How to get rid of black stripes in the bottom and top of screen in full screen mode When I'm opening macvim in full screen mode I have black stripes in bottom and top. So I can't see some part of code.

In none full screen there're no black stripes.

Is there a way to get rid of these stripes?

I found this post that seems to address that problem.

Full screen MacVim on OS X Yosemite

$ defaults write org.vim.MacVim MMNativeFullScreen 0

Great, it worked !! thanks for confirming for others to find and use.


Conditioning launchd scheduled job on file existence? We have a scheduled job that we want to run on both our macOS and Linux hosts.
On Linux, with systemd we can just use this:
ConditionPathExists=/etc/this_file_must_exist
ConditionPathExists=!/etc/skip_if_this_exists

and the job will only execute if the first file exists, and the second file is absent (so we can pause the scheduled job from running, e.g. if we're testing a new version).
Is there an equivalent on macOS? I've seen others achieve a similar result by using Bash and just running `[[ -f /etc/this_file_must_exist ]] && run_my_job`` but this seems... not to be the ideal way.
launchd.plist's manpage (https://www.manpagez.com/man/5/launchd.plist/ -- official link seems down) has KeepAlive but that's for keeping the service up, not preventing it from starting.
Thanks!

Short answer: Nope.
launchd can start jobs at scheduled times (with the StartCalendarInterval key), when particular files are modified (WatchPaths), or when files appear in a particular directory (QueueDirectories), but it doesn't have a way to test existence of a specific file, nor to combine conditions the way you want to.
So... something like a bash wrapper is what you're looking at. You can either write a bash script and run that with a StartCalendarInterval trigger, or use the ProgramArguments array to embed a miniature script directly in the plist:
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
    <string>/bin/bash</string>
    <string>-c</string>
    <string>[[ -e /etc/this_file_must_exist ]] && [[ ! -e /etc/skip_if_this_exists ]] && exec /path/to/my_job</string>
</array>

Note: I'd recommend running your job from bash with exec; that makes the job replace the shell (rather than running as a subprocess), so launchd can monitor and manage it more directly.


How long should you wait before force shutting down your mac in case of a stuck upgrade/update? Its been a while since my macbook pro started updating, and it is stuck.

Wondering if I should shut it down or leave it a bit longer?

The progress bar is stuck and there is no remaining calculated ( calculating time remaining ... )

I would wait as long as possible. When you force shut down a computer that’s in the middle of an update, you’re likely going to have to do recovery and reinstall the OS. I did hear of one case where that wasn’t necessary, but usually that’s the case.


FaceTime, iCloud and iMessage in China Can one use FaceTime on an iPhone 6 without being billed international rates?

I have a iPhone 6 bought in U.S. and I am going to China to visit family for six weeks. The iPhone region is United states. Do I have to change my region on my iPhone while I am in China in order for my U.S. WeChat account to work? Or do I use the FaceTime or iMessage apps?

FaceTime, iCloud and iMessage are location-independent. The location of the sender or recipient does not affect the price you pay to use the service: free.

However, how you connect to the internet may cost. Using free Wi-Fi will be free, or you can pay roaming rates to your SIM card provider for cellular usage, or you can purchase a Chinese SIM card and pay a provider in China. This is payment for connecting to the internet, to use any service, not specifically for any Apple services.

You should not change your iPhone region.


Why can I not make a hard link to PkgInfo? With bash as my shell, a simple way to demonstrate my question is this:

mkdir -p foo.app/Contents
cd foo.app/Contents
echo -n 'AEgxFXTC' > PkgInfo
ln PkgInfo f

The ln will fail with ln: f: Operation not permitted

I am on 10.10.5 with a Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted) file system.

There seems to be some magic squirreled away in the file system for files named PkgInfo inside a directory named Contents.  The contents of the file does not seem to matter.

What is the magic specifically?  Are there other magic names besides PkgInfo?  Why is it special?  etc.

This is an undocumented security "feature" of macOS. See https://groups.google.com/a/continuum.io/forum/#!topic/anaconda/CB0zClGfh3c

  This turns out to be an issue specific to *.app/Contents/PkgInfo and .app/Contents/Resources/.lproj files. OS X does not want to permit the creation of a hard link between one of these items in an application bundle to another file in a non-application-bundle folder. I was unable to find an explanation for this behavior in Apple's documentation, nor in the source code for HFS or the OS X kernel.


Why would my iPhone 6 be stuck in a dead battery boot loop? Okay, so I have a problem. My iPhone 6 died (it runs a non-jailbroken version of iOS, I used it as a test device for development applications, but I didn't do anything crazy with the firmware of the phone). I plugged the phone in and got an Apple logo, and then it died again. It's on a loop.

What it looks like is happening is, when the phone is charging, it's above 5% battery, so it turns on. However, for some odd reason, the phone doesn't turn on all the way when it boots up; instead, it just shuts off again.

Then the phone goes back to "charging from dead" again. It's in an infinite loop.

Why would this suddenly happen? It's an unjailbroken iPhone 6 running the latest iOS (non-beta, iOS 8.4). How would I fix this?

In such cases I, myself, do a boot into DFU mode which actually uses way less energy mainly because the display stays off.
Then I wait for about a half an hour and then I reboot the iDevice in order to have it properly booted.

P.S. Follow this procedure in order to enter an iDevice into DFU mode:

Make sure your iDevice is plugged into a power source via it's USB cable;
Hold down both Home and Power buttons on the iDevice for about 10 seconds until the screen goes off;
Keep holding the Home button and release the Power button;
Open  iTunes to check if the iDevice is connected. A message saying that an iDevice in a Recovery mode is connected should show up.


Is there a web inspector available on iOS? To be abundantly clear, I'm looking for a web inspector (like Chrome's) that I can use on an iOS device like an iPad to debug web pages without a computer.

I'm aware that you can connect your phone to your laptop and do remote debugging, but that's not what I'm asking about.

Background: I'm a web programmer thinking of ditching my MacBook Pro for the new iPad Pro. I have my full dev environment setup on Nitrous, and I have a multitude of possible replacements for Sketch (like iDraw, though I've been bugging the Sketch team non-stop to announce an iOS version, as I would love to stay with Sketch if at all possible). The only thing I'm missing is a web inspector to use on the iPad itself to debug CSS & JS.

So, are there any such solutions out there for debugging web pages on iOS without a computer?

I found this app, but not sure how extensive is it compared to a traditional web inspector

Ergo Web Tools by James Finley
https://appsto.re/us/3vdC_.i

Let me know if you've found an alternative or something


Adding external ram to 2014 MacBook Pro I'm new to macs so please bear with me if I say something dumb.

I recently switched over to Mac, and purchased a new MacBook Pro, but found that the computer did not have enough ram for everything I am doing (large photoshop files etc.) I was wondering if there is any way that I could get external ram or some type of upgrade for my computer.

Essentially, can I get an external ram drive, or should I go back and upgrade the computer itself?

The internal RAM is soldered to the motherboard (i.e. totally user-untouchable), but for external RAM, you're welcome to check out this article at your own risk.

UPDATE: After having done some research, apparently RAM disks are exactly the opposite of what I'd thought. They actually turn a segment of your RAM into hard drive space. It still promises massive speed boosts, though, so you should give it a try if you're up for it!


Remote access of an iPad display from another iPad I've got an iPad and I was searching for new applications with new features. Currently I'm searching for an application by that I can remotely access another iPad screen just like Teamviewer.

Is there any iPad application available which can be useful to access another iPad's screen.

The iOS security sandbox will prevent any App store app from sharing the screen of any other app on a stock iPad.  However the built-in AirPlay mirroring will allow a user to send a mirror of their iPad display to an Apple TV.


Verbose mode startup I've been having sporadic issues where my Macbook Pro Retina hangs at startup.  I started up in verbose mode and it always hangs at this message.

AppleUSBMultitouchDriver::checkStatus - received Status Packet, Payload 2: device was reinitialized

After several minutes it continues with these two message.

IO80211Controller::dataLinkLayerAttachComplete():  adding AppleEFINVRAM notification
IO80211Interface::efiNVRAMPublished():

What do those messages mean?

AppleUSBMultitouchDriver

is your touchpad, it has some problems but eventually it does it, however, I would recommend the Internet recovery (cmd-opt-r) to reinstall the driver.

The

  IO80211Controller

is your Network interface 802.11 making a note.


Bootcamp and Windows 7 - Mounting the .iso onto a blank DVD-R So im trying to install Windows 7 Ultimate via Bootcamp on my Macbook Pro 13"....Managed to partition the HDD but for some reason whenever I click install, the Macbook restarts and I'm met with a black screen with white text that read something along the lines of "This is not a bootable device" or something like that.

Now i should note that Windows is on a DVD-R, so i thought maybe the DVD-R was damaged so i created an .cdr image of the DVD-R via the disk utility and then changed the file name to .iso as stated on this website - http://www.ehow.com/how_2093946_create-disk-image-mac-osx.html.

But now I'm wondering how do I mount the .iso onto another DVD-R? Or am i going about the entire thing completely wrong? In other words, help!

Are you burning the ISO file on to a DVD-R as a file or as a DVD image? There's a big difference between the two. Only the latter method works.

To burn a DVD from the ISO image, follow this Apple guide:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2087


Installing Windows XP via Bootcamp no longer supported? I have a Mac Mini Early 2009. I'm on El Capitan. According to apple's compatibility table, here Windows XP is supported in Boot camp , provided you use your original OSX DVDs to locate the drivers.

However, it would appear that the only option offered in boot camp assistant is to install Windows 7. My assumption is that Windows XP can only be installed via boot camp if I have a much older OSX version installed, 10.6. Or, if by chance the boot camp assistant from 10.6 (3.x) can be installed in El Capitan.

The documentation is misleading as it does not specify the starting point I need to be at to install Windows XP via bootcamp, only that I need the original OSX DVD to get started...

I will try to answer your question as best that I can. It is a question of timing. By 2009, Apple was shipping Macs with firmware or offered firmware upgrades that allowed Windows to be installed in BIOS/MBR mode. This firmware is stored in your Mac. The firmware does not change when you upgrade to a new version of OS X. Therefore, the version of OS X currently installed has nothing to do with whether you can run Windows on your Mac. In fact, it is possible to run Windows on your Mac without any version of OS X installed.

To install a particular version of Windows on a Mac, a few timing aspects need to be considered. The Windows installation DVD needs recognize your Macs hardware in order to install the drivers needed to install and boot to Windows. Since Windows XP was released in 2001, one should not expect the DVD (or maybe CD) to contain the drivers for the 2009 Mac models. Granted, to a certain extent, hardware can be designed to operate in a legacy mode in order to install an older operating system. When the difference is 8 years, this is difficult to do. Also, Microsoft installations allow for newer drivers to be introduced during the installation process, but this was never employed for Windows installations on Macs in 2009. Instead, Microsoft released Windows XP DVDs with Service Packs already installed. These newer DVDs contained the drivers need to allow Windows to install and boot on Macs. Once, Windows was up and running, better drivers could be installed to upgrade existing drivers and support other hardware such as the camera and sound. These drivers were part of a package referred to as "The Boot Camp Support Software". This software also provided a way to boot back to OSX and a utility to update Apple software such as iTunes. When "The Boot Camp Support Software" installs, the Windows partition is renamed BOOTCAMP. For this reason, it has become customary to refer to the Windows installation on a Mac as Boot Camp. In fact, you can rename the partition to anything after installing "The Boot Camp Support Software".

Apple's web site says you can install Windows XP on your Mac. Whether you need SP2 or SP3 included on the DVD is just a matter of timing. I do not have an answer. SP2 was released in 2004 and SP3 can out in 2008. Since SP3 was the last offered for XP, such a DVD should work for you.

Although your question did not ask about installing a newer version of Windows, I will include my thoughts anyway. Generally, Microsoft does not require new drivers for each release of Windows. For example, when upgrading Windows, the newer version just adopts the drivers from the previous version. Also, Microsoft may offer new drivers though Windows Update. Windows 10 appears to have he ability to connect to the internet and download drivers during the installation process.

Apple's web site reports your Mac can only run 32 bit XP, Vista and Windows 7. This probably is not true. You have a 2.0 GHZ Core 2 Duo 2.0 processor. I am writing this answer on a 2007 iMac with a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo processor. The operating systems is Windows 10 Pro 64 bit. Apple is not entirely wrong. The Boot Camp Assistant will not let you install the newer Windows operating systems, but you don't have to use the Boot Camp Assistant. I guess your complaint is the Boot Camp Assistant version that comes with El Captain OS X 10.11 will not let you install the older XP operating system. Again, the Boot Camp Assistant is just an assistant used to make windows easier to install. It does not have to be used.


Disable Spotlight for Non-Current Boot Volume I'm fully aware of the ways in which to disable Spotlight for a volume (.metadata_never_index etc.) but this question is more specific. Let me give you a bit of background.

I have a Mid 2010 MacBook Pro 13" that I am using for development. I've bumped up the RAM and installed a 1TB HDD onto which I have installed OS X 10.6 - 10.11, each in its own partition. The reason for this is that I want to be able to test my code under each version of the OS to make sure it performs as expected. I'm not using virtualisation to test as the code needs to access the AirPort card.

The "problem" that I'm having is that when I use Spotlight, it brings up results from every partition, so if I'm trying to quickly launch a system app, Spotlight shows me 6 versions of the same app.

What I would like to do, if possible, is disable the index for any volume except the current boot volume (so if booted in to Mavericks, Spotlight ignores the volume index for the 10.6, 10.7, 10.8, 10.10 and 10.11 volumes) without destroying the non-boot volume indexes so they don't have to be rebuilt each time I boot to that volume.

I currently don't have a multi-boot system to try this on, but I would expect
System prefs > Spotlight > Privacy
on each OS to respect the setting if you dropped each of the other 5 partitions in there; effectively repeating the process for each of the 6 boot partitions as you boot from it.


Viewing Text Message Histories on Windows PC I have an iPhone 6s, and there are some very, very, long text message conversations on there that I'd like to be able to read through on my PC for the sake of convenience.

I've already backed up my iPhone to the PC, but the files are stored without a file extension, so I'm not exactly sure how to view them. I've tried opening some of the files in a text editor, but they seem to be either compressed or encrypted (even though I never selected the option to encrypt the backup when backing up the iPhone from iTunes) because it's just a chaotic mess of unusual characters.

I know there is software out there, which costs money and supposedly allows you to do this, but they don't look trustworthy so I thought this might be the place to post a question before taking any further action.

Windows version: 1903 (OS Build 18362.476)
iPhone 6s iOS 12.4.3 (but the text message histories date back to when I was also using other OS versions)

Does anybody know how I can view these backup files, ideally for free or with some freeware software that doesn't have malware, spyware built into it?

iExplorer is the app I use on macOS both personally and professionally to access iDevices. There is a Windows version available as well. I've been able to extract text messages and associated images from these messages, too.

Disclaimer: I'm a very satisfied user of iExplorer and have no financial or other interests in Macroplant LLC.


How to set up Safari to always show status bar I am using Safari 6.0.2 (8536.26.17) within Mac OS X 10.8.2.

I would like to know how to set Safari so that, whenever a new window is opened, the status bar is always turned on.

I think this used to be a preference setting but it doesn't appear to be available in this version.

Whenever I open a new window, there is no status bar.

I know how to use the keyboard shortcut to turn it on and off. I'm looking for a way not to have to use the shortcut each time.

Is this doable? Thanks for your advice.

I think I found a command-line solution, opening up the Terminal and typing in the following:

$ defaults write com.apple.Safari ShowStatusBar -boolean true


Which process knows what applications are open? I'm trying to find the process that takes care of what applications are open. For example, an app I closed stills shows as open in Dock and Force Quit, so I want to kill/restart that process (which takes care of what processes are open). Logging out would solve it too, but I can't right now. Restarting Dock does not work.

For example, I'm 100% sure I have killed Safari, using kill -9, but it still shows up in the Dock and in Force Quit. The process is definitely killed, but the Dock and Force Quit haven't got that, because the process that lists which applications are open have frozen. I want to know the name of that process.

The process which keeps track of all processes is launchd (PID 1) which is the first process launched when the OS starts. There is no standard way of killing it (technically speaking sending the TERM or KILL signal will not kill it), if you could it would immediately lead to a reboot.


specific network settings for sharing internet connection I can successfully bridge my WLAN and Ethernet on my macbook(internet sharing) and have each network adapter set to dhcp. In my case the macbook is connecting to the internet with wireless and the ethernet port on the macbook allows another older laptop(which does not have wireless) to also access the net through the macbook. When i inspect the ip address of the wireless interface, it shows the expected local ip and gateway. However, the ethernet interface of the mac shows a private ip, 169.254.135.163 with a subnet mask of 255.255.0.0.

The older client laptop shows an ip of 192.168.2.2 and a gateway of 192.168.2.1
How did the macbook decide to pick these numbers and dole them out over its ethernet port?

When i set the ethernet ip address of the macbook to 192.168.1.2 with a mask of 255.255.255.0 and a gateway of 192.168.1.1, the client laptop can still access the net (and still has the same ip adresses) but the mac loses connectivity. Why should changing the ip address of the ethernet port on the mac cause its wireless interface to stop working?

Your Macbook is bridging 2 different networks.

The first, from your router, would presumably be 192.168.1.0
That would make the router itself 192.168.1.1 & it will then hand out DHCP addresses from 192.168.1.2 up to as high as .254

In order to prevent potential IP Address conflicts. Apple's Internet Sharing will use an address of one order higher for each Ethernet connection you ask it to use [with Thunderbolt or USB adapters, this could be many, on rare occasions] so the first one will be 192.168.2.x, the one after 192.168.3.x etc

The only thing that puzzles me slightly is that the reported self-assigned address is 169.254.x.x. This is a private, self-assigned address that an interface will use if it cannot find a DHCP server to assign it one.
For a bridged connection, though, I would have expected it to assign itself 192.168.2.1, as the gateway for your bridge & not be trying to pick up a DHCP address at all, as it is the 'router & gateway' to your new node.

The fact that your second machine can connect successfully with an assigned address of 192.168.2.2 & a gateway of 192.168.2.1 would tell me that the self-assigned address might be misreported somewhere along the line; as otherwise it oughtn't to be able to connect.

After some extensive Googling I discovered this, which may explain the apparent discrepancy.

  If you toggle your Internet Sharing on and off, you'll see the bridge0: device appear and disappear from ifconfig. This makes things tricky depending on the static IP you assigned your Pi as well as your Mac. If you chose to use DCHP for your Mac Ethernet connection, your Pi will only work with a static IP that looks like 169.254.x.x; however, when you turn on Internet Sharing, your Pi will then only work with an IP that looks like 192.168.2.x. It turns out that if you used DHCP for your Ethernet connection and your Ethernet has an IP of 169.254.x.x AND you have Internet Sharing on, you can still connect to your Pi via a 192.168.2.x address since now the bridge0: device is the one handing out the IP address to connected devices.

TL:DR
Don't set DHCP on your shared connection in the Macbook, because it is supposed to be the 'master'. Allow the OS to set it up itself, which it will do correctly, with a fixed IP of 192.168.2.1 for itself & 192.168.2.2 ..3 ..4 etc for devices using it as a bridge


Does 2.8GHZ Mid 2015 MacBook Pro come with dual graphics as default? I'm looking at upgrading my notebook from a late 2011 MacBook Pro to a mid 2015 MacBook Pro. I found a great deal on a 2.8Ghz model and have a question about the graphics card: Does the 2.8Ghz model come with dual Intel/AMD graphics card or just Intel embedded graphics only?

Thanks

To answer your question "Does the 2.8GHz model come with dual Intel/AMD graphics card or just Intel embedded graphics only?", the 2.8GHz model came both ways.

The MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015) with a 2.8GHz CPU was available with either an Intel Iris Pro Graphics only, or with the Intel Iris Pro Graphics and AMD Radeon R9 M370X Graphics, so you can't go by just the CPU.

The MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015) with a 2.8GHz CPU and only the Intel Iris Pro Graphics has the Model Identifier: MacBookPro11,4

The MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015) with a 2.8GHz CPU and both the Intel Iris Pro Graphics and AMD Radeon R9 M370X Graphics has the Model Identifier: MacBookPro11,5

So unless the Tech Specs provided by the seller states the Model Identifier as MacBookPro11,5 or states it has both the Intel Iris Pro Graphics and AMD Radeon R9 M370X Graphics then you'll have to ascertain additional information from the seller to determine what Graphics Adapters it has.

See here and here as references, as well as the official Tech Specs.

I also used information from Mactracker to determine and verify my statements.


NTFS Partition got merged in Time Machine I have an external storage drive where i had two type of partitions as NTFS and exFAT. To take backup from my macbook, i formated my exFAT and selected for the Time Machine. Then both partitions become one and the data i had in NTFS also gone. How can i get back my data in NTFS. Those are very important to me.
/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk2
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk2s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk3         1000.0 GB  disk2s2

As you can see from the output the APFS partition created by TM uses the whole disk, the NTFS partition is gone. Depending on whether you already created a backup and other factors the data may or may not recoverable by a data recovery service.


How to connect to a mac mini when offline from a mac laptop? I'm a developer that travels. I have a macbook pro and a mac mini (which runs as a headless webserver). This setup works fine when both machines are on the same network.

However, I've never been able to get this setup to work at all when I'm somewhere that doesn't have a connection (and I need to work offline).

There surely must be a way to connect to the webserver running on the Mac Mini from my laptop without an internet connection? Is there a way I can plug in an ethernet cable between the two? A USB cable? A Firewire cable?

I apologise if some of those ideas seem crazy. Hardware is not my forte.

Any help would be greatly appreciated =)

There are two solutions, depending on the situation

Create a computer-to-computer network. Doing this will cause you to lose your internet connection. To do this, follow the instructions from Apple:

  Choose Create Network from the Wi-Fi status icon in the menu bar.
  If the icon isn’t in the menu bar, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, and then click Network. Click Wi-Fi and select the “Show Wi-Fi status in menu bar” checkbox.

  Give the network a name, and select a channel from the pop-up menu. The default channel is 11, but you can choose a different channel.
  Select the Require Password checkbox to protect your network with a password. Type the password users will need to enter in order to join your network. Do the following:
  Type a password of exactly 5 ASCII characters or 10 hexadecimal digits if you chose “40-bit WEP (more compatible)” from the Security pop-up menu.

  Type a password of exactly 13 ASCII characters or 26 hexadecimal digits if you chose “128-bit WEP” from the Security pop-up menu.

  Other Wi-Fi-enabled computers within range can join the network you created by choosing it from their Wi-Fi status icon or by choosing it from the Network Name pop-up menu in the Wi-Fi pane of Network preferences.

Once you did that, connect your Mac mini to it. You can now access it from your browser.

2.Share your internet connection. To do that, follow these instructions:

  Choose Apple menu > System Preferences and click Sharing.
  Select Internet Sharing and click the checkbox if it isn’t checked.
  Choose the Internet connection you want to share from the “Share your connection from” pop-up menu. For example, if you’re connected to the Internet over Ethernet, choose Ethernet.
  Select how you want to share your Internet connection in the “To computers using” list. For example, if you want to share your Internet connection over AirPort, select AirPort.
  If you share your Internet connection using AirPort, click AirPort Options and give your network a name and password.

Basically, use an ethernet cable on one of you devices and share it to the other device using Airport.


How can I tell if my Mac is keeping the clock updated properly? I would like to know what the default settings for OS X are in terms of keeping the clock adjusted when I enable automatic time sync in the Date & Time preference.

I do know that the venerable ntpd daemon on Mavericks (10.9) and Yosemite (10.10) is no longer responsible for adjusting the time and instead a new program pacemaker has been introduced — so how can I know things are working or need adjustment to keep time?

10.14 Mojave

Mojave still uses timed, but ntpdate and the helpers ntpq are removed. To check and update your system time, you can call sntp directly.

$ sudo sntp -sS pool.ntp.org
Password:
sntp 4.2.8p10@1.3728-o Tue Mar 21 14:36:42 UTC 2017 (136.200.1~2533)
2018-09-29 19:42:41.448103 (-0200) +1087.742403 +/- 725.183462 pool.ntp.org 188.68.36.203 s2 no-leap

Out of the box, a tracking file is missing. So if you get the error below when checking time:

kod_init_kod_db(): Cannot open KoD db file /var/db/ntp-kod: No such file or directory

create the file and change ownership to root. Some people reported this was actually breaking the ntp synchronization.

sudo touch /var/db/ntp-kod
sudo chown root:wheel /var/db/ntp-kod

Then run again to check if the error message is gone.

sudo sntp -sS pool.ntp.org

10.13 High Sierra

High Sierra uses timed, from /usr/libexec/timed, run by the system user _timed.

  timed maintains system clock accuracy by synchronizing the clock with reference clocks via technologies like NTP.  Inputs are merged inside of timed, where it calculates uncertainty to facilitate scheduling proactive time jobs. timed is also aware of power/battery conditions.

timed is managed by the LaunchDaemon /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.timed.plist. timed runs…

when the daemon is loaded at boot (RunAtLoad: true)
every 3600 seconds (StartInterval: 3600)
when Airplane Mode is disabled (com.apple.systemconfiguration airplane mode changed: com.apple.radios.plist AirplaneMode false, which appears to be carried over from iOS)

You can see how 'off' your clock is by looking at the contents of /var/db/timed/com.apple.timed.plist, under the TMLastSystemTime dictionary in the TMTimeError key and the TMScaleFactorError key.

$ sudo defaults read /var/db/timed/com.apple.timed TMLastSystemTime
{
    TMCurrentTime = "537303485.281592";
    TMReliability = 1;
    TMRtcTime = "351422.381868388";
    TMScaleFactor = "0.9999958233107684";
    TMScaleFactorError = "3.468751755688052e-05";
    TMSource = TMTimeSynthesizer;
    TMTimeError = "0.6127951619022057";
}

timed uses the time server set in /etc/ntp.conf, which by default is

server time.apple.com

timed also uses TMTimeSynthesizer, something which CoreTime on iOS uses to update the clock with but I'm unaware of its history on macOS:

Don't run the timed binary yourself, as mentioned in the man page:

  timed takes no arguments, and users should not launch it manually.

According to Apple Developer Forums user granada29 in the post ntpd, timed and chronyd in 10.13, timed performs the following:

  timed appears to be a simple sntp client - i.e. it polls the NTP periodically (15 minutes) and uses the settimeofday() system call to set the sytem clock. I assume it has some cleverness to avoid stepping the clock backwards but there is no way to tell.

10.11 El Capitan to 10.12 Sierra

pacemaker is the daemon responsible for managing the time in macOS. It uses adjtime to adjust the clock per the content of /var/db/ntp.drift.

You can see how 'off' your clock is by looking at the contents of ntp.drift — for example, my file contains the following:

-23.640

This means that the clock is -23.64 PPM away from the time that it should be. The units of this number is PPM, or Parts Per Million. 1 PPM is 1 microsecond/second, or 3.6ms/h.

You can make the clock update more often by running pacemaker with the -a option, providing a time in seconds to wait between time movements:

/usr/libexec/pacemaker -a 10

To see the parameters being used by OS X for pacemaker, open /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.pacemaker.plist.

{
    KeepAlive = { PathState = { "/private/var/db/ntp.drift" = :true; }; };
    Label = "com.apple.pacemaker";
    ProgramArguments = ( "/usr/libexec/pacemaker", "-b", "-e", "0.0001", "-a", "10" );
}

To find your current settings, run with the -i option:

/usr/libexec/pacemaker -i
Jan 19 18:20:08 g pacemaker[12544] <Info>: --- settings for external power ---
Jan 19 18:20:08 g pacemaker[12544] <Info>: interval = 1 seconds, tolerance = 0.000000, drift = -23.640000
Jan 19 18:20:08 g pacemaker[12544] <Info>: --- settings for internal power ---
Jan 19 18:20:08 g pacemaker[12544] <Info>: interval = 1 seconds, tolerance = 0.000024, drift = -23.640000

You can show the log by running with the -v option:

sudo /usr/libexec/pacemaker -v
Password:
Jan 19 18:23:17 g pacemaker[13202] <Info>: power status check: using external power
Jan 19 18:23:17 g pacemaker[13202] <Info>: created file monitor for /var/db/ntp.drift
Jan 19 18:23:17 g pacemaker[13202] <Info>: interval = 1 seconds, tolerance = 0.000000, drift = -23.640000
Jan 19 18:23:19 g pacemaker[13202] <Debug>: drift -23.640000 residue 0.000000 delta -23
Jan 19 18:23:20 g pacemaker[13202] <Debug>: drift -23.640000 residue -0.640000 delta -24
Jan 19 18:23:21 g pacemaker[13202] <Debug>: drift -23.640000 residue -0.280000 delta -23
Jan 19 18:23:22 g pacemaker[13202] <Debug>: drift -23.640000 residue -0.920000 delta -24
Jan 19 18:23:23 g pacemaker[13202] <Debug>: drift -23.640000 residue -0.560000 delta -24
Jan 19 18:23:24 g pacemaker[13202] <Debug>: drift -23.640000 residue -0.200000 delta -23
⌃C%


How can I get OSX to appear as a wifi router without sharing internet I want to use my Mac as a wifi-router on a private network (no internet access). I want users to be able to connect to the network by selecting the SSID on their iOS devices.

Is there a way to do this from the command line? I can select "Create Network..." from the networking menu but that has 2 problems.

The created network shows up under a special section "devices" on iOS. I want it to appear  in the normal list of wifi hotspots. How do I do this? I'm assuming maybe I can do it manually I can set whatever needs to be set so iOS can't tell the difference between my mac and a normal router
When selecting it in iOS is says it's not connected to the internet. I want to avoid that message. I get that I'm not actually letting them connect to the internet. The question is, how and I fool iOS into thinking it is connected to the internet. I have a feeling this is related to #1 because how does iOS know there's no internet when it hasn't actually connected to the network yet (I haven't selected it).

Note: any pointers into apple docs would be great as well. I've even tried looking at how something similar would be done in Linux in the hopes that it might lead to ideas about OSX but my Google foo is weak for this topic.

What you are trying to do is indeed possible, but it requieres a lot of work to get it working.

I thought about that for a while and it is a great Idea to use a mac as Wifi-Router, especially in Virtual-Test-Environments. But Mac OS X does not work like that.
The reason for that is, that Mac OS X only starts the service, if you really have Internet connection. Why would you share your internet, if there is no internet. Simple as that. Simple as a Mac ;D

But you can work around this by setting up virtual Network Interfaces, that would simulate internet.
There is a nice discussion about Virtual network interfaces on Stack Overflow, meantoning your problem in a comment :

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/87442/virtual-network-interface-in-mac-os-x

(especially the long post by "bmasterswizzle" with the comment : "I've tested it and yes, it does. I was able to share my OpenVPN tun0 device (from my Ethernet connection) over my WiFi using this method. ")

You get this problem often with Virtual Machines, because there OS X also shares ethernet via the NAT-Bridge, but in fact does not need to have Internet Access to make it work.

It is a bit of an efford and I think you could easily go around it, if you have a script that fakes the Internet Traffic on En0 so you can share the En0 to the Wifi-Adapter. But I have no clue how to talk to the en0 interface via command line and faking traffic.

And as long as there is no traffic, your Mac won't share the Connection.


Cannot sort by Events in Mac Photos My photos are no longer organized by Events in the new Mac Photos. How do I search the new Mac Photos by events?

Upon conversion your iPhoto events have been transformed into Albums.

In Photos there are no events anymore since iPhoto Events and Albums overlapped in functionality.  There is automatic sorting by Location and Date Information (something like "Automatic Events") and you can still create Albums if you want to collect Photos.


Screen Capture tool that allows me to use keyboard? There are many screen capture tools, but every tool I've tried expects from its user to click and then drag the area to capture.

Is there a tool that allows me to use the keyboard for both operations, such that I can do precise captures in a relaxed manner - without holding anything? I do not want to capture just windows, but any rectangular region.

Example of usage:

press hotkey to enter capture mode
move cursor (cross, loupe, whatever) around using mouse/pad and keyboard.
when I find a good starting place (top-left corner), click or press some key to enter marking state
now, move cursor to other corner (bottom-right) of the area I want to capture, but without holding anything! Just move cursor with the mouse or using the keyboard, as before.
when I find a good spot, click again or press some key to finalize capturing.

There is one such tool on Windows that worked this way: FastStone Capture

For me this is an essential feature. I simply want to have precision, without holding any buttons or keys.

The only one I know of is Snapz Pro, but there are a lot of screenshot utilities available for the Mac.


Purchasing an iMac but pay every month I'm not sure about this, but I just want to know if it's possible to purchase a product from the Apple website, but not to pay in full, but pay every month since I cannot fully pay the whole price of a 27" iMac but I can if I pay every month.

Cheers.

EDIT:

Ok, I had a chat with an Apple Expert on the live chat (via the website) in order to pay monthly, you will have to place an order WITH a financial payment which is label in the payment method (second tab on the panel).

After that, confirm your order and you will be redirected to an Apple "Apply Now" which you will place an confirmation for Apple to approve or disapprove, if you are approved you will be sent an application - if you dislike the Terms and Conditions, your order will be canceled.

Cheers guys, hope this will help everyone.

Apple offers financing for a lot of their products. Typically you will see a link above the "Select" button for a given product on its page. See the image below from the Mac Mini catalog page...

The financing may not come from Apple directly, but it is an option.


If I sign up for the 3 free months of Apple Music, do I keep Match-ed songs when the trial ends? If I sign up for the Apple Music free trial (which now includes audio fingerprinting iTunes Match), will I keep my (DRM-free but watermarked) Matched music when the trial ends?

You would need to be sure you have downloaded a copy of all music before the period ends. You don't lose anything stored locally unless you delete the local files, and even if you delete the local files - as long as you re-download them before the end - you will have playable music locally.

This is covered in https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204962


Can I damage my machine if I restart it multiple times? Today I had to restart my rMBP multiple times (2-3 times, one after another) due to a software update, can it damage my machine (logic board, ssd, ram memory) at all? (long/short term)?

Restarting your machine won't damage it physically. The only damage that you can really do to your machine is to the software and/or firmware.  The only way that restarting can do that type of damage is if you restart while operations are still active (i.e. an EFI update or disk activity).  Other than that, you are pretty safe.


Restore Backup can this still be done after choosing setup as new? I want to Restore my iPad, I have already created a backup on my Windows 7 PC using iTunes. When I restore my Ipad, as far as I remember from some tutorials online, you will have to choose to restore from iCloud/iTunes or "As New" (Something like this). So when I select "As New" and later after the restoration, I connect my iPad to my Windows 7 machine with iTunes and choose "restore iPad", will it give me back my backup data? Even if I chose "As New" above?

No, because you set it up as a new device instead of restoring from an "existing device".

Therefore, it will treat it as such, and not move data from your backup to your iPad,

You can still move that data over once you're done setting up the iPad, by using the restore button in iTunes. But you will loose the setup and any changes done before the restore.


How to reset LAN ethernet adapter after switching the network I have MacBook Pro 2017. I have the very same docker hub at work and at home (moshi). Both have LAN cables attached. However, I can use only one of them: for example, when I make my work LAN working, I can't simply go home and have it home LAN working - and vice versa.

Is there a way to reset LAN adapter? I tried to disable/enable it with ifconfig; however I am not sure which adapter is one for the LAN cable? I am not getting any IP address, and I was expecting something like 169.x.x.x

EDIT: what I do now is to plug off the docker hub and then plug it on. I don't know why this matters on osx.

Use "Locations" in Network Preferences

Create a location for work and another for home.  Next, set up your preferences for each location.  When you switch the location it will automatically reset your adapters and apply the new configuration.


Is it possible to keep dot files with specific extension unhidden in Finder? I know that all the hidden files (dot files) can be viewed in Finder by using the keyboard shortcut:

Command + Shift + .

or by running the following in Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles true

But, is it possible to change a dot file with specific extension to always show in Finder? Specifically, I want the .vscode to be always visible in Finder. I don't want to show all the hidden files, and I am trying to do this without having to use the shortcut or always run a command in the Terminal.

Is this at all possible?

I assume you are talking about the .vscode folder in your Home folder, as I have one there too from the Visual Studio Code.app install.

If you do not want to permanently show hidden files or use the ⌘⇧. keyboard shortcut, then this is what I'd do.

Open Terminal to the directory containing the .vscode folder and use the following command to create a symlink:

ln -s .vscode ' .vscode'

Note that the symlink has a leading space in its name; however, it's the only way to be visually accurate, per se, seeing it shown in Finder to have the appearance that it is a dot file without actually showing the hidden .vscode folder.


why is my ipod stilll using so much of the "other" catergory after it was restored? The keyboard on my iPod malfunctioned, and I couldn't get onto it. I then backed it up and restored it. After it was restored, I tried to put my previous files back on it, but only got my pictures and bookmarks on. It says the "other" category is using 2.5GB of space! I am wondering what possibly is going on? (If it helps, it was jailbroken and now is upgraded to iOS 5.1.1).

Anything from applications (non-iTunes apps), saved games, stored files (using OpenSSH for example). Mainly jailbreak items etc ... make up the (Other) in iTunes.
Anything that takes up space and can not be recognized by iTunes, shows up as 'other'.

I think what is happening is it is installing things from all of your jailbroken apps even though your device is not jailbroken any more. I think what ZHENJiNG LiANG is saying is to restore your iPod as a new device and then sync everything (music, apps, photos) etc... manually instead of restoring from your backup. Because your backup obviously has files in it that no longer relate to your non jailbroken phone.


iOS Backup: Restore single program's settings? I have an iPod Touch and an iPhone. Both have the same certain application installed, but I want to transfer the Touch's app settings to the iPhone's app.

I already downloaded the iPhone Backup Extractor which lets me look into the backup. All human readable.

Is it possible to inject this part of the Touch's backup into the iPhone's backup and then sync it?

Theoretically, it is possible to replace parts of the backup package, but in practice, I have no real success with that plan. Often the format iTunes uses to store the data changes with versions of iTunes and editing files under a database's nose can lead to corruption.

It's easier for me to connect both devices and quit the program to make sure it's a clean boot when you resume the app. Then I use PhoneView to read the preferences from the app bundle on the correct device and replace that folder on the bad device. This way if things crash, you still have pristine backups in iTunes to restore things.


iPad Pro iPadOS 14.5, last highlights and notes on Books is lost every time I close Books or shut down When I close Books app on my iPad Pro iPadOS 14.5, or when I turn off my iPad, the next time I open Books some of my last highlights and notes on the book I was reading the last time are gone. Any ideas on to fix that?

iOS and iPadOS 14.5 are currently beta operating systems and are expected to have bugs and other random issues. As of this writing, they are on developer beta 2 and public beta 1. There will likely be over 5 betas before this version is officially released.
You should not use beta software on your primary devices or on any devices on which you depend. You should report any bugs you find to Apple using the Feedback app (purple/pink icon) that appears on your Home Screen or app drawer when you install beta software on your Apple devices. If you are not willing to live with bugs/issues and report them to Apple, you should not install beta software.
There’s nothing anyone here can do to help you with beta Apple software. If you report the bugs to Apple, they will likely fix it before releasing the final version.
You can either downgrade your device to a final version of iPadOS such as 14.4 (recommended) or wait until the next beta is released and hope it is fixed by then, but there are no guarantees about beta software and the next version could actually be worse than the current one you have.
Reinstall Apple Books
Sometimes with beta software resetting settings, apps or even the whole device might work. You can try reinstalling Apple Books.

Make a backup of all of your files. PDFs, books and anything you have imported into Apple Books. You already have a backup if you use iCloud and Apple Books and iCloud Drive are enabled on Preferences > Your Name > iCloud. Make sure the backup has finished synchronization before proceeding.

Delete the Apple Books app and download it again from the App Store. Then try again and see if it fixes your issue.


Siri doesn't appear to be functioning on macOS Sierra I can't seem to get Siri to work on my 2014 Macbook Pro. I click the icon and nothing happens.

Diagnostics and Usage data just seem to barf out a bunch of com.apple.siri attributes and ends with

Siri error = 0

The system logs have the line

Sep 21 20:44:13 baphomet com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.imfoundation.IMRemoteURLConnectionAgent): Unknown key for integer: _DirtyJetsamMemoryLimit

Has this been seen by anyone else? If anyone knows if these point to something funny in my setup it would be greatly appreciated.

Had the same issue and found out something that solved this for me. Apparently, my notification center process was disabled for some reason, I've enabled it via terminal by typing:

launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.notificationcenterui.plist
killall NotificationCenter

After that I disabled and enabled Siri via the settings menu and it seems to be working now.


MacBook Pro doesn't detect external display after Lion upgrade Asking on behalf of a friend.

His 2011 MacBook Pro (no Thunderbolt) was running Snow Leopard and was being connected to a Dell monitor in the standard way.

He upgraded to Lion and now the MacBook cannot detect the display.

What can we do to detect the display (my Snow Leopard MacBook still detects the display)?

The MacBook was taken into an Apple retail store with the monitor. It was hooked up and obviously didn't work, It was then plugged into my 2006 MacBook, and it worked.

The chap in the shop was very confused.

We then looked at the cables. We used another cable and dvi-mini dvi connector. This changed nothing.

We have also done a fresh install of Lion.

So as for now the problem is unsolved.

As soon as it is fixed I will post the answer.

This is from my own experience, I have macbook pro with lion and a dell monitor, I connect via mini displayport to VGA connector, if I connect displayport first to my macbook and then monitor's vga to displayport to VGA, it won't work, I don't know why but maybe some internal implementation detail, just go in this order

switch on both devices
connect monitor's VGA cable to your mini displayport cable,
connect mini mini displayport  to you macbook.
wait for a few seconds, it works every time.


move focus to next window for current app in another desktop macOS Mojave If I have two windows for an app in the same desktop/workspace/space, then the move focus to next window shortcut moves focus between them.  If the windows are in different desktops, focus is not moved.  Is there a way to make a shortcut that switches to the next window for the app, even if its in a different desktop?

In Mission Control Preferences I have "When switching to an application, switch to a Space with open windows for the application" set.  I also tried setting "Group windows by application"

seen on MacOS 10.14.3 Mojave (OSX)

Thanks

Under the conditions you've expressed, here's an alternative that I use when ⌘` isn't a viable option.

Using the example AppleScript code below, saved as a .scpt file in Script Editor, and using FastScripts to assign a keyboard shortcut to it, it clicks the frontmost application's Dock Tile so it will switch between Desktops. For this particular script in FastScripts, I use keyboard shortcut ⌃⇧⌘D to trigger it.

tell application "System Events" to click UI element ¬
    ((get name of application processes whose frontmost is true) as text) ¬
        of list 1 of application process "Dock"

Or, if you do not want to use a third party app to trigger the .scpt file, the example AppleScript code can be used in an Automator Quick Action1, setting Workflow receives no input in any application and add a Run AppleScript action, adding the example AppleScript code where is says: (* Your script goes here *), then save the Quick Action.

You can then assign a keyboard shortcut in: System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services

Note that using either method may require accessibility privileges be granted.

Also keep in mind that when assigning global keyboard shortcuts, there is always the potential to conflict with an already assigned shortcut, so you may have to use a different one and or add error handling to the example AppleScript code

1 In versions of macOS prior to Mojave a Quick Action is called a Service.

Note: The example AppleScript code is just that and does not contain any error handling as may be appropriate. The onus is upon the used to add any error handling as may be appropriate, needed or wanted. Have a look at the try statement and error statement in the AppleScript Language Guide. See also, Working with Errors.

I am not affiliated with the the developer, Red Sweater Software, of FastScripts... just a satisfied user.


Why is download speed not increased using an SSD? I upgraded my hard drive from HDD to SSD.

There is no change in download speed. Reviewer says SSD has very good write speed, but why does that not increase download speed?

Probably the bottleneck is not your disk but your network.

A SATA2 hdd disk usually supports write speeds of up to 250/300MB/s. It is unlikely that you can reach those download speeds.


Catalina - Apps that have requested access to your microphone will appear here I try to grant access for google chrome or safari to my microphone and both redirect me to security & privacy section.
There are no plus or minus signs and no apparent way to allow these apps to use my microphone.
I also tried with skype but same story all over again unfortunately.
It seems to me that it is like a deadlock because no system call is activated apparently to enable the plus minus signs. Any ideas?

EDIT:
None of the solutions proposed here worked. I ended up reinstalling MacOS by using Option-Command-R at startup to upgrade to the latest macOS that is compatible with my Mac.
Now everything works. It should have been a problem of the OS installed on my computer.

This solution will likely help you to get what you are looking for it.

Go to your user name under /Macintosh HD/ Users/XXXX
Right-click on your username and click on Get Info
Under the section “Sharing & Permissions”, unlock the lock from the lower right and enter the password.
Apply to enclosed items -> Click OK for the pop-up windows (Applying Permissions)

Reboot your device and try again. It should pop up after that.


iPhone 5s speaks the words I type when I text My iPhone 5s speaks the words I type while texting.  How do I stop iPhone 5s from speaking the words I type when texting?

Go to Settings → General → Accessibility → Speech and disable the options.


Icons as whole program I am new to mac. I was wondering something.

When I download something from Internet (i.e. filezilla) it appears as a single file contained in a single icon. However when I double click it runs, and it doesn't need to install something.

When I move the file it still works. What I wonder are these programs single files. On windows same programs need installing and have multiple files etc...

What I wonder are this icons are containers or single file programs. How is this different from installable programs?

This is one of the wonders of the Mac. Most Mac applications are packaged up in what's called an "application bundle." It's basically a glorified folder that contains all of the code and data for the application. So, instead of having an application installed to C:/Program Files for example, the app is self-contained. These programs don't have to be "installed" as everything they need is already present in that app bundle. Most apps save user preferences and other user data to the ~/Library folder, but the app itself can normally be placed anywhere on your system.

You can run those apps from the Downloads folder, though it's generally better to drag them to the /Applications folder on your Mac. This keeps your apps better organized. And occasionally, some apps are improperly coded to work only from the /Applications folder. It's just best practice to keep everything there, but it's by no means required.

Some Mac apps do have an installer (such as Microsoft Office) as they install files in various places on the machine that are required for the app (such as fonts).


How is DaisyDisk so fast? DaisyDisk scans my Mac's HD blazing fast compared to, say, du. I'm wondering what's the trick. I suspect it wouldn't be so fast on non-Mac filesystems, but I haven't tried. Any clues?

I'm the developer of DaisyDisk. I'd have to go into lengths to explain how we achieve this on the engineering side, but I can reassure you that the app doesn't make any "shortcuts" or "tricks". The scanning is real and full.

As already mentioned, it's kind of hard to make a precise measurement because of the disk caching. Every experiment will give you a different time, depending on many factors. But it's true that DaisyDisk is by far cry faster than any other disk scanner. This is especially noticeable on SSD drives. Haven't tried to compare it with "du" though.


xcode 5.0.1 and 5.0.2 crashing when creating new project everytime I recently installed OS Mavericks as Virtual Machine. Everything else is working fine.  I got Xcode 5.0.1 ( and then tried Xcode 5.0.2) installed successfully.  However, Xcode crashes everytime I create new project.

I go to File -> Project and select the template for new project. As soon as I enter the project name and hit the create button I get locked out of the Mac.

I then have to enter my password once again and start Xcode again. It does not open workspace at this point.

Surprisingly, it seems that all initial files are getting created.  When I open Xcode after the crash I can go to File -> Open and then open the earlier created project.  I am very new to iOS development and learning on my own reading books. I don't know if it is creating all the required files or not ?

Can anyone please confirm if these all the files which need to be created for a page based application ? ( please see the screenshot ), also;
Is there a remedy to this problem?

I tried https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19473231/xcode-5-crashes-on-new-project-creation however it does not work in my case.

The same happened to me, when i was set name for new xcode project "SendTweet", it crashed while creating. But when restart my guest mac on windows the project created. Then i try to create project with different name, this time no problem, it worked.

Again I used a name "Tweetbot", This time again crashed. Just try to create with different project name, it worked.


Delete key inserts a space on Python interpreter after upgrading to Catalina I recently upgraded to Catalina  on my Macbook Pro (2015) and have this bizarre issue:

If I open up the Python interpreter in Terminal, I am able to type normally except for when I press the delete key. When I do that, it inserts a space.  This persists across all my Conda environments, as well as native Python installation.

I tried restarting, and plugging in an external keyboard, and the issue persists.
The delete key seems to work normally on everything else I've tried. It also works on my shell (zsh) and on interpreters for other languages.

Has anyone else run into this issue?

So after some further testing, it looked like it was an issue with only certain virtual environments that I was using that I had reconfigured by following the guide on anaconda:

https://www.anaconda.com/how-to-restore-anaconda-after-macos-catalina-update/

My system python had also been set to the conda one by default by this, which was why I was getting the issue.

I just ended up creating a new environment and reinstalling all my packages.


Cannot unlock password protected SSH key in OS X Mavericks I just upgraded to OSX 10.9, and when trying to establish an SSH connection with public key authentication, a prompt appears asking for my SSH key password.

I initially thought that the upgrade caused the keychain to forget some passwords, so I re-entered mine. Apparently, that wasn't the cause, because the prompt kept reappearing.

I first though that I may be using the wrong password, but while the following command:

$ ssh-keygen -vvv -y -f id_rsa >| id_rsa.pub
debug3: Incorrect RSA1 identifier
debug1: key_parse_private_pem: PEM_read_PrivateKey failed
debug1: read PEM private key done: type <unknown>
Enter passphrase:
debug3: Incorrect RSA1 identifier
debug1: key_parse_private_pem: PEM_read_PrivateKey failed
debug1: read PEM private key done: type <unknown>
load failed

...does not work! If I try to use openssl:

$ openssl rsa -in id_rsa -text
Enter pass phrase for id_rsa:
Private-Key: (2048 bit)
modulus:
    00:...

my private key is correctly decrypted and all information is printed.

What happened with the upgrade to Mavericks? How can I get my private key back in a usable state?

Apparently, the private key I was using on my machine was an old one. My key did not contain the encryption information added to the private key file if I generate a new one:

-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
Proc-Type: 4,ENCRYPTED
DEK-Info: AES-...

To solve the problem, I decrypted the key with openssl:

$ cd ~/.ssh
$ cp id_rsa id_rsa.bck
$ openssl rsa -in id_rsa -out id_rsa

...and then re-encrypted it:

$ openssl rsa -in id_rsa -aes256 -out id_rsa
$ chmod 0600 id_rsa

And just in case, regenerate the public key as well:

$ ssh-keygen -y -f id_rsa > id_rsa.pub


Do these iPhone log messages indicate spyware? I've seen these messages in my iPhone log and I was wondering whether someone is using spyware on my iPhone:

{"message":{"Accel":1,"Baseband":1,"Bt":1,"Duration":1,"DurationExitFromNoHints":1,"Gps":1,"VehicularDuration":3300,"Wifi":1},
"name":"VehicularStateDetectionLatencyStats","uuid":"6101aa5f-34b5-456c-b761-e4dea7fcd935"}
{"message":{"Accel":2,"Baseband":2,"Bt":2,"Duration":2,"DurationExitFromNoHints":2,"Gps":2,"VehicularDuration":3360,"Wifi":2},
"name":"VehicularStateDetectionLatencyStats","uuid":"6101aa5f-34b5-456c-b761-e4dea7fcd935"}

No, these messages do not indicate that anyone is using spyware on your iPhone.

These messages are indication of the Apple provided software is functioning as it should collecting analytics/diagnostics data stored on your phone. This is not an indication of anything malicious.


Bootcamp Windows 8.1 I recently purchased a Macbook Pro and I'd like to run Windows 8.1. I purchased Windows 8.1 online and got a downloadable version. I now tried to run the bootcamp assistant and was asked to insert a CD which I obviously do not have. Is it possible to install it based on my exe-file I got from Microsoft?

The downloadable version of Windows 8.1 is upgrade only, not full install, the one with the EXE is for upgrading from Windows 7 or 8... the key being from Windows 8 here..

Simple solution, if a little bodgy...

Download the Windows 8 demo here: http://www.soft-zilla.com/2013/01/windows-8-iso-download.html

Then upgrade to 8.1 from that using our EXE file.


Proxy settings won't be saved in the Keychain On an Ethernet connection, when I manually set my proxy information, it won't save correctly in the keychain for HTTP web proxy. In the same environment, it does it correctly for HTTPS web proxy.

At this point, in Safari I can access to https://google.com, but not to http://google.com, the proxy server return an error asking for my credentials.

In the keychain, a new line has appeared but it doesn't store the full address of the proxy server (sometimes the port is missing - :8080, sometime the full IP address), the password is always missing.

If I type manually in the keychain it is saved, but it doesn't seem to be used anymore by Safari since I always get the same error message.

If I use Chrome, I get a prompt asking for my proxy login/password, and once typed it works.

It seems like Safari doesn't use the password stored in the Keychain, and doesn't forward the credential prompt of the proxy server.

I'm on Lion 10.7.1 (new install from the store), French, fully updated, with Safari 5.1 (7534.48.3).

Thanks for your help :)

Ps: it looks like this bug but for 10.7.1 : Proxy username and password not remembered in system preferences

I found the solution: in fact in the proxy screen (network settings), the same IP address was stored multiple times on different lines (surprisingly the field is not limited to a single line). Since it was the same IP address, using the up and down arrow didn't show that multiple lines were entered.

I removed everything, pasted the IP a last time, and now it works :)


Change from POP to IMAP I'm not receiving all my e mails on my ipad. How do I change my mail settings on iPad and iPhone from POP to IMAP

I would first change both the iPad and iPhone to never delete messages and let things ride for a week to ensure all your critical messages are handled.

If you don't mind losing some more messages, you can begin now.

Go to settings app on one device and remove that mail account.
That will delete all the messages on that device so you could lose history or messages with this step.
Set up the mail using IMAP host - Apple has an assistant here to verify things before you do this: https://ssl.apple.com/support/mail-settings-lookup/
If Apple's instructions don't work, you will have to contact your mail provider and get them to tell you the sequence to set up IMAP access for your specific mail account.

Repeat the steps above for the second device. If you just want to fix the "not receiving" you could just set all your POP access points to never delete messages until you empty trash and do the deleting on one device only.

Also, if a device other than your iPad and iPhone is deleting messaged via POP - the steps above alone won't guarantee messages don't still go missing.


What causes repeating push notification alerts on iOS 7? I recently updated to IOS 7, now every time I use an app I get a message saying Connect to iTunes to use push notifications " Whatsapp" (And Other Apps) notifications may include alerts, sounds and icon badges, how do I get rid of these once an for all

What happened is somehow the authentication token on your device that should be installed on OS upgrade got corrupted/deleted. I believe currently, the only fix is to restore and restore backup. I haven't seen a way of getting back that token without doing a restore.


How to allow port 80? (NAT) I want to allow traffic to flow from the Internet to my Raspberry Pi, the IP address of the Pi needs to look as though it is from the router (NAT).

The ports that need to be allowed through are port 80 (http) and port 22 (ssh).

Where can I find these NAT settings? How do I allow ports?

the article currently titled "AirPort Utility 6.x: Set NAT options for your base station or AirPort Time Capsule" and currently available at http://support.apple.com/kb/PH5103 has:

To set NAT options, your base station or AirPort Time Capsule must be set up to share its Internet connection using DHCP and NAT.

Open AirPort Utility, located in the Utilities folder in the Applications folder. Select the base station you want to set up, then click Edit. Enter the password if necessary.
Click Network and then choose DHCP and NAT from the Router Mode pop-up menu.
Select Enable NAT Port Mapping Protocol.

NAT Port Mapping Protocol (NAT-PMP) is an Internet Engineering Task Force Internet Draft, an alternative to the more common

Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) protocol implemented in many NAT routers. NAT-PMP allows a computer in a private network (behind a NAT router) to automatically configure the router to allow clients outside the private network to contact this computer.

Included in the protocol is a method for retrieving the public IP address of a NAT gateway, which allows a client to make this public IP address and port number known to peers that may wish to communicate with it. This protocol is implemented in current Apple products, including Mac OS X 10.4 or later, AirPort Extreme and AirPort Express networking products, AirPort Time Capsule, and Bonjour for Windows.
Select “Enable default host,” and enter the IP address of the host.

A default host is a computer on your network that is exposed to the Internet and receives all inbound traffic. A default host may be useful if you use a computer on your AirPort network to play network games, or want to route all Internet traffic through a single computer.

You can also set up port mapping to direct network traffic to a specific computer on your network.

the article currently titled "AirPort Utility software and firmware downloads" and currently available at http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1998 tells you where to get Airport Utility.


Why do Automator workflows fail to replace selected text with their actions’ output in Safari 14 (on macOS 11)? After updating from Safari 13 to Safari 14 (on macOS 10.15.6),
I have noticed that all of my text-filtering Automator workflows
no longer work correctly when invoked from the updated Safari.
For an example of such a workflow, see the screenshot below.
It shows a simple workflow that takes the current text selection,
pipes it through the fmt command, and replaces the original
selection with that command’s output:

I have a few workflows of this construction, i.e., consisting of
a single Run Shell Script action running a command that takes
the text selection on its stdin and outputs the text to replace
the selection with on its stdout. I have been using them without
any issues for quite a long time (at least, for the last two major
releases of macOS).
However, when a workflow like that is run from the newly updated
Safari 14, it fails to replace the text selection with the output
of the workflow. Instead, it simply deletes the selected text.
The issue is clearly specific to Safari 14 only, because the same
workflows still work correctly (i.e., replace the selection with
the command’s output) in all other apps (e.g., TextEdit).
Is this caused by some security-related novelty in Safari 14 that
can be disabled, or is it simply a regression bug that has been
introduced in this update? Are there any known workarounds aside
from simulating copying and pasting for the command output in
Automator workflows?

I am not sure what exactly are you trying to accomplish, but I have an AppleScript code to replace characters and maybe it can be a good way for you to start. This solution works no matter the program because it uses GUI scripting, you just need to select the text and invoke the Service.
As you can see the code is changing all : for /; you can use it to adapt for your needs.
on run {}
    tell application "System Events"
        key code 8 using {command down} -- Cmd+C Copy text to clipboard
        delay 0.1
        set the new_path to (the clipboard as string)
        set save_location to my replace_chars(new_path, ":", "/")
        delay 0.1
        set the clipboard to save_location
        key code 9 using {command down} -- Cmd+V Paste clipboard back
    end tell
end run

on replace_chars(this_text, search_string, replacement_string)
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to the search_string
    set the item_list to every text item of this_text
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to the replacement_string
    set this_text to the item_list as string
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
    return this_text
end replace_chars


Notifications causing screen waking I recently got a new MacBook Pro (2019 model). With this computer, if the displays are sleeping (I often have an external monitor attached via USB-C dock), they will wake up for a few seconds when a notification comes in, and then they go back into power-saving mode. My previous MBP (late 2013 model) did not have this problem. I call it a problem as the computer is in my bedroom, and the momentary flash of light is waking me up sometimes at night. How can I stop this from happening? (Both Macs are running 10.14.6)

You can turn on Do Not Disturb ("DND") mode to prevent distractions or notifications during specific timeframes.

Source:

Schedule Do Not Disturb

On your Mac, choose Apple menu  > System Preferences or open "System Preferences" directly from the icon.
Click "Notifications".
Select "Do Not Disturb" at the top of the sidebar.

You can stop notifications during a time period, when your Mac is in sleep (useful if you sleep near your Mac) by checking the "When the display is sleeping" box.

If you want to receive call notifications even when Do Not Disturb is on, select the call checkboxes.


Safari (macOS) does not play sound for web push notification I enabled notifications for slack.com in Safari to get push notifications for new messages. However, I don't get any sound with those notifications. The just appear in the top right corner of the screen, but the Mac does not play any sound.

I am using Safari 11.1.1 in macOS 10.13.5.

Any ideas?

The setting in System Preferences → Notifications → Safari for ‘Play sound for notifications’ allows sounds to be played for notifications.

It's then up to the website to decide to provide a sound for Safari to play on a notification.

You can configure this for Slack in your preferences on slack.com.


`ulimit -n` for non-root I'm running El Capitan / Mac OSX 10.11.6 (15G1108) and I want to increase the "Max Open files" for some of my terminals / bash sessions. I'm logged in with my normal users. I read through all the guides I could find and managed to increase some limits:

As my user:

$ launchctl limit maxfiles
    maxfiles    200000         200000

But, when I try to set the limit, I fail:

$ ulimit -n 8096
-bash: ulimit: open files: cannot modify limit: Operation not permitted

The strange thing is that I actually can set the ulimit if I switch to root:

$ sudo bash
$ ulimit -n 9086

Now of course, running everything as root is stupid, so I'm searching for a better solution. How can I allow my user to also increase his "Max Files Limit"?

What I have done already:

$ cat /etc/sysctl.conf
kern.maxfiles=65536
kern.maxfilesperproc=65536

$ cat /Library/LaunchDaemons/limit.maxfiles.plist
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
  <plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
      <key>Label</key>
        <string>limit.maxfiles</string>
      <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
          <string>launchctl</string>
          <string>limit</string>
          <string>maxfiles</string>
          <string>200000</string>
          <string>200000</string>
        </array>
      <key>RunAtLoad</key>
        <true/>
      <key>ServiceIPC</key>
        <false/>
    </dict>
  </plist>

Having had this exact same problem, I ultimately found that my bash startup sequence (.bashrc or similar) was doing a ulimit -n 1024; and that caused both the soft and the hard limit to get set; the latter of which prevented any attempt at raising it afterwards, giving rise to the "bash: ulimit: open files: cannot modify limit: Operation not permitted" error.

So, removing that command got the soft and hard limits restored to the apparent system defaults of 256 and unlimited respectively. The latter is what will enable you to ulimit -n <whatever> again.

In your case, assuming the cause is similar and your Library/LaunchDaemons/limit.maxfiles.plist is still in place as listed, I expect that ulimit -Sn and ulimit -Hn will report both to be 200000.


Will this get rid of all the data on my macbook pro (high sierra)? I tried changing the administrator's short name and the admin user ended up turning into a standard one. Now I can't log in with the administrator username and password if I want to make changes to the laptop. Someone suggested the below solution a while ago. I just have one question before trying it though. Is Will doing this erase all the data on my laptop? I have no way of knowing when the last backup was (if there even was any).
The solution:
"If it's not already, make sure your Macbook pro has an up-to-date backup.
Then follow these steps:
Shut down your Macbook pro
Power up your Macbook Pro and immediately press and hold the Command + S keys
Keep the keys down until you see the text on the screen
Now enter the following command:
/sbin/fsck -fy
and press enter
Next enter the following command:
/sbin/mount -uw /
and press enter
Now enter the following command:
rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
and press enter
Finally, enter the reboot command
and press enter
Your Macbook pro should reboot and you can log in normally, after which point the Setup Assistant will launch. Now you need to create a new admin user. Don't worry, your other user accounts should be intact. NOTE: You should choose a new user name for this admin account.
Once you're back up and running you can go to Apple > System Preferences > Users & Groups and select the Allow user to administer this computer checkbox for the 'grant' user."

No, you are simply removing one file that bookmarks a setup process has been done. Any data loss will be a result of something else (coincidence or running other commands) if you happen to lose data.
Good luck getting a new account created.


Not able to access special characters i.e. @,( etc How do I access special characters on the keyboard when writing emails? I push the Shift key and the 2 to receive the @ but it continues to give me a 2 what is wrong?

I don't know what's wrong with your keyboard, but I will try to show you a way to find out which characters you can enter with it
(I'll have to check if this works on newer systems).
First, open the System Preferences.

Click the Keyboard icon to get

Make sure that the box to the left of Show Keyboard & Character Viewer in menu bar is checked. If it is, then you should find this symbol

in the menu bar. Click on it and choose Show Keyboard Layout in the dopdown menu, which gives you this

and even better, when you press modifier keys, the Keyboard Viewer will show the characters you would get if you pressed a key.


VLC plays a video black and white I have an MTS file recorded from my Lumix GX1. Before I reinstalled OSX 10.8 I could play these videos fine in VLC, however now they're in black and white (not greyscale, just black or white).

When I upload them to YouTube they seem fine! What codec am I missing?

I had the same problem. Came across my video effects that I had set in VLC. If mine were enable, the picture was black and white, as in, sharp black and white. I disabled them and the picture was back to normal. Try messing with them to see if that helps.


Stop my old iPhone from backing up tl;dr How can I tell iTunes to not back up my old iPhone 3GS when I plug it into iTunes

I have an iPhone 4S, and an old 3GS I'm using as an iPod touch.  I asked the salesperson at the apple store whether having my old iPhone backing up in iTunes would cause problems, since iTunes only stores one backup.  She said probably, and that I should set iTunes to stop backing up my old phone when I plug it in to sync.

a) Is this correct, that a backup of my old 3GS will overwrite my last backup of my new 4S?

b) Is there a way to turn backups off for a specific device (short of just remembering to click the X when the backup starts)?

(a) iTunes named backups (on your hard drive) using the UDID (Unique Device Identifier) of successfully connected iOS devices. So it's erroneous to state that a backup of a 3 GS will overwrite a backup of another device since each device has a unique UDID.

(b) iTunes 10.5.1 doesn't provide option to not back up. However, you could uncheck the "Open iTunes when this iPhone is connected" which then allows you to connect your iPhone to iTunes without triggering a backup.


How to change boot camp partition if is set? I had a mistake in windows 7 in my mac. I want to change the size of the partition of my hard drive to my windows 7. I know how to use boot camp but how do I change the windows 7 partition? I don't really understand the other websites instructions.

I am guessing your forte is not computers, this is not the best method, nor the fastest by any stretch; in fact it could possibly be the slowest way to do it. But it will work.

boot into windows
start migration assistant and copy all your settings and apps and docs to an external HD
Go back to osx
Delete w7 partition
run bootcamp assistant.
redownload the Windows Support files if you lost them (important)
choose new partiton size
reinstall windows
reinstall Windows support (apple drivers)
run migration assistant again and copy all your settings and apps and docs back.

There are other ways to do it (buying Paragon Partition Manager for instance) but this way its slow but free and almost impossible to screw up your computer.


Random email address attached to my Apple ID I logged into the Apple ID website, and it lists my contact address as usual. But then it also has some other contact address there too. I know who it is (some random hobo who I gifted my old iPhone to). But i don't want their email address attached to my account. But for some stupid reason, there is no option to remove his address. How can I do this?

I'm talking about the "we can contact you at.... xyz" part of the Apple ID settings website.

Under Account section click on edit and click on the ⓧ button shown besides the email address that you wish to remove.


MacBook Pro Motherboard Upgrade Compatability So today, my trusty Early 2011 15 inch MacBook Pro had its screen go black with the backlight and keyboard keys on, audio still playing, but unresponsive to keyboard input. This happened twice more after a reboot. I fear this is the dreaded GPU Failure (the repair program for which it is no longer eligible).

Being that I have a sentimental attachment to the lil guy, I thought I might take the opportunity to upgrade the motherboard to one compatible with MacOS Mojave. My guess is that anything that’s not a unibody MacBook will have a similar motherboard layout, but I haven’t found an authoritative source. Anyone have a list of compatible part numbers between chassis and motherboards?

I found this for you :

  I have an early 2011 model 15" MBP with a matte screen. I purchased a
  mid 2012 non-retina logic board (without the heat sink → reused my
  original one) and installed it successfully, upgrading my USB ports,
  Thunderbolt port, CPU, and GPU. It's like having a new computer!

  The display cable was a tight fit, but working carefully and with a
  gentle yet firm hand, I was able to fit it into the logic board port.
  The only other difference is that the new boards do not have the small
  heat sinks over the USB controller and one other controller (not sure
  what they are). I've read that one guy butchered his old board and
  superglued the screw mounts onto the new board. Another person
  reported superglueing the heat sink directly to the controller. Both
  of these ways seemed a bit barbaric and unclean to me, so I just left
  the two controllers be; figured they would have the screw mounts if
  they needed the brackets, but they don't.

  So over a week later, my laptop has been running completely fine.
  Actually super, because of all the upgrades! I have installed iStat
  Menus and have been monitoring my temperatures. Everything is within
  normal ranges during various workloads! I have also swapped out my DVD
  Superdrive with my original 750GB 5200RPM HDD, replacing the main
  drive with a 1TB Samsung 850 Pro. Oh, and my bluetooth module has been
  changed a long time ago, to allow AirDrop and Handover to work... as
  you see, just about everything in my laptop has been changed. I just
  really like my matte screen, and cannot believe they don't make them
  any more. These new "anti-glare" displays have nothing on the matte!

  So the answer to whether an early 2011 logic board (15" MBP) is
  swappable for a mid 2012 non-retina one is: It absolutely is, and
  don't let anyone else tell you otherwise!

SOURCE:


How to obtain previous (not the current) passwords from keychain on iOS? I’m helping a person that does everything just in iOS. What happened is the person did a Password change in safari.  It was one of the usual dialogues - enter current password and input new password twice. He used the keychain to fill out the first field and the generate safe password feature to fill the other.  And after submission there was the popovers to update the password which he confirmed.
Now, apparently on the form there was a checkbox or so that was required for the change so the website hasn’t updated the password.  He can no longer log in as the old password  is already updated  on all his devices.
On a desktop machine i would have just restored the keychain. I thought there was a similar option for the iCloud backup - apparently not.
How can one recover from such a situation?

The older passwords are unfortunately not stored in the keychain and cannot be recovered from the iCloud backup.
Your only option is to use the account recovery methods made available by that specific web site. For example many web sites allow account recovery through sending a password reset link via email.


Is it required to use XCode v5 to host an IOS Mobile App in itunesconnect.com? Is it required to use XCode v5 to host an IOS Mobile App in itunesconnect.com?

let us know what's the minimum required XCode Version to use?

Thanks.

Yes. On January, Apple, sent and email to the Developers stating that:

  Starting February 1, new apps and app updates submitted to the App Store must be built with Xcode 5 and iOS 7 SDK.

This can be found, too, in the iOS7 developer's page, were it's added:

  Use Xcode 5 with iOS 7 SDK to compile, validate, and submit release versions of your iOS 7 apps to iTunes Connect.


How to make external disks reappear on desktop in Mountain Lion? After upgrading from Lion to Mountain Lion, my MBP does not show icons for external drives on the desktop any more. In the Finder preferences, “External disks” is checked under “Show these items on the desktop”. Any ideas?

Somehow, the upgrade to Mountain Lion enabled the hidden Finder setting that completely hides desktop icons. You can reenable it using

defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop -bool true


Get parent of symbolic link instead of original folder I have a project with node_modules folder that contains a symbolic link to another project. The problem that inner project takes configs from parent project (etc ../../../config) and thus cannot find it because of the relative path starting from the original folder instead of a symbolic link.

Example:

$ cd ~
$ mkdir -p a/b/c
$ ln -s a/b/c d
$ cd d
$ ls ../

Will display content of b folder. But I need to display listing of ~ directory. How to do it?

Unfortunately, this is not how symbolic links work.

From the man page (man ln)

  The ln utility creates a new directory entry (linked file) for the
  file name specified by target_file.  The target_file will be created
  with the same file modes as the source_file.  It is useful for
  maintaining multiple copies of a file in many places at once without
  using up storage for the “copies”; instead, a link “points” to the
  original copy.

Emphasis mine

So, how do you get around this?  Use an environment variable.  For example:

$ mkdir -p /a/b/c
$ FOO='/a/b/c'
$ cd ~
$ cd $FOO
$ pwd
/a/b/c

Note, you should use absolute paths when doing this; using relative paths can and will have unintended consequences.


iOS 5 'home sharing' feature missing? Previous to the update to iOS 5, the 'home sharing' feature in the iPad's iPod app worked as expected. You'd simply choose the different 'library', and you'd be able to play items over the network from that remote library.

This functionality seems to be missing in iOS 5 on an iPad 2 (and perhaps other iOS 5 devices?).

There is no way to choose a remote library or 'Sharing' in the Music app.
The same good Apple ID credentials are present in Settings, and has been re-entered just in case.
iTunes is running on the same Windows machine as previous. No changes have been made there (save for the new version of iTunes).
iTunes is running, Home Sharing is enabled.

How can this feature be restored in iOS 5?

On the computer

Open iTunes
Turn on Home Sharing in the Advanced menu
Keep iTunes running

On the iDevice

Open Preferences
Open Music Preferences
Enter same AppleID for Home Sharing as in iTunes (note, you may have to re-enter the account if it appears already to be there. This both verifies the stored password is correct and re-registers the iOS device with your account's Home Sharing)

To Use

Start the Music app in the iPad
Tap on 'More' at the bottom right

Tap on 'Shared' to see a list of shares music libraries


Need to know if I've bought a used iPhone? (multiple Apple IDs connected) I recently bought a new iphone se 64gb. I turned it on, signed in to my icloud account and selected my previous iphone's backup from icloud. After this, a screen displayed a message: Setting up your apple id. The screen after this message, displayed a prompt for password of an unknown email account that I have never used or known! This prompt suggested me to :

Enter the Apple ID password for unknown_email to use for store purchases (including the App Store, Itunes Store and iBooks Store).

I clicked the back button and switched off my new iphone se. Contacted apple via email, chat and telephone and even went to an apple store. Over telephone I was suggested to setup as a new phone and then reset it completely and then try the backup option again... the problem was still there. After that I was suggested to restore it via itunes. I updated it and restored it via itunes, and still the problem remained.

I had bought this iphone via Amazon India and I tried returning this iphone via the amazon website and was told to contact the apple support number for returns.

Please could anyone recommend me what I should do?

I remembered I had this issue when I was restoring an iPhone 5s backup to the iPhone 6 I bought at launch in 2014. I had a string of unknown email addresses pop-up asking for passwords to enable store purchases. Obviously the phone could not have been used or stolen as I received it on launch day directly from Apple.

The issue is that content originally purchased from an iTunes store was obtained from other people and on your prior device at the time of backup, such as music, eBooks or videos.

In turn, when you make a backup of your device, for purchased content iTunes/iCloud doesn't store the content directly in the backup. It simply logs (essentially) the content ID and the account used to purchase it. When you restore a backup, it prompts you to login to each account that the backup knows about so it can re-download the purchased content.

If you bypass that password screen for the unknown email, you will simply get an error message stating:

Some items could not be downloaded. If they are on your computer, you can restore them by syncing with iTunes.

After the restore is completed, sync with iTunes to add the content back directly from your computer.

The device is not stolen or compromised, nor is your Apple ID.


How can I get IRC Colloquy to catch up history of a channel when I reconnect? How can I get colloquy to catch up history of a channel when I turn back on my laptop?

I assume its something like leave a bot in the room.

Thanks, Martin.

PS. Perhaps someone would make the tags irc and colloquy for this question?

A friend just said:

  I'm on a Mac but I shell into a remote server and run irssi in screen, most
  people I know do that.  The second most common, and what I think you
  are looking for is: http://wiki.znc.in/ZNC


Go through photos and delete smaller ones I have a folder of several hundred JPGs. All of them are either big (640x480) or small (350x250). I'd like to delete all the small images in one batch.

In the past, I've opened all the pictures in Preview, then flipped through them and pressed the delete key for the small ones. However, when I just tried that, Preview is showing the images as "locked" and is ignoring my tap on the delete key. (I don't know why this used to work and now doesn't...)

So I'm looking for another solution. Some thoughts about possible solutions:

Is there a way to add a column to the Finder list view that shows the image dimensions? Then I could sort by that column and delete the small ones in one swoop. (This would be really nice since it would be nice to see the dimensions for all the images in the folder, regardless.)
Can I get Preview to let me use the delete key, like it used to?
Maybe there is a solution using Automator?

I definitely do NOT want any solutions that involve installing new software just to perform this (seemingly simple!) task.

Open finder and navigate to that folder
cmd + F
Search "in this folder"
Add in the search option "other"
When the option menu pop up, select "Pixel Height"
Add another "other", "Pixel Width"

Then search, and delete.


Anyway to reinstall a clean Mountain Lion without erasing my personal data? Actually I really need a clean ML on my Macbook, will the Internet Recovery function delete the system folder (not user folder) and replace a clean installation to it?

I need a clean system with no third party software installed and I need to keep my personal folder (I have almost 800GB of my data in my harddrive and I currently have no space to backup my data using Time Machine)

Thanks.

A clean install is just that - it wipes out everything.

You can't do an "in place" clean install (as far as I'm aware). Even if developers wanted to provide it it would be a nightmare. I'm not just blowing it out of proportion (I'm a developer) - it would be a nightmare.

PRIOR TO ANY OF THIS MAKE A FULL SYSTEM BACKUP. Hard drives are cheap. If you can't afford a hard drive for backup, then DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS - NO SERIOUSLY. AND WHEN I SAY SERIOUSLY I MEAN SERIOUSLY SERIOUSLY.

That said, you CAN do a reasonable clean install and still maintain MOST of your information. Here's how:

Create a bootable DVD, flash drive or hard drive with the ML installer.

1a. Make sure it really is bootable!
Back up your personal data. (and any other users)
Back up your applications.
DO NOT BACK UP system info (this is the downside). Note that some applications put info in weird or unusual places - you may have to reinstall that software.
Reboot the system using the DVD, flash drive or hard drive.
Run the ML installer.
Copy all the user data and applications back.
Determine what no longer works correctly and reinstall those applications (yes - seriously NOT fun).

I did this with Lion (but not ML) but AFAIK it should work.

Clean installs "break" applications (many install libraries to work correctly or create 'hidden' directories).

Good luck (and remember: FULL SYSTEM BACKUP FIRST)


How to restore default Mountain Lion font distribution? Deleting windows font which were copied from my bootcamp partition

I'd like to clean the installed font list because there might be a lot to deactivate by hand.

Is there a way to confirm which fonts do not originate from a Mountain Lion default installation?

Starting in Lion, Apple added a Restore Standard Fonts… command to Font Book. Open Font Book and choose File > Restore Standard Fonts…:


How to remove a container disk and reclaim the space onto my main partition? I purchased a secondhand iMac in which the previous owner manually deleted his data instead of just restoring to factory settings. It was rough getting it started but we got there in the end. The only thing left is this: he originally had a bootcamp partition on his hard drive, but when he deleted his data it left behind an empty container with 150.85 GB in it. I want to use Bootcamp to create a Windows partition on my hard drive, but it just wants to create a new partition, and I would rather just get rid of this container and then use Bootcamp to do it properly. I'm running Catalina 10.15.6 - How do I do this?
Here's the diskutil list

Here's my disk utility

Here's the container

I found a similar post that gave Terminal commands, and that would be fine - I just couldn't figure out how to adjust it to fit my situation. Other instructions are fine, too, I just want this container gone.
Thank you in advance!

Choose Partition from the toolbar and confirm you wish to partition if prompted.
Select the container you wish to remove from the pie chart, then click the minus button at the bottom to remove it.
Adjust the handles on the pie chart segments to expand the previous container into the space left by removing the other container (if this doesn't occur automatically).


Wi-Fi Diagnostics app not found After reading this CNet article I was pretty excited to have a tool that monitors my wireless network since I'm in the process of setting it up well.

Wi-fi Diagnostics is said to be in the CoreServices folder (see the CNET article) and so I fired up terminal and got this back:

$ /System/Library/CoreServices/Wi-Fi\ Diagnostics.app
-bash: /System/Library/CoreServices/Wi-Fi Diagnostics.app: No such file or directory

Any ideas where my Wi-Fi Diagnostics.app  has gone off to? I'm runnning OS X 10.8.4 on MacBook Air 5,2.

In 10.8.3 and lower, the program Wi-Fi Diagnostics is the tool to measure RSSI, signal to noise ratio and to scan for hot spots (a.k.a. war driving). That app is gone on 10.8.4 and is replaced by Wireless Diagnostics that has many but not all the same functions. Bonjour scan is out for instance, but the scanning and measuring tools are far better in the new tool.

The new application Wireless Diagnostics.app works mostly as the referenced article notes as well

  it is now more conveniently available by holding the Option key, clicking the Wi-Fi menu, and selecting Open Wi-Fi Diagnostics.

PS: As a side mark, you can't execute Cocoa applications from bash the way you tried. Use /System/Library/CoreServices/Wireless\ Diagnostics.app/Contents/MacOS/Wireless\ Diagnostics or open -a "Wireless Diagnostics instead.


How to flash img on Mac for Raspberry Pi What's the best way to copy a Linux disk image on to an SD card to use in a Raspberry Pi

I tried Disk Utility but it did not allow for FAT32.

Download the latest Linux OS from Raspberry Pi’s Downloads Page.
Use Etcher to write the OS image to your SD card.


Remove devices associated with iCloud account I'm trying to remove my MacBook Pro from being associated with my iCloud account however, when I try to remove the account a dialogue prompts me to make sure that I would like to remove it. For some reason, it lists my device several times and doesn't actually delete the account. I would like to remove any association of my Internet Accounts from my iCloud account and remove the numerous of 'Daniel's MacBook Pro' from my iCloud account.

I have attached screenshot of what I'm prompted with showing the number of 'Daniel MacBook Pro' on the dialogue. Is there a way I can manually remove my MacBook Pro from being associated with my account and, in a sense, start afresh.

Removing an associated device or computer from an Apple ID
To remove a device or computer from your Apple ID:

Open iTunes.
Sign in to your Apple ID by choosing Store > Sign In from the iTunes menu.
Choose Store > View My Account from the iTunes menu.
From the Account Information screen, click Manage Devices.
Click the Remove button next to the device name you would like to unassociate.

http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT4627