Mac OS 10.7.5 – VLC - Can't find AB Loop Hotkey in Preferences I use VLC as a video player for many reasons but mainly in order to benefit from the A-B Loop function where I can select a particular section of the video and watch it over and over again at different speeds. VLC for Mac OS does not allow users to add a loop button on the controller bar at the bottom of the window such as VLC for Windows.

The only option is to define the A & B points by clicking on the Playback menu item and scrolling down to A→B Loop to define point A, then do the same again to define point B, which render the function useless and overly convoluted, or at the least inaccurate and completely frustrating. The other option is to use the shortcut (hotkey combination) shift+command+L, which works somewhat better, but still is very annoying when trying to define specific points on the video where you want to the loop to start and end.

I tried to use change the Hotkey combination in Preferences under Hotkeys, but to my dismay, the A→B Loop is not listed anywhere in the list of functions under Hotkeys. How come? All other functions are!
I was hoping someone could give me some advice on how to make this function easier to use and/or how to maybe customize the A-B Loop Hotkey so I may choose a single key on the keyboard instead of a 3-key combination.

I would love to see in the future a visual indicator on the screen where users can visually define the A & B point on the slider. I'd hate to switch to a different video player because I love VLC otherwise, but if I don't find a solution for this particular issue, I might just have to.
Cheers!

System Prefs > Keyboard > Shortcuts > App Shortcuts.

Hit +  add VLC & set up as a Menu Command

[if you can't find the → character just copy/paste this… A→B Loop]

Add any hotkey you like - beware of duplicates, of course - the new hotkey will then show in VLC's menu as though it were native.

I don't know how A→B Loop behaves on the PC, but on Mac it's simply one tap to set the 'in' point A, second tap sets the 'out' point B & automatically starts the loop. 3rd tap clears the loop points & playback continues.


MacBook display has vertical black and white lines on startup My MackBook, on startup, its showing the following:

They are just a bunch of vertical black and white lines, and it gets stuck there.

What could be the problem?

It's definitely hardware.  It's either the display has gone bad or your GPU (logic board) has gone bad (most likely case)

The first thing I would do is hook it up to an external monitor.  If it's present there as well, then you know it's GPU/logic board related.   If it goes away, then run Apple Hardware Test (AHT) to get some details.  (Hold the D key while booting from a powered off state with the AC adapter connected)

Either way, you will need to take it in for service.


Yosemite or Snow Leopard for 2008 MacBook? I have a 2008 MacBook which is getting slow, I need to do an erase and reinstall.

I have the choice to install Yosemite (online) or Snow Leopard (from a DVD).
But would Yosemite be too much for my old hardware? In which case could I easily get more RAM put in?

If go back to Snow Leopard, will that soon be completely outdated?

I am currently using Yosemite successfully with a very similar computer: 2008 iMac 2.66 C2D. I would strongly encourage you to upgrade to 8GB of RAM and swap your drive out for an SSD. After upgrading the RAM to 6GB and making a roll-your-own Fusion drive (I installed an SSD in the Optical drive bay), Yosemite runs very well. Unless you need to use Snow Leopard for Rosetta (i.e. PowerPC compatibility), I'd go with Yosemite.


sleepimage wrong size I have an early Early 2011 MBP, which I installed 16GB of RAM in, despite the fact that Apple claims the maximum is 8GB. This is a hack which is known to work, but I'm having some trouble with hibernate as a result.

It seems my sleep image is only 8GB, despite the fact that my RAM is 16GB; consequently, if I lose power while having more than 8GB in memory, safe sleep fails.

Any ideas on how to correct this?

A guess

See whether the problem is reproducible with compressed memory disabled.

If that's not a workaround, please vote down this answer and leave a comment.

Related

vm_compressor_mode (vm.compressor_mode) values for enabled compressed memory in OS X

– there's a link to an answer about disabling compressed memory.


Can't ping a linux server with MacOSX. Software related I'm having an huge problem with my Mac, from months.

I have at home a linux server, a CuBox. It's running Archlinux, running fine. Everything works.

But the Mac can't ping the CuBox.

I will paste you a little log of what a ping gives.

Request timeout for icmp_seq 669
Request timeout for icmp_seq 670
Request timeout for icmp_seq 671
Request timeout for icmp_seq 672
Request timeout for icmp_seq 673
Request timeout for icmp_seq 674
ping: sendto: No route to host
Request timeout for icmp_seq 675
ping: sendto: Host is down
Request timeout for icmp_seq 676
ping: sendto: Host is down
Request timeout for icmp_seq 677
ping: sendto: Host is down
Request timeout for icmp_seq 678
ping: sendto: Host is down
Request timeout for icmp_seq 679
ping: sendto: Host is down
Request timeout for icmp_seq 680
ping: sendto: Host is down
Request timeout for icmp_seq 681
ping: sendto: Host is down
Request timeout for icmp_seq 682
ping: sendto: Host is down
Request timeout for icmp_seq 683
ping: sendto: Host is down
Request timeout for icmp_seq 684

And this cycling again and again. The issue is Mac software related, on Windows (Boot Camp) I can ping the CuBox.

With the help of reddit, http://www.reddit.com/r/applehelp/comments/19vbwf/mac_cant_ping_linux_server/ I made it working for 2h. The next day, (after making the computer sleep) the problem happened again.

For making things works 2h, I have played with sharing settings, disabling and enabling again. This trick is not working anymore now.

I really need to access to this CuBox. If anyone have a clue, please tell me what to test!

Thanks.

I recently solved a very similar problem by removing my ARP cache.

I have a MacBook Pro 2014 and Ubuntu 18.04 desktop which runs the SSH daemon, and every client works fine except my MacBook.

I ran Wireshark and observed that pinging my desktop is only resulting in ARP requests to be broadcasted — I couldn't see response packets. At first I thought it's a problem with my router interface, but since other computers worked fine that made little sense.

At last I decided I found out that I can remove my laptop's ARP cache by running this:

sudo arp -d <desktop's_ip>

and it solved my problem!
This solved my problem!


How to make Application's windows always display in the same Monitor when having multiple displays? I've successfully got two monitors running on a 2012 Mac Mini. But how do I get each screen to have it's own identity ? That is, how do I get windows 2-3 open on monitor A, and windows 4-6 open on monitor B?

They should be able somehow to have separate and distinct displays, right?

hold the "control" key and click the App's icon on the dock, from the context menu, choice the "Options" and you can set the app keep opening on which display you want.


The default .bash_profile I accidentally deleted the contents of .bash_profile in my new Macbook Air and want the default settings that comes with macOS Sierra.

Can anyone just copy/paste their .bash_profile that hasn't been edited?

The default .bash_profile is empty, as the file doesn't exist in /System/Library/User Template. Anything you've deleted would be something you (or software you installed) has added, so it's not possible to say what that would be. Copying .bash_profile from elsewhere would depend on the environment being configured in such a similar way as where you're copying it from.


Alternative Notification System for Macos || Program or CLI to Display Image/Emblem/Icon at corner of screen (no text or box) I am hoping there is some kind of alternate notification system available for macos as a program or a cli. I don't mind paying. I have created vim bindings with karabiner that work anywhere on macos, but I would like to display a small indicator any time I switch modes or turn the bindings on or off.
If you don't know what vim is, basically I just want to display a small colored circle or some similar indicator on the corner of my screen using a bash/zsh/shell scripting command.
If anyone could give me some direction on beginning to write an application or system extension I will do that if I can't find a tool for this out there.

The premiere notification third party notification system for macOS is Growl:
https://github.com/growl/growl
The project was just recently marked as retired (less than a week ago), but you can still download the code and use it. It is very easy to use Growl to trigger a notification from a shell script.
If you can live with the built-in macOS notifications, you can use a command like this from your shell script:
osascript -e 'display notification "Mode change" with title "Mode change"'

This uses the built-in AppleScript function for displaying a local notification. You can ofcourse change the text to be whatever you want, like "Bindings turned on", and so on.
If you want to write your own application to display the notification, you could start looking at this sample application code from Apple:
https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/samplecode/FunkyOverlayWindow/Introduction/Intro.html
It is basically an overlay window that appears on top of every other window at all times. If you make it small, you could use it to display a color when you want, and let it be fully transparent at other times.


Spotlight loses index of Applications When I get warnings that my HD is nearly full (Macbook Air, 64GB SSD), spotlight always loses its index of applications. That means that I can't launch Safari or Mail or other apps, which is the only thing I use Spotlight for. Only restarting helps to resolve this.

Is there a way to force Spotlight to reindex the Application folder?

This happens whenever I erase the free space on my hard drive (probably for the same reason -- that process creates a big file that eats up all the free space, then overwrites it, creating a low space condition in the process).  Typing this command at the terminal:

  sudo mdutil -i on /Volumes/Hard_Disk_Name_Goes_Here

will rebuild your index. Substitute your own disk's volume name in the obvious place.


How can I get iTunes Library to stay pointed to my NAS? I recently moved my iTunes library to my Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ (all relevant file operations on the NAS are using AFP protocol). The library had previously been on my Mac Pro, in my ~/Music directory. In iTunes Preferences > Advanced, I changed the path of the iTunes Media Folder to the Media volume on the NAS, so that it now has the path /Volumes/media/Music/iTunes Media. In iTunes, I chose File > Library > Organize Library, then chose Consolidate Files from the Organize Library dialog. This made iTunes copy all of the files from the Mac Pro's iTunes Media Folder to the iTunes Media Folder on the NAS. After that, I deleted the 60 GB of files in the Mac Pro's local iTunes Media Folder (the boot drive is an SSD, so I needed the space).

Two questions:

On the Mac Pro, the setting for the location of the iTunes Media Folder has changed back from the NAS to the local folder twice now; I've had to reset it back to the NAS. Some apps have been updated, and I discovered that the updates had been downloaded to the local iTunes Media Folder. After I reset that location to the NAS and re-ran Consolidate Files, the apps were copied to the NAS. Any idea what's causing iTunes to "forget" the NAS location and revert to the local folder, and how to solve that problem?
After I moved the library on the Mac Pro to the NAS, I also pointed the copy of iTunes running on my MacBook to the NAS, so that it could share the files (I can still share the files using Home Sharing from the Mac Pro, of course). It appears that the MacBook doesn't seem to simply read the state of the library from the NAS; it erroneously shows that 84 mobile apps need updating, and some TV shows that I downloaded on the Mac Pro don't appear on the MacBook. I'm OK with simply using Home Sharing on the MacBook if necessary, but I was hoping the two machines could share the same library on the NAS and would stay in sync. Can you explain the MacBook behavior? Is there a fix that would keep the iTunes libraries on the two machines in sync?

I can answer the second part of your question. Since you just updated the MacBook's iTunes settings to point to the NAS, it's iTunes library file still resides on the MacBook. This is a .itl file in your ~/Music/iTunes folder.

iTunes relies on this database to tell it what's in the media folder. If you add stuff to the media folder without adding it through iTunes (i.e. just dropping files in Finder, or using another copy of iTunes on another machine) then that .itl database does not get updated.

So when you add files through iTunes on your Mac Pro, it updates the .itl database on your Mac Pro, but not your MacBook, so the MB can't see those files. If you add anything through iTunes on the MB, the Mac Pro database won't have it, since the copy of iTunes that connects to that database did not process the files.

I have a similar setup to what you're doing: iTunes media on an external drive connected to my iMac, and a MacBook which I use ONLY Home Sharing on.

You might get the idea to move one .itl file to the NAS and open it in iTunes on both machines, and this will work, but you can/should never have it open in both at the same time. That .itl file is really just an SQLite database, and they don't allow simultaneous access, so I've never even attempted this.

With respect to your first question, check ~/Music/iTunes and see if there are any old library (.itl) files. It's most likely that iTunes is opening an old copy or a backup of the database. If you duplicated the database or started a new one before moving your media, this might be the cause.

Start iTunes and make sure the media folder is set correctly or make some other change in iTunes. Now go to ~/Music/iTunes and look for the .itl file that has most recently been modified. Move all the others out of the folder.

Quit iTunes and restart it while holding the Option/Alt key. This will bring up a dialog that lets you select which database to use. Select the .itl file you left alone and it will continue using that as the default library.


What is the purpose of the Events section of Photos on iOS? I have an iPhone 4 and an iPad 3 each running iOS 6.1 (I don't have a Mac). On my iPad I have noticed that in Photos there is a tab labelled Events. This tab doesn't exist on my iPhone. The Events tab is filled with folders named with a date. Sometimes there is more than one folder with the same name.

I haven't been able to find clear documentation on the use of Events.

What is the purpose of Events in Photos? How do they differ from Albums and how do I use them properly.

A new event is created each time you transfer photos from your camera to your iPad, or from your computer to your iPad. Each event is the date when a group of photos was uploaded. As far as I know, unless you have iPhoto, there is no way to change these events names, or configure them at all.

Events differ from Albums in that they are created when you upload photos to your iPad. Albums must be created manually.

Events work best with iPhoto on OSX as iPhoto is remarkably "events-centric". When you import photos into iPhoto on Mac, it will automatically categorize them into "Events" (this is where Events can be named and settings can be adjusted). Then, when you sync the iPad with your Mac, these events are loaded onto your iPad.


iPhone issues and Apple ID I got an iPhone from a friend and he’s far away at the moment but the phone has a software issue. I wanted to wipe the phone and restore it to a “new” state, but I was told it’ll require an Apple ID.

Can I enter my current Apple ID, or do I need to contact my friend to provide his password?

You bumped into what’s known as Activation Lock.This iPhone is still locked to your friend’s Apple ID, and order to change ownership, your friend will need to provide his Apple ID password for you.

Since your friend is far away, they may be able to disable Activation Lock remotely, by logging in to iCloud.com.

Have them go into Find my iPhone and select the iPhone. Since you’ve already wiped it, it will show as offline and grayed out. Just click Remove from Account.


How to upgrade macOS when it asks me to approve my billing info? I have a mid 2012 macbook pro. I just wiped my mac HD and reinstalled macOS 10.8 mountain lion. Now I am trying to upgrade from mountain lion to high sierra. When I click the get button for high sierra in the app store it says:

Please click Billing Info to approve your billing information for use
in the iTunes Store. If you cancel you will not be able to buy until
you have approved your billing information.

And then when I proceed it says:

To make changes to your payment information, you need to upgrade your
Mac to the latest version of macOS.

How can I get out of this chicken and egg issue and upgrade my macOS?

I tried updating my billing info via the apple store website and then restarting my mac but that didn't change the above situation.

I had exactly the same problem on my early 2013 macbook pro with mac os Mountain Lion. For me, opening my Apple Id on my Ipad and changing the billing info there solved the problem.


Reset dvd drive region When you setup your dvd drive for the first time it will ask you what reigen you want to set.

Each time you put a dvd from a different reigen into the drive it will ask you to change again.

But you are only allowed to do this 4 times, once you've exhausted that is there any way to change it back ? Or are you now stuck - ie. not able to play dvd's from any other region ?

Unless you are willing to research how to flash the firmware of the particular DVD drive in your Mac to change the region, or to make it region-free, I suggest you try the very cool (and free) app VLC Media Player from VideoLAN. If VLC does what you need it to, please consider donating to the 'cause'.

Your milage may vary.

Disclaimer: I have no financial stake in VideoLAN.org - I'm just a very satisfied customer.


Which version of OS X should install on a 2006 MacBook? I have an old MacBook that I bought in 2006. I formatted and restored the original system. Everything was bad: I downloaded Skype, Chrome, and others, and every program said:

  This software does not work anymore with this version of the operating system

(or similar)

So I installed a version of Mac OS X 10.6 (the one I got with my old iMac) and now it seems to work fine. Sometimes a few programs crash, and so I thought installing 10.6 wasn't the right way to go either.

What is the best way to handle an old MacBook with current versions of programs like Skype, Chrome, et cetera?

Depending on what MacBook version you have, you may be able to install different OSes.
However, what I do recommend is the best, and most stable OS that Apple has yet to ship: Snow Leopard, which is 10.6.X as you say.
You should do a fresh install – not from a iMac CD, but from an retail Snow Leopard disc!
All apps but few still support Snow Leopard.


Returning my borrowed iPad to work: how to clear of all personal apps/data I have an iPad (2?) that is on loan from work. I'm about to leave the company that I work for so need to return the iPad. However before I do so I want to delete all the personal apps and data that I put on the iPad.

How can I make sure I return a clean iPad and what hidden files should I look out for?

The other question I have is: I understand that I'll be getting a new iPad at my next firm, but this won't happen until I've left my current workplace. Is there any way I can 'migrate' the stuff I've got on my current iPad, onto the new one, via my Apple ID?

Thanks in anticipation!

It depends on the MDM (Mobile Device Management) but you can wipe the iPad by following these steps:

Go to Setting
Go to General and (for iPads on the right) swipe down, tap on Reset.
Then tap on Reset all content and settings.

Your Apple ID will save all app's and when you log in your new iPad it will migrate some stuff. Again, depending on MDM your iCloud might have been turned off.


How to add icons to iTerm2? I've been looking into making my terminal more visually expressive. So far I've found , and learnt how to import themes and customize color schemes, but I was wondering how people get these cool icons and visual modifications as seen in these images. Can anyone provide me with some useful links?

The first prompt you show a picture of looks like a customized version of a powerline oh-my-zsh theme. It requires oh-my-zsh. There is also a version that supports bash, zsh, and fish.

To use those, you need a Powerline-patched font.

Your second screenshot comes from dracula-theme, a color scheme and prompt for lots of different editors plus oh-my-zsh.

Personally, I would not recommend oh-my-zsh, as in my experience it was kind of slow and heavy. I created my own bash prompt using Powerline symbols, but milkbikis/powerline-shell is probably the best one to use.


Find out which app is using Bluetooth device I noticed that my MacBook is connected to my Kevo bluetooth lock.  This lock is supposed to connect with an iOS app, but there is no macOS app that I'm aware of, and I have never told my computer to pair with it.  I want to figure out why it's connected to my laptop and what data has been exchanged.  I tried log show --last 24h | grep Kevo but that shows nothing.  That's interesting, since there are lines in the log mentioning my trackpad by name every time it connects.  I'm just updated to High Sierra 10.13.5, and I never noticed this happening before on Sierra.

Edit:  After disconnecting the Kevo in the dropdown menu, it disappeared, so I am no longer able to reconnect to it.

Sometimes your iCloud account will share Bluetooth authentications across iOS and macOS devices for easier pairing. Take for instance AirPods will automatically show up in your Mac after you've paired them with your iPhone. You used to be able to turn this off in the iCloud settings -> Documents and Data option.


File extension not hiding I have a .dmg file and I want to hide its extension. So I do the usual and ⌘I, then check Hide extension. killall Finder just to be sure. I look and sure enough... the file extension is still there. So I use SetFile -a E myfile.dmg hoping that will work. It doesn't. Any ideas? Here's a picture just in case.

OK, I found the issue. Apparently two options have to be set in order for any extension to disappear (except for .app). First you have to go into Finder's Preferences > Advanced. Untick Show all filename extensions. Then you tick Hide extension in the Get Info window for your file and the extension is hidden.


Does OSX have a nice feature to quickly drag windows via key press? Synopsis

On linux one could hold alt and then drag any window around from any point within it's focus.  Is there similar functionality on OSX?

I recommend Better Touch Tool http://www.boastr.de.
You can customize not only window dragging but also custom gestures, window snapping and more.

Edit:
Dragged window doesn't have to have focus.


How to get photos to sync in order on iPhone? I understand how to sync photos to my iPhone but they seem to be placed on the phone in a rather random order. I've tried numerous changes to the photos but they don't appear to be organized by date, size, or alphabetically by name.  Am I missing something?

They are sorted in order of EXIF creation date, which is not necessarily the same as the Date Created shown by the finder.

You can use exiftool to view and also set these dates to sort your images...

exiftool -overwrite_original_in_place -CreateDate="2008:12:18 12:34:56.78"  MyImage.JPG


In the iOS 8.4 Music app how do I only show downloaded music? I only keep a small set of music on my phone of my otherwise large iTunes purchase history, and consequently if I picked a random album or song out of my music app there is a high likelihood that it has to be downloaded.  In the past there have been settings that I could configure to only show downloaded music, but with the latest update I can't find anything that works.  Any help?  Here is the closest thing I could find:

However even with it off I still see this:

The easiest way I've found to do this is in the iPhone iTunes app click on the "my music" button, then it will say Artist in red and there's a red down pointing arrow next to it. If you click that, there is a drop down to turn on " Only Downloaded Music". Turn that button to green and the music that isn't downloaded will disappear. Hope this helps.


Is it possible to send a text file from terminal to the Notes App on MacOS? I like how my notes in the Notes App gets synced via iCloud. I spend most of my time in the terminal during the day, so it's convenient for me to keep notes in a text file. At the moment I simply copy-paste my note to the Notes App, so I can review them in bed on my phone.

Can I skip manual copy-paste and somehow directly push my text file from the command line?

The following might do or at least get you started:

#!/usr/bin/osascript

on run argv
    set unixPath to item 1 of argv
    do shell script "sed 's/$/<br>/' '" & unixPath & "' > /tmp/tmp"
    set bodytext to read POSIX file "/tmp/tmp"
    do shell script "rm -f /tmp/tmp"

    tell application "Notes"
        tell account "iCloud"
            make new note at folder "Notes" with properties {name:unixPath, body:bodytext}
        end tell
    end tell
end run

Save in a convenient place, make it executable and pass the name of the file to be converted into a note as the first parameter.

PS: I didn't do a lot of testing on this, so handle with care. It has no error handling at all, so running it without an argument, or with the name of an non existing file will fail in interesting ways. Also, the HTML "conversion" is rather rudimentary, any leading spaces or tabs at the beginning of a line will be lost for instance. If a full HTML conversion is needed it might be easier to do this within a shell script first and only use Applescript for the note creation at the end.