Run multiple instances of El Capitan on a single Apple laptop? Is it possible to simultaneously run two instances of El Capitan on a single Apple laptop?

Assume that I'm willing to purchase the best MacBook available as of November 2015, with the largest capacity SSD drive and maxed out memory.

There are a few pre-existing questions on this topic but most of them discuss situations where the user is trying to (a) run a parallel Windows installation or (b) have an alternate OS installation that's selectable on a separate volume at boot-time, but isn't running concurrently with the first OS installation.

Ideally, in the configuration I'm describing, the two OS installations will:

run simultaneously,
see each other on the "network," presumably via some sort of local loop or other internal mechanism,
share a common ethernet adapter, keyboard, mouse, video output, sound card, etc.
allow for some kind of shortcut key to easily "flip" back and forth between the two running installations,
allow for a dual-monitor setup.. meaning when viewing OS-installation-1, both monitors will be dedicated to that installation as is typical in a dual monitor setup. When I flip to OS-installation-2, both monitors are then dedicated to that installation. I'm not counting the built-in laptop display as a monitor. I'm talking about two external Thunderbolt monitors.

If this scenario is feasible but you feel that no current Apple MacBook has the specs to support it, could it be accomplished using the (new) Mac Pro?

Would I be better off waiting for Apple to release a laptop that supports Thunderbolt 3 in order to drive two monitors? If so, will said laptops be available next year?

Sorry for the naive nature of this question. Any advice appreciated.

Virtual Machine

A virtual machine is a software app that emulates a complete computer.

File System

The VM opens one big file in the host, and stores an entire file system inside. That file system includes an OS to boot such as BSD, Linux, MS Windows, or Mac OS X. Apple’s license permit Mac OS X to be run in a VM only when hosted on a real (physical) Mac.

Easy Backups

One benefit of having an entire guest file system stored in a single file on the host OS is easy backups. Attach an external hard drive and copy over the single (but large) VM file to capture a snapshot. Note that you should exclude these VM files from your Time Machine as their size will overwhelm your Time Machine storage. To exclude them, use the Privacy tab in the Time Machine pane of System Preferences. Also, your VM app may offer a setting to exclude from Time Machine.

Entire Desktop Within a Window

The VM runs in a window like any other app on the host computer. Inside that window will be an entire other Mac desktop. You may find it less confusing to run the VM in full-screen mode, so the virtual desktop takes over the entire screen thereby appearing to be a second Mac. See the System Preferences panes for mouse, trackpad, and Mission Control gestures for switching between full-screen apps.

I regularly work this way as a software developer. Each development project lives in its own virtual machine. This works so well that I set the virtual Mac Dock to right side of the screen while the real Mac Dock is on the left, so I can differentiate as a reminder while I work.

VM Products

The main VM products available for Mac hosts are :

Parallels
Fusion by VMware
VirtualBox by Oracle

See these comparisons.

All three are solid products, actively maintained and improved. All work surprisingly well on a Mac. All run various operating systems as guest OSes including BSD, Linux, and many more.

The first two directly support installing Mac OS X as a guest OS. Just point them to Apple’s installer app for any of the more recent versions of Mac OS X going back at least to Mountain Lion. VirtualBox is not so simple, apparently requiring some tricks to install Mac OS X as a guest.

The first two listed products have put much work into features to integrate the guest OS with the host OS. I find those features unnecessary and even counter-productive. Fortunately you can disable much of that integration.

Networks

The network can be shared with the host computer, using same IP address. Or VM can present its own IP to the network, appearing as a second computer. Thirdly, the VM can be isolated from the external network. Your choice.

Limitations

VMs work surprisingly well overall. Every version of every VM tool I have used always has some some glitch or another, but never a show-stopper.

One major limitation is a lack of support for hardware-accelerated graphics. So playing videos and games performs poorly. Overall usage can seem sluggish as menus and windows do not draw as quickly. I have verified this is true for all three listed products when running Mac OS X as a guest OS, as of 2015-10.

I do not know about the support of multiple monitors. I have used Parallels versions 8, 9, 10, and 11 successfully with multiple monitors on the host Mac, but the virtual machine knew only of one monitor at a time.

Requires Much Memory

I use a MacBook Retina 15" laptop with either an HDMI monitor or a DisplayPort monitor. I have 16 gigs of memory installed. The VMs do require much memory, and may not work well on Macs with two or four gigs.

Requires Storage Space

Each VM file can be large, usually starting at a few gigs and rising to several tens of gigs. Plan accordingly. Each product listed has a feature to reclaim empty space that may accumulate within its' VM file.


QuickTime Player 10.5 (928.50) Mojave - Controls Stuck, Always Visible Latest version Mojave 10.14.1 (18B75) did not fix it.

Can't get the controls out of the way.

Mouse pointer is also always present.

Disabling Accessability Keyboard fixed the problem.


Why can't I just dd an entire APFS disk? I've received a new Mac that has come preconfigured with lots of junk.
Naturally, my first order of business is to wipe the disk and clean install macOS. But first, I want to create a bit-perfect, bootable clone of the disk (which is formatted APFS Encrypted) and keep it on a flash drive, in the unlikely event that I ever need to boot into the original environment.
I tried to create this clone by booting the machine into Recovery mode, attaching a flash drive of the exact same capacity as the disk and running dd if=/dev/rdisk0 of=/dev/rdiskX bs=64k. I expected this to create an exact clone, especially reading at a raw level via /dev/rdisk. However, the resulting drive is not only unbootable, but none of the APFS structure is preserved - I'm left with an FDisk_partition_scheme partition type and a 0xEE volume.
Nothing in this answer proved useful in making this bootable.
More than "how can I do this," I'm wondering "why can't I do this."
Why doesn't dd perform the low-level, bit-by-bit replication that I'm looking for? Or, is it doing what I'm telling it to, but there's another factor at play that I'm not aware of?

I am going to go out on a limb and assume the OP's new Mac has a boot drive with a 4096 byte sector size and the flash drive has a 512 byte sector size. Using the dd command (as the OP has described) would result in a flash drive, where the Master Boot Record (MBR) partition table could be read, because this occurs in the same place regardless of sector size. This would be the first sector (also known as sector 0). However, the GUID Partition Table (GPT) starts at the beginning of the second sector (also known as sector 1). The second sector on the Mac boot drive has a byte offset of 4096. When you used the dd command, the GPT would be placed starting at byte offset 4096, but the actual location should have been at byte offset 512. The result is documented in the OP's question.
BTW, the same type of problem would occur with the backup (also known as the secondary) of the GPT stored at the end of the flash drive. Although, it would seem unlikely that Mac boot drive and the flash drive have exactly the same total size in bytes. I assume this is what the OP meant by the use of the phrase "a flash drive of the exact same capacity as the disk".


iTunes: What is the usefulness of checked/unchecked songs? I know the functional effect of unchecking a song: it doesn't play (except when explicitly double-clicked) and doesn't sync with an iPod/iPad. But how is this useful? Does Apple officially recommend any sort of usage of the checkboxes? Or, more subjectively, do you make use of the checkboxes in iTunes, and if so, what songs do you check or uncheck and why?

It keeps holiday music out of my playlists, off my iPhone, until I want to overdose on them from December 24th through 25th every year.

For that alone: I love the check box.


Mac Vector Image Tools I am looking for a vector image creation/editing tool for the Mac.  My primary focus with be creating/editing images (mainly icons) for application development.  I think I will be purchasing the full icon set from http://www.iconeden.com/ as a starting point and them go from there.  I already have pixelmator for standard image creation/editing so diffidently looking for a tool that is geared specific for vector based images.  A few basic things:

Support SVG format
Be able to export to png file format
Support Illustrator file format (nice to have)

I know there is Inkscape which is free but what other tools are out there that are just as nice or maybe better.  I am also willing to spend money, it does not have to be only free tools.

Adobe Illustrator.

You probably didn't want to hear this, because it's outrageously expensive, but it's the standard for a reason.  Inkscape is free and has a good number of features, but the user experience is pretty terrible.  Every other (cheaper) commercial offering I've used lacked even basic features that Illustrator had a decade ago.

I've tried using cheaper programs, but when they cost 1/10th what Illustrator does (or less), they invariably end up being 1/10th the program that Illustrator is, too.  I've not actually been able to complete a full image without exporting to SVG, and loading it into Inkscape to finish the job.

Maybe there's something out there I've missed (and I'd love to hear about it), but in my mind, there's two options: suck up having to deal with a lousy UI and use Inkscape, or suck up having to pay $600 and buy Illustrator.


How to increase mouse tracking speed beyond the maximum for MacOS Mojave 10.14? I have been trying to increase maximum tracking speed for my 2018 Macbook Pro trackpad past the normal settings for Mac OS Mojave 10.14, but I am unsuccessful.

I have looking at the previous answers, but they only apply to Mac OS High Sierra. I have tried the following commands in Terminal:

defaults write -g com.apple.mouse.scaling -float 5.0

defaults write -g com.apple.trackpad.scaling -float 5.0

It seems that the names of the files have changed so I am unable to change the correct ones.

The app SteerMouse has multiple adjustments for tracking speed and acceleration, which go beyond the limits imposed by the macOS controls. I've used it for years to resolve the same complaint. SteerMouse 5.3.8 works happily on Mojave.


Remove macOS Big Sur "Upgrade Now" button in System Preferences I have red circle notification on my System Preferences icon to inform macOS Big Sur update is available. There is also an Upgrade Now button in Software Update:
They annoy me since I did not ask anything, and I don't want to do the upgrade before a few months.
Is there a way to remove them?

I too do not like seeing the red badges and use the following method to remove them in System Preferences and on its dock tile on the Dock.
In Terminal, run the following compound command:
defaults write com.apple.systempreferences AttentionPrefBundleIDs 0 ; killall Dock

Note however, this is not permanent and the command will need to be run again if you go back into Software Update in System Preferences, or the system automatically checks for updates.
Also, the killall Dock command will un-minimize all minimize windows, but the command needs to be executed for the red badges to not show after modifying the plist file.
I do not know of a way to permanently remove the red badges or the Upgrade Now button.


Can I use Steam in macOS Catalina or am I stuffed? There is a lot of conflicting information online about being able to use Steam in MacOS Catalina.

Can someone confirm if Steam will work on Catalina and if so what I must do to get it to work?

Or must I stay on Mojave to keep playing my games?

Steam will run fine in macOS Catalina.

However, what you may find is that it doesn’t launch initially. If this is the case, totally remove it from your system and then reinstall it from Steam’s website after you’re on macOS Catalina. This will ensure that the correct (i.e. 64-bit) version of Steam is installed for macOS.

IMPORTANT

The fact that Steam itself runs fine does not guarantee that all of the games in your library will run fine. So you will need to do your own due diligence to ensure your favourite games are compatible (i.e. they will need to be 64-bit versions to run on MacOS Catalina).


DropBox syncing all folders, again? After HDD failure I replaced my iMac HDD and restored Time Machine backup.
Now dropbox likes to resync all of my files, nearly 1 million of them!

Is it normal?

This issue has come up in the Dropbox forum as well, with the following answer from support:

  Pause Dropbox, copy the content over. This will cause indexing and the client might even say uploading, but we're not duplicating files in the cloud. Your resync will happen much faster than a re-upload. Just make sure the folder structure remains identical.

If you did a restore from TM, you should already be past the "copy the content over" step and might just see the indexing/uploading step (which shouldn't upload).


Using Bluetooth speaker and headphone jack simultaneously I can connect my normal speakers to my headphone jack. I can also connect my Bluetooth speaker and it plays great too, But I can't play them at the same time.

I have Wi-Fi speakers around and they will play fine, but once the Bluetooth is paired anything through the headphone jack is silent.

Is there some setting I'm missing?

You can do this in the Audio MIDI Setup built into recent editions of OSX:

Open up the Audio MIDI Setup application (located in the applications/utilities folder)
On the "audio devices" window that opens up you'll see a list of devices on the left and a little plus icon in the bottom left hand corner. Click the plus icon.
Click "Create multi-output device" (on older versions of OSX you may only have the option to Create Aggregate device)
Add the different devices you need to this new device.

You're done, now you can send audio to this new device as if it were a single audio output.

Extra side note: You can change the name of the multi-output device if you want, something like "mic jack and bluetooth speakers".

Enjoy!


141gb System size, is there any way to find where all that clutter is coming from? I recently checked my system to clean out a few items and noticed my system files are taking an insanely large amount of my storage. This feels quite unnatural, is there a away to find what might be cluttering it up?

You should get a utility like Daisy Disk or Grand Perspective which will make a visual mapping of your disk drive so you can see what is taking up so much space. DaisyDisk is $10 but has a free trial period so you could use it to check your disk. Grand Perspective is Free.

You may want to check your Library folder as well. It can get quite big. I don't know if the Library folder is part of system. You have 2 library folders on your system. Be sure to check the one in your home directory.


Suddenly unable to send SMS from macOS (names marked RED) I've used "Forward Text Messages" for years to send SMS from macOS. Since last week, names of "SMS people" are marked RED in Messages, and I can't send SMS from macOS anymore.

I've updated to the latest iOS and macOS, logged out and in of iCloud on both devices, and flicked "Forward Text Messages" in Settings off and on several times, to no avail.

My only lead is that when flicking the setting, I'm supposed to be asked to enter a code (on the Mac, I think), but this does not happen. Apple Store had no idea and I've found no help on the Web.

Clicking on the red name shows this context menu:

✔ (number)                        iMessage  (Ghosted)
  (number) is not registered with iMessage  (Ghosted)
Remove (name) from chat
Show contact card

Also, the message field at the bottom shows "iMessage", where it said "Text message" before.

SMS sent from iOS are added to messages on macOS. So it works that way, but not from macOS to iOS (because Messages does not seem to know about SMS, only iMessage.)

NEW: Turned "Forward Text Messages" off, turned off both Mac and iPhone, turned both on, and turned "Forward Text Messages" on. I get no question about entering a code, and still RED names.

On your iPhone, do you have an email address checked under settings>Messages>"send & receive"?

for some reason, it only works when I have an email address checked which was not the case before.  They must have changed something on their end to require the use of an email.


How to record photo/video files smaller on iOS My iPhone photos and videos are too high resolution so that I can't send them via email or facebook messenger.

I rarely need high-definition photo and video, and I'd like to set the default resolution much lower than it is out of the box.

Is this possible? And is it possible to shrink the file size of my existing large photos and videos?

Try using Video Slimmer app in app store.. This app lets you to shrink video files filmed on your iOS device to smaller file size while keeping good video quality. With just several taps, you will greatly save the precious space on iPhone iPad or iPod.


Can the now expired iMessage app still work with Lion? I want to use iMessage on an old Macbook which cannot be upgrades past OS X 10.7.  Apple provided an iMessage beta software, but it has expired and no longer functions. I'm wondering whether there is any way to keep using the iMessage service on the Lion OS?

No one has come forth with a hack or modification to get it working. The longer it takes, the less likely someone will want to release a patch since the audience for this shrinks as people upgrade and move on to Mountain Lion.


Macbook Pro does not recognize bootable USB drive I had problem with the hard drive of my 13" MacBook Pro 2009.  I decided to use the opportunity to upgrade to an SSD.  I replaced it with a 480GB SSD.

Following this article: Create a bootable installer for OS X,  I created bootable USB with El Capitan. The USB works with the computer I created it on.

On my upgraded Macbook,  normal power-on ends with grey screen with flashing folder icon, as expected - there is no OS there.

When I plug the USB drive in and hold the Option key, expected menu with choice of bootable devices does not show. There is the booting sound, the screen turns white with cursor on. The cursor responds to the touch pad but no booting menu appears.

I don't know how to troubleshoot the issue.

The Problem is most likely that the USB Drive was not properly formated and is missing the EFI Partition. You could check via the Terminal by using 'diskutil':

diskutil list

The Result is a list of all Drives and their partions. A bootable USB Drive should have a separate partition like this:

/dev/disk11 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *16.0 GB    disk11
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk11s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS OS X 10.11 Installat... 15.7 GB    disk11s2

The easiest solution would be using a third party tool. You should try again using the Freeware 'DiskMaker X'. It formats and creates a bootable USB Drive with the OSX-Installer in a very easy and reliable manner.


Can I connect my HDMI amplifier as audio only? I have a Denon AVR that I use to drive a set of speakers.  It's connected via HDMI to my MBP and everything works well.
However the amp also presents itself to the MBP as a video device and so when connected I get another display.  Since there's no monitor connected to the amp I want to disable this additional monitor (the cursor sometimes finds its way there, for example).
I want the audio device to remain.
Does anyone know if this is possible?
The answer in Can I use HDMI for audio only without video? is not applicable because I have an external monitor connected via TB (and so can't resort to mirroring).
I've tried both SwitchResX and Disable Monitor but when I disable any of my screens everything goes black (and remains so) until I unplug and reconnect the disabled screen, so it's hard to test.
I'm running Movave btw.

After some more digging it doesn't seem possible to completely remove the additional display.
However a trick I was not aware of (see Use multiple displays with your Mac) is to both extend the desktop (I use both my MBP LCD and an external display), and mirror the amplifier "display" to one of the real displays.  When arranging displays hold the Option key and drag the unwanted display onto a real display.  I mirror it with my MBP LCD.  Although it alters the screen resolution of the LCD upon mirroring, you can just change it back to what it was before.
This way the cursor cannot find its way to the amp display, nor can any windows inadvertently open on it.


Why can't I type lower case 'a' in Safari when entering text in a field? If I open Safari and go to www.google.com and type in a search the letter 'a' can't be typed.  I have to press shift+a in order to type a capital letter a but can't type a lower case 'a'.  I'm typing this message in Firefox so clearly the key on my keyboard is functioning correctly.

I can type lower case a in the url bar area but not in other text boxes.  I can't type it on apple.stackexchange.com or on duckduckgo.com.  No text areas on any website seem to let me type lower case a.  However, it works fine when I use Firefox.

Any thoughts?  I'm using OS X 10.10.4 and Safari 8.0.7.

I had exactly the same problem, and after disabling extensions and restarting Safari it went away.  I then looked more closely and found that I had set the letter lowercase-a as the keyboard shortcut to allow flash in ClickToFlash.  Apparently this made it not work as a character in any text boxes in Safari!  I now have all the extensions back on but without that key shortcut, and everything is working fine!

BTW, this is clearly a bug in ClickToFlash, since the default key to make flash full-screen is lowercase-f, but I can type that fine in any text box.


Want to post an iphone 4 video on youtube, but it needs to be rotated I filmed something with my iphone 4 by rotating the phone so that it looks wide.  Like a widescreen TV.  But when I upload the .mov to youtube, the video is sideways and tall & skinny.  How do I rotate it?  Is there a setting in iPhoto or quicktime I can configure?  Or on youtube?

I'm surprised, Apple always makes things so easy... I would've imagined the camera software would recognize I started filming rotated and saved the picture as such...

Quicktime allows you some basic editing options such as Edit > Rotate
iMovie allows more options such as cropping, rotate, trim, etc.

When you view your video in Quicktime is it in landscape format? If not, it's possible the phone was vertical (portrait) when the recording started. The camera should oriented either landscape or portrait before pressing record.


What is the name of the process that does the iPhone backup in the background? I am having problems with the iPhone Backup process being hang. What is the name of that process and how can I kill it if I need to?

On a Catalina system, the process is AppleMobileBackup. If required, you can terminate it using Activity Monitor or kill from Terminal, using the process ID.


Streaming iMac's Audio to iPad I want to stream all audio output from my iMac to iPad. By the way, I know, there are only app which named Airfoil for that functionality. But I'm searching inexpensive alternatives.

So do you know any alternative application or method for this topic?

You could compile this yourself: https://github.com/trenskow/AirFloat


If I buy a power adapter from the online Australian Apple Store, will it match Australian outlets? I want a power adapter for a MacBook Air that matches Australian outlets (without a separate adapter).  It seems reasonable that if I buy such a thing from http://www.apple.com/au, it will have the right outlet format.

Unfortunately, there's no language to that effect on the product page, and if I add it to cart there's no indication that the adapter won't be US-format.  Will adapters purchased from http://www.apple.com/au be Australian format?

Have a look at: Apple World Travel Adapter Kit

If you get the adaptor kit it works with your existing power supply. You just pop off the end you have, and slide on the new end. It's just changing out the prongs for the correct one needed.

Also works with most other Apple products.

This isn't like a normal international adaptor which sits between the socket and the existing plug - it replaces the existing plug.


How can I automaticly move every file on desktop to specific folder based on extension? I'm looking for something, probably some kind of action script, that will at any time move everything that's on my desktop directly to a specific folder on my desktop, based on the extension. Just to prevent cluttering.

Some examples I want:

Folders: Do not move
.PSD/.Ai/.INDD (all Adobe workfiles) -> Move to -> ~/Desktop/Workfiles
.PNG/.JPG (etc., All picture files) -> Move to -> ~/Desktop/Pictures
.doc(x)/.xls/.pdf (all document files) -> Move to -> ~/Desktop/Documents

Others I guess I can do myself based on the how-to for above.

I hope someone could help me with this! Any action script/Mac functionality/3rd party app (free/paid) that does this is acceptable, with the only minimum requirement the check and move of files must be directly/every 30 mins (at max)

Thanks!

You can do this in the terminal (shell). Open the terminal and type cd ~/Desktop to change you current working directory to the Desktop.

Then for the different cases you listed:

mv *.PSD *.Ai *.INDD ~/Desktop/Workfiles

mv *.PNG *.JPG ~/Desktop/Pictures

mv *.doc *docx *.xls *.pdf ~/Desktop/Documents

mv file target is the command to move files. You can move multiple files at once: mv file1 file2 file3 target. The asterisk * is the so-called wild card character. So * stands for every character or character sequence. *.doc would mean that it would affect all files that end with .doc. You could also do it other way around, e.g., A* to affect all files that start with A.

If you want, you can copy the following lines into an empty text file and save it as example.sh and add #!/bin/bash to the first line. Make it executable by typing chmod ugo+x example.sh. Then, you can use it every time you want to move your files from your desktop by typing ./example.sh in the shell from your desktop.

So the suggested script contents would could look like this:

#!/bin/bash

cd ~/Desktop

mv *.PSD *.Ai *.INDD ~/Desktop/Workfiles
mv *.PNG *.JPG ~/Desktop/Pictures
mv *.doc *docx *.xls *.pdf ~/Desktop/Documents

As mentioned in the comments, you can save it as example.command and use chmod ugo+x to make it clickable and executable


Difference between flash drive and hard drive? I know it sounds like a silly question but my girlfriend is buying a new Mac Book Pro soon and we found that the flash drive mac's have less memory when it's a flash drive but more expensive whilst the hard drive mac has more memory but it's less expensive. Is this like a new and better version to pick the flash drive memory I guess? What's the difference? We need the best one because we recently lost all of our old files on our blog which really sucks so we are willing to get the best one so we avoid this issue in the future.

I'd appreciate any of your help, thanks a lot.

The primary difference between a flash drive and a hard drive is the speed at which the computer can read stuff off them. Flash drives are faster than hard drives, because of the way they work, so if you buy one of those your computer will boot up quicker when you turn it on and you'll likely find your apps load quicker, too. So, on that basis, the flash drive is good and will make for a better MacBook Pro.

However, if the main reason you're asking is because you don't want to lose files when your drive fails, then what you want to do is buy an external drive. Get one that's twice as big as the drive in the MacBook Pro that you're buying, and use Time Machine with that drive. That will help protect you against data loss. If you don't know where to start looking for external drives, two popular manufacturers are Western Digital or Seagate. The reason I'm recommending this is because neither the flash drive or the hard drive you're asking about are impervious to data loss.

So, to summarise: if you have the money, get a flash drive and an external drive. If you don't, get a hard drive and an external drive. But you should definitely get an external drive.


place text over image without imagemagick I have a png image file which I would like to overlay text onto, via the command line (for use in a Makefile). The text to be overlaid is dynamic, decided at the time the image is modified.

I am aware that I can install ImageMagick to do this, but I would prefer to use a method that only requires standard OS X along with Xcode's developer tools.

Is there a command (or sequence of commands, including AppleScript if necessary) that I can use to make this happen? (If there is, an example would be excellent.)

You could try using a scripting language that comes installed with OS X, such as  PHP or Ruby, and write a command line script using that.

Here's an example using PHP:

<?php

/*
Usage
php addtext.php input.png "The text"
*/

//  The source image (taken from the command line argument)
$image = imagecreatefrompng($argv[1]);

//  The text (taken from the command line argument)
$text = $argv[2];

//  Red colour
$colour = imagecolorallocate($image, 255, 0, 0);

//  Change font as desired
$font = '/Library/Fonts/Impact.ttf';

//  Add the text
imagettftext($image, 20, 0, 20, 30, $colour, $font, $text);

//  Save the image
imagepng($image, 'out-image.png');

//  Free up memory
imagedestroy($image);

?>

Save this script to a file called something like addtext.php and then run it like this…

php addtext.php image.png "Some text to add"

This example script should output an image called out-image.png with the text added, using the Impact True Type font that's installed with OS X, in the same directory as the PHP script.

You may want to read up on PHP's imagettftext function to play around with the text rendering.

Something similar could be done in Ruby, Python, etc. but I'm not sure of the "in-built" image manipulation / creation commands / libraries that come installed with OS X for those scripting languages.

Hope this is a good starting point.


How to make the iMac go to sleep after certain amount of time? My MacBook Pro has settings for putting the Mac to sleep after a certain amount of idle time. My iMac does not have that setting. See the screenshot (sorry, it's in German).

I want to make sure that the iMac uses the least amount of energy when not used.

The sleep settings have changed due to the new Haswell chips. Because wake-up from sleep is so quick now, and because of the new automatic sleep modes in the CPU, the only thing drawing significant power is the display. Therefore, Apple deemed a sleep setting was only necessary for the display.

Click that last Power Nap checkbox if you want the computer to periodically wake up to do updates and check for mail, etc.


How can install an app I purchased on the App Store which is no longer on the app store? I bought an app called Palua on the App Store a few years ago. Now I have a new personal Mac and I believe the app is no longer on the store. I know that it works on the latest version of macOS since I still use it on my work Mac. Is there a way for me to install it again, since I did indeed pay for it? I do not see it in my 'Purchased' apps in the App Store, which is where I hoped to find it.

Apps on the App Store (iOS, tvOS) and on the Mac App Store cannot be re-downloaded if

the developer removes the app
Apple removes the app for various reasons (e.g. violation of App Store policies, copyright infringements)

Since 2015 Apple removes apps from your purchase history as well. A well-known example is "Monkey Island 2" by Disney. It was removed with no option to re-download a copy of the game.

Try to contact the developer of the app. Maybe he/she can send you a copy of the app.


Stop Office for Mac from loading with earlier documents on top of the one I opened? Here's an irritation that annoys me almost every working day:

I need to work from a Word or Excel (for Mac, Office 2011) document.
So, I find the document on the shared server, and open it.
The document and the application opens... so far, no problem...
...then, documents from my previous session open on top of the document I chose to open. The document I asked for is now buried somewhere under whatever I was working on when I last closed Word or Excel.

This always takes me by surprise because it's so different to usual application behaviour that I'm used to.

Because it's usually someone else's document I'm working from (and because it's usually first thing in the morning, and I'm really not a morning person...), I usually end up spending minutes in mild confusion looking for the content I need to work from in the wrong document, wondering why the document I just opened looks so different to how I was expecting it to look, before realising this isn't actually the document I just opened and/or remembering that Office for Mac does this.

I've found this earlier question, with some suggestions for turning Resume Previous Windows off at the OS level, or with an app-specific Apple script. If possible, however, I'd prefer to keep Resume Previous Windows on, but make sure that once the MS Office application has opened, the document I actually opened is the one that has focus, not some random* document I had open yesterday.

Is this possible? Is it possible to force MS Word 2011 and/or Excel 2011 (or all Office apps) to keep focus on the opened document when booting up after a document has been opened, without disabling Resume Previous Windows completely?

Operating system is Lion if that's relevant, and the documents are on a work MS Exchange Server the Mac is connected to.

EDIT: judging by comments, it sounds like this is a Lion thing not an Office thing. So, is there any way to keep this feature on, but make sure than whenever I open a file with an application that isn't currently running, the file I opened is the one with focus when the application starts up?

*I think it's the document that was opened first that gets focus when the app boots up. Not 100% sure though, all I know for sure is, it's usually the last document I expect.

Quitting the app with Option + Command + Q will ensure all windows are closed, and on the next open, only the intended file will open.
Go over to ~/Library/Saved Application State/ and change the permissions of your intended folder (com.microsoft.Word.savedState) to read-only.

These are essentially hacks - both tested on OS X 10.10.3 (Yosemite) and works.


App on MAS that writes mathematical formulae into an image? I remember an app that was featured on the Mac App Store a while ago that allows you to write mathematical formulae into an image.

I can't find it now though. Does anyone know what it is?

It isn't in the Mac App Store, but try LaTeXiT.

As you might have guessed, it uses Latex input to create an image of the equation.  You can link the image into a Keynote or Pages document (or others, I'd imagine).  Live updating, etc.

I use it frequently, and love it!


How do I completely remove Symantec Endpoint Protection? I've tried to uninstall through the app but it asks for a password from the "Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager administrator". I'm an admin for this account on the Mac so I should be able to remove everything manually. How do I do that? I'm specifically using version 14.0.1.

Looks like there's a tool that will completely uninstall Symantec software from your Mac. This page describes how it works. Here's the direct download link to RemoveSymantecMacFiles.zip.

In case the first link goes away, the easiest way to run it is to control-click on the download, choose "Open with..." -> "Terminal" and follow the instructions. You'll need to have admin privileges on the Mac but you won't need the "Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager administrator" password.


How to prevent machine from renaming itself at start up My iMac's name is windowlick. Every time I reboot it, for some reason it detects that the name windowlick is already in use on the network and renames itself with a random suffix, e.g. windowlick (3829) or the like, and it gets a zeroconf/bonjour hostname of windowlick-2.local instead of the usual windowlick.local.

I can manually fix this by going to the Sharing preferences panel, but I'd rather not have to do this, especially since I often do remote access from an external network (via ssh to another machine that gets the incoming port assignment) and if my machine rebooted due to a power failure or a system update I don't like having to guess at the hostname.

My computer gets its IP address via DHCP assignment from the router (a recent Netgear); it also behaved this way on my previous router (an Apple Time Capsule). It has a reserved IP address for its wired Ethernet port, but it connects via both Ethernet and Wi-Fi (which does not have an address reservation). I suspect that something to do with name assignment is doing something weird with the order of operations on the Wi-Fi vs. Ethernet interfaces.

Unfortunately, I cannot simply disable Wi-Fi, as I make use of OS features that require that my Wi-Fi be active (for example, Unlock with Apple Watch).

Is there any way to tell macOS to not be "polite" and rename itself if it sees "another" machine by the same name?

This seems similar to My Mac mini's computer name keeps changing when it resumes from sleep but I don't have the problem when resuming from sleep, it's only after a reboot, and I already have the static IP assignment per the accepted answer on that question. Also, this doesn't happen on my MacBook (which does not have a static assignment).

Recommend you try following in Terminal to make your windowlick static

sudo scutil –-set HostName new_hostname

sudo scutil –-set LocalHostName new_hostname

sudo scutil –-set ComputerName new_hostname


Any way to have Outlook 2011 sync imap mail without actually being opened? I use Outlook 2011 as my preferred "offline" mail client but have a need to use my online Gmail account as my primary day-to-day mail client (job-mandated plugins etc).

I have Outlook syncing my gmail over imap quite happily.

What I'd like to know is: can I have my email auto-syncing to Outlook in the background without actually launching Outlook itself?  Perhaps there's a background sync service lying around somewhere that doesn't require the main app to be open?

My intention is to have Outlook reasonably up-to-date for those times when I need to go offline but be using my gmail in the browser when online.

I am amenable to replacing Outlook with another app such as Apple Mail provided I don't have a major battle getting things like signatures working properly (as has happened to me in the past with Apple Mail).

No, there isn't a way to do this in Outlook, Apple Mail, or any other mail client that I'm aware of.  The closest that you could come would be to launch Outlook and close its window, which should keep Outlook syncing.


Delete an app completely (special case) and question regarding empty trash I downloaded a game and deleted it by just Holding it for few second and click x on the launchpad, because I can still see it occupies 20 GB in my hard disk which is truly annoying. Does it mean it wasn't removed completely?

It seems the Mac can empty the trash securely or not securely?
Does it mean whatever deleted in the trash (even you empty the trash) is possible to recover? Unless you press the Empty trash securely?
Thanks
I feel like I'm so stupid, because I lost 40 GB by just doing deleting and downloading .... BUT I wouldn't lose any disk space if it 's microsoft window... this makes me feel really uncomfortable.. SSD is already very limited disk...

HOW can I get it back and delete it completely ? Is there any apps allow me to do so?  THANKS
N.B.I'm currently using the newest model of Mac book pro.

Situation: I deleted the file (by just holding it for few second and press the cross) but it still occupied 20 GB... Is there any way to get the space back?

All the apps installed from the App Store are stored in the /Applications folder.
Go to the Applications folder (Finder menu -> Go -> Applications or check the Finder window sidebar for this folder), check if the app you want to delete is present there. If it isn't, then it's gone. Else, move it to Trash and then empty it.

If it doesn't help, please clarify how are you determining that 20GB is still occupied by the app.


Is there a faster way to restart macOS Sierra into the bootcamp partition? When I'm in windows under bootcamp all I need to do to restart into macOS is

Right click the bootcamp icon in the task bar
Select "reboot into macOS"

When I'm in macOS and I want to switch to windows I need to

Click the apple in the upper left
Select "System Preferences"
Select "Startup Disk"
Click the lock
Enter administrator password
Select "BOOTCAMP Windows"
Click "Restart..."

Am I missing some obvious shortcut to reboot into windows, or is this really the best that Apple can do to support restarting into bootcamp?

If apple doesn't provide an easier way is there an app, script, or something that I can use to make the process of switching from macOS into windows a two click operation?

Note about duplicate:

Please be aware that this is an ongoing issue with macOS, and that over the years Apple has changed things so solutions that worked in the past no longer work now.

The duplicate question how to quickly reboot from OSX to Windows and back does have one answer that may work for macOS Sierra, but it's buried, the selected and most other answers do NOT work on this version of macOS.

I've edited the question title to clarify which version of macOS this question targets, and I expect we will need to have a question for each version of macOS so people can find the answer for their particular system, rather than digging through a long question and trying several "solutions" until the real solution for their setup is found.

 - macOS Sierra 10.12.6 & Windows 7 Pro 64bit bootcamp on MacBook Pro (17-inch, Early 2011)

What I do.

Restart normally. When you hear the startup chime, press the option key. You will get a choice of OS, including BootCamp. Use the arrow key to select and press return.


Mac Pro processor upgrade, won't boot I just upgraded my Mac Pro 4,1 (5,1 firmware) to dual X5690s. I was very careful and followed directions throughout the whole process.

When I put the CPU tray back in, the computer wouldn't post. There are no hardware errors, but it won't boot. I have tried an SMC and NVRAM reset to no avail. Upon pressing the power button, the power light turns on and remains lit. No red LED problem lights appear in the computer. The GPU fan speeds up to full, like it always does on a boot, but then instead of slowing down, it remains at full. All other fans are at normal speeds. My boot drive is an SSD on a PCIe SATA adapter.

Everything was working normally this morning before my project. Any troubleshooting suggestions?

(I've heard maybe tightening the heat sinks down more, but I don't want to over tighten them.) Also, the first time I tested the upgraded tray, the power button was flashing, so I tightened the heatsinks a bit more.

Any help would be appreciated!

Processors either work or they don't. As long as they are siting in their sockets correctly. Tightening the heatsinks is unlikely to do anything, but be careful not to over tighten as you could damage something if you do.

You could take them out and verify the sockets are clean and free of obstructions and that there are no bent pins. You could also swap which socket which proc is in. I know that doesn't make sense but sometimes it just works that way.

Try with the old Procs in place if that is possible. If they work then you may have the wrong upgrade processor(s) or a defective one or two.


Creating Rsync script to copy files for multiple users and the shared directory I want to copy files to an external drive to use as a backup using RSync. I have installed OpenMediaVault to serve as NAS. I installed RSyncOsX to have a GUI to set parameters for Rsync to execute. Trying to set up the backup script I got confused.

The RSyncOSX manual https://rsyncosx.github.io/RsyncGUIfirststart says one has to give RsyncOSX permission on the root of the home catalog. This seems to suggest that I have to set up a script for all users on my Mac. Previously I used TimeMachine and I didn’t need to set this up for every user. I would like my backup script to work for all users including the shared directory.

I also want all file permissions to stay in place so user files are still protected from viewing by other users after they have been copied.

How am I to proceed?

Well after some more searching I found the answer here: https://superuser.com/questions/270911/run-rsync-with-root-permission-on-remote-machine. So what I have to do is create a script and then have it executed as root. The script can either be run from the NAS pulling data from the Mac or the other way around. Which I will probably do, because then I can run the script at shutdown.


How to search Mail in Time Machine? I'm looking for a specific email I may have deleted, but I don't remember when I received it (it was at least a couple months ago).  Digging through my Mail history in Time Machine for a single email would take forever - why isn't there an obvious search function for Time Machine?

Does anyone have a technique or strategy for searching past emails in Time Machine?

Emails are stored in sub-directories located in ~/Library/Mail/V2 in .emlx format. This allows you to do a global plaintext search within a specific time machine backup folder.

I wrote a shell script to search for text within all .emlx files in a specific time machine backup.

Alternatively you can do a drive search in terminal (what my script automates). Replace Search Query with what you want to search for:

find "/Volumes/Time Machine" -name "*.emlx" -exec grep -l "Search Query" {} \;

Or also replace /Volumes/Time Machine with a more specific directory to speed things up e.g /Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/stan/2014-09-16-084603/


Can't access USB hard drive plugged in to Time Capsule I have the most recent 2 TB Time Capsule to which I connected (via USB) a 1.5 TB Seagate hard drive.

I expect the hard drive to be visible under "Shared", but nothing appears, except the Time Capsule itself.

The hard drive has two partitions on it, one NTFS and the other Mac OS Extended. The hard drive works just fine when connected directly to my Mac. Where's the problem?

I see the same symptoms on my setup-- Used to use the usb hdd all the time on my old Windows setup, am able to see it on my macbook just fine. We are probably working in NTFS which, however, is clearly not allowed:

  Note: ExFAT and NTFS formats aren't supported.

Per http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2426


Can I change the Terminal background color in my Mac? I saw a Terminal background color is not background in the network:

Mine default is black, and its not feels good for me.
So, can I change the Terminal background color in my Mac?

From the Terminal Menu > Preferences > Profiles

Take your pick - fully customisable...


Upgrading an old mac mini intel 1.1 for Lion I'm looking to buy an older mac mini (v1.1) CoreDuo 1.66Ghz 2Gb DDR2, 80Gb HD.

My research shows the original OS was Mac OS X 10.4.11.

So my question is: if i will upgrade my CPU from T2300 to T7200 (2.0Ghz,Core2Duo) and the FirmWare from 1.1 to 2.1 so I can increase the ram from 2 to 4 Gb.

Will this configuration work for lion (Yes, i know 1.1 is not compatible with installer)?

I mean installed lion 10.7.5 will work good like now works Tiger and other soft like ilife 09, ableton 8, reason 5, audacity? or it will lagging?

also i need lion for my wifi adapter TP-LINK TL-WN7722N (i think i can startup this adapter with atheros fix or other kexts)

Short answer: No, it will not work.

Long answer: Lion requires a 64bit processor and the Yonah processor on the mini1,1 still is partially 32 bit. You will NOT be able to boot in to Lion because you cannot boot a 64 bit kernel. However, it is possible to use a separate disk to boot into a custom boot loader and then load Lion from there (much like trying to get a MacPro1,1 to boot Lion). This is a definite hack, and not something I would recommend to anyone, especially for a super-low-end machine like this mini. It will not be happy.

Also, this machine has a SATA-I interface, so even with an SSD in it, it will still be slow.


How to disable screensaver for newly created user? I am fairly new to OS X, I am trying to disable the screensaver of a user that I recently created with the following commands on the terminal of an account that I'm currently logged in as:

    sudo dscl . create /Users/NewUser

    # More commands are run after this one, but skipping to the important part...

    sudo defaults write /Users/NewUser/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.screensaver.MAC_UUID.plist idleTime 0

However this doesn't seem to be working. I've noticed that when you create a new user, there is no screensaver plist that exists until the user actually logins.
I am not too familiar with plists and Apple in general, any help would be greatly appreciated!

Have you tried running it as the other user using:

sudo -u NewUser defaults write /Users/NewUser/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.screensaver.MAC_UUID.plist idleTime 0

The command I found for setting the screensaver to never start was:

sudo -u NewUser defaults -currentHost write com.apple.screensaver idleTime 0


How to use the mysql I just installed? I have installed mysql in Mac OS X 10.6.6. However I don't know how to get to the mysql prompt.

Sarbbottam-Bandyopadhyays-MacBook-Pro:bin sarbbottam$ pwd
/usr/local/mysql/bin
Sarbbottam-Bandyopadhyays-MacBook-Pro:bin sarbbottam$ mysql
-bash: mysql: command not found
Sarbbottam-Bandyopadhyays-MacBook-Pro:bin sarbbottam$

Any thoughts?

An alternative for newbies (and webdevelopers) is MAMP and phpMyAdmin (that comes bundled with MAMP). Maybe worth a thought.


Apple Watch App Download not working I recently acquired an Apple Watch (running 2.2.2). When it synced with my iPhone 7, the Keynote app was automatically installed on it, because I have Keynote in my phone. Then a problem arose: when I tried to install an app, it did not appear on the Apple Watch. It does not appear in the Apple Watch app anywhere, but it is installed on my phone. Needless to say, I would like to be able to install the app on the watch as well.

I tried restarting, and reinstalling the app. Neither worked. The app I am trying to install is Field Day.

If I missed anything, tell me in the comments. First Ask Different post!

Updating it did the trick, like @fsb suggested.


How to upgrade a harddisk in Macbook Pro I have Macbook pro
13inch, retina display
with i5 processor and
8GB RAM with 128 GB SSD, earlier 2015 model.
With OSx Yosemite 14.1.0
I need to upgrade SSD with 750 GB.
I have following questions on this.

Is it a good Idea to upgrade it in Macbook? I have done several suck operations in Linux and windows machine, but haveing no Idea what it will impact on OSx re-installation and bootcamp.
Its Obivous that SSD will updgrade the performace, but is it significant improves the performace (FYI- I have heavy code compilation work).
What are all backups and percautions one must take while upgrading the SDD on macbook?(Newbie to mac world.)
Can I use the external SDD as a different partition for my MacBook?

Thanks in Advance!

1) I would suggest using an external drive? Why? For the simple reason that upgrading the MBP SSD is expensive! It's not your standard SATA drive. A new 1TB SSD for that computer will run you ~$650 (based on OWC prices).

2)Your SSD Read/Write speed should already be around 400-500MBps. A new SSD's performance would probably not be noticeable. It is almost certainly not worth paying the $650 for just the speed boost.

3) I would suggest at least one (possibly two) backups. Note that if you buy your new SSD from OWC or if you get the OWC Envoy, you can plug your old SSD into your computer via USB, so having an extra (second) backup is less important if you take this route.

4) I'm not sure exactly what you mean here. You can use an external SSD as either a storage drive or a boot drive or both, but boot times from an external drive might be slower than from an internal drive.

Please comment with any questions or if you see any mistakes in my answer.


Can I reset Notification Centre badge counter for Messages? The new Messages beta app (based on iChat) is stuck with one incoming message.
Can I somehow reset the badge?

The correct answer to this issue isn't to message all your contacts.

First close the Messages app.

Then simply open up Activity Monitor and quit the Dock process to restart it.

Here's how it looks:

Your badge count should be reset after that.

PS: You can access Activity Monitor from Spotlight (⌘ Space) by simply typing its name and pressing Enter.

Edit: update thanks to @JjP and @Toland H


How to use an existing Apple ID to download free apps from App Store without using Credit Card? I have an Apple ID which I had registered years back (when I had bought my Ipod Shuffle). I wanted to use the same Apple ID to download apps on my newly purchased MBP - but whenever I try to login with that Apple ID, it tells me "This ID hasn't been used with Itunes", and proceeds to let me "Review" it. In the last step, I'm asked to furnish credit card information, which I don't want to, since all I want to do is to be able to download free apps !!

So, do I have to register a second Apple ID just for downloading free apps ??

As I commented - try setting your payment type to None in iTunes

Open iTunes, and go to the iTunes Store, then click on your account on the top right. It'll take you to your account page where you can change your type.


Configure sandbox permissions While trying to modify a property list I was rather surprised to receive the following error

sh-3.2# cp com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist com.apple.mDSNResponder.plist.backup
cp: com.apple.mDSNResponder.plist.backup: Operation not permitted

and the Console has the following log entry:

10/28/15 1:12:55.886 PM sandboxd[118]: ([13463]) cp(13463) System Policy: deny file-write-create /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDSNResponder.plist.backup

Which goes against the traditional UNIX paradigm of giving a user enough rope to hang themselves and a couple feet more. So my question would be, how can I configure sandbox permissions on OS X 10.11? I can't seem to find much documentation on them. Even where to store them seems ambiguous as I see them in framework bundles, in /System/Library/Sandbox/Profiles and /usr/share/sandbox.

That would be System Integrity Protection at work, you can find a detailed answer here.


How do I stop my computer from crashing? Recently, I've been having problems with my late 2009 MacBook Pro crashing several times a day. How can I fix it?

I'm running OS 10.7.3 with 8 GB of RAM.

This is a setting that Apple has for some reason decided to hide completely, and can easily be fixed with a few simple steps.

First, go to /System/Library/CoreServices/ and right-click on Finder. Select Show Package Contents, navigate to …/Contents/Info.plist and open it in TextEdit.
Near the bottom, below the last </array> but before the last </dict>, add the following two lines of code:
<key>ShowCrashPrefs</key>
<true/>
Save and quit TextEdit. Hold ctrl+opt while clicking on the Finder icon and select Relaunch. Once Finder fully loads again, advance to step 4.
Open Finder preferences with Finder > Preferences… or ⌘+, and navigate to the Advanced tab. Tick the "Show crash prefpane in System Preferences" option.

Launch System preferences and select the new Crash icon, under System. When it loads, drag the crash frequency slider to Min.


How can I enter a app, that has to be updated, purchased in a different apple ID without having to delete it? So, I have this music app that I want to enter, but I can't since it needs to be updated and is in another ID, but the musics that I have in the app can not be loaded somewhere else without entering the app, I searched on how to update a app that was purchased in a different ID, but I would have to delete it and lose all the music in it, is there anyway that I can enter the app without updating it or another way to update it without having to delete it?

If I understand your question correctly, you could sign out of the App Store on your iPhone and then sign back in using the other Apple ID and password. Once signed in, you should be able to update the app in question.

Note that other apps not installed under this Apple ID will now not be updatable until you sign out again and log back in with the original Apple ID and password.

The only way around this is to delete your apps and re-download them using the other Apple ID. However, it's likely that if you have multiple apps installed using each of these Apple IDs that you may face similar issues to the one you're now facing with the music app, so you may be better off just signing in and out of your various Apple IDs if and when you need to.


Can I ask Siri to connect an Apple TV to my AirPods? What is the correct command to get a 4th Generation Apple TV to connect to AirPods using Siri? When I try “connect to my AirPods”, all that happens is the Settings app opens and “Video and Audio” is selected. The AirPods are already paired to the Apple TV.

There is no way to use Siri to connect your AirPods to your Apple TV: not listed on Apple’s “Use Siri on your Apple TV” article.

The fastest ways I’ve found are to swipe down from the top and select them in audio settings (for apps that support it) or hold the Play/Pause button when in the “menu”/“TV” view, to see your Bluetooth output options.


Does OS X enforce a maximum filename length or character restriction? What is the maximum filename character length of files in OS X?

Of secondary importance is whether some characters are allowed/disallowed in addition to any overall length restrictions.

From the font of all knowledge, the maximum file name size in the default HFS+ file system is 255 UTF-16 encoding units, so basically 255 characters. Technically, any unicode character can be used, but this may be practically limited by the application you are using - for example, the / character is used to delineate directories in pathnames, so you may not be allowed to name a single file stuff/things.txt, as this means "the file things.txt in the stuff directory" to the operating system. There are ways of "escaping" characters like / in filenames, but for general use it's discouraged.


Using Garage Band sounds for commercial purposes Im making a Drumming app for the iphone and the ipod touch.
I was searching for good drum samples around the internet, but couldn't find anything fitting. Then i thought of garageband and its drum kits which contained the samples that i needed.

Will apple allow me to use the garageband's kit sounds separatly and for commercial purposes?

Actually, you can't. The linked article specifies exactly that you can't:

  to create your own original music
  compositions or audio projects. You
  may broadcast and/or distribute your
  own music compositions or audio
  projects that were created using the
  Audio Content, however, individual
  audio loops may not be commercially or
  otherwise distributed on a standalone
  basis, nor may they be repackaged in
  whole or in part as audio samples,
  sound effects or music beds."

(emphasis mine)

You can create as many songs as you want using all the sounds you have in the loops and sell the songs. But you will be packaging the sounds (or repackaging) as audio samples of your application which seems to be forbidden.


How to set audiobooks to repeat on iPhone A while ago Apple moved audiobooks from the music app to iBooks. Now I can't listen to audiobooks on repeat. Is there any way of getting back this functionality?

Hmmm, I'd never noticed that (but then again, I wouldn't normally think to put an audio book on repeat).

If the main thing you want to achieve is to be able to play your audio book on your iPhone, and you want the ability to repeat them, then you can still actually play them using the Music iOS app.

To do this:

Within iTunes on your Mac or PC, add your audiobooks (they can be from any source, including Audible) to a playlist
Sync that playlist to your iPhone
Open the Music app on your iPhone
Select the playlist
Play any audiobook it contains (and use the repeat function)

Hope this helps!

[EDIT]

This answer is being edited to cover a couple of scenarios that may affect the above steps working. Basically, with the latest versions of iOS and iTunes, plus the onset of Apple Music, the above instructions may not work for some people.

If you are in this situation, please use the following steps instead:

Within iTunes on your Mac or PC, select the audiobook you want to play in the Music app on your iPhone/iPad/iPod.
Richt-click on the audiobook and choose Get Info from the context menu that appears.
Click on the Options tab.
At the top for Media Kind you should see Audiobook selected. Change this to Music instead. (Note, if you'd like to listen to your Audiobook using the Podcasts app instead, then select Podcast instead of Music. However, since the OP is wanting to use the 'repeat' function, we need to use the Music app.)
Ensure that Remember playback position is selected.
Click OK.
Now add your Audiobook to a playlist (perhaps one called Audiobooks).
Sync that playlist to your iPhone.
Open the Music app on your iPhone.
Select the playlist.
Play the audiobook and use the repeat function of the Music app.

IMPORTANT NOTES

If you are using Apple Music and iCloud Music Library is switched on in your device, you must also do this step:

After Step 6 and before Step 7: Right-click on the Audiobook file and select Add to iCloud Music Library.
This additional step can actually take anywhere from a few hours to days (not to upload, but for the iCloud music servers to process the file). So, while you can continue with Steps 7 to 11 above, the file won't be available on your device until the file has actually finished processing. The way to tell this is to check that the dotted cloud icon next to the audiobook listed in iTunes is no longer a dotted line to indicate it is waiting.
And yes, as far as I am concerned Apple Music and the iCloud Music Library have 'broken' the way many people want to use playlists - but that's another story!


Unable to use Audio Midi Setup to use two audio outputs I used to have an aggregate device where I would have my audio output coming out both my Bluetooth headphones and my built-in speaker. (Weird, I know. I used the setup to play along with musical recordings.) Suddenly one day it just stopped working, so I delete the aggregate device and tried to make a new one. But I'm unable to get the sound to come out of both devices.

The sound only comes out of whatever subdevice I have listed first. I've tried changing the clock source, the sample rate, and check-marking the drift correction. And it always just coming out of one device.

Use a Multi-output device, rather than an Aggregate device.


Deselect text using keyboard shortcut or prevent selection of word/link on right click I often copy links in Chrome with the context menu, to paste into a chat window (Adium). This process selects the link on copy. When I cmd+tab back to my browser window, the text is still selected and it interferes with keyboard control of the given website. This forces me to move my hand back to the trackpad, find some non-active space (page bg usually), and click to deselect. I'd rather not have to move my hand from the keyboard to do this.

I've tested this in Chrome, Safari, and TextEdit. I could maybe solve it in Chrome with a userscript, but I'd like a more general solution for other programs as well.

edit Another way of looking at this problem is that OSX selects the word or link on right click with a context menu, but doesn't clear the selection when the context menu is closed. Is there a way to force deselection of text on context menu close?

cmd+a (select all)
cmd+shift+home [at least tested on PC with control+shift+home]


How do I clean the apple mouse so that it can scroll down? My current apple mouse works fine for moving, clicking and scrolling down.  The scrolling functionality with the tiny ball on top is not working while going down.  I had the same issue back in 2008 at a different company with a similar mouse.  Does anyone know how I can clean the mouse?

My favorite movie on Apple’s support site is this gem on cleaning mouse balls! I also like using a clean white piece of paper to roll the mouse upside down on it. Do use the grey cloth if you'd rather not see what comes out.

The general cleaning info is nice too.


SMS delivery report on iOS I have an iPhone SE with iOS 11.3.1 .

If I send a normal SMS (that is one that does not require internet, the old SMS we had) using iMessage then no delivery report comes. This is not a network issue because Android or non smart phones do get delivery reports.

As far as I have read, there is no way to turn on this feature on iMessage for normal SMS. Is there any other app that I can use to send normal SMS from iPhone that can show delivery reports?

Do note that I am not asking for apps that require data connection. I am just looking for any alternate program for sending network based SMS.

A related question has been asked about four years ago here at How can i get delivery confirmation for sent sms? . However, there no way out could be found.

Firstly, you can't send a normal SMS using iMessage since they are completely different messaging services even if both can be sent from the iPhone Message App. iMesssage only relies on iCloud account and internet access (Wifi is sufficient) while SMS requires a SIM card that is functional and access to your carrier network (and not necessary GPRS, 3G, 4G...).

Secondly, it is not a network issue or a bug to not receive delivery report for SMS on iPhone as Apple never provided such service (as far as i know). Moreover there is no alternative app to deal with SMS and delivery report on iOS (while it is possible on Android OS). As far as I know alternative SMS apps are not allowed by Apple (only instant messaging apps are allowed, that are apps using a cellular connection i.e. 3G, 4G and so on).

SUMMARY

There is no option to enable SMS delivery report on iPhone and there is no app that can achieve this goal because it is not allowed by Apple.

Note:
Back in the days when jailbreak was quite common a solution used to exist but jailbreak is not recommended and may be hard to achieve on recent OS.


Finder shows executable shell scripts as Unix binaries I am writing and using many shell scripts (bash) on my mac. One issue has been bugging me for a while. When I look at the scripts in the Finder, they come up as "Unix Binaries". If I tag a file type (.sh) then the finder recognizes them as shell scripts.

If I tag a file type (.sh) then the finder recognizes it as shell script:

If I make the shell script file (without extension) non-executable (chmod -x) then the finder recognizes it as a text file. It looks like the finder thinks that any executable file without any extension is de-facto a Unix binary executable. I thought the finder was peeking at a file content to determine its nature ? Is there a way to control that ?

This all seems correct.
Under Unix the only way any file is executable is if the executable bit is set in the file modes.
There is no such thing as a binary executable just executable and it does not matter what the file is script or compiled


Office Excel 2016 update not applying. My current Excel version is 15.26.0. Available is v15.34.0.

Via the Check for Updates (Menu option), and with the update software itself updated, I have downloaded this update 3 times.

The installation process is indicated that it has been installed and updated. However the update software does another check and indicates this update is still needed (as if it was not done). A laptop restart and check confirms that the Excel version is still 15.26.0.

Any thoughts on why the update is not sticking.

Cause was my previous renaming of the Excel application in the application folder.

In the application folder I had previously added the suffice 2016 to the name of the Excel program to delineate it from the older version (kept in event of compatibility issues with old files) from the 2011 suite.

The download process added the update application separately with its original name "Microsoft Excel.app"  Deleting the old version, adding the prefix 2016 (as is my preference) to the new Excel file. Open this, and all works with the right version.

So as tidy up, deleting the old icon first from the doc, then copying Excel with its appended name afresh to the Dock, and now all works and opens as version 15.34.0


What should I do with MacOS 10.12.6 update that the App Store forgot it downloaded? I'm running MacOS 10.12.4 and I have a time machine backup that’s relatively current. I decided to download the 10.12.6 point update in the App Store. It downloaded the roughly 2 GB file. (I did not see when it finished because I left the Mac unattended near the end of the download.) When I returned to the Mac, the App Store showed 10.12.6 as something I could update, as if I never downloaded it in the first place.  I pushed update and it wanted to re-download the 2 GB update, which I did not wish to do since it takes so long to download. I rebooted and it was the same story.

In /Library/Updates it does show up in a folder titled 091-22861, and if I open macOSUpdCombo10.12.6Auto.pkg which is roughly 1.7 GB it appears to be something that would actually install the update.

I didn't want to run that though since I was afraid doing it that way could mess something up. But at the same time I don't want the wasted space on my hard drive. So my question is, should I run that pkg? Or should I delete the 091-22861 folder? (The folder also contains a couple other pkg files and other minor files.) Also, in /Library/Updates the index.plist references 091-22861 and I would want to make sure that removing 091-22861 wouldn't cause any problems stemming from index.plist either.

Edit: For extra information, I found a website that ostensibly allows you to download the update without the app store, and it indicates six pkg files that you'd need to run in order, and in my 091-22861 folder it only has three of those pkg files. I'm not inclined to install it from within 091-22861 so is there a safe way to erase that folder, and would I need to deal with index.plist in any way?

If you have a partially downloaded and/or installed update for Mac OS stuck on your Mac, you must re-download and reinstall the update on your Mac. You can do this in one of two ways. Either way will accomplish the same thing, with the same results, with no practical difference between either method.

Download the update for Mac OS via the mac app store.
A second option is to download your update outside of the mac app store by using Apples official download site located at https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1970?locale=en_US . For people who may read this in the future and experience a possible broken link in the above reference, just go to the apple page (or google) and search for Mac OS Combo update download. From Apples website, search or follow the links to the proper (or desired) version (ex:10.13.6) of your update, and download it. The downloaded file should be in .dmg format. Then double click the file, and install the corresponding app from the installer window.

Special Note in regards to Official Apple Software updates:

DO NOT download apple software or updates from a non-apple source.

Once the freshly downloaded update is installed, Mac OS should clean up any leftover files including the "corrupted" or "Partially downloaded" update.

If this is your only problem you are having with Mac OS, there is no reason to do a full reinstall, even if you are fully backed up. Lastly, I must stress to users how important updates are (primarily for security reasons). You should never get lazy and ALWAYS take the time to install new updates as soon as they arrive in the app store. This will keep you protected, and defended against hackers/rootkits/virus's/trojans/botnets/etc. etc. So please, don't wait, just update the Mac. If for some reason those partially downloaded update files are still there after the update, and if Mac OS doesn't clean up after itself, let me know.


Word 2011: Keyboard shortcuts for accepting/rejecting a tracked change AND moving to the next change Is there such a built-in shortcut for doing such action pairs? (e.g. accept+move to next, using a single shortcut)

If not, how can I define such a custom shortcut?

This is actually quite easy to do, once you know where to look. (Unfortunately for me I didn't know about this until my thesis was done. Not that I'm bitter or anything.)

1) In MSWord, go to the Tools Menu and then choose "Customize Keyboard"

2) Under "Categories" choose "All Commands" and then look for "AcceptChangesAndAdvance". Select it, then click in the box next to "Press new keyboard shortcut" as shown here:

3) Enter an unused keyboard combination (I chose ⌘ + ⌥ + Y for "Yes I want this change"). Note that the "Assign" button is now activated. Use it. Then click "OK".

That should be all you need to do.


Mac iPad direct connections I’d like my iPad to talk to my MacBook Pro directly (not via cloud or router) sometimes, such as:

in a location where the “free WiFi” blocks https
when I suspect eavesdropping even though https isn’t blocked.
when I am on a Greyhound bus that falsely advertises WiFi. or an airport that falsely advertises “free.”
out and about with no router at all.

I know it can be done with a cat-5 cable.  I think it can be done through the sync cable, though I don’t know how.  But it would be nice to do it WiFi or Bluetooth.  (Bluetooth may be too slow?).  Shell via ssh, web server, VNC/X11/other display mirror, MySQL, etc.

Tutorial somewhere on MacOS/IOS communication without router between?  Wireless preferred.  Preferably simple, but I’m retired from software engineering and haven’t yet forgotten everything (though the skill is definitely fading).

Create a computer-to-computer network

If you want to set up a temporary Wi-Fi connection between your Mac and another device, you can create your own network using the Wi-Fi menu.

Click the Wi-Fi status icon  in the menu bar and choose Create Network.
Enter a name and choose a channel for your network.
Click Create.

When you create a computer-to-computer network, the Wi-Fi menu icon changes to show a computer . When you’re done, click the Wi-Fi menu again and choose Disconnect to close the network you created.

Show Wi-Fi status in the menu bar

Use the Wi-Fi status icon  in the menu bar to switch between Wi-Fi networks, turn Wi-Fi on or off, or open Network preferences.

If the Wi-Fi status icon isn’t in the menu bar, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, then click Network.
Click Wi-Fi in the list at the left.

If Wi-Fi isn’t in the list, click the Add button  at the bottom of the list. Click the Interface pop-up menu, choose Wi-Fi, give the Wi-Fi service a name, then click Create.
Select “Show Wi-Fi status in menu bar.”

Four signal bars appear in the Wi-Fi status icon in the menu bar. The more black bars you see, the higher the signal quality.

References

macOS Sierra: Create a computer-to-computer network

macOS Sierra: Show Wi-Fi status in the menu bar


How do I prevent icons from being added to the dock? Our IT department pre-loads a utility for remote management, no problem there.

However, the utility is automatically added to the dock every 30 minutes, even after Keep in dock is manually unchecked, the app is quit, and the icon is removed.

There is an option to disable the dock icon in the utility config, but its effects are org-wide and they won't disable it. I see several posts about editing the .app's plist, but it looks like that trick stopped working after 10.8.

How can I prevent this icon from showing up in, and getting pinned to the dock in macOS 10.14?

How can I prevent this icon from showing up in, and getting pinned to the dock in macOS 10.14?

You can't.

Your Mac is under MDM policies and thusly you can't override what those policies are.

The setting "Keep in dock" has no effect on a separate process that checks to see if an item is in a dock and manually putting it back.  Think of it as you, the user, removing an item, then coming back and manually putting the icon back to the dock; that setting would have no effect there either.

  There is an option to disable the dock icon in the utility config, but
  its effects are org-wide and they won't disable it.

This statement confirms this.  The MDM software/process has the ability to insert the dock icon per its configuration, but, as you stated, your IT organization doesn't want to disable it.  The "trick" that you mentioned was probably addressed in a bug fix.


Spell check for macOS Terminal app? Is there a spelling library or command line tool that can be installed to use on macOS command line Terminal app?

You have look installed on your system. You can also grep /usr/share/dict/words. Even, curl with the dict protocol using the match key could be useful for spelling. Both emacs and vim have spellcheck features.


Prevent users from deleting iBooks from iPad I will be preparing some iBook files to use on an exhibit in a  museum, and I am afraid that visitors accidentally (or not) delete the book from the iBooks app.

I looked at the Restriction Settings, but I didn't find anything that could help me.

Is it possible to do that?

Settings → General → scroll down → Restrictions → Enable Restrictions → create passcode and enter it again when prompted → write it down somewhere → toggle Deleting Apps to OFF.


Does an application have access to the cached data in another application? The reason I am raising this question is security concerns. Applications like Twitter might access a user's browsing behaviour by checking the cached history on user's Safari browser for example if inter-application access is somehow permitted through coding. Since I don't program in Objective-C and do not have the time to delve into its documentation, would someone be able to shed some light on this in general terms? This question is geared towards the new iPad, but I think the answer, if any, probably applies to all iOS devices.

Each app is placed in it's own sandbox which limits the app's access to files etc.

More info here: http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/ipad/#DOCUMENTATION/iPhone/Conceptual/iPhoneOSProgrammingGuide/TheiOSEnvironment/TheiOSEnvironment.html


Can just opening email infect Mac in any way? I'd like opinion on this:

If I open email and see text, can it infect my Mac? Not opening attachments, just email itself. Can that be dangerous? I delete all suspicious and unknown ones, but there are few where I can't be sure or have to see the insides.

I have no real time scanner and sometimes run Malwarebytes.

Can it be dangerous? Absolutely it can, there might be an unpatched vulnerability in the Mail app. But no one can tell you if such a vulnerability actually exists, because if it was known then it would already have been patched.


Extend an Apple wireless network with non-Apple gear I've got an Apple wireless network running (base station is an Airport Express, 2nd generation), and I'd like to extend to it a nearby apartment.

I've got an AT&T modem/router hybrid, a Netgear device. Is it at all possible to extend an Apple wireless network with a non-Apple router such as this?

I can connect to the Netgear box via Ethernet to configure settings, but I'm curious first if this kind of wireless extending is even possible.

Unfortunately Apple based networks cannot be extended using non-Apple devices. Even though in theory it should work without any problems, Apple has restricted using 3rd party routers to extended wireless network, and vice versa, non-Apple based wireless networks cannot be extended using Apple routers.

The workaround is to connect both, your Airport Express and your Netgear using Ethernet cable and enabling bridge mode in your Netgear settings page. Bridge mode disables creating second sub-network in your LAN, making Airport Express your default DHCP server.


Which display controller board to use for 13" MacBook Pro (mid-2012, unibody) display panel? My 13" MacBook Pro (mid-2012, unibody) doesn't work anymore and I decided to convert its display into an external monitor. I have taken apart display of my MacBook Pro from the original laptop but I can't order controller board from eBay/Amazon since I don't know which one will work for that screen. Can anybody help me with this? If somebody can tell me display panel number of the MacBook Pro from that year it would help me order board for mine.

I'm pretty sure you can get the part you need via Louis Rossman's site (mailin.repair) and probably schematics as well. Or st least pointers towards them.


Multiple .local hostname on one computer Is possible setup multiple .local hostname on one physical computer?

Background:

home network (behind the DSL/NAT router) (192.168.1.*)
have a mac-mini, called as "tango.local". (set in the System.prefs). The IP-setting is "use DHCP with manual address" - the computer address is 192.168.1.10.

Now, on this mac want run apache2 (macports version), with different VirtualHost directives, like:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName tango.local
    ProxyPass / http://localhost:5000/
    ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:5000
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName another.local
    ProxyPass / http://localhost:3000/
    ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:3000
</VirtualHost>

For this setup I need assign two different hostnames to the mac, e.g. the main tango.local and the another.local. Both names should be resolve-able from the LAN, e.g. computers on the LAN (my mac-notebook) must correctly resolve the http://another.local/ address.

It is possible to do this with simple way, (e.g. somewhat convience the bonjour to advertise both names for the single IP), or need setup the bind DNS server for serving the .local domain?

Bonus question: the main goal is resolve the another.local from another mac (via bonjour). Secondary: what i need setup to allow access the http://another.local from an windows7 notebook? (i'm total windiot - e.g. is possible somewhat convert bonjour names-addresses to the "windows nmbd" or whatever?

I think you don't need to register a new hostname if you're just about publishing web services.
On the Mac, you can register a new website with bonjour on the command line with

dns-sd -R "My Website" _http._tcp . 80 path=/path-to-page.html

you can verify that it worked by using Safari's bonjour menu or on the command line with

dns-sd -B _http._tcp

Bonjour for Windows is available (and is, I think, included when installing iTunes).

If for some reason you actually need specific host names, you could consider using dnsmasq (can be installed with homebrew or macports) to reroute your specific hostnames only (using your default DNS for everything else) and telling your Windows computer to use your Mac as its DNS server.

Update:

I failed to realise it's totally possible, you can indeed register multiple .local hostnames with bonjour, do it as a proxy like this:

dns-sd -P myService1 _http._tcp local 80 server1.local 127.0.0.1 path=/path/to/service1
dns-sd -P myService2 _http._tcp local 80 server2.local 127.0.0.1 path=/path/to/service2

Here you're registering two services (myService1,-2) running on the same server (127.0.0.1, within different server paths) on port 80 as two different .local names.


How to delete all files in Pictures folder after I moved all the pics to external HD I am not a Mac owner and am only helping a friend. He bought a new external HD and he wanted to backup all of his pictures (he uses iPhoto). So, I drag and dropped the Pictures folder onto the HD (formatted as HFS+). I'm assuming this also includes his iPhoto Library. I plan on option click open iPhotos and going into preferences to point to the external HD.

However, once I point to the new iPhoto location, what is the easiest way to delete all files within his Pictures folder? Right now he has 370 GB of pictures on his 500 GB MacBook Pro and so needs to make space badly. Also, once the Library is pointed to the external. He will always have to have it connected when trying to import new pictures into his computer correct?

I know this might seem like a simple question but google wasn't as helpful as I thought it would be.

Firstly, yes he has to point to the external HD when trying to import new pictures into his computer.

Then you can easily delete Photos Library (see following pic) (usually located in: /Users/<name of the user>/Pictures) that package contains all the photos in the application Photos. At the end if he will proceed with emptying the Trash all the pics in the Mac will be deleted.

More precisely, you can do the same for iPhoto. The library name depends only to the application you are using. So for instance if instead of using Photos, your friend is using iPhoto the library you want to delete will be iPhoto Library!


How can I scroll to the top/bottom of web page with a three finger gesture? I'd like to use a three finger swipe to scroll to the top or bottom of a web page. Is there a way to make that work?


Why can't I select tracks in Apple Music? If I search for a song and select it from the search results, it starts to play as expected. But for some reason, if I open an album, I can't select a track to play, I can only shuffle the album and skip tracks until I get the one I wanted. The tracks are greyed out.

Why can't I directly play tracks from albums? I'm currently on my free trial.

Edit: This does not happen only on explicit tracks, and I have restrictions off, so it's not that.

The problem is indicated by the track names being grey.

Something is preventing your device from connecting to the store.

Try another network connection
Try on cellular data
Try powering off phone
Ensure that you were allowing cellular data to playback iTunes music from the cloud
once you've ruled these out, consider filing a bug or feedback to Apple

You will know that you solved the problem when you see the track names in bright white just like the rest of the text on the page. Compare the shuffle text with the first track name in your screenshot for example.


Printing from an iPhone I live in a remote area that has very good 3G and Edge coverage. I have bought and returned every other device but NOTHING seems to have reception to ANY Internet except for an iPhone.

I have the HP B210 Photosmart All-In-One printer that says: "print, anytime, anywhere," but it will not. While it printed from the iPhone while I set it up, once it was not on WiFi, it would not. It possibly would in an area that is readily 3G to all devices, it will not in my "remote, stubbornly unfriendly to all-but-iPhones area."

Is there a Bluetooth option? Is there an Apple type printer that has something like an iPhone receptor to the internet? Is there any hope?
Please help me. I need to be able to print. I have the app Print n Share (iTunes link), but that assumes that I have an Internet connection

To use an AirPrint printer the iPhone/iPad/iPod needs to be connected to the same local network that the printer is connected to. The printer can be connected via wifi or an Ethernet connection that connects to your wifi network.

If the iOS device is connected via the phone mobile data network then it can't print to using AirPrint.

Why is your iPhone not connected to the wifi network? Is it because you are trying to print to the printer when away from home? Or is it because you have a large property and you are out of range of your wifi network?

While you can't use the native AirPrint when not connected to your home wifi, you can use  HP's ePrint service. This works by your printer having its own email address. You can email documents to the printer that it then prints.

The service is somewhat limited when compared to AirPrint, as you need to be able to get whatever you are printing into a document and be able to email it. So many apps that support AirPrint can't be printed from using ePrint.


How to isolate cause of iMac System Crash For the past six months I've been trying to isolate sporadic iMac system crashes unsuccessfully.  The machine is a late 2012 iMac 3.4 GHz i7 with the 3tb fusion drive (replaced awhile back under the recall program), 32gb of Mac certified RAM  from Crucial, and the NVIDIA GTX 680MX graphic card option.  I sometimes hook it up to an external monitor.  I also typically have the machine hooked up to external USB drives.  The system can run for weeks without issues, then crash or sometimes mere minutes/hours.

The behavior is that the system simply shuts down with out warning.

Things I've tried:

Running the machine with a UPS to eliminate the potential for power fluctuations.
Running the machine without a UPS to eliminate the potential that the UPS is to blame.
Checked the RAM using a multi-pass scan.
Replaced the RAM with new RAM directly from Crucial despite no issues found in scan.
Scanned the hard drive and found no errors. (System uses 3tb Fusion Drive)
Reinstalled OS w/ restore from Time Machine backup.
Upgraded the OS.
Ran the machine w/o the 2nd monitor hooked up.
Ran the machine w/o the external USB drives hooked up.
Left machine with the Genius Bar twice and allowed them to run multi-day scans on the machine with no issues detected.

The only thing I haven't tried is to reinstall the OS from scratch and just manually restore everything rather than restoring from a TimeMachine backup.

Today it crashed again. I'm at a loss and close to just junking the machine.

I know I should be able to determine something from the Console logs, but I'm not sure what I should be looking for and the volume of information in these is overwhelming.

How would you go about determining exactly what's causing the crash?  Is there a string I should be searching for in the logs that would give me this information or any software I can run to monitor the system health to capture this at crash-time?

The resolution to my problem was to replace the internal power supply.  Apple performed the repair for $67 in parts and $79 in labor.  The iMac has been rock solid since the repair was completed.


How can I change a file or folder icon using the Terminal How can I change or set the icon for a file or folder, in the terminal, do I need to use a scripting language?

You'll need the Developer Tools installed, and then the following might work. This takes the graphic in icon.png and applies it to file.ext.

# Take an image and make the image its own icon:
sips -i icon.png

# Extract the icon to its own resource file:
/Developer/Tools/DeRez -only icns icon.png > tmpicns.rsrc

# append this resource to the file you want to icon-ize.
/Developer/Tools/Rez -append tmpicns.rsrc -o file.ext

# Use the resource to set the icon.
/Developer/Tools/SetFile -a C file.ext

# clean up.
rm tmpicns.rsrc
# rm icon.png # probably want to keep this for re-use.


Someone using my Apple ID to play Clash of Clans I downloaded Clash of Clans and I found that my Apple ID already had data. I change my password, but I found that this stranger still can play Clash of Clans with my account. How can I stop this?

Based on the flood of similar problems we have seen today, one can say, it is they server having the problems.

There is nothing you can do other than wait till it is fixed.


How to create Mac OS X global hot key to open .txt file in MacVim.app at vim 'mark'? Can and how can I create Mac OS X global hot key (possibly mapped to an OS X service, like what OmniFocus and Fantastical offer to make new entries in their inbox/calendar, respectively) to open a specific .txt file in MacVim.app at a specific vim mark?

I suspect I can use Automator/AppleScript or some such in combination with vim's "global" marks to accomplish this, but uncertain.

Two possibilities are Keyboard Maestro or Alfred. Keyboard Maestro will set a global keyboard shortcut.

I assume there is a command-line utility for MacVim like there is for BBEdit and if it can open at a specific ‘vim mark’. For example, BBEdit’s command is called bbedit and cal open a specific line number using “:xy” where “xy” is the line number. You could make a Keyboard Maestro shortcut that will open a specific file using this command

/usr/local/bin/bbedit /path/to/filename:33


How to fix Safari 6 on Mountain Lion that doesn't show the full URL in the address bar unless I click it? For instance, Ask Question page URL on this site is shown as apple.stackexchange.com, but when I focus on address bar, it becomes apple.stackexchange.com/questions/ask.

I tried resetting and restarting Safari, disabling extensions and dragging the default set into the toolbar but nothing helps.

I've found that logging out and back in is sufficient for fixing this. Still a pain, but takes slightly less time than restarting (which also recovers from the failure since it forces you as well as all other users to get logged out when the Mac shuts down).


How to install new font on OS X? How to install new font on OS X to be used across OpenOffice, iWork, OfficeForMac, mail and other word processing applications?

A third option would be to open the files (for all typefaces), and click the Install Font button in the window, which copies the font files to ~/Library/Fonts/.

I usually just move the files manually because I keep each font in their own folder.


iPad 3 - when I click on the email icon, it quickly pulls up the email but then it disappears! I click on the email icon as usual, but it just quickly pulls up the email and then disappears.

What's going on?

Welcome. Is your device jailbroken? If so, have a go at updating cydia. If not I might need some more information. What did you do before the problem appeared? Have you had the problem for a long time?


Outlook 2011 - Mark email as read In my Windows Outlook client I can change from the default behavior of marking an email as read only after hitting the space bar or opening the message to automatically marking an email as read after x number of seconds (if it is selected). Does anyone know how to set this in Outlook 2011 for Mac? I can't seem to find the option.

Outlook--Preferences--Reading

You can change the time to 0 seconds


Media center app and remote control for mac mini? I can't justify buying an Apple TV while I have an old mac mini around to hook up to my entertainment center.

I'm currently controlling it using Air Mouse with my iOS devices, but I'd really like to be able to use it more simply.  Air Mouse simply extends the mouse and keyboard, but doesn't really give you a remote-control style of functionality you might have with a dedicated streaming device like the Apple TV.

Front row seems only to care about music and movies on iTunes.

Can I use Front row and the tiny white apple remote with Netflix, Hulu, and other online services, or is there another software package that would allow me to do so?

Is there a better option for remote control than the little white apple remote?

What you need is the right front-end and that is:

Plex

Plex is probably the most Mac-like of all the media centers out there. Certainly it gets a lot of attention on the Mac and runs very well there. Not quite as open or feature rich as XMBC but it plays a quick game of catchup.

It will work with the Apple Remote IR remote control you can buy from the Apple Store. The button mappings are detailed in their wiki.

With Plex installed and running you can access all your media, navigate on a TV-friendly UI using your Apple Remote and use plugins like their Netflix plugin to access streaming content all from one slick interface.

You can download the Plex apps for your iOS and Andriod devices and use it to connect your mobile computers back to your Mac-located content and stream it over the air.