Is it possible to disable auto mount of external devices? How can I disable the auto mount of usb/firewire devices or basically any external disk in MacOSX?

My motivation for this is that in Windows there have been possible attacks via USB trojans that would copy to the internal hard drive just after the auto mount. I thought that disabling auto mount of external devices is a good counter measure. But I'm be open to solutions that protect from such a threat using other methods.

Edit

I assume that a solution to my problem would have to look like the following:

Auto mount disabled for all devices.
Opt-in of auto mount for my private devices.

You should be able to use Disk Arbitrator to do most of what you want. Certainly requirement 1 is met and you should be able to achieve most of 2 with it too.


iPhone 4s became hot quickly draining battery and shutdown unexpectedly I have iPhone 4s and it becomes slowly day by day so I decided reset (format) my phone and reset it as a new iPhone. Then I began to install my essential apps. It's comes to know that my iPhone got unexpectedly shutdown, while making a call, during the conversation with messenger or regular phone call. The iPhone also getting very hot and battery draining very quickly.
It was in rather good condition except slow. To make it fast I'm facing this problem. Please help me if there are any remedy?

It's running with iOS Version: 9.3.5 ( 13G36 )

It sounds like a battery issue.

You may need to take it to a repair shop and have it replaced IMMEDIATELY.

I say that because I have seen an iPhone 4 battery explode before. It's not a pretty sight. Consider the average lifespan of a lithium battery:

  The typical estimated life of a Lithium-Ion battery is about two to
  three years or 300 to 500 charge cycles, whichever occurs first.

This is a very common issue for the iPhone 4 and can be repaired pretty easily.

I'm also going to cite my personal and proffesional experience with this.


4k screen can handle 60hz 90° rotated, but not in 0° I've run into this funny issue, where I've got a 4k monitor (Samsung U28E590), that I'm trying to optimize for resolution and hz-frequency. My optimal goal is of course 4k, with 60hz, but since I don't currently have a Thunderbolt to Displayport cable, I thought I'd give it a go with a HDMI-adapter for my Thunderbolt port.

Now I've run into the issue of not being able to choose 60hz for frequency on the screen when I've selected anything else than 2560x1440px. Not even in 1920x1080, am I able to choose anything else than 24, 25 and 30hz.

I then discovered, that if I rotate the screen 90°, I get a different settings-layout, where I'm able to choose between not resolutions, but the regular 'more space' or 'larger text', as I have on my regular retina screen.

Has anyone experienced this before, or is this some kind of bug with either the display, or MacOS?

Specs:

Mac OS 10.12.2
MacBook Pro Retina, 13 inch, Mid 2014 model.
8 GB Ram
Intel Iris graphics

Your model MacBook Pro has an Intel Iris 5100 GPU that uses up to 1.5 GB of your main RAM as its graphics memory. It supports an HDMI-compatible device, including 4K, while using one Thunderbolt display, or supports two Thunderbolt displays.

In terms of external resolution, officially your Mac can display up to 2560x1600 pixels (using Thunderbolt) or up to 3840x2160 pixels at 30Hz or 4096x2160 pixels at 24Hz (using HDMI). This is why you're being limited to the choices you're getting.


Can't sync music from iPhone to computer Every time I try to sync music from my iPhone to my computer it says that it has synced with a different iTunes library before. However, I've never synced it to a different one.
 I once synced it anyway and I lost all my music and had to redo my whole iPhone-music, so I would like to avoid this.  But now it's complaining about the same thing.
How can I fix this permanently?

By design, the iPhone will sync iTunes content with one computer at a time. Any attempt to sync such content with a second computer will result in ALL iTunes content being first erased from your phone & then replaced with the content from the second computer. This is a design feature and cannot be overridden. Because you replaced your computer, or hard drive, your phone will see this as a "new" computer. The iTunes content sync is one way: computer to phone. If you have photos that were synced to your phone or music ripped on your own that were not backed up, you will first have to extract them from your phone using third party software such as Touch Copy, before you do anything else, as Apple makes no provision to do so. Try this

Past iTunes, App store, & iBookstore content can be re-downloaded. Read here:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2519

Once you've done that, do the following in the order specified:

Disable auto sync when an iPod/iPhone is connected under iTunes>Preferences>Devices(under Edit menu if using Windows).
Make sure you have one contact & one event in the supported applications on your computer(iCal & Address Book on a Mac, Windows Address Book or Outlook if using Windows). These entries can be fake, doesn't matter, the important point is that these programs not be empty.
Connect your phone, iTunes running, do not sync at this point.
Store>Authorize this computer.
File>Transfer Purchases(To make sure all purchased content on your phone will be in your iTunes library).
Right click your phone in the left device pane & select "Reset warnings".
Right click again and select "Backup".
Right click again & select "Restore from Backup", select the backup you just made. When prompted to create another backup, decline.
This MUST be followed by a sync to restore your iTunes content, which you select from the various tabs, You'll get a popup regarding your contacts & calendars asking to merge or replace, select "Merge".

Your phone should look just like it did when you started, with no data loss.

You should be good to go.


Custom Finder sidebar icon gets stretched Yesterday, I installed and configured Netatalk 3 on my Raspberry Pi in order to be able to mount it as an AFP share. Today I got fed up with how it looked in Finder's sidebar, so I set out to create an icon for it. I then made this (note the pixel-perfectness of the 16x16 version):

and combined the four resulting files (16x16, 16x16@2x, 32x32, 32x32@2x) using iconutil to get a retina-ready ICNS.
Inside of Finder, the 16x16 version of the icon looks like it got shifted to the side by half a pixel:

Why is that? I double-checked the resolutions of my source icons and those inside the ICNS file and they're all correctly sized.

Turns out that Finder uses 18x18px icons, not 16x16px icons.
If you're designing sidebar icons, you'll need to supply these as well, which is impossible because there is literally no tool that'll pack 18x18 images (or their @2x counterparts) into an icns file.


iTunes warning about 1080p playback Installing and tweaking around some settings on the new version of iTunes 11 today, and when I was messing around in the "Store" settings, I clicked it to prefer 1080p downloads, only to be presented with this error message:

A bit of background on my specs:

Windows 7 Ultimate x64
Core i7 2600k O.C'd to 4.5 atm, base is about 3.7
20GB RAM
Nvidia GTX 580 Ti
Monitor: Acer 24" LCD 60hz @ 1920 x 1080 through DVI
Monitor: Dell 19" LCD 60hz @ 1280 x 1024 through DVI

As you can see, I doubt my computer specs are the issue for 1080p.

Is there an explanation why I would be seeing this error message?

It's a poorly worded message. When I've gotten it in the past (on OS X), it's been when my screen resolution is too small to play 1080p content natively. However if you ignore the warning, it will happily play just fine, but downscaled to fit your screen.


Intermittently unresponsive keyboard and trackpad on Macbook Air Especially since the 10.8.3 update, I've been experiencing occasional freezes of my 2012 Macbook Air's trackpad and keyboard. The trackpad will be completely unresponsive, and usually only a few keystrokes will get through. Other people have complained that similar things happen after resuming from sleep, or that it takes a reboot to fix, but this happens randomly (it'll be working perfectly fine and then become unresponsive, then be fine 10 seconds later).

I have no external USB devices connected, and nothing shows up in the system log at the relevant times. In addition, as has been suggested by others online, I've disabled the Android File Transfer helper process which apparently has caused similar issues for others.

It's still under warranty -- should I take this to the Apple Store, or perhaps try reinstalling the OS first? Will that be their first line of attack anyway, or do you think they'll be able to diagnose a hardware problem and fix/replace it?

I would create a new user and see if the behavior happens under a new account, so you can isolate whether this is System Wide or just related to your own account. Check your Launch Items in system preferences and remove everything just to test.

How much free space do you have? For what is worth, I'm using a MBA 11' mid 2011 and I have the same behavior sometimes when Arq2 starts and I have IntelliJ + Xcode running. Like the CPU is under a lot of "pressure" and I totally experience the same. It lasts a few seconds (10 sometimes!).

So I doubt there's anything to do, unless this happens very often to you, in which case I'd take it to an Apple Store for either reinstall or some hardware check.


Does restoring a backup to your iphone overwrite all data on the phone? I got a new iphone and wasn't ready to transfer data from the old one yet (lots of photos I wanted to get off it), so I began using the new phone - taking pics etc. When I got ready to transfer the info off of the old phone, I backed it up and then restored the new phone to backup. My question is - is all the data that was on the new phone (none of it backed up to icloud or itunes of course) overwritten and therefore completely irretrievable even by a data recovery program? That's my assumption. Just confirming.

Yes. When an iOS device is restored from a backup, everything that was on the device before the restore is removed from the device.


Is there a significant reduction in cooling fan noise level in recent MacBooks? The MacBook Air 11'' (Mid 2012) I am currently using has a fairly loud cooling fan. It doesn't help that it's on most of the time.

Are the cooling fans in more recent MacBook Airs and Retinas significantly quieter?

The question is not about how often they activate, I understand that newer, faster machines are likely to require less cooling. It's all about the cooling fans noise at full speed.

The MacBook Pro with Retina Display received an overall update to pretty much most of the internal architecture. According to Apple the fans, vents and many other internal parts underwent redesign and development.

Apple => High-efficiency fans: Asymmetrically spaced impeller blades and back and side airflow vents work together to move the maximum amount of air while reducing tonal impact.

Personally, I have not had any extensive experience with the Retina models, but according to the statement on Apple's website it can be assumed that the noise should be dramatically reduced in comparison to other previous models.

The MacBook Air has, to my knowledge, received this update. Even after a quick Google search I could not find any 'fan noise' changing events or developments. However, working occasionally on an Air, I cannot complain about any extensively loud fan noises in comparison to my mid-2012 MacBook Pro (non-Retina).


Will Changing Country Change Language So I am a switching to the Mac guy and I have a query.
Once I get my new Mac it seems I am asked to setup my country.

Say if I set the country to be Germany will it change the interface language to be German as well or will it still be English?

Thanks.
P.S. : If I purchase the Mac from Germany and set it to my original home country will it create a problem?

If you select German as installation language your OS X installation and UI will be in German. You can always your change your system (UI) and input language or use multiple languages at the same time.

It doesn't matter where you buy your Mac. However please note, a German MacBook will include a German keyboard. Some local stores also sell english keyboards as well..


iPod Touch 1st Gen charging rebooting loop I have a 1st Generation iPod touch.  When I try to charge it, it goes into a loop:

The very low battery logo displays
The black screen with white apple logo is displayed
The screen shuts down
And repeat..

Is the battery totally knackered, or is there anything else I could try?

This loop only happened when plugged into my MacBook Pro. When I plugged into a mains charger, it successfully booted to the OS... Weird.


Bluetooth serial is busy My Bluetooth Serial seems to always be busy.

lsof /dev/tty.BluetoothModem yields nothing.
sudo chmod 777 /var/lock seemed to have no effect.
screen /dev/tty.Bluetooth-Modem  tells me it's busy.

I rebooted.  I'm using Mountain Lion.  How can I possibly debug this?

Apparently, /dev/tty.Bluetooth-Modem isn't the device that I want. I went into the Bluetooth preference pane and selected my device, clicked "Advanced", and added a new software serial device associated with it.  I can connect to that one just fine.


Apple Mail opening mail in new window when clicking notification When clicking the notification from Apple's Mail client it opens the mail in a new window, instead of showing the mail window (Which is in its own separate space) like it has done previously. Does anyone know if this behavior can be changed?

I have verified on another computer that this is a "feature" in the latest version of OS X (10.9.2). So my question is now how to disable it?

This is a feature of OS X Mavericks (10.9.2) and cannot be disabled


Whitelist available in Apple Mail for automatic Load Remote Content when this option is deselected in settings? The 'Load Remote Content' is a great feature and I like to use it. Is there a way to make a whitelist of sender addresses for which remote content is loaded automatically, whilst remote content of addresses not on the whitelist are not automatically loaded?

Such whitelist will help me having the media content local and therefore the emails readable even after some time (media may have been deleted on server side by the sender after some time).

In addition such whitelist will be more productive, since I do not have to press for each email the button 'Load Remote Content'. Today many companies send their brand in an image, or add images to direct the reader to their Facebook/Twitter or whatever social media page. For these message I always have to press the button 'load remote content' since I do not know if other media content may have been added to the body of the email which the sender wants to share with me (eg photo).

The reason why I do not want to automatically load remote content is to not give feedback to spammers that my email addresses are active. Spammers usually work with a small media added to the email (usually 1 pixel image). When spammers see your email address active, they 1) continue spamming you 2) selling/giving your email addresses to other spammers.

You can try using Mail's built-in Rules.

It is located here:

Mail -> Preferences... -> Rules -> Add Rule

Then you can fill up the info.
Like for example, let's say there is Facebook sending you an email every day. You can add a rule to maybe send it to the inbox or you can archive it etc.


Need a Google Voice app for Mac Background
I've been using Google Voice for about a year. During that time, I've been also using a Mac app called GrowlVoice that appears in my menubar. It allows listening to voicemail messages and also sending text messages.
Error
Now when I launch Google Voice I get an error:

Unable to sign in to myemailadress@gmail.com
Unable to build JSON object from JSON string"

What I tried
I deleted GrowlVoice's app using an CleanMyMac, an app that supposedly deletes apps and all their associated files. I then re-downloaded GrowlVoice from the App Store, but I'm still getting the error.
Further Research
I also went to the website of the GrowlVoice developer and sent him a message. I'm writing here too because the developer's site hasn't been updated since 2012 and GrowlVoice is no longer being sold on the App Store so it's apparently no longer in development.
Questions
So, my questions are:

How can I fix the JSON errors?
Is there another app that would have similar functionality as GrowlVoice?

Update
Apparently today Google made changes to Google Voice which broke GrowlVoice, which is why GrowlVoice was pulled from the Mac App store. Now I have to log into my Google account in a browser if I want to listen to voicemail messages or send texts on my Mac.

The developer's twitter page said that Google has revoked access to Google Voice for GrowlVoice so they can no longer support the app.  It has since been removed from the App Store as well and I am also looking for an alternative to this wonderful application.


Account restrictions via “Screen Time” don’t disappear even after disabled? Anybody has seen a situation where “account restrictions” don’t disappear even when removed in “Screen time”

I’m trying to access the apps purchased by my “parent account” in a Family.

For a while I had “account changes” restricted for the child’s account in “Screen time” so it’s expected not to be able to change/access account restrictions.

The problem is, I’ve removed all restrictions to the “child” account but I can’t do any changes to iCloud configuration nor does the “account” icon appear in App Store. That means there’s no way to access the purchased apps history, either for the account or for any of the other Family accounts. See screenshots for clarity

Try completely turning of screen time by pressing turn off screen time st the bottom of the page.

How to access your purchase history:

According to this Apple Support page:

  Go to Settings > [your name] > iTunes & App Store.
  Tap your Apple ID, then tap View Apple ID. You might be asked to sign in with your Apple ID.

  If you use Family Sharing, you'll see in your purchase history what you bought using your Apple ID, but you won't see what other family members bought. To see what other family members bought, sign in with their Apple ID.

  Swipe up to Purchase History and tap it.


Can I replace characters in AppleScript? I'm working on an AppleScript to mount our Active Directory Home Shares and I've come up with the following part that looks at the logged in users "SMBHome:" and it gives me the users home share but the slashes are in the wrong direction "\" and need to change them to "/".

So far the AppleScript is:

set username to do shell script "whoami"

set homepath to do shell script "dscl '/Active Directory/CAMPUS/All Domains/' -read /Users/" & username & " |grep SMBHome:"

When run this gives me an output of

"SMBHome: \\\\server\\share\\username"

I'd love to have the next step replace the back slashes with forward slashes and remove:

"SMBHome: \\"

With a final outcome of:

//server/share/username

Is this possible?

Thank you!

There are two approaches to solving this problem. One is to use JavaScript for Automation (either by putting your AppleScript into an Automator workflow and then using a separate Run JavaScript action, or by re-writing the entire script in JXA), while the other is to use the sed and cut command line utilities via do shell script.

Here's the JavaScript approach:

var string = "SMBHome: \\\\server\\share\\username" // this would be your 'homepath' variable
var corrected = string.replace(/\\/g, '/').replace('SMBHome: ', '')

This script uses the built-in JavaScript replace function to match and replace text using Regular Expressions.

On the other hand, you could also use sed and cut in your AppleScript, like so:

set init to do shell script "echo ' " & homepath & "' | sed 's/\\\\/\\//g'"
set corrected to do shell script "echo " & init & " | cut -c 10-"

This uses sed for the RegEx, then cut to trim the first bit of the path from the string.

In both cases, the corrected variable contains the final, modified string. I should note that, while the desired behavior can be accomplished in pure AppleScript, it can be rather tedious.


Shutdown cause: -104 I have Macbook Pro retina, model 2013. It started to randomly shut down for no apparent reason. The system log always contains this message:

  Previous shutdown cause: -104

I have tried to reset SMC and PRAM several times. It did not help. The hardware test found no errors. I have tried to google the meaning of shutdown code "-104", but I could not find anything.

Can anyone please provide any info about what's going on and possibly how to fix it? Thanks.

It appears to be battery related. It may be related to -103, however both indicate that you should check the battery. Try running the laptop from the charger and see if the laptop still unexpectedly shuts down. Also check to see if there are any spurious sensor readings for the battery using iStat Menus or equivalent which may indicate the laptop trying to protect itself by shutting down.

  -103
  Battery cell under voltage detected.
  Check battery.

  -104
  unknown
  Check battery.

Source: Shutdown Causes


Switching between windows of one application in multiple spaces I know you can use command + ` to switch between windows in one program in one space.

But this is only in the one space, if you have other windows from the same App in different spaces ... it won't switch to that space.

There is a shortcut to do this, though it doesn't cycle between windows; it only allows you to choose one. But it will switch to it regardless of which space it's on. It's a convenient way to access App Exposé for any app.

Press Cmd+Tab to open the application switcher. When the application whose window you seek is selected, press 1. You can then select a window by typing its title, or with the arrow keys.


Documents to Go for iPad Quick question that I just can not seem to find an answer for. I am wondering whether or not when using Documents to Go on my iOS device (iPad 2), if I open a file in safari, will this app help safari render the .doc or .ppt, whatever office format, correctly. Currently it can open the file but it does display the information and equations that are present in the document.

Does anyone know if this is the case? I want to know before I go and buy the app and am disappointed in its functionality. If this application does not do what I am asking, does anyone know of an app that can do this?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Docs to Go doesn't improve the rendering of the .doc or .ppt in Safari on the iPad, but it  does register with the system as a compatible app for the file type. Tapping in the document area reveals an action bar with two buttons: Open in  (which depends on the apps you have installed), and an Open in... button, which when tapped, gives you a popover with compatible apps.

See this example:

In my experience, you would be better off using Docs to Go to render the documents in any case, as the fidelity of its Office document rendering is quite good.


How to restore the AddressBook database from backup How do I transfer my address book files in the abcdp format to my new MacBook Pro with Mac OS X Lion?

The files are from a 2008 MacBook running Mac OS X 10.6; the hard drive crashed, and the computer won't start up at all. Luckily, I had everything backed up with Mozy. I restored the files on the new MacBook, but I cannot read the abcdp format. I've tried a few other solutions such as copying the abcdp files into the metadata folder with no luck.

First, the database file is ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/*.abcddb (with abcddb meaning Address Book CoreData database). The files in ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/Metadata have extensions like .abcdp (Address Book CoreData person) and .abcdg (Address Book CoreData group). The metadata files can serve as a backup if the .abcddb goes bad or missing. So if you want to restore those abcdp files, you need to:

Back up your Address Book data
Quit all applications
Move, rename, or delete the .abcddb file mentioned above
Put the abcdp files into the Metadata subdirectory listed above
Launch Address Book.app
Select and drag the contacts out to save them in one or more vCard files
Restore your Address Book backup created in step 1
Import the vCard(s) created in step 6

If you need any help or clarification on this technique, please leave a comment. I hope this works for you!


How to migrate selected folders (including custom Library, Application Support and Music data) to second laptop with smaller hard drive? I have an old MacBook Pro that I am replacing with a slightly less old MBP. Both are running Lion 10.7.2. (The older MBP has some hardware issues.)

The first MBP has a lot of music, video, application preferences, and symbolic links that I need to make sure get over to the second MBP, so that I can just swap the machines and, for the most part, be done with the swap.

The catch is that second MBP has a much smaller hard drive, so I can't simply copy over the Users folder, let alone run Carbon Copy Cloner, etc.

What is the best way to clone selected folders, which ensures that hidden files, symbolic links, files with special permissions, etc. are recursively included?

The easiest way should be with Migration Assistant (included with OS X). Just plug an Ethernet cable into both MacBooks, open Migration Assistant on both, and you'll be able to select what folders/applications you want to move over.


How do I download photos from my iPhone? I find it very complicated to move photos taken with my iPhone into my pc's photo library.

I used to take photos with a compact camera, and pc applications could very easily import the photos because the compact camera shows up as a USB disk -- this way, importing photos was almost a one-click process!

But the iPhone doesn't show up as a disk, and that makes it very messy. I've tried to sync using iTunes, but syncing is not what I want to achieve. I want to move the pics away from the iPhone! I've tried moving them using iFunBox, and while that works, it creates the problem that all photos to get a new timestamp which ruins my photo library.

Question:
How can I easily move photos and videos from iPhone to PC without using iTunes syncing, and keeping the files' original timestamps?

Clarifications:
I'm using Windows 7, and the phone is already jailbroken. I'm looking for a solution that will allow Windows to see the phone's native file system as a normal USB drive from which I can import the pics&vids using a Windows program -- or any other solution that comes as close as possible to this.

Update:
Based on the solutions so far it is clear that extra pc applications won't help. What I need instead is some way of getting the damn phone to present itself to Windows using a drive letter, just like any other disk resource or compact camera does.

This is a good example where I think Apple is being too restrictive with their products; if people want access, then let them have it. If they break it, it's their problem. That's what backups are for. "It just works" only works if you stick by Apple's intended use, and that doesn't include Windows drive letters.

When I connect my iPhone to a Windows machine, it does appear as a digital camera and allows me to copy files from the DCIM folder or to use the "Import Pictures" option from Windows.

I just tried this in a Windows 7 VM and was able to view all the pictures in my Camera Roll.
From there, I could drag and drop pictures to my desktop.

I don't have iTunes installed in the Windows 7 VM.

It works the same way in my Windows XP machine, at work. There it is a physical machine and I have iTunes installed, but I can copy the pictures from the iPhone without syncing, anyway.


Tab changing in TextMate when working with LaTeX files? I tried the new version of TextMate (1.5.10, r1616). I noticed that there's a 'Changed' item on the Release notes stating that the keyboard shortcuts to change tabs are now the de facto standand Shift-Command-[ and ].

Now, whenever I have a tab with .tex file open and I try to browse through tabs TextMate executes Insert commands 'Command Based on Current Word' (Command-}) and 'Environment Based on Current Word' (Command-{) from the LaTeX bundle when changing to the next and previous tab, respectively.

So, what are my options to get the situation back to normal? I think I could disable the aforementioned commands from LaTeX bundle with the Bundle Editor, but with a quick look I didn't find them. Are there any other file types beside LaTeX that might cause problems with overlapping shortcuts? Is this overlapping of shortcuts a bug in TextMate? I guess there's no way to change the next/previous tab navigation commands. One obvious solution would be not to update to the latest version.

In moments, this update was driving me crazy. Luckily, I remembered that the Mac OS lets you customize keyboard shortcuts. So, I opened system preferences > keyboard > keyboard shortcuts --- and restored my textmate tab navigation to how they were previously! Yay!


How do I modify the alt+[key] special character mappings? So pressing alt+[any key] gives you a special character. I am wondering if there is a way to change what special character is outputted for every alt+[key] keystroke. For example, I would like to map alt+t to the theta symbol, map alt+d to the degree symbol, and map alt+s to the square root symbol.

The simplest way to do what you need is probably to just set up text replacements in: System Preferences > Keyboard > Text > Replace With

If you really want to change key mappings, you can use Ukelele, or possibly Karabiner.


Does the iPhone 5s have any built in water protection mechanisms? I seem to have dodged a bullet.

Last weekend my iPhone 5s managed to make it into the washing machine. I think realized my mistake about 10 minutes into the wash and dug out a thoroughly waterlogged device. It was powered on when it was submerged, but powered off when I pulled it out.

I took the internet's advice and left it sealed in a plastic bag of uncooked rice. I powered it on today and all is apparently well apart from some interesting display artifacts (those are not reflections - this is how the display looks from just about any angle):

Fingers crossed it hold up till the end of the contract.

Given the thoroughness of this submerging, I'm actually quite surprised at how well this device has faired.  Not only was it in for 10 minutes or more (dripping when it came out), but the water was far from pure - laundry soap + whatever dirt was coming out of the laundry load.  I assume such grey water has a much lower electrical resistance than pure water, and would therefore be much more damaging to electrical circuitry.

So, does this iPhone have any built-in water protection mechanisms?  It did power itself off, but perhaps this was just undefined behaviour.  Or did I just get very lucky?

Side question - I'm about 6 months into my present 2 year contract.  Whats the likelihood this phone will make it to the next upgrade cycle?

To specifically answer your question, the iPhone (6 and lower)* does not have any specific water protection built in. In fact, there are "sensors" that will turn red (from white) if the phone has been exposed to water. One of them is inside the headphone port and I believe there is another one but don't remember where.

Some generations of iPhone survive better than other by more or less accident and some of it has to do with your exact situation. It sounds like you were fortunate.

Due to the severity of the incident, I wouldn't be surprised if the phone does die at some time within the next 1.5 years. However, considering it appears to work almost like-new (aside from the screen), your chances of making the contract are still decent.

* the iPhone 6S is actually somewhat water resistant even though Apple didn't advertise it as such.


Upgrading a 13" 2009 Macbook Pro So, I have a 13" 2009 Macbook Pro that I've upgraded as far as I can go without changing the motherboard/processor (8 GB RAM/2 SSDs). My question is, since the unibody case is the same, is there anything stopping me, other than common decency, from getting a replacement motherboard and processor from a newer model and throwing it into my 2009 vintage MBP?

Thanks

Yes.  You'll have a real issue with the airport/bluetooth cable as well as the position and length of the LVDS cable.  Besides, you will gain very little as the newest revision of this was 2012 and the improvements are very small compared to the cost of a logic board.


iMac sleeping even when set to never sleep Running 10.7.5, I've got a fairly new iMac (6 months old) 27", set to never sleep, yet when I got in to work this morning it was asleep. How to fix this?

Output from pmset -g in Terminal:

Active Profiles:
AC Power        -1*
Currently in use:
 autorestart    0
 powerbutton    0
 halfdim    1
 panicrestart   157680000
 hibernatefile  /var/vm/sleepimage
 networkoversleep   0
 disksleep  0
 sleep      0 (imposed by 139)
 hibernatemode  0
 ttyskeepawake  1
 displaysleep   15
 womp       1

And the contents of the com.apple.PowerManagement.plist in /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>ActivePowerProfiles</key>
    <dict>
        <key>AC Power</key>
        <integer>-1</integer>
    </dict>
    <key>Custom Profile</key>
    <dict>
        <key>AC Power</key>
        <dict>
            <key>Automatic Restart On Power Loss</key>
            <integer>0</integer>
            <key>Disk Sleep Timer</key>
            <integer>0</integer>
            <key>Display Sleep Timer</key>
            <integer>15</integer>
            <key>Display Sleep Uses Dim</key>
            <integer>1</integer>
            <key>Hibernate File</key>
            <string>/var/vm/sleepimage</string>
            <key>Hibernate Mode</key>
            <integer>0</integer>
            <key>PrioritizeNetworkReachabilityOverSleep</key>
            <integer>0</integer>
            <key>RestartAfterKernelPanic</key>
            <integer>157680000</integer>
            <key>Sleep On Power Button</key>
            <false/>
            <key>System Sleep Timer</key>
            <integer>0</integer>
            <key>TTYSPreventSleep</key>
            <integer>1</integer>
            <key>Wake On LAN</key>
            <integer>1</integer>
        </dict>
    </dict>
    <key>LastSleepUUID</key>
    <dict>
        <key>Date</key>
        <date>2012-12-06T04:39:59Z</date>
        <key>UUID</key>
        <string>019EBED9-FE31-4B63-8D7A-99F41B6EB618</string>
    </dict>
</dict>
</plist>

As you can see, it has record of going to sleep this morning at 4:39 AM, yet all settings also show it's set to NOT go to sleep. Any ideas what's going on?

Do you perhaps have a schedule set to sleep the system? System Prefs > Energy Saver > Schedule button, or pmset -g sched (just sched).


How To Disable OS X Mavericks USB autorun After inserting USB 3G modem i always getting same behavior:

if bundled software is not installed:

Opening finder window with mounted folder
Opening standard installer dialog (agree license, install software that written inside 3G modem)

if installed already:

Modem-related app is launching

Question: how to disable that "autorun" (not exactly windows-style autorun, i know)?

Super-annoying

P.S. Things applied only to OS X Maverick, previous OSX versions don't show same behavior

UPDATE

Modem brand is HUAWEI E173
Previous OSX version don't show same behavior
Found hidden modem helper, location: /Library/StartupItems/HWNetMgr

plist:

{
  Description     = "HWNetMgr";
  Provides        = ("HWNetMgr");
  OrderPreference = "Early";
  Messages =
  {
    start = "Starting Huawei HWNetMgr";
    stop  = "Stopping Huawei HWNetMgr";
  };
}

And removed it completely && rebooted. Results: nothing actually changed. Same behavior as mentioned above. So i thinking it's not related to the modem brand/bundle and in-system property.

You need to remove the auto launch job with the launchctl command.

For example, in my case I have already installed a modem manufactured by ZTE. So I searched for LAUNCHD listings using the launchctl list command and grepped for those modem strings.

launchctl list | grep -i zte

Showing:

5681    -   cn.com.zte.usbswapper.plist

If you do not find your app, then output all the jobs to a file. This awk command tries to overcome the chance that you may have spaces in your launchd job name.

launchctl list 2>/dev/null | awk '
{ x="\""substr($0, match($0, $3), 100)"\""; print x; system("launchctl list " x) }
' > launchList.txt

Open launchList.txt. The name of the launchd job will be shown in "..." above the {} block where you hopefully find a "Mobile Partner" or "AutoOpen" string.

Perhaps inspect the item to be more confident before removal. Surround by "" if there are spaces in the job name.

launchctl list "cn.com.zte.usbswapper.plist"

Then just remove it. This is the command to stop the auto load. Be very sure you are removing the correct agent or deamon.

launchctl remove "cn.com.zte.usbswapper.plist"

Add it again if you want, using the full path of the PLIST file.

launchctl load /Library/LaunchAgents/cn.com.zte.usbswapper.plist


How to skip 'Cancel' 'Continue' when running shell script with automator? I'm trying to run pmset sleepnow linked to a keyboard shortcut with automator. When I use the shortcut, it's giving me a 'Cancel' or 'Continue' prompt. Anyway to skip this so the script just runs when I press the key combo?

I'm not able to replicate your prompt issue if I code the sleepnow in a do shell.

Launch Automator
Go to File > New
Select Service and click Choose
Select "No input" in drop-down list
Select in drop-down list "Any application"
Select "Run AppleScript" and double-click or drag and drop
Replace the script with a do shell
Save the service
Add service in keyboard

The code:

try
    display notification "Attempting sleep"
    delay 2
    set result to do shell script "pmset sleepnow"
on error result
    display dialog result
end try

The service with shortcut:

System specs:

macOS Sierra Version 10.12.6 on Macbook Pro


How to enable USB tethering on your Android phone to Mac OS X Lion I want to tether an unlimited data plan on a Nexus S (with Android 2.3.6) via USB cable to a MacBook Air (with OS X Lion).  Both on Windows and Ubuntu, it works like a charm, so I'm wondering if there's something I can do it OSX to make it work.

The articles I read imply that given Apple's restrictions, it's imposible and OSX only supports tethering an iPhone via USB.
On Android Enthusiasts, I found a a couple of solutions:

one tethering from Froyo and
one tethering on a Snow Leopard,

but they all rely on third party Android apps. Is there any hack to make OSX work with it out of the box?

There is a native RNDIS driver for Mac OS X that allows you to use your Android phone's native USB tethering mode to get Internet access, it is called HoRNDIS:
http://joshuawise.com/horndis

It is known to work with Mac OS X versions 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) through 10.8.2 (Mountain Lion).

HoRNDIS is also available in source form on GitHub,  it is licensed under the GNU General Purpose License, version 3:
http://github.com/jwise/HoRNDIS


Inexpensive game pad for OS X? I'm setting up a Mac mini for my entertainment center, and would occasionally like to be able to play games withough having to set up the keyboard and mouse.

Are there cheap Bluetooth game pads that would be suitable for moderate action games, such as Portal 2?

I don't need fast twitch gaming, and if it could double as the remote for plex or mythtv that would be better.

Cost is a big issue, though.  I've had to fish out more than a few things from the fish tank due to the kids.

Macally makes two USB-based game controllers that are OS X compatible. Both are around USD$30 at the time of writing on Amazon.

Macally ISHOCKX

Macally ISHOCKII

Sony DualShock 3

You can also pair a Sony Playstation DualShock 3 bluetooth wireless controller with OS X without the need for any additional drivers. Everything you need is built right in to Snow Leopard and Lion.

Press the PlayStation logo on the controller and OS X should show the controller in the list of available devices to pair with under the BlueTooth menu bar list. Once paired you'll need to map the buttons to key actions so it works with your games. For that  you can use the GamePad Companion app from the App Store.


Bootcamp fail stuck at no bootable device (hold option not working) I've been trying to find an answer to my problem all day with no luck.

I tried installing windows 7 via bootcamp this morning. I accidentally created the partition before creating a bootable usb drive with the copy of windows 7 on it.  Now when I boot up my mac, it goes to an empty grey screen then goes into the "no bootable device" screen.  I have tried pressing and holding option once I power on the laptop but that still takes me to the same "no bootable device" screen.  I am currently in the process of creating an EFI bootable usb and hoping that this will work.

Is there something I haven't tried yet?

If you reset the NVRAM, the Mac should find the first Mac OS bootbale volume and start.  If not, you can power down and try the option key again.

If that fails, your Mac boot volume is broken or your hardware is broken. Try booting to Recovery HD or internet recovery at that point to reinstall your Mac OS on top of your old Mac user and data.


Macfusion not working I would like to mount an SFTP drive on OS X. I tried MacFUSION but it doesn't seem to work, always gives "Could not mount filesystem: Mount process has terminated unexpectedly". According to Can MacFusion be used under Mountain Lion?, MacFUSION no longer works. Are there any alternatives or workarounds?

If your looking for recommendations for anything FTP and SFTP, I would recommend either Fetch, or Transmit.  I don't know if there's a workaround to getting MacFUSION to work on Mavericks, sorry.


WWDC 2015 Event's Live Stream At the beginning of WWDC opening Keynote Tim Cook spoke about "more than 40 event of WWDC streamed live to everybody for the first time".

Can someone found something more about this?
A page with schedules an link to events?

Apple TV has an Apple Events channel with what appears to be all of the live streamed events and no requirement to have a developer account. The keynotes are traditionally available freely during and after the event. Whether the other content remains online post event is yet to be seen.

Otherwise, you can view online at https://developer.apple.com/

These seem to be tied to a developer program AppleID.

WWDC Session Videos

Watch the film "The App Effect"

View the schedule


How to get SMC version for 2018 Mac mini I bumped into a problem, when my USB and USB-C ports stopped working (all except 1) when coming out of sleep mode. I could fix this only by SMC reset (unplugging power for > 15 sec), after that all ports are working again.
I want to check which SMC version my Mac mini has, but I can't see it in System Report/Hardware:

Where can I check SMC version for this model?

On Mac's with the Apple T2 Security Chip, the System Management Controller (SMC) is part of the SoC of the T2 chip and does not report the SMC version like the Mac's without the T2 chip, which is why you do not see it under Hardware Overview.
You can select Hardware > Controller to see the firmware version of the  Apple T2 Security Chip.


How is Screen Time calculated? Why is the calculated time seemingly longer than time spent on iPhone? Under Screen Time, the report for the time spent on my phone is 1 hour 5 minutes.
However, when looking at all the apps used, the time spent on the phone adds up to about 28 minutes and not 1 hour 5 minutes.
Time spent on iPhone for the full day:

But looking at all apps, the time spent is about 28 minutes

How is Screen Time calculated?

Why is time spent on the iPhone calculated to  1 hour 5 minutes if time spent on all apps is really about 28 minutes?

Note:

I'm using ios v14. iPhone SE 1st Generation.
The iPhone is supervised, (but I don't see why that would matter).
Share Across Devices is enabled, however, I don't own or use any other apple devices besides this iPhone (seemingly this shouldn't either matter).

This is a bug on ios 14.
From an article on Medium.com:

...Turns out I’m not the only one seeing weird issues with screentime.
There doesn’t seem to be a correlation in regards to the iPhone model.
It also doesn’t seem to be a very common problem. However, others have
been reporting other odd screentime glitches. Some have reported their
screentime being inaccurately high with no app to blame. And others
are also reporting that their phone claims they’ve spent hours on
websites they’ve never visited.

My Screen Time claims that I was using my iPhone for 24Hours! (let's hope I wasn't...).

I have visited stackoverflow for about 1 minute, however, it's calculated as 24 hours.

Also, all apps were fully closed, no apps were running in the background.


iOS 10 how do I make the notification center start on the left card? I updated to iOS 10 and noticed that when I open the notification center (swipe top-down) it always starts on the right card, which I suppose is recent notifications.

It used to start on what's now the left card, which is more of a widget dashboard screen. How can I make it always start on the left card?

As far as I recall that's how iOS 9 (and 8, I think) operated, too.

In any event there is no setting to change this behavior.


.ibooks format on the iphone? I download a ".ibooks" file for this free book and tried adding it to my iPhone library but it doesn't show up. Manually dragging it over doesn't work either.

Is it because .ibooks isn't supported by iPhone?

It can't be done, because only the iPad can read the .ibooks format.  To let Apple know you want this expanded, tell them at

http://www.apple.com/feedback


This relay isn't allowed to send mail "From" me.com We have a domain on a Virtual Private Server hosted in GoDaddy and I have set up an email that forwards to a me.com email, the email gets delivered to the me.com email but when I respond from there I get a (This relay isn't allowed to send mail "From" me.com) delivery failure message.
How can I set up any arbitrary Mail client to send as me?

Apple doesn’t allow other Mail servers to send Mail on their behalf for security reasons - only authenticated Mail clients can send. Since your VPS isn’t an Apple server, no one will accept your reply as if you were Apple sending that reply.

https://support.apple.com/guide/icloud/what-is-icloud-mail-mm6b1a17e3/icloud

Are you able to set up your me.com account on your Mail clients or use webmail with iCloud in the VPS?


How can I edit translated video on a Mac? There is a movie on my Macbook which has some some inappropriate scenes that I want to edit so I can watch the movie with my family.

I know how to cut scenes (trim) using Quicktime but this will confuse the translation timing on the film (.srt file)

I am wondering how to make the scene freeze (fixed) while the unwanted scene is playing or better, a program that would adjust the timing of the subtitles to match scenes cut so that we didn't have to fast forward through whatever the "censored" still frames look like?

I use SubMerge to load and sync subtitles to movies. I generally look for subtitles in SRT format. You can usually edit the subtitles texts inserting (or removing), pauses or blanks. A difficult part is that it's not uncommon for subtitles to slowly get out of sync with the film as the latter progresses. Adding - or removing text is really handy to restore synchronization. It is a bit of a laborious process though :)

Once I have the stuff in sync, then I too use Handbrake to change formats if necessary. Hope this helps.


How do I change the image display duration in the Catalina screensavers? I am using macOS 10.15.2

I have tried: OS X Mavericks screensaver changes pictures too quickly: How do I slow it down? and it doesn't work. Then I tried: How do I control the image display duration in the Mojave screensavers? Here I can not find the mainDuration default of 3 (Points 6 and 7) and therefore not change it.

I would like to make the image duration screen saver different. Is this possible?

I stumbled upon this problem today. Even with 'csrutil' disabled I couldn't modify the screensaver. I found out Catalina double protect the user setting the volume as read only.
After disabling 'csrutil', do 'sudo mount -uw /' on terminal and you'd be able to modify it until restart.


Sublime Text 2 - Save Dialogue Tab Issues I've started using Sublime Text 2 on OS X and its great apart from one small thing.

I've enabled Tab to go through all controls:

However, I cannot tab through on this dialogue that pops up when I try and close a window after making changes

Is there a fix to this or is this something that I'm going to have to open a thread on the forum?

Chances are high you have the same keybinding active in Sublime.

Sublime Text uses a huge load of hotkeys/combinations and these are all defined in a simple textfile.

Go to "Menu/Sublime Text/Preferences/Key Bindings - Default", search for that combination and comment it out (or assign it to another hotkey).


iPad virtual keyboard text entry: Can I disable the automatic upper-casing that takes place after I end a sentence? When using the iPad to type a note, for instance, every time I type a period, the iPad assumes I want to start the next word with a capital letter.  It also assumes I want to start typing with a capital letter in some text fields on web forms.  Is there any way to turn off the automatic SHIFT that is taking place, so there are only capital letters where I explicitly want them to be?

Go to settings
Go to general
Go to keyboard
Toggle and disable auto-capitalization


Prevent Outlook meeting requests from auto-deleting How can I prevent accepted meetings from being deleted in Office 2011?

When I accept a meeting in Outlook 2011 for Mac, it always automatically moves the invitation to deleted items. I'd prefer to see the invitation in my inbox indefinitely.

There are how-to guides describing how this can be fixed in Windows machines, but I've explored (I think) all the nooks and crannies of the preferences menu on my Macbook and can't find any equivalent setting in Office 2011 for Mac.

Another option is create a rule for messages of Kind "Meeting Request" to be copied to an "Invitations" folder in your inbox.

Steps that work on my version of Outlook.

Create an Invitations folder.
Highlight message that is a meeting invite
Click on the "Organize" toolbar
Click on the "Rules" icon
On the little menu that pops up, click "Create Rule..."
On the rules dialog, the first field will say "From". Change that to "Kind".
The next box will say "Encrypted" (as in Kind is Encrypted). Change that to "Meeting Request"
Use the minus sign to delete the sent to and subject rules (the next two rows)
Change "Do the Following" from "Move to Folder" to "Copy to Folder"
Change the folder name to "Invitations" or whatever you called it in step one
Uncheck the box "Do not apply other rules..."
Click ok


How to uninstall TrueCrypt? How to uninstall TrueCrypt 7.1a from my Mac cleanly? The instruction on TrueCrypt website is Windows-only.

The TrueCrypt installer is an mpkg file that contains multiple pkg files within it. You can right click the installer in Finder, open package contents and see the pkg files. Essentially, it installs MacFUSE and the TrueCrypt application. If you examine the TrueCrypt mpkg file with a tool like Pacifist, you'd see the list of files it installs and the locations.

TrueCrypt does not come with an uninstaller on OS X. But there are at least two ways to attempt to uninstall it completely:

According to help on the TrueCrypt forum, uninstalling it is a matter of removing MacFuse and the TrueCrypt app (you need to have an account on that forum to see this post):

  sudo /Library/Filesystems/fusefs.fs/Support/uninstall-macfuse-core.sh
  sudo rm -rf /Applications/TrueCrypt.app

OR
Try UninstallPKG to uninstall any application installed with a package (requires OS X 10.8 or later). I haven't used this, and do not know if it will be able to remove MacFUSE and TrueCrypt.

Once you've done this, check the list of files/locations reported by Pacifist, see if any of those are still around and remove them.


Adding contextual menu item to zero out files? I want to be able to easily zero-out (make the filesize 0, not fill the existing filesize with 0s) files from the Finder by selecting files from within Finder and selecting an action from the right click menu. I looked at the available Automator actions, but I could only figure out how to delete and recreate files, which would lose any existing attributes. How can I create a contextual menu item to zero out files?

Select Run Shell Script
Use the default /bin/bash command
Select Pass input as arguments
Enter the following into the text input box:

for file in "$@"; do
    cat /dev/null > "$file"
done

Possible improvements:

Display admin prompt if the user account doesn't have permissions to modify the selected files.
If a directory is selected, perform the action on all files in the selected directory.


Keyboard Shortcut To Switch Between Opened Windows How do I switch between open windows?

Command+Tab switches between opened applications, but for example, when I open preferences-window of BetterTouchTool I don't get it shown via Command+Tab.

Cmd+` will allow you to switch between the open windows of the current application. Very useful.


cpio's file on disk is not older; skipping — how to suppress this warning? I create shadow copies of a directory containing 50K+ images (I don't remove them from the card until they're in three other places). Every time I add images to the master, I update the shadow copies using cpio (find . | cpio -pdmv destination).

On Leopard, the above command gives me a list of all the (new) images being added to the shadow copies while silently ignoring the images that haven't changed.

After upgrate to ML, cpio now insists on advising me about every file that it didn't copy, i.e. cpio: ./some-file: File on disk is not older; skipping. In my case I get fifty thousand of these spurious (and obvious) messages, drowning out the files I'm interested in seeing. Removing the -v doesn't help and neither does --quiet.

I could redirect stderr; however, I do want to know if any real errors occurred like destination full.

One workaround of course is to filter the output of cpio using grep; however, this is a chunk of extra typing. What I really want is the Leopard behavior.

cd master-directory
(
    find . | cpio -pdmv /first/shadow/destination
    find . | cpio -pdmv /second/shadow/destination
) 2>&1 | grep -v -e'skipping' -e'^[:space:]*$'


Rotating a video in QT player 10 I'm trying to rotate an iPhone 4S vid 90degrees Counter Clockwise.

I've seen lots of posts and answers that say there is an 'Edit > Rotate Left' option in Quicktime Player. I can't see it! I have QT Player 10.0 on Snow Leopard.

Could someone help me out? I've tried various other apps, and even though some of them have worked, none have managed to rotate it in a format that can then be synced back to the iPhone (for editing work in iMovie iOS app and Vimeo app).

Notes: I don't have iLife or QT Pro, just QT Player :/

Thanks!

Using QuickTime Player 10.1 on OS 10.7.3, I see this option in the Edit menu. My guess is that it appeared either in Lion or in the 10.0 > 10.1 QT update. Open Software Update and check if the QuickTime Player 10.1 update is available for Snow Leopard.


Automatically Receive Calls App on iPhone using Internet I have been trying to find an app that does this on iPhone, but using internet not the phone service itself.

Closest Ive found was Skype, it has this feature on android and on any desktop but it lacks this on iPhone.

Is there any app like this available for iPhone?

You cannot do this on an iPhone as Apple does not allow software to take over main-functions of an iPhone.

In the past (and it still probably is) it was possible to add BiteSMS to your iPhone after jailbreaking it. There might be a similar feature for phone calls, but it requires a jailbreak then.

So in short, No, Apple does not support this by default. You might be able to bypass this limit by jailbreaking your device and looking for a tweak which can do this for you.


How can I remove my data but keep the OS when putting my MacBook up for sale? I want to delete items off MacBook but leave the Mountain Lion OS. How can I do this

Here is a link to Apple's directions on how to erase and reinstall OS X Mountain Lion, so it will be like new.


Ethernet cannot see RTA1025W modem (wi-fi can) At home I have a Dynalink RTA1025W DSL modem.

MBP can obtain IP via WiFI
MBP cannot see modem or get IP via ethernet.
Ubuntu/Win7/Win8 can get IP via the same ethernet cable & modem.

At work:

MBP can see the LAN and obtain IP via ethernet using the same USB ethernet adapter.

When I'm at home and I attempt to get an IP address via ethernet, I open the network preferences | USB Ethernet | Advanced | Renew DHCP Lease. It thinks about it for a second, then puts focus in the box titled "DHCP Client ID", as if it expects me to type something.

The status remains "cable unplugged". Either the cable for USB Ethernet is not plugged in or the device at the other end is not responding.

If I try to ping my router's address (192.168.1.1) no route is found.

I have tried many different cables, all otherwise known to be working.

Occasionally, the network config will decided to allocate a self-assigned IP, which is not helpful. It does this at random times without any prompting from me.

When I touch the USB ethernet adapter dongle it is warm (this may be normal).

I have tried the following without success:

deleting and re-adding the USB Ethernet interface
creating a new network "location"
removing the file com.apple.plf.plist
assigning manually an IP from the valid range
safe boot (problem occurs in safe boot)
SMC reset & wait 10 mins
PRAM reset
removing NetworkInterfaces.plist and preferences.plist
removing SystemConfiguration/*
trying a different cable
trying a different ethernet port on same modem
trying a different USB port on MBP

Any other advice?

Do you get the same result when starting up in safe boot?

This could either be an Ethernet driver or a hardware issue. One of the first things to try is perform an SMC reset (shift-ctrl-alt-power). I usually go a stage further and disconnect the battery for 10 minutes, this can clear SMC-related issues that the official method doesn't always cure such as errant SD card readers disappearing etc.).

After an SMC reset perform a PRAM reset (alt-option-p-r).

Your problem should be cleared by this stage but if not you need to look at your preference files in /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration, particularly NetworkInterfaces.plist and preferences.plist. Move them to your desktop, reboot and see if connectivity is restored.

Another way to check if it's a software issue is to create a clean install of OS X on an external drive. If your Ethernet port is working under the new OS then you will know it's definitely an OS problem rather than hardware.


Edit .PSD File on the iPhone I have a .PSD file which needs to edited. It contains just two layers, one an image and the other a text layer. I want to edit the text layer. I read online Photoshop touch doesn't let you edit .psd files.

Is there any way to do this on the iPhone?

You might want to try iDraw for iOS ($8.99 on iTunes).

It's the only app for iOS that I ever came across that claims to be able to import (and export) PSD files. I haven't (yet) tried iDraw myself, so I can't say how well it works, but it looks promising.


Outlook 2016 unable to connect to Exchange 2007 I have just been hired at a new company that does not seem to have much of a Mac presence... yet.  They aren't blocking Mac's specifically(as far as I can tell and others have told me).

On my company supplied PC I can get Outlook 2010 to work inside and outside the network(without VPN), so Outlook anywhere must be running.

If my PC can run Outlook on the outside via Outlook anywhere.  I need some help understanding my my Mac cannot.  Any thoughts on what may be blocked or preventing me from connecting?

According to https://products.office.com/en-us/office-system-requirements?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US

Office 2016 requires Exchange 2010, at a minimum, for "certain advanced functionality".

"Outlook 2016 does not support connections to Exchange Server 2007."


How can I specify delimiters in Terminal for word and character selection before copying and pasting? I am new to Mac and still struggling to be productive with fewer clicks and keys...

When I use Terminal and click on a word, I would like the delimiter to be only space and not other characters like . _ / etc. I want these to be treated as part of the word. Then, I would like to be able to click on a word, be able to select the whole word and then copy and paste it to another place, say command line or into an editor etc. How do I achieve this?

Many thanks!

You might want to take a look at iTerm2, where you can set the word delimiter in the preferences. I'm a recent convert myself and like it a lot better than Terminal.app. There's a special Terminal.app keyboard shortcut compatibility set to make switching easier.


El Capitan: Your iCloud session has expired After upgrading to 10.11, everytime when I run iTunes get this:

Enter login and password, fix for 20 minutes. How can this be fixed?

What I did:

reset NVRAM.

I found an advice for this on Reddit: Log out of iTunes Store account and log back in.


How can I tell iTunes that a .M4V (movie) is an HD movie? HD movies that I buy from iTunes appear in iTunes with the movie's name and a little "HD" symbol next to the movie. However, movies I've ripped from my BluRay discs, which are HD, aren't recognized by iTunes as being "HD". Of course they play fine via iTunes or AppleTV, in HD and everything, it's just I'd like to somehow edit the metadata or whatever it is that iTunes uses to identify a movie as being HD. I know it's just cosmetic, but it irritates me!

There is an HD flag you can set in the file's header. You can't set this flag from iTunes.

The best solution on mac is subler.

It was updated to support the 1080p value, so you can set the flag to 1 (720p) and 2 (1080p), the only values recognized by iTunes.

You will find the flag in the other settings tab:


How do I upgrade my iOS on my iPad 1st generation? How do I upgrade my ipad 1st generation ios from iOS 5.1.1 to iOS 6.0 so that I can use more apps from the app store?

You cannot. The first generation iPad simply does not support later iOS versions than 5.1.1.


Some of my Safari bookmarks don't appear in Spotlight search results When doing a spotlight search for my bookmarks, some of them appear in the search result but some don't. I was not able to find a pattern about which ones will show up and which ones won't. Newly added bookmarks are found but some older ones aren't.

I've looked in ~/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari/Bookmarks and found two interesting things:

Some old bookmarks (no more present in Safari) have a webbookmark file in this folder
Some existing bookmarks in Safari don't have an existing webbokmark file there

I tried to rebuild the Spotlight index but the same bookmarks are missing.
The quite basic "Edit bookmarks" menu in Safari doesn't provide any advanced option to manage the bookmarks database further.

Is there a way to force Spotlight to refresh the bookmarks part of its index? Unless it's on safari side that something has to be done?

I have also seen that bookmarks data are stored in ~/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist. Which location is the correct one? From where does Safari get its bookmarks? ANd then, what is the purpose of the other location?

I have iCloud for Safari enabled (as I want to share my bookmarks on my iPad and iPhone). It may be another parameter in the problem. However, I don't want to deactivate/reactivate it without being sure I won't loose my bookmarks as I don't know which one will be the master (local/iCloud) and not really knowing the content of my iCloud bookmarks.

The ~/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari/Bookmarks contains bookmarks that get updated by Safari every time you start it. If you look at the date, you will see it only contains the current date.

Spotlight will only show bookmarks that have been updated by Safari in that folder. If for some reason a bookmark is not updated it will not show in Spotlight.

The ~/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist does contains bookmarks that are readable in plain text, that file is intended to manage the bookmarks organization.

Spotlight will not search inside this file.

Potential fix:

Remove current bookmarks in ~/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari since the Safari itself would be unaffected by the removal of the contents and will rebuild it; as I understand it, those files exist to allow Spotlight searches to include bookmarks.
Close Safari and move the Bookmarks.plist file to Desktop and restart Safari. Now all bookmarks are gone in Safari it self. Move the Bookmarks.plist back where it was and restart Safari and you will have all bookmarks back.


What OS X and iOS software combination tracks finances? I was a long time Quicken user, tracking checking accounts and credit cards. I would enter all of my purchases on my phone and would sync regularly with my desktop.

Two years ago, I switched to Mac and was disappointed to learn that there was no version of Quicken for iPhone that would sync with Quicken for Mac.

You can't even export because all of the check book programs export to QIF format, and Mac quicken only imports OFX, and there are no reasonable Mac-based converters.

I am not married to Quicken. Anything will do.

What are people using to track checking and credit card transactions between Mac and their iPhones?

MoneyWell

  MoneyWell is personal finance software that increases your wealth while reducing your debt. It does this by wrapping the tried and true envelope-budgeting system in a beautiful, modern interface.

They explain the features better than I do but it is actively supported by a great developer. The companion app for iOS is MoneyWell Express.


How to lower iPhone/iPad brightness? How do I lower the brightness further than the limitations on the iPhone / iPad?

To lower brightness lower than the limit:

Settings app > General > Accessibility > Zoom:
Set Zoom Region > "Full Screen Zoom"
Set Zoom Filter > "Low Light"
Set Maximum Zoom Level all the way to the right (The highest value)

Go back to Accessibility:

Settings app > General > Accessibility > Accessibility Shortcut:
Set "Triple-Click The Home Button For" > Zoom

To Test: Triple click the home button and the screen will go darker.


MacBook Pro won't recognise Sandisk 64GB Mini SD card I bought a 64GB Sandisk for my GoPro Hero 3+ and it works fine.

However, when I either plug in my GoPro directly via a USB cable or try to access the drive by using an SD-card adapter, all that comes up is

  The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer.

The options presented are Initialise, Ignore and Eject. When I select Initialise it comes up with a program I have never used or seen before.

I am not very good with computers so any help is great! I have recently had my laptop updated but I am not sure which update it has.

(My laptop reads other cards and this card works on a Windows computer.)

The HERO3+ camera uses the exFAT file system format and it should be readable on your Mac if it uses Mac OS X from Snow Leopard on up. The link above notes that if you are having difficulty using a 64GB card, that you can use a 32GB or smaller card and format it with the old FAT32 standard.


Any OSX tool to batch remove (or convert) embedded album artwork in MP3 files? my car audio system does not support MP3 album artworks embedded in PNG format.. unfortunately iTunes switched to this format a while ago.

I'd need to find a way to remove (or convert to JPG) all artwork data in PNG from a big set of files and directories.

Is there any tool that can do that in batch?

I've seen some CLI tools like EyeD3 or id3v2 but seems they require some compilation steps or Python install... too complicated for me...

I'm using some of Dougscripts plugins for copying files to the SD card, but there's no tool working on PNG album artwork.

Thanks!!.
L.

You can use id3v2 to remove all artwork from your mp3 files. I appreciate your wanting to avoid compiling and the like, so below is an easier way to get the tool onto your Mac.

Remove all artwork with id3v2

The following command will iterate over mp3 files found in the current folder and remove any embedded artwork:

id3v2 -r "APIC" *.mp3

The following command will iterate over mp3 files found in one layer of folders deep:

id3v2 -r "APIC" */*.mp3

homebrew – how to get id3v2 onto your Mac

To install id3v2 on your Mac, without needing to delve too deeply into compiling and other developer concerns, use homebrew.

Follow the instructions on the homebrew link to get started. Once homebrew is available on your Mac, you can install id3v2 using the command:

brew install id3v2

To remove id3v2 from your Mac use:

brew remove id3v2

Other Approaches

There are other tools that can manipulate mp3 tags and artwork. Most are available through the homebrew project and thus you can quickly try them out.

See Re-encode uploaded/submitted MP3's with LAME removing artwork but keeping ID3 tags for other approaches using lame or more general tools in command line tool to edit mp3 ID3 tags.


4K 60hz works on iPad Pro, not on MacBook Pro TL;DR > I can't get 4K@60hz working on a MacBook Pro, while I can using an iPad Pro and same set up. How can I get 4K@60hz with the MacBook Pro?
Long version
I've a 12'9 inch iPad Pro (2020) and a 13 inch MacBook Pro (mid-2017, non Touch Bar, two ports on the left side only). Additionally, I've a Hub (VAVA UC-020) which supports 4K@60hz, connected to an LG 32UK550 using HDMI.
There is an information panel on the monitor menu which shows resolution and Hz. When I connect it to my iPad Pro, the resolution is 4K@60hz with even HDR working. Using the same hub, cable and port; connected to my MacBook Pro shows 4K@30hz with no option of HDR.
If I go to display settings and show all the resolutions using the option key, I can see all the low resolutions modes. Only switching to 2K low-res I can get 60hz and even HDR (but I don't care about it tbh)
I've tried all the HDMI ports, both ports on the MacBook, connecting the external power supply to to the Hub and without... and nothing worked.
Does someone have an idea of what's going on?

On you MacBook open the Display Preferences. Hold the Option key and select the “Scaled” radio button instead of “Default for Display”, you’ll see even more resolutions for you to pick from.


How can I name desktops/spaces in El Capitan? I would like to give names to different spaces; currently a new space get the default name Desktop n where n is a number. How can I give it a meaningful name?

This is something that I wanted for ages, so I finally got around and built an open source solution!

It behaves similarly to TotalSpaces in that it uses SIMBL to hook into the display functionality, and uses an application with a top menu bar button to rename the desktops.  To install it, just head over to my GitHub and follow the installation instructions!

Screenshots:

Edited Names

Name-changing UI


Connect iPad Air 2 to Macbook Short story: I would like my Macbook to connect to my iPad so that the applications on the iPad are available to be shown on the Macbook.

Longer story: I teach an online course. I connect to the website (Blackboard if you are interested) through my Macbook and I can share my screen and applications through Blackboard (an option not available when connecting through an iPad) so that my students see my Macbook scree, the slides there etc.. I use a lot of graphs in my teaching and I would like to use an iPad to draw the graphs as I can draw them there in real time, rather than having to create them beforehand.

I have a Macbook (mid 2014) with OS X Yosemite 10.10.5 (I will update the os at the end of the term) and an iPad Air 2 version 11.2.5.

I have tried Duet and Air Display but I have realized that those apps just extend the Macbook screen, using the iPad as a second screen. That is not what I want. I want to be able to show, through my Macbook, the drawing apps I am using on my iPad. I have a lightning to USB cable and so I can physically connect the iPad to my Macbook. Thanks.

As you mentioned yourself, you can use QuickTime Player in order to view your iPad screen on the Mac in real time. Here's the exact procedure:

Using a USB-to-Lightning cable capable of data transfer, connect the iPad to the Mac.
Unlock the device and opt to Trust This Computer, entering your passcode if needed.
Launch QuickTime Player, then do ^⌘N (Command + Ctrl + N).
After approving access to camera and microphone if requested (as is needed on macOS Mojave and later), click on the small downwards-facing arrow next to the record button.
Choose your device under Camera in the drop-down menu.

You will now see the iPhone within QuickTime Player on your screen. Keep in mind you won't be able to play content with DRM (e.g. iTunes, Netflix etc.) this way.


How can I redownload apps I deleted outside of iTunes? When I stopped syncing my iPad to my PC I deleted the folder that had all my apps. Now I'm syncing again on a different hard drive, and I get the message

  The app "X" could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?

Of course I can't locate it, and there's no Download option that I see if I right click. These apps are missing their icons in iTunes as well, and I don't really know how this will affect syncing.

Is there some way I can redownload these apps back onto my machine? It's iTunes for Windows if that matters.

If iTunes in the Cloud is available in your country (it is in most), go to the iTunes Store,  click on "Purchased" in the right-hand navigation bar, select Apps at the top, and then click the download button next to any app you'd like to download.


What is wrong in this Perl regex in OSX? The code works in Ubuntu, but not in OSX.

I run

perl -000pe 's/\n/\n\\begin{enumerate}\n/; s/\n\d./\n\\item /g; s/$/\\end{enumerate}\n/' lorem.tex

I get

-bash: $: command not found
MacBook-Air:draft masi$

It seems like you might have cut-n-pasted the command in to the shell in some odd way - or you manually entered it in the wrong way.

Try again, and this time pay attention to the quote characters. You need to use the right apostrophes. Make sure you don't use backticks or similar.


Running custom software on an Airport Extreme base station? Is it possible to run custom software on an Airport Extreme base station?

I've read it has a MIPS processor inside. So, can one put some software compiled for MIPS (addtionally to the already present printing and file-sharing services) on a connected hard drive (or install it), and then run it in the base station?

I'm thinking about the possibility of running a torrent-client on the base station, or an FTP-server, or, perhaps, a Coda filesystem server, and the like.

Currently there is no way to jailbreak either an Airport Extreme or a Time Capsule.

Whilst they are probably in the same order of difficulty as jailbreaking as say an iOS device, no one has really spent any effort on doing so.

Personally I think this is probably for the following reasons:

limited target audience (low numbers of product in the world)
limited 3rd party development support


Network Link Conditioner not working I am a web developer and I recently found out about Network Link Conditioner, but I can't get it to work.

It appears to be working, but when I load anything in a browser, the speed is not changed, regardless of whether or not I use 100% packet loss, etc.

Can anyone tell from this log what might be causing this?

OS 10.7.5, Xcode 4.4.1.

I have tried uninstalling and rebooting in various sequences but no improvement.

Also did the steps here:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12414676/network-link-conditioner-seems-to-have-no-effect-on-network-behavior-on-lion-mo

When I switch it on or off, I get this in the Console:

1/19/13 3:28:19.142 PM [0x0-0x38038].com.apple.systempreferences: System Preferences(683,0x10e0b1000) malloc: *** auto malloc[683]: error: GC operation on unregistered thread. Thread registered implicitly. Break on auto_zone_thread_registration_error() to debug.
1/19/13 3:28:19.533 PM NLCd: API Version mismatch
1/19/13 3:28:19.534 PM com.apple.nlcd: Jan 19 15:28:19 Jason.local NLCd[698] <Notice>: API Version mismatch
1/19/13 3:28:19.534 PM [0x0-0x38038].com.apple.systempreferences: _nlc_stop_simulation: (os/kern) failure
1/19/13 3:28:19.534 PM System Preferences: process command (simulate) failed
1/19/13 3:28:19.536 PM System Preferences: Stopping Network Link Conditioner
1/19/13 3:28:19.537 PM NLCBackgroundApp: Received callback that simulator was stopped!
1/19/13 3:28:31.408 PM [0x0-0x38038].com.apple.systempreferences: _nlc_start_simulation: (os/kern) failure
1/19/13 3:28:31.409 PM System Preferences: process command (simulate) failed
1/19/13 3:28:31.441 PM System Preferences: Starting Network Link Conditioner
1/19/13 3:28:37.105 PM _securityagent: audit warning: allsoft
1/19/13 3:28:37.105 PM _securityagent: audit warning: soft /var/audit
1/19/13 3:28:37.106 PM _securityagent: audit warning: closefile /var/audit/20130119222807.20130119222837
1/19/13 3:29:07.100 PM _securityagent: audit warning: allsoft
1/19/13 3:29:07.100 PM _securityagent: audit warning: soft /var/audit
1/19/13 3:29:07.100 PM _securityagent: audit warning: closefile /var/audit/20130119222837.20130119222907
1/19/13 3:29:37.104 PM _securityagent: audit warning: allsoft
1/19/13 3:29:37.104 PM _securityagent: audit warning: soft /var/audit
1/19/13 3:29:37.105 PM _securityagent: audit warning: closefile /var/audit/20130119222907.20130119222937
1/19/13 3:30:07.103 PM _securityagent: audit warning: allsoft
1/19/13 3:30:07.103 PM _securityagent: audit warning: soft /var/audit
1/19/13 3:30:07.103 PM _securityagent: audit warning: closefile /var/audit/20130119222937.20130119223007

Network Link Conditioner must be run from an administrator account to work properly.


Shutdown without and close all windows from terminal If I shutdown/reboot from Menu I get an option of saving state of open windows or not, but if I issue a command from terminal say shutdown -h now it will shutdown remembering all open windows, how can I shutdown without remembering any of the open windows just like the Menu option from terminal ?

I am searching for a solution to the same problem. I have not found a nice solution although there is a hacky one here which in short is:

Disable saving application state:

rm -r '~/Library/Saved Application State/*'
chmod -R a-w '~/Library/Saved Application State'

Disable 'Reopen windows when logging back in':

defaults write com.apple.loginwindow TALLogoutSavesState -bool false
chmod a-w ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow.plist
sudo chown root ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow.plist

See the provided link for more details.

But I really hope there is some better solution to this ? In my case the problem is that I have a mac in a server room that automatically runs a script in a terminal window. This machine can be rebooted remotely. But thus every time it reboots it keeps the old terminal window and opens a new one, so if I have rebooted it 10 times there will be 10 terminal windows open where only one is in use.


How can I make a secondary encrypted volume open during the boot process? When booting off a FileVault encrypted volume, OSX is capable of accessing the volume for the boot process once the user has entered their password at FileVault prompt. I want to configure my system so it also can access a secondary drive (containing my homedir) during this process.

After an SSD upgrade, I have an SSD as boot drive and HDD as data drive.
A secondary account exists on the SSD, with username "admin".
My preferred account, username "chris", has the home directory on the HDD, with symlink /Users/chris -> /Volumes/Tracto/Users/chris.
User "chris" has homedir set to /Users/chris (situation is the same when homedir set to /Volumes/Tracto/Users/chris, no change in behaviour).
If I log in as "chris" from the FileVault login screen, the machine boots and then shows the message "You are unable to log in to the user account "chris" at this time. Logging in to the account failed because an error occurred".
If I log in as "admin" from FileVault login, the system boots and logs in, at which point I can switch to the preferred account and operate as normal.
The preferred and secondary accounts have the same password, which is the one found in the secondary account's KeyChain associated with decrypting the drive.

To eliminate the double-login requirement, I hope to configure the system so that FileVault login decrypts both the SSD and HDD, boots off SSD and logs me into the preferred (HDD-homedir) account.

OSX is 10.11.4, machine is mid-2010 iMac, SSD and HDD are internal.

This doesn't work when your home directory is on a non-boot volume which is encrypted. If your home dir was on the boot drive or another unencrypted disk then you can have encrypted disks mount at login by adding the password to your keychain. But that's about it I believe.


OCSP Errors - Firefox - macOS Certain websites are failing when I have "security.OCSP.require: true" set in Firefox. Normal websites work, but when visiting commonly used websites (Facebook, GitHub, Spotify) it fails 90% of the time.
What could be causing this?
Firefox Version: 84.0b7
MacOS Version: 10.15.7

There are multiple causes of this - it could for example be a server error, overloaded server, no route/path to the OCSP server, etc.
When the check fails, Firefox displays an error code that will tell you the reason. The text looks like this:

An error occurred during a connection to www.facebook.com. The OCSP
server experienced an internal error. (Error code: XXXXXXXXX)

The XXXXXXX part will tell you what the problem was.
The problem you're experiencing is actually on of the main drawbacks of OCSP. By default, failing to check the status of the certificate online will just show you the page anyways - effectively bypassing the whole point of OCSP. On the other hand, setting it required as you did, makes it likely that you will experience web sites that won't display - even though you know they're up and running and "should" have been working.
The newer OCSP stapling standard attempts to remove the drawback while keeping the benefits by essentially letting the server do the OCSP check periodically, and keeping a timestamped, signed receipt of that check around for sending to clients.


How can I remove the "Eject" icon from the menubar? How can i remove the "Eject" icon from the menubar?

It's an icon that starts on login.
It ejects all mounted disks (dmg/usb/etc...).

Hold ⌘ and drag it away from the menubar.


Can I replace a MBP 2012 SSD with the Flash storage from a MBP 2013? My son's MBP (13-inch, Mid 2012) internal SSD has been acting strangely enough that I'm starting to wonder if it needs to be replaced (do SSDs fail?). I have a MBP (retina 15-inch, Early 2013) with a failing logic/graphics board combo that I'm going to need to replace anyway.

Can I take the 512 GB flash storage from my 2013 MBP and put it into my son's machine? I realize that the process may be arduous, I just wanted to find out if it's even compatible.

Thanks!

Out of the box, definable you not.  The 2013 MacBook Pro laptops use a proprietary PCIe interface whereas the 2012 used a SATA III interface.

There may be a PCIe to SATA adapter, but I haven seen any that are compatible with the Mac’s proprietary interface.  Even so, SATA SSDs are very cost effective right now, so it’s not practical to add that extra layer of complexity by putting an adapter into the mix.


Mac OS X Wireless Keyboard Power Button I have done everything to trouble shoot my non-working keyboard. I've been using it a year and it is set up correctly There is supposed to be a power button? I sure can't find it!

Thanx!

The power button is on the right hand side, it's part of the "tube" at the back and clearly marked with a power button symbol.

Did you check the batteries as well?


apsd/mDNSResponder spamming thousands of DNS queries per second on macOS Big Sur I upgraded a machine to macOS Big Sur two days ago, and after a day or so my PiHole DNS server randomly stopped working, which upon inspection was caused by gigabytes of logs for DNS queries made by the Big Sur machine overwhelming the poor thing. I monitored DNS requests on the machine with tcpdump:
$ sudo tcpdump port 53 -k NP
xx:xx:xx.xxxx (proc mDNSResponder:32622, eproc apsd:108) IP 192.168.0.xxx.xxxxx > pi.domain: 24541+ A? xxx-courier-x.push-apple.com.akadns.net. (64)
...

and holy crap, apsd, the Apple Push Notification Service daemon, was literally spamming multiple DNS queries for xxx-courier-x.push-apple.com.akadns.net through mDNSResponder every millisecond (the domain is obfuscated a bit here; the 5th level domain is different for different geographical regions).
Note that the DNS queries are answered just fine, the domain isn't blocked by PiHole or anything.
I killed mDNSResponder which made it stop, which might indicate that apsd is the innocent party and mDNSResponder is the culprit, but I can't be sure.
I then rebooted out of caution, and after a day or so, the problem started again.
I've never seen anything like this on previous versions of macOS. Anyone got insight? Or experiencing something similar and have more details to add?

This keeps coming up every day or two, so eventually I wrote a small utility called mDNSSupervisor to monitor mDNSResponder and restart it whenever it's apparently going berserk. Doesn't solve the underlying issue of course but enough to cure the symptom and be mostly safe from its effects.
You can download the tool if you want from https://github.com/zmwangx/mDNSSupervisor (free, WTFPL licensed). Installation instructions there, too.
A sample from my logs showing it in action:
time="2020-11-28T17:15:06+00:00" level=info msg="1606583706: 15s rolling average 142.8, above threshold 100"
  PID  %CPU    RSS  ELAPSED COMMAND
  246  38.2   7692 14:01:57 /usr/sbin/mDNSResponder
  259   0.0   4768 14:01:57 /usr/sbin/mDNSResponderHelper
time="2020-11-28T17:15:06+00:00" level=info msg="mDNSResponder restarted"


Where to find app which opens on startup, but it's not in Users & Groups? I've this annoying application popping up on startup (called ZipCloud) which seems to be installed without my knowledge (along with other app) and I wanted to get rid of it.

I understand I can uninstall it by dragging the app into Trash. However before doing that, I wanted to understand where the app added it-self to the startup scripts.

I've already checked in System Preferences (Users & Groups), but it's not there. I also check my /etc/rc.local. And the app it-self doesn't have any options to get rid of the startup.

What other places I can look to get rid of unwanted startup apps?

When a system is booted, launchd startup process launches daemons and agents in the following system-level locations (based on the property list files):

/System/Library/LaunchDaemons (system-wide, not writeable when SIP mode is enabled)
/Library/LaunchDaemons (system-wide)

When a user logs in, a per-user launchd is started and it loads the user agents from the property list files found in:

/System/Library/LaunchAgents (system-wide, not writeable when SIP mode is enabled)
/Library/LaunchAgents (system-wide)
~/Library/LaunchAgents (user-level)

Source: Creating Launch Daemons and Agents.

On earlier systems, third party startup items could be also found in /etc/rc.local file and /Library/StartupItems folder, but with Mac OS X 10.4, startup items are deprecated in favour of launchd daemons.

Source: Old Systems and Technology - Startup Item.


OS X server taking up tons of disk space I'm running OS X Server, with the File Sharing, Time Machine and VPN services enabled. The /Library/Server/ServerDocs directory is taking up huge amounts of space.

What does this directory do? Can it be deleted safely?

On a side note, many other subfolders of /Library/Server/ are also pretty chunky, such as Calendar and Contacts, Wiki, ProfileManager, etc., even though those aren't service I've ever used on this Server.

This is an index of the files stored in any file share point which has "iOS" turned on as a protocol. Disabling iOS sharing will prevent this folder from filling up, though I've yet to find the "by the book" way to clear this folder.


Incorrect number of file hard links DiskUtility on Yosemite gave me this error message :

  Incorrect number of file hard links

I would like to repair my disk but i don't know if it will erase all my documents.

Can someone tell me if repairing the disk is going to format it too?

Thx in advance!

A hard link is a reference in a directory file that is the same inode ( reference in the file system) to another file in the same directory or a different directory). If one hard link is removed from the file system then the other(s) will not be removed. In any case, repairing a file system may cause loss of data. Attempt to backup before repairing the file system.


Apple Numeric Keyboard can't render the at sign "@" on Mac Mini I just got a new numeric keyboard for my Mac Mini but when I press Shift + 2, I don't get the at sign (@)--instead, it's a double quote. Then, Shift + 4 shows a euro instead of $, Shift + 6 an ampersand (&) instead of a ^, etc. How do I fix this?

I checked "US," then the checkbox beside "Danish" was enabled, then I unchecked it.


How do I remove the Finder from the Dock automatically at login? This is related to this question here, except that, in addition to removing the Finder, I want to do it automatically. There are several solutions on the web that suggest using this AppleScript:

tell application "System Events"
    tell UI element "Finder" of list 1 of process "Dock"
        perform action "AXShowMenu"
        click menu item "Remove from Dock" of menu 1
    end tell
end tell

Unfortunately, saving this as an application and having it run at login doesn't work; interestingly, running it within Script Editor does work, but this doesn't solve the problem of removing the Finder automatically.

The solution is to create a LaunchAgent (man launchctl for more info) that runs the above script via the command-line. Essentially, you want to store the script above in a file, say 'killfinder.scpt' and then run the command osascript /path/to/killfinder.scpt.

We want to do this automatically at login, so we use a LaunchAgent. Since I want to use this because I use Pathfinder and my wife doesn't, I'm going to put it in ~/Library/LaunchAgents, but if you want this to be system wide, put it in /Library/LaunchAgents.

You will have three files:

A UNIX script
An AppleScript (optional)
A LaunchAgent XML plist

Script File

Put this in an appropriate path. For example, I stored it in ~/dev/scripts/killfinder.bash.
Create the file and add this content:

#!/bin/bash
osascript /path/to/AppleScriptFile.scpt

Make sure the permissions are correct (i.e. chmod ug+x killfinder.bash)

AppleScript File

You can call osascript directly with AppleScript code as an argument. I leave that as an exercise to the reader; in that case, you can creating this file. But if you want to do it this way:
1. Put this in an appropriate path.
2. Create the file and add this content:

    tell application "System Events"
        tell UI element "Finder" of list 1 of process "Dock"
            perform action "AXShowMenu"
            click menu item "Remove from Dock" of menu 1
        end tell
    end tell

Make sure the permissions are correct (i.e. chmod ugo+r Finder\ Remove.scpt)

LaunchAgent XML plist

Put this in ~/Library/LaunchAgents or /Library/LaunchAgents depending if you just want this behavior for your personal account or system-wide.
Create a file called com.<whateveryouwant>.KillFinder.plist with the following content:

<?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>com.<whateveryouwant>.KillFinder</string>
   <key>Program</key>
   <string>/path/to/unixscript</string>
   <key>RunAtLoad</key>
   <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

It's important to make sure the 'string' value after the Label key is correct as well as the path to the unix script.

Now all you have to do is exit and login and it should work!


USB Port of Macbook frequently stop working One of the two USB ports of my Macbook Pro stop working frequently.

Once I reboot the computer, then two USB ports work well.
But one of them (always the same one makes the problem) stops working.
I don't know when exactly it occurs and why it occurs.

How can I fix this?

The ports are designed to shut down when an over current situation is detected. It stands to reason that this circuit is reset at boot, so there could be damage to the sensor or damage / fault to the logic board or it could be a result of actual over current from whatever's connected.

Have you considered taking it in to a shop for a diagnosis?

Also, look in the Console app - all messages - and search for USB. You might be able to see the time when the over current (or other error condition is logged) since the system should notify the logging subsystem when a USB port gets shut down.


Why don't I see a Messages icon in iCloud.com? I have my Messages on my iPhone and MacBook backed up to iCloud. I accidentally deleted a convo on my phone and wanted to retrieve it. When I logged into iCloud.com I don't see an icon for Message. Both my devices are set to back Messages to iCloud, so why don't I see it on iCloud.com?

The iCloud.com web interface doesn't provide a Messages web app. In other words, iMessage can only be accessed from the app on your iOS device or Mac. From Apple's Messages in iCloud support page:

You can use Messages in iCloud on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple Watch, and Mac. For your privacy, Messages in iCloud is end-to-end encrypted, which means you can't view or access Messages online via browser.

Moreover, iCloud only provides recovery options for deleted contacts, calendars, reminders, web bookmarks and reading list, and files, per Apple's support document on restoring deleted iCloud content. It is, therefore, not possible to recover deleted iMessages from iCloud in this manner.
If you have a backup of your phone with the messages in question (either to iCloud or your computer), you could restore your phone to that backup to recover the messages. Be aware, however, that restoring to a backup will reset your entire phone to its state at the time when the backup was made. If you have a local backup of your phone (i.e., one made through iTunes or Finder), there exists third-party software for Mac that may allow you to extract contents (e.g., messages) of the backup without restoring it; it is worth vetting such tools carefully, however, and I'm not familiar enough with the available options to provide a recommendation here.


Application not in the App Store Search When I search for my app by it's name 'Go Arc 2' I cannot find it in the App Store Search on iPad/iPhone.

I can find other apps that I've uploaded (we sell the app as a white label to different organization - we upload the same code but change the icon/splash and a short CFG file)

I clicked on any other app that I've uploaded (e.g. nilit)

Than I clicked `Developer Apps',

found the app that is missing in the search

sent my self a link

open the link in iPad/iPhone

And was able to install the app.

We recently had our apps removed because the APPLE DEVELOPER PROGRAM add expired, we paid and renew it yesterday.

This probably related to the app missing from search, but if so than how come the other apps appear in the search?

Please help.

The App Store does perform a lot of caching, so you will probably have to wait up to 24 hours to see your apps back on the store and appearing in search results.  If all is not well by tomorrow night, you should probably contact Apple and have them look into it.


Move iTunes library from Windows XP computer to Windows 7 computer On the old laptop, I just changed the library location from the default C: to D:
I also did a consolidate and now I have the entire music, movies, iTunes folders, etc. in my D: drive, and want to move it the new laptop.

I know I need to open iTunes by pressing Shift, but my problem is, that I cannot find the .itl file on my old laptop (at the new location of D:). I need this to select it on the new laptop. Where do I find my .itl file ?

Thank you for your help!

iLounge has a great piece of instructions on how to move the iTunes library from one place to the next: http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/moving-your-itunes-library-to-a-new-hard-drive/

The ITL file in your case, probably remains on your C:\ drive.


Share internet connection from a PC to an iPhone through the USB cable In the office where I'm working now, my network carrier has very poor reception, so my iPhone 4 cannot access the internet reliably.
I have a pc running Windows XP SP3 that is connected to internet through LAN, and it does not have a wi-fi card.
Is it possibile to share the PC connectivity to the iPhone through the USB cable?

This works well for iOS 10 and macOS 10.12:

Can I share my iMac's internet to iPhone or iPad over USB??

You're not the first to ask this question. Searching with Google shows that it's been discussed here and here.

Unfortunately, iOS 9 and earlier do not support what you're describing.

You mention that you don't have a wireless card but perhaps you can share your internet connection wirelessly, through an Ad-Hoc network. I think that's the best way to go, honestly.

This doesn't work for internet:

  [PC] --->--(USB)--->--> [iOS Device]

But this probably would, since the iOS device doesn't care, for the most part, where the WiFi is coming from:

  [PC] --->--(WiFi)--->--> [iOS Device]

So, you might consider grabbing a wireless card for your PC. Alternatively, a jailbroken iPhone might be able to get more mileage with a  USB cable than a vanilla one would.