How to make Pages default to the folder of the opened file when exporting a PDF version? I regularly create documents in Pages, then convert them to a PDF using File → Export. I always save the PDF versions in the same folder as the original document.

This save dialog that opens always seems to remember the latest location that I saved to. However, for me it would be much more useful if it just assumed I want to save to the same directory as the original file.

How can I make Pages do this?

There is a fantastic app called Default Folder X – but it's not cheap – around US$35. It enables a plethora of features that you can use in the Open/Save dialog of any app.

On the free side, you could try this trick: when you are in the dialog window for Exporting, you can actually drag a file from the Finder into the Export window, and it will automatically change to that same folder. This at least saves you from having to navigate around in the dialog window, since you are likely to have the window for the folder of the original document already open in Finder.

Finally, just in case you didn't already know, the little pop-up at the top of most Open/Save/Export dialog windows lists your 5 most "Recent Places" at the bottom. So if you used "Open..." to open a file, that folder will likely appear in this list.

E.g.:


Computer playing sound from a TV commercial. How does this happen This just started happening tonight on my iMac running High Sierra. About every 15 or 20 minutes my computer plays the sound track, or part of the soundtrack, from a common TV commercial. This Capitol One commercial is probably used on many websites but I don't know that for sure. I don't know how or why this is happening but I'd like to turn it off or stop it some way. I've had this happen when I have a web page open and a commercial is played but I have closed all browser windows and quit all browsers. But that didn't stop it. I don't see anything happening on my computer when the sound starts playing. I ran Malwarebytes but it said my computer is clean. How does a sound play without an application? Can someone tell me how to find what is going on?

I opened activity monitor and checked it whenever the sound started playing. Dashboard started using a lot of computer resources when this occurred. I inadvertently copied something to the dashboard that would play these soundtracks. I deleted 2 files there that I knew nothing about and that solved my problem.


Dropbox vs Github for dotfiles sync? For the last few years I've been using Dropbox to sync my dotfiles. For zsh, oh-my-zsh, emacs settings etc.

More people seem to be using Github for this. What are the advantages and disadvantages in this?

From what I can see, keeping Dropbox in sync is simpler - I don't have to push, pull etc, whenever I change something. On the other hand, my Dropbox folder is pretty large now, so it can take a while to get all my files.

In the future, I'd also like to sync some application preferences - like Alfred, Sublime, etc.

What are the situations where one, or the other have a distinct (dis)advantage?

I currently don't use github for dotfile syncing but I plan to do it. My reasoning is that I would like to have slightly different configs on different machines. To make that possible, you can basically have a master branch, and seperate branches for each device/device group as needed. If you add something new to the master branch, you can merge it with other customized branches etc. For auto syncing between machines, you could create a script that pulls from remote with an interval, possibly with support of manual pulling.. Easiest way to do that depends on your OS. So in summary, this all comes down to how often you change your configs, if you want to have customized configs for some device groups (e.g. all OSX devices vs all Ubuntu VMs) etc. Finally it's easier to use dotfiles from github than it is from dropbox when you work with machines where you have limited privileges (admin rights for installing Dropbox syncer?)


Sign into different third party app accounts I'd like to be able to sign into different third party apps with separate accounts. Is there a way to force iOS to open a web view instead of switching to the app for sign in? For example, I currently have an app that I want to use to sign in to Dropbox. When I click sign in, it redirects to my Dropbox app, which is already signed in, but I want to use a different Dropbox account for that app. How can I make it open a web view so I can sign into a different Dropbox account directly?

The problem is the SDK that app developers are including from Dropbox. You will have to contact the app developer for an alternative or for a modification of this behavior.


Can I use iPhone mic with AirPods as headphones while on a call? Lately when I use my AirPods while on a phone call, people are telling me it sounds really muffled. I have no problem using my wired headphones or no headphones at all. Is it possible to tell my iPhone to just use the AirPods for audio output, but use my phone as the speaker?
Alternatively, if someone has any idea how to fix the muffled sound, that would be great. I don't know when it started happening since I can't how I sound on calls, but I don't think it was always like that.

No, I would do an A / B test to see if wired headset is higher quality that the Bluetooth one. You could even do that call with Apple Support so they could hear the difference and set up a repair if your bluetooth microphone is wonky.
Dropping AirPods can happen easily and internal damage can be both hidden to you and cause them to lose massive amounts of quality or just sound buzzy.
Before you call support, check the mesh openings (all of them) with a magnifying glass and look for signs of cracking.
P.S. always having wired headset is my conference superpower. Being able to quickly get perfect sound on a call is well worth the expense and hassle for me when sound quality matters.


Root login using stdin Can anyone tell me why this does not work?

test:~ test$ echo 123 | su root
su: Sorry

Thanks

Although the man page for su doesn't state it explicitly, the required password must always be typed manually, it cannot be piped into su.

It has something to do with security ;-)


Mac beeping every minute, exactly My Mac (a MacBook Air, though I doubt that's relevant) has for the last few weeks been beeping (giving the alert noise, that is) every minute, exactly.  It is getting to be extremely annoying, and I cannot find the cause.  Nothing is showing up in the Console log on a minute-by-minute basis, and there's no crontab entry to run every minute.  I've tried shutting down various programs and background processes to see if I can eliminate the source, but that hasn't turned up anything yet.

Once it starts I can't find any way to stop it, but apparently it is not 100% consistent, because (oddly enough!) it is not running right now.   Nonetheless, it happens often enough that in retrospect it seems like it happens all the time.  The only work-around I've found is to turn the alert volume all the way down, but of course that's not a solution since there are times when there are real alerts, and I want to hear those.

What could cause a Mac to beep every minute?

SoundBunny is a new app that I have just learned about. There is a free demo available which will work for 15 days (I think).

The app window will show you every app which is makes a sound. That might help you track it down.

You can also tell it to ignore apps which you have ruled out, which should help you narrow things down a but too.

I hope that helps.

(n.b. I am not related to this app except as a customer. The purpose of SoundBunny is to let you set the volume for each app, but I thought it might help with this as well.)


Adding text around a circle with pages How do I add text around a circle I'm using for a logo?  I have a circle filled in with some initials on the inside.  I want to add the company name around the outside of the circle.

This is not a feature Pages '09 or Pages '13 provides (unlike Microsoft Word with the Wordart).

As XAleXOwnZX suggested you definitely should look at softwares that are made for what you want like InkScape or Illustrator.


iCloud Drive is stuck uploading items and no longer syncs I got the macOS Sierra update when it went into public beta, and I've been trying to use the automatic Desktop / Documents upload feature with iCloud Drive.

I've enabled the feature, however since September 7 no files have been uploaded. By this point, the bottom of my Finder windows say:

  15.78 GB available on iCloud, uploading 156,106 items (543.2 MB of 543.2 MB)

However the files are never actually uploaded. I keep my screenshots folder on my desktop and I take a lot of screenshots, so I can see that September 7 was the last date any file was actually uploaded.

What should I do? Is there a way I can disable and re-enable the feature without risking loss of data? Are there any solutions to this problem? What should I try? So far I've tried rebooting, and tried software update to macOS 10.12.2 public beta.

Happened to me as well, here is what I did:

Back up all items in the Documents and Desktop folders
Open up System Preferences
Click on iCloud
Click on Options next to iCloud Drive
If Desktop and Document Folders is disabled, enable it
If it enabled, un-enable it.
Uncheck the Optimize Mac Storage and click Done
Redo the opposite of this to re-enable iCloud
Move all Documents and Desktop items back to their respective area.

It is helpful to note if you are experiencing sync issues in any of the other categories in iCloud Drive, try disabling them and then re-enabling them.


How can I remove Emoji keyboard from iOS8? I updated my iPad to iOS8, and the Emoji keyboard suddenly appears although I have never set for it. How can I remove that? When I go to Settings:General:Keyboards, I see that Emoji is among the keyboards set, but I can't find a way to remove it.

Settings → General → Keyboard → Keyboards. You'll see English and Emoji.

On the top right corner is the word Edit. Press Edit, and then tap the red button followed by Delete to remove the Emoji keyboard.


Erase all personal settings from mac I want to leave the software on my mac and the profile and all that but I want to erase all passwords and history and personal settings from the mac so that a new colleague can use it?

The safest way to do that is to encrypt your account with File Vault and then create a new account for the new user. Then it doesn't matter if he has admin access he can't ever access your files without your password.

Even erasing the account doesn't really get rid of the files. They could be recovered with a file recovery program. File Vault is the easiest way to keep things private.


How does iOS change file system format during upgrade to iOS 10.3? During upgrade to iOS 10.3, the file system format will change from HFS+ to Apple File System (APFS).

How can the process retain the user data when changing file system format (how reliable it is? sounds risky)? Is the process reversible (when I try to downgrade back to iOS 10.2)?

It's long been possible to convert one filesystem to another on the fly - Paragon NTFS-HFS Converter is one of many utilities that can handle the task.

Equivalent technology could readily be applied to a new disk format - though best guess would be it is a one-way process right now & to revert you would need to wipe & start over.

I wouldn't dream of doing either without a solid, tested backup in place.


What is the proper way to change Macintosh HD icon used on Mac Startup Manager with FileVault2 enabled? I have macOS Catalina 10.15.3 (FileVault2 is enabled) installed with Windows 10 in dual-boot and I was able to sucessfully change the Windows icon, but I can't figure out how to modify the icon for my Macintosh HD drive.

I tried with SIP disabled :

- to replace ".VolumeIcon.icns" inside /System/Volume/Data/ by a custom one
- To use the Get-Info box from the Finder and changing the icon from here

The changes are working inside the Finder but not when holding "Alt" and using the Mac Startup Manager..

Is there a proper way to achieve this?

Note: Not all icns files are compatible with the firmware installed in your Mac. You may need to convert an icns file to a different format before the file will be recognized by the firmware.

You first need to determined the identifier for the APFS Preboot volume from the output of the command diskutil list. Below is an example.
/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +898.0 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Muskie                  32.2 GB    disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 120.5 MB   disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                1.0 GB     disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      8.6 GB     disk1s4
   5:                APFS Volume Snapper - Data          741.9 GB   disk1s5
   6:                APFS Volume Snapper                 11.2 GB    disk1s6

From the above output, the identifier for the APFS Preboot volume is disk1s2. If you have a different identifier, then make the appropriate substitutions. Enter the following commands to copy the icns file to the Preboot volume.
diskutil mount disk1s2
sudo cp /Users/admin/Desktop/icon.icns /Volumes/Preboot/.VolumeIcon.icns
diskutil unmount disk1s2

In the above example, there are two versions of macOS installed in the container. The Muskie volume has High Sierra installed. The Snapper and Snapper - Data volumes have Catalina installed.  When booted to the Mac Startup Manager, the .VolumeIcon.icns file, stored in the root of the Preboot volume, is used to display the same image for both operating systems.
If you wanted different images in the Mac Startup Manager for each version of macOS, then you could install both versions of MacOS in different containers. Or, the same container could be used, but I am not sure if this would work when encryption is employed. An example is given below.
The previous example used the /Users/admin/Desktop/icon.icns file. In this example, this file is replaced by the two files High Sierra.icns and Catalina.icns stored in the Desktop folder of your Catalina account. Images of both files are shown below.

The following steps could be used to install the icns files.

Note: You do not have to disable SIP.

Boot to Catalina and enter the commands given below to remove any existing .VolumeIcon.icns file from the root of the Preboot volume.
diskutil mount disk1s2
sudo rm /Volumes/Preboot/.VolumeIcon.icns
diskutil unmount disk1s2

Enter the following command to install the image for High Sierra.
sudo cp "$HOME/Desktop/HighSierra.icns /Volumes/Muskie/.VolumeIcon.icns

Boot to High Sierra and enter the command given below to install the image of Catalina.
sudo cp "/Volumes/Snapper - Data/Users/$USER/Desktop/Catalina.icns" /Volumes/Snapper/.VolumeIcon.icns

Update for Big Sur
The Preboot volume is already mounted at /System/Volumes/Preboot. To change this volume while using macOS Big Sur, first you will have to disable SIP.


How does Fandango know my real credit card number through Apple Pay? The Fandango app recently released an update featuring Apple Pay support. I just bought movie tickets using Apple Pay, but when I got my e-receipt, the "Payment Summary" section said:

Payment Summary
MasterCard ***********_ _ _ _ (Apple Pay):    [total cost]
My Total Order [total cost]

The "[total cost]" and the four underscores are my edits for my own security, but the email displayed the actual last 4 digits of my credit card number. I've made purchases using my credit card on my Fandango account in the past, but if I used Apple Pay here, shouldn't Fandango be seeing only my device-specific number?
(iPhone 6, iOS 9.2 Public Beta 3)

I found this on google:

It seams that they definitely should not have the last 4 digits of your card, but they do mention showing the last 4 digits of your device account number.


Resize Boot Camp partition I installed Windows 8 on my MacBook Pro using Boot Camp. Now I've figured out I should have made the Windows 8 partition bigger. Is this safe to attempt using Disk Utility? If not, how do I go about accomplishing this?

Though grgarside's answer was the correct & only correct answer at the time, iPartition is no longer the 'go to' app for this kind of task. It has unfortunately been left to languish & can't handle CoreStorage volumes at all.

The only replacement - & actually improvement - on iPartition is now Paragon Hard Disk Manager

It can not only resize Bootcamp partitions, it can fix them & even back up or move them to a new drive without breaking anything else in the process.

Full feature list here - https://www.paragon-software.com/home/hdm-mac/features.html

no affiliation, merely a satisfied user.


Messages won't let me sign in to iMessage On my OSX laptop (10.8.5) I've recently been unable to sign into iMessage. By recently I mean approximately a week. I've not done any updates that I recall lately.

Coworkers are able to send me messages and my phone gets the messages directly over iMessage, so my account is working on this network (wifi and wired go through the same set of equipment out to the internet, so it's not a port blocking issue, and we're a small network of about 50 users) and my account is working in general.

I can login to https://appleid.apple.com just fine from my computer. I'm logging into the computer and my phone with the same gmail address and password in both places.

Next steps?

One solution on the internet was "do you have a serial number in "About This Mac" and I do.

How to Fix Messages
The following steps worked for me:
Update December 2016 - this happened once more - this fixed it again, so I'm even more certain of it now.

Clear PRAM (NVRAM)
Hold Cmd ⌘+Opt ⌥+P+R at the chimes until they are heard for a second time, then release

Start in Safe Mode
As soon as you hear the second chimes hold  Shift ⇧  & keep holding until you see the regular startup progress thermometer

Attempt to login to iMessage.
Mine at this point appeared to fail & the iMessage login screen just went grey.
I stared at it for 5 minutes, then rebooted.

Done.

Recommended but Unsuccessful
These things were recommended elsewhere but they did not work for me:

Checking Firewall settings til I was blue in the face.
It worked yesterday & still works for all other machines in the house...
Changing DNS provider.
Logging out of everything iCloud related then back in again.
Any amount of messing with the keychain - Repairing, Erasing[1]
Restoring random items in ~/Library/Preferences; including, at one point, the entire folder
'Repair install' using latest Combo Update.
Recovering entire drive from a day-old known-good clone.
Reinstalling entire OS from Time Machine.

I'm copying this answer to all relevant Stack Exchange questions, in case it helps others. You would not believe the amount of chasing round I did to fix this one ;-)

[1] Many articles (& Keychain Repair itself) claim that com.apple.security.plist ought to be owned by the user - in fact every time you fix that, next reboot it reverts to being owned by root.
I gave up trying to 'cure' that as it appeared to make no difference in the end.


mac mail sort by date newest at top by default When opening mac mail I always get my mails sorted in the wrong order in the Date sent column i.e. oldest at the top. But like most people I want to have my mails sorted by the newest date on top by default.

Is it possible to configure mac mail to sort my mails by newest date at the top by default?

If you change the sort by clicking on the table headers it should stay that way across launches.


FaceTime on my MacBook I just noticed that my camera light was on on my MacBook. I looked down at my dashboard and it said 9 users were on my FaceTime. I freaked and shut it down. Now is there anyway I can find out who was watching and how they turned it on?

Facetime is a 1:1 system. So, you can only be connected to 1 person. It's more likely the app had gotten run as bassplayer7 suggested and the green light just indicated that your camera was in use by an application. The 9 may have referred to the number of people in your address book you can Facetime with or that there are 9 recents in the recents list.


Change "Group windows by application" preference using command line As per the title I'd like to configure the preference entitled

Group windows by application which is found in Preferences > Mission Control.

Most settings seem to have something like

defaults write com.apple.xxxx setting-name -bool false

But i can't seem to find one for this setting.

The defaults command for Group windows by application in System Preferences > Mission Control is e.g.:

defaults write com.apple.dock expose-group-apps -bool false

In older version, it used to be:

defaults write com.apple.dock expose-group-by-app -bool false

The value can be true or false.

However, that will not immediately change it in the UI and it may get overwritten anyway.

The safest way to change it is from the UI.

Note: As suggested in the comments one can use killall Dock directly afterwards however, killall Dock will force all minimized windows to show, as well as it's visually disruptive. I'd suggest using AppleScript to change it as it will not force minimized windows to show nor it is as visually disruptive.

The following AppleScript code will check/uncheck the Group windows by application checkbox in System Preferences > Mission Control, and will not cause the same visual disruption that killall Dock will. It can be saved as an AppleScript application in Scrip Editor.

tell application "System Preferences"
    set the current pane to pane id "com.apple.preference.expose"
    tell application "System Events"
        click checkbox "Group windows by application" of group 2 of window "Mission Control" of application process "System Preferences"
    end tell
    quit
end tell

Note; This AppleScript code was tested under macOS 10.12.5 and my need adjusting for some earlier versions of OS X.


Infinite Safari history on iPad? I really don't like to bookmark things (on iPad or other platforms) but just type a few relevent letters that bring the right site from browser history as a suggestion. However, on iPad I noticed that when I haven't visited a site for a while, Safari no longer suggests sites it previously did.

So, it seems that the browsing history is limited, by days or by size, am I right? I tried to stop Safari automatically deleting page history or at least increase the history size but there's nothing relevant in Settings for Safari.

Is adding a bookmark for every site I want to be suggested for sure the only option? Are there any restrictions for amount of bookmarks?

The iPad seems to limit its history to a week, which is presumably an acknowledgement of the limited RAM and storage in comparison to a traditional computer.

Adding bookmarks for desired/frequent sites is the only way to make sure they come up easily.  There is no practical limit to the number of bookmarks, and you could easily shove all of those bookmarks in a folder you never visit directly.


pdfsplit fails to start pdfsplit returns the following error when launched from terminal:

pdfsplit --version
-bash: /usr/local/bin/pdfsplit: Bad CPU type in executable

OS: macOS Catalina 10.15.2

file

Checking architecture.

file /usr/local/bin/pdfsplit
/usr/local/bin/pdfsplit: Mach-O universal binary with 2 architectures: [ppc:Mach-O executable ppc] [i386:Mach-O executable i386]
/usr/local/bin/pdfsplit (for architecture ppc): Mach-O executable ppc
/usr/local/bin/pdfsplit (for architecture i386):    Mach-O executable i386

That file only has binaries for PPC and 32-bit Intel, so it won't run on Catalina.

You need to see the following line for a 64-bit binary:

Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64

Either see if there's an updated version from the developer, or use one of the many other command line tools for splitting PDFs: GhostScript, CPDF, or even python tools that call MacOS Quartz routines.

Off the CLI, there's even an Automator action that will do it.

Here's my own python script, which runs natively on Catalina, creating a folder with all the split pages inside.

https://github.com/benwiggy/PDFsuite/blob/master/Automator_Scripts/splitPDF.py


Is the companion iPhone app mandatory for Apple Watch apps? I am developing a simple standalone app for the Apple Watch. I really don't need any functionality on the phone. Am I required to provide an iPhone app?

The watchkit documentation is something like:

  Create WatchKit apps. WatchKit apps have two parts: A WatchKit
  extension that runs on iPhone and a set of user interface resources
  that are installed on Apple Watch. When your app is launched on Apple
  Watch, the WatchKit extension on iPhone runs in the background to
  update the user interface and respond to user interactions. WatchKit
  provides three opportunities to extend your iPhone app to Apple Watch:
  WatchKit apps, Glances, and actionable notifications.

Yes, a corresponding iOS app is required. The watchOS component is considered an extension by Apple and not a standalone product.

See Preparing Your
App Submission for Apple Watch:

  App Review

  All iPhone apps with a WatchKit extension submitted to the App Store are reviewed based on a set of technical, content, and design criteria. Make sure to use our guidelines and resources before submitting your app for review.


How to switch tabs in Safari with mouse gesture? In Safari, how to switch tabs using mouse gesture? I try to use the BetterTouchTool, since there's no shortcut to switch tabs, I have no idea how to config in BetterTouchTool too.

Since you have BetterTouchTool, this is pretty easy. Simply choose whatever gestures you want to use for tab-switching and assign them the following keyboard shortcuts:

These shortcuts are CtrlTab and CtrlShiftTab respectively. The first shortcut will switch to the next tab, and the latter will switch to the previous tab.


Display Photo from URL in iOS 8 Today View Widget I've got a old web cam that takes an image every 5 minutes and uploads it to an FTP site (which I can access from an http url).  I'm looking for a simple iOS 8 today view widget that I can point to this URL so that I always have the most recent web cam photo in the notifications panel. For the life of me, I can't find a widget that offers this simple functionality.

Does anyone know of an app I can use to achieve this goal? At this point, I don't even mind writing a script to produce and RSS feed, etc. to make this happen.

I was also looking for such a webcam widget and also couldn't find one to suit my needs.
But as you mentioned RSS there is one that can do that (Photo of the Day Widget by Francis Bonnin) however you can't set a refresh rate for it in the app/widget settings. I also couldn't get it to work with a webcam url (JPG url or page where the webcam e.g. JPG is shown) or create an RSS feed via existing online tools for the image link or webcam page. If you know how it can be done for webcams at other websites let me know. I'm trying to run a script on my own webcam with one or more webcams from other website by looking into this W3School RSS image element code.

I did receive a good response from the developers Lennart Reiher (PhotoBar widget) and Francis Bonnin (which created e.g. Photo of the Day widget) which were thinking about creating a new app/widget after my e-mail to them. They said that the new widget could have one or multiple webcam URLs (e.g. to a JPG) and hopefully also have a refresh rate option in it.

Also take a look at the huge iOS8 widget list (i'm also updating in the start topic almost daily at MacRumors forum at iOS8 sub category in the sticky widget megathread topic). I also created a Photo category there.
If you found a widget or build one yourself let me know here and maybe also there.


How to get a notification when my commands are done I'm running a series of commands on the command line that takes approximately twenty minutes to complete.  I'd like to see some sort of notification on my Mac when these are finished so I don't need to monitor the terminal for when it finishes.  Is there a way to do this?

$ svn update . && ant clean build start && *notify_me_somehow*

Edit:

I could use xclock but this seems like a hack.  Ideally I could send the notification anywhere, like my phone, screen, etc.

(svn update . && ant clean build start && say done) || say error


Should I defrag my SSD before creating a partition for Boot Camp? I have a 500GB SSD in my MacBook Pro. I have been using my laptop for over three years - and it was migrated using Migration Assistant from a previous laptop that I had been using for five years before that, so there is probably a lot of crud accumulated.

I have manually cleaned up a lot of space - I have about 390GB free on this hard drive now.

I want to set up Boot Camp to dual boot into Windows, and will crate a partition as part of that process.

I know that HFS+ automatically defragments files normally, but only those less than 20mb.

I also know that SSDs do not need to be defragmented, as there is no performance penalty to fragmentation. I know that the process of defragmentation may in fact be detrimental, since an SSD only has a certain limit of writes in it's usable life, and defragmentation involves reading data for one place on the drive and writing it to another.

I have a licenced copy of iDefrag from a long time ago when I had spinning platter hard drives and worked with large video files.

So, my question is, is there an advantage to defragmenting the drive? To move all data into one part of the drive? As a once-only thing, only in preparation of partitioning the drive?

The Boot Camp Assistant will move any file (if any) which may reside in your future Windows partition to a appropriate position in your then shrinked Mac partition before creating unallocated disk space in the repartitioning process.
Therefore there is absolutely no need to defrag in the forefront.
Please read Do partitions on SSDs map to physical addresses?

Or with other words:

A SSD works like an Amazon distribution hub:

and a HD like Walmart:

If both of them want to sell a new product (let's say windows) Amazon just has to find empty boxes to stack all the different windows. The controller knows where they are. However Walmart has to free up a whole section to present all windows at the same place for the sake of a convenient shopping experience. ;-)


How do remove administrative rights if the checkbox is disabled in Users&Groups By default in the second hand MacbookPro, I have a user called admin. Then I created another user, let me call it myadmin for example. Now, I want to remove the admin rights from the user named admin.

Screenshot:

I've rebooted, logged in directly with the new myadmin user and unlocked the preference pane. But I'm still unable to remove the admin rights from the admin user. How can I accomplish this?

I just did it by using the command line way. I am not sure if this is recommended or not since I have no ideas why I can not do it in the GUI.

sudo dseditgroup -o edit -d admin -t user admin

The above command does the job.

PS: Because it's a second hand Macbook pro and it's the first MacOS I ever used. I thought admin was a built-in user which I could not simply use the above command. But it turns out I was wrong and admin is not a built-in account and I can simply run the command.

Btw, for your info, if you want to do this for other usernames:

sudo dseditgroup -o edit -d <username> -t user admin


Left shift key outputs ± When I press the left shift key a ± appears on the screen. It is a bit hit and miss, but for the most part it happens.
Googling I found this seems to be a common problem.  The common recommendation is to reset the NVRAM and SRAM.

I did both of those things
It was recommended to try to reset the NVRAM several times so I did that
uninstalled my logic mouse driver (which uninstalled the related kernel extensions)

How can I get this fixed?
[EDIT] This is a 16" MBP.  I am using a matias keyboard. It is a $100 keyboard from Fry's.  Pretty high end; the action is really good.
[EDIT] I plugged in an old MS keybaord I had laying around.  IT was working when I traded up to the new keyboard. IT throws garbage on the screen when I press the shift keys.

I went and bought a new keyboard and it works fine.
I had my friend plugin my broken keyboards and they have similar behavior on his Windows 10 PC (garbage on the shift keys).
I consider this solved but I am stumped that I have two keyboards with similar failure.
I would delete this question but there are other people reporting the ± on the left shift key too so I am just going to leave this question undeleted.


Mac App Store purchases are missing When I click on the tab Purchases in the Mac App Store, I'm missing purchases that I've never removed.

How can I get them back to show in the purchase history?

In the Mac App Store go to...

Store → View my account
In the section iTunes in the Cloud click on View hidden Purchases.
Choose which purchases you want to unhide.


Cant find "Move Items Here" option in Max OS Lion? I found online that Mac OS Lion has option similar to "Cut" option of windows. I found one link which shows the option as :

I am using OS Lion, but this option is not visible, even when I copy file/folder.

Am I missing something or any update?

There is a strong hint in the screen shot you posted: Hold down the Alt key. Then the option will appear in the menu.

Oh, and one big difference from Windows: On the Mac, the decision whether to move or copy is made in the second step, not the first: I.e., (1) select file(s), select copy, and (2) move to destination folder, select copy or move item here.


WindowServer crashes So I've been having a number of graphic problems with my 2012 MBP (Non-retnia)

First is screen distortion. I have black rectangles flash black and a pixelated yellow. Moving a window or program over the area solves this. This has been on going for a year, with flare ups. I've been to the apple store, they've replaced the logic board, full re-install, and I've upgraded the ram to 16GB. Still happening. I talked to them today and they won't look at it until I get a new hard drive (It's currently failing) and "My MBP doesn't officially support more than 8GB of ram"

I also have 2 window server crashes. Logs posted below. I have another appointment on Monday when I put original hard drive and RAM back in. I would love some more insight into this.

Logs are too long for here, can be found at https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2LwrG50dUFDT2JZcndRY1V2cVE/view?usp=sharing

First things first...

You can run the Apple Diagnostics.  While booting, hold down the D key.  Whatever errors are reported, make note of them and post them to your question.

As an alternative, boot into Recovery Mode (CommandR) or Internet Recovery (CommandOptionR) and try seeing what is happening to your screen.

Finally, You need to get that HDD fixed.  There is no point in trying to diagnose further when you have a critical failure taking place; it's the 800lb gorilla in the room.

I am assuming that you have a spinning HDD as these normally came with a 750GB HDD.  I am not going to get into too much detail on how to upgrade your drive, as there are many posts where the answer is very similar if not the same as the answer to (initially) to this question that I won't go into detail here.

Check out the answers to the questions below:

New SSD problem
My Mac is getting really slow, what should I do?

Suffice to say, the steps you will take are:

Download and create a installation USB flash of OS X El Capitan
Back up your data with Time Machine
Replace Your Drive.  I am partial to Samsung  I am using one in my iMac right now.
Do a clean Install OS X El Capitan
Test your video!

If your video problem persists, then we can start looking at what the cause could be.  Chances are, it will be fixed by this point

Once fixed, restore your files and data from the time machine back up and you will again have a working MBP.


How do I type ² or ³ on an Apple keyboard (International English layout)? I use ² and ³ a lot in e-mails. When using my Belgian Windows keyboard and a custom keymap it was easy to type this in Mac OS X as I assigned the appropriate key. These are the mathematical symbols for squared and cubed, or raised to the power of 2 and power of 3.
Now I switched to a QWERTY International English Apple keyboard and I'm unable to type these characters easily. I've to copy-paste them or select them and make them superscript.
Is there a way to easily type these characters with touching my mouse or need to copy-paste?

There are some important gotchas with the other solutions posted here.

For one, symbol and text substitution entries only work in Cocoa apps. If you want a truly system-wide solution that works in all applications, this is not an option.

Also, apps like KeyRemap4MacBook are great, but relying on them means you have to keep the app running in the background all the time, which may not be what you want.

Custom keyboard layouts to the rescue

Luckily, remapping keys can be done in a way that will work for any type of application, and without any additional software!

Mac OS X has supported .keylayout files since version 10.2 (Jaguar). You can create your own keyboard layout, or rather, tweak the default one you’re using right now. Simply remap a keyboard combination you never use (for me, there are plenty of those) to the ² and ³ symbols, and that’s it.

In my custom QWERTY keyboard layout, I can simply press ⌥ + ⇧ + 2 to enter ², and ⌥ + ⇧ + 3 to enter ³. (My custom AZERTY layout has these mappings, too.)

How to create a custom keyboard layout

To create new keyboard layouts or modify existing ones, I’d recommend Ukelele.app. It has an option to create a new keyboard layout based on the one that’s currently in use.

After you’ve created your custom layout, there’s no need for the application anymore — you certainly don’t need to keep it running in the background.

How to install a custom keyboard layout

Copy the .keylayout file to the Keyboard Layouts folder within ~/Library (if you want to install it only for the current user) or /Library (if you want to install the layout system-wide).
Reboot (if you installed the layout system-wide), or log out and log in again (if you installed it for the current user only).
Enable the new keyboard layout via System Preferences › Language & Text › Input Sources.

How to make a custom keyboard layout the system default

Optionally, you could make the custom keyboard layout the system default by running the Setup Assistant with root privileges. This way, it will be used for the login screen, and any new user accounts you create will default to this layout as well. Note that this can only be done for keyboard layouts in /Library/Keyboard Layouts (i.e., layouts that have been installed system-wide).

sudo rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone; sudo "/System/Library/CoreServices/Setup Assistant.app/Contents/MacOS/Setup Assistant"

You will have to create a new user account in order to complete the Setup Assistant — but don’t worry, you can delete the new account afterwards.

Adding a custom icon to the keyboard layout

OS X will use the following default icon for your custom keyboard layout:

This icon will show up in the preference pane, and in the “Input menu” in the menu bar.

To replace this with your own icon, create a 16×16px image, and save it in .icns format in the same directory as the keyboard layout itself, using the same file name (only the extension differs). For example, my custom QWERTY layout is named qwerty.keylayout, so if I wanted to use a custom icon, it’d have to be named qwerty.icns.


How to repair and/or reinstall Homebrew safely? I am trying to repair Homebrew.

I recently tried to reinstall it but when I typed "brew doctor"

My output was:

shell-init: error retrieving current directory: getcwd: cannot access parent directories: No such file or directory
chdir: error retrieving current directory: getcwd: cannot access parent directories: No such file or directory
chdir: error retrieving current directory: getcwd: cannot access parent directories: No such file or directory
The current working directory doesn't exist, cannot proceed.

I have tried to re-install it by typing this into the command line again:

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

But my output is:

It appears Homebrew is already installed. If your intent is to reinstall you
should do the following before running this installer again:
rm -rf /usr/local/Cellar /usr/local/.git && brew cleanup

How can I fix my Homebrew install?

This happened to me because I had two tabs open in my console. In Console A I removed the current working directory of Console B. Then, without thinking about it, I ran brew upgrade in Console B. Of course it threw the above error.

Simple solution: just cd to a different directory in Console B and brew upgrade again.

Me and my infinite wisdom.


Can I preset the hibernation file size on a Mac so that it can always hibernate? The short version of the question is: is there a way to preset the hibernation file to be 8GB so that the Macbook Air can always hibernate?

My Macbook Air only has 256GB of SSD space, and right now it has about 3GB of free space.  And when the Macbook Air is not plugged in to the power, sometimes I come back and the machine is already powered down.

It used to be able to wake up from deep hibernation (writing all the RAM data to SSD), but I think because I have only 3GB of SSD space and there is 8GB of RAM, so there is not enough space, and as a result, I think Mac OS X actually did a shutdown instead of hibernate.  The bad thing is that in Google Chrome, I will lose all the webpages I opened.  I can look into history for them, but some pages were opened 3 days ago, and it is hard to hunt down every one of them.

So is there a way to preset the hibernation file to be 8GB so that next time I clean up the SSD and have 12GB, I won't accidentally use up 5GB and then the Macbook won't be able to hibernate again?  That is, reserve the space first, so that let's say if I clean up the Macbook Air to have 12GB of free space, immediate make the hibernation file 8GB, and then making the SSD only having 4GB to use?

I don't think there is a way you can affect the size of the file /var/vm/sleepimage, which is the file created when the mac hibernates. You can move the location to which the file is saved to another drive instead of the boot volume using the command:

sudo pmset -a hibernatefile /Volumes/OtherDrive/sleepimage

This other drive can be an external HD or perhaps a USB3 thumb drive. Another option is to purchase a Transcend Jetdrive to use for the sleepimage file, or, better yet, move files from the internal SSD to the Jetdrive.

I have doubled the capacity of my 128GB MBAir using a Transcend Jetdrive and it is more than fast enough for iTunes and iPhoto libraries.


Finder error -50 when moving files from external NTFS hard disk As per title, I'm using a external NTFS hard disk for storage (guess it doesn't matter the type, but I can give more informations if needed). It happen many times, however, that I receive Finder error -50

  The operation could not be completed.
  An unexpected error occurred (error code -50).

when trying to remove files (it also happen when move files from the external hd to the local one, dragging and dropping with cmd pressed).
I read on the web that it may be related to illegal characters in files' names, however it seems to happen also for files that have nothing "strange" in the name (i.e. asdf.txt).

Besides, when the popup appears, the file gets deleted even if I cancel the operation.

I'm using MacOS 10.7.4 and Paragon NTFS 9.0.1 for enabling NTFS read/write.

Any idea of what may be the error?

As you might expect, it is an error copying between disparate file systems. This is a link to a very old Apple Support Document. It does however, give you the shell script to handle the copy/delete from terminal.

Another possible solution is this app: Tuxera instead of Paragon.


How can I change the Messages notification sound I'm trying to change notification sounds for apps like messages. I've tried to copy the .caf files using terminal, but it gives me "Operation not permitted"

Does anyone know a way around this? I'm running macOS Sierra

Update: I have successfully moved BoxeeBox.caf to /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/ToneLibrary.framework/Versions/A/Resources/AlertTones/New, and it shows up in that folder

It is not one of the options that messages gives me now though

Do I have to change the name of BoxeeBox.caf to one of the other files in AlertTones/New's names? Or is there an apple script file that I need to add BoxeeBox.caf into?

Update: it works, I needed to put BoxeeBox.caf into AlertTones/New and replaced Bloom.caf with it, but now I'm trying to change the sound that it makes when you receive a message when that chat is open. I have already replaced ReceivedMessage.caf (as seen in the first screenshot), Default.aiff, and Recieved Message(in Applications/Messages/Contents/Resources), but it is still making the origional sound. Is there a different file that I have to replace?

A feature called System Integrity Protection, which Apple introduced in El Capitan, prevents you from modifying most system files on your Mac. You can still make changes, but you need to disable System Integrity Protection first. For security reasons, this can only be done from recovery mode.

  Reboot your Mac into Recovery Mode by restarting your computer and holding down Command+R until the Apple logo appears on your screen.
  Click Utilities → Terminal.
  In the Terminal window, type in csrutil disable and press Enter.
  Restart your Mac.

You will now be able to edit any files you wish! (Just remember, with great power comes great responsibility, or something like that.)

After you've finished making changes, you can turn System Integrity Protection back on, if you want. Just repeat the above steps, except enter csrutil enable (instead of disable) in step 3.


How to disable service workers in Safari 12.1? (Mac) In Safari 12.1 Service workers can’t be disabled anymore via Develop > Experimental Features. I guess it’s not an experimental feature anymore.

Is there any other way to disable them? Sometimes the whatsapp service worker seems to have a hiccup and uses 100% cpu utilization.

earlier solution for safari versions pre 12.1:
How to disable service workers in Safari?

You can try to turn off the feature via the Debug menu.  For me, using Safari 12.1.1, It is listed under

Debug -> WebKit Internal Features -> Service Workers

Note that I am referring to the internal Debug menu, and not the Developer menu.  The Debug menu is activated by writing the key IncludeInternalDebugMenu  into Safari preferences (e.g. defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeInternalDebugMenu 1 -- under Mojave, you will have to grant Full Disk Access to Terminal.app first; otherwise the setting will not take.)

I'm not sure if this persists across browser restarts, though.


Is there a way to change 3 finger drag to 4 finger drag Is there a way of using third party software like Better Touch Tool to configure a 4 finger dragging gesture?

I want to reserve 3 finger gestures for many other actions.

In Better Touch Tool, I find these four-finger gestures... No four-finger drag, I guess.

But to be sure you could try asking at http://blog.boastr.net/what-is-bettertouchtool/


Why is Spotlight listing some people from address book twice? When searching Spotlight, certain Address Book contacts are listed twice. I have confirmed that I do not have two entries in Address Book for those individuals.

The problem is that one of the entries returned by Spotlight will open Address Book but not take me to the selected contact. The other Spotlight entry does work correctly and take me to the selected contact.

I have tried the following to no avail:

Rebuilt Spotlight
Deleted the following two files:

~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/AddressBook-v22.abcddb
~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/MailRecents-v4.abcdmr

Any thoughts on the culprit and solution?

Do you have a Time Machine drive connected at the time of the search? It might be searching in your Mac and in your /TimeMachine at the same time.

UPDATE: Since you mention that you don’t have a TimeMachine (or that it doesn’t affect results), I recommend that you rebuild your spotlight index completely from scratch. You mention that you’ve done that, but not how, so, please try to follow the steps in this question, and after you leave your spotlight reindexing all night undisturbed (best way to guarantee that the index ends up being “ok”), let us know if you’re still getting double results.

Might you be having a copy of your address book somewhere else?

Let us know how it goes with a plain new index.


Where can I order a replacement screen for a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014)? I'm selling my MacBook but I want to replace the screen first so that I can sell it as like new.

The rear of the screen (the side with the Apple logo) has some chips.

Where can I order a replacement screen for a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014), or is there a reputable UK company that I can send it to to have it done?

The best place that I have sourced replacement/upgrade parts for my Apple products has been Amazon. A quick search for your part resulted in a number of good sources.

I have used eBay in the past and more often than not there were severe quality/customer service issues.  Buying through Amazon, has been much more efficient and customer service focused.

Given that Amazon has sites in the US and the EU (including UK after Brexit) you should have no problem sourcing through them.

The repair itself isn't very difficult if you have some basic experience.  ifixit.com has an excellent tutorial.  You won't need to remove the logic board (thankfully) but you will need to disconnect some components, especially the battery.

For this particular model, you will need a pentalobe screwdriver as Apple stopped using the standard Philips screws.


Can I download Angry Birds as HTML5? I know that Angry Birds is available as an online HTML5 version at http://chrome.angrybirds.com/.

I have an iPad, but I cannot install apps onto it, so I'd like to download the game so I can play it on my iPad (I think the iPad can render HTML5).

The culprit here is actually your browser -- the device you are using is actually reported to the website by means of your browser's "user agent". The user agent tells the website what device and browser you are using. So, it makes sense that the only way to fool the Angry Birds website is to send a different user agent.

I'm assuming you can't jailbreak your iPad and modify the browser, but there is a method to modify the Safari user string without jailbreaking. However, you do need to be able to sync the iPad with your computer. Here is a link with instructions. Aside from that, you might be able to find a web proxy to change your user agent, but I don't know of any that will do that. Let me know if this helps.


Where is the sound file of Installer success stored? I've tracked Installer.app to be located at /System/Library/CoreServices/ but I can't find the sound that plays after a successful installation.

I've looked at the following paths:

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Install.framework
/System/Library/CoreServices/Installer.app
/System/Library/Sounds

Where is that sound file located?

The file you are looking for (on El Capitan) is located in: /System/Library/Components/CoreAudio.component/Contents/SharedSupport/SystemSounds/system/

Specifically, the file is burn complete.aif (or burn failed.aif, they're identical).

Older versions of OS X (unknown when it changed) have it at (source):
/System/Library/Components/CoreAudio.component/Contents/Resources/SystemSounds/system/


Move files from a single folder to multiple folders, based on filename I have batch of files named A-01.pdf, A-02.pdf, B-01.pdf, B-02.pdf.... Then I have folder structure 01, 02, 03,.... How can I move all the files with 01 in there name to folder 01, all with 02 to folder 02 and so on?

There are a lot of scripts on the net but none of them seams to fit my case.

Assuming that these files are all in the same folder and the numbered folders are part of that folder as well, open Terminal and run

cd path/to/folder
for i in *.pdf; do
    mv "$i" "${i:2:2}/"
done


How does AirPrint (on iOS) decide what printer settings to use, and can I change them? I just got my first proper AirPrint printer (the Canon PIXMA 7120).

Like all printers, it has a ton of different settings for print quality, etc, and when you print from OSX, you get a print dialogue that lets you select things like

Quality
Media type
Paper source
Etc.

But when printing from iOS native apps (I was using "Photos") the only choice I got was to select the AirPrint printer to print to.

When I printed, either iOS or the printer seems to have decided to use the tray that's dedicated to (4x6 or 5x7) photos, and to print in (high) photo quality, and spat out a beautiful print.

It seems possible that it makes assumptions based on the app you start from ("Photos" is probably sending a picture, while "Pages" more likely has a doc.

So, my questions is:

How does it decide what settings to use, and can I change them?

I might want it to print an 8X10 photo, or a pages doc on photo paper, etc.

The app ("Photos" in this case) makes those decisions based on your content and on what your printer supports.

If you are uncomfortable with this I have developed an app for printing photos that lets you control paper size, job type, sizes (inches or cm), crop, layout and ppi: http://www.clafou.com/print


How does Script Editor choose the applications to show on the 'tell current application' popup? How does Script Editor choose the applications to show on the 'tell current application' popup? For instance, why doesn't Preview appear on the list (see screencap below)? Is it possible to add applications to this list? If so, how?

Yes in Script Editor go to menu item Window → Library, then once you see this…

Just click on the + icon and there you can add any other apps you want.


Lost screen on Panasonic 55 inch with Mac mini I tried to set the screen from the Panasonic to best fit.
When I did that on my Mac mini the screen went to snow.
I tried to get it back by on losing the HDMI cable power of the Mac. Nothing helps. When I start up the Mac the screen is going to snow. It works well on 720p and 1080i but can't go back there.

Try resetting your NVRAM (formerly PRAM).

Resetting NVRAM

Shut down your Mac.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command (⌘), Option, P,
and R.
Turn on your Mac.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys immediately after you
hear the startup sound. Hold these keys until the computer restarts
and you hear the startup sound for a second time.
Release the keys.

After resetting NVRAM, you may need to reconfigure settings for speaker volume, screen resolution, startup disk selection, and time zone information.


iCloud reminders (web site) - missing features? This Apple KB article implies that one can create new reminders lists, edit details of reminders set as alert time, change folders of reminders, etc.

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH12088?locale=en_US

However, I don't see any of these options.  I can add new reminders and edit notes, but I can't do any of the other things it states.

Is the iCloud reminders web interface neutered now?  I don't have the "+ at the top" the article refers to.

As far as I can see, the only things I can do on the iCloud web site are:

add remidners
add/modify notes on reminders
change list colors/appearance
show/hide completed

I don't think there are any other possible functions - ?

Was hoping to use iCloud on the web as an interim since the macOS desktop reminders app won't sync with iCloud until Catalina.

Here is a screen shot taken on macOS Mojave with Safari 13.0.1...looks the same in the current version of Chrome for macOS as well:

This has been like this for a year now. You can't edit the the details of a reminder or even view a URL if attached to the reminder.
This provided information to users so they know it's been like that for awhile and should not expect it to change.


How to install ViTables? I am trying to install ViTables 3 (an HDF5 file viewer) on MacOS X 10.9.5 with Python 3.6 using the following command:

pip3 install ViTables-3.0.0-py3-none-any.whl

It installs just fine but it still won't start, yielding the following error instead:

qtpy.PythonQtError: No Qt bindings could be found

I have tried the following to fix this with no luck

brew install pyqt5

brew install pyqt

Any ideas about how to fix this actually?

I have also installed Anaconda just for this and tried installing ViTables with conda (conda install -c conda-forge vitables) but it doesn't work this way too, although the error (shown when I try to run ViTables, the installation process seems to complete without errors) is different:

pkg_resources.DistributionNotFound: The 'ViTables==3.0.0' distribution was not found and is required by the application

PS: I've also tried HDFView but it says there's not enough memory to open the file I need (I am almost sure ViTables will manage - it opens the same file just fine on a much older Linux machine).

I don't know about the pip error and cannot check it because I've no OS X boxes available.

Regarding the conda error it is almost sure the well known conflict between pyqt5 pip package and pyqt5 conda package. A workaround is simply remove the PyQt5 dependency from the file Anaconda3\pkgs\vitables-3.0.0-0\Lib\site-packages\ViTables-3.0.0.egg-info\requires.txt (I don't know if the path is the same on Mac OS X).

You can found it explained with some more detail in the ViTables FAQ.


Software // System/library/frameworks -> deleted QTKIT.framework Deleted by accident -> QTKIT.framework folder. Finder crashes on start-up as do most applications.

Any idea how I can restore this? No time-machine back up.

Yosemite 10.10.5
macbook pro 2011

Boot to Recovery HD and select reinstall OS X.

That will reinstall the current OS and repopulate the frameworks that are missing. This isn't designed to erase your Mac, but you are flying without a safety harness with no backup.


How do I set the terminal tab title via command line? I want to set the terminal tab name from the command line.  I am using this command to update the name echo -en "\033]0; New Name \007".  Here is what my terminal now looks like.

When I use the Inspector through GUI, I have the ability to set the terminal name and the tab name.  When I set it via the GUI, here is what I see.

As you can see there isn't any dashes - or text  on the tab.  How do I do this from the command line?

TLDR
You can do this with something like echo -en "\033]1; New Name \007" or printf '\e]1;%s\a' 'New Name'. You may have to fiddle with your profile's window/tab title settings, though.
Explanation...
This behavior is a little complex and not well explained I guess.
Title types
First, you can set two types of title. Terminal.app calls these the tab title (aka the icon name/title) and the window title (as you can see in the inspector).
The XTERM escape sequences for setting these are:

ESC]0;stringBEL -- Set icon name and window title to string
ESC]1;stringBEL -- Set icon name to string
ESC]2;stringBEL -- Set window title to string

I'm not sure how common this behavior is across terminal emulators, but Terminal.app doesn't actually do what 0 describes here. It sets the window title, and clears the tab title (probably because, as I'll show later, Terminal will pick up the window title if the tab title is unset).
The reason you see different behavior is because your command is setting the window title, but in the inspector you're setting the tab title.
Terminal.app title features
The dashes in the title are just separators that Terminal.app is using whenever it's combining multiple pieces of information in your title. (Pieces here include the profile "tab" and "window" Title options, as well as the window and tab titles themselves)
If you set both a window title and a tab title, it'll use them both. With multiple tabs, it'll separate them:
If the tab is in it's own window, though, it'll combine them and show the separator (unless you use the view menu to force it to show the tab bar even with a single tab):
You can still get it to show a single title, but you'll have to use only the window or the tab title (the window title will pick up the tab title if no windows title is set):
The inverse (tabs can pick up a window title if no tab title is set) is also roughly true, but the behavior can be a little surprising. Here are the same tabs in two windows along with the settings panel (to show that it's set to show the TTY name, but not to show items when there's a custom title):
The top window is picking up the default "Terminal" title because the current tab doesn't have a window title. Its tab doesn't show the TTY, because it has a custom tab title. The bottom window shows that the tab will pick up the window title if it doesn't have a tab title. The TTY shows up in the tab title because it doesn't have a custom tab title--just a custom window title.


Junos Pulse Crashing on El Capitan (10.11), Causing Keychain Issues? Whenever I attempt to start a VPN Connection with Junos Pulse (Version 5.0.11) on El Capitan it freezes midway through connecting and my login keychain becomes inaccessible to any other apps. The only way I've found to restore my keychain and restart Pulse is to restart. Killing Junos Pulse and the PulseTray processes in Activity Monitor seems to have no effect.

I had the exact same issue. Basically, this happens only if you enable the checkbox "Save Settings" at the username/password prompt in Junos Pulse. If you do not enable this checkbox, it should not freeze at the next connection attempt.
Pulsesecure have released the software version 5.1R5.1 build 61437, where this issue has been fixed (I tested it today and it is working fine). I hope this helps.


How do I change my macOS user account UUID to stop Apple tracking me? I have read that the user accounts on a Mac actually have a UUID associated with them and this means Apple is tracking every action performed with that user account.

I’ve already deleted all Facebook and Google apps, and I also don’t want Apple tracking me. Searching online reveals that I can stop Apple by refreshing or changing this UUID so that Apple has no way of tracking me, as the UUID no longer matches their records.

How can I do this on my iMac Pro?

Firstly, the premise behind your question is false on two grounds:

The UUID isn’t actually a UUID in the real sense. - What I mean is that it isn’t a universally unique identifier that, for anything more than practical purposes, is unique. See universally unique identifier for more info. So, while your user account UUID looks the same as a real UUID because of its 32 hexadecimal digits in the 8-4-4-4-12 pattern, it’s not actually a UUID in the true sense of unique. That is, it's not like there's a central authority ensuring that the possibility of two UUIDs being the same is zero!
Apple does not use the UUID to track you - Despite occasional rumours that Apple uses this to track the activity linked to the Admin account of a Mac, there is actually no evidence of this. (This is also confirmed by 1 above - i.e. since it's not a real UUID it can't really be used for tracking purposes). Instead, this UUID is used by Apple’s Open Directory to manage information about your Mac user accounts and provides them with access to network resources. See Apple Open Directory for more info.

Secondly, since you’ve got an iMac Pro, you actually can’t change the UUID. More specifically, iMac Pros all shipped with macOS High Sierra as their original OS, and as of this version of macOS the option to Refresh or Change the UUID is no longer available like it was in earlier generations of macOS (albeit hidden away). Why? Because too many users were doing this to resolve issues and ended up causing themselves major grief instead.

Finally, you may want to familiarise yourself with Apple’s stance on privacy:

Our approach to privacy
Manage your privacy
Transparency report
Privacy Policy

If you’re still concerned, you can also contact Apple directly about privacy issues.

WARNING for users of macOS up to and including Sierra - Do not refresh/change your UUID. Doing so will almost certainly damage your account and, in worst case scenarios, prevent you from logging in.


Can't find Skype photos captured on Skype on my MacBook Air I have OS X 10.9.1. I captured a photo using Skype (skype 6.12) and I cannot find the folder holding my images.

I've tried looking for the answer on this website but couldn't find it.

OK, I did the search and found it in most peculiar place one can think of.

This is on my MBA with 10.9.2.

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.ImageKit.RecentPictureService/Data/Library/Images/Recent Pictures

You will find two types of image files there -- TIFF (thumbnail) and standard .png

The .tiff are converted by Skype to a profile pictures, the .png are the originals.

Extra information:

If you need frequent access to that folder but do not want to remember its complicated location

Right click on the folder (Recent Pictures)
Click on Make Alias
Drag the Alias folder to your desktop (you can rename it to what you like)


Not all TV shows available to redownload on iTunes show up on Apple TV Some TV Shows that are available to re-download on iTunes is not showing up on my Apple TV. Now I understand that not every show I purchased is available for re-download (2, exactly) - but those that are available on iTunes should theoretically be available on the Apple TV as well, right? Here are some screenshots to show what I mean:

Apple TV:

iTunes:

I tried resetting my Apple TV a couple of times because I read online this might help, but it's not helping me. It still only shows 12 available items on my Apple TV whilst iTunes on my Mac shows 15.

They are all available, it's just a numbering and naming inconsistency between the devices.

On the Apple TV, the "All TV Shows 12" is referring to the total number of distinct TV shows (example: Seinfeld, 30 Rock, The Office, etc).

In the iTunes Store > Purchased section on your Mac, the "Total: 15 items" is referring to the total number of seasons of all the combined different TV shows.

You have 3 seasons of "Peanuts Specials" (which iTunes treats as one distinct show) and 2 seasons of "Peanuts' Charlie Brown" (another distinct show). So the total number of distinct TV shows is 12.


What is the expected durability of a Mac mini (2020) flash storage? I just bought a new Mac Mini (2020) with 512 GB flash storage.
As the flash storage of this model is soldered to the Mainboard this means to me if the flash fails the Mac mini will be dead. As this Mac is used for tasks require heavy disk usage (I expect about 2-4 TB per month) I tried to find out what maximum write load the Apple SSD is supposed to have.
Retail SSDs for PCs usually have a maximum Terabytes Written value indicating a supposed maximum write load they should be able to handle. Does such a value also exists for the integrated SSDs of a Mac mini?
Where can I find those values for the integrated Mac mini SSD - model number "APPLE SSD AP0512M"?

I've had my 2018 Mac mini with 512 GB since November 2018 (around 580 days). According to DriveDx, the on-board SSD has been powered on for 28 days, despite the fact that the Mac has been switched on almost permanently.
The drive has written a total of 17,1 TB of data, according to the SMART data from DriveDx. I've heard 300-600 TBW bandied about as a typical SSD lifespan. (300 for the blade on a 2014 MBP; 600 for a 2018 Samsung EVO NVMe.) In which case, I've used about 0.06% - 0.03% of the drive's writes.
So it should last me 26-52 years. You may be able to extrapolate a result based on your own usage.
If you are expecting to write 8 times the disk's size every month, then using a larger external drive, which can be replaced more cheaply if necessary, may be a safer/better option.


Does a Contacts Nickname transmit to anyone else; iMessage or email? iOS 9.0.2

So I asked Siri to call me Sugar Daddy... Hilarious, right?

Well I was using the e-mail app this morning, and when looking at a few e-mails I sent last night, I noticed that my name was put as "Sugar Daddy" in those e-mails as well. I then realized that Siri had put "Sugar Daddy" as my nickname (while retaining my real first and last names) in Contacts and that the e-mail app displays the nicknames of contacts.

Is there any chance the people I sent e-mails to also saw my name as "Sugar Daddy" in the sender field? At least one of them uses iOS himself. Please tell me this is not possible... I realize this is unlikely, but I just want to make sure.

Btw, I'm honestly not trolling, this seriously happened to me.

I had to laugh - but there's a serious question here, for sure.

Does a nickname in your Contacts show to anyone else?

Empirically, I would say no - neither a nickname you give yourself nor any other contact will be transmitted.
My partner & I have each other listed in Contacts with the nickname "ICE" [In Case of Emergency] yet it doesn't show up in any messages or emails we send to each other.
Similarly, my own nickname of Tetsujin is not seen by others in any communication I send.

I'm pretty sure you're safe asking Siri to call you Sugar Daddy… unless she does it in public, or if you ever intend to pass your vCard to someone, because it certainly will be in the exported card  ;)


Umlauts on Sierra on English keyboard with Alt combo not working anymore for all Before Sierra:
Alt + O/A/U pressed then shortly afterwards O/A/U -> Ö/Ä/Ü

With Sierra:
Alt + O/A/U pressed then shortly afterwards O/A/U -> works only for ü
 with Alt + o -> ø, Alt + a -> å and pressing the key again leads only to normal letter

The default key combo in Sierra and older OS Xces on UK/US (physical and logical) keyboards to enter Umlauts is:

altu + a: ä
altu + o: ö
altu + u: ü

You probably had a key modifier (like Karabiner) installed in your previous systems and remapped the key combo to get your non-default behavior.

At least Karabiner doesn't work in Sierra currently (as of Oct 2016) and you have to either wait for an update and/or use the old key combo again.


Hard links on High Sierra I have been using hard links, as described here, for linking my important folders to my Dropbox. A very useful trick for backing up without messing up your preferred directory structure.

After my update the High Sierra, all the hard links where corrupted in such a way that all the files were lost.

This leaves me with a problem. How do I backup selected folders from my harddisk through Dropbox without changing my original file organization, without losing all my info this time. Does High Sierra support hard links? It seems not... what to do in such a case?

update

So both Dropbox and OneDrive need me to put files in a dedicated folder. It seems like hard links are no longer an option. In this case, I suppose I should switch to a dedicated service that does allow me to 'check' existing folders into the backup?

The method you described involves installing a third party ln command that allows you to ask the kernel to create a hard-link for a directory.

The ln command from coreutils ends up executing the linkat() function in the Darwin kernel, where the source code includes the following comment:

/*
 * Normally, linking to directories is not supported.
 * However, some file systems may have limited support.
 */

It is therefore generally not recommended to create hard-links to directories.

In regards to upgrading to High Sierra, your system will usually have its file system converted from HFS+ (which supports these hard-links in some cases) to APFS (which do not supports directory hard links). Therefore you will not have hard-links after conversion.

See the documentation from Apple on the subject here:

https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/FileManagement/Conceptual/APFS_Guide/FAQ/FAQ.html

Especially the following paragraph:

  Directory hard links are not supported by Apple File System. All directory hard links are converted to symbolic links or aliases when you convert from HFS+ to APFS volume formats on macOS.

The conversion program is supposed to convert these hard-links into symbolic links (soft links). The symbolic links points to new entries created in /.HFS+ Private Directory Data/.

However it seems that there might be a bug involving the conversion since you've experienced loss of files. This might be due to the fact that hard linked directories are seldomly used, and cannot be created with the standard Apple supplied tools.

Therefore I think you should file a bug report with Apple using Radar.


How to make the pcscd daemon load at startup on Lion? I've got an obscure cryptographic USB token that works pretty good with Lion except I need to run...

sudo /usr/sbin/pcscd -adf

...each time I want to use it because it doesn't load automatically.

How to make it load at startup?

The problem happens, because securityd (which is supposed to load pcscd) does not start it when you insert your card. Try editing /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.securityd.plist and add -s aggressive switch.

The section should look like this:

<array>
  <string>/usr/sbin/securityd</string>
  <string>-i</string>
  <string>-s</string>
  <string>aggressive</string>
</array>

and then reboot.

This should set securityd in aggressive card detection mode. If there is a -s off or anything like this, probably just removing it should solve your problem.

Hope this helps.


shell script gives error [: !-z: unary operator expected while execute I've created a bash script to kill the active process searching by name

pkill.sh

#~/bin/bash
pro=`ps aux | grep $1 | grep -v sh | grep -v grep | awk '{print $2}'`
if [ !-z "$pro" ]
then
   echo $1 process is not running
else
  kill -9 $pro
  echo $1 process killed forecfully, process id was $pro.
fi

and execute this shell script in terminal ( v 2.8) as following

sh pkill.sh mongod

the job is done, but it gives the error too

  pkill.sh: line 3: [: !-z: unary operator expected kill: usage: kill
  [-s sigspec | -n signum | -sigspec] pid | jobspec ... or kill -l
  [sigspec] mongod process killed forecfully, process id was .

why this script gives an error?

I tried with

if[[ !z "$pro ]]

but no help.

Please tell me how to write exactly valid bash script

There are three issues I can see:

The first line should be #!/bin/bash (which together with chmod pkill.sh will allow you to run ./pkill.sh mongod directly)
Whitespace is important in bash, try [ ! -z "$pro" ] :-)
-z tests for an empty string, so ! -z tests for a non-empty one. Ignoring for a moment that -n does the same thing: shouldn't you call kill if the string is non-empty?

PS: Also, using pgrep or even pkill instead of the pipes will make things a lot easier here.


How can I upgrade my iPhone to iOS 11 after accidentally declining the TOS? The other night I wanted to install iOS 11 on my 6s+ overnight, but I had to accept the Terms of Service to do the installation.  I woke up at 5, had to be up by 5:45, and didn't want to miss out on 45 minutes of sleep. I did not want to start the installation for fear of my alarm not going off due to the update. When I was fumbling around with my phone I accidentally clicked the install option, which took me to the Accept Terms of Service screen. I tried to exit out of that screen, but couldn't. So I hit Decline. Now when I go to Settings -> General -> Software Update, it says my software is up to date (10.3.2).

How can I fix this situation and upgrade my iOS now?

Just got off the phone with Apple Support:  Do a Forced Restart (hold power button & home button until Apple logo appears then release.)  Now go back to Settings>General>Software Update.


Stop Apple ID change address page from kicking me out I'm having troubles with my Apple ID. Apart from not being able to download apps, I can't change my Apple ID details through the iPhone, and especially when I log in to appleid.apple.com and trying to edit my address, I get logged out getting an "unknown error" message.

Any ideas what to do?

Edit - Nor can I connect to the iTunes store too see my details within the App Store app. "Can't connect to iTunes store"

Amazingly, that last edit made me search and find answer explained here and on other places: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1447069&page=4

Not only changing the date, but first signing out of iTunes from Settings, then change date to manual to something in the future (2014 in my case), try to access App Store through the app again, it fails, then change back the date to automatic, log in to App Store. And voila, now it works.

Edit - However, the address page started working mainly because the browser turned from my native Swedish into English. In the English version it works, in Swedish it doesn't.


App claims it's open, refuses to close I am trying to remove an App that is called "Live Chat" but when I go to Applications > Live Chat and select move to trash, it says that the program is open even though it is not and doesn't allow me to remove it.

Thanks!

You can remove most apps when they are not running, so move the app to the trash and then log out of your Mac from the Apple menu - Log out...

When you log back in, the app won’t start since it’s in the Trash and then you can empty it.

As long as it’s a normal app and not one that installed helpers, start at boot, or malware this works for all basic apps. Non-basic apps or ones that run hidden helpers like most Adobe products, Zoom, backup and remote control software need to be uninstalled or deactivated based on how they were implemented.

Live Chat may need an uninstall...

  ... start automatically when you turn on your computer, so you never miss a chat.

If you struggle, the steps to isolate malware and persistent apps might need a follow on question based on how your mac is set up, and the specific of the exact app you have.


Reset admin password without the old password I am trying to reset the admin password through command line. Below command used to work till High Sierra:

sudo dscl . -passwd /Users/admin new_password

But on Mojave it throws an error saying:

Permission Denied please enter old password

Please help on alternatives or how to get this working on command line (no UI solution) since the user forgot the admin password. Thanks

You can reset the password in Mojave by entering recovery mode and using the "resetpassword" utility via the terminal:

Boot your Mac while holding CommandR. When you get the Apple logo release the keys and allow the Mac to come up in Recovery Mode.
When you get to the macOS Utilities dialog select Terminal from the Utilities menu
Type resetpassword into the terminal window. In a few seconds the reset password utility will open and allow you to reset the password on your account.


OSX: Stop autocorrect splitting words I am a programmer, and often I have words in all lowercase, not seperated by a space or hyphen.

In some *situations OSX will sometimes change infoclass to info class for instance

*context aware I'm sure

This feature has breached my annoyance ceiling. Is there anyway to turn it off?

I enjoy autocorrect, just not the word splitting feature.

Navigate to System Preferences > Keyboard > Text > Correct Spelling Automatically (uncheck)

If you wish to leave autocorrect on, but create certain exceptions, you can alternatively leave it checked and in the same pane add, for example:

Replace: infoclass
With: infoclass

This sets up an exclusion of sorts so that autocorrect does not change it to info class


How to increase the size of the OS X user interface without lowering the resolution? I can adjust a few things, such as the Dock, but I don't see a way to say, "I want 1080p resolution, but I'm sitting 5 feet away and want bigger menus, fonts, etc across the entire system."

This is for a computer to be used as an entertainment center, mac mini 2007 running OS X 10.6.8.

I can upgrade to Lion if that provides a useful solution.

How do I increase the sizes of everything system wide so it's readable from a distance, while keeping the high resolution I desire for movies and games?

There is a feature that's currently experimental called HiDPI that may do what you want. Like the retina displays on the iPhone and iPad, HiDPI mode creates a "logical" resolution that's half the current resolution on your display but uses all the physical pixels to keep the image sharp. This results in all the user interface elements appearing much larger, but with no lack in clarity. For example, if you're outputting to a 1080p TV with a resolution of 1920x1080, the HiDPI resolution would be 960x540, and all the elements on the screen would be the same size as if you were outputting that physical resolution.

To enable HiDPI mode in Mac OS X Lion:

Download the "Graphics Tools for Xcode" download from Apple. This download requires you to enter an Apple ID, which you most likely have and can get for free.
Mount the DMG
Open the "Quartz Debug" app
In the menu bar, select "Window", then "UI Resolution"

Check "Enable HiDPI display modes"
You'll be prompted to log out and log back in. If multiple accounts are logged in, they must all log out for the change to work.
Once you log back in, go to System Preferences, then Displays. You will see the new HiDPI modes there.

For your 1080p TV, select "960x540 (HiDPI)"

P.S. If you're curious what HiDPI mode looks like, the screenshots I've taken are both in HiDPI. Click on them to see them full sized.


Which USB ethernet classes does iOS support Firstly, I posted the same question on stackexchange and did not know about this community.

I'm busy with a USB ethernet implementation to provide an ethernet connection to an iPhone over USB.

I'd prefer to use CDC ECM but it seems like iOS does not support this. It does however work with CDC NCM.

Does anyone know or know where I can read on what USB ethernet classes are supported by iOS.

I don't think Apple has published a publicly available list. However, some manufacturers do seem to have a collaboration with Apple on USB-ethernet devices, so they probably have received documentation from Apple on what's recommended.

I'm currently working on the exact same as you, and have found that CDC ECM does not work, nor does RNDIS over ACM work. And as you describe, it seems devices using CDC NCM can be made to work. I have also tried EEM, but couldn't get it to work - that might be due to errors on my part however.

I haven't got any further information than that at the moment. If you figure out more, please update this space!


Make Macports use HTTPS (SSL/TLS) to fetch packages By default, Macports uses HTTP to fetch packages. For example:

--->  Attempting to fetch port_cutleaves-0.1.4_0.darwin_10.noarch.tbz2 from http://lil.fr.packages.macports.org/port_cutleaves

How should a user configure Macports to use HTTPS (SSL/TLS) instead?

The obvious solution would be to modify the source URLs for the packages. The source URLs for a lot of packages appears to be /opt/local/var/macports/sources/rsync.macports.org/release/tarballs/ports/_resources/port1.0/fetch/mirror_sites.tcl.

Having said that, I'm not sure whether it is a good idea to modify that file.

If you do a selfupdate your modified file will be replaced.

Also not all the mirrors are set up correctly to work with HTTPS. For example, the mirror in your example above http://lil.fr.packages.macports.org/ presents an error if you try to access it at https://lil.fr.packages.macports.org/ because the host name of the certificate doesn't match.


Unable to enable PHP in OSX 10.8 mountain lion I have enabled php according to PHP's instructions and uncommented,

#LoadModule php5_module libexec/httpd/libphp5.so

in /private/etc/apache2/httpd.conf. However the line,

#AddModule mod_php5.c

does not exist in that file, nor do any #AddModule lines.  This may be the root of my problem but regardless I restarted apache with,

sudo apachectl restart

and attempted to open ~/Site/page.php

<html>
<head>
<title>My First PHP page </title>
</head>
<body>
<?php echo "<h1> Hello World! </h1>";?>
</body>
</html>

in multiple web browsers.  Safari and Chromium just gave me the raw text of the file and Opera gave me

Hello World ";?>

Do I need to configure apache to add that module and how do I do that, or is there some other problem?

PS, I couldn't even open page.php with safari when it was in my home directory and other browsers tried to download it.

If the line doesn't exist commented-out, then just add it separately. i.e. put a line in  httpd.conf that reads AddModule mod_php5.c.


Can I use Shortcuts to tell me when to leave for a specific appointment based on Map data? I was wondering if anyone knew of an existing Shortcut where I can get the Time that I need to leave My Current location in order to arrive at a specified address at a specified time. So lets say I have a doctors appointment at 6:00 is there a shortcut where I can input the time I need to arrive and the address of my appointment and and the output be the suggested time that I leave from my current location.
Any help is much appreciated.

Set up the appointment in Calendar including the actual location as found in maps/
You can then set 2 alerts, one value is Time to leave.
I think the default for the second alert is Time to leave


Transfer Mac Mail POP3 Email account to new MAC I want to move to a new Macbook. However, I have a POP3 email account on Mac Mail with some old emails that I would like to migrate to a new Macbook which are no longer on the mail server. Would Apple Migrate Assistant allow me to move these emails to the new Macbook? Or is there an alternative method that would allow me to achieve this?

Apple's Migration Assistant will transfer all settings and files from your old Mac to your new one, including all email accounts, regardless of type, IMAP, POP, Exchange, etc.


Broken login.keychain, what now? I recently moved computers, and since then I can no longer import certificates into my login keychain. I have:

Tried using Keychain First aid
Tried running reset password in recovery mode to reset permissions
Tried running disk first aid and resetting permissions

None of these have helped. I still get [UNIX]Permission Denied when I try to import.

So I tried a few other experiments:

I tried deleting old passwords from the keychain. that worked fine
I made a new keychain, development, and imported the certificate there. that worked fine too.

So for whatever reason, something is wrong with my login keychain. Is there a way to export everything and re-import into a new copy? I looked on the Apple web site, but it's hopelessly out of date.

I hope this helps someone in the future:

The list of keychains, notably login.keychain, is stored in ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.security.plist

The system.keychain and similar are found in /Library/Preferences/com.apple.security.plist

If those files have wonky permissions, you'll have problems doing anything. Even if the keychain files themselves are fine, if the OS is unable to edit those two files it just silently fails in weird ways. Notably, Keychain Access will keep forgetting about the whole login chain, and anything you add or remove from it.

This same problem may apply to the keychain itself; if you can't save to it, you likely have wonky permissions.

Note that it appears Disk Utility does not fix this, although I don't know why. It seems you have to manually fix this. You can do this by doing a Get Info on a root folder and reapplying permissions. In my case the problem was that the Owner was wrong because I moved the files from another machine.


How many types of MagSafe are there? Now that MagSafe is dead in favor of USB-C, how many types of MagSafe are there and how do I identify which one matches my computer?

According to Apple, there are three types of MagSafe adapters:

"T" Style
"L" Style
MagSafe 2

The "T" and "L" style are the original MagSafe (or MagSafe 1, if you will) and are compatible with each other.

As for identifying the adapter to your specific model, Apple also provides an excellent support document:  Find the right power adapter and cord for your Mac notebook

As for the MagSafe being dead, according to articles written just today about a patent filed by Apple, they may be bringing it back as an adapter (MagSafe to USB-C)


How can I let Windows XP read Mac OS Extended (Journaled) drives? How can I let another PC using Windows XP (Service Pack3) read Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volumes? Windows XP shows nothing.

Boot Camp Drivers

You can use the Boot Camp drivers which integrates HFS read/write into Explorer.

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL830

You don't need Boot Camp to download/install the drivers.

HFSExplorer

Alternatively, you can use HFSExplorer:

  HFSExplorer is an application that can read Mac-formatted hard disks and disk images.
  It can read the file systems HFS (Mac OS Standard), HFS+ (Mac OS Extended) and HFSX (Mac OS Extended with case sensitive file names).


How to change Google Chrome User-Agent string on iPadOS I want to change my user-agent string for a reason, so I want to know; Is there a way to change the Google Chrome user-agent string on iPadOS 14.5.1? chrome://version shows
Google Chrome   90.0.4430.78 (Official Build) stable (64-bit)
Revision    5efbfe317610ba1c007cae2c17a1387b25023954-refs/branch-heads/4430@{#1273}
OS  iOS
User Agent  Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; CPU OS 14_5 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) CriOS/90.0.4430.78 Mobile/15E148 Safari/604.1
Command Line    /var/containers/Bundle/Application/E45C7263-8110-4FD7-816A-7F1716519B62/stable.app/Chrome --gaia-url=https://accounts.google.com/ --lso-url=https://accounts.google.com/ --google-apis-url=https://www.googleapis.com/ --flag-switches-begin --flag-switches-end
Variations  90a7075b-ca7d8d80
16b16054-ca7d8d80
59b6f412-ca7d8d80
60d4b352-fcb701
12d606a9-3d47f4f4
d7561e8c-ca7d8d80
b3249ec4-ca7d8d80
a9ef513c-ca7d8d80
aed6e5d4-ca7d8d80
3095aa95-3f4a17df
9f9c8297-377be55a
a582a1b8-ad75ce17
a2cb081b-377be55a
b9b6628c-ca7d8d80
ab801be6-ca7d8d80
3042ad4b-ca7d8d80
fe9029fc-ca7d8d80
7d236693-12ede6a2
ec9552e2-ca7d8d80
51d03642-5c0c03aa
2c79286f-ca7d8d80
b2e830b4-ca7d8d80
6a17d209-4bedef5
5c5e100f-ca7d8d80
ee453243-ca7d8d80
141cc710-ca7d8d80
990fd033-ca7d8d80
9e5c75f1-766fa2d
c6643b2c-91c810ef
33d2103a-3f4a17df
5fe247df-ca7d8d80
4f6db7c8-ca7d8d80
a375a87b-377be55a
f31b480d-ca7d8d80
6a9d5557-ca7d8d80
12d6c444-ca7d8d80
1354da85-ca7d8d80
494d8760-52325d43
3ac60855-486e2a9c
63dcb6a3-6995a802
e706e746-e00d173c
f296190c-92bb99a9
4442aae2-6bdfffe7
f690cf64-d7f6b13c
ed1d377-e1cc0f14
75f0f0a0-d7f6b13c
e2b18481-bd104136
e7e71889-4ad60575
547e761a-a38ca7f0
8db2e42f-aed3cc39
5e31bb48-75513c66
a461b170-ca7d8d80
Compiler    LLVM clang

So please can someone answer my question?

TL;DR: No, you can't. Unless there're any other browsers that support switching User Agent natively.
It's sad news, since all browsers on iOS/iPadOS share the same technology (WebKit) under the hood as Safari, per requirement by Apple. You can't install existing Chrome extensions to switch UA string either (also not doable on Chrome for Android).
WebKit surely provided abilities to change UA string, but Chrome on iOS sadly didn't expose this feature.


Unwanted transformation of Chinese characters When I copy and paste character  it's transformed into the Japanese version, 禮 (radical 示 instead of 礻).

What's going on? Is this some 'feature' of Unicode? Is there still a way to paste the character  to a text document / Notes.app note? (After all, on the Wikipedia page linked above the character displays correctly — and as a character, not as an image.)

(Doesn't seem to depend on browser / text editor I'm using. OS X 10.9, if this is important.)

Han characters are unified in Unicode.  Display of the Chinese vs Japanese version depends on the font.  In OS X, the default font should normally be determined by the order of these two languages in the system preferences language list.  Make sure that Chinese is higher than Japanese on your list and restart.

It's possible some apps might not follow that and need font adjustment individually.


How to keep iPod in shuffle mode after selecting a specific song? I'm using the iPod on my iPhone 4 in shuffle mode. If I go back to songs menu and select a specific song, the iPod forgets that it is in shuffle mode. It will play the next song in alphabetical order.

Is there any way to make shuffle mode setting stickier?

Hit the screen when your in the iPod app once so that the scrubber bar appears. In the right corner is a shuffle button. Hit that and it should stick


Prevent external monitors from turning off when Mac is locked I have a brand new MacBook Pro (2018) with two external monitors (AOC Q2790PQU), connected via a Kensington SD5200T docking station (1 x HDMI and 1 x DisplayPort).

The Mac is closed when connected to the docking station.

Whenever I lock my screens, after seeing the login screen for some seconds, both external monitors turn off (go black). I would like the monitors to remain on, showing the login screen.

Does there exist a setting for this somewhere?

Also, for some reason, when I press some keys on my keyboard or move the mouse to wake up the monitors (the Mac itself is not sleeping), then only one of the monitors will turn back on.

In order to get the other monitor to turn back on, I need to open the Mac lid, disconnect and reconnect the docking station, and then close the lid of the Mac.

Does anyone have any ideas why this is happening and how to fix it?

I finally managed to pinpoint the issue: Display Port cable.

One of the monitors were connected with a Display Port to DisplayPort cable. After switching from a Display Port to Mini DisplayPort cable, everything seems to work properly.

One monitor is connected via HDMI (from dock) -> HDMI (monitor 1 input); the other via DisplayPort (from docking station) -> Mini DisplayPort (monitor 2 input).

This also meant that I had to change monitors, because the aforementioned AOC monitors did not have a Mini DisplayPort. I'm now using 2 x Lenovo ThinkVision monitors (model: P27q-10).


What will happen to my iPod Touch (4th Gen, iOS 6.1.6) if I upgrade to iCloud Drive? I currently have 3 Apple devices tied to my iCloud account:

Macbook Air (2012) - just upgraded to Yosemite today
iPad with Retina Display (4th edition) - iOS 8.0.2
iPod Touch (4th Gen) - iOS 6.1.6

When I was asked in the Yosemite upgrade whether I would use iCloud Drive, the instructions warned that my iPod cannot be upgraded to a newer OS, and therefore would not be able to use iCloud Drive.

What does that mean? I currently use my iPod for little other than music, podcasts, and games.

Specifically, my question is, if I change to iCloud Drive, will my apps and games on my iPod no longer be able to save what files they save using legacy iCloud?

It appears that if you upgrade to iCloud Drive, you won't be able to sync any game data with your iOS 8 devices. As an upgrade to iCloud Drive will no longer allow your older iOS 6 iPod to view or edit Documents in iCloud (which I assume includes game data).
Source: this MacRumors forum


Mac mini-hosted WordPress websites won't load on any of the Macs on LAN I have three Mac minis on our LAN, all of which have Yosemite and OS X Server, but only one is enabled as a web server. My problem is that I can see the WordPress-based websites hosted on this web server externally, and on all the Windows machines on our LAN, but not on ANY of the Macs on our LAN.

One of our company's most important applications is based on being able to have one of the Macs query the webserver with http_get from time to time, and lately this query gets timedout or rejected also.

Pic of our LAN

All of the websites used to be view-able in Safari on the Macs, but sometime in the last few months they quit loading. The only really big change we've had is the installation of a new router (a Mikrotik that's a little tough to navigate). Here's what I've tried so far:

Scanned the web server for malware and viruses, nothing bad reported, no website proxy changes, etc.
Removed all cookies, etc. from Safari and reloaded website, no luck
Installed Chrome to see if it was just a Safari problem, same errors but slightly different message ("ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE")
Checked to see that the router/DNS entries in networking settings of the Macs were configured well to the new Mikrotik (but again, not an expert on the Mikrotik end)
OS X Server Websites dashboard says that all websites are available on local network (green dashboard lights)
The webserver's default website (with the cute "Welcome" pic) IS accessible.
Checked the permissions on the website folders to ensure that _www permissions are good, etc. (again the WordPress websites work externally but not internally on just Mac machines, except for the OS X default website)
Checked apache access and error logs on the web server. Nothing showing up there - the attempt to access the website isn't even listed.

My guess is that there is something about the new Mikrotik router that is not allowing the Macs (based on how they're all configured) to see the locally hosted websites. But it could be a variety of other things too... I'd really appreciate any help.

Doh! Okay, my bad for not including the gateway IP in the DNS listing as well as in the "Router" field on the Macs. The DNS listings for all of them now say 192.168.70.1, 75.75.75.75, etc. and the sites are now visible.


Cron job cannot find ffprobe/avprobeor ffmpeg/avconv even though its installed I have a cronjob setup to run "/Users/admin/Scripts/youtubedl.sh"
Script:
cd "/Users/admin/Music/youtubedl-music"
/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" --download-archive .mydownloads -i -f bestaudio --extract-audio --audio-format mp3 https://youtube.page/here

Cron fails saying "ERROR: ffprobe/avprobe and ffmpeg/avconv not found. Please install one."
If I run it manually everything executes correctly, somehow its unable to find ffmpeg/avconv when running via cron. How can I correct this?

Specify the absolute path to the ffmpeg/avconv binary with the --ffmpeg-location option:

--ffmpeg-location PATH
Location of the ffmpeg/avconv binary; either the path to the binary or its containing directory.