How to restore a missing Recovery HD partition I bought a second hand Macbook Pro which came with OSX Lion installed, when I wanted to clean it I found out that it had no Recovery HD partition. I confirmed this through the Disk Utility (enabled debug menu, showing every partition).

I am able to boot using Apple's Internet Recovery feature, but since Lion wasn't bought on my Apple ID, its only giving me the option to buy OSX Mountain Lion. Can I use that to completely reinstall my Macbook and create a proper Recovery HD partition, and then can I simply use Timemachine afterwards to recover my data?

Any hints or tips for this process would be highly appreciated.

Yes, you can. Be sure to have a full Time Machine archive on an external device before you begin, and check your MBP meets the minimum system requirements before you buy.  The Mountain Lion installer will create Recovery HD, if it doesn't already exist.

In case you choose to do a clean install, which is quicker, import your account afterwards from the Time Machine archive using Migration Assistant: you can pick and choose exactly what you want to import from the archive, and the Apple utility will sanitise imported user preferences so they are Mountain Lion compatible.

Alternatively, if you are comfortable using Terminal,  Lloeki's answer to How can I create or recreate a Lion recovery partition has much to recommend it.


My icon for photo is missing not only from dock but from launch pad on my MacBooks Air I have tried the rebuild but when I relaunch launchpad still does not show the photo icon. How do I get it back on my MacBook Air

The quick way to find any app you might be able to delete is open the App Store app and find the app using search.

if the app is deleted, you can reinstall it
if the app is just moved, you can open it

Once it’s open, keep it in the dock with a control click or right click. Spotlight can help you find the app in finder if you need to put it back in the Applications folder


Where are the reference manuals for Excel 2008? I have a 2008 copy of Excel that I use to proof the occasional Excel file I need to email.  When I click on the help menu item I am directed to a Microsoft advertisement.  Where are the help files or manuals?

Here's the What's New page for Excel: https://support.office.com/en-us/excel.  You'll find Mac toward the bottom.  Once you're at the SOC site you can search for specific questions, like "format dates".


How to move archived Outlook for Windows Files to Apple Mail? I have some old archived Outlook for Windows files that I want to move to Apple Mail in order to look into some older files. I don't have any access to Windows systems, I run Apple Mail on my Mac Book Pro. I tried looking online for a solution but the methods explained the result in nothing. Seeking for help on this forum and hoping to find the best possible answer.

Thanks

Sorry Kevin, but Apple Mail doesn't support Outlook's .pst or .ost files; there's no direct way to import them into Mail.  There are, however, 3rd-party apps that will convert the files for you.

A quick search did turn this article up: https://www.macworld.com/article/2151263/importing-windows-outlook-messages-into-apples-mail.html

which may be useful to you.

Good luck!


Pages: How to restore original lists styles I use Pages 5.5.x
The problem is that I have occasionally deleted "Lettered" list & bullets style.
Now I want to restore the default list of "list & bullets" styles for the document.

Is it possible?

Pages '09 or 4.x

Here is a receipe working for Pages '09:

Open Pages, and choose the same template you want to restore defaults,
Select File > Save and save this empty file as Desktop/Untitled.pages
Open the document where styles were deleted, let's say my_file.pages
Select Format > Import Styles... and choose Desktop/Untitled.pages
Select the missing formats you want to recover, and to avoid duplicates, check the lower left box Replace duplicates, click OK
Remove Desktop/Untitled.pages

Pages 5.x

Since Apple removed this function with Pages 5 there are two workarounds:

if (you have Pages '09 available)

then save your file under Pages '09 format and apply the above receipe

else apply the following very manual (and stupid) receipe:

Open Pages, and choose the same template you want to restore defaults,
Create in this file a new dummy text line which will be used as an area to copy styles from
Select File > Save and save this empty file as Desktop/Untitled.pages: this will be the source document
Open the document where styles were deleted, let's say my_file.pages: this is your target document
Create at its end a new dummy text line which will be used as an area to use to paste styles
For (every style xxx to restore) do:

In source document select the 1st dummy line and apply it the style xxx
Select Format > Copy Character Style ⌥⇧⌘C if it is a character style, or Format > Copy Paragraph Style ⌥⌘C if it is a list or paragraph style
In target document, select the last dummy line
Select Format > Paste Character Style or Format > Paste Paragraph Style ⌥⌘V

Remove Desktop/Untitled.pages
In my_file.pages remove the last dummy line


Target Display Mode -- Pressing command-F2 does nothing I would like to avail myself of the target display mode.  I have a brand new MacBook Pro Retnia, and I'd like to use it as a display for my Mac Pro (also brand new).  I followed the instructions on this page, and nothing happened when I pressed command F2.  Then I started scouring the forums.  I found several threads with the same problem, and I tried all the suggestions.  I checked my preferences to see if the keyboard assignments were messed up.  I tried restarting both computers in various orders.  I tried using internal and external keyboards on both computers.  I tried adding the fn key to the key command.  I spent a couple hours on this, but sadly, nothing worked.

So I'm really hoping that someone here has some idea what's going on.  This experience has really been disheartening.  I just bought these computers this year, and they failed at something so basic.  At this point, I would be satisfied just to see an error message telling me why cmd-F2 doesn't work.  I mean, if I try to eject a disk that has files that are currently in use, it will tell me why it can't eject right now.  But with this, I'm completely in the dark.  It's so frustrating!

iMac 27 5K Late 2014 model and later no longer support Target Display Mode.


Travel time not automatically generated in Calenders I have just installed Mac OS X Mavericks and have been familiarising myself with some of the new features. One of the touted features was the ability to tell you the "travel time" for any given appointment. However when adding a new event to my calendar, the travel time is just specified times that I set, it will not show me how long it will take via car for example.

I have ensured that Calendars is allowed to use my current location, as well as Maps (which I believe is used to generate the time).

Try reentering the address so that Calendar registers it as an address (addresses will be suggested to you when as you type) rather than a mere string - that worked for me.


How are these Chinese spam iCloud Calendar/Reminders invitations sent to me? Recently, I’ve received a couple of spam event invitations in Calendar on my Mac. The most recent had only Chinese text, and recurred at 5:46am every day.

I am able to decline these by clicking on the invitations button in the toolbar (that only appears when an invitation comes in). However, ideally I’d like to not receive these spam invitations at all.

As I’ve never received a genuine invitation through Calendar, I thought I might be able to turn off the invitation feature. However, I can’t see any controls for this in Calendar preferences or the Internet Account system preferences.

Through what mechanism do these invitation arrive? If I understood what mechanism it was, I might be able to turn it off. I have two Calendar accounts enabled: iCloud, and Facebook. I can’t see anything in my e-mail, so I presume they’re not regular e-mail spam.

Since first writing this question, I’ve had a similar invitation come through in Reminders:

It's simply that anyone can send an email to you. If spam rules don't block it, Apple software (with default settings) processes the invitation before you can take any action.

To prevent this automatic processing, try this.

Log in to iCloud on the web, open your calendar and go to ⚙ > Preferences (in the lower left corner). Under Advanced tab you’ll find an option to receive calendar invitations by e-mail instead of directly to your calendar.


Change voicemail message to audio file I have just got an iPhone and would like to change the voice message that people hear when I don't answer their calls.

Is there a way how I can setup the voice message to an audio file I have? I would like to do this because I have one of the funny ones you here time to time.

Also is there a maximum time limit for this?

To answer the first question regarding changing your voicemail greeting, you're carrier network may have a different number to access your voicemails. By calling the voicemail number, you should be able to change this to what you want.

As for your second question, a solution could be play the audio file whilst your changing it from calling the voicemail number itself.

Again, depending on what carrier you use, they may set different time limits for voicemail greetings. For example Virgin Mobile from where I come from has a set voicemail greeting length of 3 minutes. Not sure what you're carrier has set a limit for voicemail greetings.


Opensnoop: dtrace: error on enabled probe ID 5 (ID 163: syscall::open:return): invalid user access in action #11 at DIF offset 12 After running Open Snoop for the first time, I noticed the following message is continuously repeated. I am not developing on this machine and some of the blogs state that this is caused by iiTunes; however, I'm not sure if I have an issue. If so, can someone kindly provide guidance on how to triage?

Usually the errors you've posted are preceded by this information:

dtrace: system integrity protection is on, some features will not be available

You will have to disable SIP (System Integrity Protection) for dtrace.  To do so, boot into "Recovery" by pressing cmdR at startup, then launch "Terminal" from the "Utilities" menu there and type:

csrutil enable --without dtrace

Then press enter
(It will warn you that this unsupported configuration might break in the future.)

Now you should be able to restart and boot back into your OS and run dtrace without those errors.

However, once you're finished using dtrace, you are usually advised to return SIP to its original state, again by booting into Recovery and fully enabling it again:

csrutil enable

...or somewhat faster, by typing

sudo csrutil clear

...in your usual OS environment (i.e. not Recovery) followed by a reboot.


Access iCloud mail via http from iPhone There are times when you can't use any TCP ports other than 80 (HTTP) or 443 (HTTPS), so you can't use Mail accounts that communicate with iCloud via IMAP/POP3/SMTP. But when you go to iCloud.com, it redirects you to the iPhone applications. Is there some way to access iCloud mail via HTTP(S)?

You can use a 3rd party browser to access icloud.com without being redirected to https://www.icloud.com/iphone_welcome. But beware, as you will see, icloud.com is not designed for a small display size like the iPhone's.

The key to accessing icloud.com is that the web browser doesn't identify itself as Safari Mobile.

Many browsers I tried, including Opera, Mercury and vBrowse, didn't work. I could finally find one which offered exactly this functionality: the full version of Atomic Web (note: I'm not affiliated with Atomic Web in any way) lets you set the browser identity to Firefox, Internet Explorer or Safari Desktop.

I chose Firefox 15 and could successfully load icloud.com. However, I soon noticed how uncomfortable it is to browse icloud.com from an iPhone.

To begin with, I couldn't sign in. I pinched and swiped but the display's contents didn't zoom out nor scroll. This is what I saw:

I had to switch to full screen to be able to partially see the Apple ID field:

I tapped on the Apple ID field, the metallic iCloud sign-in window gained focus and could log in.

As I feared, only the left top area of icloud.com's main page was displayed. Luckily, Mail's icon was visible and I could start it:

It was a frustrating experience. I changed orientation several times because, as before, I couldn't reliably scroll. My happiness faded and eventually, tired of trying, I gave up.

I tried Safari Desktop, the WAP browser and IE, but same result (or worse).

So there is a good reason why icloud.com redirects you to use the iPhone apps: icloud.com is not designed to be used with such a small display.

If you really need to have access to iCloud's webmail do yourself a favor and consider getting a tablet. If it's an iPad, install something like Atomic Web. If it isn't, you will be able to access it using the device's default browser.


Apple watch series 3 microphone stops working after watch OS 6 update After the watch OS 6 update, I can on longer use Siri with the watch or use it to call. It seems like the watch is not able to record any voice.

I have already unpair and pair numerous time. I have also restarted the watch. All in vain.

How can I fix this issue?

iOS update seems to be related. The phone is an iPhone 11.

iOS 13 - Killed both speaker and microphone (e.g. The Micky watch face stops announcing time; the face time counterparty cannot hear what is spoken to the watch; Siri cannot get user's voice command)

iOS 13.1 - Speaker works again (The Micky watch face can announce the time). Microphone remains nonfunctional.

iOS 13.1.1 - Both speaker and microphone stop working.

At the end I have to take the watch to Apply twice. At second visit they took it back for repair.

In summary: The watch needs to be repaired.


How does Mac OS X 10.7 detect different displays? I have a Macbook Pro with Mac OS X 10.7, and an external display screen attached to my Macbook, which is working fine.
Sometimes, I have to switch the second display to a projector (because I want to give a presentation).

Those settings (e.g. arrangement, resolution) are different from my external display screen. In 90% of the cases, Mac OS X knows which arrangement/resolution I want, depending on the type of external screen; in 10% of the cases, it's mixing up the configurations and I have to manually edit the configuration again.

Can I see somewhere what configuration is attached to a certain display?
Why does Mac OS X mix the configuration settings between my external display screen and my projector?

1) You should be able to see these configurations in System Preferences > Display. I believe you go to to Layout (or could be called mirroring).

2) OS X displays two Display panels so you know which panel is attached to which screen.

If the Display options don't allow you to pick a resolution, change the Resolution from "Best for XX display", that will allow you to pick a supported, lower, resolution.


Mail in Mavericks does not correctly text wrap / no option to view in plain text This problem has been brought up in the Apple discussion forum, but with no success. It is two related problems that have cropped up in the Mail application in Mavericks (OS X v10.9):

First, there is no longer a "view in plain text" option for viewing mail messages:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/23526803#23526803

Second, the Mail app does not correctly word wrap messages:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/23566666#23566666

Specifically, if a message has an HTML  environment (i.e., pre-formatted) with a very long line with no carriage returns, then that line runs way, way off the edge of the window. This longest line effectively defines the length of the text wrap so all other lines also run off the right edge of the window, forcing the user to tediously scroll horizontally far, far to the right to read each line. This seems to happen in, e.g., a multi-part mime message; even if it has a plain-text alternative, Mail is using that HTML formatting of that  formatted text to define the width of the window for wrapping all other text in the message, and Mail no longer offers the option to view the message as plain text.

One workaround is that the user can select to "forward" the message, and while the message is in the editing window, the text wraps correctly and can be read without horizontal scrolling. This is a hassle and not an acceptable solution.

So, after that long preamble, my question is: How can I make Mail always wrap text of viewed messages to the window width in ALL cases?

There is an application called SmartWrap that, until the latest update (10.9.1) worked flawlessly to wrap text within the Mail.app viewing window. However, despite several email discussions with the developer, it may be broken (temporarily, I hope, since I've used the application for more than a decade without a hitch).


Are there games that sync across devices through iCloud / Game Center? With iOS 5 and iCloud i was hoping that games would get synced across devices. If I'm playing a game on my iPad and then later pick up the same game on my iPhone, then i would like to be able to start right where i left off on my other device. Are there any games that currently do this? Or is this even currently possible?

Starbase Orion was one of the first ones out that synced all local games through iCloud. There are of course many, many others, so the answer is Yes - this exist by design and developers can make use of it as long as their data fits within the storage requirements of iCloud.


Possibly opened a malicious .dmg file on my Mac, not sure wether it installed itself? I was opening a document on my computer and double tapped the file below it; A (more than probable, malicious) Skype.dmg file, likely downloaded from a popup. Normally, when I see them I send them straight to trash.

However I made the mistake of double clicking the downloaded skype.dmg file and am  unsure as to whether this means it has done any damage.

(Im using Avast security as an example of what I saw on my screen when I pressed on the Skype.dmg file)

When I double clicked the skype.dmg file, an installer window opened up, however I did not click install, instead I closed the window and removed the program to trash.

However, I then noticed in my Finder window that the file was still there in the devices tab:

I then ejected the program, and deleted the icon on my home screen:

This question, although similar, differs to another question on this forum
(Are auto-downloaded malicious .dmg app files a security risk if they are never opened?)
by the fact that I have double clicked the file; Opening what may be an interim facade (picture 1) between installation and execution, although I'm not really sure.

Even though I clicked it, have I installed the Skype file?

Ordinarily you should still be safe after just mounting the DMG - as long as you haven't actual run anything from within the DMG by double-clicking an icon or similar.

So normally no, you wouldn't have installed the Skype file just by mounting the DMG.

By looking at your screenshots you seem to be running a modern version of macOS. Are you instead running Mountain Lion or older then you could have been automatically infected, as these versions did indeed have a problem with DMGs being able to auto-start programs.

BitDefender, like any other product, can only alert about so many types of malware. It is not a guarantee that it will alert against this specific type of malware/virus, if it is indeed malicious.

The reason I write "ordinarily" and "normally" above is that there's a very slight risk that the file has exploited a problem with the metadata parsing that macOS does of the DMG. I.e. macOS uses information from within the DMG to display images, potentially display license information, etc. It is possible for malware to exploit a security hole within the image decoding library for example to infect your computer just by double-clicking the DMG. However, this seems to be quite unlikely given the information you have presented.

If you want to be really sure what happened, I would suggest comparing the most recent backup from before you downloaded the DMG with the backup taken just after. If no system files have been altered during that time frame, you should be good.


How iPad Air gives almost same battery back up even with less battery pack? Sorry if it sounds like a noob question, earlier iPads have 42.5Wh battery pack and gives 10 hours of battery. But new iPad Air has only 32.5Wh battery, but it also gives same amount of battery backup that too with a more powerful processor and graphics. How so?

A combination of more efficient backlighting with fewer elements, along with reduced silicon fabrication size combined with a switch to the new more efficient 64bit architecture means that the device simply runs on less power, allowing a smaller battery to be used while maintaining the customary 10 hours usage.


How to auto-run disk repair on OS X after each system crash? How to auto-run disk repair on OS X 10.8+ after each system crash?

Note: I am not looking for a manual solution.

I don't know if OS X already performs some extra checks after hard shutdowns or kernel panics. The verbose startup output looked the same after a normal restart, a hard restart, and a kernel panic:

The OS X volume is verified when starting up in safe mode:

Do you mean repairing the drive, repairing the main OS X volume, or running fsck? http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1417 recommends first starting up in safe mode (which includes repairing the OS X volume), or if that doesn't work, repairing the drive or OS X volume from Disk Utility on the recovery partition. It says that you don't normally need to run fsck with journaled HFS+ volumes.

From the diskutil man page:

repairDisk device
           Repair the partition map layout of a whole disk intended for
           booting or data use on a Macintosh.  The repairs further
           include, but are not limited to, the repair or creation of
           an EFI System Partition, the integrity of any Core Storage
           Physical Volume partitions, and the provisioning of space
           for boot loaders.  Ownership of the affected disk is
           required; it must be a whole disk and must have a partition
           map.

[...]

repairVolume device
           Repair the file system data structures of a volume.  The
           appropriate fsck program is executed and the volume is left
           mounted or unmounted at it was before the command.  Owner-
           ship of the affected disk is required.

You could try saving this as ~/Library/LaunchDaemons/repairdisk.plist, but I don't know how to run it only after unclean reboots (or why it would be needed).

<?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>Label</key>
    <string>repairdisk</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>bash</string>
        <string>-c</string>
        <string>yes | diskutil repairDisk /dev/disk0</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

See diskutil list or df -h for the identifier of the drive.

diskutil repairDisk /dev/disk0 showed a warning like Repairing the partition map might erase disk0s1, proceed? (y/N), where disk0s1 is the EFI partition. But it seemed to do the same operations as repairing the drive from Disk Utility. repairVolume can't be used with the OS X volume after you have started up from it.


Should I avoid booting my MacBook if it's really cold? As the title says; if my MacBook has been exposed to minus degrees, should I wait for it to reach room temperature before I boot it or am I just paranoid and have nothing to worry about?

It depends how “minus”. In general, li-on batteries live longer if you respect their acceptable operating temperatures. In the case of your Macbook Pro, Apple has a dedicated page with tips about Battery Maintenance.

If you observe the temperature graph on the left, the Minus degrees are not in the “I like this” zone.

Truth is, your MBP will get warm relatively fast, but if your MBP is at 0ºC, I’d wait a little bit. At those temperatures, depending upon the dew point and the humidity (among other factors) the risk of running moisture is higher, especially if the MBP will start heating fast when you turn it on.

Just let the machine heat for a few minutes at room temperature to be safe. Of course, if you have to use it one day, the battery is not going to die on you. Remember, extreme temperatures are enemies of batteries!

The cold Swedish tundra is not a friendly place for a Li-on battery :)


Is there a gui fuzzy finder like rofi? Rofi is a fuzzy searcher for linux (select one entry from a set of entries quickly by typing a substring). fzf is a similar tool for the shell.

This is useful for quickly producing hacky GUI interfaces.

Is there a similar way to easily select one of several strings with a gui from the command-line in mac?

Example of what rofi is useful for

Searching and playing audio files from a known location.

cd music
ls | rofi | xargs vlc

You might bind this to a key. The key point is that you have complete programmatic over control and the input and how the output is used.k

There is the choose app and it does exactly what you ask for. It takes stdin, shows GUI selector and returns selected item to stdout.

You can install it using brew install choose-gui


How to omit directories from Optimized Storage? I keep my git repositories in a directory under Documents directory, which puts it in the path of iCloud's Optimized Storage. Often, I'll open a git repository to find files replaced with .icloud placeholder files. Current workaround is resetting the workspace changes, but I sense this may cause some issues.

Is there a way to exclude subdirectories or files from Optimized Storage? Or any another means to deal with this situation? I do not wish to disable Optimized Storage altogether.

Currently there is no way to exclude subdirectories/files present in Desktop & Documents Folders, if you choose to store them in iCloud and enable Optimize Mac Storage.

A possible workaround for your situation could be to move the git repositories to any directory which is not a subdirectory of ~/Desktop or ~/Documents directory.

A commonly used subdirectory for storing repositories is ~/Developer.


Is there a 'guaranteed support period' for iOS? Traditionally [at least according to common knowledge] Macs have had mainstream OS support for 5 years, with legacy support for the next 5; meaning if you really want to hang onto that old machine, you should still be able to run the current OS at 10 years, give or take.
Obviously, there have always been distinct 'steps' where old hardware is legacied for specific hardware reasons - 64-bit CPUs, Metal GPUs, etc

Is there an equivalent 'guaranteed period' for iOS?

I found this - Apple KB: Vintage and obsolete products - for hardware support, but I can't find an equivalent for OS support on either Mac or iDevices.
Looking through Wikipedia: List of iOS devices it does seem shorter than Macs, but is there a 'rule'?

Apple supports hardware like iOS in the same 5+2 year pattern for Obsolete and Vintage hardware like all the rest of the hardware.

Apple supports software through AppleCare officially so that's 3 years but in practice, it's always been N+2 releases with N being the current OS and two older ones. AppleCare generally has terms limiting support to N+1 so look for wording like prior Major Release, but in practice Apple appears to be more generous supporting older OS than the agreement spells out in practice.

  Apple will provide support for the then-current version of the supported software, and the prior Major Release.

Same for upgrade, Apple doesn't commit anywhere you can run newer OS on hardware once you buy it (heck, they don't even guarantee the software will be fit for your purpose as is - current, sold today although consumer law likely makes them liable in some way for some level of fitness of purpose in many locations). In practice, the coat tails for running older hardware on newer OS are generous and long and break on CPU architecture boundaries generally as opposed to yearly release cycles.

Support means Apple issues security patches, fields support calls, generally makes it run on all hardware or will disable features like graphics to let older hardware run newer OS with some features disabled, but the majority of the system running.

Warranty and Guarantee and Software Licenses are legal terms, so I'll dodge them since they depend on  which locale you buy the goods and possibly which locale you import / use / seek support after purchase.

In the past the Apple Support pages would clearly list each supported OS, but with the newer redesign I can't locate that page but you can read the tea leaves by searching for archived support for older OS and hardware.

https://support.apple.com/macos


Can I sync Address Book to iCloud on Snow Leopard? I've updated my iPhone to iOS 5, but my Mac(s) are still on OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.

Syncing Contacts to iCloud is enabled in iPhone settings. Now, I was wondering is it possible to make Address Book on my Mac (running 10.6) to sync with iCloud too? Or is this something that's only available in 10.7 Lion?

(Sorry if this question seems too basic or whatever. I haven't been paying much attention to Lion/iCloud.)

No. iCloud requires OS X 10.7.2., aka “Lion”.


Restoring iTerm2 to default values I installed iTerm2, played a bit with the preferences.

Now I would go back to the initial configuration, but removing the app and finding and removing any file on the disk apparently related to the app does not help: after reinstalling, the preferences are still the modified ones.

I found the answer in iTerm FAQs :: Where does iTerm2 store its settings?:

defaults delete com.googlecode.iterm2


Make iTunes Treat my iPhone Like A New Phone I want to backup my phone as if it were a new phone.  Context that makes my situation different from other similar questions I found:

I've deleted all my old backups
I do not have my old backup password
So I cannot change my password to a new one (this requires the old password)
And I cannot uncheck "Encrypt iPhone backup"

That is, all my old backups are gone, and my "old password" is effectively useless -- I have no need for it anymore.  I want iTunes to treat my phone as if were brand new, and allow me to setup a new Encrypt backup password, and make a fresh backup as if for the first time.

How can I get iTunes / my phone into this state?

EDIT

Please note I believe this is not a duplicate of Create backup iPhone with forgotten encryption password.  At the very least, the answers there do not answer my question.

From the accepted answer:

  The short answer is no. The phone thinks you are a thief trying to steal the data and won't cooperate with attempts to initiate a second backup.

It makes sense that you would need a password to restore a password-protected phone.  I am not trying to do that.  I am trying to backup a phone that I have access to as if it were fresh.  Why should passwords I used to protect previous, now-deleted backups have anything to do with this goal?  How would preventing me from backing up my phone in any way prevent theft?  What if I lost my laptop --
 how would this phone be treated on a brand new laptop?  Would I also not be able to back it up there?

From the other answer:

  if you have no problem deleting your backup this "problem" is a breeze! head over to iTunes, then open up the preferences, klick on devises, then select your phone, and delete the backup!
  ...
  when backup deleted simply create a new backup from scratch :)

I have already deleted my old backups.  I still cannot create a new backup from scratch with a fresh password.

Once you have selected that you want to encrypt the backup of an iPhone, it is not possible to uncheck without the password, or by erasing the content of the iPhone.
The information about the encryption status is saved on the iPhone, not in iTunes, so erasing all your backups wont do much in this situation.

This may seem weird to many people, but it's basically a safety measure.
Let's assume that someone broke in to your house and got away with both your computer and iPhone, got access to the computer because you had no Filevault enabled, and now wanted to move your data from your iPhone to your computer, and would be able to do so, just by erasing your old backups first. This would be somewhat of a security flaw in my opinion.

So to say it short, you need to erase your iPhone to disable the encrypted backup setting, if you do not know the password.


How do I delete a downloaded iOS software update on iOS 6? In general on newer iOS versions, you can delete downloaded software updates by going to Settings > General > Usage > Manage Storage > and then finding the update and deleting it from there. Here is an article outlining the process.

However, it doesn't seem like this is possible on iOS 6. This leads me to my question: how can I delete a downloaded update on iOS 6? The iOS 8.4.1 update was downloaded to my iPhone 5, but I do not want to update to that version, accidentally or otherwise. I want to get rid of this update file from my device completely.

Would resetting all contents and settings work? Is there a better way to go about doing this without needing to use such a strong method of resetting everything?

The easiest way is to back up the iPhone via iCloud Backup. Then sign out of the iPhone, and then "Erase all Content and Settings".

Once the iPhone comes back on, setup the iPhone properly, then when you get to the "Apps & Data" screen, choose restore from iCloud backup, and choose the recent backup.


chsh doesn't change $SHELL I'm having some difficulties in changing the value of $SHELL in OSX's iTerm app. iTerm is starting in /bin/zsh, but the value of $SHELL doesn't seem to change.

What I've done:

Changed "command" as /bin/zsh in iTerm's configuration window.
Executed chsh to change the shell to /bin/zsh.
Confirmed iTerm is started in /bin/zsh

NOTE #1: In OSX's stock terminal app, "Terminal.app":

echo $SHELL
/bin/zsh

NOTE #2: In OSX's popular terminal app, "iTerm.app":

$ echo $SHELL
/bin/bash

$ echo $USER
$ melvkim

$ chsh -s /bin/zsh
Changing shell for melvkim.
Password for melvkim:
chsh: no changes made

The problem was the "iTerm" app's conflicting settings with the shell. To resolve, I've reset "login shell" command in iTerm preference window:

  iTerm.app -> Preferences -> Profiles -> General -> Command -> Click on "Login shell"

Then, I executed chsh to modify it as /bin/zsh.

To reproduce the problem (having $SHELL set as /bin/bash/, even though the login shell is /bin/zsh), I just had to change "iTerm" setting back to "Command: /bin/zsh/".


How to migrate from JRE 1.6 to JDK 1.6? My Mac Mountain Lion came with JRE 1.6.  However, I would like to have the full JDK.  I read somewhere that for that on Mac it is better to consult Apple rather than Oracle for downloads/install packages but Apple doesn't seem to offer much support for Java 6 (which I need to work on, can't upgrade to 7).  Better yet, if such an upgrade is available through homebrew.

Java JRE and JDKS 1.6 and lower are supplied from Apple and 1.7 or 8 are from Oracle.

The latest Apple one is here I think.
This installs the JDK and the JRE.

the JDK is under /System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/ but /usr/bin contains java, javac etc so will be on the path


Preview seems to have corrupted PDF and lost all text and arrow annotations I have used Preview to create a number of annotations for a PDF file. The annotations are a mix of boxes, ovals, text, arrows, etc…

Upon exiting and reopening Preview, it seems to have lost the majority of the annotations. Many of them still seem to appear in the Inspector's panel for annotations, however, the text is missing from most and many other edits are missing.

I've also tried recovering an earlier version of the file using Time Machine, and restarting the computer, but all versions past or present display the same corrupted / lost annotations.

OS X El Capitan 10.11.2

I have found a way to get back apparently lost annotations.
Following the most popular answer to this post,
if you are able to install the utility qpdf,
which I did simply with brew install qpdf, via homebrew,
then invocation qpdf  --qdf  original.pdf  unpacked.pdf has produced a file
"unpacked.pdf" which contains my lost notes.

These are a little visually corrupted, however this method may be a huge relief if you have lost all of your annotations! - in my case it got back enough so I can trasfer them to a better application. I'm going to try skim.

More info: I got a lot back (when opening unpacked.pdf in preview). However I later found a few annotations were not recovered (notes with empty bodies - perhaps any errors which qpdf gives may be suggestive of whether it did a fully recovery or not).

However, I've just managed to get back more which the first unpack missed, by restoring an earlier version from time machine and just doing the same unpack process on that earlier file, which I called unpacked-2 - resorting to that when some yellow notes have empty bodies in my case is giving me a high rate of recovery so far...


autossh in background does not work anymore Prior to my updating to macOS Sierra, autossh worked just fine. Now, when I run it the ssh session alway terminated immediately. This is the command that I use:

autossh -f -M 8880 -N -y -L 8889:localhost:8888 my-server

When I look at the log-file, I get the following output:

2016/09/29 10:54:17 autossh[15328]: checking for grace period, tries = 0
2016/09/29 10:54:17 autossh[15328]: starting ssh (count 1)
2016/09/29 10:54:17 autossh[15328]: ssh child pid is 15329
2016/09/29 10:54:17 autossh[15328]: check on child 15329
2016/09/29 10:54:17 autossh[15328]: set alarm for 600 secs
2016/09/29 10:54:17 autossh[15329]: execing /usr/bin/ssh
2016/09/29 10:54:21 autossh[15328]: check on child 15329
2016/09/29 10:54:21 autossh[15328]: ssh exited with error status 255; restarting ssh

This goes on and on. However, when I run the same command without the -f option (not running in the background), everything works fine. This looks like the problem described here, but I'm not using a custom id.

What could be the cause for this, and how to fix it?

Since macOS Sierra, ssh-add doesn't automatically load keys added with ssh-add -K on startup. In order for this to work, I had to add ssh-add -A to my .bashrc, now things work as expected.


install mac os el capital from SSD I bought the 450GB SSD that already have mac os el Capital file for laptop, I also bought SSD USB to connect the laptop.

Before installing it, how do I can install or set Mac os el capital from SSD into the same SSD before I replace with the hard drive!

If I'm doing wrong way, is this mean that I have to replace the hard drive with SSD first before installing it! because once I have tried that and the press Options key button is unable to read from start SSD.

I would appreciate your time with help thanks.

I'm struggling a bit with your wording so lets run through a couple standard tasks and you can let me know if I've answered your question or am way off the mark.

--Situation 1.) You have macOS 10.11 (El Capitan) installed on your MacBook's internal HDD. You want to upgrade with an SSD.

Attach the SSD using the USB cable.
Hold "Option" at boot and choose the internal HDD with macOS 10.11
Install CCC (https://bombich.com/software/download_ccc.php) and use it to clone the internal HDD to the external SSD. (No need to purchase unless you want to continue using as your backup software)
Restart.
Hold "Option" at boot and choose the external ssd with macOS 10.11 now on it.
If everything works, shutdown and replace the HDD with the SSD (Search youtube for a walkthrough for your specific model)
Hold "Option" at boot and choose the now internal ssd with macOS 10.11.
OPTIONAL: If step 2, 5, or 6 failed, Hold "CMD + Option + R" at boot to enter internet recovery. Choose disk utility. Run "First Aid" on SSD. If failed a reinstall of macOS is required. (See Additional Task below)

--Situation 2.) You have macOS 10.11 (El Capitan) installed on your External SSD. You want to upgrade the internal HDD with the SSD. I'll assume that there is nothing important on the internal HDD, but if that is incorrect, please be sure to backup your data first.

Attach the SSD using the USB cable.
Hold "Option" at boot and choose the external SSD with macOS 10.11 on it
If everything works, shutdown and replace the HDD with the SSD (Search youtube for a walkthrough for your specific model)
Hold "Option" at boot and choose the now internal ssd with macOS 10.11.
OPTIONAL: If step 3 or 4 failed, Hold "CMD + Option + R" at boot to enter internet recovery. Choose disk utility. Run "First Aid" on SSD. If failed a reinstall of macOS is required. (See Additional Task below)

-- Additional Task: Reinstall macOS (10.13 High Sierra will be installed)

Hold "CMD + Option + R" at boot to enter internet recovery.
Choose disk utility.
Ensure desired disk/volume is selected on left side.
Click Erase.
If HDD choose HFS+ / OSX Extended(Journaled) and name it "Macintosh HD"
If SSD choose APFS and name it "Macintosh HD"
Quit disk utility
Select Install macOS High Sierra
Follow the steps provided to reinstall. Note that it may take far longer than stated if your internet connection is below average.


Suspend some mail notification correponding to a sender I wish to disable some mail notifications let's say, the ones coming from a mailing list named TEST. Is there a way to do it or the notifications are all enabled/disabled at the same time ?

In the rules section I see how to make a notification appears but I don't see any way to hide it...

Try to set the notifications prefs in Mail > Preferences > General
You'll see 2 settings to set the behaviour of the notifications.
You'll can set the notification for all emails, only for your contacts or only for the VIP senders you've defined.

Depends of the OS X version you have, this settings can be there or not.


How do I get notified when the Dropbox app is updated? I realized that I was running a very old version of Dropbox for Mac. Somehow I was not notified about the latest updates. I was expecting the same behavior as apps like 1Password.

In the past, I missed out Selective Sync by few months which I was eagerly waiting for.

I was running 1.1.35 (Under Preferences/ Account) and the latest version is 1.1.43 .

Where can I find the config to let Dropbox auto-update/prompt me on every release, similar to 1Password.

Try MacDropUpdate.

It's an automatic updater that automatically updates your Dropbox to the latest forum build of Dropbox. Works on OS X Leopard|Snow Leopard|Lion.

Edit: it's also Growl-enabled, so you may get notified whenever Dropbox's been updated.


Delete TotalFinder Mavericks since I updated to mavericks. I do not use totalFinder anymore. I deleted it first, but on every start i get this failure message.

I already searched the developer site for help. But nothing helped. http://totalfinder.binaryage.com/uninstallation

Do you know any trick how to delete everything from this application?

There is probably a login item that is attempting to run it still in your user account.

In System Preferences select Users & Groups then your account in the left hand list. To the right select Login Items and browse the list. When you find TotalFinder click on the small '-' at the bottom of the list.

This should fix it.

If that doesn't work and the Uninstaller they give you doesn't work then I suspect their uninstaller is running into a permissions problem caused by the upgrade to Mavericks. I would try a reinstall and then uninstall.


Why don't accepted event invitations through MS Exchange show up in iCal? I'm using Lion's iCal and Mail.app, and I've started working in a company where everyone uses MS Exchange. I haven't connected iCal to Exchange. When I receive an event invitation (sent with Outlook) by email in Mail.app, I get the normal options of Maybe/Decline/Accept. When I click Accept, the sender is notified and the email is moved to the Trash. But the event itself does not show up in iCal.

I've poked around a little already. The entire invitation email is base64 encoded and has a vCal attachment with the event. When I manually base64-decode the attachment and put it into a file, I can double-click it, and it gets imported into iCal.

But I guess this is supposed to work automatically when I click Accept. Of course, in Mail.app's prefs, the "Add invitations to iCal" setting is set to "Automatically".

Is there a way to make this work properly?

Some time ago I wrote a script to fix the problem that Exchange had with incorrect time zone data. The script will import Exchange events into iCal. There are several post on my blog concerning the script and how it functions.

Go to my blog, Surgical Diversions, and search for iCal. You'll see at least 3 posts regarding the script.

This solution is for those without an Exchange account and/or who don't want to set one up. The simplest solution is to create an Exchange account within iCal.


Edit System Dictionary on Mac OS 10.8 So, I think I've found a misspelled word in the Mac OS 10.8 dictionary.  This is not a word that I've added.  I double checked in \Library\Spelling and don't have it added to any user dictionaries.  When I look up the word the dictionary even states it is a common misspelling.

The word in question is "espresso" but if I type "expresso" it's not underlined in red.

Is there anyway to edit the system dictionary?  Or is this something I should submit to Apple as a bug?

*If I double click to select the word and then right click, I don't have the "Unlearn Spelling" option.

Warning: be careful about editing the system dictionary as it is easy to get an unusable dictionary. You also run the risk of having the updated dictionary over-written by subsequent OSX updates.
To edit the system level dictionaries, there is a helpful Q&A that tells you where to find the dictionaries: superuser.
In summary:

~/Library/Spelling/LocalDictionary
The System-wide equivalent, which is empty on my Mac, would be here:
/Library/Spelling/
Aside from this, you will find packaged dictionaries here:
/Library/Dictionaries/
~/Library/Dictionaries/

If it were me, I would just add the word to my personal dictionary. Although your question was how to edit the system dictionary, I note that on my system (10.8.2 Australian English) both your words are accepted.
But Microsoft Word 2011 (with Australian English) puts red lines under expresso and is happy with espresso.
It appears your example may be one of those where there is different usage in different parts of the world and in different software packages.


Are there better in-ear headphones than Apple's? In my experience, the Apple In Ear Headphones self-destruct after about 12 months (I've gone through about 3 pairs) and they now seem to be discontinued.

A microphone and perfect iPhone compatibility on the remote control is required of course. A bit better bass wouldn't hurt either since the iPhone equaliser doesn't affect apps like Spotify.

So my question is, which in-ear headphones deliver the same or better sound quality and are at least as rugged as the Apple's headphones?

The best set of earphones might depend upon your preferences, your goals, your budget, and other consideration, so let me focus on giving you some background and explaining how you can educate yourself and make an informed decision.

If what you care about is sound quality, I recommend taking a look at Head-Fi.org and Hydrogenaudio forums.  You can read through dozens and dozens of knowledgeable reviews of headphones there.  This buying guide from Head-Fi provides an excellent buying guide for shopping for headphones.

If you care about sound quality, I do not recommend relying on mainstream sources (e.g., Cnet, random web sites, tech magazines, etc.) for headphone reviews.  They have extremely poor knowledge about this topic and are often a poor judge of sound quality; I'm often disappointed with their reviews.

There are several different categories of headphones: earbuds, full-sized circumaural hadphones (these go around your ear, but do not rest on the ear itself), full-sized supra-aural headphones (these have pads that rest on the ear), and in-ear monitors.  The circumaural and supra-aural headphones can be "open" or "closed".  Each of these varieties has different tradeoffs.

Earbuds are small headphones that fit loosely in your outer ear.  They are portable, cheap, and widely available, but give the worst sound quality.
Circumaural headphones can give excellent sound quality and are comfortable, but they're large and not so portable.
Supra-aural headphones can give very good sound quality.  Opinions vary about their comfort, and they're not so portable.
In-ear monitors go inside your ear canal and form a tight seal.  They are basically like earplugs, with a tiny speaker inserted into them.  They offer excellent sound quality (in my opinion, the very best sound quality).  They offer very good portability.  They're also very good for travel (because they block outside noise).  However, they tend to be expensive, and some people don't like having something stuck in their ear.  Also, they are not so good for walking/running, because a bone-conductance effect causes you to hear a thud every time your foot strikes the ground.

As far as open vs closed (which only applies to the full-sized circumaural/supra-aural variety):

Open headphones don't try to provide any seal.  This means that if you use them in a room with others, other people may be able to hear some of what you are hearing.  If you're using headphones to avoid bothering others, you might not want open headphones.
Closed headphones provide a bit of a partial seal, so you won't bother others.

Personally, I love in-ear monitors.  I love the Etymotics ER-4P; they are an outstanding quality, a reference in this space.  Shure, Westone, Ultimate Ears, and others also make very high quality in-ear monitors.

If you care about sound quality, you'll be amazed by the difference in sound quality between your Apple stock earbuds and good in-ear monitors (or really, any quality headphone); the difference is enormous.  You'll pay a lot more, but in my opinion, if you can afford it, it's worth it.

If what you care about is that they're cheap, you might want to look at earbuds.  If you're looking for medium-priced open supra-aural headphones, Grado has pretty good value (SR-60 or SR-80).  For full-sized headphones, Sennheiser is a standard, well-respected brand.  But see the buying guide for more specific recommendations.

Since you mentioned you want headphones with a microphone capability, you could look at Etymotic's headset + earphone products, such as the MC3 or HF3; both are advertised as providing support for the iPhone, microphone, and full 3-button remote control.  I'm sure there are many other excellent options from other vendors; I mention the Etymotics ones only because I'm a happy customer of their other products.

I'm afraid I don't have any data on durability.  All I can tell you is that I've had my Etymotics ER-4P headphones for over a decade now (heavily used: I use them daily), with no problems.  You can find price information via the web or at your favorite store.


Run a script to log in to WiFi upon connect My school network have a captive portal. Using Google Chrome's "copy as cURL" seems to log me in using curl, but I want to automate this process so it happens as soon as the mac connects to Wi-Fi. How would I achieve that?
The curl command is as follows:

curl 'http://1.1.1.3/ac_portal/login.php' -H 'Connection: keep-alive' -H 'Accept: */*' -H 'Origin: http://1.1.1.3' -H 'X-Requested-With: XMLHttpRequest' -H 'User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0; Nexus 5 Build/MRA58N) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/79.0.3945.88 Mobile Safari/537.36' -H 'DNT: 1' -H 'Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=UTF-8' -H 'Referer: http://1.1.1.3/ac_portal/20171018144956/pc.html?template=20171018144956&tabs=pwd&vlanid=0&url=http://www.gstatic.com/generate_204' -H 'Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate' -H 'Accept-Language: zh' -H 'Cookie: ac_login_info=passwork; Sessionid=3566675246-1' --data 'opr=pwdLogin&userName=student&pwd=password&rememberPwd=1' --compressed --insecure

The network name is SCLSCHOOL_G, SCLSCHOOL_F, and SCLSCHOOL_H.

There’s nothing that allows you to kick off a script when you attach to a particular network, so you’ll have to use two tools

launchctl  You’ll have to start the job based on network availability.  Unfortunately, this only checks to see if you’re connected to any network, not a specific one.
networksetup that gets the current SSID you’re attached to.  The command you will need is

networksetup -listpreferredwirelessnetworks en1 | grep ${SSID} | cut -f2

Then in a bash script, compare the output of that command and if it matches the SSID you want, run the curl command.


How can I restore from today's iPhone iOS 9 backup when iTunes not giving me the option? Had to do a reset to factory settings of my iPhone today. I backed it up before doing this. I now want to restore to the backup done earlier today...but when I click on "restore backup" today's backup isn't one of the options. The latest one I'm given the option on is Sept 15, 2015. Help!

How can I restore the earlier backup from today when iTunes isn't giving me that option? Thanks.

I am assuming you have looked through the drop down menu for backups and didn't see your most current one. Have you tried restarting iTunes/MAC or PC? If restarting didn't help...

In that case I would look at the iTunes backup folder to see if the latest one was even created. Go to the iTunes mobile back up folder. Here is how to find that folder:

Under Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 10, stored in
\Users(username)\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup

Under Mac OS X, stored in
\Users(username)/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/.

You should see bunch of files that have random character file names. Sort them by date and see if the one you just created is there. If not, then your only option is to use the Sept. 15 backup.

If it is there... Back up all your backups to another location! (keep in mind that backups can be large and you may need extra storage space and it may take a long time to copy all the backups). There are software out there available that will make backups for you if you aren't comfortable doing this yourself. You can also take your computer and iPhone to the Apple store and they should help you with this.

What I have done in the past is copy all the backups to another folder (with iTunes closed). Then I deleted all backups in the backup folder leaving only the one I want iTunes to use. Please be careful with this step as you may risk loosing all your backups. Then restart your iTunes and the right backup should be there. If it isn't there, then the backup maybe corrupted and in that case I wouldn't even try to use it.

Don't forget to put all the other backups back into the backup folder in case you want to use them at another time.


iMessage Plugin Gone from Messages So I accidentally deleted the iMessages plugin from the Messages app on El Capitan. Now the app is broken and nothing works. Anyway I could get this back?

Oddly enough this usually has a simple fix to it. Yes you may have to reinstall MacOS but that can be done over top of what you already have with no danger of losing anything. However another approach might be in order.

Download the latest combo update from Apple here. Run it, and reboot when done. it is likely to fix the issue.

If not then boot into recovery mode and reinstall your OS. You will then likely have to re-apply any subsequent updates again to the base system that was just reinstalled.


How to search by coordinates in Apple Maps? Using google maps, looking for N45°11.760 E5°45.936 works to show the geolocation on a map.

Unfortunately this does not work on Maps.

Any idea how to do it ?

Well it seems that Maps only want decimals : 45.196000, 5.765600

Too bad it isn't as flexible as GMaps.


Can new Health-app fields be created by 3rd parties? So, I've been using Apple's Health app, and I think it's wonderful.

My Apple Watch frequent enters my heart rate and steps-taken into the database, and I can manually enter other common things like my blood pressure and weight. Cool.

However, I don't see fields for everything that I may want to track.

For example, there aren't any fields to keep track of so-called 'healthy' fats, like DHAs / Omega-3 fatty acids.

I know that there are 3rd party apps that keep track of this sort of thing. But they seem to store that data in their own internal databases. I haven't found an app that can write data to the Health database. That is, unless the field already exists.

So, that has led me to wonder: Is Apple the sole provider/decider of the fields that can be used in their Health app?

Or, is it possible for 3rd party apps (or just a regular user like me) to create new fields that will work in the Health app?

Neither you nor third-party developers can add fields to Health.

Working with the HealthKit Framework
The HealthKit framework is designed to share data between apps in a meaningful way. The framework constrains the types of data and units to a predefined list, ensuring that all apps understand what the data means and how it can be used. Developers cannot create custom data types or units. Instead, HealthKit provides a wide variety of data types and units.

HealthKit | Apple Developer Documentation


How to search file name that contains asterisk (*)? I want to search file name that contains asterisk (*), e.g.

*abc.jpg
xy*z.pdf
123*.txt

How can I do that in Finder?

Well, just type *. It isn't treated any different than other characters:


Downloaded app won't open because it is from an unidentified developer I have download photo express mac version on my MacBook Pro and it won't open it said can't opened because it is from an unidentified developer. But I'm using there mac download so what do I do so I can get it to work

I would appear that for some reason the developer of Photo Express is not registered with Apple as an identified developer.

To get it to install you will need to go to System Preferences and change the default setting for application downloads...

System Prefs-> Security And Privacy -> and select Allow apps downloaded from Anywhere.

Remember to set the value back to Mac App Store and identified developers afterwards.


What's a good app for project management? Look, there's at least 16 million productivity apps and I've tried like 90% of them. Maybe you know of something in that last 10% that will change my life.

Here's what I'm looking for:

Offline functionality
To-do, calendar, reminders, attachments allowed
Cross-platform: Macbook, ipad, iphone
Aesthetically-pleasing interface (nothing hideous)

Here's what I don't need:

Multiple users
Collaborative functions
chat, IM, etc.

I've tried Things (but it's really just a fancy program for nested lists and difficult to get an overview of everything at once) and Trello (which I really like -- but it only works online).

Any suggestions would be very much appreciated.

If you have the money, you should give a try at OmniFocus. It might be a bit overwhelming in the beginning, you will need some time to adjust yourself to the application and find the most suitable configuration of the app. But as soon as you get in "autopilot mode" you will be quite satisfied.

If you are looking for some free alternatives I would recommend:

Asana
Producteev

They are not actually free, not as in beer anyway. They are freemium: you will have a set of features that are free, and another set of features that are payed, but I think that the free version do most of the job.

And there's also Trello that is simultaneously minimalistic and powerful.


How do I create a script to create/modify local admin accounts? This question is almost exactly what I need for my project at work. We have approx. 400 Macs on our campus, and the problem is they were not all set up identically. There are at least 4 different admin username and password variations.

What I'd like to have is a script that will:

1) Check to see what the local admin account(s) is called. 2) If the account isn't named properly, create a new one with the proper name. 3) Set the proper password. (Preferably it'd be obfuscated in the script)

This is what I came up with:

It also uses http://magervalp.github.io/CreateUserPkg/

#!/bin/bash
# This script will first check existing accounts for presence of USERNAME or admin    or administrator
# If found, it will change the password to PASSWORD
# If none are found, it will run the package create_USERNAME-1.0.pkg which creates an account with Full Name = Administrator, Account Name
# (short name) USERNAME with the password.

function checkusername () {

local test1=$(dscl . -list /Users | grep -i USERNAME)
local test2=$(dscl . -list /Users | grep -i admin)
local test3=$(dscl . -list /Users | grep -i Administrator)

if [ "$test1" = “username” ]; then
  echo the username username already exists
  echo setting password
  dscl . passwd /Users/username PASSWORD
  exit
else
  echo
fi

if [ "$test1" = "Username" ]; then
  echo the username Username already exists
  echo setting password
  dscl . passwd /Users/Username PASSWORD
  exit
else
  echo
fi

if [ "$test1" = “UserName” ]; then
  echo the username UserName already exists
  echo setting password
  dscl . passwd /Users/UserName PASSWORD
  exit
else
  echo
fi

if [ "$test2" = "admin" ]; then
  echo the username admin already exists
  echo setting password
  dscl . passwd /Users/admin PASSWORD
  exit
else
  echo
fi

if [ "$test2" = "Admin" ]; then
  echo the username Admin already exists
  echo setting password
  dscl . passwd /Users/Admin PASSWORD
  exit
else
  echo
fi

if [ "$test3" = "Administrator" ]; then
  echo the username Administrator already exists
  echo setting password
  dscl . passwd /Users/Administrator PASSWORD
  exit
else
  echo
fi

if [ "$test3" = "administrator" ]; then
  echo the username administrator already exists
  echo setting password
  dscl . passwd /Users/administrator PASSWORD
  exit
else
  echo
fi

}

checkusername

/usr/sbin/installer -pkg 'create_USERNAME-1.0.pkg' -target /


Twitter app on iOS 9 doesn't connect through proxy I'm connecting to a local proxy to access internet on my iPhone/iOS 9 but Twitter app seems not using the global proxy i've set for my wifi...

Other apps like Chrome & Safari are working just fine!

iOS 9 implements App Transport Security on each individual application. This is a setting that is enabled by default on all iOS 9 apps. Application developers that wish to allow their apps to be proxied can disable this setting in the applications plist file. If you are on a jailbroken device you can also manually modify this file.

Alternatively I found this that should work, haven't tried yet though
https://nabla-c0d3.github.io/blog/2015/12/01/burp-ios9-ats/


How to use `adb shell screenrecord --output-format=h264` together with VLC I am trying to set up a live stream showing the screen of my Android phone. When I tried

adb shell screenrecord --output-format=h264 | /Applications/vlc.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC

VLC will start but there will be no content. How do I do this properly?

Your command adb shell screenrecord --output-format=h264
is missing a - at the end.
It should be

adb shell screenrecord --output-format=h264 - | /Applications/vlc.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC -


Why won't iTunes download HD movies? I'm running iTunes 11 on a retina MacBook Pro, and when I try to download HD movies, iTunes shows me a dialog alert saying "This  cannot be played in HD on this computer." The dialog goes on to imply that I have a choice to proceed or to but the standard def version, but I don't see a way to buy the HD version.

Why can't iTunes 11 play HD movies on a retina MacBook Pro? Where's the "I wanna download it anyway" button?

Open iTunes > go to Preferences > Downloads. Ensure that the checkbox which asks if you want HD footage to be preferred over SD is ticked. Also, check your storage and make sure you are using a screen resolution that isn't too far off from the default. If this does not work, turn off the computer, then press  shift + control + option, then press the power button (but don't hold). Then once you have done that, power on the computer. Some users who had this bug have reported that as a solution.


iTunes asks to transfer purchased apps from iPhone even though app sync is off A few weeks after iOS 5 came out, I disabled app syncing with my phone. I still sync my media with the computer.

Today when I synced my phone, it asked to transfer purchases from my phone to my computer (picture below). I accepted and iTunes transfered all the apps from my phone to my computer. I deleted one of them from my computer and synced again, and the same thing happened. Once all the apps are on my computer, syncing no longer brings up the message.

I deleted an app from the computer then synced again, this time choosing not to transfer. The app was not deleted from my phone despite the warning message telling me it would, and the app didn't transfer. However, every time I sync it warns me to transfer the app again.

Can I get iTunes to stop trying to transfer app purchases from my phone? I don't want to use the "Don't ask again" setting because I still want to be warned about transferring music.

I have the following environment:

iOS 5.0.1
Mac OS X 10.6.8
iTunes 10.5.1

Device settings → "Sync Apps" is unchecked
Preferences → Store → Automatic Downloads → Apps is unchecked

The only change to my system I can think of was a week ago when my hard drive died and I restored my computer with a Time Machine backup. However, I've synced my phone since then without this problem.  I had also updated to iTunes 10.5.1 two weeks ago (before the backup was created).

When you purchase apps (even free) on the device, iTunes always backs this up - and when it Syncs, before it does anything it backs up - and it notices that you have purchased an app/apps - so it wishes to make a backup of these apps. Click transfer and it'll all work fine - happens to me when I buy songs off of the store as well as apps


What is the technology used to prompt for passwords on an public wifi network When connecting to the internet via a public wifi hotspot on a mac or ipad, rather than the simple wifi password requested by a home router, a new 'sheet' or dialog is displayed to log into the network, often with some branding of the hotspot's owner. An example in the UK would be the Virgin hotspots on the London underground network.

What is the technology used to initiate and display this authentication mechanism and is there a way to have the device / desktop remember the password? A workaround is to open a browser which can remember the password but its very irritating that the password is not remembered and there is no option to remember it.

As far as I know, it is not called "Push notifcation" as indicated in earlier answer.

The correct name for this is a "Captive portal".

The technology is simply that the user's requests are redirected to a specific web page until the user has authenticated (or whatever requirements the specific provider has).

The redirection can technically be done via HTTP (i.e. some kind of HTTP proxy), via ICMP redirects or via sending back fake DNS replies.

Apple has added detection of these captive portals to Mac OS X. After connecting to a WiFi system, Mac OS X will try to access an address at Apple - if it succeeds it assumes the user has general access to the internet.

If not, it will assume a captive portal is in place, and popup a window for the user to authenticate to the network.


iPhone Dead, No Charger Someone dropped their iPhone near my door. The neighbor picked it up, phoned me, and told me it has my number in it so it's probably someone I know.

But now, the phone is dead, and I don't have an iPhone charger to charge it. How can I turn this thing on?

Go to the nearest Apple store and ask to use one of their chargers. From my previous experiences, they are usually very helpful.


Unable to switch input sources after updating macOS to 10.14.6 After the latest update to Mojave 10.14.6, I'm unable to change input source using the keyboard shortcut (it works when I change it by selecting the input source manually).

I tried changing it to different key combinations, rebooting, etc. but nothing works unfortunately. Before the update, everything was working fine.

My question is, is there any known issues/fixes on this? Thanks in advance.

UPDATE

I found out that the control key is causing the issue (Before, I tried only the shortcuts that contained it). I was using ^Space, however, when I change it to Shift+Space everything works fine. Has there been any change to the control key behaviour recently?

I had the same issue with my mbp after the update. I called Apple support and they said it might be a software glitch that prevent this function from working. The solution I got was shutdown the computer, press the start button and as soon as I let go, press ^control+⌥command+P+R at the same time for 15-20 seconds, and login as usual. It solved my issue.


Unable to Turn off Battery Percentage Indicator A few years ago when I had my iPhone 3GS, and wanted to see the battery displayed as a percentage (before this was implemented as a feature of iOS).  I achieved this via jailbreak.  Now my issue is this:  I can't turn it off.  I am several versions of phone and iOS beyond where I was when I implemented the jailbreak, unfortunately I (incorrectly) figured that when I migrated hardware this issue would resolve itself.

I am wondering is there somewhere I can go in the filesystem and remove a file or flag or something to resolve this?

The accepted answer to this question goes into more detail regarding this jailbreak hack.

I'm guessing that if you're "several versions of phone and iOS beyond where" you were when you did this, then you are likely not jailbroken anymore? Because they introduced the percentage as an option and is configurable in
Settings >> General >> Usage >> Battery Percentage (last option for me).

If you're still jailbroken and you have this option off already, then I'm sorry, I can't help you there. Good luck


Does iOS 7 cellular tethering limit the number of WiFi clients? I'm looking on Apple's site and can't find any published limits on how many clients can connect to one iPhone / iPad with cellular tethering enabled in the US.

Setting aside the obvious limit where 1,000 devices would overwhelm the data connection in practice if they all want data at the same time, is there a hardware or software limit of perhaps 5 or 10 devices that can connect to one device over WiFi?

The thing about these limits is that the carriers and iPhone models are all different. For instance, the iPhone 5 should theoretically be able to handle up to 14 connections, but both AT&T and Verizon limits it to 5. As far as I have understood, it is hardware-limited, and therefore it is not affected by iOS version.

I have started on a list which anyone may suggest an edit to if they come up with new information. Feel free to comment as well.

iPhone 3GS supports up to two peers combined through USB and Bluetooth-tethering. 1
iPhone 4: 1, 2

AT&T-version supports up to three Wi-Fi peers, three via Bluetooth, and one USB peer.
Verizon-version supports up to five Wi-Fi peers, three via Bluetooth, and one USB peer.

iPhone 4S supports up to five Wi-Fi peers. Unconfirmed
iPhone 5 supports up to five Wi-Fi peers. (AT&T and Verizon confirmed 3)
iPad 3rd gen is currently unknown.
iPad mini is currently unknown.
iPad 4th gen is currently unknown.

Please note that Apple have not disclosed any of these limitations, they simply state:

  The maximum number of supported connections may vary depending on your carrier or iPhone model.

Apple have also stated in an article about all iPhone-versions and the third-gen iPad that:

  Depending on your wireless carrier and, the maximum number of Wi-Fi connections may be limited to three at one time.


Difference between Apple's Thunderbolt ethernet adapters? Apple seems to make (at least) two different Thunderbolt ethernet adapters.  One is the "MD463LL/A".  Another is the "MD463ZM/A".

Is there any functional difference between them?  Is one better than the other?

I think there are no differences in the hardware, just the regional identifier for the product. There might be differences in the packaging however. Here in Eastern Europe the ZM model is being sold.

Here is an incomplete list of country codes (unconfirmed, source):

AB - Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates
B - Ireland, UK, also used for some replacement phones
C - Canada
CZ - Czech Republic
DN - Austria, Germany, Netherlands
E - Mexico
EE - Estonia
ER - Ireland
FB - France, Luxembourg
FD - Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland
GR - Greece
HN - India
IP - Italy
J - Japan
KH - Korea
KN - Norway
KS - Finland, Sweden
LA - Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru
LE - Argentina
LL - USA
LZ - Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay
MG - Hungary
MY - Malaysia
NF - Belgium, France, Luxembourg
PL - Poland
PO - Portugal
PP - Philippines
RO - Romania
RS - Russia
SL - Slovakia
SO - South Africa
T - Italy
TA - Taiwan
TU - Turkey
X - Australia, New Zealand
Y - Spain
ZA - Singapore
ZP - Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia

Here is another article showing explaining Apple product codes.


"Other" storage in Mac 10.9 I have a Macbook Pro, 10.9 with 500GB of hard drive storage and 4GB of RAM. When I access the Utility app "System Information", this is what I got.

There is a yellow block called "Other". What does "other" storage mean in this context?

If you look in to the available categories there are files that do not fit in to any.

That is why are they called others.

Nothing wrong with those files, they just did not fit the given categories.


IPV6 ip address not able to connect from my app when NAT64/DNS64 is connected SetUp Details :-

IpV4 ethernet cable is connected to MAC machine. Now as per apple documentation steps are followed. Where DNS64/NAT64 is created and hotspot is created.

Device is connected to wi-fi which is created by hotspot on mac machine.

Application status :-

My application is Push to talk (PTT) application. Now i have launched the application where i am establishing to connection to my server.

1) SIP Connection :- FQDN is provided to DNS64/NAT64 which mapped to ipv4 address. so DNS64/NAT64 gave me synthesised ipv6 address. Here TCP connection established successfully.

2) MEDIA Connection :- ipv6 address [Direct server ip] application has given to DNS64/NAT64 but TCP connect is failing as client is sending SYN but "route unreachable error is received".

3) From the browser of device , I am trying to open only ipv6 supported website but it showing "server could not found". But ipv4 and ipv6 both supported website is opening as it's taking ipv4 route.

Problem:-

Please provide a solution how to reach ipv6 address through DNS64/NAT64 network.

Reference :-
Below link i have referred to set up a hotspot  in mac machine.

https://developer.apple.com/support/ipv6/

If you only have an IPv4 network then the NAT64 network provided by your Mac will have no connectivity to the real IPv6 internet, only to the synthesized IPv6 addresses that correspond to IPv4. If you need to connect to real IPv6 servers then you need a real IPv6 connection.


How can I tell if True Tone is on/off in a script? I want to be able to print out if True Tone is on or off in a script. Is there a command to determine this?

You can try this, Source completely referenced from Reddit

tell application "System Preferences"
  if it is running then
    quit
  end if
end tell

delay 0.2

activate application "System Preferences"

tell application "System Events"
  tell process "System Preferences"
    click button "Displays" of scroll area 1 of window "System Preferences"
    delay 0.8
    click radio button "Display" of tab group 1 of window "Built-in Retina Display"
    click checkbox "True Tone" of tab group 1 of window "Built-in Retina Display"
  end tell
  quit application "System Preferences"
end tell

The other solution is:

use sys : application "System Events"
use prefs : application "System Preferences"

property prefsUI : a reference to process "System Preferences"
property _W : a reference to windows of prefsUI
property _TT : a reference to checkbox "True Tone" of tab group 1 of _W

property pane : "com.apple.preference.displays"
property anchor : "displaysDisplayTab"
property tab : anchor (my anchor) of pane id (my pane)

set TrueTone to null
if tab ≠ (reveal tab) then return null

tell _TT to if exists then set TrueTone to its value as boolean

quit prefs

TrueTone


How to make Safari remember zoom level per site? Safari's default font size is not large enough for my eyes so I have to press ⌘++ for a while on every website I visit. I could've used CSS to set the default zoom level in Safari but I want different zoom levels for Twitter, Facebook, StackOverflow, etc.

Is there an extension or other way available to make Safari remember per-site zoom level settings?

Yes,

There is an extension for this called ZoomBySite. Here is a description of the software from it's website:

  ZoomBySite is a Safari Extension that will automatically zoom each
  site to the zoom level of your last visit to the site. A site is
  defined by a unique domain name (so www.apple.com is considered
  different from store.apple.com and each could have its own unique zoom
  level).

  It does this by intercepting the Zoom In and Zoom Out keyboard
  shortcuts [...]. It zooms the page in or out by
  the desired amount (see the Preferences section below) and also stores
  the zoom level for the site. As each page loads, it checks to see if
  there is a stored zoom level and sets it again for the current
  viewing. If you change the zoom level of a site, any other tabs or
  windows that are open to that site will also change their zoom level.


equivalent of windows+L in osx snow leopard Possible Duplicate:
  Is there a quick way to lock my Mac?

whenever i used to leave my system i just press WINDOWS+L in my windows system. Now i have macbook pro with snow leopard OS and i am searching for equivalent of windows+l.

So my question is what is the keyboard shortcut to lock macbook pro?

i know the shortcut COMMAND+SHIFT+Q.
But this shortcut is for logout not to lock the system.

control+shift+eject sets the display to sleep. If you have then the option "Require password immediately after sleep or screen saver begins" set in "Security & Privacy" it will lock your machine.

This will only put the display to sleep not the system: not exactly what you asked but the additional screen sleep is not bad (less energy consumption :-)

There are other answers here that point out ways to establish a automation to lock the screen from a keyboard command of your choosing. See

Is there a quick way to lock my Mac?
Lock screen with LaunchBar
https://superuser.com/questions/45740/fast-user-switching-apple-menu

The last two show several methods to script this. You can then use LaunchBar or FastScripts or another tool to launch the action you prefer.


Why won't iTunes stream 320 kbps audio across a network? My iTunes library, that's shared on our network, has some songs that have a bit rate of 320 kbps.  These songs will not play when I try to play them from a client computer - accessing them through the Shared library.

Why won't they play?  Is there a work around besides downgrading the bit rate?

Do you know for sure it is the 320 kbps that is keeping the songs from being played? Can you play songs with a lower bitrate successfully?

There are three reasons I can think of that would make a song not play in Shared Library:

You have reached the 5-computer limit
on Shared Library. Only when the
number of concurrent connections gets
back to less than 5 you will be able
to connect and play the songs.
The remote iTunes has not been
authorized for that Apple ID and the
song you are trying to play has DRM
protection (i.e., it is an Audible
book or it was purchased way back
when Apple only sold DRM-protected
songs).
The song is listed on the Shared
Library (and on the "server" iTunes
Library) but it is pointing to a file
that does not exist on the computer's
file system or is out of reach.

I hope this gives you additional ideas to look into.


How to limit audio volume on iPhone for all apps? I looked at restrictions and volume limit, but it does not limit volume for all apps (eg. youtube or VLC). Is there any way I can limit volume for all apps?

iOS handles volume differently depending on the task at hand. For example, the volume for playing games is set differently to the volume for playing videos.

In your example, YouTube and VLC are both for playing videos. If you need the audio level for these types of apps to be lower (or off) you need to play a video and then lower the volume. Once you've done this, iOS remembers this for all video playing apps (i.e. turning it down on VLC will mean that it's also down for other video playing apps).

You just need to remember then that even if you turn your volume up while using the phone, that when you next play a video it will still be at the level it was at when you last played a video.

Hope this helps.


Mountain Lion Title Bar Truncation With OSX Mountain Lion (10.8.2) there is a UI problem.

Calendar + Reminder +  Sticky Note apps have truncated title text

If i login as a guest they are correct. There is clearly a preference somewhere which is causing this but I've got no idea how to fix it.

The similarities between these three applications is that they all show "Updating..." in the title bar when sending/receiving data. Maybe something related to sync services or Calendar Agent? It might help to reset sync services.

Issues that are only occurring within your user account (and not others) are most likely related to preferences or other data inside of that account. A great place to start is the ~/Library/Preferences folder. Performing a split-half search on the contents of that directory is a good way to attack the issues. If the problem doesn't lie within the Preferences folder, there's a good chance that it's in ~/Library somewhere (Calendars?).

If you're lucky, the upgrade to Mavericks won't use the same functionality (i.e., won't read the corrupt preferences)...However, you may still experience the issues in that OS if you install over the top of your current user environment.


Iphone 5s: Can not find apple id I was wondering whether there is a way to find the appleid of an iphone that is stuck in the activation screen, when connecting it to itunes on a computer that was connected in the past.

Thanks a lot for your help.

If you take it to the Apple Store or call AppleCare they'll be able to look this up for you, from your device's serial number.


Which text editors for iPhone support tabs and editing files in Dropbox in-place? I've been searching for a text editor on iPhone with the following features:

Support for browsing files in Dropbox and editing them in-place.
Support for keeping more than one file open at a time and switching between them.

Apps that don't meet my requirements:

GoodReader supports tabs, but it doesn't allow me to edit files in-place in Dropbox.
Byword allows me to edit files in Dropbox in-place, but it doesn't have tabs.

Are there any iPhone apps that support tabs and editing files in Dropbox in-place?

GoCoEdit

GoCoEdit is a Code and Text Editor optimized for fast opening and editing local (on iOS device) and remote (on server) files with your iOS Device.

It supports extended syntax highlighting on many coding languages and has a themable interface with many dark and light themes.

Features:

  Universal App (use it on your iPad, iPhone & iPod Touch)
  Connect to your servers via SFTP, FTP, Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive
  Multiple Tabs
  Very fast reconnect and recover of open files after restart
  Upload and Download files/folders or edit files directly on your server/dropbox/drive without download
  Supporting iOS9 features like textselection by cursor, Splitview and Slide-Over
  Supporting 3D Touch
  External/Bluetooth keyboard support, with lots of shortcuts


Could I connect a macbook pro to an external hard drive for use with time machine I want to know if connecting a macbook pro to an external hard drive for use with time machine when I am not using it, at night, will work.

If I then disconnect it in the morning (regardless of the progress of the time machine OR journaling) will it cause any problems?

Thanks

There are third party solutions to schedule the timemachine backups. Backing up to any standard USB external harddrive should not be a problem at all.

While I cannot give you a firsthand review, TimeMachineEditor seems quite popular and reliable:
https://www.google.fr/search?q=timemachineeditor

When disconnecting the harddrive, you should however always make sure that the backup is finished and no write process is currently done. Eject the drive would be the safe thing to do.


iTerm2: Non standard characters are differently sized than other characters Recently I changed iTerm2's default setting so that the default font size is larger when I open it up. However this increased font size only seems to apply to the standard characters. The non standard characters are still small when I open up iTerm2.

How can I make the non-standard characters the same size as the other characters?

Untick Use a different font for non-ASCII text

To make this change first go to the preferences page. You can get to the preferences page either by pressing Command+,or by going to the top left of the Iterm2 screen clicking "Iterm2" then "Preferences". Once at preferences, to get to the specific spot mentioned above it might be helpful to reference this picture.


How to recover Mac Startup Security Utility? To boot up with external disk, I launched into a startup security utility.
The standard startup security utility shows the menus like above.

But my startup security utility only shows the Firmware password protection menu without any options about Secure boot and External Boot.
How to recover startup security utility?

OS version: 10.14.5 Mojave
Device version: 2017 MacBook Pro
The way to startup security utility: Press cmd + R on boot

The reason you can't access the Startup Security Utility is because it doesn't exist for your model of MacBook Pro.

More specifically, Startup Security Utility is only available on Mac computers that have the Apple T2 Security Chip. So far the only Macs that have the T2 Security Chip are:

iMac Pro
Mac mini models introduced in 2018
MacBook Air models introduced in 2018
MacBook Pro models introduced in 2018

For more information I refer you to the following Apple pages:

About Startup Security Utility
About the Apple T2 Security Chip


How can i toggle Caps Lock LED by a program Is there any way to toggle Caps Lock LED by a shell command or a script or a prgram on OSX 10.10?

All the solutions i goggled do not work on Yosemite.

I have mapped pressing Caps Lock to toggle keyboard layouts so i wanted to use the LED as an indicator of the present keyboard layout.

MacLight is a Ruby Script which has worked for me.

https://github.com/busyloop/maclight


Restore photos to new iPhone from previous backup I have a new iPhone 7 Plus and would like to restore only my photos to my new iPhone from my backup.  Is there a way to do that rather than restore the entire backup?

Thanks.

Jason

There are easy two ways to do this.

You can turn on the iCloud photo library feature in your settings, this will backup your photos to your iCloud account and share them across your Apple devices. You can learn how to do this here: iCloud Photo Library
You can also backup your photos onto a Mac computer as well. This will allow you to easily choose which pictures to put back onto your phone. You can learn how to do this here: Transfer photos and videos from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch


Wine won't open any programs Running macOS Sierra(Version 10.12.2 16C67).

I installed Wine version wine-1.8.6 (through a .pkg file). I opened up a game and it worked fine.

The next day when I downloaded Origin installer, it wouldn't open. When I double clicked on it, the Wine icon showed up in the dock and said it was open, but no windows showed up. When I clicked on another program(or on the desktop), Wine closed. Now when I try to start that same game I opened when I first installed Wine, the same thing happens that happened when I started Origin installer.

When I go to the terminal and type wine {path of .exe} I got this:

I installed wine tricks using brew install winetricks and it installed fine, yet it didn't change my situation.

winecfg works properly, and so does sh winetricks.

The real problem was that I had removed the Z: drive which pointed to my root directory. After adding the Z: drive back using winecfg, I was able to run Windows programs from any location again.

I finally got it fixed. I just deleted the .wine folder, ran winecfg again, and everything started working.

rm -rf ~/.wine
winecfg

Sometimes after trying this solution, I still have this problem. I have found that moving the program to inside the ~/.wine/drive_c folder fixes this.


Mac Pro going to sleep when rebuilding RAID array I have a Mac Pro which is going to sleep during a RAID array rebuild. The disks are spinning down during the sleep, so I worry that the array will either not successfully build, or will require constant monitoring.

The drives are NOT green, and are not just turning themselves off. Rather, the whole computer is going to sleep.

Here is the situation:

Mirror 1 degraded, disk0s1 fail
Mirror 2 degraded, disk2s1 fail
Markup: Mirror 1 disk0, disk2
Markup: Mirror 2 disk1, disk3
Currently, Mirror 2 is being rebuilt
System goes to sleep ~15 to 20 min in

I have tried resetting the NVRAM and SMC, which does nothing. Since I am doing the RAID rebuild through the gui, I cannot access a log since the system is booted off of a flashdrive (installer), which therefore means there probably would not be any stored log files.

I am at a loss on how to proceed. I have not yet been able to try the appleRAID cli tools. Namely, I'm worried most about the sleep problem than I am rebuild time.

Check 'man pmset'

you want

pmset disksleep 0 sleep 0

I think.


USB 3.1 Type C Adapter MacBook Pro Retina I want to know if there is any possibility to connect an USB 3.1 Type C device to a MacBook Pro Retina Early 2015. Is there any Thunderbold/USB 3.1 adaper?

Thanks a lot

Yes, there's adapters all over the place.  Look at Amazon (I found this one for about $7 US) and Monoprice.


Error when using pkgutil to flatten an application bundle into a flat package I have an application bundle that I need to convert to a flattened package.  In my case, the application is a simple bash script that has been bundled into an application using Platypus.  To flatten the bundle, I used the following command on a machine running macOS 10.15.3...

pkgutil --flatten /path/to/application_bundle /path/to/flattened_package

When then attempting to run the flattened package, I receive the error, "You can't open the application because it is not supported on the type of Mac."  However, the bundled app runs without any issue.  Any ideas on how to convert a bundled app to a flattened app that will run?

pkgutil is the wrong tool for this.  Use pkgbuild instead.  The syntax is...

pkgbuild --root /path/to/application_bundle.app --identifier com.company.application --version 1.0 --install-location /Applications /path/to/flattened_package.pkg

Some MDM's require a product archive instead of a flattened package. If that is the case, you can then use productbuild to create a product archive. The syntax for that is...

productbuild --version 1.0 --package /path/to/flattened_package.pkg /path/to/archive.pkg


Is there a way to disable Genius updates in iTunes? Is there a way to prevent iTunes from performing Genius updates each time it launches?

I don't use this feature, and the process seems to slow down the process of getting access to the store and to my connected iOS devices.

According to this Apple iTunes page:

  To turn off Genius, select Turn Off Genius from the Store menu. Once
  you turn off Genius, iTunes will no longer send information about your
  iTunes library to Apple.

This About.com page also notes:

  If you want to completely turn off the Genius features, not just hide
  them, simply go to the Store menu in iTunes and choose "Turn off
  Genius."

I've confirmed that it can be turned off in the iTunes instance on my MBP.


How to get a list of URLs from an defined bookmark's folder in Safari Have many bookmarks in the Safari's Favorites. Let say, have an folder called perl and it contains many links and also subforlders with links, like in the screenshot:

Need to extract all bookmarked links from the perl folder and it's subfolders using ONLY Terminal's command line. E.g. want run some command in the Terminal, like:

get_my_bookmarks perl

and the result will be a list of URLs.

It is possible to achieve this with applescrit, e.g. with

 osascript -e '... some applescript voodoo ...'

or by using some tool and extracting the wanted links info from the binary ~/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist, e.g. the following

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -x -c Print ~/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist

dumps the whole plist (xml) - but how to easily extract only URLs from one defined bookmark-folder? Any idea for some simple way?

After some googling and learning XPath expressions, the solution is really simple:

The following shell script - let say its name is dump_bookmarks.sh,

#!/bin/bash
for foldername
do
    /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -x -c Print ~/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist | \
    xmlstarlet sel --net -t -v "//key[.='Title']/following-sibling::string[.='$foldername']/parent::node()//key[.='URLString']/following-sibling::string[1]"
    echo    #print an newline after the last entry
done

and using it as

./print_bookmarks.sh perl  #argument is the bookmark-folder name

will print a list of bookmarked URLs, like for the above screenshot will print:

https://metacpan.org/pod/Path::Tiny
http://perlmaven.com/perl-based-open-source-products
http://www.perl.com/pub/2012/04/perlunicook-standard-preamble.html
https://acidcycles.wordpress.com/2010/11/24/implementing-factories-in-perl/
http://gcstar.softonic.com/
http://steffen-wendzel.blogspot.de/p/blog-page_24.html
http://continuity.tlt42.org/

For the script you need install the xmlstarlet command, for example using Macports

sudo port install xmlstarlet


Hacked, possibly - has anyone seen this message before? This afternoon, the touch screen of my phone became unresponsive. I tried to restart the phone but it would not. So I went on and deleted find my iphone profile because it stopped the phone from restarting. As soon that was done, my phone restarted itself. Then I saw the following message on my phone:

Has anyone had this problem before. What's the cause of it?

P.S. I have since reset my phone and changed my iCloud password just in case.

From the picture it looks like someone placed your device in lost mode. When a device is placed in lost mode you have the option to display a message and a phone number on the lock screen.

When you erased the device and signed back in with your Apple ID this would turn off lost mode for the device.


Bluetooth Serial Port Profile (SPP) support in OS X Yosemite I've got a device that connects to a computer using Bluetooth's SPP (Serial Port Profile) which is widely supported by almost everything however is now considered legacy.

I'm struggling to get my device to work in Yosemite and it doesn't seem to support it?

I was able to pair a bluetooth serial port via the preferences panel:

Apple Menu > System Preferences... > Bluetooth

My adapter was discoverable, failed auto-pairing, but I was able to pair with the pin code provided in the online documentation. The system automatically created a serial port:

alf@my-mac:~ ls -l /dev/tty.*
crw-rw-rw-  1 root  wheel   18,   6 Aug 12 15:09 /dev/tty.HC-06-DevB

Screen will open this port, but I don't have the correct baud rate just yet:

screen /dev/tty.HC-06-DevB


How to use rsync via ssh with IPv6 LLA (link local address) addresses on OSX? I'm using OSX High Sierra and bash. I'm trying to use a backup script based on IPv6 LLA (so I always reach the server, without DHCP, names etc).

With IPv4 this works:

rsync -e ssh /src/dir/* user@192.168.0.1:/dst/dir

On Linux/Bash this works:

rsync -e ssh /src/dir/* user@[fe80::a:b:c:d%eth0]:/dst/dir

But on OSX terminal this didn't work.

ssh: Could not resolve hostname [fe80: nodename nor servname provided, or not known
rsync: connection unexpectedly closed (0 bytes received so far) [sender]
rsync error: error in rsync protocol data stream (code 12) at /BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/rsync/rsync-52/rsync/io.c(453) [sender=2.6.9]

I've tried a lot of quotes combinations but without success.

Thank you!

The problem was with the OSX version of rsync. I don't know exactly what is the problem. It should be some of capabilities of rsync binary/version.

OSX version:

/usr/bin/rsync --version
rsync  version 2.6.9  protocol version 29
...
Capabilities: 64-bit files, socketpairs, hard links, symlinks, batchfiles,
              inplace, IPv6, 64-bit system inums, 64-bit internal inums

Installing a version from macports:

/opt/local/bin/rsync --version
rsync  version 3.1.2  protocol version 31
...
Capabilities:
    64-bit files, 64-bit inums, 64-bit timestamps, 64-bit long ints,
    socketpairs, hardlinks, symlinks, IPv6, batchfiles, inplace,
    append, ACLs, xattrs, iconv, symtimes, no prealloc, file-flags,
    HFS-compression

Although both have the IPv6 support, this 2.6.9 distributed with OSX doesn't work as expected.

With 3.1.2 I can use:

rsync -e ssh /src/dir/* user@[fe80::a:b:c:d%eth0]:/dst/dir

Thanks for helping.