Automate the repositioning and refreshing of menu bar icons? Background
When menu bar items are rearranged manually using Cmd+drag, macOS writes a new "preferred position" preference to each app that is showing a menu bar icon. (This preference helps, but does not guarantee, that they retain their position for subsequent launches.)
Problem
I want to automate the saving of the menu bar icon positions, without interacting manually, for educational and accessibility reasons.
Question
How can I automate the repositioning of a menu bar item (which will trigger the system to write the new prefs)?
Or, how can I trigger macOS to write the new preferences directly (without automating a repositioning of a menu bar item)?
I do not want to interact with the menu items manually, or write out the preferences myself.

I've found a way to directly write the Preferred Position values using the shell command defaults. I'll leave the automation part out since I don't know the specifics of your project (I assume you know how to automate shell commands as the current user.) This should allow you to change the preferred values but won't move the menu bar items without a restart.
Background

The Defaults system is used to store certain user preferences on macOS. This happens to include the Preferred Position for Menu Bar items. I'll let Apple explain the basics better:
From man defaults:

Defaults allows users to read, write, and delete Mac OS X user defaults from a command-line shell. Mac OS X applications and other programs use the defaults system to record user preferences and other information that must be maintained when the applications aren't running (such as default font for new documents, or the position of an Info panel). Much of this information is accessible through an application's Preferences panel, but some of it isn't, such as the position of the Info panel.

User defaults belong to domains, which typically correspond to individual applications. Each domain has a dictionary of keys and values representing its defaults; for example, "Default Font" = "Helvetica". Keys are always strings, but values can be complex data structures comprising arrays, dictionaries, strings, and binary data. These data structures are stored as XML Property Lists.

In short, Defaults are categorized under Domains (the app or service the setting belongs to), are identified using Keys (the name of the particular setting), and each *Key has a Value assigned to it.

The Preferred Position defaults we care about are not all under one domain, since individual apps can add new items to the Menu Bar. However, the keys all share this format:
NSStatusItem Preferred Position <menu-item-name>
where <menu-item-name> is the name of each item a particular app or service adds.
The values are all stored as float numbers, usually integers but some have a decimal point.
Here are the macOS built-in Menu Item Defaults on my machine as an example.
'com.apple.systemuiserver': {
    "NSStatusItem Preferred Position Item-0" = 23;
    "NSStatusItem Preferred Position Siri" = 61;
    "NSStatusItem Preferred Position com.apple.menuextra.TimeMachine" = 548;
    "NSStatusItem Preferred Position com.apple.menuextra.airport" = 483;
    "NSStatusItem Preferred Position com.apple.menuextra.battery" = 179;
    "NSStatusItem Preferred Position com.apple.menuextra.bluetooth" = 513;
    "NSStatusItem Preferred Position com.apple.menuextra.textinput" = 127;
    "NSStatusItem Preferred Position com.apple.menuextra.volume" = 260;
}

com.apple.systemuiserver is a domain containing the key NSStatusItem Preferred Position Siri with value 61.
Listing All Current Preferred Position Defaults

In order to list all the domains, keys, and values for our Preferred Position Defaults, we can use the defaults find command to search for matches.
The command we need in this instance is defaults find "NSStatusItem Preferred Position".
$ defaults find "NSStatusItem Preferred Position"
Found 1 keys in domain 'com.coconut-flavour.coconutBattery-Menu': {
    "NSStatusItem Preferred Position Item-0" = "344.5";
}
Found 1 keys in domain 'com.lastpass.LastPass': {
    "NSStatusItem Preferred Position Item-0" = 795;
}
Found 8 keys in domain 'com.apple.systemuiserver': {
    "NSStatusItem Preferred Position Item-0" = 23;
    "NSStatusItem Preferred Position Siri" = 61;
    "NSStatusItem Preferred Position com.apple.menuextra.TimeMachine" = 548;
    "NSStatusItem Preferred Position com.apple.menuextra.airport" = 483;
    "NSStatusItem Preferred Position com.apple.menuextra.battery" = 179;
    "NSStatusItem Preferred Position com.apple.menuextra.bluetooth" = 513;
    "NSStatusItem Preferred Position com.apple.menuextra.textinput" = 127;
    "NSStatusItem Preferred Position com.apple.menuextra.volume" = 260;
}
Found 1 keys in domain 'org.pqrs.Karabiner-Menu': {
    "NSStatusItem Preferred Position Item-0" = 750;
}
Found 1 keys in domain 'com.google.GoogleDrive': {
    "NSStatusItem Preferred Position Item-0" = 607;
}
... and so on ...

Reading and Writing the Value of a Given Domain & Key

In order to read the value of a given domain and key, we need to use the defaults read command. To write, we use defaults write.
Here, I will read the value of the key NSStatusItem Preferred Position Siri at the com.apple.systemuiserver domain.
Note that the domain and key must be enclosed in double quotes.
$ defaults read "com.apple.systemuiserver" "NSStatusItem Preferred Position Siri"
61

Here, I will change the the key NSStatusItem Preferred Position Siri at the com.apple.systemuiserver domain to the value 42.7.
Note that the domain and key must be enclosed in double quotes, and the -float before the value
$ defaults write "com.apple.systemuiserver" "NSStatusItem Preferred Position Siri" -float 42.7
$ defaults read "com.apple.systemuiserver" "NSStatusItem Preferred Position Siri"
42.7

Again, I'll leave exactly how you automate this up to you, but this can all be easily integrated into your code.
If this doesn't work out for you, here are some links to the Apple Developer AppKit docs for adding items to the Menu Bar as well as for accessing the Defaults system using objective-c and swift. Not sure if they'll be any use to you but maybe they'll set you on the right track.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/appkit/nsstatusitem
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/appkit/nsstatusbar
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/userdefaults


How to Create Templates for Windows Publisher on a Mac I have a client who works in Publisher on a PC however, I work on a Mac and use InDesign. What is the best program for me to set up Templates in InDesign so they can open them up in Publisher on their system?

Jeff

I understand that there may be different ways to achieve the end goal but since no one has come up with a solution at this point, here is what I suggest you try:

There is a neat little application for the Mac called Wine. All in all it allows you to run Windows applications on a mac.
About 7 months ago, I used it to run Publisher on mac without a single hiccup along the way. Your client will save a bit of money with the InDesign app and (depending on the size of your project) perhaps it does the job better than any other third party applications.

Here is a link:
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/open-microsoft-publisher-mac-56433.html

Give it a go and let me know if this answer suits your project.


Cannot delete smtp server in mail application on High Sierra I have removed an smtp server the way as specified by apple for the mail application on macOS. However the smtp server keeps reappearing. I have followed the suggestions in https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2775382?start=0&tstart=0 but no luck.
Does anyone have any idea on how can I force delete the smtp server?

Thanks

I have found in Keychain two hidden entries that corresponded to smtp servers (com.apple.account.SMTP.asynchost), delete them and puff, no more ghost smtp server on the mail app.

Take caution as deleting those entry apparently can lead to keychain malfunction. Do backups of the keys before delete them.

See discussion here: https://discussions.apple.com/message/32426759#32426759


Can I have Windows share disk space with macOS? I want to dual boot between macOS and Windows 10. But I don't want to give each a fixed amount of disk space, which is hard to change later. I instead want to keep it flexible so that at some times, macOS can use more disk space, and at other times, Windows.

How do I do this without using a VM? I don't need or want to run both OSs at once. I want to dual boot.

Can I install Windows and ask it to boot from a disk image or sparse image on the HFS+ filesystem? Or, alternatively, boot macOS from a disk image on an NTFS filesystem?

Or is that some LVM stuff that works for this?

Short answer

No, it is not possible (to my knowledge, at this time) to boot into one of the other operating systems from a disk image stored on another partition.

What I have done in the past is make a third partition that I use to share files between the two. I make both boot partitions large enough to store the most important things and then a third that I can store other files on whether they be Windows files or Mac files. It isn't a perfect solution but at least that way if you want more space for Mac stuff then you can format that partition in HFS+. If you want more space for Windows stuff you can format that partition in NTFS or exFAT or something.

If you do decide to do something like that then look into the proper way of doing so before you try. It isn't an easy process but it is at least easier than trying to do what you suggested. You can find some instructions on Ubuntu's website that help explain how to set up a triple boot system. Follow those instructions and just skip the step where you install Ubuntu. Instead, leave the last partition empty for storing stuff.

IMPORTANT: Don't forget to backup everything before trying any sort of partitioning on your main drive. You were warned.

Another option is to install a second drive if possible. I have an older MacBook Pro and I took the DVD drive out and put a second drive in its place. Thats the absolute easiest thing to do if you can.

As to your question about LVM. CoreStorage would allow you to set up partitions that can be resized later and the like, but Windows cannot boot from a CoreStorage partition. CoreStorage is strictly a macOS technology that no other OS recognizes. But that is a longer story for another time.

Longer answer

Your Mac's firmware that is in charge of finding and mounting a bootable partition does not have that ability. Maybe, just maybe in the Linux world that is possible but I'm not sure. But I know a Mac's firmware doesn't have that capability because that is not something 99.9999% of people would want to do.

When your Mac turns on the firmware (the baked in software that is stored on a chip on the motherboard) is in charge of finding a partition on your hard drive with an operating system that can boot. When booting to macOS the firmware (EFI on a Mac) finds a special partition on your hard drive called EFI (yes, the same name as the firmware), mounts that partition, and lets the software (called a boot loader) take over the boot process. The EFI is very small and has very limited capabilities since it has to live in a small chip on the motherboard. The boot loader can do more because the EFI partition on your hard drive is large enough to store a bigger program.

The boot loader then mounts the other drives on your disk and finds the partitions with macOS and depending on which drive you selected in the System Preferences it will boot macOS from the partition you chose (you can have many different partitions on the same hard drive with macOS installed on any of them).

When booting to Windows on a Mac your EFI does things a little differently. As far as I understand the boot loader on the EFI partition isn't used to boot Windows. Instead, the Windows installer puts a little chunk of code at the very beginning of you drive in the tiny space called the MBR. That space is measured in bytes. Not even kilobytes. Just bytes. It is absolutely tiny. So you can't do much with the boot loader stored there. All it does is find the Windows partition and direct the CPU there to finish booting. There is no space on the Windows boot loader to do much of anything else at all. Especially not to mount a drive, find the correct disk image on that drive and then mount and boot from that disk image. It wouldn't come close to fitting in the MBR.

Going back to the EFI partition there may be a chance of fitting enough software on that partition to do all the work necessary to boot from a disk image but again I'm not sure its possible. I'm not familiar enough with the boot process to know if it is. All I know for sure is that the current EFI and boot loader do not support anything like you are asking for.

Making a boot loader that does what you are looking for may be possible but it would require a lot of work and a strong understanding of how the whole boot process works.

The point is it would be a much better use of your time figuring out a better way to partition your hard drive then to try and mount one using a disk image.

I tried to explain things as best as I understand them but I may be wrong. Someone please correct me if I am.


Transferring mobile apps from iTunes (iPhone) to an external hard drive I'm not too computer savvy, but I want to know if there is a way to transfer my mobile apps on iTunes to an external hard drive?  I am trying to free up space on my PC's internal space.  And if so, how do I go about doing so?

Backing up your purchases is one approach. Since iTunes provides access to your prior purchases (as long as they have not been removed by Apple or the Developer), you can safely delete them from your computer. That won't be enough though.  You'll need to tell iTunes not to automatically download them.  Here are the steps you could take:

In iTunes, go the iTunes Preferences ( or ⌘, ) and select the Store tab.
Under Automatic Downloads, assert that the Apps checkbox is unchecked. (see image below)
Delete the mobile Apps


Completely reinstall everything on the Mac Let's say that I am paranoid and I want not only to wipe and reinstall OS X, but also recovery, SMC, firmware and everything in the Mac hardware that could have been infected with malware. Is there any way to accomplish this?

You could get a brand new SSD disk and install OS X on it, carefully clean wipe the current one.

In addition you could get EFI and SMC firmware from Apple.

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT1557

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201518

The before you do anything (since the malware could creep right in again) install something like LittleSnich and block everything from to Network and only allow fully trusted stuff.


AirPlay on Apple TV works for iOS devices but not for Macs I am trying to use AirPlay mirroring in a conference room-style setup using a 3rd-generation Apple TV. All software is fully-updated (as of 7/24/2014).

All devices are connected to a strong network without any password.

From an iPhone 4s, the AirPlay service shows up in control center, and mirroring works fine. From an Early 2014 MacBook Air, AirPlay never becomes available in the menu bar or in Display preferences, OR in regular iTunes.

What should I do to try to troubleshoot this?

EDIT:

I had been wondering if there was a subnet issue of some kind, but it appears not. For illustrative purposes, the Apple TV is 10.10.17.217. Two iOS devices can AirPlay to it from .18.8 and .18.196, but the MacBook Air cannot from .20.127. All have the same subnet mask of 255.255.240.0, and are pointed at the same router (.16.1).

I suppose I still need to try with other AirPlay endpoints and with other MacBooks, but I've really got nothing to go on beyond guess and check.

Aaaand I just checked with an iMac connected to the same network, .17.118. Nothing.

...

OKAY HOLD ON A SECOND.

I did a teeny bit of Googling and found some references to Bluetooth being added as a substitute/supplement for Bonjour discovery of AirPlay in a recent update. On the hunch that iOS devices are a bit more promiscuous with Bluetooth than the Macs would be, I tried testing the iOS devices with Bluetooth turned off. Here's the thing: once you're connected, you can turn off Bluetooth, but if Bluetooth is not turned on, you will not be able to see the AirPlay endpoint.

I noticed there was a Bluetooth setting in the Apple TV as well, and saw that it was just on and searching. Upon turning it off, the AirPlay option immediately disappeared from the iOS devices. Back on, and the option reappeared. Still nothing from the Macs.

The Apple TV is running software version 6.2 (6698.99.50.31).

What the hell is going on here?

First thing I'd check is whether the firewall is enabled on your Macbook and blocking incoming packets. If the firewall is on, try turning it off temporarily for a few minutes to see if the AirPlay icon appears in the menubar.

Next thing to check is whether the devices are on the same subnet. You can find the IP address and subnet mask of your Apple TV in Settings -> General -> Network. And the IP address and subnet mask of your Macbook in System Preferences -> Network -> Wi-Fi -> Advanced... -> TCP/IP. Ideally what you should expect to see is the same subnet mask on both devices (likely something like 255.255.255.0) and IP addresses that are similar except for the number after the last dot (something like 192.168.0.125 and 192.168.0.138).

Those are the two things I'd check first. Check those and let us know how you get on.

Apple have a guide to trouble-shooting AirPlay problems for Macs. There are a few other things that might help too: About AirPlay Mirroring in OS X


Backup a bootable partition with rsync I use rsync to create a backup of my boot partition (Mavericks).
Everything is OK (during the backup) but the backup partition does not boot (it seems to loop infinitely).

I think I used the correct arguments to rsync, included the following
options:
--hfs-compression and --protect-decmpfs

Any ideas?

(of course, I used bless to make it bootable)

Repair the permissions has allowed to solve the problem. The backup partition is now booting without any problem.


iOS7 Contacts Have All Disappeared I upgraded to iOS 7 yesterday. Today, all my contacts suddenly vanished. They were working in iOS 7 this morning, but have since disappeared.

I'm not syncing contacts with an external system (Exchange, iCloud, Google, etc.). All of the contacts were on my phone only. They are still in my computer's Address Book, but when I sync to the phone and check the Contacts box under "Replace Information on This Phone," no contacts show up on the phone.

Phone favorites and text messages still exist, but as numbers only.

I could manually reenter them, but if there's an underlying problem, I don't want to spend the effort and then lose them again later.

Most Googling has returned no help for the current version. And solutions are to use things like iSync, which doesn't exist on Lion.

Finally found the solution. If this happens to you, try turning on (or turning off/on) the iCloud contact syncing, even if you don't think you're using it.

I turned it back on (I never realized it was on) and all my contacts came back. I guess the phone was using iCloud to sync contacts all along and I wasn't aware of it.


iOS Updating: OTA vs iTunes Is there a difference between updating iOS via OTA or iTunes? I have done some pretty good mucking around with my iPhone 4S's filesystem (e.g. deleting my Music folder). I have an inkling that the iTunes update is more thorough, and will reformat my entire filesystem, while I'm not so sure about the OTA update.

Does anyone have any in-depth knowledge they'd like to share on the matter?

Edit: I'll be going from 5.0.1 to 5.1.1

Yes at first approximation they are the same, but the mechanism of the update is different since one can be a delta and self-applied update and the other installs a complete build rather than patching the OS.
Digging deeper, the OTA update implies the OS and device is working properly, so Finder or iTunes is a good bet if you really want to ensure the update goes well or want to put the device into recovery mode to ensure the new OS and only the new OS is written. Obviously, if the device is having problems, you may opt for a computer to control the update rather than hoping the device stages, installs and executed cleanup of the patch properly.
Assuming your device is working well, you can safely update OTA and in many cases - the download is a delta update that is smaller than the entire image if you are doing an update that isn't a major version (4.0 or 5.0 which started the OTA capabilities and presumably 6.0 when it ships).
Using Finder or iTunes also gives you a chance to transfer purchases and reduce the number of apps you will have to re-download after a major update. Again, not an issue on incremental updates like 5.1.1 update from 5.1.

iOS version history on wikipedia
About iOS 5.1.1

In practice, this even has been called out as a deciding factor for the jailbreak that was first released for iOS 7 where the notes said the exploit won't work against an OTA iOS 7 device, and only against a cleanly restored device. I don't know if that has to do with the signing key or an actual difference in the two images, but it shows that the processes are indeed different in some respects.


How do I make iClip Lite work in newer versions of Mac OS X? iClip Lite is a Clipboard Manager dashboard widget, which won an Apple Design Award back in 2006. It's pretty great.

Unfortunately, the widget appears to have broken all the way back in Snow Leopard†. You can still save and retrieve clipboard items, but the preview of all those items is invisible. Without a way to see what was saved, the widget is pretty useless.

Can this be fixed?

† If not earlier—Snow Leopard is just the earliest version of OS X I have access to.

I figured out how to fix the preview!

Right click iClip lite.wdgt in Finder and select Show Package Contents, then open js/scripts.js in a text editor.

Go to line 49, which reads:

node.setAttribute("style", "position: absolute; left: 1.5em; top: 1.5em; width: 7.2em; height: 7.2em;")

Change and height to 300px and 150px, respectively. Your new line 49 should read:

node.setAttribute("style", "position: absolute; left: 1.5em; top: 1.5em; width: 300px; height: 150px;");

Save your changes, close the file, and reload the widget (in the Dashboard, click the Widget and enter ⌘R). Everything should work now.

I tested this on Mavericks and High Sierra, so I assume it will work on the full gamut of Snow Leopard through Mojave.


Where does Photo Booth store photos and videos? I want to automatically backup photos and videos from Photo Booth to Google Photos, but don't know where they are stored.

The PhotoBooth Library is within the Pictures folder of your Home Folder.

Regarding automatic backup, there is no direct way to do it as Photo Booth does not have many options for that. You can try following:

Get Desktop Uploader app for Google Photos. Alternative way to get it is by opening the sidebar on Google Photos in your browser and clicking App downloads.

After installing the app and logging into your Google account, you can select which folders Google Photos will automatically back up. So try to
add this path to auto backup:

"/Users/your_username/Pictures/Photo Booth Library/Pictures"

You can right-click "Photo Booth Library", and select "Show Package Contents" to see the Pictures folder, or open directly from Terminal with: open ~/Pictures/Photo\ Booth\ Library/Pictures


Finder search does not work properly for Tibetan unicode after Yosemite upgrade I have seen Finder is giving some issues. For me, it is working fine as long as I use Latin characters. Since I work with Tibetan, I was used to search for text. When updating to Yosemite, it stopped working properly. I have checked with various friends and all have the same issue: Yosemite indexing has changed from Mavericks.

So here is a description: letters of the alphabet are still indexed (like ཀ་ཁ་ག་ང་), but when they are combined (like རྒ་), Spotlight is the blue, giving no answer. Again, this used to work very well before.

I have tried reindexing, following Apple's suggestion, but no success. It seems to be related to the indexing method itself.

Any advice? This is a big issue as we are used to search with Finder — a feature that is normally powerful in OSX.

I discovered recently exactly the same problem for certain Cyrillic characters. After trouble-shooting it became obvious that the culprit is lack of unicode support in the Apple indexing. The workaround is to use the alternative search - such as Find Any File.


How to prevent re-ordering of app icon locations after apps re-enabled on a MDM-enrolled device? It is possible for a MDM to disable almost all apps on an iOS device by issuing a configuration profile that specifies "no apps" in the Restrictions Payload.  When disabled, apps simply disappear from the device home screen.

My problem is that if I distribute configuration profiles with this restriction and then later distribute new profiles removing the restriction, all of the app icons on the device reappear but not organized as they were before they were disable.

Any ideas on how to prevent or workaround this?

Kidslox have a workaround they call Icon Fixer.  I haven't tested this, but came across it a while ago.

  ... Once downloaded, the Icon Fixer ‘app’ will appear as a greyed out icon on your device. It’s basically an app that never fully installs and this frozen state is what keeps the apps in order when using Kidslox.


iPhone 6 current period not matching with the last reset date I want to monitor app wise data usage, and I reset the data counter approximately 48 hours ago. The reset date and time shown at the bottom is correct, but the corresponding current Period is only 1 Hour, 52 Minutes. And it is stuck to this value for the past several hours.

Is this an issue, or is my understanding of current period wrong?

The "Current Period" time listed under iOS -> Settings -> Cellular only shows the amount of call time spent, or time you have used the phone, and not how long data has been in use for. Data only shows usage and does not reflect the amount of time. You'll have to mark when you reset the statistics to get an accurate count.

An easy way to do this (one I use often) would be to set a reminder via Siri to "remind me in 48 hours to check data usage" - this way you'll get a reminder near exactly when you want to check.

Thanks!


How do I format a disk partition from the command line on OS X? How do I format a disk partition from the command line on Mac OS X?

In case someone wonders why: because for some people Disk Utility fails.

diskutil list

In my case I wanted to format the parition as NTFS for installing Windows 7 on it. The last parameter is the partition 4 on first disk.

diskutil eraseVolume "Tuxera NTFS" my-ntfs disk0s4


How to update iOS with limited hard drive space? A friend of mine is trying to update her iPhone's OS through iTunes but it always fails as she has only 1GB free space left on partition C, and it seems that iTunes is using it as temporary space.

She's asking for help but I don't really know what I can do except using another computer with more free space to do the update.  Is there a way to download iOS manually so we can store it on another partition instead of using up all space on partition C?  Or is there any simpler way to do it?

A conventional spinning hard drive on a computer needs to have at least 15% free space for optimal operation. If a spinning hard drive has less than 15% free space, the entire computer system will run slower than it should, due to a phenomenon called disk fragmentation.

Your friend will do herself a favor if she buys a larger hard drive and pays a technician to install it and clone the contents of her older, smaller hard drive to her newer, larger hard drive. Then she will not only have a faster computer system, she will also have plenty of room for iTunes and the iOS upgrade.

Large hard drives are ridiculously cheap.

That being said, there are many things that can be done to clean out un-needed files from the existing hard drive to free up more space. Start by running the free CCleaner program.

Then free up space on the disk by deleting all but the last Windows System Restore Point. Do a Google search for instructions on that.


How to take datas from apple time capsule I have an Apple Time Capsule which takes backup of several Mac machines in my company.
One of the Macs crashed and have been handed over to a service center.

I need to take the backup data of the crashed machine from Time Capsule. If I try to access Time Capsule from my Mac,it shows only back-up data from my own Mac.

How can I access back-up data from a different Mac?

Try the Browse Other Backup Disks-Option via pressing the Alt-Key and clicking the TimeMachine-Icon in the Menubar as stated in the TimeMachine-FAQ.


Can I shuffle a set of songs when I add them to Up Next? In iTunes 11, let's say I'm playing Song X by Artist A.

I have a few more albums by Artist A, and decide I want to hear some more of their stuff, but I'd like to hear it at random.

If I switch to the Artists view, I can select Artist A and hit Shuffle, but that will immediately start playing random tracks by the artist, eliminating whatever I already had playing.

I can also pick Add Artist A to Up Next from the context menu, but this will add all their songs in order to Up Next.

Can I have my cake and eat it too, somehow? Can I both maintain the currently playing song and enqueue the shuffled set of Artist A's songs to play Up Next?

You can option-click the shuffle button at the top of an album to queue it in a random order. Oddly, if I do that for the artist it only adds the first song in the list. Weird. And you can't intermingle different albums like this, you have to do that manually in the Up Next panel.

Correction: if you go to Artists view, select All Artists and then option-click the shuffle button next to one of the artist names, it will queue all the songs by that artist in a random order. If you select an individual artist and do it, it will only queue the first song.


AppleScript updating photo dates, with off-by-one hour bug I’m scripting Photos to update the dates on photos in an album, to make them match the order of photos in the album. These are scans of old photos so the modification dates don’t match when the photos were taken anyway.

It almost works but some photos get a date one hour too early. That looks like a time zone problem except that the photos have no location information, so I can’t tell where it would come from.

tell application "Photos"
    set currentAlbum to album named "Album name"
    -- Start with a date slightly in the past, based on the album size.
    set currentAlbumCount to (count of media items in currentAlbum)
    set photoDate to (current date) - currentAlbumCount
    repeat with currentItem in media items in currentAlbum
        set photoDate to photoDate + 1
        set date of currentItem to photoDate
    end repeat
end tell

After running this, the EXIF for photos has the time/date for some being an hour earlier than others-- e.g. one at 4:16:13 pm, the next one at 3:16:14, then 4:16:15, with no apparent reason why some are off by an hour.

I’m trying to do this because when I export and use the photos in other places (like Google photos) they get sorted by date, and I want to preserve the sort order.

It seems that the problem is that Photos doesn't edit all EXIF date tags when the script above runs, and Google Photos looks at tags that Photos doesn't change. Photos doesn't seem to have any other options for editing dates so I had to dig deeper. As @CJK described in comments, EXIF dates are a bit of a mess so it's necessary to edit the EXIF directly.

I ended up exporting the album from Photos and writing a custom shell script to change the dates. I used @CJK's suggestion of exiftool. The script follows. If you don't understand it, don't use it, because it has no error checking.

#!/bin/bash

# First export photos from Photos.app to a directory.
# - Export as "sequential". Use a prefix with no spaces.
# - Filenames should look like "Photo - 13.jpg"

TARGET_DIR="Your directory here"
# Count files. The sed on the end is because wc has pesky whitespace that causes trouble setting TIMESTAMP.
PHOTO_COUNT=`ls "$TARGET_DIR" | wc -l | sed 's/ //g'`

# Starting timestamp is slightly in the past, based on the number of photos.
let TIMESTAMP=`date +"%s"`-$PHOTO_COUNT

# Set IFS so that the loop will work properly with filenames that contain spaces.
IFS=$(echo -en "\n\b")

# Sort files numerically by the number in the filename
for FILE in `ls "$TARGET_DIR" | sort -n -k 3`
do
    # Move the timestamp by one second for every photo
    let TIMESTAMP=$TIMESTAMP+1
    # Get various date and time strings for EXIF.
    DATE_TIME_STRING=`date -r $TIMESTAMP +"%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"`
    DATE_STRING=`date -r $TIMESTAMP +"%Y-%m-%d"`
    TIME_STRING=`date -r $TIMESTAMP +"%H:%M:%S"`

    # Set a bunch of date and time values in the photo's EXIF. It might be necessary to add more depending on the photos but these do the job for now.
    EXIFTOOL_CMD="/usr/local/bin/exiftool -overwrite_original -DateCreated=\"$DATE_STRING\" -FileCreateDate=\"$DATE_TIME_STRING\" -TimeCreated=\"$TIME_STRING\" -DateTimeOriginal=\"$DATE_TIME_STRING\" -CreateDate=\"$DATE_TIME_STRING\" -ModifyDate=\"$DATE_TIME_STRING\" -DigitalCreationDate=\"$DATE_STRING\" -DigitalCreationTime=\"$TIME_STRING\" \"$TARGET_DIR/$FILE\""
    eval $EXIFTOOL_CMD
done

A few notes:

exiftool has an AllDates option, but changing it doesn't actually change all dates.
I'm setting dates and times for numerous date/time related tags, but I found those by trial and error. They work for the photos I'm working with but may not be complete.

I tried using Image Events with AppleScript but it would only read the dates, not change them. Or so it seemed-- if someone knows different then I'd love to see a script that worked.


Can iOS-devices take sound in and send to Airplay? I plan to find an old iPhone to make my record player connect to Airplay. Is that possible?

What I want to do is to take stereo line signal and "input" it into the phone and then playback it on the phone to an Apple TV. Is that possible? What hardware do I need to get the stereo signal into the phone and what software would allow me to redirect the in-signal to Airplay?

I found a solution. It is described in detail below.
What you need

a RIAA preamp with USB Audio output, such as a Behringer UFO202
Apple's Lightning to USB 3 Camera Adapter
an iOS device with GarageBand installed

The steps you need to follow

Connect your record player to the RIAA preamp

Connect the RIAA preamp to the camera adapter.

Connect a Lightning USB cable to the camera adapter (unless you want to run this on battery power).

In GarageBand (on your iOS device), select Audio Recorder as the instrument (see screenshot below taken from an iPad):

Turn on monitoring

Select Stereo as the Channel and enable the Monitor option (see screenshot below)

OPTIONAL: It may be a good idea to increase the Out volume (use the vertical slider on the right)

Switch on your record player

Set your iOS device to use Airplay speakers for sound playback

Now, everytime you want to use your record player you can just connect your iOS device to the RIAA preamp and it'll become an input selector.
NOTE: If you get a warning about delays and latency you can just dismiss it.


Use Automator to run Python script when files added to folder I have a folder, Books, where I add all of the .pdf files that need to be uploaded to a Kindle. I have a Python script that does that, but instead of manually running it, I want to check whenever files are added to Books, run that Python script. Is there any way to do this using Automator, or even without Automator?

Launch Automator, and choose 'Folder Action' as the document type.
Then set the target folder in the drop-down menu at the top of the window.

Add a "Run Shell Script" action. You have to choose one of the 'shell' environments in the drop-down menu, which include either the system python /usr/bin/python (which is v2, and EOLed); or a Unix shell, where you can call the python script externally, with something like:

/usr/local/bin/python3 <path to python script> "$1"

Alternatively to using the Run Shell Script action, you could use the AppleScript action with a do shell script command.

Save your workflow. The workflow is saved to ~/Library/Scripts/Folder Action Scripts

You can configure Folder Actions for any folder by right-clicking in the Finder and selecting "Folder Actions Setup".

(I have had intermittent success hacking the saved workflow in a text editor, and altering the 'shell' path to another environment. /usr/bin/swift works, but /usr/local/bin/python doesn't. More work required.)


Can I synchronize my iPad calendar with a similar online calendar? My question is a little vague, I'm sorry. I'll try to make it clear.

I recently bought my iPad, and I fell in love with the calendar. I would like to start using it as my main calendar application, inputting all my future appointments and weekly tasks into it. I am afraid, however, that my iPad will become unavailable due to an empty battery, destruction etc. So what then?

Thus I wonder if Apple has some sort of online calendar to which I can sync my iPad calendar every time it's online or connected to a PC.

I'm very sceptical to syncing it with Google calendar, seeing as the calendars work a bit differently. In my GC I have layed out my tasts and appointments in "theme" separated colorcoded calendars. It seems my iPad will only let me work with one calendar, and the Google calendar will show up as a different calendar. I don't want it to work like that - rather I'd like to have full control from both the iPad and the synchronized online calendar.

If anyone understands what I'm after, I'd love an answer :-)

You have to tell Google Calendar which calenders to sync by using Google Sync. It's a bit convoluted, but once it's set up you shouldn't have to do it again. I've done it and use Google Calendar and my iPad exactly as you describe.

Google have the instructions here:

Using Google Sync with iOS Calendar


Is it possible to show multi-level threads in Mail.app? I like the threaded view for mail.app, but it only groups the messages per thread. In other words, there's only two levels: the original messages, and all the replies that came after that.

Is it possible (perhaps via plugin?) to show a multi-level view of the e-mail thread in mail.app?


Hard drive defect? Help me recover my music! I've an old iPod Classic with 80 GB of Storage, suddenly it stopped showing any music. I can still access the files on it (with Windows Explorer). Copying all files is possible but it stops at a certain point. I need help, I don't have a backup of my music. Is there still something you can do? (Maybe a program which skips bad files or sth.)

I tried "chkdsk" but it stops after 4% with "Wrong Drive" (Falscher Datenträger). iTunes recognises the iPod but wants to restore to factory.

The Hard Drive is formatted with FAT32.

This is the SMART data from the drive:

Retracts: 16
Reallocs: 320
Pending Sectors: 192
PowerOn Hours: 1340
Start/Stops: 66331
Temp: Current 32C
Temp: Min 0C
Temp: Max 53C

HDD SPEC:

SNO: 97M4S655S
FW Revision: VQ110A
LBAs: 0x950f8b0

I don't have access to a Mac.

You could try running SpinRite on the disk, then trying again to get the files off.

SpinRite (among other things) talks the drive's internal error correction into working better so Windows or the iPod's OS can more-easily read the files.


How can I have iCal email me reminders I have heard of people getting email reminders from iCal, but I can't figure out how to do it. So the obvious question is:

How do I have iCal email me reminders?

As I see now that was removed. In that case is there a widget to let me email reminders to myself?

The email reminder function was removed some time before iCal was renamed to Calendar. Presumably it was a security risk, but I can't find a good link explaining the exploits that used that pathway to harm people.


Enabling Things iPhone legacy sync messes up recurring tasks and areas - can this be avoided? I'm trying to enable Bonjour Legacy Sync in Things iPhone (so that I can sync with an old and unused version of Things Mac on Snow Leopard).

Having followed the instructions linked above, when I restart Things in Things 1 mode it shows lots of instances of a recurring task in Today which weren't there before, and doesn't show a large number of changes I've recently made to Areas.

I've now turned off Things 1 mode and restored the Things 2 database. Is there a way to enable legacy sync without disordering my tasks and losing some recent changes?

Running Things 2.2.3 on iOS 6.1.1 (deliberate non-upgrade to avoid battery problems on a beaten up 4S).

Prompt response via email from Julia at Cultured Code to my support request using the feedback form answers the question:

  When you revert to Things 1 mode, the data from Things 2 cannot be
  converted to the older database format. There should be a note warning
  about this when converting to Things 1 mode; if not, I apologize for
  the confusion this caused.

  Basically, if you want to have the to-dos from Things 2 in Things 1,
  you have to re-enter them manually. Since this downgrade path is one
  that only very few customers chose to take, we didn’t spend time on
  implementing a downgrade path for the data.


Issue with installation of FFMPEG and Homebrew due to low HDD size? I hope this is the right place to pose this question. I have a MacBook Pro with just 128 GB of HDD space.

Now I want to install Homebrew & FFMPEG - however, with what I have read it seems that Xcode is a mandatory.

Is there a way to install just the required libraries for FFMPEG or Homebrew to run without having install the enormous 10-12 gig of Xcode.

Thanks.

On my system the necessary Command Line Tools take up some 303.6MB (I am using macOS Sierra 10.12.3 on a 2012 AirBook). Also, for what it is worth /Applications/XCode.app is only ~6+GB on this same computer.

I don't know that this is a comprehensive storage requirement assessment, but...
~300MB for /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/
~125MB for /usr/local/Homebrew/
~_60MB for /usr/Cellar/ffmpeg/
~ 500MB Total Storage

STEP ONE:

To install Command Line Tools without the full Xcode install:

$ xcode-select --install

See also this step-by-step guide.

To uninstall simply delete the folder /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/

STEP TWO:

To install Homebrew:

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

When using Homebrew, it's good to run brew commands such as
brew update &
brew doctor
...prior to installations. See here for some brewing tips.

To uninstall Homebrew:

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

  Download the uninstall script and run ./uninstall --help to view more uninstall options.

STEP THREE:

To install the most basic ffmpeg with Homebrew:

$ brew install ffmpeg

After installing ffmpeg confirm that ffplay, ffprobe and ffserver have successfully installed and are available in your command line by using, for example:

$ ffplay -version

If they are not all available, you may need to use the following brew command:

$ brew unlink ffmpeg && brew link ffmpeg

Some ffmpeg resources:
FFmpeg documentation: http://ffmpeg.org/documentation.html
An FFmpeg support forum - http://ffmpeg.gusari.org/
"FFmpeg Basics" by Frantisek Korbel

To uninstall ffmpeg with Homebrew:

$ brew uninstall ffmpeg


How do I restore a previous version of my ssh keypair files? I was following the Github tutorial and I generated a new SSH key pair. But now when I'm online, Google keeps throwing up SSL errors (and so does everywhere else with SSL, for that matter). What terminal commands do I need to input in order to return to my original SSH key pair?

Note: I actually think your browser SSL errors are not at all related to the fact that your generated a new keypair for ssh use in your ~/.ssh directory. Browsers don't use these keys, only ssh uses these keys (and things that are based around libssh).

But if you want to restore the previous version of your keypair here are the two ways you can do it....

Assuming you followed step 2 in that github document, you can just restore your backed-up keys:

cd ~/.ssh
rm id_rsa*
cp key_backup/* .

That will delete the new keys you created and then restore your old keys.

If you didn't backup your original keys according to that document you can try to use Time Machine to find the previous version of your keys and restore them.

First open a Finder window and then hit Cmd-Shift-G to bring up the Go To box. In the box type: ~/.ssh and press the Go button.

Switch to column view so you can see the details of the files in the ~/.ssh directory and note the Date Modified time on the id_rsa and id_rsa.pub files.

Now enter Time Machine by clicking on the Time Machine icon in the upper right hand corner of the menu bar and selecting 'Enter Time Machine':

Step backwards in time until you find the point where Date Modified time stamps on those two files change. That should be the previous version of those files. Select the id_rsa and id_rsa.pub files from this point in time and restore them overtop of the existing files.


MacBook Pro 2016 Touch Bar usage in Windows 10 Boot Camp Has anybody already installed Windows 10 and verified the workings of the Touch Bar with the normal function keys (+ ESC) as promised here?

Question from Abraham: Craig, am I correct in assuming that the Touch Bar becomes a row of visual function keys when using Windows with Boot Camp?
Federighi's answer: You are indeed!

I personally haven't had the chance to try so.
But this video from 9to5 mac shows the functionality of the touchbar in windows via bootcamp.
tips and tricks for the touchbar
Windows is mentioned at 6:50

As you can see, the brightness and volume keys are available.
And here is a picture of my new macbook in bootcamp showing the functionality of the fn button:


Automator to execute shell script with an input text file, copy it to specific directory I'm simplifying making a .deb file with Automator. I currently have a shell script that does some simple actions -

Ask the user for text input
Do some directory parsing
Execute a command with the text input as a variable
run the dpkg-deb program and output to the desktop

That's all well and good, but .deb files must have a "control" text file with some fields filled out, and the file has to be in a specific path, with the control file residing in a DEBIAN subdirectory like so

AppName/DEBIAN/control

What I would like to do, is create the control file, and drop it on the Automator workflow and have it run the script with the control file as an input parameter. I would need the script to "copy this file to AppName/DEBIAN/ and create the DEBIAN folder if it doesn't exist.

Where AppName == A specific line from the control file

Can anyone help?

EDIT: Workflow now works with one bug: running the workflow twice results in two copies of the control file being copied

Make a new Automator SERVICE. At the beginning, for "receives selected as input" choose "documents". Add the process "set value of variable" and make a new "destination path" variable (default variable name is "destination path"). Add the process "open finder items" to the beginning to open the control file. Add the process "run applescript" to the workflow the code is the following:

on run {input, parameters}

set LineNumber to (the line in which the path is specified in the control file)
tell application "TextEdit"
    set theVariable to paragraph LineNumber of document 1
    set thePath to POSIX path of theVariable
    set thePath to text 1 thru -2 of thePath
end tell

return thePath
end run

I don't know why this couldn't have been in the same block, but you need to add a separate AppleScript process. The code is as follows:

on run {input, parameters}

tell application "Finder"
    set theFolder to POSIX path of input & "/DEBIAN"
    try
        make new folder in folder input with properties {name:"DEBIAN"}
    end try
end tell

return theFolder
end run

Add the process "set value of variable" and make a new destination path variable (default name is "destination path 1").
Add the "get value of variable" process and get the value of the variable with the path of the input file ("destination path"). Click on "options" on this process and check "ignore this action's input".
After this, Automator has a process called "copy finder items" and this can be used to copy the input (the output of "get value of variable", which is the input file). This worked for me, hope it works for you as well. Good luck :)


iOS 7: Disable message "This cable or accessory is not certified and may not work reliably with this iPhone"? After the upgrade to iOS 7, while using non-Apple certified chargers I receive the warning

  This cable or accessory is not certified and may not work reliably with this iPhone.

AFAIK there is no way to say "Got It", "Suppress Message", etc., and it shows up every time I plug in my chargers.

Anyone know of any ways to disable these messages without jailbreaking the iPhone?

The expected behavior when you see this message is to simply contact the vendor of the cable or charger and verify that your are in fact safe to charge an iPhone.

I would hate to tell people to disregard a message that could have safety implications. Granted, not all third party cables and/or chargers are faulty, but what if this were a warning that could get you to seek assistance from Apple or the vendor and ensure that a sub-standard part isn't being used to charge your device.

http://www.apple.com/support/usbadapter-takeback/

Given some of the horribly unsafe chargers that I have personally seen, I don't expect this to be an easy warning to bypass without jailbreaking.


Vim mappings / plugin for Xcode I'm a developer who mostly does web stuff in Ruby and C#, and I'd like to start tinkering with iOS and Mac development.

Over the last few month I've been trying to get fluent in one set of key bindings. I chose vi/vim because it just feels right.

I have the awesome ViEmu installed for Visual Studio on Windows which gives me a ton of the vim awesomeness side by side with Visual Studio power toys.

Is there anything like this for Xcode?

I know I could set up MacVim as the default editor but I'm not too interested in this as it means losing all of Xcode's Cocoa awareness.

The other option, of course, would be to go for the lowest common denominator and switch to emacs (as the Cocoa keybindings are based massively on emacs) but let's not think about that for too long.

There are XVim and xVim plugins for Xcode, they are made exactly for this.

You can also use KeyRemap4MacBook for this (from answer on stackoverflow and this blog):


Is Monitoring Apps drastically impact battery life? A user on this Product Hunt said that kinds of monitoring app such as iStatmenu, Menubar apps, that constantly poll the CPU for data, can drastically impact battery life. Is it true?

Battery is affected with power consuming operations; cpu, hdd, bluetooth, wireless, etc.

So, yes. Amount of the cpu usage may drastically impact battery. Battery life is proportional to the frequency of charges/discharges.

Please consult to apple page


Storing SSH passphrase in memory but not saving it to the keychain persistently Answers to this question explain how to have SSH passphrases added to the keychain when they are entered.  Having recently upgraded from a previous version of OSX, I'm used to the passphrases being stored in memory but not in persistent storage.  If setting UseKeychain yes causes passphrases to be stored to disk, is there a way to prevent this?  IE I'd like to avoid having to re-enter them except after having rebooted.  It seems less than ideal to store a passphrase in a location protected with a potentially less secure password.

Set UseKeychain no (the default) and run ssh-add without the -K option.

Note that this does not store the pass phrase in memory; instead, it causes ssh-agent to keep the decrypted key in memory, and subsequent uses of ssh will then work without the need to supply the pass phrase.

If you already have the pass phrase stored in the keychain, you'd need to use the Keychain Access application to find the pass phrase and delete it.


How long is an app downloadable from the App Store? I'd like to know how many years an app is downloadable/distributed in App Store after a developer uploads it.

An app is downloadable/available on the App Store as long as the app developer or the publishing company has an active developer license with Apple.


Mail.app not connecting to Gmail I'm running macOS Sierra on an early 2015 MacBook Air.

I've used the Mail.app to connect to Gmail, as well as several other account profiles for years. Two days ago, the Gmail connection failed (other accounts are loading normally).

When I clicked on accounts offline in the top corner, it explained that the login to Gmail had failed, and I should re-enter my password.

Here's the login screen it brought me to.

Then I entered my password (which I've checked several times for correctness) and got a grey screen of death.

This has repeated many times over the past two days, even when left alone for several minutes to resolve the grey screen.

Other attempts to re-enter the login information, for example through Mail → Accounts have led to the same result.

What can I do to resolve this?

Edit: Tried removing and re-adding the account. Now it freezes at the last step, after clicking done (shown with done pressed)

For anyone having the same problem, it turns out that Gmail blocks out-of-date mail clients from connecting and isn't too keen on informing users when it decides to do this. The solution was to update my mail client by upgrading to macOS High Sierra.


How to make a particular app the default viewer / editor for ALL its supported file types at once? I want to make an application, say VLC, the default player for all the file types it supports, without going through all of them individually.

I might not even know what all the supported formats are (as VLC can read 100s of formats) and still want to set it as the default player for all of them.

I was able to do this using the terminal, with the procedure posted below.

Is there an easier way to do it that doesn't require the user to be a developer?

While RCDefaultApp is a bit old, it still works

This gives you a decent GUI interface to control default apps


Kernel panic after installing El Capitan I've upgraded from El Capitan GM to Release today.

After the installer app has moved the install files, the mac tried to reboot but the screen stayed black. I shut it off using the power button and restarted it getting kernel panics every time:

Process 1 exec of /sbin/launchd failed, errno2"@/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/xnu/xnu"

I tried booting in safe mode without any luck.

So I thought that this could have happened because of any faulty kexts. I booted in Recovery mode, used Disk utility to unlock my Macintosh HD, and navigated with the finder to "/Volumes/Macintosh HD/".

The strange thing is that there is no Library or System folder. I can only find these folders under /Volumes/Macintosh HD/Recovered Items/.

So I followed some advices from Apple support forums and deleted the folder /Volumes/Macintosh HD/Recovered Items/Library/Application Support/Virtual Box/". I also moved the kext file from Little Snitch to a newly created folder "Unsupported" to ensure that LS is not the case of the problem.

But nothing helped. Still getting the same kernel panic. What can I do?

Same here, booted into recovery and back to yosemite

cmd-shift-r keys down while booting

I guess 3 of 4 updates have failed for me last few years, getting tired of osx OS updates. Usually installs after a few attempts with startup utilities.

Better make a time machine backup before you try installation.


List extensions that are opened with a specific application Is there an easy way to find all the extensions that are opened with a given application?
I'm asking because I have two versions of a software installed (Sublime 2 and 3), and some extensions still open with Sublime 2 because by the time I specified that Sublime 3 was not available. I then have to quit Sublime, change the program that shall be opened by default for this extension and relaunch.

I would like to end this once and for all and change it for every remaining extension. Does anyone know of an easy way to do this? Thank you!

If you want all files with a certain extension (not the 1 specific file) to be opened by a certain app, do the following:

Right click the file and click Get Info (or highlight file and hit cmd ⌘ + i )
Change Open with: to preferred app
Click Change All...
Click Continue in the confirmation box

Is this what you meant to do? This is different from right clicking a file and choosing the 'Always open with' option. That seems to only apply to the specific file, not all files globally.

You will have to repeat this for each extension.


Windows not booting up on VM Fusion. Need to get a file off of windows I am a pilot that has my logbook on the windows side of my iMac. Windows has been failing to boot up gives me an 000021a error every time. I have tried booting in last known good configuration and is safe mode but nothing gets windows to boot. I am trying to find out if I can access my logbook file even though windows is not booting. Anyone with any words of advice?!

What you need to do is as follows:

create a new VM
Install Windows on that VM
Shutdown the New VM
In the New VM preferences, add the .vmdk for your old VM as a secondary drive on the new VM
Start up your new VM and you old drive should now be visible as a secondary drive

Browse to the files you need to retrieve, copy to the new VM and you are done, all bar reversing the above and deleting the old VM


Ergonomic Mac keyboards I could really use a good ergonomic keyboard for my iMac to try to deal with some wrist issues. The reviews of the Kinesis Freestyle 2 seem basically OK, but there are some complaints about oddly placed keys and the way the function key works, neither of which really appeals to me.

Does anyone out there have this keyboard? Any comments on this or any other issue? Also, are there other ergo keyboards I should be looking at? (The Kinesis Advantage doesn't really appeal to me, with the placement of common keys in the middle).

As someone who many years ago suffered from a severe case of RSI I suggest that if you are having a problem that you take every ergonomic keyboard out there and throw them into the nearest lake or river. Ergonomic keyboards look good but tend to fix nothing.

Almost all problems causing pain can be fixed by altering your seating, arm position, keyboard location and typing practice.

Your first step should be to find a good specialist centre that can analyse all of these things and do such steps as wire up your muscles and see which ones are straining when you type and then retrain you. If you need such things as wrist supports or angled keyboards they will tell you so and almost certainly advise on which ones would best suit you. If they don't then they are not the best place for you and find somewhere else.

If you are having problems see a good specialist centre now, do not wait, do not think that anything you do will fix the problem or that it will go away.

I did not take this advice and ended up spending three months unable to touch a keyboard.


What can I do if my MacBook isn’t charging but already ran out? My 12" 2017 MacBook suddenly stopped charging, and I tried an SMC reset. However, the MacBook already ran out on the battery, and thus I think even the SMC reset did not work, since when I did it, it was just that the battery icon flashed, yet it didn’t start at all.

Unfortunately, I live in a city where there is no Genius Bar, and I stay here for a few more months. Is there anything I can do to make the charge work?

If you saw the power light flash when you reset the SMC, that indicates the reset is done and successful and you can move on to the rest of the steps in the guide.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204267

I would let it charge up for 1 hour and then run through the steps above before getting on with Apple Support to see what the cost for battery service with mail in so you can then decide to go with Apple or look locally for an authorized or non-authorized repair. Apple will be able to refer you to their consultants that are certified / local (or as remote as you are if that’s the case).

I’ve had them overnight a box, get it in the mail, send out the machine and get it back a day later. I’m in a big city, though but mail-in is almost always faster than the Genius Bar for me these days. Even for battery service. Getting the machine to the parts is easier and cheaper than making an appointment and the stores often just send these out so you don’t save time for this repair.

Good luck - be sure to make an answer with what you do - the above is general advice and might or might not be the best for you.

There is almost always enough residual power a day or two after the machine shuts off for a SMC reset and if the battery goes completely flat, that too resets the SMC in a way since it cold starts when the trickle charge returns. Also, be sure you can’t try a different charger if it’s just that.


How to use HP Laserjet printer firmware update utility on El Capitan 10.11? I am a victim of gang stalking and have discovered that somebody has installed the PRET printer exploitation toolkit (github.com/RUB-NDS/PRET) on my HP Laserjet P2055dn printer.

I wish to re-install the firmware from the Hewlett Packard support website (support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-laserjet-p2055-printer-series/3662052).

The latest version of the HP Laserjet Firmware Update Utility only is for OS X 10.7 Lion, and there is nothing to download and use for later versions of OS X.

I am using El Capitan 10.11.

When I download and try to open the DMG file (ljp2055_Firmware_Update_Utility_20141201.dmg) I am unable to open the file, and get an error message saying 'The following disk images couldn't be opened: image not recognised'.

I have tried opening the DMG file with Disk Utility to no avail.

I do not have access to Microsoft Windows at all currently.  I need to extract the necessary .RFU file, and then re-install the printer's firmware.

Does anyone have any ideas on how I can get this done?

Thanks in advance.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/product/hp-laserjet-p2055-printer-series/3662052/document/c02008627

This article from HP describes how you can update your printer firmware with LPR, a Mac/Unix terminal utility. You should not need the firmware update tool to update your printer’s firmware with this method. Best of luck!


Hard drive and power consumption of current Time Capsule What kind of hard drive is build into the current Time Capsule? Is it a SSD? Also, how energy efficient is the current Time Capsule, how much energy does it consume? I can't find this info on Apples product pages.

Since it's a 2TB or 3TB storage you can be sure it's HDD, since the price is 'only' 299$ or 399$. There are for the moment no (commercial) 2TB SSD drives or maybe one or two which are really really expensive. On the product page is also stated that the Time capsule is ussing a Hard drive, otherwise there would be stated Soild State drive or similar.

The enviromental report, including energy usage can be found here: https://www.apple.com/environment/reports/docs/AirPortTimeCapsule_PER_feb2014.pdf


Deleted hash files; can't login anymore! I've deleted the two hash files in the folder /private/var/db/shadow/hash/, corresponding to my login account. Now, I cannot login, and don't have any other account on my Mac with sudo permissions.

Is there a way in which I can reset my password? If not, will it be possible to access data belonging to this account? My other accounts do not have permissions to these folders.

You can boot into the terminal by holding Command + S at startup. You could create a new user via command line this way. Here is a tutorial. Another option is to insert the installation disc and reinstall the Mac OS X.


How can I make an app think it's running on iOS 5? So I have a jailbroken iPad on 4.X. I would like to use the new Netflix interface but it's  only for ios 5. Is there any jailbroken app that will make it think its on ios 5 and not ios 4.X? Or is possible to edit the Netflix app files or something? Thanks for the help.

Even if you could fool the app, it would crash as soon as it called on a part of the system that exists in iOS 5 but not in iOS 4. Your editing of the file would both have to be the main version requirements check as well as any internal checks that the app makes to determine the capabilities and API present on that device as the program runs. I don't know any developer that just said they need iOS 5 out of spite against people running 4, 3, 2 versions of iOS. It's always been because they need features and code frameworks added in iOS 5 and couldn't code around it in the program. When a developer can do that, they change their app to work on multiple os versions and let you know feature X is disabled or works differently when running on iOS 4. For developers that want to use the latest tools in iOS, it is actually more work for them to keep the older OS support in each build so there needs to be a good financial reason to keep doing that work in many cases.

Think of the iOS version test as sealing a door to nowhere opening up on the third floor of a building when the fire escape stairs (or balcony or whatever) is not yet built. When the program you deceive into thinking it's running on iOS 5.x calls on code that doesn't exist, the app will crash.

Apple designed the version check to "lock the door or perhaps the entire wing of that building" in a very visible way. By bypassing this check, it's like removing the "danger / hazard" signs and nailed wood braces covering the opening and letting someone walk out into thin air from that third-floor door to nowhere.


How to parametrize the sleep/hibernate behavior of a MacBook Pro I try to run some operations in the background (an rsync operation) and the mac goes into background without interactions. The behavior I would to have is:

If the screen is opened then maybe the screen go black, but operations going into the background continue.
If the screen is closed then the mac stops, internet connections are stopped, but the memory remain intact and it can restart afterwards.

How could I change the sleep/hibernate behavior of the macintosh? Right now, I have to stay in in order for background operations to continue and that is not very usable.

You need to open System Prefences > Energy Saver. In the "Battery" tab, you'll find a slider for "Computer sleep".  This determines the amount of the time the computer stays awake when idle (i.e. user not actively at the computer).

If you set the slider to "Never", it will let operations continue indefinitely (even though the display itself is blanked). Ofcourse operations will stop when the battery runs out.

When you close the lid on the computer, the Mac will go to sleep as usual.


Use tap to click instead of click to select user on start up I have Mac OS X 10.10.3. On startup of the OS you can select between different users on the machine. To select a user you have to do a full click, but instead I want to use tap to click.

Can this be changed in the settings somehow?


Why doesn't iTunes allow me to reset my Music library? Why doesn't iTunes allow me to reset my Music library?

When I click the iPhone icon and then click to "Music Settings",  this is what I see.  Nearly nothing.  Why?

I just want to reset my library, and then drag new music in manually, and re-create my listening library.

1) Close iTunes, unplug phone
2) iphone: Settings > Music > TURN OFF "iCloud Music Library" | there is no manual editing possible with this turned on
3) Connect phone, open iTunes
4) itunes: Phone > Overview bottom lane (see your screenshot) "Manually manage videos" changes to "Manually manage music and videos" : activate it - you should be able to manually manage your music now.

more details on https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201593


Can iPhone USB Hotspot be shared through a MacBook Pro? My iPhone wireless hotspot quit working, but I can still use the internet through a USB connection. I’m wondering if I can use internet sharing on a MacBook Pro to share the USB internet connection from my phone. I attempted this and found the shared connection on my Apple TV. It connected but didn’t seem to provide internet to the Apple TV. I have another device I would like to use this shared connection with but I have to buy a WiFi adapter to test it. Prior to buying that, I thought someone here may be able to answer if this is even possible.

This is possible using System Preferences > Sharing > Internet Sharing.

Cell Network > iPhone > USB > MacBook Pro > Wi-Fi > other devices

In fact, you have to do it this way as the Wi-Fi on your MBP can either join or create a Wi-Fi network, it cannot do both at the same time.

Also, you should check usage terms of your mobile data provider to see if they allow sharing of personal hotspot in this way - some do not.


What are the Manual settings for Internet sharing between 10.9 and 10.7? I have a system with OSX 10.9, and another system with OSX 10.7.5. I am trying to setup internet sharing between the from 10.9 to 10.7.

10.9 has internet through WiFi, and I used a LAN cable to connect it to 10.7 system. If I use DHCP for settings, here are the IP addresses I get.

10.7 (client)
Ethernet:
IP Address: 192.168.2.3
subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
Router: 192.168.2.1
DNS Server: 192.168.2.1

10.9 (Host)
WiFi:
IP Address: 192.168.0.5
subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
Router: 192.168.0.1
DNS Server: 209.18.47.61/209.18.47.62

Ethernet:
IP Address: 169.254.32.154
Subnet mask: 255.255.0.0
Router: <blank>
DNS Server: <blank>

I remember facing the same issue few years back, and I resolved it by setting it manually. But I can't figure out what are the correct settings, Can someone please help me, it's really urgent!!

EDIT:
I tried setting both of them manually (ethernet addresses) to:

10.7(client)
IP Address: 192.168.2.3
subnet: 255.255.255.0
router: 192.168.2.1

10.9(host)
IP Address: 192.168.2.1
subnet: 255.255.255.0
router: 192.168.0.1

doesn't work either!

Your manual set up should work if you configure the 10.9 host to use:

IP address: 192.168.2.2
router: 192.168.2.1

Set the DNS to 192.168.2.1 as well.


Possible to open/convert Office 98 for Mac PowerPoint file Is it possible to open or convert a Mac Office 98 PowerPoint file (.pp)?  I don't need to edit it, just either convert it to a more recent version or save as a pdf. I don't have access to anything before OS X, but I still have a PowerPC laptop. Recent versions of PowerPoint refuse to open it, and I haven't been successful finding a converter.  Alternatively, is there a service that would do something like this?

There are a bunch of free online converters out there that will convert many different file types to PDF.  I had to convert some Microsoft Works documents to Work once and the zamar.com worked great.  Try one of these out:

http://www.freepdfconvert.com

http://www.zamzar.com

http://document.online-convert.com/convert-to-pdf

Let me know if any of these help you out.  Good luck!


Google Hangouts client/app which supports group chats On OS X Yosemite, I'm using Messages.app to chat with my contacts.

But I can not participate or read group chats from Hangouts within Messages.app, for that I have to use the Gmail/G+ page.

So, anyone knows a client/app for OS X (or even an extension/plugin for Messages.app) which enables me to chat one-on-one and even on group chats?

Try Jitsi for OSX, it supposedly handles voice for Google Hangouts, but to be honest...

The best way I have found to do this is just to use the following Chrome extension called Hangouts, by Google: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hangouts/nckgahadagoaajjgafhacjanaoiihapd?utm_source=plus

The thing is that Google Hangouts is no longer a open XMPP/Jabber protocol its sort of a mutant breed of this technology that is becoming more and more closed off providing features across more open traditional Jabber accounts.

The only caveat is that DON'T quit chrome or it dies, my default browser is Firefox fyi. So I run chrome, click the little hangouts bubble, close all the chrome windows and get the cool Hangouts buddy list every time I hover my mouse in the lower right corner of my screen: OSX Yosemite 10.10.4


Terminal, Opening Applications Directory When in Terminal and cd to "Applications" and typing "ls" nothing comes up however when cd to "/Applications" and typing "ls" all the applications come up, would someone be able to explain why the / for only applications makes a difference.

New shells start in your home directory by default, i.e. /Users/username (~). You then specified a relative path to change directory, Applications, which changed directory to /Users/username/Applications.
This is a different folder to the system-wide applications folder at /Applications. When you cd /Applications, the leading slash provides an absolute path rather than relative path, starting at the top of the volume rather than the current working directory (which is your home folder for new shells).


Is there a way to filter MAC addresses on an iPhone hotspot? I am using an iPhone 7 as a Personal Hotspot. Every now and then, the line at the top of the screen which says how many connections there are goes up. I don't know if someone else is accessing the hotspot, but I only use it for my laptop and would like to filter connections to the hotspot to drop everything except my laptop.

Is there a way to do this?

My iPhone 7 forces the use of a password, which can be changed at will, to connect to the Personal Hotspot. Does your phone not have this option? My carrier is AT&T.


Mac Pro will not shut down after Lion upgrade I use Font Agent Pro as my font manager of choice. I just upgraded my 2007 Mac Pro from the latest OS X 10.6 to 10.7.5 lion.

I was having a problem with Postscript Type 1 fonts not being available to Adobe or other applications, so I cleared the font cache from Terminal.

sudo atsutil databases -remove

After doing so, my Mac will not shut down - when I try to shut down the screen goes gray but the cursor can still can be moved around

I have to hit the power button to shut down manually.

Any ideas as to why this is happening?

I've been working through the issue with Font Agent Pro Support. Evidently this is due to the Smasher Application having issues clearing the font cache if Adobe Acrobat is installed.

The solution for me was to remove Smasher. Shut down, reboot into safe mode, and restart.

That seems to have fixed the issue for now at least.


I need an application to read aloud any emails that come into a specific email address I want a sort of audio server which sits in background (running on OS X, not iOS) and whenever an email arrives at a specific address, it reads it aloud. Ideally there would be also an option to filter by a "password" so that spam doesn't get read aloud.  I have a home automation system that can send notification emails when stuff happens, and since I already have computers throughout the house, I'd like to have them announce the events rather than buying dedicated audio output client hardware.  I'm hoping I can cobble something together with existing software and system tools to enable my Macs to act like audio endpoints (addressed via email).

Any ideas?

As Mark mentioned, AppleScript is the way to go here:

Create a mail rule that runs the following script when an email from your home automation system is received.

using terms from application "Mail"
on perform mail action with messages theselectedMessages
    tell application "Mail"
        repeat with a_message in theselectedMessages
            set the_sender to extract name from sender of a_message
            if (junk mail status of a_message) is not true then
                tell me to say "Mail from " & the_sender
                tell me to say (get content of a_message)
                set read status of a_message to true
            end if
        end repeat
    end tell
end perform mail action with messages
end using terms from


How to backup Store Apps? I have been searching and I didn't find an optimal solution for my problem. I have some apps purchased from the Mac App Store (Pixelmator, GarageBand), and other ones installed (Xcode).

I want to know is there an efficient way to backup this apps, and reinstall them after I do a fresh install of my system.

P.S. I want to do this because Xcode's download size is too big, and my internet connection isn't the better around... Same with other apps.

The receipt data from the Mac App Store is stored inside the application bundles, so anything that backs up your Applications folder will do the trick. You don't need to worry about your proof-of-purchase being saved in some other location on your hard disk.

Time Machine is probably the simplest to set up, as it will back up your entire hard disk.


With hardlinks, does it matter which is which? If I make replace duplicate files with hardlinks within my home (~) directory, I'm thinking it is completely irrelevant which of two files gets replaced.

Is this true, or is there some asymmetry that I am not aware of?

No - hard links work like individual files. As long as you make the next link/copy in the correct folder/directory - you are good to go. When you cross a filesystem boundary - the link breaks automagically and it becomes a distinct file.


Final Cut Pro, read/write via External Hard Disk Please forgive my silly question but can videos be edited on FCP via external HDD? My MBP is running out of storage and I want to start learning video editing where all everything is to be done through external HDD, no SSD involved. Possible? Thanks!

The short answer is yes.

However, I would definitely suggest using at minimum, a USB 3 drive, but for best performance you will want a Thunderbolt drive.

To give you an idea of what the performance metrics of different interfaces are, I've compiled a quick summary:

SATA III (Internal Hard Drive) - 6Gpbs
USB 3.0 - 5Gbps
USB 2.0 - 480Mbps (or 0.48Gbps)
Thunderbolt - 10Gbps

So, while you can use pretty much any external drive, how well it performs is completely dependent on what architecture you use to connect it.  My recommendation is go with Thunderbolt.


How can I forward delete on iOS? Is there a way to delete text in front of the caret using the iOS software keyboard? The small wireless hardware keyboard accomplishes this with a fn+delete, so there might be a way to use multiple keys to accomplish the same task in iOS?

Nope. In the stock keyboard provided by the API, a "Forward Delete" (as opposed to a Backward Delete/Backspace), none of the keys, nor combination therein, provide a Delete keystroke to occur. Your only option, as you now see, is to use an external keyboard to accomplish this.

Any other options would just be something else entirely. Like selecting a word, and deleting it, or using replace, etc.


Clash of Clans Bases and Game Center Accounts About a month ago I bought a new iPhone. Previously, I had been playing Clash of Clans on another device on one Game Center account. When I bought the iPhone, I set up another Game Center account. I would like to sync my base from the old account to the new account so I can play on my iPhone.

How could I do this?

Use your old Game Center account for your new device too.
Or you can follow the guide here: http://clashofclans.wikia.com/wiki/Game_Center_User_Guide


Backup second iPhone to my PC How can I backup a second iPhone 4S to my PC? Both are backed up in iCloud but only one in iTunes store.

When an iPhone is backing up to iCloud, iTunes doesn't automatically do a backup of the phone when it syncs.

You can, however, manually tell iTunes to back up the iPhone. When you connect the iPhone to iTunes, and you click on it and it opens to the summary page (where it tells you the name of the phone, and gives you the option to restore it and see home much space on it is used), there is a Backup button in the right side of that page.

Check out Apple's "HT5262: Choosing an iOS backup method" on Apple Knowledgebase. It talks about the benefits of iCloud backup, the benefits of iTunes backup, and then it talks about how to do both together.


Prevent Windows 7 from activating twice on Vmware Fusion I have Windows 7 VM in VMWare Fusion and I often copy the file from my macbook to my IMac.

Fusion ask if I copied or moved but any answer will made Windows 7 ask activating again.

I tought that Fusion was virtualizing hardware so Win7 should not recognize any hardware change between machines.

How can I prevent activating again?

These are likely two separate issues. First, VMWare keeps an identifier for each VM, and can tell when you have moved or copied one over. Whether you change or keep the UUID is more to make sure that particular instance of VMWare doesn't get confused. You definitely don't want more than one with the same UUID. Since this is also stored in the SMBIOS and readable by the virtual OS, keeping it might help.

As far as Windows Activation, VMs do virtualize most of the hardware, but they will for example report the actual CPU in the box. For example, even if you allocate only one virtual processor, it will still say "i7 Quad Core" in the System properties. Is the CPU for your MacBook and iMac different?


How to remove the ‘VPN is not configured’ icon from the menu bar on macOS? I don’t know when it appears.

Could you tell me how to remove or add the icon?

You can usually (but not always) remove a menulet icon by holding down the Command key and dragging it off.


Terminal Command into Applescript I have the following terminal command that I want to automate using applescript. I also would like to have a command to cd directories to the folder where I want to apply the command first. After cd to the folder that holds the .pdf files. This code looks at the first letter of the file name and based on that sorts the files into the alphabet folder corresponding to the first letter of the file.

for x in `ls -1 | sed -e 's/^\(.\).*/\1/' | sort -u`; do
mv -i ${x}?* $x
done

How would I go about doing this? I'm a newbie to this. Any insight would be greatly appreciated. I'm willing to learn Applescript, however, I'm not sure where to start to implement this.

Thanks

You can execute shell script directly on OS X, so there's generally no good reason to do that. However, if you really feel like it, you can use do shell script "script" to execute a shell script in AppleScript.


How do you create an OS X ISO if you already have access to an iMac? I am using Ubuntu 14.04, and I want to create a virtual machine running OS X. I have a friend who owns an iMac with OS X Yosemite. Is there any way to create an ISO without downloading an installer? Or is there any way to download a legit ISO from my computer?

The only option you have is to have your friend download the installer and create a ISO image. The other options are p2p.

However, when you click 'I Agree' on the EULA, you are stating that you have a legal license, i.e the VM running OS X is hosted on a Mac.


Will I receive texts after turning send as SMS off? I want to use Viber for my calls and text messages so I turned off send as SMS. Do I still receive texts?

Send as SMS only prevent sending an SMS as a fallback if iMessage fails.

You will still be able to receive and send SMS.


Is there a good free DWG viewer for Mac OS X? There are new Autodesk products (AutoCAD LT or similar) for Mac OS and iOS, but I couldn't find a simple free DWG viewer for Mac.

AutoCAD WS is a free app on the Mac App Store. I've never tried it.


Favorites in Finder Sidebar Having installed Mountain Lion 10.8.3 I can not get the sidebar in Finder to display Favorites.

Finder > Preferences > Sidebar shows a number of boxes against Favorite folders, but these can not be selected

Any suggestions?

It was a known bug which has already been fixed by Apple. By running Software Update on your Mac you'll be good to go!


Why do Chromium and Chrome delete all cookies after closing the browser? I am unable to stay signed in on Chromium and Google Chrome. I sign in to website A, close all tabs, open website A again, and am still signed in. I quit Chromium or Google Chrome, open website A, and have to sign in again.
I believe the problem is from Chromium because I can stay signed in on website A on other browsers. I checked this thread and confirm that at chrome://settings/content/cookies, I have disabled Clear cookies and site data when you quit Chrome. That issue seems to continue unsolved.
I am using Chrome 81.0.4044.138 and Chromium 766739.
How can I stay signed in on a website with Chromium or Chrome?
Update: I reinstalled Chromium and Google Chrome and have the same problem. I have since learned how to inspect cookies. On Facebook, for example, I have cookies that expire in 3 months:

After I quit and restart Chromium, all cookies from facebook are gone:

Another problem that could be related is that each time I launch Chromium or Chrome, I get these two alerts, as if I were launching it for the first time:

I believe this is a problem with the browser on this operating system because of these two alerts, and because Brave which is also based on Chromium does not give these problems.
And for reference, my settings do not ask to clear cookies after restarting:

Second update: I updated Chromium (Version 86.0.4207.0 (Developer Build) (64-bit), 18 July 2020) and Google Chrome (Version 84.0.4147.105 (Official Build) (64-bit), 18 July 2020) and they both have the same problem. I verify that cookies are enabled, sign in to a website, quit the browser, go to the same website, and I am signed out, even though the website has cookies stored. Here is an example of cookies from StackOverflow saved on the browser, which looks the same for Chromium and Chrome:

Note: Moved to SuperUser.

Session Cookies vs. Persistent Cookies
When creating a cookie, the code has the option of setting an expiration date & time.  If this is done, then that cookie is persisted to storage on the client's web browser (e.g. it writes it to a cookie file ... the specific name for that file will vary based on which web browser is being used.)
If a cookie is created without setting an expiration time, then that cookie is a "session" cookie.  It will not be stored in any file.  It will only be stored in the web browser's process memory and will be dropped when that process ends.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie
Note there's some loose language in that Wikipedia article.  A single browser process (any browser... Chrome, Chromium, Safari, Firefox, etc.) can have multiple windows and multiple tabs per window.  Session cookies are only dropped when the browser process terminates ... not when the tab is closed.  Most browser don't lock cookies to a specific window or tab (though there have been exceptions.)  This means usually you can close a window or tab ... then re-open a new window or tab (as long as you didn't completely exit the browser) and return to a page without having to create a new session cookie.
Caveats
Cookies dealing with user sessions usually wont have an expiration time (making them "session" cookies) but the server session itself may have other attributes which track the maximum length of the session.
It is somewhat common for hosted applications to save the session creation time as well as the session idle time ... and set maximum elapsed times for those.  This varies depending on the application -- it is not based on any standard.  But the net effect is that just because your browser still has a cookie, doesn't mean a server will honor the cookie.


Reinstall Cups after unloading/removing its LaunchDaemon On one of our laptops, we had popups about printer settings update 200 times per day.
It was getting really annoying and so without thinking about it enough, I've unload and remove cups service.
 sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.cups.cupsd.plist
 sudo launchctl remove /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.cups.cupsd.plist

Popups are gone. But unfortunately, now we need Cups back and I can't figure out how to install it again.
Could you explain the installation process for Cups? and launchdaemons maybe?
Running any lpadmin command return lpadmin: Unable to connect to server: Bad file descriptor.

Here are the commands I ran to solve this issue:
sudo launchctl stop org.cups.cupsd
sudo mv /etc/cups/cupsd.conf /etc/cups/cupsd.conf.backup
sudo cp /etc/cups/cupsd.conf.default /etc/cups/cupsd.conf
sudo mv /etc/cups/printers.conf /etc/cups/printers.conf.backup
sudo launchctl start org.cups.cupsd

Then I've reset the Printing System as suggested here:
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT203343
Then simply add your printers again.


Why there is a constant voice notification on my Mac? Every minute there is a woman's voice saying 'helo' (it doesn't sound like 'hello'…) coming from my MacBook (OS X 10.10).

It is freaking me out. I tried closing all my Apps and rebooting my Mac, but it keeps coming out all the same. I tried turning off the Wi-Fi, but it is still there! This voice starts even though I don't log into the desktop after rebooting!

Is it a weird virus on Mac or my Mac has been cursed?

Are you sure that you have not accidentally turned on voice commands?

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1879370

Try command+F5.


Apple Script help - how do I tell OS X to not launch a specific app during a specific time period? How do I make an Apple Script (or something similar) that will tell OS X "do not launch/run (n) app from (x1) time to (x2) time?"

Thank you.

How about the following? It can be used as an app launcher. It doesn't stop the user of launching the app but for a child it should do. You could also easily convert it to a background script to continuously monitor for desired app and kill it once usage goes beyond allowed time block.

Hope it helped.

# The times to check. Use HH:MM:SS 24HR format or AM/PM
set sTime to "19:00:00" # 7PM
set eTime to "20:00:00" # 8PM

# Get just the date from shell; quicker
set tDate to getShortDate()

# Setup Date & Time vars for start and end
set sDateTime to tDate & " " & (sTime)
set eDateTime to tDate & " " & (eTime)

# Convert dates to Epoch
set sEpoch to toEpoch(sDateTime)
set eEpoch to toEpoch(eDateTime)

set epochNow to getEpoch()

if epochNow > sEpoch and epochNow < eEpoch then
    tell application "Finder" to set tProcesses to name of processes
    if (tProcesses contains "Firefox") then
        display dialog "Firefox is currently banned"
        #Kill Firefox app
    end if
else
    #log "Launching Firefox..."
    activate application "Firefox"
end if

on getEpoch()
    return do shell script "date \"+%s\""
end getEpoch

on toEpoch(aDateTime)
    return do shell script "date -j -f '%Y-%m-%d %T' '" & aDateTime & "' +'%s'"
end toEpoch

on getShortDate()
    return do shell script "date \"+%Y-%m-%d\""
end getShortDate


Empty list of dictionaries ios 9.3.2 - 9.3.3. iPad mini In safari, ibooks, notes there is no any dictionary to show/download after define and manage. Just empty list of rows. Reset all settings and update from 9.3.2 to 9.3.3 not help. It happened after update from 8 to 9 ios.

The problem was solved by updating of the iOS to 9.3.4 and then changing region or language or both (i change both and get references to download all dictionaries.
I think that Apple support team have heard us)


How can I disable my Caps Lock key on macOS Sierra, without it resetting after a reboot? For years, I’ve disabled my Mac’s caps lock key (because I only ever hit it by accident) in System Preferences > Keyboard > Modifier Keys.

Recently, I did a clean install of macOS Sierra on my 2014 MacBook Pro. Since then, my disabling of the caps lock key doesn’t seem to persist after reboots.

I found an apparent report of the same issue on Apple’s forum, and there are a few similar questions about previous versions of macOS:

Caps Lock key mapped to a second Control key, reset after wake in Mountain Lion
How do I prevent my MacBook Air from forgetting my Remapped Caps Lock Key?

But I don’t see an actual identified cause anywhere, nor a workaround.

Is this a bug? If so, how can I fix it?

If not, is there any way I can get the old, persistent behaviour?

It could be a problem with file permissions. Try this command in the Terminal (a built-in system tool):

chmod -RN ~/Library/

It resets permissions for your user Library folder. When the command is done executing, reboot. Change the setting and then reboot again, and see if the setting persists.

If it didn't work, then try this command:

chmod -RN /Library/

Yes, there is a difference: it resets permissions for the system’s Library folder.

Then reboot and change the setting as mentioned before, and see if it persists now.


Synology NAS - automatic mount in finder and permanent connection I've recently buy Synology DS215j and for almost everything it works fine. But I have two problems with this and Mac OS X.

First I must always first mount this NAS server in finder before using. Sometimes I see it in Shared group in Finder but everytime I tried to click on it and see content it doesn't work and I must first use Go -> Connect to a server ... -> and fill smb://192... (or use saved address; maybe I have little different names, because I am translating it from my language). Now for sometime it works ok but when I am not using it and try it after hour I must reconnect.

Second problem could be relative to first one. I moved my music folder to NAS and I used application for creating iTunes Server on NAS and when I created I connect it from my MacBook iTunes and it works. But after a while of listening music it stops and it disconnects and I can't find any iTunes Server available.

Is it normal? I just want to always have my music to available and same with files in Finder that are located on NAS. I guess I have set right settings on both side but I am not sure. Thanks for help

Regarding lost iTunes Media Library:

Start iTunes with SHIFT Key down and select NAS Library as new iTunes Library.

Make sure you still have the files iTunes Libary.itl and iTunes Libary.xml after eventualy deleting 'old' Media Folder.


Cannot Install MacOS Catalina in Recovery Mode Background Info: A day ago, I got a new MacBook Pro 16 with Catalina installed for work, this is my first Mac. I got everything set up on my laptop and proceeded to get my development environment setup. During this setup, I was messing with permissions around my root directory (big mistake, I know). After messing around with permissions, the 'sudo' command would error out as well as other issues like System Preferences not opening. I tried a few things, but eventually called Apple to get support. They suggested the only way to really fix this issue is to reinstall MacOS.
The Current Issue: Apple support was unable to help me reinstall MacOS. We tried to reinstall via Recovery Mode and it would error out each time at the end of the installation. Below is the error I receive when trying to install MacOS:

We have deleted and recreated the Macintosh HD image and tried installing after that, reset the SMC, ran First Aid on the image. Nothing has worked, every time I try to install MacOS I get this error. The error also appears at the very end of the download / installation process, usually at the '2 Minutes Remaining' mark.
Please let me know if I can provide more information.

Tony looks to have the scoop here on an installer selection error for about 24 hours yesterday. Try again exactly what you did previously after 0000 UTC Thursday 6 August.

When you power it off, I would attempt a second time to do an erase install.

Hold Option-Command-R at start.
Use Disk Utility when you are to the “install” screen - delete all the volumes - especially if you have more than one that says “Data”
Then Erase the entire drive - leave Untitled as the title.
Then install macOS

If that doesn’t work, you may have a hardware issue and need to contact support.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208496
https://eclecticlight.co/2020/08/03/how-should-you-clean-re-install-catalina/

Or perhaps try the App Store - step 2 in this other answer.


Does OS X support SMB Direct (RDMA)? A pretty fundamental question, that I haven't found any references too on the internet. Here too, searching for "RDMA" or "SMB Direct" returned 0 results.
SMB over RDMA technology has been around for 8 years since SMB 3.0, and gained broader popularity in the last couple of years. SMB3 is of course part of OS X, but I wouldn't automatically assume Samba and OS X implemented it. Any leads, anyone?

Well, got this from ATTO tech support today:

macOS (macOS 10.14.x, macOS 10.15.x Catalina, & macOS 11.x Big Sur)
does not support SMB Direct, nor RoCE.

:-(
I sent a feature request to Apple. I'm sure that because I said so they'll get right to it.


iPhone SHSH for go back to 3.1.3 I have a iPhone 3GS with iOS 3.1.3 in my job. I have to update it to 4.1 and after I need to go back to 3.1.3. We have only this iPhone with it, so if I do something wrong, I will never can go back.

I run TinyUmbrella and it save the SHSH for 4.1 , 4.3.5 and 5.0bx iOS.  But, why it don't save for 3.1.3? This mean, if I update it, I will not go back to 3.1.3??

Why it not save for other 4.x versions?? Am I doing something wrong?

TinyUmbrella can only save the SHSHs for firmware versions that still get signed by Apple. 3.1.3 isn't signed by Apple anymore (i.e. they don't want you to downgrade to it), and therefore you don't get the SHSHs anymore.