Mount shared drives with different users I have a Mac (Sierra with 1 user account) and a Synology NAS (DSM 6.0 with 2 user accounts), and I'd like to mount shares for both accounts on my Mac. So I wrote that script (and set it as startup item):

try
    delay 5
    mount volume "afp://user1:pass1@nas.local/Share1"
    mount volume "afp://user2:pass2@nas.local/Share2"
end try

Problem is, the first mount command works, but not the second (whatever the order of the lines), as if there were only one AFP user allowed at the same time. The error message is (approximately translated):

  Connexion to nas.local server failed.

  Share doesn't exist on the server. Check the share name, then retry.

Looks like the first user is used for the second mount command.

I don't think it's an AFP limitation (is it?), so there may be another way to mount those shares?

You can't login to the same Netatalk (AFP)1 server with two different sets of credentials. This is why you are are seeing the result you are seeing.

When you log into AFP server, there is a 1:1 relationship between the client and the server.  This is why your client is able to browse and find all of the available shares under that login.  It won't allow you to log in again because you would have to break the existing connection first.  However, you can log into a different AFP server.

This is also why Fast User Switching doesn't work when your home directories are stored on the network.

You have two options to resolve this:

Make the shares/resources available to the user you want to log in with (Recommended)
Create another Netatalk server instance.  It can be another physical server or a sandboxed server.

1 From Wikipedia (AFP):  A few NAS solutions support AFP mostly by means of Netatalk: LaCie EtherNet Disk & 12big (AFP 3.3), NETGEAR's ReadyNAS (AFP 3.2), QNAP (AFP 3.x), Synology's Disk Stations (AFP 3.1), ... being commercial examples and FreeNAS and napp-it (which use Netatalk) being free software examples.


Safari on OS X Yosemite 10.10.4 CPU problem Since a couple of days I have problems with the CPU usage of my Safari installation. It runs on OS X Yosemite 10.10.4 (MacBook Pro 13" from 2011).

To reproduce it I only have to open one empty tab and do not need to interact with Safari. After a few seconds the CPU usage goes extremely up. Also the fan is mostly on full speed and the Laptop gets quite hot.

But within that situation if I would open new tabs and browse web content it would work without problems. But then when I want to close Safari it hangs. I can only close it by killing its process.

So I tried analyzing it a bit by having a look at the process:

Here it shows that Safari has 98.4% CPU and a quite huge CPU time of 30:13,03.

I then had a look on what happens inside the process by looking at the call graph, but I did not find anything suspicious (but to be honest I am not a C or Apple expert).

I found some similar articles about Safari CPU problems which are caused by the discoveryd process. But as far as I understood those problems are already solved with Yosemite 10.10.4.

Any ideas about how I could track down the problem and fix my Safari installation?

I found a way to reset my Safari installation this way:

1) I created a backup of my bookmarks:

cp ~/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist ~/Desktop/

2) I deleted some Safari specific files:

rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari \
       ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari.SearchHelper \
       ~/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari \
       ~/Library/Cookies/Cookies.binarycookies \
       ~/Library/Cookies/Cookies.plist \
       ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist \
       ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.Extensions.plist \
       ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.LSSharedFileList.plist \
       ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.RSS.plist \
       ~/Library/PubSub/Database \
       ~/Library/Safari

3) Then I restored my bookmarks:

mkdir ~/Library/Safari && mv ~/Desktop/Bookmarks.plist ~/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist

Now the CPU and the fan stay calm.


Mac CPU PECI is at 104°C when encoding videos and doing heavy work I monitor my MacBook's temperature using Macs Fan Control app. When I bought my MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015) ~2 years ago, the CPU PECI temperature is ~98°C when encoding some videos.

Now I notice that it shows 104°C when doing heavy work. I am really worried about heat damage because the T Junction rate is 105°C so is my CPU's PECI temperature supposed to be like this? Should I worry?

No, there's no need to worry.

The CPU will automatically shutdown before reaching a critical temperature that could damage the CPU. There you do not need to worry about imminent heat damage.

In addition to automatic shutdown, throttling is almost always also used before the critical temperature is reached to ensure that you avoid the shutdown.

Therefore - if you're not experiencing that the computer shuts down unexpectedly under high load, and your computer is functioning at reasonably normal speeds - there's really nothing to worry about.

I won't focus to much on the specific 105 degrees measurement. First of all the measurement software you're using might not be fully precise (PECI temperatures are always negative and an offset from critical temperature - not an absolute measurement like yours, so the software you're using must be doing a conversion), secondly the specific TjunctionMax for your CPU is calibrated individually for each CPU in the factory. So your TjunctionMax might not be 105 degrees, but rather 106 degrees or something else.


Can macOS's ramdisk be swapped to disk by the operating system? I want to create a secret provisioning systems that on deployment decrypts secrets on the target machine and put them in RAM. They should be accessible as file so that services on the same machine can open them
On Linux there is a file-system called ramfs that will never be swapped out to disk. On macOS there seems to be only a ramdisk. Does this ramdisk get swapped to the disk by the operating system (which would put the secret data on disk)?

Since macOS High Sierra 10.13.x the virtual memory "swapfile(s)" have been encrypted even if FileVault2 disk encryption is off.  Obviously, I would test that theory and review any CVE reports and validate it.
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/what-is-secure-virtual-memory-on-mac-mh11852/mac
You might be scratching your left ear with your right hand roundabout the hard way.  Consider creating an additional keychain and using that instead. It's far more secure and this is precisely what keychains are designed to accomplish.  They secure secrets.
Developer API Docs:
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security
Command line (scripting):
man security


Mysterious permission denied I am trying to save a file but get the error message saying file could not be saved. This happens only after the first time I save a new file. That means, if I create a new file saving works. BUt if I try to save the second time, I get the error message.

I also see this error in the Console. Omnigraffle is the application I am trying to save with. I have tried to set the permission on /.vol with no effect.

3/22/12 11:28:06.201 AM [0x0-0x6c06c].com.omnigroup.OmniGrafflePro: [ERROR] genstore_storage.c:GSAddPathAsGeneration:980  copyfile "/Users/xman/gfx/process.graffle" to "/.vol/234881026/2/.DocumentRevisions-V100/staging/adding.gdpTISed/14F74540-E254-4B92-A8EE-B857FD311DB6.graffle" failed with error 13 (Permission denied)

Additionally, I cannot install the new version of Xcode. Not sure if it is relevant or not, but it fails with a generic error.

Omnigraffle attempts to save its files as packages - a format OS X supports, but windows and samba servers do not.

There is an "save this document as a flat file" preference option for each document in Omnigraffle which should resolve this issue and should be used if you regularly save to network shares on non-Apple servers.

http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost.php?s=c1d4e102eef15890d2c46830044899aa&p=52096&postcount=5

You'll need to change the document properties for each document you wish to save this way:

  You can go in to the Inspector for the document, and look in the Canvas accordion pane under the Document Settings tab. There, you will find a heading for "File format options", which by default seems to be set to "Automatic." You can change this to "Save as flat file", and save the document

If you need to do this often, you can change the document templates so that any new documents you create will automatically be flat files:

  Go to the OmniGraffle application bundle, right-click, and select
  "Show Package Contents."
  Finder will show you the inside of
  application bundle. Navigate within the application bundle to Contents
  => Resources => Templates. In here, you will find a set of OmniGraffle documents that are used as your default document templates.
  Open
  the document template that you want to modify. OmniGraffle launches
  and shows you the document.
  Open the Inspector for the document, go
  to Document Settings under Canvas, and set the document template
  file's File Format option to "Save as flat file."
  Save the document
  template.

  Now, all new OmniGraffle documents created from that document template
  will also have their default preference set to "Save as flat file"
  since the template's preference has been set to that setting.

(via maxim porges)


Mail can't delete old email address I recently picked up a used Macbook Pro with Lion installed.

There are no other accounts in the native Mail app except my new Gmail one.

However, when I send an email, the "Reply-to" address that the recipient sees is the email address of the previous owner.

I cannot find a way to remove this email address, it is not in the settings of my sole Gmail account.  It seems to be registered somewhere in the account info of the Mac.

Check the "me" card.  Open Address Book, go to the "Card" menu, and select "Go to my card".  Edit if required.  Restart Mail, and send yourself a test email.  Check the from address.

Also, I know you've already checked this, but please check again. In Mail.app, go to Preferences, Accounts, and make sure that the email address is set correctly.


How do I get rid of photos labeled "My Computer" on my iPhone? I've been trying to clear up some space on my iPhone, and recently I noticed that I have a few albums labeled from My Computer.

I've tried going through iTunes, but my phone doesn't seem to sync up to it, and there's nothing in the setting that will let me get rid of them. I can't even find the actual pictures on my computer, so I have no idea what to do. It's gotten to the point where these pictures are annoying me. I think they were once used as backgrounds, but I can't find the folders or anything.

If you're on a Mac, I'd sync with 'Image Capture' instead of 'iTunes' to delete any unwanted photos.


Migrate old files (with date created) to new mac I am considering buying a new macbook of a different model. Is there a way I could migrate the files ALSO keeping the original "date created" intact?

When you setup a new Mac, you're asked if you want to copy over documents, apps, settings, etc. from an old Mac. This happens using the program known as Migration Assistant. It is an easy and pretty foolproof way to migrate data from an old computer to a new computer.
My experience has been that Migration Assistant keeps your creation time stamps intact. It might be necessary to run this from the initial setup prompt to keep the time stamps intact - as opposed to running it manually later on.
If you have problems with the file time stamps, you can always manually copy them over later using a tool like rsync. I'm assuming that you only want to do this for some specific user files that you have, and not macOS system files - as they would be different for a new version of macOS on the new computer.


Unlock iPhone 5 help I have an iPhone 5 through Virgin Mobile USA. They say cannot unlock it due to "not having the technology", they say they can only unlock iPhone 5c and 5s. They did however give me the code which is useless because I don't know how to do it.

Is there a way to unlock it myself using the code? I tried going to a different carrier, but the iPhone gave the "SIM is invalid" error so I had to transfer my number back to Virgin Mobile after the other account was active.

Any help is greatly appreciated.
Sprint will not do anything for me either.
Tried bringing it to some places no one could do it.

The flowchart on unlocking an iPhone (no matter what model or what carrier) is here. If you're having problems with Customer Support with a specific carrier. List the exact words you used to request the unlock and consider getting them to explain exactly what the issue is.

Hold their feet politely to the fire if they are not supporting you as a customer. You will need to be responsible for being clear with them and listening to exactly what they say so they don't "snow" you with irrelevant information. Once you share with them the exact steps you are undertaking (linked below) they will have no where to hide except to admit if they will or will not unlock the device.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201328


Multi-finger Capable iOS Web App Some time ago, I had a bookmark on my iPhone for a WebApp I believe to be called "Sparkie". It was a web app that would display electric arcs for every finger that tapped the screen, and would draw lines in-between multiple fingers. It goes without saying that it appears I've lost the bookmark.

In my attempts to search for it, I have found Matt Gemmell's Multi-Finger Test app, but I am not able to deploy it to my iPad because I am not a paying iOS developer.

Anyone out there know of the WebApp I'm searching for?

And I just clicked "Older Comments" on Matt Gemmell's blog, and found the link. You have GOT to be kidding me.

http://spark.attrakt.se/


Why would adding a USB extension cord to my keyboard affect my Bluetooth connection to my magic mouse? Just wondering if some hardware guru can explain why this happens?  If I plug my full size USB keyboard into my Early 2013 MBP 13" Retina running Yosemite 10.10 without the USB extension cord it comes with, my Bluetooth Magic Mouse has intermittent problems, and can't pair.

But if I add the extension cord, then it works like a charm.

This took a while to deduce, and I was wondering how an extension cord can make a difference?  Any thoughts?

Are you plugging the keyboard into the USB 3.0 port? The signaling rate of USB 3.0 can cause RF emissions that can interfere with Bluetooth, WiFi, and other devices. Intel has a detailed paper on USB 3.0* Radio Frequency Interference on 2.4 GHz Devices

My suspicion is that the extension cable has better shielding than the keyboard's cable and moving the keyboard's cable just a little further from the chassis drops the RF interference enough for the pairing to work.

Try switching it to the USB 2.0 port. Does the problem go away?

Update: I struck out parts that don't apply to that model. I have the mid-2012 15" Retina which still had the USB 3 on the left and USB 2 on the right.


How do you know when Apple Music playlists update? Is there a way to know when Apple Music dynamic playlists update? For instance, every Saturday, every day, every month, and so on?

If so, where do I find the day of last update?

I noticed on my iPhone, the date last updated SOMETIMES shows at the top of the playlist in grey text under the playlist name, but not always. Of the three auto updating playlists I am subscribed to, two of them show a date of last updated today, and one shows nothing. I can't find a way to see the date last updated in any playlist in iTunes for Windows, only in the iPhone app.


How do I add a service to Terminal's "New Remote Connection" window? In Terminal, pressing Shift+Command+K opens the "New Remote Connection" dialog box, which includes SSH, SFTP, FTP, and Telnet in the Service list and all Back-To-My-Mac systems in the Server list.

How can I add another Service, for example Mosh, to the list?

System

OSX Mountain Lion 10.8.2
Macbook Air

13-inch, Mid 2012

It turns out the answer had been on the screen all along. There's a + button under both the Services side and the Servers side. You can add to both.


OS X Server Postfix configuration I hope this is the right site to ask this question. I have successfully configured OS X server (3.0.2 on mavericks) mail service, but if i edit my /Library/Server/Mail/Config/postfix/main.cf (postfix config file), it won't affect the behaviour of the server mail service.

For example I changed smtpd_client_restrictions = permit_mynetworks permit_sasl_authenticated to smtpd_client_restrictions = reject and the same with smtpd_recipient_restrictions, but i'm still able to login to the SMTP Server and send emails.
I always did sudo postfix reload and sudo serveradmin stop mail, sudo serveradmin start mail.

What am i doing wrong?

To check which file your postfix is using do a ps ax | grep master at the command line and you should see a line with

master -c /Library/Server/Mail/Config/postfix

which tells you that it is indeed using the files in that directory.

If it is using those files then I'd try logging in from another machine using telnet and see what is says.

telnet mailserver.example.com 25

If you want to try sending a message "by hand" then check out http://www.smtp2go.com/articles/smtp-protocol for some good notes on SMTP.

It is here that Postfix will probably reject your email. If it does reject your email then set smtpd_client_restrictions back to the default and see if it then allows your email through.


How often do Background App Refreshes occur in iOS 7? In iOS 7, some apps can now update their data even when the app is not open. This feature is called "Background App Refresh". How often does each app update their content using this method? Is it up to the app to determine the frequency, or does iOS 7 limit them?

This depends on several factors and is not generally tied to a fixed time schedule - active usage of the device, push notifications to apps, location based updates and iOS 7's learning ability to optimize based on your usage patterns for apps.
From iOS: Understanding multitasking (bold italic emphasis mine):

Certain tasks or services can continue to run in the background. To lessen the affect on battery life, normal app background refreshing is scheduled for efficient times, such as when your device is connected to Wi-Fi, plugged into a power source, or being actively used.
You can adjust your apps' background activity in Settings > General > Background App Refresh.
When Background App Refresh is on, apps that take advantage of this feature can refresh themselves in the background. For example, an app can check if new content is available and download the updates, or retrieve the updated content in the background when it receives a push notification, so the new content is ready for viewing when you launch the app. Apps can also schedule background refreshing based on your location. iOS learns patterns based on your use of the device and tries to predict when an app should be updated in the background. It also learns when the device is typically inactive, such as during the night, to reduce update frequency when the device not used.

To improve battery life, you could selectively turn off background refresh for certain apps from Settings > General > Background App Refresh.


How can I administer my Lion Server from a Mountain Lion client I have a Mac OS X Lion (10.7) server, and I would like to administer it remotely from a client running Mountain Lion non-server (10.8).

I naively assumed that I could install the freely downloaded Server Admin Tools 10.7 on Mountain Lion, however it does not let me install Server Admin Tools 10.7.4, and does not let me run Server Admin Tools 10.7.

I have downloaded OS X Server for Mountain Lion. When I run the Server app and try to connect to my Lion server, it says "Server requires OS X 10.8." and "The server you’re trying to connect to is not running OS X 10.8. Install OS X 10.8 on the server and try again."

Screen sharing works, but I really hoped I could administer my server natively and locally like I used to be able to from a Lion client.

It really should not be this difficult!

This seems to be an instance where Apple's push for the latest and greatest causes real world IT issues.

Per Apple's support article, HT1822 - OS X Server: Admin tools compatibility information, using Server Tools for mismatched client and server OS versions just isn't supported:

  To administer Lion Server from a client with a different version of OS X, connect to the server using Screen Sharing or Apple Remote Desktop. You can also use Workgroup Manager 10.8 on Mountain Lion to connect to Lion Server.

I'm not sure how useful Workgroup Manager is to you, but it may be of some value.

There's also using the command line tools over SSH, which may or may not be more desirable than Screen Sharing/Remote Desktop to you. Apple's Advanced Lion Administration guide has info on how to use the command line tools for most tasks


Garageband on 10.4.11: which version and where to find it? I'd love to install garageband on an old mac mini...
Which version will it run on 10.4.11?
Can I download it from apple site or any other source?

Garageband as included with iLife '08 will work fine with Tiger but you'll need to complete the free online upgrades to 10.4 to bring it up to date.


Dictation just stopped working I've been using Dictation in TextEdit for several months now. Yesterday, out of the blue, it stopped working. The microphone icon appears and it responds to my voice, but no text appears. I've been using it with "Use Enhanced Dictation". I tried unchecking and checking again,turning Dictation On/Off, and switching languages (English (United States) and English (United Kingdom)) but this did not help. What is wrong?

I know you said you already tried restarting, but here are some specific steps, in a specific order, for you to try.

Try turning off dictation.
Quit TextEdit.
Restart your computer.
Then turning dictation back on.

Let us know if that helped.


How can I visit an IP address on Mobile Safari? I am on iOS 7.0.4 on an iPhone 5. I type in a IP address on my local network, 192.168.11.18, in my Safari address bar, and Safari completely ignores the fact that it is a host I am wanting to visit. Instead, it searches for www.192.168.11.18 in my ISP's search engine.

How can I force Safari to visit the host I am requesting and not assume it's a search term?

include http://

i.e.: http://192.168.11.18

(Tested this and it works perfectly)


Unable to mount Ubuntu 12.10 install .iso or .img I'm following the instructions to create a bootable Ubuntu 12.10 USB stick on OS X found here. I can do step 3 and hdiutil appears to work fine, but when I go to mount the resulting ubuntu.img file I get the same "no mountable file systems" error that I get when I try and open the ubuntu.iso file. No correctly sized volumes show up in diskutil list either.

Any ideas?

Using the most recent ubuntu-12.10-desktop-amd64.iso on Mountain Lion 10.8.2.

I tried this with 12.04 LTS and got the same result.

From Ubuntu:
This is due to a bug (of sorts) in the package used to create the Ubuntu ISOs

Since 11.10, Ubuntu ISOs have been "hybrid", meaning that the ISO can also be written bit-for-bit to a USB device to make it a working Live-USB, without having to use StartUp Disk Creator, UNetBootin, etc.

Note that this "hybrid" is different from the OS X/Disk Utility definition of "hybrid", which simply refers to an ISO readable on both Mac (HFS+) and Windows (ISO9660).
Ubuntu's hybrid functionality is provided by the isohybrid script in the SysLinux bootloader. It works by encapsulating the standard ISO9660 CD filesystem within a partition, so that it will work unmodified if written to a USB/hard disk.

This patch/bug report discusses a problem in the way isohybrid sets GPT UUIDs, causing Disk Utility/OS X to fail to recognize the hybrid filesystem and consequently, failing to mount it. Hopefully it will be fixed at some point, making future Ubuntu hybrid ISOs compatible with Disk Utility.

Alternative to extract/explore Ubuntu ISOs on OS X: Keka

Keka is an open-source OS X frontend to the p7zip package, which is able to view and extract ISOs in addition to a myriad of other archive management features. While it won't let you "mount" the Ubuntu ISO on its own, it should let you view the ISO filesystem and extract what you need.


mDNSResponder question - what is it doing in this specific case? I noticed that the mDNSResponder process on my machine accepted an incoming connection from the name given to my machine in relation to sharing capabilities (xxx's-MacBook-Pro.local) on port 53. Despite reading about the Wikipedia article on Bonjour, I still don't really understand what it specifically does.

In this case, was mDNSResponder trying to see what sharing capabilities were enabled on my machine?

Without more information about what monitoring tool you're using and exactly what it's showing, it's hard to say for sure what's going on. But I can tell you a little bit. mDNSResponder has three main jobs on OS X:

Sending out multicast DNS (mDNS aka Bonjour) lookups to the local network on port 5353 (and listening for responses). These include both looking up names (e.g. "I'm trying to contact somethingorother.local; what's its IP address?") and looking up available services (e.g. "what computers on the local network provide AFP file sharing services?").
Listening for and responding to mDNS lookups that apply to it. For example, if its Bonjour name is xxxs-MacBook-Pro.local and it sees a request for xxxs-MacBook-Pro.local, it'll reply with its IP address(es). Similarly, if you have AFP file sharing turned on and it sees a request for AFP servers, it'll reply ("Me! I'm xxx's MacBook Pro and I provide AFP service on port 548!").
Sending out normal (unicast) DNS lookups on port 53 to some DNS server (and listening for responses). Names that end in ".local" get sent out via mDNS; everything else (e.g. "www.apple.com") gets sent via normal DNS to the server(s) configured in the network settings.

If you're seeing activity on port 53, that's normal DNS. I'm not sure why you're seeing it as an incoming connection (unless it's really a reply to request you sent out?), or why the source would be your own computer. For those, I'd need more detailed info about what you're seeing.


Where are the system spellchecking dictionaries? I would like to use the spellchecking dictionaries bundled with OS X from the command line (hunspell), but can't seem to find them. In /System/Library/Spelling there are only 2 files pl_PL.{aff,dic}, and find / -name '*.dic' revealed nothing.

I know I can dowload dictionaries from OpenOffice etc., but I'd like to find the ones bundled with OS X.

EDIT To clarify, there are at least two kinds of dictionaries in OS X:

Definitions used in Dictionary.app. I'm not interested in those.
Word lists used by the system spellchecker (red dotted lines). I know OS X uses hunspell because the hunspell website says so, and there are numerous posts on how to add new ones (1, 2). Just, I don't want to add new ones but use the English one that obviously comes with the system.

The spelling dictionaries you are interested in appear to be located in the following location (checked on 10.8.4 and 10.6.8):

/System/Library/Services/AppleSpell.service/Contents/Resources/

The word lists are stored in this directory by language, so U.S. English is in the English.lproj folder.

However, these files are stored in a binary format that I haven't deciphered yet...


Turn off Live Photo mode permanently in iPhone XS How do I disable Live Photo mode for long term? Before taking a photo, I turn Live Photos off, but it keeps coming back on automatically.

From this blog

Step 1. Open Settings App on your iPhone home screen.
Step 2. Tap on Camera.
Step 3. Tap Preserve Settings for Live Photos.


How do I setup a guest network with Time Capsule Since I bought my Time Capsule (only a few months ago) the AirPort Utility app has been changed/upgraded and the instructions that I got with the product on how to setup a guest wifi network no longer apply or make any sense..  So my question is how do I setup a guest wifi with apple's current software: Airport Utility v 6.0 on OS 10.7.4

The in app help will guide you if you search for guest or "set up a guest network"

The settings are under wireless with a simple check mark to enable a guest network.

Here is the most relevant steps from the help included with Airport Utility:

To set up a guest network, the Apple wireless device must be set up to share its public IP address using DHCP and NAT.

1. Open AirPort Utility, located in the Utilities folder in the Applications folder.
2. Select the wireless device on which you want to set up a guest network, and then click Edit.
3. Click Wireless, and then select Enable Guest Network.
4. Give the guest network a name.
5. Choose None, WPA/WPA2 Personal, or WPA 2 Personal from the Guest Network Security pop-up menu, and then type a password for the guest network.


How do I remove and/or change the speed of the minimize animation for application windows in macOS Catalina? When I click on the yellow minimize button at the top of an application window, it takes forever for the application to minimize and go into the dock. Is there a way to remove or change the speed of this animation?

I recently came across a terminal command that changes the speed of the dock animation defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-delay -int 0; defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -float 1.0; killall Dock where 1.0 can be substituted for any non-negative number, so I assume there is a similar command for changing the speed of the minimize animation.

I do not know of a speed setting for this action.

That said, the default setting for the Dock preference Minimize windows using: is Genie effect and the Scale effect may be a bit faster, so I'd try that one.

There is also a Suck effect, which can be implemented via Terminal, using the following compound command:

defaults write com.apple.dock mineffect -string suck; killall Dock

Note that after using the above compound command you will not see Suck effect as a setting for Minimize windows using: as a Dock preference, however using the following command will show  the present value, e.g.:

% defaults read com.apple.dock mineffect
suck
%


Go to Line keyboard shortcut in Python editor IDLE? In the Python editor IDLE I can do "Edit > Go to Line", but when I try cmd+j (alt+g on Windows), then IDLE freezes. How can I go to line in IDLE on Mac?

IDLE > Preferences (cmd+,) > Keys > goto-line > Get New Keys for Selection


Why is Finder listed as using more RAM (24 gb) than is on my machine? Bug? Activity monitor shows finder using ~24 gb of RAM (screenshot below), when my machine only has 16 gb installed. I figure this has to be a bug because "Memory Used" only shows 9.62 gb, and I'm not experiencing any slowdowns. However, it's a little alarming and if there's an easy fix I'd like to take care of it. I'm using the most up-to-date Apple OS software as of writing (3/22/16). Thanks for your help!

Jack

You're showing that you do have 16Gb installed - that's the Physical Memory number shown at the bottom.

That 24Gb number is for compressed memory. Because it's compressed, and might not be being physically used, you can go over the physical limit.

This explains it: http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/06/12/compressed-memory-in-os-x-109-mavericks-aims-to-free-ram-extend-battery-life

24Gb RAM used for Finder is still a little excessive though.

If you look, you're using 12Gb of swap, which is where your extra memory that's being used is coming from. You're swapping it all out to disk.


Backing up images that are in iPhoto Library In my backup software, iPhotoLibrary is greyed out, so I can't select it to back it up.

How do I select the iPhotoLibrary to back it up?

(My back up program is Workspace Desktop (a Godaddy program).

You can do so even without your back-up program.
Inside the Pictures folder you'll see a file called iPhoto Library. Copy this file to a location you find suitable for your backup and vwoila, there is your back-up!

And just for the record, why don't you use TimeMachine?


Windows are slightly "transparent" in such a way I can see underlying windows show through slightly to the current window I don't know how to explain it too well. Here are some places I see this happen:
On the Minecraft main menu, I can see through to the desktop,
While watching a youtube video (in full screen) I can see remnants of the previous page,
etc.

How the heck do I fix this? It is really bugging me.

EDIT: It appears to be because of the hardware, since this also happens under Ubuntu.

That's one of the "features" of the Mac O/S that I always thought, "what were they thinking?" Unfortunately I don't have an answer to that but to your question:

Go to System Preferences -> Accessibility -> Display

look for two check boxes: Increase Contrast and Reduce Transparency.

Adjust either or both to get your desired effect, that is not seeing the stuff behind a window.


Lion Server not able to set Open Directory user account to store home directory on server I'm setting up a new Mac Mini server for a client that came with Lion Server. The Mac Mini will act as an Open Directory server and will store each Mac user in the office's home directory on it.

It's easy to set this by using the Server.app tool and choosing a local share for the home directory. However it seems that I can't set it. When I try to choose the share instead of "Local only" it doesn't save the choice.

How can I get around this? Or alternatively, how can I use the Directory viewer to set this manually? I can see the field that sets the home directory, but I'm not sure of the format required to choose a network share.

Also cross-posting on Serverfault as I'm not sure which is the best place to post this.

I was able to figure this out a while ago, but I realized I only posted the answer to my question on Serverfault. Here's the solution for this:

I ended up setting up Lion Server at my house, creating an Open Directory user with a remote home directory, and looking in the Directory Utility to see what the actual keys were set as. I was then able to use Directory Utility on the client's computer to set the keys manually and it worked perfectly.

Here are the keys you need to set assuming the server's hostname is server, and the directory is /Users/test on the server:

key: HomeDirectory

val: <home_dir><url>afp://server/Users</url><path>test</path></home_dir>

key: NFSHomeDirectory

val: /Network/Servers/server/Users/test


Record all macOS notifications I use Chrome and other softwares which display notifications, and sometimes I miss them. Most of the time, these notifications are not recorded in "Notification Center", nor can they be find in the software. How can I preserve a history of all notification that is shown?

This is not the ideal answer, but it is a start.
Notifications are transient and it is not intended that they are put into any history which is easy to use. But you can write software which can catch some aspects of notifications.
Notification activity does get recorded in the system log. To get you started a command like this will show recent notifications (you may need to modify for High Sierra, I am using Big Sur):
log show --predicate '(subsystem == "com.apple.unc") && (category == "application")' --style syslog --info --last 1h

You could write an application which spawns a subprocess running that command, collecting the output, and storing essential activity.
Note that though it records the application that sent the notification, it does not show the content of the notification.


How to do Apple Diagnostics on Macbook pro with a dead screen? I have a 2016 MacBook Pro running Sierra and the screen has gone black.  I'm using my HDTV now for an external monitor.  I want to do a diagnostics test to find out what to fix.  But the external monitor doesn't work when I try to run the diagnostics, so I can't see the results.  Also screen sharing works but not when I try to run diagnostics.  I have tried holding D key at startup and also Option-D.  I have tried SNC reset, PRAM reset, booting from an external drive, all the usual.  Does anyone have a workaround?  Thanks!

This may not work in diagnostics recovery mode, but its worth a try.
After booting into diagnostics mode with the D key at boot, try pressing Command and F5 keys, to activate voicover utility. Then, navigate the utility using voiceover.


Switching back to 'production' version of Mac Prior to Yosemite release I had installed the developer preview build on my Macbook. However, even after the public release I continue to get 'beta' updates from Apple (see included screenshot). How do I prevent this, and go back to the de-facto public version?

Go to System Preferences → App Store → Change… → Do Not Show Pre-release Updates


OSX Mavericks using up RAM I've had Mavericks installed for over a few months now, and the computer has slowly been degrading since then. Before I installed Mavericks, my computer ran fine; now it is always using up all 4 GB of RAM that I have, and using up hard drive memory to keep it running, which makes the computer slow to the point where I can't even use it sometimes.

When I look at Activity monitor, my active tasks don't even add up to 2 GB, let alone 4. What on EARTH is the problem and how can I fix it? At this point I just want to do a factory reset on the darn thing.

Mavericks' new memory management tool was designed to do exactly that, use AS MUCH RAM as possible. See, "free ram" doesn't actually do anything until it's used. It's just there idle, waiting to be allocated. Mavericks uses physical memory much more in order to speed up actions. For example, closed applications and file will be cached until memory is needed, at which point they can be overwritten.

For example, my 24GB machine currently has around 14GB of file caches (after around 5 weeks of uptime). In total, 18 GB of my 24 is used. This demonstrates Mavericks attempt to cache everything possible. If not for file caches, I'd only be using 4GB of my 24GB of RAM, basically rendering 20GB (~83%) of my system memory (costing well over $300) as completely unused.

I don't think your performance issues are a result of the new memory management. If anything, there should be decreased disk access, faster load times, etc. You can try troubleshooting by running sudo purge in terminal to force the deletion of file caches and inactive pages. (Note: Free RAM ≠ faster performance)


Mojave on Mac OS Extended? I am running a 2012 MacMini, and recently installed an SSD to replace the spinning HD it came with.
After partitioning to 2, I CarbonCopyCloned the Mojave OS to one partition, and an installation of Yosemite on the other.

Now I notice that the Mojave drive is MacOS Extended, not APFS.
The question - can I leave it like this, or will i run into issues? If this situation is bad, I can boot Mojave from an external drive and reformat that partition. Just asking if this is necessary.

I would suggest putting on APFS as you have SSD drive even the current situation will not hamper anything but you can use the optimal resource as required when you put on APFS.

APFS, or Apple File System, is the default file system for solid-state drives and flash memory in 2017’s macOS High Sierra.
If you’ve got a mechanical hard drive, and you intend to use it only with Macs, it’s probably best to stick with Mac OS Extended. And any drive that needs to work with older Macs, running El Capitan or earlier, should absolutely be formatted with Mac OS Extended because APFS is not compatible with those computers.


How does FileVault 2 recovery key stored in iCloud work? When requested during the full disk encryption process, one option is to store the recovery key in your iCloud account.

I stored mine in iCloud, but frankly I'm confused as when I look at the drive contents I see NO files even indicating a recovery key.

So what exactly is happening?  Also, how is this used during the recovery process?

Also, if you put your recovery key in iCloud, how is more than one device handled (i.e. macbooks)?

The recovery key absolutely isn’t stored locally by Apple, so you either need a safe place to store it where you won’t lose it or Apple will help store it for you to recover later when you choose to unlock the Mac by reading the key from iCloud.

in a nutshell, your iCloud password gets you your key back instead of you needing to choose where to store it (paper in a safe, 1Password app, word document, under the keyboard, screen capture of the image of your key on screen, etc...)


How to "press 1 to talk to finance" when making a call from macOS via iPhone I just called my ISP from my Mac using FaceTime - The call worked perfectly until I was asked to press 1 to speak to finance and I had no idea where to find the keypad - I only have controls to mute or hangup.

How can I use FaceTime to interact with these sorts of calls? I am running macOS Mojave 10.14.6.

In the FaceTime app call window, shown towards the top right corner, click on the keypad button to reveal the keypad.

The keypad button can be seen between the Video and the Mute button. Once clicked, it reveals the keypad interface.

You can click on the keypad icon again to dismiss the UI.
The keypad icon is enabled in the recently released version of macOS Catalina 10.15.6. If you don't see it, consider updating your copy of macOS.
For older versions, where you don't see the keypad icon, click the phone call notification in the top-right corner of your screen and use the numbers on your keyboard to respond.

https://support.apple.com/guide/facetime/make-and-receive-phone-calls-mchl390e9463/mac

Tip: If you’re on a call and need to respond to prompts in an automated phone system, click the phone call notification in the top-right corner of your screen and use the numbers on your keyboard to respond.


How can I go back to Mountain Lion from Mavericks My question it simple: How can I go back to Mountain Lion from Mavericks?

My iMac (late 2010, Processor 3.4 GHz Core i7, Memory 8GB 1333 MHz DDR3) became EXTREMELY slow with Mavericks - It was great with Mountain Lion.

In the beginning I thought I had to do with Google Chrome, but now it get slow with pretty much every program.

Help!

Looking on google would have avoid this question. As Macworld UK described it, here are the steps :

Get a copy of Mountain Lion
Download the recovery Disk Assistant
Create a recovery install Disk
Restart in Recovery Mode
Erase your Main HD.
Install a fresh OS.

BUT :

IMHO, your computer should be fast enough to handle Mavericks. The problem isn't probably the system itself. You should look at the Activity Monitor to see if there are some anomalies (high memory pressure, high CPU% etc.)


Error occurred while restoring Time Machine backup I was trying configure my Mac to dual boot Ubuntu and macOS. In the process, I somehow managed to make Macintosh HD unbootable (is that a word?). I was able to boot Ubuntu just fine. I had just recently created a Time Machine backup so I tried to restore it.

I booted up while holding the Option key
Selected my backup disk (this is the only disk that was visible)
Erased APPLE SSD and created a new Macintosh HD partition using the APFS (case-sensitive) format and GUID partition map.
Started restoring the Time Machine backup

The format of Macintosh HD before the backup was APFS (case-insensitive). I didn’t think this change would matter and I would like a case-sensitive file system if possible.

My computer was restoring for about 15 minutes and managed to copy about 30GB when it suddenly failed.

Here’s all the info about the hard drives.

As a side note, there seems to be a bunch of tiny untitled disks being listed. It goes down to /dev/disk21 which has one untitled partition that is 2.1MB in size. I don’t think I created these and I didn’t see them under Disk Utility.

Could my backup be currupted? Could my hard drive not be partitioned correctly?

Remind be never to try and install Ubuntu! Linux and macOS are incredibly similar. It’s just not worth the effort.

UPDATE:

I found a Install macOS High Sierra.app in the root directory so I’m running that. I hope this lets me restore the Time Machine backup.

I’ve had the same problem, error while trying to restore from Time Machine Backup. I’ve solved the problem by installing a fresh Mojave, and during the installation process i choose to use migration assistant from my Time Machine Backups in my external hard drive, and it worked. It took around 4 hours to restore 850 gb.


How to set Finder to show all files in search including hidden and Library files? When I unistall an application I want to check for all remaining files on computer. Searching them with Finder doesn't show any protected file, for instance from Library, and also hidden files are never included in search. Can this be controlled or changed?

You can add the System files and File visibility attributes to the filter bar:

Files that start with a period are still excluded though.

This makes Finder show hidden files:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool true

mdfind includes system files by default, but it doesn't include hidden files unless you specify kMDItemFSInvisible=1.

mdfind 'kMDItemFSName=.bash_profile&&(kMDItemFSInvisible=1||kMDItemFSInvisible=0)'


SaaS subscription across iOS, Android and Web We have three different forms of distribution for our SaaS (Web, Android and iOS) all currently reviewed and in-store in their free form ($0).

Our business model is focussed around a single subscription across all platforms and was hoping to use our existing system of Stripe > Webhook to updates all services of a users status.

Heads down in the development has overlooked the very confusing, constantly changing and expensive (70/30 split!) guidelines that Apple publishes.

We've developed blindly as looking at apps like Dropbox and many others offer the same subscription / account across all platforms.

My questions is how are they doing it? IAP? External subscription? From the guidelines you are not allowed to link to a 'Buy / Subscribe' button.

You're not allowed to link to an external payment method, but saying that the app requires payment outside of the app is fine.

For example, mentioning in the app description that the app “requires a valid subscription to x” is acceptable, whereas having a link inside the app to “purchase your subscription here” is not unless that purchase is through IAP.


How can I get the iPhone Podcast app to resume playback after extended stop? I noticed a while ago that the music app didn't play podcasts any more and that a (new?) podcast app does that.

The result is that when I now listen to a podcast and stop it with the button on the headphones and then try to restart it some time later, the iPhone plays music from the music app instead.

In the old days when podcasts were in the music app, the podcast would continue playing.

How can I get the old behaviour back, i.e. I want the iPhone to continue playing what it was playing when I last stopped it?

The behavior you describe is inconsistent. In my experience, sometimes the podcast will continue and sometimes the iOS device will switch to the music app. I believe (but haven't confirmed) that this depends on whether or not the podcast app, be it Apple's or third party, is still considered active by the system. When it occurs I just open my podcast app and playback of the the last podcast resumes (unless I was streaming it in which case I may have to hit play.)

Because this is a memory management issue there is no way to force the behavior you seek using a dedicated podcast app. However, if you uninstall Apple's Podcasts you can continue to download podcasts using iTunes and can move them over to your iOS device with a playlist. This solution is less than ideal—for example you can't download fresh podcasts directly to the device.

iOS 7 UPDATE: It is my understanding that under iOS 7 you no longer have the ability to listen to podcasts from within the Music app. Perhaps better memory management and multitasking will provide resumed playback more consistently, but it seems that a podcast client (or listening via Safari) will be required.


External Hard Drive won't mount. How can I transfer the files? I have a Buffalo mini station that I believe has died. It will not mount and will not repair in disk utility. It will not mount in terminal. How can I transfer the files from the dead external hard drive to another external hard drive? Please help before I throw it trough the window. Many thanks

There are two possibilities.

The disk itself has failed. You now need a high-powered recovery program like Data Rescue, or a service like DriveSavers. Cost is about $100 for the first and $1000 for the second.
The case has a problem. Given that it's a Buffalo case I think this is more likely (their products are rather low quality). Get a new case or a drive dock, open the old case, remove the drive and put it in the new case / dock.


My iMac refuses to log me in I'm not an idiot, caps lock is off, num lock is off, I am using the correct password.
When I type in an incorrect password, the screen shakes as it's supposed to.
When I type in the correct password, the screen changes as if it is about to log me in, but goes straight back to the login screen in a second or two.
I have gone into single user mode and created a brand new admin account. Same thing, doesn't log in.
Safe mode does not work either.
Guest account is the only thing that actually works.

I've been a PC user for almost 8 years, so I am relatively new to this whole Mac thing. The problem I am getting does not appear to be a very common issue, as I can only find a few threads on Google that relates to this.

Last resort would be to reformat the computer -- I really want to avoid this option since 1. I have not backed up any files, and 2. This is my best friend's Mac, which he lent to me while he is spending a year overseas.

On a sidenote: The iMac fell on its side yesterday (yikes!), but since the Mac boots up and goes to the login screen, I doubt I have damaged the hard drive. However, since I am new to this whole Mac thing, I'm not 100% sure if the fall was the culprit of this issue. Anyone care to chime in?

edit: Thanks for the replies. I booted the iMac with the Recovery Disk, and I tried re-installing the OS. The HD in which OSX was installed in does not show up -- so I tried deleting the partition. However, it gives me an error that says "Volume Erase Failed - Couldn't open disk." Does this mean my hard drive is done?

One thing to do would be to trick the iMac into thinking its a new setup but jumping into single user mode and deleting the .AppleSetupDone file in /var/db.

Restart the mac and it'll act like the machine has just been pulled out of its box. (all your data and accounts are still on there).

Create a new admin account and see if you can login. You should be able to. If not something is seriously broken. If you can, run the standard system checks to see if anything is amiss.


How can I prevent my iOS app appstore page description from being indexed by search engines? I cannot consider a business account / DBA as being an option for the contact information for my iTunes connect identity selling apps.

Is there any way to opt-out of search engine indexation of my app itunes appstore page (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/app_name/app_id) which contain my full name?

No, Apple controls the robots text for that website and publishes this information in the clear and allows search engines to crawl the App Store.

Unless you somehow worked through developer support to change the terms of the license agreement and how Apple runs their web pages, you’re stuck doing a name transfer to a DBA (doing business as entity) or forming a proper corporation to own the app in Apple’s eyes and be published openly as the author of the app(s).


How can I make OS X's bash expand $PWD to be case sensitive? I am running OS X 10.8 on a MBP 2011. I use some bash-scripts for tasks like backups of remote servers. One of the scripts contains this snippet:

#!/bin/bash
if [ "$PWD" != /Users/myuser/Documents/Backup ]
then
    echo "Wrong path: $PWD"
    exit 0
fi

When I execute this script in /Users/myuser/Documents/Backup (note the upper case B), I get this response:

Wrong path: /Users/myuser/Documents/backup

For some reason, the $PWD gets expanded to a lower case name. How can I alleviate this? My filesystem is not case sensitive: both cd Backup and cd backup work.

You have two choices really: convert $PWD to a consistent case before comparing to your other string (which should also have consistent case). Or drop case-sensitive comparisons.

Converting it to lower case before comparing:

#!/bin/bash
if [ `echo $PWD | tr [:upper:] [:lower:]` != /users/myuser/documents/backup ]
then
    echo "Wrong path: $PWD"
    exit 0
fi

Dropping case sensitive comparisons:

#!/bin/bash
shopt -s nocasematch
if [[ "$PWD" != /Users/myuser/Documents/Backup ]]
then
    echo "Wrong path: $PWD"
    exit 0
fi


Will iMessages sent to my iPhone number also be shown on other iPhones sharing the same Apple ID? Me and my mother share one Apple ID. If someone sends an iMessages to my phone number, will my mother's iPhone also receive it?

The answer to this depends on the settings of your mother's iPhone.

More specifically, on your mother's iPhone:

Go to Settings > Messages
Scroll down to and tap on Send & Receive
Check to see what phone numbers and addresses are listed under You can be reached by iMessage at and ensure that anything you don't want ticked (e.g. Your iPhone number) is ticked
It's probably also a good idea to see what's listed and ticked under Start new conversations from

In this way you can share the same Apple ID and control what is received on individual devices.

You also have two other options:

Stop sharing the same Apple ID or,
Stop sharing the same Apple ID and use Family Sharing instead to share apps, music etc.

More details about Family Sharing is available here.


Early 2013 Macbook Pro with 4K: Picture quality? This is sort of related to this question. The 13.3 inch Early 2015 Macbook has a resolution of 2560 x 1600. I'm not an expert on displays, I've done a lot of Googling but don't seem to understand.

How does my Retina Display with resolution 2560 x 1600 show up on a 4K screen with resolution: 4096 × 2160 in terms of quality of image? What will the pixel density on my monitor? Let's say the monitor I'm after is specifically this: BenQ EL2870U 28 inch 4K HDR10 Gaming Monitor, UHD 3840x2160, FreeSync, 1ms Response Time, Eye-Care, Brightness Intelligence Plus, HDMI, DP, Built-in Speakers.

Is my picture quality going to be fantastic? Or am I making a mistake trying to fit 2560 X 1600 into 4096 X 2160, 27 inches and it's going to be super grainy with me being able to distinguish between pixels?
What are the monitor specifications that I should be looking for to get the BEST picture quality
Assuming that I may upgrade my laptop and simply end up getting a CPU later on in the future, and money isn't my biggest concern, can I just get a 4K monitor and downscale the monitor's resolutions to 2560 X 1600?

The purpose of buying the monitor is not primarily gaming per say, but I would love to get the same FPS that I can on my laptop when playing Dota 2 and less lag during the data transfer from HDMI or whatever appropriate cable. My laptop supports Thunderbolt 2.

From Everymac

  This model supports a simultaneous maximum resolution up to 2560x1600 on two external displays via Thunderbolt. Alternately, it can support a single display up to 2560x1600 via Thunderbolt and a single display up to 1920x1200 via HDMI.

2560x1440 native on a 27" screen is just fine for my old eyes - I've got 2 of them here (screens and eyes ;) so 2560x1600 ought to be OK, assuming it scales down nicely.

"Best" picture quality would theoretically be a native resolution of that, not scaled - but that wouldn't be future-proof; so you'd have to make that call.


ssh-askpass on Mac OS 10.9/Mavericks broken? On Mac OS 10.7 and 10.8 (separate computers) I've been using a ssh-askpass script to let me verify the use of SSH keys:

https://github.com/TimZehta/mac-ssh-confirm

However, this does not seem to work on Mavericks/10.9?

Plain SSH keys works fine:

box ~$ ssh-add -D
All identities removed.
box ~$ ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa
Enter passphrase for /Users/user/.ssh/id_rsa:
Identity added: /Users/user/.ssh/id_rsa (/Users/user/.ssh/id_rsa)
box ~$ ssh remotehost
remotehost ~$
^D

But with -c, it no longer works..

box ~$ ssh-add -D
All identities removed.
box ~$ ssh-add -c ~/.ssh/id_rsa
Enter passphrase for /Users/user/.ssh/id_rsa:
Identity added: /Users/user/.ssh/id_rsa (/Users/user/.ssh/id_rsa)
The user must confirm each use of the key
box ~$ ssh remotehost
Agent admitted failure to sign using the key.
Password for user@remotehost:

/usr/libexec/ssh-askpass is owned by root and has +x. It does not even get executed it seems (added simple "touch a-logfile" line, never called).

Any ideas or hints on how to debug further?

Thanks

Problem solved! When in doubt, read the source...

ssh-agent won't call ssh-askpass unless the DISPLAY env variable is set.
Most likely it has been working on earlier installations, since I had X11 installed. Not on this box (yet).

Workaround:

Patch the ssh-agent LaunchAgents file:

--- org.openbsd.ssh-agent.plist.orig    2014-05-22 09:55:53.000000000 +0200
+++ /System/Library/LaunchAgents/org.openbsd.ssh-agent.plist    2014-05-22 09:56:31.000000000 +0200
@@ -9,6 +9,11 @@
        <string>/usr/bin/ssh-agent</string>
        <string>-l</string>
    </array>
+   <key>EnvironmentVariables</key>
+   <dict>
+       <key>DISPLAY</key>
+       <string>:0</string>
+   </dict>
    <key>ServiceIPC</key>
    <true/>
    <key>Sockets</key>

Then restart your computer.

Or reload it by force, however SSH_AUTH_SOCK will be invalid in all new terminal sessions:

launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchAgents/org.openbsd.ssh-agent.plist
launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchAgents/org.openbsd.ssh-agent.plist
export SSH_AUTH_SOCK=$(launchctl getenv SSH_AUTH_SOCK)
ssh-add -c ....

Problem solved!

Note: the ssh-agent plist file will probably be overwritten on upgrade... Might be cleaner ways to ensure DISPLAY is set.


Ways to troubleshoot a Mac OS X kernel panic? I'm applying for an IT position and one of the test questions I'm up against requires that I spend 20 minutes looking into all the ways of troubleshooting a Mac OS X kernel panic, then compare it against the answers of other professionals.

I think I'm underestimating the question since I feel that Apple's support article covers most (if not, all) troubleshooting steps.

Is there any other things that I'm missing here? See below;

Note the details leading up to the kernel panic

a. What time was it happening?
b. What error code are you getting?
c. Was a device connected?
d. What application / task were you running?
Start OSX from recovery, if there's an issue here then it's likely a hardware issue

a. Use Disk Utility's "Repair disk"
(Isolating it to Software) Connect an external with 10gb extra space

a. Install OSX on external drive
b. Start up from external drive
c. Use software update to install all updates
d. Use external drive with default applications until kernel panic occurs again
(Hardware troubleshooting) Turn off mac, remove all devices

a. Turn mac back on to see if issue persists
b. If it still occurs, check internal ram and third party hardware (by checking placement / removing hardware)
    i. If issue still happens after checking ram / third party hardware, bring mac to apple store or run diagnostics - https://support.apple.com/kb/PH18765?locale=en_US&viewlocale=en_US
c. If it doesn't occur, simply connect one external device at a time until you see the issue
(Software troubleshooting)

a. Start mac from OSX recovery and reinstall osx on mac, installing all updates
    i. If issue doesn't occur, continue downloading third party software starting with updates before reinstalling
    ii. If issue still occurs, erase everything and do a clean reinstall
Reset NVRAM (if failed during update)
Do a safe boot on your mac
Do a complete update
Check your disk size (have enough free space?)
If all else fails, take error log and contact apple support

The order you posted is not the order you'd suggest for the different steps, I hope?

I would do a reset PRAM way before reinstalling the OS, and also safe boot before reinstalling.
Other steps:

Create another session and see if the problem happens with the other session.
Clear the caches.
Reset SMC.

These steps I'm suggesting are to be done before anything drafting like fully reinstalling the OS, but not especially in that order.

Otherwise, I'd say everything is covered, but I'm no expert. It's just things I would do if I had a kernel panic and was trying to troubleshoot it.


Move a paragraph up or down in pages In MS-Word I could move a whole paragraph up/down within the text using Shift-Alt-Up or -Down keys. No need to highlight anything, Ms-word already knows which paragraph the cursor is in. Just have the cursor somewhere in the paragraph you want to bump down the text, and one Shift-Alt-Down click does it. It auto-repeats too, so it's fast and worked like a dream in text or outlines, ideal for re-ordering my thoughts.

In Pages I have to carefully highlight the paragraph, then drag it (or cut and paste), is there another way? There is no macro facility, sadly.

You can select a paragraph and right-click on it and drag it to another location. Sometimes a right-click will open a pop-up menu but just let go of right click and try again. I don't know how to turn off popup.


Menu Bar Maintenance I grow weary of all of the icons running in my menu bar. At this point, most of the menus on the left side are overlapped by icons from the right. Is there a good app for fixing this? I know I can drag the system ones off to the desktop and delete them, but installed apps are another story.

You need Bartender, which allows you to control what displays where in the menu bar.

  Organize your menu bar apps

  Lets you tidy your menu bar apps how you want.
  See your menu bar apps when you want.
  Hide the apps you need to run, but do not need to see.
  Have the clean looking menu bar you want.
  Rearrange your menu bar items as you wish.


how to revert default Mac Apache install to original I've had major issues with my default Apache install ever since I installed MAMP. I've uninstalled MAMP now but I'm still getting issues such as multiple Apache processes running, not stopping/starting/restarting, and the Web Sharing option not showing the correct state in System Preferences. I'm assuming MAMP has changed something within the default version of Apache, is there any way to easily replace the entire Apache install?

Thanks, Alex

Has another Apache been installed? From a terminal (Applications-> Utilities-> Terminal.app) try:

ps ax | grep httpd

You should see something like the following if your local web sharing is enabled:

25829   ??  Ss     0:00.04 /usr/sbin/httpd -D FOREGROUND -D WEBSHARING_ON
25831   ??  S      0:00.00 /usr/sbin/httpd -D FOREGROUND -D WEBSHARING_ON

Then try

ps ax | grep apache

This should return nothing if you are using the default install, but might if another server was installed.
If apache is running from anything other than /usr/sbin, then you may want to investigate your PATH environment variable in case it has been altered.
You could also try using the default httpd.conf file supplied by Apple (in case yours has been edited).

Make a backup of the current one

sudo cp /etc/apache2/httpd.conf /etc/apache2/httpd.conf.bak

Copy the 'original' httpd.conf file

sudo cp /etc/apache2/original/httpd.conf /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

Restart the web server

sudo apachectl restart

On a side note.. If you are or will be doing any long term web development, I would advise installing apache2, php, mysql, etc from MacPorts or Homebrew. There is a little bit of a learning curve, but it's easy when you get the hang of it and you will benefit over the long haul. Example port commands:
Search for applications to install

port search apache2

Install apache2

sudo port install apache2 (currently version 2.2.22)

Uninstall apache2

sudo port uninstall apache2

Upgrade..

sudo port upgrade apache2

Also, MacPorts installs everything into the /opt/ directory (I think Homebrew does as well), so you can always just delete the entire directory if you do not want them anymore. Again, if you do not mind digging in the trenches a bit and can be patient while your computer compiles these apps from source code (this can be lengthy), it will be worth your while.


How to prevent Terminal window from changing its size after opening and closing tab Each time I open and close new tab in Terminal app, the size of window "shrinks" by one line, until it reaches 5 lines, where it stops shrinking at last.

I can literally keep repeating sequence ⌘+T and ⌘+W to reproduce this any time.

I have tried changing Terminal settings, font family and font size, but nothing helped. Is there anything that can be done to prevent this?

Note: this question is not related to Opening tab in Terminal resizes window.

The solution is to turn on setting to always show tab bar, even if only one tab is open in window:

in top bar, go to View → Show Tab Bar,
or use keyboard shortcut ⇧+⌘+T.

This is just a workaround I have found on this site to a bug that is present in Terminal app at least since 2009. So far this is the only solution that was working for me consistently on every OS X installation.


How can I make Intel Core i7 Mac perform at i3 or i5 level? I need to do some performance testing, and I need the MacBook to behave at i3 or i5 speeds. Is this possible? If yes, how?

I have the MacBook Pro Retina / macOS Sierra 10.12.6 / 2.2GHz Intel Core i7.

It's not 100% what you're looking for (in that the controls are not fine grained enough to say "make my i7 4770HQ perform like an i3 4150"), but something that will tweak your CPU's TurboBoost settings can help.

One application that can do so is Turbo Boost Switcher - it may be worth giving it a try. Another way is to disable CPU cores using Instruments.app (part of XCode). You could try a combination of the two to slow down your machine, perhaps benchmarking as you go (eg, using Geekbench or similar) until you reach the desired level of performance.


Is there any way that we could load disk utility or any disk repair tool from a USB in mac? Recently my Mac crashed due to kernel panic. I tried using disk utility to repair the disk but the parent disk couldn't be repaired. And I opened up the terminal and erased the current boot disk. And after that the terminal couldn't execute anymore as I guess the resources for the terminal was deleted when I erased the disk.
Now am stuck up. Internet recovery won't work maybe because the SSD isn't formatted in apple compatible format.
And I was wondering if there's any way we could load disk utility or any other disk repair tool from USB so that I could repair the main SSD of the MacBook into a compatible disk for reinstallation of macos

A macOS installer environment includes Disk Utility. You can create an install USB using createinstallmedia and a downloaded copy of macOS. For example, for Catalina, you can run:

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Catalina.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume

How to create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support
n.b. Internet Recovery should work regardless of hard drive, even without one at all, since it is loaded into RAM from an internet connection.


What is Apple's policy for supporting security updates on older versions of iOS? Does Apple have a policy regarding how long they will continue to release and support security fixes for each iOS release?

I observe that many people complain about performance issues with iOS upgrades on their relatively "old" Apple devices. Therefore, before buying, I would like to foresee how long my device will be provided with security updates by Apple for its default iOS version.

I specifically wonder the date of end of security support for iOS 6 (its latest sub-version, probably 6.1.3).

Edit in 2019: I have came across a graphic showing Apple's support for older devices. This is not specifically about security updates, but still I think it is relevant and interesting.

Unlike for Mac OS X, Apple does not release "Security Updates" for previous versions of iOS after the next major version has been released, unless it is an extremely major vulnerability. Simply put, you are required to upgrade to the newest version if you want all security fixes.

As an example, once iOS 10 is presumably released later in 2016, there should be no expectation of security fixes for iOS 9 (whatever the last version will be).

For iOS 6 specifically, the last general release was iOS 6.1.3. iOS 6.1.4 and 6.1.5 were specific bug fixes for certain devices. iOS 6.1.6 was released in February 2014, to provide a security fix (goto fail) for iPhone 3GS and iPod touch (4th generation) devices. That was well into the support period of iOS 7, and was only released due to the severity of the issue.

Other than iOS 6.1.6, there have been no security updates issued for old versions of iOS after a newer major version has been released.

References: Apple Security Updates, iOS Version History


Why do I have an "iMessage" and an "SMS" thread for my contact? I recently updated to iOS5, One of my friends messaged me through iMessage, the sender name was his @gmail.com address.

The message appeared in a seperated thread to the existing SMS messages I had with him previously.

I added his mail address to the contact I already had with him, however I cannot get the iMessage thread to merge with the SMS thread.

I have tried deleting the iMessage thread with no result.

If I open the SMS thread, it will only send SMS.
If I open the iMessage thread, it will only send iMessages.

Is there a solution to let me merge these two conversations?

Phone is an iPhone 4G 16GB.

iMessage threading is a total mess. I have an iPhone 4 and an iPad 2, both with iOS5. So does my brother. Not including regular SMS messages sent/received with iOS4, I now have three different threads of messages from him on my iPhone, seemingly depending on which device the message was sent/received on. I have two on the iPad, but these don't correspond exactly to any two from the iPhone.

I understand that iMessage (like FaceTime) can only address contacts by email address on a WiFi-only iPad, and can address by both email and phone number from an iPhone, but these all resolve to the same Apple ID on the server, and to the same contact on the device. Surely it should be possible to merge these conversations, either on the server (by Apple ID) or on the device (by contact).

Perhaps a fix will appear in a future iOS update but for now this rather takes the edge off an otherwise cool new feature.


Apple Ad-Hoc Certificate not generating beta-reports-active anymore I'm currently trying to create a build of our app for TestFlight but for some reason Apple is not adding the beta-reports-active to the .mobileprovision file anymore (I checked the source of the file, it's just not there).

Application Loader keeps complaining that I don't have any Beta Entitlements (the appName.entitlements does contain this key) and when I regenerate the provisioning files at developer.apple.com I just get the same certificate without the beta-reports-active in it.

How do I get a proper Ad-Hoc certificate again so I can upload a new version to TestFlight? (I lost the previous private keys in a major crash which deleted all my data from my Macbook and those private keys weren't in my backup thus the previous profiles are unusable now)

For anyone coming to this point at a later stage, we contacted Apple about this and most likely there was an undocumented change that removed the Beta Entitlements key from AdHoc certificates, you now have to use the Distribution certificate in order to upload a TestFlight build (which worked for us).


Any way to check if my AirPort card is going bad MacPro 2013? Every day for the past couple days, my WiFi on my MacPro 2013 running Mojave 10.14.6 has spontaneously vanished. The signal strength icon in the menu bar goes gray, and the status is "Wi-Fi looking for networks" (even though it lists all of my local networks).
The only solution is to reboot the machine.
Beside simply this random crass behavior, is there perhaps something in the logs I could look at that would show some tell tales that this is, indeed, what's happening? I would like perchance some additional evidence before I drag it in to the Genius Bar with "yea is sometimes does this" to try and narrow down the issue.
In the end, they may simply swap out the card. I don't know if it will fail a diagnostic, or if it's just happy happy until it decides "No, not happy".

You can use Apple Diagnostics to run a hardware check on your computer. Instructions for doing that are found here.  Your computer is on the borderline for computers using Apple Diagnostics. If you computer is from before June 2013 you have to use Apple Hardware Test. There is a link in the reference I included for this older hardware test.
If you are using an Apple Base Station, you can check that you have the latest software for your base station. This link describes what you should do to keep your airport base station up to date.


How to install iPhone apps through OTA without iTunes interaction? I am following this guide on how to install iPhone apps thru OTA without iTunes.

I have the following questions:

I only have a $99 developer program membership, not the enterprise program. The guide says this also works with normal ad-hoc distribution as well. Can I use my ad-hoc provisioning profile itself to do this?
I am testing with the iPhone 4 Simulator, as I don't have a physical iOS 4 device. But when I click on the "Provisioning profile" link, the simulator throws an error:

  Cannot install profile. Safari could not install a profile due to unknown error.

When I click on the .plist link as mentioned in the guide, it doesn't do anything that looks like this.

Can I test this installation on the iPhone 4 simulator? What could be the reason for this failing?

The Simulator does not use a bundled .ipa file; it uses the constituent application.  Furthermore, the Simulator runs an x86 version of the application with tweaked x86 versions of the iOS frameworks.  In other words, there is no good way to get an .ipa package to run in the Simulator.  The original developer could build for simulator then provide you with the relevant contents of ~/Library/Application\ Support/iPhone\ Simulator/User/Applications/ but that's really your only hope as far as I know.


How to confirm Finder's rename prompt using the keyboard? Using the keyboard, how can I confirm the rename prompt from Finder?

If I press return/enter the “Keep .doc” option is selected. Using the keyboard arrows ←, ↑, → and ↓ doesn't seems to help. Neither the tab key.

Press Ctrl+F7 to enable all controls for Tab key and use it to switch the active button in application dialogs.

This can also be set in System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts.


Can I play DVDs from a DVD player on an Apple Cinema Display 23-Inch (Aluminum)? I've seen a good price on a refurbished Apple Cinema Display, the 23-inch Aluminium version that was sold between 2004 and 2008. Everymac says this display has a DVI port.

Will I be able to connect the HDMI output from a standard DVD or Blu-ray player to this display, via a suitable cable or adapter, and watch DVDs on it, or is there something I've missed that would prevent this working?

AFAIK these display are not HDCP compliant therefore you'll have some troubles watching movies that have these protections.


How do I send someone a normal text if they also use iMessage? My brother has a Windows Phone, and an iPad. Whenever I try to text him, it sends him an iMessage to his iPad, not a text message. Since he does not always have his iPad with him, he doesn't get my texts most of the time.

Is there a way to choose when a message is sent via iMessage, or via SMS?

Right now, my solution is to have two separate contacts for him, but that is annoying.


Can I install and run Safari 8 on OS X 10.11 El Capitan? I'm a developer supporting Safari 8 and 9 and would like to be able to run both on the same machine. I assume Safari 9 won't run on Yosemite. Is there a way to install Safari 8 on El Capitan?

I'm a web developer as well with a need to test on older versions of Safari. Here's your best bet (caveat: this assumes you own VMware Fusion or a similar virtual machine emulator that can handle Mac OS).

Assuming you've upgraded your Mac through previous versions of Mac OS (Yosemite, El Capitan, etc), you can still access those in the AppStore under "Purchased." Find the OS you want and click the "Download" button.

Once it's done, check your /Applications folder for "Install El Capitan" (I forget the exact filename, but it begins with "Install"). With VMware Fusion, it's insanely easy to install this as a virtual machine. Open up Fusion and add a new machine, and choose "Install from disc or image" and simply drag/drop the Mac OS installer app onto the VMware import window.

Follow the usual steps to install a virtual machine, make sure you allocate enough RAM, and you're good to go! By doing this, I was able to install El Capitan as a virtual OS on my Sierra machine, and test on Safari 9.


How to disable faces/people recognition in iOS10? I don't want my photos automatically 'tagged' by iOS. How do i disable this?

Apple did not give us a way to opt-out of the image analysis and the only way to avoid it is to move your photos off of the iOS device.

Maybe good to know. All image analysis is done on device and never leaves your device.

  Apple’s system is more focused on privacy than Facebook's or Google’s,
  with stricter limits on how the data is collected and stored. Onstage,
  Federighi insisted that Apple’s new system only uses local data, which
  means the company isn’t storing faceprints on company servers — a
  crucial point for anyone worried about their faceprint being used for
  more than just cataloging photos. Faceprints are still being created
  and used, but it's all happening on your phone, where Apple and the
  rest of the world can't access it. That’s different from Google and
  Facebook, which store data on the cloud and get significant scale
  benefits as a result.

Source: Apple's new facial recognition feature could spur legal issues - The Verge

What you can do to ensure more privacy is to not name the detected faces and to merge all detected faces into one single people album. This will prevent Photos from identifying more photos of the same persons.  Then hide the people album. Then the persons will not be used in Memories.


SSH access using .pub key I don't know if I'm overthinking this too much but I can't seem to understand how to use a ssh public key to create an ssh connection trough my mac.

I'll list my steps bellow:

First created the SSH keys in my server in cpanel -> SSH keys and created a key pair with name id_rsatest
Then I downloaded to my mac both public and private key files, so now in my downloads folder I have the files: id_rsatest and id_rsatest.pub
Then I moved the id_rsatest.pub file to Users/myuser/.ssh/ and opened Terminal.app -> Shell -> New Remote Connection and entered the information below:

and receive this error:

ssh: connect to host example.com port 22: Operation timed out
[Process completed]

What am I doing wrong? Is this even the way on how to create a SSH access with SSH keys?

You got it the wrong way round :-)

create a key pair on the Mac you are using
put both id_rsa.pub and id_rsa into ~/.ssh and run chmod 600 id_rsa
append the generated public key (id_rsa.pub) to .ssh/authorized_keys on the remote machine (your server in this case). If you are allowed to login in via ssh using a password, use

ssh remoteuser@remotemachine "mkdir ~/.ssh; cat >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys" < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

otherwise transfer the file by whatever means you have to upload files.
run ssh remoteuser@remotemachine in your shell to connect

PS: The private key should never need to leave the machine it's generated on


How do I backup mails with Mail? Due to a new job, I am about to shut down an old email address. Of course, I want to save the old emails so that I can access them if I need to. I want to save them on my Time Capsule so that they do not fill my local disk. How can I do this best?

Move your `~/Library/Mail' folder in the capsule.  Please note that:

the folder can contain subfolders with 'odd' names such as V3 or V4 and these contain your mail (hence my suggestion to move or copy the whole folder and not just the subfolders).
moving the aforementioned folder will save all your mail, but you will have little usability -- that mail can be re-imported in Mail but I have never done so using a disk that might not be available 100% of the time.  If you do not want to have this data in Mail finding specific emails might be an issues, even keeping in mind the fact Spotlight will index these files (if you let Spotlight index your capsule).


Can't activate iMessage or FaceTime on any device I can't activate iMessage or FaceTime on any Apple device. It keeps saying that it could not be activated and I should try again later. I'm on the latest version of macOS and iOS and the date and time are set automatically on both devices. I have no phone number linked to the Apple ID so it has nothing to do with a carrier, etc.

First, make sure iMessage is turned on:  To check if iMessage is turned on for your device, go to Settings > Messages > iMessage.

Then, are you sure your WIFI or cellular connection is strong enough. It does involve your carrier if you're trying to message without WIFI.  Also, I've had issues if I'm not logged with my Apple ID, although I haven't seen that it's actually required.

I see below that you have tried rebooting.  Perhaps we should have asked which device are you trying this on?  I assumed an Apple iPhone, but are you talking about your desktop or laptop computer?  I was also going to suggest totally turning the iPhone off; maybe after also shutting down iCloud and trying to start over from totally off.  My next step would be to do this on both devices you are trying to iMessage between.  Obviously you are not trying to iMessage yourself, but getting it working between your desktop and your smartphone would be a good test environment.


How to make spotlight index specific files immediately? I have a lot of new files and the CPU is quite busy. When I just add a new file, the command mdfind won't find it immediately. I have to wait for some time (definitely longer than the time needed to index the file as the file is small.)

Once the file is successfully indexed, then I move the file out of the current directly, mdfind -only . still find the moved file but the path printed in the output is outside of .. So the spotlight index is not updated completely.

Is there a way to force the index to be updated immediately as least for certain user specified files and directories? Thanks.

Something is messed up. Other than when your system has no index, spotlight indexes as the file is written - literally its part of the process writing the data.

The only exception I’m aware of is you can purge spotlight or have a new install and the system queues an index of all files. My recollection is that index only lags for files that were on the drive and new files are indexed immediately.

I don’t thing there’s a setting to change this so instead of wondering how to speed it up, run mddiagnose and work with support to see why your system isn’t caught up. (Or dig in to the diagnostics to see if you can spot the issue(s))


Has Apple finally included APFS support for traditional hard drives in the latest update for macOS 10.13.1? macOS High Sierra comes with a new file system APFS, now according to official notes APFS for now only supports modern SSDs.

My Mac runs on a traditional rotational hard drive and according to Apple macOS High Sierra 10.13.0. Apple recently released 10.13.1 and after updating to the latest version I booted into the recovery and after opening disk utility and going through the menu bar options I came across option know as convert to APFS, so my concern is that after the recent update has Apple finally included APFS support for traditional hard drives and should I convert my drive to the latest APFS filesystem

According to official documents and several online forums it has been confirmed that Apple is converting each and every internal HDDs into APFS File System, only when you upgrade to macOS Mojave.

APFS File System doesn't seems to create much problems in old macOS Devices with an internal HDD. So you should upgrade to the latest macOS version available i.e. macOS Mojave.


How to keep alarm silent during a phone call on my iPhone6? How can I keep alarms I have set from going off during a telephone conversation?  I may set an alarm to go off tomorrow at 3:15 pm.  If I receive a phone call at 3:12 pm, I don't want the alarm to go off during the phone call.

Alarms are automatically silenced by a phone call. The alarm will still go off, being displayed on the screen, but no noise or vibration will occur.


Strange behaviour of services menu in some apps For my own purposes, I created service named "Launch Terminal" which, naturally, launches terminal. I've edited it few times, then renamed, moved to iCloud, then again edited and finally copied to a local machine. Now here's a problem:

Shortcut for this service is Command-Control-T. If a shortcut is set to this, then in Finder and Terminal applications, the shortcut doesn't work, while it works elsewhere. Moreover, when I open services menu in these two apps, I see entry "Launch Terminal" and it works only if clicked. No symbols, denoting key combination of shortcut are displayed in this menu, only the name of the service. The problem disappears if I set another key combination for this service or if I rename it. I tried rebooting several times and I tried rebuilding LaunchServices database with

sudo /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

Command-Control-T is used to add files/folders to Favorites Sidebar in Finder. May be you should try some other shortcut.


Partition SSD in Yosemite for Dual-Booting Ubuntu I've just bought a new Macbook Air (running Yosemite) and I am trying to create a partition from my Macintosh HD SSD for dual-booting Ubuntu. However when I try to create a partition in Disk Utilities, I keep getting the error "This Core Storage operation is not allowed on a sparse logical volume group." I have tried restarting the system in Recovery Mode and verifying and repairing the disk, but it did not work.  What can I do to partition? (I would prefer to not format the SSD.)

You have to boot from another device or to Internet Recovery Mode and then use the command line to modify the CoreStorage volume.

Preparation:

Backup your data.
Detach any external drive (especially your external Time Machine backup drive).
Restart to Internet Recovery Mode by pressing alt cmd R at startup.
The prerequisites are the latest firmware update installed, either ethernet or WLAN (WPA/WPA2) and a router with DHCP activated.
On a 50 Mbps-line it takes about 4 min (presenting a small animated globe) to boot to a recovery netboot image which usually is loaded from an apple/akamai server.

I recommend ethernet because it's more reliable. If you are restricted to WIFI and the boot process fails, just restart your Mac until you succeed booting.

Alternatively you may start from a bootable installer thumb drive (Mavericks or Yosemite) or a thumb drive containing a full system (Mavericks or Yosemite).

Modify CoreStorage:

Open in the menubar Utilities/Terminal
Enter diskutil cs list
Enter diskutil cs resizeStack LVUUID size with LVUUID: UUID of the logical volume and size: the final size of your Macintosh HD
Example: diskutil cs resizeStack DC2473AF-0833-4DBD-BF8F-D5D60063554A 200g
Enter exit and quit Terminal.
Reboot to your main volume.
Start installing Ubuntu to the now unallocated disk space.


Which uses more battery when tethering - Wifi or BT on iPhone 4S? I'm not really bothered which is quicker - I'm guessing this is wifi anyway. I just want to know which would allow me to get the most life out of my iPhone 4S when tethering to it with may MBP. Thanks!

Speed is primarily limited by your 3G network connection.

Battery wise, Bluetooth should use less power (especially in the 4S) but the difference may be quite small anyway.

If you tether it with a MBP you may be better of with using the cable between iPhone and computer.


OS X: Is there an open source screen recorder? I need a screen recorder. However, I try to avoid using closed-source software whenever possible except from major vendors like Apple and Skype.

I am wondering, is there an open source screen recorder for Mac OS X?

Or if not, does Apple include such a thing with the OS? Or how about using Skype? I'm running Snow Leopard.

You've answered your own question, but I thought I would flesh it out a bit.

You are correct that QuickTime will record a window, or the whole screen, but it only does so with the version of QT that ships with Lion. It wasn't available in earlier versions of QT or OS X (I'm not sure if the latest QT would do this on an older OS - I don't have one to try it on.)

I was pleasantly surprised to see that it now had that functionality - there really aren't any other free or low cost options.


How does Office 2008 for Mac store its Recent items? I don't have access to Office 2008, but require the information for a project I'm working on. I'm mainly interested in Word, Excel and Powerpoint.

This is the information I have gathered so far...

The preference file is: ~/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.office.plist

The property keys take the form:

2008\File Aliases\{APP}{n}

2008\MRU Access Date\{APP}{n}

where {APP} represents an Office application, and {n} represents a number starting from 0.

The applications are represented by the following values:

MSWD (Word)

XCEL (Excel)

What value represents PowerPoint?

In the property list I've seen, the numbers represented by {n} range from 0-10 (11 items).

Is 10 the limit? or is this unrestrained?

Finally, I've noticed that Office 2011 does not add its Recent Items to the Apple System menu:

Apple -> Recent Items

Is Office 2008 the same?

At least on my machine, this is what I'm seeing:

PPT3 does appear to be the PowerPoint value
I have lots of items. MSWD0, MSWD1, but then also MSWD99, MSWD109, etc.
Interestingly enough, it looks like PowerPoint adds items to Apple -> Recent Items, but Word and Excel do not. Which seems crazy, but that's what's happening on my machine.


How do I find out how many bytes of memory my machine has in RAM? macOS Sierra's System Information.app tells me I have 12GB of RAM: two 4GB modules and two 2GB modules.

But I am aware of the following:

macOS might use either base 10 or base 2 to express RAM sizes. (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201402 only talks about storage, not RAM)
RAM is physically designed such that the actual number of bytes might not be a power of 2. It could, for example, be a multiple of some power of 2.

These are both uncertainties, not facts. In order for me to calculate how many bytes I have, I need to know whether OS X is using gigabytes or gibibytes, and whether I need to use multiples of them or powers of them.

Thanks!

RAM is always calculated in base 2.

In Terminal:

sysctl hw.memsize

The output will be in bytes.


Getting process currently open in full screen mode I have a simple AppleScript that works when initiated from an application that is not in full screen mode but does not work when in it's in full screen mode:

#!/usr/bin/osascript

tell application "System Events"
  set fp to (path to frontmost application) as text
end tell

tell application "Safari"
  <snip>
end tell

activate application fp

When not in full screen mode, instead of the window of the application in full screen mode getting activated, another non-full screen window in the same application is activated. How do I tell applescript to activate the original window in full screen mode?

Found something that works. Not sure if it's the best approach.

#!/usr/bin/osascript

tell application "iTerm2"
  set fp to name of current window
end tell

tell application "Safari"
  <snip>
end tell

tell application "iTerm2"
  activate
end tell

tell application "System Events" to tell process "iTerm2"
    click menu item fp of menu of menu bar item "Window" of menu bar 0
end tell


Where can I find system log information on OS X Lion 10.7.5 for System Preferences changes? Suppose I navigate to System Preferences and make a simple change (say I turn off BlueTooth).

Is it logged somewhere in the syslog? In other words, is there a log file somewhere on the file system that keeps track of what was written to the System Preferences plist file?

The main reason I am asking this question is because I would like to know when certain things were set in the System Preferences.

You can find that information in the ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist

They will open in TextEdit, but hard to read. So you might need to read this for help with Plist readers.

you can also see the plist changes in the:

Console (by typing pref in the search window)

While the Console is up to the moment reporting it will only report issues not the successful execution.


Why are Finder shortcuts to Ext HDD removed whenever it's not connected? Workarounds? I have a lot of files on an external drive to my new MBP and there's too many of them for the internal 500GB SSD (and no second drive bay to make a fusion drive or have a second drive in latest MBP which is completely crap BTW Apple).

So I need to have my usual Finder shortcuts to directories deep within the data tree. Problem is if my ext drive is ever switched off or disconnected why my MBP is on the shortcuts get removed by Finder and don't come back when drive is reconnected. My usual method of making these shortcuts is just to drag a directory from the Finder file list into the Finder window sidebar. I'm not sure what this actually prompts behind the curtain of OS X as it's opaque (to me at least) as to whether aliases are stored somewhere or symlinks or so other class of object to track the location.

I'm wondering if I can create shortcuts to symlink files on my internal SSD that link to directories on my ext HDD as a work around to this very frustrating obstacle.

You don't say how you created the "shortcuts". If you used Finder to make Alias OS X creates a complex (and very large) file. These are probably OK, if you want that kind of thing, but OS X has functionality to locate files if they move, and presumably doesn't show them if not present. (I can't verify this as I don't use Alias, except for software testing, and never to external drives.)

I suggest you create symlinks, which are much smaller,and hang around, even if the target disappears. Unfortunately the only way to create symlinks is with a command, although I have created a Service to run this in Finder.

The following is an script, which I run as an Automator workflow.

for f in "$@"
do
 fileSuffix="link"
 fileExists=`ls -d "$f $fileSuffix"`
 fileNumber=0

 until [ $fileExists=="" ]; do
  let fileNumber+=1
  fileSuffix="link $fileNumber"
  fileExists=`ls -d "$f $fileSuffix"`
 done

 echo "$f $fileSuffix"
 ln -s "$f" "$f $fileSuffix"
done


MacBook Pro took a small tumble has minor scuffs on the right side My MacBook Pro took a small tumble off of my recliner last night and scuffed the right side from the brick of the fireplace. I just took my case off last week because the case was looking pretty bad and of course, as soon as I take it off it falls for the first time. My Macbook has been kept PERFECT and this little scuff really REALLY bothers me. I know its silly, but I'm a perfectionist and can't get over it! Any experience with repairs on this? I'm not expecting it to be fixed for free, but wondering about a price range etc...

Nothing you can do without replacing the entire aluminum case, which probably isn't worth the trouble.

Since it's cosmetic damage, Apple's warranty won't cover it.
Maybe if you found a really skilled machinist, they could make it look better. But it would probably mess up the labels on the ports, so not worth it.


Getting only two email accounts to push to iPhone I have six accounts. I've been to the iPhone push tab and have set the two I want to push to push and the rest to manual but they all push. I've rebooted the phone, tried to toggle off and on, and still have all or nothing. I've tried closing out the email application on the iPhone and no joy.

I went to Apple Genius. They tested the phone quickly and no faults were found. They tried unsuccessfully to properly configure the phone. They replaced the phone under warrantee, configured the new phone, downloaded my backup from iCloud and it works like it did before this issue. The email accounts that are supposed to push do, and the others do not. Luckily the phone was under warrantee. The Apple Geniuses were very helpful, and made sure that all was in order on the new phone before I left. It took over an hour altogether.