Fans in overdrive but fails to boot I have an Apple Xserve Intel Xserve3,1 with dual quad core cpu and 48gb ram.

Today the system fans started going into hyperdrive (i.e. very fast and very high pitched) and was unresponsive to keyboard input and had no display.

So I stripped the system down, blew out the dust from the system, including the channel vents beside the drive slots and cleaned it out properly.

However, upon restart the same issue occurred with the fans and the machine did not boot, although a huge amount of air is now expelled from the system whilst it is running.

Tried various things to get a fix:

This is sequence A:::

Removed power from the machine.
Held down the start button for five seconds+
Held down the system identification button for 5+ seconds.  Other help sites suggest that this should toggle the boot sequence by flashing the blue lights on the front of the machine, but none of this eventuated.
Added power to the machine, still no change in behaviour.

Removed the fan block from the machine, and retried sequence A with no luck.

Removed the CMOS battery from the machine, and retried sequence A again with no luck, and rest times between power off and CMOS battery removal, again with no luck.

Powered the machine up with the power button depressed.  At this stage something appeared to change in behaviour.  Reassembled the machine, inserting the battery and fan pack and placing it back in the rack.  At this stage the UPS decided not to power up, so using a separate power cord, booted the machine up.  All seemed to work as per a normal boot up, although I had no console the drives, cpu lights, etc, all seemed to do a normal boot and hum as per a normal system operation for a number of minutes.

After resetting the UPS and getting it to power up, turned off the Xserve using the front off/on switch for 5 seconds and shut it down.  Plugged the UPS power into the machine and the original condition returned.

Took the machine out of the rack, stripped it down again and went through the above procedures a number of times, with a non-ups power connection and was unsuccessful in achieving the same state I had attained before.

There is a switch in the middle of the motherboard (no idea on it's intended purpose but some online information tended to point me in the direction of thinking that it was a power management unit reset (PMU reset)) so I tried that whilst running, whilst unpowered, and whilst powering up for various time durations of holding it down, all to no avail.

So, in essence, it appears as if the machine thinks it is in a overheated state and I am unable to get it out that state through various reset mechanisms that I have tried.

Another point of interest is the yellow lock light next to the locking switch is half highlighted.  Turning the lock increases the illumination level of the lock light, and unlocking it returns it to the low glow level.

Can anyone provide a solution to reset this machine so that it can boot again correctly please.

The trick appears to be:

Disconnect the power cord
Wait for 10 seconds until the front lights go out.
Insert the power cord.
Wait five seconds and then press the off button.  It must be between 5-7 seconds that you must press the off button.

Resetting SMC on Mac/Xserve


How do I merge the 8 GB of "free space" on Macintosh HD under Logical volume group into Macintosh HD? I did some partitioning using bootcamp 6.0 to install windows that left a 8 GB of free space with cannot be restored normally, How do I get it back? The diskutils cs list shows:

Last login: Sat Jul 29 16:51:28 on ttys000
AssASSiNxGAs-MacBook-Air:~ AssASSiNxgA$ diskutil cs list
CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
|
+-- Logical Volume Group F57AE880-8554-4F18-B1FC-6291360C2257
    =========================================================
    Name:         Macintosh HD
    Status:       Online
    Size:         120368205824 B (120.4 GB)
    Free Space:   8019730432 B (8.0 GB)
    |
    +-< Physical Volume 1A135E2C-54E5-4AA4-9FFA-3444B0E81A47
    |   ----------------------------------------------------
    |   Index:    0
    |   Disk:     disk0s2
    |   Status:   Online
    |   Size:     120368205824 B (120.4 GB)
    |
    +-> Logical Volume Family 87ABD6CD-2981-4971-9724-4D7F3CBC95AC
        ----------------------------------------------------------
        Encryption Type:         None
        |
        +-> Logical Volume FD192884-33A4-43CB-86A6-9CE4E58B3B92
            ---------------------------------------------------
            Disk:                  disk1
            Status:                Online
            Size (Total):          111996153856 B (112.0 GB)
            Revertible:            Yes (no decryption required)
            LV Name:               Macintosh HD
            Volume Name:           Macintosh HD
            Content Hint:          Apple_HFS
AssASSiNxGAs-MacBook-Air:~ AssASSiNxgA$

My Disk Utility looks like this:

Resizing a Logical Volume in a larger Logical Volume Group with some free space is done with the undocumented coreStorage-verb resizeVolume:

diskutil cs resizeVolume lvUUID size

with lvUUID: UUID of the Logical Volume (the UUIDs are retrievable by entering diskutil cs list) and size (size in b/k/m/g/t | 0 | R)

0 and R are magical sizes and try to maximize the size of the Logical Volume (depends on the system version - doesn't work in all macOS systems).

In your case I recommend:

diskutil cs resizeVolume FD192884-33A4-43CB-86A6-9CE4E58B3B92 120128m

If you get an error disk to small (or similar) choose slightly smaller sizes like 120064m or 120000m until you are successful. The final size of the expanded Logical Volume is slightly smaller than the underlying Physical Volume: some space on the PV is required to store CoreStorage meta data.

Example:

Fusion Drive 3.12 TB:

combined PV size:  3120722 MB
LV size:           3106192 MB
∆ (PV-LV) size:      14530 MB (= 14.5 GB or 0.47%!)


How can I restore a backup of a phone with the same name? I broke my iPhone 3G S and bought a new one. During the setup of the new one I chose to set it up as a new phone. I gave it a slightly different name because I thought I'd want to keep old phone's backups and new phone's backups separate.

I now need to restore the old phone's backup to the new phone.

Using iTunes, I renamed the new phone to match the name on the backup I want to restore from, mistakenly thinking that iTunes would automatically associate the new phone and the old backup by name. The old backup doesn’t show in the drop-down selection box.

How can I access the old backup and restore it to the new phone?

you need to reset the phone to factory settings so that iTunes think's it's a new phone

it will then ask you if you want to restore from a previous backup and you can restore from any of them that are still on the system.


How to Listen For an Application Launch Event on Mac OS X I wrote an AppleScript to mount a bundled sparse disk image. I want this script to be executed exactly when Time Machine launches.

I can check if Time Machine is running with on idle statement,

on idle
    ....
    return <interval>
end idle

but I'm pretty sure, it isn't a robust way to do that.

IMO making an event trigger for Application Launch event would be a better approach.

I appreciate if someone can help me.

You can use a LaunchAgent (see Lingon) to perform an action when a file is modified. Time Machine has some file somewhere that it modifies each time it starts.


How to disable "changing a repeating event" dialog in Mac calendar? I have a number of repeating events in Calendar (formerly iCal).

I often make changes to individual ones on-the-go, but every time it asks me this:

How can I make the default behaviour change a single event without that dialog appearing?

I suspect there could be a Terminal command I can run.

BONUS: Then, if I want to edit the series, can I still use the Get Info interface?

Unfortunately it cannot be settled up using CLI settings

  defaults  read com.apple.iCal

have no option to change default behaviour. But you can find useful a scripting with AppleScript


AppleScript saved as application doesn't execute whole script when argument is passed I save the following AppleScript as application, to open Firefox in full screen and without the menu bar:

tell application "Firefox" to activate
delay 0.8
do shell script "lsappinfo setinfo -app Firefox ApplicationType=UIElement"
tell application "System Events" to tell process "Firefox" to set value of attribute "AXFullScreen" of last window to true

And execute it as:

open -a "Firefox Full Screen"

This works as expected, Firefox is opened, goes full screen, without the menu bar. The problem is when I try to call open with a URL:

open -a "Firefox Full Screen" "https://google.com"

This still opens Firefox, with the given URL in a new tab, but it doesn't execute the lines after delay 0.8, so it doesn't open in full screen. I don't understand why this happens and how to fix it.

I know those lines are not executed because the system doesn't warn that I need to add the application as an accessibility exception (when I don't have one added/enabled). It always warns if I don't pass the URL (and don't have an exception added/enabled).

EDIT 1

I also tried to execute the following version with open -a "Firefox Full Screen", open -a "Firefox Full Screen" "https://google.com", open -a "Firefox Full Screen" --args "https://google.com" and it's worse given that it doesn't execute the last lines in any case:

on run argv
    tell application "Firefox"
        activate
        repeat with arg in argv
            open location (arg as text)
        end repeat
    end tell
    delay 0.8
    do shell script "lsappinfo setinfo -app Firefox ApplicationType=UIElement"
    tell application "System Events" to tell process "Firefox" to set value of attribute "AXFullScreen" of last window to true
end run

EDIT 2

It seems the problem is related with https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14419700.

It looks like passing arguments to an AppleScript saved as an application has become broken at some point. I accomplished my task by using Automator to create an equivalent new Application that makes use of an Action > Utilities > Run Shell Script:

open -a Firefox
sleep 1
lsappinfo setinfo -app Firefox ApplicationType=UIElement
osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to tell process "Firefox" to set value of attribute "AXFullScreen" of first window to true'
sleep 0.5
for f in "$@"; do open -a Firefox "$f"; done

I set the shell script Shell: to /bin/sh and Pass input: to as arguments, save it as "Firefox Full Screen" in /Applications, change its icon as explained here and add it as an exception in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy Tab > Accessibility.

I then can run any of the following and it works as expected:

open -a "Firefox Full Screen"
open -a "Firefox Full Screen" --args "https://google.com"
open -a "Firefox Full Screen" --args "https://google.com" "https://twitter.com"

I'm using this coupled with the following userChrome.css to both evade a well known issue with the macOS menu bar on full screen applications and another long standing address bar and tab auto-hide bug that Firefox have with macOS native full screen.

userChrome.css

#navigator-toolbox[inFullscreen] {
    position: relative;
    z-index: 1;
    height: 3px;
    margin-bottom: -3px;
    opacity: 0;
    overflow: hidden;
}

#navigator-toolbox[inFullscreen]:hover {
    height: auto;
    margin-bottom: 0px;
    opacity: 1;
    overflow: show;
}

#content-deck[inFullscreen]{
    position:relative;
    z-index: 0;
}

For a generic approach, check my other answer.

TIP

Firefox, by default, does not have any issue on Linux or Windows to auto-hide address bar and tabs in full screen as expected. With that said, I grabbed this userChrome.css from my ArchLinux setup. I use it on i3 and sway tiling window managers, with all the [inFullscreen] removed, to get address bar and tabs to auto-hide in normal bordless windows.


Verbose Mode is dropped on macOS Sierra? Hi guys,

Anyone know if Apple removed Verbose Mode in macOS Sierra or not? When It seems Verbose Mode couldn't be accessed any more.

One more thing, it also doesn't work with booting into Single-user Mode, Safe Mode or Verbose Mode via command line.

Any reply would be appreciated. Thanks.

Best Regards,
Vincent

System Integrity Protection (SIP) disables changes to NVRAM. In order to make changes, you need to temporarily disable SIP by doing the following:

Boot into Recovery Mode. (Hold Command-R from the time you start your machine until the Apple logo appears.)
Open the Terminal from the Utilities menu.
Enter the command:

csrutil disable

Reboot and you will be able to run your desired commands from within a normal session.
It's strongly recommended that you re-enable SIP when you're done making adjustments. To do so, run this command:

csrutil enable

Note that if you intend to make a lot of changes to NVRAM, you can leave SIP enabled but disable NVRAM protection by running the following command from the Recovery Mode Terminal:

csrutil enable --without nvram

Again, you will need to reboot for changes to be effective.


What if there is an error message that adoptopenjdk8 exists in multiple taps? When brew cleanup shows the following error message:

Error: Cask adoptopenjdk8 exists in multiple taps:
  homebrew/cask-versions/adoptopenjdk8
  adoptopenjdk/openjdk/adoptopenjdk8

How can I resolve this error without reinstalling Homebrew?

FYI some relevant references:

https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/issues/6112 - looks like an issue to be resolved on Homebrew itself
https://github.com/AdoptOpenJDK/homebrew-openjdk/issues/106 - original bug report
https://improve-future.com/en/how-to-solve-the-homebrew-error-cask-adoptopenjdk8-exists-in-multiple-taps.html - solved by reinstalling Homebrew

Here is a quick solution which assumes that Homebrew is up-to-date and there is no need to use any other packages from the adoptopenjdk/openjdk tap:

Check the state of adoptopenjdk/openjdk tap and adoptopenjdk8 package:

brew tap - lists which taps are currently enabled
brew search adoptopenjdk8 - shows which adoptopenjdk8 casks are available from the enabled taps and which adoptopenjdk8 casks are currently installed

Now assuming that the adoptopenjdk/openjdk tap is listed as enabled, remove the adoptopenjdk/openjdk tap as follows:

brew untap adoptopenjdk/openjdk

Then check what adoptopenjdk8 casks are currently installed. This should show exactly one adoptopenjdk8 cask installed.

At this point, brew cleanup should work correctly.

My explanation: it appears to me that they added adoptopenjdk8 to the built-in Homebrew caskroom.

Note that it should be OK to do brew tap adoptopenjdk/openjdk afterwards, if needed. (This has not caused any issues for me so far.)


Is there a way to forward individual voicemails on the iPhone I would like to send a voicemail I received to someone else for them to be able to listen to the exact same audio.

Is there a way to forward an individual voicemail to someone else, whether by email or some other means?

Hopefully someone else can provide an easier answer or an app that automates this, but the method I've found so far only works for jailbroken phones:

Use iFile or some other file manager to access .amr files that are stored in /var/mobile/Library/Voicemail. The files are numbered sequentially and voicemail.db looks like its used to organize them.
Try to locate the correct .amr using timestamp.
Use file manager to email .amr file to myself or someone else.

A sidenote is that doing this I was able to find some orphaned .amr files that seemed to not have been completely deleted (.amr files are still stored when deleted until they are cleared from Deleted Messages). I was able to safely delete these old voicemails (over a year old, probably persisting from backups) from the folder.


Big Sur - unable to focus any app or make mouse/keyboard inputs after waking from sleep? Problem Description
Since upgrading to Big Sur I have been experiencing, sometimes multiple times per day, an issue where after waking the machine from sleep:

I am unable to enter text input with the keyboard. Typing into text inputs produces the system alert sound, as if typing is not allowed. Some shortcut combinations like Cmd+Tab still work. Using the on-screen keyboard produces the same results, so it appears not to have anything to do with the keyboard hardware.

I am unable to click on some kinds of UI controls with the mouse. Clicking on a window will bring it to the foreground. But links on webpages have to be double-clicked to navigate, as if the first click is ignored. Other kinds of controls such as the sidebar in Finder don't respond to clicks at all.

When clicking between windows belonging to different apps, the active app in the system menubar does not update. So I may have a Finder window in the foreground, but Chrome's menu will still appear in the menubar.

If I switch to a different desktop space, a different app may appear in the menubar (depending on what is open in that space) but then the menubar becomes complete unresponsive and does not respond to clicks after that.

It's obvious when looking at some apps like System Preferences or Activity Monitor that even when their window has been brought to the foreground, the app isn't fully "focused", as some controls remain greyed out in the way they do when the app is in the background. (I think this gives a big clue about what's going on - is something stealing focus and won't allow any other app to be focused?).

Putting the machine back to sleep does not resolve the problem, it remains in the same broken state after waking again. Using fast user switching to jump to another user profile reveals the other profile to be unaffected, but switching back to the first user returns it still in the broken state.

I have tried force quitting Finder and sending kill signals to SystemUIServer and the Dock process, but this has no impact.

The only solution I have found is to log out and log in again, or restart. Sometimes it is not even possible to log out, as the menubar may become unresponsive and the Cmd+Shift+Q shortcut doesn't always work, in which case a forced restart from the Login Window is required (the Login Window itself behaves normally throughout).

This issue began immediately after upgrading to Big Sur, so I think it must be a macOS bug - but as I have been unable to locate any other reports of this issue by Googling all the terms I can think of, it is conceivable that the problem results from a particular combination in my system of third-party apps or peripherals.
My machine is a MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019) with i9 and Radeon Pro 5500M. Running Big Sur 11.0.1. I usually have a Thunderbolt 3 dock attached with external display, USB keyboard and mouse, but the problem has also occurred when roaming with nothing plugged in.
Question
Going with the focus-stealing theory, is there a way to debug this by determining which process owns the currently focused app/window in macOS? (I am able to run terminal commands by ssh'ing in from another machine when the problem occurs.)
Alternatively, is this a known issue or has anybody else experienced this? Are there other solutions or workarounds I can try to resolve the problem without logging out?

I have not experienced this issue after disabling Touch ID unlock, by unchecking the option to Use Touch ID for: ... Unlocking your Mac in System Preferences > Touch ID.
This requires me to enter my password instead of using my fingerprint to unlock after waking from sleep. Somehow that appears to avoid this issue.


I Can SSH host computer but computer does not appear in Finder's Shared Computers List? I want to connect via Apple's ScreenSharing.app , to my home mac from a separate network.

I verified that my host computer is listening on port 5900

I can SSH via unix command ssh user@router.ip

but I don't see the computer under the Shared computers list in Finder

I can screen share when host and remote computer are on the same network
Ive tried using Go > Connect to Server , using different input for the server address , but i'm not sure what I would type for a computer on a different network.

Bonjour is the protocol that is used to "discover" other computers and will list them in Finder.  Bonjour only works on the local network.

  I want to connect via Apple's ScreenSharing.app , to my home mac from
  a separate network.

If it's on a separate network, you won't see them in Finder even though you can still reach them (ssh, scp, ftp, http, etc.).


Command-line voice recognition with Mac OS X How can I do voice recognition on Mac OS X from the command line? Details:

% When I look in ~/Library/Speech/Speakable Items, I see many files,
 like "Tell me a joke", whose contents are:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist SYSTEM "file://localhost/System/Library/DTDs/PropertyList.dtd">
<plist version="0.9">
<dict>
        <key>BuiltInCommandID</key>
        <integer>105</integer>
        <key>semanticCategory</key>
        <string>globalTellMeAJoke</string>
        <key>alternativeSpokenFeedback</key>
        <string></string>
        <key>suppressSpokenConfirmation</key>
        <string>yes</string>
        <key>alternativeFeedback</key>
        <string></string>
        <key>DefaultCommandName</key>
        <string>Tell me a joke</string>
</dict>
</plist>

% How does OS X know when to invoke this file? When I say something,
 does it look for a matching filename?

% How does OS X know what command to run? I see nothing in that file
 that says what command to run ("Tell me a joke" is not a command-line
 command).

% I know there's some osacompile magic going on, but can't figure out
 what it is.

% How can I get OS X to listen for the string "s" and run the program
 "cmd" in response? I'd prefer to do this purely from the
 command-line, but if I have to open up a graphical program, I will.

You might be interested in reading Apple's documentation on Speakable Items, but the relevant part to your question, "How can I get OS X to listen for the string "s" and run the program "cmd" in response?" is:

  You can add an item to the Speakable
  Items folder to make it speakable.

  To open something using a spoken
  command, just add it to the Speakable
  Items folder. You can use a command to
  open anything you can open by
  double-clicking, including
  applications, files, and Web sites.
  You can also write scripts and add
  them to the folder.

In regards to "How does OS X know what command to run? I see nothing in that file that says what command to run?", the relevant portion of the file you posted is:

    <key>BuiltInCommandID</key>
    <integer>105</integer>
    <key>DefaultCommandName</key>
    <string>Tell me a joke</string>

This is saying, when the spoken command "Tell me a joke" is received, run the internal command ID#105, which is the "Tell me a joke" command.

In this case you're looking at an internal command to the speech system. But you can add AppleScripts or shell commands to the speakable items folder as well.

This article on Mac OS X Hints may be helpful as well.

EDIT: After some research I am not sure if you can run shell scripts directly from there, but a little AppleScript wrapper would be easy enough to write, and you could even write it so it can be duplicated and renamed, and it would just run the corresponding shell script from /scripts or something.


How to copy text in Preview in password protected PDF According to this question preview previously didn't care about password protection on pdfs.  Now in big sur I'm finding pdfs fairly often that don't allow me to copy text unless I have a password.  Is there a way to prevent preview from doing this or do I need to find a different pdf reader?  It's incredibly frustrating to have to re-type text from a pdf if I want to google something I just read.

AFAIK, Preview has respected the security features of the PDF standard for a long time, so I don't understand/agree with the answer in the other question.**
A document that has been restricted must have the password supplied to be either printed, and/or copied, and/or opened. Preview itself can add security restrictions to saved PDFs. The security is baked into the PDFKit API that Preview and other macOS PDF utilities use.
(As far back as OS X Tiger, it was an open secret that ColorSync Utility would ignore security, letting you save a 'clean' version, but this has long been fixed. Even then, Preview respected security.)
However, I would say that 99.9% of PDFs in the wild are not restricted, so it's curious that you say 'fairly often', unless you're mining a reserve of PDFs that the authors expressly don't want you to copy for some reason. You could try contacting the authors and asking for permission: it's conceivable they may have added the protection against copying by mistake.
Needless to say, no DRM protection is impregnable, and there are several scripts and apps devoted to removing copy protections from PDFs. The simplest method is that if you can print it, then you can 're-print' the document as a new PDF.
At worst, you could use OCR software on a screenshot.
** As for the other question, the method by which images are 'lifted' from the PDF is not explicitly stated, and that may be different from copy/pasting text.


iCloud Setting Page Value I am a new apple user and I just signed in to iCloud. I see some strange values in my setting page.

What's going on?
Thanks.

Those are just examples of what dates, times, numbers and money formats will be respectively in your iCloud account. If you don't want those formats there should be settings to allow you to change them in iCloud. Otherwise you can just ignore it.


Using a different SIM card on iPad2 3g while travelling outside the US? I have an iPad2 3g with at&t.

Now, Will I be able to pop another SIM into it when I travel outside the US and use the data plan available in that country/service provider??
Is the iPad2 locked to AT&T's network just like the iPhone?

It's not locked and will work on any compatible network.


copy calendar entries from one calendar to another via apple script throws error i am trying to copy ical entries from one calendar to another using the following script:

tell application "iCal"
    set localEvents to events of calendar "Privat"
    set remoteEvents to events of calendar "owncloud"
    repeat with theEvent in localEvents
        if theEvent is not in remoteEvents then
            copy theEvent to end of remoteEvents
        end if
    end repeat
end tell

it throws the following error, that i do not understand:

error "«class wrev» id \"AEBA9736-5B3B-48D3-9DCA-80577709EAB5\" of
«class wres» id \"BAB254DB-3CC3-4383-B2E0-C8135EA5F65C\" of
application \"iCal\" kann nicht in Typ vector umgewandelt werden."
number -1700 from «class wrev» id
"AEBA9736-5B3B-48D3-9DCA-80577709EAB5" of «class wres» id
"BAB254DB-3CC3-4383-B2E0-C8135EA5F65C" to vector

what does it mean and how can i get the script working?

This is what I have so far. All works ok, except for my duplicate check. Just receiving tell statement for "Event Discarded: Old.". When this is not the case. Any Help?

to getRecurrenceTermination(startDate, recurrenceString)
set olddel to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ";"
set tItems to text items of recurrenceString
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "="
set d to 0
set untl to missing value
repeat with anItem in tItems

    set parts to text items of anItem
    set sec to word 3 of anItem

    if (offset of "FREQ=" in anItem) > 0 then
        if (offset of "WEEKLY" in anItem) > 0 then
            set d to 7
        else if (offset of "DAILY" in anItem) > 0 then
            set d to 1
        else if (offset of "MONTHLY" in anItem) > 0 then
            set d to 31
        end if
    else if (offset of "INTERVAL=" in anItem) > 0 then
        set d to d * sec
    else if (offset of "COUNT=" in anItem) > 0 then
        set d to d * sec
    else if (offset of "UNTIL=" in anItem) > 0 then
        set untl to current date
        set untl's year to text 1 thru 4 of sec
        set untl's month to text 5 thru 6 of sec
        set untl's day to text 7 thru 8 of sec
        set untl's hours to text 10 thru 11 of sec
        set untl's minutes to text 12 thru 13 of sec
        set untl's seconds to text 13 thru 14 of sec
    end if
end repeat
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to olddel

if untl is missing value then
    if d is not 0 then
        set finalDate to startDate + (d * days)
    else
        set finalDate to startDate + (1000 * days)
    end if
else
    set finalDate to untl
end if
return finalDate
end getRecurrenceTermination

tell application "iCal"

set TheCalendars to name of calendars

set theSourceCalendar to ""
set theDestinationCalendar to ""

choose from list TheCalendars with title "Please select a source calendar" without empty selection allowed
set theSourceCalendar to result as string

if theSourceCalendar is "" then
    --do nothing
else

    set theOtherCals to {}
    repeat with anItem in TheCalendars
        if (anItem as string) is not (theSourceCalendar as string) then set theOtherCals to theOtherCals & anItem
    end repeat

    choose from list theOtherCals with title "Please select a destination calendar" without empty selection allowed
    set theDestinationCalendar to result as string

    if theDestinationCalendar is "" then
        --do nothing
    else

        display dialog "Copy calendar events from " & theSourceCalendar & " to " & theDestinationCalendar & "?" buttons {"OK", "Cancel"} default button 2
        if the button returned of the result is "OK" then
            set TheEvents to events of calendar theSourceCalendar
            set otherEvents to events of calendar theDestinationCalendar
            repeat with anEvent in TheEvents
                set curDate to current date
                set isNew to 1
                set startDate to start date of anEvent
                set endDate to end date of anEvent
                set eventStatus to status of anEvent
                set recuInfo to recurrence of anEvent
                set auid to uid of anEvent
                if recuInfo is not missing value then
                    set ed to my getRecurrenceTermination(startDate, recuInfo)
                end if
                if endDate ≥ curDate and eventStatus is not none then
                    --check that is not already existing using uid of events
                    repeat with oEvent in otherEvents
                        set ouid to uid of oEvent
                        if ouid is equal to auid then
                            set isNew to 0
                            exit repeat
                        end if
                    end repeat
                    if isNew is not 0 then
                        duplicate anEvent to end of calendar theDestinationCalendar
                    end if
                else
                    log "Event discarded: old"
                end if

            end repeat
        else
            --do nothing
        end if
    end if
end if
end tell

I believe the duplicate check problem flagging, when no duplicates exist is maybe because of this?

set auid to uid of anEvent


Is there any way to stream my Mac Pro to my MacBook? I'd like to know if there is an efficient way to use my Mac Pro from my MacBook (Not using anything like TeamViewer or VNC), so I can enjoy the power of the Mac Pro with the mobility of the MacBook while I'm home.

I regularly use VNC and ssh to my Mac Pro from my MacBook all the time to do things my mobile CPU doesn’t thrive on. This is very efficient for me, so I’m not sure what is lacking in your setup. Run server apps and calculation and Xcode builds on your MacPro and let your MacBook do the things it is suited.

screens app is great for remote screen viewing
prompt app is great for ssh from iOS

I have App Store caching service on the MacPro and iCloud caching and run longer compiles remotely and anything I can script and batch as well.

When that’s not enough, run things in Azure, AWS, google compute or a Mac hosted service, no?

Is there any service to rent cloud CPU power to increase my mac power?


iMac freezing on boot Apple logo I have a 2017 iMac running the latest version of macOS Mojave. When restarting my machine it freezes on the Apple logo about a third of the way through the progress bar. Sometimes half of the logo and progress bar gets cut off when it freezes and sometimes it changes color and sometimes it changes the font size if I’m in verbose mode. Sometimes when it freezes the Apple logo will get shifted over to the right side of the screen and get cut off on the right side of the screen. Any ideas what could be the problem?

Looks like graphics driver is switching to basic configuration. If you’re not using any external monitor or recently used safe mode which couldn’t revert back to normal boot.

Another guess is an unsupported kext which is installed by a faulty or unsupported app or a corrupted kext cache.

You can take following actions as troubleshooting tips. These are however not guaranteed to work for your situation.

1A) You can rebuld the kext cache.

// Open Terminal (/Applications/Utility/Terminal.app)

sudo kextcache -i /
paste the above line and press Enter (It will ask you for system password).

1B) Optionally you can download kext utility to rebuild the cache for you. (Not tested on Mojave)

Download Kext Utility

2A) You can repair permissions from Disk Utility. /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.app

2B) Run First Aid. (It will repair disk permissions and also find common disk errors.

If it doesn’t solve the problem, try resetting the SMC and NVRAM. It will revert your computer to default configurations.


iPhone 6 iOS 11 Public Beta: Camera format I've installed iOS 11 Public Beta on my iPhone 6 but it seems that I can't select the new HEIF format in Settings -> Camera.

How can I check if I'm taking picture in JPG or HEIF? Or is it an iPhone 7 and above exclusive feature?

Hardware encode for HEIF requires an A10 chip, and thus is only supported on iPhone 7 and newer. This is why you don’t see the option to save as HEIF on your iPhone 6:

Hardware decode support starts with iPhone 6s and iPhone SE:

  For iOS, we have hardware decode on the minimum config of the A9 chip.

Introducing HEIF and HEVC - WWDC 2017

However since all Apple devices will support at least software decode, you will be able to share HEIF images natively (by iMessage, or any other sharing service that negotiates decode capabilities) with all Apple devices.


AirPort Express and Extreme Wi-Fi strength comparison I'm about to buy an AirPort model but I'm not sure if there is any difference in terms of signal strength and range. There have been comparisons between these two models in the past but I don't think there are any up to date comparisons.

As I'm not going to use the "extra" features, the only thing that matters to me is the range / signal strength of the n signal. (As I don't have any devices supporting the ac signal). Shouldn't there be a significant difference between the two models because of the "more advanced" design of the AirPort Extreme? Like the antennas being placed better or something like that? Thanks!

Alright, this is an easy catch here.

If you compare AirPort Express which has 2 built-in antennas , the AirPort Extreme has 6 built-in antennas. You should be able to do the math here and jump to the conclusion that the Extreme would have a better range and signal because of this fact.

To see the source, please click the back url below the Airport Extreme picture here.

Please check this comparison model provided by Apple.
The difference for you

Express max 300Mbps
Extreme max 1.3Gbps


What type of bracket to use for HDD/SSD in optical bay? (MCE vs. OWC) Looking for a bracket/adapter/caddy for installing a HDD/SSD where the MacBook Pro SuperDrive used to be.

There are two general types:

1) Minimalist open-type brackets (in the truest sense of the word):

Seems to allow airflow around the SSD/HDD, necessary?
Will it hold the drive firmly enough?
The OWC brand that I've seen is expensive. Are there cheaper alternatives to it? (Could not find.)

2) Space-filling caddies that mimic the SuperDrive's shape:

Are these heavier?
Do they ompede ventilation around the SSD/HDD and promote overheating?
This is how the iFixit and MCE OptiBay enclosures look like, as well as the cheaper ones on eBay.

What are their advantages/disadvantages? I have no experience with either.

What are important things to look out for when choosing a bracket?

I also know that the SuperDrive is fixed in place on the unibody enclosure at a lot of points — I wouldn't want to get a caddy that attaches with less. How can I ensure that with either type?

The only really important thing when choosing a bracket is to get one of the correct height.  You can get 9.5mm and 12.7mmm "tall" versions, and some machines will only take the thinner of the two so choose carefully in that respect.

Other than that, what is important is difficult to canonically state further it depends on what type of machine you are putting it in, and what sort of drive you will use etc, but I would have the following observations instead:

Open Bracket Type:

Sometimes these are simply mounting brackets, without the SATA adapter mounted in the corner
If you are running a hot drive, then heat build up may be less of an issue.  However, keep in mind that this is an unlikely scenario with an SSD, and if you are using a traditional spinning platter drive, then this type of bracket may not provide optimally tight fixing (it's not screwed in on both sides) which could be a vibration problem

Caddie type:

These have a full height end plate where the CD is normally inserted.  It's important to close off the slot to prevent dust ingress, and if you don't want to tape to your case, then sticking a little strip of foam on here is an effective barrier
Not so much for Macs which always us a slot loading device rather than a tray system, but the caddie type usually comes with a fake CD-Tray strip that you can use to block off the hole in your case, which won't come with (or fit to) a bracket type device.


How to export all the raw media from iMovie libraries? I have a couple of iMovie library files. I want to export the raw videos/photos outside of the library. I don't want to edit them or anything like that. Just having a copy outside of iMovie.

What is the best way to do this?

Go to your Movie directory
Right-click on iMovie-Mediathek
Left-click on "show package content"
And there you can find the raw data


Why does my launchd script not run at login? I have tried to follow this question so that at login, the currently configured screensaver becomes the desktop background. Therefore, I have created the following script:

# login.sh
/System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine -background &

I have then created a launch service as ~/Library/LaunchAgents/my_login_items.plist with the content

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
   <key>Label</key>
   <string>com.user.loginscript</string>
   <key>Program</key>
   <string>/path/to/login.sh</string>
   <key>RunAtLoad</key>
   <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

And then run launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/my_login_items.plist.
Nothing happens, however.

This is a deeply unsatisfying answer, but I got it to work by running /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine -background & in a subshell. I changed login.sh to...

#!/bin/bash
longname=$0
shortname=$(basename "${longname}")
echo "$(date -u "+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S") ${shortname} (${longname}) running..."
output=$(/System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine -background)    # <- COMMAND GOES HERE
echo "$(date -u "+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S") ${shortname} ended."

...and that works (my usual static desktop changes to my default screensaver). I use this idiom for other launchd tasks, running the tasks in a subshell so I can easily test whether the operation succeeded and log $output. I don't understand why this works while your original doesn't, but at least it does work.

Note that I removed the & from the end of your command - I'm not convinced this is necessary with launchd, and it was preventing my wrapper script from logging that it had ended (though the & wasn't the cause of the original problem).


Is it safe to delete the original admin user after creating a new one? I have a MBP running Mojave that I got from a colleague. It's got a single user account, let's say "John", and that user is an administrator account. I don't want John's account, I want my own. And John will not need that account anymore.
If I create a new user, "Chris", can I safely delete the old user, /Users/john folder and everything else?
My instinct is that it should be completely fine, but I want to make sure there isn't anything super-special about the auto-created administrator account in macOS that I would be losing by deleting that original account.

Yes it’s safe - you only need one admin account. You can delete all the others, just not the last one.
Choose to keep the data or delete the data, but the accounts can all go when you don’t need them.


Server-side includes on an iMac I have failed for a year to find a way to run SSI (server side includes) on my iMac using the apache web server included with server.app.

I am wondering if the server app will allow server-side includes in a website hosted by Apache on High Sierra?

No. In fact, Apple is removing the web server functionality from server app entirely in the very near future and documenting how you would migrate your data to apache to serve web pages.

http://krypted.com/mac-os-x-server/apple-releases-service-migration-guide-macos-server/
https://developer.apple.com/support/macos-server/macOS-Server-Service-Migration-Guide.pdf

The PDF above has pages 22 to 32 dedicated to how you would migrate any data to an open-source web server. If you like apache, the homebrew tool might be a good one to use for managing that install and patching and service state (stop / start / restart the web server on command or boot).

From there, you'd be on your own (or need to ask a flown question - possibly on another site about how to enable the SSI you want on the version of the web server you have chosen).


How can I troubleshoot an iTunes install problem? I'm having a hard time trying to install iTunes on my Windows 7.
After reading some sites like this, this or this, I can`t go further then trying to install, and failing after few seconds, without any meaningful error message.
In some blog I have even found the the command-line switch

iTunes64Setup.exe /l*v c:\log.txt

to generate a log, but it doesn't give me any useful information. And since my wife is getting bored with her iThings that can't be connected to the iTunes, I ask you...
... where can I find more troubleshoot information? Is there some e-mail at Apple that would analyze my .log and help me ?
Edit:

there is no Apple folder in Program Files or Program Files (x86)

there is no Apple software installed in the computer

Edit 2:
The end of the log says:

Property(C): INSTALL_ASUW = 1
Property(C): INSTALL_BONJOUR = 1
=== Log parado: 25/09/2013  21:26:57 ===
MSI (c) (6C:F8) [21:26:57:117]: Note: 1: 1708
MSI (c) (6C:F8) [21:26:57:117]: Transforming table Error.
MSI (c) (6C:F8) [21:26:57:117]: Transforming table Error.
MSI (c) (6C:F8) [21:26:57:117]: Produto: iTunes -- Falha na instalação.
MSI (c) (6C:F8) [21:26:57:117]: O Windows Installer instalou o produto. Nome do Produto: iTunes. Versão do Produto: 11.1.0.126. Idioma do Produto: 1046. Fabricante: Apple Inc.. Status de erro ou êxito da instalação: 1603.
MSI (c) (6C:F8) [21:26:57:133]: Grabbed execution mutex.
MSI (c) (6C:F8) [21:26:57:133]: Cleaning up uninstalled install packages, if any exist
MSI (c) (6C:F8) [21:26:57:133]: MainEngineThread is returning 1603
=== Verbose logging stopped: 25/09/2013  21:26:57 ===

In a free translation: error or exit status of the instalation: 1603

After a long time, problem solved. Was the admin user of the Windows 7 that was corrupted, somehow. Created a new one and everything works.

This way this question got a kind of off-topic, so I'll flag it to be deleted in few days.


How do I have access to my Google Music contents offline? How are you supposed to use Google Music on and iPhone? I uploaded a lot of my music to Google Music but I want to have offline access to them on my iPhone.

Google do not provide offline access for google music on the iPhone.

However just searching "Google music" on the App Store, shows 2 (paid) applications, that seem to offer offline access.


Can't find untested extension in order to remove it: SafariTabSwitching I don't need this extension anymore because Safari 9 has this feature built-in, but I can't find it anywhere to disable or remove it. It's not listed in my Preferences -> Extensions. I looked through my ~/Library/Safari/Extensions but it's not listed there either.

How do I remove this extension so that I don't get this annoying popup every time I launch Safari?

Generally, Safari plugins should be in /Library/Internet Plug-ins/

However, I discovered SafariTabSwitching is actually in a different location

Source : Safari Tab Switching FAQ

  How to uninstall?
  Remove this file: /Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins/SafariOmnibar.bundle
  Alternatively you may download this uninstaller and run it. Note that uninstaller won't remove SIMBL Agent as you may use some other SIMBL plugin and we don't want to break them.


Can I delete old iOS installer files on my macbook? Is it safe to delete all the iOS installer files that are stored in my computer?

I have no more free space in the HD and I have seen that almost 16 GBs are used in old iOS installer. In the case I delete those file will have problem in the future for backup or restore procedures?

iOS installer files (IPSWs) can be safely removed.

IPSWs are not used as part of the backup or backup restore procedure, only for iOS restore, and as you can only restore signed IPSWs the older IPSWs can't be used anyway (without exploits).

You can always re-download IPSWs from Apple's site if you need them in the future.


Is it possible to restore individual app data (over iCloud)? I am upgrading to a new iPhone 5 from an iPod touch, and I want a shiny new, fresh install.

I would rather not restore the whole shebang from my tired old, disorganized, app-laden, settings-broken iPod data to the new phone.

I'd like to re-download the dozen-or-so apps I actually use… and then restore the data for just those apps (preferably from iCloud, but iTunes would be fine).

What are my options?

This is reasonably possible with a little configuration work on your old iPod Touch. The key will be to turn off everything except what you want on your new iPhone. Also, there is some possibility that miscellaneous settings and such will sync over. However, we should have control of basically everything.

Another important note is that the restore cannot be done after you set it up as a new device without re-wiping the device. iCloud, unfortunately, doesn't allow selective restore, but it does allow selective backup.

What you will need to do is open your Settings app on your iPod Touch and select "iCloud". Go down through that first list and disable everything there. I'd probably leave "Photostream", "Documents and Data", as well as "Find my iPhone" enabled. If you would like "Contacts", "Calendars" and such synced over, go ahead and leave those switches on as well.

Next go down and select "Storage and Backup" > "Manage Storage". Leave all the Documents and Data enabled there - those will only be referenced/downloaded if you have the applicable app. But, if you desired, you could disable some of these as well.

Now select your iPod above "Documents and Data" and start working through the list. Turn off everything you don't want, and leave on anything you want. This could take several minutes as you will have to choose to delete all the unneeded data.

If you happen to turn off a switch accidentally that you want left on, turn it back on and perform a manual backup. That should re-send the data to iCloud.

Again, while this may happen to sync things that you didn't really want restored - like settings - I can't think of anything that would do that. Either way, this is the control we have.

After all the above is complete, wipe the iPhone 5, restore it from your iPod Touch backup, and configure your iPhone 5 to backup. You can now go through and re-enable everything on your iPod Touch as it will be listed as a different backup and will no longer affect your iPhone's current data situation.

And, of course, congratulations on your new iPhone


How to find errors in Excel for Mac 2011 in a large sheet? For Excel for Windows, there's an option to search a sheet for errors and go straight to them, under the "Find and select" icon in the ribbon.

Excel for Mac 2011 doesn't have a "Find and select" ribbon icon.

On a sheet without thousands of cells, how can you scan it for errors?

Depending on what your workbook's displaying,

Edit > Find [#] (i.e. enter the hash sign # as your target text)
Within: [Workbook]
Search: [By Rows]
Look in: [Values]

may be less of a pain. In most of my workbooks, the only cells displaying the hash sign are error messages, and as far as I know, all Excel error values (#DIV/0, #NAME?, #REF! etc.) display text starting with #. Even if you have dozens of hash signs in non-error cells, this will be a lot faster than having to wade through the Edit > Go To… dialog on every sheet.

If you want to search for errors without recalculating, you may have cells which display a calculated value that's destined to turn into an error. For example, enter =2+C4, then delete column C. If recalculation is set to manual, the cell will continue to show an unchanged value, but the formula will become =2+#REF! You can find cells in this state by changing the search parameter to Within: Formulas. This can stop recalculation from propagating a cascade of #REF! errors that takes a long while to unravel.

Hope this helps.


Settings: Tap to Click? My computer's battery was getting too old so I sent my macbook to an unofficial A/S center. After a week, I got my macbook back and my trackpad felt a bit wrong. It was moving and clicking like it was supposed to, but it wasn't making any of those satisfying 'click!' sound. In the settings>trackpad>point&click section, "Tap to Click" isn't even on. What do I do?

Go to Settings > Trackpad > Point & Click and than enable "Tap to Click" and disable "Silent Clicking".


A modal occupies the entire Mail app when composing a new mail Some annoying new feature has been added since an update I did recently. When I start to compose a new mail the compose window till appear as a modal and lock the rest of the mail app. This makes it impossible to at the same time look at other emails or use Finder to drag and drop files. Very annoying.

Does anyone know how to disable this behavior?

This is a feature of using Mail.app in Full Screen Mode.

To disable this behaviour, use Mail.app in non-Full Screen Mode. You can do this with the menu item: View > Exit Full Screen.


“Failed to configure php55-mysql” with MacPorts and Percona 5.5 I'm getting this error trying to install or update Percona using MacPorts on Max OS X (Mavericks 10.9 in my case)

--->  Configuring php55-mysql
Error: Failed to configure php55-mysql, consult /opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_tarballs_ports_lang_php/php55-mysql/work/php-5.5.15/ext/mysql/config.log
Error: org.macports.configure for port php55-mysql returned: configure failure: command execution failed
Please see the log file for port php55-mysql for details:
    /opt/local/var/macports/logs/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_tarballs_ports_lang_php/php55-mysql/main.log
Error: Unable to upgrade port: 1
To report a bug, follow the instructions in the guide:
    http://guide.macports.org/#project.tickets

UPDATE (2014-11-11): @Mark asked what was in the main.log. I did not save it originally but I just had the exact same problem on a different machine and here is what was in the main.log file:

[stuff above snipped]

:info:configure checking for the location of libz... /opt/local
:info:configure configure: error: Cannot find libmysqlclient under /opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_tarballs_ports_lang_php/php54-mysql/work/percona.
:info:configure Note that the MySQL client library is not bundled anymore!
:info:configure Command failed:  cd "/opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_tarballs_ports_lang_php/php54-mysql/work/php-5.4.34/ext/mysql" && ./configure --prefix=/opt/local --with-php-config=/opt/local/bin/php-config54 --with-zlib-dir=/opt/local --with-mysql=/opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_tarballs_ports_lang_php/php54-mysql/work/percona --with-mysqli=/opt/local/lib/percona/bin/mysql_config --with-pdo-mysql=/opt/local/lib/percona/bin/mysql_config --with-mysql-sock=/opt/local/var/run/percona/mysqld.sock
:info:configure Exit code: 1
:error:configure Failed to configure php54-mysql, consult /opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_tarballs_ports_lang_php/php54-mysql/work/php-5.4.34/ext/mysql/config.log
:error:configure org.macports.configure for port php54-mysql returned: configure failure: command execution failed
:debug:configure Error code: NONE
:debug:configure Backtrace: configure failure: command execution failed
    while executing
"proc-org.macports.configure-configure-0 org.macports.configure"
    ("eval" body line 1)
    invoked from within
"eval $procedure $targetname"
:info:configure Warning: targets not executed for php54-mysql: org.macports.install org.macports.configure org.macports.build org.macports.destroot
:notice:configure Please see the log file for port php54-mysql for details:

This article How to Update a Percona Installation gave me the clue I needed to fix the problem. I'm not going to delve into it here but the gist is that Percona had to rename libmysqlclient to libperconaserverclient. The fix in that article doesn’t apply to OS X/MacPorts but this fixed the issue.

cd /opt/local/lib/percona/mysql
sudo ln -s libperconaserverclient.a libmysqlclient.a
sudo ln -s libperconaserverclient.dylib libmysqlclient.dylib

Then complete your install/update.


Add Siri commands to shortcut in iOS 14 I can ask Siri: "What's the time"?
Can I put this in a shortcut, and run it every hour between 8am to 7pm, so that my iPhone will announce time every hour?

You can't have direct Siri commands but you can get the current time and you can also speech to text things, here is a reddit link that seems close to what you want to achieve


None of my admin accounts are sudo users I have three admin accounts on one machine running El Capitan. The machine is a few days old. Whenever I try to run a sudo command, I'm asked for my password and told

accountUsername is not in the sudoers file.  This incident will be reported.

However, all the instructions I can find for adding a user to the sudoers file require having at least one user that has sudo privileges. I've tried

sudo visudo and sudo adduser username sudo - but obviously both of those require the user to be a sudo user.

I'm not sure how I ended up in sudo purgatory. The only thing I can think of is - my employer created two additional admin accounts and then removed admin rights from my original account.

All accounts have since been upgraded to have admin privileges and the problem still persists.

It sounds like your employer has disabled using sudo commands from any admin account, instead opting to include only specific users. This would mean only the employer's admin account would be able to use sudo. If you no longer have access to this account, you could boot into Single User Mode and run the visudo command to fix it. If they didn't remove the user from the sudoers list, you could also make a new admin account with the same shortname.


What does the "cdw" do exactly in the canned Search for "Recents"? The Finder's sidebar search for "Recents" (in High Sierra) is a raw query, which can be found here:
            /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources/MyLibraries/myDocuments.cannedSearch/Resources/search.savedSearch.

The query string goes like this:

(kMDItemLastUsedDate = "*") &amp;&amp; ((kMDItemContentTypeTree = public.content) || (kMDItemContentTypeTree = "com.microsoft.*"cdw) || (kMDItemContentTypeTree = public.archive))

This also looks for Microsoft stuff.  The relevant part of the query is:
    kMDItemContentTypeTree = "com.microsoft.*"cdw

What does the "cdw" part of this query accomplish?  And what does it stand for?

I found another mention here for mdfind usage:
https://gist.github.com/cwalston/7425465

!   -interpret        Force the provided query string to be interpreted as if the user
!                     had typed the string into the Spotlight menu.
!                     For example, the string "search" would produce the following
!                     query string:
!                     (* = search* cdw || kMDItemTextContent = search* cdw)

The cdw at the end of the query string means the comparison should ignore case, diacritics, and width (which is mostly relevant for text with Asian characters).

1st source: How can I find files by content in mac os x?

  Use this modifier... To specify a comparison that is...
  c                             Case insensitive.
  d                             Insensitive to diacritical marks.
  w                            Word-based. In addition, the comparison detects transitions from lower-case
                                 to upper-case.
  t                              Performed on the tokenized value. For example, values passed directly from
                                 a search field are tokenized.

2nd source: CSSearchQuery


iMovie 9.0: how do you make clips shorter than 5ms? I'm trying to make a stop motion animation and I can't seem to find a way to make clips shorter than 5ms. By "clip" I mean the images I drag into the time line. I try to adjust it by hovering over the timeline object, click on the cog, then go to clip adjustments, then edit the duration.

How do I make a clip shorter than 5ms?

I don't think it's possible to make the clips shorter then 5ms in any video software, because depending on the frame rate a single frame takes more time (16,6 ms for 60 fps). It doesn't make much sense to add a clip to a video, that is so short that it is not seen on screen for at least one frame.


Network Windows 7 and Mac This is my first Mac computer (a MacBook Pro) and loving it! What I'm not loving though is the inconsistency of networking files between my main system and the Mac.

So long story short, I've Googled around and the fastest solution I found was on Windows 7, typing in "RUN" then "\ip address", then the login appears, log in and I'm in my Mac's files. The problem with this is that it's VERY inconsistent. More often than not, it won't let me connect to the Mac. I know it's not my main PC because other machines throughout the house connect just fine to each other while at the very same time I'm held back on the Mac.

My question is: is there a better way, a more consistent way to network between Windows 7 and Mac that doesn't involve me running back and forth with a thumb drive?

I am assuming that you just want to copy paste files/folders from your main (Windows) machine to the Mac or vice versa.

You can do this other way around (using Mac) pretty easily. In your Mac go to the Finder and in the Go menu in the menu bar you see "Connect to Server…". Use this option and enter the IP address of your Windows machine. Then login with your Windows ID and password.

Now unless you unmount this connection you will see your Windows machine as an external drive in your left side of your Finder windows and you will always be connected. If you want to close the connection, you can simply click on the eject button on the Windows drive which should be on your left pane in the Finder window (which shows Macintosh hard drive, Applications etc.). Note that this requires your Windows machine to have file sharing on.

You could also install an ssh/scp program on Windows (such as that included in Cygwin) and use that to transfer files (turn on Remote Login in the Mac's Sharing preference pane).


Sharing folders between 2 users I just downloaded a virtual box VM which I will be sharing with my wife. Both my wife and I have accounts on our mac.

I copied the downloaded VM into /Users/Shared/MyNewVM

Then I went into System Preferences -> Sharing and I added /Users/Shared/MyNewVM

and gave "everyone" the "read/write" permissions.

Now, when I go to Finder and go into /Users/Shared/MyNewVM/VM.vbox and double click it, it gives me the following error:

  You do not have permissions to open document "VM.vbox". Contact your
  computer and network administrator for assistance.

But I gave the permissions ... didn't I?

Select the folder in Finder and open Get Info (⌘I).
Click the padlock in the bottom-right corner of the Get Info window and authenticate.
Set up the permissions, then click the gear and select Apply to enclosed items….


Chrome Bookmarks disappear after being used Only on my Mac Mini this is happening (OS X Yosemite 10.10.2) and it just started yesterday. Whenever I start Chrome it shows all my bookmarks and when I click one of them (doesn't matter which one) they all disappear including the bookmark bar area. If I close Chrome and restart it they appear again, but the problem repeats itself.

Press ⇧⌘B to always show the bookmarks bar.

That's not the bookmarks bar—that's just bookmarks from your bookmarks bar being shown on the New Tab page.


Activity Monitor showing significantly less memory than About This Mac I've noticed this has been asked many, many times in the past, but I think my question/problem might be slightly different.

Over the last year I've found my Mac has slowed down to a point where it's virtually unusable to all but the simplest of tasks!

So, I did a fresh OS install on a new drive, which I'm running on now. Still the same problem!

On further investigation, I noticed this slowness is down to a memory problem (too much being allocated to the hard disk), and therefore the HD is working overtime to make up for a memory error.

My question is this; I have 5GB of memory under About This Mac/Memory, but only 1GB when profiling within Activity Monitor. Surely, this isn't correct? I know there is small discrepancies, but not this much. Surely there must be a memory error here, as in the computer is not using it's full quota of available memory. Instead, it's only using 1GB.

Please see the attached image, and notice the memory types and slot's I am using -

Is there anything someone can help or spot here on the memory setup, or errors that would cause this either with hardware or software?

I would remove the two smaller DIMMs and see if the Activity Monitor sees 4GB, as it looks as if the 2 2GB DIMMs are not being seen. If this is the case, then keep the 512MBs out and upgrade the RAM, which is very inexpensive these days.

If you're planning to keep this Mac Pro for a while, its worth loading up on RAM even if you don't think you need it, because future OS version may require it. I've always tried to match RAM sizes in all slots, and not mix sizes, and even further, matching the DIMM manufacturer. This may just be an unneeded caution, but you should find out the exact RAM requirements for this particular Mac Pro on the Apple support site.


chmod/chown hfs+ Volume I have just saved some data from a crashed PC to my external HD, which is a HFS+ Volume using Ubuntu live (regular copy no dd).
Now I am lost: I don't have any privileges in the Folder i copied on my Macbook. I tried changing it using chmod and chown, both as regular user and as root, but I always get a "operation not permitted".The owner for all those files is "999".

Part1:

Maybe, you will need repair permissions - easily done with Finder.

press CMD-I on the top directory where are your files in the external HDD
click on the lock symbol (right bottom corner)
enter your password
and adjust the 1st line at the permission section (Me) for "Read & Write", and from the cogwheel select "Apply to enclosed items..."

The above should repair permissions - but - probably will not help (as you already told)

Part2:

If the part1 not helped, probably (and only maybe!) you have an broken ACL list. (because files are copied at another OS). OS X HFS has not only usual chmod modes, but maintain ACL (access control list) too.

Try this in the Terminal.app - DON'T copy&paste all at once, enter the commands one by one...

cd /Volumes/MOUNT_POINT/directory/with/the/backed/up/files
# where MOUNT_POINT is the drive name as appears in the Finder.

pwd
# DOUBLE CHECK the pwd
# if you do the next on the wrong place - you can corrupt your system
# YOURE WARNED!!!

#this will remove all ACL informations recursively from all files in your current dir
sudo chmod -RN ./*

#this will change recursively the ownership of the files -> to you.
sudo chown -R $(whoami) ./*    #change ownership of files to you

cd      # go home

now you can quit Terminal.app and check access to files via Finder and you should repeat the first part - changing permissions via Finder's -> CMD-I ...


macOS public beta stopped updating The macOS Sierra 10.12.1 public beta train keeps chugging along, but my MacBook is stuck on 10.12.1 public beta 2 (16B2333a), which I installed over two weeks ago. Apparently the current public beta is public beta 4.

I've tried going to System Preferences → App Store → Your computer is set to receive beta updates and toggling it off, then reinstalling the update enabler from beta.apple.com to turn it back on (since the preference disappears when you turn it off.)

Is there any way to convince App Store to show me updates past public beta 2?

I'm unsure if this solved my problem, and I'd welcome a better answer, but after asking, I

Toggled beta updates off
Rebooted
Re-enrolled my Mac; no updates found
Ran softwareupdate -l; but no updates were found
Ran softwareupdate --dump-state to try to debug
While I was rooting around in the dumped state and downloading and inspecting files, Public Beta 5 became available and showed up both in App Store.app and softwareupdate -l

I'm guessing that the toggling off and re-enrolling of beta updates made me eligible for the next Public Beta; though I'm not sure. I'm posting because perhaps that strategy may help someone else.


Avoid having to select "Include Network Devices" every time when scanning in Preview I set up a wireless HP Printer for my mother, prints and scans just fine. The annoying thing is that every single time we try to scan in Preview, we first have to do the following:

Select File > Import from Scanner > Include Networked Devices
Select File > Import from Scanner > Printer name

Is there a way to avoid having to do that first step every time? Didn't see a preference in Preview and obviously we aren't going to keep it running all of the time. :)

That answer is very well done, but an even better option is to use "image capture".


Run action when device is detached I'm using a launchd agent to run a shell script whenever I connect my thunderbolt dock. I've been able to use IOKit notifications to detect when the dock is being attached, but I also want to run a shell script whenever the dock is being detached.

To detect the attachment of the dock I use com.apple.iokit.matching's device-attach event:

 <key>LaunchEvents</key>
 <dict>
     <key>com.apple.iokit.matching</key>
     <dict>
         <key>com.apple.device-attach</key>
         <dict>
             <key>IOProviderClass</key>
             <string>IOPCIDevice</string>
             <key>idVendor</key>
             <integer>21</integer>
             <key>idProduct</key>
             <integer>4</integer>
             <key>IOMatchStream</key>
             <true/>
             <key>IOMatchLaunchStream</key>
             <true/>
         </dict>
    </dict>
</dict>

There should be an event that is fired on detach too, although I haven't fond it yet. The apple documentation on this subject is deplorable.

I really want to avoid using a polling method that keeps checking if the device is still attached. Some better solutions must

Also growl, ControlPlane and other similar apps are out of the question.

Edit:

To be clear. I want to run a shell script every time this specific dock is connected or disconnected, not whenever any device is attached/detached.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

EDIT: Upon rereading the question, I see that my answer was actually off topic.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

I have a solution for what you would like to do. It's actually really simple, but it would be to difficult for me to explain it in writing so I recorded a videos for you.

Trigger a USB event using Apple's Automator app

:)

PS. In the video I talk about UBS devices because I didn't realize you wanted this to work for Thunderbolt. But I'm pretty sure the solution will still work just as well for Thunderbolt. :)


Why do we have multiple contacts for the same person on Mountain Lion Messages? Me and a friend have Mountain Lion and iPhone with IOS 6. When I launch Messages on Mac, I have to select either his email or phone number to send a message. I don't get this. Why do I have to select one or another?

The worst thing is that both have different behaviors: selecting email will tend to deliver to his computer before the phone while selecting phone number will tend to deliver first on the phone and generally doesn't go to the computer.

I don't understand that if it shows him as able to iMessage on both iPhone and Mac, why do I have to select the destination source?

First of all iOS 6 and Mountain Lion have the ability to combine phone number and Apple ID to use iMessage, but it seems like you haven't activated it.

Have it separated comes from older versions and also gives you kind of a fallback mode when there is no internet connection available. If you send an iMessage via Apple ID and your partner "on the other side of the conversation" had no connection, the message would not be send. Using the phone number you still have/had the ability to resend it as SMS.

Now, if you want to combine your Apple ID and your phone number, open the prefs on your iOS device, go to the messages section, choose "send & receive" and check both your Apple ID and the phone number. Also set the application to start all conversations from your phone number.

Now, do the same on your Mac. Open the prefs in iMessage on the Mac, go to accounts, choose your iMessage account and check both, your phone number and your Apple ID. Set the application to start new conversations from the phone number.

Now, your streams should be combined from now on (old conversation will stay separated).

Of course in case of connection problems sending a SMS from the Mac is not possible within iMessages.

To your question why you have different possibilities to send the message: Well, because he/she has different contacting possibilities (and technologies - you can sent SMS to the number instead of an iMessage). But they also have the ability to combine their number and ID what should also give them one single stream.


Apple Screen Sharing Only Controls One Display? UPDATE: I figured out in part what is happening, but not why or how to change this behavior.  When at the computer itself, Finder only activates the screen you are on when you click on the desktop(Finder) or a window on that screen. All other Finder screens are inactive.
When connected via VNC or ARD/ScreenSharing only the first screen becomes active even if that screen was not the active one when you first connected.  If another screen was active at the time you connect it becomes inactive and the first becomes active the first click that occurs. It is like the first screen has occupied all screen spaces.

ORIGINAL POST
As I mentioned in a previous question, I have a MacPro with 6 DVI monitors. We'd like to remotely manage it when necessary via Screen Sharing but it appears that only the first screen/display is actually controllable even though the content from all of the displays is visible. The menu bar is greyed out on all except the first screen and none of the apps are responsive.

This occurs both with the Apple Screen Sharing as well as via VNC. Both are enabled via Remote Management as opposed to Screen Sharing.

Is there a way to activate the rest of the desktops? On the rest of the laptops around the office with monitors and only two displays, this lockout does not occur.

Alright. The issue is a stupid one which is not entirely evident. When setting up a Mac with this many screens, be careful with the arrangement.  When arranged all in a row, even a 1 pixel overlap will cause the overlapped screen to take over all of the others and cause the behavior I stated above.  It is not evident from the desktop. On a gut feeling I ended up dragging all of the screens around to make sure they were entirely aligned and as far over as possible from the previous screen.  It turned out the first screen was the slightest bit overlapping the second.

I'll leave this question/answer up for anyone else who might encounter this bizarre issue.


How is genius info stored, and will editing a track's info change this? Does anybody know how songs hold genius info, and does changing a track name affect this?

Originally, I assumed each track had some sort of metadata which said how it should be turned into a genius playlist. This way, only songs with entries in gracenote would be able to make a genius playlist.

However, the other day, I bought an album, and when importing it into iTunes, fount it had no gracenote recognition. I added all the details (artist, track name, ect) manually.

A day or so later, I discovered that a couple of tracks could make a genius playlist, even when they weren't recognised on gracenote!

So now I assume that the data is held using the details that the track has (artist, genre ect.).

My problem is, if the data is stored by the details a track has, will changing the details remove the ability to create a genius playlist? I have many tracks where I have changed the details (ie. "Track" by "Artist feat. Artist" to "Track [feat. Artist]" by "Artist")

So does anybody know how this data is stored, and will it affect my genius playlists?

The song name, album name and length are used for recognition by Gracenote - which means when you changed and added the song details manually, it was recognised.

As far as I know, the same details are used for Genius, so anything that Gracenote recognises will work - and the playlists are made on Apple servers.


How to make AppleScript count exactly? How do I make AppleScript count exactly?

According to AppleScript, the following equation would be true:89723443578920345892 / 2 = 448617217894600000000

That, though, is not true. What can I do in order to make AppleScript actually count without rounding it afterward?

The command line utility bc is capable of arbitrary precision mathematics, and you can call a command line utility from AppleScript and get a value from it.

For example:

set myVariable to do shell script "echo \"89723443578920345892 / 2\" | bc"

Gives this result: 44861721789460172946

To pass command line arguments as AppleScript variables:

set myNumber1 to "89723443578920345892"
set myNumber2 to "2"
set myVariable to do shell script "echo " & myNumber1 & " / " & myNumber2 & "| bc"

But this gets us back to the original problem, AppleScript represents large numbers as a float, so I had to pass the value as a string. So depending on where you get the very large number from, this could be problematic or a non-solution.


Disable the guest user completely in El Capitan without having to disable 'Find My Mac' I know it should be straight forward but unfortunately, it  isn't.

I did disable the guest user in the System Preferences by unchecking the checkbox for Allow guests to login in to this computer, but it still shows up on the login screen.

I have heard that disabling 'Find My Mac' would fix it for OS X Lion, but I want to keep it.

Is there a way to do this?

@alan-shutko pointed out very important info about this in his comment:

  The point is to make Find My Mac work. If you turn Find My Mac off,
  the guest account will go away. The reason it's there if Find My Mac
  is on is that if someone steals your mac, it cannot report its
  position unless the thief connects it to a wifi network.

Looks like we should keep it on.


Reload Facebook app after offloading I had several apps on my iPhone 5s. When memory got full, I offloaded several of them - Facebook included. When I went to reload Facebook app, it started but did not finish. The logo is stuck in waiting mode.

What should I do to get it to reload fully?

Make sure you're connected to Wi-Fi
You can only download apps up to 150 MB in size without Wi-Fi. You can also try going on the Internet to check your connection.

If you’re using cellular data or Wi-Fi and have issues with an app, try to connect to another Wi-Fi network. You can use cellular data for apps up to 150 MB* in size.
To check your Wi-Fi connection, try streaming a video from the Internet to see if it loads quickly. Get help connecting to Wi-Fi or contact your Internet provider for more help.

(Source)
Pause and restart the app download
Try stopping and restarting the download.
See: How can I cancel an app installation on the iPhone?

Pause the download on the iPhone by tapping the icon.
Connect the iPhone to iTunes. This will cause iTunes to start downloading the app.
Go to the Downloads tab in iTunes and delete the download.

You can also restart your device.


Can "mdfind" search for phrases and not just unordered words? Is there a way to search for an exact phrase using the mdfind utility? For example, I created two text documents titled "test1" and "test2". The contents of "test1" are:

  I love Apple

And the contents of "test2" are:

  Apple love I

When I type this in terminal (I placed both files in ~/Documents):

  mdfind "I love Apple" -onlyin ~/Documents

I get:

  ~/Documents/test1.txt
  ~/Documents/test2.txt

How would I search for the exact phrase "I love Apple" so mdfind only returns results containing those words in that order (in this case only "test1.txt")?

You need to escape your quotes like so:

mdfind \"I love Apple\" -onlyin ~/Documents

This results in just the one document being found:

~/Documents/test1.txt

Without escaping them, I don't think the quotes actually get passed to the mdfind command, they're just interpreted by your shell to say that I love Apple is a single argument. With the backslash-escaping, the argument then includes the quote characters.


is there an app on Iphone that merges sms, email in 1 conversation stream? I'm looking for an app that can take sms, email and possibly other programs and combine the inboxes into a combined inbox. This would enable me to view a conversation with a particular user aggregated over multiple communication-media. Now I often wonder, did I sms, email, whatsapp, etc. that?

Does such an app exist?

Thanks, Geert-Jan

Such an app does not exist, because Apps can not have access to the SMSs on the device, they can only display a user interface from which the user can send an SMS.
At least this is the case for unjailbroken devices, such an app may exist for jailbroken devices, but if you do this you have to trust the app won't send/steal all your conversations to some server somewhere.

However you can search through all your SMSs, and email in spotlight search on the homescreen.


Applescript to copy folder (and contents) to current location? I am trying to create a button on my Finder toolbar powered by applescript to make a copy of a set folder (e.g. /Users/James/doc) and all files/subfolders within it to the current location in Finder.

The motivation for this is that I have a LaTeX documentation format with subfolders such as img that I normally add to every new coding project in a folder called doc, so having a button that adds this folder would save me time instead of manually copying it across each time.

My applescript skills are not very good, I have tried:

1)

set x to ((the target of the front window) as text) as alias
set y to ((folder "Users/James/doc") as text) as alias

tell application "Finder"
    duplicate y to x
end tell

the error I get from running this first attempt is: Can’t make target of window 1 of «script» into type text.

2)

tell application "Finder"
    duplicate folder "Users/James/doc" to (the target of the front window)
end tell

which when run gives the error Finder got an error: Can’t set target of window 1 to folder "Users/James/doc".

(PS: I already know how to turn the applescripts into Finder buttons)

The following script should work:

property y : POSIX file "/Users/James/doc" as alias

tell application "Finder"
    set x to target of window 1 as alias
    duplicate y to x
end tell

By setting y as a property (and as an alias), the script should not break by simply renaming or moving the the folder to be copied.


How do I re-enable Notification Center in Yosemite or El Capitan post-upgrade? I believe I followed the advice here: How do I permanently disable Notification Center in Mavericks?

Post upgrade to Yosemite, the Notification Center icon shows up in the menu bar, but clicking on it does nothing, as noted by this individual: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/142921/96853

This in Terminal will show Notification Center again:

launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.notificationcenterui.plist
killall NotificationCenter

You will have to restart your Mac afterwards.

Reported to work in El Capitan (10.11.1) as well.


sudo: /private/etc/sudoers.d is owned by uid 501 should be 0 - unable to run sudo commands on terminal (SOLVED) When I Run Any Sudo Commands I get:
sudo: /private/etc/sudoers.d is owned by uid 501, should be 0

sudo: no valid sudoers sources found, quitting

sudo: error initializing audit plugin sudoers_audit

This behavior starts at a failed mongodb installation and increased by the last 11.3.1 big sur update. Several Apps Crashing. I did a little research and some people recommends starts in safe mode and run:
chown root:wheel /etc/sudoers
But i forgotten (by now) the firmware password. So when i try to run any init shortcut prompts for the firmware password.
This script works for me to have sudo commands but only when its running:
do shell script "chown root:wheel /etc/sudoers; chmod 440 /etc/sudoers; chmod -N /etc/sudoers" with administrator privileges
would this command fix it? :
sudo chown -R root:wheel /private/etc/sudoers.d
HELP!

Yes, as long as sudo is allowing you to run commands as root, you should be able to fix the ownership of /etc/sudoers.d with:
sudo chown -R root:wheel /private/etc/sudoers.d

I'd also recommend cleaning up the permissions on it and its contents, in case they're also messed up:
sudo chmod -N /private/etc/sudoers.d
sudo chmod 755 /private/etc/sudoers.d

If there are any files in /private/etc/sudoers.d, you should fix their perms as well:
sudo chmod 440 /private/etc/sudoers.d/*

(Note: if there aren't any files in /private/etc/sudoers.d, that last command will give you a "No such file or directory" error, but won't do any harm. So if you're not sure if there are any files there, go ahead and run it just in case.)
Concerning the lost firmware password: on modern Macs, there's no way to reset or bypass this without Apple's help, and it's going to limit what you can do with the Mac until you get it fixed. I'd recommend getting in touch with either Apple or an Apple-Authorized Service Provider about having it reset. I'm not familiar with the current procedures, but I'm pretty sure you'll have to provide proof that you own the Mac in question before they'll reset the firmware PW for you.


Turn off message sending from iCloud? Whenever I send someone a text, I'm told that it shows that "myname@icloud.com" is sending the text and not my phone number. And when someone responds to "myname@icloud.com", I receive the message on my computer and Wi-Fi only iPad, but not my iPhone. Is there any way to only send and receive messages from a phone number?

In your Settings go to Messages> Send & Receive and you should be able to set your preferences from there. Go to the "Start New Conversations From:" section and set your phone number to be the default.

If your phone number does not appear, turn FaceTime off and on. Phone number should show up


Turning Off Wi-Fi During Logout Script Doesn't Work With Launchd I'm writing a launchd plist and a shell script on my MacBook running Yosemite to automate the following scenario:

Turning off Wi-Fi when the user logs out.

Here's my script:

#!/bin/sh
onLogout() {

    #Turning off Wi-Fi. Tested in the Terminal and worked.
    /usr/sbin/networksetup -setairportpower en0 off

    #Log a message as a proof that the script is executed
    echo 'Logging out' >> ~/Desktop/logout.sh.log
    exit
}

trap 'onLogout' SIGINT SIGHUP SIGTERM
while true; do
    sleep 86400 &
    wait $!
done

When I logged out, I did see the log message appearing in the log file. But the Wi-Fi was still on.

Please help.

Use networksetup -listallhardwareports to get a list of all network devices. Usually en0 is the ethernet interface, en1 is WiFi.


Software export compliance for App Store I have developed a game for iOS platform. This game uses Google Analytics.

I have following questions:

Is my game(software) subject to export compliance for App Store submission?
Do I need to provide any documents related to export compliance for App Store submission?

I would appreciate any suggestion and thoughts on this topic. Thank you.

Usually Google Analytics contacts Google's servers over SSL. It is an encrypted connection.

Therefore yes, your app is subject to export compliance for App Store submission.

Usually you do not have to provide any documents to Apple for App Store submission. You just have to answer a simple questionnaire on the web site, which you're automatically asked.

You might also have to file a self-classification report annually to relevant US authorities, but this doesn't have anything to do with Apple. Instructions on doing that can be found here:

How to file an Annual Self Classification Report


Is my USB drive broken, or is it my MacBook? I have a Kingston DataTraveler 108, which is recognized by any computer I plug it into. When I try copying files to it on my MacBook, it is sometimes suddenly ejected.

I've had the same problem copying large files off of it. I have no problem when reading files on my MacBook, and I haven't had a problem opening files on other computers.

I'm running Mac OS X Lion 10.7.2. There are two USB ports and the problem happens on both. I've also tested with Windows on the same MacBook — with same problems.

The drive gets really hot when it's plugged into my MacBook. Is this a software or hardware problem, and is there a fix for it?

Edit:

I've updated to 10.7.3 since posting this question. Also, my second USB drive of the same kind has started the same behavior. I think it's just the kind of USB drive... Can anyone offer a way to verify that it's the drive and not the port?

If it happens to your drive only with your macbook (on both OS X and Windows) and works fine with other machines, then the problem is most likely your USB port.

I suspect that it is supplying more than the stipulated voltage (5V ± 5% for USB 2.0) and your device must not be sophisticated enough to only take what it needs.

You can check this using a multimeter and a USB male connector (I chopped a spare USB extension cord when I needed it). It should register the correct voltage and if not, there's your problem.

If you're going the chopping an extension cord route like me, here is what it will look like if you strip the wires (image source)

The white and green wires are for data transfer — you don't want that. The red is +5V and the black is ground. Connect your multimeter to those to check the voltage.


How do I get Safari to always display the tab bar? When you first open Safari and only have one page (one tab), the tab bar is not shown. When you open your second tab (e.g. by center-clicking a link to open it in a new tab), the tab bar then appears, which makes the content of the original page jump down a bit.
I expected to find an "Always show the tab bar" checkbox in Preferences, but apparently not.
Is there a way to force the tab bar to always appear, even if there's only one tab open?

As it turns out, you do this through the "View" menu, rather than through "Preferences":

Close all tabs but one, so you only have one tab open
In the "View" menu, click "Show Tab Bar" which will make the tab bar appear
This preference will stick, even if you close and reopen Safari

Simple, but not what I expected!


Find out type of VPN connections in network preference I have a VPN connection in my system preference but I don't remember type of this connection (PPTP, IPSec etc). How do I find this out?

Each kind will look slightly different in the Network System Preference Pane. Your "Home" connection appears to be PPTP. See below images for reference...


How to disable notifications for the US Holidays calendar I'm running MacOS High Sierra, and in the last few days it has started sending me notifications for US Holidays on the day before the holiday (I was notified about Valentine's Day and President's Day, but not about MLK Day last month). In Preferences I have notifications for all-day events set to None, which is the advice given in this Quora answer. It doesn't seem possible to edit the alert settings for individual events in this calendar.
The only change I've made recently is that added a subscription to our company's Outlook calendar. It also has a US Holidays calendar, but I have it unchecked, so I only see the holidays that come from Apple.

In the sidebar on the left, right click the appropriate calendar add-in & select Get Info.
The notifications switch/prefs is in there


Will I lose my game saves when I upgrade to iOS 5? I have heard that if I update my iPhone to iOS5 it will take all of the apps off of my phone and I will have to manually put them back on. Does that mean I will lose any savegames or game progress in the games I have on my iPhone?

The short answer to your question is no. You will not lose your games. However, you must know how to save them and how to bring them back after upgrading to iOS 5. A friend of mine with an iPod Touch had the same concerns about his saved Angry Birds data. I walked him thru upgrading to iOS 5 and this is how we did it:

Using iTunes and an USB cable, we backed up the iPod Touch. Make sure you are running the latest version of iTunes (10.5 as of this writing).
We upgraded to iOS 5 from the Summary tab for his device.
Once iOS 5 starts, on the initial setup screens (in the iPod Touch itself), we told the iPod Touch to restore from a backup in iTunes.
We continued the rest of the set up as normal. We used his Apple ID to create an iCloud account. I highly recommend using iCloud.
Once you're done with the initial setup, you can go to your device in iTunes and check on "Use Wi-Fi syncing for this device". You can detach the USB cable for good--This is one of my favorite features of iOS 5.
In the iPod Touch, we went to Settings > iCloud > Backup and Storage to tell iCloud to backup this device. You can then manually trigger your first backup from that screen.
Once backup is completed, your device will show up on this same screen as backed up. You can tap on its name to go to another screen where you can individually set which apps you want to keep in and out of your iCloud backup. This is very handy when deciding how to use your iCloud storage space. Most apps take very little space on the server, but there may be some apps that not, so it is worth to take a peek. This screen tells you exactly how much each app is using. Make sure to add all of your games that have data that you wish to back up.

Next time you need to restore your device, iCloud will restore all of your saved games this way over the air, rather than having to restore from iTunes with a USB cable. Hope this helps.


How to get "out" of the full screen in applications on iPhone? I'm often using some news applications (like WP.PL) which sometimes enter in full screen mode on my iPhone. It means all the buttons dissapear and there's only text/photos to read. Swiping left/right switches between news but all I would like to do is to get out of the full screen and continue reading with ability to change categories etc.
I tried multiple options and 99% of times it gets out of full screen mode but it's more of a random pushing the glass (multiple times) than actually "knowing" how to leave full screen.

Is there some sort of finger combination for all applications or is per app setting I have to leave with ?

It's a per app setting. but most app follow the standard settings.

try tapping once in the middle on the screen and see if the controls now show up.


Unable to free up any space I am literally unable to free up any space on my iPhone 5S (iOS 10.1.1). I delete apps and photos and emails (when I have enough space to use mail), but it stays saying I have 0KB available. Even if I do delete an app or even 300+ (in one instance) photos, I STILL somehow manage to have no free space. Even if it does free space, it's often not a lot of space and it often runs out very quickly. Does anyone know how to fix this?

I've also tried turning my phone on and off again. Doesn't do anything either

I would recommend backing up your phone using iTunes and then restore using the last backup. This should help in freeing up space, mostly if you do OTA upgrades.


iMac (Late 2015) using swap when there's still plenty of RAM left My wife's new iMac is behaving rather oddly. Despite being a pretty powerful machine, it's rather slow and laggy. I looked into it, and it seems her swap memory is maxing out, even though there's plenty of RAM left:

Yet my Mac Pro looks like this:

This happens consistently, causing the machine to significantly underperform. Is there something wrong with the system, perhaps?

This is all anecdotal, tested using a sample size of 2, so barely counts as experiment...

Restart the Mac, it's been up 12 days.

That would be fine for a machine with a lot of RAM, but it's going to hit a low RAM machine harder.
I'd say the simple solution would be to double the RAM.
Two of the machines here are always on, the one with only 10GB RAM used to slow down after only a few days [it now has 26GB & no longer does that], the one with 64GB really never slows down.

I think the used swap figure only gets reset at reboot, btw. I'm not sure it's necessarily an indicator of current activity [but I'm certainly open to correction on that]


How to identify assembled top case after MBP repair? My MacBook Pro (2016) just needed another top case replacement, as keys did not work as expected. Since the last replacement, Apple has established a Keyboard Service Program for MacBook and MacBook Pro and introduced a (more or less) protective membrane in recent MBP keyboards.

When I picked up my repaired notebook (not from Apple directly, but an Apple Premium Service Provider) I asked if the replaced keyboard has this membrane. The staffer couldn't tell, but said that this has recently been the case for “some replacements”.

Can I somehow identify which keyboard/top case generation is installed? Is the membrane visible?

The iconography on the 2018 keyboard does differ from that on the 2017 and 2016 keyboards. This can be used to identify the generation.

The YouTube video New 2018 MacBook Pro Keyboards MIGHT fix Keyboard Problems shows the differences between these three models' keyboards. The 2018 option key has a far taller icon than the 2017 option key.

The MacBook Pro 2016 and 2017 models will not receive the 3rd generation MacBook Pro 2018 keyboard according to the MacRumors article: Apple Says Third-Generation Keyboards Exclusive to 2018 MacBook Pro.


New icons come up as default file icon in El Capitan I'm not able to properly set icons, I've tried with *.icns and *.pngs.

I'm on a El Capitan, MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015)

Does this seem familiar to anyone?

EDIT: I should mention I don't want to disable any security

Try opening the icon in Safari then dragging it from there.