Remapping the order of -/_ key I have found lots of answers about remapping one key to another('A' to 'B')but cant seem to find how to swap the order of a single key so that shift+(-/) gives me a dash(-) and a single press alone give me an underscore (). I would prefer a command line DIY solution (like Technical Note TN2450 https://developer.apple.com/library/content/technotes/tn2450/_index.html) than having to download a program.

Seen that you prefer cmd line solution but I would like to suggest you to try Karabiner, I'm using it for ages and it is really powerfull.

Karabiner

  A powerful and stable keyboard customizer for macOS.

https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/


Insert a tab character in PowerPoint 2016 I defined a tab stop in the ruler

And I would like to enter a tab character to move the cursor to the tab stop.

With older versions it was possible to enter special characters with insert symbol but I don't find the special characters anymore:

I also tried several key combinations as shift+tab, option+tab or control+tab without any effect.

I can I type/enter the tab character?

Keynote is accepting tab directly. Is much easier to use than any version of PowerPoint and is able to output PowerPoint format which is readable with many PowerPoint versions.

My personnal experience is that Keynote is providing a more compatible PowerPoint than any version of PowerPoint, and is also much user friendly.

Actually I don't use PowerPoint for quality and security reasons.

Then this part of advice is untested!

I suggest you to try:

ctrl+Q, tab

or:

ctrl+V, tab


Running AppleScript without activating the window I have a python script to read from Messages database and forward some specific new messages to specific contacts. It works but the AppleScript below to send message is making Messages.app appear.

I want it to send the message in the background without activating or un-hiding the window. Is this possible?

on run {targetBuddyPhone, targetMessage}
    tell application "Messages"
        set targetService to 1st service whose service type = iMessage
        set targetBuddy to buddy targetBuddyPhone of targetService
        send targetMessage to targetBuddy
        set visible to false --> this throws an error on terminal
    end tell
end run

For Me adding:

tell application "System Events" to tell process "Messages" to set visible to false

AFTER end tell, worked like a charm


How to get macOS Sierra to stop asking me to enable Siri macOS Sierra is constantly displaying an "Enable Siri?" dialog. If I pick cancel it just pops up again 5 seconds later.

How do I tell macOS Sierra to stop asking?

If you've been mistakenly triggering the Siri pop-up when your finger mistakenly hits the top right area on the Control Strip, you can remove the Siri icon.

Go to:  → System Preferences → Keyboard, then click the "Customize Control Strip" button on the bottom.

Move your cursor to the Control Strip (which will now be in Edit Mode), and click and Drag the Siri Icon back onto your screen into the area with all the unused Control Strip widgets.


OS X Lion Excel 2011 data lost and undeletable Excel file OS X Lion 10.7.4. I did work on a Microsoft Excel 2011 spreadsheet (saved in .xls format) and noticed a file on my desktop that said it could not be trashed. It disappeared when I re-started the Finder. But the next time I opened the Excel spreadsheet, the work I had done had been lost — except for a 'sum' field which displays the total from the lost fields but says it contains the function  '=SUM(#REF!)'.
Perhaps the Excel file on my desktop was a temporary storage file for the new data I added to the spreadsheet. Getting rid of this file may have trashed the data it may have contained.
I've just done work on another spreadsheet and a new 'non-trashable' Excel file has appeared on my desktop. I hesitate to re-start the Finder in case I lose the work I have done. Has anyone else experience the same problem, and is there a solution?

There is clearly a bug in Excel 2011 for files on the Desktop where Excel does not clean its scratch files during editing and quitting. Like you, only rebooting seems to get rid of them. The only workaround I have sorted out is to simply not edit Excel docs on the Desktop. I have not seen any data loss issues related to those files on the Desktop.


macOS Catalina - Spotlight Search Problem with External Hard Drive Mac OS Extended (Journaled) I have an external hard drive that I am having trouble with in Catalina.
The drive mounts properly but Spotlight will not search it.
The drive formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and is set up to potentially be a boot drive.
But. I just want to mount the drive and search it. Spotlight will not search it.
Is there an issue with Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format at Catalina?
Or something I am not thinking about?
It is kind of driving me crazy.
Thanks!

For the record, the problem seems to have been with the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. I spoke to two Apple Geniuses (head supervisors). No one could explain why this was happening. But I decided to wipe the drive, reformat the disk, and put everything back on it.


Finder/Quicklook Bug (File Icon Previews Not Working) My Macbook has suddenly stopped generating preview icon of all file types. So all files are now replaced by their respective generic file type icons (see picture attached). Moreover, when I quicklook any file, the preview appears corrupted.

I have not updated any software recently, nor have I modified any file systems.

Any help would be much appreciated!

Per comment under original question, first thing I'd try (which turned out to be the solution) would be to run sudo qlmanage -r in a terminal, which resets the QuickLook subsystem.


Terminal command to get all of a file's metadata? Is there any way to get all of the metadata associated with a file in Terminal? By "metadata" I mean things metadata and properties that are not stored in nor derived from the file's contents (i.e., checksum, UTD, image resolution, etc.), but rather reside in the filesystem's data about the file (i.e., last time changed, inode, permissions, extended attributes, etc.).

This response might be late, but hopefully it will help someone.

There are numerous ways to view metadata in the terminal on an Apple computer:

mdls path/file.extension

mdls stands for Metadata List and you can look at the man pages (man mdls) to learn how to use it.

xattr path/file.extension

xattr stands for Extended Attributes. This can be used to display and edit extended attributes of files.
xattr -l path/file.extension causes the attribute names and values to be displayed. However, I've noticed that, at least on macOS, it seems that this only displays user-added data.

ls -l@ path/file.extension

ls is a powerful terminal listing utility. In its simplest form it lists the current directory contents. However, as you can see here you can list more than that.

exiftool path/file.extension

You need to install exiftool separately if you haven't already.  For example, if you use brew, you can do brew install exiftool.
exiftool is a useful utility for viewing and messing around with file metadata.

sips -g all path/file.extension (for images)

sips and identify are both for reading image metadata/info.

identify -verbose path/file.extension (for images)

Depending on your desired application, one of these might be more appropriate or convenient than the others. However, it should be noted that these all show different things, even if slightly.


How do I share all my itunes music with a friend? I would like to share my whole iTunes library with a friend. He also has an ipod so I take it he also has iTunes on his pc ( with his own apple account and Id ). My library is just under 7 gig and I was thinking of using a usb memory stick. Will he be able to add all my music to his existing library, and vice versa?

Assuming you have "Copy files to iTunes Media folder" enabled in your "iTunes Preferences", you can find all all your files under:

/Users/yourUserName/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media


iPhone 5 Contacts Underline I've recently had all the info in my Contacts underlined (not the name but phone numbers, addresses, etc.). I hate the look (makes it look busy and it's unnecessary), but have no idea how this occurred. I'm still using the older OS (not 8). Anybody know what I should do to get rid of the underlining?
Thanks.

To disable Button Shapes, which may be the reason you are seeing lines under certain text, tap Settings > General > Accessibility, and turn off Button Shapes if it is on.


IPad On Screen (virtual keyboard) does not hide when using Logitech K380 keyboard It used to be that when I connected a Bluetooth external keyboard to my iPad the virtual keyboard would be hidden. Today I tried to use my new Logitech K380 external Bluetooth keyboard and the virtual keyboard remained on the screen. I was able to manually minimize the keyboard and still use the external keyboard but when I switch between apps the virtual keyboard is back up again. Has this functionality changed in recent updates?

iPad Pro 10.5" - iOS 12.1.1

I’m typing this on a Logitech K380 at this very moment and can confirm that the on-screen keyboard hides when connected.

I’m running iPadOS 13.3.1 so I would suggest upgrading to the latest OS for your device.


MCX redirection on OSX network users Hi I have an open directory network
users login with network based user home folder
I am trying to redirect the ~/Library/Caches folder to a /tmp/User/Library/Caches folder using MCX redirection using workgroup manager on the group
I have setup the redirect as per below

I can see that it works as on login the /tmp/User/Library/Caches folder is created, however no applications are using it, they continue to create items in the ~/Library/Caches folder

Can anyone assist in telling me what I am missing to get the new cache folder to be used? I have other managed preferences setup e.g. hide wifi icon and they work perfectly. So I know they are being used.
Thanks

Answering my own question
The user did not have permission to delete original ~/Library/Caches folder therefore the MCX failed
Manually deleting the ~/Library/Caches folder on the server allowed MCX to generate the new symlink


Problems importing an calendar event into iCal I'm trying to import a calendar event from an ics file into iCal/Calendar:

Event details

SUMMARY:Class: ACCT 1001 1 Lecture(1829)
Start date and time: 30/08/2012 and 3.00 PM
End date: 12/12/2012 and 3.50 PM
MO,WE,FR only these days need to set in the date range(doesn't need to set all day).

ics file

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
PRODID:-//bashmoblie v0.1//NONSGML iCal Writer//EN
VERSION:2.0
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART:20120830T150000
RRULE:FREQ=WEEKLY;UNTIL=20121212T155000;WKST=SU;BYDAY=MO,WE,FR
DTSTAMP:20091130T213238Z
     UID:1285935469767a7c7c1a9b3f0df8003a@yoursever.com
     CREATED:20091130T213238Z
SUMMARY:Class: ACCT 1001  1 Lecture(1829)
LAST-MODIFIED:20091130T213238Z
     EQUENCE:0
     STATUS:CONFIRMED
SUMMARY:Class: ACCT 1001  1 Lecture(1829)
LOCATION:Title:  Introduction to Accounting(Lecture)
TRANSP:OPAQUE
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

Problem

The problem with this is doesn't correctly import the end time (gets set to 3PM in iCal). How can I fix this?

There is no end time for the entry so you need to add this into the file.

DTEND:20120830T155000

The ICS specification also states

  the "UNTIL" recurrence rule parameter MUST be used to specify the
          last valid onset of this observance (i.e., the UNTIL date-time
          will be equal to the last instance generated by the recurrence
          pattern). It MUST be specified in UTC time.

so your RRULE line should read:

RRULE:FREQ=WEEKLY;UNTIL=20121212T150000;WKST=SU;BYDAY=MO,WE,FR


Iphone 5s ignoring some inbound calls I have an Iphone 5s that appears to randomly ignore calls from certain numbers.

Other numbers appear to be able to connect, but most just ring out as if I just left the phone untouched.

If they leave a voicemail it pings immediately.

This is on O2 in the UK (I called their tech support and they say that it is a problem with the phone).

Any idea of what could be done to fix this? Do I need a new handset?

You need to backup your phone, reinstall the operating system and then recover the data back.

This should resolve the issue, however if not, then you may need to setup as a new iPhone.

Here are the instructions on Apple's website


Window saver for Mac OS X Does anybody know of any software for Mac OS X which will save your program windows, so when you boot up again you can return to the same windows?  This would be a huge help since as a developer I often have 10 windows open and often have to re-open and re-size them all when I reboot.

The latest version of Mac OS X, Lion (10.7) has this feature bult-in. It's called Resume.

From Apple:

  Now apps you close will reopen right where you left off, so you never have to start from scratch again. And when you install software updates, you no longer need to save your work, close your apps, and spend valuable time setting everything up again. With Resume, you can restart your Mac and return to what you were doing — with all your apps in the places where you left them.

This happens automatically. Not all apps support it yet, but those that don't should be updated soon for full support.

Mac OS X Lion costs $29, and is available on the Mac App Store.


How to remove 'Cycle Tracking' from my Apple watch? I find this app 'Cycle Tracking' on my apple watch:

I don't recall installing this app at all.

But I don't need this app.

I looked into the 'Installed App' in my Watch app on my iPhone, but I can find it there.

So how can I remove this App from my Apple watch?

Removing some built-in Apple Watch apps, like Cycle Tracking, must be done from the Watch itself.  You can't do this from the iPhone's Watch app.

On the Watch, open the App Grid by pressing the Digital Crown (if you're in the List view, press firmly to change to the Grid view first).
Lightly tap and hold on any app to start the familiar 'wiggle' mode.  If you press too firmly you'll trigger the List/Grid view.
Icons with an 'X' on the top can be deleted.  After tapping the 'X' you'll be asked to verify you want to delete the app.  Select 'Delete'.
Release the pressure and tap on this button to delete the app.

From the List view you also slide the app name to the left and select the red delete (trash can) button.

Apps like Mail, Maps, Music, and Photos are still permanently installed and you can't delete them.


How to connect my external hard drive to windows working on parallels desktop? When I want to connect my external hard drive to my 15-inch MacBook Pro with touch bar, I can see the popup which asks me that wether I want to connect my hard drive to windows or Mac. But no matter which one I choose the computer could not recognize my external hard drive.

On the other hand when I quit Parallels Desktop and try to reconnect my External Hard my MacBook Pro recognizes it comfortably.

This image shows my parallels Desktop's preferences for USB devices:

Please help me fix this issue.

The issue you're having is that you're in the wrong settings. Instead of the USB preferences, you need to enable the SmartMount option.

You don't actually specify which version of Parallels Desktop you're running, but the following steps should work:

Start Windows.
Click the Parallels icon in the macOS menu bar and choose Configure. (Alternatively, you can go to the Parallels Desktop menu bar and choose Actions > Configure)
Click the Options icon in the toolbar at top
Select Sharing
Tick the Map Mac volumes to Windows checkbox (see screenshot below)

Also, below is some additional info from Parallel's help pages that may be useful:

  Share External Storage Devices and Volumes

  When you connect an external storage device, such as a USB drive, to
  your Mac, you can access the contents from Mac OS X applications.

  Using SmartMount, you can set Parallels Desktop to automatically mount
  storage devices and volumes to Windows. That way, you can access the
  contents from both Mac OS X and Windows.

  With SmartMount enabled, these items are automatically mounted to
  Windows:

  Removable drives: External storage devices, such as USB hard disks and
  USB flash drives.
  CD/DVD drives: CD and DVD drives or CD/DVD images (files most commonly ending in .dmg, .iso, and .img.).
  Network folders: Folders shared over the network.

  When you connect a storage device or volume, it is mounted as a
  network drive. For example, a USB flash drive plugged in to your Mac
  will be accessible from both the /Volumes folder in Mac OS X and My
  Computer in Windows.

Source: Parallels Desktop Help

Note 1: Permissions for accessing mounted devices are shared between macOS and Windows. That is, if you can read from and write to a USB hard drive in macOS, you can also read from and write to the same USB hard drive in Windows.

Note 2: One exception to Note 1 above is that macOS can't write to NTFS volumes without the installation of 3rd party software.


family sharing - no apps are showing on other family member devices So I setup family sharing with myself as the organizer. I invited several family members and they're using their own Apple ID on the iTunes section of the iDevice's settings.

When my wife went to Appstore => Updates => Purchased Apps => my name, no apps are showing. I'm pretty sure I haven't hidden anything and even if I did, I'm pretty sure I didn't hide ALL the apps I've bought under my name.

In saying that, I setup Family-sharing on my Macbook since it's easier to type but I don't think that matters?

Any ideas on how to fix it? thanks

edit: just logged in again to iCloud using my Apple ID and I have enabled "Share my purchases".

I've had the purchases tab take 30 seconds to 30 minutes to render in the past. The stores are extremely busy and I'm seeing higher error rates than normal for updates, downloads and such.

I would say, give it 24 hours after you set up the family sharing for things to get sorted out before contacting Apple.

You should also get an email notification from Apple when each person you invited accepts the sharing of apps portion of the plan. They have to opt in to share so everyone should get emails when people join and leave the party, so to speak.

If you want to reach out to Apple - use the iTunes Store Support team as they handle accounts, purchases, billing and such.

https://www.apple.com/support/itunes/


What cables can be connected to the Apple 30 Pin Connector? What cables can be connected to the 30 Pin connector on Iphone 4S?

I mean to say; what output, input, audio, video, usb.... does it support.

The layout of the connector can be found by a simple Google search:

Apple iPod, iPad and iPhone dock Connector Pinout
Dock Connector


APFS partition inaccessible I wonder if someone can help me with my mess. I created hybrid MBR which was working in the beginning, The I decided to delete the Bootcamp partition from the disk utility. This is where the things got messed up. Then I tried following this guide because I had the original data:

Disk /dev/disk1: 1000215216 sectors, 476.9 GiB
Sector size (logical): 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): DF8BA5A4-2A3A-4A1B-9F1F-AA6A6332D9A5
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
Main partition table begins at sector 2 and ends at sector 33
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 1000215182
Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundaries
Total free space is 3213 sectors (1.6 MiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1              40          409639   200.0 MiB   EF00  EFI System Partition
   2          409640       707245575   337.0 GiB   AF0A  CATALINA
   3       707246080      1000212479   139.7 GiB   0700

Command (? for help): c
Partition number (1-3): 3
Enter name: WIN10APFSL

Command (? for help): w

Final checks complete. About to write GPT data. THIS WILL OVERWRITE EXISTING
PARTITIONS!!

Do you want to proceed? (Y/N): y
OK; writing new GUID partition table (GPT) to /dev/disk1.
Warning: The kernel may continue to use old or deleted partitions.
You should reboot or remove the drive.
The operation has completed successfully.
g5@G5s-Mac-Pro ~ % sudo gdisk /dev/disk1
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.4

Partition table scan:
  MBR: hybrid
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with hybrid MBR; using GPT.

Command (? for help): p
Disk /dev/disk1: 1000215216 sectors, 476.9 GiB
Sector size (logical): 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): DF8BA5A4-2A3A-4A1B-9F1F-AA6A6332D9A5
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
Main partition table begins at sector 2 and ends at sector 33
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 1000215182
Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundaries
Total free space is 3213 sectors (1.6 MiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1              40          409639   200.0 MiB   EF00  EFI System Partition
   2          409640       707245575   337.0 GiB   AF0A  CATALINA
   3       707246080      1000212479   139.7 GiB   0700  WIN10APFSL

And I did

sudo gpt remove -i 2 /dev/disk3

Attempted to add:

sudo gpt add -i 2 -b 409640 -s 707245575 -t apfs /dev/disk3

But got this error:

gpt add: /dev/disk3: error: no space available on device

This is the current state now:

 start        size  index  contents
           0           1         MBR
           1           1         Pri GPT header
           2          32         Pri GPT table
          34           6
          40      409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
      409640   706835936      2  MBR part 175
   707245576   292969607
  1000215183          32         Sec GPT table
  1000215215           1         Sec GPT header

Well, nobody answered, but I was able to recover my APFS volume. It is important to mention that you have to have knowledge of your partition layout for successful restore. Hybrid MBR spans the entire volume and when I removed the incorrectly positioned volume the Hybrid MBR shrinked down to that point not leaving additional space and I got the error:

gpt add: /dev/disk3: error: no space available on device

I was able to fix it using:

sudo gdisk /dev/disk6
Password:
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.5

Partition table scan:
  MBR: hybrid
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with hybrid MBR; using GPT.

Command (? for help): p
Disk /dev/disk6: 1000215216 sectors, 476.9 GiB
Sector size (logical): 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): DF8BA5A4-2A3A-4A1B-9F1F-AA6A6332D9A5
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
Main partition table begins at sector 2 and ends at sector 33
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 1000215182
Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundaries
Total free space is 999805549 sectors (476.7 GiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1              40          409639   200.0 MiB   EF00  EFI System Partition
   2          409640       707245575   337.0 GiB   FFFF  CATALINA

Command (? for help): x

Expert command (? for help): n

Expert command (? for help): w

Final checks complete. About to write GPT data. THIS WILL OVERWRITE EXISTING
PARTITIONS!!

Do you want to proceed? (Y/N): y
OK; writing new GUID partition table (GPT) to /dev/disk6.
Warning: The kernel may continue to use old or deleted partitions.
You should reboot or remove the drive.
The operation has completed successfully.

That converted from Hybrid to Protective MBR (regular GPT). But still APFS did not have the correct code:

sudo gdisk /dev/disk6
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.5

Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.

Command (? for help): p
Disk /dev/disk6: 1000215216 sectors, 476.9 GiB
Sector size (logical): 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): DF8BA5A4-2A3A-4A1B-9F1F-AA6A6332D9A5
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
Main partition table begins at sector 2 and ends at sector 33
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 1000215182
Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundaries
Total free space is 999805549 sectors (476.7 GiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1              40          409639   200.0 MiB   EF00  EFI System Partition
   2          409640       707245575   337.0 GiB   FFFF  CATALINA

So then I was able to issue:

sudo gpt add -i 2 -b 409640 -s 707245575 -t apfs /dev/disk6
/dev/disk6s2 added

sudo gdisk /dev/disk6
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.5

Warning: Devices opened with shared lock will not have their
partition table automatically reloaded!
Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.

Command (? for help): p
Disk /dev/disk6: 1000215216 sectors, 476.9 GiB
Sector size (logical): 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): DF8BA5A4-2A3A-4A1B-9F1F-AA6A6332D9A5
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
Main partition table begins at sector 2 and ends at sector 33
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 1000215182
Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundaries
Total free space is 292559974 sectors (139.5 GiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1              40          409639   200.0 MiB   EF00  EFI System Partition
   2          409640       707655214   337.2 GiB   AF0A  CATALINA

Now the APFS restored the correct code AF0A and it reappeared in the disk utility and I could browse my files again.


Group running apps in OS X? Since I'm working on several projects that require different resources (shells, files, Chrome windows, etc.), I'd like to organize them better.

Is there a Mac utility or something that will allow me to group a bunch of app windows together to represent a specific task?

For instance I can group Chrome window, Finder window, shell into one group (this would be one project), and then a bunch of those into another group, etc.

An out-of-the-box possibility would be to use Spaces to define applications to go to a specific screen on launch, and navigate between Spaces (Virtual Desktops) as a whole.

Note, however, that you will have a conflict if you want the Finder to be in two places at once :). Your only option is one specific Space, or globally across all Spaces.


Can I request refund for an app that I purchased previously, but has now become free to download? The reason that I would like to request a refund is not just that because it has become free to download.

The app (Splashtop Wired XDisplay), has stopped its support for latest the macOS version, which totally defeats its purpose, which is to allow me to use my iPad as a secondary display for my Mac.

You may or may not be eligible to get a refund. Only the relevant team at Apple can answer that for you.

Consider going through this Apple Support article first: Request a refund for apps or content that you bought from Apple.

You should also consider contacting the customer support for the app to query if they have an update to the app in progress which will enable it to work on the recent/unsupported versions of macOS.

On the other hand, their app is still supported on older (prior to recent) releases of macOS and either some technical or business reason(s) may be preventing them from updating it to work with latest macOS.


Is DetectX itself malware? A friend installed Mackeeper, and I tried to uninstall it with DetectX.

As far as I know, DetectX is not known malware as I can only find positive comments about it. But, I'm concerned that I cannot say this has not damaged their Mac.

What should I do?

I am also in the process of a fresh install.

I'm the developer of DetectX.

A few facts about my app pertinent to your question:

i. DetectX does not ask for admin rights either to install or run.

ii. DetectX does not install any 'helper' apps or contain any other binaries save for i. it's own macOS binary and ii. the Sparkle updater binary.

iii. DetectX cannot delete anything save for the things shown in the Search panel. The user has to authorise any deletion by first pressing the 'Trash All' button, and if the offending item requires admin privs, by further providing authorisation to either the Finder or osascript. This happens on a per-file basis - i.e., the user has to authorise each file individually. DetectX cannot do mass deletions of files outside of user space.

iv. DetectX itself never asks for or sees your admin password. Any requests made for permissions is done via osascript or the Finder, and they deal with the password request and carry out the requested task.

i., ii., iii. and iv. were all deliberate design choices to make DetectX as safe as possible. Unlike some other security tools, DetectX itself cannot be hijacked to take over the user's system as it does not have - nor can it acquire - any root privileges.

A word of warning about using Avast in particular with DetectX: last I checked, Avast flags DetectX as a threat. I believe this is due to the fact that Avast is not smart enough to recognise that DetectX contains search strings that look for adware, malware and other associated badware. Users can inspect these search strings themselves as most are in plain text in the Resources folder of the app's bundle. This is stated on the DetectX home page, and there is a link there to further info about problems with Avast. All other reputable AV software recognises DetectX as safe.

Please contact me through the website if you haver further questions about DetectX.


Does it look like a Fake iPhone 6 or original? Specially The accessories. I'm confused with power adapter (rounded Pin) Does it look like a Fake iPhone 6 or original? Specially The accessories. I'm confused with power adapter (rounded Pin).  I have only this two images. Thanks

I just needed info on the USB charging brick. Is it possible that it can be original? Rounded Pin confused me, I never saw this kind of brick shape with rounded pins.

Unfortunately, there is no way to tell with such low quality images, you would need to be hands on with the device.

Looking at the accessories would not really help as those could be cheap replacements that are fake with a real iPhone.

You need to have a look at the device hands on and download some apps on the App Store and try logging into FaceTime and calling another Apple device.

In case you are considering purchasing this, please make sure the device is not logged into iCloud Find My iPhone, otherwise this could indicate the device is stolen, and in future you won't be able to use the device if you erase it and try to set it up again from scratch.

EDIT: Regarding the actual power adapter it self, this is a European iPhone power adapter but it does look significantly different from what is on Apple's website: https://www.apple.com/support/usbadapter-european/


How to prevent Mac sleep from command line? I have a long running script at the remote computer.

I don't want terminate my ssh session, and need enter it into a shell script.

How is it possible to prevent my Mac from falling into sleep from the command line?

In Mountain Lion you can use the caffeinate command.

caffeinate -u -t 1000

will prevent idle sleep for 1000 seconds.


Gatekeeper notification doesn't show location of application I just received a system notification that an application I downloaded with Homebrew was not allowed to launch. This is fine, but the notification gives me no information about where this app resides. I downloaded many applications with Homebrew and this is most likely inside a package. Using Console or some other method, how can I find out where this app is on my file system? I am wishing the system notification window showed the path to the file in question so it can be removed or allowed.

Spotlight might be the easiest

mdfind Launcher.app

If you get too many results, mdfind -name Launcher or mdfind -name Launcher.app might narrow the scope. I'm able to locate all the things I have installed via homebrew so you can check that for another install by trying the results of brew list and feeding one other package to check spotlight.


TextEdit is not working TextEdit is not working.  I have tried reinstalling but every time i am getting

  You can't open the application TextEdit because it may be damaged or
  incomplete.

message. i dont want to reinstall mac os x. i am using 10.6.8 os x. I also referred Apple Support Communities post.

If you have Xcode installed, you can recompile it yourself.

Go to /Developer/Examples/TextEdit, double click on TextEdit.xcodeproj, and click the play button.

In case you are Xcode less, let me know, I'll upload a build for you on my server.


Not requiring Apple app review for external app testing I have two apps that are currently being tested by external testers, via TestFlight.

When I do a new build of one, it always goes through app review before the external testers can try the app. Reviews are currently taking from one to two days.

Another of my apps is always instantly available for external testers, without needing to be reviewed.

I was wondering why this is the case? And is there anything I can do to not require a review everytime I do an update for external testers -- as is the case with one of my apps?

Beta App Review (which is a faster process than a normal app review) is always required for external testers.

The testers on your other app are probably registered as internal testers. There's no review requirement for pushing updates to internal testers.


songs list under albums is absent in new ios 8.4 music app Before update, when i was viewing artists and I'd go inside an artist, I could see an album name followed by all songs under that album and then the next album and so on.

Now, in artist view, I just see the album and I have to go further inside to see the songs of that album (unless there is just one song in the album).

Is this bothering someone else? Is there a way to fix this?

Thanks,
Amit

Seems like it depends on how many songs/albums you have for each artist. Some artists that I have only a few songs from have the same old style. If I have like every song from every album, then I have your problem. I think it just depends on the amount of songs you have.


When did Apple adopt the JIS keyboard layout as it is now for their MacBook Pros? When was the current JIS (Japanese Industrial Standard) keyboard layout adopted on Macbook Pro's?

The JIS keyboard layout keeps the Roman letters in the English QWERTY layout, with numbers above them:

This is the JIS layout on a Thinkpad:

Regarding adoption of the JIS keyboard, Apple has sold it for 20 years or so.  This this note.


Install OS X inside a VMware ESXi server (hypervisor) Say you have a apple hardware, that you installed a VMware ESXi server, is it legal and possible to install a Mac OS X on that hypervisor, and access it remotely, say with RDP or Logmein or whatever to use it as a remote desktop environment?

Apple loosened restrictions around OS X and virtualization with Lion. Previously on OS X Server could be virtualized and even then, only in narrow circumstances. With Lion you could virtualize the non-Server OS X version.

The Mavericks EULA maintains the Lion virtualization clause. Specifically it says:

  (iii) to install, use and run up to two (2) additional copies or
  instances of the Apple  Software within virtual operating system
  environments on each Mac Computer you own  or control that is already
  running the Apple Software, for purposes of: (a) software
  development; (b) testing during software development; (c) using OS X
  Server; or (d)  personal, non-commercial use.

So you can:

Only virtualize on Apple hardware (which you say you're doing);
Only virtualize non-Server for development, testing or "personal, non-commercial use" otherwise you have to use the Server version of OS X (which is a $20 add-on to Mavericks from the App Store)

Fall within the bounds of the above-mentioned restrictions and yes, you can virtualize OS X in your ESXi environment.


How to add keyboard shortcut to toggle F1, F2, etc. as standard function keys? I saw an AppleScript on Github to automate toggling F1, F2, etc. as standard function keys, but I don't know how to install it to my system and trigger it via a keyboard shortcut. Help?

I am running OS X Yosemite 10.10.1. Here's the script: https://gist.github.com/alampros/2b81af6cfc564f6accd3

In order to assign a keyboard shortcut to this script, you could create a service in Automator.

You must change Service receivesto no input. Then add Execute AppleScript and paste your script. Save it on ~/Library/Services.

Once saved, you must go to System Preferences → Keyboard → Shortcuts and you can find out under Services → General. Assign your preferred shortcut there.


Is there a way to get iTunes to transfer my apps on an offline machine? My Music collection is all my own and stored on a PC which doesn't connect to the internet. this has been fine for most cases however recently i've been needing to get a hold of a word processor and learned about Pages, problem is that it appears that the only way to get documents on and off my iPad is to use iTunes.

As my PC is offline so when i connect my iPad to sync stuff like movie, music and images i get the a message saying it can't transfer my apps which is understandable as i can't sign into my apple account.

i could install itunes on my laptop but the documents i want to sync are on my offline PC for when i work on there (ipad work would be for when i don't have access like if i'm in the car for a 2 hour trip) and it's a pain keeping 2 sets up to date, not to mention as i saw in this video i can only sync with one itunes (to which my laptop doesn't have the space for my music and ripped movies)

So I am wondering if there is a way to transfer my apps from my iPad to iTunes on my offline PC? (ie. installing and loging into itunes on my laptop then copying something from my laptop to my PC to trick itunes on my PC that i did sign in)

You can transfer from iPad to Laptop using Internet and iTunes.

Now use a cross-over Ethernet cable, and transfer from Laptop to PC.

There is no Internet involved here, just the cable.

How to use cross over cable set up.

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/connect-laptop-pc-via-ethernet-cable-56523.html

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/connect-two-computers-crossover-cable#1TC=windows-7

All above also works in reverse.

Get the crossover ethernet cable.

http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-CAT5E-Crossover-Cable-feet-Red/dp/B000067RFT


Configure WLAN as metered or tethered in macOS MacOS seems to assume a WLAN connection to be free of charge if and only if it is not a tethered iPhone connection. So it will run all background update and maintenance processes via that WLAN connection. As my WLAN is in fact a small box with LTE access (payed by volume) I would like to configure the connection as if it were a tethered mobile connection, which it really is.

The answers to the similiar question Managing Metered Connections on OSX all recommend some third party tools, how can I solve it solely with built-in functionality and tools (macOS Sierra, if it helps)?

It appears that you cannot without a third party extension.

In this question: How does iOS and OS X detect when a Wi-Fi network is a personal hotspot?

There is an answer that describes how OS X detects whether the connection is a personal hotspot and it seems that there is some meta data that's embedded within the signal that identifies it as a hotspot or not.  (There's even some code that checks for if it's a carplay device, too)

  Apple controls the Hardware, the Drivers and the Operating System, I
  guess they can easily add extra metadata when broadcasting the WiFi
  signal so your Mac knows to whether adding the chain icon or not.


Rsync re-copying all files I use ParagonNTFS on my Mac that I can write to ntfs drives.

I have two very large NTFS drives that I try to keep in sync. I'd like to be able to do this quickly with rsync:

rsync -rvh --delete /Volumes/Archive/ /Volumes/MobArchive/

Unfortunately, this command re-copies every file every time, including those that have not been updated. As a result, it takes all night to complete.

As a result, I have to use the --size-only option, which generally works as desired, except for files that have been updated but whose size has not changed.

I have read elsewhere that a common solution to this problem is to use --modify-window=1. In my case, however, this still causes all files to get copied. I have tried modify-window values all the way up to ten.

Any possible solutions?

If you change your command to start rsync -rvh ... to rsync -avh ... you should have more success.

The way you have the command just now rsync isn't copying over date stamps. The files in MobArchive will have their Create, Modify and Access times set to the time they are created in MobArchive. So every time rsync does a compare the date stamps in Archive and MobArchive will not match and it'll copy over everything again.

The "a" option (aka "archive" mode) is the equivalent of "-rlptgoD" which does a number of things including preserving timestamps.


"Bookmarks are being synced..." message in Safari What causes the iPad to show

  Bookmarks are being synced. Please add the bookmarks once syncing has completed

when attempting to add a bookmark or favorite in Safari and how can it be prevented?

Your iPad or any iOS/macOS device logged into an iCloud with Safari sharing in Settings -> iCloud -> Safari will sync history, bookmarks, and logins. Any changes to the bookmarks will trigger the sync, forcing you to wait. Its a pain in the arse to manage bookmarks with this always popping up.

Disable the syncing in your iCloud settings under Safari.


Do iCloud enabled iOS apps require consent from the user? I'm developing an Android app that needs to store the user preferences somewhere in the cloud. If I enable the Google Drive's AppFolder in order to store the user's data, the user needs to give consent by authorizing access to their Google Drive account. I currently don't have my iOS device at hand and can't recall whether I needed to do the same thing when working with iCloud.

No, specific consent for your app is not required before the use of iCloud for documents and data. However, consent can be later be removed from your app in Settings.


icdd process consuming substantial memory on macOS In the past week or so the process 'icdd' has been starting from time to time and when it does it consumes massive amount of RAM (upwards of 7 GB). When this happens, my MacBook Pro essentially becomes non-functional until I can open the Activity Monitor and force-kill the process.

I've attached a screenshot of the activity monitor showing icdd using over 7GB of RAM and making the memory pressure skyrocket.

Does anyone know what this process is or how I can prevent this issue from occurring every 30 minutes or so?

I have been working with a senior technical advisor at Apple on this issue for over a year, and was working with another senior advisor for some time before that.  We have done "data capture" to send to Apple Engineers on several occasions and done screen recordings on several occasions to demonstrate what is going on in Activity Monitor, Image Capture, and, ultimately, in a plist that icdd maintains at /Users/user_name/Library/Application Support/icdd/deviceInfoCache.plist (by displaying it in Xcode).

At this point, here is my best estimate of what is happening:

The icdd (Image Capture Device Database) process sees scanners come and go on a busy network.  It attempts to keep a list of their icon files in a hash table, which it also writes to the deviceInfoCache.plist file mentioned above.  Yes - this sounds crazy - it is keeping references to the scanners' icon files.  But even crazier is that, for some reason, almost all of the entries in this file point to .icns files that do not exist.  Of several systems I've looked at, there have been many thousands of entries in the file, yet only a few of the .icns files existed on one of the machines, and none existed on the others.  I believe that when this file gets large, icdd is spending a lot of time trying to check for the existence of entries in the .plist file and modify the file.  I believe this for two reasons.  First, when I take my laptop home, the icdd process sometimes continues to run at about 100% of a CPU, but when I then kill it, it goes back to the "normal" approximately 0.0 to 0.1%, every time.  Hence, I think it is sometimes still trying to process information about the entries when I open it up at home.  But when I kill it while on the busy network, it often comes back at near 100% right away.  When the number of scanners shown in Image Capture goes down (which it often does, but will periodically spike for some reason), icdd will eventually settle down.  And second, deleting the deviceInfoCache.plist file causes icdd to behave reasonably for a short while - until the number of entries builds up again.  Note that icdd maintains a copy of these entries in memory, so if you delete the file from the user account, icdd just rewrites it immediately.  And, of course, you can't kill icdd long enough to delete the file, so you have to log out and delete the file from another administrator account via the terminal.  icdd will recreate the file when you log back in, but it will have relatively few entries and behave well for a while.

To give some idea of scales, Apple Engineers were shocked to see that I had as many as 85 scanners displaying in Image Capture.  Often, however, this number will settle down to about 6 on the same system and during the same timeframes.  The deviceInfoCache.plist file has had between 8,000 and 12,600 entries on the systems that I've looked at that have had icdd problems - mine is the larger one, and I believe this got carried over from an older machine since I was having icdd issues from the time I set up my new MacBook Pro in 2016-Dec.  When I deleted the plist file, the number of initial entries in the newly created file was 44, and for a few days icdd cpu usage hovered close to 0.0%.  However, after about 5 days on campus, my plist file has 964 entires, and icdd cpu usage will routinely bounce between 30% and 90% on the busy network at the university.  When I am at home, the plist file will only increase its number of entries by 0 to 2 over the course of a day.  Of the 12,600 entries in my previous plist file, only 2 of them contain a "deviceName", the rest contain an "iconPathLocation", all of which point to nonexistent .icns files.  With the current plist, there are still exactly 2 entries that contain a "deviceName", and the rest contain an "iconPathLocation" that does not exist.

So, the short-term solution is to delete the plist file from another administrator account via terminal while logged out from your user account.  Hopefully, with this information now being provided to Apple Engineers from my Senior Advisor, Apple Engineers will have enough information to figure out why icdd is acting this way and fix the problem.  Of course, it would probably help if you can verify my short-term solution and continue reporting what you find to Apple.


How do I configure the Emacs-like keyboard shortcuts in OS X? OS X has built in support for many Emacs-like keyboard shortcuts: for example, Control-A moves the cursor to the beginning of the paragraph and Control-E moves the cursor to the end. How can I configure these shortcuts and add more of them?

Here are some good resources on how to add and configure these keyboard shortcuts:

A detailed exploration of these shortcuts by Llew Mason, unfortunately only available now through the Wayback Machine.
A similar article by an anonymous author (I think) that includes some caveats about specific methods.
A GitHub repository by Brett Terpstra that shows examples of some relatively complex key bindings.
A deep dive into the Cocoa Text System by Jacob Rus. It’s a decade old now but I’m guessing that a lot of the information is still applicable to today’s macOS.


Run OSX as normal off external HD? I'm continuing to hatch a plan to keep running whilst emergency repairs are carried out on my MBP. Further to a question I posted on Monday I'd like to know if anyone could shed light on whether this is possible.

Can I take my MBP drive out, put it in a caddy, plug it in to an iMac and boot my drive via the external then run it as a normal setup? I understand this might run slower, hopefully not too much. The main thing though is to not have to break from routine for long to get things up and running (owing to a huge deadline a week out that my laptop is too unstable to meet).

Yes: This is totally possible
and you should not have any problems at all.

You should consider though, that every Mac has a minimum and a maximum OS X Version which is officially supported.


Firefox on El Capitan cannot create profile in standard folder Firefox was refusing to launch on my MacOS El Capitan. Console gave me the following message:

  com.apple.xpc.launchd: (org.mozilla.firefox.320352[6799]) Service exited with abnormal code: 1

In the course of troubleshooting this, I must have happened upon the Profile Manager. While attempting to create a new profile in the standard folder (~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/), I saw the following error:

I had the Profile Manger save the profile to the Desktop, and now Firefox works. But I'd like to get it working normally, i.e., saving the profile to the standard folder—largely because I am having issues in other applications which might also be related to screwy permissions.

The permissions on the Profiles folder are: rwx--------- (700).

Any clues on how I can have Firefox store its profiles in the standard folder?

This issue, as well as issues I was having with iTunes and f.lux, were resolved by resetting permissions on the home folder. Before doing this, I had upgraded to Sierra from El Capitan. So the reset process I used is for Sierra. It's included below, and the original can be found here:

Resolve issues caused by changing the permissions of items in your home folder

  Reset permissions

  If the issue occurred after changing the permissions of items in your home folder, follow these steps to reset the permissions:

  From the Finder menu bar, choose Go > Home. Your home folder opens.
  Choose File > Get Info. An Info window for your home folder opens.
  If the “Sharing & Permissions” section at the bottom of the window isn't open, click the triangle in that section to open it.
  If the Lock button at the bottom of the window shows a closed lock , click the lock and enter an administrator name and password.
  Click the Action menu  in the bottom corner of the window, then choose “Apply to enclosed items.” Click OK to confirm the action. A progress bar appears at the top of the window.
  When the progress bar completes, open the Terminal app from the Utilities folder of your Applications folder.
  Paste or type this command in Terminal, then press Return:

diskutil resetUserPermissions / `id -u`

  On U.S. keyboards, the ` character is just above the Tab key. After entering the diskutil command, if Terminal says that permissions reset on user home directory failed (error -69841), enter chflags -R nouchg ~, then enter the diskutil command again.
  When the process completes, quit Terminal.

I discovered a quite different process for El Capitan on The Mac Observer OS X: Repair Home Folder Permissions, which I have not tried, and so cannot speak to its efficacy.


Is this a potential symptom of a hardware issue? Button visual data is behaving buggy? Recently, I opened my Gmail application on my (brand new) iPhone 4S.  I've been using the phone for a couple of weeks, and I downloaded the Gmail application a couple of days ago.

As you can see from the image below, the buttons on the far right started to behave in a funny manner when I launched the application.  I hit the home button and opened the app again, and it still looked like the image below.  So, I double-tapped the home button, closed the app and re-opened Gmail and that fixed the buttons.

I could choose to ignore this is because it could be a one-off error or it could be a problem with Gmail.  However, I am also aware that this type of visual error can be caused by some form of hardware error.

Do I have anything to worry about, considering the nature of the error?  Should I take this image into an Apple store and have them service my phone?

I'd rather get this taken care of if there is something that can be done before to long, especially since my phone is so new.

If that doesn't happen in any other app, it's likely a bug in the Gmail app. You should raise this issue with Google's support.


Are Time Machine backups to an external disk attached to a Time Capsule supported? My 1 TB Time Capsule drive is full with Time Machine backups.  I'd rather spend $130 on a 3 TB drive than $500 on a new 3 TB Time Capsule.

Is an external drive attached to a Time Capsule supported for Time Machine backups?  I have read that trying to use Time Machine with an Airport Extreme and an attached external drive is not supported and is in fact unreliable.  Does that extend to Time Capsules with an external drive?

I realize that a Time Machine backup cannot be split across drives -- I would move entire backups to the 3 TB drive.

I bought my 1st generation Time Capsule (MB277LL/A) in 2008. I am running Mountain Lion.

Yes. You can use Time Machine with a drive connected to a Time Capsule.

This Apple support doc - Backup disks you can use with Time Machine (as of Sept 2015) - says:

  Time Machine can back up the data on your Mac to these backup disks:

  An external USB, Thunderbolt, or FireWire drive connected to your Mac
  An AirPort Time Capsule's built-in drive (any model)
  An external USB drive connected to an AirPort Time Capsule (any model) or AirPort Extreme (802.11ac model only)
  Network volumes connected using Apple File Protocol (AFP)


Core dumps have been disabled. To enable core dumping, try "ulimit -c unlimited" before starting Java again When I play Minecraft, usually on servers, my game constantly crashes, and the reason for this is: 'Core dumps have been disabled. To enable core dumping, try "ulimit -c unlimited" before starting Java again!'

I am running on OS X El Capitan Version 10.11.5

I am running on Minecraft 1.8

I have contacted Minecraft support, and they didn't help me at all, but I soon noticed that Java was the issue.

I know that typing ulimit -c unlimited would be a temporary fix until the next time I run the game, but is there a way that I could make a permanent fix. I'm looking to fix my crashing issue. I'm looking for any clue that may help fix this issue.

First of all the crashes aren't caused by the core dumps. Very basically a core dump is just the system dumping all the data that an application has in memory into a file AFTER an application has crashed. To help developers try to diagnose the cause of a crash. The error "Core dumps have been disabled. To enable core dumping, try "ulimit -c unlimited" before starting Java again" is just telling you that it wasn't able to gather this data.

The actual crash in this case appears to have been caused by one of the mods you have installed. The important part of the crash report is these first few lines...

Description: WDL mod: exception in onWorldRemoveEntityFromWorld event

java.lang.null.NullPointerException: WDL mod: exception in onWorldRemoveEntityFromWorld event
                    at wdl.WDLHooks.onWorldRemoveEntityFromWorld(WDLHooks.java:153)
                    at wdl.litemod.LiteModWDL.worldClientRemoveEntityFromWorld(LiteModWDL.java:104)
                    at com.mumfrey.liteloader.core.event.EventProxy.$event0000d(EventProxy.java:224)

Unfortunately there isn't enough information here to tell us which mod.

First thing I'd recommend is making sure you have Minecraft and all your mods up to date. If that doesn't solve the problem, then I'd recommend removing each mod one by one and playing a bit each time. Then when the crashes stop you know which mod was the cause. Process of elimination.


If the iphone gets stolen, if i wipe all the information from the iphone from my icloud account it can be usable? Lets assume that my iphone 5c gets stolen. If the person who has the icloud account wipe all the data (they dont block the phone just wiped) will it be able to get the factory definitons like its a new phone? so if the thief activated the phone we will not get asked by the icloud account password and id?

If your iPhone is stolen and has FindMyiPhone turned on the thief would need your iCloud password in order to disable it. The thief could wipe the phone by putting it into DFU mode, but upon trying to access the phone they would run into the problem of still having to input the iCloud password into the phone so that they are able to access it as it is still registered in Apple's data base as being connected to your account.

So yes the phone can be made to go back to its original state by recovery, but no it will not be able to be activated as long as they do not have your iCloud password.


iPhone is supposedly connected to Wifi but has no connection to neither internet, nor local network It has been two days of google-fu and I'm really out of ideas here. I live in Germany, just in case that's important.

Current situation

For a week now I haven't been able to connect my iPhone 5 (iOS 9.3.1) to the internet over my home Wifi. My router is a TP Link Archer VR200v (Firmware version 0.8.0 0.21 v002f.0 Build 151105 Rel.35502n, it's the latest one.), I think the international name of it is AC750. I use the VR200v as a router and modem.

Our DSL was down for a few minutes last weekend. While I'm not 100% sure those two things are related, ever since then, the iPhone hasn't been able to properly connect to my Wifi. The phone claims that it's connected but I can't open any websites and also can't access my router's configuration interface (192.168.1.1). I don't have any problems connecting to other Wifi networks and using their internet, I tried my university's Wifi and also used my other phone as a hotspot (Moto X Pure) which both work flawlessly.

I also don't have any problems connecting other WLAN devices to the network. Two laptops, TV, the Motorola, all work and have stable internet connections.

What I've tried

The router allows 2.4 and 5GHz frequencies. I tried both, with and without WPA2 passwords. Same results.

I wiped the iPhone and restored it from a backup, hoping to clear some sort of messed up configuration. It didn't make a difference. I tried connecting both the 2.4GHz and the 5GHz Wifi during the setup without restoring it first, same result.

I tried a different Firmware for the router, still no connection.

I tried manually setting the channel (tried several for 2.4 and 5GHz) and the channel width, which had been suggested by people with similar problems, that didn't help though.

Other people suggested disabling WMM on the router (i.e. http://www.ceus-now.com/wifi-connection-problem-iphone-to-tp-link-router/)

The problem is, I haven't found a way to disable WMM on my router. It claims that WMM is obligatory for the 802.11n und 802.11ac modes, which suggests that 802.11g allows disabling it. However I can only choose between 'Only 802.11n', '802.11gn mixed' and '802.11bgn mixed'.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __

So I'm really out of ideas here. I feel like some setting hasn't been deleted 100% and creates some sort of issue between the phone and the router.  Has anyone experienced something like this before? I'm open for suggestions!

Solution

The last resort was resetting the Router and setting it up from scratch. It worked, WiFi is working on the iPhone again!


Copying and pasting between tmux panes containing vim instances over SSH in Terminal.app I use vim to develop Perl code on a remote Linux box running Debian Jesse. The machine is a virtual machine running in VirtualBox. I use ssh and then issue a vim <file> command to start editing the file.

I've been experimenting with tmux on the remote machine to see how I like it. But I cannot for the life of me figure out how to copy and paste text between vim instances in two different tmux panes. I'd prefer to be able to use both the mouse and vim-like keystrokes (yy, dd p) to do this.

I've tried just about every recommendation out there for trying to get this to work but I haven't gotten anywhere. I'm running El Capitan. Is there a definitive answer out there for getting this to work?

A better way to do it is save the selection in a temporary file and use tmux load-buffer command to load it into the paste buffer, and then C-b ] to paste.

Otherwise you may have problems with long text lines that don't fit into the screen.
Also, tabs might not be preserved and long lines may be broken down.

I have to mention another (easier) way to do it without any additional files.

There's a mod for tmux adding more flexible scripting capabilities: http://ershov.github.io/tmux/ (I'm the author)

It allows you to copy and paste without using any temporary files:

Copy selection in vim
In vim, type :!tmux tcl pbcopy "^R%" this will put the vim's paste buffer into tmux's one
In tmux, in another pane use ^B ] to paste.

You probably want to use :set paste in vim.

And if you do it frequently, you can automate the step 2 and bind it to a keypress in vim.


How can I add a Shortcut to my Apple Watch Home screen? I want to enable/disable my iPhone's Cellular Data using my Apple Watch. Here's what I've done so far:

1) Created two Shortcuts, one to enable, and another to disable Cellular Data.

2) Added these two Shortcuts to Siri.

Doing these two steps have enabled me to ask Siri on my Apple Watch to enable/disable Cellular Data on the iPhone.

But, I want to execute these Shortcuts without Siri. Is it possible to add a link to a Shortcut on the Apple Watch Home screen? I know that's possible on the iPhone, but haven't found a way to do it on the Apple Watch.

Unfortunately, this is not currently possible.  Shortcut icons on the iOS home screen are not technically "Apps" and the Apple Watch home screen only shows apps which you choose to show from the "Available Apps" section in the iOS Watch app.

For now, you'll have to continue using Siri.


How to make the last network user username remain in the login field? I have joined (bound) a MacBook Pro to a Windows Active Directory environment. I've set it to prompt for name and password, rather than show a picture, being the network user is not a local user, and this is fine. However, I'd like it if the "Name" field remembered the last logged in user, rather than requiring both username and password to be entered each time.

Incidentally, sometimes when I start typing the username in the MacBook says "Network accounts are unavailable", for only a second - I guess while it is starting up WiFi? It makes me worry there is no equivalent of a "cached" user credential in OS X ... will the user be able to login when, say, on a plane?

I've never used a Mac joined to a Windows domain before.

Thanks, kindly.

Ok! I have learned something. I will leave this here in hope it helps others who experience the same issue.

When setting up the AD binding there was an option about "create mobile account at login" which I left off. I assumed it was like a Windows roaming user.

However, it seems if you don't turn this on, OS X won't create a home directory for the user, or a local account for them.

When you turn it on, and login again, it does. Having the home directory/local account means you can turn the icon login option back on (so they don't need to enter the username), it means you can make them an admin of the machine, it means they can login when offline, and various other things.

So, turning this on has essentially solved a number of puzzling and frustrating things.


Keep iTunes movies and TV shows on iPad for offline viewing? When I purchase a TV show or movie on my iPad from the iTunes Store it goes directly to the cloud. I want it to stay on my iPad so I can watch it on the plane in offline mode. I checked and I do have 2 GB of space available.

How do I download the content to my iPad?

First you need to enable viewing your cloud content on your iPad. This is done from the Settings app. Go to: Settings.app > iTunes & App Store and under the Show All section make sure Videos is set to green.

Now go to the Videos app on your iPad and you'll be able to see all your cloud-based video content you've purchased.

To download a movie or show for offline viewing, tap the icon for the show and on the show detail screen, in the upper right hand corner, is a little cloud icon with an arrow pointing down in it. Like this:

Press that button and, assuming you have enough free space on your iPad, the video will download and be available to you to view when the iPad is in airplane mode.


Installing Linux on a MacBook Pro and waranty On a 2014 MacBook Pro Retina, does dual-booting the pre-installed OS X with Linux (say Ubuntu/Debian/Fedora/etc) void the hardware warranty? Does installing Linux and removing OS X void the hardware warranty?

I do not mind the entire hard disk being erased and set to a default OS X install if the machine has to be given for repair under warranty.

If you're going to suggest "reinstall OS X yourself before giving for repair", yes, that is an option if some non-essential component of the machine stops working. But it's not an option if the machine won't boot at all, which is when you'll be in need of servicing the most.

The country of purchase is India, if it matters.

Installing Linux or any other OS on your Mac does not void your warranty as provided here:

https://www.apple.com/legal/warranty/products/embedded-mac-warranty-row.html

The only thing you should be concerned about if anything is the fact that Apple will not provide support for Linux if you choose to install it on your Mac.

If you were to experience issues with Linux on your Mac that you suspected were hardware related, Apple can run a hardware diagnostic on the Mac even if OS X is uninstalled from it. So if you ever ran into an issue where your Mac wouldn't start up as you described in your question, Apple should be able to diagnose the issue and get you a repair provided your Mac is still covered under AppleCare.


Running macOS Sierra (10.12) or macOS High Sierra (10.13) on a 21.5" mid 2017 iMac I'm looking at buying a new 21.5" mid 2017 iMac which will ship with macOS Mojave 10.14.

I have some software that will only run on macOS Sierra 10.12.

Is it possible to downgrade to macOS Sierra 10.12 on this iMac by wiping the hard disk and reinstalling the OS from a USB installer? Does the mid 2017 iMac have the drivers to run macOS Sierra? If not do they have the drivers to run macOS High Sierra?

The mid 2017 21.5" iMac (both Retina 4K and non-retina models) originally shipped with macOS Sierra 10.12.4. Thus, both macOS Sierra and macOS High Sierra have the drivers to run on either one of the iMac's.

It would be possible to run the last (publicly available) release of both macOS Sierra 10.12.6 and macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 on either one of the iMac's by installing via USB installer or via Internet recovery.

The installer can use downloaded from the Mac App Store:

macOS Sierra 10.12.6 - Mac App Store
macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 - Mac App Store


Can't download itunes album purchased on a different computer to Iphone I purchased an album this morning on my laptop at home. I got on the bus and realized that all of the songs hadn't downloaded.  I logged onto itunes at work and the album shows up under purchased music, but it won't let me download it to my music on my iphone.  I've authorized the computer, I've checked that the purchase isn't hidden and I've tried to drag and drop the album into my music.  It will pull over to there and it shows the little plus mark, but it doesn't download it to my music.  Please help! I can't figure this out.

Apple tends to be overzealous in protection. The iPod generally only gets linked to one parent device... since yours is the laptop, not the work machine, you need to load via the laptop.


Is there any way of Filtering out messages from OS X system log? Is there any way of Filtering out messages from OS X system log?

I am looking through the log on an old MacBook running Lion.

This has an error message every 10 seconds from an obsolete service:

com.apple.launchd.peruser.503[154] (de.novamedia.VodafoneDeviceObserver[1386]): posix_spawn("/Library/Application Support/Vodafone/NML2NDeviceObserver.app/Contents/MacOS/NML2NDeviceObserver", ...): No such file or directory

The actual app is long gone, it was only the launch service that is generating error messages (for the last 5 years!)

if you just wish to hide the error messages that are cluttering up the console log, for easier readability, then this can easily be accomplished by selecting any one of the offending event messages, then click 'Ignore Sender' on the Console toolbar; those messages will then be hidden from view. the event messages are still generated, until you fix the obsolete driver issue, but you won't see them in the Console. see more info HERE and HERE.


Why is networksetup so slow compared to manually changing Wi-Fi networks? if I run
networksetup -setairportnetwork en0 myssid

it takes between 10 and 15 seconds.

If I manually click the Wi-Fi icon in the notification bar and select myssid, it's instant.

Alternatively, I'd love to be able to make an applescript that manually clicks to change Wi-Fi networks, but I can't find a good example, everyone just says "use networksetup".

Answer:
@CJK's solution works great, I'm using his second script that does the manual click. The first one works in most cases except where I'm trying to connect to an enterprise network that uses a certificate. For some reason connecting this way doesn't work in that case. But in all other cases both scripts work great.

I note what @Allan has stated in his comment below your question.

Whilst I don't get a delay as long as 10-15 seconds using the commandline, I do find it demonstrably and consistently slower (by a few seconds) than clicking the WiFi icon.  I don't know the underlying operations performed by networksetup, but I'm wondering if it performs a network scan each and every time a request is made to join a new network, which may account for the delay.  Network scanning times can be influenced by many factors, so this delay would likely vary between users in different environments.  This is just hypothesis, though.

  I'd love to be able to make an applescript that manually clicks to change Wi-Fi networks

I'll give you two scripts.

1. Service-scripting with AppleScriptObjC

The first script uses AppleScriptObjC to interface with the system directly and control the WiFi interface.  A quick summary, which I expand on below:

+ Robust/reliable
+ Faster than networksetup
+ No need to manually enter passwords
+ No visual disturbances on screen; operates in background
− Slower than clicking the WiFi icon
○ SSID case-insensitive, whole phrase matching (can be changed)

use framework "CoreWLAN"

property this : a reference to current application
property nil : a reference to missing value
property _1 : a reference to reference

property CWWiFiClient : a reference to CWWiFiClient of this
property NSPredicate : a reference to NSPredicate of this

to joinNetwork given name:ssid as text, password:pw as text : missing value
    local ssid, pw

    set |?| to NSPredicate's predicateWithFormat:("self.ssid ==[c] %@") ¬
        argumentArray:{ssid}

    tell CWWiFiClient's sharedWiFiClient()'s interface()
        its setPower:true |error|:nil

        set networks to {}
        tell cachedScanResults() to if it ≠ missing value then ¬
            set networks to filteredSetUsingPredicate_(|?|)

        if the number of networks = 0 then set networks to ¬
            (its scanForNetworksWithName:ssid |error|:nil)

        set network to (allObjects() in networks)'s firstObject()
        its associateToNetwork:network |password|:pw |error|:_1

        set [success, E] to the result
        if E ≠ missing value then return ¬
            E's localizedDescription() ¬
            as text
        success
    end tell
end joinNetwork

You would then call the joinNetwork handler from within your script like so:

joinNetwork given name:"my network ssid", password:"Passw0rd1"

This script will be robust and reliable (barring any human error on my part, which I will correct if you find a bug I've overlooked during testing).  It preferentially uses cached scan results to connect to networks; if none are available, or the specified SSID didn't appear when the scan results were last cached, it will perform a fresh network scan.  Therefore, if my hypothesis about networksetup is a contributing factor, this script will be faster than the commandline on the majority of runs, but may take the same amount of time on the occasional run when forced to do a scan.

One benefit is that, because you can specify a network password when calling the joinNetwork handler, you won't need to enter it manually when joining a new network.

The SSID—specified by the name parameter—is case-insensitive in both scripts; the password, obviously, is not.  The script above has elected to perform an entire phrase match on the SSID, i.e. "my net" will not ever join a network called "my network"; the script below has elected to do a fuzzy matching, i.e. "net" will potentially join "my net" or "my network".

2. UI Scripting

This second script is actually the one you requested: it interfaces with the UI to click the WiFi menu icon and then select the network (if it appears in the list).  A summary:

+ Despite being a UI script, it ought not to suffer from the same weaknesses inherent to most UI scripts; so hopefully reliable
+ Fastest implementation—networks joined immediately
− Visually jarring when menu appears; also, user must not interact with system until the script has exited (the nature of any UI script)
− Must manually enter passwords if not already saved
○ SSID case-insensitive, fuzzy matching (can be changed)

    use application "System Events"

    property process : a reference to application process "SystemUIServer"
    property menu bar : a reference to menu bar 1 of my process
    property menu bar item : a reference to (menu bar items of my menu bar ¬
        where the description contains "Wi-Fi")
    property menu : a reference to menu 1 of my menu bar item
    property menu item : a reference to menu items of my menu

    to joinNetwork given name:ssid as text
        local ssid

        if not (my menu bar item exists) then return false
        click my menu bar item

        repeat until my menu exists
            delay 0.5
        end repeat

        set M to a reference to (my menu item where the name contains ssid)

        repeat 20 times --> 10 seconds @ 0.5s delay
            if M exists then exit repeat
            delay 0.5
        end repeat
        click M
    end joinNetwork

    joinNetwork given name:"my network ssid"

Scripts that try to control the UI are using a method called UI or GUI scripting. These are popular amongst and popularised by novice scripters, simply because these are the most commonly-found scripts on the internet.  I won't go into it here too much other than to caution you against using scripts that rely on clicks and keystrokes—they're inherently fragile and unreliable even when well written, but most UI scripts (written by novices) are terribly written, which compounds the problem.  There's almost always a better way to achieve the desired outcome.

That said, this is one of the few sorts of UI scripts that are perhaps an exception to my warning, and in my view, a pretty acceptable implementation.  This is because it's targeting an aspect of the UI (a menu bar icon owned by the system) that is virtually guaranteed to always be accessible regardless of what window or desktop has focus, etc.  The one situation where the script of this nature would potentially break is if the menu bar icon wasn't there (i.e. the user has specifically set a preference not to have the WiFi icon available); however, I've put a line in the script that checks for this, and performs a graceful exit in that situation.

This script appears to be the speediest implementation, which doesn't surprise me as it will be equal in speed to clicking the icon manually; but, it impresses me in that I can't think of many UI scripts that would end up out-performing an application- or service-targetted script.  The network is joined almost instantly, provided the password is already saved in your keychain.  On occasion, the network you'd expect to see in the menu list might not be there until the background scanning refreshes and the list updates.  Therefore, I built in a 10-second period within which the script checks every half second to see if the menu item has appeared; if it doesn't, the script exits and you'll have to try again.

The drawback is the absence of a keychain password for a network will necessitate you needing to manually enter the password when asked for it.  It is possible to script this using UI techniques as well, but this immediately makes the script highly susceptible to the issues I mentioned and then I, personally, wouldn't use it.

System info: AppleScript version: 2.7  System version: 10.13.6


How do I sign out of all devices currently using my Apple ID? I have an ex that is using my Apple ID, and I want to get him off my account. I have changed my password, but as he was already signed in, it appears that he is still using my account.

I remember once in the past when I changed my password, I was given the option to sign out of all devices currently using that Apple ID, but that option seems to have disappeared.

Go to https://www.icloud.com/#settings & hit "Sign out of all browsers' then change your password again.


How should I configure my VMware Fusion VM network connections? I've been a long time user of VMware Fusion on my iMac and I've just bought a MacBook Pro to allow me to work on projects whilst I'm away from my desk.

On my iMac, I have a few VMs, each with their own bridged connection to the LAN, each with their own static IP address and each with their own DNS hostname on my DNS server on the LAN. I've been using a bridged connection in this way so that other users on the LAN can connect to the VMs running on my Macs to test projects that I am working on without me having to configure NAT rules and users having to use unusual port numbers, etc.

Now, I'm aware that when I take my MBP away from the LAN and say, for example, I am on a train with no internet connection or WiFi connection, I will be unable to resolve the DNS name of the VMs as my DNS server will not be reachable. A workaround for this, I guess would be an entry for each VM in my /etc/hosts file on my MBP.

However, what I'm not sure of is how my MBP will be able to route traffic destined for the static IP address of each VM, when there is no network connection available.

Going through the settings available to me in VMware Fusion, I can only really see two possible configurations that could work for me: Bridged Networking and Share with my Mac. I've discounted Private to my Mac as this doesn't appear to satisfy my requirement of allowing LAN users to connect to my VMs.

Surely, I'm not the only person who has been faced with this predicament (unless I'm doing it wrong in the first place).

I would like to know if anyone would be able to answer me the following:

How can I setup a VMware Fusion 6 VM to allow bridged network connection to the LAN when I'm at my desk and retain connectivity between my MBP and the VM when I'm "on the road"?

I have come across this issue many times as well as I work "on the road" at times. Unfortunately, the only solution I have found is not ideal (for everyone) but works well for me:

Create a Wifi HotSpot on my 3G/LTE device.
Connect to the Wifi HotSpot with my Host (e.g. via Wifi) to activate my Host OS network adapter and obtain an IP address.

NOTE: Connecting to a public Wifi Network with no DHCP does not work as you will not be able to obtain an IP address for the Host and cannot bridge the VM. Not connecting to any network to activate your Host network adapter will NOT work.

Configure your VM OS to obtain an IP address dynamically i.e. clear out any static IP you have assigned to the VM OS.

NOTE: I understand that you want to access the VM OS via a static IP however you need to leverage the networking available to you and it will become clear below.

On your VMWare VM Network Adapter: "Disconnect Network Adapter"
On your VMWare VM Network Adapter: Change to "NAT"
On your VMWare VM Network Adapter: "Connect Network Adapter"
Obtain the IP address of your VM OS:
e.g. Windows:  ipconfig
e.g. Mac OS / Linux:  ifconfig

NOTE: For this example lets assume it is 172.16.175.246

Edit your Host OS hosts file and setup static IP address settings to the IP address obtained in step 5.
e.g. 172.16.175.246      www.example.com

Now access www.example.com and it should work. Once you go back to being a on work network simply undo the above and you are back to business again.


How to add a disk to the Win10 on the Mac? I used Boot Camp to create a Win10 system on my Mac 2017.

But you see the C disk only 37.8G usable (40G), how can I divide a disk from the Mac to add a D disk to the Win10 system?

Things to consider...

Do you have sufficient spare drive space on your Mac drive?
Do you really need a separate partition or just a larger C partition?
The only Apple-supported way to change the size of a Boot Camp partition is to delete it then re-add from Boot Camp Assistant - not great if you need to preserve data on the Windows partition.
Disk Utility will not allow you to create more than 4 partitions on a drive, including hidden partitions. The Boot Camp partition was already the fourth.
Trying to change partitions in any way, shape or form from inside Windows will break your entire Mac/Win drive structure.

The only application I know of that can move, create, resize, backup partitions, including Boot Camp, without breaking anything is Paragon Hard Disk Manager
My recommendation would be to use it to increase the size of the C partition [thereby shrinking the Mac partition, assuming sufficient free space] rather than create another as a D partition.


How many applications can I run simultaneously on a new Macbook Air? With two user accounts running simultaneously with fast user switching, is there any issue in running say 10 apps simultaneously in each account?

I have a personal setup and one I use for when I'm at work so that I can create two full workspaces that have different accounts/preferences, etc. But I like to be able to fast user switch between the two. In each account I have Mail, iChat, Reeder, Safari, Skype, iCal, iTunes, iWork open all at the same time. I used to do that on my old Macbook, but I would only have one account logged in at a time. Now with my new Macbook Air, it seems so far that it's ok handling all of those apps running at the same time in both accounts.

Can someone explain to me exactly how it's managing all of that memory and resources and what performance (battery?) issues I might encounter. Is there a generally recommended limit to the number of simultaneous processes for a machine with 4GB of RAM, when those processes are pretty basic?

There are no system resources that can meaningful be counted in "applications", but some programs hog system resources atrociously, while others use hardly any.

If your computer seems 'burdened', then run activity monitor to learn what processes are using the most CPU and RAM, especially processes you aren't actively using.  You should avoid leaving badly behaved processes running continuously.


Macbook feels a lot hotter than usual; are these temperatures normal? I have an early 2015 13" Macbook pro with a 3.1 GHz Intel Core i7 processor.

I've been having some battery issues lately, that could be been attributed to charging my laptop and plugging in foreign USBs (I bought this iPhone 7 charging cable in Italy that doesn't seem to fit my macbook USB port very well, and it doesn't seem to allow my macbook to recognize the device, although it does allow it to charge) into my macbook pro when I was overseas back in July, or it could just be my battery is deteriorating (I have a 850 cycle count).

The first time I noticed issues was back in mid July when I was in Italy. Macbook battery bar showing as red; battery % jumps around; battery condition normal; out of US charging
But those issues were quickly resolved when I reset the SMC.

Last week, I started getting a "Service Battery" warning on my macbook. I've tried resetting my SMC a few times, but the error remains, so it appears that my battery will soon reach its life expectancy.

Today, I noticed that my macbook feels much hotter than usual. I'm not doing anything computationally expensive, so I have no idea why it's getting hot, and I'm wondering if it's connected to the battery issues I've experienced recently. I also checked activity monitor, and nothing appears abnormal. Below is the output from Macs Fan Control.

Are the temperatures way too high? I don't know why its reporting 45C for the ambient temperature. It's about 86F (33C) in my house.

Those temps seem fine to me.

MBP models usually range from about 40ºC (104ºF) to 100ºC (212ºF) depending on whether the CPU is idle or under load. CPU temps (just like ambient temperatures) typically have a bearing on GPU temps too, especially within the extremely confined spaces of a MacBook.

If you'd like, you can refer to the Intel Mac Temperature Database to see the various temperature ranges reported by users. You can also filter the list by model etc.

As for your battery, it's also clear that it needs replacing. MacBook Pro batteries have a life expectancy at or around 1000 cycles.  It's not uncommon for batteries to exceed or fall short of this number; as every user is different in terms of what they use their computers for and how/when they're using AC power etc. So the 1000 cycles is just an estimation of how long it can last.

Since your battery needs replacing, it's not contributing as much to the overall power source mix for your MacBook Pro, so this could explain an increase in temperatures - although the increase could also be explained by other factors.

As an aside, the cable you bought in Italy is most likely a charge only cable (i.e. many of the cables sold at fuel stations etc only support charging and not data transfer), so that explains why this cable will charge your iPhone but not allow data transfer. Regardless, it's unlikely to affect the temperature of your MacBook Pro.


How can I make Find My Friends display distance in miles rather than km? I'm in the UK, where (like the US) we use miles to measure distance, not kilometres. However, on both my iPhone and iPad the Find My Friends app in iOS 5 shows distances in km.

If I go to Settings > General > International and change my Region Format setting to United States, Find My Friends automatically switches to displaying distance in miles. Switch back to United Kingdom and frustratingly I'm back to km. Is there any other way to make Find My Friends pick up the correct unit for UK users?

No. The app doesn't currently have an override and simply takes the distance units from the system settings.

It surely would be nice to have finer control, but the code isn't there to make a change today.


The hunt is on, new Mac Pro 2013 and where do you move your old MP data? I would say, the hunt is on. If your are like me, having a old Mac Pro, with 4x HDD (8 TB total) and your preparing for the new Mac Pro (yeah!). Then the question becomes: where do you move your old MP data to something new?

Two candidates:

LaCie BIG5 Thunderbolt
G-Dock EV Thunderbolt

You can't not really compare these, however for the moment their the only 2 products i could find.

My Thoughts:

I like that the LaCie is BIG (starts with 10TB), on the other side the G is easy to extend and you can easily take one HDD and hook-it up with your Macbook as a external disk (sweet).

However, the G EV series seems only to come in 1 TB disks (thats a bummer). And -as far as i know-- no possibility for extra (empty) enclosures (where you can put in your own (2TB) disks). Im not sure about the ambient level, i hate fans running all the time, so keeping it low as possible is welcome!

So, finally, my question is, what would be a good extension for your HDD space, and how are you guys thinking of 'solving' this? The SSD that comes with the MP will not be enough for the most of us!

My criteria:

thunderbolt 2
low noise
easy to expand (hot swap?)
possibility for LAN connection?

Edit 1:

I didn't mentioned it, but the new MP are fitted with TB2 (20 gbps vs 10 gbps), which means a TB1 drive doesn't take full advantage of the available TB2 connections.

The Pegasus R2 disk enclosures use Thunderbolt2 (newest Thunderbolt spec, 20Gb/s) and they come in diskless configurations (you put your own existing Mac Pro disks right in) or pre-populated configurations. I already ordered the diskless model for myself. No network support, however.


Can I export my signature from Preview on one Mac and import it on another? A follow on to this question about extracting the signature image. Is it possible to just copy the plist file containing the signature from one Mac to another? Is there a recommended method for exporting and import signatures from one Mac to another I should follow instead?

I could "sign" a blank PDF and take a screen shot of it but but I really want the same password to go along with the image so it's 100% the same signature on the other Mac as the one I'm using on this Mac.

This was covered by Aussie Bloke's blog when Lion arrived. Here are the steps to get both the file where the signature is stored as well as the associated keychain entry to a second Mac.

On the source Mac:

Open the ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Preview/Data/Library/Preferences folder.

In Finder, click the Go menu and hold option to show the Library folder.
Alternatively, press ⇧⌘G whilst Finder is active and enter the path above to directly navigate.

On OS X Mavericks 10.9 and earlier, copy the com.apple.Preview.signatures.plist file.
On OS X Yosemite 10.10 and later, copy the com.apple.PreviewLegacySignaturesConversion.plist file.
Launch Keychain Access
Ensure the login keychain is selected and choose the Passwords category.
On OS X Mavericks 10.9 and earlier, right-click the Preview Signature Privacy password and select Copy Password to Clipboard.  This is the password used to encrypt the signature images.
On OS X Yosemite 10.10 and later, right-click the Signature Annotation Privacy password and select Copy Password to Clipboard.
Paste it into a text editor and save the file.  You'll need to transfer this to your other computer(s).

On the destination Mac(s):

Launch Preview, open Preferences, and select the Signatures tab to ensure the default configuration files and folders have been created.
Exit Preview.  Ensure that the process is terminated.
Open the ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Preview/Data/Library/Preferences folder.
On OS X Mavericks 10.9 and earlier, copy the com.apple.Preview.signatures.plist file to the folder, overwriting any existing file.
On OS X Yosemite 10.10 and later, copy the com.apple.PreviewLegacySignaturesConversion.plist file to the folder, overwriting any existing file.
Launch Keychain Access
On OS X Mavericks 10.9 and earlier, locate the Preview Signature Privacy password in the login keychain and double-click to edit.
On OS X Yosemite 10.10 and later, locate the Signature Annotation Privacy password in the login keychain and double-click to edit.
Click the Show password checkbox and paste the password you copied from your original machine.
Click Save Changes and you're done!

In situations where the target machine has no existing Preview Signature Privacy or Signature Annotation Privacy record in Keychain Access, you must create a new record. This is necessary when the target machine (like a Mac Pro with an older or third-party display attached) has no camera which means no Signature file can be created from within Preview. Open Keychain Access as above and do the following:

Click on the + icon to create a new entry
On OS X Mavericks 10.9 and earlier, enter Preview Signature Privacy in the Keychain Item Name field.
On OS X Yosemite 10.10 and later, enter Signature Annotation Privacy in the Keychain Item Name field.
Enter Preview in the Account Name field.
Paste the password copied from your original machine, per above procedure.
Click Add
In the newly created entry, click Access Control
Add Preview to applications allowed access
Click Save Changes and you're done!


Partition Format on Mac Mac newbie here. I need to have a case sensitive file system. I am planning to create a separate data partition for that. 100GB (Mac/home directory) + 151GB (data partition). I have a habit of making a separate data partition since my Linux days (while building a new system). It seems like the separate data partition appears as /Volumes/data_partition on Mac, while it appears as /data_partition (as in, direct descendant of / ) for Linux. Is my understanding correct?

What kind of Formatting should I use for the separate partition? Again, I want to make it case sensitive, and it needs to work with Linux too. Is "Case-Sensitive, Journaled" okay?

My first preference is a separate partition, but do you recommend a dmg (not sure about advantage/disadvantage) in stead of separate partition? Any major disadvantage of using a separate data partition? I am assuming it will be slightly slow considering it’s a different partition. My MBR has an SSD, so I am assuming it shouldn’t be too bad.

Please note this partition will only be used to hold data (not as a boot partition as I am not planning for dual boot).

Thanks in advance!!!

Yes, you are correct. /Volumes/(name) is the mount point.
Mac OS Extended (Case-Sensitive, Journaled) is the best case-sensitive option. I'm assuming you know what you're doing with case-sensitive partitions.
The biggest disadvantage, maybe, of creating a separate partition is that you can't use Boot Camp if you have more than one partition on your startup disk before partitioning for Boot Camp, meaning that you can't use Boot Camp at all if you only have one hard drive on your Mac. You said that you want the separate partition for Linux; do you mean that you're going to run Linux in Boot Camp?


Navigate albums while playing music from iPod I use an old 1st Generation iPod nano to play music in my car.  I hook it up via the dock connector.

I noticed that when it's hooked up to my car stereo via the dock connector, I'm locked out of the user interface: the screen doesn't show anything about the song being played, I can't pause or fast-forward or play from the iPod's buttons, and I can't navigate to select another album and start playing it.

In contrast, when using the iPod to play music through headphones (not connected to my car), I can play a song.  While the song is playing, I can navigate through my other albums, select a new album, and press play on the other album to switch to that one.  But I can't do this when it is connected to my car.

I don't have this problem with an iPhone 4: even with the iPhone 4 connected to the car stereo via dock connector, I can pause playback or navigate to another album and start playing it from the phone's touchscreen.

Is this problem specific to the 1st Generation iPod nano?  Will other, newer iPod nanos have the same problem?  Will all iPods have this problem, including the iPod touch and iPod shuffle?  How can I identify which devices will or won't have this problem, short of buying it and trying it out?

(I don't want to use a 1/8" to 1/8" cable via the headphone jack, or a FM transmitter.)

Unfortunately, there's no way that I'm aware of around this—the reasoning being that you should have your eyes on the road, I suppose. However, if your stereo is intelligent enough to directly read music from your iPod, as it seems to be, you can usually navigate through your music with its interface. That's typically clunkier than the iPod interface, but it will probably get the job done.


Auto start an application using a script what I would like to do is a script which 1st checks whether a list of applications is running (e.g. Spotify, Thunderbird, Rocket Chat) and 2nd launch the apps from this list which are not already running. You could think of it like a "start all apps I typically use with one click/command".

I was reading up a little on launchd, but am not sure if this is what I want, as it sounds to me (at the moment) like an improved cron. Would a simple bash script suffice to do what I want? I'm currently running macOS 10.14.6

Technically, you don't need to check to see if the app is running.  If it is, it will switch to it.

A very simple bash script will do this for you

#!/bin/bash

declare -a Apps=( "Safari" "Firefox" "Mail" )

for i in "${Apps[@]}"
do
  open -a  "$i"
done

It's contains a simple array and will loop through each one and open the app if not running.  You can edit the array as needed with the names of each app in quotes separated by a space.

Save the file with a name you can remember like openapps.  Be sure to set the the "execute bit" chmod +x openapps and copy it to your Desktop or somewhere in your path (If it's on your Desktop, you can double click it to run).


Connect to Mac Mini without sharing the screen When I connect to my mac mini (from my Mac Book Air) what happens is that the connection is made as a regular screen sharing. So if someone connects a screen to the mac mini then all the activity is seen.
But if there's already another user connected then I get a message saying that another user is already using the display, and then I can choose to share the screen or to "login as yourself", and that's great!
How can I always connect as login so each user get his privacy?

MacMini: macOS Sierra 10.12.5
MacBook AIr: macOS Sierra 10.12.5
Thanks!

Using other software, RealVNC, should fix your problem.

Download RealVNC. You only need a personal license, which is free.
Enable Remote Management. Go into System Preferences > Sharing > Remote Management.
Configure RealVNC. It can be set up pretty much however you'd like.
Connect to your computer. This will land you on the login page for your mac, and will only share a screen with it if logged in as the current user.