Printing the current date/time with sub-second precision GNU date(1) understands the %N format spec, which outputs nanoseconds, so:

$ date +%H:%m:%S.%N

outputs 19:10:03.725196000

BSD date doesn't understand %N. How can I print the current time with sub-second precision on OS X?

As you said, BSD date doesn't support %N. So the straightforward solution is to download GNU's date and install it to either ~/bin or /usr/local/bin and call that when you need to use %N.

However, I would not advise replacing the version that ships with your Mac with the new one. Most of these coreutil programs are written such that their output can be understood by other programs, not necessarily humans, so reliability in output is a necessity. There might be several scripts in your mac that parse the output of BSD's date and any possible changes introduced by replacing with GNU's might or might not break things.

The simplest way to do this safely on a Mac is to use homebrew and install coreutils.

brew info coreutils
coreutils 8.16
http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils
...
==> Caveats
All commands have been installed with the prefix 'g'.

The GNU equivalent will be named gdate and is located in /usr/local/Cellar/coreutils/8.16/bin/. You can also set an alias in your .bashrc or its equivalent as

alias date='gdate'


iPod classic 80GB won't charge from usb power adapter iPod classic 80GB 2007 [Model No.:A1238] won't charge from LG usb travel adapter (output 5.0V, 0.85A). It normally charged from Apple 5W USB Power Adapter [Model No.:A1299] (output 5.0V, 1A), and normally charged from macbook USB port and required just 0.5A for charging.

Why it won't charge from LG adapter whose output current (0.85A) actually is between laptop USB port (0.5A) and Apple USB Power Adapter (1A)?

I looked into the amount of current available from a USB charger when investigating how to charge multiple iPhones / iPads simultaneously.  Below is something I learnt that might be relevant.

There are several different ways that a charger can "tell" an iPod how much current it can provide - the iPod can't determine this directly.  If the charger is a computer, it will communicate this through a data transfer (similar to transferring MP3 file data).

But a simple charger won't use this method.  Instead, there are various standards (some proprietary, I believe!) which specify how much current can be provided, by providing certain voltages at the data lines.  USB has four pins: one ground, one power, and two data.  For example, apparently 2.8V on one of the data pins and 2.0V on another means "you can draw up to 1 amp".  See this link for some detail, although I think some of that is out-dated.

I'd guess that the LG adaptor doesn't provide the signalling that the iPod expects.  I don't know a way to resolve this, other than to try a different adaptor - sorry.


BootCamp The startup disk does not have enough space to be partitioned I am currently trying to install bootcamp, however i am experiencing the following error:
"The startup disk does not have enough space to be partitioned."
"You must have at least 42GB of free space available."

I have checked my storage and i have 62GB available storage.
I have checked and my Time machine is switched off and I have also tried sudo tmutil thinlocalsnapshots / 999999999999 in terminal and still not working.
I would really appreciate if someone can help.
I am using macOS Mojave.
Thanks

The free space required by the Boot Camp Assistant to install Windows is larger than what is actually required. One question where this is documented is Mojave bootcamp assistant limits partition size. The answer to this question was to use the Disk Utility to create a partition for Windows, then install Windows the same way as any ordinary PC owner. The Boot Camp Assistant was only used to download the Windows Support Software.

Other space issues related to installing Windows are documented in the accepted answer to the question: Installing Windows on MBP 2015 (Mojave) Using Boot Camp, Error: Not enough space!.


Setting Mac App Store country to home country when abroad I'm stuck trying to use the Mac App Store on my Mac. I'm in Germany (abroad, my home country is UK) and it seems my Mac has picked this up in some way and won't let me download Xcode, as it says I can't download from the German App Store. My App Store was set up in the UK with UK card details.

My Mac was initialised in Germany too, i.e. it was switched on for the first time here.

My locale settings from System Preferences are here:

This is the error I am getting:

Please note the following:

I am using a MacBook Pro, not an iPad or iPhone.
I am trying to access Mac App Store, not iTunes.

Looks like you somehow got switched to German App Store. Your App Store home country is linked in your Apple ID and not by the system configuration. Try logging out of Mac App Store and logging back in using the Store menu in Mac App Store app.


Does photo stream retain deleted iCloud photos? I would like to know as my iCloud storage is running out so I want to get rid of my old backup and make a new backup. I really want to keep all of my photos and memories on my phone.
On iOS, if I delete a backup will I still have all of my photos, even on my photo stream?

If you use Photo Stream as you mentioned your photos will be stored in iCloud separately and not in a backup, therefore it is safe to delete previous backups.

To further reduce backup size iPhone backup takes too much space


Open a new Browser Window from Terminal I am working on multiple screens.
when I intend to open a new chrome window(not a tab),I have to press 'CMD+Tab' to shift to the current and press 'Ctrl+N'.

If input command

open https://apple.stackexchange.com

A new tab created not a new window.

open -na "Google Chrome" --args --new-window "https://georgegarside.com"

-n opens a new instance of an application. Google Chrome detects this and remedies the situation by closing the new instance and passing the tab’s location to the first instance, but this is necessary to force arguments to be read.
--args indicates what's to follow are arguments to be passed to Google Chrome, not open.
--new-window is a Google Chrome argument to force a new window to be created.


ios provisioning profile invalid status I have a problem.The provisioning profile account for the developer apple account appears invalid. How can I change this to valid. At the same time, users are using this application. Users should not be affected from this situation. How can I fix it? Help me Thanks

It also happened to me,i deleted it and made a knew one ,with the same bundle id,,resubmit my app with a different build or version after changing provisioning profile,
It didn’t change anything in iTunes connect as far for my app
But,be better be sure send the support an email,or call them
If you are in a hurry,call them they will help you right away ,rather than waiting days for a reply


Is there a way to make iPhone forget the data belonging to one app? I recently downloaded an app (Rival Knights) which I already had on my iPad, but not on my phone. It gave me the option to write over my saved data and I declined. However now, I've changed my mind and want to start again.

I've tried deleting and re-installing the app, completely resetting my iPhone, deleting the app from my game centre, and making a new apple ID, however none of these have worked.

Is there any other way I can make my phone forget the app so I have a chance of starting again?

If you delete the app, all the data from that app gets deleted.

That is how the phone forgets that app.

If the app uses Game Center or another log in to retrieve game state from servers online, then you'll need to temporarily sign out of Game Center and possibly iCloud to remove those files from the phone as well.

I'd start by signing out of Game Center and delete/reinstall the game.

If that doesn't work, you can either check the specific game / contact that developer and/or sign out of iCloud documents or inspect that data store to see if that game has cloud files.

Once you have a clean start, you will know how to force a change to the cloud to reset the progress to be new.


How can I deactivate bad RAM regions on a Macbook Pro (Retina 13")? Is there a way to deactivate bad RAM regions on a Macbook Pro Retina 13"?

I was not able to update my Mac to OS X 10.10.3. Complete reinstall was also not successful. I ran diagnostics and memtest86, both revealing bad regions of RAM. What can I do other than repairing the Macbook? I don't have an APP so repairing would be very expensive.

Tho it is possible in Linux and Mac O/S X is in fact a UNIX-based operating system I am not aware of a way to do this in Mac O/S X.

As for your particular Mac, I believe that the RAM is non replaceable (EG soldered to the system board). So if it is out of warranty and you did not extend the warranty with Applecare a system board replacement would not be cheap.

If you have a local Apple store you can make a Genius appointment and they will diagnose your issue and advise you what can be done at no charge.


iMac in recovery mode, can’t install macOS no matter what I try My wife and I purchased an desktop iMac A1311 from Facebook market place. It was perfectly functional but the seller hadn’t removed any of their personal info before selling it so my wife erased it (I believe it was a factory reset that she did). The computer now only boots in recovery mode, and we are unable to reinstall the operating system because it’s requiring the password of the person that sold it to us. We’ve tried contacting them for either a password or even proof of purchase to bring it to Apple, but they will not reply.
So currently we are trying to reinstall the macOS from a bootable thumb drive. I succeeded in making the drive from another computer, but that’s only lead me to more hiccups. For one, I can’t get the computer to start up in the boot menu. No matter what keys I hold down at it opens in recovery mode.
I thought I figured out how to work with this when I went into the operating system installer and saw my thumb drive as an option, but when I click on it, it says the disk is locked. So I’ve been trying to figure out how to unlock it, including the verify and repair, but when I clock repair it says it cannot be done.
So help with any of this would be greatly appreciated. Either getting to the boot menu, unlocking the disk, or even better if there is some other easy solution to getting around the issue with the password to get macOS up and running!

I solved the problem! I looked up how to erase a computer when you plan to sell it, was able to do so in recovery mode by opening up the disk utility and selecting erase on the hard drive and setting it to the maximum security. This successfully removed the need for the previous owners password and was able to reinstall macOS as per normal from there!


How to make an AppleScript app locate itself? I've been messing around with this cool AppleScript scripting language and I have yet another question. How to make an AppleScript app locate itself?Like something like this (that obviously doesn't work):get info of myself
set variable to "location"
So the output, "variable," would be for instance /home/Desktop/MyEpicApp.app.Is there any script or a sequence of them to get the location of the app and store it in a variable?Many thanks in advance, even a tiny bit of help is appreciated.

To set the path of an AppleScript script or app to a variable use the following code:

set thePath to POSIX path of (path to me as text)

Example:

set thePath to POSIX path of (path to me as text)
display dialog "The path to me is: " & thePath

If you want the path up to the script or app set to a variable use the following code:

set thePath to POSIX path of ((path to me as text) & ":")

Example:

set thePath to POSIX path of ((path to me as text) & ":")
display dialog "The path to me is: " & thePath


MacBook Air won't start up, won't enter secure mode and repair in Disk Utility Unfortunately some data was downloading and my Mac got stuck, so I forcefully power it off. After that, I couldn't enter the login screen, because the loading bar was stuck.

I tried to enter safe mode, but with no success. After that, I entered single user mode and entered some command to repair disk, but it scanned for 10 minutes and failed.

I finally managed to enter recovery/repair mode with Disk Utility (previously no disk was listed in menu), and clicked 'First Aid'. This failed after one second with something like 'invalid node'. I Googled some time and entered Terminal in recovery mode and entered this command that many people praised, but I got this:

-bash-3.2# /sbin/fsck_hfs -yprd /dev/disk0s2
/dev/rdisk0s2: starting
Unable to open block device /dev/disk0s2: Resource busyjournal_replay(/dev/disk0s2) returned 16
/dev/rdisk0s2: ** /dev/rdisk0s2 (NO WRITE ACCESS)

/dev/rdisk0s2: UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY; RUN fsck_hfs MANUALLY.
-bash-3.2#

It seems that you may be trying to fsck the wrong partition. You can use duskutil to find which disk is your boot disk

diskutil list

You're looking for something named usually "Macintosh HD" or "Yosemite". Try the fsck on that, and if you're still getting the "Resource busy" error, try to unmount it, either in the Disk Utility in recovery, or by using diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk# and trying again.

Hope this helps!


Clone Time Machine volume My backup disk is getting full, so I bought a bigger one and I'm trying to copy the backups to it (the current backup size is 1.5TB)
I tried following the instructions in the official support document [edit - this has been archived, see below for a newer article published after this question was resolved] a couple of times but it didn't work: this dialogue came up, incremented slowly for several days, but when it had gone no copy was made:

I had a look through the console output, but couldn't find anything indicating what the problem might have been.
I have also tried restoring to the target drive using Disk Utility, but that gives me this error:

Validating target...
Validating source...
Source volume format on device "/dev/disk5" is not valid for restoring
Could not validate source - Operation not permitted
The operation couldn’t be completed. (OSStatus error 1.)

Both the old and new disks are formatted as Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled) 1. The old disk has two partitions.
I know I can't use rsync to do a copy as it doesn't respect the hard links TM uses, so is there anything else I can do to transfer the files? If I have to buy disk cloning software that's OK, as I really don't want the backup disk to fill up, as that has happened to me before and I lost data.
I run OSX as a standard user, rather than as an admin. Could that be a contributing factor?
Edit:
Alan Harper shared this new Apple support article from October 28 2019 to his answer below:
Transfer Time Machine backups from one backup disk to another.
Too late for me to try, but linking it again here in case it helps anyone else.
1 I know case-sensitive is not recommended for TM backups, but this backup has been going for years and although I have vague memories of something-something-case-sensitive-something-something I cannot remember for the life of me why the backup disk is formatted this way, and I don't think I can change it now.

It should work if you boot into recovery mode. Hold cmd+r when booting, then use Disk Utility to recover. If your drive is encrypted, you will have to mount it and unlock it first.


PlantronicsHub and a major memory leak I’ve noticed that process SpokesUpdateService  is promoted to the top of my Memory list. Here an example which I captured today (just 24hrs after my last reboot) but on the other day I’ve seen 2.4 GB wasted:

I've raised a ticket to Plantronics Support but so far nothing constructive.

The only fix I have now is to kill the process after each and every reboot.

Question: any solution you could think of except killing the process?

Though I regularly search for answers here, this is my first post. Please, forgive if I do not match this forum's etiquette.

I fully empathize with your problem. SpokesUpdateService is relentless. For me, it seemed to launch around the same time each day. I knew it was crashing my Late-2011 MBP with Sierra 10.12.6, but today's EtreCheck simple (free) "diagnosis" show this damn SpokesUpdateService caused 113 crashes on November 3rd for me alone. (No wonder my system died and refused to restart for hours!)

Realistically, Plantronics rarely updates the firmware or software for my headset. I can check for updates when I choose, not hundreds of times daily with SpokesUpdateService.

Here is my simple brute-force solution:

Trash the following three files:

com.PlantronicsUpdateService.plist
Headset Updater (Version 1.1.0 (2015), a Plantronics application
Plantronics Hub (Version 3.11.52215.23527 (2018) another Plantronics Application.

You might also get away with only trashing com.PlantronicsUpdateService.plist or editing it (see below).

I deleted these files because com.PlantronicsUpdateService.plist seems to call SpokesUpdateService:

For good measure, I also trashed the applications "Headset Updater" and "Plantronics Hub." I still have all three in the Trash in case I need them later. Simply putting these three files in the Trash has stopped SpokesUpdateService. I most likely can permanently delete all three and simply re-install the Headset Updater and/or Plantronics Hub if I need/want them.

I have not programmed in decades, but you might try editing com.PlantronicsUpdateService.plist by deleting "KeepAlive". I say that based on commands at "A launchd Tutorial", http://www.launchd.info (last visited Nov. 9, 2018).


Is it possible to get back one earlier "copy" to paste it back? I typed for 200 words to send to a customer support of a company, and then I copied the content just to keep a copy in my Gmail or Google Docs.
However, before I pasted, I made a phone call using Google voice and pasted the phone number to Google Voice call to dial the number.
So the 200 words content is gone.  Is there a way to get it back?  The 200 words is such a small size (probably less than 2kbyte), and this MacBook is used only by me, so I don't worry about privacy of being able to show earlier copy and paste contents.  Is there a way to get that earlier copy back?

Not by default, no. The pasteboard is a temporary storage area, with no safety net. (One of the reasons that MacOS didn't have Cut and Paste of files in the Finder for many years, it is often said.)
There are plenty of apps in the Mac App Store, and elsewhere, that enhance the Pasteboard's capabilities by storing the pasteboard's 'history'.
I use Yoink, which does many Drag-Copy-Paste things, including this. Other more simple apps include things like CommandClip, which just keeps the last 10 text entries. Note that this may include passwords, so care should be taken.


Why is Airplay from my iPhone to my Apple TV so slow? I got the new Apple TV and noticed that it takes ages to stream a video from my iPhone.

Moreover, streaming videos directly from youtube on my iphone over airplay may cause the video to be very blurry for a few secs and then back to normal (HD), this might be due to buffering but im not sure if the internet connection has an impact on that.

Is there a way to improve the efficiency and speed of the device?

I am using a Wireless N router. The Apple TV is connected via WIFI. The iPhone is connected wireless through airplay.

The crucial issue is the speed of your router. Ideally you'd have the Apple TV connected to a router via an Ethernet cable using Gigabit Ethernet (1000/baseT) and your router would have WiFi N, not Wifi G (which is slower by a factor of about five), for the iPhone connection. Then you'd want to make sure that the WiFi N router was operating on a channel not subject to interference from other routers nearby, or from physical interference that would lead to signal attenuation.

It would be a good idea to try putting your WiFi router in the same room as your Apple TV and your iPhone and to see if video image quality improves. If so, this is an indication that you were experiencing WiFi signal attenuation due to interference caused by the materials used in the walls of the building.

Also, if this is the first time you've used an AppleTV, and the first time you've tried to watch HD video streaming over the Internet on your television, it may be that your Internet connection speed from your Internet service provider simply isn't fast enough to support HD video. If you have DSL, you may wish to consider upgrading to a cable modem or fiber-optic service with higher bandwidth. This year I found that AT&T had made their Uverse fiber-optic service available in my neighborhood. I upgraded to Uverse and got Internet service at four times the speed of my old AT&T DSL service for the same price I was paying for the slower DSL.


Offline Updates for macOS 10.15 Catalina? In the past, it was almost-always possible to get offline installers for Apple macOS updates from https://support.apple.com/downloads/ (you get a PKG file in a DMG file).

However the same doesn't seem to be true for Catalina. So far none of the updates have been made available.

Supplemental Update 19A602
Revised Supplemental Update 19A603
10.15.1

At-least not in the usual place, they can only be installed using the built-in software updater.

Are these being made available for download somewhere, or is there any more information available on this issue?

Sometime late yesterday or early today the 10.15.1 update was made available for download (along with corresponding 10.14 Mojave Security Update 2019-001 and 10.13 High Sierra Security Update 2019-006 updates; 10.12 Sierra is likely retired now).

The 10.15 Supplemental Updates were never made available in this way for some reason, but the 10.15.1 update supersedes those updates anyhow. It remains to be seen if other 10.15 updates like the Security or Supplemental updates will continue to be available as they were in the past.


Eclipse 'luna' installing issues on MacOs Sierra 10.12 im getting issues while installing eclipse luna for MacOS Sierra 10.12

I have followed the procedure for the installing the eclipse.

1.Download the eclipse luna.
2.move the zipped folder to desktop.
3.extract the zipped file.
4.move eclipse icon from desktop to the applications folder.
5.when I double click the eclipse icon, it gives the following error.

below is the screenshots attached, can anybody help me with the solution.

Error - " Eclipse quit unexpectedly- Click Reopen to open the application again. Click Report to see more detailed information and send a report to Apple."

Same issue for me. The issue resolved when I copied the complete pack into the "Applications" folder and ran Eclipse in the path /Applications/eclipse/Eclipse.app/Contents/MacOS from Terminal.


Cannot use FaceTime HD Camera on VirtualBox Ubuntu 18.04 guest OS I installed Virtualbox & extension pack 6.0.6 on OSX host(on Mackbook pro with Type-c, 2018 15". Mojave 10.14.4).
On this VBox configuration, I installed Ubuntu 18.04 as guest with default configuration(no modification to settings except for Enabling USB Controller)

I enabled Facetime HD Camera VirtualBox(Menu bar > Devices > Webcams > Facetime HD Camera checkbox on), but when I test the /dev/video0 and /dev/video1 with cheese command on guest blank screen shows up with this error:

** Message: 15:09:30.041: cheese-application.vala:211: Error during camera setup: No device found
...
...(omitted: one common thing was assertion: device != NULL failed)
...
** (cheese:1592): CRITICAL **: 15:09:30.053: cheese_preferences_dialog_setup_resolutions_for_device: assertion 'device != NULL' failed

Also, the green light on the Macbook indicating that the camera is in use, does not blink at all during the whole process. In addition to that, there's no Application registered to Privacy settings on OSX that has requested Camera access.

I reinstalled VirtualBox, but there's no change after that. I also reinstalled guest Ubuntu but the problem still persists.

I also tried manually attaching camera with terminal command VBoxManage controlvm (vmname) attach .1(or its hardware id starting with 0x), but that does not change anything.

Your problem seems to be that Ubuntu 18.04 doesn't come with support for the FaceTime HD camera out of the box. In addition to setting up VirtualBox correctly (which you seem to have done), you'll also need to install driver support within Ubuntu.

You can use the script given here:

https://gist.github.com/Stono/990ea9f0b3c41606c292f00382d421bf

or download the driver source code manually here:

https://github.com/patjak/bcwc_pcie

The GitHub link also has pointers to a Wiki with more information.


Using Finder, how can I view /System/Library? Using Finder, how can I view /System/Library?

In fact, I'd really like to do the equivalence of a recursive grep for file names from the root directory using Finder. How can I move around the entire file system with Finder?

Press ⇧⌘G (Shift-Command-G) to bring up Go to Folder and type in the path, then click Go as shown in the image below.  Or if using the mouse or trackpad, click: Finder > Go > Go to Folder

You can also change Finder Preferences to show Hard disks on the Desktop under General and or in Devices under Sidebar, thus being able to open the Macintosh HD from the root of the partition without having to use Go to Folder.


Can I use AirDrop if one or more of the participating computers is asleep/off? I'm currently AirDroppping 3 very large files and I need to know if the files will continue to transfer while I'm not using one of the computers.

It should work as long as you have Wake for network access enabled in  System Preferences → Energy Saver → Battery/Power Adapter.

Depending on the capabilities of your Mac, the option's description may differ:

  Wake for network access - Your Mac supports Wake on Demand over both Ethernet and AirPort
  Wake for Ethernet network access - Your Mac supports Wake on Demand over Ethernet only
  Wake for AirPort network access - Your Mac supports Wake on Demand over AirPort only

  [source]

The option "wake for Ethernet network access" is mentioned only to round up the answer. Wake on demand for ethernet will not help if your Macs communicate using Wi-Fi.

However, you can enable AirDrop to communicate using Ethernet as well as explained here. This will also enable AirDrop on so-called unsupported Macs.


Can the OS X Mail dock count be made to show all (not just unread) count of inbox? A few other e-mail applications allow you to set their dock counter to the number of messages in the inbox, rather than just the number of unread messages. The idea being that until it's out of the inbox, it's still an active task that needs to be resolved.

So what I'm after is the ability to do this with Mail.app in OS X Mavericks. Currently there's only a drop-down preference for:

Dock unread count: Inbox only
                   All Mailboxes

Perhaps there's a plug-in or some other app that allows you to override the inbox count with the total count?

Unfortunately, searching on Google for anything to do with the inbox count just brings up hundreds of posts about how the count is wrong/not showing. Hard to find anything useful amongst countless pages about bugs.

DockStar solved the issue for me. It now has an update to support both Mavericks and Yosemite when it comes out. I only tested in on Mavericks though, works great.

The great thing for me was that I have exactly 4 inboxes, so I can add a badge for all of them.


Connect MacBook Pro Retina to VGA data projector What's the best adapter to connect a MBP Retina to a VGA data Projector?


How can I initiate a Google Voice phone call from the command line? Thanks to Brett Terpstra I can easily send an SMS through Google Voice in Terminal, but now I want to be able to initiate a phone call via Termainal too.

There is no Google Voice API (yet?) so I know there is no official way to do it, but I'm hoping that perhaps someone else has had this same issue and already found a solution.

A proper solution would have to not only let me say which number I want to call, but also which number Google Voice should use to call me.

(For those unfamiliar with Google Voice, calls are initiated by your phone receiving an incoming call from Google's servers, and then you are connected to the number that you wanted to call.)

I took a look on Github, but the only potential solution I found was https://github.com/tylerhall/google-voice-dialer which hasn't been updated in 2 years, and I'm not sure how to use it.

You can find the google voice command line script Here

With it, you can simply type

./googlevoice.pl call 12345678

To do a call. Other features like SMS and cancelling a call is there as well.


iTunes USB sync deleted all playlists from my iPhone I just synced my iPhone XS to my MacBook over a USB cable for the first time in a few months because I had some MP3 files I’d added to my iTunes library manually that I wanted to transfer. After the sync finished I discovered that all of my playlists had gone from the Music app on my iPhone. They’re all still there in iTunes. To add insult to injury, the MP3 files hadn’t synced either.

I have Apple Music turned off and don’t use iTunes Match. I have iTunes configured to sync my entire library rather that just selected playlists etc.

My iPhone is running iOS 13.3 and my MacBook is running macOS Mojave 10.14.6.

This stuff used to work reliably for me! Any help with getting my playlists back would be greatly appreciated.

I synced my iPhone with iTunes again this morning and all my playlists came back! Go figure.


How do you access the content of the iPhoto bundle from Time Machine? I would like to access the files of the iPhoto library bundle to retrieve just some of the files to help solving this question about corrupted iPhoto db files properly.

In time machine mode there is no way to show the content of the bundle.

All I can get is a time machine view of the iPhoto application.

Open the iPhoto bundle before your enter Time Machine.

When you start Time Machine, the whole folder looks empty (plain white) - which is probably a bug that still needs a fix (I'm on 10.7.3).
You can get to show the contents by toggling the view options.

BTW: It's also possible to use Go to Folder... via ⌘+⇧+G in Time Machine. But this will not help you to enter the iPhoto bundle - whatever the reason is :(


How to forward an email containing multiple threads with multiple pictures in Mail? I have an email thread I would like to forward. The email thread has a bunch of replies each with pictures.

I can forward and select "include original attachments", but that only includes the images on the most recent reply. Every previous attachment still looks like <PastedGraphic-14.png>. Is there anyway to forward an email including all the actual images?

Mail does not have the ability to search through an email thread and automatically reinsert stripped photos in-place. Doing so would likely result in emails too large to either send or receive (not to mention the amount of development effort involved in implementing such logic).

Your options are:

Go and find every “missing” photo yourself, save them to your desktop (macOS) or camera roll (iOS) then manually attach them all to your forwarded email.
Select each individual email that contains photos, then click Message → Forward as Attachment from the menu bar (also available from the right-click menu). This solution requires a Mac.


Is there a Non-Retina Macbook Pro 2015? I want to buy a new MacBook Pro and I'm wondering if there's a non-retina MacBook Pro 2015.

I'm asking this because on the compare Mac models page (http://www.apple.com/mac/compare/), there's a Non-Retina MacBook Pro, is it 2015 or all 2015 are always retina?


MacBook Pro, Yosemite: change Finder shortcuts I want to reassign  Cmd ⌘   Shift ⇧   F  to a custom command, but Finder reserves it to open 'All My Files'.

I have looked around Preferences-Keyboard-Shortcuts, but the Finder shortcuts do not seem to be listed, so I cannot remove them.

Is there any way to remove the Finder shortcuts so I can assign them to what I want?

Many thanks,

Will.

You first have to assign 'All My Files' to something else [choose some complicated junk you'll never need]
You cannot remove a default, only reassign it.

Then you can add your chosen alternative with  Cmd ⌘   Shift ⇧   F  .
I used Documents to demonstrate, as it was just below

System Prefs > Keyboard > Shortcuts > App Shortcuts.
Finder [in fact no app] will not exist as a listed app until after you make the first shortcut for it.
To set up the first one, click + then select Finder from the drop menu; add your menu title, "All My Files" then your 'junk' key command.
After that, selecting the 'Finder' header from the list will auto-populate the app drop menu, making subsequent entries quicker.


Text To Speech - Custom Rate (not on the slider) In System Preferences, under Dictation & Speech, there is a Speaking Rate setting:

Is there a way to change the Speaking Rate to a value that is not on that slider bar?

For example, if I want the speech rate to be faster than the maximum slider value, how can I do that? There's a way to make the terminal speak certain lines of text faster (e.g. say --rate 500 "hello world"), but I'd like it to be the system-wide setting.

Can this be set using something like default write com.example.apple.speech.rate 999?

I discovered that you can change the VoiceDataRateArray in ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.speech.voice.prefs.plist

I just changed the value of Item 2 to a value of value 500 and rebooted.

Thanks to tyler over at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/macvisionaries/HOR7NWxsDQA


Control haptic engine and force touch from terminal Is there any way that I can create haptic feedback with the integrated force touch trackpad on my rMBP using a terminal command (preferably without AppleScript, but if that's the only way, then sure.)?

Apple hasn't released an API for that, so the answer until someone reverse engineers it (or Apple releases an API) is no.

The best you can do today is read force touch but not influence the haptic feedback or modify that.

https://developer.apple.com/osx/force-touch/


List all Outlook folder and subfolder with Applescript I want to merge an Exchange account in IMAP. I moving all folder manualy in IMAP account but some emails are corrupted and all corrupted mail beging with

  Content-type: multipart/mixed;
      boundary="XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"

  This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand
  this format, some or all of this message may not be legible.`
  .

So, I want to write a script that replaces the corrupted emails in the IMAP account.

The first step I would like to list the folders and then check if the X mail in folder Y is corrupted in the IMAP folder.
If this is the case, copy the mail with same date and sender from same folder in Exchange and delete it.
The first probleme is that I can't list the subdirectories. I have only first folder.

tell application "Microsoft Outlook"
    set theAccount to the first exchange account whose name is "Exchange Account"
    set folderNames to ""
    set allMailFolders to get mail folders of theAccount
    repeat with currentFolder in allMailFolders
        set folderNames to folderNames & id of currentFolder & " - " & name of currentFolder & "
        " -- put a newline
    end repeat
end tell

Try this:

    tell application "Microsoft Outlook"
    set theAccount to the first exchange account whose name is "Exchange Account"
    set theInbox to inbox of theAccount
    set everyFolder to every folder of folder of container of theInbox
end tell

That will get you the sub folders of every folder. Hope that helps!

You can also specify the name of a folder

set theSubfolder to mail folder named "SubFolder Name"


Binding multiple items to clipboard? Is it possible to bind more than one items to the clipboard on osx? Which would possibly get evoked by different shortcuts?
If it is how can I set it up?

I simply need to have a string always available at my disposal, but would like to keep my clipboard free for other uses.

There is a second clipboard in OS X, called the kill-ring. Press Control ^+K to "kill" (cut) the rest of the current line to the kill-ring, and Control ^+Y to "yank" (paste) it.


iTunes Store Sign in Failure: "%%appleId%%" In the past two days I've tried to make an in app purchase in two apps*. I've successfully made purchases in the past, but not with these apps, and both times yesterday and today I've gotten an odd failure. I'm using an iPhone XS Max.
Here's what I do:

Click on remove adds in either app, which gives the "Double click to pay" dialogue.

Double click the side button

Face ID checks and gives a checkmark with "Done" below

Then I get this

Continue takes me to Settings, checks Face ID and shows my billing information with the CVV not filled in.

Input CVV and click Done, I get another Face ID check and get this

Both Cancel and Buy seem to do the same thing at this point, just drop me back to the Account Settings page.
That "%%appleId%%" seems super sketchy. I'm keeping an eye on my credit card and haven't seen any weird charges. If I manually follow the path from the first dialogue I get to the same "Account Settings" page and get the same dialogue with "%%appleId%%"
Otherwise, this seems like it could be a bug. Can I do anything to get around this %%appleId%% error dialog where it won’t let me enter my password or make a purchase?
*(removing ads for both Sudoku Master Edition and Wordscapes)

I had this happen to me and what worked was intentionally failing the Touch ID (or face I think it doesnt matter) so it gives you the option to type in your apple id password


Can homebrew and macports work together to let Firefox-X11 be installed? I want to install firefox-x11 but theres no repo in homebrew, only macports seems to have one, hence I'm at a loss how to get firefox-X11 on a system that relies on homebrew for OSS.

The way I'd solve this is:

install software with macports (Firefox-X11 in particular)
remove macports
install homebrew and still use the software installed by macports (firefox)

I fear this will not work.

No - as removing macports will remove the software it installs. Macports )and Fink) are designed so that they use directories that only they update and control so that they have full control of what happens).

In this case however you can get to this stage.

Remove Homwbrew or at least remove or rename /usr/local
Install macports and check that the /opt/local/bin is at the end of
your path
Install firefox-xll
Reinstall Homebrew or restore /usr/local

As /usr/local/bin is before /opt/local/bin in your path then you will get the Homebrew program before the macports one.


Disable steps count in iPhone 6 Today I opened Health on my iPhone 6 and I realized that it is counting my steps.

However I never enabled this functionality.

Is there a way to disable it?

iOS 8 has Settings => Privacy => Motion & Fitness => Fitness Tracking (On/Off). I don't know if it works; it was on when I just discovered it, yet Health app can't find any motion data. I do walk ...


Wireless Diagnostics: what does "_handleLinkEvent: Got an error trying to queyer WiFi for power. Resetting state variables" mean? I have a Macbook Pro (model 10,1) running OS X 10.9.3 (13D65) with a wireless problem; it keeps dropping connection. That is, it says it's connected, but if you ping a host...even localhost...the packets aren't returned for a period of time, then it comes up, only to lose connection after a few seconds, then it stays down for awhile before cycling back up again. If you turn off the wireless, it can ping localhost just fine. And a wired Ethernet connection works fine.

While troubleshooting I found this line in the logs:

_handleLinkEvent: Got an error trying to queyer WiFi for power. Resetting state variables.

That makes me suspect a hardware issue with the Airport card, but I can't seem to find documentation about that error anywhere. Does anyone know what would cause this or if there's another cause beyond hardware failure?

Example on my MBA 10.9.3

6/18/14 01:48:14.000 kernel[0]: AirPort_Brcm43xx::powerChange: System Sleep
6/18/14 01:48:16.000 kernel[0]: AirPort: Link Down on en0. Reason 8 (Disassociated because station leaving).
6/18/14 01:48:16.579 airportd[80]: _handleLinkEvent: WiFi is not powered. Resetting state variables.

So that is a normal message following a drooped connection or closing the lid.

Open your console and report the lines before that message to see who is shutting your airport down.

Run netstat -i to get a overview of all ongoing activity

sample

Name  Mtu   Network       Address            Ipkts Ierrs    Opkts Oerrs  Coll
lo0   16384 <Link#1>                          7925     0     7925     0     0
lo0   16384 localhost   ::1                   7925     -     7925     -     -
lo0   16384 127           localhost           7925     -     7925     -     -
lo0   16384 localhost   fe80:1::1             7925     -     7925     -     -
gif0* 1280  <Link#2>                             0     0        0     0     0
stf0* 1280  <Link#3>                             0     0        0     0     0
en0   1500  <Link#4>    14:10:9f:f0:29:8c   830672     0   665716     0     0
en0   1500  mba-host.lo fe80:4::1610:9fff   830672     -   665716     -     -
en0   1500  10.5.50/24    10.5.50.95        830672     -   665716     -     -
en3   1500  <Link#5>    32:00:1a:e9:a9:a0        0     0        0     0     0
bridg 1500  <Link#6>    16:10:9f:0f:1e:00        0     0        0     0     0
p2p0  2304  <Link#7>    06:10:9f:f0:29:8c        0     0        0     0     0

Run Airport -I to get more information on the current connection.

sample

agrCtlRSSI: -33
     agrExtRSSI: 0
    agrCtlNoise: -86
    agrExtNoise: 0
          state: running
        op mode: station
     lastTxRate: 130
        maxRate: 144
lastAssocStatus: 0
    802.11 auth: open
      link auth: none
          BSSID: 9c:d3:6d:b3:75:f0
           SSID: Mijas900850808-80_EXT
            MCS: 15
        channel: 8

For debugging and monitoring you can use the build in tool.

Hold the alt key and click on the WiFi icon

at the bottom of the pop up you will find the Open Wireless Diagnostics

In the new window that opens select Utilities in the Window tab.

Run test like Performances to see the signal stability


Apple Mail removes my emails from inbox My mail.app uses IMAP to fetch email from GMail. I use the standard settings given by the configuration wizard in OSX Mountain Lion.

The problem I am facing is that mail.app removes all incoming emails from the inbox. I can only find the emails in the folder All Mail. This happens in mail.app and in GMail (accessed through webmail), as well. The problem must be caused by mail.app, because it resolves when I removed my the GMail account from mail.app.

Is there a way to debug this problem? Any way I can see what instructions mail.app is sending to GMail through IMAP?

Debugging Mail.app on OS X is fairly easy - especially in the case you describe where the problem is with one account.

Get the Incoming Mail server name from preferences (Mail --> Preferences... --> Accounts --> (your account) --> Incoming Mail Server) - it's likely something like mail.gmail.com or imap.gmail.com
Quit Mail
Open terminal and type this all as one long line (it's split here for readability):

/Applications/Mail.app/Contents/MacOS/Mail -LogActivityOnHost imap.gmail.com -LogIMAPErrors YES >& ~/Desktop/MailConnection.log &

The harder part becomes making sense of the volume of data being logged, but again it seems you have a good handle on the scope of the issue. I would take a gander at your IMAP and label settings in gmail preferences to be sure your account isn't suppressing those folders for IMAP delivery.


From a jailbreaked iPhone 3g 4.1 (foreign sim locked) to 4.2 A friend of mine bought an iPhone 3g with a sim card in another country. Some months ago he gave me this iPhone, but he forgot to give me the sim too, so I've jailbreaked it leaving the sim-lock, that is I don't use this iphone for the phone calls.

So now I have a jailbreaked iPhone 3G with iOS 4.1 and I would to pass to iOS 4.2

How should I do? If I simply upgrade from iTunes, will it ask me for active sim card?

Moreover, I've read that if there is a problem, it is no possible to downgrade to 4.1, isn't it?

EDIT

I've the baseband 05.14.02 and bootloader 5.9

I'm not interested to use this iphone for phone calls, but I would maintain the gps.

Is it possible to pass to 4.2.1 maintaining the baseband 05.14.02?

Mac: http://iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=12947

Windows: http://iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=12949


Is there any way to stream audio and video files from Windows laptop to iPhone 6 plus at anytime with my own wifi hotspot? I have a iPhone 6 plus and a laptop with wifi. I just need to stream audio and video files from Windows Laptop at anytime with my own wifi hotspot.

My workarounds:

Have tried VLC Streamer but it streams only video and also only in my office wifi.

Please suggest a best and free method to make it done.

Download FileBrowser App from Apple Store you can get the lite version for free and if you are Jailbroken you can get the full version from Appcake and it will solve your problem

Once you have installed the App connect your PC and phone on the same network. App will scan available devices on the network to connect select your PC and then you can browse the files select the one you want to stream and thats it


Copy single file with I/O errors I would like to copy a file from one disk (HDD with filesystem NTFS) to another (SSD with ExFAT, if it matters).
The problem occurs in the middle of the copy process, showing me the following message:

I have tried to use cp, rsync and dd without any luck.

The rsync command (with --ignore-errors flag) throws me the following error:

rsync: read errors mapping "/Volumes/HDD/File.data": Input/output error (5)
rsync: read errors mapping "/Volumes/HDD/File.data": Input/output error (5)
ERROR: File.data failed verification -- update discarded.
rsync error: some files could not be transferred (code 23) at /BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/rsync/rsync-51/rsync/main.c(996) [sender=2.6.9]

dd just copied a partial data (the part before the problematic sector, without skipping it).

Any ideas how to copy this damn file?

Aside from dd there is also ddrescue although it's not a native OS X/macOS utility, however it can be installed in a number of ways. Personally I prefer to compile directly from source code however Package Managers like Homebrew can be used, or a precompiled binary if one is comfortable accepting a precompiled binary from an non-authoritative source.

Note that to compile from source code or use a package manager you need to have Command Line Tools for Xcode installed. You do not need to have the full Xcode installed, just the Command Line Developer Tools which are only a couple hundred megabyte vs many gigabytes.

The Command Line Tools for Xcode install can be started from Terminal with the following command:

xcode-select --install

To use ddrescue read its manual page, man ddrescue in Terminal, or online: GNU ddrescue Manual


How can a process have 970% CPU usage on a dual-core computer? My MacBook has a dual-core processor with hyperthreading, so 4 software cores. Seems like the maximum CPU usage would be 400%? I missed the screenshot, but today kernel_task shot up to 970% CPU for a split second. How is that possible?

Open Activity Monitor and go to the Window menu. One option under that menu is CPU Usage. Select that and a small window comes up and shows the CPU usage for each core. I think you have 8 cores but this menu item will answer that question.


How can I write a script that opens a notification? Is there an apple script that can click on the notification for me so that I don't have to open the app using a mouse?

I plan to bind this script to a keyboard shortcut and that way I can open incoming notifications with just the keyboard.

Here are two notifications type examples

Note that scripts like this wont work because it attempts to click on a button and there's no consistent button to click on to open a notification. Sometimes its top, sometimes its bottom, sometimes its neither.

What is needed is a script that clicks on the "left" part of the notification, that will always open the app.

Testing under macOS High Sierra, the following line of example AppleScript code, when run, had the following general effects on a notification:

tell application "System Events" to ¬
    click every window of application process "Notification Center"

Open the app for which the notification was from, if it wasn't already opened.
If the app was already open, it would set focus to the app.
If notification from multiple apps, the app on the top notification in the list gets opened/focus, additions apps get opened, if not already open.

Note that with some notifications, they will be dismissed; however, with others, the app will still be opened/focused as applicable but the notification will not be dismissed. These will need to be replied to appropriately.


How to install firefox using the terminal app I am trying to install Mozila Firefox on the school's server via ssh. Given that I have authorization to install it on the server, could someone guide me through the steps to install firefox?

It has to be done through the Terminal, from my remote laptop using ssh instead of the graphical log in.

I am assuming that you already have a connection via Terminal to the school server.

You need to download the .dmg first. Goto the directory in which you want to download the dmg file (command cd \PATH\TO\DIR)

Then enter this into the terminal:

curl http://mozilla.mirrors.tds.net/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/latest/mac/en-US/Firefox%2025.0.1.dmg -o firefox25.dmg

This is the latest Firefox Release for OS X.

Then mount the dmg:

hdiutil attach firefox25.dmg

Goto the mounted dmg (probably under Volumes):

cd /Volumes/Firefox

There you can find the Firefox.app which you can now copy to your Applications folder:

cp Firefox.app /Applications/Firefox.app

To unmount the dmg:

hdiutil detach /Volumes/Firefox


Cannot set permanent Finder window size The following, How to set default finder window size?, works for about a day, then the finder window size reverts to the usual small window. Is there a way to put it in stone that the finder window size shouldn't change? Through Terminal perhaps?

The common trick stops working when you open a new Finder window starting at a folder you've never viewed before—a location that doesn't have any Finder window info saved. You could replicate this by making a new folder on your desktop and then double clicking it to open in a Finder window. You'll see the size has been reset.
I'm pretty sure the "real", permanent Finder default is hard-coded into the Finder binary. I've seen stuff hinting towards that within Hopper.
Here's the next best thing—you can set up an Automator service that quickly resets the front Finder window to your preferred size:

Open Automator, and create a new Quick Action / Service.
Set "Service receives no input in Finder"
Add a "Run Applescript" block.
Paste in: tell application "System Events" to tell application process "Finder" to set size of front window to {770, 460}

Edit {770, 460} to your preferred width and height, respectively. Note that you can find a Finder window's current size by running the following in Script Editor: tell application "System Events" to tell application process "Finder" to get the size of front window.
When you're done, save your Service with a name like "Reset Finder Window Size". You can also go into System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services and assign your Service to a keyboard shortcut.
The first time you run the service, it will likely fail. To fix, open System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Automation and grant Finder the ability to control System Events.


Applescript to forward email but preserve sender How can I make an Applescript that Mail.app on my Mac can run? When it encounters a message that is being sent to mac@email.com, I'd like it to redirect it to email@gmail.com, where the "From" field is NOT mac@email.com, but rather is the "From" field on the original email that was sent to mac@email.com.

E.g., I'm Joe Schmo and I send an email from joeschmo@joe.com to mac@email.com. Then the Apple Script runs and redirects that email to send it to email@gmail.com with the From tag as joeschmo@joe.com

I am planning on setting up a rule in my Mail app that runs this apple script when it encounters a message that is being sent to mac@email.com.

Note: the emails in this example are fake.

You should be able to use the "Redirect" option, under the Message menu. Actually, if I'm reading your question right, you should be able to do this entirely through a rule, with no Applescript needed.

Building from "How to batch forward messages from Mail.app", if you make a rule that targets emails sent to mac@email.com, just say "Redirect Message" to "email@gmail.com".

Example:

Make sense?


Cannot mount USB hard drive I have a 4TB USB hard drive (WB Elements) that I want to mount On a Macintosh Pro 16.
Unfortunately it cannot be mounted and the Mac does not show up any error messages. It also does not show up on "Disk Utility". This same hard drive mounts easily on a linux system and data can be accessed. What is puzzling is that I could mount it a few months ago.
On that same Mac, a 2TB USB hard drive could be mounted. Any ideas on how to proceed?

I have a 4 TB WD drive connected to my iMac running High Sierra (now Catalina) and it works fine. There is a 3rd party app named Mountain that will mount troublesome volumes (or it has for me). If you download from the developer site you get a free trial period. Should be worth a try.


New AppleTV + Drobo FS + HD HomeRun? Anybody have something like that hooked up yet for watching TV and other content on demand?  I've tried pvr's from Tivo and Windows Media Center and they have their shortcomings.  I'd like to have TV recorded on a server and accessible anywhere in the house.  At the TV I'd like to use an Apple TV to access it.

You could jailbreak your Apple TV and install Plex or XBMC and point them at your files. As new files are added, they should find them and let you play them. The nice thing with these two applications is that they will play a lot more than what Apple has decided the Apple TV will play on its own.

If you don't jailbreak your Apple TV, the only way to accomplish anything close to what you are after is to use iTunes Home Sharing. Unfortunately this requires another computer with iTunes running in order to connect and serve content. (It does, however, work quite well, as I can attest, having done this with most of my media content.) Since you want to get at TV content, it would have to be stored in a form that iTunes would import (and you would have to figure out a way to import it automatically). At that point, you are probably going to find the jailbreak route the easier and better of the two.

If you are looking for a direct interface from the Apple TV to manage the recording process (e.g., as in a Tivo-like recording interface), I know of nothing that does this, yet. The jailbreaking scene for the Apple TV (2nd generation) is still pretty new, but they are doing new things every day.


Is there any way to automate the deployment of refurbished apple products? I work for a small company that refurbishes apple products as well as PCs. For our windows machines we use a Windows deployment server that automates the installation and allows us to install from the network. I would really like to have something similar for loading apple products, but so far it looks like the only solutions for this have been deprecated since MacOS 10.13. The only solutions that I could find online seemed focused on businesses that needed to manage their employees computers. I know that apple is generally not that friendly towards third party refurbishers, but I have to assume that there must be a better solution than using a flash drive to install each one.

Why not set up one Mac for content caching and boot to recovery HD?
This installs at gigabit ethernet speeds and works great for 10 at a time. It’s far less setup than imaging to USB and far better in terms of speed, security and in lining the latest firmware and OS updates effortlessly.
If you have even less time per machine to get the erase rolling, hire an Automaton and some inexpensive software to accelerate your erase and install.

https://twocanoes.com/knowledge-base/mds-admin-guide-version-2/

So in terms of time for technician interaction with the Mac, it takes just a few seconds to plug in the Automaton and the external drive, hold the option key to start the startup selector, and then return a few minutes later to disconnect the Automaton and external volume. This can dramatically reduce setup time and result in large savings of time and labor costs.

The Mac software is free and you can get professional / MDM support if you need that level of help.
https://twocanoes.com/products/mac/mac-deploy-stick/
The hardware is $40 if you need 5 helpers. You won’t need either the hardware or the support if you’re a small shop and Apple and Two Canoes give away the network setup software for free that does what you mention on your Windows option.
I list the prices since it’s very reasonable, but all the software from Two Canoes is open source, free and you only pay if you want to support them or need professional support. I am a happy customer of both Apple and Two Canoes - so consider that disclosure if that helps.


ITunes resets syncing of books to "Selected books" instead of "All books" I have both an iPad and an iPhone, and I sync them both with the same computer. I read a lot of ebooks, and I keep them in iBooks, so that I can switch between all my devices. (I also have a number of audiobooks, which I only use from my phone or laptop, never from the iPad).

I have all my devices set to automatically sync all books. But for a while now, when I've synced the iPad, it's reset itself to sync "Selected books" instead of "All books", so that I've had to go back to iTunes and re-select "All books" and do a second sync in order to get all of my books transferred.

This only happens with the iPad, not with the iPhone. I've had this iPad for a while; I don't recall having had the issue the whole time, but I also don't recall exactly when it started or if I did something to cause it.

I have tried doing a complete reset and reinstall of the iPad, but the problem came back as soon as I'd done my first sync.

Is there any way I can make iTunes stop resetting my book sync preferences?

I got the idea to compare the settings for the iPhone and the iPad. The only difference was that I'm syncing all my audiobooks to the phone, but not to the iPad.

So, I turned on the setting "Sync audiobooks" and "All audiobooks". And now the system no longer resets to syncing only selected ebooks.


Transparent locked screen On my iMac, I keep a lot of supervision windows (displaying alarms
and trends).
These windows lead to priviledged access to very sensitive equipments.
I would like to protect this iMac from any accidental typing on the keyboard or mouse mouve, and password protect it from any other local
access.

I would like to be able to start my screen saver (which will lock
my mouse and keyboard by asking my password),
but to keep a full acces to the actual display.

Is there any way to make a transparent locked screen?

Update: Transparent 2.4 works for external displays.

I have this question and tried the other answers.

The JohnnyNash and Transparent screen savers both work .. almost.  They show the main screen, but external displays go black.  The difference between these savers is that JohnnyNash is configured to update in seconds, and Transparent is configured to update in frames-per-second.

The Black Light screensaver boasts many features, but I did not see transparency on the list.

I found a screen saver called LookThrough, which boasts multi-monitor support.  It sort of works in that it displays on all of my displays, but the graphics are glitched up in weird ways.


An alternative to the text editor TextMate for PHP development? I am fed up with the text editor TextMate. It's great, but it's old and keeps crashing on me. No development in (what, 3+?) years, etc.

So I'm looking for a viable alternative, mainly for PHP development. However, I don't want a bloated and slow editor that runs on Java (so NetBeans, Komodo, Eclipse, etc are out), nor something that includes the kitchen sink (goodbye Coda, I already own Espresso but am extremely disappointed that after latest version doesn't include variable autocompletion). BBEdit is a little too bare bones for me.

In summary, as the title says, a TextMate replacement that is modern, stable and still in development. Does such an editor exist?

Have a look at Sublime Text. It basically is what I would expect TextMate2 to be.

http://www.sublimetext.com/


MacBook Pro in sleeping regime Will there be any damage to a MacBook Pro if I keep it in sleeping regime all the time?

The reason I don't switch it off is I had problems with the start button. It stopped working within a year and under guarantee they changed hardware but no one said to me how to exploit it properly or gave recommendations. (It turned out start button is linked to hardware and it's very weak and should not be pressed frequently but instead Macbook must be in sleeping mode to avoid pressing start button often).

In one year the same problem happened. As changing hardware is expensive they offered me to reformat it and all my applications were erased and it seems now it's running software for Macintosh.

What can I do to prevent any troubles?

I normally use the sleep mode 99% of the time.  The only time I ever shut down is when there is a software update that requires it.  Or once  a month or so, I see my machine getting "confused" and a restart seems to resolve the issue.  (I usually just restart and then continue, using sleep when done for the time being.)


How to access environment variables in Javascript for Automation on OS X? I am using JavaScript for Automation in an Alfred workflow. I want to access the various environment variables that Alfred sets up. How do I access the environment variable like alfred_version?

I do not have Alfred installed however I would think the following method should work.

For example, using the Script Editor set to JavaScript the following code returned my login name.

ObjC.import('stdlib')
$.getenv('LOGNAME')

So, I'd assume that if "alfred_version" is the actual environment variable, then the following might work as well.

ObjC.import('stdlib')
$.getenv('alfred_version')


How to set up multiple PATHs in the user bash_profile in OSX 10.8? I am looking to set up my laptop for both Python development and Phonegap Android development in OSX 10.8 using Eclipse. I installed the lastest version of Python (3.3) which added the code:

# Setting PATH for Python 3.3
# The orginal version is saved in .bash_profile.pysave
PATH="/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.3/bin:${PATH}"
export PATH

to my .bash_profile. In process of setting up Phonegap you need to set up the PATH for the Android Development tools with the following line:

export PATH=${PATH}:/Development/android-sdk-macosx/platform-tools:/Development/android-sdk-macosx/tools

Is it possible to set up both PATHs in the .bash_profile so that Python and Android development can take place simultaneously? Or would I need to switch between the PATHs depending on what type of development I would like to do?

Yes, it is perfectly possible to have both statements coexist happily in .bash_profile. This file is evaluated sequentially from top to bottom, and the same environment variable ($PATH in this case) can be modified multiple times. If you wish, you can edit both into a single command:

export PATH="/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.3/bin:${PATH}:/Development/android-sdk-macosx/platform-tools:/Development/android-sdk-macosx/tools"

to do both modifications at the same time, but this is no different from your current setup. Happy Pythoning!


How can one filter MULTIPLE processes in Activity Monitor? How can I look at several processes at once, instead of just one?

For example… typing in bash, shows bash processes.. how to I show both bash and say httpd?

First thoughts.. bash|httpd, no.  Or bash httpd, no.  Long story short, nothing i tried worked.  Is it possible?

This doesn't seem to be possible with Activity Monitor. Unfortunately top doesn't accept several pids to monitor either, so you have to revert to a half-manual (and rather unelegant) solution using Terminal:

while :; do
    clear
    top -l 1 -pid PID-TO-MONITOR | tail -1
    top -l 1 -pid ANOTHER-PID-TO-MONITOR | tail -1
    sleep 5
done

Given some basic bash skills you can wrap this into a shell script if needed often.

Or open several terminal windows and run top on specific processes in each of them. Might be kind of heavy on your CPU though...


How can you tell what time a photo sent via iMessage was taken? If a picture is iMessaged to me, how can I tell what time that photo was taken? When I save it, it changes the EXIF info to the time I save it (which isn't helpful). I am trying to see if a stranger is lying to me, for my safety.

You can figure out what date & time an image was taken1 (and the GPS coordinates of where it was taken2) by saving the image to your camera roll, opening this online metadata viewer, and loading the photo into that tool.
1 This can be manually modified with a metadata editor or be made incorrect by setting the device time to something that isn't the current time.

2 As long as the Location permission was granted by the photographer in their Camera app, and the metadata wasn't manually scrubbed of this (note that it can be made incorrect by a metadata editor too).

Here's a sample result:


Airplay mirror iPad to mac but let audio play from iPad Scenario:
I'm trying to mirror my iPad to my iMac using the Reflection app.  Everything works fine but the reason I'm doing this is to record myself making a real time mix using the app Djay.

Problem:
The audio that is streamed to my computer is off by a second, so that makes it nearly impossible to actually time my transitions right.  I want to let my iPad mirror itself but allow myself to hear the audio straight from the iPad instead to bypass that problem.  Should I use a HDMI capture card instead?  Or is there some kind of audio splitter cable that actually retrieves the audio despite airplay running?

Side Notes:
I do have Djay for Mac, the only reason I'm doing this is to have my video stand out from the regular mix videos.

I think an HDMI solution would work better in this case because you need as little latency as possible for music. The company I work for is considering trying a Blackmagic Intensity Shuttle or Intensity Extreme HDMI interface and converter, which cost US $300 at retail. I have no experience with them. You will need a Thunderbolt, PCI or USB 3 interface to your Mac to use a Blackmagic Intensity.

Part Two

I'm also a registered user of the Reflection app, and I've been in touch with their tech support staff. They point out that latency and frame rate depend on the specifications of the WiFi router through which the iPad sends its audio and video to the Mac. When you connect the iPad's video and audio to the Mac using AirPlay, are you using a WiFi G router (slow), or a WiFi N router (five times as fast as WiFi G)? Furthermore, you should probably connect the Mac directly to the router via an Ethernet cable, and not use WiFi on the Mac at all. Test this with a WiFi N (802.11n) router in close proximity to the iPad broadcasting with AirPlay and see if performance improves and latency decreases.

If you are using this setup in performance as a DJ, you might want to set up your own router in your DJ rig, whether it's connected to the Internet or not, so you can ensure the fastest connection between the iPad and the Mac.

If that doesn't produce acceptable results, then the HDMI hardware might be the next thing to try.


Default screen saver after timed log out Can the default screen saver that kicks in after timed log out, be customised? Default is irritating 'Pong' type with computer's name bouncing around.

System Preferences > Desktop and Screen Saver. Many to choose from.

Note: You won't find the fff. screensavers in your list. They're old and I'm not sure they work.


Cannot quit iTunes in OS X Lion Every time I try to quit iTunes (⌘ + Q) in OS X lion I encounter some strange problem and after some seconds I find it has run itself again!

If I use ⌘ + Tab I see iTunes in my running application.

Why could be causing this and how do I stop it?

I’ve experienced that kind of behavior from iTunes when an application keeps a connection to iTunes’ AppleScript interface open – whenever iTunes tries to quit, the open connection forces a restart. Are you running any kind of tool or app accessing iTunes? Menu bar control apps, sync solutions, or maybe an audioscrobbler? If yes, try to quit that first and see if iTunes quits cleanly after that.


How do I allow the opening of all applications from a specific website? I frequently download from an unidentified developer, and I want to be able to always allow opening downloads from them. How can I do so?

However, I don't want to keep an option to allow apps downloaded from anywhere, although on a side note that option seems to have strangely disappeared.

This is the only option I'm aware of:

Navigate to 'System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General'
Click the lock on the bottom left of the window and enter an admin password
Click the radio button that says 'Anywhere'
Click the lock in the bottom left of the window again to prevent further changes

You would have to remember to go back and change it though when you're done downloading applications from that specific website/developer. Yes, it's a pain, but you could set a reminder for yourself with a date on it so that your Mac can remind you to change it back at a certain time!


Different keyboard for different programs? I'm looking for a Mac program that will change the keyboard layout based on the program that is currently in use. I want it to re-map certain keys to new mappings, not change the whole keyboard layout. For example, when I'm in the finder, I have a normal Mac keyboard layout. When I'm in Vim, I want to remap the escape key to one that is more reachable. Ideally this would just happen when I'm in the program without having to choose a modified layout from the keyboards option in the menu bar. I have several programs that I'd like to be able to do this with.

For Vim case, you could use Option+[ key combination, which is essentially equal to Escape. This is the default behaviour. True, it is two-key combination, but with little practice, you won't need to move your hands off the keyboard.

For the other applications you could use Karabiner problably.


Finding the Holy Grail of PIM. (Was: is there a good replacement for AddressBook Lion?) The Address Book application in OS X Lion is sorely lacking in its ability to sync & combine contacts from different sources. Does anyone know of a good replacement?

Update - My Holy Grail:

I use a personal Gmail account and a work Google Apps account.
I'd like to have the same info available on my iPhone, iPad, work Mac, home Mac, and Google via a browser.
While I'm at it, let's throw in connecting to my contacts in Twitter and Facebook, though those are much lower priority.
I'd like a local copy of all the info in case the cloud isn't available.
iCloud syncing isn't really a priority, since I use Google for that, but I could see switching what I can if things would work better.
Ideally, groups would be sync-able, in addition to contacts, but I don't think google exposes that via their APIs yet.

Currently, I'm seeing a lot of duplicates, or near duplicates in both iCal & AddressBook, and it's very difficult (impossible?) to see where a given contact or appointment is coming from. In the past I used Spanning Sync to keep google and the local in sync. Perhaps that + iCloud is where the dupes are coming from.

Update 2: My current set-up is working fairly well on the iOS devices w/ Exchange connections to google. It's the macs where I find myself tempted to abandon the desktop apps for doing everything in the browser.

You could have a look at Cobook. I've just started using it and it seems like it unifies things pretty well. It uses the default OS X address book as a backing so that everything syncs nicely to your iPhone. It will also pull in data from your social networks so there's your added functionality.


iOS 8 Handoff does not work between iPhone and iPad So i'm getting really frustrated with the new and the best feature of iOS 8 - Handoff. I've tried many different ways to make it work, but nothing helped:

Tried various methods of restarting both devices (with Handoff checked, without).
Tried turning off/on bluetooth, AirDrop, WiFi.
Changed AirDrop to Contacts Only / Everyone.
Changed different WiFi networks (we're using AirPort Extreme in our office, so that should not be a problem).
Tried tinkering with iCloud options (turning on/off various services).
Tried to turn passcode on/off.
Tried to turn on/off shared apps settings (my apps, app store).

I have an iPhone 5S and iPad Mini Retina, so incompatibility for hardware reasons is out of question here.

And another weird thing is that my colleague has an iPhone 5 and iPad Mini Retina, and Handoff works for him perfectly. We both don't have Yosemite on our Mac Airs yet, so that is off the question here too.

What could be wrong? How can i possibly find atleast where to start with this problem? The answers on the interwebs are scarce, and i would need at least a way to find some log, or something like that to begin with (I Have IT background, so im hopefull at least to find a thread to hang on).

This is the best feature for me in iOS 8, the one I was waiting for, and now that this is happening... I'm out of words about how Apple works... And I think there are many people with same problem, so maybe some of you had found a way to fix this?

Ok, so the problem here was that somehow my iPhone was connected to iCloud... But it wasn't at the same time... This is really weird, and Apple should at least notify on this somehow, because my iPhone was connected to iCloud and synced. Wow.

Worked the same for me, though also required e) after a) to d):

a) going to the apple discussions (as mentioned) to 'register' my device(s) with my apple id. (weird)

b) turning iMessages off and on (on both devices)

c) turning my icloud off and on (on both devices) (scary dialog boxes, push on)

d) turning by bluetooth off and on (on both devices)

and finally, after none of that worked,

e) turning both devices off and on.

Presto, it finally worked.  The feature only seems to work if the email or message or calendar (whatever you want to hand-off) is actually open on the screen on one of the devices.  Unlock other device and the email or messages or whatever icon appears bottom left.  Swipe it up and roll.

I have had a few of these issues with icloud and apple id's.  Seems like you really have to reset all icloud and messages services to get hand-off working properly.


Cannot calibrate indoor run for Apple Watch 6 How can I calibrate the Apple Watch 6 manually so that the indoor running estimation gets more accurate ? I run a little faster than average, so it underestimates about 300 meters per kilometer. That sucks. I have all the settings correct for using outdoor runs as a data foundation for calibration (I have a lot of runs), but it doesn't make much of a difference. Maybe I move a little bit differently on the treadmill and obtain a more stable posture with more of a constant speed with flat and nice elevation compared to a more up and down all the time environment outside. I don't know. Is it possible to do this manually now ? (I know it is not possible on Apple Watch 2, but I was sure that it was going to be possible now ... It's 2020 ... duh!). Help.

There is no manual calibration. You can hope that your indoor stride matches your outdoor stride and use it to refine the step lengths.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204516

The system calculates stride length based on GPS and pace, so if you’re is off, resetting the existing calibration and repeating the outdoor calibration in straight line / flat conditions might be worthwhile.


Missing .Bash Files in ~/ While uninstalling/removing home-brew, node, and yeoman...I noted that I don't have a .bashrc or .bash_profile in my home directory. I only have .bash_history present.

Why is this? Is this bad? If it's bad, how can I fix this?

It's not a bad thing. You don't need a .bash_profile, but if you want one, simply re-create ~/.bash_profile as an empty file.

~/.bashrc is not sourced by default in OS X.


Do terminal TTYs for iOS and macOS exist? Seeing that multiple TTYs exist on FreeBSD and Darwin, and they provide the core of macOS and iOS, how would I access such TTYs? And would they be multiple instances of GUIs or would they involve terminals? I would very much prefer for there to be an environment similar to FreeBSD for testing purposes.

Please enlighten me as to whether or not such environments exist (or can exist) on Apple's OSes. I am interested in whether or not I can create one as a proof-of-concept, whether it can be on iOS 13 beta, iOS 5, macOS Mojave, or macOS Snow Leopard.

TTYs exist and operate in Mac OS X and macOS just as they do in any other UNIX or UNIX-like operating system. When macOS boots, the TTY that inits to subsequently load the GUI is always console. Subsequent TTYs opened from Terminal.app or other emulators are listed from ttys000 and the digits increment one at a time.

You can open Terminal and check your TTY as in the examples below:

$ tty
/dev/ttys000

Or

$ who
trane    console  Sep  1 05:18
trane    ttys000  Sep  1 05:19
trane    ttys001  Sep  1 05:19

Or

$ w
13:04  up 1 day,  7:46, 3 users, load averages: 1.85 2.02 3.87
USER     TTY      FROM              LOGIN@  IDLE WHAT
trane    console  -                Sun05   31:45 -
trane    s000     -                Sun05       - w
trane    s001     -                Sun05       9 -bash

For more information on those commands, see the relevant man pages. For e.g., type man who and quit using q.

It's worth noting that macOS only runs one instance of the Aqua GUI for a particular display device.


Use an Apple Pencil in a web page? I am developing a web application for a client who is planning to use an iPad when interviewing staff (as part of the recruitment process).  Can I use Apple Pencil 2 to collect information in a web page?  Specifically:

Can I use it to fill out a html <input> or <textarea> field?
Can I use it to create a file (which I would attach), i.e. a PDF, GIF, something like that?

Yes, you can use the Apple Pencil 2 to collect information in a web page.

Yes, it can also be used to fill out <input> and <textarea> fields. However, it might not be in the manner that you imagine. If you're hoping that all browsers convert handwriting into computer text when you "draw" on top of an <input> - then you're unfortunately wrong. Instead you'll be able to use a virtual keyboard with the pen to enter text into <input> and <textarea> form fields.

Yes, you can use use Apple Pencil 2 to create files that can be "attached" (i.e. uploaded) from a web page. There's both built-in apps as well as third party apps that allows you to create PDFs, image files, etc. on iPads. These files could for example contain drawings made with the pencil. Browsers support the standard <input type="file"> field for uploads on the iPad.

If you want the user to be able to use handwriting directly on your web page without having to create PDFs or image files, then you can use the <canvas> element. You can easily find many tutorials on how to use the <canvas> element along with a few lines of Javascript to convert touch events from the Apple Pencil 2 into drawings on the canvas (either simple line segments or more advanced bezier curves). This is commonly used to support collecting signatures with the Apple Pencil 2.


Hierarchical Smart playlists vs Smart playlists What does the "..." button in the iTunes "Edit Smart Playlist" dialog do? And how is specifying a condition using that any different than a condition specified otherwise (by clicking the "+" button).

The only link I could find on that is iPod nano: Hierarchical Smart Playlists do not update on device and that doesn't clarify anything.

The "..." allows to nest criteria for smart playlists.

Say you would like a smart playlist that contains all tracks from Bob Dylan or the Beatles with a score of 3 stars or better.

Without hierarchical rules you only have the options of getting the tracks that match all or any of your rules.

With hiearchical rules you can have the condition all on one level and any on another level.

It seems that nested rules exist since iTunes 9; see also a screenshot.

Here is my example:

Match all rules

Rating is greater than 3 stars
any of the following

Artist contains Bob Dylan
Artist contains Beatles


Does Find My iPhone send a notification when being reset? If I use Find My iPhone to reset my phone, will it give a notification that it's being reset? Someone has my phone and they will eventually get my passcode and I NEED to reset it so they dont see everything thats on my phone but I don't want them to know that I reset it.

When you send a remote erase, it's as if the device is new out of the box. The welcome screen is presented to the user.

If the device is activation locked, it will still be locked. If it's not locked, the person in possession of the device can set it up as they choose.

No record of the event is stored - so they may be able to assume you wiped it. If there was a passcode lock and they were guessing, it's not possible for them to know if they caused the erase or you did in all likelihood. If they didn't touch it, they could conclude it was buggy (unlikely) or wiped (likely).


Unable to install Microsoft Office 2001 on Mac OS X I want to install Microsoft Office 2001 on a Mac OS X whose version is 10.6.8.
There is a folder  and it has folders named Clipart, Office, Read Me, RESOURCE.FRK, Shared Applications and Templates. It also has Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Entourage, these are Unix Executable Files.
I'd like to know how I can install Office 2001 on this machine. I don't have any prior Mac OS experience. Thanks.

Office 2001 isn't designed to run natively on OS X. It needs either OS 9 or some form of translation software.

Apple used to provide this in the form of Rosetta, which was part of the OS X operating system until OS X 10.6 in 2009.
It used to be available as an additional download by launching the App Store, or by installing it from the 'Extras' folder on the original 10.6 installer disks.

I'm not certain if Office 2001 is even actually too old to run under Rosetta, or whether it must be run specifically under the Classic Environment, i.e. OS9.
Office X was released to specifically address that.

The simplest workarounds might be

Get a newer version of Office, that supports OS X [possibly costly]
Get OpenOffice, which ought to be able to work with most Office documents, regardless of age [free]


Restoring to a 10.6.8 from Time Machine that backed up a 10.8 system I spilled coffee on my Macbook Air and didn't turn it off in time. It's fried.
I have a Time Machine backup of the entire system. I believe it was running 10.8 when it died.
I want to format my old Macbook 2008 (currently running 10.6.8) and restore my system to the old Macbook.  Is it possible, even though the system was running 10.8?

Would it be better to upgrade to 10.7 on the old Macbook and THEN do the Time Machine restore?

Options:

Upgrade to Mavericks: it's free, and you can upgrade directly from 10.6.8 to 10.9. Then use Migration Assistant to restore the Time Machine backup. This is fully supported.
Upgrade to Mountain Lion; if you don't already own it, get it here. Then use Migration Assistant to restore the Time Machine backup. This is fully supported.
With some difficultly, you might be able to migrate your data manually. If you try this, you should probably clone your Time Machine backup volume first (just to be safe).

Edit:

When I wrote this response, I assumed the old "Macbook 2008" supported OS X 10.8 and 10.9. Then I checked everymac.com:

MacBook (2008 white or black): Maximum OS X: 10.7.5

OP did not specify which model the old 2008 MacBook is. If it's a unibody MacBook, or a MacBook Pro, or an "NVIDIA" MacBook Air, then the best option is to update to Mavericks (option 1), or if you really don't want Mavericks, then upgrade to Mountain Lion instead (option 2).

If it's a black or white MacBook, or an "original" MacBook Air, then it won't support Mavericks or Mountain Lion at all.


Cannot upgrade iPad Air 2 from iOS 9 to iOS 13 I recently got hold of an iPad Air 2 that was sitting in a drawer. Had it recharged, seems to hold the charge. However it has iOS 9.3.1 and it says it cannot upgrade to 13 over the wire.

It requires iTunes and a computer. I also have a MacBook Pro (2014) running Mojave (10.14.6) so I fired up iTunes and connected the iPad via a USB cable.

The iTunes app sees the iPad and recommends upgrading to iOS 13. It asks me if I want backup. Nothing valuable on the iPad so I continue without backup. The iPad locks suddenly (no timeout). Then iTunes app (on Mac) asks me to type the unlock code on the iPad in order to continue. I do that and the iPad unlocks.

Then nothing happens. Neither on the Mac nor on the iPad.

Will provide any other information as necessary. Let me know in the comments.

What gives?

I'm not sure why iTunes recommends iPadOS (iOS 13 equivalent for iPad), but it won't update as the iPad 2 is not compatible with iPad OS, and the highest software it can go to is iOS 9.3.5.

Here is a list of compatible devices on the Apple website:

  12.9-inch iPad Pro.

  11-inch iPad Pro.
  10.5-inch iPad Pro.
  9.7-inch iPad Pro.
  iPad (7th generation)
  iPad (6th generation)
  iPad (5th generation)
  iPad mini (5th generation)
  iPad mini 4
  iPad Air (3rd generation)
  iPad Air 2

You should be able to update to iOS 9.3.5 using the standard Software Update page (accessed by going to Settings -> General) over the internet without a computer.

The only thing you'll get from updating from iOS 9.3.1 is some security fixes, so leaving your device at that isn't a major issue.

Solution for OP

The solution was to restart iTunes on the Mac.


Messages see chat history? I am a little confused, I am using Messages but after like 20 messages the previous messages disappear. How can I increase it or go back and look at previous messages?

Messages are saved in the User ~Library/Messages folder on your computer, messages from any device. Attachments too. This makes for a very nice backup and reference that can, in addition, be easily read with QuickLook.


iCal can't add event invitations to iCloud calendars When someone sends me an iCal event invitation over email, I can't seem to properly add it to a calendar I'm storing on iCloud and accessing via CalDAV.

After accepting the invite, I get the error "https://p06-caldav.icloud.com:443/150624888/principal/ is not a location that supports this request." and I must choose "Revert" or "Go to server..". Sometimes, hitting "Revert" will keep the event in my calendar until the next update, when it will vanish. Hitting "Go to server" will immediately remove the event from my calendar and act like I never saw the event invitation in my email.

If I try to duplicate the event and store it on my mac instead of on iCloud, iCal thinks that I've created a new event and proceeds to email everyone who was invited.

Quite annoying, and embarrassing. Anyone know a fix?

Apple discussion boards point to a name collision between calendar or reminder lists:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3384144

Try deleting or renaming the Reminder list on icloud.com (after backing up reminders)


Enable iPhone Voicemail Divert I have an iPhone 4 running iOs 6.1.3.

I have just switched from O2-UK to T-Mobile.

O2 supported Visual Voicemail and T-Mobile does not (at present)

I have set up my voicemail by dialling 222.

However, I want to set up the diverts (no answer, unreachable, busy) to voicemail but cannot find an option for this anywhere in the Settings app.

How do I switch these on?

After some further googling I have sorted this now. It appears that all UK T-Mobile users get an individual Voicemail divert number. Dialling 222 for the first time should have set this up for me but it didn't.

This worked for me:

I completely reset all divert options by dialing ##004#
I then re-dialled 222 and a message said that number had been set up and I need to reboot the phone.
I also got an SMS with my voicemail divert number in it.
I rebooted my phone and sent **004*+[the number from my sms]#

My voicemail is now working as expected!


Charge iPad Pro 12.9 on an USB 3 port? I just read through Fast Charging iPad Pro 12.9 and am intrigued.

However I'd like to use the USB 3 port on my MacBook air instead of buying a new power brick just for the iPad Pro.

Has anybody tried to use an USB 3 -> USB C adaptor in conjunction with Apples USB C to Lightning cable?

I haven't found an USB 3 to USB C adaptor only USB C to USB 3. Maybe that answers my question already.

I guess that's the answer.
Wikipedia:

Adapters and cables with a Type-C receptacle are not allowed.(41)


Is there a third-party iTunes store browser? I like browsing through the iTunes store's music content, but I really don't like the UI on the macOS iTunes store application (Macbook Pro). Is there a third-party app that emulates the iTunes store (API calls and whatnot)?

Edit: I was talking about my computer the whole time, not the iOS iTunes store. Whoops.

A very basic way to browse the iTunes Music Store with less of bling-bling and no ads is nashville:

Open Terminal and install nashville:

sudo gem install nashville

After the gems are installed, choose an inspiring coloring scheme:

osascript -e "tell application \"Terminal\" to set background color of window 1 to {56000,450,10000,0}"

Now search for an artist, an album or a song.

Check its --help or its [command] --help. By entering its preview [previewUrl] you can also listen to some music previews with an external player like QuickTime Player.


Reassign Trackpad Gestures? The current behavior for an upward four-finger swipe on the trackpad is to move all Windows to the side and display your desktop.  I personally have no use for this since I keep absolutely nothing on my desktop.   Is there a way to reassign this gesture to something else?

For instance, I'd like to reassign it to Activate Spaces, since I'm a heavy Spaces user.

I'd prefer a non-third party solution to this, if such a solution exists within the bowels of OSX somewhere.  If not, a third-party solution will suffice.

Possible a duplicate, but of course BetterTouchTool


Stolen MacBook Pro - Locating via Serial Number Someone has broken into my apartment and stolen my MacBook Pro and my roommate's Mac. Neither of the two devices was logged in to iCloud. Is there a way to track my device through its serial number?

In short: No, you can't

Why?
Well, according to Apple, Find My Mac is the only Apple service that can help track or locate a lost Mac. If you didn’t set up Find My Mac before your Mac was lost, you can’t locate it, this includes the serial number.

What Can You Try?

Your best bet would be to "report your lost or stolen Mac to local law enforcement. They might request the serial number of your computer." - Apple.
There are databases for submitting lost device's serial numbers, these alert buyers for example when a device is marked stolen. I'd recommend getting onto this as soon as possible.

At set up and with macOS upgrades, Apple almost forces all this additional security because it works. By default, services like the Find My Mac are checked, you would have had to make the conscious decision not to enable the service. Naturally, what isn't enabled can't be called upon.


ipadOS 14 showing emails unread Updating iPad to 14, old emails that show as read on Mac Catalina and iPhone 13.7 show as unread on iPad. How can I get the “read” status in sync on iPad without reading every single one of them?  All three devices are IMAP so I would expect it to just work correctly.  I don’t want to update iPhone to 14 until this works.  Do I need to delete and recreate the email account on iPad (and then on iPhone)? Or will the same thing happen again? What an annoying bug! Thanks.

It’s not clear which mail client you’re using, but this isn’t a bug with the native app on iOS 14 and just something that happens.
Since you have IMAP, I would delete the account from any device you feel is out of sync. In your case, delete the account(s) from the iPad and then power cycle the iPad.
Add in one account only and see how it reacts. If fine, repeat until you’re happy. If not, there are other more intrusive steps you could take.


Can I backup a Time Capsule to a HDD drive connected to its USB port? I have a 2TB Time Capsule and multiple external HDDs.

I recently bought a 4TB external drive, now I'd like all my files, in all my HDDs to go to the 4TB drive that is connected through USB to the Time Capsule, including its internal drive!
How can I make this happen?

So, is there a solution to backup to a new Time Machine on the 4TB drive that includes the Time Capsule's internal drive, my computers, and two external HDDs?

Time Machine does not include external drives by default —but this can be changed if the external drives are formatted for Mac: click the Options button on the Time Machine preferences and remove the desired external disk from the Exclude this items from backup list so it will be backed up.

Time Machine does not backup network resources.
You could move the contents from your Time Capsule to a local or external HFS USB disk to back them up.


How to sync music from old PC to new PC? I have a new iPhone 6 and need to get my non-purchased music from the old iPhone 4S to the new phone.

When I connect to iTunes on the new PC (with the old phone) and select Sync Music I get the warning asking me if I'm sure, and do I want to remove existing music etc. from this iPhone. And of course I don't because all the music I need is on that old iPhone. The old PC crashed and is no longer available. How can I transfer the songs to the new phone without having access to the old PC that the 4S used to sync with?

I backup all media contents from my old iPhone 4 to iCloud, and then login the same account on the new iPhone 6, and then sync all media to the new phone, quite convenient.


Projector black at any resolution when connecting MacBook Pro Retina A colleague of mine bought a brand new MacBook Pro Retina. She wants to use it in lectures in connection with a projector. I can't tell what brand the projector is of since it is a very big lecture hall. But it is definetly a good and expensive one. So I don't think the following problem occurs on that end of the connection:

Whenever she connects her MBP to the projector with a HDMI cable, the MBP seems to detect it and changes its resolution. But the display on the wall stays black no matter which resolution I choose in the system preferences.

Has anybody experienced something similar? Could it be a problem with the color profiles?

Opposite of your thoughts that the problem lies at the Mac end, I'd personally search on the projector first.  If the supplied signal is somehow out of range, the projector should beam some feedback by showing an error on the wall.

Perhaps you haven't selected the right source on the projector.  Does the projector handles a different HDMI source correctly?

Being such an expensive projector and all, connecting it to a (n old) Apple TV could do wonders.  It's cheap, neat, wireless and well implemented in OSX and iOS.  If your environment is Apple focused I won't hesitate and try it out.


NotesApp in iPhone 6s Plus w/ iOS 10.2.1 My iPhone has 16 notes. When I used a forensic tool to examine my phone, it recovered 27 notes, the 16 that I have and 11 "deleted" notes. All the "deleted" notes are named variations of 3 of the 16 notes. Each deleted note is a variation of the live note. I checked notes.sql db and although it only lists the 16 notes, I found the "deleted" portions at different offsets in the hex. My first thought was that the deleted notes were old / edited versions however, it seems that some of the deleted content has crossed from other notes or the note content is duplicated or tripled in the deleted portions. How does NotesApp deal with deleted/edited content from a note? Why is there "deleted" notes if they are still active? Any info would be appreciated.

It has to do with the storage format "sqlite" that is used by Notes.app. Sqlite is a very common storage format used by very many apps, and also for programs on desktop computers, in embedded systems, etc.

The "sqlite" format makes it possible to structure data to enable fast searching, updating, etc. However, it is organized in such a way that when an application delete data, it is actually not "erased" as such on disk. Instead smaller blocks of data are marked as non-used. When the user adds new data these smaller blocks are reused in order to improve performance and ensure that the on-disk file does not grow unlimited.

This is why you can see parts of deleted notes inside the file, and also why you can see parts of differents notes "cross each other" in the file. The file is simply not read by the app in a linear fashion (i.e. from start to end), but instead in terms of blocks in various patterns accounting for the various writes and deletes that happened to the file over time.