Can I work with iPad iPhoto Journals from my desktop Mac? iPad iPhoto journals are great... If my photos live primarily on my iPad. In my case though, they are on my iPad when I am traveling but end up on my Mac at home for long term storage. So if I make a pretty Journal on my iPad I would like to continue working on it in Aperture (or iPhoto) on my desktop. Sooner or later I want to remove the photos from my iPad because I need the storage.

Is there anyway to update and change my iPad/iPhoto Journals directly from my Mac?

I have spent the better part of 6 hours researching this exact question, it appears that the answer is NO. I miss the mobileMe gallery more and more.


How I can prevent Safari popups to increase database size on iPad? Recently I have been getting popups on my iPad2 when using Safari. They say:

Increase database size?
Do you want to allow "https://mobile.twitter.com" to use up to 10 MB storage on your iPad?
Cancel Increase

where Cancel and Increase are buttons.
This popup just occurred five times in succession. I have seen it for Twitter (as shown here) but also (I think) for other sites (Gmail?).
Is there any way to prevent this? Or should I use another browser?

There is no easy way to circumvent this behavior in Mobile Safari.

I know of no alternative browser that accomplishes what you ask, but perhaps if someone else does they will answer or edit my answer.

You can avoid those sites, or give more space when asked. It's one of those "we can't adjust the wind, but we can adjust the sails or steer the boat elsewhere" kind of things at present.


Unable to close apps from mission control, Mavericks OS X Unable to close apps from mission control, Mavericks OS X.

I do not get an "X" to close, and after downloading BetterTouchTool and attempting the close window with cursor over window (which says is suppose to work in mission control) I still have no luck. After reading some reviews I am going to wait downloading Yosemite and become comfortable with Mavericks. New Mac user as of 2/16/15.

As far as I'm aware, you don't close apps from Mission Control.

You use it to bring an app to the front, change Spaces, add or remove Spaces - it doesn't act directly on the apps themselves.

See Mac Basics: Use Mission Control to switch between apps or spaces


How to uninstall an uninstalled app from the App Store? I tried to install Xcode from the App Store. While it was being downloaded, a network problem occurred so the installation didn't complete. However, in the App Store, it appears marked as installed (so now I can't install it).

I don't see any uninstall option. Is there any way to uninstall it from the backend or something like that?

In the special case of Xcode, the App Store downloads an installer app that you use to install Xcode. Look in /Applications for "Install Xcode.app" and delete that.

When you get Xcode installed properly, if you delete the installer, the App Store won't think it's installed and won't display updates.


Activate FaceTime and Messages on Wi-Fi iPad with email address only? Is it possible to activate FaceTime and Messages on Wi-Fi iPad using Apple ID's email address only?
Someone has Wi-Fi Pad but doesn't have an iPhone. Although there is a phone number associated with the user's Apple ID, that phone number is not associated with FaceTime or Messages because it is not on an iPhone. When trying to activate FaceTime or Messages on the Wi-Fi iPad, the Apple ID email address is shown, but the Sign On option is greyed out and neither Facetime nor Messages can be activated with that email address only.

it is possible. I'll try to walk you through the process in the best and clearest way possible.

Create an iCloud account. (You can create this with an existing email address, just click the “use my current email” button)

Go to “Settings - Messages - Send and receive” than make sure the email you want to use is checked in both the “receive” and “start” sections. (I know we are setting this up in message settings, it will also apply to FaceTime)

Go to “Settings - FaceTime” and check the email in both the “Caller ID” and the “You can be reached at” sections. You may have to scroll down.

You're done! Open the FaceTime app and begin a call! Note that if you only have the wi-fi model, you will need to be in wi-fi.

Hope this helped!


give another user permissions on folder, but not on parent folders I would like to give another member of my household (who has access to my computer and has an account on it) access to a particular folder & its contents.   Simple enough: select the desired folder and command-I, and then "Sharing and Permissions" at the bottom of that window.
But I do NOT want to give the other user access to the parent directory (or directories), so how can the user actually navigate to the desired folder (the one to which they've been given permissions) ?
One thing that seems to work is to give the user permission on the desired folder, then give them permission on the parent folders (in this case, my  home directory, as the folder in question is only one layer down in the hierarchy), have them select the desired folder and put it in their Finder sidebar, and then withdraw permissions from the parent folder. But is this a robust solution, might their access via their Finder sidebar vanish ?  It seems to survive reboot, but what about other things such as an OS update ?

I would put that folder into the Shared Folder as that way there is no possibility of them getting into other folders.
You can always keep a backup of that same folder in your home directory.


Annoying WiFi Issues with new MacBook Pro I recently purchased a new MacBook Pro 13 inch 2017 model running on Mojave. I've had it for a couple of weeks now and it has worked fine, until few days ago when it started to present really annoying WiFi issues. Approximately once per day the WiFi just disconnects and refuses to connect for a period of time. It is resolved after I repeatedly restart the computer. It's not an issue with the router or the connection as all the other devices in this household, as well as my previous computer which had no network problems. Even the auxiliary shared network connection from my iPhone can be difficult to establish. Are network issues something characteristic to these models? Is there any way to fix this?

For "mysterious" wifi connection issues, I have a blanket method that I do with any client Mac that has them, and it solves the problem in about 80% of cases, and in the remaining 20% of cases it is hardware.

So try this: Go to the folder

/Library/Prefecrences/SystemConfiguration/

and remove the following files:

com.apple.airport.preferences.plist
com.apple.network.eapolclient.configuration.plist
com.apple.smb.server.plist
com.apple.wifi.message-tracer.plist NetworkInterfaces.plist
preferences.plist

You need admin to do this. Immediately after thrashing them, reboot. Removing these settings files will not 'mess' with your Mac in any, unless you have some very specific network setup you need to preserve, but doing so will in my experience solve many network hiccups.

If that doesn't help, one might suspect firmware or hardware problems.


Macbook pro showing "Starting Internet Recovery" instead of AHT I try to make a long AHT test on my mid 2014 Macbook Pro. When I press D (same with alt-D) on boot it says :

Starting Internet Recovery
Restart           Shutdown

After a few seconds, it launches the basic AHT test.

But the Apple document says it should show an icon where I can launch the long AHT test.

From Apple's documentation on AHT:

  Some Macintosh computers that shipped with OS X Lion and later support
  the use of Apple Hardware Test over the Internet. These computers will
  start up to an Internet-based version of AHT if the hard drive does
  not contain AHT.  An Internet-enabled connection via Ethernet or Wi-Fi
  is required to use this feature. Internet-based AHT functions the same
  as AHT on the hard drive or flash storage outlined above.

What you are using is AHT, it just doesn't have it pre-installed on your hard drive.

EDIT:
You should have the option to perform extended tests, it will be a checkbox you have the option of selecting before running the tests

EDIT 2:
As your mac was made after 2013, you are forced to use Apple Diagnostics, which is why I assume you can't have access to the extended test options you see on the AHT documentation.


iCloud hacked. MacBook Pro locked. Starts uni tomorrow. Help! So we went on holiday 3 weeks ago and during the holiday my girlfriend received a notification saying that her iPhone was locked from iCloud. We got around it and changed the password to iCloud. Yesterday when we arrived home, and turned on the MacBook it was firmware locked. We can't do nothing.

I called Apple which could not help. Apparently they need to send it in for service which could take more than a week. Since uni starts tomorrow we really need to fix this ASAP!

Anyone in this community that are able to help?

It is a MacBook Pro from 2015 with no access to battery or RAM sticks.

This really really sucks!!

My suggestion is to create a bootable flash drive with the macOS Sierra installer on it.

Boot from the flash drive.
Erase the internal harddisk.
Reinstall macOS Sierra.

Preparation:

You will need another Mac in other to create the bootable flash drive. So hopefully you have another Mac in your household, of family/friends household. Last resort is go to the local Apple store. They are willing to help.
Download macOS Sierra Installer from the Mac App Store. Once the download completes, it will automatically launch. Quit macOS Sierra Installer app without performing the installation.
Take a 16GB or larger USB flash drive to create a bootable Sierra installer. This flash drive is only needed for a clean install on your Mac’s startup drive.

How to create a bootable flash drive:

Create a bootable flash drive with macOS Sierra.

First, make sure your USB flash drive is formatted and named as “Untitled”.

To format a USB drive launch Disk Utility (Finder -> /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility).
Select your USB drive under External.
Click the Erase tab at the top of the Disk Utility window. Select Mac OS Extended (Journaled) from the format list. Then, click the Erase button. When the process is complete, click Done, and close the Disk Utility window.
If your drive is named something else, you need to rename it (Open Finder -> right click on the USB drive and choose Rename).

Now, your USB flash drive is ready.

Launch Terminal (Finder/Applications/Utilities/Terminal)

Enter the following text into Terminal. It may be best to just copy it from here (try triple-clicking) and paste it in.
sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app --nointeraction

Hit the Enter key.

Terminal will ask you for an admin password (the one you use to log in). It won’t display characters when you type, so just do it. Hit Return. You’ll see that Terminal erases your drive. Then, Terminal will copy the installer file to your disk. This will take a few minutes. When the process is complete, the Terminal window will report "Done." You can quit Terminal and your bootable macOS Sierra installer USB drive is ready for use.

Plug in the bootable macOS Sierra installer USB drive to your Mac.
Restart your Mac while holding the Option key or Cmd+R. Make sure to keep it pressed!
When Mac restarts, you’ll see the macOS Startup Manager with a list of bootable devices that your Mac can start up from.
Use the arrow keys to choose your USB drive with macOS Sierra installer. Press Enter.
Select Disk Utility.
In the window, at the top of the left bar, select your Mac’s Main Drive (it looks like a MacintoshHD).
Select the Erase tab located next to the First Aid button at the top.
Near the center of the window, select the Format drop-down list and select Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) type.
Click Erase (Note: this will erase all your data from your main drive!) and give the drive some time to format.
When it’s done, close Disk Utility and select “Install macOS” from the menu.
Select your main drive and install the new macOS Sierra 10.12.

How to go further..

Make regular backups. At least one onsite and preferably also one offsite.
Change all your girlfriends passwords. Probably your girlfriends iCloud password was the same as from another website. Where the hackers got it from. Either way, change all passwords! Use different once for every account.
Enable Two-factor Authentication for her Apple ID


Some homebrew formulas broken after migration I've migrated from an old MacBook Pro to a new one, using Apple's Migration assistant. Some home-brew formulas migrated with no problem, whereas others got broken at the library reference level. Reinstalling them does not help. E.g.:

$ weechat
dyld: Library not loaded: /usr/local/opt/gettext/lib/libintl.8.dylib
  Referenced from: /usr/local/bin/weechat
  Reason: image not found
Abort trap: 6

But

$ brew install weechat
Warning: weechat 2.2 is already installed and up-to-date
To reinstall 2.2, run `brew reinstall weechat`

Any ideas?

Had the same problem, what I did was i run

brew list -1 > brew.txt # list out all installed packages
brew list -1 | xargs brew rm --force # remove all installed packages
brew install $(cat brew.txt | tr '\n' ' ') # install all previously installed packages

If everything went fine, remove the package list by:

rm brew.txt

You should probably check potential warnings as well.


iMac Snow Leopard using Apple Mail via Gmail: Can I get rid of "Sender" field? My wife has a new iMac, and she has noticed that Yahoo mailing lists are rejecting her because Gmail is adding a "Sender:" field that has her Gmail address instead of the email address she's using.

Her email address was originally a POP account, but that gave her only 10mb of storage. I changed the email account to a forwarding account with a Gmail IMAP backend (giving her 7Gb of storage). I did this about two years ago. Her old Mac Mini seemed to work fine with this, and so did her iPad. However, it doesn't seem to work on her iMac.

I know that Google is adding the "Sender:" field because the "From:" email isn't the real email address. However, the Yahoo newsgroup seems to be picking up the "Sender:" field and not the "From:" field.

Is there anyway to get around this?

(If this is anything, her iPad was set to using the Gmail Exchange server.)

When she sends an e-mail from mail, make sure she selects the correct e-mail address in the from drop-down, underneath the subject field.

If her Yahoo e-mail address is not there, she needs to add the outgoing mail server in Mail, Preferences, by clicking on the drop-down menu, and choosing edit smtp server list.


"The file name is not valid" error when trying to use "Get Group from Matched Text" I have a shortcut which is invoked via an action sheet when sharing a URL.

When invoked, it eventually gets the HTML of the webpage via:

Accepts URLs
Get contents of [URL]
Make HTML from [Contents of URL]

The HTML at this stage is something like this:

Click here

Match Click here in [HTML from Rich Text]
Get [Group At Index] [1] in [Matches]
Show [Text] in Quick Look

Step 5 is inserted for debugging purposes. However, instead of showing me the URL it was able to parse, it shows me a page saying:

  The file name is not valid

To debug the issue, I tried removing steps 1-3, and replacing it with text:

Text

Click here

Match Click here in [HTML from Rich Text]
Get [Group At Index] [1] in [Matches]
Show [Text] in Quick Look

Now Quick Look suddenly does work. I.e. it shows me:

  http://www.example.com

What is going on here, and why can I only get it to work with static text and not an action sheet?

Another way I debugged this issue was I changed what it was matching. E.g. instead of matching the URL, I decided to match the "Click here" to see what would happen:

Accepts URLs
Get contents of [URL]
Make HTML from [Contents of URL]

The HTML at this stage is something like this:

Click here

Match (Click here) in [HTML from Rich Text]
Get [Group At Index] [1] in [Matches]
Show [Text] in Quick Look

Sure enough, this worked. Quick Look showed me:

  Click here

This made it clear that there is something going on with text that happens to be in the format of a URL in Quick Look.

The Get Type (along with Quick Look right after it) was helpful in debugging and figuring out what the issue was.

There were a few non-obvious things going on here:

When testing as a shortcut, the type of the text before reaching Quick look was Rich text. When testing with the Text action, the type of the text before reaching Quick look was Text.
If Quick Look receives Text (even if it looks like a URL), it'll display the URL as plain text.
If Quick Look receives text that looks like a URL of type Rich text, then it will try to display the contents of the URL, as though it's a local file (or something like that). This will most likely result in the The file name is not valid error mentioned above.

The fix, then, is to force the contents to be converted into plain text by adding an extra step right before the Quick Look:

Accepts URLs
Get contents of [URL]
Make HTML from [Contents of URL]

The HTML at this stage is something like this:

Click here

Match Click here in [HTML from Rich Text]
Get [Group At Index] [1] in [Matches]
Get text from [Text]
Show [Text] in Quick Look


Time Machine stops after a few gigabytes, without any visible error message I had to reinstall macOS recently, and ever since, I am not able to back up. After a Prepare phase, it gets to backing up some 5-6 Gigabytes (if I am lucky), then it stops ("Stopping..." as seen in preferences). It was working perfectly before.

I am using High Sierra 10.13.3.
I am on APFS
I am trying to backup to a Time Capsule (firmware version 7.6.9) over wi-fi
I am using a MacBook Air from 2012
I have tried restarting Time Capsule (which triggers an fsck)
I have tried to reuse same backup as before, or create an entirely new backup
I am trying to use an encrypted backup (backing up without encryption is not an option for me)
I have tried excluding system folders from backup so that only /Users remains

As I said, there are no visible errors. In the system log I see some messages, although I am not sure what to do with them (there is no problem reading mentioned file, and I am not sure why it wants to copy to (null), maybe it has lost connection or something, but the situation is not clear).

Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Volumes/com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshots/Backups.backupdb/R'lyeh/2018-02-08-110642/R'lyeh/Users/zsszatmari/projects/servehome/node_modules/babel-preset-es2015/node_modules/babel-plugin-transform-es2015-classes/node_modules/babel-template/node_modules/lodash/function/rearg.js to (null)
Failed to unmount disk mounted at '/Volumes/com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshots/Backups.backupdb/R'lyeh/2018-02-08-094426/R'lyeh', error: {
    Action = Unmount;
    Target = "file:///Volumes/com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshots/Backups.backupdb/R'lyeh/2018-02-08-094426/R'lyeh";
}
Failed to delete APFS snapshot with name 'com.apple.TimeMachine.2018-02-08-094426' on volume '/', error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=2 "No such file or directory"

Also:

$ log show --predicate 'subsystem == "com.apple.TimeMachine"' --info | grep 'Backup failed'
2018-02-07 09:45:49.644125+0100 0x8da43    Error       0x41fd0              10549  14   backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogError] Backup failed because a backup source disk was ejected or disconnected unexpectedly!
2018-02-07 09:45:49.678109+0100 0x8da43    Error       0x41fd0              10549  14   backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogError] Backup failed with error 37: 37
2018-02-07 10:01:14.923986+0100 0x95f8f    Error       0x450cc              11759  14   backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogError] Backup failed with error 50: 50
2018-02-07 10:37:38.571642+0100 0xa06e0    Error       0x0                  12807  14   backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogError] Backup failed with error 19: The backup disk could not be resolved, or there was a problem mounting it.
2018-02-07 13:26:23.305069+0100 0xa5320    Error       0x0                  13003  14   backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogError] Backup failed with error 18: The backup disk could not be found.

I am not sure why would it think that the backup source (the boot drive) is ejected, or why would there be a problem mounting the backup drive.

Thank You.

Problem seems to be solved, I am not sure how.

I deleted the erroneus file, but I don't see why it would cause problem in the first place
By a friend's suggestion I've moved physically closer to the Time Capsule, maybe it is getting older and the wifi connection is weaker
I've deleted a volume from boot APFS container (but it wasn't mounted anyway)

I am still somewhat puzzled, but maybe someone coming by with same symptoms can make use of any of these.


How to force include files in Time Machine I'd like to force-include some files in Time Machine. Specifically I want to force-include "iPod Photo Cache" and "Thumbnails" in my Aperture Library.

I have checked this file:
/System/Library/CoreServices/backupd.bundle/Contents/Resources/StdExclusions.plist

but those folders are not in it, however Time Machine still does exclude them. Is there anywhere else that Time Machine checks for exclusions?

Aside: Why?

In case anyone wonders why I would want this. I have a Mac Mini which acts as a media server that all my iThings sync to. This Mac Mini is also the Backup server and it's set up nightly to pull media off various time machine sparsebundles into its own library. This way:

Any iDevices can sync wirelessly any time they're plugged in, not just when laptops are on and not sleeping
No extra data needs to get pushed over wifi at regular intervals. Everything is just grabbed from Time Machine which gets automatically updated, for free.

All this works pretty well :) …that is until some Aperture or OS update started excluding the folders above for Aperture.

$sudo tmutil removeexclusion <file name>


Remove dropbox icon from Finder toolbar The dropbox icon keeps reappearing in my finder toolbar, no matter how many times I Command Drag it off, or remove it in customize toolbar.  How can I get rid of this annoying button that keeps coming back?

The solution in this one answer does not solve my issue as the button is removed, but as soon as I open a new finder window it is back.  I am running OS X 10.10.2 (14C81f) with Dropbox 3.0.3.

In Dropbox preferences, uncheck Enable Finder Integration


How to permanently change TTL on macOS Catalina? Before macOS Catalina it was possible to permanently change TTL by creating /etc/sysctl.conf file. It seems this is not an option anymore. After Catalina upgrade the file was moved to my desktop with the message that it is no longer compatible with macOS security settings.

What would be the best way to do it now in macOS Catalina?

The classic method with /etc/sysctl.conf still works for macOS Catalina, but only after disabling SIP since El Capitan.


Mavericks Using Up All Available Memory I upgraded to Mac OS X Mavericks. I thought that Mavericks was supposed to use memory more efficiently. It appears that the OS has memory allocation problems. My computer is using up 99.99% of my memory even when it's just sitting idle, turning my iMac into a paperweight. My computer lags and freezes even when it's not doing anything.

Is there anything that I can do, besides upgrading my physical memory?

Try opening Terminal and typing in:
sudo purge

or you can try Memory Clean at
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/memory-clean/id451444120?mt=12

BTW: It would be beneficial to post screenshots or use EtreCheck (created by an Apple Support Community User) and copy and paste the results. Etrecheck can be found at http://www.etresoft.com/etrecheck


Is there a way to purchase incompatible app from Mac App Store I haven't upgraded to Yosemite on my Mac yet and still using Mavericks. I wanted to purchase an app during its promotion period but the app min version is 10.10 so Mac App Store complains saying that the app cannot be installed and does not even allow me to purchase. Is there a way where I can just purchase even though I might not have to download and install it. I searched and could not find any way (iTunes does not support).

While I might upgrade shortly, it might take time since I want to take proper backups and then upgrade during which the promotion of the app might be over.

Unfortunately, the only way I've found the App Store to cooperate with that was to create a user account on a compatible system from which to log into the App Store and download the now-compatible app. For example, on my Lion system with a 32-bit EFI, I was unable to download Mountain Lion or newer to install on my daughter's MBA. I had to log into her Air in my account to download the OS upgrade for her.

Not convenient.


After I upgrade to Mojave I have a major error Sandbox: iyEyOGTe(93) System Policy: deny(1) file-write-create /Library/Updates/.dat.nosync005d.Q5RrXv

My laptop is loosing hard memory, in 4-5 hours 35 GB and it heating

Hei I got this error yesterday and this is what I do.

For my case, I got Sandbox: LKplUJjx(76) error, so check detail log with console.
After found the path file, I delete that directory then restart. Now my Mojave can run normally even thought I don't know whether this file is important or no.

error   13:13:02.393416 +0700   kernel  Sandbox: LKplUJjx(76) System Policy: deny(1) file-write-create /Library/Updates/.dat.nosync004c.RCzwHW
error   13:13:02.393448 +0700   sandboxd    Sandbox: LKplUJjx(76) System Policy: deny(1) file-write-create /Library/Updates/.dat.nosync004c.q7zMU7
Violation:       System Policy: deny(1) file-write-create /Library/Updates/.dat.nosync004c.q7zMU7
Process:         LKplUJjx [76]
Path:            /Library/LKplUJjx/LKplUJjx.app/Contents/MacOS/LKplUJjx
Load Address:    0x1038bc000
Identifier:      org.nn.updater
Version:         1.0 (1.0)
Code Type:       x86_64 (Native)
Parent Process:  launchd [1]
Responsible:     /Library/LKplUJjx/LKplUJjx.app/Contents/MacOS/LKplUJjx [76]
User ID:         0

Date/Time:       2018-11-25 13:13:02.234 GMT+7
OS Version:      Mac OS X 10.14.1 (18B75)
Report Version:  8

MetaData: {"path":"\/Library\/Updates\/.dat.nosync004c.q7zMU7","profile":"platform","storage-class":"SoftwareUpdate","normalized_target":["Library","Updates",".dat.nosync004c.q7zMU7"],"vnode-type":"REGULAR-FILE","errno":1,"action":"deny","pid":76,"rdev":0,"responsible-process-pid":76,"primary-filter":"path","profile-flags":0,"process":"LKplUJjx","flags":21,"uid":0,"platform_binary":"no","operation":"file-write-create","build":"Mac OS X 10.14.1 (18B75)","primary-filter-value":"\/Library\/Updates\/.dat.nosync004c.q7zMU7","platform-binary":false,"suffix":".dat.nosync004c.q7zMU7","responsible-process-path":"\/Library\/LKplUJjx\/LKplUJjx.app\/Contents\/MacOS\/LKplUJjx","summary":"deny(1) file-write-create \/Library\/Updates\/.dat.nosync004c.q7zMU7","platform-policy":true,"hardware":"Mac","process-path":"\/Library\/LKplUJjx\/LKplUJjx.app\/Contents\/MacOS\/LKplUJjx","target":"\/Library\/Updates\/.dat.nosync004c.q7zMU7","file-flags":524288}

Thread 0 (id: 580):
0   libsystem_kernel.dylib          0x00007fff5ceafbce __open + 10
1   Foundation                      0x00007fff31f2534f _NSWriteDataToFileWithExtendedAttributes + 224
2   Foundation                      0x00007fff31f24e5b writeStringToURLOrPath + 216
3   LKplUJjx                        0x00000001038bd8d6
4   libdyld.dylib                   0x00007fff5cd7608d start + 1
5   LKplUJjx                        0x0000000000000001

Binary Images:
       0x1038bc000 -        0x1038bffff  org.nn.updater (1.0 - 1.0) <170a4f2b-d3c0-3f9d-9729-3b9cd77f5484> /Library/LKplUJjx/LKplUJjx.app/Contents/MacOS/LKplUJjx
    0x7fff31ee3000 -     0x7fff322b1fff  com.apple.Foundation (6.9 - 1560.12) <b5dc275c-12c9-320a-a117-c8fe9034931a> /System/Library/Frameworks/Foundation.framework/Versions/C/Foundation


Which Macbooks charge the fastest? Is there any difference in the number of hours different generations and models of MacBooks take to "fast-charge" to 80%, or to fully charge?

All Apple products tend to finish the quick charge in just under 2 hours and reach full charge capacity just after 4 hours have passed.

Look at http://www.apple.com/batteries/ where this nice chart explains the charging curves in terms of voltage rise and current flow over time from empty to full.

As your battery ages, the charging does deviate from this curve and of course the 85 Watt adapter on a 15"/17" MacBook Pro is sending more current to a larger battery, but in the end, the stock new charging performance of all Apple products (iOS/iPod/portable) are designed to meet these times by changing the internal circuitry and power sources.

Faster charging is clearly possible, but degrades the life of the battery so my observation is that Apple controls the charge rate by having a charge controller that slows it down to meet these target times.


macOS Catalina update failing due to low disk space I am trying to update my MacBook to new macOS Catalina. But my downloading had failed twice. Now I downloaded installer but I can't update because I have low  disk space. Because when my download was failed 1 and 2 time my disk space is not clear. How to fix it? How to clean updates folder with ?

My update failled mid-way and is stuck. Spend 7 hours at Apple store. Seems to do with purgeable storage. Catalina will only install if it has enough free storage. Purgeable memory does not count. To turn purgable storage to free storage disable iCloud and Time Machine backups among other techniques.


Mojave - disabling trackpad from terminal I tried to disable trackpad on my MacBook Pro 2015 my operating system is Mac OS X Mojave there is not have Accessability menu in System properties. So, how to disable it from Terminal?

there is not have Accessability menu in System properties.

Look closer. Accessibility should be at the end of the fourth row of icons in System Preferences. If you don't have any third-party preference panes installed, this will be the bottom row.

The icon looks like this:


My late-2008 MBP keeps restarting itself I posted this on the apple.com forums, but haven't gotten an answer

Hi,
I know this has been asked, and I've read a ton of posts here and other places, but still not sure I know what's going on.
I have a 15 in late-2008 MBP. The battery had to be removed a year or so ago because it had swollen up to the point that its was affecting the trackpad, and as I mainly work at my desk, I've never replaced it, and so obviously, only use it when it's plugged in.

It's a 2.4 ghz intel core 2 duo
2GB 1067 Mhz DDR3
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256MP
OSX 10.9.2 (13c64)
250GB HD (which is almost full and I'm currently working on cleaning off... mostly pictures)
2GB RAM (I thought it was more?)

So, if left idle, it will usually restart itself, or if I close the top it will almost always restart itself while closed. I never get an error message though.

It's sluggish, but I'm sure that's because of the full HD. Otherwise, it's still working good, but it is most annoying and quite concerning that it restarts about 15 times a day!

Please help!

You could try following investigating method using Terminal.

What is shutting down the computer

syslog -k Sender kernel -k Message CSeq 'n Cause: -' | tail | awk '/:/{$4=""; print}' | pbcopy

The output is in the clipboard, so paste it in a text program like Notes or others. You can paste it in here for us to help you evaluate the result.


Create a new document type? I have some PDF files that I want to open in preview, and others that I want to open in Acrobat. It would be nice if I could just set up that acrobat files with a different extention, say ".apdf" and have the mac automatically open anything with .apdf with acrobat, and anything with .pdf with preview.

But that doesn't seem to work, because I think that the filetype is actually part of the file, not just the filename...

any ideas?

Select the file in Finder, then get info (cmd-i), and change the file extension (under name and extension) to something that is not used by other files.

Then, near the bottom of the get info window click "Open With" and select the app you need, i.e. Adobe Acrobat, by browsing through your application list.  Then, at the bottom of that sub-pane click the 'change all' button.  This will direct Acrobat to open all files with the extension you chose.


Switching language input using Capslock: how to remove delay? I have U.S. and Japanese (Hiragana) input on the keyboard. There's a feature in macOS "Use the Caps Lock key to switch to and from U.S.". So, pressing Capslock switches between U.S. and Japanese fine for the most part, but the problem is that if I press Capslock immediately after typing a U.S. character, it does nothing. I have to wait a few moments before I can press Capslock to switch to Hiragana. Likewise, if I'm in Hiragana and I press Capslock immediately after finishing typing Hiragana, it does nothing. I have to wait a moment before pressing Capslock to change back to U.S.

Anyone know how to remove this delay? It's frustrating.

You might try adding Romaji to your Japanese input choices and playing with the preferences for Caps Lock and Shift Key action to see if you get the performance you want.


Update Jailbroken Iphone I jailbroke my iPhone 6 with iOS 8.1.4. If I update to iOS 8.4, will it crash, break the jailbreak, or hurt my iPhone?

With any Jailbroken device, any update of any kind will break the Jailbreak. OTA updates (update from device in settings app) will kill your phone and force a restore. Updating through iTunes will revert the Jailbreak but leave the rest of your data untouched. I recommend updating to 8.4 and jailbreaking again with the new TAiG jailbreak tool (plus it gives you some laughs during the process because the translation is so horrible)!

Hope this helped, Nick


USB-C to Displayport cable or adapter I'm using MacBook pro 2017 15 inch and i just got 3x DELL U2518D UltraSharp monitors to connect to my macbook pro.

What I actually need is best possible solution to connect this external monitors to my macbook pro. Should i use USB-C to DisplayPort adapter or should i go with USB-C to DisplayPort Cable?

What is difference? Is cable better? Or adapter?

Use a Type C DisplayPort cable.

The ports on your MacBook Pro are Thunderbolt 3 which is a multiplexing of multiple signals:

PCIe
USB 3.1
DispayPort
Power

Since it natively supports DisplayPort, you want a cable, not an adapter.

Difference between cable and adapter

A cable is just an interconnect between a source and an end device using the same signaling
An adapter creates a signal from one to another (from USB to DVI or HDMI)

In this case, a cable is "better" because it's not converting any signals.  Less conversion means better reliability.


How do I connect a late 2013 MBP Retina to two DVI monitors? I thought this Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI adapter would allow me to connect two of these monitors to my Retina MBP.  Does "Dual-Link" mean that two monitors could be connected?  It had not occurred to me to question that before I bought the adapter.

The Dual Link DVI adaptor is for connecting screens ~30" – not for connect multiple screens.

You would need to connect one via the Thunderbolt port and one via the HDMI port.


How do I determine the speed of a disk drive? I'm looking for a way to determine the read/write speed of a disk drive, either by looking up some system information or running a simple benchmark test utility.

Xbench: Comprehensive Macintosh Benchmarking
Freeware benchmarking solution for Mac OS X.
EDIT: The download link is in the right-hand corner.
Main Window

Graphics Test


New HD - Mid 2007 MacBook - Wrong OS Disk I am trying to install a new hard drive in a MacBook from mid-2007. (Original question re: drive replacement here)

I have managed to install the physical drive, and format it ready for the installation of the OS. (Map Scheme: GUID partition table; Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled))

Now it's telling me "Mac OS X cannot be installed on this computer". I'm satisfied that the hard drive is fine. And from what I can tell, the OS CD I've been given is not the one that came with the macbook originally.

I put the last three digits of the serial number into the EveryMac website, and it came up with this result: Apple MacBook "Core 2 Duo" 2.16 13" (White)

This is how I knew it was a "mid-2007" model.

Then I looked at Apple KB article HT1159 regarding about what version of OS X shipped with each MacBook. For "Mid 2007", it tells me 10.4.9 or 10.4.10 is included when the Mac was shipped.

When I tried booting from the install CD, I closed the error message and looked at the name of the CD in the drive via Utilities → Startup Disk and it tells me "Mac OS X 10.5.2".

So, are all my assumptions above correct?
Can Mac OS X 10.5.2 be installed on this MacBook?
If yes, then is my issue something else other than incompatible software?
If not, will I need to find the original CDs that came with this specific Mac to continue?

Your MacBook should be able to run 10.5.x - to be precise it should run anything up to OSX Lion (10.7.5).

The way to install it is by using a retail version of the OS you want to install. If the DVD is e.g. for an iMac you won't be able to install from that on your MacBook, even though its the same OS.

Try downloading an image of the version you want from Apple and then follow these instructions: http://www.macworld.com/article/1161069/make_a_bootable_lion_installer.html

Hope that helps!


Is iMessages secure? What security does iMessages provide or is it open and subject to the security of the connection used to send the messages?

iMessages are transmitted with TLS (SSL) encryption, and the saved messages on your devices will be encrypted (like all other data), but the message contents themselves aren't encrypted. I'm not aware that Apple has publicly stated whether they store any iMessages on their servers, and how they might be encrypted.


Will never letting my display go to sleep shorten its life? In Mac OS X 10.9's System preferences > Energy saver, there is a warning that says:

  Never letting your display go to sleep may shorten its life

Why would not letting my display go to sleep shorten its life?

What monitors are effected by this warning?

Realistically most Mavericks-capable systems with built-in displays, other than the early aluminum iMacs and Santa Rosa Core 2 MacBooks, have LED back-lighting which isn't going to noticeably dim with age or be affected by on/off cycling.

If you're driving a CRT/plasma/CCFL-LCD monitor then you have option of increasing the lifespan of the display phosphor coatings (the back-light in the case of CCFL-LCD panels), but this comes at the cost of increased stress on the driving electronics of being regularly cycled on and off.


How to use Dropbox for applications with Lion Versions support? I have several Numbers files that I sync between my laptop and desktop. I upgraded both machines to Lion and the latest version of Numbers. I love the Versions feature: many of these spreadsheets that change over time and Versions will be he very helpful.

But then I realized that Versions and Dropbox don't really interoperate effectively. Versions uses a hidden directory (.DocumentVersions-V100) at the root level to store the version history. Since that hidden directory isn't sync'd, all of the previous versions aren't available on all of the computers. I'm still experimenting, but it seems like the only way that a previous version is available is if it is explicitly opened in the application. If it has been changed (and enough time has passed since the last captured version) then it is stored in the version history.

I've thought about using some sort of Hazel rule or folder action, but there just isn't enough information at the filesystem available to make that effective.

Does anyone know if Dropbox has any plans regarding Versions? I expect that they've done some thinking about this issue.

Does anyone know how iCloud will handle this issue? Since it's native to Lion perhaps it will sync the version history as well.

Barring that, does anyone have any workarounds or best practices?

My take on this is that Apple does not want users to see iCloud as another Dropbox or (even worse) another iDisk. Although I am not certain of what I about to write, my theory on iCloud based on what I have read so far is that there will not be an iDisk-like drive or a Dropbox-like special folder. Instead, iCloud's approach will be app-centric in that you will open the app you want and then get your files from iCloud regardless of which iPad, iPhone or Mac you're using at the time. In the practical sense, that most likely means that iCloud will "magically" get you the latest file as you switch contexts, but not the file's Versions history--that will be for now a Lion-only feature.

I do not anticipate Dropbox integrating with Versions or iCloud any time soon because it is not in the best interest of Dropbox for you to use iCloud and vice-versa. Especially considering how both have a vested interested in earning your storage needs business (And this is even more true for Dropbox than it is for Apple). At the technical level, there is no reason why they wouldn't be able to coexist: Lion would see the Dropbox folder as any other folder and allow you to keep its Versions history. Dropbox, in turn, will see the hidden folders used by Versions as folders it needs to sync up--unless Dropbox does not currently support syncing hidden folders. I have not tested to see what Dropbox does with them

It is important to remember that Dropbox's very own version history is kept at their server. That means that there would not be a physical conflict between the historic files Dropbox keeps track of and what Lion keeps track on that same folder for Versions. It will be up to you to choose where to go and look: On Lion's friendly Versions UI or on Dropbox's web-based file history. Of course, the caveat is that the individual historic entries won't be exactly the same. I guess you can say there will be two "versions" of the same story (pun intended).

I do not think there is a need for a workaround as there really is no technical conflict. iCloud and Dropbox will both do their thing and I will probably end up using Versions in Lion to browse the file history of all of my files, even those in the Dropbox folder, because it is friendlier to use. If I cannot use Versions on a particular file because its app doesn't yet support it, and if this is a file that I have in Dropbox, then I will go and take a look at the Dropbox website to get its version history. Hope this helps.


Can I export an Applescript as a Preference Pane? I wrote an Applescript, which uses display dialog and choose from list to allow to me to easily/quickly adjust some settings on my computer via a UI. I exported it from Script Editor as an Application, and it works great!
However, philosophically and aesthetically, I really believe this Applescript ought to live in System Preferences. In other words, I want to make it into a Preference Pane, instead of an Application Bundle.
I noticed that .prefpane's and .app's use a similar folder structure. Is there any sort of file trickery that will allow me to create a prefpane out of my Applescript without using XCode, similar to how a shell script can be turned into an app bundle by adding an info.plist and placing an executable in the right location?
Alternately, if this is stupid and XCode is required, can instructions be provided that do not assume prior knowledge of Objective-C or Swift?

Note: I am imagining something like the Java Control Panel, which launches from System Prefences but opens in a separate window. I'm well aware I can't build a proper System Preferences layout with just Applescript!

Xcode Required
No, Xcode is required to build a preference pane on macOS. A preference pane is a specialised CFPlugIn bundle that registers a set of callback functions. From there, an Objective-C runtime can be set up and a view provided to the host application.
Today, with macOS 10.15, the CFPlugIn plug-in architecture appears to be supported but not widely promoted by Apple. Applications using plug-ins require additional sandboxing/hardening requirements. I expect they will be phased out or required to operate within their own isolated processes.
Simple Preference Pane Example
Apple's archived Implementing a Simple Preference Pane provides a tutorial that may be enough to convert your AppleScript approach to a Preference Pane.
Having written and supported a commercial product that used a preference pane for much of macOS's early years, I recommend sticking with an application approach.


Exception to smart quote substitution for one word I have System Preferences|Keyboard enabled for smart quotes. Unfortunately, this tends to turn Hawai‘i into Hawai’i even when I use Option–]. Any suggestion how to get one word the way I want? (Not interested in global disable of smart quotes.)

The most correct character for the Hawaiian ʻokina is U+02BB, Modifier Letter Turned Comma.  It is a letter in its own right rather than punctuation.

Using that would hopefully avoid problems that can arise when a punctuation symbol like U+2018 Left Single Quotation Mark is used instead.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ʻOkina


MacBook Pro 2016 going to sleep after one minute no matter what my settings are My energy saver preferences are as follows:

However, no matter what I set the slider to, my MacBook Pro is going to sleep after one minute. What is wrong here?

My first instinct would be to reset the SMC.

Resetting the SMC

To do this on your particular MBP, follow these steps:

Shut down your computer
Keep the power cable plugged in.
Press at the same time shiftoptioncontrol
(on the left side of the keyboard) and the power button
Let go
Turn your computer back on with the power button.

Also, you should probably reset the NVRAM as well.

Resetting the NVRAM on Late-2016 MacBook Pro models

For all Late-2016 MacBook Pro models (with and without Touch Bar) follow these
steps:

Shut down your machine. Yes, a full shut down, not just logging out.
Press the power button and then immediately press the
commandoptionpr keys.
Keep these keys pressed down for at least 20 seconds!
Let go of the keys and let your Mac reboot normally.
Note: When you log back in you may need to readjust some of your system
preferences (e.g. speaker volume, screen resolution, startup disk selection, time zone
information, etc).
Let me know how you go.

[EDIT - Screensaver]

Since resetting the NVRAM and SMC have had no effect, perhaps you should check your Screensaver settings to see if it's kicking in after one minute? To check this:

Go to Apple menu > System Preferences
Select Desktop & Screen Saver
Click on the Screen Saver tab
Check when it is set to start


Mac freezes when logging in as >console [logging in to terminal directly without launching the GUI] When I try console login, my Mac freezes. Nothing happens visually: no switch to a black window, no spinning loading indicator in the ‘Password’ field; nothing. The only thing I can still do is press the [Power] button until the Mac force shuts down.

I already reinstalled the OS tons, and the machine ever did this as far as I know. I tried to do it before configuring the OS, after etc; nothing worked so far.

I found on the Internet that other people had that problem, but the posts are old and no one ever answered to help.

What can I do? Thanks.

Note: That Mac went under OS X Yosemite, but I downgraded since. I can't recall if I tried to login into console before first installing OS X Yosemite. I hope it's not due to this, because I won't update this working machine no more.

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: MacBook Pro [Retina, 15in, late 2013]
Model Identifier: MacBookPro11,3
Boot ROM Version: MBP112.0138.B16
SMC Version (system): 2.19f12

System Software Overview:

System Version: OS X 10.9.5 (13F1808)
Kernel Version: Darwin 13.4.0
Boot Mode: Normal
Secure Virtual Memory: Enabled

Too long; won't read: Set the Retina resolution as 'Best (Retina)' or below to fix console login crashing and freezing issue.

On my Retina 15in late 2013 MacBook Pro running OS X 10.9.5 Mavericks, the Retina causes console login to crash [if you changed Retina settings to above 'Best (Retina)', logout then console log back in] or crash with a kernel panic [if you changed Retina settings above 'Best (Retina)', reboot then console login].

This explains why Safe mode is unaffected by that bug, as Retina settings are reverted back to original ones.

Unless a fix rolls out, the best to do to fix that problem is to set Retina preferences as 'Best (Retina)' maximum; below, console login will work flawlessly and above, console login will crash or freeze [following if you logged out the console logged back in or reboot the machine, respectively].

Note that if you were in any setting above 'Best (Retina)', the Mac must be reboot to stop the console login from crashing or freezing.

Too long; didn't read: Set the Retina resolution as 'Best (Retina)' or below to fix console login crashing and freezing issue.


Encrypted partial backup in Dropbox I'm storing the majority of my documents in Dropbox.
I store all my passwords in 1Password (with encrypted backup in Dropbox).

I also have a large pool of files (SSH keys, SSL certs, encryption keys) that are spread across several folders. Is there any software, that would allow me to easily copy the content of these folders (with subfolders) to Dropbox in encrypted form?

I am not so much familiar with Dropbox, but I'd assume an encrypted sparsebundle image would be suited quite well fro your task. For instance this site explains the procedure.

In essence you have to:

Open Disk Utility
Click File > New > Blank Disk Image...

Customize your encrypted image file. I'd suggest to use sparsebundle disk image since it consists of smaller files and will probably result in better syncing performance with Dropbox.
Choose a strong password (and optionally save it in your keychain)
Now you can double-click the image file and it will open as a volume.

This is very safe and efficient. I even use a sparsebundle image for my TimeMachine backups.


How can I debug a series of piped commands in zsh? The command

ioreg -lw0 | grep \"EDID\" | sed "/[^<]*</s///" | xxd -p -r | strings -6

is not giving any result. Can any one help.

I got this command from an article that maintains (I paraphrase) that rMBP can have Samsung / LG screens,  and that the LG screens are all defective.

My MacBook Pro retina 13" so I naturally wanted to check the details of my hardware. Mine is zsh

One way to debug command-line pipes is to insert | tee debug.txt between two steps and look at the file debug.txt to check whether the previous steps are correct.


Configure a network with an AirPort Extreme and Mac Mini Server? I'm trying to set up a Mac Mini Server for Local File Sharing, Calendar, and Contacts, but I also want to be able to access everything remotely through a domain. I'm using an AirPort Extreme as my router, I also have a Time Capsule configured to back up the entire Mac Mini Server.

That said, I also want to have multiple configured users so that I can harness permissions so that all files aren't available to every user. Also I want to have 2 Administrators for the network.

I've been messing with the settings and thought I had it working, but there seems to be an issue now with permissions. Only admins can login and everyone else can't even connect to the server.

If it even matters, I also have a separate remote dedicated linux server and a domain already.

I'm tempted to start from scratch, but if I do, where do I start? Is "File Sharing" the correct approach? or should I use something else?

Just buy the Server app. It costs about $20 which is a real bargain. There's also a wonderful video tutorial on the server setup on YouTube by Todd Olthoff. I installed a server with about the same configuration as the one you are contemplating and it took me a while to complete.


Transfer of iPhone Ownership I have an AT&T family plan.  My niece has an HTC smartphone and hates it.  I have a 3G iPhone.  I want to give her my iPhone and get a newer one with my upgrade.  I don't know how to transfer ownership of my 3G iPhone to my niece.  Do iPhones have SIM cards and if they do, how do you get to it?  Thanks so much for any help.

To remove the sim card, insert the sim remover tool (that came in the box, shown below) or any other thing object such as a straightened paper clip, hair clip, etc. into the small hole on the top of the device to extract the sim card tray.


Add more flags to Mail OSX client Is there any way to add more flags to Mail.app (Mountain Lion 10.8.4)? I have a lot of subprojects, and need more flags.

MailTags from http://www.indev.ca can provide you with a number of ways to tag messages in Mail.

You are not going to get a lot of love out of Apple's mail.app otherwise.


How can I fix missing spaces when using Dictation with MacVim or Terminal? I'm trying to use Dictation on OS X 10.10.5 to enter text into MacVim (or into Terminal). It works for the most part but, for whatever reason, those programs won't let Dictation add a space after each phrase. If I say the phrase "type a sentence" and then pause and say "for me", Dictation will enter "type a sentenceFor me", instead of "type a sentence for me". Any way to fix this?

TL; DR

This issue appears to be MacVim-specific. Try using Vim 7.4.889 or later instead.

Analysis and Work-Arounds

I have experienced this same issue on both Yosemite and El Capitan with MacVim-snapshot-77. For example, in MacVim:

  I pause hereAnd dictation doesn't add a space.

However, I only experience this problem in MacVim and the versions of gvim and mvim that the MacVim package provides. Vim 7.4.889 (as installed via Homebrew) and Terminal.app with various versions of Bash seem to work fine for me on OS X 10.11 (El Capitan).

In case your settings are different, I have enabled:

Dictation & Speech -> Dictation -> Use Enhanced Dictation
Accessibility -> Dictation -> Dictation Commands -> Enable advanced commands

This appears to be something hard-wired in MacVim. Even if you define a custom dictation command for MacVim such as "literal space" and assign it the space character, MacVim with Enhanced Dictation always seems to treat pauses as the start of a new sentence. I would recommend filing a bug against MacVim.

While it won't fix the underlying problem with MacVim, you can work around the issue by doing your dictation in a Terminal-based Vim session using a different build. Since the problem appears to be MacVim rather than Vim, this seems like the most pragmatic short-term solution until MacVim is fixed.


How do I choose the disk to install macOS Sierra? I'm so new to macbook and I just download and update macOS to the latest version and it's not able to complete the installation. However I manage to get to the recovery mode but there's still a problem.

When I select install macOS on the recovery mode, I am asked to choose the disk but I couldn't select Macintosh HD as it said,

  'You may not install to this volume because it is currently being
  encrypted'

How do I fix this? Please help

Thank you

I don't know how good this may work, but once you boot into recovery mode, from the menu bar on the top, under Utilities you should find Disk Utility. Once you open disk utility, select the disk you want to install the OS on, and then click the Mount option, this should give you a prompt to provide the password to unlock the drive.

Once you have successfully unlocked and mounted the drive, quit Disk Utilities, and the default window with the option to install macOS should come back, from thereon you may continue with the installation as usual.

I didn't have the opportunity to boot in Recovery mode and make sure this works, so your milage may vary. Also, I would highly suggest you take a look at the guide posted by one of the comments, as well as make a back up of everything important in that drive before you proceed with this! Good luck!


Online collaborative whiteboard / drawing app for iPad I'm searching for a web-page + iPad app which I can use as a collaborative whiteboard.

Specifically I would like to draw on the iPad and share (in real-time) what's drawn on the web-page.

Any suggestions? The web-page must be free of charge, I don't mind paying for the iPad app.

Works GREAT: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/air-sketch/id376617790?mt=8

Theres a lite version too.


My phone transformed into my dad's phone HELP! My phone was charging on our family laptop and my phone said "Restoring in process" I didn't press anything but I also didn't think anything of it. Well when it was done restoring everything changed and then I realized it was my dad's phone due to the contacts and pictures. Although, my phone still has my number connected to it instead of my dad's.  How do I transform it back into my phone without losing contacts on both phones?

(connect to wifi)go to icloud in settings if you see yor dad's, need to long out with his icloud password  (do not delete account might delete his backup). Disable find my iphone. Then simply log your apple ID and restore your iPhone from backup, iTunes should have created one before it restored his. Turn find my iPhone back on for security.


iPhone has no display My Verizon iPhone was working fine until yesterday, mint condition, no damage.

Suddenly, there's no display. iTunes detects it but doesn't let me restore with error 3194.

Is there any known fix for this? I just don't understand how it would get bricked sitting on a desk, no jailbreak etc.

Error 3194 is related to a network connectivity issue. Typically security software or a firewall is blocking access to Apple's servers: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3694#error3194. You can also try connecting to iTunes on someone else's computer (preferably at another physical location as well).

As far as the screen suddenly not working, while not typical it certainly happens. The iPhone is a piece of hardware made from electrical components. Every electrical component made is prone to failure for various reasons. If you can't get it working after a restore, I would highly recommend making a Genius Bar appointment at your local Apple Store.


Apple Mail 6.2 - Turn OFF automatic checking for new messages Well I am very disappointed with Apple Mail. Its checking for new e-mails automatically from time to time regardless the options.

In General options I set "Check for new messages" to "Manually"
In each e-mail account I turned off the option "Include when automatically checking for new messages"
In each IMAP account i turned off the option "Use IDLE command when server supports it"

Mail still downloads new e-mails from time to time.

Any tips how to finally turn this OFF? Thank you

I think by design when you open a mail box it is gonna check for new mail when you open it. ( or even when you open the app and open another mailbox not sure )

To turn checking of those accounts really off you need to uncheck "Enable this account"

But then you won't be able to to access the disabled accounts not sure if that's what your looking for.

Maybe a better option is to move to a different email client? or at least those accounts you don't want to check? There are some clients available I personally like sparrow but there are a lot of other clients available.


Is it possible to screencast from an iOS device to a Chromecast? Is it possible to screencast from an iOS device to a Chromecast?

We'd like to be able to screencast in the same way you can from an iOS device to an Apple TV.

Casting (mirroring) the entire screen of your iOS device to Chromecast is not possible. Apple TV uses an Apple proprietary technology called AirPlay for screen mirroring.

Casting is only available for compatible apps which have added support for Chromecast. In compatible apps, you will be shown a rectangular button with little wireless icon in the bottom left corner, as shown in the image below:


How to highlight cells based on another cell's value in Excel 2011 How do I use conditional formatting to highlight a cell in one column based on the value of another cell in another column?

Case in point, I'm running some tests right now. Based on input data into our server, we expect certain output from the server. I've manually calculated and generated expected output from this same set of input to compare against what the server is generating.

What I want to do is compare all of my results against what the server generated and highlight the cells that don't match. I'm using Conditional Formatting to do this, however, I can't figure out what to do within the Conditional Formatting feature to compare values from column XYZ with values from column ABC and highlight the cells in XYZ where they don't match. The number of values in both columns are the same so we can compare without fearing comparing 123 against an empty cell.

EDIT: Thanks for the answers thus far.  What I'm trying to do is match results line by line so it should look something like the attached screenshot.

You need to use a rule with a formula to determine the format. Select the column of data, and assuming the top cell in the selection is A1, create a new conditional format with a formula and enter

=iserror(match(A1,$Z$1:$Z$1000,0))

Note that there are no $ signs around the A1 reference! Then select a format and apply this conditional format to A1:A1000.

Explanation:

The Match() function tries to find the value of cell A1 in the range Z1:Z1000.
If there is a match, the function will return a number. If there is no match, the function will return an error.
The outer ISError() function will return TRUE if the Match returns an error and the conditional format will be applied.

By not using $ signs, the conditional format can be applied to a whole range in column A and will always evaluate the current row.

Say your values are in column B and start in B3, you would need to select cell B3 and enterB3 instead of A1 into the formula.

Here is a screenshot of a data sample where the conditional format is applied to column A, checking column C for matching values anywhere in C2 to C11, not just on the same row.


mis-positioning of favicon dragged-and-dropped on desktop 10.8.5 Doing web research, I frequently collect .weblocs on my desktop, clicking on the favicon in a browser URL box,  dragging it to the spot I want, and dropping it there.  Until recently, the resulting .webloc file would always "stick" where I put it. (So, I could build up "piles" of .webloc icons -- not pretty but effective for quick-and-dirty searches.)  Now the .weblock files are ending up somewhere else, stacking up at center-right of my iMac's display.  (I guess that's the Finder's I-don't-know-where-to-put-it default for all items going on the desktop.)  This occurs for latest versions of FF, Safari, and Chrome.

Files and folders I drag and drop to the desktop still "stick" as before. Favicons dragged to open folders go where I put them, as before.

I think this started happening when I reconfigured my external screen to "be" on the left of the built-in display from being on the right.  That's the only fallout of this reconfiguration. Everything else about the side-by-side displays operates as expected.

How can I restore the old --and, I argue, correct-- operation, so .webloc files go where I put them?

TIA

This problem disappeared when I installed MacOS 10.9.


Can you watch movies from an external USB flash drive on an iOS device? I intend to use a USB drive with Lightening port support (for use on iOS device), such as this:

https://www.amazon.ca/SanDisk-iXpand-Flash-Drive-iPhone/dp/B01CIEBS74

or this:

https://www.amazon.ca/HooToo-certificated-Connector-compatible-Expansion/dp/B01I1B5KFY/

If I put movies on either one, and the plugged it into an iPhone, would it be able to play those movies? If so is it through the Files app or something?

You need to pick an external store device that comes with an app to play content on the device.

  Stream videos to up to 3 devices—at the same time

  SanDisk Connect Wireless Stick is a great entertainer, too. You can
  stream music or videos1 to three smartphones, tablets or computers as
  long as they’re somewhere in the vicinity—the back seat, the next tent
  or the other end of the conference table.

https://www.sandisk.com/home/mobile-device-storage/connect-wireless-stick


Make a photo album based on my Google Photos album I have a Google Photos album titled Vacation 2018. There are around a thousand photos there. It's currently in the cloud and not on my iPhone.

I would like to create Vacation 2018 album on my iPhone's Photos app with the same pictures.

What is the quickest way to do that? I looked through the Google Photos iPhone app and didn't see anything obvious.

This is the quickest way that I know of to save photos from an album in Google Photos to an album in Photos app on iPhone. It involves a bit of grunt work, but I'll try to make the overall procedure quick and easy to follow.

Listing the steps one-by-one, so buckle up:

As the first step, it is advisable to turn off Auto-Lock if enabled. This will prevent your iPhone from going into sleep mode automatically after a set time, thereby unintentionally suspending the Google Photos app.

To turn off Auto-Lock, go to Settings app → Display & Brightness → Auto-Lock and select Never.

Launch Google Photos app on your iPhone and tap to select the Albums tab in the bottom Tab bar. Locate the desired album under the Albums section. I am using an album named IKEA HYD for demonstration purpose.

Tap on the album to reveal its contents. Now tap on the options button (three dots) shown towards the top right corner to reveal the context menu.

Tap on the Select item to switch to selection mode.

Once you are into selection mode, select the desired photos.

Selecting a large number of images could be quite cumbersome. But fret not, as you can greatly speed up the process by employing a neat trick built into iOS.

Once you are into selection mode, tap down to select an image. Now without lifting your finger, simply drag your finger in the direction of unselected images (i.e. towards the bottom of the grid of images). As your finger moves, the grid of images will automatically start scrolling, selecting the images encountered on the way. The further away you move your finger from the starting point, faster the selection will be. Motion picture linked below demonstrates the same.

Now, you have the desired images selected. Tap on the share button to reveal the share sheet.

In the presented share sheet, tap on the Save "count" images button. This will start saving the selected images in the Photos app.

Note that it is important to keep the app running until all the images are saved in the device photo library (Photos app). Do not suspend the app by tapping on the Home button (or equivalent on iPhone X/XS/XR), thereby potentially stopping the image save process. We also turned off Auto-Lock in step #1 to ensure that the iPhone doesn't go into sleep mode unintentionally while Google Photos app is saving the images in the device photo library.

Wait till the save progress is complete.

Once all the images are successfully saved in the photo library, a confirmation message is shown by the Google Photos app towards the bottom of the screen.

Now, head over to the iOS Photos app, tap on the Camera Roll button and select all the saved images. To select images, you'll first need to tap on the Select button shown towards the top right to switch into selection mode. You can use the same trick as discussed in step #6 to speed up the selection process as shown below:

Once all the desired images are selected, tap on the share button shown towards the bottom left.

In the presented share sheet, tap on Add to Album button.

Tap on New Album... button to create a new album.

Provide the desired name for the album and tap on Save.

Voila! your album is now ready on your iPhone. Tap on the album to view its contents as you normally would.

Note: This album is created by manually saving the images from the Google Photos cloud storage using the Google Photos app. The content of the album will not automatically sync to and fro between album in the Photos app on iPhone and the album in Google Photos cloud library.

Also, don't forget to re-enable Auto-Lock (if you use it).


Macbook Air Acting funny My friend gave me a macbook air to try to fix it. I'm pretty good with any Windows machine and the common troubleshooting steps. Like safe mode, malware scanners, startup applications and stuff. But I'm not really sure where to start on this macbook air. It doesn't have the dock on the bottom. Hitting shutdown took like a minute for the prompt to come up. So, it's behaving really slow. And I'm sure there's other things, but what should I do to start troubleshooting?

Also, I've noticed the screen go  black for a split second every like 5-10 minutes.

First step would be to try a safe boot per Apple's support pages:

  If you're using Mac OS X 10.2 or later, you can start up your computer
  in Safe Mode, which includes an automatic disk check and repair. A
  Safe Boot, which starts up your computer into Safe Mode, may allow you
  to start up your computer successfully using a reduced version of the
  system software. To do this, follow these steps:

  Start up in Safe Mode. Instructions on how to do so are located here.
  After the system has fully started up, restart your computer normally.

Additionally, you may reference this page of Apple's support pages for other trouble shooting measures to resolve common startup and performance problems.


Why is my MacBook getting hotter than usual since some time? Since some time my MacBook is constantly hotter than it used to be, even when not having much CPU load. What could the cause be?

Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC) didn't completely work, I think it has decreased since I reset it but not completely.

Sometimes is is good to reset the SMC.

SMC controls the devices on your computer including the fans.

Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)


What is the shortcut for "Find the word at caret" in Android Studio for Mac I see no shortcut key in Android Studio for "Find Word at Caret" (see 5th row below).

However when I searched IntelliJ IDEA documents I have found this.

I know the first option but I didn't understand the second one. What is N/A keyboard shortcut?

The page you are referring to uses JavaScript to dynamically change content depending on reader's environment.

In case of OS X it changes to N/A meaning simply: Not Available (or "not applicable").

        Edit | Find | Find Word At Caret.

        Use
        Ctrl+F3
        keyboard shortcut.

As for the shortcut itself you can create your own by going to System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts.


OS X give focus to a window after showing I have noticed something that really annoys me.
Say I have some applications running and then I select a particular one using Dock. This application appears on the screen but does not receive focus (windows is displayed as inactive). So, when I type something input is not going to the foremost window.

For more clarification I can say that I always encounter this when focusing Terminal app that is not maximized - window is shown, but no focus on it. Moreover, when I click on an app icon in the Dock and this app was maximized, I have to click twice to see this app.

Have anyone encountered the same?

UPD: the problem relates to switching from full-screen app to non full-screen and vice versa. Switching from one full screen app to another full screen app or from one non-full screen to another non-full screen does not reproduce the problem

Found solution myself. In system settings on the Mission Control tab the second option of the top group must be checked. I don't know exactly how it is in English, it shall be something like 'Switch to space with application windows when switching to an application' or something like that.

I used this as a tip, it says about the third checkbox, but in my case the second one has solved my trouble.


Facetime overloading my computer's scheduler Running Mac OSX High Sierra 10.13.6.
Many times when I'm on a facetime call, and when doing other video things, my whole computer gets hangy about 15 minutes in.  I'll throw in specs on my machine:
Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro9,2
Processor Name:   Intel Core i7
Processor Speed:  2.9 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores:    2
L2 Cache (per Core):  256 KB
L3 Cache: 4 MB
Memory:   8 GB
Boot ROM Version: 230.0.0.0.0
SMC Version (system): 2.2f44
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State:    Enabled
I'm trying to pinpoint what the holdup is, since in the past it was able to do facetime well.  Looked at it in Activity Monitor, but couldn't find any one culprit.  I copied the console logs from that hour, and I'll look through it for more info.  Just wanted to get the question started.

I believe your MacBook is overheating, which will lead to throttling (automatic downclocking) of your CPU and GPU. While most Intel-based MacBooks do suffer from that to a certain extent, it shouldn't be triggered by a 15-minute FaceTime call.

When using Activity Monitor.app, make sure to have View → All Processes enabled, so system processes are shown as well.

You may use the app iStat Menus or Hardware Monitor to check the temperatures of your MacBook.

It's possible that your MacBook is just dusty, which prevents proper airflow and therefore limits cooling. Here's a link to a video showing a (very thorough) cleaning process: Fixing My Filthy Overheating MacBook Pro. It's usually sufficient to just (carefully!) vacuum the dust from the fans though.


Difference between Express and Standard Replacement Service for iPad battery Can a user use Express Replacement Service to get a new battery if still under warranty?

How's that different than Battery Replacement Service again under warranty?

With express service you'll get a replacement device before sending back your old one. That way you don't have to spend time without a device.
It's available under warranty but will be charged.

Price in Austria is 29€ incl. TAX to give you an idea.


The product distribution file could not be verified When trying to install software from App Store on OS X 10.11, I get the error message "The product distribution file could not be verified. It may be damaged or was not signed." I have tested several different pieces of software, and get the same issue on all of them.

I have found a few suggested solutions, however they are from 2011, and refers to the /var/folders, which El Capitan does not have (I can't remember when it disappeared, but I think it was some time ago).

In the system logs, I see the following each time I get the error:

  09/10/15 19:28:04,476 storedownloadd[642]: *** Assertion failure in -[CheckPreflightOperation verifyDistributionAtURL:allowsDevSign:allowsUnsigned:osVersionToBeInstalled:error:distributionController:], /Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/Commerce/Commerce-453/CommerceKit/CheckPreflightOperation.m:291

When I browse to /Library/Caches, I do not see com.apple.xbs.

As my first attempt to resolve this issue, I renamed /Caches to /Caches_old (paranoid, I guess, but the practice has stood me in good stead previously, so I think it's not the worst idea in the world), then closed and reopened App Store, and retried the installation.

I was now prompted to re-enter my iCloud password. I did so, and was presented with a new error message: “%Program% failed to download. Use the Purchased page to try again. In the Purchased page, the program had a line next to it, saying “An error has occurred”.

Once more consulting Console, I get this:

  09/10/15 20:22:16,130 sandboxd[114]: ([314]) storeaccountd(314) deny mach-lookup com.apple.backupd.sandbox.xpc
  09/10/15 20:22:17,347 storedownloadd[642]: SSDownloadAsset caching-server-locator-timeout 10

I tried renaming the old Caches-folder to Caches - no go.

I tried renaming the Caches-folder to Caches_Old, and then creating a new Caches-folder - no go.

I rebooted the computer - no go

I renamed the new Caches-folder to Caches_older, then renamed the Caches_old-folder to Caches, and rebooted - no go

Any ideas?

Update: I have also tried renaming the Caches-folder, and then rebooting. A new Caches folder is then generated, but the problem remains the same.

Update 2: I have tried starting the Mac in safe mode and trying it there. The error still persists, but now I get a new error:

  12/10/15 21:12:20,744 sandboxd[128]: ([500]) ReceiptInstaller(500) deny mach-lookup com.apple.DiskArbitration.diskarbitrationd
  12/10/15 21:12:24,747 storedownloadd[404]: AssetDownloadOperation no modified URL for http://osxapps.itunes.apple.com/apple-assets-us-std-000001/Purple/99/60/6a/mzm.zqwtwhxj.pkg

It might be tricky to pick apart the failure with caches being deleted.

One thing that always works for me is to boot to a USB drive with a clean OS and sign in to the App Store. If I get a failure there, I know the problem is on Apple's side or in the network.

If not, I have the app and know my system / library are not helping and can take action there once I'm sure the issue is with my customizations and specific install and not a server issue.


/etc/fstab file no longer working when writing on a NTFS disk My Macbook Pro runs 10.6.8 and I have a NTFS 500G disk.
In order to write into the disk, I had tried to edit the /etc/fstab file.
It did work for years, but recently, I found it do not work and I don't know why.

Can anyone tell me why it has stop working and how to fix it?

I know installing some softwares can solve this problem, but I prefer to know why the /etc/fstab file invalid now.

The NTFS driver (ntfs.kext) Apple supplies with OS X provides read-only access. You need to get a r/w driver, and your best bet is to get on by installing OSX FUSE (File Systems in User mode), from http://osxfuse.github.io/ and then the Tuxera NTFS driver (www.tuxera.com/products/tuxera-ntfs-for-mac/), or the freeware NTFS-3G. Get the freeware version, and it works just fine. That should solve your problem.


"Bad CPU type in executable" when running pdftk I have installed pdftk from https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-server/ on my mac and when I try to run it it fails.
$ pdftk -version
-bash: /usr/local/bin/pdftk: Bad CPU type in executable

How can I fix this?

As it says on https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-server/, PDFtk Server is for "Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)". The package only contains a 32bit binary which won't run on Catalina or Big Sur.
You may be able to install directly from source (see further down on the same page), or you reach out to the developers and ask for an update.


Export Apple symbol font glyph to image I am trying to add an apple symbol to an iPhone app I am writing. It there a way to export an item in the font to an image?

The easiest way that comes to mind on the Mac is to type the symbol, press ⌘Shift4, and use the resulting cross-hair pointer to draw a rectangle around the newly-typed character. That will take a screenshot of it, and save the resulting .png file to the Desktop.


Does ITunes compress audios synced to iPhone I have a few mp3 320kbps audios I need to pass onto my iPhone, however I need the format to be exactly the same and I don’t want any compressing to be done to the audios. I wanted to know if when I sync the mp3 audios to my iPhone, will iTunes compress the audio or change the format in any way. Thanks to anyone who answers.

There's a switch in iTunes, under options, to either downsample or leave alone…

idk the equivalent in Catalina.

Speaking as a [retired] professional sound engineer, by the time you're listening on a phone, you may as well downsample to 128kbps AAC & save yourself some space, because you won't hear the difference.


OS X internet recovery older version problem I am using Macbook Pro Mid 2012 13" with 128GB SSD.  The latest installed version of OS X was El Capitan which crashed during a Sierra upgrade.

Internet recovery mode worked somehow to land me to install download and install a new OS but it's Mountain Lion, which came installed when I bought the Macbook few years back However, it's rejecting to install on current SSD drive as shown in pic.

I have another 320GB HDD, so is this the only way to reinstall?  First I do a fresh install of Lion on the external HDD?  What I should I do?

What is a  step by step procedure as all I want to do is run OSX on SSD drive but keeping all my older data. I can not afford to wipe it.

However,  I did back up some of its backup onto my PC. If I install Lion the HDD can I then download Sierra and create an install disk to update/fix/install corrupted OS X on SSD?

Note: This answer has been updated because the comment below misunderstands how Recovery works. When your Recovery partition gets updated, not only will it run the newest version of macOS, but the installer gets updated to the newest version as well.

If a Mac shipped with macOS 12.3 or earlier, then Internet Recovery will install whatever version of macOS shipped on the Mac, even if the Mac had previously been updated.

If the Mac shipped with macOS 12.4 or later, or was upgraded to 12.4 or later, then Internet Recovery will install the most recent version of macOS that is supported on that Mac.

So if your Mac shipped with 10.11, and you updated to 10.12, then:
Internet Recovery will install 10.11
Recovery will install 10.12

If your Mac shipped with 10.11 and you updated to 10.12.4, then:
Internet Recovery will install 10.13 (or later)
Recovery will install 10.12.4


Mac OS X freezes while choosing a keyboard after reset Lion back to the Setup Assistant I have a problem with my MacBook Pro, which runs Mac OS X Lion.

I have reset it back to the Setup Assistant.

After I executed the following commands, I need to select the region when I boot; this works fine, but when I choose the keyboard, the whole Mac gets stuck, and I see the loading icon on the screen. Even if I wait one hour, nothing happens.

$ mount -uw /
$ rm -R /Library/Preferences/
$ rm -R /Users/username/
$ rm /var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users/username.plist
$ rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone

How can I solve this? I have no Mac OS X disc to reinstall Lion.

Can I create a user via the command line, or skip the setup assistant?

Sounds like a bad install. I suggest booting the computer into the hidden Recovery partition by holding ⌘ Cmd-R at startup and doing an internet recovery system restore. It'll be the second option in the OS X Utilities window that comes up. As long as the iMac is connected to the internet it'll re-download the installer and restore a fresh system to the drive.

If you're trying to bring the MacBook back to the way it was when you purchased it I'd suggest opening the Disk Utility in recovery first and erasing the drive completely. (But only if there's no important data on it!)


Will I loose iPad application data when I switch Apple ID? I have borrowed iPad2 from a friend. It does have iOS5 currently installed.

I do want to install (with friend's permission) few free apps from App Store. However, even installing free app require entering password to my friend Apple ID. Since obviously friend does not want to share it, he allowed me to log out of his Apple ID and log in to my own. However I am afraid that switching accounts on iPad might result in loosing data like photos or application data.

Will switching Apple IDs on iPad cause any data loss? If so, will that data be restored automatically when friend log in back to his Apple ID?
Will I have access to apps installed with other Apple ID?
Will updating system from iOS5 to iOS7 cause any data loss?
Can I log in to multiple Apple IDs on one iPad? If so, will it cause any data loss?

I believe this depends on they way the App is set up. If an app backs up its data on iCloud then it will not be able to retrieve it as each Apple ID has separate iCloud storage space. On the other hand if the app uses its own server for syncing (and you use the same login details) I would imagine it will restore data appropriately.
However purchases made with one Apple ID are not available to another Apple ID. I am not sure if Apple offer transferring purchases but I guess you could contact them to see it they could do so for you.

1) I don't think changing Apple ID will cause any data loss. I switch between two and never had any issues (I would however check with Apple)
2) Yes, but you might have to download them first if not already on the iPad.
3) This could happen as the apps will have to be updated and since iOS5 most apps have heavily changed both visually and the way they work with say iCloud.
4) As stated in (1) I don't believe you should loose any data but you can only have one Apple ID active at a time.

Make sure you take a full backup on your computer before making any big updates like moving to iOS7 from iOS5.


Disable 'find cursor' shortcut in iTerm2 By default iTerm2 uses shortcut ⌘/ to find cursor on screen.
And I want the sortcut ⌘/ to apply to another action.
But I can't find out how to do this on new version of iTerm2.
How to disable find cursor shortcut in iTerm2?

If you want to define the key sequence in another app, then make iTerm2 ignore it:

Go to iTerm2 Preferences... --> Keys
Click on + under the grid
Press ⌘+/ with cursor in the Keyboard Shortcut field
Leave the Action field value set to Ignore

If you want to use different action in iTerm2, assign the appropriate action in step 4.


All images offline after clean install I upgraded to OS X El Capitan via a clean install. While erasing the disk, I renamed it from Macintosh HD to Hard Drive. After installation, I copied all data from an external hard drive back into its original location. I checked if everything was working, including if all images, faces, locations, etc. showed up in Aperture. Nothing seemed amiss.
Only now, days later when trying to edit a few older images did I notice that at the top of the Adjustments tab of the inspector it said Image Offline for every single file in my library.
I immediately tried Show in Finder on some random image which returned

The file 'filename'.jpg could not be found because the volume on which it resides is currently offline.
Volume: Macintosh HD

I did a grep search for Macintosh HD within the Aperture library database (Aperture Library.aplibrary) using grep -nr "Macintosh HD" . to see if the problem was fixable by replacing Macintosh HD with Hard Drive in a couple of places. It searched for a few seconds before turning up two or three matches. A few seconds more, and it went into a frenzy, basically spitting out the path to every single image in my library.
After that, I dropped everything and fled here so as not to damage anything further. Any ideas on how to fix this without doing another clean install to change the volume name back to its original? Help will be greatly appreciated.

I'm sure this could have a better solution, from someone with a deeper understanding of the OS underpinnings, however...

You don't need to start over to simply change the volume name, you can change it easily enough from the Finder, just click it twice [not double-click] just like you would with a file; or click then Return.

I often have issues if I clone a drive for experimenting with OS upgrades etc.

Everything just behaves better if I name the clone the same as the main drive & remove that original drive.


Cannot update OS X via the App Store This only happens with OSX updates, all general apps work fine.

I click install to update to the latest version, I get a couple prompts confirming I want to download and allow my computer to restart. Then nothing actually downloads, it gets listed as recently installed but also shows in my updates available section too.

After checking the logs, I found this is more than likely a permissions error.

Does anyone know what user groups + folder permissions the updates require for OSX? I've run the health check etc on my drive and all seems to be fine.

Because the log is quite long, I've made a pastebin.
http://pastebin.com/4DeRUBzh

Edit:

I'm running El Capitan, but this issue has persisted since upgrading Yosemite.

I've tried resetting Home folder permissions & ACLs, this did not correct the issue.

This worked for me in Mavericks. My App Store app wasn't responding and someone suggested resetting the NVRAM. It's done the same way as you used to reset the PRAM - during Restart, hold down p+r+option+command until you hear the startup chimes a second time, then release the keys. Can't hurt, anyway.


wpsd crashes on Yosemite I have noticed multiple crashes in my logs of a process called wpsd. I am running OS X Yosemite v10.10.2 on a MacBook Pro. Unfortunately, I could not find what this process is used for. Anyone has a clue?

Process:               wpsd [12844]
Path:                  /usr/local/bin/wpsd
Identifier:            wpsd
Version:               ???
Code Type:             X86 (Native)
Parent Process:        launchd [1]
Responsible:           wpsd [12844]
User ID:               0

Since wpsd and /usr/local/bin do not ship with OS X out of the box, you'd need to look at the creation date of the file and or check your backups to determine when the file arrived.

You could run the strings command against the file and see if that sheds any light on the process, but we might need to know more about how you install open source tools and/or add software to the system (or look at the whole dump) to know what the tool does.


Move Bootcamp to external drive - restored, fdisk - still not recognized as bootable! I want to copy my W7 Bootcamp partition to an external HDD, and be bootable of course. It is currently functioning fine alongside Yosemite on a different HDD.

DiskUtility Restore works...
I marked the partition as active...
But the new Bootcamp partition is still not recognized on start-up.

Please help!

Details:

Currently using (and working from) Yosemite OSX10.10.2 on an
internal SSD.
Source: HDD1 (external-USB) works fine and can boot as W7 or Yosemite. This is the original Bootcamp partition I want to clone or copy.
Destination: HDD2 (external-USB) is blank and much larger than the HDD1 Bootcamp partition. This is the drive I'd like to copy my Bootcamp partition to and have it bootable.
The HDD1 Bootcamp partition was origninally made with OSX10.6.8.

I have tried:

Formatting HDD2 as GUID-FAT32; using DiskUtility to 'restore' the HDD1
bootcamp partition to; using sudo fdisk to mark as active;
everything seemed to go great but it doesnt get recognized upon
boot-up.
Same as above but formatting HDD2 as MBR-FAT32.
Running disk repair after step 1, looks good.

My fdisk commands:
sudo fdisk -e /dev/disk1; p; setpid 1; 07; flag 1; p; write; y
...seems to work. See attached image.

What am I missing???

Thanks in advance.

Windows 7 will not run from an external USB hard drive.  This is a limitation of Windows, not your Mac.  Windows can ONLY run from an internal, non-removable hard drive.  That limitation applies even on a real PC.


Adding Mac-specific directory to PATH when home is shared My /home/myusername/ directory is provided through a network, and looks exactly the same on my Linux machine and my Mac Mini.   I'd like to add to PATH a directory of Mac-specific software in my home, e.g. /home/myusername/SW/bin_mac/ and have this happen only when I'm doing command line stuff on the Mac, and not have PATH contain this when on Linux.  If I edit .bashrc (or tcsh's equivalent) it'll affect PATH in both cases.  What are some tricks to do this?

Test the output of uname; it will be Darwin on OS X and Linux on Linux.

if [[ $(uname) == Darwin ]]; then
    export PATH="$HOME/SW/bin_mac:$PATH"
fi

Alternately, you could just add an appropriate directory on each machine, which will be useful if you find yourself needing a separate Linux bin directory as well in the future.

export PATH="$HOME/SW/bin_$(uname):..."

and either mv or ln -s your bin_mac to bin_Darwin; then you can create a bin_Linux directory in the future if you need it, and it'll just work.

(You could also test $HOSTTYPE, which is set by bash, but it contains more information than you're likely to need.)


Can you transfer iPhone backups made on Windows to a Mac? I made an iPhone backup on someone else windows computer and now need to send it to my Mac to restore my iPhone because it got bricked. If I simply send the file over a torrent and put it in the backup folder on my Mac's iTunes, will I have any trouble with restoring my device? I'm worried the format that iTunes on windows uses is different then on Macs'.

follow up question: Is there a better way then a torrent to send a file about 50gb?

The backup format is the same for Mac and Windows, so you can copy your backup from the C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup folder on your Windows computer to ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup on your Mac yes. If you need instructions for various versions of Mac and Windows to access these folders, here's a blog post I wrote with them.
If you have a USB thumb drive, that may be better to copy the 50GB backup. :) You could also right-click on the folder for the backup and select Send To > Compressed Folder first to zip it.


Stop Google Chrome from stealing focus on opening Is there any way of preventing Google Chrome from stealing the focus when it is opening?

When I open an application, I often do the following:

Click on the application icon in the dock.
⌥ Option-⇥ Tab away from the application while it has not yet finished opening.
Continue working in another application while the first application is opening.
Eventually ⌥ Option-⇥ Tab back to the first application after it has completed its opening process and is ready for use.

Now Google Chrome misbehaves in step 3. When I have ⌥ Option-⇥ Tabed away from it for working in another application, it will steal focus as soon as it has finished drawing its browser window. Instead of letting me decide to ⌥ Option-⇥ Tab back to it at my own free will, it hijacks the process and interrupts any work I am doing.

I think this is an extremely annoying and intrusive behaviour and I would like to stop it. I do not want Google Chrome to always open in the background. It should just behave like any other app and not interfere with the choice I make by ⌥ Option-⇥ Tabbing to another application.

I can replicate the focus stealing behaviour of Google Chrome in yet another way. When issuing the open command on the Terminal, the -g flag is supposed to tell the application to open in the background:

open -g /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/

Yet again, Google Chrome does not honour this choice. It begins opening in the background all right, but it steals focus as soon as it has finished drawing its browser window. Compare this to the normal behaviour of any other application:

open -g /Applications/Firefox.app/

This does exactly what it is supposed to do: The application opens in the background and stays in the background until I choose to ⌥ Option-⇥ Tab to it. Is there any way to make Google Chrome behave in this way, too?

Open Google Chrome in the background using Terminal

Open System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility
Add Google Chrome to the list

Open Terminal and enter the command:

open -j -a "Google Chrome" 'https://www.google.com/'

Adding accessibility permissions for Chrome disables the "Hold command-Q to quit" feature and allows other apps to control the window (e.g. shell script). Using the -j option launches the app hidden as opposed to -g that is meant to prevent the app launching in the foreground.


Repeated requests to update icloud preferances I keep getting requests to update my iCloud preferences.  I do so by reentering my password the the requests keep coming

I faced the same problem on my MacBook Pro (mid 2012) and I fixed it by following the guidelines mentioned here: http://www.rawinfopages.com/mac/content/keep-being-asked-your-icloud-password

  "Go to System Preferences, iCloud and clear all the ticks so that you
  are no longer syncing anything to iCloud. You should also go into
  every Apple app (FaceTime, Calendar, Messages, iTunes, Reminders,
  Notes and any other app you can think of), check the preferences in
  each app and if you are signed in to iCloud then sign out.

  After disabling all the iCloud sync options in System Preferences and
  every single Apple app, return to iCloud in System Preferences and
  tick all the boxes again to start syncing once more. You might also
  need to sign in again with FaceTime and the other apps you signed out
  of."


How to open a new terminal window when using VIM does someone know how to open a new terminal window when opening a new text with VIM.

I would like to have an autarchic window which can be resized and closed while the other windows will stay as and where they are.

Regards

mmm...

You could write a little script like this :

#!/bin/sh
osascript <<END
tell app "Terminal" to do script "vim"
END

Name this script v and make it executable :

chmod +x v

Then when you're in terminal, just execute the v script and it will open a new terminal window and run vim.

Alternatively, if you want to open a text file as part of this:

#!/usr/bin/osascript
on run argv
  tell app "Terminal" to do script "vim " & item 1 of argv
end run

Then just run v text.txt  and it will open a new terminal window, open vim, and open the text file called text.txt.   If text.txt doesn't exist, as usual, vim will create it in the buffer.


If I take the hard drive out of my macBook Pro and put it in a non-apple laptop, will it boot? I've just upgraded my (2011) macBook Pro to use an SSD. So I've now got an old hard drive laying around with OS X on it.

I've also got an old HP laptop laying around.  If I put the drive in the laptop do I end up with a 'hackintosh', or will something crazy happen?

It won't boot, building a hackintosch machine takes more effort than just swapping a hdd.
Macs have a different bios than windows pc's and this is not stored on your hdd but in the machine itself.
Osx needs this special bios to run and "talk to" the components of your mac.
Also, osx might not have the drivers available for the components in your pc.

you could google for info to make a hackintosch