How to show a notification when you go online/offline? I want to get a growl notification any time my internet connection changes state - for instance, when wifi comes online, wifi goes offline, or when I switch from wifi to wired. I would love it if there was already an app out there that did this, but I'm definitely open to home-baked solutions. Any pointers?

I have a home-grown script that uses a rather inelegant polling mechanism to identify open network connections, and takes action based on what it finds. In short, it turns my wifi on or off depending on if it's plugged into a LAN. This to avoid connecting our corporate LAN with our visitors wifi. It uses ifconfig to obtain this data.

It's fairly easy to identify which interface routes your public internet, using netstat -r I think.

To the determine if the connected internet is actually working, I would probably using ping -c 1 www.google.com or something and see which code ping exits with to determine if it's alive.

All very "sticks and strings" I'm afraid. But you did say you're open to that!


iOS: Sync address book with Exchange and contact picture I sync my iPhone SE with an Exchange server. It retrieves the information and also the contact pictures of the contacts who have them.

With Android, if I added/changed the contact picture by phone, they got also synced to Exchange.

Now with iOS it seems that if I add a contact picture it is not transferred/synced to Exchange. Pretty annoying.

Any fix?

Do you have Active Sync on for your Exchange account?

Tap Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars, and select your Exchange account.

Make sure Contacts is turned on for ActiveSync:

Adapted from this Apple Document.


Custom set reminders I have to change my pain relief patch every 3 days so I have set up a reminder on my phone. It alerted me today but still says overdue.  How do I keep it on to remind me without having to delete it and put the next due date in?

Assuming you've already set it to repeat every 3 days, you can do any of the following:

within the Reminders app, tap the radio button next to the reminder to mark it as completed
if you have an alert that appears on the Lock screen, swipe left and select Mark as Completed
if you have a device that supports 3D Touch (e.g. an iPhone 6s and above, but not presently any iPad models), you can also hard press and select Mark as Completed

Regardless of the option above, the reminder will repeat as per the schedule you've set.


How to stream music to a PC? How do I use my Mac to stream audio (preferably using AirPlay) over WiFi to my 2 PCs with sound systems?  (If at the same time, then they need to be in perfect sync)

It would also be nice to be able to clone the display, but that is a very far second in priority.

These machines are on a network with no internet access, but the Mac is on a second network with internet access (do not want to bridge the networks - out of the question).  I'd like to be able to control the audio playing through the PC with the Mac.  I know AirPlay supports stuff like this, but I need to figure out how to get an AirPlay receiver running on my PC.  Even a VM of a standalone receiver would work...

Mac version OS X 10.11 El Capitan
Windows version Windows 7 Home Premium
Windows version Windows XP Professional

Install iTunes on both computers
Sign in to Home Sharing on both using the same AppleID (it doesn't have to be the same AppleID as you use for store purchases)
Leave iTunes running on both.
Follow the help on the PC to select the Mac's music library and stream away.

Since you have added a lot of extra requirements to your question, I would just set up a Home Stereo system and have the playing computer use bluetooth or a cable connection to input sound to the amplifier/receiver. I use a belkin unit, but there are many at inexpensive prices and then you can use an iOS device to remote control the selected iTunes instance.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B9NATUI/ - XtremeMac Bluetooth Connect Audio Receiver


Can you force applications to open in full screen? Is there a way, like an app or a system preference, that will open applications in full screen, all the time. By full screen I mean taking up all the screen real estate. I know it doesn't match apple user interface guidelines but I have a friend for whom it would make life easier.

Currently, no. Through the Macs history (as you pointed out with the HIG), Macs have had a 'zoom' feature versus a maximize one like Windows. Many times this will make the window full screen, but not always.

With Mac OS 10.7 due out this summer, having a full screen application is one of the new features, where the application will take up everything on the screen. Since 10.7 is still under NDA, not sure if there will be a way to have the application always launch full screen or not.


Can't access Recovery Mode (2011 Mac Mini) I was gifted a 2011 Mac Mini and I decided to try and get the thing up and running with a recent enough version of MacOS. When I turned the thing on, I was greeted with a fast boot to grub, indicating CentOS 7 was installed.

In my efforts to get the thing to boot from my bootable USB drive, I have been completely unsuccessful. I've tried multiple different key commands at boot up (Option+R, Command+Option+R, Shift+command+option+R, c, t) all offer the same behavior: a speed boot back to the grub bootloader. My assumption is that the recovery partition was nuked when the previous owner threw linux on this thing, but I'm not entirely sure how I can repair this. My original thought was to try and get the thing into Target Disk mode, but no joy.

Is there another path forward or will I likely need to pull the drive out, wipe it and maybe throw it in another mac to format the thing?

EDIT: So, despite having used this keyboard to boot OTHER macs into recovery mode, this one needed an entirely different keyboard. Key presses were not recognized at boot but now are. I appreciate everyone who provided feedback about this.

If you have an bootable macOS installer USB (Here is how to make one), boot from the installer directly by holding Option Key.

The options would require having access to a Mac (VM or real)

Another option could be to install macOS on an external drive and boot from it(holding option while booting), and try to install macOS on the internal disk.

Third option could be, remove internal disk from the MacMini, get a 2.5inch SATA to USB adapter, install macOS on the "external disk". Reinstall, and auto boot from the newly installed macOS HDD(or SSD). Might be a good opportunity to upgrade to a SSD.


How can I tell mac to stop trying to connect "idisk" server? 10.10.5 and 10.11.6 on same network, Imac and macbook pro. I get a re-ocurring popup that says,  "cannot connect to idisk" popup notification. It keeps returning even though I select "cancel". It holds my system hostage, not allowing other apps to work until I (again, and again) try to click it away by pressing cancel. It goes away for a while, but eventually returns.

My own experience is with PCs, but I'll give this a shot.

From what I've been able to discern, iDrive is an online backup program. You don't say, but I'm assuming you have an iDrive account, and it keeps trying to connect. I've seen similar behavior with GoogleSync, when it checks files and brings my own system to a standstill until it's finished.

I checked, and Macs have an equivalent to Task Manager, the Force Quit Applications Manager. Command+ Option+ Escape will bring this dialog up. Search for the iDrive application in the list of apps. There should be an option to click on the list of apps (process name), and it should sort -- I'm basing this on PC experience. Scroll through the list for the iDisk app. Click on it to select, and the QUIT button is on the upper left corner. This should terminate the application. This should free up your machine to do other things.

Once you are done, however, this is a temporary solution. The next time you boot up, you will have the same problem. You need to address WHY the app is having problems. I have not used iDrive, but assume it's subscription. Is your account active? If not, you should uninstall the app. If you are a current and active subscriber, you might then need to call the company to find out why you aren't able to log in. I am assuming it worked before without issues and without bringing your system to a standstill. Assuming you are subscribed and want to keep the app, there may be an option to repair the application; not all software has that option, but the better ones do. Otherwise, barring a call to the company, you might need to uninstall and re-install. Macs are pretty stable machines, but sometimes an application does get corrupted.

The steps above should help you get control of your Mac. Again, then you need to deal with the iDrive program and why it's misbehaving. Good luck!


Spotlight misses first character after Cmd-Space When I call up spotlight by pressing command-space, and then start typing something Spotlight often seems to miss the first letter I type. It doesn't happen every time, only about 1 in 5 times I use it.

i.e. I press Cmd-Space and start to type "Finder" and instead I see "inder" in the text box.

It seems like I am not the only one with this problem https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7296308?tstart=0

Has anyone figured out a solution for this problem?

Until Apple fixes this you can try unchecking 'Allow Spotlight Suggestions in Spotlight and Look up' in System Preferences > Spotlight. It worked for me!


Can Quick Look be made into an application to preview URLs in apps like Twitter? Lion's improved Quick Look can now preview web pages. The full screen view and quick launching make it superb for peeking at a web page without having to launch a browser; which, in my case, always has many tabs to open from a previous session that I plan to revisit later.

I use an app called Choosy that will let me choose which browser to use when I click on a link [outside the browser]. This alleviates the concern that Quick Look isn't suitable as a permanent replacement. I would like to use Quick Look as a choice of browsers, but I've since discovered that Quick Look isn't an application.

Can an app be made that will workaround this road bump? An app that just opens items in Quick Look that simply functions as a way to choose it as an opener or as a choice in Choosy. My main concern is that I want to be able to open a URL in the Twitter app and have it open in Quick Look. I have been spoiled by Twitter for iOS in this regard. Also, it would also be nice to use it as the default opener for images as well.

I've written an AppleScript wrapper for qlmanage called "Have A Quick Look":

http://dougscripts.com/471

However, in Lion, the qlmanage app opens and causes some conflicts with iTunes. Oh well.


Locking my machine causes my network Connection to sleep Is there a way to lock my screen but not sleep my network connection? I step away from desk quite a bit and I lock the screen pretty much every time. When I come back I always from stepping away for like 5 minutes it seems like my machine has to reacquire an IP. This via ethernet. This is on a 2010 13' unibody macbook pro running Lion.

If your MacBook is plugged in I would try the following.

Change the Engery Prefs to not spin down the disk or sleep the computer when it's plugged in.
Activate the Screen Saver to turn on at a hot corner.
Set the Screen Saver prefs to require password to log back in.

Now see if activating the Screen Saver causes you to loose your assigned IP.

The alternate method is to manually assign an IP to your MacBook while you're at work.


Keyboard Not working Properly I have an old iMac on MacOS 10.13 High Sierra with the standard Magic Keyboard (before the current MK2). I normally use the iMac in Target Display mode, and then use Screen Sharing from my newer iMac to connect to it when I need to do something directly on the old machine. Naturally, I use the newer keyboard attached to my newer iMac.

A few days ago, I found that most of the keys on the old iMac appear not to be working. After a lot of testing, I can say the following:

The old keyboard connected to the newer iMac works well
An alternative Bluetooth keyboard connected to the old iMac also has the same problem
An alternative Wired keyboard connected to the old iMac also has the same problem
Everything is fine when I enter using the newer iMac keyboard on screen sharing
I have ensured that mouse keys and slow keys are turned off

All this suggest that there is a software problem.

I had it working for a while. I then restarted, and it worked for a while longer. Now it’s gone back to the problematic behaviour, and I can only type the a key, for some reason.

Any suggestions?

Thanks to your investigative work, it appears that the common problem is the Bluetooth on iMac.

Try resetting you BT.

You will loose paring so you have to pair it again.

To reset BT hold Shit+Option and click on the BT icon in the menu bar.

Now you will see the Debug menu.


Open location of a photo in Finder from Photos.app In Yosemite, I am trying to upload a photo to website. So I open Photos, select a photo and then try to locate the location of the photo. However I could not find it. Before Photos it was possible in iPhoto. Is there a way to locate a photo in Finder? By the way if relevant, I am also using iCloud Storage for photos. However my hdd is big enough so it should be storing photos locally too.

OS X Yosemite 10.10.3 - Photos Version 1.0 - Looks like Apple removed the option to show the photo in Finder.

Not the most direct method, but try  this:

Go to Photos Menu -> Preferences -> General
Click the "Show in Finder" button in the dialog box.  In Finder you'll see a "Photos Library" highlighted
Right-click and select "Show Package Contents", this will show a directory listing
Select and open the folder named "Masters"
Browse by Year-Month-Date of when the photos or videos were created

I hope Apple restores the more direct "Locate in Finder" for the photo itself.


Rollback possibility reg. MacPro5,1 firmware update (High Sierra) I've read quite some posts reg. eficheck; in itself it doesn't seem too "worrying" (for security reasons it's probably quite useful, but that's a bit off-topic here)

I found this very interesting document here, which I unfortunately only understand partly (I suppose I could grasp it to 99%, but it'd take me 2 days - and maybe some others here already read this): https://duo.com/assets/ebooks/Duo-Labs-The-Apple-of-Your-EFI.pdf
In there it says: "[...] there appears to be another level of checking that takes place within Apple’s pre-boot EFI environment that prevents rollback to an older version of EFI. "

After I update to High Sierra, will I be able to roll back, incl. the older firmware - just in case the newer firmware reveals some disadvantages later on?

In general, no. Apple doesn’t release tools to reverse an EFI update publicly. In general, these aren’t needed since the drivers for GPU and other functional aspects of running the system exist at the OS level which you can revert to freely. Also, EFI updates now arrive with normal OS updates, so most people get these updates when you apply normal updates and not needing to run a separate EFI update.

Technically, Apple service providers can get access to tools to revert firmware but that is more geared to when an update hangs as opposed to there being a known regression.

Known regresssions generally are resolved with a newer patch on top, always advancing EFI versions as opposed to reverting.

Now - hardware like the Mac Pro (Early 2009) may have other worries due to being classified Vintage and Obsolete products as defined by Apple: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201624

Also - there is a nice paper by some long time Mac administrators that work for a security firm now with research on EFI updates and what happens without a check and users being shown when they are down level:

https://duo.com/blog/the-apple-of-your-efi-mac-firmware-security-research

It's getting a fair bit of mainstream coverage - but the headlines there are a bit click bait / overblown in my experience so far. The risk to home users is very low and EFI is generally only needed to exploit systems when they are already running 10.12.6 and have all updates applied and you can grant local physical access by a skilled technician of the hardware that's being attacked.

In specific, the Mac Pro 5,1 is listed as never having an update in the DuoSec research paper  - so all this might be a moot point if all you care about is Mac Pro 5,1.


No animation with MissionControl? Why? I don't have animation for Mission Control anymore. It seems that it has been like that for few days. I have updated Duet a few days ago, maybe that's related...
What happened? Is it possible that someone disable it? Or, is it a bug or the sign that the hardware is damaged?
OS: 10.11.5
Hardware: MacBook Pro (2,3 GHz Intel Core i7, 16 Go, Intel HD Graphics 4000 1536 Mo)

Edit
I've tried to do in the terminal
defaults write com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration -float 0.25

then press enter
killall Dock

then press enter
It works. But when I restart the computer, it does not work anymore.

I've tried installing Duet (third party software which I suspected to be responsible). It did not change anything.
Edit 2
I've tried uninstalling Duet (third party software which I suspected to be responsible). It did not change anything.

I too, have Duet installed and lost Mission Control animations on last update.

I believe it's some lazy "bug fixing" on Duet's team: Duet was running and I got logged out of my Mac

defaults delete com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration

then run Duet and then

defaults read com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration

It's again gets set to zero.

So my solution so far is deleting expose-animation-duration setting and removing Duet from autostart for a time being.


iPad Safari link: How to share it to Google Voice SMS Message An iPad is outfitted with GV (Google Voice) to send receive / text messages: the goal is to share a Safari link through Google voice: an options to share the link through Message and Mail exists.

Can an option to share the Safari link through GV be added to the 'Activities' menu?

Normally what you would do is, with the web page/url you want to share in Safari, is to tap the share button and if the App is not listed scroll to the right and tap the "..." menu and add the Voice.app to the list.

From what I can see on my iPhone (iOS 12.4.1, latest G Voice) Google has not exposed the Voice app so that this can be done. There seems to be no options to add Voice to the share sheet, nor is there anything in Voice settings to activate that functionality.

Your only available method seems to be to just copy the link and then paste it into the Messages.app. At least until Google decides to change Voice to allow for it as a target for sharing.


Home screen is moving about in iOS7 I successfully downloaded and activated the new iOS 7, but now my screen won't stop shaking. It looks like my iPhone 5 is caught in the middle of a hurricane. Is there anything I can do to make it stop?

There are one of three things going on here.  I'm not sure which is most likely.

You have long-pressed an app icon and entered into the move/delete mode where you can adjust locations and remove apps.  To get out of this, click home.
You are experiencing the parallax effect of the home screen.  You can turn this off in Settings>General>Accessibility>Reduce Motion *On*
You are trying to be funny.  Stop that.


What app is making my phone vibrate, without putting a corresponding notification up? There is an app I can't locate that is constantly making my phone vibrate. When it does, I immediately check the Notification Center. Nothing new there.

The vibrate could be a setting for an email application, or some other app.

One thing to note, I always have my app on silent/vibrate.  I just unmuted it in the hopes that the sound will help me figure out what is going on.

Question

How can I determine which app is sending rogue vibrations without any notification?

You may need to go through Settings → Notifications and check which apps have an Alert Style of None and Show in Notification Center disabled, but Sound toggled on.


iCloud Document Library as replacement for Dropbox? I've been put down by iCloud when it came out and kept using Dropbox instead. I mostly need to synch files between macs and eventually sneak-pick them on mobile devices. I don't take lots of pictures, I'm not an iWork user and most of all I need to share PDF files, Illustrator / Photoshop files and source files as I'm a programmer. Will the upcoming "iCloud Document Library" work like Dropbox allowing me to sync and share any kind of file even when not directly supported by an iCloud-linked app? Thanks.

EDIT

Maybe I didn't make it clear enough. I don't want to share my documents with other people I want to share them among my devices. The problem with iCloud as it is now is that it doesn't let me manage any kind of file that I like, but only certain formats, while I'd like to synch among my two macs, my iPad and my iPhone files like .zip files, .ai (Adobe Illustrator) files, .avi movies, source files of software I write and so on, hence not being limited to "sync photos" or "sync Pages document", since those are not kind of files that I'm interested in sharing among devices.

No, as iCloud is supposed to be for personal use only. To, in this case, share documents between all your devices.

You could always share your password and let someone else log in and download the file, but that will be insecure, of course. Extracted from Apple's iCloud page:

  Just sign in to icloud.com/iwork in any modern web browser, and all your iWork for iOS documents will be there — complete with your most recent edits. Click a document to download it in iWork ’09, Microsoft Office, or PDF format

Edit: Documents eligible for sharing with this new feature, are those created or edited with compatible Apps. Therefore, I don't think you'll be able to share any kind of files through iCloud.

  iCloud is already seamlessly integrated with the Apple iWork apps for your iOS devices — Pages, Keynote, and Numbers. And we’ve given developers the tools to make their apps work with iCloud, too.


Is there a method to clone my macOS into fresh OS installer like Windows WIM? On Windows there is this method exists: you create a backup image of the whole system (for example install all updates, tweak system parameters, harden the os, install some basic software and utilities).

This image comes with .vhd format, then you can easily convert it to .wim format and inject (in fact simply copy & paste with replace install.wim file) into Windows Install usb or disk. As the result next time you can quickly install already tweaked ready for work system.

Sorry for the long preamble. So is there a such thing for macOS? I found that installESD.dmg has the big compressed 5.hfs file. I guess the whole system contains there. But I couldn't open it.

My intention is to clone my macOS into bootable 16GB flash drive, so the clone should be compressed.

Is there a way to make a compressed bootable clone of macOS?

The concept of a registry or binding to AD means that all Macs are in the sysprep state always. There’s really no analog to needing to prepare a clone since any backup will work to drop a restored image. You can use asr or Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper or Time machine or APFS snapshots to make clonable images of macos including the apps, accounts, settings.

The installESD is more like the windows ISO than something that contains user date or settings.

Apple has tons of documents now on the automated install scripts to reinstall the OS - and in the past NetBoot could be used to clone and image, but macOS is now designed to do a clean install and then restore user files / apps / settings rather than slip streaming a new OS. Both get you to the same end point, automated, but the tools needed are different since you just install macOS and then run a migration script to get the data in and upgraded to the new OS if the migration is also an upgrade.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208020 Install for Catalina and newer macOS versions
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205054 NetBoot for older macOS versions


how to add ip routes with host name instead of ip address? I want to add IP routes for host that I do not have the IP address for.
I basically want tell macOS to search for a host in a specific interface:

sudo route add -host <myHostname> -iface en7

Background:
I have set up WiFi to be my primary network interface. But I want to be able to access host that are only available in the wired network with the interface en7. Therefore I wanted to add such a route to the system.

The command above results in the error: route: bad address: myHostname

Any ideas?

You can't do this; this is not the way IP routing works.

DNS is name resolution.  It's nothing more than an address book of names pointing to some numbers (IPs)

myhost.com --------> 111.222.333.444

DNS tells you what the address is, not how to get there.  IP routing is the mechanism of how you get from one point to the next.  It's the same difference between "Contacts" and "Maps" in your iPhone.

  I basically want tell macOS to search for a host in a specific
  interface:

You can't tell an interface what "hosts" (names) are there.  You tell it what networks are accessible.  Networks are defined by IP address(es).

For instance:

en0 has an IP of 192.168.1.4 and is on the network 192.168.1.0/24
en1 has an IP of 10.0.0.9 and is is on the network 10.0.0.0/24
A subnetwork, 10.0.5.0/24 is attached (via switch) on the 10.0.0.0/24 network

 en0+------------> 192.168.1.0/24

 en1+------------> 10.0.0.0/24
                             +
                             |
                             +------> 10.0.5.0/24

Now, you add a host called foo.bar in DNS and it has an IP address of 10.0.0.12.  Your system will know to go through interface en1 to get to it.

If another host, called foobar.foo had an IP address of 10.0.5.12, again, it would know to go through en1 because that route would be defined.

To accomplish what you're looking to do, your host has to be able to get name resolution across two separate domains (not interfaces).  You can accomplish this two ways:

update your hosts file manually
have a multi-horizon DNS server (aware of both domains/networks)


iMessage Security issue: Typing Status Indicator Actually sends what you are typing? I have a iPhone4 (iOS 5.0.1 [9A405]), and I noticed that from time to time instead of the typing indicator (...) I can see the part of the future message that I'm just about to receive.

Is this a security issue?

How does the typing indicator work? Is it possible that it sends some sort of key-codes over the iMessage IM network?

This isn't something I have ever seen reported before, and it seems unlikely that you can see the message before it is sent, but then again to use the popular Photo sharing app Instagram as an example they start uploading the photo as soon as you take it, before you tag it or write your comments etc, then when you click upload it's already most of teh way there and they can just add the extra info.  So it's not out of the bounds of possibility that iMessage works in a similar way to increase the perceived speed of delivery by essentially streaming it to the recipient who is then instructed to mask it with the dots until it received the all clear signal, as it were.

There's no real way for us to know this is happening, and all iMessage communication is encrypted too, so hard to find out with snooping etc.  I would ask if the partial message you see before receiving the real thing is always the same as the actual text you receive, or if it ever changes, i.e. are you seeing genuine updates as they are type, or is the system tripping up and just flicking between showing your the message and the dots?


How can I see all formulae available in a specific tap using Brew? Suppose I have added a new tap to Brew using brew tap ....

I've tried looking into brew search, brew tap, and brew tap-info, but none of these subcommand present any suitable options.

How can I list all formulae available within that tap?

From this Stack Overflow article:

List of formulae in a tap can be found by running brew tap-info $TAP --json
To turn this into a proper readable format we can run brew tap-info $TAP --json | jq -r '.[]|(.cask_tokens[])'
Example: To find all formulae in homebrew/cask-fonts we can do: brew tap-info homebrew/cask-fonts --json | jq -r '.[]|(.cask_tokens[])'

Break down of the command:

brew tap-info homebrew/cask-fonts --json lists JSON info of the taps and some other stuff (output)
jq -r '.[] removes the outside square bracket (output)
|(.cask_tokens[])' gets the JSON value of the key cask_tokens

TL;DR: Running brew tap-info <tap-here> --json | jq -r '.[]|(.cask_tokens[])' will give you the formulae from that tap.
Note If this fails to list all try running brew tap-info <tap-here> --json | jq -r '.[]|(.formula_names[],.cask_tokens[])'


Microsoft Remote Desktop via Ethernet Cable I use a MacBook Pro regularly, but I also have a Windows 10 box that's sitting right next to me. I use Microsoft Remote Desktop (MRD) from the Mac to occasionally remote into the PC over WiFi for the quick odd job.

Now I have a game on the Windows box that I'd really prefer to play over on my MacBook Pro. Trouble is, MRD is too sluggish for the game over my WiFi. Is it possible to connect these two computers with an Ethernet cable so that I can still use MRD to access the Windows box? I assume the greater bandwidth will allow me to play the game without lag.

Appreciate any pointers how to make this work. Thanks!

While the latest version of Microsoft RDP protocol supports RemoteFX which is an implementation of a virtual GPU, "game play" is a very broad term.

  RemoteFX vGPU: the ability to present a virtualized instance of a
  physical GPU into multiple Windows 7 virtual machines. This provides
  VMs with access to the physical GPU, enabling hardware-acceleration
  for rich graphics scenarios such as 3D rendering and game play.

Your game (never mentioned) may not be 3D intensive (maybe it's full contact tic-tac-toe).  Then again, it may be the latest release of Halo.  Will the game "play"?  Yes.  You should be able to play it remotely.

Will it lag?

It depends.
My rule of thumb is that video and games are best played locally and not over a shared screen.


Can I dismiss a Notification Center Alert using the mouse? Is it possible to dismiss a sticky "alert" (from Notification Center) from the upper-right corner of the screen by using the mouse?

Yes! You can simply click and drag the alert off to the right and it will disappear. If you have a multi-touch input device such as a trackpad, you can also use two fingers and swipe it away to the right.

Additionally, you can temporarily move the notification by dragging it to the left:

It will stay there for a few seconds and then move back to its original position. This currently seems very buggy, but perhaps it'll work better with future updates.


Is iPad Pro's GPS supposed to be not as accurate as iPhone's GPS? I have an iPad Pro, and noticed that its GPS will tell the location off by about 100 feet to 150 feet. Sometimes it says it cannot find any GPS signal, when the iPhone 6 has no issue at all.

The spec page of iPad Pro says that it has

Assisted GPS and GLONASS

at first I thought the aGPS is not as accurate as regular GPS, but then, it is the same specs as for iPhone 6 or iPhone 7.

So can it be fixed by software or will it require a hardware fix?

(if the GPS is to find a cafe or restaurant, it is no problem.  But when playing Pokemon Go, it is annoying to be not at the exact location -- except one advantage is that you can scan an area slightly off to the real location, so it is like you can scan 2 areas at the same time if you use both the iPad Pro and the iPhone).

WiFi-only iPads do not include a GPS receiver; only the Wi-Fi + Cellular models do. That is why at times you can’t even get a GPS signal at all.

But when there are Wi-Fi signals around or when you have an Internet connection, your iPad can use that to figure out its location.

You don’t need a cellular signal in order to get a GPS lock. I’ve gone on plenty of hikes in the boonies with no cell signal, and ended up with a perfect map. The “assisted” part of "Assisted GPS” only uses cell tower triangulation to acquire a quicker GPS lock.

I don’t see a reason why Apple would disable the GPS radio unless you activated the iPad on a carrier network, so you should be able to use GPS on an iPad + cellular without a data plan.


Why upgrading iPhone from iOS 3 to iOS 5 displays USB and iTunes icons? I upgraded my iPhone from iOS 3 to iOS 5. It is now blocked: it shows a USB icon and the iTunes icon. How to proceed?

Start iTunes on your computer (ideally on the one you used to sync your iPhone with) and connect the iPhone via USB.

You will get an error message or number if there is something else amiss, but usually getting iTunes to do the download and then the restore will fix things up for you.


What's Firefox's default browser helper plugin? On a freshly installed Firefox there is a plugin named:

  Default Browser Helper 537

It seems to be something from Apple but i couldn't find more information about it.

What is it and why it there?
Do we need it?

OS X 10.9 (and 10.9.1)
Firefox 25.0.1 (and 26)

I did some digging and documented my findings.

The plug-in is used to produce the below dialog. It can be triggered by Apple from inside any other web browser. It is unclear when and where this is used.


/usr/sbin/uninstall? What is it/what does it do? There's a /usr/sbin/uninstall command on my system. What does it do? There is no man page, and running it says

"You must be root to run this tool.",
and (after sudo uninstall -h) it says "URL is not uninstallable: -h".

If I just run sudo uninstall, it says "uninstall file_urls ..."

I'm curious!

0942v8653's guess is right, /usr/sbin/uninstall is a command line uninstaller for Mac App Store apps.

The file URL must be specified as parameter. In my tests the path to the application did it:

$ sudo /usr/sbin/uninstall /Applications/Reeder.app
Preparing Uninstall...
Uninstall Began...
7%...
15%...
(...)
92%...
100%...
Uninstall Ended...

while non-Mac App Store apps couldn't be uninstalled:

$ sudo /usr/sbin/uninstall /Applications/Seashore.app
URL is not uninstallable: /Applications/Seashore.app

Interestingly, although I ran the command with sudo it still asked me for administrator credentials:

/usr/bin/uninstall uses the Uninstall private framework:

$ otool -L /usr/sbin/uninstall
/usr/sbin/uninstall:
(...)
    /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Uninstall.framework/Versions/A/Uninstall (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 202.0.0)
(...)

just like the Dock:

$ otool -L /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/MacOS/Dock | grep Uninstall
    /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Uninstall.framework/Versions/A/Uninstall (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 202.0.0)

That makes sense, because my tests showed that when an application is uninstalled inside Launchpad (by clicking the app’s delete button that appears when icons wiggle) uninstall is not used, but the Dock.


Like camcorders or actioncams, is there any way to see what is being recorded on another cellphone? I have a canon camcorder, and I can use my iPhone to start/stop recording and see what is being recorded. A very convenient approach.

My iPhone video quality is much better than my camcorder, and I like to replace my camcorder with my iPhone for recording youtube videos.

The problem is that I don't know how to control my iPhone with another device and it is tedious to go the tripod and take a look at the display that is being recorded every time. The front facing camera is not an option because of the lower quality and the view angle setup.

Like camcorders or action cams, is there any way to see what is being recorded on another cell phone?

[UPDATE]

I'm aware of this app, but it is missing the ability to be able to view live what is being recorded on the other iPhone.

Basically what I need is to be able to record video from an iPhone and view what's in frame from another iOS device, almost how a GoPro and iPhone work together.

This almost certainly isn't the answer you were looking for, but if not it may be useful for others.

If you have an Apple Watch, you can actually use that to view what is being captured within the iPhone's camera frame, both for photos and video. You can also use the Apple Watch as a basic remote to control the iPhone's camera (take photos, start/stop recording, etc). Obviously, this only works for the iPhone the Apple Watch is paired to, not for other iPhones or devices.


Mac login not working after initial screen Suddenly my MacBook Air won't accept my password.  When I restart, the first screen offers to let me login with my username and symbol, and accepts my password, but then opens a screen giving me the option to logon as Guest or a fill in the blank Name, and if I put on my name and password it doesn't work. I can't get past this except as guest so can't get in the Apple menu. Any idea what is going on and what I can do ? Have tried restarting, turning off, logging in as guest, and still locked out.

May be the trash became full and not enough memory to bootup. You try boot in target mode , mount the disk in another mac machine and clear the trash.
or
In Recovery mode open "Disk utility -> repair disk" may help.


How can I read iTunes backup data? Is there any official documentation on how I can read out a non-encrypted iTunes backup of an iOS device?

I researched but unfortunately I didn't find an answer.

No - Apple does not document the storage format for iTunes backup of iOS data.

It's been reverse engineered by several companies, though. You can search for iTunes backup extractor and all manor of forensic software suites that companies and governments buy to extract data during investigations.


Different desktop with different dock? I'm using 10.7.4, and I use multiple desktops (in Spaces). When I switch between desktops, the dock does not change.

I open an application in Desktop 1 and its icon remains in the dock after I switch to Desktop 2.

What I want is I open an application in Desktop 1, its icon remains in Desktop 1's dock, When I switch to Desktop 2, Desktop 2's dock only has application icons that I open in Desktop 2.

Is it possible to do that; to have different desktops with different docks?

Lion doesn't support that. It wasn't supported in Spaces under older versions of OS X, either.


How do I download all photos to a HDD from iCloud? I have a very simple request, I want to download all my data, or at least all my photos, from iCloud to a local drive, and then I can do whatever I want with them.

The instructions here:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201302

don't work - unless I am missing something. When I choose Import, I see all pictures all through, and I just want to download from Photos those that are on the cloud.

For Google, it is very easy, you just go to Google checkout, and get a ZIP file with all YOUR data. How can the same be done with Apple ID?

Go to https://privacy.apple.com/account , sign-in and request download for photos.

Another method can be to allow Download originals to Mac in Photos app preferences and then go to /Users/yourname/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary/Masters after all the photos are downloaded.

  You can request a copy of the data that Apple stores which is
  associated with your Apple ID. This information includes, but is not
  limited to:

  Your Apple ID account details and sign-in records.
  Data that you store with iCloud such as contacts, calendars, notes,
  bookmarks, reminders, email, photos, videos, and document.

from https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT208502


Difference between "Get Xcode" and "Install" I've just upgraded to Yosemite, and I'm getting the following dialog box:

  The "cc" command requires the command line developer tools. Would you
  like to install the tools now?

  Choose Install to continue. Choose Get Xcode to install Xcode and the command line developer tools from the App Store.

  Get XcodeNot nowInstall

What is the difference between the two? In particular, does "Install" have a smaller download size  than the "Get Xcode" option?

Get Xcode installs both the IDE and command line developer tools.

According to apple this is the contents of that package:

  This package enables UNIX-style development via Terminal by installing command line developer tools, as well as Mac OS X SDK frameworks and headers. Many useful tools are included, such as the Apple LLVM compiler, linker, and Make. If you use Xcode, these tools are also embedded within the Xcode IDE.

Source XCode Command Line Tools - Apple Developer


Game performance halved with screen mirroring on macOS When I run Portal on my MBP with no external screen connected I get a solid 60 fps. When I connect and mirror another screen (same resolution and game settings) it drops to 30 fps, sometimes 20, and has a very noticeable impact on game experience.

It's the same regardless of which video output port I use.
Graphics power saving is disabled.

I have tried to find confirmation that screen mirroring negatively affects performance, but I've only stumbled upon assertions that it doesn't and shouldn't. But I've tested this many times and it's very reproducible.

How is mirroring implemented / why does it affect performance this much?
Is the only way to get decent game performance to buy an external keyboard and close the lid / tape a magnet to the screen / use terminal hack?

MBP 15" mid 2014

Update on V-sync

As Phong correctly suspected, it's related to vsync. Without it I get some ridiculous 150+ fps and good responsiveness, although I'm reluctant to turn it off because of the tearing.

It's still a bit of a mystery how screen mirroring is interacting with and affecting vsync though.

The MBP screen is 60 Hz, and the external screen also receives a 60 Hz signal. Changing the game resolution doesn't affect the video signal (always 1080p), but matching the output and game resolution (e.g. 720p@60) still gives similar symptoms.

Sounds to me like you have Vertical Synchronization enabled. This feature locks your frame rate to a fraction of your display’s refresh rate (1, ½, ⅓…) to prevent visual artifacting (specifically, “tearing”) and runaway frame rates (which may damage a GPU). A pretty good indication of this is a frame rate that jumps from 30 to 60 FPS and back, with nothing in-between.

Mirroring is affecting performance just enough to drop your frame rate below 60 FPS. Even if you would otherwise get 59 FPS, Vertical Synchronization would drop your frame rate to 30 FPS.

This may also result in input lag. Since your screen/cursor is now redrawn half (or one-third) as frequently, the delay between you moving the mouse and seeing the result on the screen would be twice or three-times as long.

Go into Portal’s video settings and Disable Vertical Synchronization. I don’t play Portal, but almost every game has that option. It may be named V-Sync.

You may need to switch from Windowed mode to Full Screen. Since macOS forces V-Sync for the main desktop, V-Sync may still be enforced while playing in a window.

To minimize the adverse effects of disabling V-Sync, many games offer the option to cap your frame rate. If that option is available, try setting a maximum of, eg. 90 FPS or even 60 FPS. This often offers the best of both worlds.

See if a combination of these solutions resolves your problem.

If you’d rather keep V-Sync enabled, many games offer an option to enable Triple-Buffering. This will help smooth out your frame rates (therefore minimizing sudden drops in frame rates). Enabling it may also result in increased input lag, though usually not as severe as one caused by dropping 30 FPS.

One last suggestion would be to try to extend your desktop onto the external display as a separate Space instead (possible with Yosemite and above, I believe). Does your use-case even require Mirroring? I’m not all that familiar with this on the Mac, but I don’t see why this wouldn’t be possible.

Bird’s-eye explanation of what’s causing your frame rate drops with Mirroring:
With Mirroring, your Mac has to display the same frame to your internal display and to your external display. In addition to causing your displays to wait on each other, this involves additional “work” including extra computational time and buffer management (to make sure they’re displaying the same thing at the same time), as well as the round-trip delay over your external cable or worse, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth.

While this is happening, your GPU is rendering the next frame in its internal buffer, but doesn’t send it to your display until it gets the OK (because of V-Sync). During this wait period, your GPU is effectively paused, not rendering additional frames (unless Triple- or N-Buffering is available), which further reduces your frame rate. Then, depending on where the slowest display is at in its refresh cycle, display of the next frame may be delayed yet again to the next fraction.

You have to keep in mind that in order to render your game at 60 FPS, your graphics subsystem only has 33ms to perform all that extra work (minus the time needed by the GPU to render those frames in the first place). The roundtrip to and from your external display alone may take a couple of milliseconds. Synchronization work is in and of itself costly (time-wise). It’s not unfathomable that synchronizing two displays takes more than 20 or 30 milliseconds.

Now, in the previous paragraph I was assuming that your GPU was ready with the next frame by the time your displays were done drawing the current one. Imagine that it wasn’t. Well, now the displays are starved, and they’re the ones that end up waiting on the GPU. You probably end up dropping to the next fraction of your slowest refresh rate. What might mean a 1-2 FPS drop V-Sync Off turns into a 30 FPS with it On.

So you’re trying to synchronize two displays (through Mirroring), then trying to synchronize THOSE against your GPU (through V-Sync). The result is potentially lots and lots and lots of waiting.

It is not unusual to experience some performance degradation when connecting subsystems with disparate performance levels. That is why buffers and asynchronous operations were created.

When synchronizing, a delay anywhere causes delays everywhere.

To maximize performance, best let everyone do their job on their own time.


Does Yosemite Beta update itself to the final version? The title says it all, I think.
I am installing Yosemite onto a MacPro, and doing it from a Yosemite Beta installer I moved to a thumb drive. It looked like it went well, and it updated itself about 8 times, version 2-6, and then an "OS X Update Combined Version 10.10.5". Does that final update mean I have the full regular install, or is it still a Beta?

No - in general, the builds that are GM Candidates are marked as final and you need to go install the correct update intentionally. Sometimes a 10.x.1 update arrives in time for you to jump on that automatic update, but you should follow the specific directions bases on how you obtained the beta for how to get back on release updates. The steps differ for different programs.


What would make my mac lock I leave my Mac running overnight. Several times over the past month, I've come down and the screen saver is dead and the background of the screen is white. When I provide my password to unlock the screen saver, I get a note that accountsd wants my password to unlock my "login" keychain. If I provide it, dozens of other programs then ask for my password, like this:

There 50 to 100 more of these, and it just doesn't stop. I can't bring up Terminal to reboot the system, the finder is basically unusable. I can ssh in and do a sudo halt or I can just hit the power switch.
Is anybody else experiencing this? Why is it happening? How do I make it stop?

This is typical of a keychain error or issue or just an inconsistency in caching of auth tokens that indicate the grace period to not ask for a password after you log in once.
Causes can be system keychain, user keychain, login keychain, time and date inconsistencies, system corruption.
You’ll need to isolate and troubleshoot these one by one if entering the passwords becomes troublesome.


Wrong Root Name Appearing in Terminal | MacOS I just noticed today that a weird name that appeared on my teminal "rrmando2x13g" as shown in the image below. Usually only my computer name (removed in cyan) used to appear.
Does this mean its a malware or someone else has logged in to my computer?

Is there a way to remove this?

Ok So you can give a name to your HostName :
sudo scutil --set Hostname "The name you want"

You will have to give your password for this operation. And it's nor appear when you give it.


If I create a MacOS VM, would it have the effect of doubling the draw on system resources? I currently run Sierra on a late 2013 MBP (Retina). I want to set up an environment where I can learn and experiment with programming in a Mac environment without the risk of doing damage or making a mess, so using a VM sounds like the way forward. I don't know much about VMs beyond setting them up; what I'm wondering is - applications and tasks aside - would running a VM of Sierra on top of the host installation effectively double the amount of system resources being used or do VMs not work that way?

Not at all a downside. The VM does add a slight performance penalty, but at idle, you don't do double work. Also, you can always quit apps on the host or the guest os to free up resources. For isolating changes and tests, VM are great. Especially igpf they support snapshots and cloning setups to avoid tedious configuration steps.


How can I speed up rate at which dock appears on second screen? How do I speed up the time it takes for the dock to appear on a second screen in Mavericks?

At the moment it takes over a second when I've been using it on the first screen then go to use it on the second.

Try something like this in your terminal.

 defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -float 0.3; killall Dock;

Where the number 0.3 is, you can insert the number of seconds you want the animation to take. I found 0.3 to be quick enough, but still provide a nice effect.

P.S. grabbing this from Col1107's answer. Just wanted it saved.


How can I cast a video file that has been downloaded onto an iPad to a chromecast I have sent several video files to my mom, who has downloaded them onto her iPad.  She has the video files saved on her iPad into a directory called "my files".  She recently bought a chromecast so that she can play these files on her TV, however all the apps she has tried only allow her to select files from the camera roll, and not the video files she has downloaded.

Is there an app that will allow her to cast video files from locations other than the camera roll?
If not, is there a way to move the downloaded files into the camera roll?

She has tried an app that mirrors her screen to the TV but the quality is really bad, and the differences in aspect ratio make it so that you can't go fullscreen.

She can use the Files app on the iPad to copy the files into Photos (what you call the camera roll). Simply open Files, navigate to the "my files" directory, tap on the video and press the Share icon (square with arrow pointing upwards). In the Share sheet she should select "Save video". This stores a copy of the video in Photos.
A different approach is to install a video player app such as "VLC" from the App Store. Now in the Files app, open the share sheet for the video and select to share it to VLC. Now it will play in VLC and you can tap the Chromecast icon to get it on the TV.


iPhone Facebook integration overrides local contact names IOS 6 on iPhone 4.

I enabled Facebook integration and it correctly associated many contacts in the address book with Facebook friends. There were some errors (a contact got linked to a person I don't know which not only is not on my friend list, but with which I never even exchanged a single message), but I corrected them manually.

Now, sometimes a person will not use his/her real name on Facebook, or maybe will put a nickname as middle name. Or maybe I decided to label the contact in some different way than the person's real name. Anyway, the point is: sometimes, address book names and Facebook names differs. In all these cases, when the iPhone linked a contact with a Facebook friend, or when I manually linked them, it always displayed the names from Facebook instead of the ones I had been using in the address book. I corrected this, too.

But, here's the problem: when I make such a correction, looks like it works... but then, after a while (even 1-2 days), it reverts back to using the Facebook names instead of the ones I put in.

Is there any way to permanently tell the iPhone "I want this contact to be called such-and-such and please don't mess with it"?

Just to give post-iOS 7 input, the contact situation is still problematic. If a Facebook friend changes their last name to something else (or uses a joke name), it will cause sync problems with your contacts.

You can “Link” contact cards together (edit one contact, go to the bottom, hit Link Contacts, and connect it to another card). This usually keeps the contact info connected even if the name on Facebook changes, but in my own, personal experience, contact sync errors happen when it tries to update from Facebook when you have a poor cell/wifi connection. But that may be unrelated.

A side note: I found a bug in iOS 7 though; when you link personal cards (i.e. your information from Facebook to your personal card that Siri uses), deleting duplicate or outdated fields will cause the Contacts or Phone app to crash. So if you link your own contact cards together and have to make an edit, you have to unlink them first.


Formatting and reinstalling macOS I have a 17" MacBook Pro. I had Mavericks installed on it and I am trying to format it in order to install a fresh copy of the OS.

Here are the things I've done and the results:

I erased Macintosh HD in Recovery Mode by using Command+R in the boot stage. That worked.
I pressed on Reinstall OS in the OS X Utilities window in Recovery Mode, everything went smooth until it reached the Mavericks installation process. It got stuck and I had to turn it off because it stayed at "6 minutes remaining" for like 2 hours.
I read in many places that I needed to use the Internet Recovery option. So I booted using Command+Option+R. It takes me to the Wi-Fi selection and after several hours, it took me to the macOS Sierra page which failed and gave me an error (no Mavericks OS was found anymore).
Then I read that it might be caused because of an unstable Internet connection. I tried my home Wi-Fi, I tried my phone's 3G hotspot, both options gave me a 3001f error.
I tried a wired network and it instantly gave me 1006f error.

Step 4 and 5 were both initialized with Command+Option+R.

Right now, I am downloading macOS Sierra from the App Store from another Mac and will try to boot it from a USB in order to install it. I am not sure if that will work. Let me know if it is a waste of time or it will work!

How to make a bootable usb with the Sierra installer from the App Store.
Change "MyVolume" to the name of your usb drive

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app


Audio Player with Gapless Playback I'm looking for an (preferably free) audio player on OS X that supports gapless playback.  It doesn't need to be fancy, I don't need any bells and whistles.  I just want gapless playback.  Unfortunately VLC doesn't support this, and though I've tried about half a dozen other players, none of them seem to implement this, or if they do I don't know how to enable it. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I'd also like to avoid iTunes if at all possible since I organize my music by folder and the ID3 tags aren't necessarily up-to-date... and I generally hate iTunes.

Vox | Cog

Both do gapless, Vox being the one I use.


Deleted Desktop & Documents Folders from iCloud Drive, but still takes up space I uncheck Desktop & Documents Folders from iCloud Drive, and I deleted folders manually from Finder, after I copied them to my local storage in my Mac.

The folders size is around 13 GB.

By the time, there is no folders from Desktop & Documents in the iCloud Drive (accessing from devices and the webpage from iCloud), but there is still 13 GB and I can't do anything about it.

Is there any possibility to free up this space?

I had to leave this as an answer, because it's too long to explain in the comments section.  I'm not guaranteeing that your invisible 13GB of files are definitely hanging around in the iCloud trash, but it's just the most obvious first guess that I could think of.  So, let's find out:

Open up Terminal and type in this command:

cd ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs

That will take you to the local storage folder where iCloud keeps copies of your files on your computer.  Type ls to list the files in the directory if you're curious, but it's much the same as navigating to your iCloud folder in Finder.

However, what you actually want to do is see if the iCloud trash is still full of files that are taking up space:

du -d1 .Trash

Hopefully, it'll contain about 13GB of files in it.  If this is the case, and you're sure there's nothing in the trash folder you wish to keep, just delete the folder:

rm -R .Trash

This is permanent and cannot be undone.  So be sure you're happy to lose those files in the trash.

Then type exit and quit Terminal.


MacBook Pro Freezing My MacBook Pro just started acting up. The screen will flicker and I end up having to reboot my computer. I can still move the mouse around, but that's just about it. Would you have any ideas what the problem may be?

Suggestions:

Run Mac in recovery mode (keep holding ⌘ cmd + R on startup), then try to Repair Disk and Repair Disk Permissions using Disk Utility.
As suggested in Mountain Lion Screen Freeze thread, try OnyX software which allows and to verify the startup disk and the structure of its system files, etc.
Run dmesg and check /var/log/system.log for more detailed errors.
Run Console app to check crash logs including backtraces if any.
Run newproc.d or iofile.d dtrace scripts to find anything suspicious (e.g. sudo newproc.d)

Related:
Apple.SE: Mountain Lion Screen Freeze
Apple Discussions: Mountain Lion Screen Freeze (over 177 replies)


Can't see Internet Radio in iTunes Libary despite it being checked in preferences How do I make it visible?

iTunes 11.1.5
OSX 10.9.2

If you have enabled it, you should see it as shown on the screenshot.


iMac gets stuck halfway through boot A couple of days ago my iMac (Late 2009) stopped turning on. It starts booting and the progress bar under the Apple logo goes to just under halfway before it turns off. Booting into recovery mode and trying to reinstall El Capitan doesn't work because it says the hard disk is locked. I tried running the chflags 0 and chmod to unlock it that are suggested around here from both single user mode and the recovery terminal but to no avail.

The files on the hard drive are all still there, so I tried to use cp to copy some stuff from there to USB disk, but it consistently crashes midway through the copy and goes to the "your computer has had a problem" screen. I've also tried zapping the PRAM.

Running first aid on Disk Utility from recovery mode says "file system verify or repair failed". I also tried booting in verbose mode and noticed it crashes after running fsck_hfs and fails, which I assume is what disk utility is doing behind the scenes.

Any advice on how to backup and then do a clean install or reinstall from recovery or just fix it would be very appreciated!

The symptoms you describe are indicative of a disk drive corruption.  It could be  physical (hardware) or just a file system corruption.

Recovery will require booting from a different drive so you can copy files over.  You can boot from an external USB that has a clean install of OS X (El Capitan would be the latest as your system is not capable of running Sierra) or replace the internal drive with an SSD and attempt recovery via USB.

Personally, I prefer the latter.

The full repair guide is available on ifixit.com, but here are the basic steps you need to go through

You will need the following:

New SSD Drive.  I recommend the Samsung EVO series
USB to 3.5" SATA adapter.  This is so you can access the drive for recovery
El Captian Installation Media. Note that this vintage iMac (2009 through Late 2011) will support up to High Sierra - 10.13.x
Suction Cups (for glass removal)
Torx T10 screwdriver
plastic spudger for connector removal
2.5" to 3.5" kit so the new drive will fit
External HDD for Time Machine (Optional, but highly, highly recommended)

Remove the glass.  The good news is that the glass panel is held in with magnets which you can remove with suction cups and the LCD itself is held in with 10 Torx screws.

Replace the drive. Once you have the panel removed, you will get access to the 3.5" Hard Drive (see pic below)

When you replace the drive, ensure that you replace the temperature sensor, otherwise you will end up with a fan that spins uncontrollably, and erroneous temperature readings.

Just reverse the steps to re-assemble your iMac.

Clean Install OS X. Using the boot media, do a clean installation of OS X.  Then reinstall your apps.

Begin recovery.  Using the USB to SATA adapter, hook up your old hard drive to your iMac via USB.  You should be able to mount it and cp (copy) your data off.  Once done, you can discard your drive (it's quite old and I wouldn't trust it for data storage anymore).  Take it to your local electronics recycler or sell it "as is, for parts only" on eBay; many recovery shops will take it for the PCB or server motors.  You won't get much, but it keeps it out of a landfill.

Set up Time Machine.  I can't stress this enough... having a backup besides (or in addition to) iCloud is extremely important.  Right now, you are finding out first hand how valuable a Time Machine backup can be.


Slow boot OS Lion on Macbook Pro I have macbook pro 15.4 2011 (Core i7, 4gb, 500HDD), Lion is running on it. The annoying thing is that the boot time is too much, it takes roughly 70 to 120 seconds for machine to boot and display login screen :(

I have removed all programs from Login items.

Any way I can fix this issue?

You could press ⌘+v (verbose boot) at startup. No Apple logo will appear, but the screen will turn black and print a lot of text as it boots up. (As soon as the OS has booted, it will go into graphics mode, don't worry.)

Whenever an action takes very long and it prints some message (either in progress or afterwards), write it down or take a photo of the screen. You can then google for this problem.


Where is the keyboard definition file for a custom input source? Somewhere back in time (and possibly in a galaxy far far away) I had added an Input Source to my OS/X mavericks.  I believe I have located the file that was used as the definition. However, it is not clear from the Keyboard | Input Sources dialog how to (a) view the properties of the custom Input Source or (b) edit / update an existing Input Source

So how to update/edit MAC keyboard input source definition file?

After some investigation the location is:

/Users/$USER/Library/Keyboard Layouts/MyLayout.keylayout


Is it possible to sync music and podcasts between an iPhone and Mac, but exclude Apps? The standard sync function seems to sync applications between my iPhone and Mac (That is, the applications seem to end up on my Mac.) I don't understand the point of this: they can't be run on the Mac, and if I lost my iPhone, I can download them again from the App Store.  Is there some way to prevent applications from being synced?

The point is that they can be restored much quicker from your Mac to an iOS device than downloading them again. This may (of course) depend on the number of apps you have on your iOS device and which sizes they are. (Many games and navigation apps are way over 1GB each.)
To prevent app syncing you would just uncheck this box in iTunes while you have selected your iOS device in the sidebar and chosen the Apps category as shown in this screenshot.


MacBook Air damaged after update I'm having problems after updating my MacBook Air:

the fan noise is very loud
the computer is very slow
the battery flattens quickly

I've tried the following:

Restoring the OS
Downgrading the OS
Resetting the PRAM

I also trIed resetting the SMC but I can't do it! When I press the left shift-control-option-power buttons the computer starts up immediately, so I am sure the SMC is not reset.

On the Activity Monitor the kernel_task is over 350% CPU all the time!!

The Boot ROM version is: MBA61.0099.B22
SMC version (system): 2.13f15
i7 processor
SSD

I don't know what to do - help please.

It doesn't seem you're resetting the SMC correctly. Here’s what you do for a MacBook Air:

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

Let us know how you go. Many of your symptoms are listed in Apple's article on when you might want to try a SMC reset after performing a somewhat long set of other checks first to be sure it's not software or basic settings:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295


Office for Mac Excel app doesn't show thousand separator I'm using OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.2, with Microsoft Office 14.2.4.

Problem: Ever since I installed new updates of OS X, Excel can no longer display the thousands separator.

How can I get it back?

A temporary workaround is always simply Command-A to select all cells and clicking this convenient button in the ribbon under the Home tab in the Number section:

A more permanent solution is as follows:
Go into System Preferences > Language and Text and click the "Region" tab.  If the first region dropdown menu is United States (Computer), this might be your problem.  Looking below shows that this region formats numbers without a thousands separator.

This appears to be the result, as you stated, of an OS X update. Instead, set the Region to United States (without the Computer part).

From the Excel Help window:

Display or hide the thousands separator
Select the cells that you want to adjust. On the Home tab, under
Number, click Display the value of a cell with a thousands separator.
Note: Excel uses the Mac OS system separator for thousands. You can
specify a different system separator by changing the regional settings
in Mac OS X International system preferences.

We have just done that, but it appears that Excel continues to ignore the change.  Re-install Office and update us with the results.


If I've lost access to my Apple ID, are there downsides to creating a new ID? I have an Apple ID that I can not longer access, so I wonder is it better to create a new one?

Let's say I've purchased apps and other products using my old Apple ID, some of which are still on my PC, but are linked to my Apple ID. Can I still retrieve those if I create a new ID, or should I purchase the content again?

Have you read the Apple FAQ about Apple ID here?

There is various information on how to retrieve access to an ID, could be a good place to start rather than abandoning the ID as previous purchases will be linked to that ID.

As covered in the FAQ, since you have never been able to merge Apple ID - it's probably worth the effort to contact Apple to get the original account unlocked / password reset.

Q: I have multiple Apple IDs. Is there a way for me to merge them into a single Apple ID?

  Apple IDs cannot be merged. You should use your preferred Apple ID from now on, but you can still access your purchased items such as music, movies, or software using your other Apple IDs.


Why do some items in my Finder window appear grayed out? In my finder window some items are grayed out. Why is that?

I've taken more snapshots:

Note: If I rename the file it is no longer grayed out.

Note 2: I noticed a intermediary file is being created that is immediately renamed:

Note 3: I also noticed that the .DS_Store file is grayed out.

The items you are seeing are invisible items. Names that start with a dot indicate the file should be hidden. If you changed finder to show hidden files, it will display them greyed out, but the files will work as normal. Besides having a name that starts with a dot, it is possible to set a special file attribute that will make finder hide the file.

If you want to turn the showing of hidden files back off, one option is to use the terminal, open it and use this command: defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles NO and then log out and back in.


How to set up my network/bridging using Apple Airport equipment? I'd like to set up my network like this, and I want to make sure it's possible using the hardware I have. I think it should be...

I've got my cable modem in one room. I want to plug it into an Apple Airport Express and create my wireless my wireless network here. The airport express will do the NAT and DHCP.

By my TV there are a few things to be networked (Xbox and Tivo). I have an airport extreme here. I'd like to have the airport extreme join the wireless network and share the connection to the ethernet ports.

Can anyone provide some assistance on the best way to configure to do this?

Thanks!

Here's what ended up working, via: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2725432&tstart=0

The following are the basic steps to configure a "dynamic" WDS with the 802.11n AirPort Express Base Station (AXn) being extended by the 802.11n AirPort Extreme Base Station (AEBSn). Please compare them to what you attempted to see if anything was missed.

One thing to note is that the AXn is not capable of providing simultaneous dual-band operation like the AEBSn. That said, you will only be able to extend the 2.4 OR the 5 GHz radio of the AXn. Since the lower frequency band travels longer distances, I would suggest extending it.

o If practical, place the base stations in near proximity to each other during the setup phase. Once done, move them to their desired locations.

o Open AirPort Utility and select the AXn.

o Choose Manual Setup from the Base Station menu. Enter the base station password if necessary.

o Click AirPort in the toolbar, and then, click Wireless.

o Choose “Create a wireless network” from the Wireless Mode pop-up menu, and then, select the “Allow this network to be extended” checkbox.

o Next, select the AEBSn, and then, choose Manual Setup from the Base Station menu. Again, enter the base station password if necessary.

o Choose “Extend a wireless network” from the Wireless Mode pop-up menu, and then, choose the network provided by the AXn from the Network Name pop-up menu.

o Enter the base station network and base station password is necessary.

o Click Update to update the base station with new network settings.


Is it possible to change opacity of an application window? Is it possible to change the opacity/alpha value of a program window such as preview or chrome? I know this was possible in Linux by editing some gnome shell file. Is there anything similar in OS X

Edit: Dec 2018: It seems that a new replacement for Afloat is out called Deskovery,
  You should enter your email here to join the beta program:
  https://www.neomobili.com/products/deskovery/
  And browse the blog to figure out which beta version you want: https://www.neomobili.com/blog/
  Downloads for all versions of this app are kind of hidden here: https://www.neomobili.com/files/

The previously mentioned Afloat is not working anymore on El Capitan and Sierra since both deprecate applications using code injection techniques.

There seems to be no direct equivalent for this SIMBL using Afloat.

If you now need just a 'mock version', does a mock picture suffice your needs? These needs are a bit underdetermined.

However, you may find a number of possible alternatives available that might offer a somewhat similar functionality:

LayerX
Duplicate-any-windows
Overlay
Overlay2
Uberlayer
GluePrint

These are not tested as to whether they may be combinable.


Is 4K monitor a good replacement for Retina display? I'm in the middle of reviewing different monitor options to finally buy one for myself. Please do not consider this post as a product placement. I'm not going to promote any particular brand(s), nonetheless I will paste a link to a particular one I found.

Basically as a MBP user, I fell in love in Retina display but I won't buy Apple Thunderbolt Display (27-inch) because I find this one as overpriced. I'm looking for something that will be as close as possible to Retina. Are 4K monitors good replacements?

I found one from Kogan (Kogan 28" 4K LED Monitor (Ultra HD)). Is it worth considering? Kogan was suggested by my workmate (we both develop software) who ordered one for his daily work. Not exactly this model but quite similar.

Can you share your thoughts or some recommendations?

A 13" Retina MacBook Pro has a screen resolution of 2,560 × 1,600, while the 15" has a 2,880 × 1,800 resolution. 4K is defined as a 4096 x 2160 resolution.

So depending on how big the monitor is, a 4K monitor should actually look better from the same viewing distance.

As for my personal recommendation, anything but a Samsung.


Show FaceTimeNotificationCenterService I wonder how I can show FaceTimeNotificationCenterService again if I run the command killall -kill FaceTimeNotificationCenterServicebefore?

For the next call, the notification should appear again. But I don't think you can get the window back for the current call as the notification is gone.
If your MacBook sports a touch bar, you can end a call, switch to video or muting using it. It's not possible to dial numbers though ("Select 1 for department A, Select 2 for department B").
Don't forget to provide Apple feedback on this. Even though this issue is around for a few years, hopefully they'll find a better solution than the current notification.
https://www.apple.com/feedback/macbook.html


Question about cables needed for using a Macbook Air 2013 OR Macbook Pro 2020 laptop with iMac 2013 AND Thunderbolt Display screens I have the following hardware and I'm a little lost on knowing what cables I need to purchase:

iMac 27-inch, Late 2013
Thunderbolt Display (not sure which model exactly, or how to check?)
Macbook Pro 13-inch, 2020, four Thunderbolt 3 ports (work laptop)
Macbook Air 13-inch, Mid 2013, has one Thunderbolt port (personal laptop)

Currently, I use the iMac for work linked to the Thunderbolt Display (two screens). The work laptop is kind of secondary currently. For personal use, I just use the Macbook Air.
What I would like is to be able to hook up EITHER my Macbook Air (for personal use) OR my Macbook Pro (for work use) and use the laptops as the main 'hubs', linked to two large displays for both from the iMac and the Thunderbolt Display, so that I can transport my stuff easily to/from the office if I need to (where I can hook into another display at work). I don't need the laptop screen to be visible but the main aim is to have two large displays linked to either laptop I need to use.
Is this possible with my Macbook Air and 2 large displays? Is this possible with my Macbook Pro and 2 large displays?
Currently, I have the following cables (excluding the power supplies):

To link the Thunderbolt to the iMac, I have a cable that comes out of the display and splits into two: a Thunderbolt connector and a MagSafe 2 connector. I use this with the iMac currently.
I also have a Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter which I can use to link the Pro to the Thunderbolt Display. Could I get something that would allow me to link the iMac to it too?

What additional cables do I need to purchase?
Can I chain the Thunderbolt Display to the iMac to the Macbook Air, or is it not possible to have two screens with the Air as it only has one Thunderbolt port?

Thank you so much for help in advance!

Your question(s) are answered in this existing post:
What are the requirements to use iMac screen as a second monitor - Target Display Mode?

What I would like is to be able to hook up EITHER my Macbook Air (for personal use) OR my Macbook Pro (for work use) and use the laptops as the main 'hubs', linked to two large displays for both from the iMac and the Thunderbolt Display, so that I can transport my stuff easily to/from the office if I need to (where I can hook into another display at work).

Laptops are not "hubs" of any kind so, it's not clear what you're attempting to do here.  If you're attempting to sync all your work/personal things between the laptop and the desktop, then it's a different topic altogether (a different question) and easily solved with a Cloud service (OneDrive, iCloud Drive, etc.)
As for the cables - what you want to do is really not feasible.  First off, you are limited to Thunderbolt because that's what the 2013 iMac requires.  However, each notebook has a severe limitation to accomplishing what you want to do.  Let's look at them individually and not as a part of a larger puzzle:

2013 MacBook Air

Single Thunderbolt port / only supports one external display
To get a second display, you'll need a USB Video Adapter (it's like installing a second video card in a desktop machine)

2020 MacBook Pro

No longer supported for Target Display Mode to the iMac

So, right out of the gate, your MBA can't support the two displays and while your MacBook Pro supports up to 2 external displays it can't support your iMac as a second display (see the above link about Target Display Mode).
So, to connect your MacBook Air to either the iMac or the Thunderbolt Display, your need a Thunderbolt Cable.  That's assuming it's the older Thunderbolt Display.  If it's the new LG Ultra Fine, you'll need a Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 1/2 (Legacy) Adapter.  However, it's probably "too much" monitor for that legacy MacBook Air - it'll work poorly.
As for your MacBook Pro, if it's the older Thunderbolt Display, you'll need the same thing as your MBA - the Thunderbolt Legacy Adapter and the Thunderbolt Cable.  If it's the new UltraFine Thunderbolt Display, you'll need a quality Thunderbolt 3 Active Cable.
TL;DR
You can't do what you're asking.  The MBA only supports one display and while the MBP supports 2 external displays, it no longer supports Target Display Mode meaning, in this scenario, it only supports one display.  You might get the MBA to support two displays with another USB Video Adapter, but it will put a hurt on performance as USB is not an ideal interface for video.
My suggestion is to focus on your workflow to ensure all of your data is where you want it to be so that you can use any device, where ever you happen to be, and be assured that your data is intact.


Setting to Disable Automatic Text Replace (OS X 10.9.1) When typing in a rich text format form in an application (such as the Notes app, Mail compose message dialog, Evernote) my Mac automatically corrects two or three dashes (--) into one long dash (—).

I don't want this behaviour because I manage my time using a plain text based system that I have been using since several years ago. The latest update to 10.9 changes this behavior.

I have tried looking into the Keyboard settings, I have turned off Correct spelling automatically option in Text settings to no avail.

Nevermind, I have found the answer to my problem. As I was writing the question, I found another setting under Keyboard > Text; Use smart quotes and dashes.

This option is probably set to true by default. Leave it unchecked and the problem is solved.

I actually clicked Post your question and answer when submitting the question, but somehow the answer doesn't show up.


How can I export a video to WMV format in Lion? I used to use Flip4Mac, but because QuickTime X doesn’t provide a plug-in mechanism for video exports, Flip4Mac doesn’t work with it.

How do I export videos to WMV in Lion?

According to this chart from Telestream site you can use Compressor 4, QT7Pro and MPEG Streamclip (never used Episode 6 so don't know what it is). You can probably install QT7 from here.


Redirect all logs to a network share - local HDD "disappears" How do I tell OS X to not write logs to the local volume, but in stead to write them to a remote share?

I'm troubleshooting a intermittent issue on a late 2012 Mac Mini server where the internal RAID appears to just "goes away."

I don't believe to you can tell OS X to write the logs to a different location BUT you can move the location to which it writes!

Not sure what logs you are interested in, but lets say it's /var/log.

1 Copy the /var/log directory to your remote share.

2 Rename original /var/log to something else

3 Create a symbolic link from /var/log to the remote share.

Now when the system tries to write to /var/log it will really be writing to /yourshare/whatever/var/log

Have not tried this myself but should work.

Some other ideas from the linux world, here:

https://serverfault.com/questions/55984/how-can-i-move-var-log-directory


Is there a MariaDB server package for Macos? My team is switching from MySQL (which has downloadable packages for MacOS) to MariaDB and I'd like to switch on my Mac as well.

When going to MariaDB's download page, I only see packages for Windows and a few flavors of Linux. My first assumption was "okay, MariaDB doesn't offer packages for MacOS" but when searching, I was able to find this page which says that .pkg files are available: https://mariadb.com/kb/en/library/installing-mariadb-server-pkg-packages-on-macos/

But I wasn't able to actually locate a downloadable package, either in .pkg form or in .tar.gz form.

I see that it is available via Homebrew (which I'm using), but I was hoping to get an "official" package.

You can download the latest (November 2018) release with an official macOS build here:

http://archive.mariadb.org/mariadb-10.1.37/macOS/

They do not provide macOS pkg builds for later versions such as 10.2, 10.3 or (alpha) 10.4.


How can I set and use a PATH component with blanks in bash? I have Mathematica 8 installed on my OS X Mountain Lion laptop. I want to set my PATH so that I can run either MathematicaKernel or Mathematica from the command line. To this end I have configured my .bash_profile so that it reads:

$MAC_Mma="/Applications/Mathematica\ Home\ Edition.app/Contents/MacOS/"
export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/Users/comerduncan/newipython/ipython/build/scripts-2.7/:/Users/comerduncan:/Users/comerduncan/Sandbox/sympy/sympy/:$MAC_Mma:$PATH

When the .bash_profile file is read when the terminal is created and I try to execute MathematicaKernel, no such executable is found. However, if I create an alias:

alias math='/Applications/Mathematica\ Home\ Edition.app/Contents/MacOS/MathKernel'

in the .bash_profile file, then when I run math the kernel starts up as usual.

Alas, this alias way does not fit my need in another case where a bash script is run which needs to find the MathematicaKernel in the path. SO, my question is why does the alias way work and my way via the PATH not work?

Stop using backslashes in your variables, and start quoting them.

foo="/path/that/has some spaces"
PATH="$foo":"$PATH"


Outlook Edit Message I am using the new outlook (Blue Icon) for OSX with a microsoft-online subscription account. I noticed there is an option called "Edit Message" when viewing an email in the sent-items.

i was under the impression this option will allow me to change an email after it was sent, as long as the recipient was in the same domain (exchange server)

Is my assumption correct? I am not able to find any reference regarding this feature in help.

Any message can be edited. This does not affect the message for anyone else, it simply lets you edit the message for yourself.


How do I sync my photo's from my iPhone to Google Drive? I try to  find a way to sync my photo's on my iPhone to my Google Drive, it appears that this is not so easy, this is what I did allready:

In my photo app on my iPhone I select 4 photos > share > to google drive and select folder and that works.
I select 13 photos in my photo app > share and Google Drive is gone, I can't select it
upload photos in the Google Drive app and that works, it's a hassle because I need to delete the original photos from the photo app, that kinda sucks
then iCloud: I turned on sync with iCloud on my phone and on my mac I set it up to sync my iPhone photos with my mac to put those pictures in a specific location and what do I get when I open finder in that location? a whole bunch of F[2 digits] folders, how helpful is that?...
then I found this topic and I tested photosync and I got excited I set up to sync the photos to a Google Drive folder in low quality because the original quality cost money.. and it works I tested it and deleted a photo in google drive and I synced again and the deleted photo came back in Google Drive. In my book that's not syncing.

I came from Android on my Android: I downloaded a drivesync app I set it up and BAM done, no problems.
Why is it so hard for IOS to sync photo's?
Does anyone here has a sync with iPhone photos to Google Drive working?
and I mean Google Drive not Google Photo's
on My mac and Windows laptop I sync the photo's and I have a renaming files and directory structure workflow, and I don't want to change that. So Google photo's is not an option.
Regards,
Ralph

I have solved it, this is the solution closest to my needs.
On my and my wife's iPhone, I have set the photos to be stored in iCloud.
On my Mac, I open the Photos app and I have it set to load the iCloud Photos.
Now I can drag the photos into the correct folders of Google Drive which will be synchronized via drive sync.


Reset Mac user password via SSH I have a local Mac machine with Catalina that I haven't used in a while. I have forgotten the GUI password for the account, but I still can SSH into it because of my public key being on that machine. I also can't remember if I had a root account setup/or it's password.
Is there a way that I can reset the GUI password without having to restart the machine and hence losing the current state as the preliminary step for going through Apple's recommended process? I can't create a new (admin) user either because I don't remember the password and hence can't escalate to sudo privileges.

This might still work?  If you log in with SSH.
FSCK the drive for a sanity check.
/sbin/fsck -fy

Mount the drive so it is writeable.
/sbin/mount -uw /

Deleting this placeholder file that tells macOS that a user has already been setup.
rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone

reboot. Make a new user, reset the password of the old account.  Also, reset the login keychain in the old account.


Mail Connection Doctor still attempting to access deleted Mail accounts I was testing some email servers and added several email accounts to my Mac. I deleted these accounts afterwards.

Now I have only three base accounts in System Preferences > Internet Accounts: Facebook, Twitter and iCloud.

However, Mail Connection Doctor (Window > Connection Doctor) still attempts to access the deleted accounts; if one of them has invalid credentials or settings it reports "Mail can't connect to the account."

Where these accounts are stored and can I permanently remove them so the Mail Connection Doctor doesn't try to connect?

These accounts are stored in Keychain Access application and in servers list. To remove these accounts permanently, do following:

Open (Mail > Preferences > Accounts)
Select "Edit SMTP server list" from "Outgoing Mail Server" menu

Edit server list

Then remove accounts from Keychain Access:

Close Mail
Open Keychain Access
Select "login" in Keychains section
Select "Passwords" in Category section
Type deleted account name in Search field

There should appear several records, but you need only com.apple.account.SMTP.xxx and/or com.apple.account.IMAP.xxx entries with "application password" in Kind column.

Select and delete them. Open Mail and check Connection Doctor. There must remain only existing accounts.


My computer will not recognize that python exists I have opened python on my somewhat outdated Mac OS X in Snow Leopard 10.6.8 and although it was working fine earlier, my computer will not recognize that I am using python.  When I click on the python window, instead of saying python in the upper left of the screen it will just say the last application I have been using, also, it will not let me type or do anything.  Also it will not quit unless I force quit it.  Python will work fine when I open it, the bug only starts when I open a new window.
If it helps when I open the shell it gives me this message:

Python 2.6.1 (r261:67515, Jun 24 2010, 21:47:49)
[GCC 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5646)] on darwin
Type "copyright", "credits" or "license()" for more information.

****************************************************************
Personal firewall software may warn about the connection IDLE
makes to its subprocess using this computer's internal loopback
interface.  This connection is not visible on any external
interface and no data is sent to or received from the Internet.
****************************************************************

IDLE 2.6.1

I am not sure that this is the right forum to post this in and hopefully I have provided useful information.

~~~Droonkid

That is an old bug, see this bug report. They basically recommend installing and using a newer version of python. Depending on whats using python you might want to get a newer version 2 release and not go all the way to the newest version 3 release.


Browse iPhoto library in photoshop or bridge For whatever reason you cannot browse your iPhoto library from Photoshop.

I had hoped CS6 would have added something but no. I have been looking for years and can't believe no one has written a plug in.

Best options for browsing are media browser in Finder or an app called iMedia Browser but I wanted to do it from within Photoshop or Media Bridge.

Any ideas?

I also thought Photoshop CS6 had an little iphoto panel or something but this solution may be just as good.

It's easy to overlook but you can actually see your iphoto library when you are in the file>open... (or place...) window browsing files.

If you look on the left of the window where your home folder and other directories are, you'll find at the bottom there's a section called "MEDIA" that should have Music, Photos, and Movies. Click the photo section and the browsing window will change to a little mini iphoto browser.

I hope that helps. I'm not sure about what versions of Photoshop/iphoto this works for. I'm running Adobe CS5.5 (photoshop v5.1) and iPhoto 2011. I just upgraded to Mountain lion from Snow Leopard and it works with both those operating systems.


Does the "messages from iphone" icon only appear in the dock when my messages are opened from my iPhone? I was working the other day on my Macbook and this icon popped up. My phone was not with me. Does that mean whoever had my phone just went through my messages? Is it safe to accuse them?

I didn't have my phone the entire 16 hour day. Somewhere around halfway through the day, it popped up.

It could be, if your iPhone was around (within the same Wi-Fi range as your Mac), but one could never be 100% certain, as it could be a bug in Handoff.


Replacement parts for Macbook Air (13-inch, Early 2008) - broken hinge problem? I have a "MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2008)" with a broken hinge problem.

I'm presently outside the US and wont be able to go into a Genius Bar anytime soon. Besides, the laptop is far outside the warranty period so it is unlikely that any servicing could be done by Apple.

I'm planning to fix it on my own, but need to understand which replacement parts I need to order. Does anyone have any insights into what I should order?

Pictures:

I had also posted about it a year back at:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/22873267#22873267

Edit1

Model   Model Identifier    Model Number    Configuration
MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2008)   MacBookAir1,1   MB003xx/A   MBAIR 13.3/1.6/2/80HDD

Maybe replacing the Upper Case will solve your problem. This guide from iFixIt will certainly help you do that.

If you would just want to replace the hinge itself, maybe Step 37 in the guide would be useful?

Check the top of the guide for required parts and tools!


Anyone knows how to view the nice value of a process under Mavericks? Used to be able to view the UNIX nice value of a process in the top CLI utility.
I think it's gone from the top utility on Mavericks? Any other ways to view it?

Use ps with a lower case L to directly view current nice values:
ps -l

or for specific process id (PID)
ps -l -p __PID___


Move contents of one directory to another I have a Time Machine backup of my entire system on a hard drive (the system folder and everything else seems to be there). How do I move all of the contents of this directory to another directory? There are files not shown in Finder (/etc, /usr, etc) that cannot be moved, and there are too many to move over manually by Terminal. Thanks for your help.

You can try using something like Unison to sync folder contents and then delete the source directory once it's synced up.


New to OS X - Why does pressing the red X close some windows, and minimize others? Why does pressing the red X close some windows, and seemingly minimize others?

Mac OS has always had a multiple document interface. Applications like TextEdit can have multiple main windows open without requiring multiple instances. The open command doesn't usually open documents over the current document.
The close button might also quit the application after closing the last window like on Windows. But what if you want to create a new document? Many applications create an untitled document on startup. Should closing it quit the application?
There's no real harm in keeping applications running in the background. They don't usually use CPU, and you should have enough free or inactive memory anyway. Quitting and opening applications all the time would take more time. OS X has also supported automatic termination since 10.7.

Automatic termination eliminates the need for users to quit an app. Instead, the system manages app termination transparently behind the scenes, terminating apps that are not in use to reclaim needed resources such as memory.
[...]
Automatic termination transfers the job of managing processes from the user to the system, which is better equipped to handle the job. Users do not need to manage processes manually anyway. All they really need is to run apps and have those apps available when they need them. Automatic termination makes that possible while ensuring that system performance is not adversely affected.
Apps must opt in to both automatic termination and sudden termination and implement appropriate support for them.

The close button does actually quit some applications with a single main window, like Dictionary, System Preferences, and Calculator. Opening them again doesn't take that long and quitting them frees users from having to do it manually.


Fluctuating voltage on Magsafe charger I got two Apple Magsafe charges, one for which I needed to cut and rejoint the cables. The fix went well and now when I plug in the charger it works and charges my Macbook Pro.

Though when I measured the voltage with a multimeter on I get some strange values, and they are also differing from the fixed and untouched charger (do not know if they differed before the repare). When measuring I plugin the charger to the AC output and measure with the multimeter pins on the corresponding pins on the plug. There is o load and I can not reach the pins to measure when the plug is connected, thus I cannot make any Ampere-tests.
The voltage should be 16.5 V but I could understand if the charger has some functionality that basically turns it off when there is no load at all, thus the values on the untouched charger. But how come the values on the fixed one?

Untouched:
Fluctuating voltage of 0-0.5 V

Fixed:
Fluctuating voltage of 0-7 V

What does this mean and should I not continue to use the fixed charger even if it works?

MagSafe chargers can output variable voltage.  When disconnected from a computer, they output a very low voltage.  When connected, the computer requests the voltage it needs, using the center data pin.  Your voltmeter is acting as a resistor in this circuit, which may be fooling the charger into thinking a computer is attached.

According to this link, the original MagSafe uses 6V when disconnected, and MagSafe2 uses 3V.  So I can't explain your 0-0.5V fluctuation, except that maybe you're not making a good connection with the test leads.

http://www.righto.com/2013/06/teardown-and-exploration-of-magsafe.html?m=1


Two Factor Authentication on 10.10.5 Yosemite I cannot find where to get my two factor authentication verification code from in settings on the Mac, neither is there any input field for me to type in the code. What do I do?

You need to be running El Capitan or later.

See Apple KB - Availability of two-factor authentication for Apple ID

If your Mac can run Yosemite, it can run El Capitan.


What is login Keychain "Accountsd"? How do I disable it? I am using a MacBook Pro Mid 2012 with MacOS X 10.15.4. I cannot find this Keychain in the Keychain app.

See this website for various solutions:
https://www.macoszon.com/accountsd-wants-to-use-the-login-keychain/
Hope this will help solving your problem.