Display size problems with two monitors I just added a second monitor and my display is mis-sized. My macbook air monitor extends partly onto my external monitor. There are parts of the display that are off-screen - if I move my mouse to each side, the display will shift slightly with it, like the display is too big to fit the monitors. I've tweaked with the display resolution to no avail. Any ideas?

There's a black box in the bottom right corner where the mouse won't go, so the actual image is a bit taller than this. Also note how the left side of the window gets cut off.

I am running Snow Leopard; pretty sure zoom is not the issue.

That's what it looks like and that's the behavior when you zoom in on the laptop screen.  You can zoom in (even under Snow Leopard) via the trackpad or scroll wheel or keyboard.  In Snow Leopard there settings for screen zoom in System Preferences under "Universal Access" (both "Zoom" and "Zoom Options..."), "Mouse", and "Trackpad".  See what you have configured and use that to unzoom the screen.

I think the default zoom is ⌘+scroll wheel.

You have been able to zoom in on the screen as part of Universal Access for as long as I can remember.  You still can in Lion.


Hardening Time Machine Security In face of the news that there is now a ransomware for mac in the wild I thought about the security of my time-machine backups.
Permissions
First, I had a look at the permissions of the files that reside on my timecapsule, which are the following:
Data Directory

User (unknown)   Read & Write
Group (everyone) Read & Write

Individual Sparsebundles per backuped computer within Data Directory

User (unknown)   Read & Write
Group (staff)    Read & Write
Group (everyone) Read & Write

It seems that there is room for improvement here. First, I don't understand why an Unknown user is listed. Is there any reason for this or can I delete this item?
Second, is there any necessity to give Read and Write Permissions to "everyone" and "staff"?
If I understand correctly, Time Machine Backups are run by the backupd process, which, on my computer, runs as user root. So it seems that only the root user is required to have Read & Write access. Is that correct? Could I delete the existing permissions and add user "root" with Read & Write permissions?
Lastly, would this change provide a further line of defence against ransomware? If a ransomware runs as a normal user X and does not gain root, it could encrypt all files to which X has write access, but it could not encrypt time machine backups, because only root has access to them. Is this line or reasoning correct?
Running OSX El Capitan, 10.11.3.

Update after discussion with bmike (see below)

During an actual Time Machine Backup, backupd mounts two shares. /Volumes/Whatever and /Volumes/Time Machine Backups. While the former cannot be access by a non-root user, the latter can. It is indeed possible to clear ACLs of files and overwrite them subsequently. So the security issue is wide open.

Original answer

Thinking a little more about the underlying mounting system, I came to the view that my original question contained a misguided assumption, the removal of which perhaps makes the question obsolete. I decided to write an answer instead of removing the question for the benefit of the equally misguided.

When I checked the permissions of my sparsebundle files, I manually mounted the Time Capsule disk. Because I mounted the disk as a normal user, this user became the owner of the mount-point (checking in the terminal, I can see that my useraccount is the owner of the mount-point, "staff" being the group).

Now my assumption (which was not transparent to me) was that if Time Machine mounts the disk during a backup session, it would be present in the system just as if I mounted it manually. But this is wrong. For since backupd runs as root, the mount-point belongs to root (checking in the terminal, the owner is "root", the group is "wheel", group and world having no rights.) and thus a process belonging to a normal user would not be able to encrypt files on a Time Machine Disk mounted by backupd.

Thus, in a Time Capsule setup there does not seem to be, for the moment, a danger of a ransomware to encrypt the backup. However, it might be different with a locally connected external harddrive. I vaguely remember that when I still used an external harddrive, I could see the Time Machine partition as mounted in Finder (something I do not now) and thus it might be mounted with user rights. I cannot test this, as I don't have an external time machine harddrive, but maybe someone else can say something about this.


Display PDF version metadata of a PDF file I am looking for a way to display a PDF file version metadata without having to open the file AcrobatPro. Example: PDF Version 1.4 : I can easily do this on PC: right click on file, properties, select PDF tab, and it is displayed along with what application and pdf library produced it. On Mac, none of this shows in "Get Info" (command + I) nor using terminal and the mdls command. Any ideals on some commands and I could write a droplet script?

Phil Harvey's exiftool could be wrapped in a AppleScript droplet. As an example of the command:

exiftool -S -pdfversion FILE


AirPods choppy/unreliable when connected to Mac, but not iPhone Problem
In my apartment, when using the AirPods with my Mac, the audio is significantly choppy, fluttery and unreliable. There are frequently small "pops" when listening to music. The issue is not present when using the AirPods with my iPhone.
The Apple Stack Exchange question you are reading now, is actually an update to my question on the same topic that was posted and resolved here previously. I had this very same issue while on macOS Sierra 10.12.4. We found out that the culprit was a bug introduced in that particular macOS version, and the problem went away with 10.12.5.
I am now on 10.12.6 and having a quite identical problem. But I'm not confident that the OS is at fault this time.
The reason is that I recently swapped my AirPods for a new pair, via an unrelated Apple support ticket. The new ones arrived via mail and I was instructed to pair them with my original case.
The new pair of AirPods seem significantly more prone to skipping, stuttering and losing connection. I did not have this problem with my original AirPods, which I also used with 10.12.6 without problems (at least that I am cognizant of).
Possible explanation
I think I have found what's causing the skipping (albeit not the root cause), and it seems to be my iPhone Bluetooth signalling with its environment. Whenever that happens, there is a glitch/pop on the Mac ←→ AirPod connection. When I disable Bluetooth on the iPhone, the problems go away.
I haven't changed anything in my environment except swapping the AirPods. No microwave in the background etc.
I am quite confident that the reason is Bluetooth interaction from the iPhone. I am just not sure how to proceed, because the weird thing is that the problems started just when I replaced the AirPods for a new pair.
Some plausible root causes are:

The new AirPods are in fact defect or come from a batch that are not as 'good' with Bluetooth.
macOS 10.12.6 introduced a bug similar to the one in macOS 10.12.4, but I didn't realize it until much later (not that likely IMO, knowing how sensitive I am to audio quality).
The pairing process whereby new AirPod buds were paired with an original case didn't go exactly right, and there is a firmware or software problem somewhere.

What I have tried

'Hard Reset' of the AirPods according to these instructions;
Resetting the iPhone Network Settings after "Forgetting this device" (the AirPods) as part of the AirPod 'Hard Reset'.
Resetting the Mac Bluetooth Module according to these instructions.

I solved this choppy audio issue with just one simple trick.
(This might not work for everyone, but I solved it this way)

Short answer

If your hardware uses Bluetooth 4.0 instead of 4.2 or above, this solution is highly likely to work for you.

Open System Preferences > Sound > Input

Change sound input from Airpods to Internal Microphone

Long answer (+ Possible explanation)

(This is just my hypothesis based on my observation)

First of all, to clarify my symptoms,
I am using a MacBook Pro 15 inch (Late 2013) which has Bluetooth 4.0 hardware.
The choppy audio issue only happened in my MacBook Pro, and it did not happen in my other Apple devices such as my iPhone 7 Plus (which btw, has Bluetooth 4.2), nor my iPad Pro (also Bluetooth 4.2).

Based on these observations, my hypothesis is that Bluetooth 4.0 devices have too low bandwidth to handle both input/output (microphone & speaker) at a high quality. However, if I just change the audio input to the internal microphone, the Bluetooth connection only delivers sound output, so I think it can handle higher quality audio. On the other hand, if I use both microphone & speaker on a Bluetooth 4.0 device, I think the connection degrades and sacrifices audio output bandwidth in order to make room for delivering audio input.

Indeed, according to some sources, Bluetooth 4.2 is 250% faster and has 10x more capacity

Reference:

https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-main-differences-between-Bluetooth-4-0-4-1-and-4-2-in-the-Layers-Baseband-LMP-L2CAP-app-Layer
https://www.semiconductorstore.com/blog/2015/BLE-4-2-vs-BLE-4-1/1548/


Any iPhone apps for fine-resolution mapping? I am trying to record tracks at a much finer scale than is possible with GPS, but hopefully using something simple and cheap, ideally an iPhone. The resolution for track data I am after is around 10-20cm.

The location of the track, and even the scale is not as important as the fine details of the shape of the track.

What I have in mind as the ideal solution is an iPhone app that uses the camera in conjunction with the other sensors to record a track in a similar way to an optical mouse detecting movement over a desk's surface.

So you would hold the phone with the camera facing down and walk the track. The app would trace the moving surface and infer where it is going, using the gyroscope and accelerometer to help correct for tilting the camera. It would also use the gyro and to a lesser extent the compass to help correct and detect the turns in the track. The height of the phone off the ground I don't think could be sensed or inferred but you could just enter that and hold it carefully at a consistent height. The LED could be on to aid detection through shadows.

If you happen to be walking in a track that finished where it started, you could mark that in some way to close the loop and it would try and correct it if the ends didn't meet up, and if you walked a long way, perhaps over 50 meters, it could also use GPS data to calibrate the scale of the track, but probably not really contribute much to the details of the track's geometry.

So does something like this even exist in any form for iPhone or otherwise? Is there anything which is simpler, e.g., it just uses the gyro/compass and a pedometer-style measurement method?

Clearly, there aren't any popular apps that replicate an Inertial Navigation System which is what you describe.

The wikipedia article I link above illustrates that the integration errors that crop up from this sort of apparatus build up over time and errors of hundreds of meters are possible after only an hour of operation.

GPS would be far more accurate than inertial calculations given the limitations and lack of precise calibration of the gyroscope sensors within an iOS device. They are designed to detect gross movements (10-25 degrees) and other tools like laser or echo location would be needed to measure a path over a 50 meter span more accurately than GPS will allow.


Needing to run fsck -fy "often" should I send to repair? Every month I usually give a go to Onyx so I repair all permissions and such. Every time I do that, I get that I need to repair the Disk and I end up having to boot with the single user (in which I see a hint of an error but goes quickly) and then use the fsck -fy command. After a couple of runs it gets solved and everything seems ok.

However, I'm a bit afraid that the disk goes off some day. Any experience with this?

First wipe the drive entirely. Repartition and then give it one more chance. Unless you want to blame a corrupt OS or really bad programs, this is likely a failing drive and not bad data or bad OS.


iOS 5.0.1 (jailbroken) binutils package or alternative to search for strings in binaries I have a jailbroken iOS 5.0.1 on an iPhone 4S.
I checked out if there is a binutils package and haven't found it.
Is there a repository for it?
What would be the next best way to search for strings in binary files (strings command emulation).

The GNU package "binutils", on darwin, is handled by the package "cctools" (which contains a really old version of gas, but is mostly Apple-specific tooling). We use the package name "odcctools", due to a lineage from OpenDarwin. Regardless, if you use the version of strings from there on a binary that was not linked by the linker in that same package, you will get an error, but can solve that by putting strings in raw mode using "-"; so: "strings - myBinary".


CloudDocs > session folder filled with version of a Pages file I'm on a 2016 MacBook Pro with macOS 10.13.5

In (User)Library/Application Support/CloudDocs there is a folder called session weighing approx. 35GB.
Inside there is another folder called r(why r?) which contains a few thousand files, 99% of which are what seem to be incremental versions of the same Pages document.

Why are those files there?
Can I safely delete them? (for your knowledge, I have already copied the original final version of the file elsewhere for backup, just in case).

What is the use of this folder (apart from being the iCloud Drive mirror on the computer's drive)?

I don't know the answer to your question, but I have the same folder which is also huge. I'm pretty sure they are indeed incremental files.
I have a few different ones, but there's not one for every Pages file I own, which makes me believe they are the files I wanted to "revert". There's an option in Pages, Preview, Keynote, Numbers and more Apple applications that lets you revert to a previous version. I think what happened is that it saved all previous versions.

I just opened some of those files and tried to revert them, but they don't even revert back to all of those saves! Those gigabytes of files are there but I can't open them and I can't revert to them.
I deleted all of the versions of one document and opened the actual one, the document was still complete.
I did the same with another and the actual document is fine. I think you might be able to delete all of it. Maybe make a backup before you do so if it's an important file.


Separate Time Machine backups for different partitions I have an older Mac mini with 3 partitions: one running 10.5, 10.6, and 10.7. I'd like to back these up via Time Machine, however, I'd like them to each be separate backups. Whenever I try to back up one partition to the TM drive (with all other partitions excluded), it works fine. When I boot into a different partition and back up, it uses that same backup, adding the other partition to the mix.
How can I make them each use their own unique backups?

When you set a TM backup you specify which drive and partition to backup to. If you have an empty drive you can give it 3 partitions (or more) using disk utilities. Then when you back up your 3 partitions you can back each one up to a separate partition on the other drive. The real problem is that having three time-machine backups means your machine will almost always be backing up something. Since it backs up hourly I'd kick them off 15 minutes apart.
There are also extensions and apps that let you change the hourly backups to daily, or weekly. You could then back-up 10.5 on Wednesdays, 10.6 on Thursday, and 10.7 on fridays. Or back them all up once a day 7 days a week and separated the backups by 8 hours.


Should my Apple Watch sync its "mute" setting with my iPhone? I noticed that if I turn on Do Not Disturb on the watch, it turns on on my phone and vice versa.

The same thing happens with Airplane mode.

However I noticed a thread on MacRumors saying that turning the phone's hardware mute switch to silent should also turn on mute on the watch. But this doesn't happen with mine.

Even with my phone on hardware mute, the watches sound is independently set, and doesn't turn on mute on the watch.

The mute-setting does not transfer from the phone to the watch.


How to fix curl: (35) SSL certificate problem: Couldn't understand the server certificate format? I tried to install chromedriver using homebrew and got the following error.

  $ sudo brew install chromedriver
  ==> Using the sandbox
  ==> Downloading https://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/2.23/chromedriver_ma

  curl: (35) SSL certificate problem: Couldn't understand the server certificate format
  Error: Failed to download resource "chromedriver"
  Download failed: https://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/2.23/chromedriver_mac64.zip

I updated the curl to version 7.50.1 (x86_64-apple-darwin15.6.0) using homebrew and link it but no luck.

My os is OSX 10.11.5 and curl -V result is following :

  $ /usr/bin/curl -V
  curl 7.43.0 (x86_64-apple-darwin15.0) libcurl/7.43.0 SecureTransport zlib/1.2.5
  Protocols: dict file ftp ftps gopher http https imap imaps ldap ldaps pop3 pop3s rtsp smb smbs smtp smtps telnet tftp

Any advice would be appreciated.

Open chromedriver_mac64.zip in your browser. If you see this message:

<Error>
  AccessDenied
  <Message>Access denied.</Message>

    We're sorry, but this service is not available in your location

</Error>

Then Google is restricting your access. Simply download that file with an alternative network/IP/location. Then move the file to ~/Library/Caches/Homebrew/ or /Library/Caches/Homebrew/ due to the installation of Homebrew. Then try to reinstall. Homebrew will use downloaded file.

Alternatively you can use a network proxy in the terminal while running brew command.


How do I use my GPG agent for SSH everywhere? On my system, I'm trying to set up SSH authentication through my GPG agent (installed via brew). So far, I have this working in my terminal thanks to adding the following lines to ~/.profile:

# Enable SSH support through GPG
export "GPG_TTY=$(tty)"
export "SSH_AUTH_SOCK=${HOME}/.gnupg/S.gpg-agent.ssh"

However, GUI applications (e.g. PyCharm) still use the SSH agent built into Mac (annoyingly). Is there any way/place I can use to set my SSH_AUTH_SOCK for my entire session? Ideally, I don't want to disable SIP to achieve my goal, and solutions like this don't seem to work.

For example, running import os; os.environ['SSH_AUTH_SOCK'] in PyCharm's builtin Python Console will still show /private/tmp/com.apple.launchd.whatever/Listeners instead of my auth sock. Likewise, it will not prompt for my GPG key passcode but instead go through the standard authentication flow.

This also persists in XCode, using a small sample program to get the value of SSH_AUTH_SOCK, so it's not PyCharm or a Python-only problem.

I'm currently running Mojave 10.14.4 on my system.

So, I managed to find a hacky solution that achieves the same goal. It appears (???) impossible to overwrite SSH_AUTH_SOCK, and I can't disable the builtin agent because I want to preserve SIP.

However, I can abuse symlinking to get my agent working reliably. Thanks to a nice article explaining how to leverage the YubiKey on a Mac (similar to my goal), I managed to create a LaunchAgent to symlink my agent to wherever SSH_AUTH_SOCK is pointing. So far I have yet to perform heavy testing with this, but it seems to be working okay.

Just in case the source link goes down, I created a file at ~/Library/LaunchAgents/link-ssh-auth-sock.plist with the following contents:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs>
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>link-ssh-auth-sock</string>
  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
    <string>/bin/sh</string>
    <string>-c</string>
    <string>/bin/ln -sf $HOME/.gnupg/S.gpg-agent.ssh $SSH_AUTH_SOCK</string>
  </array>
  <key>RunAtLoad</key>
  <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

This LaunchAgent replaces the Apple-generated socket (located in /private/tmp/...) with my own, but preserves Apple's environment variable. The symlink works, and is picked up in any application that supports using native SSH (in my case, PyCharm).

It's not a true solution to the issue (the socket is being symlinked, who knows what issues this could cause), but it at least works for the time being.

I'll keep trying to find a true solution to this problem, but in the meantime I'll share this answer just for any other curious souls with the same issue.


Is it safe to allow apps to access your photos? Some wallpaper apps try to access your camera roll in order to save photos there. Is it safe to do so ? What am I giving developers once I allow them access to my camera roll's photos ?

I'm just concerned a bit regarding my privacy.
What are they allowed to do with the photos ? Are they encrypted or plain .img files that they can view ?

Whether it is safe or not depends on whether you trust the app and the developer's privacy policy or not.

When you give access to an app to photos (either through the prompt that comes when the app tries to access photos or through Settings > Privacy > Photos), the app gets access to write new photos/images to your Camera Roll and to read all your photos on the device in an unencrypted form.

The date and time when each photo was taken is embedded within the photo. Plus, if you have enabled Location Services for the Camera app, then an app that has access to the Camera Roll can also find out where you took the photos.

How the app then treats the photos and the associated metadata (like date/time and location), if it uploads or sends them elsewhere, is left to the app. For example, once you give permission, iOS apps for popular services like Dropbox, Facebook, Flickr and Google+ can upload all your photos to their services. With iOS 7, these apps can also be allowed to do it in the background (when you're not actively running the app). Most users wouldn't even actively know which photos are being uploaded and when.

From the Data Management in iOS page of the developer documentation:

  Similarly, your app can load, display, and edit photos from the Photo Library, as well as use the built-in camera to take new photos.

So far, Apple has not implemented any granular settings in iOS within Privacy > Photos to restrict read access to specific photos in the photo library.


Cmd click on top of Xcode used to open a Finder - this no longer works in Yosemite I used to be able open a Finder window by Cmd clicking the title at the top of the Xcode window.

However, in Yosemite, with its new slimline display, the title is no longer shown.

Is there a fix or an alternative way of doing this?

I now crtl click on the Project container or a file inside to get to the Project folder or file.


Update Dock after defaults write without `killall` restart I'm toggling a Mission Control setting with defaults write but the Dock doesn't see the change without restarting via killall Dock. How can I get the Dock to read the updated plist settings without killing it?

The setting is stored in the com.apple.dock plist, this is the command to update it (toggling the boolean):

defaults write com.apple.dock expose-group-apps -bool FALSE

Ideally, I want to use this command to quickly change the setting so I can use both window grouping modes with Mission Control, but restarting the dock is slow and disruptive, usually expanding any application windows minimized into the Dock. Is there some sort of notification/ping I can use to alert the Dock to its new settings?

Send the Dock process a signal called the 'hang-up' or HUP, also known as signal number 1 as defined somewhere in a system signals.h header file.  POSIX convention, I believe.

The quick and dirty:

sudo pkill -1 Dock

What a HUP signal should effectuate in the receiving process is an internal halt and re-evaluation, which usually includes a re-reading of any relevant config files.  The process will not terminate, only 'refresh' itself.

Hope this helps.

F.


How do I prevent accidental double clicks? My Magic Mouse is going bad and sometimes detects a double click when I single click.

I know that there is a setting which allows you to set the upper threshold for double click speed, but not a lower threshold.

How do I set a lower threshold for double click speed?

At present, there is no way to do so.

However, one option to consider:

Do you tap, or do you click? I don't know if the Magic Mouse has these settings, but worth a shot:

If you tap, you might want to go over to clicking — for example, the trackpad has these options:

Alternatively, if you click, and would like to tap — simply enable that. If there's no such option, this free app might help.


Can I assign Magic Trackpad 3-finger swipe up/down to scroll to top/bottom? I have the trackpad on my Macbook pro set up to scroll to top/bottom on a 3-finger vertical swipe. As far as I can tell, that option isn't there for a Magic Trackpad.

It's very confusing to have both devices behave differently on the same gestures. Is there a way to fix this?

My Magic Trackpad did this right out of the box. I believe you should select "Swipe to navigate."


Application Password I'm looking for a simple application that password-protects selected applications. Can anyone help please? Just bought an Apple device after several years using Android.

To this day, there is no way to password-protect apps on iOS without jailbreaking. If you are familiar to rooting an Android device, it is somewhat similar to jailbreaking. If you already have jailbroken or want to jailbreak your Apple device, check out this link. If you decide to jailbreak, you can get password-protecting features through tweaks such as bioprotect or appscan if you have touchID. If not, there are similar tweaks that offer the same password-protecting features. If you aren't wanting to jailbreak your device, there is no other way. Hope this helps!


Rename various folders ignoring current name with Better Finder Rename I have the following folders

trip to xxx
folder-temp
pic-temp
my-xxx-videos

I wanna rename all the folders to "my-folders1", "my-folders2" and so on.

I am using better finder rename but I don't see an option that lets me completely remove any folder name and replace it with something else. Any ideas?

I already know how the incrementing number work.

Maybe it's easier to open Terminal, go the the parent folder and run

i=0
for f in *; do
    if [[ -d "$f" ]]; then
        mv "$f" my-folders$i
        ((i=i+1))
    fi
done


High Sierra disk space issues Am I missing something with my hard drive space? I'm running macOS High Sierra 10.13.1 on my MacBook Pro and trying to clear some disk space to install something.

Disk info says I have 30 GB free out of 250 GB. When I analyse the disk, I'm hardly using any space at all.

Any ideas?

This seems to be a high Sierra Bug it is not even fixed in the latest software update which is 10.3.1 I guess. I have the latest version installed and ever tim it shows that system uses up 40GB even though I have 20GB worth of hoots it always shows 0KB. So I don't know how to fix this but hope that another software update fixes this.Try running df in terminal located in Applications>Utilities it should work because it works fine for me.


LG 5k display as docking station for multiple MacBooks Is it possible to connect an Apple mouse and keyboard to the LG UltraFine 5k display via Bluetooth, and then interchangeably connect separate MacBook Pro's to the display without have to reconnect the keyboard and mouse to them?

I have separate MacBook Pro's for personal and work, and I'm hoping the display itself can serve as a docking station. As soon as I connect the computer to the display via Thunderbolt, I'm hoping that the keyboard and mouse are automatically able to control the computer.

LG Display has no bluetooth

The LG UltraFine 5K Display has no bluetooth connectivity. Thus you cannot connect bluetooth peripherals to it.

Pairing the mouse/keyboard

You can connect an Apple Magic Mouse 2 and Apple Magic Keyboard to a MacBook via Bluetooth and/or using a Lightning cable.

You may need to buy a USB-A to USB-C adapter to connect them.

A possible solution

Both devices need to paired every time you want to use them with different computers/MacBooks. You can, however, leave the Lightning cables attached. If they are connected to a MacBook running macOS 10.12 or later they will pair instantly it. After that you may disconnect the cable or leave it attached (keyboard/trackpad only).

Connect the keyboard and mouse using the Lightning cable to a display with a USB-C Dock
Connect the display and your MacBook using a USB-C cable

If you choose to replace the Magic Mouse 2 with a Magic Trackpad you may leave the cables attached all the time.


Possible to set window to full size in Yosemite when pressing green button? In Yosemite when I press a window's green 'fullsize' button, it will be full size, but somehow differently from earlier way, I can not use change between windows shortcut, because window will claim the whole screen. Any idea how to use it earlier?

To have the previous behaviour use Option+Click.

Actually, pressing Option+Click on different things opens a whole lot of new possibilities.


Macbook's "Internal Memory Card Reader" uses 896ma/900ma doing nothing, is this normal? One a new mid-2014 macbook pro:

Internal Memory Card Reader:

  Product ID:   0x8406
  Vendor ID:    0x05ac  (Apple Inc.)
  Version:  8.20
  Serial Number:    000000000820
  Speed:    Up to 5 Gb/sec
  Manufacturer: Apple
  Location ID:  0x15400000 / 21
  Current Available (mA):   900
  Current Required (mA):    896
  Built-In: Yes

This is what System Report reports, there is no card in the reader, is this normal?

Current Required lists what is necessary to operate the device (the internal memory card reader) not what is being used.

This Apple Support article is about USB ports, but the information under Confirming power usage in System Profiler is directly applicable to your question. In this case the "port" over which power requirements are noted is where the internal card reader is connected to the motherboard, not the card reader itself.


Can I backup my Time Machine drive to the cloud and restore it to any other drive? I currently backup my Mac to a local Time Machine drive.

I'd like to start periodically backing up that drive to the cloud, using an as of yet unchosen solution.

Once it's backed up to the cloud, can I restore that Time Machine data to any other drive to restore my Mac?

Thanks

Given the rather tricky use of hard-linked directories, access control settings and other special filesystem features I doubt that you will find a cloud storage which supports all this.

Options you may want to consider:

copy the whole Time Machine drive into the cloud as an image (requires a lot of bandwidth at least for the initial copy)
use rsync to periodically copy your data to a remote (cloud) system

PS: Rsync is a Unix tool included in macOS used to synchronize directories between disks or servers which supports incremental updates and a lot of other nice things. See man rsync for details.


How do you disable Siri permanently on macOS Sierra (10.12.6)? I work in security as an intern, and I've been asked by my boss to look into disabling Siri on macOS Sierra. I noticed that there's no way to prevent users from re-enabling Siri even if it's disabled by an administrator.

I've tried using "csrutil disable" in Recovery Mode and editing Siri's .plist files, but it seems to have no effect. Is there any way to completely prevent any user from running Siri on macOS Sierra?

It is not my work but Rich T. has a great post on this at his blog:

https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2016/09/20/blocking-siri-on-macos-sierra/

You will need to deploy two separate configuration profiles, the relevant keys are below:

Domain: com.apple.assistant.support.plist

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
"http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Assistant Enabled</key>
    <false/>
</dict>
</plist>

and

Domain: com.apple.Siri.plist

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
"http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>StatusMenuVisible</key>
    <false/>
    <key>UserHasDeclinedEnable</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Depending on how you manage your macs, and how you want to deploy these profile settings they may need to be constructed differently.

As far as I know these two profiles are the only way to disable this.

Here is a link to the mobileconfig profiles for these settings. You can deploy them with any MDM:

https://github.com/rtrouton/profiles/tree/master/DisableSiri

Otherwise you will need to use defaults write:

defaults write com.apple.Siri StatusMenuVisible -bool false
defaults write com.apple.Siri UserHasDeclinedEnable -bool true
defaults write com.apple.assistant.support 'Assistant Enabled' 0

Once you make these changes you will need to clear the preference cache:

sudo killall -HUP cfprefsd

And then restart the WindowUI server:

sudo killall SystemUIServer

Hope this clarifies.


Mirroring iPhone 6s to MacBook Pro without Airplay I want to mirror a video-streaming app from my phone to my MacBook Pro (an app that unfortunately is not available for laptops, just iPhone and iPad). Airplay won't work for this. Need the USB port free on my computer to be able to use a projector in tandem with the phone/MacBook. I don't mind paying a few bucks for an additional app, but I need something clean and reliable that is relatively easy to set up for a relative computer illiterate like myself.

After doing a bit of searching, I came up with Mirroring Assist. Seems like a good app to use in your case.

It depends on Mirroring360 software installed on the Mac/PC (7 days trial, full-featured) or an Apple TV.


Is it possible to launch a Linux application running under Parallels from OS X? I am looking for a way to launch an individual application (e.g. Firefox) on my Ubuntu installation which is running under Parallels.  I am open to any method of launching such as a shortcut (like how Windows applications can be launched under Parallels), shell script, AppleScript, etc.

At this point in time I am just not sure this is even an option.

Here are some conceptual answers that would work, and potentially can be expanded to launching any app in any virtual machine space, although insecurely.

Method 1.  Drop boxes.
Each VM has a shared directory from the host machine.  This directory must be publically writeable.

A script on any machine can write a file to any of these directories.
Each VM monitors its directory, and when the file has been closed, it immediately executes it, and deletes the file.

This is incredibly insecure.  At minimum the execution program should be limited in what programs it can run.

Method 2.  Ssh.

In general the command is

ssh user@hostname -c "Command line and parameters in quotes"

This can be implemented MUCH more securely

Method 3.  Netcat.  Might be more valuable if you had a semi-continuous stream of commands from machine A to VM machine B.  The output of netcat on the client machine could be fed to bash.  This gets trick for getting the results back, as backgrounded shell commands will have overlapping results.  However if you were happy with command line results, then a simple ssh to the VM would be sufficient.

I expect other people to improve this answer, but it may give you things to start to tinker with.

I would have entered this as a comment and not an answer, but comments are too small.


MacBook Pro 2009, can't format/fresh install So, i'm in a (bit of) a pinch.

I was doing a format/fresh install of MacOS on my old 13-inch 2009 MacBook Pro going through OS X Utility and Reinstall OS X. Unfortunately when i do enter my Apple credentials for autentication i get a loathsome "This item is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later" error.

I've tried logging into iCloud as said in this thread https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6455578?tstart=0 but while i do log correctly i get the same error.

Please bear in mind that:

Maybe it was stupid of me, but since i though i wouldn't have any problem doing this i've already formatted my HD, and i should have done it anyway since i planned to wipe that drive. So i can't download an image of the OS from Apple Store and create a bootable drive.
I don't remember exactly which version of OSX i had on the machine since i wasn't using it regularly, but it was slightly outdated and could have been 10.9.
I still have the original install DVD for 10.6 but for whatever reason i am not able to boot from DVD holding C at boot.

Hope someone here can help me and thank you in advance for your time.

So, happy - more or less - ending. I contacted an authorised reseller and they made me a bootable USB. now i have a working machine but the situation still sucks, mostly the whole installer dvd thing. And the fact that you can't download an .iso from an official Apple source even if you legitimately purchased a Mac.


MacBook Pro 13 Mid 2010 Internet Recovery stuck I am trying to recover my MacBook Pro 13 Mid 2010 from the internet. After sometime it starts to show these two photos. I don't know what it means. None of the keys responds.

I restarted my system after waiting for 15 min. Is there anything I am supposed to do?

In the meantime problem is solved. I don't know what solved it. But I let it continue the 2nd time. After 30 min it ended up with an installation error, mentioning something about memory access problems. I restarted the whole thing again. Everything was the same, but this time it worked :). Now the next part, where it all started. Install Windows 7 on Boot Camp :).


How do I reset the software Mac OS X Update Server I somehow managed to mis-configure my Mac OS X update-server and would like to reset it, the problem is that there is no reset button to put the update-server into it's original inactivated state.

So does someone here know how to reset the update-server completely without leaving traces from the configurations which have been done before?

You should be able to control this from the Server Admin application. If it's not obvious from the UI or the help, add a comment here and I'll walk you through the UI steps.


Is there a way to disable minimising windows with the yellow button in OS X? Coming from the Windows world, I am used to minimising windows in OS X, then using Cmd-Tab to get back to the app to re-open them. However, this doesn't work on OS X, and the approach for re-opening them with Cmd-Tab once minimised is driving me slightly round the bend as I try to contort my fingers into place (plus, I typically forget to do this, then have to go round the Cmd-Tab loop again). Instead, I've taken to hiding windows with Cmd-H when I can, which does work when using Cmd-Tab to get them back again. Nevertheless, I don't always remember to use this, and sometimes minimise them instead.

Is there a way I can disable minimising windows entirely, ideally by removing or disabling the yellow minimise button from the window header (I don't use ⌘M)? Alternatively, can I convert the yellow button so it behaves like "hide" instead? Ideally I'd like to avoid paying money for an add-on, but if there's one that works, that may be an acceptable answer.

You can disable ⌘M by running this and reopening applications:

defaults write -g NSUserKeyEquivalents -dict-add Minimize '\0'

If the menu item was assigned to nil, pressing L would trigger it in some applications like Audacity.

If you remove Dock.app, the minimize buttons stop working. But it also disables full screen windows, Mission Control, the Notification Center sidebar, the application switcher, Launchpad, and Dashboard, and makes desktop backgrounds gray.

NuKit can change the zoom and close buttons, but I don't know any application for changing or disabling the minimize buttons. There is another question about it at Super User.

I didn't find any hidden preferences for it using strings or gdb.


Terminal window title rapidly changes when first opening When I open a fresh terminal window, the title at the top has this format:
[house icon][username]-[command]-[terminal size]

The command portion of the title initially says login, then it very quickly rotates through other commands like ps, awk, grep, cat, sed, dirname, then eventually resolves to bash. The title switching happens so fast that I can barely read the words. I'm on OSX 10.9.4 but I believe this used to happen on slightly older versions.

I checked out the history to see if it might be that, but it's not. It doesn't seem to affect anything besides possibly starting the terminal a second or two slower. Why does this happen and is there a way to fix it?

The commands shown in the title indicate that something is being run. This is likely to be in a sourced file such as…

~/.bash_profile
~/.profile
/etc/profile
~/.bash_login
~/.bashrc (although this is not sourced automatically)

Check the files that your shell is sourcing for the commands that are being run and comment them out or remove them if necessary.


Transfer an old version of an App from iPhone to iPhone I am using an old version of an App (update is available on App Store but I haven't updated it) and I want to install it on a second iPhone (same version, not the new one).

I am running the latest version of iOS 10. Is there a way to do it?

Thanks

If you connect your iPhone to your computer and install apps and all of your synching and such through iTunes, all of your iPhone apps will be stored in your iTunes media/ mobile applications folder. From there, all you need to do is find the app and copy it to the location of your new iPhone’s same media folder and you should see it available to install when you have your new iPhone connected through iTunes.


Is there a difference between launching an app from /Applications vs /System/Volumes/Data/Applications? I noticed that since updating to macOS 10.15, I get duplicate search results for some apps (due to the new read-only filesystem).

If we take Spotify as an example, is there any difference between launching either of:

/Applications/Spotify.app
/System/Volumes/Data/Applications/Spotify.app

or is the second option semantically equivalent to a symlink?

Clarification My question is not why there is a second folder, or why I get duplicate search results. My question is whether there is any difference in behaviour when looking at how apps from the two file locations are treated by the system (for example, does macOS impose additional restrictions on apps launched from /System/Volumes/Data?), or whether they can be treated as identical.

Treat them as identical. There is no functional difference in finder or another program opening either path to the same Application bundle. You have only one Spotify app despite it showing up at two distinct POSIX paths.

It is not a sym link but a hybrid combination of two filesystem links that is presented as the path /Applications on Catalina.

I would say the closest analog would be a hard link on OS prior to Catalina, but firm links are new to Catalina and are not the same as symbolic or hard links.

You’ve chosen the strangest folder in existence on Catalina since it’s a hybrid / illusion as named in the most superb technical discussion on this idea I’ve seen:

  The old folder containing main apps, which used to be /Applications, now contains a mixture of apps from two different folders, /System/Applications, which is on the System volume and contains Apple’s bundled apps, and the Applications folder on the Data volume, which would otherwise be found at /System/Volumes/Data/Applications. When you install your own apps, they automatically get placed in the latter folder, as it’s the one which you can write to. When you view the /Applications folder in the Finder, though, you are actually seeing the combined contents of both folders, an illusion which is created by the firmlink at /Applications and the Finder.

https://eclecticlight.co/2019/10/11/macos-catalina-boot-volume-layout-revised-for-10-15-release/

Apple technical documentation is also plentiful, but not as detailed or readable as the Eclectic Light blog post.

What's /System/Volumes/Data?


Recurring Volume damage + Time Machine issues This may take some explaining, so please bear with me.

Mac Pro 4,1/5,1 High Sierra 10.13.5
4 HDs & a boot SSD installed.

Related to Add Recovery Partition to APFS drive? & peripherally to Mac Pro with permanently mounted Time Machine. Local snaps any benefit?
At the point this started I had done nothing [I am aware of] to any of the drives. I was about to investigate switching off local snapshots but hadn't actually done anything.

Out of the blue, Time Machine starts to give errors every time a backup is started...

I ran Disk Utility across all the drives & volumes.
The boot drive, a Samsung 1TB 840 Evo SSD came up clean, but there were 57 snapshots stretching back a few weeks. [I spent some time trying to thin those, but in the end gave up.]

2 of the drives gave this error -

Volume [name] on disk3s2 has 0 bytes of trailing loader space and
it needs 134,217,728
Problems were found with the partition map which might prevent booting.

This was on 2 out of 3 almost identical Toshiba drives, all 3GB -
2x DT01ABA300 &
1x DT01ACA300
Both the ABA drives gave the same error including that very specific 134,217,728 bytes.
The ACA 3TB & another 4TB Toshiba came up clean.

Steps taken so far to solve this...

There was an entire episode of trying to 'fix' the snapshots on the boot drive which you can read about on MicroMat's forum but is now irrelevant, I think. The drive itself passed all tests.

I sacrificed the Time Machine drive [an ABA] to give me room to move data without losing it.
Boot drive clones were done using Carbon Copy Cloner.
The 3TB HDs were done using Paragon Hard Disk Manager, because it's supposed to handle Boot Camp partitions better.
I reformatted the SSD & the 2 erroring 3TB drives, in such a way that each set of volumes ended up on a different physical drive [this becomes very relevant.]
So, what was the 'clean' time machine drive became a multi-volume data drive instead & the 'dirty' drive became a clean Time Machine drive.

I also cloned the boot drive to HFS+, reformatted the SSD as APFS & cloned back - thinking this way I wouldn't be carrying any snapshot or container data.

Afterwards, all drives check clean.
This was the point at which I re-installed High Sierra over the top of the existing boot drive to regain a Recovery Partition. Re: Add Recovery Partition to APFS drive?

24 hours later...
Time Machine errors again.
It had completed the first full backup & presumably several incremental overnight. The boot drive shows 16 snapshots.
Two of my 3TB drives display the exact same error as before.

but this is the puzzling part.
The erroring 3TBs are not the same two drives as before... nor do they contain the same volumes as before. Previously, the two ABA's errored, containing Time Machine & '4 volumes' respectively.
Now one ABA & one ACA are erroring, the '4 volumes' are now on one ABA when they used to be on the other, but the ACA was never touched. Time Machine is now on one of the previously erroring ABA's but has no errors.

The boot SSD comes up clean.

I'm completely out of ideas.
Other than these obvious underlying errors, I'm not seeing the machine misbehave at all.
Please let me know what diskutil commands might be useful in diagnosing this, or any other steps I could take to triage.

Late edit:
I uninstalled BitDefender & Time Machine appears to be behaving again.
I'm still monitoring.
...& failed again 2 hours later :/

Not much of an answer, but I eventually solved both this issue & also Notification Centre - What happened to Calculator widget? by cloning the drive, reformatting to HFS+ & cloning back again.

No amount of messing with APFS would fix it.

Late Edit:
Some time later I now have two of the ABA/ACA & the odd one out, an HDWQ Toshiba drives giving the odd "Volume [name] on disk4s2 has 0 bytes of trailing loader space and it needs 134,217,728 bytes" error.
Always that precise number.

Late Late Edit:
All this trouble went away with Mojave [mainly]. I have found that periodically I need to run DiskWarrior over the Time Machine drive, if anything starts to play up, but only every 6 months or so.


El Capitan not grouping Mail duplicates In earlier Versions of Apple Mail if there are multiple mails of the same content, i.e. in Inbox and in Sent, Mail would show "1 duplicate" in the upper right. This seems to be gone in El Capitan Mail 9. Now there are multiple Mails with exact same content (Cmd-Shift-D) but sent to different addresses next to each other in the Sent folder. How can I set Mail back to show them as duplicates?

Here's the link to the discussion about it. https://discussions.apple.com/message/29070991#29070991

It has been modified to group only messages in that actual conversation and the feature we all loved is now gone.


What's the 'unique device identifier' (UDID) of a non-iOS device like a Macbook Pro running Mac OS X? I wanted to know if the Hardware Serial Number associated with a Macbook Pro is itself treated as a UDID, or is there something else that uniquely identifies the device?

I'll provide a little bit of context that's not completely required but might be useful for those wanting to understand my motivations behind the question, otherwise skip to the last paragraph.

  It's been 21 days since my Macbook Pro [mid-2010] running Mountain
  Lion was stolen. Despite having several software based
  tracking/geo-locating bugs installed on my Disk, it hasn't showed up
  on find my mac or any other service that would have sent me an IP
  if/when my device accessed the internet [assuming it wasn't wiped].
  That really leaves only two options, either my Macbook was never
  [inexplicably] used to access the internet since the theft, or it has
  been used to access the internet after my hard-disk was wiped. Since I
  had no firmware based tracking that would report to me, it seems clear
  that it's no longer inevitable that I shall get some information in
  the future from my device communicating with me directly.

Assuming the worst, either my hard-disk was wiped or completely replaced with a new one. There is one kind of information, that I am currently aware of, that is definitely still communicated to the Apple servers each time a connection is made to the internet. The helpd service or other apple system modules send anonymous information to swscan.apple.com etc. This anonymous information probably contains the device's hardware serial number along with other details like the OS version etc. Am I incorrect to assume this? Is this hardware serial number unique or unchangeable? I remember my entire chipsets being replaced and still having the same serial number. Where exactly physically, is this Serial? Would taking apart the Mac keep the Hardware serial? Or is there something else that Apple devices communicate to their servers to identify themselves?

I am wondering if this is how UDID is logged, then it's in a database somewhere and then I only need to contact the concerned authorities (law enforcement etc.) to obtain this non-personally identifying information and see if my hardware is still around or if it has been sold as metal scrap.

Thanks in advance. Stackexchange is the last place on the Internet that I still have faith in! I look forward to learning more. :)

Macbook Pro Mid-2010
OS X 10.8.2
Original Charger not stolen - [also, apple computers extremely rare so, finding a charger would be difficult]
Last IP connection from my computer made by me to Dropbox sync.

Addendum: Some additional info - I am not in, or from the western world, so non-technical advice about theft-recovery would probably fail to account for the dystopia I am embroiled in. Also, a gentle reminder to not make this a forum for highlighting/preaching good safety practices/appropriate pre-planning or post-theft response. Those stock responses and replies are available elsewhere and I'd hate to get off-topic advice/help. Please refrain from assuming things that I didn't mention explicitly. For example, don't blame the victim, don't assume I don't back-up etc.

Oh, I didn't do a firmware lock, because I didn't want the thief to break and throw away my hardware.

Cheers!

Go to  > About this computer > System Report... > And there you will find Hardware UUID


Remove everything from Mac and reinstall OS X Is it possible to delete everything from my Mac and then install OS X from a bootable USB? I don't why but somehow AudioAUUC extension was modified a few months ago and my sound isn't working since then. That's why I would like remove everything and install a fresh OS X.

You don't necessarily have to remove everything to repair OS X

Depending on OS X version you can just reboot holding the R key, to boot into the recovery partition. Alternatively you can hold alt/option to display current boot options and select your recovery partition.

Once in the recovery partition, you can use Disk Utility to erase your OS X partition if you want to wipe everything, or you can just select "Reinstall OS X" from the main menu. This will reinstall OS X system files and leave your home directory, settings, documents, etc alone. I'd recommend trying just the reinstall of OS X first, and if this doesn't work to fix your issue, proceed to erase your OS X partition and then reinstall OS X.


How to add automatic paragraph numbering in MS Word? I often "reverse outline" my work by printing out my file, numbering the paragraphs by hand, and then making an "outline" of my essay/piece which then will help me to conceptualize what I am doing - and how to rework it. Is there a way to automatically add numbers for paragraphs in Word so I don't have to do it by hand? I know that you can add automatic numbering for lines but I can't figure out how to do it for paragraphs.

Use the built-in Heading paragraph styles: apply these to your headings, and they will be numbered automatically.
If you do this you can also generate a table of contents (to use as your outline).


Is there a sane way to emulate the newer media key behavior completely on an Apple Extended Keyboard II? The operative word here being "completely".  I recently found a nearly flawless (cosmetically and functionally) AEKII (Alps, not Mitsumis) on eBay and won it for $30.  It's an awesome keyboard and it gives me fond memories of my typing classes in elementary school, but I hate the lack of modern media keys; I used them all the time on my wired Aluminum keyboard.

My current "hack" involves some custom AppleScripts (I've only implemented volume up/down) that I imported as Alfred Extensions and bound to some custom hotkeys, but this approach has some downsides:

No system feedback; the volume overlay and sound effect don't show up.  And I'm fairly noobish when it comes to AppleScripting so I have yet to figure out if it's possible to do this.
Because it's a script and not a true hardware interrupt, things like system load can lead to delays in responding to the key presses.
I can't hold down the key to affect a continuous increase or decrease.  I have to repeatedly hit the keys to repeatedly increment or decrement the volume value.

I'd imagine that there is a way to write an AppleScript that captures keypresses and I can use that to process a continuously depressed key, but I haven't found it worthwhile to spin a bunch of cycles trying to figure this out.

Are there any other AEKII users out there that have found a sane way to handle special functions from the keyboard?

You could try KeyRemap4MacBook:

or FunctionFlip:

If neither works, you could also try creating a private.xml in KeyRemap4MacBook:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
<item>
<name>Change F-keys</name>
<identifier>0A0FE074-9C9C-43DC-8AEB-6683C5CB3259</identifier>
<autogen>--KeyToKey-- KeyCode::F1, KeyCode::BRIGHTNESS_DOWN</autogen>
<autogen>--KeyToKey-- KeyCode::F2, KeyCode::BRIGHTNESS_UP</autogen>
<autogen>--KeyToKey-- KeyCode::F3, KeyCode::MISSION_CONTROL</autogen>
<autogen>--KeyToKey-- KeyCode::F4, KeyCode::LAUNCHPAD</autogen>
<autogen>--KeyToConsumer-- KeyCode::F5, ConsumerKeyCode::KEYBOARDLIGHT_LOW</autogen>
<autogen>--KeyToConsumer-- KeyCode::F6, ConsumerKeyCode::KEYBOARDLIGHT_HIGH</autogen>
<autogen>--KeyToConsumer-- KeyCode::F7, ConsumerKeyCode::MUSIC_PREV</autogen>
<autogen>--KeyToConsumer-- KeyCode::F8, ConsumerKeyCode::MUSIC_PLAY</autogen>
<autogen>--KeyToConsumer-- KeyCode::F9, ConsumerKeyCode::MUSIC_NEXT</autogen>
<autogen>--KeyToConsumer-- KeyCode::F10, ConsumerKeyCode::VOLUME_MUTE</autogen>
<autogen>--KeyToConsumer-- KeyCode::F11, ConsumerKeyCode::VOLUME_DOWN</autogen>
<autogen>--KeyToConsumer-- KeyCode::F12, ConsumerKeyCode::VOLUME_UP</autogen>
</item>
</root>

It might only work if you use the external keyboard with a laptop or have another keyboard connected. From ConsumerKeyCode ignored - Google Groups:

KeyRemap4MacBook requires at least one keyboard with functional keys (Volume Control, etc)
when you want to change keys to functional keys.
If possible, please connect the Apple keyboard to iMac.
If you don't have another keyboard,
please use Spark or Quicksilver or other apps to this purpose.


Are there any other iOS apps other than Mail which can send email? I have been trying to find an iOS app which will let me send email from various accounts without going through Mail.app.

I know about the comma trick but that is not what I am after.

I also do not want to setup multiple accounts in Mail.app (which is going to give me multiple Inboxes, even if they are empty).

The closest solution I have found is Ginbox but unfortunately it seems to be broken under recent versions of iOS, and even if it worked, it's not a great solution, since it requires loading each Gmail account separately when you want to send an email from a different account.)

(If it doesn't exist… free iOS app idea!)

The iOS version of Sparrow has just been released, and it contains this functionality. In the settings for email accounts you can set up aliases. You can also set up a custom signature and SMTP server for each alias:

When composing a message, by default it will be sent from your default alias. If you want to change this, tap the "From" in the top center and you will be able to select which alias you want this message to come from:

Sparrow is available in the App Store.


Merge e-mail addresses on iCloud I have made a mistake. I'm a developer and while testing iCloud I made an @me.com (let's call it dummy@me.com) account. Now I am setting up iCloud on all my devies and would like to use my original Apple ID which I use my Gmail for.
To use Notes and Mail in iCloud I need a @me.com mail and I would like to use the one I made earlier (dummy@me.com) but I am told this e-mail is already registered - that's true, it's mine. My original Apple ID has another @me.com e-mail attached to it (let's call it placeholder@me.com).

Does anyone know if there is a way to delete dummy@me.com and recreate it on my original Apple ID or attach it to my original Apple ID?

Despite some positive reports in September, it looks like you won't be able to merge Apple IDs.
You can, however, set up iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Mac or PC to use two different accounts for iCloud and purchases:

  iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch:

  When you first set up your iOS 5 device, enter the Apple ID you want
  to use with iCloud. If you skipped the setup assistant, sign in to
  Settings > iCloud and enter the Apple ID you’d like to use with
  iCloud. In Settings > Store, sign in with the Apple ID you want to use
  for store purchases (including iTunes in the Cloud and iTunes Match).
  You may need to sign out first to change the Apple ID.

  Mac:

  Enter the Apple ID you want to use for iCloud in Apple () menu >
  System Preferences > iCloud.  Enter the Apple ID you want to use for
  store purchases (including iTunes in the Cloud and iTunes Match) in
  iTunes > iTunes Store.

  PC:

  Enter the Apple ID you want to use for iCloud in Control Panel >
  Network > Internet > iCloud.  Enter the Apple ID you want to use for
  store purchases (including iTunes in the Cloud and iTunes Match) in
  iTunes > iTunes Store.

    Note: You can switch the Apple ID you use for
    store purchases at any time. However, you can only change the account
    you use for any iTunes in the Cloud features once every 90 days. See
    this article for more information.


How can I get notifications to show up on my Apple Watch again instead of my iPhone? For a few hours after I set up my Apple Watch, I saw iMessage and other notifications on my watch instead of my iPhone. At some point, however, the notifications started appearing only on my phone; the watch didn’t seem to catch them at all.

I understand that notifications will go to my phone if I’ve been using my phone recently, but I’m pretty sure I’ve exceeded that threshold. What can I poke or prod so that notifications start coming to my watch again? I’ve already tried restarting both devices and disabling and reenabling Bluetooth on my phone.

I restarted my iPhone to try to fix this. Then I took a look at the Messages settings for my iPhone in the Settings app. It turned out that Messages was logged in to the “old version” of my Apple ID—a couple of months ago I changed the email address of my Apple ID and Messages was still showing the old one. I logged out and back in, using the new email address this time, and now I’m getting iMessage notifications on my watch again.

Since these notifications were working initially, though, I’m guessing that the Apple ID mismatch was a red herring and that restarting was what fixed the problem.


What's the purpose of ~/Library/Containers? I wonder what's the purpose of ~/Library/Containers?

I know that under ~/Library/Preferences you can find user specific app  and system configuration plists. But I can also find them in ~/Library/Containers.

What kind of configuration is stored there?

~/Library/Containers contain the home directories of sandboxed apps.

Sandboxed apps are for example the apps you download from the Mac App Store. Sandboxing means that they are "isolated" from the rest of the system, so that a single app is not able to do unjust harm to other parts of the system.

Therefore sandboxed apps are normally not allowed to just write to any file system path they want. In order to support writing to standard paths without having to rewrite the apps, the system will create a Container folder that the sandboxed app can write into. The sandboxed app thinks it is writing into a system folder for preferences for example - but the system rewrites the path so that it ends up in the Container folder instead.

For example many apps wrote their data to ~/Library/Application Support/. A sandboxed app cannot do that - and the data is instead written beneath the ~/Library/Containers/ path for that app.


How do I share Processing apps with an expired signature? I made an application with Processing that I exported to a .app file. It works just fine on my computer. When I download my app from the Internet and try to open it, I get the following message:

  MyApp.app is damaged and can't be opened. You should move it to the trash.

As users on this site have noticed, many Apple certificates expired on 11/11/2015, making it impossible to run these applications if Gatekeeper is enabled. Processing seems to be signing with expired signatures as well. How do I remove these signatures?

An application in the form of a .app file is actually a folder containing lots of different files and folders that make up the resources of the application. To keep them all nice and tidy for Mac OS X, you can bundle them all together in a Disk Image .dmg file which can more easily be manipulated by non-Mac systems without getting the details messed up when brought back to the Mac.

Some quick directions copied from a reference listed later:

Make a folder with the files your DMG will contain.
Open Disk Utility (It's in /Applications/Utilities/)
Go to File > New > New Image from Folder (Cmd + Shift + N)
Choose the folder containing you files
Make sure "Compressed" is checked, then set where you want to save the created DMG

You can create the DMG file out of the .app file directly since the .app file is already a directory.

More detailed info about alternatives and command line directions are at https://stackoverflow.com/questions/367751/creating-a-dmg as well as http://blog.nngafook.com/2012/07/app-to-dmg/


Itunes Keeps deleting my podcasts I like to download podcasts to my ipod to listen to them at work or at the gym. However, after I have listened to them, once I sync my ipod with my computer, it deletes the podcasts that I have played from both my computer and my ipod, despite the fact i have the settings set to not delete them automatically after they have been played. I like to keep old podcasts of some shows (such as This American Life) because once they add the new episode to itunes, the old one is only accessible through purchase and I want to save them in case i want to listen to them again. Any idea what's going on?

I was having the same issue. For me I found a "refresh" button in the title of the podcast, then the episodes were visible again and I could right-click/highlight and select 'mark as unplayed' It seems to be working for me :)


Cycle though dropdown list using keyboard on Mac In many situations I'd be nice to select the next list item using a keyboard.

Say I want to select "Ava 614" from the image below. I'd be nice to just hit the down arrow (or combo keys) then space bar, or return/enter to select. But that doesn't work. Up arrow selects the last item of the list, and down arrow selects the first item of the list.

Is there a way to select the next item in a list using the keyboard?

There's a similar question, but still doesn't answer this specific question.

Side question: is there isn't a system global shortcut is there one for Adobe Premiere CC?

Looks to me that this is an Adobe-specific problem. In standard macOS dropdown menus, you can navigate to and select the item you want using only the keyboard.

Up/Down keys move the cursor on the dropdown, while space is how you select the item you want. You can navigate to/from the menu using Tab. Here's an example.

Bonus tip: you can also quickly navigate the selected menu by typing out what you want to select, for example in a select a state menu, you can click it, then type T-E-X to select Texas.


Can I put a dummy app in the App Store to install a GPL app? Apps licensed under the GNU GPL are not allowed in the App Store (Mac or iOS) because Apple's terms and the terms of the GPL are mutually incompatible.

Could this problem be bypassed by releasing a non-GPL dummy application which simply downloads and installs the GPL application? Would Apple accept such an application?

If necessary, the dummy app could be marketed as a "downloader" or "updater" for the GPL app.

This is not possible. Apps can't download other apps.

  2.5.2 Apps should be self-contained in their bundles, and may not read or write data outside the designated container area, nor may they download, install, or execute code, including other iOS, watchOS, macOS, or tvOS apps.

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#software-requirements


Sound from the speakers of my MBPro with Touch Bar degrading I have a 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch bar.

When I play loud music or watch a movie in which there's a noisy action scene for instance, the speakers' sound quality suddenly degrades. Sound continues to be played but as if there was no treble at all. The only "fix" I've found is to plug headphones, wait till the system output gets changed to the headphones, and plug them out again. This seems to reinit the built-in speakers to good, full-spectrum quality, but not for long — sound quickly degrades again under the same conditions.

Is there anything I can do about this?

UPDATE: almost 3 months later, multiple updates down the road and upgrade to high sierra, I am sad to report that the issue still persist. I will probably have to return to the apple store to RMA my macbook...

I'm sorry I would comment on your post instead posting an answer but new account requires me to have enough rep....

I have the exact same  issue with my macbook pro 2017 15" with touchbar.

I found that it happens only after going over around 85% volume. No matter which software provokes it.

Plugging and unplugging headphones work for me too. Also killing coreaudiod solves the issue but requires apps that were using the sound drivers to be restarted.

This is a real pain to manage.

I hope this is a software issue as it seems to have started right after Sierra was updated on July 27 2017.


iPad 1st generation, using as full screen browser (kiosk mode) I have an old 1st generation iPad, which I want to recycle as a family photo/info display. I plan to create a website with the required info and want to have the iPad to display just that site, refreshing periodically.

Now, in it's safari browser, it always displays the top navigation bar.

Is there some kind of full screen mode, I am not aware of?
Or is there a 3rd-Party app (Kiosk app or something), that I can actually
install and use on this old device today?

Yes, there's a possibility of full screen mode by adding the web site to the Home Screen.

You do that by opening the web site in the Safari browser. Then click the "arrow out of the box" icon just to left of the address line. In the menu that pops up, click "Add to Home Screen".

Now'll you see an icon on the home screen for the web site. Click that and it should open up in full screen!

If it opens up, but still showing the bar at the top, you might need to add the following meta tag to your web site's code:

<meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-capable" content="yes">


Parental Controls Always Allow does not work I have enabled Parental Controls on my son's MacBook Pro (OS X 10.8.1, Mountain Lion) and have restricted the applications his account can use. Everything works fine with the exception of Minecraft (of course the application most important to him). Minecraft is marked as an application that he's allowed to use in the parental control settings.

When I try to start Minecraft under his account, a message pops up saying that he's not allowed to run it, giving the following three options:

Always Allow
Allow One Time
Cancel

When clicking Allow One Time, I have to enter the admin account username and password and the game starts without problems. But when I click Always Allow, it asks for the admin account as well, but then pops up the same message again. I have verified that I'm using the right admin account username and password, but it's still refusing to run the game.

When I disable parental controls, everything works, but the moment I turn it on again, it fails, despite having Minecraft in the list of allowed applications for his account.

In the Console application, I can see the following weird error message whenever this happens:

com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[148]:
([0x0-0x11c11c].com.Mojang Specifications.Minecraft.Minecraft[1216])
Job failed to exec(3) for weird reason: 13

Has anybody else experienced this or knows how to fix this?

This gave me enough info to fix the Minecraft launcher.  The prior answer works, but has an ugly menu name, which my son would pester me about.  So instead, I fixed the Minecraft.app setup.

In a nutshell, in terminal:

cd /Applications/Minecraft/Contents/MacOS
mv JavaApplicationStub Minecraft
cat > JavaApplicationStub << EOF
#!/bin/sh

exec `dirname $0`/Minecraft "$@"
EOF
chmod +x ./JavaApplicationStub

Basically, it would appear that ParentalControls expects the application being run to match the name of the executable (which is not the case with the distributed app: It's Minecraft.app, and JavaApplicationStub), so by moving the executable to match the app name, it works.  I had to create a shell script to actually exec the executable because I got "Path not found" otherwise.

This seemed to work.

I only put this here because it worked for me.  If you do not understand the code block again, please keep in mind you might have to re-download the app (or make a copy first).


how to move iTunes files from external and internal drives to a single drive? I'm trying to merge two different iTunes libraries.  The bigger one (on an external HD) is the default library, so I am trying to open the smaller one (on the internal HD) to export it.  However, as the first step of this I need to option+click and hold down option while iTunes is loading.  It then prompts me to enter the location of the library to open, and I select the location of the smaller directory.  However as soon as iTunes comes up it appears no different than when the default, larger library is loaded.  When I go to preferences it still says the location is the location of the larger library!

What am I doing wrong?

Update: I tried renaming the external library so iTunes couldn't find it, but it still showed up! When I tried exporting to see what would happen, I got a mixture of both internal and external paths in the resulting XML file.  I tried doing the same thing when not trying to open a different library and got the same result.  So it looks like somehow iTunes has files in both places, but I need to move everything into a single location (internally), so how can I do this?

To clarify, I have two iTunes folders, one on an external HD and one on the internal HD, and it appears that when I open iTunes it knows about both folders.  I only want one folder (on the internal drive) so that, for instance, if I disconnect the external HD things don't get confused or messed up.

Turns out that somehow the internal iTunes got imported into the external one without changing the location of the files.  So I went to:

File > Library > Organize Library > Consolidate Files

which caused it to move the files into the external drive library.


Spotlight doesn't work anymore in OS X Mountain Lion I can't get Spotlight to search for any documents.

When I search the Finder for documents, nothing happens and the Spotlight search through the menu bar only shows up web searches.

Firsts, make sure you have enough free disk space. How much is enough? Well, if you have 10% of the drive free, it should do.

Open Terminal and execute the following commands one after another:

sudo mdutil -i off /
sudo mdutil -E /
sudo mdutil -i on /

Now Spotline should start indexing your drive. This may take hours but you should get search back after it ends.

Before or after you do that, you can check Spotlight status in Terminal using:

sudo mdutil -sv /


Macbook Pro Retina 13 (late 2012) SSD replacement, putting in a SATA 2.5' SSD drive? Macbook Pro Retina 13 (late 2012) SSD replacement, putting in a SATA 2.5' drive?

Before you jump in and say no it can't be done please read the below information to see it can be done.

The late 2012 Retina is a mixed breed laptop, the old generation used SATA drives and you could upgrade yours to a SATA SDD, while the new generation macbook use a "stick like ssd" that connects directly to PCI-Express.

Now, the late 2012 Retina is a hybrid between those, it still uses SATA but the connector looks like mini-SATA and similar to PCI-Express but the pinouts are mixed around.

If one could find an adaptor from the main board connector to SATA and get the pinouts connected right it would be possible to connect a SATA SSD, there is even enough room under the trackpad.

Photos of the SSD tray: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Retina+Display+Late+2012+SSD+Tray+Replacement/12822

I'll post pictures of the pinouts later.

Has anyone found an adapter like this?

Just managed to upgrade my Late 2012 Retina Macbook Pro using a Samsung mSATA 512GB SSD and an 7+17 pin adapter like this one:

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/New-Lightweight-mSATA-to-17-Plus-7-Pin-SSD-Adapter-for-MacBook-Pro-Retina-OS/32429243180.html?spm=2114.01020208.3.2.huLuZr&ws_ab_test=201556_2,201527_1_71_72_73_74_75,201409_2

WORKS!

PS. Use "sudo trimforce enable" in the Terminal, to get trim and full speed.

PS1. Newer Retina Macbook Pros use the 18+8 pin adapter like this one (don't know if they fit, late-2012 Retinas have a lot of room unlike the newer models):
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/New-Lightweight-mSATA-to-18-Plus-8-Pin-SSD-Adapter-for-MacBook-Pro-Retina-F-OS/32420956007.html?spm=2114.01020208.3.2.hligL2&ws_ab_test=201556_2,201527_1_71_72_73_74_75,201409_2


What is the difference between HFS path and alias path? This was brought up in a comment from another question/answer and I was curious what is the difference between an HFS path and an alias path. My understanding they were the same.

I believe that there's been some confusion, both in the current understanding of the OP, and reinforced by the answer given by oa-, which has offered an opinion, but not one that is supported by any of the links provided (the answer has since been deleted).

It's clear we all understand what an HFS path is in the broad sense, that is a path that separates its folders using a colon delimiter,  e.g.Macintosh HD:Users:CK:Desktop:.  Similarly, we all understand that there is another format, called a posix path, that uses a slash as directory delimiters, e.g. /Users/CK/Desktop/.

However, the confusion I'm seeing is in the use of the term alias (in an AppleScript context), and how this does or does not relate to HFS paths.

Object Specifiers in AppleScript

AppleScript uses object specifiers to distinguish different object types from one another.  For example, the folder object specifier tells Finder that "Macintosh HD:Users:CK:Desktop:" denotes a folder object on the filesystem, and not simply a string that has no context by itself:

tell application "Finder" to reveal the folder "Macintosh HD:Users:CK:Desktop:"

versus

tell application "Finder" to reveal "Macintosh HD:Users:CK:Desktop:"

the former illustrating the use of the folder object specifier to correctly form a reference to an AppleScript object, while the latter asking Finder to take a string object and reveal it (which, of course, throws an error, because the command makes no sense).

An alias is a type of object specifier just like folder, and it is used to construct an AppleScript object that references a file or folder on the filesystem by supplying it with a name specifier, which evaluates to the path of the item on the filesystem:

  "You can create alias objects and file objects by supplying a name specifier, where the name is the path to an item in the file system."
  AppleScript Language Guide - Specifying Paths

"Alias path"

Note that the term "alias path" does not officially exist in an AppleScript context, and it is one that has arisen out of convenience, but actually refers to an alias object rather than a path.

What is true is that the path supplied as a name specifier for an alias object must be an HFS path, and for this reason, AppleScripters often refer an "alias path" as shorthand for the alias object's name specifier.  It is a colloquial term that works in one direction only, which is when referring to an HFS path whilst wrapped inside an alias construct.  It does not, however, infer that any HFS path must also be a so-called "alias path", which makes no sense without the accompanying alias specifier, in exactly the same way it makes no sense to Finder without a folder specifier.

Paths

In a general computing context, a path is defined by Wikipedia as:

  "A path, the general form of the name of a file or directory, specifies a unique location in a file system. A path points to a file system location by following the directory tree hierarchy expressed in a string of characters in which path components, separated by a delimiting character, represent each directory."
  Wikipedia - Path (computing)

A computer-science definition for path usually generalises this slightly to specify a path as any sequence or list of symbols and names that tell an operating system how to locate a file, to which the path leads.ref: 1 2 3

In either case, the nature of a path is, as Wikipedia states, expressed almost always as a string of characters.

Simply put, a path is a string, and in the AppleScript context, this is always the case.

More Than Semantics

This can all be dismissed as mere semantics to a casual reader, until situations arise, such as the one that originally spurred the OP to post this question.  Quoting from an answer to another question here:

path to desktop folder

  would return an HFS path

which, of course, it doesn't, because it returns an alias object, not a path.

This, however:

(path to desktop folder) as text

does return a path, because the alias object has been coerced to text, and the type of path it returns is an HFS path.

Therefore, whilst the alias object returned by the first example is sometimes referred to as an "alias path", taking into account its nature as an alias object; to infer that the second example must also be an "alias path" is incorrect, as it now lacks the alias object specifier.

alias Objects

Simply, an AppleScript alias object is:

  "An alias object dynamically points to an existing item in the file system."
  Mac Automation Scripting Guide - Referencing Files and Folders - Alias Objects

And, notably:

  "An alias object is displayed as a colon-delimited path preceded by an alias specifier."
  Mac Automation Scripting Guide - Referencing Files and Folders - Alias Objects

which explicitly defines the two components that make up an alias object's definition, being the colon-delimited (HFS) path (i.e. the name specifier, which is a string), paired with the alias object specifier.

What this does is construct an AppleScript object that is much more than just a simple path, and serves as a construct to house lots of different properties of the filesystem item it references, one of which, of course, includes the path to the item.

These properties can be enumerated by both Finder and System Events like so:

tell application "System Events" to get the properties of (path to desktop folder)

and, in System Events, we can see the alias object has two properties of note, one being the path property, which returns the HFS path in text format; and the other being POSIX path property, which returns the posix path in text format.

Conclusion (or TL;DR)

"Alias path" is a vernacular that, in an AppleScript  context, can refer to the path of a filesystem item to which an alias object references, but can also refer to the alias object itself.  Therefore, despite what the name implies, an "alias path" is not necessarily, itself, a path;
A path is a string that contains directions through a directory structure to a file item on the filesystem;
An alias object is, itself, not a path, but does contain path information, and it stores and displays this in HFS format;
An "alias path" will, indeed, be an HFS path (or contain path information as such); an HFS path, however, is not an "alias path".
It's best to avoid using confusing/conflicting terminology, especially in answers on Stack Overflow that are to be read by newcomers to AppleScript or scripting in general.  "Alias path" is one of these, as it is not an officially recognised AppleScript term, and clearly has proven to cause confusion.  Therefore, refer instead to "alias objects" and "paths" as distinct entities, the latter of which can be an "HFS path" or a "posix path" in string format that pairs with an object specifier to create an AppleScript file reference object.


iTunes doesn't recognize iPhone's remote app A bit of info about my configuration

OS X: Mavericks
iOS: 7.1.1
Hardware: iPhone 5s and BacBook Pro (Late 2013)
They are both on same Wifi network.

Problem

iTunes doesn't recognize iPhone's remote app in any way.

What I tried

Reinstalled OS X
Reinstalled Remote app on iPhone
Reinstalled iOS
Resetted Wifi router (There is no problem with router. It worked with same configuration about half year ago)
Tried with and without home sharing
Deauthorized and reauthorized iTunes
Signed out of Apple account and signed in on iTunes
Turned off OS X Firewall
Reset iTunes configuration
Tried to switch WiFi signal channel

Neither iTunes nor iPhone doesn't recognize each other. Any suggestions?

To answer your question. I have the same configuration as you.

OS: Mavericks
iOS: 7.1.1.
Hardware: iPhone 5s and MBP Late 2013
They are both in same wifi network.

This is what I did:

I selected "Create Network" from the wireless icon in the menu bar. I did not specify a password. I was able to use the iPhone Remote app without failure. Since then, I've reconfigured it with a password and it also works without error.


Mount Android Phone on Desktop Is there a way to mount my Android phone on my Mac Air desktop in order to transfer files like images and music?

Use Android File Transfer, created by Google itself, and it gives you a Finder window to at least transfer files via USB connection. I noticed, however, that you have to use the Samsung cable they provide to power the phone, and not some cheap knockoff USB cable.

It would be nice to have a way for the icon to mount on the desktop via a Bluetooth connection -- but that's just not possible yet.

There is also the free Handshaker application in the Apple Store that is more full-featured and intuitive than Google's Android File Transfer. So far, it's looking like my best option and I don't see quirks except that I had to enable Android Developer Mode and then turn on USB Debugging on, as well as uninstall Android File Exchange because it conflicts with it.


Is there a keyboard shortcut to select the printer in Mac printer dialog boxes? I want to jump to the printer selector with the keyboard and select the desired printer with the keyboard.

Add a new shortcut to System Prefences > Keyboard > Shortcut > App Shortcuts.

Choose an existing printer name (in my example Lexa - a Lexmark printer, a Kyocera is my default printer) and enter a shortcut:

To print with this (obviously non-default) printer enter cmdP, and once the Print dialog displays, enter altcmdP to switch to the other printer:

To print with your default printer just use the common cmdP.


Itunes File Conversion So I bought bourne legacy a while ago, and now I am trying to put it on my 4th gen iPod. When I do so, it says that it doesn't work. However when I try to convert the file through iTunes, it has all of the converting options disabled.

Assuming there is no DRM (copy protection) on the file probably one of the best conversion tools and the one I use is called Handbrake:

http://handbrake.fr/

This joy will trans-code almost any video file format to almost any other video file format. It is free, easy to use and should solve your problem.

Just reveal your movie file in the Finder (so you know WHERE it is) and point handbrake to that file. Then just select the output device you want and Bob's Your Uncle!


How to see what programs are using keyboard Is there a way to find which program uses the keyboard to input stuff?

Why I am asking this question is because my laptop (MacBook Pro) keeps inputting 0 key, my lap works fine after 5 mins from login and this happens all the time, I tried to run a command that disables the keypad but, it doesn't solve the problem, so I concluded that this was a virus, so please help me on this.

Sorry for wasting your time it was a keyboard problem


Keynote - need individual letter graphics that can be moved/manipulated to create words on slide I teach kids who failed to learn to read in school, online. I am making a series of presentations for very simple words like "is," etc.

I need to have some large alphabetic letters at the top of the screen that I can make bounce, slide down into place, and so on. I think they would be called graphics, but I don't know what phrase to use to search for on the web to locate some sets in various fonts. I found individual letter .jpgs/pics, but they all seem to have too much space on the sides to put them close enough for words.

I tried making my own by taking screenshots of each letter, but lots of them keep having a thin grey line show up on the pic. No clue how to stop the thin grey lines, but I know they'd interfere with my struggling kids' learning.,

I'm a graphics nincompoop, and know nothing. Any ideas or suggestions would be infinitely appreciated.

Could you not just use text objects in Keynote to do what you want? Create a text object with the letter A, resize and colour it etc, create another text object with B, etc.


Scrolling PDF documents in Safari is too sensitive? In Safari, I use two finger dragging with my trackpad (on a MacBook) to scroll through websites. I've noticed that whenever I try viewing a PDF document, (i.e. the URL in the address bar ends with .pdf) the scrolling sensitivity is very different than the normal Safari scrolling sensitivity. It scrolls way too fast (i.e. it's too sensitive).

My guess is that it's a problem with the Adobe Reader plugin which doesn't implement scrolling using the same algorithm as Safari's. Is there any way to fix this? What about using a different plugin for PDF documents besides Adobe Reader?

Safari can open PDFs using Preview without the need for Adobe Reader to be installed. In my experience, Preview in Safari is faster and smoother than Adobe's Reader plug-in.

See this question for how to disable the Adobe plug-in.


How can I force an iTunes Connect password reset? We've got an account at work that was setup by someone else in the past.  It controls our apps in the app store.  We'd like to make some changes, but do not know the password.  I've tried the "Forgot your Apple ID/password" thing, but am not getting anywhere.  "security questions" mode asks us things we don't know and the email authentication doesn't work (as in, we never receive the reset request at the account's e-mail address).  I've confirmed that e-mail method reset requests make it to our domain fine by doing it on my own account.  It just doesn't seem to work for this particular very important account (which I get forwarded to me, and have tested fine from other domains).

Is it possible that the Apple ID e-mail address is different from the one that the reset requests are going to?  If so, what's the procedure to get that fixed?  Is there a specific department at Apple I should contact?

Since you have shipping apps in the store, you will be able to call developer relations and begin the process to get things reset.

https://developer.apple.com/contact/ and https://developer.apple.com/contact/phone.php

Even consumer Apple ID have the ability to set a separate email address for emails about resetting the security questions and emailing administrative changes, so the account in question might very well be set up in that manner.

While you are on the line, you can ask about setting up multiple accounts for your business so that several people are listed to do certain tasks for you.


Any idea what happened to /Library/Receipts in Mac OS X Lion? Does anyone know why all the .bom files in /Library/Receipts moved to /var/db/receipts?

first, /var/db on unix is the location for stuff like that.
second, it's much easier to type as it is in lower case.

so, not so unreasonable decision by apple's engineers.


Configure emacs to cut and copy text to Mac OS X clipboard Can I configure emacs, so that I could copy/cut text from emacs (default Terminal version) and paste it somewhere else (into X Window program)?

Add this to ~/.emacs:

(defun pbcopy ()
  (interactive)
  (call-process-region (point) (mark) "pbcopy")
  (setq deactivate-mark t))

(defun pbpaste ()
  (interactive)
  (call-process-region (point) (if mark-active (mark) (point)) "pbpaste" t t))

(defun pbcut ()
  (interactive)
  (pbcopy)
  (delete-region (region-beginning) (region-end)))

(global-set-key (kbd "C-c c") 'pbcopy)
(global-set-key (kbd "C-c v") 'pbpaste)
(global-set-key (kbd "C-c x") 'pbcut)

If you use Emacs in iTerm 2, you can also remap key combinations in the preferences:

Then add something like this to ~/.emacs:

(global-set-key (kbd "<f13> c") 'pbcopy)
(global-set-key (kbd "<f13> v") 'pbpaste)
(global-set-key (kbd "<f13> x") 'pbcut)


Macbook Pro on but display is blank Was using the MacBook Pro a few days ago without any issues. Shut the lid in the middle of working, went to a coffee shop, and upon opening it back up the display was blank even though the computer was on. All typical manner of restarting it, recovery mode, power in, etc. changed nothing. External monitor in the HDMI port, also nothing.

Eventually, I realized that the display was on but extremely faint (could barely make out some lines). I was able to log in, close the alert box that said my Mac had turned off unexpectedly, and launched the terminal. After that day I've never been able to make anything out of the display since.

I was able to turn on remote screen sharing via the terminal and connect via my other computer over the network. This let me do some further troubleshooting.

Plugging in an external monitor via HDMI, or ThunderBolt2->HDMI adapter and then HDMI do nothing, do not register another display or in the System Report it says nothing is plugged into the Thunderbolt port
The display was listed as "Built-in Display, 23-inch, 1280x1024, Intel HD Graphics 4000" in About this Mac. In the display menu in the top right it refers to it as "Connected Projector: Built-In Display". In System Report it's "1280 x 1024 (SXGA - Super eXtended Graphics Array)" and listed as Main Display: Yes
After swapping out HDMI cables into a couple different monitors and different ports to cover all use cases, it eventually referred to the display correctly, as a 15.4" Retina Display. It still didn't work, though, and after rebooting it went back to the erroneous label.
Casting the display over Air Play does work
The only issue I noticed prior to this is the fan was a little "choppy" (it would still get louder/quieter as normal with more work... but it sounded choppy like it was dirty though compressed air didn't resolve it).

Does this point to any issue in particular? I've had the display fail on an old MacBook in the past, but an external display didn't have any problems. I've been quoted a logic board replacement but I'm worried about spending ~$800 on a laptop that might be worth ~$1200 new and then run into other problems in the future.

I realized that the display was on but extremely faint (could barely make out some lines).

It’s your video mux and your back light.
This is a telltale symptom that your back light is out. However, you have additional symptoms, that compound this problem.
The LED back light is exactly what it sounds like - it's the light behind the LCD that makes what’s on it visible.  It could be the light itself, the fuse, or any of the electronic circuity that handles it.
Now, the video mux (multiplexer) is a chip that handles the “switching” of the video signal between the internal and external displays and where applicable the integrated and discrete video adapters.
This may be a coincidence or it could be some common components that have failed.  Either way, this is not a DIY fix - it’s something you’ll have to take it in for service.


Time Machine keeps notifying me that it deleted old backups because it was full I already disabled the feature to notify me when old backups are deleted, yet it's still notifying me. (I've had this checkbox disabled for years.)

I've been using my Mac for a long time, and since upgrading to macOS High Sierra, whenever Time Machine deletes old backups, it notifies me. Every time the notification comes up, I checkmark "Do not show this warning again.", and hit OK, yet the warning appears again eventually.

I've already tried resetting Time Machine, and running First Aid on the Time Machine partition.

It might just be a setting in your Notification Center. Go to "Notifications" in System Preferences and see if Time Machine (and that option) are listed and if they are, just adjust the settings there and that should do it. Hope that works.


Does opening Apple News for the first time re-enable location-based ads? After upgrading to Mojave, I checked around the settings for new features and saw that location-based apple ads (Security & Privacy -> Location Services -> System Services Details) was unticked (I'd unticked it some time ago in a previous version of the OS). Later I opened the new News app to see what it contained, and noticed that the welcome banner said it would use location based ads unless opted out, but I didn't think much of it since I'd already opted out.

Today I checked that setting again and noticed it had become ticked. After unticking it and opening Apple News, it doesn't seem to have been re-ticked again. Is this something it only does the first time News is opened, or have I misidentified the culprit?

Yes.

When you first launch Apple News, there is some small text by the continue button that says:

  Your location is sent to Apple to provide you with geopgrahically relevant ads in Apple News and Stocks. You can change this in System Preferences.

If you previously had location based Apple ads unticked it will become ticked.


Homebrew git reporting older version I have just upgraded git. It's now a symlink to the Cellared most recent version.

$ ls -l `which git`
/usr/local/bin/git -> ../Cellar/git/2.14.1/bin/git

However

$git --version
git version 2.11.0 (Apple Git-81)

Do I have two different versions installed at once? How can I clean up the remnants of the Apple Git-81 version?

In ~/.bash_profile you should amend PATH to prefer binaries supplied by homebrew. You can do this with the line:

export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH

After changing .bash_profile you will need to open a new Terminal.app window to see the change take place. Alternatively, you can source ~/.bash_profile to load in the profile into the current session.