Using Applescript to make selections from dropdown menu and Apply I'm trying to write an Applescript that will open a webpage, change the selection in 2 dropdown menus and then click on a button to Apply the changes.
I've extracted the IDs for the 2 dropdown menus and the button using Inspect Elements on the webpage but when I try and set the values in the Dropdown menu I get a 'missing value' error.

I'm trying to set 'Daylight Saving:' (DaylightSaving1_ddlDaylightSaving) to be '1 hour' (Value 2) and 'Max Graph Size' (DaysPerGraph1_ddlDaysPerGraph) to be '1 day' (Value 1), then click the Apply button (btnModsApply)

What have I done wrong in the script?

tell application "Safari"
    tell window 1
        set current tab to (make new tab with properties {URL:"http://www.ukho.gov.uk/easytide/easytide/ShowPrediction.aspx?PortID=0036&PredictionLength=7"})
    end tell
delay 0.1
    tell document 1
        do JavaScript "document.getElementById('DaylightSaving1_ddlDaylightSaving').value=2;"
        do JavaScript "document.getElementById('DaysPerGraph1_ddlDaysPerGraph').value=1;"
        do JavaScript "document.getElementById('btnModsApply').submit()"
    end tell
end tell

You can use Automator instead of debugging javascript if you prefer that option.

In Automator.app you can set it up to open a new safari tab and then you can use the record feature (red button in the toolbar) to change the dropdown menu and press the button.


How do I get Windows to assign a drive letter to my iPhone? I want to be able to move photos and videos from my iPhone onto my Windows PC, but the iPhone doesn't present itself like a compact camera. Because my existing import process works so well with normal compact cameras (they have drive letters!), I don't want to have to mess around with extra programs.

When I connect my iPhone, I don't get a new drive letter for it. Instead of e.g. K:\DCIM\800AAAAA I just get the very cryptic address Computer\Torbens iPhone 4\Internal Storage\DCIM\800AAAAA. Windows Explorer can navigate this path, but no programs can access the path.

How do I get Windows to assign a drive letter to my iPhone?

I am not interested in programs that can look into my iPhone and allow me to manually copy files from it to my harddisk. (iFunBox, DiskAid, Wifi photo transfer app, WinAmp - as mentioned in this recent question)
I want a drive letter! When I have that, I can continue to use my existing photo-importing applications that do everything with a single click! (Moving rather than copying, file renaming based on timestamp, etc.)

Is there some hack app that will make the iPhone present itself with a drive letter? This would probably not be a Windows application but rather an iPhone jailbreak app, but any solution is welcome.

I'm running Win7 and a jailbroken iOS 4.1.

I get a drive letter just fine under XP. Under XP a dialog pops up each time I plug it in, asking how it should be handled. By canceling it ends up being handled as a drive.
My guess is that there's a setting, probably related to cameras and photos, that will change how Windows 7 handles it by default. Unfortunately I've no Win 7 machine handy.

A couple of suggestions from Googling for answers:

Many people have solved the problem by deleting any photos on their iPhone that weren't actually taken with the iPhone. Anything received in email, saved to disk in Safari, etc. After clearing those out the device again appeared as a drive.

Reinstall the iPhone driver in Windows 7 by following instructions from Apple Support.

EDITED TO ADD WIN XP, AS REQUESTED

Getting Windows XP to Present Itself as a Drive-Like Camera
First, the way I have things set up, which may or may not affect how it works for you: I am running all of the XP service packs, updated regularly through Software Update, with no special drivers or applications. My account is an administrator on my PC. iTunes 10.1 is installed, though it is not involved with the camera stuff (it's possible that having iTunes installed does provide some kind of driver, I don't know). My iPhone is a stock iPhone 3GS, non-jailbroken, running iOS 4.2.1. Note that all of this worked identically with iTunes 9 and my phone running iOS 3.0.1.
Event Handling
The first time you attach your iPhone to your WinXP PC a dialog much like the following should appear:

Drive List
If you choose one of the Microsoft Office handlers, the Wizard, or another app like Photoshop, your phone  will not present itself as a camera (more on changing that behavior below). If you click Cancel then the dialog will disappear and the camera will become available.

Windows Explorer Media Directory
If you then double-click on the iPhone icon all of the images and movies are presented:

You can freely drag photos and videos out of the directory. You can drag stuff in, too.
Changing the Event Handler
If at some point you chose an event handler rather than clicking Cancel you can change how XP handles the iPhone. You'll need to get to the phone's Properties, which may require opening the Scanners and Cameras control panel. Click on the dialog's Events tab to see this:

If you change your current setting to Prompt then you'll get that first dialog I showed when you plug in your device. You can also choose Take no action if you want it to always behave like a drive.


Sound recorder for Mac OS X I'm looking to record lectures with my MacBook Pro this year. Is there any good, free software that is capable of producing recordings from a potential distance?

If you just want a simple way to record audio, you can use the QuickTime Player application. Just choose File > New Audio Recording, and hit record.

As was mentioned already, the quality of your recording is going to be highly dependent on your microphone. The internal one is likely to pick up a lot of extra noise -- but you never know until you try. If you do get an external microphone, QuickTime Player also lets you record from other input sources (use the pulldown menu on the right side).


New MacBook Pro screen goes black when opened past a certain angle My MacBook PRM went black suddenly as it was being used. no reasons. PRAM reset didnt help. When connected to external monitors there is no issue.

The display is good as the lid is opened up to around 80degrees or so. Then it becomes black.  It definitely is a hardware issues
Searching yielded the below & the issue appears to be the same.  Any idea with 15" ? Apple wants to charge 700$ for the same - this laptop was purchase Jan 2017.  Any suggestions?  No extended warranty

New MacBook Pro 13” screen goes black when opened past vertical

There is little doubt this is indeed the same issue as with the 13". Apple changed the screen hinge signal cable design starting from the 2015 MacBook Retina and subsequent MacBook Pros, both 13" and 15", to a design that is more complex and prone to failure from material fatigue. These signal cables often start failing in precicely the way you have experienced after the screen has been opened and closed some hundreds of times. I have replaced many of these screens for this reason, both 13" and 15", they are all susceptible to it, at least up to and including the 2018 models.
For the time being, you are however out of luck with Apple replacing it for free, as they inexplicably only have a repair program for this issue for the 13" 2016 model.

'Old', robust screen signal cable to the left, exiting at a right angle from the screen and thus twisting with screen openings. New more complex design to the left, now bending with each opening

For what you should do, I would get a screen assembly from eBay, for instance this https://www.ebay.com/itm/LCD-Display-New-Space-Gray-2016-2017-A1707-15-MacBook-Pro/254135956738 (presuming you have a Space Gray MBP) and check the '2 year protection plan from Squaretrade' option when you check out, for the very reason that any screen assembly will be vulnerable to this, then get your local 3rd party Apple tech outfit to replace it. I have no association with the eBay seller other than having used them and knowing them for being good and serious.


Totally bricked MacBook Pro 2011 A1286 - No recovery. What can I do? I think my MacBook Pro is badly, badly bricked. Model is a1286

It's a really weird story.

This MacBook Pro had 2 partitions, one with Lion and the other was Windows but not accessible becouse was corrupted (if you tried to boot this partition, it would just show black screen and nothing happened).

BTW Lion was slow so I made a bootable USB and entered the recovery to do a fresh install of a new High Sierra system and I just erased the content of the Macintosh partition (the one targed Bootcamp was locked and didn't allowed me to erase).

It was ready to install a new system, but the bootable USB I made with High Sierra was not seen in the boot menu, that I entered pressing alt when powering on.

So I read in a forum that doing NVRAM reset could help, so I did, but the result was terrible.

Black screen and can't access to recovery or boot menu anymore.

I tried everything. I've also opened, and tried disconnecting the battery and the RAM and reconnecting them to see if changed something but nothing.  Or powering up without the battery only with the power supply. Also tried to replace the HDD with another one formatted in HFS+ but nothing.

Now it just shows a black screen and does not recognize the commands.

If it can matter, the sound card is faulty and I used it with a USB one.

I've tried:

Recovery pressing command + R
Recovery pressing alt +  command + R
Boot menu pressing alt
Nvram reset pressing alt + command + p + r
SMC reset pressing shift + Alt + ctrl + power for 10/12 sec

The light of the USB bootable drive is always flickering when connected, but doesn't show nothing on screen.

Did I just destroy it?

The MacBook Pro in question is one of the infameous AMD Radeon 6750M GPU-equipped 2011 models. Apple set up a (free) repair program which ended in 2016.

Obviously the dGPU of this Mac died later and the dGPU/Mainboard weren't properly replaced. Instead an Apple certified? technician desoldered some resistors on the mainboard to disable the dGPU.

To get it working with the Intel-GPU nonetheless (= a monitor image) a special NVRAM parameter has to be set.

After resetting the NVRAM (and the SMC) this parameter was deleted which resulted in a black screen.

To get things working again the following was done:

Removing the partioned but empty HDD
Attaching the HDD to another Mac (external casing or USB-SATA cable). The 2nd Mac has to be capable of booting to a respective system (e.g. High Sierra, which is the last macOS for the early 2011 MBPs)
Install High Sierra on the external drive and boot to it
Configure ssh access (and Remote Desktop) in System Preferences > Sharing
Configure a network interface with an IP in the same IP-network as the working Mac
Detach the external drive and mount it in the MacBook Pro
Boot the MacBook Pro (and the working Mac) normally
ssh from the working Mac to the MacBook Pro
Enter: sudo nvram fa4ce28d-b62f-4c99-9cc3-6815686e30f9:gpu-power-prefs=%01%00%00%00
Enter: sudo reboot or sudo shutdown -r now to reboot the MacBook Pro
Success!

If the HDD would have had a properly working system one could have omitted installing a new system.

These instructions helped a lot: Disable MacBook Pro Dedicated GPU

Installing and configuring MacBook Pro dGPU Disabler (as stated in the instructions) won't work, because the dedicated GPU wasn't recognized – as menitoned: the GPU was disabled in an incompetent manner previously.


Close tab without clicking on X? I'm using a 2012 Retina Mac Book Pro running OS X 10.7.5. I am a Windows power user and an OS X neophyte.

Many of the keyboard and mouse shortcuts I know in Windows have functional equivalents in OS X. A feature that I find particularly useful in Windows is the ability to middle-click to close tabs (works across Firefox, Chrome, Visual Studio). This saves a user from having to click explicitly on a tab's "X" icon.

Is there a magic trackpad click equivalent to middle-clicking a Windows mouse?

The middle click to close tab functionality isn't really a common OS X UI pattern. The standard keyboard shortcut for closing a tab is command ⌘W (which will also close non-tabbed windows, or windows with only one open tab).

If you really want a Magic Trackpad gesture for closing tabs, you could use BetterTouchTool to map a gesture to ⌘W, but it would still be a bit limited, in that it would only close the currently active tab. I suppose you could use a combination of programs to make a macro that would perform a click to switch to the tab under your mouse, then close it, but it's still a bit hacky.


How to transfer data from MacBook Pro 2014(SSD) to MacBook Pro 2016 Hello I have a liquid damage on my MacBook Pro 15inch ( 2014 ) I brought it to service center and they told probably some motherboard issue, but they checked SSD Card and it's completely fine.

I bought the new 2016 MB Pro 15 Retina and now I Need to Transfer data, I have only SSD chip from old computer. Can I somehow Migrate all data from old SSD to new SSD? I know that  I`m not able to physically replace them.
But is there any tools which will help to transfer data from external SSD?

I need to get all data, profile etc. on my new MacBook.

If your old SSD has been removed from the old MBP, then you're best bet is to purchase an external enclosure for you to place it in.

Once you've done that you can connect it to your new MacBook Pro and access it like any external drive. At this point you can choose how you want to transfer the data. Probably the easiest will be to use the Migration Assistant app. For more information read Move your content to a new Mac.

In terms of the external enclosure you will need to purchase one that can connect to your new MBP, although you may already have various adapters or dongles etc that you can use to connect to USB drives, etc. However, since your old SSD is fine, I'd suggest you get an enclosure you can use all the time (one with the right connection for your scenario) as you'd then have a fast external SSD you can keep using.

You can purchase a suitable enclosure online or from most dedicated computer retailers.


Desktop icons are disappearing & not behaving I've just been attempting to shift some stuff across to an external hardrive to make space on the laptop HD and all was going well until I tried copying a large amount of photos into a folder on the desktop and then it all went bonkers.

One of the symptoms of this curious affliction is that if one is to attempt to create a new folder on the desktop, it works but is invisible. Another involves clicking the mouse on one icon, only to have opened the app/doc/program relevant to an icon either to the sides or above the clicked icon.

I had a similar problem where icons would stay when files were deleted on the Desktop.

I ran AppleJack to clear the caches and it went away. I'm not sure exactly what cache it cleared that fixed it but it worked.

I'm assuming you have tried a restart.


Cannot connect to SSH server from Mac OSX Whenever I try to connect to a remote server using SSH, I get an error
"ssh: connect to host x.x.x.x port 22: Connection refused"

I didn't install a Firewall or something similar. I know for sure the server is online and my credentials are valid - I am able to connect to the server using my (Android) phone or other devices.

Is there any way that connections are blocked by the System? This also happens for some other applications on different ports and servers.

Do you have any ideas how I can troubleshoot the problem? I can browse the Internet without any problems, but SSH and some other applications can't connect to different servers with different ports, including a Usenet client.

Happens on a Macbook Pro Late 2011 using MacOSX Yosemite.

If you need any more information, don't hesitate to ask.

Problem was some weird DNS servers that have been configured. No new DNS names could be resolved. That's why it seemed that surfing the web does work - My usual web pages did work, but new ones did not.

I replaced the DNS servers with OpenDNS and everything works now as expected.

I don't know how the DNS servers were configured, but this resolved the issue.


External display resolution - cursor gets lost I connected my new K272HUL display to my Macbook Pro Retina 15". The issue is that the resolution that the monitor displays seems to be too large (2560x1440) and my mouse gets lost in the display. My menu bar is completely hidden and I can only see a little bit of it if I hover over it.

Any clue on how I could fix this?

Thanks!

Try to force RGB mode on MacBook. Here is how: http://www.ireckon.net/2013/03/force-rgb-mode-in-mac-os-x-to-fix-the-picture-quality-of-an-external-monitor


Connect two bluetooth headphones for audio sharing (Music, and Movies) I am trying to connect two Bluetooth headphones to a MacbookPro. The main purpose is to stream audio in two devices simultaneously. Is there a MacOS feature that would allow me to do this?

Also, I am not considering a Bluetooth splitter, for sound quality purposes.

Edit: Upon further researching, I found this link on Bose forum (https://community.bose.com/t5/Headphones-Archive/Share-Audio-from-MacOS-Macbook-Pro-with-two-or-more-Bluetooth/td-p/46007). Looks like, creating multi-output device may be a solution? (at this moment I am not able to test this, since I do not have more than one Bluetooth headphones). Has anyone tried it this way? Does it work?

Yes, you can do it: https://community.bose.com/t5/Headphones-Archive/Share-Audio-from-MacOS-Macbook-Pro-with-two-or-more-Bluetooth/td-p/46007

Here are the steps I took:

Connect both headphones via bluetooth. Both should say connected on the Bluetooth setting page.
In Finder menu hit Go -> Utilities -> Audio Midi Setup
You should see both your headphones listed on the left here.
Hit the "+" button at the bottom left and select "Create Multi-Output Device" (You may rename the device if you wish)
Select your bose headphones from the list on the right to add to the Multi-Output Device.
Right-click on the Multi-Output Device you just created and use device for sound output and play alerts and sound through this device.
You may also select which device as your master device to sync across all your connected headphones.
I also selected Drift Correction for slave devices - I'm not 100% sure what this does but I think it makes sure that your devices stay in sync to the audio/video playing on your computer.
Watch away. Note that you won't be able to adjust ouput volume from Macbook any more, instead volume is adjusted individually at each headphone, which is pretty neat.


macOS Sierra: Install from USB error I have a mid 2015 MacBook Pro that just stopped booting suddenly. Thinking, I'll fix it, I formatted (erased) my hard drive and first tried Internet Recovery which didn't work. Then, using another MacBook, I made a bootable USB, which works great until I actually tried installing the OS. It hangs for like 5 minutes then it shows an error:

Failed to retrieve file:///Volumes/Image%20Volume/Install%20macos%20Sierra.app/Contents/SharedSupport/InstallESD.dmg (Error Domain=com.apple.PackageKit.PKFileDownload Code=3)

What could be causing the issue and how do I resolve it?

Took it to an Apple Store. The SSD on MacBook was broken causing the failure. It was replaced.


Apple Business Manager and Apple Developer Program My team developed custom application for a company, and now we are trying to deploy the application to the employee owned devices. We decided to use the Apple Business Manager and some MDM solution for managing the devices.
1.Using the Apple Developer Program is the only way to make the application available on the Apple Business Manager account for further distribution, is this correct?
2.Once the application is distributed, from the Apple Developer Account to the Apple Business Manager, in case there are no updates needed for the application, there is no need to renew the Apple Developer account and pay the fee. Meaning the application will still be available for distribution and using on the Apple Business Manager Account. Is this also correct?

No - there are multiple avenues for distribution. MDM can assist with many and it depends on the MDM and the app entitlements and where and how you upload the app.
When a developer account expires, you lose control and can’t renew signing certificates. Currently, Apple doesn’t pull these apps, but there’s  no reason they couldn’t in that case from my reading of our contracts in the US.

With B2B custom store, public store with private SKU pricing and more, you have diverse options here.

https://www.apple.com/legal/enterprise/apple-business-manager/abm-us.pdf


What's the proper way to pronounce "Mac OS X"? I was inspired by the question Mac or Macintosh.

What's the proper way to pronounce "Mac OS X"? I've heard the following things used to refer to the operating system on the Macintosh:

"Mac OS Ten" ("OS" is said like "AHSS")
"Mac OS Ex"  ("OS" is said like "AHSS")
"Mac Oh-Ess Ex"
"Mac Oh-Ess Ten"
"Darwin" (People use this to refer to the operating system. Is this correct?)

Try typing

say Mac OS X

in Terminal. You'll hear what Apple thinks about it.

Hint: It's "mac oh es ten"


Can iPad 3 play 2048×1536 video in its native resolution? Can the third generation iPad play 2048×1536 videos in its native resolution?

I've converted some 4K footage to 2048×1536 mp4s using Apple Compressor. These files play correctly on my Mac, but iTunes refuses to sync them over to my iPad.

How can I achieve 1:1 pixel perfect Post-HD videos on my iPad 3?

If you take a look at this page,  it looks like the guy figured out how to get to 1920x1440 and even up to 2048x1536 using mpeg4 or h264.


Is it possible to disable Safari extensions when using Private browsing? I recently switched from Chrome to Safari for a few choice web applications, and I found that I couldn't disable extensions like Lastpass when browsing privately, at least not apparently, like I could in Chrome (which disables extensions by default in Incognito).

Is there any way to do this from the Safari UI? I have an Applescript snippet I'm using to disable extensions, and toggle them back on when I'm done, but it's sort of a hassle, and I'd like to make this a default for Private browsing.

EDIT: Making my answer better by offering a keyboard shortcut method since my question found a solution back in the day. for even quicker safari extension disabling in or out of private mode.
ORIGINAL: A much easier way to perform this action is to enable the Develop Menu in Safari Preferences -> Advanced -> At the bottom you can check this to have a Develop menu in your menu bar for safari. Here you can select from the dropdown "Disable Extensions" which will disable them completely for both private and non-private windows but the activation and disabling of the add-ons is extremely quick and hassle free.
Making private window/tabs default to having extensions disable isn't an option in any Safari settings sadly. However this is an easy one click solution to your problem.
Again, the steps are as follows:
Safari -> Preferences -> Advanced Tab -> check "Show Develop menu in menu bar"

Now you can click the Develop dropdown and click "Disable Extensions" as well as other options such as javascript, images, styles, and more!
This works with Safari 9.0 - 11.0


Sending/Receiving SMS/MMS on iPhone 4s Just got my first iPhone. Will not be using iMessages being I'm the only person in my social circle who has Apple products. Am I still able to send/receive SMS/MMS the "old" way on this phone? Also, due to the nature of my job, boss requires the phone stay off during working hours. Will I still be able to get any text messages sent to me once I'm able to turn my phone back on, even if it's a few days afterwards?

The short answer is "yes and yes". SMS/MMS work the same way on iPhones as on any other phone (including any buffering your carrier does).


iPhone5 (iOS 6.0.1) not syncing with iTunes 11.0.2(26) In itunes under apps tab, it list all the app which i have in my itunes account. When I click on Install button of the app, button name gets changed to will install & also on the right side it shows on which page it will be installed.

When I press Apply/sync button, On top bar it shows that its syncing in 4 steps with some progress image. This 4 steps happens so quickly & shows the status as synced.

But, the app which I wanted to install never gets synced. My iPhone is not showing the new apps which it should show after sync.

Also, It fails to restore backup which I had taken some days back.

I am using,
iPhone 5 with iOS 6.0.1
Mac book pro - 10.7.5
iTunes 11.0.2(26)

I tried restaring iphone, itunes, mac. But this problem is keep persisting.

Please some body help me out.

Thanks

Three things come to mind if you cannot update to the latest iOS or iTunes software:

Look in the console logs for actionable sync errors.
Try syncing from Xcode as opposed to iTunes.
Restore the iOS device (declining to update the iOS level) and attempt a clean sync from iTunes. (or Xcode)


How to modify app expose to show only open windows of current application on current desktop? I have OS X 10.8.5. I typically have several windows of some applications open on more than one desktop. When using App Expose, it shows all of the open windows of the current application on all Desktops. Mission Control shows all open windows, regardless of application, on the current desktop but the windows are overlapping. I want to have a way to show just the windows, without overlapping, of the current application on the current desktop.

^ + ↓ will show all the windows of the current app regardless of their desktop (without overlapping)

And if you want to show all the windows(can be of diff apps) of your current desktop without overlapping then uncheck the Group windows by applicaiton check box and your mission control will not overlap the windows

P.S. I have 10.9.4 installed.


Can I bootcamp my mac with only a product key from windows8.1? I recently got myself a product key and I really wanna bootcamp my mac but I can't find how with only the product key... Please don't tell me I lost €70 on that..?

You can download the mediacreationtool.exe which will allow you to download the .iso or create the USB flash drive.

I believe you want an iso. If you use the mediacreationtool to create a USB flash drive, it will not work on a Mac. You need to burn the iso to a DVD or use Boot Camp Assistant to create the USB.

Of course you will need to execute the mediacreationtool from a machine booted to Windows. If you do not have such a machine, you can install a temporary evaluation copy of Windows Enterprise 8.1. The iso can be downloaded from here.

To be clear. You download the 64 bit Windows Enterprise 8.1 as an iso. You use the iso to install Windows to your Mac. Boot to Windows and download the Media Creation Tool. Run this tool to download a iso of the Home or Pro version of Windows 8.1. This iso should work with your product key. You then erase the installed Enterprise Windows and install the Home or Pro Windows using the Product Key.

  Note: For almost all Macs, you want the 64 bit version of windows.


How to create recursive download and rename bash script I need to make a bash script that will download a image with curl and then rename the file, wait 5 mins and then re-download the file and rename it again so that the new file does not replace the old file. I understand the wait and curl download part but I cant make the script recursively rename the new files. It would need to rename the files like: latest.jpg --> latest1.jpg and then the next one latest.jpg --> latest2.jpg. Please help!

#!/bin/bash
while true
do
    curl -O link.com/latest.jpg
    let "i++"
    mv latest.jpg $ilatest.jpg
    sleep 5m
done

I would change two things to make it work

the variable need to be put in {} to separate it from the other text (how should bash know that the variable isn't called ilatest otherwise?
sleep expects the sleep time in seconds

This gives you

#!/bin/bash
i=0
while true
do
    curl -O link.com/latest.jpg
    let "i++"
    mv latest.jpg latest-${i}.jpg
    sleep $((5*60))
done

In addition, having the sleep as part of the loop code will require that you press ^C twice to terminate the loop. You might want to try the following instead

#!/bin/bash
i=0
s=0
while sleep $s
do
    curl -O link.com/latest.jpg
    let "i++"
    mv latest.jpg latest-${i}.jpg
    let 's=5*60'
done


Can you 'drag and drop' text and drop formatting at once? I'd like need to drag and drop heaps of texts between documents, and rather copy only the text, without formatting. Is there any way, for example by pressing some modifier key while releasing the mouse button?

I don't know which application you are using but in Pages the simplest way is to use Paste And Match Style

Under the Edit menu

option-shift-cmd-V

is the keyboard shortcut

So if you are pasting into a document that has no styles set it will be pasted in as the standard body

Different applications may or may not have the same functionality. I don't have MS Word on my machine so have no idea if this is the same for that application for example.


What is this 'Autoupdate' app that keeps popping up in the dock? I've recently seen this app show up in the dock a couple of times. Any idea what it is? I'm slightly concerned as it doesn't look very official and I fear it could be malicious:

That icon is from http://sparkle-project.org, which is an open-source auto-updating framework.  However, it could be embedded in almost any application, since Sparkle is one of the most popular auto-update frameworks in indie Mac software.

Did you recently install new software that has Automatically check for updates checked in the preferences?

Edit to include my comment.
If you're interested in locating which application it is from, you can hold ⌘ Command and click the icon in the dock (or right-click and select Options > Show In Finder), and it will open its location in the Finder.  You can then right click on the top of the Finder window that appears (on the icon), to show the path to the containing application.

With this method, you can see that this Autoupdate.app is from within iTerm.


Partially installed app stuck and cannot be unistalled After updating my iPad 3 to the latest version of iOS (9.2.1 I think, this was in February 2016) one of my apps needed to be updated. It partially installed then got stuck with the status graphic about 50%. After a day or two I tried to delete it and despite me acknowledging the warning "this will also delete the app's data" nothing happened.

So I'm stuck with an app that's not installed and can't be removed. And I still get notifications from the app, but listed as some generic notification type.

How can I remedy this?

The way to solve it at Apple Discussions:

Try deleting the waiting icons - tap and hold down on an icon until it wiggles - the tap the X on the icon to delete it. Then try to download again. Try swiping across the progress bar as well.

Reboot the iPad by holding down on the sleep and home buttons at the same time for about 10-15 seconds until the Apple Logo appears - ignore the red slider - let go of the buttons.

Make sure that you do not have a stalled download in iTunes - a song or podcast.  if you have a download in there that did not finish, complete that one first. Only one thing can download at a time on the iPad so that could be what is causing the problem.

If that doesn't work - sign out of your account, restart the iPad and then sign in again.

Settings>iTunes & App Store>Apple ID. Tap your ID and sign out. Restart the iPad by holding down on the sleep button until the red slider appears and then slide to shut off. To power up hold the sleep button until the Apple logo appears and let go of the button.

Go back to Settings>iTunes & App Store>Sign in and then try to update again. Tap one waiting icon only if necessary to start the download stream.


Time Machine disk is filling up to quickly Every time Time Machine does a backup of my Yosemite working disk (140 GB), it adds about 20 GB to the size of the contents of my backup disk, and it fills up very quickly. This happens even during the night when both I and my computer are sleeping. I don't think it should work this way!

You can use a program like BackupLoupe to browse the changes added in each backup version.

Otherwise, the tmutil command (specifically tmutil compare) can be used to observe the differences between two TimeMachine backups (or a backup and the current state).


How Do I Know When I am in Private Mode? Using Chrome, there is a little icon indicating that I am in Private mode. Maybe I am missing something, but how do I know in Safari?  I don't see any indication.

Thanks.

In Mojave, the address bar has different shades of gray/black depending on whether you're in private mode or not.

In light mode it's light gray for not private, and a dark gray for private mode.

In dark mode it's black for private, a fairly medium gray for not private.


Which iOS jailbreak apps most closely implement an Android style notification system? Which iOS jailbreak apps implement a notifications system that most closely resembles Android's implementation?

I stumbled upon SMS, Mail, Missed Calls Notifications In Status Bar | iPhone Cydia Tweak.


rEFInd boot macOS from Recovery HD fails. How do I get rEFind to boot MacOS recovery sucessfully? MacBook Pro (13" Mid 2012). Upgraded to macOS Sierra. Booting with option and selecting Recovery-10.12 works. Booting normally (turning the MacBook on and not pressing any keys), starts rEFind version 0.10.4.  Multiple icons appear. Selecting any icon works properly, except for the one with the label "boot Mac OS from Recovery HD". In this case booting starts and the Apple logo appears, the "load bar" indicates approxiametely 60% complete, and then the circle with a line appears.

Had the same problem with a machine using el Capitan & Core storage.  Booting from a refind 0.10.4 USB, then selecting the small Recovery icon, does work.  Whereas refind installed onto the mac's internal HDD will not boot the recovery partition. Command-R no longer works either.


"App of the Day is a feature of Pet Match" on each page of Safari Just today-yesterday I started to see the following text almost on each second page I open in Safari. How to disable this?

  "App of the Day is a feature of Pet Match and uses visual search technology to find you relevant and related content from thousands of sites across the web. Just click on or hover over the orange InSite icon to open this window and discover related content. To disable this feature, click here. If you wish to share any feedback on this feature, contact us at feedback@similarproducts.net
  App of the Day"

P.S. Opera looks fine meanwhile.
P.P.S. Also Safari now opens some pages much slower then Opera.

This is spam, introduced by an extension, through superfish.com. AdBlock is not the cause! AdBlock blocks the injected ad, so the extension inserts the text equivalent.

Disabling AdBlock will remove the text, because it allows the original injection to take place, and will decrease page load time as the secondary text injection is no longer required.

Enable AdBlock so that the text is shown, then disable other extensions that you have enabled, until the text is no longer inserted.

There is a thread over on adblockplus.org regarding this and including a list of extensions (for Chrome) that caused this for people:

https://adblockplus.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=24143


Is a long app review time good? I have submitted my app before and it was rejected. When I submitted it, it was reviewed within a day and rejected that same day. I have submitted it now and it still says "in review". Tt has been 24 hours. Previously it has taken 4 hours.

Until recently (like the last week or so), App Review would take 4-7 days.  This was for full reviews, updates, rejects, etc.  Somewhere within that 4-7 days you'd know if it was accepted or rejected.

You're experience with App Review is now the new normal.  For example, I have an app that has been 'in review' for 24 hours and I'm not concerned at all.  I'm used to waiting a week or so to find out if I've been approved or not.  I wouldn't worry if I were you.


Cannot arrange finder files and folder by name In OS X 10.9.2, I cannot arrange finder's files and folder by name and the files are sorted by random alphabetical order. Is that a bug or any work around?

Finder offers two sorting methods: Arrange By and Sort By.

In column view:

Click View > Arrange By > None
Hold down the Option key and click View > Sort By > Name

Each folder has a hidden file .DS_Store that controls these settings, so when things don’t redraw correctly after you change a preference, consider trashing that file or making a new clean folder and moving things into a new store.


How to recover deleted files from Iphone 4(iOS 4.3) I hate itunes and so I usually use Windows7 to browse my Iphone4 and backup Videos and Photos. Yesterday I did just that.

I cut the videos and pasted on the D: drive. It ran out of space so I freed up some space and did cut and paste again. The result was 15 corrupted files and no files on the iphone.

I did this millions of times and it was always ok.

I've looked for recovering software but none seem to recognize the iphone.
I went to an apple store and the dude obviously told me that the proper way to backup files is using itunes. He also mentioned that "there are some products out there that could do that for you. You should google it".

Does anyone know an app that can recover deleted files from an Iphone?

Deleted files? No. He's probably talking about things like Music Rescue, but they dont recover deleted files unfortunately, just take them off the phone without using iTunes.

Your method of moving photos and movies is fine as you are only accessing the "camera" section of the iPhone's storage, and it is one of the methods that are supported.

I think while you moved files around your cache may have filled up or something happened to the copy paste while they were cut, unfortunately cut is a destroying action, and if you cant ctrl-z immediately, I would assume it's game over.


Does homebrew usually put lots of files in the /usr/local folder itself? Doing ls -ltra /usr/local gives a lot of homebrew files and folders in /usr/local itself, as opposed to a subfolder:

$ ls -ltra /usr/local/
total 56
drwxr-xr-x@  12 root    wheel    408 13 Jul  2015 ..
drwxr-xr-x    7 65535   65535    238 24 Jul  2015 heroku
drwxr-xr-x    6 agrimm  admin    204 24 Jul  2015 foreman
-rw-r--r--    1 agrimm  admin    291  7 Oct  2015 .yardopts
-rw-r--r--    1 agrimm  admin   1241 15 Jan 16:19 LICENSE.txt
drwx------    8 agrimm  admin    272 15 Jan 16:25 var
drwxr-xr-x    8 agrimm  admin    272 15 Jan 16:31 etc
-rw-r--r--@   1 agrimm  admin   3161  4 Apr 14:48 CODEOFCONDUCT.md
-rw-r--r--    1 agrimm  admin    861 12 May 09:16 .travis.yml
drwxr-xr-x   34 agrimm  admin   1156 12 May 09:17 share
drwxr-xr-x  303 agrimm  admin  10302 23 Jun 09:21 lib
drwxr-xr-x   98 agrimm  admin   3332 23 Jun 09:22 include
-rw-r--r--@   1 agrimm  admin   4266 23 Jun 09:51 README.md
-rw-r--r--    1 agrimm  admin   1031 23 Jun 09:51 .gitignore
drwxr-xr-x    5 agrimm  admin    170 23 Jun 09:51 .github
drwxrwxr-x   21 root    admin    714 23 Jun 09:51 .
drwxr-xr-x   12 agrimm  admin    408 23 Jun 09:56 Library
drwxr-xr-x  256 agrimm  admin   8704  6 Jul 11:50 bin
drwxr-xr-x   60 agrimm  admin   2040  6 Jul 11:50 opt
drwxr-xr-x   60 agrimm  admin   2040  6 Jul 11:50 Cellar
drwxr-xr-x   15 agrimm  admin    510 13 Jul 10:50 .git

CODEOFCONDUCT.md, LICENSE.txt, README.md, .git, .gitignore, Library, bin, opt, Cellar and probably other files and folders refer to homebrew.

Is this normal for homebrew when I chose "Install" for Xcode, and then installed homebrew as per the following?

$ ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
==> This script will install:
/usr/local/bin/brew
/usr/local/Library/...
/usr/local/share/man/man1/brew.1

Press RETURN to continue or any other key to abort
==> /usr/bin/sudo /bin/mkdir /usr/local

WARNING: Improper use of the sudo command could lead to data loss
or the deletion of important system files. Please double-check your
typing when using sudo. Type "man sudo" for more information.

To proceed, enter your password, or type Ctrl-C to abort.

Password:
==> /usr/bin/sudo /bin/chmod g+rwx /usr/local
==> /usr/bin/sudo /usr/bin/chgrp admin /usr/local
==> /usr/bin/sudo /bin/mkdir /Library/Caches/Homebrew
==> /usr/bin/sudo /bin/chmod g+rwx /Library/Caches/Homebrew
==> Installing the Command Line Tools (expect a GUI popup):
==> /usr/bin/sudo /usr/bin/xcode-select --install
xcode-select: note: install requested for command line developer tools
Press any key when the installation has completed.
==> Downloading and installing Homebrew...
remote: Counting objects: 3660, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (3491/3491), done.
remote: Total 3660 (delta 35), reused 673 (delta 28), pack-reused 0
Receiving objects: 100% (3660/3660), 2.97 MiB | 371.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (35/35), done.
From https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew
 * [new branch]      master     -> origin/master
HEAD is now at 3947f85 consul: add 0.5.2 bottle.
==> Installation successful!
==> Next steps
Run `brew help` to get started

For what it's worth, I've also installed cask.

Yes. That's how homebrew does.

You can usually trust

brew doctor

to tell if things are correct - it is pretty good about flagging anything amiss in /usr/local.

But to confirm your main question, the normal for homebrew it that it's noted for being "chatty" in that directory with many files and folders.


iMessage freeze and crash I am having this problem where I open up iMessage on my iPod Touch 4th Gen iOS 6.0.1 and it freezes after 3 seconds. There is a specific message that is causing this. This app opens up at this conversation by default. Before the three seconds passes, I can press back to the list of conversations and do stuff on that screen normally. But when I try to delete that specific conversation it reppears! I have tried to sign out and sign back in but the problem still remains. I have tried every possible method I could think of. If anybody knows how I can delete this conversation or fix this problem I would be grateful.

After many attempts trying to fix this glitch I have finally found the answer.
I will explain step by step.

Open up iMessage
Quickly go back to the list of conversations before iMessage freezes
Go into the conversation that causes the crash
Click edit
Clear all messages
Go back before iMessage freezes
Delete the conversation
Completely close iMessage by opening up the Multitask bar and hold onto the icon until the icon jiggles.
Tap on the delete button on the top left of the icon
Wait 10 seconds then open iMessage again

After these 10 steps iMessage should be working find now.


Painfully slow to browse large list of subfolders via SMB and/or AFP Having an issue where I have a folder on a QNAP NAS with over 68,000 subfolders within it.

I can browse it quickly and almost instantaneously within Windows 7 via SMB, however in OSX 10.6.8 and 10.7.2, it takes nearly 10+ minutes to display the subfolders, using both SMB and AFP.

Hoping there is an easy solution - we can't break the folders into smaller subfolders due to a requirement of proprietary software that accesses the sub folders.

I've tried the fixes suggested here, which don't seem to help: http://www.macwindows.com/snowleopard-filesharing.html#030311b

Have the same issue browsing the files on a Windows 2003 server, so it is not a NAS issue - rather, it's an issue with how OS X browses over the network.  Perhaps it is trying to cache all the files/folders before displaying them?

Windows 7 doesn't do this, and therefore the subfolders display almost immediately.

I, too, find this a pain with my QNAP box. FYI the firmware has now been updated to 3.6.0 released just a few days ago, and there is some noticeable improvement with the update. However, you may consider using the iSCSI feature among the QNAP settings to make the file shares appear as a hard drive showing up on your desktop for better speed. I've noticed iSCSI works better IMO if your connection to the QNAP is hardwired throughout and not wireless in any way; wireless iSCSI works, just not as fast in my experience.


Keyboard shortcut for accessing address bar in Firefox I am trying to Alt+D on my Mac, but it doesn't take me to the address bar. Instead, the key seems to insert a random character. Is there an alternative shortcut?


Wifi network option is not showing up I have a problem with my Wifi driver. I get the message  Wi-Fi: No Hardware Installed, which is like the one described here: Wi-Fi: No Hardware Installed

I followed all the instructions given on that page, and from other sites including Apple support. Finally, I tried to remove Wifi from the system preferences and add it back. Unfortunately, adding back a network has no option for Wifi.

I tried networksetup -setairportpower airport on as well. This gives me an error of: You cannot set Wi-Fi power because all AirPort network services are disabled. Any help will be deeply appreciated.

EDIT:

I updated an screenshot with Wifi not displayed in the wifi setup in system utility.

I tried these approaches:

Apple hardware test (Short term): No issues found.
Login in safe mode and then reboot, check system preferences same issue.
Downgraded to OSX El Capitan (I thought there might be some issue with the upgrade), but the same issue still existed.
Again upgraded to OSX Sierra but the issue persisted.

One thing I noticed, when booting from USB, There were no errors like Wi-Fi: No Hardware Installed but the spinner was continuously moving and searching for the networks and it had blank dropdown (without any results). My router was on and WiFi for other devices on the network.

Thanks in advance!

Troubleshooting is a process of elimination and often requires quite a bit of patience. Let's proceed as follows.

Have you followed Allan's advice?

I'm assuming you've already booted into Safe Mode and used Apple Hardware Test (as suggested by Allan in his comment on May 11)?

If you haven't, then please follow the steps below for booting into Safe Mode and Running Apple Hardware Test.
If you have, can you please edit your question to provide the results of performing both actions. Then skip the steps below for performing these actions and try the Terminal commands I suggest.

Run Apple Hardware Test

Shut down your Mac
Restart your Mac
Press and hold the D key before the gray startup screen appears.
After a while, Apple Hardware Test (AHT) will start.
When prompted, select your language and click the right arrow.
When the AHT console appears, you can choose to run Basic tests by clicking the Test button. However, I suggest you select the "Perform extended testing" checkbox before you click the Test button.
Your test results will appear in the window in the bottom-right of the console.

Take a note of the result and report back.

Note 1: The extended test will take some time. Take a note of the results and report back.

Note 2: If pressing and holding the D key at Step 3 doesn't work, start again at Step 1 and, at Step 3 press and hold both the OptionD keys instead. This will try and run diagnostics from the internet instead, so you will need to allow more time for it to complete.

Boot into Safe Mode

Follow these steps to boot your Mac into Safe Mode:

Fully shut down your Mac
Restart your Mac
Immediately press the Shift key and keep it down
Let go of the Shift key when you see the login window (NOTE: If you have FileVault enabled you may need to log in twice).
Take a note of what happens (i.e. do you see the Wi-Fi option in System Preferences > Network?)
Exit Safe Mode by restarting your Mac as normal
Check System Preferences > Network again

Once you've booted into Safe Mode, let us know how you went.

Now, assuming you still have the problem after already booting into Safe Mode and running Apple Hardware Test, let's proceed with the following course of action.

Run these Terminal commands

Let's confirm what macOS believes the status of your Wi-Fi service is. To do this:

Launch Terminal
Enter the following command:

sudo networksetup -listallnetworkservices
Press Enter
Enter your password (note you will not see the cursor move, nor the characters appear on the screen)

Now, in the list that appears I assume you will see an asterisk (*) next to the Wi-Fi service. This denotes that it is currently disabled. Assuming this is what happens, let's try enabling it as follows:

Make sure you're still in Terminal
Enter the following command:

networksetup -setnetworkserviceenabled Wi-Fi on
A popup will prompt you for your password - enter it and click on the Modify Configuration button
Now enter this command:

networksetup -setairportpower en0 on
Restart your Mac
Now check System Preferences > Network again

Let me know how you go.


Extend Catalina's privacy protection to other folders In MacOS Catalina apps need to ask for explicit permission to access certain user folders (such as ~/Documents and ~/Downloads).

Is it possible to extend this protection to other folders (e.g. a custom user-created folder ~/foo) without moving it inside the Documents folder?

No.

The restricted file locations are detailed here PrivacyPreferencesPolicyControl.Services and you can't change them.

You would have to move ~/foo to Documents, Downloads, an external drive, or another restricted location.


Easy way to clean up OS X system files Is there an easy way (without completely formatting the disc) to clean all the files in the system folders like bin etc and just leave the needed ones? Different pythons installations like anaconda and playing around with brew or macports left a lot of unneeded files and different versions of different libraries.

Would a repair installation do this?

Macports and Fink are well behaved and put all their stuff in /opt and /sw respectively. Delete those folders and you're done.

Other packages like to use /usr/local, the unix standard for, well, local only installations.

If something is being messy and putting files in */bin, /System, /Library etc. your options are to manually remove things or reinstall the system


Editor/outliner with Newton-style handwriting input on iPod touch Is there a text editor for the iPod Touch that fills the function of the visionary-but-before-its-time Notes application on the legendary Apple Newton? Specifically, looking for something that accepts typed OR handwritten text, freely sketched graphics, collapsable outline with check boxes, etc.?

In other words, is there software for our handheld devices in 2012 as sophisticated as the state of the art from 1996?

MyScript Memo
...fulfills a fraction of your requirement list:

handwriting recognition for 30 languages
convert handwriting to digital text or export as image
create sketches

I cannot confirm whether this also supports keyboard input.


Unable to answer my phone call on mac Before recent OS and iOS upgrades I was able to answer calls on mac from my iPhone. Now, after recent upgrades i can only make calls from my Mac but I'm unable to answer them.

Whenever there is incoming call I receive notification on my Mac. When I click "Answer" after a second or two I'm presented with a message saying that there is no connection with my iPhone.

Network setup, FaceTime setup - everything is the same. The only thing that changed are OS and iOS versions.

Mac OS 10.13.1 (17B1003)
iOS 11.1.2 (15B202)

Disconnect both devices from Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Restart both devices and then once they come back on try to reconnect them both (Wi-Fi on Mac - Wi-Fi on iPhone/ Bluetooth on Mac - Bluetooth on iPhone). If they successfully connect try to get someone to call you and see if the Mac picks it up. I do know that if your iPhone screen is on, or active sometimes the calls wont go to the Mac. Give that a try and then let us know the status.


Smart Keyboard draining 2016 iPad Pro battery My Smart Keyboard Is draining my 2016 iPad Pro battery. Apple Support cannot help. Just opened a case number for me without solving my issue.

Smart Connector is clean (without any debris or cracks or nicks) and it attaches very strong with its magnet. Has anybody experienced this problem and had it resolved, and if so, what fixed the problem?

Apple Support cannot help. Just opened a case number for me without solving my issue.

Apple offers extended three year repair program for iPad Pro Smart Keyboards w/ sticking keys & other ‘functional’ issues.

Your Model Smart Keyboard for 9.7-inch iPad pro (Early 2016) is covered by this.

  Apple will also be issuing refunds to customers that previously paid
  for a replacement for keyboards eligible under the new program.


How do I change the OS X Mouse Pointer's color? I have some visual impairment, and I often have problems finding my mouse pointer on the screen.  I want to change the color of the pointer.

I know in "Universal Access" you can change the size, but it still doesn't help that the cursor 'blends in' with everything else on my screen.  I want to make my cursor bright green or red.

I'm using OS X 10.6.7.

Anything that allows you to change the color is paid software. Here's MightyMouse.
Unfortunately, it looks like MightyMouse has been discontinued :(

I would recommend this free software that displays a circle around your cursor. When you haven't moved your mouse for awhile and you move it, it'll display a circle around the pointer. Here's the software.


Apple guidelines for back button Are there any guidelines for the position of the back button?

I always see the back button at the top-left part of the screen, but I don't know the exact position I should place it.

It is specified in the iOS Human Interface Guidelines that there is a default back button positioned in the top left. In full, it reads:

  A navigation bar appears at the top of an app screen, below the status bar, and enables navigation through a series of hierarchical app screens. When a new screen is displayed, a back button, often labeled with the title of the previous screen, appears on the left side of the bar. Sometimes, the right side of a navigation bar contains a control, such as an Edit or a Done button…

More information can be found in the API documentation on the UINavigationBar.


iphones bluetooth sharing possible? Its heard from century that iphone has bluetooth,but why we cant share anything over bluetooth,but infact we can connect bluetooth speaker and play some music.

It's only between Apple devices, for iPhones, you can share together by AirDrop application.
You can not share data over BT between PC & iPhone.
Please view this for more information Transfer files between your Mac and Bluetooth devices


OS X 10.8.2 max resolution Does anyone know what maximum resolution (NUMBERxNUMBER) OS X Mountain Lion supports? What happens is that when I use my full 2880x1800 everything looks small. is there a way to use my full 2880x1800 without having everything look small?

P.S. to use my full 2880x1800 i am using Display Menu

EDIT: I just noticed how stupid this question was, thanks for the help anyways.

The max would be dependent on the amount of physical pixels in the LCD screen. You're going to find the limitation will be the display, and not Mac

Considering the 15" Retina MacBook Peo has a 2880 by 1800 which is internally drawn as 5760 by 3600, and it then supports another 2 external Thunderbolt displays. Of course, this is not a theoretical maximum, just a 'practical maximum' using consumer tech.


Is it possible to disconnect a bluetooth connection using Applescript? I want to disconnect a connection to a bluetooth device through an Applescript. Please note that I don't want to disable or enable bluetooth, I just want to disable one specific connection.

Here is what I use for disconnecting my Samsung Soundbar. Also remember that you need to give permission to application to use SystemUIServer steps for that.

System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Accessibility > [name_of_your_application]

One little remark: you need to have bluetooth icon on your menu bar.

tell application "System Events" to tell process "SystemUIServer"
    set bt to (first menu bar item whose description is "bluetooth") of menu bar 1
    click bt
    tell (first menu item whose title is "[Samsung] Soundbar") of menu of bt
        click
        tell menu 1
            if exists menu item "Disconnect" then
                click menu item "Disconnect"
            else
                click bt -- close main dropdown to clean up after ourselves
            end if
        end tell
    end tell
end tell


How to get deleted device list from Apple developer account? While reseting the device list, mistakenly I have selected those device which I suppose to remove and removed those devices which I suppose to keep.
Now how can I get that device list which I have removed from developer account?

Contact Apple Care about this. From a recent question I understood that they keep this information for a very long time.

They had a track for me of an iMac DV which I don't own anymore since…
(imagine the spinning beach balloon starting here).


Mute/Unmute Microsoft Teams Microphone Using Mouse Button when Teams is Not Focused I would like to mute and unmute Microsoft Teams, using a spare mouse button, when the application is not focussed.  I am using a Microsoft Sculpt mouse and have a couple spare buttons, particularly the navigate back button, which I would like to reassign to the mute function.
The reason I want to do this is because I am typically having a conversation while working in another application and I want to avoid the delay and context switching of having to focus the Teams Application before either clicking on the mute button or using the command+shift+m keyboard shortcut.
It's inconvenient enough that I have considered using something like Touch Portal on my phone to create an easy hot button but that application isn't signed.
Microsoft does not provide Mac drivers for the Sculpt Ergonomic Mouse or Sculpt Ergonomic desktop.

here is an API call using graph, that does something like you are asking.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/api/resources/participant?view=graph-rest-1.0&viewFallbackFrom=graph-rest-v1.0#properties
They also have an API call to mute
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/api/participant-mute?view=graph-rest-1.0&tabs=http
However I don't think you are going to get the feature you want, because when you are using teams, you are not allowed to unmute someone else, and the API has no idea the person you would be trying to unmute, is you.
One thing that should be pretty easy, is to mute/unmute the mic at the operating system level. This would work, however your co-workers would not know you are muted.


How can I handle ClarisWorks documents on Lion? I've a lot of ancient ClarisWorks documents and I want to upgrade to OS X Lion. Is there a way to have a look at or to print ClarisWorks document on Lion?

I recently recovered some ClarisWorks 3.0 documents using a 68k emulator. I wrote up my experiences here: http://www.danvk.org/wp/2012-05-21/reading-clarisworks-3-documents-in-mac-os-x/

Emulation may not be the most direct way to do this, but it's certainly the most fun!


MBP GPU Panic-less Logic Boards I inherited a Mid-2010 15" Macbook Pro (2.66 GHz Core i7 (I7-620M), A1286) from a relative a few years ago, and since then it started GPU-panicking (a la here, here etc). AppleCare has obviously expired, and would not be an option since they'd inevitably ask for the receipt, which I doubt my relatives would ever be able to find (10 years later). I'm fairly certain I wouldn't be able to pull off the "make-a-fuss" approach suggested by a lot of answerers.
The standard correction for this nowadays seems to be gfx.io (which is now the only software option, thanks to Apple discontinuing their software patch. Grrr). The problems with this are:-

that this forcefully disables the nVidia adapter (shifting graphics handling onto the CPU, which is not ideal when I want to use external monitors)
that this and similar patches have not always been reliable (I have memories of it not working consistently in the past).

I am aware of numerous other potential fixes (Kext purge, PRAM reset etc), but I have run through all of these at one point or another.
Anyway, so I was thinking about the process they used when they were running the official replacement program. Although I've read in some places (comment) that it's the logic board that was replaced, this article suggests it's in fact the "defective video card" that is replaced. Either way, I'm assuming they just replaced the defective board with a newer revision - meaning that parts sites (like this) probably have these revised boards knocking about that won't suffer the same issue.
Considering the still-incredible spec and condition of this machine, I don't mind spending the money for a new logic board if it means I can reliably use macOS on it. Of course, I'm only willing to spend the money if I'm sure it will actually solve the issue.
So my question is two-part:

Was it definitely the logic board that caused this fault?
What is the part number for a logic board that is known to not suffer from the GPU Panic issue (assuming it actually entered circulation)?

I have a mid-2010 15” MBP in which the NVIDIA GPU on the original  motherboard failed, around 2014. Apple replaced the motherboard twice under their Extension Repair program, each failing after about 6 months. I put the MBP away in storage until about a month ago when I found this solution by user LangLangC: GPU problem - Boot Hangs on Grey Screen which is for a 2011 MBP using a AMD Radeon GPU, but it is the same problem, poor thermal design.
To make it work you need to specify the NVIDIA kext files rather than the AMD kext. There are several kext files; search for GeForce*kext and NVDA*kext. I wasn’t certain which were relevant to the GPU so I moved all these using the directions in the post. Follow the instructions of @LangLangC - they work!!!
I have my 2010 MBP running well now using only the internal Intel GPU. One caveat is that it cannot support an external monitor. So don’t waste money on a replacement motherboard, just follow the detailed instructions in the post. Tedious but only costs time.


How can I sync a particular music folder to iPhone? I want to sync the music folder on my system with iPhone. The folder does not contain any sub folders and only contains mp3 files. I want my iPhone music library to get synced with this particular folder like if I add/delete any song the change should be reflected on my iPhone when I sync it.

That sounds like an ideal task for iTunes & a single Playlist sync.

Launch iTunes, connect iPhone then select it from the top menu
Click Music in the Settings section, not 'On my Device'
Set 'Selected Playlists...'
Choose a single playlist to sync.


Setting custom bullet styles at different indent levels in Pages 5.0 I am trying to set my bullets so that they are different at each of three indent levels in Pages 5.0. An example is like this:

I can accomplish this by manually changing the "Bullet:" tab on the format bar every time I indent:

As you can imagine, this is not an efficient way to work. I would like to create a setting/style where the bullets would automatically change when I hit "tab". I have attempted to update the "Bullet" style in the "Bullets & Lists" dropdown, but it can only set all of the indents to one bullet type.

Is there any way to change this so that whenever I hit "tab" my bullets change from:

  • --> ◦ --> -

This feature was available in Pages '09, but I cannot seem to find it in 5.0.

It seems like Apple eventually added this feature to Pages 5. The following works for me in Pages version 5.2.2 (1877):

In case you've changed the style of any Bullet & List style, an asterisk (*) appears after the name of the style:

If you open the drop down list, you'll see an update button:

You can either press the update button, or click on the arrow next to it and select 'Update stlye' from the popup menu (featuring other options like clear, rename or delete):


Macbook 3 Bleeps on Startup I am having a strange issue with my 2010 MBP. I recently upgraded the memory to 8GB ram and it was working fine, but now when I load it up I get 3 bleeps.

I opened it up and checked the ram was in correctly. I powered back up and it worked fine. I closed the lid, left it for the night, came back to it and booted her up and it done it again. I turned it off, and back on, and it booted up.

It goes through stages like this when I have to keep trying to power it on before it will eventually come on.

I've heard it's a RAM issue, but if so why am I still able to boot up the MacBook after a couple of attempts?

I'm not sure how to solve this bootup issue. Once it's booted it works fine and I have no issues UNLESS I close the lid, and it then has to be restarted.

I can't understand how it worked fine before.

Is there anything I can try to fix this apart from replacing the RAM (I can't afford new RAM).

It's indeed and issue with the RAM, and, despite the fact that you've already rechecked the placing of it, three beeps means that there's something wrong with how the RAM is placed in their banks.

Swapping the RAM modules usually does the trick.

You could, too, reboot just with one module to see what happens, and, afterwards, place the other.


Invert color in Preview I used command+option+control+8 to invert the colors on an image. When I open the image in Preview then try to print it, the image does not print with the colors inverted.

Is there another way for me to do this?

The Command Option CTRL 8 keypress inverts the video signal of the display. It does not alter the 'true' colour properties of images, nor does it affect printing.

You can effect an inverse colour transformation to an image in Preview, using the method described here:

https://osxdaily.com/2019/07/27/how-invert-image-mac-preview/

Essentially, this involves switching the position of the Black point and White point sliders in the Adjust Colors panel.


Why do our iDevices give a page not found error when trying to connect to profile manager website? I want to know if anyone have also encountered this. We can connect to Profile Manager using one of our iPads (server.website.com/mydevices), but we can't connect using the rest of the iDevices we have. There are no difference between that iPad and the rest of the iDevices that we have, so we're wondering on what went wrong. The error is that the browser can't find the page.

This is a big problem for us because we can't enroll the devices in Profile Manager.

Any information will help. If you need additional info, please put it in the comment section. Thank you.

EDIT: as mentioned by bmike, we already have the DNS and SSL working. It's just this very weird behavior of being able to access the profile manager on every mac and that single iPad but not on other devices. Also note that we don't have that much experience on server administration, and it's safe to say that we don't know what we're doing and just following settings by the books.

Have you verified that all required ports are open from the iPads to the server? (Port 1640 specifically, but also you'll want to ensure access to 80/443 for web and 2195/2196/5223 for push)

Lion Server: Ports used by Profile Manager

You can also run some tests to see if this is a problem with the server itself or with the network. Connecting to the server's IP address from the iOS device will rule out DNS and other issues.

I've found it helpful to open the Console app and watch /var/log/apache2/access_log for incoming requests so you can see which iOS devices are getting through to the server. That log shows you the IPv4 or IPv6 address of each connection request so you can detect which devices are networked correctly to send traffic to the server and narrow down in the chain where your problem lies.

Hopefully this helps others with DNS issues in getting to the same resolution as you.


What is the position of HD Heads during a spin down? So I'm debating between powering down and sleep mode when toting my macbook around in my backpack.  Apple says the HD 'spins down' when in sleep, which obviously means is not spinning.  But are the read/write heads completely removed from the platters as in power down or still poised at the last read/write position?
If they aren't cleared of the disc, I'm not dragging it around in sleep mode.

The heads are parked out of the way. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive#Landing_zones_and_load.2Funload_technology, specifically:

  Modern HDDs prevent power interruptions or other malfunctions from landing its heads in the data zone by either physically moving (parking) the heads to a special landing zone on the platters that is not used for data storage, or by physically locking the heads in a suspended (unloaded) position raised off the platters.


Manipulate incoming HTML data My ISP, injects JavaScript code into every website I visit. Is there a way to filter all incoming traffic in OS X and remove that injected code?

That will be incredibly hard. It would be far easier to establish a VPN connection to get out from under the offending hostile network.

If you can ensure SSL connections and the network isn’t a very strong state actor, you might get pretty good immunization / isolation from that sort of tampering.

Barring that, keep the OS updates as far as possible as Apple continues to enhance security and privacy and this sort of attack leaves you extremely vulnerable to snooping, security risks and data leakage from the sites you enter data.


Does Mail.app support Exchange "categories" on emails? I've got a team who are all running Outlook on Windows to log into a shared inbox and use "Categories" to delegate incoming work.

A new team member wants to use her Mac, running Mail.app.  I had no problem getting the account set up, but the Category markings are not visible anywhere in Mail.app.  (Flags are, read/unread are, folder structure is, just not Categories.)

Is there a visibility setting somewhere that I'm missing?  Or will I need to get Office Business for Mac so she can do this work in Outlook?

Mail.app has no categories, but the Outlook 2011 on Mac has.

Also making Mail communicate with Exchange server is tricky, however Outlook 2011 will do that.

So she can still use her mac with Outlook for work, and mail for all other emails.


Poor battery performance on MacBook Pro I have recently bought a very expensive new MacBook Pro with 8 GB memory and now I am frustrated by its very fast battery drainage. Often I see only 2 hours left on full battery charge!
Right now it is only 2:22 hours with no process above 200MB except 1 GB for kernel_task. Also 4 GB memory is free after a "memory clean" (I am also disappointed that Apple does not properly clean memory by itself).
What are possible causes of that low battery performance and how to deal with them?
Any help is greatly appreciated.
EDIT. I do memory clean with this app, hope it does what it says and not spreads a virus or likes.

Battery Information:

  Model Information:
  Serial Number:    D863063R190DGDLBH
  Manufacturer: SMP
  Device Name:  bq20z451
  Pack Lot Code:    0
  PCB Lot Code: 0
  Firmware Version: 406
  Hardware Revision:    2
  Cell Revision:    158
  Charge Information:
  Charge Remaining (mAh):   4976
  Fully Charged:    No
  Charging: Yes
  Full Charge Capacity (mAh):   6696
  Health Information:
  Cycle Count:  133
  Condition:    Normal
  Battery Installed:    Yes
  Amperage (mA):    2870
  Voltage (mV): 12272

UPDATE.
I restarted Mac today in the morning and closed all applications - still only 3 hours. In the afternoon I have closed all applications - and miraculously I saw whopping 8 hours! Then launched Komodo and Chrome and back to 4 hours. Really puzzling...

Your first step towards a solution should be to run Activity Monitor which can be found by searching in Spotlight or Applications > Utilities. Set the tab to CPU and watch for applications that are using a lot of CPU. Investigate the programs or processes that display high usage.

I recently encountered high CPU usage with Google Chrome. Web searches reveal many opinions as to the reason but the best solution is to disable Chrome plugins unless you really need them. When I disabled my plugins, the CPU usage dropped considerably.


Horizontal scroll speed problem in kdiff3 I use kdiff3 Version 0.9.98 (64 bit) on El Capitan.

When comparing files:

using ↑ or ↓ keys scrolls files by one line (one press or auto-repeat scrolls one line)
using ← or → scrolls files horizontally one pixel at a time

Is there a way to speed up horizontal scroll? For example one character (better yet 8 characters) at a time instead of pixels?

So for me I have a Magic Mouse, and side scrolling doesn't work. Because of how much I scroll around (for better or for worse) I always display the scroll bars in my windows. In kdiff3, I have a bar on the very bottom of the window that is horizontal, and if I use my mouse to click and drag, then it will scroll left and right for me much quicker than one pixel at a time. I still wish side scrolling worked, but for now, this works well.


adobe premiere pro only allows capture in HDV I need to digitize a whole bunch of DV tapes using a Sony DCR-TRV10 miniDV camcorder, a 4-to-6 firewire cable, a FW800-Thunderbolt converter, and a MacBook Pro from 2013. Adobe Premiere Pro version 14.0.1 is what I have installed. Unfortunately, it only allows me to chose HDV for project, and then it says HDV video is not compatible with my input. How do I get Premiere Pro 14.0.1 to allow me to capture DV and not HDV?

I gave up on Adobe Premiere and am now successfully using Quicktime Player to perform the capture. It's important to note that you need to separately tell QuickTime to capture the Audio and Video streams.


How to remove duplicate songs from itunes playlist? How to remove duplicate titles from itunes playlist ?
When adding directories with mp3s to itunes that contains playlist files, it's listing twice (or more) the songs in the album view.

After selecting the playlist you would like remove duplicates from in iTunes, you'll then want to select "Name" in the "Sort By" menu (located under the "View" main menu item).

This will sort the songs in alphabetical order to where you can easily identify any duplicates since they'll appear right next to each other.

You'll then want to select a duplicated song and hover over the selected song to reveal the ... (More) menu.

Then select "Remove from Playlist" to delete the selected duplicated song.

And, just in case you're wondering, yes – doing this operation will only delete the selected duplicate, not all instances of the song within the playlist. (Which was a secret worry of mine.)


What's the maximum length of a SIM card PIN that iOS supports? I've seen conflicting information on this, so was wondering if somebody could help clarify.

Generally, whenever I've seen references to setting a SIM PIN on an iOS device, articles/instructions suggest a length of 4 digits are used - however, I've seen elsewhere that up to a maximum of 8 digits can be entered. Taking the above into account, what's the maximum length that can be used with a SIM PIN in iOS?

The SIM PIN has a minimum of 4 digits and a maximum of 8 digits.

This goes for the iPhone, all iOS devices - and indeed any other standards compliant GSM cellphone.

For the latter statement, please consult this standards document:

https://www.3gpp.org/ftp/TSG_T/TSG_T/TSGT_05/Docs/PDFs/TP-99185.pdf

From page 66 and on, the PIN functionality is documented. Note that the PIN data length is 8.


How to identify a strange item on my menubar? After rebooting recently, I noticed a new, unknown icon showing up in my menubar (I'm on Mac OS 10.15.7).  Right clicking / double tapping on it does nothing.  When I open Activity Monitor, I see icons next to processes but none matches it.
Any idea what process or application this is, or how I can identify it?

Open Accessibility Inspector, accessible from Xcode → Open Developer Tool.
Under ‘Hierarchy’, click ‘Show’ which will show you the Application Name.
Click on the target icon at the top of the inspector labelled ‘Start inspection follows point’.
Hover over the item and the pane may show you enough information for you to determine what it is. For example, hovering the Dropbox menu bar item shows "Dropbox <version>" under AXHelp, and hovering Little Snitch shows "Little Snitch Agent" under AXTitle.


How can I connect to NFS from finder? When I'm reading this guide it seems to be quite straightforward.

http://support.apple.com/kb/PH18705?viewlocale=en_US

But I was expecting to be typing the ip address. I don't understand what they mean by

nfs://DNSname/pathname

DNSname and pathname. Can someone elaborate?

(I'm trying to connect to my seagate business storage nas)

In order to mount an NFS share as a client, you need essentially two things:

The name or IP address of the server, referred to as DNSName
The share path

How do you find this stuff out?

This assumes you don't know what the share paths are.  If you already know, skip down to "Connecting"

Using my own personal Synology Diskstation as an example, I have shared two directories via NFS.  It's DNS name is diskstation.home.  Its IP address is 192.168.1.50 (not really, but it is for the sake of this example)

Launch the Terminal App.

At the prompt, type the following command:

showmount -e diskstation.home
(replace diskstation.home with your DNSname or IP Address)

In my example, the following is displayed:

$ showmount -e diskstation.home
Exports list on diskstation.home:
/volume1/netbackup                  *
/volume1/Network Share              *

Ok...so now I know what the two "share paths" are.  It's time to connect.

Connecting

Let's use finder:

Press CommandK to bring up the "Connect to Server" Dialog Box.
In the "Server Address" box, type enter the values in the format:

nfs://DNSName/path
or
nfs://IP/path

So, going back to my example, I would type:

nfs://diskstation.home/volume1/netbackup
or
nfs://192.168.1.50/volume1/netbackup

You should now be able to browse your network share.


iOS updating from 6.1.3 to 7 I have an iPad mini that I'm trying to update from 6.1.3 to 7 -- however, the iPad seems to say that I'm currently on the latest version. Why does this happen? Is there something I should be doing?

iOS 7 is not yet publicly released yet. It is only available to developers. Unless you are a developer you can not yet update your device. 6.1.3 is the most current software so there is nothing wrong with your device. For more information regarding iOS 7 please follow this link: http://www.apple.com/ios/ios7/


How to preserve wallpaper on secondary monitor after reboot This problem began when I upgraded to Yosemite.  I have two monitors connected to my Mac Pro.  Primary monitor uses default wallpaper, and secondary monitor uses a different wallpaper (solid gray).  Every time I reboot the system, the secondary monitor reverts to the default wallpaper, and Mission Control shows an additional "desktop" on the primary monitor, with a solid gray wallpaper.
After rebooting many times, the list of desktops on the primary monitor grows quite long if I don't delete them manually.

I have read a tip to fix this behavior by disabling this feature in Sys Prefs, but I don't want to do that.

Cross your fingers and stand on one leg.

More seriously, you probably need to delete related plists.

Try deleting this:

/Users/<your name>/Library/Application Support/Dock/desktoppicture.db


Is there such a thing as a iPad stylus with a (relatively) fine and hard nib? I use the Griffin stylus and although it does the job well enough it's a long way removed from using a pen on a tablet - I find the soft nib makes it difficult to write accurately. The other pens I've seen all seem to have a similar design - presumably to make the nib appear to the iPad as a finger.

I understand pressure sensitivity isn't going to be an option but a relatively hard nib would make it a lot easier to 'write' on the iPad.

Thoroughly recommend the Cosmonaut:
http://www.studioneat.com/products/cosmonaut

Still a relatively soft nib but the size of the stylus nib seems to reduce the squidgy resistance I've experienced with smaller stylus. Also the chunkyness of the Cosmonaut grip feels great in the hand.


How to prevent an iPad from grabbing Apple ID for "Itunes and App Store" when plugged into a Mac? I work as an iOS developer and have a number of development iPads at work. They are generic ipads used for testing and demos, none should apple ID.

When I plug such iPad into my mac, two things seems to happen:

iTunes opens and offers me to "set up my new iPad", even if it is already setup
I close iTunes
I unplug the iPad, but now it has my personal apple ID remembered in "iTunes and app store" in preferences.

Now at random intervals the ipad asks me for the password for this user ID. I think it even tries to convert that into an iCloud ID. Even worse, I randomly get popups saying "[some random generic company ipad] now uses my apple ID for facetime and iMessage".

How can I permanently lock generic iPads into something so it does not grab my personal apple ID and use it?

I used to get this issue as well and what I did was to prevent iTunes from auto syncing when I connect a device, this option is found in the iTunes Preferences/Devices and tick the checkbox as shown in the screenshot

It's also worth going into the user preferences then login items and remove "iTunes helper" which should stop it from launching iTunes anytime you connect a device.


Where are text replacements stored? I want to import Apple text replacements from a text file. I want to import a large amount of shortcuts to the system so I am wondering if that is possible.

Select all the shortcuts you wish to export and drag them to a location in Finder. This will create a ‘Text Substitutions.plist’.
Move this file to another account/computer, then drag it back on top of the list to import the file.

Full details are provided by Apple in their support document on the matter:

How to export and import text substitutions on your Mac - Apple Support

In direct answer to the question title, the actual location used for storing substitutions is within the UserDictionary.db somewhere within ~/Library/Dictionaries/CoreDataUbiquitySupport/. This is not something you should modify manually. Also - since this data is iCloud backed - some versions and point in time it used an older storage method and API (iCloud Core Data) and now it's using a more modern key value store (CloudKit).

https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/09/26/stucki-text-replacements
https://www.macstadium.com/blog/science-confirmed-text-replacements-do-not-sync/


Python continuously crashing after Catalina update During my regular development tasks, there is no problem with python. I can activate my virtual environments, interpreter and keep on development with no error whatsoever.

However, randomly MacOS pops up "Problem Report for Python" dialog. This is started after I've upgrade to 10.15 Catalina.

I have no idea how to fix it since everything related python is working correctly as far as I can see.

Here is full log message. Any help is appreciated.

This was happening to me.  I had a cron entry that was running a python3 script in virtual env.

check your crontab for anything running python.   crontab -l

Install openssl with brew.  brew install openssl.

Then for any script you find in your crontab, make sure it has the openssl lib paths first in the LD_LIBRARY path.  Add this to either the shell script that starts your python script or to your ~/.bashrc file

export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/opt/openssl/lib:$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH


How to use Reason 7 (Reason.app) on macOS Sierra After reinstalling os x and updating it to Sierra I found that Reason 7 would not start. Instead the following error message is displayed:

  Unknown installation error
  An error occurred during installation of installed files. Contact support or reinstall the application. Now terminating.

I searched around on the web and found that it's common to have problems using Reason 7 on Sierra, there are various things people have tried, one thing I tried was to start the Reason 9 demo and then to start Reason 7, but this didn't work for me, also, at the time my Reason 9 trial had expired. see: Reason 7 on mac sierra os x issues? reason stops supporting

I have found that I am able to start Reason 7 using an unconventional method.

First I open the reason folder in finder, then select "Show Package Contents"

This allows me to navigate to locate the Reason unix executable at Reason.app/Content/MacOS/Reason

When I execute the Reason file, reason starts up and I can use it normally. I can use my ignition key and after installing the latest version of code meter (6.50b from the codemeter.com) and installing Authorizer using Authorizer.pkg (from the Resources folder inside Reason.app) I was able to auhorize my computer to run reason without the ignition key. If you try this and find that the web page says it can't find code meter, try pressing the reload page button on your browser.

My question is: how can I start reason without having to go show package contents and invoke the Reason executable directly?

It's seems clear that something extra is happening when I double click the reason.app icon that causes the error, how can I get it to skip that and execute the Reason executable only.

I've searched around in the Reason.app folder and I imagine that there's something in there that I need to change so that it will invoke the Reason executable immediately instead of trying to install things at start up.

To add to the answer, the solution would appear to be found in the following link:

https://www.propellerheads.se/support/user/reason/mac-troubleshooting/where-are-the-sound-banks-in-reason-9/

The folder in question in application support should be deleted in order for Reason 9 to launch. This should fix the issue.


Only HTTPS websites working otherwise I receive ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED I am facing annoying problem of only HTTPS websites working on my Mac (in all browsers). I can only visit Google, YouTube, Facebook, Yahoo etc.

So far, I tried following:

Websites shows error of: ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED
I have uninstalled Anti-virus
Turned off firewall
Changed DNS, to 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4 (Google), 208.67.222.222, 208.67.220.220 (Open DNS), 0.0.0.0
My network is ipv4 supported (but not ipv6) so most websites should work.
I tried ping websites that are not opening on browser e.g: dailymotion.com , but I transmitted and received packets without loss.
Reinstalled Yosemite but problem still persists.
Everything works when I use VPN (e.g hotspot shield), so my guess is DNS is messed up.
I tried flushing DNS using sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder

P.S Everything works in Safe Mode and using mobile hotspot

Here is traceroute, and curl verbose. So the issue is with only http websites.

When I use sudo pfctl -s nat, I am getting following response: “No ALTQ support in kernel ALTQ related functions disabled rdr pass inet proto tcp from 192.168.1.100 (my IP) to any port = 80 -> 127.0.0.1 port 9882”. By removing port forwarding using sudo pfctl -F all, the websites works for few seconds only

Any suggestions please ?

You are probably victim of an adware: OSX/Pirrit. Please read the linked analysis.

To remove the adware save the following shell script as remove-adware.sh (e.g. on your Desktop) and execute it as root:

echo "*** Osx.Pirit Removal script, Amit Serper, @0xamit ***"
echo "*** BEFORE YOU RUN THIS SCRIPT, STOP! I CAN'T TAKE ANY RESPONSIBILITY ON ANY DAMAGES HAPPENING TO YOUR MACHINE. YOU ARE THE MASTER OF YOUR OWN FATE"
echo "*** Before running this script check that you are indeed infected with osx.pirrit. TERMINATE THIS SCRIPT BY HITTING CTRL+C AND RUNNING THE FOLLOWING COMMAND:"
echo "$ dscl . -list /Users UniqueID | grep 401"
echo "If this command has an output then continue running this script. Else DONT"
echo "Press any key to continue running this script, remember - I am not responsible for any unfortunate outcomes"
read

echo "[*] Getting net_pref name"
netPrefFileName=$(sudo defaults read /Library/Preferences/com.common.plist net_pref)

echo "[*] Netperf name is:"
echo $netPrefFileName

echo "[*] Getting appname from com.common.plist"
appName=$(sudo defaults read /Library/Preferences/com.common.plist name)
echo $appName

echo "[*] Stopping and removing LaunchDaemon"
sudo launchctl unload -w "/Library/LaunchDaemons/"$netPrefFileName
sudo killall $appName

sudo rm "/Library/LaunchDaemons/"$netPrefFileName

echo "[*] Removing injector"
sudo rm -r "/Library/"$appName
echo "[*] Removing malicious pf configs made by Pirrit"
sudo rm /etc/change_net_settings.sh

sudo pfctl -evf /etc/pf.conf

servicePrefFileName=$(sudo defaults read /Library/Preferences/com.common.plist service_pref)
echo “[*] Net pref file name:”
echo $netPrefFileName

appName=$(sudo defaults read /Library/Preferences/com.common.plist name)
echo “[*] App name is:”
echo $appName

echo “[*] Removing LaunchDaemon”
sudo launchctl unload -w "/Library/LaunchDaemons/"$servicePrefFileName
echo [*] Killing app and osascript”
sudo killall $appName
sudo killall osascript

echo “[*] Cleaning up…”
sudo rm "/Library/LaunchDaemons/"$servicePrefFileName

sudo rm -r "/Library/"$appName

echo “[*] Removing pirrit launching script”
sudo rm /etc/run_app.sh

echo “Script finished”

Make it executable:

chmod +x ~/Desktop/remove-adware.sh

change your working directory:

cd ~/Desktop

and execute it. Read the intro of the script thoroughly (especially the advice to run dscl . -list /Users UniqueID | grep 401 before continuing:

sudo ./remove-adware.sh


Google Voice in iPad? I can find this here but I cannot find it in iPad. How can I use Google Voice in iPad?

  Perhaps related

  Can the iPad 2 be used for everyday telephony?
  Is the 3G network used by the iPad the same as the 4G network used by the iPhone?

You may want to give GV Connect a try or Talkatone.

Both work on iPad with instructions here and here.


Type backslash more easily on Japanese wireless keyboard In order to write \ on a Japanese wireless keyboard we have to use alt+¥. Very very inconvenient actually. Especially with Swift, the use of \ will sky rocket... Alt is bottom left, right of caps, and ¥ is left of delete. You absolutely need two hands for this, and alt is close to caps and ¥ is close to delete so all kind of havoc will break loose from time to time.

Is there anyway to remap this key? Of course I'm mostly using Xcode. Ideally I'd like to remap \ to  _  which is left of the right shift. Because  _  prints _ both for shifted and unshifted taps, so \ for an unshifted tap would be great.

I was able to download and use Ukulele from http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&item_id=ukelele  however while the software seems powerful it's far from easy to use and have keyboards install. The manual is lengthy and takes a while to go through. There's no quick way of fixing things, unless you have a lot of experience I guess. The keyboard layout I created seems to work in Notes, but it does not work in Google Chrome (I couldn't write this comment using it)

Ok so I restarted Google Chrome and can now use the keyboard layout. Seems to work, look \\ :-)

And to add something... Ukulele works on an inherent feature of OS X (the keyboard layout files), just adds an UI on top of it. It would be nice with a simpler solution so if anyone knows feel free to add an answer.


Syncing iPhone 4S music only Will syncing iPhone delete existing photos on iPhone? I want to sync new songs but not sure if it will delete my valuable photos.

From Apple's Web site:

To delete synced photos and videos
In iTunes, select the device icon in the Devices list on the left. Click the Photos tab in the resulting window.
Choose "Sync photos from."
On a Mac, choose iPhoto or Aperture from the pop-up menu.
On a Windows PC, choose Photoshop Album or Photoshop Elements from the pop-up menu.
Choose "Selected albums" and deselect the albums or collections you want to delete.
Click Apply.

So, the albums you want to KEEP should be selected. They will sync with your iTunes account.
However, I prefer to store my photos directly to Dropbox. Dropbox can be set up to automatically sync photos to it using their Camera Upload feature.
Additionally, if you like the file system method, you can use an app like Phoneview to move photos manually into a directory of your choice.


Is there a solution for preventing battery drain on the 5s after the iOS 7.0.6 update? I have tried a hard reset, removing Outlook email account, and closing all apps and turning off Background App Refresh.

This question was answered by updating to iOS 7.1. I've since turned all  the features of the phone back on (e.g., background app refresh, notifications, use my location, all the processes that I tuned off trying to troubleshoot) and my phone just lasted three days with normal use.


Trying to Install WWW:Mechanize and Getting Localhost Error Okay . . . I've been trying to install WWW::Mechanize through CPAN and it always chokes at this line:

t/local/back.t ........... 1/47 Error GETing http://localhost:60603/: Can't connect to localhost:60603 (Connection refused) at t/local/back.t line 53.

I doublechecked to make sure Apache 2.4.10 (installed by default through OS X Yosemite), ran the configtest and then went into the browser to make sure localhost and 127.0.0.1 were indeed being loaded.

I'm stumped . . . how can I get beyond this roadblock?

Adding more details. This is the make test and stops at t/local/back:

Running make test
PERL_DL_NONLAZY=1 "/usr/bin/perl" "-MExtUtils::Command::MM" "-MTest::Harness" "-e" "undef *Test::Harness::Switches; test_harness(0, 'blib/lib', 'blib/arch')" t/00-load.t t/add_header.t t/aliases.t t/area_link.t t/autocheck.t t/clone.t t/content.t t/cookies.t t/credentials-api.t t/credentials.t t/die.t t/dump.t t/field.t t/find_frame.t t/find_image.t t/find_inputs.t t/find_link-warnings.t t/find_link.t t/find_link_id.t t/form-parsing.t t/form_with_fields.t t/frames.t t/image-new.t t/image-parse.t t/link-base.t t/link-relative.t t/link.t t/new.t t/pod-coverage.t t/pod.t t/regex-error.t t/save_content.t t/select.t t/taint.t t/tick.t t/untaint.t t/upload.t t/warn.t t/warnings.t t/local/back.t t/local/click.t t/local/click_button.t t/local/content.t t/local/encoding.t t/local/failure.t t/local/follow.t t/local/form.t t/local/get.t t/local/nonascii.t t/local/overload.t t/local/page_stack.t t/local/referer.t t/local/reload.t t/local/submit.t t/mech-dump/mech-dump.t

I commented out ipv6 localhost in /etc/hosts to fix this.


Apple Mail: How to semi-automatically forward an email with default text and recipients i converted recently from windows, and i do a lot of email dispatching, which i did in outlook with quick steps.
I could mark an email, hit a button for team A, and a fowarded email was composed with team a as recipients and some text in the email. Same was possible for emails for team B and so on.

Does anybody know, how this can be done in Apple Mail (or Mac Outlook, I'm not picky)?
(mbp, high sierra)

Thanks!

I would look into using Automator. For example, you could create a Service that is accessible from the Application menu (e.g. Mail > Services) that does what you want.

Speaking of Services, there's actually already one available for Mail that does part of what you want. More specifically:

In Mail, select an email
Then go to Mail > Services > New Email With Selection
A new email window opens with the contents of the email you selected already in the body of the message (however, there is no subject line and the message is not formatted as though you're forwarding it)

Also, with regards to Team A and Team B, if you haven't already you can create a Group in the Contacts app for each of your teams. That way you can forward the email to the group.

You could look at using AppleScript, but in this case Automator is probably the best/easiest option. There are many online resources that can help you get started. Below are three of them:

Automator Help
MacOSXAutomation.com
Automator World

Finally, feel free to come back here and ask questions if/when you get stuck.


NTFS support on El Capitan Just a quick question, is NTFS supported on El Capitan? I just plugged in my external hard drive and I am able to copy stuff from it, but not write to it. I guess only read mode is supported?

To enable NTFS write support on OS X 10.11 El Capitan or macOS 10.12 Sierra.

Install latest osxfuse (3.x.x) from https://github.com/osxfuse/osxfuse/releases. (you don't need MacFUSE Compatibility Layer) or from Homebrew with brew cask install osxfuse.
Install latest NTFS-3G (2016.2.22) from Homebrew. (you need Xcode)

As follow:

brew install ntfs-3g

Link NTFS-3G to boot after temporary disabling System Integrity Protection.

As follow:

[reboot by holding CMD+R to get in recovery mode]
csrutil disable
[reboot normally]
sudo mv /sbin/mount_ntfs /sbin/mount_ntfs.original
sudo ln -s /usr/local/sbin/mount_ntfs /sbin/mount_ntfs
[reboot by holding CMD+R to get in recovery mode]
csrutil enable
[reboot normally]

You will get those instructions from this wiki page as well: https://github.com/osxfuse/osxfuse/wiki/NTFS-3G