Incorrect phone number format when dialing from iPhone iPhoneXs
iOS 13.4 (also affected 13.3.x)
Carrier: AT&T
e-SIM (no physical SIM)

On a recent trip out of the U.S. I added a 2nd SIM card and a local calling plan (Turkcell) so I could use my phone without incurring roaming charges. All was fine.

PROBLEM: When I returned, I deactivated that plan, and removed the SIM card from the phone. However, the iPhone retained the incorrect phone number formatting on the dialpad screen. See screenshot below for example:

This might seem like a frivolous detail, but it actually slows me down when dialing numbers "manually" since it always looks like I've entered the number incorrectly, skipped a digit or added an extra one, etc. I just want to get it back to the correct format.

Once I hit the green Dial button, the number is correctly formatted, so it's just doing this on the pre-dial screen. See below:

Thing's I've tried:

Soft resetting the phone (Vol+, Vol-, then press+hold Power until it reboots)
Changing Language under Settings > Language & Region e.g. from English U.S. to something else and then back again
Adding / removing additional keyboards
Turning Roaming on/off
Turning Cellular Data on/off
Disabling the cellular line under Settings > Cellular and then re-enabling it
Calling AT&T and having them "re-provision" my phone
Updating from iOS 13.3 to 13.4

Things I have NOT tried:

Going to an Apple Store (they're closed here right now due to COVID-19)
Doing a full Backup / Restore of the phone
The various "Resets" under Settings > Reset (was afraid to lose my stored passwords/WiFi settings but if anyone thinks that would fix it, I will try...)

Anyone ever see this or know how to fix it?

I had the extact same issue. I believe this is an issue with the eSim. I had to put a US SIM in and it corrected the issue with the phone numbers displaying wrong when dialing manually.


How do I prevent AppleScript from adding .0 to the end of a number? When working with numbers, AppleScript always adds ".0" to the end of it.

How can I make it not do that?

I've tried using (variable as integer), and it worked, but not for higher numbers as the integer byte limit is smaller than float byte limit.

I figured text 1 thru -3 of variable would work.


remove track number from start of song name iTunes I just imported my own folder of audio files into iTunes.

Now every song is prepended with a track number, 01, 02, ... 18, etc.

How do I remove these? Other albums don't have this (despite the files in ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music having the prepended numbers).

The track name is taken from the metadata (or, if there isn't any, from the filename) of the tracks during import. So if after the import you end up with the track number in the title this was already encoded in the file itself.

To remove, either edit each title after the import or pick an appropriate script from Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes.


Two external keyboards of the same type have different mappings I use the Logitech K750 on my MBP at work and also bought the keyboard for myself to work at home with the same laptop (German PC layout!).
The problem is that one of the keyboards will always have the ^ and < keys swapped:

sudo rm /Library/Preferences/com.apple.keyboardtype.plist to reset the mapping
Plug in the K750 at work, select mapping: everything works fine
Come home, plug in K750, select mapping: ^ and < keys are swapped.
sudo rm /Library/Preferences/com.apple.keyboardtype.plist to reset the mapping
Plug in K750 again, select mapping: everything is fine
Come to work, plug in K750, select mapping: ^ and < keys are swapped.
Start from 1.

The behavior is super annoying and I can't get my head wrapped around what is causing the issue because it's the exact same keyboard-type.
What is wrong with my keyboards?

I'm not familiar with what you are trying, but I've had success with Karabiner for device-specific remaps, it's a little complicated to use but they have a manual on their site


How can I read PDFs in scrolling mode on an iPad 2? I bought a used iPad 2, mainly for reading. After a short while I found out that it won't run a more recent iOS than 9.3.5 and that there are basically no apps that run on this iOS version (rendering the iPad 2 almost unuseable--I really couldn't believe it). I have been able to open PDFs with the iBooks app that came with it, but I don't like the way you have to swipe from right to left on the screen to get to the next page. Is there either a way to switch to a "scrolling" behaviour in iBooks, where you can just swipe up and down on the screen to move seamlessly between pages, or a PDF viewer app that supports this and can still be installed on iOS 9.3.5?

This may be a solution - please give feedback so I can correct.
Login with the same appleid on a more modern apple device (iphone etc) or possibly on a desktop computer.
Purchase (for zero dollars) the apps "USB disk" with the purple logo and  "Adobe Acrobat".
On the ipad 2, open App Store and either look at "Purchased Apps" or browse to find the identical apps you already "bought", and download them.
The option to download an older version should appear.
The abovementioned apps have a version that works under 9.3.5 on ipad 2, open .pdf and use vertical scrolling. I just checked!
I also recommend you get the Chrome browser at the same time as some websites will work with it when Safari will not, and its availability may be terminated...


What happens if I open an app during it's background refresh period? If an app running on my iPhone is currently in the process of background refreshing, if I open up the app and bring it to the foreground, what happens to the app and to the background fetch?

Does the background refresh process keep running until it is complete or times out, or does it stop the process?
Does it prevent the app from loading until it's background refresh process has completed?

It should keep performing the refresh but it all depends on how the developer coded the app.  As always, there's proper and improper ways to handle a background refresh and the onus is on the developer to ensure they're using the appropriate techniques and API.

The app should show the most-recent info it has immediately upon opening (assuming, of course, that it was developed with that capability).  The refresh that was ongoing will continue.  Ideally, once the app has been loaded and is ready to interface with the user, it should refresh itself with the latest available data.  If the developer created the app this way, the user might see old data immediately upon opening the app but then the data will change within a few seconds as the new data is presented.


How to stop Terminal from asking for access to some folders? Since upgrade to Catalina, even when I login as myself, terminal prompts for these kind of permissions.

How can I grant these permissions once and for all?

I can't answer to why your system asks you this at startup but it is likely that you need to give terminal "Full disk access."

Open up System Preferences and go to the Security & Privacy icon and click on it.
Click on the last tab "Privacy
Click on the padlock icon in lower left corner of that window
Note that Terminal may already be in the list and not checked, if it is check it
If it is not click the "+" button and navigate to the /Applications/Utilities folder and select the Terminal.app
Once it is added, if it is not already checked, check it and close System Preferences.

Mine looks like this.


How to show width and height of image files in Finder's column view? Is there any way to view the width and height of image type files in Finder's column view?

I am runnning Snow Leopard.

There isn't a checkbox for dimension in the Finder's view options:

Icon View and Column View

Pressing Command+J or Right Clicking, while in the folder where the pictures are, will show the Options menú. Then Show View Options, and enable Show Item Info. This will show the image's dimensions below the file.

You could press Use as Default, if, well, you want it to be default.

List View

While in List view , by Right Clicking the list's title bar, you'll be able to choose extra information columns to show. As Koiyu explains here:

  The list of extra columns is relative to the folder's location. In order to get the dimensions available, the folder in question has to reside somewhere under ~/Pictures/. (Under ~/Music/ you could choose e.g. artist or album and under ~/Movies/ you could choose length or codecs and so on…)


Use "options ndots:2" in global DNS resolver Until yesterday, I regularly ssh'd into my servers that have names like "server.prod.example.com" as "server.prod" and it worked fine.  (Actually, this required getting mDNSResponder to start with the "-AlwaysAppendSearchDomains" option, but that's a different story.  I think.)

Very recently, the ".prod" TLD was made active.  Now when I try to log into "server.prod", it resolves to 127.0.53.53.  This is a universal DNS problem and is solvable on other BIND-based DNS resolvers by adding "options ndots:2" to the resolver configuration (normally "/etc/resolv.conf").

Is it possible to set this option with MacOS's scutil/configd-based resolver?

I'll point out that the resolver seems to recognize the option when put in a resolver config file in "/etc/resolver": when placed there, "scutil --dns" shows the option.  Of course, it does no good there.

I'm on Mavericks, if that makes any difference.

I have this same issue. I was able to easily fix this on my linux desktop by adding the line to /etc/resolvconf/resolv.conf.d/head

OSX is a different beast though, hoping someone smarter than I am can find a way. I miss being able to "ssh server1.prod" :(

The alternative is to set up "ssh" as an alias to a script, and the servername is your $1. The script can see if the last 5 chars of $1 are ".prod" and if so ssh to the fqdn.


Does iOS backup include the OS and related questions I had an iPad stolen recently. I had deliberately not updated the iOS as an app I used was not being updated and worked well on the old iOS.

Now I need to restore the back up to another iPad. I thought this would be easy but it seems not.

For the app I want to use to work I need iOS 8 or earlier. Specifically I had 8.4.1 but it was the upgrade to 9 that killed the app.

I am unsure of a few things and would value some advice:

Does the backup include the iOS? Ie if i buy an old iPad that can run ios8 will the backup automatically include the iOS? Can I just restore and get everything back.

Or will the backup just add apps and data to the existing iOS? In which case will it refuse to do it if the existing iOS is less than the 8.4.1 with which the back up was saved?

If this is the case I need to put iOS higher than 8.4.1 yet lower than 9 on an iPad and then restore. How can I do that?

Thanks for any help. I have a lot of work in this app so any suggestions are welcome.

J

No, the backup does not include the operating system. However iOS can be easily downloaded from the internet, so that is not a limiting factor in itself.

The main problem is that you cannot downgrade an iPad to iOS 8 at all. The original iPad only supports up to iOS 5, and the next-oldest iPad - the iPad 2 - supports iOS 9. As it is only possible to downgrade to the iOS versions that Apple actively is signing, which only includes the latest versions available for the hardware, you're out of luck.

Your only possibility is to buy a used iPad that has iOS 8 on it.

I would recommend instead getting an iPad with a newer iOS, as there's serious security implications to running older iOS versions - and then search for a replacement app, or ask the original developers if you can convince them to update the app for newer iOS versions.


How can I shrink my Mac HDD and add the space to my Windows 10 disk? I have Windows 10 running on a partition on my iMac. What I'd like to do is shrink the Mac HDD and add that space to make the Windows 10 partition larger.

Here's the layout of my drives now.

Report for internal hard disk

Current GPT partition table:
 #      Start LBA      End LBA  Type
 1             40       409639  EFI System (FAT)
 2         409640   1674026927  Mac OS X HFS+
 3     1674026928   1675296463  Mac OS X Boot
 4     1675296768   1953523711  Basic Data

Current MBR partition table:
 # A    Start LBA      End LBA  Type
 1              1       409639  ee  EFI Protective
 2         409640   1674026927  af  Mac OS X HFS+
 3     1674026928   1675296463  ab  Mac OS X Boot
 4 *   1675296768   1953523711  07  NTFS/HPFS

MBR contents:
 Boot Code: Unknown, but bootable

Partition at LBA 40:
 Boot Code: None (Non-system disk message)
 File System: FAT32
 Listed in GPT as partition 1, type EFI System (FAT)

Partition at LBA 409640:
 Boot Code: None
 File System: HFS Extended (HFS+)
 Listed in GPT as partition 2, type Mac OS X HFS+
 Listed in MBR as partition 2, type af  Mac OS X HFS+

Partition at LBA 1674026928:
 Boot Code: None
 File System: HFS Extended (HFS+)
 Listed in GPT as partition 3, type Mac OS X Boot
 Listed in MBR as partition 3, type ab  Mac OS X Boot

Partition at LBA 1675296768:
 Boot Code: Windows BOOTMGR (Vista)
 File System: NTFS
 Listed in GPT as partition 4, type Basic Data
 Listed in MBR as partition 4, type 07  NTFS/HPFS, active

There are both paid and free tools capable of doing that. Here are some pages that may be helpful about your choice of software and its use:

http://guides.macrumors.com/Extend/Resize_Boot_Camp_Partition
https://superuser.com/questions/451192/resizing-bootcamp-partition-without-wiping
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2027812?start=0

Generally speaking, the steps you need to follow :

Backup both Mac OS and Windows
Install rEFIt or burn it to a CD
Resize Mac partition inside Mac OS
Boot recovery media (gparted or paragon live-cd etc.) and resize Windows partition
Boot to rEFIt and sync MBR and GPT records. Or alternatively you can disable SIP and use the gdisk command line tool as explained here to recreate the Hybrid MBR.
Boot to installation disc/USB of the Windows version you have and repair Windows installation. If the automated “Start-up Repair” option doesn’t work, you can try running the commands documented here.

There may be additional steps depending on the software you use.


I need to disable my main keyboard as one letter is not working and it's out of warranty This is my current setup:

1 year warranty expired.
90 days warranty warranty expired too.
Using external keyboard on top of the internal keyboard for now.
I need to disable the built-in one, because using the external keyboard sometimes triggers keystrokes from the internal keyboard.
Alternatively, I can rebind some key to act as r

I am looking for a temporary software solution; in particular something like this, but it should lock the keyboard instead of disabling the screen.

You can disable the keyboard by unloading the kernel extension with

sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleUSBTopCase.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBTCKeyboard.kext/

To reload,

sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleUSBTopCase.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBTCKeyboard.kext/

You didn't say what version of macOS you are using, I believe this syntax works as of 10.10. Some tweaking may be needed depending on your version.


Simple 3 line applescript - Error -128 I have a scenario where I'd like 2 separate applescripts.

The idea is super simple. 2 Applications, but only one runs at a time.

Example: Close application 1, launch application 2 (and vise versa)

Here are the 2 scripts I have:

A.) OpenSteam

tell application "Plex Home Theater" to quit
delay 5
tell application "Steam" to activate

B.) OpenPlex:

tell application "Steam" to quit
delay 5
tell application "Plex Home Theater" to activate

The script "OpenSteam" works perfectly fine. It does exactly what I want it to do. However, the same script in reverse (OpenPlex) does not seem to work.

Steam closes, but my script then gives me the following error *Note, Plex is not launched:

error "Steam got an error: User canceled." number -128

I have no idea what this means, and was hoping someone could help me out.

--

I got my initial information from here: https://forums.plex.tv/index.php/topic/27945-harmony-one-custom-command/#entry179765 I have revised the example scripts to fit my needs.

Your headache lays with how Steam handles its exit status. Steam probably doesn't have applescript integration, so it considers a quit command from applescript an unclean exit. It would still quit, but it will let you know about it. What you need is a way to ignore the error message and execute the rest of the script nevertheless.

try
    tell application "Steam" to quit
    on error error_message number error_number
        if error_number is equal to -128 then
        --Keep Calm and Carry On
        else
            display dialog error_message
        end if
end try
delay 5
tell application "Plex Home Theater" to activate

You can combine the two scripts into one toggle/switch:

set steamRunning to false
set plexRunning to false

try
    do shell script "pgrep -l -f 'Steam.app'"
    set steamRunning to true
end try

try
    do shell script "pgrep -l -f 'Plex Home Theater'"
    set plexRunning to true
end try

if steamRunning is true and plexRunning is false then

    try
        tell application "Steam" to quit
    on error error_message number error_number
        if error_number is equal to 128 then
            --Keep Calm and Carry On
        else
            display dialog error_message
        end if
    end try
    delay 5
    tell application "Plex Home Theater" to activate

end if

if steamRunning is false and plexRunning is true then

    tell application "Plex Home Theater" to quit
    delay 5
    tell application "Steam" to activate

end if

I don't have either app so I cannot debug. There could be multiple processes named "steam", given its game-thing, so I used "Steam.app", assuming that's the app name under /Applications/.


Is it safe to to upgrade OS X 10.7 to 10.8 on a productive system? I was wondering if there are any implications to upgrading my iMac web development machine (which is highly configured MAMP (Apache, MySQl), customized hosts file, custom Network Card settings, etc... from OS X 10.7 to OS X 10.8?

Will I loose everything 9apps/files/MAMP config, etc...

Most of the time the OS X upgrade routines work quite reliably and in this case there shouldn't be any deal-breakers like Rosetta back in the days. However, it is impossible to tell for sure. What I usually do, is to clone my system to either a second partition in the internal drive or to an external (USB) drive (using a tool like SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner).

After booting the clone (press alt in the boot screen) you can safely upgrade this partition to a newer version of OS X and play with it for a while. Once you are sure everything works, you can either copy it back to your main partition or upgrade that one too.

Nevertheless, I recommend to have another (e.g. TimeMachine) backup available, in case anything goes wrong.


PC to Mac - Remote Desktop I want to connect to my mac remotely from my Windows PC. What good products are there available that you recommend checking out?

VNC
Recent versions of Mac OS X include a VNC server built-in, analogous to Microsoft's Remote Desktop Server (included in Windows). This can be accessed via the System Preferences > Sharing > Apple Remote Desktop option.
There are various free VNC clients available for Windows, most notably RealVNC.
While there are other options, VNC benefits from being a very mature graphical remote-access protocol with official support from Apple and good-quality client programs.


How do I record on a 13" MBP? Where is the mic jack on a 13" MBP? I want to plug in a 3.5mm jack (like the iPod headphone size) into the MBP. How do I do that?

Physical location of the jack:

The audio-in jack on a 13" MBP is a 3.5mm combination TRS port.

It will sense standard analog or fiber optic connectors. It also works with TRS jacks for stereo audio out as well as a TRRS jack which allows microphone input as well as control from iPhone/iPod compatible remotes.

It can work as a headphone out, line-in, or digital audio in/out depending what's plugged into it. It can also accept an iPhone-compatible headset with mic and use the mic (and remote functions for music). Some non-amplified microphone input requires further hardware to properly deliver the signal. According to the specs it doesn't, but it seems like if it takes an iPhone headset mic, the signal will be delivered, but in a less usable form.

A popular USB connector like the Griffin iMic works well with more diverse input sources and contains an external D/A converter. The iMic support FAQ discusses the many aspects of sound capture and is a great reference on the topic.

This instructables guide on making a combination headphone+mic adapter might also be of use.


Safari 7 can't connect to intranet using HTTP authentication See the UPDATE below for new information about the actual HTTP requests going on under the hood.

So I started a new job back in October. It's mostly a Windows shop, and they use IIS and Active Directory for a bunch of internal stuff. They have an intranet site at intranet.companyname.com.

In Chrome on Mavericks, when I go there, I get the expected little HTTP auth dropdown:

where I can type my username and password. I'm not very swift with Active Directory, but I guess msgd is the Active Directory domain I'm on, so I type msgd\lheidbreder and my password, and I can log in successfully in Chrome.

Way back in October, the first time I tried this in Safari, I got some weird behavior; like, I saw the password thing, but then it didn't work when I put in my credentials. I don't remember exactly what it did.

But after that first attempt, and on every attempt since then, when I try to go to intranet.companyname.com, Safari shows a blank screen:

The screen doesn't change, and the progress bar fills up about 20% and stays there.

UPDATE

I ran an app to snoop HTTP requests, and I found out what this was doing behind the scenes. It's not just sitting there; Safari is actually requesting the page almost 1000 times per second, and each time, it gets a 401 error and an HTML error page with the title "You are not authorized to view this page".

On one example request from the middle of a load attempt, Safari sends this Authorization header:

Negotiate YEgGBisGAQUFAqA+MDygDjAMBgorBgEEAYI3AgIKoioEKE5UTE1TU1AAAQAAAAUCiGIAAAAAGAAAAAAAAAAYAAAABgGwHQ8AAAA=

And the server responds with this WWW-Authenticate header:

Negotiate oYIBIzCCAR+gAwoBAaEMBgorBgEEAYI3AgIKooIBCASCAQROVExNU1NQAAIAAAAOAA4AOAAAAAUCiWKPhp0o8/Y/9gAAAAAAAAAAvgC+AEYAAAAFAs4OAAAAD0EAUgBJAFMAVwBFAEIAAgAOAEEAUgBJAFMAVwBFAEIAAQAMAE4ARQBXAFcARQBCAAQAKgBhAHIAaQBzAHcAZQBiAC4AYQByAGkAcwB0AG8AdABsAGUALgBuAGUAdAADADgATgBFAFcAVwBFAEIALgBhAHIAaQBzAHcAZQBiAC4AYQByAGkAcwB0AG8AdABsAGUALgBuAGUAdAAFACoAYQByAGkAcwB3AGUAYgAuAGEAcgBpAHMAdABvAHQAbABlAC4AbgBlAHQAAAAAAA==

On the next request, Safari sends an identical Authorization header, and then the server responds with a very slightly different WWW-Authenticate header:

Negotiate oYIBIzCCAR+gAwoBAaEMBgorBgEEAYI3AgIKooIBCASCAQROVExNU1NQAAIAAAAOAA4AOAAAAAUCiWLa6vytPOG0owAAAAAAAAAAvgC+AEYAAAAFAs4OAAAAD0EAUgBJAFMAVwBFAEIAAgAOAEEAUgBJAFMAVwBFAEIAAQAMAE4ARQBXAFcARQBCAAQAKgBhAHIAaQBzAHcAZQBiAC4AYQByAGkAcwB0AG8AdABsAGUALgBuAGUAdAADADgATgBFAFcAVwBFAEIALgBhAHIAaQBzAHcAZQBiAC4AYQByAGkAcwB0AG8AdABsAGUALgBuAGUAdAAFACoAYQByAGkAcwB3AGUAYgAuAGEAcgBpAHMAdABvAHQAbABlAC4AbgBlAHQAAAAAAA==

Repeat ad infinitum.

I've tried deleting everything that matches intranet in Keychain Access and clearing my entire cache/cookies, to see if I could restore the original weird behavior, but it didn't work.

Do I have some kind of funky domain stuff going on? What else can I try to diagnose this?

I can confirm that I see the identical problem with Safari 7.0.2 (9537.74.9), with all current Mac OS X Mavericks updates installed. (Thousands of request packets per second with the same kind of content as described above.)

However, while this may or may not help the original poster, I have found that this problem only occurs if the Windows server has Integrated Windows Authentication (also known as NTLM Authentication) and Negotiate Authentication enabled.

The server then sends these two headers:

WWW-Authenticate: Negotiate
WWW-Authenticate: NTLM

Safari will reply:

Authorization: Negotiate YEgGBisGAQUFAqA+MDygDjAMBgorBgEEAYI3AgIKoioEKE5UTE1TU1AAAQAAAAUCiGIAAAAAGAAAAAAAAAAYAAAABgGwHQ8AAAA=

And from there, the loop will get going.

But if Negotiate Authentication is not enabled on the server, there will be only one WWW-Authenticate header:

WWW-Authenticate: NTLM

And Safari's reply will be something like:

Authorization: NTLM TlRMTVNTUAABAAAAB4IIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=

This will work just fine. Essentially, it seems that Negotiate is broken in Safari, and since the server sends Negotiate first, indicating a preference for it, Safari will try it and enter an infinite loop that prevents it from falling back to NTLM.

So, if the server administrator can be persuaded to turn off Negotiate in the authentication settings, the problem may be solved.

I might add that Firefox sends the "Authorization: NTLM ..." header regardless of whether the server provides Negotiate in addition to NTLM or not. Presumably, Negotiate is not implemented in Firefox.

Update

Safari 7.0.3 (9537.75.14) still exhibits the same problem.

We previously reported the issue as a bug at bugreport.apple.com, but the bug was closed as a duplicate of a previous bug—the contents of which we cannot see, except that it is still marked as open.

Update 2

I can confirm hauns's finding that the authentication works with Safari 7.0.4 (9537.76.4).

Update 3

This issue is back in Safari 7.0.5 (9537.77.4)

Update 4

This issue is still present in Safari 7.0.6 (9537.78.2), as noted by hauns, with cifs or smb volumes mounted.


iPad 32 GB, running iOS 7.0.2. Unable to run Reset to Factory to restore Restrictions Password I seem to have quite a problem - which is caused by the lack of possibility to restore/reset the restrictions password (could e.g. be done through SMS like other services do).

The problem:

Restrictions was enabled quite a while ago on the iPad.
The restrictions PIN is lost.
"Find my iPad" is enabled.
I go to iTunes to reset to factory, but it tells me I have to turn off Find my iPad first.
I go to Privacy + location settings on the iPad, but the Find my iPad setting is grayed out (likely due to Restrictions being enabled?).

Seems to me like I have a catch 22 situation going on. I cannot reset my iPad because Find My iPad is enabled, and I cannot remove Find my iPad without resetting the iPad to get rid of Restrictions.

First sign in to https://icloud.com/find and see if you can remotely erase and then remove that device from the list of your controlled devices. That will quickly return the device to factory settings at the cost of having to set up the device again from a backup or from new.

If the device isn't connected to the internet, you may have to force the erase as follows by putting your device into Recovery mode to allow iTunes to restore the device.

Turn off the device by holding the Power button and sliding to power off.
Hold the Home button whilst connecting the device to your computer using the USB cable.
iTunes should detect a device in recovery mode.
Click the Restore button to restore the device.

Once the device has been restored, you can go through the setup process, logging in with your Apple ID to disable Find my iPhone, and restoring from backup if you wish.

This and several items related to activation lock are covered in Apple FAQ and articles:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5818


How to list Network Interface UUIDS? I'm trying really hard to find a simple way to fetch all network UUIDS on my Mac to be able to do some plist magic.

Is there a command to do such a thing?

If I look in the plist I'll find for an instance "Service Order"

   ServiceOrder = Array {
         2AF2313D-AB7E-4FE7-91C3-XXXXXXXXXXXX
         9B976E4D-F7BE-428D-88C2-YYYYYYYYYYYY
         9A26C39B-8BD4-4562-9E0A-ZZZZZZZZZZZZ

But is there a simpler way than just writing a long script deleting the parts before and after?

All computers running Yosemite.

Final Script - Thanks to @Asmus for providing answers to get this working

#!/bin/sh
# Setting value on "SetUDIDSets" to define the "Sets" name as this will be different on each computer
SetUDIDSets=$(/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "print :Sets" /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist | perl -lne 'print $1 if /^    (\S*) =/')

IFS=$'\n'
    # Loops through the list of network services and sets Exclude Simple Hostnames to 1.
    for i in $(/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "print :Sets:$SetUDIDSets:Network:Global:IPv4:ServiceOrder" /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist | awk 'NR>2{ print l} {l=$0}' | perl -pe 's/^\s+//');
    do

# If the setting Exclude Simple Hostnames never has been touched we need to create this
    sudo /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "add :NetworkServices:$i:Proxies:ExcludeSimpleHostnames integer 1" /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist
    sudo /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "set :NetworkServices:$i:Proxies:ExcludeSimpleHostnames 1" /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist

    echo "Exclude Simple Hostnames is now set for $i"

    done

unset IFS
defaults read /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist
echo "We're done!"

First of all, to get the UUIDs of your network sets, use PlistBuddy and perl:

 /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "print :Sets" /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist | perl -lne 'print $1 if /^    (\S*) =/'

this should return the IDs of the network sets. For each set you can then get the name with

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "print :Sets:698F419D-326E-45E3-8BE2-B0742334DD62:UserDefinedName" /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist

where, of course, you have to change the UUID accordingly.
Now, you can print the ServiceOrder with:

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "print :Sets:698F419D-326E-45E3-8BE2-B0742334DD62:Network:Global:IPv4:ServiceOrder" /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist

If you want to read the value for "ExcludeSimpleHostnames", you should be able to use

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "print :NetworkServices:69F7441B-BA1E-4DC3-B7DA-8D6302986F20:Proxies:ExcludeSimpleHostnames" /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist

while of course replacing this UUID with a valid one from the "ServiceOrder".

Update:

don't miss that you can set values with PlistBuddy, too:

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set :NetworkServices:$serviceid:Proxies:ExcludeSimpleHostnames 1" /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist


macOS denying service I reset my MacBook to factory settings 4 weeks ago, after I started having issues with missing libraries, etc., after messing around with a few 3rd party applications (SDKs and such).

After resetting I recognized that my device wouldn't connect to a particular network. It keeps asking me for the WPA2-Enterprise credentials, although previously provided credentials were 100% correct.1

Today, in addition to previous problems, I can't connect to a specific access point including when in "Recovery Mode".1

On top of all that, I cannot connect to certain websites, such as iCloud or DropBox, although both services are available when using a different device.

I already tried to flush my DNS cache and changed the DNS server.

At this point I have no clue what is left to do. Apparently this issue arose a few times in the past, with older setups, yet none of the solutions posted for those times did work out for me.

Has anyone run into these issues before and been able to solve them?

In case it is needed, my device:

  macOS High Sierra Version 10.13.2

  MacBook (Retina, 12-inch, Early 2016)

1 I can access both devices using my mobile phone, even though I never connected to these devices with my phone before.

UPDATE:

I disabled the 2.4ghz bandwidth of a router I used previously, as well as the password. Now it seems to connect; although having an unsecured connection is not a good option.

Have you tried to reset PRAM?

Shut down computer
Turn on computer
Hold down command, option, p, and r keys
Release keys after power on sound and apple logo appears


Cycling backups with multiple Time Capsules? I am using Time Capsule for backing up my Mac at home and like this solution for its convenience (automatic hourly backups in the background, etc.).

I would now like to add an off-site backup to the mix, with the intention of cycling backup media between on-site (used for backup) and off-site (sitting at a safe location) every week or so. (An online backup service is not an option.)

Could I accomplish this by buying a second Time Capsule and just switching between the two (with Open Time Machine Preferences | Select Disk) to effect the cycling. Would this work and/or are there perhaps better (also cheaper) ways to do this?

(I understand that Time Capsule has been designed to be kept running, so the device could perhaps suffer from being turned off/on relatively frequently, i.e. every other week. I also understand that some NAS support hot swapping, which sounds promising, but isn't really meant to support this scenario either. Creating a RAID 1 between the Time Capsule -- now to be kept on-site and one from a set of USB drives -- now to be cycled -- sounds elegant but is perhaps more complex than a backup solution ought to be?)

Time Machine supports multiple drives since Mountain Lion: that should be sufficient to support the desired backup scenario (1 Time Capsule + 2 cycled USB drives).

(Re answering own question: What can I say ... writing down a question often helps in finding the answer, and I've only recently upgraded from OS X 10.7.)


Playing the same music on multiple computers I have multiple Macs in my house. I'm looking for a way to play the same music simultaneously from both Macs. Each is connected to a speaker set, so I don't need bluetooth audio or anything fancy.

There are certainly multiple ways to accomplish this, but what I figured out is the simplest free approach I know of: use SoundFlower (a free download from Cycling 74) to pipe your system audio to iChat, and use iChat to send the audio to another computer.

In your System Preferences go to Sound and set SoundFlower as both Input and Output. Note that this will make your system sound not go through your speakers, so to turn that back on also run SoundFlowerbed (the front end that comes with SoundFlower) and set SoundFlower's output to the speakers.

Now launch iChat and go to Preferences. In the Video/Audio preferences you can set what input to use; it'll probably be defaulting to your microphone but you can set that to SoundFlower. Now when you do a voice chat with someone else they will hear your computer's audio.


Multiple League of Legends Icons on Dock I have kept the application League of Legends in my dock since I use it very often, however, whenever I launch the application, it creates another icon in the dock.

One icon has a "running" dot and the other doesn't.

Is there a way to fix this issue or remove the second icon?

macOS Mojave has a configuration to show recently used application icon in the Dock. In order to disable it, uncheck Show recent applications in Dock under System Preferences → Dock.

Application with support for opening documents minimize into Dock in their own separate icon. To disable that behavior, check to Minimise windows into application icon under System Preferences → Dock.


Bootcamp to generate Windows 10 USB key - Needs NTFS partition I am trying to use Bootcamp to generate a Windows 10 USB key (64GB).
I use Diskutil to initialize the key as MS-DOS FAT with MBR.
The Bootcamp Assistant selecting the three options on the dialog box.
It all works fine, but when I use the key to boot and finish the installation it tells me it cannot install Windows on that partition and that it needs an NTFS partition instead.

Thing is, the partition was reformatted by Bootcamp Assistant itself before copying the WindowsSupport software to it:

Macbookpro-2:~ silvano$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage Macbook HD              499.4 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (internal, virtual):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Macbook HD             +499.0 GB   disk1
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2
                                 69E26A69-CF3B-4E39-B7F9-BC8154952589
                                 Unencrypted

/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *63.2 GB    disk2
   1:                 DOS_FAT_32 WININSTALL              63.2 GB    disk2s1

Below is the current state of my partitions. Partition 4 is where I am trying to install. I boot from EFI and it says it has an MBR, whereas he wants GPT.

Macbookpro-2:~ silvano$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage Macbook HD              451.4 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data                         48.0 GB    disk0s4

/dev/disk1 (internal, virtual):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Macbook HD             +451.0 GB   disk1
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2
                                 69E26A69-CF3B-4E39-B7F9-BC8154952589
                                 Unencrypted

/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *16.0 GB    disk2
   1:                 DOS_FAT_32 WININSTALL              16.0 GB    disk2s1

Any tips welcome.

MBP 2013, Sierra 10.12.6

Silvano

To change the drive partitioning to a pure GPT format, enter the following commands. The commands may not make any sense to you, but the volume format can change the type of partitioning.

sudo  diskutil  erasevolume  jhfs+  BootCamp  disk0s4
sudo  diskutil  erasevolume  FAT32  BOOTCAMP  disk0s4

From the description of your problem, below is what you need to do when you are asked about partitioning while installing Windows.

Select the partition labeled BOOTCAMP.
Click on the button labeled "Format". The BOOTCAMP label should disappear.
Proceed to install Windows.

You have assumed the Boot Camp Assistant application can NTFS format a partition. If fact, it can not. Instead, the partition is FAT32 formatted with the label BOOTCAMP. You must click on the Format button during the Windows installation to NTFS format the partition. This removes the BOOTCAMP label. Later, when the Boot Camp Support Software is installed, the NTFS partition will be labeled BOOTCAMP.

To be clear, Windows installations on this model Mac must use the EFI boot method. This requires the installation drive to contain partition entries in only the GUID Partition Table (GPT). Both Windows and macOS (OS X) will only see the the GPT entries. Therefore, both Windows and macOS (OS X) with think the drive is GPT partitioned.


Backing up to an Airport Timecapsule over non-Airport WiFi I recently upgraded some gear and I am no longer using my Airport as a wireless host. Instead, I now have another device acting as the primary server for DHCP, Router, and WiFi.

The old Airport is connected via Ethernet to the new device (plugged into the LAN port on the Airport). I have turned the Wireless feature off on the Airport, and set it in Bridge mode.

After making these network changes, my Time Machine is no longer able to find the Time Capsule.

My question is, can Time Machine backup over a Wireless network to a wired Airport device?

Simplified diagram of how I'm trying to connect:
[Mac] -- Wireless Network -- [Router] -- [Airport]

The answer is Yes, it can do that but needs to be set up first.

Here are detailed instructions.

In summary:

Connect your Mac to TC via Ethernet to set it up.

Now Disable the wireless functions of the Time Capsule and, Set your Time Capsule to Bridge Mode.--Update the configuration.

Next: use an Ethernet cable to connect one of your router’s LAN ports to your Time Capsule’s WAN port.


I removed Boot Camp the hard way, but then I got a Windows error anyway. Should I be concerned? The short version:

I was running Boot Camp on my Retina MacBook Pro, but I decided just recently to ditch it because I never use it and I'd like to reclaim the space. The official method of removing it with Boot Camp Assistant failed so I went the harder route involving booting into Internet Recovery mode and deleting the partitions manually, which worked and gave me the space back - except when I rebooted I got a Windows screen telling me booting failed, and when I hold down OPTION on a boot I still see "Windows" as an option.

If I pick OS X when I hold down OPTION it boots like I want it to but on a restart it still gave me the Windows error screen. Booting into Internet Recovery again and setting "Macintosh HD" as the Startup Disk seems to have fixed it and now on subsequent reboots I'm in OS X like I want again, but I can still see "Windows" as an option as I hold down OPTION on reboot.

Is there any way to get rid of this "ghost" of Windows/Boot Camp on my system and if there's not, is this something I should be concerned with?

The long version

So here's the sequence of events:

Got my rMBP in 10/2014
A few months later I added Boot Camp, initially with Windows 8.1 and later upgraded to Windows 10
The other day I decided to ditch Boot Camp as it's taking up space and I never use it.
Did a few different backups
Uninstalling Boot Camp via the Boot Camp Assistant didn't work, which is apparently really common
Read online that the next best thing is deleting the Boot Camp partitions directly and/or modifying them to appease Boot Camp Assistant
Tried removing the Boot Camp partition in Disk Utility. It wouldn't let me. (By the way, Disk Utility is really crappy and unusable in El Capitan - they've removed the old standard partitioning method and replaced them with a PIE CHART that doesn't work half the time)
Did lots of reading, a fair amount of panicking, and booted into Internet Recovery mode
Using the Disk Utility in Internet Recovery Mode (which is the old one from Mavericks/Yosemite, yay) I was able to do a series of maneuvers that, long story short, allowed me to delete the Boot Camp partition - along with a couple of others that, I'm guessing, are artifacts of Windows/Boot Camp - and got back to one big huge partition. I happily restarted...
...and was presented with a clearly-from-Microsoft screen (fonts, colors, etc.) saying Windows couldn't load. At this point I've got the "No! We killed you!" scene from Robocop going through my head
Reboot, hold down OPTION, and I see Macintosh HD and Windows. I pick Macintosh HD
OS X boots up, I have all my space back, life is wonderful
Reboot the Mac to see what happens and I'm back in Windows error land
Back in OS X (after rebooting and holding down OPTION again) I go to Startup Disk in System Preferences and try to set Macintosh HD as the start disk but it won't let me do anything because there's only one hard drive now and as far as it can tell it's already the startup disk
I booted the Mac into Internet Recovery mode and set the Startup Disk to Macintosh HD (since, I'm guessing, when you're in Internet Recovery mode you're booting off of the temporary-from-the-Internet disk) and restarted.
Mac restarts in OS X like I want it to
Reboot again, Mac still restarts in OS X like I want it to. Did this a few times to be sure.
Reboot again, hold down OPTION, I can still see Windows as an option but I don't know where it's coming from

So basically things are where I want them to - except there's this "ghost" of my Boot Camp install lingering. Is there any way to get rid of it? And failing that, can I just ignore it safely?

You did a good job removing the Widows related partitions. I assume your Windows 10 was an EFI/GPT install, therefore you probably still have code left in the EFI partition (disk0s1).

To view the contents of this EFI partition you have to mount it. You can do so with the command shown below.

sudo diskutil mount /dev/disk0s1

Below is a what I have in my EFI partition. I do not have any EFI dependent operating systems installed. If you have any folders that are Microsoft related, you can delete them. For example, the folder EFI/Microsoft.

You can also look for the folder EFI/BOOT. The apple firmware will recognize the file bootx64.efi in this folder as the default name for removable operating systems. You can delete this folder.

When finished, unmount the EFI partition with the following command.

diskutil unmount /dev/disk0s1


Why Do I Need An Admin Password To Delete Apps But Not One to Install? The title says it all. It's weird. You can install apps from the Mac App Store without an admin password. But you do need one to uninstall them. Why?

I know macOS is UNIX
/Applications is a system folder.
But why do we need root privileges to remove, but not to add a file to /Applications?

Example:

The App Store runs elevated privileges as do many other parts of the system. Think of a bank, typically anyone can go deposit money in an arbitrary account, but only people with permission to withdraw funds can remove them.
When any account asks to install apps, the system checks the configuration and if allowed, installs them with the permissions programmed into the package - using the App Store app”s elevated privileges, not your account privileges to do the install.
“Why did this ship as a feature?” is harder to answer since computers are designed by many people and they, over time, agree on some ways of setting things up. Your computer could be set up to not even allow non-admin to install apps, so this is more about the convention of default settings being  chosen and if you or someone else has modified those default settings. It could be changed so anyone can delete anything in the Applications folder.
Have a look at the permissions on the app or folder and that explains why some users can delete or change it and others cannot.

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/change-permissions-for-files-folders-or-disks-mchlp1203/mac


How to embed a file as an icon in MS Word 2011 This should be fairly simple and it appears to be a bug in MS Word. I have a MS Word document and I simply want to embed an image in the document, but have it show up as an icon instead of the full image.

What should work is the following:

Select Insert -> Object...
Press the "From File..." button
Make sure the 'Display as Icon' item is checked
Select the image file
Press Insert

However, the image shows up as itself instead of being represented by an icon.

This works in MS Word on Windows.

Is there a way to make it work in MS Word 2011 for OS X?

A solution to this is to insert the icon and link the icon to the image file.

Find the image in Finder. Highlight the icon and select Get Info from the File menu; right-click on the icon and select Get Info from the contextual menu; or select the icon and press the Command+i key combo. Next, click on the icon the appears in the upper-left of the panel.

Press Command+c to copy the icon and then paste it into your document. Resize to your liking.

If you want the icon to link to the file, right-click on the image and choose "Hyperlink."

Then click the "Select" button and open your file. Finalize by click "OK"


Does iOS 10 Allow Self-Signed Certificates for PEAP? The campus I work for (I'm a student, not faculty or staff) is having issues with iOS 10 (for sure, haven't been able to get a single device running iOS 10 to work, even though 9.x.x worked just fine.  It instantly says "Unable to join network" every time you tap the network name) and allegedly Mac OS Sierra not connecting to their 802.1x WPA2 Enterprise network.  In doing some troubleshooting in my own personal time, I discovered that their certificate is self-signed.  Could this be contributing to the issue?

Found out the issue was indeed the RADIUS certificate, as Apple deprecated the SSLv3 cryptographic protocol and the RC4 symmetric cipher suite in iOS 10 and macOS Sierra.

More Info Here


Should I upgrade my Mid 2009 MBP 15 2.8 to MBPr 13? I code on eclipse and XCode on my Mid 2009 MBP 15 inch 2.8 ghz works very good. (very good = acceptable compile times and almost no occasional freezes. You don't get because of the slowness percentage) (It is also in very good physical condition)

I will be taking out my computer with me to meet a group of friends for a week to work on projects, brainstorm, etc.. I see this (as an excuse) opportunity to refresh my macbookpro (even though technically I am cool with it).

Do you think that I have to upgrade my device to MBPr 13 inch (256gb default option)?

My device does not have usb3 ports, retina screen, solid-state disk, thunderbolt, hdmi out(I use minidisplay to hdmi converter(no-audio)).

Do you think that I miss things? Like... may my working environment be less inspiring? (:

If I had to read between the lines, you are indirectly asking if the physical size and resolution of the 13 inch retina Mac is equal to or better than your existing 15 inch model.

It's clear that everything is faster on the new models. Heck, the new 2015 MacBook would probably run every workload and benchmark faster than any 2009 Mac including the Mac Pro of that vintage.

I would encourage you to refresh now. It's always the best time to buy Apple products when a new one is announced.

You know exactly what the latest bump is and can choose to get "last year's model" on sale from Apple or for a very good price used or buy the latest.
Between new and refurbished, you probably have 4 (or 6) price points instead of the 2 you normally get buying new from Apple.

As to the specifics of your "upgrade" - it's a great time to upgrade.

Intel CPU are massively more efficient and powerful from 2009 to 2015
USB is massively better - both in absolute terms and that Macs from 2009 had less optimal drivers for them IMO.
SSD storage is far better than HDD for almost every use case. Not only are you getting that jump, the the SSD in 2014/2015 are far better than 2012 and earlier in terms of performance and $/perf.
Retina screens are excellent for cases where you have lots of elements (Xcode and text) as well as far more pleasing than LCD from 2009 era.
You get a new Mac after 5 years

All of the above reasons would make your work environment much more inspiring. Especially if you can sell your old Mac or donate it and afford the new one.


Turn all windows transparent in Mavericks I have been looking around for over an hour now trying to find some way to make all my windows somewhat transparent / translucent ...

I found the app Afloat, however that app doesn't work with all other applications, only some

Any ideas on how I can turn all my windows semi-transparent in OS X Mavericks?

Thanks!

You cannot change the window colors in Finder itself. However, there are finger alternatives that can do this. Try Pathfinder by CocoaTech. I believe it has the option to make Finder windows transparent.


Can't connect to Internet in bash using Mac OS My browser works perfectly using the using Internet, however, when I tried to use this command in bash:

ping -q -w1 -c1 google.com &>/dev/null && echo online || echo offline

It gives me "offline" results. I have also tried another one in a different network:

ping -c 3 www.google.com

It returns:

PING www.google.com (74.125.193.147): 56 data bytes
Request timeout for icmp_seq 0
Request timeout for icmp_seq 1

--- www.google.com ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100.0% packet loss

All of these seem to point out that the terminal couldn't reach to the internet. I have tried using wifi and lan cable, the outcomes are the same.

I need to run a program which requires connection to a server, I wonder if you have any solutions to switch it back to online.  I'm on macOS 10.13 and am looking to determine from the command line if a network connection is viable.

Is this possible?

I prefer to use the system configuration utility tool to test for reachability instead of using ping / host / nslookup or another proxy for determining if a network entity is or is not reachable.

scutil -r google.com
Reachable

The benefits of this are that if you have VPN connections, dial up, modem, or a routing conflict, this will actually test that you can reach the device and not just resolve the cached host name, etc... in my experience. (also, it's a lot harder to mess up the indirection, files, logic and you get a direct answer back in English)

Like all good command line tools, it returns 0 to let you know the answer it provides is confident and an error if you have problems testing reachability.

 -r [-W] { nodename | address | local-address remote-address }
     Check the network reachability of the specified host name, IP
     address, or a pair of local and remote IP addresses.  One or more of
     the following strings will be reported to standard output.

     Not Reachable         The specified nodename/address cannot be
                           reached using the current network configura-
                           tion.

     Reachable             The specified nodename/address can be reached
                           using the current network configuration.

     Transient Connection  The specified nodename/address can be reached
                           via a transient (e.g. PPP) connection.

     Connection Required   The specified nodename/address can be reached
                           using the current network configuration but a
                           connection must first be established.  As an
                           example, this status would be returned for a
                           dialup connection that was not currently active
                           but could handle network traffic for the target
                           system.

     Connection Automatic  The specified nodename/address can be reached
                           using the current network configuration but a
                           connection must first be established.  Any
                           traffic directed to the specified name/address
                           will initiate the connection.

     Local Address         The specified nodename/address is one associ-
                           ated with a network interface on the system.

     Directly Reachable Addresss
                           Network traffic to the specified node-
                           name/address will not go through a gateway but
                           is routed directly to one of the interfaces on
                           the system.

     The reachability can also be monitored by specifying the -W (watch)
     option.  This will result in the current status being reported as
     well as the status when/if the network configuration changes.

     A zero exit status will be returned when the reachability status is
     reported correctly.  A non-zero exit status will be returned if
     errors are detected with an error reported to standard error.

Since Apple's index of manual pages is a PITA to use, here's a hopefully more stable link to the entire manual page online: https://ss64.com/osx/scutil.html

As a bonus - here is another decent Q&A relating to scutil and checking resolution:
nslookup & dig fail; ping, traceroute, and scutil -r work


You do not have the necessary read, write and append privileges on the selected network backup disk I have OSX Server running on a mac mini in my home.  I've been using it for doing Time Machine backups from my MacBook.  This worked fine until I changed the password for my user account on the mac mini.  At that point, backups on my laptop started failing, indicating that I needed to update the password that the laptop was storing for the mac mini.  However, when I try to do so (at System Preferences > Time Machine > Select Backup Disk...), I get the following error:

  "You do not have the necessary read, write and append privileges on the
  selected network backup disk."

The laptop is running OSX 10.9, and the mac mini is running OSX 10.8.

Has anyone using OSX Server for backups experienced something similar to this? Does anyone know how to fix it (without losing all of my previous backups)?

On my iMacs running macOS High Sierra (version 10.13.6) I had to explicitly add filesystem permissions for Time Machine to function correctly over the network. This resolved the You do not have the necessary read, write, and append privileges on the selected network backup disk error message.

I'm using username_A on both the source and destination iMacs.

On the source iMac, I used username_A when configuring Time Machine to run over the network to the shared network drive.

On the destination iMac (the one sharing out the Time Machine backup disk over my home network), I had to add username_A to the list of allowed users in System Preferences → Sharing → File Sharing. I also had to pull up the Get Info window for the shared disk and add username_A to the Sharing & Permissions list at the bottom of the window. Once I had added username_A in both places on the destination iMac, I was able to get Time Machine running over the network.


Is my installation of Xcode correct? I recently downloaded an Xcode 4.4 DMG file in Apple's Developer site and then opened it and ran Xcode.  I then copied the Xcode app to my Applications folder.  By doing that way, can I assume that it's already installed?

When I type "xcode" in Spotlight, it does see the Xcode app.

Your thoughts?

It's a bit of a strange question to ask if you aren't experiencing any problems.

Yes, that's how you install Xcode when downloading from the developer centre.  However unless you need to run a beta version you're probably better off installing Xcode from the App Store, where you can benefit from update notifications and delta upgrades.


Draft messages in Mountain Lion Mail do not include server draft messages I had a clean install Mountain Lion on my Macbook Pro, early 2011.

Following suggestions in the forums, I carried my "Mail" folders (folders, preferences, etc) from my cloned backup of Snow Leopard.

Mountain Lion Mail automatically created the necessary accounts in the new way it is set up.

However, the local Drafts folders do not include my drafted messages in individual IMAP e-mail accounts (yahoo, gmail, uni, etc).

I can see these draf messages under the folders of these individual e-mail accounts. But they are not like drafts. I cannot edit them. I have same controls as in the messages that are sent to me.

on the other hand, if I open a new message, type somethings and close without sending, that message goes into the Drafts folder.

How can I go around this problem?

I have an iMac (Mountain Lion.)  I couldn't edit any of my drafts.  I finally found that all I had to do was click FORWARD and then when the email comes on the screen I can edit.  (Too bad extra steps have to be taken, though.)


Can't Delete/Move folder/files on external HDD Possible Duplicate:
  How can I use NTFS partitions?

Hi, I just bought a new external HDD, It went well on my PC but I can't delete/move files on it from my macbook.

PS. Im running OS X 10.5.8 on my macbook

You need to install 3rd-party software for this, by default OS X just support reading NTFS not writing.

download and install NTFS-3G and MacFUSES.


Removing Bundlore malware manually I have a MacBook Pro with macOS Mojave. My Sophos antivirus software found a 'Bundlore' malware and I need to remove it manually.

It says it's located in: /Volumes/Player/Player_440.app/Contents/MacOS/RucSD0QPeG1Amuk

However, I can't find the location and I have tried different methods so far. Thanks for yout help!

The Bundlore adware is a collection of related adware programs with widely varying names, but that all appear to be made by the same group.

It is actually a Windows malware.

Removal

Delete all of the following browser extensions that you find: Shopy Mate, FlashMall, Cinema-Plus Pro (and variants like CinemaPlus, CinemaPro, Cinema + HD, Cinema + Plus + or Cinema Ploos).

Then Move the following items to the trash.

/Applications/WebTools.app
/Applications/WebShopper.app
~/Applications/WebTools.app
~/Applications/WebShopper.app
/Library/cinemapro1-2/
~/Library/cinemapro1-2/
~/Library/WebTools/
~/Library/Application Support/webHelperApp/
~/Library/Application Support/WebShopper/
~/Library/LaunchAgents/WebServerSocketApp
~/Library/LaunchAgents/UpdateDownloder
~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.webhelper.plist
~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.webtools.update.agent.plist
~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.webtools.uninstaller.plist

If you find NONE of those files then the Malware has not installed, you just have the Installer.

More Information here


Where does Photos.app store the iPhone videos I've imported? I use my iPhone to take photos and video, then import them onto my Macbook using the new Photos app.

Now I'm trying to find the original videos so I can put them on an external hard drive for a friend to edit. I notice that within the Photos app, if I control-click on my videos, there is no "Reveal in Finder" option. If I do "Get Info" and look at the filename, it says IMG_6517.MOV. But when I do a Spotlight search, that file does not come up.

Where does the new Photos app store the originals for photos and videos I've imported?

I figured out the answer by going to Terminal and doing find ./ -name *.MOV -print.

The Photos Library is different from the iPhoto Library. If you've upgraded from iPhoto to the new Photos app, then for any video files you've imported, you can find the originals at:

~/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary/Masters

This way, you don't need to export your video files; you can just copy them.

In Finder, go to Go > Go to Folder
Enter ~/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary/Masters
Navigate to whatever video files you want and copy them to your destination.


What is the double exclamation mark mean beside clip in mail.app I have received a mail, which has a double exclamation mark beside the attachment file clip, what did it mean?

It means the email was marked as very important or urgent by the original sender.


Menubar and Finder icons missing Since about 5 days ago all system icons in the Finder sidebar (folders, disks), the Finder Menubar (view options, buttons, back and forward) and in the display menu bar (spotlight, wifi, bluetooth) have disappeared:

When I log in as a different user or as a guest, the problem does not present itself. Also note that it's not just system icons, Alfred.app and Flux.app are missing from the menu bar too.

I've reset the pram, started in save mode but nothing seems to fix it.
Any help would be appreciated :)

Two options I can think of:

1) Clear the Finder's icon cache, from Terminal, & reboot
sudo find /private/var/folders/ -name com.apple.dock.iconcache -exec rm {} \;

2) Or run the latest combo updater (rather than the delta), from https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1804?


MacBook Pro Retina Hanging on White Boot Screen My 15" MacBook Pro Retina has an issue that, on startup, the initial all-white screen shows in conjunction with the start-up chime and remains there for several seconds (up to 15-20 in extreme cases).

When I originally purchased the product, it would only take about 3-5 seconds for the Apple logo to appear and for the boot to continue.

Are there any steps I can take to cut down on the time the system spends on this all-white start-up screen?

There could be a number of reasons to cause this:

Amount of storage
The age
torrented applications or files.

These are just the main ones, of course there is others. Try cleaning out your mac!

Note: I am not accusing you of torrenting application!


Does hard reset downgrade device? I just "repaired" an iPod Touch, 4th generation (MC540BT). A friend of mine didn't use it for a year because it didn't charge. After playing with it a little; I finally managed to turn it on and it worked. She (my friend) told me that it didn't work as soon as she updated it to 6.0.1 and asked me if I can downgrade it to the previous version. I told her about hard reset but I want to know if hard reset brings it back to the iOS version that it left the factory with.

In less words:
Does a hard reset downgrade device or allow me to downgrade?

No - If by hard reset you mean 'restoring', it will restore the device to the most recent version of iOS that is able to be installed on the device. Restoring will only let you install the last version—there's no choice.


How to take a picture with the mac webcam in PNG? Photo Booth saves photos in JPG and I find it a bit tedious to convert from JPG to PNG. I’m not using Automator anymore for this.

For some reason when I use imagesnap, it can only save in JPG.

So what software program could I use to make my webcam pictures in PNG? There is a Python script written by machine learning researchers that can only accept PNG (see here).

imagesnap -h
Capturing image from device "<imagesnap-master
USAGE: ./imagesnap [options] [filename]
Version: 0.2.5
Captures an image from a video device and saves it in a file.
If no device is specified, the system default will be used.
If no filename is specfied, snapshot.jpg will be used.
JPEG is the only supported output type.
  -h          This help message
  -v          Verbose mode
  -l          List available video devices
  -t x.xx     Take a picture every x.xx seconds
  -q          Quiet mode. Do not output any text
  -w x.xx     Warmup. Delay snapshot x.xx seconds after turning on camera
  -d device   Use named video device

The version of imagesnap distributed through Homebrew (and available on https://github.com/rharder/imagesnap) doesn't support PNG. Apparently support for other formats besides JPG was removed when QTKit got replaced by AVFoundation.

If you download 0.2.5 directly from http://iharder.sourceforge.net/current/macosx/imagesnap/ you get a version which also supports other formats.

$ ./imagesnap -h
USAGE: ./imagesnap [options] [filename]
Version: 0.2.5
Captures an image from a video device and saves it in a file.
If no device is specified, the system default will be used.
If no filename is specfied, snapshot.jpg will be used.
Supported image types: JPEG, TIFF, PNG, GIF, BMP
  -h          This help message
  -v          Verbose mode
  -l          List available video devices
  -t x.xx     Take a picture every x.xx seconds
  -q          Quiet mode. Do not output any text
  -w x.xx     Warmup. Delay snapshot x.xx seconds after turning on camera
  -d device   Use named video device


How can I get the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro volume control to work? I've been using the X-Fi for some time on Windows and it works great. However, on my MacBook Pro I can't get the volume control to work.

I see the device in "System Preferences -> Sound" and in "Audio MIDI Setup" and I can switch output to it and it works great, except for volume control. Is it possible to get it to work too?

The workaround I found so far is to use Soundflower as an intermediate filter between PC output and the X-Fi. This allows to control volume from Mac OSX at the price of some sound processing. I cannot comment yet on sound quality but on first auditions it seems to sound better than setting the volume to 1/100 in Songbird (my FLAC player).


calendar full with this recurring event It's a few weeks now that I repeatedly find events similar to this in my calendar, everyday the same, forever:

I don't know how it gets there
I'd like to cancel it without notifying anyone (just to limit feedback to the guy)

has anyone got a clue?

Assuming this is a Google Calendar, the following advice from https://the-parallax.com/2018/05/11/how-to-stop-calendar-spam/ should help:

  Google Calendar: From a Web browser, click on the event in Calendar, but be careful not to reply to it, and not to click on any
  of the links within it. At the top, under the Going section, click
  “Report spam.” The event, along with all others from that organizer,
  will be removed from your Calendar.

  To prevent more spam from showing up on your Google Calendar in the
  future, click the Gear icon in the upper-right corner, and go to
  Settings. Scroll down to Event Settings, and change Automatically Add
  Invitations to, “No, only show invitations to which I have responded.”


How to clear search history in Apple Maps I’m on iOS 11 and to sliding an entry to the left is supposed to remove the entry. Now that the clear all option is gone I have to do it one by one, which is okay, but the problem is it doesn’t work.

The entry comes back immediately and it only works for new entries.

Is there any way to clear the history, or probably reset the app entirely? Reinstalling the app doesn’t work - the history comes back up.

Looks like you have iCloud enabled, and it keeps putting the removed entries back

Settings app
Select your Apple ID
Tap iCloud
Scroll down to Maps
Toggle it off

Then go back to Maps and swipe to delete.


Does my son know I'm using Find my iPhone when I log on? If I use Find my iPhone to locate my son's phone, does he know I am checking?  Does his phone alert him that I'm checking on him?

By default, no, there is no way for them to know the device is being viewed through Find My iPhone.

However, your son could enable System Services status bar icon so that the device shows the location services icon in the status bar when any system service location tracking is active.

Settings → Privacy → Location Services → System Services → Status Bar Icon

This shows the normal location services icon (and not a special icon for Find My iPhone) if the device's location is being obtained through Find My iPhone.

Whether your Son has other location services that would cause the icon to already show or if he would notice the times when the server asks for an update is another story, but it's possible for him to get tipped off if he changes one setting.

Furthermore, if the device is jailbroken, there are numerous tweaks which would make detecting Find my iPhone extremely simple, from Firewall iP to network logging.


El Capitan Contacts.app most of contacts are duplicates, but not all Most of the contacts in my Contacts.app are duplicated, but not all.
I tried Apple's solution, to no avail.

Contacts that are not duplicated and that have data in Company field, have a column character (;) at the end of what is written in that field.

Adding the column character to an existing duplicated contact does not change anything (whether I add it in one of them or both).

Deleting by hand one of both duplicate contacts erases also the other but only after having quit and come back to the program.

Reimporting the vCard of the hand-deleted contact only recreates it once (even after quitting and coming back to the program).

In iCloud.com, there are no duplicates, neither in my iPhone, nor in my iPad.

I tried exporting as archive the totality of the contacts, erasing them from Contacts.app and reimporting them. But, strangely, the contacts come back, for like a second, and then half the contacts disappear. So instead of having my 808 contacts, only 488 remain and no duplicates (with duplicates there were 1787 contacts).

Any ideas?

Mac OS X: El Capitan, 10.11 (15A284)
Contacts.app: Version 9.0 (1679)

Contact debugging involves the following steps.

Identify source of data. This could be via iTunes sync from a device, a provider like Google, Exchange/Outlook, Yahoo or iCloud or directly in the Contacts app.

Isolate sources causing issues (disable all or one by one if possible).

Identify duplicates and merge. Understand the difference between "link" and "merge" as "link" will not remove duplicates.

If all else fails, use the export option in Contacts to export all contact cards and then re-import the ones of interest. Then you should have a clean setup.


How can I export all my Iphone's data from the backup data into a useable format? I am switching from my iphone after many years to a pinephone. I would like to be able to use or access the data, notes, files, sms, images, voice memos, contacts and so on.
I don't need to worry about the data being set up on the new phone. I just want to make sure I can access and use the data before I let go of my iphone.
I would also like some assurance that any third party program isn't uploading whatever they can get to their own servers to their own ends. Via paying for the software or auditable open source software.
Lastly I want to be as thorough as possible in not leaving anything out.
Any suggestion of tools or knowledge about how the backup data is stored or could be exported that could lens insight into a solution is appreciated.

A lot of phone apps store their data in a way that no other software can read. Your best option is often to use the app on your phone to somehow export the data - instead of working with backups.
A lot of the Files app can be accessed via iCloud Drive or copied into dropbox/etc. Photos can be exported by connecting your phone to a computer and importing it like you would a DSLR camera. Contacts can be synced with various PC contact apps, and from there exported as vcard files.
Some apps won't have good export options and it might be easier to just give up on that data.
Some apps, especially music and video players, have DRM specifically designed to enforce contract license terms that do not allow exporting. In the case of Apple music, the contract terms and DRM differ depending wether you downloaded the song as a "subscriber" or "purchased" the song.
Please try searching for existing questions/answers for each individual app with data you'd like to archive, and if you can't find anything, ask a separate question for each one.


What trackpad gestures does Safari support? Which trackpad gestures does Safari support, and what do those gestures do?

As far as i know, Safari supports pinch to change zooming, three finger swipes to navigate back and forward and that's it.


Why does the Dock executable not yield any useful strings, unlike other OS X apps? When I run the strings command on the executable file in most OS X apps (•.app/Contents/MacOS/•), I get a list of routine names, possible hidden preferences, etc. When I run the command on the Dock executable, I get garbage. What makes the Dock executable different from most other Mac programs?

This is because many OS X binaries are encrypted. They are decrypted in real time by the “Don’t Steal Mac OS X.kext” in your /System/Library/Extensions. I don’t know why Apple does it. The Get Info string of the file:

  The purpose of this Apple software is to protect Apple copyrighted materials from unauthorized copying and use. You may not copy, modify, reverse engineer, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, transfer or redistribute this file, in whole or in part.  If you have obtained a copy of this Apple software and do not have a valid license from Apple to use it, please immediately destroy or delete it from your computer.


Black sun animation in iTunes. Does anyone know what it is? I got this black sun animation inside my iTunes.

It was triggered by some shortcut, but I can't remember which one.

Does anyone know what it is?

That is the Visualizer.  You can press Command + T (Ctrl + T on Windows) to start it.  Or it is available form the View Menu.

View --> Show Visualizer

Also in the View Menu you can change some of the settings for the way the Visualizer looks.

View --> Visualizer --> <More Options Here>


Can't see new SSD when connected via internal SATA port I just bought a new Samsung SSD 830 and installed it my 13" MacBook Pro (Mid 2010) in the hard disk bay, replacing the drive that was there (I actually have a second drive in the optical drive's slot). Unfortunately, when I started up my computer (from the other drive I have), I can't see the SSD in System Information (formerly Profiler) or Disk Utility.

However, I see the drive fine when using a SATA-to-USB adapter and I also am able to see the old hard disk when it is connected via the internal SATA, so the internal wiring seems to be fine. Thus:

HDD via USB: works
SSD via USB: works
HDD via internal SATA: works
SSD via internal SATA: completely broken

Anyone have ideas for a fix?

It turned out that the hard drive cable was broken. Replacing it fixed the problem completely.


How to mount a DMG image on macOS 10.15.5 that was generated by GNU's ddrescue? I used the following command in order to save some time (-n and -N options):
sudo ddrescue -v -n -N /dev/disk5 /Volumes/formatted/photosound.dmg /Volumes/formatted/map.txt
With the help of Disk Arbitrator, I made sure that the corrupted drive (disk5) did not mount in the macOS. The target disk (1TB larger than the corrupted drive) is normally mounted.
The command above terminated successfully, however when I double-click on the .dmg file, it says it can not mount:

So how can I mount this image? Or is the command wrong?
Please help! I wished that ddrescue would first try to create an empty mountable image without any data in it (this should take about 1min to recover). Then it should be possible to just add data to the image...

ddrescue doesn't create DMG files.  Just appending .dmg to a file doesn't a DMG make.
A DMG is an Apple Disk Image file.  There are methods to create a DMG on other platforms besides macOS - How to build a dmg Mac OS X file (on a non-Mac platform)? - but you must have the ability to format the volume as HFS+ (at a minimum).  The command you used doesn't show where that was done.
You might also want to review how to create a DMG:  How do I create a DMG file from a directory? on macOS


Is it possible to update an iOS device to a version older than the current version? My question title probably sounds confusing, so allow me to explain...

Let's say you have an iPhone 3GS that's still running iOS 5. Is it possible, today, to upgrade that device to iOS 6 (the latest supported version)? Or is it now stuck on iOS 5 because the latest version, iOS 7, doesn't support the 3GS?

Put another way, if you were to go to Software Update on that device, would it offer you an update to iOS 6, or would it say nothing is available because iOS 7 isn't compatible?

To give a clear answer to the question that was asked, which is whether a device can be updated to the latest version of iOS it supports, even if that version of iOS is no longer current.

Yes, it is possible. Software Update, either on the device or via iTunes, will offer the latest version that is supported by your device.

I can't readily find an official reference for this but it is supported by numerous other answers to similar questions on this site.


Play folder with right button with VLC as a "switcher" I have discovered one functionally that I like in Windows and I don't see in Mac.
I want to play all the media files in a folder with VLC with the right click and "Play all" but in this case I need to first open VLC, then click in "Open" and then browse through the folders to finally play the files. Is there any way to play a entire folder with only the right button?

Thanks in advance, best regards.

It doesn't appear possible to do something like VLC folder/ folder2/ from the command line. Instead I've successfully created an Automator service that generates a playlist and launches the application passing the list to it.
Here is the service...

To include subfolders enable the option Repeat for each subfolder found in the first action shown above.
To save you the typing, the shell script code is as follows,
# Create playlist
PLSFILE=/tmp/VLC_`date +%s`_$$.m3u
cat > $PLSFILE

# If file empty just exit
[ -s $PLSFILE ] || exit 0

# Remove following if you want to add to list instead of replacing it
killall VLC && sleep 1

# Launch VLC with our new playlist
open -a /Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC $PLSFILE --args --playlist-autostart

The shell script will do nothing if Finder doesn't find any media files. If VLC is already playing, it will add the files to is existing list. Check the VLC documentation for more information on available options.
Finally you can launch it by right clicking on a folder and then select Services...

Hope that helped.


Round iPod connector My car stereo claims to support my iPod touch, and has an iPod connector that is round. The car is second-hand, and no cable was supplied. It isn't the specific adapter shown below - nor indeed that specific ipod, but it is the same connector - and simply, I don't recognise it.

Searching for "round ipod cable" hasn't been fruitful. is this a common/known connector type?

My first thought on seeing that was that it looks like a 9 pin DIN connector. So I did a quick Google and it looks like there are such things as 9 pin DIN to iPod leads. This lead for example looks to match (though the picture quality is rubbish so it's hard to tell).


How do you delete individual texts from a message conversation in iOS 8? I have downloaded ios8 and I am struggling to delete individual texts from a message conversation. When I open a message and highlight a text bubble, "more" still appears, but when I tick the box, the trash can to delete is missing. The only option given is to click "Delete All". It seems that you have to delete the whole conversation, rather than have the option to select the texts you want to keep/delete within it. Am I missing something? Please advise.

Press and hold the message to delete, a menu will pop-up with the options "Copy" and "More". Tap "More".

The message you selected is marked with a checkmark on the left. You can check more or delete all by tapping "Delete All" on the top left.

Tap the trash after selecting the message to be deleted. A confirmation will appear. Press "Delete Message".

The message is gone. Just blurry messages are left.


Selectively delete Messages on macOS Is is possible to selectively delete Messages on Catalina?
I currently have Keep messages: "Forever" enabled.

My daughter is a inveterate Messenger, and I want to keep some of her messages for sentimental reasons but I don't need the hundreds of "Yay. Thank you." or similar.

I have deleted all on my iPhone5S (running iOS12.4) but even there I would like the option to keep selected messages.

Alternatively is it possible to export selected messages? I can copy, but this loses timestamps.

It is possible to delete individual messages also in the Messages app on macOS. I don't know if exporting is possible.

Open Messages on your Mac computer.
Open the conversation which includes the messages you wish to delete.
Find and click on the specific text bubble (message) that you wish to remove. Make sure you select the entire message bubble, not just the text within it. (Easier to do this by clicking somewhere close to the corners of the message bubble. Your selection grays out a bit once selected.)
Press Command+Click to add additional message selections.
Once completed selecting, Control-Click or Right-Click and select Delete from the drop-down menu. (If you don’t see the Delete option, you probably selected the text rather than the message bubble. Control-Click or Right-Click after selecting multiple messages is a bit tricky. You may use the Edit -> Delete menu from Messages' menu at the top instead in either case.)

These directions mostly come from this source. You can take a look at it if you like a bit more detail on selective deletion and directions for other Messages related actions on your Mac. The official help page for Messages on macOS is also here.


I would like to fax from my Mac running High Sierra I need to fax a couple of pages from my Mac. My printer doesn't seem to support faxing. I found one online site that will fax from a mac but they wanted a monthly subscription starting at $12.95 a month. Is there another way to fax without going somewhere that will fax for me?

Assuming you don't want to upgrade your printer, buy/borrow a fax machine or pay for an online service, then the only remaining options are:

print the pages and take them somewhere to fax for you
find an online fax service with a free trial period
use a fax modem1 if you happen to have an old one laying around

If this is a once off I would just print the pages and take them to your workplace or a local post office (or anywhere that has a fax machine) and ask if they can fax them for you. Even if they charge a couple of dollars, this is probably the best option.

Otherwise you should be able to find an online fax service with a free trial period. I just did a quick search and found that https://en.efax.com offers a 30 day trial period. No doubt you will need to provide payment details as part of the registration, but typically with these types of services you can just contact them and cancel your account prior to the trial period ending.

1. macOS Sierra doesn't natively support fax modems but there used to be a range of 3rd party fax programs, so you could use one of these. Or maybe just use another computer or install El Capitan on a virtual machine to do this. Or, if you happen to have Windows installed (either via Bootcamp or a virtual machine), that should do the trick too.


Firefox & Safari - always show horizontal scrollbars if needed Today I opened this fancy photo website of a friend. It has horizontal scrolling of pictures. In Firefox I cannot scroll horizontally without first using the cursor keys. The same happens in Safari. The horizontal scrollbar shows for a second, and if I hover over it, a bigger scrollbar appears and that one stays even longer, like 10 seconds. Then it disappears and I have to use the cursor again.

In my opinion this is a GUI failure by either Apple or Mozilla, but besides complaining I want to have this fixed. I want to see a horizontal scrollbar whenever I hover over the bottom border of the page in Firefox, if (and only if) the page is wider than the browser window. Can this be done?

Could you post a link to the site? Does the behavior differ in Chrome or Safari? It could be a problem from the site programmer.


Time Machine and storage questions In researching Time Machine usage issues, I have come across other questions that might change the way I have always arranged my drives.

Back in the 'olden days' when internal drives were smaller--say 10 GB--I would attach an external drive for most of my storage. (Keep in mind that my Mac use goes back to my treasured 128K Mac with no hard drive and has evolved since then.) My current iMac had a 750 GB internal drive which died and is being replaced with a 1 TB drive. I also have a 1 TB external drive.

Being a creature of habit I have retained my time honored practice of using my internal drive for the OS (currently 10.9) and it's associated files, my applications and whatever files the Mac wants to store there. ALL of my stored files are on the external drive. I am a fairly light user so the above arrangement results in about a 5% or less usage of each drive.

Due to the recent 'death' of my internal drive I am now planning on using TM to back up my data and have been told to use a dedicated drive for that purpose. My plan was to get another external drive for that purpose. But, I am seeking opinions to see if I should re-think my disk usage in light of current disk capacities. Given the vast amount of empty space on both my current drives (as I said probably 90% or more) should I consolidate my internal and external drives on the internal drive and format the external drive for TM? It seems to me that I have an insane amount of free disk space so that buying a second external drive to be a waste of money-at least at this time. Of course I can always purchase another drive later if my needs point in that direction.

Putting everything on the internal drive and using the external drive for Tim Machine will provide you with two copies of all of your data.  That way if either drive dies, you will not lose much data.

Also, a best practice for Time Machine is to keep the drive connected and mounted at all times. This way a backup will be done every hour and will always be current.

My recommendation would be to consolidate everything on the internal drive and use an external drive for a time machine backup. You will probably be OK for quite a while, unless you start acquiring lots of music, movies, or TV shows. I believe that Apple recommends that the Time Machine drive be at least 1.5-2 times the size of the drives it is backing up. This may not be necessary in your case, your external 1TB drive should work fine. The OS will alert you when it has to start deleting older backups because the disk is getting too full.


Can't restore from Time Machine server I have a Mac mini running 10.14.5 as a server. In System Preferences / Sharing I set up a shared folder on second internal drive HFS+ formatted drive for time machine backups. Backing up and entering the Time Machine backups works fine from three different clients all running 10.14.5. All backups are encrypted. On the server I can mount the sparsebundle  and read the backup (so I have the right key).

Now I replaced one client and want to restore a backup. During the setup I can connect with my file server user to the server and see all three clients, but when I select one of the clients, I get the message "some backups cannot be opened". I never get asked for the encryption key.

Following are my settings:

File Sharing: ON at "smb://server.local"
Share files using SMB: ON
Share files using AFP: OFF
Shared Folder Advance: Share as Time Machine destination on, Share over SMB, only encrypted SMB connections OFF
Shared Folder Permissions: two user can read and write, admin & everyone can read

Is the new 'replaced' client running on the same level of OS as your other clients?

I ran into the same error message when trying to restore a backup, and only got past it when I first upgraded the OS on the new hard drive to the same level as the prior hard drive was running when the most recent back up was made.  That is, I skipped restoring files to the computer until I completed initializing the new drive, then upgraded the OS, and finally went back and restored applications and documents.


Any way to update now from iOS 7.0.4 to 7.1.2? I am trying to restore my iPhone 5s to iOS 7.1.2 but I only get error 3194. My hosts file is cleaned and I think it’s just Apple that doesn’t let me update to something other than iOS 8. Is there any other way to restore my phone to iOS 7? While trying to restore content and settings it got stuck in an endless spinner.

Apple is no longer signing iOS 7, while you can manually update to v7.1.2, it won't activate.

http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/09/26/apple-stops-ios-712-code-signing-restricts-downgrading-from-ios-8


What should the "Show Recents" menu item do? When I click with the right mouse button on the Messages icon on the dock bar, I see there  is a "Show Recents" menu item.

When I click on it, the only thing it seems to do is showing me a Finder window. It hides the other windows, and when I click on the desktop, the window I was seeing before re-appears. In my case, I had Safari open, and its window was hidden until I didn't click on the desktop.

What is that menu item supposed to do? Is it working correctly?
Update: It doesn't seem that menu is specific for the Messages application. Dock icons for applications that are not running show that menu item. I don't see it for Mission Control, Launchpad, Downloads and Trashcan. I see that menu item for System Preferences, and Reminders, for example.

The official documentation is very thin for messages (it doesn't even have an entry in the Applications section of OS X support online)

It could be working correctly if it's just a stub to allow you to see some recent messages when the application is not running, but that functionality isn't present today. Once you start up the app, the Show Recents menu item in the dock is suppressed and you instead get to show the various windows that the app could have open.

So - it's useless and could get hidden if it's simply a bug or perhaps an update will add this functionality so that it actually shows something that has happened recently since it doesn't show any recent activity at 10.8 build 12A269.


Contacts on iPhone 6 will not merge with Cloud I recently purchased and iPhone 6 and sync'd my data appropriately.  However, all of my contacts were apparently still associated with my old work email.  I have since moved on to another job and had to delete that email address - and with it - there went all my contacts.  Through the current contacts app, I only have anything I have added after I deleted that work email address.  I even tried resetting it from a previous backup from my computer, not iCloud.

HOWEVER, when I go to text and type in a letter, all my old contacts show up as options with their correct names, etc.  So clearly this information is on the phone.

Is there a way to get the contacts that are somewhere deep in the phone where the messaging software is accessing it, and then merge it to iCloud?

I've already tried turning iCloud on and off and remerging.  Unfortunately, it didn't work.

The contacts can be cached on the phone hence why they show up if you search for them, although they are not going to be retrievable. The easiest way to get the contacts back will be importing the v-card files into iCloud.com/contacts under the settings, there is an import button.

Did you have the email account synced to any applications that are on a computer? For example in a mail application or outlook application, digging through them might allow you to pull the card files up.

Another alternative is to go through the cache on the phone, and start typing them into the contacts application on a computer / iCloud, but thats a pain staking way to do things.

One theoretical way to get the contact files out of the unit would be to use a backup extractor, that can look at the database files of the cache, and pull the contacts out, you would have to do some searching to locate an application like this, although there should be some on the market (http://supercrazyawesome.com)


iPad 2 charging very slow My iPad 2 has recently become VERY slow to charge- about 1% every 10 minutes while plugged into my Retina MacBook Pro (my usual charging source). I've tried both USB ports on the rMBP and neither seems faster than the other. I checked the Apple support website and it was said to be a bug in iOS 7, but my iPad was charging fine for a few weeks after I updated.  What could be some possible causes of this.

NOTE: the battery drains at a normal rate.

Put it into the Airplane mode and switch off the screen while charging. It will charge faster.


Is it possible to create something like a requirements file for homebrew? Python (and other languages) can use a requirements file to specify a list of packages to install.

Is it possible to use a requirements file for homebrew?

You should have a look at brew bundle, which installs as a subcommand of brew. It can install and update packages, taps, and casks specified in a Brewfile. You can also dump your current Homebrew environment into a new Brewfile or uninstall everything not listed.


Apple iPhone 5 doesn't charge attached to a laptop My Apple iPhone 5 doesn't charge attached to a laptop. It works fine attached to a wall charger. Plugging in the USB cable into laptop doesn't generate an audible feedback. I am running Windows 8.1 Professional.

How do I solve my problem?

This can have 2 reasons
1. You're using an aftermarket cable with too much electrical loss.
2. Your laptop USB port(s) don't deliver enough power.

Both situations sometimes are paired with the iPhone making non stop charge-beeps like you connect and disconnect the charging cable - but I read that this is not the case with you.

I found out that this situation comes up less frequently, once the iPhone battery is above 70 or so percent.


Is it possible to have two phones (one of which an iPhone) on the same number without changing the SIM card? I have always wondered whether it was possible to use the same phone number on an "emergency phone" in case the main one gets lost.

Yes

Yes it is possible. I think they developed this for the fixed car-phones. Some providers support 2 simcards with the same number. How it works:

The phone that had a connection and some communication to the cell-tower last will be the primary phone.
When you make a call, that phone becomes the primary phone.
When you change locations (change cell-tower), that will be your primary phone.
If your primary phone is not on the network, your secondary phone will become the primary phone.

The primary phone is the only phone that can receive calls. Both phones can call.
Ask your provider for more info.

This is based on my experience (Vodafone, Netherlands). And I am sure there are better descriptions out there ;)


iCloud preference pane loads indefinitely and prevents access to System Preferences When I open System Preferences, it opens straight to the iCloud pane, which loads a spinner, states that it is loading, and then runs until I give up. While the spinner is up, I can't quit the app or load the pane, nor can I access any other preferences.

I don't have an iCloud account, and I'd like to quit the pane to make changes to my system. Is there any way to disable the pane or this behaviour?

Launch Activity Monitor (in /Applications/Utilities) and look for a process named "com.apple.preferences.icloud.remoteservice".  Select it, click the little stop sign with the x inside it, and select "force Quit".