How can I install a single app from an unknown developer? I am new to Mac and am trying to install a Hex Editor.  Google sent me to "Hex Fiend", but, when I try opening it, I get "'Hex Fiend.app' can't be opened because it is from an unidentified developer."

How can I tell Mac to install and trust Hex Fiend? Ideally, I'd like to keep the setting of "identified developers only" and just make an exception this time.  Or, is there another Hex Editor I can use? I'd just like to be able to edit hex!

UPDATE: I tried the answers below, but they don't work, because I'm trying to do Open With from Finder (that is, click on the file, choose open with Hex Fiend).  Is there a way to do that? If not, how can I shut off this setting?

Very simply…

Right click it & select Open.

That will bypass Gatekeeper for that one app

See: OS X: About Gatekeeper


Adding songs without duplicate in iTunes? Is there a way to add songs to iTunes and avoid make duplicates in the process ? I've a couple of macs and I want to merge all my songs on 1 mac and then be using home sharing...

Is it possible to avoid duplicating all the songs that are already in the "destination" iTunes Library ?

You should have a look at the utility "Dupin", it allows to check for bunches of duplicates and resolve the conflicts.

I would test it for a few duplicates so you see how it works, and then I would just import everything and clean afterwards.


How might I make a shortcut for switching my macbook into airplay screensharing mode with my apple tv? Now that Apple TV shares synchronized audio&video from my Macbook without any limitations or constraints (seamlessly), it seems pretty common sense that there might be a (Launcher or topbar) shortcut out there that could toggle my airplay configurations between on and off. Is there?

Thanks

You mean the Available AirPlay Display icon that's on the menubar allowing you to opt to AirPlay whatever is on your screen to an Apple TV? It looks like a rectangle with an arrow at the bottom that is pointing upward. If you don't see it on the menubar, go into Display Preferences in System Preferences and toggle the option on.


Google Chrome confirm close Many a time and oft I get confused between close tab (⌘+w) and close (⌘+q) in Google Chrome, closing dozens of tabs at once.

How do I specify a close prompt before closing multiple tabs on Chrome (version 18.0.1025.168)?

I have tried chrome://flags/, and the wrench menues but found no such option.

Enabling "Warn Before Quitting" should prevent that from happening. You can find that option in the Chrome menu in the menubar.

When enabled, you need to hold down ⌘+Q for a bit before it actually quits.


Mac App Store update issues after migrating to Retina MBP I had a 2011 MBP and I just purchased the new RMBP. I used the startup migration assistant to port all my data, easy.

But I'm getting weird issues, when I opened programs for the first time I was prompted to put in my password.

Now, I am unable to update my apps (so far IMovie and IPhoto) through the mac app store, I get this error:

I only have one account and I am logged in to that account.

I've followed the instructions regarding repairing disk permissions and re-indexing spotlight found here

I had this same issue when moving to my new iMac.  Unfortunately, I contacted Apple Support and even they could not solve the issue.

Eventually, they just gave me promo codes to purchase and re-download (for free) the iLife suite.

I would use this Mac App Store support form to contact them.


Missing text highlighting Color when selecting it in Preview When I select text in PDF file in Preview it doesn't highlight properly.

This issue is reproducible after a restart. I'm on Mojave 10.14.1

I mean it's not about highlighting words or something, that works. But when I select text to copy it, it doesn't highlight although I can copy it and paste somewhere. Text is selectable, and it used to work like week ago, but now it doesn't. Any ideas?

If I understand your question..

The text highlight (select) color for Preview is set in your

System Preferences > General

You can customize it by selecting Other then choose the color and how dark you want it by moving the slider.


Macbook Pro (5.1 Model Late 2008) 16GB RAM upgrade Can I add 16GB of RAM in my MacBook Pro (5.1 model, late 2008) running at 1333 DIMMs?

The Late 2008 MacBook Pro's can only address:

6.0GB for the 17" model
8.0GB for the 15" model

The information is based on personal experience and backed by MacTracker


Are the LaunchPad icons bigger/magnified in Mac OS 10.7.2? Just upgraded to 10.7.2 and found out that the Launchpad icons had become much bigger / magnified.

Is this a normal thing or is there something wrong with my installation?

Yes, they are bigger.
No, the size is hardcoded in the actual application.


Performance increase from Fusion Drive I have a 2011 27" iMac i7 3.4gHz with 24 GB RAM. The startup disk is a 256 GB SSD and then I have another 1TB HDD installed as well. I use it for both design (Adobe Suite, Sketch, etc) and front-end dev (node, mongo, etc) as well as a little Wordpress dev. For a 2011, I can't really complain about its performance - it starts up in under 30 seconds, can handle NUMEROUS browser, terminal and VScode tabs and run Illustrator and Photoshop pretty flawlessly. If I have a server or 2 running in the background, some of that starts to suffer.

Based on all that, I'm inclined to think "if it's not broken, don't fix it", BUT I just read about the thing people with 1 SSD and 1 HDD have been doing for quite a while now, which is combining the 2 for a Fusion Disk and have to say I'm a little more than intrigued.

Doing this would require me to reorganize all my applications, project folders, scripts, etc so it wouldn't be a small undertaking, but if it will give the boost in performance many have reported, it will probably be worth it.

Given my system specs and the type of work I'm doing on it, am I likely to see a noticeable change?

I would say: No.

My experience of using a Fusion Drive in a 2012 Mini for several years is that the shared performance benefit lessens as the drive fills up.

Secondly, and perhaps most importantly: a Fusion Drive has two points of failure, and a nine-year-old hard drive is increasingly likely to fail, at which point you will have only your backup. ;-)

Your best course of action is to use the 256Gb SSD as your System disk and farm out user data 'overspill' to a faster external drive.


Why are apps purchased on iPhone and iPad being deleted from device when synced? Apps that are purchased on my devices are deleted from the devices when I sync them with my desktop. iTunes states that the purchases are being transfered, but they are still deleted and do not show up under the iTunes app list. What is causing this?

For some reason when it syncs, it sometimes only remembers the iTunes information and doesn't read the device information. So you may find that after syncing it will deleted apps you'd installed and install apps you'd deleted. It's very annoying. To get around that, I have set my devices to not automatically sync when plugged in. When I do plug them in, I right click the device name, click Transfer Purchases, and after that has been completed then I sync.


32-bit or 64-bit version of Microsoft Office on Windows 7 64-bit bootcamp? I wanted to ask which version I should download and install. First, I need to tell you that I use Windows 7 64-bit bootcamp on my Mac. I access it mostly via a virtual machine (VMWare). My Macbook has 8GB RAM and an about 3.1 GHz processor. I have about 10GB of free space on my bootcamp. Which version of Microsoft office should I install, 32-bit or 64-bit? Does 32-bit even work on my bootcamp?

The Microsoft support page describes the limitations of the 64bit office.

They are the following:

Solutions using ActiveX controls library, ComCtl controls won’t work.
Third-party ActiveX controls and add-ins won’t work.
Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) that contain Declare statements won’t work in the 64-bit version of Office without being updated.
Compiled Access databases, like .MDE and .ACCDE files, won’t work unless they’re specifically written for the 64-bit version of Office.
In SharePoint, the list view won’t be available.
If you have specific add-ins that you use in the 32-bit version of Office, they may not work in 64-bit Office, and vice versa. If you’re concerned, check your current version of Office before installing the new one. Considering testing the add-in with 64-bit Office, or finding out if a 64-bit version of the add-in is available from the developer.

If these limitations do not apply to you (they seem quite advanced and/or obscure to me) then you should choose the 64bit option.

The 32bit version will work as Microsoft is usually quite good in support of older windows versions and architectures, but there is really no benefit to it.


What is the fastest connection between two MacBooks What is the fastest way to connect two MacBooks? In my case I want to connect an MacBook Air (2011) with a Retina MacBookPro and use Screen Sharing.

Options I'm thinking of:

Thunderbolt/Ethernet and connecting both MacBooks directly?
something else?

Direct wired connection is the fastest you can get, so go with Thunderbolt/Ethernet.


Cannot download app from family sharing (app already downloaded) I have recently configured Family Sharing (2 accounts are currently part of it). Most of the apps download just fine, but there are some exceptions.

Example: account A has Twitter in its purchased list; if account B tries to download Twitter from the store, the little cloud icon appears (and this is expected, since the app has indeed been downloaded by a family member already), but the download fails with an error message that says that the app has already been purchased by another user.

Is there a way to solve this?

Ok I found a solution, it's another iOS 8 bug. These are the steps to solve this:

  Launch the App Store on your iOS device.
  Select the "Featured" tab and scroll to the bottom.
  Tap on your Apple ID and select "Sign Out."
  Tap on "Sign In" and log in with your Apple ID.

Source


Why does my iPhone 4s resume playing a paused podcast after a missed call? Here's the sequence of events:

I'm listing to a podcast via the relatively new podcast app.
I pause the podcast.
Time passes. The phone sleeps.
I get a call which I do not pick up; I don't even touch the phone.
The podcast resumes playing, surprising me and those around me.

This would be expected behavior except for item 2. I think it's a bug.

I'm running iOS 6.0, but this has been happening for a while; at least since 5.something. It's possible that it began happening when I started using the new podcast app instead of the music app for podcasts.

it's a bug they introduced in iOS6. drives my crazy.

Hope they fix it soon. No easy way to tell Apple they have a bug, unless you sign up to their developers program


What are the pro's and con's between Yabai and Amethyst window manager I already have BetterSnapTools, but it lacks some features which I liked on my old Windows laptop (I had AquaSnap installed, which actually has a lot of great features which I miss on the Mac).
Recently I heard about "Yabai" and "Amethyst" which are more "techy" to install and use, but seem to have more in-depth features. So far, I couldn't find any comparison of them at all, so I thought I'd ask this more "general" question and it would be great if we can collect the pros and cons.
I will update this question with relevant information.

Yabai's wiki has a comparison table of yabai and amethyst.

However, they do consider this table incomplete and ask for contributions to the wiki to make it a good comparison table.


What PDF Viewer can be used to present slides on High Sierra? I give a lot of talks using PDF slides built with LaTeX beamer. I was very happy with Skim, because it offers you to synchronize two Skim windows, s.t. you don't have to mirror the screen, but instead use both displays at their native resolution and also be able to watch the thumbnail sidebar etc. on your own display without your viewers watching (similar to what PowerPoint and Keynote offer with two displays).

However, as we all know, Apple has rendered PDFkit unusable since Sierra and Skim uses PDFkit for rendering. The main issue that rendered PDFkit unusable for presentations is the fact that it first shows a low resolution version of the content, before actually showing the high resolution rendering. This is very bothersome in the context of overlays.

In Sierra one could circumvent this by scrolling through the entire presentation beforehand, which apparently built up the cache of high resolution renderings
In High Sierra this is no longer possible, every time a page is shown it is shown at low resolution for a split second

Thus, I'm looking for alternative PDF viewers, which support two displays without mirroring but do not rely on PDFkit for rendering. Adobe Acrobat renders fine, but is not so suitable for presentations.

Just a few days ago I have asked the same question at tex.stackexchange.com. User DG‘ has provided a couple of useful suggestions, which culminated  in the following answer:

The delay in rendering pdfs with preview.app can be avoided with the following apps (they are all available through homebrew):

Présentation.app: brew cask install presentation
pdfpc: brew install pdfpc
xpdf: brew install xpdf

Additional Remarks by Daniel

For those who prefer MacPorts: Currently MacPorts provides only the X11 versions, which do not work well for presenting full-screen mode. The homebrew variants are native. You can install them without doing any harm on your MacPorts setup.
The graphical Présentation.app and the console-based pdfpc assume a dual-screen setup and provide a presenter display with the next slide, elapsed time and so on. Both internally pre-render the PDF pages. Depending on the complexity of the slides (transparencies have quite an impact), this may take a while. However, the presentation output is superb.
Apparently, xpdf does not do pre-rendering. While it is fast in general, switching to a new slide causes flicker.


Can you list Mail attachments separately rather than as icons in the text? In Mail, is it possible to show attachments in a separate list (like in Entourage) rather than as icons buried within the text?

The following command can be entered into terminal to disable the inline display of Mail's Attachments:

defaults write com.apple.mail DisableInlineAttachmentViewing -bool yes

to restore the original functionality, use this:

defaults write com.apple.mail DisableInlineAttachmentViewing -bool no


Airplay to more than one screen concurrently? I'm looking for the best method to display a desktop on multiple television displays. Currently I have a Mac Mini mounted behind the tv and controlling via vnc. As I want to setup more screens (All with the same desktop view); I am thinking I could use the Mini as a server; and then mirror from there to multiple Apple TVs on the same network via airplay.  As I haven't ordered yet; is this possible? I can't seem to find any mention anywhere whether this would work.  Any other suggestions would also be welcome.

I just tried it with my mid-2011 Mac mini running 10.8.  I can choose to mirror to either of my ATV's, but not both at the same time.  One ATV is version 2, one is version 3, which could have some effect (they are different native resolutions), but I somehow doubt that's a factor.  I'd think multiple mirroring could create quite a demand on the GPU and the network, so I don't think it's supported.


Understanding install of mod_wsgi on apache terminal commands I'm installing a django development environment on OSX. Apache is, of course, installed by default. From my (very limited) understanding of Macs, I don't believe there is preconfigured functionality for interfacing python with apache in this default install (?). So, my first step is to install this interface, mod_wsgi, and I am following this person's tutorial on how to do that. He includes these terminal commands:

curl -o mod_wsgi.tgz http://modwsgi.googlecode.com/files/mod_wsgi-2.5.tar.gz
tar -xzf mod_wsgi.tgz
cd mod_wsgi-2.5
./configure
make
sudo make install

I'm confused about these commands. I don't want to just type them and move on; I want to understand what's going on. Can someone explain to me what they mean?

To do this you will need to install Xcode from App Store and then its command line tools from an option in Xcode as you need a development environment.

It might be easier to use a package manager like Macports or Homebrew after that to install apache and  mod_wsgi. the writers of the package will have sorted out any issues.

I will explain the commands in the line after each one

curl -o mod_wsgi.tgz http://modwsgi.googlecode.com/files/mod_wsgi-2.5.tar.gz

Get the source code from the given server. curl is a program that downloads via http. You could just enter the URL in your browser and download the file. The curl command puts the mod_wsgi.tgz in your current directory.

tar -xzf mod_wsgi.tgz

Untar the file - ie get all the individual files out of the package and put them in the correct subdirectories. If you had downloaded in your browser the default action would have down this unpack, or select this file in Finder and double click to extract.

cd mod_wsgi-2.5

Change directory into the top level of the source code. If you had used the browser in the first two steps then cd ~/Downloads/mod_wsgi-2.5

./configure

The source code can be built for many versions of Unix, Linux and possible other operating systems. configure is a shell script that calls on certain programs in Xcode to generate the correct source code files so that this setup will build on OSX. The ./ is required as your current directory is not on your path.

make

Make an executable and support files out of the source code. This will all be in or beneath your current directory. make is a program that does things based on a set of rules held in makefiles.

sudo make install

This puts the executables in a directory that can be used by apache. make install uses the make program as above but with a command install to do something different (actually if you had not done make before it will also do the build as in the command above as that is defined as a dependency on the makefile but don't do this because of the sudo) sudo is a command that makes the rest of the line run as the root user, this is needed as you should not have permission to write to the directories the executables should end up in, this you need a special command to get that permission. Note that your user needs to be set up to use sudo, if you are an Administrator then that will be sufficient.

This should give you enough pointers to help you read up on anything that I have started to explain.


Run Command Line Script from Finder's contextual menu I have a shell script that deletes exif data from images.

I would like to right-click the folder with the images and execute the command from the context menu. How can I do this?

The Shell script is:

exiftool -all= -overwrite_original test

where test is the dir with the images

If you're using Snow Leopard, you can create a Service, and it'll show up in a submenu of the contextual menu (as well as in the Services submenu of the Finder menu).  To do this:

Run /Applications/Automator.app
Choose the Service template
Set the Service Receives Selected pop-up (above the workflow column on the right) to "Files and Folders"
Find the Run Shell Script action in the second column (the search field at the top can help), and drag it to the workflow column
Set the action's Pass input: pop-up to "as arguments"
In the template script that appears, replace echo "$f" with exiftool -all= -overwrite_original "$f" -- the script should now look like this:

for f in "$@"
do
    exiftool -all= -overwrite_original "$f"
done

Save the Service with some descriptive name


How can I fix my GPT? I just migrated from a 120 GB SSD drive to a 600 GB SSD drive. As I was lazy and didn't want to reinstall Mac OS X (Lion), I chose the following migration path:

I created at GPT on the 600 GB target disk with exactly the same three partitions as they are present on my old disk, using gdisk. I placed the third partition (that holds the Lion Recovery System) at the end of the disk, such that there is empty space between the system partition (holding the "Macintosh HD" labeled FS) and the recovery partition. I chose this setup as I wasn't sure whether I wanted to expand my system partition later or use the new space for a separate filesystem.
I plugged my old 120 GB SSD into a linux box and saved three images, one for each partion, using dd
Then I plugged my new 600 GB SSD into the same box and wrote the three images to the three newly created partitions, again, using dd

Then I installed the 600 GB SSD back in my Macbook Pro and started up the system. Everything works fine, with the exception that it seems to take forever for the computer to decide what partition to boot from - before the early password prompt (I use full disk encryption) I now have to stare at a white screen for about 10 seconds.

Disk Utility reports that something is wrong with the partition table that might cause trouble when booting the system:

Now, fortunately, up to now they only delay booting, but don't prevent it ;) Don't be confused by the screenshot, in the meantime I created another partition holding a filesystem labelled "Storage HD".

What did I miss? Is there a boot flag or something like that for a GPT partition that I didn't set? Disk Utility is unable to "repair" anything. Also, when I boot with a Lion Installation Media and use Disk Utility from there, it doesn't report any error at all.

I am aware of the recovery from TimeMachine / old disk / etc options of the Mac OS X Installer. I'm not interested in alternative ways to migrate a Mac OS X installation, but want to understand what exactly is going on here.

A PRAM / NVRAM reset (⌘-⌥-P-R on startup) fixed the delay. The Disk Utility error report remains. Started again from my old drive, the error is reported there as well... probably it was there before the migration.


Open URLs without prefix 'http://' from command line I can open a URL from command as:

open http://www.google.com

If I tried:

open www.google.com
The file ~/www.google.com does not exist.
Perhaps you meant 'http://www.google.com'?

Nevertheless, it works on Windows like:

start www.google.com

It's not convenient to add 'http://' every time.
How to solve the problem?

As @Mark said,

  A URL must begin with a protocol ie the bit before the : so what you have is not a URL.

You'll need to create your own wrapper for the open command. For example, you can use this function to prepend http:

function openweb() { open http://$1 }

Run with openweb google.com or openweb www.google.com.

Place this in a profile file such as ~/.bash_profile to be available in all interactive shells.


Remove horizontal scrolling in finder with big thumbnail view This is an overflow problem. Like in this picture, there is two scrollbars, you need a horizontal + vertical scrolling ?

Is there a way to fix that ?

EDIT : I found a tip by using 'sort by name'.

As you said, you can enable sorting files automatically by changing the Sort By or Arrange By mode from None to Name.

If others search for how to for example sort files by modification date without grouping them under these sections with horizontal scroll bars

you can set View > Arrange By to None and set View > Sort By (shown when holding option) to Date Modified.


Using TextMate, how can I wrap everything in PHP tags? A question about TextMate. For example, I just typed var_dump($codes);, and I forgot to write <?php ?>. So, now I want to highlight the area that I want to wrap the php tags around. How can I do this?

Simply add a new command called for ex 'Wrap in ' in your php bundle editor (Bundles->Bundle Editors->Show Bundle Editor)

In the Activation choose: Key Equivalent and hit: CMD+SHIFT+W (or whatever you'd like that's not already taken).

Leave the scope selector to source.php

In the snippet window write:

<?php  $TM_SELECTED_TEXT ?>

Now select anything and hit CMD+SHIFT+W and you're done

Sorry I couldn't upload an image to show you I've just signed up.

EDIT I now have enough reputation to upload the image:


How to Reset all Drivers to Factory Default I am trying to sync an Arduino board to my Mac and it was working fine until I installed some drivers.  Now it can't find the serial port.

How can I reset all drivers to the factory default?

This ended up being a hardware issue: A current sensor was drawing too much power when connected to the 5V and ground pins on the board so it was being shut off automatically.


Can't get my MacBook Pro to the "Agree" page on a public wifi hotspot I have a recurring problem:

My MacBook Pro recognizes and connects to my building's wifi network (the provider happens to be Natural Wireless).

But it doesn't redirect to their boring terms page that I have to click that "I agree" to in order to access the internet.

I have numerous other devices connected, so they're not down.  Also, my computer's wifi works fine. (I'm connecting with my phone to the hotspot and my computer is connected using the phone's wifi, so I'm sure both work.)

I'm pretty sure the computer (or hotspot) just thinks they already know each other, so it's not redirecting to the agreement.  I think this because the remedy on mobile devices is to "forget" the network, then reconnect.

I've tried that on the computer successfully in the past (removing the network in the "advanced" section of network settings, then re-connecting), but it no longer works.

I also tried hitting both 127.0.0.1 and 192.168.1.1 - neither helped.

Try manually accessing a page using http, not https, and try it with multiple browsers.

The captive portal test just tries to pull a file from one of Apple's servers. If it doesn't match what it's expecting, it knows it's not on the open internet and shows the login page.

Some providers let the test through to avoid this behaviour. If you open up a web browser and try to access a page via http (not https) you should see the login page.


Mountain Lion 10.8.2, Java Preferences has disappeared I just installed the latest Java update from apple (Java for OS X 2012-006) and I was looking to have a look at what's going on with my java(s) with Java Preferences app (which used to live in /Applications/Utilities though it seems it has now disappeared.  Any idea on whether there is a problem with my system or did the update clobber Java Preferences?

The update in question (Java for OS X 2012-006) disables the Safari Java plugin for security purposes. Per Apple technical bulletin:

  This release updates the Apple-provided system Java SE 6 to version
  1.6.0_37 and is for OS X versions 10.7 or later.

  This update uninstalls the Apple-provided Java applet plug-in from all
  web browsers. To use applets on a web page, click on the region
  labeled "Missing plug-in" to go download the latest version of the
  Java applet plug-in from Oracle.

  This update also removes the Java Preferences application, which is no
  longer required to configure applet settings.

Here is an Apple technical bulletin link on how to re-enable the plugin

If you need the full Java runtime you may download it directly from Oracle by going this webpage.


Is there a way to increase the speed of the "hover open folder" thing when drag and dropping? So when you drag and drop a file, while you are still holding it, you can move the file to say on a folder and hover there for like 2 seconds and that will open up the folder for you and you can continue to navigate using the same method until you are where you want to be and release your mouse to finally drop the file there. Now the hover takes like 2 seconds, that is way to long. Is there a way to decrease this time and make this procedure faster?

Not strictly a duplicate of Spring loaded folder settings missing in Yosemite however the answer is the same, so I'll save future Googlers some effort by copying it, with slight modification, to here.

  Spring-Loaded Folders

  The slider is located in System Preferences → Accessibility → Mouse & Trackpad

  You can change the spring-loaded delay by writing the setting manually:

defaults write -g com.apple.springing.delay -float 1.0 && killall -HUP Finder

  Replace 1.0 with the delay in seconds before springing.

Credit to grgarside


Can't download over MacPorts So I'm trying to install the PDO drivers for PHP via Macports. I am using install php5-mysql, but when I hit enter I get

usage: install [-bCcpSsv] [-B suffix] [-f flags] [-g group] [-m mode]
           [-o owner] file1 file2
   install [-bCcpSsv] [-B suffix] [-f flags] [-g group] [-m mode]
           [-o owner] file1 ... fileN directory
   install -d [-v] [-g group] [-m mode] [-o owner] directory ...

Not sure what to do now....

If using Macports all commands start with port - port is the origami you run - install here looks like a totally different program /usr/bin/install

So try

sudo port install php5-mysql

The sudo is required as you will install into /opt/local which you will not have permission to write to.


Completely clear all cloud music from iPhone I'm trying to get rid of all of the cloud music from my iPhone 6S on iOS 10.2.1.

So far I have:

Gone to Settings>iTunes & App Store> and toggled Automatic Downloads> Music
Gone to Settings>Music and:

turned off (and on and off again) "Show Apple Music"
turned off Mobile data.
gone to "Downloaded Music" and selected to delete all songs - now shows "Zero KB"
Signed out of home sharing

I have signed out from my apple ID. I have signed out under Settings>iCloud.

I have deleted all playlists.

After all of this I have rebooted the phone.

I have tried everything I can think of and when I go to Music> Library or Songs I still see a few hundred songs with the cloud download icon next to them.

Is the only way to delete them individually? This whole system is a joke. I have looked at the similar questions here and have not found an answer that works.

The most recent version of iOS I have used is 7.1.2, but in that version you have to go to Settings>iCloud>Account Name>Delete All Data, and then sign out. It still may not fully work, so you should also log in to your Apple account in your browser (or go to Settings>iCloud if you have a Mac), open the list of devices associated with your account, and remove the iPhone. Finally you may want to change your account password to make sure the device cant be auto added to the account when it reconnects to the internet.

I will be the first to agree that their forced integration of iCloud and refusal to let you remove it is crap. For this reason I might also recommend jailbreaking if you're okay with it. Once an iDevice is jailbroken you can install iFile and manually delete the songs from the iCloud music folder. Be careful though because deleting the folder itself could cause problems.


How would I get Apple to list a calendar for people to subscribe at apple.com? Apple lists about 140 Calendars you can subscribe to - some quite obscure looking, others quite obvious like federal holidays for large countries with large Apple customer bases. I don't see any way to alert Apple to a calendar and wondered if there were any sort of mechanism to provide a format for Apple to evaluate and possible publish.

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/calendars/index_abc.html

Are downloads something registered developers can seed or how would I publish a calendar and get it listed by Apple on their downloads site?

It appears that this functionality has been removed.

There used to be a sidebar box with the ability to contact Apple regarding adding your work to any of the download lists on Apple.com. However, this box no longer appears on the page.

Also, the linked page from the old submit link in the box above no longer appears to be functional:

https://adcweb.apple.com/downloads/

This seems to match the fact that no new calendars have been uploaded for years.


Is there any program to delete cache files automatically? Every time I need to clear cache, I have to go inside each folder and delete the contents. Doing it via terminal deletes the whole folder which is not recommended. What shall I do?

For so many questions like this, I feel folks are answering without asking what the poster's intention is.

Why do you want to delete the cache files automatically? It's generally a bad idea to do so.

I've seen so many questions posted where folks want to delete some system application or cache or configuration file or whatever. This just leads to the point where the OS must be reinstalled or the user complains that the machine is unstable/unreliable and someone must spend hours, days or months trying to diagnose something that never should have been tampered with.

macOS, in particular, is NOT Windows. You do NOT need to purge caches, defragment or whatever. If you're doing that, especially if you're doing that on a regular basis, there's a deeper problem.

I'm writing this response on a MacBook Pro that has not had any explicit maintenance performed since El Capitan; I'm now running the latest Mojave having upgraded dozens of times. I do software development, generally have a ton of Docker containers and Parallels VM's going and do a lot of video editing with FCP X/Motion. I have had extremely few problems and zero crashes across several years of use. Performance is wonderful.

Part of this is because I don't wake up in the morning and, on a whim, decide to delete my cache files, manually edit my partition table or delete key services like Safari.

As I write this response, I see posts about things like "Firefox freezes when I delete cache files and cookies" and "How do I restore an accidentally deleted key chain". Call me stupid AF, but why on Earth are you tempting fate?

All software makes many assumptions about its underpinnings. Nobody can write code that accounts for every possibility. I know I'm deep in rant territory, but you shouldn't be deleting cache files unless you're intimately familiar every line of code that uses those cache files, directly or indirectly. I assure you that neither Apple nor Microsoft have tested that their software functions correctly if some or all of the system cache files disappear...in fact, having an inconsistent set of cache files because you deleted some of them but didn't even know about all of them is precisely how you get into trouble.

And if you still feel the need to muck around under the hood, PLEASE back up religiously. One day you're going to goof and do a "sudo rm -rf /" or create some inconsistency that can't easily be fixed.

Just consider...Humpty Dumpty was pushed...


Console Message: "kernel: Sandbox: net.conceited.Ru System Policy: deny(1) mach-priv-task-port 391" I'm getting about 50 messages like the following on the console every second.

01/09/15 17:50:32,000   kernel[0]   Sandbox: net.conceited.Ru(295) System Policy: deny(1) mach-priv-task-port 402
01/09/15 17:50:32,000   kernel[0]   Sandbox: net.conceited.Ru(295) System Policy: deny(1) mach-priv-task-port 401
01/09/15 17:50:32,000   kernel[0]   Sandbox: net.conceited.Ru(295) System Policy: deny(1) mach-priv-task-port 400
01/09/15 17:50:32,000   kernel[0]   Sandbox: net.conceited.Ru(295) System Policy: deny(1) mach-priv-task-port 398
01/09/15 17:50:32,000   kernel[0]   Sandbox: net.conceited.Ru(295) System Policy: deny(1) mach-priv-task-port 397
01/09/15 17:50:32,000   kernel[0]   Sandbox: net.conceited.Ru(295) System Policy: deny(1) mach-priv-task-port 396
01/09/15 17:50:32,000   kernel[0]   Sandbox: net.conceited.Ru(295) System Policy: deny(1) mach-priv-task-port 395
01/09/15 17:50:32,000   kernel[0]   Sandbox: net.conceited.Ru(295) System Policy: deny(1) mach-priv-task-port 394
01/09/15 17:50:32,000   kernel[0]   Sandbox: net.conceited.Ru(295) System Policy: deny(1) mach-priv-task-port 393
01/09/15 17:50:32,000   kernel[0]   Sandbox: net.conceited.Ru(295) System Policy: deny(1) mach-priv-task-port 392
01/09/15 17:50:32,000   kernel[0]   Sandbox: net.conceited.Ru(295) System Policy: deny(1) mach-priv-task-port 389
01/09/15 17:50:32,000   kernel[0]   Sandbox: net.conceited.Ru(295) System Policy: deny(1) mach-priv-task-port 383
01/09/15 17:50:32,000   kernel[0]   Sandbox: net.conceited.Ru(295) System Policy: deny(1) mach-priv-task-port 379
01/09/15 17:50:32,000   kernel[0]   Sandbox: net.conceited.Ru(295) System Policy: deny(1) mach-priv-task-port 378
01/09/15 17:50:32,000   kernel[0]   Sandbox: net.conceited.Ru(295) System Policy: deny(1) mach-priv-task-port 377
01/09/15 17:50:32,000   kernel[0]   Sandbox: net.conceited.Ru(295) System Policy: deny(1) mach-priv-task-port 376
01/09/15 17:50:32,000   kernel[0]   Sandbox: net.conceited.Ru(295) System Policy: deny(1) mach-priv-task-port 375
01/09/15 17:50:32,000   kernel[0]   Sandbox: net.conceited.Ru(295) System Policy: deny(1) mach-priv-task-port 374

Could someone points me on what's happened and how can I avoid it?

This is indeed Rubbernet as @unknowndomain mentions - I was getting a flood of messages that caused 100% CPU for syslogd, visible in Console.
Since Conceited have gone out of business, here is how to uninstall Rubbernet:

open the Rubbernet .plist file that was launching the daemon, which should be /Library/LaunchDaemons/net.conceited.RubbernetDaemon.plist
ensure Launchd doesn't restart the Rubbernet process with launchctl unload -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/net.conceited.RubbernetDaemon.plist
kill the Rubbernet process via Activity Monitor, or using ps aux and kill
remove /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/net.conceited.RubbernetDaemon (mentioned in the plist)
remove the plist -
rm /Library/LaunchDaemons/net.conceited.RubbernetDaemon.plist
remove the app - delete Rubbernet.app from /Applications

Writing this up because of the large number of "Uninstall Rubbernet" spam content sites that are promoting easy uninstall tools.  It should not be this hard to remove Rubbernet.
Background: launchctl stack


Can't resize (FileVault) partition after Bootcamp removal I have a recent Mac with two partitions. The first one contains MacOS, and is encrypted with FileVault. The second one contained a Bootcamp Windows installation. Here is a screen shot:

I deleted the Bootcamp partition to reclaim space. Turns out: as a FileVault partition can't be resized, it can not grow to use the extra space.

What must I do to have one big partition again?

As @alan-shutko pointed out with a hyperlink, the only way to resize a encrypted partition is to disable encryption, (rebooting again,) then changing the size. It worked for me!

It's a lengthy process if you wait for it, but bearable if you let the decryption happen overnight.


What is causing a black screen while switching spaces on Mountain Lion? On Lion I used to see the next space wallpaper while pressing Control + → to switch desktops. But on Mountain Lion I see a Black Screen until the transition is complete. Is it just me who is facing this issue or is this the new behaviour in Mountain Lion?

Its now resolved. It was not an issue with OSX. I was using a software called ScreenShade which was causing this issue. Disabling ScreenShade resolved the issue.


Safari's 'Shared Links' in Notification Center Safari has the option to subscribe to RSS feeds, so you can watch them in the 'Shared Links' section of your browser. I'm wondering, is it possible to receive "push notifications" for this in the Notification Center?

No. There is no way to do this at the moment.


Trigger 'Gather Windows' programmatically (or other quick way) I'm trying to make myself a little script that I can run on the fly that gathers all my open windows onto the main display.

I think a good starting place would be to be able to trigger Gather Windows (as seen in System Preferences-> Displays) by a shell script, AppleScript, or Automator action.

Can anyone either tell me how to do the above, or point me at a utility that will let me bind a key to do gather windows (freeware preferred)?

Use AppleScript Editor to save the following as script or application:

tell application "System Preferences"
    set current pane to pane id "com.apple.preference.displays"
    tell application "System Events" to tell process "System Preferences" to tell first window to click button "Gather Windows"
    quit
end tell

Make sure you have enabled support for assistive devices in System Preferences » Universal Access.


Switch off cellular network off/on on iPhone (triggered by Bluetooth car kit) I have a car (Audi A7 with MMI & Bluetooth Mobile Telephone interface) and an iPhone with dual SIM card (2nd SIM is plugged into the car). I would like when my car is started (and my 2nd SIM activates), my iPhone's cellular network would be automatically switched off (no radiation in the car anymore). My bluetooth should still stay on (need that to have my contacts synced with my car).
My current day-to-day procedure is the following:

when starting the car: manually put the iphone in airplane mode, and then manually switch on bluetooth again (with was also deactivated due to airplane mode).
when stopping the car: put manually airplane mode off, and make one outgoing call (e.g. voicemail) to activate my 1st dual-sim card again (otherwise my iPhone does not receive calls i noticed).

Is there is a way to automate this? Or can I configure a kind of iPhone profile which activates/deactivates airplane mode & bluetooth (to have less manual actions).

On a jailbroken iPhone, with SBProfiles and SBSettings you can utilise profiles to group multiple actions to different situations. The downside is that you have to manually switch the profiles when entering and leaving the car.

Make sure you have SBProfiles and SBSettings installed from Cydia.
Open SBProfiles. It should have multiple profiles by default; Default and Car among them. Select Car and then Toggles. Drag Airplane and Bluetooth to On section. Make sure that Airplane is on top of Bluetooth, otherwise activation of Airplane will turn Bluetooth back off.
Then, go back to Car and select Done from the top bar. Select Default and then Toggles. Drag Airplane to Off section (and Bluetooth, if you don't need it outside the car).
Select Settings from the bottom tabs. Select Activation Method(s) under Profile Switching. Here you can select the action(s) that trigger the profile selection to become active. I think it defaults to Short Hold of the Sleep Button.

Now, when you hold the Sleep Button a bit longer than shutting down the screen but not long enough to power off the iPhone, you can select Car profile and have cellular turned on but Bluetooth on. Or select Default to turn cellular back on. I think you will have to make the call still, unless there's a way to automate it, too.


Connecting two computers via audio cable This is sort of a weird question, but it occurred to me that it might be possible to connect two different computers via a 3.5mm audio jack cable, and stream sound between them simultaneously.

Is this a dangerous thing to try? More interestingly, if I were to re-write some of the audio handling, would it be feasible to create a custom protocol to transfer data/files over this connection?

Dangerous?

No.

Streaming sounds from one computer to another or simultaneously isn't going to damage your computer(s).  An input soruce is an input source.  It doesn't matter if it's an iPod, and iPhone, your stereo system or your old WalkMan.   Likewise, line/speaker output sends analog audio out.  If your output device is capable of playing it, you will get audio.

Efficient?

I don't see how sending sounds via an analog port is an efficient way to transmit audio.  Transferring the file or using something like FFmpeg to stream audio to a network port is much more efficient as there is no digital-to-analog-back-to-digital conversion that needs to happen.


How to un-hide a file that has been hidden on Mac OS 8? I have a copy of an old folder holding a file that has been hidden on Mac OS 8 or 9 (using resedit, if my memory isn't failing). Is there an easy way to un-hide it in OS X?

If you have Xcode installed you can try the SetFile command. The command below should unhide the hidden file.

SetFile -a v hiddenFilename


Best way to switch magic keyboard and trackpad between work/personal Macs? I just got a new work laptop. I would like to seamlessly switch my bluetooth devices (headphones, magic keyboard, touchpad) between work / personal Macs without complex repairing.
Has anyone solved this problem?
Ideally, I would love it if my bluetooth devices just paired with the computer docked into my dongle that connects to my monitor / power. Like if there was some kind of USB bluetooth controller that exposed my bluetooth devices as USB devices to whatever was connected to it, that would be awesome. But I haven’t found anything like that. I’m curious if people have different solutions?
It would also be ideal if this could be used for other bluetooth devices, ie seamlessly switch headphones...

I would like to seamlessly switch my Bluetooth devices (headphones, magic keyboard, touch pad) between work / personal Macs without complex repairing.
Has anyone solved this problem?

Yes.
You purchase Bluetooth devices (keyboard, mouse, headset, etc.) that have multiple device support.

The Magic Keyboard, Mouse, and Trackpad are designed to be paired with a single computer (they make no reference to multiple device pairings).  However, products like the Logitech MX series as well as the K380 (typing on it right now) can pair with up to 3 devices and switch with the press of a button.

Sennheiser headphones (my personal choice) can pair with up to 8 devices total and with 2 simultaneously.  There are many other brands (Bose, Apple AirPods, Sony, etc.) that have this functionality.

There’s no software that is going to your initiate your Bluetooth devices to switch from one device to another - you can only imagine the security implications!
Bottom line, to easily switch between devices without complex the re-pairing as you describe, you need devices that support multiple pairings.  If the device doesn’t support it, you’ll need to pair and unpair it each time.


How to upgrade Apache 2.2 to 2.4 in Mac OS X Mavericks My ISP has upgraded the server to Apache 2.4.9 from 2.2.xx. It has broken a couple things in my setup and I want to bring my local copy of Apache 2.2.26 to 2.4.9 so that I can test locally.

I've been trying to find some information online, but I can’t seem to find a step by step instructions on how to do it, and mostly I find recommendations of NOT doing it. Instead I find people suggesting Homebrew, MacPorts, or Fink.

Given that I have a number of sites working with local.xxxx.com and it all works well (edit locally, test by visiting their corresponding url with the local. prefix) and it is all pretty convenient and nice, I would like to continue doing the same, but with Apache 2.4.9. Any advice as to what's the best way to do this, or a pointer to instructions would be greatly appreciated.

If you succeed, you will break part of the System

You don't want to do that. Apache2 is part of the OS. If you somehow achieve what you are after, you will break any ability to upgrade Apache2 or have any security updates Apple roles out that is applied using the built-in Mac App Store or softwareupdate from Apple. You should leave it be and install a different Apache2. Also, that way you will be assured that subsequent Apple updates also do not break your upgraded version of Apache2, which is just as likely (if not inevitable).

MacPorts

MacPorts is a robust, stable, mature and easy to use package management solution, for OS X. It is modeled after FreeBSD's ports system, which has been adopted as the basis of NetBSD's pkgsrc. I highly recommend MacPorts.

install Xcode 5.1.1

MacPorts requires an appropriate version of xcode; xcode_5.1.1.dmg is the most recent version for Mavericks (after registerring for a free developer account, and logging into developer.apple.com, that link will begin your xcode download). Once the download completes:

 hdiutil attach -quiet -noverify -nobrowse -noautoopen ~/Downloads/xcode_5.1.1.dmg
 cp -npR /Volumes/Xcode/Xcode.app /Applications/
 hdiutil detach -quiet /Volumes/Xcode
 open -g /Applications/Xcode.app
 sleep 8
 killall Xcode.app

Install MacPorts

Get to know  MacPorts

 curl -Ok https://distfiles.macports.org/MacPorts/MacPorts-2.2.1.tar.bz2
 tar xf MacPorts-2.2.1.tar.bz2
 cd MacPorts-2.2.1
 ./configure
 make
 sudo make install     # *not war!*
 cd ..
 rm -rf Macports-*
 sudo /opt/local/bin/port -v selfupdate
 diskutil quiet repairPermissions /

add MacPorts to your $PATH:

 export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH
 export MANPATH=/opt/local/share/man:$MANPATH

install Apache 2.4.9

 Jose@stack:~$
 Jose@stack:~$
 Jose@stack:~$ port info apache24-devel
  apache24-devel @2.4.9 (www)
  Variants:       eventmpm, openldap, [+]preforkmpm, universal, workermpm

  Description:    Apache is an HTTP server designed as a plug-in replacement for the NCSA server version 1.3
                  (or 1.4). It fixes numerous bugs in the NCSA server and includes many frequently requested
                  new features, and has an API which allows it to be extended to meet users' needs more
                  easily.
  Homepage:       http://httpd.apache.org/

  Library Dependencies: apr, apr-util, expat, openssl, pcre, perl5, zlib
  Platforms:            darwin, freebsd, openbsd
  License:              Apache-2
  Maintainers:          ryandesign@macports.org, macintosh@mathiesen.info, pixilla@macports.org,
                        openmaintainer@macports.org
 Jose@stack:~$
 Jose@stack:~$
 Jose@stack:~$ sudo port -vsc install apache24-devel

That's really all there is to it. If you can configure httpd.conf, you can do this too. And you can keep it updated to the nosebleeding edge simply with:

 sudo port -vsc selfupdate
 sudo port -vsc upgrade installed

MacPorts will not interfere with the use of OS X internal Apache2 server, nor with any other software. It keeps everything it installs in its /opt directory.

If for whatever reason you are unsatisfied and/or need to remove MacPorts:

to completely uninstall MacPorts

 sudo port -dfp uninstall --follow-dependencies installed
 sudo port -dfp uninstall all
 sudo rm -rf /opt/local
 sudo rm -rf /Library/Tcl/macports*


Can I set an institutional recovery key for Filevault2 after Filevault2 is enabled? I have a macOS 10.13.4 device that is encrypting with Filevault2 right now. It needs to be taken by a user for travel at the end of the day.

I had meant to set an institutional recovery key for this device. The master keychain is already generated and in use on other devices. I've just read instructions for deploying the master keychain which indicate that I should have done this before I enabled Filevault2.

Does Filevault2 need to be disabled (decrypting the disk), then the master keychain deployed, then Filevault2 re-enabled (encrypting the disk)? This would take more time than is available to me, but I understand if that's the only option for deploying it.

Thank you.

You will need to use fdesetup. If you have created FileVaultMaster.keychain with the institutional key and placed it in /Library/Keychains then fdesetup changerecovery -institutional -keychain will add an institutional key.

I recommend a close reading of the fdesetup man page.


Can any one upload their httpd.conf file for mac? I was testing virtual hosting and doing a lot of stuff. Then I suddenly delete my httpd.conf file using rm command.
I've deleted httpd.conf.bak and original/httpd.conf. Well now I'm guessing i don't have any way to gain access on httpd.conf.

Can any one please upload their httpd.conf from original folder.

Anyone please kindly upload your /etc/apache2/original/httpd.conf.

PS: I've tried copying httpd.conf from Reinstall/restore Apache httpd in OS X I'm getting load module error so trying to solve it.

My system: OS X El Capitan 10.11.5

The file /etc/apache2/original/httpd.conf (in OS X 10.11.5) has the following content with three trailing empty lines:

#
# This is the main Apache HTTP server configuration file.  It contains the
# configuration directives that give the server its instructions.
# See <URL:http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/> for detailed information.
# In particular, see
# <URL:http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/mod/directives.html>
# for a discussion of each configuration directive.
#
# Do NOT simply read the instructions in here without understanding
# what they do.  They're here only as hints or reminders.  If you are unsure
# consult the online docs. You have been warned.
#
# Configuration and logfile names: If the filenames you specify for many
# of the server's control files begin with "/" (or "drive:/" for Win32), the
# server will use that explicit path.  If the filenames do *not* begin
# with "/", the value of ServerRoot is prepended -- so "logs/access_log"
# with ServerRoot set to "/usr/local/apache2" will be interpreted by the
# server as "/usr/local/apache2/logs/access_log", whereas "/logs/access_log"
# will be interpreted as '/logs/access_log'.

#
# ServerRoot: The top of the directory tree under which the server's
# configuration, error, and log files are kept.
#
# Do not add a slash at the end of the directory path.  If you point
# ServerRoot at a non-local disk, be sure to specify a local disk on the
# Mutex directive, if file-based mutexes are used.  If you wish to share the
# same ServerRoot for multiple httpd daemons, you will need to change at
# least PidFile.
#
ServerRoot "/usr"

#
# Mutex: Allows you to set the mutex mechanism and mutex file directory
# for individual mutexes, or change the global defaults
#
# Uncomment and change the directory if mutexes are file-based and the default
# mutex file directory is not on a local disk or is not appropriate for some
# other reason.
#
# Mutex default:/private/var/run

#
# Listen: Allows you to bind Apache to specific IP addresses and/or
# ports, instead of the default. See also the <VirtualHost>
# directive.
#
# Change this to Listen on specific IP addresses as shown below to
# prevent Apache from glomming onto all bound IP addresses.
#
#Listen 12.34.56.78:80
Listen 80

#
# Dynamic Shared Object (DSO) Support
#
# To be able to use the functionality of a module which was built as a DSO you
# have to place corresponding `LoadModule' lines at this location so the
# directives contained in it are actually available _before_ they are used.
# Statically compiled modules (those listed by `httpd -l') do not need
# to be loaded here.
#
# Example:
# LoadModule foo_module modules/mod_foo.so
#
LoadModule authn_file_module libexec/apache2/mod_authn_file.so
#LoadModule authn_dbm_module libexec/apache2/mod_authn_dbm.so
#LoadModule authn_anon_module libexec/apache2/mod_authn_anon.so
#LoadModule authn_dbd_module libexec/apache2/mod_authn_dbd.so
#LoadModule authn_socache_module libexec/apache2/mod_authn_socache.so
LoadModule authn_core_module libexec/apache2/mod_authn_core.so
LoadModule authz_host_module libexec/apache2/mod_authz_host.so
LoadModule authz_groupfile_module libexec/apache2/mod_authz_groupfile.so
LoadModule authz_user_module libexec/apache2/mod_authz_user.so
#LoadModule authz_dbm_module libexec/apache2/mod_authz_dbm.so
#LoadModule authz_owner_module libexec/apache2/mod_authz_owner.so
#LoadModule authz_dbd_module libexec/apache2/mod_authz_dbd.so
LoadModule authz_core_module libexec/apache2/mod_authz_core.so
#LoadModule authnz_ldap_module libexec/apache2/mod_authnz_ldap.so
LoadModule access_compat_module libexec/apache2/mod_access_compat.so
LoadModule auth_basic_module libexec/apache2/mod_auth_basic.so
#LoadModule auth_form_module libexec/apache2/mod_auth_form.so
#LoadModule auth_digest_module libexec/apache2/mod_auth_digest.so
#LoadModule allowmethods_module libexec/apache2/mod_allowmethods.so
#LoadModule file_cache_module libexec/apache2/mod_file_cache.so
#LoadModule cache_module libexec/apache2/mod_cache.so
#LoadModule cache_disk_module libexec/apache2/mod_cache_disk.so
#LoadModule cache_socache_module libexec/apache2/mod_cache_socache.so
#LoadModule socache_shmcb_module libexec/apache2/mod_socache_shmcb.so
#LoadModule socache_dbm_module libexec/apache2/mod_socache_dbm.so
#LoadModule socache_memcache_module libexec/apache2/mod_socache_memcache.so
#LoadModule watchdog_module libexec/apache2/mod_watchdog.so
#LoadModule macro_module libexec/apache2/mod_macro.so
#LoadModule dbd_module libexec/apache2/mod_dbd.so
#LoadModule dumpio_module libexec/apache2/mod_dumpio.so
#LoadModule echo_module libexec/apache2/mod_echo.so
#LoadModule buffer_module libexec/apache2/mod_buffer.so
#LoadModule data_module libexec/apache2/mod_data.so
#LoadModule ratelimit_module libexec/apache2/mod_ratelimit.so
LoadModule reqtimeout_module libexec/apache2/mod_reqtimeout.so
#LoadModule ext_filter_module libexec/apache2/mod_ext_filter.so
#LoadModule request_module libexec/apache2/mod_request.so
#LoadModule include_module libexec/apache2/mod_include.so
LoadModule filter_module libexec/apache2/mod_filter.so
#LoadModule reflector_module libexec/apache2/mod_reflector.so
#LoadModule substitute_module libexec/apache2/mod_substitute.so
#LoadModule sed_module libexec/apache2/mod_sed.so
#LoadModule charset_lite_module libexec/apache2/mod_charset_lite.so
#LoadModule deflate_module libexec/apache2/mod_deflate.so
#LoadModule xml2enc_module libexec/apache2/mod_xml2enc.so
#LoadModule proxy_html_module libexec/apache2/mod_proxy_html.so
LoadModule mime_module libexec/apache2/mod_mime.so
#LoadModule ldap_module libexec/apache2/mod_ldap.so
LoadModule log_config_module libexec/apache2/mod_log_config.so
#LoadModule log_debug_module libexec/apache2/mod_log_debug.so
#LoadModule log_forensic_module libexec/apache2/mod_log_forensic.so
#LoadModule logio_module libexec/apache2/mod_logio.so
LoadModule env_module libexec/apache2/mod_env.so
#LoadModule mime_magic_module libexec/apache2/mod_mime_magic.so
#LoadModule expires_module libexec/apache2/mod_expires.so
LoadModule headers_module libexec/apache2/mod_headers.so
#LoadModule usertrack_module libexec/apache2/mod_usertrack.so
##LoadModule unique_id_module libexec/apache2/mod_unique_id.so
LoadModule setenvif_module libexec/apache2/mod_setenvif.so
LoadModule version_module libexec/apache2/mod_version.so
#LoadModule remoteip_module libexec/apache2/mod_remoteip.so
LoadModule proxy_module libexec/apache2/mod_proxy.so
LoadModule proxy_connect_module libexec/apache2/mod_proxy_connect.so
LoadModule proxy_ftp_module libexec/apache2/mod_proxy_ftp.so
LoadModule proxy_http_module libexec/apache2/mod_proxy_http.so
LoadModule proxy_fcgi_module libexec/apache2/mod_proxy_fcgi.so
LoadModule proxy_scgi_module libexec/apache2/mod_proxy_scgi.so
#LoadModule proxy_fdpass_module libexec/apache2/mod_proxy_fdpass.so
LoadModule proxy_wstunnel_module libexec/apache2/mod_proxy_wstunnel.so
LoadModule proxy_ajp_module libexec/apache2/mod_proxy_ajp.so
LoadModule proxy_balancer_module libexec/apache2/mod_proxy_balancer.so
LoadModule proxy_express_module libexec/apache2/mod_proxy_express.so
#LoadModule session_module libexec/apache2/mod_session.so
#LoadModule session_cookie_module libexec/apache2/mod_session_cookie.so
#LoadModule session_dbd_module libexec/apache2/mod_session_dbd.so
LoadModule slotmem_shm_module libexec/apache2/mod_slotmem_shm.so
#LoadModule slotmem_plain_module libexec/apache2/mod_slotmem_plain.so
#LoadModule ssl_module libexec/apache2/mod_ssl.so
#LoadModule dialup_module libexec/apache2/mod_dialup.so
LoadModule lbmethod_byrequests_module libexec/apache2/mod_lbmethod_byrequests.so
LoadModule lbmethod_bytraffic_module libexec/apache2/mod_lbmethod_bytraffic.so
LoadModule lbmethod_bybusyness_module libexec/apache2/mod_lbmethod_bybusyness.so
#LoadModule lbmethod_heartbeat_module libexec/apache2/mod_lbmethod_heartbeat.so
LoadModule unixd_module libexec/apache2/mod_unixd.so
#LoadModule heartbeat_module libexec/apache2/mod_heartbeat.so
#LoadModule heartmonitor_module libexec/apache2/mod_heartmonitor.so
#LoadModule dav_module libexec/apache2/mod_dav.so
LoadModule status_module libexec/apache2/mod_status.so
LoadModule autoindex_module libexec/apache2/mod_autoindex.so
#LoadModule asis_module libexec/apache2/mod_asis.so
#LoadModule info_module libexec/apache2/mod_info.so
#LoadModule cgi_module libexec/apache2/mod_cgi.so
#LoadModule dav_fs_module libexec/apache2/mod_dav_fs.so
#LoadModule dav_lock_module libexec/apache2/mod_dav_lock.so
#LoadModule vhost_alias_module libexec/apache2/mod_vhost_alias.so
LoadModule negotiation_module libexec/apache2/mod_negotiation.so
LoadModule dir_module libexec/apache2/mod_dir.so
#LoadModule imagemap_module libexec/apache2/mod_imagemap.so
#LoadModule actions_module libexec/apache2/mod_actions.so
#LoadModule speling_module libexec/apache2/mod_speling.so
#LoadModule userdir_module libexec/apache2/mod_userdir.so
LoadModule alias_module libexec/apache2/mod_alias.so
#LoadModule rewrite_module libexec/apache2/mod_rewrite.so
#LoadModule php5_module libexec/apache2/libphp5.so
LoadModule hfs_apple_module libexec/apache2/mod_hfs_apple.so

<IfModule unixd_module>
#
# If you wish httpd to run as a different user or group, you must run
# httpd as root initially and it will switch.
#
# User/Group: The name (or #number) of the user/group to run httpd as.
# It is usually good practice to create a dedicated user and group for
# running httpd, as with most system services.
#
User _www
Group _www

</IfModule>

# 'Main' server configuration
#
# The directives in this section set up the values used by the 'main'
# server, which responds to any requests that aren't handled by a
# <VirtualHost> definition.  These values also provide defaults for
# any <VirtualHost> containers you may define later in the file.
#
# All of these directives may appear inside <VirtualHost> containers,
# in which case these default settings will be overridden for the
# virtual host being defined.
#

#
# ServerAdmin: Your address, where problems with the server should be
# e-mailed.  This address appears on some server-generated pages, such
# as error documents.  e.g. admin@your-domain.com
#
ServerAdmin you@example.com

#
# ServerName gives the name and port that the server uses to identify itself.
# This can often be determined automatically, but we recommend you specify
# it explicitly to prevent problems during startup.
#
# If your host doesn't have a registered DNS name, enter its IP address here.
#
#ServerName www.example.com:80

#
# Deny access to the entirety of your server's filesystem. You must
# explicitly permit access to web content directories in other
# <Directory> blocks below.
#
<Directory />
    AllowOverride none
    Require all denied
</Directory>

#
# Note that from this point forward you must specifically allow
# particular features to be enabled - so if something's not working as
# you might expect, make sure that you have specifically enabled it
# below.
#

#
# DocumentRoot: The directory out of which you will serve your
# documents. By default, all requests are taken from this directory, but
# symbolic links and aliases may be used to point to other locations.
#
DocumentRoot "/Library/WebServer/Documents"
<Directory "/Library/WebServer/Documents">
    #
    # Possible values for the Options directive are "None", "All",
    # or any combination of:
    #   Indexes Includes FollowSymLinks SymLinksifOwnerMatch ExecCGI MultiViews
    #
    # Note that "MultiViews" must be named *explicitly* --- "Options All"
    # doesn't give it to you.
    #
    # The Options directive is both complicated and important.  Please see
    # http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/mod/core.html#options
    # for more information.
    #
    Options FollowSymLinks Multiviews
    MultiviewsMatch Any

    #
    # AllowOverride controls what directives may be placed in .htaccess files.
    # It can be "All", "None", or any combination of the keywords:
    #   AllowOverride FileInfo AuthConfig Limit
    #
    AllowOverride None

    #
    # Controls who can get stuff from this server.
    #
    Require all granted
</Directory>

#
# DirectoryIndex: sets the file that Apache will serve if a directory
# is requested.
#
<IfModule dir_module>
    DirectoryIndex index.html
</IfModule>

#
# The following lines prevent .htaccess and .htpasswd files from being
# viewed by Web clients.
#
<FilesMatch "^\.([Hh][Tt]|[Dd][Ss]_[Ss])">
    Require all denied
</FilesMatch>

#
# Apple specific filesystem protection.
#
<Files "rsrc">
    Require all denied
</Files>
<DirectoryMatch ".*\.\.namedfork">
    Require all denied
</DirectoryMatch>

#
# ErrorLog: The location of the error log file.
# If you do not specify an ErrorLog directive within a <VirtualHost>
# container, error messages relating to that virtual host will be
# logged here.  If you *do* define an error logfile for a <VirtualHost>
# container, that host's errors will be logged there and not here.
#
ErrorLog "/private/var/log/apache2/error_log"

#
# LogLevel: Control the number of messages logged to the error_log.
# Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
# alert, emerg.
#
LogLevel warn

<IfModule log_config_module>
    #
    # The following directives define some format nicknames for use with
    # a CustomLog directive (see below).
    #
    LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-Agent}i\"" combined
    LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b" common

    <IfModule logio_module>
      # You need to enable mod_logio.c to use %I and %O
      LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-Agent}i\" %I %O" combinedio
    </IfModule>

    #
    # The location and format of the access logfile (Common Logfile Format).
    # If you do not define any access logfiles within a <VirtualHost>
    # container, they will be logged here.  Contrariwise, if you *do*
    # define per-<VirtualHost> access logfiles, transactions will be
    # logged therein and *not* in this file.
    #
    CustomLog "/private/var/log/apache2/access_log" common

    #
    # If you prefer a logfile with access, agent, and referer information
    # (Combined Logfile Format) you can use the following directive.
    #
    #CustomLog "/private/var/log/apache2/access_log" combined
</IfModule>

<IfModule alias_module>
    #
    # Redirect: Allows you to tell clients about documents that used to
    # exist in your server's namespace, but do not anymore. The client
    # will make a new request for the document at its new location.
    # Example:
    # Redirect permanent /foo http://www.example.com/bar

    #
    # Alias: Maps web paths into filesystem paths and is used to
    # access content that does not live under the DocumentRoot.
    # Example:
    # Alias /webpath /full/filesystem/path
    #
    # If you include a trailing / on /webpath then the server will
    # require it to be present in the URL.  You will also likely
    # need to provide a <Directory> section to allow access to
    # the filesystem path.

    #
    # ScriptAlias: This controls which directories contain server scripts.
    # ScriptAliases are essentially the same as Aliases, except that
    # documents in the target directory are treated as applications and
    # run by the server when requested rather than as documents sent to the
    # client.  The same rules about trailing "/" apply to ScriptAlias
    # directives as to Alias.
    #
    ScriptAliasMatch ^/cgi-bin/((?!(?i:webobjects)).*$) "/Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables/$1"

</IfModule>

<IfModule cgid_module>
    #
    # ScriptSock: On threaded servers, designate the path to the UNIX
    # socket used to communicate with the CGI daemon of mod_cgid.
    #
    #Scriptsock cgisock
</IfModule>

#
# "/Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables" should be changed to whatever your ScriptAliased
# CGI directory exists, if you have that configured.
#
<Directory "/Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables">
    AllowOverride None
    Options None
    Require all granted
</Directory>

<IfModule mime_module>
    #
    # TypesConfig points to the file containing the list of mappings from
    # filename extension to MIME-type.
    #
    TypesConfig /private/etc/apache2/mime.types

    #
    # AddType allows you to add to or override the MIME configuration
    # file specified in TypesConfig for specific file types.
    #
    #AddType application/x-gzip .tgz
    #
    # AddEncoding allows you to have certain browsers uncompress
    # information on the fly. Note: Not all browsers support this.
    #
    #AddEncoding x-compress .Z
    #AddEncoding x-gzip .gz .tgz
    #
    # If the AddEncoding directives above are commented-out, then you
    # probably should define those extensions to indicate media types:
    #
    AddType application/x-compress .Z
    AddType application/x-gzip .gz .tgz

    #
    # AddHandler allows you to map certain file extensions to "handlers":
    # actions unrelated to filetype. These can be either built into the server
    # or added with the Action directive (see below)
    #
    # To use CGI scripts outside of ScriptAliased directories:
    # (You will also need to add "ExecCGI" to the "Options" directive.)
    #
    #AddHandler cgi-script .cgi

    # For type maps (negotiated resources):
    #AddHandler type-map var

    #
    # Filters allow you to process content before it is sent to the client.
    #
    # To parse .shtml files for server-side includes (SSI):
    # (You will also need to add "Includes" to the "Options" directive.)
    #
    #AddType text/html .shtml
    #AddOutputFilter INCLUDES .shtml
</IfModule>

#
# The mod_mime_magic module allows the server to use various hints from the
# contents of the file itself to determine its type.  The MIMEMagicFile
# directive tells the module where the hint definitions are located.
#
#MIMEMagicFile /private/etc/apache2/magic

#
# Customizable error responses come in three flavors:
# 1) plain text 2) local redirects 3) external redirects
#
# Some examples:
#ErrorDocument 500 "The server made a boo boo."
#ErrorDocument 404 /missing.html
#ErrorDocument 404 "/cgi-bin/missing_handler.pl"
#ErrorDocument 402 http://www.example.com/subscription_info.html
#

#
# MaxRanges: Maximum number of Ranges in a request before
# returning the entire resource, or one of the special
# values 'default', 'none' or 'unlimited'.
# Default setting is to accept 200 Ranges.
#MaxRanges unlimited

#
# EnableMMAP and EnableSendfile: On systems that support it,
# memory-mapping or the sendfile syscall may be used to deliver
# files.  This usually improves server performance, but must
# be turned off when serving from networked-mounted
# filesystems or if support for these functions is otherwise
# broken on your system.
# Defaults: EnableMMAP On, EnableSendfile Off
#
#EnableMMAP off
#EnableSendfile on

TraceEnable off

# Supplemental configuration
#
# The configuration files in the /private/etc/apache2/extra/ directory can be
# included to add extra features or to modify the default configuration of
# the server, or you may simply copy their contents here and change as
# necessary.

# Server-pool management (MPM specific)
Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-mpm.conf

# Multi-language error messages
#Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-multilang-errordoc.conf

# Fancy directory listings
Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-autoindex.conf

# Language settings
#Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-languages.conf

# User home directories
#Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-userdir.conf

# Real-time info on requests and configuration
#Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-info.conf

# Virtual hosts
#Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf

# Local access to the Apache HTTP Server Manual
#Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-manual.conf

# Distributed authoring and versioning (WebDAV)
#Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-dav.conf

# Various default settings
#Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-default.conf

# Configure mod_proxy_html to understand HTML4/XHTML1
<IfModule proxy_html_module>
Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/proxy-html.conf
</IfModule>

# Secure (SSL/TLS) connections
#Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-ssl.conf
#
# Note: The following must must be present to support
#       starting without SSL on platforms with no /dev/random equivalent
#       but a statically compiled-in mod_ssl.
#
<IfModule ssl_module>
SSLRandomSeed startup builtin
SSLRandomSeed connect builtin
</IfModule>

Include /private/etc/apache2/other/*.conf

The file /etc/apache2/httpd.conf – which differs slightly from the one above – has the following additional content at the end with two trailing empty lines:

#
# uncomment out the below to deal with user agents that deliberately
# violate open standards by misusing DNT (DNT *must* be a specific
# end-user choice)
#
#<IfModule setenvif_module>
#BrowserMatch "MSIE 10.0;" bad_DNT
#</IfModule>
#<IfModule headers_module>
#RequestHeader unset DNT env=bad_DNT
#</IfModule>

A more general way to restore accidentally deleted files is using Pacifist. After downloading and installing Pacifist and downloading an OS X Installer.app (i.e. 10.11.5) you can reinstall/restore single files or folders after opening the OS X installer app with Pacifist:


How to share files with an iPad app in El Capitan itunes? I have this iPad app called AVPlayer. I used to plug-in the iPad and copy files to the app using iTunes. However, this doesn't seem to work in the newest version of iTunes. There used to be a feature called "file sharing" that allowed to do that, but it seems to be gone now? I can still navigate to the "apps" panel, but AVPlayer doesn't show up there, in fact there is no app that would allow sending files to it, and no such option at all.

So the question is: how to send files to an iPad app via a usb cable?

It should still be there on the Apps panel, though it's more confusingly-located than I seem to remember it used to be. You have to scroll right down past the Apps section where you can add/remove/arrange apps, and you'll eventually get to a File Sharing section with a list of apps that support file sharing.

If you found your way there but the list is empty, then something else is afoot... if nothing else, you should see the iWork apps there, if you have those installed.


Can you video your facetime chat? Is there anyway to record video of my facetime chats with my grandkids?

Unfortunately you can not do it. There is not way of recording unless you jailbreak.


Why do apps only display in top left quarter of screen after installing Winterboard? After installing the jailbreak app "Winterboard" just now and then rebooting as required, all my apps including settings and phone etc. only display in top left quarter of screen.

Only that screen quarter accepts touch input, but the touches are relative to the entire screen. This means I can't interact with the bottom and right halves of any apps, making it impossible to revert the installation.

Googling for this problem tells me that it was a problem with the version iOS 5 GM, which is a pre-release. But I'm not using that; I've just installed the newly released iOS 5.0.1.

Also, the recommended fix is to use SBSettings to start in failsafe mode, but I never had SBSettings installed, and I can't install it now with the screen acting up this way.

How can I fix this problem, apart from restoring from my PC?
I know I can restore from backup and then re-do all the jailbreaking, but it'd be nice if there was a way to avoid that.

This is what I've done:

I first made a backup to my PC, then the iOS 5.0.1 upgrade, then a restore from the PC to make sure I had all the apps and data again (I didn't; somehow several apps were missing after the restore, but I just installed the rest manually).
After that, I did the jailbreak and started adding Cydia apps. One app required the installation of Winterboard, and that is what caused this problem.
I'm fairly sure Winterboard is the culprit because when it happened, I restored again, jailbroke again, and began reinstalling Cydia apps again in a different order. It broke like this again while installing a different Cydia app that also requires Winterboard.
There's a weird effect going on that indicates that although the size of the displayed image is reduced but the size of the touch area remains full-sized but unresponsive outside the displayed quarter of the screen. In a paint app, I can drag from inside the display quarter into outside, but I cannot start a touch outside the display quarter; nothing happens.

So I know that I can "fix" the problem by restoring from the PC again and avoiding any Cydia apps that require Winterboard. But I would like to avoid restoring if possible, to save myself the trouble. I'll keep that as a last option in case there's no other way to revert this.

Ok, according to this Cydia thread, you have installed an iPhone 3GS wallpaper on your iPhone 4. Since the iPhone 4 has four times the resolution of the iPhone 3GS the apps will only show up in the left quarter of the screen.
Here's the fix:

Go to Settings>Wallpaper and choose any of the default wallpapers. Hopefully that will work.

And you don't need to restore. Winterboard makes no changes to the original OS files.

Since you can't press the Set button, you will need to restore and make sure that you avoid any apps that use Winterboard. Too bad!! I hope I've been helpful!


Sharing an Apple Calendar with a Google Calendar User I use the built-in Apple Calendar application.  My significant other uses Google’s calendar.  Is there a good way for us to share one specific calendar between the two of us on these separate apps so that I can continue to use the normal Mac Calendar app?  I really would like to not have to have two calendar apps if possible.  I poked around in the Mac calendar settings and didn’t see a way to share one calendar without having to add her account (which I don’t want to do).  Thank you in advance for any solutions.

You can subscribe to her Google calendar if all you want is for the events to show up for you. Easy enough to have her create a read-only link for you - and you can do the same for an iCal calendar (https://www.imore.com/how-publicly-share-calendar-your-iphone-and-ipad).


Notes from iCloud account don't sync with devices when added as secondary account I have a "work" iCloud account - a couple of Macs and stuff at work which use that account. I added that iCloud account under Mail etc settings on my iOS 9.0.2 iPhone. However even though Notes is checked, I do not get the exact same content in Notes as is on those Macs at work, or the Notes that appear when I sign in iCloud.com with a desktop browser.

It looks as if the notes that appear for my work iCloud account on my iPhone are old.

I do not see any recent notes, especially not any from October 2015, just older ones.
I no longer see any changes made on the iPhone to the Notes appear on my work Macs/iCloud.com.

I am suspecting that iOS 9 and/or OS X El Capitan has something to do with it.

I have tried to sign out of and then in to the iCloud account over and over on my iPhone, but it seems I can no longer use that iCloud account for Notes on my iPhone. I use the job email account too on my iPhone - that works.

Update: I added the same work account to my personal Macbook Air - again as a secondary account. The funny thing is I get the SAME work notes that I have on my personal iPhone! So in essence, I have two sets of "work notes": (let's skip bold here)

A set of work notes that sync between Macs and iPhones at work, when that account is added as primary iCloud account. The notes are also accessible at iCloud.com when using a desktop browser.
Another set of work notes that sync between my private Macs and iPhones, because (I guess) those are added as secondary accounts.

How can this be? The account id and password are surely the same. Still iCloud somehow keeps two different content sets for these... This is getting beyond me...

I have the same problem syncing with my wife's notes. I found an obscure note in a marginally related Apple article about this: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205015. At the very end, under "Learn More" it says

"If you’re signed in to more than one iCloud Mail account on your iOS device or Mac and have notes syncing turned on, you can only use the new Notes features with your primary iCloud account. You can see your primary account in Settings > iCloud, or System Preferences > iCloud."

This really sucks since there is no workaround once you've upgraded.


What technology/protocol is used in iMessage app to show that user at other end is typing? In, iMessage when other party types, we see three dots on our end.

How is this implemented? 1a) Is this also implemented using
Apple Push Notification Service  ?
I see same option in few other web chat applications. How is it
done outside iMessage?

I know how it's done in a recent version of iMessage/Messages, but can't comment on other applications since there are many ways to do this.

The iMessage protocol allows an out-of-band "last message ID" to be tracked by Apple's servers for each conversation ID. This is separate from the end-to-end communication between parties. The "..." appears when the client application notices that the ID of the last message it has received is NOT the same as the conversation's last message ID according to Apple's servers.

APNS is not used for this unless it's a very recent development.

If, at some later point, the other party/parties stop preparing a new message, the ID held by Apple's servers will revert to the last message sent. Once the client app sees that the ID's match again, the "..." will disappear.

Another point: This will ONLY happen with "blue bubbles", since SMS does not provide a side channel for communication with the central authority (i.e. Apple's servers)


Applescript activate not making the application fully active I'm writing a script for an application that does not support scripting. This is a proprietary app that I'm stuck with, so there's no alternative for me. The problem I'm having is this app does not respond well to "activate". When I'm activating it in an applescript, it brings its main window to the foreground, but the window is still not fully active (e.g. the Close/Minimize/Fullscreen buttons are grey, the shadow around the window is faint, etc). I have to click on it or cmd-tab twice to get it to activate. The application has some logic in it that prevents it to start functioning until the window is truly active, so I have to make the window truly active.

The workaround I'm using right now is to make the script press cmd-tab twice.

tell application "MyApp" to activate
key down command
keystroke tab
key up command
key down command
keystroke tab
key up command

I was wondering if there's a more elegant solution to make the app truly active.

The alternative is to activate your app through Dock:

tell application "System Events" to click UI element "MyAPP" of list 1 of application process "Dock"

The way I got here is to use Automator's record feature and copy the
steps" and paste them in Script Editor. It translates them to AppleScript.


MacBook Pro on table with water So I spilled water on my table last night and thought I cleaned it all up but apparently not. I didn’t see there was still water on the table and I went to put my MacBook on the water. I only realised it was on water when my screen started going green and glitchy. I immediately shut the lid and wiped off water on the bottom them opened it to turn it off then put it on some uncooked rice. Will this be ok or is there anything else I can do to save it

Well if you have a plastic box put the mac & rice in that, shut the lid and put it somewhere "gently" warm. 24 hours minimum - give it a chance as it sounds like water got deep in...

But if you can get it to someone who can take the cover off to clean and dry it out that would be better...

Be thankful it was not beer or (white) wine - they leave residues that make it very unlikely that they start again (guess how I know :), done 3 water, wine & beer - only one that survived was the one with water...), but water there is a chance...

Best of luck with it.


How do I move mp4 files from fotos to files on an ipad I airdropped 3 movies from my laptop to the ipad.  Since they were mp4's they ended up in fotos, but I'd rather watch them with VLC.  How do I get these files "moved" from fotos to files so that VLC can deal with them.  I've been working with .avi files up until now so it hasn't been a problem, but evidently fotos is claiming the mp4s and not even giving me a way to control where they go.

One option is to do the following:

On your iPad launch the VLC app
Tap on the Network option
Enable the Sharing via WiFi option
This should present you with at least two http URL addresses
On your laptop, open your preferred web browser (Safari, etc)
Enter one of the URL addresses (NOTE: I find the numbered address is much more reliable than the one using your device name)
You browser will now open a Sharing via WiFi page
Use this page to directly upload/download files to/from VLC on your iPad.


Is it possible to have the "Find" field engaged on open of .rtf file? When I click on the Dock shortcut of a specific .rtf file to open the file in TextEdit, my cursor is by default set in front of the first character of the first line of the document.

However, I would prefer if my cursor is instead set to the search field of the "Find" function. The "Find" function can be manually accessed by pressing ⌘ command  + F .

Is it possible for the cursor to be automatically placed in this location when the file is opened, perhaps with AppleScript?

TextEdit does not have an option to preform some actions when a file is opened, e.g. to run an on open() handler that does things upon opening a file. That said, if you have a particular file you want to open in TextEdit and have Find show at the top of the document, you'll need to do it programatically.

The example AppleScript code below is saved as an application and placed in the Dock instead of the target document itself. This of course will have to be on the left side of the Dock separator vs. the right side of the separator where the document's icon is.

set fileToOpen to (path to documents folder as text) & "file name.rtf"

tell application "TextEdit"
    open file fileToOpen
    activate
    tell application "System Events"
        key code 3 using command down -- ⌘F
        --  # Uncomment the line below if you want to clear the Find field of previous search.
        -- key code 51 -- Clear previous Find data by pressing the delete key.
    end tell
end tell

Note: You can make the Dock Tile of the AppleScript application that opens the target file have the same icon as the target file, by copying and pasting the icon from the target file's Get Info sheet to its Get Info sheet before dragging the AppleScript application you created to open the target file to the Dock.

Hint: As a suggestion, when you save the AppleScript application, name it the same name as the document it's opening.


Endless booting loop of MacBook Pro My Mac Book Pro 2011 17" recently started to endlessly boot, gets about 2/3s the way into booting then shuts down and starts booting again.
Will not accept the original disks. Will not restart in safe mode? Does this mean I need a new HD or something else?

It would be a good time to swap the HD for another startup system.
You could do that with a thumb drive startup disk that you or someone else setup already, and you could use a USB cable connected to any external drive that had this. You could probably get one online if you've never made one. You could pull that drive out and connect it to another Mac, then use Disk Utility on it. Here is an article with some helpful stuff.


How do I tell OS X it's OK to escalate to HTTPS? We've got a new MacBook Air which has a new to us problem.  It's unable to web browse to many common websites which normally auto-escalate from HTTP to HTTPS.  Example, one can normally go to trello.com or pinterest.com just by that name in the browser and it'll auto bounce up to HTTPS.  With this new machine it fails to connect.  However, if you manually do https in the URL bar, it will connect.

Notably it doesn't affect all websites (google.com is fine, among others).  It's also limited to this specific machine.  Our old Macs don't exhibit the same behavior.  OS X is fully up to date.  I've even tested with Firefox and the problem happens there too, so it appears to be OS level (although, above ICMP level as pings work perfectly fine of course).

Wondering if this might be related to instances where some http sites were being redirected to non-existent https sites.  Try the following:

Clear your browser cache in Safari
Close Safari
Delete ~/Library/Cookies/HSTS.plist


Cannot visit ebay.com with safari on MacOS Sierra This is how I see] ebay on Safari (MacOS Sierra)...

I have disabled all extensions I have, restarted safari, but the problem persists.

The site appears well on other browsers. Any ideas.

The first thing I would try is Safari -> Clear History. If that doesn't work, try Preferences -> Privacy -> Manage Website Data and remove any Ebay data.


Do Sophos and Spotlight conflict and if so, how can I run both applications without problems? I just got a brand new 13" MacBook Pro at work.  I have noticed that Spotlight has been running constantly giving me ~4 hours of battery life.  The motivation for getting this laptop was to have the portability of an 8+ hour laptop.

Searching online, I saw indexing a directory that is synced by a service such as Dropbox/Syncthing would lead to excessive indexing.  To eliminate this as the source of the problem, I excluded from the Spotlight indexing the directories updated using sync services.  I even went so far as to exclude my entire home directory from Spotlight.  Yesterday I tried deleting the Spotlight index forcing it to re-index, and it has been running constantly for the last 24 hours without change.  The hard drive is 512 GB but only have 122 GB of data.

I now think the problem may be caused by Sophos, the required anti-virus software.  I have seen other posts commenting on these applications conflicting but the solutions recommend removing Sophos, not an option for me.  Are there settings that allow these applications to ignore each other?  Perhaps I need to have Spotlight ignore the Sophos files.  Where are the status files for Sophos stored?

Edit:
Here are the results of the command mdutil -a -s (I get the same result with/without sudo):

2016-04-18 00:36:53.470 mdutil[12692:72953] Metadata.framework [Error]: mdsCopyStorePaths failed: (268435459) (ipc/send) invalid destination port
Spotlight server is disabled.

I am not entirely sure what to make of this.  Viewing the system status using htop, the most demanding process is /System/Library/CoreSerices/Spotlight.app/Contents/MacOS/Spotlight using 112-160% of a CPU.

This Apple thread recommends completely deleting the /.Spotlight-V100/ directory and rebooting.  I tried this but it does not seem to do anything.  After rebooting, the folder was not recreated, Spotlight is still consuming a excessive system resources, and mdutil still reports the same thing (I tried enabling the server using the commandmdutil -a -i onbut this produces the same output asmdutil -a -s` shown above).

They don't conflict. Spotlight is a pig on any first run on a newly accessed filesystem. On the other hand, Sophos will double the load caused by controlling all these filesystem accesses.

I suggest you to let Spotlight terminate its heavy initial run alone
by temporarily turning off the On-Access control of Sophos:

I also suggest you to turn off the scan on Files on network volumes, because this will load your Mac, your network and finally
your network volumes. On a well managed network, this scanning should be
run directly on the storage servers.

Once this 1st run terminated, Spotlight will less tend to be a CPU and I/O hog.


Using Linux computer as time capsule - possible but any experiences? have a Linux computer running as a server on which I also installed a time capsule (see for Vortexbox (my setup) but also for Ubuntu).

Before using this as my main backup, has anybody any experiences with this? The backup is working - but is the restore as well? ANy comments, experiences, sucess stories?

Any tips?

I am running Mavericks on my Mac.

I've had experience with this, and it does work with some fiddling, but it doesn't "just work" in the mac sense. Every now and then, you'll find that you have to reconnect the volume, restart a daemon, or else face weird time machine errors.

If you're okay with being this "hands on", you'll need to install Netatalk (AFP daemon) and Avahi (Bonjour daemon) on your Linux machine, and set a defaults option on your mac to allow Time Machine to use network drives.

This is the guide I used for setting such a system up: http://techiezone.rottigni.net/2013/12/backup-your-mavericks-using-debian-linux-as-a-time-machine/

Make sure you keep a close eye on it for your first few weeks - nothing worse than backups that aren't actually backing up!


Soundflower difficulties I recently downloaded Soundflower so I could record some audio with the imagery I can already record through QuickTime. The thing is, once I've set Soundflower up I can't hear anything on my computer! I already found an answer to this problem in an old forum on this site and did as one of the answers suggested, but I still can't hear anything it's driving me up the wall!

Can someone please help me out?

I was having audio issues with soundflower causing digital noise once I got it working.  This work around may help your issue too.

A friend suggested an idea that he had been shown. Setup soundflower as a midi simultaneously with your regular output. Therefore instead of routing through soundflower for your output (which seems to cause the issue), it routes each as their own output. So far seems to be working on my recording meters without the overdrive static. Here is the how to on this.

Also, if you are looking for more control I found software from Prosoft that allows for audio adjustment using hear or individual app volume control through hear or soundbunny.


How to clean speaker hole on macbook pro if you have macbook with thunderbolt - you will have some weird verry small hole on speaker.
If this hole is dirty - HOW TO CLEAN IT ?

I have try with vacum cleaner nor air compressor not work.

I would suggest you clean it from the back if you can open it to get there. If not, I would take something like a toothpick and put a piece of tissue on the end and inert in each hole in the cover being careful not to have dirt fall off inside. Probably doesn't matter if it does but I'd still be careful. I just counted the holes in the picture and there are about 1450 just in the picture with approximately 40 that are blocked. That works out to less than 3%. You can use this to determine if you wish to pursue this.


How to configure and use multiple ssh RSA keys with Keychain help I am looking for a solution that would automatically load multiple RSA keys at login, some of them having passwords stored in the Keychain.

Example: first keys would be obviously in ~/.ssh/id_rsa and let's say that the second cone would be in ~/.ssh/id_rsa.2.

I want them to be loaded automatically, without having to enter their passwords.

ssh-agent can do this: use ssh-add -K path/to/key to store the passphrase for the key in your Keychain. Whenever you do something requiring that key you won't be prompted for your password, provided the Keychain is unlocked.

This article gives more information, as does this related ServerFault question.


How to apply a Category to an Outlook Email using AppleScript I have the AppleScript below for Outlook 2016. I am able to mark my mail as read, and I am able to move the email to the appropriate folder. But I can't categorize the email for some reason.

Does anyone know what the proper keyword is called and maybe more importantly, a website to help me lookup AppleScript keywords for Outlook specifically?

tell application "Microsoft Outlook"
    activate
    set msgSet to current messages
    if msgSet = {} then
        error "No Messages selected. Select at least one message."
        error -128
    end if
    set theMsg to item 1 of msgSet
    set theAccount to account of theMsg
    set archiveFolder to folder "Tickets" of folder "Archive" of theAccount
    repeat with aMessage in msgSet
        set aMessage's is read to true
        set aMessage's category to "ForReview"
        move aMessage to archiveFolder
    end repeat
end tell

Take a look here. It is a bit long in the tooth and I've moved on from Outlook since, but I'm getting ready to try this again and will post updates if needed.


Moving notes and lists (in reminders) from iphone 7 to iphone 12 My new phone has my photos and my music, but not my notes or my reminders. The sim card has been moved to my new phone (if that is important). How do I copy these items?

The easy way to sync data like this is via iCloud (or another web service of your choice).
The Apple methods to move data don’t merge backups, it’s all or nothing so since you already have data on the new phone, you want to sync and not migrate.

https://support.apple.com/guide/icloud/set-up-icloud-mail-on-your-devices-mmdd8d1d47/icloud

You can turn on each category you want to sync. I recommend starting with the old device first, then the new second.


Mac is different on startup/sign in When I am signing in to my user account, there is a user interface with a black or white (about the dark mode or light mode is selected) background, there are two text boxes for username and password. When you type the username and press enter if the user is found you hear two beep sounds and get to the password part; if the user is not found you hear one beep sound and you type your username again. In the password part, you get a beep sound for every character you enter, if your password is correct you get three beep sounds.
How can I fix this, I want the normal (select user, enter password) user interface
MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2012), macOS Catalina 10.15.7

When FileVault (System Preferences/ Security & Privacy/ FileVault) is open to activate the mac you need to enter an administrator password or the recovery key (or Apple ID for reset). The password screen appears when you want to open either a non administrator, guest, or administrator user.
The username-password UI appears when opening the mac, to get rid of it turn off FileVault from System Preferences/ Security & Privacy/ FileVault.

FileVault secures the data on your disk by encrypting its content
automatically.