Device enrollment fails, error: server certificate is invalid I have an Xserve running 10.7.2 Server fully patched today.

We have a valid SSL from GoDaddy installed.
Lion's firewall is off, hardware firewall is not blocking any traffic.

From an iPad I can access the profile manager through the webpage https://mydomain.com/profilemanager and log in successfully.  I can install the Trust Profile successfully.

When I try enroll the device it gives me this error:

The server certificate for "https://mydomain.com/devicemanagement/api/device/ota_service" is invalid

This issue is resolved.  When installing the SSL cert from GoDaddy in Lion server there are two items that need to take place outlined in GoDaddy's guide for OS X Server 10.6:

Install Intermediate Chain
Install Certificate

The Intermediate Chain had not been completed and thus the Certificate was from showing as coming from an unsigned authority. Once the Intermediate Chain had been installed I was able to successfully enroll the device.


Macbook crashed, need help finding out why I was running Football Manager 2020 with Spotify playing in the background and Firefox was running as well.
Mac suddenly crashed (cursor doesn't move) and audio starts looping – went on for a good 5-10 seconds? Then it shuts down by itself, and the fan ramped up to full speed for a second after it shut down.
Chain of events: cursor/visual stuck - audio loop - display turns to black - fan full speed - fan stops - Mac restarts.
Upon restart, Firefox has logged me out of all my accounts, but not Spotify or Steam client. Was Firefox the reason? I copied the crash report too if anyone could have a look and translate what it all means (can I post on here?) – I hope it's not overheating? I played Football Manager 2020 for some time now on my Mac and this was the first time it crashed, and usually I see the temperature runs on average 55-70c while on it.
Cheers
Macbook Pro 2020 13" i5

panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff801742595f): "compressed PTE 0xfffffe818487a938 0xc010000000000000 has extra bits 0x8000000000000000

Your system was under memory pressure and the virtual memory subsystem started compressing memory. At some point, one of the compressed page table entries (PTEs) became corrupted. The kernel attempted to repair this corruption but was unable and so it rightly induced a panic rather than allowing the OS to continue running in an inconsistent state.
Memory corruption can happen for a great deal of reasons, including software bugs, hardware bugs, and even cosmic rays occasionally knocking out enough electrons in your DRAM to flip a bit. In order to further debug corruption, we would need to have a core dump from the time of failure. Short of that, there’s no way to begin to discern between the above three possibilities.
What this means for you is: Don’t worry about it too much if this is a one-off event. If, however, you begin to see panics and hangs more regularly (especially if you try repeating the same workload) then that is good data to collect.
(All that being said: Make sure that you always maintain an ongoing backup of your data. While rare, memory corruption can indicate an incipient hardware failure that may render your machine unusable. Computers are never to be fully trusted.)


Deleted I tunes Backup file I deleted my most current I Tunes back-up file, it had my daughter's BDay photos from last night. I have been on the phone with an Apple agent and no luck.  It seems strange to me that this file would not be in the trash bin or somehow be able to be extracted.  Where could it have gone?  Is there someone out there or a product that can help me locate this back up? BTW, I thought it was an older back-up so I deleted it. (the name confused me- Iphone 3 rather than Iphone 5).  They are not on iCloud and I do not use Time machine, so my only hope is to recover from my iMac.

Thanks

You can get one of many data recovery softwares. They are not free. It doesn't matter what kind of content you lost, so recovering the iTunes backup is the same process as recovering a text document, etc.

First of all, stop using the computer (or that particular hard drive). The more you use it, the more files are written to disk, and you lower your chances of being able recover the file.
I have had good experiences with Data Rescue in the past. (http://prosofteng.com).

If the deleted file was on the same drive as your OS (the boot drive), you will need to use a different system for the recovery software. You can download and install your recovery software of choice on a different Mac, then boot your iMac in Target Disk Mode and connect them via FireWire. (http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1661)

If the deleted file was on an external drive, you don't need a second Mac; just run the recovery software. In any case, you will need to know the location the file was deleted from. Normally that would be ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/


MS Word documents changing to .cpio files and then to .zip files I really need help with this issue: whenever I try to open a word document file from my Mac, the archive utility application opens up and turns the .doc file into a .cpio file and if I click on that it then turns into a .zip file.

I've tried to research and even called Mac Support and they were not helpful. I just want my MS Word files to open up when I double click on them. I don't know how to stop the archive utility from opening up. It's a repetitive cycle of .cpio file to .zip file to .cpio and so on.

If anyone knows how to fix this issue please let me know.

When a document opens with the wrong app the first thing to do is see what macOS thinks should happen.

In Finder find a document
Right click on it and choose Get Info
Look at what Open with... shows
If it is the wrong application alter it to be the correct one e.f. Word in this case. You might want to Change all as well.

If it is the correct app then more investigation needs to be done.


Messages when attempting to empty Trash in macOS I getting these message when attempting to empty my trash in Mac:

Cinna-MacMini:.Trashes stevechang$ rm -rf 502/sda/
rm: 502/sda//Cinna Macmini/Users/stevechang/Library/Application Support/Manroling/Manroling.app: Operation not permitted
rm: 502/sda//Cinna Macmini/Users/stevechang/Library/Application Support/Manroling: Operation not permitted
rm: 502/sda//Cinna Macmini/Users/stevechang/Library/Application Support: Permission denied
rm: 502/sda//Cinna Macmini/Users/stevechang/Library: Permission denied
rm: 502/sda//Cinna Macmini/Users/stevechang: Permission denied
rm: 502/sda//Cinna Macmini/Users: Permission denied
rm: 502/sda//Cinna Macmini: Permission denied
rm: 502/sda/: Permission denied

What does the messages mean?

Well, the messages are pretty straight forward I suppose, you do not have the correct permission to remove these files.

I am however a bit confused as to the term "empty Trash". It seems that this can be accomplished using the GUI and this would be the preferred way to do it? The files you are trying to completely wipe of your system does not seem to be in the "trash"?

Anyway, running the same command as 'sudo' should solve your problem although I would be careful as it seems from your output that you are attempting to erase more than trashed files:

502/sda/: Permission denied

Unless you intentionally put an entire partition in the trash? The 'rm' command is not recoverable.


Refreshing files without killall Finder? I would like to have a file list refresh in a Folder (like after switching between YES/NO in hidden files option). The only way I found is killall Finder which is fine, but it causes the screen to blinks for a sec (as the Finder is restarting).

Is there a way to refresh the Finder file list without actually killing it?

This particular use hadn't occurred to me.  I have finder set to always show all my files.  However sometimes when a new file is created it doesn't show up. Switching to another directory and switching back seems to work.  E.g. Switch to the parent, or a sibling directory, then back to your starting one.  Two clicks.  Much faster than relaunching Finder.


Am I setting up routes and DNS for a private network properly? Background
I use a private network router which is a separate host to my desktop. This private ("corporate") network comes and goes (mostly under my control), and I want to make sure that when it is available my desktop will use the corporate network DNS, but stop using that DNS when the corporate network is not available.
For the sake of concrete examples to work with, my local network uses 172.16.1.0/24 with a DNS server at 172.16.1.1, while the corporate network uses 10.10.0.0/16 with a DNS server at 10.10.1.1.
The private network router uses dnsmasq which I've configured something like this:
# /etc/dnsmasq.d/default.dnsmasq
server=172.16.1.1
server=/mycompany.com/it.mycompany.com/mycompany.org/10.10.1.1

Where 172.16.1.1 is my local DNS (on my internet router) and 10.10.1.1 is the corporate DNS which handles DNS for private networks such as our intranet. Thus if I look up "apple.stackexchange.com" it will be resolved by 172.16.1.1 while "confluence.mycompany.com" will be resolved by 10.10.1.1.
So I've written a script which basically takes a bunch of CIDRs and configures route for them, then switches to the private network DNS. Here's a sanitised version of the script for completeness:
#!/bin/sh
# Alters routing and DNS to use private network routes and DNS for
# private network destinations

networks=( "10.10.0.0/16" "192.168.20.0/24"  )
gateway=172.16.1.10

if [ "$1" = "up" -o "$1" = "on" -o "$1" = "start" ] ; then
    echo "Setting up private configuration"
    for net in ${networks[@]}; do
        /sbin/route add -net $net -gateway $gateway
    done
    /usr/sbin/networksetup -setdnsservers 'Ethernet' $gatewayip
elif [ "$1" = "down" -o "$1" = "off" -o "$1" = "stop" ] ; then
    echo "Shutting down private configuration"
    /usr/sbin/networksetup -setdnsservers 'Ethernet' 'Empty'
    for net in ${networks[@]}; do
        /sbin/route delete -net $net -gateway $gateway
    done
else
    echo "Usage: $0 (start|stop)"
fi
dscacheutil -flushcache

This leads to a slightly bizarre situation where I'm passing all DNS requests through the private router, when the private router is just going to bounce most DNS requests right back to the Internet router. It works, but I don't think it's particularly tidy or robust.
The Question
Is there any way to configure macOS DNS similarly to my dnsmasq configuration, where I simply tell my Mac to keep using 172.16.1.1 for DNS except when the domain is mycompany.com or mycompany.org, in which case it it should use 10.10.1.1?

macOS uses a system configuration database to maintain things like which DNS servers to use, and what domains those serves are used for. This database is exposed to the user through the interactive scutil program.
To update DNS servers and search domains, the simplest invocation of this tool would happen like this:
[root@host]$ scutil
> d.init
> d.add ServerAddresses * 172.16.1.10
> d.set State:/Network/Service/UniqueKey/DNS
> quit

To perform this configuration change, I created two expect scripts, one to load the configuration and the other to unload the configuration.
Here's the script to load the DNS configuration (note the "Corporate-VPN" part of the key which is the unique identifier for this configuration element):
#!/opt/local/bin/expect -f
set timeout -1
spawn /usr/sbin/scutil
match_max 100000
expect "> "
send -- "d.init\r"
expect "> "
send -- "d.add ServerAddresses * $env(VPNHOST)\r"
expect "> "
send -- "d.add SupplementalMatchDomains * intranet.company.com services.company.com\r"
expect "> "
send -- "set State:/Network/Service/Corporate-VPN/DNS\r"
expect "> "
send -- "quit\r"
expect eof

And then the script to unload the configuration:
#!/opt/local/bin/expect -f
set timeout -1
spawn /usr/sbin/scutil
match_max 100000
expect "> "
send -- "remove State:/Network/Service/Corporate-VPN/DNS\r"
expect "> "
send -- "quit\r"
expect eof

There is still plenty of tidy-up to do here (notably handling errors).
The previous method I wrote using the Resolvers system remains below. It still works but it's not the recommended method.

As per Gordon's comment, using the resolver system provided a solution:
#!/bin/sh
# Alters routing and DNS to use private network routes and DNS for
# private network destinations

networks=( "10.10.0.0/16" "192.168.20.0/24"  )
work_domains=( "intranet.company.com" "services.company.com" "customer.org" )
gateway=172.16.1.10

if [ "$1" = "up" -o "$1" = "on" -o "$1" = "start" ] ; then
    echo "Setting up private configuration"
    for net in ${networks[@]}; do
        /sbin/route add -net $net -gateway $gateway
    done
    for netname in ${work_domains[@]}; do
        echo "nameserver $gateway" >> /etc/resolver/$netname
    done
elif [ "$1" = "down" -o "$1" = "off" -o "$1" = "stop" ] ; then
    echo "Shutting down private configuration"
    for netname in ${work_domains[@]}; do
        rm /etc/resolver/$netname
    done
    for net in ${networks[@]}; do
        /sbin/route delete -net $net -gateway $gateway
    done
else
    echo "Usage: $0 (start|stop)"
fi
dscacheutil -flushcache


Online backup strategy or software for computer and external drive I'm looking for an online backup strategy for my photos but there's something that none of the systems I've looked at addresses...

I keep my most recent photos on my mac and move them off to an external drive from time to time. I can't keep them all on my computer because I don't have enough space.

Most systems I've looked at can backup both the computer and the external drive. But when I move photos to the drive they will be removed from the computer backup and re-uploaded to the drive backup. This is not only a waste of bandwidth in re-uploading but I'll have to leave the drive plugged in until they are done uploading again. There could even be a time when they are not backed up - after they are 'deleted' from the original location and before they are uploaded again from the drive.

Can anyone suggest a system that handles this or a better way for me to manage my photos?

My photos are all in Lightroom, there are about 500gb so far, I guess I'm adding a few gb per week.

I'm not sure there is a way to do this exactly how you wish it, but perhaps some things to consider…

I'm not sure Backblaze or anything similar is capable of 'knowing' that files moved to a different drive are still the same files - however, the remote servers will hang onto the old copies for 30 days after they are last seen, which should be plenty of time for the new copies to make their way to the backup.

From personal experience, Backblaze shifts around 20 - 25GB of data every day from my machine, so a few GB of photos every month wouldn't be much overhead on that.

One thing I do, as belt & braces, is I have a local Time Machine backup too, to cover for most disaster recovery scenarios, short of the house burning down.

One other thing to consider is that the initial backup may take quite some time - mine took 3 months running 24/7 on a 12Mb UL line! (My total off-site storage at Backblaze is around 2TB.)
During that time you are not completely covered, which makes the Time Machine even more important.


iPhone App Update from a Development Point of View I am doing iPhone development and my first app is in the market. First week was pretty good but now it is loosing momentum. If I provide an update to the app will it improve the app exposure in the iPhone app store.

All an update will do is reset the star rating for the application if it an .x release (for example, 1.0 to 1.1).

But to take the question and answer a big step further (one that falls well outside the scope of this forum), you cannot rely solely on the App Store to market your app. All of the rules for online marketing still apply.


typewriter effect to keyboard stroke Is there any way to add (sound) typewriter effect to keyboard stroke?

Here is a link to an article that explains how to do this natively (without any 3rd party applications).

And here is an app - Typewriter Keyboard - that makes it sound authentically like a typewriter.

Hope this helps.


Why would a macbook running OS X 10.7.5 boot up on its own at the same time every night? The macbook was turned of around 10:22PM.  At 12:00:09 sharp it boots up on its own.  This happens every night even though the user turns off the machine at around 10PM every night.

Why would this automatic boot be happening? Is there a way to disable it?

Lets find out

Launch the Terminal and type the following at the command line:

  syslog |grep -i "Wake reason"

The simplest reason is you have the set up in Wake up doing it :)

Check it in system preferences > Energy Saver > Schedule :):


Macbook Pro speaker gets muffled Macbook Pro 2016 15" model. The speakers often go from perfectly clear to very noticeably muffled when adjusting the volume. It often happens when turning the volume up - but it'll still be at reasonable levels. It gets muffled immediately as opposed to slowly degrading in quality which leads me to believe it's not a problem with the speaker slowly deteriorating.

It usually goes away after a few restarts.

Is this normal? How can I debug this further?

I've experienced this issue and after a complete re-install and every troubleshooting regarding software tried out, I handed it in at an AASP. They determined the issue to be hardware, and exchanged the top case (which also means no more sticky keys).

So my best advise is, take a backup and go visit your local AASP.


What is wrong with "compress" option? In finder, I can cntrl + click on a file and click "compress"... Sometimes. It seems that randomly the option just won't show up and I have to open a new finder window, or duplicate the folder first, or something ridiculous like that.

Is this a bug, or is compress only supposed to show up under certain circumstances?

This might help:

Apple discussions

It says that you can't compress certain folders like smart folders that are created in the 'All My Files' and 'Recents' box.


OS X 10.9.4 closes application when sleeping First time to have MBP retina. My issue on my MBP is when I close my MBP to transfer to another location (house to coffee shop), when I open my MBP I notice that it closes the apps I have open before I leave the house.

I used chrome & opened 4 to 8 tabs, then when I arrived at the coffee shop it open the chrome again but the tabs are not there. It says "Google Chrome didn't shutdown properly" then a button "Click to restore tabs.
I open sublime text editor on desktop 2, when I open the MBP the sublime is now located at desktop 1.

It is kinda weird, because my friend and I has the same MBP, but he is not experience this kind of issue. Someone can help me out this?

Summary: "I come back to work the system is locked down (i.e. I have to put my password), which is fine, and all applications are closed. They do however re-start and try to recover the state as I left them."

It sounds like your Mac is set to automatically log you out after a period of inactivity.

Open System Preferences from the Apple menu in the top-left corner. Open the "Security & Privacy" preference pane. Click on the "Advanced..." button in the bottom-right corner. You may need to unlock the pane using the padlock icon in the bottom-left corner.

I think you'll find "Log out after XX minutes of inactivity" ticked. Untick it.


How to have terminal close tab when shell exits? I just recently upgraded from 10.6 to 10.8. On 10.6 I could set the terminal to close the tab/window when the shell exits.

Mountain Lion's terminal just says the process is completed and the tab/window stays open:

bash$ exit
logout

[Process completed]

I find this very annoying, but I no longer see the preference to change it.
Is there a way to set Mountain Lion's Terminal to close when its process exits?

You can change this in Terminal's Preferences:


How do I prevent sharing contacts between two iPhones without opening a new account? I have two iPhones, one is a 4s and the other is a 5s. One is for work and the other is personal.

How can I prevent sharing contacts between each without opening a new iCloud account for each?

Having

several iOS/OS X devices signed in to the same iCloud account
contact syncing enabled in the respective settings

always syncs your contacts on all these devices (that's what iCloud syncing is all about in a way).

In your situation you could

disable syncing of Contacts e.g. on the business iPhone (in Settings)
create different contact groups for private and business contacts and then just use those on the respective phones (all contacts would still be synced though)
create a separate iCloud account for the business iPhone (which actually might have other benefits depending on your employment status, who payed for the phone and the mobile contract etc.)


How to add a custom widget to IOS 10? (Website) Is there any way to add a widget from a website to iOS? I'm not familiar with xCode, plus there's an annual fee of $99 to publish an app. Is there any way to add a widget from a website, similar to how you can add a website to your homescreen?

The Apple page about developer widgets offers no info:

  https://developer.apple.com/ios/human-interface-guidelines/extensions/widgets/

No, you can't add websites to that screen on iOS.  You can add links to websites as icons to your iPhone, in case that helps.

Widgets are only allowed to be installed through the Apple App Store as part of an app and that developer has to specifically code the widget into their app.


Removing software that came from a pkg file? I can't find the uninstaller. I installed some service using a pkg file and now I want to get rid of it. How do I do that? I would prefer not to use lsbom and rm and stuff. It looks scary.

Not a direct answer to your question, but you can also use "Suspicious Package", a QuickLook plug-in for Finder, to see what files a package installed: http://www.mothersruin.com/software/SuspiciousPackage/

Depending on what files were installed where, you may be able to find them in Finder and drag to the trash; otherwise you may have to go into Terminal and rm around.


Particular websites blocked when using Internet Sharing I have the following setup. I have a Macbook Pro with an external monitor plugged into it via HDMI. I then have another external monitor plugged into the Macbook Pro via a Thunderbolt to DVI adapter. Finally I have a thunderbolt cable running from my Macbook Pro to an iMac. I am using this iMac in "Target Display Mode". I also have an ethernet cable plugged into the iMac and the iMac is sharing it's Internet Connection with the Macbook Pro through the thunderbolt bridge. This all works great, except for one very weird thing. There are certain websites that I cannot access. In chrome I get a "ERR TIMED OUT" error when I try to visit certain websites. So far I have only noticed this on two websites:

console.aws.amazon.com
key.com (key.com itself is accessible but there is a bill pay iframe that doesn't load and it gives the same error)

Any suggestions on what could be causing this?

Have you tried connecting to these sites directly with the iMac whose internet connection is being shared jb1785?

I've had some very bad luck with trying to share internet connections (I was trying to share a VPN from a MacMini to an Apple TV or Samsung BluRay player. Not easy, not high performance and not reliable.

What do work brilliantly are those little white Apple USB Ethernet Adapters (I'm assuming you don't have Ethernet on that MacBook Pro or you'd be using it). Buy the Apple one as others are either clunky or unreliable (very occasional system crashes but occasional is too much). Bringing in a second Ethernet cable should be easy but if it's not you could drop a small ethernet switch in front of the iMac for very little money for 100 BaseT and not much money for 1000 BaseT.

Daisy chaining sounds like a good idea but you are exponentially increasing your chances for nagging network issues and losing time.


Photos storage on iPhone How do I know what photos have been downloaded to Photos on my iPhone? Does Apple continuously remove the copies from my local device after a period of time so that I don't run out of space? E.g., I have 80Gb iCloud storage taken up by Photos. I browse my photos through the iPhone Photos app and it downloads images that I linger on. I only have 12Gb space in total available on my iPhone, will I run out of space in the near future or are these downloads removed and reverted to thumbnails at some point?

Yes, your iPhone will remove originals that you have not browsed recently, and then re-download them when you next look at them. If you want to learn more about it, lookup a cache. With the new Photos app, the originals are stored in the cloud, and the images on your phone are just a cache. (Except that when you edit a photo in the cache, Apple preserves both the original and the edits in the cloud.)


What happens when a Mac SATA drive is put in a Dell laptop? I am planning to buy a Mac. But I see Mac uses same Intel processors as other Windows/Linux laptops. So I would like to know if I take a hard disk(say the Mac book is released before mid 2012, so the hard disk is not soldered) from the Mac book and use it in any other laptop (say a Dell) that supports the same size HDD.

Is this possible? Have any one tried. Please help me.

It depends on what you mean by "use".

You may access files on that drive from Windows/Linux, provided you have driver for HFS+ filesystem (Linux could have it already installed, at least in read mode, Windows driver must be downloaded separately). (i.e. the hardware is 100% compatible - and would run well if you reformatted the drive for Windows / NTFS).
You certainly will not get the Dell to boot OS X simply by moving the parts. OS X has very limited drivers and they are tailored strictly to Mac hardware.


Slow to install an enterprise IPA on a real device I'm creating enterprise signed builds of an iOS app for our test team. The app is 1.5 gigabytes. When I compile and run from Xcode it takes a couple of minutes to install. If I create an IPA and have them drag it into the device browser in Xcode, it can take an hour to install.

Has anyone who has seen this behavior found a way to speed the install? Jailbreaking is not an option.

I found someone offline who had a solution.

Unzip the IPA. (In Finder you can rename it from .ipa to .zip then double-click on it).
Open the resulting folder called "Payload".
Drag the file in the folder into Xcode devices (or iTunes).

Copying is much, much faster than dragging the IPA.


Are security questions no longer required for Apple ID account security? I lost security questions/answers for my old Apple ID, so I can't do many things. Therefore, I registered a new Apple ID account by going to System Preferences → iCloud. I enabled two-factor authentication and provided a trusted phone number. The weird thing in this new account is that it didn't ask me to provide any security questions and answers.

I am afraid the stupid security questions/answers will cause new problems later on in my new account, I accessed the Manage your Apple ID webpage to find a way to provide it. But in the Security section of my new account, there are no Security Questions setup at all.

I am very confused about Apple ID security. Are security questions required or not? These security questions killed my old account, but no longer exist in my new account.

I just don't get it. Why don't I have them?

Accounts with two-factor authentication enabled do not require or use security questions.
Two-factor authentication for Apple ID - Apple Support

Do I still need to remember any security questions?
No. With two-factor authentication, you don't need to remember any security questions. We verify your identity exclusively using your password and verification codes sent to your trusted devices and phone numbers. When you enroll in two-factor authentication, we keep your old security questions on file for two weeks in case you need to return your account to its previous security settings. After that, they're deleted.

If you are enabling two-factor authentication on an existing account, you may need to answer the security questions to complete the process.

You might be asked to answer your Apple ID security questions.


Historically, how long does it take for MBP/MBA to reach the refurbished store after release? From the previous releases of the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, how long is the gap between the devices being released and appearing on the Apple refurbished website?

It can happen any time after the first machine exits the initial 90 day phone warranty. As soon as Apple has a used machine returned to them, it will be reformatted, cleaned up, and repackaged. Once Apple has enough to sell again, they go on sale as refurbished models.


Momentary freeze in Mac OS X on attaching a USB device This seems to have started only recently, but every time I attach a USB device or removable media (SD Card) to my MacBook Pro running OS X 10.8.3 the mouse cursor freezes for a few seconds. The screen is still updating. It seems to happen right when the OS sees the external drive (via phone, camera, SD card, etc.)

I don't see a spike in CPU or anything else suspect, just that the trackpad stops responding momentarily. What would cause this and is there a way to fix it?

Do you happen to have the Android File Transfer application installed? Various users on macrumors have noted the same issue, and have narrowed it down to having AFT installed.

I'm getting the same problem, and I too have AFT installed, but I won't be removing it any time soon as it's the only way to get anything to/from my Android devices.


Installing pyqt5 with homebrew just for python2 I don't have (and do not wish to have) python3 installed. I want to install pyqt5 just for python2.

However every time I try to install pyqt5 with homebrew it keeps downloading python3 and trying to install it

Even using brew install pyqt5 --without-python which I would assume is an option created for this exact purpose, just produces exactly the same behaviour and starts downloading python3.

Any ideas?
Any help would be appreciated!

Ugh, of course after trying to fix this for ages, I find the problem 5 min after posting this question!

For anyone else who runs into this:

The problem was that I didn't have sip, which is a requirement, and sip automatically installs for both versions of python too, and so it was sip trying to install python3. sip has its own version of --without-python, but that didn't get passed to it from the pyqt5 install.

tl;dr - install sip separately first:

brew install sip --without-python
brew install pyqt5 --without-python


Are their drivers for the Apple Keyboard in Windows 7 64bit?(Bonus point: Where's Print Screen?) I am using the official wired Apple Keyboard with my Windows 7 64bit Desktop, is there a source for official drivers anywhere?

I'm kinda fine with the default setup, but I'd really like the ability to printscreen! I am in the UK, but wouldn't mind switching language if that makes all the keys work in he right place.

I use a Apple Keyboard on W7 Daily.

The key thing is to use a utility that lets you remap the keys.

Personally, I use a little utility called KeyTweak (It's Free!), but there are lots of other alternatives.

This lets you set unused keys to whatever you want - I have F13 set as print-screen, and F14-F19 set as media playback keys (play, pause, etc).
It can also let you fix the windows/alt keys so they are in the correct place, if that bothers you.

There are a couple of caveats, namely I have yet to find anything that lets you make use of the "fn" and eject keys. However, the additional (unused) F13-F19 keys compensate for that.


Tabs opening automatically on chrome I have a MacBook air
On clicking on the search bar or any link, another tab is opened with some ad on it.

I tried to download things like adwcleaner etc., but I can find them only in .exe extension.

Check out The Safe Mac's website (http://www.thesafemac.com/arg-identification/) on how to remove adware from OS X and Safari. It sounds like you've got Conduit or some similar adware/malware that has attached itself to Chrome.


Import a bazillion photos from iCloud to mac I am very, very desperate and annoyed at this moment, being the family IT-Guy over long distance, having nothing but remote access to a mac with an iPhone, that is not in any way connected over any account to this Mac.

I have imported all locally stored photos from this iPhone to the Mac, but now I have around 4.000 photos on the iCloud account of this smartphone, that need to be imported today to this Mac.

Problem:
I am accessing the iCloud photos over the browser, seeing all 4.000 photos, but can only import 1.000 at once. But I cannot, for the life of me pick more than 40-50 photos at once, because the browser won't scroll up, when moving the mouse to the upper edge while selecting. If someone please has a smart solution to this mess I would be extremely thankful!

Please

Thanks for reading.

In regard of the comment claiming this to be a duplicate of another question:
It's true, they are similar and the presented solution under the other question is awesome, but I need a solution that works today and not within the next 7 days, as it is mentioned by the service provided by apple.

Select a photo, go to another, far away photo, hold Shift and select another. It should download more photos at a time.

This is not a comprehensive solution to such a situation. Just because questioner can select 40-50 photos in browser, I am suggesting a way to select more.

I recommend Firefox for such download. It comes from experience of Firefox Send. Safari gets stuck in bigger downloads.


Issues with screen not coming on when Mac is running I run a Late 2012 Mac Mini running 10.13 High Sierra with a Dell QHD monitor via DisplayPort. I've seen two different cases where as far as I can tell the Mac is running (HDD light flashing, etc) but the monitor shows as idle:

When it goes to sleep from lack of use, the monitor sometimes won't wake up (like once every few weeks, I leave it always-on). I already run caffeinate -s in a console window and I think the Mac itself is running, but sometimes the monitor thinks otherwise and I have to reboot.
Today, I turned the Mac on for the first time since turning it off over Christmas - first cold start for a while. The monitor didn't come on, just sat in standby mode (not no-signal). I pulled the DP cable and plugged it back in and now it came to life, which doesn't work in case 1 above.

These things make for a really annoying start to the day and I can never find what might be wrong. I already chased some ideas - I thought the Mac was going into deep sleep and not waking, but now I am fairly convinced the Mac is running but not waking the monitor and I don't know what to try next.

Assuming your cables are good and connected firmly, I would try resetting the NVRAM and SMC (in that order).

Resetting NVRAM

Your Mac use Non-Volatile Random-Access Memory (NVRAM) to store a whole range of settings. Here’s how to reset this:

Fully shut down your Mac mini
Press the power button and then press the commandoptionPR keys. You have to make sure you press these keys before the gray screen appears or it won’t work.
Hold those keys down until your Mac reboots again and you here the startup chime for the second time
Let go of the keys and let your Mac mini reboot normally

Note: When you log back in you may need to readjust some of your system preferences (e.g. speaker volume, screen resolution, startup disk selection, time zone information, etc).

Resetting SMC on a Mac mini

Follow these steps for resetting the SMC on your Mac Pro:

Fully Shut Down your Mac min
Unplug the AC power cord
Wait at least 15 seconds
Plug the AC power cord back in
Wait at least 5 seconds
Switch on your Mac mini

Now use your Mac mini as usual to determine if the problem still occurs.


Saving photos from Facebook on iPad When saving photos on an iPad from Facebook, where do the photos get saved?

Photos you have saved to your iPad, from the Facebook app or mobile web site, save into your "Camera Roll" album if you have not enabled iCloud Photo Library, or into the "Photos" tab on iCloud Photo Library (accessible on all of your devices).


Is it safe to wrap Mac cord with a cloth? Okay so the cord from the brick has teared a bit and the charger only works on certain angles lol..

So what i did to hold the cord together was tying a cloth around it. I wanted to know is that safe? Or should I tie an IDE cable?

I'm assuming that you are referring to a Macbook brick.

The thin (low voltage) side is either 14.5V (Air) or 20V (Pro). I don't know about the USB-C connector.

Cloth MIGHT be safe on the low voltage side if just the covering separated, but if it has to be in a specific position to work, you probably have a broken wire as well which could lead to sparking under the wrong conditions.

The only truly safe thing to do is replace your adapter. You can use proper electrical tape until then, but it should only be a temporary measure.

If it's on the other side of the brick, replace immediately.


How to "repair" a PDF that opens in Acrobat Reader but not Preview I have a PDF that won't open in Preview; it gives this error message:

However, it will open in Acrobat Reader, but cannot be resaved, or saved with a new file name from Reader:

As I can see all the pages (or most of them at least!) from this PDF, there must be some way to get them into a file that Preview can open. I can do this by copying pages from Reader one-at-a-time, but the PDF has 500 pages.

What is the easiest and cheapest way to export all these pages, and create a new PDF, from Acrobat Reader?

EDIT: I'd rather not have to sign up for online Adobe services...

I just had exactly the same problem. A filled-in PDF form from our tax service displays as follows in almost all PDF readers except Adobe's:

Not one of the normal solutions works. Every single macOS-native save-to-pdf or print-to-pdf option from within Acrobat Reader fails with "Saving a PDF file when printing is not supported."

I ended up having to use PDF-XChange Editor in one of my VMWare Windows guest images to open the offending PDF 1.7 form and then to print to the "Microsoft Print to PDF" printer driver.

A similar driver for macOS which could trick Adobe Reader into thinking that it was just a printer could also work, but I did not have more time to investigate other options.

There's NO reason for Adobe to make it this difficult to export a PDF form to read-only rendered version. Well, it could be because Reader has a truly subpar UI on macOS, so the company has to make use of alternative techniques to retain users.


How wifi/bluetooth speaker can get audio data? As I said in title? How a wifi/bluetooth speaker can get audio data from your device such as phone or PC?
I have an bluetooth speaker and any sound from my phone is sent to that speaker - How they can do that.
Even with wifispeaker, I see that some must run with a program, but some doesn't. Just turn on speaker, connect to your device and you can stream any sound to it.

Thank you

This page on the Bluetooth specification website very quickly descends into technobabble, but the Advanced Audio Distribution Profile is how audio is distributed, or sent, from a Bluetooth audio transmitter (such as iPhone or iPod) to a Bluetooth audio receiver (such as headphones or a stand-alone speaker).

I am not sure how technical of an answer you are looking for, but the page linked above goes into much more detail.


Can't connect to shared folder on the network because the "original item can't be found" I am running OS X 10.9.5. I have been using a shared hard drive on a home network for over two years.  Recently, one of the folders started giving me the following error when I try to connect to it:

  The operation can’t be completed because the original item for “foldername” can’t be found.

I don't recall changing any permissions or anything.  Other folders on the same drive work fine.

Apple HFS filesystem tracks files according to a (hopefully) unique identifier instead of a path when it can.

The fastest way forward is to forget the old location / clear the recent history / and navigate to the shared folder and reconnect.

If you can't clear up the history, please post a screen shot of where you are seeing the "old" mount point and perhaps we can guide you there once more detail is provided. In the absence of detail, this general procedure is offered in hopes it helps you resolve things.


How to allow Siri to call only specific persons I use Siri to call some fixed persons(e.g. family), but sometimes Siri calls to wrong person. I don't need to call with Siri for other people.
Is it possible to create whitelist or blacklist to call with Siri?
Any help would be appreciated.

There is no such an option for Siri.

But you can adjust Siri to call your "Mom" by sayin "call my mom" and Siri will ask who is your mom from contacts then you can set the name of mom.
Uncle, brother, sister, dad and etc. can be learned by Siri also.


error with automator applescript "do shell script" call (file not found) yet command line with same command works I have a simple automator app that runs a simple script. It uses ssh to open a file on the local machine, MachineA, with an app on the remote machine, MachineB, and logs the ssh call.

on run {input, parameters}
    repeat with fn in input
        set fn to POSIX path of fn
        set fn to "/Volumes/MachineA" & fn
        set fn to "\"/usr/bin/open -a /Applications/Preview.app " & fn & "\""
        set cmd to "ssh -x MachineB.local " & quoted form of fn
        do shell script "echo " & cmd & " >> ~/cmd.log"
        do shell script cmd
    end repeat
end run

The log output is:

ssh -x MachineB.local "/usr/bin/open -a /Applications/Preview.app /Volumes/MachineA/Users/<USER>/Documents/<FOLDER>/<FILE>.pdf"

When I use the app to open a file (drag & drop), an error is thrown.

However, if I copy the output in the log file to the command line, success, the file is opened on the remote machine. Why the difference?

I haven't tested this, but it looks like you have too many levels of quotes there. You manually put double-quotes around the command to be run over ssh (in the set fn to "\"/usr/bin/open ... & "\"" line), and then use quoted form of fn, which adds another level of quotes. It looks fine when you echo it, but that's because the shell parses & removes one level of quotes before passing to the echo command.

Also, if the file path contains spaces or other funny characters, those need to be quoted (but only that path part, not the entire command). Try this instead:

on run {input, parameters}
    repeat with fn in input
        set fn to POSIX path of fn
        set fn to "/Volumes/MachineA" & fn
        set fn to "/usr/bin/open -a /Applications/Preview.app " & quoted form of fn
        set cmd to "ssh -x MachineB.local " & quoted form of fn
        do shell script "echo " & quoted form of cmd & " >> ~/cmd.log"
        do shell script cmd
    end repeat
end run


Finding original files in the Mac OS X installer I messed up my Apache config file, httpd.conf.

I followed this article, http://emresaglam.com/blog/1035, to try and find the original httpd.conf inside Install OS X Mountain Lion.app.

The article says that the Bom files ("Bill of Materials"), "describes what is in this pkg file and where they will be written to."

Install OS X Mountain Lion.app -> Contents\SharedSupport\InstallESD.dmg -> Packages\***.pkg -> Bom

However, the Bom files don't seem to be a complete listing. I extracted the contents of the Payload for Essentials.pkg and there was more to it then listed in its Bom.

Is there a better way to navigate and find the file I need from the installer, besides extracting the contents of each pkg file's Payload? Any tips or resources would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

When I first commented on your question, I was hindered by not having discovered httpd.conf on my own system. Now I have found it, however, and I can find out what packages owns it as follows:

; pkgutil --file-info /private/etc/apache2/httpd.conf
volume: /
path: /private/etc/apache2/httpd.conf

pkgid: com.apple.pkg.BSD
pkg-version: 10.8.0.1.1.1306847324
install-time: 1352382423
uid: 0
gid: 0
mode: 644

Note: com.apple.pkg.BSD is a package name, not a filename. You can find a list of all packages that pkgutil knows about by running

pkgutil --packages

Also note that running the above command on /etc/apache2/httpd.conf does not yield a useful result, because /etc is a symbolic link to /private/etc.


How could I check the number of files in a folder without counting them? Is there a way to check the number of files in a folder on MacBook, other than manually counting them?

Set Finder to show icons
Access view options with Cmd-J
Enable "Show item info" option (where it says "Objektinfo einblenden" in the screenshot below)


trying to restore iPhone from icloud backup I am trying to restore iPhone from iCloud backup that is shown in my iCloud account so I can get some notes that I lost.  There is the iPhone back up on iCloud that I want and an iPhone back up on my computer (that I don't want).  I am not being given options to back up from the icloud backup.  I am connected to wifi (both iPhone and computer). I am following the apple instructions.  I thoroughly searched for an answer on the web at large, the apple and iCloud websites and here and only find the "how to's" for how it should work normally, but that is not working.

Thank you for any advice

Notes aren't tied to iPhone backups in any way, they're tied to iCloud directly. If you can't find them in "recently deleted" (within notes) there is nothing you can do. Restoring the iCloud backup will have no effect.


How can I show text labels on buttons globally? How do I display text in addition to icons in toolbar buttons?

For example, I find some of the icons in the Preview app to be quite unintuitive.

Is there a way to set this globally across all apps?

I have not yet found a way to set this globally across all apps.

For the Preview app, you can right-click on the toolbar button or control-click, and then select "Icon and text" to get this result:


Profile installation can't authenticate to the MDM server I'm using Meraki Systems Manager as a solution for mobile device management, and lately I've been getting this error message from System Preferences(Profiles) when trying to enroll a new macOS device into the system.

  Profile installation failed.
  Could not authenticate to the MDM server. The credentials within the enrollment profile may have expired.

This workflow was working fine for me as recently as a couple weeks ago, which is the last time I enrolled a device. What steps can I take to troubleshoot this or verify the error message?

How can I confirm (or refute) that the credentials within the profile are expired?
Is there some place I can find additional log entries with more details about the failure?
Is there any other way to test authentication to the MDM server, other than repeatedly trying to install the same profile?

For what it's worth, this laptop is running macOS Mojave 10.14.5.

After a few round trips with Cisco support, it turned out the problem was specific to one particular laptop that had recently been repaired at the Apple Store.

The laptop had been joined to Meraki MDM prior to going in for repair. The main logic board was replaced at the Apple Store, and although the serial number stayed the same it must have changed some other hardware identifier. After coming back from repair, the laptop was reformatted but was unable to join Meraki MDM.

The solution was to Delete (Remove From Network) the laptop from the list of Devices in Meraki Systems Manager. After that, I had no trouble re-joining the laptop into Meraki MDM. This was a surprise, because normally it's not necessary to delete device entries, as they automatically merge based on serial number.


Access radeon setting on mac, 3d defective I am new at mac recently. The mid 2010 imac shows shattered lines and dots in any 3d apps. Chess is the example:

I tried the hardware test by hold 'd' but couldn't find problem. I tried format and install OS. This imac still has the problem.

I will try to downclock/underclock. How about adjust 3d setting so does mac have radeon's setting (catalyst)?

MacOS does not have Radeon Settings/Catalyst as Windows does. Apple publishes their own drivers through system updates. While Nvidia does offer their own Mac drivers, they often lag far behind the PC counterparts and don't seem to offer any sort of Wattman-equivalent for changing clock speeds.

While there is an app called ATICellerator, it hasn't been updated in almost a decade, and almost certainly won't work with a more modern card, like the one in your iMac.

Conceivably, you could create a custom ROM and reflash your card using Zeus–however, both Zeus and the guides/support for such a modification are relatively limited, especially for a niche card like yours–generally this was used to flash desktop PC cards with Mac firmwares. This is a potentially risky process that may leave you with bricked/dead hardware if you mess up–though you may decide you've got nothing left to lose.

The simplest and best solution is probably to just buy a replacement GPU and replace it following a guide such as the one iFixit publishes. If your card is dying, underclocking it may not save it much longer anyways. If you want to test this, consider installing Windows and attempting to apply a clock change using some sort of reputable app such as Wattman (bundled with the AMD drivers) or MSI Afterburner. You may find that even then, clock changes refuse to stick (even within Windows) for one reason or another. Note that these changes will not pervade through to MacOS.


Apple Maps & E-Z Pass (detection?) I've been driving a bit lately up and down the east coast of the United States and I realized that Apple Maps constantly tells me to "stay left" when going through tolls.

Every toll that I have gone through has E-Z Pass only lanes on the far left.  Some of them split up early so if you get into the left lane you're stuck there.

Does Apple Maps detect the E-Z Pass in my car?

If I was more oblivious while driving and I didn't have one, I could end up with some hefty fines.

Well I do not have E-Z Pass and it sent me to the left and I couldn't get out of it and I had to pay a $60 fine instead of an $8 toll fee.


iMovie still will not download, despite having no other apps, and ~2 GB of storage available? I've been trying to download iMovie for a long time, and I have never had enough space. I have an 8 GB iPhone 5C. I have a project in particular I want to get done, so I deleted all my other apps (other than pre-installed ones, of course) in order to try and download iMovie. According to iTunes, after this, I have 2.04 GB available. I figured this would be enough to download iMovie and get this project over with before deleting it and redownloading all my apps again. And, yet, again I got the dreaded error code declaring that iMovie could not be downloaded at this time and that I didn't have enough storage. I don't know what to do. I know that apps are always more than the number that appears on the App Store page, but even ~2 GB should be enough to download iMovie, right?

How can I download iMovie?

According to the App Store, iMovie would require 641 MB of storage to download on my iPhone 5S (it should be about the same for a 5C), so yes, you have more than enough storage available. I'd try restarting the iPhone, accomplished by holding the power button and home button down together until you see the Apple logo appear. It is completely safe, I do it to my iPhone all the time, it will not delete anything off of your iPhone, nor change any settings, but it may fix little issues like this.

If that doesn't work, try downloading the app through iTunes on your MacBook (or PC) and then sync iMovie to iPhone, that requires less storage, anyway.


How to fix a mechanical problem with a single key on a MBP keyboard? I've got a mid-2009 macbook pro that generally runs well. Unfortunately, though, I've started having problems with one key on the keyboard ('o'). It works intermittently. To type the letter I either need to press the key several times or hold it down for several seconds.

Does anyone have any pointers on how I might be able to restore function to my 'o' key?  I'd stress that I'm sure the problem is mechanical, with the hardware, not with the software. I'm wondering if there's a way to disassemble and clean the keyboard, or a way to replace part of it.  Any suggestions are appreciated.

Yes, it's possible to replace individual keys without replacing the keyboard.

I recently replaces right SHIFT, right OPTION and several f1 - f12 keys on my 2011 13' MBP. SHIFT key was chipped on the bottom edge, which made it unaesthetic. OPTION fell off. I customized my fn keys with Karabiner, so the symbols on them no longer apply.

Mechanically, the replaceable bits come in two parts, the cap, which is black and covers all you can see, and the clip, which is white and lays underneath. The part where the cap holds onto the clip is most fragile. There are instructions about how you pop the cap. I say you should be prepared to replace a key if you decide to pop it, since, especially for first timers, removing the cap might damage the key irrevocably.

I decided to replace my own keys because 1) my machine is outside of warranty, 2) a professional would only replace the keyboard as a whole and that costs way more than buying a keyboard myself, 3) replacing a keyboard myself is a big project that requires gutting the entire machine.

I used a Chinese ecommerce site. The parts cost less than a dollar each. I'm sure you can use ebay. One big caveat is that you should send the seller a picture of the cap and clip you are trying to replace. Even in machines with same spec, the keyboard can be different. A fraction of a millimeter difference could mean whether a cap and clip can fit onto the existing keyboard.


Problems with Group SMS I have an iPhone 4S. Whenever I try to send a group message to people who have iMessage and people who don't, I either get replies from 1 person but I recieve it as an individual text message or I don't get any replies at all. Everybody else in the group who has iMessage is able to see the replies as they would in any other group message. Please help!

*I have tried resetting it to the factory settings, turning iMessage and Group SMS off and then back on, and turning off my phone.

This sounds like a temporary issue. Can you reproduce it after updating the os and carrier settings?

Can you reproduce it after signing out and back in to iMessage with your appleid?


Mac mini fan replacement: amperage rating I have a 2011 Mac mini server (quad-core i7, 2.0GHz) and the fan is going bad.

The current fan, part no. 610-0164 is rated 12V 0.66A.

The widely available replacement fans on eBay are rated 12V 0.5A.  They are marked as part no. 610-0069.

Does anyone have evidence that the replacement 0.5A fans are suitable for this computer, or should I try to find an exact replacement?

A Fan with 0.5Amp will do, since it will not overload the circuit, and only draw 0.5A while 0.66A is available.

It might not have enough power to provide sufficient air flow, thus it might run more, but that is only important if you run constantly at elevated Temperatures.

Check your mac mini model number to make sure it fits, since the one you are showing is for Mac Mini A1347 2010 2011 922-9953 610-0164 610-0069.


How to bring an application made in Automator to the foreground upon launch? I've created an application with AppleScript in Automator.

I've created a Service in Automator which launches the aforementioned app.

The Service is triggered by a keyboard shortcut.

The problem is that upon launch, the application's dialog box has a light gray top bar. I have to click anywhere on the dialog for the dialog to turn to the darker gray, which shows that the app is now selected.

Is it possible for my application to do this automatically?

Have a look at the activate command in the AppleScript Language Guide Commands Reference.

  activate  Brings an application to the front, and opens it if it is on the local computer and not already running.

I'd add activate me after the start of the on run handler.


Connect Win7 notebook display to iMac I'm looking for a solution to extend my Windows 7 based notebook display to my iMac. The notebook provides the following connectors:

1x VGA

1x Displayport

1x Expresscard/34

I have already tried to connect both computers via Displayport to Thunderbolt adapter but tests showed up that my iMac only supports Thunderbolt to Thunderbolt connections. I have also tried to connect them accross network based software solutions but the notebook firewall which is not under my control prevented this. Any further ideas?

Your iMac can only support TDM using thunderbolt connections, and as such can not be connected to your laptop.
You can learn more about TDM in this article


Activity Monitor missing process arguments Is there a way to tell Activity Monitor to show me the process arguments the same way ps does for example?

So instead of this (Activity Monitor):

I would like to see this (ps):

If this is impossible in Activity Monitor, is there any other application that can do it? I have tried the latest htop from http://hisham.hm/htop but interestingly it is having the same issue. htop on Linux however was always showing process arguments similar to ps.

To answer my own question: it is not possible to make Activity Monitor show the arguments, however using htop from the "htop" package does exactly what I want:

$ brew search htop
    htop ✔     htop-osx

$ htop


Is it possible to retrieve email setup in Iphone from previous employer? I have exchange configured on my iphone from previous employer. Is it possible to retrieve messages? i am sure iphone stores the downloaded messages somewhere on the phone.

There are a number of third-party utilities that allow you to browse through and extract the information stored in a backup of an IOS device. A quick perusal of those programs from a google search seem to show no mention of recovering email. All list SMS/Text messages, calendar, address book, notes but none mention email specifically.

Since most email on the IOS device is set up as IMAP the email is actually stored on the server. Perhaps the backups that iCloud or iTunes make doesn't include this cached data? I am unsure of this but from my cursory search it does not look good.

You may want to find the support pages of some of these tools (iExplorer is a popular tool) and ask that question there. Otherwise it doesn't look good.


How create a smart playlist that shows only full albums in my library? Does anyone know how to create a iTunes Playlist that shows only songs in My Library which are part of a complete album in My Library.

Essentially I want to see all my complete albums. You can in Spotify but with Apple Music every song you add to a playlist it assumes you want it added to My Library.

There is no way to automate this functionality in iTunes today.  To do so, the system would need to know how many songs were in each album and that isn't immediately available.  Plus, what if you have an album with twelve songs and you only have eleven, but you still want it in the list.  Or what about singles that have only one or two songs.  Are these "complete" albums?

In any case, the only way I know to do this is to mark complete albums manually.

For example, you could put a note in "Comments" like "CompleteAlbum" and build a playlist for all files with Comments that contain "CompleteAlbum".  If you want to stay out of the comments, you could use the Disc X of Y, clearing the Disc # for non-album tracks and setting it to 1 (or 2 or whatever) for albums.  Then, you build a playlist that looks for songs with Disc # >= 1.  It's up to you.

You just have to remember to do that for each album you add, but your playlist would contain all your 'complete albums'.


App store using incorrect e-mail address as username - iPhone 6 I upgraded my 4s to an iPhone 6 yesterday at the Sprint store. They transferred my data from the 4s to the 6, then erased the 4s. Now when trying to upgrade certain apps (such as Find My iPhone, Facebook, Linkedin Youtube, etc.) it prompts me for a password, but the associated username is an e-mail address I've never seen before and has no association to me or my Apple ID.

This is making it impossible to upgrade the apps and it's frustrating to see someone else's address associate. I've trying signing out of Apple, iCloud and the App store both online and via settings, resetting the iPhone each time — to no avail. Please help!

You will have to delete the apps and redownload them if you cannot login in the update prompt.


Copy BPM & Star rating to Comments in itunes using Applescript I want an applescript to grab the BPM & Star Rating of a selected group of MP3's and paste the info into the comments section.

I found this code that will copy the star rating one track at a time but I do not know applescript well enough to modify it to do a group of selected tracks and also grab the BPM.

tell application "iTunes"
    set theTrack to (item 1 of (get selection))
    set theRating to rating of theTrack
    if theRating = 100 then
        set comment of theTrack to "5 Star"
    else if theRating ≥ 80 then
        set comment of theTrack to "4 Star"
    else if theRating ≥ 60 then
        set comment of theTrack to "3 Star"
    else if theRating ≥ 40 then
        set comment of theTrack to "2 Star"
    else if theRating ≥ 20 then
        set comment of theTrack to "1 Star"
    else if theRating = 0 then
        set comment of theTrack to "0 Star"
    end if
end tell

You want to grab the selection, which will be a list of tracks. Then, you use a repeat block to process each track in the list. Here's the script. You may want to adds checks to make sure iTunes is running, and some try blocks in case of failures:

tell application "iTunes"
    set selectedTracks to selection
    repeat with thisTrack in selectedTracks
        set theRating to rating of thisTrack
        set theBPM to bpm of thisTrack
        set theComment to "" & (theRating / 20 as integer) & " star | BPM: " & theBPM
        set comment of thisTrack to theComment
    end repeat
end tell


Methods for copying Time Machine backups offsite I presently use an external USB drive to back up my Mac Mini with Time Machine which is a little about 1.5 TB total, however, I would really like to be able to trickle those backups onto some other cloud provider or even another location on a desktop located at a different office so I am protected from a massive catastrophe. I realize that upstream bandwidth is a major factor in successfully doing this. (I only have 10 megabit upstream.) I have tried to use ARQ which uses S3 backup, and while it works very well, the costs associated could end up being astronomical which I consider backup up my music, movies, etc..., not to mention the the loads of incidental file changes that I I don't need to capture every time. Also, there is simply no way it could ever catch up with with the amount of TM data that gets churned.

What I am looking for is a solution geared specifically for copying Time Machine backups to a cloud location, and does some things to reduce the amount of data that has to be pushed over the pipe. I would be accept having the Time Machine backups that are pushed offsite be far less frequent and I would accept some lag in getting these backups shipped, but I want to have SOMETHING in case I have a catastrophic incident, like a fire or water is spilled on my computer and Time Machine drive simultaneously.

Solutions like Mozy and Carbonite are simply not well geared for MacOS with its heavy reliance on datastores vs files. Attempting to rebuild an iTunes library from files would be a nightmare.

I am having trouble finding anything out there geared for this, but if you have some suggestions, I am all ears.

If I understand your question correctly (and I may not) you would prefer a cloud solution but would be willing to consider another non-cloud offsite solution.

My preference is not to use the cloud for this type of backup. The cloud is fine for low volume data storage and file services (e.g. Dropbox, iCloud, Google Drive, MS OneDrive, etc), but for this type of backup it's not (at least not yet).

Instead, my recommendation is to do something similar to what I am doing. By way of example, I'll explain how I do this for my iMac (but I follow a similar process for all my machines!)

This iMac has a 500GB HDD
I have purchased two portable USB 2TB external hard drives
I have labelled these hard drives as iMac TM Backup HD 1 and iMac TM Backup HD 2
I set both of these external drives to be TM backup drives
As both drives are set up with TM they are alternated whenever both drives are available
Once the initial backups are done, I physically remove one of the external drives and take it 'offsite'
On the same day each week, I then swap them over
The net result is that both hard drives will have backups in the order of one week on, one week off (but between them I have a full set of backups).

Now, in terms of keeping one of them offsite, you have a number of options. Over the years I have used as my offsite location any of the following:

My workplace
A shed in the back yard
My car (but this may depend on your climate and where you 'garage' your car)
A family member's/friend's place (assuming you trust them!)

Basically, the idea is that your offsite drive is somewhere that protects your data in the event your house burns down or you get robbed. My strong suggestion would be in a locked drawer at your workplace (unless you work at home). Most people's workplaces are air-conditioned, secure, and convenient.

IMPORTANT NOTES ABOUT STORAGE

Regardless of the 'offsite' location you choose to keep your hard drive, there are some key factors to keep in mind:

Always keep the drive safe from large magnetic fields!
Ensure the location has a temperature range between 10 degrees celsius (50 degrees fahrenheit) and 43 degrees celsius (110 degrees fahrenheit). So, keeping it in a car would usually not be a good idea.


Cannot recover previously bought app I've bought in 2010 the app "GoodReader" for iPhone and I would like to restore it to my iPad. However I cannot see it in my list of purchased apps in iTunes (although many others do show up).

Any idea why is so, and how to make it appear in my list?

It looks like the developers have decided to isolate each new version to be an app in its own right.
Owning v1, 2 or 3 does not automatically get you v4.

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/goodreader/id777310222?mt=8

  The amazing 4th edition of GoodReader® app is a universal app for all your iOS devices.

  This version is a further step in development of our original groundbreaking, best-in-class GoodReader app. If you're a user of the old GoodReader app, we welcome you to upgrade to this 4th edition of GoodReader.

This would mean that unless you have a local backup of the app, it would appear it is no longer on the iTunes Store to re-download.


diskutil info disk0 shows --> Volume Name: Not applicable (no file system) When i use below command in mac terminal

diskutil info disk0

I get:

 Device Identifier:        disk0
 Device Node:              /dev/disk0
 Whole:                    Yes
 Part of Whole:            disk0
 Device / Media Name:      APPLE SSD SM0128G

 Volume Name:              Not applicable (no file system)
 Mounted:                  Not applicable (no file system)
 File System:              None
 ...

Is it normal that it says no file system? I have not been experiencing any issues with my system so far.

Your findings are completely normal for a physical disk like an Apple SSD.

A common physical disk partitioned in macOS doesn't contain (a) file system(s)  but a partition table, partitions and some unallocated disk space on the first layer.

Consequently it can't be mounted and has no volume name/file system.

On the next layer (disk0sX) a partition usually is formatted with a file system and has a volume name (e.g. disk0s1: FAT32/EFI disk0s2: HFS+/"Macintosh HD").

In newer systems - especially with SSDs - another layer is added: an LVM (CoreStorage) and disk0s2 as a physical volume is part of an Logical Volume Group (which can contain one or more of them). Almost the entire part of an LVG  (i.e. a logical volume) is formatted with a file system and mounted with a volume name as a new logical disk (usually disk1 in a system with one disk or disk2 in a system with two disks like a Fusion Drive). Small parts of an LVG are not formatted with a common file system but contain administrative data (usually less than 0.3% of the total size of an LVG).


Consolidating music from three drives to one I am trying to consolidate my music and videos on my Laptop. It is in 3 places:

C:\Users\RajMore\Music
D:\Entertainment\Audio
E:\Entertainment\Audio

I want to put all the music in a single location C:\Users\RajMore\Music so that I can carry a single laptop and not have to worry about taking my External HDD or having to remove the D drive to put in my DVD drive.

I have just about 60 GB of music. 10 GB on C, 20 G on D and 30 GB on E. I have 86 GB free on C, so space is not at a premium.

Metadata is the stuff about the music / video that is not stored in the music / video item - it is stored in ITunes.  For example: Start of song, end of song, rating (I use this when for good songs to DJ), video start time and end time etc.

How do I do this and not lose metadata regarding the music and videos?

Under Prefs > Advanced set the Media Folder to your chosen location on C:

Then, File Menu > Library SubMenu > Organize Library.

Select "Consolidate Files".


Many unknown "Frame xxxxx-xxxxx" files. Do you know what these are and can I delete them? Asking for a friend on a more recent if not most recent Mac OS.
He has a whole bunch of files taking up a bunch of space.  These files are numbered, not necessarily incrementally and named "Frame" followed by a 5 or 6 digit number, a dash and another 5 or 6 digit number.
Example filenames:
"Frame 75776 - 76799"
"Frame 290816 - 291839"
These files are in the "Documents" folder, take up a quite few dozen Gigabytes if I understand correctly and are identified by the OS as type "TextEdit.app Document"
All have the same datestamp (and relatively similar/kind of seqeuntial timestamps) and they are all 101.7 MB in size.
I'm assuming some kind of temp file or something that wasn't cleaned up properly but idk from what.  Google isn't turning anything up and I would like to be sure before I advise he can delete them.
Anyone know what these are, how they might have come to be and if it's safe to just delete?
Thanks much.
EDIT - I should add that the contents of the files do not appear to be text as the 'type' implies.  They seem to be some kind of binary blob.

If your 'friend' uses FinalCut or Motion, they may be created by these apps.
See this Apple Discussions thread.


Stolen mac locked automatically or by thief? My MacBook Pro was stolen a few days ago.  I have a lock on the start up screen requiring a password anytime the laptop comes out of sleep mode, however when I attempted the "Find My Mac" app, it says it is already locked (despite me not locking it, putting it in "lost mode", or inputting a 4 digit code).  It also is not showing up on location map, possibly pending connecting to the internet?  Could the laptop be automatically locked (without me putting in a 4 digit code) by attempting a restart or logging me out as a user, or could the thief have locked it somehow themselves?

I'm encountering this problem in my own home (on Yosemite), so I think it's unlikely that the laptop is actually locked.

Here in my tests my MBP is tracked with no problem when logged into my user account. However, when I reboot into the Safari-only guest account, I get the message on the Find my Mac interface saying that it was locked XX minutes ago (with XX corresponding to the time since I logged out of my user account). Interestingly, while I don't get position updates in the guest account, I can activate the alarm.

So, while I unfortunately do not know how to get Find my Mac working, I think if you have the guest account enabled and since you say you haven't enabled the lock feature then the answer to your question is "No, it isn't actually locked."


How to get ripped CD music onto my iPhone? How do I get music which I have ripped from CDs into iTunes onto my iPhone so I can listen to it? It shows up in my library but I can't get it to sync to my iPhone.

I've clicked on the iPhone icon, clicked music and checked the album that was ripped. I've then synced the device but it but never shows up in my music on my iPhone.

Right now I'm dragging the songs to the iPhone icon but that doesn't look to be working ether. In my iTunes library the ripped album shows up in Compilations—I don't know what that means or how to get the album into the library itself I feel that's the problem because I've ripped a CD once before and it just showed up in my iPhone and library with no problem.

If you use the menu "File" -> "Get Info" when viewing one of the tracks, you can see if it is "part of a compilation" or not in the "Info" tab. "Compilation" albums are usually albums that have songs from more than a single artist or group, and they get handled differently by iTunes in a way that I have never really figured out.

I work around this by typically not using the "sync this album" feature in iTunes, but rather I create a playlist (or multiple playlists I suppose) that I populate with the tracks I want synced:

In iTunes on your computer you will need to select what music you want to sync. When the phone it plugged into iTunes, and the phone is selected in the sidebar (you may need to select the menu item "View" -> "Show Sidebar") one of the tabs beside the "Summary" of the phone is for "Music" where you can set exactly which playlists, artists, albums, and genres get synced. I find it convenient to have at least one playlist called something like "for-my-iphone" that I can conveniently add any individual tracks that I want synced to the phone, in addition to any of the other possible selection methods.

Incidentally, on the "Summary" page, it is probably worthwhile selecting the "convert higher bitrate songs to 128 kbps" in order to save a lot of room on your iDevice. With most headphones and listening environments it is almost impossible to notice the different sound quality. Checking this box might make the first sync a lot longer if the system needs to do a bunch of music conversion, but subsequent syncs will not be noticeably slower in my experience.


What's the best adhesive to use when reattaching an iPhone 5 home button? I've carried out a couple of repairs on my iPhone 5 over the last fortnight, including replacing the screen. I detached the home button from its mounting in the original screen, and placed it in the new screen. It works fine, but I need to glue it to the contact that it sits on top of. What glue does Apple use to do this? Where can I buy this, or a suitable alternative?

I realize this is an older question, but a common problem for several iphone models. Might help someone.
 The whole assembly is larger than the home button hole. Problem is the round plastic button does come loose from the whole assembly. It is glued in place and can break free.
As long as everything is functioning correctly, it wouldn't hurt to put a dab of glue on and stick it back in. Be careful not to use too much, as it could cause more problems!
Good luck


How am I able to export all of my applications' names on my Mac into a CSV or TXT file? How am I able to export all of my applications' names on my Mac into a CSV or TXT file? I am currently running OS X Yosemite 10.10.3.

In a Terminal:

mdfind kMDItemKind="Application" > ~/Desktop/apps.txt

This will create a file named apps.txt on your Desktop, containing the full paths for everything that OS X considers to be an "Application" on your system.

This is might be a lot more than you want. You can limit the search to a given folder by adding -onlyin <dir>, so:

mdfind -onlyin /Applications kMDItemKind="Application" > ~/Desktop/apps.txt

will limit the search to the /Applications folder (and its subfolders). Note that you might also have apps under ~/Applications, i.e., inside your Home folder.


How to "scroll" a clip so that it stays the same length but shows a different part of original video? Analogy: the clip as viewed in the timeline is actually a window, behind which the entire original clip lies.

I want to move the original clip side-to-side behind this window, so that the window's size and position don't change, but it shows a different part of the original clip.

I have imported 3 videos into final cut pro. Each video is, on its own, at least 20 minutes long, but I've cut them all to be 15 minutes, 5 seconds, 5 minutes in order. There are "straight" (the most basic) cuts to transition from one to the next (i.e., nothing fancy).

The second clip, in-between the two other clips, is the right length but I'd like to show a different part of its video. I.e., instead of the 5 seconds it's currently showing, the first 5 seconds of that video (the original video that was imported), I'd like it to show a 5 second clip from the middle of that video.

Is there a way I can do this easily?

In my real project the timeline is full of audio and some other videos so I don't want to stretch, re-cut, delete etc. the middle video.

Choose the Trim tool (T) and drag the clip along the timeline. The start and end points remain fixed on the timeline and the clip moves within, up to the start/end point of the clip, denoted by red markers.


Examine a .DS_Store file? My understanding of a .DS_Store file is that is contains details that describe a folder and the files within that folder. Based on that description, I can think of a few uses from being able to read a .DS_Store file.

My question: Is there any form of a tool or program that would allow for the reading/examination of a .DS_Store file?

Follow up question: If there's not a tool, can anyone explain to me the syntax of the file?

There is a great write up and some easier solutions posted at http://ponderthebits.com/2017/01/mac-dumpster-diving-identifying-deleted-file-references-in-the-trash-ds_store-files-part-1/

Including this Terminal one-liner to convert a .DS_Store file to (mostly) text:

xxd -p <path/to/.DS_Store> | sed 's/00//g' | tr -d '\n' | sed 's/\([0-9A-F]\{2\}\)/0x\1 /g' | xxd -r -p | strings | sed 's/ptb[LN]ustr//g'


How do I get my user directory working for web sharing again? I had web sharing enabled in Lion and a web site at http://localhost/~user, where user is my User directory.  When I upgraded to Mountain Lion, web sharing (Apache) remained enabled and I can go to localhost and get the "It works!" default web page, but I cannot access my user page anymore.  The error is

  Forbidden

  You don't have permission to access /~user/ on this server.

How do I re-enable my user directory's web page?

Here is how you can re-enable the web page with the command line using Terminal.

First copy this and paste it into Terminal.  You may have to press enter after pasting to run it.  It will ask for your password because it is adding a file to your system directory.

USER_DIR=$(basename $(echo ~))
sudo bash -c "cat > /etc/apache2/users/$USER_DIR.conf" <<TEXT
<Directory "/Users/$USER_DIR/Sites">
     Options Indexes MultiViews
     AllowOverride None
     Order allow,deny
     Allow from all
</Directory>
TEXT

Then run this command to restart the web server:

sudo apachectl restart


A tricky Bootcamp/SSD problem I have a 2009 unibody Macbook Pro 13". Last year I took out the optical drive, replaced it with the original hard drive and installed a 256GB SSD in its place. I then setup Win7 on a small (75GB) partition.

The Windows partition is now full so I bought another 256GB SSD with the intention of dedicating the whole drive to Bootcamp.

So now it looks like I have two options:

Clone the Bootcamp partition to the new SSD and swap them out
Run Boot Camp assistant and install a fresh Windows 7 system on the SSD.

I'm not sure if the first method will work - I worry the system will detect the hardware has changed and grumble/break if I do this. Also, Apple Disk utility can't work with NTFS format drives and there is a plethora of cloning utilities to choose from.

The problem with method 2 is that Bootcamp will only setup Windows from the CD drive installed in the bay and of course that's where my new SSD lives. I don't think my MBP can boot from USB so my original plan to create a bootable thumbdrive will almost certainly fail.

I would really appreciate your comments and suggestions.

Your first solution should be fine. Windows may grumble about having to reactivate, though, since it sees hardware changing. There another question over at Superuser that discusses software to clone Windows drives. Just make sure that you format the new SSD with a GUID partition table before you do the cloning, though (you can do the partition table formatting in Disk Utility, or have Boot Camp Assistant do the formatting for you).

You can also temporarily swap out the old SSD with the optical drive, which is often what I end up doing.


Mail SMTP server list discrepancy When I'm in Accounts and I select the dropdown of SMTP servers I get a long list of servers (as I manage a lot of accounts). But when I go to edit the SMTP server list, not all of the accounts in the dropdown are listed. Any ideas what's happening?

Finally found out what the issue is. Half the accounts on the Account dropdown under SMTP are from the Internet Accounts under System Settings > Accounts, not just your SMTP server settings list. Its really confusing.


install: illegal option -- D In linux the command install has these options (among others): (from the man page)

-d, --directory
          treat all arguments as directory names; create all components of the specified directories

-D     create all leading components of DEST except the last, then copy SOURCE to DEST

On the mac manage there is this option:

-d      Create directories.  Missing parent directories are created as required.

I am attempting to install a library using a makefile and am getting this error on the mac:

install: illegal option -- D

This is caused by the command install being used to copy a .h file.  Would the -d option work the same?  Or is there a way to do this that would work on both platforms?

The lowercase "d" should work. If it doesn't, you can install GNU install with Homebrew coreutils which will provide the "D" flag.


Is there an AFP Server for Windows? We're only a very small company, we don't have a proper Windows server, but we do store central documents on a Windows XP Pro machine via Windows file sharing.

The boss's MacBook Pro will connect and use the shares, but often will get itself into a state where the shares no longer work - navigating to the "server" in the Finder shows zero shares, yet all our Windows machines still work as they should.

I've asked a question elsewhere (serverfault, I believe) about trying to fix the connection problem, but I've not managed to find a solution yet.

We currently only have one Mac in the office, but that may soon rise if we land a certain project, so I'd like to find a workaround, perhaps by using a non-samba sharing system.

Is there an AFP-compatible server that will run on Windows XP?

Alternatively, are there other file sharing technologies that we can use?

If the Mac doesn't "see" the windows file server, you can always use the "full name" or IP address of that server, starting the address name by "smb://" in the "Connect" dialog (Cmd + K in the Finder) :

See this Apple Note for more details.


Is it possible to take multiple, continuous photos with a delay in iPhone? In iOS, if you hold the home botton in the Camera app, you can take a series of photos continuously. However, I want to use this with a delay (10 sec), and since there is a reason to use the delay I can't hold the button.

So is it possible to take a series of photos continuously, possibly the number of photos or the total time set in advance?

I use iOS 10.2.1 and would like to use it in both the main and selfie camera.

There is a good app to do this called "Lapse-It". It is free with a paid upgrade, but the free mode will do what you ask.


How do I use Back to My Mac (to time capsule) in a multiple Airport configuration? I have an Airport Extreme with an attached USB drive that I've been accessing via Back to My Mac using these instructions (see the section with the text, "...access files on a hard drive connected to an AirPort Extreme...").

Recently I extended (over Ethernet) my Airport network using an Airport Express upstairs. i.e.

Airport Extreme with USB drive (downstairs) <--Ethernet--> Airport Express (upstairs)

I used these instructions (see the first post by Bob Timmons) to extend my network. I can tell that the network extension is over Ethernet because AirPort Utility shows both Airports connected to each other with a solid line (extension over WiFi uses a dashed line).

However, this makes my downstairs Airport Extreme disappear from Back to My Mac. Using Bonjour Browser on a remote Mac, I can see only the upstairs Airport Express:

#######.members.btmm.icloud.com - 4
  Airport Base Station (_airport._tcp.) - 1
    airport_upstairs
  Apple File Sharing (_afpovertcp.tcp.) - 2
    home_mac_1
    home_mac_2

Notice that only airport_upstairs is visible via Back to My Mac (even though airport_downstairs is the one configured for Back to My Mac). Has anyone else run into this problem--do you know how to fix it?

It turns out that only one Airport at a time is visible via Back to My Mac. I had Back to My Mac configured on both airport_downstairs and airport_upstairs. As soon as I disabled Back to My Mac on airport_upstairs and restarted both routers, airport_downstairs appeared in Back to My Mac.

I suspect that the last Airport to start up is the one that appears on Back to My Mac, though I haven't verified this.


Renamed /etc folder. I can't login anymore I did a silly thing by renaming the /etc folder. I was asked for the admin password to change the folder's name. But it's not possible to rename it back to /etc. As if my password was wrong.

I assume the association between password and username is stored in this folder. I can still change the admin's password in the system settings. But I can't login to the advanced options that expect admin rights.

Unfortunately I don't have a recent time machine backup to replace the /etc folder.

Now I'm concerned about rebooting my Mac, as I'm not sure if I'll be able to login again.

How do I fix this issue?

I would try booting in single user mode (holding the Apple and S keys while rebooting), mount the hard drive (mount -uw /) and then check and rename etc as needed (there should be an alias at the root of the HD named etc pointing to /private/etc).

I would do an ls -al / and a ls -al /etc to see which directory name was changed and then fix the bad directory name with mv. Checking each directory would be important regardless of which fix you used (the one above or below).

If single user boot doesn't work, I would “Target Disk Mode” using another Mac (turn off the bad Mac, connect the two Macs with Firewire or Thunderbolt cable, start the bad Mac while holding down the T key), this will mount the bad Mac's drive as an external drive on the other Mac and you should be able to use the command line to change the name there.

Or, as someone else suggested, booting from the recovery partition.

Last resort is to reinstall the system, it should allow you to do that without wiping the drive.


MacBook Pro showing Username and Passwordfield though unencrypted I hope i am posting in the right place because i am really desperate. Since yesterday at noon, when i woke up my mac by lifting the screen, it stopped showing me my usual username, asking for my password and started prompting me to specify my username as well. My profile picture is gone as well. It wont accept my username and my password as valid login data.

Here are all screenshots, for some reason i cant upload them properly:

https://imgur.com/gallery/hxUhm9I

Here is what i have tried so far:

I can boot into recovery mode, but my Macintosh HD does not even show up in Disk Utility.
I have reset the PRAM
when starting in single user mode, my mac calls (to me at least) suspiciously many processes with crypto in their name (my HD was never encrypted!)
when runnig fsck in single user mode my mac even calls two processes called “handle_crypto_mount“
When runnig fsck in single user mode it returns with “error: snap_metadata_val object (oid 0x1d7ca0): invalid extentref_tree_oid (0x0)
I have tried googling this error; the most commom suggestion seems to delete all tmutil snapshots. My mac finds one normal snapshot an one dataless snapshot, but deleting these fails wether the local drive is mounted (?) (mount -uw /) or not.

It seems to me that my mac is thinking for some reason that its harddrive is encrypted with filevault or something of the like which it has never been and acutally isnt at the moment either.

I am really lost people, i usually consider myself not that bad at computers but i just dont know what to do anymore.

Please help me

Also: if i posted this in the wrong place, please kindly point me to the appropriate place

Have you turned on FileVault 2 encryption? If you have, you can enable your third account by doing the following:

Open System Preferences
Click on Privacy & Security.
Click on the FileVault tab.

There should be an Enable users... button showing in the FileVault preference pane. Click it and you should be given the opportunity to enable the third account by providing the account's password.

On restart, the third account should now appear at the login screen.


How to control apache service on OS X (start/stop/restart/graceful restart)? I have Apache installed on OS X and I want to know what command I can use to:

start apache
stop apache
restart apache
gracefully restart apache

Also I want to know if the commands were successful or not.

Apache seams to be installed as org.apache.httpd or at least this is what sudo launchctl list|grep apache shows.

I use the apachectl command

sudo apachectl stop
sudo apachectl start
sudo apachectl restart
sudo apachectl -k graceful

Hope this helps


Editing and syncing a pdf file on Mac and iPad through iBooks I'd like to work on a draft pdf file on both a Mac and an iPad and see
the edits syncing invisibly in the background.

I create a new directory

mkdir ~/latex

and save the following latex in ~/latex/lipsum-novel.tex

\documentclass{report}
\usepackage{lipsum}

\begin{document}
\lipsum[1-30]
\end{document}

then typeset it

pdflatex lipsum-novel

Now I have the pdf file ~/latex/lipsum-novel.pdf

I drag that pdf file from Finder to the iBooks window, and from this answer, we know that iBooks buries the pdf file in ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books

I'm guessing that I can now delete ~/latex/lipsum-novel.pdf

rm ~/latex/lipsum-novel.pdf

All good. iBook took over the draft pdf. My objective now is to modify this
draft pdf on both OS X and on an iPad (with the modifications synced
in the background).

Before I even worry about syncing to iBooks on an iPad, I start by striking through some text.

Already Preview warns me that (as with all OS X native files such as pdf files) "The original document can't be changed."

Fine. I save the modified file in ~/Documents/lipsum-novel copy.pdf.

Now already iBooks has gone out of sync with Preview. If I exit iBooks and reload, I will be looking at the pdf file buried by iBooks, not on the file I edited. If I add a new strikethrough

That hardly helps. I've just introduced yet a third pdf file.

How do I get iBooks to save my edits in its own copy (and sync it with an iPad).

It appears that only synchronizing the original, pristine copy of a pdf file is supported. Synchronizing edits is not implemented, or at least similar questions on discussions.apple.com remain unanswered.


What is QuickTime "unknown error (-50)"? I'm converting MKV files to MP4 with ffmpeg, and when I try to open some (but not all!) of the resulting files, QuickTime Player (version 10.4 on macOS 10.13.6) produces an error dialog with the message:

  The document “….mp4” could not be opened. An unknown error occurred (-50)

What is this "unknown error (-50)" that is preventing my MP4's from being opened?  How can I get more details about the error so that I know how to fix it?

That looks like a classic Mac OS error code. After a bit of googling I came up with:

  -50 | paramErr | Error in user parameter list

Which indicates there is an bug in the program. You should contact the developer about the issue.

It is possible that there is a command line flag that is incorrect and causing the issue.

Reference: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1618


Making MacBook command-key the Emacs meta-key under VMware/Windows I can configure emacs under OS X so that the key nearest the space bar (the key labeled Command ⌘) is my Meta key by running

(setq mac-command-key-is-meta t)

How can I configure the same key to be the emacs Meta-key when I run emacs under Windows, and Windows is itself running in VMware Fusion? For some reason even if I run the above line on Windows-VMware, my Meta key remains the Option key.

To get Emacs on Windows to recognize something other than the Alt as the meta key is hard.

However, you can easily remap any keys on the Mac keyboard, including modifier keys, to be any other keys on the Windows keyboard via Fusion.  I have my ⌘ key mapped to Ctrl on Windows.  So one way to make the ⌘ key your meta key is to map ⌘ to Alt.

In Fusion 5, Select Virtual Machine -> Settings... -> Keyboard & Mouse. That will bring up a list of profiles you can select from, duplicate, and edit.  Hopefully it's obvious from there; if not, consult the built-in help by clicking on the question mark on the lower right of the Keyboard & Mouse panel.


Creating wrapper script for Mail.app to send mail from Terminal I'm trying to send mail from terminal with the help of bash and applescript. I use bash for taking care of arguments and the email message body. Then I have tried using Applescript to send the mail with Mail.app. I have run into some problems though, when I try the following I get: 4:4: syntax error: Expected expression but found end of script. (-2741)

#!/bin/bash

if [ $# -ne 2 ]
then
    echo "Arguments: <subject> <recipient>" >&2 #stderr
    exit 1
fi

read message

applescript="
tell application \"Mail\"
    set theMessage to make new outgoing message with properties {visible:true, subject:${1}, content:${message}, address:${2}}
    send theMessage
end tell
"

# send the message
osascript -e ${applescript}

Updated version:

#!/bin/bash

if [ $# -ne 2 ]
then
    echo "Arguments: <subject> <recipient>" >&2 #stderr
    exit 1
fi

read message

echo "tell application \"Mail\"
    set theEmail to make new outgoing message with properties {visible:true, subject:\"${1}\", content:\"${message}\"}
    tell theEmail
        make new recipient at end of to recipients with properties {address:\"${2}\"}
        send theEmail
    end tell
end tell" | osascript

Do you need to use Mail.app, or is your goal just to send an email message? If it's just to send an email message from the Terminal, you can use the sendemail command-line utility.

/usr/local/bin/sendemail
 -f from@my.email.com
 -t my.recipient@their.email.com
 -s your.smtp.server:port
 -xu smtp.username.here
 -xp smtp.password.here
 -m message.body.goes.here

Obviously in Terminal all of that will need to go on a single line, with appropriate escapes and string quoting. You can look at the man page for sendemail for more options.


Missing iPhoto Comments When I upload photos from my iPhoto Library on my old MacBook (OS 10.4.11; iPhoto 6.0.6 (3.2.2.)) to Dropbox and download them from Dropbox onto my new MacBook (OS 10.8.5; iPhoto 11, version 9.4.2), I get the photos but not the comments.  The comments on the individual pictures that I entered in iPhoto into the little information box in the lower left-hand corner seem to have been lost in the process.
The same thing happens when I burn them on a CD and copy them from the CD onto my new MacBook. Again, I see the photos but not the comments. (I can see the  comments if I look at the photos on the CD, but not if I copy them from the CD into my iPhotolibrary and look at them there.)
My questions: (i) How can I make the comments visible?  (ii) Will the comments be visible if I transfer the photos from the old to the new Macbook with a firewire?

That happens when you are not using methods that also moves the metadata file with the photos.

For some reason iPhoto decided not to make it simple to move photos arround or move them out of iPhoto hugging.

I recommend a app called Photoshare that allows you to choose and export all data associated with the photos.


How do I delete photos from JUST my iPhone 6s when using iCloud Photo Library? Whenever I got to delete a photo, it says "This photo will be deleted from iCloud Photo Library on all your devices." I don't want it deleted from my iCloud Photo Library, only my iPhone 6s. What I want to do is import photos and videos from my iPhone to my MacBook Pro and then delete them from my iPhone. If I import those photos and videos to my Mac and then delete them from my iPhone (ignoring the warning) will they also be deleted from my Mac?

iCloud Photo Library's purpose is to unify the photo libraries across your devices. If you wish your devices to maintain separate libraries, you need to disable iCloud Photo Library.


Is there an easy way to install Linux similar to Boot Camp? I've so far been using Disk Utility to partition my Mac's drive and install Linux, but is there an easier way to do it, using something similar to Boot Camp, or a third-party software application that will split your drives easily (and is not malware)?

Apple's disk utility is all you need to partition your disk.

It's what Boot Camp calls underneath the hood.  Most Linux distributions have adequate information to make a DIY installer, but if you want something as polished as Boot Camp I would recommend Boot Runner by Two Canoes.  It comes with support so you don't really have to learn anything other than how to install Linux as it manages the dual-boot environment very well.

http://twocanoes.com/products/mac/boot-runner