Little Snitch rules for power nap? I run Little Snitch to monitor my network traffic. However, on Mountain Lion, power nap runs while my computer is sleeping so I can't approve new rules for Little Snitch to allow power nap to connect to Apple and the App Store. What rules should I add to Little Snitch to allow power nap to operate properly?

Power Nap is not an application, it is a set of hardware-level functionality that causes the Mac to wake from sleep, but only with disk, CPU, and networking hardware active - no video or audio. However, third-party applications run as normal during this "DarkWake" period (Apple's term). Therefore, Little Snitch should use whatever rules you have in place while the computer is fully awake.

This appears to be confirmed by the mention of Power Nap on Little Snitch developer objective development's blog, in an article about Automatic Profile Switching. That functionality found in Little Snitch allows the system to automatically switch rules based on what network your Mac finds itself on. As long as you're on a network that you've previously used, and have rules set up for, Little Snitch should use those same rules during DarkWake. Presumably you allow all of the things that Apple would do during DarkWake when you're actively using your computer (checking email, App Store updates, Photo Stream updates, iCloud document sync, etc.) so the rules already in place should suffice for use during DarkWake.


Bulge in MacBook Pro near Hard drive I have noticed in that past 24 hours that two rigid and straight "lines" have developed as bulges on my Mid 2010 MacBook Pro 15 inch.

They are noticeable when looking at it in the light and you can easily feel that they are raised above the case.

They appear on the outer shell of the case (right of the mouse and near the keyboard)

The bottom of the Mac is not warped. The hard drive also appears to be in good condition.

Initially, I thought this was due to a battery failure and removed the battery. Despite this, the battery was fine (not warped or bulging). I noticed that the two bulges in the case appear over where the hard drive is in a MacBook Pro.

There is also a "semi circular" bulge near these two lines.

What could be causing these if it is not the battery? Also, is there any chance that these bulges could expand?

Edit: After further inspection it appears to have occurred exactly over the bridge that holds the hard drive in place. (the long black piece with the two screws in it).

I have added a picture. Sorry, they are really hard to see.

Note: The two lines look like shadows and are somewhat difficult to see in (any) photo.

Edit: more photos

The second image (below) shows what is under the bulge. Maybe something looks out of place?

This is the result of excess force squeezing the wrist pad against the internal components.

In your other question asking about heat stress is a no go. Aluminum doesn't weaken or deform that way in temperature ranges where plastic won't melt and batteries don't catch fire. The bulge in the other question is really compression bending the case inward and components sticking up. Think aluminum foil placed over one large ridged potato chip - press lightly with a finger and you will see the ridges below the foil.

Why not upload a picture if you have an example, or is this a hypothetical case?


Automatically Mount a Network Drive and Copy a File to a Network Folder (AppleScript) I've a rather complex task to solve. I don't use OS X, but now I have to provide some colleagues with a simple application that automatically copies a certain file to a network folder. Normally I'd use a shell script, but some minimal GUI is a must-have thing in this case. So I thought I could use AppleScript.

I'd have to perform these steps:

Connect to a network drive (smb://myserver/public, where every user has different login names and passwords, so wiring the usernames and passwords in the code is not an option).
Navigate to a folder on the network drive (every user has a different folder on the network drive).
Copy a certain file from the user's desktop to the opened folder on the network drive.

So when running the script the user has to enter his or her username and password for connecting the network drive, and the user has to enter the name of the folder they should copy the file to.
Can the name of the folder be stored permanently somehow? So the user won't have to enter the folder name each time when he or she runs this script. But from time-to-time these folders may change, so there has to be an option to change the folder before copying.
Also how can I check if the network drive is already mounted, so the user won't be asked for username and password each time he or she runs this script?

Here is how far I've been able to go in assembling a script to accomplish this task:

I'm struggling to understand how AppleScript likes to store a path to a file/folder on a mounted network drive.

So here is what I have now:

property userName : "myfolder"
property folderName : "myusername"

property serverName : "public"
property serverAddress : "smb://myserver/public"
property serverStatus : 0

on connectToServer()
    global userName
    global folderName
    global serverName
    global serverAddress
    global serverStatus

    set mountedDisks to list disks
    if mountedDisks does not contain serverName then
        mount volume serverAddress as user name userName with password (display dialog "Enter password for" & quoted form of serverName with title "" default answer "" giving up after 3 with hidden answer)
    end if

    set mountedDisks to list disks
    if mountedDisks contains serverName then
        set serverStatus to 1
    else
        connectToServer()
    end if
end connectToServer

on mainLoop()
    global userName
    global folderName
    global serverName
    global serverAddress
    global serverStatus

    if serverStatus is equal to 0 then
        connectToServer()
    end if

    set mainDialog to display dialog ¬
        "Your username: " & userName & "
Your folder's name: " & folderName buttons {"Quit", "Settings", "Copy file"} with title "File Copier" default button 1
    set mainDialogAnswer to button returned of mainDialog

    if mainDialogAnswer is equal to "Quit" then
        quit
    end if

    if mainDialogAnswer is equal to "Settings" then
        display dialog "Enter your username" with title "Step 1 of 2" default answer userName
        set userName to {text returned of result}

        display dialog "Enter your folder's name" with title "Step 2 of 2" default answer folderName
        set folderName to {text returned of result}

        mainLoop()
    end if

    if mainDialogAnswer is equal to "Copy" then
        -- copy the file
    end if
end mainLoop

mainLoop()

Copying of files in Applescript is best done either through System Events or Finder, using the duplicate … to command, i.e.

tell application "System Events" to duplicate sourceFile to targetFolder

where both sourceFile and targetFolder need to be the correct object type for the application used – meaning disk item or finder item (both objects can be created from AppleScript alias objects, or textual path values with a bit of type coercion – I’d add the details, but you have not stated how the paths to both are stored / acquired in your script).

A few notes on your code:

There is no need to use globals when you have defined them as properties already. AppleScript properties are script scoped and persist across execution – they are only reset when the script is recompiled. If you assign those that need user setting missing value when declaring, you can even check if they are already set and skip re-prompting the user (there would be an even more comfortable and secure solution if Apple hadn’t deprecated Keychain Access Scripting).
There is no need for the repeated assignments and recursive call in your connectToServer() handler. The following code

set timeOutCounter to 0
repeat while (list disks) does not contain serverName and timeOutCounter is less than timeOutInterval
    -- mount drive
    delay someInterval -- recommended, so you don’t hectically loop
    set timeOutCounter to timeOutCounter + someInterval -- time out loop
end repeat

will try to connect in the interval defined by someInterval, until the mount is available or timeOutIntervalis reached (assuming these values are declared. As properties, best – see above).
You might also want to offer your user a more comfortable way of selecting the target folder than typing a folder name from memory. Check out Standard Additions’s AppleScript dictionary for the choose folder command.
Finally, but that is mainly a matter of taste and coding style, I’d rather move the display dialog command into its own handler and call that, if needed repeatedly, from the script body, than use a C style mainLoop handler. I’ve found that, generally speaking, AppleScript runs out of Stack space easily when recursing and can get very confused about variable assignments, so it is a good idea to avoid recursive constructs where they are not necessary.


How do I delete these movies from my iPhone 4? I tried swiping it, but my movies for some reason show up vertical. So swiping, doesn't work. I can't seem to find a way to get it off my phone and it's taking up more then half of my storage! I need help a soon as possible

You can connect it to iTunes and remove the sync option under movies and sync your iPhone 4. This should remove the existing content from the iPhone and clear up space.


"Word of the Day" Screensaver without Words? Using Onyx I have set the Word of the Day screensaver as my desktop.

The shimmering blue water effect is wonderful but I am distracted by the words flying through the screen and the fade to black every 30 seconds.

How can I disable the word effects and shift to black so the screensaver is the shimmering blue water by itself?

Here's an edited version. This is just the backdrop — I've removed the text scrolling, the dictionary result and the keyboard controls.

georgegarside.com/o/se/Word of the Day Background.qtz

Place this in ~/Library/Screen Savers and restart System Preferences, then select it from the list.


Changing Volume Without Waking Display Screen I am using the Hot Corners feature to turn my display off on my Macbook Pro (OS X 10.8.4) when I am not using it. Oftentimes, I keep music playing and I want to change the volume while the display is off. Every time I increase or decrease the volume, the screen turns on, and I have to turn the display off again.

Is there a way in ML to change the volume without waking the screen again? I know that it is supposed to wake the screen when the user presses something, but is there a way to maintain that functionality for everything but the volume buttons? If that's not possible, are there any third party apps that could do this?

You can do this with a remote connection to your computer from another computer or phone. Using a Terminal app from your phone, for example, you can remote in and then run a command like:

# Where 50 is a number from 0 to 100
osascript -e 'set volume output volume 50'

If you did this a lot you could create an alias in your .bashrc (or other shell profile file) for a shorter easier command.

I have a remote mouse app on my phone and it wakes up the screen, so you'd need a true remote control otherwise.


Disabiling SMB1 on Mac OS My apologies if the question is a bit trivial, but I am new to OS X and Mac ecosystem.

In order to be compliant with best practices at work, I have been requested to disable SMB1 protocol client side. The SMB protocol itself is pretty important for our group's workflow since we use it to connect to a shared drive where all of long-term storage and shared files.

The issue is that with that regards, Google was of no help to me - whereas I found instructions to disable SMB altogether, there is nothing relative to SMB1 specifically.

Is this due to the fact that OSX has no support for SMB1 and never had (migrating directly to SMB2/3 from AFP)? If not, what are the steps to follow to disable SMB1 specifically on a client machine?

Some more information: MacOS in question is a Sierra 10.12.3

You can't really disable the SMB1 client protocol because SMB2 is backward compatible with SMB1.  What you can do, however, is specify that the SMB client only negotiate via SMB 2.x.

To disable SMB1 create an /etc/nsmb.conf (global settings) and/or ~/Library/Preferences/nsmb.conf (user local settings) with the following:

# Configuration file for foo.bar
  [default]
  smb_neg=smb2_only

If you set this in the global location (/etc/nsmb.conf) you will need Admin privileges to modify.  If your Macs are "locked down," meaning users don't have Admin privileges, this essentially locks out the user from enabling SMB1 and effectively disabling the SMB1 protocol.

Secondly, what you should do is at a server level disable SMB1 by default.  This way, when any client attempts to connect, the Mac client will automatically switch from SMB1 to SMB2/3 as needed.  If it's not enabled on the server the client won't matter.


HIgh Sierra media(play) button changes After updating to High Sierra on my Mac, I realise that Apple had changed the media(play) button to unified all the media that playing everywhere including Safari webpage. Previously the button only affect songs playing app like Spotify or iTunes, now it stop my video instead of the song when I pressed it.

I already sent feedback to Apple, https://www.apple.com/feedback/ so I’m looking for a workaround /  fix / script or tool to revert the play pause change that Apple has made.

To be clear, I'm using MBPnTB 2016 version which means I have the physical media function button.

Can I get the play physical keyboard media buttons back to controlling iTunes only?

One solution for the problem is this tiny menu bar app.


Are tags retained on Time Machine backups and in Trash? When viewing by tags in Finder I get no results from Time Machine or Trash.  Are tags not retained by Time Machine or Trash?  What about external disks?  Spotlight is configured to index everything, no exceptions.

Spotlight doesn't index Time Machine backups or the Trash.  It does do external disks but certain conditions have to be met for it to do them.


Unable to change function keys like before In the past versions of Mac OS X, I used to be able to change the function keys behavior.

But now that option is no longer. Does anyone know how to do it now? (Yosemite 10.10.5)
Using a Razer Anansi keyboard.

It's there under Keyboard Settings (assuming using are using mac keyboard):


Can I use Time Machine to restore MacBook Pro after replacing hard drive? I am about to replace the hard drive in my MBP.  What I would like to ask is once I have replaced the drive can I use Time Machine to restore it back to how it was?  I have no other way to back it up.

OS X El Capitan
MBP 13" Mid 2012
2.5GHz i5
4GB 1600Mhz DDR3

Yes, I just did the same myself last week, though I'd recommend using a cloner (like Carbon Copy Cloner).

If you are using a Time Machine backup, it would be better to install the operating system onto the drive, run all updates, then use Migration Assistant to bring all your stuff across, effectively a 'clean' install.


macOS: Cannot connect to app store Every time I open the App Store on High Sierra it cannot connect. I've checked the DNS settings, old certificates, keychain access; in short I've completed all these steps and still:

Any ideas? It appears not even to try to load, i.e., that page is immediately there and refreshing doesn't attempt to load anything.

So the culprit was Little Snitch blocking a process called commerce. If you deny access to commerce then the App Store will refuse to load. Allow it to make all well again:


Unable to install Xcode 3.2.6 in Mac OS X version 10.7.3 My old app is made in Xcode 3.2.6 and now I have purchased a new Mac with Mac OS X version 10.7.3. Now when I'm trying to install Xcode 3.2.6 it completes all the process of installation but after it is done it doesn't create any folder of that SDK and it doesn't show Xcode symbol.

Old Xcode releases are not supported on new OS releases. There are cases where they happen to work, or can be made to work with some expert tweaking, but in the general case developers are much better off migrating their projects to a supported release of the developer tools.

One common misconception many developers have is that they have to use the older tools to support their users on older OSs. This is only true if you are still supporting PowerPC users... in which case you're much better off sticking with PowerPC hardware to produce those builds.

Based on your tags it looks like you are an iOS developer. The latest version of Xcode can still target any version of iOS, IIRC.


Keynote - gray out previous bullets In Keynote 6.6.1, how do I make the "previous" bullets become grayed-out when advancing bullets?

I know it has something to do with "Build Order" and "build out", but I don't want the bullets to completely disappear (with splashy animations) after they are no longer "current". Rather I want them to remain visible, but in a slightly diminished form.

How to achieve that?

I used to have this nailed down, but I think the UI has changed and/or I forgot how to do this.

Kinda inverse of the animated gif found in the question here: Reveal each bullet by opacity in Keynote 6.6?

Ok. Found it. You just have to select "By highlighted bullet" instead of "By bullet" for build order.

Has nothing to do with build-out!


LaunchDaemon not recognised I've installed CouchDB via MacPorts. Now I want to start it when my Mac boots, so I executed the instructions given in the install process:

sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.apache.couchdb.plist

However this doesn't seem to work. I've looked inside the LaunchDaemons directory, and the plist file is there (as a symlink):

lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel   57 18 aug 10:11 org.apache.couchdb.plist -> /opt/local/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.apache.couchdb.plist

The contents of the actual plist file seem ok (however I have no real knowledge of how it should look):

<plist version="1.0">
  <dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>org.apache.couchdb</string>
    <key>EnvironmentVariables</key>
    <dict>
      <key>HOME</key>
      <string>~</string>

    </dict>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
      <string>/opt/local/bin/couchdb</string>
    </array>
    <key>UserName</key>
    <string>couchdb</string>
    <key>StandardOutPath</key>
    <string>/dev/null</string>
    <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
    <string>/dev/null</string>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <true/>
  </dict>
</plist>

When I execute /opt/local/bin/couchdb manually, the process is created, so no problems there. It just seems the launch daemon skips this command.

Any thoughts on how to fix this?

Try the following (one-line command) :

sudo chown -R couchdb:couchdb /opt/local/var/lib/couchdb/ /opt/local/var/log/couchdb/ /opt/local/etc/couchdb/ /opt/local/var/run/couchdb

Then reboot.

If it doesn't work, what version of MacPorts and CouchDB do you have ?


How to make items copied into a folder respect its permissions? I shared a folder of pictures on my OSX 10.6 MacBook with my wife, who accesses it from her 10.5 MacBook.

I created an account for her and gave her read/write permissions on the folder (via the Get Info).  However, when Image Capture dumps new images into the folder, they aren't readable or writeable by her.  I have to click 'Apply To Enclosed Items' for her to get access to them.

I want any file created or copied into that folder to be automatically readable and writeable by her.  Is there a way to set this up?

Thanks!

There's an option for and access control entry (the thing you created in Get Info) to be inherited, but Get Info doesn't give you the option to enable it.  Also, you'll want to make sure you have full access to items she's added/edited there, and the easiest way to do this is to create a group for the two of you, and allow access to all group members.

Create a group (in System Preferences -> Accounts pane), and check the boxes to make both yourself and your wife members.
Open the Terminal utility, and run the command:

chmod +a "group:admin allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,file_inherit,directory_inherit" /path/to/the/folder

(replacing /path/to/the/folder with the unix-style path to the folder you want to grant access to.  If you aren't sure what that is, just paste in the rest of the line, including the space before /path/to/the/folder, and then drag-and-drop the folder from the Finder into the Terminal window, and it'll paste in the path for you.)
The access control entry you just created will be applied to new files and subfolders created inside that folder, but won't apply to the files and subfolders that're already there.  So, Get Info on the folder and use the Apply to enclosed items option to apply it to the existing items.


How to install Python on macOS Catalina using homebrew? I'm trying to install Python 3 in macOS Catalina (10.15.3 (19D76)) using homebrew but it is giving the below error:

dmanna-a01:operations dmanna$ brew install python3
==> Downloading https://homebrew.bintray.com/bottles/python-3.7.6_1.catalina.bottle.tar.gz
Already downloaded: /Users/dmanna/Library/Caches/Homebrew/downloads/d5d5e7ec237016a2c35d66ddbe2edfa461d9fa20da5cad2ad3ffeb08f6d87bae--python-3.7.6_1.catalina.bottle.tar.gz
==> Pouring python-3.7.6_1.catalina.bottle.tar.gz
Error: An unexpected error occurred during the `brew link` step
The formula built, but is not symlinked into /usr/local
Permission denied @ dir_s_mkdir - /usr/local/Frameworks
Error: Permission denied @ dir_s_mkdir - /usr/local/Frameworks

Brew Version

dmanna-a01:operations dmanna$ brew -v
Homebrew 2.2.5
Homebrew/homebrew-core (git revision 028f1; last commit 2020-02-10)

chown the usr/local directory:

sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local

Then try to install python3 again and it should work:

brew install python3

OR,

You can try this also if the above solution didn't help

sudo chown -R $(whoami) $(brew --prefix)/*

Reference: https://gist.github.com/irazasyed/7732946


How to stop TextWrangler changing the text file icon? I use a several text editors, but every time I save with TextWrangler it changes the file's icon in Finder to a TextWrangler icon with the following extended attributes;

  com.apple.FinderInfo
  com.apple.TextEncoding

How do I get TextWrangler to stop doing this? I can't find a settings that seems to fix this.

A support request was filed and Bare Bones responded quickly.

TextWrangler sets the file type (com.apple.FinderInfo; file icon) when it determines that the file name cannot be used to determine that it is a text file. The exact determination here is not too important; as I found, hence I would assume that source code files would fall into this category. The text encoding is a standard attribute and is set to indicate the file's character encoding.

To disable the writing of these extended file attributes, the following command is used;

defaults write com.barebones.textwrangler WriteExtendedAttributes -string "Never"

The command itself is documented in the TextWrangler help files; but not how it relates to the character encoding and file associations.

To find and clear the attributes of the modified file(s), you can use the following standard commands;

ls -@l # list the files with extended attributes
xattr -c filename.sh # where the file name and extension is as required


Can I get an app for free if I already purchased it on the same account, but on a different computer? I bought the Xcode app from Apple's Mac App Store last night on a computer which I ended up returning. I now have a new Mac. After logging into the App Store, I am asked to repurchase the app.

Should I do it? Will it know that the app has already been purchased on this account? Is there a way to re-download it instead of repurchasing?

Yes, if you download the same app off of the same account it will be redownloaded for free without charging your account again. The same goes for apps on the iOS App Store.


How to enable faster WiFi Roaming with Mac OS X & Airport base stations How can I change the way Macbooks roam on the WiFi network? I would like to speedup the roaming of Macs (and maybe other devices).

Is there a setting on the Airport base stations or in Mac OS to speedup AP switching for example?

Currently the network is built around 1 main Switch interconnecting 1 router and 4 Airport base stations using the same SSID:

3 dual band Airport base stations
1 Airport 2.4GHz base station

On the 5GHz band, there is no overlap as each base station uses its own channel.

On the 2.4GHz band there is a very slight overlap between 2 base stations which are at opposite sides and at different stories of the building.

You can change the system preferences for JoinMode and JoinModeFallback to be the following:

    JoinMode (String)
        Automatic
        Preferred
        Ranked
        Recent
        Strongest
    JoinModeFallback (String)
        Prompt
        JoinOpen
        KeepLooking
        DoNothing

Do this using the airport command:

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

Run the command to see the options, up the top you'll see a section on how to sec preferences.

For instance:

sudo /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/A/Resources/airport prefs joinMode=Strongest

Note, this preference isn’t permanent, so you may need to automate this or issue it for specific problem situations or network providers.


How to automatically start a VirtualBox VM in OS X Lion? I have a VirtualBox VM set up on OS X Lion. How do I have it automatically start when I log into my account?

Add the .VDI file for the VM you wish to auto run to your System Preferences > Users > Login Item. You can find the .VDI file in the folder of the VM. The default name of the folder VirtualBox saves these to is called VirtualBox VMs.


On OS X Lion 10.7.4 in Terminal.app I cannot type `C-M-@` or `C-M-%`, why? On my MacBook Pro running OS X Lion 10.7.4, there seems to be a keyboard issue. I first noticed this problem when I tried to use the default keybinding to execute mark-sexp and query-replace-regexp in emacs, which are bound respectively to C-M-@ and C-M-% by default. As I use emacs a lot, I really miss these two powerful features a lot.

As I don't have experience dealing with terminal types etc, I did some simple debugging within emacs:

C-M-f and C-M-b work as expected. So control and option work well together.
M-%, M-< and M-> work as expected. So option and shift work well together.
C-S-backspace does not work. (But I've never tried this command before; the first time I ran it was today when I found it in the emacs manual.) But C-@ works as expected. So control and shift probably work well together.
If I am not mistaken, the command digit-argument is bound to C-9, C-8, etc. These keys do not work as well. I have made sure that in System Preferences.app I have turned off these keys for switching spaces.

In Terminal.app preferences, I have selected "use option as meta key" as it eases typing the emacs keybindings. I also tried to disable this option and use ESC but still to no avail. Any ideas?

P.S. I launched X11.app and in the xterm window I started emacs. Using ESC as meta, C-M-% and C-M-@ work perfectly. In the Cocoa version of Emacs, these two work perfectly as well. So I guess it is a Terminal.app bug or probably there might be a setting or configuration switch I can tweak to make this work in Terminal.app?

And here is the output of stty -a from emacs shell, hopefully it's useful...

bash-3.2$ stty -a
speed 9600 baud; 0 rows; 0 columns;
lflags: icanon isig iexten -echo echoe -echok echoke -echonl echoctl
    -echoprt -altwerase -noflsh -tostop -flusho -pendin -nokerninfo
    -extproc
iflags: -istrip icrnl -inlcr -igncr ixon -ixoff ixany imaxbel -iutf8
    -ignbrk brkint -inpck -ignpar -parmrk
oflags: opost -onlcr -oxtabs -onocr -onlret
cflags: cread cs8 -parenb -parodd hupcl -clocal -cstopb -crtscts -dsrflow
    -dtrflow -mdmbuf
cchars: discard = ^O; dsusp = ^Y; eof = ^D; eol = <undef>;
    eol2 = <undef>; erase = <undef>; intr = ^C; kill = <undef>;
    lnext = ^V; min = 1; quit = ^\; reprint = ^R; start = ^Q;
    status = ^T; stop = ^S; susp = ^Z; time = 0; werase = ^W;
bash-3.2$

The same command directly from the shell:

$ stty -a
speed 9600 baud; 24 rows; 80 columns;
lflags: icanon isig iexten echo echoe -echok echoke -echonl echoctl
    -echoprt -altwerase -noflsh -tostop -flusho pendin -nokerninfo
    -extproc
iflags: -istrip icrnl -inlcr -igncr ixon -ixoff ixany imaxbel iutf8
    -ignbrk brkint -inpck -ignpar -parmrk
oflags: opost onlcr -oxtabs -onocr -onlret
cflags: cread cs8 -parenb -parodd hupcl -clocal -cstopb -crtscts -dsrflow
    -dtrflow -mdmbuf
cchars: discard = ^O; dsusp = ^Y; eof = ^D; eol = <undef>;
    eol2 = <undef>; erase = ^?; intr = ^C; kill = ^U; lnext = ^V;
    min = 1; quit = ^\; reprint = ^R; start = ^Q; status = ^T;
    stop = ^S; susp = ^Z; time = 0; werase = ^W;
$

(Side-comment: It seems strange that the syntax for a code block is four preceding spaces. Are all StackExchange users expected to know how to use paste(1), sed(1) or rectangle edits?)

In general, Mac applications that are expecting text input from the keyboard do not handle C-S combinations or C-digit combinations.  Programs that work with control-shift combos (like anything running under X11) do so by handling key events as events, not character input.  This is how they can differentiate between Tab and Ctrl-i, which both generate the same ASCII character. (You can read in detail how Lion (really Cocoa) handles key events if you really want to know.)

Historically (back in the Teletype days), there were only uppercase letters on the keyboard, and there were no caret (^) or underscore (_) characters on the keyboard (instead there were up-arrow and back-arrow). The shift key worked by toggling the 16's bit and the control key worked by zeroing the 64's bit of the 7-bit ASCII codes the keyboard produced.

What this means is that the control key had no effect for the 32 characters on the keyboard that already had their 64's bit set to zero (most of the non-alphabetic characters, including digits), and since the teletype was purposefully limited to upper-case letters only, the shift key had no effect on most of the alphabetic characters (and where it did have an effect, it produced a special character like @).

Additional weirdness was added in the migration to supporting lower-case text, as the control key combos were all typed without using the shift key but now the letter typed without using the shift key had changed, so the decision was to map control-lower-case to what had been control-upper-case.  But then what do you do with control-shift?

For a while the problem was handled by having the control key also zero out the 32's bit, which is what differentiated lower case letters from upper case letters.  But eventually ASCII was replaced with Unicode and those kinds of duplicate key assignments were too much of a waste of keyboard space to be allowed to continue, so they got different mappings, and on the standard Mac US keyboard most C-S combos are unassigned.

So what you have run into is the legacy support for keyboard input running back to Teletype days.  The characters Terminal (and other OS X apps) do not support are characters you could not type on the Teletype keyboard.  As evidence of this, note that C-S-2 (C-@), C-S-6 (C-^), and C-S-- (C-_) all work, because those keys have been re-mapped since the ASR-33, where S-2 was " (and @ was S-P), S-6 was &, and S-- was =,  but in general control-shift combos do not produce characters of any kind.


Bootcamp Windows does not wake from sleep I'm on a late-2016 MacBook Pro with Touch bar. I recently created Windows partition with Boot Camp which is running a clean install of Windows 10.

When I tell Windows to go to sleep, it will do so. However, it doesn't seem possible to wake it from sleep. While the screen backlight lights up, it remains black and blank, whatever input is given.

The only way to get a functioning environment to return is to hard restart the computer holding down the power button.

I have gone to Device Manager to check whether the keyboard, mouse, etc. are all set to wake the computer from sleep. They are.

Is there any way to resolve this?

I'd really like to post this as a comment because it isn't really an answer - but I don't have the available rep.

I'm having the exact same issue (in terms of failing to wake from sleep). I'm here from Google - on a Mid 15 rMBP. It happens on both Windows and a Linux distribution (Ubuntu 16.04 LTS), but not on macOS. I am having a similar symptom. That is: the haptic feedback on the touchpad remains active. The device never wakes up, either on a keystroke, clicking the touchpad or pressing the power button.

I have attempted to reset both the SMC and PRAM to no avail. May I suggest attempting that and seeing how you go?

The only potential explanation I have come across is that the symptoms developed after I installed an OWC Aura aftermarket SSD. That said, I was not using boot camp immediately prior to installing the OWC SSD. I contacted OWC's support and they have had no reports. Do you by any chance use one of these? I haven't had the time to switch back to my OEM SSD.


Cannot ping a single website when I am logged into my account I am having an issue connecting to my website. When I ping sample.com the server, I IP address I get is 192.168.0.12, but when I do an NSlookup, I get the correct IP. When I switch user account or go to the recovery mode, the name of site is resolved correctly and I can get to it.

Note that I am trying to access my website from the outside world, not from the local network.

I tried:

dscacheutil -q host -a name sample.com

and I got:

name: sample.com
ip_address: 192.168.0.12

To solve the issue I tried deleting the preferences from the library and resetting the NVRAM:

sudo dscacheutil -flushcache

sudo killall -INFO mDNSResponder

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist

But the name is still resolving wrong. I am running macOS High Sierra 10.13.2.

Check if you have an entry for sample.com in /etc/hosts.

Entries in /etc/hosts take precedence over DNS. In your case, DNS is properly configured (nslookup returns the correct IP), but ping will use the information in /etc/hosts instead. This is also true for any CLI command like curl or wget and most apps (some apps don't appear to honor /etc/hosts.)

Note that the host name specified in the command must match an entry in /etc/hosts exactly, for example:

192.168.16.3   myserver.mydomain.com

will direct ping myserver.mydomain.com to try to reach 192.168.16.3, but ping myserver will query DNS with whatever default domain is configured in /etc/resolv.conf.

For more information on /etc/hosts, see man hosts and this Wikipedia article on /etc/hosts. For more information on /etc/resolv.conf, see this Wikipedia article on resolv.conf.


How to purchase a used Apple Watch? What necessary and sufficient steps can one take, from the software side of the device, when (s)he is purchasing a used Apple Watch, to make sure the Watch is what the seller is claiming it to be?

Are the steps different for GPS and GPS + Cellular models?

I have never used an Apple Watch before. Would just syncing up the Watch my iTunes be a necessary and sufficient way to ascertain if the Watch is ok to purchase?

From the software side, all one needs to do is:

Update your iPhone to latest iOS;
Reset the Apple Watch (You can do that from Watch itself);
Setup the Apple Watch using your iPhone.

Once it is paired to your iPhone, it is safe to assume that the device is off the previous owner.


Keep command output in terminal screen I'm new to Mac, when I use terminal, I found some commands like git log behaviours different from Linux.

On Linux, they will print result on screen and exit, leave all result on screen and I can see it when I input another command. Screen after running command like this:

$ git log
commit **********
Author: ******
....

$

But on Mac, they will print result to a "new screen", after exit, all result will be cleaned so I can't see the previous result. Screen after running command looks like this:

$ git log
$

Result has been cleared form screen.

Can I change some settings to make it behaviours like linux? Thanks.

The output of git log is sent to a pager for display, which can be configured via git config (variable name is core.pager). By default, less is used, so you may want to compare the value of $LESS on both systems.


Are Mac serial numbers sent to Apple? Is the serial number (of a MacBook Pro, OS X 10.7) ever sent to Apple? For instance, is it automatically sent during system updates or app store connections?

To my knowledge, each and every time your Mac will send a serial number to Apple, you are prompted to explain this and why it will be sent as well as whatever information is needed.

You can see this in action from the System Information app:

When you click the "Check my service..." item you will see this alert:

Similar notifications are presented when the App Store app needs to verify your specific Mac is entitled to Lion during a restore. The Console app (in the Utilities folder) can be configured to send your diagnostic information which includes the serial number as well as other information about the hard drive, software and error logs to Apple.

You can also ask Apple if they treat this information as personally identifiable from their main privacy page. From what I can tell, they go to great lengths to treat this as other sensitive information and go out of the way to not lump it with your personal account other than when you do that by asking for service from AppleCare or registering your Mac.


How To Change the Color of My Browsers Background Safari I use Safari version 9.1.1.  I'm looking to make it easier to read my browser by changing the color of the background and text, however there is no option to do so that I can find in the settings panel.  Is this something I can change? Or would this require knowledge of coding?

You can invert colors from System Preferences -> Accessibility. As mentioned in your comments, a webpage's background is in control of the developer/webmaster.


"System Builder" Windows on VMWare Fusion? I am a web developer, and I want to buy a copy of Windows 7 to use with my currently-existing copy of VMWare Fusion for easier testing of web sites in Internet Explorer. However, the overabundance of Windows versions is confusing me. I believe I want the Professional version, since from what I understand, the Windows XP emulation feature will let me install IE 6 and 7 for testing alongside 8 and 9. However, Amazon is offering me two versions of Windows 7 Pro; a normal boxed one, and a "System Builder" one for half the price. Obviously I'd rather purchase the latter, but I haven't found any clear information as to whether it can legally or technically be used under virtualization or not. Can anyone shed some light on this?

The "System Builder" version is intended for OEMs.

Basically, the difference boils down to the fact that microsoft will not provide support (e.g. tech support calls or live-chat) for the OS.

It is perfectly legal, will still receive all the patches and service packs, etc...

Here are more details. It's worth noting that I have transfered OEM versions of Windows XP (though not 7) between multiple computers without any significant issues, and generally if it's not activating, you just call Microsoft and they give you a new code.

Furthermore, since you're sticking it in a VM anyways, you should never really have to worry about windows thinking you swapped the mobo, and trying to reactivate anyways.

Off-topic a bit, have you tried running Internet Explorer under WINE? I know WINE supports IE6, and you may be able to finangle IE7 or 8 into working as well.


How to Disassociate an Apple ID from a work computer How do I disassociate an Apple-ID from an iMac? I am trying to push updates on a work computer but I can not. I am unable to because a previous employee's apple ID pops up and I do not have the password. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Simply put, you can't without the Apple ID info of the original owner/user.

However, there is a workaround. If you reinstall the original OSX associated with the machine using Internet Recovery, this will enable you to sign in using your Apple ID and subsequently upgrade the OS from there. Note that this will not work using the simple recovery mode (the partition already on the disk).

Although reinstallation is non-destructive, it's always a good idea to back up beforehand.


ZSH prompt issue : commands shifted to the right on one hundred space characters when doing completions, i.e using TAB key From this post, Get Function Into PS1 (Zsh)? , it seems to be possible to execute a function inside a ZSH prompt`.

Here how to use a function into PROMPT :

setopt PROMPT_SUBST
slash_color () { dirs | awk -F "/" ' {for (i=1; i<=NF; i++) printf "\033[38;5;75m"$i"\033[38;5;206m/"} '; }

PS1='%F{13}|%F{green}%n@%F{cyan}%m%F{13}|%f%T%F{13}|$(slash_color)%F{13}|%F{7} '

Below the result :

ISSUE : But now, I am faced to another problem : when I am inside a directory, the first completion with TAB, for example "vim" ⇨Tab shift all the display to roughly one hundred of space characters to the right.

To illustrate, here is a screen capture :

As you can see, just after typing vim te and after press ⇨Tab key, the command vim te is pushed to the right: I don't understand where this shifting could come from.

I am using zsh-5.8 from MacPorts and I also could reproduce the issue by compiling the sources of zsh-5.8 on macOS Catalina.

If someone could have an explanation/suggestion/clue, this would be fine to tell it.

PS: I suspect that using a simple ZSH environment variable could fix this strange behavior.

I have done some research and find these 2 interesting links :

zsh, prompt, variable expansion, ANSI color sequences
Using ANSI escape sequences in zsh prompt

It seems the shifting that occurs in my case is caused by the interpretation of ANSI escape characters but I didn't understand all the details.

However, i tried to modify slash_color() function like this :

slash_color () {
dirs | awk -F "/" '{ blue="\e[38;5;75m"; \
                     pink="\e[38;5;206m"; \
                     for (i=1; i<NF; i++) \
                       printf blue $i pink "/"; \
                     printf blue $NF pink; \
                     printf "\n"
                   }'
}

But this doesn't work, I get the following error about awk:

awk: cmd. line:1: warning: escape sequence `\e' treated as plain `e'

In my original issue (shifting to the right), everything happens like ZSH was badly computing the length of the real visible PATH of PROMPT and overestimating it? That would explain why I am shifted to the right.

Could anyone take a look please at the two links that I gave above, it could contain the solution in my case.

UPDATE 1: @Allan, here you can see my last attempt :

# Prompt for zsh : path separated by %F{13} slash to better see where we are
setopt PROMPT_SUBST

slash_color() {
dirs | awk -F "/" '{ blue="\033[38;5;75m"; \
                     pink="\033[38;5;206m"; \
                     for (i=1; i<NF; i++) \
                      printf blue $i pink "/"; \
                     printf blue $NF pink; \
                     printf "\n";
                   }';
}

# Last method using my_precmd_hook_function
my_precmd_hook_function() {
  slash_path=$(slash_color)
}

autoload -U add-zsh-hook
add-zsh-hook precmd my_precmd_hook_function

PROMPT='%F{13}|%F{green}%n@%F{cyan}%m%F{13}|%f%T%F{13}|''$slash_path''%F{13}|%F{7} '

Rendering of PATH with pink forward slash is good but the issue of shifting to the right remains when I type cd+⇨Tab or ls+⇨Tab. The presence of printf "\n"; doesn't change anything on the result.

Below a capture illustrating this :

SOLUTION FINALLY FOUND : my perseverance has paid off, everyting is working fine, no more shifting and colorized forward slash in PATH, with :

# Prompt for zsh : path separated by %F{13} slash to better see where we are
setopt PROMPT_SUBST

# Path with colorized forward slash
slash_color() {
dirs | awk -F "/" '{ blue="%{\033[38;5;75m%}"; \
                     pink="%{\033[38;5;206m%}"; \
                     for (i=1; i<NF; i++) \
                      printf blue $i pink "/"; \
                     printf blue $NF pink; \
                   }';
}

# Prompt final
PROMPT=$'%F{13}|%F{green}%n@%F{cyan}%m%F{13}|%f%T%F{13}|$(slash_color)%F{13}|%F{7} '

# Zsh reverse auto-completion
bindkey '^[[Z' reverse-menu-complete

Thanks a lot for all your advices.

To be candid, I think your making this prompt overly complex and attempting to introduce additional, complex "layers" to what's supposed to be a simple prompt is having unforeseen and unpredictable issues.

In my previous answer to your related question, which what you based your slash_color function on, I cautioned against this from a usability standpoint.  In the comments, I mentioned that I wasn't amenable to putting a function within a prompt for security reasons.

Ok...disclaimers are out of the way.

My first observation is that you have a newline character being generated by awk.

So, in your prompt, you're telling it to output a new line in something that's supposed to be contained to a single line.  I don't now how PROMPT handles things within ZSH, but I doubt it handles new line chars very well.

Secondly, you seem to be mixing up all the different things that ZSH, awk, and functions in general have to deal with.  I'm still a bit foggy as to the actual logic here, but it seems like you're trying to push "normal" escape codes through two layers of functions within ZSH by using their color conventions and ZSH's loadable modules.

  Could anyone take a look please at the 2 links that I gave above, it could contain the solution in my case?

Why?  What in those links lead you to believe that?  The first link is about variable expansion within the prompt.  The second show you how to colorize your prompt using both escape sequences and the preferred braces method in ZSH.

I believe the issue is the over-complexity.

You're shoehorning a function that not only has the ANSI escape codes, which are supported, but calling another function that creates a pipe, which means it creates a sub shell to call yet another function!  (This is what I was referring to re:  layers and complexity).

This is why I suggested using precmd().  Not only can you nest functions, but you can call multiple functions and then generate your prompt.  I advise you to explore that more and not fixate on PROMPT being the sole method to skin this cat.

My other piece of advice is to articulate what you'd ultimately like to accomplish and post that as a new question because there's probably a solution you're not aware of.  IMO, this sounds like an XY Problem


I constantly get a never-ending spinning beach ball in Safari on tabs that have Google Calendar loaded I keep seeing the spinning beach ball on any tab that has Google Calendar loaded. It doesn't happen right away, it typically takes a while before it starts beach balling. The calendar works fine the whole time. Restarting Safari makes it go away.

Does anyone know how what could be causing this?

I used to get a message saying that the page has been reloaded because of a problem. Not sure if that's related but I haven't seen that with Safari 12 yet even though I have seen this behavior with that version.

Using Safari 12.0 now but this has happened with the last 2 or 3 major releases at least. I thought it could be an extension but Safari 12 has disabled all of my extensions except for 1Password.

I experienced this same problem. I have had some success by changing my Google Calendar alerts from "Alert" to "Desktop Notification".


How to delete music album from iPhone but not from any other devices nor from iCloud The fact I have to ask this question on here is testament to the utterly terrible user interface Apples these days seem to endorse. I know how to remove 1 track from the iPhone but still keep it in iCloud, but how do I remove a whole album from my iPhone but keep it on my other Apple devices and iCloud? I couldn't find a way either by trying or searching around. The only option seems to be to "Delete from Library", which I do not want to do.

EDIT

I tried to look at my iTunes settings, but the relevant settings page is almost empty, see screenshot.

1. Via iTunes

When you sync your iPhone with your main iTunes on a desktop computer, you can simply untick the undesired song/album/artist and hit sync, and it will disappear from your iPhone.

Image from HowToISolve

In this example, ticking Ke$ha will include it, and unticking will exclude it from your phone iTunes library.

2. Directly on your iPhone

Go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage > Music > Edit to delete artists, or ... > Music > Song > Edit to delete songs locally on your iPhone.

Image from my iPhone

Be aware that those files will be included should you sync your phone again.


Windows-style taskbar functionality in OS X? Looking for an OS X add-on that will enable Windows-like (one-click) functionality for switching between different windows of a single application.

Example: I have 5 maximized Chrome windows open, and wish to switch to a specific window. My current options are Exposé, the "Window" file menu, and Cmd-`. None of them are ideal because they take more than one click to execute, which is why I miss the taskbar in Windows. (For those of you unfamiliar with the taskbar, it displays a list of all your system-wide open windows similarly to how tabs are displayed in modern browsers.

So basically, I want to see a list of all of my open windows, and be able to toggle between them with a single click.

Could perhaps HyperDock or DockView meet your needs?


Software to A) merge two faces into one and B) morph one into another for Mac? I'm looking for a program (or programs) that will allow me to do two things:

Create a video of one photo of a face morphing into another photo of a face.  (This requires tagging the matched elements somehow, I presume.
Allow me to create a merged image from two faces, sort of like a "what if they had a baby" kind of thing.  Note that Morph Thing, which does this online, won't work for me, as it won't work with decent size images.

A paid Mac app would be fine, as would multiple apps, if there's not one that does both of the above.

The only ones I've found online all seemed to be on random download sites that lacked credibility.

A quick search gave me two promising applications:

Commercial: Creaceed Morph Age
Freeware: Norrkross MorphX

I believe that both do what you want.


How to move a window to another space without using the mouse? I use spaces for having multiple desktops, but often need to move a program from one space to another.

I am aware of the various ways to do that with a mouse:

Click-and-hold on the title bar of window and drag to edge
F8 to show all Spaces and drag to desired location
Click-and-hold on the title bar, and use Ctrl+# or Ctrl+Scroll Arrow

But have not been able to find a keyboard-only method. I use Linux for one of my primary workstations which has this ability and I would LOVE to use it with OSX as well.

While dragging a window, press key combo to move window to numbered space:

Control + 1
Control + 2
Control + 3
etc ...

EDIT: For Lion, I had to go to System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Keyboard Shortcuts -> Mission Control and enable these hotkeys.


Which Mac OS X versions support lsof command? I want to know which Mac OS X versions support the lsof command. Does Mac OS X 10.5 support it?

lsof has been available since OS X 10.5. From the manual page :

   Lsof  revision 4.87 lists on its standard output file information about
   files opened by processes for the following UNIX dialects:

        Apple Darwin 9 and Mac OS X 10.[567]


New IOS7 configured with wrong Apple ID Help!
I updated my apple ID with a different email a while ago but somehow it was not wired onto my device and now I can't delete the account (with the old INACTIVE email) because of safety features. How can I do this???

I had this exact issue after updating to iOS 7 an hour or so ago.  The ultimate resolution, although it took me an embarrassingly long time to arrive at, was to log in using my current Apple ID password, ignoring the out-of-date apple ID, while attempting to delete the iCloud association (as you are already attempting to do).

A couple of things that I had done in the mean time that might have helped things along unexpectedly:

I logged into icloud.apple.com using my current credentials.
I logged into appleid.apple.com and added a (heretofore) missing year to my Date of Birth.

I sincerely doubt either of these changes had any impact, but I thought I'd mention them in case you want something to try if your current password does not work.


Other physical remote options for a Mac (not an iPhone or iPad) I reassigned the buttons on my Apple remote with BetterTouchTool to fire off hot keys on my Mac.  I then taught my universal remote the Apple remote buttons.  This works perfectly, except that Apple's remote only has 7 buttons.  I want at least a few more.

Is it possible to use 2 different Apple remotes for one Mac, assigning different controls to each remote?  I doubt it, but I'm asking just in case.

Is there any other remote that would work with a Mac other than Apple's remote, in order to get more buttons to reassign?

What I want is 12 buttons (or more), which I would then teach my universal remote.  That's why using an iPhone or iPad won't work in this scenario.

Is there some other option to accomplish the same task?

EDIT: Yikes, did I stump the band?

Eventually, I answered my own question.  For the sake of hopefully helping anyone else who may be wondering the same thing, here's my answer:

I asked: "Is there any other remote that would work with a Mac other than Apple's remote, in order to get more buttons to reassign?"  The answer is yes!  It's possible to use two Apple remotes, assigning different functions for each, and it's possible to use a universal remote with a Mac, assigning any functions you'd like to any buttons you'd like.

I found two options for doing this.

There's a usb receiver called Flirc that learns remote buttons for just about any remote and then assign actions or hotkeys.  And, there's an App called Remote Buddy which allows you to use more than one Apple remote and/or various other remotes.  I can't say how well it works since I opted for Flirc.

Basically, I have two Apple remotes - an old white one and a silver one.  I wanted to use the white one to control my Philips Hue lights via Applescripts I wrote, and I wanted the silver remote to control iTunes and system volume.  Using Flirc (and the free BetterTocuhTool app), this was astonishingly simple to set up.  Once I realized how flexible Flirc is, I also recorded functions for my universal remote.  I've only had Flirc for a few days, but I'm really thrilled with it.


Since running out of battery on my Mac, fonts are missing and apps don't open properly This first happened when I ran out of battery on my Mac. When I charged it, it was acting very weirdly. My desktop background is black and when I login the background is black. When I open Hamachi it says "Failed to connect to engine", Stuff is missing such as desktop pictures and letters that I used to see are now a box with a question mark "[?]".

I would try resetting your SMC

System Management Controller (SMC), a circuit that deals with power management, temperature monitoring and fan control, status lights, keyboard backlights, and a few other components. If your SMC becomes confused, you could experience problems like excessive fan noise, slow performance even though Activity Monitor doesn’t show the CPU being overtaxed, apps that take forever to launch, batteries that don’t charge correctly, problems with sleep or wake, and so on.

Before you can reset your SMC, you must shut down your Mac. After that, the procedure varies depending on the type of Mac you have.

Desktop Macs: Disconnect the power cord (either from the Mac or from
the AC outlet). Wait 15 seconds and plug it back in. Then wait
another 5 seconds and turn the Mac back on.
Portable Macs with non-removable batteries: Make sure the Mac is
plugged in to AC power. On the built-in keyboard, press and hold the
Shift, Option, and Control keys on the left side and press the power
button. Release all the keys at once, and then turn the Mac on
normally.
Portable Macs with removable batteries: Disconnect the AC power cord
and remove the battery. Press the power button, hold it for 5
seconds, and then let go. Put the battery back in, reconnect the
power cord, and turn the Mac on normally.

You can also try starting up in safe mode

Follow these steps to start up into safe mode.

Start or restart your Mac.
Immediately after you hear the startup sound, press and hold the
Shift key.
Release the Shift key when you see the Apple logo appear on the
screen.

After the Apple logo appears, it might take longer than usual to reach the login screen or your desktop. This is because your Mac performs a directory check of your startup disk as part of safe mode.

To leave safe mode, restart your computer without pressing any keys during startup.

If you don't hear a startup chime after pressing the power key, see what to do if your Mac won't turn on.

If you're using FileVault
If your startup disk is encrypted with FileVault, you can still hold down the Shift key immediately after powering on your Mac to start up in safe mode. You might be prompted to log in twice as part of this process – first to unlock the startup disk, and a second time to log into the Finder. You can let go of the Shift key after you see the first login screen.

If an issue doesn't happen in safe mode

If an issue doesn't happen when your Mac is started in safe mode, try restarting again without pressing any keys at startup. If the issue appears to be resolved when you start up normally, it was possibly caused by a cache or a directory issue with your startup disk that safe mode fixed.

If you restart your Mac normally and an issue comes back when you reach your desktop, try disabling any login items that automatically open when you log in.
If your Mac restarts or shuts down in safe mode

If your Mac automatically restarts in safe mode, OS X might have found an issue that it's trying to fix.

Safe mode performs a directory check of your startup disk, similar to what happens when you choose to verify or repair a disk using Disk Utility. If OS X finds an issue, the directory on your startup disk is repaired and your Mac restarts.
If your Mac turns itself off when you start up in safe mode, check the power connection on your Mac to make sure it's plugged in securely at both your Mac and the power outlet. If you're using a MagSafe power adapter, make sure the LED on your power adapter is yellow or green. Then, try starting up in safe mode again.


Wine in OS X: Issues with paths that include spanish special characters I have installed Wine via MacPorts on OS X El Capitan so I have a standard wine setup. I am having the following issue:

My default language in OS X in English but I am Spanish therefore some of my folders and files have characters like "á,é,í,ó,ú,ñ,¿". For some reason Wine cannot display Spanish characters properly. For example, I have installed AIMP 4, and everything works perfectly except Wine cannot display Spanish characters in their names. See the images below for more information.

(First image shows how it should like, second image shows how wine encodes this path names.)

Does someone know how to fix this? I have already tried changing the path setting "LC_MESSAGES=es_ES.UTF-8 wine path_to_exe" but it does not change anything.

Thanks in advance.

There are many other locale variables besides LC_MESSAGES.
Try doing the same for LANG and also for LC_ALL.


What use for the thin, folded, two-side protector that was boxed with my iPhone XR? The iPhone XR that I recently bought from Apple came with a thin folded plastic protector that covers both sides. (In what follows I call this the Apple protector.)

I have also bought (again from Apple) a separate and (presumably) tougher screen protector, namely the Anti-Glare Screen Protection badged by Belkin; and I have bought a protective case made by Speck, the Presidio Grip, which is described as compatible with screen protectors.

Before I fit the case, should I fit the Belkin protector on top of the Apple protector, or the other way round? Or should I take the Apple protector off and keep it in the event that the Belkin protector gets damaged or mislaid in the future? Or perhaps the Apple protector no longer has a purpose and I should dispose of it?

Your "Apple Protector" is just a cheap piece of plastic made for disposal:
it's just there so you can remove it and view your new phone in its glory without fingerprints.
Apply the real (Belkin) protector immediately for protection.

Proof: the Apple Protector usually doesn't have openings for the earspeaker part.


How to prolong battery life I have recently brought my self a MacBook Pro (2015) battery life because I was getting 4 hours or less on my MacBook Air (2010) that had about 800-880 cycle counts. Because of the battery issue with my MacBook Air I would like to know how to extend the battery life.

Is there a way how I can make sure my battery lasts for more then 4 years while staying close to 10 hours?

Here are a few things that I know about looking after batteries:

Cycle counts (1 cycle count is 50% to 100% back to 50% etc.)
It is best to keep your battery between 20% and 80% (is it true?)

What I want to know more of:

More information on how cycle counts work (not sure if I fully understand them)
How to reduce number of cycle counts (less is better)
What is the battery life of an average use with 60% battery (between 20% and 80%) (need to last at least for 8+ hours without charging)
Any applications that prevents the computer being charged over 80% (if possible)
Any other tips for extending battery life

My end goal:

I want to have good battery life (~10 hours) all the time and at least 8 (or as much as possible) hours in four years time (or 800+ cycles [which ever comes first]).

Thanks for the help

Here is a place you can learn all about Batteries.

Battery University.

and from Apple here

To you question on 8+ hour, the new MacBook Air (2104 model) has that.

  The 11-inch MacBook Air lasts up to 9 hours between charges and the
  13-inch model lasts up to an incredible 12 hours.

The cycle count is only one of the indicator and can not be used as absolute measure of Battery status. You need to look at the Full Charged Capacity (in About This Mac- Power)to get total understanding of the battery status. That one indicates the capability of the battery to hold the charge indicating how many cells are not doing so well and not holding the charge.

With all that said, if you use the battery in the Apple prescribed manner, you can not prolog its life beyond the original design, or beyond the physics and chemistry involved. For example a battery will develop short circuits due to build up of Whiskers (growth of Li metal deposits) that short out portions of the cells during its life and there is not much you can do about that.


Ownership of the .config folder in home directory Who is supposed to be the owner of the .config directory under user's home folder?

On my machine it appears to be owned by the system user and it is only readable by that user.

Several programs, like Homebrew and git (which should be allowed to be used without root permissions) complain by producing warnings as shown below:

warning: unable to access '/Users/andrea/.config/git/attributes': Permission denied

Perhaps the ownership of my .config folder was changed in mistake? Who should be the owner?

And if system should be the owner, is it safe to make it readable and writable by other users?

The .config folder is supposed to be owned by the user. It appears that the ownership got changed to system by mistake on your machine.

To restore the default permission, execute the following command:

$ sudo chown -R <username> .config

When prompted for a password, enter your login password.

Substitute <username> with your username. To determine your username, execute the following command and observe the output.

$ whoami

Finally, to answer your queries:

  Who is supposed to be the owner of the .config directory under user's home folder?

The logged in user is supposed to be the owner of the .config directory.

  And if system should be the owner, is it safe to make it readable and writable by other users?

It is not recommended to do that, unless you have some specific reason to do so.


SIM unlocked Apple Watch gift If I am to purchase an Apple Watch in NYC to be used by a relative in Amsterdam, can I purchase a SIM unlocked watch and expect it to work with any of the carriers? If not, which carriers will support cellular Apple Watch.

As I understand it, the eSIM inside the watch is not removable and copies the SIM info from the iPhone.

can I purchase a SIM unlocked watch and expect it to work with any of the carriers?

No, you cannot expect it to work with just any carrier.

Apple Watch comes in different regional models that supports different frequency bands (this goes for both the Apple Watch 3 and Apple Watch 4). These models are for the Americas, China and Europa/Asia/Pacific.

Therefore you cannot expect the model used in North America to work in Europe.

In addition to that, you cannot expect it to work with any carrier even within the region. The carrier has to specifically support eSIM for Apple Watch. In the Netherlands none of the providers support eSIM, so you cannot buy a subscription for an Apple Watch there.

Combined with the fact that the Watch subscriptions generally do not support roaming in other countries - you cannot get an Apple Watch working with cell support in the Netherlands today.

  As I understand it, the eSIM inside the watch is not removable and copies the SIM info from the iPhone.

It is not removable in the sense that it is not a physical thing. It is just information stored in digital format.

It does not copy the SIM card inside the iPhone if that is what you mean, no. The eSIM is a separate SIM from the one in the iPhone. The process of setting it up however means that the information for the eSIM is retrieved from your provider on your iPhone and sent to the Apple Watch. It is not stored on the iPhone.


Accent menu gone in Mavericks? I'm unable to get the accent menu to show up when I hold down a key. Do I have to enable the long-press accent menu in Mavericks somehow manually?

Got it working by adding a second language in the Language & Region pref pane and rebooting.

Now the menu shows up.


Identify Required Frameworks for an app I'm trying to make a disk image as small as possible with a few apps on it.  I need to find out what framework packages each app uses so I can copy them onto the disk image in order for them to launch.  How do I find this information?

Using the console, I've noticed that some apps generate error messages with the Framework name, but others do not.

otool -L /path/to/yourapp.app/Contents/MacOS/yourapp

This returns a list of the frameworks that the app binary makes reference to. They are listed with the path to the framework which lets you find the binary for copying, or you can write a script to parse the output to do this for you.

Make sure you run this command on the app binary, not the bundle.

Framework paths beginning with ‘@rpath’, ‘@executable_path’ or ‘@loader_path’ are frameworks located within the app bundle, so as long as you're copying the app bundle you don't have to do anything special with these frameworks.


How to restrict changing desktop wallpaper? We have Macbook Airs running 10.8.1. These are exposed to students in a k-12 setting. I'd like to restrict their ability to change the wallpaper of the desktop.  Is there a setting to configure?

I didn't find any way to prevent changing the desktop picture, but you could just change it back to the default every few seconds.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC -//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST
1.0//EN http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd>
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.stackexchange.apple.65938</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>osascript</string>
        <string>-e</string>
        <string>tell application "Finder"
set f to POSIX file "/Library/Desktop Pictures/Galaxy.jpg"
if desktop picture is not file f then set desktop picture to f
end tell</string>
    </array>
    <key>StartInterval</key>
    <integer>10</integer>
</dict>
</plist>

Save the file above as /Library/LaunchAgents/com.stackexchange.apple.65938.plist, change the owner, and load the plist:

sudo chown root /Library/LaunchAgents/com.stackexchange.apple.65938.plist
sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchAgents/com.stackexchange.apple.65938.plist

The property list is loaded automatically when users log in.


Can I fix a scratched iPhone 5 rear camera lens? In a picture I took this afternoon with my iPhone 5 I noticed a purple line on the photo:

At first I thought it was a software issue so I rebooted the phone. Unfortunately, after a reboot the line was still there on new photographs.

Upon closer examination it appears that the rear lens of my iPhone 5 has somehow become scratched. Is there a way to fix this? Or do I need to just have the phone replaced?

Well i think you can do it

Lens - http://www.witrigs.com/replacement-camera-lens-for-iphone-5

Video on howto do it - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si0M3wak4Q0


Regaining efficiency on older iPad I still have the very first retina iPad. Purely from empirical comparison, I have the impression that it has gradually become slower. At this point it is sometimes irritatingly slow, even for trivial -open-google's-maps-app- actions.

Are there any reports that this is connected to the recent old-iPhone-slowdown issues? Are there any reports of how I can regain the use of this iPad as simply a web browser and simple apps platform?

If I understand, you have a third generation iPad, which has an A5X processor. This is a fairly old CPU, as it was released in early 2012, but it should still provide a decent experience for web browsing.

Note that the A5X is 32-bit, meaning it cannot run a lot of new apps or iOS releases that are deigned for 64-bit devices. The latest version of iOS you can run is iOS 9.3.5, so I would first suggest you update to that version to get the most secure and stable experience possible on that device.

To address the iPhone throttling, iMore says that this does not affect iPads.
According to iMore, Apple only stated that a handful of iPhone models (devices from the iPhone 6 to iPhone 7 Plus) will be throttled at all. iMore also points out that the larger batteries in iPads makes this less of an issue.

If your iPad seems to be slow, I would suggest you connect it to a Mac or Windows PC and use iTunes to backup and restore the device. This will ensure a clean and up to date installation of iOS. While this may help, your iPad is a bit old, and it may just not perform well on recent versions of iOS. If you're willing to upgrade, the 9.7" iPad is a great option for its price and performance.


Automatically stop a terminal script when locking MacBook Pro I have written a bash script that I manually start when logging in onto the laptop, but I want it to stop running when I lock my laptop.

This doesn't seem a very standard scenario, but I don't want to always manually stop the bash script when I go for a bathroom break and lock my MacBook.

You could modify your script with a while loop, that tests if you have locked the screen or not.

Here is a python approach, that checks for an active session.

And here is a way on implementing this python part into a bash script.

The answer in the first link also provides a Shell implementation, that could work for you too, but I was unsure, so I gave you another link.

Update :
Because I wanted to solve the problem, here is what I came up with:

#!/bin/bash
loop=$(python -c 'import sys,Quartz; d=Quartz.CGSessionCopyCurrentDictionary(); print d' | grep "CGSSessionScreenIsLocked = 1")
while [ "$loop" = "" ]; do
    echo "not locked"
    loop=$(python -c 'import sys,Quartz; d=Quartz.CGSessionCopyCurrentDictionary(); print d' | grep "CGSSessionScreenIsLocked = 1")
done
echo "locked"

However, If your script is one giant task, then the while loop won't help you.

In general, I think, it is rather difficult to trigger something on system lock. You probably need some helper application that watches the process and stops it when you lock the screen.

Taking this a step further : You could write a small programm/script that can check if your script is running and pause it, and when you are back at your desk and unlock the screen, it continues.


Hide External Drive icon on Mac Desktop On my desktop I have an external drive name 4TB_Drive.  On the same desktop I have a backup drive for the first one named 4TB_Drive_BU.  I'd like to hide the icon to prevent accidentally accessing and changing files there, having it still be accessible to my backup software

When I try and use the routine "chflags hidden" method, I get a "Permissions Denied" response.  All permissions for the drive are R/W.

Any suggestions?

You can hide all external disks from the desktop by opening Finder → Preferences → General and unchecking External disks. Then you can add aliases on the Desktop to the disks you do want shown.


iPhone "Other" storage still present after Erase All Content and Settings Was hoping I could restore it to factory settings and recover some space. I just finished an ‘Erase All Content and Settings’ on my iPhone 6s 16GB. I have not signed into anything, installed any updates, or installed a single app. I did not restore from any backup (iCloud or iTunes). iOS 11.4

This is the storage as is stands after the reset:

How can I clear/recover the 4GB of "Other" storage being used? Is there a "deeper" wipe than ‘Erase All Content and Settings’ available?

Update: The device has been removed from our MDM program, reset and the storage still remains consumed.

Update: 4 months later, it's gotten worse, the "other" usage has consumed over 10gb at this point. Just tried factory reset from itunes instead of the phone itself, did not free any up at all. Device not associated with the MDM program.

I understand you haven't installed a single app, but the list shows Self Service, the client side app to a mobile-device-management solution. This is not part of iOS and is a separately installed app. MDM lets the administrator place any files on your iPhone, so it is possible that the space is consumed by data provided through MDM. You can contact your administrator.


Why does the YouTube app know what I have watched on youtube.com in Safari The YouTube app seems to have access to Safari's cookies because if you watch a youtube video in Safari, the app knows it.

Is there a permissions setting to prevent this?

Is this not an alarming permissions leak?

Your YouTube history is affiliated with your Google account. This is the same affiliation that allows you to keep track of your liked videos and any playlists you may make and channels you subscribe to. Any browsers/apps which are logged into your Google account will have the same information about your view history.


OS X wants me to reset my password randomly I restarted from Windows (under Boot Camp) via Restart in OS X..., which I've done many times before. This time, my MacBook restarted and stayed black for a while. I eventually held the power button to reboot it.

It eventually came back up to a Reset Password recovery screen. I tried restarting and holding Option to select the Macintosh partition, but it always comes back to Reset Password.

I didn't forget my password. What's going on?

I found the answer here: Skip Reset Password for OS X

  OS X Yosemite has a troublesome password reset screen you can access by turning your computer off and back on from the login screen. However, once you do this, there is no way out. The "Reset Password" boot wizard offers no exit without reseting your password. If you restart your Mac, you will end up right back in the wizard.

The solution is a PRAM reset: Command-Option-P-R during bootup.


Automator PDF actions When using the Automator PDF action "PDF to images" any annotations made to a PDF using preview are not converted as part of the output images. The base images are there but the annotations are not rendered.

Any solutions on this?

I've just tested this with the following workflow, selecting the Legal Notices.pdf from Photoshop CC as my sample, and it worked fine, keeping all annotations on the PDF.

One thing to note that may be causing the problem is that the PDF is not saved. When adding annotations to a PDF, don't forget to save the PDF before running the workflow. If Preview states that the PDF has been edited, don't forget to save.


Terminal Speedtest Script MacOS I am looking for a Terminal Script for MacOS to monitor my bandwidth and ping etc. like this (linux) ->
https://gitgud.io/J0s3f/speedtest_cron/tree/master

I have the speedtest-cli installed via homebrew and I thought it must be possible to do a script that triggers a speed test every 10 minutes and repeats it for example 100 times. After it is finished, it puts the results in a .txt file.

I wanna do the same with a ping that executes e.g. 5 times every 10 Minutes and this for a couple of hours etc and get a results file too.

Background: I am having problems with my internet connection and the ISP call centre guy refusing to see a problem.

Background: I am having problems with my internet connection and the ISP call centre guy refusing to see a problem.

This is key to understanding your problem question.  What is the problem exactly that you’re are experiencing?  Going into detail here will help you (help us) come up with a solution that addresses your exact problem.
From your question, it seems that you are attempting to utilize (at least) two tools to determine what the issue is.  The problem is, neither tool is sufficient to get you accurate metrics to help you diagnose the perceived problem.
Ping
Ping measures how fast your network adapter responds to a request (a.k.a. Latency).   The problem with this is that you can have lightening fast latency (i.e. 10ms), but horrible bandwidth (56Kpbs) to transfer your files.
Where ping will come in handy is monitoring this latency over time assuming latency is the issue you're experiencing.
Bandwidth
You may have and pay for a high speed connection from your ISP, but what happens outside your ISP’s network could be the issue here.  See the post Improve file transfer performance over VPN for more details on this.  Basically, if the tech at your ISP is measuring data transfer rates from the ISP to your site it may be working fine (which is all the ISP is responsible for).
It’s entirely possible a server on a different network has a low bandwidth connection is creating the issues you are experiencing.


Copy iTunes playlists to external USB flash drive I have lots of playlists on my iTunes library, and I want to be able to copy the music of certain playlists to a flash drive to play on a stereo system. I have too many songs in too many folders to just copy the raw .mp3 files, so that option is out. Any other ideas?

Unless I miss something, you can just drag & drop the playlist to your USB drive.


Is it possible for me to use my iPhone4 microsim dataplan on an iPad2? I have the new iPad2 and am wondering if intead of buying a new microsim/connection from AT&T, I can just use the microsim from my iPhone4.

Please advise.
Thanks

No, not since 4.2 can you do this because the APN settings disappeared off the devices.

Though, there are videos on youtube and tutorials in other places that can walk you through adding the features back on to your device. Whether or not they still work or will work for you depending on your current iOS version installed on iPad is a different story.

A particular Video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUnPQ68DNO8

If you read the comments though, it doesn't work for everyone, and some people it did work for had issues with their sim cards after about a week of use, with AT&T disabling them.

Other people on here might tell you to jailbreak your device and enable tethering but that is your choice.  Jailbreaking isn't for everyone.

A website here talks about making a wifi hotspot with your iPhone the legal or jailbroken way and talks about the pros and cons of each:

http://www.gadgetreview.com/2011/09/how-to-turn-your-iphone-into-a-wifi-hotspot.html

I hope that this answer helps you out.


Three computers one Apple ID I have three Macs and one Apple ID.  If I remove a folder or individual photos from Photos on one computer, will it disappear on the others?  What's the best way to  manage this so each computer can be used independently?

If you delete a photo from iCloud Photo Library, it prompts you whether you're OK with the picture being deleted from all of your devices.

The best way is to each person to have their own Apple ID. If all the three macs are your personal machines, disconnect two of them from iCloud Photo Library and switch on Photo Stream, that way the two machines will get the new photos and you can delete the ones you don't need.


Find last location of iPad, not connected to Wi-Fi and off How do I find last location my iPad was used?  It’s not connect to WiFi  & is off obviously.     I just need to know if I just put it in weird place in my house or it’s actaully gone. Sick of looking:-((

The last location the device was online and connected to the internet may have been sent and recorded in Find My iPhone if that feature was enabled on the iPad.

Visit iCloud and log in with the Apple ID you use on your iPad. Then, go to find my iPhone. Here you will be able to see the last location the device was connected. If it does not have cellular this will only show the last place the device had a WiFi signal.


How to tweak boot time by disabling apple kexts (including cryptography related ones)? Initially, I am running OSX Mountain Lion on a mid 2010 6,2 MBP.

I wanted to enhance my boot time a little, maybe by disabling some official apple kexts. Has anyone played with that, knowing which ones would be harmless to remove from startup? For instance, I was considering removing "com.apple.kec.corecrypto" because in my case it seems responsible for some many seconds of boot time. I do not have any encryption configured in the SO level, can anyone say if there will be any problem on "removing" that kext from boot?

Well, furthermore, mostly out of curiosity, what does it mean to run the kernel space in FIPS mode? I know it has something to do with security/privacy and all of that, but what is it exactly? I thought that there may be another possibility of improvement (regarding only boot time, of course). I ask this because my console and startup on debug mode always have something saying "Running kernel space in FIPS mode". I stumbled on this kb which says something about the use of the FIPS Cryptographic module. If I have to install other stuff in order to administer it, why do I run the kernel in FIPS mode without doing anything much? Is this the default/only behavior? Please note that I have no knowledge about these topics, and hence I may be completely wrong on my train of thought, but those things got me curious.

Thanks for the attention.

If your corporation needs to comply with certain security standards you may have to use a FIPS 140 validated cryptographic module. If that is the case your company is likely to have an officer set aside to help you with that. (This will depend on the country you're located in.)

Removing any Apple supplied .kext modules will at best cause nothing or broken functionality in applications or at worst render your system unbootable. You certainly will not gain any improved boot times from removing any kext since these are loaded from a cached file anyway.

More info on Validated FIPS 140-1 and FIPS 140-2 Cryptographic Modules.

You don't specify how long your system's startup time is, but from my personal experience my MacBook Pro (6,1) takes less than 20s after entering the FileVault password to decrypt my boot partition. (SSD) Also I only reboot when I installed an update forcing me to do so which rarely happens so I personally consider boot times an absolute non-issue.

If your boot times are really way off the charts you cause is much more likely a damaged filesystem or dying hard drive/SSD than a problem with your kext cache.


Why does my iphone weirdly autocorrect any in-app text field when I type out my email with '@@@'? This is bizarre but it's been plaguing me for over a year now. Whenever there is an in-app text-field and I type in my email address, the iphone autocorrects my email to '@@@'. It appears as a suggestion/hint but I rarely can dismiss it without it actually replacing the email I had just typed with @@@. This started about 18 months ago. It's driving me batty. It only does it with my email address and only seems to do it in apps - I have noticed it happening in netflix as well as the many Ionic apps I have developed. How do I fix and why does it do that?

I would check your setting app first.

General > Keyboard > Text Replacement

Using @@ to expand to your primary email and using @@@ for a secondary and so on is common practice. Perhaps you set that up, but in reverse. I believe I heard that from a podcast or some blog post a while back but cannot recall. I have adopted that shortcut and it’s super handy.

Here is a blog crediting Rene Ritchie and the author, Patrick Welker, for the general awareness and specific use case of multiple @ to represent emails respectively.

http://rocketink.net/2014/09/ios-@@-shortcut.html
http://m.imore.com/how-to-setup-text-keyboard-shortcuts-iphone-ipad-ios

Yours turning the actual mail into a shortcut, not so much useful.


Opening pdfs on firefox in a new tab Using Firefox 86.0 on Big Sur 11.2 and I am trying to find out how to immediately open pdfs in a new tab on firefox when I am given the option to download them. This option was available as the first option on my previous windows computer under "Open with firefox" which automatically opens the pdf in a new tab.

However now all I get is this and even when I navigate to "other.." and select Firefox, a new Firefox window is launched instead of a tab.

Any fixes for this?

Open Firefox preferences (⌘+,) and select appropriat(e) choice(s) under 'Tab'. Functionality you are looking for is 'Open links in tabs instead of new windows' (but others may or may not be helpful as well). If this is selected clicking on link to pdf file will open it in a new tab:


Is it true that if I let Google Photos store all photos, then I can back up to iCloud with minimal storage? Is it true that on the iPhone, most things that really need to be backed up, except photos and videos, are the phone contacts, Notes, calendar, and data that may not even need 100MB?

So if I let Google Photos store all my photos and videos with unlimited storage and "good quality", then I can let one or multiple iPhones / iPads back up to iCloud with the 5GB free plan?

What may the settings be to choose which to back up to iCloud? For example, for emails, those don't really need to be backed up because they are on the email server anyway?

There are 4 questions here.

How can one answer 1st one without going to opinions? If you don't feel that those notes etc., are important, better to save bandwidth and space.

2nd also depends on how much is your rest of the backup. One can also have no documents, huge media collection or vice-versa. I am running 5 GB and I put less urgent/ important photos on Google Photos. iCloud is used for documents also but they're more or less distributed over accounts.

3rd: It's up to you to decide. You can test and verify which settings work best for you. If something piles up, decide whether you really want it synced or not.

4th: I doubt that all emails(in non-Apple accounts) are backed up by iCloud. Only iCloud emails count against iCloud Drive quota.


My Mac account is completely blocked I recently had some problem with my account that I use on a regular basis.

After logging in, my Mac blocks completely showing the spinning color wheel everywhere I click to open something. Finally I need to restart my mac, because I'm not able to do anything. Now, the strange thing is that this does not happen when I log in into another account on my mac, then is everything working fine.

Anyone that knows how an issue like this?

My mac is on Mac OS X Mavericks and is a Macbook Pro Mid-2010.

You could try to login in without starting login items and opening finder windows. You can do this by holding down the SHIFT key after you type your username and password at the login screen.

This will probably only solve simple problems with your login. More details are available here: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH14215


Xcode 8.2.1 with macOS Sierra Server I updated to Sierra and my Xcode server has stopped working. I'm trying to set Xcode 8.2.1 (8C1002) as the build version and all I get is

  This version of Xcode is not supported

I'm working on Swift 2.3 and can't yet update to Xcode 8.3.

At the moment it looks like my option is to downgrade to El Capitan.

Is there any other way to get Xcode 8.2.1 working on Sierra Server?

Its looks like the El Capitan -> Sierra upgrade process was the culprit.

Deleting the server.app and reinstalling from the App Store seems to have worked.


Is there a way to watch Netflix instantly on an iBook G4 (powerpc) I have an old iBook G4 running 10.4.11 and I want to be able to watch Netflix instantly. The problem is that Netflix only supports intel based macs. I'm curious to know if anyone has found a work around for this problem.

I have followed this tutorial to install silverlight 2 on a ppc, and that was a success. However, Netflix still doesn't allow me to stream movies. I'm trying with both Firefox and Safari. Any help is greatly appreciated!

Unfortunately, the answer is no.

According to Neflix, the minimum requirements are:

An Intel-based Mac with OS 10.4.11 or later
Safari 3 or higher; or Firefox 3 or higher &
1 GB RAM


Where does OS X get defaults from in Guest User Web access Parental Controls? I did not put these here, I don't know where they came from. WHOIS by IP seems to indicate they are from Amsterdam? (149.154.175.50 copy-pastable for anyone who wants to check)

Using online tools it appears that as of this date/time that is a hard coded IP address from the app called Telegram or Telegram Messenger.

Why it's hard coded into the app as IP address doesn't make sense, but it seems to be where it is coming from.


Mac Book Pro - View movie while keyboard disabled? I have a toddler that wants to push all the keys while watching a video or movie. Can I disable the keyboard while he is watching it? OR Is there a hard snap on cover that can go over the keyboard and trac pad?

You can try KeyboardCleanTool (download in upper right). I just searched everywhere and it seems to be the only tool for Mac that does this exact thing for free and is still available. I just did a quick test and it seems to work like a charm.


Apple Script "Syntax Error" What is wrong with this piece of Apple Script, It gives the error:

Syntax Error
Expected end of line, etc. but found application constant or consideration.

repeat while true
    set t to (time of (current date))
    if (t > 30000) and (t < 30600) then
        tell application "Safari"
            activate
            delay 1
            tell application "System Events" to keystroke "1" using command down
            delay 1
            tell application "System Events" to key code 48 using {option,control,shift} down
            repeat 100 times
                tell application "System Events" to key code 48 using shift down
                delay 0.5
            end repeat
            tell application "System Events" to key code 48
            delay 1
            tell application "System Events" to key code 48
            delay 1
            tell application "System Events" to keystroke "String"
            delay 1
            tell application "System Events" to key code 36
        end tell
    end if
    delay 300
end repeat

using {option,control,shift} down doesn't work; use using {option down, control down, shift down} instead.
BTW, I should probably describe how I found this problem, since it's a very general and useful troubleshooting technique. I don't know AppleScript syntax well enough to spot this as a problem, but I do know how to isolate a problem: by removing parts of the code (or replacing them with placeholders if necessary), and seeing if the problem goes away. By seeing which bits of code remove the problem, I can isolate where the specific problem is.
This technique is the basis of the "divide and conquer" method described here for creating a minimal, reproducible example of a problem before posting it here. This is an extremely useful process to go through before posting, both because it'll reduce the amount of irrelevant stuff people here have to look through to find the problem, and also because there's a good chance you'll spot the problem yourself once it's isolated out.
In this case, I used the opposite technique: rather than trying to remove everything except the problem, I tried to remove only the problem. That is, I removed sections of code, and if the problem remained I put that section back and tried removing something else instead. But if removing a section did remove the problem, I'd put it back and then try removing just a smaller piece of it.
So, the first thing I did was remove most of the contents of the tell application "Safari" ... end tell section (leaving just activate, so it wouldn't complain about an empty section), hit the Compile button, and got no error. So I put it back (Command-Z to undo), and removed just the repeat 100 times ... end repeat section. Compile, still get the error. Ok, put that back... and there's one other line that looks different from most of the others. So I removed the line with {option,control,shift}, Compiled, error gone!
So at that point I knew where the error was coming from, and it was just a matter of trying variations on the syntax until I found one that worked.


Will Catalina stream movies (etc) to a 3rd Generation Apple TV box? I have one of the older, 3rd generation Apple TV boxes, (the sort that came with a clicky remote, not a swipey one). I regularly use it to watch movies and TV shows served up by a Mac currently running High Sierra (I think… might be Mojave), via iTunes with home sharing.

Given that iTunes is a thing of the past in Catalina, will this set up still work if I upgrade the Mac to MacOS 10.15?

If I'm correct, programs like quicktime player, Apple TV and more, offer airplay in the app itself. I know your movies(if bought on itunes), moved to the Apple tv app on your macbook. If you start playing, see the airplay button on the bottom left corner!


Using external microphone in Bootcamp I have an implemented microphone in my headphones (earbuds), Microphone doesn't work at all..

After searching for sometime i found out its a known problem, Bootcamp doesn't recognize external microhphones

I tried this microphone on OS X using same laptop ( and it works perfectly )
I'm using Macbook Air 2013

However i solved it by using Parallels Desktop 9 as an alternative virtual machine than bootcamp and it works good, But thats not the solution I'm looking for, I want to get this external mic to work in bootcamp windows 7

The short answer is sorry, but there seem to be no driver to support the external input in the headset. My solution that works is to get a cheap USB to headset audio adapter that support the 4 pin 3,5mm jack of the headsets. Here is one that works, but you can surely find others in your local market:

https://www.wentronic.com/de-en/index/artikel/USB-2-0-sound-card-audio-adapter-headset-adapter-96291


How do I use a Saved Search as a Desktop Background Folder? I want to use my movie library's Posters and Artwork as a cycling background. The problem is movie managers place each movie in a folder, and then a subfolder for artwork (jpgs). And choosing a Folder for Backgrounds is not recursive.

In Finder I ran a search for ‘type:image’ then saved that as "Movies.savedSearch".

Then in the Desktop & Screen Saver preference pane, I tried to add that folder, but it won't drag-n-drop, and if I hit the + to select the folder, it is greyed out / not accessible.

Any idea how to get this to work?

This isn't possible. Smart folders are saved as .savedSearch and aren't real folders, so you can't add them to lists requiring folders.


How do i get the low battery warning back on my MacBook? I have a MacBook and I did not take care of the battery properly. It started to shut down unexpectedly at around 20% and then even at 30%. I got a new battery and it seems to work fine; it lets me get down to 6%. The only problem is that even with the new battery, a warning does not pop up telling me that it is time to plug in my computer. I was waiting for it to come up when my computer was at 6%, and instead it just died. I don't know if I need to change some kind of setting or what. Any ideas on how to fix this?

I had reset SMC several times and changed my battery once. Unfortunately, my MacBook did not show low battery warning anymore. Then I found
SlimBatteryMonitor, it works for me. You can customize the percentage of battery (if drops below x%) to show the warning panel too.


iMessages sent by me to one friend only go to their MacBook not their iPhone iMessages sent from me to my friends, but not others, only go to their MacBook, not their iPhone. However, my friend receives iMessages from others to both MacBook and iPhone. Is the problem at my end or at the other end?

Check that the address or number you are sending to is listed on your friend's iPhone as a receiving address. Your friend can do this in the Settings app > Messages > Send & Receive > "you can be reached at"