How do I recharge my ipad's SIM card? I don't know how SIM cards work in your country, either you should charge (increasing its credit) it every time when its credit is finished Or its credit is unlimited .. anyway my SIM needs to be recharge after a while. Basically I do that like this via the mobile:

Recharging: *141*{16 digit code}*1#
Seeing the current credit: *141*1#

Based on this, that's depends on the sim provide. But actually apple devices are really rare in my country .. So my sim provider doesn't have much information about how to work with ipad.

All I need is to find a dialer keypad in the ipad.. is there any? If yes where exactly?

Noted that I'm using MTN Irancell SIM card. Well can please somebody tell me how can I both "see current credit" and "recharge it" of the SIM which is into the ipad?

I recharge via my online banking, if one of your banks can also offer this, then this would be ideal.


Unibody Macbook Stuck on Apple Logo My White, Unibody Macbook running OS X 10.8 started to freeze, so I shut it down.

When I went to restart it, it got stuck on the Apple Logo for some five minutes before I just turned it back off.

So far, I have:

Checked & Repaired Disk
Checked & Repaired Permissions
Reset the NVRAM
Reset the SMC
Tried Safe Boot

For Safe Boot, the loading bar appeared and it started to load. Then, it disappeared and I got stuck with the progress indicator (again) for some eight minutes before I just turned it off.

I need my Macbook for school and all, it has all my work and projects...

Any thoughts? Any input is welcome.

Note: My Apple Care subscription expired < 1 month ago, so... :(

Edit

In response to a comment below, I booted up using CMD + V. Here are the results:

...
** /dev/rdisk0s2 (NO WRITE)
** Root file system
    Executing fsck_hfs (version diskdev_cmds-557~393)
FIPS USER Space POST: Integrity test success!
FIPS USER Space POST: AES GCM test success!
FIPS USER Space POST: AES CBC test success!
FIPS USER Space POST: TDES CBC test success!
FIPS USER Space POST: SHA test success!
FIPS USER Space POST: HMAC test success!
FIPS USER Space POST: RSA test success!
FIPS USER Space POST: ECDSA test success!
FIPS USER Space POST: DRBG test success!
FIPS USER Space POST Success!

And then nothing...

Apple geniuses have a lot of latitude with what they can do. I have gotten a motherboard replacement about 2 weeks after my 3 year Apple Care plan expired. If you go to the store and are honest you could get lucky. I haven't heard of anybody getting service after a month. At the least the genius can tell you for sure what the problem is.

So make a genius bar appointment and see what they say. With Apple it really doesn't hurt to ask.


How can I make Spotlight index source code in Mountain Lion? Under Lion I had Spotlight set up to index .as (ActionScript) files using the general instructions here: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2005052015041510
but installing Mountain Lion seems to have broken it.

I went to /Library/Spotlight/ to try again and found that RichText.mdimporter no longer lives there. And the alternate location, ~/Library/Spotlight/, no longer seems to exist at all.

When I follow Apple's instructions here: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Carbon/Conceptual/MDImporters/Concepts/Troubleshooting.html to check which Spotlight plugins are installed by typing "/usr/bin/mdimport -L" in terminal, I just get a blank list with NO plugins.

I don't need anything fancy, I just want Spotlight to treat .as files as text. Any ideas?

As mentioned in your linked article, the default place for all included importers has been System > Library > Spotlight since 10.4 and it's still there in ML, including RichText.mdimporter.


How to add the Time Capsule to an existing network, in Ethernet? I have just received my new Time Capsule.

I don’t want to create a new AirPort network, I already have one.

I want to connect the Time Capsule to my existing network, in Ethernet. I plan to plug the Time Capsule to my wi-fi access point & router (Freebox), with a (gigabit) Ethernet cable.

Which Ethernet port of the Time Capsule do I use ? LAN or WAN ? I prefer to use the LAN port, I don’t want my Time Capsule to have anything to do with my Internet connection.
How do I configure the Time Capsule ?

The guy from Apple’s tech support happened to be a joke.

I'm a bit late, but I just solved this issue on my own home network.

I added the Time Capsule as a normal client on the LAN. Plug it into the LAN port, and it'll be fine. Then you just have to turn off the network creation settings — and you're golden!

Wish I'd found this sooner.


How can I invert my selection in Microsoft Excel using AppleScript? (selection itself, not properties of selection) I'd like to invert my selection with AppleScript. This is analogous to Adobe Photoshop's (and other Adobe products) functionality "Invert selection (Ctrl/Cmd + I to deselect what was previously selected and select what was not selected)"

I can select a group of cells with AppleScript.
I can get selected range with AppleScript
I can loop selected cells
I'd like to select all cells that are not currently selected

Code
tell application "Microsoft Excel"
    repeat with item_cell from 1 to count large of selection -- all cells in selection
        --do stuff with selected cells
    end repeat

    -- index of selected cells technique, not sure whether helpful
    set sel_range to selection
    tell selection to set {rowIndex, columnIndex, rowCount, columnCount} to {get first row index of sel_range, get first column index of sel_range, get count rows of sel_range, get count columns of sel_range}
end tell

Originally Selected Cells

Desired Selection
(All cells in the sheet are selected that were not originally selected)

I've been working on this question for a while and, hitting a brick wall, decided to try and get it to work using Visual Basic instead. My hope is that doing this will make it easier to get the code right within AppleScript, so I'm sharing the Visual Basic code in case it helps someone else to get an AppleScript version working - not that I've given up on this myself yet! :)

Sub InvertSheet()

Set s1 = Selection
Set s2 = Range("A1:Z100")
Set sinv = Nothing

For Each s In s2
If Intersect(s, s1) Is Nothing Then
If sinv Is Nothing Then
Set sinv = s
Else
Set sinv = Union(sinv, s)
End If
End If
Next

If sinv Is Nothing Then
Else
sinv.Select
End If
End Sub

NOTES:

I did come across a problem - namely that I couldn't find a way to get this to apply to the entire sheet without it causing Excel to hang for extremely long periods of time (probably because it has to check 1,048,576 rows and 16,384 columns) to do so.
To get around this problem I used Set s2 = Range("A1:Z100") to limit the area of the sheet that the code applies to to the range of A1:Z100. However, this can be changed to suit a larger area if needed.
I imagine trying to cover the whole sheet will be a problem within AppleSCript as well.


Forcing use of SSL connections in web dependent applications Many websites allow it, to use an SSL connection. But how can I force my web dependent applications (Safari e.g.) to establish such a more secure (I know, that SSL is not the solution for all security related problems) connection, and to fallback if it isn't possible?

A preliminary before getting to a solution: I think you would be unhappy with a solution which tried https with every site.  For sites which do not respond to https there would an unacceptable delay waiting for some timeout period before trying again with http.

My solution for you is GlimmerBlocker.  This a proxy server running on your Mac.  As a result all web applications connect via GlimmerBlocker.  Though frequently used as an ad blocker, it has much more functionality including rewriting web requests or returning a redirect to your browser.

Here is a description of the Request and Response Flow inside GlimmerBlocker including how URLs can be modified.  Pretty sparse description, but can you started.

The first post in this blog has a more detailed recipe for converting http requests to https.  This can be applied to specific web sites which you know do support https as well as http.

Using GlimmerBlocker beyond what is out of the box is not for the fainthearted, but it has the power to do almost everything conceivable to web requests.


How do I disable the Minimize (command-M) shortcut in Mavericks? I want to unset the Cmd+M shortcut but I can't seem to find it. I've checked  System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts but no luck there. I've even tried running defaults write -g NSUserKeyEquivalents -dict-add 'Minimize' '\0' to no avail.

You don't need to install any additional software.

Go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > App Shortcuts
Click the  button below
Enter "Minimize" (use "Minimize All" to override minimizing all windows with ⌥⌘M) into the Menu Title text input field.
Assign some bizzare key combination that you won't press by accident.
Repeat steps three and four for "Minimise" (alternate spelling) which is required for some apps.
Close the window to save the changes.

I'm aware that this is not really "disabling it" but the result is effectively the same and without depending on 3rd party software.


Is there a way to "reposition" the sound source when using headphones? Whenever I use headphones to listen to music or synthetic noise (e.g. one of those white noise / natural sound apps), it sounds like the source is coming from inside my head instead of somewhere "out there".

Is there an app or something that can filter these sounds in real-time and uses 3D audio to "reposition" the sound source? So that for example it sounds like coming from real speakers even though I'm using headphones to listen to it.

Preferably an affordable app for the Mac and not some fancy pro software that only sound engineers use.

Have you try the Boom 3D app ? Boom 3D allow you to reorganize your speaker, but I never tested it with headphone... You should try the free trial !

https://www.globaldelight.com/boom/index.php


How do I loop the last action in the Automator app? How do I loop the last action in the Automator app, instead of looping the entire workflow?

Automator has a Loop action, which causes the first action in the workflow to be the next action executed; however, it does not have a Loop action to act only on the last action.

Another option, if applicable, is to use a Run AppleScript action or Run Shell Script action where you can code in some form of looping action.

If appropriate or applicable, you can add any given action more than once. Without knowing what your workflow looks like it's hard to advise.


Want to view images in sequence and delete I have downloaded photos to an iMac from camera into folders, not iPhoto.  I want to view the images on full screen in sequence and delete images as I go through them. I have come from Windows where there is a program that does that, but cannot find similar in the iMac.

I would (in Finder):

1) Switch to list view ⌘+2

2) Select the first picture in the list

3) hit space to activate Quick Look

4) if you want to delete the photo you are viewing hit ⌘+delete

5) otherwise hit the down arrow to go to the next picture


OSX 10.6 + OSX 10.7 + WIN XP? I am running 10.6 on my macbook pro and purchased a while ago 10.7 and also have a purchased copy of Windows XP

I am using a software which requires me to use Windows XP which i want to use with Boot Camp, my only problem is that i need to use the Boot Camp version on OSX 10.6 that supports Windows XP and not from later OSX versions.

I would like to reinstall the entire system and install in order which will allow me to have working copies of 10.6 for boot amp installation + a working copy of 10.7 (later to be upgraded to 10.9) and a working copy of Windows XP.

  My plan for re-installation:
  (250MB DRIVE)
  Clean install OSX 10.6
  -> Partition: "Macintosh HD" Leave 50GB for OSX 10.6 > "Macintosh HD 2" 150GB for OSX 10.7 >"Windows HD" 50 GB for Windows XP
  ->Clean install OSX 10.7
  -> Going back to 10.6 > run Boot Camp and install Windows XP on "Windows HD"

It will be very important for me to upgrade "Macintosh HD 2" 150GB with OSX 10.7 later on to OSX 10.9 (verified that it will work on this machine) and I do not want to mess up the "Windows HD" with Windows XP...

How do I install things so I can make sure OSX 10.7 will load by default?

You should do it in these order:

partition drive into two partitions — first for 10.7 and second for 10.6 and XP combined
install 10.7
install 10.6
run Bootcamp Assistant and install xp
— Choose 10.7 partition in Startup Disk in System Preferences

And if you only need 10.6 for Bootcamp assistant you may skip that because 10.7 has it. Once everything is set, use the Startup Disk control to write the Lion OS as the default for power on.


How do I undo an import into macOS calendar? I imported an iCalendar (.ics) file into macOS Calendar. Because I expected the file to only contain a handful of events, I chose to add the events to an existing calendar rather than create a new one. However, the file turned out to contain hundreds or thousands of events, most of which were not relevant to me and which I don't want spamming my calendar.

I tried to undo the import immediately after it happened, but undo was not available. I tried manually deleting some of the events, which works for some of them, but many others have other invitees and Calendar says it will notify them when I delete the event which I want to avoid as it would mean sending many notifications. I don't want to delete the calendar to which I added the events, as it already contained a lot of events that I don't want to lose and that would be a lot of work to note down and recreate.

Is there any way I can bulk remove these events without sending a bunch of notifications? I'm willing to use third-party software if necessary.

Edited to add: Most/all of the invitees on these events are long_string_of_mixed_alphanumerics@group.calendar.google.com addresses, so I assume the emails would be sent to some sort of group of subscribers or members on the Google Calendar from which the events were exported.

If I try to move one of the offending events to another calendar, I get a message:

  You're about to send an invitation for "event_name".

  Do you want to send "event_name" now, continue editing the event or revert the changes?

The options are Revert, Edit, or Send.

It sounds like your calendar event was generated from Google Calendar as an event which 'repeats itself' a number of times. If that is the case, and if you have imported this event in a calendar which you have linked to a Google account, you should be able to open it from Google Calendar and remove the event from there, including all the recurrencies of the event. When you do so, you can choose not to notify others of these deletions.


Is there a way to show the iPhone skin with the lastest iOS 8 Simulator? Previous versions of the iOS Simulator (7 and below) would also show the iPhone skin, which made for better demos:

Is there a way to do this with the iOS 8 Simulator? This isn't as compelling:

No, it's no longer possible. The recommended way for making demos is now using Quicktime in OS X Yosemite recorded directly from the device. If you wanted you could take that video and during post-production use one of the App Store Marketing Templates to make it look a little nicer.


Two full screen apps in OSX Lion when using multiple monitors Is it possible to run two full screen apps at the same time in OSX Lion when using multiple monitors?

[update]

This has worked for me and others; it may take a couple attempts to get down.

Open an app (Safari, for example) and enter full-screen mode.
Next, you will need to start another app without using the mouse (i.e. via Spotlight w/keyboard shortcut) Command + Space
When the Spotlight search box pops up start typing the name of the other app you would like to launch full-screen.
After you have it highlighted press Enter to launch the app and immediately start a gesture (using your mouse or trackpad) to switch spaces.
As you see your current space start sliding pause/stop your swipe halfway.
If you succeeded you should have a space that not really there (but is).
Moving to where the animation has jumped or stopped you should be able to see both spaces.
Your second app should have opened in the original full-screen
app's space and can be moved into the remaining unused space on
the second display.

  Since solution/work-around is possible through an apparent glitch in the gui, one of the apps doesn't show in
  mission control or in the app switcher when you press command-tab.

  Also, if you weren't able to achieve this via my instructions try these also.

It's currently not possible. The OS X Lion full screen API supports two monitors, and applications using the API can use additional monitors. However, it's not possible to run a full screen app on the main monitor and another app on the second monitor.


what are some good apps for backing up all iphone data to dropbox? I'm already using the Dropbox iPhone app, but it only backs up my photos.

Basically, I'm looking for the iPhone equivalent of the Android "SanDisk Memory Zone" app, which automatically and regularly backups my contacts, docs, files, etc to my Dropbox account. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sandisk.mz&hl=en Preferably, a solution for a non-jailbroken phone.

Can anyone recommend an app that will backup other data to my Dropbox account?

Due to the sandboxing applied to all application in iOS it is not possible to backup "everything" to Dropbox. Dropbox access must be enabled by the individual application (as a lot of text editors etc. do) or be based on public APIs (like for Photos).

If you are just looking for a way to easily backup everything, iCloud backup would be an option. But you'll need an iPhone to recover any data from there as well.


I'm looking for a good, lightweight email client I'm looking for a good, lightweight email client.

What do you guys recommend?

Popular email clients for the Mac include:

Apple Mail - my current favourite, especially in Lion.
Postbox - Paid for, but feature-rich and quite polished AFAICT
Thunderbird Free and open-source. Extremely configurable with a similar extension ecosystem as Firefox.
Microsoft Outlook - A very fully featured email and calendar package. It replaces Microsoft's previous Mac email client, Entourage.
Sparrow - A unique email application. The layout encourages casual, Twitter-like conversation by evoking the timeline view of popular Twitter apps. It's pretty trendy at time of writing.
Mailplane - Basically an optimised, dedicated Gmail browser window. Worth looking into if you're a heavy Gmail webmail user.
MailMate - I hadn't heard of this one before, but it has a good review at Lifehacker.


Problem with startup `rc.local` script Until OS X 10.9 I could also run Bootcamp within Virtualbox (through a .vmdk file). In order to do this, I needed to unmount the Bootcamp partition after changing the permissions during the OS X startup process in the rc.local file. Now, with OS X 10.10 rc.local does not seem to work anymore and I cannot start my virtual machine without first manually execute the terminal commands that are in my rc.local script.

Here is my rc.local content:

  sudo chmod 777 /dev/disk0s4
  diskutil unmount /dev/disk0s4

I understood that rc.local is not supported anymore in Yosemite and launchd should be used instead. Source:: How To: Run Windows 7 (Bootcamp) in VirtualBox.

Can someone help me with a valid script and show me how to use it?

I was using those commands for VirtualBox in rc.local, and I ran into the same problem.  I don't if this is the right way to do this, but it works for me.

I created /Library/LaunchDaemons/local.localhost.startup.plist containing the code below.  It runs the rc.local script once at start up.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>             <string>local.localhost.startup</string>
    <key>Disabled</key>          <false/>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>         <true/>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>         <false/>
    <key>LaunchOnlyOnce</key>    <true/>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
            <string>/etc/rc.local</string>
        </array>
</dict>
</plist>


Best way to import analog video tape to Mac? I want to transfer my family's analog video tape collection to digital form on my Mac (mid-2014 MacBook Pro).  Unlike the asker in Best way to import analog video (VHS) to Mac, my goal is not to identify an inexpensive solution but rather to preserve video and audio quality.  I would prefer to do it myself because besides being naturally hands-on I can't risk these being lost/damaged/not-returned if sent out.

Details

Details of my particular situation follow, but please feel free to provide answers, background, and further considerations useful to future readers with similar but possibly varying needs.

Our working Sony Hi8 XR CCD-TRV65 Video Camera Recorder
(VCR)

which has s-video and composite (not component) outputs through which
I can still play...
Our 20 Hi8 MP 120 tapes

which are 10 to 15 years old.

How can I best preserve the content of these tapes?

What device and/or software should I use to transfer and convert the
videos into digital format?
What target video file format should I choose to preserve quality and
maximize flexibility?  Electronic-only files are fine with me -- I
don't particularly need or want to burn to DVD or Blu-ray.

I recently did this type of project with a similar Sony Camcorder that didn't have a USB interface.

Here are the parameters (constraints) of the equipment we're working with:

Audio is stereo/mono - left and right channels
Video output (as stated) is either S-Video or component - both of which can handle up to 480i (in the US).  IMO, color was better on the component, but YMMV.

What's important to note here is this is the highest quality that will be achievable.  You won't be able to convert this to HD quality simply because the source isn't HD quality.

  What device and/or software should I use to transfer and convert the
  videos into digital format?

I used (and highly recommend) the Elgato Video USB Capture.

This was a plug-and-play device.  The included software was extremely easy to use.  When I used it, I was on Yosemite (10.10), however, I don't see any reason it wouldn't work with El Capitan or Sierra.

  What target video file format should I choose to preserve quality and
  maximize flexibility?

Your best bet would be to use H.264 MPEG-4, which the Elgato supports. From it's Wikipedia entry:

  As of 2014 it is one of the most commonly used formats for the
  recording, compression, and distribution of video content

H.264 MPEG-4 is a format that's commonly used for Blu-Ray (DVDs) and for Internet services such as YouTube.  This will give you the highest amount of flexibility at the best resolution possible.

As far as audio, the Elgato Video Capture samples at 48 kHZ at 128bits which is considered "professional grade"

  The standard audio sampling rate used by professional digital video
  equipment such as tape recorders, video servers, vision mixers and so
  on.

This is a rather inexpensive setup that worked extremely well (from personal experience).  It took me just over a week (about 100 tapes, not all were "full") to digitize everything.  But once that was done I was able to make backups to both HDDs and DVDs.


how to open and modify eps with gimp I use GIMP a lot for my work, especially for modifying figures in EPS format to put in my latex documents. However I don't know how to configure GIMP to open EPS files. In fact if I try to open an EPS it says that the format is not recognizable. On the contrary under linux that is automatic? How it can be possible?

I'm using Mountain Lion with GIMP 2.

Appreciate any help, thanks.

If I understand this bug report (https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=689657) correctly, you can check if your version of Gimp supports ps and eps (it may not, even if you have ghostscript) by doing the following:

Open Gimp.
In the menu, click help, and then procedure browser.
In the procedure browser search for 'file-ps-load'. If it's not listed, Gimp won't open ps or eps files.

My version of Gimp doesn't have this. But I haven't tried downloading the current version, maybe the current version has this enabled.

It's not too hard these days to set up Linux in VirtualBox. If you have no other alternatives available and don't want to buy Windows or another computer, you can use Gimp on Linux (probably Ubuntu) in VirtualBox.


Can I use AppleScript to detect if there are any windows on screen? I have a bash script that requires to know if there are any windows on the current screen. I couldn't do it in bash so maybe there is a way. Also, if I could find if there is an active window (if there are windows on the screen) that would be great but it is not that important. Thanks

This is one of those tasks that, on the surface of it, is fairly simple to do, but when you experiment a bit more, turns out can be a little tricky, as not every application or application window reports their properties or attributes completely truthfully all of the time.

This line of AppleScript is the most conventional and commonly-used way to get a list of open windows from applications running on your system:

    tell application "System Events" to ¬
        get every window of every process whose background only is false

This will give you a list of even those windows that are currently minimised and sitting under their dock icon.  You can get a list of only those windows that are not minimised, and thus visible on your screen at that moment:

    tell application "System Events" to ¬
        get every window of (every process whose visible is true)

However, this will occasionally miss detecting some windows of background only applications (some menu bar apps) that don't report as being visible even when their windows are open.  So, to catch those, you can use this:

    tell application "System Events" to get windows of ¬
        (every process whose class of windows contains window) ¬
            whose value of attribute "AXMinimized" is false

This has the nice benefit of returning only non-empty nests of lists in AppleScript, is my favourite method to use as being one that catches background only, "invisible" windows.

To call these commands from bash, you can use this:

    osascript \
        -e 'tell application "System Events"' \
        -e '    get every window of (every process ¬' \
        -e '        whose background only is false  ¬' \
        -e '        and visible is true)' \
        -e 'end tell'

This is the combination of the first two examples I gave, which returns a comma-delimited list of windows denoted by their titles, like this:

,,, window Edit - Ask Different of application process Safari,, \
    window ~ — osascript  /Users/CK — ttys000 — ⌘1 of application process Terminal,, \
    window Untitled 2 of application process Script Editor, \
    window Messages of application process Script Editor, \
    window Library of application process Script Editor

(I've split the output over several lines for readability.)  Note the three leading commas, which, in AppleScript, are where you'd get empty nesting lists featuring as a result of processes that are visible and in the foreground, but simply don't have any open windows, thus return {} in AppleScript, which becomes an empty string "" in stdout.

As you can see, I have this Safari window open; a Terminal window open; and three Script Editor windows open.  However, it missed my Instagram feed window.  Here's the other example run in bash:

    osascript \
        -e 'tell application "System Events" to ¬' \
        -e '    get every window of (every process ¬' \
        -e '        whose class of windows contains window) ¬' \
        -e '    whose value of attribute "AXMinimized" is false'

which returns this for me right now:

    window Edit - Ask Different of application process Safari, \
    window ~ — osascript  /Users/CK — ttys000 — ⌘1 of application process Terminal, \
    window Untitled 2 of application process Script Editor, \
    window Messages of application process Script Editor, window Library of application process Script Editor, \
    window Main Window of application process Flume

(Flume is my Instagram app.)  However, the cost of using this method is a bit more processing time (a couple of seconds).

Finally, if all you require is just the actual number of open windows on your screen to determine whether this is non-zero or whatever, then simply swap get every window... with get the number of (windows...) in whichever method you end up choosing to use.

Note:  Some of these commands may work differently on older systems.  I tested these on Mac OS 10.13 using AppleScript 2.7.  However, very occasionally, System Events can throw an error.  Please run the command again.  This is not a problem with the script, but an issue with System Events and its occasional temperamental behaviour.


When I run "networksetup -getdnsservers airport" in Terminal, it says There aren't any DNS Servers set on Wi-Fi When I run the networksetup -getdnsservers airport command in terminal, it says There aren't any DNS Servers set on Wi-Fi.

I need my primary DNS to fix my NAT Type on Xbox One.

First run:

networksetup -listallhardwareports

Look for the en0 or en1 for your WiFi under the Device:

Then run:

ipconfig getpacket en0

Of course if your Wi-Fi is en7, then you need that instead of en0 above. The broadcast DNS and search suffix are provided as output to the above ifconfig getpacket command towards the bottom of the options. If you don't get a packed in response to DHCP then you need to fix that on your network or log in to the router directly to retrieve the proper values.


How can I hide file tags? I'm tagging USB and network drives in Mavericks, and I would like the tags to disappear from my Mac when the drives are disconnected. Is this possible?

Disconnect the external drive.
Navigate to Finder -> Preferences... -> Tags.
Delete the desired tag. Confirm.
Reconnect the external drive.
The tag will reappear.
Disconnect the external drive.
The tag will disappear.

I'm curious if there's a more permanent solution, such as a way to create tags so that they're transient in the first place.


Is it possible to detect any certificates not packaged by Apple? I recently received a Mac and connected to my employer's network. When I connected, my Mac (not browser, it was in the connection dialog) asked me to do something with a new certificate. I accidentally clicked yes before I got past the title, and am worried I installed a root cert that allows my employer to see my encrypted traffic. Is there any way to check for any installed certificates not put there by Apple?

Chances are you installed the certificate that was required by your employers network.  For example at my work place we have 802.1x authentication on our Wifi, basically users log in with their normal username and passwords instead of a pre-shared Wifi key.  When they log in they must accept a certificate from our servers.

This doesn't necessarily mean that your employer can see your encrypted traffic, however it is very possible.  It depends what kind of infrastructure your employer has, i.e. do they have a system that does SSL inspection?  You won't know unless someone in IT tells you.

You can view the installed certificates through Keychain Access (Finder --> Utilities --> Keychain Access).  For my 802.1x Wifi there is a certificate in the 'Certificates' section at the very bottom of the left column (not the My Certificates).

Never-the-less you will be able to see all installed Certificated here.


Light-weight system monitor tool/app for OSX, Conky alternatives On common UNIX-like computer operating systems there was extremely flexible/customizeable/lightweight tool for System Stats monitoring, called Conky. I'd like to find alternative system monitoring tool for operating system stats in OS X, preferable with the same set of features or more, e.g.:

OS stats monitoring (CPU usage, mem usage, network monitoring, disk usage, "top" like process stats, uname, uptime, etc);
support of compact representation in system tray (menu bar), or/end desktop-widget view;
lightweight;
highly customizable, support of user configuration (alike in conky-app: display information either as text, or using simple progress bars and graph widgets, with different fonts and colours);

What options for application/tools exist for OS X?

I searched for the other topics, and found, that answers/questions are not well organized, some of them are really specialized, lots of duplicates, etc. Let's be more specific.

Rules to structure the answer

One app per answer.
Use this format for the first two lines of your answer:

  ## [app name](link to website)

  ### [App Store](link to AppStore) (price)

Check for duplicates before adding new answers.
If you find a duplicate, vote it down and encourage its poster to up-vote the original entry instead (and remove the duplicate).
Include short description (preferably not marketing text) about what this system monitor does:

which OS stats (uname, uptime, CPU usage, mem usage, disk usage, "top" like process stats, and network monitoring, just to name a few);
what are configuration options, how flexible they are;
can it be shown nicely/compact in system tray (menu bar);
can it display information either as text, or using simple progress bars and graph widgets, with different fonts and colours;
provide one-two screenshots, if possible (with permanent link)
unique features;
is it lightweight or monstrous;
etc.

MenuMeters

Official website, free & open-source
A fork of MenuMeters is being maintained for El Capitan+ including Mojave and Catalina: Maintained Fork Repo

Features:

CPU, memory, disk, and network monitoring tools for Mac OS X;
are a true SystemUIServer plugins (also known as Menu Extras);
Net Meter can display network throughput as arrows, bytes per second, and/or as a graph.
minimalism: extremely lightweight and dumb simple;
size is ~1Mb;
open-source, freeware.

Official website states about exception:

  MenuMeters cannot be used on 10.11 El Capitan

But I managed to run on OS X El Capitan (10.11.3) without any problems, I will provide the link on re-compiled version, as this tool is opensource. It works like a charm for a last year, not a single issue found even after automatic system updates.

Configuration screenshot:


Application that allows you to customize which keys to use for mousekeys Is there an application for customizing mouse-keys, specifically choosing which keys to use?

I don't have a numpad so I can't use the built-in mouse-keys.

The predefined settings in KeyRemap4MacBook aren't really usable, but you can add custom settings by creating a private.xml.

See the source for the virtual keycode constants and the predefined settings.


Are the keystrokes under guest Ubuntu via Virtualbox supposed to be the same in a Ubuntu? I installed Ubuntu via virtualbox under Mac OS.

My keyboard-shortcut experiences with guest Ubuntu until recently were the same as mine with Ubuntu installed directly on a computer.
For example, text copy can be done by ctrl-C, instead of Command-C.

Yesterday, I found that right-clicking by tapping the right region of the trackpad in the guest Ubuntu doesn't work, while two-finger tapping does work like right-clicking in PC.

My solution was to change the trackpad setting under system preferences of Mac OS, from two-finger tapping to right-region single-finger tapping.
So the solution seems to tell me that right-clicking under guest Ubuntu is the same as that in host Mac OS. This is contrary with my previous impression that keyboard shortcuts in guest Ubuntu are almost the same as those in Ubuntu installed directly on a computer. So why is right clicking treated differently?

Thanks.

The multitouch events are handled exclusively by OS X and not passed through to the guest OS. Basically, the focus that keyboard and pointer have passes faithfully to the VM. Focus for the trackpad is filtered and not passed.


Uncheck "Reopen windows when logging back in" by default The shutdown/restart dialog has a check-box Reopen windows when logging back in which is checked by default. I need to change its behavior to be unchecked by default. Is this possible? If yes, how can I do that?

Edit: since 10.7.4, the "Reopen windows when logging back in" checkbox has stayed unchecked if you uncheck it once, so the hacks below are not needed anymore.

One option is to set the LoginwindowLaunchesRelaunchApps key to false in ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow.plist:

defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LoginwindowLaunchesRelaunchApps -bool false

You could also save this property list as ~/Library/LaunchAgents/logout_saves_state.plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC -//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN
http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd>
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>logout_saves_state</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>defaults</string>
        <string>write</string>
        <string>com.apple.loginwindow</string>
        <string>TALLogoutSavesState</string>
        <string>-bool</string>
        <string>false</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Then load the property list by running launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/logout_saves_state.plist or by logging out and back in once.

TALLogoutSavesState sometimes got reset to true when I logged out and back in, so just running defaults write com.apple.loginwindow TALLogoutSavesState -bool false once wouldn't have worked.

Neither of these options actually makes the checkbox appear unchecked, but they have the same effect.


AppStore Review: Is there any way to get to another reviewer? Is there a way to resubmit an iOS app for review so that it will be verified by another Apple employee?

Apple rejects our app for the third time because of spam (point 4.3 of AppStore Review Guidelines), but we don't agree with that. Our app has a lot of features that similar apps don't have. We want to get some additional information about the reason, but Apple always sends us a sample answer without any details.

There is no way to guarantee a different reviewer.

It is highly likely that each review is documented internally, with future reviewers examining the application's past before starting a new review. Thus problems or concerns raised before, will be raised again.

Contact Apple Developer

Only Apple can help you. Contact Apple Developer and ask them for more information about the rejection. Phoning Apple may result in a more detailed answer and start a conversation about eventually being accepted.

Regrettably Apple's reviews can feel capricious; this is a cost of being in Apple's App Store.


Preview Markup Options for Shape Fill Working on a Mac Desktop OS Sierra, want to use Preview to markup a pdf, but need the filled rectangle to be translucent, not opaque.  I only see fill, and no fill options on the menu.

Is this possible to achieve and what steps might work?

After creating your rectangle you can choose the color picker, then Show Colors. That gives you an opacity slider.

Here you can see I've given it a purple tint.


AppleScript input text from user tell application "Reminders"
    set newReminder to make new reminder
    set name of newReminder to "Text"
    set due date of newReminder to current date
end tell

How can I set the name of newReminder to input text?

Here's an AppleScript code example:

set newReminderName to ""
repeat until newReminderName is not ""
    set newReminderName to text returned of (display dialog "Enter a name for the reminder:" buttons {"Cancel", "OK"} default button 2 default answer "" with icon 1)
    if newReminderName is not "" then
        tell application "Reminders"
            set newReminder to make new reminder
            set name of newReminder to newReminderName
            set due date of newReminder to current date
        end tell
    end if
end repeat

This is coded so that you either have to enter a name for the reminder or cancel the prompt. In other words, if you don't type a name and click OK, you're prompted again and again until you do, or click Cancel.

Updated to address a point mentioned in comment:

The code below is used in an Automator service where the selected text passed to the Automator service becomes the name of the new reminder. It is coded not to create the reminder if an empty sting is passed. Although I don't think it can be triggered unless some text is selected, nonetheless it's always best to include some form of error checking.

on run {input}
    set newReminderName to input
    if newReminderName is not "" then
        tell application "Reminders"
            set newReminder to make new reminder
            set name of newReminder to newReminderName
            set due date of newReminder to current date
        end tell
    end if
end run


Can I copy files between 2 different iTunes libraries within iTunes? I want to create 2 iTunes libraries on my Windows 7 PC so that my wife and I can separate our music and more easily sync to different iPods.  However, we also want to be able to share some of the music between the 2 libraries.

First question: Is the current default iTunes library folder located at \Libraries\Music\iTunes?

Question 2: If I allow iTunes to create duplicates of all the music from the original library in the new library, will I then have 2 physical copies of all music files on my hard drive?

Question 3: Based on what I have read so far, it appears that the only way to copy music from one library to another is by exporting from one library to an external location and then importing into the other directory from that external location.  Is this correct?  If not, please clarify.

Direct answers to your questions…

Yes - though that's it's 'masked' address not it's actual location.
Real location is C:\Users\[myName]\Music\
Yes.
You can dupe the library.xml file & change the hard-coded paths to the new location, then import.
Simple, but time-consuming.

Another downside to that method is that once you have separated the identities in such a way, they will remain forever separate & any music added to one will also need to be added to the other.
You will also have to remember to launch with the correct Library every time.

However…
Instead, if you use 'Sync selected playlists, artists, albums & genres you can have completely different selections for each device, even on the same ID.

I have totally different selections on my iPhone & iPod, as I use them for different things.
Might be a whole lot easier to manage.


iPhone not sending / recieving links I've noticed that when I send a text with a link to or from my iPhone, the recieving phone does not display the link, but displays all other text. I'm not sure if this is affected by iMessage. In any case, is there a way for me to fix this problem?

I have the iPhone 6 with iOS 8.4

I find the same topic in this post in Apple forum, you can have a look. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6830336?start=0&tstart=0


How can I reset Safari when Safari is broken? I started up Safari and let it import history from Firefox, but now Safari is behaving very strangely. For example, many of the menu options are greyed out.

I want to reset Safari to a blank slate, but the Clear History... option isn't available.

I tried deleting ~/Library/Safari/ and ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari but it didn't seem to have any effect; Safari is still broken. How can I more thoroughly reset Safari when the app itself seems broken?

This is using an Administrator account. Running macOS Mojave 10.14.5 (18F203) and Safari 12.1.1 (14607.2.6.1.1).

One of the very first things to try when Safari is "behaving poorly" is to launch it in Safe Mode.

Quit out of Safari then just hold down ⇧ Shift while you launch it. That turns off all third party extensions and often lets you do some cleanup when you have stuff installed in Safari that is resistant to being turned off.


ctrl alt h shortut not being caught by my active program anymore this is what I get when pressing that combo. Also, some strange window frame gets drawn along the active sub-windows... I do not know how I have managed to screw it like that but would surey like to revert to normal. Help please

That's VoiceOver, an accessibility tool. Go to System Preferences → Universal Access → Seeing, and set VoiceOver to Off.


How to identify which model is my Mac? Sometimes, you need to know the exact model of your Macintosh. When you want to know to which version of OS X you can upgrade your system, e.g., or when you intend to buy parts for self-repairing your computer.

But Apple tend to name its computers with simple, non-specific names. There have been plenty of different MacBook Pro, and knowing yours has a screen with a 15ʺ display isn’t enough to narrow it down.

How to identify which exact model is a given Mac?

There are several way to achieve this. Macintosh models can be identified by several means:

The “human-readable” detailed name Apple uses: e.g., MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2009)
Model Identifiers: e.g., MacBookPro5,3
Model number: e.g., A1286
Serial number
…

While two Macs with the same model identifier or model number may not be exactly the same (e.g., a MacBookPro5,3 may have a 2.66GHz, 2.8GHz or 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo processor, and the GPU may differ as well on those models), they pinpoints models with a precision sufficient for most uses.

If your Mac is running properly on OS X, you can get the Model Identifier by doing the following:

Go to the Applications > Utilities folder.
Run System Profiler. (System Information in Mavericks)
On the left panel of the window that opens, select Hardware (the default selection)
The Model Identifier appears with other info about the Mac in the right panel, including the serial number.

For other ways to get to the serial number of your Mac you can:

Select About this Mac in the Apple menu on the top left of your screen. In the small window that appears, click the system version (e.g., Version 10.9.2) twice. Your Mac serial number is displayed instead.
Or, more simply and especially useful if your Mac is not booting, read it on the Mac itself, as the serial number is printed on it somewhere, in very tiny letters. Older Mac laptops with removable batteries have the serial number inside the case with the battery removed. You can find out precisely where the serial number on your Mac lives at this Apple KB link.

Once you have the serial number, you can get the precise model name by going to this page on the Apple website and typing your entire serial number in the adequate field.

If you need info on materials that your Mac support, or if you need to find the model number of your Mac when you have its identifier or serial number, you can use various databases that exists here and there. I usually go to this very useful page from everymac.com, as it list quite a big deal of technical info on each model. You can type model identifiers, model number or the few last symbols of a serial number to find its related info.


Secret file vault for iPhone and Mac? Is there a simple encrypted file vault for iPhone and Mac that share the same content, w/o third party server?

This is the use-case: I have certain files (texts and images) that I want to be protected. On Mac, I can create encrypted disk and mount when I need the files. This works fine. However, what I want here is an app that works both on iPhone and Mac, since I want to use files on my iPhone as well. Preferably w/o third party, but if encrypted I allow using e.g. Dropbox etc.

Here is a scenario:

I open this vault on Mac. Put some file in there. Close the vault.
Things get synced
On my iPhone, I open the same vault and there I can browse files.

There are many apps that do this, but they are either for Mac OR iPhone. I want a solution that works across the devices.

Cryptomator allows you to encrypt data stored in the usual clouds and access it from both Mac and iPhone.


Software to control the amps output through USB I have a 2014 MBP, and I'm trying to set it so I can charge my phone off the USB. I know it's 3.0 because it is capable of 1000mA in this cropped screenshot of my System Information:

But it's claiming it's only requested 500mA which I know is BS because my phones says "Charging Slowly"

Apple hates Google, idgaf, is there a way I can control the Current Required or Extra Operating Current or something?

I am not going to buy some obscure specific $30 adapter, that's not the point of this. I am not going to use a USB-Y cable, that's not the point, and I'll lose a perfectly good USB port, leaving me with zero. All I'm looking for is some software to control the output.

From Apple Support page on USB devices:

  USB 3 devices can use up to 900mA of power (compared to 500mA used by USB 2 devices). You'll need to use a USB 3 cable to use the 900mA of power available. USB 2 cables don't support 900mA.

Your connector cable and device most likely use USB 2 interface. Not sure what phone you have, but as a side note all Apple devices and cables use USB 2 interface. This is a hardware limit, so the answer to your question is no, there is no software that can bypass the limit.


How to have Spaces display desktop contents instead of desktop name only? I'd like Spaces automatically to display the full screen contents of the desktops instead of only their names (without first having to place the mouse cursor on the "film strip"). I used to be able to do this by creating a bunch of desktops but that's no longer the case with Catalina. Is there some advanced setting that can do this?

One workaround I've found is to create 16 desktops (the max number allowed to be created explicitly) then to maximize a window.


How to wake up MacBook Pro with external display with lid closed? Mouse or keyboard activity does not wake up the computer. Is there a way to do this without opening the lid?

Attach a charger and then you can wake it up with a keybord or mouse.


Why is iTunes 64 bit running as 32 bit application under Windows? I've downloaded the 64 bit Version of iTunes and I'm wondering why it's running as a 32 bit application under Windows 7 (of course 64 bit)?

Any Ideas?

The 64-bit version of iTunes you downloaded contains 64-bit drivers for Windows 7, however the application itself is still a 32-bit application.  You should see your iTunes installed in (default) C:\Program Files (x86)\ and the iPod helper files installed in C:\Program Files.


Mad Catz RAT 3 Mouse Drivers/Software Does anyone happen to know where I can get the RAT3 drivers?
I have a 2015 MBP.

Currently my Mac will not do any hovering of the mouse and I think it may be due to the lack of drivers for the mouse.

The Mad Catz site does not have any downloads anymore.

I have a Mad Catz RAT MMO7 mouse and it works fine without any drivers with OS X 10.11 as a regular mouse. None of the key programming, etc. will work without the Mac drivers and nothing is available or supported.

The company went bankrupt several years ago and closed down, but they have just recently restarted, so new stuff may be coming out as they update their web site.


Unable to boot (kernel panic - reboot cycle) after 10.10.4 upgrade Macbook pro early 2011, after 10.10.4 upgrade does not boot then gives the standard "you have a problem" message, then panic message again etc. I've attached an image below:

,

After ⌘Command-R reinstallation of OS the first time it works, but the same cycle after rebooting.

Applecare service installed fresh OS (erased the disk), it works, bit after I restored the system from backup (I needed the files and programs installed) then same problem.  Then restored from the backup an older version (10.10.3), it works OK, but Apple Store suggests an upgrade, and after the upgrade it does not work again (as it was for the first time after the upgrade).

Any comments/ideas?

There is an issue with the backup, corrupted files etc. Instead of restoring the backup use Migration Assistant to copy your user files and (optionally) applications. Once that is restored and you can verify the system is working you can work on reinstalling any system modifications that the Migration Assistant did not copy.

If the system becomes unstable after running Migration Assistant and transferring Apps and user data. Scale back what you copy to just user data.

Yeah reinstalling system mods and apps can be a PITA but it sounds like you may not have a choice as your backup is somehow damaged. Without knowing exactly what is wrong with it you will get your best results by restoring as little as possible from your old backup.


Close window with middle mouse button in Expose How can I configure Expose to enable closing of Windows with the middle mouse button, like it is possible in Compiz/Scale Plugin on Linux?

You can use BetterTouchTool.

Add a new button in Global for Normal Mice.
Set Middle Mouse Button.
Choose Predefined Action: ‘Close Window Below Cursor (Works in Mission Control)’.


How to install font from sources What is the right way to install font from sources on OS X?

You don’t want the "source" package from SourceForge, instead download the TrueType (TTF) fonts optimized for OS X from this website. No need to convert BDF files!


How to delete iPad calendar events when no edit option appears How can I delete iPad calendar events when no edit button appears? Clicking on events only results in "details" button.

Go to  Settings app → Passwords and Accounts and scroll down.
The subscribed calendars should be there and click it and click delete account and you should be good.


Slow performance accessing Ubuntu Samba folders I have a computer at home with an Ubuntu Server 14.04. This server has several hard disks that are shared using Samba.

I have an iMac with OS X El Capitan 10.11.5 and I use one of the shared disks to store some information. I'm accessing this disk a lot of times to write and read information.

The performance of the Finder is really slow compared with my Ubuntu laptop and my girlfriend window's laptop...

The configuration for the disk on Samba is this:

[MYDATA]
    comment = my coment...
    path = /path/to/disk
    browsable = yes
    guest ok = yes
    read only = no
    create mask = 0755

I would like to know if the configuration of the disk should be different in any way, or maybe if I need to add some configuration in my Mac.

I also noticed that sometimes when I try to rename a folder inside this Samba share my Mac usually ask for my root password to modify the folder's name.

You should avoid using SMB on OS X (IMHO) as it has been buggy since the days of Snow Leopard (10.6), for me at least.

A quick Google search limited to this year alone brings up a myriad of issues regarding OS X and slow SMB implementations.

There are a few  things you can try:

Use the SMB2 protocol by mounting your share  cifs://<whatever your share name is>
Enable AFP (Netatalk) on your Ubuntu server and connect to the mount points using afp://<whatever your share name is>
Setup NFS on Ubuntu  and mount them on OS X

Personally, if I have found CIFS good, AFP better, and NFS (even though it's much older) to be the best in terms of performance.


What is VPN on demand, and how do I get it to work with iOS? I know what a VPN is, and I've done a little reading about how to set up VPN on demand. However, I'm confused.

Is VPN on demand essentially a certificate instead of a password prompt on each connect? Do apps need to take care of this specifically, or does iOS handle it whenever it sees that an app wants VPN on demand? What is VPN on demand?

EDIT: This answer is outdated. Here are some newer links that may help you if you are trying to set up VPN On Demand:

https://support.apple.com/apple-configurator
https://support.apple.com/guide/mdm/vpn-overview-mdm2d2adb35d/1/web/1
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/devicemanagement/vpn
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/networkextension/personal_vpn/vpn_on_demand_rules

Yes, it does involve authentication by certificate. From this article from Apple:

  iOS supports VPN On Demand for networks that use certificated-based authentication. You specify which domains require a VPN connection by using a configuration profile.

The VPN connection is made whenever the device tries to connect to certain domains. Specific apps don't need to do anything; as soon as they try to access such a server the VPN connection is initiated.

Visit this support page for information about how to use the Configuration Utility to create a configuration profile that sets up VPN On Demand.


Failed To Install syslinux on USBDRIVE with Mac OS X I am creating Ubuntu Server 13.10 Bootable USBDRIVE with command line using Mac OS X, In this i tried to install Syslinux on USBDRIVE by using syslinux command by following:

xxx-Mac:~xxx$ sudo syslinux /dev/disk2s1

here i am using disk2s1 for my usbdrive but i got following error:

-bash: syslinux: command not found

What is alternative to install syslinux on usbdrive, Mac OS X dont include any syslinux command?

No there isn't syslinux on Mac OS X.
You will have to install it first as described on this blog:
Creating a bootable USB stick from OSX

The essentials steps will be based on:

Disk Utility,
Syslinux
UNetbootin

The second explains the few basic steps to get and install Syslinux.


Using Siri to automatically add Outlook events to iCal Calendar Context

There is currently a feature for Apple Mail whereby you can enable Siri, such that it will automatically add any event/invitation picked up in Apple Mail to your iCal calendar. For example, should I receive an invite for an event on Thursday at 7 pm, it will add that to the calendar - like the below image, but automatic.

Question

Currently, I use both iCal Apple Calendar and Outlook for my events, which often come in through Outlook. I am aware that Outlook does have its own calendar, but I personally prefer the iCal calendar.

I am wondering if there is a way to add Siri to Outlook such that any invitation for a meeting/any event details found could be automatically added to my iCal calendar, rather than having to manually add it?

Post-Note

I would prefer it if there were a way to do this without switching my Outlook and iCal mail accounts.
Perhaps a possible solution is to somehow sync the Outlook calendar to the iCal calendar?

Thanks.

I have a solution to display all Outlook Calendar events in the Apple Calendar app.
(Is that what you want?, your question is mixing many things, I have solutions for each of them but what is your real need?)
I will provide screenshots but everything is in French, I hope you can locate things and/or use Google Translate ;)

Open https://outlook.live.com/calendar/0/view/month

See my calendar is empty I added a test event...

Go to settings like that :

Share/Publish the calendar

Copy this link :

Thanks to this link we can go to the Apple Calendar app and subscribe to it.

Open Calendar app and click to something like subscribe to a calendar :

Paste the previous copied link

You can give it a name and a colour, set few settings.

We are done !

As you can see the test event appeared. From now everything that is added/modified/deleted in the Outlook Calendar will be updated and showed here in Apple Calendar app as read only.
P.S. click CMD+R to trigger a refresh of Apple Calendar if needed
EDIT 1:
The solution above works for Outlook, but what if you directly have an Exchange account?
The solution is even better, you can directly add the account in the Apple Calendar app (Menu Calendar > Settings > Accounts. Then tap the add button (bottom left). And finish by login your Exchange account.)


Upgrading to OS X Mavericks (10.9) via Screen Sharing When I upgrade to OS X Mavericks (10.9), after the final reboot (where it asks for your Apple ID), should I expect Screen Sharing to be functioning properly? (Q: Has anyone done this, or can verify that they've seen or heard it work?)

I'm running a Mac mini (Late-2012) using Screen Sharing with no physical display attached.

Notes

I have already installed ARD 3.7.1 - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT6045

and it is working fine
so I no longer have the firewall issue as mentioned here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5520097

(with 10.8.5 and ARD 3.7, I had to disable the firewall in order to use Screen Sharing)

Update

The upgrade when smoothly.  (I also had SSH (Remote Login) enabled just in case).  I thought the upgrade might take 45 minutes; when it took longer I felt a little concerned, but right at about the 1 hour mark, I saw the Mac mini's (Internet Sharing) wifi signal on again (yay!), and Screen Sharing working just like normal! :)  It showed the progress bar for the final installation step, just before the "Sign in with your Apple ID" screen.

(As long as you don't run into any installation problems), after the initial Screen Sharing disconnect by the installation process starting, it's completely unattended and easy/painless, took an hour.  All the sharing services seemed to work normally after the installation process.

I did this with absolutely no problems.

If you have Screen Sharing turned on in the Mac Mini then connect to it from another Mac (I used a MacBook Air) and save the password into the keychain on the 2nd Mac. You don't need ARD, normal screen sharing will do the job.

Now run the 10.9 installer. At the reboot you will lose your connection but just reconnect and you can watch parts of the install process. Then right at the end there is a final reboot and the Mac Mini is ready for you to reconnect again and go to work.

It's painless though I do admit to making sure I also had ssh set up and running before I did it "just in case".


Bizarre password request while modifying keychain I'm going through my passwords, updating everything.

While making some modifications to my keychain on my MacBook, I got to the following bizarre screen:

Now I did have an iMac -- but I distinctly remember I called it piMac, And I installed a fresh MacOS before giving it to my brother to sell a couple of years back.

Luckily I remembered the password. But why on earth is Apple fishing out this ancient machine? It should have no knowledge of it.

So I Google and get iCloud: Manage your devices in Settings on iCloud.com

I follow the instructions, and in https://www.icloud.com/#settings I can see my MacBook and my iPhone. These are my only two Apple devices. This is correct.

How could the keychain possibly be referencing this ancient device?

I had recently checked the KeyChain item in the list visible in the screenshot -- as I noticed it was unchecked. I figured it would be a good idea to have the keychain shared between the iPhone and MacBook so passwords could transfer easily between them.

So it might be possible that the last time I use iCloud keychain was for this old iMac.

This request comes because you have enabled Keychain for the first time with that account on this device. In order to get a copy of the current Keychain stored in the cloud, you need to authenticate yourself as the "owner" of that Keychain.

So in order to unlock the contents of your old Keychain, you need to verify that you're the same person that once uploaded that Keychain, by entering the unlock password you used on that old computer.

There's really nothing bizarre about it, nor it is any sign of a problem. It doesn't mean that your old computer is linked to your Apple-account as a device anymore - it simply means that the old Keychain data is encrypted, and you'll need the unlock password you used at the time, to get to the data.


macOS Recovery disk utility is way older than disk utility on my drive I am trying to reinstall  my macOS. I'm currently on version 10.15.5 (Catalina) and my disk is formatted as APFS. However, when restart the computer and hold command+R to go to recovery mode I get the version of the OS that is way older (Mavericks). When I go to disk utility I see that the version is from 2012, and my disk isn't even visible (probably because that version of disk utility doesn't recognize APFS). When I click to reinstall OS I see that the version that will be installed in indeed Maverick, and the installer also doesn't see my disk.
Is there any way to update it to the newest version? When I start up my OS and open disk utility it is a newer version and it sees my disk successfully. Or is there any other way to reinstall macOS?

Reinstalling is pretty easy these days:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904

If the old recovery functions, I wouldn’t worry about it. If you can boot to internet recovery, that also means you don’t need it.

Make a backup - you may need to erase everything to fix this, so be ready now.
Boot to any recovery OS and reinstall your OS - this doesn’t delete anything but does overwrite the system and make a new OS install and migrate all your apps, data, settings to the new install.

If you decide you need this to be updated / perfectly clean, follow the erase install guide. You will need your backup since this deletes everything from your Mac:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208496


Pausing downloads in iTunes on Windows platform I have used many iterations of iTunes to download videos on Windows platform . However , only one iteration of iTunes the pause option did what it said , it paused the video to the point where I downloaded and restarts downloading where I left off ; something like the downthemall addon on Firefox . Now is that a feature or a bug of iTunes software on Windows platform or this is how every downloads using iTunes is supposed to work. I often have to download large files ; and restarting from the initial position is a havoc .

I got my own answer : this is a feature not a bug of Apple . There are some files that are non-resumable , and some are not .


Is there a way to move window off top edge of display? I was wondering, since macOS is letting us move the window up top only until the title bar hits the top edge - is there a way to move a window past it?

There are some apps like VLC with which this could be possible (I can drag the video by clicking and holding anywhere in the picture and not by title bar).

Currently running macOS Mojave 10.14.4.

No, it isn't possible to move an app window past the top edge of screen in macOS (irrespective of whether Menu bar is set to auto-hide or not).

Some app windows (such as FaceTime, QuickTime Player, VLC etc.) can be dragged by clicking and holding the window anywhere, not just the title bar. However, attempting to drag past the top edge may lead macOS to invoke Mission Control.


Glitchy behavior with my Magic Trackpad My Magic Trackpad (on a 2011 iMac) keeps randomly clicking, which causes random text selects, etc. Also the cursor seems glitchy while it's happening too, it'll slow down and erratically move around.

I'm not using any extra tools like BetterTouchTool, and it's worked fine for the past few months since I got it. I've tried new batteries and a new OS X user account.

Anyone know what the issue could be? Is it a known issue, should I just ring Apple to get a replacement?

EDIT: Just tried it on Windows via Bootcamp, and it does the same thing, so it must be a hardware problem.

Turns out it was a hardware issue. Got a replacement from Apple, and it works fine!


Restoring recovered files from a partition My Mac was previously running Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion. While making a bootable USB installer of El Capitan, the terminal command to restore the image ended up writing over a partition instead of the USB since they both were named "untitled". This partition had Snow Leopard along with all of my data. The other partition is working fine.

Now, I have been able to recover all of my valuable files after purchasing the recovery software but I'm wondering whether I should recover the rest of the files too. The software found literally all of the data on the partition, apps and everything but all of it is under "lost folders", somewhat categorized. Is there any way for me to restore this recovered data and go back to the original state of my MacBook?

Other Info:

The thumb drive I was making was for an external SSD. I wasn't planning on making any changes to the current setup of the Mac.

This was the guide that I was using: How to make a bootable OS X 10.11 El Capitan installer drive

This is what the recovery software is showing:

I have since renamed the partition to "OS X el capitan" since I erased it once.

No - the original state had files in specific locations and your recovery shows that that directory structure was lost.

So it sent "all the kings horses and all the kings men" to collect the parts of Humpty Dumpty but since the location of the parts is missing - it's not clear that even if you retrieved all the pieces - you would be able to get them in the correct places.

I would advise you restore all the files to a macOS formatted drive and set it aside. When you find you need to search for a specific file or text - you can use spotlight to search that drive for potential matches and copy them over to a place where you would like them to live. It's almost certain that the software you choose has instructions covering exactly how to do this operation in detail.

To summarize, data recovery isn't a substitute for a proper backup system. Those record durable and often redundant copies of file location data so you can always put things back where they belong as well as know if any one piece is missing since everything is cataloged "before the fall."


Is it possible to export a simple Numbers spreadsheet while being dynamic? I have a few Numbers Spreadsheet that I use to keep track of my budget over the weeks/months but its only accessible in Numbers, which is fine Until I am at work where we use windows.

My only recourse there is my old iPhone runs Numbers slowly. I feel my phone works with PDF quickly.

Is it possible to export spreadsheet as a PDF document and still retain the automatic calculations of the spreadsheet and not just be a standard table?

No, PDF exports of a numbers file become static and can no longer be edited as a spreadsheet. You must use the Numbers program (or an equivalent like Excel) to achieve the dynamic features of spreadsheets.


Why does Safari always hang? I use Safari as my browser, but I've found that it frequently hangs for 20, 30 seconds (sometimes longer), often times when I wake it up from sleep and/or when I open a new tab.

Though I'm not sure it would be helpful, the next time it does it I'll see if I can sample the process and report back with the results. In the meantime, is there something I can try? I'm running on a mid-2007 MacBook so, while I think I have enough processing power (2x2.16Ghz) and memory (2GB), I suspect it's a disk issue.

Is there something I can do to reduce disk usage? Should I clear my cache (this isn't a problem), my history (I want to keep this if possible) or both?

edit: Is there any way to determine what plugins I have installed? I have RescueTime and Evernote, so either of them could be the culprit, but I know that there are programs that like to install hidden extensions, so that could be the problem as well.

By the way, here's that sampling output summary - I've cut out the call tree as it was way too long to post:

Total number in stack (recursive counted multiple, when >=5):
        21       _pthread_start
        21       thread_start
        7       __semwait_signal
        7       mach_msg
        7       mach_msg_trap
        7       pthread_cond_wait$UNIX2003
        6       CFRunLoopRunSpecific
        5       CFRunLoopRunInMode

Sort by top of stack, same collapsed (when >= 5):
        __semwait_signal        2058
        mach_msg_trap        2030
        semaphore_wait_signal_trap        589
        select$DARWIN_EXTSN        588
        0x0        294
        __workq_ops        294
        semaphore_timedwait_signal_trap        294
        kevent        293
        pread$UNIX2003        116
        fsync$UNIX2003        50
        WebCore::BinaryPropertyListSerializer::appendStringObject(WebCore::String const&)        42
        WTF::HashMap<WebCore::String, unsigned long, WebCore::StringHash, WTF::HashTraits<WebCore::String>, WTF::HashTraits<unsigned long> >::get(WebCore::String const&) const        19
        write$UNIX2003        19
        __dtoa        15
        WebCore::IntegerArrayHash::equal(WebCore::IntegerArray const&, WebCore::IntegerArray const&)        13
        WebCore::String::characters() const        11
        WTF::HashMap<WebCore::IntegerArray, unsigned long, WebCore::IntegerArrayHash, WebCore::IntegerArrayHashTraits, WTF::HashTraits<unsigned long> >::get(WebCore::IntegerArray const&) const        7
        __memcpy        7
        WebCore::String::isEmpty() const        6
        __sfvwrite        6
        WebCore::BinaryPropertyListSerializer::addAggregateObjectReference(unsigned long)        5
        __vfprintf        5
Sample analysis of process 18283 written to file /dev/stdout

In my book, Adobe Flash is always the first culprit for issues with browser stability and responsiveness. Try installing ClickToFlash and see if that helps things.


Bash Alias Not Found Error I have the following command that I am trying to put into a bash alias.  The command by itself works fine, but when I try to alias it, I am getting the following errors:

The Command

find . -maxdepth 1 -mindepth 1 -type d -exec sh -c 'echo "$(find "{}" -type f | wc -l)" {}' \; | sort -nr

The Alias

alias csfiles='find . -maxdepth 1 -mindepth 1 -type d -exec sh -c 'echo "$(find "{}" -type f | wc -l)" {}' \; | sort -nr'

The Error:

-sh: alias 0: not found
-sh: alias {} \; | sort nr: not found

I think this means I am not using quotes right but I am having trouble determining the correct combo.  Help?

Instead of an alias use a function. Also,I wouldn't use find's placeholder- {} as a parameter in the inline script.

csfiles () {
find . -maxdepth 1 -mindepth 1 -type d -exec sh -c 'for dir
do
        echo "$(find "$dir" -type f | wc -l)" "$dir"
done' sh {} + | sort -nr
}


Fan noise expectations for 2019 27" iMacs I have a question concerning fan noise and overheating in 2019 27“ iMacs. I am about to choose one, either the base model or the 9th gen core i5 for more processor power.

From your experience with previous models, does loud fan noise due to overheating also occur for the base models, or is this a problem of the higher end processor choices?

It seems that the thermal design power of the base model currently is 65W, but both for the 9th gen i5 and the i9 it is 95W. Would this mean that the high end i5 is as bad as the i9 in terms of expected fan noise, i.e. similar problems as for earlier i7s should be expected? For the graphics cards, it is currently 120W vs 150W in favor of the base model.

From your experience with previous models, does loud fan noise due to
overheating also occur for the base models, or is this a problem of
the higher end processor choices?

Unfortunately, in the Apple community, this is a common miscorrelation.  So, let's first set the record straight...
Fan Activity ≠ Overheating
Just as the radiator fans in your car periodically come on to move additional air across the radiator, the fans in your computer (PCs and Macs) spin up to move additional air across the fins on the heat sink in an effort to dissipate heat.
Hearing fan activity is a perfectly normal and expected behavior regardless of the processor, memory, or general specifications of the machine.
Fan Noise
There are only two fan noises that you should be concerned with:

Squealing and/or grinding indicating a failed bearing
No fan spin at all indicating a full failure

Overheating
Like your car, you will know exactly when your computer overheats.  It will slow down and eventually shut off.  Granted, there's much more fan fare with a car, usually with steam and coolant gushing everywhere though with the computer, lost work can make you feel pretty steamed and some choice expletives are also probably going to come gushing out at well.
However, unlike your car, this is by design.  Your processor will thermally throttle it's speed limiting what it can do and if all else fails, it will power off in a bid to save itself.
It's not just the CPU
The fan spins up because the overall temperature within the chassis is high enough to warrant it.  This can be from the CPU, the GPU, the drives, the logic board and in the case of AiOs (iMac), the display and the power supply.  Even the ambient external temperature is a factor.  All of that contributes to the internal thermal conditions which may necessitate the need to spin up the fan.
TDP or Thermal Design Power
TDP is the maximum amount of heat that your processor will generate on average use.  A higher number means it will allow more and higher processes before it gets into the "red zone".  In other words, a processor with a higher TDP will do more before the fans spin up or throttles back to cool off.  In your case, comparing the 9th generation i5s with previous generations, you get a higher TDP because the chips are more efficient, not that they generate more heat.
Fan Control Software
Unless you intend to manually increase the fan speed in an effort to keep things extra cool, this is the worst thing you can do.  Slowing the fan in a bid to make it more audibly aesthetically pleasing will only result in one thing - putting a cap on the processing power of the machine you paid money for.  This is like buying a high performance car and immediately installing a restrictor plate.
Bottom Line
Buy the iMac that meets your needs (CPU, GPU, memory, storage).  Fan spin shouldn't be part of that equation.


Getting files off old Mac clone without keyboard, mouse, or monitor I assume this is impossible, but I thought I'd ask:

I have an PowerComputing PowerCenter 150, running some version of Mac OS 8. I don't have a mouse, keyboard, or monitor for the computer. I do have an ethernet cable, but not a crosslink cable.

Is there a way to use my current MacBook Air (running the latest OS) to get the files off of the PowerCenter? I assume I can try to find a shop to pull the SCSI drive and transfer it to USB, but I'd rather not do that if possible.

The best course of action is to pull the data off the drive via USB with a USB to SCSI adapter like the Adaptec USBXchange.

You can do this without spending a lot of money (definitely less than having a shop or a tech do this).  Though the hardware is obsolete, you are in luck because macOS (OS X) supports USB Attached SCSI meaning your drive will show up as a mounted volume.

To do this, you will need the following

Adaptec USBXchange USB to SCSI Adapter.  This will give you the USB attached SCSI functionality.
HD50 to IDC 50 (External/Internal) SCSI Adapter (removed from bracket if possible).  This will convert the IDC 50 pin connector on the HDD to the HD50 pin connector (for external SCSI drives) on the USB adapter.

Probably the most daunting task is getting access to the drive, but in actuality, it isn't all that difficult.  The PowerCenter 150 is a Mac clone and is put together more like a PC than a Mac in that respect.  Opening the case and accessing the drive is no different than the procedure for opening a PC case.  Basically, a few phillips screws on the back hold the side panels on and after removing them, the panels will slide off giving you access to the internals.

Procedure

Remove the hard disk mounting screws (yellow circle; both sides) so you can access the drive
Remove the grey cable from the main board; leave the power cable (red circle) attached
Connect the grey cable to the 50 pin IDC port (square) and the USB Adapter to the HD50 port (port in the shape of an elongated "D")
Connect USB adapter to MacBook Air, and power on the PowerCenter computer

The drive should appear on your MBA and you should be able to pull of your data.


Some PDFs created by MS Word 2007's Save-as-PDF feature (on Windows) don't display correctly on Mac OS / iOS Some PDFs created by MS Word 2007's Save as PDF feature (on Windows) don't display correctly on Mac OS using the built-in PDF handling. They display correctly using Acrobat, Photoshop, Inkscape, or probably any other app that uses it's own PDF rendering, rather than the native quartz rendering. This problem is also visible when viewing the PDFs on an iPhone / iPad.

This PDF displays as
http://www.schimmelpenninck.net/pix/blurred_pdf.png

There is a discussion here, but it doesn't have an useful answer.

Is there anything that can be done in Office 2007 on Windows to make it create PDFs that don't have this problem?

There isn't anything you do to Word to improve its PDF output. The best way to guarantee solid cross-platform PDFs is to get Adobe Acrobat (the full version, not Reader) and Distiller and make PDFs through those applications. Unless something has changed since the last time I did this on Windows, you'll output to Postscript through the Print window and create the PDF with Distiller, but you need Acrobat to get the drivers and converters. PDF is an open ISO standard, but Adobe's products are still the best way to go here.


Which folder can I find cache files for Safari? Not the cache in ~/library/caches/. I have found it before, with names similar to "FFYWRMQ7RK4CBV2GWNXVTF7IS9DZ9STNWKZHMPPWRI". The folder does not only include images, but also html code. There are no extensions to the files and Finder treats them as "Documents".

Safari stores caches in a variety of locations.

~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/WebKitCache/Version 4/Blobs/

/Users/grgarside/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/WebKitCache/Version 4/Blobs
├── 0021FEDCF99DEF9CF6541CFD0452506088B12852
├── 004089E39B7864F9F59CDDD6A6F9DD367B04D0F8
├── 006E98D122D8E9C45F00B5C4A593E7724D63DC36
└── …

~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/WebKitCache/Version 4/Records/

/Users/grgarside/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/WebKitCache/Version 4/Records
├── georgegarside.com
│   ├── 12E9261CD298A4DD2A040FC876282A3C85482568
│   ├── 1508307FB54D5E0C7B12B652D3346456BF60516E
│   ├── 1C59CCC7FBA99C7A0FA1628F21298C7FD5D3BFCC
│   ├── 1C59CCC7FBA99C7A0FA1628F21298C7FD5D3BFCC-body
│   ├── 49C6B9C71D1DFD0B1D162E4E9A76724E67CD9FED
│   ├── …

~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/fsCachedData/

/Users/grgarside/com.apple.Safari/Cache
├── 01151514-275B-4649-AE99-6C572F07A05D
├── 0531E0C2-2270-41D6-BD17-165882859A4B
├── 13E52A0F-0E47-4106-9E43-D0DA78AA78B7
└── …

~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/Cache.db
~/Library/Safari/WebpageIcons.db


What is the equivalent of netstat -tln on OS X? What is the equivalent of Linux's netstat -tln on OS X?

Options:

-l, --listening (Show only listening sockets. (These are omitted by default.)
--numeric , -n (Show numerical addresses instead of trying to determine symbolic host, port or user names.)
-t, --tcp

Should be this command:

sudo lsof -iTCP:$PORT -sTCP:LISTEN

Who is listening on a given TCP port on Mac OS X?


How is the Apple Watch ECG disabled in certain countries? In Japan there will not be ECG for potentially many years until it makes it through mountains of bureaucracy.

I haven't tried a different Apple ID to enable the ECG, but I heard others have tried without any luck.

I heard the block is serial number geo-fenced.  It's obviously not a different WatchOS version. What happens if I factory restore in an approved country?

When Japan or other countries approve ECG existing watches will suddenly have ECG so how will it be enabled?

Do you think this is simply a matter of setting the region, pairing a blocked Japanese watch to an American iPhone and using an American Apple ID?

According to a few 2018 articles, the restrictions are based on the region where the watch was sold, and the removal of blocks is implemented by a watchOS update.

Not tied to ID. No geo-fence.

There was speculation that changing the watch's region settings could bypass the restriction, but those articles correct that understanding.

Given these facts, the easiest way, and the way that fits the common programming design patterns, to restrict by region would be to disable globally, and with an OS update, enable the feature for the regionally purchased devices, likely by serial number/factory code.

As for which watchOS features are enabled for which country, Apple provides this handy list. The UK is listed as an approved country for ECG since watchOS 5.2 (March 27, 2019).


What's a good camcorder that will record video in any of iPad's supported formats? I'm looking for a camcorder that will save me the video conversion step to display said videos on an iPad.

Does such a camcorder exist?

According to Apple, the iPad is able to reproduce:

H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats;
MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats

This leads to the file formats that Flip cameras use:

  Video Format   H.264 video compression,
  AAC audio compression, MP4 files
  format

So with that in mind, I assume that Flip does it.

However if you’re looking for a more “camcorder” thing (which you don’t specify in your question), the Sanyo’s Waterproof Xacti Camcorder does record in “Apple Friendly” format. Other than those, Google is your friend, look for “Apple friendly” camcorders. There are others out there.

I’ve personally tried the Flip and it’s fantastic, but I don’t have an iPad.

A word of caution: the ipad is not submersible ;)


Adding Google Account in Internet Account on Mac Book Pro: Authentication fails On My 2019 Mac Book Pro, under internet accounts, I want to add a google account. It prompts me with opening a browser (Safari is the default browser). After a few seconds a window opens saying "Authentication Failed, please try again later". I have a google account with 2 factor authorisation, but I don't even get to the point where I can enter a password. This is particularly annoying since I need the Google Calendar in my Mac Calendar App.
I'm running MacOs 11.1 with Safari 14.0.2. I'm using Avast and CleanMyMac, if that is of any relevance. I'm mostly interested in getting the calendar integration to work, so if there is a workaround it would be much appreciated.
This problems also occurs when booted in safe mode.

The problem disappeared today, so I guess there was some problem with google.


What is local.blackjack from Netstat? When running netstat I noticed the suspicious name blackjack. I wonder if it's malware.
PROMPT> netstat -v
Active Internet connections
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q  Local Address          Foreign Address        (state)     rhiwat shiwat    pid   epid  state    options
tcp6       0      0  nameofmachine.local.blackjack fe80::c55b:ddf6:.13569 ESTABLISHED 131072 131072    476      0 0x0102 0x00000204
tcp6       0      0  nameofmachine.local.1024      fe80::c55b:ddf6:.1024  ESTABLISHED 131072 131072    476      0 0x0102 0x00000204

Looking up the pid 476
PROMPT> ps ax | grep 476
476   ??  S      0:19.94 /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/IDS.framework/identityservicesd.app/Contents/MacOS/identityservicesd

So the process that owns the address seems to be identityservicesd.app, which is an Apple process. This is where my trail ends.
There are other mentions of .blackjack occurring on macOS, see this unanswered Reddit question.
Question: Is it malware?

By giving an extra -n parameter to the netstat command, reveals the port number.
This reveals that blackjack correspond to the port 1025.
PROMPT> netstat -anv
Active Internet connections (including servers)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q  Local Address          Foreign Address        (state)     rhiwat shiwat    pid   epid  state    options
tcp6       0      0  fe80::c999:dc6f:.1025  fe80::c55b:ddf6:.13569 ESTABLISHED 131072 131072    476      0 0x0102 0x00000204
tcp6       0      0  fe80::c999:dc6f:.1024  fe80::c55b:ddf6:.1024  ESTABLISHED 131072 131072    476      0 0x0102 0x00000204

In the past, port 1025 seems to have been used for something named network blackjack. Nowadays I doubt that it's still being used for this purpose.
My conclusion is that identityservicesd running on port 1024+1025 is harmless.


Mac keeps SMB files/session open, locking files This is very frustrating. I open a Windows SMB share like this:

After closing the window, my Mac kept folder/files open and I had to close the SMB session from the server.

How do I just close all open SMB sessions on my Mac?

Closing the Finder window is not enough to stop the SMB session. You need to eject the SMB share in the same way you eject external drives or a CD/DVD, that is, select the SMB share icon on the desktop and press ⌘E.

Alternatively, you can right-click the SMB share icon and select Eject :

or, in a Finder window, press the eject button next to the server name:


What is the function of "Last import" in Address Book? I just made a synchronization through iTunes of my iPhone onto my MacBookPro.

From memory I made about ten modifications on my iPhone.
Unfortunately they are not in the relevant group, but within All Contacts.

I thought it will be natural to find them within the group Last Import.
But they aren't there.

Moreover, on a total number of entries of about 600, more than 500 of
them are within this Last Import group.

This is a huge problem: where I'm expecting 10 entries to place in the right group, I'm facing a list of more than 500.

What is the real usefull function of this Last Import group?
What may I did wrong to get such a huge Last Import.

I tried to simplify this huge problem by creating a New Smart Group… based on rule:

Card was updated after Aug 15th 2013

But this smart group is still abnormal:
73 cards where I'm expecting no more than 10.

Last Import is a group that is expected to contain contacts acquired when you use the File > Import menu item. Since you modified existing contacts on your iPhone, your MBP does not see these contacts as imported, just modified.

Your smart group creation sounds correct. It will locate any contact that has been modified by you or by another program, since the smart group rule is acting on the last modification date property of the person records. For example, if you use your iPhone to add a phone number to an existing contact, that contact has been modified indirectly (outside of the Contacts apps on OS X or iOS). Or if you send an email to a person, Mail might modify the record to change how the name or email address is displayed. Or when your contacts are synced through iCloud, there may be other non-visible changes to your contacts that force an update to the last modification date. So, unfortunately, a card was updated after (date) smart group does not strictly show you contacts that you edited directly, but instead it shows all modified contacts.

Having said all that, I don't have a better solution for you. I think you will need to use the card was updated after (date) smart group rule, and scan through that list of contacts to find the contacts of interest.


Inverted colors in Iphone Recently the colors on my Iphone 3g have started looking inverted or negative, I havent dropped my phone or had it damaged, but I cant seem to make it go back to normal.  i have also done some research on this and found out that you can purposely do this through accessibility but my phone doesnt give me that option....HELP!

You need to look in General Settings. Scroll down to Accessibility. In there, you have a switch to turn White on Black on/off. That's the thing that reverses the colours on the iPhone.

Is your iPhone jailbroken?


Terminal stuck at empty screen The terminal app is stuck on a window like the following and doesn't respond to

Reopen,
File > Reset, hard reset.
Renaming .bash_profile and reopen.
Opening other profiles.

Last time I used it, it was for a nodejs server. After I was done using the server, I closed the Terminal window and hit Terminate when it asked if it should kill running processes.

Fire up Activity Monitor and kill the process(es) named "node".


Uninstall Lua from OS X 10.6.8 I was browsing the Lua source code and I did "make install". It worked perfectly but I could not uninstall it! How can I install Lua 5.0?

Based on my reading of Lua 5.0's makefile, I'd say:

Run make echo, and note the folders INSTALL_BIN, INSTALL_INC, INSTALL_LIB, and INSTALL_MAN
For each file in bin, remove that file from INSTALL_BIN
For each file in include named *.h, remove that file from INSTALL_INC
For each file in lib named *.a, remove that file from INCLUDE_LIB
For each file in doc named *.1, remove that file from INCLUDE_MAN
Upgrade to Lua 5.2 so if you accidentally install again, you can uninstall  :-)

Alternatively: if you download Lua 5.2 and configure it in exactly the same way (so all the INSTALL_* folders are the same), then its make uninstall will delete almost all of these for you.  You only have to delete liblualib.a from INCLUDE_LIB.


What is the purpose of "Apply Rules" in mail? The Mail client (that comes with Mac OS X) has an "Apply Rules" menu option, but I don't see any option to create a rule like most other mail clients have. Two part question, what rules does the "Apply Rules" menu option apply, and how do I define new rules in Mail?

To add a rule in Mail, open Mail preferences (Mail > Preferences… or ⌘+,) and go to the Rules pane.

The Apply Rules function applies to all rules whose "Active" checkbox is ticked.


Why don't my Photos sort correctly by date? Using OS 10.12.4 and Photos 2.0 (3150.4.120).

I imported a bunch of photos recently, and selected View > Sort > "Keep Sorted by Oldest First".

Most of them appear in the correct order, but a few are out of order. If I do Get Info on them, I can see that certain photos have a later date than photos appearing later in the album.

Is this sort order based on a different date? How can I make them appear in the right order? Or is this just a bug in Photos (in which case I'll abandon hope)?

It also uses this same incorrect order on iOS 10.3.1, when I sync them to my iPhone.

I tried putting them in a new album, as well as creating a Smart Album with the photos, but the same order persists.

Okay, I solved the mystery.

All of the photos in question were taken when I was on vacation, and my phone's time zone was set to the "away" time zone. Most of the photos were correctly saved with that time zone.

But for some reason, a few photos (the out-of-order ones) were saved with my "home" time zone. These photos also had no GPS location saved, so I assume this is a bug that happens when it can't find your GPS location.

Interestingly, the out-of-order photos did have the correct time, for the "away" time zone. It was just the time zone itself that was off. That's why it wasn't obvious that their time was wrong; Photos doesn't normally display the time zone. The only way to find out is to select "Adjust Date and Time", since that dialog shows you the photo's current time zone.

To fix this, I had to find all the out-of-order photos. Since Photos has no obvious way to filter Smart Albums by time zone, I filtered by "Photo is not tagged with GPS". (EDIT: I ended up writing a script to find them, since this didn't find all the right ones.)

I selected these photos, selected "Adjust Date and Time", entered the "away" time zone, then adjusted the time back to the original. That way it changed the time zone without affecting the actual time.

Afterwards, my photos were sorted correctly.


Is it okay to use non-OEM USB-C cable and/or adapter for Macbook Pro? Is there anything special about the Apple USB-C cable, other than its quality, that would prevent me from using a USB-C cable from another brand?

And the same question for the wall adapter.

A USB-C cable is a USB-C cable.  There's nothing special about it with the exception of quality (which you already mentioned.)

As far as adapters go, there are "genuine" adapters which are actually OEM'ed by a 3rd party company with Apple's blessing and then there are the myriad of knock-offs you can find on Amazon and eBay.

If you are using the USB-C charger/port to charge your device, technically speaking, any cable/adapter will do.  That said, when you purchase said cable/adapter, look for quality products, not the cheapest you can find.

What to look for...

A USB-IF compliance. This means it was tested to meet a certain set of standards.
USB certified Charger Logo.  This means that the charger is USB-IF compliant.

Does this mean that the no-name or off-brand products are bad?  No.  It means that the manufacturer has taken the time and cost to certify their products to a certain level of quality and performance.  (IMO) Saving a few dollars on a cable/charger is simply not worth it when attaching it to a $1000+ Mac that I use for daily work.


How do I fix enourmous CPU usage & temperature on MacBook Air when trying to install Wine? I have a 2012 MacBook Air Intel Core i5 8 GB memory (Mountain Lion).  I am trying to install Wine through MacPorts, but after about a minute of building Wine, CPU usage rapidly rises into the 90s, and the temperature goes from 60 degrees Celcius to 90-95 very quickly.  Both the CPU usage and the temperature continue rising until I shut down my MacBook. The fan becomes very loud and occasionally makes screeching sounds.  I have tried several times and reinstalled MacPorts but to no avail.  What can I do to fix this? Any help is greatly appreciated.

The current lineup runs CPU up to 100 C. Is is normal, so you might be able to get something ike SMC fan control to ramp up the fans earlier, but since the CPU clock rate can over heat the blowers, you might not be able to do anything short of externally cooling the case significantly.

Both the clock rate and fans work in conjunction, so upping the fans in turn lowers the clock rate restriction - canceling your efforts to alter the designed behavior.