If app is rejected from App Store, is it possible to have a refund for Developer Program? I'm about to register to the 99$ Apple Developer Program.

If for a reason Y or Z, the app is rejected from AppStore, can I ask a cancellation and refund of the Developer Program?

The reason is that it wouldn't be useful to stay on Developer Program if the app is not accepted.

Note: If needed, I would do the cancellation before 7 days after the subscription to the Developer Program. (In Europe, or at least some countries, there is a right of withdrawal/cancellation up to seven days after an online purchase).

In general, there are no refunds of the Apple Developer program yearly fee.  I've been in the program for several years and I've never heard or seen a refund given because an app was rejected.

The reason being is that all app policies are public and available for you to review prior to determining you want to pay the fee and submit the app.  I would recommend that you do that first and see if your app idea is viable.

Just because you think the app will be accepted doesn't mean Apple can't reject it later for whatever policy they think you violated.  In that case, you can always contact Apple and appeal the rejection.

I don't know if the 7-day cancellation you mentioned would be applicable in this case because you're not making a product purchase; you're paying a membership fee.


Does macOS support AnyIP? I would like to assign a complete block to my Mac as described in this question: Can I bind a (large) block of addresses to an interface?

There it is explained that AnyIP is supported for IPv6 by the Linux Kernel and how to configure it on your device, but the command being used is ip, which seems not available on macOS. If this technique is supported on macOS, what is the command to achieve the same?

PS. I know how to add a single IPv6 to an interface using the command ifconfig -r -L en1 inet6 fe80::2/64 alias

The feature is not supported on macOS.

Depending on how many IP addresses you want to listen to, you could use a simple script to bind each IP-address to the interface individually using the ifconfig alias command.


I have never seen this "Sign in..." message before downloading I Am wondering why I am getting the message [above] all of the sudden. As far as I know I am already signed in. Why is this message being displayed, rather than the one similar to the one in the 2nd image:

Have I been hacked?

This is a normal App Store pop-up. It does mean that somehow you were logged out of your Apple ID on your phone though, which could be for any number of reasons. Maybe someone signed out on your phone or someone tried to hack into your account and Apple forced all devices to re-authenticate, but there isn't an easy way to find out.


Custom iPhone Alarm Visual Message I'm looking for a way to use the built in iPhone alarm app, but I want it to display a customizable message when I wake up. I've heard of ways to make siri speak a message, but I want it to be purely visual on the screen.

Has anyone done this or know how to do it?

In the Clock app, click on the Alarm button and create or edit an alarm. The four settings are Repeat, Sound, Snooze, and Label. Type your desired text in Label and it will display when the alarm fires.


Why is so much "Other" space occupied on an iPhone 4? I have the problem in iTunes where the "Other" data on the iPhone is excessively large. It's taking up over 5 GB of space. I've searched this topic over and over, tried just about every option I've seen, and my problem is getting bigger.

I have my daughter's iPhone 4 with 8 GB storage.

She only has about 11 apps on it taking up a total of 407 MB.
Her photos are taking up 83 MB.
Music is only using 6 MB

What I've tried so far:

Restored the iPhone to factory, and the problem grew by 1 GB
Downloaded DiskAid trial as suggested here, but I could not see what the problem was from there.
I've Deleted Safari browsing history and cache, but that didn't move the needle much. probably gained 3 MB.
Deleted some of the larger apps, but nothing was more than 600 MB.

Does anyone have any other suggestions?

iPhone is NOT Jailbroken by the way.

Update

Well, I'm just going to do a factory reset and set the phone up as if it were new. I'm too tired to keep trying to figure this out.

Factory Reset

I ended up doing a Factory Reset to clear off the "Other" data.

The key is that since the Other seemed to be backup related, I did not restore the phone from the backup. Instead, I selected "As a new phone".

One by one, I added back her apps, music and photos, watching the Other bar like a hawk.

The Other data remains virtually gone now only taking up 430Mb.


Deleting photos from iPhone which are already synced with my Mac How do I delete synced photos from my iPhone when the same photos are already deleted from my iMac and also the trash?

Normally, if photos are synced through iTunes to an iPhone from a Mac folder, iTunes should automatically take care of removing photos.

If that doesn't work, try to disable photo syncing first (uncheck "Sync Photos" in the iTunes-->iPhone-->Photos tab), sync the iPhone once, then turn on photo syncing again (by checking "Sync Photos").


Cleaning my Macbook Pro Retina leaves greasy 'streaks' across the screen I try to clean my mid-2015 Macbook Pro with Retina display by wiping the screen with a damp cloth and then immediately drying.

However, there seems to be left some residue/streak marks, which look very oily. Sometimes these disappear after a few minutes, but they are still very unsightly, and a bit worrying (is there something wrong with my screen?)

I'm wondering if there are other cleaning techniques which avoid this issue, or whether this is completely normal behaviour.

Thank you!

Two microfibre cloths, available from any supermarket.
Don't get the 'smooth' ones specially for glass, they can be a bit hard on a plastic screen, get the 'fluffy' ones that make your fingers itch, like picking up tiny velcro.

One cloth completely wetted in lukewarm water [nothing else], then squeezed as dry as you possibly can [trick - fold in 4, then roll & wring. You really want it as dry as possible].
The other cloth totally dry.
If the screen is warm, you may need the first cloth very slightly wetter - but never anywhere near wet enough to dribble if squeezed - you really don't want any water that could run down the screen. The cloths work better when almost dry anyway.
If the screen is cold & also dark, i.e. computer off, you'll also find it much easier to see when it's clean.

Wipe the damp one gently over the screen, multiple times, turning the cloth, pay attention to the edges & corners. The trick is gentle repetition, rather than 'force'.
Then, whilst the screen is still very slightly damp, wipe over again with the dry one, completely drying the surface.

Smears gone forever… well, until next time ;-)

Please don't be tempted to use any type of domestic cleaner or alcohol. You never know what type of screen coating any given screen has & some cleaners can irreparably damage the coating layer of some screens.


How can OS X perform "VPN Single Sign On"? Windows can perform "VPN Single Sign On" whereby a (pre-configured) VPN connection is initiated from the login screen using the provided user credentials and, once established, the user is authenticated against the corporate directory server.

Only after successfully completing such a login can a remote client be used.

How can the same be accomplished with OS X?

You could use tunnelblick, as a front end to OpenVPN. Once installed, it runs automatically when the user logs on. It can also be configured to connect automatically, in the VPN Details dialog:

It appears to work with OpenDirectory also, starting from version 3.1beta16 (I am currently using version 3.4.2). Taken from the release notes (What's New in Tunnelblick 3.1beta16 (Changes from 3.1beta14))

Fixes issues when using OpenDirectory and the user's home directory is on a non-Mac platform.

So, in short, while it doesn't provide the VPN logon at the login screen as requested, the end result is pretty much the same - you log in and have the VPN connection already running.

Hope this helps.


Saving Photos in iPhoto to a flashdrive or other device I would like to back up my photos from my iPhoto Library (right now, I have about 8,000) and all I have available at the moment is a 10G flash drive.

Eventually, I would like to buy an external hard drive to save them to, but that is just not feasible at the moment. How do I save them to a flash drive? Would there be room for all of them? Oh, and I have video clips also.

Use the "Export" function in iPhoto.

Located under File in iPhoto menu.

Select your Flash Drive as destination.

You might want to check your 8000 photos and videos total size before doing it.

To see the total size click on the (i) at bottom right or in View menu.


Change font size of mail list in Mail.app Is it possible to change the font size of list of mails on the left side inside Mail.app? I find it to be a bit too small for my liking.

Yes, you can. Go to Mail's preferences (Mail > Preferences... in the menu bar). Click on the Fonts & Colors tab. There you will find an option for "Message list font." Simply change the font size to your liking.


Can I decrypt single EncFS files? I had a directory encrypted with encfs by MacFusion. I deleted some encfs file from there (something like .encfs6.xml, can't remember). I still have files and remember the password.

Now when I want to mount this directory as encfs one, encfs wants to create new encrypted volume there. Can I somehow force it to open existing instead of creating new one?

The .encfs6.xml file contains metadata that describes the encryption of the user's files. This is the one file that shouldn't be deleted and the short answer is to say that encryption is impossible without it.

Encfs works by using a passphrase to make a key (potentially low entropy because it's derived from user input) that is used to encrypt another machine-generated (high entropy) key that is used for file encryption. That key is stored encrypted inside .encfs6.xml as <encodedKeyData> like this:

<encodedKeyData>
AVE9837475fv...VoE93845ee
</encodedKeyData>

In theory, if you have that data and you know the passphrase used to encrypt it and you know all the ciper parameters used than you could decrypt using another tool such as OpenSSL. You'd need to look at the source code for encfs to work out exactly what it does and in what order but it would be possible to decrypt using another tool.

But you really need the parameters contained in the .encfs6.xml file to be able to decrypt, even if you plan to do so without the encfs software. So it's kind-of pointless because, if if you had that information you could reconstruct the xml file by hand and use encfs anyway.


FileVault and TimeMachine restoration - Unable to turn on FileVault again I have restored a MBP timemachine backup to a new MBP. On my older machine I have enabled FileVault.

The restoration was long. It took about almost 12 hours to transfer 500Gb of data.

In the new unit I have experienced a few problem (e.g. unable to install VirtualBox )

When I checked FileValut setting in 'Security & Privacy', I can see it is turned off.

When I tried to turn it on, I got this dialog box

and then this dialog box appears:

A 'Meraki Management' profile is installed on this MBP.

After some investigation, the problem has something to do with nix, which I have installed on my old MBP.

To make FileVault work again, I have to remove all the nix users and nix user group.


iCloud Drive keeps re-downloading a 40GB file I am running the macOS Big Sur Beta. Every little while, iCloud Drive will randomly start to download 50GB of files I don't need. I have a ~40GB zip file full of photos that I do not need stored on my laptop and this keeps downloading. This is wasting a lot of data. How can I fix this?

There's nothing that appears to be 'fixed', based on the description in your question.
The purpose of iCloud is give you access to your data from any device logged-in with the same Apple ID. Using iCloud, you can access photos, files, contacts, Safari tabs, etc, just like they were part of your file system.  For example, if you create a doc using Pages on your Mac you can access and edit that same file from your iPad using the Pages app.
It looks like iCloud is simply syncing data between your devices at a regular interval.  This is normal, expected behavior.  You can control what's synced by going into your Apple ID via Settings on any logged-in device.
If you only want a backup solution, you can look into other services such as Dropbox and OneDrive.


After installing wine with a .pkg, I get the error wine: command not found when running from the terminal but the app works fine I have installed wine through a .pkg from here. Wine Stable.app works fine, but when I run any wine-related command from the terminal, I get command not found.

The wine related commands are not in the path so you have to add them:

(this is for if you installed it for all users, if it's for only your user put ~/Applications instead of /Applications)

sudo ln -s /Applications/Wine\ Stable.app/Contents/Resources/wine/bin/wine /usr/local/bin/wine
sudo ln -s /Applications/Wine\ Stable.app/Contents/Resources/wine/bin/winecfg /usr/local/bin/winecfg
sudo ln -s /Applications/Wine\ Stable.app/Contents/Resources/wine/bin/msiexec /usr/local/bin/msiexec

If you installed 64-bit wine also: sudo ln -s /Applications/Wine\ Stable.app/Contents/Resources/wine/bin/wine64 /usr/local/bin/wine64

Optional:

sudo ln -s /Applications/Wine\ Stable.app/Contents/Resources/wine/bin/notepad /usr/local/bin/notepad
sudo ln -s /Applications/Wine\ Stable.app/Contents/Resources/wine/bin/regedit /usr/local/bin/regedit
sudo ln -s /Applications/Wine\ Stable.app/Contents/Resources/wine/bin/regsvr32 /usr/local/bin/regsvr32
sudo ln -s /Applications/Wine\ Stable.app/Contents/Resources/wine/bin/wineboot /usr/local/bin/wineboot
sudo ln -s /Applications/Wine\ Stable.app/Contents/Resources/wine/bin/wineconsole /usr/local/bin/wineconsole
sudo ln -s /Applications/Wine\ Stable.app/Contents/Resources/wine/bin/winedbg /usr/local/bin/winedbg
sudo ln -s /Applications/Wine\ Stable.app/Contents/Resources/wine/bin/winefile /usr/local/bin/winefile
sudo ln -s /Applications/Wine\ Stable.app/Contents/Resources/wine/bin/winepath /usr/local/bin/winepath
sudo ln -s /Applications/Wine\ Stable.app/Contents/Resources/wine/bin/wineserver /usr/local/bin/wineserver
sudo ln -s /Applications/Wine\ Stable.app/Contents/Resources/start/bin/appdb /usr/local/bin/appdb
sudo ln -s /Applications/Wine\ Stable.app/Contents/Resources/wine/bin/winehelp /usr/local/bin/winehelp


How do I configure Gmail Sync Accounts for iOS post January 2013? At the end of January 2013 Google dropped support for Gmail Sync for nonpaying Gmail customers. I understood this drop in support to mean that no new devices could be setup, not that I could no longer configure existing devices. However, if there is still a way to affect the configuration of existing devices I cannot find it on Google's sync website.

Am I missing something? Is there a site I can visit to make configuration changes for devices?

No, I wouldn't say you're missing anything. As you say, Google will continue to support any configured devices beyond January 31, 2013 (from http://googleblog.blogspot.ch/2012/12/winter-cleaning.html):

  Starting January 30, 2013, consumers won't be able to set up new
  devices using Google Sync; however, existing Google Sync connections
  will continue to function. Google Sync will continue to be fully
  supported for Google Apps for Business, Government and Education.
  Users of those products are unaffected by this announcement.

so no changes for your devices whatsoever (from http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2716936):

  What do I need to do if I’m already using Google Sync?

  Nothing! Existing users can continue to use Google Sync on their
  current devices.

  What will happen if I keep using Google Sync after January 30, 2013?

  The service will continue to work for existing Google Sync devices.
  Google Sync will continue to work, be supported, and take new sign-ups
  for Google Apps for Business, Education, and Government customers.

For new devices, or if you wish to stop using Google Sync on your devices, check these links:

CalDAV for iOS devices: http://support.google.com/calendar/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=151674
CardDAV for iOS devices: http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2753077

As a side note: Windows Phone users, on the contrary, got an extension and Google will accept new device connections until July 31, 2013 (from http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2716936):

See also this blog post.


Dynamically change opening app according to file folder When I double-click, for example, a pdf file which is in the Desktop folder, I'd like it to be opened with Acrobat Reader.

However, if the file is in any other folder, e.g. Downloads, I'd like it to be opened with Preview.

Is that possible? Perhaps through an Automator script?

I created the following APP with Automator and select it as the default APP to open PDF files.


How can I change the meta key on OS X Lion's Terminal.app? Is there any way to use "Option" as the meta key in OS X Lion's Terminal.app? The checkbox that was present in Snow Leopard is nowhere to be found.

Are you sure that it's not to be found?  If I look at Preferences → Settings → Keyboard, the checkbox for Use option as meta key is at the bottom.

I am on 10.7.1 so it may be something overlooked in the GM of Lion and fixed in the first patch.


MacOS Sierra how to properly disable iCloud Drive? I got iCloud drive which hang in the middle of an upload, this is the 3rd day I'm looking at 6.52GB of 6.52GB. The task seems to eat my CPU and bandwidth and makes using the Mac an ordeal.

How to properly disable iCloud drive once enabled?

What will happen if I click the blue remove from Mac button - will this erase my documents and desktop?

Can I click stop updating and turn off? Will this keep my computer as-is?

Always make a copy of your Documents & Desktop prior even thinking about disabling iCloud.

If you hit Keep a Copy button, what that button actually means is.

"I'll go ahead make new folders called Documents & Desktop, they'll be empty when you open them"

It'll retain majority of your files in ~/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud Drive folder.

By Some files, I mean some of the files will contain references to the files on iCloud drive. You'll see them appear normally in Finder but you won't be able to view them.

For example
wall1.jpg in finder, if examined closely in Terminal is actually called .wall1.jpg.icloud  <-- any attempts to rename it from that file, will yield an empty jpg without any data in it.

One thing is certain, iCloud Drive / Backup relationship to your files is backwards.

Your laptop should be Master where iCloud acts like a 'backup'. In reality iCloud is master and your laptop might or might not have full content of those files.

As far as 'Updating' I'd imagine it'd probably be good idea to let that run, to minimize the odds of not having all of the local files 'fully present'


Why was ⌘ used as the command key on Apple computers, why not the Apple logo? I was just curious about the command key, a little thing that seems to have been used for quite a long time.

Is there any particular reason that the founders of Apple decided to use the ⌘ symbol, not the Apple logo (like Windows does on their keyboards) as the Command Key? Just to clarify, I want the reasons why the designers chose it, and not personal opinion. Thanks!

From the Wikipedia entry on the Command Key:

  The "⌘" symbol (the "looped square") was chosen by Susan Kare after Steve Jobs decided that the use of the Apple logo in the menu system (where the keyboard shortcuts are displayed) would be an over-use of the logo.

It is also interesting that the ⌘ is not something Apple came up with. It is actually an ancient symbol called looped square.


iOS 8.1.2 Calendar Timezone Problem I use my calendars very often to keep track of things.  Ever since I upgraded to iOS 8.1.2 (or possibly 8.1.1) the phone lets me create a new event with my timezone, but as soon as I create the event and try to edit it, the times are converted to GST (which is not my timezone).

Is there a way to fix or disable this so that iPhone Calendar is easier to use like before?

Go to Settings/General/Date and Time.
Choose Set Automatically and choose your Time Zone.

Next go to Settings/Mail, Contacts, and Calendars. Page down to the Calendars section.
Set Time Zone Override to OFF if you want you calendar to display with times converted to the Time Zone where you are currently standing.
Or, set Time Zone Override to ON if you want to force the times in your calendar to be displayed in the home Time Zone that you set above.


Sort folders by size in Finder Is there any way, to sort sub-folders in a folder or a whole volume (such as the root drive where macOS is installed) by size? Is it possible to do without resorting to a 3rd party app?

If you open the folder in finder such that your sub-folders are displayed you can click on size at the top of the list. If the folder sizes are not displayed, open finder and under the View menu select "Show View Options". This brings up a pane like an image shown below.

At the bottom of the pane is a checkbox to determine folder size. Check the box and folder sizes will be displays. Then by clicking on the size near the top of the Finder window. the contents should be sorted by size.

You need to make sure size is shown in the Finder window. To ensure this is the case, in the pane we just looked at, be sure to check "Size".


Is Apple using the updated 2018 MacBook Pro keyboard when replacing older keyboards under the new keyboard service program? Apple revealed an updated 2018 MacBook Pro with an updated butterfly keyboard. I recently had my 2016 MacBook Pro keyboard replaced under the keyboard service program that was recently opened. Is Apple replacing older keyboards with the new keyboards under the keyboard service program?

Nope, sadly not.

From here:

  Apple has been servicing affected keyboards free of charge, with the
  process involving the replacement of one or more keys, or the whole
  keyboard. For the MacBook Pro, the replacements are second-generation
  keyboards -- often the 2017 variant with slightly different markings
  on the Control and Option keys.

  When asked if Apple Stores and Apple Authorized Service Providers will
  be permitted to replace second-generation keyboards on 2016 and 2017
  MacBook Pro models with the new third-generation keyboards, if
  necessary, Apple said, no, the third-generation keyboards are
  exclusive to the 2018 MacBook Pro.


How can I open port 443 in Mac OS X 10.6? I have a local apache running on my macbook pro and I need to run a SSL website on the local host. I have everything configured in Apache, but can't open port 443 on mac. I tried to add ipfw rule to allow 443 but it doesn't work.

make sure 443 accessible from local and configured.

$ netstat -an|grep 443

allow 443 in ipfw

$ sudo ipfw add allow tcp from any to any 443


"Wi-Fi" process in OSX El Capitan uses a lot of CPU "Wi-Fi" process takes a lot of CPU almost all the time. Why is it happening, and how to fix it?

Reinstallation of OSX El Capitan helped. Don't know why it was happening.


git auto-complete for *branches* at the command line? On my Linux machine I have autocomplete for branches with Git.

[Note we are talking about git branch completion, not bash completion (e.g. commands, files, etc).  Thus NOT Lane's answer at all]

For example I can type git checkout+TAB and get a list of branches.

Or I can type git checkout feb*+TAB to get all branches that begin with "feb".

How can I get this functionality on a Mac?

I tried downloading and running bash-completion/bash_completion and bash-completion/bash_completion.sh.in but no joy.  The first gave error messages about declare: -A invalid_option.  The second gave no errors.   When I git checkout+TAB though I am still getting a list of files in the directory, not branches.  I am in the project root.

Auto-complete for directories and bash commands are working ok, so it's specific to Git.

ok, so I needed the git autocompletion script.

I got that from this url:

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/git/git/master/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash -o ~/.git-completion.bash

No need to worry about what directory you're in when you run this as your home directory(~) is used with the target.

Then I added to my ~/.bash_profile file the following 'execute if it exists' code:

if [ -f ~/.git-completion.bash ]; then
  . ~/.git-completion.bash
fi

Update: I'm making these bits of code more concise to shrink down my .bashrc file, in this case I now use:

test -f ~/.git-completion.bash && . $_

Note: $_ means the last argument to the previous command. so . $_ means run it - "it" being .git-completion.bash in this case

This still works on both Ubuntu and OSX and on machines without the script .git-completion.bash script.

Now git Tab (actually it's git TabTab ) works like a charm!

p.s.: If this doesn't work off the bat, you may need to run chmod u+x ~/.git-completion.bash to grant yourself the necessary permission:

chmod is the command that modifies file permissions
u means the user that owns the file, by default its creator, i.e. you
+ means set/activate/add a permission
x means execute permission, i.e. the ability to run the script


Why is my computer making hundreds of requests to captive.apple.com? I'm experimenting with NextDNS, and I noticed that my PC is making hundreds of requests an hour to captive.apple.com. Currently 40% of my DNS queries are to apple.com.
I understand this is a feature to detect if the computer is connected to a captive portal. However, it's not connected to a captive portal, it's connected to my home network and DNS requests, including requests to captive.apple.com are resolving.
Even if I connect to a VPN that has its own DNS settings, the OS continues to send these captive.apple.com requests to the DNS server specified in the Network preferences (although other requests go via the VPN).
I tried disabling com.apple.captive.control from this answer, however the requests are still being sent. I disabled my network connection for a while to confirm my computer was the source of the requests, and the requests stopped appearing in the logs. They reappeared again when I re-enabled my connection.
NextDNS has a quota, and these DNS requests are going to use the majority of the quota.
Why is my computer making so many requests to captive.apple.com, is it normal, and is there a way to stop it?
I'm on OSX 10.15.7.

I analysed the traffic with tcpdump -k port 53 (suggested by this Reddit thread), and it turns out it was expressvpnd, part of Express VPN.
That was surprising, because I didn't have Express VPN client running, but it appears to set up a demon that sends DNS queries to captive.apple.com and www.mb6gpu84.com even when the app is not running.
I removed expressvpnd and killed the process, and the requests stopped.


How to delete a boot partition from MacOS Catalina A few years ago I created a second boot partition on a MacBook, called "BootOS". I would like to delete this partition and merge the space back into the remaining partition.

I have found a question/answer that describes how to do this on El Capitan, but the output from diskutils list on Catalina looks sufficiently different for me to ask again.

Can anyone suggest suggest how I should go about this?

diskutil list :

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk2         937.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:          Apple_CoreStorage BootOS                  62.7 GB    disk0s3
   4:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s4

/dev/disk1 (internal, virtual):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS BootOS                 +62.3 GB    disk1
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s3
                                 98445A01-48FA-4E17-8CDE-61C46B885B90
                                 Unencrypted

/dev/disk2 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +937.0 GB   disk2
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD - Data     850.8 GB   disk2s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 85.1 MB    disk2s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                526.6 MB   disk2s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      1.1 GB     disk2s4
   5:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            11.0 GB    disk2s5

diskutil cs list :

CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
|
+-- Logical Volume Group 1C402269-ED55-46B6-B2B3-2C83C455625C
    =========================================================
    Name:         BootOS
    Status:       Online
    Size:         62708625408 B (62.7 GB)
    Free Space:   18984960 B (19.0 MB)
    |
    +-< Physical Volume 8A71BD1E-3901-4573-8ABA-B635F6957E9B
    |   ----------------------------------------------------
    |   Index:    0
    |   Disk:     disk0s3
    |   Status:   Online
    |   Size:     62708625408 B (62.7 GB)
    |
    +-> Logical Volume Family CD18710F-BC90-4354-843B-C8B35B34274A
        ----------------------------------------------------------
        Encryption Type:         None
        |
        +-> Logical Volume 98445A01-48FA-4E17-8CDE-61C46B885B90
            ---------------------------------------------------
            Disk:                  disk1
            Status:                Online
            Size (Total):          62337318912 B (62.3 GB)
            Revertible:            Yes (no decryption required)
            LV Name:               BootOS
            Volume Name:           BootOS
            Content Hint:          Apple_HFS

Disk Utility.app in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder would be my recommendation. That's generally the easiest/safest way to make changes to partitions.


OS X 10.10.5 - root user suddenly activated As far as I know, the root-user is deactivated by default in OS X. And I remember trying the command "su" some time (a few weeks) ago and it stated something like "su: sorry" which it should state. I googled how to activate the root user and followed the steps, just to know it if it would be necessary, but DID NOT activate or change anything in the settings at that point.

Just for fun, I tried a few minutes ago and it DID let me login as root, i. e.:

➜  ~  su                                                               23:46:28
Password:
sh-3.2# ls -l

Does anyone have an idea why that change occured?

P.S.: The attempt a few weeks ago was under OS X 10.10.4, the attempt a few minutes ago was under OS X 10.10.5 - does anyone know if they changed that setting within this update?

EDIT: A few months ago, I just recall, there appeared a new user displayed as "Others..." at the login screen when booting up. It is still here, but I didn't do anything about this user. In the system preferences it just states the 3 users (my user, backup with admin rights (called "test") and guest) I created, but in the terminal it states:

➜  /Users  ls -lah                                                     00:13:41
total 0
drwxr-xr-x   7 root   admin    238B 17 Okt  2014 .
drwxr-xr-x  35 root   wheel    1,2K 11 Jul 15:19 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 root   wheel      0B 10 Sep  2014 .localized
drwxr-xr-x+ 11 Guest  _guest   374B 25 Sep  2013 Guest
drwxr-xr-x+ 64 MyName staff    2,1K 30 Aug 00:13 MyName
drwxrwxrwt   9 root   wheel    306B 16 Aug 22:30 Shared
drwxr-xr-x+ 12 test   staff    408B  6 Aug 14:54 test

What is this "shared" user? This will probably correspond to the user "Others..." displayed at the login screen. That's the content of "Shared":

➜  Shared  ls -al                                                      00:23:57
total 16
drwxrwxrwt  9 root  wheel   306 16 Aug 22:30 .
drwxr-xr-x  7 root  admin   238 17 Okt  2014 ..
-rw-r--r--@ 1 MyName wheel  6148 16 Aug 22:30 .DS_Store
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel     0 10 Sep  2014 .localized
drwxrwxrwx  4 MyName wheel   136 27 Jun  2014 Battle.net
drwxrwxrwx  5 MyName wheel   170 25 Apr 12:22 Blizzard
drwxrwxrwx  3 MyName wheel   102 11 Sep  2014 Latexian
drwxrwxrwx@ 6 MyName wheel   204 27 Okt  2013 SC Info
drwxrwxrwx@ 2 MyName wheel    68 25 Sep  2013 adi

EDIT: Just looked it up and found that root is indeed activated. I think i will deactivate it again. But why did it even change?

EDIT: Just deactivated root. Responds "su: sorry" as desired when trying to login as root in the terminal and furthermore the "Others..." user at the login screen disappeared. Still clueless why and how root got activated.

The "Shared" folder is - depending on your system - automatically created or created by the system after establishing a second user account on your Mac (in your case probably the test user). Its purpose is the sharing of files between several user accounts.

Those files (and folders) may be personal data, Application Support files for all users or registration/licensing data.

Therefore the read and write bits are set for all users (BTW t is a sticky bit):

drwxrwxrwt   9 root   wheel    306B 16 Aug 22:30 Shared

The user folder of the root account is /var/root and contains the same default folders as a normal account.

After enabling the root user, the "new" user "Others" will be displayed in the login screen. This was done a "few months ago" as mentioned in your first EDIT section. There is no relation to the Update 10.10.5. You probably have done it yourself in the past or someone else who has admin access to your Mac.

The reason to be able to use your standard password with su is the identity of your password and the root password. If you change the password for root, you would have to enter this instead. If you then would like to su your admin user without knowing the root password, you would have to enter sudo su and your admin's password.


"iPhoto cannot be opened because of a problem" I got hit with the iTunes update breaking everything in Yosemite. I repaired Safari by deleting MobileDevice.Framework, but iPhoto still won't open. Any thoughts?

(I'm not ready to migrate to photos)

UPDATE

they /just/ pushed an iTunes update that patched it. DERP. Fixed

Based on the error message, it sounds like MobileDevice.Framework is necessary for iPhoto (probably because of its ability to pull photos from a mobile device.) I'm inclined to believe that since it's crashing at launch, this library needs to be loaded at start time. While it might be possible to maintain two different versions in a separate location, figuring out how to point each application to the right version really doesn't seem like the best idea to me. My recommendation would be one of the following:

Update macOS and...

Switch to Photos (IMO it's actually much better than iPhoto.)
Continue to use iPhoto. Though it won't launch normally, if you right click it, hit "Show Package Contents" and navigate to Contents/MacOS/iPhoto and double click, it should launch.

Downgrade iTunes and restore your library from a backup (either Time Machine/whatever backup service you use, or the automatic backups iTunes creates when upgrading) or simply reimport your music.
Wait and see if Apple releases a new version of iTunes without this issue.


Open new Terminal in same SSH session Is there a way to open a new Terminal in an existing SSH session?  I am logged into a remote system and have a special session that I have to request and wait to receive.  I know I can then use the "xterm &" command to open multiple xterm windows within that session, but xterm behaves differently from OSX's built-in Terminal.  Is there a way to open multiple Terminal windows within the existing SSH session?

Yes, you can reuse exiting ssh connection and open ssh in whatever terminal you like. See this answer to a StackOverflow question for details:

  If you open the first connection with -M:

ssh -M $REMOTEHOST

  subsequent connections to $REMOTEHOST will "piggyback" on the
  connection established by the master ssh. Most noticeably, further
  authentication is not required. See man ssh_config under
  "ControlMaster" for more details. Use -S to specify the path to the
  shared socket; I'm not sure what the default is, because I configure
  connection sharing using the configuration file instead.

  In my .ssh/config file, I have the following lines:

host *
  ControlMaster auto
  ControlPath ~/.ssh/ssh_mux_%h_%p_%r

  This way, I don't have to remember to use -M or -S; ssh figures out if
  a sharable connection already exists for the host/port/username
  combination and uses that if possible.


how do I retrieve my photos that are stored for the last five years while I was with iPhone now that I'm using Android I was with iPhone for over 5 years and stored all of my photos in iCloud now that I have switched to an Android mobile I have lost access to my iPhone pictures is there any way for me to retrieve my photos from the iCloud so that I can view them on my Android? And I need to be able to do this without using a PC because I do not have access to one.

Download photos from iCloud using a smartphone
Assuming you have not the possibility to access a Computer, and the only way of browsing the Internet is using your phone running Android, you may want to follow these few steps:

Open your Internet browser, and visit the iCloud website.

Sign in with your AppleID (the one you used in your previous iPhone)

Tap the Photos App in the Home screen that will appear

Select the photos left in your iCloud Photo Library and then tap on download


Turn off "Approve with Apple Watch" macOS security alerts Using macOS 11 Big Sur, many items that used to require my user password now annoyingly buzz my wrist.
I can still type my password, but now I have to first press "Use Password..." in the alert.
How can I disable this Apple Watch feature and make password entry the default method?
I do not want to disable unlocking the Mac itself from the login screen. There, I want to continue to use my Apple Watch.

System Preferences is trying to unlock the Software Update preferences.
Approve with Apple Watch or enter your password to allow this.
Use Password...

On the Apple Watch the prompt is:

Double Click to Approve

Go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General. Then disable the checkbox in the image below:


Finally upgraded my Mac, now I can't install security update I finally upgraded from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion (I didn't trust my older iMac (iMac11,3) to run the newest OS X) but now I can't install an important security update, the Security Update 2015-006 1.0.

I'm totally at a loss. I even booted up into the recovery mode, repaired all disk/permissions (didn't see anything serious anyway) and then re-installed Mountain Lion all over again. I'm still getting an error when I try to install it though.

It downloads just fine, and gets to the end of the install process after rebooting, but just gives an "unexpected error."

How can I fix this?

EDIT:
I tried downloading and installing the standalone update, but it didn't work either. Here are (what I understand to be) the output logs from the end of the installation process, when it fails:

Oct  6 05:16:42 homebase-iMac.local com.apple.kextd[12]: kextcache error while updating / (error count: 28)
Oct  6 05:16:43 homebase-iMac.local mds[761]: (Normal) ImportServer: Software update complete
Oct  6 05:16:43 homebase-iMac.local com.apple.SecurityServer[15]: Succeeded authorizing right 'com.apple.ServiceManagement.daemons.modify' by client '/usr/libexec/UserEventAgent' [11] for authorization created by '/usr/libexec/UserEventAgent' [11] (100012,0)
Oct  6 05:16:44 homebase-iMac.local Installer[928]: CoreAnimation: warning, deleted thread with uncommitted CATransaction; set CA_DEBUG_TRANSACTIONS=1 in environment to log backtraces.
Oct  6 05:16:44 homebase-iMac.local Installer[928]: The Installer encountered an error that caused the installation to fail. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance.
Oct  6 05:16:48 homebase-iMac.local com.apple.kextd[12]: /: kextcache has had enough tries; not launching any more

Thank you, klanomath for the suggestion, I wasn't aware of Safe Mode. Unfortunately, I cannot speak to whether or not this would have fixed the issue. This is because I tried this solution before you posted, and it worked.

I'm not very adept at debugging, but I was glad this method finally helped me get everything squared away.


Copy photos off iPhone without iPhoto? I have a Mac that doesn't have iPhoto installed on it, which I use for syncing with my iPhone. Is there any way I can copy images from my phone to my Mac (other than email) without purchasing a copy of iPhoto?

Use Image Capture. You'll find it in your Applications folder. It's surprisingly robust, and it's made by Apple.


Keyboard button backtick/tilde become section symbol after replacement I have a MacBook Pro (mid-2012) with a US keyboard layout, but after a keyboard replacement I noticed my backtick/tilde key is now a section § symbol.

After some googling, I found the Karabiner app. Yes it can remap the button but I felt that my OS (Sierra) became very slow, and I don’t want to rely on an app just for remap a single key.

Has anyone experienced this issue before? I think maybe the technician installed a different kind of keyboard (maybe a UK one) instead of US.

Note: I’ve called the service center and they will get back to me next week.

for me it was a matter of configuring the keyboard through Settings -> Keyboard and then "recognising" again "unrecognised keyboard" (i.e., my plain keyboard which was plugged in all the time) and then setting its type to US (ANSI) instead of European (ISO).


Adding contact on iPhone adds it to Exchange but not iCloud On my iPhone running iOS6, I have the following accounts configured:

iCloud - Contacts, Reminders, Safari, Passbook, and Find my iPhone
Exchange (my work email) - Mail, Contacts, Calendars, and Reminders
Gmail - Mail and Calendars

I would like to keep my personal contacts (in iCloud) completely separate from my work contacts (in Exchange).

When I add a contact directly on my iPhone, it immediately shows up in Outlook but does not exist in my iCloud contacts (verify by looking in iCloud.com or Contacts app on my Mac).

I would like it so when I add a contact on my iPhone it gets added to my iCloud contacts, not my Exchange contacts.

Is this possible?

Yes, it is possible.

Set the default account for Contacts to iCloud. That will add new contacts to iCloud.

To do this

Tap Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars
Scroll to Contacts, about 2/3rds down the page.
Tap Default Account and then choose iCloud.


Automatically hide latex aux files in finder (files with a certain extension) I'm a LaTeX user in OSX. I use TexShop primarily. LaTeX automatically creates lots of helper files with various different extensions (.log, .nav, .aux, .out, etc).

It's almost never necessary to view these, so they add a ton of clutter to the finder folders. Does anyone have a good way of automatically hiding these files in the finder? Specifically, I want to hide all of the files with those extensions automatically. They are created every time I compile, so I need a way either for the finder to ignore them (in the way the windows explorer can treat certain extensions as hidden by default) or for the hidden flag to be set automatically upon creation.

I could actually do this globally if necessary, as my workflow rarely ever gives me cause to invoke or manipulate .log files from the finder. The ideal situation would be to do it only for the folders and sub-folders I use for writing.

Hiding all files isn’t implemented on a system level: make a certain file type hidden

Hiding files one by one is trivial:

 chflags hidden /path/to/*\.aux

I haven't seen a way to implement all the logic required to do what you ask, but I have seen people make up smart folders to show only specific files in a folder that match the good extensions. If your list of places where you want to filter is small, that effort will be less than scripting the hide tool you need.

Have you ruled out configuring latex to put all auxiliary files in a hidden subdirectory/folder that you name with a dot like .tmp? This is shown here for pdflatex -output-directory=\.tmp

Alternatively, you could use a make tool like rubber or latexmk to either run your custom hide script or even discard those files when you compile successfully. You’d only then need to mark in some way what folders get the hidden treatment.


How do I deploy a custom app to my iPhone? I'm taking a mobile phone app development class, and will be making custom apps using Xcode.  I'm able to run the app from Xcode on my iPhone 4 no problem, however when I disconnect the phone from the Mac, I'm unable to run the program anymore.  I'm wondering how install the app so that I can run it.

You are required to possess the $99/yr developer account with Apple. Without it, you'll lack the sufficient certificates to have the app permanently installed on your device.


How to use Telnet with Personal Hotspot (tethering)? I got the Personal Hotspot working great, with both USB and WiFi (on different computers/devices).

However, I am not able to ping or telnet the other computer. Both computers can ping the iPhone (default gateway). I found the other computers IP through ifconfig and ipconfig.

Is there a limitation on what kind of traffic can go through a Personal Hotspot? Where can I find support or documentation? (I searched Google and Apple support). Are there any settings or configuration files?

Is there another solution, such as using my own WiFi or wired router for local traffic and the iPhone for internet?

Using version 4.3.3.

Thanks.

OK, I found one solution that works great.

Since the connection between the computers was originally wired with a router, I plugged them both into the router.

Then I removed the default gateway settings from the wired connection. This prevents them from going to the internet via the wired connection.

But, they are both connected to iPhone by wireless or USB (a separate wired connection), so they go to the internet through iPhone. The first time it takes the computer about 10 seconds to figure this out.

The caveat is that you need 2 interfaces for each device and a way to connect separate from iPhone.


Outlook Identity is too large - help! I am an 'email packrat' I suppose, since I have emails from several years that I keep.  That, combined with me trying to sync my outlook calendar with the my work Exchange calendar, and my identity file is HUGE. For many events in my calendar there are 50-100 instances of the same appointment or birthday.

Is there a way to downsize my identity file, or make my current one something like .old and start fresh with a new one?

Before deciding to split the database / identity, have you tried just rebuilding it?

I believe Outlook never really deletes things, just marks them as deleted until you run maintenance on the database files that outlook uses inside your identity folder.

Fire up the Microsoft Database Utility (search using spotlight or find it in the Office folder), select the identity and press the rebuild button.


Terminal not working, resource unavailable I had a terminal session open and after I woke my laptop up I cannot use the terminal nor create new sessions.

The error I get on the opened session is:

-bash: fork: Resource temporary unavailable

The error when trying to open new terminal:

[forkpty: Resource temporary unavailable]
[Could not create a new process and open a pseudo-tty.]

Looking deeper, I was able to open the Activity Monitor and I found that there was a very large number (thousands) of processes linked to the same application, VShildScanner. From here, I wasn't able to kill those processes.

I tried to restart or shutdown the system, since I wasn't able to do anything else, but those also failed. I was only able to power cycle.

My thought was to run a killall from the terminal but I can not get a functioning shell / terminal window once the system is blocked.

Are there better ways to handle such a situation when processes grow out of proportions?

Your machine definately has too many processes running which is the typical reason for that error message and aligns with Activity monitor. Since you can't restart or shut down, I would have only the following:

quit any / all apps you can and very quickly get a new terminal / shell running. There's small chance you will get a process before the runaway one uses up any freed resources, but you might get lucky: you only need one fork/exec/thread to get a shell.

If not, you will likely need to try escalating steps like log out of the user session and then back in. (or restart or shut down or pulling the power or holding the power button to disrupt all power and hard halt the machine.)

Maybe sshd is running and you could attempt that or Remote Desktop to connect as a second user if you have both screen sharing and another account set up. Again, it's not likely the system stat will allow new processes, but it's worth trying.

Sorry the  VShildScanner process is misbehaving. This is a case where the "virus software" is worse than the protection it offers.

https://community.mcafee.com/t5/Mac-and-Linux-Products/Multiple-VShieldScanner-processes/td-p/508106


Selective message notifications Can you turn off all notifications (text, email, phone, etc) but a selective few senders at night?  I am on call after hours and the work computer sends out a text message. That is all I want to hear.

The Do not disturb tool of the iPhone may provide what you are asking.

If you turn Do not disturb you'll be able to receive only the call from Favourite list of contacts. The only problem is that this service doesn't work for messages and therefore if you need to receive only message from a particular number, what I'm suggesting doesn't work for you.


Dual Monitor Setup with Mac Mini (2014) Screen Blinking I have a Mac Mini from Late 2014 (2,6 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5, 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3). I want to use two monitors with it - the two Monitors are identical BenQ GW2283. I managed to get both monitors running yesterday evening, but when I woke the system from sleep this morning, the problem was back again.
One Monitor is connected directly via HDMI. The other one is connected via Mini DisplayPort to HDMI. The monitors came with VGA connectors so I bought the HDMI cables and the Mini DisplayPort. As soon as two monitors are connected, the one that was first connected starts flashing, fading to black and shortly showing the system, then fading out again. I made a little video of this happening. The system does detect the second monitor, because I can move my cursor offscreen. The other monitor then prompts "no cable connected". This Problem seems to be related to order. Whatever monitor currently works will start flashing once I plugin the second one. It doesn't seem to matter whether I plugin the DisplayPort or the HDMI first.
I have tried resetting the NVRAM but that didn't have any effect. I hope to get some ideas or maybe even the answer to my problem from someone here, before I rush out and throw money at the problem by buying all sorts of other adapters.

I believe it to be a bug: it's a widely reported problem on a variety of Minis using HDMI, and I've certainly encountered it on my 2018 Mini.
A 'quality' HDMI cable may improve things. Turning off the 2nd display and turning it back on again may also make it snap out of it.
You don't say what OS you're running, but I would make sure that you keep up to date with OS updates, in case a fix is released. I believe that Big Sur 11.4 is expected imminently...


What does "Initialize" mean? I have just connected my micro-SD card to my Mac, this just shows up The micro-sd card is used as the storage of my dashcam. It works fine before. But today when I connected it to my Mac, as usual, there is a popup saying:

It seems my sd-card has broken. But what does "Initialize..." meaning? If I click it, what would happen?

Will I lose all my data?

Thanks,

'Initialize' means 'Format'

The ellipsis …  following it is standard 'computer speak' for "this won't happen before you see some more options."

So, for whatever reason, your computer cannot read the existing format on the card & wants to attempt to erase & start afresh. That would lose all data already on the card.

Re-test it in your dashcam, but be prepared to bin it & buy a new one. They're really fragile structures & easily fail. You could try data recovery software if the data is valuable.

It would also be worth removing & reinserting the card & rebooting the Mac, just in case it was a one-off glitch, dirty contacts, etc.


My Mac's hostname keeps adding a "-2" to the end If my Mac's computer name (in the Sharing prefs) is "Node" normally, once in a while when using the Terminal, I can see it's magically changed itself:

Node-2:~ $

For some reason it thinks its own name is taken and adds "-2" to the end. I have to go into the Sharings prefs and change it back. Why would this be happening and how do I stop it?

This is a known bug with the discoveryd process on 10.10 Yosemite. Recent rumors is that it will be replaced by its predecessor, mDNSresponder, come 10.10.4 to help alleviate network issues. Although the actual cause is unknown, it has been said that it is related (at least in part) to improper name resolution in DNS when the computer wakes from sleep. It sees itself as a duplicate on the network, and as such it appends the suffix to the title.

While there are some "fixes" YMMV - It's probably best to just keep renaming it the way you do, and then wait for the next release of OSX to come out and fix it so you don't sacrifice any functionality like Wake on LAN.

Source


Internet not connected after sleep wake even though wifi is connected after awake OS X EI Captain (version 10.11.5).
This issues is consistent, whenever Mac awakes from sleep, My internet is disconnected. I tried the following options,

Turn off wifi and turn back on.
Restart network service by sudo ifconfig em0 down and up.Basically restarting network services.
Network settings to renew DHCP address, Prioritizing the wifi in service order.

I was having the same issue on one of my machines running both macOS Catalina and Big Sur. Tried forgetting the network and joining again, doing an SMC reset, and a few other solutions with no luck.
I was finally able to find a fix for it today (also posted it here https://alihaghani.me/blog/fix-mac-not-having-internet-access-on-wake):

Go to System Preference → Network
Select 'Advanced...' in the bottom right corner
Go to the TCP/IP tab
Enter 'ConnecMac' in the DHCP Client ID field
Select 'Renew DHCP Lease' above the field
Press OK
In the System Preferences → Network, select the Location dropdown
Select 'Edit Locations...'
Select the plus sign to add a new location
Enter 'Home' as its name


UE Boom 2 stutters with MacBook Pro when using browser My UE Boom 2 stutters when using it with a web browser on my MacBook Pro with macOS Sierra. I can play Spotify fine if I just have it up front but if I push it to the background and try to browse the web, it starts stuttering. I can't play anything from the web either since it stutters from the start. My iPhone plays on the bluetooth speaker just fine but it's my MacBook that's having the problem. Has anyone else had this issue?

Go to a store and buy USB bluetooth dongle (I bought the smallest I could find for $8). Plug it in and MacBook automatically shuts down onboard Bluetooth and uses the new USB. After that the music plays perfectly without any stutters at all!


Can't record screen on Yosemite with quickTime Player I'm trying to do a screen recording, but I'm having issues with quickTime player. Every time I press the record button and then click on my screen to record, it starts recording for a second and then results in the message:

QuickTime Player quit unexpectedly.
Click Reopen to open the application again. Click Report to see more detailed information and send a report to Apple.

As you can see here:

Any help would be appreciated.

Try repairing the disk permissions. Go to Disk Utility, select your HD and then click Repair and select Repair Disk Permissions. Hopefully, this will solve your problem. Allot around twenty minutes for the process.


How to copy a file and replace (if necessary) in the target directory from terminal If I'm on my Desktop and I have a file called 'test.txt' on there, and I want to copy that file to say '~/Library/Folder 1/Folder 2/' how do I do that? Also, if there's already a file there called 'test.txt' I'd like to replace that file.

I've tried running

cp -R ./test.txt ~/Library/Folder 1/Folder 2/

but that didn't do the trick.

First things first, -R is used for recursive copying, which won't do anything for a single file.

cp default behavior is to overwrite the existing file.

cp test.txt ~/Library/Folder\ 1/Folder\ 2/

The backslash is used to stop the string being split on the spaces.


Are there USB-A to USB-C adapters for the Early 2015 MacBook Apple announced a new 12" MacBook. The only port other than a headphone jack is USB-C. Since it is new technology I do not have any USB-C memory sticks.

What adapters will let older USB sticks work with this port and Mac?

Simple answer - yes.

Apple has also announced an USB-C to USB connector for £15 in the UK store or $19 in the US store.

USB-C to USB (UK Store)
USB-C to USB (US Store)

It too isn't shipping yet, so it's hard to know if this is a custom chip and design or any old "connect the wires" adapter will do the trick. However, my guess is that it's just a simple adapter and there's no licensing like the lightning port requires/allows.

The specifications are that the port is just USB 3.1 Gen 1 which means that pretty much any USB-A device in existance will interoperate with the new MacBook.


Using an iMac as external monitor for my mid 2009 13'' MacBook Pro Here's my MacBook:
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/specs/macbook-pro-core-2-duo-2.53-aluminum-13-mid-2009-sd-firewire-800-unibody-specs.html

Here's the iMac:
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/specs/imac-core-i5-3.2-27-inch-aluminum-late-2012-specs.html

Basically, my MBP has one Mini DisplayPort and the iMac has multiple thunderbolt ports. These two are the same shape.

Is there an adapter or chord I can use to connect these two so that my MacBook uses the iMac as a secondary monitor?

As far as I'm aware, you can't run Target Display Mode from Mini DisplayPort to Thunderbolt; only like to like or Thunderbolt to Mini-DP.

See http://support.apple.com/kb/PH14264


How do I batch convert a bunch of pngs or other images into a single PDF on Mavericks? I took a bunch of screenshots and I want to make them pages in a single PDF. Selecting all four in Preview and exporting to PDF only exports two (?), separately. The "Export to PDF" File menu function adds a strange white border around the screenshots (and orients the page as portrait). So I converted each to PDFs individually and then combined them manually. I tried the solutions here, but Mavericks' Preview doesn't appear to work that way anymore. What's the best, free, hopefully built-in way to automate this?

You can use the convert command if you install ImageMagick. ImageMagick isn't always a simple install, but if you install Xcode and Homebrew it should be fairly painless.

convert *.png foobar.pdf

http://www.imagemagick.org/script/convert.php


Safari update message on my Mac, why is it there for four days? When I click on Safari I get message telling me:

  "Safari is being updated... Safari can not be opened while it is being updated"

When will updating Safari be finished on my computer? I need to use it and it has been updating for four days now. What do I do now to use Safari?

This will work with any stuck update from the app store, btw, just change the names of the stuff to delete.

First thing to try: clear the app store updates folder at Macintosh HD/Library/Updates

Second thing to try: Open Terminal (Applications > Utilities > Terminal) and paste this: open $TMPDIR../C and in there, delete anything that has the name com.apple.appstore then do the same in Terminal with this command: open $TMPDIR../T

Third thing to try: Open Disk Utility (Same place as Terminal), select your hard drive and run Fix Permissions.

One of those should do it.


Does USB-C charge your device (laptop/phone) while connected to a plugged-in display? Given that the new Macbook has only one USB-C port, can you indefinitely run your laptop while connected to a TV?

Let's say a TV run on electricity from a wall power outlet. You connect your macbook to it and play a video from your macbook to be displayed on the TV.

Does USB-C keep your macbook charged while connected to a device that has its own power source? Or will I need to disconnect the macbook from the TV, charge for a while, and then connect it back to the TV once the macbook gets charged enough?

What about if the macbook is connected to a display that run on battery power? Will the macbook charge the display (e.g. tablet),  the tablet charge the macbook, or be power-neutral?

If you want to run a TV or external display from a MacBook, you need an adaptor. And the Apple USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adaptor has HDMI, USB and USB-C ports, so you can connect the MacBook's power adaptor to the USB-C port while you use the HDMI port to drive the external display. The external display won't power the MacBook itself.


How to reduce the RAM usage by run_kernel in MACBook pro run_kernel is using upto 1gb of ram in macbook pro.Please help

run_kernel appears to be associated with OpenCL and thus linked to work being performed by the graphics card in your MacBook Pro.

Consider switching between graphics cards and seeing if that helps.

Without more information, it is difficult to assist. A process using 1GB RAM is not in itself likely to be the cause of problems. Your MacBook Pro is likely 64-bit and is designed to work with much larger volumes of memory.

If you are running OS X 10.9 or later, try watching the Activity Monitor's Memory information. Do you see large, gigabyte or more, values for Swap or Compressed memory? What value do you see for Wired Memory?


How Can I Copy a Video to iPhone and Send It Over iMessage? I'm trying to send to video I made with my previous Windows Phone over iMessage, but after syncing it to my phone with iTunes, it shows up as a movie.

I can't select it from the messaging app, because I can only select items from Pictures > Video.

How can I get it to show up in there?

Video details:

Format                         : MPEG-4
Format profile                 : Base Media / Version 2
Codec ID                       : mp42
File size                      : 22.3 MiB
Duration                       : 17s 740ms
Overall bit rate               : 10.6 Mbps

Video
ID                             : 1
Format                         : AVC
Format/Info                    : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                 : Main@L3.1
Format settings, CABAC         : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames      : 1 frame
Codec ID                       : avc1
Codec ID/Info                  : Advanced Video Coding
Duration                       : 17s 740ms
Source duration                : 17s 773ms
Bit rate mode                  : Variable
Bit rate                       : 10.4 Mbps
Width                          : 1 280 pixels
Height                         : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio           : 16:9
Frame rate mode                : Variable
Frame rate                     : 29.821 fps
Minimum frame rate             : 6.944 fps
Maximum frame rate             : 30.364 fps
Color space                    : YUV
Chroma subsampling             : 4:2:0
Bit depth                      : 8 bits
Scan type                      : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)             : 0.380
Stream size                    : 22.1 MiB (99%)
Source stream size             : 22.1 MiB (99%)
mdhd_Duration                  : 17770

Audio
ID                             : 2
Format                         : AAC
Format/Info                    : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile                 : LC
Codec ID                       : 40
Duration                       : 17s 740ms
Source duration                : 17s 740ms
Bit rate mode                  : Constant
Bit rate                       : 96.0 Kbps
Channel count                  : 1 channel
Channel positions              : Front: C
Sampling rate                  : 44.1 KHz
Compression mode               : Lossy
Stream size                    : 214 KiB (1%)
Source stream size             : 214 KiB (1%)
mdhd_Duration                  : 17740

Because the video was only 22MB I was able to use Gmail to send it to myself (where it strangely became 30MB).

After opening the attachment from the email app, it began to play, but I noticed it had the sharing icon so I was able to send it over iMessage from there.

However, I would still like a general solution for larger files.


Mac Terminal - Rename Keeping Last 6 Characters I'm using the built in Terminal, and I am totally new to this coding so I will need to know exactly what to type when I open the Terminal. Also, please don't direct me to any other software. So lets say...

I have a folder named "Power" on my Desktop (without the quotation marks around it of course).
In that folder there are multiple .tif files named like the following:

Washington,George-150987.tif
Lincoln,Abraham-755103.tif
Smith,Jack & Jill-102347.tif
Jones-Newman,Martha & John Newman-137881.tif

These names have one thing in common. They all have a 6 digit number before the extension, and always will.
I want a way to batch rename a large group of these files keeping just the last 6 digits. Hell, if there's a code that could rename keeping just numbers, that would be THE BEST, because in rare occasions, there might be a

Smith,Jane-108965(mrs).tif

But if there is no code for that, that's fine, I can use another software to get rid of that (mrs) in a second.

Make a backup of the files first!

Then open Terminal (, start a bash shell if you are not using the default shell) and run

cd ~/Desktop/Power
\ls | while IFS= read f; do echo mv -vn "$f" "${f/*-/}"; done

This will not rename anything but just show how each file will get renamed. If the output looks ok, run

\ls | while IFS= read f; do mv -vn "$f" "${f/*-/}"; done

PS: This assumes that the only - in the file names is the one right before the number.

Some explanations about what's going on here:

\ls lists all files, the \ ensures that no alias expansion takes place. The output is fed into a pipe but we do not need to worry about multi-column output because ls in these cases automatically assumes -1
while ... do; ...; done loops over all lines/files
IFS= read f reads a file name from standard input into $f. The IFS= ensures that none of the characters on standard input confuses read into expecting two values instead of one (technically this is probably not required here, but it's good practice anyway)
${f/*-/} does string substitution on the value of $f, in this case replacing everything up to and including the - with the empty string. See man bash (Parameter Expansion) for details.


Will an iPhone/iPod Touch charge faster when connected to USB 3.0? I'm considering charging a bunch of my iPod Touches with a USB 3.0 PCI add-in card.

In my research, I've found that USB provides 5 volts per device.

The differences come in charging speed. The more amperage, the faster a device charges.

USB provides "Unit Loads" of amperage for each device based on need.

USB 2.0 provides 100 milliamps per Unit Load, with a maximum of 5 unit loads per device.
USB 3.0 provides 150 milliamps per Unit Load, with a maximum of 6 unit loads per device.

When a device is connected, it draws 1 Unit load until it asks for a higher amount based on need.  That means a device can draw maximum 500 milliamps (or 0.5 amps) from USB 2.0 and 900 milliamps (0.9 amps) from usb 3.0.

The Apple wall charger for iPhones provides 1 amp (1000 milliamps).

Does that mean that an iPhone or iPod Touch plugged in to a USB 3.0 port will charge nearly as fast as one plugged in to Apple's AC plug?

I have tested an iPhone 5, and on my system it charges from a USB 3.0 port at the same rate as a 500 mA USB 2.0 port. As you would expect, the included 1 A wall charger is about twice as fast.


Inconvenient "read-only" finder mode It's always bothered me that certain directories on OS X will open like this:

And others will open like this:

To my understanding this has to do with the permissions of the directory in question, but I was wondering if anyone knew of a way to have all directories open complete with the favorites bar and horizontal toolbar items, independent of write-ability.

I ask this because I used to (up until my most recent format) be able to double click on "Macintosh HD" and then navigate anywhere, either from root or from the sidebar shortcuts. For whatever reason Macintosh HD has been opening in restricted view as of my latest install.

The properties for any Finder window are stored in the .DS_Store file located at the root of the directory. It should have nothing to do with the permissions of the file, unless the active user account is not a member of the wheel group (very unlikely).

You should be able to change the view configuration of the Macintosh HD window and have those settings stick. If not, there is the chance that the .DS_Store file has become corrupt somehow; deleting the file and letting it rebuild should solve the problem. In Terminal:

sudo rm /.DS_Store

Re-open the window and set the view to your liking.


Is there an application like Connectify for Mac OS X Lion? There is a well known app for Windows named: Connectify, used to share a wifi connection between a computer that only has wifi with other devices which requests that connection from the computer.

What's the best alternative for this app on Mac OS X Lion?

You don't need to use a separate application. You can share wi-fi without any app. Go to System Preferences>Sharing>Internet Sharing:

You will be prompted to enter a network name and a password (if you choose to).
It does also require you to have a hard-wired Internet connection.
(If you are wondering why my sharing checkbox is greyed out, it's because I don't have a hard-wired connection)

You can also click on the Airport icon in the menu bar and then click "Create Network..."


MacBook Pro not booting off OS X Mavericks USB Drive I'm trying to do a clean install of OS X Mavericks 10.9.1 from a USB drive on my new MacBook Pro 15" Retina (late 2013 model). Here are my steps:

Turn off the Mac
Hold Option
Turn on the Mac
Select the USB drive (orange icon), not the Recovery Partition
The dreaded "international no" sign appears

I've repeated these steps with another USB drive with the same unfortunate result.

The USB drives aren't the problem. I've repeated these steps on my iMac 21.5" (late 2011 model) and MacBook Air 11" (late 2013 model) and both USB drives boot up fine.

Any idea how to get this working with my MacBook Pro?

P.S. If it matters, here's how I made the USB drive.

Edit: 10.9.2 works great!

You can't use the Mac App Store build of 10.9.1 on Late 2013 Retina MacBook Pro's. That's why there is a separate 10.9.1 update for only those machines. You need to use Internet Recovery (Command-Option-R on boot) to install 10.9.1 and not the App Store version. The build number is 13B3109 for the Late 2013 rMBP while it's 13B43 for the App Store version. You can make a USB flash drive of the correct build but you need need to boot with Internet Recovery, start the install on a partition and when it restarts to finish the install you hold the option key down and boot from another partition with an already installed correct build (13B3109) and in a hidden directory on the partition you chose to install, there is an InstallESD.dmg you can then copy and use to create a USB flash installer for that build.

Now that 10.9.2 is released, the Mac App Store build will work on the Late 2013 rMBP as well as all the other Macs with the possible exception of the new Mac Pro.


How much Safari history is kept on iPad? How many Safari history entries are kept on iPads until automatically deleted?
(Not sure if this depends on iPad model or version of iOS…)

On iOS 5 (and maybe 6), the limit is a strict 1 week.
On iOS 7 and later, the limit is around 1 week depending on iCloud sync status.

It is currently not possible to increase this limit for Safari:

Infinite Safari history on iPad?


How to get a password hash through terminal in Recovery Mode? Is it possible to extract a user’s password hash through the terminal in Recovery Mode?

You didn't specify a special macOS version but at least in Sierra it can be done by:

open Terminal.app in the menubar > Utilities
get the name of the main system volume with diskutil list (e.g. Macintosh HD)
enter in Terminal:

defaults read /Volumes/<volume_name>/var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users/<user_name>.plist ShadowHashData|tr -dc 0-9a-f|/Volumes/<volume_name>/usr/bin/xxd -r -p|/Volumes/<volume_name>/usr/bin/plutil -convert xml1 - -o -

Example (with the main system volume name Macintosh HD and the user name user272783):

defaults read /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users/user272783.plist ShadowHashData|tr -dc 0-9a-f|/Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/usr/bin/xxd -r -p|/Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/usr/bin/plutil -convert xml1 - -o -

If you specify a file name and choose a r/w volume as destination drive, you can write the file to a volume (... -o /Volumes/FlashDrive/user272783.plist)

Please check: What type of hash are a Mac's password stored in?


Safari extension or other means of automatically removing overlay dialogs on web pages? There's a recent trend in website design in which a site presents the viewer with a full-page overlay containing a "sign up for our newsletter" or similar dialog. The actual page content is covered with a translucent overlay to bring visual focus on the dialog, and to get to the actual content, you either have to fill in the dialog, or find and click a checkbox to dismiss it.  Here is an example chosen at random:

I personally find this design pattern obnoxious and intrusive, and apparently I'm not the only one who does. Neither Adblock nor Adblock Plus remove them (at least for me).

Someone created an extension for Google Chrome that helps deal with these things. Is there something similar for Safari? Ideally, I would like an extension that would automatically detect such overlays and hide them. However, I would equally be happy to find an AppleScript or other means of automating the dismissal of these overlays.

Preemptive comment #1: Some people may think that clicking the "x" to dismiss the overlay shouldn't be a big deal. I respectfully disagree. I'm a heavy keyboard user and having to move my hand off the keyboard to a pointing device, to find and click a small "x", is mentally disruptive and wastes my time. (It's worth noting that the "x" is not in the same location on every overlay, forcing you to hunt around for it.)

Preemptive comment #2: Some people may object that hiding such overlays would take away ad revenue from the site owners. I have sympathy for efforts to pay one's bills, and am not trying to do hurt the site owners.  I am only looking for a way to stop these devices on a voluntary per-user basis, not for everyone on the site.

Have you tried Adblock Plus?

Blocks banners, pop-ups and video ads - even on Facebook and YouTube
Unobtrusive ads aren't being blocked in order to support websites (configurable)
It's free!


How to Erase Hard Drive Mac System (this partition can't be modified/unmount)? I want to erase a disk (Mac system) to resize OS X Mountain Lion to the max volume but I couldn't resize it nor unmount the other disk.

Turn off your computer and then turn it on again holding the "Option" key on your keyboard.

You'll be showed your boot options. You'll have to boot from a different disk than the one that you are trying to erase. Mac OS X won't erase the disk from which it is currently running.


90 degree down angled USB connector for iphone 4s Anyone know of supplier of such a cable?  I have very restricted space at rear of car headunit to fit the USB connector - hence I need a down angled USB plug with a 30 pin connectoe at other end.   Apple doe not seem to manufacture them.  I want to buy one that is supported by Apple- ie they cannot "disable" it because the manufacturer is not licenced.

Have you considered a 90 degree USB adapter instead of a specialized dock/30-pin cable?  I'm using this right angle adapter with my Alpine head unit and a 10' lightning cable and have no issues with my iPhone 6 or 7 plus.

Right angle USB 3.0 adapter

If you absolutely need it to come out of the head unit and straight down then you should be able to use one of these with similar results.

L Shape USB 3.0 adapter

The "accessory not supported" messages usually are a result of an aftermarket cable that isn't manufactured within the guidelines of the Apple MFi program.  This pertains more to the lightning or dock connector end rather than the USB connection end of the cable.  Because of that you should be able to use just about any USB adapter to meet your needs.

Hope that helps!


How to disable iMessage on a broken iPhone? How can I disable iMessage for a phone number if the iPhone it's attached to has been destroyed? My sister dropped her iPhone in the bath, so she is now using an older non-Apple phone. Whenever I send her a message, it gets sent as an iMessage (and even says "Delivered"), but her device never receives the message.

The only information I could find was this Apple knowledge base article which states the following:

  If you plan on transferring your SIM card or phone number from an iPhone to a device that does not support iMessage, turn off iMessage in Settings > Messages first. If you do not, other iOS devices may continue to try to send a message using iMessage first, instead only using SMS or MMS.

However, since this iPhone was destroyed, we can't get into the settings to unregister her phone number.

The simplest solution is to contact Apple Support (as this article makes clear) since they actually have engineers that can modify which devices and phone numbers are associated with your (or another's Apple ID).

  So, just contact Apple Support.


Problem with revealing a hidden folder I have a problem. I used command chflags hidden to hide a folder named !_TRANSCODE. Now I'm trying to undo this by typing chflags no hidden !_TRANSCODE and I get this error: -bash: !_TRANSCODE: event not found

Last login: Tue Nov 15 13:12:47 on ttys000
Marks-iMac:~ StefanCzapla$ cd /Volumes/THE_REASON_MASTER_1
Marks-iMac:THE_REASON_MASTER_1 StefanCzapla$ ls
!_TRANSCODE 03.02.16 Stock Footage
02.23.16                03.03.16                The Reason VFX.zip
02.24.16                03.04.16                test
02.25.16                03.05.16                vfx
02.26.16                1,001 Sound FX          voiceover
02.27.16                Music
03.01.16                Project
Marks-iMac:THE_REASON_MASTER_1 StefanCzapla$ chflags nohidden !_TRANSCODE
-bash: !_TRANSCODE: event not found
Marks-iMac:THE_REASON_MASTER_1 StefanCzapla$

Any help appreciated!

You should escape the !.

Try:

chflags nohidden \!_TRANSCODE

! is a special character to bash, it is used to refer to previous commands. A more extensive explanation can be found at: What is “-bash: !”: event not found"


How to solve stuttering after upgrade to Mountain Lion? After upgrading to Mountain Lion, audio playback in iTunes stutters, as well as video playback and other minor system hangs.

How can I solve this without a downgrade?

Is there confirmation of it being a ML bug?

There's a thread on this problem, still unsolved and the problem seems pervasive:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4149309?start=60

My specs: Early 2011 13" MacBook Pro i7 with 16GB of OWC RAM.

EDIT

CNET has made an article about the issue

I've solved my system wide stuttering with Mountain Lion by now (first sound only, mostly, then aggravated system wide).

Here's why: My MacBook Pro became unbootable from stock HDD.

I had a bootcamp partition, no luck when booting into Windows too, got stuck when booting, jusk like when booting into OS X (got stuck at apple sign with spinning wheel).

I've got a Ubuntu DVD and started a live session, SMART disk diagnostics: 258 bad blocks, imminent disk failure.

I half apologize Apple in this point, for blaming solely the OS for being just weird. The stuttering origins, in my case, wasn't solely about the OS.

I should have take notice since when first upgraded to Mountain Lion. With my stock HDD, everytime I tried to install OS X, I needed to reboot a few times and got negative time counter (WEIRD) for the remaining installation time.

So what confused me so much?

I booted into Windows bootcamp: no stuttering, booted into Mountain Lion: stuttering plus very slow OS.
OS X Disk Utility never helped or warned about the amount of bad blocks (doing PRAM/SMC resets, filesystem and permission repair never truly helped).
When using Lion and Snow Leopard, there was no such a slowness/stuttering as there was in Mountain Lion. Before ML, I never experienced "sound stuttering", only when upgrading to ML this started to happen. So I suspect ML may be more sensible to disk with bad blocks.

I think I had few bad blocks initially and it became aggravated over time, I don't know whether ML usage helped in the aggravation process. Truth is, it was like I'd forced the disk to became unbootable when I last used it with Mountain Lion. It was slow as aways but still usable, I'd got a miniDisplayPort/HDMI cable and thought it was time to try it. The machine became very sloooow when I tried to play some video while connected to my TV, after disconnecting, it just hang, so I forced shutdown and it never booted again.

I've just replaced the original Toshiba MK5065GSX 500GB 5400RPM (what a crap and I think it was failing when under warranty) with a new Seagate Momentus XT 750GB (SSD hybrid drive, 7200RPM).

MAN, NOW IT'S BLAZING FAST! (also now I see the benefit of my early OWC 16GB RAM upgrade)

Anyway, I bought a MacBook Pro in early 2011 and here's what I've learned about MacBooks:

First problem:
     MacBook Pro refuse to charge without any apparent reason, I thought it was some smart emergency battery calibration routine, no it was not. I've dumbly let the warranty end and didn't replaced this failing and VERY expensive MagSafe, needed to buy a new one. At some point the stock MagSafe stopped charging and didn't return to charge after some hours, as it was aways doing.

Second problem:
    Slowness in Lion (I bought Lion)
   Got RAM upgrade, no help (I bought 16GB RAM)
   Got ML upgrade, NO HELP, got stuttering (I bought ML)
   Died HDD (started dying around 1 year of usage)
    Got new better HDD (bought)

Third problem:
   Bad management of headphone jack makes sound speakers muted.
    Blame OS X, any other OS: sound speakers working when expected to work.
    Google for: Headphone jack red macbook
   I think I can't solve this

Fourth problem:
    I've spent a lot of more money

Given my experience, I have some concerns whether ML helps HDDs die.

Now it's blazing fast, no stuttering and I can't put a headphone. If a put one, sound speakers only return to be recognized at random afterwards.

I WILL NEVER BUY APPLE STUFF AGAIN

Maybe, only used and cheaper apple stuff for upgrades with my own choice of good hardware.

TIP: Aways check your disk healthy with serious tools


When connected to VPN using the built-in VPN service, is all my internet traffic routed through the VPN connection? I have configured a VPN service using only the built-in options from OS X. I have configured it as follows:

Interface: VPN
VPN Type: Cisco IPSec
Service name: ...

I don't have any settings under Advanced, so I have entered no DNS Servers, no Search Domains, and no Proxie Servers or Proxy Configuration file for any of the protocols.

When am I connected to this VPN, does all my traffic go through the VPN connection? In other words, if I am using a messenger, searching on Google, sending email or browse the web, can the provider of the VPN service see all my traffic?

Edit:

Here are the default entries in my routing table (output from netstat -r -n):

Routing tables

Internet:
Destination        Gateway            Flags        Refs      Use   Netif Expire
default            192.168.1.1        UGSc           10        0     en1
default            gway#5             UCSI            0        0   utun0

There are a whole bunch of IP-addresses that list specific gateways. I checked some of those IP-addresses, and they are related to the network that I use the VPN for.

Does the fact that the first default is my own modem/router mean that in fact not all internet traffic passes through the VPN?

Yup when using the VPN everything goes through your VPN.


Fresh install of iOS 6.0.1 apps constantly crash I just finished a fresh install, started installing apps and signing in again. Every time I login to an app it crashes within a few seconds. Going back in stays there, sometimes crashing again.

I'm new to troubleshooting iOS - what's my next step?

While I have had no problems with IOS 6.0.1 installs on the iPhone 4 and 4s in my household some generic troubleshooting steps would include:

NOTE: back up your phone with iTunes before doing any of this!

Hold down the top button until the phone prompts you to power it down. Do so. once it is off hold down the top button again till it powers back up.

failing that...

Hold down the top and home buttons until it just turns off (ignore the prompt to shut down normally). Once off power up and try again.

failing that...

I heard a while back that if you have THREE power downs in a row (as in #2 above) the phone does some major housekeeping on the third time booting up. Not sure if that is true but on a couple of occasions doing three in a row on my iPhone 4 fixed an issue. So do #2 above three times in a row and then test for symptoms.

failing that...

Attach the phone to your Mac/PC and when iTunes comes up, click on the iPhone in the side panel and then click on the RESTORE button. That will wipe the phone and then restore from your backup.

failing that...

Take it to an Apple store and ask a genius.


How to add Tamil language to the international keyboard? I recently purchased an iPhone 4S in India. It has international keyboard for Hindi language.

But is there any way to add Tamil language to the list?

As you can read on the iPhone support pages, Tamil isn't supported (yet) by the iPhone:

  Keyboard Support
  English (U.S.), English (UK), Chinese - Simplified
  (Handwriting, Pinyin, Stroke), Chinese - Traditional (Handwriting,
  Pinyin, Zhuyin, Cangjie, Stroke), French, French (Canadian), French
  (Switzerland), German (Germany), German (Switzerland), Italian,
  Japanese (Romaji, Kana), Korean, Spanish, Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan,
  Cherokee, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Emoji, Estonian, Finnish,
  Flemish, Greek, Hawaiian, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic,
  Indonesian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malay, Norwegian, Polish,
  Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazil), Romanian, Russian, Serbian
  (Cyrillic/Latin), Slovak, Swedish, Thai, Tibetan, Turkish, Ukrainian,
  Vietnamese

Although, iOS5 is capable of displaying Unicode Tamil email and text.
But you'll have to use 3th party apps like IndicNotes which will allow you to type Tamil. Then you can share your note with SMS, Email,... Not the most ideal solution, but you'll be able to type Tamil on your iPhone.


Cannot edit the "Release Date" field for TV shows in iTunes For some reason I cannot edit the "Release Date" field in iTunes. I have been able to change it in the past, but it no longer saves changes.

I can edit the field, but changes are never saved. I'm running the latest version of iTunes on Windows (12.4.1.6). I have completely rebuilt my entire iTunes library but still the problem persists.

You can "import" a TV show episode from the Windows system to your Mac, set the release date on the Mac and then copy it back to the Windows system. Not exactly a viable workaround for most but if you happen to have both platforms it may work until Apple gets their act together and starts to test their software before releasing it to their customers.

Quoted from Apple's Support Forums: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7567758?start=0&tstart=0

Seems like this is an issue for many and you might have to wait for a newer version.


I don't have access to the Apple ID acct on my iPad and the login icons keep poppin up. What can I do I can't access the Apple ID acct on my device. The device was given to me and she never told me the password and I can't ask her. What can I do?

Whatever you do, do NOT do a factory reset, because if the device ever needs activating it will require the password. This is to deter thievery.

You need to turn off the iCloud integration, and switch all the IDs to be yours. I believe that to do this you will need the password for the current ID, so you really should go to your friend and get her to type the password in for you.

Again - this is to stop people from stealing iPads/iPhones, as they are effectively unusable without the password.


Script or workflow to modify find and replace backslashes in clipboard I need to do a lot of copying filepaths written by people using a PC (which uses backslashes) to a Mac (which uses forward slashes), and I'm tired of manually switching them every time.  I have to copy the filepath from our shared web browser, paste it into my file browser, and then go in and manually remove the backslash and replace it with a forward slash.

That last part is really what's killing me since basically every filepath I copy has several backslashes in it that I want to paste! What I want is something that will modify the contents of my clipboard so I can just paste it into my Mac file browser without having to manually replace the slashes every time.

In short, I want any "\" in my clipboard to change to a "/" before I paste it. Can anyone please help me with this?

Using an Automator Service and AppleScript code, here are two examples of how you can change backslashes to slashes in a string.

The first one takes the selected text passed to the Automator Service, makes the replacements and sets the output to the Clipboard. Which from there you can manually paste wherever you desire that can accept pasted text.

The second one takes the selected text passed to the Automator Service, makes the replacements and then replaces the selected text passed with the modified text in place, that is providing the source selected text is editable.

There is a slight code difference between the two, in the on run subroutine and a single setting difference between the services. Both require first selecting a text string and then either a right-click to select the service from the Context menu or accessing the service from the Application_Name > Services > menu. The on replaceText(find, replace, textString) subroutine is the same in both examples.

AppleScript code for the Clipboard method service:

on run {input}
    set the clipboard to replaceText("\\", "/", input as string)
end run

on replaceText(find, replace, textString)
    set prevTIDs to AppleScript's text item delimiters
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to find
    set textString to text items of textString
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to replace
    set textString to "" & textString
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to prevTIDs
    return textString
end replaceText

AppleScript code for the replace selected text method service:

on run {input}
    set input to replaceText("\\", "/", input as string)
    return input
end run

on replaceText(find, replace, textString)
    set prevTIDs to AppleScript's text item delimiters
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to find
    set textString to text items of textString
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to replace
    set textString to "" & textString
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to prevTIDs
    return textString
end replaceText

To use the AppleScript code in an Automator Service:

In Automator, create a new Service with Service receives selected text in any application and Input is entire selection, then either leaving unchecked the [] Output replaces selected text check box for the clipboard service (AppleScript code for the Clipboard method service:) or checking the [√] Output replaces selected text check box for the for the replace selected text service (AppleScript code for the replace selected text method service:)
Add a Run AppleScript action to it and delete the default code.
Copy and paste whichever code for the method you choose to use.
Save the Service with an appropriate name, e.g., Replace backslashes with slashes on Clipboard for the first one and or Replace backslashes with slashes in selected text for the second one. Or of course whatever you prefer.

Now select some text that has backslashes in it and then select the service's name from the Services Context menu (right-click) or the Application_Name > Services > menu.

If using the Clipboard method, then paste the now modified selected text wherever you want or if using the replace selected text method, it's already replaced having selected that Service.


Private / Public Key Provisioning profiles are available in ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning\ Profiles.

But, when creating a Certificate Signing Request, where are the public and private key stored on Mac OS?

Meaning, what are the exact location of these (i.e. the path)?

They are stored in the Keychain. Usually you have these stored in your login keychain, which on disk is located at ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain-db. However that file is not for manual manipulation.

In order to save them to files for transferring to another computer, you can open Keychain Access. Click on the desired certificate (which contains the public key) or key (meaning the private key), and then right-click and choose "Export".


what is located under /var directory? Today I was checking running processes and found a process running as root from this location, I am on osx maverics. I wanted to know what kind of process might be that's running from /var folder that too as root user.

There's a pretty good writeup on linfo.org describing the /var directory. In summary, it is used for variable information, like cache, logs, lock files, spool files, etc. Some executables will reside in this tree, like shared libraries.


Authorization plugin for package installation Is it possible to allow installation of specific packages/profiles without admin credentials by modifying authorization rights?.I was able to allow installation for all by modifying the installation right in authorizationdb.Is it possible to receive any information about package requesting for installation inside auth plugin so that i would be able to evaluate and allow.

What you ask is possible in several ways. We use management frameworks like JAMF Pro or Munki to script and manage arbitrary changes and installations so that no user needs to download / package / install or prompt. These are powerful distributed automation options, but they cost time and salary and experience and licensing.
You can roll your own more minimal installer, Most require a bit of skill if you can’t change your installer to just run as non-admin, but they are lighter cost and weight than an MDM suite solution. See homebrew for a great example of an installer that needs admin only at setup and not when installing new code.
If you need admin installer and can’t use brew cask to package your apps, a dependable way is to write a daemon that runs as admin. Microsoft Office, Adobe and many other software does this, the installer system runs at launch or as a daemon and gets admin privileges and then uses the OS to run periodically.
This avoids the design intent for the installer to ask for admin at the last moment when installations trigger. Following the design intent is generally more secure and far less work for you and your customers.


MS Office 2011: Plugging Excel Data Into a Word Document (Note: I'm am not sure if this question fits in this StackExchange site, so please correct me if it doesn't belong)

To cut my problem short: I'm trying to make a Word document which prints data from a Excel document.  Is it possible to link an Excel and Word document?  Almost like this:

Data A(A,1)
Data B(A,2)
etc.

I have tried using templates and just simply printing the excel document without the lines, but my "requirements" are too specific and complex.

Yes, it is. I don't know exactly what you are doing, but doing a mail merge should link a Word document to an Excel spreadsheet. Let me know what you are using it for, and I can post further instructions.


Unable to start screen sharing remotely on macOS Catalina after update Until one of the latest Catalina updates, I was able to (re)start Screen Sharing using the following command:

sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -restart -agent && sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -activate -configure -allowAccessFor -specifiedUsers && sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -configure -users user_name -access -on -privs -ControlObserve

However, after one of the last couple of Catalina updates this fails. To be more specific, if I run the command I don't get any errors, but the Screen Sharing daemon is not launched, so I cannot remotely connect to my Mac. This still works in other Macs running High Sierra, but not in Catalina. Does anybody have any idea what might have changed in the last updates, or how to fix this?

The problem was that, as of Mojave, you cannot stop/start the screen sharing daemon with kickstart unless "Screen sharing" is checked in System Preferences/Sharing. Probably the update just unchecked this preference for some reason, which made it impossible to restart the daemon remotely. Once I had physical access to the computer again and checked this preference everything worked as before the update.