Insert accented letters in passwords This should be easy, but I cannot solve it by myself.

How can I insert accented letters in passwords?

When I go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Change Password... and in the password field for instance I hold the letter u, it won't show the list of possible accented letters, it just repeats the u.

If I use Alt+u to get the placeholder for ü (so that I can type u to get it with the umlaut), it won't show the "insert a letter now" yellow placeholder, instead I get a beep. The same goes for Alt+i, Alt+n, Alt+e, only beeps and no possibility to enter an accented letter.

Moreover, if I enable the "Show emoji and symbols" as in the picture below, I am able to insert symbols in the hint, but in the password it is completely prohibited.

The same goes with "Show keyboard viewer" and try to insert with Alt+e|u|i|n to be able to finally enter euin to get the symbols éüîñ, I get a beep. The only accent that sort of works is the backtick Alt+backtick, but it inserts the backtick itself without prompting for the letter to be accented.

Input source: US English
OS X version: El Capitan 10.11.3 (15D21)

Is there a way?

PS. By the way, when changing passwords, can I tell my Mac to stop asking this? "Would you like to change the password for “username”, or begin using your iCloud password to log in and unlock this Mac?"

Entering a password with a diacritic works as expected. You have to use the proper keys though:

To enter an umlaut you have to use altU
To enter an accent grave you have to use alt`
To enter an accent acute you have to use altE
To enter an accent circumflex you have to use altI
To enter a tilde you have to use altN

The above are all dead keys and have to be followed by a second key. If you enter space the diacritic itself is the "entered sign". Entering a dead key in a password field you neither get the typical yellow/orange dead key indicator nor a bullet - you get a beep only!

The back tick itself is no accent (dead key) but simply a back tick.

E.g. to enter an ü using an US English input source and an Apple keyboard with a (physical) US English layout you first have to hit altU and then U again.

In my virtual machine I get an alert sound but no bullet after entering the first key combination (the dead key ¨) and then after entering the second (single) U a new bullet. The resulting letter is the (lower caps) ü.

BTW the ¨ is no accent. Like accents it's a diacritic though.


Why is my USB drive suddenly read-only and how can I make it read-write again? I have a 1 TB USB drive.

I've been using it for months.

My main iTunes library is on it.

As of yesterday, for no apparent reason, it has become read only.

I can't open iTunes.

I also tried this...

Here is the info panel on the drive:

Note that the format is currently "Mac OS Extended Case-sensitive."

"Ignore ownership of this volume" is checked, but greyed-out.

Backing it up and reformatting is not practical due to the sheer amount of data.

How did the volume become effectively read-only?

Any suggestions for how I can get use of the drive back?

Who's "Fetching..." ?

I looks like it can't grab the correct perms/ACL. Have you tried setting up the perms again?
My guess is 'fetching' ought to be the _myname account, which my less than stunning grasp of nix perms leads me to believe is the system process working in your name.

ie it's lost the permission to work on your behalf.

At minimum, I'd guess setting everybody to read/write would at least be a workaround - as there's no ownership, how does it know it's working on your behalf or anyone else's?

[Someone with a better grasp of nix perms please comment/correct/append to this]


How to configure OSX to not to sort new files in a folder and how to prevent new Finder windows pop-upping when unzipped? I have to unzip a bunch of files in a bunch of different folders. So I select one file to unzip, then move onto the next file. But as I set a bunch of files to unzip, they start to complete and start popping up new windows!

Pretty soon my screen is covered with new windows popping up constantly and it becomes a pain to navigate, whether it's to select new files to unzip or do something else.

Secondly, on Windows I've used to have my newly created zip-files to be in the end of the file list, ie. they appear as the last item in the Explorer when viewing the folder's contents.

On OS X, though, the zip-files get sorted automatically, which is not what I'd prefer.

Questions:

How to configure OS X to append new files in a folder to the end of the folder (regardless of how its sorted)?
How to configure new folders to not pop up when unzipping has finished?

Archive Utility can be lightly configured. The easy way to do it is to open an archive file and as soon as you see a progress dialog, hit Command (⌘) + , in order to bring up the app preferences.

Otherwise, you can manually open the Archive Utility alone by browsing to /System/Library/CoreServices and opening Archive Utility.app. Afterwards, you can use the Archive Utility menu to get to the preferences, or again use Command (⌘) + , to open the app's preferences up.


Give a short name / nick name to a printer in iOS? In iOS is it possible to give a short name / nick name to a printer ? I have several printers of the same spec distributed through out a building, that all show up as Epson-7620.

I know there is a feature where you can "identify" a printer, which will make it beep. But this is slow if you have to go through 5 printers to find the one you want.

Im currently running iOS 12.x on an iPhone 8.

Get the respective printer's IP address. Printer touchscreen menu:
Settings > General Settings > Network Settings > Network Status > Wired LAN/Wi-Fi Status
Enter the IP address of the printer into a web browser (override security warning if needed).
The web-based printer config UI appears.
Click the ‘Basic Settings’ link (lower left, see screenshot below).

In the Basic Settings UI, click ‘AirPrint Setup’.

In the AirPrint Setup screen, change the Bonjour Service Name to your liking. You can also set location information.

Confirm changes by clicking the ‘OK’ button.

The info entered will appear in the AirPrint printer selection on iOS, even with location info if set.

Repeat with every respective printer.


2010 MacBook Air Black Horizontal Line Across the Screen I have a 2010 MacBook Air with a black horizontal line across the screen. as shown in the photo below.   I don't know when it started; I just remember that I opened the lid today and saw it with the stripe.

As far as I know, it's not a GPU issue because connecting it to an external display does not show the problem. I've tried plugging and unplugging the display cable (no results), so I'm not sure if there's anything else I can do before I consider buying an used screen.

It's most likely your LCD screen.

Your MBA has a single integrated GPU that's used for both your internal screen and to drive an external monitor.  The fact that it's not showing up on the external monitor narrows it down to the LCD screen.

Additionally, if this is happening prior to boot up of macOS, it's happening outside of the operating system so it's definitely a hardware issue.

It's possible to DIY replace the screen (Apple PN# 661-5732), but be aware that iFixit.com rates it as "difficult"


Microsoft Remote Desktop Keychain access I use Microsoft Remote Desktop and have passwords saved for different remote desktop connections. Since some time back I get the error:

We couldn't retreieve your password from your keychain, please enter your password again.

I've reset the Keychain inside Keychain Access Management:

I've also looked for cached files in ~/Library/Caches but didn't find any for Microsoft Remote Desktop.

I get the same problem when running Microsoft Remote Desktop Beta.

I solved it by deleting the username/password settings from MS Remote Desktop Preferences. After adding them again, it works.


How to change USB scheme when making bootable Catalina installer? Background: Upgraded to Big Sur on 2020 MacPro (not the one with M1 chip), hate it, trying to revert to Catalina using a USB bootable installer (followed instructions given at the Apple website How to create a bootable installer for macOS)
When I try to install it using the external drive, I get this screen.

So it seems that my USB has the wrong scheme (should be GUID). I go to Disk Utility and sure enough, it seems like it's Master Boot Record as shown below.

As per the suggested screen, I try to Erase it, but whenever I try to do that, I get the error shown below.

I'm unsure about how to resolve this and I can't seem to find someone who experienced the same error online. The USB is a brand-new 32GB SanDisk

This answer first explains the traditional method of using the Disk Utility to solve the OP's problem, which in this case does not work. Next, the alternative method of using the diskutil command is given. This alternate method did work when tested in a VirtualBox virtual machine on a 2013 iMac.
There is no reason the flash drive installer can not use the Master Boot Record Scheme. Your problem is you are trying to install macOS to the flash drive. Normally, you would need to open the Disk Utility after booting to the installer (hold the option key at startup) and erase the internal drive. Afterwards when you return to the point shown in the image, then there should be an icon for the internal drive.
Below is an example of the result after highlighting the internal drive and clicking the Erase button at the top of the Disk Utility main window.

Note: The image below shows the Device for the internal drive is disk0. If your Mac shows a different Device, then make the appropriate substitution when entering the diskutil command given below.

Before clicking on the Erase button, you would need to change the Name and Format. Below is an example.

Selecting the Erase button on the pop window should cause the internal drive to be erased. In this case, nothing happens. The solution is to select Cancel, quit the Disk Utility, open a Terminal window and enter the following command.

Note: Here I have assumed the internal drive is disk0. This should be true unless there are additional external drives attached such as a thunderbolt 3 drive.

disktuil erasedisk apfs "Macintosh HD" gpt disk0

As example is shown below.

When finished, quit the Terminal application. When installing Catalina, you should reach a point where you can choose Macintosh HD, as shown below.

Note: Erasing the internal drive will delete all data stored on it. Be sure to backup your system first!
You could also try using the Disk Utility to add a new volume to the existing container on the internal drive, then choosing to install Catalina to this new volume. This would create a dual boot arrangement that would not erase your existing data.


Can Parallels and VMware Fusion use the same boot camp volume? I'm planning on installing the trial versions of both Parallels and VMware Fusion to try them both out. I have a Boot Camp partition which I want to use instead of installing another OS. My question is if both of these applications can use the same Boot Camp partition without modifying it; such that both could be installed at the same time without it affecting the other.

Update: I installed the VMware Fusion trial version. In order to enable many of VMware Fusion's features, they require that you install VMware tools on the virtual machine. I'm not sure if its compatible with Parallels or if Parallels has its own software they recommend you install on the virtual machine as well.

Yes.  The virtual machine creates virtual machine files, the data on the volume is separate from that.


Photos taking too much space on MacBook Air I was clearing up my Mac to download the latest Os X, but when I saw the "Photos" in "About this Mac" are taking 9 GB space! Any idea where I can find all these photos?

The Photos.app imported images/movies are stored in the Photos Library in the Pictures folder, along with other individual pictures, within your Home folder.  You can access the Pictures folder in Finder.


Toggle Mail Classic View in Mountain Lion with I found a script on this site which I edited to make work with Mountain Lion, I thought. It works fine from Automator, but when I save as a service and assign a keystroke to it, it does not. Any help would be appreciated!

tell application "Mail" to activate

tell application "System Events"
    tell process "Mail"
        tell application "System Events" to keystroke "," using command down
        delay 0.1
        activate (first window whose name is "Viewing")
        click checkbox "Use classic layout" of group 1 of group 1 of window "Viewing"
    end tell
end tell

The script didn't focus the Viewing tab. Try this instead:

activate application "Mail"
tell application "System Events" to tell process "Mail"
    keystroke "," using command down
    tell window 1
        click button "Viewing" of tool bar 1
        click checkbox "Use classic layout" of group 1 of group 1
        click button 1
    end tell
end tell

If it still doesn't work, it might be because of a bug where the shortcuts for Automator services don't always work until you hover the services menu from the menu bar. See this question for other ways to assign shortcuts to scripts.


Your computer can't be shut down now, because software is being installed I was trying to install Microsoft Office 2011 when the installer hanged (and it is not going anywhere, I waited about 12 hours before trying to reboot this macbook). Now I can't restart this macbook until the installer finishes.

Is there a easy way to locate what process is preventing my mac from restarting?

Killing "installd" with Activity Monitor seems to have fixed the problem for me.


How can I remove remnant processes from deleted preference panes? I discovered in Activity Monitor that I have several leftover processes running in the background that shouldn't be there anymore. I deleted these preference panes long ago with an application that was supposed to find all the extraneous files. So how do I get rid of them?

I've tried to kill the processes by quitting, force quitting, terminal commands involving killall/kill, launchctl unload and they still won't go away. They just restart themselves. What's more is I can't find where these reside on my system. They aren't listed in the "Login Items" section under my user account, as they are owned by root. I've searched but found no exact answer to my problem. I've found similar situations but not the same.

Here are the processes in question in my particular case:

Many preference pane applications also have background processes or kernel extensions. Removing the preference pane doesn't remove them, so you have to run an uninstaller or delete the files separately.

Background processes are often started by launchd services in the LaunchDaemons or LaunchAgents folders. You can remove them by just deleting the property list files (and restarting or logging out and back in). Some applications add login items that can be removed in the Users & Groups preference pane.

The executables for the background processes are often somewhere in the root or user library, but they don't necessarily have to be removed.

Kernel extensions (in /System/Library/Extensions/) can also be removed by just moving them to the trash.

You can use Consultant's Canary to print a list of components that didn't come with OS X.


quickest way to transfer iPhone photo to "/tmp" The Photo app has so many features, I can't figure-out this basic task:

take photos with iPhone.
save photos to /tmp

I've been copying/pasting pics into emails, then emailing myself, to get my pics into my local drive. Surely there is a simpler way.

btw: What is the setting to stop "Photo" from launching every time I plug-in my iPhone?

From your comment, I will ignore the "accepted" methods, such as Photo Stream.

Your question is still somewhat generic, as "quickest" can mean different things to different people in different situations.

If you are physically near your Mac, AirDrop. Here is an apple support document explaining the procedure.
With a USB cable, connect your iphone to your Mac and open the Image Capture application. Depending on your settings and OS versions, you may need to grant permission on the device. You can select one or many photos, and choose import, or just drag them into a folder. There is an option to delete them from the phone after transfer as well.
Without a USB cable, your method is actually what I would recommend, although with a twist. I attach the images to an email, then save it as a draft, retrieve the emails from the draft on my Mac, then delete the draft. This has the added benefit of not creating a copy of the email in your sent folder. It seems like this might be important to you as your concern with standard sharing methods is unknown "leakage."


Applescript to set terminal window to specific size I found this question Is it possible to define the width/height of a Terminal window with this command: osascript -e \'tell application "Terminal" to do script

and tried setting my Terminal window resolution to 1920x1080 with

osascript -e 'tell application "Terminal" to set bounds of front window to {0, 0, 1920, 1080}'

but the width of the window stretches over the entire screen and it's definitely not 1920x1080. My screen resolution is 2880x1800 (macbook pro 15" retina)

Scaled-down values need to be given to osascript. You'll need to experiment as CJK said.

In my case, I want a size that is the same proportions as HD (1920x1080), but maximize my screen width. I made my Terminal the full width and height of the screen (manually, not with the "full screen" button because I want to preserve the menu bar). Then ran:

osascript -e 'tell application "Terminal" to get bounds of front window'

=> 0, 23, 1440, 900

So, it looks like the menu bar is 23 pixels, and the width used by osascript is 1440. 1440 width in an HD ratio is 1440x810.

So, the command for me that results in a max width window that is HD ratio is:

osascript -e 'tell application "Terminal" to set bounds of front window to {0, 23, 1440, 833}'

The 833 is 810 + 23 to account for the menu bar height.


How can I control an app on my iOS device from Mac or PC I would like to take control of my app on an iOS device (mostly an iPhone) from my MacBook Pro or Windows, doesn't matter which one.

I know that it can be accomplished via Veency, and that's exactly what I need - but I do NOT want to jailbreak my iPhone.

Is there a similar legal alternative?

If not - is it something I could develop perhaps, or will I run into some SDK limitations for such a thing?

All iOS SDK apps work within a security sandbox, and thus have no access or control over any other apps (with a few tiny exceptions for registered URLs). You could take control of you own app, but no others, including Apple's, on a stock OS device.


Can OS X users get locked on OS X similar to on ubuntu when using git? I have gitlab connected to my mac but when I do git push -u origin master I get 'Permission denied. Please try later' message which is what pops up when the user gets locked it seems.

But here in this post users have used usermod in linux to unlock the user. I need to do something similar. Or if there is any other solution

I just had to delete the entry from known_hosts file on my MAC(client) to remove the traces of old config for that particular gitlab server. And also I regenerated my ssh keys back which seemed to work! :)

I used githubs awesome article to regenerate the ssh-keys.


Upgrading to macOS Catalina with Android Studio I have a MacBook Pro mid-2014, running macOS Mojave 10.14.6.
I have built an iOS app using Xcode 10.1, but when I wanted to upload it to the App Store, I came upon the following message:

ERROR ITMS-90725: "SDK Version Issue. This app was built with the iOS 12.1 SDK. As of June 30, 2020, all apps for iPhone or iPad must be built with the iOS 13 SDK or later, included with Xcode 11 or later."

I entered to the App Store, but I couldn't update to Xcode's latest version, as I don't have macOS Catalina installed. The problem is that I need Android Studio on my computer, but according to Android Studio's website, it is supported up to macOS Mojave, not Catalina.
My question is, is it safe to upgrade to macOS Catalina and keep using Android Studio? Or is there another way to solve this? Maybe installing a different version of Xcode that will run on macOS Mojave and supports iOS 13?

I have installed Xcode 11.3 from Apple Developers website.

This version supports iOS 13 SDK and macOS 10.14.4, which is exactly what I needed.


upgrading iphone 4 to iOS 5 I updated my iPhone 4 from iOS 4 to iOS 5 a while back. Now I am trying to update my wife's iPhone 4 without jumping all the way to iOS 6, so how do I determine what model I need?

5.0.1 (3GS): iPhone2,1_5.0.1_9A405_Restore.ipsw
5.0.1 (4 GSM): iPhone3,1_5.0.1_9A405_Restore.ipsw
5.0.1 (4 CDMA): iPhone3,3_5.0.1_9A405_Restore.ipsw
5.0.1 (4S): iPhone4,1_5.0.1_9A405_Restore.ipsw

My phone version is listed as 5.0.1 (9A405). Can you help me understand which restore file is the right one? And will these files restore my phone or simply upgrade to the next OS?

The kind folks behind http://iossupportmatrix.com have done the work to catalog all model identifiers (and also list the minimum and maximum versions of iOS for each model).

In your case, the iPhone 4 needs iPhone3,1_xxxx.ipsw

If you use a restore image, it wipes the device and loads that version of iOS. At that point, you could restore from an older or equivalent level OS backup or set things up newly by syncing content.


Adding The Delete Option To The Right Click Contextual Menu? In Windows it is possible to permanently delete a file or folder from the right click contextual menu. The right click contextual menu in OS X, does not by default give the option to delete a file or folder in this way, only the option to "Move to Trash", which means you then have to empty the trash manually in order to delete the file or folder.

Is it therefore possible to add this option to the contextual menu, to aid quick deletion ?

The simplest way is to create your own Service and call it whatever you want to name it.

I created a service simply called Delete Now and put it in my context menu like I have done here:

Make Your Own Delete Service

Open up Automator (/Applications/Utilities/Automator) and create a new Service

At the top right pane, select files or folders in Finder

On the left most pane, select Utilities and drag the Run Shell Script option to the workflow

Change the "Pass input" field to arguments

Pase the following into the shell script body

for f in "$@"
do
rm -rf "$f"
done
afplay "/System/Library/Components/CoreAudio.component/Contents/SharedSupport/SystemSounds/finder/empty trash.aif"

6. Click File > Save on the menubar and give you service a name. Whatever you name it, is what it will be called

This will enable it immediately on your system. If you ever decide you don't want it, and need to replace this item, navigate to ~/Library/Services/ and you will see a list of folders called {servicename}.workflow. To remove the one you don't want, just delete it then in Terminal type

killall Finder

This will restart the Finder and remove it from the context menu straight away. Otherwise, it will clear up on next restart.

Add Keyboard Shortcut

To make a keyboard shortcut for the Service you created, follow these steps:

From the Desktop, click the word Finder in the top left hand corner of the screen, then go to Services > Services Preferences

Scroll down the list on the right until you find the service you created by name. In this example, you can see Delete All that I made earlier. Highlight it, and click on add shortcut.

This will bring up a box. Make sure your mouse cursor is in there and depress the keys that you want to use to set the shortcut. In my example, I have used the combination Control+Shift+L.

Press Show All to save your settings.

Keyboard Symbols

To help anyone new to Apple keyboard symbols, here they are as follows:

^ = Control
⇧ = Shift
⌘ = Command
⌥ = Alt/Option


LSCOLORS and CLICOLOR active by default and unset Running zsh out of the box ls -G produced a colored list with the default colored values. But when I echo, both $LSCOLORS and $CLICOLOR, I receive an empty response. Reviewing printenv or set also do not show these variables.

Unlike other questions asking how to change LSCOLORS and CLICOLOR, I want to ask where are the default options set, even though these environment variables are not set (in a way I can find)? Is there a way to view the background process, of ls for example, within terminal to trace these back to an answer?

The manual page for ls(1) documents the defaults:

  The default is "exfxcxdxbxegedabagacad", i.e. blue foreground and default background for regular directories, black foreground and red background for setuid executables, etc.

Those defaults are compiled into the ls binary - you can confirm this by browsing the source code. Note this definition in print.c:

static const char *defcolors = "exfxcxdxbxegedabagacad";


Mac OS Catalina 10.15.2 AMPDevicesAgent using 100% CPU Today AMPDevicesAgent started using 100% of my CPU. This is causing the fan to run all the time.

What is AMP Devices Agent

How can I stop this

I still had this nagging problem on Big Sur, so it does not appear to be fixed (thoroughly). The iPhone entry in my Finder was permanently stuck at about one third and AMPDevicesAgent permanently took more than 99% of one CPU. Although the system remained responsive I noticed the fan blowing and more activity than I expected in the monitor.
I ended up force quitting AMPDevicesAgent in the activity monitor which removed the iPhone entry from my finder and the activity returned to normal. However I wanted my iPhone to be backed up so I also restarted the finder. This ended up in similarly high CPU usage as before, but AMPDevicesAgent never reached the levels it used to have. After a fairly long period of time (about 20 minutes) and several iPhone unlocks when it appeared to be stuck the process eventually settled down and finished the backup.
Now my iPhone is backed up and it appears in the finder with the usual information. AMPDevicesAgent is back at 0.1% where it is supposed to be. So all appears to be normal again and I keep my fingers crossed. I only found little info on the subject in the "usual places" like StackOverflow an Apple community forums.


Hard drive unmounted and missing then back? I have a 15" 2011 MBP with the OWC data doubler (a generic version).  In my primary drive position (the spot where the factory HDD was) I have an OCZ-VERTEX 3.  In the data doubler (the spot where the factory DVD drive was) I have the factory HDD (500 GB Hitachi).

The other day, I opened my MBP resuming from sleep and the OS told me a drive had been unmounted unexpectedly (or something like that).  The first thing I did was open finder and I saw that the factory drive's mount was missing.  I checked in the System Profiler under Serial-ATA and the drive didn't show up.

I rebooted a couple times and it the mount point never came back.  I was traveling at the time, so I guessed the SATA connector came off and that I'd have to open the case when I got home.  I got home, booted up and the drive was back, the mount point was there and so was all of my data.

As far as I can tell, the Mac doesn't know there was ever a problem.  I've done a little poking around in the logs and I can't find anything indicating what happened.  The drive's smart status says verified...

These are the only possibly relevant log entries I've found:

7/5/11 1:07:27 AM   fseventsd[49]   event logs in /Volumes/Storage/.fseventsd out of sync with volume.  destroying old logs. (375382 2 375384)

7/5/11 1:07:27 AM   fseventsd[49]   log dir: /Volumes/Storage/.fseventsd getting new uuid: A4E5301E-C2AE-482A-B3AE-7553D58CCFFA

I found the device is 'disk0s2' and found these log entries for that:

7/4/11 9:54:47 PM   kernel  BSD root: disk0s2, major 14, minor 2

7/5/11 1:07:26 AM   kernel  jnl: disk0s2: replay_journal: from: 13338112 to: 14224384 (joffset 0xe8e000)

7/5/11 1:07:26 AM   kernel  jnl: disk0s2: journal replay done.

Perhaps it was just a glitch I shouldn't really worry about, but I'd like to know as much as possible about what happened.

What sort of post-mortem diagnostics should I be doing to find out what happened?

I think the safest way to fix it is to copy your data off the drive to save it to somewhere like another external hard drive and then format it!


How do I find what the Other Storage is being used by? A similar question was asked here, and closed as a duplicate, but none of the referenced questions answered the actual question posed, I'm asking it again.
How to free up "Other" in Storage Management
I have a similar situation with a Macbook Air 2013 running Cataline 10.15.5. Having read and applied the suggestions in those referenced questions, I'm left with the same issue here.

Note the 33gb of "Other" in the last line. It appears that the "Other" doesn't appear in the file-browser under documents.
Effectively, a quarter of my disk is "dark matter" which I can't identify, and thus either use or remove.
I've run First Aid on the disk in recovery mode, and that didn't find any issues.

You can try Daisydisk, Grand Perspective or Disk Inventory X which are graphical Disk space mappers. One of these may have what app the 33 GB is mapped to.
There is also a nice explanation about the "Other" storage and how to free up that space. This is explained in this iMore link here.. Some of this disk space is related to the new Optimize storage feature. Not really new but since Sierra operating system. When Apple added its storage management feature to macOS Sierra and newer, called Optimize Storage, it reorganized what "other" storage is and where it's located on the Mac. Much of it has been divided out through other categories so it's easier to find and remove.


After update OS X 10.9.3 MacBook Pro 2010, Restart suddenly Yesterday I get OS X 10.9.3 after update, my MBP 2010 getting restart when I open VLC, Illustrator and sometimes Safari. The message shows "Your Computer restarted because of a Problem. Press any key to continue starting up".

Why this happen?

There are reports of Dropbox causing kernel panics on 10.9.3. If you have Dropbox installed, try quitting the dropbox agent. If the kernel panics cease, then wait for Dropbox to update their software.

First, click the dropbox icon in the menu bar, then click the gear icon in the bottom-right.

Then quit Dropbox from the popup menu.


Dual Boot Created a New Volume I created a second bootable volume called "Beta" in order to install the macOS Catalina beta. I successfully installed and booted to this new volume, but when I returned to the first volume (which has macOS Mojave installed) I was surprised to see a third volume.

The "Beta - Data" seems to have been created during the installation process. This third volume is also not visible when I return to the "Beta" boot volume, only having the "Beta" and "Panther" volumes. The "Beta" volume when booted into it also seems to have the combined size of the "Beta" and "Beta - Data" volumes.

I originally created the "Beta" volume with a quota of 256GB as well, but that quota is gone from that volume and the "Beta - Data" volume seems to have inherited it.

The "Beta" volume seems to contain the system install; containing the home, Library, System and Users directories (though the Users directory only contains the Shared directory, and not the home folder for the user I created). While the "Beta - Data" volume has the user-specific data; having the Device, private and Users directories (with the home folder for the user I created within, as well as another Shared directory).

I have never tried dual booting on a Mac before, so this could be more common than I am aware of, but I couldn't seem to find any information on why this would happen or where this volume came from. Could this be a new "feature" (or bug) from macOS Catalina? Or did I just do something wrong when I created the new volume?

macOS Catalina has a new feature to further isolate the OS from data. In the APFS container it is installed within, an APFS volume for the OS is created alongside one for your data. The former is mounted read-only within Catalina, and the latter has the Data postfix containing your apps and data.

https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2019/103/

Within Catalina, Disk Utility shows these volumes with a Finder icon and home icon to distinguish them. This does not appear in Mojave, showing as normal volumes. Keep in mind the release notes for the beta of Catalina, specifically dual booting and Spotlight indexing, which will heavily confuse Mojave with the cross-volume linking of various folders.


Deleting and freeing occupied space Why when deleting from a USB or an external HDD on mac the occupied space wont be free untill deleted from trash?

Is there a direct way to delete from the drive and freeing the occupied space instantly?

One way to bypass the trash without any additional tools is to open a Terminal window, type rm -rf (note the last space) and the drag/drop the files/folders to be deleted and press enter. This will instantly and recursively delete the files/folders, so be careful with it!


Can I partition an iPod (nano, classic, shuffle) for use as a flash drive? I have made an iPod nano appear as a flash drive by going to iTunes and checking "Enable disk use." However, I am short of a large enough USB key to hold a bootable Windows 8 installer for use by Boot Camp. Because Boot Camp needs to wipe the drive used, can I create a partition in Disk Utility of the iPod and install to that?

Does iPod still work after  creating a new partition for use as a flash disk?

It can be done, but truthfully i would just spend the $15 on an 8gb USB drive.

Anyway, one way of doing it:

Reboot ipod by pressing menu and center button for 5 secs.
Before apple logo appears (ie: do it fast) press play/pause and center for 2 secs
a green checkmark should appear on the screen. It is now in flash disk mode. Connect it to the mac
Go to disk utility and format it for Fat-32 (or ntfs)
Use it to install windows.
after you are done, start up itunes and Restore it.

OBVIOUSLY you will lose everything in the ipod. So after restore copy all the music back.

You might be able to skip the first 3 steps and format it straight away, depending on your h/w version it might work, so check that first.


Will macbook pro mid 2012 gt650m show 2560 resolution on a 4k display? I have a mid 2012 macbook pro with a GT650M graphics card. From my research I have found that the maximum resolution for this card is 2560 x 1440. I currently run a thunderbolt external display with it.

I am thinking about purchasing a 4k monitor. I have a windows 8.1 machine with a GTX 650 TI Boost that I am positive will run the 4k display. So my question is this...

If i plug the 4k display into the imac will I AT LEAST get the 2560 x 1440 resolution of my thunderbolt display on the 4k?

I understand that i will NOT get true 4k when using the macbook, but i'm hoping to get 2560 resolution when the macbook is plugged in and 4k resolution when the PC is plugged in.

Thanks for the help.

No it will not. According to http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT6008:

"You can use 4K displays and Ultra HD TVs with these Mac computers.

MacBook Pro (Retina, Late 2013 and later)
Mac Pro (Late 2013)
iMac (27-inch, Late 2013 and later)
Mac mini (Late 2014)"


Reset or access administer password on Macbook Air Okay, here's the thing, I bought this Macbook Air at a thrift store a couple days ago, everything was fine when I checked, I could access the Mac and surf the web, but I noticed something when I tried to do get to "General" in settings, I needed an administrator name and password to get there, I looked more into this and I also can't install software on the computer. After doing some researching, this was the case of the Mac being used for school ( or it being a school computer ) so I went back to the place where I got the computer, and the store owner said it was non-refundable and someone brought it in a while back. I later found a fix for this, I could boot the Mac by holding command+R and factory reset it, but it requires a "firmware password", I have no idea how to get it, any suggestions?

I've also read that pulling out the ram and reinserting it might reset or fix this, but I'm not sure if the Mac is "old enough" for that to work, thanks in advance for any help.

After doing some researching, this was the case of the Mac being used for school ( or it being a school computer )

Schools and other enterprise setups often will set a firmware password to prevent things just like this from happening. If your Mac was manufactured before late 2010 (Apple menu > About This Mac), you may be able to reset it by pulling out the RAM. I'd recommend that you follow the instructions outlined here and use disassembly guides from iFixit.

Otherwise, your Mac is locked and cannot be recovered without proof of purchase. In terms of ethics, I'd recommend trying to figure out what school it came from and contacting them about this, as this is considered stolen property.


What is this Google Chrome icon appearing in the dock? When I'm using Chrome browser sometimes two icons appear in the dock.  I know the one with dot (left) but what is the one with Mac icon (right)?  The right one just disappears if I click on it.  If I don't do anything the icon (right) will disappear after awhile.
I think this is handoff feature.

How do I know which device is sending the handoff to my Mac?
Can it be security hole if I click on it?
Since someone can send it to my Mac, can my mac accidentally send the handoff to other device? i.e. I'm concerned if the two or more devices are allowed to communicate bidirectionally.

Yes, the icon you see on the right is Handoff from another computer that you are signed into and are near. That computer has a window open in a web browser. (I'm assuming you have Chrome as your default browser)
You can ignore it if you want, or select it to "hand off" what you are doing on the other computer to this current one.
To answer your questions;

The icon that you see there usually shows what device is "handing off" from. In this case, it's a desktop, not a mobile device.
Unless someone is using your computer without you knowing, it's probably not a security issue. This only is shared between computers that are signed in with the same iCloud account.
Someone can Airdrop something to you, but you have to agree to it. Airdropping from a computer that are are signed into with your iCloud account to another computer, also signed in with the same iCloud account, can just transfer files without asking. No third party can just send, or push, something to you without you agreeing to it.

I hope this helps!


How to crop odd and even pages differently in a PDF? I have a large PDF I want to crop/remove all the whitespace with software that  runs on Mavericks

The PDF in question is designed for print; therefore, odd pages have different margins from even pages. I tried following the tip mentioned in the 3rd comment to this answer, but it seems that feature was removed from Apple's Preview app.

Any ideas? I prefer using free software but any solutions are welcome.

So, after some tinkering, I was able to do it using Automator. I'd be very surprised if this is the most efficient way to do it, but you only need to create the workflow once.

Basically, there's an "Extract Odd & Even Pages" action that you can use to split the file. Here's a list of the workflow:

Ask for finder items.
Extract odd and even pages (Odd)
Move finder items (this moves the extracted PDF to a folder you specify, must be empty; otherwise, it'll be in a temporary folder that's hard to find).
Ask for finder items (select the original file again; otherwise, Automator will continue processing the file created in Step 2).
Extract odd and even pages (Even)
Move finder items (same as 3)
Ask for confirmation: Basically, it's a way to pause the workflow while you crop the pdfs. This is optional, you could just create a separate workflow (if you don't already have one) to combine the pdfs, and execute that once you're done. Otherwise, the idea is that you click "OK" after cropping both PDFs.
Get folder contents/Ask for finder items: Point to the folder where the two separate PDFs are located (or select both, if you used "Ask for finder items").
Combine PDF pages: Shuffle option
Move finder items (wherever you want the output).

That's the general idea, there are some refinements that could be done, if not a complete 'rewrite' to make it more efficient.


Apple MacBook Air stuck in continuous boot loop All of a sudden my MacBook Air has started continuously rebooting. The screen cuts out, it goes back to apple logo then log in prompt. I can log in and then after a few seconds typically it cuts out and process repeats. Sometimes it cuts out before I can even log in.

The time is quite variable before it does cut out and restart.

I booted to safe mode and have run disk diagnostics about three times now, every time it comes back all fine.

I panicked and finally bought a dedicated external hard drive and did a time machine back up which completed successfully.

After this I rebooted normally and things seemed fixed, I was using it for about 30 mins with no reboots until an app which switched to full screen caused it to cut out and the same behaviour to start again.

If it's not the disk- what could it be and where should I go from here?

MacBook Air 2013 - os ex El Capitan

If it boots fine in Safe Mode then it's more likely to be some sort of software issue/conflict.

However, I'd still do a NVRAM and SMC reset (in that order) as there's really no harm in trying that first. Before following the steps below, ensure you have no external hardware connected and that you're using the built-in keyboard.

Reset the NVRAM

Reset the NVRAM on your MBA as follows:

Shut down your machine. Yes, a full shut down, not just logging out.
Press the power button and then press the commandoptionpr keys. You have to make sure you press these keys before the gray screen appears or it won’t work.
Hold those keys down until your MBA reboots again and you here the startup chime.
Let go of the keys and let your MBA reboot normally.

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

Reset the SMC

To reset the SMC on your MBA, follow these steps:

Shut down your MBA
Keep the power cable plugged in.
Press at the same time shiftoptioncontrol (on the left side of the keyboard) and the power button
Let go
Turn your computer back on with the power button.

After resetting both the NVRAM and SMC, use your computer to determine if the issue still persists. Let me know how you go.


Is it possible to AirPlay from Mac to iPhone? I'm working on a native macOS app. I need to test some multi-monitor issues. When I'm at home I use AirPlay to my TV to test multi-monitor issues. But, when I'm at a cafe or co-working space if I could AirPlay to my iPhone then I could continue to work on multi-monitor issues.

I suspect people might suggest Air Display but I'm not sure it lets me display to iPhone and reviews are very poor.

Ideally I'd just like "AirPlay to iPhone" to show up as an option on my Mac.

No, iOS on the iPhone does not natively support receiving an AirPlay display mirroring connection.

You can use third party iOS apps that employ other types of protocols with accompanying macOS apps that allow you to share the contents of windows from the macOS computer to the iOS device. AirDisplay, that you mentioned, is an example of this.

It is however not native AirPlay and thus has different characteristics. In general, I think it is fair to say that it is a clunkier experience.


How to upgrade Individual Developer Account to a Company Account? I have an Individual Developer Account of $99 and now I want upgrade my account to a Company Account. What is the process of upgrading?

I have some running apps on the App Store with my individual account, which are showing my name under the app name.

I want it to show my company name under my app name. Is this possible after the upgrade? Can it show my company name everywhere, i.e. in iTunes Connect, Member Center etc.?

The best manner to accomplish this is to contact Apple Developer Program Support directly.

You can find their phone number and initiate a support ticket from this web page:

https://developer.apple.com/contact/

I have found them to be expert at getting you the information you need to effect a smooth and orderly transition and help you from registering incorrectly or having any assets trapped in limbo if you make the transition incorrectly.


iPad 4 frequently connects/disconnects from MacBook Pro I have a MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013) and an iPad 4. The iPad is freshly installed.

Problem

Whenever I plug it into the left or right USB port of my MacBook, it connects for a fraction of a second (the power indicator on the iPad turns green and iTunes opens), but then it disconnects again. This goes on and on, re-connecting every few seconds.

There's a video of the behavior here:

What I've tried

When I plug it into the Apple keyboard's ports, it is not charging, but now the connection is stable. iTunes also recognizes it properly now.
I've already tried it on another Windows PC, where it works fine. Also, I've tried using another cable – no dice.
Restarting the Mac and the iPad

Other info

Here's what the System Profiler has to say about the MacBook with no peripherals connected:

Is it the internal memory card reader that drains all the required power? But why?

What could I do to make this behavior stop?

After a broad search, I found this solution which worked for me:

On the iPad tap Settings > General > Reset > Reset Location & Privacy. This will reset your location and privacy settings and require you to set up a trust relationship with the PC/laptop again.

But if you are running out of options ... try that and see if it works. I realize this thread is older, but posting this solution here in case it helps other people.


When I'm texting, sometimes the receiver's email shows up Whenever I start a text, my contacts list shows email addresses instead of phone numbers.  Not always but very often. Sometimes a contact will be that way, then next time it won't.

Those emails are from iMessage, as you can receive iMessages with both your email and phone number. If the messages are colored blue, it is iMessage.

https://deciphertools.com/blog/2014_06_20_stop_sending_imessage_from_email/


Creating and modifying tags hangs Finder in OS X 10.9 Mavericks When I create or modify a tag in Finder on Mavericks, the Finder application stalls with a spinning beach ball and cpu goes up to 100% usage for a while (from 30 secs to 2 minutes).

I've found that if I force quit Finder, it will restart and function normally.

Any idea why this is happening and how I can fix it?

This problem has been bugging me for months. I've kept a weather eye on the Google results, poked around trying to find my own solution, upgraded to Yosemite to see if the issue was resolved there, but nothing turned up. So, during the Thanksgiving break I decided to sit down and fix this once and for all.

Looooong story short, every time you add a new tag (and possibly when you add a tag to a file) it gets popped into the Finder sidebar for easy access. Handy. Thing is, if you get crazy and add a metric ton of tags, none of them are ever removed from the Finder sidebar. They roll off the edge where you can't see them, and are flagged as "visible if newer items are removed" but they are all retained in the sidebar items plist. This plist gets massive, and takes a long time to parse any time it must be modified.

To make things worse, when you have "documents and data" turned on under System Preferences → iCloud, the tag list is synced. This means the hang follows you to every machine where you are signed into iCloud, even on a fresh reload of OS X. Funfunfun.

Thankfully, there is an easy fix. I'll keep the explanation simple for Joe Internet who may be having this problem stumble across this post.

When the Finder is running properly (not beach-balled), right-click on the icon in the Dock and select Go to Folder. In the dialog that appears type ~/Library/Preferences/. That funny little squiggle at the front is just a nice little shortcut that tells the dialog to start in your home folder for the path, rather than the root of the internal drive.

You will be presented with a cornucopia of scary looking plists. The one we are after is titled com.apple.sidebarlists.plist. Copy that plist somewhere you can find it later (just in case something goes awry and you have to put it back). Now, delete the the original plist in the Library folder and reboot your machine. After the reboot Finder will have an empty tag sidebar and you can create, delete, and rearrange tags to your hearts content. No hangs. As long as you have iCloud "Documents and Data" enabled, this new clean sidebar will also be uploaded to iCloud and clear out the old gigantic one on all your machines.

It should be noted that this DOES NOT delete the tags from your files. That information is actually appended to an extended attribute (xattr) of the file itself, rather than being stored in a single plist or database somewhere. Thankfully, the tags on the files themselves aren't what's causing the hang issue, so we can leave them untouched.

Of course, what you will lose are the list of tags and custom folders you want in the Finder sidebar. Add the folders back the normal way (drag them into the sidebar) and you can select which tags you want by going to the Finder menu → Preferences → Tags and checking the boxes. I've got about a dozen and things are snappy.

One other unfortunate loss are the tags' assigned colors. That's strictly stored in the Finder's plist. The tags may appear to retain their color until you add them back to the sidebar, or try to apply a tag to an item, at which point the color vanishes.

After you've added a tag or two back to the sidebar the "all tags" item will reappear at the bottom of the list. Click on that and scroll through the list of tags to re-assign their colors. Make sure to re-apply color even to the tags that appear to have retained it, because when that tag is next added to a file or otherwise modified there's a good chance the color will disappear.

Something to note if you have a lot of colors applied: adding them all back may cause the hang issue to re-manifest. All those color assignments are stored in the plist, and too many may drag things down. I've only got a few color assignments so I haven't been able to verify this theory.

That's it! Congratulations! Tags are now usable on your machine(s) again. Just remember to go into Finder → Preferences → Tags every now and again and clear the checkbox or minus sign from the tags you don't want displayed in the sidebar and things should remain snappy.


Audacity Says "Error Locking Temporary Folder" and Won't Open I was using Audacity and it kept saying that it couldn't save to the autosave folder. I went to turn it off and it said it couldn't save its user configuration file. Now, when I try to turn it off, it says "Error Locking Temporary Folder." What can I do to fix this issue?

There was not enough space on my computer, the hard drive was full. I had to delete some stuff in order to open Audacity again.


Can't install macOS on macbook air a1237 I bought a macbook air with ubuntu on it and now I want to install macOS and I cant do it.
I tried installing High Sierra, Catalina, Snow Leopard, Mavericks and Mojave (show Apple logo when i start install) and I can't even get in recovery mode.
Can anybody can help me?

Unfortunately, the newest version of OS X released by Apple for your model Mac is Lion (10.7.5). You can purchase Lion from Apple for 19.99 USD. However the website states you first have to have Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6.8) installed before installing Lion. AFAIK, Snow leopard is no longer available for purchase from Apple. It is possible to buy used copies of Snow Leopard and it is also possible to download free copies. Downloading a free copy would violate Apple's license.
All of this really does not matter, unless you have some really old OS X compatible software to use. Basically, Lion is to old to access the web and be compatible with any current software.
Officially, the most current version of Windows available for your model Mac is 32 bit Windows 7. However, you might be able to run 64 bit Windows 10, but with a processor speed under 2 GHZ and only 2 GB of RAM, I would expect Windows 10 would be sluggish to run.


Mac Appstore (on Mojave) issues When I type my email and password and then click the login button, after a few seconds I am returned to the login button and not logged in. Please help ASAP.

ok so after an hour on the phone with Apple this is what worked:  Simply sign out of your iCloud, reboot your machine and then sign into the Mac App Store before signing into iCloud.


formatting external drive multiplatform compatible filesystem from macOS High Sierra I have a 160GB external hard drive connected via USB I pulled it from a windows pc to MacBook running MacOS High Sierra, I want to format the hard drive to a file system that should work with Windows, MacOS and Linux operating system.

The hard drive is currently NTFS formatted, into 3 partition which I want to get rid of and just keep single partition.

I am just going to backup my media , doc, zips and tars

Any Help will be greatly appreciated.

Are there any data on the 160GB external? If yes back them up.
Then format the drive in Exfat.


Third-party service that syncs preferences? Like MobileMe Are there any third-party software or services that offer synchronization of user-preferences the same way that MobileMe does?

I’m thinking of the user defaults that live inside ~/Library/Preferences/

With conflict resolution and merging of property lists, of course.

I've got a system set up with Dropbox to do something like this.  I have several settings files (.profile, .gitconfig, ~/Applications, etc) living in my Dropbox, and then I run a script to iterate through them and set up symlinks to their appropriate location.

You could probably do something similar, perhaps even by symlinking your entire ~/Library/Application Support folder.


How do I stop Mavericks registering random clicks? I've been seeing odd click behaviour for a while. Whenever I have my magic trackpad plugged in, Mavericks seems to be registering a number of clicks I'm not making. This results in making the system near unusable at times as it'll randomly cause textfields I'm writing in to be highlighted and then typed over, or for full-screen videos to pause and unpause as the clicks register.

This happens during most sessions, on and off, and whether or not I'm touching the trackpad.

There are no issues if I use a mouse, as long as the magic trackpad has had the batteries removed.

Does anyone know how to fix this behaviour?

It would appear that the trackpad itself was faulty. It's unclear exactly how this fault developed, but I found that switching out the trackpad for another fixed the problem. I've had no issues since.


How can I better sort and set wifi network preferences on Mac? The Advanced section of the Wifi - Network Preferences allows for dragging and dropping of known wifi networks in order to set a priority order for joining networks. (Networks higher in the list will be joined first, when multiple are available.)

By default, newly joined networks are added to the end of the list. My problem is that I have hundreds of known networks and the list cannot be searched, nor can the window be made larger to allow for more effective scrolling.

I was wondering if there exists a better method, or perhaps a third-party app, that would give a better UI to search and re-sort known wifi networks. Let me know if this question would be better suited for Software Recs SE.

TL;DR;

The file that contains all the information about Known Networks is com.apple.airport.preferences.plist and you can find it under /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/

How to change the order / Delete a network from the order:

Open finder.
From Menu Bar select Go -> Go To Folder.
Copy paste this path /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/.
Locate the file com.apple.airport.preferences.plist and make a copy of it with a name like com.apple.airport.preferencesOLD.plist ( for backup just in case).
Move the original file from the previous step to your desktop to enable
editing.
Open the file with Xcode (or any other text editor app)
In PreferredOrder array you can see the full list in descending
sort.
Change the order or delete a network if you don't want it in the
order.
Move the com.apple.airport.preferences.plist back to
/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/ folder

As you can see the value of each item is wifi's ssid.

You can match wifi ssid with yours wifi name from the dictionary KnownNetworks (above of PreferredOrder in com.apple.airport.preferences.plist file).


Fixing /etc/sudoers file I'm a systems admin for a company and was thrown into a horribly configured server. In the midst of my refactoring I was adding users to my /etc/sudoers file. I seem to have accidentally removed my server admin account from the sudoers file access.

I know what I did wrong (i accidentally commented out the %admin line) question being, how can I reinstate my server admin access in the file without having to restart anything.

Here's how it looks right now:

##
## User privilege specification
##
root ALL=(ALL) ALL
#%admin  ALL=(ALL) ALL
%superuser ALL=(ALL) ALL
"user1" ALL=(ALL) ALL
"user2" ALL=(ALL) ALL

Also note that my users do not have permission for sudo for some reason:

Realtor-Station-3-27:~ user1$ sudo -i

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

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

Password:
user1 is not in the sudoers file.  This incident will be reported.
Realtor-Station-3-27:~ user1$

If you have access to finder and a system administrator account, you can fix this without a reboot by leveraging these.

Open up your finder and go to /etc. In here, you can view the details of the sudoers file, including permissions - screenshot below.

Change the permissions for "everyone" here to Read & Write.

At this time, you can edit yourself back into the file with any text editor. You will have to return permissions for "everyone" back to No Access before sudo will allow you to perform a sudo.


Is it normal for MacBook Pro CD/DVD drive to makes noise on wake after long sleep Every time I put my MacBook Pro (13in, mid-2012) to sleep and shut the lid, then wait at least 20 mins then open the lid and wake it up, my CD/DVD drive makes an odd sound as if it thinks there's a disk in there to read but then realizes there isn't and stops the sound.

Many of my friends own MacBook Pros and none of their CD/DVD drives do this on wake after a long sleep. I should probably also mention that this sound only started happening about 6 months after I bought it, it's now 1.5 years old.

So, is it normal for my MacBook Pro to make a sound on wake after a long sleep?

Yes.

After all, OS X wants to allow you to access what's on the disc currently inside the drive. When you eject a disc, the system reacts by no longer showing the disc on the desktop or in Finder. When you insert a disc, the system reacts by showing the disc on the desktop and in Finder.

When the system is asleep, it's no longer keeping track of whether a disc has been ejected, inserted, or replaced with a different disc. It has to check what's in the drive when it wakes up in order to react properly to what's there.


IPad Air 2 (cellular) upgrade to 9.3.1 won't run (after "agreeing", takes me to home screen) When trying to upgrade to 9.3.1, the terms of service come up for the upgrade, and when clicking agree (twice -- there's two popups about agreeing), I'm redirected to the home screen and nothing else happens. Note: I had this problem with 9.3, and at the time, the 9.3 update was not signed, but as of today, IPSW says this device's update is signed and available, yet the problem remains, even after a restart.

A power cable is attached to the device (with ~80% life). I also tried closing all open applications. Still same result.

Any ideas on how to get the update installed?

Installing via iTunes works (i.e., plug iPad into computer with iTunes running), so I ended up doing that.

For others that run into this problem: you may want to make sure you have enough disk space on your device. I had 32gb, so I know that wasn't my problem.

I suspect my problem had something to do with the 9.3 update arriving, and then Apple unsigning it because of its bugs; and maybe when 9.3.1 came out, my iPad was confused?  shrugs


Airport Express as a wifi access point connected by Ethernet cable to a modem? Will an Apple Airport Express be able to do what I need?

I work on a laptop running Win7Pro, and my internet feed comes to a Netgear DM111P cabled modem, which I connect to the laptop using an ethernet cable. The modem sits in my office at home, and I'm fine with this set-up when I'm working in that room. But I want to be able to connect wirelessly to the internet sometimes from other rooms in the house (max distance say 10 metres through 2 doors), using a wifi access point device (WAPD) that I leave in the office. So the idea is that I leave one end of the ethernet cable plugged into the modem, and I move the other end between the laptop (when I'm in the office) and the WAPD (when I want to use internet elsewhere). The procedure needs to be quick and simple. I don't want to have to configure software all the time. I just want to be able (when leaving the office) to power up the WAPD, take the ethernet cable out of the laptop and plug it into the WAPD, then leave the room with the laptop; and (when coming back into the office) turn the WAPD off, take the ethernet cable out of the WAPD and plug it back into the laptop. Also I want to turn the modem off when I'm not on the internet.

Is the Airport Express a WAPD of this kind?

The unit should do what you want. No guarantee on the bandwidth as the range increases, but if your Internet connection is less than 30Mbps, and you're only using it for Internet access, then having the wireless component shouldn't slow you down.


Cannot ping between OS X on wireless LAN Macbook Pro OSX 10.10.5, Late 2013 model. Firewall entirely off (Stealth mode is certainly off). Three Macbook Pro’s wirelessly connected to the same wireless network (WPA/WPA2 Personal) under the same netmask with one and only wireless router (192.168.0.1).

Mac 1: inet 192.168.0.101 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.0.255
Mac 2: inet 192.168.0.105 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.0.255
Mac 3: inet 192.168.0.119 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.0.255

If ping each other, one will receive a permanent Request timeout for icmp_seq. If ping a random non-exist address (192.168.0.188), I get No route to host after Request timeout for icmp_seq. If any OS X ping the router (192.168.0.1), then it gets all packets transmitted and received with 0.0% loss.

From the results I assume the OS X can ping router and the router tries to transmit the packet if the IP exist,

First, it seems your wireless router seems to have some firewall part preventing ICMP messages (ping is one part of this protocol suite) going over the wireless lan to prevent a ping flood. To verify this, try out these tests:

Disable any VPN software you may run (VPN software mostly includes Desktop policies preventing "unwanted" protocols to be executed and they insert special routes).
ping -c2 192.168.0.255

A usual behaviour for that command would be to get an answer from all your machines in the same network. If this doesn't work, something else is preventing that. As you wrote you disabled all the OS X firewalls, this command should be successful.

To verify this, go to step 2:

Take two MBP and connect them with one CAT6 Gigabit Ethernetcable and assign IP adresses to the LAN ports:

MBP1: en0: 172.16.42.5 netmask 255.255.255.0

MBP2: en0: 172.16.42.6 netmask 255.255.255.0

MBP3: en0: 172.16.42.7 netmask 255.255.255.0

Now try to ping MBP2 from MBP1 and vice versa and take notes:

MBP1 -> MBP2: 1->2 yes / no, 2->1 yes / no

MBP1 -> MBP3: 1->3 yes / no, 3->1 yes / no

MBP2 -> MBP3: 2->3 yes / no, 3->2 yes / no

If all of these connections are working, then you know the router is the bad guy. Take a closer look in your router configuration and look there for terms like "broadcast storm", "ping flood" or "ICMP broadcast prevention". Switch that feature off and try it again.

Hope this helps in analysing your annoying trouble. :-)


How can I change the circular photo on title bar of Mail.app? Every time I send an email, there is a circular photo associated with the message (top right). I cannot work out how to change this.

This is when I am using Apple's Mail.app on a MacBook running macOS Mojave 10.14.5. The image I cannot change is not my Google photo identity. This is an @gmail.com email ID.

Try re-adding the Gmail account in Mail.app. This should resolve the issue.


How do I find my Apple ID connected to my iphone if the phone has been lost? I've lost my phone and in order to access iCloud I need my Apple ID however I don't remember the one that is linked to my iPhone.  What can I do to find this out?

There doesn't seem to be any easy way to do this.

To do it by trial and error, you can go to the iCloud web-site and login with each of your Apple IDs and try the "Find my iPhone" feature to locate it and/or send a message/tone to it.

If you have any other iOS devices with a similar setup, you can check on them as well.


How to create an Automator service to run a script on all files in a folder I want to create a service using Automator to run a shell script on all files in a folder, say delete all log files. What I have done is

Created a new service in automator.
Added a "Run Shell Script" action. I have change this to 'pwd' for now.
Selected "Service receives selected folders".
Tried to run it, but get a message. "To test this service within Automator, add the "Get Specified Finder Items" action to the beginning of your workflow. Remove or disable the action before running the workflow outside of Automator.
OK. So I add "Get Specified Finder Items". Added a 'test' directory to the list of items.

Now, when I run the script, the results window prints out my home directory.

Elsewhere, I have read that I maybe need to add

cd "$1"

to the beginning of my script. I did that but it still prints my home directory. How do I get this thing to print the directory I have selected in "Get Specified Finder Items?"

Edited to Add

Here is a screen shot of a script that works.

Here is a screen shot os a script that doesn't work.

The usual way I would deal with the "no match found : *.log" error would be to redirect error output to null. Replacing the "rm" line by

find . -name "*.log" -print0 | xargs -0 rm -rf

Does work though. This seems more difficult than it should be.

If you're creating a Service using RunShell Script which you want to pass the selected Folder(s) to the RunShell Script and have additional actions take place in the script on them, then start with these settings.

Create the Service:

Open Automator and select Service or File > New > Service If Automator is already open.
Set Service receives selected to folders and in to Finder.
Add a Run Shell Script Action, setting Shell: to /bin/bash and Pass input: to as arguments.  This changes the default code to from cat to:

for f in "$@"
do
    echo "$f"
done

Now you can use $f to act on the target Folder(s), e.g. cd $f and now you're in the directory of $f and can add additional code to act upon the files/folders within $f, etc.

Update:

Use the following working code as an example:

for d in "$@"; do
    cd "$d"
    for f in *.log; do
        rm "$f"
    done
done

Within the Test and Test copy folders there were a number of .log files and files with other extensions as well.  When the above code was run it deleted only the *.log files within the target folders as show in the images below using two folders or one folder and both files and folders with/without spaces in their names.


Unzipping an archive, the folder icon appears under the archive I double-click the .zip, and the resultant folder shows up here:

Annoying, but eh. Is there any way to fix this? Similarly, anything downloaded to the folder shows up in the top left, piling on top of anything else that might be there. This ends up in a giant stack of mess that's annoying and cluttered. How do I fix such problems?

You could change the "view" of the ~/Downloads folder to something other than "as icons" from the Finder menu "View". In "list" or "column" mode, they would not be on top of each other.

Alternatively, under the "View"->"Show View Options" you could set it to "Sort By" -> "Snap to Grid" and all new icons would be nicely arranged it a grid. Additionally "Arrange by" -> "Name" would put things in alphabetical order, and not all on top of each other.


Send 1 bookmark from IOS to Mac w/o iCloud or Email I do NOT want to sync all my bookmarks across all my devices via iCloud, etc. Far too many bookmarks on my Mac that don't need to be on iPad, etc.

But sometimes I find a site on my IOS device & I want to have that site bookmarked in my Mac automatically or at least send the site link to my Mac to put it into my Mac bookmarks folder later.  I can't find any way to do this. Any ideas?

You can paste it into a note or calendar event if you sync those via iCloud.  Or you could send it to yourself via iMessage.


Copy contents from one excel file to another using Applescript I am trying to copy contents from a source excel file after editing a few rows and paste that into a new workbook. Tried the following code, but it doesn't copy the contents or show any error. Please let me know what I am doing wrong, I am new to applescripts.

tell application "Microsoft Excel"

open workbook workbook file name sourcefile

replace (range "A:A" of worksheet "Sheet1") what "US" replacement "DA"

save active workbook

tell active sheet

    tell used range

        set rc to count of rows

    end tell

    set src to range ("A1:D" & rc)

end tell

set newbook to make new workbook

set update remote references of newbook to true

save workbook as newbook filename targetfilename

tell active sheet

    set dst to range ("A1:D" & rc)

end tell

activate

copy range src destination dst

end tell

Using "active sheet" is your problem. Your sheet is copying from the active sheet to the active sheet, which at the time you send the copy command, are the blank cells in A1:D5 of the new workbook it created.

Change the first 'Tell active sheet' section to:

tell workbook sourcefile to tell worksheet "Sheet1"
    tell used range
        set rc to count of rows
    end tell
    set src to range ("A1:D" & rc)
end tell

For sanity's sake, I would also change the second 'tell active sheet' to:

tell workbook targetfilename to tell worksheet 1
    set dst to range ("A1:D" & rc)
end tell

I made these changes and your script worked for me.


Can’t connect my iPad to cPanel WebDisk (iOS) I am trying to connect my iPad to my webdisk, but I can’t.
I have:

my address: example.com
my username: exemple@exemple.com
my password: example

I figured out to connect my Windows 10 laptop, but I don’t know how (and I found nothing on Google) to connect my iPad (maybe using files app?) to the WebDisk...

I found this article that was posted in 2017. It has mentioned about an application on the App Store. You have to install the app on your iPad and then connect with your cPanel WebDisk that you have set up.

I am trying to connect my iPad to my webdisk, but I can’t. I have:

my address: example.com
my username: exemple@exemple.com
my password: example


Are old unused macbook batteries ok? I'm considering buying a Geniuine Apple Macbook Pro (2007) battery on ebay.  This is NOT an OEM knockoff, and the battery is still sealed in original plastic, but I have no idea when the battery was manufactured.

If the battery was made, say 5 years ago, is it likely to perform almost as well as one that was recently manufacurerd?

The short answer would be no. A 5 y.o. battery won't last as long as a new(er) one. However, depending on if the original owner followed Apple's care instructions, and it doesn't have a high cycle count, it may not be much lower.

A lot of it depends on the care the battery was given. If the battery has just been sitting in a box this whole time, it's performance may be lower. Batteries need their "juices" (electrons) flowing in order for them to stay healthy.

On the other hand you have cycle count. A battery only can handle so many cycles before it wears out. Simply put, the higher the cycle count, the lower the performance.

Apple recommends storing a battery at 50% for extended periods of time. If it's fully charged or discharged when stored, this will again affect battery life.

Here is a comprehensive guide to Apple notebook batteries.

Of course, all this doesn't count any engineering changes that may have been made for the better in newer batteries.


Manage family macOS logins I have a family with many macOS devices.  Originally I set these up with an admin user with the same username and password on all devices, and I used this to admin parental controls on them.
This has become an issue when the shared password was compromised.
Ideally the admin password on all family devices would have a managed password, and I could change the login password on all devices from one place.
Is it possible to achieve this functionality somehow?  Perhaps there's a iCloud Family feature I'm missing?

Unfortunately, you've discovered the perils of having a single password for multiple devices/accounts. This would be no different than if it were an IT Manager who used the same firmware PIN and admin credentials across all school computers (I say that, because I inherited that exact problem).
Apple ID doesn't haven anything to manage this and "corporate" style solutions like network authentication or mobile device management is simply overkill for what you need to do.  So, the solution is to use a different password for the admin account for each Mac and store them in a good password manager.
I use KeepassXC for this purpose.  My personal stuff (like bank accounts and website logins) is stored on a different service, but passwords for my "infrastructure" is stored here.  All my routers, switches, servers, etc. are stored in KeePass.  KeePass is secure.  If you lose the master password, you're not getting into to it - ask me how I know.
By having a tool to manage your passwords and using different credentials for each device, any "breach" is contained and you don't compromise the rest.


Automator script to click button on web page generates “The operation couldn’t be completed." error The AppleScript below is supposed to click the first element with the magnifier class on a predefined web page.
The script runs successfully if you comment out the JavaScript line, do JavaScript "document.getElementsByClassName('magnifier')[0].click();"
From the Chrome console, this line of JavaScript executes successfully.
But if you include the JavaScript line, the following error occurs:

The action “Run AppleScript” encountered an error: “The operation
couldn’t be completed. (com.apple.Automator error -212.)”

Anyone have any ideas what the problem could be?
on run {input, parameters}

    set searchString to input as text

    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to space
    set searchString to text items of searchString
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
    set searchString to searchString as text

    tell application "Google Chrome"
        tell front window
            set curTabIndex to active tab index
            set URL of (make new tab) to ¬
                "https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/dictionary.php?searchMode=C&word=" & ¬
                searchString
            set active tab index to curTabIndex

            delay 2.0

            do JavaScript "document.getElementsByClassName('magnifier')[0].click();"
        end tell
    end tell

end run

do JavaScript is for Safari. execute javascript is for Google Chrome, e.g.:
tell application "Google Chrome" to tell active tab of front window to ¬
    execute javascript "document.getElementsByClassName('magnifier')[0].click();"

That said, where you have it placed in the script may not be where you really want it.
Here is some example AppleScript code run in Script Editor with Google Chrome opened with at least one window.
It waits for the target URL to finish loading before clicking the magnifying glass and then sets the active tab back to the original active tab.
set input to {"桿"}

set searchString to input as text

set AppleScript's text item delimiters to space
set searchString to text items of searchString
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
set searchString to searchString as text

tell application "Google Chrome"
    tell front window
        set curTabIndex to active tab index
        set URL of (make new tab) to ¬
            "https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/dictionary.php?searchMode=C&word=" & ¬
            searchString
        repeat until (loading of active tab is false)
            delay 1
        end repeat
        tell active tab to execute javascript ¬
            "document.getElementsByClassName('magnifier')[0].click();"
        delay 0.5
        set active tab index to curTabIndex
    end tell
end tell

Update to address comment.
The same conditions mentioned above applies to this example AppleScript code:
set input to {"桿"}

set searchString to input as text

set AppleScript's text item delimiters to space
set searchString to text items of searchString
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
set searchString to searchString as text

tell application "Google Chrome"
    tell front window
        set curTabIndex to active tab index
        set URL of (make new tab) to ¬
            "https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/dictionary.php?searchMode=C&word=" & ¬
            searchString
        set active tab index to curTabIndex
        repeat until (loading of last tab is false)
            delay 1
        end repeat
        tell last tab to execute javascript ¬
            "document.getElementsByClassName('magnifier')[0].click();"
    end tell
end tell

Note: The example AppleScript code is just that and does not contain any error handling as may be appropriate. The onus is upon the user to add any error handling as may be appropriate, needed or wanted.


Adding Bytes Using a Hex Editor Due to incompatibility of root account and sandbox, I need to manually disable sandboxing of MS Office applications (so that it can be activated) by changing the value of com.apple.security.app-sandbox within the application binary (/Applications/Microsoft Word.app/Contents/MacOS/Microsoft Word) from <true/> to <false/>.

However, this change would lead the addition of a byte, and I can't find any documentation on how to insert a byte. I'm using hexedit, installed with brew (brew install hexedit).

Also, if someone can provide a script to automatically detect and edit that flag, that will be great. Here is an excerpt:

You don't need additional software for this, the standard vi installed by macOS can edit binary files.

cd /Applications/Microsoft\ Word.app/Contents/MacOS/
cp Microsoft\ Word Microsoft\ Word.orig
vi -b Microsoft\ Word

Now, assuming you are not used to vi:

Type /app-sandbox followed by Return to jump to the definition you want to change

Press Return again to move the cursor to the next line
Type ct/<false followed by ESC

Type ZZ to save and quit

PS: If you get stuck within vi, press ESC twice and then type :q! to quit without saving.

If you want to script this, use (at our own risk)

vi -b Microsoft\ Word '+/app-sandbox/+1s/true/false/' '+wq'

which basically does the same thing as the interactive sequence above in one go.

/app-sandbox/+1 makes the following command (the substitution) only apply on the line after the one containing the app-sandbox string
s/true/false/ is the substitution and replaces true by false
wq writes the modified file back to disk and quits


I don't need as far as I know “Microsoft AU Daemon” so how can it be disabled? this message is annoying - can I disable it or remove the application as I only use Word, Excel and Powerpoint. Just to be clear this is on a mac with Sierra 10.12.5 and Excel 15.32 Cheers.

Note, I have asked this on Superuser as well.

"Microsoft AU Daemon" stands for "Microsoft Auto Update Deamon". I recommend checking for Updates regularly, since MS is updating their products quite frequently.

You cannot really 'turn off' the update-check, but you can set it to check for updates manually. In order to do that you should look at the Office Support Pages found here.

In short: Start Word f.e., in the Menu-Bar click on "Help", then click on "Check for updates". The MS Autoupdate starts and in that window you can select "Manually Check" and close the Window. After that the "Microsoft AU Daemon" should not start again unless you manually check for update.


How to import photos from iPhone to a Mac with OS X El Capitan? I started my Photos app on the Mac by pressing the Option key and then clicking on the Photos app icon, so that I can choose an external hard drive to store photos.

However, the Photos app is showing "No Photos" in the Import tab, when there are about 70GB of photos.  The "Photos" tab, however, show a lot of photos, but they cannot be imported into my Mac.

I am running the latest iOS 9.2.1 and Mac OS X El Capitan.  How do I make this work?

I would recommend Image Capture. It's a bit less advanced than the new Photos, but in my opinion it's simpler.

Open /Applications/Utilities/Image Capture.app to begin.

Next, select which directory you would like to import the photos to from the "Import to" dropdown.

Cmd ⌘A to select all, and hit the "import" button OR hold Cmd ⌘ and click to select a few to import. Either way, the selected images will be imported into the specified directory.

To delete all these imported photos from the exporting device (ie iPhone), Cmd ⌘A and click on the "delete" button (looks like a prohibition sign).

Side note: if you wish to rotate an image, click the "Rotate" button (looks like an arrow) and all selected images will be rotated.


Transfer/Migrate specific apps including settings etc to a new Mac I did a clean install upgrade to OS X Yosemite (from Mavericks).

Prior to doing that I backed up my entire hard disk using a disk cloner (Carbon Copy Cloner in my case)

Is there a way I can transfer a few specific apps from my previous installation (including settings, licenses etc) to the new one?

mackup does this:

https://github.com/lra/mackup

I don't have personal experience with it, but i've heard great things. Bear in mind you should check the list of software currently supported by it before you install.


MySQL Preference Pane control for MySQL installed via Homebrew I have installed MySQL via homebrew: brew install mysql. I'd like to get the MySQL preference pane hooked up to my installation of MySQL through homebrew. How can I achieve this?

See my answer to your question at superuser.com.


Copying Devanagari on OS X I am working with several files in various formats (PDF, HTML, DOCX) that contain Devanagari (Indian) script.

When I try to copy text using either CMD+C or the right-click menu, it is transformed into latin letters immediately:

Both the copy source (Safari in this case) and target (TextEdit) support Devanagari script.

Why does this happen and how can I fix it?

This looks as if the pdf file did not use unicode but embedded a special font with ASCII bindings for Devanagari characters.
There probably won’t be an automatic way to transform this into unicode characters.

As an alternative, you could try to find the original font and use that. (Maybe start with this font.) Of course this will not solve the problem for any other users of the document.


Does Acrobat Pro XI support Retina display? I have not been able to find any official word from Adobe on this. A Google search only turns up comments from disgruntled users (such as myself) who complain about lack of support in Acrobat X.

So: does Acrobat Pro XI support Retina display?

just installed it: Nope, no retina support yet.


Is it possible to set a http proxy & port on a iOS personal hotspot connection When an iPhone is connected to a Wifi network, there is an option to set a manual http proxy and port.

When user has created an personal WIFI hotspot ( sharing the cellular connection) there is no user setting where I can setup a manual http proxy/port for the WIFI hotspots connection, or ( at least for my cellular data network ) for setting the http proxy/port of the cellular connection.    I want http from devices connected to the hotspot to be routed to an http proxy/port.

Is there a way , perhaps by installing a profile, that I can achieve this?

It seems that iPhone hotspot blocks access between devices on the local network.
I've set up an HTTP proxy on my Windows device. My other Android phone can pass through the proxy tunnel when they're connected to the same rooter.
However, it won't work if they're connected to an iPhone hotspot.

My daily proxy app Shadowrocket works in the same way: It allows my iPhone to share the proxy to other devices when connected to the same network, which here means a rooter, NOT an iPhone hotspot.


Is Google Translate Phrasebook sync available for iOS Is Google Translate Phrasebook app sync available on iOS

As of today (Sep 7th 2015) July 23 2017 , it is still unavailable on the iOS.


Hits ram ceiling on boot I just restarted my Late 2011 Macbook Pro. 3.58Gb-3.71Gb / 4.00GB are being use right out the gate. It takes forever for anything to load. I'm very interested in purchasing new ram, but for the time being I'm hitting the ceiling and it's not necessary. Anyone have any recommendations as to why I'm maxing out, and what the hell is kernel_task doing? I'd love to just reinstall the OS from scratch.

Mavericks has a sophisticated RAM management software.

The good old days where you did the job of trying to keep as much RAM free as you could are obsoleted. Someone had the good idea of what is the purpose of RAM that is not used.

So use it all or as much as you can and manage the dynamics so it does not overun to Swap.

What it means it will continuously optimize the RAM usage while prioritizing the accessibility the speed to which applications open.

It uses a feature called Compressed memory to gain RAM space.

The measure of its success is not to have swap (if possible), which is using the hard disk as RAM, that slows it down.

In your case there is no swap or compression so the slow down you are experiencing is not your RAM.

Also looking at your memory pressure it is in normal levels.

You have 8 Google windows open totaling in 250 MB of RAM (that is also normal), but that could lead to slow down opening all of them at once.

To find out what is slowing it down you need to look in the console and publish some lines here at the time stamp of opening a application that takes long time to load.

As for kernel, it is normal for it to use up to 500 MB of RAM for all its jobs it has to do.


How to have more than one app in desktop space? Whenever I click on the maximize/full screen icon on any window, the app window is going to a new Desktop space. But this is kind of distracting because now I am not able to switch apps by doing the Command+ tab shortcut..

so How do I have more than one window in a desktop space..

Lets say I want eclipse,terminal and google chrome in a separate desktop space with the ability to see each app in full screen and the ability to switch between apps by doing the Command+ tab shortcut??

Can somebody help me on this?

I've just tested now and I'm able to do that (multiple full-screen applications and switching between them with Command + Tab), but it could very well be because I'm using TotalSpaces, an add-on that greatly improves the usability of Spaces.

Note that with OS X El Capitan and later you need to disable parts of System Integrity Protection (SIP) for it to work.


How to automatically watch for file changes and perform a custom action inside shell? For example, I'd like to automatically run YUI Compressor whenever I edit a JavaScript source file to output a compressed version.

Ideally the process does not run in the background but in a dedicated shell, so I can easily terminate the process at the end of the day.

What would be the cleanest and most flexible way to watch specific files and/or directories for file changes and perform a custom action inside a shell?

The $25 Codekit does watch folders and files for changes and does compress/minify/combine JavaScript and CSS files.

I know this is only a partial answer for your question, as it is not a generic watcher, but it does fit your example:

  whenever I edit a JavaScript source file to output a compressed
  version


Prevent auto-pairing for headphone (Bluetooth) I use my headphones to connect to my smartphone a lot, but only rarely to connect to my macbook (Mojave).
Is there a way to prevent auto-pairing every time I power-up my bluetooth headphones?
I've tried a option reported for earlier OSX versions

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist DontPageAudioDevices 1

but that doesn't solve the issue.
I'd very much like to stop manually disconnecting my headphones every time.

This can indeed be a pain. I myself own and use BT headphones and I rarely connect them to my MacBook Pro laptop. Fortunately, my headphones remember the device I last connected them to, and will auto-reconnect to that device when they power up, but only if that device is available.

However, this auto-reconnect will only happen if the device (iPad, iPhone, etc) has already been paired with the headphones. So, one way to keep your headphones from pairing with your laptop is to remove the pairing record for it. This is done via the "Bluetooth" preferences panel. Just select the pairing entry for your headphones and remove it by clicking on the "X" button after selecting the right entry.

The only downside to this is that you need to re-pair your headphones each time you want to use them with your laptop.


Single DHCP server using Airport Express as primary router and Time Time Capsule in bridge mode I use an Airport Express as primary router - i.e. attached to the modem - and a Time Capsule for back up but also as secondary router in bridge mode to extend the wireless network beyond the reach of the Airport Express.

I am planning to add a NAS to my LAN (via Ethernet to either of the two routers). This requires that I only have one DHCP server - i.e. that the two routers are seen as a single subnet.

Does the configuration above with the Time Capsule in bridge mode result in two DHCP servers or only one (the primary router - Airport Express - whilst the Time Capsule does not act as a DHCP server)?

Thanks.

Your setup as described contains one DHCP server on the Airport Express. The Time Capsule in bridge mode basically acts as a repeater and does not assign IP addresses or add a separate subnet.


Resetting the "Recent places" in "save as" dialog to default I am using OS X 10.11.6.  I wanted to increase the items listed in the "recent places" in the "save as dialog", so I followed the instruction here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5185944?tstart=0

and typed the command in the terminal:

defaults write .GlobalPreferences NSNavRecentPlacesLimit -int 12

Then I discovered that it didn't work, and instead my "recent places" is not changing anymore.

So I tried to reset by typing the below in the terminal:

defaults delete .GlobalPreferences NSNavRecentPlaces

Now the recent places is completely gone in the save as dialog.  I created a new user with admin right, logged into it and also found the recent places is gone from the save as dialog.

I also tried to download OnyX for El Capitan → Parameters → General → Restore Defaults, but this didn't work either.

How can I reset the recent places back to the original?

With El Capitan 10.11.6, here's the output from defaults read .GlobalPreferences NSNavRecentPlaces on my system.

(
    "~/Desktop/news",
    "~/Documents/text",
    "~/Documents/text/news",
    "~/Documents/astronomy",
    "/Volumes/Video"
)

Try defaults write .GlobalPreferences NSNavRecentPlaces -array /Applications to restore a value for the NSNavRecentPlaces key.

There is no NSNavRecentPlacesLimit key in .GlobalPreferences for El Capitan on my system. The following list of keys are part of the output from defaults find NSNav which is a long list. I assume these are the default settings. Here are the NSNav keys:

Found 9 keys in domain 'Apple Global Domain': {
    NSNavPanelFileLastListModeForOpenModeKey = 2;
    NSNavPanelFileLastListModeForSaveModeKey = 2;
    NSNavPanelFileListModeForOpenMode2 = 2;
    NSNavPanelFileListModeForSaveMode2 = 2;
    NSNavPanelSidebarKeyForOpen =     (
    );
    NSNavPanelSidebarKeyForSave =     (
    );
    NSNavRecentPlaces =     (
        "~/Desktop/news",
        "~/Documents/text",
        "~/Documents/text/news",
        "~/Documents/astronmy",
        "/Volumes/Video"
    );
    NSNavSortOrder =     (
        NSNavDisplayNameFileProperty,
        1
    );
    "NSNavSortOrder_10.6" =     (
        displayName,
        1
    );
}

Try defaults delete .GlobalPreferences NSNavRecentPlacesLimit to remove the key you added. The discussions article seems to be about OS X versions before El Capitan and may not be relevant or useful with OS 10.11.


Anyone knows how many mAh in iPod Touch 4th generation battery? Does anyone know how many mAh does the iPod Touch 4th generation battery have? Seems like Apple doesn't provide this particular info.

930 mAh (3.44 watt hours). Up from the previous generation's 789 mAh (2.92 watt hours) battery.

Sources: [1] [2]


I can't delete or reset password on accounts in Snow Leopard I have this strange situation in Mac OS X (10.6.8) wherein 2 accounts cannot be deleted nor can I reset their passwords.

If I try to reset their passwords I get "Reset Password Failed". I have tried booting with an install CD and using the Password Reset Utility - no joy.

If I try to delete the Account using the minus in Accounts, the Full Name disappears from the icon but the icon remains. If I exit Accounts and come back the Full Name is there again with the icon.

If I (sudo and) look at /Users only one of the accounts shows up.

Other things I have tried include doing the same above (password reset, delete account) as root rather than an Account with Admin privileges, Repairing the Disk (did find some problem with the volume but fixed it) and Repairing the Permissions.

Is the Netinfo database corrupted or something? How do I fix this?

This is generally really easy to clean up.

The Snow Leopard user database for all accounts on the mac is stored as flat files in the directory /private/var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users

Just delete the offending userA.plist and userB.plist and the accounts will be "gone" after a reboot.

boot the mac in target mode and use another mac to delete the files
boot to single user mode (or get a root shell with sudo -s) if you are comfortable in a unix shell

There will of course be remnants of the user folders and their group membership potentially left lying around.

If you are concerned about that level of cleanliness - just boot back into a normal admin user and recreate a shell account using the same short name.

You can then correctly reset the password (retaining the home folder) or delete them cleanly and totally at that point.

Let me know if you still have a failure - it's super unlikely, but there could be a deeper problem if this doesn't work.


Will my time machine back up go crazy if I changed my password for file vault? I was thinking of changing my FileVault password to a stronger one - and that got me wondering if that will mess up my time machine.
Can i ask what is the proper way to change the password of your file vault (I am assuming that the password to file vault is the same as the password when you login to your Mac)

No, this doesn’t change things. If Time Machine goes crazy, it’s for other reasons than this.
Now, if you are going to change the encryption keys, the pass phrase to unlock the actual encryption key can be changed trivially but the underlying encryption can be a very lengthy process of decrypting and then encrypting and that can be tedious or worse if you mess up.
You would want to get a thorough dump of your exact hardware, diskutil list and possibly more. There are many flavors of filesystem and “file vault” around.