Force Messages to Stay Logged in on OSX we have been using messages.app for communication in the office, but we often find that the client doesn't stay logged in.  We have it set to auto-start at user login, we have it set to login when users resume activity, but many times, users still end up logged out.  They don't realize it, and others in the office are trying to send them messages.

Is anyone aware of a way to force messages to stay logged in?

You could run a script every minute to update the status to available.

To do this, save the following AppleScript, I called messages-available.scpt, but your can rename if you want.

tell application "System Events"
    tell process "Messages"
        tell menu bar 1
            tell menu bar item "Messages"
                tell menu "Messages"
                    tell menu item "My Status"
                        tell menu "My Status"
                                click menu item "Available"
                            end if
                        end tell
                    end tell
                end tell
             end tell
        end tell
    end tell
end tell

Give permissions: chmod 775 messages-available.scpt.

The script do click on Available menu item in Messages.

Go to folder /Users/your-username/Library/LaunchAgents and save there the following plist file. I named it com.username.messages-available.plist, but again, feel free to change it.

<?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>Label</key>
  <string>com.your-username.messages-available</string>

  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
    <string>/usr/bin/osascript</string>
    <string>/Users/your-username/bin/messages-available.scpt</string>
  </array>

  <key>Nice</key>
  <integer>1</integer>

  <key>StartInterval</key>
  <integer>60</integer>

  <key>RunAtLoad</key>
  <true/>

  <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
  <string>/tmp/com.your-username.messages-available.err</string>

  <key>StandardOutPath</key>
  <string>/tmp/com.your-username.messages-available.out</string>
</dict>
</plist>

The file is pretty self-explanatory. We will launch the command /usr/bin/osascript /Users/your-username/bin/messages-available.scpt every 60 seconds, will be launched at load, will save errors on /tmp/com.username.messages-available.err and logs on /tmp/com.username.messages-available.out.

Replace your-username appropriately.

Last step, tell the Mac launchd daemon to load it.

launchctl load com.your-username.messages-available.plist

To stop the script, just replace the word load with unload in the above sentence. When your restart your computer the script will be load again. To prevent it, move it to another folder.


MacBook Pro 2013 hard drive upgradable? My MacBook Pro late-2011 model was recently stolen when someone broke into our car. Luckily there weren't too many other items in the car and my computer was fully backed-up.

I am looking for a new MBP and have found several 2013 models. I am looking at a September 2013 model that shows it only comes with 256GB of flash storage. There is no way I can possibly fit even 1/4 of my documents on 256GB. I would like to reserve the flash store for OS X and other applications while having the rest of the data on another larger drive.

I am trying to find out if this model (Sept 2013) can take an extra standard hard drive in the chassis. I had two drives in the model that was stolen.

Follow-up: What is the newest MacBook Pro model that has a Serial ATA Hard drive connection? Also, how do Mac users with only flash based memory store large files? Do they use external storage for everything? For example, I have a large music collection and use my MacBook for video editing for websites. I wouldn't be able to do that on a 265gb PCIe flash based hard drive.

No, it cannot. Actually, there is no there is no drive-bay at all (standard or optical). The traditional, 2.5'' 9.5mm internal notebook drives (whether SSD or HDD) that you're thinking of are not compatible (internally) with this model.

This is what the solid state "drive" looks like inside late 2013 models:

As you can see from the iFixit photo above, the SSD is really just a stick of flash memory, connected via the PCIe bus. It's made up of 8 identical NAND flash modules (in densities of either 32, 64, or 128 GB). The 256 GB drive is pictured here. There are 8 32GB chips in total, 4 on each side. The chip density corresponds to the listed drive capacity, so 8x64GB Modules = 512 GB, etc.

Though it is possible to replace the SSD with a larger capacity one, there's currently no aftermarket upgrade available yet:

  Unfortunately, the proprietary PCIe 2.0-based SSD in the "Late 2013" models is limited to a smaller "blade" option, but upgrade options no doubt are forthcoming, nevertheless.

Soon forthcoming, indeed.

Consider purchasing an external storage device, or exploring 'cloud' based storage options.


External monitor has "snow" at 1080p/i when connected to MacBook Air When I connect an external monitor to my new MacBook Air via Mini DisplayPort to HDMI, I see the extended desktop but there are snow-like artifacts. When I change the resolution to 720p, the screen looks normal.

MacBook: 13" i7 MacBook Air (late 2011)
Monitor: 23" ASUS VH236H LCD
Adapter: non-Apple Mini DisplayPort to HDMI

I have tried other standard resolutions (1024x768 and higher) with the same effect. I have also tried toggling between 50hz and 60hz, 1080i and 1080p, each of which causes the same issue.

I get the feeling it has something to do with my relatively cheap adapter cable, but am unsure. Thoughts?

Likely to be the adaptor cable if it's cheap - might not be able to handle the HD throughput (although outputting to HDMI, you'd think it'd be able to).

While this sounds counter-intuitive, try moving around the alignment of the second screen as this might ditch the 'snow'.

Also, have you tried the screen with any other HD inputs?


How can I automate GIF to PNG with Preview using AppleScript? I have a GIF file but I can open it only with Preview because it is a little bit ruined (GIMP or other programs does not open it correctly but it works with Preview).

I want to export it to PNG files. As far as I know the only way to do it is:

Manually select the next frame
File → Export
Choose the right format to export and specify the path
Click Save and repeat

I'd like to automate it. Some advice?

You could also try using ImageMagick:

convert -coalesce animation.gif frame%04d.png

You can install ImageMagick with brew install imagemagick or sudo port install imagemagick.


How can I configure Mac Terminal to have color ls output? How can I configure Mac Terminal to have color ls output?
I am using MacOS 10.5

Edit:

~/.bash_profile

or

~/.profile

and add the following line to simply enable color output via ls:

export CLICOLOR=1

To customize the coloring shown by ls you can optionally add this variable, LSCOLORS.

Examples

Default

export LSCOLORS=ExFxCxDxBxegedabagacad

You can use this if you are using a black background

export LSCOLORS=gxBxhxDxfxhxhxhxhxcxcx

If you'd like to mimic the colors of a typical Linux terminal:

export LSCOLORS=ExGxBxDxCxEgEdxbxgxcxd

Once you've add the above to either ~/.bash_profile or ~/.profile you can either logout/login or source the file in your shell, for eg:

$ . ~/.bash_profile

NOTE: If you need help in selecting colors to use you can use this online tool called LSCOLORS Generator.


How can I inspect the environment variables of a running process? Is there some equivalent (CLI or GUI) to Linux's /proc/$PID/environ feature?

You can inspect environmental variables of running process with

ps eww <PID>


Problem Setting Up iPhone 5s I just purchased an iPhone (on Sprint), my first one, off of Craigslist. However I am having a problem: I get home and connect it to Wi-Fi and it says I need a SIM card. I looked online a bit to see if I can buy one, but I've heard if you go to Apple you'll get into trouble with them. I took a screenshot of the Craigslist ad, just in case. I was wondering if there's a way to buy a SIM card. I think it's a used phone, but on the ad it says new but out doesn't look new, if it makes a difference. I really want to know where can I get a SIM card, how will I be able to use it, how much it is, etc.

Go to a shop selling Sprint contracts/SIMs and buy one.


How to use movement for classical music with Apple Music? Apple Music groups tracks in classical music albums by work and movement, which is great. Here's an example:

When I add albums to my library, however, the grouping is lost. Here is how that same album appears in my library:

According to this MacWorld article it is possible to edit the tracks to specify that they include work and movement grouping, however, this requires that one input the information manually, which is tedious and should be unnecessary considering that information is clearly there in Apple Music.

Am I missing something? Is it possible to preserve this grouping when adding classical music albums to iTunes from Apple Music?

Only the tedious method. It is especially inconvenient on iOS. I use the Cesium player on iOS to better sort by Genre and Composer.


Where is the config (application properties) file for TimeMachine settings and the path excludes? Where is the config (application properties) file for TimeMachine settings and the path excludes?

You know, that what you might click and add in TimeMachine Settings > Options ...

Can't find anything in ~/Library/Preferences.
But settings are per user and not system-wide?!

System Command / Library seems to be named com.apple.prefs.backup

ok, found it:

/Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist

They ARE saved in the Systems-Library Preferences. All user settings are entitled in this file ;/

see http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2010051917410348 => http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20071207104354466

P.S: According to @M-K's answer the default exclusion list is found under

/System/Library/CoreServices/backupd.bundle/Contents/Resources/StdExclusions.plist


Large ping times in normal mode, okay ping times in safe mode I pinged google.com to see that ping times ranged from 54 ms to over 2000 ms on my MBA. After a quick isolation and testing, I figured that it was my MBA only issue. I log into safe mode on my MBA with Mountain Lion and I suddenly get ping times of around 15 to 30 ms, which I think are normal from my place and thus okay.

Now that I know ping times are okay in safe mode, how do I hunt down, what might be the issue with my MBA in normal mode? Any clear procedure you advise?

This issue affected several people after upgrading to Mountain Lion. For many, reducing their MTU size solved the issue:

Open System Preferences.
Select Network.
Select your connection and choose Advanced...
Select Hardware.
Change Configuration to Manually
Reduce the MTU size to 1300. Most people had good experiences with this value.
Observe how ping behaves over time. You can further reduce the MTU size in steps of 4.

However, there seems to be another issue: Proxies. The solution suggested here is:

Open System Preferences.
Select Network.
Select your connection and choose Advanced...
Select Proxies.
Turn off Auto Discovery Proxies.
Apply the settings.

But this should be fixed with an upgrade to OS X 10.8.1 (not sure if an upgrade to Mountain Lion directly brings you to the latest upgrade, or to 10.8.0).

Actually, I would first try the upgrade to 10.8.1. If this does not work, try the proxy solution. If this does not work, try the MTU size reduction.


What's the difference in range between Airport Express and Extreme? Walking in to a Apple premium reseller's store today I was told that there is no difference range-wise between Express (the June 2012 model) and Extreme.

True story?

Where can I get more detailed specs on the models? Apple's site isn't exactly thorough…

The Wireless specs are the same.

The Features of each one, however, are not. Here's a few differences:

Packaging (obviously)
USB connection: On Express, only printers work. On Extreme, Printers and External HDDs.
Airport Extreme is able to create two wireless networks (one regular, one guest). Apple site states it has a guest network.
Airport Express has a P2 connector for AirPlay audio.


How do I reset my ipod touch 1st gen's password? My daughter set a password on it and now does not remember it, how can I remove/reset the password?

The software version is 3.1.3.

Found it and putting it here for reference, simply hold the home and power button down for 10 seconds (ignoring the power off slider when it comes up) then keep the home button pressed down and release the power button. This needs to be done while connected to iTunes. At that point iTunes will offer to restore it.


Retrieving deleted text within a note on my iPhone In my iPhone notes, I had created a "note" and had lots of text typed in there. By mistake, I deleted most of the text I had typed inside of the "note". Is there a way I can retrieve that text? I did not delete the whole note, only text inside the note was deleted, so what I want to know is if I can recover that text or not.

iPhones have an Undo function. By default, to trigger the undo option you need to give your phone a quick shake. In your case it may be too late to use it.

To find out, go into your note and then give the phone a quick shake. If it works you will get an option such as the one below:

Obviously, then you would tap on Undo to undo the last typing action.


What are the keyboard shortcuts for copying login and password in 1Password without using the browser extension? I am using 1Password (version 3.8.5) to manage my login data and somehow I am reluctant to use the browser extensions. I want to speed up my login and password acquisition though and therefore I am searching for keyboard shortcuts to:

Copy a password
Copy a login

The keyboard shortcuts for getting to the login I have searched for or for tabbing to the correct item in the UI is something I am already familiar with.

There are not specific keyboard shortcuts for those two individual items in 1Password but you can navigate to them with the keyboard.

Here's how you could get a login or password into your clipboard without pushing a mouse (or fondling a trackpad).

Command-F to search for the account you want to access
↑ / ↓ to move up or down through the search results
Command-E to switch to edit mode for the selected record
Tab until you get to the field you want to copy
Command-C to copy the value from the field
Command-E again to exit edit mode

You now have the value you want on your clipboard.

I know it's not the single shortcut you were looking for but I think it's as close as you're going to get with 1Password.


Why does Automator get stuck in a loop when processing a large number of files? I have a very long workflow dealing with renaming, resizing and duplicating a large number of high resolution images. The workflow was working fine until I tried it with 300 images. Automator got through about 15 actions and then just spins on a particular action. I can see it gets about half way through this action (looking at the images it is supposed to be resizing, number 180 and before are resized, but nothing after).

Automator is still responsive - I am able to stop the task while with the stop button.
Reducing the number of files (say to 170) solves the problem. I have not tried anything higher than this.
Automator stops on the same action every time (resize to 480 pixels)
The workflow description:

The original size of the images are 3920 × 3072.
There are about 30 actions.
The output is about 5 different sizes of the images and two PDFs (made up of the images).

Has anyone else experienced problems? I would be happy with just a work around, because using Automator just saves so much time.

More Information

This is the offending action:

Detailed Description of the workflow:

Copy 300 images at 3920 × 3072 pixels (base images)
Rename the images
Copy and Scale the 300 images to 50% of the base image size
Rename the images
Copy and Scale the 300 images another 50% (now 25% of the base images)
Rename the images
Copy and Scale the 300 images to 480 pixels (this is the step that Automator gets stuck on)
The script goes on the copy and scale the images again, create two 300-page pdfs and then rename all of the images one more time.

Testing Notes

When just copying and scaling the 300 images by 480 (three actions), the operation still does not complete...
The workflow does not get stuck on the same image every time. I tried three times and the image number was:

176
182
183

Current Workaround

I currently am splitting the input of the action into three with a filter and running the action three times of each of these groups and then combining the groups again. Using the filter does not work on my network drive (not indexed by Spotlight apparently). It is also a large number of extra steps. Would still be interested to hear any solutions or better work arounds - especially since this work around requires a large number of extra steps...

I resolved this by getting the Finder Automator Action pack from Ben Waldie. Check it out here:

http://www.automatedworkflows.com

I use the following automator action successfully:

You should get it, as this works for me.

Phil


What physical storage does Internet Recovery use if my internal drive is broken? I got the flashing folder with a question mark on my 2014 MacBook Pro, running High Sierra. Internet Recovery looked like my only option. The recovery version of the OS loaded and I was able to get to Disk Utility. Unfortunately, all I can see is OS X Base System:

There is only one disk image visible and here is some of the info:

Volume name: OS X Base System
BSD device node: disk0s1
Volume capacity: 2.01 GB
Available space: 721.2 MB
Bootable: No
Disk number: 0
Partition number: 1
Ejectable: Yes
Parent disks: disk0

It seems, most likely, I have an issue with the SSD or the physical connectors to the SSD. If that is the case, where is this OS X Base System being stored? Is it stored on my SSD somehow or is it using RAM or is there some hidden storage somewhere that I don't know about?

The installer creates a RAM drive (a disk container in the systems memory) that can mount like a normal file system.


OS X - How do I remove photos from my iPhone using the Photos app after import? OS: OS X 10.10.3 (Yosemite)
Machine: Macbook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012)
iPhone: 5s on 8.2 (12D508)

So I import all photos/videos off of my iPhone to Photos on a daily basis after upgrading from iPhoto and it works well overall, so far.

The problem is that, while Photos does give me the option to "Delete items after import", the option becomes greyed out after some imports and there are some items that get left behind on the iPhone (they are successfully imported but do not get deleted).

iPhoto would let me delete already-imported photos, but Photos does not. I also do not sync Photos using iTunes.

I have two inconvenient workarounds to this:

Select all photos in Photos app, check "Delete items after import" and click "Import Selected" again. This may or may not create duplicates -- I'm not sure.
Manually delete each photo on my iPhone like a cave person

So my question is this-

Is there a more automatic way to do this (without duplicates), since I'm doing it on a regular basis?

I'd go for the 'not quite cave-man' approach - though still a bit manual...

Launch Image Capture.

Plug in iDevice

Select any/all photos you wish to delete

The Delete button is at the bottom of the window [the 'no-entry' sign]

After comments - the button is still there in Yosemite.
Update Nov 2015 - the button is still there in El Capitan, though it is now black & white, not red.
Picture updated to Image Capture 6.7 after further queries on the button not being there.
Update July 2016, as people are still missing this bit...
If the Delete button doesn't appear, eject & re-plug the phone.


Options for itunes-filled disk? I haven't bought any TV shows on iTunes, but my boss has -- many. His MacBook Pro's 250GB disk is more than half filled with TV shows (mostly sitcoms for entertainment during travel). Most of the rest of the disk is filled with other stuff.

I see a couple options for clearing up some space currently occupied with TV shows:

buy a bigger disk (go to Apple store
and have them swap out the 250GB
model with the 500GB model)
move some of the tv shows to an external disk and help him restore when needed
backup itunes library and then just nuke

I've looked around on apple's site and on some other pages about backing up iTunes and it doesn't seem like #2 is easy to do from within iTunes. The full iTunes backup (#3) is more straightforward, but I think a full initial backup will take a couple dozen DVDs.

The hurdle for buying a new disk is the cost plus the downtime while the Apple store is performing the installation and copy.

Are there other, better options that I've missed? Has anybody done any of my suggested options?

Regarding option number 1, the Apple Stores do not do hard drive upgrades.  You will need to take it to an authorized 3rd party or if it is a recent model MacBook Pro i would recommend just doing it yourself.  It is fairly easy and iFixit has a step by step guide on their site http://www.ifixit.com/Browse/Mac.  A 500gb hard drive should be relatively inexpensive on newegg.com or amazon.com, and i would also recommend going with a 7200rpm.

I upgraded my late 2009 13" MacBook Pro to a 320gb 7200rpm Western Digital drive from newegg and have been pretty happy with the performance.

For option number 2, all you have to do is drag the tv show out of itunes and on to another drive.  Once it is transfered you can delete it from itunes.  Keep in mind that you probably want to keep a back up of the drive you transfer the shows to or else if that drive fails you have lost the content.


OS X 10.10.3 connects to wireless router but unable to resolve domain names I can connect my daughter's MacBook to the wireless router but not browse the internet with two different browsers (Firefox and Safari). This is a recent development as she has successfully browsed the net with this MacBook earlier. She says that she didn't change any settings.

Her MacBook is given an IP address by the wireless router's DHCP server. I can ping other computers on the LAN as well as on the WAN (but only using an IP address with the ping command). In other words, I can ping 8.8.8.8 but not google.com. My router's log does not log any requests from her macbook.
Other computers on this LAN have unrestricted access to internet browsing.

ifconfig en1 returns...

en1: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
     ether 00:23:12:55:3b:a0
     inet6 fe80::223:12ff:fe55:3ba0%en1 prefixlen 64 scopid 0x5
     inet 192.168.1.9 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
     nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD>
     media: autoselect
     status: active

I've tried rebooting the computer and the router.
Any help trouble shooting this would be greatly appreciated.
to clarify my original question based on comments that I've gotten...

@Buscar I was only connected via wifi when I ran the ifconfig so the en1 must be wifi.

@Jamie I checked the DNS servers listed in the router status and got 208.180.42.68 208.180.42.100 and I can ping these from my daughter's macbook. It is curious that my Netgear router doesn't log any requests from the macbook. Also, the App Store on the macbook indicates that there are 2 items in the queue (icon in the dock) but when I click on that icon the App store doesn't finish loading (probably because it cannot connect [on a different port than 80???]).

I also tried dig and nslookup. These both had connection time outs.
Thanks again for your help

Ok, I've figured the problem out in my daughter's macbook. System>Network>Wi-Fi>Advanced DNS tab. I removed the existing DNS servers and used Google's 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4. Reopened the browser and it is working now. nslookup and dig also work. Not sure where the DNS servers that I replaced were from or how they got there. I also noticed that in my macbook (one of the ones that were working fine), the DNS server is the wifi router ipaddress. I'm not sure if I should use that or just stick with Googles. Hope this helps someone.


Macbook 12 " and Windows 8.1 I have prepared bootcamp with windows 8.1 iso. After the very first start of Win 8.1 i see a very small page with the language/country settings, but i cannot choose anything or go further because keyboard trackpad dooesn't work. What do I wrong ? (OS 10.10.4) Same procedure on Macbook pro 13" shows big language setting page and keyboard works well. Any suggestions?

I had the same problem. I was installing Win 8.1 by bootcamp on a MacBook 12" early-2016. The internal keyboard and trackpad did not work.

I was using the USB-C to 3 ports adater with only one standard USB. So I tried to unplug the installation flash drive and plug a usb mouse. It worked, though obviously I cannot continue to install without the flash drive. So option 1 is use a USB hub and a external mouse.

Another option is to install Win 10. The internal trackpad works in the installation screen.


Accessing Time Machine Console Messages Under previous versions of macOS, to get an idea of what Time Machine was up to I could simply open Console.app and enter "backupd" as a filter in order to see lots of useful messages, in particular things like the space required for each volume being backed up, whether a deep traversal (full scan vs. event log) is being used etc., all very useful for examining slow/large/new backups and such.

However, under Sierra Console.app  has been redesigned and I can't seem to find any of these messages any more, just some stuff about loading preferences.

So my question is; is it still possible to access the same detailed Time Machine/backupd messages somewhere (not necessarily Console.app), and if so how/where?

The answer is yes - the logs are available. Either historical or as they occur.

This is the script I use. The -f argument follows the live Time Machine messages:

#!/bin/sh
#
# show time machine logs
# -f = follow

PRED='subsystem == "com.apple.TimeMachine" AND processImagePath CONTAINS "backupd"'

if [ $# -gt 0 ]; then
    log stream --style syslog --predicate "$PRED" --info
else
    log show   --style syslog --predicate "$PRED" --info | sed -e 's/ localhost / /' \
         -e 's/ (TimeMachine) / /' \
     -e 's/[[]com.apple.TimeMachine.TMLog/[/' \
     -e 's/\.[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]\+[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9] / /'
fi

Note you will need to run this with sudo to access all log data.


Calendar and Time Zones in iOS 9.2 & OSX 10.11 I am confused by the time zone settings in the Apple calendars, especially by the wording.

I book a date here in Melbourne (UTC+10 ignoring DST) for an event in the Netherlands (UTC+2). I want to enter the event as 06:00 here, but really mean 06:00 in the Netherlands local time. The calendar is in iCloud.

This happens all the time when booking flights — the times are always in local time, which is, of course, appropriate.

What is the correct setting in the iPhone and on the MacBook for this to work? I think the wording has changed, but I never thought it was clear.

Currently I add the local time in the notes just in case. I was caught out in the past when the event showed the wrong time (fortunately it meant I was too early for the flight).

I have spent a lot of time in order to have clean calendar entries for flights over multiple time zones. I couldn't find any good solution, because iOS and OS X only support ONE time zone per event (by the way, so does Microsoft Exchange).

The best solution I found was to create two events :

One for the take-off, specified in its local time zone.
One for the landing, also in its local time zone.

And when your phone or computer changes time zone, you have the correct local time.

In a perfect world, an event should be able to have 2 time zones (one for the start time and one for the end time). Apple could do it, but it would probably break compatibility with other applications like Outlook.


undelete (-W) with rm (BSD General Commands) - Operation not supported How to enable undelete for files in my Downloads folder? How does this undelete works?

$ rm backupstore.files.tar.gz
$ rm -W backupstore.files.tar.gz
rm: backupstore.files_.tar.gz: Operation not supported
$ ls -W
AdBlock.safariextz          launch (1).ica              mysql-connector-java-2.0.14.tar.gz      launch.ica              mysql-connector-java-5.1.41.tar.gz
$ rm launch.ica
$ rm -W launch.ica
rm: launch.ica: Operation not supported

Infos about the filesystem

$ diskutil info /dev/disk1
   Device Identifier:        disk1
   Device Node:              /dev/disk1
   Whole:                    Yes
   Part of Whole:            disk1
   Device / Media Name:      APPLE SSD SM0512G

   Volume Name:              Macintosh HD
   Mounted:                  Yes
   Mount Point:              /

   Content (IOContent):      Apple_HFS
   File System Personality:  Journaled HFS+
   Type (Bundle):            hfs
   Name (User Visible):      Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
   Journal:                  Journal size 40960 KB at offset 0x11991000
   Owners:                   Enabled

   OS Can Be Installed:      Yes
   Recovery Disk:            disk0s3
   Media Type:               Generic
   Protocol:                 PCI
   SMART Status:             Not Supported
   Volume UUID:              D27270EB-9784-3B29-A1EE-D26DBC2BD22E
   Disk / Partition UUID:    FC74BE3D-F4EA-4FD1-B362-D651EB68CFA1

   Disk Size:                499.0 GB (499046809600 Bytes) (exactly 974700800 512-Byte-Units)
   Device Block Size:        512 Bytes

   Volume Total Space:       499.0 GB (499046809600 Bytes) (exactly 974700800 512-Byte-Units)
   Volume Used Space:        104.3 GB (104267853824 Bytes) (exactly 203648152 512-Byte-Units) (20.9%)
   Volume Available Space:   394.8 GB (394778955776 Bytes) (exactly 771052648 512-Byte-Units) (79.1%)
   Allocation Block Size:    4096 Bytes

   Read-Only Media:          No
   Read-Only Volume:         No

   Device Location:          Internal
   Removable Media:          Fixed

   Solid State:              Yes
   Virtual:                  Yes
   OS 9 Drivers:             No
   Low Level Format:         Not supported

   This disk is a Core Storage Logical Volume (LV).  Core Storage Information:
   LV UUID:                  FC74BE3D-F4EA-4FD1-B362-D651EB68CFA1
   LVF UUID:                 544B362A-53F4-41FF-B1AD-BE52860C04CA
   LVG UUID:                 C92FBB59-95F2-4E6B-AABA-39267836FCE3
   PV UUID (disk):           6C0409A0-8BBB-4BFC-B422-37782F7EA2B5 (disk0s2)
   Fusion Drive:             No
   Encrypted:                No

From man rm:
 -W    Attempt to undelete the named files.  Currently, this option can only be
       used to recover files covered by whiteouts.

So it can't be used to recover files deleted by the usual means.
For a (rather short) explanation of whiteout see https://askubuntu.com/questions/39826/what-does-whiteout-mean-in-a-copy-on-write-filesystem. A slightly better explanation I found on discussions.apple.com:

A whiteout node is used are part of a union file system mount, where a 2nd file system is mounted over a base file system, and the files in both file systems appear to be merged.
When you delete a file in the union file system which happens to be in the bottom layer (which is effectively read-only), the top layer gets a whiteout node created to indicate that the bottom layer file should not be returned on a directory lookup.
So while I did not find anything about deleting a whiteout node, my theory is that maybe if you create a real file or directory with the exact same name as the whiteout node you created, the file system will automatically remove the whiteout node. Or try renaming a file to the same name as the whiteout node.


iTerm2, zsh and .zshhistory - how to have separate zsh history I installed iTerm2 on Catalina 10.15.6 on a MacBook Pro bought in early 2020 and have two profiles - Default and MyUser.
For MyUser, I set a custom location of /Users/john-doe/iTerm2/zsh (copy of zsh from /bin/zsh) and set a custom .zshrc file via the command
touch .zshrc

The default zsh file (/bin/zsh) saves to .zsh_history in Users/john-doe (home directory)  but I am not sure how to with zsh, or iTerm2, set a custom location for that profile's installation of zsh.
If anyone could help I'd appreciate that!

I think you're confusing iTerm2 Profiles and user shells.  So, I wrote this primer to help you get started/clarification.
The Terminal Client
When I say "Terminal" I don't mean Apple's Terminal App.  I mean Terminal Emulator Clients. iTerm2 is a terminal emulator has absolutely nothing to do with with the remote computer other than providing an interface on your local machine through which you connect to the remote.
Whether you use iTerm2, Terminal, PuTTY for Mac, or the myriad of SSH clients available, they all do basically the same thing - give you an interface to work with the connected device. Some of these clients offer just the nitty gritty; iTerm2 has tons of features.  For example, some clients (like iTerm2 and Terminal) allow you to store profiles which is what configures iTerm2 and it's behavior.  You can set the background/foreground colors, the blinking of the cursor, how URLs are handled etc., but none of it is related to the actual shell on the remote computer.
You can have 1 remote assigned 1 profile or 100 remotes assigned to 1 profile.  Multiple profiles on your computer doesn't give you multiple users or sessions on the remote.  Multiple profiles just gives you multiple ways of interacting with the remote computer.
When you Connect
It would be beneficial if you read my primer on ZSH files:  ZSH: .zprofile, .zshrc, .zlogin - What goes where? because it will help you in understanding  what happens when you connect to the remote machine.
When you connect to a remote machine, whether it's your personal Mac or some big shared computer with many users, you are assigned a shell; assigned when your account was created.  On new Catalina installs, the shell is ZSH.  Mojave and earlier, it's Bash.  You could install newer and different shells like CSH or TCSH or even fish and then choose which one you used *when you connected or authenticated.
When you log in, ZSH reads it's configuration files in order (see the above link).  It starts with the ones in /etc/ then moves onto the ones in your home directory /Users/username/.  As a side note, your home directory can be referenced as a variable $HOME or with the tilde notation; ~/ (eg: ~/Documents)
Bottom line here is that every time you invoke the shell it's going to read those files - nothing in iTerm will affect that.
ZSH History File
ZSH has no built-in setting for the history file.  It's set by environment variable, HISTFILE in any of the following: /etc/zprofile, /etc/zshrc, ~/.zprofile or ~/.zshrc.  In macOS, it defaults to .zsh_history.  You can set it to anything you want by editing any one of those four files with the line HISTFILE=foo.bar.
Every time you load a shell (and you can load a shell within a shell within another shell) it's going to read those files.  Again, your iTerm2 profile has nothing to do with it; your history file is going to be what you (or the admin) configured it to be.
TL;DR

For MyUser, I set a custom location of /Users/john-doe/iTerm2/zsh (copy of zsh from /bin/zsh) and set a custom .zshrc file via the command

That's not how it works.  The user shell on the remote has nothing to do with the Terminal client's profiles.  You can't link a custom shell config file with a terminal profile the way you're trying to.  As far iTerm2 and the shell, they actually have nothing to do with each other much like the Mail App has nothing to do with Gmail's servers other than a method to connect to them.


How to use script to open an app if it's not the front most app, and hide it when it is the front most app in macos? I need a script to open an app if it's not the frontmost app and hide(command+h) it when it is the frontmost app.
e.g 'Kim.app'
how to write this in Applescript or shell script?
Here is some info I can get:
Getfrontmost:
osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to get name of application processes whose frontmost is true and visible is true'

Open:
open -a 'Kim.app'

Hide:
osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to set visible of process "Kim" to false'

still don't know how to write this

res=$(osascript -e "tell application \"System Events\" to get name of application processes whose frontmost is true and visible is true");
if [ $res == "Kim" ]
then
    osascript -e "tell application \"System Events\" to set visible of process \"Kim\" to false"
else
    open -a 'Kim.app'
fi

I did it like this, it works but excutes very slow, how to optimize this?


Fetching problem with Macports I'm running macports on a late 2013 MBP. I'm having problems with macport being unable to download the package files. I tried installing 'git +svn' and not only did the entire dependency resolution take a bit more than one hour, once it got done and moved into the fetching phase it couldn't find any files to download.
I checked in safari and the files are there sure enough but the port installer can't seem to find them.
I've tried at home as well and my mac mini there has no problems finding the packages and installing them but the MBP can't. And the mac mini is much much faster at dependency resolution as well.

I've googled around without really finding anything so I'm at wits end here.
There must be something strange with my installation but I can't figure out what.

The log:

info:fetch --->  expat-2.1.0.tar.gz doesn't seem to exist in /opt/local/var/macports/distfiles/expat
:notice:fetch --->  Attempting to fetch expat-2.1.0.tar.gz from http://osl.no.distfiles.macports.org/expat
:debug:fetch Fetching distfile failed: Connection timed out after 30003 milliseconds
:notice:fetch --->  Attempting to fetch expat-2.1.0.tar.gz from http://skylink.dl.sourceforge.net/project/expat/expat/2.1.0
:debug:fetch Fetching distfile failed: Connection timed out after 30002 milliseconds
:notice:fetch --->  Attempting to fetch expat-2.1.0.tar.gz from http://lil.fr.distfiles.macports.org/expat
:debug:fetch Fetching distfile failed: Connection timed out after 30004 milliseconds
:notice:fetch --->  Attempting to fetch expat-2.1.0.tar.gz from http://kent.dl.sourceforge.net/project/expat/expat/2.1.0
:debug:fetch Fetching distfile failed: Connection timed out after 30001 milliseconds
:notice:fetch --->  Attempting to fetch expat-2.1.0.tar.gz from http://mse.uk.distfiles.macports.org/sites/distfiles.macports.org/expat
:debug:fetch Fetching distfile failed: Connection timed out after 30003 milliseconds
:notice:fetch --->  Attempting to fetch expat-2.1.0.tar.gz from http://nue.de.distfiles.macports.org/macports/distfiles/expat
:debug:fetch Fetching distfile failed: Connection timed out after 30004 milliseconds
:notice:fetch --->  Attempting to fetch expat-2.1.0.tar.gz from http://fco.it.distfiles.macports.org/mirrors/macports-distfiles/expat
:debug:fetch Fetching distfile failed: Connection timed out after 30005 milliseconds
:notice:fetch --->  Attempting to fetch expat-2.1.0.tar.gz from http://vorboss.dl.sourceforge.net/project/expat/expat/2.1.0
:debug:fetch Fetching distfile failed: Connection timed out after 30003 milliseconds
:notice:fetch --->  Attempting to fetch expat-2.1.0.tar.gz from http://freefr.dl.sourceforge.net/project/expat/expat/2.1.0
:debug:fetch Fetching distfile failed: Connection timed out after 30005 milliseconds
:notice:fetch --->  Attempting to fetch expat-2.1.0.tar.gz from http://heanet.dl.sourceforge.net/project/expat/expat/2.1.0
:debug:fetch Fetching distfile failed: Connection timed out after 30003 milliseconds
:notice:fetch --->  Attempting to fetch expat-2.1.0.tar.gz from http://netassist.dl.sourceforge.net/project/expat/expat/2.1.0
:debug:fetch Fetching distfile failed: Connection timed out after 30004 milliseconds
:notice:fetch --->  Attempting to fetch expat-2.1.0.tar.gz from http://netix.dl.sourceforge.net/project/expat/expat/2.1.0
:debug:fetch Fetching distfile failed: Connection timed out after 30003 milliseconds

EDIT:
It seems like there is a problem with curl:
The following doesn't work:

  curl http://nue.de.distfiles.macports.org
  it just times out.

And the problem was the env var, http_proxy. Somehow it suddenly started to make a difference.
Shout-out to @patrix for the help!


Stuck in recovery mode and unable to install OS X El Capitan Hi to anyone able to help with this / having the same problem...

I use a 2009 iMac A1224 20" with a SSD, running macOS El Capitan (the shop which installed the SSD also installed El Capitan back in 2018.)

I recently been having some problems - spinning beach-ball, white screen / load bar freezing at 50% during start up.

I cleared out disk space, installed updates, reset PRAM and verified the drive - none of this seemed to help.

Luckily it does actually start up every 1/20 times, so I've backed everything up externally.

Initially I tried to re-install macOS, entering recovery mode using Command + R or Command + Option + R but only got in with Command + Option + Shift + R - I don't know if that's because it is an old model?

When trying to re-install El Capitan I keep getting "This item is Temporarily unavailable" with my Apple ID. I've tried two old Apple IDs and had not luck either. I've logging in to my new/current iCloud and Apple ID (made after these problems started happening) and seen my iMac is listed under my devices.

I recently tried erasing the SSD / Macintosh HD but it's not made any difference. Now when I start up I loads straight into Recovery Mode automatically.

Also since erasing my SSD, the newly named partitions do not appear in the Recovery Mode Startup Manager - the section 'Choose Startup Disk: Select The system you want to use' is now blank.

I am stuck in recovery mode and unable to install macOS X El Capitan.

Any suggestions?

Thank you

Everything you said tells me "hard drive failure." It is not uncommon for a system to have boot issues when the hard drive is failing. The fact that you can't see the other partition and "this item is temporarily unavailable makes it sound like that's the issue.

Often when you try to reinstall the OS with a failing hard drive, you will get errors. This is primarily due to the hard drive having to write a file (the new OS) to the entire hard drive, whereas if you're using it, you're only accessing specific parts of the hard drive. You may have been avoiding that one "failing" spot, but when reinstalling the OS, it hit it.

I'd highly recommend taking it to an Apple Store or AASP (Apple Authorized Service Provider) and have them run a diagnostics check on it to verify. Or if you have an external bootable usb drive, attempt to boot into that.


Edit Mail rules manually I want to edit manually the following .plist file:

/Users/<myname>/Library/Mail/V5/MailData/SyncedRules.plist

Because I get a lot of spam and adding each spammer address to the rules using Mail is impraticable:

and there are many addres to be added. Since I know a bit bash scripting, sed and awk I'm thinking to write a script that automatically adds the addresses from selected email to the plist file above.

So, what is my question?

In conclusion, for each spammer addres the script should add a new dict entry with following fields:

        <dict>
            <key>CriterionUniqueId</key>
            <string>CC4CB669-0D44-4A32-80B1-02D069718304</string> (*)
            <key>Expression</key>
            <string>spammer@address.spam</string>
            <key>Header</key>
            <string>From</string>
        </dict>

How the string at (*) is generated? How can I fill it?

Maybe you will appreciate this script.  Basically the code will get all of the email addresses from the senders of all emails located in your junk mailbox and will make a new mail rule for each..;. Setting the name of the rule to the extracted email address.  In the event there are duplicate items in the senders list, all duplicates will be removed before adding the rules.  Additionally, a dialog box will appear giving you the option to enable the newly created rules.  This code should prove to be a huge time saver.

This works for me using the latest version of macOS High Sierra

set isRunning to application "Mail" is running

tell application "Mail"
    activate
    if isRunning is false then
        delay 12
    else
        delay 2
    end if
    set junkEmailAddressesNoDupes to {}
    set junkEmailAddresses to sender of every message of junk mailbox
    if (count of junkEmailAddresses) is 0 then
        set zeroJunkMail to button returned of (display dialog "You Currently Have 0 Junk Mail Messages" buttons {"OK"} with icon 1 default button "OK" giving up after 10)
        if zeroJunkMail is "OK" then
            if isRunning is false then
                tell application "Mail" to quit
            end if
            return
        end if
        if isRunning is false then
            tell application "Mail" to quit
        end if
        return
    end if
    activate
    display alert ¬
        "IMPORTANT" message "Please Make Sure The Top Level Junk Mail Folder labeled" & " " & quote & "JUNK" & quote & ¬
        " Is Selected" as warning ¬
        buttons {"Cancel", "OK"} ¬
        default button 2 ¬
        cancel button 1 ¬
        giving up after 30
    delay 10
    repeat with i from 1 to count of junkEmailAddresses
        set thisItem to item i of junkEmailAddresses
        set thisEmail to extract address from thisItem
        set end of junkEmailAddressesNoDupes to thisEmail
    end repeat
end tell

set junkEmailAddressesNoDupes2 to removeDuplicates(junkEmailAddressesNoDupes)

tell application "Mail"
    activate
    set checkRulez to button returned of (display dialog ¬
        "Please Make Sure These New Junk Mail Rules Do Not Contain Any Valid Email Addresses That You Don't Want Tagged As Junk" & linefeed & linefeed & (junkEmailAddressesNoDupes2 as list) buttons {"CANCEL", "OK"} ¬
        default button 2 ¬
        cancel button 1 ¬
        with title ¬
        "NEW JUNK MAIL RULES" with icon 1 ¬
        giving up after 120)
end tell

if checkRulez is "CANCEL" then
    return
end if

repeat with i from 1 to count of junkEmailAddressesNoDupes2
    set thisItem to item i of junkEmailAddressesNoDupes2
    tell application "Mail"
        if not (exists of rule thisItem) then
            make new rule ¬
                with properties {name:thisItem}
            tell its rule thisItem
                make new rule condition ¬
                    with properties {header:"", expression:thisItem, rule type:from header, qualifier:equal to value}
                delay 0.1
                set delete message to true
            end tell
        end if
    end tell
end repeat

tell application "Mail"
    activate
    set enableRulez to button returned of (display dialog ¬
        "Enable New Rules?" buttons {"Cancel", "No", "Yes"} ¬
        default button 3 ¬
        cancel button 1 ¬
        with title ¬
        "New Rulez" giving up after 30)
end tell

if enableRulez is "Yes" then
    tell application "Mail" to set enabled of every rule to true
else
    return
end if

tell application "Mail"
    activate
    set applyRulez to button returned of (display dialog ¬
        "Would You Like To Apply Your New Junk Mail Rules To Your Current Junk Mail?" buttons {"No", "Yes"} ¬
        default button 2 ¬
        cancel button 1 ¬
        with title ¬
        "APPLY THE NEW RULES?" with icon 1 ¬
        giving up after 30)
end tell

if applyRulez is "Yes" then
    tell application "System Events"
        tell application "Mail" to activate
        click static text 1 of UI element 1 of row 5 of outline 1 of scroll area 1 ¬
            of splitter group 1 of window 1 of application process "Mail"
        delay 1
        keystroke "a" using command down
        delay 0.5
        keystroke "l" using {option down, command down}
    end tell
else
    return
end if

on removeDuplicates(lst)
    try
        if lst's class is not list then error "not a list." number -1704
        script k
            property l : lst
            property res : {}
        end script
        repeat with itemRef in k's l
            set itm to itemRef's contents
            if k's res does not contain {itm} then ¬
                set k's res's beginning to itm
        end repeat
        return k's res's reverse
    on error eMsg number eNum
        error "Can't removeDuplicates: " & eMsg number eNum
    end try
end removeDuplicates


How to get Lion a working auto_home client with NIS and NFS Server I have a working NIS/NFS server environment here, with multiple servers. One is the NIS server, that works just fine with Lion. But I can't figure out how to get the auto home mounting working.

Do you guys have any hints, make this working?

You'll need an automount record for your Directory, and you'll need home folder location records for your users or groups. I think you'll need to modify your LDAP schema so that these two types of entries are named the way a Mac expects. Not my area of expertise unfortunately.


Permanently disable Safari caches I'm disabling the cache from Safari developer menu, but each time I reboot my computer, the cache is re-enabled.

I'm looking for a permanent solution for disabling the cache.

Any ideas?

Empty the cache from the Develop menu.
Quit Safari.
Lock ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/Cache.db from Finder's Get Info inspector.

This prevents Safari writing to the cache.

If you're here looking for how to disable cache now the option mentioned in the question is removed in Safari 11, see How to disable all caches in safari 11?


Will Time Machine backup an iTunes library that's stored on a network share? I store my iTunes library on a Synology NAS and access it from an SMB share. The library is larger the SSD in my Macbook, so I cannot store it locally.

Does Time Machine back a library that is on a network drive?

I entered Time Machine today and tried to navigate to the iTunes library share but it isn't there. That leads me to believe that it isn't being backed up.

If it isn't being backed up, is there a way to get Time Machine to back it up? If not, is there an alternative? If I remember correctly, Backblaze will not back up network drives. I'm not aware of another backup service for Macs, but I am open to suggestions.

It's taken me countless hours to organize my library, fixing song/album info, download album art, etc, in addition to the cost of buying tons of music from various sources.

No, Time Machine does not backup network drives.

You would need to setup a system to copy/sync the network drive contents to your own computer in order to have it backed up by Time Machine. This means that you would need space on your own computer to actually store the whole contents of the network drive. You can use the program "SyncTwoFolders" to achieve this.

The most common method though of backinging up Synology NAS drives is simply to use the backup solutions available for the Synology NAS itself. Depending on the model, you'll often have Synology HyperBackup available, and you'll be able to backup to local externally attached hard drives, to S3 in the cloud, or a number of other backup destinations.


cannot find iTunes Connect Mobile app when searching iTunes store I am searching for "iTunes Connect Mobile" app by Apple from my iPod touch (has OS 4.0) in the Apple Store, without any luck. Also tried "iTC Mobile" (a name used in some articles about it).

Opening iTunes on mac brings "iTunes Connect Mobile", and the description says it's working on iPod touch OS 3.2 and up. Any clues why iPod touch is not finding it?

Open this on your device:

http://itunes.com/apps/iTunesConnectMobile


Cannot boot into macbook pro - Cannot access recovery mode I have a macbook pro 2019 with macos Mojave installed on it. It suddenly stopped working and stuck at apple logo for some unknown reason.
I tried Command + R to access recovery mode. There is no error message. It shows apple logo and fills the progress bar. I waited for more than 30 mins but nothing happened. I tried releasing the keys immediately when apple logo appeared. Also tried holding the keys until the progress bar filled.
Then I tried Command + Option + R for internet recovery. On the spinning globe screen, I connected to wifi network. After download, it gets restarted and again stuck at same apple logo. I waited for more than an hour everytime but nothing happened.
And then I created a bootable usb and tried to install Catalina OS from it. The result is same, it stuck at apple logo.
As a last option, I installed macos in an external USB using my friend macbook. I tried to boot into external USB by holding Option key on startup. Again the same result, it stuck at apple logo.
I also tried Command + Option + P + R to reset PRAM. Nothing worked. Assuming my macbook has T2 security, I cannot disable it since I'm unable to access recovery mode. Please suggest if there are any other options.
I tried Apple diagnostics by holding down the D key. After checking for few minutes, it shows no problems found.
When I try target mode by holding down the T key, it showed 2 icons, thunderbolt and usb. When I connected it to another MacBook Pro with a cable, the target MBP didn't show up in the host MBP. I did check in disk utility and network folder, not found anywhere.
I tried the verbose mode by holding down Command + V keys. The logs shows 2 messages frequently. One is "X86PlatformPlugin result 0" and the other one is "Interface link is not up, do not pull packets yet". It keeps showing these 2 messages. Also seen "kextd stall[0], (60s): 'IGPU'  " and "kextd stall[1], (60s): 'IGPU'  ". Attached a video link of recorded log. https://youtu.be/YFo9Ja63w68

If you have access to a working Mac, the next thing I would try (after what you have already done) is to start the troubled MacBook Pro in Target Disk Mode by powering on the computer and holding down the T key until the Thunderbolt (or USB) symbol appears on the screen. Then connect it to the working Mac, mount the drive, and use Disk Utility to to verify and, if needed, repair the drive. Also take this opportunity to make a copy of the drive in case (a) the drive is failing or (b) you end up with a repair that includes a new drive. Obviously if Disk Utility cannot repair the drive, take it to Apple for service.
If the drive appears good but the computer still will not boot, the next thing I would try is running Apple Diagnostics by turning off the computer, turning it back on and holding down the D key while the computer starts up. If any issues are found, Apple Diagnostics suggests solutions and provides reference codes. Take note of those reference codes and give them to Apple when asking for service on the computer. Note that you need to be connected to the internet to run diagnostics. If D does not work (possibly because there is something wrong with your disk drive) you can use Option+D to load the diagnostics over the internet.
If the diagnostics show nothing wrong and the Target Disk Mode show nothing wrong with your drive, I would be pretty surprised. In any case, having made a backup of the drive from Target Disk Mode, if Disk Utility did not get the drive back into bootable shape, I would take the computer to Apple for repair.


Prevent Mac to sleep when lid closed on Mojave / Catalina So I saw a lots of old discussion on this topic, but I'm trying to find out an actual solution that still works on Mojave / Catalina, without the use of external monitor/keyboard/mouse/with power adapter.

When looking up Amphetamine, they claimed that you can only do it when the 4 criteria are met, and cannot overridden it.

But on the other hands, Anti Sleep provide the feature in their pro version...

So, which one gets the real deal ? Is Anti Sleep lying about it or Amphetamine (and all other caffeine app on the appStore) is out of date ?

I also heard about InsomniaX and built-in caffeine  but it's really not user friendly, and appear not to be supported anymore...

You can accomplish this in  terminal. No additional software needed.Display global power settings:pmset -g

System-wide power settings:
Currently in use:
 lidwake              1
 autopoweroff         1
 standbydelayhigh     86400
 autopoweroffdelay    28800
 proximitywake        1
 standby              1
 standbydelaylow      10800
 ttyskeepawake        1
 hibernatemode        3
 powernap             1
 gpuswitch            2
 hibernatefile        /var/vm/sleepimage
 highstandbythreshold 50
 womp                 0
 displaysleep         10
 networkoversleep     0
 sleep                1 (sleep prevented by sharingd)
 tcpkeepalive         1
 halfdim              1
 acwake               0
 disksleep            10

To stop sleep entirely:sudo pmset -a disablesleep 1To revert, allowing sleep again:sudo pmset -a disablesleep 0


What is the best configuration for a Triple System? i'm a new Mac user. Just bought a MacBook Pro 13' .
So i want to use all 3 Systems ( Ubuntu , MacOS , Win7 ) on my Machine.

I Thought about using Boot Camp for Windows and a Virtual Machine ( which one ?! ) for
Ubuntu.

Can you give me any advice on that ?
I'm really new to MacOS, so every little advice is appreciated !

On a new Mac (presumably one that uses an Intel i5 or better processor), I think the hassle of rebooting to use BootCamp outweighs the benefit. I would run both Ubuntu and your favorite flavor of Windows in one of the Virtual Machine products. Some prefer VirtualBox because it is free. I'm not in that camp, and I think it has poorer performance than the competing solutions. That leaves Parallels or VMWare Fusion. I've used both, and find little difference between them in real-world usage. I use VMWare Fusion, myself. I would purchase whichever one you can find at a discount. I note that you can often find Parallels included in the Mac software bundle deals that pop up several times a year.


Why is iBooks progress incorrect in my Siri Suggestions, and how is this fixed? In this case, Siri Suggestions implies that I have just started the book. I've actually been reading it for weeks and am on page 685/1985. Clicking the Siri Suggestion for the book brings me to the correct page. This is on iOS 9.1 (13B143).

Go to Settings>General>Spotlight Search. Turn off and on Siri Suggestions. It worked for me.


Where is the autoexpect command line tool on OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5) On a fresh OS X 10.8.5 install, I was surprised to find no autoexpect tool.  Where'd it go?

To install autoexpect you can install the homebrew version of expect:

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
brew install expect


Is "Quit others" possible? If one holds down Option and Control whilst clicking an icon in the Dock, the resulting menu contains a Hide Others command, such that only the clicked application is visible on screen. This is helpful when making a presentation, recording a screencast, or in other circumstances. The one problem is that the programs running in the background can still generate errors, etc., that might awkwardly cause them to reappear during the screencast, presentation, etc.

Would it be possible to create some sort of command (or Service, or something) to "Quit Others" -- that is, a command that would quit all applications except the frontmost one?

Using the SO answer referenced by Diago, maybe something like the following modification can exclude the currently active application:

tell application "System Events"
    set the visible of every process to true
    set app_name to name of the first process whose frontmost is true
end tell
set white_list to {"Finder", app_name}
try
    tell application "Finder"
        set process_list to the name of every process whose visible is true
    end tell
    repeat with i from 1 to (number of items in process_list)
        set this_process to item i of the process_list
        if this_process is not in white_list then
            tell application this_process
                quit
            end tell
        end if
    end repeat
on error
    tell the current application to display dialog "An error has occurred!" & return & "This script will now quit" buttons {"Quit"} default button 1 with icon 0
end try

Then you can add this as a service using Automator, and assign a keyboard shortcut for it in the Keyboard section of System Preferences.


Why doesn't anything happen when I connect my Nexus S to a MacBook Pro 2010 using a USB cable? I've tried to connect a Nexus S to a MBP 2010 via USB. After connection, the Mac does not respond.

Anybody know why? I have tried it with a powered USB hub and get the same result: No responses for the USB storage.

Fire up system profiler on your mac. This can be refreshed to show all USB devices connected - even if there is a driver issue, at least you'll know if the cable and physical connection are good.


Fully disable Spotlight Search I would like to know if there is any way to disable Spotlight Search, even when an user goes to Settings -> Spotlight Search, and change the options there.

That's mainly because anyone could still search in Spotlight only by going to Settings -> Spotlight and enabling the search on the web. I do know that you can set it so you can apply filters, but they are not successfull at what I need. (Yes, I know also that Safari can be restricted under "Restrictions", but I am only talking about Spotlight)

I would need something like "Spotlight Search" under "Restrictions", so I can turn it off completely, so any user can't enable the Internet search again.

That's like a little bug for anyone who want to be fully protected for mature/adult content. (I want to have my own filter, not what Apple says that is good)

PS. Currently I am with iOS 10.X in an iPhone SE. There's a video from youtube here that explains how to disable Settings app. That would be great, but that workaround only work in older versions of iOS.

First, reboot into recovery by restarting your Mac while holding down Cmd+R. From Utilities, select Terminal and enter the following command to disable System Integrity Protection.

csrutil disable

To check if it is already disabled, run csrutil status.

Now, just run this:

mv /System/Library/CoreServices/Search.bundle /System/Library/CoreServices/Search_disabled.bundle

Then restart your Mac and Spotlight will be completely disabled.
Don't forget to re-enable System Integrity Protection once your are done.


trouble installing cmake I need to install cmake for school.  I have tried using the source code but don't really understand where I should unpack it and how to add it to my path.  I also tried the .dmg file but the command cmake is not recognized after I dragged it to the applications folder. I have mac osx version 10.14.  I am a novice at this, any help is greatly appreciated.

For cmake the easiest way is to install the GUI from the .dmg - which you already have done.

For other users. To install the GUI mount the .dmg and then copy Cmake.app to /Applications (a link to that  is in the disk)

You can run the build from the GUI which asks for the source and target paths and the type of build system to be generated.

Or you can install the command line tools. Choose from the menu in the GUI  Tools->How to install for command line use. This provides instructions on what to do. These are basically telling you where the cmake executable is so that you can add that directory to your PATH

I do use the GUI as it allows easier control of where things are and which build system to generate.


iPhone 4 movies won't play in Quicktime, no sound in VLC I've taken many videos with my iPhone 4, but when I uploaded them to my Macbook and try to  play them in Quicktime, they only show one frame and they don't play.

When I try to play with in VLC, they play but without sound and with improper orientation (portrait video is played in landscape mode).

These videos play just fine on the phone.  What do I need to do to get proper playback on my laptop?

I had the same (or at least similar) issue: A video taken with my iPhone 4S (running the most up-to-date iOS 6) would not play in Quicktime player, but it DID play in the Finder preview, surprisingly. I finally figured out what I did wrong: I first downloaded all of my "Camera Roll" to my Mac in iPhoto, then exported the files from there to a Finder folder. However, I didn't pay attention that the default export file type is .jpg - which is obviously not the right one for a video. So I went into iPhoto again, selected the movie file, chose "Export" and then selected "Original" instead of "JPEG" from the "Kind:" pull-down menu. (Stupidly, iPhoto reverts back to "JPEG" the next time you open it - why? Also, why is there no easier way to download picture and movie files from the iPhone to the Mac than the route I just described? But this is besides the point of this discussion...)

Anyway, now the video plays in all the right ways as intended. - might be something to try?


Apple Mail make mails unsigned by default I have lost patience with outlook and have started using apple mail with my corporate exchange account.

A problem is that every mail I send by default picks up an ios developer certificate that i have associated with this e-mial address.
I know you can click on the button on each mail to turn off signing that message, but i'd like the default to be NOT to sign each message i create.
J

Try this. Go to your your Preferences of the Mail application. Then, you should be in the Account section. Choose your account then at the very bottom change TLS Certificate to "None".


Help with VNC (via school Wi-Fi) without consent? Opsec I'm in a tough situation and am hoping you can help me out.

As a student in California, USA, our teachers sometimes require us to sign on to the school's wireless network.

Supposedly, they have an application where they can not only listen to each device's incoming/outgoing traffic but also view our screens in realtime (sort of like a VNC client).

For obvious reasons, this drives me insane. Other than using Chrome extensions such as HTTPS Everywhere and turning on FileVault (Full disk encryption), what else can I do? I know the VNC client likely runs off of  some malware installed on my computer (without my permission, of course). Where might this sofware be hiding and/or be found?

I'm running High Sierra 10.13.2.

PS: Would running a system such as Tails be a good idea? (tails.boum.org).

Thanks again!

The only way they are going to be able to watch your screen is if you have installed something specific to allow them to do so or they have a password and you have screen sharing (and or remote management) turned on.

So turn off screen sharing (System Preferences > Sharing. Uncheck screen sharing and remote management) and change your password and any other passwords on the system in System Preferences > Users & Groups.

This all presupposes this is YOUR Mac and not one provided by the school. If it is provided by the school they likely have it locked down so you can't make those changes because the computer does not belong to you.


Profile Manager not sending email invitations After installing a new copy of OSX Server I started the Profile Manager and wanted to add some users and enroll them for the VPP Managed Distribution (I am already registered for VPP).

In the VPP Managed Distribution section I hit "Resend invitation..." and a success message is displayed, but no invitation is received.

The possible causes:

Missing SSL certificate
Misconfigured e-mail in OSX server
Misconfigured DNS

I tried different email addresses and checked spam, but none of it helped.

Why are my invitations not sent?

When you acquire VPP app licenses for free applications, are they appearing in your Apps tab in the Profile Manager [device manager interface] sidebar?
Have your devices successfully enrolled to Profile Manager, and can you deploy configuration payloads/profiles to them?

We ran into this when getting OS X Server and PM up and running, and then realized you can distribute apps and books without requiring the user to approve these VPP invitations.
Unless you're attempting to deploy internal/enterprise apps, you can deploy App Store/VPP apps to devices or device groups as long as they are enrolled to Profile Manager (supervised or not, they should deliver as long as your config profiles are).
EDIT: You should also make sure that you have an APNs account and that APNs is enabled in your OS X Server, with an updated token.

If you‘re not getting Apple push notifications - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203609
Resolve issues with Profile Manager in macOS Server -  https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201063


Broken iPhone 5s screen, can't authorize iTunes I have recently damaged my iPhone 5s screen and have had to buy a new phone. I'm trying to backup the damaged device to my computer and iTunes is asking me to authorize access to my iPhone, which I can't because the screen is not responding.
Is there a workaround?

Ask Apple if there is a store near by. Usually they charge $129 (plus tax) to fix a broken iPhone 5s screen. If you can't get to an Apple store, you can mail your device in to Apple for a shipping fee of $6.95. If you purchased AppleCare+ ($99 for two years) for your device, you'll only have to pay $79 for a screen repair -- though AppleCare+ only covers two incidents of accidental damage. If you don't have Applecare+ you can choose a reliable supplier to buy a screen replacement and then do the repair by yourself or a repair man.


What filesystem should I use to share across Mac (Yosemite) and Linux? I need to move large files (5-5Gb) from a Mac to a Linux machine.

Network transfers are too slow, so I wanted to use USB drives.

However filesystems seem to be a bit of a nightmare: HFS+ is hard to read on Linux, NTFS and Ext4 are hard to write on Mac.

Any advice on what's the best way to do that?

You can use exFAT but you may have to install the packages on Linux.  Probably along the lines of:

sudo apt-get install exfat-fuse exfat-utils

This has the benefit of read/write in Windows as well.


Selectively disabling notifications in macOS At random intervals, DropBox pops up a notification telling me that it's almost full and that I should buy an upgrade. There is no way to disable this notification within the DropBox app (it's how they make money after all), but I would like to block it.
However, I still want to see other notifications from DropBox. So I want to block notifications from this app selectively based on their content, e.g. only if they contain the string "almost full".
So:

Is there a way to do this from within System Preferences? (It seems not but there's no harm in asking.)

Is there a way to do it by typing something clever at the terminal?

Is there a reputable third-party app that can do it?

PS: I'm 100% certain there is no feature in DropBox to disable these notifications. The question is about whether there is a way in MacOS or a third party app to filter notifications from a given app selectively based on content. Presumably, if a solution exists, it will not be specific to the DropBox app but will be a general solution to the problem of filtering notifications.

Unfortunately, no. Dropbox notifications are all or nothing. Selecting which sort of notification to ignore is not an option - it just isn't granular enough. I've searched for an official Dropbox feature or enhancement request mechanism, and in the Dropbox Community forums there is a Share an Idea section which may be actually viewed by Dropbox developers.
Good Luck


What does Facebook like button represent for App Store apps? On an iOS application's App Store reviews tab, there is a Facebook like button.

Anybody know what it does when a user clicks on it? Does it show on the user's Facebook feed or does it like a Facebook page for the app?

If you are logged in Facebook from Setting app, then it will show the "Like button" on App Store app detail.

It will like the application URL from your account.


Can't boot into Mac OS after Windows install via Bootcamp I just installed Windows 10 successfully via BootCamp. Now I am neither able to boot into OSX, nor is its partition shown anywhere.

Turns out the issue occurs because of a mistake I made during the Windows installation. Once Bootcamp created the BOOTCAMP partition and restarted the system, I noticed that there was an additional small-sized partition created (~600 MB) just before the BOOTCAMP partition. Instead of ignoring it, I deleted and recreated the bootcamp partition from Windows Setup. Now I am only able to boot into Windows 10.

Now my question is: How can I recreate the deleted partition in order to be able to reboot into OS X?

I booted into Recovery Mode using cmd + r and ran diskutil list. Here is the outcome:

Besides, the Macintosh HD partition is also shown in Disk Utility:

The Recovery Mode even gives me the option to boot into my Mac partition, but doing so results in a black screen.

I am grateful for any suggestions out of this misery.

Edit 1

Output of gpt -r show /dev/disk0

bash-3.2# gpt -r show /dev/disk0
    start      size index contents
        0         1       PMBR
        1         1       Pri GPT header
        2        32       Pri GPT table
       34         6
       40    409600     1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
   409640 408928144     2 GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
409337784        72
409337856     32768     3 GPT part - E3C9E316-0B5C-4DB8-817D-F92DF00215AE
409370624  80863232     4 GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
490233856       863
490234719        32       Sec GPT table
490234751         1       Sec GPT header

Output of `diskutil cs list

-bash-3.2# diskutil cs list
CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
|
+-- Logical Volume Group 017D5AE8-30F7-45E1-879E-BB02C0EC3DC1
    =========================================================
    Name:         Macintosh HD
    Status:       Online
    Size:         209371209728 B (209.4 GB)
    Free Space:   35655680 B (35.7 MB)
    |
    +-< Physical Volume FB261C56-1F49-4690-9B15-8C4EAA4770B0
    |   ----------------------------------------------------
    |   Index:    0
    |   Disk:     disk0s2
    |   Status:   Online
    |   Size:     209371209728 B (209.4 GB)
    |
    +-> Logical Volume Family A62719EC-A4E5-4821-B7E0-831444CC3...
        ----------------------------------------------------------
        Encryption Status:       Unlocked
        Encryption Type:         None
        Conversion Status:       NoConversion
        Conversion Direction:    -none-
        Has Encrypted Extents:   No
        Fully Secure:            No
        Passphrase Required:     No
        |
        +-> Logical Volume D0DEC2A0-0E60-49B1-9758-40E7677A5346
             Disk:                  disk2
             Status:                Online
             Size (Total):          209000005632 B (209.0 GB)
             Conversion Progress:    -none-
             Revertible:            Yes (no decryption required)
             LV Name:               Macintosh HD
             Volume Name:           Macintosh HD
             Content Hint:          Apple_HFS`

The small partition you've deleted is your on-board Recovery HD. But deleting it isn't the real reason why you can't boot. You hosed your GUID partition table by manipulating it from inside Windows 10.

The basic steps you have to execute are:

Preparation:

Detach any external drive (especially an external Time Machine backup drive).
Restart to Internet Recovery Mode by pressing alt cmd R at startup.
The prerequisites are the latest firmware update installed, either ethernet or WLAN (WPA/WPA2) and a router with DHCP activated.
On a 50 Mbps-line it takes about 4 min (presenting a small animated globe) to boot to a recovery netboot image which usually is loaded from an apple/akamai server.

I recommend ethernet because it's more reliable. If you are restricted to WIFI and the boot process fails, just restart your Mac until you succeed booting.

Alternatively you may start from a bootable installer thumb drive (Mavericks or Yosemite) or a thumb drive containing a full system (Mavericks or Yosemite).

Modify GUID partition table:

Open in the menubar Utilities/Terminal

First you should get an overview of your disks and the partition layout:

Enter diskutil list, diskutil cs list and gpt -r show /dev/disk0

diskutil list:

bash-3.2# diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME               SIZE      IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partItion_scheme                   *251.0 GB  disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                209.7 MB  disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                    209.4 GB  disk0s2
   3:         Microsoft Reserved                     16.8 MB  disk0s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP            41.4 08  disk0s4
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME               SIZE      IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                     *1.3 GB  disk1
   1:        Apple_partition_map EFI                 30.7 KB  disk1s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS OS X Base System     1.3 GB  disk1s2
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME               SIZE      IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD      *209.0 GB  disk2

/dev/disk3 - /dev/disk13 part of the Recovery System

diskutil cs list:

-bash-3.2# diskutil cs list
CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
|
+-- Logical Volume Group 017D5AE8-30F7-45E1-879E-BB02C0EC3DC1
    =========================================================
    Name:         Macintosh HD
    Status:       Online
    Size:         209371209728 B (209.4 GB)
    Free Space:   35655680 B (35.7 MB)
    |
    +-< Physical Volume FB261C56-1F49-4690-9B15-8C4EAA4770B0
    |   ----------------------------------------------------
    |   Index:    0
    |   Disk:     disk0s2
    |   Status:   Online
    |   Size:     209371209728 B (209.4 GB)
    |
    +-> Logical Volume Family A62719EC-A4E5-4821-B7E0-831444CC3...
        ----------------------------------------------------------
        Encryption Status:       Unlocked
        Encryption Type:         None
        Conversion Status:       NoConversion
        Conversion Direction:    -none-
        Has Encrypted Extents:   No
        Fully Secure:            No
        Passphrase Required:     No
        |
        +-> Logical Volume D0DEC2A0-0E60-49B1-9758-40E7677A5346
             Disk:                  disk2
             Status:                Online
             Size (Total):          209000005632 B (209.0 GB)
             Conversion Progress:    -none-
             Revertible:            Yes (no decryption required)
             LV Name:               Macintosh HD
             Volume Name:           Macintosh HD
             Content Hint:          Apple_HFS

gpt -r show /dev/disk0:

bash-3.2# gpt -r show /dev/disk0
    start      size index contents
        0         1       PMBR
        1         1       Pri GPT header
        2        32       Pri GPT table
       34         6
       40    409600     1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
   409640 408928144     2 GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
409337784        72
409337856     32768     3 GPT part - E3C9E316-0B5C-4DB8-817D-F92DF00215AE
409370624  80863232     4 GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
490233856       863
490234719        32       Sec GPT table
490234751         1       Sec GPT header

Unmount the CoreStorage volume first and then the main disk:

diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk2
diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk0

then delete the Windows partitions on your main disk with gpt:

gpt remove -i 4 /dev/disk0
gpt remove -i 3 /dev/disk0

If you get an error "gpt remove: unable to open device '/dev/disk0': Resource busy" trying to remove a second (or third) partiton just repeat

diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk2
diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk0

After deleting or adding a partition with gpt the system sometimes|often|always tries to immediately mount all remaining partitions. If you get an error similar to "disk2 is not mounted" trying to unmount disk2, just continue with diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk0.
delete the GUID partition table and force create a new one:

gpt destroy /dev/disk0
gpt create -f /dev/disk0

add the EFI-partition and the Macintosh HD Logical Volume Group with gpt

gpt add -b 40 -i 1 -s 409600 -t C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B disk0
gpt add -b 409640 -i 2 -s 408928144 -t 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk0

disk0 and the CoreStorage should be mounted automatically after adding the second volume. Please check this with diskutil list and df. Your CoreStorage volume may have different DiskIdentifier now. After entering diskutil list to get the DiskIdentifier of your CoreStorage volume enter df and check if the file system is mounted. The output is similar to that one:

User$ df
Filesystem     512-blocks       Used  Available Capacity   iused     ifree %iused  Mounted on
...
/dev/disk13     6066780416 5444610552  621657864    90% 680640317  77707233   90%  /Volumes/Macintosh HD
...

If the CoreStorage wasn't mounted earlier, you may mount it with diskutil mount /dev/disk13 (or whatever the DiskIdentifier of your CoreStorage Volume is).
open Disk Utility and verify/repair first the hard drive, then the CoreStorage volume. If the CoreStorage wasn't mounted earlier

Expand the CoreStorage volume:

expand the Macintosh HD Logical Volume Group to the full available size of your main disk:

diskutil cs resizeStack LVUUID size #LVUUID = Logical Volume UUID

In your case (just copy the UUID of the Logical Volume in the "diskutil cs listing" you got earlier and paste it here. The UUID below might be faulty because I OCRed your screenshot):

diskutil cs resizeStack D0DEC2A0-0E60-49B1-9758-40E7677A5346 0g

If you encounter an error like "Error: -69722: You can't perform this resize unless it has a booter (target partition is probably too small)" here, you have to revert your CoreStorage volume to a normal volume:

diskutil cs revert LVUUID

In your case:

diskutil cs revert D0DEC2A0-0E60-49B1-9758-40E7677A5346

Then quit Terminal by entering exit and open Disk Utility. Mount the volume Macintosh HD if unmounted and verify/repair it. Choose the hard disk and then the partition tab. Expand the volume with the slider to the full size of your hard disk.

Recreate Recovery HD

now try to boot to Macintosh HD
by reinstalling Lion with the latest Lion installer (10.7.5) your Recovery HD will be recreated. Your data and already installed applications shouldn't be affected by reinstalling Lion. If you had no CoreStorage volume, you may use Recovery Partition Creator 3.8 instead.

Reinstall Windows 10

Install Windows 10 with the Boot Camp Assistant

If you run into problems please add a comment with @klanomath


macOS compiled binary runs in build folder, but reports killed: 9 when moved to /usr/local/bin I build a series of tools on macOS 10.15.6 using clang from Xcode 12.1.  When the binaries are built, they complete the test runs from within the build folder.  However, when I copy them to /usr/local/bin (setting owner, group, and permissions), they all exit on launch with "Killed: 9".  dtrace/dtruss both simply report that sip is enabled and nothing else.
The tools are not sandboxed and don't do any kernel level trickery.  I've also checked the xattr flags and there are no flags set.
Does anyone have a tip on a tool that I could use on the Mac platform to determine what's going on (gdb is not installed)?
Tim

This was caused by kernel caching of previously signed binaries and my replacing those binaries with newly compiled binaries which weren't part of a signed package.
By deleting the existing binaries, rebooting the Mac to clear the kernel cache, and then recopying the new binaries into place, I sorted the issue.


About Mac histories of programs? My friend asked me a question about "Is it possible to check what programs you open and you made" and I didn't know if its possible or not so I want to ask you if its possible or not.

Like how can you find out what you did on a Mac and delete the history or edit something on it.

The closest thing is the "Recent Items" lists in the Apple menu.

There is more detailed information in /var/log/system.log but it's not easy to parse.


How do I effectively have multiple helpdeskers use ARD? I manage the IT for an org with about 800 clients with mixture of Windows and Mac platforms. I'm looking at getting ARD for my staff (up to 4 installations of ARD) so they can better support the mac clients. One large gotcha is that it seems each installation of ARD has to be configured individually, and there is no built-in way to share the information about all our clients that each installation of ARD has. So what would be the best way to effectively manage a large number of client machines with multiple client support staff? Some ideas I've thought of:

Have up to 4 installations of ARD and use some combination of Applescript and /or automator to try and sync the data between the 4 installations of ARD. I see via this thread: How can I share Apple Remote Desktop's list of machines to other computers? that it's possible, but there are no specifics as to actually how to do it, and I can see that trying to keep data in sync between 4 machines would be problematic
Have ARD on a mac server and connect that macserver via VNC or otherwise and then from that server support the client. Seems clunky.
Give up on sharing information about clients and just use ARD as a more advanced version of VNC

Any other suggestions welcome. Thanks!

It sounds like you need a client management solution.  I prefer the Casper Suite, but in the interest of full disclosure, I work for the manufacturer.  However, I was a customer for some time before becoming an employee.  There are competing products and I advise you to evaluate more than one solution before making a purchase.

With all that said, a client management solution will give you a central inventory system, and centralized management tools.  The information regarding your inventory and management tasks are stored on a server that is accessible to your entire staff, and depending on the privileges you assign, all members of the team can perform management tasks.

I hope this is helpful.


OS X Photos app unable to export video I recently uploaded some videos into Photos after compressing them in Handbrake.

Now, when I try to export the video back out of the Photos app, it gives me an error:

Does anyone know 1) why I can't export some videos and 2) how to fix it? I don't want my videos to be forever locked in the Photos app.

Select File < Export < Export Unmodified Original. This will avoid having Photos try to transcode your video.


Which photo websites have iPad support for editing and ordering prints, cards and books? I've tried the Shutterfly iPad app, which allows uploading photos, but doesn't support any other functionality available on the website. And I can't edit photos or design cards and books from the Mobile Safari browswer on the iPad, presumably because those features use Flash.

Are there any other photo websites that provide either a full-featured iPad app (that includes creating cards and books and ordering prints) or an iPad or iPhone app that allows uploading photos and a website that allows one to create cards and books and order prints in Mobile Safari?

Note: I download photos directly from my camera to the iPad, so I'm trying to figure out how to avoid any need for a PC.

Update: Someone (on vark.com) recommended Apple's MobileMe.  But the official features list doesn't show that it supports editing photos and ordering prints, cards, and books.  Does anyone have experience with MobileMe?

Adobe apps which fit your need according to editing photos or graphic designing.
https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/catalog/mobile.html

Canva online editor and app. I haven't used it, but have seen people.
https://www.canva.com


Can you customize dock icons and labels? I have several virtual machines shortcutted on my dock. By default these are all named "VirtualBoxVM" and have the same icon, it's difficult for me to tell them apart. I'd like to give them all at least a different name, hopefully also a different icon.

My question is, can you customize dock icons and labels?

Icons

Icons on the Dock are pulled from the icon of the item. You can change the icon of the item using the Get Info page.

Get the icon/image that you want to use for the icon on the Dock and open it in Preview.
Press ⌘A to select all of the image and ⌘C to copy it.
⌘-click the item in the Dock to open its location in Finder.
Open the Get Info window with ⌘I (or right-click → Get Info).
Select the icon in the top-left of the Get Info window and press ⌘V to paste.
If the icon in the Dock does not update, log out and back in, or restart the Dock with killall -HUP Dock.

Names

The name of the item on the Dock is pulled from the name of the item itself. You can rename the item by ⌘-clicking on the item in the Dock and renaming it from Finder.


Can I tag a file from Quick Look? I'd be able to very quickly tag a bunch of photos for later processing.

The Tags feature in Finder1 already has a keyboard shortcut which can be activated whilst in Quick Look. Press ⌘⇧T to set a tag on the currently selected file.

To set a custom shortcut…

Open System Preferences → Keyboard → Shortcuts → App Shortcuts.
Click the + button to add a new shortcut.
Set the Application to Finder.app, and the Menu Title to Tags….
Set your keyboard shortcut and press Add.

1 As this is a feature of Finder, not Quick Look, the modal popup may be behind the Quick Look window.


Jailbroken using yalu102 without Cydia and can't install Cydia because "already jailbroken" I recently jailbroke my iOS 10.1.1 iPad mini 2 with yalu102, and I erased all content and settings for some weird reason. I didn't backup my device when it had Cydia on it, so now every time I use yalu and press go, it will respring, but there will be no Cydia. It just says "already jailbroken".

I cannot use Cydia Impactor because it says

  Provision.cpp:81 listteams=1102 This Apple ID cannot be used for development with Xcode

Any idea how to fix this?

You could try making another appleID and trying cydia impactor with it.
And to get cydia you may try wiping your device via iCloud. Probably that would help to get a clean device.


Multiple Screen Standby/Resume Problems I have a large widescreen monitor plugged into my Macbook which is running Lion. Since upgrading to Lion I've noticed that I can't resume from standby if my other monitor was plugged in when I closed the lid.

Everything works great - I close the lid and the computer enters standby like it is supposed to. Then when I open the screen the next morning, it just comes up with a lit, but dark screen. At this point, the only thing that seems to work is a hard reboot. I've tried unplugging the other monitor but that doesn't change it.

It is important to note that this does not happen if the monitor was not plugged in when the computer screen was closed. Also if I chose Sleep from the Apple menu, everything works great.

Any ideas how to fix this?

Thanks!

Long delay on this answer, but since there were no other ideas, I'll answer with what I've done.

I simple unplug the monitor every night before putting the computer to sleep. Not anything fancy or technical, but it works for me.


How do you select multiple specific files? Say I've got 5 files, and I'd like to select just two of them. In Windows I would select file 1, then press Control, and then click file 5.

How could this be done in Mac Os X?

You'll do the same thing by doing Command+Click.


Spaces disappear (but not their application windows) when I unplug external monitors I use Spaces (aka Desktops) to organize my work--I have a Space for email & Omnifocus, a Space for chat & calendar, and a Space for each of my main projects, plus a couple of full-screen application windows which are of course their own Spaces. When I'm at my desk, I have two monitors plus the screen of my MacBook Pro, and I have certain Spaces on each screen. When I unplug my laptop for a meeting, of course all the Spaces move from the external displays to the laptop. That isn't a problem. What is a problem is that application windows have suddenly moved to other Spaces. It looks like the Mac has decided a couple of Spaces don't exist and shoved their windows into other Spaces.

For example, right now I have chat and calendar in Desktop 6, which is currently displayed on my laptop screen while I type this on one of the other monitors. Then I unplug the external monitors, suddenly only four numbered Desktop Spaces exist (plus both the full-screen application windows), and chat and calendar are part of Desktop 1 along with the windows that had already been part of Desktop 1. So basically the problem seems to be that some Spaces are dropped and their apps get shoved into whatever existing Spaces are available. What might be causing that and how can I avoid it?

When I plug the external displays back in, suddenly I have six numbered Spaces again and windows that were originally together in one Space are together again, but the Spaces are numbered differently and some of them have moved from one screen to another. For example, chat and calendar (which were originally Desktop 6 and then got shoved into Desktop 1) are now Desktop 5, and they're on an external monitor instead of the laptop screen. In fact, every Space that used to be on the laptop screen is now on that external monitor, and vice versa.

Why do Spaces disappear when I unplug external monitors, and how do I stop it from happening?
How can I get Spaces to return to the same monitors they were on before, when I plug those monitors back in?

Other details:

MacOS 10.12.6
External monitors are connected via CalDigit Thunderbolt 3 dock
System Preferences -> Mission Control has the following settings checked:

When switching to an application, switch to a Space with open windows for the application
Group windows by application
Displays have separate Spaces

@vykor pointed me in the right direction: the behavior I was seeing is a side effect of the "Displays have separate Spaces" setting.

Why do Spaces disappear when I unplug external monitors, and how do I stop it from happening?

Why: because displays have separate Spaces, which means when there are fewer displays there are fewer Spaces. (One of those things that's obvious in retrospect.)
How to stop it: unchecking the "Displays have separate Spaces" setting does stop Spaces from disappearing, but the new behavior isn't any better for my needs: windows end up jumbled up on a single monitor when I reconnect the monitors, and all screens cycle through Spaces in unison making it hard to make good use of the screen real estate.

How can I get Spaces to return to the same monitors they were on before, when I plug those monitors back in?

There doesn't seem to be a built-in way to do this, so the answer here seems to be to install a window management app such as Stay.

I've turned "Displays have separate Spaces" back on, and I'm setting up Stay to have a configuration for the laptop display alone and for the three monitor setup, so that I can quickly restore my windows to my desired arrangement in either situation. I'm still working the kinks out with Stay, but I think that's going to be a good solution.


Apple dtracehelper file Do someone know what is the file /dev/dtracehelper?

What is supposed to do? How do we use it? where I can find some documentation on it?

DTrace in general is a dynamic tracing framework that allows
users to get information about the running system, including the user-space applications and the kernel.

The /dev/dtracehelper file is used to provider user-defined probes to dtrace. Essentially this means that an application can inform the dtrace system of events happening inside the application to provide high-level tracing capabilities for the user.

I.e. instead of generic events like system calls or signals, it is possible for software such as for example a database engine to provide dtrace with information such as "SQL query started" or "Query plan computed" or what ever the application developer wants.

It is not "used" as such by ordinary users - you use it through the software you installed that then makes information available in dtrace through the helper device.

If you are a developer, I would suggest reading the following documentation on how to add application-specific probes to your program:

http://dtrace.org/guide/chp-usdt.html#chp-usdt

If you really want to manually access /dev/dtracehelper, I suggest looking at the source:

https://github.com/apple/darwin-xnu/blob/0a798f6738bc1db01281fc08ae024145e84df927/bsd/sys/dtrace.h

(line 1488 and onwards, also take a look at the corresponding .c file)

In particular you would want to initialize data structures such as dof_ioctl_data with dof_helper substructures, and use ioctl() with DTRACEHIOC_ADDDOF and others.

You can find an example of doing this here:

https://github.com/trentm/hello-json-logging/blob/master/node_modules/restify/node_modules/dtrace-provider/libusdt/usdt_dof_file.c


Is there a way to force the system to immediately reflect a replaced icns resource of an app? I have programmatically replaced an app's icon with the icon from another app (see code below). Now I want the change to propagate (visually) right away™ … But the former app still keeps showing the old icon in Finder, Dock and Application Switcher.

Q: Is there a way to force the system to immediately reflect this icon change? Preferably by means of entering some code in my shell.

Here's an example script showing what I did:

# copy-terminal-app-icon-to-iterm.sh
# ----------------------------------
# First backup original iTerm icon
mv /Applications/iTerm.app/Contents/Resources/iTerm.icns /Applications/iTerm.app/Contents/Resources/iTerm-original.icns
# Then make iTerm use the same icon as Terminal.app
cp /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app/Contents/Resources/Terminal.icns /Applications/iTerm.app/Contents/Resources/iTerm.icns

Can I add something in this script to make it "kick in" right away?

I tried killall Finder but that didn't affect anything. And this answer didn't work for me either. (Besides, that question is targeted towards updating Dock whereas mine is Finder-/system-wide).

Choose Get Info on both apps.

Click on the little iTerm icon in the upper left, select CMD-C.

Click on the little Terminal icon in the upper left, select CMD-V.

It should immediately replace the application icon.

This feature has been available since at least 10.5.