How do I disable Bonjour visibility after Yosemite install? Since upgrading to Yosemite (from Mavericks) my MacBook Pro (Retina mid-2014) advertises itself on Bonjour (with "whats-my-name"). It was not visible in this way prior to Yosemite, and I have no sharing features enabled on my Mac.

How do I hide it again or turn off the "whats-my-name" service?

There is no more com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist in OS X 10.10.  The service that controls mDNSResponder is now discoverd. The plist file you are looking for is actually:

/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.discoveryd.plist

You want to add --no-multicast to the ProgramArguments in that file.

    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
            <string>/usr/libexec/discoveryd</string>
            <string>--udsocket</string>
            <string>standard</string>
            <string>--loglevel</string>
            <string>Basic</string>
            <string>--logclass</string>
            <string>Everything</string>
            <string>--logto</string>
            <string>asl</string>
    </array>

Becomes

    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
            <string>/usr/libexec/discoveryd</string>
            <string>--udsocket</string>
            <string>standard</string>
            <string>--loglevel</string>
            <string>Basic</string>
            <string>--logclass</string>
            <string>Everything</string>
            <string>--logto</string>
            <string>asl</string>
            <string>--no-multicast</string>
    </array>

You'll want to be very careful when editing that file. You can also use this script to do it for you - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MacMiniVault/Mac-Scripts/master/disablebonjour/disablebonjour.sh


Macbook Pro OSX 10.11.2 random freezing and spinning beachball - possible chrome My Macbook Pro has been freezing a lot lately during normal computer operation. I get the spinning beach ball and i can't click on anything (although the mouse moves just fine).

I know this question has been asked a few different ways in the past. Let's assume that I've run a system diagnostic and everything is fine, and that I prefer not to blow away my OS and I that I would like to avoid re-installing the OS.

Since I'm not sure which program is causing the lock, where would I begin troubleshooting? The console logs are somewhat meaningless unless I know what to look for. Are there any specific things that occur during a lock -- or rather following a hard restart? The only thing I could come up with is "BOOT TIME".

My initial thought was that this was being caused by Chrome -- or something within Chrome since it was most active. I quickly checked the logs for BOOT TIME and I found a ton of these:

 1/13/16 2:42:06.000 AM kernel[0]: Google Chrome He[529] triggered unnest of      range 0x7fff8a200000->0x7fff8a400000 of DYLD shared region in VM map 0xc0151441ee6bac9d. While not abnormal for debuggers, this increases system memory footprint until the target exits.

Any thoughts?

Thanks all.

The bible for troubleshooting software is:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201516

You might want to jump to making a new user account and seeing if you can reproduce the hang there. If it's a pure incompatibility with google chrome your version and OS X your version, you should be able to replicate it in short order.

Also, keep some sort of log with:

what you change, when you do it, what you're trying to do
when you notice the hangs - date/time to the second if possible

After about 20 or 30 events, you'll start having enough data for a second person to look over things with you and help isolate things.

If you want to collect log files for each hang - you can use sudo sysdiagnose from terminal or use Activity Monitor to diagnose whatever app isn't responding or just use the key shortcut: Shift-Control-Option-Command-Period to trigger the collection. It might take 5 minutes, but that lets you take actionable data to Apple or Google if you can show a repeated hang. It also leaves diagnostic files on the drive so you can review the times with your paper list if needed.

Sorry for the general answer, but this procedure has helped me countless times both as the initial troubleshooter and the "helper" that comes in once some data is recorded.


Aliases in Alfred: Keyword -> Open a specific folder in finder I would like to define aliases (keywords) in Alfred so that by typing keyboard followed by RET, it opens a pre-specified folder in Finder.

For example: p1 could be an alias for "project_1" that lives under:

/Users/josh/code/projects/project_1

so when I open Alfred and type p1, Alfred opens the above path directly in Finder.

Is this possible with Alfred? How?

Yes, you can. There are many ways to achieve the result you want. The easiest method is to create a workflow that contains all the aliases (keywords) that open folders/files in Finder. You must use Alfred 2 for this to work.

Open Alfred Preferences and choose Workflows tab.
Create a new workflow by choosing the plus sign in sidebar. You can name the
workflow as Custom Paths/Searces.
Select the active workflow and select the plus sign at top right. Choose Inputs > Keywords as your trigger. Fill in the keyword you want to use for as aliases. You’ll see one node is created in the workflow main panel.

Create a new node from Actions > Launch Apps / Files. Drag the folders you wish to launch from Finder into the list.

You can create set of folders if you wish. But by far this is the one I prefer because it offers more flexibility than using scripts like Open ~/Desktop via Terminal.


How to automatically trigger a iOS Shortcut (based on location/calendar) I've done a lot of research and it looks like the only way to run Apple iOS shortcuts is manually - i.e. you have to manually do the trigger - either by pressing a button, getting Siri to do it (by 'manually asking') or by (manually) getting another app to run it. I've yet to be able to get another app to run it automatically (yes, I'm sure this is to do with security/privacy implications, but if it's based on a shortcut that's only on my phone, then I'm happy with the security/privacy).

I've looked at getting IFTTT to run the trigger (which it can do - for example, based on my location, or based on the start of an event in my Google Calendar), however the 'most' I can then do is to get that trigger to run an IFTTT Rich Notification on my iPhone - yes I can then click on that notification pop-up (which launches a shortcut via shortcuts://open-shortcut?name=[name]), but that still relies on me clicking the shortcut.

A couple of people have run iOS shortcuts as the trigger for an IFTTT action, but I'm trying to do this the other way around.

So what I'd like to be able to do is this:

run an iOS shortcut when I leave a location
run it with no manual intervention

Unfortunately this is not possible (yet). It's a known limitation of Shortcuts in its current 2.0 implementation.

Federico Viticci mentioned this in his (epic) iOS 12 review as something he'd like to see in the future:

https://www.macstories.net/stories/ios-12-the-macstories-review/12/#content


Calendar stopped working properly on iPhone. How can I fix it? The calendar in my iPhone does not allow me to input new events.  It was working fine, and I did nothing different to the Phone.  When I try to input a new event, it won't 'stick'.
Here's what I know:

I can add an event directly into iCloud, and it will show up on iCal on my computer and in my iPhone.
I can add event on my computer in iCal and it will show up on my iPhone, but not in my iCloud calendar.
I try to add an event into the calendar on iPhone, and nothing shows up anywhere.

OSX 10.7.5
iPhone 7.0.4

You may be inadvertently saving the event to the wrong calendar. Often email accounts, such as Gmail automatically enable a calendar when being set up. If the event shows up only on your iPhone, and nowhere else, chances are your default calendar is set to something that you are not used to checking.

When you create an event, scroll down to where you can see the menu item "Calendar". Tap that, and choose one of your iCloud calendars. If the event then shows up on iCloud, and your computer, you have chosen the correct calendar.

If this is case, you will probably want to change your default calendar by opening your Settings.app, scrolling down and selecting "Mail, Contacts, and Calendar". At the bottom of this screen is a section titled "Calendars". Change the "Default Calendar" to reflect the one that worked correctly.


Dictionary application needs to download dictionary "Apple Dictionary" before use I'm repeatedly being asked to download the "Apple Dictionary" when I open the dictionary application.

  Dictionary application needs to download dictionary "Apple Dictionary" before use.

This doesn't happen every time I open it. I haven't pinned down specific usage cases where this message appears, but I think it may be every time after I reboot my computer.

Is there anyway for the Dictionary application to remember that I have "Apple Dictionary" permanently? This has only started happening after I upgraded from OS X Mountain Lion to macOS Sierra.

The Apple Support article “How to free up storage space on your Mac” mentions:

  Other ways that macOS helps automatically save space

  macOS Sierra and later automatically takes these additional steps to save storage space:

  Detects duplicate downloads in Safari, keeping only the most recent version of the download
  Reminds you to delete used app installers
  Removes old fonts, languages, and dictionaries that aren't being used
  Clears caches, logs, and other unnecessary data when storage space is needed

While the article says “dictionaries that aren't being used”, I have the impression even recently used dictionaries get deleted if free drive space gets low.

I find this “feature” terribly annoying, as I’ve already found myself unable to consult Dictionary.app a few times while offline, but I’m not aware of any way to turn it off.


Printing one Pages-page twice on a physical paper? I wrote a short text that would be suitable to print on A5 but I only have A4 in my printer. I need ten physical copies of this text, that is five A4 with it printed twice.
Is it possible to print the same page twice on one physical paper? And then repeat that five times?
Please note that I don't want/need to print on both sides of a physical paper.
I found some instructions to setup facing pages here https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/pages/tan026e4c95a/mac but that is not what I want (at least it didn't seem to work the way I wanted/expected).
My current workaround is to create two pages in Pages with identical content and then print two Pages pages on one physical paper (not printing double sided) but this is annoying when I want to update the content and print it again.

While I don't use Pages.app the macOS print dialog box is pretty standard and that option is to be found in most apps.
In Safari (below) when you go to print, you get this when you select "Layout" from the pop-up menu halfway down the dialog:

You merely need to select 2 pages per sheet and will print a single page "two up" as they say. Note that if you have a two (or 3 or 4...) page document it will print page 1 and 2 on the first sheet of paper.


How do you position your hand to use the command key? What finger do you use? Sorry in advance about what seems like a trivial question.  However, I've recently switched from PC to Mac, and while I'm really happy about the switch, this is one of the few issues I'm struggling with.

On a PC, the most important shortcuts are CTRL-A (select all), CTRL-C (copy), and CTRL-V (paste). Almost all the other important shortcuts also use the CTRL key.

On the PC keyboard, the CTRL key is in the bottom left corner of the keyboard. So, it's very easy to hold it with your pinky, while keeping your hand in its normal position, so you can easily press the other key required for the shortcut (e.g., A, C, V, etc).

On a Mac, the "equivalent" key to CTRL is Command. However, I can't easily reach that key with any finger - especially without moving my hand from its normal position - so, I can't easily press Command-C or Command-V without really focusing on it.

Is this just a result of years of practicing on a PC? What finger do Mac users use to click the command key when executing a shortcut?

You can use either thumb to hold down a ⌘ key and then use another finger to access the other key. You just have to get used to sliding either thumb a little to the left or to the right of the space bar.

Yes, this is just a result of years of using a PC.


Email Space usage too much Why does my iPad 2 version 7.1.2 show mail usage 1.4 GB when I have only four emails in all boxes? I have erased all mail from my computer mailboxes also...

Please check:

If you start the Mail.app, you get a list of Shortcuts (in the upper
left corner)
Below that you should see a list of your accounts. If
you click on one of your accounts, you get a list of all your
Folders/Mailboxes (i hope i translated it correctly).
Check if the Trash-Folder is empty or if there are still Mails marked for
deletion.
Repeat that for all your Mailaccounts and check other Folders like the  'Draft'-Folder too.

Alternative Option: If you have all Mail-Account Credentials, delete all Accounts and re-create them. Perhaps that will change the Usage. Please check before re-creating them.


Corsair GS 180 slowdown in Macbook Pro over a year's time I installed a Corsair GS 180 SSD (revision 5.020000) in my Macbook Pro, around this time last year. (July 2012.) I ran the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test application, and ended up with:

Write: 219.0 MB/s
Read: 436.0 MB/s

But, a year later, the drive speed has decreased significantly:

Write: 107.8 MB/s
Read: 182.2 MB/s

Is there anything I can do to determine what caused the slowdown, or how to combat/reverse it?

I have the TrimEnabler app, but disabled it. Enabling it has not seemed to help!

How long did you have TrimEnabler running?  It will only help over time, when through deleting files the SSD knows that the file clusters are no longer needed.

You can try to enable it, create a very large file (that takes up a significant chunk of your free space) and then delete it.

cd /tmp
mkfile 10240m 10Gigfile
rm 10Gigfile


Using MDM alternative after apples MDM block How can I create an app that can track location, regulate screen time by blocking access without using MD? What are some alternate ways of doing this after Apple has blocked the use of MDM  feature.

There are no alternate ways. Apple has not blocked the use of MDM, you can use that still. However, you must abide by the terms and conditions of using MDM. For example you use it to control your own devices - not to control the devices of others.


How will the cellular feature of the Apple Watch Series 3 work? If a user goes outside with the Apple Watch Series 3 and keeps their iPhone at home, how will the calling feature work?

The Apple Watch Series 3 GPS + Cellular has LTE built-in. Here are the bands supported by the USA version:

  LTE
  2 (1900 MHz)
  4 (AWS)
  5 (850 MHz)
  12 (700 MHz)
  13 (700c MHz)
  17 (700b MHz)
  18 (800 MHz)
  19 (800 MHz)
  25 (1900 MHz)
  26 (800 MHz)
  41 (TD 2500)

  UMTS
  800 MHz
  850 MHz
  1700 MHz
  1900 MHz

SOURCE

That same page also lists the bands for other countries.


Why does my iPhone create contacts with a random photo? I have a strange issue on my iPhone 4 running 4.3.2, the device is jailbroken.

When I add a new contact, the contacts application seems to assign a random photo to newly created contacts. My phone syncs with mobile me so this is replicated across all my devices.

I create a new contact
I click done.
I view the contact and it has a random picture assigned to it.

Does anyone know what causes this?

Have you tried wiping the device and starting with this - it's usually corruption in the address book database - even on devices that haven't been jailbroken. You might have luck just starting new with that before a total restore.


Devanagari text not shown in 2007 ipod Classic 160 gb I have a 2007 iPod Classic (160 gb). I added songs from my pc (using iTunes) to my iPod. The songs have id3 tags and lyrics. But when I play the songs on my iPod and try to see the lyrics only English lyrics are shown. When I try to see lyrics of Hindi songs the Devanagari text is not shown and the lyrics page is blank. The same is true for the song titles. The Hindi lyrics can be seen under the song info in iTunes. Is there a software or app which can be added to the iPod to allow it to show Devanagari text?
Thanks,

There’s no way to do what you want as far as I know.  The iPod classic never supported Hindi or any other complex script, and there is no way to add anything. See the tech specs
https://support.apple.com/kb/sp572?locale=en_US


URLs getting truncated in QuarkXpress running on macOS Mojave I've just noticed a problem with QuarkXPress that may or may not be related to macOS Mojave.

Sometimes when I add a new hyperlink or edit an existing one, the full URL path is being truncated and this breaks the link.

Has anyone else experiencing the same? If yes, did they manage to fix it?

Until recently this was actually a known problem in QuarkXPress (and I may add still is for a lot of other software that deals with URLs). Basically, the issue is that the maximum character length of the URL field in the New/Edit
Hyperlink box is 250 characters and, as a result, longer links were truncated. This issue is unrelated to macOS.

However, this issue was resolved when QuarkXpress 2018 was released in May 2018. I believe the issue still exists in QXP 2017 and earlier and, if so, you’d have to upgrade to QXP 2018.

If in fact you’re using QXP 2018, your best bet would be to check for any updates (you can do this via the Quark Update preference pane in Apple > System Preferences). If you’re using QuarkXpress 2018 Pro (the version sold on the Mac App Store), then you’ll need to check via the App Store for any updates.

However, my understanding is that this issue was resolved with release 14.0 (which was the first public release of QXP 2018 in May). See QuarkXPress 2018 Known and Resolved Issues.

If the issue still persists you’d be best to contact Quark Technical Support and/or visit their online forums.


Sleep timeout missing from the energy saver preferences I have two Macbook Pros running on Yosemite. The first one is a 17 incher from 4 years ago. I'm able to set the time that it sleeps. The second one is a 15 incher retina made this year. In its energy saver section, I don't see a way to set the sleep time. It only shows the display time. How do I make both slider controls show up on this new Macbook Pro?

Deliberately Removed

Apple have removed the Computer slider from the Energy Saver settings. This is deliberate.

The decision is related to Apple's introduction of improved hardware, Power Nap support, and the engineers' belief that OS X is best placed to manage the computer's power state.

If you would like to see this slider return, provide feedback to Apple.

Downloads and Other Long Running Tasks

OS X will stay awake during most long running tasks.

The behaviour will depend on the software downloading the file. Safari and Transmission, for example, both ask OS X to stay awake while a download is ongoing.

Applications need to lodge power assertions with OS X that explicitly stop the computer sleeping. You can see these assertions using the following pmset command:

pmset -g assertions

For older software, you can add this behaviour using the built-in command line tool caffeinate.

Third Party Alternatives

Third party tools exist to supplement the Energy Saver settings. I created Power Manager and it can put your Mac to sleep after inactivity.

Other tools exist and you could probably create a script to also recreate this behaviour.


Outlook 2011 Keyboard Shortcut for going to Inbox Is there a keyboard shortcut in Outlook for Mac 2011 that allows me to jump back to the main Inbox folder? Under my Inbox, I have a long list of folders that spans more than a full screen. If I'm at one of the folders close to the bottom of the list, let's say Sent Items and want to quickly go back to the Inbox folder, I have to use the mouse to scroll up in the folder list and then click on Inbox.

Is there a way to go there faster? I remember there being a shortcut for this on Windows if I'm not mistaken.

I wrote a little AppleScript to do this. If you copy it to your "~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/Outlook Script Menu Items" folder you can assign a shortcut key to it using System Preferences/Keyboard.

Works like a charm.

The script is:

on run {}
    tell application "Microsoft Outlook"
        set selected folder to inbox
    end tell
end run


What is the easy way to get my wireless access point IP in OS Catalina In the older versions of OSX it was possible to get your wireless AP IP address by pressing the option key and clicking the networking button on the top bar, they seem to of removed the AP IP from the displayed info since. What is the new on-the-fly method in the new OS Catalina?

There are two options:

Click on topbar WIFI Icon -> Open Network Preferences and you can see IP Address below Status.
Open terminal and put: ifconfig | grep "inet "


How to control playback speed of iTunes U lectures in Mac OS? I try to learn swift and opened iTunes U lectures in iTunes on Mac. I wonder how can i change playback speed? It is easy on iPad, but i have no idea how to do this while playing videos in iTunes on Mac

It is currently not possible in iTunes. I highly recommend you to give feedback about this feature to Apple.

However there is a workaround:

Download VLC

  VLC is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and
  framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVD, Audio CD,
  VCD, and various streaming protocols.

Right click on the file in iTunes and choose "Show in Finder"
Open the file shown in Finder with VLC
In the menu "Playback" you can find the "Playback Speed" settings.


Remote Desktop Connection for Mac not being able to connect? I have the latest version of Remote Desktop Connection client form Mac (2.1.1), the one that is also included in Office 2011 but I am not able to connect to the Windows machine.

I checked the logs on the Windows machine and found nothing.

It keeps asking me for user/password/domain... and I am entering them properly.

FYI, the computer is on domain.

Solved the problem by leaving the domain, joining it back and rebooting the machine (Windows).


How to force quit and restart a service every hour? The Underlying Problem
This is rather specific to my machine but basically, because of how my Mac, dock, & keyboard are connected, my keyboard software (Corsair iCUE) will occasionally freeze/hang until I go into activity manager and force quit it.
It happens once every day or 2 and the specific cause is not known, but it has never happened within a few hours of me restarting the service.
As a result, none of my macros, media keys, custom scripts, lighting effects, etc. work while iCue is frozen.
The Desired Workaround
Given how specific this issue is to my setup and that iCUE is in beta for Mac, I don't expect Corsair to fix it anytime soon.
Also, given that this issue never happens when I have recently restarted the service, my ideal workaround would be to simply force-restart it every hour or so. (It's a lightweight service, so restarting should be near-instant)
My Question: How can I force quit and then restart a service every hour?
Please let me know if I can provide any additional information to help!

In Terminal, ps -ef to identify a search string for the process you want to kill.
Then the script can find it by
ICPID=$(ps -ef | grep "searchstring" | awk '{print $2}') # find the PID

kill -9 $ICPID                                           # kill it

<full path to executable>                                # restart it

The 9 is the signal to send to the process.  From the man page:
Some of the more commonly used signals:
 1       HUP (hang up)
 2       INT (interrupt)
 3       QUIT (quit)
 6       ABRT (abort)
 9       KILL (non-catchable, non-ignorable kill)
 14      ALRM (alarm clock)
 15      TERM (software termination signal)


iTunes sometimes doesn't recognize connected device When I plug in my iPad or iPhone (USB), iTunes frequently recognizes its presence.  BUT, nearly as frequently, it doesn't seem to notice the device at all.  Un-plugging and re-plugging does no good.  The only thing that seems to help is quitting and then re-starting iTunes -- which I seem to need to do more and more often any more.

iPhoto, BTW, seems to always recognize that a new device is present.

Ideas?

Apple has two articles to cover this - one for iTunes on Windows OS and the other for iTunes on Mac OS:

https://support.apple.com/HT204095#PC - iPhone, iPad, or iPod not recognized in iTunes for Windows PC
https://support.apple.com/HT204095#Mac - iPhone, iPad, or iPod not recognized in iTunes for Mac

Both start with If your iPhone, iPad or iPod won't connect to iTunes on your PC, try the steps below. Just follow the guide for your OS and consider asking a follow-on question if you get stuck with a specific step. Be sure to list the versions of OS and iTunes in that post as those details will help us help you.


How can I get an expired AA battery out of a wireless keyboard? I've just had an Apple Wireless Keyboard returned to me.

The thing is, it appears the batteries have expires and gone all...crusty. I can take the end off and pull the first battery out, but the other one is pretty firmly stuck in. I've tried scraping a lot of the gunk off with a long, thin object, but I've got nowhere. I've also tried banging it a few times to loosen the battery up, to no luck.

Can I crack this thing open and get the battery out, or do I face an interesting visit to an Apple store?

this happened to me.  i had to use a curved pick to pierce the battery and pull it out.
but it wasn't so simple because not only was the battery swollen, but it was also chemically bonded after the alkali leak. i did eventually get it to work again, it did require some sanding and grinding after.

good luck


What app has this blue penguin in the Social category? Could someone identify what the app with the blue penguin is?


can't select an external editor in photo 11 advanced preferences on a 1mac with OSX 9.3 I can't select an external editor in iPhoto 11's advanced preferences, the drop down menu box just shows either iPhoto or DSCF0586. DSCF0586 is of course a photo number, and takes me to the desktop if chosen. The menu box should show "in application" not DSCF0586.

So how do I remove DSCF0586 and get "in application" back so I can choose PSE11 as my external editor?

iPhoto '11: Advanced preferences

  In the Edit Photos pop-up menu (described above), you can make photos
  open in edit view in another application (such as Adobe Photoshop).

  If you choose to edit photos in another application, selecting “Use
  RAW when using external editor” opens the RAW file—not the JPEG or
  TIFF copy iPhoto made when it imported the photo. Important:   If you
  select this option and then edit a RAW photo outside of iPhoto, you’ll
  need to reimport the edited photo into your iPhoto library; with this
  option selected, iPhoto doesn’t automatically save the edited copy in
  your iPhoto library.

  Even if you don’t select this option, you can always export the
  original RAW photo from iPhoto and open it using the editing
  application of your choice.

Selecting the IN application (in your case the DSCF0586) will open new window. Select the appropriate application. Your DSCF0586 will be overwritten.


How to clean install Windows 8 Pro *Upgrade* on BootCamp already running Windows 7? Now that Windows 8 is officially supported in the latest BootCamp, I am considering this for my Mac.

There is plenty of general advice about installing Windows 8 / Windows 8 Pro in BootCamp on a Mac.

However, what I do not see is how to clean install a Windows 8 Pro upgrade on a mac with an existing BootCamp Windows 7 install. Clean install is an option offered in the upgrade install process for general PCs - but can this work on BootCamp?

Why do I want to install Windows 8 Pro upgrade ?

Because it's much cheaper than the regular version (though it is still a full OS install) and I am eligible in that I already have a legal licensed copy of one of the pre-requisite operating systems to qualify - I have Windows 7 64bit installed in bootcamp on my mac. In other words Microsoft offer Windows 8 cheaper if you have a legal copy of an earlier qualifying OS.

What do I mean by Windows 8 Pro clean install?

I also have a desktop PC which used to run Windows 7. I clean installed the Windows 8 Pro upgrade on this successfully. Although Windows 8 Pro upgrade is a full OS installation, during the install process, it will check the hard disk for the presence of a valid, licensed eligible OS already installed - in my case Windows 7. BUT, once its done that, it offers the option to format the disk on which it is to be installed. Obviously I would have backed up any valuable files, deactivated any applications and uninstalled them -ready to reinstall and reactivate them on the new OS later.  A fresh start. I prefer the clean install approach as to me this is the optimal deployment; no baggage/kruft/residue/ditritus/call it what you will from a prior OS. I also hear anecdotally from friends that an "in-place" upgrade whereby Windows 8 retains personal files and apps during install has proved unreliable for them.

So can anyone advise me about clean installing Windows 8 Pro upgrade on Bootcamp that already had Windows 7 installed?

(By the way, I would not want comments or discussion about why I should have Windows/Windows 8 on my Mac. Not useful to me. I work in computing and prefer to keep a balanced informed opinion of what is out there to help me and others. Thanks!)

It should be possible to do the clean install of a Windows 8 Pro upgrade on an existing installation of an earlier qualifying OS as these steps for Windows 7 suggest:

http://www.tuaw.com/2009/11/02/an-illustrated-guide-to-boot-camp-and-windows-7/

In this guide above, search for string: "Theoretically, you're doing a fresh installation of Windows 7. In that case, select the "Custom (advanced)" installation"

(remove just the outermost quotes when searching for the string in the guide.)

In summary, after the Mac BootCamp app has done its original setup (including the partitioning), the rest of the setup is as per usual Windows installation - all the Windows steps are shown. In the event of the usual ReBoots, be sure to select the Windows drive to continue the installation.

During the install, once the Windows 8 upgrade installer has found the previous qualifying OS on the disc, it can then offer the format disc as the clean installation option.


Mac OS is reporting bad free space I have a MacBook Pro since 2014 and I haven't had any problem in these months. But today I realized that the free space info that gives Mac is wrong. I add two captures, one from the hard disk info, and the second from the 'About this Mac' window.

As you can see, I have set my Mac to Spanish language; hope you have no problem to understand it ;)
Also, in the second capture, it says there are about 312 GB of apps, when there is no such amount of apps in my laptop. Even more, if you add 312 + the free space Mac says there is (about 350 GB), it results more than 500GB!

Why is happening this? Is there a bad update from Mac that is causing this?

Thank you for your replies!

The Storage tab of About This Mac is based on Spotlight, so try reindexing the HD:

HT201716 - Spotlight: How to re-index folders or volumes


How do I limit calendar notifications to certain calendars? In Calendar, I have a number of "iCloud" calendars that I share with my wife.  ("Family", "Me", "Her", etc.) so we can see when we're both free/busy.

While I do want to see her whole schedule on my calender, I don't necessarily want a pop-up notification every time she has a surgery. (I'm not a bad husband; she's a surgeon.)

Is there some way to set different notification settings for individual calendars within a calendar account (in this case, iCloud)?

In Calendar.app, you can right-click on any calendar, and choose Get Info. From here you can select Ignore Alerts


Make iMac file structure more like windows I am a web developer that works for a company and I am looking to make my Mac feel more like windows. I am having trouble navigating the file system, I am colorblind and the files are all blue and small (I am most sensitive to blue when it comes to not seeing right).

How can I customize my Mac for increased visibility and increased font sizes?

If you are referring to the color of the folders in OSX, unfortunately Apple thinks they should be blue. You can use different views to make them nearly any size you like, especially if you choose the icon view.

However, if you want to change the color of the folders, I recommend an app called Folder Magic, that allows you to change the folders to any color you wish:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/folder-magic/id647731944?mt=12


Some way to launch/display Notification Center from Quicksilver/Launchbar/Alfred? Pick your favorite launcher (Quicksilver, LaunchBar, etc.)… My current choice is QS, but I'm ok with methods for another launcher. Is there a method to launch/call the notification center from one of these applications?

I know there is a way to set a global hotkey, but another global key is the last thing I need… my current ones are already causing conflicts with one or two apps, and I'll never remember another one. Is there a way to index whatever script or system action is triggered by the two-finger swipe from the edge of the screen?

Here is what you want:

tell application "System Events"
    tell process "Notification Center"
        click menu bar item 1 of menu bar 1
    end tell
end tell

Then, just save the script, then just add it to quicksilver's triggers.


Tile scenes side by side in Windows 7 as virtual machine I am using Windows 7 as virtual machine under Mac OS...

The keyboard shortcuts of Windows become difficult because of the Mac keyboard...

For instance, I am used to tiling scenes in Windows by Windows icon key + right arrow or Windows icon key + left arrow, which moves the scene to the right half of the window or the left half...

However, I can't find Windows icon key now on the Mac keyboard...

So, could anyone tell me what is the keyboard shortcut to move scenes in Windows 7 as virtual machine?

For VMWare the command key acts as the windows key, so command+right and command+left will do what you want.

If this isn't working, you might not have the VMWare guest tools installed on the virtual machine.  There are instructions here:

http://www.vmware.com/support/ws5/doc/new_guest_tools_ws.html


Tab key not working properly in dialogue boxes in macOS I change the setting ‘Full Keyboard Access’ (the Keyboard settings in the ‘Keyboard Shortcuts’ tab) from ‘Text Boxes and Lists Only’ to ‘All controls’. Now, I am able to press Tab to moving focus, as illustrated below.

When I hit Enter, pop up a window, instead close the window.

My desired action: hit Enter → move to ‘Don't Save’ → Enter → Close the window.

Hitting Return will activate the default command (the blue button). Pressing the space bar will activate the selected command (blue ring around it).


How can I delete a picture from my Photos app on iPad? So far I can only delete pictures from iPhoto.

How can I delete a picture from my Photos app on iPad?

Open the "Photos" view and press the Sharing button:

You can then select one or more photos and delete them:


How to stop AppleScript application content files from appearing in "Recents" folders? I'm a big fan of AppleScript and am currently utilising it for a range of different tasks on my computer. However, one thing I have noticed is that after I have created an Application in AppleScript, many of the content files including the main.scpt and the applet.icns files begin appearing in my "Recents" folder in Finder. This can be rather annoying as it quickly clogs up my recents folder especially if I have been working on a number of different apps.

My question is: how do I make sure that only the application itself can be viewed in the recents folder and not some of its content files as well. If so, how would I do this? Is it possible to do when creating the application itself?

The following answer will add a .metadata_never_index file inside the Application folder. This will prevent indexing by Spotlight of the folder hopefully preventing it from appearing in Recents.

Here's the script. Save it to /Library/Scripts/Folder Actions Scripts/:

on adding folder items to theFolder after receiving theNewItems
    --  Called after items have been added to a folder
    --
    --  theFolder is a reference to the modified folder
    --  theNewItems is a list of references to the items added to the folder
    repeat with myItem in theNewItems
        tell application "Finder"
            if myItem's name extension is "app" then -- make sure its an app
                set myPath to the POSIX path of myItem
                do shell script "touch " & quoted form of (myPath & ".metadata_never_index")
            end if
        end tell
    end repeat

end adding folder items to

Navigate to the folder where you save your Apple Scripts
Right click on that folder and select Services>Folder Actions Setup

Select the script that saved and click Attach
Make sure Enable Folder Actions is checked in the upper left
Test.
Celebrate!


MacBook Pro screen dimming problems after EFI 2.3 update I recently updated my MacBook Pro to the latest firmware: EFI 2.3. Since then when my screen dims from idleness (while plugged in), it takes at least 5-10 seconds to come back on after I touch the trackpad, keyboard, or mouse. Everything worked fine before the EFI update.

Has anyone else encountered this problem? If so, are there any solutions?

This is what I did and it worked for me:

  1.Shut down the computer.

  2.Plug in the MagSafe power adapter to a power source, connecting it to the Mac if >its not already connected.

  3.On the built-in keyboard, press the (left side) Shift-Control-Option keys and the power button at the same time.

  4.Release all the keys and the power button at the same time.

  5.Press the power button to turn on the computer.

  Note: The LED on the MagSafe power adapter may change states or temporarily turn off when you reset the SMC.


A failed update that resulted in an unmounted disk0s2 During a strange glitch update yesterday I ended up with a circle with a diagonal dash in it .

I had backed up though .

I have restarted with command/r
Now I have attempted to install the a new os version in the many ways available , but my disk is missing ( not visible )

When I go to reinstall osx mavericks , there is current osx disk available

When in time machine restore , there is also no disk available

Now I am in disk utility
I can see a disc0s2 . Which is listed as not mounted !

I'm not sure what to do

Help please ?

You should download the app Mountain.  This app places an icon in your menu bar. When opened it lists all volumes on your machine and you can mount or umount them. The app can be downloaded for free but you may have to pay for extended use - $6 I believe. I am in no way affiliated with Mountain, just a happy, long time owner.


Keyboard shortcuts with Dvorak keymapping In the Dvorak key layout, Spotlight's shortcut masks the Undo shortcut, and I couldn't fix the problem by changing or disabling shortcut associations. Any advice?

You could try using "Dvorak - Qwerty ⌘" instead of straight Dvorak.  It uses the Dvorak layout for regular typing, but keeps the Cmd shortcuts the same as what's printed on your keyboard.


Some sites not blocked, /etc/hosts macOS layman here,
I'm trying to block websites natively with mixed results through Terminal using sudo nano /etc/hosts
My syntax is
127.0.0.1 www.website.org
::1 www.website.org

I've tried various iterations, with space, with tab, but there's a pesky little website that I can't manage to block.
eg. I've blocked lichess.org but haven't managed yet to block 4chan.org. I've searched the web but I didn't get any wiser. I don't understand how I can block one site with exactly the same syntax but I can't block another.
macOS Big Sur Version 11.2.3 (20D91) / Safari Version 14.0.3
Ideally I would like to do this on the back end without using Screen Time or Parental Control. Any help is appreciated.
EDIT:
127.0.0.1       www.4chan.org
127.0.0.1       4chan.org
127.0.0.1       https://www.4chan.org
127.0.0.1       https://4chan.org

127.0.0.1       https://boards.4channel.org
127.0.0.1       https://boards.4chan.org

::1             www.4chan.org
::1             4chan.org
::1             https://www.4chan.org
::1             https://4chan.org

::1             https://boards.4channel.org
::1             https://boards.4chan.org

The hosts that are not being blocked successfully are probably already in your DNS cache.
Try clearing the cache using:
sudo dscacheutil -flushcache; sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder

if you are on Big Sur (looks like you are), or:
sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder

if you are running Catalina, Mojave, High Sierra, or Sierra.
You may also need to clear the browser cache.  For Safari, go to Safari -> Preferences -> Advanced and turn on "Show Develop menu in menu bar".  Next, in the Develop menu, chose "Empty Caches"


Activate passcode lock after 30 mins of inactivity? I have a jailbroken iPhone 4S. The current time options for a passcode lock are:

Immediately
After 1, 5, or 15 minutes
After 1 or 4 hours

However I would prefer using 30 mins or 45 mins, something in between. Is there a Cydia app that allows me to modify this?

EDIT

Still cannot find a feature, anyone knows any possible solution ?

There is a jailbreak tweak called PassTime which lets you set custom time option for activating passcode lock.

PassTime is available for $0.99 under the BigBoss repo on Cydia.


Transferring notes into a particular folder I added a new folder in Notes but I don't know how to transfer new or existing notes into the folder.

Tap Edit, select the notes you wish to move to a folder, choose Move To… and pick the destination.


How do I find out which file(s) an app is trying to read at launch? The other day MultiMarkdown Composer started crashing on launch, and I can’t get it to stop. (The app appears in the dock and then immediately crashes again.)

I have tried:

Deleting the app and reinstalling it
Deleted files and folders:

~/Library/Preferences/com.multimarkdown.composer.mac.*
~/Library/Application Support/MultiMarkdown Composer/
~/Library/Caches/com.multimarkdown.composer.mac/

open -F -a 'MultiMarkdown Composer'

-F  Opens the application "fresh," that is, without restoring windows. Saved persistent state is lost, except for Untitled documents.

Trying to app in a separate user account works, so it has to be something related to my user account, but I can’t figure out what.

The developer looked at the crash logs and they indicate that it’s trying to read a file when it starts up, but the logs don’t show which file.

So I am trying to find out what files/folders are being accessed when the app is being launched, thinking that might lead to a solution.

What tools are available to do that, and how should I use them?

I tried sudo fs_usage -w -f pathname -f filesys but that didn’t appear to show anything useful.

Any other ideas?

(This is on Mac OS X 10.8.5)

Try using opensnoop:

sudo opensnoop

(You can also use -n to specify the process name, but it doesn't work with arguments that contain spaces by default. To fix it, replace "'$pname'" with "'"$pname"'" in /usr/bin/opensnoop.)

You could also try to delete files in ~/Library/Containers/ or ~/Library/Saved Application State/.


Does disabling Background App Refresh disable Push notifications? I just got my iPhone, and before I make any default changes, I just wanted to make sure it doesn't do that.

No, it does not. This is a separate service and daemon on the device.


How do I hook a new Mac Book Pro Retina up to dual DisplayPort monitors? I have two DisplayPort monitors.  These are regular DisplayPort monitors, not mini-Display Port, not made by Apple and not made specifically for Mac.

I would like to buy a new Mac Book Pro Retina.  How can I hook it up to my dual DisplayPorts? What type of adapters do I need?

And, if I can't do that, how can I hook it up to a single DisplayPOrt?

From EveryMac…

  This model supports a simultaneous maximum resolution up to 2560x1600 on two external displays via Thunderbolt. Alternately, it can support a single display up to 2560x1600 via Thunderbolt and a single 1080p display at up to 60 Hz, 3840x2160 at 30 Hz, or 4096x2160 at 24 Hz via HDMI.

If you have 2 Thunderbolt ports, you can use 2 miniDP to Display Port cables, one from each port, just as though the ports were miniDP as they are backwardly-compatible.

See Thunderbolt ports and displays: Frequently asked questions (FAQ)


New iTunes gives error: iTunes cannot verify the identity of the server "safebrowsing.clients.google.com" I can browse to https://safebrowsing.clients.google.com/ but it just redirects me to Google's home page.

iTunes 12.5.5.5, Windows 8.1

I saw this same error on multiple occasions in iTunes 12.5.5.5 on Windows 10 when I tried to sync my iPhone.

I just upgraded to iTunes 12.6, and I no longer see that error.


Is it 'ok' to delete zsh's *.asl logs? I do a lot of work in the terminal. Sometimes, after a week or two, start up gets a bit slow (I'm talking about an extra second or two, not the end of the world but it's slower).

I did some Googling that suggested clearing the logs in /private/var/log/asl/*.asl ought to speed things up, and it did.

Is it a problem if I added a little command that just cleared those logs when I exited terminal?

If you want to control the amount of data that zsh stores in its history files the look at the zsh user guide section 2.5.4 and set HISTSIZE and SAVEHIST

As for the .asl logs they are written to be any application, they are the database of Apple's logging mechanism. zsh will not read or even know of these files unless you run command to look at them. Thus I do not see how their size would affect zsh's startup time.

However doing some googling (it helps to show in the question what you have found) It appears that there might be an issue with the login command (which is not zsh but used by the mechanism to start shells). See this thread for some comments - starting from your idea of deleting all .asl files to what seems a more reasonable explanation. login without the -q flag  seems to do an ASL query for last login and that causes a slowdown. The suggestion given there and elsewhere is

  The correct way to bypass the ASL query is to set Terminal to open shells with /bin/bash (or your shell of choice) instead of the default login shell. Terminal will still use /usr/bin/login to launch the shell, but it passes the -q switch to prevent the ASL query.

Note that deleting the .asl files removes all information logged by applications and so doing this removes all chance of seeing what happened on your machine. I think that losing this data is not worth saving a few seconds on startup of terminal, just leave terminal open or try the fix suggested.


Is there a shorcut for the 'plus' symbol on every mac window On every window, there are 3 buttons colored red, yellow, and green. When you hover over the green, it becomes a plus sign. I want the keyboard shorcut for that. I know that cmd+w seems to be the red one. It does not always work but most often than not, it will close the window. Cmd+H is minimize. What is the third one?

You can assign a custom shortcut for the Zoom menu item in System Preferences:

Or if you want to always maximize windows to fill a screen, see this question.


Defining some global GIT settings to be automatically inherited Sysnopsis

Coming from a Linux background I still find Apples' modifications to the Unix hierarchy somewhat confusing.  Nevertheless these subtle changes make it difficult for me to quickly do what I need.

I shall explain my scenario in a linux setting as it would make the most sense, then hope someone can translate this into BSD/OS X lingo.
I do not like GUI-based things if theres a CLI alternative.

Problem

I recently installed GIT so I could work on a number of projects from my MacBook, in linux one can define default config settings in /etc/gitconfig which is first loaded into the users' configuration and then merged with ~/.gitconfig.

When I create this default global git configuration file inside /etc/gitconfig it has not effect when I run my aliases, unless I specifically define them for each user on the machine.

Could someone please suggest to me exactly how this default behaviour works on OS X?

This might help someone I found this config in the following location: /usr/local/git/etc/gitconfig


Is it possible to add background music (with or without video) to the login screen on a Mac? I've never seen this question asked before, and provided that Terminal exists I don't see why this wouldn't be possible.

Does anyone know whether this is, or how they would make this possible?

That is a nice idea !
I have just seen that you can play sound with the program afplay, you can look how to use it here : https://osxdaily.com/2009/10/27/play-mp3s-and-other-music-from-the-command-line/ .
One way to do it could be at startup at the first login screen, you can look how to do it here : https://superuser.com/questions/245713/whats-the-easiest-way-to-have-a-script-run-at-boot-time-in-os-x .


I have lost the prompt on Terminal on my Mac; unable to get commands to work I was trying to launch a few Java applications using the terminal. The command that I was instructed to launch it with (I was following a guide) was the following:

#!/bin/bash
cd "$( dirname "$0" )"
java -Xmx1024M -Xms1024M -jar craftbukkit.jar

It worked the first time, which was a test run, so I hide the terminal window to work on some other things. But when I opened the terminal window back up again, I noticed that I had lost my root@pcname:~$ prompt that usually starts with my terminal opening up.

I have tried to kill anything running in the background but nothing seems to work. When I enter a command it just moves me to the next line without executing anything. Please help and answer in simple terms, as I am not incredibly Terminal-savvy. Thanks!

Your command is still running. Type Ctrl-Z to get your prompt back, followed by bg and Enter to let Minecraft continue in the background.

If you want to avoid similar issues in the future, call either the shell script itself or at least java with & at the end to put it into the background directly:

java -Xmx1024M -Xms1024M -jar craftbukkit.jar &


Search directory of .psd files for specific text? I have a directory of hundreds of Photoshop files (.psd) and need to locate files by searching for a string of text that exists within a file.

Using Finder to search for "Contents" doesn't seem to work.

Is there an app to accomplish this?

I have no idea if this will work because I don't know how PSD files store text, but try this. Open terminal (applications/utilities), type cd <space> and drag the folder containing PSDs onto the terminal; the folder path will be filled in. Hit enter. You are now "in" that folder in your terminal.
Next, do grep -i "some string here" *.
cd tells the system to change directory. grep is a command line utility that opens a file and searches for a string. -i is a flag that tells grep to ignore case sensitivity. Then you give it the string and * means all files in the current directory.
See if that turns anything up.


Why do the new iMacs have mobile video cards? I noticed that the new iMacs graphics cards are AMD Radeon HD 6970M.

Why do the new iMacs have mobile video cards? What are the implications of those cards? Are those cards as powerful as dedicated desktop graphics cards?

Four factors are in play for choosing how to design a system:

Space
Cost
Performance
Reliability

I certainly won't speak for Apple's engineers, but buying in volume lets a video chip manufacturer pack more performance in a lesser cost package. Any performance that isn't balanced with the rest of the system is wasted performance. One would presume this was the optimal choice for the new iMacs given the state of components available.

Performance is also about efficiency - so if the raw benchmark is big enough to drive three huge monitors on the 27 inch model, why not choose a smaller mobile chipset, manage less drivers in the OS, reuse the same chip on the mobile line and free sourcing, engineering, testing and repair inventory assets for other more pressing problems to solve?

We will soon have benchmarks to see whether the designers did their jobs well this revision. My limited testing shows the new iMacs to scream compared to old MacPro and iMacs which were no slouch in the graphics department by my standards.


Developer Enrollment Paying Issue Today i made a payment of 99$ to get some certificate for developement but now apple just sent me a email saying:

The billing information you used on the Apple Online Store to purchase an Apple Developer Program membership does not match the billing information you provided during enrollment. Before your membership can be activated, we'll need a copy of your government-issued photo ID.

So i did the payment with my father Debit Card and i was wondering if is it gonna be okay if i send my passport photo, contact them, send them some papers saying that my father was conscious of this payment or should i send them something else?.

According to Apple's Development Program Payment page:

  Payment

  You can choose from the payment methods presented during your membership purchase. If you are paying by credit card and enrolling as an individual, you must use your own credit card to complete your purchase. If you do not, your enrollment will be delayed and you will be asked for a copy of your government-issued photo identification. After you’ve completed your purchase, you will receive an order acknowledgement email from Apple Online Store and a confirmation email from Apple Developer Relations.

Apple puts all relevant info for the developer program online and it's fairly easy to search and find the answers.  Go to the page I linked-to if you have more questions.  You can also contact Apple directly.


Can the 2009 Mac mini work with its optical drive removed? I wonder if the Mac mini 2009 needs the optical drive for work, or if I can just remove it?

I don't need it at all and have an external drive just in case. I will replace the HDD with an SSD and want to keep the Mac cool and lower the energy consumption as much as possible.

No it does not. Many have swapped out their internal DVD-ROMs on favor of installing another bay that can handle an HDD/SSD.

Here's an example of an optical to HDD bay: http://www.ifixit.com/Apple-Parts/12-7-mm-SATA-Optical-Bay-SATA-Hard-Drive-Enclosure/IF107-081


How do I put the dock on the top (external) monitor in a dual monitor setup? I have a dual monitor setup with a MacBook Pro (Retina) 13" and 24" external Dell monitor (via DVI). I am using the MBP as the bottom monitor of the setup, and want to be able to use it primarily for full screen app tasks. This means I find it more convenient to put the dock on the top screen, displaying all the time. However, OS X only displays it on the very bottom screen.

I assume my goal ends up breaking Apple's mental model for how the dock (the dock attaching to a corner of the screen) works, which is why I haven't found a way to do this yet.

Any ideas on how to make this dream happen? I've attached a screenshot of the arrangement of the monitors (from the OS X Display system preferences).

Someone showed me one solution: there's a sort of "shelf" created where the bottom monitor is narrower than the top. If you move your mouse on the top monitor until it hits that shelf, the dock will pop up to the top monitor. However, if you move your mouse to the bottom of the bottom screen the dock will move back there.

This should be sufficient for my problem, but I'm leaving this up in case other people have alternative answers (and if this will be helpful for someone else).


How to use tabs in Textmate 2 for files opened via Transmit When editing multiple files from Panic's Transmit, in TextMate 1 they'd open themselves in tabs instead of separate windows.

How can I restore that behavior in TextMate 2?

This was the workflow for achieving this in TextMate 1: http://muffinresearch.co.uk/archives/2006/06/13/use-tabs-in-textmate-for-remote-files-opened-by-transmit/

I had the same question a while back, stumbled across your question, but saw there wasn't an answer. Today, I was frustrated, so set about to figure this out.

http://write.byronrode.com/textmate-2-tabs-and-transmit/ has the answer, which is a bit too detailed for an answer here.

Let me know if it helps.


iPhone won't open Safari - or other - pages Has anyone found a fix to this yet? I have upgraded to IOS 9.3. I have reset my iPhone. But it still won't open links.

This seems to be a bug in iOS 9. Not much to do but wait for an update.


How can I add ".mp4" to the end of multiple files in a folder? I just received a bunch of videos (for editing) and something weird happened. I was told the files are .mp4, but when I received them they did not have a filetype assigned to them.

I can add ".mp4" to the file name, which fixes the issue and allows my applications to recognize the files. Problem is, there are a lot of files.

Is there any way to easily add a ".mp4" to the end of all of the files at once? I'm willing to download an app for this if needed (Mac OS X 10.8.5)

Thank you!

If you're comfortable with the command line you can try this in the terminal.app:

for i in *; do mv "$i" "$i.mp4"; done;

Navigate to the directory with all of your files and run the above command.


Sync MP3 files from iTunes on Mac to Apple Music on iPhone I have a MacBook Air running macOS Mojave and an iPhone 6 running iOS 12.

I have MP3 files from a friend that I put on to my PC using a USB drive. They play fine in iTunes. However, they do not show up in my Apple Music on my iPhone.

I'm guessing this is because I did not purchase them from the iTunes Store, but I'm not sure why.

How do I get the MP3 file from iTunes on my Mac to Apple Music app on my iPhone?

duskwuff's answer is correct if you have a subscription to the Apple Music or iTunes Match services. An Apple Music subscription gives you access to the entire Apple Music catalogue from any device signed in to your account; iTunes Match only lets you download a copy of the music you've imported into iTunes on your computer.

If you don't subscribe to either service, you should be able to sync MP3 files from the Mac to the iPhone by connecting via USB. Be aware this may remove music that's already on the iPhone, but you'll see a warning first, and if you had bought that music from the iTunes Store you'll be able to redownload it.


Global hotkey to change iTunes ratings Is there a global hotkey or keyboard shortcut to change ratings in iTunes for the current song?

Some other applications (e.g. Amarok on Linux) have this and I'm missing this functionality from iTunes.

This post explains a way of doing exactly what you want. It's and old post, though, but it should still work.


'root' user changed to 'dovenull' after disabling SIP I upgraded Yosemite 10.10.5 to El-Capitan over the last 2 days, and also disabled SIP. .. and because I do a lot of building of my own things like postfix and dovecot, I didn't notice until today that I no longer have a root user, and where 'root' should appear, it's ownership is now 'dovenull' - a user name related to dovecot. I wonder what happened to 'root' ?

drwxrwxr-x+ 152 dovenull  admin    5168  6 Oct 12:32 Applications
drwxr-xr-x+  64 dovenull  wheel    2176  5 Oct 21:59 Library
drwxr-xr-x@   2 dovenull  wheel      68  5 Oct 21:51 Network
drwxr-xr-x@   3 robert    staff     102  8 Sep 21:18 Read Before You Install iTunes.app
drwxr-xr-x@   4 dovenull  wheel     136  5 Oct 21:45 System
lrwxr-xr-x    1 dovenull  wheel      49 21 Feb  2015 User Information -> /Library/Documentation/User Information.localized
drwxr-xr-x   15 dovenull  admin     510  5 Oct 21:51 Users
drwxrwxrwt@   7 dovenull  admin     238  6 Oct 14:31 Volumes

Everything appears to work fine, including the mailserver and apps. Should I worry about this?

dovenull: Dovecot uses an unprivileged dovenull user for untrusted login processes.

Better check to see if you didn't 'break' some security in Dovecot's config?

Look @ Wiki here: http://wiki.dovecot.org/UserIds


Can I use a PlayStation 3 or 4 controller with a 4th gen AppleTV? Does anyone have experience pairing and using an official Sony PlayStation 3 or 4 controller with the 4th gen Apple TV?

You can only use Made For iPhone (MFi) controllers with the Apple TV at the moment.


Buying iphone connected to a carrier for wifi As of right now I don't have a smartphone, but am debating getting one in the near future (although not sure in how long that will be.) My old itouch just broke, so i wanted to know if it is possible to buy an iphone off ebay, one that is connected to verizon (not unlocked) and use it with just wifi until I decide to add it to my network?

You need to be sure the iPhone is not blacklisted.

You can use Verizon site:

http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/nso/enterDeviceId.do

Depending on the iPhone model (CDMA or GSM) you need to enter MEID or IMEI code.


Neighbor's Airport Extreme extending my wireless network? I noticed a new machine on my network -- it's my next-door neighbor's Airport Extreme!

My network is set up with a WPA2 Personal password, and I don't believe that he's cracking passwords to steal my bandwidth.  My suspicion is that it's accidental.  I don't see any place in Airport Utility where I can say "don't allow this network to be extended".

I'd like to know

Is it actually possible that his Extreme is extending my network, even without having the password?
Is it possible for me to block it from doing so?
Is there any security flaw here that I should be worried about?  Or is this actually just preventing him from being able to connect via wifi (because it's all my network now)?

After the neighbor and I spent some time going over our networks, we figured out the problem: we were both extending our home networks over the house power lines, and apparently the street power for our row houses doesn't provide much separation.

The HomePlug system, which is what both of our adapters conform to, allows you to set up encryption on the network traffic.  Not only does this keep things secure, it also keeps other networks from getting tangled.  However, both of us had gotten systems that default to no encryption and we'd blithely left them that way.  (Mine is a Netgear Powerline AV 500, my neighbor has some other manufacturer's)

As Thorbjørn suggested, the network graph that the Airport utility was showing was just a source of confusion.  Once we'd separated the HomePlug devices, everything went back to normal.


unable to open /var/db/sudo/ts/: Permission denied I'm having a really tough time trying to figure out what's going on with my High Sierra MBP. I've recently come across permissions issues, such as:

 $ sudo ls
 sudo: unable to open /var/db/sudo/ts/<username>: Permission denied

I'm then asked for the password and I'm able to operate as root, but I've never seen this error before. I've checked all the files/directories in /var/db/sudo/ts and they're all owned by root:wheel. My user is in the admin and staff groups -- this I have not changed. What would cause this? I came across this behavior when trying to update homebrew (noticed permission issues on directories my user owns in /private/tmp).

Similarly:

lrwxr-xr-x    1 <username>  admin    67 Oct 12 15:24 dtnoop_tracer.h
$ rm -f dtnoop_tracer.h
rm: dtnoop_tracer.h: Permission denied

Is my filesystem completely gone (or mounted read-only)?

That’s a very odd failure. I would probably boot to internet recovery and reinstall the os on top of what you have. If you have a backup, great and if not this isn’t a risky operation and something is certainly messed up with the permissions and sudo failures.

Unless you have a very good idea why things are specifically broken, perhaps some scripts to change ownership or other sorts of administrative changes that you know were made to that system, it’s probably a lot faster to just get a get operating system and then fix any remaining problems every install doesn’t solve immediately.


System-wide shortcut to open a new window in Safari? I'm trying to use Automator to create a system-wide shortcut to open a new Safari window. I'm using the method described in this answer.

I can get Safari to open a specific url, for example by running

$ open -a Safari "https://apple.stackexchange.com"

From the command line. But this opens a new tab (not a new window) and requires specifying a URL.

Automator also has an "Internet > Display Webpages" action that has the same problems.

Is there a way to get Safari to open a new, blank window?

In Automator, create a Service workflow (pre macOS Mojave), or a Quick Action workflow in macOS Mojave.

Add a Run AppleScript action, replacing the default code, with:

tell application "Safari" to make new document

The above piece of AppleScript code by itself will open a new window in Safari however, it will not have focus. If you want the new window to have focus then use a tell block, e.g.:

tell application "Safari"
    make new document
    activate
end tell

You can then assign a keyboard shortcut in the usual manner per information in the link within your question.


DiskInventor & OmniDiskSweeper shows different size as Disk Utility I am running 10.9.4 and have a 120 GB hard drive. Disk Inventory X shows only 51.9 GB of data, but About this Mac and Disk utility show less than 10 GB free space.

I tried these items:

Timemachine is off
sudo tmutil disablelocal
ran OmniDiskSweeper

Can you please help me understand the discrepancy in sizing?

The biggest issue here is that you need to run your analysis tools as root. If you don't do this, you'll only see the files that your account has access to, and so you won't see everything that is taking up space.

I like GrandPerspective personally. If it's in your Applications folder, the command to run it as root looks like this:

sudo /Applications/GrandPerspective.app/Contents/MacOS/GrandPerspective


getting mod_rewrite to work on Mac OS X I'm trying to get mod rewrite to work on my Mac. This is the content of the .htaccess file:

<Files *\.ini>
  order allow,deny
  deny from all
</Files>

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule .* index.php

I know this is active, because it's blocking .ini files properly, and it seems to rewrite the fictional request /foo to index.php, as this is the error I'm seeing in the browser:

  The requested URL /Users/rwel/Sites/dev/quaestio/index.php was not found on this server.

The index.php file currently just contains an exit statement for testing purposes, and it does work when calling it directly. So, the question is, what's going wrong? I went into the apache error log, and this is what I saw:

  [Thu Nov 03 14:36:02 2011] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] File does not exist: /Library/WebServer/Documents/Users

So the problem might be that it's not searching in the root, but relative to the /Library/WebServer/Documents directory. Am I right? How can I fix this?

Thanks for your help!

You should set up Virtual Hosts.

In /etc/apache2/httpd.conf uncomment the line:

#Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf

Now edit /etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf. Remove the example vhosts, but do specify a default vhost as the first one. Here's an example config.

NameVirtualHost *:80

<VirtualHost *:80>
        DocumentRoot /Library/WebServer/Documents
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerName myproject
        DocumentRoot /Users/username/Sites/myproject
        <Directory /Users/username/Sites/myproject>
                Order Allow,Deny
                Allow from all
        </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Restart apache by running apache2ctl restart.

You should add an entry to your /etc/hosts file so that your servername resolves:

127.0.0.1  myproject

Now, when accessing the http://myproject, your rewrite rules will be relative to the right document root.


What's the difference between the Apple Part Number (APN) and the Part Number? I'd like to know what's the reason for Apple using two different nomenclatures for parts.

For example: an iPhone 6s battery has these two ways to call it:

Apple Part Number (APN): 661-00033, this is the one that is printed on the part itself.
Part Number: 661-04581, this is the one that appears in GSX.

Why doesn't Apple use only one?

Here's what I inferred from https://thebookyard.wordpress.com/2014/04/09/apple-part-numbers-explained/ :

The APN part number is the part number that refers to a certain version and model of a component. Apparently, this can change based on minor revisions, manufacturer changes (sometimes Apple uses multiple manufacturers), and other things. You could compare this to a lot number of a medicine. Each time a drug manufacturer makes a small change to the medicine, whether it is color or packaging, for example, a new lot number is assigned. In the event of a recall, they can use the lot number to identify the specific batch that is affected.

The part number that appears in GSX is a part number that refers to the actual part. This normally stays the same through minor revisions. To continue with the medicine analogy, this could be like the UPC barcode on the bottle. The medicine is still the same (for instance, if Tylenol decided to make a change to their cherry flavor), but slightly different ingredients.


Macbook freezes upon waking when connected to VPN I have a 2019 15" MacBook Pro running OS X Mojave (10.14.6) (company laptop, so can't update yet) and I have a weird problem. When I am connected to the company VPN (via the built-in client, no third party VPNs), and my computer goes to sleep, it often freezes for a few minutes when waking up.

When this happens, upon tapping a key or the track pad the screen wakes up, but the mouse cursor is frozen, and the keyboard does not seem to register any input. The touch bar still works (I can adjust volume, brightness, etc), and if I press Esc then the screen immediately turns off, as though it realized "oh snap, I'm actually still asleep". If I wait 3-5 minutes, it will eventually shake itself out of this stupor and wake up properly.

It also only seems to happen if it goes to sleep for at least a few minutes (so, only on actual sleep, not just display blanking).

This isn't much of an answer, but in truth, the response here is "this is a known issue" (and not officially acknowledged by Apple).    I admin macbooks in a 100% remote environment and this issue happens even without the inherent VPN (we use a 3rd party and our own server).  In my experience, this issue only happens to my users with models 2016 and above / touchbar macbook pros.
Also, there's a similar post... with no definite answer also.  Just wanted to point out you're definitely not alone.


out of diskspace because of sparsebundle My disk is out of space all of a sudden and I found out that a directory in /Users/.harith/harith.sparsebundle is using 178 gigs of space. What is this directory? How/Why is my mac using it. Is it safe if I remove the directory?

/Users/.harith/harith.sparsebundle is the encrypted contents of your home directory. When you are logged in (as user harith), then the unecrypted contents of that same directory are visible under /Users/harith, that is, your home directory.

So what you're seeing is, your hard disk is full. And your home directory is taking up 178 GiB of space.

IT IS NOT SAFE TO DELETE /Users/.harith/harith.sparsebundle!!!!! This is your home directory's files, and deleting this will delete or corrupt your home directory!!!

What you will want to do is look for large files within your home directory, and move those to an external drive. As @lemonginger mentioned, movies and music are good places to look, but not so they're not being decrypted as he said, that's irrelevant. And don't just move them anywhere, you need to move them to a different hard drive otherwise you won't solve the problem.

If you don't have a second hard drive, consider moving files to a cloud-based storage system, such as Apple's iCloud service or Amazon's Cloud Drive. This can be either a permanent solution, or a temporary storage space until you can expand your local disk storage. Amazon may be a good choice because they offer 5 GB at no cost, and I believe you can get up to 20GB free if you purchase any MP3 from them.

In order to reduce the size of your home directory's encrypted sparsebundle, you need to log out. After you log out, if you have deleted files from within your FileVault home directory, you will see a dialog appear with a progress indicator which states "Reclaiming unused space in  home directory". What this is actually doing is removing the parts of /Users/.harith/harith.sparsebundle which are no longer in use (because you have deleted files).

A side note: /Users/.harith/harith.sparsebundle is only when you are logged in. When you log out, /Users/.harith/harith.sparsebundle is moved to /Users/harith/harith.sparsebundle, and it's moved back when you next log in.


How to scan/fix bad sectors on USB connected Ext HD even if SMART is unsupported w/o buying tools I dropped my external Seagate 2 TB hard drive on the floor.  It seems to work fine.  But I want to scan for bad sectors just to be safe.  I use this drive for all of my TimeMachine backups.

The "macOS app for showing external HDD usage statistics?" post is about checking your hard drive and has tools you can buy (recommended by the community), or things you can try which I tried and which did not work.

On a Windows machine, you can take any connected drive, run scandisk on it, and detect/repair bad sectors.  Is there a way to do this for my drive on Macintosh (without purchasing third party tools)?

More info:

Disk Utility -> Info says that SMART status is "unsupported".
The drive is formatted as HFS

In general you can't get SMART status of a drive in an external case. Some cases will support it, some do only with vendor-supplied software.

But SMART isn't all that useful. It's good at telling you the drive HAS a problem, not so good at telling you the drive might have a problem soon. And bad sectors on modern (21st century) drives are already mapped out by the drives controller - any sector that doesn't read reliably will just be mapped to a spare sector and you won't know about it.

Was the Seagate running when it was dropped? If no, no problem. They're designed to take some minor abuse when turned off. If yes, and you do manage to detect even a single bad sector then just replace the drive. Any bad sector that reaches user levels means the drive is out of spares, and that's probably because the head crash caused by the fall is now dragging a tiny bit of metal all over the platter.

In short, if you have any doubts about the reliability of spinning drives these days the most cost-effective route is to replace it. At $25-$60 per terabyte it just isn't worth the considerable time to verify the drive.


What is the difference between pmset and systemsetup sleep options? On my MacBook Air 2013 (Mountain Lion):

pmset has the following sleep settings:

$ pmset -g
...
 disksleep            10
 sleep                1
 displaysleep         2

while systemsetup has the following settings:

$ systemsetup -getsleep
Sleep: Computer sleeps after 10 minutes
Sleep: Display sleeps after 10 minutes
Sleep: Disk sleeps after 10 minutes

What is the difference between these settings?

Also, Energy Saver shows "Display sleep" is set to 2 minutes, so coincides with pmset, while "Computer sleep" is no longer shown in Mountain Lion I have read. Why is this no longer possible?

UPDATE: Turns out MacBook Air 2013 dropped separate sliders for computer- and display sleep: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1595455
Using pmset to set these individually should still work however. Not sure I like the change though...

In this case, systemsetup is a high level wrapper that is analogous to the System Preferences UI. Both call the lower level power API which are the internals about how the system actually stores these values for the hardware to use and implement. pmset is a lower level tool that reads the API/hardware values directly, so I would generally trust that over the higher level tools like Energy Saver or system setup

If you are right and there is a discrepancy, you might have to file a bug report with Apple to figure out if it's really a bug or just that the information is being mixed up before it is presented to you.

You can go directly to the source file as it's stored at /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.PowerManagement.plist and perhaps it can break the tie between which of these three tools is telling you the correct information?

In all my computers, the numbers match up, so perhaps the systemsleep values are incorrect for your hardware or OS build?


Can't run Homebrew anymore I've been installing packages using Homebrew until now. I just found that I can't even run homebrew basic commands:
$ brew --version
Traceback (most recent call last):
    4: from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/brew.rb:13:in `<main>'
    3: from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/brew.rb:13:in `require_relative'
    2: from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/global.rb:10:in `<top (required)>'
    1: from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.6/usr/lib/ruby/2.6.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:54:in `require'
/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.6/usr/lib/ruby/2.6.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:54:in `require': cannot load such file -- active_support/core_ext/object/blank (LoadError)

$ brew help
Traceback (most recent call last):
    4: from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/brew.rb:13:in `<main>'
    3: from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/brew.rb:13:in `require_relative'
    2: from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/global.rb:10:in `<top (required)>'
    1: from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.6/usr/lib/ruby/2.6.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:54:in `require'
/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.6/usr/lib/ruby/2.6.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:54:in `require': cannot load such file -- active_support/core_ext/object/blank (LoadError)

Looks like the application got corrupted or something, but at this point I'm not sure how to proceed. I have macOS Catalina latest Version 10.15.6 and recently upgraded Xcode to Rel.12
Thanks.

It looks like the Xcode12 install Command Line Tools which have newer ruby framework and your Brew version is not compatible with this one.


How safe is it for me to install Java on OS X 10.8 I know very little about how Java works and its interactions with OS X, so I'm partly looking for an expert and simple description on how Java works on the Mac, and why so much press includes "fear, uncertainty, doubt" but no concrete details about how and why Java is not safe..

I want to use the Bitcoin client Multibit, but to do so I will need to install Java which over the past six months I've only heard bad things about.

So my question is: How safe is it for me to install Java on Mac OS X 10.8.3?

(The hidden question inside this question is what version / source of Java I should select if I can depend on Apple to keep Java secure.)

I understand "safeness" is a fairly difficult thing to define, but just some general advice would be greatly appreciated. Even if someone could point me in the direction of some learning materials so I can work this out for myself, that would be great.

The Java Runtime Environment (JRE) and the Java SDK are not inherently unsafe. The problem relies for the most part in certain ways the JVM (Java Virtual Machine) accesses (and can be fooled to) certain pieces of the operating system.

Like every other complex piece of software, Java is no different than, say, .NET on a Windows machine or Mono.NET on any flavor.

Java on a browser, however, is a different world (and hence why you can go ahead and disable it in most modern browsers), similar to (but not as bad as) what ActiveX was back in the days of Internet Explorer.

You can safely have the JRE in your Macintosh, Linux or Windows machine with little danger, since no element of the Java RE or SDK will expose remote vulnerabilities by default. It's just a lot of code sitting in your Hard Drive.

Now if you want to know if executing Java software is unsafe, then there's no way to answer that without diving into huge arguments. If you want to run Java Software, just go to Oracle, download the Runtime environment and run your Java program. It will not be activated by default on Safari (but double check to be sure) or any other browser.

With all that said, Java is annoying (especially their updater, which you can tone down or disable but never ceases to be as annoying or sometimes more than the Flash Updater if you have Flash). On the other hand, Oracle finally started rolling more periodic updates to Java so vulnerabilities are taken care more often (which is annoying but good). When Apple was in control of the SDK, this wasn't the case.

Of course, some "security experts" will cry out loud that having Java in your hard drive can lead to more insecurity since someone gains access to your computer, they could exploit local Java vulnerabilities. Trust me, if anyone gains access to your computer (even remote) to the point where they can execute anything (including Java), you have a bigger problem.

So if you need it, go ahead and get it.


Mac OS X never shuts down When trying to shutdown or restart my Mac it just keep on showing the spinning wheel with the white background. I have waited for at least 15 minutes but nothing happens.

When safe booting I can successfully shutdown OS X so I guess it is probably caused by a kernel extension.

How can I find out what is hanging the shutdown process?

Result of doing kextstat -kl | awk ' !/apple/ { print $6 } ':

com.rogueamoeba.InstantOn
com.globaldelight.driver.BoomDevice
com.intel.kext.intelhaxm
com.rogueamoeba.InstantOnCore
com.Cycling74.driver.Soundflower
org.pqrs.driver.KeyRemap4MacBook
foo.tun
foo.tap
org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxDrv
org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxUSB
org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxNetFlt
org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxNetAdp

Does it also happen when you log out? Did you already check system.log?

Is there a logout hook (sudo defaults read com.apple.loginwindow LogoutHook)? I guess not though, because normally when a logout hook does not terminate, there is a solid light gray screen without any process indicator.

You could try unloading the kernel extensions with sudo kextunload -b $bundleid before restarting. Or just move the kext bundles outside /System/Library/Extensions/ and restart once so the kernel extensions won't be loaded.

You could also try terminating different processes before logging out, or for example run for f in {~,}/Library/Launch{Agents,Daemons}/*.plist; do launchctl unload $f; done.


Why is my headset reducing sound volume/quality when recording my voice? So I have some bluetooth headphones (they are Sony; unfortunately, I can't find the information that would tell me the exact model) that have a microphone, so I can use them to record my voice. Fine and dandy.

However, I'm having the issue that whenever they are actually recording my voice, they cause the audio quality to get worse and quieter. This happens with every software that takes input that I can think of. Voice chat systems, like Skype, Discord, and Google Hangout cause this. Recording myself on quicktime player or any other audio recording software causes this.

Is this a setting? How can I fix this?

TL;DR: Bluetooth is limited in bandwidth.

To be able to let both incoming (microphone) and outgoing (speakers) audio data, your headset can use multiple audio codecs.

Depending on your usage, it automatically switch from a codec set to another. The output quality gets worse (which use less bandwith) to allow input data from you microphone to get to your computer.

Now you might ask, what if we wouldn’t use 2 separate codecs but keep up with one ?

You would either have have a poor audio quality all the time (no matter if the microphone is used or not), or have a good quality with recurring audio interruptions because it would be impossible for the headset and the computer to exchange all the required data in time.

Some headsets even support more than 2 codecs. In such case they can have a greater control of the input and output quality balance. They would ask to your computer/phone/... which codecs they do understand, and make the best choice (depending on if you use the microphone or not) to give you the best audio quality.

For a non-exhaustive list of codecs used by Bluetooth devices: Apt-X, SBC, AAC (also used in Apple M4A audio files), LDAC, ...
Other audio codecs might include: AC3, Opus, MP3, FLAC, Ogg, ... but they are not used in Bluetooth.

  Is this a setting ? How can I fix this ?

If your headphone does not explicitly allows you to switch the codec in use — in most cases — you can’t. The headphone already uses what it thinks as the best setting. Some headphones allow that, but it is mostly « high-end » (understand « expensive ») headphones.

It’s like in plumbing: a pipe can handle a given quantity of water pressure. But at some point, if you try to put more pressure, pipes might break/explode. You would either need to use a bigger pipe (an USB-C cable for example) or reduce the pressure (in your case, the headset reduce the audio quality).


Speed up iPhone SMS app I found that after some weeks of usage, my SMS app on a iPhone 3G (iOS 3.0.1, JB) seems to take a few more seconds to start than usual.

On all other cellphones I had, you had to delete old messages because of memory constrains and to make the app work better. Does this apply to the iPhone as well?

If so, how can I delete all messages of all contacts that are more than 1 month old, or something?

As the SMS database is SQLite based, I could script it. I even found this link regarding this but has been hesitating to use it.

How do you do it?

Not for the faint of heart, but I've done some research into iPhone daemons, and deleting/ disabling certain ones can have an impact on speed. Here's a lesson from BigBoss about the subject. Here's a list of daemons and what they do (I found this really helpful).

Hope this helps!


Safari makes weird noises, even when the sound is closed My netbook is 1.5 years old and it only happens when Safari is opened. Why it happens? I think that the sounds are coming from my HDD. Should I remove Safari completely? Does it harm my netbook?

Latest Safari (5.0.5) on Windows 7 Starter
Netbook with Intel Atom 1.6 Ghz 1.6 GHz processor and 1 GB ram, 160 GB HDD
Brand: Casper

I would be more interested in looking at the resources being taken up by your computer when you run Safari (CPU, memory, etc.). Safari in and of itself does not harm the hardware or software.

See if there is a heavy load on the computer during operation of Safari to verify that the computer isn't straining under a bug or something else getting stuck when it runs.


Notes created via Siri don't sync with Gmail until they're manually edited For years, I've successfully used Siri to create notes that were then synced with Gmail, as described here: http://lifehacker.com/5569758/seamlessly-sync-iphone-notes-to-a-gmail-account

A few weeks ago, this stopped working when the note is created using Siri.

This is how I get things out of my head into my GTD workflow, so it's a real problem!

Here's what I know:

If I create a new note by hand (go to Notes app, type in new note) it syncs immediately.

If I create a new note using Siri (for example, "Hey Siri, note, this is a test") the new note appears in the Notes app but not in Gmail.

If I subsequently manually edit that note in the Notes app (for example, add a space to the end of it) and save it, then it appears in Gmail.

Setup details:

I use the Gmail account for Mail, Contacts, Calendars, and Notes.

In Settings/Notes, I'm using Gmail as the "Default Account for Siri."

I've tried all the options for "New Notes Start With" (Title/Heading/Body); they all seem to work the same.

I'm having the same problem on my iPhone 6 S. Like you, if I edit the Siri-created notes, they sync. In addition Siri won't create iCloud notes on that device (which is why I have reverted to Google notes.)

My work-around is to move all the notes to iCloud, which I then process on my Mac. That way, they keep the same time stamp, and I can do this in bulk on my iPhone 6 S (Notes.app) using Edit → Move All. Obviously not helpful if your other devices don't use iCloud.

my old iPhone 5, which I've kept, has none of these problems. Yet both my phones use the same OS (9.1). I'm considering keeping the old phone for Siri note-taking purposes until this gets sorted out, as I rely heavily on this feature.

I've logged a bug with Apple Bug Reporter.


Mac OS X Lion Mail not sending Since upgrading to Mac OS X Lion, I consistently have issues sending mail from Mail.app. I can receive mail but when I send mail it stays in the outbox. Sometimes I can send the mail in the outbox by deleting it, rebooting my MacBook Pro, and then recreate the message and send it out.

Does anyone have a solution?

These problems usually come down to one of two things:

You have incorrectly configured the log-in settings for your outgoing mail server run by the company that provides your email service. Port numbers, authentication method, user name, password, and other settings.
The problem is on the end of the company that provides your email service. Their servers are misbehaving.

In either case, call the tech support line of the company that provides your email service and have them troubleshoot it with you.


iPhone Vibrate Level Does the current volume for one's iPhone have any implication on how "loud" it vibrates? Or is vibrate "loudness" static, i.e. the vibrate level remains the same no matter what the phone's volume level is.

Vibrate is the same no matter what the volume level is. You can turn vibrate off for certain contacts if you want which is helpful for "noisy" contacts. Notifications will still show up on the locked screen.


How to tell which app added a photo to my iCloud Photo Library Today I noticed some photos in my iCloud Photo Library which I did not put there.  I'm not talking about any shared album, this is my personal library. This is alarming since I have never shared my iCloud account or password with anyone, and I use Two-factor authentication for security.

I captured a sysdiagnose log and searched it like this for one of the filenames, but this reveals nothing.

log show --archive system_logs.logarchive --debug --predicate 'eventMessage contains[cd] IMG_8313"'

So how can I tell which application created a particular photo?

I've figured it out after some investigation.  Since some apps don't write anything to the log, we have to search the Photos database.  The metadata exists here just as I suspected, in a column called ZCREATORBUNDLEID.  To find it, first you need to install the "iCloud Photos for iOS" profile to enable diagnostics from here:
https://developer.apple.com/bug-reporting/profiles-and-logs/

Then trigger the diagnostic in Settings > Photos > Run Photos Diagnostics.  Airdrop this file to your computer, untar it, and find the database inside called Photos.sqlite.  Search like this

sqlite3 Photos.sqlite "SELECT ZCREATORBUNDLEID FROM ZADDITIONALASSETATTRIBUTES WHERE ZORIGINALFILENAME = 'IMG_8313.JPG';"
ZCREATORBUNDLEID = com.ifttt.ifttt

In this case, it turns out the photo came from an IFTTT applet that I had forgotten about.

Note: This metadata is available only in the iOS database, not in the macOS Photos database.


Alias\symbolic link icons I installed Mavericks on an external SSD drive and now want to point my music, pictures and video to ones on my previous drive.
I created a link using ln command, a link was created. I launched iTunes, it correctly determined the working directory and was able to play my music. BUT in Finder the icon of iTunes directory (~/Music/iTunes) was like a blank document with an arrow while original folder has a customised icon. Also I tried creating an alias for that folder - and icon became just a regular folder icon. What is it?

Same problem here. I used Onyx Maintenance, then Rebuild tab and that fixed the icons. As a side-effect, it cleared custom icon positions, and other Finder display parameters etc.


How to share files between two Macs at home? I've turned file sharing on both my Macs here at home. One is an iMac, the other a MacBook Pro. I'm sure there's more to it but I can't seem to figure that out. Both are internet connected through WiFi.

I guess your question is how exactly do you share files. To access the shared files just:

While in Finder select Go > Connect to Server... or hit Command+K.
A window will appear, prompting for the Server's URL, which is the File Sharing Computer's network IP, something like 192.168.1.2. Before the URL you must write afp://. So, it will look like afp://192.168.1.2.
The other Mac's sharing folder will be mounted on your Finder.

Just so you know, when you enable the File Sharing, beneath the green light, the exact URL of that computer will be shown. The afp://your.network.ip.numberthingy.

If you are using Lion, or later, Airdrop is, by far, the best option for file sharing. It requires no setup nor special settings, and it sends the files wirelessly, without having both Macs to be connected to the same Wifi network.


Can't remove warning about removing files from iCloud desktop The option, "show warning before removing from iCloud Drive" option is missing from the Finder preferences menu. So, each time I try to send something to the trash, the warning pops up.

Any thoughts on why it would be missing, how I can get it back?

OS: 10.11.6 (El Capitan)
Mac Pro Early 2008

Probably because you're running El Capitan. If I'm not mistaken, the feature was added in Sierra.


How to have Safari play again Flash videos? Safari has suddenly stopped to load Flash videos.

On YouTube, for instance : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJENlHEZi18

On another site too.

In place of the video, I just have a black rectangle.

In Activity Monitor, I do not see any Flash plug-in process.

So I guess the bug is in Safari.

Anyway, I did clear the Flash data in the System Prefs. To no avail.

It was working yesterday. Now it is broken. I did not change the prefs. I did not quit Safari.

This random bug is really annoying. I have reported it to Apple.

In the meantime, how can I have Safari load Flash videos again ?

Thank you.

I have Safari 5.1.10 on Mac OS X 10.6.8.

One solution :

Kill the process Safari Web Content. Warning : In all pages, you will lose all the data you may have entered.

Explanation :

The process Safari Web Content has just been killed without human intervention. And Safari reloads all the pages. This is a bug in Safari. It happens from time to time, when many pages are loaded, it is a kind of process apoptosis. Now, I have the Flash Player plug-in process running, and Safari loads the Flash videos. :-)

Confirmation :

The bug has occurred again. This time, I have killed the process Safari Web Content myself. This solution works.

[Edited : Confirmation of the solution]


Script or workflow to modify find and replace text in clipboard I need give unique names to many, many files as part of my job. I download dozens of PDFs from a research database which all come with the same name (date of download). I have to open the file, select the title, paste it into the filename field, and then go in and manually remove the colon and replace it with a dash.

That last part is really what's killing me since basically every file I download has a colon in the title that I want to paste! What I want is something that will modify the contents of my clipboard so I can just paste it into the naming field without having to manually replace the colon.

In short, I want any ":" in my clipboard to change to a "-" before I paste it.

Try:

set myText to the clipboard as «class utf8»
set {TID, text item delimiters} to {text item delimiters, ":"}
set myText to text items of myText
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "-"
set the clipboard to myText as text
set text item delimiters to TID
tell application "System Events" to keystroke "v" using command down


Why in starting it opens suddenly without animation effect? When i unlock my iphone by finger print or pass code it opens suddenly like in a second without any animation
I want to ask why this is happen?

You've probably (accidentally) turned off the animation effect.

How to do enable animations without jailbreaking

Open Settings → General → Accessibility
Make sure Remove Motion is set to Off


Mac OS menu clicking slow, numbers down the side I am running Mac OS 10.15.2. I rarely reboot my computer, but I had to turn it off to move it home due to Coronavirus, and I when I rebooted I found I had received an unwanted change.

Now, whenever I click a menu item (that is, the menus in the top left corner, for instance at the moment I am in Chrome so I have the items Chrome File Edit View History Bookmarks People Window Help), it gives little numbers on the left alongside each drop down menu. For instance when I click the File menu, I get a little 1 alongside New Tab, a little 2 alongside New Window, etc.

And, clicking these menus is really slow. Even when I select something which does almost nothing (e.g. I click File, then change my mind and click File again to close the drop down menu), the little numbers stay around for about a second, and during that time I cannot do anything else. This ~1 second delay is really annoying, like I am running an overloaded or outdated computer (which I am not). Even worse, Cut + Paste takes several seconds.

I suspect these little numbers are the cause. So now for my question: how do I disable this feature?

You have accidentally enabled Catalina's new accessibility voice control feature, which lets you control the computer with your voice. The numbers you see are there to use as lables you can speak to exectute the commands. The same feature is also the cause of the slow-down in response.
To disable the feature, open System Preferences from the Apple Menu, go to Accessibility and disable it from there.