How do I listen to music on my computer through my iPad? I have a MacMini with my music collection on the hard drive.  I'd like to play that through my iPad when I'm at home.  But I have one major issue: I'm on satellite internet with a limited bandwidth.  One month I got hit with an extra $200 bill because I left iTunes running and it wasted gigabytes of bandwidth "updating" the music on my iMac from the iCloud.  (I don't store my music on my iMac - it's all on a shared drive on my MacMini.)

So I don't want to go through iTunes to do this (and, after that experience, I never run iTunes on my iMac or MacMinis), since that means I'm streaming my collection from the iCloud servers and using bandwidth.

I want to be able to make up playlists on my iPad (I'm okay with a 3rd party app) of the music files on the shared drive of my MacMini and play it back through my iPad, using wifi, but not using any internet bandwidth.

How can I make up playlists on my iPad for music on a shared drive on my LAN so I can use the playlists like I would normally use them?  (In other words, being able to pick out a playlist, shuffle play it, repeat it, and so on.)

Here are a few possible solutions:

Plex

I haven't used this but it appears to do exactly what you ask for. Install the free server on the Mac and the (paid) app on the iPad. You don't need to sign up for a subscription and it says you don't even need to sign in to stream from a local server, which should help assure you that no streaming from the internet will take place.

Rogue Amoeba's Airfoil

Install Airfoil for Mac on the Mac Mini where your music is and Airfoil Satellite for iOS on the iPad.

Airfoil is not free, but you can try it before you buy and it should work reliably and is well supported. It routes any audio source(s) you choose on the Mac to play simultaneously on one or more compatible destinations - so you can use any Mac audio player you like, including but not limited to iTunes. Airfoil Satellite has basic remote control capabilities for some applications such as iTunes and Spotify, but you would need something else to create and edit playlists - I'm pretty sure Apple's iTunes Remote can do this, for example, or if you use VLC on the Mac there's VLC Mobile Remote for the iPad.

Logitech Media Server

The server you run on the Mac is free, on the iPad you would need the SqueezePad client app (paid).

DLNA

Install a UPnP/DLNA media server such as Kodi (free) on the Mac and use a DLNA client app for iOS - I don't know which to recommend, but there are lots to choose from including some free ones.

iTunes

You say you don't want to use iTunes and iOS Music because of the risk of it using too much data. I'm not sure whether you're talking about iTunes on the Mac Mini downloading purchased or matched (if you have iTunes Match) tracks, or Music on the iPad streaming these tracks or playing from Apple Music (if you have Apple Music), but there are two ways you should be able to use Music on the iPad without this happening:

Sync the music from iTunes on the Mac to the iPad via USB. You will need enough storage on the iPad to fit it! In Music on the iPad, make sure you only play from within the Downloaded Music section of your library.
Turn on Home Sharing on iTunes and only play from within the Home Sharing section of your library. I (and others) have never found Home Sharing to work reliably but feel free to try it.

The only problem with these two is if you accidentally play music from outside the Home Sharing or Downloaded sections of the library.

Block streaming traffic on your router

A final suggestion, depending on what router and/or other equipment for the satellite internet connection you have: is there a setting you can make to block or throttle streaming audio traffic, and/or iTunes downloads? I don't know what servers, protocols or ports you would need to block but you might be able to get that answered with another question here.


How to stop InternetSharing overwriting /etc/bootpd.plist I set up a /etc/bootpd.plist so as to protect my wireless network,
and to manage statically attributed IP addresses.

Unfortunatly, when I start InternetSharing, this file is overwritten
by a plist which I didn't find the source of.

How may I avoid InternetSharing overwriting this file?

Where is the source of this file overwriting /etc/bootpd.plist?

Source of the problem

By studying the processes spawned by InternetSharing (with the help of opensnoop and debugging shell scripts) I finally build a
way to circumvent this systematic and stupid overwriting of /etc/bootpd.plist.

InternetSharing creates a minimal /etc/bootpd.plist and then
spawns 2 processes:

/usr/libexec/bootpd
/usr/libexec/natpmpd

Solution

I replaced the original bootpd by a simple shell script in charge of
putting my source of /etc/bootpd.plist in place before firing the
original bootpd code. Of course most of these commands have to be
ran as root.

/usr/bin/sudo -s
cd /usr/libexec

# make a backup copy of the original binary bootpd
mv bootpd bootpd.orig

# create the shell script which will first install the wanted
# bootpd.plist and then fire the original bootpd with the
# correctly quoted original list of arguments "$@"
cat >bootpd <<eof
#!/bin/sh
cp /etc/bootpd.plist.src /etc/bootpd.plist
exec /usr/libexec/bootpd.orig "$@"
eof

# make this shell script executable
chmod 755 bootpd

cd /etc

# create the "source" bootpd.plist.src which will be copied every
# time by the above shell script and will cancel the copy made by
# "InternetSharing"
cat >bootpd.plist.src <<eof
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>allow</key>
    <array>
            <string>00:00:00:00:00:00</string>
            <string>...
    </array>
    <key>deny</key>
    <array>
            <string>...
    </array>
    <key>Subnets</key>
    <array>
            <dict>
                    <key>_creator</key>
                    <string>dan</string>
                    <key>allocate</key>
                    <true/>
                    <key>dhcp_router</key>
                    <string>10.0.2.1</string>
                    <key>lease_max</key>
                    <integer>86400</integer>
                    <key>lease_min</key>
                    <integer>86400</integer>
                    <key>name</key>
                    <string>10.0.2/24</string>
                    <key>net_address</key>
                    <string>10.0.2.0</string>
                    <key>net_mask</key>
                    <string>255.255.255.0</string>
                    <key>net_range</key>
                    <array>
                            <string>10.0.2.2</string>
                            <string>10.0.2.31</string>
                    </array>
            </dict>
    </array>
    <key>bootp_enabled</key>
    <false/>
    <key>detect_other_dhcp_server</key>
    <true/>
    <key>dhcp_enabled</key>
    <array>
            <string>en1</string>
    </array>
    <key>use_server_config_for_dhcp_options</key>
    <false/>
</dict>
</plist>
eof

The 2 arrays allow and deny let me define exactly which MAC
addresses I will accept within my shared network and which one I
will banish.

This protection is far from bullet proof, but is better than the
total lack of protection provided by InternetSharing on a WEP Fi-fi
network :).

Compatibility with OS upgrades

To avoid any trouble with any OS upgrade which might fix /usr/libexec/bootpd, here is the shell script I run before any OS upgrade:

/usr/bin/sudo -s
cd /usr/libexec

# reset into place the backup copy of the original binary bootpd
mv bootpd.orig bootpd

# go back to a safe working uid
exit

Compatibility with OS versions

This shell script is working on:

Lion
Mountain Lion
Mavericks
Yosemite

Attack survey

With the option -v passed to bootpd, I have a logging of MAC addresses
which attempted to request an IP address but were rejected.

To pass this option -v to bootpd I inserted it in my bootpd wrapper:

#!/bin/sh
cp /etc/bootpd.plist.src /etc/bootpd.plist
exec /usr/libexec/bootpd.orig -v "$@"


Is it possible to share an Ethernet connection to a secure wireless network in OS X on a MacBook Pro? I can share my Ethernet Internet connection to WiFi clients using System Preferences, but I'm wondering if/how I can make that network secure (WPA) and not broadcast the network name?

Go to the Search bar
System Preferences -> Sharing ->  Internet Sharing - Share your connection from ethernet -> to computers using Wifi -> Wifi Options -> Security WEP 128 Bit

This thread is the same as
How to share internet with WPA/WPA2 security?


macbook 2016 21w charger replaced with 61watt I have a late 2016 macbook with a charger that fails often.  I bought one that I thought would work but am afraid to try it until I know for sure.They are both c chargers, but the original one is 29W and the new one is 61w. I think that using one with higher wattage is ok, am I right?

From: Find the right power adapter and cable for your Mac notebook

Power adapters for Mac notebooks are available in 29W, 30W, 45W, 60W,
61W, 85W, 87W, and 96W varieties. You should use the appropriate
wattage power adapter for your Mac notebook. You can use a compatible
higher wattage power adapter without issue, but it won't make your
computer charge faster or operate differently.

Also:

Make sure you're using the correct USB-C charge cable
For the best charging experience, you should use the USB-C charge
cable that comes with your Mac notebook. If you use a higher wattage
USB-C cable, your Mac will still charge normally. USB-C cables rated
for 29W or 30W will work with any USB-C power adapter, but won't
provide enough power when connected to a power adapter that is more
than 61W, such as the 96W USB-C Power Adapter.


Calendar 8.0 reminders in GMT I have Calendar set to my time zone. However, reminder popups still give the time in GMT. How can this be adjusted?

Try going into (Calendar) Preferences... -> Advanced and turn on "Time Zone Support"

You will se a new menu item where you can change Calendar's time zone:


Why can I not install Keynote on my MacbookPro? Why there is no support for KeyNote in this model of the MacBook Pro?
Any Help please?

Editor's note
MBP 2011 Last supported macOS 10.13.x

As mentioned at the bottom of https://www.apple.com/keynote/features/

Pages for Mac, Numbers for Mac, and Keynote for Mac are available on the Mac App Store. macOS Catalina or later required

so if you haven't installed Keynote before you may not be able to download it from the App Store.
Alternativly you can use the web version of Keynote on iCloud or try an application like LibreOffice.


Restoring iOS 7.1 to iOS 7.0.4 I'm trying to Downgrade my iPhone 5s from iOS 7.1 to iOS 7.0.4.

I have been looking at tutorials, and found this one Downgrading iOS 7.1 with iTunes

It worked up until the last step. My iPhone starts to Extract the Software, then a popup comes up saying "This device is not eligible for the requested build". After seeing this, I went to This Video

I followed the steps, but it still comes up with the same error message.

Can someone please tell me how to remove this "This device is not eligible for the requested build" error message?

That was never gonna work, apple stop signing everything under iOS 7.1. So u cant downgrade at all. Unless you have an iPHone 4 with SHSH blobs and downgrade to iOS 6.1.3


Random shutdowns that look like kernel panic But with no sign of kernel panic in the console. The screen just turns black all of a sudden, but the backlight stays on. After up to 10 seconds, it shuts down completely. People I talked to over Apple chat were convinced it was a battery problem, but the battery drains normally, and the problem appears with or without the power cable connected. They had me reset NVRAM and SMC, still no change. I booted into a linux distro from an external drive and used it for more than 12 hours without any interruption. Although not definitive, this strongly suggests that this might be a software problem rather than an hardware problem. If so, how could I pinpoint a problem that doesn't show up in the console? I'm using 10.11.6.

Edit: I should also add that this happens in irregular intervals. It can be as frequent as once in 20 minutes, or as sporadic as every 5 hours.

Go into recovery mode and reinstall MacOS. That sounds like a software issue. Give that a try, if the results are still the same, then you may have a bad drive.


Any app on mac os x can hide icons on menu bar? I'm seeking software for Mac OSX that can hide any icon on menu bar.
Some apps leave an icon on menu bar, but don't have a option to hide its icon from menu bar, are there any applications that hide all of the icons on the menu bar? Thanks.

There is an app called Bartender, it's paid through.
As far as I remember it has a full functional trial and a lot of useful functions, so you should try it.


How to enable English mode as default for OS X login I cannot input user account in English without changing input mode when to type user account at login dialog box. I have to change input mode to US every time when I boot mac.

Settings:

Region is english
Top priority input mode is English(US). Next one is Japanese.
I setup for the login dialog box to type use account name and password for when its  login.

Environment:
Input modes: hiragana(Kotoeri)
Input source: US, Kotoeri
Keyboard: Japanese

Do you know how to enable English mode as default without changing input the mode?

Open sys pref and then Keyboard.

Make sure to DISABLE (uncheck) the Automatic switch to Document Input source.

Set the order of languages to English at the top.

If done correctly, it will say "Primary" in the Language and Regions:


cannot see photo clearly from ipod touch library locally I have an ipod touch and ios 9.1. When I started to use an iCloud, all my photos have uploaded to my iCloud account. So when I'm offline I cannot see particular photo clearly, i have to find somewhere wifi for internet connection to download this particular photo from my iCloud account. Is there any setting where i can set all my photos to be fully loaded from iCloud account whenever I want to see any of them. Thanks

In Settings, select iCloud, then Photos, and then turn on Download and Keep Originals. This will move all of your iCloud photos in full resolution to your iPod.


Bulk printing on macOS I have a bunch of files that i want to print, they are all separate PDFs.

What is the best way to print them without having to print them one by one, or combine them into a merged PDF using 3rd party software?

I've tried dragging them into the print dialog of my printer, which works, but it only prints out the page at the default paper size, it does not give me any print options.

I'm running macOS 10.14 and have a range of different printers, from HP, Canon, and Epson.

What is the best way to print them without having to print them one by one, or combine them into a merged PDF using 3rd party software...it only prints out the page at the default paper size, it does not give me any print options.

You have to set your print options in the document itself so you shouldn't have to specify any options.  For example, if you wanted this particular job to be in color on the card stock found in Tray 2, you would have defined in the Page Setup that it was on "card stock."  In the printer setting, you define that tray 2 has card stock in it, so when the print job is called, it will automatically "know" that its to pull paper from Tray 2.
Use CUPS
Well, macOS uses CUPS (Common Unix Printing System) to handle it's printing tasks.  Part of CUPS is lp where you can submit jobs to be printed.  This gives us a few options here:

You can specify options for each or a batch of similar jobs
You can create a queue with predefined options and just send a job to that queue.

A couple of examples:
To print out all of the PDFs in a directory formatted landscape, you could just issue the command
$ lp  -o landscape *.pdf

To print out a doc file on A4 media, you could issue the command
$ lp -o media=A4 MyPaper.doc

See Command-Line Printing and Options for more details.
The other option is queues (filters) that allow you to specify a predetermined set of options and send your print jobs to them.  The beauty is, you can have any number of filters for a single printer.  The downside is there's a lot more work up front to set these up, but the pay off is if you have lots of jobs, it will be much more efficient.
You can review the CUPS documentation on how to set up filters, but I've found the FreeBSD tutorial on setting up filters a bit easier to follow.


Repair MBR (Windows 10) from OS X I've messed up my system yesterday. On my iMac I have installed OS X and Windows 10 using Boot Camp Assistant. The Windows MBR is damaged and I can't start it anymore. I get a black screen with the error message:

  No operation system found

Luckily I can still start up OS X. I'm looking for a way to repair the MBR in the Windows partition. When I start Disk Utility in OS X and click "Check" on the Windows partition, it prints the following error:

  Invalid BS_jmpBoot in boot block: 000000

I've already tried to repair it with fdisk, but also when I create a HFS+ MBR it gives me this error. I've tried to figure it out for multiple hours now and nothing seems to work.
I do not want to wipe the whole partition because then my whole data would be lost.

The command fdisk can be used to copy the boot code to a destination MBR from some source file or MBR. This source is not supplied by OS X.

One way to write boot code the the MBR would be to follow the step given below.

Insert DVD or flash drive you used to install Windows 10.
Restart the computer and hold down the alt/option key.
Select the DVD or external drive icon labeled Windows.
Open a Command Prompt window by clicking on the following sequence.

Next
Repair your computer
Troubleshoot
Advanced options
Command Prompt
Enter the following command. I assume C: is your Windows 10
partition.

bootsect  /nt60  c:  /mbr


Why won't my iPhone 4 play through my bose sound dock anymore? It used to work, but now it doesn't. It now has iOS 5 on it. (I can't say for sure once iOS 5 went on it stopped working)

When I plug it into the docking station I hear the audio click, the green power light goes on the bose for a second, then it goes off then the phone charges.

If I go into Music and play anything, it appears as though it's playing though there is no sound coming from the sound-dock.

I can connect wirelessly to my Apple TV and it works, though then when playing on the TV, I connected it to the sound-dock and was able to select the "docking station" option (instead of Apple TV)

I've tried the phone on a cheap branded docking station and it works fine.

I've tried an iPod Touch in the sound-dock and it plays music fine.

I've restored the iPhone in case it was some glitch.
But still the problem persists. It charges, and appears to play, but no sound...

Its a SoundDock Series II, and both it and the phone have been powered off/reset to no avail.

Any ideas?

This is a software issue that Apple have not sorted out. I have an iPhone 4S and was prompted to update software on my phone. Since updating I have lost several important functions including the ability to dock the phone in my Bose speakers. Despite Apple support's advice to reinstall the phone, these issues remain.


Group windows in Mac OS X Is there a way to group 2 or more windows so that they act together? If I drag one, they all move. If I hide one, they all hide. If I alt-tab to one, they all come in focus, etc.

These windows might be in different applications

I do believe I understand what you are requesting, and actually find it very interesting. However, this functionality does not exist in the base OS itself (10.5.x | 10.6.x | 10.7.x). An alternative to grouping windows in OS X, that you be interested in, is to utilize Mission Control (10.7) and Expose. In Mission Control you can add a new Desktop and drag your window(s)/Applications into that new Desktop thereby grouping them. They do not have to be like items and this can be done a number of times. Expose does not really cover what you have requested, but still is beneficial in terms of grouping like items.


iPhone 11: Subtle clicking sound and vibrational feedback on performing several actions A few days ago I noticed a silent click-sound and a subtle vibrational impulse when performing several actions on my iPhone 11.

Examples of such actions are:

activating buttons on the control center like bluetooth or flight
mode.
all two-finger zooming gestures in fotos
tapping the flashlight or camera on lock-screen (without actually activating it)
performing the upwards 'home-swipe'

I am quite sure this behaviour wasn't there until a few days ago. I am running the latest version of iOS 13. System Haptics is turned off.

I tried resetting the phone and even did a device firmware update but the clicking is still there.

Has anyone else observed this behaviour with their iPhone 11 and might even have a solution?

Haptic feedback was introduced in iOS10/iPhone7 and you probably have this enabled on your phone. To disable or change the configuration, go to

Settings > Sounds & Haptics > System Haptics

Some users have reported turned this feature off doesn't stop clicking and vibrating. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250781216. You could try re-enabling and disabling again. Also, try turning off sounds and vibrations to see what happens.

If it's still not working, you may need to contact Apple Genius or an Apple Authorized Service Provider take a look at your iPhone


Do I really need to replace my MacBook Pro? I have an early 2011 (8.2) MBP (i7@2.0Ghz) which I've upgraded to 16Gig memory and 512 Gig SSD.

I am a heavy CPU and IO user: vagrant, Vmware Fusion, external display, Office, various IDE's (Xcode, Eclipse derivatives for Scala, Ruby,Java), IntelliJ, Webstorm, databases - Postgres, Mongo, MySQL. The main pigs are my VMs (esp win 8 ) which crucify the Fan; I am going deaf but it is so annoying that the fan just ramps up and down the whole time, the machine gets quite hot too but I have an external keyboard and mouse which mitigates that unpleasantness.
Geekbench seems to suggest that I will be 25% better off in raw performance terms with a later machine.

Will the noise/heat/performance be any better if I get a late MBP with an equivalent spec?

You can do something to try to make your macbook run a bit cooler:

If you are using an external monitor you can disable the internal screen, while leaving the lid open. This reduces the stress on the GPU and improves cooling: use a (very small) magnet to make the macbook think that the lid is closed. See my answer here: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/110535/34825
You can disable the CPU turbo boost. One easy way is using this utility: http://www.rugarciap.com/turbo-boost-switcher-for-os-x/

Also, make sure you have trim configured on your SSD.


Does Xcode 4 run "stable" on OS X 10.7 DP? and will Apple accept software built in this environment for iTunes AppStore and Mac AppStore?

If you're thinking about using Xcode 4 and Lion as a "stable" coding environment, don't do it now. Lion has a lot of bugs already "enjoyable" and quite possibly a lot more to be found in the following weeks. You'll have to reinstall your OS/Xcode quite often when new releases become available.

It's nice to try things ("new" AppKit stuff) and investigate if certain things work in Lion or how will they react to new tech like "Versions", Full screen, apps being resizable from any corner, etc. All these new things will require new code and current devs will certainly want to add these capabilities. That's what this is all about.

Other OS X betas in the past were certainly stable (especially after a couple of releases) but I can't recall a "first" one being barely usable beyond experimentation.

Launchbar is buggy as hell at the moment.


Command + C does not always work on first try on MacOS Command + C does not always work on first try on any of my four Macs.  I often highlight text, press Command + C, head to another window, press Command + V only to find that the original text did not copy.

I recently installed a fresh copy of macOS High Sierra and I continue to run into this issue, particularly in RStudio.* The issue never occurs on my PCs.

Do others have this issue? How can I resolve this?

*I use bettersnaptool and enable three finger dragging, but the issue still appears when I disable them.

I think it's possible for Apple's Continuity Universal Clipboard feature to cause something like this, depending on the quality of the signal connection with any nearby iOS devices.

Perhaps try turning off "Allow Handoff between this Mac and your iCloud devices" in System Preferences > General and see if that helps.


How to downscale for an external display? I intend to connect my old full HD TV as external display to a mid-2012 MacBook air.

While being "only" 1920×1080, the TV has 42", so each element would look ridiculously large. So I thought about "emulating" it to be, say, 4k, then downscale the signal to the 1080 the TV can handle.

Is there such a possibility?

MacBookAir5,1
Mojave 10.14.6
Intel HD Graphics 4000 1536 MB

Assuming you want to extend your desktop and not just mirror it:
The Mac does this by default, for more fine grained options go to System Preferences → Screen, a window for the TV will appear, where scaling options is avaliable. For even more options hold down the Alt/Option key while clicking on "Scaled"


Is it possible to connect a 1080p Thunderbolt 3 display to a Thunderbolt 2 port? I have a Thunderbolt 3 device that is a 1080p LCD monitor. When the device is connected, System Profiler lists its monitor as using a DisplayPort connection, as well as a few USB 2 devices since this device has touch screen capabilities. It has no external power source -- it's typically powered over its Thunderbolt 3 connection when connected to an actual Thunderbolt 3 port.

I'm wondering if it's possible for me to connect this device to a Mac with a Thunderbolt 2 port and use it as a monitor? In theory this is possible since Thunderbolt 2 supports DisplayPort and could provide more than enough bandwidth and power for a 1080p LCD monitor. It would be nice if this device's USB 2 capabilities worked as well, but not a big deal if they don't. Basically, I'm not sure any such adapter exists for this sort of thing, or if it would work for my particular needs.

Is this possible? For example, can I use the Apple Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 adapter + a male-to-male Thunderbolt 2 cable to accomplish this? Or maybe just a male-to-male Mini DisplayPort cable?

No, that is not possible. Thunderbolt 3 is required to support the power delivery (USB-PD) over the Thunderbolt cable.

As your display has no external power source, it won't help that you get the display signal to it, as it would have no power.


Can't import Contacts from abbu, errors in Notifications, FaceTime I got a new MacBook Pro and used a Time Machine backup to set up the new computer. It didn't import my Contacts for some reason, so I used the old laptop to send everything to iCloud, then reimported it to the new computer. That gave me all the cards, but I have two new errors:

1) Birthday notifications are shown excessively. I close them and a few minutes later I get another one. This is both the day before and day of the birthday.

2) When in FaceTime, initially I can see all the contacts I have available, but after I click on one, and then go back to All Contacts, I have a list of "no name" only.

Both of these errors, I think, would stem from the contacts app itself. iCloud seems to be involved - I suspect every time iCloud is pinged for updates, I get the birthday notification re-displaying. So I tried to restore the Contacts list to see if that would help, but I can't - when I try to open a saved .abbu, nothing happens. If I try to import just one vCard, nothing happens. I can delete the whole Contacts list, shut off iCloud, but still nothing happens when I try to reimport.

When I first set up the laptop, I also had an error 513 which would crash Mail, which I eventually found was because the permissions were wrong on Containers/com.apple.mail... in the ByHost folder, so I couldn't edit the files in there. I thought maybe the same was happening with Contacts, where it just wouldn't update my contacts because it wasn't allowed. But in the ByHost folder, all I have are 2 alias files which are trying to point to files in the same folder, but they don't exist. I tried deleting the aliases to force Contacts to make new files, and it just makes new aliases which still point to non-existent files. I tried to check the Time Machine backup but it looks like there were only ever the two aliases in that folder, no valid files.

Completely turning off iCloud and then restarting it also didn't help.

Any ideas? I have no clue at this point why I can't get my Contacts to import an abbu, whether or not iCloud is on. Which means I still haven't figured out why FaceTime is buggy and I get excessive birthday notifications.

Unfortunately, once Yosemite was installed, even Finder wouldn't open. I had to travel to the nearest Apple Store where even the Mac Genius was pretty stumped. His best guess was the build of Mavericks was corrupt on the new laptop to begin with, or the build number was invalid for some reason. It's not clear why that didn't fix itself when Yosemite was installed.

In short, the only solution was to do a full backup, completely wipe the system (completely - there was no data on the SSD at that point), reinstall Mavericks, upgrade to Yosemite, then copy the files from the backup without restoring any settings or preferences, and then set up each program individually from scratch.


Where does Apple App Store download security updates to? My problem is that my internet speed to Apple's server is very slow, and I have 6 devices running macOS so I like to download security updates or system updates only once for all 6 of my devices.

I checked these folders:

$TMPDIR../C/com.apple.appstore/
aka
/var/folders/mp/???/C/com.apple.appstore

~/Library/Caches/storeaccountd
~/Library/Caches/storeassetd
~/Library/Caches/storedownloadd
~/Library/Caches/storeinappd

The package is not in either of these folders...

Also, once the file is downloaded and installed, App Store removes the package immediately it seems. Is there a way to prevent App Store from removing updates?

First off: did you consider "Content Caching" in High Sierra's System Preferences > Sharing?

But to answer your question: while downloading you'll usually find the files in the system caches in the...

/private/var/folders/zz/

...folders (owned by _softwareupdate or/and _nsurlsession, with no access to the user).  But that's just a temporary state and they usually get assembled in numbered directories into...

/Library/Updates/

Since updates consist of more packages these days, they refuse to run individually and the .dist file will have to be opened with the Installer.app to install them in order.

The packages will wait for installation, before being removed, so making sure System Preferences > App Store is set to not automatically update and clicking "Not Now" before the download, or "Later" in the installation window will postpone installation and therefore removal.


Belkin USB PDA Adapter Driver I'm trying to install "Belkin USB PDA Adapter Driver" and I'm getting message:

You can't open the application Belkin USB PDA Adapter Driver because the Classic environment is longer supported.

What can I do in order to get it to work?

Look for updated drivers.

This is an app written for Mac OS 9, so there's really no way to get it to work with a computer running OS X.


Where exactly is QuickTime Player on OS X 10.8.5 Mountain Lion? I bought a used MacBook Pro Retina Mid 2012 with Mountain Lion. I can't seem to find the QuickTime Player anywhere. There is no such app in Apps nor in Utilities. When I right-click a video icon, Open With doesn't offer QuickTime (even if it's a .smil file, which is more QuickTime specific, not to mention any other type). Simply, there is no such thing as QuickTime Player on my system. Is this possible or am I doing something wrong? How can I get it (the current one, not the legacy one)? Apple doesn't offer any download as far as I can see, the page claims I have one. Only, I don't :-(

Any advice? Thanx...

QuickTime Player should be located directly in /Applications/, that's its default location. QuickTime Player X is part of the OS installation, and Apple provides no separate downloads of the app.

Reinstalling the OS is of course a huge step just to get QuickTime back. If you have access to the Mountain Lion installer, you can use an app like Pacifist to extract QuickTime Player from it.

Mountain Lion, as it was a paid upgrade, also cannot simply be downloaded. You may have a copy of the installer on an usb drive or a dvd-r. Originally it was an App Store download, and when bought an app file called "Install OS X Mountain Lion" was placed in /Applications/. After the installation this file, which was more than 4 GB in size, was deleted. You can get it back from the Purchases tab in the App Store to re-download the file. If it shows as "Installed," you should try holding down the option key while clicking on the Purchases tab. You might also be able to locate the installer on a Time Machine backup in the /Applications/ folder.


What is the latest version of iTunes that will run on a PowerPC-based Mac? What is the latest iTunes that will still run on a Power PC based Mac?

as long as iTunes 10 (newer version of iTunes) need OS X 10.5 (Leopard) as it's minimum requirement and you can install leopard on your Powerpc then latest itunes that was supported by Powerpc is the last one iTunes 10.


How much more storage than iOS 7 does iOS 8 ACTUALLY use up? I have read so many reports about iOS 8 installation storage requirements that I've lost count, and none of them even answer this very basic question.

“The download is 1.2 Gb… the free space requirement for the install is 5 Gb…” etc... But honestly, who cares? We get the space back after it’s done. It's a one time requirement.

What's ultimately of interest when I install iOS 8 on my iPhone 5 is: how much space will I never get back?

The Ars Technica iOS 8 Thoroughly Reviewed article pegs it at 600MB difference on the iPhone 5.

DEVICE  SPACE AVAILABLE    (IOS 7.1.2)  SPACE AVAILABLE (IOS 8.0 GM)
32GB    iPhone 4S (AT&T)    27.4GB      26.6GB
32GB    iPhone 5 (VZW)      27.3GB      26.7GB
32GB    iPhone 5C (AT&T)    27.2GB      26.5GB
64GB    iPhone 5S (AT&T)    56.0GB      55.1GB


Touchbar on Macbook pro 16" crashes when it tries to open I have the Macbook pro 16", which has a physical escape key now, and macOS Catalina 10.15.2. That means that there is less space on the actual touchbar. Even after configuring the touchbar "exension" preference to only have a few items, I'm always shown the same 4 options on the right, and the Configure in: Extension Preferences on the left.

If I press the < on the touchbar to expand the available options, you can see the animation expand to being too big for the bar (very quickly) and then it blanks out. Leaving you with nothing on the right side, but still the Configure in: Extension Preferences on the left.

To get the four defaults back, I have to press the Extension Preferences button and then exit out of the preferences.

Is there a way to tell what process is crashing or debug this?

As a work-around, under System Preferences -> Keyboard, I found the option that displays Touch Bar shows and gives the following options:

If you select "Expanded control strip" you are greeted with your familiar options


Writing bash scripts for changing Mac OS / OSX settings? I am not sure if I am asking this question properly, but I am trying write a script to change some settings on Mac OS Sierra, similar to this script which sets the clock in the menubar to appear as analog:

killall Dock;
defauls write com.apple.menuextra.clock IsAnalog -bool true;
killall SystemUIServer;

Instead, I would like to select a different keyboard layout which I have created using Karabiner elements, which also appears in the menubar, and I can change it using the mouse.

My question is basically, how can I figure out what commands to put in my script to make changes like this? Is there a way to record commands that are run when making mouse actions, and then simply paste those commands into a script and alias it to some shortcut? Any help on how to become proficient writing scripts like this would be helpful.

For scripting that interacts directly with macOS, you're much better off writing AppleScript over shell. AppleScript is Apple's proprietary scripting language that contains many ways to interact with the operating system. In addition, AppleScript was designed to be a very human readable language.

Plenty of documentation and tutorials for AppleScript can be found through a quick google search. Here are some Apple webpages to get you started:

Introduction to AppleScript
AppleScript fundamentals

To write AppleScripts, open up Script Editor, located in Applications > Utilities.

An example script to toggle macOS Sierra's dark mode, would be:

tell application "System Events"
tell appearance preferences
    if dark mode is false then
        set dark mode to true
    else
        set dark mode to false
    end if
end tell
end tell


Single click and select whole word Is it possible to modify a Mac to select a whole word with a single click (or a modifier key) vs double click?

Control-Click will highlight the whole word (as user3439894 has pointed out) - to prevent the context menu staying open without you having to press escape or clicking away, you simply need hold the mouse down for about a second.

To clarify:

Press Control key down
Click on word, holding mouse down
Release Control key or mouse - the context menu should disappear, but the word will remain selected


Latest Windows 10 update (March 2021) broke Bluetooth on mid-2014 MacBook Pro Retina Running Windows 10 on Boot Camp on a MacBook Pro Retina from mid-2014 (with Catalina, if that makes a difference). Bluetooth was working fine till last night. Today it installed a system update and Bluetooth is no longer working on Windows.
In Settings, it says Bluetooth is on and lists all the paired devices (currently only a Voxon mouse). I use a Belkin numeric keypad as well, but when I noticed it wasn’t working I removed the device from the list thinking I could just add it again. Big mistake. Now my computer can't find the keypad when I click on “Add Bluetooth or other device”. The keypad is literally right next to my Mac and has newly charged batteries. I also tried with a different pair of batteries at about half charge, so it isn’t that. It works perfectly with macOS.
My mouse doesn’t work either despite it showing up on the list of paired devices (again, tried changing the batteries without success). Again, works with macOS.
I thought it was a driver problem, but I can’t find a list of drivers for Belkin keypads on Belkin’s website, Apple’s website or Google. All the Google results I can find for BlueTooth issues on Windows on Boot Camp are from 2016 or earlier and terribly outdated.
Thanks for any help.
Edit:
Tried uninstalling the system updates (Control Panel > Programs > Programs and Features > Installed Updates > Microsoft Windows). It showed three updates:

“Servicing Stack 10.0.19041.860”
“Security Update for Microsoft Windows (KB5000802)”
“Feature Update to Windows 10 20H2 via Enablement Package something something something”

It would only let me uninstall the latter two. Bluetooth still not working.
Another edit (07 May 2021):
Restoring a previous OS version didn’t work.
A few weeks after I reported the problem here, the computer decided to detect BlueTooth devices properly again (no updates in the meantime). This lasted for a few weeks before the problem spontaneously appeared again (no updates in the meantime). It’s been like that, a few weeks on and a few weeks off, since then.

Windows has the ability to create restore points. You can return Windows to a pre-update state by using System Restore. Restore points are often created automatically by Windows before the install of a major update. Restore points can also be created manually by the user. Below is a image of the System Restore tab of System Properties.

Selecting the System Restore button opens the window shown below.

By selecting the Choose a different restore point radio button followed by the Next button, a list of restore points can be displayed, as shown below.

You may want to create a restore point before making a major update to Windows. A restore point can be deleted later to save space.


Using AppleScript to click radio buttons I think this is a bug in Mac OS X: with a dual monitor setup, the Dock switches to the 2nd (not main) monitor from time to time.

To fix this issue, I open the Dock, and click both the "Left" and "Bottom" radio buttons for the "Position on Screen" item.

I need to automate this with AppleScript. I could open the Dock using this script, but I'm not sure how to click the Left and then Bottom radio button in AppleScript.

tell application "System Preferences"
    set the current pane to pane id "com.apple.preference.dock"
    activate
end tell

I tried to add some code in the script, but it does not work.

click radiobutton "Left"

You can click the radio buttons in more then one way.

After the tell application "System Preferences" block use a tell application "System Events" block, e.g.:

tell application "System Preferences"
    set the current pane to pane id "com.apple.preference.dock"
    activate
end tell

tell application "System Events"
   click radio button 1 of radio group 1 of window 1 of process "System Preferences"
end tell

In this first usage, radio button 1 is Left, radio button 2 is Bottom and radio button 3 is Right.

Or:

tell application "System Preferences"
    set the current pane to pane id "com.apple.preference.dock"
    activate
end tell

tell application "System Events"
   click radio button "Left" of radio group 1 of window "Dock" of process "System Preferences"
end tell

In this second usage, use Left, Bottom or Right directly and you can also use Dock in place of window 1. (The latter of which you could do in any of these examples.)

Or:

tell application "System Preferences"
    set the current pane to pane id "com.apple.preference.dock"
    activate
end tell

tell application "System Events"
    click (every radio button whose value of attribute "AXTitle" is "Left") of radio group 1 of window 1 of process "System Preferences"
end tell

In this third usage, use Left, Bottom or Right for the value of (every radio button whose value of attribute "AXTitle" is "?") where the ? is one of these values.

Note: These examples have been tested under OS X 10.11.6 and work as now edited. I added of radio group 1 between radio button and window. For use in OS X 10.8.5 remove of radio group 1 from the code.


Compress file as .tar.gz instead of .zip If I right click a file and I compress it I obtain a file.zip. Is it possible to set right click-->compress to produce a file.tar.gz as output? I always have to do it through terminal but many times I'd rather do it with a right click especially when I'm already in the finder looking at the folder

You can try to write a unix shell script where your commands are to tar the selected files then run gzip on it.

Then you can make this a service and save it at ~/Library/Services. Then enable it via system preferences > Keyboard > shortcuts > Services.

Creating System-Wide Keyboard Shortcut To Launch Applications
How do I run my automator service without opening automator?

Then you can select a file and right-click on the selected file. At the bottom of the right click menu,  a section for Services appears which has your services. Select your new service and that should do the job.

Alternatively, it can be found in Finder menu > Services.


MacBook Pro Early 2015: Sleep Wake Failure Ever since I upgraded from my old MacBook Air 2012 to a brand new MacBook Pro I feel really disappointed with how my computer works.

It used to occasionally freeze, overall work more slowly (!), and the thing that is making me frustrated most of all: Sleep Wake Failure.

I tried to copy the log from console here but the text is too long.

Here is a screen shot of a console. I will try to insert anything that is needed here.

The next time you have an issue, run sysdiagnose by pressing the key chord for it or manually from terminal and then open a support ticket with Apple. Much of the diagnostic information in console.app requires one of two things to be useful:

Access to Apple's source code and internal support documents
Access to a large volume of logs from dozens (or ideally hundreds or more) of Macs to use a tool like splunk to collect and analyze various logs to identify patterns of error messages to trace back issues like this to root causes.

In the mean time, use old-fashioned pen and paper to make a note of the wall clock time when the Mac is slow and look at Activity Monitor / top and perhaps collect one sysdiagnose each time you notice the Mac being slow. Once you have 10 incidents, you might have enough data to know what processes are making your experience poor and determine if your slowness is related to:

CPU constraints or overcommitment
Memory pressure
Storage issues
Network dependancies

A good place to start on that monitoring is using top or vm_stat to run when before you notice the slowness and then review for data once you notice that the Mac has actually slowed down.

OS X: Memory usage freaking me out

I would also write down what you wanted to do and what other apps were running when you notice slow downs. This will come in handy to identify if you can simply adjust the workload or need to make other changes to achieve better performance.


Connection Timeout Error for WEP security I'm connecting my MacBook Pro to a router which uses WEP security. It shows a Connection Timeout error every half an hour. The security level of the router can't be changed, since its a common router. Other Mac systems are having no problems with it.

So far I've tried removing the network from the System Preferences/Network panel and restarting the router and the computer, with no luck. What should I do next?

Different devices use different wireless chipsets. Although most should be compatible sometimes they don't work well together.

Did you try to update the router's firmware? A newer one might correct some glitches.


What does "Does your app contain, display or access third-party content?" mean for me? While submitting a new app to the App Store I got this question: "Does your app contain, display, or access third-party content?".

Can I answer yes to this question and still submit an app?

Does answering yes mean that I have to show confirmations from the creators of the third-party content that I can use it in my app?

If for example my app is Twitter - would I have to answer "yes" in this case?
If so, how could I prove that I have the rights for all content published in the app?

You seem to be of the understanding that answering "yes" to the question means that your app is not allowed on the App Store - that is not the case. You can just answer "yes" and continue with your app submission.

You will be asked if you have the rights to use the contents, or otherwise follow relevant laws in the countries where you will sell your app. If you cannot answer yes to that, you have a problem - not so much with Apple, but rather by risking getting sued (or worse).

If you do indeed answer yes, you do not need to provide any confirmations or documentation at that moment. You'll be able to continue app submission right away.

However note that as everyone else you have to follow the rules of the App Store Guidelines set forth by Apple. In particular, Apple requires that you upon request can document your authorization to use third party material, such as trademarks or patents. I guess this is likely to happen if a third-party complains to Apple that you're not authorized.


Is it possible to have a Mac drive a display as a mirror image (and not simply rotated) I need to flip the screen of Mac X 10.4 either vertically or horizontally. I should emphasis that I do not want to rotate 180 degree I want to have mirrored output. Is there any way of driving a Mac's display as a mirror image (and not simply rotated)?

Several answers have jumped on rotation, so please don't confuse rotation with actual flipping. A mirror image (either vertical or horizontal) distorts text in a similar manner to taking a sheet of nearly transparent paper and literally flipping it so you see the words from behind the paper.

Here is an illustration of rotation (not what this question seeks)
: rotate display 90, 180 or 270 degrees.

What I seek is horizontal display flip.

Do you need to flip an built-in display (like on an iMac or MacBook), or an external display?

I'm afraid it's only possible to flip an external display. Here's how to do that (tested with 10.6, but 10.4 should be similar):
Go to System Preferences-> Displays. Go to the Display tab of your external monitor's window. For Rotation: select either 90 or 270.

You can still mirror your displays.


AppleScript find the user's set default browser? I've been doing some research on this topic but it seems Apple has changed their file hierarchy. From the MacScripter post "Get user default browser" it references the line:

 set pListpath to (path to preferences as Unicode text) & "com.apple.LaunchServices.plist"

but when running the handler in Sierra I'm returned an error that the file is empty.  Further research I found "How to use an AppleScript app bundle as the default browser in os x?" and "Use default browser in custom Apple Script?" that suggest:

on open location theURL
 ...
end open location

but I'm wanting to preserve the browser in a variable to reference later on in my script.  In Sierra is there a file or way to reference what the default browser?

For OS X 10.10 and later, use the following example AppleScript code:

set defaultBrowser to do shell script "defaults read \\
    ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices/com.apple.launchservices.secure \\
    | awk -F'\"' '/http;/{print window[(NR)-1]}{window[NR]=$2}'"

if defaultBrowser is "" or defaultBrowser contains "safari" then
    --  # The default Browser is Safari.
    set defaultBrowser to "Safari"
    --  # Your code goes here.
else if defaultBrowser contains "chrome" then
    --  # The default Browser is Google Chrome.
    set defaultBrowser to "Google Chrome"
    --  # Your code goes here.
else if defaultBrowser contains "firefox" then
    --  # The default Browser is Firefox.
    set defaultBrowser to "Firefox"
    --  # Your code goes here.
else
    set defaultBrowser to "Other"
    --  # Your code goes here.
end if

Note: The start of the if defaultBrowser statement tests for nothing "" as well as "safari", because, if Safari is the only Browser installed or if another Browser is installed and has never had a default Browser set, then by default nothing will be returned by the do shell script "defaults ..." command, and this means Safari is the default Browser.

In the example AppleScript code above, the value of the defaultBrowser variable initially gets set to one of the following values:

Nothing: ""
com.apple.safari
com.google.chrome
org.mozilla.firefox
Some other: output

Then within the if statement, the defaultBrowser gets set to the proper name of the Browser. Although you can certainly modify as needed/wanted.

Also note that the do shell script command used herein is more efficient then the other answer, which needlessly uses the plutil command to first convert the binary plist file to an xml plist file and then back to a binary plist file afterwards. It also needlessly uses both grep and awk when both are not necessary since defaults and awk (or just defaults and grep) can do it without all the extra rigmarole.

For pre OS X 10.10, replace:

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices/com.apple.launchservices.secure

With:

com.apple.LaunchServices

In the do shell script "defaults ..." command.


iPod Dock Charge Adapter I have a nice stereo system that can dock and charge an iPod Nano 2nd generation.

I also have an iPod Touch 4 and a 6th gen Nano (or something).

The old docks charge using the firewire pin out and the new ones with the USB power pin out (if I understand correctly).

my google-fu is failing to find a dock adapter that will swap the pinout so I can dock my newere nano into the older dock and play and charge. (It plays now but won't charge)

Is anyone aware of such a product?

The Charging Adapter from Scosche should work for you. I used one of these in a car that had a iPod dock for the radio, but used the older Firewire pinout, and therefore would not work well with a newer iPhone.

This one looks slightly different than the one I had, but it should be the same thing. Griffin I think also makes a similar product. Its a common problem for car radios, so maybe searching for that will help find similar products.

Update: The Scosche Passport is what we actually have. This worked great connecting a newer nano, iPhone 4 and 4S to a Firewire charging deck.


Apple Macbook Moving Desktop Files, Folders, Icons When I go to organize my desktop by moving multiple Files, Folders, or Icons at the same time it groups them all together. How to I prevent it from doing this?

Thank you.

(System - Macbook Pro OS 10.9.5)

When you are dragging them there is no way to disable this, with the exception that if you perform this action in Finder list view it would show a list of the folders instead of large icons. The intention is that you need to be able to see your drag target, so it tidies them into a bundle.


Error Relating to AppTranslocation in macOS Sierra It would appear that Gatekeeper in macOS Sierra is a bit pickier. At any rate, it is causing a small utility I made some years ago to throw a rather annoying error.

As I haven't yet had the time to dig into the under-the-hood changes in Sierra, I'm not sure how to fix the error. Does anyone have experience dealing with errors relating to AppTranslocation and fixing them?

Code and error follow:

Code:

tell application "Finder"
set currentDir to POSIX path of ((container of (path to me)) as text)
end tell
set currentDir to quoted form of currentDir
set lib80211 to quoted form of "AirPort Utility 5.6.1 Launcher.app/Contents/Resources/Apple80211.framework/Versions/A/Apple80211"

do shell script "export DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES=" & currentDir & lib80211 & "
cd " & currentDir & "AirPort\\ Utility\\ 5.6.1.app/Contents/MacOS
./AirPort\\ Utility"

Error:

sh: line 1: cd: /private/var/folders/t4/7k5z832d2tjd4xpzvvq43n4m0000gn/T/AppTranslocation/23AF67A4-3DF7-4982-A1A3-B019CDACB4C2/dAirPort Utility 5.6.1.app/Contents/MacOS: No such file or directory
sh: line 2: ./AirPort Utility: No such file or directory (127)

Well, after a fairly significant amount of trial and error (and a bit of reading about how AppTranslocation works in macOS 10.12 Sierra), I've discovered a fix.
In essence, you have to open the *.dmg and then move the contents to some other folder in Finder. The catch: If you move both simultaneously, AppTranslocation may 'tag' them (seemingly permanently) and continue to run every time you try to launch either *.app); this seems like a bug, and I intend to report it to Apple.
The Solution
Re-download the *.dmg (as others have stated) and move the two files it contains one at a time into a folder (preferably Utilities, but it's up to you where you want them to reside). Once you've done this, run the Launcher and everything should work as before.


Why Mac Disk Utility Run so fast? I run mac disk utility. It finish saying my disk is fine.

C'mon. Windows chkdsk takes a while.

Why it's so fast? Does it actually check stuffs chkdsk check?

And what should I do if I want chkdsk kind of check (longer but more thorough)

The OS X disk utility checks the HFS+ volume header, and its backup header (located in the last block of the disk). If both match, then the rest of the disk is assumed to be consistent. That's along the lines of quick fsck(8) check. Another quick check for journal consistency is performed if you've set up journaling, and if that also checks ok, then the rest is skipped.

You can always run fsck manually, or - http://www.newosxbook.com/ has a tool called HFSleuth which - while directed at programmer/hacker types - can allow you to do a more thorough check.


Do you need a Macbook Pro w touchID to test the authentication in your Swift app? I'm thinking of buying a MBP base model for Swift programming, and I know that Xcode has a simulator for the touch-bar, but do I need the one with actual touchID hardware if I want my app to require a biometrical login? or is there a way to debug and test it without needing it; same as the touchID with iOS?

So do I need the one with touch-bar and touchID for this purpose? And also will I need it in future?

Appreciate any help.

No, you do not need it to develop such applications. However you do need a Mac with Touch ID in order to completely test that feature. There’s no simulator in Xcode for macOS applications with Touch ID as such.

Usually it is not really necessary to actually test Touch ID though. It is a single line change to swap out Touch ID with local authentication so that you can test with passwords until you are satisfied that works, and then change it to Touch ID.

No one can know if you need this in the future. The future is, after all, still undecided.


Are there any files which are NOT restored from a Time Machine backup but taken from the recovery partition? I'll get a replacement Mac soon, so I'll have to restore from a backup. Apart from the home directory and the applications, does Time Machine also backup the usually hidden Unix folders like /etc, /usr and so on?

I've got a few programs and config files in there and I'd like my new Mac to be in exactly the same state as the current one, in terms of software. Can I rely on Time Machine to backup/restore everything without exception, or would I have to use something like Carbon Copy Cloner instead?

As long as you haven't excluded something manually from the backup it will backup everything, except some cache and log files.
I do also have custom programs in /opt, /usr/bin,... and everything still worked after restoring the system from my Time Machine backup.

There is a good collection of Time Machine FAQ on the web you may like to consult.


How/Where do I drag an mp3 file from my pc to iphone? The only folder I see in internal storage for Apple iPhone is DCIM which leads to 100APPLE, which has all my pictures and videos, and I can't drag the mp3 file there?

You need iTunes to copy music from your computer to your iPhone.


Find-and-replace AppleScript for iTunes Track Names I'm trying to write an AppleScript to do bulk find-and-replace operations on iTunes track names. Currently, this is my code:

tell application "iTunes"
    set sel to selection of front browser window
    if sel is {} then
        try
            display dialog "Nothing is selected…" buttons {"Quit"} with icon 0
        end try
        return
    end if

    set c to (count of sel)

    set theSearchString to display dialog "Find:" default answer "" --prompt for input to search for

    set theReplacementString to display dialog "Replace with:" default answer "" --prompt for input to search for

    repeat with i from 1 to c --set the movement numbers
        set thisTrack to item i of sel
        set songName to (get name of thisTrack)
        set name of thisTrack to (findAndReplaceInText(songName, text returned of theSearchString, text returned of theReplacementString))

    end repeat

end tell

on findAndReplaceInText(theText, theSearchString, theReplacementString)
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to theSearchString
    set theTextItems to every text item of theText
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to theReplacementString
    set theText to theTextItems as string
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
    return theText
end findAndReplaceInText

Currently, the findAndReplaceInText() function returns error 1708. What did I do wrong? The find-and-replace function is coming from Apple: Mac Automation Scripting Guide- Manipulating Text

Technically all you need to do is put my in front of findAndReplaceInText, however this version of the code is IMO a better way to write it.

tell application "iTunes"

    set sel to selection of front browser window
    if sel is {} then
        display dialog "Nothing is selected…" buttons {"Quit"} with icon 0
        return
    end if

    set theSearchString to text returned of (display dialog "Find:" default answer "")
    set theReplacementString to text returned of (display dialog "Replace with:" default answer "")

    repeat with i from 1 to (count of sel)
        set thisTrack to item i of sel
        set name of thisTrack to my findAndReplaceInText((name of thisTrack), theSearchString, theReplacementString)
    end repeat

end tell

on findAndReplaceInText(theText, theSearchString, theReplacementString)
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to theSearchString
    set theTextItems to every text item of theText
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to theReplacementString
    set theText to theTextItems as string
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
    return theText
end findAndReplaceInText

Also note that while your script changes the displayed name of the song, it does not change it as the filesystem level, just the meta-data stored in iTunes.


Is RAID1 volume usable while rebuilding RAID after disk failure? One disk of my 2-disk-RAID1-stack has failed and I'm about to replace it.

Is the volume usable—i.e. can I read & write just as I normally could—while Disk Utility is rebuilding the RAID?

Yes, rebuilding happens in the background and the volume can be accessed normally.

I/O performance might be affected, but in my own experience it's more likely the rebuilding process that takes the performance-hit—i.e. rebuilding would be faster if the volume wasn't in use.


WhatsApp notification on iPhone lock screen shows contact name instead of nickname Whenever I get a WhatsApp message with my iPhone locked, I can't see sender's nickname as set by them in their WhatsApp profile. I used to see it previously, but now I see the name which I have saved the contact with in my Contacts list. I would like to get back the ability to see nickname instead of contact name. I don't want to delete the name in my contact list I just want it to be like it was previously.

How can I do this?

Had this same problem and got the below reply from whatsapp support

To turn on previews that display the contact name but not message:

Go to WhatsApp > Settings > Notifications > turn Show Preview on.
Go to iPhone Settings > Notifications > WhatsApp > Show Previews > Never.


How can others connect to port 80 on my computer via an IP address? I'd like to be able to give certain people my IP address (24.178.XX.XX) so they can access port 80 on my machine from their browser.

Right now just putting that IP address from my own browser doesn't connect to anything...just says it can't find the server.

So is there some setting I need to enable?

I have an AirPort Extreme.

Within the Airport Utility, you have an option for Port Forwarding (or even setting up a DMZ Host if you want all unsolicited incoming traffic to go to your web server, however this is unadvised for general security as it is best to only allow what you need to reduce attack vectors).

Using this option, you can set up a port mapping between port 80 on your external interface to port 80 on the NAT IP address of your internal web server.

This will provide immediate access to your server over port 80 to the outside world.

That however assumes that you already have a web server properly configured to deliver data over port 80.

A good first step there would be to use the Web Sharing setting under "System Perferences -> Sharing" to see whether this meets your needs. It will also enable you to do an immediate test to make sure that everything is working.

If you need something a little more comprehensive than what you are provided within the OS X client, look at OS X Server ($50 on the App Store) or MAMP (free and paid offerings).


Prevent double click on application focus When I click on an application in OSX, this focuses the application and raises it to the front, but does not pass the click through to the application. However, I frequently wish to focus an application to perform an action, and my Windows/Linux training has taught me to click where I want my click to register. In OSX, this becomes a problem because I click once to focus and a second time to trigger a click event - but the window responds as though to a double click - when toggling something with a click, the window focus click is only treated as a click when I send another, toggling the object twice.

What setting(s) should I change to support either passing that first click like other popular WIMP GUIs or to consume that first click completely and use it only for focusing the window? If not settings, are there software that solve this problem?

Pending a better answer - in Cocoa applications on OSX I can force a "click through" to the lower window without focusing it by ⌘-clicking. This appears to be a good solution - just needs to be more discoverable.


MacBook Keychain problems Had a new MacBook at Christmas linked to iCloud password.

Forgot iCloud password so Apple reset it for me. I can login to MacBook using new iCloud password now but Keychain won't allow me to open Local Items keychain says password is incorrect I guess it wants old password that I forgot.

Please help?

Try this:

Open KeyChain app
Lock the Keychain by clicking the lock on the top left corner, if it isn't already.
Unlock the Keychain using your Admin Password. Reset iCloud KeyChain (it may ask you to automatically - if so, say yes. If not. If not, do it manually).
Restart computer.

See if that works.  Or check this thread:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5467304?tstart=0


Change input setting in mac keyboard In my keyboard when I pressed this key

Then I get/display  '§' (with shift+key -> '±' ) instead of what  expected.

How can I set it to work properly?

Also after  Googling I found this site but this did not help me.

My guess is that your machine thinks the keyboard "type" is English (International) ISO, when it is really English (USA) ANSI.  This article may help:

http://m10lmac.blogspot.com/2009/12/fixing-keyboard-type-problems.html


My iPhone screen doesn't turn off during calls? I have been recently noticing that my iphone does not turn off the screen when I answer calls or have it in my pocket... something seems off with proximity sensor... but how do I assure that this is the case, and not a software issue...

The easiest way to test yourself whether or not it’s the case is to simply remove the case. Then use the phone and check whether or not you still have the same issue.

If you still have the issue then you know it’s not the case.
If you no longer have the issue then you know it is the case.


How to change X11/Xquartz colour setting to 256 colors Using Bash Script? I want to change X11 color settings from 'From Display'(default) to '256 colors' using Terminal.app.  I already know how to change it using the GUI, but I need a bash script to do it.  I have:

Mavericks 10.9.5
XQuartz 2.7.7 (xorg-server 1.15.2)
MacbookPro

The command to change Color: From Display, as shown in X11 Preferences of XQuartz, to  Color: 256 Colors, from the command line in Terminal is:

defaults write org.macosforge.xquartz.X11 depth -int 8

Note: XQuartz should be closed when making this change or the ones below, from the command line or from within a bash script.

To reset it to the default, Color: From Display, use the following:

defaults delete org.macosforge.xquartz.X11 depth

Or:

defaults write org.macosforge.xquartz.X11 depth -int -1

Note: By default the depth key doesn't exist however, when reset from the GUI to the default, the setting is -1, although either is acceptable to set the default back to Color: From Display.


How to bind Alt-p to up arrow instead of π Mac binds alt-p and alt-n to π and ˜.  How to make it behave as up and down arrow?

Normally we use ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict file to customize some keys.

{
    "~p" = "moveUp:";
    "~n" = "moveDown:"; /* not really works */
}

However I found it does not work for alt-n.

Would you consider to use ctrl-p and ctrl-n instead? It is of standard emacs/readline key combination.


Unable to restore a deleted app from App Store Connect I had deleted an app for our beta bundle ID from App Store Connect a few months ago. Now I am trying to restore it. But I am getting the following error.

Can anyone help me in understanding this or let me know how to restore it back?
Because I really don't want to create a new beta bundle ID now.
I don't know if this is helpful, but here's the API response when the restore call is made:
{
  "errors" : [ {
    "id" : "35b33baf-xxxx",
    "status" : "409",
    "code" : "ENTITY_ERROR.ATTRIBUTE.INVALID.INVALID_STATE",
    "title" : "An attribute value is not acceptable for the current resource state.",
    "source" : {
      "pointer" : "removed"
    }
  } ]
}

Thanks a lot.

You want to contact Apple Developer Support in order to get the issue resolved. They can help you getting the right attribute's value changed.


Plugging a MIDI Device in a MacBook Pro What options are there for plugging a MIDI-device that offers only a standard DIN-5 MIDI connector into a MacBook Pro?

The marketing print on the box of my Rock Band 3 Wireless Keyboard talks about plugging the keyboard into a computer for use as a general MIDI instrument when not playing Rock Band, but there's no cables inside the box to accomplish this, and again, the only port it offers is a DIN-5 port.

Simple and cheap: USB to MIDI connector. If you need to plug in more than one MIDI device there are dedicated MIDI interfaces. Additionally, many A/D audio interfaces - that you might also use to record input from analog devices like guitars or microphones - include MIDI ins/outs.

Without more information about your specific needs I can't say the products I linked to are the best choice, but they are representative of the vast array of options for plugging a MIDI device into your MacBook Pro.


Does Time Capsule require Internet to properly function as a backup server? Is it possible to use Time Capsule without the Internet as an offline private wifi network for backup?

I have read only tales of terror in my search for anecdotes and instructions regarding set-up other than using the time capsule as the cornerstone of my

I have live power outlets in some pretty obscure places, and as sleek as this little white box is, I see only trouble having it anywhere near the kids or even me for that matter. I might even run some power and make a little shelf between studs before I finish up the drywall.

I would like to leave my existing, hassle-free cable wifi setup completely untouched.

Time Capsule model year 2013-2014, Laptop is 2013 MacBook Air.

Time Capsule does not require an active internet connection to function correctly. I would, however, caution that these units are notorious for getting 'unhappy' when used in an area that does not have sufficient cooling. Putting one inside the drywall is a bad idea, IMO. Unless you're using a wired connection to connect to your TC, then you're either going to need to set the TC up to extend your existing wireless network or you'll need to have it on its own network. That latter makes no sense, as your Air will not simultaneously connect to multiple wireless networks. To make Time Machine work as intended (hourly, autonomous backups), you need your TC on the same network as you use for surfing and working.

A TC will quite happily operate without creating a wireless network (Wireless | Network Mode 'Off'). I'd suggest that your ideal configuration would be to have the TC connected with Ethernet to your existing wireless AP running in bridge mode. The TC would get an IP address from the DHCP server in your router. You can then configure the share in the TC and point Time Machine from your Mac to use the share.


Insert code blocks in the body of emails I'm a developer, and I'd like to be able to distinguish blocks of code from regular text, when I write emails.

Basically I wanna be able to do this. In the Mail app, (or Sparrow!).

Is there a way to do this with a shortcut, or macro, etc so that I don't have to reach for the mouse every time and change like 20 font attributes?

The magic behind the formatting on StackExchange is a great perl script called Markdown. Download it, and double-click the resulting Markdown_1.0.1.zip file.

Then, in terminal, type

chmod a+x ~/Downloads/Markdown_1.0.1/Markdown.pl
sudo cp ~/Downloads/Markdown_1.0.1/Markdown.pl /usr/local/bin/

Once you have that done, you can create a Service in Automator.

The service you create receives rich text in any application.
Uncheck the box that says Output replaces selected text.

Your service will contain two actions:

The first action is Run Shell Script.
Here is the shell script:

/usr/local/bin/Markdown.pl | /usr/bin/textutil -stdin -stdout -format html -convert rtf | /usr/bin/pbcopy

Your section action is Run AppleScript.
Here is the AppleScript:

tell application "System Events"
    keystroke "v" using {command down}
end tell

Save the service, and, if you wish, assign it a keyboard shortcut using System Preferences » Keyboard » Keyboard Shortcuts » Services

Then, you can type text using the formatting codes you use on this site, and run this service to generate formatted text. This will only work if your mail messages are set up as Rich Text -- if you have plain text mail messages, running this service will simply erase the contents of your message, as your rich text formatted by the service will not be able to be pasted.


How do i remove favorites folders from my ipad on ios 9.1? In my list of bookmarks, i have several empty folders labeled favorites. How do i get rid of these? The edit button doesnt allow it to be deleted.

I bet you're also syncing your iCloud bookmarks to PC and didn't think it was relevant.

I fixed this issue for myself earlier today by going into Chrome on my PC and deleting all the multiple "Bookmarks Bar" folders I found. It seems a new one was created any time a change was made in the iOS Favorites folder, and I guess when Chrome would then try to sync its own bookmarks back to iCloud, that's when it would create the duplicate folders on the iPad and iPhone.

If the issue comes back then I may just disable iCloud bookmark syncing on the PC entirely.


Remove Eject Icon from Menu bar ￼How do I get rid of this icon?
I'm not even sure what it's for.
It's possible that it's for remote CD Drive, but I don't remember how I got it up there in the first place.

Details:

iMac 27 inch late 2012
OS X Mavericks

The Eject menu is part of the Menu Extras that are of the standard core service items for the Mac.

It is not normally enabled.

But one way of enabling it is to double click on the
/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/Eject.menu  file.

The Eject menu is normally for your built in disc drive if you have one.

It may or may not work on external disc drive.

To remove the Eject Menu

Press and hold the Apple/Command key.
Click and drag the Eject menu icon off the menu bar.
Once you start dragging the Eject icon, you can release the
Apple/Command key.
Release the mouse button when the Eject menu no longer appears in the
menu bar.

The Eject icon will disappear.


Swipe between pages button equivalent I currently have an external, non-mac, mouse attached to my MacBook Pro. It has extra buttons that you can assign macros to, for instance I assigned the 'move left/right a space' to two of the buttons, which the keys are listed in Mission Control on system preferences. However, I also want to assign the 'Swipe between pages' trackpad function, whereby I swipe left and right, however I cannot find the keys that enable me to do this and hence cannot define a macro for the mouse.

What are the keys-equivalent of swiping between pages?

There is no universal shortcut. In Safari, two finger swipe functions as Back-/Forward (CMD + ←|→). In Preview, it's Left/Right Page (←|→). Using keyboard shortcuts doesn't give you the nice transitional effects.

You can use BetterTouchTool. It allows you to bind mouse buttons to keyboard shortcuts, either globally or on per-app basis.


Internet Sharing: restricted set of WiFi channels I am using Internet Sharing since many versions of macOS to extend my Ethernet connection on the WiFi (or Airport) side.

Until Yosemite, within Internet Sharing > WiFi Options… it was possible to select a WiFi channel to use among:

2,4 GHz    1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13
5   GHz    36,40,44,48

Now, on the same Mac (on which I test High Sierra to check I will be able to use it) I see the following set of channels:

Unfortunately, all these channels are overcrowded by my neighbors (3 to 5 on each of these channels) and can't be used.

On the other hand, channel 8 is free of any neighbor, and work perfectly well on the same Mac (running Yosemite) and on all my other Macs and iPhones.

How may I select this channel?
Which program built this small list of channels?

Don't select a channel manually, let auto-select handle it for you.

  Unfortunately, all these channels are overcrowded by my neighbors (3 to 5 on each of these channels) and can't be used.

You're absolutely correct - at this moment.  This changes continually as traffic increases/decreases.

How can I use my Mac to determine the optimal WiFi channel to use with my wireless router?

As people light up hot spots, turn on AirPlay, AirDrop, screen casting, etc. it all "lives" in the same 2.4 and 5GHz bandwidths.  Letting your Mac or WAP automatically detect and switch channels for you will ensure you get the cleanest channel at the time.

  Which program build this small list of channels?

That was created dynamically.  Those are the channels that have the "best" signals at that moment.

Now, if bandwidth congestion and more than likely noise are causing connectivity issues, it's much better to get multiple WAPs (Wireless Access Points) with the transmit power reduced than to get one, crank up the power and shoehorn it into a particular channel.  Think of it like trying to setup  speakers for a party in a noisy environment.  It's better to have several speakers dialed to maybe a 4 or a 5 than to just have one speaker cranked up to 11 and then the knob subsequently broken off.

Additionally, getting a newer, modern WAP (you don't need a full blown router) will give you much better performance because you'll have the option of placing it higher up (like on a shelf or bookcase) where devices will have better line of sight to the antennae as opposed to the MacBook on a desk.


How to make a duplicate of a photo on iPhone before I crop or edit it? There are many times I want to crop a photo using iPhoto on iOS and post to Facebook, and then possibly crop it another way (like panoramic this time), and post to Facebook, but I don't want to lose the original.
Is there a way to make duplicates of the original and edit it using iPhoto on iOS?
P.S. I also found that when you crop a photo in the Photos app, the original is not lost.  You can simply re-crop it again (or un-crop it) to get a different cropping or get back the original.  But, it still might be good to have a duplicate if you want to keep 2 different ways of cropping of the same photo.

As of iOS 9.3 you can choose to Duplicate photo directly. Pretty convenient.


Remove past versions from Spotlight searches? Is there a way to prevent Spotlight from indexing past versions of documents (see attached image). On my system it seems to always recommend an old version as the top hit, requiring me to scroll through or mouse over the results to get the actual document.

In case it matters, this particular example is a Numbers spreadsheet stored in iCloud.

I ended up copying all of my documents (I didn't really have that many) out of iCloud to the local disk, and then deleting them from iCloud. The old versions were still showing up in Spotlight, so I added the entire drive to Spotlight's Privacy list to delete the index. Then I put the documents back into iCloud, removed the drive from the Privacy list, and let it sit for a few hours while it reindexed everything. After two days of usage everything seems to be working normally once again. Thanks to @bmike for the ideas.


Why does my mouse cursor stick as the default arrow instead of a text selector? I use NetBeans, and when I activate other applications or windows then return to NetBeans, the cursor no longer changes to the text selection cursor, but instead it remains as the default mouse icon. I can solve the problem by hovering over the application toolbar, then go back to the editor area.

I have this problem in another IDE, phpstorm, it also happens occasionally in Chrome. TextMate and TextEdit do not have this problem.

Why is this happening? How can I fix it so I don't have to keep moving the cursor outside of the editor constantly?

For further explanation, please pay attention to the mouse cursor in a video I made showing the problem.

Try editing the NetBeans source code. I'm not an expert on Java GUIs, but there should be a setCursor() function you can put into onHover or something like that. Check the documentation of the GUI toolkit NetBeans uses.

(@tubedogg, Chrome doesn't use a native GUI. Although it tries its best to use the OS look, the title bar is custom, which you can't do with Apple's native GUI toolkit.)


mac become no sound when after mac sleep Sometime, I close lid, and open again, The sound not available.

When I restart my mac, The sound back.

Is this a bug?

Yes, the same bug I have from time to time, too.
I could fix it without a reboot by reloading the kernel extension for audio with these commands:

sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleHDA.kext
sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleHDA.kext


Why is Xcode 11.2.1 not appearing in the App Store updates tab? I use OS X and have Xcode 11.2. I tried to push an app to TestFlight and got a warning that I needed to upgrade to Xcode 11.2.1.
Every time that I've upgraded Xcode in the past, I went to the Updates tab in the App Store, and downloaded the version there if there were any.

Right now there's no version 11.2.1 in the App Store.

What I Want To Know:

1) If 11.2.1 exists, why isn't it in the Updates tab of the App Store? Is it only new major and minor versions, and not patch versions, that show up there?

2) What's the best way to get version 11.2.1?

Xcode 11.2.1 GM seed is available at https://developer.apple.com/download/ after sign in.

I just started (and stopped) the download.


Can't update an app -- help? I can't update a particular app (CSR Racing) -- when I go to the "Updates" part of the app store or to the app itself and tap "update", it will go to the progress bar thing (circle with square in middle) for a split second, then go back to showing "update".  Now it's just sitting there with the progress bar not doing anything.  Help meh!

I already restarted the iPhone and tried to reset the App Store (as proposed by @csstudent in one of the answers), it still won't let me update it.

Type any one of the five bars at the bottom of the App Store (Featured, Top Charts, Explore, Search, Updates) 10 times in rapid succession. You will see the page redraw itself. This is a little-known feature in iOS that resets the App Store on the device. Try this, and then try to update the app.


Waking display from terminal, general waking This is a two part question.  A practical, "how to" question is first, and then I ask for configuration suggestions.

First, I put my displays to sleep at night, and I would like to be able to wake the display remotely.  Is there a command line utility I can use to wake it via SSH?  I know about WakeOnLan, but that seems like overkill.

Second, the whole reason for me wanting to wake my display remotely has to do with how Lion's power savings settings changed.  The Apple infrared remote no longer wakes the display.  This is a huge deal for a machine I originally bought to be a combined desktop/home theater pc, since it defeats half of its purpose.  So, does anybody have any ideas/suggestions what to do about this?  This is open ended, I know.

The easiest way to do this over SSH is to use caffeinate  -u (available since OS X 10.9 I think) to simulate user activity.

Add the flag -t 5 to specify a timeout of 5 seconds (else you'd have to ctrl+c out of caffeinate, it seems).


osx - opening a unicode file in text edit I'd like to process a unicode text file using TextEdit. When I open the file using TextEdit or TextWrangler instead of seeing Nattvardsgästerna I see this Nattvardsg‰sterna (which is incorrect).  When I open the file on my PC I see the correct String.

I'm certain, I'm missing a setting or something...

Thanks

You can set the default opening encoding to UTF-8 or UTF-16 in TextEdit Preferences/Open and Save.

But your example seems to indicate a non-unicode text, where Latin-1 ä (E4) is being read as if it were in MacRoman encoding, where E4 is allocated to ‰.

Or perhaps it is Unicode UTF-16 being read as if it were MacRoman?


Fixing Time Machine Backup Broken by Deleting Most Recent Backup with tmutil I broke my Time Machine backup by using tmutil delete on the most recent backup.  This meant that the "Latest" symlink no longer pointed to a valid location.  My attempts to create a replacement symlink have failed, probably due to some sort ACL issue or a problem with extended attributes.
Here is an attempt to recreate the symbolic link:
DeepThought:DeepThought cclark$ sudo ln -sn ./2020-12-20-161820 Latest
Password:
ln: Latest: Operation not permitted

Has anyone ever recovered from this situation?
I have tried disabling SIP, and have made sure that Terminal has been granted Full Disk access.  I have also tried creating an alias using Finder, which was successful but was not recognized by Time Machine.
The backup is on a Synology NAS.

The problem eventually worked itself out.  I think that choosing to verify the backup may have helped.


Mac issues: grey screen, cannot reinstall mac os from recover, unapproved caller Well, the past few days have been a near disaster. This whole problem started when I was using Chrome and I suddenly couldn't access pages. I checked Safari, and it wasn't working either. Since I was getting the "Oh snap!" page from Chrome, I X'd it out and tried to reopen it. Chrome's dock icon would just bounce once (usually it bounces until it opens) without opening. I tried to restart the computer, but the "Restart" and "Shut Down" buttons on the Apple Menu weren't working, so I held down the power button and did a force shutdown. When I tried to turn the MacBook back on, I was stuck in the grey screen forever. I have tried everything on the Apple troubleshooting pages. I tried Safe Mode and I was still stuck on the grey screen. I tried the Safe Mode showing progress, and for some reason I could get back in, but then the cycle began anew with Chrome not working.

I tried the PRAM reset or whatever it's called.

I finally tried to do a Mac OS X from the recovery. Sometimes it won't let me start the reinstall and other times it gets to like 6 minutes remaining and then it will suddenly stop.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I did all the verify disk and permissions and repairs in the Disk Utility in the recovery. I also ran the Apple Hardware Test, and it said nothing was wrong. At times when the computer was able to boot but having troubles I was getting an "unapproved caller" message.

In case anyone is interested, I took the Mac to the Apple Store and the issue was the Mac hard drive cable. They replaced it and it works fine now.


Expanding recently added songs In my iPhone is there a way to get more "recently added" songs?
I have about 100 songs and I have added recently 5, now in my "recently added" I've got only those 5.

Recently Added is a smart playlist. In iTunes, select it, go to File → Edit Smart Playlist, and change the criteria. For example:

Re-syncing your iPhone will apply these changes.


Possible to backup External Disk to Time Capsule regardless which machine it's connected to? Here's the scenario: I have two MacBook Pros (Foo and Bar), and their drive's are both called Macintosh HD. I have a Time Capsule called Time Capsule, which is used to back up both Foo and Bar. I also have an external disk called Stuff which I connect to both Foo and Bar.

Is it possible to have Stuff backed up to Time Capsule in such a way that regardless of whether Stuff is connected to either Foo or Bar, the same destination on Time Capsule is used? I.e. can an external disk connected to two different computers be backed up to the same Time Machine disk without duplication?

Seems like this might be possible with tmutil but I haven't been able to figure it out.

well good question and well described. It is possible to BackUp 2 Macbooks Fooand Barto one TimeMachine Disk.

I had some problems with SnowLeopard but with Mountain Lion it was a lot better and now with Mavericks it is working fine.

So if you have Mavericks installed on both it is no hassle so far in my Envirmonent (have 4 Macbooks and one TimeMachine Disk (in the Network))

Example of may TM Diks

TimeMachine
|- Macbook Pro Martin
|- iMac Martin
|- MacPro Martin
|- Macbook Air

 Folder has been renamed in this example

So the Devices are seperated in Folders on your TM Disk.


How to create an up to date ML recovery? There were several updates affecting the recovery partition. Is there a way to create an usb memory stick containing an up to date Mountain Lion recovery partition?

Yes,

Download Mountain Lion again from the App Store and create a bootable USB from the new downloaded files.

Either by using Disk Utility or by using Lion Disk Maker.

  Full tutorial can be found on Arstechnica website


With the release of iOS 11.2.1 an essential feature of my Apple TV was removed I have an 3rd generation Apple TV which I use as a home hub. After remote access was disabled from Apple because of CVE-2017-13903 and turned on again with iOS 11.2.1 it stopped working remotely for shared users with the Apple TV.

Here are the changes to HT207057:

This is the version of  Dec 15, 2017.

And here the version of Mar 27, 2017 as it looked on Sep 27, 2017:

I am a bit unhappy about this because I don't really use the Apple TV for watching, so it would be a bit overkill to buy a 4K one. What could I do?

You can buy an Apple TV 4 (not 4K), which is cheaper. Or if you have an iPad model that can be updated to iOS 11 (which is Air/Air 2, 5th gen or newer, or mini 2 or newer) use that as your home hub.

Otherwise you are out of luck. Even if 3rd generation Apple TV had a jailbreak available (it does not) to patch this feature back in, you're talking about encrypted communication between Apple devices and Apple's servers, which is extremely unlikely to be able to be replicated by a third party to reenable it.


OS X Native full on IDE I'm wondering if there is a good full on IDE for Mac. I know of and have tried Sublime, BBEdit, Coda, Espresso, Netbeans, Eclipse, Aptana, PHPStorm, WebStorm, Textmate and probably other that I don't remember.

What I mean by full on (which I believe excludes Sublime, BBEdit, Coda, Espresso and Textmate) is something like PHPStorm/NetBeans/Eclipse with a full feature set, intelligent code completion, code linking, etc.

I really like PHPStorm but it doesn't feel like a native OS X app and is really sluggish.

If anyone knows of IDE that I haven't mentioned above, would be much appreciated.

AFAIK Xcode can support web languages with some plugins, but all the informations I have are pretty old. http://web.archive.org/web/20110811093439/http://developer.apple.com/internet/scripting/phpappledevtools.html

And there are some projects to support autocomplete for PHP that I never really tried.
https://github.com/tonyjohnston/PHP-Xcode-Autocomplete

I'm very happy about PHPStorm, btw and I don't feel the need for a native IDE after moving to it from Eclipse/Aptana.


In Numbers, how to navigate on text inside a cell after pressing Control+Option+U? In Numbers we can use the ControlOptionU shortcut to edit text in a cell. Doing so the cursor goes to the end of the cell (the right side) here.
What if I want to edit in the middle of the text?
One approach might be to delete the text until the point I want to type something but I don't want to that for obvious reasons.
And if I press left/right keyboard arrows it goes to the other cell.
So how do I navigate the text in the current cell, the one I'm editing?
Perhaps I should mention I don't want to use mouse/touchpad.

You can press OptionEnter to start editing a cell the same way that double clicking will edit a cell. This will allow you to use your arrow keys, unlike ControlOptionU.
Interesting that there are two ways to do this, I wonder what the reasoning behind the command you found working the way it does is.


Calendar app changes colour of a calendar on its own I have 4 private calendars in my iCloud account, and I've been using them for the last 2~3  years with no problem.

I think it was last week when I first saw my blue calendar changing its colour to purple. I don't know who/what did it, but I just changed its colour back to blue and forgot about it.

Well today I checked my calendar and it's purple again. I changed it back to blue, but I get a feeling this might go on if I don't do something about it.

The last time I remember doing anything to my calendar settings was exporting the data at the end of last year. Other than that, I use the app everyday to set appts, change event date/time, delete event, etc.

Do you have any thoughts on what caused it or how to fix the problem for good?

The colors would come down from the iCloud servers if you set up a new calendar, so perhaps your device has sync issues.

You could try changing the color using the web interface or perhaps conider disabling calendar sync for a bit on the problem device. Once you're sure the color is set online, you can re-enable calendar sync from iCloud and see if the local version matches the online version settings.

If you don't want this potential change, sign out of iCloud on your Mac or subscribe to the calendars as opposed to syncing them.


Can I find out if my employer is snooping on me? I work at a large university and have a computer supplied by my employer.

There is apparently some sort of remote management that the help desk can use if I call them and accept their request to log onto my computer. Program updates are also pushed out automatically.

The machine runs Mac OS X, I have admin privileges and can install any software I want.

(Note that this is a technical question, not a policy one. Also note that I understand any computer can be hacked. This question is more pointed towards assessing typical threats from my friendly sysadmins and their equally benevolent bosses.)

I would like to find out whether my employer is snooping or can snoop on my files or activity on my computer. Can I find that out? How would I go about?

Typical software (Apple Remote Desktop, Casper, Absolute, VNC, etc) that allows remote monitoring of Macs will be reliant on a few things that the end user controls, assuming they have administrative privileges.

In System Preferences > Sharing a lot of this control is determined using these two preferences.

Remote Management is centered around the Apple Remote Desktop capabilities, which are shared with most management suites.  Screen sharing (or observing), file copying, reports, restart, shutdown, etc.
Remote Login allows others to login remotely via the command line, using SSH.

These are the two options that I set on all of our owned Macs.  With them I can remotely control, gather reports, copy files to/from, push updates, etc.

Another thing to look for is System Preferences > Profiles and/or other third party preference panes such as the Absolute Manage pane.  Both of these are only present if they've been installed.

Profiles will show any installed management profiles.  These could offer a wide range of control or settings.  Clicking on a profile will show you the options it sets though.

Third party panes (or plugins) may not be as transparent as profiles but will still give you a clue as to what management is in place.

Hope that helps!


How can I remove unchecked and deleted songs in iTunes from my iPhone? Music which I've deleted from library and/or unchecked still appears on iPhone 4 and plays with checked music even after syncing.  How can I delete music from iPhone so it does not play any more?

In iTunes, you can select the music to sync by track, playlist, artist, album, genre.

In order to delete a track from the iPhone, it shouldn't match any of the aforementioned criteria. Maybe the tracks are included in some smart playlist which is synced (Recent?).


Is it enough to install Xcode? I use OS X El Capitan. I installed Xcode 7 from AppStore and macports from an official website.

When I'm trying to install something using macports: sudo port install nodejs4, I'm getting the following warning: Warning: The Xcode Command Line Tools don't appear to be installed; most ports will likely fail to build.. But compiler (cc) works, make works, and I actually installed few macports packages without any problems.

Now if I run xcode-select --install, I'm getting dialog to install Developer Tools. But I think that Xcode already has all those tools:

$ xcode-select -p
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer

So the question is: is it some bug in macports or is there some tools not included with Xcode 7 which must be installed separately using xcode-select --install? I don't want to introduce unnecessary clutter.

So I've inspected macports sources and it turns out that this warning is displayed, when directory /usr/include or executable /usr/bin/make is missing. While I have working /usr/bin/make, directory /usr/include was indeed missing. Installing command-line tools using xcode-select --install fixed it.