How do I write a script to disconnect all network drives? I work in a windows environment with active directory. Just logging out doesn't disconnect (unbind) the network drives. I need something more forceful, and faster than shutting down and restarting. Because if my mac awakes in another network without connection to the windows shares it gives me the spinning beach ball of death.

Are these shares automounted?

You could use AppleScript, or even bash quite effectively to do this using a Log Out Hook (or running manually):

tell application "Finder"
    if ((count of disks) > 1) then
        set drives to disks
        repeat with drive in drives
            eject drive
        end repeat
    end if
end tell


Manage Finder favourites with defaults write or similar? I've been unable to find any preferences list file with the locations for the 'Favorites' list shown in the Finder sidebar. No luck from likely candidates com.apple.finder and com.apple.sidebarlists.

Is there one, such that I can edit this list with defaults?

Failing that, is there a way of managing this list via AppleScript?

Some scripts for this:

https://www.jamf.com/jamf-nation/discussions/27814/finder-settings-script
https://www.jamf.com/jamf-nation/discussions/20218/the-slftool-thread (using repo below, I think)

And there is a relevant github that can manage these preferences as well:
https://github.com/mosen/mysides

[Edit: Seems like, due to a change with sfltool in 10.3, people are using this: https://github.com/robperc/FinderSidebarEditor ]


How can I remove 'Dark Mode' from Ms Office apps without disabling it across macOS? I am running macOS Mojave and have Dark Mode set as my default appearance in Apple > System Preferences > General.

I recently updated MS Office on my Mac and the latest MS Office update (i.e. version 16.20) supports Dark Mode. However, unlike many other apps, there is no way to enable/disable this appearance within the app itself.

Since I much prefer the usual appearance of my MS Office apps, but still want to use Dark Mode within macOS, how can I achieve this outcome?

To disable Dark Mode for MS Office only, you need to run a terminal command for each of the MS Office apps in question.

For example, if you wish to disable dark mode in MS Excel, follow these steps:

Quit Excel if it’s running
Launch Terminal (usually found in the Applications/Utilities folder)
Enter (or copy and paste) the following command: defaults write com.microsoft.Excel NSRequiresAquaSystemAppearance -bool yes
Now press return
Enter (or copy and paste) the following command:  killall cfprefsd
Now press return

Now when you launch MS Excel it should appear as it it normally would without Dark Mode enabled.

NOTES:

To do this with the other MS Office apps, just change the command at Step 3 so that it’s referencing the app in question.
Each of the app names within the command must start with an uppercase letter (note the uppercase 'E' for Excel in the command at Step 3.
For PowerPoint, the app name must be spelt as follows: Powerpoint (i.e. only the first P is in uppercase, not both Ps)
To revert back to Dark Mode, follow the same steps but end the command at Step 3 with no instead of yes.


Intellipoint software on OS X Mavericks not recognizing Intellimouse I just upgraded my Snow Leopard 10.6.8 system to Mavericks, complete with the latest software updates, and I can't get Intellipoint working with my mouse (MS Intellimouse Optical USB).  Prior to the OS upgrade, I was running an older version of the Intellipoint software (sorry, not sure which version); it required running System Preferences in 32-bit mode to change settings.  After updating to Mavericks, I found that the Intellipoint features no longer worked, and checking System Preferences, I could not open the Intellipoint Prefs pane.

So I downloaded and installed the latest (8.2.0 v.305) Intellipoint software for OS X.  The preference pane works, but it doesn't see my mouse.  The Buttons tab shows a picture of a USB device being plugged into a USB port, and the Device Info button says "No Microsoft mouse devices found".

Based on a similar question I found for Mountain Lion, I have confirmed that 'MicrosoftMouseHelper' is in my startup items and is currently running.  The mouse functions, but using the standard OS X mouse settings; I prefer the way the mouse behaves when using the Intellipoint drivers and my settings within that.  Any ideas for getting the Intellipoint software to recognize the mouse?

I resolved this by uninstalling the Intellipoint Software (using the provided uninstaller) , rebooting (as requested by the uninstaller), reinstalling, and rebooting (as requested by the installer).  I suspect something went wrong in my prior in-place upgrade of the Intellipoint Software.  I did lose my Intellipoint settings, but I had made note of them prior to uninstalling.


Can an ios application access sms messages? I've read some articles that tend to say that app store downloaded apps on a non jailbroken iphone can't read sms messages, which seems to be confirmed by the fact there's no "messages access" category under settings>privacy.

However, I remember that some apps sending OTP through sms can automatically detect reception of the SMS and pull the OTP without intervention. There are also some apps that claim they can spy on a phone text messages.

So I have a doubt, and I would appreciate your input on this.

It is nearly impossible for this to occur because Apple has next level security, as well as they scan apps before they are placed on the AppStore! They specifically scan for malware and security breaches, like this one!! All iPhones are extremely secure and if an app can access your messages (which I don’t think it can) they would be breaching the Apple Privacy Policy along with some other Terms and Conditions! Highly unlikely, but good question.


How to print screenshot with "fit to page" option? When I use "Grab" to take a screen shot and then print it I have to manually adjust the "scale %" to make it fit on one page.
I'm looking for an "fit to page" option.

I'm also using the "awesome screenshot" app but it doesn't have a print feature

There is not a way to do this in Grab.  However, if you use Preview, you can do the same thing as Grab, by going to File > Take Screen Shot > (Selection).  You can then use the scale to fit page function, as shown below.  Preview has many hidden and cool features that not many people know about.  You don't really need to use Grab, when you could just use Preview, and get what you want!  Hope this helps!

(Screenshot taken with Preview)


Reply to signed E-Mail with Apple Mail I have received a signed and well encrypted E-Mail. I now want to reply to this particular sender using his public key in Apple Mail. But when I press the reply Button, the encrypt icon stays grey.

Do I have to import his public key into my key chain first?
And if yes, how does this work?

I suppose you refer to S/MIME encryption and signatures.

When you receive a signed email (you see the seal symbol below the header of the email), you should be able to simply reply to the email. On the right of the reply email, there should be a lock symbol now that should be in locked state. You can toggle the state by clicking on it.

If Mail does not allow you to toggle the symbol to the locked state, return to the received email and click on the seal symbol. The associated certificate should be displayed now with an option to import it into your keychain if hasn't already been imported. After that, try above steps once again. It may be necessary to restart Mail.


MacBook hard drive not being recognised I have a late 2011 MacBook Pro and the disk doesn't isn't being recognised.

So far I’ve tried:

using disk utility, but obviously I can’t repair a disk that doesn’t appear in the left column
running fsck - but it says that everything seems okay even though I still get the folder with the “?” whenever I try booting
holding down option on boot up, but only the internet recovery appears
running the hardware test which results in it coming back clean, so it doesn’t appear to be damaged.

How else might I troubleshoot this?

The folder icon with question mark that you're seeing appears when no bootable media is found, and in your case seems indicative of SATA cable failure or hard drive failure. Your local Apple Store can help diagnose this (they have a more thorough in-house hardware test OS that isn't publicly available), but I'd place my bets on cable failure, given your symptoms and how failure-prone they are known to be.

If it's just the cable, they can replace it for you (typically £100 for parts and labour), or you can get the part and tools for around £15 and replace it yourself if you have the time and patience. If it's the hard drive itself, you'll obviously need to replace it, and your data is likely lost — in this situation, don't attempt to recover the data yourself; you'll do more harm than good. Instead, consult a data recovery specialist if you desperately need the data and don't have a backup.

To attempt some better diagnostics at home, make a bootable Ubuntu USB and see if that detects your drive. I've had some luck in the past with that, in situations where a SATA cable has failed sufficiently that the Mac EFI and macOS (including Recovery) refuse to show it, but Linux will do its best to provide info. When in Ubuntu, open the Disks app to see if your drive is detected. If it is, check the SMART report (select the disk in the left sidebar, click the three-line icon in the upper-right, click "SMART Data & Self-Tests...") If all is reported good, the cable is almost certainly the issue.

P.S. "obviously I can’t repair a disk that doesn’t appear in [Disk Utility]" — Likewise, you cannot use fsck to check a filesystem that the OS cannot see, hence why it says everything is fine.


How to Make Gmail Remember my User ID and Passwords with Safari I work in marketing and have several Gmail accounts established exclusively for my clients advertising programs that I must access frequently. Until a few days ago, each time I opened any Gmail account the User ID (Gmail address) and password have remained saved and would populate as I entered the first character of the Gmail address I was attempting to open.

When a colleague asked me to open her Gmail account during a time when her system was down, I unintentionally clicked "never for this Web site" when Safari asked if I wanted to save her logon information and password. I realize now that I had clicked the wrong option and since that time none of the Gmail accounts are saved requiring that I enter the full address and password each time.

I've followed the instructions on the help menu but nothing has worked. I use Safari version 6.0.4 and Mac OSX version 10.7.5. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

There are three solutions I've found. The first two are the easiest and least intrusive, the third one should be tried last as it will remove all saved passwords for other websites too (but the third seems to have worked the most times for other people)

a. Safari Preferences

  Locate and delete the entry for Gmail that is set to 'Passwords
  Never Saved':

b. Remove Keychain Entry

  open Keychain Access (in Utilities), then look in the login keychain
  and find the site you tried to visit. Somewhere in the list, you'll
  see an entry like this:

www.somesite.com (Passwords not saved)

  Simply delete that item from the login keychain, restart Safari, and
  Safari will prompt you to save usernames and passwords when logging in
  to that site. The easiest way to find it in Keychain Access is to
  search for it using part of the website's URL as your search term.

c. Reset Safari

  Open Safari
  Click Safari > Reset safari
  Tick Remove saved names & passwords
  Click Reset Safari
  Quit, Repoen and load Gmail


How to install XCode on OS X 10.8.2 I've recently installed Mountain Lion 10.8.2. The installation is successful and had sound and network working out of the box. Now I wanted to install XCode for class and App Store says that I should update to 10.8.5 to install it. How can I install XCode without an update? I don't want to download large updates since my internet is highly charged.

XCode 5 requires 10.8.4 as a minimum.

If you have a Apple developer account, you could try to download an older version (XCode 4.6.3 should work in 10.7 or 10.8).

However, XCode 4.6.3 is still a hefty download (1.81 GB). It may be cheaper for you to download & install OSX 10.8.5 rather than XCode 4.6.3 - especially if you've already downloaded XCode 5...


Fix localhost cant provide a secure connection I accidently configured  a web-app to force a secure connection i.e. https, and although I have turned this off, I cannot get chrome to forget this error, so whenever I ask for the url of my local development server;

 http://localhost:3000/

Chrome instead returns

https://localhost:3000/

and gives the error

This site can’t provide a secure connection

I have tried Chrome/Clear Browsing data and this does not help.  The app uses ruby on rails and the secure connection was done by setting   config.force_ssl = true.

How do I fix this?

I always find adding a fake query string after the URL refreshes the cache for me.

e.g. http://localhost:3000/?fake=true


Preview changing lines I draw and adding text box Why does the line I draw disappear and add a text box in preview?  I must've hit some keys to create this....I only want to draw a colored line.

To draw a line in preview go to the Tools menu and select Annotate. Under the Annotate option is an option for a line. This will put a single line on your page.
You might have hit rectangle instead on line. I can't guess very well what you did wrong.


22.7GB for storing "org.mozilla.pluginContainer" even after deleting Mozilla Firefox I deleted Mozilla Firefox and I checked my file storage and saw that within my caches folder I have a folder called org.mozilla.pluginContainer which contains a fsDataCache folder which is taking 22.7GB of space.

Can I simply empty that folder as I am not sure whether that folder will have any effect on other apps within my laptop. Is it safe to remove that folder completely?

You can safely delete the contents of the fsCachedData folder.

If you're still worried, don't delete the data immediately but copy it to a different folder. You can then delete it after a few days if you haven't experienced any problems.


Disable Bluetooth or disconnect Bluetooth connections when lid is closed A case in point: I have Bluetooth headphones connected to my MacBook Pro, I close the lid and want to connect headphones to my iPhone. I can't do that because the MBP ↔ headphones connection is still persisted.

How do I configure macOS so that Bluetooth is turned off or Bluetooth connections are disconnected whenever lid is closed?

I'm using macOS Mojave 10.14.5.

I created a little menubar app which turns off bluetooth when your Mac is sleeping (it's free). Hope it helps!


Changing file metadata from CLI that will show in Finder Finder has columns you can sort files by: Name, Size, Kind, Date, Comment, etc. These are shown as headers when Finder is in "List" mode, with respective file properties shown below.

If I Cmd+I a file, and change Comments to FOO, mdls shows FOO and Finder shows FOO.
If I set Comments to BAR from Terminal, mdls shows "BAR", but Finder still shows "FOO"!

How can I change the "Comment" field from Terminal so the change propagates to Finder?

$ xattr -w com.apple.metadata:kMDItemFinderComment "BAR" test.txt
$ mdls test.txt
kMDItemFinderComment = "BAR"

Update: I noticed that when using Finder / AppleScript, Comment is set to a Binary Property List containing the value. So maybe it's possible to circumvent AppleScript and increase performance?

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<string>My comment</string>
</plist>

I tried editing the property list and feeding it back to xattr. However, xattr gives the error message Odd-length string even if the file size of hex is in fact an even number. Anyone?

xattr -p com.apple.metadata:kMDItemFinderComment a | xxd -r -p | plutil -convert xml1 -o plist -
nano plist
cat plist | plutil -convert binary1 -o - - | xxd -p -c 999 -u > hex
xattr -w -x com.apple.metadata:kMDItemFinderComment hex test.txt

mdls uses it's database to display file info, not extended attributes that are set on that file. So in order to make it work, you have to import the file to its database after changing the xattr with:

mdimport /path/to/file

In order to see the update comment in Finder, you can use AppleScript. Here's the code:

#!/bin/bash

filepath="$1"
comment="$2"

/usr/bin/osascript -e "set filepath to POSIX file \"$filepath\"" \
-e "set theFile to filepath as alias" \
-e "tell application \"Finder\" to set the comment of theFile to \"$comment\""

Better version of that script can be found on StackOverflow by user l'L'l.


Is there a way to get iBooks to display the generic cover for my PDFs? Most (all) of my PDF's I read on iBooks are actual novels or textbooks. Is there a way to force iBooks to use the generic book cover rather than the first page of the PDF document? I'm tired of trying to find a book I want to read when all I'm seeing for thumbnails are the start of the copyright information...

You could convert them all to ePub using Calibre. Add the ePubs to iTunes and they should sync with iBooks. As not all PDFs are formatted the same, some will show the generic cover while some will show the first page when converted to ePub. You can change the cover art for each book individually in iTunes, by selecting the book > Right click > Get Info > Artwork.


Stress Testing Your Mac For Optimal Performance? Stress testing maybe considered a useful way to determine if your Mac is performing at its optimal level of performance & may also be an indicator of faults of any components within your Mac.

What methods exist (ideally free if possible) to stress test to the max the following components:

CPU
Hard Disk
Ram

Thereby identifying any problem(s) that may exist & if your Mac can handle them ?

There is a built-in hardware test designed by Apple.

With the introduction of Intel-based Macs, Apple has built the AHT utility right into your Mac.

Simply hold down the D key while starting up your Mac to boot into the Apple Hardware Test.

I would not recommend using garden variety www not approved test programs. This would be the same as if you have a car with a speedometer marked 150 MPH would you actually drive it @155 MPH to find out if it holds up using non OEM tires?


Is it possible to use an 8 pin accessory on an iphone 4? A relative just bought a biofeedback accessory for an iphone 5/6 and was wondering if they could use it on one of my old iphones. She'd rather use an iphone without any data on it so people could use it without supervision, but the most recent one I have is a 4 (maybe a 4s, not sure).

I found this, but I'm worried it won't work. I know the best way is to just try it, and I probably will because it's cheap, but I'm interested in learning a bit about the differences between the two types of cables. Would a device built for the iphone 5/6 use a slightly different protocol? I see lots of adapters that allow new iphones to use old iphone accessories, but not the other way around. I assume a lot of that is just because there isn't a demand, but could there be a difference that results in only some accessories working in that direction?

You can read about the differences here

About the adapter You gave in the link, a reviewer wrote:

  If you're looking for an adapter to charge your 30 pin device* with a
  lightning cable, then you will not be disappointed. If you wishing to
  connect your 30 pin device* for sync to your computer*, then you will
  also not be disappointed for at least some 30 pin devices*.

Also many complain that the device they got does not work, so You should look for a more reliable one.

There is a post about this that the adapter stopped working after a new software version: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5780896?start=15&tstart=0

You should consider buying an USB to 30 pin or a more reliable 8 to 30 pin adapter like this (note that this only allows you to charge the phone. No data transfer)


Using bootcamp on an external drive - Can you run it on different mac computers? If I were to use a portable ssd as the bootcamp partition, would I be able to use it on different mac computers?

No, that will not work.

The windows drivers most likely will not be the same between Macs.
Windows will know you have changed computers and will not boot.

Also, have you investigated just how must effort is involved in installing Windows on an external drive? You can not use the normal Windows installer. You have to install Windows from the command line.

I suppose you could manually install all the drivers you would need for all the Macs you wish to boot from. Then you could run SysPrep to generalize before switching Macs, but this was not what Microsoft intended. Also, which Mac do you intent to be connected to when you Active the software?

Windows does have a feature called Windows to Go, that can be used between computers, but I believe you will not have access to each computers internal drives. I also believe you need special hardware which comes at a premium price.

If you are still determined to try, then please report back your results.

If you get stuck at some point, please let me know. I might know how to proceed.

This is my answer to the question Is it possible to use Boot Camp with Windows 10 from an external HDD?. Of course, there are also many other opinions on how to succeed.

Below is some information on the Boot Camp Support Software.

Some the the websites are: Download Boot Camp Support Software 5.1.5769, Boot Camp Support Software 5.1.5640, Boot Camp Support Software 5.1.5621 and Boot Camp Support Software 4.0.4033. Those are for the older Macs. For the newer Macs, you can only download the Boot Camp Support Software by using the Boot Camp Assistant application. If you have to, you can use the Windows 7,  8 or 8.1 drivers to install Windows 10.

Each Mac is assigned only one unique Boot Camp Support Software package. When installing Windows, only the required drivers are installed. No Boot Camp Support Software package is an replacement or upgrade from any previous package.

Updates for the Boot Camp Support Software is delivered by either Windows Update or by Apple Software Update. These updates will download after you have installed Windows.


Get the next date from column of dates I have a table in Numbers with a column which contains dates. From that column, I'm trying to get the next date from today from that list and display it in a cell.

Assuming today is October 12, 2019, I'm expecting the value in the cell to display 2019-10-31.

I've been trying for hours, but I couldn't figure it out. I'm looking for a solution that doesn't require me to add an additional column or anything like that, just a simple (or complex) formula to place in the cell.

Edit:
To clarify, the date values are entered manually and they are dates of an event. What I'm trying to achieve is in another table for the upcoming date of the next event.

How about this, assuming the dates are in column B of Table 1. The MATCH function returns 3, the location of 9/30, which is the date before the match. Add 1. Then use INDEX to get the value of cell 4.

INDEX(Table 1::B,MATCH(NOW(),Table 1::B)+1)


Why doesn't the iOS status-bar network activity indicator show all activity? I have noticed that the spinning network activity indicator doesn't always show up when I know it's using the network. For example, I have my iPhone SE and my iPad 2 both downloading iOS 9.3.2 right now. The icon shows on the iPad but not on the iPhone. And then when I start typing a question in Stack Exchange, the phone does show the network being used as it searches similar questions but when the search is done, the icon goes away even though the phone is still downloading over WiFi. Searching for tags, though, it does not show the indicator. What is the cause?

Bear in mind that the visibility of Network Activity Indicator is managed by the App's Developer and not the System detecting a connection.

That being said, there are numerous reasons for this behaviours you're experiencing. Perhaps the Apps were coded to react differently to different actions, or they wrongly hide the Network Activity Indicator despite the fact a connection is being made.


Are time machine directory exclusions recursive? In macOS 10.15.3, using Time Machine Preferences GUI I have excluded /usr and /System from backups.

In the terminal I get:

% tmutil isexcluded /usr/
[Excluded]    /usr

% tmutil isexcluded /usr/local/
[Included]    /System/Volumes/Data/usr/local

I was expecting /usr/local to be recursively excluded but it isn't. Why? How can I excluded things recursively?

Yes, directory exclusion are recursive. This means that if you exclude for example ~/MyDocuments/ then everything in that folder and beneath is excluded. That includes for example ~/MyDocuments/SubFolder/document.docx.

However, there are some special cases. When you have a non hard-link, the link itself is excluded, but the link is not followed to exclude the objects linked to. This means that a symbolic link or firm link, like you have in your case, is excluded from the backup - but not what it links to.

In your case /usr/local is not really a subfolder of /usr, but rather a link. This is the reason you see that /usr/local, which is really /System/Volumes/Data/usr/local, is not excluded when you exclude /usr.

Note that excluding a directory does not exclude the volumes mounted under that directory. For example sudo tmutil exclude -p /System will only exclude directories in the volume / (but not other volumes mounted to /System/Volume/ e.g. /System/Volume/Data/).

According to the man page:

  The third kind of exclusion is a volume exclusion. These track volumes
  based on file system UUID, which is persistent across volume name and
  mount path changes.

Therefore sudo tmutil exclude -v / will exclude folders and volumes (including /System/Volume/Data/).


How I can browse servers over SSH in visually? Possible Duplicate:
  How to mount SFTP/SSH in Finder on OSX Snow Leopard?

I remotely manage many servers every day. I'm currently using Nautilus in Ubuntu and it's awesome.

Before buying a Mac, I'd like to know if there's anything similar or equivalent to browse SSH servers visually over SSH for OSX.

You could connect to your remote host via sshfs over fuse. An implementation for OSX is MacFUSE. A nice fronted for macfuse is MacFusion.
A crossplatform solution for accessing ssh/sftp enabled hosts is MuCommander which provides a commander-like interface to your remote host.


Is it possible to use MacBook as a display for Mac Pro? I want to use a Mac Pro on the display of a MacBook. That's because I mainly use MacBook and now would like to use Mac Pro only when I need more power.

But since I'm a traveler for all year round, there is no choice to use iMac or MacBook Pro.

So is it possible to use the display, keyboard, and trackpad of a MacBook to use Mac Pro?

You can use some computers that have a Mini DisplayPort or Thunderbolt port as an external display.

You can view the contents of your Mac on the display of another Mac using Target Display Mode, a feature in OS X. Target Display Mode lets you use a Mac as the external display for another “primary” Mac. In some cases, you can also use Target Display Mode to play the sound from your primary Mac on the speakers of the external Mac. For example, a MacBook Pro could use a 27-inch iMac as the display and play its audio on the iMac as well.

After connecting the computers and turning on Target Display Mode, the external display Mac acts like any other external display. Apps that were open on the external display Mac remain open even though you can’t see their windows.

Display the contents of your Mac on an iMac with Thunderbolt

If you have an iMac with Thunderbolt, any other Mac with Thunderbolt can use it as a display. The iMac will play both the video and audio from the other Mac.

Connect the Thunderbolt cable to the Thunderbolt ports  on each computer.
Make sure both Mac computers are turned on and awake.
Press Command (⌘)-F2 on the keyboard of the external display Mac.
If you want the external display Mac to play audio as well as video from the primary Mac, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Sound, then click Output.

Then select the external display Mac in the list of devices.

Display the contents of your Mac on a 27-inch iMac with a Mini DisplayPort

If you have a 27-inch iMac with a Mini DisplayPort , any other Mac with a Mini DisplayPort or Thunderbolt port  can use it as a display. Make sure you have a Mini DisplayPort to Mini DisplayPort cable.

If the primary Mac has a Thunderbolt port, it can play its audio and video on the iMac. If the primary Mac has a Mini DisplayPort, the iMac may be able to play its audio. To see if it can, go to the primary Mac, choose Apple menu > About This Mac, click System Report, then select Audio in the Hardware category. A list of your computer’s audio devices appears. If HDMI Output or HDMI/DisplayPort output is listed, your computer’s Mini DisplayPort can send audio. Make sure you use a Mini DisplayPort cable that carries both audio and video.

Connect the Mini DisplayPort cable to the ports on each computer.
Make sure both computers are turned on and awake.
Press Command (⌘)-F2 on the iMac.
If you want the external display Mac to play audio as well as video from the primary Mac, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Sound, then click Output.

Then select the iMac in the list of devices.

Also you could enable Screen Sharing on the MacPro and connect to it from the MacBook

or

Check out https://symless.com/synergy


Can’t use man command on iSH I have recently downloaded iSH from TestFlight, that I have downloaded from the App Store, and I can’t use the command ‘man’, it returns me an error.

-ash: man: not found

Is there an alias or can’t we use this command at all?

The curl command doesn’t work too.

iSH doesn’t come with many binaries. You need to install ‘man’ and curl yourself.

apk add man curl

~# man
-ash: man: not found
~# apk add man
fetch http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.9/main/x86/APKINDEX.tar.gz
fetch http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.9/community/x86/APKINDEX.tar.gz
(1/2) Installing mdocml (1.14.3-r0)
(2/2) Installing man (1.14.3-r0)
Executing busybox-1.29.3-r10.trigger
OK: 168 MiB in 87 packages
~# man
usage: man [-acfhklw] [-C file] [-M path] [-m path] [-S subsection]
           [[-s] section] name ...
~#


removing results from Google searches on Safari Is there any extension or whatever that I can use to remove the results I don't want form google for safari?

I would like to be able to ban certain domains from appearing in any results on my google searches.

I will go ahead and make a global answer:

Extension for Safari
Extension for Google Chrome
Extension for Mozilla Firefox


iPhone app that shows app usage statistics? I'm looking for an app that can tell me how much time I spend on each installed iPhone app. This would be useful for identifying apps I really should delete, and also "lite" apps I really should purchase.

I know such programs existed for Palm devices. They simply looked at the clock whenever the device was turned on & off and whenever a program switch occurred (because the OS provided easy hooks for this), then just calculated running times from these timestamps.

PS: I realize that such an app must by nature be in Cydia, because non-jailbroken devices don't reveal such useful information. --> This fact can't be a reason to close this question!

Cydia's App Stat does exactly what you've requested. As far as I can tell, it exists since April 1st:

  New Tweak in Cydia, App Stat, shows you your app usage statistics, frequecy of use, use of time and recent use. Supports IPhone, IPod Touch, IPad running IOS 3.2 or later. Free on Cydia Search for it.


Stop iTunes from creating a local library on start up I'd like to store my iTunes Music Library on a USB drive connected to my time capsule to use it with my Macbook Air. The problem is, when the network drive with the library is not mounted or unreachable by the computer then iTunes creates a new local Library on start up.

Can I stop iTunes from doing that or even better notify me if the drive is not mounted? I really would like to avoid creating a local Library. Otherwise files end up on multiple location and it seems hard to consolidate this.

I've had this happen as well.

The best solution is not to let iTunes open unless the drive is connected, but I see how that isn't always possible when on the road.

I found that (in OS 10.6 and iTunes 9, at least), if you make the MUSIC Folder in your home directory (~/Music/) read-only, it will not be able to automatically create an iTunes directory in the default location, and thereby it will prompt you to find the iTunes library.

As an alternative, you can hold down the Command key when opening iTunes, which will prompt you to connect to a Library.

Alternative 2: If you make a Symbolic link to the iTunes Library in your music folder, it will attempt to mount the drive in order to find it.


Will leaving the screen of an iPad turned on 24/7 decrease its lifespan? I am coding a time attendance app to be used on an iPad in a secure mount outdoors (in a weather proof box).

I am thinking of blocking the home button, and leaving the iPad’s screen turned on at all times.

I was wondering if this will reduce the lifespan of the iPad by a significant amount.

Also, are there any other ideas on how to solve this problem?  Proximity sensor with camera would be pretty cool.  Or really just light vs dark sensing.

This is incredibly common for independant cafes and small restaurants using iPads as POS systems. I have personally had several iPads that are literally always on and they have lasted years.

I have also used cheap android tablets for the same purpose and as kitchen displays. They have their place and sometimes make sense but I’ve had to replace them often enough to say that I doubt that you would see a significant cost savings going that route.

If the outdoor weather proof box gets extremely hot you might see a difference but all the iPads I’ve used have been in fairly harsh conditions with very few problems.


New Larger Hard Drive on MacBook Pro I have a 500 GB hard drive, and I need more space - I want to go up to 1TB of space.

Is it possible to swap out hard drives and carry all my installed software, documents, images, settings, etc. over to the new hard drive?

You can make an exact copy of your internal HD via Carbon Copy Cloner (edit: former freeware, now commercial but with a fully functional 30-day Demo). I recommend that you first check your MacBook Pro Model if you can use a standard 2,5" SATA HD. Then you just have to:

Buy an external 2,5" drive case in which you install the 1 TB HD first. (Or some other way to connect an internal drive to your computer's external ports, i.e. a USB to SATA adapter.)
Then connect it, start up Carbon Copy Cloner and transfer all the files (this will be slow - about 5 hours for 200 GB).
Physically switch the internal 500 GB Drive with the external 1 TB.
Start your MacBook Pro as usual.

For disassembling your MacBook Pro you should check out several model-specific Guides you can find f.e. at iFixit.com.


Magic Trackpad / Mouse very spongy on Windows 7 with Bootcamp Update Drivers It seems to me that both, Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad respond differently on Windows.
While using them with Mac OS X feels natural, on Windows 7 with drivers extracted from Bootcamp Upgrade, it feels spongy / laggy / delayed / with latency, no matter what the mouse settings are. So I feel like I'm not in touch with the mouse pointer (cursor).

It makes me sad that I should not be able to use this excellent hardware on my Windows PC, and I would like to know if this can be fixed.

I have experienced this as well (from MS mice in O SX and Apple mice in Win7).  I have reported this issue -- I think Apple's "doesn't work well with Windows" bugs get tossed on the back burner and forgotten (until they start to cause a stink).

In the mean time, this is what I have observed:

Completely disconnecting hardware before restart helps (Unpair/disconnect/turn off everything)
Microsoft USB hardware needs to be physically disconnected during/before reboot to work well in OS X
Plan B -- Use VMware Fusion to run Windows.  How much is it really necessary to have fu only for serious hardware needs.  I do this just so that I can use my magic mouse and bluetooth keyboard without trouble.
Have a cheap MS USB wireless arc mouse handy (the top-heavy laser resembles behavior of the magic mouse)

Other thoughts:

I had this problem in Ubuntu also -- if my MS mouse was left connected during a reboot from Win to Ubuntu (and Ubuntu to Win), the mouse would act funny.  The problem was solved by disconnecting and reconnecting.


Mavericks firewall does not keep my choices I'm on Mavericks and I run a python script to have a minimalist local server.

Anytime I launch the server the firewall popup comes in and asks me "Do you want the application “python2.7” to accept incoming network connections?" I click "Allow".

I have inspected the Firewall Options from "Security and Privacy" and there is an entry "Python" that points to my virtualenv version of python that is marked as "Allow incoming connections".

So everything seems ok but this popup won't go away, it is always there anytime I launch the server.

Might be a problem linked to the different virtualenv installations of python?

It sounds like the problem is that virtualenv modifies the python binary when it copies it into the environment, invalidating the signature.

Try to follow this and see if it resolves your issue: http://blog.movieos.org/post/63545845092/stop-my-os-x-firewall-complaining-about-a-virtualenv


MacBook Pro (2018) stopped detecting external monitor My new MacBook Pro suddenly stopped recognizing external monitor (Dell U2515H) after 2 days of normal usage.

Yesterday, after I was done with my work, I closed the lid as usual and today, I opened the MacBook and the external monitor didn't get detected.

The monitor is connected via USB-C -> HDMI cable (cost about 20$).

I have already tried restarting my mac, reconnecting the monitor and detect monitors in system preferences.
I have also tried reseting SMC and NVRAM. Unfortunately none of it worked.

Detailed info:

MacBook Pro (2018) - 15", i7
Mac OS High Sierra - 10.13.6
USB-C to HDMI cable
Monitor: Dell U2515H

Any help is highly appreciated as I really need my external monitor for work.

Similar issue with Philips monitor, MacBook Pro 2017 TB, and Digitus USBC-DP dongle. My solution:

Remove the power cable from the external monitor, wait 5-10 seconds, put it back in.


Stop iPhone from ringing on my Mac in Mojave This was answered in 2015, but it's not working for me:

How do I stop my Mac from ringing when I get a phone call on my iPhone?

Following the instructions there and elsewhere, I've turned off "Calls from my iPhone" in Facetime, and "Calls on Other Devices" in Settings > Phone on my iPhone, but every time my phone rings, I also get a deafening ring on my Mac.

Open FaceTime.

Go to the Preferences menu

Disable the phone numbers that you don't want to ring through to your Mac.

Turn off "Calls from iPhone"


screensaver two monitors two images I'd like to display a different image on each of my two monitors as the screensaver. The "Classic" screensaver almost does this, but it always mirrors the same image to both monitors.

A way to display a single, larger image spanned across the two screens would also work just as well for me.

Setting your screensaver to use your iPhoto library will have it display different images on each display.

If My Photo Stream and Photo Library… are not choices listed in the Source list box, you may need to rebuild your thumbnails and/or cache in iPhoto first (start iPhoto while pressing option+cmd).


How do I synchronize keychains between computers? I have two Macs running Lion on a home network that I use regularly, and I would like to keep my keychain files synchronized between them.

I add keychain entries on both machines, so I need to be able to merge (rather than overwrite) keychain files.

Is there a way to accomplish this?

There used to be, as MobileMe did keychain syncing. Indeed, that was the only reason I was a subscriber.

Since iCloud, that feature is no longer available. I now use 1Password for my password syncing. It isn't quite as good as keychain syncing (non-browser applications can't really use it), but for most stuff it's dandy.


Can Timemachine restore the backup of an external drive to another external drive? I have two external drives attaching to my Mac, one for file storage and one for time machine. The latter one keeps the TM backups of the former one. If someday I lost the former one is it possible that I could just buy a new drive and restore the data back to the new drive easily?

Yes. Enter Time Machine, select the item to be restored, then press control and select "Restore" from the on-screen button. You'll be presented a finder window in which to select the restore destination. More at Pondini.


Change directory last opened date every time you `cd` in Terminal I use a Recent Smart folder, that depends on last opened date of the folder. It works fine when you browsing the Finder, but it doesn't register change when I use cd command in a Terminal.

Is there a way to change last opened date of the folder every time I cd to it in a terminal?

Open .bash_profile - or create it if it doesn't exist.

Add the line:

tcd () { touch "$1" && cd "$1"; }

and save the file.

Source your modified .bash_profile with source ~/.bash_profile or close all Terminal windows currently open.

Use tcd folder_name to cd to it and modify the access date.

You can refine this by adding a condition that the argument has to be a folder.


What is the best Shared Calendar implementation for machines running OS X? I would like to set up a shared calendar system for our office of 4 people. Optimally, I would like all (or as many of) the features from Exchange but built in such a way that it all ties together with our Snow Leopard/Lion machines.

What solution should we go with? I think these are our options:

Lion Server: I tried setting this up last month (after launch) and it was a disaster. It was terribly slow on our MacMini server and Wikis just stopped working suddenly, which worried me that other services (such as calendaring) would stop too.
Exchange Server: Lots of overhead and pretty much overkill, as we already have an email solution and wouldn't use the other Exchange stuff. That said, I guess you can get hosted Exchange accounts for $10/mo from RackSpace.
MobileMe: Not really shared calendar because I can't easily see a coworker's schedule.
Google calendar: No.
...?

Apple fans, help me out! What are your suggestions?

If I'm making incorrect assumptions or completely glazing over something please let me know!

For a small office, you may be able to get away with using BusyCal. It works well for sharing calendars with a small workgroup. You can turn your co-workers calendars on or off so you can see them, or not, depending on your need to de-clutter your calendar. It's worked flawlessly for us with MobileMe calendar sharing, or you can set up your own CalDAV server. Free trial, excellent support. I'm a big fan.

You said:

  MobileMe: Not really shared calendar because I can't easily see a coworker's schedule.

I think I need more info, as I have no problems viewing the shared schedules of the other people on our system.


Brew Install Rtorrent not Working I am unable to brew build rtorrent. Could someone tell me what I need to do to get this to work?

Things I have done -

brew doctor
brew update
brew upgrade --all

Error -

ld: symbol(s) not found for architecture x86_64
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
make[3]: *** [rtorrent] Error 1
make[2]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make: *** [all] Error 2
==> Formula
Path: /usr/local/Library/Formula/rtorrent.rb
==> Configuration
HOMEBREW_VERSION: 0.9.5
ORIGIN: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew
HEAD: 45bc689b2a1af15c798fa01481b38da062e47e3f
Last commit: 53 minutes ago
HOMEBREW_PREFIX: /usr/local
HOMEBREW_CELLAR: /usr/local/Cellar
CPU: 8-core 64-bit haswell
OS X: 10.10.3-x86_64
Xcode: 6.3.2
CLT: 6.3.2.0.1.1431401888
Clang: 6.1 build 602
X11: 2.7.7 => /opt/X11
System Ruby: 2.0.0-p481
Perl: /usr/bin/perl
Python: /usr/bin/python
Ruby: /usr/bin/ruby
Java: 1.8.0_40
==> ENV
HOMEBREW_CC: gcc-5
HOMEBREW_CXX: g++-5
MAKEFLAGS: -j8
CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH: /usr/local/opt/openssl:/usr/local
CMAKE_INCLUDE_PATH: /usr/include/libxml2:/System/Library/Frameworks/OpenGL.framework/Versions/Current/Headers
CMAKE_LIBRARY_PATH: /System/Library/Frameworks/OpenGL.framework/Versions/Current/Libraries
PKG_CONFIG_PATH: /usr/local/opt/openssl/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/local/opt/libtorrent/lib/pkgconfig
PKG_CONFIG_LIBDIR: /usr/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/local/Library/ENV/pkgconfig/10.10
ACLOCAL_PATH: /usr/local/share/aclocal
PATH: /usr/local/Library/ENV/4.3:/usr/local/opt/pkg-config/bin:/usr/local/opt/openssl/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/opt/gcc/bin

Logs:
     /Users/aaron/Library/Logs/Homebrew/rtorrent/01.configure
     /Users/aaron/Library/Logs/Homebrew/rtorrent/01.configure.cc
     /Users/aaron/Library/Logs/Homebrew/rtorrent/02.make
     /Users/aaron/Library/Logs/Homebrew/rtorrent/02.make.cc
     /Users/aaron/Library/Logs/Homebrew/rtorrent/config.log

I am facing the same issue. I believe it is caused by the newly added gcc v5.1.0 package.

Rolling back to gcc v4.9.2 solved the installation issue with rtorrent v0.9.4 package. You can rollback to gcc v4.9.2 two different methods based on the current state of your homebrew installation.

Method A

If you have not performed brew cleanup after brew upgrade --all then you can simply switch to older version of gcc by running brew switch gcc 4.9.2. For further information read this answer.

Method B

Unfortunately if you have a habit of running brew cleanup after brew upgrade --all (like me ;-(), follow the steps mentioned below to install gcc v4.9.2 package.

brew uninstall gcc
brew tap homebrew/versions
brew install gcc49

Final Step

Install rtorrent by running the below mentioned command in your teminal.

brew install rtorrent


is it possible to connect two external monitors with mini displayport + thunderbolt to displayport or hdmi? I've heard that thunderbolt can be used as a displayport. That make me wonder if I can use two external monitors with mini displayport and thunderbolt to displayport or hdmi.

Is it possible??

The thunderbolt port and display port are the same port.  So it's not two separate ports.

That said, due to the high bandwidth nature of thunderbolt, I suspect we will be able to daisy chain monitors in the future, as well as having thunderbolt "hubs" where multiple devices can be plugged in.

But for now, it's one port.  So only one external monitor.


How to sync home folders with Dropbox/Onedrive/Google Drive? For some reason, I'd like to sync my home folders (that is ~) with sync tools such as Dropbox/Onedrive/Google Drive.

However, making a symbolism link is not working. Then I found some apps while none of them actually works..

So what's the best practices here? Thanks :)

I sync some small local folders using Dropbox (Google Drive seems more reluctant to this sort of thing, I have no experience using OneDrive).

To do this, ln -s /path/to/file /path/to/link in Terminal works for me, no problem.

Disclaimers

This solution is Mac (possibly *nix)-specific, see here.
This is not officially supported by Dropbox.
Your home directory contains lots of config files I would be wary of sending via network connection at all.
All the services you have listed have 'free' and 'premium' versions. I won't enumerate these here, but be aware of file and upload/bandwidth restrictions which will likely cause problems with this approach.


Is it safe to put a screen protector on Macbook Pro Retina? I read a few answers/articles. But that only made the confusion worse.

Common answers were:

No, don't put screen , because:

There is very little gap between Keyboard & Display and adding a screen guard in middle would put pressure on display
Adhesive on screen guard could damage the coating on Retina display (anti-reflective coating?)

Yes, put a screen guard:

It'll prevent dust scratches (dust on keyboard causing a scratch.
It'll prevent grease/acid on keyboard sticking to display thus preventing damage to reflective coating.

BTW, 3. already happened to me. I recently got a very tiny dust scratch on my display, which is the reason why I've been thinking of putting a screen guard.

Are there experienced summaries of the risks so I can make a decision on this?

It's generally safe on Macs without an anti glare coating and generally a bad idea if you ever want to go without the cover or care if your anti glare coating gets damaged.

Your Mac will have bigger problems than grease on the screen if you put it in bags where it gets pressure that causes the screen to touch the keys. I would avoid those situations or use a thin cloth on the keys if you are worried about grease transfer, grit and surface wear and abrasion on the glass.

Optically, you can sacrifice brightness and resolution/quality with some films - even the best quality (3M brand come to mind) ones. Unless you need a privacy filter or just feel better with a screen protector, I would recommend taking other measures to counteract your various issues and leave the glass as Apple designed it.

The one benefit of a film is if the adhesive is done well, it can cover up a damaged anti glare coating and also take surface nicks, keyboard rub damage and protect the gas if you Carr your Mac closed in a backpack where it can be pressed or jostled.

Also, if you have wearing of the glass, I have seen Apple cover that under AppleCare - they chose and designed the coatings and surfaces and make tradeoffs between gaps and durability. If you expect a function like retina screen to endure normal use - that retina screen resolution is not functioning properly if the glass has become worn.

I also have seen repairs declined to be covered under warranty (you can always pay for a cosmetic repair if you wish) when it's purely a cosmetic issue - not actually interfering with the proper function of the hardware:

Anti glare should last reasonably well
If there are no signs of damage or mis-alignment, gaps in the screen could either be covered or not covered.

Without knowing how you use the computer, it's hard to generalize what's the best tradeoff for your use case. Hopefully discussing your points helps you and others decide what to do.


How to reset an iPhone safely Apologies for the noob question but I'm looking around and finding different answers (including data not getting restored). So I would like to make sure I'm following the right process.

My girlfriend's iPhone is acting slow and freezing from time to time.
Therefore, I would like to restore it to its initial state and start all over.

More info:

Her iCloud is full and not backing up anymore
She forgot her Apple ID password
Contacts, SMS, photos shall be restored after the reset
WhatsApp data also should be restored (I think this should be done from within the app)

Ideally, I would like to:

Back up all data through iTunes on PC
Perform a factory reset
Create a new Apple ID
Restore photos, contacts, SMS
Fresh install WhatsApp and restore corresponding data

Would this work as expected?

Your first step should be to head to https://iforgot.apple.com and change your Apple ID password. Since one of the methods of retrieval will be to have a link emailed to you, do this before wiping your iPhone. If you have Activation Lock enabled, you will need to provide this password anyway after wiping.

Don’t create a new Apple ID unless you specifically want a new one.

When you backup to iTunes, make sure your backup is encrypted:

This will allow your account passwords, Health, and HomeKit data to be backed up, and will encrypt your local backup with a password. Do not lose this password!

iTunes should immediately start backing up your iPhone. After that you should be safe to Erase All Contents and Settings on your iPhone, then restore your local backup via iTunes.

Do note that it is not possible (or very difficult) to selectively restore apps, settings, etc. A restore restores all your apps and settings as they were at the time of the backup. However if there was any system corruption, etc. a wipe & restore should take care of such problems.


Color profile switches with random application launch My color profile seems to be switching when I launch random application. It seems to be doing it every time I open Illustrator or VirtualBox. If I go into the color Profile setting it's on the same setting all the time.

The switch is between the normal "white" profile to a much cooler "blueish" profile. I'm on an early 2011 15" MBP with 16 gig ram and 10.8.1.

Any idea what's going on?

Yep, seeing the same thing on an early 2011 MacBook Pro as well. It seems to happen when the display switches to the GeForce GT chip from the Intel integrated graphics.

It doesn't seem to be random -- I can get it to switch the colour palette back and forth by using gfxCardStatus, which switches the graphics modes. Integrated = goes to normal palette, GeForce = blueish.

Seems like Apple has buggered up the colour profile for the GeForce chip.

Edit: For what it's worth, logging out and back in seems to help.


Is there a way to access a Mac's geolocation from terminal? Some GUI apps use OS X location services, but I want to retrieve a Mac's physical location from the command line. This could be useful for running scripts, switching settings etc. The mechanism should be CoreLocation, not a Geo IP service (data too low-res, needs online connection).

Minimum requirement is output of longitude and latitude. Nice would be a number indicating the precision. Super nice: a geocoder that provides location names.

vilmoskörte's answer appears to be a good one, but I took it upon myself to make a tool that does this for my own education. I put it on GitHub.

WhereAmI

A simple command line tool. No options, just runs and outputs Lat/Long, accuracy in meters, and a timestamp. It will need OS X Location Services to be turned on (System Preferences > Security & Privacy), and permission to gather your location (OS X will prompt you on first run).

Direct Download Link (.zip)


How can I block an app from accessing my contacts? An app that has access to the list of contacts is capable, without further notice, to upload that information to a server. (If it has internet access, that is, but most do.)

I am concerned of the breach of trust to my contacts that this entails.

For example, someone on my contacts list may have gone into some trouble to remain unlisted in any phone book, and yet their phone number could become near-public, depending on the privacy policy of the app, which I, like many, never bother to read.

I'm here not even referring to app(s) that exist with the sole and express intent of making contacts lists public.

Is there any way to be in control by choosing whether a given app has access to my contacts list, similar to how an app can have access to notifications, but I can disable its access to notifications while continuing to use the app?

To be clear, a messenger app becomes meaningless if it doesn't have access to contacts, but, for example, an app showing me the nearest grocer or coffee shop has no need to access my contacts. Please do not suggest "Just don't install an app that gratuitously asks for permission to access contacts." Doing so leaves users in the stone age. I'd like to be able to use any app, but to remain in charge.

Edit:

For comparison, here is a link to a companion question for Android.

Instructions for macOS & iOS...

For macOS
System Prefs > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Contacts
uncheck any you wish to have no access

for iOS

Settings > Privacy > Contacts


How do I make a certain keyboard command system wide? I'm using WireTap to record some documentary while I need to frequently make cue mark command (Command-Shift-T).

And the way I do is first use Command-Tab to switch to Wire Tap and hit Command-Shift-T, and then switch back to the player which is very annoying.

Is there a way to make the command system wide?

Keyboard Maestro is a very powerful and easy to use keyboard macro app. If you want a multi-step process available everywhere on your Mac you can't do much better.

By "multi-step process" I mean, to use your example, no matter what app I'm using right now, pressing a certain key combination performs these steps.

Quickly switch to the Wire Tap app.
Press CmdShiftT in the Wire Tap app.
Quickly switch back to whatever app you were previously in.

This all happens so quickly that you can barely tell any app switching occurred.

I use it to start and stop my time tracking app at the press of a keystroke, for instance, as well as ensuring that Cmd+ zooms in no matter what graphics app I'm using and Cmd- zooms out.


What options exist to restore tab completion using libedit in PSQL on OS X Lion? It would appear that Apple have managed to get it utterly wrong with libedit again. The version shipped with Lion is apparently broken, and consequently tab completion doesn't work in psql (Discussion here). psql is one of the few tools that I tend to use directly from my macbook rather than on a vm and it would be lovely if it just worked. I've tried rlwrap and although it functions it doesn't support psql tab completion. I suppose I could install a new version of psql from source and link it directly against readline but I was wondering if:

...anyone had found a workaround of some sort
...it was even vaguely credible to consider building an updated version of libedit and replacing the system version?

Install macports, and then install the postgresql83 package.

sudo port install postgresql83

The macports psql works fine. Make sure you get it first on your path, e.g.:

PATH=/opt/local/lib/postgresql83/bin:$PATH


Magic keyboard and trackpad via wired connection but internal transmitter is always on and a question I would like to use Magic keyboard and trackpad via wired connection.
But I've checked in the Apple store that those device's bluetooth transmitter is still on even when they are wired into mac.

I wonder if the bluetooth transmitter in those devices make high level of EMF when it is not connected to mac via wireless connection.. I have little knowledge about bluetooth . I watched some videos on youtube and found bluetooth devices emit quite high level of EMF when they are transmitting data with computer.

So anyone has ever checked the level of EMF on Magic Keyboard and Trackpad  emitting EMF alone?

The new Apple "Magic" peripherals (mouse, keyboard, track pad) are Bluetooth 4.2 or LE (low energy) devices which, unlike regular Bluetooth devices, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) doesn't broadcast all the time.

Basically, the device will only listen for connection requests and respond accordingly.  So, when they say it's always on, it only means it's on and listening; not broadcasting.


Unable to customise Samba in macOS Big Sur I'm trying to customise the parameters of /usr/sbin/smbd in Big Sur. Most posts advise to tweak  /etc/nsmb.conf. However it seems that modifying /etc/nsmb.conf has no effect for me.
I even tried introducing a syntax error in /etc/nsmb.conf. Stopping smbd with
launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.smbd.plist and checking that no smbd is alive. Finally restarting smbd with launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.smbd.plist. But /usr/sbin/smbd doesn't pick up any syntax error and runs normally.
I tried looking for other *smb* files in /etc and /Library and found none. Could it be that Apple doesn't allow modifying the parameters of smbd in Big Sur? Or perhaps should I look at other files?
Thanks for any suggestions!

See the comments above from @nohillside and @Marc Wilson. Samba cannot be configured in OSX as you would do in Linux. Thanks @nohillside and @Marc Wilson.


MacBook Pro 2011 rebooting on startup When booting up and logging into my MacBook Pro, I get the following error message:

localhost com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] <Emergency>: Boot task failed: fsck-safe
localhost com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] <Emergency>: Shutting down in 3 seconds.

This is an image of the error:

I am running OS X Yosemite, on a mid 2011 MacBook Pro.

Hold alt during startup, you will then be able to boot from something called "recovery partition". When that is booted, in the menu select "disk utility" and try to repair disk and/or volume.


Having problems with an AppleScript This isn't launching FaceTime when I want it to! I want it to launch an app, and you get to choose what app it launches, so if I press Google Chrome, then it launches Google Chrome, but it doesn't launch FaceTime.

set the_results to (display dialog "Please Choose User!" buttons {"Admin", "Guest", "Cancel"})
set button_returned to button returned of the_results
if button_returned is "Guest" then display dialog "Guest is not functioning!"
if button_returned is "Admin" then display dialog "Please insert password!" buttons {"Cancel", "Continue"} default button 2 default answer "" cancel button 1 with hidden answer
if the text returned of the result is "Test" then
    set the_results to (display dialog "Welcome! What would you like to do?" buttons {"Chrome", "Messages", "More"})
    set button_returned to button returned of the_results
    if button_returned is "Chrome" then tell application "Google Chrome"
        activate
    end tell
    if button_returned is "Messages" then tell application "Messages"
        activate
    end tell
    if button_returned is "More" then display dialog "Second Page" buttons {"FaceTime", "Thank You!"}
end if
if button_returned is "FaceTime" then tell application "FaceTime"
    activate
end tell

It's a similar error as in your last question:

You can either reuse button_returned and the_results (like you already did in line 6 and 7 <-> 1 and 2):

...
    if button_returned is "More" then set the_results to (display dialog "Second Page" buttons {"FaceTime", "Thank You!"})
    set button_returned to button returned of the_results
end if
if button_returned is "FaceTime" then tell application "FaceTime"
    activate
end tell

or introduce two new variables: button_returned2 and the_nextresults:

...
    if button_returned is "More" then set the_nextresults to (display dialog "Second Page" buttons {"FaceTime", "Thank You!"})
    set button_returned2 to button returned of the_nextresults
end if
if button_returned2 is "FaceTime" then tell application "FaceTime"
    activate
end tell


OS X's hidden preferences disappeared after Mavericks upgrade? In past OS X versions, I used some commands to set preferences on my Mac.

For example, I used the following command to enable selection of text in Quick Look:

defaults write com.apple.finder QLEnableTextSelection -bool TRUE;

…and the following command to create a stack on the Dock of recently-used apps:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add '{ "tile-data" = { "list-type" = 1; }; "tile-type" = "recents-tile"; }'

In my Mac that I just upgraded they are all working as before, but in other Mac, which I initialised before upgrading they don't work. Does somebody knows a way to make them work again or an alternative for them?

Both of those still work for me, but you do sometimes need to run defaults commands again after upgrading OS X. If you run the commands again, quit and reopen applications to apply the changes:

killall Dock Finder

(If you also want to enable selecting text in Quick Look windows shown from other applications than Finder, you can use defaults write -g QLEnableTextSelection -bool true instead of defaults write com.apple.finder QLEnableTextSelection -bool true.)


How to turn off Mountain Lion's screensaver's password requirement? I have the current version Mountain Lion and set the Screensaver to 30 minutes, but since I am the only person that have access to this computer, I would like to turn the password off, but there seems to be no such method?

Under System Preferences -> Security & Privacy there is an option to not require password to wake computer from sleep or screen saver.


How to make Facebook for iPhone open links in Safari? Is there a way to make Facebook for iPhone (and other iPhone apps like Google & Yelp) always open links in Safari (or YouTube, etc.) instead of in an internal web view?

The native apps like Safari & Youtube seem to usually work much better than web views. Plus, iOS 9 adds a back button that takes you back to the original app with one tap.

There's no such possibility. App developer would need to implement this in the app.

P.S. You can open links from Facebook in Safari -> click "Share" when viewing the link and choose "Open in Safari".

Image from: howtogeek.com


Font properties of text layer in PSD file -- possible to inspect without Photoshop? I want inspect (and just that, without editing this layer) which font, size, color etc. were used in a given text layer in PSD file created with Photoshop. Is this doable without Photoshop.app? Pixelmator seems to be unable to accomplish that, same with Acorn. Anything else I could try?

For rather raw data, try saving this as, e.g. psdtext.py

#!/usr/bin/python

import sys, re

input = sys.argv[1]

# This write_title function is just for vanity and easier manual searching
def write_title(num):
  filler = 97
  if num < 10:
    filler2 = filler - 25
  elif num < 100:
    filler2 = filler - 26
  else:
    filler2 = filler - 27
  print("\n" * 2)
  print("#" * filler)
  print("#" * filler)
  print("#" * 11 + " Text layer " + str(num) + " " + "#" * filler2)
  print("#" * filler)
  print("#" * filler)
  print("\n" * 2)

def psd_texts(input):
  t = x = 0
  for line in open(input, 'r'):
    if re.search("^\s+/Text\s+.*", line):
      x = 1
      t += 1
      write_title(t)
      print(line.rstrip('\n'))
    elif x == 1:
      if "warp" in line:
        x = 0
      elif ">>" not in line and "<<" not in line:
        print(line.rstrip('\n'))

if __name__ == "__main__":
  psd_texts(input)

Then make it runnable: $ chmod a+x psdtext.py

Save the output as a file*: $ ./psdtext.py my_file_with_text_layers.psd > textinfo.txt

Open in an editor: $ open textinfo.txt

For example: you can search for /Text in your editor to loop through the text content of different layers, or search for /FontSet to loop through the fonts (the first font listed is the one the layer uses, others are fallbacks)

I know the output is ugly, but hey, it contains all the info.

*) I wouldn't do just $ ./psdtext.py file.psd as it visually messes up the Terminal — try e.g. $ ./psdtext.py file.psd | less instead.


macOS Sierra: Increase mouse cursor speed beyond System Preferences maximum I previously used BetterTouchTool to override the maximum mouse cursor speed in System Preferences. However, as of macOS Sierra, this is no longer possible according to the developer (source).

I am not sure if this is due to a technical limitation on part of the application, or if it indeed is impossible to override the maximum mouse cursor speed.

Note that I am referring explicitly to the Mouse cursor speed – not the Trackpad cursor. I am looking to increase the cursor speed of my Logitech Performance Mouse MX (without the use of Logitech Control Center!).

So the question is: How can the maximum mouse cursor speed be overridden (with a permanent setting) in macOS Sierra? Perhaps it could be done by a Terminal command or editing a plist file, but the solution could entail a third-party app.

There are 2 FREE ways to accomplish getting mouse speeds over 5.0 accelleration on mac OS High Sierra:

First, is by executing the command-line:

defaults write -g com.apple.mouse.scaling  X

where X is the amount of acceleration you want in the form of a number with one decimal space after it, then logging out, and logging back in.
Therefore if you wanted to increase your speed to 8 acceleration you would type in the terminal the following command:

defaults write -g com.apple.mouse.scaling  8.0

Note: If afterwords, you adjust the mouse controls in System Preferences again, you have to once again enter the terminal command and log out to regain your accelerated mouse settings.

Second, is to use an app called mousezoom. It gets installed in preferences pane.


How can I compare file structures before and after a software install? I'm writing a new formula for Homebrew for some software I maintain and as part of my testing I'd like to ensure that files are only added to the correct places on install and that all files are removed on uninstall.

What's the best way of going about comparing file structures before and after my test installs and uninstalls?

In Terminal I can think of two choice:

ls -R.
tree directory-name/ (after you install it; i.e. brew install tree). The slash at the end preserves the display of special characters in the file the output is saved to.

In both case you redirect the output to a file before and after installation and compare the two files possibly using Apple FileMerge.app shipped with Xcode.


How to find out which application(s) created core dumps? I have a friend who has a Mac (Mojave) that recently ran out of space. I found that the space was being used by files in the /cores folder. I deleted them and used to the command sudo launchctl limit core 0 0 to turn off the creation of the files. But somehow the crash dump got turned back on and the HDD was full again. Now I'm curious as to what created the core dump.

How do a go about reading a core.xxx file when I don't know which program is crashing?

Can I identify the crashing application from the core dump?

The handling of coredumps has changed on Mojave, so you cannot use "otool -c" as you did on older macOS versions. Instead you open the Terminal and run the following command:

lldb -c /cores/core.12345

where 12345 needs to be replaced by the actual filename of your coredump file.

When lldb has started up, you'll get an (lldb) prompt, where you enter the following command:

target list

Then you should be shown which program crashed. For example like this:

(lldb) target list
Current targets:
* target #0: /usr/local/bin/emacs ( arch=x86_64-*-*, platform=host, state=stopped )

In this case the crashed program was "emacs" in the folder /usr/local/bin.


CMD+Left Arrow, CMD+Right Arrow -- Jump Word I've switched my Ctrl and Cmd key to replicate my hotkeys on Windows. I've fixed my home and end keys to behave as I'd like and now all that's left is remapping my Cmd+← and Cmd+→ to behave properly.

So far - tried a bunch of things suggested on StackOverflow and really can't get it to work. I've tried:

Possible to move the cursor word-by-word with Cmd+left/right instead of Alt+left/right? (accepted answer and KeyBindingsEditor program).
The following in my ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict (from http://heisencoder.net/2008/04/fixing-up-mac-key-bindings-for-windows.html):

{
"\UF729"   = "moveToBeginningOfLine:";                       /* Home         */
"@\UF729"  = "moveToBeginningOfDocument:";                   /* Cmd  + Home  */
"$\UF729"  = "moveToBeginningOfLineAndModifySelection:";     /* Shift + Home */
"@$\UF729" = "moveToBeginningOfDocumentAndModifySelection:"; /* Shift + Cmd  + Home */
"\UF72B"   = "moveToEndOfLine:";                             /* End          */
"@\UF72B"  = "moveToEndOfDocument:";                         /* Cmd  + End   */
"$\UF72B"  = "moveToEndOfLineAndModifySelection:";           /* Shift + End  */
"@$\UF72B" = "moveToEndOfDocumentAndModifySelection:";       /* Shift + Cmd  + End */
"\UF72C"   = "pageUp:";                                      /* PageUp       */
"\UF72D"   = "pageDown:";                                    /* PageDown     */
"$\UF728"  = "cut:";                                         /* Shift + Del  */
"$\UF727"  = "paste:";                                       /* Shift + Ins */
"@\UF727"  = "copy:";                                        /* Cmd  + Ins  */
"$\UF746"  = "paste:";                                       /* Shift + Help */
"@\UF746"  = "copy:";                                        /* Cmd  + Help (Ins) */
"@\UF702"  = "moveWordBackward:";                            /* Cmd  + LeftArrow */
"@\UF703"  = "moveWordForward:";                             /* Cmd  + RightArrow */
"@$\UF702" = "moveWordBackwardAndModifySelection:";   /* Shift + Cmd  + Leftarrow */
"@$\UF703" = "moveWordForwardAndModifySelection:";   /* Shift + Cmd  + Rightarrow */
}

Any ideas why this won't work for me?

I know that you are trying to do this via KeyBindings, but here is an alternative method using Keyboard Maestro:


Screen recording option is missing from Security&Privacy oday I was trying to test teamviewer and found out that my option to disable/enable screen recording is missing. (see picture)

I have tried to reboot and not help. googling around did not come up with any useful info either.

My OS : 10.14.6

Anyone please help?

Control of Screen Recording as a Privacy option was not available under Mojave (10.14) - this Apple KB lists available controls.

The Screen Recording control appears for Catalina (10.15).

Only Microphone permission is required for screen recorders, if they ask. Test it using QuickTime Player.


Does Apple have to provide authorisation for the iPhone NFC to be used as a transport Smart Card? My understanding is that it is possible to use the iPhone for payments on 'the underground' in London as a replacement for the Oyster card. Also that the NFC chip is used in this.

The potential exists to use this system in other Smart Card transport systems in Singapore and Sydney.

My question is: Does Apple have to provide authorization for the iPhone NFC to be used as a transport Smart Card?

Apple does not allow developers to interact with the internal NFC chip at this moment.

Currently the only extendable Apple SDK for this type of system is Wallet (formerly PassBook). If your local transport station has an option to scan barcodes you can use third party tools to add your transportation pass barcode to Wallet.


Create animated PNGs (APNG) Safari 8 supports the unofficial APNG extension to the standardized PNG format.

Most popular image editors (on any platform) do not support APNG (yet). Plugins are mostly available for Windows software only. Searching Macupdate returned nil as well.

How can I generate an APNG from a series of still PNGs (not from a video file) on OS X? (Although I understand the file structure, I’m hesitant to do it manually.)

I have only used APNG Assembler for Windows. It appears that the GUI version is only for Windows, but command line versions exist for both Linux and Mac OS X. Using the CLI version (or writing a UI wrapper for it, if you have any development experience) may be a possibility.

Alternatively, you can use an online service such as this online APNG Assembler. I cannot vouch for the effectiveness of this solution, however.


Why can't newer Mac hardware boot DBAN? I have a DBAN CD )used with an external optical drive) which I have used in the past on multiple old Macs. I tried to use it on a 2018 Macbook Pro and DBAN could not be booted. Specifically, I tried holding down the "c" key and I could hear the CD spin a lot but then the normal OS booted. I tried booting while holding down "Option" but DBAN wasn't in the list of bootable options. I tried booting into Recovery and selecting the DBAN CD as the startup disk but I can't choose it (I see the DBAN CD but when I choose it I receive a message that the startup disk can't be used because "the bless tool was unable to set the current boot disk"). Again, if I open Terminal in Recovery Mode and try to bless the CD then it fails.

I wanted to know if this was a problem unique to one Mac so I tested the same CD in an old Macbook Pro (I think 2014 or 2015) and a different 2018 Macbook Pro. The CD is bootable normally in the old one and not in that second new one I tested.

Did Apple make a firmware change in newer systems that could have this effect?

T2 chip in newer Macs needs to recognize the boot media to allow it to start from that disk. You might be able to tell the system to use the drive as a startup volume if you can log in first with sufficient privileges (Preferences --> Startup Disk). Workaround? Boot to recovery partition, open Disk Utility, and do a secure wipe of the drive, using highest stringency options. Accomplishes the same thing (7 pass U.S. Department of Defense 5220-22-M compliant wipe) without the need to run DBAN. Also leaves the machine in a recoverable state so that the next user can install from the recovery partition, which is far faster than Internet Recovery (and in some cases, DBAN wipes the recovery partition, which makes reinstalling incredibly painful depending on the machine - I spent several days repairing an old Air after our IT folks used a DBAN equivalent to wipe it - even worse, this happened AFTER I had already run a full wipe from disk utility - the DBAN wipe wasn't even needed at that point!)


Block cookies from specific domain I would like to configure Safari to block cookies from specific domains, but looking at the settings I couldn't find any option. Then I searched for extensions that could implement this feature, having no success with that either.

Is there any way to block specific cookies?

SweetP Productions Cookie was created for this purpose. Cookies can be configured individually. One can keep cookies from selected domains and remove the remainder via configurable methods such as browser quit, timer, at login, et al. Removal can be accomplished via a secure standard: US DoD 5220.22-M.

Cookie also can be configured to delete cache, history, favicons, previews, form values, downloads, and more.


How can i have numbers from 2 columns match and return a third result? I would greatly appreciate some help with this task. Is there any formula could I use in Excel to have cells in 2 columns find a match and produce a third result? The table below is the example:

The 1st column is random numbers. The second column contains the same numbers but is ordered. the 3rd row has numbers that correspond to the ordered number row. I'm trying to figure out how you can have the random number row find its match in the ordered row and return the value of the third row.

Here is what I need to happen...

Cell A1 is 1030303, the matching number is in cell C10. I need the formula to have A1 return the value of E10 and for all the other numbers to do the same according to their match

So, this is how you can use index() with match() in column B to get the result from column E, it won't replace the contents of column A unless you do something with vba.


Can my Macbook Pro's display receive inputs from other sources? Is it possible to use my Macbook Pro's display to receive inputs from other sources?

Is it possible to use my Macbook Pro's display to receive inputs from other sources?

It is generally not economically feasible to build a custom display around Apple panels.


How do I report content errors in an iBook? How do I report errors in the content of an iBook that I've purchased? The feedback and problems reporting that I've found seems focused on getting a refund, not on repairing errors in the content.

(Note that the same errors are present in the Kindle editions of the book.)

You can somehow try and contact the book publisher or you can try contacting iTunes support.

As you say the issue is persistent I would recommend getting in touch with the book publisher by email.


Are iOS in-app purchases information not shared on M1 MacBook? I installed Rosetta Stone app, which is a popular language learning iOS app, on M1 MacBook Air and tried restoring the contents, but it showed there is no items to restore.
On iPhone and iPad, I can restore the contents, but for some reasons I couldn't on MacBook Air.
I use the same Apple ID and same Rosetta Stone login account.
So I wonder if the in-app purchases are not shared between iOS and Apple Silicon MacBooks, or if it depends on each app, or others.

Each app developer decides how they validate receipts and licenses. Microsoft Office 365 designed their licenses so macOS, iOS and iPadOS all share the same one license. Apple provides shared app storage so even if the developer doesn’t want to host their own license servers and validation logic, an app developer could easily design shared licensing model via Apple App Stores.
I don’t see Rosetta Stone saying clearly in support either way which they chose, but there’s no technical reason why they don’t honor one license on all versions of the app. They could easily expect you to pay as well and Apple doesn’t really weigh in which model a developer chooses.
I would open a support ticket with Apple (since you paid them presumably for the subscription) and with Rosetta Stone (since they publish both apps) to ask how it is intended to work. Once you know their intent you can then pursue support if your license isn’t working or know they just don’t intend this to work.


How can I use a university-linked Outlook account on Mail for iPhone? My university has some sort of partnership with Microsoft so that we can use their Outlook interface to check our email. The email has the domain of our university and we login with our university login in order to access the service.

I’m able to add the account on the Outlook app for iPhone, but I would like to use it on the Mail app where I have all of my other accounts.

I’ve tried choosing the Outlook service when adding a new mail account, but it says the account doesn’t exist.

Is there any way I can do this?

EDIT: apparently the service is running on Office 365

Choose the Exchange service instead of Outlook. See Office support page Set up email using the iOS Mail app under the ‘Office 365 work or school’ tab instead of ‘Outlook.com’.


How can I block programs from opening? Is there a way I can stop programs from opening? I want to block Stacraft 2. I've tried blocking the servers using SelfControl but it didn't seem to help.

Edit: I want to disallow access to Stacraft II Battle.net. Not being able to open for a period of time and, not being able to reverse this action for that period of time. The goal is to stop the addiction of playing.

Precommit.

Precommitment is a powerful strategy to control impulsivity. The point is to take a future choice away from yourself: an alcoholic will avoid bars, a drug addict will not carry cash, a person on a diet doesn't go to the grocery store hungry.

If you're addicted to StarCraft, then get rid of the game. Throw it away. Just like an alcoholic would pour his alcohol down the drain.

You can try technological solutions like using parental controls, but if you managed to get around an application like SelfControl. Why will anything else work? There is always a way.

For instance with parental controls, when you try to open StarCraft under a parental controlled account, Mac OS X simply asks you for an administrator password, all you need to do there is slip once.

Habits, good or bad, are like well-blazed trails through the jungle of your mind. When you try and blaze a new trail, certain parts of your brain rebel. They look behind you and say, "why not just take the old path, its a helluva a lot easier." And then, you simply fall back into your old ways. It doesn't matter to that part of you brain that the trail leads to ruin. All it wants is short-term gratification. To change these habits and fight against short-term thinking, you have to exercise willpower.

But willpower alone is rarely enough. People perceive willpower as some infinite resource, only waiting to be tapped, by those who can just bare down and reap their untapped inner potential; but that is just a load of horseshit. Willpower is not infinite but a finite measurable psychological quantity.

This is why precommitment is so important. Precommitment takes away choices, so you don't have to exercise willpower to avoid them.

I know you asked for technological solution, and I know I didn't give you one, but I hope I answered your question anyways.


How do I restore iOS safari history/determine when it was cleared? I need to either: restore a deleted iOS Safari history; or,
find the date/time that the Safari history file was cleared.  Can anyone direct me to simple directions to do either/both of these tasks?

There isn't a simple way to do this since the system doesn't record an audit log of changes to safari that would allow you to easily detect the when and more importantly the what changed from moment to moment.

Theoretically, the file system would have a last modified date (that can easily be changed) to indicate the last time the file was saved - but you would either need some forensics skills to build up a history and a snapshot of the filesystem going back in time - like Time Machine might provide you.

Since Time Machine doesn't exist on iOS - your best bet is to restore the entire phone from your backups and test to see if the history is correct. This is similar to building a new house because you want a new cabinet drawer in one bathroom, but there just isn't an interface (at least built by Apple) to automate what you ask.


What iOS browsers support Firefox Sync? My Mom wants to be able to use Firefox Sync to sync her bookmarks between her laptop and her iPad. What browsers support Firefox Sync?

The best browser for this is Mercury Browser (app store link). It supports full Firefox browser syncing. There is a .99 upgrade to remove ads.


Wifi access point no longer found on my macbook pro Only since yesterday, I am unable to find an access point on my macbook pro (MBP) running Mavericks 10.9.5. Interestingly, all my other devices (Nexus 5, Ipad, Macbook Air) can see it and connect to it. All devices are in line of sight to the router. The router is broadcasting the SSID. Also the MBP connects to my other access points just fine.

I have tried the following:

Restart the router. Twice.
Turn wifi on and off on the MBP
Connect to the wifi network using 'Join Other Network'. This results in 'No network found.'
Restarted the MBP
PRAM reset on the MBP
SMC reset on the MBP
Change the wifi channel on the router
Renamed the SSID

I am really stumped and need help to figure this out. Thanks.

EDIT: The wifi access point became visible again. No changes were made to either mac or router. Neither were even rebooted. I took my mac to work and connected it to the office network. When I returned home, the rogue wifi access point was connectable.

I am closing the question by selecting the first answer since I learnt something new from it.

You can try to manually connect using the terminal (copy and paste following (one by one).

You can skip step one and two, and go to step 3, and enter your SSID and password.

Turn On

networksetup -setairportpower en0 on

Find

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/A/Resources/airport scan

Connect

networksetup -setairportnetwork en0 WIFI_SSID_I_WANT_TO_JOIN WIFI_PASSWORD

In your case it sounds like your Router is denying you the access. The settings depend on the router type.

Here is a example of mine. (not blocking anyone)

You know this but just making sure:


How can I tell if I have the 64-bit version of iTunes installed? As I understand it, the 64-bit version of iTunes is actually a 32-bit application, and so appears in the Program Files (x86) folder. Is there a way to see if the version of iTunes I've installed is the 32-bit version or the 64-bit version?

On OS X, you can open iTunes and go to iTunes -> About iTunes and it will tell you. On Windows, you can get to the same dialogue by going to ? -> Info, it won't tell you though. You can open the task manager and if there is a *32 behind the process name, it is 32 bit.

It looks like the Installer is 64 bit but the application remains 32 bit on Windows.


Gaining access to data acquired by AppleScript outside of the script I'd be interested in using the data that I acquire with an AppleScript in another Framework, or even to write it to disk (the former is preferable).  For example, I have an AppleScript where I ask QuickTime Player to open a file and play it, then I poll the file's playhead location in a loop.

Is there any way that I can ship/pipe that data off elsewhere?

Take a gander at this page. It has a few examples on how to write variables to a file.


Create a pdf with just certain pages from a pdf I have a pdf, and I would like to select some pages from that pdf and build another pdf. Is it possible? If yes, how? I am on a El Captain.

What you might want to try is this:

Duplicate the PDF you want to remove the pages from in the Finder
Open the duplicate file, show the sidebar
Select the page(s) you no longer want and press the backspace key
Once you have deleted the pages you no longer want, save the duplicated file.
If you like you can then open another PDF and drag the thumbnails from one sidebar to the sidebar of the other document, thereby adding pages from one PDF to another.

Hope that helps.


How to login to message app with different Apple IDs I have several Apple IDs, so how can I login with all of these Apple IDs to iMessage on my iMac at once?

I want to send imessage from many apple ID simultaneously. By message app, I sign in my apple ID and I can use imessage.

But, if I try another apple ID, the previous apple ID will be unavailable.

Is it possible to have multiple Apple ID active at the same time?

Sorry, it appears that you cannot be logged into multiple accounts at once. You can use more than one with iMessage, but you will have to switch between them manually every time you want to use a different Apple ID. Here are a couple of questions that may help:

Multiple Apple ID in Messages.app

How to chat with multiple Apple ID's?


I had 250 GB free on my hard drive a week ago, I have done almost nothing and now it's 80GB? I have only browsed the internet, and added a few files around 2GB. When I look in / (with hidden files) and take all the sizes together it just becomes about 730, but I have a 960GB hard drive with only 80GB free.

Why is this and how can I find out?

If you homebrew, do the following:

brew update
brew install ncdu
cd /
sudo ncdu

ncdu is an ncurses-based command line tool that makes it really easy to see what's taking up space on your drives.  It allows you to drill down from within the Terminal itself and delete stuff if you need to.

If you prefer the GUI method, the best application for this is DaisyDisk.  It is a paid application that offers a free trial.  It's available in the Mac AppStore and also from the link I posted to the official website.

There is also a free alternative, which is almost just as good called Disk Inventory X, which is available in the HackStore and from the official link I posted to its official website.

Both DaisyDisk and Disk Inventory X are like WinDirStat or TreeSize, if you have ever used either of those on Windows.


How to reset Magic Keyboard? I have the latest Magic Keyboard (the one with a switch, not a button) and a 2018 iMac.

Today after lunch, the keyboard Magically stopped doing anything. Here's what I checked:

Battery was not low, I charged it yesterday and checked the batter was full yesterday.
Keyboard worked fine before lunch.
No coffee spill.
No kids or other bad actors in the room.
Tried plugging in and unplugging the charging cable.
Tried changing the charging cable to a different port on the iMac.

Afraid to restart because then I can't type in the password.

To reset your keyboard:

  Hold down the Shift and Option keys ('Alt' on some keyboards) and at the same time click on the Bluetooth icon in the menu bar. Once the menu is showing, release the keys. From the Bluetooth menu, choose Debug > Remove All Devices. Reboot your Mac, then setup your keyboard and/or mouse as normal.

http://davemeehan.com/technology/how-to-reset-an-apple-wireless-bluetooth-keyboard-mouse-or-trackpad


How to fix Mountain Lion deadly crashes Over the last 3 months, after I bought my first Mac Mini, which came installed with mountain Lion, I've had to reinstall the OS over 10 times now.

Here's a list of steps of what happens:

I turn it on, the Mac sound comes up.
It opens up the white screen with the Apple symbol in the middle.
A little progress bar comes up, loads up around a centimeter.
Mac turns off.

And this process can be repeated over and over again if I wish, just have to turn the Mac on again.

I've tried everything every time this happens, here's a quick list:

Resetting PRAM and NVRAM.
Resetting the System Management Controller.
Safe boot.
Using Disk Utility to repart the drive. It just ends with an error and tells me to backup my data and re-install (or something like that).

I've basically tried every solution Apple offers in their KBs. Every one. Also every solution that I've found on Apple discussions.

But nobody seems to have this problem so there isn't any real solution!

Now, honestly, while it is bothersome to do re-install, I can do it no problem, the problem is that now I don't have a Bootable USB Drive Installer, so I've finally come to ask this.

Do I need to get a new hard drive? It's the only solution that I can come up with now. I also thought of installing Snow Leopard instead of Mountain Lion, but I would need a second Mac to do that (which I don't have), and a Thunderbolt cable (which I don't have).

Any help you could provide on this I would love it, it's driving me NUTS!

Extra details you might need:

I have a late 2011 Mac Mini. Using a 2 generations old iMac keyboard.

The hard drive I have is a "500.11 GB ST500 LM012 HN-M500MBB Media".

Well - if Disk Utility tells you you need to back up your files and erase the drive, that would be my first step at fixing the problem.

It's not possible to tell if you have a hardware or software problem, but once you have backed everything up (or gotten help doing that), then

Apple usually provides phone support for free within 90 days of purchase, so you might call AppleCare or visit an Apple Store for free service should one be close.

Most people can follow the two articles below to reinstall the OS:

http://www.apple.com/osx/recovery/
PH11273 - OS X Mountain Lion: Erase and reinstall OS X

Feel free to ask another question if you have a problem within these steps. You could still have a hardware error underlying the issues, but until you try a software fix, it's hard to know that your filesystem isn't just in a bad state where OS X declines to try to fix it.

Your keyboard will be fine for the reinstall, and you don't need bootable media since Internet Recovery will know that Mac shipped with Mountain Lion and offer to re-download the installer when you need it.


Shutdown NOT super-user? I'm trying to shutdown Macs after 24 hours of runtime with this script:

#!/bin/bash
BOOT_TIME=$(sysctl -n kern.boottime | sed -e 's/.* sec = \([0-9]*\).*/\1/')
CURR_TIME=$(date +%s)
MAX_UPDAYS=1 #Days

DAYS_UP=$(( ( $CURR_TIME - $BOOT_TIME) / 86400 ))
    if [ $DAYS_UP -ge ${MAX_UPDAYS} ];then
        echo Mac is going to shutdown
        shutdown -h now
    else
        echo No shutdown needed
fi

The file name is  ShutdownUPTIME.sh.
Now when I try to type in:

sudo ssh ADMIN@macxxx 'bash -s' < ./documents/ShutdownUPTIME.sh

it wants a password. I type that in and then the script runs. The only thing that pops up though is:

  shutdown: NOT super-user

The user is in the sudoers file as ALL=(ALL) ALL on both Macs.
Any ideas?

You are running ssh command locally as root and the remote bash (hence the whole script) as the user ADMIN@macxxx (without switching to root on the remote server).

You must precede either bash or shutdown with sudo (provided ADMIN has passwordless sudo permissions for shutdown or all commands on macxxx machine).

So either:

ssh ADMIN@macxxx 'sudo bash -s' < ./documents/ShutdownUPTIME.sh

Or:

...
if [ $DAYS_UP -ge ${MAX_UPDAYS} ];then
    echo Mac is going to shutdown
    sudo shutdown -h now
else
...


Can I fresh install a Beta version of macOS? Current Beta access program enables one to upgrade to macOS Mojave from a stable release, but I want to try out a fresh installation instead of upgrading with previous data, so that I can assess it better.

I've downloaded an application named "macOS Mojave Beta" from the App Store, and running it would presumably result in an upgrade. Now I wonder what to do next. Would creating a bootable installer and booting from it be a good idea, when I'm working with a Beta version?

There's some misconceptions here.  Let's clear them up....

  Current Beta access program enables one to upgrade to macOS Mojave
  from a stable release,

No, it gives you access to prerelease software that you can install on your device.  They make no mention "enablement of upgrade."  Granted, since Mojave hasn't been released, it will be a de facto "upgrade"

  Would creating a bootable installer and booting from it be a good
  idea, when I'm working with a Beta version?

A better question would be, "Why wouldn't it be a good idea?"

A beta is, again, prerelease software and it will have bugs.

  Please note that since the public beta software has not yet been
  commercially released by Apple, it may contain errors or inaccuracies
  and may not function as well as commercially released software.

When you download the software, you are presumed to have read and be aware of this.  There's nothing precluding you from attempting to install it via USB and it's encouraged.  Should you find an issue, report it to Apple.

And....

It's important to note that Mojave and all beta software in general is being made publicly with the expectation that you leave feedback about issues/problems/bugs that you discover.  Expecting the software to function without issue or as a fix for what plagues released software is an unrealistic expectation.

In other words, don't run this on a "production" machine and make lots of backups of your data.