How can I list and edit all defined aliases in Terminal? A friend who owned my current Mac before me created a lot of alias commands.  Is there a way to list all defined aliases and the command that is associated with them?

And if so, am I able to edit them or should I just remove them using unalias and recreate them?

All you need to do is type alias at the prompt and any active aliases will be listed.

Aliases are usually loaded at initialization of your shell so look in .bash_profile or .bashrc in your home directory.

unalias will only work for your current session.  Unless you find where it is defined and loaded, it will be loaded again when you start a new Terminal session.

~/.bashrc gets run for both login and non-login shells, ~/.bash_profile only gets run for login shells.

See login shell vs non-login shell

As per comment from Chris Page:

You should put most of your customizations (including aliases) in ~/.bashrc and have ~/.bash_profile run ~/.bashrc, so they apply to both login (~/.bash_profile) and non-login (~/.bashrc) shells. Also, decide which of these should be "primary" and if the profile is your choice, tack on the rc file at the end. If the rc file is primary, source that at the beginning of your profile

These lines should be in the file ~/.bash_profile:

if [ -f "$HOME/.bashrc" ] ; then
  source $HOME/.bashrc
fi

This will include ~/.bashrc for login shells and in the order you wish if one file depends upon the other based on what you are setting.


Stop process from preventing sleep on OS X I run a MacBook Pro with OS X 10.11. I've noticed the machine hasn't slept well last night. There were events logged every couple of seconds in system.log throughout the entire night that the lid was closed.

I think it might be that two processes are preventing sleep while on A/C.

# pmset -g
System-wide power settings:
[...]
sleep                10 (sleep prevented by UserEventAgent, UserEventAgent)

Can I stop these processes (or any other process) from preventing sleep?

There are dozens of things that can prevent sleep built into macOS, and third party software can also disable sleep.

The first troubleshooting step is to run this command in Terminal:

pmset -g assertions

That will list the reasons your Mac is not currently asleep. Normally running on battery power you should get:

Assertion status system-wide:
   BackgroundTask                 0
   ApplePushServiceTask           0
   UserIsActive                   1
   PreventUserIdleDisplaySleep    0
   PreventSystemSleep             0
   ExternalMedia                  0
   PreventUserIdleSystemSleep     0
   NetworkClientActive            0

[further details removed for brevity]

Which means the only reason your mac isn't sleeping is due to user activity on the mouse/keyboard.

If you see something else (like PreventUserIdleSystemSleep) then your mac probably won't sleep at all and you should read the other details provided by pmset -g assertions to investigate further.


How do I install Skype for Business on my Mac? I have been to the Office365 website and looked in the software section but I cannot find it.

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Microsoft has officially released Skype for Business for Mac on October 26th, 2016. You can find the official download link here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=54108

If you are using Homebrew (and Cask), you can install Skype for Business for Mac with the following commands:

brew update ; brew cask install skype-for-business


Does auto-unlock in macOS Sierra also auto-lock? In WWDC, it was announced that macOS Sierra will have an 'auto-unlock' feature using the Apple Watch whereby if you approach your Mac wearing your Apple Watch, the Mac will automatically unlock.  I don't recall seeing anything about the reverse though?  Does macOS Sierra also have an auto-lock using the Apple Watch?

No. This isn’t something the os will do alone. You’d need a third party proximity app or script to trigger a screen lock when your watch leaves the vicinity of your Mac.


Running Eclipse Luna using Oracle Java 8 on Mavericks I am trying to run Eclipse Luna using Oracle Java JRE 1.8.0_11 on Mac OS X 10.9.4. I have added the following line to my eclipse.ini file:

-vm
/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Home/bin/java

Eclipse seems to have picked this up, but now I get the following message when starting it:

The JVM shared library "/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/
JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Home/bin/../lib/server/libjvm.dylib"
does not contain the JNI_CreateJavaVM symbol.

I have made sure that both Eclipse and Java are 64 bit versions, and do not know what else could cause this problem. Can anyone propose a fix for this?

Edit: It seems to work when using the JDK instead of just the JRE, but I still would like to know why.

JRE is Java Runtime Environment which is used for running java applications. But if you want to develop Java applications and do Java programming, you need JDK i.e. Java Development Kit.

To know more see the following question

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1906445/what-is-the-difference-between-jdk-and-jre


How do I know the IP addresses of other computers in my network? Say that I have two computers connected to the same network.
I know that from computer1 and file sharing enabled I can snoop around inside computer2.
But say that there is something interesting on computer2, which you access by typing localhost:9091 in safari. (e.g. transmission's web UI).
To access that I would have to type in the ip_address_of_computer2:9091 on computer1.

But how do I find out computer2's ip address without using computer2?

Method #1

The easiest way would be to access your network router's administration page. It will have information about any other devices on the network, including IP address.

Method #2

If you know the computer's network name you can ping it in the Terminal. It will return the computer's IP address.

Method #3

If you don't know the computer's network name, there's another trick you can do using ping. Find your IP address and your subnet mask. Both should be visible in the Network preference pane of System Preferences. Line up your IP address and your subnet mask, and replace any 0 values in the subnet mask with 255 in the same relative position of the IP address. For example, if you have the following IP address and subnet mask, respectively:

192.168.1.151

255.255.255.0

The 0 is in the last field of the subnet mask, so you replace the last field of the IP address with 255 and ping it: ping 192.168.1.255

You should get a response with the IP address of any device on the network capable of responding to pings.

Method #4

Last trick is to use the terminal command arp -a. This will show the IP and MAC address of all devices on the network that it knows about.

Last two tricks courtesy of this Macworld article.


Is Apple Remote Desktop safe / secure? I manage 6 devices: (2x MBPs, 2x Mac Minis, 2x MB), devices are a mix of 10.8 and 10.10. Adding or updating software on each computer has become tedious and I've been recommended to use Apple Remote Desktop.

Ideally I'd like to be able to use Apple Remote Desktop to manage the devices at our office which are on the same network, but also be able to connect to laptops when they are out of the office in case I need to share the screen etc.

My only concern is, is Apple Remote Desktop safe / secure? - Is there a danger of someone else being able to access the machines via Apple Remote Desktop?

In general, for remote connections, I would recommend setting up a VPN server on your office network, which would allow access to insecure services (such as VNC, known by Apple as Remote Desktop), without fear of those services getting hacked remotely. Regardless of how secure VNC is (which it isn't), in general it's a good idea to have as few points of entry as possible. A VPN provides this.


Ignore App Store updates in El Capitan? In previous versions of OS X, it was possible to right click on an update in the App Store and choose an option, "Ignore this update."

In OS X 10.11.6, nothing happens when I right click on an update in the App Store.  I do not get any menu.

According to this article, system updates can be ignored, but not third party apps.

Is there any way at all to ignore available updates in the App Store for selected third-party apps in OS X 10.11?

Apparently the current answer is "no"; however, I can hope that a workaround will someday become available, and this is the site where it should go.

Did you miss the Easter Egg?

For Software Updates, right-click the description text right under the title:

Got it from here: Hide Software Updates from the App Store in Mac OS X (last comment), though they say it doesn't work for Yosemite. I haven't checked if you can hide regular app updates the same way. I'll "update" this when one comes along.


Does a deactivated iPhone 4 still have GPS capability? I just got my iPhone 5, and I deactivated my iPhone 4. I am wondering if I can keep my iPhone 4 as a iPod that I run with.  Question is can, my Nike+ app still accurately track my runs?

I would much rather continue using my iPhone 4 running equipment (special case, armband, etc) instead of going to buy new stuff.

Yes, the GPS does not need cellular data or cellular service to work. It will get better results when GPS is offline if it can poll the location database and trilateralate from both Wi-Fi and cellular towers, but GPS is generally better than the these secondary sources of location data.

The phone should connect to Wi-Fi regularly to keep the location database up to date - perhaps while tethered to your iPhone 5 for optimal results.

For most situations it will work almost as if it were connected to cellular data and the cellular data switch was off.


How do I configure dynamic DNS when my router does not support it? I have a MacBook which is connected to the net via an ancient DSL router (NAT enabled). I want to SSH into the server from elsewhere, but my ISP assigns new IP address every once in a while.

I would like to use a dynamic DNS service for "finding" my Mac, but the router does not support any dynamic DNS functionality.

What (lightweight) option is there to update the DNS service with current IP info anyway? I remember installing a clunky menu-bar app several years ago, and I would prefer something configurable from the terminal.

NB: I feel it could be a problem when the MacBook is moved to a different network (friends, company) temporarily and attempts to connect to macbookaddress.dynamicdnz.tld suddenly hit their network. Correct?

ddclient is what I use on my Linux boxes. Works really well.

You can find instructions details here: http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/ddclient

I think all you would need to do to get ddclient to run is to a @reboot line to your crontab and you’re set.

crontab -e

then add this line:

@reboot /usr/sbin/ddclient -daemon 300 -syslog


How do you unshare or remove a person from your iCloud photo album? How do you unshare or remove a person from your iCloud photo album?

On the Photos app on OS X:

Open the Photos App
Go to the "Shared" tab
Select the album you'd like to modify

Click on the circle with a face inside icon on the top left of the app, a menu will appear

Select the person you'd like to remove from the album, and click on the arrow right next to their name

A new menu will pop up; select "Remove subscriber".

On the Photos app for iOS:

Go to the "Shared" screen, select the album you want to modify

Look at the bottom of the screen for the "People" button, and tap on it.
A preferences menu will appear, with the name of the people you've shared the album with on top. Select the person you'd like to stop sharing with.

It will show you the contact for that person (if you have it on your phone). Scroll to the bottom and tap on the "Remove Subscriber" text in red.


Keyboard Maestro interfering with control-tab action in browsers - how to disable? I've just purchased Keyboard Maestro, and now when I am in a browser and click control-tab, I can no longer advance through the open tabs of the browser the way I did before. That key combination must be used in KM to do something, and that's pre-empting the system shortcut.

How can I find out what action is attached to that keystroke in KM (so I can either change it or disable it)?

Open Maestro Switcher

All Macros -> Activate Window Swicher

And you can change or remove  it from there. (click at "-" at the bottom)


Numbers.app force me to download Chinese fonts but the download always fails Whenever I open the Numbers app the pop up always shows up, requiring me to download Chinese fonts.

The dialog reads "Numbers.app needs to download the font. The size is 50MB.". However, when I click the download button, the download always fails, the progress bar showing up yet immediately disappearing.

The pop up dialog shows 8 times whenever I open the app, as it seems that there are 8 different fonts necessary for the download. The only solution so far is clicking the "Skip" button on the pop up for all the pop ups, which is very tedious.

I restarted my Mac and also deleted and re-installed the Numbers app but it did not pan out.

Is there any way to prevent the dialog from opening whenever I use the app?

I found out that the problem comes from the failure of download on Fontbook.app. Following this question and answer, I finally downloaded the font successfully and the popups no longer show up in opening the app.

Solution

Go to System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/FontServices.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Fonts/Subsets/ and download it directly.


Can I clear my iPhone camera roll without losing any photo? It seems to me that all photos taken with the iPhone go into:

the iPhone Camera Roll
the iCloud photo stream
iPhoto/Aperture projects (e.g. "Photo stream for Decembre 2014")

Can I clear completely my iPhone's camera roll without losing any photo?

I.e. will the duplicates in the iCloud stream and in iPhoto/Aperture projects will be deleted or not?

My goal is to free some space on the iPhone while, of course, not losing anything.

Edit: when I say iPhoto/Aperture projects I mean that there are projects automatically created in Aperture for every month and my iPhone's photo are automatically added to it. I don't know how/why it works…

I haven't imported my phone's photos manually.

Screenshot:

("flux de photos" means photo stream, "févr" means february, "janv" means january)

Some explanations about where your iPhone photos are stored:

the iPhone Camera Roll
Sure. This is the only standard thing that happens.
the iCloud photo stream
Happens only when you have enabled the My Photo Stream option in Settings->iCloud->Photos
iPhoto/Aperture projects
Will be the case if you connect your iPhone to you Mac and sync/export your photos.

Now based on the above, deleting photos from you Camera Roll do the follow in each case:

will simply... delete them from your Camera Roll. They may still be in the Recently Deleted Album of your phone for some days.
will also delete them from your Photo Steam since this is something for sharing, not storing/backing-up. Do not confuse this with the iCloud Photo Library (Beta)
will not affect your photos in the iPhoto projects, since these are not synced automatically or something.

Edit after your explanations:

Deleting a photo from your Camera Roll will also delete it from the Photo Stream. And this applies to all your linked devices.

One should think the Photo Stream as a single common Album that all the devices have access to. Hence, any change to it, is reflected to all devices.

Long story short, if you have your photos saved in your mac you can safely delete them from your iPhone. If you feel uneasy with that, you can simply try it with a couple of photos and make sure that everything worked as you expected


How do I identify if my EarPods lightning are original? When I connect the EarPods purchased along with iPhone from suspect source I see this:

Is this not weird? Are they original or not?

The screenshots you have are identical to ones I have seen before with third party (non-original) minijack-to-Lightning adapters.
The EarPods that comes with an iPhone matches the iPhone. Therefore if you have an iPhone with just a Lightning connector, then your EarPods should have had a Lightning plug and not require an adapter.
This seems to indicate that the EarPods you have did not originally come with that iPhone. Whether they are are original or not is hard to say from the information given - it might be original EarPods with a non-original minijack to Lightning converter.


Is it possible to use a Mac's USB ports remotely through VNC/Remote Desktop? A little background: my organization, a hospital, is in the process of rolling out more iOS devices throughout the enterprise and we are provisioning them through Apple Configurator (w/ Cisco Meraki MDM) which has been working well so far.

However, this is mostly a PC shop and there's only one Mac computer for the device provisioning as of right now, so the question was brought to me if there was a way that we could host a Mac server in our data center and have the USB ports "redirect" so to speak from the local machine to the Mac server in order to provision these iOS devices without having to p-card multiple Mac computers?

No, pretty sure you won't be able to use a Mac server and then connect iOS devices to PCs and prepare them using Configurator remotely. You can add more USB ports using a hub to increase the number you can connect simultaneously.


Fake.app: How to loop thru the rows in a CSV file and use the data in my Workflow? I am using Fake to automate some web tasks.

I have a CSV file on disk that contains rows of data which I'd like to use to fill out forms in my Fake Workflow.

How can I iterate thru the rows in the CSV file and access the values found in each column in my Fake Workflow?

The best approach is to use the Repeat With Action with the lines in file option selected. This allows you to read the CVS file on disk and iterate thru the rows as Fake Variables. You can then access these Fake Variables in other Actions which can fill out the web form (or whatever you need).

As seen in the screenshot above, I'm using a Do JavaScript action to initially fetch the current line Variable and then split it into an array of comma separated values.

var line = fake.get('line');

Then I use Fake's JavaScript API to set individual variables for each column:

var row = line.split(',');
fake.set('first', row[0]);
fake.set('last', row[1]);

Then use other Fake Actions to work with the data you've fetched. In this case, I'll fill out a simple web form using the Set Value of HTML Element Action. In this Action's text fields you can access Fake Variables with this special syntax:

${first}


Time Machine says disk is full, but it was fine before! I have a 4TB external Time Machine disk. There are three internal volumes totaling 3.3TB that have been actively backed up to that external drive for a few weeks.

I was troubleshooting something and moving a bunch of files around, so I briefly turned off Time Machine. When I turned it back on, it started backing up... but then it stopped later, saying "there is only 707MB available on the drive, but 3.3GB is required."

It's almost as if it refuses to overwrite the old backups. It wants to start an entirely new backup or something. How can I make it pick up where it left off without having to delete that entire backup and start anew? I don't like deleting backups!

Since you state that you have three internal volumes, I am going to assume that when you were:

  "troubleshooting something and moving a bunch of files around"

that you moved files between volumes. Time Machine will want to make a backup copy of a duplicate file that is moved/copied to a different volume. It isn't smart enough to notice that it already has a backup copy of the file(s) when they existed on another volume.

It's possible that if you moved a bunch of stuff around while Time Machine was off that it is having trouble reconciling all the changes and it's being compounded by disk drives that are on the full size (as stated before, I agree with the 20% free space threshold.)

Excluding some files from the Time Machine options or using the Time Machine app to delete some old files might help.
This is quoted from http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427

  You can also enter the Time Machine restore interface and find files that can be removed from the backup drive itself to conserve space. To do this, select the file(s) and from the Action pop-up menu (gear icon) in the Time Machine Finder window choose "Delete All Backups of...". Be sure to only delete files you are sure you won't need or want to restore later.


WiFi connection problem (iPhone to TP-Link router) I'm having trouble connecting 2 iPhones 6 and one iPhone 5 to a TP-Link TD-W8901N wireless router.

When I click on the Join button on the iPhone it tries to join (upper side of pic) and then it stops (down). It's like a circle and repeats over and over....

I am able to join via Wifi with my laptop.

I can connect to another router with my iPhone.....

I did restart router several times.

Router settings:

Channel: 1, 6, 11, auto (have been tried)
Wireless Mode: 802.11 b+g+n
Channel bandwidth: 20/40 MHz
Authentication Type: WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK
Encryption: TKIP/AES
Transmit Power: High
Beacon Interval (ms): 100
RTS/CTS Threshold: 2347
Fragmentation Threshold (bytes): 2346
DTIM (ms):1

I had the exact same issue with a tplink access point and this made me crazy. Nothing worked for me, until i found the solution:

Disable WMM in the wireless advanced settings!!!


How do I use my external keyboard for typing in a foreign language? I have a MacBook Air with a British English keyboard layout and a bluetooth keyboard with a Norwegian layout.

I would like to use my bluetooth keyboard for when I am typing in Norwegian, and the inbuilt keyboard for when I am typing in English.

However, when I try to use the Norwegian keyboard to type a Norwegian letter, it instead types the symbol occupying the same position on the British keyboard.

This affects all the keys on my external keyboard. My computer effectively treats my Norwegian keyboard as though it were a British one.

Instead, I would like my computer to always treat my external keyboard as a Norwegian keyboard and to always treat my inbuilt keyboard as a British one.

Can you show me how to set up my computer in this way, please?

Thank you in advance

Go to System Preferences and to Keyboard. When that pane comes up, select the Input Sources tab. This is where you choose a foreign keyboard. See figure below.

You can see in the figure what the keyboard looks like for the Russian language. By clicking the 'Show Input menu in menu bar' you'll have a menu item to view the foreign keyboard whenever you want.


Export only edited photos from iPhoto '11? On my Mac, suppose I imported a 200 photos.  I edited 87 of them.  How do I quickly export just the edited 87 photos?  Imagine that I don't remember which photos I edited.

If exporting edited photos is not possible, is there some way to search for edited photos?

This is possible. You can use iPhoto Library Manager by Fat Cat Software, which  has saved my photos in many situations. It is frequently updated for newer versions of iPhoto.

Select your library in IPLM and Command-E or File > Extract Photos...

This results in an Extracted Photos folder and a Modified and Originals folder inside.

If you prefer not to use third-party software, an alternate method is available. Actually, each iPhoto library is actually a bundle that contains folders inside with its contents.  Navigate to your iPhoto library in ~/Pictures and it should show up as a file called Default with an icon with stacks of pictures.

Next, Control-click the file and select Show Package Contents.  If your iPhoto library is an older one, there will be folder shortcuts with "Modified" and "Originals."  Newer libraries remove these shortcuts, and the modified photos can be found in Previews.  Inside Previews, there will be several folders that outline date and time structures for iPhoto; you can just search for


Can I limit the amount of space itunes match uses on my iphone? I have an iPhone running ios 6.1.2. I use match frequently, and I notice that from time to time it will completely fill up the space on my iphone. This tends to cause the phone to run very slowly until I delete some items off of the phone. I would like to limit the space of match on my phone so that it will never fill it up. Is this possible?

This is not possible. iTunes Match will continue to fill up your storage space as you download tracks locally on the phone through it. I believe it will trim songs once the space is full, to clear off the least-played material.

If you would like, you can manage your storage in a few ways:

Go to Settings > General > Usage > Music. Here you can clear all downloaded music.
Go to the Music app. Locate downloaded material and swipe across artists, albums or songs to remove them from your local storage.


How can I use Mighty Mouse Swipe Gestures for Back/Forth in Mac App Store? I have the latest mighty mouse bluetooth wireless thing. (Hate it.)

In Mac App Store, I'd wish to be able to swipe left and right to be able to go back and forth, such as in Safari, Chrome, etc.

How can I achieve this? Preferably by native/OS means, without resorting to 3rd party solutions (BetterTouchTool, etc).

Unfortunately, the native Magic Mouse preferences pane is a little sparse.  As far as I can tell, unless you are willing to move to a 3rd party solution, the Magic Mouse does not support the behavior you are looking for.  In order to enable this functionality on an Apple trackpad, one must change the preference from 2 finger swipe to 3 finger swipe ("2 or 3" finger works as well).  It should be noted though, that even when enabled, in apps without the fancy page sliding across the screen animation, the swiping does not follow the "Natural Scrolling" paradigm, as in you must swipe left to go back and right to go forwarded.

While not the answer you were hoping for, it sounds like your best bet would be to either investigate a 3rd party option like MagicPrefs or even better, invest in a Magic Trackpad.  The gesture options, even natively are greatly expanded.  It will open up a whole new world of gesture based computing for you.


iMac does not hibernate anymore after Mavericks installation I used to be able to press the power button on my iMac shortly and send it to hibernation.

After the update to Mavericks though this ability has disappeared and now only sends it into sleep mode.

What is going on? Help Please!

Try holding down the Control key when you press the power button.

Here's a note from Apple about the new behavior:
OS X Mavericks: Using the power button

And here's a good discussion:
Can I restore pre-Mavericks power key behavior?


Determine the location of a shared folder in Win7 I am now using Mac OS 10.8, and want to write a script (.sh) to copy some files from Mac to the shared folder of a Win7 computer. I can access the Win7 computer shared folder via Finder, but I do not know the location of the Win7 shared folder when I write the script.

In Finder the navigate so that the Win7 folder is the selected one. Then the folder name is in the title of the window and this is the path yo use in your script.

Note you can also use automator and applescript rather than shell scripts.


In Macbook Pro 17", what's the difference between processors? What's the difference between processors here, other than 0.1GHz? Are there actual model numbers given for the processors so I can look them up on Intel's website? I'd like to see the real differences, and information seems sparse on the Apple store page. Is it worth $250 for the difference?

2.5 GHz (2860QM)

2.5GHz base clock, 3.6GHz max TurboBoost clock.
8MB cache.
Bus/core ratio: 25.

2.4 GHz (2760QM)

2.4GHz base clock, 3.5GHz max TurboBoost clock.
6MB cache.
Bus/core ratio: 24.

You can compare the features side-by-side here.

The actual difference is 4x0.1 GHz.

The links will tell you that there is no difference besides the clock speed, cache and bus/core ratio. Exactly the same specifications for advanced technologies, memory and expansions.

According to this source there is a 5.2% difference in performance. 7987 vs 7592 with PassMark.


Is there a way to rename menu items in Mac? For example, in Finder, when you CMD+C to copy a file, the Menu for pasting it is called "Paste Item". Is there a way to rename that simply to "Paste" ?

I'd like to do this for quite a few programs, Finder being only one of them, so if there's a universal method to this, by editing content files or by using terminal for example, that'd be great.

Thanks!

You will have to edit the .nib files with a text (or xml) editor. First make a backup of the app (especially for Finder), then go into the bundle contents and find the English.lproj or en.lproj. This will probably be in the Resources/ folder.

Most likely, this file will be called MainMenu.nib. However, Finder's is MenuBar.nib and some apps, like Firefox, won't have one at all.

The nib file can be converted to XML with plutil -convert xml1<filename>. Then you can open it in the text editor of your choice. Just command ⌘+F (or control ⌃+S) for the menu name you want to change. It should look something like this:

<string>New Tab</string>
<string>newSession:</string>

Edit the string at the top. This is actually the Interface Builder connection between the menu item of that name and the Objective-C selector/method that it calls. Save the nib and relaunch the application (with Force Quit or killall for Finder) and you should have the different name showing up.


Terminal Actived Push Notification Utility for OS X and iOS? I am basically wondering if there is any tool(s) that can generate a push notifications on OS X and/or iOS from terminal entries. Idea here is you could connect via SSH and make a custom push notification like "WiFi is turning off in 5 Minutes" or "Go to bed!" (lol) appear. Anyone have ideas? My iOS device is jailbroken, hence OpenSSH is installed.

OS X Server integrates nicely for push notifications using APNS, but it's more focused on mail and chat notifications as opposed to sending generic notifications like a turn based game server.

It would get your Apple ID approved and be a very nice first step towards getting APNS to be ready to listen to commands from a Mac.

Here is a nice step by step article on setting up push notifications:

http://krypted.com/mac-os-x/enable-push-notifications-in-os-x-mountain-lion-server/

From there, you could use a chat hosted from your Mac as opposed to using iMessage (messages app on iOS to get messages sent with push notifications).


Choose display when doing a screen capture with external display I have a Macbook with an external display. I use both displays and when I do a screen capture (⌘ + ⇧ + 3) I get two files on the desktop, one for each display. Is there a way to choose which display to grab the screenshot from when doing the screen capture?

You might use ⇧⌘4 (Save picture of selected area as a file) and just drag the selection around one display.

screencapture -m only captures the main display:

-m      Only capture the main monitor, undefined if -i is set.

I don't know if -S supposed to capture the display of the selected window, but options like -Sw or -SW only seemed to capture the selected window.

-S      In window capture mode, capture the screen instead of the window.
-w      Only allow window selection mode.
-W      Start interaction in window selection mode.

-R (rect) captures a specified area:

screencapture -R0,0,1920,1080 /tmp/screencapture.png


Google Map directions on iPad When looking for directions, Google Maps says "first of three suggested routes."  It shows the first, but I can find no way of finding out what the other two suggested routes are.  I've searched the screen and can see no way.  How do I do it?

Yes, I know this isn't an iPad screenshot, but I don't currently have iOS 5 on my iPad :). Regardless, the function is the same, you can tap the route labels in order to view the alternative routes. You may need to zoom in or out to see them.


Just upgraded to Mountain Lion and I have to buy iPhoto again? I originally was on Leopard.  Then I got the free upgrade to Snow Leopard.

I bought Lion when it was released and removed it after a few months because it made my machine too slow.  I upgraded the RAM and upgraded to Mountain Lion yesterday.

But iPhoto is missing?  During the last two years I bought (from Apple) an iLife disc.  Remember discs?  lol

Anyway, it's iLife 11 so technically I could install it from disc but I like the app store experience.  Do I really have to pay $15 again for iPhoto in order to get it from the app store?  Or is there another way?

You can always re-run the disc based installer and avoid re-purchaing the app from the App Store. Eventually you will buy a new Mac which will then allow you to claim the App Store licenses for iLife without paying additional fees.

I'm stuck in the same boat with Aperture. The convenience of the App Store isn't enough to make me want to re-pay for the software I have a DVD based install.


IPhone4S is not allowing to text; use email nor certain apps l accidentally did the reset statistics button on my phone and now my phone is all out of whack. What can I do to restore it back to its normal function?

I would do a restore back to factory settings, and then back up from an icloud or itunes backup. You do have a back up right?


What does Converting (forward) mean in diskutil? I had an APFS (Encrypted) disk which I chose for Time Machine backups on macOS Catalina.
I was asked if it was OK to erase the disk (Time Machine on macOS Catalina dosen't support APFS).
I answered yes and disk was formatted as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted)".
Initial backup is done, but encryption is taking forever.
Running diskutil cs list reveals Converting (forward) and Conversion Progress: 2%.
What does Converting (forward) mean and was my data backed up in clear (meaning it was encrypted during initial backup)?
Why is it taking forever to encrypt data given disk was formatted as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted)" before data was backed up?
Thanks!

Converting "forward" means that direction is from not encrypted -> encrypted. I.e. you started with a blank disk and enabled encryption.
It is possible to do a conversion in the opposite direction if you later decide you do no want your disk to be encrypted.
Your backup was encrypted - it is not stored in the clear when encryption is enabled.
Encryption does take a long time, yes. It is intentionally throttled to not consume system resources, but takes place in the background. You can keep using the computer and the disk while it is working.
It can be a pain if you're encrypting an external disk and need to keep it connected for a long period of time, but unfortunately that is normal.


Are any priorities among criteria that are checked during app review? Apple refused for the third time my app. For first two times reason was about semantical, performance issues. Now something wrong with meta info, I forget to set appropriate adult classification.

Does it mean that they haven't found any issue with the binary? Is it an order that they check first binary and then meta?

No, it just depends who's reviewing it. Some reviewers spot the first error and reject the app there and then, whilst others will notify you of all the problems that they find.

For example, my latest rejected iPhone app was rejected mainly for not running correctly when scaled on iPad, but the rejection reason also had some comments from the reviewer regarding the metadata.


Approve This iPhone: Reset Protected Data What data exactly is deleted when this option is selected? I am unable to access any other iOS device to approve my new iPhone so I am in a bind at the moment. I just don't want any of my important data to be deleted.

I believe protected iCloud data are passwords, home, and health data.

The issue has now reared it's head on my computer. The following is copied from the help about the issue:
"To keep your protected iCloud data secure-for example, passwords, home, and health data-you must authorize this Mac to use your iCloud account."

I personally don't use any of those and am ready for them to be re-set. This has been a growing problem for me from one device to all one them over the past few months.

If it really is just that data then hopefully the reset will take care of the issue (I don't store that data anyway out of data privacy and security concerns).  This seems to have been happening since iOS 10. I had it for more than 6 months before this issue popped up for me.

When I did this on my phone and selected to reset protected data I got the following message to confirm the reset:
"Passwords, home and other protected data stored in iCloud will be permanently deleted. You can't undo this action."

Keychain reset (don't use)
No other messages popped up.

After doing the reset on my phone then I was requested (on my phone) to authorize my iPad and computer (two separate requests).  I entered my password, clicked allowed.  After turning off then on my iPad it resolved the issue on the iPad and computer.


Screen sharing between a MacBook Pro and an iMac I have an iMac 21.5" and a MacBook pro. How can I connect the macbook pro to use the iMac's screen?

All you need is a mini display to mini display chord; one end goes in your iMac & the other end goes into your MacBpook Pro

This video shows exactly what you need & how to do it


Problems with bless tool The computer is an early 2015 13" MacBook Pro. Two weeks ago we sent my spouses 15" in for battery recall, and bought an OWC Aura Pro to replace my internal 1GB SSD (we SuperDuper'd her 15" MacBook's hard drive onto the Aura). So we took my internal SSD out and put it in the External OWC case. I was able to start up my computer once or twice from the external without a problem.

Yesterday, we got the computer back and put the Aura into her 15" MacBook (no problems there), but when I put my SSD back in my 13", it would boot only so far and then restart. I put the SSD back into the external case and started the 13" fine off of my spouses original SSD (from her 15"). In Startup Disk, when I tried to select my SSD and click restart, I get the bless tool error.

The question is, what's my next move? Can this be repaired? (Disk Utility didn't fix it). The questions I've found on Google tend towards the new disk territory, but this is an unmodified Apple SSD that had been fine until I took it out of my computer.

Worst case, I have a SuperDuper backup on a platter disk. I figure I can reformat the SSD and SuperDuper the data back onto it from the external, but I'm not sure if that will perpetuate the issue.

Well I was not able to solve this, but wiping the drive and re-copying from a backup worked.


What format/bitrate are iTunes sample files on the iTunes store? Is there anywhere which officially says what format/bitrate is used for the sample files which you play on the iTunes store?

If there's nothing official, can any audiophiles work it out roughly?

So, for example, if I'm about to buy "Rudimental - Right Here" on the iTunes store, and I listen to the sample to check I like it first. What format/bitrate would I have just listened to that sample in?

AAC format at 256 kbit/s, m4a

Originally, songs were encoded using FairPlay-encrypted 128 kbit/s AAC streams in an mp4 wrapper, using the .m4p extension.

From May 29, 2007, tracks on the EMI label were made available in a DRM-less format called iTunes Plus. These files are unprotected and are encoded in the AAC format at 256 kbit/s, twice the bitrate of standard tracks bought through the service. They are labelled as "purchased AAC audio file" (.m4a) rather than "protected AAC audio file" (.m4p) in iTunes.

in January 2009, Apple announced that all music would be available in the iTunes Plus format, bringing an end to the sale of music with DRM on iTunes. In April 2009, the sale of protected music ended in western versions of the store, making all music in the iTunes Store "iTunes Plus." iTunes Store users may choose to "upgrade" any of their downloaded iTunes music to iTunes Plus if they wish, but most songs require payment to do so. FairPlay DRM-protected music was still available in the Japanese iTunes store, up until February 22, 2012, when they upgraded to the iTunes Plus model.[105]

In September 2009, Apple introduced the iTunes LP format (known pre-launch by the code name "Cocktail")[106] which features visual, interactive content alongside album tracks and lyrics.


Catalina update from Mojave: how to continue the download from where it was? From Mojave in System Preferences / Software Update, I'm trying to update to Catalina.

Catalina takes about 8 GB.

The network cable was a bit loose, and after about 6 GB (75%), someone touched the cable and the download was interrupted with an error message: "Network connection was lost!".

I just clicked "Ok" (no reboot...) and was offered the update again. That I did. But the updater started almost from the beginning! (from 512 MB to be precise!). I was expecting MacOS to use the part that was already downloaded (or at least most of it), in order to spare another 30 minutes download!

Is there a way (update from command line...) to tell MacOS to consider using the part of the file that was already downloaded at the time of the disconnection?

Out of curiosity, considering you asked this 5 months ago, have you still not updated yet?

Nevertheless, here's my answer:

As far as I'm aware, if the connection is lost, the software update is cancelled, and there usually is no easy way to restart from where it was lost. A cancellation by definition usually involves the loss of progress.
I suppose, however, that there may be some obscure method by which this might be possible (I see a few comments which have various suggestions), but to be honest, its far more reasonable to simply redo the update than to take the risk to tamper with the software which runs your Mac, especially during a major MacOS update. Its simply not worth taking the risk to save 30 minutes.
I'm sure many people have had this sort of issue and wanted to do this before and if it was that simple Apple probably would've already made it so that you could start off from where you left. This suggests that it is not, so stay on the safe side.

Conclusion

So conclusion - maybe there is some complicated method which would do this, but my advice: don't risk it, just take a few extra minutes and you'll be safe, rather than sorry.


Is there any software for checking hardware in iOS? Is there anything like this in iOS for iDevices ?

This question & top answer are very relevant.
Basically "yes", but not so much from a customer / end user standpoint.  iOS has a diagnostics tool built in that is accessible from Apple once you give consent.
You can check your iOS device's health using Apple's main support site.  From that page you can select iPhone (or iPad), find an issue that would warrant running the diagnostic (I chose power, unexpected shutdown/restart), verify that a restore didn't resolve the issue and then enter your phone number / email address to start the diagnostic process.  Apple will text / email you a link to open.  The link opens the iOS diagnostic tool, which requires you to click through a legal agreement before starting the test.  The test results are sent back to Apple once they finish and you tap "done".  Back on the support site the page will refresh and show any issues that were found with the device as well as support options for resolving them.


Intermittent DNS drops with Mavericks 10.9.1 I am seeing this problem consistently with my macbook pro retina 13-inch with Mavericks 10.9.1. Every once in a while, it stops being able to talk to the internet. I have been running a pair of pings, one to the router at 10.0.0.1, and another to google DNS server at 8.8.8.8. The router ping continues along with no problems, while the google ping hangs up for minutes (MINUTES!) at a time. This is frustrating as it seems to happen exactly at the point I want to use the internet.

I'm seeing nothing the console, and other computers I'm running here at home do not experience the problem at all, including another mbp running Snow Leopard.

I've heard about SMB2 problems, but this isn't anything to do with SMB2, just not being able to access the internet.

Also, this problem occurs whether connected via WiFi or hardline ethernet.

This is not a solution, per se; but possible further refining of the problem.

I have an iMac 7,1 4GB with 3 different external system drives - 2 10.9.1 (1 primary, 1 backup) and 1 10.6.8.
The 10.9 I used as primary system started dropping the wifi connection randomly; but repeatedly.
Running a ping in terminal made no difference; neither did downloads in progress.
I even moved the router to 2 feet from the computer and there are times the computer does not even SEE it.

It DOES NOT happen with either the backup 10.9.1 or 10.6.8.

Tried running Wireless Diagnostics - not sure what to look for; but logs just say dropped.

I tried reinstalling 10.9 on primary (without initializing drive) - no joy, so just doing a basic reinstall hasn't help me.

I have either downloaded/installed something or parts of the communication framework have been corrupted somehow. Whatever it is, it is something that is not repaired with a basic reinstall or something that the diagnostic tool makes obvious to me.


Dependencies for LaunchAgent so it mounts a bundle before other daemons run I have following setup: I have a sparsebundle on an external disk containing steam (it wouldn't install on my internal disk - something about the format). But by now I depend on this approach as this bundle got much larger as my internal disk.
For this I have written a simple LaunchAgent that mounts the bundle (if available) onto ~/Library/Steam when I logon.

I have this setup for some time now, but just recently noticed that Steam itself also installed a LaunchAgent - no idea what it does... But I want to make sure the mounting happens before the Agent from Steam runs.

So far I checked if I could set some dependencies or so in Launchd - but couldn't find anything. Do you have suggestions how I might achieve this?

Firstly, a rant: Sparse Bundles work in a way to allow the bundle to increase in size to accomidate it's contents, however any files that you modify or delete in the bundle will not decrease the bundle size as you'd expect. For example, if I add two 1GB files to the bundle and then delete one, the bundle will be 2GB in size. If I then add another 1GB file, then the bundle will increase to 3GB in size. Long story short, don't run applications in bundles.

As for the LaunchAgent for Steam, it's probably just a background server connection. I would disable it within the Steam preferences if you can, and/or try to remove it from the start-up list.

There is no built in delay for startup apps that I'm aware of.
I use Keyboard Maestro for this. My workflow is for Keyboard Maestro to launch at login, then to wait for a certain period of time (delay) after login and then launch an app (eg Dropbox).


How to have both Swift 2 and Swift 3 books in iBooks library I'm a professional software developer who is still supporting clients using Swift 2. However, I'd like to be getting up to speed on Swift 3 since clearly it is the wave of the future.

My copy of iBooks (on my Mac, dunno about my iOS devices) is currently the Swift 2 book, and when I go to the bookstore, it shows the Swift 3 version with a read button. When I click that it opens the Swift 2 book.

I see from another question that I can right-click on my Swift 2 book in iBooks, delete it, and then re-download from the app store in order to update to the Swift 3 book.

However, I need both versions to show up in my library, clearly named, and need to be able to open one or the other at will.

How do I accomplish this?

I’m not sure iBooks offers an easy way to keep two versions of the same book from the iBooks Store around.

You could instead add the old version as an ePub or PDF copy. Apple makes the Swift documentation available as an ePub on swift.org. That site only seems to have the latest version, but copies of the older versions can be found around the web. Here's one for example: “The Swift Programming Language, Swift 2.2 Edition, Prerelease”.

There’s also a blog post on “Converting the Swift Programming Language to PDF” which offers these instructions for converting the iBooks Store file to a PDF yourself:

  Go to ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books.
  Once there, locate the 881256329 epub folder. You must use a non-beta version of the book. Beta versions are DRM’ed. If your version appears to be DRM’ed (a holdover from the beta period), delete it in iBooks and re-download.
  Copy this epub folder to your desktop. Remove the epub extension, zip it, rename to epub. Apple uses a non-standard epub format, and these steps transform the book back to something Calibre can import and convert.
  Drag this epub into Calibre.
  Click Convert books, choose PDF.
  In Page Setup, select default output profile, set margins to 72 on each side
  In PDF Output, add printable TOC.
  Click OK and let the conversion start


Cannot connect multiple PS4 controllers through bluetooth I have two PS4 controllers but I'm unable to connect both by bluetooth on my iMac and Mac Book Pro, both running Mojave.

I can pair one of them (say A) and, as soon as I do it, the other one (say B) is not recognized through bluetooth. When I set it to be discoverable, the white light blinks for a while and nothing happens. The weirdest thing is that if I disconnect A and try to connect B, it won't be recognizable unless I run:

sudo rm -R /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist

So what happens now is that I can pair A to my iMac and B to my  Mac Book Pro, but not both to neither of them.

I have been googling this problem for a while but haven't found a solution or even a reason for this to make sense.

I successfully managed to connect 2 DualShock 4 on my Mac mini 2012 running High Sierra 10.13.6 using a Bluetooth Dongle (not with the builtin Mac mini BT controller).

Both gamepads could not be connected simultaneously as described in the question.
Purchased Mac-compatible Bluetooth USB dongle (https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B009IQB3US/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1). You need to check for Broadcom chipset to be supported by Mac (no driver needed). Then voilà! Both gamepads connected / working at the same time.

Recommendations:

Delete all BT devices paired from Mac
Make sure Mac picked up the BT dongle as controller vs builtin one (ALT-click on BT icon and check for MAC address change).
Reconnect / pair BT devices
I had to reset one of my DualShock (https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-reset-ps4-controller-4174025)

PS: could not answer similar question Use more than one PS4 Dualshock controller over bluetooth due to lack of reputation

Hope it helps.


How to find the speed and CL settings of DDR3 SODIMM? I bought a pair of Crucial 8GB DDR3 1866MHz SODIMM for my iMac 27 5K Retina Late 2015.  I suspect the SODIMM that I received is 1600MHz, potentially counterfeit.

Here is my question

Is there any way to read the SPD data for the speed, CL settings, and manufacturer ID?
How do I find the actual speed.  Is the System Report -> Memory the actual speed or reading from SPD?  I need both information.
How do I check if it's a genuine Crucial memory? (EDIT: I called Crucial.  They said the material number 310536 isn't matching.  They are investigating)

The Crucial part number is CT102464BF186D.C16FN.

The marking on Micron DRAM chip is D9QBJ.

According to Micron the part number is MT41K512M8RH-125:E. Here is the link for datasheet. -125 means 1.25nsec speed grade.  1/1.25nsec = 800MHz which is 1600MHz since DDR is "double data rate".

FYI: Crucial web said CT102464BF186D is not compatible with Mac, but many people reported success and stable with their late 2015 iMac while small number of people reported random shutdown.  It's my wild guess they hit the counterfeit DIMM that has the SPD programmed for 1866MHz when the DRAM chips are 1600MHz rating.

The RAM does appear to be counterfeit as far as I can see.

I have that type of genuine Crucial memory (CT102464BF186D.C16FN) here - but it doesn't look like your picture.

The PCB is almost identical, but some markings on it are off. The number of components mounted at the top of the board are very much different. The actual DRAM IC on my memory has FPGA code C9BCM, which according to Micron is a 1.07 nsec rating - equalling a 1866 Mhz speed.

To top it off, the label looks very much the same - but instead of "Product of China", mine says "Assembled in USA".

I can't say for sure that this means that it is counterfeit - it could be some kind of labelling/production error, or another revision of the same product or similar.


How can I recover when my iPhone isn't responding to touch when using Guided Access on iOS 6? Is there a recommended solution for when Guided Access fails to respond to triple-click of the home button?  I set this up for a kids app for my son, and despite triple-clicking the home button several times, I am failing to get a response to prompt for my guided access pin number.

I tried holding the power button, and several other options, all to no avail.  Is my only option to let the battery die out?  Will that even fix the issue?

Seems like a solution is to hold home button + volume down + screen lock until device forcibly reboots.  After that, guided access began responding properly again and I was able to exit the app.

Edit:  Through trial and error, I felt this was home button + volume down + screen lock, but as comments  have noted, volume down is not necessary.


Wake Other Computers from Mac OSX Is there a terminal command within Mac OSX that will allow me to use WOL (Wake On LAN) to wake up other computers? Windows has wolcmd, is there an equivalent within OSX?

I am trying to wake a computer from my rMBP, within my network. My rMBP is connected via WiFi normally, but can also be connected via Thunderbolt GbE connector. The target computer is a Windows machine that I want to wake up before I connect to it using a remote desktop connection.

Install the wakeonlan package using Homebrew:
$ brew install wakeonlan
(It's a Perl script for waking up computers via Wake-On-LAN magic packets.)
When installed, you can send a "magic packet" from your Terminal to any device using its IP (Internet Protocol) and MAC (Media Access Control) address.
Here's an example of a typical use:
$ wakeonlan -i 192.168.1.255 -p 1234 01:02:03:04:05:06
The scripts takes 2 arguments, the MAC address of the NIC, and an IP address.

Note: The IP address argument is tricky and isn't what you'd think.
For a NIC on your local subnet, use the broadcast-address of this subnet. (e.g. subnet 192.168.10.0 with netmask 255.255.255.0, use 192.168.10.255)

For example, I have a Synology NAS manually configured with the IP address of 10.0.1.100 with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 and a router address of 10.0.1.1.
The correct IP address to use is not that of the device, but instead the broadcast-address of the subnet.
Continuing on my example, I used the following command to successfully wake up my Synology:
$ wakeonlan -i 10.0.1.255 -p 7 01:02:03:04:05:06
(Naturally, substitute the actual values of your device and network for your situation.)
You can get more information from the wakeonlan man page, man makeonlan, or a quick glossary of commands from wakeonlan -h.


How often should I use the battery on my MacBook (which I exclusively use as desktop)? Since getting my mb-pro 3 years ago, I've only used it as a desktop. A few times, the battery has kicked-in for a few hours while the power was out. Someday, I might want to task it as a laptop. For the sake of the battery :

  Should I be unplugging my mb from the wall just to use the battery?
  For how long should I run on battery?
  How often should I do this?

Taken from https://web.archive.org/web/20110521104819/http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html

  Standard Maintenance
  For proper maintenance of a lithium-based
  battery, it’s important to keep the electrons in it moving
  occasionally. Apple does not recommend leaving your portable plugged
  in all the time. An ideal use would be a commuter who uses her
  notebook on the train, then plugs it in at the office to charge. This
  keeps the battery juices flowing. If on the other hand, you use a
  desktop computer at work, and save a notebook for infrequent travel,
  Apple recommends charging and discharging its battery at least once
  per month. Need a reminder? Add an event to your desktop’s iCal. When
  your battery no longer holds sufficient charge to meet your needs, you
  may choose to replace it. If your notebook came with a built-in
  battery, you should have the battery replaced only by an Apple
  Authorized Service Provider.


cheapest iPad necessary for running Swift Playgrounds application What's the oldest (read: cheapest) iPad I can purchase that will run the Swift Playgrounds app for learning the Swift programming language?

According to Apple:

  Swift Playgrounds requires a 64-bit iPad with iOS 10 or later, including iPad mini 2 or later, iPad Air or later, or iPad Pro.


Can I tell if a track is in stereo? In iTunes v.12.3.2.35, can I tell if an aiff song is in stereo or mono? I tried "Get Info" but I cannot find a tab regarding this. Thank you for any suggestions.

It looks like the "File" tab of the track info window has what you're looking for.


KeyPassX says "Wrong signature" when opening a .kdbx (version 1.x) file I have a KeyPass 2.x file (*.kdbx) that I created on a Windows computer using KeyPass 2.x. When I attempt to open the file on Mac OS X Lion using KeyPassX, I get the error "Wrong signature."

I discovered I could solve the problem by exporting the .kdbx file (2.x) to a .kdb file (1.x).

To do this, open the password file on a Windows computer using KeyPass 2.x. Select File -> Export, choose the file type as *.kdb and enter a filename. Then, you can open the new file on Mac OS X using KeyPassX.

Since my passwords don't change that often, I simply export a new copy for my Mac every time I modify the original on Windows.


How do you create a rEFInd boot manager USB disk? The following command does not run, it returns a "file not found" message. The instructions do not say where the downloaded file should be placed, nor whether it should be unzipped or not!

Run dd if=refind-flashdrive-0.11.4.img of=/dev/disk2 and in 1 minute you will have the rEFInd Boot Manager on your USB stick

Note: These instructions are for version 0.12.0 of rEFInd. If you download a different version, then make the appropriate substitutions for the version you are using.

The rEFInd Boot Manager: Getting rEFInd webpage has a link for A USB flash drive image file. The default is for the downloaded files to be placed in the folder ~/Downloads/refind-flashdrive-0.12.0. The contents of this folder is given below.
-rw-rw-r--@ 1 davidanderson  staff    35147 Mar 13  2020 COPYING.txt
-rw-rw-r--@ 1 davidanderson  staff     4891 Mar 13  2020 CREDITS.txt
-rw-rw-r--@ 1 davidanderson  staff     2204 Mar 13  2020 LICENSE.txt
-rw-rw-r--@ 1 davidanderson  staff   105344 Mar 13  2020 NEWS.txt
-rw-r--r--@ 1 davidanderson  staff     1719 Mar 13  2020 README-flashdrive.txt
-rw-r--r--@ 1 davidanderson  staff     2183 Mar 13  2020 SHELLS.txt
-rw-rw-r--@ 1 davidanderson  staff  7372800 Mar 13  2020 refind-flashdrive-0.12.0.img

Note: The downloaded file refind-flashdrive-0.12.0.zip is automatically unzipped`.

The instructions are in the file named README-flashdrive.txt. The contents is given below.
The .img file in this archive should be bootable on any EFI-based computer.
It launches the rEFInd boot manager, which in turn should be able to locate
boot loaders on the computer's EFI System Partition (ESP) or on other
partitions.

To use this disk image, you must copy it to a USB flash drive or similar
medium. Under Linux or Mac OS X, you can do this with dd as root, as in:

dd if=refind-flashdrive-{version}.img of=/dev/sdx

You must change {version} to the version number and set the target disk
(specified by "of=") correctly. BE VERY CAREFUL! If you set the output disk
incorrectly, you can seriously damage the data on your hard disk! (If this
happens, and if it's a GPT disk, you may be able to recover most of your
data by using GPT fdisk. See http://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/repairing.html
for details.)

Be aware that the disk image file uses GPT, and the GPT data structures are
sized for the disk image, which is very small by today's standards. Thus,
the backup GPT data structures will be placed early on the disk. Most OSes
cope well with this, but you may want to correct the problem if you want to
use the disk for other purposes in the future. You can do this with the "e"
option on the experts' menu of gdisk (http://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/). GNU
parted can also correct this problem; it will prompt you when you try to
view the partitions on the disk.

You can also install rEFInd from this disk image; however, it doesn't
contain an EFI/refind directory like the other installation files available
from the rEFInd Sourceforge page. Instead, you must copy the contents of
EFI/BOOT, and the rEFInd binary is called EFI/boot/bootx64.efi or
EFI/boot/bootia32.efi, depending on your architecture.

Steps to Create the Bootable Flash Drive

Insert a flash drive and use the Disk Utility to erase the flash drive. For name, enter MYREFIND. For format, enter MS-DOS (FAT). For scheme, enter Master Boot Record.

Open a Terminal application window and change the current working directory to where the image file resides. Below is the command to use when downloaded to the default location.
cd ~/Downloads/refind-flashdrive-0.12.0

Enter the command given below to get the identifier for the flash drive.
diskutil info MYREFIND | grep "Part of Whole"

In my case, the identifier was disk2. If you get a different identifier, then make the appropriate substitutions in the following steps.

Enter the command given below to unmount the flash drive.
 diskutil unmountdisk disk2

Enter the command given below to copy the image to the flash drive.
sudo dd if=refind-flashdrive-0.12.0.img of=/dev/disk2

(Optional) As explained in the README-flashdrive.txt file, the secondary (backup) GUID partition header and table are not stored at the end of the flash drive. If you have the gdisk command installed, then you can enter the command below to repair this problem. The GPT fdisk project home page can be found here.
sudo gdisk /dev/disk2

The gdisk command is interactive. Below are the correct commands to enter when prompted.
x
e
w
y


Can't remember my Apple ID I remember my nickname for my Game Center but I don't remember what the Apple ID was for it is there a way to retrieve this information

The only way to find out your Apple ID is by visiting https://iforgot.apple.com and clicking 'I forgot my Apple ID'. Enter in the forms there as best as you can and if there's any Apple ID tied to your information it should come up.


GNU screen updating or reinstalling Is there a way of updating GNU screen for Mac OS X 10.11.5?

My current screen version is 4.00.03 and would like to use the features such as layout which does not seem to be available for me.

If not, can I uninstall this version of GNU screen and install it from http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/screen/ ?

You could install brew and use it to install a more recent version with the command brew install screen. That will currently install version 4.3.1, which (as of writing) is almost the latest release (a new release of screen came out less than a week ago and isn't in brew yet). You will then be able to run it from /usr/local/bin/screen. You can create an alias to simplify that.

You could remove the installed version, but it could be silently replaced by Apple at some point when you install an update. And it's always a good idea to avoid making changes in the /usr/bin directory unless absolutely necessary.

You could install directly from the source, but that version might not include OS X specific patches. The brew Formula for screen does include at least one specific OS X patch.


How to stop Setup Assistant from showing up on every restart on Mac Mini with OS X Mavericks? My Mac Mini is new.
I'm not sure if this issue was already there before installing Server.app.
Unsusual things happen with the system on EVERY RESTART: Messages Agent ask permission to use keychain to which I say "always allow" and it pops up again till I say only "allow"; Dock gets resete (all customization lost); it always notifies me that I can download iwork for free but I already did; it always asks for icloud password. It´s like it resets some stuff every startup.

If Setup Assistant is running then the boot process almost certainly found no copy of  /var/db/.AppleSetupDone

Try sudo touch /var/db/.AppleSetupDone in Terminal then reboot.

If you are having trouble after that with strange parts of the install process staying around then you may have some widespread permission problems. Use Disk Utility to verify and then fix permissions on the volume and see how much that will fix after another reboot. You may find the problems still there on the first reboot after fixing them - it's the second that will tell.

I doubt if the Server app is causing anything as it really is just an application that provides a GUI for setting up some stuff already on your Mac.


Using Hazel or AppleScript to Convert Word to PDF I use Hazel to sort and rename files. I would like to use Hazel to automatically convert Word docs to PDF. I think this best way to do this is with AppleScript. I have searched extensively online, but have been unable to find an AppleScript that works for me.

Does any have an AppleScript that will simple convert the Word file (doc and docx) to PDF? Or is there an alternative way to do it with Hazel?

This AppleScript should do what you want:

https://discussions.apple.com/message/15180576#15180576

You would need to have Word running, however, for this to work. It's not my code but I just tried it out as a service in Automator with 10.9 and Office 2011 and it works both with a single and multiple Word docs.

I suppose using the actual Word app is the only way to ensure correct layout but using a command-line Word-to-PDF converter could be done, too.


Returning to First Screen from last Screen in Mission Control I use Mission Control (on a Mavericks running MacBook Air) a lot, and I was looking for a solution to the following scenario:

I have three (or more spaces open), and I am on the space furthest to the right (the last) in my lineup of spaces.  I want to get to my first space (the one furthest on the left).  Currently, if I try to go right from this last space, nothing happens. Is there a way that if I swipe right from the "last space", I can go directly to the "first space", and vice-versa?

The only way I know to do this is to 3- or 4-finger swipe up for Mission Control (depending on your settings) or use the keyboard shortcut (on my MBP it shares a key with F3), and then select the space that you want.


Reset All Mojave App Permissions So I upgraded to Mojave recently and I got some app permission popups requesting access to system events, etc.

I didn't recognise some of these the apps and didn't allow access.

Now it turns out that this is being used by xcodebuild and it is failing.

How can I reset all these app permissions. So that I get the popup again and I can allow this time.

PS: I'm not asking about file permissions.

Some categories, like the one you mention, aren't listed in System Preferences.

You can reset that one in particular with this command:

tccutil reset AppleEvents

Or, you can reset all app permissions like this:

 tccutil reset All

You can also add an app's bundle identifier (e.g. tccutil reset All com.apple.Terminal) to reset only that app's permissions.


10px~ gap between application and dock When I set my apps to fullscreen with the taskbar still there, it doesn't truly fullscreen the application, it always has that small little border to the left.

I'm using moom as a window resizer, but even without it, I still get the same problem. Is this a setting somewhere? My dock is on the left as well.

same problem here

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2143319?start=0&tstart=0

It is actually 4px on non-retina displays.

I have tried using gdb and strings to find preference keys for removing the gap, but I haven't found anything. Most windows can't be resized so that they cover it with AppleScript either.

The only way I know to remove it is to disable Dock completely with for example launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.Dock.plist. But it also disables Mission Control, Launchpad, full screen windows, and the application switcher, and it makes desktop backgrounds gray.

A more practical workaround might be to make the desktop background (or parts of it on the side the Dock is on) solid black.


Deleted user still appears on system startup screen Recently, I had to setup a user for the Apple Hardware replacement team in my local Apple Store on my MacBook Pro running OS X 10.9.2 called "apple".

After the repair, I deleted the user via Users & Groups in the system preferences.

However, when I boot the MacBook, the account still appears and seems to be able to unlock the disk (I use file vault). The user is not able to actually log in.

How do I get rid of this ghost account?

I had the same issue and solved it thusly:

Open Terminal.

sudo fdesetup list

This will list usernames and uuids of the users FileVault knows about (warning: I'm unclear on the exact specifics of privileges granted by this file).

sudo fdesetup remove -uuid [bad UUID]

This will remove the erroneous user from the list.  For some reason I had to reboot the computer twice to see the desired behavior (i.e. the only person asked to log in on system start is me), but it works fine now.

If for some reason you need to figure out users' UUIDs (the usernames should be in that file, though my deleted user had (null) for a username),

dsmemberutil getuuid -U [username]

will give you their UUIDs.


New SSD not detected on MacBook Air 7,1 I installed a new SSD (Transcend JetDrive 850) on my MacBook Air 7,1. I was starting the internet recovery using Option-R, and Disk Utility was not detecting my new SSD. When I’m doing an internet recovery with Option-Command-R, Disk Utility is finding my new SSD but I’m not able to either recover the data from Time Machine, neither install Mojave.

When I’m running Internet recovery using Option-R, the proposed OS is El Capitan but I’m not able to install the OS because my SSD is not found,but I was able to install it on USB flash drive.

I’m wondering if the only solution to this problem is to install this new ssd in an USB enclosure, run internet recovery with Option-R, install El Capitan on it, the same way I did on my USB drive and then reinstall the ssd in the Mac...

Thanks for your help

Start recovery mode with CommandOptionR.
Open Terminal, and run below commands:

diskutil list

Find which /dev/diskX is yours, usually disk0. Once you identify your disk, erase it with diskutil

diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ MacOS /dev/disk0

After this, I was able to restore using Time Machine and even install Mojave, giving me an option to chose internal transcend drive for install

After erasing disk using Disk Utility, Time Machine nor Mojave install was working. Mojave was showing my internal Transcend drive greyed out, but this worked.


iPhone functionality while using CarPlay Is it possible to open and use a different app on iPhone while using CarPlay or is the CarPlay only mirroring the iPhone? More specifically would it be possible to have Waze running on iPhone and use different apps such as music apps on CarPlay simultaneously? If not what does happen when some non-CarPlay app is opened on iPhone? Does the CarPlay go to home screen?

It all changed with the release of iOS 13. You can now have a different app open on the phone and different on the CarPlay screen. Enjoy!


Mac-to-Mac VPN Xcode speed: AFP vs VNC I connect from home-Mac to work-Mac over VPN. Then I have 2 options in Finder:

VNC: screen-share (restricts you to work-monitors' resolution)
AFP: mount the work-directory, then open the Xcode project (can fully utilize larger home-monitors)

Now, why is option 2. much slower than 1.? Is Xcode so network-hungry? The AFP itself seems to be slow, that is, it takes ~2 s to open up a not-yet-"indexed" directory (and all its files' icons).

OS X 10.9 built-in VPN (PPTP) & VNC, Xcode 5

Anecdotally, the VPN itself most likely isn't an issue, since a colleague is satisfied with his VPN Windows-to-Windows performance over slower home-connection.

You are basically being punished by having put your project on a slow, slow harddisk.  There is much more network traffic than you think when working with files remotely and on such a slow connection you will really feel it.  Most modern IDE's expect files to be locally available, not on a slow, remote drive.

I would suggest looking into mirroring your work files between your work and home machine as needed.   To my knowledge there are two basic approaches:

File synchronization:  Use "rsync" to move changed files back and forth as needed.  This is good if you need to edit locally, but compile remotely.
Source repository:  Work locally until you have a satisfying result, commit the revised sources locally to the repository, and then update the remote sources from the repository.  This works well if you can work fully locally.

Please report back what worked well for you.

(Incidentially this is why Remote Desktop for Windows is such a good thing.  It uses the bandwidth very, very well making Windows usable even over a very slow connection, and allows for a much larger display than on the remote host)


Show all iTunes iOS apps that aren't installed on any devices I've got an iPod Touch and an iPad, both connected to iTunes on the same computer. So, they share the same iOS app library in iTunes.

How can I quickly see which apps are not installed in either the iPad or iPod Touch, without having to switch back and forth between the devices, in iTunes?

I'd like to clean the apps by removing all apps that aren't installed on any of my devices. I've got hundreds of apps in iTunes but only a fraction of those are actually installed in my devices. Normally I wouldn't bother cleaning them, but there are a lot of big games that I don't have installed, and I like to keep my iTunes on my SSD, which has a limited amount of space.

I found a walkthrough solution here, which seems easy and comprehensive.
http://blog.macsales.com/17825-an-easy-way-to-clear-out-unused-ios-apps-from-itunes-11


How do I log-out (or reset) Microsoft's RMS / AIP [Azure Information Protection] identity on a Mac for Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook? Microsoft 365 offers a RMS / Right Management Service called Azure Information Protection which is integrated with Outlook, Word, Excel. It encrypts documents of certain files, in a nutshell.
On a Windows computer switching between two accounts within Word is relatively easy, but switching the under-the-hood RMS/AIP account is harder. On Windows you launch the Azure Information Protection Unified Labeling Client and reset the logged-in account via that application.
On a Mac the integration in Office of AIP with Sensitivity Labels is similar to Windows; however, no AIP- unified (right-click) client exists at the moment of writing for Mac OS.
My question is: How do I log-out or reset the logged-in AIP user on a Mac?
It doesn't not matter what the logged-in account in Word is, that one is not necessarily linked to the account which logged is in AIP/RMS and fetches the appropriate Sensitivity labels and access rights.

After a too long search:
Go into the Mac's KeyChain and look for an Application Password called something like:
com.microsoft.office.rmscache

(Search for RMS.)

I deleted this record.
Quit Word.
Opened the protected file again.
Now I get the RMS/AIP login Window again and can user another account.

For the record, logging Word out normally or using Microsoft's remove-Office-license-from-Mac-pkg did not have the desired effect. Office's license account, Word's account (providing OneDrive etc.) and RMS/AIP's account are three separate entities.
In a simple world you have one account for all of them. In a more complicated set-up you can use the provided work-around to switch accounts.
(Fyi, an alternative: create an extra MacOS user account.)

Breadcrumbs I found:
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/17214.ad-rms-information-resetting-the-office-2011-for-mac-irm-client.aspx
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/030bba52-551b-4f31-8394-589b00418e22/azure-information-protection-on-mac


How to delete beta "update is available" after unenrolling from beta? I unenrolled from macOS Big Sur beta program, however I am still getting the 11.0.1 "update is available" notification. I would like to remove this so that I upgrade directly to 11.0 when GM is released. I don't want to install 11.0.1. Is there a way to delete cached update data so I only get 11.0 when it's eventually released?

The following Terminal command will stop your Mac from accessing the software update catalog for Beta software:
sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate CatalogURL

You might need a restart, or relaunch of System Prefs and Command R to reload the Software Update pane at least.


Specify Minimum Font Size in Safari 10.0, macOS Sierra The Minimum Font Size option seems to be missing in Safari 10.0 / macOS Sierra.  It's been replaced by Page Zoom (prefs > advanced).  I'm specifically asking how to prevent Safari in Sierra from ever using a font size below a certain value.  I don't want to have to fix this on a site by site basis.

Let's say I want to set 11px as the minimum font size in Safari on macOS Sierra.  How do I do this?

use

defaults write com.apple.Safari com.apple.Safari.ContentPageGroupIdentifier.WebKit2MinimumFontSize -int 14

… restart Safari, be happy again! (replace 14 with whatever suits you)

edit: as OP said, paste the line into terminal, sorry for omitting this initially!


MS Outlook Calendar with color categories sync to iPhone I have a problem with the iPhone calendar and the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync calendar category colors.

Is there a app which is compatible with the MS Exchange category colors?

I understand that in apples view each calendar must have an color.
But for my plans I need no color for a calendar... I need colors for the categories and I must set them, too.

Thank you in Advance!

I spoke to an Apple Supervisor today who confirmed that the iPhone iOS currently is not set up to enable one to have different color categories for different types of appointments in a single calendar, but he agreed that it is a good idea. He said the best way of increasing the likelihood that Apple will make this enhancement is to go to www.apple.com/feedback and to make this enhancement request. He said the more people that ask for it the greater the likelihood Apple will make the modification. So please go to www.apple.com/feedback and request this enhancement.


How does file's More Info attribute work, and how to access it from a terminal? I want to understand where parameters like More Info and Comments are really stored (is it hfs filesystem specific?) and how to access this type of information from terminal.

"Who" updates this More Info parameter when I download some file from some website ?Chrome knows about it, or MacOS ?

If you're looking for the metadata this blog post has a helpful description of what you can pull from terminal and which utilities to use to access it.

Edit:

Just to future-proof this answer, the gist of that article is:

  To see these details in-depth, you will need to use the Terminal’s
  mdls command, which will list all the metadata tags and values bound
  to a specific file:

  Open the Terminal.
  Type mdls followed by a single space.
  Drag the desired file from the Finder to the Terminal window, or otherwise target the file using Unix file path syntax.
  Press Enter to run the command on the file.


IPhone 6 auto case/pocket lock I want to auto lock my IPhone 6 when entered to pocket/closed with case

Also my IPhone is unjailbroken and I want it to stay like that

There is no way to do this at the given time without jailbreaking.

The iPhone does not have a magnetic sensor on the screen like the iPad.


What are the hardware requirements for Hypervisor.framework? I was planning to use xhyve to virtualise FreeBSD on my early 2009 Mac Pro (eight core) which has a fresh install of El Capitan (with all updates).I installed via homebrew and I get the following error when trying to run:

vmx_init: processor not supported by Hypervisor.framework
Unable to create VM (-85377018)

I have verified that the version of xhyve (0.2.0) works on my 2011 iMac.
Having a look I can see that on my iMac hv_support is enabled:

iMac$> sysctl kern.hv_support
kern.hv_support: 1

But on my Mac Pro it is not:

Mac Pro$> sysctl kern.hv_support
kern.hv_support: 0

kern.hv_support is a read-only value so cannot be changed using sysctl.

My Mac Pro has an Intel E5520 which I believe supports Intel VT-d, VT-x, and EPT.  Apple also has a page detailing the minimum firmware version and hardware required for VT-x, I’m using a newer Mac Pro than specified and the hardware is the most up to date I can find (MP41.0081.B07).

I can find zero documentation about Hypervisor.framework other than the fact that it is new in Yosemite.  I’m unsure whether there is some switch I can toggle to enable this, or whether I am completely scuppered…

Any advice on Hypervisor.framework, or suggestions on getting this working?  While the answer “give up, it doesn’t work” might be the correct answer, it would be good to see some documentation backing this up.

Apple's documentation for the Hypervisor framework (https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/DriversKernelHardware/Reference/Hypervisor/index.html) mentions that the processor needs to support Unrestricted Mode, which is a feature available only on a Westmere or newer generation Intel processor. Seeing as the Westmere generation was released on January of 2010, your Mac Pro most likely doesn't support this.


macOS - spctl command - disabled list with News.app - app still runs I followed the guidance in this answer.

Ran the following commands:

sudo spctl --add --label "DeniedApps" /System/Applications/News.app

sudo spctl --disable --label "DeniedApps"

News app (to be sure, this is the native Apple "News" app) can still be launched from the administrator account and from a regular user account.

As I understand it, the above commands should have been sufficient to stop the app from running.

Also tried a restart. No go.

Mac OS 10.15.3

Ended up setting chflags hidden for the apps I wanted to block.

Details are here (thanks to bogdanw):

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/spctl-command-gatekeeper-disabled-list-with-news-app-app-still-runs.2226594/

Long and short:

First, with admin account create aliases to apps that will be hidden.
In recovery mode, set chflags hidden for app that are to be hidden.


How can I transfer my Microsoft Office Install to another Mac? Possible Duplicate:
  What is the best way to move Microsoft Office 2011 to a new Mac?

I'm planning on reinstalling Mac OS Lion, but I don't have the MS Office install file or disk. Can I move my installed copy of Office to a USB drive and then back, or to another machine?

You can try to move the main folders to an external drive:

/Applications/Microsoft Office 2011
/Applications/Microsoft Messenger.app
/Applications/Microsoft Communicator.app
/Library/Application Support/Microsoft
/Users/username/Library/Preferences/Microsoft
/username/Documents/Microsoft-Userdata

Copy these Folders to the same path on your new system.


Rsync not copying some files with extended attributes I am attempting to rsync from a network mounted volume to my Desktop.  However some but not alll of the files are not copying because of an rsync error. I am using rsync 3.1.1 from Brew. I'm using this command:

rsync -aXv  /Volumes/Scotts\ Stuff/Backgrounds ~/Desktop/Temp

However, I receive this error for some of the files:

get_xattr_data: lgetxattr(""/Volumes/Scotts Stuff/Backgrounds/chalkboard-black.jpg"","com.apple.ResourceFork",88644) returned 65536

Any ideas? Some files with extended attributes copy just fine but some receive the error. If I leave off the "X" option then rsync works but of course the extended attributes are not preserved.

The problem I reproduced on many versions of MacOS X (Mountain Lion, Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan) which are using a much too old version
of rsync (2.6.9) and with more recent versions built with Macports (3.x) is solved with version 3.1.2.

Standard MacOS X rsync 2.6.9 → failure

••On_my_Mac••% /usr/bin/rsync -avE example example2
building file list ... done
._example
example/color-profile-1
example/._color-profile-1
example/index.xml.gz
example/Contents/
rsync: recv_generator: mkdir "/Users/Shared/tmp/example2/example/Contents" failed: Permission denied (13)
*** Skipping everything below this failed directory ***
example/QuickLook/
rsync: recv_generator: mkdir "/Users/Shared/tmp/example2/example/QuickLook" failed: Permission denied (13)
*** Skipping everything below this failed directory ***
rsync: mkstemp "/Users/Shared/tmp/example2/example/.color-profile-1.zFdjjF" failed: Permission denied (13)
rsync: mkstemp "/Users/Shared/tmp/example2/example/.._color-profile-1.ySmazZ" failed: Permission denied (13)
rsync: mkstemp "/Users/Shared/tmp/example2/example/.index.xml.gz.zB0WUl" failed: Permission denied (13)
copyfile(/dev/null, example/Contents, COPYFILE_METADATA) failed:2
copyfile(/dev/null, example/QuickLook, COPYFILE_METADATA) failed:13

sent 157793 bytes  received 120 bytes  315826.00 bytes/sec
total size is 461293  speedup is 2.92
rsync error: some files could not be transferred (code 23) at /SourceCache/rsync/rsync-45/rsync/main.c(992) [sender=2.6.9]
••On_my_Mac••%

Built rsync 3.1.2 → success

••On_my_Mac••% type rsync
rsync is /opt/local/bin/rsync
••On_my_Mac••% rsync --version
rsync  version 3.1.2  protocol version 31
Copyright (C) 1996-2015 by Andrew Tridgell, Wayne Davison, and others.
Web site: http://rsync.samba.org/
Capabilities:
    64-bit files, 64-bit inums, 64-bit timestamps, 64-bit long ints,
    socketpairs, hardlinks, symlinks, IPv6, batchfiles, inplace,
    append, ACLs, xattrs, iconv, symtimes, no prealloc, file-flags,
    HFS-compression

rsync comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.  This is free software, and you
are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions.  See the GNU
General Public Licence for details.
••On_my_Mac••%

••On_my_Mac••% /usr/bin/sudo rm -rf example2
••On_my_Mac••% /opt/local/bin/rsync -avAX --fake-super example example2
sending incremental file list
created directory example2
example/
example/color-profile-1
example/index.xml.gz
example/Contents/
example/Contents/PkgInfo
example/QuickLook/
example/QuickLook/Preview.pdf
example/QuickLook/Thumbnail.jpg

sent 462,152 bytes  received 167 bytes  924,638.00 bytes/sec
total size is 461,293  speedup is 1.00
••On_my_Mac••%

2 key details to note:

the -E option changed to -AX (ACL & extended attributes)
the use of --fake-super to be able to copy file inside read only
directories

How to use it on different Macs

If you want to make an rsync on a remote Mac, you will have to explictly call the built rsync on the remote Mac with the --rsync-command option:

/opt/local/bin/rsync -avAX --fake-super --rsync-command=/opt/local/bin/rsync example remote_MAC:/tmp/example2


Which SATA cable do I need for a SSD installation in an iMac mid-2011? 1) which  SATA cable speed do I need for a SSD installment in a iMac mid-2011? In OWC or iFixit kits, they uses SATA 3, but today I can get quicker SATA 6 cables, does that work or make it quicker?

2) do I need a data power splitter or just without splitter? I don't know where I need the power from.

Thanks

By SATA 6, I assume you mean SATA 6Gb/s. This is now known as SATA 3. (In fact SATA 3Gb/s, is now known as SATA 2.)  SATA 3 has been around since 2009, and is backwards compatible with SATA 2, so a SATA 3 cable is fine. Also SSDs need both a power AND a data cable to function.

Apparently it is possible to add a second hard drive to this model of Mac (behind the CD drive). You do not state in the question if you merely wish to replace the hard drive you already have or add a second one. This Ifixit guide shows how to add a second drive. From the guide it is clear that this is a MAJOR undertaking.

If you simply wish to replace the drive you already have, as seen here, then you should have an easier time. However, according to the Ifixit guide (step 7)

  The WD Caviar Blue drive is a non-standard SATA drive. The power connector features 7 pins, rather than the standard 4. The drive also has non-standard firmware. This means you can only use Apple's own hard drives and not any standard after-market SATA drive.

Thus you need to choose a compatible new drive. In this case you can just reuse the cables from the old drive.


What point is there in using an everyday non-admin account on OS X? This piece of advice is old but is coming back into fashion. I have seen it a lot recently, on a number of Mac websites or forums. "Your ‘everyday’ user account should not be an admin account. It should be a standard account created for this purpose, and you should log to the admin account only to perform actual admin tasks. »

This seems to be common advice in the Windows world, but for an up-to-date OS X system, I just cannot understand what kind of benefits it brings. Let’s dig into it:

OS X admin accounts are not root accounts. Any app wanting to go root will ask for your password anyway, so I see no additional security layer here. Try to put /var into the Trash.
Deep OS modification or code injection into most critical files has been prevented by SIP from El Capitan, whether your are admin, root or nobody. What’s more, in sensitive places where they are still allowed, such modifications would require a root password at the very least, even from an admin account, bringing us back to the first argument.
For spyware, privacy concerns and this kind of stuff, using standard accounts provides little additional protection, if any. As far as I know, even when used from a standard account, apps have full access to the user’s personal files and have full network access (minus any firewall, etc.). If a bad app wants to send home your docs, it can perfectly do so from a standard account.
Basic lines of defense (firewall, running trusted apps, and so on) are system wide.
On the other hand, it is a pain to switch to your admin account, then switch back to your standard account, back and forth. This may actually end up with the user delaying updates or admin maintenance, just to save time and postpone dealing with the hassle.

So, why not use an admin account? I hope this won’t be marked as duplicate, other questions related to this issue didn't address these arguments.

Edit: the question applies to a computer that you own and control.

Security is best implemented as a Multi Layered, Multi Vectored Strategy.
The Principle of Least Privilege (POLP) is just another cog in the machine that keeps your computer secure.
Everything that you listed there are all good but none of that will prevent someone from taking over your computer with an exploit such as the Dropped Drive Hack.

How does a firewall prevent a user from inserting a USB with an remote control exploit embedded on the drive?

How does SIP prevent a keylogger from capturing your keystrokes?

How does having SIP even matter when it can be easily disabled by the Admin?

How do you prevent unauthorized/illegally licensed software from being installed?  A restricted user account will ensure that users who shouldn't be installing software aren't installing software.

Your last line of defence is using an account that is not an Admin account so that you can mitigate the threat by putting up another layer of security (user authentication) when a piece of malware tries to install itself.
I have been saying this for what seems eons now:
"Security" is not a product you buy or a switch you flip on; it's a practice, it's a mindset, to leverage all the tools you can to minimize your risk.


Thunderbolt Display's audio 'cracking, hissing' noises after El Capitan upgrade After an upgrade to El Capitan(*) audio played through the Thunderbolt display gets distorted after a while. This is regardless of the audio source played (Spotify, iTunes, soundcloud web).

Switching the output to internal speakers and back to Thunderbolt display solves the problem for a couple of minutes before the cracking, hissing noises start again (with the actual music audible in the background).

(* It was basically a fresh installation, as the upgrade initially failed)

I have the same issue since El Capitan upgrade (2012 MBA).  No other TB devices connected apart from the display.  A restart seems to help, for a short time, as does switching the audio output from the display to the internal speakers and back again.

Removing all USB peripherals plugged into the display seems to prevent it happening, but is not exactly a "solution".  Other devices are just a Apple USB keyboard, Logitech wired mouse, and a powered USB3 external HDD.

I thought it might be a grounding problem (no idea why the OS upgrade would affect this), but no amount of grounding the aluminum keyboard to the computer casing, or the display casing etc. seems to make a difference.

I am not aware of any core audio plugins installed - any way to find this out?


Getting kernel panics on Macbook Pro I am getting kernel panics on reboots for a few weeks now. They seem to be caused by an Oracle kernel extensions(I will add an image of the stacktrace).
I am using a MacBook Pro 15" retina mid 2014 model with MacOS Sierra.

I assumed that it was caused by VirtualBox, however I uninstalled it and removed the kext with their script and I ran in a kernel panic once again.
I scanned my SSD with the Disk Utility tool and it showed no errors. Reinstalling MacOS helps temporarily until I restart again.

I appreciate your help.

Attempt to clean up photo

original here for ref

I fixed the Kernel Panic by formatting my hard drive and reinstalling my OS.


Install Mac OSX on a new replacement hard drive We have an iMac in our office which we are going to put an SSD in (The iMac itself is past warranty and apart from the slow hard drive is functioning fine) however no-one of us in the IT Department are used to using Mac and we can't seem to work out how to re-install Mac OSX on a new hard drive as we can't seem to get a .iso file for MacOSX like you would with Windows

How would you re-install Mac OSX on a replacement Hard Drive

You need a USB stick with an OSX Installer loaded onto it.

Before you remove the old hard drive you need to prepare the USB stick so you can install it on the new drive.

Check out the Apple walk-through here.

After installing the OS you can restore your old files from a time machine backup.

The restore partition on the old hard drive could work but you need an enclosure or sled to connect the old drive externally.

Good luck!


Why does Yosemite add a number to my system name and how do I stop it? I named my system "Foob" on my 2012 MacBook Pro. Yosemite has renamed it "Foob (4)".  I wasn't sure where that "(4)" came from so I renamed it back to "Foob" in the Sharing Preferences. But, I looked today and it's now at "Foob (2)"

Why is it doing this? How can I stop it?

Check the answers here. (I don't have the reputation to mark this as a duplicate.)


Late 2010 13" Air humming? I'm sure there's a simple solution but almost daily, when I'm online or working on other programs. A humming sound will begin and gradually get louder. It only stops when I shut the laptop. Thoughts?

Do you notice it regardless of what app you are using? I have seen this kind of thing before with various audio drivers.

If you can pin point it down to one location/area on the computer you might think about taking it in for diagnostics to an Apple Store or AASP.

If it is software related, try keeping an eye on Activity Monitor when it is getting close to the time-frame of the sound and see if you notice any processes starting up that use a hight CPU% or apps that simply stop responding.


I can't turn on iPhone Hotspot with my home WiFi turned on. Why? I want to share my 4G connection with my laptop since our WiFi connection at home can be slow. However, once I go to the iPhone Settings > Personal Hotspot and enable the hotspot,  the iPhone asks me to enable its WiFi antenna.

At this stage, the iPhone automatically connects to my WiFi network at home and I cannot really transfer the 4G connection to the Hotspot.

What should I do (apart from connecting the iPhone via USB to the laptop)?

More importantly, why do I loose the 4G connection and connect to the WiFi network instead of the iPhone being smarter and procuring my 4G connection?

This has happened in the past very rarely and I could always enable 4G iPhone hotspot over WiFi. Now the problem happens each time I accept the prompt to connect to WiFi.

Try turning off your home WiFi. A kind of interference, maybe?