Enable click-through, preferrably for all applications I would like to enable click-through on all windows. Is this possible on Lion?

To be more specific, "click-through" as defined by Apple in the Mac OS X Human Interface Guidelines means "that the user can activate the item when the containing window is inactive."

  An item that provides click-through is one that a user can activate with one click, even though the item is in an inactive window. (To activate an item that does not support click-through, the user must first make the containing window active and then click the item.) Although click-through can make some user tasks easier, it can also confuse users if they click items unintentionally.

The short answer is "no", there is no general way to do this.  To quote from The Mac OS X Human Interface Guidelines

  Click-through is not a property of a class of controls; any control, including toolbar items, can support click-through. This also means that you can support click-through for any subset of items; you do not have to choose between supporting click-through for all items in a window or none.

  [...]

  Avoid providing click-through for an item or action whose result might be dangerous or undesirable. Specifically, avoid enabling click-through for an item that:

  Performs a potentially harmful action that users can’t cancel (for example, the Delete button in Mail)
  Performs an action that is difficult or impossible to cancel (such as the Send button in Mail)
  Dismisses a dialog without telling the user what action was taken (for example, the Save button in a Save dialog that overwrites an existing file and automatically dismisses the dialog)
  Removes the user from the current context (for example, selecting a new item in a Finder column that changes the target of the Finder window)
  Clicking in any one of these situations should cause the window that contains the item to be brought forward, but no other action to be taken.

  Note: Programmatically, supporting click-through is a matter of disabling click-through for items that should not provide it. This is because click-through is supported by default in all Cocoa controls.

In other words, click-through is enabled (or not) on a control-by-control basis with thoughtful consideration as to the consequences of allowing it. It is not a general property of a window or the window manager.


How to search only FREE apps on Mac App Store? It isn't an option in the App Store itself, and the AppleSE answer from 2012 is no longer valid.

There are a number of websites that offer this option including one that I found with a quick Google:

https://theappstore.org

When you search you can select "Price: Free".


Recognise installed iOS version by serial number? This is a follow-up to this question.

In short: I need to buy an iPhone 4S with iOS 7.0 (and this version specifically, not the latest 7.1).

I have mailed an Apple reseller asking if they had any in stock only to learn that Apple does not print any information about iOS version on the box so they cannot tell me. I thought if there were a way to identify what version of iOS is installed based on serial number or some other indicators I could ask resellers very specific questions (i.e. Have you got any XYZ series iPhones in stock?).

My questions are: is it possible to recognise the iOS version based on serial number or any other factor in a new iPhone? If yes, how do I do that?

To be more specific: I would like to identify a range of serial numbers of iPhone 4S that shipped with iOS 7.0 installed as the original system. Is that possible?

The serial number will allow you to view the model and technical specifications of the phone. Using this information, you can 1) find the original iOS the phone ran, and 2) find out the iOS(s) with which the device is compatible with.

However, you can't remotely find the current iOS version or specific update to that version based on the serial number alone.


NeoOffice extremely slow in Mac OS X 10.6.5 I've installed the latest version of NeoOffice 3.2.1 on my May, 2010 2.66 GHz Core i7 MacBook Pro running Mac OS X 10.6.5 (8.0 GB RAM).

Regardless of what I do, whether its Writer, Calc, or Impress, the application's response has been extremely "laggy", (i.e. the exact opposite of snappy...can't think of a good word for it). It always takes close to a second before anything responds to a mouse click, and moving/resizing images is a pain also because the response is so slow.

Question: Is this typical OpenOffice.org/NeoOffice behavior in Mac OS X? Or is there a way to optimise its performance? I doubt it's my hardware being insufficient!

I would also take a look at LibreOffice, which is the more open fork of OpenOffice, having used OpenOffice and NeoOffice, LibreOffice is cleaner on OS X then OpenOffice, and does not suffer from the slowness that seems to plague NeoOffice.


I can't burn a CD from iTunes 12.12 I am unable to burn a cd with the newiTunes 12.1 because there is no drop down "burn to disc" selection in Files. How can I burn a cd from my playlist?

Right click or Command click on the playlist in the sidebar. The context menu should have the burn option.


Mac won't boot from USB drive: Prohibited sign I tried to clean install OS X El Capitan on my Mac, but it won’t boot from the USB drive. Here are the steps I took to create the bootable USB drive (I have a Mid-2014 MacBook Pro with Retina Display):

Downloaded the latest OS X El Capitan (10.11.3) from the Mac App Store.
Created a bootable USB drive using createinstallmedia (as explained in Apple’s documentation) and it went well.
Erased Macintosh HD.
Tried booting from USB drive. It loads through the middle, but then a prohibited sign shows up and nothing happens.

What are my options now?

How can I determine what the problem is? I know Internet Recovery is one of my options, but I can’t connect to my home Wi-Fi (apparently for no good reason) and I have to do it with my iPhone’s Hotspot, and I happen to have the setup for El Capitan. (And Internet Recovery will install OS X Mavericks on my MacBook, right? Because it was shipped with Mavericks.)

It may be that boot-up from the USB flash drive is "prohibited" because your USB flash drive requires adjustment to the "ownership" settings. I learned this the hard way myself. Most of the guides, including Apple's own support doc on how to create a bootable Mac OS installer on USB — as of this date — fail to mention the ownership step.
First and foremost, the USB flash drive must support ownership functionality. Complicating matters, the USB flash drive default may disable boot support. For this reason, you will need to enable it before/after completing the process described by Apple, MacWorld and others using the "createinstallmedia" command in the Terminal window.
The "missing step", after ensuring the USB flash drive is formatted correctly, is to ignore ownership

Mounting the USB flash drive on the desktop, right click and select "Get Info"
In the info window, expand the Sharing & Permissions: section.
Click the padlock icon to unlock administrator options <img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/xcwz7.png" alt="padlock
icon" />.
Enter your administrative password.
Deselect the check box ignore ownership
Click the padlock to save the changes.
Eject the drive if you're ready to remove the USB Drive and install

On the machine you wish to install on, you can hold down the Option (ALT) key to select the boot drive, select your installer. If you can't see it, reset the PRAM and try again. If you still can't boot from the USB flash drive, verify that you created the Mac OS installer on the USB flash drive while working in the same (or as close to) current Mac OS as you intend to write to the USB flash drive. Some users have problems creating a successful bootable USB flash drive because they attempt to follow Apple's instructions on older versions of Mac OS X that require Disk Utility, not the Terminal window "createinstallmedia" command, to create a bootable USB flash drive. If all else fails, try a different name-brand flash drive of at least 8 gigabytes or greater in size. (Do keep in mind that there are a lot of counterfeits sold by third parties on Ebay and Amazon so it's equally important to buy your USB flash drive new from a reputable source.)
The most thorough guide I have found on the topic of creating a bootable Mac OS installer on a USB flash drive is here:
https://www.lifewire.com/create-emergency-os-x-boot-device-2260173


Creating video DVD from MP4 (1,7 GB) takes ages on MacBook 13" 2,16 GHz / 3 GB RAM Is that normal?

I downloaded a Video (MP4 format, HD, 1.7 GB) from the Internet and wanted to burn it on DVD to watch it with our DVD Recorder.

I used Toast 11 to create the DVD on MacOS X 10.6 and since several hours (!) it is "coding" the file.

IS it normal that it takes so long to create a DVD from MP4?

OK, the hardware is not really up to date, but can it be so slow or can I do something to make it run faster?

I'm not a MacOS user, but this wouldn't be an abnormal amount of time on a Windows PC - it needs to fully recode the video and audio into the correct format.

There's no real way to speed it up, with the exceptions of upgrading the PC or downloading the video in a different format or Standard Definition.


annoyance: latest version of Skype under Standard (non-admin) user on macOS 10.13 I always run my systems under an Admin \ Standard user dichotomy.  In other words, I always use my system as a Standard user and never login to the Admin user (except when doing the initial clean install and configuration).

This seems to mostly work on macOS (except for this previously noted annoyance).

However, I specifically have an irritating problem with Skype, where it will pop up a authentication Window stating:

  An update is ready to install.  Skype is trying to add a new helper tool.

...and asking for my Administrator account credentials.

Now, I've had other programs ask for similar authentications for updates and installs from time to time, and I simply put in my credentials and it installs some update quickly and I continue about my business.  No problem.

However, with Skype, it seems something is simply not working - like perhaps it wasn't designed with Standard users in mind.

After entering my Administrator credentials - nothing installs.  The authentication window simply disappears and nothing happens.

But even worse... the window will inevitably appear again after an hour or two.  So I'm constantly being harassed with this notification, and no matter how many times I authenticate the request (dozens of times so far), it just keeps coming back.

Note that I had this same problem back in Yosemite running whatever version of Skype was the latest back then.  I recently did a clean install of High Sierra, and I had hoped this problem would disappear.

Nope.  Any ideas?

So, I was right that Skype has a problem, because it is prompting me to perform the auto-update, but supplying the credentials is not enough.  I have to kind of "hand-hold" Skype through the update process, and open the correct window even though there is no indication from Skype that I need to do this.  I was still having this problem after upgrading to Mojave (10.14) and I'm glad I finally figured out this work-around.

In order to successfully update Skype in macOS as a limited user, you must do it "manually".

When the pop up notification appears saying An update is ready to install. Skype is trying to add a new helper tool. and asking for authentication, do not enter your admin credentials yet.

First, click on the Skype menu then About Skype.

With the About Skype window open, now you can enter your admin credentials.

After you've entered your admin credentials, you should notice a green Update button is now active in the About Skype window.  Click the button.

Sometimes I have to enter my admin credentials again when the update process starts.  This is normal.

Skype should automatically reload with the updated version.  Check the About Skype window to confirm you are on the latest version.


iPad App that can store longer history than Safari Is there an app that can keep longer than a week or so of browsing hisotry, which is what seems to be available in Safari?
The longer the better...

I have been using iCabMobile for quite a while. It's a good and very configurable browser.

Strangely enough it's history setting is not in number of days but a numerical "size" from 0 thru 10,000. It comes by default at 100. Not sure what it means so you may need to ask the developer.


How to turn on "sudo" in OSX 10.12 Sierra When I type "sudo some_command", the terminal shows:

sudo: unable to stat /etc/sudoers: Permission denied
sudo: no valid sudoers sources found, quitting
sudo: unable to initialize policy plugin

my account is an admin account, and the /etc/sudoers contains:

root        ALL = (ALL) ALL
%admin      ALL = (ALL) ALL

How to fix this?

Open up Terminal and enable root with:

dsenableroot -u <your_admin_username> -p <your_password> -r <root_password> #choose some root password here

If the sudoer's is damaged, you still won't be able to sudo - but you will be able to su and repair the permissions accordingly:

su #when asked afterwards enter the above <root_password>
chown root:wheel /etc/sudoers
chmod 440 /etc/sudoers
chmod -a "admin allow read,write,append,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity" /etc/sudoers
exit

Back in your admin account disable root:

dsenableroot -d -u <your_admin_username> -p <your_password>

In case the above won't help, re-enable root account doing the same as above, logut of your account, login as root (yup, really):

Open terminal and type chmod g+x /, close the term, logout and tada, sudo is working again :) This problem happens mostly when you mount your / through linux in rw mode (for hfsplus in r/w mode use fuse and bindfs)

BTW the group admin ACL doesn't seem to harm the sudoers file!


MacBook booting with wrong keyboard layout I've got a 15-inch MacBook Pro with the latest OS X. Every time I reboot, it resets the keyboard layout to American English even though I set it to Swiss German. This means that I always need to go to the language settings and change it to my layout, which is quite annoying.

Any suggestions how to solve this?

I also posted this question on Apple Support Discussions but wasn't getting any answers.

Things you could try:

Run sudo rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.HIToolbox.plist ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.HIToolbox.*.plist /Library/Preferences/com.apple.HIToolbox.plist and restart. The current keyboard layout is stored in the first file in 10.9 and the second file in 10.8. The keyboard layout used in the login window and by the guest account is stored in the third file.
Run open -a KeyboardSetupAssistant to identify the keyboard.
Run sudo rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone;sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/Setup\ Assistant.app/Contents/MacOS/Setup\ Assistant and create a new account. Set the default keyboard layout to Swiss German in the second step and enter anything else in the other steps. You can delete the account after you have created it.


Why is my iPad causing WiFi interference? I have a 3rd gen 32GB iPad with a 3G/LTE connectivity (and the latest software) and let me be clear from the start - the WiFi is working perfectly fine for me and I've had no problems with it whatsoever.

The problem is with my iPad causing quite a serious WiFi interference for some other devices on one WiFi network (at my friend's house). It happens only on this single WiFi network and I am 100% sure it is my iPad causing the problems.

Basically, the moment my iPad connects to the WiFi several other devices connected to the network drop their WiFi connection. These are: a Samsung TV and 2 laptops (HP and Dell).

What's interesting, there are several other devices that don't experience no such issues with the WiFi connection, e.g. a couple of iPhones, few other laptops and other mobile devices, including another 3rd gen iPad with 3G/LTE (similar to mine, just 16GB).

If I switch off the WiFi on my iPad and wait a minute or two, all the other devices resume normal WiFi connection.

Any idea what could be causing such problems?

I've already tried resetting network settings.

I doubt highly that it is the iPad causing interference. What I could expect is that the base station at your friends place can't keep up with all the wireless devices at once. If the TV is using 802.11g as are the other devices that disappear and then your iPad using 802.11n then the base station might crap out. Have seen a few similar cases before.

Additionally some base stations have limitations, example older AirPort Expresses could manage 5 or 10 clients. Once an 11th device comes into the network then a device or two or more might be kicked out because of the DHCP TTL time out. Going static with your IP address won't fix this, only a better base station, eg. the newer Express or Extreme.


Can I set an arbitrary nvram variable using rEFInd? Is there any way to customise the rEFInd bootloader to set a custom nvram variable, either in refind.conf or any other way? Specifically, I'd like to set a value for the boot-args variable.
It seems like an obvious/standard thing that someone might want to do, and I know that the OpenCore bootloader has a whole NVRAM configuration section to support it, but there doesn't seem to be anything in the docs about it for rEFInd.

rEFInd will not let you set an arbitrary NVRAM variable directly but you can use EDK2 to compile a small EFI driver. This is described in the WikiLeaks document EFI Basics: NVRAM Variables
EFI drivers placed in rEFInd driver directory are loaded and run automatically - see The rEFInd Boot Manager: Using EFI Drivers.  Alternatively you could write a EFI program rather than driver and then use a manual stanza in rEFInd to call a shell script to call this and then the bootloader.
Another (probably easier) method would be to modify rEFInd.  You can see in the source how it sets the csr-active-config NVRAM variable to turn SIP on and off - apple.h defines the GUID:
// The constants related to Apple's System Integrity Protection (SIP)....
#define CSR_GUID { 0x7c436110, 0xab2a, 0x4bbb, { 0xa8, 0x80, 0xfe, 0x41, 0x99, 0x5c, 0x9f, 0x82 } };

apple.c calls the EfivarSetRaw() function in lib.c
Status = EfivarSetRaw(&CsrGuid, L"csr-active-config", (CHAR8 *) &TargetCsr, 4, TRUE);
if (Status == EFI_SUCCESS)
    RecordgCsrStatus(TargetCsr, TRUE);
else
    SPrint(gCsrStatus, 255, L" Error setting System Integrity Protection code.");

Other NVRAM updates could be made in the same way - there are various other GUID listed in the WikiLeaks link in the first paragraph.

If you want to pass a boot argument without updating NVRAM you can create a manual boot entry in rEFInd and specify the options in refind.conf.  Additional options can be added using add_options - see the Creating Manual Boot Stanzas page of the documentation.
For example you can define submenu options like this and pick between them using F2 at boot.
menuentry "Catalina" {
    # Get loader GUID from macOS subvolume: diskutil info disk1s5|grep 'Volume UUID'
    icon \EFI\refind\themes\colourful\myicons\os_mac_silver.png
    volume "Preboot"
    loader \3B4B18C9-C57D-4F98-9168-C8D8B9F06EAD\System\Library\CoreServices\boot.efi
    submenuentry "Verbose" {
        add_options "-v"
    }
    submenuentry "Single User" {
        add_options "-v -s"
    }
    submenuentry "Safe Mode" {
        add_options "-v -x"
    }
    submenuentry "Recovery" {
        volume "Recovery"
        loader \3B4B18C9-C57D-4F98-9168-C8D8B9F06EAD\boot.efi
    }
}


Macbook Pro Audio Input Not Working With Microphone I am trying to connect microphone to my early 2011 17" MacBook Pro, but I cant get it working. MBP 17" has 2 audio jacks so I supposed the second one is for microphone but just doesnt work (Mac or Windows) and I gotta use USB audio card shipped with my headset.

Am I doing something wrong or the other jack is not supposed for audio input with classic 3.5mm microphone jack?

EDIT:
I of course selected the Line-In device in preferences. The bar under device list wasn`t doing anything while I was talking, but when I was moving with the cable it blinked (I guess because I created some noise by moving the cable).

Mac laptops have not supported a non-powered microphone input for years.
The input you see is a "line-in" input that requires more input signal level than a passive (non-powered) microphone can deliver.

You will need an additional pre-amp or active mic (a microphone with phantom power will suffice).


Can an underpowered charger actually help my Macbook battery's longevity? I have just upgraded from a Macbook Air (Late 2012) to a Macbook Retina (Late 2013). Now I have a 45W and a 60W charger, both MagSafe 2.

Using iStat Menus and Battery Health for monitoring voltages and currents, I can see that when charging my Macbook Retina with the 60W adapter, it really does draw nearly 60W from it. Using the 45W one, it draws nearly 45W. It never draws more power than the charger can deliver (I also would be very surprised if Apple would let that happen). I know that some people disagree and say this is dangerous, but for the sake of the argument let's just assume that it works like this.

Now, Battery Health shows that my Macbook is actually charging with around 30W when using the 45W adapter (light Macbook usage, leaving around 15W for CPU, SSD and everything else) and around 45W when using the 60W charger. That means in both cases my battery is charging fine, only with different speeds.

Researching the internet, it seems a fact for Li-Ion batteries that:

High temperatures decrease battery longevity
Fast charging/discharging decreases battery longevity

So my assertion is:

  Knowing all this information, using the 45W adapter instead of the 60W one should actually help battery longevity.

Note:

Apple officially says [1]:

  Although you should always use the proper wattage adapter for your Apple notebook, you can use an adapter of a higher wattage without issue.

They say nothing about using an adapter of a lower wattage. Which I am interpreting as: Using a lower powered adapter can work, but you might experience issues such as slow charging or no charging at all (under high macbook load). Of course Apple won't officially say that this is ok (otherwise people will complain), but if this really were a serious hazard, then they wouldn't have all the chargers designed to use the same plug.

But like I said, this is not what I want to discuss. What I would like to know is if my assertion is correct under the assumption that 45W chargers can be used for the MBPr.

Since the Temperature is a major factor in Battery life degradation, slower charging is preferred.

However, if you are charging while consuming /(using your computer) the charger might not provide enough to actually charge the battery and it will get depleted.

In that case using the lower power charging is only recommended when computer is off.

Source 1:

Source 2:


What's the implication of deleting /usr/local/var? On MacOS, what's the implication of deleting /usr/local/var (when it contains the following 3 folders - homebrew, run and mysql)?

Note, you can assume I don't care about anything in the mysql folder because I want to delete it. (but I want to know what would happen to the other two folders (I can imagine the homebrew folder contain homebrew related stuff but I don't know what the run folder does at all).

Also, I used ls to list the content of /usr/local/var folder before I delete it so that means I may have missed some content that can be displayed by ls -la, so if there are any other files that I may have missed, can you tell me as well?

Debugging info:

$ brew --version
Homebrew 1.6.9
Homebrew/homebrew-core (git revision 7dac; last commit 2018-06-20)

System Version: macOS 10.13.5 (17F77)

Kernel Version: Darwin 17.6.0

I didn't do any backup and didn't use Time Machine.

What are the implications?

Since /usr/local one of the explict directories that SIP allows applications to write to, you will only harm applications that you install.

Will you crash the overall system?

No.

Will you make your system "unusable" based on what you've installed and configured?

More than likely.


How can I backup or archive my iPhone messages? I'm upgrading to iOS 8 and need to make some room on my phone. Under "Usage" (in Settings), my "Messages" is over 2 GB. I assume this refers to the Messages app, including iMessages and SMS. I don't necessarily need to keep these on my phone, but I'd like to archive these for posterity. Are there any good ways of doing this? I would prefer to be able to restore messages to my phone at will, but I don't know what options exist. I've used Phoneview before and found its import/export functionality limited.

To keep old messages for posterity, I would perform a backup and then rename it so that it does not get overwritten. A quick google search will give plenty of instructions.

As regards to restoring individual messages to your phone, I don't know that it's possible. There are certainly a number of non-free desktop apps for both PC/Mac to extract and view items from backups, again a google search will give you what you need.


Safari is not working after moving to a different country I've looked this problem up and it seems common but can be caused by a variety of reasons, I tried most of the solutions but the problem persisted.

The problem: the WiFi works fine as I can look up networks and connect to them and have a full signal. Also the Internet connection seems to be established because I can ping websites and use curl when I'm connected. But when I open safari or appstore or email I don't get a response and safari says "Safari can't open the page 'website' because safari can't establish a secure connection to the server 'websites server'. "

Solutions I tried:

cleared cookies
all proxies are off
time is set to the local time
removed the WiFi service and added it again
In the network configurations I tried to renew DHCP lease
and many small tweaks that I don't remember

Also I have an iPad which works just fine, so I really don't know what causing the problem.

Does the internet work on another browser? (if you have another installed)

Have you tried clearing your DNS? (Click the Apple Icon and Choose System Preferences. Then click the Network icon and choose Advanced. Click the DNS tab and remove any entries in the left pane)

If you don't have any antivirus, VPN or firewall programs installed, then it has to do with the website. Their network encryption is weak and Apple wont let you use it. Which usually notes a certificate issue. Normally the site admin stays on top of this.

  If Safari says it can't establish a secure connection, or the website
  is using weak encryption

  To protect your security and privacy, websites must use strong
  encryption to provide a secure web connection.

  Security enhancements in OS X Yosemite v10.10.4 and iOS 8.4 help
  protect against important security vulnerabilities. If a webpage is on
  a server that doesn't meet secure cryptographic standards:

  Safari will say that it will not open the website because it's using    weak encryption.
  Or Safari will say that it can't open the page because Safari can't    establish a secure connection to the server. To resolve the issue, the website administrator should configure their server to be secure.

How to Correct Certificates

If you only experience the error in Safari but not in other browsers, then open the blocked websites in another browser. Once you have it open, just next to the URL you will identify a tiny green lock, the word secure may be beside it. Click on it and it should show you a certificate option which shows you the current certificate details for that site.

You may see a label name that identifies the certificate. Some say Verisign or Digicert. The naming doesnt matter but you need to find it in your keychain.

Open up Keychain Access either with Spotlight Search (keyboard shortcut - CMD + Space Bar) or you can go to your LaunchPad (or Applications in Finder) and look for a utilities folder. It has Keychain Access in there.

With Keychain access open, click on system roots for all entries. You will find here your certificate by name and it will have a blue cross marked on it. Double click it and another window will come up. You have the option of choosing system setting, always approve or always reject.

You will realize that the certificate was the problem all along. Usually, a certificate will be locked on to the mail server and it will prevent any other website from using it. (Your mail server should be the entry starting with the “smtp” prefix and ending with a “.dk” suffix. Why the certificate would be locked to the mail server is as good as anyone’s guess.

Change the authentication of the certificate to “System setting”

If none of this works, and you have no problems with other networks, then you need to contact the network admin and have them reset the router by powering it down, pulling out the plug for a few mins and then plug it back in and restart it.

If they have reset it and the issue still occurs, then there are some files either missing or corrupt with MacOS. I'd attempt a MacOS reinstallation (make sure you do a backup 1st) and see if things are different from there.


Macbook Pro screen display problems I am using a Macbook Pro (the 2015 model A 1398).

Just overnight my screen shows strange horizontal lines as this:

These horizontal lines are roughly gathered in the same place on the screen (on the top), and they may increase or decrease the numbers, from time to time.

However, if I do the print screenshot, I do not see any such horizontal lines.

I did not hit or hurt my Macbook Pro recently. Can someone give any advice on how to fix it? I had restarted, shut down and restart a few times, but the problem still persists.

Info:

Thanks experts for the help!

Since you have a 2015 MacBook Pro that uses Integrated Graphics (the Intel Iris Pro chipset), you can be assured that what is manifested on one screen, will manifest on all.

What this means is that the lines you are seeing on the screen are not due to failing GPU but rather the LCD itself.  You confirmed this by plugging your MBP into an alternate display device (projector).

If you have this under Apple Care, you should take it in to have it repaired straight away.  To fix this, you will need to replace the entire Display Assembly and unfortunately, they are very expensive (approx. $850USD).


Why does chunkwm fail with "Permission denied" error for .chunkwmrc ashleyharvey@Themis:~$ ls -al .chunkwmrc
-rw------- 2 ashleyharvey staff 4.7K Apr  4 22:24 .chunkwmrc
ashleyharvey@Themis:~$ chunkwm
/bin/bash: /Users/ashleyharvey/.chunkwmrc: Permission denied

So, chunkwm is running obviously under a different uid than my own.  One way to fix this would be to give a wider set of permissions: I could chmod 640 or chmod 644 the file; however my question is how to figure out which uid/gid a process runs as in order to fix that while maintaining as tight a security boundary as possible.

I did find an answer on the unix stackexchange site that had to do with running stat on a process, so I tried something along the lines of $ (stat /proc/$$/), but apparently because of the difference in the macOS kernel, that won't work.  I ended up in /dev, but only found fd's for the standard in/out and a bunch of special stuff, clearly that's not where process FDs go.

EDIT2:

More relevant info on chunkwm:

ashleyharvey@Themis:~$ ls -al /usr/local/opt/chunkwm/bin/chunkwm`
-r-xr-xr-x 1 ashleyharvey admin 207K Mar  7 21:55 /usr/local/opt/chunkwm/bin/chunkwm

ashleyharvey@Themis:~$ ps aux | grep chunkwm`
ashleyharvey     15153   0.0  0.1  4375940  20508   ??  S    11:23pm   0:01.33 /usr/local/opt/chunkwm/bin/chunkwm

ashleyharvey@Themis:~$ type /usr/local/Cellar/chunkwm/0.4.8/bin/chunkwm
/usr/local/Cellar/chunkwm/0.4.8/bin/chunkwm is /usr/local/Cellar/chunkwm/0.4.8/bin/chunkwm

ashleyharvey@Themis:~$ file /usr/local/Cellar/chunkwm/0.4.8/bin/chunkwm
/usr/local/Cellar/chunkwm/0.4.8/bin/chunkwm: Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64

You have accidentially gone done a wrong path in trying to fix the bug. The error message does not mean that the user does not have permission to read the .chunkwmrc file - instead it means that the user does not have permission to execute the file.

The configuration file for chunkwm (.chunkwmrc) is actually a shell script that is run with bash (in your case). Therefore it needs to be executable.

You have set the permissions so that it is not executable, and that's why it fails. You need to run the following command:

chmod +x ~/.chunkwmrc

This will set the executable bit so that you are allowed to execute the file.

To answer your other questions about determining current uid for a process - the easiest way to do that is run the following command in Terminal:

ps xau | grep chunkwm

You'll see the username (or uid) as the first column of the result.

The /proc file system is Linux specific and doesn't exist in macOS (nor in many other operating systems). That's why the commands you have found regarding /proc do not work for you.

The /dev directory holds device nodes. macOS does not create device nodes for each running process that could give the uid of the running process. This is similar to other operating systems such as Linux, FreeBSD, etc. as this is simply not how /dev is meant to be used.

All in all remember that your specific problem here had nothing to do with uid's being changed, so there was no reason to lookup the uid's or trying to "stop" them being changed.


How can I stop my iPhone from “Cleaning” apps in the background? As of a few months ago I began to notice my iPhone would automatically close and unload open programs if I don’t have them immediately running. This effectively eliminates any “multitasking” ability the iPhone used to have. For example, if I have a spreadsheet open and I switch to email, after a few seconds in the background the spreadsheet app will automatically close; if I reload it then I need to go through the process of opening the app, reopening the file, and waiting for it to load (which can take several minutes with a complex file). I’ll be on a social site, see a thread that I’d like to comment on by linking an article, minimize that app, find the article in Safari, and return to my app, only to find that the social app was closed for me and I probably can’t find the thread again. Playing a game? If the game doesn’t constantly auto save then I lose all progress if I answer a phone call while playing.

I’ve managed to catch the iPhone “Cleaning” my apps if I watch the main screen - the opened app will grey out for a second and the word “Cleaning” will appear, after which I find the app has been closed and I’ve lost my data / place / progress. So it seems to me that preventing this from happening is the answer. But I can’t seem to disable it. Any ideas? (Before someone asks the obvious, I have 3GB of space open and unused on the phone. Also to be clear, this has nothing to do with the “Offload Unused Apps” feature.)

You can't. It's up to the individual app to save the current context if the user switches to another app. Some apps handle this better than others, but in any case this issue needs to be addressed to the developers of the apps.


can i put this ram into my imac 21.5 mid 2010 corsair cmso8gx3m2a1333c After installing computer wont boot up, just beeps. Uninstalled and put original 2x2gb samsung back in and computer booted up just fine.. Reinstalled the corsair and still nothing but beeping. Tried installing on top slots then on bottom slots. Computer tech at best buy assured me it would be compatiable with my iMAC

A quick Google suggests that memory is two 4 GB SO-DIMM sticks of 1333 MHz DDR3, which matches the specs given by Apple and EveryMac.

It's possible that you've just got a couple bad sticks of RAM. I'd suggest testing them one at a time, rotating through the slots. If possible, test in another machine as well.


How much use can you get from an Apple Watch if you don't have (or plan to get) an iPhone? The Apple Watch uses an iPhone for network connectivity (WiFi) and GPS, and reportedly will have some basic capabilities when you don't have an iPhone nearby.  But, what if you don't have and don't plan on getting an iPhone?  Can you get internet from any WiFi source?  Or from a non-apple Bluetooth tether?

It looks like an interesting product, but I have no interest in getting an iPhone and am concerned that the Apple Watch might be tied so closely to the Apple eco-system that it isn't worthwhile to get.

(Also, looks like somebody needs to create a new "Watch" tag?)

It's hard to say, considering we don't have access to any material on it other than the website and the keynote. It's likely you've already reviewed all public material on the device.

To quote the bottom of the WATCH page, emphasis added:

  Features are subject to change and may not be available in all regions or all languages. Requires iPhone 5 or later.

I bet the watch can't even be activated without an iPhone. Due to power requirements of Wifi, I doubt the device will carry an 802.11 radio, preferring to get it's data through the phone.

(This answer is entirely speculation and may be invalidated as we learn more about the device.)


How to set multiple folder icons in finder (for symbol- and list-view)? I'm using OS X 10.8.2. By default the system folder icons differ in symbol- and list-view in the finder. If I use the list view a small icon (16x16px) is displayed. In symbol view finder switches to a 128x128px icon.

How can I define both of these icons with my custom images?

To change a folder's icon just:

Open the image you want to use as icon, (with Preview, for instance). Select it all, or the part of it you want to use, and Copy it ( Command + C ).
Right click on the folder and choose Show Info ( Command + i ).
Select the folder icon image, and Paste ( Commdand + V).

Doing it this way, no matter in which view you'll be displaying the folder, the icon will be the image you've pasted.


Dragon Dictate (or Mavericks Dictation): How do they work? Do they have an API? This paper (http://qh.antenna.nl/unimacro/implementation_and_acceptance_of_natlink.pdf) explains how NatLink was made, a Python interface to Dragon NaturallySpeaking, on Windows. NaturallySpeaking exposes a COM interface.

For Mac, does Dictate expose any interface?

I'd like to use it for programming, for which I need to script it. Without buying Windows, and another Dragon product, and VMWare, and setting it all up, etc.

Dragon is more accurate than Dictation, but I really need to have control of the grammar and stuff, like this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SkdfdXWYaI).

(I'd like an HTTP API, but I'll take any API. It's 2014.)

I have burning wrist pain, and dictation is the one thing that has given me hope in the past few months. Thanks for the help!

http://voicecode.io does exactly what you are describing here and is for Mac. It allows you to extend its grammar resulting in very efficient voice control for programmers.

*disclaimer - I'm the creator of VoiceCode


This item will be deleted immediately. You can’t undo this action I have a MacBook Pro which has a SSD and a hard drive. Here SSD hosts the operating system and HDD stores some files (pic., doc., etc). 1 week ago I reset my system and installed OS X El Capitan. After this whenever I try to delete a file from my storage drive I have this warning "This item will be deleted immediately. You can’t undo this action.".

Is there anyway any files from storage to go to trash instead of permanently delete?

I used Onyx to secure delete the trash and it went back to normal.


geolocate iPad via Dropbox activity Is it possible to find the location of an iPad via Dropbox activity?

We are looking for a 'lost' iPad and don't have any other app that might be able to give us information.

While you can sometimes geolocate an IP address (which you can find out from Dropbox on the website by clicking the account name, settings, security, and the "i" by the relevant device) and typing this into an IP geolocation service, it will not usually show you a location anywhere near where that IP address is in use. In fact different services can report completely different locations.

The IP could be used by the police to request that information from the ISP themselves with a warrant though as they will hold records on where it's currently in use, and would be by a single location.

There are some caveats though, the IP could be a public hotspot, or a company which allows VPN access which means it could be anywhere.

All Dropbox can give you is the IP and hostname of the device though, so unless you're able to take it through the route of legal proceedings, it's unlikely.


How to block Angry Birds Toons movies in iOS App (like Angry Brids Go) Angry Birds Go comes with a menu item where you can watch Angry Birds Toons and other movies. Is it possible to block these movies (as a "parental control")?

For example: Is the server serving the movies known such that I can block the server in the router?

I was having the same problem.

This is a solution:
http://www.imore.com/how-block-specific-websites-being-accessed-safari-iphone-and-ipad

It was slightly different on the Air but very easy to figure out. I just checked "Specific Websites Only" and it was already populated with JUST kid friendly stuff that did not include the birds :)


Finder in Catalina Doesn't Show Thumbnails When Searching SD Card or External Drive Finder in Catalina doesn't show thumbnails when searching external drives or sd cards. It is challenging to find what you are looking for when you have a lot of photos or videos to look through.

What is needed to generate thumbnails on external media?

What I do is use the Cover Flow view of files in the Finder. Open a Finder window. See image below.

Here is a folder with 6 photos in it. Notice the red rectangle in the top left of image. That determines your view. If you use the 4th selection, you can see the images.


is there a way to make my device look like it was never jailbroken I had jailbroken my ipod touch and then restored it so it is no longer jailbroken and I was wondering if there is a way to make my ipod look like it was never jailbroken so apple can not tell because I heard that even if your device is not currently jailbroken apple can still tell and will not fix it if anything goes wrong.

If your iPod has been completely restored with the original software, then there's no way to tell. A jailbreak just means replacing the software with hacked software - there are no other (physical) side effects or whatever you're fearing.


Thunderbolt to HDMI (Not DisplayPort to HDMI) My first question is do Thunderbolt to HDMI adapters exist? The reason I'm specifying Thunderbolt and not DisplayPort is because I have a Belkin Thunderbolt2 Dock. If I use a MDP>HDMI adapter and the HDMI port on the unit, only one display works. However, after borrowing my friend's Elgato Thunderbolt dock and connecting it to the TB port on the Belkin dock, I could use the HDMI port on each dock on both monitors, no issue.

I would hate to have to buy two docks to set up my docked setup, but I could if I absolutely have to. The reason I want this to work is because I have a HengeDock for my laptop, and the HDMI port is inaccessible from the dock since it points upright.

Worst case, I guess I could get another DP to HDMI adapter, but that would occupy my other thunderbolt port, and my TB external does not have a daisy chain connector.

Mini DisplayPort and Thunderbolt are essentially the same connection, just with different hardware controlling them. Thunderbolt is essentially a combination of Mini DisplayPort and PCIe. I assume this was done for backwards compatibility with older hardware that was Mini DP (so you could use an Apple Cinema Display on a newer model MacBook Pro, for example). Of course, Mini DP doesn't have the same power behind it (in that it doesn't combine with PCIe) as Thunderbolt so you can't daisy chain them.

Unfortunately, from what I have been able to see, and from my product knowledge working at an iStore, there is no Thunderbolt to HDMI, only Mini DP. The actual daisy chaining that goes on inside Thunderbolt devices is done within the device itself and would require a power source to power it. Since there is no power source to an adaptor, there is no point making a Thunderbolt to HDMI connector when Mini DP is (for all intents and purposes) the same thing. Apple also says here that if you have a Thunderbolt chain, the Mini DP connection should come last. This could be the reason for only one of your HDMI ports working as the built in one would most likely be positioned after the Mini DP connection.

Of course, that isn't to say there is no multi-output HDMI Thunderbolt peripheral (a single Thunderbolt cable to a device with multiple HDMI ports), it may exist as it is possible, I just haven't seen one. The closest I could find for you were these two devices, Mini DisplayPort to HDMI® (2x HDMI® Output) Converter w/ Audio and Zotac ZT-MDP2HD Mini DP to Dual HDMI Cable.


How to export and import Atlassian Source Tree from one Mac to another? I want to migrate Source Tree (git client) bookmarks from one Mac to another one.

Is there any easy way to do so?

Didn't tested, but the Source Tree configuration files are on the following path:

  ~/Library/Application Support/SourceTree

Coping the directory to your new computer should be enough to recover your settings.


How to create OS X Server Admin firewall rules using ip address groups by command line? The (Lion) Server Admin.app has a nice ability to apply firewall rules to ip address groups without having to edit ipfw config files.

But having to enter large and long lists of IP addresses using the Server Admin GUI is a tedious task.

Therefore I am wondering how can a firewall IP address group be made from the command line?

I know there is a /usr/sbin/serveradmin which has the ability to output settings, like using $ sudo serveradmin settings ipfilter:ipAddressGroupsWithRules:_array_id:10-net:* which outputs:

ipfilter:ipAddressGroupsWithRules:_array_id:10-net:rules = _empty_array
ipfilter:ipAddressGroupsWithRules:_array_id:10-net:readOnly = no
ipfilter:ipAddressGroupsWithRules:_array_id:10-net:allowAll = no
ipfilter:ipAddressGroupsWithRules:_array_id:10-net:addresses:_array_index:0 = "10.0.0.0/8"
ipfilter:ipAddressGroupsWithRules:_array_id:10-net:name = "10-net"

Which one can dump to a file using $ sudo serveradmin settings ipfilter:ipAddressGroupsWithRules:_array_id:10-net:* > 10-net.txt. But then editing that file to rename it to a new group, like:

ipfilter:ipAddressGroupsWithRules:_array_id:11-net:rules = _empty_array
ipfilter:ipAddressGroupsWithRules:_array_id:11-net:readOnly = no
ipfilter:ipAddressGroupsWithRules:_array_id:11-net:allowAll = no
ipfilter:ipAddressGroupsWithRules:_array_id:11-net:addresses:_array_index:0 = "11.0.0.0/8"
ipfilter:ipAddressGroupsWithRules:_array_id:11-net:name = "11-net"

and loading that into serveradmin using $ sudo serveradmin settings < 10-net.txt doesn't create a new "ipAddressGroupsWithRules" rule in ipfilter. As verified using $ sudo serveradmin settings ipfilter:ipAddressGroupsWithRules:_array_id:11-net:*.

What am I doing wrong?

After 12 hours of searching and and not finding any example for ipfilter:ipAddressGroupsWithRules this https://help.apple.com/advancedserveradmin/mac/10.7/#apdA0111C46-F018-4C2C-B8D1-EDAEF73AC27E brought a helpful insight.

The only thing that need to be changed to create a new rule, and not update an existing one, is a first line that creates the rule. For example:

ipfilter:ipAddressGroupsWithRules:_array_id:11-net = create
ipfilter:ipAddressGroupsWithRules:_array_id:11-net:readOnly = no
ipfilter:ipAddressGroupsWithRules:_array_id:11-net:allowAll = no
ipfilter:ipAddressGroupsWithRules:_array_id:11-net:addresses:_array_index:0 = "11.0.0.0/8"
ipfilter:ipAddressGroupsWithRules:_array_id:11-net:name = "11-net"

Now the output of $ sudo serveradmin settings < 10-net.txt is no longer:

ipfilter:ipAddressGroupsWithRules = _empty_array

but:

ipfilter:ipAddressGroupsWithRules:_array_id:11-net:readOnly = no
ipfilter:ipAddressGroupsWithRules:_array_id:11-net:allowAll = no
ipfilter:ipAddressGroupsWithRules:_array_id:11-net:addresses:_array_index:0 = "11.0.0.0/8"
ipfilter:ipAddressGroupsWithRules:_array_id:11-net:rules = _empty_array
ipfilter:ipAddressGroupsWithRules:_array_id:11-net:name = "11-net"

Which is the synonym for that entering the new setting succeeded.


iPhone in iPod Mode in Car Switches to Different audio App Intermittently After plugging the phone into the car, and playing a podcast or music from an app, a few minutes later, the music stops playing. Sometimes it just stops playing. Other times, it switches to a song in the Music.app that had not previously been played, queued, etc.

Orginal car had a Kenwood head unit with a USB port. Now the car is a BMW 328i with the stock system -- also hooked up via the iPhone's lightning port to the car's USB.

I've had this problem in two cars now, and it's only when playing via the iPhone 6 via the lightning to USB. When playing podcasts/music via Bluetooth, this never pops up as an issue, but I want it plugged in so that it charges, plus I get track info and album art on the car's screen via USB.

It's an intermittent problem, but seems to happen most often at the beginning of the day for the commute into work or on the way home.

I typically listen to podcasts in the car and it happens with both the native Apple Podcasts app, as well as Overcast. I've also had it when playing Pandora and even the Apple music app.

It's been happening quite awhile (over the course of owning two cars). Phone is currently running iOS 9.3.5, but has happened over the course of the last 2-3 major iOS upgrades.

I have tried multiple lightning cables, and as stated before, it's happened in multiple vehicles.

Any ideas to make it stop pausing/stopping/switching to a seemingly random song without having to resort to Bluetooth?

My knee-jerk reaction is to say: This sounds to me like a possible problem with the cable or the Lightning port on the phone.  It's as if the phone is getting some kind of remote control command via the cable.  I've seen similar skipping behavior with a bad Apple earbud cord.

That being said, I have an iPhone 6s and a new Nissan NVP 3500 that I too connect to the car via USB.  If I'm not playing anything at the moment, it will start playing the first thing alphabetically in my library.  If I'm playing something already, or if the two were connected via Bluetooth before I connect the cable, it will continue as if nothing was wrong.

On a quirky note, sometimes the stereo and the phone will haggle for a bit, then the phone will play the audio through its own speaker and the car will give up trying to access the phone in iPod Out mode.  In that case, I have to reboot the phone altogether to get it to play nicely with the car.  I chalk that up to running the iOS 10 betas.


How do I know if I need a new hard drive? I just received a  MacBook Pro from somebody else because it was running too slow. Booting up takes about 4 minutes.

I have tried formatting the drive and reinstalling the operating system from scratch. The reinstall takes about 8 hours and in the end it doesn't work, or boot up is just as slow as it was before. The computer especially seems to run slow while doing system/hard drive things with it.

I want to know if getting a new hard drive will fix my problems. Is there a way to test my hard drive to know for certain that it is the problem? I don't want to waste my money on a SSD if it's not even going to make a difference.

I've live booted Linux on which runs beautifully on it which is why I'm thinking it is probably the hard drive's fault.

Here are some more details about the MacBook Pro:

OS X El Capitan
Version 10.11.3
MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012)
Processor 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory 4 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Startup Disk Macintosh HD
Graphics Intel HD Graphics 4000 1536 MB

I have the same model of Macbook which was showing the same issues. After replacing the Harddrive with an SSD I still had the same issue.

It ended up being the SATA cable connecting the hard drive to the logic board. Over some time the insulation had started to wear off and the cable was occasionally shorting against the base of the case causing IO errors. Once I replaced the cable these errors stopped happening.

A good way of checking this would be to use an external USB to SATA cable and try and boot the laptop from it externally. If the drive functions well when doing this then it is likely the SATA cable that is at fault.


Will a live USB for a Mac run on a chromebook or windows computer? I created a live Kali USB for my Chromebook which single boots ubuntu mate. I was wondering, if I made a live kali(or other linux distribution) for booting on a Mac, so using .img instead of .iso would the .img still work on my Chromebook?

In simpler terms will a live USB for OSX still work on a Chromebook or windows.

No, the disk should still be able to boot.

There isn't actually a difference between the operating system in the .img and .iso. They're just different ways of storing the same information.

Kali(or any other *nix) distro is an operating system, just as Windows and OS X are. Whether or not an operating system will run on a computer is solely dependent on the hardware, not the software already on the computer.


Has El Capitan Disk Utility Removed Encryption Options? With Mavericks I would unlock an encrypted disk using "Disk Utility", but in El Capitan the "Unlock" button isn't there.

No, just moved them.

Method 1:
Disk Utility > Menu > File > Unlock
(Embarrassingly I found this item after posting the question and using command line option to unlock the drive)

Method 2:
Command line, open "Terminal"
hdiutil attach /dev/diskXsY
Where X,Y are system specific numbers like 1,2,3.


iMovie question (possibly need a different apple product? IDK) Okay, this question is a bit of a doozy.
I decided to try my hand at making a rotoscoping animation. That's basically an animation created using real film as a base.

The original video is 16500 frames long, 24 frames per second. I'm only animating half of those frames.
I used "FireAlpaca" to draw each and every one of the still images that would be used in this video.

Do i use imovie to make this video? Obviously since there's less frames, it's going to by quicker, correct ? How do I make it so that there are only 12 frames per second instead of 24, and therefore be able to make my video at the same length as the original film I'm using as the basis for this animation?

Essentially it's just an extremely fast slideshow. Can I do this in imovie? Final Cut Pro? What do I do????

See How can I combine 30,000 images into a timelapse movie?

ffmpeg

In answers to this question the community suggest using the open source tools Avidemux or ffmpeg. For example the ffmpeg approach is:

  This will create a video slideshow (using video codec libx264) from series of png images, named named img001.png, img002.png, img003.png, …

  Each image will have a duration of 5 seconds, change the variable according to your choice.

ffmpeg -f image2 -r 1/5 -i img%03d.png -c:v libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p out.mp4

  If your images have four digits, use %04d, etc. If your images do not have this pattern, you can use shell globs, at least on Linux and OS X:

ffmpeg -f image2 -pattern_type glob -i 'time-lapse-files/*.JPG' …

  You can also change the output framerate by specifying another -r after the input.

Also see:

ffmpeg: create a video from images
http://electron.mit.edu/~gsteele/ffmpeg/ for a researchers use of ffmpeg to combine individual images into a movie.

Homebrew

You can use Homebrew to get ffmpeg onto your Mac:

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

Then install ffmpeg with:

brew install ffmpeg


Can't sync smart playlists that contains podcasts I have a smart playlist that pulls the latest podcasts, however when I try to sync the playlist to my Shuffle 4th gen, nothing happens. Smart playlists with "normal" audio files, syncs fine.

Anyone know how to troubleshoot this?

If the playlist sync over but the podcasts fail to play, it could be that you have your iPod shuffle set to "shuffle songs". You must switch to "play in order" for it to work.
From Apple Support:

Playing Audiobooks and Podcasts on iPod shuffle
When using iPod shuffle (1st and 2nd generation), if iPod shuffle is set to shuffle songs  it will play all the audio files on iPod shuffle except audiobooks and podcasts. To play an audiobook or podcast, set the switch on iPod shuffle to play in order .
When using iPod shuffle (3rd generation), podcasts and audiobooks will not be played when content is played from All Songs. If content is played from a playlist synced from iTunes, audiobooks and podcasts will only be played if the iPod's switch is set to play in order . In addition to playlists synced from iTunes, iPod shuffle (3rd generation) will create a special playlist for each audiobook synced and one for podcasts. When accessing these special playlists, audiobook and podcast content will play whether the iPod is set to play in order  or shuffle songs . Podcast are sorted by alphabetical order and then by episode date.


What is the difference between sync-ing my iPhone and backing-up my iPhone? What do they mean?  If I sync my iPhone will anything change on it?  Does my iPhone have to have the same data as my iTunes account?  (Because it doesn't - by design.)  If I get a new iPhone when the iPhone 5 comes out, will I be able to copy everything from my Mac to the iPhone via sync (or backup)?

Is there an Apple webpage with the definitive word on this?

Thanks,
No One in Particular

Backup means copying your personal data from your phone to your computer. That includes application settings, text messages, voicemails, etc.

Sync means copying new apps, music, video, or books from iTunes to your phone, or from your phone to iTunes.

You can think of it this way: backup saves a copy of stuff you've created, and sync copies media you have downloaded via the iTunes Store.

Backup copies everything, but Sync only copies what you choose through iTunes. By default, it copies everything, but you can fine tune it all you want. You might want to stop movies from syncing to your phone if you never use it to watch movies, for example.

Unless you've changed the settings, when you connect your iPhone to your computer, iTunes always performs a backup first, then a sync.

When you connect a new iPhone to your computer, iTunes will offer to reconfigure it using the latest backup it has. So if you connect your old iPhone, let it backup/sync, then connect your new iPhone, it should transfer everything so that your new phone is just like your old one, but faster!


Can't connect to SMB share after Sierra upgrade After the upgrade to Sierra on my MacBook Air, I'm unable to connect to the NAS on my home network through Samba. When I try Connect to server and enter:

smb://x.x.x.x/MEDIA/

I get an error saying "this file server will not allow any additional users to log on. Try to connect again later." My Mac Mini, still on OS X 10.9, can still connect to the share.

Try connecting with cifs://x.x.x.x/MEDIA/
Worked for me!


Show middle names in Mail.app How do I get Mail.app to show a middle name in the "To:" field? Even though I specify a middle name in the address book, it doesn't appear.

How did you specify the middle name?

Edit contact
menubar -> card -> add field -> middle name

 add the initial/name to

It works for me:


Brand New Macbook Pro 15" Battery I just bought a brand new 15" Macbook Pro (mid 2014) and it came with already 2 battery cycle counts, is that normal?

That is great. It sounds like Apple tests their hardware well before sending it out.

Obviously without asking them you can't know for sure, but presumably those two battery counts are to ensure that the battery that you have in the laptop right now is a good battery that performs to spec.


Strange screen on MacBook Air (2016) Recently my MacBook Air (2016) has been randomly giving me this screen. Longest it’s ever lasted was a minute. One time I had to shut down the computer to get it to go away, another time it went away on its own. Does anyone know if there is a quick fix?

Reset NVRAM or PRAM on your Mac
Settings that can be stored in NVRAM include sound volume, display resolution, startup disk selection, time zone, and recent kernel panic information. The settings stored in NVRAM depend on your Mac and the devices that you're using with your Mac.
Shut down your Mac, then turn it on and immediately press and hold these four keys together: Option, Command, P, and R. You can release the keys after about 20 seconds, during which your Mac might appear to restart.


How to Configure extra buttons on mouse I have a mouse that I bought from eBay and has two buttons on the side. For some reason, these keys don't do anything. In the modifier keys section of the keyboard settings, it called the mouse "SiliconWin mouse", I changed all the keys to command and no command worked. I thought these keys served no purpose but I later found if I pressed an application in the dock with the key, it would do the same thing as a right-click. Again I checked and tried to use the keys as right-clicks but did not work. Is it possible to change the functionality of the key?

P.S.
I tried setting keyboard up and it asked me to press the button to the right of shift, I pressed everything and did not work.

If I search up SiliconWin, it comes up with Windows driver and no mac drivers.

If you just want the side buttons to do back/forward in ANY
  app/environment, this app is the most basic, streamlined one I've
  found for this purpose on Mac OS X, and completely free (donate!).
  http://sensible-side-buttons.archagon.net/

This answer was copied from here: https://superuser.com/a/1230059/51328


How can I force Chrome to open links with specific profile? I'm using user profile switching in Chrome, which works perfectly fine. Except for when I'm clicking links, that are depending on one of the profiles being logged in. By default Chrome just opens the link in this profile, which was used last.

How can I force Chrome to use specific profile?

With the current version of Chrome (51.0.2704.106 (64-bit)) you can just right-click an url and then open it with the fourth menu choice from top: "Open Link as PROFILE" (your configured Chrome profile).

EDIT: with the current Chrome version: 81.0.4044.92 (Official Build) (64-bit) it's possibile open the link in a different PROFILE when the target profile it's already open.

Here two images by example. Menu when the target PROFILE it's already open:

Menu without the target PROFILE already open:

I hope this helps.


How to find the application that controls system dialog window I am trying to change the default browser between Chrome and Safari without needing user input except for initially running it.

I found this utility that takes care of the difficult bit:

https://github.com/kerma/defaultbrowser

It can be installed using Homebrew by running:

brew defaultbrowser

However when you run it a dialogue box shows up asking if I want to change browser. I want to press the "Yes "button using AppleScript. Below is a screenshot.

I want to find the application that contains this window. Is there a better way to find out where the window is rather than go through them all?

I've tried foremost window but it seems to return the foremost program. Here's some program I've tried:

tell application "System Events"
        tell process "SecurityAgent"
            click button 1 of window 1
        end tell
        delay 0.2
end tell

When you have a window that is a system dialog, or alert, type of window, and you do not know which application it belongs to, you can try using code such as the following example AppleScript code to determine the name of the application to which it belongs:

tell application "System Events" to ¬
    get name of every application process ¬
        whose role description of window 1 is "system dialog"

Or:

tell application "System Events" to ¬
    get name of every application process ¬
        whose accessibility description of window 1 is "alert"

That said, the application process you want System Events to interact with is: CoreServicesUIAgent

For example, if Google Chrome is my default browser and I run, e.g.:

do shell script "/usr/local/bin/defaultbrowser 'safari'"

Then this dialog box appears:

To click the Use “Safari” button, use:

tell application "System Events" to ¬
    click button "Use “Safari”" of ¬
        window 1 of application process "CoreServicesUIAgent"

Note: You can also use click button 1 instead of click button "Use “Safari”".

Obviously you'll need to adjust for your particular needs/wants, but you now have the application process that System Events needs to interact with.


Boot Camp Issue with Mac Pro 3,1 and ATI Radeon RX580 graphics card I have a Mac Pro 3,1 with an ATI Radeon RX580 8GB graphics card, a dosDude Catalina (10.15.6) install on an internal SSD and and a Windows 10 Pro (latest Version and updates) install on an internal HD.
Both macOS and the Windows work fine along with all parts of the Mac. As I a have the Radeon card I do not have a boot screen until either Catalina has mostly started up or Windows has started to boot, so I cannot change the booting by holding down the Option key.
I previously ran El Capitan instead of Catalina, and with that I had installed in Windows the Boot Camp 4 drivers, which allowed me to select macOS from the Boot Camp Assistant and reboot from Windows into El Capitan. From El Capitan I could select the Windows drive in the start up disc control panel and reboot into Windows.
However, since upgrading to Catalina, I can still select the Windows drive in the start up disc control panel and reboot into Windows. However if I select macOS from the Boot Camp Assistant and reboot the Mac, it always reboots into Windows.
My current work around is to shut down, remove the Windows drive, reboot in to Catalina, select Catalina in the Startup Disk control panel, reboot into Catalina, shut down, re-install the windows drive, start up and it starts up into Catalina again with the Windows disk mounted. I can then just select the Windows drive in the start up disc control panel and reboot into Windows when I need to.
From what I have read it's an issue with boot camp not liking the APFS file system Catalina uses. I have also read that a newer version of Boot Camp would fix the issue. I have upgraded Boot Camp to version 6, but this cause other issues in Windows and in the end I had to format the windows drive and re-install it from scratch along with the Boot Camp 4 drivers.
Can anybody tell me how I can get this issue sorted out so I can just switch using Boot Camp?
Many thanks
Duncan

Most users have solved this problem by running Apple Software Update to get a newer version of Boot Camp. For users where this update is unavailable or unusable, there is a solution involving using the rEFInd Boot Manager. When properly installed and configured, rEFInd can allow Boot Camp to indirectly boot from Windows to a macOS residing in a APFS container.
The idea is simple enough: From Windows, you use Boot Camp to choose rEFInd. When the Mac boots rEFInd, the Mac will be instruct by rEFInd to silently boot Catalina.
For this to work, you will need use the following steps to install and configure rEFInd.

Create a small Mac OS Extended (Journaled) partition.
Download rEFInd. This is a free product.
Install rEFInd to the small Mac OS Extended (Journaled) partition. Basically, use the --ownhfs option when invoking refind-install.
Edit the refind.conf file to silently boot Catalina.

You should be able to install rEFInd without disabling SIP.


Upgrading late 2011 MacBook Pro to SSD drive My MacBook Pro currently has OS X Yosemite installed. I am upgrading the hard drive to an SSD. I understand you have to download the software to a bootable USB. Which software should I download, Yosemite or the original software that came with the MacBook?

If you bought Yosemite in the past, you can see if this version of OS X appears in the App Store as items you purchased. If so, you should be able to download the installer.

The instructions to create a bootable installer are given at the Apple web site: Create a bootable installer for OS X. Below, I have include a excerpt from this site.

Use the 'createinstallmedia' command in Terminal

Download the OS X installer from the Mac App Store. Quit the
installer if it opens automatically after downloading. The installer
will be in your Applications folder.
Mount your USB flash drive or other volume. You could also use a
secondary internal partition.
Open the Terminal app, which is in the Utilities folder of your
Applications folder.
Use the createinstallmedia command in Terminal to create the
bootable installer. Examples of this command are in the next
section. For detailed usage instructions, make sure that the
appropriate Install OS X app is in your Applications folder, then
enter one of the following paths in Terminal:

Path for El Capitan:

/Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia

Path for Yosemite:

/Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Yosemite.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia

Path for Mavericks:

/Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia

Examples

This is the basic syntax of the command. Replace volume path with the path to your USB flash drive or other volume, and replace installer path with the path to the Install OS X app.

createinstallmedia --volume volumepath --applicationpath installerpath

Example for El Capitan:

sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app

Example for Yosemite:

sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Yosemite.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Yosemite.app

Example for Mavericks:

sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app

If you can not download Yosemite from the App Store.

  Note: What is written below has only been tested on Macs that are not using Core Storage.

Another alternative would be to create bootable USB flash drive OS X Recovery Disk. Basically, you would be coping your Recovery partition to a flash drive. You can the boot to this flash drive to download and install Yosemite on your SSD.

To create this Recovery Disk, you will need to download the OS X Recovery Disk Assistant v1.0. Even though Recovery Disk Assistant only refers to Lion and Mountain Lion, the Assistant will also work with Yosemite.

Using you HDD as the external bootable installer.

You could try purchasing USB external drive enclosure for your HDD. Or at least, purchase a SATA to USB adaptor. You then could try booting to the Recovery partition on the HDD. If successful, Yosemite could then be downloaded and installed on the new internal SSD.

If there is no way to perform a new installation of Yosemite.

This solution requires creating a El Capitan USB installer flash drive and connecting the HDD via a USB port.

Boot from the USB installer and launch the Disk Utility application. Create a partition on the new SSD. Restore the Yosemite partition from the HDD to the SDD. This is referred to as cloning.

Note the following:

The two drives may need to be using the same sector size. There are
only two sector sizes currently in use: 512 bytes and 4096 bytes.
You made need to reduce the size of the hard disk partition to be
smaller than the SSD partition. You may need to do this while booted
to Yosemite on the HDD.


Swapping existing hard drive into new laptop I'm currently running 10.6.6 and my MBP has a nice and speedy SSD in it.

My plan is to replace my current laptop with one of the new ones just announced today.

Is it possible to simply take the SSD out of my current laptop and plop it into the new one having to do nothing other than that?  I know the new MBPs have different graphics cards, the new thunderbolt port, etc...  Does any of that hold me back from my swap idea?

UPDATE:

Based on some of the comments below my thinking is now:

SuperDuper! backup of my existing system to external HD (I still have a firewire disk I can use for this since I don't think TDM works over USB)
Boot to that backup via target disk mode
Update to the latest OS X 10.6.6 on the firewire disk using the combo update
Boot the new laptop to the same disk via TDM and test
If all goes well, run the combo update on the SSD in the old MBP
Swap

Good idea?  Too much?

If you are moving to a MBP with a different chipset than what you currently have, and since it's a new revision it will be all new hardware, then you can do the SSD transfer but you will get a lot of issues with driver and system compatibility.

The best thing would be to do a Time Machine backup of you current system, install the SSD, fresh install of OSX, and during the user registration restore your data from a Time Machine backup.


How To Change the name of different install partitions on USB drive I seached the whole stack exchange & the inter webs about how to change the names of this install partitions of my USB harddrives.
I want them called
i10.5
i10.6
i10.7
i10.8
i10.9

Anyone the Magic way?

sudo bless --folder /Volumes/yourdisk -label "Title here"

bless is the command to set startup disk options.
--folder specifies the disk and -label assigns it a label.


Make MacBook Pro announce emails when sleeping I'd like to make my MacBook make a sound when I receive a new email, even when it is sleeping.

Is there any way to do that?

No - sleep precludes the making of sounds.

You can set the Mac to prevent sleep and instead just put the screen to sleep but anything that runs on the CPU will need to machine to exit from sleep anytime a mail arrives in order to produce the sound you wish to be made.


Remove Preview window for all Finder windows One day something happened and the Preview window on the right hand side of the window started appearing in all my Finder windows. How can I make it go away permanently? If I close it, it only closes for that one particular folder.

Close all Finder windows except for one.
In the only open Finder window, arrange it in a manner that you'd
like as the default without having the Preview window showing.
Press commandj (⌘J) and then at the bottom of the
View Options sheet, click the Use as Defaults button.


Linking Outlook.com mail account and Mac Mail via Active Sync I've setup a new outlook.com account and I'm trying to add it to Mac Mail. In the past when I've had Gmail account they've allowed me to use IMAP, but with Outlook.com you don't have that option - only POP3 or Active Sync. I don't want to use POP3 as it doesn't sync the back to the server, so I want to use Active Sync, which works in a similar way to IMAP in terms of syncing everything.

How can I add an Active Sync account to Mac Mail? I've had a look around but could find any info on it, any ideas?

Outlook.com now supports IMAP and can be configured to work in Mac Mail. Take a look at the following Microsoft Community answer.

  Open Mac Mail.
  From the File menu, choose Add Account…
  Input your account information.
  Choose Account Type: IMAP.
  Input the following as the Incoming Mail Server: imap-mail.outlook.com.
  Choose to Use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) for incoming mail security.
  Input the following as the Outgoing Mail Server: smtp-mail.outlook.com.
  Choose to Use Authentication.
  Choose to Use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) for outgoing mail security.


Photos.app does not see DCIM folder on MicroSD card I have some photos in the DCIM folder on a MicroSD card that normally lives in an Android phone.  When I mount the card on my Macbook Pro using a USB card reader, Photos.app automatically launches.  But the app doesn't seem to "see" that there are pictures inside the folder.  I can access the pictures through the Finder (see screenshot), and of course I can manually import the pictures by dragging them from the Finder window into Photos, but I am wondering if there is some way I can point Photos.app to the directory where the photos are stored so that it can find them and import them on its own.

I believe this is a bug in the latest Photos app 1.3, which was released on Dec 8 2015.

It only imports pictures that has a filename such as DSCxxxx.JPG or IMG_xxxx.PNG. Also if you select "Import" from the menu and select your microsd card, all folders on that card are grayed out.


How can I copy a Google search URL from Safari? When I google for images of "apple sauce" (without the quotes), Safari's location bar just displays "apple sauce" (without the quotes) rather than the URL leading to Google searching for apple sauce images.

I want to send someone the search URL. How can I get it from Safari?

Like suggested elsewhere, you can drag the search text from the URL bar into some plain text view. However, one can also directly drag it into a (rich text) email or chat message. Or into Google's search field which is conveniently close to Safari's location bar:

(In previous versions, you could drag the magnifying glass icon; in 2016 versions just drag the search text like shown above.)

After dragging into Google's search field, the additional search text is already selected and focussed, ready for Command+C:

(In earlier versions, Safari's location bar will still have focus, and the URL in Google's search input will be gray, not blue. In those versions one could first hit Tab after searching to go into Google's search field, hit Delete to clear it, and then drag the icon. After that, the search field is ready for Command+C as well.)

The Share button to the right of the location bar can also share the URL, but probably only when messaging has been configured:

As an aside: the Google URLs include a lot of irrelevant things, specific to your browser, language, etc. Often, it's enough to use www.google.com#q=elvis+is+alive, or for image search www.google.com#tbm=isch&q=elvis+is+alive, but then one needs to change the spaces into plus-characters to ensure it's clickable. (And one also needs to percent-encode other special characters.) It would be nice if Google would provide some bare sharing link on its own site.


Word cannot save this document due to a naming or permissions error on the destination volume I have a mapped network folder on my Mac.

About a week ago everything was fine and I could save Word documents to my personal folder on the network drive. Now, I've been getting the following message:

"Word cannot save this document due to a naming or permissions error on the destination volume"

I have the latest Office and OSX version.

Why is that?

This problem appears to be tied to how Word creates temp files when saving changes. The fix appears to be creating a .TemporaryItems directory with global read/write access at the root of the network share.

Creating a .TemporaryItems directory with global read/write access at the root of the network share should fix it. If a directory with that name already exists, check the permissions on the directory and set it to be globally read/write if needed.

Links with more information:

http://prowiki.isc-csg.upenn.edu/wiki/MS_Office_and_Network_Volumes
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20051122213207398


waking up from locked screen with just keyboard I'm on OS X 10.9.5. I do not like using mouse/trackpad, and mostly work with keyboard only. One annoying thing is that when the OS is locked (screen lock) and the power saving for the monitor is activated, I can't wake it up with a keystroke. I MUST move the mouse cursor to let me type in my password to unlock the screen.

Does anybody else have the same problem and if so is there a workaround?

On 10.9.5 You could use the Accessibility option and enable mouse keys  if you have a keyboard number pad.

There are some optional settings there to choose from like:

By clicking 5 times on the Option key you can turn that feature on or off.


Does the Mac mini with M1 support the LG 5k display? I have the 1st gen LG ultrafine display. Will it work with the 2020 Mac mini M1-based machine?
Update: The LG 5k 1st gen is quite prickly. It doesn't work with an AMD eGPU which does work with the 2nd gen LG. It seems to have some non-standard DisplayPort over thunderbolt implementation. This egpu.io article has details: https://egpu.io/forums/gpu-monitor-peripherals/lg-ultrafine-5k-now-usb-c-powered/

So far, it does not. Just connected my new M1 to my LG Ultrafine 5k and it blanks out randomly despite using the same connection that works fine with my 2018 Macbook Pro and despite the M1 Mini driving a 4k VewSonic (HDMI) without any issues (which looks quite nice, but would prefer to be able to use the 5K and its built in camera.


Quicktime Mov with Left Stereo into Mono/Dual Stereo I recorded a screencast using an external microphone and quicktime.  However, the audio is only on the left channel.  Is there a way via an apple tool, command line, or otherwise to convert a left channel only quicktime movie into mono or copy to both channels?

I use ffmpegX a lot for transcoding video files from one format to another, there is an option to set audio channels to Mono see the docs.


flashplayer.dmg is in use and can't empty Trash I accidentally downloaded malware: something posing as Flash Player in flashplayer.dmg. I did not install it, but deleted the dmg file. Now I want to delete my trash bin, but I can't. It says: 'trash can't be emptied, flash player.dmg is in use.'
How do I fix this?

open Terminal.app
type rm .Trash/flash_player.dmg and press Enter. This removes the file.
reboot
check whether the file is gone from the Trashcan

It might be helpful to run a malware cleaner afterwards as well to make sure nothing else got infected.


Can I remove the content from Time machine? Is it just delete all the folders in the Time Machine drive ?

I am about to leave my current company and want to follow the policy to wipe everything related to IP (e.g., code)

Time Machine was enabled in the past for faster backup locally than some cloud providers.

In the case where you can copy off any non-work related items, it’s thousands to millions of times faster to copy off any data that should remain and then partition and erase the drive entirely.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208496 - How to erase a disk for Mac -
Use Disk Utility to erase (format) a hard disk, SSD, flash drive, or other storage device.

Lots of technical info below is why an erase is easier and options if you have to surgically remove some data and it’s worth the pain to learn and perform the surgery. It is possible to do.

Automating deleting all instances of one file is a very difficult process as would even be copying off all versions of one file if it changes often. Let alone finding files that were backed up and now deleted.

Deleting a single backup instance is reasonably easy to automate but takes a long time since each file is hard linked to other identical copies and chaining these files together and keeping track of how many copies of each file  was backed up has lots of overhead and save operations to the filesystem.


Where can I find iOS Enterprise Developer Program terms of use (license)? Is it possible to see the full license (terms of use) of iOS Enterprise Developer Program before going through the whole process of enrollment to the program?

I know that you can see the license during the process of enrollment to the program but this is at the end of this process, after company verification, etc. However, I would like to check some details in terms of use before going through the whole process. I was looking for this document but found nothing.

Take a look at the iOS Developer Enterprise Program FAQ. The key points are:

No ability to distribute apps on the App Store.
Only allows you to distribute your apps to employees or members of your organization through Ad Hoc distribution.
The program is for companies/organizations to develop and distribute proprietary in-house apps to their employees.
If you want to develop for other company than yours, that other company should enroll in the program and add you to their development team.


I want an operating system that can be used for both gaming and developing. Is Mac OS the right choice? I'm both a (newbie) developer, student and a gamer. Right now I have Ubuntu 11.10 and Windows 7 installed on my box. I usually run Ubuntu for my everyday chores, but when I want to play games or type a damn report, I have to switch over to Windows (Sorry, I'm still trying to get accustomed to OpenOffice :)) Since I am going to reinstall my OSes, I want to look at all my options. Seeing that some games I play - StarCraft II, LOL, Diablo III - already supports Mac OS, so I am thinking of giving it a try as well.

I'd like to know if developing the same technologies using Mac OS is anything different from using Ubuntu. The technologies I currently have my hands dirty with and are especially concerned about are: GNU C/C++, Boost, Cassandra (Thrift, LibEvent, Flex, Bison), MySQL, Java, Android, Python (Django) and PHP. (Especially Cassandra, because I need to compile it from source for a project.)

Most or all of the software that you've mentioned is available for OS X (except LoL, which you can run through Bootcamp under your Win7). OS X is a nice operating system with a lot of very well designed software, but the best way to see how it works is to actually use it for a while. I have used Linux and I believe that OS X is much more polished but some people might not care about this and would love to have the ability to tweak every single aspect of their OSs.

All Blizzard games run perfectly on a Mac. I do Android (and iOS through Xcode) development using Eclipse and I have no problem using OS X for all my needs.


Emacs copy a paste line with comment adds extra space / line I work in emacs in a termal tab, and instead of using the built in copy and paste shortcut commands I generally just highlight (with the mouse) to copy and paste.  This works fine for normal code/text, but when the section being copied includes a comment, the pasted text includes extra white-space after the end of the comment line - and it's a pain to go to every comment line and delete that whitespace (which wraps onto a newline).  See example below:

Is there anyway to stop this behavior?

For example, in a python code, highlighting from the initial # to the end of "stringy":

# Some comment line
someInt = 10
someString = "stringy"

is copied and pasted as:

# Some comment line
              | <-- end on first pasted line is now about here
someInt = 10
someString = "stringy"

I guess you problem arises to an extend from continuing lines which get copied with the physical line break on screen. One way to avoid this and get proper mouse highlighting in Emacs, is running it as a separate GUI app. I installed GNU Emacs for Mac OSX and it runs perfectly with mouse selection capabilities: You can select with the mouse and continuing lines get copied as single lines as you want it.

GNU Emacs for Mac OSX  will pick up your normal .emacs configuration and if you do not like the GUI elements like the toolbar you can hide them on startup in the variable default-frame-alist.


Why has the edit button disappeared from my iPhone in Mail? Up until I updated my iPhone a few days ago, I could go to "edit" in my email and "mark as unread" when I need to come back to the message later. This feature has disappeared. Is there anyway to get it back? How do I mark an email as unread?

It has just moved to the Flag symbol in the bottom left hand corner.


How to debug slow terminal prompt? Ever since I upgraded to Mavericks, the Terminal prompt became a bit slower at coming back. It's not a huge deal, but there's now a slight noticeable delay before the prompt comes back (maybe like a quarter of a second)  which gets annoying over time.

How would I debug this issue? Basically, is there a way to see what exactly it's doing in that time? What are common causes of such a slow down?

I was encountering a 5-second lag (!) between Terminal window creation and receiving a bash prompt.  (This was on a fresh install of Mavericks on which I had copied user profiles from another machine.)  I removed all the *.asl files in /private/var/log/asl/ as mentioned here, and it completely solved my lag issue.  Thanks.


Losi iPhone 5 and device is turned off and hence can not locate using Find my Phone app I lost my iphone 5. Within 30 minutes, I log onto my PC to find my phone. However it shows that all devices are off. I have put it in lost mode but have not erased my phone as I know he / hse may be able to operate without my password. Can you let me know if I am at risk by not erasing the iphone and will he bve able to crack my password (whcih I believe very very difficult)
Thanks

I lost my iPhone5 few months ago in August 2013. I think I had pass code setup but not iCloud (so there was no way to remote erase or to find it). The next thing I did was called the customer  service (mine was T-Mobile) and they temporarily suspended my line. I immediately changed all my passwords. I never got my brand new iPhone 5. I would suggest erasing the phone and/or if possible changing all the passwords you could remember ASAP.


Will FileVault 2 wear out my SSD faster? I'm considering using FileVault 2 when I upgrade to Lion. Though my understanding of it is weak, it seems as though it shouldn't really increase the number of reads or writes per disk operation compared to a non-encrypted drive.

I don't even know if there's any kind of encryption that would increase reads/writes dramatically, since all decryption presumably happens in memory. But it seemed like something I ought to ask about.

Is there anything I'm not aware of here that I should be?

Encryption happens on-the-fly.  If the data was written to the hard drive, then passed through an encryption algorithm that then deleted the written data and re-wrote it, encrypted, that would be hella inefficient, and would largely defeat the purpose.  I think the answer to your question is no, but of course remember that if you're going from a data set that's not yet encrypted, then all of that data needs to be processed, so that initial process of reading, encrypting and re-writing data will have an effect.


How to auto fit columns in Finder when in Columns view? When in Finder Columns view, how can I automatically resize a column to autofit filenames?

You can do this by double-clicking on the border between columns. Note that doing this auto fits the column to the left.

In older versions of macOS (and/or if you have enabled always show scroll bars in System Preferences > General), you can do it by double-clicking the block below the scroll bar arrows.


Proxy Authentication Error in pip install Mac I have tried to set the proxy in the bash_profile:

export http_proxy=http://UserID:PWD@202.141.80.24:3128

export https_proxy=http://UserID:PWD@202.141.80.24:3128

export ftp_proxy=http://UserID:PWD@202.141.80.24:3128

Also since my password contains an '@' symbol I escaped it with \ and also tried to replace it with %40.

And I am saving the changes and updating the profile using source ~/.bash_profile

Despite all this, when I run the command:

sudo pip install kmeans-smote

I get Proxy Authentication Error:

Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks!

Variables in bash are case sensitive and most software expects the proxy to be set in uppercase. It's also a good idea to quote strings as you never know what can upset bash.

export HTTP_PROXY="http://UserID:PWD@202.141.80.24:3128"

export HTTPS_PROXY="http://UserID:PWD@202.141.80.24:3128"

export FTP_PROXY="http://UserID:PWD@202.141.80.24:3128"

NOTE For these sort of shell questions Stack Overflow is usually better for a quick answer.


iPhone Remote App Is Very Latent In Controlling Large iTunes Library I have a fairly large iTunes (v10.6) library of music (425 gigabytes) running on a Windows 7 Professional, 64 bit, i7 Quad Core with 8 Gigabytes of memory, Dell computer. My internal network is running over a WNDR4000 wireless N router with WPA2 encryption. I have recently installed the Apple remote App to my iPhone 4s running iOS 5.1. In trying to control the playing of music within iTunes with the remote app I have experienced less than adequate results. The app seems to become "stuck" for lack of a better term trying to switch to different tracks within iTunes. Eventually it will switch to a selected track after 3+ minutes. I have turned off encryption as an experiment to see if this will allow the app to switch to a selected track more rapidly (i.e. within seconds) with no success. The wireless router is running latest firmware. I am highly skeptical of this  issue being a result of my wireless infrastructure and am more prone to see this as a result of the size of my iTunes library. I ran an additional test on my late 2011 Mac Book Pro (i7,Lion,8GB Ram, SSD) with a much smaller iTunes (v10.6) library (less than 2 gigabytes) over same wireless infrastructure with WPA2 encryption enabled and play back from app on iPhone was as would be expected, music selection from app was near instantaneous. My question is as follows:

Has anyone experienced a similar issue when trying to use the app on an iPhone in conjunction with a large iTunes library running on a Windows 7 64 bit PC? If so was any workaround isolated?

I have searched Google and the Apple forums but was unable to find any reference to a similar instance.

Doesn't surprise me at all. An iPhone doesn't have anywhere near enough memory to work with that much data unless the developer puts a huge amount of effort into making it work, and I can't see Apple doing so when few people have a database that big.

Most likely it can only store info about a small subsection of your library on the phone, and whenever it needs to access data from a song it doesn't have, it has to go back to the server. I could see that maxing out a fibre channel network's bandwidth, let alone wireless.

About all you can do is send an email to apple's support team and ask them to fix it in some future update. If enough people complain, they will.

Have you tried working with playlists that only expose small sections of your library?


How can I tell if someone logged in to my macOS Sierra? It seems as though the activity in my Console has been deleted. Is this possible? There is no data before the login that led me here tonight.

Yes, ever since macOS Sierra, it is possible that Console isn't displaying your past activity. You may want to refer to this question: Sierra Console.app show earlier data

With regard to your question title, it's not clear exactly what details you're after, but one option open to you is using the last command in Terminal.

More specifically:

Launch Terminal (usually found in the Utilities folder)
Once the square cursor appears, type last
Press the enter key

This will produce a list of sessions in reverse time order.


How to disable voice dictation on an iPhone 4S running iOS 5.1 or later? When the keyboard is active on my iPhone 4S (running jailbroken iOS 5.1.1 / 6.1.1), there is a key between the space bar and the numeric entry toggle. This key has a microphone on it and tapping it opens voice dictation.

How do you prevent this key from showing up?

Note that the instructions at http://osxdaily.com/2012/05/04/turn-off-dictation-on-ipad-iphone/ do not work; the Keyboard menu does not contain a Dictation toggle.

There are four things that you can try:

Disable Siri

You can disable Dictation by disabling Siri. Navigate to Settings > General > Siri and turn Siri "Off".

Update PList File

However, understandably, you may want to use Siri, and since you have a jailbroken phone, this appears possible by editing a .plist.

As per this MacRumors post, edit the file /User/Library/Preferences/com.apple.keyboard.plist. Edit it to add the following lines inside of the <dict> block:

<key>DictationOnSpaceKey</key>
<false/>

Update a different file

Using iFile, edit the file /Users/Library/ConfigurationProfiles/UserSettings.plist

Set restrictedBool > allowDictation > value to Off or false. It should look like this:

<key>allowDictation</key>
<dict>
  <key>value</key>
  <false/>
</dict>

Install "NoDictation"

NoDictation is a free jailbreak tweak available from the BigBoss repos (available by default on most iOS jailbreaks). If neither of the previous options work, it may.