Finding suitable SSD for my MacBook Air I have a MacBook Air (mid-2012, MacBookAir5,2). I'm really far from terminology of this subject, I have no idea what is flash memory and don't know if all MacBook SSDs must have a flash memory supported SSD drive. I see that there are some suitable SSD upgrades for my MBA on OWC. But I want to buy an SSD from a local technology market. So exactly which specs should I look for to understand which SSDs suitable with my MacBook Air.

How can I be sure, if I buy SSD it will work with my MBA?

Your MacBook Air (13" I presume) does not use a standard SSD drive in the 2.5" form factor that many others do. Instead it uses an SSD with a bare SATA connector on the end. It looks a bit like a standard memory DIMM.

I generally buy upgrade parts for my Macs via Other World Computing. there are others that are just as good, if you prefer, but this SSD upgrade would work for your system.

I would review the installation instructions to make sure it is something you feel comfortable doing.


How can I digitize scanned sketches similar to how Preview's signature feature does? When you use Preview's feature to use the Mac's camera to scan your signature for later insertion into documents, it does a fantastic job of digitizing your written piece so that it is rendered smoothly, I assume as vector, not raster.

I need that same feature for other uses, to scan sketches and work on them digitally.

But, of course, using the little signature feature in Preview does not work for most of them!

How can I utilize that same "scan-a-sketch-into-clean-vector-form" feature in a way other than using Preview's signature app?

THANKS --eric

You might want to try Vector Magic, it did very helpful turning my sketches into vector. It needs to be scanned first. We can adjust how detail the vector output.


Mac not going to sleep after iTunes stops playing Hardware/Software

MacBook Pro 17" 2009
Lion 10.7.3
iTunes 10.6

Issue

Unlike a lot of posts on the internet, my Mac actually goes to sleep just fine, usually.

However, if iTunes was playing something, and then I either explicitly stop it playing, or the movie/track/playlist comes to an end, it runs down the battery to zero!

I understand that iTunes doesn't let the Mac go to sleep if it's playing something, but if I explicitly press the stop/pause button, or the media stops playing, shouldn't the Mac go to sleep as per usual?

Anyway I can diagnose/fix this? is it a known issue?

cheers!

Check if really iTunes is causing this by opening a terminal and entering:

 pmset -g

If sleep is prevented by a process its ID is listed, like here:

 ...
 sleep      0 (imposed by 129)
 ...

Then check which process blocks going to sleep, in this example:

 ps -A | grep 129

   129 ??        37:39.06 /usr/sbin/coreaudiod

Then try killing (quitting) the process and check if you can send your computer to sleep, and if iTunes is still working. In this example it would be:

 sudo kill -3 129

Otherwise you could try re-installing iTunes, and/or repairing your file-premissions in Disk-Utility.


Troubleshooting HDMI connection between MBP and Sony Bravia TV I'm trying to connect my MacBook Pro (late 2011) running Mavericks to my Sony Bravia television like so: MBP thunderbolt port -> Mini DisplayPort cable -> HDMI cable -> TV HDMI 1 port.

However, I'm not getting any picture or sound on the television. Neither device has recognised the other.

Have I missed something out?

This problem could also be caused by a missing or improper HDCP signal coming from the MiniDisplayport-to-HDMI adapter.

I experienced the same issue with my MacbookPro (late 2008) and a Bravia TV. I tried one cable with a MiniDisplayport connector on one end and HDMI plug at the other. This worked fine between my MBP and a computer monitor or a beamer, but would not transmit any signal to a Sony Bravia TV. An adapter (of the cheaper kind) displayed the same behavior. The used HDMI cable was fine (tested between PS3 and the TV). Again, adapter and cable produced a proper signal on non-Bravia displays. A Dr. Bott MiniDisplayport-to-HDMI adapter finally solved the matter for me.


Downgrading OS X from Yosemite to Mavericks I stupidly downloaded the new OS X Yosemite 10.10 on my 2011 iMac that does all of my Pro Tools work and now some of the things I use aren't compatible yet. So I'm trying to figure out how to downgrade back to OS X Mavericks 10.9. I also stupidly don't have a Time Machine Backup or this would be way easier.

I learned you could install the old operating system with a clean install from a bootable drive with the installer on it, which I've figured out and made, but I don't know if there is a way to install it with wiping all the data on my system hard drive. I read you can transfer files back and forth from a Time Machine backup, but I can't seem to find out if I make a backup of my computer as it is, now with the current OS X 10.10, would those files and applications be transferrable to a clean install of OS X 10.9.

If there is a way to use my bootable install of OS X Mavericks and have it replace OS X Yosemite, and to keep all my files on the hard drive, that would be easiest.

Honestly I would make a clone of your current drive onto an external HD. Then boot from it to make sure it works.

Once that is done I would boot from your Mavericks install key (unplug your backup drive!), reformat the drive and install Mavericks. Once that is done boot to the fresh install and do all of your updates so you have the latest version of 10.9.

I would recommend doing all of this from a username/account that is different from the one you normally use. Migration Assistant will re-create your old user account later.

Re-install your applications (I would do this as there may have been Yosemite-specific) updates that were applied to your apps that Mavericks might not like).

Then use Migration assistant, point it to your backup drive and have it migrate your documents and settings to the fresh install of Mavericks. I would avoid migrating the apps for the reason above.

Now, hang onto that backup drive and make another clone before you do any point (10.10 to 10.10.1) or major upgrade (10.9 to 10.10) to your OS, so you can revert more easily in the future. I always do it, yeah it slows down the upgrade, but speeds up fixing the upgrade if it breaks your software.


Cannot update Numbers document on iPad I have a Mac, running OS X 10.10.2 and an iPad Mini running iOS 8.1

Both have the latest version of Numbers.

I have a spreadsheet, which I update roughly monthly on the Mac.
I have transferred this spreadsheet (and a couple of others) to the iPad using iTunes Apps/File Sharing/Numbers/Stored Documents.

I recently tried to update, but even though iTunes shows this as being modified, the iPad has an old version. (In fact this is an even older version from 17 November, so my past update mustn't have worked either.) I tried to delete the old, and create a new spreadsheet with a new name, but this doesn't work either.

How can I fix this?

I do have an iCloud account, but only use for Contacts and Calendar. I do not use iCloud Drive - and don't want to as I have older devices which don't support iOS 8.

I have resolved this issue. (More accurately Apple Support did.)

After adding spreadsheets to iTunes, you need to go to Numbers on the iPad. Select Spreadsheets, click "+" and select "Copy from iTunes" in the pop up menu.

I am not sure when this changed, as they used to appear automatically.


Is there a way to measure data traffic from airport extreme? We have lot of machines and occasionally experience slowness in some devices and wanted to see if it has something do with a device stealing the bandwidth. So I would like to measure the bandwidth utilized by each device.

Of course the other reason is our cable company. But I am afraid there will be revolt if I criticize them.

PeakHour on the Apple Store can use snmp to monitor the bandwidth usage of network routers (including AirPorts). I don't know if can measure individual clients though.

Larger scale you could use something like Cacti to monitor all of your devices and graph their statistics such as open connections, bandwidth, etc.


OS X Mail: Search within message (including header) I would like to search within an individual email message using OS X Mail version 5.3 or above (Lion, Mountain Lion). I would like this search to include the email header.

Using the menu item Edit > Find > Find… or Command-F via the keyboard I am able to search the entire message, exclusive of the header. I would like to search the header, also.

An example of how this would be used: An email message is sent to hundreds of recipients which you want to search to find a specific email address.

After months of assuming there was no solution to my inquiry, I stumbled on a way to search the entire contents of an individual OS X Mail Message, including headers.

First open the email message you want to search in it's own window. Before initiating your search, select the menu item View > Message > Raw Source or alternately Option-Command-U from the keyboard. This will bring forward a new menu with the entire plain-text content of your message, including extraneous information such as headers.

If you search this Raw Source version of your message using Command-F or Edit > Find > Find… from the menu, the search will include everything in the message, including the headers.

  Note: Although I'm currently using OS X Mail version 6.5, I verified that this technique also works at least back to version 5.3.


OS X Lion: Authorization Plugins I tried to install an authorization plugin on mac OS X 10.7 that previously worked on Snow Leopard but all I'm getting is a white screen with the cursor. Did something happen to authorization plugins in Lion? Is there a way to fix this?

PS. Something definitely changed considering the way it looks now.

Removing all the custom GUI from the plugin solved the problem


Need help creating Automator Service to perform similar tasks to a residual uninstall I've been having an issue with a program I use heavily every day, where it it acts like it is recovering from a crash even when it was quit properly and all files saved. The app is FontLab Studio, not that it should matter.  What happens is that it loads all the files I've worked on recently, which can be several dozen, and even if I click out of them all, it happens several more times throughout the day.  Or, something causes it to crash as I'm exiting these files so that I have to relaunch and it starts all over.

What I've been doing to avoid this, is to run AppCleaner, the free uninstaller, and delete everything but the App itself and the license info.  This works great, but given the frequency this is becoming necessary, I'd like to be able to create something I could access really  fast, like an Applescript that I could put in my dock.  Or an Automator service located in the contextual menu items.

I don't know any Applescript, but I tried to make an Automator workflow. The first step, "Get Selected Finder Items."
One has a static location, the second may change, I'm not sure.

~/Library/Saved Application State/com.fontlab.studio5.savedState

/var/db/BootCaches/34D6C504-2F5B-416F-9C91-0C9D019BF446/app.com.fontlab.studio5.playlist

The second step in the workflow is to move to the trash, and that's where it fails.  I suspect because these require a password?  If possible,  it would be great if I could enter it once and it remember, otherwise, how I'll need it to prompt me to enter my passkey.  I don't know the best way to do any of this.

I just had another thought, though it may not work as it would require FontLab to be open at the time, would be to accomplish this with a Python script, because FontLab is partially built in python and can install third party scripts.  I am open to whatever help anyone could offer.

Thanks in advance!

I do not have FontLab Studio installed however for the purpose of providing a solution to your situation, under OS X El Capitan 10.11.5, I did the following:

In a Terminal at /private/var/db/BootCaches, using sudo, mkdir and touch I created a directory named 34D6C504-2F5B-416F-9C91-0C9D019BF446 and in that directory a file named app.com.fontlab.studio5.playlist.
In Finder, in my Home folder's Library > Saved Application State folder, I duplicated a folder and renamed the copy to: "com.fontlab.studio5.savedState"

In doing so this replicated the target locations and files with appropriate privileges to then test the following AppleScript application on.

In Script Editor I used the following code to create the Reset FontLab Studio.app and saved it in the Applications folder of the Macintosh HD and then dragged it to the Dock so as to have it readily available to click on.

try
    do shell script "rm -r \"$HOME/Library/Saved Application State/com.fontlab.studio5.savedState\" /private/var/db/BootCaches/*/app.com.fontlab.studio5.playlist" with administrator privileges
end try

When I click on the Reset FontLab Studio Dock Tile it showed the password dialog box, as shown below, for me to type in my password. I typed in my password and pressed enter. That's it, the app did what it was programmed to do.

Notes:

As this code is tested I'd suggest copying and pasting it as is into Script Editor and then saving it as an application of whatever name you desire.
$HOME is being used because ~ can/will at times error out in AppleScript and or Automator, depending on its specific use. Normally ~ is expanded to the value of Environment Variable of HOME and thus I typically use $HOME over ~ to avoid errors that it can/will generate at times.
The substitution of * for 34D6C504-2F5B-416F-9C91-0C9D019BF446 is intensional, so as to accommodate the possible name change.
The try command is used so as to avoid an error if you run the Reset FontLab Studio app again before the target files are recreated and or if one or the other doesn't exist, it still deletes the other.
/var is a symbolic link to /private/var however I prefer using the absolute path over the symlink in cases such as this.
The use of the rm command is inherently dangerous, especially when used with elevated privileges and or wildcards, so to that end make absolutely sure there are no typos in your command line and that the targets are the intended targets.  This is why I tested my code before posting it.  You can also preface the rm command with echo, e.g echo rm ... and then review the output in the Script Editor's Events/Results pane and then remove echo before saving the script.

The image below it to show syntactical highlighting and to see the full command line of the do shell script command

If you're the only user of the computer and you like not to have to type in your password when the Reset FontLab Studio app runs, then modify the do shell script command using the following syntax:

do shell script "command" user name "me" password "mypassword" with administrator privileges

Example:

do shell script "rm -r \"$HOME/Library/Saved Application State/com.fontlab.studio5.savedState\" /private/var/db/BootCaches/*/app.com.fontlab.studio5.playlist" user name "me" password "mypassword" with administrator privileges

Note that when the script's code is saved the value of user name and password are saved in readable text within the application bundle's "main.script" binary file. So use this method at your own risk as it is considered to be a security risk storing user names and passwords that are stored in an unencrypted manner.


How To Restore Previous 3 sessions of Safari? Everywhere seems to tell you how to open the previous safari session but what about those before that?

I sent my macbook for repair & i only can open my last prev session which probably was opened up by the repair guy but he did not restore the sessions prior to the repair... Any idea how to restore the sessions before that?

To the best of my knowledge, Safari will only save the last session - and no previous sessions before it.

While it won't help you with your current predicament (as @Mark cites, a backup is your best bet), check out the Safari Restore extension which will enable you to manually save & restore different sessions (N.B.: it does NOT save different sessions automatically!).


update git repository with apple script I want to update my git Bitbucket online storage with apple script. This is the code that works in Terminal, but not when i run apple script.

cd /Users/mainuser/Desktop/Projects git add -A
git commit -m fromAppleScript
git push

crafted into apple script:

        say "updating backup"
        do shell script "cd /Users/mainuser/Desktop/Projects git add -A"
        do shell script "cd /Users/mainuser/Desktop/Projects git commit -m fromAppleScript"
        do shell script "cd /Users/mainuser/Desktop/Projects git push"

I am a bit puzzled why this code doesn't work. Can you help me out with this problem?

You appear to be using git as a file system back-up. Have you considered git-annex?

Learning git

git can be tricky to learn and debug. Consider mastering the steps you want via Terminal.app – with the help of the Git Book.

BitBucket support provides a wealth of examples and workflows to try and to learn from. Once you trust that process, automating via AppleScript will be much easier.

Fixing the Shell Script

To get you started, there are is a problem with the AppleScript. The script passed to do shell script will return an error:

do shell script "cd /Users/mainuser/Desktop/Projects git add -A"

Within these quotes you are issuing two commands: one to change directory, and the second to add files to git. These two commands need to be separated with a semi-colon:

do shell script "cd /Users/mainuser/Desktop/Projects; git add -A"

A better approach still, would be to tie the commands together with &&. This will mean that if the first command fails, the second command is not performed. This approach deals with the problem of a missing or renamed directory:

do shell script "cd /Users/mainuser/Desktop/Projects && git add -A"

Alternatively, to avoid working directory concerns try passing the full path to the git commands:

do shell script "git add -A '/Users/mainuser/Desktop/Projects'"


Minimize graphic effects for better performance? My computer becomes extremely slow when I connect TWO 27-inch thunderbold screens to it - a Macbook Pro Late 2013 (16Gb Ram/2.7 quad-core/Yosomite 10.10.1).
I am suspecting that the graphic card (NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 1024 MB) isn't strong enough to drive the 3 screens (including the built-in Retina).
I am looking for a way to minimize all graphic effects to speed my computer up.
Anyone have a (possible) solution?
Thanks in advance for reading and providing with suggestions.
Best.

You can go to system preferences, accessibility, display and check reduce transparency
You can also lower the resolution on the external monitors in the system preferences,displays menu.
and make sure automatic graphic switching is turned on in system preferences, energy saverAnd try setting the wallpaper to a solid color.


how can I use $HOME, ~ or environment variable in plist file of LaunchDaemons I want to run a program by use plist, eg

<key>Program</key>
<string>/the_path_to/startup.sh</string>

But the path could be changed in different system, so it would be nice if I can use an environment variable for the plist.

<key>Program</key>
<string>$HOME/startup.sh</string>

But it seems plist doesn't support environment variable. When I run the /Library/LaunchDaemons/startup.plist, I got error with message:

Invalid or missing Program/ProgramArguments

Is there anyway to work around?

Plists, or property lists, are just a file format for storing serialized objects - for example configurations or similar. The file format specifies how strings are stores, but it doesn't specify anything about higher level details - such as how file names are stored, parsed or otherwise dealt with.

This means that it is not possible to answer your question in general for plists.

The interpretation of $HOME, ~ and environment variables in general in plists are thus application specific. For some programs, it could work - for others it wouldn't. Depends entirely on how that program was made.

UPDATE: You have changed your question to be about LaunchDaemons specifically, and not about plists in general.

For /Library/LaunchDaemons/startup.plist it is not possible to refer directly to the environment variables you mention. They're not parsed and replaced with values by launchd. In addition it probably wouldn't have worked like you thought even if they were, because LaunchDaemons are run by root if nothing else is specified.

What you can do is refer a program in the startup.plist that when run can access the environment and do the variable substitution for you. For example like this:

<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
    <string>/bin/sh</string>
    <string>-c</string>
    <string>exec $HOME/startup.sh</string>
</array>


Can I change my 2011 iMac's graphic card from AMD's to nvidia Quadro? I do lot of video editing work, mostly on FCP & Avid and I feel Quadro card is way to go.
Do you think I can get it changed from Apple?

-Reddy

I don't even think the hardware would be compatible. Quite frankly, while you can open up the system and tinker with it, you have to worry about two things:

Form factor - The card is probably a different shape. Apple partners with other companies when designing a system and the fact that they put an ATI in there says something about the engineering of the machine.
Power & bus interface - These are likely less of an issue, but something to be aware of.

The iMac is a turnkey system, not an upgradable machine, like the Mac Pro (or, gasp, a PC). I'm sorry that this is not the answer you want to hear, but I don't think that Apple will do it. That said, it can't hurt to ask.


Only seeing ONE of two external HD's plugged into Apple Airport Extreme Here is the scenario:

I have TWO External TB drives.
They are both plugged into a Powered USB Hub.
That Powered USB Hub is plugged into the back of my Airport Extreme.
I can only see one.
They have both been formatted with OS Extended (journaled).
Each are visible if only ONE is plugged in (i.e.  TB_A can be seen if just TB_A is plugged in, and TB_B can be seen if TB_B is the only one plugged in)

Does anyone have any ideas?  So frustrated because it doesn't make much sense.

I've run into a similar problem using two flash drives, same size, same manufacturer. For whatever reason, the hub doesn't differentiate between the two. Try right-clicking on the drive that you can see and renaming it from "manufacturer xxxxx" or whatever it's called to something unique like "external drive A". Then shut down the entire setup (Mac, hub, Airport in that order) and restart everything (Airport, hub, Mac). That may help.


How do I disable the Mac App Store notification badge for successful updates? Since upgrading to Catalina, the App Store keeps its notification badge despite the app update automatically being installed in the background. Opening the App Store clears this badge and it will stay clear until the next update comes out (where it'll be installed automatically, so the badge is irrelevant).
Questions:

Is this the intended behavior, or is this an obscure bug?
If it is the intended behavior, does anyone know how to disable this while keeping automatic updates enabled?

I believe it’s a bug (not sure what would make it an “obscure bug”) and you should submit feedback to Apple at https://www.apple.com/feedback/macos.html
The reson I believe it to be a bug is because if you immediately open the App store, the erroneous badge immediately disappears meaning that upon launch of the app, it correctly indicates that there are none.  In fact, it appears that the badge is “reset” as it checks for updates with the update server.  I have personally seen mine go from 4 updates, then upon opening the App store, the badge disappear and then a few seconds later change to 1 update.
It’s entirely possible that the badge doesn’t update until the next automatic update check.
I don’t believe this to be intended behavior and obviously a nuisance, but it’s nothing that affects functionality.  You can easily fix the badge by opening and closing the App Store app.  I submitted feedback regarding this and I encourage you to do so as well.


AppleScript to find a tab by its name in Google Chrome I'v forgotten how to find a tab by its name and return the value (e.g tab 2) and eventually set the tab as the active tab too.

I've tried the following, but it's not working:

set titleString to "
"

tell application "Google Chrome"
    set window_list to every window # get the windows

    repeat with the_window in window_list # for every window
        set tab_list to every tab in the_window # get the tabs

        repeat with the_tab in tab_list # for every tab
            set the_title to the title of the_tab # grab the title
            if the_tab contains (Name to search" as text) then
                display notification "the_tab"
            end if
             return # concatenate
        end repeat
    end repeat
end tell

I also tried to start something with JavaScript:

tell application "Google Chrome"
    set window_list to every window
    repeat with the_window in window_list
        set tab_list to every tab in the_window
        tell tab_list to set TheTab to execute javascript "document.title"
    end repeat
end tell

But then I get:

  {«class CrTb» id 4 of window id 1 of application "Google Chrome",
  «class CrTb» id 9 of window id 1 of application "Google Chrome",
  «class CrTb» id 2 of window id 1 of application "Google Chrome",
  «class CrTb» id 189 of window id 1 of application "Google Chrome"}
  doesn’t understand the “execute” message.

How can I proceed?

Not being sure of the total scope of what you're trying to accomplish, the follow code may be more then you needed. However, it does allow for searching the Tab's Name and then sets the Tab containing the search string as the active tab.

The code below is a rework of the code presented in Find Safari Tabs with AppleScript. It would have been nice to have been able to change tell application "Safari" to tell application "Google Chrome" and the script worked, but because of the differences in the properties of a Tab between the two Apps, this is why that wouldn't work.

What this script does:

Displays a dialog box in which you type what to search for within the Names of the Tabs.
If the search string is matched in only one Tab, then that Tab is set to the active tab index, meaning that Tab is now the current tab. If there's more then one window, the window containing that Tab is brought to the front of all other Google Chrome windows.
If the search string makes multiple matches, then a list dialog is presented to choose from, then that Tab is set to the active tab index, meaning that Tab is now the current tab. If there's more then one window, the window containing that Tab is brought to the front of all other Google Chrome windows.
If the search string is not matched, a dialog box stating "No match was found!" is displayed.

set searchString to text returned of (display dialog "Enter a string to search for:" default answer "" with title "Find Google Chrome Tab")

tell application "Google Chrome"
    set win_List to every window
    set win_MatchList to {}
    set tab_MatchList to {}
    set tab_NameMatchList to {}
    repeat with win in win_List
        set tab_list to every tab of win
        repeat with t in tab_list
            if searchString is in (title of t as string) then
                set end of win_MatchList to win
                set end of tab_MatchList to t
                set end of tab_NameMatchList to (id of win as string) & ".  " & (title of t as string)
            end if
        end repeat
    end repeat
    if (count of tab_MatchList) is equal to 1 then
        set w to item 1 of win_MatchList
        set index of w to 1
        my setActiveTabIndex(t, searchString)
    else if (count of tab_MatchList) is equal to 0 then
        display dialog "No match was found!" buttons {"OK"} default button 1
    else
        set which_Tab to choose from list of tab_NameMatchList with prompt "The following Tabs matched, please select one:"
        if which_Tab is not equal to false then
            set oldDelims to (get AppleScript's text item delimiters)
            set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "."
            set tmp to text items of (which_Tab as string)
            set w to (item 1 of tmp) as integer
            set AppleScript's text item delimiters to oldDelims
            set index of window id w to 1
            my setActiveTabIndex(t, searchString)
        end if
    end if
end tell

on setActiveTabIndex(t, searchString)
    tell application "Google Chrome"
        set i to 0
        repeat with t in tabs of front window
            set i to i + 1
            if title of t contains searchString then
                set active tab index of front window to i
                return
            end if
        end repeat
    end tell
end setActiveTabIndex


Where is macOS's incompatible apps blacklist stored? TinkerTool 5's System Maintenance pane has an app blacklist tab:

https://www.bresink.com/osx/300644207-2/Docs-en/pgs/0110-Info.html

In this menu is a list of apps Finder will refuse to launch, because Apple thinks they're incompatible with the newest version of macOS. Apple is sometimes wrong—some of these apps will (mostly) work if launched via the Terminal. (One prominent example was iMovie HD in macOS Yosemite)

Where in the file system is this blacklist actually stored? Could a SIP-disabled machine make changes to it?

On Catalina, the incompatible apps are likely determined programmatically when they reference any 32 bit libraries, so that’s an easy check. During installation and migration, the package that contains the blacklist is downloaded:

When I upgrade from 10.12 to 10.13 High Sierra - where do incompatible items go?

I’m not finding any remnants of that file left around - com.apple.pkg.CompatibilityUpdate but you can see things that are moved to the Incompatible Software folder at the root.

Also, for Catalina, there are efforts to package just enough libraries to run old favorite apps even though Apple isn’t shipping the libraries needed.

https://tidbits.com/2019/09/18/moving-to-catalina-keep-your-32-bit-mac-apps-running-with-parallels/
https://www.parallels.com/blogs/catalina-32-bit-apps/
https://www.dpreview.com/news/1439854984/this-app-can-modify-aperture-and-iphoto-so-they-will-continue-to-work-with-macos-catalina
https://github.com/cormiertyshawn895/Retroactive

Since Retrocative is open source, there’s hope interested people can log apps they want, contribute or fund people that are able to generate the code needed for preserving vintage bits on more modern OS.


How do I type piecewise functions in pages? Is it possible to use equation editor to write piecewise functions?

e.g.

You can enter the equations in pages using LaTeX and MathML with Insert -> Equation... or pressing ⌥ alt+⌘cmd+E.

It'll look like this:

|x| = \begin{cases}
 -x, & \mbox{if } x < 0 \\
 x,  & \mbox{if } x \ge 0
\end{cases}

This will produce:

Note: The easies way to get the LaTeX representation of the function is to insert it into builtin app called Grapher, right clicking on the function -> "Copy LaTeX Expression"


Automator finish one task before moving on? I have automator running several applescript commands that I want to happen sequentially. For example, I have an empty trash command, then a shut down command. When I run the script, the computer shuts down before the trash empties more than a few files.

How do I make sure that automator completes one task before moving on?

I also have a terminal command for backing up using time machine. I would also like that one to finish before the shut down.

Unfortunately empty trash is a message sent to Finder, and, from Automator's point of view, the task finishes when the message is sent.

In this conversation there's a possible solution. You have to modify your Applescript task with a check on the size of the trash:

tell application "Finder"
    set first_size to ""
    set second_size to " "
    set trash_folder to (path to trash folder)

    empty trash

    repeat until first_size is equal to second_size
        set first_size to size of (info for trash_folder) as integer
        delay 2
        set second_size to size of (info for trash_folder) as integer
    end repeat
end tell

This way the task will not end until the size of the trash stops decreasing.

If you use tmutil for time machine backup terminal command, there is a -b option for startbackup command that tells the script to wait until the backup is finished before exiting.


Why does running afconvert result in error -43 I am trying to use afconvert to convert a .mp3 to .m4r. I am entering the following:

afconvert -f m4af -d aac -o input.mp3 tone.m4r

However, this gives me an error:

Error: Couldn't open input file (-43)

I am in the directory of the input file. Could someone please shed some light on what I am doing wrong?

Drop the -o flag, I think. You are specifying input.mp3 as an output file, and then tone.m4r becomes the input file. See the output of afconvert -h.


Do we need to disable the trim on an 3rd party SSD before updating a Mac? I have a MacBook Pro 13-inch Mid 2012 and I installed an SSD in it. I'd like to upgrade my computer, but I'm not sure if I need to disable the trim before the update and reenable it after. I've heard that it could cause problems, but don't know why.

I have macOS Sierra 10.12.6 and I've enabled the trim since I switched to this operating system.

TRIM is a subset of the ATA commands specific to SSDs.

Can you operate without it?  Sure, but it will treat your SSD as if it were a spinning HDD - impacting performance and lifespan.

From Wikipedia:

  The TRIM command enables an operating system to notify the SSD of
  pages which no longer contain valid data. For a file deletion
  operation, the operating system will mark the files sectors as free
  for new data, then send a TRIM command to the SSD. After trimming, the
  SSD will not preserve any contents of the block when writing new data
  to a page of flash memory, resulting in less write amplification
  (fewer writes), higher write throughput (no need for a
  read-erase-modify sequence), thus increasing drive life.

If your MacBook Pro came with an SSD, it's enabled by default.  If not, you must enable TRIM when you upgrade to an SSD.


How to periodically run a script/command when a specific application is being used? I would like a certain applescript to run every 10 seconds but only when a specific application is being used (i.e. both being the front application AND the mouse or keyboard being used in the last few seconds).

How can I create such a trigger?

This runs say a if the time since the last HID (pointing device or keyboard) event is over 3 seconds and if the frontmost application is iTerm:

while sleep 10;do [[ $(ioreg -c IOHIDSystem|awk '/HIDIdleTime/{print $NF/1000000000;exit}'|awk '$0>3') && $(lsappinfo visibleProcessList|cut -d\" -f2) = iTerm ]]&&say a;done

Different ways to get the name of the frontmost application:

lsappinfo visibleProcessList|cut -d\" -f2
lsappinfo find ASN=$(lsappinfo front)|cut -d\" -f2
osascript -e 'name of app (path to frontmost application as text)'
osascript -e 'tell app "System Events" to name of process 1 where frontmost is true'


Changing Mac Book Pro 2012 admin Password I purchased a fairly used Mac Book Pro 15" mid 2012 which works well, however, I noticed that the past user is still logged to the system which I don't have the password.

Is there anyway I can change the admin password without the access to the current password?

Thanks.

You need to wipe the machine & start afresh.

Currently, everything on the machine belongs to the previous owner - including the OS itself. Eventually you will need their Apple ID & password before you can update things.

Additionally - you have no idea what spyware, keyloggers etc they may have put on it. The chances may be low but they are not impossible.

See Apple KB - What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your Mac The previous owner should have done the first 5 steps; you'll have to start from step 6.


Cannot find users on login screen - only guest login available I am using OS X Mavericks and when I boot the machine I only see the guest login.
When I log in as a guest everything functions correctly but I can't access my files.. I ran OSX utilities and all my drives were verified with no errors.

How do I find my accounts again?

When at the login screen showing just the Guest user hold down Option  or alt and the right arrow key.  It will populate more users if they exist.

If that doesn't work you can boot into either single user mode (guide to boot to single user) or Restore partition and open terminal.app and run this command:

defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow SHOWFULLNAME -bool yes

This will change the login window to be the name and password field.  Then you can enter your username.


Can my Apple ID password be recovered in Keychain Access? Is it possible to find an Apple ID/iCloud password in Keychain Access? Where can I find it?

2020 note: looks like this is not possible anymore, keychain just stores tokens (encrypted version of password)


Enable random message at login screen In Mavericks it is possible to to show a custom message on the logon/lock screen.
This can be done via "Preferences" -> "Security" -> "Show a message when the screen is locked".

Now I'm wondering if it is possible to display a message that is randomly read from a provided text file and changes every time at logon. For example I'd like to have a file "quotes.txt" with each line being a quotation such that I get some kind of "Quote of the Day" feature.

I guess this could easily be achieved by a script running whenever the users logs off (log in would be possible as well, I suppose), that reads in a random line and sets the "lock screen message" string accordingly. So I'm basically asking, if there is a way to access this string for example via command line to programmatically change it.

You can set the text from Terminal by running

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow LoginwindowText "your text here"

The text is displayed in three lines with a max length of 68 characters each so it it might help to pre-select/format the quotes to match these limitations.


netstat output: wider columns on OS X? I'm using netstat on OS X.  How do I get wider columns?

It looks like some of information (in Local Address column) is clipped for hostnames, IP and mac address.  I did not see anything in the manual.  Thanks

$ netstat
Active Internet connections
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q  Local Address          Foreign Address        (state)
tcp6       0      0  xxxx-macboo.1024  fe80::b3ac:b3c2:.1024  SYN_SENT
tcp6       0      0  2601:18c:c900:50.64154 2a04:4e42:1c::76.https ESTABLISHED
tcp4       0      0  10.0.0.11.64124        47.224.186.35.bc.https ESTABLISHED
tcp4       0      0  10.0.0.11.64120        10.0.0.6.59092         ESTABLISHED
tcp4       0      0  10.0.0.11.64106        205.245.190.35.b.https ESTABLISHED

Unfortunately I don't believe there are options to give you exactly what you want and prevent Local Address from being truncated (note that the entry beginning 2601:18c in your example is an IPv6 address, not a MAC address). Option -W (In certain displays, avoid truncating addresses) seems that it will give what you want but it still truncates hostnames and IPv6 addresses.

The following netstat options can get you most of the way there:

-l    Print full IPv6 address

-n    Show network addresses as numbers...

Using a combination of those two options (netstat -ln)  will give you un-truncated IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. Once you have those, you can use, eg host, to do a DNS lookup of the IP address in order to get the hostname if a PTR record exists for it.


Problems running Lion Server for 10.6 Client (as Calendar-/Adressbook-Server)? Has anyone run 10.7 as a Server (for iCal and Adressbook) for 10.6-Clients? Did you encounter any Problems one should be aware of before upgrading?

TIA

Not everything is working smoothly.
We notice that 10.6.8 clients among them have issues with delegated calendars; if user A logs in to the CalDAV server and connects properly, the calendars are downloaded to the client and the own calendar plus the delegated calendars are shown.

When user B creates an account and logs in, chances are that she can successfully connect to the server but by then user A sees his account changed to B and everything in his iCal calendar is wiped. Disabling (taking the calendar offline) the calendar and adding account A again adds the data back in.

At that moment user B sees a blanked calendar and her name changed to A. Disabling this A calendar and re-entering the account for B puts things straight. Sort of.

This has happened multiple times; two users had the problem among them, then another group of four users had the same problem. You just have to keep disabling and re-adding the desired account until all users see only the account they need.

A peculiarity of delegation is that when adding delegates, only three, not more and not less, letters of a delegate should be typed to get a popup that you can actually choose (by pressing Enter). UNLESS the short user name consists of only three or four letters. In that case, the ENTER is rejected, you cannot choose the delegate and you HAVE to ADD a space and one more (fake?) letter. Then the three or four lettered username pops up which you then CAN select. Weird. Now the user is delegated.

Another issue we have is that changes made in a delegated calendar do not always trickle up to the server; consistently from some 10.6.8 clients, but not every client. Neither when you have 'push', nor when you have 'every x minutes'. Annoying.

10.7 clients work flawlessly as far as we can see.


iPhoto vs Photo stream vs Image capture What is the difference between iPhoto/Photo Stream/ Image Capture?

I hope, all the three is using photos. But WHAT is the difference?

iPhoto is a digital photograph manipulation software, part of the iLife suite.

Photo Stream is functionality by which when you take a photo on one device, it will automatically appear on all your other devices, without syncing nor sending.

Image Capture is the Application developed by Apple which enables users to upload pictures from digital cameras, scanners, or iDevices.


CTRL key not working properly After having cleaned my mac with some antistatic foam product, weird keyboard problems started happening:

with keyboard viewer, pressing CTRL does not enable CTRL, however if I press LEFT SHIFT, it enables BOTH SHIFT KEYS AND CTRL.
This quite a handicap because I use modifier keys regularly.

(I did reset the SMC and the PRAM, noticing that the combo SHIFT-CTRL-ALT-POWERBUTTON (PRAM combo) works, which makes me think the issue is at the software level, not hardware.)

thanks for your answers :)

If the product you used to clean the keyboard was wet, you could have created a short in the keyboard or perhaps even corroded the contacts under the Control key.

Two outcomes:

You give it a few days to dry out.
You buy a new keyboard.

Hopefully #1 will take care of it for you!

In the past, I've scrubbed nasty, dirty keyboards with a firm brush and water under a bathtub faucet and then let the keyboard dry out for a week. However, that was not the low-profile "laptop like" keyboard that Apple has been providing for the last decade, so I can't say that I've done it on modern Mac keyboards. But that all being said, the key thing is that clean water (NO SOAP!) should leave no residue (unless your water is very hard) and as long as you don't introduce electricity into the mix while it is still wet, you shouldn't be risking creating permanent short circuit damage.


Hard Disk GPT Header Corrupted I have replaced my Mac's original hard drive and now trying to use it as an external hard disk with an enclosure. However I have ran in to the below issue and I cannot access any data on this disk anymore.

Axiom:~ migara$ sudo gpt show -l /dev/disk3
    start        size  index  contents
        0           1         PMBR
        1  1465149167

Axiom:~ migara$ sudo gdisk /dev/disk3
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.1

Caution: invalid backup GPT header, but valid main header;
regenerating backup header from main header.

Caution! After loading partitions, the CRC doesn't check out! Warning!
Main and backup partition tables differ! Use the 'c' and 'e' options
on the recovery & transformation menu to examine the two tables.

Warning! One or more CRCs don't match. You should repair the disk!

Partition table scan:
MBR: protective
BSD: not present
APM: not present
GPT: damaged

****************************************************************************
Caution: Found protective or hybrid MBR and corrupt GPT. Using GPT,
but disk verification and recovery are STRONGLY recommended.
****************************************************************************

Command (? for help): p
Disk /dev/disk3: 1465149168 sectors, 698.6 GiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): BD148DB7-177A-4219-9CA1-F7C2884DB38B
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 1465149134
Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundaries
Total free space is 262157 sectors (128.0 MiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1              40          409639   200.0 MiB   EF00  EFI System Partition
   2          409640       732144615   348.9 GiB   AF00  Customer
   3       732144616       733414151   619.9 MiB   AB00  Recovery HD
   4       733414152      1464886983   348.8 GiB   AF00  Macintosh HD 2
  25       183143645               6   16.0 EiB    FFFF  TEST
  57           51205        91518076   43.6 GiB    AF00
  58        91518077        91676768   77.5 MiB    AF00

Command (? for help): q
Axiom:~ migara$ diskutil list /dev/disk3
/dev/disk3 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *750.2 GB   disk3
   1:                       0xEE                         93.8 GB    disk3s1

Could someone please help me? (@klanomath)

Thanks a lot for taking a look at it. I managed to repair this by creating partitions again.

I could find the GUIDs for each partition with gdisk

Axiom:~ migara$ sudo gdisk /dev/disk3
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.1

Caution: invalid backup GPT header, but valid main header; regenerating
backup header from main header.

Caution! After loading partitions, the CRC doesn't check out!
Warning! Main and backup partition tables differ! Use the 'c' and 'e' options
on the recovery & transformation menu to examine the two tables.

Warning! One or more CRCs don't match. You should repair the disk!

Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: damaged

****************************************************************************
Caution: Found protective or hybrid MBR and corrupt GPT. Using GPT, but disk
verification and recovery are STRONGLY recommended.
****************************************************************************

Command (? for help): i
Partition number (1-58): 1
Partition GUID code: C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B (EFI System)
Partition unique GUID: 809BE30A-C34D-46BF-9135-545BCA0367F4
First sector: 40 (at 20.0 KiB)
Last sector: 409639 (at 200.0 MiB)
Partition size: 409600 sectors (200.0 MiB)
Attribute flags: 0000000000000000
Partition name: 'EFI System Partition'

Then create partitions with gpt.

Axiom:~ migara$ sudo gpt add -b 40 -i 1 -s 409600 -t C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B disk3
disk3s1 added
Axiom:~ migara$ sudo gpt add -b 409640 -i 1 -s 731734976 -t 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk3
gpt add: disk3: error: entry at index 1 is not free
Axiom:~ migara$ sudo gpt add -b 409640 -i 2 -s 731734976 -t 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk3
disk3s2 added
Axiom:~ migara$ diskutil unmountDisk disk3
Unmount of all volumes on disk3 was successful
Axiom:~ migara$ sudo gpt add -b 732144616 -i 3 -s 1269536 -t 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk3
disk3s3 added
Axiom:~ migara$ diskutil unmountDisk disk3
Unmount of all volumes on disk3 was successful
Axiom:~ migara$ sudo gpt add -b 733414152 -i 4 -s 731472832 -t 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk3
disk3s4 added
Axiom:~ migara$ diskutil unmountDisk disk3
Unmount of all volumes on disk3 was successful

Thanks again!


What is a good OSX incremental backup software (not time machine) So I used to use CCC to clone my external drive to another external drive for a backup copy.

What I realized is that I want incremental backup that is versioned. So I can go back to a copy that is on a specific date in the past.

I don't want to use time machine for this because right now TM is already being used to backup my main drive to a time capsule.

As far as I know, I can't setup TM to backup my main drive to time capsule while choosing to backup an external drive to another location.

I guess I'm looking for 3rd party solution here?

Take a look at Crash Plan. It allows you to backup to a disk, machine on the network, or the cloud. It has options for how long to retain items and what to ignore.


Which CPU option on the iMac Pro gives you two FMAs? I know for Skylake X you need a 61xx or better CPU to get two FMAs, but it’s not clear what the situation is with Skylake W ? Everything I have found for Skylake W just says “up to two FMAs”, without any specific detail as to which CPUs have 1 and which have 2?

Only a few low-end 4 core Skylake W CPUs are limited to one FMA. Even the entry-level iMac Pro has an 8 core CPU, so it would appear that all iMac Pro configurations will have two FMAs.


When we toggle between enable and disable safari extensions, where will the state go and sit on different mac os? After some research got to know that security find-generic-password -l "Safari Extensions List" -g command gives the extensions and their states. The output of the command is not in readable format. I tried saving the password as a plist and opening it, but then it is same. Can someone please guide me how to get the safari extension enable/disable state on different mac versions?

Ok so i looked at this and it's a total hack.

Run command with the extension installed, you will see it's name within the field.

Delete the extension from ~/Library/Extensions/Extension_you_Want

Open Safari

Close Safari

Run command again

the item is missing from the password list


Two developer License under same Apple ID we already have one developer license. Now we want to buy one more developer license. Is it possible under the same AppleID? We want to buy one more license under the same company name , same apple Id, basically apple ID(having agent role) is legal owner. So under same apple id wanted to buy 2nd license.

If no what are the alternate ways...

Please note  Entity Type: Company / Organization

No it is not possible with the same Apple ID.

You can simply just create a new Apple ID, then join the developer program (as Individual), then your company can invite you to the team as a Admin or Member. Pick Admin to have access to the tools and profiles just like user #1.

Every time you log in you will be asked if you want to be logged into your Individual account, or your company account you are apart of, just choose the company team.

Note: Your company account needs to be a entity type, 'Company / Organization'. This will not work for entity type 'Individual'.  As an 'Individual' count as 1, you can't have any other members.


Creating a simple magazine for school? We are an Apple school with Macs and iPads. I'd like us to start a magazine that's digitally distributed but Newsstand apps would be too complex (plus there's no revenue model) from what I have read on this site. On the other hand, the iPad app Creative Book Builder is too simple. Using web based applications like Glossi.com has limitations in Safari.

Ideally, I'd like to:

Work on iPads (in an app) OR Macs
Work collaboratively

Any suggestions? I don't mind if the collaborative element is restricted to that different students send me the different parts, but the compiling and distribution should lead to the magazine being readable on our iPads.
Any suggestions for an app or workflow? Thanks.

It seems to me that if your okay with the work being done on Macs, the starting point would be to check out Apple's own iBooks Author (free, app store). It has a variety of layout choices and distributes through the iBookstore (including at a price of free, if that's what you want). I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "there's no revenue model" but this sounds most promising to me.


Are the Apple text-to-speech voices copyrighted? I want to use an excerpt of an OS X text-to-speech voice in a song that I am recording. Is there any kind of copyright restriction for recordings of the computer voice I should know about, or are they totally free for anyone to use for any purpose?

You are not free to use them for any purpose, only for personal, non-commercial use while running Apple software. Read Mac OS X Lion Software License Agreement for full details (section G, it is rather short and clear):

  Voices Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, you may use the system voices included in the Apple Software (“System Voices”) (i) while running the Apple Software and (ii) to create your own original content and projects for your personal, non-commercial use. No other use of the System Voices is permitted by this License, including but not limited to the use, reproduction, display, performance, recording, publishing or redistribution of any of the System Voices in a profit, non-profit, public sharing or commercial context.


Move rows or columns with keyboard shortcuts in Numbers Looking for a way to move rows and columns using the keyboard. This would obviously be based on the currently-selected cell — regardless of whether or not the row or column is selected.

On a related note, looking for a keyboard shortcut to select the row or column of the currently-selected cell.

AFAIK you can't.

The closest you can get is highlighting a row/column/cell, and long-pressing (or force touching) then dragging, to insert/replace somewhere else. Also, highlight one of the above and pressing Option-ArrowKey (substitute ArrowKey for an arrow key) to insert a row/column/cell in the direction of the arrow key.

Here is a link to the Numbers Keyboard Shortcuts help.


How to control a scanner via an iPad? i've an HP AirPrint enabled scanner / printer. I would like to scan something and then send it to an eMail. This, only using an iPad. Is it possible ?

HP doesn't make any iOS apps with this functionality, no - have you tried opening the printer's webpage in Safari on the iPad however?

None of my OfficeJet 6500 or 4500 printers can run the scan functions from their status pages, but perhaps your model is slightly different.


Screensaver does not offer option to use any photos On iMac with Yosemite, my screensaver has lost the option to use photos.  Where there should be an option to select a photos folder there is only a bar "Screen Saver Options" i.e. color, speed etc of the cg saver options which are still available.  If I try to select a photo option e.g. "Photo Mobile" I get an endless rotating color disk.

I have tried reinstalling Yosemite, deleting all screensaver-related plists in preferences and rebuilding iPhoto, with no luck.

Any suggestions?

[[Note: if you see a spinning "Beachball" it may be that your photo library is quite large so the processor may need time to display everything.  You may find that placing photos you wish to display in a folder stored outside of iPhoto or the Photos app will improve performance.]]

Assuming you have photos in a folder or imported into the Photos app, this procedure should help.

Go to System Preferences
Select Desktop & Screen Saver
Select the Screen Saver tab
Choose one of the photo type screen saver options such as Floating or Reflections
From the Source pop-up menu select your source from Photos or a folder with your pictures by selecting Choose Folder... or Photo Library...


The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition I have two partitions on my MAC both formatted as Mac OS Extended but only one has macOS on it. When I start the Bootcamp Assistant to install Windows 10 I get the following message:

How to fix this issue? Do I have to erase the other partition?

Yes, collaps the second partition into the OSX partition. After that you have one partition.
Then use Bootcamp to Partition/install Windows


OSX Yosemite Can't disable four-finger swipe Intro

I want to set a custom gesture for the four finger swipe left/right, but I noticed that four finger swipe was switching between spaces. I went in to system preferences->Trackpad and changed "Swipe between full screen apps" to be three fingers instead of four.

The Problem

Even though I have set three finger swipe be the "change spaces" gesture, four-finger swipe hasn't been disabled and it is ALSO switching spaces.

What I want

The reason why this is annoying is because I am setting a custom gesture with BetterTouchTool, the space switching is happening at the same time as the gesture I want.

I want four finger swipe (between spaces) to be completely disabled so it wont happen at the same time as my custom gesture. Because setting it to three fingers in system preferences seems to do nothing.

I resolved this issue by keeping four-finger-swipe as the change spaces gesture, and using three-finger-swipe as my custom gesture instead.


Glass panel compability for iMac 21.5'' late-2012 (A1418 - EMC 2544) Do 21.5'' iMacs from other years use the same glass panel than the A1418 of late-2012 ?

Not only the screen diagonal 21.5'' must be same, but also the height, width, thickness, and width of the black frame.
It would be to replace a broken panel, whilst the LCD is undamaged.

After several readings on the web, it seems that the late-2012 and 2013 model share the same panel. Mine was a LM215WF3 (SD)(D1) from LG.

The 2011 model uses another display.

The 2012/2013 model use kind of monolithic display where you cannot replace only the glass independantly from the LCD.


Could software cause the iPhone's home button to become unresponsive? Possible Duplicate:
  Flaky iPhone 4 Home Button

I've got an iPhone 4, and for a while now the home button has been quite unresponsive.  Sometimes I need to press the button around 5 or 6 times for it to register.  However, I noticed that once I restore it to factory settings, the home button goes back to normal.

Once I put my apps and music on the iphone once again, the home button problem reappears.  Has anyone heard of a problem like this, or is it just a coincidence? What can be done to fix it? Should I reinstall iTunes and re-download all my apps?

Do you close your open applications often? If you tap twice on your home button so the last used apps bar on the bottom comes up there if you hold any of those icons for about 2 seconds pushed in, where after they will start to jiggle and you'll see an red close icon on the top left of those recently opend apps icons will show. Tap that! and the app will close and make space in memory. If opening up memory by hand doesn't work I'd suggest you check the connection of the button.


Deleting a 'No such file or directory' file I recently swapped out the CD drive on my Macbook Pro late 2011 for a hard drive. On that hard drive there were some files that I wanted to delete, as per usual I moved them to the Trash. Now that they're in there they can't be deleted because due a to a message saying that the "folder is currently still in use". I located the folder to be on my newly added hard drive in its /.Trashes/ folder. I accessed this directory through the terminal and executed the command "sudo rm -rf /.Trashes/", however upon execution the message "No such file or directory" is noted after each of the folders within. I keep reading that this problem is something to do with 32 bit and 64 bit architecture confusion but if I'm honest I don't really understand what this means.

There is no option to reinstate the folder in the Trash ("Put back") and I can't forcefully remove the folder on my new hard drive that is stopping it from being in use. I've also accessed my /.Trash/ folder on my OS hard drive and done the same command ("sudo rm -rf /.Trash/") with no such luck.

Does anyone have any idea how I can go about deleting these files so they're removed from my trash and new hard drive?

Removing a .Trashes directory or a .Trash directory is the wrong approach. You want to just remove the files and directories within your .Trashes or .Trash directory. Assuming your shell is bash you can list those file system objects in your .Trashes directory with find. In this example the secondary hard drive is named backup.

find /Volumes/backup/.Trashes/"$UID" ! -name "$UID"

If the results are the files you wish to delete then you can add -delete to the find statement. Please be very careful applying this option.

find /Volumes/backup/.Trashes/"$UID" ! -name "$UID" -delete

For files in your home folder's .Trash directory

find ~/.Trash ! -name .Trash -delete


OS X Yosemite attempts to eject external drives after sleep I have 2 external drives that I use respectively for Time Machine and for all my work. I installed OS X Yosemite today and now every time my iMac goes to sleep (I never turn my macs off) it attempts to eject them. This never happened before and is a pain as all my work could potentially get lost or corrupted. Help!

I used to have the same problem, but since installed an app called "Mountain". It allows me to customize which volumes to eject and also re-connect for me on wake. It is not a free app, but it's worth the $5.99 (as of the time I write this).

http://appgineers.de/mountain/

Note, I don't work for them nor am I connected to them in any way. I just like the app and have had great results with it doing exactly what you're doing and more. (I move my macbookpro from 3 locations, where I have different external volume configurations.)


Looking for a good FPS on Mac OS X Lion I'm looking for a good FPS (read like COD4) on Mac OS X Lion. I'm particular about this point as some of the old games don't install or even don't run at all even when copied from a previous install due to the missing rosetta layer in Lion.

I already own all the steam play FPSs on steam, Modern Combat domination, Uberstrike and Red Crucible 2.

Are there other gems you could recommend. I know they are not all on the App Store and on Steam. And actually good mods for HL2, or Quake 3 would be welcome.

I don't feel like paying for COD4 a 4th time I already bought it twice due to a lost installation key and once more on steam when I till had a windows computer. Mainly as the current price is 6 times superior to what I paid on steam.

A game that I've loved for a long time, with a pretty good online community is uRt.

ioUrbanTerror is a FPS built on the quake engine utilizing speed across successive jumps, squat-sliding at speed, and modern swat vs terrorist weapons and maps that could be compared to Counter Strike source.


Why are subscribed podcasts appearing more than once on my iPod touch 5g? After c. 5 years, I 'upgraded' from a 3g touch to a 5g model. I soon noticed that the list of podcasts shown on the iPod was getting longer and longer. There were at least 3 copies of each podcast source in the list.

I'm on iOS 8.4.1 and I just deleted all the podcasts from the iPod and then also from my iTunes and resubscribed to the podcasts I regularly hear.

It's only been a few days but the iPod now shows 2 copies of each subscribed podcast.

Is there anyone who can explain to a simple software engineer what I might be doing wrong? After all I'm not new to the iPod but I cannot figure out what's going wrong here.

I had this issue with multiple copies podcasts on iOS 8.

The new version on iOS 9 seems to have fixed this if you also make sure the podcast is subscribed on both iOS and iTunes.

The alternative is downcast to old iOS which had podcasts as part of Music as that worked perfectly for me.


Mavericks HDD swapped while in sleep mode is now unreadable Recently I was attempting to upgrade from mavericks to Yosemite and was having difficulty getting Yosemite to run.  I left the machine running rather than shutting down and it went into sleep mode.
Several hours later I took out the Yosemite disk and replaced it with the one on which Mavericks was installed and hit the start button only to have the computer come to life immediately and started writing to the Mavericks HDD.  Needless to say I now have a corrupted Mavericks installation with about 500 gigabytes of images and video recordings which I cannot access.

Is there any way to recover files off this disk or should I just wipe it cut my losses.

Oh man - that's a bad situation. All is certainly not lost.

I would start by calling one or two data recovery services to get a quote from them. Once you have that, consider you could pay $99 for software that would look over the drive and offer to recover files.

With those estimates, you can decide if your time and photos are worth further efforts to salvage or if you just write them off and erase the drive to start over.


SMC sensors failure while running on battery I have problem with SMC in MacBook Air 2016. While running on battery, data from SMC module freezes. In iStat Menus temperatures from sensors, RPMs, current meters and voltage meters from CPU aren't refreshing. Also fan sometimes switches on high RPM and runs continuously, even when laptop is quite cold. When I plug in charger, fan goes back to 1200 RPM and temperatures are being normally refreshed. I had this issue propably even before updating to Mojave. I tried resetting SMC, but nothing happens. What is the possible reason for this issue?

You've already reset the System Management Controller, which was the first thing to try, so I would probably start with testing to see if this behaviour is replicated when booted into Safe Mode and if the issue persists then running Apple Diagnostics.

Boot into Safe Mode

Follow these steps to boot your Mac into Safe Mode:

Fully shut down your MBA
Restart your MBA
Immediately press the Shift key and keep it down
Let go of the Shift key when you see the login window (NOTE: If you have FileVault enabled you may need to log in twice).
Take a note of what happens (i.e. does your MBA still seem to behave strangely when running on battery, etc)
Exit Safe Mode by restarting your MBA as normal
Test again when booted normally

If the problem doesn't occur while booted into Safe Mode, let me know and we'll go from there.

If the problem persists, proceed with running Apple Diagnostics.

Run Apple Diagnostics

Follow the steps below to run Apple Diagnostics:

Fully shut down your MBA
Restart your MBA
Immediately press the D key and keep it down until you see the Diagnostics screen appear
Wait for Diagnostics to finish (this typically only takes a few minutes)
Once complete, one of two things will appear on the screen:

a No issues found message
a brief description of any errors found plus further instructions

If the diagnostics test does find errors, take a note of what they are

Note: If pressing and holding the D key at Step 3 doesn't work, start again at Step 1 and, at Step 3 press and hold both the OptionD keys instead. This will try and run diagnostics from the internet instead, so you will need to allow more time for it to complete.

Regardless, take a note of what happens and let me know how you went.


How do I open TCP ports 7080 and 7090 for use with Merlin? I'm trying to set up Merlin server on my Mac to send a GANTT chart to my iPad. I need to open TCP ports 7080 and 7090 for it to work. What's the best way to open those ports?

Have you looked at the firewall settings? (Apple menu -> System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Firewall Options...)

There you'll find options to block everything, to permit signed software to open ports to listen, and you can click on the '+' button to add a new application.


Mountain Lion always switches to previous application at wake up Since upgrading to Mountain Lion (from Snow Leopard), I have noticed that always when I wake up my MacBook Pro, a window from the previously active application is moved to the front.

What causes this?
Can I turn this "feature" off?

Thanks Daniel Lawson for pointing to the solution:

The issue is cause by the 'require password after sleep or screen saver begins' option in the system security settings. If you turn this off, the issue disappears.


Safari won't load pages after system restore I hope someone can advise please...

A few days ago I had to restore my whole system from Time Machine backup after a power outage stopped my Mac from booting up.  Everything seems fine, except for Safari.

Safari now won't load any web pages, it just shows a message at the top: "this webpage was reloaded because a problem occurred".  Other browsers are fine.

My MacOS is High Sierra 10.13.6

Safari version is 12.0.3

I have read other pages that suggest that maybe when I was restoring, that the newest version of Safari might have downloaded via "automatic updates" from the App store, but I don't know (a) what version of Safari I had before, and (b) whether Safari 12.0.3 is meant to be OK with High Sierra 10.13.6?

Any clues or advice welcome!

This could be a problem with the wrong version of Safari, or it could be a problem with its cache or preference file.

Start by deleting the cache folder, located here:

~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/

If that doesn't work, delete the preference file here:

/Users/sklein/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist

If the problem persists, delete Safari (by dragging it to the Trash), then reinstall macOS High Sierra from Recovery.

The reinstall will take a while, but you won't lose any apps or data.


Is "The disk copy of 'filename.psd' was changed since..." dialog a sign of harddrive issues? I saw this message and I'm not sure if it is a sign of harddrive issues (corruption, etc) or anything I should be concerned about. It popped up in Photoshop when saving. Might also be worth noting that it is a file in my Dropbox folder.

Most likely it's Dropbox. It could be that it synced to another machine, which added some metadata to it automatically, then synced back to your machine, so it looks to Photoshop as if it's changed, when only the file's metadata has. Unless this happens consistently with files outside of synced folders, it's probably nothing to worry about


What has caused the CTRL + x + e shortcut to stop working in the shell? The CTRL+x+e keyboard shortcut allows you to open your favorite editor, as defined in the $EDITOR shell environment variable.
This has stopped working for me recently, but I am not sure what changed.
I have $EDITOR in my .zshrc set to VS Code like so:
export EDITOR='code'

Previous(Expected) Behavior
Earlier, triggering the above shortcut in zsh on iTerm2:

It would open a tab in an active VS Code window.
It would allow me to type my long command.
I would then close the tab, VS Code would ask if I wanted to save the file, I would click on No and it would return to the zsh tab with the long command already entered.
I just had to press the RETURN key then for running the pasted command.

Actual Behavior:
Now, if I follow the same steps as above, the typed command is no longer entered in the zsh shell, even though the VS Code tab closes.
Environment specs:
macOS Big Sur - 11.2.2
VS Code - 1.55.2
iTerm2 - 3.4.4
zsh - 5.8
Note:
I could replicate the same erroneous behavior on the natively-available Terminal app.
Has anyone else faced this problem? Could someone help please?

The edit-and-execute-command function triggered with Ctrl-x-e uses a temporary file which gets opened in the defined editor. If you want to use/run your changed command(s) afterwards, you must answer YES if prompted to save the file. Otherwise your changes will be lost.


Do I really need Bonjour on Windows? One of my least favorite things that Apple does to every Windows computer during an installation of iTunes is that it installs Bonjour. On almost every Windows machine I've installed iTunes on, Bonjour has caused an error of some sort.

As far as I can remember, I've removed Bonjour by deleting the folder it's in. Most of the time, this has not caused any major problems. However, I have a new installation of iTunes and I'm wondering if once again I should delete Bonjour.

Are there any issues caused by deleting Bonjour? Would I lose any functionality?

From Apple's knowledge base article about Bonjour on Windows (my emphasis):

  iTunes uses Bonjour to find shared music libraries, to find AirPort Express devices for streaming music to, and to find Apple TVs.
  Safari uses Bonjour to find devices advertising web pages on your network. Many of today's network printers, network cameras, and wireless gateways provide a web interface for status and configuration, and many of these devices (especially network printers) now advertise those web pages using Bonjour, to make them easily discoverable in Safari.
  Internet Explorer, via the Bonjour toolbar plugin, also provides easy discovery of Bonjour-advertised web pages.
  The Bonjour Printer Setup Wizard uses Bonjour to discover and set up Bonjour-advertised network printers.
  Adobe's Creative Suite 3 applications use Bonjour to discover digital asset management services.

If you don't use any features, then removing Bonjour won't cause you any trouble (except perhaps Apple Software Update might offer to install it again...)

Furthermore, this page has some instructions for more throughly uninstalling Bonjour.


How to create an Automator service to convert images from one file type into another file type using the right-click contextual menu? Is it possible to create an Automator service to convert one file type into another file type using the right click contextual menu (eg JPEG, PDF, PNG, TIFF) without the need to install a dedicated app to accomplish the desired file conversion.

Here is an example Automator workflow to convert image files to a specific type:

When creating your workflow, don't forget to set it to a Service so that it can be accessed in the context menu.

The Copy Finder Items makes sure that the original files don't get replaces. You can change the save location to a variable if you wish, or just delete that action and let it replace the original file.

If you would like the option of which file type you would like, you can create multiple service workflows with different names (and different file formats for the Change Type of Images action).


Macbook pro with latest opp system upgrade Not wanting my documents on iCloud as they about fill my 5gb quota,I tried to drag the folder to my desktop from the applications window iCloud heading on the left hand side, POOF and the folder was gone not to be seen again, Can any one please tell this old fool how to get the folder back and out of iCloud forever, many thanks :-)

Open system Preferences and go to iCloud.

When you opt out of storing documents in the cloud it should fix things. If not, log out then restart the Mac.


How to install Scala on Mac OS X with MacPorts? I'm trying to install Scala following the advice at the official website:

sudo port install scala

But this gives me:

--->  Fetching archive for scala
--->  Attempting to fetch scala-2.7.7_2.darwin_10.x86_64.tbz2 from http://packages.macports.org/scala
--->  Fetching scala
--->  Verifying checksum(s) for scala
--->  Extracting scala
--->  Configuring scala
Error: Please use one of the numbered scala* ports instead.
Error: Target org.macports.configure returned: obsolete port
Log for scala is at: /opt/local/var/macports/logs/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_tarballs_ports_lang_scala/scala/main.log
Error: Status 1 encountered during processing.
To report a bug, see <http://guide.macports.org/#project.tickets>

I'm completely new to both MacPorts and Scala, and don't know what "Please use one of the numbered scala* ports instead" means. What command should I use then?

I'm not too picky about the Scala version, but of course I'd prefer the latest stable one (currently 2.9.1).

NB: I know I could install Scala without MacPorts, but I'd rather use Macports to manage the installation if it's possible without much hassle.

Try installing Scala 2.9

sudo port install scala2.9

… or Scala 2.10

sudo port install scala2.10


Any need to connect iOS device to iTunes? My home iMac (mid-2006) finally died a few weeks ago. We have a variety of iOS devices (2 iPhones/3 iPads). They all backup to iCloud and have iTunes Match. Once I get a new Mac for the house, will there be any reason to register/sync these devices with iTunes on the new computer? It seems with over-the-air app and iOS updates, iCloud backup, and iTunes match there isn't a reason anymore. Am I right about this?

Thanks

Yes you are. With iOS 7 Apple really has worked hard to make sure that iDevices were an option for people with no other "regular" computer. You can redownload from Apple and back up pictures to iCloud but be aware that you might want to have the ability to get the pictures off a different way (such as a upgraded Dropbox account with 100 GBs) but otherwise keeping things in e-mails and using applications with online storage you should be totally fine.


What 4K modes does MacBook Pro (Late 2011, Radeon HD6750M) support? I have a MacBook Pro Late 2011, and I'm planning to buy a 4K monitor (http://www.samsung.com/levant/consumer/computers-peripherals/monitors/led-monitor/LU28D590DS/ZN).

However, all the Internet is bloated about 4K support with different answers about 4K support on MBPs. Some say it's not possible, some say only at 30 or 24Hz, some say with multistream etc.

What can I exactly get with late 2011 MacBook Pro (Mavericks 10.9.4) in terms of 4K?

I have a Dell P2815Q monitor (nearly 4K) connected to my MacBookPro Early 2011 running 10.9.4 (13E28)


Apple Maps Licence for use in app Do Apple Maps have any limitations or any licence fees, if I use them in an app that I develop?

For eg: google maps are free for 2500 uses per day in applications:
https://developers.google.com/maps/licensing

Is there any such Information on Apple Maps or are they just free for iPad and iPhone apps?

As far as I know, there are no license fees - nor limitations such as the "fleet management" exception with the old Google Maps based API.

You need to check your individual license terms with Apple. They're provided for you in the Developer Center under Contracts.


Recovering Notes from Water Damaged iPhone I washed my iPhone SE with my clothes in the washing machine on warm for about an hour. It didn't go through the dryer, but sat in the wet clothes for an extra hour after the cycle was complete.

I know there is a ton of information out there on the internet for recovering a water soaked phone, but many of the tips seem to be contradictory. (Use an oven on low temperature. No, an oven will damage it more, use a hair dryer! Wrong, a hairdryer will mess it up, use compressed air and rice. etc...) Its been sitting in a bowl of rice last night and today, but I'm concerned that it won't be enough. Any suggestions?

If not, I would desperately like to try to recover the notes from it. I keep a lot of very important notes on my iPhone, including all of my ideas and lots of information for business and school. The notes are not backed up on my computer or iCloud. The notes are equally(if not more) important than the phone itself.

Is there any way to recover my notes from the phone?

Have a technician (not an apple one) carefully open up the iPhone (hopefully you dont have a warranty). Remove the SIM card and battery. Then lay the halves flat and then use a vacuum cleaner with a long nozzle to dry out the moisture. Make sure its on low and that its not close to the phone. If too close it will short circuit the phone, making the motherboard useless. Make sure that there is no heat.

I've heard silica gel works also if you find an iPhone water damage professional, they can fix the issue. Just make sure they offer you a warranty.

https://www.wikihow.com/Save-a-Wet-Cell-Phone


Is it possible to store "on my mac" local folders on a network device? ====

System info:

Model Name:   MacBook Pro

Processor Name:   Intel Core i7

Processor Speed:      2.7 GHz

Memory:               16 GB

System Version:   Mac OS X 10.6.8 (10K549)

Network: GB wired/100MB Wi-Fi

====

I use the "On my mac" folders (specifically folders under /Users/USERNAME/Library/Mail/) as the working archive as for my e-mail for the past 15 years. This directory is also backed-up on my NAS.

It is getting rather large and I'd like to move some older mail from my laptop to my NAS as I do not need to access it as regularly now.

Before I start moving 10s of GB from my laptop to the NAS in vain, is it possible to have something like the following?

/Users/USERNAME/Library/Mail/Mailboxes/archive_2012/* <-- on my laptop

/Users/USERNAME/Library/Mail/Mailboxes/symbolic_link_to_archive_2000/* <-- on the NAS

Can I simply move the archive_2000 folder to the NAS and point towards it on the laptop OS?

If not, is there some other way to do this?

thanks in advance.

You can do this by making a symlink (using Terminal, not an alias in the Fnder) to the directory on the NAS as you describe, but I'd caution against it unless your laptop is alway connected to your network. You could (and most likely will) get some unpredictable and possibly data corrupting behaviour if the Mail app tries to access data only to find the network volume isn't mounted or accessible.


How can I get the recipient’s Gmail iOS app to show my Google account’s avatar? When I added my avatar to:

https://aboutme.google.com/u/2/

it started showing up on mail.google.com. When I signed up for Google+, it started showing up on inbox.google.com. But in the Gmail iOS app, it shows up as a solid-color circle with the first letter of my email address.

Many sites have a delay when loading new profile images. Be sure to give it at least 48 hours to populate.


iPhone: Block One Website & Only One Website I need a way to block one website on my iPhone while leaving "adult content" available.

I'm very familiar with the block adult content restriction on the iPhone, but the amount of sites this feature blocks is ridiculous. It blocks anything that mentions men's/women's health and even websites crucial to my university's student life. (And no, I can't just white-list them because they all have different domain trees & it blocks the brief login page that occurs before I complete said login).

I've also looked at apps such as Zero Willpower, but these seem to only work with safari. (I use chrome).

Is there any way to allow access to all websites and only block one? (Perhaps a way to white-list all websites under the "adult content" banner and then blacklist the target site).

There is a way, but it needs some technical skills and some money. Get yourself a private server, set up a VPN server on it, and block the IP address for the website from being accessed through the VPN. Then use Apple Configurator to turn your phone into a managed device and force it to use your private VPN at all times.


HTTP Get is not working stable after Netboot I am booting a Netboot Image with a MacMini 5.1, after the system is up a shell script calls a server via curl.

At the moment the Internet connection is up and running. I verify that doing a ping to the same server before using curl.

Every now and then it is not working properly. When it is not working the http get request never reaches the server. Since the ping worked before i think it might be a DNS problem.

If i use curl "manually" 2 time working 3rd time not... Its not easy to reproduce this error...

So i tried to add the IP to /etc/hosts and it is still not working properly every time.

What might cause this problem ?

Check the return value from curl. If there are problems you should get a non zero value. Something like this may work:

#!/bin/sh
echo trying download . . .
until curl http://example.com/test.file ; do {
    echo something went wrong. retrying download . . .
}; done
echo file downloaded.


Reset icon cache on MacBook I've been trying to find out how to reset the icon cache on my MacBook, and two methods seem to always be suggested. However, the two approaches differ slightly in the third line.

Method 1

sudo find /private/var/folders/ -name com.apple.dock.iconcache -exec rm {} \;

sudo find /private/var/folders/ -name com.apple.iconservices -exec rm -rf {} \;

sudo mv /Library/Caches/com.apple.iconservices.store com.apple.ic

Method 2

sudo find /private/var/folders/ -name com.apple.dock.iconcache -exec rm {} \;

sudo find /private/var/folders/ -name com.apple.iconservices -exec rm -rf {} \;

sudo rm -rf /Library/Caches/com.apple.iconservices.store

What do these two approaches essentially do and what is the effect of the difference on line three? Is one method better than the other?

Be careful with Method 2, it seems will delete more files than it should do. I tried method 2 on my Macbook Air (El Capitan 10.11.6), causing it unable to boot. Had to recover from Timemachine backup.


Do iPhone 5s LTE bands vary from country to country? From this article,

  The 5s and the 5c are compatible with more 4G LTE frequency bands — up to 13, instead of a maximum five before. That means the phone is more likely to work with higher speeds wherever you go. However, there are more than 40 cellular bands worldwide, the bulk for LTE, so a version bought in one country might not work for high speeds everywhere around the world.

Say one were to buy an iPhone 5s in the United States and take it to Europe (specifically, Belgium). Would there be any performance impact, given the purported differences in cellular bands?

There are actually 4 different international variations for the iPhone 5s/5c. Thankfully, Apple has a page outlining them with their model numbers, supported frequencies and countries/carriers you can use them with.

A quick look over that breakdown seems to suggest that Belgium (at least, Mobistar) uses LTE bands 1, 3 or 5, which the US AT&T model also supports. However, I would recommend you contact your carrier to ensure what frequencies are needed to function best on your network.


Connecting Two Thunderbolt Displays to a Single MacBook Pro I'm looking to connect two Thunderbolt displays to a single MacBook Pro. I've seen another thread here which mentioned hubs and display ports, but it seems this can be accomplished natively with the ports.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP1thwUcO9c

However, when I plug the second display into the first, the second one does not power on.  I think the issue might be because the Thunderbolt displays are slightly different. One is a newer Thunderbolt which has the little "thunderbolt" icon on the video cord. The other is a little bit older and has a "video" icon on the video cord. The "video" Thunderbolt doesn't have a Thunderbolt port on the back, while the "thunderbolt" monitor does. Both screens will work independently, but when I plug the "thunderbolt" display into my MacBook and try to get the other to display by plugging the "video" cord into the thunderbolt port of the first monitor which on, nothing happens.
Does it sound like an adapter issue, or something I need to adjust via preferences or a software update?

That symbol you see is the Mini DisplayPort icon (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204149).

Apple has stated that Mini DisplayPort adapters won't work in a Thunderbolt chain.


Is it possible to develop an app only on specific device size? I now develop my iOS app which I initially wanted to develop on all the device sizes (4, 4.7, and 5.5-inch iPhone and also iPad), but later found that it is insanely painstaking, boring, and tough work to develop on all the sizes using Auto Layout and Size Classes, so I now consider developing only on 4.7-inch iPhone 6.

However, while I can target the iPhone families only (selecting iPhone, not Universal, when starting a project), can I develop only on 4.7-inch iPhone?

If it is possible, how can I do? I want to know if it is possible and approved by Apple itself, or is possible but might be subject to the reject by Apple, or is not allowed by Apple. Any link to Apple documentation would be appreciated...

Hope this helps you.
As of May 1, all new iPhone apps and app updates submitted must support the 4-inch display on iPhone 5. All apps must include a launch image of the appropriate size. Learn more about iPhone 5 support by reviewing the iOS Human Interface Guidelines.
And as per App Store Review Guidelines

2.10
iPhone Apps must also run on iPad without modification, at iPhone resolution, and at 2X iPhone 3GS resolution..Please refer this

Else Apple may reject your app if app is not as per apple review guidelines


Safari keeps warning "malicious javascript detected on this domain" Safari keeps warning malicious javascript detected on this domain, and there is only a OK button to click.
It is stupid to click OK again and again.
How to prevent this?

I think the so-called malicious javascript is just some code for ads, because I saw this warning at a few websites of large company.

JavaScript of Baidu Ad and Statistics are redirected to GitHub urls https://github.com/greatfire/ and https://github.com/cn-nytimes/ It is in fact DDoS due to large population.
GitHub returns an alert page in order to stop the recursive JS running for each user.
This is possibly done by GFW (Great Fire Wall) as the two URLs are not welcomed by them and only people outside mainland China faced this issue today. (GitHub cannot function well in China).
A detailed analysis can be found on WooYun (in Simplified Chinese)
http://drops.wooyun.org/papers/5398


How do I give mysqld write access to a directory? I am running OSX right now and trying to run a mysqld process and seeing the following error:

 $ /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqld --user=root
111026 11:05:08 [Warning] Can't create test file /usr/local/mysql-5.5.15-osx10.6-x86_64/data/XXX.lower-test
111026 11:05:08 [Warning] Can't create test file /usr/local/mysql-5.5.15-osx10.6-x86_64/data/XXX.lower-test
111026 11:05:08 [Warning] One can only use the --user switch if running as root

111026 11:05:08 [Note] Plugin 'FEDERATED' is disabled.
/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqld: Can't find file: './mysql/plugin.frm' (errno: 13)
111026 11:05:08 [ERROR] Can't open the mysql.plugin table. Please run mysql_upgrade to create it.
111026 11:05:08 InnoDB: The InnoDB memory heap is disabled
111026 11:05:08 InnoDB: Mutexes and rw_locks use GCC atomic builtins
111026 11:05:08 InnoDB: Compressed tables use zlib 1.2.3
111026 11:05:08 InnoDB: Initializing buffer pool, size = 128.0M
111026 11:05:08 InnoDB: Completed initialization of buffer pool
111026 11:05:08  InnoDB: Operating system error number 13 in a file operation.
InnoDB: The error means mysqld does not have the access rights to
InnoDB: the directory.
InnoDB: File name ./ibdata1
InnoDB: File operation call: 'open'.
InnoDB: Cannot continue operation.

I understand the problem is since I am not using sudo, my current user account does not have write access to

/usr/local/mysql-5.5.15-osx10.6-x86_64/data/

I am trying accomplish two different things

Give the mysqld process write access to that directory without using chmod 700 or whatever. I am trying to use chown and it is not working
Create a script so the mysqld process starts at boot-up

Can anyone help me?

Depending on the uid mysqld is using, chmod 700 on the data directory might not help. You may do the following:

chmod 777 /usr/local/mysql-5.5.15-osx10.6-x86_64/data/
Startup mysqld again
ls -l /usr/local/mysql-5.5.15-osx10.6-x86_64/data/ to identify the owner of the created files
chown OWNER /usr/local/mysql-5.5.15-osx10.6-x86_64/data
chmod 700 /usr/local/mysql-5.5.15-osx10.6-x86_64/data/


iTunes is trying to upgrade to iOS 4.3.5 instead of iOS 5 Currently I'm running iOS 4.3.3 on my iPad.

I was expecting to ugrade to iOS 5 directly.but iTunes is trying to upgrade to iOS 4.3.5.

Do I need to first upgrade to 4.3.5 and then to iOS 5? Is there any way to upgrade to iOS 5 directly?

I can, however, download the ipsw. But anyway I would like to know.

I had the same issue. Connected my iPad, started iTunes, and was offered iOS 4.3.5 (and this was just last week!). I had iTunes up to date and everything.

I canceled the upgrade, closed and reopened iTunes, and it then decided to offer to upgrade to 5.0.

I think it will resolve itself. Try restarting.


Getting strange characters in third party apps. How do I fix it? I don't really know how to explain this problem, so i'll just show some screenshots. GIMP is completely unusable. it looks like it's in another language. Visual Studio does it too, but only in certain cases. even safari has become a problem. That leads me to believe that it's an OS issue. Strange characters appear randomly where normal english text should be. Can anybody help?

Font Book > file > restore standard fonts > restart

Is the first thing to try


Where is the Mac OS X Lion that I purchased? I bought Lion a year ago, but I downgraded to Snow Leopard because I wanted to play Starcraft, which is not supported on Lion. After Mountain Lion was released, I can no longer find Lion anymore. Does it mean that I can't get the Lion installer anymore?

Update OS X Snow Leopard to 10.6.6 or later such that it has a Mac App Store.
Open the "App Store" application
Connect with the same account (Apple ID) that you used to purchase Lion
Click on the "Purchased" button on the top bar (picture 1, between Categories and Updates)
Find "OS X Lion" in the list (picture 2)
Click on the "Download" button

Et voilà!


iTunes doesn't allow me to create playlists and playlist folders anymore I'm a bit stumped. So I was trying to add some MP3s to my iPhone 5 using iTunes and it simply doesn't react to the clicks on the respective symbols anymore.

Here's a partial screenshot:

The shown playlists and playlist folders are contained in a parent playlist folder, which was selected prior to attempting to add a playlist.

The two controls at the bottom with the plus and the cog don't work. It's as if they're disabled, but it's hard to tell for me in this Apple-style GUI.

Does anyone have an idea how I could convince iTunes to let me create (smart) playlists and playlist folders again?

NB: this is the music "tab" and I have opened the "Device" node for my iPhone on the left hand side and selected the parent playlist folder there.

Don't do it in 'device' do it 'on the compy' in Music/Playlists - should be underneath the device list.


Can two apps have the same name if spacing is different Can two apps have the same name in the app store as long as there is a slight difference? For example if there was an app that already existed called "FatCat" would an app get approved that was called "Fat Cat" with a space?

You can check the availability of a name of app regardless of its origin, spelling or grammar before even creating the app. Log in to iTunes Connect — Click Manage Your Applications -> Add New App (don't fill in a SKU Number or bundle ID); if the name is already taken, you will get the following errors:

  You must select a Bundle ID.
  The App Name you entered has already been used
  provide a SKU.

Act accordingly based on the errors. But AFAIK, without doing all that, the algorithm segregates the two so you should be safe with a space between it since it considers FatCat as one word, unless someone has already reserved it but has not yet submitted it to the App Store or is not yet live in the App Store.


Macbook Shutdown Problem My Macbook doesn't shut down ! It gets stuck on a blue screen with a loading image and doesn't shut down. I recently have updated my Macbook but I don't know if it is the problem or not.

Are you able to boot into Safe Boot? You can find the instructions for that here: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1455

Also, I would note the time you are shutting the computer down and then check Console and see what is logged at the time, perhaps that would give us some hints as to what is preventing your computer from shutting down.