Is repeatedly reading a drive harmful? I have an external hard drive that was making an odd sound, and I wanted it to stop. I found out that navigating the contents of the HD in the Finder would make it stop temporarily. I set up a shell geeklet that ran ls /Volumes/ExtraStorage and that fixed the problem.

My question is if this can harm the hard drive if I use it over an extended period of time.

This is likely a hard drive power management and sleep issue rather than an issue with the drive. When unused for a few minutes, the drive goes to sleep, possibly making a noise while parking the heads for safety. Your script accessing it in shorter intervals prevents it from going to sleep. You can confirm if this is the issue by observing how long it takes to access something on the drive after it makes the sound (and goes to sleep). If it seems slower than usual, it's because of waking up from sleep.

Firstly, you should confirm if OS X is making the drive sleep and/or if the drive's firmware is the culprit:

Disable your script.
Go to System Preferences > Energy Saver and see if Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible is enabled. If it is, disable it and observe the behavior of the drive.
If the OS X configuration doesn't help, check the drive's make and model and see how you can disable sleep from the manufacturer's support site.

On one hand, disabling the sleep behavior would increase the amount of power consumed (even if it seems insignificant). On the other hand, if you would be using the drive somewhat often while leaving it connected permanently, it may be a good idea to just having it running and avoid the lag of a sleep/wake cycle.


How to unlock 5th generation iPod Nano My daughter was playing with her 5th gen iPod Nano and somehow locked it.  Now whenever the screen comes on there is a picture of a padlock.  I have read that you can connect it to the "original" computer that the iPod was set up on, but it was so long ago I'm not even sure that computer is around any more.   In any case, it says this is only necessary if you have forgotten the unlock code.

Update:  After fiddling with it for too long, I discovered that if you hit the round circle in middle, it pops up a four digit code for you to enter.  But I have never entered a code, my daughter claims she didn't either, I don't know what computer it was originally set up with, and to add insult to injury, I don't even know where the cable went that connected to this thing.

The first trick was to remember where I put the cable, which is apparently called the "Apple 30-pin cable".

Having the original Mac or iTunes was not necessary.  I plugged the iPod in to a Linux device (although this should also work from any Mac with a Terminal window).  I located where the device was mounted (let's say it was /Volumes/iPod) and then ran the following command in a terminal:

rm /Volumes/iPod/iPod_Control/Device/_locked

I then ejected the device and it was unlocked!


Mac Pro stuck on white loading screen I have Mac Pro which is running 10.8.5
After I turn on the Mac, I can see the regular apple logo, but after it's disappear, I see white screen (whiter than before) and a loading wheel for a few seconds, and it's disappear for 3-4 seconds and come back again.
And It's continue like that forever.
I suspect that start to happen after tried to attach my second monitor to my graphics card at the mini display port.

Things that I've tried so far:
Safe Boot - can't reach to it.
Reset PRAM - same results.
Running fsck –fy at single-user mode - same results.
Repair Disk - same results.
Repair Permissions - not clickable.
Reinstall Mac OS X - I get an error message "this item is temporarily unavailable"

Is there anything left for me to do?
I really hope that I won't have to reinstall everything from scratch, because I have a lot of stuff that I need on my SSD (the one which is running the OS X).

How did you repair your disk? I did it through command line and it helped. This topic might help.


How to disable Command-Control-Power shortcut? I frequently use Command-Option-Power shortcut to send my Macbook to sleep (especially since closing the lid when I have external monitor doesn't trigger sleep).

Unfortunately, this shortcut is very similar to Command-Control-Power which invokes cold reset of my Mac. I quite often accidentally press Command-Control-Power instead of Command-Option-Power.

My question would be: is there a way to disable Command-Control-Power completely (i.e. just use long power button press when I want to do cold reset)?

Not easily. The keys trigger the SMC directly as far as I can discern, so you'd need to rewrite the firmware to make this change.

You can test this by powering off your Mac (or waiting until you next mistakenly command this) and hold the option key. While it's in the boot manager, only firmware is running and that key combination is effective.

I'm also not aware of any OS X modification that would allow this, but asking people that make and use Karabiner might yield either another opinion or confirmation that my estimate of the difficulty is correct.


iCloud folders visible in Finder but not in 'file upload' dialog in Safari, how to enable this? MacOS 10.14.6 (Mojave) / Safari 14.0.3
In Finder I can see the following section and folders in the sidebar:
iCloud

iCloud drive
Documents
Desktop

However, if I open safari, go to a site where I can upload a file and look at the pop up/finder-style window, that whole 'iCloud' sidebar section is missing (but all the other folders e.g. local HD, NAS etc are visible)

How can I upload iCloud files from Safari 14 on macOS 10.14 ?

One way is to move "iCloud Drive" from "iCloud" section to "Favourites" in Finder and Safari uploader will display that.


Visualizing Data on a Mac? (MySQL db is source) I'm having difficulty finding a promising OS X app for connecting to and visualizing data which resides in a MySQL database; it seems like there are various options for Windows, but not so much for Apple?

I'm hoping however that there are some gems that I just haven't discovered yet

I would like to be able to publish these charts to the web; I have heard of people using Excel for this, but I don't own Excel for Mac and I'm not sure if the same abilities are present in the Mac version of it

OpenOffice and derivatives like LibreOffice and NeoOffice can connect to a MySQL DB using ODBC; and, once the connection is established, the spreadsheet component can use it as a data source.


Can I edit/create a PDF's Table of Contents with freeware? I have a PDF with a number of parts. I would like to create a Table of Contents to navigate the PDF with ease. I would like to do on a Mac this with freeware. (A command-line program would be great.)

Is that possible? Similar questions have been asked before, but as far as I can tell, the best answer given has been PDFOutliner, which is not freeware.

I found PDFtk Server and Coherent PDF Command Line Tools have a wide range of PDF command line utilities.

I've used both tools on and off, but never needed to do any TOC work. The Bookmarks section in Coherent's Usage Examples Page looks like it may be an approach to experiment with:

6. Bookmarks

cpdf -list-bookmarks in.pdf

List the bookmarks in in.pdf. This would produce:

0 "Part 1" 1 open
1 "Part 1A" 2
2 "Part 1B" 3
0 "Part 2" 4
1 "Part 2a" 5

cpdf -add-bookmarks bookmarks.txt in.pdf -o out.pdf

Add bookmarks in the same form from a prepared file bookmarks.txt to in.pdf, writing to out.pdf.


Send Wired Keyboard Keystrokes Through Bluetooth I'm looking for a way send keystrokes from a wired keyboard through bluetooth, preferably with an OS X application. I want to be able to type things on my iPad using this keyboard so I can quickly switch back and forth between it and my computer. Is there an OS X app that can do this?

Note that I'm running OS X 10.10.3 on a 2010 iMac.

Type2Phone - $9.99

Any keystrokes you type while Type2Phone is focused will be sent over Bluetooth. You can Command+Tab to and from it as well.


iCal Google Sync -- how to get rid of folders (delegates)? I've got my calendars in Google, but when I sync them with iCal I get all these ugly folders. How can I clean this up?

Since late 2012, you can add additional calendars to your main CalDAV account by going to https://www.google.com/calendar/syncselect. After you have done this, you can uncheck the delegate calendars in the iCal settings.


Wineskin app font problem I'm running a vocabulary app and I've a problem with fonts as you can see from the screenshot

On another macbook it works fine, on this one it has this issue, I've no idea on what it could be

I've solved it by going into package contents and used the wineskin app with winetricks to install allfonts and upgraded bundled wine version


Stopping com.mysql.mysqld from launching over and over and over agin System messages are showing repeated
Dec 25 14:42:02 ROLANDs-MacBook-Pro com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.mysql.mysqld): Service only ran for 0 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 10 seconds.

every one of two seconds. I think this is being started by com.oracle.oss.mysql.mysqld.
Using 'sudo launchctl remove' on both of these doesn't seem to work as after a restart they're both back, so there must be something else happening (Murphy Corollary: before you can do anything, there's something else you have to do first).
I have MySQL mysql-5.7.25-macos10.14-x86_64 loaded on the my Macbook Pro and in System Preferences it's being started on bootup.
How do I fix this issue ... I'd like to upgrade, but don't want to take this problem forward with the upgrade.
Thanks!
Roland

The script gets reloaded at boot because of RunAtLoad flag set to true in its plist.
Try unloading the script with following command, so it doesn't get picked up again.
sudo launchctl unload -w </path/to/com.mysql.mysql.plist>

I don't have MySQL installed, so I can't tell exact location of the plist. Generally, it should be in /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.mysql.mysql.plist.
If not, look into following locations also and replace path in command:

~/Library/LaunchAgents
/Library/LaunchAgents
/System/Library/LaunchAgents
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons


iPhone always thinks headset is plugged in My iPhone 3G is growing old -- yesterday I noticed that it didn't make any sounds anymore, and phone calls also muted (I heard nothing, other party didn't hear me either). It turns out that the phone erroneously thinks that a headset is plugged in. I noticed because the volume control popup shows "headset."

When I actually plug my headset in, everything works as expected. But unplugging the headset doesn't register on the phone; it stays in headset mode.

It seems that there's a small hardware switch that notices the plug, and this switch has failed.

Can I somehow clean the switch? Perhaps it's not broken, just dirty.
Can I take the phone apart myself (warranty is long gone), or should I have it repaired?

Looking at iFixit, it seems I would have to completely dismantle the phone to get to the jack (direct link). I'm not sure that's feasible for the layman, with any hope of it working again afterwards?

I realize that the phone's value is less than any repair would cost, so it's a matter of whether I can fix this myself, or need to spend €€€ on a replacement phone.

In most current audio ports on Apple products, the audio jack contains a small switch which senses when a jack has been inserted.  It is likely your phone's switch has some debris that has disconnected the circuit, something that I've observed on multiple occasions with multiple users devices.  I myself am constantly getting pocket lint in the various ports of my phone.  Someday it will probably result in the same issue you're having.

You need to somehow get the sensor working again, or work around it.  Try using canned air (from your local electronics or office supply store) to blow out the port.

Since the audio jack is soldered to the phone's motherboard, if this is a deal-breaker for you, you might have to replace it.


AppStore formatting is broken My Macbook, Version 10.9.5 Build 13F1077, AppStore is somehow broken. It's like the formatting of it is broken. See attached image. Any idea's about what happened or how to troubleshoot or fix?

As a follow up to inquiries from @d-w @thomas-jones, yes, I am seeing bad formatting on some other Apple web pages. For example:

Try opening Terminal and entering the following command to enable the App Store Debug menu:

  defaults write com.apple.appstore ShowDebugMenu -bool YES

Then, quit the App Store (if it was already open), and relaunch it. You should see a new menu after the Help menu labeled Debug. Open it and select Reset Application.

If that doesn't solve your problem, you might need to flush the DNS cache, the commands are listed below.

Yosemite:
sudo discoveryutil mdnsflushcache

Lion, Mountain Lion and Mavericks: sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder

Snow Leopard: sudo dscacheutil -flushcache

(to remove the debug menu from the App Store, enter the same command above used to enable it, and change the end from YES to NO.)


How to screen record using AppleScript on Catalina? So I've been using a script before I updated to Catalina that worked fine for screen recording. It's based on another user's SE question, but ever since the update, it looks like there is a new step.

Basically, you tell "QuickTime Player" to start (new screen recording).

But instead of a screen recording starting, it just opens a new menu which lets you select some settings, or click the screen to record using the last used settings.

I've tried using System Events to click to screen, even after a 1s delay, but it's not working.

Anyone know how to either:
1) Bypass the new menu and just start recording right away
2) Start recording once the menu has popped up (System Events doesn't detect window 1, so I'm not even sure how to navigate the UI)
3) Click the screen/UI using System Events

* Update to question *

I've edited my AppleScript code since user3439894 wrote a response. It seems to work for what I've asked. The only problem now is that I'm not sure how to save to file to a specific path. Below, I've added some code snippets of what I currently have since making edits (it just saves the screen recording to the Desktop based on the date for the time. Below that, I have my original code which saves it on the Desktop as test.mov.

My code now, after edits

1) Starting recording

tell application "QuickTime Player" to activate
tell application "QuickTime Player" to start (new screen recording)
tell application "System Events" to tell process "Screen Shot"
  repeat until exists its front window
    delay 0.1
  end repeat
  if not (exists button "Record" of its front window) then
    click checkbox "Record Entire Screen" of its front window
  end if
  click button "Record" of its front window
end tell

2) end recording

tell application "System Events" to click menu bar item 1 of menu bar 1 of application process "screencaptureui"

My Code Before Edits

3) Old way I used to start my recording before Catalina for screen recording (still works for webcam (aka Movie) recording)

tell application "QuickTime Player" to activate
tell application "QuickTime Player" to start (new screen recording)

4) Old way I used to stop and save my screen recording that doesn't work in Catalina

set filePath to "Users:mini:Desktop:test.mov"
set f to a reference to file filePath
tell application "QuickTime Player"
  pause document "screen recording"
  save document "screen recording" in f using settings preset "1080p"
  stop document "screen recording"
  close document "screen recording"
end tell

Without seeing your AppleScript code, all I can say is that for me, as an example, on macOS High Sierra doing a screen recording requires different coding then on macOS Catalina, as the latter no longer actually uses QuickTime Player to do the actual screen recording.

This may also hold true for macOS Mojave, however, the following example AppleScript code was only tested under macOS Catalina:

--  # Setup to do a screen recording.

tell application "QuickTime Player" to new screen recording

--  # Start the screen recording.

tell application "System Events" to tell process "Screen Shot"
    repeat until exists button "Record" of its front window
        delay 0.1
    end repeat
    click button "Record" of its front window
end tell

--  # Set the time in seconds you want the recording to be.

delay 2

--  # Stop the recording.

tell application "System Events" to ¬
    click menu bar item 1 ¬
        of menu bar 1 ¬
        of application process "screencaptureui"

At this point, by default, when the screen recording is stopped, it is saved to the Desktop as e.g. Screen Recording 2019-11-01 at 3.38.00 PM.mov on my system and opened in QuickTime Player.

Additional coding can be included to do whatever else one would like to do with the screen recording (within the limits of the target app and AppleScript).

That all said, since macOS Catalina is actually using a different application to do the actual screen recording and not QuickTime Player, one could skip the use of QuickTime Player and create the screen recording using the following example AppleScript code, which uses the system default keyboard shortcut ⇧⌘5:

--  # Setup to do a screen recording.

tell application "System Events" to keystroke "%" using {shift down, command down}

--  # Start the screen recording.

tell application "System Events" to tell process "Screen Shot"
    repeat until exists its front window
        delay 0.1
    end repeat
    if not (exists button "Record" of its front window) then
        click checkbox "Record Entire Screen" of its front window
    end if
    click button "Record" of its front window
end tell

--  # Set the time in seconds you want the recording to be.

delay 2

--  # Stop the recording.

tell application "System Events" to ¬
    click menu bar item 1 ¬
        of menu bar 1 ¬
        of application process "screencaptureui"

Note the use of % instead of 5 in keystroke "%" as the shift key is pressed and I'm on a US English keyboard.
The usual caveats, regarding System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy, apply.

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


Keyboard shortcut to switch between applications in Mission Control Does Apple have keyboard shortcuts to switch between applications in Mission Control? (Instead of hovering over with the cursor)?

e.g., which key combination cal I press to get me from "preview" to "app store?"

There is no keyboard shortcut to switch between applications within Mission Control.

In System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Mission Control you can see all of the built in keyboard shortcuts available:

Mission Control
Show Notification Center
Turn Do Not Disturb On/Off
Application Windows
Show Desktop
Show Dashboard
Mission Control

Move left a space
Move right a space
Switch to Desktop n

None of which allow you to move between applications in a space.

Mission Control is designed to be used with a mouse or trackpad. If you only use the keyboard, don't activate Mission Control, instead use command + tab to switch between apps.


How do I compile Apple's Security framework? I am trying to compile my own copy of Apple's Security.framework, specifically version 55471.14.18, which was included in OS X 10.9.5 and whose source code can be downloaded from https://opensource.apple.com/tarballs/Security/Security-55471.14.18.tar.gz.
I'm using a copy of Mac OS X 10.9.5 in a VM. Xcode 6.2 has been installed, and xcode-select --install has separately been run to acquire system headers.

The readme file included in the source download says:

To build this project in a Darwin environment (as opposed to building
in-house at Apple), use the Darwin buildstyle. If you're building with
Xcode, select "Darwin" from the "Active Build Style" popup. If you're
building from the command line, specify the build style like so:
% xcodebuild -buildstyle Darwin install

But when I run the given command, I'm told:
xcodebuild: error: option '-buildstyle' is no longer supported
Since my copy of Xcode was current at the time this code was released, I'm not sure what to make of this error. I decided to ignore it and press on with just a standard xcodebuild command.

The first problem I ran into was easy to fix, but makes me worried I'm missing something larger. The compiler complains:
/Users/Jonathan/Desktop/Security-55471.14.18/libsecurity_utilities/lib/macho++.cpp:39:18: error:
unused variable 'MAX_ARCH_COUNT' [-Werror,-Wunused-const-variable]
static const int MAX_ARCH_COUNT = 100;

Since the variable is reportedly unused anyway, I just opened the file and commented out the line static const int MAX_ARCH_COUNT = 100;.

Unfortunately, this is where I ran into a brick wall. Xcodebuild seems to want all sorts of headers that are not on my system or included in the project. For instance:
/Users/Jonathan/Desktop/Security-55471.14.18/libsecurity_utilities/lib/mach++.cpp:33:10: fatal error:
      'bootstrap_priv.h' file not found
#include <bootstrap_priv.h>

These headers are also open source, and I know where to find them! Bootstrap_priv.h, for example, is part of launchd; the OS X 10.9.5 version can be downloaded from https://opensource.apple.com/tarballs/launchd/launchd-842.92.1.tar.gz
However, I do not understand where I'm supposed to put these headers in order for the compiler to find them! Things I've tried:

Copying the launchd project to /usr/include/
Copying the launchd project to the root of the security project
Copying just Bootstrap_priv.h to /usr/include/
Copying just bootstrap_priv.h to the root of the security project
Copying just bootstrap_priv.h to the project directory/libsecurity_utilities/lib/

That last attempt actually did let me get past the error (and to see the next missing header, IOPMLibPrivate.h), but I'm quite sure it's not what I'm supposed to do! As I keep adding headers to random places within the project, other source files get stuck finding headers I've already copied elsewhere. Some of the headers themselves get stuck this way, expecting a different relative path for dependencies than what the main project seems to need.

I am feeling extremely out of my depth here! Where are these header files actually supposed to go, and what is the meaning of that -buildstyle option I'm supposed to include but which can't be run? None of this appears to be documented anywhere!

This ended up being a lot more complicated than I think rightly fits this site's Q&A format. Even so, I didn't want to leave this question hanging, since I did get the framework to build, kindda.
This repository should build fully in 10.9.5 running the latest compatible version of xCode, and using the 10.9 SDK. https://github.com/Wowfunhappy/Wowfunhappy-Mavericks-Security-Framework
I used the "User Framework Search Paths" to add libraries, but because it's an absolute rather than a relative path, you may need to update it on your machine. This should be trivial even if it is a bit tedious—all of the actual frameworks are included in the Git repository. These Frameworks come from a combination of opensource.apple.com (preferred wherever available for obvious reasons), samdmarshall's reverse-engineered private SDK, and the Darling project.
The built Framework does not appear to actually function—replacing it on my hard drive makes the computer (a VM, thankfully) unable to boot. I initially expected this to be a code signing issue, but it doesn't look like that's the problem. But, still, it built!
tl;dr I wasn't making some stupid oversight, Apple's opensource releases are basically impossible to actually build without additional reverse engineering. Luckily, that reverse engineering work has largely been done by various projects, but seemingly not to the point where you can build something that actually works.


Boot from USB iBook G4 Power PC I recently got an old iBook G4 (as many of you might have noticed with all of my recent questions :D) and I wanted to install Ubuntu via USB (the iso doesn't fit on a CD and the iBook doesn't read DVDs, I've tried).

So I went a-searching the internet for ways to do this.

I started off trying to boot from the USB stick via holding down option after the chime, but that just listed the Macintosh HD. So I went on searching and came across this: http://ben-collins.blogspot.com/2010/08/booting-your-ibook-g4-from-usb-stick.html and tried it multiple times, but all failed (I believe the iBook wasn't recognizing the USB stick, as nothing came up when I ran dev usb0 and then ls.)

I then read this question: How do I make my 1.5 GHz PowerBook G4 boot from a USB stick?, but that didn't work, even when I swapped out the suffix \\yaboot for \\tdxi. Sadly, nothing is working!

Does anyone know of any workarounds or something I can do to get this working?

I know this old, but I just solved this problem, and I had found this question while searching for an answer.

In my case, 2005 iBook wouldn't recognise the 10.5 install DVD. I imaged the DVD to an 8GB usb stick in Disk Utility. I did format the USB stick as Apple Partition Map first in case that makes a difference.

It wouldn't boot from the USB when holding down option or C though I could get a menu.

I booted to open firmware by booting with command+option+O+F
then I ran the following command:
boot usb0/disk@1:3,\\:tbxi

It booted into the installer and everything worked as expected.


How to fix Catalina install failing with "Some APFS cryptographic state information was unexpectedly unavailable. : (-69461)"? When I tried installing Catalina on a MacBook Pro 15" from 2019, I got a screen saying

  macOS could not be installed on your computer.

  Some APFS cryptographic state information was unexpectedly unavailable. : (-69461)
  Quit the installer to restart your computer and try again.

Retrying didn't fix it. Any ideas?

These instructions fixed it for me: https://www.reddit.com/r/OSXBeta/comments/ddh2mj/question_osx_catalina_install_issue/f2y22co/?context=1

Though I didn't boot into recovery mode. I just opened a Terminal when logged in as usual.

First I did:

diskutil apfs list

This showed a list of all volumes, and reported an error code (I don't remember which one exactly) next to the volume described as "VM" (which seems to be the "virtual memory paging partition").

In my case, this volume was "disk1s4" but it may be different for you. I'll call it "disk1s4_changeme" below to remind you to change it to whatever it's called on your machine.

Then I ran:

diskutil apfs eraseVolume disk1s4_changeme -name VM

My understanding is that you don't risk losing any of your own data by erasing the VM partition (your data lives on another partition), but as always it's best to have backups just in case.

Then I ran

diskutil apfs list

again to check that the VM no longer reports the error code, and to verify that it's still "disk1s4".

Then

diskutil apfs chrole disk1s4_changeme V

to restore the "this is the VM volume" flag. The "V" must be uppercase! Lowercase is to remove flags.

Then

diskutil apfs list

again to make sure it's flagged as a VM. You should expect to see something like

APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s4 (VM)

That's it – I didn't restart my computer or anything.

I just started the Catalina installer, let it do its thing, and it succeeded. Godspeed!


Macbook (2,1) boots into blue screen and hangs Last night, I shut down my computer. When I turned it back on, I just got the rEFIt logo (I have rEFIt installed). Usually, it takes a moment to populate the menu with a list of bootable devices, but this time it just hung there.

I had an Arch Linux Live DVD in the optical drive, too, and I can't make it eject or boot into Arch Linux. The optical drive whines when the macbook is powered on, but it doesn't keep spinning. This optical drive is old-ish (original to the 2007 macbook) and refused to burn CDs starting a month ago, so I've been expecting it to go any day.

Pressing down any of the boot keys (D, O, option, Command-Option-O-F, C) would just get me that blue screen you get when you're normally booting, but hung there. Target Mode and Single-User Mode don't work, either.

The hard drive is original to the machine, too, but I don't think the hard drive dying would interfere with the boot process. I would think I would be able to boot to the DVD if that were the case, too.

I asked this question on AskMetafilter last night. One of the things recommended was to reset the PRAM (boot with Command-Option-P-R) and the SMC (turn the computer off, take out the battery, and hold down the power button). That worked but didn't fix my problem. Now, I don't get the rEFIt menu, just that blue screen. Holding down any of the boot keys still doesn't get me anywhere.

What happened? How do I fix it?

If I remember correctly, holding down the button on the trackpad while booting will force-eject your optical drive. Have you tried that?


Capturing USB HID keys in OSX, for keyboard? I'm trying to find an application that allows me to understand which USB HID codes are being sent when pressing keys on my iMac keyboard?  Is anyone aware of how to do this?

I was going to ask on the Apple Developer forum, however believe you must pay $99 to join it.

Your guidance appreciated.

Key Codes by Many Tricks

https://manytricks.com/keycodes/

  Key Codes is a little utility that displays the key code, unicode value, and modifier keys state for any key combination you press. If you're a developer, this might be useful to you.


Good kit for repairing iPhones? Can someone recommend a good kit for repairing iPhone 4s and 5s?

We have a whole fleet of iPhones here and they often need to be repaired.  If they are beyond EOL or we aren't getting a warrenty on them, I'd like to be able to get as much life out of them as I can.

If you look on ifixit.com  for their iPhone tear downs.

The not only show you how to do each iPhone but also list the tools they use.

iPhone 4S

iPhone 5

iPhone 4

For example: iPhone 5

iPhone 5-Point Pentalobe P2 Screwdriver,
Tweezers,
Phillips #00 Screwdriver,
Small Suction Cup,
Spudger


Is there an App for determining the current capacity of an Apple watch battery? I see from Mactracker that a new battery has a capacity of 205 mAh (38mm Apple Watch Series 1). For the MBP and iPhones I have used coconutBattery to show the decay in battery capacity over the lifetimes. Is there a similar tool for the watch?

No - neither is there a public API for apps to do this on any iOS device. Clearly there are private API (heres one version for iOS / not watchOS) and occasionally someone slips an app by review knowing full well that's against the rules - but they generally get pulled quickly or fail to work / crash.

Is there an iPhone app (as opposed to desktop software) that shows actual battery cycles - cycles number


Language Input Selection Dialog shortcut I am using Catalina 10.15.3, and I am struggling to find the small dialog that is shown when switching between languages. That dialog showed all the input languages that I selected. Sometimes, I use apps in full screen and when I change the input language with shortcut I will need to reach the topbar with mouse so that I can see what language is being selected.

I am looking for that input language change dialog.

P.S. I am not sure about the word 'dialog'. It is a just a small window just pops in the middle of the screen and disappears in a couple of seconds.

Welcome to Ask Different.

You could enable/set keyboard shortcuts for changing input sources. Go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts settings, and in the left pane select Input sources. Then just enable the two command shortcuts for changing input sources. I've attached an image of what the settings looks like below. You can enable and/or change the shortcut to your liking.

When I use the shortcut, the input sources dialog box shows as long as you hold down the shortcut keys (see image below).

I'm doing all of this on macOS Mojave, but I think this works in Catalina too. Hope this helps!


Import old OneNote .one files into OneNote for Mac I have some old OneNote files (with .one) extension from those long ago years when I still suffered from Windows.

Additionally I have some current template files with .one extensions.

I no longer have (or want) access to a Windows machine with or without OneNote.

Does any means exist for me to import such files into my new OneNote for Mac?

That post is a little out of date:

I used the previous version of OneNote for the mac that actually allowed you to open files locally. Now Microsoft will only let you open files on OneNote for the Mac if it is on Microsoft OneDrive (grrr....)

I tried exporting a section as a .one file and saving it on my OneDrive and OneNote for the Mac would not see the file. So it seems that it won't open .one files and that you would have to open those files on a PC, export them to a OneNote package file and then put them on your OneDrive.

Perhaps you can find a copy of the older version for the Mac, otherwise it looks like you are out of luck.


Xcode completion menu not completing on enter, I have to use mouse/touchpad cursor and click there... Xcode completion menu not completing on enter, I have to use mouse/touchpad cursor and click there, so its quite annoying. How can I just autocomplete by keyboard ? Is this some miss-configuration of keybindings ? I never used Xcode editor so I am not sure if this is not standard behavior... Coming from App-code so I am used to do everything by keyboard but most of keybindings I had to re-configure...

This is weird and seems to be a bug in your installation somehow, i.e. it's certainly not how Xcode is supposed to work.

The standard shortcut to open the code completion menu (which seems to work for you, I'm just being thorough here) is Alt+Esc. For some reason simply pressing Esc also works (at least for me, has always been that way and I always used the default settings in Xcode).

Stepping through the suggestions has, according to the settings, the shortcuts Ctrl+. (that's a full stop) and Ctrl+→, but using the arrow keys also works for me (and always has), in spite of not being defined in the settings.

Selecting/confirming an entry doesn't even have a shortcut per se, because it's less an Xcode and more of a standard selection mechanism for any similar kind of list under macOS I guess. It doesn't even show up in the settings as far as I can see it. For me (and everybody else I have ever worked with) it's done as you expect as well: Pressing Return or Enter (both work).

This unfortunately only answers half of your question: As said, the behavior you see is not the standard (or to be expected at all).

I'd suggest to take a look at the "Key Bindings" section of the Preferences ("Xcode - Preferences..." menu), though I assume you already did that. It can list conflicts for you. Other than that you also might want to take a look at the general input settings (" - System Preferences... - Keyboard"). You can also define various keyboard shortcuts there, maybe that's causing some kind of conflict.


Credits in spotlight.app At /System/Library/CoreServices/Spotlight.app/Contents/Resources/en.lproj There is a fake called "Credits.rtf" only containing some random text.

Is it an easter egg or something malicious?

p.s it's also in the other xx.iproj folders.

That's the default text inside the same Credits.rtf file when creating a new OS X Application in Xcode.

I assume Apple didn't bother changing it since they figured no one would bother looking.


Moutain Lion - New line character in notification Do we have any newline character that we can insert in Mountain Lion's Notification Center. I try to append \n but it doesn't work.

What I am trying to do here is to write a plugin for alfred. And I use echo 'test\nnewline' but it doesn't work. I intend to write this before but it may confuses people with alfred so I didn't write it down :)

It's not clear how you are trying to display the notifications, but this works for me:

terminal-notifier -message $'a\nb'

-title $'a\nb' is not displayed on multiple lines though (even if you replace \n with NEXT LINE (NEL)).


Sync iPhone/iPad with iTunes after library rebuild Short Version

I rebuilt my iTunes library and now when I try to sync my iPad and my wife's iPhone, iTunes wants to erase and resync.

I want to know if there's a way to save the stuff added to these devices since last sync.

Longer Version

Earlier today, I added some mp3s to my iTunes library. I could tell that iTunes had moved them to the iTunes music directory, but when I searched for them in iTunes they couldn't be found.

Guessing that iTunes needed to be reindexed, I rebuilt the iTunes library by following instructions from Apple.

Tonight when I plugged in my iPad to sync app updates, iTunes informs me that this iPad is synced to another iTunes library... which, technically, it was.

I'm given two choices -- transfer purchases to this computer or erase and resync.

I'm leaning towards erase and resync. I know that I have some eBooks (not from iBook store) that I added since my last sync which I think I'll need to add again.

My wife's iPhone also syncs to this computer and is a bigger problem. Since her last sync, we took a trip to Disney World and she has a bunch of photos that we don't want to lose. (We could email/upload those)

Is there a better solution that I'm missing?

In researching solutions, I found this discussion at apple.com in which somebody suggests "damaging" the iTunes library. This lead to a very useful post which discusses how iTunes uses the data it has to recreate what it doesn't have and gives instructions on how to damage (without deleting) the file -- spoiler: erase the data, leave the file.

Fortunately, I had backed up the iTunes files before I recreated the iTunes library.

I copied my backed up files back into the iTunes directory and launched iTunes and rebuilt what it needed to. There were no apps listed in the Apps display though.

When I connected my iPad, iTunes didn't complain about this being an unknown device. As it started to sync, it prompted my to transfer purchases (i.e. the apps on my iPad which didn't show in iTunes) -- but with no hint of having to erase anything. The sync took longer than normal, but everything is there and I can even find the songs which were originally hidden.

iPad is fine, will sync my wife's iPhone tonight.


Forcing VPN on demand to "on" When we install an iOS configuration profile for Cisco IPSec "VPN on Demand" (using certificate based machine authentication), a switch appears in the Settings > VPN Settings page: "Connect On Demand ON/OFF".

We don't want to give our employees the option to turn off VPN on Demand.  Is there a way to force VPN on Demand to "ON" all the time for MDM (mobile device management) deployed configurations?

Or alternatively, is there any other way to force user traffic to a proxy under our control?

Rumour has it that iOS 6 will include Global HTTP Proxy settings.  Will enterprise IT admins be able to force this setting to "ON" all the time?

As of iOS 11 there's still no ability to disable the on/off switch for VPN Connect on Demand, even in Supervised mode. The built-in IKEv2 VPN has an Always On setting, but that's not going to apply the Cisco or other 3rd-party VPNs.


Does Apple still make iMovie HD available to iLife users? When Apple "upgraded" iMovie back in 2008 from its previous version to the completely rewritten program with a star-shaped icon, they kept the previous version available for download.

Currently, I can't find the older version of iMovie on Apple's site. My question is either a) is there still a legal way to get iMovie HD or b) when did it cease to be available?

No. Apple has removed it from the download section of their site as of about January 26, 2009. See: http://www.macrumors.com/2009/01/27/imovie-hd-6-no-longer-available-for-download/

The direct download link in that article now returns a 404 error.


iMessage Message not found My daughters iPhone (iOS 6) has been getting text messages from Unknown. There is no way to block this message. The content of the message is Message not found.

My carrier is AT&T. Is this a bot or an issue with AT&T? Is there a way to prevent these messages?

A posting on the Apple Support Communities suggests:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4356067?start=15&tstart=0

  "You must contact your cellular service provider. This is not an Apple issue, that causes this. The reason, that the phone just started doing this: when you power cycle your phone, it clears the system cache files. Your network has text alerts, from your basic Voicemail, where someone used a service, called "Cut-Through Paging". CTP allows a person to leave a text message, with their callback number, instead of a voicemail. Visual Voicemail smartphones can not utilize the feature. Your provider may have to delete your old voicemail box, and then re-add a new basic Voicemail feature, to correct the problem. You will have to pwr cycle the phone, after the chane and setup a new VM box. CTP was designed to be used, with basic and messaging phones, that do not utilize Visual Voicemail."

But please note, this is from 2014.

Two questions to ask yourself would be:

Does this happen when you restart the phone?

Does this happen when using or accessing voicemail?

Assemble as many details as you can about the event, including what may have triggered it. The same link above also has a comment indicating this happens on Windows Phones, too. It may be a carrier issue. I would recommend recontacting your carrier and ask them if the above scenario is plausible.


How to create an OSX Application to wrap a call to a shell script? My goal is to include in a zip file what amounts to a shortcut, instead of telling my customer(s) to open up Terminal and run a shell script.

My deployable essentially looks like this:

$ unzip Deliverable.zip
$ cd Deliverable; ls
app.jar run.sh

Script in run.sh:

#!/bin/sh
java -jar app.jar

There's a lot more in the directory; suffice to say I need to run the script from the directory Deliverable since I need to access paths relative to it.  However, I can't guarantee where a customer is going to open Deliverable.zip (could be home directory, could be right in the Downloads directory, etc.)

I found this that describes how to create a new workflow in Automator, then save it as an application to launch a shell script.  I tried to do that to wrap run.sh but it says it can't find run.sh.

Somebody suggested I use applescript and also sent me a link to how to use applescript to switch into the current directory; there's an applescript "action" in automator; so I made a new workflow with that, and saved it as an application.  This is what that looks like:

The code:

on run {input, parameters}
    tell application "Finder"
        set current_path to container of (path to me) as alias
    end tell

    do shell script "java -jar app.jar"

    return input
end run

And this is the error I get when I run it:

C'mon, this should be pretty simple.  What I am doing wrong here?

I can see a couple of things wrong there.

Firstly you have opened a workflow and not an Application.

You should choose Application when you make your selection for the type of Automator file.

And the code you have will not work as you expect, since you have not changed directory. (cd).

In the code as you have it, all it is doing is getting the path as an alias and storing it in the variable  current_path and in a format unsuitable for the unix commands.

But you do not use it.

So the current directory will most likely be your home folder

At this stage there is no telling what it is trying to launch.

If I run it as you have it I get.

Which makes sense since I do not have Java installed. But if I did I would not expect it to find the right file.

The Applescript need to look like this.

on run {input, parameters}
    tell application "Finder"
        set current_path to container of (path to me) as alias
    end tell

    do shell script "cd " & quoted form of (POSIX path of current_path) & " ;ls | open -fe"

    return input
end run

In my example

do shell script "cd " & quoted form of (POSIX path of current_path) & " ;/bin/ls | /usr/bin/open -fe"

I cd to the POSIX path of the alias in the  variable  current_path

i.e from "alias "Macintosh HD:Applications:""   to  "/Applications/"

The quoted form of  escapes the path using quotes.

I have used the /bin/ls command and pipe it to the open in TextEdit stdin as a demonstration here so that you can test to see if you are getting to the area you expect.

You would use something like;

do shell script "cd " & quoted form of (POSIX path of current_path) & " ;\"java -jar app.jar\""

update:

A another way is just use pure Applescript.

on run {input, parameters}
    tell application "Finder"
        set current_path to container of (path to me)

        set theFile to (current_path) as alias

        open file "java -jar app.jar" of theFile
    end tell

end run


Chances of getting my harddrive recovered I accidentally placed a magnetic mount antenna near my hard drive while my computer was running.

It then made horrible noises, and stopped working, and everything froze.

Now, every time I start my system up, it makes the noise, and does not recognise any hard drive what so ever.

I am going to take it into the apple store, I have apple care, but what do you think the chances are of me being able to recover files from the drive? Do you think stuff got smashed around in there when it did that?

You are likely doomed.  The store gurus will go over data recovery options and explain they don't fix damaged drives, they are simply going to ask about the status of your backup and whether you want them to test the operation and see if it needs to be exchanged under warranty / AppleCare.

Some things to try on dead and near dead drives include putting them on their end or sides rather than having them oriented flat - this is because the read/write heads that sit between the actual disc platters may respond better then they are held vertically by gravity rather than horizontally by their precision engineering which sounds like it;s been compromised.  Give it a go, see if it sounds any better (assuming you are not using an iMac where they are are already mounted this way).

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.


Weird restriction keeping me from updating to Mavericks? I have tried to install Mavericks on my MacBook Pro 10.7.5 laptop. It has some software that was added by well-meaning enterprise IT people.

Here's what I see after downloading and attempting to install Mavericks:

I would like to force this update to happen, but I can't figure out how to make it happen. I should add that I do have root access. Any suggestions appreciated!

Edit

As pointed out in the comments, this error message is almost certainly not from Apple. I agree with this, as when I first encountered this error message upon trying to install the Mavericks upgrade I copied the text verbatim into Google and found nothing.

So the question, now, is can I, as a user with root access, force an installation of Mavericks? It seems in principle that it should be possible. However, I have no foggy idea how to make it happen.

The message shown in the screenshot is almost certainly not an Apple official message for two reasons: they never refer to the Mac App Store as the 'Apple App Store' and the icon/text layout isn't correct per any other OS X message I've seen.

The most likely cause of the restriction is the JAMF MDM software installed on your Mac (based on the log from your last question).

Therefore, the software that is preventing Mavericks install can't prevent it if you're not booted into that OS. You should be able to create an install media using DiskMakerX. Then, boot into this install media and install Mavericks that way.


Some applications have grey menu bar When running (for example) a java application (Minecraft) in it's own space (in Mavericks) the menu bar disappears, but then a grey bar appears on top of the space.

Is there anyway to fix this? It happens in Eclipse as well. Immediately after giving it its own space it's fine, but after the screen saver or sleep mode (I am unsure what set of events causes the problem in Eclipse) it shows up.

Not entirely sure but Mavericks introduced a menu bar on all screens. It may be that these programs are not aware of this feature. EG they need an update for this to be fixed. Check the forums for this manufacturer.


Should I partition an external drive before or after using Time Machine? If I partition my external drive into two parts, I'd like to be able to remove the partition at a later time in case I decide Time Machine should take up the whole disk.

Similarly, if I'm using Time Machine right after taking the external drive out of the box, I'd like to be able to partition the drive at a later time with the TM backup data still intact.

Which of the above two actually work?

What I have done with my 1TB external backup drive is to add one additional APFS volume with a reserve size of 400GB that I name "Files" so that I can use the same external drive for both Time Machine and general file storage.
Here are the steps that I used with a new, empty Samsung T5 1TB SSD:

Connect the Samsung T5 drive to the Mac and open Disk Utility.
Right-click the Samsung T5 drive in the left-hand pane and select "Erase".
In the Erase dialog, set Name to "TimeMachine", set Scheme to "Guid Partition Map" and Format to "APFS".

Right-click the TimeMachine volume that was created above and select "Add APFS Volume".
Name the new volume "Files" and click the "Size Options" button.
Set the Reserve Size to 400GB (or however much you’d like to reserve) and click OK.

Once you have done this, you can open the Time Machine utility and select the "TimeMachine" volume as a backup disk, and still have a separate "Files" volume that you can use for general file storage using typical utilities such as Finder.
These steps don't necessarily have to be done before configuring Time Machine to use the external drive. I was able to add an additional APFS volume to a drive that only has one volume that had already been set up for use with Time Machine by right-clicking the existing volume in Disk Utility and adding a new one.


Use another AppleID in iOS 7.1.2 AppStore? I use iOS 7.1.2 on my iPhone 4 and I would like to change my AppleID for the AppStore. In "Preferences > iTunes & AppStore", I already logged in with my new AppleID, and when relaunching Preferences, I am still logged in with my new AppleID.

But when trying to update an App from AppStore, I am supposed to type in the password for the old AppleID.
I cannot find anything in AppStore to change the AppleID directly.

Is there anything I forgot to do?

You need to update the app using the Apple ID it was installed with.

For example, say if I install app A with Apple ID B, then sign out and in using Apple ID C, to update app A I need to use Apple ID B.

The most optimal solution to this is re-installing the app on the new Apple ID after saving snaps backing up any data.

From the comments:

  Note that this may require paying for apps and in-app purchases again. You can avoid this in some (but not all) cases by setting up family sharing between the two Apple IDs.


Chrome cant show image when using cellular data. but working fine when using wifi i try to open my website where there is some function to get current location and show the image of my location.

but its only working when im using wifi data and when im using cellular data the image got blank.

any suggest why this happen??
its problem from my iphone or from my website??

If other images work on your iPhone on cellular, the problem most probably is on your web site.


Does an iPhone require the users password after being reset via the "search my iPhone" utility? I wanted to sell my old broken iPhone but was reluctant because of the data stored on it. I couldn't reset it because it wouldn't power on. So the buyer said I could just reset it via the utility so it would reset itself once it went online. I did that but now the guy (who repaired it) says I would need to enter my password corresponding to my Apple ID one more time in order for him to use the phone after the reset. Is it true or is he trying to scam me?

It is a feature called activation lock
Click for more info
I would suggest changing your Apple ID password to something simple then after about 5 minutes change it back


OpenGL acceleration with Intel HD 3000 1 - Original issue

I own a Macbook Pro 15" from Early 2011, which suffers from the well-known-but-denied-by-Apple GPU problem.
TL;DR: the AMD Radeon HD 6XX0M is dead and the Macbook can't boot, or can boot but with huge graphic glitches on screen.

2 - Workaround

There is a workaround to this problem, which consists to disable the AMD GPU and only use the Intel HD 3000 chipset. The main way to do this is to use a software like gfxCardStatus.

However, since my Macbook wasn't booting (stuck on blue screen after Apple logo), I managed to disable my AMD Radeon HD 6490M by entering single-user mode and deleting the following files from /System/Library/Extensions/:

AMDRadeonAccelerator.kext
AMDRadeonVADriver.bundle
AMDRadeonX3000GLDriver.bundle
AMDRadeonX4000GLDriver.bundle
ATI2400Controller.kext
ATI2600Controller.kext
ATI3800Controller.kext
ATI4600Controller.kext
ATI4800Controller.kext
ATI5000Controller.kext
ATI6000Controller.kext
ATI7000Controller.kext
ATIFramebuffer.kext
ATIRadeonX2000.kext
ATIRadeonX2000GA.plugin
ATIRadeonX2000GLDriver.bundle
ATIRadeonX2000VADriver.bundle
ATISupport.kext

3 - Remaining problems

But, as I said, this is just a workaround to get OS X to boot. I now have 2 main issues:

I can't plug an external screen on the Thunderbolt port
I can't play any avi or mkv video

I know there isn't any solution for the first issue, since the Intel HD 3000 is not even physically linked to the Thunderbolt port.

However, I am looking for a solution to the second issue. The Intel HD 3000 chipset may not be a killer GPU, but I am sure it can handle a simple video, and even 1080p videos.
When I open a video file in VLC, I get the following error:

  OpenGL acceleration is not supported on your Mac
  Your Mac lacks Quartz Extreme acceleration, which is required for video output. It will still work, but much slower and with possibly unexpected results.

And in the logs:

  vout_macosx error: no OpenGL hardware acceleration found. this can lead to slow output and unexpected results

I think Mac OS X is trying to get OpenGL acceleration thanks to the AMD GPU. And since the GPU is supposed to work properly, it never tries to get the adequate features from the Intel HD 3000 chipset.

So, is there any way to get more from this chipset?

I'm having the same issue with GPU on my MBP 2011 and was using the same solution as yours (plus additionally disabled AppleIntelHD3000Graphics.kext). Saving money for motherboard replacement (or the new Haswell MBP whatever)…

I'm able to play most of videos with Miro player.

Although, I'm starting to have difficulties with my eyes since it's not possible to control monitor brightness anymore…


Where can I find the APFS format documentation / volume specification? One of my favorite Mac apps, DiskWarrior, has been waiting for the APFS format documentation (also called the APFS volume specification) for a while, in order to make a new program version which can rebuild APFS disks. Recently, according their page linked above, this documentation was released and Alsoft is using it to update DiskWarrior. I would like to look at this documentation myself, as I find it interesting. However, I can't find the documentation anywhere. Do I need a certain Apple subscription to see this documentation or am I simply failing at googling for it? I've found a few documents like this, but I don't think that's what I'm looking for, since that document is not as comprehensive as what I would expect from a full volume format specification.

I think Alsoft's use of the phrase APFS format documentation is just that - a phrase they've used rather than referencing an official title.

The Apple File System Reference is almost certainly what they're referring to. This reference was publicly released on 17 September 2018, and Alsoft made that statement on 4 October 2018.

Prior to the Apple File System Reference, there was no consolidated documentation from Apple regarding APFS - at least not to this level of detail. In fact, the most comprehensive documentation until this was released was actually the result of private academic work in the computer forensics field.

As for Apple itself, we've had the following documentation:

Apple File System Guide - retired in June 2018
About Apple File System - first published in June 2018, but updated in October 2018 to replace references to HFS+ with HFS Plus instead
File System Programming Guide - last updated in April 2018

However, the Apple File System Reference was last updated in February 2019.


Is there a shell script to send notifications on mail events? I've never written an apple script before so I am wondering if there's a way to write a script that continuously (maybe at intervals of 10 minutes) checks my inbox and sends a notification on my mac if there's a new email in inbox (microsoft exchange). (That being said, I also don't mind a python script, anything that gives this functionality is welcome)

Is there a shell of this so I could start on what's hopefully an easy scripting problem?

Web mail isn't going to be a basic scripting topic, so since you're new you'll need to have a mail client set up.

Assuming that's the case, heres a script that checks for new mail by comparing dates of latest messages. It checks every 10min and will send a notification if there's new mail.

Open Script Editor
Copy and Paste the script
Go to File>Export
File Format = Application
Make sure Stay open after after script handler is checked
Open the application

tell application "Mail"
set new1 to date received of (first message of inbox)
repeat
    check for new mail
    delay 5 --wait until all new messages are in the box
    set new2 to date received of (first message of inbox)
    if new2 is not equal to new1 then
        display notification "You've got Mail." with title "New Mail"
    end if

    ## For the AOL Effect ##

    # do shell script "say \"You've got mail\""
    set new1 to new2
    delay 600 -- 10 min in seconds
end repeat
end tell


MacBook Pro screen has died. Wanting to use secondary display? The display on my MacBook Pro has recently died so I have been using the hdmi adapter to display the screen on my lg tv, which has been fine for a few day apart from the resolution not being ideal. Trying to fix this I un-ticked the Mirror Display option, making my tv a secondary display. Now I have no way of changing this back as all the options are on the primary display on my MacBook which has a dead screen!

Is there any way to restore it back to the mirrored image. Or a way of using the secondary display as a primary? I'm really stuck here and would appreciate any help.

The easiest way would be to set the screens to be mirrored again. There is a simple shortcut for this: Cmd+F1 (or Fn+Cmd+F1).

From there, you can open System Prefrences, go to the Arrangement-tab and un-mirror them if you need to, and set the external screen to be the main on (by dragging the white top-strip of the "screen" to the other screen).

Another, maybe better approach, is to use the keyboard shortcut Option⌥+F2, which will directly open System Prefrences to the Displays-board, which will show up on both screens with the option to Gather Windows.


Speed of Ram via serial Number Is it possible to tell the speed of R.A.M of a Mac Mini by the serial number, and if so where would one do that? I need to know whether or not a Mac Mini is specifically Pc3-8500 through the serial number alone.

You can get any Mac's product manual from

https://support.apple.com/manuals/C02PRT1XGCN3

Just add your serial number instead of the sample one I provided.


kernelmanagerd using 50% of the cpu constantly After upgrading to macOS Big Sur my MacBook Pro 2017 constantly heats up even when it not in use which was not the case before upgrading. I have A MacBook Air which do not have this problem.
When compared kernelmanagerd process is constantly using 50% of the CPU in my MacBook Pro in MacBook Air its almost 0%. I have uninstalled all third-party kernel extensions still the problem exists.
Is there any way to find which extension is using the CPU?

I found the cause of the problem, it is Karabiner-Elements.
Funny thing was I have installed Karabiner-Elements in my mac when it ran macOS High Sierra but I immediately uninstalled (I was trying something with it) but some residue was left behind.
Today when exploring the activity monitor, I noticed some karabiner process was there, so i installed the latest version of Karabiner. Instantly i noticed kernelmanagerd CPU usage became 0.0.
Then I uninstalled Karabiner as in this document
Now my MacBook Pro is normal.


Microsoft Office 2011 right-to-left (Arabic) doesn't work I'm facing a problem with Office 2011 for MAC, for example, when you open WORD 2011, and key in some Arabic letters, each word will appear as discrete letters not connected as one single word as it should be !!
Arabic language pack is installed on the machine and works perfectly with many other apps and browsers.
what should be done to get rid of this annoying problem ?
thanx in advance.

If you want type RTL in Mac OS X I suggest you NeoOffice (it's not 100% like MS Word but it can done most of MS Word Job) or you can use OpenOffice and iWork.

If you want use MS Word 2011 (not earlier version) you can use some trick to solve your problem. make one document in RTL language in Windows MS Word (in your case you must use Arabic) then bring it to mac and open the document and delete the text and save the document as a MS Word Template (your desired name), then each time you need to write text open your template in MS Word 2011 (when you want open the document you have ability to open the desire template).

But you must consider that this solution is not bug free, if you want use RTL and LTR at the same time you will encounter some bugs.


Expanding OSX partition and deleting Windows paritition I have created a Windows partition with Bootcamp. Now I would like to get rid of this partition and attach the available space back to the primary Mac OS partition.

I have found various tutorials around the net, but most of them seem to be outdated. I am wondering what would be the correct procedure for Snow Leopard?

Simply open Boot Camp Assistant again and it will ask you if you want to restore the drive to one partition. Therefore deleting the boot camp partition.


MacBook Air syncing with my iTunes on my iPhone I plugged my iPhone into my MacBook thinking that all my iTunes music on my iPhone would magically sync onto my new MacBook Air... unfortunately not, there is only one song in my iTunes library on my MacBook & my iPhone has some purchased songs unable to be played now. I'm unable to click on devices because it's greyed out. How do I get the music on my iPhone onto my new computer & my purchased material back?

You can not just drag and drop music from an iPhone when connected to the computer, though there are software for that. I would suggest, Download a software such as iPod access, which can help you extract the songs directly from the iPhone.


GarageBand drums and verse What is the best way to add drums after I played my guitar and also what is the best effect for a verse in GarageBand

Thank you

A guitarist needs to learn to follow a drummer so you'd be better off choosing your drum pattern and then playing along to that. Select a very simple beat at first. Not sure what you mean by "what is the best effect for a verse in GarageBand"


What is Safari Safe Browsing Data and why does it need to copy every time I sync my iDevice? Whenever syncing iDevices to iTunes, I always see "Safari Safe Browsing Data" being copied. This naturally sounds alarming. Is Apple tracking my browsing history‽

What exactly is it, and why does it need to copy every time?

Google Safe Browsing Data Syncs to iOS Devices Via iTunes explains what it is:

  This database, provided by Google, is used by mobile Safari to check for known malicious web sites. To check if this is activated on your iOS device, go to Settings > Safari, then look for the Fraud Warning slider. If it’s not set to “On,” do so; it’s a good way to protect your device and yourself from known malicious websites.


How to switch user quickly, on Mojave? There are two users enabled and used at the same time.
Usually I need to click via mouse the username in the top bar, choose the username2, type in the password.

Am wondering if there's a quicker way.

Like a quick-action callable from the TouchBar; that would benefit also from the close fingerprint sensor over there.
Or maybe simply using a shortcut, that I didn't find yet in the System Preferences.

Any ideas or insights?

On Mojave it is simpler than I thought.

Clicking the power/fingerprint button will quickly bring the login screen out, with the other user already chosen, ready for the password to be inputed.

After the login it will be possible to switch with just fingerprint-click + fingerprint (for authentication).

That's pretty convenient!

Note: I am not sure if that was active also before, or if the alternative user is chosen based on what are the most active/logged users (because, in my case, the proposed user for login is not the only other user present on the system).


How do I downgrade my Photos library? I just downgraded my MacBook Pro from macOS 11 Big Sur to macOS 10.15 Catalina. While on macOS 11 I opened the Photos app which altered my photo library. Now on 10.15, the Photos app cannot open my library because it was changed by a newer version and tells me to update the app.

How do I get my photos back? Installing macOS Big Sur isn't an option, though I can install it on an external drive if needed.

You cannot downgrade a photo library, since downgrading overall is unsupported. Your files are not lost, however, since the Photos library is a bundle that still contains your originals. You have the following options:

If you use iCloud Photo Library, create a new Library and configure it with iCloud. It will pull down your photos.

If you have access to a machine with Big Sur you have two routes:

Configure that machine with your iCloud and set up iCloud Photo Library. The photos can be uploaded, then your Catalina machine can download them.
If you don't want to set up iCloud Photo Library, use that machine instead to export the files. Reimport them to a new library on this machine. Verify the process with a small batch to ensure quality.

If you cannot do either of these and must be on Catalina, you must open up the photo library and extract the originals manually. If you locate the library in Finder (Usually located in the Pictures folder) and right click it, click Show Package Contents. There is an originals folder that contains all your unmodified images. You should be able to import this folder.

These options are listed in order of best to worst. Only use approach 3 if none of the other approaches are viable. Even if you don't have a second laptop, considering installing Big Sur on a second volume (here are instructions for the beta, but they apply for the regular release as well) and using that to upload to iCloud Photo Library or Export.


Almost all audio-related functions are failing (iPhone 7) When placing calls, I can’t hear the other person and they can’t hear me. The calls go through and can be answered but neither side can be heard. If I try and use voice memos, I can’t even begin recording. Any app that makes calls such as FaceTime or Facebook messenger fails if I try and call or answer a call. If I try and restart my phone, it gets stuck on the Apple that comes up when turning on for hours at a time. I’ve tried resetting, and updating and neither option has fixed the issue, just led to more hours stuck on the “Apple screen”. Apart from the audio and reboot issue, all other functions of the phone are working.

If you've tried restarting, updating, and factory resetting and have had no luck fixing the issues, you may need to send your phone in to Apple for repair. Getting stuck on the Apple screen for hours, even after reset, leads me to believe it's a logic board issue. Personal repair may be expensive, difficult, and will cause damage to the waterproof seal.


Change Siri's default search engine on macOS I recently upgraded my MacBook Pro to macOS Sierra and now have access to Siri. Whenever Siri searches the internet, it uses Bing, although I would prefer to use Google.

I changed Safari's default search engine to Google, but that did not affect Siri's searches.

How can I change Siri's default search engine?

At this time, there's no way to change the default macOS Siri search engine.

I would recommend letting Apple know you'd like the ability to change the search engine using the macOS Feedback page.


Prevent iTunes from showing video preview frames By default, iTunes video podcasts display their album art as preview frames, rather than the embedded album art that ships with the file.  I have been manually replacing the image with each new episode, but that is very tedious.  Is there a way to prevent iTunes from displaying preview frames in this manner?

There is no Secrets entry for this and I haven't been able to find anybody as anal-retentive about this subject as I am.  Surely someone must exist out there.

There isn't a setting to force iTunes to do this.

This actually depends on the the podcast creator and how they embed the album art into their video files.  So, if you aren't getting album art displayed, the issue is on the creator's end and not on yours.


Finder out of sync with file system For the last week or two, Finder is out of sync with the file system. This seems specific to my Downloads folder. Files I download are not visible in Finder, although if I open a terminal I can see the files are there. If I try to open a file from an application, like add an email attachment, then I do see the files in Downloads, but not in Finder itself. Any idea how I can fix this?

You can restart finder by holding Command+Option while right-clicking the Finder dock icon, and then selecting Relaunch from the menu.


Is it possible to bind mouse 4 btn to a specific key on the keyboard on MacOS? I bought a cheap USB mouse with 2 additional buttons, the ones that you can click to go back and forward when surfing etc.

I'm wondering if it's possible to bind one of those mouse buttons to another key on the keyboard?

Scenario:
I press mouse 4, and it clicks on number 1 on the keyboard.

I'm on MacOS Sierra.

Steermouse is another way to enjoy this functionality.


Update iPhones over the air with private server I've a more than 20 iPhone 5s/6/6s in my company. I normally download IPSW and update using iTunes so that the updates do not take all the internet bandwidth.

I would like to know if it's possible create our own server and publish those updates such that users can update their phone by Wi-Fi. That way instead of downloading updates directly from Apple it will download from my private server.

You can run the Caching service, part of server.app. The Caching service supports OTA updates for iOS 7 and later. All you need to do is enable the service in Server.app. Devices do not need to be part of MDM supervision.

  macOS and iOS devices automatically access the available caching service on the network they’re currently connected to

You can find Apple's documentation of the Caching service at:

https://help.apple.com/serverapp/mac/#/apd74DDE89F-08D2-4E0A-A5CD-155E345EFB83


Apple TV zoom/stretch (Netflix app) What gestures or buttons make the Apple TV in Netflix app zoom/stretch the image to fill screen?

On the Apple TV 4K (2017) using Netflix app, I somehow zoomed/stretched an old tv show with nearly-square aspect-ratio to fill the screen of this 4K TV.

Only the Apple TV remote was in use at the time. Seems to have happened when I swiped my thumb on the touch surface rightward from left edge, but I'm not sure.

Workaround: Crash the Netflix app and relaunch.

Double-tap + Swipe

Quote from this Reddit thread (emphasis mine):

  I've been running into this accidentally and thought it was a bug: 4:3
  videos would zoom up (proportionately) to 16:9 from time to time while
  working the remote. It turns out there's an (AFAIK) undocumented
  gesture: double-tap + swipe left (or right). So, whenever you're
  viewing 4:3 content, you can tap, tap and swipe left to zoom up to
  16:9 and repeat the gesture to go back to 4:3. Neat & hope it helps
  someone. There's quite a bit of old conference talks in 4:3 out there.

I can't explain it any better than that, but hopefully it helps.


Steam "not responding" on iMac 5k I've just installed the Steam installer on my new iMac 5k, and downloaded the latest version of Steam onto it. When loading Steam, the login window loads, but all of a sudden the application freezes and needs to be "Force Quit". Any thoughts what a solution to this might be?

Try disabling firewall in Security & Privacy settings, try adding rule to accept all internet traffic for desired application in Firewall Options.

When I start steam the first time of the day it crashes due error you describe, when I start steam 2nd time everything works just fine.


How do I retrieve previous iTunes purchases I wish to download previous iTunes purchases on my iPhone, but there is nothing showing up in my purchases.  When I go direct and search on iTunes for the music I have downloaded it says I have purchased but wont let me re download.

Any ideas?

You can download previous purchases from the App Store, iBooks Store and iTunes store. The following Apple article outlines what you need to do depending on the store and platform you are using.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2519


Is it possible to consolidate music bought from iTunes Stores in different countries in a single device? My main account is on the Canadian iTunes Store but I would like to buy albums that are only available on the Japanese and UK iTunes and have everything together on an iPad. Is it possible to switch stores on the Windows iTunes app, buy these albums, and then transfer them over to the iPad? Or even better, would I be able to download these albums from my account on the iPad directly? Regardless of which country's store they were bought from originally?

Yes, it is possible, but it may not be entirely convenient (only you can judge how convenient it is for you).

In summary, the process involves:

Changing the iTunes Store in your Windows iTunes app to the Japanese store
Registering for a Japanese iTunes Store account (you cannot use the same one you use in Canada)
Purchasing the music you want from the Japanese iTunes Store
Syncing this music to your iPad

Notes:

1 You will need to repeat the above process for the UK iTunes Store.

2 The process of creating accounts in the other stores is not too hard, but you will need to follow specific steps if you don't have credit cards issued in Japan and the UK.

3 Assuming you want to purchase music that isn't free, you will need a way to do so in the correct currency (either with credit cards issued in Japan or the UK, or by redeeming iTunes gift cards that are sold in their respective countries).

In summary

You cannot use a credit card and/or iTunes gift card you obtained in Canada for the Japanese or UK iTunes Stores. Also, you will need to switch between stores to browse/purchase content. Finally, when syncing the music to a device you will be prompted to enter the ID and password of the account used to purchase the items you're syncing.

So, as stated above, it is possible, but only you can personally decide whether it is too inconvenient for you.


Keyboard remapping in Lion? I've used keyremap4macbook for the last few years to turn the right Alt key into a forward delete. Unfortunately, the tool has stopped working in Lion.

Does anybody know of a keyboard remapper that already works in Lion?

Turns out I had an old version.

The new, officially Lion compatible version from the keyremap4macbook homepage works fine.


Why does text occasionally render poorly in Safari for Windows? I don't quite understand why certain websites like Twitter render text so badly in my Safari browser 5.1.2 (under Windows 7 x64). The same problem doesn't occur in Chrome or Firefox or IE. And it doesn't happen on all websites but quite often. Anyone have insight on this? I've attached a screenshot with the example.

Read this for background

In short, Apple and Microsoft use very different methods to render fonts on Mac OS X and Windows.  Both systems have their merits, and frankly a lot of the time people prefer the one they are used to, and when the see the other they dislike it not so much because it's bad, but because it's different.

Ordinarily this isn't an issue, Mac users have their way, and Windows users have their way.  However, for Safari on Windows, Apple decided in their wisdom to haul over the Mac OS X font rendering mechanism, which is why pages loaded in Safari look not only different to the same page rendered in other web browsers, but different to every other Windows app you have.

Personally, while (likely for the reasons I stated earlier) I prefer the Mac way of doing things, I think that they should not attempt to enforce this on Windows users who are likely to see it as different first, and dislike it.  Even if they like it, it's inconsistent.  Even though I prefer it, I don't want to see it on Windows, as I prefer consistency more.

So, to answer your question, what's happening is that Safari is attempting to render this font in a completely different way to the other browsers, and occasionally it comes across a font or typeface that it frankly handles badly compared to Windows own technology (the opposite happens too, it's horses for courses), this can happen if a font is specified that has been tweaked to work particularly well with one system or another.


System Extensions Cannot Be Used Error When installing certain software, usually anything printer related, I receive this error

System extension cannot be used

The system extension "/System/Library/Extensions/Belcarra.
USBLAN_netpart.kext" was installed
improperly and cannot be used.  Please try
reinstalling it, or contact the product's vendor for an
update

This began after I erased some printer folders that I thought I wasn't using anymore.  I'll get about 30 error messages in a row, all with different paths, but all the same message talking about kext files.  I tried fixing permissions with the Mac boot disc, but it didn't seem to help.  I usually just click through all the errors and nothing seems to be affected.  Any ideas how to fix this permanently?

Its possible you deleted some printer folders but left the actual kext files in place.  To delete the kext files that are causing an issue, open terminal and type

sudo rm -rf /System/Library/Extensions/Belcarra.USBLAN_netpart.kext

The system will ask for your password.

Repeat this for any other files the system complains about.  You will then need to reboot.

If something stops working as a result of the above, you may need to re-install the drivers.


Double click windows to minimise in Lion? Before upgrading to Lion I was able to double-click the header bar of windows to minimise the windows. Since upgrading I only seem to be able to minimise by clicking the yellow - button.

Is this a setting that I'm missing?

Go to System Preferences > General. Check "Double-click a window's title bar to minimize".


What are some alternatives to Quicksilver? I'm an avid fan of QuickSilver, and I had been using it for several years already. But then development of the application seemed to have stagnated for a while, and many bugs (specially with plugins and advanced features) were never fixed. I then moved to QSB, which seemed to be where the efforts were being concentrated in order to produce such an application. But then again, development seems to have stopped and several features I still miss (like AppleScript launching) were never properly implemented.

I'm aware of a few alternatives out there, notably AlfredApp and LaunchBar, but I wanted to ask here for your opinion and recommendations before trying them out.

So my question is, as of today, which would be the best replacement for QuickSilver? Ideally I would like support for the following features:

Launching applications, preference panels and apple scripts.
Web search, and search within bookmarks of my favorite browser.
Able to perform actions or operations on files (copy, move, reveal in Finder).
Custom web searches are a plus. I would love if it could index, e.g., my delicious bookmarks.
Free. Open-sourced is a plus.
Some plugin infrastructure.
A healthy community of developers actively maintaining the application.
Not too many bugs.

In your answer, please do let me know about the features of your suggested application, and note if there are any missing features from my desired “ wish list”.

Alfred is the one that meets pretty much all your needs.

Launching applications, preference panels and apple scripts.
Web search, and search within bookmarks of my favorite browser.
Able to perform actions or operations on files (copy, move, reveal in Finder). paid version only
Custom web searches.
Free.
Plugin infrastructure.
A healthy community of developers actively maintaining the application.
Not too many bugs


Click check buttons via keyboard or script I'm using Final Cut 7 under El Capitan, and I need to check the following buttons (in fact just the Audio Tracks, but both would be nice) using the keyboard, or maybe a scripted method.

I have already enabled keyboard shortcuts on the system preferences, so I can cancel (esc) or accept (return) this dialog using keyboard commands. However tab won't do nothing to circulate over the window components, and I am afraid this option was never implemented.

In fact the window title "Delete Tracks" keeps gray all the time, even with regular use via mouse, suggesting that it never has focus whatsoever.

Can I select those options via keyboard or script?

Also if you have another idea on how to delete just the empty tracks of the timeline using another automation method will be extremely appreciated. Just remember that because of license and workflow issues I can't upgrade to Final Cut X.

In Brazil we call this a "gambiarra", meaning an unconventional, unprofessional, improvised, sometimes lazy, workaround, temporary or definitive, for any given problem:

1st step - positioning the window to guarantee it will be always in the same spot:

on run
    tell application "Final Cut Pro"
            activate
    end tell
    tell application "System Events"
        set position of window "Delete Tracks" of process "Final Cut Pro" to {1150, 550}
    end tell
end run

2 - Use a Pyton shell script to click the exact point:

on run
    set x to 1200
    set y to 673

    do shell script "
/usr/bin/python <<END
import sys
import time
from Quartz.CoreGraphics import *
def mouseEvent(type, posx, posy):
          theEvent = CGEventCreateMouseEvent(None, type, (posx,posy), kCGMouseButtonLeft)
          CGEventPost(kCGHIDEventTap, theEvent)
def mousemove(posx,posy):
          mouseEvent(kCGEventMouseMoved, posx,posy);
def mouseclick(posx,posy):
          mouseEvent(kCGEventLeftMouseDown, posx,posy);
          mouseEvent(kCGEventLeftMouseUp, posx,posy);
ourEvent = CGEventCreate(None);
currentpos=CGEventGetLocation(ourEvent);             # Save current mouse position
mouseclick(" & x & "," & y & ");
mousemove(int(currentpos.x),int(currentpos.y));      # Restore mouse position
END"

end run

And voila, problem solved:


Backing up Time Machine sparsebundles to another server So, a while ago I backed up a couple of different Macs to my Linux-based fileserver. As a network Time Machine, each Mac has a separate sparsebundle file containing all of its information. I've since changed Macs and formatted various drives since then, so the original installations for the backups are no longer available.

I want to back up these sparsebundles to a ReadyNAS, and I'm trying to figure out the best way to go about it. There's rsync on the main server, but I've heard that rsync can cause all sorts of permissions issues and it doesn't play nicely with hard links.

Another option is using one of the Macs to transfer the sparsebundle files to the server via AFP (either with the Finder or with an application like SuperDuper or Chronosync). How efficient would this be? Does AFP behave like some other sharing protocols and copy the data via the mediator (in this case, Fileserver -> Mac -> ReadyNAS), or does it copy directly from source to final target? What would be the best tool for this?

If all else fails, I read somewhere else that a last ditch attempt would be to simply grab the contents of the Latest folder out of each sparsebundle, but I'd rather avoid this if at all possible.

I would say, rsync away once you are sure the sparsebundles are not being actively mounted or written to by other Mac OS clients.

The beauty of an Apple disk image is that all the Mac unique things are stored internally since they are a filesystem unto themselves and don't rely on your actual storage filesystem in any way. As long as you get the file names over and the OS has permissions to re-share the files - you can't break things as you move the actual files that make up the sparse bundle directory scheme to another Linux or OS X or Windows OS.

In a nutshell, the files stored as bands in the sparse bundle format are very portable which makes the HFS internals immune to corruption when the raw data is copied faithfully to a new location or a new server with a different filesystem structure.

In fact, having a Mac mount the filesystem encapsulated within the sparsebundle container would be a less optimal solution since it could take far longer to traverse the hard linked directory structure rather than let linux copy the file data efficiently. You would lose all the benefits of a sparse storage scheme to have OS X mount the files and copy them directly.


macOS detects location but doesn't Set Time Zone Automatically Recently my automatic timezone update stopped working. (i.e. it used to work but now it doesn't)

The Troubling thing is that my Mac detects the correct location (e.g. Golden, CO), but it doesn't use this to update the timezone despite Set my timezone automatically using current location being checked. See screenshot.

Does anyone know how to fix this?

This issue now occurs with every network I have tried: work, home, airports, hotels, etc. and, I have already tried the usual set of fixes such as toggling auto timezone off and on, closing system preferences, rebooting, and repairing permissions.

OS: OS X 10.9.5 (13F1112)

System: MacBook Pro Retina, 13-in mid-2014

This just happened to me on High Sierra. Kept trying to change so that the Mac's location would automatically update the timezone. The Mac could detect where is was (both using the Maps application and the red pin in System Preferences / Date & Time / Time Zone showed the correct location) but the time zone was 'stuck' in the place where I was last week. This continued through reboots and toggling all the options in Date & Time.

Here was the fix for me. In Bash (ie, launch Terminal):

$ cd /etc
$ ls -l localt*

It should be a link to the IANA timezone database like so (assuming this Mac is near LA):

lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  45 Aug 30 17:32 localtime -> /var/db/timezone/zoneinfo/America/Los_Angeles

If it is not:

Turn off the automatic time zone in System Preferences / Date & Time / Time Zone
In Terminal sudo rm /etc/localtime to remove the incorrect link
Reboot (localtime will be recreated)
Restart automatic time zone in System Preferences / Date & Time / Time Zone

That worked for me after Googling and pulling hair for a few minutes. YMMV.


iPhone 4S loses GPS accuracy My iPhone 4S is 2 years old.  Today, the accuracy of the GPS is really bad.  Before, it worked very well…  I tried to restart but didn't help. Is there any way to know if this is a hardware error?

I also have an Android phone, and it has very good accuracy, so it isn't something "from above".

Is my phone coming to an end?

I tried everything I could think of, but I eventually completely reset the phone and did not restore my old configuration.  I started from new with my iPhone and now it is working fine.


Option to "open with..." on folders in finder Is it possible to add the "Open with..." option to Finder, when you do a secondary click on a folder? I want the same behavior as when I'm secondary clicking on a file.

Edit

I do not want to open the contents of the folder with the application, but simply just the folder.

Try dragging one of your folders over all docked applications. Some of them will show that they can open a folder.

Example:

BBEdit - Allow you to browse the contents of the folder in the sidebar and edit each file inside it.
iTerm - Starts the command line inside the opened folder.

Folders will always open in Finder, an Open With option appears when you right-click on a file.

Is this what you mean or was there a particular program you wanted to interact with an entire folder with?


Using VoiceOver to a braille display fails to output some formatting in Pages I'm trying to help a blind friend of mine, to get her up and running on a mac. As her text editor of choice, she'd like to use pages, but there, the bullet points aren't shown on her braille display.

She has also tried openOffice, but there, VoiceOver doesn't read anything, probably because of the use of a non standard UI kit.

How can we either solve the pages problem, or what's an editor that will read everything correctly?

It's tough to tell where the problem lies. I don't have a perfect software recommendation, since Apple's tools generally support accessibility on par with the best third party apps around.

How much research have you and your friend done on making sure your display is configured correctly in VoiceOver?

I'd start with this support article to see if the display you have chosen is even supported but do know from past experience, that you will face many many little issues like this where voiceover is skipping some little element of formatting and can't convey all of the nuance of a document that is kerned, font tweaked with ligatures, variable line spacing, etc...

Usually this is something you can adjust the documents or the VoiceOver software to accommodate better, so the next step might be to flatten the document to a plain text file and compare how Text Edit works as opposed to Pages.

You may need to reach out to Apple directly (their discussion forums like here are not official support channels) and ask if the accessibility team needs you to file radar (Apple's name for bug reports) if you find a fairly common item that is not being supported correctly by the software (Pages / Text Edit / VoiceOver in your case). By sticking to Apple software, they might have a better chance of fixing some little omissions that could help you with your choice of braille display. Some of the retail stores have knowledgable people that you could arrange a short workshop or troubleshooting session with and AppleCare is available at cost once the free support window has passed for your hardware.


Fast note app for quick lookup & copy to clipboard for osx & ios? I'm looking for a lightweight fast note app for frequently accessed notes, so that I could:

1) Rapidly copy them to my clipboard.

2) Simply view them.

3) Work & sync across osx & iOS.

Use cases:

Looking up & copying address & post codes of work/home.
Looking up various ID's that I use in various places (e.g my certification ID when clients ask).
Looking up notes on keyboard shortcuts or ways of doing things for apps
Lookup my notes for frequent bash commands with complex syntax.
etc..

I.e, it shouldn't be focused on being fancy, just fast viewing of note & fast copy to clipboard.

This cheatsheet app seems close, but it doesn't have osx version:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cheatsheet-quick-reference/id914665829#?platform=ipad

[EDIT].

I'm fairly proficient power user, I'm aware of 'Notes' app. If you suggest it's use, please suggest how to it can resolve the request. E.g I haven't found a 'fast' way to copy note content from spotlight. (although CMD+c from spot light copies note title+content, which is close to what I need).

Before searching for a 3rd party utility, I would recommend trying out Apple's built-in Notes app. It seems to satisfy your three requirements as you can copy/paste from the clipboard, view them on both macOS and iOS, and it syncs with iCloud across all your devices (plus iCloud website).

Checkout these links for a how-to guide on each of the listed platforms:

iOS: Use Notes on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch
macOS: Notes for Mac: Notes overview
iCloud: iCloud: View notes on iCloud.com


How can I read/write to several hard drives created on windows 7,8 from OS X My PC's hard drive - running w8.1- crashed. Bought a mac mini and now trying to retrieve files from crashed disk (and others). All drives have read only permissions, with no locks showing in the get info windows. Is there a way to change permission w/o losing files?

The "read only" status has to do with the UUID of the files on the drive no longer matching what is coming from your Mac.  So, basically, you have to "orphan" those files.

Here is a good writeup on how to do it, but note that this is an UNOFFICIAL method and not sanctioned by Apple.

How to Enable NTFS Write Support in Mac OS X


Umlauts and Copy and paste I have a problem with copy and paste of characters like "ü". When I copy and paste the name "Gereon Müller" from this book http://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/18 (choose the download tab) I get the ü decomposed into two characters on a Mac. This does not happen under Windows and Linux (xpdf, acroread, sumatra), but it does happen on a mac with acroread and with skim. Any ideas?

Edit: These are the two characters: ü In the text you can see an ü, but it is actually an u with two dots that are shifted over the u. Look at this: ẗ (as you can see, I composed a t with these two dots). This is not a problem for reading the ü, but if I want to continue to work with this ü I get problems, since LaTeX does not like these characters at all. In emacs I can edit these two characters seperately.

Edit II:

I played with different applications and they behave differently: Word gets one copy and paste right, while emacs gets both wrong.

Word:

Emacs:

Edit III

And this is text edit:

If having such characters in decomposed form (represented by two codepoints, base character plus combining accent mark)  is a problem for further processing you need to do, then you can use an app like Unicode Checker to convert the text to Unicode Normalization Form C.  That will change them into the composed, single-codepoint form.

http://earthlingsoft.net/UnicodeChecker/