Can't open DV video (dvsd) AVI file with QuickTime I am using macOS Catalina. I want to open an AVI file with QuickTime. However, I get an error message saying that the file is not compatible with QuickTime.

I am able to open the file with VLC. It says that the video codec is "DV video (dvsd)". Is there a codec I can install to open the file with QuickTime?

QuickTime doesn't accept 'plug-in codecs' any more, not since QuickTime 7.

There used to be a plug-in set by the name of Perian, which was the Swiss army knife for QuickTime, but it no longer works.

Your best bet would be to transcode from VLC or any of the other encoding apps available, if you specifically need it in QuickTime.

I always think of .AVI as being very much a 'Windows' structure [even if that's not strictly true], so I've avoided it on Mac for many years, or immediately transcode to something more portable.


Is uninstalling apps on iOS thorough? first of all, my as accurate as possible definition for "thorough":

No executables (binary, scripts etc.) left on the iOS device
The application itself and the provider of the application has no way of utilizing the computing power of the iOS device (browsing the homepage of the app provider in a browser doesn't count, apparently)
Configuration files need not to be cleaned, and can stay unless these configuration files somehow can be executed on the iOS device

And this is going to be a multi-faced question so a rather comprehensive answer is expected but not required, feel free to give your input.
I'm from one of the Asian countries that are notorious for censoring internet access and monitoring citizens' digital devices.
Because of work I have to install several iOS apps that is developed within my country, and it is pretty much open secret that these apps monitor user behaviors and collect privacy data. The former employees say it out loud on social media without qualms, the CTO made it plain that they cooperate with the authority and news reports every now and then reveal people (usually criminals but who knows) get caught  because the police simply pull the chat log stored on a server somewhere.
I plan to migrate all these apps to another phone, and uninstall them from my iOS device so I could chat more freely with my love interest, (so xe could send me risque pictures, there, I said it)
So here's the question, is the unintallment thorough? Will apps leave binaries, scripts and other executables on my device, even if I uninstalled the app?
My phone is genuine, from original manufacture, not rooted or jailbroken at all
I understand if it's linux core OS we are talking about I probably shouldn't worry all that much but iOS is basically a closed-source BSD system, I want to be sure.
If you think there are exploits and flaws in the iOS itself and could be exploited by apps, feel free to inform me also, much appreciated.
Edit:I wasn't talking about iOS itself, I have confidence in it (else I wouldn't buy an iPhone to begin with), I'm talking about whether APPs could find exploits to continue running/semi-running on the device. I hope I make sense.

Yes, app uninstallation on iOS is very thorough. The app is in a normal circumstance not able to leave behind executable bits and pieces to infiltrate your phone, spend resources or otherwise change the behavior of the phone.
Note that the app might leave data behind in the iCloud, in your Keychain and other places - but it is data, not executables.
The reason I write "normal circumstances" is that you're considering app made by national states for the express purpose of spying. In that case, it is possible that the app exploits some kind of vulnerability in iOS that allows it to alter your system permanently. This would have to be done without somehow alerting Apple to it in their reviews. I wouldn't consider it likely for almost any app though.


If OS X doesn't use the X Server, then what does it use? What is the window server on OS X?

It uses Quartz. But that's a bit of a marketing term in so much as there is not one single thing called Quartz, but a group of things that work together to make the system called Quartz. Specifially, Quartz encompasses the set of systems needed to do rendering (Quartz 2D), font management, graphics card interaction (Quartz Compositor), OpenGL support, 3D acceleration and what not.

The Quartz Compositor is the piece of the Quartz bundle that provides the server and window compositing and management features normally performed by the XServer and XClient pair.

An addendum to this question might be: why didn't Apple just use X11 and the X Server?

And there's a great answer to that addendum question on Slashdot from one of the primary Quartz developers:

  What Apple is providing is an Apple-original window system that is
  graphics model agnostic, as well as a vector drawing system that maps
  very well to PDF, which is a sort of PostScript without the
  non-graphical operators. This is packaged under the name 'Quartz' for
  easy reference by Marketing types.

  The window system is designed to support both buffered (like an
  offscreen PixMap) and unbuffered windows, and is graphics model
  agnostic, working equally well with QuickDraw, OpenGL, the Quartz
  drawing engine, X11, and third party solutions, and managing window
  geometry for the Classic, Carbon, and Cocoa environments. The server
  portion is a hybridization of screen arbiter and compositor models
  (and if that's all Geek to you, don't worry about it).

  The Quartz drawing engine supports drawing primitives similar to the
  graphics primitives that might be found in the DPSClient
  single-operator primitives library for X and NeXTSTEP. There are no
  math and flow control primitives, as these can be done more
  efficiently in the native compiled code. There are no DPS or PS
  wrappers, as this optimization for server-side graphics is not needed
  in the Quartz client-side graphics model.

  The operations provide imaging and path construction and filling
  operations as well as some interesting other bits that map well into
  the direction that 2D drawing is headed. (See Longhorn, or the X
  raster projects.) The drawing engine can output to rasters (like a
  window!), as well as PS and PDF streams to feed printers. The Mac OS X
  printing system takes advantage of the capabilities of Quartz to
  support all sorts of printers, and make the life of printer driver
  developers much, much easier.

  Things we'd need to add/extend in X Window software
  (protocol+server+manager+fonts+...):

  Extend font server and services to vend outlines and antialiased
  masks, support more font types, handle font subsetting.
  Extend
  drawing primitives to include PS-like path operations.
  Add
  dithering and phase controls.
  Add ColorSync support for drawing and
  imaging operations, display calibration
  Add broad alpha channel
  support and Porter-Duff compositing, both for drawing in a window and
  for interactions between windows.
  Add support for general affine
  transforms of windows
  Add support for mesh-warps of windows
  Make
  sure that OpenGL and special video playback hardware support is
  integrated, and behaves well with all above changes.
  We find that
  we typically stream 200 Mb/sec of commands and textures for
  interactive OpenGL use, so transport efficiency could be an issue.

  So, yes, it looks like we can use X for Quartz. All we need do is
  define extensions for and upgrade the font server, add dithering with
  phase controls to the X marking engine, add a transparency model to X
  imaging with Porter-Duff compositing support, make sure GLX gets in,
  upgrade the window buffering to include transparency, mesh warps, and
  really good resampling, and maybe augment the transport layer a bit.

  Ummm... There doesn't appear to be much code left from the original X
  server in the drawing path or windowing machinery, and it doesn't
  appear that apps relying on these extensions can work with any other X
  server. Just what did we gain from this?

  Oh, yeah. My mom can run an xterm session on her desktop now without
  downloading the Apple X11 package, a shareware X server or buying a
  software package.

  Been there, evaluated that.


How can you send calendar invites on iPhone 5 without using iCloud? How can you send out calendar invites in the iPhone 5 Calendar app? I have synced my phone calendar with one Gmail account and Outlook.

How can I create an entry on my phone and invite attendees without using iCloud?

If you invite someone from the Gmail calendar, it should send invites to persons via Google's Service.


MacBook Pro restores last user session after shutdown because of low battery I had only one account on my MBP. I created a new account on it for my son and he has his own password.

I was logged-in with an open session on my account.  I closed the lid and left it there, unplugged.  Eventually it shut down due to a low battery.

My son plugged it in and it restarted.  It asked for his password to login on his account but when he validated the credentials, instead of opening his a new session for him it reconnected him to the last active session; my session on my account.

I have security concerns with how this worked.  I believe macOS should've created a new session matching my son user credentials when it restarted but it didn't.

Is this normal behaviour? How can I prevent this from happening in the future?

You might not have understood it fully since your lid was closed.  So I will take you to an adventure to demonstrate what you would have seen if you left the lid open at the time.
Battery Low (~15%)
Around at 15% when running on battery power, the battery icon in the menu bar will turn red in order to notify you that your battery is starting to get low.

Battery Critically Low (~5%)
If you ignore the initial low battery warning and keep on using DC power, the MacBook will warn you about the "reserve battery power" when the battery drops to about 5%.  At this point, you should as soon as possible plug in your laptop into AC power.  Or else, the computer will take its own action soon.

Battery Empty (~0%)
When your battery reaches "empty" (around 0%), the computer is forced into sleep mode in order to prevent its memory contents from being destroyed or lost.

Your MacBook hit the "empty" battery level and had gone to sleep to prevent your data from being damaged.  If it did not sleep, then it would just crash-shutdown and all the unsaved data would be mass-lost.  When you plugged in and powered back on, it restored the previous session.

UPDATE:

My son plugged it in and it restarted. It asked for his password to login on his account but when he validated the credentials, instead of opening his a new session for him it reconnected him to the last active session; my session on my account.
Thanks but that doesn't explain why when logged in as user 1 and it goes on sleep, when you go back and plug it, then at the user login prompt you log with user 2 but it opens user 1 session. Huge security issue to me.
Yes multiple times but not with the latest updates. My question was asked in June.

Really?  That's extremely strange.  I've never seen a Macbook doing this before, and different user sessions shouldn't overlap each other.  If this is still happening, then I would like to suggest you to report this to the Apple company.  It seems like you are experiencing a huge security-related issue, so please call the Apple company about this immediately. It appears like your Mac could not tell the difference between his account and yours.  This is a massive problem, so please report this to Apple ASAP!

As more of a Windows user, I will also point out that in Microsoft Windows it functions in a similar method but what displays on the screen is slightly different. On Windows XP, for example, this is how it works:
Battery Low (~20%): At first, the battery indicator in the taskbar becomes less filled - barely filled with its blue juice.

Battery Critically Low (10%): When the battery reaches 10%, the indicator gets a red X mark and a notification is triggered, and the system urges the user to either replace the battery or connect to AC power immediately.

Battery Empty (3%): On XP, when the battery reaches 3% the computer will hibernate.

But as far as I know, neither Windows nor Mac should perform the action you are describing.


Potential virus as Excel macro, opened on iOS I have just received and email which contained an Excel file with a potential virus in form of macro. I opened the attachment on my iPhone (because it looked like an invoice I was actually expecting) but nothing happened and it looked empty. Then I downloaded it to my Mac and opened the file but I chose the options to run without macros enabled. The Excel was empty, so I closed it and deleted the file. then I was thinking that it was some kind of virus/malware.

I guess with my Mac, I am safe with just opening with macros disabled but what about my iPhone? Do macros work on iPhone? Does this pose a risk?

Macros do not run on iOS. iOS opens such files using Preview, which renders entirely differently to an actual copy of Excel. Furthermore, even if you open the file in the Excel app on iOS, macros are still unavailable.


Problem in installing Xcode on MacBook Air 2017 with macos Mojave version 10.14.5 I am trying to download Xcode from the mac app store but it fails again and again. I am using my mobile hotspot for internet. It has a daily data limit of 2.5 GB but Xcode is of 6.1 GB. Once I put Xcode on download from the app store and it processed till 2 GB and then it failed saying slow internet connection. I also tried to pause the download in between but on resuming, it restarts from the starting. I also tried to download it from Apple's website but that also didn't work. Please help with this issue.

You can try to download bittorrent version of Xcode but there's always a risk of downloading files from unknown source and you may not be able to find the latest version, as I could only find Xcode 9.

Side note: In the past, I would've recommended a tool called ADCDownload, which allows you to resume downloads from Apple Developer website. But it hasn't been updated in awhile, and likely  no longer working.


Install Git on OSX 10.8 ALL,

My project is located on GitHub which recently switched to using TLS1.2, which is incompatible with the OpenSSL version OSX 10.8 ships with.

So I tried to build Git from sources.

I downloaded the archive, unpack it and created config.mak file where I put following:

NO_GETTEXT=Yes
NO_OPENSSL=Yes

The build finished successfully, but when I tried to run it I still received:

MyMac:dbhandler igorkorot$ /Users/igorkorot/git-2.17.0/git pull
fatal: unable to access 'https://github.com/oneeyeman1/dbhandler.git/': error:1407742E:SSL routines:SSL23_GET_SERVER_HELLO:tlsv1 alert protocol version

Is there an easy way to check what version of OpenSSL will be linked if I remove the line NO_OPENSSL=YES from the config.mak file? I will try to remove that line and do make clean && make after that. I did update whatever the notification was suggesting, but don't know if OpenSSL was part of the update.

I just need the latest version of the library. Hopefully there is still one available for OSX 10.8.

The machine is old and I don't want to install anything extra (homebrew or such) unless absolutely necessary.

TIA!

I had Homebrew installed already, so these four steps were enough:

brew install openssl
brew install git
mv /usr/bin/git /usr/bin/git.old
Add [http] sslVersion = tlsv1.2 to $HOME/.gitconfig

Note that you need to install new openssl before building new git, otherwise it will link against the old system version of openssl.


How do I tell OS X to always mirror displays when I plug them in? I plug the same external HDMI monitor in every day, and each time, I have to manually switch from external to mirrored mode. It's minor, but annoying.

Is there a way to tell OS X to default to mirror mode whenever I plug in a monitor? I looked in System Preferences -> Displays, but I couldn't find such an option.

You didn't say what version of OS X you are using. Yosemite remembers your settings by default so just set it once.


How to get 3 1900x1200 monitors working on a 2010 Mac Pro I have a new Mac Pro with a single ATI 5770 card installed. It has two mini-display ports, and one DVI port

I have tried the following configurations:

All 3 DVI connections: This results in one monitor always being black
2 Mini to 2 VGA and one DVI - This results in the VGA monitors having a max resolution of 1920x1080 but defaulting to 1600x1200 due to the aspect ratio. All monitors have a 1920x1200 resolution, but only the DVI port is giving this resolution
All 3 VGA with a DVI to VGA converter on the DVI port - Same result as #2. The monitor plugged into the DVI->VGA port has full resolution. The two Mini->VGA are limited to 1920x1080

My question:

Is this even possible without Apple's dual link adapters?

According to Apple's specs listed under Tech Specs for the Mac Pro it should be able to handle 3 displays at up to 2560 by 1600 pixels over the digital connections. I think the trouble is coming from a little known about techology from AMD called Eyefinity. Which seems to require "Active" Adapters in order to run more than 2 displays at a time.
According to AMD who makes the ATI 5770 card.

What are the basic requirements for connecting multiple displays?
Connecting multiple monitors for AMD Eyefinity technology couldn’t be simpler. There are four easy rules to remember:

The first two monitors can connect to the graphics card with any display output on your product: HDMI, VGA, DVI or DisplayPort.

The third (or greater) display must be connected to the graphics card via DisplayPort.

If your monitor does not have a DisplayPort connection, you will need an inexpensive active DisplayPort adapter for it. DVI to DP adapters can be had for less than $30 USD.2

Every family of GPUs supports a different maximum number of displays.

It looks like you may have the passive  adapters for  the MiniDP to DVI adapters. and hence the trouble and why only 2 displays work when all DVI. Note that the MiniDP to VGA are active adapters.
With the 1920 X 1200 resoultion you will be fine with Single Link adapters, you just need active mini display port to DVI adapters. For some guidance on obtaining compatible adapters see AMD Eyefinity Validated Dongles
As noted in a similar question in the Apple Store:

Q:To use three monitors, does this work with the recently-available active single-link DP to DVI adapters (NOT the simple passive one that Apple [sold])?
Late last year, active single-link DVI adapters became available that function in the same way as the active dual-link adapter that Apple sells, but is intended for use with smaller, single-link monitors. These provide the same added intelligence that the dual-link adapters provide, but only support single-link resolutions. This makes them much cheaper (typically around $30) and they don't don't require the extra power of a USB port.
Can these adapters be used with this card in a mid-2010 (5,1) Mac Pro to drive the second and third monitors in a three-monitor setup?
Answer: To run 3 monitors with this card - 2 of them need to be "active" on the display port connections.
I run the card with 2 display port monitors (an HP and DELL) and 1 DVI monitor - (A 1080p projector with an hdmi/dvi passive adapter). I'm doing this in both a 2010 and 2008 mac pro.
I assume because of this, you can buy the active dual-link dvi/dp adapter and get the same results.
But I can confirm you can't do this with a passive adapter.


MacOS/Debian10 dual boot- how to delete unknown EFI partition? I have a macbook air dual booting macOS Catalina and Debian10 buster. I hold the option key at startup to choose the system I want. In the boot manager there's this efi partition (https://imgur.com/xKoQiEK) that I would like to delete, because it starts nothing but grub bash minimal (https://imgur.com/a/T5bpHAp), but I have not been able to identify this partition neither from macOS 'diskutils' nor from Debian 'fdisk'.

How could I delete this partition?

EDIT:

Command diskutil list disk0 output:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *512.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         305.9 GB   disk0s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data                         205.5 GB   disk0s3
   4:                        EFI NO NAME                 536.9 MB   disk0s4

You have two EFI partitions. Only one has the correct boot files. The other does not. You can try renaming a folder in the first EFI partition and see if this solves your problem. The commands are given below.

sudo disktuil mount disk0s1
mv /Volumes/EFI/EFI/BOOT /Volumes/EFI/EFI/NOBOOT
diskutil unmount disk0s1

If this does not solve your problem, then undo the above commands and try then other EFI partition. The commands are given below.

sudo disktuil mount disk0s1
mv /Volumes/EFI/EFI/NOBOOT /Volumes/EFI/EFI/BOOT
diskutil unmount disk0s1
sudo disktuil mount disk0s4
mv /Volumes/NO\ NAME/EFI/BOOT /Volumes/NO\ NAME/EFI/NOBOOT
diskutil unmount disk0s4

If this fixed your problem, then you should consider changing the label to something better than EFI Boot. And/or add an icon.


Temporary Folder Path for Apple Script set targetFile to (path to temporary items as string) & fileName

I am trying to download a web image to temporary folder by curl in a Apple Script.

According to the above code, the curl downloads it as correct but the targetFile is currently as:

Macintosh HD:private:var:folders:...TemporaryItems:image.png

But after download, I need the downloaded image path as a correct file path like:

/tmp/image.png

How can I set targetFile as a string that have slash containing file path? Or how can I get the file path of the image after it is downloaded by curl?

Try this code:

set targetFile to quoted form of ((POSIX path of (path to temporary items)) & filename)

That will give you a proper POSIX path to the standard temporary folder. On my machine, for instance, this gave me:

'/private/var/folders/rl/zwlvv_hd6ss4c4yhb6nxxfz80000gn/T/TemporaryItems/<somefilename>'

I've used the quoted form of command in case the filename used contains a space or other special shell character.

You could also use System Events.app, like so:

tell application "System Events"
    set targetfolder to quoted form of (get POSIX path of file filename of temporary items folder)
end tell


Load .bash_profile automatically on Terminal.app startup? I have seen various questions that ask something similar. They suggest changing .bash_profile to .profile. However this doesn't work either.
I have aliases setup up in .bash_profile. I would like these to be available automatically every time I open Terminal.app. Instead, I currently have to run the file manually each time I open Terminal.

Please advise on how this can be run automatically each time terminal starts.

The FILES section in the man page for bash says that ~/.bashrc is executed at the start of every interactive shell while ~/.bash_profile is executed for login shells only.


How to change Security Policy for a non-app program (ssh)? GateKeeper seems to have started blocking aspects of ssh... Can I edit the System Policy database (/var/db/SystemPolicy) to allow ssh to run properly?

This started happening (a few days) after I created an ~/.ssh/id_rsa file. It seems ssh hangs when trying to parse this file. It has permissions of 600, and is owned by my uid.

$ ssh -v <user>@<host>
....
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,keyboard-interactive
debug1: Next authentication method: publickey
debug1: Trying private key: ~/.ssh/id_rsa
debug1: key_parse_private_pem: PEM_read_PrivateKey failed
debug1: read PEM private key done: type <unknown>

Here, ssh hangs, and I get the following in /var/log/system.log

coreservicesd[30]: Application App:"SecurityAgent" [ 0x0/0x864363b]  @ 0x0x7fb6fb012670 tried to be brought forward, but isn't in fPermittedFrontASNs ( ( ASN:0x0-0x1001:) ), so denying.
WindowServer[120]: [cps/setfront] Failed setting the front application to SecurityAgent, psn 0x0-0x864363b, securitySessionID=0x186a4, err=-13066
com.apple.SecurityServer[15]: Engine::authorize: Rule::evaluate returned 4294907288 returning errAuthorizationInternal

If I run spctl --master-disable, then ssh works as expected, but obviously my security settings are diminished. Any idea how I can get ssh to work without disabling GateKeeper entirely?

UPDATE:-

The spctl --master-disable trick doesn't work for me any more :(
Since asking the question, I have updated to OSX 10.8.1. Not sure if that's related, but I can't think of anything else that would affect the ssh security policy.
So now, I can't commit anything to github!! :@
Help!?

UPDATE2:-

For some reason unbeknown to me, ssh and git would ask me for the id_rsa password (and then actually authenticate / connect) if I was in a fresh terminal session. I use tmux (like screen, which comes pre-installed on OSX, but I prefer tmux), in which I keep my bash sessions open for days, or weeks at a time. In an old tmux shell, I get the errors as described above, but in a fresh bash session, there are no error messages, and everything works as expected, even with spctl --master-enable..

Anyone know why this is, or how to re-authenticate a shell??

Check .ssh/id_rsa and make sure you still have these lines on top and bottom:

-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

They are crucial to the functionality of the SSH PubKeyAuth setup. Looking at the output from your debug, it appears that SSH is complaining about not knowing what type of key it is, which is defined by the first line. Likewise, after considering this, I removed the first line from my own private key, and SSH suddenly started bugging me to enter my passphrase for the key.

If this solution doesn't work, I'm afraid your only option will most likely be to re-generate your key pair.


Does iCloud Two-factor authentication send a code to the same device as a log in request? My Apple-ID (e.g., on https://appleid.apple.com/ ) is set up to require entry of a 6-digit code sent to my registered Apple products.

This code is being sent to the same device I'm currently requesting to log in. I feel this absolutely defeats the purpose of this 2-Factor Authentication: If a person knows my password, this person can receive the code on that device, and access my apple account without any problems.

Is this a bug or can I set up / change how this security step works?

This is how it works and isn't a bug.  It's two-factor authentication, not prevention.

Yes, it's being sent to that device but, as you mentioned, it's also being sent to all other devices signed-in with the same Apple ID.  This is meant to notify the user that a sign-in is being attempted.

To use your example, if you're trying to log into a Mac that means you're not currently logged-in.  In that case, the Mac will not get the code because it's only sent to devices that are logged-in with that ID.  Your Mac is not logged-in at that point.

You can prevent this in two ways:

mark the browser/device as always trusted (which makes you less secure - the log in request won’t then broadcast to all your other devices)
remove that device from your trusted list - all sign in requests will require a different device to receive your 6 digit pin (further locking down that one device - at the expense of not being able to use it as an approved for your iCloud)

If you're already logged-in to your Mac and now you want to add a new device to iCloud, your Mac will get the code because it's a device logged-in with your Apple ID and you've previously 'trusted' that Mac.  So now, the code is alerting all your devices that a login attempt is currently being made.

This Apple 2FA page can provide additional info.


How can I share a USB printer on MacOS I have a Brother DCP-7040 USB connected printer on my High Sierra system that I'd like to share on my network if possible. It is using the Brother-supplied CUPS driver, which I just updated yesterday. The driver version shows up as "4.5.2" in the printer's "General" settings.

In Printers and Scanners Preferences I have the box checked beside "Share this printer on the network". In Sharing Preferences I have the boxes checked beside "Printer Sharing" and beside the specific printer, and I have "Everyone Can Print" in the "Users" box.

I have two other Macs on my network. Neither of them can see this supposedly shared printer.

I'm pretty sure I had this working under either El Capitan or Yosemite, though at that time I had a Win10 system on the network and no other Macs.

After Printer Sharing is enabled, follow these steps to connect to that printer from other computers on your network:

Click System Preferences in the Dock.
Click the Print & Fax icon.
Click the Add button (which carries a plus sign).
You might be prompted to add a printer automatically when the Printer Setup Utility opens. Click the Add button to begin the addition.
From the Browser window that opens, click the Default button on the toolbar.
Choose the printer.
Click the shared printer you want to use and then click the Add button.


How to force reboot an iPad when the iCloud overlay is covering up the whole screen? I have an iPad 4th Gen that I could not have used for a few weeks already.  The iCloud overlay that says "you have not backed up for 35 weeks..." is covering up the whole screen, and the "OK" button is not responding at all.

If I press and hold the power button on the iPad for 5 seconds, the screen will show the "Slide and power off" widget, but the iCloud overlay is covering up the screen (transparently), and I cannot slide that power off widget at all to power off.

I think it was due to some race condition of the notifications / iCloud so that there is some error that prevents the iCloud overlay from closing and so I cannot do anything to the iPad.

It has been at least 8 weeks I can't use this iPad.  It was about 70% charged several weeks ago, and now it is down to 30%.  I set the screen to turn off automatically really quickly, so it is using power very slowly.  I was hoping to let the battery drain so that it will force itself to power down.  But there is still 30% and that means 4 more weeks or so.  I even tried to wrap the whole iPad around plastic bag first and then wrap aluminum foil around the whole thing, because in physics, it is said that the electromagnetic wave will not be able to pass through this way, and I was hoping to drain the iPad off power due to it trying hard to connect to WiFi.  But I did it for 24 hours already, and the power stayed at 30%.

One way might also be to put the iPad in the refrigerator, because I noticed that if it is an iPhone, during skiing, it became so cold that the battery dropped from 50% and to 20% and to power off in a few hours.  But I also don't want to damage the iPad if it is in really low temperature and the other reason is that it seems really stupid to power off the iPad by putting it into the fridge.

Is there a way to solve this?

you can hold down the power and home button for a couple of seconds to force reboot it!

as simple as that, don't put it in the fridge and risk condensation corrosion of the circuits!


How to propose rescheduling a meeting sent by someone else in Outlook for Mac 2011? This should be easy - but there doesn't seem to be any equivalent of 'Decline and propose a new time' or even just 'Send update' for meetings in the Mac version of Outlook.

The folks at Quora think this feature simply doesn't exist and that it's impossible. Every help page I can find that looks relevant refers only to Windows versions of Outlook. http://office.microsoft.com/ has help pages titled "Change an appointment, event, or meeting", but only for the Windows versions - for Mac, the only remotely related help page I can find is for how to "Create a meeting or appointment".

Edit - just found an Outlook for Mac 2011 page for updating meetings, but it refers to a "Send update" button in the "Meeting" tab that just doesn't exist for me. Here's all I have after editing a meeting:

Surely this can't be impossible? It seems too basic and fundamental to be a missing feature, but the only option I can find is to decline the meeting then create a whole new meeting.

There's a post on MS Answers that suggests that updates are always sent automatically with any change, but this seems to simply be wrong. I've never had updates send when I change a meeting, and whenever I do save changes to a meeting, it warns me that You have made changes to this meeting. If the organizer sends an update, your changes will be deleted.

Details if more are needed:

Outlook 2011, Lion OS
Office network with a MS Exchange network
I'm not using MS Outlook for Mac out of choice... It's a company policy I can't influence. So "outlook sux use sumthin else" won't help here.
Exact task is: there's a meeting that has been accepted, where the invite was sent by someone else. I'm trying to change the meeting time in a way that sends an update to everyone else in the meeting. I can open the meeting and change the time, but that only changes the copy stored in my personal calendar - it doesn't update the other people about the new time.
There are no permissions issues. My user account has permission to edit this meeting.

So, it looks like Outlook for Mac 2011 is incapable of proposing updates for meetings sent by other people (or, for meetings sent by Outlook for Windows users), regardless of standard permissions.

Looks like this is another missing feature alongside voting buttons and easy calendar sharing requests. In Outlook for Windows you can propose updates that the organiser can accept or reject; in Outlook for Mac there seems to be nothing like this.

This is based on the fact there are 'Send update' options seemingly only for meetings that you are the organiser of:

It looks like the only possibility is to decline the meeting, then send your own - or, if that's not an option (which will be true any time it's not appropriate to just become the new meeting organiser), you need to email the organiser (e.g. in a 'Decline' comment) and ask them to do it for you.

A bit rubbish because, if they're a Windows user, they'll think you're a fool who can't find the 'Propose new time' button, and they'll think you're wasting their time asking them to do simple tasks for you...


Can I assign a custom alert time to a calendar entry? I want to have an alert 90 minutes before a calendar event. That isn't an option in Calendar on iOS. Fantistical has more alert time options than Calendar so I imagine there's a way to set an arbitrary alert time. Is there a way to do that from the command line or a script?

If you go into the Calendar app you can setup a custom alert per entry. Here I've added an item to my Calendar and then double clicked on it to open up a dialog to customize. Under that menu is an alert section under the time/date area of the calendar entry, in that menu select customize.

Calendar entry dialog

Alert menu

Customize menu

You can setup either an email or an audible sound for your specific time

CLI access to Calendar

You could use icalBuddy which was recommended in this other AD Q&A titled: Displaying calendar events as text, in the terminal.

References

Set event alerts and receive notifications in Calendar on Mac


iCloud Keychain & Wireless I set up iCloud keychain on a Mavericks laptop and two iPhones. Passwords for Wireless networks are now synchronized among all the devices. So far so good.

What is also synchronized is the option to automatically connect to a known network. If one of the devices sees an SSID and knows the credentials it automatically connects.

This was not the behavior with without iCloud sync: even if the password was known it was possible to tell a device not to connect automatically.

There are some networks where I would like my Mac to automatically connect but where I would like my iPhones not to.

Is this possible or do I have to switch off the whole Keychain sync?

Here is a repost of my suggestion from a similar thread, expanding on nelson's response. The advantage is that you do not need to disable iCloud Keychain globally to resolve this issue:

I too was facing this problem and came up with a slightly more elegant workaround.

In the end, I deleted all of the relevant Wi-Fi networks from iCloud Keychain and used configuration profiles to install the network credentials on the desired devices instead.

I have written a step by step guide for those not familiar with creating and installing .mobileconfig files for OSX & iOS.

We're going to create a config profile for each SSID and password combination and install those selectively on our devices.

Install Apple Configurator (free) from the Mac App Store.
Launch Configurator, proceed past first run screens.
Select the Supervise tab from top toolbar of the main application window.
Under All Devices > Settings > Profiles, click the '+' icon to create a new profile.
Under the General tab, give the profile a name, I suggest the same as your first Wi-Fi SSID.
On the left select Wi-Fi, click Configure.
Enter the SSID in the SSID field. From Security Type, select Any (Personal).
Enter the Wi-Fi password into the Password field.
Click Save.
Repeat steps 4-8 for your second and any other SSIDs.
Select each of your profiles one by one and click the share icon to export the profiles.

Now that this is done, delete your SSID settings from iCloud keychain, e.g. on your Mac go to System Preferences > Network > Wi-Fi > Advanced and forget any of the SSIDs in question by selecting their names and clicking the '-' icon.

Keychain sync should forget these networks across the board, but you may need to repeat this step on your iOS devices by selecting 'Forget this network' from the SSID settings if it auto-connects undesirably. YMMV.

You are now ready to install the profiles by double clicking, or by opening from an email attachment on any iOS devices, accepting all security warnings.


Wallpaper Not Showing Behind Mission Control/App Exposé or resized Window on only one Desktop No clue why this is happening (screen recording link): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Cm82c9ApbNU1qF6bjCzITMpnQ00xlvmN/view?usp=sharing
For whatever reason, the desktop wallpaper only shows up when I use the Hot Corner (cmd + bottom right), but not in the background of Mission Control or App Exposé or even when I resize the Chrome Window. Desktop 2, however, shows the wallpaper anytime it should.
I moved all the windows onto Desktop 2, and deleted Desktop 1, and it showed the wallpaper as normally for about 30 seconds. Then Mission Control started showing an empty black square in the spot where Desktop 2 would have been.
Currently running the newest macOS.

Still not sure why it did that, but resetting the NVRAM and PRAM fixed it for me.
Here's how to do it: https://purplecomputing.com/tech-how-to/how-to-reset-nvram-or-pram/
Or to make it simple. Restart your Mac, and hold cmd + option + p + r until it asks you to log in.
EDIT: It has returned. This is now REALLY bothering me


I purchased iTunes music and no longer want the subscription. How do I cancel my subscripition? I no longer want my subscription of iTunes music - how do I cancel my subscription?

You can do this from your Account page in iTunes. Apple has a support page on this, see https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202039


Need to get legacy version of an iOS app I bought a camera that works with a companion iOS app which won't run on my iPhone 4 running iOS 7.1.2. I need to get an older version of the said app. I have searched on the Internet and couldn't find it.

The app is v380. How do I get it for iOS 7?

As mentioned in the Compatibility section on the app webpage, the app in question requires iOS 8.0 or later to run. You can only download the legacy version of an iOS app if the app developer continues to support it. And in case they do so, you should be able to download it using the App Store app on your iOS device.

If you are not getting the option to download the app when accessing it via the App Store app on your iOS device, the developer is no longer supporting the version of iOS running on your device. And there would be no way to download the app from anywhere else on the Internet.

In general app developers update their app with a major focus on supporting latest and recent version of iOS while dropping support for older versions.

If you have a serious/justifiable reason to run the app on older version of iOS, you can try contacting the developer via the Developer Website mentioned on the app webpage. (http://www.av380.cn/ in this case)


Does the VT-d feature on the i7 have measurable VM gains over the i5 on 2013 RMBP? Some days ago Apple refreshed the MacBooks pro and I'm looking for either well sourced reviews of the hardware capabilities between the models or real world experience to help me value the increased cost of the i7 (3.0 GHz) over the i5 (2.6 GHz) on the new Macbook Pro 13" with retina display (ME662LL/A which presumably will be marketed as an early 2013 model).

I've done some research on Intel's site and, by my reckoning, the CPU release dates / frequencies imply Apple is using 2 possible CPU for the new 13 inch with Retina that ships with 256 GB of storage (which like the CPU can also be upgraded for additional cost).

Can someone confirm/corroborate that the i5-3230M and i7-3540M are used so that I can rely on Intel's description of the chips or are there other factors at play with Apple hardware. It seems like the GPU of the i7 support higher frequency & the i7 has more virtualization features.

As a regular user of virtualization, does this CPU upgrade offer benefits for VM performance past the incremental change in clock speeds (Intel's VT-d feature sounds good, but I don't understand if it helps existing Mac virtualization software run better or faster)?

I realize no one can make buying decisions, but hoped to learn more about how the hardware works so we all can learn more about what goes on under the hood of this model Mac.

So there are a bunch of comments about the merit of the question which it seems you e taken the time to look at and assess. I'll jump right in to starting the discussion on upgrading.

Firstly, to be clear you're looking at a new early 2015 13" MBP (I assume you're not interested in a 15", which can support quad core processors and add a whole new layer to the discussion).

Apple's tech specs can be hard to track down, but it looks to me like you got the same processors I did. The i7 supports a turbo up to 3.1 GHz and 4 MB of cache, with the i5s boasting 2.1 and 2.7 GHz processors and 3 MB of cache. You're right in that the i7 supports VT-d, but you'll need some fairly heavy duty software to take advantage of it. The answer about VT-d is that it really depends what sort of virtualization software you're using, my guess being that unless you want to use expensive commercial software, Oracle's VirtualBox will be the first to support that (though I have no reason to expect this, or know when).

This brings us to the next level: is the i7 worth it over the i5 (will there be notable performance gains)? For you (and others with this question), probably. The increased cache, better cache coherency, and outright speed increase will be what you notice. Being that all the processors for the 13" are dual core, I was unable to find evidence that there is any significant difference between hyper threading moving up and down Intel's CPU line (unlikely, they all use the same basic core).


Reinstall OS X for older MacBook Pro I have an older MacBook Pro (Mid 2009) that cannot start and need to reinstall OS X from USB key or disc. With another MacBook I tried to download OS X El Capitan but is not available, only macOS Sierra, but my laptop is too old for macOS Sierra. How can download OS X El Capitan or older version of OS X?

You can download OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 (6.21 GB) via this link, which will open first in the Browser, then in the App Store.app.

  OS X El Capitan

  This version of OS X El Capitan is for users running OS X Snow Leopard
  who would like to upgrade to macOS Sierra. If you are running Snow
  Leopard and would like to upgrade to Sierra, you need to install El
  Capitan first. This version of El Capitan can also be installed on Mac
  computers that are not comparable with Sierra.


Move folders from 'on my mac' to gmail imap I want to start organizing my emails on the cloud, directly in my gmail account, instead of locally 'on my mac'.  Is there any way to migrate my current folders (and their e-mails) onto gmail?

If your local message show up in Mail you can just drag and drop them into the IMAP folders using the Mail sidebar I believe. Is that what you are asking about?


Do I really need one of those TAX IDS: SSN, ITIN, EIN? I am not familiar with taxes. I've just enrolled developer program and am about to start sell the app through App Store. My country is Poland, I am individual person, I do not have company.

I need to fill Certificate of Foreign Status of Beneficial Owner, and I stacked on first part of this form: Part I: Identification of Beneficial Owner.

The question is:

Do I really need one of those TAX IDS: SSN, ITIN, EIN?

The screenshot below simply describes my problem:

It's hard to know what Apple would do if you declined to offer those numbers. You could reach out to their support or just go ahead and register with the US government for an EIN if you choose to register as a foreign company or an ITIN if you wish to register as a foreign individual.

Please don't take advice over the internet for tax / legal issues, though. You'll really want to get someone that knows about the law and/or finance to help you choose and fill out these legally binding forms.


With 16-GB of memory, what is a reasonable limit to the number of open desktops? I don't know what resources are used by adding desktops, but I am certain it is a bigger deal than adding new browser tabs. I've used 8 desktops (across 2 monitors) for awhile. Adding a few more might really improve workflow.

Type of apps I'd like to always have open: Chrome / Finder / Terminal / Xcode / NetBeans / Excel / Word / Skype / MySql / iTunes

Something like having 2 word docs, 3 spreadsheets, and 3 browser instances (each using all the monitor space in their own desktops) would be very useful. Just a quick 3 finger swipe, and I'm ready to start thinking in a new context. I love it.

Maybe, OSX is robust enough, and 16-GB is so much, that I can keep opening desktops until the cows come home?

That is heavily dependent on the apps on each desktop and how you have them all configured (desktop picture, icons, etc.)

I would open up Activity monitor and start adding desktops and see where it takes you.


Why is "Add to Wishlist" option not visible in iOS 7 App Store? I've found several apps that I'd like to add to my wishlist to download later, but the option isn't visible in the menu. I thought "Add to Wishlist" was a new feature in iOS 7 for the App Store. But the only options I see are Airdrop, Message, Mail, Twitter, Facebook, and Copy Link. Is anyone else having this issue?

I do believe that you are attempting to add Free apps to your wishlist.  When you try this you do not get the open to add to your wishlist, just as you never could gift a free app.  Try again on a paid app and you should see the options Add to Wish List and Gift appear before Copy Link.


"mkdir: /Users/me/.bash_sessions: Operation not permitted" When I open Terminal, I get the following error

mkdir: /Users/me/.bash_sessions: Operation not permitted

Any idea why that may be the case?  Is there a solution?

More than likely the error message is produced by the file- /etc/bashrc_Apple_Terminal in the last line of this snippet:

# Set up the session directory/file.
SHELL_SESSION_DIR="$HOME/.bash_sessions"
SHELL_SESSION_FILE="$SHELL_SESSION_DIR/$TERM_SESSION_ID.session"
mkdir -m 700 -p "$SHELL_SESSION_DIR"

Operation not permitted would suggest some kind of a file lock. Edit your post with the following command and its output:

 ls -lOed $HOME


Is it possible to change the birthday format in calender? I’m showing the address book birthday’s in the calendar app but I hate that every thing I can see ist “xx. birthday of N…“ and not mor because the labels are to narrow. To see who’s birthday it is I need to click on the event.

Is it possible to an other fromat like <name> (<xx>. Birthday)

No, but you can turn off the iCal birthday calendar and download Dates 2 iCal 2 which allows you to sync birthdays (and anniversaries) and customize the text to your preference.


Why my imessage and facetime button turn off by itself? I already on the imessage and facetime in setting. But, why suddenly it turn off by itself? So, what should I do? Is there something wrong with my iphone?

When the registration cannot complete the software indicates that failure to you. Basically when you tap "on" the device undergoes a handshake and registration over the network to set up the cryptographic keys that Apple will then use to uniquely encrypt the data going to that device (and that device only) using your AppleID/iCloud credentials to build up the keys.

Apple has a troubleshooting article:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201422

It's always best to go through those articles slowly, and in order (especially when it says restart - you really need to restart).

I've seen the date be wrong on the iOS device, so if you like guessing on hunches, you could sign out of iCloud and then toggle the "set date/time" setting in General and be sure the clock is correct on the iPhone. Then you could try enabling iMessages.

Lots of things can mess this up including:

two factor authentication / unique passwords (in that your iCloud password isn't the same password your iMessage/FaceTime password)
OS running out of space or iPhone needing to be restored
problems at Apple's end for all iMessage users http://www.apple.com/support/systemstatus/
carrier not sending SMS validation message to your iPhone
problems with your AppleID


Use HTML as primary source for an e-book usable in Apple's iBooks? Is this possible?  Basically, someone I am working with has a bunch of HTML documents.  He would like to put them into an e-book usable in Apple's iBooks.  Is that possible?  If so, a general pointer to the appropriate documentation would be helpful.  Thanks

I have used Calibre on many occasions to convert HTML files to ePub and mobi format ebooks. It's the ePub format you need to use for iBooks.


Apple Compressor's distributed processing for Autodesk Maya Is there a way to render Autodesk Maya 2017 animation via Compressor 4.3 using 10 iMacs?

It was possible in previous versions of Compressor (version 2, version 3 and up to version 4.0.7) There were Qmaster and Qadministrator utilities. But I can't run Compressor 4.0.7 or those utilities on macOS 10.12.

A distributed processing is necessary feature for any command line VFX professional application. For instance: Nuke, Shake, Fusion, Maya, Houdini, Renderman, etc...

I am convinced, there is a workaround to use the distributed processing for CLI applications via Terminal (even if this feature is not explicitly supported in Compressor 4.3 GUI).

P.S. Distributed processing isn't supported in Compressor's GUI since 2013 (from v4.1). Compressor's versions 4.1, 4,2 and 4.3 have integrated Qmaster's core allowing to process just Final Cut Pro X and Motion batches using shared computers (as instances). Now Compressor is mainly used for transcoding.

Look at Qmaster.framework located in:

/Applications/Compressor/Contents/Plugins/Compressor/CompressorKit.bundle/Contents/Frameworks

To see a list of CLI commands, type this in Terminal:

/Applications/Compressor.app/Contents/MacOS/Compressor -help

After a thorough research I found out that it's impossible to use Apple Compressor 4.3 via command line for distributed processing.


How to set custom DNS settings? I'm trying to set my Macbook Pro to use Google's public DNS, but when I go to the DNS settings (System Preferences > Network > DNS) it will enter the new IP address but then immediately reverts it to the original.

How can I fix this?

Did you follow this steps:

Mac OS X

DNS settings are specified in the Network window.

Example: Changing DNS server settings on Mac OS 10.5

From the Apple menu, click System Preferences, then click Network.
If the lock icon in the lower left-hand corner of the window is locked, click the icon to make changes, and when prompted to authenticate, enter your password.
Select the connection for which you want to configure Google Public DNS. For example:
    To change the settings for an Ethernet connection, select Built-In Ethernet, and click Advanced.
    To change the settings for a wireless connection, select WiFi, and click Advanced.
Select the DNS tab. (take note of the existing to be able to go back)
Click + to replace any listed addresses with, or add, the Google IP addresses at the top of the list:
    For IPv4: 8.8.8.8 and/or 8.8.4.4.
    For IPv6: 2001:4860:4860::8888 and/or 2001:4860:4860::8844
Click Apply and OK.
Test that your setup is working correctly; see Testing your new settings below.
Repeat the procedure for additional network connections you want to change.

To test that the Google DNS resolver is working:

From your browser, type in a hostname (such as http://www.google.com/). If it resolves correctly, bookmark the page, and try accessing the page from the bookmark. If both of these tests work, everything is working correctly. If not, go to step 2.
From your browser, type in a fixed IP address. You can use http://18.62.0.96/ (which points to the website http://www.eecs.mit.edu/) as the URL.* If this works correctly, bookmark the page, and try accessing the page from the bookmark. If these tests work (but step 1 fails), then there is a problem with your DNS configuration; check the steps above to make sure you have configured everything correctly. If these tests do not work, go to step 3.
Roll back the DNS changes you made and run the tests again. If the tests still do not work, then there is a problem with your network settings; contact your ISP or network administrator for assistance.

Possible limitations:

Routers

Every router uses a different user interface for configuring DNS server settings; we provide only a generic procedure below. For more information, please consult your router documentation.

Note: Some ISPs hard-code their DNS servers into the equipment they provide; if you are using such a device, you will not be able to configure it to use Google Public DNS. Instead, you can configure each of the computers connected to the router, as described above.


ios8 specific alerts for specific contacts I'm currently using a blackberry 9900. I use it for work and personal. I have different ring/notification profiles setup. When at work I have it on vibrate or silent but if I receive a text or email from a specific contact then I get an audible alert. Actually this works for any profile I have active; text or email from a specific contact will always push thru. I also have certain contacts who if the call me, I will get a push thru notification but not if they text/email.

Bottom Line - does ios8 allow specific contacts the ability to push thru no matter what the active notification profile is? I need to be able to specify the specific notification ie text vs email vs phone and have different alerts.

This is a make it or break it decision for me

iOS doesn't use profiles.

The equivalent would be to set to Do Not Disturb, & set specific contacts to be allowed through.
Each contact can have a specific ringtone & text/iMessage alert tone, built-in or custom.

Other contacts can get through if you set to notify if they ring twice in quick succession, otherwise your phone just holds all incoming messages until you wish to view them; phone calls go to voicemail.


How do I install an older version of an app on an iPhone? I want to install the Trello App on my iPhone. On the phone I have iOS 7. When I try to install the App, it tells me it needs at least version 8 of iOS.

I do not want to upgrade my iOS version, especially for the sole purpose of installing an App. However, I do want to use it, it's kind of important.

I searched for a while about how to do this, but I could only find solutions that would work if you installed the App before and it shows up on the "Purchases" page in iTunes or something like that. And this doesn't apply to this case.

How can I install an older version of the App (one that requires "only" iOS 7) without having to upgrade the operating system on my iPhone ?

It sounds like the Apple Support article explains what you need to do to get the app in the version you want.

Go to the App Store on your iPhone.
Press Updates and then press Purchased.
When you get there, it should show your Apple account and it will say
My Purchases.
Press that and it will show you all of your apps
Find Trello and try to download it. If a version of the app that is compatible with your version of iOS is available on the App Store, it will let you download it to your phone.
If the version is not available, go to the iTunes App Store, find the app and click Ratings and Reviews.
There is a button there that says App Support. Click that and then put in a query to the developer. They may be able to let you directly download the version of the app that you need from them.

If all of this fails, possibly other options like Todoist have the older version of their app that you can access.

This is unfortunately not going to help you with this app, as it does not sound like you had downloaded this app prior to this question, but it will help you in the event that you accidentally upgrade an app that will then no longer work with your version of iOS.

Go to iTunes and Delete the new version of the App from your library and also from your drive.
Go to the Music>iTunes>iTunes Media>Mobile Applications folder on your drive.
In that folder will be all of the current apps plus a folder called Previous Mobile Applications.
Previous Mobile Applications stores all of the old versions of your Apps each time you do an update through iTunes.
Find the version of the App that works with your version of iOS and drag and drop it onto iTunes. iTunes will reload that version of the App into your library and move the file back into the Mobile Applications Directory.
Delete the app from your phone, then just sync your phone and the old app should be loaded in. You may need to click on the phone and apps in iTunes and have iTunes add it.

Best of luck on getting the app.


Is there an app that will show me total word count across all applications over a period of time? Does anyone know of an application or service that I can enable that will log and record a count of the total number of words that I've typed over the course of a day?

I don't want or need a full keyboard log of all words, and I certainly don't want any of that being stored. I just want to know how many words and characters I've typed over the course of the day, irrespective of application.

Mac Word Counter should help you.

From the above-linked splash page:

  The Word Counter …

  gives immediate feedback on your productivity as a writer.

  encourages you by showing you your daily output.

  gives you clarity about your daily goals.

  keeps a complete history of your daily achievements.

  assists with finding your perfect writing environment.

  counts what counts: words – the ultimate metric for writing.


What is the fastest, smallest, easiest way to use bitTorrent on an iPad 2? Safari won't let me download utorrent, which I use and love on my MacBook pro. Any similar programs that work on an iPad without jail breaking the device?

If you have a Mac, the simplest solution might be to install Transmission on your Mac, use its web interface (which looks great on iOS), and let the torrents download on your Mac.

From iOS, you can control almost everything, and add torrents by pasting in URLs, since Mobile Safari doesn't let you do file uploads. It's not exactly what you asked for, but if you don't absolutely need the download to be happening on your iPad, this is much simpler.

If you really need the files to end up on your iPad though, you could try something like this.


Besides iCloud or a sync cable, how can i back up my files? I've got an iPhone 5 running iOS8. It can't use a sync cable, because it came broken when I bought it used in January 2015 (no returns accepted, and no resale value if it's broken, so I just kept it, but barely use it, would prefer to stop using it altogether, and only haven't yet because there are files still stuck on it).

I just spent like two hours trying to upload my photos to Google Drive and Onedrive, and I only just figured out how, because the apps I was using seem to be designed to give the user a hard time with uploading (Drive app doesn't seem to have an Upload option, Photos forces me to select files one by one instead of hitting Select All, Photos forces me to only upload ten files to Drive at a time, drive.google.com doesn't work on my iPhone when I try it, etc).

I've figured out how to back up photos (using the Onedrive app works well enough), but I still don't know how to back up my files from the Notes app, the videos from an app called Download,and the audio files from Smart Recorder and Voice Memos. These apps don't have a "share" option built in, and I don't have or know of any app that can access those apps' files (I tried Onedrive, and it only lets me to choose files from Photos).

Is there any way I haven't thought of to transfer these files to another device? I'd prefer not to resort to copying my Notes into emails, recording the playback of my audio files with another device and filming the screen of my iPhone as it plays my video files, because doing all those things would take forever.

If you plan on getting another iPhone

iCloud backs up everything on your iPhone—every game's data, every app's data, your health data, your messages, your phone logs, your settings, your Homekit data, your photos and videos, everything. If you get a new iPhone, when setting it up, you can choose to set it up from a backup, and that new phone will have all of the data your current phone has. The sync is as complete as backing it up to a Mac. Also—try the Google Photos (not Google Drive) app for awesome photo backups.

If you need any help backing your phone up with iCloud or iTunes, check out Apple's support article.

Note: you can very easily get a new sync cable for your iPhone from Amazon. Here's a reliable one, and it's just $6.

If you plan on switching to Android or you're not sure what your next phone will be

Save your photos with Google Photos: download the app for iOS and it's really easy to back up all of your photos, and since Google Photos comes preinstalled on many Android phones (and is available from the Play Store on all others), your photos will be right there waiting for you.

Save contacts by going to iCloud.com and exporting them all as a VCard, then importing this into your Gmail contacts; see a guide here: https://support.apple.com/kb/PH3606?locale=en_US.

Notes synced to your Gmail account are just waiting out there in your google account, but notes synced to your iCloud account must be manually exported with Copy and Paste. Here's Apple's official guide on exporting your iCloud notes:

  To copy notes, open the Notes app at iCloud.com. Copy the text of each
  note and paste it into a document on your computer, such as a Pages or
  TextEdit document. Save the document to your computer. To export your
  notes as PDF, open the Notes app in OS X Mountain Lion or later.
  Select the note, then click File > Export as PDF and choose a
  location.

Emails are self-explanatory, just hook up the Gmail app on your next phone.

Calendars are pretty self-explanatory too, they should all be tied to accounts in the cloud you can sign in to on an Android phone.

Your phone number is hooked up to your Sim card, but be sure to deactivate iMessage if you switch to Android or you won't get some text messages! Here's a guide on that: http://www.imore.com/how-to-disable-deactivate-imessage-iphone-ipad

Anything else on your phone can likely be exported in its own way, and more than you may realize is tied to the cloud.


Enable alarm in Shortcuts I'd like to create a bedtime shortcut, which activates my alarms and activate Do Not Disturb on my iPhone.

When I choose the clock app inside the Shortcut creator, I only have the option create alarm, which creates a new alarm every time I run the shortcut.

I want to activate an existing alarm and not create an copy of an existing one.

When Shortcuts first came out, I immediately created a Sleepytimes script. Among other things, it enabled Do Not Disturb. After some days of use, I realised that you could also add controls over Bedtime.

The two steps you are looking to do go like this.

Add the object Set Do Not Disturb. Set it to ON and the Until to your liking.
Add the object Edit Bedtime (search for it - if you cannot find it, just launch Clock -> Bedtime a couple of times - hopefully there will be an easier way to get this to show in the future).

Hope this helps! Also, I think I can just share a shortcut with Edit Bedtime in it. Let me know if you are able to access Edit Bedtime by opening this iCloud link - after that you could try and tap on the object and select "Set favorite". Would be interesting to see if this lets it show for you from now on in the searches or in the Favorite -tab?

https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/54661787f1584383bf2c369507222382


Setting nano as default editor not working for crontab with fish shell I want to set nano as default editor for crontab on my Mac.
This works:
VISUAL=nano crontab -e

but this don't work
set -U VISUAL nano
crontab -e

here still vim is used as default editor
ECHO $VISUAL

shows
nano

as value.
Any ideas where is my mistake?

set -U VISUAL nano only sets the variable within Fish. If you want to make it visible also in binaries started by the shell you need to export it, e.g. by using set -Ux VISUAL nano.
For more details

Variable Scope
Exporting Variables


Itunes App Store Release Date Missing I use the Windows OS and iTunes 11.1 and recently I noticed that the last few version of the Itune App Store they had made changes to the viewing of app in both iphone & ipad. The old version can view app according to their release date ( date shown ) but now under the release date for the app ( date shown is remove ). I had problem viewing the lastest app since last view under the respective category.

Is there a way to show the release date of the app in the current app store?

The way I understand the question, I offer two answer paths:

If you are looking for an application version update date (sometimes also called a "release date" by technical professionals) within the App Store: While viewing an individual app, have the "Details" button selected, then scroll down to the bottom where you can select what is called "Version History" to see consecutive application versions of the particular app, version number with a version update date if that information has been posted.
Another discussion about App Store Missing Application Review Dates is taking place in this Apple Support Communities thread.


What is the best way to discover good iPhone apps? So I can browse the App store myself, and read ratings and reviews, but with the 100,000+ iPhone apps out there, are there better ways to do this?

Word of mouth? App review sites? Cool app-of-the-day? Any worthwhile "App-finder" apps?

Its hard to tell the difference between objective app-review/rating sites and the millions of other ad-filled spamsites out there.

So how do you find out about worthwhile apps?

(Edited to make community wiki)

"app.itize.us is a painstakingly curated presentation of the best produced and designed iPhone and iPad applications available for download via the App Store."

App Shopper is a wonderfully designed app cataloging/tracking site - check their TOP apps section.


How do I move pictures,music,contacts etc from 5c to a 6s I currently have a 5c which last night I backed up with iCloud in its settings. Today I'm getting a 6s and I want to transfer contacts, photos , iTunes music etc to. Should I take out my current sim and put it in my new phone or can I just log into my iCloud on the new phone and everything will be there? What is the easiest way?

Assuming you have a paid iCloud subscription that allowed you enough storage space to backup everything, yes, you can just login to your iCloud on the 6s and restore the backup. If you do not have a paid iCloud account, chances are you don't have enough space (free plan is 5GB) and you will need to do a local backup to a computer using iTunes, then restore also using iTunes.

Contacts are not typically stored on the SIM anymore. It's more so just for cell provider activation and service.


Remote app doesn't work After I key in the code for pairing the remote app on iTunes, the app just shows "Looking for ..." for a long while, then says "could not find".

After that, the library seems to appear on the library screen of the remote app, but it doesn't have a name! There's an icon with no label below...

Pretty odd. Googling shows that many others are having similar issues, but no one seems to have a solution.

I've also tried to use "home sharing" to use the app, also doesn't work.

Any suggestions on how to solve this?

I got the same issue with iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite still.

I fixed this by simply changing the computer name of my mac running iTunes!

Go on your Mac to System Preferences -> Sharing and change the computer name.

Now the iTunes Library appears properly with Home Sharing and also by the 4 digit code.

Very strange, though.


Recover playlists from iTunes iOS device backup iPod associated with an install of iTunes on a Windows PC; the Windows PC died, and the iTunes library was lost.  Most of the library has been recovered to a new install of iTunes on a new Windows PC by following the directions in this answer, but the process removed all playlists from the iPod.

I'm assuming the playlists were included in the backup made in the first step of those directions, but I can't find any tool for extracting them.  I can find plenty of programs that can copy playlists from an iPod (might have been useful at the beginning, but not now), and plenty of programs that can extract anything but a playlist from an iTunes device backup, but I have not been able to find a program that can recover playlists from an iTunes device backup.

How can I recover the playlists from an iTunes backup of an iOS device on Windows?

I'm fairly sure that the playlists are considered data synced from iTunes, and therefore aren't included in a backup.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204136

I just took a look through a few backups just to make sure, and I didn't see the playlist data anywhere.


Splicing lighnting connector in place of 30pin to achieve video I currently have a car headunit that uses a combnation of USB (audio and control) and 3.5mm jack (video) that was designed for iphone 4/4s.

I now have an iphone 5. which i can't use the current cable with removing my ability to deisplay video. audio and controls still function fine.

My question is. I if i cut off the current 30pin connector off and spliced a lightning connector onto existing cable in its place. Will this cable function properly. Would it be as easy as, colour matching the two cables or is there a lot more to it. Could it be done with correct pin-outs?

No, it will not function properly. The Lightning connector is quite complicated and dynamically "rewires" the cables, so you can plug it in in either orientation and it still works. This makes it practically impossible to do a DIY rewiring.

You can get a Lightning to 30 pin adapter to use your iPhone in the car instead.


Are the apps that I download from the OS X app store sandboxed? Are the apps like TextWrangler sandboxed when I download them from the OS X appstore?

Yes. Per the Mac App Store Review Guidelines:

2.31 Apps that are not sandboxed appropriately may be rejected

As of June 1, 2012, all apps submitted to the Mac App Store are required to have sandboxing implemented.


After installing Lion my mac became super slow After installing Lion, my macbook pro became unbelievably slow.. what could be the reason?

Safari sometimes freeze for 30 seconds (in particular when there's Flash content). When I open mail after long time, the interface takes a while before to load.

Also Xcode and the simulator are slower.

UPDATE
So this how the system activity looks like when the mac slows down (even the dock bar is not responsive). I need to wait 2 minutes then everything starts to work again as before.

http://cl.ly/9ccS

http://cl.ly/9atU

http://cl.ly/9cFk

Activity monitor is your friend in this case. Check CPU/RAM usage and look for apps/services using a lot of resources, also check how your hard disk is doing in terms of throughput.

I've seen machine's hard disks slow down or just fail after an OS upgrade/install. It's a pretty disk intensive operation and can finish off older disks that were on their way out. Consider that as a possibility - perform a backup as soon as possible if you don't already have a recent one.


Volume control sometimes stuck on MBP '18 My 2018 MacBook Pro is sometimes suffering from 'sticky' volume control.

When I am interacting with the volume controls on the Touch Bar for a longer period of time, the volume control gets stuck sometimes. The sound is then automatically, continuously being muted or (with a bit of bad luck) set to full volume. During this time, the adjustment popup remains constantly visible.

Only when I go mach five on the Touch bar and press all the volume buttons in random order (haven't been able to find a pattern), the OS surrenders and I regain control over the volume.

It usually occurs once or twice every week. It also occurred on a clean install, so third-party apps acting strange is out of the question.

Is this a known problem? Is there a permanent solution?

First of all, restart your MacBookPro

If this doesn't work than try reinstalling macOS by booting into recovery mode by pressing command+r while startup, select "reinstall macOS". I recommend doing a backup first even you won't loose any of your files and settings.


iPad 2 wifi only FaceTime with iPhone 4s I recently got an iPad 2 wifi only and my boyfriend just got the new iPhone 4s but if I try and FaceTime him it just rings out. I know that he only has 3G at home, is this why? And how can he FaceTime me when I have no number on my iPad? Really confused please help!

Facetime only works over WiFi and can find people using either an e-mail address or phone number.


Terminal Sub-pixel Rendering improvement? I recently noticed that the Menlo font is rendered differently in OS X El Capitan, depending on the application being used. After tinkering a bit with AppleFontSmoothing, I noticed that the crucial difference was by how Terminal rendered white/bright text on black/dark background compared to other applications like Emacs, Xcode and TextEdit. While the other applications render fonts "heavier" in this configuration compared to black text on white background, I couldn't see any difference in Terminal. The effect is - in my opinion - a leaner and more readable text. Please see attached screenshot for comparison.

Example: Terminal on the left, Emacs on the right side

Xcode and TextEdit will render the font similarly to Emacs when AppleFontSmoothing is globally set to minimal. What's going on here, is there a way to apply this in other applications as well? I think the way Terminal renders the font is a major improvement, and would like to see this in all applications.

In OS X El Capitan 10.11 Terminal was changed to use minimal font smoothing for light-on-dark text, which more closely matches the weight of dark-on-light text with normal smoothing intensity, and makes the text sharper and more readable, opening up counters like the hollow space in the letter “e”.

A natural consequence of this is that light-on-dark text can appear less bright than before. Users can adjust colors in Terminal’s preferences if they wish.

UI controls (NSControl) do the same, but the standard OS X text view (NSTextView) does not, so programs like TextEdit and Xcode still draw light-on-dark text with more intense font smoothing.

“…is there a way to apply this in other applications as well?”

Without some hackery to modify individual applications, they are only affected if they use standard Cocoa controls and text views.


Why doesn't /proc exist in OS X? What is the reason that /proc does not exist in OS X? I was curious to find file descriptors that a process was using in my Mac. The way I do it in linux is to go in /proc/fd folder of that process.

How do I find what fds are used by a process?

Going back to basics : Ubuntu is a GNU/Linux, OS X is a FreeBSD : Different systems, different way to work.

On OS X you can use lsof to see the open files.

$lsof -p 68180

would show you every files opened by the process with pid 68180.


Why do I have 3 extra contacts on my phone when using Google contacts? I have my iPhone 11 setup to use Google Contacts.  I've been using my contact list both on my gmail account / computer and my iPhone 11.

Why are there 3 extra contacts on my phone but not my computer.

I have 209 on my gmail contacts but 212 on my phone?

The phone appears to have 3 extra but I don't know were they came from?

These additional contacts may be included in the SIM card you got from your provider. To easily find them, turn off Google Contacts in Settings->Password&Accounts->"your Google account" and select "delete synced contacts from iPhone" (don't worry, they still we be stored on Google itself). Then open the Contacts app, you now should see only these three contacts.


What happens with iTunes Match after my library exceeds 25,000 songs? Do the newer songs simply stop being uploaded? Does the iTunes Match splash screen display a big nasty "sorry you're over the limit" screen? Is there something I can do to get it to only work with a specific set of songs (shy of deleting them from my library)?

The 25,000 songs is for the songs that you've added to itunes match and are not purchased from the itunes store. If you exceed that limit you will just be able to able to add to your itunes match library, songs that are purchased from itunes.

You can delete specific songs from your icloud library (right click>delete from icloud), there is no need to delete them from your local library too.

And yes, it just displays a popup mentioning that you've reached the  limit.

This is all documented at https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204146


How does one add a custom iCloud Drive folder to the Finder Favorites sidebar? Recently, I upgraded to iCloud Drive and began storing a number of files in it. I created a new folder in iCloud Drive (not one of the default "Pages" or "TextEdit" folders) and put my files in it. However, because I use it so frequently, I would like to put the folder in my Finder sidebar. When I tried to do so, it would not allow me — it simply gave me the option to drag it into an existing folder in the sidebar. It did not even display the circle with the cross through it ("do not enter sign," if you will) that often appears when I attempt to drag a folder to the Favorites bar that cannot be added. However, I was able to add the default iCloud Drive folders ("Keynote," "Preview") to the Favorites sidebar without any issues. I have also tried CMD-dragging to create an alias on the sidebar, but to no avail.

I'm running a late 2013 iMac on OS X Yosemite 10.10.1.

A solution is to create a temporary alias of your new folder.

Create a folder in iCloud Drive.
Right-click the folder and select Make Alias.
Drag-and-drop the alias folder (little black arrow on folder symbol) into your sidebar.
You can now delete the alias folder (NOT in the sidebar).

Hope this helps, if not leave a comment.


Many programs notify me that "grep/sed/uname/... not found"; some run, some don't. My system(?) path is damaged, how do I go about a diagnosing it? Some manifestations of this problem: macports won't install, MATLAB won't run, BTT works but incessantly spams me with " not found" popups, and emacs shell does not work.

My interactive shell PATH is fine, so this is my '/etc/paths' file:
/usr/bin
/bin
/usr/sbin
/sbin
/usr/local/bin
/Users/sambo/bin

where that last one is my own personal scripts. Could I have damaged it just from appending? Anyways, that's problem and help would be appreciated.

EDIT: With echo -e ${PATH//:/\\n}, I get

/Users/sambo/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/bin
/Users/sambo/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@global/bin
/Users/sambo/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/bin
/Users/sambo/.rvm/bin
/usr/bin
/bin
/usr/sbin
/sbin
/usr/local/bin
/Users/sambo/binsr/sbin
/sbin
/usr/X11/bin
/usr/texbin
â
/Users/sambo/sox
/Users/sambo/bin
/usr/texbin

/Users/sambo/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/bin:/Users/sambo/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@global/bin:/Users/sambo/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/bin:/Users/sambo/.rvm/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/Users/sambo/binsr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/X11/bin:/usr/texbin:â:/Users/sambo/sox:/Users/sambo/bin:/usr/texbin

is it OK for these ruby bins to be upstream of the system bins?
could that junk cause any trouble?

Your question is unclear as it seems to ask several things. However the issue re launching from the Dock can be answered.

The Dock does not call a shell. .profile and other startup scripts are only run when Terminal.app or similar starts a shell or you run a shell script via launchd etc.

To change the path used for Apps launched from the Dock, Finder or other GUI then you need to change the path your Workspace uses this is in ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist
e.g. mine is

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>WAFDIR</key>
  <string>/Users/mark/src/third_party/git-svn/waf</string>

  <key>PATH</key>
  <string>/Users/mark/bin:/Users/mark/env/bin:/Users/mark/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/bin:/opt/local/bin:/usr/local/git/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/usr/libexec/binutils:</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Also have a look at this question.


Can I clone my Time Machine backups folder to an image file, to essentially backup the entire Time Machine? I'm interested in creating a clone of my Time Machine backups (the Backups.backupdb folder) so that my local backup strategy isn't entirely dependent on the external HD being alive. My hope is that I can backup the entire Time Machine contents to a single file (a disk image, sparse bundle, I'm not entirely sure of correct terminology) and then upload this file to a service like Amazon S3.

Is there a method for doing so that is known to work well and result in an image file that can later be restored to an actual external disk and have all backed-up contents still be usable?

I have one caveat to my situation which might complicate things - I have about 25GB of other data in other folders on this external HD which I would like to not include in a clone. I've taken a look at SuperDuper and it seems like it would clone the entire HD just  fine, but I don't see how to exclude files - and CCC doesn't even show the Backups.backupdb as an option in it's file picker (even after following these instructions).

The answer is yes and the tool I would use for this task is Disk Utility.

You can use the File menu to select New Disk Image from Folder… and choose only the Backups.backupdb folder as the source of the image.

You can start and see how it works, but I wanted to add some commentary as well since you already are seeing difficulties with other utilities explicitly not wanting any part of cloning Time Machine data.

Since this folder contains hard links, if you don't choose a tool that respects hard links, you will end up with individual copies of each file and not the efficient storage that Time Machine uses.

For network use, you might choose a sparse disk image format which will be easier to copy to S3 and not lose the entire file if the transfer aborts in the middle.

If I were you, I'd perhaps pick important backup intervals and only move those to the offsite storage, but networks are fast enough that you could push an entire backup set to the cloud if you didn't mind paying the data transfer costs and waiting for the upload to be written to S3.


My activity lists a lot of processes. Is it normal? MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015)
macOS Mojave 10.14.3 (18D109)

Profiling a little bit my system I found that the activity Monitor is showing a huge amount of processes what I am not even aware of. There are no clear problems crystallised, but I want to be preventive.  I have a feeling that something is going wrong.
Is it normal or is it a bug? What is the right method to approach this?

95% of the listings were definitely not triggered by me. And this are only three of the screenshot of about 10-15 I could make

MacOS launches many processes to do all the jobs that it needs to do. The number of process "triggered by you" is a small proportion of the total.

In general, if there isn't a "problem" -- such as one process using up all your memory or CPU resources, or a general sluggishness -- then I would assume all is well. Your memory usage certainly seems to be well within acceptable limits. (Low, green memory pressure, little Swap.)

You do have a lot of mdworker_shared processes. Processes starting with "md" usually belong to Spotlight. Sometimes Spotlight can work hard, indexing your disk, and launching several processes to do this. You should let this continue.
The MTLCompilerService processes are Metal support services, used by apps that leverage Apple's Metal graphics framework.


How can I determine why keyboard response is intermittently very slow with large display? I'm using a Seiki 4k display model SE39UY04 connected via HDMI with a Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013 MacBook Pro at 3840x2160 @ 30 Hz running Mavericks.  I've noticed that with the laptop closed and only displaying on the external display, I sometimes find in Chrome that bluetooth attached keyboard response is very sluggish.  For example, I can type a sentence on a web page but nothing appears at first, then a few words, and finally the rest appears quickly, however, the delay between typing and completion of it showing up can be 30 seconds or so.  I've looked at the Activity Monitor and do not see any CPU hog, the machine is relatively idle and the fan is not running on the laptop.

How can I figure out the cause of this intermittent delay that seems to have appeared with the introduction of the very large external display?

This is a bug in Chrome as recorded at google as issue 319580.

The other symptoms as described in that bug report are that display update is very slow when the animated icon for the browser tab is on any 4K display such as the Seiki 39 mentioned in the question.  One work around is to move the browser tab animation off screen and performance returns to normal.  There is a fix forthcoming to Chrome that is available now in the Canary builds.


iPhone with broken home button is stuck on black screen after jailbreaking I have an iPhone 3Gs and recently noticed that the home button doesn't work anymore. I used AssistiveTouch.

Now I want to jailbreak my iPhone, but it's gone wrong: the device is stuck on a black screen after jailbreaking, iTunes doesn't recognise my iPhone and my home button doesn't work.

What can I do?

Let the iphone discharge.
Then connect it to your computer.
If iTunes recognize it, try to restore it.


How do I remove CocoaSuite from my Mac? I'm running OS X Snow Leopard & CocoaSuite 1.4.

You can try one of the many utilities for removing applications.

For example the free AppCleaner.


Does the search in Finder need spotlight? I just reinstalled OS X Lion and turned off the spotlight immediately.

I noticed that search in Finder stopped working. Is this because of disabling spotlight? Is there a way to get this back without turn spotlight on? I only need to search by file names.

Finder's search, as well as many other programs (Alfred, Outlook, etc.) use Spotlight's index files. If you have Spotlight shut off, you won't be able to get Finder search working natively.

There are a few free third party apps that you can use to search for files without using Apple's system:

Find Any File
EasyFind

These two do not use spotlight's index files and should work independently.


Change my Apple ID email address on iCloud account I had to make a new email address for my new Apple ID since I forgot my previous Apple ID password and couldn't receive a verification email.

Now that I have my new Apple ID and password, my iPhone 4s still shows my old Apple ID. How can I change it so that my new Apple ID shows when I wish to download anything?

My iCloud account still has my old Apple ID and is in grey; so I can't change it! I don't want to delete my old iCloud account.

Go to https://appleid.apple.com, click Manage my Apple ID and sign in with your current iCloud ID.

Tap edit next to the primary email account, tap Edit, change it back to your old email address and save the change.

Then edit the name of the account to change it back to your old email address.  You can now use your current password to turn off Find My iPhone on your device, even though it prompts you for the password for your old account ID.

Then go to Settings > iCloud, tap Delete Account and choose Delete from My iDevice when prompted (your iCloud data will still be in iCloud).

Next, go back to https://appleid.apple.com and change your primary email address and iCloud ID name back to the way it was.  Now you can go to Settings > iCloud and sign in with your current iCloud ID and password.


Samba issues (deadlocks and instability) in OSX 10.10.1? I'm trying to narrow down the cause of a problem that I'm having with OSX 10.10.1 and wanted to see if anyone on here could help weigh in.

I have a Linux-based Samba server running the latest version of Samba (4.1.13). I use this server as a NAS and connect all of my machines to it. I have never had any significant problems in the past connecting my Macs to this NAS.

However, recently I have started to experience some erratic behavior. This change happened when I upgraded to Yosemite 10.10.1.

This is indicated by, very randomly, a share suddenly appearing empty in the Finder. It will still have its icon, but opening it will display an empty folder. When this happens the console will be flooded with "Reconnecting to share" messages - about 10 per second!

This is erratic - I can sometimes go days without it happening, or sometimes it happens within a few minutes of being connected. There is no specific file or folder that I am accessing which causes it. I can simply mount the share and never touch it and it locks, but I can also rsync the entire contents of the share to a backup drive and it does not lock. This to me rules out the possibility of a badly formed filename or something.

If I try to connect to a second share while the first share is in this state, the connection never completes. The "Connecting to smb://..." dialog remains on-screen indefinitely.

And the worst of all: If I actually try to eject the stuck share, the Mac becomes unusable. Apps beachball permanently. The console app even hangs, so I can't read any messages. If I have a terminal up still, executing any command that does any sort of filesystem operation will hang the terminal. Running a "df" command will hang the terminal. Essentially the entire filesystem layer drops the spinning beachball (lol). The only way out is a hard reboot (control-command-power).

The same behavior also occurs if I forcefully stop the Samba server running on the Linux box. As soon as the connection disappears, the Console will show a message reporting that the share is inaccessible, and at that point, the console freezes and no further messages appear, and all of the other filesystem-related behavior I described happens.

The upshot is it seems that the process that manages the mount to the Samba share is buggy in some way. Has anyone experienced issues like this? Before I submit this as a bug report to Apple, I'd like to make sure it's really an issue with the OS X CIFS/SMB drivers, and not with some obscure edge case scenario. Of course, the fact that this issue does not occur on 10.10.0 or any previous version of OS X is a telltale sign, but I am also not even sure what to report because as I said, the behavior is erratic, unpredictable, random and when it does occur, no logs can be obtained.

Thanks!

I've had similar problems compared to what you're describing, although it sounds like your problems are worse. It's very common based on what I've read and there's no cure. The issue is that Apple isn't using the Samba software but rather their own version. Here's my experience, FWIW:

SMB volumes were slower for me on Mavericks and older on these machines. Upgrading to 10.10.2 has sped it up and made everything work much better.
The shares are still very slow. One very large share performs much like you're describing at times. But other smaller ones are fairly managable, albeit frustrating.
We use Path Finder to connect to our shares, not Finder. This may be superstition on our part, as I don't know if it is actually doing anything different. But it does seem to give us fewer crashes.
DF in the terminal does not create the issue you have, it just lists like normal.
I have upgraded the RAM, but the hardware is older. One Mac Pro 2008 model has 8GB while another has 16GB. I've seen machines have a slow finder when they don't have enough RAM, but the problem is the software. Unfortunately, upgrading the RAM was the only solution I had to improve performance.
Windows shares may not list as slowly as my Linux NAS, but I have no benchmarks to prove that. (That would make sense if both weren't using Server Message Block.)

If none of this information helps you, may I ask if you've tried a fresh install?

As for me, I'm very interested in compiling Samba from source providing I can find enough support.


How to remove "Start Dictation..." menu item from Word 2011? I upgraded my MacBook Pro to El Capitan earlier this year, and ever since it's been driving me nuts when I'm in Word 2011.  (And no, I do not want to go to Word 2016.  I deliberately bought 2011 because it's customisable.)
The Start Dictation menu item seems to like moving itself about, and usually ends up very high in the Edit menu:

This completely screws up the rest of that menu's items.  As you can see, Paste is now Cmd-X, and Cut and Copy don't even have keyboard shortcuts.  I have a macro program which is mostly taking care of these problems, but what really annoys me is that Word now seems unable to Repeat most things, which means I have to manually do them ad nauseum.  This is even for things as simple as choosing a different font.
I have turned off Dictation in Dictation and Speech Preferences, but this damn menu item is always there, screwing things up for me.  Does anyone know how to get rid of it?  Surely if I turn the feature off, the menu item should not stick around!

The issue is in fact related to the "Start Dictation" menu entry of the 'Edit' menu, which is introduced by the OS wide dictation add-in.

A suggested workaround is to rearrange the top menu bar:

  My solution was to disguise the Edit menu. Changing its name did not
  work, but moving it in the menu bar from fourth to fifth position did.
  (For that I used View > Toolbars > Customize Toolbars and Menus.) Now
  Word no longer finds the "Edit" menu, does not mess with it and no
  longer generates garbage logs.

You can read more at Microsoft.


Deleting with rm did not free up space I deleted a 5gb video using rm video.mp4, but the space hasn't freed.

This was the situation: while encoding a video with FCP X, I ran out of space, I only had 50 MB free. Since in the trash I had some stuff that I wasn't sure that I could delete it yet, I took the terminal and I manually deleted a big video file with rm video.mp4.

The file is gone, but the main problem is that the disk is still full. What I can do to reclaim this space back?

It's normal that manually deleting a file will not free up space?

Probably your file is in use by some process, in this case it's normal. Try to close or kill apps or processes that used that file.


App Downloading at a Different Size than App Store says I have a problem with my Facebook app where the App Store says it's supposed to be 59.6 MB but when it downloads (and I haven't open it yet), it's 167 MB.

Ironically, I wrote a blog post about how apps like Facebook and Messenger cache images and posts, which takes up space, and can only be stopped (without jailbreaking) by deleting and reinstalling the app. This is because when you delete the app, it also deletes 'Documents and Data' (including cached data).

I conclude that for whatever reason, the cached data is not being deleted, but I could be wrong.

Does anybody know how to fix this?

For some time now, iOS automatically clears app caches when your iPhone storage approaches full.

For this reason, there is little need to interfere by cleaning the caches manually. However, if you still want to clear the caches yourself, there are apps on the App Store that offer this functionality. 'Battery Doctor' (free) is one example - it offers many maintenance tools, including the option to delete 'junk data' from your phone


Include entire album in Smart Playlist if one song matches criteria Is it possible to somehow build a smart playlist that deals in albums rather than individual songs?

IE, Find all songs without album art.

Sometimes songs without album art are in an album where the other songs do have art, so it's useful to be able to grab the lot and reset it.

Smart playlists can't grab tracks that don't meet their conditions. You might be able to script something like that, however; find all tracks for albums in a smart playlist that meets certain conditions.