Improve VLC quality on WMV, AVI etc? OKay I've noticed that when I play an WMV on my Mac using VLC player the quality is terrible in comparison when i play it on Windows

I have tried "unchecking skip frames" on VLC, but no change at all

Anyone have any idea how to fix this on VLC?

Thanks

More a sidestep than a workaround but have you considering using Flip4Mac to play WMV's in Quicktime rather than use VLC?

if you can lose the extra functionality you get from VLC, the playback is much better.


Restoring from TM backup causes Mail to import and eat up HD space on Mac Air I use a MacBook Air 256 GB HD on Yosemite 10.10. I recently noticed large date range of emails gone missing. Rebuilding the mailbox did not solve the problem so I decided to restore my entire Mac from the Time machine. 5 days of frustration and here I am.

Time Machine restores from the backup however, when I start Mac Mail, it starts to import the messages. I have 130 GB of emails. It seems what happens is when Mail is importing the messages, it is creating a duplicate folder in the system and that is eating into the HD space and not allowing the system to restore as it runs out of space. By the time it has imported nearly all the emails, my mac has run out of space and hence does not allow me to return to the original state.

Any reason why this duplication of emails and even if so, where are these duplicate emails stored so I can manually delete that folder?

I would try in ~/Library/Mail. You can delete the contents in this folder, then go into mail and rebuilt your inbox to make sure everything syncs.

Note: it's called the MacBook Air


My headphone jack and speakers sopped working My headphone jack and my speakers are not working at all. They just randomly stopped when my macbook air was closed. Is there any system preferences that i need to change?

The solution is from here and it worked with me:

There seems to be a bug whereby if the headphones are plugged in when the MBP is put to sleep and are not present when it is rewakened, the headphones stop being recognized. The solution is to:

Unplug the headphones
Put the MBP back to sleep (close the lid; without an external display hooked up)
Plug the headphones back in
Wake the MBP by opening the lid.

This should fix the problem.


Load untrusted kernel extension in macOS Mojave The Volta application is installed on my MacBook Pro, running macOS 10.14 Mojave.

This app needs a kernel extension to function properly, and said extension does not have the proper code signatures. This means it's necessary to tamper with System Integrity Protection in order to load this extension.

In macOS 10.13 High Sierra, one could run csrutil enable --without kext to partially disable SIP (loading unsigned kexts is allowed, but other protections remain in place). According to Volta's installation instructions, in Mojave one must fully disable SIP, leaving the whole computer unprotected because of one kernel extension.

For reference, this is the output of kextutil -l applied to this extension:

$ sudo kextutil -l /Applications/Volta.app/Contents/Resources/Driver.kext
Untrusted kexts are not allowed
Kext with invalid signature (-67050) denied: /Library/StagedExtensions/Applications/Volta.app/Contents/Resources/0A012E5A-9F74-4E19-9195-535AD692A597.kext
Bundle (/Applications/Volta.app/Contents/Resources/Driver.kext) failed to validate, deleting: /Library/StagedExtensions/Applications/Volta.app/Contents/Resources/0A012E5A-9F74-4E19-9195-535AD692A597.kext
Unable to stage kext (/Applications/Volta.app/Contents/Resources/Driver.kext) to secure location.

And this is the output of running codesign --display --verbose=4 /Applications/Volta.app/Contents/Resources/Driver.kext as suggested in Ricardo Anjos' answer:

Executable=/Applications/Volta.app/Contents/Resources/Driver.kext/Contents/MacOS/Driver
Identifier=com.gmathews.volta.driver
Format=bundle with Mach-O thin (x86_64)
CodeDirectory v=20200 size=345 flags=0x0(none) hashes=3+5 location=embedded
Hash type=sha256 size=32
CandidateCDHash sha1=cbf1caa72d5071c35aa3c020d557a084e6e5a8c9
CandidateCDHash sha256=468cc8b2215b53445cb650c94a76413db62a4815
Hash choices=sha1,sha256
Page size=4096
CDHash=468cc8b2215b53445cb650c94a76413db62a4815
Signature size=4697
Authority=Developer ID Application: Gary Mathews (SFS8238QUB)
Authority=Developer ID Certification Authority
Authority=Apple Root CA
Signed Time=26 Jul 2018 23:14:21
Info.plist entries=19
TeamIdentifier=SFS8238QUB
Sealed Resources version=2 rules=13 files=0
Internal requirements count=1 size=220

Here's also the output for codesign -v on the same file:

/Applications/Volta.app/Contents/Resources/Driver.kext/Contents/MacOS/Driver: valid on disk
/Applications/Volta.app/Contents/Resources/Driver.kext/Contents/MacOS/Driver: satisfies its Designated Requirement

I also followed the same process with the main executable as well as the helper application, and they all checked out (valid signatures, and the same authority and team ID).

I compared the output of codesign to another random third-party kext in my computer, which runs fine without requiring me to circumvent SIP, and I couldn't spot any differences.

Moreover, Volta's FAQ page instructs the user on how to work around SIP, so it seems like a deliberate decision by the developer and not just a mistake.

I'm very bothered by this situation. As the legitimate owner of this machine, and having physical access to it, is there nothing I can do (short of fully disabling SIP) to whitelist this one kernel extension, assuming the developer can't sign the extension for some reason? I don't care if it entails entering cryptic commands in recovery mode, writing stuff to NVRAM or code-signing the extension myself, so long as I don't have to pay Apple $99 for the privilege.

I wrote the developer and received the following reply (I hope he doesn't mind me posting it here):

  I would prefer not to have the limitation of disabling SIP to install Volta's kernel driver. But Apple has rejected my request to sign the driver (understandably) as it makes low level changes to the CPU Machine Specific Registers.

  You can read about MSRs in Intels architecture documentation (Chapter 35): https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/manuals/64-ia-32-architectures-software-developer-vol-3c-part-3-manual.pdf

  Why is the kernel driver needed? In order to execute WRMSR and RDMSR instructions kernel level permissions are required.

  It is possible to partially disable SIP by only allowing unsigned kernel drivers to be installed, but maintaining other SIP protections.

  Unsigned drivers used to be allowed until recent macOS versions; as long as you are careful with what you install on your Mac you should be fine.

I replied asking if Apple also had veto power over kexts even if they were not distributed in the App Store. His reply:

  Correct, regardless of distribution method.

  https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Security/Conceptual/System_Integrity_Protection_Guide/KernelExtensions/KernelExtensions.html

  "You can request a Developer ID Certificate for signing kexts by visiting https://developer.apple.com/contact/kext and filling out the required details."

  My request was rejected, I even referenced the 'Intel Power Gadget' in my request as it uses similar MSR instructions as Volta.

  I don't think Apple likes the idea of users controlling their hardware. Especially when undervolting can cause stability issues.

Therefore, it looks like if you want to install a kext not blessed by Apple, you have no choice but to disable SIP. Looks like Apple, through some convoluted reasoning, thinks I'll be safer if, in order to run code they don't approve of, I also have to open a gaping hole in my computer's security in the process.


Can I transfer an app to somebody else without having them to pay for developer enrollment? I am an app developer, and I have to transfer an app to a company, so the app won't have my name under the title in the AppStore. So it looks like they made it. My question is, do they have to pay for an enrollment, or can they just recieve the app for free, and if they can, how can they recieve it from me? I know you can transfer it from itunes connect, but it seems to me that you have to pay for an enrollment to get access to itunes connect.

Yes, the receiving company will need an Apple Developer ID and membership of the Mac and/or iOS Developer Programs.

Part of the process of enrolling involves agreeing to Apple's terms of service and other legally binding agreements. Without agreeing to Apple's agreements, the receiving company will not be able to participate in Apple's App Store or Mac App Store.

It is possible to have applications associated with your Apple Developer ID but not participate in the App Stores. However, those applications will not be eligible for sale through Apple.


Shortcuts & gestures you can't live without What are some gestures or shortcuts you use on a daily basis that you can't live without?

I've found the BetterTouchTool preference pane add on to be great for creating custom gestures on a per app or universal basis


How do I uninstall Setapp when iStat is running? I'm trying to uninstall the Setapp. I was going to think about renewing my subscription later but it forced my hand because iStat constantly pops up a windows that says:

  Your Setapp subscription is no longer active, and iStat Menus Status cannot be opened.

If I cancel, quit, drag to the trash or kill iStat it always comes back. So now I'm trying to uninstall Setapp but I'm running into the same problem. The uninstall dialog wants me to quit iStat but no amount of hitting the 'Quit' button will make iStat go away and thus I can't uninstall Setapp.

iStat Menus is a little different to other apps, in that it is intended to always be running and in your menubar. The main app is used to configure its settings. Throwing the main app in the trash won’t remove it from your system (we wish it could, but that’s not technically possible).

The normal way to uninstall iStat Menus is to choose iStat Menus → Uninstall from the menubar inside the iStat Menus app, then click Uninstall.

We have some additional help: Installing and uninstalling iStat Menus

For those using Setapp, here’s some specific instructions.

Uninstalling iStat Menus with an active Setapp account

If you have an active Setapp account, please choose iStat Menus → Uninstall from the menubar, then click Uninstall.

Uninstalling iStat Menus without an active Setapp account

If you don’t have an active Setapp account, please run /Library/Application Support/iStat Menus 5/iStat Menus Uninstaller.app

You can get to the uninstaller by choosing Go → Go to Folder while in the Finder, then pasting /Library/Application Support/iStat Menus 5/iStat Menus Uninstaller.app into the text field and clicking Go.

If you have any other questions about iStat Menus, or need more help with uninstalling, please don’t hesitate to get in touch via our website, via Twitter, or via any other means.

Clarification: I work on iStat Menus. I am a founder and designer at Bjango.


How to replace the System's Download folder with one in an external drive? When you open finder, there is a download folder with a unique icon. I'd like to move that folder to an external one and force the system to recognise that new location.

This is possible via symbolic link.

Move your existing data in ~/Downloads to the location you want, let's say /ExternalDrive/Downloads

Open Terminal and run:
This will remove the Dowloads folder and you'll need to type in your password to do that (you won't see *** when entering, just hit enter after you finish).
sudo rm -rf ~/Downloads

Create a symbolic link to your desired location:
ln -s "/ExternalDrive/Downloads" ~/Downloads

And voila! Dowloads folder moved.
A more detailed version of this process and be found here.
It's also possible to create a link to the iCloud Download folder. Using this command:
ln -s /Users/yourusernamehere/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com\~apple\~CloudDocs/Downloads  ~/Downloads


Microsoft Mouse Settings do not work after restart until I open preferences I seem to have this same problem my work and home Macbook Pro Systems.  Both are running Mavericks.

The Mouse is a Microsoft Explorer Touch Mouse and I have the latest version (8.2) of IntelliPoint for Mac.

I have a few custom settings configured; the top and bottom of the scroll button are set to browse back and forward, and the middle-click is set to "Handled by Mac OS" which causes it to open links in new tabs, etc.

The problem is whenever I restart the system or even sleep and wake up, when I return those settings are no longer working until I open system preferences and open the settings for the microsoft mouse.  The settings do maintain what I set them to -- I never have to reset them -- but they just don't seem to be "turned on" until I manually open the system preferences page for them.

The mouse works, but the custom buttons do not do the correct thing until I open system preferences->microsoft mouse. When I open the preferences I do not need to change anything-- I simply open the preferences window and the buttons start doing what I want them to. And The preferences window always shows the correct settings. The continue to work after I close them until the next restart. It's like there's an invisible "on/off" switch that gets activated when I open the settings window

Any ideas on how I can get these settings to be enabled automatically without needing to do this every time?

Based on the information provided I would say the mouse settings are not been loaded.

You can add the "MicrosoftMouseHelper" to the log in items area.

That should override the OS X defaults.

The file should be located in your /Library/PreferencePanes/Microsoft Mouse.PrefPane/Contents/Resources/MicrosoftMouseHelper


Is there a shortcut or way to use code, to do anything at all with the item currently highlighted by Command+F? Title pretty much says it all. Also if anyone knows how to drag and drop something into a browser using any language or command(s), please share.

To be clear i'm talking about something like this:

Press command+f
Type in "the"
(Insert magic hotkey, or bit of code, here, that does anything at with the word currently highlighted by command+f)

This could be used to click a link, for instance, or highlight the first word in a sentence (if you could use the command to do 2 clicks in quick succession) (at which point you could use shift+arrow keys to highlight the rest of the sentence, or the other commands to highlight by more than one character at a time, like shift+command+arrow keys)

As far as i know no such shortcut exists, but i don't see why, (so maybe one does exist and i'm just not aware of it).

If you select text in Safari (your example) Accessibility Inspector will list among Attributes:

"Passive" text . . AXRole: AXStaticText   /   AXValue: [text of a whole paragraph]
Link . . . . . . . . . . AXRole: AXStaticText   /   AXValue: [link name]

There's not very much functionality to detect there, is it?
Selected text in TextEdit on the other hand will display:

[Any text] . AXRole: AXTextArea   /   AXValue: [Whole text]   /   AXSelectedTextRange: [value]
[Link] . . . . AXRole: AXLink   /   AXRoleDescription: Hyperlink   /   AXURL: [its URL: http://...]

In Safari not too much can be done with highlighted text. Other programs -TextEdit!- that support accessibility more naturally, CAN be manipulated to a higher degree.

If you look at the hierarchy of a quite common button ("edited" on this page) it will reveal itself as:

AXStaticText ["edited"] / AXLink / AXGroup / AXWebArea / AXScrollArea / AXGroup / AXGroup / AXTabGroup / AXSplitGroup / AXWindow:AXStandardWindow / AXApplication

Doesn't sound very inviting to me, searching for a simple button ...
If I had to do a search I'd rather look into a Safari-document's source, text or URL, all of which are accessible, see: Safari's sdef file.


Same iTunes Library between networked Mac and PC I have a home network that contains computers with both Macs and PCs.  I'd like to use the same iTunes library on all of the machines, so I moved the library folder and all of the media to a network drive.

I updated the library on a Windows machine, but when I access the song on my Mac, it says that the file cannot be found.  This is because on Windows, the path was something like:

file://localhost/Z:/Music/Slayer/...

When my Mac asked me to locate the file, I checked the path and it reads something like:

/Volumes/Storage/Music/Slayer/...

I'm still pretty new to OSX, but I'm having a hard time finding a solution that allows me to use the same library on both my Mac and my PC.

I'd like to be able to update a library on any computer on the network and it updates the "shared" library, so I am able to sync my iDevice to any machine on the network.

How do I set up the network so the media file path can be the same on both my Windows and Mac machines?

Thank you.

Basically using iTunes on a shared storage is really bad. Even if you get it running as you want now, you need to reconnect to the network storage before launching iTunes EACH time (and never open iTunes if not connected to the network) otherwise iTunes standard behaviour is to recreate a new iTunes library locally and then you're stuck there again.
However:
Your current problem is most probably that you are using the same iTunes library file/database on both machines (residing on the network volume). There are two parts to your iTunes Library: The iTunes Library Database (.itl and .xml files) and the Media itself. You want the library database to stay in it's default location on your local drive and You Only want the Media folder to be on the NAS.
To achieve this you start up iTunes with a empty library (in the local Music folder) on EACH machine then import the music from the network folder. But before importing make sure you change the setting "Copy files to iTunes media folder when adding to library" to OFF! Otherwise your data is copied back to the local machine...
Then never start iTunes with your network storage disconnected and you will be fine.


"This email address is not valid for use as an Apple ID" Apple belatedly decided they don't like something about my email address, but won't tell me what.

I just bought a new Mac for work and my employer paid for it so I set up a new Apple ID with my work email address rather than use my own. It seems you can't buy anything from Apple without using an Apple ID. That all went fine as far as can tell, Mac arrived, I switched it on and all works as expected but is a bit insistent about requiring my Apple ID for various things.

So I need to verify my Apple ID; they send an email with a code number; I type in code number…
"This email address is not valid for use as an Apple ID"

No explanation, and no instruction what to do about this. I'm stumped.

Anywhere I try to access my Apple account I am told I can't get in until I've verified my ID, but can't because my email address is somehow not valid.

I have checked that I don't have the work email address associated with my personal Apple ID, so that's not confusing anything.

If you use work e-mail and you just got the new e-mail account from work, it probably uses a work domain.

It extracts the MX records from the email address and connect to mail server (over SMTP and also simulates sending a message) to make sure the mailbox really exist for that user/address. Some mail servers do not co-operate in the process or have a delay, in such cases, the result of this email verification tool may not be as accurate as expected.

This technic of E-mail validation through the sending of an E-mail interrupted before the end is a technic used by criminals to perform stealth E-mail verification. This is the reason most serious companies will block these interrupted SMTP handshake. This is a bad method to check an E-mail.

Often with not recognized or newly registered domains Apple takes a few days and then it will magically accepts the e-mail.

You can see here https://verifalia.com/validate-email what a e-mail validator will check. And the results.

If it doesn't work after serveral days, you should contact Apple Support.


iOS 12 replacement for default Music-app which can "remember playback position" I upgrade from iPhone 4GS 16GB iOS 7.0.6 to iPhone 8 Plus 256GB iOS 12
so i can put all my audiobooks on my phone.

but in new Music app remember playback position does not work anymore.
In iTunes it show remember playback position set on set on iphone music files.

So i need a replacement can do it.

I got over 680+ Audiobooks in my iTunes Library set as music type.
Why music type vs audiobooks are more tags show by default.
got 600+
Tags with
SongTrackName+ArtistAuthor+AlbumTitle+ComposerReader+Genre+Year+Comments+ArtworkBookcover

I try audiobooks apps all i come over was lacking in display all info i want+easy search through i got over 600 audiobooks i does not want to move through all with scrolling max 5 books per scroll in scrolling no info.

I got over 70+ Smart Playlist on iTunes i like to use then fine right audiobook for time and day i want to hear audiobooks.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ecoute/id536882653 half like the interface but does not support remember playback position

fine out after pay away ads does not support .m4a half iTunes Library are in this format thought it was a bug in app but after read app info... :( but fine other bug if to many files on app it crashes on startup!!

FLAC Player+

Good Old Music Interface:
Song,Playlists,Artist,Album,Composer,Genre

Got a Setting Start Playing turn from From Beginning to Where Left Off
that works! :)

No support for default iTunes Library sync.

Now copy all file through https or iCloud-Drive but vs start think switch to other different Phone it much easier.


MacOS Sierra, app is running but has no window I had an app called "Gitbox" on my Mac for 4 years with no problems. App suddenly does not display it's main window when running. The little dot is under the app in dock. I cannot delete the app when the dot is there, cause OS says it's running.  I can verify the app is running, because the "Activity" window shows that it's fetching something.

I tried reinstalling, and looking at other "Windows" or desktops, but nothing. Did I use some launch option or hotkey to launch the app in a wrong mode?

Tried:

Rebooting Mac
Reinstalling App from the app store
Dragging and
restoring to Trash

Deleting the preferences here has resolved the problem. Not sure why they did not show up in finder, I think it shows hidden files for me. So I had to use an external tool which actually found hte preference file:


Mac OS won't install from CD, but Windows will I had to replace the hard drive in my 2010 21.5" iMac.  When I went to install the OS, I rebooted into the OS selection screen (using option).  The Mac OS X install disc was there (but my external HD, where I back up wasn't), so I selected it.

It starts by showing the Apple logo, as expected, but after a while, the logo changed to a "cannot proceed" icon (circle with a slash).  Thinking I installed the drive incorrectly, I tried my old WinXP CD.

Long story short, XP is installing right now.  I used my Mac CD trying to repair the install just before the HD failed, so I know it's readable.

Edit 1: I would like to re-iterate that the Time Machine volume doesn't show up in the boot menu either.  Shouldn't it be?

Edit 2: When I boot in verbose mode (from the CD) it works fine up until it attempts to find the "root device."  Then it just keeps repeating that it can't find it.

Edit 3: Windows successfully installed, and the BootCamp drivers installed fine, so the CD isn't the issue either.  I'm going to try Rilakkuma's suggestion and contact Apple to get an image of the last OS version I downloaded to put on a USB.

Final Edit: Never could get a USB image of the latest operating system that I purchased.  Disappointed with Apple support.  I'm just keeping Windows on here (with Bootcamp drivers).

The best way to install Mac OS X on a new drive is to clone the old drive. If I remember correctly the disk coming with Mac will not allow you to make full installation.
Installing WinXP onto the drive without BootCamp will turn it into MBR and therefore unusable for Mac OS X, so you will need to reformat it.


iPad and iPod virus? Every now and then my iPad or iPod touch will redirect my to a particular site in Safari. Could this be malware of sorts that has crept on to my iMac and then my iOS devices? I don't think it's a popup because it happens at random.

For the record, the site is www.wordslife.com/index.php

EDIT:

This does not happen on iMac, come to think of it. I'm using an open access point in a residential area (I usually use one or two) and my devices are not jailbroken.

Okay, I think I've tracked this one down. It isn't a problem with your iPod or iPad, it's a problem with the router itself. Its DNS has been overwritten so that it randomly (about 5% of the time) will redirect you to one of their sites.

Because you're using someone else's open access point, there really isn't anything that you can do about it except to stop using that particular router.

For more info, see these pages:

Strange Redirects
Malwarebytes Forum
Random Browser Redirects, TDSS?
or the results of this Google search


How to access my MacBook's Serial Number A friend of mines has a MacBook with MacOS X 10.5.8 Leopard on it but it doesn't bear a serial number.

We checked "About this Mac".

We checked "System Information".

And we even checked underneath the MacBook where Apple usually engraves the MacBook's serial numbers.

My friend can't view most websites and doesnt have any of the original packaging.

Is there anything else we can do to find out the MacBook's type and serial number?

If the main thing you're after is the serial number, you can use Terminal to fetch it.

More specifically:

Launch Terminal
Copy and paste the following command:

ioreg -l | grep IOPlatformSerialNumber
Press return

NOTE: If the above doesn't work then something strange is going on. However, depending on the model of MacBook, you may be able to remove the battery and check around the battery bay to see if the Serial Number and Ethernet ID are printed there.


prevent launchctl from starting a anonymous process I have installed dnsmasq and now I want to be able to start it with launchctl. The problem is that every time I start the app launchctl starts an anonyous process instead of using the specified label.

10247   -   0x100107c30.anonymous.dnsmasq
-       0   com.example.dnsmasq

But I want it to be

10247    0  com.example.dnsmasq

The problem with the anonymous process is that I can't stop it with launchctl. When I run

launchctl stop com.example.dnsmasq

the anonymous process still stays alive.

Here is my property file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.example.dnsmasq</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
      <string>/usr/local/sbin/dnsmasq</string>
        <string>-p</string>
        <string>2155</string>
        <string>-R</string>
        <string>-A</string>
        <string>/.dev/127.0.0.1</string>
        <string>-x</string>
        <string>/usr/local/var/run/dnsmasq.pid</string>
    </array>
  <key>RunAtLoad</key>
  <false/>
  <key>KeepAlive</key>
  <false/>
</dict>
</plist>

Any idea on how to fix this?

That isn't actually launchctl creating a new process; it's most likely dnsmasq  itself.  If it fork()s into the background, launchd can't tell; then when it talks to launchd, launchd creates an anonymous entry for it.  Make sure dnsmasq doesn't background itself.

(The - listed for the regular launchctl list output indicates that the original dnsmasq process exited.)


I cannot mount .dmg file for VMWare Fusion: Protocol wrong type for socket ERROR I cannot mount .dmg file for VMWare Fusion installer.  I get the error: Protocol wrong type for socket .

I have Mac OSX 10.11.5 , which is newer than the officially supported versions of Mac for this installer.  Hard to believe that is the problem though since this page says Fusion8 is designed for El Capitan.

I tried downloading both VMWare Fusion 8.1.0 and also 8.1.1 and neither will work.   Test, I am also a administrator account on my machine.  Maybe I am not a true administrator (since this is a work machine)?

I have no idea what that error means?  Is there a way to manually extract a .dmg or some alternate download or method to unzip on command line ?

If you can't even mount the .DMG file it is unlikely to have anything to do with VMWare or the software they put in the DMG file. Usually errors when mounting a DMG file occur due to a damaged download. Though it is possible the file they placed on their servers is corrupted at the source.

Try downloading with a different browser or even use WGET in the terminal and see what your results are.


Kaspersky Anti Virus software I'm trying to install Micro Trend Anti Virus; however, I at one time had Kaspersky Anti Virus software.  I can't download Micro Trend because it says Kaspersky needs to be removed.  However, I cannot find Kaspersky anywhere on my MAC in order to remove/uninstall.  Does anyone have a suggestion on how to remove this?

You can download Etrecheck and the report can help you.
Then with the version of Kaspersky you can find an uninstaller.


Numbers: menu or list to jump to a specific sheet? Is there a way to access a menu or list of all the sheets in a Numbers document, so I can quickly jump to one specific sheet without having to scroll or page one-by-one with the previous/next keyboard shortcuts?

I am looking for something similar to how the right-click on the sheet's tab will bring up a list of all the tables and graphs on that Sheet, so you can jump right to a specific table or graph.

Is there a way to access a menu or list of all the sheets in a Numbers document, so I can quickly jump to one specific sheet without having to scroll or page one-by-one with the previous/next keyboard shortcuts?

The only way I know of is to AppleScript it and use some mechanism to trigger the script, e.g. an Automator Service1.

As an example, pressing ⌃⌘S in Numbers with a Stocks.numbers document opened and frontmost, I get a choose from list dialog box as shown in the next image:

I then selected sheet 1-Year History and then clicked OK and was taken to that sheet in the document. Note that double-clicking on any list item takes one to that sheet directly without having to click OK or press Enter. (You can also type the first character of the list item or use down/up arrow keys too.)

Obviously with a Numbers document that has only five sheets this isn't really necessary, and is just an example for when the document has the number of sheets that would necessitate scrolling through the sheets tabs in the document to get to the one wanted. On my MBP 15" Retina display, I was able to see 37 sheets without having to scroll in the Go To Sheet... list box. (This will vary based on the screen resolution and height of the Dock.)

Create an Automator Service1 as show in the next image:

Example AppleScript code:

tell application "Numbers" to set sheetList to name of every sheet of document 1

tell current application to activate
choose from list sheetList with title "Go To Sheet..." with prompt "Please select a sheet name:"
if the result is not false then
    my selectSheet(result as text)
end if

on selectSheet(n)
    try
        tell application "Numbers"
            activate
            -- # The following code causes Numbers to go to the selected sheet.
            -- # It is not modifying the existing data in the target cell, however,
            -- # it does cause a saved document to show as edited, temporarily,
            -- # and resolved by the code in the following System Events tell block.
            set value of first cell of first table of sheet n of front document to ¬
                (value of first cell of first table of sheet n of front document)
        end tell

        tell application "System Events"
            -- # Undo Typing so the document doesn't show as edited if already saved,
            -- # and if already saved the modified date/time stamp shouldn't change.
            keystroke "z" using command down
            -- # Press the escape key to remove focus from cell A1.
            key code 53
        end tell

    on error eStr number eNum
        display dialog eStr & " number " & eNum buttons {"OK"} ¬
            default button 1 with icon caution
        return
    end try
end selectSheet

AppleScript Code Note: As far as I know, Numbers does not have an explicit AppleScript command to select a given sheet and this is sort of an alternative method and it does cause a saved document to show as edited temporarily, even though it's not altering the value of the target cell, and resolved by the code in the System Events tell block. It works by setting the value of cell "A1" to it's current value, so while it's perceived as an edit, no data has been altered from its current value and if it was already saved, the modified date/time stamp shouldn't change. This works for me in Numbers 5.1 in macOS High Sierra on a read-write document, and is why I use it. As coded, it is not intended to be used on a locked or read-only document. Additional coding would be necessary for that scenario.

For System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services:

Note: Sometimes with an Automator Service1 and assigning a keyboard shortcut, you may first have to trigger it from the target App's Services menu one time. From then on the keyboard shortcut should work normally.

1 In macOS Mojave an Automator Service is called a Quick Action.

Note: The example AppleScript code is just that and sans the included error handling does not contain any additional error handling as may be appropriate. The onus is upon the user to add any error handling as may be appropriate, needed or wanted. Have a look at the try statement and error statement in the AppleScript Language Guide. See also, Working with Errors.


Can we move lines in TextEdit? Using TextEdit is there a key board shortcut to move the current line up/down? (similar to how code editors like Sublime Text works)

According to @IconDaemon there is no key combination to do this. A possible workaround is to select a word or phrase, or line that you want to move and while holding the mouse button down you can drag the selection elsewhere in the file.


Update from 10.5.8 to Lion with the Lion USB stick I bought this small OS X Lion USB stick for $69 today. The guy in the Apple Store said that I can simply upgrade from my 10.5.8 to Lion with this thing. Well I plugged it in and hello, I'm not able to upgrade.

So question is: Can I even use this thing? I just have this stick, no serial, no nothing. Just this stick http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD256Z/A.

I know you can do a fresh install on a clean system, so you could try this: copy your existing install to an external drive (using Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper!), wipe the internal drive, do a clean install of Lion, then use Migration Assistant to copy your old system onto the fresh Lion install.


iOS 9 Removing Camera Access From Lock Screen Some guy took my Son's iPhone and took 1,200 photos within 12 minutes. He was able to use the camera from the lock screen without having access to the locked phone.

These photos completely wiped our family's Photo stream (and replaced our vacation photos with nonsense). Also, the storage was filled and my son couldn't even make a phone call before we deleted the 1,200 photos.

Deleting the photos was even more annoying. Can you imagine the tedious process of deleting 1,200 photos on an iPhone?

This was very annoying, and also a usecase Apple may not have thought of.

Somebody mentioned that you can disable control center on lock screen. (Settings>Control Centre>Access on Lock Screen). To my surprise, this brings back a camera button on the lock screen. So that didn't work.

An old post suggested that the only possible solution would be to completely disable camera and FaceTime. But this is not really a solution (would be comparable to painting the camera lens black).

Back to the question: In iOS9, how do I disable camera access on the lock screen?

Related (but not quite the answer):

Removing camera button on iPhone lock screen – (Feb 2015, AskDifferent)
How do you disable the camera from lock screen on iPad? – 2014, Apple Support Forum
I WANT TO DISABLE THE LOCK SCREEN CAMERA – 2013, Apple Support Forum

It's looking like you cannot suppress the photo icon from the lock screen and iOS 9 has no difference in behavior from iOS 8 (so this really looks like a duplicate question to me since iOS 5 in fact...) unless you disable the camera entirely - lock screen or not using a MDM profile or restriction in the settings app.

Removing camera button on iPhone lock screen

The only countermeasure to that malicious behavior would be to not let the camera participate in iCloud photo stream so that once the camera had filled up the storage on the phone, the phone storage would be filled.

Bulk deleting images is something that's easy with a Mac and the Image Capture app.

In my opinion, this is a bug, and Apple should allow a restriction to prevent use of the camera from the lock screen. You could cut off the camera entirely using restrictions or an MDM profile, but that would prevent all use of the camera and not just from the locked state.

I would reach out to iCloud support and explain the data loss - they can point you to the upload restrictions and possibly tune them using your actual bad experience with Photo Stream.


How to remove Calendar event without the sender's notification Today I got an event request from a "fake ray ban" scammer/seller for my iCloud calendar. The calendar is shared/synced with my iPhone via iCloud.

Unfortunately, when I pressed delete, the calendar popup told me that deleting the event means also I'll decline it and the sender will be notified.

I want to remove the event without notifying the sender, because the event is sent to many other generated email addresses and I don't want confirm my address by declining the event.

This is a very serious Calendar privacy problem. If there isn't an simple solution it is enough reason for me stopping using Apple's calendar.

So, how do I remove the event from my notebook's calendar, my iCloud-synced iPhone's calendar, without notifying the sender?

I found this free workaround over on Superuser.

Basically, you disable networking, delete the event, then delete the notification from email:

Turn off networking on your Mac
Delete the event from iCal
Wait for the notification to show up in your Outbox
Delete email from Outbox
Turn back on networking

Once networking is back on, the sync will remove the other events from iCloud and your phone.

Echoing Jaime Santa Cruz's comment below, you should definitely block the sender.  You have already confirmed your email because it (probably) already sent a notification that you accepted; best to be safe and not sorry.

As to your second question, "...it is enough reason for me stopping using the insecure Apple's calendar?" it would generate too much opinion to go into.

That said, I personally use Office365 Exchange Online ($48 for the year), Outlook.com, OneDrive and Azure for my cloud services with my iMac, MacBook Pro, XServe and (soon) a refurbished Mac Pro.  I don't know if that says anything...


When would my Macbook Pro (Mid 2010) no longer run the next macOS? I had to let go of my white Macbook (2007) because the new OSX would no longer run on it.

Currently Mactracker lists my Macbook Pro (Mid 2010) with a support status of "vintage" but that relates to the availability of hardware parts I read. I am not too worried about that because there have been so many of these machines produced that parts will be around for the next 10 years I bet.

A MBP of 2007 is listed in Mactracker as still capable of running the latest macOS. A MBP 2006 is not. How many more years can I expect to keep running on a new OS with my 2010 MBP though? 3 or 4 years?

The mid-2010 MacBook Pro is the oldest laptop officially supported by MacOS Sierra. This means it is likely that Apple will not support 2010 MBPs in the next major OS update next fall. That being said, with enough knowledge it is possible to upgrade to a new OS. If having the newest OS is important to you, you might want to look at upgrading when the next MBP is released. If you don't mind making changes to the source code of the OS, you might be able to continue pushing new OS's onto your laptop for a few years. However, even without future OS upgrades, I'd guess your computer will be relevant for another 3-4 years.


Where do I start with re-installing OSX on my 2008 MacBook? I'm in kind of a mess. I have a 2008 MacBook (White) and I tried to re-install the OS. I wiped the HDD as part of the re-install process but the install failed and said the disc is scratched.

I have a copy of Leopard that came with the MacBook. However it fails checksums.
I have an upgrade copy of Snow Leopard on DVD. (Unsurprisingly?) the MacBook won't install from it.
I have a full copy of Snow Leopard for Mac Mini - I tried to install and it says it doesn't work on MacBooks.
I have a new MacBook Air with Lion preinstalled.

Is there something I can do to reinstall Something on my MacBook?
I know the last resort is to suck it up and buy Lion on USB, but I was wondering if there are some alternatives that avoid that.

I have a copy of Leopard that came with the MacBook. However it fails
checksums.

You can try to repair the disc using this method. Never done it but the author claims he has, and it worked for him. Your mileage may vary.

I have an upgrade copy of Snow Leopard on DVD. (Unsurprisingly?) the
MacBook won't install from it.

You seem to have bad luck with physical media. From this source (and Diago below), the Snow Leopard upgrade disc contains a full installer, allowing the installation even over a system without any OS whatsoever. If it fails to boot, it could likely be damaged.

I have a full copy of Snow Leopard for Mac Mini - I tried to install
and it says it doesn't work on MacBooks.

That is also correct. Minis (like many of the machines Apple manufacturers) come with their own specific versions of OS X. The Mac minis, like the MacBook Airs ship with special versions that differ from the ones you purchase through other channels. Therefore, you cannot use an installation disc from a MacBook Pro on a MacBook or iMac.

I have a new MacBook Air with Lion preinstalled.

Apple machines that ship with Lion cannot be transferred to other devices. If you purchases Lion through the Mac App Store, you could install it on any Mac (except those that ship with them of course).

In all honesty, the best advice I could give you is to book an appointment at one of your local Apple Stores and speak to a Genius. Tell them your situation (bring in the machine and the Tiger installation disc). They'll either give you a Snow Leopard installation for free or boost you up to Lion. I'm not sure if they will give you a free USB Stick, but they'll do something for you. I guarantee that.


What would happen if I changed my startup disk to a flash drive, then tried to turn on the computer without said flash drive plugged in? I'm experimenting with live USBs, and I'm curious what would happen. I mean setting this through System Preferences, not the Boot Manager.

The main reason for selecting a startup disk in System Preferences > Startup Disk is to let macOS know where it should boot from by default. This does not prevent macOS from booting off another drive in the event there is a problem with the default drive.

So, in the event that the default drive is not present or functioning correctly, and there is another bootable disk connected to the Mac (either internally or externally), it should eventually find it and boot off that.

When I say eventually I don't mean hours, it's usually no more than a couple of minutes.

If there is no other bootable drive, your Mac will display an error, usually in the form of a folder image with a question mark on it.

Firmware password

Note, if you have set a firmware password on your Mac, the behaviour will be different to what I've described above.

If you have a firmware password enabled and you try to start up from another drive (incl. from Recovery), your Mac will pause the startup sequence and present the user with a password field instead. In this case, before the Mac boots up from the other bootable drive it has located, the user will need to enter the firmware password.


howto: limit movies displayed in itunes "in-app" movies folder to those in the itunes library Itunes adds all movies to my itunes movies folder (not the actual folder in the filesystem, but the one inside itunes), including movies from trash and personal stuff I don't want in itunes. How can I limit the movies itunes display to the one's that are actually added to the library and/or "reside" in specific folders?

iTunes is going to display any files that are in its library. To avoid displaying files, don't import them into iTunes and don't use iTunes as the player for those files because they will be added to the library collection. To play those files use Quicktime Player or a third-party solution like VLC instead.

You can also disable iTunes's copying of files into it's own folder structure in iTunes > Preferences > Advanced, but this will apply to all media types and, in my experience, is a less-than-optimal way to use iTunes.


Filter out ARP query from given ether:ip Let's say on my network there is a hacker who floods my computer with arp messages to associate his MAC address with the IP of the computer I want to reach.

It's like he sends the following message continuously (100 packets per second) to my computer:

192.168.1.2 (my target) has 0:0:0:0:0:1 (hacker's MAC address)

the following does not work, I end up with the two association in arp -a:

arp -a -d; arp -s 192.168.1.2 0:0:0:0:0:2 (the real MAC address of the target)

Is it possible on macOS to  drop the arp packets from the hacker?

You could use a static ARP entry to solve the problem. This is done using "arp -s" as you write in your question. The second association is not a problem as the static entry will take precedence.

Alternatively you could block the MAC address of the spoofer. For example you could use the "ifconfig bridge" command to create a bridge over which you tunnel all packets from the evil MAC-address. When configuring the bridge, set that it tags the packets.

Then you can use the pf packet filter to examine all the tagged packets and possible reject them.


Is there a way to program iTunes to only play all of your songs once? I'm tried of hearing the same songs over and over when listening to songs via  iTunes DJ.

This can easily be accomplished with smart playlists.

Make a smart playlist where the play count is less than one.

Then base iTunes DJ on that playlist.

You could also select all the songs (no matter what play count and simply add them to a normal playlist and have that playlist not shuffle, but play counts are more durable across launches of the iTunes app.)

And, there's no reason you can't make a second iTunes library just for this purpose. Be sure to not import or organize the tracks and have this second library file just reference the main library. Play through one time and the play counts will all be 1 in this "special" library - not the main library. Change the less than 1 to 2 - and you get the second pass of all the songs on DJ.

Also - there is a nice writeup in MacWorld explaining how to use this sort of smart playlist for listing to audio book chapters.


Issues with installing SSD instead of DVD drive? It is common to replace a MacBook Pro's hard disk drive (HDD) with an solid state drive (SSD), however, that may pose a threat to the HDD if installed in the optical bay instead of the SuperDrive.*

Therefore, that leaves the option of:

Leaving the existing HDD where it is.
Then installing the SSD instead of the optical drive (SuperDrive) with a bracket.
While still using the SSD as the main boot drive.

Some websites mention that there may be issues with sleep and hibernation if this is done.

Is that true? Can it be mitigated?

Are there other issues with this approach?

* It could also mean that the HDD will be louder, since the main bay where it is usually housed has rubber to muffle vibration noises.

I usually place the lighter drive in the optical bay since it's not as securely connected to the body as the intended HDD slot. This also plays into the rubber shock mounts for the HDD which both protect it from accelerations as well as isolating/dampening whatever vibration the drive motors cause.

As phrased, you may get a null answer since there may not be any issues with either placement. Macs can boot from external drives and have no problems writing the sleep image to an external USB or Thunderbolt drive since the OS wants to keep the system on one drive.

The only issues I've seen are people using links to place some of the core OS and support files on a secondary drive rather than just placing user files (home folders) and safer documents on a manual/fixed tiered storage system.

With core storage and Apple's broad support of any SSD to comprise a FusionDrive the need to micromanage what files live on which tier of storage might hopefully become a thing of the past.


How to reinstall OSX on a Macbook Air whose screen is broken, and OS has been erased? So I've had this Macbook Air for a while with a completely broken screen, and I wanted to give it to a friend who would work with it using a second screen.
I plugged a second screen to start reformating, but of course once it rebooted, the image wouldn't go to the second screen.

So I'm stuck with a Macbook with a broken screen in the middle of the process of reformatting.
I'd like to reinstall OSX on it.

What do?

There are several options:

Plug in an external monitor and then you should be able to follow the install process.
Target disk mode, but as it's a MacBook Air this would be dependent on having a Thunderbolt port, that you can connect directly to another Thunderbolt port, or a Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter into an older Mac with Firewire.


Prevent window autoselect on application launch When I am typing in an application (say Terminal), and I want to google something, I open Safari. While safari opens and loads tabs and whatnot, I want to keep typing in terminal to get work done. However, after about a second the Safari window gets automatically selected, and whatever I am in the middle of typing suddenly gets input into safari instead.

So I deal with it and click back on Terminal to keep typing. After another second, Safari reselects itself, and I have the same problem. I click back to Terminal, and it happens a third time.

It's extremely annoying, and can be hazardous, for instance when an alert pops up in the newly launched application and I just happen to hit Enter on my keyboard (expecting it to be input into Terminal), causing the alert to instantly disappear after it pops up, potentially doing unwanted actions on my computer.

I don't know if it happens three times with Safari (it was just an example), but I know it has happened at least three times before with a single application launch.

Is there any way to turn off this feature?

As far as I'm aware, there is no ideal solution, unless you're willing to disable SIP (maybe).

I think your best bet may be the bash command open:

Bash:

open -ga "Google Chrome"

Applescript:

do shell script "open -ga 'Google Chrome' "

These will open the specificed appliction without stealing focus

  The application names are case sensitive

If I only needed this while using terminal, I'd perhaps use aText to expand open chrome to the above command and so on... Not that it's much shorter, but I'd prefer that.

You can use third party applications to launch apps and scripts:

Alfred, Launchbar, FastScripts, Apptivate etc... there are tons of apps that do this.

You could also make an Application using Automator.app, that just runs the terminal command and you can add that app to the dock. This has it's own problems though, because the actual application icon will show up in the Dock as soon as you click your custom Dock icon and now you got two icons for the same app in the dock... oh well.

As a side note, you can also open a specific website:

Bash:

open -ga "Google Chrome" "http://askdifferent.com"

Applescript:

do shell script "open -ga 'Google Chrome' 'http://askdifferent.com' "

  In other applications you can open a file by replacing the url with a path to a file.


Recover data in Sparsebundle disk Image I'm afraid I'm out of luck but...  I followed the directions in various places,

# hdiutil -nomount -noverify -noautofsck SecureRecords.sparsebundle
/dev/disk1
# fsck_hfs -drfy /dev/disk1
journal_replay(/dev/disk1) returned 22
** /dev/rdisk1
Using cacheBlockSize=32K cacheTotalBlock=49152 cacheSize=1572864K.
Executing fsck_hfs (version hfs-407.30.1).
Block 2 is not an MDB or Volume Header
Block 1953163 is not an MDB or Volume Header
volumeType is 0
0000:  0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000       |................|
. . .
01f0:  0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000       |................|
unknown volume type
primary MDB is at block 0 0x00
alternate MDB is at block 0 0x00
primary VHB is at block 0 0x00
alternate VHB is at block 0 0x00
sector size = 512 0x200
VolumeObject flags = 0x01
total sectors for volume = 1953165 0x1dcd8d
total sectors for embedded volume = 0 0x00
CheckForClean - unknown volume type
CheckHFS returned 6, fsmodified = 0

The underlying story is that this was in a directory being synced onto a Google Drive and I'm guessing Google Drive did something.  I last mounted this a month ago, and have used this like this for years.  The dates on the files in the bands/ directory are believable, with a couple bands dated on Feb 18, the last time I did anything.

Well, I'm in luck.  I wandered around google drive, and right-click on the relevant folder showed me activity in March.  And, strangely, 14 of the band files had been deleted. Google drive had an option to restore them, individually.  After that downloading the whole sparse bundle as a .zip file, and expanding it, the bundle is now recognized again.

I think the file deletions happened when I was messing around with google drive settings, changing it from "Ask before deleting everywhere" to "Remove items everywhere", on a computer that was sync-ing a much smaller subset of directories.

Lesson, (a) don't depend on Google for anything (although in fairness Drive did provide the tools to recover), (b) for important things, have multiple backups


Alert me when a certain app/process isn't running Is it easily possible to have some sort of cron job or something run on my Mac that alerts / notifies me when a certain program isn't running?

I use an app last.fm, and since it doesn't run in my dock I don't notice that the process might not be running any more.

I ended up writing a simple applescript and creating a cronjob to run it every 10 minutes.

When Last.fm is not running, this launches it.  when it is running, it does nothing.

AppleScript:

tell application "Last.fm" to run

Cronjob

*/10 * * * * osascript /Users/Jacob/Documents/AppleScripts/LastFMRunning.scpt


How can you stop "Verification required" when installing free apps? Whenever I install a free app on my iPad, this message appears:

  Verification required
  Before you can make purchases, you must tap continue to sign in, then verify your payment info.

What does it mean? How can I stop it?

Generally verification comes up for one of two reasons:

Your previously-supplied payment information failed for your last purchase
You are using a device which has never purchased (or downloaded, for free apps) anything from the App Store with your account before.

Most likely it is the second one. Going through the payment verification process does not charge your payment method, it simply verifies it is valid. Once completed you can complete the download of your free app.


How can I fix or restore my 3TB Fusion Drive macOS install after Boot Camp partitioning error? What I have:
 - 27" 2012 Mac with 3TB Fusion Drive
 - 3.4 GHz Core i7 (3770) ("Ivy Bridge") processor
 - 24 GB RAM

I was trying to set it up with a Boot Camp partition for Windows 10. The story so far:

Machine came with virgin install of Sierra. I restored from my Time Machine backup of my iMac 9,1 (also with Sierra installed), and everything worked normally.
The new machine inherited the Time Machine backup from the old one and was fully backed up.
I ran Boot Camp Assistant to download the Boot Camp files, put the Windows 10 iso on a flash drive, and partition the disk.
During this process, I was only able to choose a maximum partition size for Windows of 640 GB, with the Mac partition being about 2454 GB if I recall correctly.
The partitioning failed with an error message, and it told me to repair the disk in Disk Utility
I went to Disk Utility and performed repair (on the 'whole disk' and the disk volume named Macintosh HD). No problems were found and the repair exited normally.
I continued with Boot Camp Assistant, which had stayed open, and tried to partition the disk again. As before, 640 GB was the maximum allowable for Windows.
The process appeared to hang, I left it for over half an hour before force quitting. I guess this was a bad mistake, perhaps it just takes a long time anyway.
After force quitting, the Mac slowed to a crawl. I entered Disk Utility which showed the capacity as about 3 TB and the used space about 0.04 TB less than that. Before this, the used space was about 1.6 TB.
I ran First Aid in Disk Utility and after this process the Disk Capacity was reduced to 1.67 TB with 0.04 TB free. The computer continued to run at a crawl, presumably because of the lack of free space on the disk.
I booted off my Time Machine backup, which booted into the recovery environment.
I erased the Fusion Drive, which restored the capacity to 3TB.
Next, possibly another big mistake, I chose Restore and then chose my Time Machine disk. But I did this from inside Disk Utility rather than from the main menu of the recovery environment.
The restore completed and verified. The Fusion Drive was now named 2TBTimeMachine instead of Macintosh HD.
When I tried to reboot, the Apple logo appeared with a progress bar, and then a grey screen with a circle with a diagonal line through it.
I booted from the Time Machine disk again (to the recovery environment). I ran First Aid, first on the whole disk, which appeared to fix one thing. I can't remember what this was but I remember it said '1 newer' of whatever it changed.
I then ran First Aid on the disk named 2TBTimeMachine (i.e. the Fusion Drive), which found several problems and reported that it successfully fixed them. I'm sorry, I don't remember what issues it found and fixed.
I tried rebooting again, which led to the same circle with diagonal line. Before that, I tried to select the startup disk from the recovery environment, which showed no startup disks available at all.
Currently I am redoing the Time Machine backup from my old Mac and intend to try and restore that to the new Mac. I am writing this from the Internet Recovery Environment on my new Mac.

I have a few questions:

What mistakes did I make in the process above?
Will I be able to restore to the new disk without erasing it first (i.e. will it replace all content on the disk)? The reason I ask is because the Internet Recovery Environment seems to have an older version of Disk Utility, and I don't want to risk erasing the disk from this version of Disk Utility in case it doesn't know about Fusion Drives.
Is there any benefit to installing Mac OS X Mountain Lion from the Internet Recovery Environment? I don't know why Mountain Lion is the only option here. Is it likely to cause further problems if I install Mountain Lion and from that install upgrade to Sierra?
Do I need to 'rebuild' the Fusion Drive and can you provide or direct me to a clear set of instructions for doing this?

I recommend to do the following:

Create a bootable macOS Sierra installer thumb drive or if you are restricted to your iMac9,1 a bootable El Capitan installer thumb drive (same link).
Boot the iMac13,2 with the thumb drive
Open Terminal in the menubar > Utilities > Terminal
Enter diskutil list and diskutil cs list to get an overview
Destroy the LVG:

diskutil cs delete lvgUUID #lvgUUID: UUID of the Logical Volume Group

Enter exit to quit Terminal.app and open Disk Utility
Completely erase both disks (each to one volume with the names e.g. "fusion1" and "fusion2" but not "Macintosh HD").
Open Terminal again and get the device identifiers again: diskutil list
Create a new LVG and LV (here I assume the 120 GB SSD has the disk identifier disk0 and the 3 TB HDD disk1 - they might be different though!):

diskutil cs create Fusion disk0 disk1
diskutil cs createVolume lvgUUID jhfs+ "Macintosh HD" 100% #replace lvgUUID with the UUID shown in the output of the previous command

Enter exit to quit Terminal.app
After finishing the iMac9,1 backup to your TM backup drive, attach the drive to your iMac13,2 and in the Utilities windows choose Restore from Time Machine Backup > Select backup source > ...choose the drive and restore it to your Macintosh HD volume.
After the restore task has finished successfully, boot your iMac13,2 normally. Check if a RecoveryHD is present by opening Terminal and entering diskutil list.
If the RecoveryHD is missing, simply reinstall Sierra with the latest Sierra installer downloaded from the App Store  - which shouldn't affect your data but creates an additional RecoveryHD - or use the Recovery Partition Creator 4.


USB Drive with Mountain Lion Boot-Up Problem I've tried a few ways to restore the Mountain Lion InstallESD.dmg to a USB hard drive to reinstall on my Mac Mini. I've used Disk Utility Restore, Lion Disk Maker and Carbon Copy Cloner.

Each method gives me the same outcome: When booting I get the infamous circle with the slash and spinning gear.

I've tried to boot up with the same USB on multiple macs and they both have the same outcome. And yes, the Macs I'm trying it on have the compatibility to support Mountain Lion.

Saw your comment about replacing the HD, but could you report what the previous OS version was? I found that I couldn't upgrade from Leopord directly to Mountain Lion and had to upload to Snow Leopoard first. The machine in question was also in spec for ML.


Gatekeeper permission issue I installed Acronis True Image 2018, but unable to install the drivers due to permission issues.

Also I have tried the below

Vivek’s MacBook Pro:~ vivek$ sudo xattr -cr /Applications/Acronis\ True\ Image.app
Vivek’s MacBook Pro:~ vivek$ sudo codesign -f -s - /Applications/Acronis\ True\ Image.app
Password:
/Applications/Acronis True Image.app: replacing existing signature
/Applications/Acronis True Image.app: code object is not signed at all
In subcomponent: /Applications/Acronis True Image.app/Contents/MacOS/acronis_drive.config
Vivek’s MacBook Pro:~ vivek$ sudo codesign -f -s /Applications/Acronis\ True\ Image.app
error: The specified item could not be found in the keychain.
Vivek’s MacBook Pro:~ vivek$ sudo codesign -f -s - /Applications/Acronis\ True\ Image.app
/Applications/Acronis True Image.app: replacing existing signature
/Applications/Acronis True Image.app: code object is not signed at all
In subcomponent: /Applications/Acronis True Image.app/Contents/MacOS/acronis_drive.config
Vivek’s MacBook Pro:~ vivek$ sudo codesign -f -s - /Applications/Acronis\ True\ Image.app
Password:
/Applications/Acronis True Image.app: replacing existing signature

This has not helped either, I have tried to contact the Acronis support team and they couldn't help either.I also tried to disable the system policy and trying to allow apps from anywhere

You need temporary disable SIP (boot yo single mode by press CMD and R when reboot the system). Run the Terminal and enter

csrutil disable

Reboot and reinstall, in your screenshot, allow it!


How can I get my iPad 2 to view a website on a laptop over an adhoc network? I have setup a laptop with iis and have a test website running on it.  I have created an adhoc network between my laptop (running Windows 7) and my Ipad 2. On the laptop I can enter a url in firefox and it knows it is a local site, by entering details of this into the hosts file.

When I try to enter the url into the browser on the Ipad 2, I get a message of: Safari cannot open the page because it is not connected to the internet.

Any suggestions on how I can get this to work?

Many thanks.

This isn't an Apple specific question, but the simplest way to do this is to use the IP address of the laptop. There are various ways of determining the IP address of the laptop. You may be able to find it by hovering your mouse over the wifi icon in the taskbar, or if not open a command window and run 'ipconfig'.

Once you have the ip address, you can browse to it from the iPad at the URL:

http://a.b.c.d/

where a.b.c.d is the IP address of the laptop.

You will have to ensure your Windows firewall is allowing access and ensure IIS is listening to this IP address - by default it listens to all IP addresses on the machine, so unless you changed it, you  should be ok.


Why does OSX always print ApplePersistence=YES to stderr? Whenever my mac boots up, each task that is launched prints the following message. See for example

22/09/16 14:13:45.070 TMHelperAgent[6171]: ApplePersistence=YES

Whenever I run an AppleScript, I get the same message printed to stderr as well.

osascript -e 'tell application id "com.spotify.client" to quit'
2016-09-23 08:39:15.084 osascript[1257:28252] ApplePersistence=YES

Is this normal behavior? How can I stop the OS from printing this message every time?

The error message is printed to STDERR. You can simply redirect the output to /dev/null:

osascript -e 'tell application id "com.spotify.client" to quit' 2>/dev/null


Auto Generating and Printing PDF Files From Markdown? I'm looking for a way to automatically have my computer generate and print PDF files from a folder full of markdown files.

So, every morning at 5AM I'd want my computer look at my /markdown-files folder, create a bunch of PDFs to go into a /PDF-folder and also run the printer so the pages are waiting for me.

There are a couple of requirements that might make this a bit tricky:

The PDFs should have the file title at the top of each page
The page needs to be A4
The lines should be double spaced at least.

I used to use WKPDF to generate PDFs, but it no longer works on Yosemite.

You can do this with Markdown.pl and htmldoc(1), both of which can be installed with Homebrew.  The basic flow for making a PDF is:

markdown foo.markdown | htmldoc --no-toc --no-title -f foo.pdf -

As for your filename-per-page, you coul incorporate echo to add it as an HTML element:

echo $(markdown foo.markdown) "
foo
" | htmldoc --no-toc --no-title -f foo.pdf -

And for printing, the lpr(1) command will send a file to your default printer.

Tying this altogether:

for filename in `ls *.markdown`;
do
    echo $(markdown "$filename") "
$filename
" |
        htmldoc --no-toc --no-title -f "${filename}.pdf" -
    lpr "${filename}.pdf"
done


How to get the wi-fi connection status from terminal? Sometimes, when waking up my mac, I get the message "Alert: No internet connection" on the Wi-Fi icon. I can solve it everytime by turning Wi-Fi off and on again. Is there a terminal command I can use to detect the current connection status? I would like to run a script to turn Wi-Fi off and on automatically on waking up if so. Other solutions are welcome, too.

You do not need a script for tuning the WiFi on and connecting you, the OS X system does that already for you. If you look in Console (look for line containing Airport) and the lines after that will show it in action.
Best is if you could publish that log in here to see why is it not working for you.

Here are some choices for you:

If you want a Scrip to continuously test if you are connected you could use this:

repeat
    try
        do shell script "ping -c 5 google.com"
    on error
        display dialog "You are not connected to the internet"
    end try
end repeat
One of the simplest Terminal commands to see if you are connected and all connections that are active is the Netstat.
To see the details of your current connection use Airport-I in Terminal.
Now if you want to use the Terminal to connect to your WiFi use following:

Manually connect to WiFi

Turn On

networksetup -setairportpower en0 on

Turn OFF networksetup -setairportpower en0 off

Find

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/A/Resources/airport scan

Connect

networksetup -setairportnetwork en0 WIFI_SSID_I_WANT_TO_JOIN WIFI_PASSWORD

If you do not know it use the Find the SSID- BSSID

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/A/Resources/airport -s

Finlay, if you do this frequently create a script in Apple Script app.

Save the following apple script as application. Pull it to your dock for fast access.

--
-- Toggle Airport Power On and Off
--
if (offset of "On" in (do shell script "networksetup -getairportpower en0")) > 0 then
    do shell script "networksetup -setairportpower en0 off"
else
    do shell script "networksetup -setairportpower en0 on"
end if


How do I tell OS X to never include certain folders in Recent Places on Open/Save dialogs? When I tried to save a document I noticed a recent section and folders listed I don't want people to see.

How I can either get OS X to never add these to Recent Places, or if that's not possible then turn off Recent Places period?

You cannot do it on a per directory basis. What you can do is:

Clear the current list with the following command in Terminal:

defaults delete -g NSNavRecentPlaces

Then repeat it each time you want the list to be cleared.
Disable saving the Recent Places history completely with:

defaults write -g NSNavRecentPlacesLimit -int 0


The application "XQuartz" can't be opened I'm quite puzzled by the following issue. I tried to open XQuartz after some time I hadn't used it and I got a dialog box saying "The application "XQuartz" can't be opened." I went through all the usual troubleshooting steps (deleting preferences and caches, and reinstalling the application) to no avail. After further troubleshooting I discovered that:

it only happens in my account; i.e., XQuartz works for other accounts on the same laptop;
it only happens when trying to open XQuartz from Finder; i.e., if try to open XQuartz from the command line with xquartz or open /Applications/Utilities/XQuartz.app, XQuartz opens properly.

I suspect the issue has something to do with environment variables, possibly the PATH variable, for applications launched through Finder, but I'm not sure how to troubleshoot that. Any suggestions? I'm on macOS Catalina 10.15.7

The issue was my .zprofile file. I recently installed Intel oneAPI and I had the initialization script in the .zprofile file. I moved the script to the .zshrc file, and now everything works properly.


How can I find all the modifications and installations done by a spam dmg? I downloaded a 1.5 MB dmg file from a inauthentic site and despite suspicion, opened it and opened the app inside it. Assume that the game I wanted was game, so it was named game.dmg. It mounted installer and showed the icon of installer.app. It didn't install the expected software ofc, but displayed the privacy policy of InstallCore and then two software recommendations which I denied. After which, it showed a link which let me download real software. Back to Finder, it showed completed Installation.

I have the dmg and I can open it again but I need to know where to look to find all the installations, files it wrote etc. I checked in System Report-> installations sorted by date. Only Adobe Flash Player was something I don't remember installing on that day. It was pre-installed. I have removed it for now.

MalwareBytes scan didn't show anything.

Feel free to ask for package contents, screenshots, system logs, activity monitor details etc. MacOS Mojave on MacBook Air.

In general it is not possible to figure out after the fact what was done - unless you have backups.

If you have a recent backup from just before the installation, you can do a comparison with your current system to locate the differences. This is the “safest” method (I.e. least likely to miss something).

It is also possible to analyze the installer file itself - but modern malware tend to receive instructions from a server on what to do on the target system. Such instructions might have changed since you installed.


Can I trust Apple Store's employees with my laptop? This might be a bizarre but crucial question, can I fully trust leaving my laptop in repairs (Genius Bar) while they have full access to it ?

I recently went to the genius bar to get my display fixed, and apparently they asked for my laptop's password just in case they need some "testing" after they're done. Can't they do that as a guest account ?

I got sensitive information on my laptop such as passport copies etc, as well as passwords saved in Safari's keychains for my bank account, paypal, amazon etc ..

The service is due later on today, shall I change my password and ask them to contact me directly if they need something specific ?? They're going to fix in 3 hours so I'll be in the mall whilst they finish.

You can probably trust the average genius team (since the machine will be under the watch of many people while it is out of your possession). From a legal standpoint, you have agreed to the AppleCare Repair Service terms and conditions by signing your property and data over to Apple. For the rest of this discussion on the contract between you and Apple relating to your data, I'll focus on the English north american contract.

It lays responsibility on the person bringing in the equipment to remove all confidential or proprietary information from the system. It also lays responsibility on Apple for having "security measures, which should protect your data against unauthorized access or disclosure as well as unlawful destruction." which a lawyer will focus on should which is more binding than may but less binding than shall/must. It continues with

  You will be responsible for the instructions you give to Apple regarding the processing of data, and Apple will seek to comply with those instructions as reasonably necessary for the performance of the service and support obligations under the Plan. If you do not agree with the above or if you have questions regarding how your data may be impacted by being processed in this way, contact Apple at the telephone numbers provided.

But why not be a bit skeptical and ask why you might trust them. Sure they are probably trained to protect personal data of customers and respect privacy and there is social pressure to not be a jerk with your personal data.

Some devices (iPhones, iPads, Air and retina MacBook) require advanced skills and potentially damage to the equipment to remove the storage module, so this is something worth exploring a bit as not everyone can simply pop out the hard drive during service like older MacBooks allowed.

I would say never give your password until you understand why it is being used and you are fully informed and willing to take that risk by disclosing your secret. I would also say, when I choose to not entrust a specific password, that I've done one of four things when I have something in for service that was in the category of data requiring more protection than none.

Wipe the drive - if things are truly sensitive - I have no business saving time by not securely wiping all data that's sensitive before it leaves my control. (or paying for a higher level of service to ensure confidentiality)
Change the password to either my account or my keychain.
Make a new temporary account for the testing and give that. Sometimes I give them admin rights - other times I do not.
Give them a cell phone number and permission to call me 24/7 if they need the password and can explain why it's needed at that point of the repair.

Basically, If you hand your computer to Apple - you are handing it to someone with the tools and help to bypass all passwords(including firmware and normal physical security of the case) and read the data from the hard drive or just take the storage and keep it. Unless you have FileVault or other encryption (like 1Password) and withhold that pass phrase. A technician could if they wanted, make a full copy of your data and perhaps even go snooping. I would ask the genius (or technician) to help educate you to how security works before you proceed with this repair.

If you had a few extra-secret files, you cold put them into encrypted disc images.

There are many repairs where a password is needed to complete the service if your service involves software changes. Normally, this password is asked for to speed up the repair for you and let them replace any and all parts needed to complete the repair. If they are in and find you need a new motherboard, they could just do that if you give them the extra permission and password they need to do all possible work without stopping to contact you and explain what/why.

In your case, I would simply say you'd like to know a bit more about how they secure your password and your data during service. I would bet that the person asking for your password was lulled by the 100th time they've checked in a machine and forgot to ask you if you had any questions or perhaps missed your uneasiness about what was being asked. Once you've made your concern concrete by asking why they need it - you can then say you'd feel better not giving it and ask if that will either delay or prevent the repair. Any shop I trust will spend time to address these concerns to your satisfaction before they would accept your password. They would also lay out for you how to secure things again after the repair - change these three passwords, etc...

As a class, my opinion and experience is that Apple service technicians are highly professional, trained on privacy of your equipment and information and have thought out very well what, how and why they ask for someone's password. But even if bad things have never happened despite good training and policy, mistakes can and will happen in returning the wrong laptop or theft and your data is at risk when in the shop.

It is you in the end who have the right (and responsibility) to be a little suspicious - especially when it's not clear how your password will be used during a repair. The clearer you can be with your concerns - the more comfortable you will be with your choice to trust the specific team you interact with on a case-by-case basis.


MacPorts not working after power outage during build (sqlite disk I/O error) I was building packages in MacPorts on a Mac Mini when the power went out. Now anything I try to do in MacPorts (install, clean, selfupdate) results in the following error:

sqlite error: disk I/O error (3850) while executing query: ATTACH DATABASE '/opt/local/var/macports/registry/registry.db' AS registry
    while executing
"registry::open $db_path"
    (procedure "mportinit" line 610)
    invoked from within
"mportinit ui_options global_options global_variations"
Error: /opt/local/bin/port: Failed to initialize MacPorts, sqlite error: disk I/O error (3850) while executing query: ATTACH DATABASE '/opt/local/var/macports/registry/registry.db' AS registry

How can I fix this?

The fix for this is actually quite simple, and is mentioned in this MacPorts issue. From a comment on the issue by "pixilla@…":

$ cd /opt/local/var/macports/registry
$ ls registry.db-journal
$ sudo sqlite3 registry.db
sqlite> .tables
sqlite> SELECT id FROM ports;
sqlite> .quit

Based on another comment by "ecronin@…", I conclude that, had I run any port command as root, it would have been fixed automatically and saved me all this trouble. But I always forget to use sudo...

EDIT Wait, I did run a port command with sudo. Weird. Oh, well, at least it works now.


Time Machine Problems I just got a new 2TB hard drive and I wanted to set up Time Machine. I did and now it is backing up stuff.
On this page (http://www.howtogeek.com/212445/how-to-use-a-time-machine-drive-for-both-file-storage-and-backups/) I read that "When you set up Time Machine, your Mac wants to use an entire external drive exclusively for backups."
Is this true, what does it mean exactly?
Also is it possible to view folders in a regular manner after they are backed up on the hard drive without using Time Machine?

You can read any file on the Time Machine volume - just write permission is withheld in the Backups.backupdb folder. This is all covered in https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201250

Feel free to explore the drive and use it for other storage - the system keeps you from messing in places where the machine needs to control file writes.

I can only assume the "exclusively" means that it might ask to erase and reformat a drive that doesn't meet Time Machine requirements. I've never had issues with GUID/Extended HFS volumes and Time Machine needing to be "exclusive".


Count checked cells if cell on same row matches state in Numbers Following on from my previous question, I also record which entry records a competition. These are currently recorded as checkboxes. Counting them all is easy enough; I simply use the following function:

=COUNTIF(Stevne?;TRUE)

However, I also want to count the competitions that are specific to a type of firearm.

What I've got so far is:

=COUNTIF(Stevne?;TRUE;AND(Type:"Pistol"))

That, unfortunately, returns a Syntax error, and I can't understand why.

You need the COUNTIFS() function.

So in this case:

=COUNTIFS («gun range», true, «Firearm», "Pistol")

Accounting for ; delimiters:

=COUNTIFS («gun range»; true; «Firearm»; "Pistol")

From the help:

  The COUNTIFS function returns the number of cells in one or more
  collections that satisfy given conditions (one condition per
  collection).

  COUNTIFS(test-values, condition, test-values…, condition…)

  test-values: A collection containing values to be tested. test-values can contain any value.

  condition: An expression that can include comparison operators, constants, the ampersand concatenation operator, and references. The
  contents of the condition must be such that the result of comparing
  the condition to another value results in the boolean value of TRUE or
  FALSE.

  test-values…: Optionally include one or more additional collections containing values to be tested. Each test-values collection must be
  followed immediately by a condition expression. This pattern of
  test-values, condition can be repeated as many times as needed.

  condition…: If an optional collection of test-values is included, an additional expression that results in a boolean TRUE or FALSE. There
  must be one condition expression following each test-values
  collection; therefore, this function will always have an odd number of
  arguments.

  Notes

  Each value in test-values is compared to the corresponding condition.
  If the corresponding values in each collection meet the corresponding
  conditional tests, the count is increased by 1.


How can I change which application is launched when I press the play button on my remote? My mac mini came with a remote control. When I press the play button, iTunes is launched. How can I change what happens when I press this button (e.g. launch a different program)?

according to the writer : This seems to work with iTunes 8 and 9, although you'll need to redo the patch after upgrading.

Open a Terminal and type the following

cd /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS
sudo mv iTunes iTunesX
sudo curl http://www.cs.umd.edu/~dmonner/iTunes -O
sudo chmod uog+x iTunes enter code here

From http://www.cs.umd.edu/~dmonner/iTunes

#!/usr/bin/env python

import sys, os, subprocess

launch = True
blocker = ""

apps = ["Spotify", "Songbird"]

ps = subprocess.Popen("/bin/ps -x", shell=True, stdout=subprocess.PIPE)

for line in ps.stdout.read().split("\n"):
    for app in apps:
        if app in line:
            launch = False
            blocker = app

ps.stdout.close()

if launch :
    os.spawnvp(os.P_WAIT, '/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunesX', sys.argv)
else :
    print "Not launching iTunes while %s is running." % blocker

and you can read more here and here.


Are there any apps to improve wifi priority sorting in macOS? I know how to sort wifi networks by priority in macOS, but the interface makes it a serious tedious task. I travel constantly so I have a tremendous number of wifi networks. Being able to search for networks and more easily set priority rules would be a great thing.

Are there any macOS apps out there to improve the interface on wifi sorting?

i use this one for quick and easy on the road access, WiFi Scanner.app

http://wifiscanner.com/wifiscanner.html

it's worked from osx 10.11 to 10.12.3, if you have an older version of OSX, check out KisMAC

if you want to dig deep into the packets for collisions, injections, penetration testing, etc, checkout Wireshark


text history on iphone 6 I thought you could go back to see entire history of texting from/between each person, any person. A couple of times I have seen back farther but usually not (am only looking to research one person at the moment). How do I get to the origin of that contact/trail and see them all with that particular person?

Do you use iMessage? This is the best way to preserve text history, available even after restoring your device to factory settings.


Action on Middle-Click on Desktop For years, when I used X, I had it configured so that a middle-click on the background would instantly create an xterm right there.  Apparently, old habits die hard, as I just tried to middle-click myself a Terminal.app window, despite not having used X regularly in nearly 20 years.
So, is it possible to configure an action to start an app/open a new window in an app on middle-click on the desktop?

As Apple has never sold a mouse with a middle button, macOS has never had native support for assigning any custom actions to that input.
However, there are a variety of third-party utilities which will enable this, such as BetterTouchTool or Multitouch.


How to stop Terminal from using special characters? When I'm using arguments with quotes in the Terminal, the quote is first highlighted and then changes to a special character when certain characters are entered after it.

For example trying to type "u changes to ü.

How do I disable this?

I'm on OS X El Capitan, 10.11.6

Go to system prefs/keyboard/input sources and get rid of the layout called US International PC.  Use US or ABC instead.


Bluetooth Not Available - Mid 2010 Macbook Pro I have a 13" mid 2010 Macbook Pro running 10.8.3. For some reason, I started it up the other day and my Bluetooth is now for some reason unavailable.

I've had this problem in the past, and if my memory serves me correctly the only way to get it back was just to let it come back on it's own. However, it's very annoying that this happens apparently no reason and this is just not good enough.

I've tried the following:

Restart, shut down, suspend/resume cycles
Reset SMC
Reset PRAM
Deleted any Bluetooth.plist files in ~/Library/Preferences
Verified permissions

And nothing has worked. Any suggestions?

I reviewed a similar problem with the same model on the MacRumors forum and the original poster responded that it was definitely a hardware issue. In researching parts to see if you could fix this yourself -- in case you are out of warranty -- I found that the Bluetooth hardware is part of the display assembly. This means you'll need to replace your display. The part itself is about $500 at iFixIt and the fix is consider "difficult."

The only other suggestion I saw mentioned was to re-install OS X, but I would lean toward a hardware issue.

Good luck!


iPhone X photo preview different from result I would like to know if the camera behavior I am experiencing it's normal or if there is a problem.

When I shoot a photo in low light conditions the photo "preview" I see in the camera app is really different from the final photo.

This is before taking the photo. As you can see there is some noise in the picture:

This is the result taken from the camera roll. The noise is not present anymore and light is totally different:

How it is supposed to work? Because if the preview it's different from the result I cannot trust the preview and maybe I can do some adjustment before shooting (e.g. change the exposure) that will led to a completely unexpected result.

The final photo is not a “screenshot”-esque result, but a processed image.


How do I see all iOS in-app subscriptions that I have active? If I subscribe to several iOS in-app subscriptions, such as magazine app subscriptions on my iPad, then how can I later show a list of all my in-app subscriptions?

This article by Federico Viticci on Mac Stories gives a detailed description of how iTunes subscriptions work. In particular, he provides a link to a page to manage subscriptions which you can open on an iPad (and presumably an iPhone or iPod touch):

As soon as I subscribed to The Daily, Apple sent me an email to confirm the Weekly Subscription.
I clicked on the link provided in the email, which looks something like this.

This page allows you to see all of your existing subscriptions, as well as to manage or unsubscribe from them.
It’s worth noting, however, that the article in question was written almost two years ago (February 2011). He states:

The browser tried to launch iTunes on my Mac, but iTunes returned the following error:
Subscription management: Please use your iPad to Manage your Subscriptions
Apparently, Apple’s current implementation of subscriptions can be managed only on the iPad.

Since then, this issue has been closed. Clicking the link on a Mac now takes you to a page to manage your subscription in iTunes, in addition to using an iOS device.


How can I view iTunes metadata lyrics without using Get Info in iTunes? I want a third-party application which will show me the lyrics I've entered in my songs' metadata, preferably without a dock icon. Either a pop-up of some sort or displaying them on the desktop would be acceptable.

I've tried Get Lyrical, but I don't want something that will search for lyrics automatically. I can't use Cover Version, as it purportedly doesn't work on Lion. LessLyrics/LessDJ doesn't quite fit my needs, as I'd rather have something a bit less visible.

Another possibility, and just as acceptable, is if there are individual files stored with the lyrics of the currently playing track. That's unlikely, but please let me know if it's the case.

Have you tried Lyritop? It's an app that displays the current iTunes song lyrics on the desktop. It does display a dock icon. You can also adjust font, size, position, color, shadow, etc.

There are no individual lyric files that are stored on your computer. The lyric information is embedded in the id3 tag of each song file. There is an app called MP3LyricsExtractor that will batch extract song lyrics into individual text files.


Can I Have Multiple iTunes Libraries? Is there a way for iTunes to have multiple distinct libraries?

The actual problem I'm looking to solve with this question stems from my desire to use iTunes Match.  It would appear that I can't use this service because my library currently has approximately 32,000 songs.

Now, I have lots of playlists to differentiate many of the songs.  (And this problem could be very easily solved if I could just use iTunes Match on a playlist-by-playlist basis.)  But it's looking more and more like if I want to use this service then I'll need to remove approximately 7,000 songs from my library.  (Even more as I continue to add to it.)

Finding 7,000 songs (or more) that I simply don't listen to and removing them is certainly doable.  However, I don't want to completely and utterly remove them.  They are a part of my library.  And, even though I don't listen to all of them, other people might.

They don't need to synchronize to my iOS devices for my personal use, but my library is increasingly becoming a shared household resource for family members and guests.  And I don't want to remove items from that selection simply because of my own personal listening habits.  (For example, I'd probably end up removing a ton of children's music that I don't listen to, but my own children are getting to an age where they can make use of such a shared resource and listen to it.)

To that end, is there any other way I can divide or organize my collection such that I can use Apple's cloud services to synchronize more of my own music than my devices could otherwise hold without losing the family resource I currently have?

Hold down the Option key when you launch iTunes. You will be asked to choose an existing library, or create a new library. You can search the web for iTunes multiple libraries and find the answer.

I suggest that you create a new iTunes library, move songs that you don't listen on a regular basis over there. If you already have them in a play list, just export them from your primary library and import in the other library.


Make launchd jobs depend on other launchd jobs I need to write a launchd job that depends on another launchd job to start.
The KeepAlive/OtherJobActive directive has been removed since macOS 10.10.
What can I use on macOS 10.10+?

launchd doesn't manage job dependencies, you need to manage this in your own code, either be checking whether the functionality provided by the first job is actually available or by creating signal files or other markers.


Command + Tab won't restore a minimised app I'm on a Mac for the first time in 25 years. It is running macOS Sierra version 10.12.6.

When I press Cmd + Tab on the keyboard, I can cycle through the open applications, but if I Tab and release Cmd key on an app that is minimised, the minimised app won't open.

Is this the normal behaviour?

While holding ⌘ and tapping ⇥ to cycle apps, when you get to an app with a minimised window, instead of just releasing ⌘, before releasing ⌘ hold ⌥alt to restore minimised windows.

  the minimised app won't open

This is a bit of a misnomer. The app itself is opened (the macOS term is ‘activated’), as shown by the menu bar changing to display the menus for the newly activated app. It is more accurate to say that the minimised window is not opened (restored).

The distinction is important because I use this feature constantly (it really is a feature!). If I minimise a window, that doesn't mean I no longer want to interact with the app in other ways. For example, a common workflow for me is:

Open Finder and work in a Finder window.
Minimise the Finder window since I won't be needing it for a while, but want to keep my assortment of tabs etc.
Work on something else for a bit.
Now I want a Finder window for what I'm working on now. I don't want to restore the Finder window from being minimised, so I'll ⌘⇥ to Finder to activate the application and not restore the window, then ⌘N for a new window.

If you want to switch between apps as a whole, consider taking action on the app rather than a specific window: use the Hide functionality with ⌘H to hide all windows of an app. Then, when ⌘⇥ activates the app, the Show action is performed for you and the windows appear again.

You can always restore minimised windows by holding ⌥ when ⌘⇥.


Pop-ups in Chrome Cause Mountain Lion to Switch Spaces I have 5 spaces. I assigned Chrome to Space 2. When I encounter a pop-up in Chrome, Mountain Lion automatically switches to Space 3 and prevents me from switching back to Space 2. I'm forced to quit Chrome to make Space 2 useable again.

And then, when I restart Chrome, it appears on Space 5. Mountain Lion will not keep the applications on the spaces of which I assigned them to.

Has anyone else experienced these issues? Are there any fixes?

This is also an issue that I have, whether a pop-up occurs or I open a new window in Chrome it switches to a non Chrome space on my machine. I am using 10.8.3 Mountain Lion OSx and can repro on another machine on the same build.

This leads me to think it's simply a bug and we'll need to wait for a better workaround or a fix from Apple and/or Chrome.


Flash player will not install corectly I am trying to install flash player on my MacBook Air.  I have been using flash player  without any problems.  Recently when I tried to use a program that uses flash a popup appears that says the plug in failed to load.  I tried to reinstall shockwave flash and it said that it installed but the problem persisted.

Google Chrome does not use the system flash, it has it's own copy of Flash. Try deleting and reinstalling the Google Chrome app.


Has Apple ditched the enter key symbol in their mac devices international keyboard? The return key in Apple's keyboard layout has two functions, the return key ↩; and the enter key ⌤ (which is produced by fn+return).

However, the new Macbooks has no ⌤ symbol engraved on keyboard! Does that means it's not supported anymore? I know it sounds silly but I use the return/enter combinations a lot in my apps?

Appreciate any answer because I want to upgrade and not sure if the enter key is not supported or just missed in keyboard?

Can't confirm 100% since I don't have a keyboard with an Arabic physical layout on hand, but for a US keyboard on a 2018 tMBP set to the Arabic layout, I can confirm that return/enter functions as normal once the fn key is pressed.