Using an iPad Pro and an Apple Pencil as a "tablet" I was wondering if it is possible to use an iPad Pro sort of like a Wacom Tablet (or LiveScribe - but LiveScribe has a delay), where you can use the Apple Pencil to write notes on the iPad, and the notes instantly appear on the Mac's screen with no delay. This would be really useful for my online college assignments because half of the screen would be taken up with the notes I take on the iPad and the other half with the problems and I could easily solve algebraic problems.

I would prefer not to use screen mirroring just so it was easier to save the files on the Mac and interact with the scribbles directly on the Mac (zoom in, rotate, etc)

I would prefer to do it over Lightning cable just to avoid any WiFi delays my school has.

There is an app called Astropad that allows this. http://www.macworld.com/article/2885834/first-look-astropad-turns-your-ipad-into-a-graphics-tablet-for-your-mac.html


no admin account OSX 10.13.5 I have a macbook pro 2011 with high sierra  10.13.5

Today i tried renaming my admin account in the system preference / users. I couldn't rename the account, and i have lost the admin rights. Now i can access the account because i know the password.

I have the same problem described here : https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8238869. I tried the solution described in that page. The problem is after rebooting, the setup screen to add a new account doesn't appear. Instead the mac reboots normally.

MacBook Pro, macOS High Sierra (10.13.5), MacBook Pro (13-inch, Early 2011)

Okay, today i redid this procedure in single user mode and it worked!


Batch embed video files to html files (with Automator?) Can the following be done with Automator, or any other tool/script on macOS?

I have multiple video files with various file names (always .mp4).
All video files must be embeded in to separate HTML documents.
The HTML-documents should have the same file name as the video file.
Both files should be placed together in a zip file.
The zip file should have the same name as both the video and the HTML file.

So, if I have the file video-to-html.mp4, I would like to end up with a zip file containing two files:

video-to-html/video-to-html.html
video-to-html/video-to-html.mp4

The contents of the HTML file would look like:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Lorem ipsum</title>
</head>
<body>
<video autoplay controls>
<source src="video-to-html.mp4" type="video/mp4">
</video>
</body>
</html>

I am not a developer, so I do not understand a lot of coding.

You can accomplish this easily with a short shell script:

#!/bin/bash

for v do
    base=${v%%.mp4}
    cat >>"${base}.html" <<EOF
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Lorem ipsum</title>
</head>
<body>
<video autoplay controls>
<source src="$v" type="video/mp4">
</video>
</body>
</html>
EOF

    rm -f "${base}.zip"
    zip "${base}.zip" "${base}.html" "$v"
done

Save it as a shell script in a convenient place, open Terminal, run chmod +x name-of-script and execute as ./name-of-script *.mp4


Time Capsule showing backups date in pink I have tried a lot of net to find, why does time machine shows pink icons of the date. But not a solid answer i have found. I don't have a new computer, as i heard when you change hard disk. The Time Capsule understand it as old one. But yesterday i needed some backup and found out for last 2 months, every date in pink. Why is that? How can i assure that every backup of mine is backup which i can rely on?, and not pink.

Local snapshots (stored on your internal drive) are white.
Backups stored on your Time Machine disk are pink.

The pink backups are correct as they are your real backups. Local snapshots are meant as temporary, intermediate backups and will be deleted automatically.

Local Snapshots appear in the "Star Wars" display much like normal Time Machine backups.  The main difference is they're shown in white/gray in the Timeline, not the purple of a Time Machine backup on an external volume.
Like normal Time Machine backups, Local Snapshots are usually made hourly.   If your Time Machine volume is available, both are usually done at the same time, so you'll see adjacent purple and white tick marks with the same time.  If the Time Machine volume isn't available, Local snapshots will continue on the same schedule, so for that period you'll only see white ones.
Also, the "contextual menu" you get on Local Snapshots doesn't allow deleting a Snapshot, or all Snapshots of selected items, as on normal backups.


how to disable Firefox's app tab glow? I recently switched from Linux to Mac OS X, and one little tweak that didn't survive is disabling the blue highlight "glow" that Firefox adds to App Tabs when they have updates. Any idea how to do that?

I followed these instructions to disable it on Linux, but they don't work on Mac OS X. I have this in my ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/personal/chrome/userChrome.css file:

.tabbrowser-tab[pinned][titlechanged]:not([selected="true"]) {
    background-image: none !important;
    background: none !important;
}

...but no luck. Putting other CSS rules in that file does work though.

I'm on Firefox 19.0 on Mountain Lion (10.8.2).

Put one of these snippets in your userChrome.css file, depending on your Firefox version:

Firefox 69

Toggle toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets to true in about:config as well as userChrome.css modification.

Firefox 29 (Australis)

.tabbrowser-tab[pinned][titlechanged]:not([selected="true"]) > .tab-stack > .tab-content {
  background-image: none !important;
}

Pre-29

#tabbrowser-tabs > .tabbrowser-tab > .tab-stack > .tab-background * {
    background: none !important;
}

Discovered by looking for [titlechanged] selectors in browser.css (chrome://browser/skin/browser.css).

https://www.userchrome.org/how-create-userchrome-css.html
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1541233


Downloading an old version of iPhoto onto Mac OSX Lion (10.7) I'm in a very frustrating situation. About a year ago I acquired a white Macbook (model A1181, 2007 version) running OS X Lion. I was using it happily until last week, when my hard drive suddenly failed. I installed a new drive into it, and got it going again, though I had to start from scratch. A lot of my stuff is saved in Google Drive, so for the most part I was ok, but one really annoying thing is that iPhoto was no longer on my computer, which I use quite a bit. I went to the App Store to re-download it, but it said you need OS X 10.10 to download iPhoto. And my computer doesn't support any OS past 10.7. So I'm kind of stuck. I don't know what to do, but I need iPhoto. It seems ridiculous to get a whole new computer for just a single app, and one that I had before my hard drive failed! Is there any place I can download an older version of iPhoto?

PS, I'm having the same issue trying to download 1Password and Pixelmator. I was able to get a 30-day trial of pixelmator online, which I'm using for now.

Here is a download link for an older version of iPhoto: https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1589?locale=en_EN (this is an update only; you still need the original, older iPhoto software to support this or it will not work.)

These are the release notes:

  What's New in Version 9.4

  Adds support for Shared Photo Streams on OS X Mountain Lion Comments
  can now be added to photos after publishing them to Facebook New card
  and calendar themes have been added A new File menu command can be
  used to open the current photo library in Aperture (if installed)
  Includes performance and stability improvements

  Post Date: Sep 19, 2012

  File Size: 757.61 MB


Does iChat screen sharing over the internet work in OS X Lion? If I upgrade to Lion, will I still be able to use iChat to take over my elderly father's Mac (we have MobileMe accounts) to help him with problems and software updates? I read in some forums that this is broken in Lion, but I don't know if those were isolated incidents or not. Kindly requesting that gracious Lion iChat users test this and report results here.

I also have the problem screensharing a Lion machine viewed on a Snow Leopard machine, but not the other way around. I stumbled on a fix. If you first start a video chat and then start screen sharing while the video chat is underway, it is able to connect. I was able to verify this several tries with it not working unless I first video chat.


Routing traffic internally from Ethernet-Thunderbolt adapter to Ethernet I have  Mac1 connected via ethernet to a router.
The Mac1 has the IP 10.0.1.5
On this IP I have a Python-server listening to incoming UDP packets.

Now there is another Mac2 connected to Mac1 via a Thunderbolt-Ethernet Adapter. The IP of Mac1 on this adapter is 192.168.20.1
Mac2 sends UPD packets to this address.

How can i route this traffic internally on Mac1 from  192.168.20.1 to 10.0.1.5?

Both machines are on MacOS 10.10

Thanks a lot!

There is no need to route anything. Just let the python-server also listen to incoming UDP packets at eth2 (192.168.20.1) assuming eth2 is the TB-Ethernet interface.


Are bluetooth and wifi required for location based reminders? To get location based reminders to work, are bluetooth and wifi required to be enabled or just bluetooth?

For location-based reminders, you only need to have the GPS turned on.  Keeping wifi on helps with locations because it allows the device to pin-point where you're located.  Wifi is not required, however.

Bluetooth is not required for location reminders unless you're using iBeacons.  If you're using iBeacons then bluetooth is required.


Mac starts up automatically My Mac OS X El Capitan seems to start up on its own, out of the blue. Even though I have powered it off. It starts at random.

I do not have any startup program or anything scheduled for this to happen. Any insights? Is this a security risk or effect?

You may have your Mac setup to start automatically. To check follow these steps:

From the Apple menu, choose System Preferences
Select Energy Saver
Click on the Schedule button
Check the options to see if this is what's causing your problem
Make any changes you need to
Click OK

Hope this helps!


Invite to share screen (iMessage) - Automation - How? How can i automate an "Invite to share screen" from iMessages.

I share screens a lot with my colleagues and it would just make sense to have an option to quick ask someone to view my screen. Yet now, i have to look the user up in the imessage window and "target practice" the small icon, then Invite ..

Would be easier if i could automate it, or somehow create a desktop shortcut.

You asked for an automative method to do this from within the Messages app, which this AppleScript can achieve.  You can place it in a Run AppleScript action.

use application "System Events"

property process : a reference to process "Messages"
property menu bar : a reference to menu bar 1 of my process
property menu bar item : a reference to menu bar item "Buddies" of my menu bar
property menu : a reference to menu 1 of my menu bar item

activate application "Messages"

set _M to a reference to (menu item "Invite to Share My Screen" in my menu)
tell _M to if not ((exists) and its enabled) then return false

click _M

However, it seems to me that, however this script is triggered, whether via an Automator service, Keyboard Maestro, the Scripts menu, or whatever; it will either require at least a couple of mouse clicks (e.g. to active a service from the context menu), or a keypress.

Therefore, in my mind, the easiest way to achieve the same outcome would be to set a keyboard shortcut for the appropriate menu item in Messages:

Keyboard Shortcuts in macOS High Sierra: System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > App Shorcuts

This screenshot is from High Sierra, so if you're running Mojave, it may be a little different.  The important things are to check the name of the relevant menu item in Messages in case it varies from High Sierra or you use a different language on your system; and to ensure that the entry you type for your App Shortcut is identical, including capitals and non-capitals used: so "Invite to Share My Screen" is not the same as "Invite To Share My Screen" and only the first one would work.

ADDENDUM: (added 12 hours after original answer)
@user3439894 kindly reminded me that my style of scripting can sometimes appear a little obtuse and more difficult to follow and understand to novice scripters.  Therefore, I am posting a version of the above code that this user recommended.  Functionally, it does exactly the same as the original (apart from activating Messages, which doesn't need to be done if the application is already active and being used).  This version utilises less ambiguous syntax and more of AppleScript's (in)famous natural-language flavour:

try
    tell application "System Events" to click ¬
        menu item "Invite to Share My Screen" of ¬
        menu 1 of menu bar item "Buddies" of ¬
        menu bar 1 of process "Messages"
end try


Which VPN Server Hardware is Best for Accessing from Mac Clients We are an all-Mac shop (well, actually, a mostly-Mac shop - we have some Linux servers running behind the scenes). We do web applications development and our files and source code is all hosted in-house.

Our Mac-toting consultants would like to connect to the office to access files (AFP to shared volumes), update source code (subversion over HTTP/HTTPS), and demo software (HTTP through a browser) when they are on a client site.

Traffic will be light. We are a small company (and cheap), and do not expect more than 3 or 4 people to be connected concurrently. However, we need the solution to be reliable. Many of our clients and consultants are abroad.

Which VPN Server Hardware is best for this scenario? I would prefer something that uses standard protocols - I understand that L2TP, PPTP and Cisco IPsec are built in to the OS - so something that uses these protocols will be ideal. (I have seen quite a few VPN solutions that have horrible, buggy, and badly supported client software). An added bonus would be support for iPads as well.

Naturally, I would like it to not be too expensive (I told you we are cheap), though what I really mean is that I am far more willing to pay for reliability and built-in support, than for features I do not need.

Where I work, we use the Junos line of products for VPN connections.  I'm a little light on the details as far as the hardware requirements and the setup costs etc. but we've had very little issues with them.  Some advantages:

Platform independent

The vpn runs in Java (I believe, I never took the time to look really) and can be run on pretty much any platform.  I've tried on Mac and PC, though if you might need Linux you should check into that first.
Works on iPad

This might be a bit more enterprise-y (read: Expensive) than your company is willing to fork over.  In that case, you might look into the built-in Mac OS X VPN.  Mac OS X Server has advertised VPN hosting capabilities which you can apparently use something like iVPN (though if you're technical with the CLI, you can probably get by without it.)  I don't have any on-the-job experience with this as we're a strictly SOHO environment, but it's for sure worth looking into.

There are enterprise options out there if your company is looking for a managed solution.  If not, there are options for enterprising individuals willing to put forth the necessary time and effort to make sure it all works.  I've experimented in the past with VPN and, though it was years ago and I'm sure the software has matured, I'd definitely prefer a managed solution.


How to read .awz ebooks on Macbook Pro (Mac OS X 10.6.8)? How to read .awz ebooks (Kindle format) on Macbook Pro (Mac OS X 10.6.8)?

Can it be converted to PDF with hyperlinks properly supported?

I believe the easiest way to read a Kindle ebook on your Mac is to download Amazon's application for that purpose (either from their site or the Mac App Store). As Thilo points out in the comments, however, a DRMed Kindle title can only be read on the device which downloaded it, so moving the .azw to your Mac won't help. Instead, assuming this is a book you acquired from Amazon's store, you can download another copy and have it sent to the Kindle app on your Mac.

As for converting to PDF, .azw files are DRM-protected Mobipocket files. Assuming you can remove the DRM somehow, there are many resources online that can do .mobi -> PDF conversion.


MacBook Pro detects syncmaster (monitor) but doesn't display My new MacBook Pro 13" touch bar is connected to my Samsung Syncmaster monitor through USB-c hub -> HDMI -> DVI. It detects the screen (shows up on OSX) but nothing is displayed on my screen. I have connected the MacBook on my LG TV through USB-c hub -> HDMI and everything works.

It's most likely because you are doing two conversions of the video signal and at some point it's either being  degraded and/or becoming out of sync.

The two conversions I am referring to is going from DisplayPort to HDMI then going from HDMI to DVI.  In your original question, you never mention specifically what adapters you are using nor if they are active or passive.

Why an "active" adapter? Active adapters "recreates" the signal and passive just reorders the signals.

To solve this issue, you need to limit your adapter to just one conversion (no conversions at all is ideal - mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort) and do so with an active DisplayPort to DVI adapter.


OS X Keyboard Alt key language I use a MacBook with English keyboard and sometimes I need to write something in my mother language, which is Turkish. So I can write the characters with Alt key. But I changed the computer at office and now I can't write characters that I want. I want to write ı but it writes ˆ .

Is there any way to set up the Alt key language?

The older computer had an English keyboard but now I have dutch keyboard on the computer. I set the keyboard with U.S..

Go to system preferences/keyboard/input sources and make sure that only Turkish Qwerty or Turkish Q - Legacy is on the list and everything else is gone.


Unable to read last block of the device I'm mid way through replacing the hard drive in my MacBook Pro (mid-2009). I've created a boot disk (10.8) on a SD card which I am booting from.

On trying to format the new drive with disk utility (in from the installer) I am being presented with the following error.

Disk Erase Failed
Disk Erase failed with the error:
Unable to write to the last block of the device

Googling suggests this error message is somewhat ambiguous. The drive is brand new and from disk utility the SMART status is "verified".

Thanks in advance

The solution was really rather simple. A dead HD cable causing the HD to show up (and verify) but not function.


my local development /etc/hosts redirect works only on chrome I am confused why my host name in /etc/hosts works for Google Chrome only. Not on Safari, not on Firefox, not from command-line tools like curl.

##
# Host Database
#
# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
# when the system is booting.  Do not change this entry.
##
127.0.0.1       localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1             localhost

127.0.0.1       cool.pl.localhost

Only on chrome http://cool.pl.localhost:8080 works. On other browsers I can reach the site only by entering 0.0.0.0:8080 or 127.0.0.1:8080.

Confused what is misconfigured. What magic is Google Chrome doing that it works?

I think I just found the answer to this problem. If you are working on a virtual machine, as I am, and you change the /etc/hosts file in your virtual linux machine, only chrome will detect that. You will need to change the hosts file in windows (c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts) in order to force firefox to check the table. The moment I change that file, firefox recognized the new mapped names.


Safari remember password of all sites after upgrading to 7.0.2 I upgraded to Mavericks 9.0.2 the day it was released. I recently found that Safari now asks if I want it to remember passwords on all sites, including sites that I explicitly chose not to remember passwords, like banks. Is this the normal behavior of the updated Safari, or is something wrong with my Mac?

My Safari version is 7.0.2 (9537.74.9)

It sounds like it is a new version of Safari. If you don't like it, there is always Chrome!


Keyboard shortcuts for switching desktops between multiple displays not working I have two monitors plugged into my Mackbook pro. I have the

"Display have separate spaces" setting enabled in Mission Control.
Keyboard shortcuts "Switch to Desktop1" and "Switch to Desktop2"
setting enabled in Keyboard shortcut settings.

But pressing ^2 does nothing pretty much. I would expect ^2 to focus on my second display windows. Surprisingly, if I add another desktop from Mission Control, that new 'third' desktop becomes Desktop2 and the second display desktop, which was originally Desktop2, becomes Desktop3. After this, ^2 works fine to switch between Desktop1 and Desktop2, both of which are on the same display.

Is there a keyboard shortcut to focus on the active window of second display?

If the above is expected behavior, is there a better way or app of managing multiple displays. Ideally, I would think both displays work as separate desktops, you can focus on a display and then toggle between the windows/apps of that display only.

(I am on macOS Sierra 10.12.4)

'Displays have separate Spaces' would appear to be the method you do require, but in order for it to work, you must have more Spaces than screens.

Then your key commands will switch the screen the cursor is currently in to your requested Space.

Don't rely on the numbers being accurate until you have set up your full set of Spaces & then, in order to then keep the numbering as you intended, make sure 'Automatically rearrange Spaces based on most recent use' is off.

You can drag Spaces into the desired order by invoking Mission Control; take the cursor to the top of a screen & the desktop numbers will expand to show a thumbnail of contents. You can then drag them to your required order & they will re-number automatically.

One more thing, which often catches people out - Spaces only work as intended if any given app only occupies any one Space. If you try to spread an app to 2 or more Spaces simultaneously, it breaks behaviour.

The alternative working method [the one I actually prefer] is to disable 'Displays have separate Spaces', then each 'desktop' becomes a pair of screens, which move together. So you have 2 screens simultaneously showing Desktop 1, then both switch to Desktop 2, etc in tandem - in effect making each Space double-sized. Apps then stay on the screen & the Space they are assigned, so long as you don't disconnect one screen.


Is there a way to differentiate between paid and free apps in iTunes purchase history? I want to know what apps I've paid money for, as opposed to free apps that were downloaded.

I need to know this because I gave my little brother my old 3GS to use as an iPod which remains attached to my iTunes account because he doesn't have a credit card or an income in order set up an account. I notice that he downloads a lot of apps, games in particular, and I'm worried because I've tried a few that seem like they could easily charge for. I often download apps that I pay for, so often that I wouldn't know if he was buying things without my knowledge.

Every now and then I notice a charge from iTunes that I don't remember making, so I need to know what I've paid for. Is there a way to show what apps I've actually spent money on?

In addition to keeping your email receipts, you can also view your entire purchase history by viewing your account in iTunes. If you're signed in, click your account name in the top right, and choose the "View Account" option. On the following screen, the third section down shows "Purchase History", with a link on the right to see all your orders. You can see each order, listed chronologically, and jump to specific months and get more detail about a specific order.


MacBook won't boot from internal SSD I got a 2011 MacBook Pro and had a Samsung 840 Pro installed running Mountain Lion, then Mavericks for about a year without any problems. Without any apparent reason the MBP just wouldn't boot from the SSD anymore, reinserting the old HDD worked instantly.
After playing around a bit I made the following observations about the MBP:

won't boot from the SSD even after cloning the HDD or making a clean reinstall
not even able to get to the boot menu when the SSD is installed
can boot from the SSD when it is connected via USB and the HDD is used to get to the boot menu
cannot boot from any other SSD (tried one from another MBP and also a completely new one)

Any ideas?

I don't know how it worked without issues for over a year... but the culprit is probably the drive cable. To put a long story short, the interface is SATA III on the motherboard, it's SATA III on the SSD, so they will talk SATA III.

But if your MBP shipped with a SATA II HDD, it most likely came with an interconnect cable only rated for SATA II.

I wouldn't have thought this would be that big of an issue (I sort of thought the difference was like the difference between a CAT 5 and CAT 5e UTP) but apparently with the models of SSD's on the market right now and their throughput, it causes an issue.

I couldn't tell you how to determine if the cable's the "updated" SATA III version or not when shopping for parts, but I do know that this one is.


Is Java for OSX 2013-005 from apple a JDK6, or just a JRE? I'm setting up my android development environment, and could run all my configurations (eclipse + android sdk) with either jdk from oracle,or java for osx 2013-005 from apple.

when I installed Java for OSX, I can run all jdk command line tools,like javac, jstat, jmap, etc.

I am confusing what Java for OSX 2013-005 is. Is it a JDK6 customized by apple, or just a JRE6 with removed applet and webstart?

It is the JDK as noted in the path /System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk it installs into , and also seeing what files are installed there.

As far as I understand the removal does not change Java but removes plugins from browsers

However I would use the later JDK for Java 7 from Oracle as there are some improvements in the environment and language as per Oracle's release notes


LANG variable wrong in iTerm2, where's the bug? Today I noticed that when opening TortoiseHG the app was in Dutch (partially, not fully translated it seems). Looking around in my environment I found out that LANG=nl_NL.UTF-8.

It is indeed true that my locale is set to NL (i.e. number formats and all) but my language in OS X is set to English and I would expect my apps to be in English aswell. A locale is quite different from a language.

So my question is now, where do I report this bug to? Is it an iTerm2 issue or do I need to file a bug report somewhere else?

My goal is to have my number format according to Dutch standards (i.e. 123.456 = 123 thousand and 456 and my language still at English. OS X gets this, iTerm2 (or at least, TortoiseHG started from iTerm2) does not.

# locale
LANG="nl_NL.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="nl_NL.UTF-8"
LC_CTYPE="nl_NL.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="nl_NL.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="nl_NL.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="nl_NL.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="nl_NL.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=

Versions:

OS X: 10.8.2
iTerm 2: 1.0.0.20120724
TurtoiseHG: 2.4

The following will do the trick:
Navigate to the
iTerm2 -> Preferences -> Profiles -> Terminal
and unset the "Set local variables automatically" in Environment section.


How to get the full path to a file on iOS 8? I'm using an iPod Touch 5G with iOS 8 and I would like to get the full path to a file, e.g. an image in the Camera Roll. I couldn't find a native option to do that - do I need to download an app for that?

Getting the 'full path' to a file on a non-jailbroken device is not useful as you can't access the file directly anyway. Generally, this is not possible, although you may be able to infer the location of a specific file.

For what it's worth, the full path to an image in your camera roll is:

/var/mobile/Media/DCIM/###APPLE/IMG_####.png


Limechat Sticky Sessions Is there a way to have Limechat "stickily" joined into a network+room(s)?

My laptop sleeps, and it takes the connection with it. I need to go through the motions of "Connect" to the network and then "Join" a room 12 times an hour.

I'd like to "Join and forget..." where connection stability does not dictate access to the room.

Consider running a bouncer like ZNC http://wiki.znc.in/ZNC somewhere, or using a paid service that does the same. I use ZNC on a Mac mini at home and it keeps me logged into IRC and sends me a push notification when my nick is mentioned. Great way to stay on IRC.


Installing Windows on MBP 2015 (Mojave) Using Boot Camp, Error: Not enough space! I have a MacBook Pro 2015 with macOS Mojave.

I've downloaded Windows 10 x64 October (and April) Update ISO and I tried to install both of them using Boot Camp Assistant.

I have a 500GB disk with 300GB free space. So I set the size of Windows partition to 150GB.

There are no tasks step in the boot camp in this version of macOS. And Boot camp says "Please remove any external storage device attached to this system before continuing.".

The problem is that after these steps it show's an error with this message:

The Windows support software could not be saved to the selected drive.
An error occurred while saving the Windows support software.

Or:

There is not enough space available on the disk.

I tried so many solutions that I found in forums but I couldn't install Windows yet!

Thank you for your help! :)

This question has been asked before here a Ask Different. One possible answer is the disk (drive) where the software is being saved is actually too small. On your model Mac, the Boot Camp Assistant creates a temporary ExFAT formatted partition where both the Windows 10 ISO files are copied and the downloaded Windows support software files are saved. The Windows ISO file can vary in size. The determining factors is the version, edition and language. Also, the size of the Windows support software depends on the model/year of the Mac. Evidently, certain combinations of size factors can lead to space errors. So, while most users probably are not having problems using the Boot Camp Assistant to install Windows, there are a few with space issues.

Older Macs use a FAT32 formatted flash drive to install Windows. Certain Windows 10 ISO files contain files which to larger to be stored on FAT32 formatted flash drives. When this occurs, the Boot Camp Assistant will produce a space related error message.

Users also have reported that Time Machine has limited the space available to install Windows. See the question Bootcamp: The startup disk does not have enough space to be partitioned.

Finally, users have reported cases where they are able to use either the Disk Utility application or the diskutil command to shrink the macOS partition by the desired size and create space for Windows to be installed, but can not get the Boot Camp Assistant to do the same. For example see: Mojave bootcamp assistant limits partition size.

If you are having space problems, then you should first make sure you have installed the latest version of macOS that is compatible your Mac. This includes installing all available applicable updates. If you are still having space problems, then consider using the following steps to install Windows.

Use the Boot Camp Assistant to download the Windows support software. In this case, you are prompted where to store the files to be downloaded.
Use the Disk Utility application or the diskutil command to create space for Windows.
ExFat format and 16 GB or larger flash drive and copy the files from the Windows ISO and Windows support software download.
Boot from the flash drive and install Windows. Basically, you are installing Windows the same way as anyone who owns a PC.

An example of one user who recently successfully installed Windows 10 using this method can be found at the answer to the question Mojave bootcamp assistant limits partition size.


USB overload / nothing plugged in Mac Pro 2010 quad core, Mac OS X 10.6.8.

I have a USB 3.0 PCI card plugged in. When I tried to plug in a second external drive, I got this message:

I unplugged, and rebooted. Nothing plugged into the 2 USB 3.0 ports. I still get the message. Did I fry my card by just trying to use both ports? Any advice to troubleshoot this?

Edit - I just checked my eBay purchase history, the card is "Sonnet 2-Port Allegro USB 3.0 PCI Express Controller Card" and I bought it January 2014, so it ran pretty happily for almost 2 full years.

Final Update - After no luck with a couple reboots, I powered down, pulled the card, booted, powered down, re-installed card, then booted. No error message, card seems to function, although not nearly at the speed I thought I had. That's a different issue.

I'm pretty sure Snow Leopard does not provide native support for USB 3.0.

This is probably the main cause of your issue.  You would need to make sure you have installed the proper drivers for your PCI card in order for the kernel to recognize and allow this new functionality.

Other possibilities:

USB 3.0 is inherently designed to draw way more power than USB 2.0.  It's possible that when you plugged the device in, that's when the machine actually recognized the PCI card itself (or at least realized the necessary power consumption for running such a card and the fact that it was trying to draw more power than it was able to support).

Also:

Are you running any other PCI cards in your slots?  The specific hardware you mentioned has a 300W max for all 3 PCI slots combined, so if you are sucking power from any other slots, this could definitely cause the issue you are seeing.


How do I stop iCal from launching Mail.app? I do not use Mail.app, instead using Postbox 2 for all my email needs. I do use iCal for my calendaring, syncing it with my Google Apps accounts.

Whenever iCal wants to send a reminder, it tries to open Mail.app to do so, which is highly annoying.

Currently the only solution I have working is to zip up Mail.app in /Applications so iCal can no longer access it. However whenever the OS updates (i.e. from Snow Leopard to Lion) it replaces Mail.app and I have to do this again. This seems overly hackish.

Is there a way to force iCal to stop trying to open Mail.app without having to manually remove Mail.app?

The instructions below (posted here) did it for us as our permissions were, actually, on "Read Only" and the Mail.app was still launching.

Note: If iCal still opens Mail.app for mailing an event after you have set Postbox as your default mail client:

Within the Finder, right-click on the iCal icon and then select Show Package Contents.
Navigate to the "Contents" folder, then the "Resources" folder. Right-click on the folder called "Scripts" and select Get Info.
Expand the Sharing & Permissions box and click the Lock Icon in the lower right hand corner to unlock this setting. Change any permissions that are listed as "Read Only" to "Read & Write."
Restart Postbox.

If more information is needed, check out a more detailed Postbox iCal Integration page for more options and troubleshooting tips.

Have a great day!


Why does my AirPlay stream distort at high volume? I have an airport express connected to basic (but not crappy) speakers. When I run audio directly to them it plays fine, but when I run audio from either my iPhone or Mac to the speakers via AirPlay, I get crackly distorted sound if the volume slider is above about 75%.

Does anyone know why this could be? I have the airport set to extend my current network; could that affect it?

Network issues only ever result in the audio cutting out, they can't really change the content.

Distortion means your speakers get overloaded. Turning down the volume is your only option.

The reason your speakers are fine on the Mac is that after the slider in iTunes the sound gets further attenuated by the system volume buttons on your keyboard. If you turn those up far enough you'll get distortion as well.


How to install Office 365 across all user accounts on one computer (OS X Yosemite)? I have a new Mac with OS X Yosemite, which came with a 1 year Office 365 personal subscription. This is the family computer and I have set up 3 user accounts. I installed Office 365 through my account, as the Admin, but the applications do not appear in my partner's or son's user accounts on the same computer. Is there some way to get them to appear in all 3?

The Personal subscription is for one user only, and the Home subscription is for up to five users. The details are at this Microsoft link Comparing Microsoft Office Products.


Shared Disk names not updating I have a headless MacMini attached to my Time Capsule that has a series of firewire disks attached (I use it to store photographs, and it runs CCC to backup one disk to another with lots of redundancy). As disks have failed over the years, some of them have had to be renamed, and they show up with their new names on the MacMini if I screenshare to it. But my MacBook Air still shows them when I connect to the MacMini for filesharing with their old names. Restarting, cleaning system cache, trashing logs, and trashing Finder plist have not corrected this. If I bring in a new computer that has never before connected to the MacMini it will show the old names too, so I assume this means the problem is on the MacMini, not on the machine accessing it. Recently, I added an iMac to the network to keep connected to my film scanners. I'm having the same problem with it's hard drive name. I changed it from its original name to iMac HD, but the original name still shows up for sharing the disk on other machines. It's confusing to have a network where all drives are called Macintosh HD, so I want the name change to show up across the network.
Is there a fix for this?

I have found a fix, but I'm not sure what it did to correct the naming issue. While I was researching it I came across the method of connecting to a server by making a bookmark in a browser address bar. In the address bar I typed:
afp://user:password@IPaddressonLAN/iMac%20HD
with the proper username and password for my account on the iMac, the IP address for theIMac, and a %20 in place of the space in the disk's name, iMac HD. Then I selected it and dragged it to the desktop and double-clicking it mounts the desired disk with its new name. And best of all, now if I click on the iMac in the sidebar of a Finder window, it shows the disk as being called iMac HD instead of the old name.
I don't know what this has updated or where, but I'm not complaining if it works! It must have changed something on the iMac, not on my MBA. I say this because I checked with the computer that has never been connected to the iMac - when I posted my question I noted it also showed the old disk name (having never been connected to it at all under that name), and now it shows the new name for the disk. Something has been updated on the iMac itself has to be the explanation.


MacBook Pro stopped working, won't turn on, MagSafe adapter blinking green I was working on MacBook Pro (2012), the battery was full and the MagSafe adapter light was green.

When I connected an iPhone USB cable, the MacBook Pro immediately went black (it shut off without shutdown process), and the MagSafe light won't light up.

After I did the SMC reset, the computer won't turn on, the MagSafe light would be green and blinking for a minute, and then disappear again.

What can be done?

I took it to the lab, there they unplugged the battery and plugged it back. That solved the problem.


how can I transfer health data from iPhone 5s to my new iPhone 6 plus? I got iPhone 6 plus and now want to transfer the health data from my old iPhone 5s to iPhone 6 Plus, but I don't know how. I've backed up the old one with iTunes and restore my iPhone 6 with the iPhone 5s backup file, but I can't see the heath data on iPhone 6 plus. Help.

If you want to back up your Health data using iTunes, you need to encrypt your backup by selecting "Encrypt iPhone backup" in the Summary tab in iTunes. If you don't select this option, your Health data won't back up.


How can I forcibly shut down my Mac at an appointed time? I'm looking for an auto shutdown app that will forcefully shut down the computer at an appointed time.

The most important part of this is that the shutdown should not be cancelable (unless the process is extremely onerous).

Ok, so further to my previous answer, I can walk you through getting cron (a built in UNIX schedule service) to run a scheduled shutdown command for you.

It will run as root and will be forced.

Open Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal)
Input sudo crontab -e

You'll need to enter your login password and then press enter.

You'll now be in a text editor (vim). Carefully input the following keystrokes.

Press i once (this will allow you to enter text)

Let's say you want the machine to shutdown at 2am every day, we'd now enter:

* 2 * * * /sbin/shutdown -h now

If you wanted the machine to shutdown at 2:30am every day, you'd enter:

30 2 * * * /sbin/shutdown -h now

When you've typed this in, press esc
Then press shift+z shift+z (that's uppercase "z" twice, to writes the changes and quit the editor)

You should now be dropped back to the command line where you started.

You're done!


Macbook pro, boot camp, can't enable wifi adapter I installed Windows 8 on my macbook pro (Item No : 8899069, Mftr Part No : MD313LL/A) via boot camp. I installed the boot camp support tools. The wifi adapter says that it is working correctly. However, when I go into the control panel, the wifi adapter is not enabled. When I try to enable it, it says "enabling...", but then goes away. It's not enabled afterwards.

I tried to uninstall the driver, and then repair the support tools. No luck.

I followed these directions, with no luck. I also tried to run setup.exe from these drivers, with no luck. Last, I tried to run setup.exe in compatibility mode, with no luck.

Has anyone been able to get the macbook wifi enabled in Windows 8? It reminds me of a time when I couldn't get my wifi card to work, and then I realized I didn't press the 'enable wifi' button on my pc.

I don't even see an error in the event viewer :(

Has anyone been able to get wifi to work in windows 8?

EDIT: The network card is a Broadcom 802.11n network adapter (as per the device manager)

Try to install the Windows 8.1 driver from this website: Link (or here you have the Download Link directly: download).

One solution would be:

  Boot into OS X
  Select Windows as primary boot partition
  Restart your Mac (it should boot now directly into Windows)
  Restart Windows (NOT turning off. Start > Restart)

Second suggestion:

  Uninstall the driver completely
  Restart into OS X
  Then restart into Windows

Sometimes the WiFi driver is working after a few minutes. If not: Install the driver from above (from the Download link).

It has something to do with Bootcamp and Mac. This isn't a Windows problem. The driver isn't loading properly. Maybe Apple is going to fix this.


TestFlight Internal Testers on iOS Individual Developer Program If I sign up for the iOS Individual Developer Program (rather than the Company one), will I be able to set up multiple users within iTunes Connect so that I can have some TestFlight internal beta testers?

Sure. This is an extract of iTunes Connect Developer Guide:

Enable internal testers in Users and Roles.
To be eligible to become an internal tester, a user must be part of your iTunes Connect team with the Admin, Legal, or Technical role. Adding iTunes Connect users and setting their roles is explained in Setting Up an iTunes Connect User. You can see users’ roles in the Users and Roles section.
Enabling an iTunes Connect user for TestFlight beta testing is explained in To enable a user as an internal tester.
Add internal testers to your app.
The Internal Testers pane in the Prerelease section lists the current users who are enabled as internal testers on your iTunes Connect account.
Select up to 25 of them to add as internal testers for the app and click Save.
To invite internal testers, select the Builds tab and set the TestFlight Beta Testing switch to the On (green) position. The users you selected will automatically receive an email inviting them to test. They will be directed to use the TestFlight app on their iOS devices to accept the invitation to test the latest build available.


What's a triple boot method(macOS, Linux, Windows 10) that is safe and (relatively) easy to do? I originally thought it was as simple as using Bootcamp and then making a partition for Linux. But apparently installing Linux breaks the Windows installation.

I currently have High Sierra installed on my rBP 13" 2014. I wish to add Linux Mint 18.3 and Windows 10. What would be the general procedure?

Below is the output from the command diskutil list.

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
#:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE        IDENTIFIER
0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB    disk0
1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB    disk0s1
2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         250.8 GB    disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
#:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE        IDENTIFIER
0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +250.8 GB    disk1
                             Physical Store disk0s2
1:                APFS Volume macOS                   16.8 GB     disk1s1
2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 22.3 MB     disk1s2
3:                APFS Volume Recovery                517.8 MB    disk1s3
4:                APFS Volume VM                      1.1 GB      disk1s4

You can install Windows via Bootcamp, Apple provides instructions for that. For Linux, follow these detailed instructions: https://www.lifewire.com/dual-boot-linux-and-mac-os-4125733.
You can basically install as many Linux distributions as you have space for.

I have a dual boot setup with macOS High Sierra and Windows (via Bootcamp) and a Linux distribution on a USB stick (permanent installation, not a Live USB stick), effectively making it a triple boot setup. I am using rEFInd as boot manager. The only downside I experience is that I have to hold down the option key every time I reboot my MacBook and choose the OS to boot from, because otherwise it finds no OS to boot and displays some EFI error screen. Don‘t know why and if it will be an issue for you but not a big deal either.


Cryptographic Integrity and Authentication Validation of Homebrew Installer? Is there a way to install homebrew on MacOS such that anything downloaded from the Internet is cryptographically validated for integrity and authenticated to the actual publisher?
Unfortunately, the method listed on the official brew.sh website to install it on MacOS is a horribly insecure curl-piped-to-bash command
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"

Note that https doesn't provide authentication since X.509 checks in curl trusts a ton of certificates (including certs issued by CAs owned by Nation States that have known history of committing cyber attacks, including active content manipulation over https via MITM attacks)

Ideally, these cryptographic checks would come in the form of a signed checksum file using gpg.
Is there any way to install brew in a way that provides cryptographic validation of the installer's integrity and authenticity?

No, this ability is not provided by the brew project.
As an open source and community run project, no-one is providing assurance of the installer's integrity and authenticity.
See brew's Vulnerability Disclosure Program for more details about the project's handling of security concerns.


2nd external display renders whites as bright yellow I have two external Dell monitors running through a Thunderbolt 3 dock to my  15" MacBook Pro. On the 2nd one that I connected, all pure white colors show as a very vivid and bright yellow, much like a highlighter. No other color is affected, and off whites render fine.

Whats odd is that this monitor has this issue regardless of how I connect it to the laptop. Its broken via dock, or via direct DP to TB3 cable. It also has the issue while being the only monitor connected. The original monitor does not have the issue regardless of how I connect it.

This would imply a hardware issue with the monitor BUT I have confirmed the monitor works correctly on a windows laptop. Whats also odd is there's a split second after login that the colors are correct, before they go yellow. This also suggests the monitor hardware is fine.

Both monitors are running in forced RGB mode, but this did not correct the issue.
PRAM reset also had no impact.

If I go into color calibration for the monitor, everything is fine so long as the target white is below 6500k. 6499k is fine, but the moment I raise it to 6500k (which is the default) the whites snap to highlighter yellow. They remain so for any value higher than 6500k.

Has anyone ever experienced anything like this?

My current workaround is to calibrate the color to have a target white of 6499k.

This can be done under Display Settings -> Color -> Calibrate


My Photo Stream still uploads pictures after iCloud fills up? Please correct me if I'm wrong:

It's a good idea to turn on My Photo Stream in iOS or Mac if your iCloud is filling up because, if it fills up, your last 30 days of pictures will still upload even if your iCloud has been full.  So, if you lose/break your device, at least those last pictures should be in iCloud.

Apple covers this in the FAQ on Photo Stream and iCloud photos. It’s towards the bottom :

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201317

  Does My Photo Stream use my iCloud storage?

  No. The photos you upload to My Photo Stream don't count against your iCloud storage.


Do I really need an iPhone 4? I have an iMac for day to day use, with LaCie backup, and a MacBook Pro for use on the road, also with LaCie backup, and a mobile phone, too, of course. I do not care much for the mobile phone I have (a 2 year old Motorola model), so I am thinking about swapping it for an iPhone.

But I don't want to swap the Motorola thingie for yet another gadget that I won't like. So, iPhone fans, tell me, what's to like about the iPhone? What will it give me that I don't have between my mobile and my MacBook Pro?

The iPhone (apart from the obvious phone/messaging features), will give you an ultra-portable computing device to carry around with you when you are not near your iMac or don't want to open the Macbook Pro.

This will give you the ability to check your emails, browse websites, listen to music, watch podcasts and even record and edit videos.  You will also be able to read books and take part in the eco-system of hundreds of thousands of 3rd party applications that available on the Apple App Store.

Best of all, because all your devices are from Apple, you benefit from not only knowing how most of these items work and are configured, but the huge benefit of interoperability.  You most probably have your music in iTunes already, so you're music can be synced with your new iPhone.  Your web bookmarks are probably already in Safari, so can be synced with Safari on the iPhone.


Battery not charging at only 35 cycles - recoverable? I bought a second-hand 12" MacBook and was disappointed to discover it doesn't charge. I'm expecting to return it, but I'm frustrated that I can't fix it.

The battery is showing at 35 cycles but not holding any charge whatsoever. I presume it's been sat on a shelf for some period of time and has drained, but I can't imagine that it's actually dead at only 35 cycles.

I've reinstalled macOS, run an SMC reset, and reset NVRAM too. I've tried another charger for the same model.

Unplugging instantly powers down and it shows no interest in charging at all. I think it's got to be returned at this point. This is frustrating as it was a present for my wife's birthday this weekend, so I've been trying to fix it. Is there anything else I could try?

The battery is showing at 35 cycles but not holding any charge whatsoever. I presume it's been sat on a shelf for some period of time and has drained, but I can't imagine that it's actually dead at only 35 cycles.

There's a number of things that can be at play here:

Bad charging circuitry.  The battery is actually good, but power isn't getting to the battery itself.
A defective battery.  It happens; these are "man-made" items and far from perfect.

Won't charge at all
Won't hold a charge.  Charges but dissipates quickly (as you describe).  This is due to a bad cell.
Reduced charging capacity

Wrong charger.  It's entirely possible you got a charger with too low a wattage rating.

Given that you've stated it won't hold a charge, it's likely a defective battery.  Pretty much the only thing you can do is reset the SMC.  The NVRAM has nothing to do with power issues and reinstalling macOS should only be used as a last resort.

However since this is a new purchase, your best option is to return it rather than try to fix it.  It came to you with an issue - the seller should deal with it and it doesn't speak highly to their quality controls.  Don't be discourage that you can't fix it, because, technically, you can:  replace the battery.  It's just that (IMO) you shouldn't have to unless it was listed as having this condition.


Keep Time Machine from starting in home Lately, when I "Enter Time Machine" (like, to recover a lost file), it switches to my home directory. This might have started with Mavericks, or possibly when I set up the current laptop (about, though not exactly, the same time). Is that a new feature with Mavericks? Is it some configuration thing?

Mainly: how do I make it stop? It prevents restoring files in hidden directories.

I tested this on Mavericks, but this method has worked as far as I can remember. Make sure "Show Time Machine in menu bar" is checked in Time Machine Preferences. Select the directory you want to go to as a Finder window and make it the active window. Select use "Enter Time Machine" from the menu bar Time Machine (small clock) drop down menu. Time Machine will open to your selected directory ready to restore files. If you start at a "hidden" directory you can restore from there.


iTunes Connect did not ask for bank or PayPal account when attempting to publish paid app in App Store I have just finished an app and sent some builds to iTunes Connect, but now I intend to send it to App Store for a price of, say, 1 USD.

I saw the 'Pricing and Availability' tab at iTunes Connect and it let me set the price of the app, so I set it 1 USD, no problems until now, but after that, in tab 'Prepare for Submission', there was no such thing as asking my bank or PayPal account.

How should I proceed? Should I submit for review anyway and this kind of information will be asked later?

Use the Agreements, Tax, and Banking section to manage contracts with Apple, provide required financial information relating to iTunes developer payments and tax withholdings, and track the status of your iTunes agreements. If you plan to charge customers to download your apps, start with this section right away to request a contract for selling paid apps.

Apple publish the following documentation about adding your Banking details, Setting Up Banking Information.


Simple app for taking/storing photos on a server I am looking for a dead-simple app to take photos (either with the camera, or from the library) and store them onto a server via WiFi.  This is for taking photos of whiteboards at work.  I really want the app to be dead-simple, automatically storing a photo to the server would be great.

I don't really care what protocol it uses to communicate with the server, but it would be great if it were not a proprietary Apple protocol, so that I could use an existing Linux file server.

Does such a thing exist?

Dropbox is likely the best for storing photos in the cloud. It allows you to easily, and simply select photos from your library and then upload them to the Dropbox cloud.

The one caveat is that it is annoying to restore images because you have to go to each picture and restore it individually. Who knows, perhaps they will come out with an update that will fix that.


How do I transparently compress a directory? I'd like to enable HFS+ compression for a directory, applying it to both the existing files in that directory and newly copied files. I expect to be able to read and write the contents of that directory normally.

Does HFS+ treat non-compressible files intelligently, say by trying to compress the first few KB of the file and bailing if it doesn't compress? I don't want non-compressible files expanding or their access significantly slowed down by compression and de-compression.

Is this possible to do out of the box in Yosemite? I'm also open to installing a third-party app (even a command-line one) to enable the compression, if I can then uninstall it later and have the directory retain the compression.

I found afsctool, but it hasn't had a release or update in an year and a half, and I don't want to use unmaintained software. Besides, afsctool works only for existing files, not newly copied ones.

The compression is supported by HFS+ file-system out of box, however macOS by default doesn't compress any files.

afsctool

There is a afsctool command-line utility which can transparently compress the files, for example:

afsctool -c some_dir

Install via: brew install afsctool.

ditto

When copying files, use ditto, e.g.

ditto --hfsCompression src dst

  When copying files or extracting content from an archive, all the content will be compressed if appropriate.

To check whether a file is compressed using HFS+ compression or not, you can use hfsdebug. See: Compress files with HFS+ compression.

Related: Transparent file compression apps for macOS.


How to change keyboard layout to specific language with hotkey in macOS? How can I change my keyboard layout to English with Caps Lock and change layout to Russian with Shift+Caps Lock?

An old version of Punto Switcher could do this on Windows.

For the general case of changing input sources via keyboard shortcuts, see this earlier question.

Another approach might be to use the app Ukelele to design a custom keyboard that does what you want, but it would be a lot of work.

If it would be enough to use Caps Lock to switch between English and Russian, you can do this by just checking a box at the bottom of System Preferences > Keyboard > Input Sources.


"DatabaseError: database disk image is malformed" error dialog when re-opening Google Drive after re-installation I recently ran into this problem when doing desktop support for a user, and wanted to share the solution. They had deleted the Google Drive app and re-installed it, but then kept seeing this error dialog when they tried to open the re-installed app:

When I tried uninstalling it (i.e. by dragging it to the trash), I kept seeing another error dialog that said that the application was running (and therefore couldn't be moved to the trash), but the icon in the taskbar wasn't there. I tried searching for the process:

$ ps -ef | grep -i drive
  202  208    1  0  2:06pm ??        0:00.06 /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreAudio.framework/Versions/A/XPCServices/com.apple.audio.DriverHelper.xpc/Contents/MacOS/com.apple.audio.DriverHelper
  501  292  194  0  2:06pm ??        0:03.04 /Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/Versions/40.0.2214.94/Google Chrome Helper.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome Helper --type=gpu-process --channel=194.0.484367729 --supports-dual-gpus=false --gpu-driver-bug-workarounds=4,13,22,25,27,36,39,41,44,50 --disable-accelerated-video-decode --gpu-vendor-id=0x8086 --gpu-device-id=0x0a26 --gpu-driver-vendor --gpu-driver-version
  501  526    1  0  2:12pm ??        0:01.29 /Applications/Google Drive.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Drive
  501  588  537  0  2:15pm ttys000    0:00.00 grep -i drive

And was only able to kill its process with kill -9 (yes, I tried the other kills first...), after which I was able to move it to the trash.

I tried reinstalling it with a fresh installer from the Google Drive website but kept on running into the same issue.

On my system (10.10.2), the corrupted Drive file was in $HOME/Library/Application Support/Google/ -- deleting that solved the problem.

Or for you command line wizards:

$ rm -rf '~/Library/Application Support/Google/Drive'


Moving email from Gmail to Mail.app locally I have a large amount of email in Gmail, the account is at 99% capacity. I'd like to remove this from Gmail and only store it locally. Using mail.app When I drag the message from a Gmail mailbox into a local folder the message still appears on Gmail.

How can I move the messages locally so they don't appear in Gmail anymore?

Thanks,

I'm guessing you might need to manually delete the messages in Gmail as well. I'm not familiar with copying mail to a local folder, but I do know that Gmail is VERY protective of keeping its mail within its service as much as possible.

That would be the best advice I can offer.


If I copy an application already listed under Purchased to the Applications folder, will it be able to update through the App Store? If I copy an application already have in my Apple ID (Edit: for example, Xcode) from another computer to the Applications folder, will the Mac App Store be able to update it?

Or will I have to do something manually in order to enable updates from that app?

Yes - you can side load apps to Mac and as long as it’s on the filesystem (doesn’t even have to be in /Applications or on the boot drive) - the App Store app will see you have that app installed and offer updates when they are available.

There is no installer, receipt or other accounting needed to indicate an app should be managed / updated once it’s copied on to the filesystem intact (with the intact part being key).


How to download all photos and videos stored in iCloud? I'm a mac user. Latest yosemite and itunes installed on my mac. Want to download all data from iCloud photo library and to disable auto upload future. Is there any way to download all photos and videos all at once?

In iPhoto or Aperture preferences on your Mac, select Photos (or Photo Stream) > My Photo Stream > Automatic Import. All of your photo stream photos will import into your Events, Projects, Photos, Faces, and Places folders in iPhoto or Aperture.

From My Photo Stream FAQ


What are the services Apple's Firewall considers essential? I'm trying to determine what Apple's Firewall considers essential services. Apple's Firewall has the following settings available:

A search of Apple's site does not reveal a support document on the topic: http://www.google.com/search?q=firewall+"essential+services"+site:apple.com.

What are the services Apple's Firewall considers essential? And which of those services will be allowed to receive incoming connections, and make outbound connections?

Essential services are those in the Core Services layer. When that option is checked, only the incoming connections to the below services will be allowed:

From https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/OSX_Technology_Overview/CoreServicesLayer/CoreServicesLayer.html

  The technologies in the Core Services layer are called core services because they provide essential services to apps but have no direct bearing on the app’s user interface.

Some of the notable core services are

accounts & Social media integration
identity service
time machine
keychain services
notifications
iCloud storage
cloudkit
file coordination
bundles and packages
internalization/localization
bonjour
security services
address book

And from http://www.macworld.com/article/1131116/firewall.html#configure

  The second option, “Allow only essential services,” will block anything except a few default services that support networking, such as Bonjour. Only use this option if you want to block everything; this will prevent any file sharing, remote access, or other services activated elsewhere on your Mac.

You can switch your firewall settings and run nettop in Terminal to monitor the network activity of each process that is running.


How to Record Gameplay on Mac Sierra I am a gamer and I wish to record my Mobile Legends in my Mac book. Any suggestions of the tools that I could use? My phone is iPhone 7 Plus. Thanks

You don't need your Macbook for recording:

Make sure you have iOS 11 installed on your phone.
Go to settings, control panel, manage control panel, and then add screen recording to the control panel.
Open Mobile Legends, swipe up to invoke control center, click on the screen recording button, wait 3 seconds, and now you're recording.
When you want to stop recording, invoke control center again and disable the screen recording.

The recording is now available in your photo library.


Find My Mac - WPS and Proxies Is it possible to trick the Wi-Fi Positioning Service using proxies? My Mac got stolen a couple of days ago in Rome Italy and located in Algerie today.

Find my Mac checks all available WiFis in the local area and compares them to a huge database, but also with a proxy, vpn or similar, the mac still gets the signals of the local wifi and not of the final access point, so no, you probably can't trick this service by that way.

I'm very sorry for you.


Need a cli to check the sha256 hash of a file To check the sha1 of a file I would use openssl sha1 <file> I'm not sure what to use to check the sha256 hash of the file however, what would you recommend?

You can use

openssl dgst -sha256 <file>

Tested on LibreSSL 2.6.4 on macOS 10.14 (Mojave).

Prior to Mojave you can use openssl sha -sha256 <file> or openssl sha256 <file>.

To check command line options for the openssl sha command: openssl sha -help.


Copy contents of a file I am trying to copy a whole bunch different files' contents into one big file. Is there a way to do this without having to open up each individual file and copying and pasting the contents? Is there a quick way to just right click a file and copy the contents directly? Thanks in advance!

You can run the shell command /usr/bin/textutil  in the Terminal.app found in /Applications/Utilities/

textutils  Can be used to convert the text from one format to another.

But it also can  "Read the specified files, concatenate them, and write the result out as a single file in the indicated format."

/usr/bin/textutil file/s -cat convert to format -output file output path

It will concatenate differently formatted files.

The formats textutils can read and write to are

txt, html, rtf, rtfd, doc, docx, wordml, odt, or webarchive

Example

/usr/bin/textutil foo1.txt foo2.txt foo1.rtf foo.html -cat txt -output /file/path/foo.txt


Does Profile Manager for iOS Need to be Accessible over the Internet? We're replacing our BlackBerry handsets with iPhones, and we'll be using OS X's Profile Manager for MDM deployment and management.

I've done some exploratory research and I'm happy with the general principles, but I'm wondering if the MDM server needs to be publicly accessible for remote management of iPhones, or is the functionality exposed via the carrier?

The MDM server does need to be available by the device, but Profile Manager itself does not. In other words, the ability to access the Profile Manager doesn't need to be present on the device, providing the literal MDM server is accessible.


Port forwarding in OS X 10.10 I have to forward every internet page to my local address i.e. 127.0.0.1 using OS X.

I tried following command but it has no effect:

echo " rdr pass inet proto tcp from any to any port 80 -> 127.0.0.1 port 8080 " | sudo pfctl -ef -

I have tried to research the exact meaning of the above line but I can't find a good explanation. How do I perform this forwarding?

Edit 1:

Let's say a user enters "www.google.com" in the browser; this should have an impact like this -->

User should be redirected to my local page which is at 127.0.0.1:8080

Now, if I hit 127.0.0.1:8080 I do see my local portal.

But, I want it to be shown after redirection from "Google.com"

I am writing following statement. But, they are not having any effect.

rdr pass on lo0 proto {tcp, udp} from any to any port 80 -> 127.0.0.1 port 7894
pass out log(all) on em0 route-to lo0 inet proto {tcp, udp} from any to any port 80 keep state

I am writing above lines in my anchor file and adding anchor to pf.conf using rdr-anchor

If I understand your question and your comment correctly you are trying to achieve something like a local captive portal.

This can't be done with pf and a simple redirect. A lot more stuff and configuration is involved. Here (the link to bsdguides.org in the github readme doesn't work: correct link) you find an example how to do this in OpenBSD. The solution there may be adapted to OS X under certain circumstances.

The rule rdr pass inet proto tcp from any to any port 80 -> 127.0.0.1 port 8080 does the following:

rdr pass inet proto tcp from any to any port 80 -> 127.0.0.1 port 8080
|   |    |              |
|   |    |              #from any IP (all source IPs) to any IP (all destination IPs of the local machine)
|   |    |              from any to any
|   |    #IPv4 Protocol TCP
|   |    inet proto tcp
|   #allow
|   pass
#redirect from port 80 to localhost:8080
rdr                                     port 80 -> 127.0.0.1 port 8080

Or: any incoming (rdr only redirects incoming packets) IPv4 TCP traffic (on any interface) to port 80 from any IP to any IP (on any interface) of the local machine is passed and redirected to 127.0.0.1:8080.

The rule doesn't redirect requests from a local client machine for google.com:80 (i.e. 216.58.201.206:80) or 175.68.9.102:80 to 127.0.0.1:80 because neither of these IPs is an IP of the local (www-)server machine nor does the local (www-)server know of the requests.

This doesn't apply to outgoing traffic of the local machine because that's no incoming traffic. You have to loop this traffic first:

pf (Mac OS X) rule to redirect all traffic to a specific ip/port
OS X 10.8: redirecting locally initiated ssh connections to localhost:22


Cloning a half-full 500 GB drive to a 256 GB SSD drive Before I buy a new SSD, I wanted to see if the following is possible:

I have a 500 GB HD in my MacBook Pro that is using only 240 gigs. Can I clone this to a 256 GB SSD drive? (My goal is to replace the boot spinning drive with an SSD drive.) Then use the 500 GB HD as a second drive in the SuperDrive bay.

Can I clone to the SSD if it's in a USB enclosure as well?

And what is the best cloning software?

I'm running OS X Lion, if that's useful.

Clone larger HDD drive to smaller SSD drive on Mac. Or migrate from an HDD to SSD.
The fastest and most efficient way can be done completely using standard tools in OS X.
This solution does not require any reinstall, all the way setup of user account and Mac settings, or separate programs or much more time consuming operations than direct disk to disk data transfer.
You need: 1 SSD drive and USB SATA adapter, it can be any enclosure, or SATA to USB adapter cable, or if you have thunderbolt or any faster connection this is even more preferred.

Always have regular backup. Time Machine is recommended way. Do it to external HDD or Time Capsule device.
Boot you Mac into Recovery mode. Reboot your Mac and immediately hold Cmd+R during POST stage (black screen).
Open Disk Utility, locate your existing HDD and select primary partition on the left (mount point /, Type: Logical Partition), this can be named Macintosh HD and in First Aid click Verify Disk, to make sure you are error free before start.
On the left now select primary disk it self (Type Logical Volume Group), and on the right select Partition tab, click + sign and drag primary partition (e.g. Macintosh HD) to resize to size smaller than new target SSD disk. Click Apply.
Now you have to prepare new SSD drive. Connect new SSD drive to Mac if not done so yet, and select it on left in Disk Utility. Click Erase tab and chose name for new device, I recommend to name it SSD, so you can clearly see difference in next steps. This name is for temporary use only.
Under format choose Mac OS X Extended (journaled) and click Erase.
Note: if this disk already was initialized or used on other system like Windows, please delete all existing partitions before this step and start like new! This is important to have new system bootable.
Poweroff and physically swap disks. Do not erase or start using old disk until everything is finished. Do not connect original disk until you are done.
Perform actual data cloning. Boot you Mac into Recovery mode again (Cmd+R). Select Original Primary partition on the left (Macintosh HD) and on the right select Restore tab. Drag SSD prepared partition to Destination field (you called it SSD). Click Restore and wait so many hours, how many you have to physically copy your data from one drive to another.
Reboot to Recovery mode again and choose Boot from main partition in new SSD. Click the Apple menu on the bar at the top of screen and select Startup Disk to access the Choose Startup Disk tool. The boot option will be named exactly the same as was in original hard drive, thus just select it and system will reboot into this his.
Note: this step is necessary to avoid boot wait, because Mac cannot find original disk anymore, and starts into SSD only after about 30 seconds as recovery boot sequence.
Reboot and system will boot fast into old Mac OS X system. Now you are done :)

Note: if your system waits about half a minute before booting when only a new disk is left on the system, then press Alt/option key during startup and just select Mac OS X system. This will reset the default OS and will clear boot wait for old device.
2020 macOS Catalina, Big Sur APFS update:
If you are on APFS already, this task becomes even more trivial.

Just do all steps except repartitioning and shrinking original drive.
Also format new SSD drive with APFS.

If you have amount of data in original APFS Volume which fits your new hard drive, there is nothing to stop you, just recover your new drive APFS Volume with old drive Macintosh HD as a source.
Checked and confirmed its working when I was migrating old SSD to larger SSD drive, also HDD or SSD drive to NVME drive.


Remote Management vs. Screen Sharing? What is the difference between enabling remote management and enabling screen sharing?

Apple's support article, http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4715, says:

  If the Apple Remote Desktop administrator authenticates with a name
  that is different from the user logged on at the remote computer, the
  following applies:

  If the service was enabled by turning on Screen Sharing, the screen sharing user is presented with the option to request sharing access
  from the user logged on at the display.
  If the service was enabled by turning on Remote Management, the screen sharing user can simply choose to share the display.
  The screen sharing user can always choose to log in to their own session.

  ...

It also states:

  If the remote computer's display is at the login window, the Apple
  Remote Desktop administrator will simply share the display. This is
  equivalent to how screen sharing works in earlier versions of Mac OS
  X.

  A third party VNC viewer will always be connected to the login window.
  If the login window is not on the display, a new login window is
  started that is not shown on the display. The screen sharing user can
  then log in with any valid account on that computer.

So, I presume that it is using the same protocol (VNC) underneath and just behaves a little different depending on which option you enable.

What is Apple's remote client?  Is it the Screen Sharing app  in CoreServices (/System/Library/CoreServices/Screen Sharing.app) or is there something else I might have missed?

Lastly, what is the Mac App Store "Apple Remote Desktop" product ($80, http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/apple-remote-desktop/id409907375?mt=12) and how does it differ from the above?

Thanks!

By default, Mac OS uses VNC combined with a few extras (e.g. auto-discovery via Bonjour) when you use Screen Sharing, and in most cases this is all an average user needs.
For system administrators however, there is usually a need for more control over the computers they support; therefore Apple provides "Apple Remote Desktop" (ARD) which offers a lot more control mechanisms (like terminal sessions, remote installation of software, remote shutdown, remote execution of automator scripts) and this is possible with groups of many computers at the same time. For this feature to work, SSH and remote management needs to be activated.

So in short: Screen Sharing is roughly equivalent to VNC, while Apple Remote Desktop is a "high-end" remote administration software which requires "Remote Management" to be turned on. There is also a difference in how incoming screen sharing requests are handled: with "Screen Sharing" enabled, if an observer connects with a user account that's different than the one currently logged in and clicks Share Display, the user needs to confirm before the screen is shared. With "Remote Management", the screen is immediately shared without a prompt appearing.


MacBook Pro boot issue I put my MacBook Pro to sleep at night and the next morning when I try to boot it .. I get a question mark icon on a blinking folder... I long press the power to shut it down.

After some time when I try to boot again I no longer see the same error icon, instead i see the Apple icon followed by the user accounts (one main account and the other for the guest user). After keying in the password the OS seems to load as I can see on the progress bar. But then it stops and there is a blank screen with a prohibited sign on it.

This is what I have tried so far.

I have gone to the Disk Utility window and I have tried to verify the disk and the results tell me that it is corrupted and needs to be repaired. But the repair disk button is disabled. Also i am able to boot using the guest user account just fine. Can someone please help me out?

You need to boot into Recovery Mode to be able to run a disk repair in Disk Utility.

Press and hold ⌘+R while booting, once you see the Apple logo you can let go.

Because your disk is encrypted, try mounting it first by opening Startup Disk, and choosing your disk as the start up disk. This should mount the drive.
Then quit Startup Disk and open Disk Utility as below.

Then you should see a menu bar with a Utilities option in it, choose Disk Utility from here and run the disk repair.

Unfortunately, disk failure is a possibility, but it could also be corruption from the system going to sleep while in the middle of doing something.
If you do manage to get back into your disk, I would recommend making a backup as soon as possible, as well keeping a regular backup in general.


How do I uninstall Trend Micro Security Agent? I have been trying to uninstall the Trend Micro anti-virus software on my Mac (10.13.6) and have been encountering a lot of difficulty. Trend Micro's website refers to a couple of uninstaller options, but none of those are anywhere to be found on my computer.

There's a fairly technical (i.e., using terminal) instruction set by Trend Micro here, but I keep having trouble with it. At one point it tells you to remove the directory /Library/Application Support/TrendMicro, but I get "Permission denied" even when I attempt to remove it using sudo!

What do I need to do to permanently remove Trend Micro Security Agent from my computer?

I just did this myself, here's what I learned while doing it.

A lot of the difficulty in uninstalling Trend Micro comes from the fact that it spawns processes that then interfere with removing it (this actually makes sense for an anti-virus, but it certainly makes it a challenge when we need to remove it by hand). Basically, we're going to take this in two major moves: 1) killing those interfering processes, 2) deleting all the files associated with Trend Micro.

You're going to need to do this through the Terminal program. If you've never used Terminal before, be careful -- nothing below should harm anything (other than the Trend Micro anti-virus), but it's a very powerful tool, and you can really mess stuff up if you aren't careful. You can find it at Applications/Utilities/Terminal.

Additionally, you will need to be an admin on your computer. If you do not have admin privileges, the below guide will not work.

Finally, it would probably be a good idea to make a back-up before starting, just in case something goes wrong.

Killing Interfering Processes

First, we need to knock out the processes that interfere with deleting Trend Micro. According to the uninstall guide from TrendMicro there are three main processes we want to kill (As a side note, it's a little unnerving that the names Trend Micro uses are so generic. It makes you worried they actually belong to something you want to keep):

iCoreService
TmLoginMgr
MainUI

You can use the command killall to kill processes that match by name, but I prefer to find the PID (Process ID number) associated with what I need to knock out, then issue kill commands for those PIDs. We can find the associated PIDs for each thing listed above with a command of this form:

ps -A | grep iCoreService

When you enter that command*, it will return a list off all processes that have iCoreService somewhere in their name. Each process will have a number at the very front: that is the PID. Take note of those numbers. (Note: Your grep command will be one of the processes that gets returned -- you can ignore that, but nothing bad will happen if you try to kill it either.)

*: If you're wary of people telling you to enter random terminal commands, good for you! Here's what each part does: "ps -A" lists all processes currently running; "|" pipes that into the next command (in other words, that info is passed along to the next part); "grep" searches for matches to whatever it is given, in this case 'iCoreService'. In total, we're pulling out all those processes that have 'iCoreService' in the name.

Now we're going to kill each of those processes. Use this command, running it for each PID you just found:

kill NUMBER_GOES_HERE

(E.g., you would write something like kill 1253, but using the numbers that came up from the previous command.)

At this point, it should tell you that you don't have the permissions to do that -- you need to prove that you really are an admin and should be allowed. Issue that same command, but now with sudo in front:

sudo kill NUMBER_GOES_HERE

The terminal will prompt you for your password. Type it in, hit enter, and that's it, the process should be gone now.

What's going on with this command? "sudo" means Super User Do, basically forcing the computer to do what you want because you're the admin; "kill" issues a signal to terminate the process with whatever PID number you pass in after.

When I did this, I got a total of 4 processes associated with iCoreService. After you've knocked that one out, remember that you'll also need to do it for TmLoginMgr (I got 1 process here) and for MainUI (I had 0 processes here, but it's possible that was due to a previous removal attempt by someone else.)

Great! Now that the boss' shields are down, we can attack!

Deleting Trend Micro Files

Now it's time to actually delete the files associated with the anti-virus.

Here's the list of directories (folders) we want to delete:

/System/Library/TrendMicro
/Library/StartupItems/iCoreService
/Applications/MainUI.app
/Library/Application Support/TrendMicro
/Library/Frameworks/TMAppCommon.framework/
/Library/Frameworks/TMAppCore.framework/
/Library/Frameworks/TMGUIUtil.framework/
/Library/Frameworks/iCoreClient.framework/
/Library/Frameworks/iCoreClientPb.framework/

[Note: When I did this, I was not able to find every single folder. It's possible some were gone due to a previous removal attempt by someone else. Could also be due to those Trend Micro uninstall docs being more than four years old... The specific folders I could not find were the first three in the list above. But if they exist on your installation, you should still remove them.]

To delete each of these, use this command:

rm -rf "FULL_PATH_IN_QUOTES_GOES_HERE"

In other words, you should copy each line from the above list and execute like this:
rm -rf "/Library/Application Support/TrendMicro". (The quotes are really important for the folder with 'Application Support' in its path because of the space, other directories don't need it, but it doesn't hurt to follow that pattern for each one.) Some of the folders might not exist, that's okay.

More than any other command, this is the one you need to be very careful with. "rm" is the command to remove (delete) things; "-rf" tells it to delete folders and to recurse downward (delete folders within folders and so on downward); the double-quotes ensure that paths with a space still get deleted correctly.

Like before, you will probably be told that you do not have the appropriate permissions to do that. You'll need to elevate with sudo as we did before:

sudo rm -rf "FULL_PATH_IN_QUOTES_GOES_HERE"

Do that for each of the directories in the list of Trend Micro folders to remove.

Note: I had a lot of difficulty trying to remove /Library/Application Support/TrendMicro. Even with sudo, I still got "Permission denied". Luckily, I happened to double-check that all the processes from part 1 were still dead (another ps -A | grep iCoreService): nope, iCoreService had come back. I played kill whack-a-mole with it a couple more times, killing its new PIDs, then tried to very quickly issue the rm -rf "/Library/Application Support/TrendMicro" command after having killed all those processes and eventually got it to work. I think something was respawning those processes, so it was a matter of timing to knock them out and delete those files before they came back. (Once that directory was gone, they never came back.)

Finally, we can now remove the "Trend Micro Security Agent" app from our Applications folder. You can go do that in the finder (navigate to it in finder, right-click, move to trash [it will prompt for password]) or you can do it via the Terminal if you're comfortable with that.

Bonus: Removing Start-Up Processes

At this point, we've deleted pretty much everything from the Trend Micro anti-virus, but there's still some start-up stuff that we ought to go tear out. Run this:

launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.trendmicro.icore.av.plist

"launchctl" is a utility for interacting with 'launchd', a utility that manages other processes; "unload" tells 'launchctl' to disable processes associated with whatever you pass it next; the "/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.trendmicro.icore.av.plist" is the thing you're unloading.

Now delete the launchdaemon and launchagent files which invoke the processes associated with Trend Micro at boot time:

rm /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.trendmicro.*
rm /Library/LaunchAgents/com.trendmicro.*

"rm" is the same remove (delete) command as before; "/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.trendmicro.*" tells it to delete all files in that path with that starting structure, the * means anything that matches up to that point will get deleted.

[Note: It's possible this should happen earlier in the steps. I'm not sure what caused the iCoreService processes to come back, if I had done the unloading earlier it might have made the actual deletion in part 2 more direct with no need to re-issue kills on iCoreService processes. If you try it that way and it works better, please leave a comment!]

And We're Done!

Whew! At this point, Trend Micro should be fully uninstalled. Reboot your computer to make sure everything is still working fine and that Trend Micro really is gone.

Other Notes

This was basically cobbled together from the Trend Micro guide linked near the top and this other uninstall script I found.
The uninstall guide from Trend Micro says to run /Library/Application\ Support/TrendMicro/TmccMac/TmLoginMgr.app/Contents/MacOS/TmLoginMgr -u, but when I did that I got this "LoginItem(/Library/Application Support/TrendMicro/TmccMac/TmLoginMgr.app) has already been removed": it could have been from a previous person's attempt to remove Trend Micro, but it also could have been something else. You might want to include it when you try to uninstall, just in case, but it also might be pointless.
I actually took on root user (using sudo su) to do a lot of this when I got stuck trying to remove /Library/Application Support/TrendMicro. In retrospect, I don't think that was actually necessary, it was just due to those iCoreService child processes blocking things, but if you have trouble, give that a shot.
I included removing /Library/Frameworks/iCoreClientPb.framework/, but it was not referenced in either uninstall guide I linked. I'm almost certain it's part of Trend Micro, but caveat lector.


AirDrop over Access Point BLE/WiFi Mesh Would it be possible to set up a BLE mesh so that IPhones and Macs could pair to the mesh, initiate AirDrop, and use the access points as wifi repeaters (or just run the data through the existing network), allowing airdrop to happen at longer ranges than the native antennas of the devices would allow?

Airdrop already forms a mesh and doesn’t need WiFi networks to broadcast airdrop.

Existing  Apple hardware
builds a point to point mesh and you can airdrop across the mesh far larger distance than the range of your device alone.

So you don’t need to build anything but could have a functioning mesh.

There are improvements in hardware about to ship so we can revisit this answer when iOS 13 ships and matures and the new hardware ships and embargo expires for people that have seeded devices for review.


Why does my iPhone X start reading text automatically? My iPhone X frequently starts to speak something when I’m outside. It never happens when I’m at home.

The content seems to be the text in the app, though I’m not sure what it speaks since it is not my native language. This is especially common when I use a navigation app like Baidu Map or Ofo.

I usually must stop the voice by tapping the X button, but it is not always apparent.

My questions:

Is this only on iPhone X or from iOS 11? What functionality is it?
What button triggers it? I don’t feel I push some button, though...
Is it possible to disable it?

I found that this happens when I use two fingers and swipe from the top of the screen.

The solution

Go to Settings | General | Accessibility | Speech | Read aloud on the screen

(maybe the text is slightly different as my language is set to Chinese)


Secondary click does not register even though it is checked on (MacOS Big Sur) So I just updated to macOS Big Sur from Mojave. I had zero problems with right-clicking before the update, nor did I face them immediately after updating. However, after I shut down my iMac Pro, and started it after a while, I cannot right-click. So far, I have tried:

Restarting(several times)
Shutting down my mouse and powering it up again
Deleting the mouse from  Bluetooth section of System preferences and reconnecting it with a USB.

So far, nothing has worked. I will appreciate all help!
Best regards
Edit: Re-installing the macOS Big Sur fixed the problem, but I would like to know if a more convenient method exists, should the problem repeat itself in future.

I re-installed Big Sur on my machine, by booting into the recovery mode. That seems to have solved the problem. However, if there are more convenient solutions than this, please let me know and I will select that as the accepted answer. Thanks!


MacPro1,1 upgrade to 10.6 What is possible OSX upgrade for MacPro1,1 Dual-Core Intel Xeon 2.66 GHz?

Now still using using 10.5.8 (Leopard)

According to the tech specs, you should be able to use OS X Lion (10.7) with the following specs:

Mac computer with an Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, or Xeon processor
2GB of memory
OS X v10.6.6 or later (v10.6.8 recommended)
7GB of available space

That would suggest to me that you would need to get onto 10.6 (Snow Leopard) + all updates and then could get to OSX Lion (10.7).

Mountain Lion+ Specifies an "early 2008 Mac Pro or newer", yours appears to be the iteration just before that.


Google Earth crashing when opening Is there a definitive way to stop Google Earth from crashing when it loads?
I'm on OS X 10.9.2 using Google Earth 7.1.2.2041
I've tried reinstalling, I've looked on various forums about removing Internet plugins from the Library folder - nothing seems to work.

Crash report fragment:

Process:         Google Earth [45962]
Path:            /Applications/Google Earth.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Earth
Identifier:      com.Google.GoogleEarthPlus
Version:         7.1 (7.1.2.2041)
Code Type:       X86 (Native)
Parent Process:  launchd [226]
Responsible:     Google Earth [45962]
User ID:         501

Date/Time:       2015-02-12 22:29:58.022 +0000
OS Version:      Mac OS X 10.9.2 (13C64)
Report Version:  11
Anonymous UUID:  8B4E424F-12C4-8F81-629F-2A2B48AC0FDF

Sleep/Wake UUID: 78DD0C85-CC8D-4A19-8BDC-3E9D7348E86E

Crashed Thread:  0  Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

Exception Type:  EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGBUS)
Exception Codes: KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE at 0x0000000018f7dc44

VM Regions Near 0x18f7dc44:
    __BSS                  0000000018f72000-0000000018f79000 [   28K] rw-/rwx SM=PRV  /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/NPLoaderOSX.plugin/Contents/MacOS/NPLoaderOSX
--> __RODATA               0000000018f79000-0000000019030000 [  732K] rw-/rwx SM=COW  /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/NPLoaderOSX.plugin/Contents/MacOS/NPLoaderOSX
    __RSRC                 0000000019030000-0000000019034000 [   16K] r--/rwx SM=COW  /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/NPLoaderOSX.plugin/Contents/MacOS/NPLoaderOSX

Thread 0 Crashed:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
0   ???                             0x18f7dc44 0 + 418896964
1   NPLoaderOSX                     0x18e0fb8c @DbgEvalFrame + 1648
2   NPLoaderOSX                     0x18e0fe4a @DbgEvalFrame + 2350
3   dyld                            0x8fe2745b ImageLoaderMachO::doModInitFunctions(ImageLoader::LinkContext const&) + 283
4   dyld                            0x8fe275c4 ImageLoaderMachO::doInitialization(ImageLoader::LinkContext const&) + 64
5   dyld                            0x8fe2392c ImageLoader::recursiveInitialization(ImageLoader::LinkContext const&, unsigned int, ImageLoader::InitializerTimingList&) + 294
6   dyld                            0x8fe237bc ImageLoader::runInitializers(ImageLoader::LinkContext const&, ImageLoader::InitializerTimingList&) + 62
7   dyld                            0x8fe18cff dyld::runInitializers(ImageLoader*) + 88
8   dyld                            0x8fe2025a dlopen + 566
9   libdyld.dylib                   0x91b11b75 dlopen + 70
10  com.apple.CoreFoundation        0x9210b0e9 _CFBundleDlfcnLoadFramework + 185
11  com.apple.CoreFoundation        0x9208c232 _CFBundleLoadExecutableAndReturnError + 850
12  com.apple.CoreFoundation        0x9210b321 CFBundleLoadExecutable + 33
13  QtWebKit                        0x03659c28 qWebKitVersion() + 4088
14  QtWebKit                        0x03659fcd qWebKitVersion() + 5021
15  QtWebKit                        0x03507b3b 0x2dfb000 + 7392059
16  QtWebKit                        0x0350345e 0x2dfb000 + 7373918
17  QtWebKit                        0x0350372b 0x2dfb000 + 7374635
18  QtWebKit                        0x0361df44 0x2dfb000 + 8531780
19  QtWebKit                        0x034a876a 0x2dfb000 + 7001962
20  QtWebKit                        0x0349693a 0x2dfb000 + 6928698
21  QtWebKit

Solved by looking at the log.

I removed

/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/NPLoaderOSX.plugin/Contents/MacOS/NPLoaderOSX


Can I access iCloud/device data of the hacker who logged into my account? I noticed someone else has been using my iCloud but it doesn’t show up under “my devices”

Since they are logged into my iCloud and can receive my Messages/FaceTime etc, is there anyway I can access there information since there connected to my iCloud?

The answer is no in the sense that you cannot get access to data only stored on their device, or data stored in their iCloud account.

Any data they choose to store in your own iCloud account, you can ofcourse see. I.e. if they for example add a photo to your photo library, it will show up in your Photos app.

I would advise immediately changing the password and security questions on the account, and then enable 2-factor authentication using the following guide:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204915


How can I install iPhone Simulator 4.2 on Xcode 4.2? Developer Information:

Version:  4.2 (4D199)
  Location: /Developer
  Applications:
  Xcode:    4.2 (828)
  Instruments:  4.2 (4233)
  Dashcode: 3.0.2 (336)
  SDKs:
  Mac OS X:
  10.6: (10K549)
  10.7: (11C63)
  iPhone OS:
  5.0:  (9A334)
  iPhone Simulator:
  4.3:  (8H7)
  5.0:  (9A334)

As you see, Xcode4.2 is installed and this supports iOS4.3, 5.0 simulator.
How can I test app for iOS4.2?
Should I install Xcode 3.x?

Thanks in advance.

Download xcode_3.2.6_and_ios_sdk_4.3.dmg
(note - you need a developer account to access this software. I have instead linked to an open-to-the-public Apple discussion that contains the direct download link
Mount the .dmg file
Inside the disk image there is an invisible "Packages" folder. To open it select "Go to folder..." command from Finder menu bar and digit the path "/Volumes/Xcode and iOS SDK/Packages/"
Now double-click "iPhoneSimulatorSDK4_2.pkg"
Click into the destination disk and a button "Select folder..." will be revealed
Click the above button and select your "Developer" folder
Install the package, and Restart Xcode.

This will install the Simulator 4.2 SDK (both iPad and iPhone) inside the folder  "/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/SDKs/"

Now inside XCode 4.2 you can select this simulator from the menu.

Bye.


Is it possible to download an older version of an app if you purchased a newer one on a different phone using the same Apple ID? I have an app that I want to download but it requires iOS 11.3 or higher. That app has been available since iOS 9 and older versions are compatible with 9 and 10.

Some apps which similarly require iOS 11+ that are in my purchased apps list enable me to download an older version of that app but the ones which i have not purchased don't. They just say that i require iOS 11.3 or higher.

Is it possible to sign into my apple ID on a different iPhone running iOS 11.3 or higher, download the app so that it appears in my purchased list and then sign out, go back to my iPhone and download the app in it's older version like the rest of the apps?

Yes, this is possible but it depends on the developer. The developer of the iOS app must enable the feature on Apple's App Store.

See How can I make allow users with older versions of iOS to download an older version of my app.

You may want to contact the developer to ask them directly.