Unable to mount an SMB share from cron I have a script to temporarily mount an SMB share and copy some files that get generated for my team.

It works find locally, but fails to mount the remote share when run from cron. I am not including the script as the commands in question should be evident from the outputs below.

Local operation output:

$ get-reports.sh
Tue Feb 18 16:14:05 EST 2020
+ whoami
gtarsa
+ id
uid=1234567(gtarsa) gid=1234567(#######) groups=1234567(#######),<usual Apple groups>
+ /sbin/umount /Users/gtarsa/reports
+ /sbin/mount -t smbfs //engsrv/reports /Users/gtarsa/reports
+ find /Users/gtarsa/reports -iname '*gtarsa*' -exec cp '{}' /Users/gtarsa/Downloads/reports ';'
+ /sbin/umount /Users/gtarsa/reports
+ set +x
$

Cron result:

$ cat ~/Downloads/reports/copy.log
Tue Feb 18 12:20:00 EST 2020
+ whoami
gtarsa
+ id
uid=1234567(gtarsa) gid=1234567(#######) groups=1234567(#######),<usual Apple groups>
+ /sbin/umount /Users/gtarsa/reports
+ /sbin/mount -t smbfs //engsrv/reports /Users/gtarsa/reports
mount_smbfs: server rejected the connection: Authentication error
+ echo '? Unable to mount Reports Share'
? Unable to mount Reports Share
+ exit 1
$

I have tried explicitly specifying connection credentials (as described in man mount_smbfs) with no success.  I am running script manually when I need it, but would prefer to have it run periodically on its own.

Something is different in the cron environment from my interactive environment, but I have not been able to discern what. Google searches for answers come up with lots of "How to mount a share from the command line", but not from cron. Ideas and insight welcome.

Yes, some things are different in the cron environment from your gtarsa environment. You can check the cron user environment for yourself using this "recipe".

Since you can run your script manually, it seems likely you've set up your Samba passwords and permissions appropriately.

You've chosen not to share your crontab entry, but I've mounted and umounted my Samba shares from a cron script with lines in my crontab like this:

25 * * * * /sbin/mount -t smbfs //user:password@SambaServer/sharename /Users/seamus/SmbSrv01

35 * * * * /sbin/umount /Users/seamus/SmbSrv01

This assumes a mountpoint declared (mkdir) at /Users/seamus/SmbSrv01

Since the cron user's path is not the same as gtarsa, you should check that you're using full path specifications to everything that's not in the cron user's PATH... or just everything if you're not sure.

Also NOTE: Putting userid and password in a script or a crontab as I've done here is something you should not do. Less insecure is putting the userid and password in ~/.bash_profile; e.g.:

export MOUNTUSERID="some_user" # where "some_user" is you, or a userid with Samba privileges
export MOUNTUSERPWD="some_passwd" # "some_passwd" is "some_user" Samba password

Add these lines to the bottom of ~/.bash_profile, and use these environment vars with the mount command in your script. Before you run the script, reload ~/.bash_profile to pick up the environment variables you've just declared:

source ~/.bash_profile

<redundant>You've chosen not to share your crontab entry</redundant>, but if you've not already done so you could help yourself by directing stderr from your script to a file for post-mortem analysis. In your crontab:

* * * * * /full/path/to/script >> copy.log 2>&1

will capture anything output to stderr in the file copy.log

Finally, if you're running your script under the @reboot spec, you should probably put a sleep command before you try to mount.

If none of this helps, please edit your Q to add your crontab entries, and as much of your script as possible and relevant.


Seeing apps on multiple iPhones My family has 3 iPhone 5's and we share one iTunes account.  We sync on 2 different computers.  I do not want all the same apps on my phone.  Can I delete them from my phone without it deleting them without screwing up the other 2 phones?

Yes - deleting an app from any device will not remove it from other devices.

Only if you:

Delete the app from iTunes
Sync more than one device to iTunes
Bypass the warning that an app is present on the device but not iTunes and skip the chance to import that app back into iTunes

will the deletion of an app in one place cascade over to other devices. You might also want to review which devices automatically download apps so that you don't get apps that are purchased and intended for another device.


Use Boot Camp drivers from DVD or download? I have an iMac mid-2010. It came with Snow Leopard when I bought it. Now, I'd like to install Windows 7 64-bit on my iMac. Should I install the Boot Camp drivers from the DVDs that came with my computer, or download the drivers using the Boot Camp Assistant that I have now in Mountain Lion?

As you have upgraded your operating system to Mountain Lion, I would recommend getting the latest drivers from the internet.

While I can't say that they are definitely updated, Wikipedia notes that Mountain Lion runs Boot Camp 5 wheres Snow Leopard was version 3.


What can we do now that Facebook iPad app crashes on launch after update? A family member today updated the Facebook app on a 3rd generation iPad (retina display) running iOS 5 and now the app crashes every time one tries to launch it.  We've tried rebooting the device, deleting and reinstalling the app, and angrily glaring at the machine.

The old version worked. Is there a way to go back to the old version, to make the new version work, or to somehow solve this problem? We'd rather not upgrade to iOS 6 as part of the solution. iCloud backups are off; I don't know if there's some sort of local backup on our computer or not, or what we'd do if that were the case.

Sadly, unless you have a computer with that accounts signed version of the old Facebook app, you can't get the old version from the iTunes Store.

Deleting the app should have removed all preferences, so you can only make sure the crashes are being reported to Apple and hope the app is popular enough to get a bug fix rapidly.

To restore the old app from a computer, be sure to delete the faulty app before connecting the iPad to the computer. Then add the Facebook app from the computer being careful to not update it there.


iPad 4 not charging solution with usb 3.0 dual ports Y adapter Just recently picked up an iPad 4.  Saw that it specifies "not charging" when plugged into the usb port.  Saw that it is a common issue due to usb power.  I have usb 3.0 ports on my desktop so I tried that and the same result.  USB 3.0 is specified for up to 900 ma while 2.0 is 500ma.  Course even that can change depending on a few things.  Seems that the iPad wants up to 2.1 amps.  So I searched for solution using dual usb ports like some external 2.5" laptop hard drives use.  I found nothing which surprised me.  If I can get 900ma x 2 ports (for 1.8 total amps) I am near the full charge spec for the iPad.

Such cables seem foreign but I found 2 of them.  Most Y cables like this come with a mini usb at the end so these are unfortunately rare and more expensive (unless you want to solder your own which I suppose I could do too with my abundance of cables).
http://www.shopaddonics.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=AA2USBPC
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812161003

From here the lightning cord would simply plug into the female end.  Anyone tried something like this?  Result?

A few years late, but something like this will help.

SinLoon-Enhancer Y splitter Hub Adapter Cable-Female-Charge-Extension

It's a Dual Male USB Cable, one of the male connectors are for power, the other for power + data.  It should give you a full 1AH with the power connectors from both USB ports, assuming your hub can output more than 500mah total.


Cannot drag links onto existing tabs in Safari 5.1 I have become very used to dragging links, from within the browser or other apps, onto existing tabs in order to have the link open in that tab. Safari 5.1 seems to eliminate this behavior and it is driving me batty.

Is there a way to change this behavior? Maybe through defaults write on the command line, or some kind of extension?

This behavior has returned to normal in Safari 5.1.1


Chax with Mac OS X Lion? Has anybody tried Chax with Mac OS X Lion?

I got it to install perfectly, but I do not see a Chax tab in iChat preferences.

I've been in communication with the creator of Chax, and no, it doesn't work on Lion (it definitely works in Snow Leopard). He says he's working on it.

His site is here.

Addendum 9-11-11: The main awesomeness of Chax is the ability to auto-accept Screen Shares with certain people in your Buddy List... including yourself. For instance, if you travel with a laptop and suddenly need to get files from your Mac back home, you simply get a second iChat/AIM account for that laptop, set up Chax on the home Mac, set it up to autoaccept the laptop's account, and you can screen share automatically with your home Mac. I've come to completely rely on that weekly for the past couple years.


Is there a way to force mail to ask from which account the email needs to be sent? I have multiple user accounts under mail and more often than I'd like I send an email from the wrong account. I know it is possible to put a default account, but I would like a way to make me sure I am checking the account I am using before I can send the email, like leaving it "blank". Is there an app around doing something similar to that?

I would add this as a comment instead of an answer if I had enough reputation.

An untested dirty solution might be to add another mail account with incorrect login info (so you can't actually send mail from it), and set this account to be the default account for sending new messages (see NEO's comment).

This way, if you forget to change the sending account, it will fail to send (it'll get stuck in your Outbox, I believe; obviously not the ideal solution if you don't think you would notice this!)


Any way to recover Yosemite download from AppStore? When I opened the folder of previously paid-for apps on the AppStore in order to download Yosemite, I inadvertently clicked the "X" mark next to the "Download" button. This removed Yosemite from the list. Any way to get it back?

In the App Store, Store => View my Account, In the Account Information window, the item Hidden Items => Hidden Purchases: Unhide any hidden, redownloadable Purchases.

Click Manage, You'll see a list hidden purchases which you can UNHIDE.


SSD adapter for optical drive I'm going to add a SSD drive to my macbook pro.
I'm wondering if the optical drive adapter can have any influence on the disk speed, taking it down from a SATA III to a SATA II or I.

Regarding SATA I, II and III and getting the best speeds speeds — it really depends on what specification your machine is, and what adapter you get.

I would suggest you install the SSD in place of your original HDD, that way you don't lose out on the SSD's potential because of an adapter:

MacBook Pros from Early 2011 and onwards do have SATA III (6 Gbit/s) connectors for their main HDD compartment.
But ones from Mid 2010 and before have SATA II (3 Gbit/s).

In either case, I would install the SSD there, and then install the HDD in the optical bay, because:

From what I know, newer MacBook Pros support SATA III in their SuperDrive bay — so to take advantage of it, you'll need to get an optical bay adapter bracket that supports it too.
MacBook Pros from around 2011 (and older) have SATA II in the optical bay.

To find out what you have, go to Spotlight (the magnifying glass in the top-right of your screen), and type "System Information", open that app, go to Hardware > Serial-ATA > Link Speed and it should say there.


OSX 10.8 - How to keep a custom dock for all users that login I have an iMac with OSX 10.8, joined to a work domain. I want to get create a custom dock and save it so all users will see my custom dock when they log in. I've done some Google searches and everything seems to point to these steps:

Create dock how you want it
Copy ~/library/preferences/com.apple.dock.plist to /system/library/user\ template/english.lproj/library/preferences

I've done this and then logged in as a new user, but am seeing a different dock than I created. I've also tried copying com.apple.dock.db to English.lproj/library/preferences as well, but to no avail.

The new users that will be logging in are network accounts.

Am I missing something?

Dug up my notes from when I first modified the user template in our base images.  Ran back through the process, changing the default Dock to have about 15 items, on a fresh Mac and these steps worked.  I did a lot of this from the command line, so as to not fuss with changing/reverting permissions using Finder.

Arrange your Dock however you would like for it to appear on new user accounts, changing the orientation and adding/removing applications.

Browse to ~/Library/Preferences and copy the com.apple.Dock.plist file to your desktop.

Open Terminal and start a root session by typing: sudo -s

Enter your current account's password when prompted

Copy the copy of your modified dock preference file from your desktop to the User Template in your Mac's System folder.: cp ~/Desktop/com.apple.Dock.plist System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj/Library/Preferences/

That should do the trick.  I tested this on a fresh Mac by logging into both a Guest account and a new (created after the above steps) standard user account, both accounts showed the proper Dock with 15~ items.
It shouldn't be necessary with these steps but if you run into trouble you should verify that the /System/Library/User Template folder has permissions set to: System - Read/Write & Everyone - No access.


Converted from a basic disk to a dynamic drive in Boot Camp I got a MacBook Pro and installed Windows 10 using Boot Camp and all was fine. I then needed to create a 50GB NTFS partition, when Windows prompted me to convert to a dynamic disk, I mistakenly hit enter.

When I rebooted PC, the Mac option was gone. Could you please help me to restore my Mac partition and data?

Multiple people have hit the exact same issue that you described. As per Microsoft documentation, other operating systems like macOS and Linux do not understand Dynamic Disks.
Fortunately, what you did can be reverted. It's not straightforward, but it is 100% possible using the open-source utility named TestDisk. Do try it out -- there's some pain involved, but it will be worth the result.


How to change label of a contact field with only the keyboard? In Apple Contacts, one can choose between several "labels" for each field in a contact, such as work and home for an email address, or spouse and mother for a related name. I'd like to use my keyboard to do this so that I can add contact information as fast as possible.

As far as I know, I can navigate between fields by pressing tab on my keyboard, but I don't know how to change a label. I have to click on it.

How can I change a label using only my keyboard?

NB: It's insufficient to use templates as a workaround for me.

If you go to system preferences , accessibility, voice over training, it teaches you how to move around screen and select controls all with using the keyboard.


firefox mac os: how to remap cmd+r to f5? I'm used to hit the f5 key for reloading page on linux/windows. Is there a way to remap reload page shortcut cmd+r to f5 on mac os?

You can remap any shortcut on macOS - so long as the item you wish to change has a Menu entry.

To demonstrate on Safari - I don't have Firefox..

Original menu -

So, to change it - System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts >App Shortcuts
Click the + button, set your required app, the menu exact name & your new key command

& here is your new menu -


Will iOS7 apps run fine on iPhone 4? Some apps like Evernote and Superevent require iOS7, and have been "optimized" for iPhone 5 and above. Will such apps work fine an iPhone 4 that has been upgraded to iOS7.1? On a forum I heard that upgraded iPhones have "missing frameworks" or something, so I don't want to buy this iPhone if I cannot run Evernote and Superevent.

"Optimized" apps are adapted for the bigger screen sizes of later iPhones, they may also include functionality which requires new hardware only available in these models (e.g. for Touch ID). Besides that apps which run under iOS 7 run on all hardware supporting this iOS version.


Is there a way to permanently remove the iBooks app from a device? I am trying to remove the app completely as I do not want it as it takes up a third of my memory on my iPad. Is there any way of removing it altogether please??

Unfortunately Apple does not allow you to remove the app completely, however if you go inside the app and delete all the books and PDF's the app should be less than 5mb.

(Which even on a 16gb phone is negligible)

To delete all books/PDFs:

Open iBooks
Make sure all books is selected in the top dropdown menu.
Click Select and select all books
Then delete

Then go to Settings -> General -> Storage and iCloud Usage -> Storage: Manage storage -> Find iBooks and it should be <5mb

If you would like to hide the app completely iOS 9.3 has a new glitch that allows you to do this, video for that is HERE.


Internet sharing via Thunderbolt Cable? I have a MacBook Pro connected to an iMac 27" Mid-2011 with a Thunderbolt cable. I use this for Target Display Mode.
My iMac is connected to the Internet via an Ethernet cable, and I would like to share that connection to my MacBook Pro, using the Thunderbolt cable. Is it possible to use Internet Sharing to do this?
I've tried using the settings below, but they don't work. While the "Thunderbolt Bridge" has a self-assigned IP, the "Thunderbolt Internet" connection is dead. In the image Wi-Fi on the MacBook is On, but if I switch it Off, there is no Internet connection at all.
I'm using the Thunderbolt-to-Thunderbolt cable.
iMac ("Sender"):
MBP ("Receiver"):

Update: Seems to work OK
Thunderbolt Bridge Internet Sharing now appears to work. On the receiving MacBook, the Thunderbolt Bridge service is placed on top and has a "green" marker. I get Internet access even if I disconnect the Wi-Fi, so it does indeed work.
However, I'm not sure what changed, except that I might've restarted the computers once or twice.

It is possible to share Internet from Ethernet to Thunderbolt!

Your gateway (iMac) Internet Sharing settings are ok:
Share your connection from: Ethernet > to computers using: Thunderbolt bridge

Choose the Thunderbolt Bridge device in the network preferences of the  client and set Configure IPv4 to Using DHCP.

Open Terminal on both Macs and enter ifconfig respectively.
The gateway (your iMac) should show a bridge device bridge0 crowded with the Thunderbolt devices (probably en2 & en3) with the IP-address 192.168.2.1:
...
bridge0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    options=63<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,TSO4,TSO6>
    ether 6a:aa:ca:11:23:00
    inet6 fe80::68aa:caff:fe11:2300%bridge0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x8
    inet 192.168.2.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.2.255
    Configuration:
        id 0:0:0:0:0:0 priority 0 hellotime 0 fwddelay 0
        maxage 0 holdcnt 0 proto stp maxaddr 100 timeout 1200
        root id 0:0:0:0:0:0 priority 0 ifcost 0 port 0
        ipfilter disabled flags 0x2
    member: en2 flags=3<LEARNING,DISCOVER>
            ifmaxaddr 0 port 6 priority 0 path cost 0
    member: en3 flags=3<LEARNING,DISCOVER>
            ifmaxaddr 0 port 7 priority 0 path cost 0
    nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD>
    media: autoselect
    status: active
...

The client (your MacBook Pro) should also show a bridge device bridge0 probably containing en1 (a MBP without Ethernet) or en2 (a MBP with Ethernet) and maybe another en device. Usually its IP-address is 192.168.2.2.
...
bridge0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    options=63<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,TSO4,TSO6>
    ether 6a:aa:ca:22:11:00
    inet 192.168.2.2 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.2.255
    inet6 fe80::68aa:ca22:fe11:e000%bridge0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x8
    Configuration:
        id 0:0:0:0:0:0 priority 0 hellotime 0 fwddelay 0
        maxage 0 holdcnt 0 proto stp maxaddr 100 timeout 1200
        root id 0:0:0:0:0:0 priority 0 ifcost 0 port 0
        ipfilter disabled flags 0x2
    member: en1 flags=3<LEARNING,DISCOVER>
            ifmaxaddr 0 port 6 priority 0 path cost 0
    nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD>
    media: autoselect
    status: active
...

If the network 192.168.2.0/24 is already occupied by the Ethernet network, the next network 192.168.3.0/24 will be used.

If Ethernet to Thunderbolt Internet Sharing is enabled, the Target Display Mode doesn't work reliably here!


MacBook Pro randomly shutting down I have the latest MacBook Pro and am finding that it is randomly shutting down when switching users. This does not happen every time but has happened 7-10 times since I bought it. Should I get it checked out or is this a common bug in Lion?

There was a firmware update for the MBP that addressed unexpected shutdowns...might try that and see if it solve the problem. Look here


Safari won't enter fullscreen I'm currently running Safari 5.1.4 on Mac OS X Lion 10.7.3, and after bringing it out of the fullscreen mode, I quit safari using Command+Q.

When I restarted my Mac, for some reason, Safari won't return to fullscreen mode despite attempts to click on the icon on the upper right hand corner or by going through the View menu manually. ( I've also tried the short cut keys as well, Control + Command + F, to no avail).

Is there a way to fix this?

I just solved this problem by quitting safari and reopening it again. Once it's open, i just go into fullscreen mode again and it responded nicely.


Are there common causes of a text message sound in the night, but no text message? My iPhone 3GS has made the text message sound twice at like 3:30 am but when I look at it there is no text.

This is hard to explain to my husband, it's making us both paranoid! Can I look somewhere to figure out what's happening?

It sounds like you have another app that may be giving you untimely notifications. You can check by opening Settings.app > Notifications. Scroll through that list and tap on each application that you don't want sound notifications on. Scroll down slightly and turn Sounds off.

Unfortunately, there appears to be no (easy) way to look up notifications logs. I say easy, because notifications logs should be accessible with a jailbreak, however, as of writing, there is no jailbreak available for iOS 6 - if you have that installed.

As a last resort, if you are on iOS 6, you can also schedule Do-Not-Disturb times, from when you go to bed to when you get up. One thing you could do to verify that it is indeed the text tone, is change the text tone to something different. If the different sound goes off at night again (or anytime without a text message actually appearing to come in), that would narrow it down to it indeed being a pseudo-text-notification. At that point, Do-Not-Disturb, would seem like a reasonable "hack".


Can I change the clock on the 6th gen Nano to digital instead of analog? Everyone wants a iPod Nano watch, right?  All the videos I see are on an analog clock (you know, the one with hands.)

Can you change the clock to digital, rather than analog?

The 6th gen Nano can now be updated with a software update which introduced the features from the 7th gen, including 16 watch faces, some of which are digital.

Version 1.2 of the iPod nano software brings improved fitness features (which are better able to detect and track walking or running work outs), as well as the new single icon scrolling interface, which replaces the 4×4 icon grid. You can switch back to small icons or turn off home screen items altogether from the Settings menu.
Last but not least, you’ll get access to all the new iPod nano clock face options.


Is there a max price limit for in app purchases? I would like to know if there is a max price limit for an in-app item.
I couldn't get a direct answer from Apple.

The highest tier is tier 87. This equates to $999.99 or £699.99.

Source: App Store Pricing Matrix (requires iTunes Connect; dynamic link)


Keyboard shortcut in finder to launch >share via>airdrop I'm for a way to share a group of selected files I have selected in the finder window, via airdrop, with a simple keyboard shortcut. since you can use cmd+c to copy, I thought there had to be a way I could use comd+option+a to quickly make the selected files be shared via airdrop, but I am having no luck in finding a way to do so. I need to do this as some of the environments I'm in do not have great signal to power my hotspot, but I can compress photos for media purposes, and get them out instantly by airdropping to my phone, and sending via iMessage. I am decently fluent in automator, and have tried a few workarounds within the simple drag and drop. utilities, while searching google every which way from Sunday for help, and finally thought I would ask the question myself.

to be more clear when I press the keyboard shortcut, I would like for it to select this menu item.

which should bring up this screen.

You can go to System prefrensces --> Keyboard --> Choose shortcuts from the menu above --> Choose "App shortcuts" from the side menu and click the + button. After that choose Finder and you will get a box with two text boxes.
Fill the first with exactly "AirDrop" (notice the A and D are capital) and fill the other box with the shortcut you wish the assign with this action and thats it.


How to disable emoji on Chinese keyboard in OS X? (Related: disabling emoji systemwide) I use the Chinese keyboard on OS X Mavericks, and I'm sure this is the case for other versions of OS X, where when I type in Chinese, like 爱情 and emoji like hearts come up.. which is annoying because the emoji takes up a space that otherwise would be filled with relevant characters and I don't use emoji. While not urgent, it'd be nice if I could just get rid of them once and for all.

I've looked through the keyboard settings for Chinese and couldn't find an option to disable the emoji and also did some Googling online if you can do a system-wide disable of emoji, and couldn't find anything.

The following method is produced on OS X 10.9.

The emoji definition file is at /usr/share/mecabra/zh/common/emoji.plist.

You just replace it with an empty plist file (back it up first). The input method will not start again if you simply remove or rename the file. I use the following Python code:

from plistlib import dump

dump({}, open('emoji.plist', 'wb'))

The Python version I use is 3.4. You have to use sudo to replace the file.

Then you reload the input method by doing killall SCIM, and then activate the input method again. If the SCIM process fails to start, log out and log in again. Now the Chinese input method would be emoji-free.

PS: I like the emoji feature. Emoji is the first reason I use the Apple Chinese input method rather than other third party ones.


How can I install Mac OS 10.4 (Tiger) on a Mac without a DVD drive? I have an iMac G3 that does not have a DVD drive, which was gifted to me along with install media for Mac OS 10.0-10.4. When I received it, it had Mac OS 10.4 on it, but I have since wiped the hard drive and am installing my way back up to it (I'm currently on 10.3).

However, I'm not sure how to install Mac OS 10.4 (Tiger) since it comes on a DVD, but this iMac doesn't have a DVD drive. The original owner said something about how they put Tiger on an iPod to install it, but didn't remember the details. I could probably scrounge up an iPod if I need to, but I'd also be interested to know if there are other ways to install Tiger on a Mac without a DVD drive.

If you are looking for old MacOS Versions you can go to the download site of https://developers.apple.com and get an old version of MacOS. I didn't see your particular 10.4 Version, but I did see 10.3.9 and 10.5 Leopard.
The different downloads can be found here. You can download them to your desktop and install it.


Ejecting CD from Mac after fresh install? I just installed Lion on a Mac Mini, and I can't get the CD to eject.  Currently, the computer boots up to the "Welcome" screen for new installs, where the Country/Region is selected.  I want to leave it at this point because I'm selling the machine, but want to eject the disk.

When booting up, I've tried several keyboard shortcuts, but none of them are working:

"C" -- to boot of the CD
"Cmd + Option + F + O" -- to bo into firmware mode where a cd can be ejected with a command
holding down the left-mouse button
"option" -- supposed to eject the disk
"Cmd + R" -- should go to the recovery console

I'm using a wireless keyboard, which wasn't having a problem loading up Cmd+R menu before I did install.  I'm guessing the "Welcome" screen is bypassing all other commands.  Seems weird though.  I wonder if my wireless keyboard decided to start delaying when it connects with the computer.

Any ideas?

In the past when I have had issues with discs not ejecting I would restart holding option until a screen is displayed that will ask to boot from either the CD or the internal HDD, without making a selection hit the eject key. Then you can shut the computer down then.


Apple Remote Desktop over internet "without" port forwarding Is it possible using Apple Remote Desktop to connect to computers over the internet (so different networks) ** without ** having to tweak the router settings of those devices?

PS currently using both Mojave and Catalina

Unfortunately, not any more. It used to be possible using Back to my Mac, which was abandoned at Mojave.

See Does Apple Remote Desktop connect to computers over the internet? for how it used to work.

Also ref: Wikipedia - Back to my Mac


How to use Terminal to send keystrokes? Is there a way for Terminal to simulate pressing multiple keys at once? For example, Shift+Ctrl+R?

I am sshing into OS X from a Windows client (PuTTY) and am wondering if I need to configure the client or is there a native way for OS X to emulate these commands on the receiving end.

You can use AppleScript on the Terminal:

osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to keystroke "r" using {control down, shift down}'


How do I export a single frame from iMovie 10.0.3? I might end up resorting to a screenshot, but I do not know

the movie's resolution, and would like an image at actual size.

I have tried lots of methods that came up when I searched online.

The only one that worked for me was a screenshot, but that runs into the size issue.

Some sources suggested various options under the "Share" button, but none of those options come up when I click that button.        The options that actually show up for me are

Theater  and  Email  and  iTunes  and  YouTube  and

Facebook  and  Vimeo  and  CNN Report  and  File .

Some sources suggested a "right-click", or showed a menu being brought up looks

exactly like those that come up from right clicks.        However, I have tried button+click

for each button from among  fn , control , option , command , shift  ,    both on the

normal display and the full-screen display, and none of those brought up any such menu.

Some sources suggested starting by copying a small segment of the movie into a new project.

However, I cannot figure out any way of creating a new project, and although I can easily

create a new event, I can't figure out any way of getting a significant part of the window to

correspond to the new event, whereas the sources I mentioned in my previous sentence

show that having been done for the projects.  If I instead drag the segment over

the name of the new event and let go, then it moves the entire movie to the new event.

Other than just taking a screen-shot without knowing whether-or-not

the screenshot is at the actual resolution, is there any way to

extract a single frame from iMovie 10.0.3 that actually works?

(In particular, a way of playing it at actual size that lets me advance frame-by-frame would suffice.

However, bear in mind that I do not know the actual size.)

In my copy of iMovie (v10.1.6) you can do this easily:

File > Share > Image...

And it will prompt you to save a jpeg of the current frame.

Alternatively export a high quality video ("Theatre" ?) go to the frame you want to capture and select Copy from the Edit menu. Open Preview.app and select File > new From Clipboard and you have your screen capture.


securityd using 100% CPU and polluting system.log Since I upgraded to Mavericks, I often have the following processes using full CPU power:

securityd
syslogd
kernel_task

I guess securityd contains a bug, because it is polluting /var/log/system.log with thousands of messages per second, and the system can not follow up.

Here is an example of messages I get:

Nov 11 15:55:10 localhost securityd[22]: assertion failed: 13A603: libxpc.dylib + 44365 [4554927A-9467-365C-91F1-5A116989DD7F]: 0x13
Nov 11 16:14:47 --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Nov 11 15:55:10 localhost securityd[22]: assertion failed: 13A603: libxpc.dylib + 26642 [4554927A-9467-365C-91F1-5A116989DD7F]: 0x13
Nov 11 16:14:47 --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Nov 11 15:55:10 localhost securityd[22]: assertion failed: 13A603: libxpc.dylib + 44365 [4554927A-9467-365C-91F1-5A116989DD7F]: 0x13
Nov 11 16:14:47 --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Nov 11 15:55:10 localhost securityd[22]: assertion failed: 13A603: libxpc.dylib + 26642 [4554927A-9467-365C-91F1-5A116989DD7F]: 0x13
Nov 11 16:14:47 --- last message repeated 1 time ---

I believe this is a critical issue, as it makes Mac OS X is extremely slow and unresponsive.

Killing securityid doesn't help. The process is recreated, and keeps polluting syslogd.

If I reboot the entire system, everything seems ok for a while, before the same issue happens again. I didn't figured out what triggers this issue yet.

I have the same problem with securityd occupying high CPU on a Mac, it's caused by Source Tree credentials in Keychain Access. Removing the login data of SourceTree in KeyChain restored my CPU usage back to normal levels.


How can one fix a Mac OS App Store that stops updating? I've been occasionally (but annoyingly) noticing a situation with Mojave (I've never seen it in OS versions before Mojave) where I know that an app purchased through the AppStore has an update available, but the AppStore will not show that the app needs to be updated. In order to get the update, I have to delete the app and then redownload it.

I first noticed this for Agenda. Then the problem went away for a while, and apps that I purchased through the AppStore updated automatically.

Now it is happening for Ulysses. Specifically, Ulysses had updated automatically to version 16 on my iPhone and iPad, and since it is always updated at the same time on all platforms, I launched the AppStore to check to see whether it had been updated on my MacBook Pro. The app is still at version 15.2. When I launch the AppStore, I see this:

So it was updated on the AppStore 16 hours ago. Notice how it shows "Open" in the top right of the screenshot? Well, if I click that, it does launch Ulysses -- version 15.2.

In addition to the auto update issue, I noticed by chance that the App Store showed download arrows for iWork apps -- when they were clearly installed on my MBP’s internal flash drive. I had the insight that something might be wrong with Spotlight. After I rebuilt the Spotlight index, not only did the App Store properly recognize that I had the iWork apps installed, but automatic updating appears to have been restored.

So it’s obvious that the AppStore relies on Spotlight for its update mechanism.


dual-boot (ElCapitan and Mojave) on a Mac Pro 5,1? I have a 2012 Mac Pro 5,1, running El Capitan.  I wish to make it a dual-boot system, El Capitan and Mojave.  I understand that I must install High Sierra preliminary to Mojave, and must install a "metal"-capable graphics card (I've purchased, but not yet installed, a Sapphire PULSE Radeon RX 580).

I have my El Capitan system on a 240GB SSD; user directories are on a separate HDD.  I've created a 2nd partition on the SSD and done a clean install of High Sierra there.   The installer made it an APFS volume, so when I am booted into El Capitan, I cannot select High Sierra as my Startup Disk (El Capitan cannot "see" the APFS volume in System Prefs).  I can select High Sierra using the Startup Manager (⌥ Option during startup). But my understanding is that once I install the new GPU (prior to upgrading to Mojave) that the Startup Manager will not work (no boot screen)  Thus, once I boot into El Capitan, there is no way to then boot into High Sierra.

Is it possible to resolve this?  I've read that it's possible to install High Sierra on an HFS+ partition, but not Mojave.  Perhaps I can live with High Sierra and Mojave as my two boot options instead, if I can get my older apps to work on High Sierra?  But even then, without a boot screen, it's impossible to get to recovery disks etc (what happens if the boot drive fails?).  Is the only option to obtain a GPU that supports the boot screen?  Apparently macvidcards.com sell such cards and could modify mine, but they appear very sketchy, from searches I've done.

EDIT: This post may partially be a wild-goose chase - my apologies. I've determined I can probably run all my apps under High Sierra (and possibly under Mojave) - I was mistaken/confused originally - so it's looking like I may not need to boot ElCap anymore.  But there may be other users who do need to, so I still think it's a discussion worth having.   However, the boot-screen issue remains - in particular being able to boot from recovery partitions or external media.

One possible solution is to install rEFInd Boot Manager. This is free software which can be configured many different ways. Below is a suggested configuration.

By default, rEFInd installs in the EFI partition. You can then configure rEFInd to either boot El Capitan or Mojave. The default operating system to boot can be set directly from the operating system. There is simple AppleScript application you can download which will do this. As example of the application is shown below.


MacBook Pro RAM upgrade causes endless reboot I recently acquired a MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid-2010) that has 4GB RAM (2x2GB) and according to Apple, the unit should be able to handle 8GB RAM. I bought 2 DDR3 PC3-8500 4GB from memorystock.com and when I installed the pair of them, the laptop would go into a continuous reboot cycle. I have checked the EFI and SMC. The EFI required an update, which I performed. The SMC is up to date.

Here's the weird thing: I have gone through every permutation that includes both of the new RAM sticks in combination with one of the old 2 GB sticks. The system boots without a problem if it's only 6GB total. If I use both 4GB sticks, endless loop.

I'm at a loss.

Well, it turns out that after I RMA'd the RAM that I got from Memorystock.com, the replacement RAM works fine.

Problem solved. I just thought that I'd pass that along...


Can the iPhone 6/6+ Front Facing Camera shoot at 240 fps? Can the front facing camera of iPhone 6/iPhone 6 plus achieve the 240 fps slow mo capability? I searched and cannot find information about this. Any help would be appreciated.

Nope. Front facing FaceTime HD camera cannot take video at 240fps. Only the rear iSight camera on the iPhone can do that. You won't find any information about this is because it's understood if that were available the company would have it very well advertised.


unsyncing an iphone 4 Someone synced my iphone 4 with their ipad without my knowledge or permission. I have tried to find a setting or action on my iphone to "unsync" my phone from the ipad or other devices, but was unsuccessful. what can i do now?

What data is syncing with the iPad?  It sounds like the other person logged into their iCloud account on your phone which would give you any or all of: mail, contacts, calendars, reminders, safari bookmarks, notes, passbook, keychain, photos.  Is that what you're seeing?  If so you need to log your phone out of their iCloud account.  Go into Settings -> General -> iCloud and at the bottom you'll see "Delete Account".

If the other person enabled Find My iPhone with their iCloud account you MUST have them disable it on your phone, which they can do that directly on the phone or on iCloud.com.  There's no other way to disable it.  If you try a full reset the phone will boot back up with the Activation lock (aka: iCloud lock) switched on and it'll be nothing but a paperweight until the other person unlocks it.


Safari makes my MacBook incredibly slow - what to do? System configuration

I'm working with a MacBook 2,16 GHz (13" white with the max. 3 GB RAM from about 2007) and "Snowleopard" OS 10.6.8.

The problem: performance

After a while, the MacBook becomes incredibly slow and unresponsive, because Safari and the Safari Web Content process use all available RAM.
At the moment, e. g. Safari Web Content uses >1,4 GB physical RAM.

Sure, I also have a lot of other Applications open, but normally Safari seems to be the one that regularly uses most of the RAM.

Virtual memory might be an issue - the System partition with OS X is 100 GB in size, after a reboot I have about 17 GB free drive space, at the moment there are 12.7 GB free drive space.

I admit, that I sometimes have several windows with maybe 10..20 Tabs open in Safari, but it is very difficult to avoid that for me.

When the MacBook gets unresponsive, I'm often using the purge command in terminal, which helps for a short while but not for a long time
Closing Safari and starting fresh also helps (but is annoying)
Restarting the Mac also helps, but I do not want to do that each day - I usually do it every 5..12 days.

Many websites have auto-play flash.

Disable it in Safari, and you will be prompted to play them if you click on it.

Set Adobe Flash to ASK!

That way all the unwonted one wont eat up your memory.


How to increase the middleclick area of the Magic Mouse? I am using BetterTouchTool to set the gesture "Single middle click" to "Middleclick". I have problems hitting the small middleclick-area of the mouse at once :-/

So is there a way to increase the middleclick-area?

(Alternatively I use a two finger tap as middleclick, but I'd prefer the real thing :-))

Unless you're completely devoted to Better Touch Tool, another option (and one that I've been using myself for the past couple of years) is MagicPrefs. It gives you the same functionality as Better Touch Tool, as well as allowing you to set the area on the mouse that responds to the touch gestures.


iPod touch can't get IP address from Airport Express I've got the following setup:

DSL modem connected via Ethernet to an Airport Express
A second Airport Express extending the first
Both Airports Express are the current model, running version 7.6.4 of their software.

Between the two I have nine working wireless client devices, mostly Macs and iOS devices.

However my 5th-gen iPod touch can't get an IP address. It connects to the wireless network, but keeps a self-assigned IP address. I can see this address both on the iPod touch and in Airport Utility (on a Mac). So I know it's connecting, but for some reason it can't get an address.

I've tried:

Rebooting the iPod touch
Resetting network settings on the iPod touch
Resetting all settings on the iPod touch
Upgrading the iPod touch from iOS 8.0.2 to iOS 8.1

No change. I could do a full wipe/restore on the iPod touch, but with everything above already failing, I'm skeptical it would help.

As often happens the solution was just to reboot all the things. In this case it eventually turned out that the DSL modem (which is also the router) was the culprit.


installing software on MacBook in /usr/bin I'm trying to install a set of software tools, the "PureScript compiler", on my Mac. I actually installed an older version with npm, like

sudo npm install -g purs

I need to get the latest version, and it seems to be available only as a direct download from here: https://github.com/purescript/purescript/releases and not yet available through npm.

Right now, the old version of purs is in /usr/local/bin. Should I just download this new version and copy it there? Or is there a better way to install this?

You cannot install to /usr/bin because that directory is protected by SIP

However, /usr/local/ is not covered and you can write to that directory.   Using /usr/local/bin is perfectly fine for what you're attempting to do as it's both writeable and in your PATH environment variable.


Pages legal text template I am trying to make a 28 line legal template in Pages 5.2 but I am having trouble making the boxes work. Does pages have a CA Superior Court template. If not, do you know if Microsoft for Apple has one. I have looked it up on line and there is no data on it.

MacBook Air 10.9.4

For MS Office you can download the Template here:


Fix "Permission Denied" when copying files Whenever I try to copy all the content of a usb to my Mac partition it says Permission Denied

The command I am using is

cp -R /dev/disk1 /dev/disk0s3

My error message is:

/dev/disk0s3: permission denied.

I have tried to set myself to super and still didn't work, as well I have all write/read permissions on the hard drive.

Is there a way I can buffer the copy by coping all the files to a folder then partition. I need all the contents of the usb to be copied and I believe there are hidden files and partitions on the usb that need to be copied. (is it a recovery usb I want to put on the recovery partition i created and no i cannot just create one, this recovery contents important files of mine)

You can't use filesystem commands (cp, mv, ls, etc.) on devices (/dev/*).

If you want to copy everything, bit-for-bit, from volume to volume, you'll need an app like Super Duper or Carbon Copy Cloner.


Should time machine backups be encrypted I am new to the Mac and was setting up my Time Machine. However, it seems Time Machine also backs up information in the keychain.

I was wondering if that means I should use an encrypted disk to store Time Machine backups. (assuming that the rest of the data on my Mac isn't that sensitive, to warrant encrypting the disk otherwise. But my passwords to login into various accounts, I don't want falling into wrong hands)

At the same time, I have read in some forums that encrypting backups sorta defeats the purpose - since that means I might not be able to access my backed up data when I need it. This is one such forum discussion. (The discussion also seemed to imply that if something goes wrong, getting back my data from an encrypted disk might be hard even if I know the encryption password. Is that true?)

Also, is performance a concern when using encrypted backups, assuming encryption is recommended? From what I understand, since the CPU is much faster than the disk, there should be no real performance hit. Yet, I have read on forums that Time Machine becomes really slow if encryption is turned on. Again, is this true?

Finally, if an unencrypted Time Machine backup disk falls into the wrong hands, will my keychain data be accessible to only if the finder knows my Mac OS X password? Or are there ways to get that information even otherwise?

TL;DR

Is encryption recommended for Time Machine backups, assuming a very basic need for security of data from falling into wrong hands. In particular, I would like to restrict access to my keychain data using encryption, but only if it doesn't compromise my ability to access the backups when I really NEED them, and there isn't a major performance hit.

To answer your first question about the keychain and whether you should encrypt backups: the passwords in your keychain are already encrypted, that's why you always have to type a password (by default your login password) to show stored passwords. So there's no immediate need to encrypt.
Of course, you could add Time Machine encryption to provide a further layer of security. This is possible starting with OS X Lion and Mountain Lion (from http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427):

OS X Lion and Mountain Lion let you encrypt the Time Machine backup
external drive using FileVault 2.

FileVault2 also uses your login password, though. So if the bad guys are able to guess or crack that password, they will have also access to your keychain information. Choosing different passwords for login and for accessing your keychain would protect the keychain passwords in such an event.
Either way, use strong passwords, password quality is of foremost importance to protect your data.
EDIT:
The OP asked in a comment how to set different passwords for login and keychain. Here is how:

Open Utilities>Keychain Access.

Right click each keychain and select 'Change Password for Keychain XYZ':

If you prefer to use your current password as keychain password and change your login password, log in using another account and change your account's password from System Preferences>Users & Groups. That will only change your login password, not your keychain password.


Is there a way to fix the slow space switching animation in Yosemite? I'm a developer and use spaces extensively. I have my terminal in one space, my editor in another, etc.

When I use ctrl + arrow key to switch to the left or right the animation is incredibly slow (better than in older versions, but still). This is killing it for me.

Is there a way to turn this animation off or influence its speed?

I know there was a command in Snow Leopard that could do that

defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces-swoosh-animation-off -bool YES

but it doesn't work anymore. Does anyone know a trick to fix this?

Thanks!

Edit:

I filled a bug for this with Apple. The Radar number is 19169435. I would encourage you to also file the report at https://bugreport.apple.com/. Note in your description that it is a duplicate of the above bug report number to help the support staff categorize and prioritize this bug.

I'm using TotalSpaces (http://totalspaces.binaryage.com/), a small tool a bit more flexible than spaces. There you can switch off transitions in the preferences.


Why Mac Handoff shows the model of my iPhone so weirdly? My Mac's dock has been showing the Handoff option very weirdly for around 6 months now (can't remember if it was already like this before Catalina). Is this normal now, aka does this happen on everyone's Mac? If not what should actually be on the text, and how to fix this?

No it's not normal. Hard to say what the issue was, but after changing phones it's now showing a much less verbose text:


iOS storage disappearing I've got an iPhone 5s 8gb with about 1.4gb of unused storage.

Within the last week this storage goes down to zero multiple times a day just through normal use. When this happens iOS "cleans" all apps and frees up the storage back to 1.4gb.

I've turned app background refresh off but still hasn't improved the situation.

I suspect there's an app using storage without my knowing it.

Is it possible to find the app causing the problem without restoring factory settings and reinstalling apps one at a time?

Plug your device into your computer. Download the app iFunbox. Go to the root file system, then open the directory "Application Archives" then delete all of the ipa files.

Another alternative (without ads) is  iMazing  it does an amazing job with my files. (It's a paid app)


How can I open a Google Maps URL in Apple Maps? Is there a way for me to convert a Google Maps URL to an Apple Maps-friendly format so it opens in the correct place?

I might be in the minority, but where I am, Apple Maps offers vastly superior driving directions.

You can simply copy and paste an URL from Google Maps (either from sharing with the Google Maps app), paste it in the Apple Maps search bar and it will resolve the correct location.

Google Maps short URL (of the form goo.gl) won't work and will need expansion before proceeding.

I've created myself a Workflow (soon to be named Shortcuts in iOS 12) to expand the URL automatically. You can force-touch an URL going to Google Maps and use this Workflow with the Workflow share extension.


Installation of RAM making MBP slow Is there any reason why the installation of a RAM, larger than recommended, cause MBP to slow during startup and during normal working?

I am trying to understand the cases I didn't foresee when I went for higher than recommended RAM.

I have:

mid-2012 13 inch MBP;
running macOS Sierra;
recommended RAM for this machine is 8GB but I installed 2X8 (aka 16) GB RAM replacing my earlier 2X2 (aka 4) GB RAM.

There can be several reasons.

Firsts, new RAM can be slower than your original RAM. Compare original RAM specification and the one you installed. For Macs manufacturers usually have specially tested and tuned RAM modules. Anything cheap will actually decrease performance.

Secondly, Mac allocates as much swap as you have RAM. Earlier your Mac allocated 4GB at start, now it has to allocate 16GB. If you do not have SSD, this will be much slower because the swap file has to be written to disk at start.


In Macbook, what are Thunderbolt MAC addresses for, if ethernet adapters provide ones? I think this answer and this one say that each ethernet adapter, such as USB-C-Gigabit Ethernet Adapter, has its own MAC address. So, that means Macbook (Pro) doesn't have a built-in ethernet card.

But I'm curious, what are the Thunderbolt MAC addresses then? In my MBP 13" (2015), networksetup -listallhardwareports command shows ethernet (MAC) addresses of Thunderbolt 1 and Thunderbolt 2. Also, the result of ifconfig -a contains bridge0 which has a MAC address.

What are they for, if every ethernet adapter decides the MAC address? Can I just ignore them?

Thank you.

You can connect two Thunderbolt-enabled Macs together using a Thunderbolt-to-Thunderbolt bridge connections, therefore you'd need each end to be able to identify itself.

More information here: https://9to5mac.com/2016/11/22/macbook-pro-thunderbolt-3-bridge-network-video/


iCloud photos deleted I recently did a backup on my phone and then proceed to delete all my photos, contacts etc. after the backup was completed. Another backup never took place after this and when I went to restore my information to a new iPhone all my pictures and contacts were gone but all my apps were still there. I went to my iCloud account and it show that I have no photos as well. Is there any way I can get at least my photos back? I’ve tried restoring older backups but no photos or contacts are on any of the backups. And yes my I set my settings to upload my pictures and contacts to my iCloud during backups.

iCloud is primarily a syncing mechanism and not a backup solution.  What this means is iCloud gives you access to all your files, pictures, contacts, etc. on any device that's logged-in with the same Apple ID.

The pictures and contacts are stored in iCloud and your other devices access it from there.  When you deleted the info from iCloud directly, you deleted the source files and not copies of the files.

However, there is something you can try. iCloud provides a 40-day grace period in which you can recover deleted photos and 30-day grace period for other types of files.  See this site for more detailed info.

Restore deleted photos

Log into iCloud from a computer and not a mobile device.
Go to Photos.
If the sidebar is not already visible, click the Open sidebar button on the top of the screen.
In the sidebar you should see a menu item named Recently Deleted.  Click on it.

You will see any recoverable images along with the days remaining until the image is permanently deleted.
Click on any image (or album, if available) you want to restore and click the Recover button on the top-right of the window.
Click Done.

Restore deleted files

Log into iCloud from a computer and not a mobile device.
Go to Settings.
Scroll down until you see the Advanced section.

Click on Restore Files.
You will see any files eligible to be restored
Click to check off the boxes to the left of the files you want to restore or click Select All if you really need to restore everything.
Click Restore Files.

Click Done.

Restore deleted contacts

Follow steps 1, 2, and 3 in 'Restore files' above.

Click on the Restore Contacts tab at the top of the window.
Select the contacts you want to restore.  Important: the restored contact will replace the contact on all devices signed-in with this Apple ID.

Click Done.


Exchange 2011 keeps asking for password I am running Outlook 2011 on Yosemite/10.10.3 with all the latest updates installed.

When I try to add an Exchange account to Outlook, it initially runs the sync just fine. However, for any subsequent requests, I keep getting an error saying that my username or password is incorrect. If I re-enter the password, the sync works again... till the very next sync. So, the credentials I'm entering are correct

The Mail.app is able to connect to this Exchange account with my credentials. I can verify that my account is not locked out since my other devices are able to sync.

So far, I've removed the Keychain entries for my Exchange and Mail.app for the same account and deleted/added the same account multiple times to the system. I've verified and repaired Keychain as well.

I'm stumped and can't figure out why this is happening.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Do you use VPN ?
If so exit and try with your local access:
As soon as you change the VPN away from your local coordinates (to another country normally) the modern email provider will consider this a hacker connect and will either ask your password or does not connect at all.


Can't grant Input Monitoring permission to Wacom drivers on macOS Catalina To preface, I am a procrastinator at updating my laptop. I just updated to macOS Catalina and I want to throw something at it.

My laptop: MacBook, Retina 12 inch, Early 2015; 1.1GHz Dual-Core Intel Core M; 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Running Catalina version 10.15.4

So my laptop is a 2015 MacBook. Previously running Mojave with Photoshop CS6 and a 2018 Wacom Intuos. Drivers up to date. No issues whatsoever, ran like a dream.

I just updated to Catalina which was apparently a huge mistake. First, CS6 no longer functions. Frustrating, but I upgraded to Creative Cloud and it’s fine. My tablet started lagging to the point where it was virtually useless. The drivers were newest version but I figured something hadn’t synced right. So I completely wiped Wacom and set it up brand new, new drivers, etc.

Well if I thought updating was dumb, that was even dumber. Catalina’s security upgrades require apps to ask permission in order to read keystrokes, which is required for Wacom’s drivers, I learned today.

But it never asked for permission. So I went to manually add it via Input Monitoring and it doesn’t show up. Nothing shows up. It won’t let me manually add it. Research states that in order for you to add anything to Input Monitoring, you have to have an app that’s already requested permission in the list. I’ve tried installing, uninstalling, and reinstalling various apps that are supposed to ask permission but nothing is requesting keystroke access. Which is where I’m stuck.

Is there a way to force an app to request it again? I've set and reset permissions a dozen times, wiped and installed old driver versions, wiped and reinstalled new drivers, nothing is working. It keeps telling me I need to add Wacom to Input Monitoring but it won't request permission.

Unfortunately this problem affects everyone installing Wacom drivers on macOS Catalina, but at least there is a workaround. (Skip to Workaround at the end of this answer if you don't care about the explanation.)

How it's supposed to work

The way it's supposed to work on macOS Catalina is that you receive a permission prompt (like this one shown below) when you first use an application that needs to use Input Monitoring. But for some reason, the Wacom drivers never cause this dialog to appear.

Why Wacom's instructions don't work

Wacom has at least acknowledged the issue, but as you have discovered their instructions are incomplete! They say to drag WacomTabletDriver and WacomTouchDriver into the Input Monitoring list, but that's impossible on a stock installation of macOS Catalina because the list isn't even shown.

The list will never be shown, and the + button will be missing, until some other application requests Input Monitoring permissions.

Workaround

You'll need to install and activate at least one other application that can use Input Monitoring before you can finish setting up the Wacom drivers. Once you have the Wacom drivers working, you can remove any other applications you don't want to keep using. Here are some options:

CheatSheet is a small free utility program that's easy to install, and it's easy to quit/uninstall afterward.
ColorSnapper2 is another option. It's not free, but the trial version is enough to get the Input Monitoring prompt.
Discord - A popular chat platform.
Klokki.app - I've seen others use this.
BetterTouchTool can create the AEServer entry that is shown in the Wacom instructions.
Karabiner-Elements helps to configure custom key bindings.

Other cases

You're not the only person to be affected. I found a couple other cases here on Ask Different: 1 2 3 4. And on some other sites like Reddit and Apple Communities.


How to UNDO stopping OS X from writing Spotlight and Trash files? I tried stopping OS X from writing Spotlight and Trash files to a memory card.
The method by Metaxis to the question here "How to stop OS X from writing Spotlight and Trash files to memory cards and USB sticks?" works fine and I have used it many times, but this time I wasn't paying attention and have addressed the wrong folder.
The question how to stop in the original post

This is what I did including the responses and replacing my first name with first name and full name with myfullname:

MBP-van-firstname:~ myfullname$ mdutil -i off /Volumes/SD128MB
/Volumes/SD128MB:
2016-03-02 22:57:40.638 mdutil[1232:208844] mdutil disabling Spotlight: /Volumes/SD128MB -> kMDConfigSearchLevelFSSearchOnly
Indexing disabled.
MBP-van-firstname:~ myfullname$ rm -rf .{,_.}{fseventsd,Spotlight-V*,Trashes}
MBP-van-firstname:~ myfullname$ mkdir .fseventsd
MBP-van-firstname:~ myfullname$ touch .fseventsd/no_log .metadata_never_index .Trashes
MBP-van-firstname:~ myfullname$ cd -
-bash: cd: OLDPWD not set

So, where the action were supposed to happen in the targeted folder, they were in the wrong folder. How can I undo this?

What Metaxis described looks like it can be reverted with the following:

mdutil -i on /Volumes/yourUSBstick
cd /Volumes/yourUSBstick
rm -rf .fseventsd/no_log .metadata_never_index .Trashes
cd -

The first line with mdutil is the most important if you want your volume to index again, as it sets the indexing status for the volume back to on, according to the manual:

-i on | off
     Sets the indexing status for the provided volumes to on or off.  Note that indexing may be delayed due to
     low disk space or other conditions.

EDIT:

in your case (but this is specific to OP), you forgot to cd (change directory) into the volume before deleting the index files and adding a few files. You just need to delete the files you created locally (in your home folder):

rm -r .fseventsd/no_log .metadata_never_index .Trashes

No need to use mdutil to re-enable indexing on your drive as you did the first command right and only did a mistake after the second command.


Configuring yahoo messenger on iChat Is it possible to configure Yahoo Messenger on iChat? There are options in iChat to configure Google talk, yahoo messenger, AOL etc. So far I know it is possible to configure Google talk. But I did not get any document or evidence to configure Yahoo Messenger. I do not know why? Is it possible to fix this problem??? I am talking about Mac OS X Lion.

You will need to sign up for a Yahoo! account by going here.

Once you have done that, you can configure Yahoo Messenger in iChat by doing the following:

Open iChat
Open iChat Preferences by going to the menu item iChat > Preferences or by hitting ⌘ + , on your keyboard
Go to Accounts
Click the + button
Select "Yahoo" from the drop down menu under Account Type:

Authenticate using your Yahoo account credentials
Enjoy using iChat with Yahoo.


mount an unmountable drive I have a MacBook Pro with a root mounting sector with problems. It becomes like this due to password changing in safe mode.
Now of course it doesn't turn up any more.
I tried repair with disk utility
I tried CMD+R using terminal
I tried several reparing softwares to save data

All without any success.
Any idea at least how to save data?

Thanks

Use testdisk. (Freeware, http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk)

I've once had a disk that could not be read by the system nor anything. I just ran testdisk and was able to recover all of the data on the disk.


HomeBrew offloading package compilation My poor old 2008 aluminium MacBook isn't the only old piece of kit I have running homebrew packages, I really appreciate the ability to have a package manager in Mac OS, at least while I make my way to linux. However, even my 2014 iMac is feeling some weight from Homebrew package management. It's slow although very automated, I would like to speed things up a little on my older computers.

Is there any way, that the source code for packages like youtube-dl, aircrack-ng, or most non-bottled packages could be pre-compiled and installed as a binary file for Mac OS / OS X? Or at the very least, something similar to a .deb file (like a bottle), where the source code has been compiled and it's left to the system to appropriately decompress and copy files and libraries to their appropriate locations? Thanks!

By default, packages are installed in the way you describe... "Bottles" are precompiled binaries downloaded as compressed tape archives, the contents of which are then "poured" into the appropriate paths.

If you specify options, or use custom compile flags, then naturally brew will build from source. But if you for example, brew install nmap htop bmon, it will download the bottle for your system version and pour it along with any missing dependencies.

That being said, there are definitely situations where brew compiles from source, so to try to answer your question, how often is it that you find this a problem?

There's no way to set it up so that brew compiles on a different machine "automagically" (that is, unless you implement this as a feature and implement it into your installation of brew). You can imagine how this could be difficult; architecture differences aside, conflicts/dependencies needing to be resolved, the differences in environment, etc. would make this a nightmare.

If this is more of an occasional annoyance than a regular problem, what you might want to try is install whatever formula you want on the faster machine with --build-bottle. Then you can "bottle" the package yourself by running brew bottle to install on the slower machine.

I can't recommend this with any level of confidence though, since I don't know how well it would work for all formulae. You would need to be on the same OS/architecture, and the binaries will be compiled for the lowest common denominator CPU (unless you specify which one) so the build might perform worse, depending on which features it was designed to use.

If the difference in compilation time is so large that this seems like a viable route, the two machines might not even be compatible (I don't remember what the 2008 MacBook was, core 2?), and cross-compiling within brew would be a whole separate headache all on its own, you might be better off just not using a package manager at all and compiling/configuring the software yourself.


Do Powerbeats2 Use Bluetooth LE (4.0)? Yesterday I bought Powerbeats2 wireless in-ear headphones at Best Buy. I am wondering if they use Bluetooth LE or older Bluetooth technology, such as Bluetooth 2.1.

I've looked on Apple's website and Beats' website, but neither of them provide specs for the headphones.

Since Beats is an Apple subsidiary, I am assuming that this question is not off-topic.

Yes, it is Bluetooth 4.0. I've been using it for the past one year. Although Beats or Apple website do not provide this information this Engadget article explicitly mentions it.

  The Powerbeats² keep the (albeit modified) hook-over-the-ear design, but liberate heads from handsets via Bluetooth 4.0


Lost internet access after installing Find My iPhone I installed Find My iPhone and was unable to connect to the internet. I deleted the application and that fixed the issue. However, through iCloud it also installed on my iPad. I cannot delete it from there because there is no icon. When I go into setting and try to turn it off it won't let me because it cannot access the internet. How can I remove it from my iPad?

Did you actually purchase "Find my iPhone"? If you did you can delete the purchase.

You must have a computer around you with iTunes. Sign into your account then, Right click on the App in iTunes, select delete.


RAM - Improving performance on MacBook 13Inch Early 2011 What is better option to improve RAM performance eon MacBook 13Inch Early 2011:

Removing the original Apple RAM Memory slots of 2GB each (2 slots - each 2GB) and inserting brand new 2 slots of 4GB each
OR
adding 2 new slots of 2GB each ?

And, what is the best Non-Apple brand for compatible Memory Slots ?

thank you in advance

Finn

I have the MacBook 13" Late 2011 and this is what I upgraded to and it works perfectly fine and so much faster!

This set is specifically made to work in Apple MacBooks.

Crucial 8GB (4GBx2) - Amazon


How to change the Admin password from blank on OS X Lion? I bought this Mac several months ago, and when it first installed by the people in the Apple store, they set the password to blank.

At first it was ok, but now I can't install any programs because the Mac keep saying that the password is incorrect. Please help me. Thanks!

In Terminal.app type passwd, this will prompt you to enter a password for your account.

Another way is to Go into Users & Groups in System Prefereneces... and click on change password if possible. Not sure in the case of a blank password if that button will be active or greyed, since I never faced this situation before.


Can I specify the file name of an iOS Safari image upload? Safari on iOS allows to upload images to websites. However, the file always seems to be named image.jpg. This can be a problem, if the targeted website does not allow renaming uploaded files. Is it possible to make Safari let me choose a name or automatically use some unique name?

No, you can't do this unless the website allows it. The uploaded file will use the name of the file that you uploaded, and on iOS this is always image.jpg.

You can provide feedback to Apple regarding this at the following page:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/safari.html


Use OSX terminal to find out the CPU instructions set (AVX, SSE and such) I have different machines running OSX 10.12 and 10.13, which use different processors. I am trying to get from terminal, a string that can show me which CPU instructions are supported by that machine; so I can use the appropriate software (some of the software require specific instructions to be present on the CPU, and if that CPU does not support them, the software will either work incorrectly or crash).

I did check querying the system profiler via terminal but I can get only the CPU type and model, not the CPU instruction set that it support; and if I would do this by hand, getting every CPU model and checking online, it would take hours.

CPU instructions are these set of instructions like MMX, AVX, SSE; that allow your CPU to operate in a certain way. With years, they are added to the base CPU instruction set, so modern CPU these days support more than 15 different instruction types.

Enter

sysctl -a | grep cpu.feat

get a list like

machdep.cpu.features: FPU VME DE PSE TSC MSR PAE MCE CX8 APIC SEP MTRR PGE MCA CMOV PAT PSE36 CLFSH DS ACPI MMX FXSR SSE SSE2 SS HTT TM PBE SSE3 PCLMULQDQ DTES64 MON DSCPL VMX EST TM2 SSSE3 CX16 TPR PDCM SSE4.1 SSE4.2 x2APIC POPCNT AES PCID XSAVE OSXSAVE TSCTMR AVX1.0
machdep.cpu.feature_bits: 2286390173542120447

Alternatively (avoiding the grep and being a lot faster, which might help you run this often within a script)

sysctl machdep.cpu.features
sysctl machdep.cpu.features machdep.cpu.feature_bits

gives you just the list (or both) directly.

Or just use: sysctl machdep.cpu to get them all


No Router — SMB not working over WAN My home iMac is connected directly to my modem via ethernet. File Sharing is turned on.

If I turn on Internet Sharing and connect my Macbook to the resulting wifi network, I can access files on my iMac via Finder → Go → Connect to Server → smb://<my iMac's internal IP>

Since my iMac is connected directly to my modem, I should be able to use the same process to connect from work. I open Finder and type smb://<my home's external IP> Unfortunately, this leads to an error message ("There was a problem connecting to the server.")

Interestingly, my iMac also has screen sharing enabled. Unlike SMB, this works properly from both home and work.

How can I make SMB work over WAN?

Edit: Despite some security concerns that were raised in the comments, I would still like to know how to do this! I'm actively researching possible risks, but haven't found anything specific, and it's out of scope on this site. I want this to work natively in Finder.

As suspected by @klanomath in the comments (thank you!), the problem was that my ISP, Time Warner Cable, blocks port 445.

The solution was to change macOS's SMB listening port, which can be adjusted by editing /etc/services. Open the file and scroll down until you find two lines that read:

microsoft-ds    445/udp     # Microsoft-DS
microsoft-ds    445/tcp     # Microsoft-DS

On both lines, change 445 to a different, unused port. Save and reboot your computer†. From now on, you will need to append :port-number to the end of your IP address whenever you connect to your Mac via SMB.

Potential security issues aside, this solution feels very "clean" and allows me connect to my iMac via Finder, whereas a protocol such as sftp would require 3rd party software. While my own research has not turned up any concrete security risks affecting the latest version of macOS, anyone opening SMB to WAN should be sure to set a very strong password on their user account.

Credit to this answer on Superuser for pointing me in the right direction.

†If you opened the file in TextEdit or a similar graphical program, you may get a permissions error when you try to save. Either save in a different location and copy to /etc/ manually, or use sudo nano to avoid the problem.


Download app bundles from App Store to run on iOS Emulator on Mac I want to run an iOS app (eWeLink) using the Appetize service, which I believe is an emulator. My goal is to be able to control my light switches from my Mac using the eWeLink app. In order to do that, I have to get the app as a a .zip or .tar.gz file containing the compressed .app bundle. How do I get that .app bundle?

When I go to App Store, it just wants to download directly to my iPhone. The app is available, but I want the bundle.

There's multiple points to address here:

1) The Appetize service is not an emulator. It allows you to run native mobile apps in the browser in order to provide apps demos, training, testing, etc. However it does so not by emulating the ARM CPU of an iOS device, but instead works by running the Intel version of said apps natively on an Intel CPU - while providing a "simulated" operating system that maps onto the browser.

2) The app bundle you need for the Appetize service is usually obtained by building the app for the Xcode Simulator. This requires you to have the source code for the app. If the app you want to run on the Appetize service is not open source, and you have not developed it yourself (or otherwise obtained the rights for the source code) - you cannot use this method.

3) The apps you download from the App Store are meant for execution on ARM CPUs. They cannot be directly used with the Appetize service, as that requires Intel executables. However, if you do want to obtain the files, it is possible (contrary to the other answers to your question). The easiest way of doing this is to use iTunes to access the App Store and download the apps, which are then accesssible on your local disk drive. This requires you to use either iTunes 12.6.3 (or older) or one of the other solutions described here:

How do I download an iOS App (IPA) file to my Mac after iTunes 12.7 update?

4) Very recent development has shown that it is indeed in some cases possible to translate an app built for the ARM CPU for the App Store into an app built for the Intel CPU meant for the Xcode Simulator (or the Appetize service). This is done by exploiting the fact that Apple these days requires app submissions to include bitcode. You can read more about that here:

https://www.highcaffeinecontent.com/blog/20190518-Translating-an-ARM-iOS-App-to-Intel-macOS-Using-Bitcode

5) The most practical way of achieving your goal of running the eWeLink app on your Mac in order to control light switches is to run the Android version of the app through an Android environment for the Mac, such as for example BlueStacks.


Can I make GIMP work as a MacOS X Service? I would like to be able to use GIMP as a MacOS X Service. That is, I want to be able to select an image in a document, choose Services->Edit Image in GIMP, bring the image into GIMP, make changes, save it out, and have the image updated.

The Services menu worked really well in NeXTSTEP but most MacOS X users have no clue what it is for. It would be nice to be able to start using it again.

You could create a service like this with Automator:

It can't be used to for example edit an image embedded in a Pages document though.


Stop Mail from downloading attachments automatically How to stop Mail.app (version 7.0) on my Mac OSX 10.9 from downloading attachments automatically.

I have setup my Gmail account, and I want to be given an option to download attachments instead of having them downloading automatically.

Go to system preferences, select accounts. In accounts select Advanced and uncheck the option: "Automatically download all attachments"


Connecting AirPlay displays with a keystroke I have an Apple TV in the living room. I have a Mac mini in my office. I have a wireless keyboard and mouse that can easily reach between the two locations, but am not willing to walk between them to turn on Airplay.
I'd like to connect via AirPlay with a keystroke from my wireless keyboard, which would turn on Airplay to my living room computer. I would prefer this to be silently performed in the background.
This is apparently quite difficult. I spent two hours on the command line approach. I found no working commands. This is very surprising to me.
I've attempted connecting using Automator with a Run AppleScript action selecting the menu item as a service with a keystroke.
The AppleScript code:
on run {input, parameters}

    tell application "System Events"
        tell process "SystemUIServer"
            click (menu bar item 1 of menu bar 1 whose description contains "Displays Menu")
            key code 125
            key code 125
            keystroke return
            delay 5
        end tell
    end tell
    return input
end run

It works from Automator. It only runs when Finder is frontmost, and even then it requires me first to open the Finder > Services menu once (not even choose anything, just open that). This seems to be a known bug...
I need this command to work all the time, without any mouse input (because I cannot see my screen).
Any suggestions as to a viable path forward would be very much appreciated.

If you first brought finder to the front in the script, would it work:
   on run {input, parameters}
    tell application "Finder" to activate
    tell application "System Events"
        tell process "SystemUIServer"
            click (menu bar item 1 of menu bar 1 whose description contains "Displays Menu")
            key code 125
            key code 125
            keystroke return
            delay 5
        end tell
    end tell
    return input
end run


Home - Switch appears on my Login screen I need to know what to do because I was looking at accessibility settings today and now the log in screen has this on it:

Is this called a prompt? I was trying to learn the VO modifier commands and I was looking at Trackpad commander. I'm not sure what to do about this, or what has happened here.

How do I remove it?

What you have there is called the Home Panel.

To disable it you can:

Go to Apple menu () > System Preferences
Click the Accessibility pane
Select Switch Control from the list of accessibility options (it's usually at the bottom)
Click the General tab
Untick the Enable Switch Control checkbox

For more information on this feature, refer to Use Switch Control to interact with your Mac on Apple's website.


Catalina - App Store issues - doesn't automatically find new updates and cannot update! Screen Recording

Since I've updated to Catalina, the App Store, for me, cannot:

Automatically find any new app updates
Update an app when I try to do it manually.

When I click on 'updates', I see "No updates - all your apps are up to date" but when I search for one of my apps, it says "update". When I click on update, the progress circle shows and it goes to 100%, but then the "update" button re-appears.

I have a video to show but cannot work out how to attach it.

I have reset my pram, logged out and back in on iCloud, have deleted the various .plist files and have emptied my cache, yet have achieved nothing.
Anybody having this same issue and have found a solution?

I ran into this problem in Big Sur (currently Public Beta).
I also noticed that App Store apps that I had on my system were showing up in my App Store account list as though they were available to download but not installed.
I tried various methods including deleting App Store caches and preferences files, deleting the keychain item (search in Keychain.app for appstored), and signing out and signing in to the App Store.
In my case, the problem was that Spotlight was no longer indexing /Applications for some reason, even though /Applications was not excluded from indexing.
I opened Terminal and ran:
sudo mdutil -a -i off

then
sudo mdutil -a -i on

And shortly afterward, the App Store showed available updates, and my installed apps were showing up as installed in the App Store as well.


sym linking iTunes Media -> Music to external thumb drive I'm out of space on my Macbook Air and thinking about ways of removing things. One idea is to put all my music (~100GB) on a big thumb drive (y, and back it up). I pretty much always have my keychain so this is only a slight inconvencience. I would symlink that directory to a folder on the thumb drive. Has anyone done this? I know some people won't like the idea due to thumb drive irreliability but I have had good luck.

thx

You can actually change the location that iTunes stores its library under Preferences -> Advanced -> iTunes Media folder Location.

In that case, you could migrate your iTunes library to that external drive. You would just need to make sure you have the drive connected when wanting to use iTunes.

You may want to be careful with carrying this much on a thumb drive (if they even make them that large). As in, its easy to loose, get damaged, etc - so make sure you have a backup.

Another good way to do this would be to just use an external hard drive connected over firewire or USB.


How to schedule run of .command file (bash)? I have a bash script (saved as myfilename.command) and would like to schedule its run. I've tried to use Calendar event for this (which works fine with Automator scripts), but I get the following error -

  “myfilename.command” can’t be opened because CoreServicesUIAgent is
  not allowed to open documents in Terminal.

Is there any way to fix it?

There are several ways and I think the first step is to make the .command file just a shell script.

Given you comment re automator I would suggest the easiest way is to create an automator/applescript that calls this shell script. This then can be called by calendar

Other ways are using non GUI tools and call the shell script from a cron or launchd entry


Does iCloud save deleted pictures from your camera and photo stream? Does iCloud save deleted pictures from your camera and photo stream?

For example: If you saved a picture from Google but deleted it from your camera and the photo stream does it still save it to iCloud?

Heard that iCloud automatically backs up your iOS device information daily over Wi-Fi when your device is turned on, locked, and connected to a power source. On your iOS device, go to Settings > iCloud > Storage & Backup, then turn on iCloud Backup.


how to use fingerprint id to sign in to apple ID When updating my Mac, I often get a password popup like the following.

Why does the keychain not remember my password from the last 100 times I entered it.  And why does it not offer me the fingerprint option?    I have my Touch ID options set as follows.

I would suggest you reset the Touch ID completely and add it back again. It can help you to fix the issue.

Restart your Mac and hold down Command+R while it's rebooting to enter Recovery Mode
Launch Terminal.
Enter the following:

xartutil --erase-all

Press Return.
Type Yes when prompted to confirm.
Press Enter.
Quit Terminal.
Restart your Mac in normal mode.
Setup your Touch ID again and it should work.


How do I get songs previously purchased on my old iPhone onto my new iPhone? I just got a new iPhone as my old one was broken. My old one was a iPhone 4 and this new is a 4S. Now I purchased songs from on my old phone and when I look at these songs on the iTunes music store it says they are purchased but they are not in my iTunes library, how do I get them there?

The iTunes store has a 'Purchased' section that you can use to view and re-download purchased music.

Open up iTunes on your computer and select iTunes Store in the sidebar. In the iTunes Store homepage, click the Purchased link in the Quick Links box on the right:

Once on the Purchased page, select the Music tab on the left and the 'Not on This Computer' tab on the right. Select All Songs in the list on the left and click the Download All button at the bottom of the page.

Once your downloads finish you should have all your music in your library, ready to be synced to your new iPhone.


Is there an alternative to Messages? I'm having the problem of synced iMessages appearing out of order in Messages on my Macbook.  I've even had messages sent to wrong people.  I can't find any alternatives through Google.  Is there a replacement that will still sync with iMessages from my phone?

The whole iMessage system is entirely proprietary, and there are no 3rd party clients available to use instead of the official ones, on either iOS or OSX.  That's not to say it won't be reverse engineered in time, but I suspect that Apple will fix any issues way before anything like that happens.

I too get messages that appear out of order and occasionally ones that simply never show on one device or another, but anecdotally I only ever see this when devices are playing "catch up" with messages that I have already read elsewhere.


How to select power direction over USB-C I have a USB battery which has a USB-C port on it.

When I connect it to my MacBook Pro (regardless of whether the MacBook Pro is running off its battery or via the mains), the Mac doesn't charge the battery, but instead uses the battery to power the Mac.

If the Mac is not on its own power supply, it will use the USB battery for charging (very slowly, but useful in a pinch).

In every case, the Mac tries to make power flow from the battery to the computer.

How do I reverse this? How do I make power flow from the Mac to the battery?

Apparently this is selectable, and other OSs provide an option.

Method 1: Reverse/inverse the sides/plugs of the USB-C to USB-C cable. Might works or not.

Method 2.1: Use a USB-C to micro-USB(male) cable and a micro-USB(female) to USB-C(male) adapter.

Method 2.2: Use a USB-C to USB-A(female) adapter and a USB-A to USB-C cable.

Method 2 should always work. However you cannot use PD charge then.

Explain for method 1: I've heard C-C cables have sides to determine host / device. But I can't find the source. From my personal experiment, it depends on cables.


Can I make my Mac re-adjust to the original brightness when I plug my power cord back in? When I unplug the power cord from my mac, the brightness dims to save power. When I plug the cord back in, it stays dim rather than going back to the original brightness level. Can I change it so that it will go back to some default brightness for when the power cord is plugged in?

I use a program named EventScripts which among the events it monitors, there are some Power Events, one of which is the Power switched to mains event. It uses AppleScript scripts to preform the action(s) you want to have happen when a given event is triggered.

It is a paid app, $3.99 USD, but does have a demo version you can download to test with before purchasing.

Mac App Store Preview (US)
Download for Demo

Note: Other then being a paid user of this app, I have no affiliation with its developer.


How to combine pdf documents How do I combine 5 pdf documents I created in Word and put in one pdf file? I have tried several things, none of which work.

I found that with pdf’s similarly created in Word I can open one pdf in Preview and simply « drag and drop » a second pdf (using its icon directly from its folder or desktop) into the pdf already open then save. This works well with the thumbnail view or « page sorter » visible on the left hand side of preview...

This also has the advantage of not needing a third party download as Preview is natively supplied so if you are in a controlled environment (Work or Uni) and are not allowed to install other software...


Can I back up to an SD card? I happy accident occurred this weekend when I left my camera's USB cable at work. I discovered that I have an SD slot in my MacBook Pro.

Can I backup to an SD card using a third party back up package? I typically do a nightly local back up as a fail safe.

I use an SanDisk Ultra miniDrive (64 GB) for transferable storage. However, I use an external hard drive to maintain Time Machine backups.

Of note, for compatibility with Time Machine, the SD's default format (exFat) was incompatible, and I needed to use Disk Utility to reformat to Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

For for information about SD cards, Apple provides information.


Mac mail prevent mark as read I am working on a mac running OSX 10.10.5 and I am using Apple mail. When I am reading an email I want to prevent the email from being marked as read instantly. I would rather mark it myself, or have it wait like 2 minutes before it marks it as read.

I know about the terminal delay trick, but that doesn't work. The Truepreview plugin hasn't been updated for a long time and doesn't work anymore. Are there any alternatives?

It is not possible by default, but you can download a plugin for the Mail app. The plugin is called TruePreview. It is said that it supports OS X Mountain Lion and below, but I had it working on my Mavericks machine.

Anyway, here's the method:

Quit the Mail app
Download TruePreview (scroll down for latest versions) and run the
installer
Launch Mail.app and open Preferences, click on the >> arrow and
select “TruePreview”
Adjust the Mark as Read settings as desired

Have a read on this page and you'll find that there is a Terminal command that can be used to delay the Mark As Read setting. However, I'm not sure you can disable it completely.

defaults write com.apple.Mail MarkAsReadDelay 2

Here, 2 is a measurement of the number of seconds to delay.

defaults write com.apple.Mail MarkAsReadDelay

The above will just revert the setting back to its default state.

Alternatively, if you're okay with marking it as unread, an easier option would be to use a keyboard shortcut instead of manually marking as unread. The standard keyboard shortcut, which toggles “read” and “unread”, is cmd+shift+u. You can also go to System Preferences → Keyboard to customise your own keyboard shortcut.

Have a look, see which options takes you where, and stick with whatever is comfortable. Let me know if anything went wrong during the plugin installation (that is, if you did install it).


"Automator could not convert the input data to the desired type." in quick action I want to be able to view a location embedded in a HEIC file quickly by using 'quick action'.
It is how it looks like when I tried to use the function via finder.

Here is the definition of the quick action in Automator.

However when I run the quick action, I got this error message "Automator could not convert the input data to the desired type."

What does it mean and how can I fix it?

The Show Location in Maps action in Automator takes a Photos Media Item as input, not a Finder item.
In other words, it could be used in conjunction with a Get Selected Photos Item action, but not as the first action in a Automator Service/Quick Action that is set as Workflow receives current [image files] in [Finder].
Have look at: The “Show Location in Maps” Action

Update to address comment:

Is there any other way I can retrieve the map location and then show it in the Map app?

Here is one way to accomplish the goal...
The following example AppleScript code was tested in a Run AppleScript action in an Automator Service/Quick Action under macOS Catalina and worked for me without any issues:
on run {input, parameters}

    set imageFile to the quoted form of ¬
        the POSIX path of (the first item of input)

    set shellCMD to {"mdls -name kMDItemLatitude -name kMDItemLongitude ", ¬
        imageFile, " | awk '{print $NF}'"} as string

    set LatLon to paragraphs of (do shell script shellCMD)

    if (LatLon as string) contains "null" then return

    set latitude to first item of LatLon
    set longitude to second item of LatLon
    set mapsLocation to {"https://maps.apple.com/?ll=", ¬
        latitude, ",", longitude} as string

    open location mapsLocation
    tell application "Maps" to activate
    delay 0.5
    tell application "System Events" to ¬
        keystroke "D" using {shift down, command down}

end run

Notes:

As currently coded it only works with one selected image file in Finder. Additional coding is required if want to act on multiple selected image files in Finder.
As currently coded, if a selected image file in Finder does not contain meta data for kMDItemLatitude and kMDItemLongitude for mdls to output, then the script stops without any feedback. If you what to be notified, then additional coding is required.

Note: The example AppleScript code is just that and sans any included error handling does not contain any additional error handling as may be appropriate. The onus is upon the user to add any error handling as may be appropriate, needed or wanted. Have a look at the try statement and error statement in the AppleScript Language Guide. See also, Working with Errors. Additionally, the use of the delay command may be necessary between events where appropriate, e.g. delay 0.5, with the value of the delay set appropriately.


Automator Folder Action Help I'm just getting started with automator.  So far, i've created an application that runs at user login that gathers all the items from trash and from a folder that I use for ARD installs and securely deletes them.

I'd love to make this task run at logout and would like to know how to set that up.  Logout hook?

Next, on my OSX server, I have a folder where PDFs are sent to from my iPads.  I need to take those PDFs, watermark them, and move them to another folder.  I have an automator action that will do this, but i'm having trouble getting it setup to run in the background WITHOUT anyone logged in to the server.  I've currently got this configured as an application, but it seems like it should be a folder action, but I can't figure out where to specify the folder action for the folder action automator type.  Also, how to get it to run on the server w/o anyone logged in?

Automator requires a graphical user session to run within. Regrettably, Automator can not run without a user session; this is because it is an application rather than a command line process.

Because of this requirement, running an Automator workflow at log-out is difficult. You need to run the workflow and delay the requested log-out until the workflow finishes.

If the tasks could be performed from a shell script, then this would be easier to hook into the log in and out steps.


Batch resize .svg files I have a folder (original_svg_files) with more than ten thousand .svg files in different sizes and I need to resize each one of them. The name should be the same with the original .svg file and the longest side should be 150px and I also need to keep the aspect ratio (constrain the proportions).

I tried to use Adobe Illustrator to do that but can't figure out how since it supports only transformation via a percentage. I need to automate this process by the command line or Automator since what I am doing now is really time consuming!

I am using OS X El Capitan version 10.11.1.

Any suggestions?

Looks like the -fit option on this command line utility will do exactly what you want:

https://github.com/vieron/svg-resizer

If you need help with brew, look here: http://coolestguidesontheplanet.com/installing-homebrew-os-x-yosemite-10-10-package-manager-unix-apps/

If your not comfortable with the command line, don't let it intimidate you - it's really not that hard.  Post back if you get stuck or something just doesn't make sense.


My MacBook Pro will boot up but won't login My 2013 MacBook Pro will turn on fine and go to the user profile page. When I click my profile type password and login it gets to 50% on the loading bar and freezes.

If the Macbook boots fully but will not log in it is likely that there is something that starts up in that user profile that is preventing boot up. Wht you need is Safe Mode.

Boot the Mac while holding down the shift key. When you see the Apple logo come up you can release the shift key. The Mac will boot, I have seen booting in Safe Mode take a long time. This is because Mac O/S does a bunch of maintenance routines during safe mode, including disk and filesystem repair, so give it time.

Once you are at the login screen I would bet that you can now log in. Now back up your important stuff just in case and try turning off items that run at startup.