Macbook power adapter issue: PPP003 I'm using Macbook Pro 15" Retina Late 2013. OS is Yosemite Public beta. Once in month I usually do diagnostics (Apple's boot time diagnostics, the when you press "D" ). The last the when I did it, I got PPP003 error code which was something like that: "Battery may not be charged. Try to disconnect MagSafe 2 power adapter ..."

Thing is, it charges well my laptop but both adapter and it's ending are heating. Adapter heating really bad but ending a bit less.

My question is if I use it like that, can it damage my laptop? Is it important to change adapter immediately or not to change at all?

I have the exact same model and had the same issue.

Originally, I took the generic troubleshooting steps (reset SMC, unplug let sit, etc.). Didn't work. I then used isopropyl alcohol to clean both the magsafe adapter pins and the magsafe input on the machine. Ran the test again (multiple times) and no error occurred. This was a temporary solution.

A few weeks later, it occurred again so I opened a case # with Apple and took it into the Apple Store Genius Bar. The machine passed Apple's in-house diagnostics. They swapped out the Magsafe charger with a new one and the issue is yet to re-occur (been ~3 weeks).

I asked them the same question about the battery and they did not give me an answer (they don't "speculate"). I assume, however, that if it's incorrectly charging the battery for many cycles, the battery would be affected.

In short, temporary fix = isopropyl alcohol to clean the pins on adapter itself and in MBP. Actual fix = defective charger/hub, both of which covered under Warranty. Go to Apple for definitive diagnosis and receive either new charger or get machine serviced.

Also: it's completely normal for the adapter to get very hot when connected to the machine and charging.


How to turn WiFi on\off based on location Applications such as WiFi Matic on Android allow you to turn on\off your WiFi automatically depending on location. Even though this disables assisted GPS which uses WiFi to help the GPS lock, it's still a nice battery saver trick which I loved while in the Android world.

I couldn't find any iPhone app that does the same. Does it exist?If not, is it because apple restricts such app control?

There is no public API to control the Wifi on iOS. Therefore Apple won't allow it on the AppStore.

If such an app exists then maybe on Cydia.


iOS Simulator installations fail on Xcode 6.4 on El Capitan v10.11 Could not download and install iOS 7.1 Simulator. Authorization is required to install the packages.

Facing this issue on Xcode 7 Beta 6 version too.

Can't seem to understand why?

Xcode 7 does not support iOS 8.4 and earlier.

Xcode 6.4 does not support iOS 7.1.2 and earlier.


my mac pro with OS x.11.6 goes to sleep even with the energy saver set to never my desktop mac pro with OS x.11.6 goes to sleep even with the energy saver set to computer sleep never. And keyboard is frozen when computer wakes up, I have to restart.

my mac pro with OS x.11.6 goes to sleep even with the energy saver set
  to never

With OS X 11.6 the Caffeinate command in Terminal should work and keep it awake.

Open Terminal in Utility Folder and type Caffeinate.

If you want to investigate what is putting it to sleep, open the Console in Utility folder and look at the lines before it goes to sleep (or post it in you post).


[MySQL Server] MySQL Workbench can't find my.cnf on (clean installation of) Snow Leopard I have a clean installation of Snow Leopard on a MacBook and I want to get a MySQL Server running on it. I downloaded and installed the .dmg file provided by the homepage of MySQL and installed it. I did not yet try to start the server. I installed Workbench and configured it to localhost (standard settings). Now Workbench keeps telling me, that it could not find the file /etc/my.cnf. I was able to start the MySQL-Server from within Workbench, though. Now **Workbench wants to add a /etc/my.cnf file. Shall I proceed or is the file somewhere else already?

locate my.cnf tells me

/usr/local/mysql-5.5.13-osx10.6-x86_64/mysql-test/include/default_my.cnf
/usr/local/mysql-5.5.13-osx10.6-x86_64/mysql-test/suite/federated/my.cnf
/usr/local/mysql-5.5.13-osx10.6-x86_64/mysql-test/suite/rpl/my.cnf

Is it possible, that it is one of those? I don't want to mess the configuration up by creating a new my.cnf so I hope for an inspiration by some expert. Thanks!

Feel free to copy one of the example files into the /etc directory or make your own. You won't have any problems until you ever want to have more than one version of mysql installed and running - then you can set up shell variables to keep things apart - but for the short run - one file in one place would be good. So let the Workbench make /etc/my.cnf and the other files will probably be ignored since Workbench looks to be telling you it looks only in /etc.


Macbook pro 2011 Late cannot enable dGPU again I'm struggling with some problem involved with enable dGPU AMD Radeon. To the needs of installation MacOS Catalina I had to disable discrete graphics card. I reboot into recovery mode and used command
nvram fa4ce28d-b62f-4c99-9cc3-6815686e30f9:gpu-power-prefs=%01%00%00%00

after reboot I again run in recovery mode and wrote
csrtuil disable

I was following this tutorial http://dosdude1.com/gpudisable/ (I could not run Single-User-Mode).
It worked perfectly and installation Catalina went well. But after this I wasn't able to enable dGPU again. I tried to use key combination CMD+Option+R+P to reset NVRAM and 'nvram -c' in terminal but it didn't help. Also I tried to solve the problem following these guys explanation but it didn't have any effect. (First link, Second link). I was searching any information but I can not find the answear. Below I put picture from /System/Library/Extensions directory (maybe there is something wrong). I really appriciate any help!
(Last week I upgraded this Macbook with SSD Crucial MX500 and Corsair 8 GB DDR3 1333Mhz but it probobly has no issues with this )

After the steps below, I'm seeing again both graphics cards in "About This Mac" of my MacBookPro 17" Late 2011, running Catalina Patcher. See

Shut down the computer.
Plug in the power adapter to a power source if it's not already connected.
Press Control+Option+Shift+Power keys to reset the SMC
Boot and press Control+S immediately after you hear the startup sound.
Then enter this command:
nvram fa4ce28d-b62f-4c99-9cc3-6815686e30f9:gpu-power-prefs=%00%00%00%00
Then type 'exit' to reboot.
Then shut down again the computer.
Boot and press and hold the Command+Option+P+R immediately after you hear the startup sound.
Hold these keys until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for a second time.


Will this brand of third-party RAM work in my Mid 2010 iMac? I am looking to update my iMac's Mid 2010 RAM from 4GB to 12GB and wondering if this RAM is alright to use and what is the difference between the two sets of RAM because they are the same price, both for the iMac/Macbook Pro but have slightly different configurations.

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/8gb-(2x4gb)-corsair-apple-imac-macbook-macbook-pro-ddr3-so-dimm-pc3-10666-(1333)-non-ecc-unbuffered-

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/8gb-(2x4gb)-corsair-apple-macpro-ddr3-so-dimm-pc3-8500-(1066)-non-ecc-unbuffered-cas-7-7-7-20-150v

Using crucial.com, their system scanner tells me my system is a mid-2011 iMac even though I am 100% sure it is Mid-2010 because my system was bought in 2010 and says it in the system preferences. The scanner recommends http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/mpartspecs.aspx?mtbpoid=D7403679A5CA7304

System Info

iMac 21.5" Mid 2010
4GB 1333Mhz DDR3
ATI 5670 512MB
3.2 Intel Core i3

The iMac Mid-2010 supports DDR3 10666 (from the Apple support site)

The first link is to the correct RAM for that Front Side Bus (FSB) speed
The second link is to a slightly quicker set of RAM, but runs on a lower FSB.

The differences between the two are characterised by the two notes above, the FSB speed and the clock timings.

In the first, the FSB speed is higher, but the timings for the RAM are slower.  In the second, the slower FSB allows the RAM to work at slightly faster timings.

If you want to know about timings, a search for RAS CAS delay is a good starting point.


How can you customize the keyboard layout / shortcuts? I've recently migrated from Ubuntu to Mac, but one of the features that I'm lacking most is the keyboard layout for alternative languages. I don't like to switch keyboard layouts all the time, yet at the same time I like to write using accents and diacritics, as needed in each language (Romanian, French, German, etc.).

The Romanian keyboard layout provided on Linux offers a very nice "compatibility variant", specially for programmers. Basically it's identical to the English one, but holding down the right Alt (level 3) key gives you the Romanian special characters:

How can I have a similar functionality?

Can I at least customize it along these lines:

⌥ + a » ă
⌥ + s » ș
⌥ + t » ț

PS: I am aware of the Accent Menu and it's limitations.

Although it isn't exactly what you asked for, one possible solution is to use the built-in ability to rapidly switch Input Sources (aka keyboard layouts). To make this function useable, you'll need to do a little setup.

Open System Preferences: Keyboard and select the Keyboard Pane. Check the option to Show Keyboard & Character Viewers in menu bar (1), then click on the Input Sources… button (2).

The Language and Text preference pane will open to the Input Sources tab. Select the input sources (3) you want to access on a regular basis. Fewer is better, remember you can always return to this tab and change your selections. When you've made your choices click on the Keyboard Shortcuts… button (4).

The Keyboard preferences pane will open to the Keyboard Shortcuts tab. Select Keyboard and Text Input from the column on the left (5). Then check the options to enable the keyboard shortcuts to navigate between input sources. (6).

If you stay with the default shortcuts, they will conflict with  the default Spotlight shortcuts. Select Spotlight from the column on the left, and either deactivate or change the keyboard shortcut assigned to the Spotlight functions.

Now when you need to type a special character, use the hotkey to select the appropriate Input Source and use Lion's long hold function to bring up the choices for each character.

I am currently using Romanian as my Input Source . I know this because it's displayed in the Keyboard and Character Viewers menu item. A long press on a provides:

Once I've typed the Romanian character, I can use the keyboard shortcut to return to the U.S. input source.


Using a Retina MacBook Pro with Thunderbolt Monitor I currently have a MacBook Air, which I use with a Thunderbolt Monitor, side-by-side, at my desk.

I'm considering upgrading to a Retina Macbook Pro.  However, I'm worried that using two displays with different DPIs will create an odd experience.  I would love to hear from people who have this setup.  Is it odd to move windows from one screen to the other and have things change from 1x to 2x and vice versa?

FWIW, I am a web designer, so am particularly interested in folks who use this setup for web design/development.

I'm worried that using two displays with different DPIs will create an odd experience. I would love to hear from people who have this setup.

I have a 13" retina MacBook Pro and a 23" external display that I use for web development. It's actually a great setup since it makes it really easy to test how your designs look on both types of displays.

  Is it odd to move windows from one screen to the other and have things change from 1x to 2x and vice versa?

When you move a window from one display to the other, you might notice it quickly redraw at 1x or 2x, though it's very brief.

One interesting thing is that windows have to be drawn at either 1x or 2x in their entirety, so if you position a window such that it spans both displays, it'll draw at the resolution of whichever display contains more of the window. It's rare that you ever position a window like that intentionally, though, so I wouldn't call it a problem.

Honestly, the biggest problem you'll have once you get a retina display is that it'll make every other display you use look horrendous :-) Text in particular is an order of magnitude sharper, so I always run anything text-heavy (IDE, email, etc.) on the retina display.


Shared calendars and popups I have popup notifications appearing anytime my girlfriend has one on the calendar she shares with me.

Since sharing the calendars avoids me calling her in the middle of a work session, when she's highly concentrated, I'm really unmotivated to remove her calendar from my iPad.

Since she needs the notifications to know when to move from one activity to the other, we can't turn that off either.

The Mac's iCal has a feature "ignore alerts". Where is the equivalent in iPad?

Use the Do Not Disturb feature to disable alerts during a specific time of day. A good explanation of the feature is given here.


How to Move Photos out of an Event and into the Main section of iphoto? I have created many events over the years of having my mac... and I am noticing that my events are becoming very jumbled from importing photos over the years and just tossing them into the closest relative event I can find.. I am wanting to have all my photos in the basic part of iphoto without any events.. so that I can recreate ALBUMS that appropriately file my pictures so I can find them easily when I need them.

Can anyone assist me with this?

Thanks :)

Events are an integral part of iPhoto.

You can't have no events. However, you can ignore them. Just select 'Photos' on the left side list:

(iPhoto remembers your selection and will display the 'Photos' view next time you start it) and configure the time frame iPhoto should use to autosplit photos into events (I use an 8-hour gap):

iPhoto won't bother you about creating new events.

Now you can group your pictures in albums: in the 'Photos' view, select the photos you want to include in an album and press ⌘N. A new, unnamed album that contains the previously selected photos will appear in the Albums list. Rename it and you're done.

Note that iPhoto won't automatically add imported photos to your albums. If you want your albums to be updated based on certain criteria use smart albums instead.


How to stop AutoMounter from trying Network Shares on High Sierra? On my MacOS 10.13.2 machine I am being inundated with network share login prompts literally every minute and they will not relent. If I ignore them and push them aside, they jump right back in my face. Pop-up ads aren't this insidious. Aside from the requirement to click "OK" to authenticate things already on your keyring, this is one my my least favorite changes in Sierra. I am not sure how I told AutoMounter that I want this network share that is on a NAS that no longer exists, but now I cannot find how to un-tell it because AutoMounter is attacking every 60 seconds. Console shows the proof:

Share 'homes' started to mount with URL: afp://mlitwin@diaspora(AFP)._afpovertcp._tcp.local/homes

This is quite possibly the worst implementation of auto_mount that I have ever seen, but that doesn't really surprise me anymore. So I think, fine... just remove it from fstab right? Wrong. It's been deprecated. I did a little reading and apparently we're supposed to use vifs now? Ok, fine. Problem is I tried that and just got an "editing error". I don't see anything explicit in /etc/auto_master either. Sigh.

Can someone please tell me what the heck is telling AutoMounter to torture me?

Sorry, I am a giant doofus. I thought AutoMounter was part of MacOS when in fact it was a utility I had installed a while back and didn't configure well. I was confusing it for auto_mount. I guess it's not that far-fetched. Still, kind of embarrassing.


How long is it safe to store an unopened iPod Classic? I just bought an iPod classic after the discontinuation, and I already have a working one, so I just want to store this one until its needed.

How long is it ok to just leave it in the box? I read once that you're not supposed to let a battery sit with no charge in it, and the date on the iPod box says 2009, meaning this thing almost definitely has no charge right? Should I start it on charge cycles or just leave it in the box?

I would recommend to:

Charge the battery to about 30%

Read more here:

Store it in dry and cool place.


How to reformat a HDD to show the proper size? Long story short. On my iMac I had a Fusion Drive: 250GB SSD + 750GB HDD.

The SSD failed totally, is completely dead. HDD seems to be OK. I replaced the SSD and erased the HDD.

The HDD seems to be OK. I can use it normally and Disk Utility doesn't show any problems. Only it shows the wrong (old) size (of the Fusion Drive) - still 1TB:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Data                    999.9 GB   disk0s2

I am afraid to use this drive as it shows more space then there is physically.

Is there a way somehow to reset this drive totally so I can use it again? Standard utilities like diskutil and fsck_hfs exit without any errors.

EDIT:
Answering the comment:It is definitely a 750 GB drive. iMac didn't want to boot from the drive and from a bootable USB either. I had to disconnect both drives - then I could boot form the USB. I replaced the SSD and installed new system on it. Disk Utility was showing the HDD as an incomplete Fusion volume:

Checking volume

disk0s2: Scan for Volume Headers

disk0s2: Scan for Disk Labels

Logical Volume Group 56E4E02A-D9B3-462B-BA0A-6E9A9D4D9646 spans 2 devices

Incomplete or inconsistent CoreStorage Physical Volume set

Storage system check exit code is 1.

Problems were found with the partition map which might prevent booting

Operation successful.

The easiest way to fix this is to boot using your bootable USB, go into terminal and enter the following command to (re)partition your drive

diskutil partitionDisk /dev/diskX 1 GPT HFS+ MacintoshHD 100%

Where X is the number of the drive that corresponds to your HDD.  Issue the command diskutil list to get a listing of the disk identifiers.

Verify that your drive is showing up correctly by issuing the command

diskutil info diskX

Then proceed with your installation of macOS


Restore flashdrive to original state diskutility I have pen drive which has two partitions with almost no storage in each. The full size of the things is 8GB as you can see in the image below.

The problem is diskutility commands eraseDrive and eraseVolume both take as arguments the device NAME and IDENTIFIER and as you can see in the image above, the different partitions do not have a NAME.

My goal is to have a single partition with the full 8GB. Any suggestions?

The command to erase a drive to one (visible) partition is:

diskutil eraseDisk FileSystem newVolumeName PartitionScheme diskIdentifier

Valid file systems are e.g. JHFS+ or MS-DOS. To get an almost complete list of file systems enter: diskutil listFilesystems. If the volume name contains spaces use quotation marks. Some file systems don't accept volume names with spaces. Valid partition schemes are APM, MBR and GPT. Some file systems require a particular partition scheme (e.g. APFS doesn't work with APM or MBR) Use the proper disk identifier by checking the output of diskutil list.

So

diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ "FLASH 8GB" GPT disk2

would be a working command.

Some partition schemes will create more than one slice even if you chose to create one main volume only:

GPT: invisible EFI partition with 100-300 MiB
APM: invisible Apple_partition_map with some KiB


What does Spotlight consider to be a 'Document'? I have noticed that the Finder's Recent Smart Search Folder doesn't show several type of 'app document' file.
The same is true if I create a new Smart Folder with the criterion set to Kind = Document.
(You can sort through the results by Kind in a List View)
For instance: Affinity Suite documents, such as .afpub, and .afdesign are not included.
Omnigraffle and OmniOutliner files are included.
Files from other apps, such as Finale (.musx) and Dorico (.dorico) are not included.
If I change the search criteria to Kind = Other: Affinity, then I get the Affinity documents, so it's not like Spotlight hasn't indexed them.
Does anyone know on what basis Spotlight considers a file to be a document?
These 'missing files' are the native document format for these apps, so they are listed in the apps' Info.plist, under CFBundleDocumentTypes.

Spotlight will only classify a file format as a 'Document' if there is a Spotlight importer for that file type.
Third-party applications with 'non-standard' file types (e.g. not text, graphics) will need to define an importer for their formats.
This way, the document metadata and possible also contents can be added to the Spotlight index.


iTerm not showing colors for directories/folders I have tried solutions in various places (including here but there are still no color in my iTerm.

I have these lines in my .bash_profile:

export CLICOLOR=1
export LSCOLORS=cxfxdxdxhxegedabagacad

And if I do ls, it gives me everything in the same color:

any help? Thanks!

BTW, I am using https://github.com/nightsense/vimspectr for the shell but even I removed it, the terminal still has no color.

I think I know why. I was using nightsense-carbonzied for my shell as well, besides Vim. When I removed it, its fine.

I used vimspectr previously and even if I stopped that, that won't come back to normal and I do not know why...


Erase a 1st gen iPad I have a 1st gen iPad that I don't know the passcode for. iTunes tells me that I need to enter the passcode before I can use it with iTunes.

So I followed some instructions and put the iPad into Recovery mode, which let me connect to iTunes and hit the Restore button.

iTunes apparently will not let me just restore the iPad using the iOS version it currently has; instead it demands that I let it download a new iOS version first.

But my internet is so slow and unreliable where I live now that I have not been able to get iTunes to finish downloading.

So I found a website that lets you download IPSW's.  I downloaded 5.1 for iPad 1st gen. I then held Option while clicking Restore in iTunes, chose this IPSW file, and iTunes told me it is not valid.

So....
Questions:

Is there any way I can use this iPad as-is without knowing the passcode?
Is there any way I can restore it without downloading any huge IPSW files?
If not, is there any other way I can get rid of the passcode or wipe the device clean?
I welome jailbreaking and 3rd-party software in my quest...

The iPad 1 should be good to go for a valid version of 5.1.1

http://www.icj.me/ios/all#iPad11

I'd say the easiest thing to do would be to take the iPad to a copy of iTunes that has a good internet connection or download a reputable copy (for whatever reputable means to you) of 5.1.1 IPSW and use your iTunes to wipe and restore the iPad.

Jailbreaking might be an option, but I'd go with easy.


Cannot change permission of external ExFAT HDD folders I can't change permissions of external HDD folders The file system is ExFAT and I am on OSX. Here is what is shown when I do ls:

drwxrwxrwx@

I don't even understand what @ means at the end. Is it the reason why I can't chmod permissions?

The @ at the end of the name means that the Finder has extended attributes OTHER than an ACL but might also be all manner of other things (Finder info for one). You can see what attributes are by ls -le@.


Time Capsule doesn't show all time machine backups My Mountain Lion iMac was affected by the Seagate disk recall. I backed up to my trusty Time Capsule (as per norm) before the disk replacement, planning to restore from said Time Capsule. However, when it came to this stage, instead of finding two backups available (the TC is also used by a laptop), the Migration Assistant showed not two, but only one backup, furthermore it was the backup for the laptop. My heart sank for a minute.

Thankfully the TC has two distinct sparsebundles on it, one of which is the iMac's backup, but for some unknown reason it is not being volunteered by the Migration Assistant.

My plan B is to retrieve the needed files from the desired sparsebundle, but would prefer to retrieve all my files, settings and system settings in one elegant hit.

Can anyone advise?

See this answer: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/75892/27953

You need to use the associatedisk subcommand of tmutil, so Time Machine associates the backups with your new disk.


Optimum way of charging apple devices? I have recently read the article Should you leave your smartphone plugged into the charger overnight?

The article listed the following points:

  You can leave your phone plugged into the charger overnight without
  too much risk, provided it’s not a counterfeit charger, and you don’t
  let your phone overheat. For best results with your smartphone
  charging, here’s what to remember:

  Always use official chargers and cables, or certified alternatives from reputable brands and retailers.
  Don’t let your phone get too hot. Remove the case when charging overnight.
  For the longest battery life possible, try to keep your battery between 50 and 80 percent.
  Avoid letting phone battery completely discharge, and don’t charge it from 0 percent up to 100 percent too often.

Is this actually the optimum way of charging iPhones, iPads, MacBooks ?

That article is focusing on the possible dangers of starting a fire if not original components are used.

Now you can ignore it and continue using non apple hardware at your own risk (usually small but it can happen), or use OEM hardware that is designed to prevent overheating (over-current) and it will shut down before serious stuff occurs.

Definitely do not put it under your pillow while charging or in any case allowing it to radiate the heat generated.

The points 2, 3, and 4 are correct.


OSX Lion Server Security If lion server runs on osx lion, what is accessible from the "outside"?

If I open a port and connect it to the ip of the lion server, will that traffic be intercepted by the server app and limiting the scope of the access to what the server app allows access too?

Will my entire file directory be available to the outside if I open the port? E.g. the lion OS running has some other apps running and files stored on it, will this be accessible from the outside? Or does the server app intercept the incoming requests and, depending on what has been made available as a service through the server app, that is only what the outside can access?

OSX Lion isn't an app as such but a collection of additional services and applications running on your Mac. Accessibility from outside is the same as for a plain vanilla OSX installation.

Any port you open allows access from outside, but access is always (as long as there are no security bugs) restricted to the service provided. So if you enable Web Sharing, access to the local web server is possible (including ~user/Sites) but not (unless you reconfigured the web server in an insane way) to your whole filesystem.


Can I replace the headphone jack on an iPhone SE? I have the tip of a headphone jack stuck in the headphone socket in a brand new iPhone SE.

I went to Apple looking for a repair and they said that it wasn't repairable and that I'd have to spend £200 (~$290) on a replacement.

I have found instructions on how to replace an iPhone 5s headphone jack here. Does anyone know if I will be able to follow the same instructions for the 5s using a SE? Also, will I be able to use the same part as it's the same form factor?

Apparently, it is possible to replace the Lightning connector assembly, which includes the headphone jack and microphone:

Ifixt.com has a guide on how to do this.  It's rated as a moderately difficult procedure; if this is not something you are experienced with, it's best to have a pro tackle this type of repair.


Constant application crashes on 4S running 6.1.2 I have a brand new iPhone 4S, running 6.1.2, consistently crashing applications from core services like iMessage to Evernote and Tweetbot. Phone calls can be sent and received, but experience 1-3 second 'black outs' where I can't hear the conversation. These happen on approx 2-5 minute intervals. I've restarted, hard restarted (hold down buttons for 10 sec) and resynched to iTunes.

Useful context:
iCloud configured
Exchange email configured via Zenprise

I'm glad to do every rational troubleshooting step, I just don't know enough about logging to imagine where to start on this one.

This ended up being a funky one. The result -- something wrong with my iCloud synchronization. It was causing Notes to have hundreds of thousands of copies that resulted in NoMemory crashes.

Not your textbook issue.. but keep it in mind.


Can i remove OS X completely and install Windows? Can I completely remove Mac OS X from my system and install Windows 7 or 8 on it?

I do not want to use Bootcamp or create VM's. Is there any way at all?

The problem here is that i want to ditch OSX and install Windows on my mac machine forever.

Will I have to buy a Windows PC?

No you don't need PC hardware since Yes you can delete OS X entirely after getting the drivers installed from Boot Camp on OS X.

Follow the directions for creating the bootcamp USB key that comes with bootcamp (you'll need an 8GB key). When you boot from the bootcamp key and it gives you disk utility just delete the OSX partition (I believe this is an option, it's been a while) And make the whole thing Winders.

The Mac IS an Intel PC and Bootcamp is only the drivers and whatnot to create the bootable windows installer with the Mac drivers in it.

Hold onto that key, it's your repair disk and Windows re-installer should you need to sometime in the future.


iTunes asks me to subscribe to iTunes Match again when I try to turn iTunes Match back on I wanted to disable iTunes Match temporarily, so I selected Turn Off iTunes Match from the menu bar. Now when I try to select Turn On iTunes Match, iTunes shows me this screen:

How can I turn iTunes Match back on, or did I get unsubscribed from iTunes Match?

(The answer is really obvious, but it took me so long to figure it out that I'm documenting it here by answering myself.)

So it turned out that I had just been logged out of iTunes Store. After I logged back in, I was able to turn iTunes Match back on.


Merge partitions after windows installation failure After windows failed to install, I was left with my partition, which bootcamp was supposed to remove but it froze and I exited it (probably not the brightest idea ever). So now I have these extra partitions and I'm trying to merge them back into my main disk, like how it was before the windows installation.

I've tried looking online at what to do but the (-) option that most sites seem to suggest using is greyed out, and would highly appreciate anyone who could help me.

I've attached screenshots of my disk information. I have the 2017 iMac, with Mojave installed.

This is a very common question. Again, here is the commands you need to enter in a Terminal application window.

I assume the untitled disk0s4 partition was created by the Boot Camp Assistant. If so, then use the command below to remove this partition. Otherwise, skip this command.

sudo diskutil eraseVolume free none disk0s4

The next two commands will remove the disk03 partition labeled OSXRESERVED and return the free space back to the disk0s2 APFS container partition.

sudo diskutil eraseVolume free none disk0s3
sudo diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0

There may still be Windows boot files stored in the hidden EFI partition (disk0s1). These files can be removed by entering the commands given below.

sudo diskutil mount disk0s1
cd /Volumes/EFI/EFI
rm -r Boot
rm -r Microsoft
cd ~
diskutil unmount disk0s1


Bash script - Delay cp command until after file write is complete cp /Folder1/*.mov /Folder2/
cp /Folder1/*.mov /Folder3
rm /Folder1/*.mov

This runs every 60 seconds using Chron that copies any *.mov file from one folder to 2 other folders and then removes the file.

If the file takes longer than 60 seconds to write the script executes and copies anything in the folder and corrupts it. (Or if the script just happens to execute when a file is being written.)

How can I make a conditional statement to make the script wait until the file write is complete?

Lock File

Consider creating a lock to note the ongoing copy, see lock your script (against parallel run):

#!/bin/sh

# Path to a lock folder
LOCK_PATH="/tmp/copying.lock"

# Ensure the lock is removed should the copy fail
trap 'rmdir "/tmp/copying.lock"; exit' 1 6 15

if mkdir "$LOCK_PATH"; then
    # Lock file did not exist and was created

    # Perform commands
    cp /Folder1/*.mov /Folder2/
    cp /Folder1/*.mov /Folder3
    rm /Folder1/*.mov

    # Remove the lock
    rmdir "$LOCK_PATH"
fi

The script above only copies if no folder exists at /tmp/copying.lock.

Copy and Move

Instead of copying directly to the final location, consider making the copy to a temporary location. Then move the files. A move is fast, tends to be atomic, and less likely to damage the files.

Alternatively, you could copy using a tool like rsync which includes flags to help protect against these problems.


How can I upload music from an iPhone to a PC without iTunes? I am looking for an app that will let me transfer media from iPhone 5 to a PC without iTunes sync.

It has 3 atributes that I like:

works on any Windows
upload media with no iTunes sync
multiple iOS management

You probably get frustrated because of the lengthy process to sync your library with iTunes. But you don’t have to sync the media.

Instead of syncing media, you can manually manage the music and videos. Apple has written a step by step guide for this option.


Erase old iPhone - forgotten restrictions passcode and no WiFi I have an old iPhone 4 that has been sitting unused since I got my new phone - it has now sold and I have to clean it out so it's ready for the next person.

Here's the problem:

The wifi doesn't work and the phone's inactivated (so I can't get online).
It is asking for a restrictions passcode I don't ever remember setting.

I tried the default (0000) but no luck. What can I do to get this phone back to factory settings?

You can wipe your iPhone with iTunes: Apple's support page

Sometimes, it's also possible to recover the restrictions passcode, but that requires a lot of work. 2


How to setup and backup in Time Machine when there is only one hard drive showing? then other window open which shows internet written their and they says no airpot found searching for it....!2
and if i go to disk utility there is only one hard drive shows "machinetosh hd"!2
i have no idea what to do now.i want backup my pc.need help!
I m new on mac world

You need this:

http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201250

Main thing: you need any other hard drive, whatever ssd, hdd, connected to mac by wi-fi, thunderbolt or usb.

Time Capsule is just one of the many variants.

You can make your backup on any device that you already have. But make a note that it better should be fully given for backup, no any other sided information on a drive, particularly when encrypting your external drive.


Sum an entire column in Numbers from a different sheet? Is there a way to do something like Sheet1::Table1::SUM(A1:AΩ), where Ω returns the last row number on Sheet1? This would enable leaving Sheet1 with values only, no formulas.

Turns out this is dead simple: SUM(Sheet1::Table1::A), or SUM(Sheet1::Table1::ColumnName).


Cannot find expired certificate in Keychain Access Trying to pull from a git repository I got an "SSL certificate problem: Invalid certificate chain", and was unable to access.

The answer here: git SSL certificate- Invalid certificate chain while accessing says it's an expired certificate problem.

When I visit the repository with Safari I get a message that a certificate issued by TERENA SSL CA has expired. However, I cannot find this certificate in my keychain. The keychain only contains a new, updated certificate from TERENA.

I have enabled "Show expired certificates" in the View menu, and I can see other expired certificates, but not the one from TERENA.

How can I find and delete this certificate?

Edit: The referenced answer in the comment below does not answer my question. The problem is that I cannot locate the expired certificate.

The procedure to locate an expired certificate in a specific keychain is covered well in this answer:

How do I fix the SSL warning I get when visiting github.com?

Be sure that you look on the left of the Keychain Access window - you should have a login keychain, maybe an iCloud keychain, a system Keychain and System Roots.

If you don't find the expired certificate in the first keychain, repeat the process after selecting each other keychain. Also pay attention in case you are not selecting All Items or Certificates in the filter under the list of Keychains.


Is this magnetic connector for iPhone approved by Apple? One of the problems with iPhone/iPad cables is that they get bent and damaged. There is a smart idea floating around about a magnetic cable similar to the MacBook one. The lightning connected is attached to the iPhone and the cable gets connected to it because it magnetic

Kickstarter and indiegogo have more than one project promoting this concept.

I would love to purchase one of these cables but from a previous experience I can say that any lightning that isn't approved by Apple will cause endless problems.

One of the projects' developer claim that his lightning is approved by Apple, below is a quote from the FAQs which I failed to understand

  Why have you not chosen to use the original lightning connector or
  have MFi certification?

  Apple has not released a magnetic lightning connector, hence it is not
  possible to apply for MFi certification and by producing a lightning
  connector that is not MFi certified, it leaves that company open to
  legal action by Apple. Any company claiming to have MFi magnetic
  connectors would not be truthful as of April 2016.

Is he saying that his cable is approved by Apple or not? What about other products?

They're saying Apple hasn't approved any "magnetic lightning connectors" so they and their competitors are selling non-certified connectors.

Apple's patent 7,311,526 covers their Magsafe technology, which these lightning connectors could easily infringe upon.

I wouldn't go near any of these while they're in a Kickstarter/Indiegogo phase.


Is there any way to preserve recent keyboard activity in case something accidentally gets deleted? I sometimes find things I have written in online forms get deleted without the chance for recovery. Is there any way, on an iPad for example, or Mac, that there could be a mechanism recording recent keyboard activity, so you could recover short-term lost written text?

If you'd still like a key logger here are some choices. There are many keyloggers that do much more than logging the keystrokes. Most have many more features but these can be turned off if you're only interested in keylogging. Some highly rated yet easy to use keyloggers are Aobo Mac Keylogger,  Perfect Keylogger for Mac, and  Refog Keylogger for Mac. Be careful with these because they will log your passwords unless properly set up. Aobo Key Logger is a Mac-only app. These were obtained from this site that rates 5 keyloggers.


Mail app is not working on my Mac I receive emails but I get account error and cannot send.

Any idea what can be the problem?

The mail connection doctor window is the best way to diagnose any mail send failure, setup failure and other errors in configuration or connectivity for getting all the logs, red/orange/green status lights and other diagnostic and guided repair tips.

Mac Mail - Account already exists error when adding gmail


Why are some users visible with encrypted system partition on macOS Sierra? I performed a fresh install of macOS Sierra onto a 2012 MBP13 non-Retina SSD.  The install was from a USB flashdrive installer, and I set up the system drive partitions manually with a case-sensitive encrypted system volume, a FAT partition that I later installed Windows on, and a case-insensitive unencrypted volume for Steam data (Steam doesn't work for some reason, but that's another question!)

Partition map while MacOS is running:

aluminum:Downloads dhm$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage Aluminum                319.8 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                146.3 GB   disk0s4
   5:                  Apple_HFS Steam                   32.9 GB    disk0s5

/dev/disk1 (internal, virtual):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Aluminum               +319.5 GB   disk1
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2
                                 xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx
                                 Unlocked Encrypted

During MacOS installation, I created a user account.  Then afterward, I created two more.  Now, when I reboot, I can choose MacOS or Windows (no recovery option).  When I boot MacOS, I get a chooser that offers "Enter Disk Password," "User 2" and "User 3"  (No choice to log into the account I made during installation.)

If I enter the disk password, then I get "User 1," "User 2" and "User 3," and everything works as expected.  If I don't enter the disk password and just log in as "User 2" or "User 3," I get a desktop but things don't work right (lots of "Please fix the library" messages.)

My questions:

Why can I log in as "User 2" or "User 3" even without entering the disk password?  (I would expect all the system-partition information to be encrypted, but it looks like there's at least some unencrypted information lying around.)
What's the difference between this setup and the alternative "Do a normal, unencrypted install, then turn on FileVault?"
Where can I read more about the various methods macOS uses to support multiple partitions, encrypted partitions, logical volumes & so forth?

Not sure what the "please fix the library" message means but all of your data is encrypted on the boot partition. You can use a disk password, recovery key or allowed user passwords to unlock a FileVault disk.

When you do it the "normal way" as you mentioned above you won't end up with a disk password. No big deal.

It sounds like User 1 isn't allowed to unlock the disk in this case. You can use the fdesetup command for things like this. For example, to see which users are allowed to unlock the disk:

$ sudo fdesetup list
Password:
macmanager, 51361A22-B6F2-4384-8E0D-F4973BE74957

While logged in as any user you can look in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > FileVault and if some users aren't allowed to unlock the disk there will be a warning with a button to enable users.

You can also use fdesetup to add users to the list, assuming you know their password:

$ sudo fdesetup add -usertoadd davem
Enter a password for '/', or the recovery key:
Enter the password for the added user 'davem':


How can I recover the key of an encrypted hard-drive? I still have access to the disc, but I lost the piece of paper with the key. Can I somehow recover it? I already had a look into Keychain Access Utility, but I couldn’t find it.

What would be the purpose of disk encryption if the key can get recovered from the encrypted disk itself? Unless you find it in the Keychain (and I'm not even sure it's there in the first place) or somewhere else where you may have written it down, you are out of luck.


How can I change the Apple ID associated with an iPod Touch? Possible Duplicate:
  Unable to change Apple ID on my iPhone

I just bought myself a used iPod Touch - 2nd generation.  The person who previously owned it cleared just about everything off.

The Problem:

I tried to install a new app onto it, but, it asked me for the password to my Apple ID. Seeing as I'm sure the person who sold it to me doesn't want to give me the password to their account, how can I change it to use my account instead of theirs?  I've checked into the different settings but I couldn't find anything on it.

You might find this answer to be helpful for changing the Apple ID on your phone.

To summarize, go to Settings » Store » click on the old Apple ID » Sign out » Sign in and enter your own Apple ID.


Can I attach external video/webcam to an iOS device? A friend wants to run a videoconference app (Zoom) on his TV. He can stream Zoom from his iOS devices to the TV, but he needs a wider angle.

I should know this, but is there a way to connect an external webcam?

Thanks

A quick Google search finds multiple products and guides for using a webcam with an Android phone, but the same search with "Android" switched to "iPhone" shows nothing. This makes sense, as historically iOS devices have never had native USB support, neither for printing nor keyboards nor flash drives nor anything else. I'd be surprised if they relaxed the security restrictions only for webcams.


iTunes can't download song purchased from old computer, on to new computer I bought and downloaded a song in iTunes on a PC of mine. I never synced it to my iPhone. Well, I got a new computer, and no long have the old one. I think there might be a problem now.

Here is what happens when I click Check For Available Downloads in iTunes:

And here is what happens when I click on buy, for the song in the iTunes Store:

Is this a case of a badly worded dialog? I've seen something like this before in the App Store when I needed to reinstall a paid app. In that case I "bought" the app again, the second time without being charged.

In iTunes 10.3.3 or later, select Edit, Preferences, Store.  Under Automatic Downloads you can select which categories to automatically download.  If Music isn't an option, then you'll have to transfer your library manually.  I suspect Music is only an option in the US.

See iTues Store Support for more information.


Late 2008 Apple Aluminium MacBook complete reinstall I have a pretty  old Aluminum Macbook (late 2008). I pretty much have the original MacOS installation, continuously upgraded to Mac OS Yosemite. Nowadays, it is kind of hard to get by with 250 GB of HD, so I  thought about upgrading to a bigger HDD.

I kind of have the feeling that a clean reinstall of MacOS after 6 years of running it would be a good idea, at the same time I do not know where the original installation CD is left. Is there a way to install Yosemite directly??

If you have a spare 8GB (or bigger) USB drive (or an external hard drive, or even an unused partition on your internal hard drive), you can download the Yosemite installer from the App Store and use it to create a bootable Yosemite installer. Here are Apple's detailed instructions for doing so.


Do different Macs have different quality audio ADCs? I want to digitize a bunch of records from my turntable onto my Mac.  I've got a couple different Macs available with "audio in" minijacks: a Mac Pro and a Mac Mini, for example.

Do they differ in the quality of the audio they can record?  Does the Mac Pro have better ADCs or better shielding, for example?  Played back as lossless audio files to a hi-fi system, will I ever notice the difference?

The physical 3.5mm input jacks are likely the same or nearly identical, but the relative quality will be determined by the audio chipset used. I would check System Report on both machines, go to Audio, and see what chipsets are being used. It may not show you enough detail to know exactly which version it is, but hopefully will provide enough detail to research their respective specs online.

I wouldn't use the 3.5mm jack though. Since you have a Mac Pro you should have an on optical input available. This will be much higher resolution than the mini jack - 24bit/48k vs 16bit/44k (in most cases). Take advantage of that with something inexpensive like a Behringer UCA202 ($25 I believe.) The ADC's on it are designed for digitizing vinyl, and it has an optical out that you can connect to your Mac Pro, for the cleanest possible signal transfer to your recording software. Most people who digitize vinyl do it at 24/48 because of the added headroom it provides.

(Edit: I should have asked if your turntable's amp provides RCA outs, because that's how you would connect it to the Behringer. If it only has 3.5mm out, and you don't want to purchase a separate preamp, then your only choice would be to plug it in directly to one of your Mac's 3.5mm jacks. Just realize those are very low fidelity inputs without much amperage, so you will need to do major volume boosting in your recording software to compensate, which will introduce noise.)


Force quit then restart, all apps still active iOS 9 I am running iOS version 9.0.1. This problem has been happening since iOS 9 came out. If I double click the home button, then swipe up on my open apps, it used to close them out for good. When I would restart, there were no open apps. However, now when I force quit every app and restart, they are all open again. Even if I close out of everything and maybe have Twitter open and a game, when I restart, I have a ton of apps open when I only had two before restarting. Does anyone know what is going on?

The list of apps shown after double clicking the home button is not only the list of open apps but also the list of apps most recently used. Or in other words: not all apps in the list are actually "open" (whatever this means on iOS anyway).


How do I create a Windows-like Start Menu for the macOS Dock without 3rd party software? I am very new to Mac (only 1.5 weeks) and am trying to get used to its different way of doing things. Most of what I loved in Windows I've also found the macOS way of doing.

I am now more familiar with the Apple Menu and the Dock, and am getting used to the Finder. But I really do miss the Windows Start Menu.

I read this question  and have checked out uBar but it really seems overkill for my requirements and paying $20 for all the extras doesn’t appeal.

My requirements are simple:

I just want easy access from a single item in the Dock menu to a whole heap of apps that are organised into logical groups. For example, I want any games listed in a Games subfolder, utilities in a Utilities subfolder, office apps in a Office subfolder and so on.
If possible, it’d be a bonus if I could have recent items accessible from the same menu, and also be able to shutdown or put my Mac to sleep from this menu.

Is there any way to achieve what I want without the need for external applications?

You can add arbitrary folders to your Dock and these folders can contain other folders as well as aliases to apps in the /Applications folder.

Create a folder such as ~/Applications (macOS will automatically give the folder an icon if you use this location).
Add folders inside for the categories you wish.
Inside these folders, add aliases to the apps you wish.

To create an alias, right-click on the app and choose Make Alias.
Add this folder to your Dock by dragging the folder from Finder to the right side of the Dock separator line.
Right-click on the folder in your Dock and choose:

Sort By: Name
Display As: Folder
View Content As: Grid

Editing the contents of this folder will automatically update the contents of the folder in the Dock, so you don't need to remove it and add it when you make changes.

To add a Recent Applications stack to your Dock, run the following in Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add \
  '{ "tile-data" = { "list-type" = 1; }; "tile-type" = "recents-tile"; }' && killall Dock

To perform other actions from this menu, create an Automator application to shut down and add it to your folder.

The AppleScript in the screenshot is as follows:

tell application "System Events" to shut down

To sleep instead of shut down, replace ‘shut down’ with ‘sleep’. You can create many Automator applications to perform different actions.


Why won't my MBP connect to Personal Hotspot via wifi? I have not been able to connect my retina Macbook Pro to my iPhone 5s Personal Hotspot since upgrading to OSX 10.10 (Yosemite).

While I can see the phone in the list of wifi APs under
the "Personal Hotspot" sub-list, attempting to connect to it fails every time, even though the devices are only about two feet from each other.

• I attempted to "forget" the AP and re-add it, but this did not resolve the issue.

• My provider is Verizon.

Connected my laptop to a different Hotspot device, then back to my phone. Everything seems to work now. Very strange.


Notification badges doesn't work well with multiple iOS devices When I check, say, my new Instagram direct messages on my iPhone, the red notification badge doesn’t automatically disappear from the Instagram app on my iPad, until I open it. The same thing happens for other apps as well.

Is there a way where the badge count is synchronized across all the devices?

How the notification badge count for an iOS app is updated across the app life cycle events depends on how well the app developer has implemented it.

In an ideal scenario, if the app developer has carefully planned for and implemented it correctly, the badge icon should sync and update when the network activity happens on the other devices and the appropriate handler method for background app refresh gets a chance to run its code.

In some cases, it may so happen, that the implementation isn't done completely/correctly by the app developer. In such cases, you may continue to see an out-of-sync badge count on the other devices, as the app hasn't got a chance to execute necessary code yet.

When the app actually get the chance to run in the foreground, it generally communicates with the back-end servers and re-sets the badge count, the count comes to sync (as you are observing).

In the cases where the implementation is done all-right by the app developer (the competent ones usually ensure this), the rare chances when the count doesn't sync may be observed, either when the device hasn't yet got a chance to get an active connection to the Internet, or is either running in Low Power Mode (only applicable to iPhone), where the Background App Refresh is disabled by the iOS to preserve battery life.

Additionally, to optimize battery life, the iOS subsystem shuts down the device Wi-Fi connection after a set interval post device has gone into sleep mode.

Thus, with an active Internet connection, on the devices with Low Power Mode disabled, you should see the badge count sync within seconds on most of the apps.


Force OS X to use Bluetooth dongle instead of built in controller I'm using a Magic Mouse with my MacBook Pro and Mountain Lion. The cursor sometimes start to lag. I figured, the reason for this could be the distance between my Mac and the mouse (about 1.5 meters / 5 foot).

I bought an external USB Bluetooth dongle I want to plug into my monitor on my desk, so the mouse is closer to the controller. However, I can't figure out how to make OS X use the external dongle instead of the built in controller.

When I go into System Prefs > Bluetooth and hold the Option key to display the reception, I see that it is the strongest when it's next to my Mac and not when it's next to the dongle. So what can I do to change that? Thanks!

To force the system to use USB Bluetooth dongle by default, run the following command:

sudo nvram bluetoothHostControllerSwitchBehavior=always

This will modify your boot kernel arguments.

To do opposite, use never. The change would be applied after the reboot. To return to the default, run:

sudo nvram -d bluetoothHostControllerSwitchBehavior


how can delete book from ibooks completely? I have a problem with iBooks that I download a book from iBook but I cant remove a totally the source of this book.

how can solve this problem?

I edit this text because I didn't write about the device to delete from.

my device is MacBook Pro and I like to delete source of a file in types .epub from my iBooks but I cant do this and after removing the file from iBooks the book it's there and I just can hide it!

To delete a book from iBooks on iOS

Click the select button in the top right of your screen
Select the book you want to delete
Click the delete button in the top left of your screen
Click delete everywhere to delete he book from all your devices (if applicable) or press remove download to remove it from just your current device.


How do you take a Verizon iPhone 4 CDMA phone and get it connected to Straight Talk? I purchased a nice black Verizon iPhone 4 (CDMA) which has it's contract fulfilled.

What steps do I go through to get it connected to Walmart's Straight Talk on the Verizon towers?

The iPhone 4 built for Verizon's network is a CDMA-only device that is not capable of operating on a GSM network that requires a SIM card, such as StraightTalk (which uses T-Mobile's network). It will never work. It does not have the radios built into it that would be necessary.


How can I download a webpage to a PDF in Terminal? I am trying to find a way to download an URL and convert it into a PDF.

I have found lots of suggestions on how to turn PDFs into HTML or HTML into PDFs, but that's not the same as what I want to do.

Basically I am looking for the same result as if I had opened the page in {insert browser of choice} and selected "Print" and then PDF » Save as PDF…

But I want to be able to do it all from Terminal, automatically, so that I can feed it a handful of URLs at once and have it do it all for me.

I don't need or want recursion to additional pages.

  [Note: I have tried wget --page-requisites --convert-links but it does not always actually fetch images which are loaded from a remote server. Also, assume for this execs that the URLs are not behind any sort of login requirement.]

Check out Wkhtmltopdf.

You can download the binary from that website. Note that you should change the file permissions to +x to make it executable.

For usage, check out http://code.google.com/p/wkhtmltopdf/wiki/Usage or execute:

  wkhtmltopdf-0.9.9-OS-X.i368 --help


Stop iTunes from automatically stopping podcast downloads I subscribed to about 30 interesting podcasts which I would like to listen to one day when I have time... maybe never, but I hope I will soon.

I just noticed that iTunes has not been downloading some of them for months with the following error:

I found a script for OSX and a few workarounds, but as far as I am concerned, this is annoying and I should not have to work around it.

My workaround consists of going to podcasts, doing a select all and marking them all as watched. However, this totally ruins the whole management aspect as I do not know what I have not listened to.

This is most annoying as some have dropped off the RSS feeds so I have to manually find them... (trying to see at the moment if I can put them inside the right podcast section and not just as a mp3).

How can I tell iTunes that it does not know what I want and just to do what it is told!?

You cannot get iTunes to stop doing this, sadly, and I don't think you can exactly re-implement the Doug's Applescripts solution for expired playlists for Windows - it relies on manually updating each podcast rather than calling update all. And the iTunes COM object does not seem to expose a way to update individual podcasts, only the entire list.

And I am 99% certain that Matthew is incorrect and that refreshing all is not sufficient to bypass the recently listened count. The wperry link will mark the podcast as listened to, which is the same issue as your workaround that you find unacceptable.

I do think, however, that you can workaround this issue by right-clicking and choosing refresh. While that's unnecessary to actually get new episodes when you have periodic updates set, it will reset the clock, as it were, and prevent it from stopping when you don't listen for a while. Whether this is actually any better than just dealing with it as it comes up, however, I don't know.


How does macOS get "pretty" hostnames in Network view? In computer networking, "hostnames" are limited to alphanumeric characters, with dashes (no whitespace or other punctuation).
However, when I open the "Network" in Finder...

I can see some devices (usually macOS) show up with spaces, punctuation, and UTF-8 characters in the name:

Ultimately, I'm looking to have the Raspberry Pi on my network show up with a pretty name. However, in my searching on how to do this, I'm finding I'm not even clear on how macOS gets these pretty names to show up. Searching for this yields too many results of articles explaining to people how to change the hostname of their mac, which I don't need help with.
On my Raspberry Pi, I can run hostnamectl and set the "pretty" name, but that doesn't seem to affect anything.
Anyone know how this is achieved?

I think that macOS uses the command line program arp to scan the devices on the local network
Enter arp -a in the terminal


Enable "Developer" inside the "Settings" app on iOS Before Xcode 6 one could go to the Xcode Organizer window. Tap on the Devices tab. Select the connected device and click the "Use for Development" button. See here.

However with Xcode 6 there are no longer a "Use for Development" button. So how does one enable it?

Update

My Devices window looks like this.

The devices tab is now a new screen. Use for Development no longer exists.

The option in Window → Devices or ⇧⌘2.

From that window you could enable devices for development by adding your provisioning profiles. Right click on device and select Show Provisioning Profiles.... It will appear a window where you can add your profiles.

After that you will be able to install your apps in that device.


Is it safe to enter your credentials on eBuddy for iPhone? I'm hesitant in using it, as it asks for all your passwords for your messaging programs.

What is their privacy policy? Has anyone ever had problems with it?

As part of the App Store approval checks, Apple analyzes all network data for unnecessary or malicious connectivity, meaning if it's on the App Store, it's not sending your data back to the authors.


photo transfer from ipad 2 to windows xp laptop how can i transfer photos from iPad 2 to Windows XP laptop?
I tried all searches related to my problem but no use.
None of the windows office can connect to ipad 2 and the ipad 2 does not trust on windows xp

In old days to share with others (before the synchronization age) you used places like photo share, photo boot, dropbox, google drive and so on.

You would upload your photos to one of those places then access from Windows XP and download them.


Auto shutdown at night after High sierra upgrade I upgraded to macOS High sierra and now my system shuts down automatically at night. This is quite annoying.

I tried looking in System Preferences > Energy Saver > Schedule… settings but, there's no schedule set.

Can someone please help me with this.

I am using MacBook Pro 15" Mid 2015

Installing "command line tools" solved this issue. However, I have no clue how they are related.

To install command line tools run following command in terminal.

xcode-select --install


Safari has some menu items that are dimmed and won't work. Is there a way to make them active? I'm running High Sierra on my older iMac. I use Safari as my browser. Under several of the Safari, menu items are certain options that are dimmed out and can't be run. Specifically, under the History menu is an option to open all windows from the last session. This could come in handy but that menu item appears to not be active and clicking on it has no effect. Is there any way to use these menu items?

Safari has some menu items that are dimmed and won't work. Is there a
  way to make them active?

Two possibilities that I can think of.

1- If you clear the history before quitting Safari, it wont be there when you restart.

2- If you have a setting in Safari to clear the history after set time.


Use an iPhone as a live system monitor A while ago, I was eyeballing the MadCatz STRIKE7 keyboard for a new gaming PC I was building...but as it turns out, its not just sold out, EOL'd but also quite hard to get a hold of. And that is rather unfortunate, because I really liked the idea of using my iPhone as a screen to monitor my PC's information.

There are alternatives by Logitech and Roccat - but they always work best in conjunction with their hardware. I wonder, is there a standalone version of this? A secondary display solution which just gives me some numbers to gawk at, like CPU and GPU temperatures, RAM usage and alike?

Check out Pulseway.  Very versatile and supports basically everything.


How to remove __MACOSX folder in a list of zip files (not a single zip file)? I know I can remove __MACOSX in a zip file by:

sudo zip -d bg1.zip "__MACOSX*"

but I want to remove it in all zip files, I tried

sudo zip -d *.zip "__MACOSX*"

but it says

zip warning: name not matched: __MACOSX*

zip error: Nothing to do! (bg1.zip)

and seems stop from processing next file. How can I remove all __MACOSX in a list of zip files?

If all .zip files are in the same directory, cd to that directory and use:

for f in *.zip; do zip -d "$f" "__MACOSX*"; done


Is it true that the text-to-speech functionality would make my mac run slower? I have been having some issues with my macbook running very slow.  I read an article which stated that disabling the text-to-speech functionality could make the mac faster. Is that true?

For a year I have been using that functionality to "read" blog posts. Now, on chrome I need to go edit -> speech -> start speaking (there is no shortcut). If I re active the text-to-speech would my mac still run slow

I have never heard of the "text-to-speech" feature causing a slow down. But other things certainly can. Here is a link to what one Apple user has suggested. There are a number of things to try!

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6921


"Ineligible" iCloud Songs on iOS devices I have some mp3's ripped from a language CD, "Lesson 1", "Lesson 2" and so forth. Some of them are uploaded to iCloud with iTunes Match, for some it says "Ineligible". I don't really need them in the cloud, but on my iOS devices. How do I get them there, as the music sync is disabled when iTunes Match is turned on?

Most likely, they are ineligbile because the bit rate is less than 96kb so rerip them.  You don't have to do the originals, you can rerip the ones that are already in iTunes.  The audio quality doesn't change and the files are bigger but Match will accept the new ones.


iMac 27" Mid 2010 RAM Upgrade I have an iMac 27", Mid 2010 (11,3 model). Can it take 8GB RAM modules? Apple's website http://support.apple.com/en-us/ht4255 says "The maximum amount of RAM you can install in your computer is 16 GB (a 4 GB SO-DIMM in each slot)." But people say that 8 GB sticks ARE in fact supported. For instance, according to OWC, (http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/iMac/2010/DDR3_21.5_27) 8.0GB PC10600 DDR3 Module (http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/1333DDR3S8GB/) works.

In particular, can I use Transcend JetRAM DDR3 8GB JM1333KSH-8G http://www.flipkart.com/transcend-jetram-ddr3-8-gb-laptop-dram-jm1333ksh-8g/p/itmdfzhzd2v8mtza?pid=RAMDFZHXPYRVVGJA ?

And how about Transcend JetRAM DDR3 4GB JM1333KSN-4G http://www.flipkart.com/transcend-ddr3-4-gb-laptop-dram-jm1333ksn-4g/p/itmdv6g6gnnsnkvc?pid=RAMD2RYPNQKZ5TJV ?

The answer is 'Yes, it will take them.' 8GB sticks were 'unsupported' at that time, but just turned out they worked.

I have an old Mac Pro that has the same 'unofficial' double-storage. Shoudld take 32GB 8x4, does in fact take 64GB, 8x8.

It's only the 21" iMac from that series that really can only take 16GB

Ref - Everymac & personal experience.

For specifically which sticks it will take, OWC doesn't ship here so I've never tested their algorithms. I would use Crucial's detector tool, which has never let me down.


I want to play audio from my Mac over WiFi speakers without having to install a bunch of apps I'm probably overthinking this but here goes.

Seems like all of the WiFi speakers I see for sale are pushing bundles of apps. Screw that. I want a 'dumb' set of wireless speakers. I don't want "smart home" nonsense.

I mainly listen to youtube in a browser on my Mac mini and I want to be able to hear it in my kitchen, den, etc. I have a standalone wireless access point set up already.

Which vendor is the least intrusive or most bare-bones in their approach?

AirPlay Speakers

The easiest experience is to get AirPlay 2 compatible speakers and you have zero app, native OS support, works everywhere experience.

https://www.imore.com/best-airplay-2-speakers
https://www.apple.com/ios/home/accessories/#section-speaker

The airplay page and marketing logo explain why this takes away the need for any apps, and is strictly controlled to make your experience better.

https://www.apple.com/airplay/

I get you might consider this smart home, but for sound the setup and reliability are amazing and for me worth the cost.

AirPlay Adapter

Alternatively, you can get a cheap AirPlay adapter and connect it to existing speakers. This gives you all the benefits of AirPlay without high cost of AirPlay speakers. You can connect to any existing speakers you have that take an aux input. The adapter connects to your WiFi network at home, and allows any Apple device in the house to stream music to your speakers.

Example adapter

Bluetooth Adapter

Also available without AirPlay - a dumb setup is going to be a $35 or less Bluetooth receiver to powered analog input speakers.

Logitech Bluetooth Audio Adapter for Bluetooth Streaming
whichever studio monitors your heart desires


Disk utility unable to change partition type I'm trying to copy a .img disk image to a microSD. However, when I try to move the contents of the image I downloaded to the microSD, I get this:

Same result when copying via Terminal.

MacBook-Pro:~ luke$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *256.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS SSD-256                 255.2 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *1.9 GB     disk1
   1:                 DOS_FAT_32 EV3_BOOT                50.3 MB    disk1s1
   2:                      Linux                         1.8 GB     disk1s2
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *7.9 GB     disk2
   1:                 DOS_FAT_32 NO NAME                 7.9 GB     disk2s1

When using this:

sudo dd if=~/Downloads/ev3-ev3dev-jessie-2015-07-08.img of=/dev/rdisk2 bs=4m

I get this:

dd: /dev/rdisk2: Permission denied

But when using this:

sudo dd if=~/Downloads/ev3-ev3dev-jessie-2015-07-08.img of=/dev/rdisk1 bs=4m

I get this:

dd: /dev/rdisk1: Resource busy

Both approaches asked for, and accepted, my administrator password.

How can I get around this?

The lock switch on the card was not locked, but after locking and unlocking it (turning it off and back on) again, it worked fine.

Problem solved.


Is there any Application to view the Contents which are Saved to Offline? From an Application, I Saved the PDF Contents to Offline.
Now, Exit from the Application.
Are there any App's to View the Offline Saved Content from outside the Application.

No.

Applications cannot open the content of other applications on iOS. The document are tied to their app. Some of them can export the file to other apps. But that's it.


How can I copy many large hi-res photos directly from iPad to cloud storage via WiFi and then manage them? What's a good method to copy lots of high resolution photos from my iPad using WiFi directly  to some sort of cloud server without having to use a Windows or Mac computer as an intermediary? Plus, once they're in the cloud, I'd like to delete the originals from the iPad and then use the iPad to organize/manage the photos on the cloud server: sort them into folders, rename them, and view them, etc.

I think I can use Dropbox for much of this but is there anything more efficient for managing lots of high-res photos? I think iPhoto and Adobe Revel are only useful if your photo library is based on a desktop computer - I want to avoid that step.

Isn't that exactly what the Photo Stream Feature is good for? It snycs all images directly into the iCloud. Yes it would also sync them to all devices, but I guess that's optional.


iPad mini 3 bought from United States I bought a brand new iPad mini 3 64GB from a auction site, I knew it was imported from the US, that's fine, I'm now unsure as to what SIM card I can use in it, it won't accept an O2 SIM card.

Can I use it in the UK on cellular, if so what network SIM card might I have to get.

No iPads have ever been network locked and all current model iPads with cellular connectivity support both CDMA and GSM networks (see Apple's LTE information), with no frequency limitations.

What that means is that your US-purchased iPad Mini should work just fine with an O2 data SIM (and any other UK data SIM for that matter - EE, Vodafone or Three). If your SIM isn't working, I'd verify:

Is it a data SIM?
Does the SIM work in other devices (eg, try in a cellular dongle)


Quicklook stopped working with xcode's .m and .h file suddenly A week ago, quicklook stopped working with .m and .h files. Instead, it's showing me a .m or .h thumbnail. I think that day a message box popped up and I didn't read it — I answered the question hastily — but I wasn't doing anything with the system. Anyway, now I've lost the quicklook for these file types.

It still works for all other default files. I tried to copy the ".qlgenerator" files from another mac, which has the same OS version... and it still didn't work.

I tried to disk verify/repair permissions, it indicated something concerning .qlgenerator files, but I thought "It's probably because of my copy-paste-replace by intruder files that probably changed some permissions". Anyway, it didn't solve the problem.

I also tried running qlmanage -r, and restarting my mac. The problem persists.

The other mac is still showing the default way (aka, with quicklook previews) for these file types.

Any idea on what went wrong? Do you think that that message box that I answered hastily is responsible for that? I feel that it is, but I'm not sure, because I wasn't configuring the system or anything, nor even anything that is related neither to quicklook (I  didn't know that this feature had a name back then) nor xcode... I'm lost.

EDIT
As @Bootle suggested, i ran

  qlmanage -p FILE

and surprisingly, the Quicklook opened the file correctly, i.e. you can see the content of the file and the default XCode coloring for it.
Additionally, the following output was printed in the terminal.

So any more hints?

EDIT
New hints emerged after checking the log from the console after @StvnW 's edit.

i'm attaching the logs image after ordering quicklook on a file

UPDATE
The solution was because i was keeping older versions of XCodes since 3.6.2 ^_^ and other versions, i put all of them together in a folder where i disallowed myself the permission to access it. Thus they became inaccessible to the system too. And problem was solved, the system (or QL) fixed itself to the latest official XCode application.

But this is thanks to the below answer that gave me that hint from the debugging. I guess other people who have this same problem should follow his answer. I'm marking this response as the correct answer

You might consider simply using QLStephen which will add proper QuickLook support for all text files regardless of their extensions. It will also properly handle files without extensions (e.g. README, Makefile). What I like about it is that you don't have to maintain a list of extensions; QLStephen detects text files automatically. QLStephen is independent of XCode and is a QL plugin that you drop into /Library/QuickLook/ or ~/Library/QuickLook/.
The fact that I am also named Steven is purely coincidental.
Edit: Debugging QuickLook based on more info from OP:
Turn on QuickLook logging:
defaults write -g QLEnableLogging YES

Here is some reference logging output (written to Console):
Stock Xcode installed:
2014-04-29 2:46:08.172 PM quicklookd[19315]:
    [QL] Thumbnailing file://localhost/Users/user/src/hello/main.m.
    Content type UTI: public.objective-c-source
    Generator used: <QLGenerator Text.qlgenerator>

2014-04-29 2:46:08.173 PM com.apple.quicklook.satellite[19330]:
    [QL] <QLThumbnailRequest main.m
            token: d45af7955eb9401bc7a49fd6652d1c3aa5cc4a8b;00000000;000000000000001a;
            com.apple.app-sandbox.read;00000001;01000003;0000000003e32849;
            /users/user/src/hello/main.m>.
    Content type UTI: public.objective-c-source.
    Generator used: <QLGenerator /System/Library/QuickLook/Text.qlgenerator>

Third-party generator (QLColorCode) installed:
2014-04-29 2:51:40.458 PM quicklookd[19359]:
    [QL] Thumbnailing file://localhost/Users/user/src/hello/main.m.
    Content type UTI: public.objective-c-source.
    Generator used: <QLGenerator /Users/user/Library/QuickLook/QLColorCode.qlgenerator>

2014-04-29 2:51:40.459 PM com.apple.quicklook.satellite[19367]:
    [QL] <QLThumbnailRequest main.m
            token: d45af7955eb9401bc7a49fd6652d1c3aa5cc4a8b;00000000;000000000000001a;
            com.apple.app-sandbox.read;00000001;01000003;0000000003e32849;
            /users/user/src/hello/main.m>.
    Content type UTI: public.objective-c-source.
    Generator used: <QLGenerator /Users/user/Library/QuickLook/QLColorCode.qlgenerator>

Since things work for you when calling qlmanage from the command line, you might be able to compare the logs written to Console with the output from manually invoking on the command line and spot the issue. With only Xcode installed:
[user@macbook]/Users/user/src/hello$ qlmanage -p -d 1 main.m
Testing Quick Look preview with files:
    main.m
[DEBUG] Registering <QLGenerator Built-in 0x7fa08241eaa0> for public.image
[DEBUG] Preview test for main.m -- file://localhost/Users/user/src/hello/.
        Content type UTI: public.objective-c-source
[DEBUG] Previewing file://localhost/Users/user/src/hello/main.m.
        Content type UTI: public.objective-c-source.
        Generator used: <QLGenerator Text.qlgenerator>
[DEBUG] Loading <QLGenerator Text.qlgenerator>
[DEBUG] Previewing file://localhost/Users/user/src/hello/main.m finished


What is the license on mac wallpapers? As a user (not a developer), what are the license terms governing use of the included wallpapers on broadcast media, for example, a website?

Could I, for example, use the mac wallpaper as a starting point for building a banner to my website?

Apple sources their wallpaper from others so it's not free use for any commercial projects. If you plan on making money from their source without modifying it severely, you could be sent a takedown request.

The Galaxy wallpaper in Lion is based off the Robert Gendler Andromeda picture: robgendlerastropics.com. They also got into some hot water for not paying the original artist for one of their iPad wallpapers, which was resolved: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Apple-Uses-Unlicensed-Photo-for-iPad-Wallpaper-134605.shtml


Can't see the image or movie file dimensions in Finder I can't see the image or movie file dimensions in the Finder when browsing files on a server. Local files are shown as usual; it's just when I pick a file on the company server that the dimensions are not shown.

The screen shot below shows the dimensions of a local file, correctly, as 1280 x 720. Why is this information missing from server hosted files?

Files on the remote server are not indexed by Spotlight. Try using identify or ffprobe:

brew install imagemagick ffmpeg
identify image.png
ffprobe -i video.mp4


How to import authoritative (primary) zone data into Lion Server DNS? Our current authoritative DNS server suffers from random reboot issues.

That is why we would like to import our DNS zones into a Lion DNS server (BIND). We could not find an option to import DNS records via zone transfer (AXFR).

How to import DNS zone data into Lion Server DNS?

There is a Bash/Terminal/Command line command that might help to import DNS zone data into Mac OS X Lion its DNS server.

$ sudo serveradmin settings dns:views:_array_id:com.apple.ServerAdmin.DNS.public:primaryZones:_array_id:domain.tld:allowZoneTransfer = yes

Issuing this command creates a zone file (in this example for "domain.tld") with some default settings and without any host records.

$ sudo serveradmin settings dns | grep dns:views:_array_id:com.apple.ServerAdmin.DNS.public:primaryZones:_array_id:domain.tld
dns:views:_array_id:com.apple.ServerAdmin.DNS.public:primaryZones:_array_id:domain.tld:allowZoneTransfer = yes
dns:views:_array_id:com.apple.ServerAdmin.DNS.public:primaryZones:_array_id:domain.tld:aliases = _empty_array
dns:views:_array_id:com.apple.ServerAdmin.DNS.public:primaryZones:_array_id:domain.tld:expire = 604800
dns:views:_array_id:com.apple.ServerAdmin.DNS.public:primaryZones:_array_id:domain.tld:serial = 2013122701
dns:views:_array_id:com.apple.ServerAdmin.DNS.public:primaryZones:_array_id:domain.tld:allow-update = no
dns:views:_array_id:com.apple.ServerAdmin.DNS.public:primaryZones:_array_id:domain.tld:adminEmail = "admin@domain.tld"
dns:views:_array_id:com.apple.ServerAdmin.DNS.public:primaryZones:_array_id:domain.tld:machines = _empty_array
dns:views:_array_id:com.apple.ServerAdmin.DNS.public:primaryZones:_array_id:domain.tld:nameservers = _empty_array
dns:views:_array_id:com.apple.ServerAdmin.DNS.public:primaryZones:_array_id:domain.tld:refresh = 86400
dns:views:_array_id:com.apple.ServerAdmin.DNS.public:primaryZones:_array_id:domain.tld:mailExchangers = _empty_array
dns:views:_array_id:com.apple.ServerAdmin.DNS.public:primaryZones:_array_id:domain.tld:reverseMappings = _empty_array
dns:views:_array_id:com.apple.ServerAdmin.DNS.public:primaryZones:_array_id:domain.tld:retry = 3600
dns:views:_array_id:com.apple.ServerAdmin.DNS.public:primaryZones:_array_id:domain.tld:timeToLive = 345600
dns:views:_array_id:com.apple.ServerAdmin.DNS.public:primaryZones:_array_id:domain.tld:serviceRecords = _empty_array
dns:views:_array_id:com.apple.ServerAdmin.DNS.public:primaryZones:_array_id:domain.tld:bonjourRegistration = no
dns:views:_array_id:com.apple.ServerAdmin.DNS.public:primaryZones:_array_id:domain.tld:name = "domain.tld"

The created zone file with default settings now looks like:

$ cat /private/var/named/db.domain.tld
domain.tld.           10800 IN SOA  domain.tld. admin.domain.tld. (
                            2013122701 ; serial
                            86400      ; refresh (1 day)
                            3600       ; retry (1 hour)
                            604800     ; expire (1 week)
                            345600     ; minimum (4 days)
                            )

With the command below you can create (import) default DNS zone records for each domain that is listed on a separate line in a file named "domains.txt".

$ while read line; do sudo serveradmin settings dns:views:_array_id:com.apple.ServerAdmin.DNS.public:primaryZones:_array_id:"$line":allowZoneTransfer = yes; done < domains.txt

And when your source DNS server allows zone transfer (axfr) the script below can be used to copy the DNS zone data from the old server to the new Mac OS X DNS server.

$ authNS=ns1.mydns.net;while read line; do dig +noall +multiline +answer +onesoa -t axfr "$line" @"$authNS" | sudo tee /private/var/named/db."$line"; done < domains.txt

Note: you need to change "ns1.mydns.net" to the host name or IP address of the server you are trying to import from.


Mac stuck after trying to install updates, startup disk missing I tried to install some updates on my Macbook Air. I received a notification  asking if I wanted to restart the Macbook to install the updates, I accepted and restarted. When booting, the Apple logo appears, the progress bar starts loading but then stops at some point showing the message:

A software update is required to use this startup disk. You can update now or select another startup disk.

I select the Update button, at which point the progress bar starts loading again, but it interrupts almost immediately showing the message:

An error occurred installing the update. Try again or select another startup disk.

I select the Try Again button, but the same message shows again. I then select Startup disk, and I am asked to Select the system you want to use to start up your computer. The list, however, is empty! At this point I don't know what to do, there are basically no options or buttons that I can press.
If I select the Startup disk button first, instead of the Update button, I get the same empty list of Startup disks to choose from.
Any idea what can have gone wrong and how to fix it?

The generic advice when a Mac can't start is to boot to recovery HD (internet, local or external as is most convenient for you) and run Disk Utility to check for connection, decide to make a backup of critical files if needed, then attempt a First Aid - repair pass.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204156

Assuming the First Aid works, you should be able to boot again or reinstall the OS from recovery. If not, you need to seek hardware repair, data recovery or try an erase install.

The reinstall instructions below get you to Disk Utility so you can look there and proceed.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904


Unhide dock when key pressed I am currently hiding my dock. I would like to unhide it whenever a the fn key is pressed. Is this possible?

You can assign that fn to show/hide dock in Keyboard shortcuts, but you will override the original fn key.

Or you can create a Service in Automator that act upon a keystroke

use this action pack to act upon key and do what you want building up your workflow.


What's the best way to place 4 pictures on a A4 sheet using the mac? What's the best way to place 4 pictures on a A4 sheet using the mac ? (or iPad / iPhone) ?
I need to create a pdf.

iPhoto seems not to have such functionality.
I would like to know if there is an easy way, before to use Photoshoot and manually resize them...

Thanks

You can do this using Preview. Here's how I do it (on Lion, but I'm pretty sure it was much the same on Snow Leopard).

Select the 4 images in Finder
Open with Preview
Select the 4 images in the Preview sidebar
From the menubar, select File > Print...
Change the dropdown half-way down the page to "Layout"

Change "Pages per sheet" to 4 (you should now see the 4 images together on the single sheet on the left)

Select "Save as PDF..." from the PDF dropdown in the bottom left

You can also customise the paper type, layout direction and approximate scale of each picture to whatever suits best.


How can I easily select the word my cursor is currently inside? I'm looking to be able to select the current word my text cursor is inside on OSX (10.7.3).

For people who have used vim before, I want to be able to do a similar thing to the 'ci_' command, where '_' can be 'w', '(', '[', etc. to specify deleting the word or contents of a parens/bracket and enter insert mode.

The best way I've figured to do this is Option+Left then Shift+Option+Right to first navigate to the left end of the word, then select to its right end.
Is there a way I can create a macro to do both of these at once?

This has been covered in a screencast on the Ask Different Blog. I encourage you to watch the video, but I'll summarize here.

First, create a little AppleScript that presses the two keyboard shortcuts. Open AppleScript Editor (in /Applications/Utilities) and paste this in:

tell application "System Events"
    key code 123 using option down
    key code 124 using {shift down, option down}
end tell

Save that as a script in ~/Library/Scripts (create the folder if it doesn't already exist).

Now, install the app FastScripts. It's free for up to 10 scripts.
Open the FastScripts preferences, find your Select Word script, and assign a keyboard shortcut to it.

Now you can press your chosen shortcut in any app and the current word will be selected.


will Airline Power Adapter work in a car lighter as well? Trying to see if I would buy this accessory with a new MacBook Air 11'', does anyone know if the Airline Power Adapter work exactly as a charger that we normally use in the car?

Nope, it says on the package that it was specifically designed for those Airline plugs and will not work in cars.

Plus, it will not charge your MacBook, it will only power it to run.

Cheers!


change MAC address in USB device I'm trying to change the MAC on a USB wifi device. The usual way of doing it does nothing...

sudo ifconfig en4 ether 11:22:33:44:55:66

After doing the command there are no errors, but the MAC stays the same. I've tried disconnecting the device from any network before trying to change it... and nothing changes.

Any ideas?

This happens when you're using the generic Apple-supplied driver for the USB WiFi device, or if you're using a vendor-supplied driver that doesn't support changing the MAC address.

You'll need to install the vendor-supplied driver for your adapter, if you haven't already. If you cannot find a driver for your specific product, you might be able to find a driver for a different product using the same WiFi chipset - that might work.

When you have the vendor-supplied driver installed, the command you have supplied could then be able to change the MAC address.


Safari Extensions keep on getting deleted I recently upgraded to High Sierra and I liked the upgrade too but the most annoying thing is that the safari extensions which I download from the official Apple website keep on getting deleted by itself I have tried to fix the problem by trying the following stuff:

Deleting  ~/Library/Safari/Extensions/Extensions.plist
Deleting  ~/Library/Safari/Extensions/

So can someone help me around with this problem?

Most likely: Another case of self-corrupting but never correcting caches.

Close Safari.
Remove ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari (the entire folder  and its contents, where mismatching copies of the extension pile up with a pattern of name-1.safariextension, name-2.safariextension .)
Restart Safari.
Download the extensions you need once more.
Extensions should stay put again.


How can I copy the OS X system image from primary HDD to new SSD? I bought a 240 GB SSD to replace the 500 GB primary HDD in my new MacBook Pro.

How do I clone the current Lion system image on my 500 GB HDD to the SSD? I want to clone the entire drive not just copy data.

I can only have either the HDD or SSD in the MacBook Pro at a time. I have an external 500 GB USB drive that can I use if necessary. I've seen suggestions on using Carbon Copy Cloner but I'm not sure how to proceed with only one disk in the MacBook Pro at a time.

I would try to open the enclosure of your external USB drive and replace it with the SSD to clone your data.
Simple hard drive cloning using Carbon Copy Cloner

Format the target drive with Disk Utiliy.app to Mac OS Extendend (Journaled) using the option Erase. This erases the drive and creates one partition across the entire disk.

Download and install Carbon Copy Cloner.
BTW: Developers need to eat! Therefore, I suggest making a small donation to Mike Bombich via Paypal.

In CCC configure Source Disk: Macintosh HD and Target Disk: your_formatted_disk. For cloning options choose Backup everything in order to make the target bootable. The time for cloning varies. It took me 105min to clone a 250GB Hitachi to a 500GB Seagate.

Swap the hard drives and boot into your new hard drive. Repair your disk using Disk Utility.

Source: credit to Mark West @ mac101.net


How do I export my iPhone Messages to a PDF file? Is there any app that will allow you to export your iPhone text messages to a PDF file while keeping all the conversation threads intact?

Phoneview will retrieve your messages and export them to PDF, XML, or text.  (It also does a lot more, pulling files off your phone, letting you dig into application storage, archiving voice mail, etc.)

They offer a 7-day trial to see if it will work for you.

I'm not aware of any way to do this with the stock software.


What is an iPhone app with good support for Twitter lists? I follow 1.1K people on Twitter so my newsfeed is unusable. I've found it useful to get mobile push notifications for 9 thought leaders but have problems viewing the notifications.

Sometimes when I view one Twitter mobile notification, it clears the rest from the iOS notification center so I have to open the app and go to that user's account and find the tweet. If I have more than 2 tweets disappear I basically have to give up.

Twitter lists let me filter my newsfeed but take a few taps to get to. Is there an iPhone app that lets me get mobile notifications for activity on a Twitter list or lets me set my default view to a list?

I found "Tweetlist 4 for Twitter" ($5) when searching the app store. Here are some potential work-arounds:

Notifications seem to clear when I click "Notifications" at the bottom of the Twitter app for iOS 10. Try clicking on each notification in succession without clicking on anything in the the actual app. Works most of the time.
A foolproof solution is force touching the notification (if your phone supports it) so that you preview the tweet without even opening the app (only works for individual tweets - doesn't work for "recommendations" or "highlights").
TweetDeck can be used on the mobile web (as well as desktop web/app). You can add your lists as columns and collapse the sidebar so you can see better. You can also click the share button and press "Add to Home Screen" so the web page functions more like an app (edit: this doesn't work as you can't get past the login page but there is a paid app called "DESKTOP LOGIN for TweetDeck" for $3 but it has bad reviews because it isn't worth the money given that it's basically the same as using it in the browser).
Another idea is to set up SMS Notifications. Settings -> Mobile -> Text Notifications -> Check 1st Box: "Tweets from people you've enabled for mobile notifications". That way you'll have a running feed to make sure you didn't miss anything, I haven't tried this myself. SMS Notifications Twitter Help Page

PS: Disappearing notifications are frustrating but I've always been optimistic that Twitter will fix it in the future! Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, has declared that they will make efforts to improve Twitter in 2017. Hopefully this is one of the fixes.


Mountain Lion - Flash sluggish, spinning beachballs etc I upgraded from OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion 10.8, and then to 10.8.2 Mountain Lion.

I only have a few installed applications (Photoshop and Microsoft Office), VLC movie player and Firefox - the rest of the system is intact. All fonts required for Photoshop are installed within Library's Adobe/Fonts folder so all Adobe apps can use them.

However, I've had spinning beachballs on using apps, and choppy video playback when using VLC - it did not do that in 10.6.8 with any DVD or video played; and my previous movie player of choice (MPlayer OSX Extended, now uninstalled) was not compatible with Mountain Lion as far as I'm aware - it just crashed or I had to end it.

Adobe Flash Player does not work, well, except for some Flash-based sites and Google Maps etc - Streetview, and flash-based adverts on Firefox, but it's a bit on-and-off, working on some sites but not others like YouTube - where I get the sound, but not the video, only the spinning grey wheel, and then Firefox crashes.

Safari won't open multiple tabs either... one tab at a time, unless I open a new tab from within an existing site (tried it on bbc.co.uk today!)

Why are these 'beachballs' happening, as I don't have many files, the system Fonts folder is intact, the Adobe fonts folder only has a few fonts [Adobe ones and a few free ones I downloaded] and there aren't that many apps.

I ran Onyx, repaired disk permissions etc. but don't understand why this is happening - should I just go back to OS X 10.6.8 as my machine had 10.6 (it's a 2010 Mac Mini installed with 10.6).

The disk's got 500GB in total (can't remember how much is used, but the size of Photoshop CS5 alongside VLC and Firefox is... well, I'm not sure how much GB is used).

New to Mac and OS X in general, so would appreciate the help I can get.

In general, newer versions of operating systems (Mac OS, Windows, et al) tend to require more RAM than older versions. If you have less RAM than the OS needs, the computer will use virtual memory paging, which is very slow.

The 2010 Mac mini came with 2GB of RAM. OS 10.8 prefers 4GB or more. You should buy an 8GB RAM upgrade (2x 4GB).

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Apple_Mac_mini/DDR3
http://www.crucial.com/store/listparts.aspx?model=Mac%20mini%20%28Intel%20Core%202%20Duo%202.66GHz%29%20DDR3%20-%20Mid%202010&pl=Apple&cat=RAM