What integration does Apple TV offer with other Apple hardware? I just got a MacBook pro and will likely be getting an iPhone when the next generation comes out.

That being said - I'm debating between getting an Apple TV and a Roku box.  The Roku box seems like it has better channel offerings and also integrates with Amazon Instant Video.  It is also around $30 - $50 cheaper (not a deal breaker but worth mentioning).

So the only way Apple would win out in my mind is if the integration among other Apple products was more seamless.

That being said - in terms of integrating with other Apple products, what does the Apple TV have to offer?

Basically you have to decide what is most important to you. Do you want to have the widest range of content offerings(Roku), or the best compatibility between other Apple devices and software(Apple TV)?

The Roku box for example can play Hulu and Hulu Plus. The Hulu service is in very high demand and a very good content stream for the Roku. The Apple TV at this time will not play it out of the box, although it can be hacked to do so.

The biggest advantage that the Apple TV has is if you own or plan to use an iOS device in conjunction with it. For example, you can use AirPlay to stream music, photos, video, and apps to your Apple TV. This can be very handy in many situations. If you don't already have an iPhone, iPad, or the like - and don't plan on getting one anytime soon, then this shouldn't be a big draw.

The Apple TV also works flawlessly with iTunes. For example you can use iTunes Match then stream the audio to your Apple TV very easily. Roku can do some similar things with iTunes, but is does not have the same level of integration.

Overall, both devices have benefits and downsides, it just depends what you think your primary use will be and what hardware ecosystem you have.  For more detailed information I would take a look at this review that compares the two.


voice reading web pages (news articles) on the iPhone and Mac I am looking for an app or a method to easily read aloud web pages (especially news articles) that I find on the web.

I read possible 20-50 news articles a day and most of them I would just like to listen to being read by an electronic voice.

I have actually had some success using the built in accessibility features of the mac - however I find them clumsy and difficult to use.

Notes how I used to use the accessibility features:

I would make the set the text to voice short cut to #s
I would highlight the text by selecting it in the browser
I would then #s to start reading the text

Problems with this approach:

There is no easy way to pause the reading of the text
The the select + read is rather cumbersome
There is no way to batch the reads
There is no queue of reads ... like you can't throw stuff conveniently in the the read queue

Actually what I am looking for is a getpocket.com equivalent of text-to-speech.

Have you tried the service "Add to iTunes as a spoken track"? You can easily assign a keyboard shortcut to it an then manage the tracks with iTunes.

I found this tutorial on youtube.


Can I install iBitterlich forestry app on an iPhone 4S I would like to get an iPhone 4S to run iBitterlich but
don't want to get internet service for the iPhone. If I buy an iPhone 4S somewhere, can I download the app via wifi to my HP Pavillion 6 laptop (and it's internet), and run it without any internet service on the phone?

Yes, you can, although if you can connect your computer to wifi, it seems like you can connect your iPhone to wifi. The standard way to install apps on an iPhone is to connect it to wifi. However, assuming that isn't possible for you, it is easy to install via iTunes.

For more information:

Install Apps Via iTunes
OS X Daily Article


Replacement battery for Macbook Air 2011: equal to or better than original I need to replace a battery for my Macbook Air 13" mid-2011. There is no Apple's own repair service where I live, and I'm fairly savvy with electronics to do my own repairs.

How can I identify batteries for sale that are either genuine Apple parts or determine if alternative replacement batteries they are at least equal, but preferably better than, the original MacBook Air battery I have.

By "equal or better" I mean that it lasts at least as many cycles. I.e. after equal number of charges, it keeps Macbook running roughly as long as the genuine battery on a single charge, given the equal load.

(this answer was written for the previous edition of the question)

I didn't find any "most robust and lasting" choice yet, but I contacted iFixit re their replacement battery, and this is what I found out.

They claim that they sell the battery:

manufactured by the same company that manufactures Apple's battery
its initial power-on time on a single charge is better compared to the original battery: "buying a brand new battery will get you back to where your computer was [in same time between charges] when you first bought it"
there's 6-month warranty for a case if it performs poorly at customer's computer

However:

I failed to get any comment on how it can be possible that Apple allows its manufacturer to sell parts that Apple itself doesn't normally sell (which is the case for MBA-2011 batteries)
the sales rep couldn't provide any tests proving the "with better life" statement, nor even confirm that such tests were ever performed: "Unfortunately I do not have any tests to show [better life / better time between charges] as we have found those to not be needed"
could not confirm that any part of these statements are true:

the replacement will last comparable number of recharge cycles as the battery installed by an official Apple service
the replacement's poweron time on a single charge will be the same (or ideally better) than how could original battery installed by Apple service perform, at (most) every point in the battery life

The above data doesn't exclude what I experienced with low-quality third-party batteries for non-Apple products: initially they start with unprecedented time on a single charge, but after few months time on a charge deteriorates to less than an hour.

But let's see what answers a question on performance of iFixit batteries will bring.


Store iTunes library on network drive, keep local cache of some media for offline use, and let iTunes organize media on network drive I have a relatively large iTunes library, a Macbook Pro laptop with a relatively small SSD, and a Linux box with plentiful storage space that is always connected to the internet. I have a dream that one day I will be able to store my iTunes library on the Linux box as a network drive, keep a hand-curated list of songs and podcasts cached on my laptop, and still allow iTunes to organize my media library on the network drive. (Specifically, I want to use the 'Keep iTunes Media folder organized' and 'Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library' options in iTunes so that I can drag-and-drop files into iTunes, have iTunes organize copies via ID3 info, and delete the original files.)

The last time I tried to tackle this problem was ~2 years ago. From what I can recall, my best attempt was a continuously running script that checked if the network drive was accessible and if so, it mounted the network drive where iTunes was set to look for media, and otherwise it moved or mounted (I forget which) a local directory with hand-copied media there instead. I forget exactly why this solution was causing me headaches but obviously it does sound terribly kludgy and I did give up on it. At the time I was trying this, iTunes would not follow symlinks to find media so mounting was necessary.

Lately I've "sucked it up" and stored all my iTunes media on my laptop but right now I'm feeling renewed vigor for solving this problem. Needed clarifications? Thoughts?

I'll try to work on this myself over the next week and update if I think I have new ideas on a good solution.

For this question, I don't want to insist on exactly how iTunes should behave if I attempt to add media while my laptop is offline. Ideally, iTunes would prevent that and display an error message but if that's not feasible and I just need to remember to not do that, it's not a dealbreaker.

Related questions:

Splitting an iTunes Library [duplicate]

iTunes videos on a different harddrive?

A REAL iTunes server on NAS

I don't want to split my iTunes library so this question is a bit different from the ones above. I want the Linux box to have a master copy of all my iTunes media.

Solutions need not be limited to configuration within iTunes. Solutions that "trick" iTunes -- such as how I suggested above by selectively mounting drives to the iTunes media directory -- are fair game. Thanks for reading!

Edit: I promised to update after a week. Currently, I do not have interesting progress to report.

I'm using Supersync on multiple macs that's based on my qnap nas that keeps track of everything -- from "cloud/not on this machine" "on thismsachine:notonserver" etc.

It also handles dupes, missing tracks, various library issues -- and even better fixes them easily.

I'm not shilling for them -- I have some problems with its quirks -- but with 4 machines, 15 years of iTunes and now a ton of other media that would dwarf my drive it does the trick.

Hope this helps...


External hard drive no longer appearing on my desktop or in Disk Utility My hard drive usually works on my MacBook, but today it has decided otherwise.

My hard drive works on the TV and DVD player. However, when I plug it into my Mac the light comes on and I can hear it running, but it doesn't show on my desktop or appear in Disk Utility. I've tried researching to find options, but nothing seems to be working.

I've also plugged a USB into both USB ports on the MacBook and that works fine.

What can I try next?

Sometimes this happens on my Macbook as well. Shut down your computer, unplug the drive, turn on your computer, plug the drive back in.

Good news is your drive is not toast as your TV can read it, so hopefully that'll do the trick.


How do I change the default sound for Reminders in El Capitan? It is very important as I use it for medication reminders. I would like to use one of the sounds (.aif) that I already have stored on my computer. Changing default sounds in Calendar would be helpful to know as well.

I've followed the steps at cultofmac previously, but tried again. My ~/Library/Sounds folder is empty. I added a newly created aiff and named that sound of my choice as basso.aiff and placed it in the empty folder. Followed the terminal instructions. But, I get no alert sound at all from Reminders.

Strangely, alert sounds (ie notification of deleting a song from iTunes, as well as certain alerts in other apps use that aiff too.) I could careless about what sound I hear in any app other than Reminders. Suggestions?

You were on the right lines, but the wrong location…

System sounds are in /System/Library/Sounds/ it's only user sounds in ~/Library/Sounds
Replace the Basso.aiff in there with your custom version [bearing in mind this will replace Basso in any other system alert that uses it too]

It will be the same for Calendar alerts - except there you can define which system sound to use, so if you did need a separate custom sound in there you could apply the same logic to one of the other system sounds in the Library folder.

Note that in El Capitan you would first have to disable System Integrity Protection before you can modify the Sounds folder…

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

  Revert the same way using csrutil enable


How to install cups-pdf? I'm trying to install CUPS-PDF for Mac by Homebrew as follow:

$ brew install cups-pdf
Error: No available formula with the name "cups-pdf"
It was migrated from caskroom/cask to homebrew/core.

but there is an error that it has been migrated to homebrew/core which I'm trying to install from.

In this case, what would be the proper method of installing it?

I've tested instructions provided at Bitbucket, but doesn't seem to work on High Sierra as per:

  This package is incompatible with this version of macOS and may fail to install.

See: OSX 10.11 (El Capitan) Package Installation Failed.

So instead, I've followed the instructions at farmerswife article and installed PDFwriter instead:

Download and install the Lisanet PDFwriter installer as per instructions
After installing the PDFWriter package, go back and Show Package Contents.
From the installer, uncompress Archive.pax.gz and copy PDFwriter.ppd file into /Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources.
Now go to the Printers dialog and add the printer, choosing the Lisanet driver as explained in the documentation.

Source: PDF printing results in "empty" or "zero bytes size" PDF.


Per App VPN and other network activity When the new Per App VPN feature is triggered, does that VPN connection only apply to those apps, or does it apply to all traffic on the device?

Also, when the connection is triggered by the domain in Safari, does Safari use the VPN for all open pages, or only those triggered by the SafariDomains key?

The VPN applies only to those apps, not all the traffic from the device. See Per app VPN (enterpriseios.com)

  Apps can phone home through a VPN tunnel as soon as they are launched, and send all their network traffic (and only their network traffic) through it. This is controlled by the MDM admin, not the app developer.
  It will use it for all domains. The SafariDomains key specifies only those domains that trigger the VPN connection.

  Additional reference - Configuration Profile Reference sections:
  Per-App VPN Payload
  VPN Payload


OS X: Is there a way to change the default behavior of copy/move overwrite? Problem: Many of my friends are moving to OS X and are frustrated that, unlike Windows and *NIX systems, copying/moving a folder (with sub-folders) deletes the destination folder if a folder of the same name already exists at the destination.

Question: Is there a way to hack the system (or install a plugin?) so that it by default copy/move operations merge the source and destinations instead of outright wiping out the destination and everything inside (with no option for recovery)?

EDIT: Based on your clarification, you're looking to merge two directories. See this question for more information. There's no built-in way to do that using the OS X Finder.

As an alternative, you could try using standard unix tools like rsync, which are available via the command line. But this is not a very "Mac like" solution.

I'm not sure what you're asking, because when you copy a folder from one place to the other, nothing is deleted at all. I assume you're talking about copying a folder from one location to another where a folder of the same name already exists at the destination? If so, The Mac OS X Finder will show you a warning, it won't delete anything without your permission.

If that's not what you're asking, please edit your question to clarify, and comment on this answer asking me to update my answer. Thanks!


iOS Enterprise App not from AppStore – any warranty issues? We distribute a non-AppStore-app to our agents in the field. Since our app is not from the App Store, it has not been reviewed by Apple.  An Apple retail store worker in Australia told one of our agents that the app is not authorized, and to stop using it or else they will void the warranty.

Can anyone verify that the Apple device warranty is not affected at all by non App Store apps? The device isn't even jail-broken and nothing in the warranty clause talks about faulty software (that I could find). I am also certain the Apple (or retailer) employee is wrong because apps cannot break the system!

You can't void the warranty by using non-App Store apps.  The warranty covers the hardware of the device, not the OS.

Thousands, or hundreds-of-thousands, of corporate and school users develop and use apps that are not vetted through the Apple App store.  In fact, Apple encourages this type of activity.  Their own site for enterprise development states:

  The Apple Developer Enterprise Program allows you to develop proprietary, in-house iOS, and watchOS apps that you can distribute to your users in your organization and outside the store.

What you're told by the Apple retail employee is completely wrong.


How to prevent Yosemite's Finder from seeing a folder with a .epub extension as a epub file? This is a problem new to Yosemite. I have a folder called "com.acme.epub". The Finder sees this as an ePub file and won't let me access it as a folder. I can access it as a directory via the Terminal but if I do "open .", then it launches iBooks (which is not my default epub application). How do I get the Finder to see this folder as an actual folder/directory and not as an epub file? Note: Renaming the folder is not an option.

This same behavior occurs with folders that end with a ".key" string; it probably happens with certain other strings as well.

I am using OS X 10.10.3. This problem did not occur in 10.9 or 10.8.

You could look at using duti, a command line tool that lets you change the the file type association of an extension.

Along with duti, something like this could work:

com.apple.finder    .epub
com.apple.finder    .key
com.apple.finder    .numbers


QR code reader for OS X 10.6? I'm looking for a QR code reader that doesn't utilize iSight but instead, allows me to take a screenshot of a portion of the screen which it will then scan for and detect the QR code. I'm having trouble finding one because most QR code readers for mac that I can see uses the iSight which is not what I am after.

An alternative to a native OS X application is an online QR code reader, such as

ZXing
miniQR (also allows you to use your iSight camera)
Online Barcode Reader (also decodes barcodes; an added plus)
Patrick Wied QR Generator (also allows you to create QR codes).

All of these services are free. To use them, all you need to do is upload a screenshot, and the website will return the result.


Applescript that responds to key presses? I want to write an AppleScript that

runs (in a loop) until I press esc
"listens" for keystrokes 1, 2, etc.
executes a given command for a each keypress (running a shell command ddcctl to change secondary monitor brightness/contrast)

I've searched and everything I find relates to simulating a key press.

(If this can be done in bash that's fine but I don't know enough shell scripting to even start...)

UPDATE

Based on this tip, I wrote the shell script below, which works great, but only if I run it within Terminal. Is there any way to run this script 'invisibly', say, from Spotlight or via AppleScript do shell script, and have it respond until I exit?

#!/bin/bash
if [ -t 0 ]; then stty -echo -icanon -icrnl time 0 min 0; fi
keypress=''
while [ "$k" != "^[" ]; do
    case "$k" in
        1) ddcctl -d 1 -b 10;;
        2) ddcctl -d 1 -b 20;;
        3) ddcctl -d 1 -b 30;;
        # ...etc...
        0) ddcctl -d 1 -b 100;;
    esac
    k="`cat -v`"
done
if [ -t 0 ]; then stty sane; fi
exit 0

The easiest way of accomplishing this is probably to use Automator to create a Service. The service should just execute your a bash script similar to this:

#!/bin/bash
ddcctl -d 1 -b 10

Then in System Preference under Keyboard, add a keyboard shortcut to activate your Service.

This way your shortcut will work across all programs.

You'll probably need to do this for each of the 10 keyboard shortcuts you need.


How to stop iOS 10 alarm from silencing itself after 15 minutes? Since updating to iOS 10, my alarm clock (which is set to play an hour-long song) is silencing itself after 15 minutes.

It doesn't technically snooze itself, as the snooze button is still present on the lock screen after the music cuts.

I've tried disabling the bedtime features, without help.

The iOS 10 alarm clock will turn off after 15 minutes and there's nothing you can do about it, it's built that way.  Even if you turn off Snooze, it will still stop.

If you need something else, and it looks like you do, I recommend going to the SE Software Recommendation site and ask for other options.  I'm sure you're not the only one who needs alternatives because of this change.


Enable SSH access for AD admin accounts I have the need to configure SSH access for a AD service account on a fleet of Macs. I can't make the account a local account as the password for the service account cycles often. The end goal is to allow all accounts in a restricted AD security group ssh access to our Macs, but I'd like to start with just a single AD account.

Any ideas? Thank you!

Within System Preferences -> Sharing, the Remote Login option should have a spot for "Only these users".

If you've properly joined the machine to the domain (good luck), you should be able to select the group from the "+" sign.


Where are keyboard shortcuts stored (for backup and sync purposes)? Where can I access OS X keyboard shortcuts, say for Dropbox sync?

The shortcuts that can be set in System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > App Shortcuts are stored in ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist and the property lists of applications (like ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iTunes.plist or ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.chess/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.chess.plist).

The shortcuts for services are stored in ~/Library/Preferences/pbs.plist.


Trackpad not working on Macbook pro 2009 running Windows 8 I have a MacBook Pro 17" early 2009 running Snow Leopard, I've recently upgraded Windows 7 running on the bootcamp partition to Windows 8.

All works fine apart from the trackpad.

Bootcamp 3.1 is installed, I've tried upgrading to 3.2 but I get an error message saying "Boot Camp requires that your computer is running Windows 7.".  I've tried running the install in compatibility mode but no luck.

I've tried uninstalling the touchpad from the device manager and reinstalling from the Bootcamp drivers folder but it still has "This device is not configured correctly. (Code 1)" as the device status.

Anyone got any ideas?  I'm willing to upgrade Snow Leopard if it's certain to fix this issue.

I think your MBP will handle Bootcamp v4 - you could try installing it from Windows, it runs as Bootcamp Services, and may alleviate some of your problems. I have done a similar thing on my 2009 13" MBP - all works fine apart from tapping (not clicking) the touchpad. Two finger scroll works but not tap-clicks. All very frustrating.


Move a full screen app to second monitor In Mac OS X El Capitan, is there a shortcut to move full screen apps between monitors?
My current method is first bringing the app out of full screen mode, then drag it to the second monitor and then maximize it again.
I wish there was a shortcut to just move it from monitor 1 to monitor 2.
edit: I'm not talking about moving between workspaces on a single monitor... I am talking about 2 monitors.

You can use Mission Control (formerly known as Exposé) to move full screen apps across monitors. Mission Control initially shows lists of workspaces across the top of all monitors, and when you move the mouse cursor up into that area they change into thumbnails. If you drag one of the thumbnails from one monitor to another, the workspace corresponding to that thumbnail moves to that monitor. A thumbnail for a primary desktop can be rearranged within its own monitor, but it can't be dragged to another monitor.

To clarify what I mean by primary desktop, each monitor initially has a workspace without full screen applications, and additional workspaces for full screen applications (which, in El Capitan, can contain one or two applications apiece). What I'm calling a primary desktop is that initial workspace. The + in the upper right corner of each monitor while Mission Control is active can create a new desktop, and a desktop created that way can be moved across monitors, but the desktop which was not created that way remains on its own monitor.

Keyboard shortcuts and trackpad gestures are available for Mission Control.


Using Macbook and Windows Desktop with wired mouse and keyboard My Monitor has 1 spare HDMI port and the desktop it is connected to (through another HDMI) has wired mouse and keyboard attached to it.

I am looking for a device or cable that would allow me to plug in my 2017 MacBook Pro to the monitor and to use the existing mouse and keyboard without unplugging them from the desktop.

So far I have explored two options

Connect the Mac using a USB-C to HDMI cable to the monitor and use a software to redirect inputs from desktop. In this case I will have to keep my desktop running while I'm using the Mac which is what I don't want.
Use a device (example) to convert my mouse and keyboard to Bluetooth and connect them to both desktop and Mac (while using the same USB-C to HDMI cable to connect the MacBook to the monitor)

Are there, possibly, any other easy options?

You either need a KVM (Keyboard Video Mouse) switch  or a USB device switch.

A KVM will allow you to switch the keyboard, video and mouse between multiple computers; doing exactly what you describe without having to use the extra HDMI port on your monitor
A USB device sharing switch is a much cheaper alternative and will allow you to share USB peripherals between multiple computers and switch them by pressing a button.  With this option you will need the second HDMI input on your monitor.

Your desktop computer won't have to be running with either solution.

As for converting your mouse/keyboard to Bluetooth, (IMO) it is a step in the wrong direction as it would probably be easier to just get a Bluetooth mouse/keyboard combo (i.e. Logitech) that supported multiple computers.


Is it a bad idea to compile Samba from source for Mac? We have a Linux NAS and we’re doing some basic Samba sharing. Windows machines are quick and peppy to connect with the device, as are the Linux VMs I’m running on my Mac.

The SMB stack Apple has made is notoriously slow. It freezes, stalls, crashes finder. It’s my single biggest issue with my Mac.

I have experience with Linux/Open Source but I’m far from a pro sysadmin. Have any of you compiled and installed Samba from source? I would like to know if it is a good idea to try or if this will just end up with me reinstalling from a backup.

Is the performance better? Could you find good support online? Can you share these resources with me?

Honestly, it’s a mixed bag. I worked for a client in an enterprise environment—300+ users—with mixed Windows and Mac OS X clients and the SMB/CIFS issues were maddening to say the least. The only “solution” to some specific file sharing issues we could practically implement was to deploy Synology rack-mounted NAS enclosures and use those in lieu of core Windows server-based file sharing since those Linux-based devices handled SMB and AFP connections on Mac and Windows clients beautifully; never an issue.

But I left before any real solution was implemented for the core Windows server-based issues they faced. One idea we seriously looked into was upgrading the default install of Samba on the Mac OS X client side via SMBUp. As the developer’s page states:

  Did you lose your shared folders with the update of Mac OS X from Snow
  Leopard to Lion? You can’t see your shared folders from your DVR or
  Mediacenter box hooked in your TV? The internet tells you to install
  gigabytes of developer tools and use tons of command-line instructions
  to regain the ability to see your mac from your other devices in the
  house after moving to Lion or Mountain Lion? We might be able to help.

  SMBUp (current version: 1.4.1) re-instates Samba as a service of your
  mac and provides a simple interface to manage the service. Compatible
  with OS X Lion and above.

That said, I still see a “fix” like this as a “caveat emptor” endeavor. Apple really mucks around with Samba with each new Mac OS X install. So who knows what will happen if you—for example—install SMBUp and then run an Apple update that somehow conflicts with it. I’d honestly be walking on eggshells with each new Mac OS X upgrade/patch if I went down this path.

That said, the nice thing about SMBUp is that the developer is clearly devoted to providing simple/non-sysadmin level advice in the usage of this package to help people going nuts of SMB issues in Mac OS X. In fact, as the developer explains here on a “Mac OS X Hints” page on installing SMB support from source:

  I made SMBUp to help people avoid having to install XCode and
  MacPorts, both of which I love but which are overkill for something
  like this. I kept waiting for someone to come up with a simple
  installer for Samba binaries (my money was on Liyanage, who'd made
  similar things in the past) but after a year I just gave up and made
  SMBUp.

So you could do worse if you attempt to do this yourself; at least this developer is doing the “heavy lifting” for you in this case. But like I said, I would still be wary of interactions with core Mac OS X functionality with each Mac OS X upgrade/update. Thus is the reality of Apple’s odd devotion to pushing everything into “the cloud”; basic functionality like file sharing is not seen as a priority anymore.


Download all linked files at once from a website in Safari I have build a Web Frontend for my own Server to share files with my co-workers. They can upload images and animation-videos there.

Now, if a co-worker has uploaded many files, it would be nice to download all of them all at once.

So I have a webpage with, lets say, 20 links. All of them are linking to files to another folder.

  Is there a PlugIn or anything to click once which follows the links
  and downloads the files?

I have found this software for my own use just now and then I remembered your question. That's what I have found, perhaps that can help you :

Folx

Folx is a free download manager for Mac OS X with a true Mac-style interface.
It offers convenient downloads managing, flexible settings, etc.
Folx has a unique system of sorting and keeping the downloaded content.

iGetter

  Site Explorer allows exploration of the entire web or FTP sites, so
  you can easily find and download files you're interested in. To
  explore a HTTP, HTTPS or FTP site select the Site Explorer group item
  and choose the contextual menu function "Enter Site URL" to set a site
  URL. When you reach the file that you want to download double click on
  it or choose the contextual menu function "Add to queue" and it will
  appear in the queue for download. If you want to cancel the processing
  just push the "Pause" button on the Toolbar. Site Explorer analyzes
  HTML pages for all available links even looking in the JavaScript
  functions, so it will show a complete list of web page contents.

And I've found the following, when I was searching about your question:

How can I download all MP3 files from a web site?

SiteSucker is a great (free) application! It will allow you to download folders from a site. So, just enter in your URL and click "Download"

  SiteSucker is a Macintosh application that automatically downloads Web sites from the Internet. It does this by asynchronously copying the site's Web pages, images, backgrounds, movies, and other files to your local hard drive, duplicating the site's directory structure. Just enter a URL (Uniform Resource Locator), press return, and SiteSucker can download an entire Web site.


How do I reduce gif size when using Gif Brewry? I use gif brewry, and it seems to generate very large animated gif files; i'm looking to reduce their size - how do I do that?

I’d say there are basically three things that impact the file size of a GIF.

The number of colors in the GIF — The more colors there are in a GIF, the higher the file size.
The dimensions of the GIF — Tumblr requires the width to be less than 500px, so at least start there. I think around 450px is a great size. However, don’t forget you can use the crop feature to just highlight the action.
The number of frames — The number of frames you can use is highly dependent on the above two points.

The three items above mirror the advice that the vendor gives and you can use the GifBrewery preferences to help reduce the colors by processing it lightly or using dithering algorithms:


Macbook notification banner smudge whenever the notification banner that appears on the top right of my screen appears, it's covered by a smudge. I can't find any other other answers online that deals with this problem and it's starting to really annoy me.

Try to completely disable Notification Center, reboot, then reenable.

To do so, (with caution, of course) try the following:

Launch the Terminal app from /Applications/Utilities, enter the following command, and press Return:

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.notificationcenterui.plist

Reboot
Now re-enable Notification center:

launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.notificationcenterui.plist

I have searched in vain to find any information regarding a .plist or other file containing appearance settings for notifications thinking that somehow these had become corrupt.


How to delete Windows "locked" files? My friend gave me a USB key that has Windows Viruses on it.

On my mac, when I try to delete them it fails and tells me that those files are "locked".
I ran an anti-virus, which also was unable to delete them for the same reason.

There are two options for files that came from a Windows drive:

Right click on the file and select "Get Info" (or mark all files and press command + alt + i) to get the file information. There in the "General"-tab you can find and opt-out the "Locked"-option. Trash and delete them.
Open /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app and type cd /Volumes/YourDrive, then rm -r thefile.exe. If that fails, try sudo rm -r thefile.exe and enter your password.

Mac has other steps if you can't unlock the file - see this article - TS1402 for details on immutable flags and if the directory permissions won't let you modify a file. The two above steps handle the vast majority of locked files on the mac.


How to use macports Python in a cron job? I have installed Python 2.7 through mac ports, and now want to have it used in a cron job. Unfortunatly, each time the cron job gets involved, the standard Python of my machine (an iBook G4 using Tiger) which is 2.3 is involved, making my job fail.

My PATH is (from the set command)

PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin

P

How can I have my cron job be invoked with my PATH instead of the faulty one ?

The result of the PATH variable is quite different in the cron world. Invoke the script with the full path to the python binary (e.g. /opt/local/bin/python2.7) and you should be good.

This can be examined by running env as cronjob and comparing it to the result of running env as yourself in Terminal:

user's cron env:

PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin
...
SHELL=/bin/bash
HOME=/Users/user
USER=user
PWD=/
...

compared to user's env:

PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin
...
SHELL=/bin/bash
HOME=/Users/user
USER=user
PWD=/Users/user
...

Alternatively you may add the PATH to the crontab:

sudo nano /var/cron/tabs/user

In newer systems (probably ≥10.6):

sudo nano /private/var/at/tabs/user

Change

...

*       *       *       *       *       some command

to

...
PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin

*       *       *       *       *       some command


Tell last media player to skip song I bought a new keyboard that, of course, works almost perfectly, minus the media buttons. Luckily it has open source drivers specifically for linux and mac, but unfortunately the media buttons (specifically the next/previous) do not work.

I have the ability to run a command when they are pressed; I was hoping to recreate the Apple Keyboard next/previous functionality where it skips the song of the most recent media player.

I've found several scripts that will skip iTunes or Spotify individually, but I have music in both that I like to listen to.

How would I tell the last played media player next track?

Unfortunately Applescript does not offer a way to get a list of applications ordered by when they were last used - like when you press CMD-Tab.

Fortunately, somebody found a bit of Objective-C code that does get that information. I've wrapped it up and created this little command link tool that prints all the applications in order.

Now it is easy, a matter of calling it like this...

set zorder to (do shell script "/some/path/applist")

It produces a list of the applications' PID and their bundle identifier...

78540 com.apple.Terminal
68976 com.apple.ScriptEditor2
89228 org.mozilla.firefox
80897 com.barebones.textwrangler
1627 com.apple.finder
84894 com.azureus.vuze
54490 com.transtex.texeditplus
55055 com.apple.Dictionary
54549 com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX

The list should be just the apps visible when you press CMD-Tab and in the order displayed.

The rest should now be straight forward....

PS: This code compiled and run correctly on Snow Leopard (10.6), I don't know how/if it will run on newer versions...


How can I use an existing Time Machine backup with my new computer? I've just replaced my existing MacBook Pro with a new MacBook Air.  I've got 18 months of Time Machine backups from the old computer.  I'd like to configure my new computer to use the old computer's Time Machine backups, so the new computer picks up where the old one left off.  Is this possible?  If so, how?

I didn't restore the new computer from a Time Machine backup because my old computer used more disk space than my new computer.  There was a lot of cruft as well, so I decided to start from scratch on the new one.  I'm slowly pulling off individual files and settings from a clone of the old computer's hard drive.

I found the following solution here:

sudo tmutil associatedisk -a "/Volumes/Macintosh HD" "/Volumes/Time Machine Disk/Backups.backupdb/John Doe's MacBook/Latest/Macintosh HD"


Damaged hard drive due to magnet damage (Macbook Pro) I am able to get internet recovery on my Macbook Pro that I previously wiped with a magnet

I was trying to re-install OS X Mountain Lion again but when I got to the 'choose a disk' there was no 'disk' to be found.

I'm not too sure what this means, could someone please explain if this is something I can fix myself?

The HDD work using a magnetic head to read and write,.

The disk it self is coated with magnetic material. So your Magnet has changed the information stored (damage), but possibly not permanent.

So your best choice it to completely reformat the disk, then install a OS.


Cannot enter nvALT options anymore I changed nvALT to be displayed in the menu bar and set the option that it is not to be displayed in the Dock anymore.

I wanted to change the settings back and unchecked the options that nvALT is shown as symbol in the menu bar. However, now it is neither in the menu bar nor the Dock, and I can not access the options anymore to change it. When I open nvALT, the option menu of the App that was open previously is shown in the menu bar.

Any idea how I can get into nvALT's preferences?

I tried to delete the app (deleted the nvALT folder from the /Library), however, the original app preferences are still saved somewhere, I just cannot find where.

You should be able to open the preferences by just pressing ⌘,.

If that doesn't work, try running defaults write net.elasticthreads.nv ShowDockIcon -bool true or deleting ~/Library/Preferences/net.elasticthreads.nv.plist.


AppleScript: Move files via drag and drop I need to create workflow that allows the user to drop files onto the application and then have those files moved to a particular folder to be processed based on their file type.

So far, I've not got past the drag, drop, and move part!

on open theDroppedItems
    repeat with a from 1 to length of theDroppedItems
        set theCurrentDroppedItem to item a of theDroppedItems
        tell application "Finder"
            set folderSpool to folder "Spool" of desktop
            move a to folderSpool
        end tell
    end repeat
end open

When I do the drag and drop, I get:

  Handler can’t handle objects of this class. Finder got an error:
  Handler can’t handle objects of this class. (-10010)

I tried item instead of a, but that gave me the same error.

It's been a long time since I used AppleScript...

Change the following line of code from:

move a to folderSpool

To:

move theCurrentDroppedItem to folderSpool

In your code, a is an integer, indexed from 1 to length of theDroppedItems, so you were trying to move an integer (which of course you can't) not the file, which is theCurrentDroppedItem.


QuickTime Player.app New Movie Recording Error: won't record How do I get rid of this error icon and use QuickTime Player to record from my FaceTime HD Camera?

The FaceTime HD Camera is listed as one of the input options:

The New Audio Recording and New Screen Recording features work, but not the New Movie Recording (which uses the FaceTime HD Camera as an input).

QuickTime Player Version 10.4 (894.1)
macOS Sierra 10.12.3 (recently upgraded from 10.12.2, prior OSX Lion factory install)
late-2012 AirBook (i7, 2GHz, 8GB RAM, 400+GB free internal SSD available)

I don't know why this was a problem in the first place, but I was able to resolve the issue from the Activity Monitor so that QuickTime can now access my FaceTime HD Camera:

launch Activity Monitor
select Activity Monitor >> View::All Processes
select the process "VDCAssistant"  (owned by root)
select Activity Monitor >> View::Quit Process
 (also: Option+Cmd+q)

The same can be done from the command line with killall:
sudo killall VDCAssistant

...and here's a more complete listing of things to try if the FaceTime camera has gone wonky.


Font smoothing for pdf files in OSX Yosemite Safari vs Skim I produce a lot of pdf files using LaTeX and thus, I also read a lot of such files. After the update to OS X 10.10 the fonts are not smooth anymore. However, Safari seems to handle it much better than Skim (see screenshot for comparison).

The option "Use LCD font smoothing when available" is enabled; without it, the texts are almost unreadable. Anyone has any clue how to make the font looking better?

Screenshot 1 :

Screenshot 2 (left quick preview [spacebar], right Skim):

Hardware: I use non-retina MacBook Pro 2011 + Fujitsu 27" LCD attached with dual-head DVI.

This bug appears to be fixed in 10.10.3.

I can confirm (with Pixie) the rendering is the same in Preview, Skim, and QuickLook, at least with subpixel rendering forced to 2.


How to sync images between iPhone and Mac in a local network I am working on a design of an iPhone application. I create some screen, then save it as a PNG file and want to see how it looks on the actual iPhone screen. So I need to transfer PNG versions of my designs to my iPhone as easy as possible, may be even without a cable connected. Both Mac and iPhone are in a local network with a wireless router.

I need to do this routine constantly so I am looking for the most transparent and easy solution, like - Save a PNG to Mac -> Instantly and automatically send to the iPhone some way.

What are your suggestions?

I use an app called LiveView. You run the server on your Mac, and the app on you Phone. It creates an iPhone-sized area on your Mac's screen, and broadcasts whatever is inside it to your phone.

I work in Illustrator when I'm doing this, but that doesn't matter. Here's the best system I've worked out:

Create a second window of whatever your working on (Photoshop and
Illustrator both do this).
Zoom that window so that my artboard fits the window perfectly (in
Illustrator this will be 100% or 50% depending on whether you're
testing on a retina device).
Position the LiveView window over the duplicate window (I toss this
onto a second monitor, or tile the windows if you only have one
monitor).
Work in the original Window.

You may now zoom in and out of the window you are working on, all while enjoying a perfect streaming vision of what it looks like on your phone the whole time.

Once I need to take the app to the device to show people, I use a service called InVision (invisionapp.com) to create touchable prototypes.


How to increase / decrease a priority of a macOS process? I'm looking for a way to throttle up a macOS application or a process, specifically photoanalysisd. Ideally a Terminal command that would enable it to use all resources to the point, where any other app opened would slow down to a crawl.

Is that at all possible?

Possible duplicate to this superuser question.

However, you may want to read this article.

Here is the gist you really need to do:

Make sure that no malware is running / slowing down your mac.
In Terminal, identify running processes: ps -ef
Make sure to close any unneeded resource intensive applications and processes, e.g. check the CPU, Memory, Disk usage at least with Activity Monitor.
nice (if just launching) or renice (if already running) the desired app, e.g. 'photoanalysisd' to maximum. In Terminal: renice -n "-20" -p (put PID of 'photoanalysisd' here)
renice everything else you still need to be running to minimum. In Terminal: renice -n "20" -p (put PID of process you need to de-prioritize here)

NOTE that the:

Max (Requested) Priority = -20 (Minimal value)
Min (Requested) Priority = +20 (Maximal value)

that may be a bit confusing.

If all of above fails to produce enough improvement, the following upgrades may be a cost effective solution, if available for your mac:

1) Switch your HDD or slower SSD to an SSD with the the maximum Link Speed that your mac system supports. (Prior to this, if possible, add a fastest available interface to your system.) The current numbers can be viewed in the System Information app's Hardware > PCI | SATA/SATA Express tabs, as well as other tabs relevant interfaces your system actually has installed. The supported speeds may be available on your system's Apple support page, although they may be lower than the factual, since Apple may not update support pages when, for example, a firmware update adds support for a faster interface that was not supported by the original.

2) Max out your RAM. Again, the supported RAM amount may be available on your system's Apple System's support page, although it may be lower than the factual, since Apple is known to me to not update these when for example a larger single RAM unit becomes available than at inception. For example a 2010 Mac Mini supports 16 GB of RAM (2 x 8 GB), while according to the Apple support page it only supports 8 GB total. I would suggest you research this further on user forums for your system.

Apple systems, other than notebooks, tend to be sold with a big upgrade-ability. So if you max out the above two factors, you may increase the responsiveness of your system from crawl to excellent easily. (e.g.: RAM 2 GB -> 16 GB + SATA HDD -> SATA 2 SSD = 2nd life)

(For the few Apple systems that allow GPU upgrades, proceed similar to item 1) above)


Is there something like "did you forget to attach a file" in Apple Mail? In Thunderbird there is something like "are you sure you did not forget to attach a file" if you mentioned words such as "attached/in the attachment/ attach" and many more (could be set default on tb).

Is there something similar for the Apple mail on OS X 10.9 Mavericks or for iPhone (iOS 6)?

For OS X, there is a beta version of an older free (donationware) plugin called Attachment Scanner Plugin for Mail.app that is compatible with OS X Lion and OS X Mountain Lion. It works similar to the one you have mentioned for Mozilla Thunderbird. Since OS X Mavericks was only recently released, you can test it to see if it works or contact the author.

On iOS though, there's nothing of this sort in the stock Mail.app. Due to application sandboxing, third party developers cannot develop plugins for any application (Apple's apps or otherwise). This can only be supported if Apple makes such a feature available in Mail.app. I do not know if third party mail apps have such a feature.


Why Can't I Read /private/var/db/ConfigurationProfiles/Store under macOS 10.13 I'm trying to set up a new backup utility on my system, and am getting an error that it cannot get the files in folder /private/var/db/ConfigurationProfiles under macOS 10.13.3.

I don't get the issue under a VM running macOS 10.12 - but if I attempt to read /private/var/db/ConfigurationProfiles/Store, then I get errors:

ComputerName:~ root# cd /private/var/db/ConfigurationProfiles/
ComputerName:ConfigurationProfiles root# ls
.cloudConfigNoActivationRecord
.noActivationRecord
Settings
Setup
Store
com.apple.ManagedClient.enrollagent.plist
ComputerName:ConfigurationProfiles root# cd Store
-sh: cd: Store: Not a directory
ComputerName:ConfigurationProfiles root# ls -lah
ls: Store: Operation not permitted
total 0
drwxr-xr-x    8 root  wheel   256B 25 Jan 07:51 .
drwxr-xr-x  108 root  wheel   3.4K 14 Feb 12:57 ..
-rw-r--r--    1 root  wheel     0B 13 Dec  2015 .cloudConfigNoActivationRecord
-rw-r--r--    1 root  wheel     0B 17 Dec  2014 .noActivationRecord
drwxr-xr-x@   4 root  wheel   128B 25 Jan 07:51 Settings
drwx------    3 root  wheel    96B 15 Feb 22:17 Setup
-rw-r--r--    1 root  wheel   490B  9 Sep  2014 com.apple.ManagedClient.enrollagent.plist

Getting info on the file in the Finder show unknown permissions:

I've tried the same in a VM running a macOS 10.13 Beta (so, a completely separate installation), and I get the same issue.

Any ideas what's going on here, if I need to correct it, or if I just need to exclude this path from my backups?

Thanks!

Yeah definitely is protected by system integrity protection. Disabling it properly shows the file as a directory. Mine had one blank .plist in it.


How can I keep Voice Memos out of Music in iTunes? I like the fact that sync downloads voice memos to my Macbook Pro.  But I do not like the fact iTunes includes my voice memos in my general music library.  It's a bit goofy to be listening to my music on shuffle and all of a sudden have it start playing my voice speaking!  Is there a way to prevent them from showing up there - but still have them synced?

This has been happening for as long as I've been making voice memos, and is happening in iTunes 11 also.

I agree also that this is an inconvenience, and it is annoying.
Some other ways you can resolve the issue is by highlighting all of you voice memos in the entire library (easy to do if you have your library sorted by genre), right click to 'get info', go to the options tabs and check the option 'skip when shuffling' and everything that is highlighted can be still checked and they will never play unless you manually select them.

Also under that same options tab, there's a drop-down under 'Media kind' and if you select 'audio book' instead of voice memo (or music), they will no longer appear in your main library, and will instead appear under the audio books library.
Hope this helps.


How do I make OS X auto focus on the window in the screen the mouse moves into? I work with two screens. On the primary screen, I have XCode on. On the other screen, I have the browser. While reading docs, I am usually focused on the XCode screen, typing in code.

So I want to close the tab in the other screen, I move my mouse to the 2nd screen and press CMD+W and it closes the XCode window instead because the focus is on that app. Sometimes I don't notice that the focus isn't on the other screen and close the app on the main screen instead. It's pretty annoying.

Is there any way to make the OS focus on the top window of the screen where the mouse pointer is active?

I made a python script that does this. Check it out:
https://bitbucket.org/sivann/mac-screenfocus/src

It focuses the last app that had the focus before the mouse left the screen. No mouse clicks happen behind the scene :-)

In my setup, the external monitor is on the left, it may not work in the reverse, let me know..


Which macs are compatible with OS X 10.11 El Capitan? Is there a list of officially supported Macs for OS X El Capitan?

I ask to get ready if any hardware which is supported on Yosemite is not supported by El Capitan?

If you care to read the tea leaves, the initial OS X v10.11 Developer Beta supports the following Macs:

iMac (Mid 2007 or newer)
MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer)
MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer)
Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer)
MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer)
Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer)
Xserve (Early 2009)

Source: OS X v10.11 Developer Beta 1 Release Notes.

No official requirements are published by Apple.

About your last question, no. There are no macs supported by Yosemite that are not supported by El Capitan.


Grey folder in iCloud Drive I have a grey folder on my Mac in the iCloud Drive Directory which I can't access.

If I go to the iCloud Drive Website I see the folder and can easily navigate in it.

Does anyone know a solution on how to enable this folder on my machine as well?

So I fixed it by using the terminal. I moved all the content of the grayed out folder and to a new one.

//edit: a more detailed description on how I solved this problem:

with the help of the terminal I moved all the files in the strange behaving folder to a new location. Using the mv command. E.g. cp ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/YOUR_BROKEN_FOLDER/* ~/Documents (the * is for all the files).
Once this folder it empty you can safely remove it with the rm -f command. E.g. rm -rf ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/YOUR_BROKEN_FOLDER
If you want you can now recreate the folder normal in the finder and it should appear normal again.


My Mac mini's iTunes library does not appear in Home Sharing on my Macbook Air I don't know why.

My entire iTunes Library is on my Mac mini
I've entered the same Apple ID in iTunes' Home Sharing on both computers
My iPhone and iPad can use Home Sharing from my Mac mini's iTunes
I open iTunes on my MBA and Home Sharing does not appear in the left sidebar
I tried removing and re-entering my Home Sharing credentials on my MBA.  This did not help.

I've searched around for a solution but found nothing.  Does anyone have any experience or suggestions?

Go into Preferences and make sure you have Shared Libraries ticked in the Show section of the General Preferences pane.

You might also have the details hidden in the sidebar. If the sidebar has SHARED in grey writing with nothing under it then try placing the cursor to the right of the word (near the right edge of the pane) and either Hide or Show will appear, allowing you to toggle the list.


Setting default "Spaces" arrangement in El Capitan I like certain apps to have their own dedicated spaces, and I'm wondering how I can make it so those apps are automatically arranged in a specific order in Mission Control upon being opened. For example, here's an arrangement I have on my laptop screen:

Spotify on the left far left, and Mailbox on the far right.

I've used a tiling window managers on Arch Linux called i3, and this automated arranging was very easy to do. I don't expect the same level of customization on OS X, but if there was some way to retain my arrangement without having to manually move these spaces around every time, that would be fantastic.

The whole thing is much easier to manage if you don't use the system full-screen, which will always set a full-screen app to the right of any existing Spaces & they cannot then be accessed by the standard  Ctrl ⌃   num  method

If you don't full-screen, then you can quickly lock any app to a Space by right-clicking in the Dock.

Also, make sure you don't have it set to rearrange Spaces automatically in System Prefs > Mission Control.

See my answer at https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/179403/85275 for some more working methods.


How to move around with the mouse in a Web Clip Widget? I have created a Clip Web dashboard with a selection of a web site that shows a google maps with special spots. How can I move the map around in that widget ?

The only thing I managed to do is to move the widget itself :-/

As I recall, Web Clip Widgets are 100% non-input interactive. They will show automatic changes/animations (javascript/AJAX fired events, animated GIFs, etc.), but they do not allow you to interact with the web page. Generally speaking, that would defeat the purpose.


How do I switch between multiple channels on the YouTube app for the iPhone? I have two YT channels under the same g-mail ID and I can't for some reason choose between which channel I want to see open on the app. Everytime I sign in, I'm automatically directed to the channel which is not the default channel and I never use.

If you go to the 'Account' screen there should be a little arrow next to your name, if you click on that you should be able to switch channels. As for making it default you may just want to sign out of both accounts and then sign back into them in order of priority. Hope that helps.


ITerm2 Console connection to Cisco equipment Control-A does not work I connect to Cisco Equipment via console cable and am currently trying to use ITerm2.

The problem is I cannot get the Control-A (Move to beginning of line) command to work.  I've tried to add in the hex code ^a with 0x01  with no luck..

Funny thing is..  Control-A works as expected if I am in ITerm2 and:

Am browsing my local drive / directories
Connected to Cisco equipment via telnet or SSH

I only see Control-A NOT work if I'm connected via the console cable.  The Control-E (Move to end), Control-U(Delete line) always work as expected though regardless if I'm connected via console or other remote access.

Anybody have any thoughts on what I can change to get this one function working.

I am running the below command when loading my cisco profile:

screen /dev/cu.usbserial-A9030WJK  -f 9600,cs8,-parenb,-cstopb,-hupcl

USB to Ethernet cable, I am not using the usb -> serial adapter and I'm using a 13" MBA laptop El Cap.

updated ITERM to 3.0.2.. now Control-A works as expected when SSH'd into a cisco router. –


Folder created in Photoshop not showing up in finder This is really crazy issue i'm experiencing here:

I downloaded the newest Photoshop CC 2015 and started working with it to crop some images for a client. After that, i've saved all the images for the web in a folder i created with the save-tool from photoshop.

Now when i navigate in the finder to that path the folder does not show up, but when i make ls in iTerm it shows me that the folder is there.

Strange, huh?

Whats wrong? Is the Photoshop version buggy? Even normal saving the .psd makes it disappear.

chflags nohidden path/to/the/file will unhide your file in Finder.


Restore Messages using Time Machine (not iCloud synced) I've made a stupid misclick and deleted 4 years worth of Messages conversation with my significant other. They're not synced to iCloud, but I do have a recent Time Machine backup. I thought I could restore it from there, and I followed older how-to's (older because they are about iMessages, and I am using Messages on Big Sur).
What I've tried:

close Messages
restore the whole Library/Messages folder from Time Machine
reopen Messages

Not only did it not work, but it screwed up absolutely all conversations as well. Now, every time I click on a contact's conversation, it disappears. It's like they're in cache, but it can't find them in the database when it tries to load them in full.
So: how do I restore my Messages database from a Time Machine backup?

OK I've tried a few different things, and I've got something that works. There are two key points:

You need to restore the whole Library/Messages folder (not just chat.db, as is said in most how-to's)
Before you do this, you need to close Message. But also, after you restore, you need to reboot the Mac.

Doing all of these things (close, restore whole folder, reboot) means that when you restart and open Messages, your backed-up version is present and functional.
Phew!


Cannot paste images from clipboard to Facebook in Safari unlike Google Chrome I have problems pasting images from clipboard to Facebook in Safari.

I have recently uninstalled Google Chrome and started using Safari since Chrome uses tons of energy and memory. I liked it but I had to reinstall Chrome since the Safari clipboard is very limited.

For example in Google Chrome I can copy and paste easily pictures from Tumblr to Facebook, using shortcuts or looking for the option with the Magic Mouse. In Safari this does not work in any possible way, I tried "cmd + v" to paste an image I have copied before which I expect should work, but does not. Yes, in Safari I cannot paste any image!

I have macOS High Sierra 10.13.3 MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2017, Two Thunderbolt 3 ports)

Do I need to reinstall Chrome in order to be able to paste images in Facebook?

This bug was fixed in Safari Technology Preview 51—basically early access to the next version of Safari—where you can paste images into Facebook there just like in Chrome. Hopefully that is enough to solve your problem! Video: https://youtu.be/ITyIWMyoyRk

Though the feature was broken in some later Safari Technology Preview builds, it was fixed for the public release of Safari 11.1 included in macOS 10.13.4 which was released on 29th March 2018.

—original answer—

If I do this:

Right/context click on a Tumblr image
Choose "Copy Image Address"

Then both browsers paste the image URL into Facebook. No problems.

If I do this:

Right/context click on a Tumblr image
Choose "Copy Image"

Then I get slightly different behaviour in browsers when pasting into Facebook. Chrome pastes the URL of the image, Safari posts the URL of the post/page containing the image. That's because Safari is much more thorough with what it copies to the clipboard in this instance, as it includes more alternate representations than Chrome. However both browsers still show an image in Facebook. No problems.

  As an aside, you can inspect what is on the clipboard using Finder > Edit > Show Clipboard, which shows the default format. For a more in-depth look, use Apple's Clipboard Viewer which shows extended information about the different representations stored on the clipboard.

So I'm thinking that you are doing the Copy to clipboard in a different way? Maybe you can try using one of the above copy methods?


How to solve Yosemite massive memory leak? I am experiencing a massive memory leak in Mac OS X 10.10.2 (14C2513). I have 16 GB of RAM and the used memory rise to circa 15 GB in ~3 hours. Top applications usage is relatively low, circa 200 MB per application (10 top applications).

I solved it only shutting down the system.

Is there any update for this?

OS X (and all modern operating systems) is designed to use all of the memory that's available, for file caches if it has no better use for it. That's not a problem, since memory used for file caches is still available for applications to use.


iOS 8.1.3 Video Playback I have an iPhone 5s and ever since I updated to iOS 8.1.3 I can't play videos. Online videos, such as YouTube, look like they're playing (the progress bar/timer moves) but it is just a black screen. Videos that I have recorded using the iPhone camera just won't start (the first frame of the video shows up on the screen, but no playback happens). Is anyone else experiencing this? Any ideas on fixing it?

Resetting all settings fixed the issue. Still not sure what caused it.


Macbook Air Running version 10.7.5 won't connect to wifi but connects via Ethernet I have a MBA and I have connected to my home network before. I went on holiday and on return, I cannot connect to Wifi anymore.

It tells me "connection time-out occurred". But my Ipod Touch (4th Gen) and Samsung Galaxy S2 can connect to the home wifi network and everyone else (I live with friends) has no issues with the wi-fi.

I already tried removing all the "Preferred networks" and tried to do an SMC reset on my Macbook Air. Nothing worked. I also went into Keychain and removed home network from there. Still not resolved

I then tried tethering my MBA to my Samsung Galaxy S2's wifi and I could connect and surf normally. (so I concluded nothing is wrong with my laptop's Airport/wifi utility)

Finally I decided to try and connect my MBA to the router via Ethernet cable, and I am able to surf and go online as normal

I updated all my software on the laptop and it is still not working. I can find my home network and click on it but when I input the password, it says "Connection Failed". I also tried setting up the network manually and inputting the password but again "Connection Failed"

I am unable to get into the router as I don't have the IP address for it. Does anyone else have a similar problem?

I have yet to try to connect to a neighbour's Wi-Fi but I will try that tonight.

Try resetting any proxy settings you may have enabled (go to System Preferences > Network > Advanced > Proxy)
Reset your router
Attempt to connect via WPS if your router supports it
Find the IP address of your router and enter it into the URL bar of your browser


Is there a synonym suggestion keyboard out there for iPhone I just want to know if there is a more comprehensive dictionary and ideally synonym suggesting keyboard for an iPhone.

I found two apps that might fit this bill:

The first: a keyboard with synonym suggestions. ($4), Hemingboard Rhymes, Puns, and Synonyms keyboard.

The second: a word processor with advanced features including synonyms/antonyms. ($4), WriteRight.


Airport Express is not seen by Macbook, is seen by iOS devices I have an Airport Express 1088 (about 7 years old). My Macbook with Mountain Lion 10.8.4 doesn't sees it, nor does my wife's Macbook. Strangely, my iPad and iPhone can detect it and the network traffic goes through it, and everything works smoothly. However, the Airport Utility (version 5.6) on my Macbook does not see it.

Additionally, I can play music from my iPad or send the YouTube voice channel to the Airport Express, so the device works, but my Macbook still doesn't see it.

I have a MacBook (13-inch Aluminum, Late 2008) but I don't think that matters. I think that the OS version will matter here, because two weeks before it worked well.

The Airpoat Express seems to respond best if its settings are completely cleared first.

To do this, on both the older and newer model, you have to insert something in the one of the two tiny dots which is a hole, and press down in there WITH the unit unpowered, continuing to press while sliding the AE into its little base and for a few moments after.

This is most easily accomplished by having the AE in the base ready to move into place - then perform the pressing and connecting. I don't need to add, this is a total PITA, but it gives you an AE looking for settings--which you promptly input into AU.

There is a supposed Reset done by pressing while in place and powered, but it tends to accomplish nothing.


Applescript to type text, followed by a modifier key combo? I want to use TextExpander to activate when I type the specific text "attached", and have the AppleScript type out the word "attached" (since TextExpander will remove it), and then invoke the keystroke Control-Z

I can get each to work individually, but not together. Here is the code I am using based off of code I found here:

    tell application "System Events"
    keystroke "attached"
    keystroke "z" using control down
    end tell

I'm not sure what the TextExpander application name and process name is so I will guess what it is.

activate application "TextExpander"
    tell application "System Events"
        tell process "TextExpander"
            keystroke "attached"
            delay 0.5
            keystroke "z" using {command down}
        end tell
    end tell


Boot Camp not recognizing Windows 10 ISO I'm trying to dual boot Windows 10 on MacBook Pro, and Boot Camp Assistant is failing to recognize the ISO I've downloaded (from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO).

I'm using an Early 2015 13" Macbook Pro, running El Capitan 10.11.4

On the first step in Boot Camp Assistant, I select the ISO and choose a partition size. When I click "Install", I get this error :

  Need 64-bit Windows 8 or later ISO file.

  Boot Camp only supports 64-but Windows 8 or later installation on this platform.

I have certainly downloaded the 64-bit version, so I'm not sure what's going wrong here. I tried the solutions in How can I install Windows 10 64-bit in El Capitan Boot Camp?, but none worked for me.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Try re-downloading because the Microsoft website has a bug where it will sometimes terminate the iso download half way through, leaving you with an unfinished iso file. If the size of the iso you downloaded is less than 3.7 gigabytes, then it means its incomplete. You have to head to https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/software-download/windows10ISO to download a new one.


Install app on jailed iPhone, which is not available on App Store Is there a way to install an app, which is not available on the App Store, without doing a jailbreak?

Unless the .ipa file is signed for Enterprise distribution or you have a provisioning profile for the app from the app's developer, you won't be able to install the app without jailbreaking.


Can you activate Siri over a bluetooth microphone without pressing a button? I ride a motorcycle with a full face helmet and gloves.  The gloves do not allow you to press the home button on the iphone despite it being mounted right in front of you on the handlebar.  The bluetooth mic at my chin is impossible to reach with the gloves on and even if you cram your hand under the chin guard you would be guessing and fumbling around trying to press the tiny mic (activate Siri) button).

From a safety perspective, the rider should be able to keep both hands on the controls and simply say "Hey Siri" into the bluetooth mic inside the helmet and have Siri activate.  I have been searching the internet looking for this capability and this forum is all I have so far found.  Sadly, no answer appears to be available to activate an "always listening" bluetooth mic.

Google assistant apparently can do this from what I have read, but users complain that the headset/mic battery is dead in less than 2 hours.  I would prefer the longer life of AirPods without th battery drain.

Is anything possible to keep my hands on the handlebar and use and iPhone with any headphones, Apple or third party?

Did you ever try the Senna 30K? Here you can see it in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrEVgfatyjM This is pretty much what you are looking for. A Bluetooth headset activated by voice and make Siri do what you desire.


Can Disk Utility and Disk Warrior be used on a Fusion volume containing Mac OS X I have Snow Leopard Server 10.6.8 running in a VMware Fusion 4.1.3 virtual machine.  When I run a Disk Utility "Verify Disk" from within the VM, errors are reported.

Invalid B-tree node size
The volume   could not be verified completely.
Error: This disk needs to be repaired. Start up your
computer with another disk (such as your Mac OS X installation disc),
and then use Disk Utility to repair this disk.

I have successfully mounted the .vmdk volume using VMDKMounter.app (from Fusion 3) after installing Fuse for OS X 2.4.2.
The problem is that both Disk Utility & Disk Warrior want to unmount the volume before making repairs.  Both apps then produce error dialogs.
Is there a way of running these utilities on a Fusion volume?

Both Disk Warrior and Disk Utility will work on a .vmdk mounted volume using the VMDKMounter.app IF the .vmdk is not damaged.

I created a new .vmdk, recopied the drive image and both Disk Warrior 4.4 and Disk Utility worked fine.

It appears that if the .vmdk becomes damaged somehow, the normal tools I use will not work.

Keeping good backups appears to be even more important when you add Virtual Machines to the mix.


Manually adding books to Nook App on iPad I need to "side load" a number of eBooks (mostly epub and PDF) into the Nook App on my iPad and iPhone.  This is something I am able to do with my dedicated Nook eReader like the Nook HD or the Glowlight (not the Samsung tablets). To add books, you simply connected it with a USB cable which then made the Nook look like a USB storage device to the Mac (or Windows machine) and you simply copied the files over.
For the record, I use Calibre to manage my personal library and to handle the file syncing to the Nook device.  As long as the device appeared as USB storage, it would handle (copy) it.

...calibre can directly connect to all the major (and most of the minor) e-book reading devices, smarthphones, tablets, etc. In addition, using the Connect to folder function you can use it with any e-book reader that exports itself as a USB disk.

 Source:  Calibre FAQ
This isn't possible on an iOS device as it doesn't show up as a USB storage device.  How can I manually add my personal eBooks to my Nook App on my iPad, iPod, and/or iPhone?

The Nook App isn't very intuitive when it comes to telling you how to sideload books onto your iOS device, however it is possible.  Unfortunately, it's not as simple as just hooking up the device via USB and letting Calibre handle it.  There are two methods:

Via USB (cable) and iTunes
Downloaded from shared site

USB Cable & iTunes
It's fairly easy to drag and drop via iTunes.

Connect your iOS device
Under File Sharing
Drag and drop your eBooks to the Nook folder

Downloaded onto iOS device
This requires the Files App from Apple to access the folders on the iOS device

Download the eBook using your browser (Firefox shown here)
Go into the Downloads directory
Long press the file to bring up the context menu and select Move
Select the Nook directory
Press Move


Is there a Mail plugin to let me view unread emails first? Similar to Gmail priority inbox, is there a Mail 6.3 (OSX Mountain Lion) plugin that lets me view unread messages first or sort them so they're at top of inbox?

In Mac's mail app you have got the option to create a 'smart mailbox'. This allows you for example to only view unread emails. It can even do that over multiple mailboxes.

Sample rule for unread messages of today (taken from makeusof.com):

If you just want to have the unread messages always on top, there's a sort option for that in the menu between Edit and Mailbox (probably called View).


How to Use Cancel Button in Osascript to Stop Running Script Here is my basic script:

#!/bin/bash

osascript  -e 'tell application id "com.apple.systemevents"'
-e 'display dialog "Do you want to continue?" & return & return &
 " Please wait..." buttons {"Cancel", "Okay"} default button
2 cancel button "Cancel"' -e 'end tell' -e 'if button returned is "Cancel" then'
-e '<blah blah kill this script>' -e 'end if'

-- other bash stuff here

I need the script to stop if the user clicks the "Cancel" button. As it is now the script waits until the user clicks either button and then proceeds to run the bash code. How can I kill the script?

This to be able to run on Mac OS 10.6 through 10.10, no third-party add-ons.

How about this?

It works on my 10.6 Macbook.
It is cleaner than having to escape quotes etc...
osascript returns a status like normal unix programs.
Bash script aborts on a status 1 from osascript.
No unnecessary messages from osascript - >dev/null 2>&1

I don't have anything else to test it on. You may need to adjust for other versions of OSX.

#!/bin/bash

osascript >/dev/null 2>&1 <<-EOF
tell application id "com.apple.systemevents"
   set myMsg to "Do you want to continue?" & return & return & " Please wait..."
   set theResp to display dialog myMsg buttons {"Cancel", "Okay"} default button 2
end tell

# Following is not really necessary. Cancel returns 1 and OK 0 ...
if button returned of theResp is "Cancel" then
   return 1
end if
EOF

# Check status of osascript
if [ "$?" != "0" ] ; then
   echo "User aborted. Exiting..."
   exit 1
fi

#-- other bash stuff here
echo "All good, moving on...."

HTH


Can't format drive to APFS on older machine prior to 10.13 install I have a Mid-2012 15" MacBook Pro that I've just put a new SSD into.

I didn't format the SSD prior to putting it into the computer, my plan was to boot into "recovery mode" (not sure of Apple's term for it) by using command+R and running disk utility from there.

I want to load High Sierra onto the SSD, which I would install via creating a USB installer.

I understand that High Sierra runs best on APFS, but Disk Utility in recovery mode doesn't give me that option.

If I go ahead and install from the USB, will part of the install process format the SSD to APFS, or do I need to format the SSD to APFS prior using another machine capable of formatting drives to APFS?

If you create a High Sierra USB installer, then you should be able to use the Disk Utility application to format the SSD as APFS before installing macOS.

If you boot from Internet Recovery using the Option-⌘-R keys then you should get the Mojave Disk Utility application. This can also be used to APFS format the SSD. Note: You have to have had macOS Sierra 10.12.4 or later installed before being able to use the Option-⌘-R keys.


Do I have to keep the .dmg files on my computer? As a new user of OS X I am getting to know how it is to work with it every day and I started noticing things that went unnoticed previously.

One such question is, when I download a file from the Internet, for example the Skype app, I will download a .dmg file on my HDD. I can open it and use the app, however, when I close it and restart the computer, the app won't get installed to my apps as I am used to from Windows. Rather, I have to open up the .dmg every time.

I am sure there is a way to achieve what I want since I've worked with macs in the past and they had these apps in the applications window, so could anyone explain to me what am I doing differently and why is it this way?

I am aware of the fact that after I open the .dmg file, a virtual hard-drive copy gets created and that's why I see the HDD icon on my desktop, but that's about it.

A lot of applications (bundles) for OS X don't need an installer in contrary to almost all Windows apps. They are distributed inside an .dmg.

To properly "install" them just open the .dmg and copy the app file to /Applications or /Applications/Utilities. A lot of images already contain a soft link to the Applications folder to be more convenient for the user.

If the .dmg contains such a soft link just drop the app on it (like indicated by the grey arrow in the screenshot above).

You have to enter an admin password to start the task if you aren't logged in with a user with admin permissions. You always have to enter an admin password if you copy the file into /Applications/Utilities/.

All subsequent installations (like LaunchDaemons or application support files) are done by the app itself after starting it for the first time.

After copying the app to one of the folders mentioned above, you can unmount the "installer" volume and delete the .dmg file.


How to charge iPad (v1) on a Windows device I have an iPad (first revision) and want to charge it using my Windows laptop. It doesn't want to charge and I've read quite a lot about it now (this one here amongst others via Google), but I haven't found a complete working answer.

Edit: I'm not so much interested in the why. But more in a practical solution, preferably without any hardware costs. Can someone give a HowTo on charging an iPad on Windows devices?

An insufficiently-powered USB port will charge an iPad, just slower than a high-powered one.

When you plug the USB cable into your laptop the iPad will say "Not Charging." However, when the screen is off it is in fact charging. As soon as you turn the screen on again the battery area will say "Not Charging," too, but again, with the screen off it will charge.

Test it yourself: before plugging in the cable check the battery percentage. Then plug it in and leave the iPad off for 30 minutes; when you turn the screen back on you'll see that the percentage has increased.

In my case it takes several hours to charge from 50% to 100%, but at least it's charging.


How to restore a backup to iPhone 6s using out of date iTunes/OS X? My iPhone 6 was stolen and I had only backed up to iTunes, not iCloud.  But the company can only supply me with an iPhone 6s, which can't connect to be out of date iTunes (11.4) and OS X (10.7.5).

This means I cannot reach the backup of my iPhone 6 within iTunes.

Any suggestions for how to bypass this issue and reach the backup in order to recover my data?

Are you able to borrow a friend or family member's computer to connect and restore the backup? If so, here's the instructions to get to your backup, and copy it elsewhere (it's ok to copy it to a Windows computer to restore as well):

In iTunes, go to the iTunes Preferences and then the Devices tab.
Right click on your backup and select "Reveal in Finder" (it may be that or "Show in Finder". I don't remember what version that text changed ;))
iTunes will open the ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup folder. Each folder in here is an individual iOS backup named by the device UDID (making it a long folder name), and the Show in Finder should have highlighted your specific backup. Copy that folder to your USB thumb drive or whatever you're using to copy.

We'll need to copy that folder on to the other computer into the appropriate spot for iTunes to pick it up, so here are the instructions for Windows and Mac to get to that MobileSync > Backup folder.

Windows:

Windows 8 and 10: In the search bar type %appdata% (with the percents) and press return/enter. A file browser window will open to the user's Application Data folder.
Windows 7, Vista, XP: From the start menu, select Run. In the run box, type %appdata% (with the percents) and press return/enter. A file browser window will open to the user's Application Data folder.
From there, navigate to Apple Computer >  MobileSync > Backup.

Mac:

Open Finder, and select the "Go" menu at the top of the screen. Hold the Option key, and select the "Library" menu option from the Go menu. (On OSX Lion and above, Library will only appear with the Option key held.)
From Library, navigate to Application Support > MobileSync > Backup.

You'll want to copy the folder for your backup into the Backup folder, so the folder is sitting next to any other backups already on the system, very similar to how you found it on your mac.


How can I insert text in middle of a document and have images move down too? I have a document with text and floating images. Let's say I want to insert some text in the middle of the document. If i click in the document and hit enter a bunch of times, I want the existing text and images to slide down so I can put my new content there, but only the text moves down and the images don't.

How can I make it so everything would slide down when I press enter.

You could use inline objects that cause text to be wrapped:


Unable to delete greyed out app on mac I  have 88GB of games in the app section of storage that I would like to delete but these are greyed out when looking in the About this mac>Storage folder, when I go into my normal applications folder these games are not shown. Please note the original owner bought this mac for games then after 6 months realised he would prefer a gaming pc. I thought he had deleted everything off it but these games seem to be embedded somewhere.
Mac is a macbook pro, 2017, running Catalina v.10.15.3
Thanks in advance

There are 2 Application folders on your mac. One is located under your home directory and the other is located at the same level as Users. On my machine that is 1 at /Users/myname/Applications and the other at /Applications.  I'd check the other Applications folder for the games you wish to delete.


Increase Siri home button press time I want to have to press the home button on my iPhone 7 iOS 13.5.1 for longer to activate Siri.
At the moment it frequently activates unintentionally because I have a habit of holding the home button for a few moments while lost in thought and exiting my current app.

I have a habit of holding the home button for a few moments while lost in thought and exiting my current app

There's no setting and no access to any of the iOS files (unless you jailbreak) that changes the duration of the hold button press to activate Siri.
Unfortunately, it will be a habit that you're going to have to change/break. After all, the "long press" required to activate Siri is only 1.5 seconds.    The other option will be to change your workflow to either

use "Hey Siri"
use headphones and activate Siri with that button.


How do I revert the sudo less /private/etc/cups/printers.conf command? I have used the above command to try and find my printer's address using the web.

Now I would like to revert this setting using terminal.

Can anyone help me with this?

Less isn't modifying anything in your printer settings, it's just displaying the contents of the file. For example:

less test.txt

will show the contents of the test text file. If you exit using q, and you reopen the Terminal window, you will no longer see the IP address of the printer without using the

less

command again.


it no handler for given file type `flac' I hope someone can help me out with this issue.
I have installed the latest version of SoX (14.4.2) on my Mac and I keep getting the following error message:

no handler for given file type `flac'

I have tried to re-install it, as suggested in another thread on this forum, by running the following:

brew remove sox
brew install sox --with-flac

but unfortunately did not the trick for me.

By typing :

brew info sox

I can see the "tick" against the flac option but then when I run the command:

sox oldfile.flac newfile.flac trim 0 30

I keep getting the same error message.

Any help/suggestion is very much appreciated.

Many thanks!

I do not have a specific answer for the error as I do not use Homebrew however as a workaround I've downloaded SoX - Sound exchange from SourceForge.net unzipped the download file and cd sox-14.4.2 and then ./play <pathname_to.flac> and it played the .flac file just fine.

As requested in the comments I tested trimming a .flac file and this too worked as expected and the trimmed file played fine, (sans the trimmed 30 seconds of course).

To ensure the downloaded SoX worked independently of other installed audio software I tested it on a clean build of OS X 10.10 and SoX worked as expected.  (BTW I originally tested under OS X 10.8.5)

Since Homebrew does the installing and just downloading directly from SourceForge.net does not, I copied the play, rec, soxi (aliases) and the sox binary to /usr/local/bin as it's an appropriate location for third-party binaries and makes the commands directly available in a Terminal as its location is in the $PATH.


`LSOpenURLsWithRole() failed with error -1712 for the file ` when I attempt `open .` I suddenly came across this error when I attempted to do open . to open the current directory in Finder, a command that I use quite frequently:

ysim:~/Downloads$ open .
LSOpenURLsWithRole() failed with error -1712 for the file /Users/ysim/Downloads.

It persisted for a few minutes and went away by itself. I tried googling it but the only two hits I saw had to do with ImageMagick and Automator, neither of which I use. Does anyone know why it happens and how to prevent it?

That error means an Apple Event timed out.

error -1712 errAETimeout: the AppleEvent timed out

You can either open Activity Monitor and look to see if you notice an Application or process that states Not responding or hit option command esc then force quit any non-responding application.

It's possible the application or process was already open and by using open . it tried to launch it for whatever reason. Often it's an Automator or AppleScript that is waiting for user interaction and "times out" waiting.


Is there a way to disable Contacts > Groups button? I have a friend who's not very computer savvy, and uses an iPad. We wind up doing constant IT support for him. His biggest foible is that he goes into Contacts, accidentally selects "groups", and then gets flustered and unchecks the only group he actually has. Then the next thing you know, he's on the phone in a panic because he can't find any of his contacts. This has been known to happen more than once in a single day. It doesn't help that he lives several hundred miles away, so all this support has to be done over the phone. His son helps when he can, but he's not always around.
Is there a way to simply disable the "groups" feature? He doesn't need it, and it's causing everybody involved a lot of grief.

Unfortunately, no.  You cannot disable the Groups button on Contacts.
However, there’s a few “operational” things I can think of that might solve the problem.

Why is he spending so much time in “Contacts” to begin with?  Find out what he’s actually trying to accomplish and go from there.  For instance, is it just looking up contact info to make a call/send a message?
If so, then “hide” the Contacts App in a folder.  It can be launched from within those Apps themselves.  This might reduce his temptation to keep going in there.  In fact, the only time I go in there is if I have mass edits to make - I hardly ever use the Contacts App itself anymore.

Create a list of Favorites (Phone App).  This can be used for both calls and messaging; you can have independent  entries for calls and text messages for the same contact.  This will limit the exposure to the Contacts App altogether.  This way, the contacts show up, but you never see the “Groups” button.

The Groups button is actually “far away” from everything else in the Contacts App screen.  Is this a accessibility issue where there’s a physical/medical condition that’s causing inadvertent taps on Groups (yes/no answer - no need for details).  If this is the case, we can look at different input methods. For the screen to change, it more than just Groups.  It’s Group -> Something Else.
What you can do here is take an image (even print it out) of what the Groups Box should look like, point to where “Done” is so he can exit.  Before panicking...just have him compare the image to what he sees on the screen.

Until screen sharing on iOS/iPadOS becomes a thing you can create short video clips (store on OneDrive or DropBox for easy sharing) of how to enter/exit the places he get’s stuck.  I’m sure you’re finding that you’re repeating yourself very often.  If this is the case, a short video of how to get unstuck might work wonders.

You can use video chat to “show” him how to fix his issue.  It’s not limited to FaceTime.  Use Skype if he has a PC.  It’s free and not a data harvester like WhatsApp or similar.  He can easily hold the phone to the webcam (if he doesn’t have one, get one - that might be the best $40-$50USD you spend this year).

Show him how to take a screen shot and kill an app.  If he gets stuck somewhere, he can take a picture of where he is then use messaging or email to mail you a picture of his “location.” At least from there, you can guide him (you can include these instructions with the picture of Groups settings I mentioned earlier.


Change default font in Word Office for Mac 2011 How I can change the default font of Word Office for Mac 2011?

To permanently change the font formatting for all new documents use the following procedures.

On the Format menu, click Font.
Make all of the desired changes in the Font dialog box.
Click Default.
When prompted with the following, click Yes:

Do you want to change the default font to < list of changes>? This change will affect all new documents based on the NORMAL template.
Hold down the SHIFT key while clicking on the File menu, and click
Save All.

Word will not prompt you to save the changes to the Normal.dot unless you have the option "Prompt to Save Normal template" selected on the Save tab of the Preferences dialog box (on the Tools menu, click Preferences).


XCode: code signing entitlement file in command line I would like to be able to build an IPA file with a given Entilements.plist file using command line. I can do pretty much anything, but I do not find a way to pass a code signing entitlements file using the command line (whereas I can do it in Xcode 7.3 UI). Any idea how to do that ?

I managed to have it working by calling:

xcodebuild ... CODE_SIGN_IDENTITY="" CODE_SIGNING_REQUIRED=NO"

and then:

codesign --entitlements .../Entitlements.plist -s signing_identity


How are Sales different from In-App Purchases in iTunes connect? In my app, I have 1 In-App Purchase. In App Analytics, in Metrics:

My Sales and In-App Purchases are different. For so many days, I have one or more In-App Purchase but no Sale.

How is this possible?

Edit:
Sales should include the revenue from In-App Purchases. From Apple Help, Sales mean, "Sales is the estimated total amount billed to the customers.

Quoting from, About in-app purchases:

  In-app purchases are extra content or subscriptions that you can buy in apps on your iOS device or computer.

It's likely that existing customers, who have previously bought and installed the app have made the in-app purchases during the said period.

In-app purchases can be made at any later point (as available) after installing the app. Also, for paid apps, downloading results in a sale only upon first time installation by user.


iMovie: safe to delete Render Files? I'm hoping to slim down the size of my 50gb iMovie library. I noticed that a huge chunk of space (like 20gb) is taken up by the contents of a "Render Files" folder in one of my Event folders.

  You can see the "Render Files" folder by right-clicking/control-clicking your iMovie Library and choosing "Show Package Contents". Then open one of your Event folders. The "Render Files" folder is in there.

What's the deal with those files? Can I safely trash them? Will iMovie rebuild them?

Yes, and iMovie can even delete (all) of them for you.

Go to iMovie > Preferences and click "Delete" next to Render Files (last item on the bottom for me).

It will warn you about deleting data, and that it may have to be regenerated in the future.

Inspecting my iMovie library with Finder after this operation revealed that it cleared the Render Files directory and freed up ~60GB from my disk.


Grab the "Active" Window in Applescript I have a script which perform the following:

Load a file into a program (Subler — done separately, not in this script)
Confirm the loading of the file (this is where the script begins)
Saves the file
In the save location window it selects a specific directory to save the file in
Presses "return"

I would like to know how to perform step 4 with the active (or last used) window instead of a specific window title.

This is the relevant code:

get every action of list 1 of scroll area 1 of scroll area 1 of browser 1 of splitter group 1 of group 2 of sheet 1 of window "untitled"

This is the entire code:

on run

    tell application "Subler" to activate
    delay 1

    tell application "System Events"
        delay 0.5
        keystroke return
        delay 1
        keystroke "s" using command down
    end tell

    activate application "Subler"
    tell application "System Events"
        tell process "Subler"
            get every action of list 1 of scroll area 1 of scroll area 1 of browser 1 of splitter group 1 of group 2 of sheet 1 of window "untitled"
        end tell

    end tell

    tell application "Subler" to activate
    delay 1

    tell application "System Events"
    end tell

    return input
end run

It's been a while since I played with Applescript, but I think it's just 'window 1' [without quotes] for the frontmost window.


Is it possible to export all my iPhone contacts to my iPad 2? Does anyone know of a way to export all my contacts from my iPhone straight into my iPad 2 without having to re-type all of them in?

register for iCloud on source device (iPhone)
enable iCloud syncing for Contacts
wait about 10 minutes
login to iCloud on target device (iPad)
enable Contacts syncing
wait a few minutes

Info about iCloud


2007 iMac kernel panics repeatedly I have an iMac (24-inch Mid 2007) which has recently had a lot of kernel panics (a screen pops up telling me to reboot). After rebooting the machine several times, the error still comes up. I took it into the Apple Genius Bar, where they ran a few tests and were not able to fix the problem either. They then told me there weren't even authorised to service it anymore!

Is it worth take it into a third part Apple Authorised Service Provided to take a look at it any see what would be needed to repair it? What kind of cost am I looking just to get someone to look at it (a bench fee)?

There are a number of causes for kernel panics and a number of things to try, either fixes or diagnostic. Do some googling and read up on Apple Support. Geniuses are not necessarily the final word. Like, did these start with something new - cable, external, software? Update?

As far as bench fees, call around. Any ASP will tell you the cost.


Why is parallels giving me the error "there is no disk in the drive"? I installed parallels on my macbook pro and i installed windows 7 iso via a DVD.  at first everything looked fine exception now I am now trying to compile an asp.net-mvc app in visual studio and i get this error over and over

No matter what i click it will eventually progress but this is quite annoying.  The same question was asked here but no good answer was given.

Can someone please explain why devenv.exe would need the ISO dvd to be connected to my laptop at this point?

I got this exact same problem. Windows 7 on Parallels installed via ISO DVD running VS 2010 MVC 4. I can't answer why this happens, but just keep clicking 'Continue', it'll load your site eventually. If you look in the Output window you can see it's making progress.

This only appears to happen the first time you start your project.