When can I tell Siri to 'Remind me about this'? Sometimes when I tell Siri "Remind me about this" or "Remind me about this when I leave/arrive/get home/work/car" she replies:

  OK, just tell me what you want to be reminded about.

And other times, depending on the app, she adds a reminder to my reminders list. Is there any to know if telling Siri "Remind me about this" will result in a reminder being creating without trying it first on a specific screen?

As far as I can tell there is no way to tell if you are using a single device. However if you have more than one device that is Handoff enabled then you can be reasonably certain that if a screen within an app makes Handoff visible to another device then you can tell Siri to "Remind me about this" and a reminder will be created.


Strange Popup in Browser Does anyone knows what is this, where it comes from and how to fix it? It shows up randomly and rare.

URL:
data:text/html;base64,PG1ldGEvaHR0cC1lcXVpdj1yZWZyZXNoIGNvbnRlbnQ9MDt1cmw9aHR0cDovL2FkY2xpY2suZy5kb3VibGVjbGljay5uZXQvcGNzL2NsaWNrP2FkdXJsPWh0dHBzJTNBJTJGJTJGc2VydmljZW9wZXJhdGl2ZS5jb20lMkZwYWdlJTJGJTNGZnh0NENYWHI4OUJmVXdjVUdUSjRiNlVERD4=.

Are you navigating the same site when this appears?
Is it a sketchy one?

If so, it is most likely a failed scammer ad.

Solution: Don't navigate that page anymore.

If not, then it is most likely an extension. To remove follow these instructions:  Install and manage Safari extensions on your Mac or

Go to Safari > Preferences > Extensions
Click extension on left
Click the uninstall button below the Extension name on the right box
Repeat for all extensions

Other information:

As stated in the comments:

data:text/html;base64,PG1ldGEvaHR0cC1lcXVpdj1yZWZyZXNoIGNvbnRlbnQ9MDt1cmw9aHR0cDovL2FkY2xpY2suZy5kb3VibGVjbGljay5uZXQvcGNzL2NsaWNrP2FkdXJsPWh0dHBzJTNBJTJGJTJGc2VydmljZW9wZXJhdGl2ZS5jb20lMkZwYWdlJTJGJTNGZnh0NENYWHI4OUJmVXdjVUdUSjRiNlVERD4=.

is in base64 and decodes to

<meta/http-equiv=refresh content=0;url=http://adclick.g.doubleclick.net/pcs/click?adurl=https%3A%2F%2Fserviceoperative.com%2Fpage%2F%3Ffxt4CXXr89BfUwcUGTJ4b6UDD>

The meta/http-equiv=refresh content=0 tells the browser to redirect the following url in 0 seconds (immediately).

The link further decodes (url decode) to

http://adclick.g.doubleclick.net/pcs/click?adurl=https://serviceoperative.com/page/?fxt4CXXr89BfUwcUGTJ4b6UDD

This is obviously an ad service. https://serviceoperative.com is most likely who is gaining $$ from link views. adclick.g.doubleclick.net is an ad service usually used by sketchy sites.

Both:

http://adclick.g.doubleclick.net/pcs/click?adurl=https://serviceoperative.com/page/?fxt4CXXr89BfUwcUGTJ4b6UDD

and https://serviceoperative.com/page/?fxt4CXXr89BfUwcUGTJ4b6UDD

redirect to google.com

Sidenote:

https://serviceoperative.com has got to have the worst security practices know to earth.

Their homepage requires a login by using CSS to blur the background and prompt for a login:

The CSS specifically is

 -webkit-filter: blur(5px);-webkit-transition-property: -webkit-filter;-webkit-transition-duration: .4s;

By deleting the CSS and the login page from Inspect Element you can bypass the entire login system, which, of course I did.

Here are the peoples homepage that are trying to make money of scamming innocent people.

Seems to be some kind of database of all ads.  Gonna give the company and a quick chat.


Restore Lion on MacBook with Sierra on it I have a MacBook 10,7 with macOS Sierra installed. I want to return to Lion; that was its default OS, but I have no backup from Lion. What to do now?

While ignoring this is not such a good idea security-wise, you can only downgrade a macOS with an external medium (Disc, USB-Stick) while erasing your hard drive completely.

Since you no longer own a copy of Lion,
you need to buy it in the Apple Store: Link
You also need a USB Stick with 8GB of Space

Purchase the Copy of Lion from the Apple Store
Redeem your code in the Mac App Store
Download your copy of Lion, you will see a "Install Mac OS X Lion" in your Applications folder.
Download DiskMakerX aka LionDiskMaker
Point it to your Copy of Lion and your 8GB Stick
After finishing restart your mac and press alt as soon as the screen flashes
Start the USB Stick (Lion Installer)
Open Disk Utility in Menu --> Utilities and erase your hard drive
Install OS X Lion
Be happy with your old OS


Is a MacPro3,1 (2008) x16 slot PCIe 2.0 or 1.1? On a 2008 Mac Pro (a.k.a. MacPro3,1), it apparently has 2 PCIe 2.0 slots and 2 PCIe 1.1 slots. While the difference won't prevent any PCIe device from working, it does make a difference for speed.

I recently ran GPU-Z under Windows 7 and ran the load test (a '?' icon off to the right next to text about PCIe versions and number of lanes) and found that it stayed at PCIe 1.1 x16. This is with a Radeon HD 270X which is definitely PCIe 3.0 compatible, so I'm a bit surprised it didn't report 2.0!

Trying to look at Intel 5400 chipset documentation, it would seem that the chipset only supports PCIe 1.0/1.1, but all documentation on the MacPro3,1 that I've seen suggests that the first two slots support PCIe 2.0 (which I presume is direct into the CPU rather than the northbridge).

Any confirmation on the spec here? As well, why would GPU-Z only be reporting PCIe 1.1? Could it have something to do with the fact that I have a USB 3.0 card in slot 4?

If that is a PC (non-EFI) graphics card, running it in Windows on a Mac (Bootcamp) will reduce the speed to PCIE 1.1

You must have an EFI flashed card to run at PCIE 2.0 in Windows on Mac machines. Drivers solve this issue for some PC (non-EFI) cards in OS X, but not Windows.

Real world gaming difference between 2.0 and 1.1 will likely be negligible, and your bottleneck will most likely end up at the CPU or OS X drivers. Generally I see better performance in Windows.

For reference I run a GTX 1060 (non-EFI) on a 2009 Mac Pro; my benchmarks and real world gaming are all better in Windows, at the PCIE 1.1 speeds.


How to open PDF as BASH variable? I'm trying to open a PDF using Preview where the input file is a shell var:

$ pdf=$(wget -qO- 'http://website.com/file.pdf') && open "$pdf"

$ pdf=$(wget -qO- 'http://website.com/file.pdf') && open -a /Applications/Preview.app -f "$pdf"

$ open -a /Applications/Preview.app $(wget -qO- 'http://website.com/file.pdf')

$ pdf=$(wget -qO- 'http://website.com/file.pdf') | open -a /Applications/Preview.app -f -

etc etc etc

I always get the same error:

  -bash: /usr/bin/open: Argument list too long

Is it possible to do this?

example PDF for anyone who wants to try:

https://www.exploit-db.com/docs/english/44592-linux-restricted-shell-bypass-guide.pdf

Cool problem showing how amazing bash, pipes and open are. You are so close on the fourth try:

wget -qO- 'https://www.com/big.pdf' | open -f -a Preview.app

Luckily the -a argument lets the -f take the data from stdin but not open in TextEdit.


How to get apps to finish updating on iOS? My iPad 1 runs iOS 5.0.1 but I believe I have had this problem with previous versions. I'll go into the App Store and find a lot of pending updates. I'll tell it to update all and then leave it on to do its updating.

Later (hours or days even) I come back and all or most of the apps that were updated have the faded icon and an empty update bar with a caption of "Waiting . . ." None of them are updating. I tap them and it doesn't launch and doesn't change the status. I've tried rebooting the iPad but that doesn't seem to help.

Eventually it will return to normal, but I have found no rhyme or reason. I am on 20 Mbit DSL so it shouldn't be that it takes days to download a few updates. I don't think that is what is happening anyway because I don't see any progress on any of them.

Go back to the App Store app, and try hitting the update button again.  Your account login activity time may have expired sometime during the process.  If so, it will ask you to enter your password again before resuming downloading your updates.


This copy of the Install macOS Mojave application is damaged: Even After Correcting Time I was trying to do a fresh install of a macOS Mojave. But it ends up with an error 'This copy of the Install macOS Mojave application is damaged". I have downloaded multiple ios files and finally, I have tried by correcting Time. But still, the same error message is coming. Any idea to solve this problem?

I had this problem and tried many things.  system date was correct.  But only one website help me to fix this problem. Simple method and works on all version of macOS installation. I suggest to try this method. Because it works for me.
https://www.computertipslaiju.com/2019/10/this-copy-of-install-macos-mojave.html

Added by barlop

The method at that link says

Disconnect wifi, then change the date, use the form mmddhhmmyyyy e.g. 042412302016

sudo date 042412302016

You need to disconnect wifi so the date won't automatically change.

The year makes all the difference.  For me, my year was set to the current year 2020 and I got that error trying to install High Sierra from https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208969

By changing the year of my system's date to 2016, I was able to start the installation.

For another person https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8RRm5N_n8s their year was some old date of 2001. Similarly, changing to 2016 made it work without that error.


List of all installed packages in a defunct Homebrew installation? I have an old homebrew installation that is now not in use on a backup drive.  I'd like to list all of the packages that were installed when it was in use, how can this be done without mv'ing it back over to /usr/local and making it operational again?

According to the Homebrew terminology, we have the following definitions :

Cellar :  All Kegs are installed here
Keg :      The installation prefix of a Formula
Formula:   The package definition
Homebrew installs to the Cellar it then symlinks some of the installation into /usr/local so that other programs can see what's going on.

As said in the comments, to list all packages previously installed on a backup drive you can do :
ls -1 /Volumes/*/usr/local/Cellar

If you want to have a better understanding of Homebrew paths, I recommend the reading of the following article : The Path to Homebrew.


Logic weirdly speeds up imported audio I have Logic Pro X 10.2.4.

I never noticed this problem before today:

I started having the same problem as shown in this reddit post:

  everytime I try to upload an mp3 file into logic, it speeds up the audio by a whole lot. I've made sure that the sample rate of the audio file and the project is the same but it still doesn't make a difference. All the previously saved projects that had audio imported into them don't have a problem but if I try to upload a new audio file into those projects, I am encountering the same problem

I have noticed that this doesn't affect only mp3 files (downloaded from the internet), but also m4a files recorded in my iPhone (with the factory voice recorder app) and sent to my MacBook.

The sample rate of Logic (in Project Settings > Audio) is 44.1kHz, as is the sample rate of all the files I try to import (except potentially the m4a files, soxi doesn't work on m4a though so I don't know their sample rates).

Here is an example of an audio file which I may attempt to import:

https://soundcloud.com/george-bakewell/originalrecording

here it is after dragging and dropping from Finder into Logic:

https://soundcloud.com/george-bakewell/logicmangling

It sounds like some parts are just ... skipped. It sounds the same in Logic playback and after exporting (bouncing).

I'm temporarily using the 'fix' that the reddit OP noted:

  I managed to bypass the issue by just converting all of my mp3 files to wav files.

I just ran a few quick

ffmpeg -i originalrecording.m4a originalrecording.wav
ffmpeg -i originalrecording2.mp3 originalrecording2.wav

etc.

Drag and drop the WAV files instead of the original files, and logic no longer chops them up weirdly.

How come this happens though?

What's the root of this problem, and how can it be resolved?

Ok so this is a known issue when upgrading to Catalina. I found a solution and I can't explain how/why it works, but it did work.

I put the mp3 I was trying to use into Garageband, then selected Share>Export Song To Disk & saved the file as an mp3. I then went into Logic, File>Import>Audio File, selected the saved file from GarageBand and it somehow imported without issue! Can't explain why it worked but it did.


How can I open a folder called something.app in various applications? For whatever reason, I created a folder on my Mac called customer.app, and it contains a python module.  I want to open that folder and it's files in applications like BBEdit and GitX, but the open dialog shows this folder as greyed out and won't let me select them.

Are there any settings or properties I can set on this folder to tell my Mac that it is just a regular old folder?

UPDATE: Recent versions of OS X have removed this ability. The answer below applies to OS X 10.9 or earlier.

A simple right-click of the folder will enable you to view the contents using "Show Package Contents."

If you're trying to access the folder from a Save/Open dialog, then try changing your view type from icons to Column mode.


Why are there folders in /Users of already deleted users? Some time ago I had a user called "xy" on my system. I have deleted the user but in the /Users directory there are folders called "xy" with a Desktop, Library etc. in it.

Why are they not deleted and can I delete them manually?

TLDR: Deleting this user's home folder will not harm your system. It will, obviously enough, delete any of the files you created when you were logged in as the previous user.

How is it possible that there be a folder for a user who doesn't appear at the login window?

OS X keeps track of users and their passwords using Directory Services. On most people's computers the Directory Services files are stored in /var/db/dslocal. This database stores the names of users, and other information, such as the location of their home folder. When you deleted your user, your Mac removed the account entry (from the dslocal database), but did not delete the home folder stored in the /Users folder.

So why didn't the system automatically delete the home folder when it deleted the user from the database?

When you delete a User from System Preferences, you are asked what to do with the home folder itself. You can see from this screenshot which option you must have accidentally chosen:

What's the best way to delete the old user's home folder?

I would suggest logging into the account one last time to ensure it does not contain any files you wish to keep, and then deleting both the user record and its files (as you originally intended). To do so:

in System Preferences > Users & Groups, create a new account with the exact same name as the old user's home folder. The system will ask if you wish to use the existing home folder. Choose to do so.
From the Apple menu, choose "Log out" and then log back in to the old user (ie: the user you just recreated).
Take look around in the user's Pictures folder, Documents folder, etc to make sure there are no files you wish to keep
Log back in to your normal account
Delete the old user from "Users & Groups" but this time, choose "Delete the home folder"


Closing a window in OS X Yosemite causes other windows to be made active I have a Chrome window and this Chrome window covers the whole screen (not in the full screen mode, though). I also have 5 Finder windows under this Chrome window. So I can't see any Finder windows. Now I need a Finder window, so  I use Mission Control. Everything works well, but when I close this Finder window, other all Finder windows show up on top of the screen, I don't need them, I only need one window.

How can I prevent this?

This is happening all apps. Not just in Finder and I am using Yosemite 10.10.

This is the Apple paradigm - all windows belonging to one app are part of a single process, unlike Windows, which is, as the name suggests, windows-based. Apple is App-based. What you are seeing is intended behaviour.

The simplest 'workaround' - though to me an indispensable way to use the machine - is to enable Spaces & the associated hot-keys, then put 'important' apps on a Space of their own & switch using the hot-keys.

[I'm in the middle of teaching someone how to use that method right now in meatworld - a Windows migrant learning the new paradigm - so if you're interested, I'll try to flesh out exactly how to go about it.]


AppleScript to get all tracks from albums with less then a certain number of tracks How would I write an AppleScript to get all tracks from albums with less then n tracks  in iTunes?

Here is modified code from a related answer in

Create playlists for full albums in iTunes (i.e. albums with all songs)

It is slow but does the job. It will print out the Album and the Track Names.

HTH

tell application "iTunes"
    -- The number of tracks
    set songsPerAlbum to 4

    set albumBuckets to {} as list
    set allSongs to (every track of library playlist 1 ¬
        whose enabled is true and podcast is false ¬
        and kind contains "Music") as list

    log "Debug: # of songs in library: " & (get count of allSongs)

    -- Get list of albums, the slow way...
    repeat with currentTrack in allSongs
        set albumName to album of currentTrack as text
        if album of currentTrack is not missing value then
            if 0 is less than length of albumName then
                if albumBuckets does not contain album of currentTrack then
                    copy album of currentTrack to the end of albumBuckets
                end if
            end if
        end if
    end repeat

    -- Check each album
    repeat with currentAlbum in albumBuckets
        set albumSongs to (every track of library playlist 1 whose album is currentAlbum)

        -- Check track count
        if (count of albumSongs) is less than songsPerAlbum then
            log "Debug: Album: " & currentAlbum
            repeat with trk in albumSongs
                log "Debug:      " & (get name of trk)
            end repeat
        end if
    end repeat
end tell


Is there anyway to disable ctrl-click? I've been trying to play some games on my macbook (running on mojave) and whenever I try to hold CTRL and click it won't let me. Is there anyway to disable Ctrl-Click?

CTR-Click is essentially right-clicking the mouse, and there is no way of remapping the keys without downloading 3rd party applications.

Karabiner can do this for you:
https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/

You can use it to map CTR-Click to left-click and it should work as you want it to.


What is the command to remove a container and reclaim the space? I was trying to bootcamp my Mac, but it failed halfway through and left me with a 50 GB container I can't delete. It's just a single one I can’t touch. I know there's commands to delete containers, but I don't know how to format it.

Here's the diskutil list:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk2         443.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         49.1 GB    disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +49.1 GB    disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s3
   1:                APFS Volume Recovery                1.0 MB     disk1s1

/dev/disk2 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +443.0 GB   disk2
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            384.2 GB   disk2s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 42.2 MB    disk2s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                1.0 GB     disk2s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      2.1 GB     disk2s4~~~

Essentially, how do I edit
~~~diskutil erasevolume free none disk0s4
 diskutil apfs deletecontainer disk0s3
 diskutil erasevolume free none disk0s3
 diskutil apfs resizecontainer disk0s2 0~~~
to delete  disk0s3?

The commands are given below.

sudo diskutil apfs deletecontainer disk0s3
sudo diskutil erasevolume free none disk0s3
sudo diskutil apfs resizecontainer disk0s2 0

The first command converts the undesired APFS container partition disk0s3 to a JHFS+ formatted partition. The second command converts the disk0s3 partition to free space. The third command expands the desired APFS container partition disk0s2 to consume the free space.

Below is an example. Your results may be sightly different.

Marlin:~ davidanderson$ diskutil list disk0
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk2         450.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         49.7 GB    disk0s3
Marlin:~ davidanderson$ sudo diskutil apfs deletecontainer disk0s3
Started APFS operation on disk1
Deleting APFS Container with all of its APFS Volumes
Unmounting Volumes
Unmounting Volume "Recovery" on disk1s1
Deleting Volumes
Deleting Container
Wiping former APFS disks
Switching content types
Reformatting former APFS disks
Initialized /dev/rdisk0s3 as a 46 GB case-insensitive HFS Plus volume with a 8192k journal
Mounting disk
1 new disk created or changed due to APFS operation
Disk from APFS operation: disk0s3
Finished APFS operation on disk1
Marlin:~ davidanderson$ diskutil list disk0
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk2         450.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                  Apple_HFS Untitled                49.7 GB    disk0s3
Marlin:~ davidanderson$ sudo diskutil erasevolume free none disk0s3
Started erase on disk0s3 Untitled
Unmounting disk
Finished erase on disk0
Marlin:~ davidanderson$ diskutil list disk0
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk2         450.0 GB   disk0s2
Marlin:~ davidanderson$ sudo diskutil apfs resizecontainer disk0s2 0
Started APFS operation
Aligning grow delta to 49,790,267,392 bytes and targeting a new physical store size of 499,790,266,368 bytes
Determined the maximum size for the targeted physical store of this APFS Container to be 499,789,236,224 bytes
Resizing APFS Container designated by APFS Container Reference disk2
The specific APFS Physical Store being resized is disk0s2
Verifying storage system
Performing fsck_apfs -n -x /dev/disk0s2
Checking volume
Checking the container superblock
Checking the space manager
Checking the object map
Checking the APFS volume superblock
Checking the object map
Checking the fsroot tree
Checking the snapshot metadata tree
Checking the extent ref tree
Checking the snapshots
Verifying allocated space
The volume /dev/disk0s2 appears to be OK
Storage system check exit code is 0
Growing APFS Physical Store disk0s2 from 449,999,998,976 to 499,790,266,368 bytes
Modifying partition map
Growing APFS data structures
Finished APFS operation
Marlin:~ davidanderson$ diskutil list disk0
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk2         499.8 GB   disk0s2
Marlin:~ davidanderson$


iOS 7 seems to be killing apps too often I have an iPhone 4s running iOS 7.  I've noticed a pattern regarding apps "reloading" or starting back up from where they were after switching to another app and back.
On previous versions of IOS, I noticed that apps would sometimes reload after window switching, but it seemed to me to be somewhat random, and somewhat based upon which app I was originally running.  For example, if I was playing Angry Birds, I knew that it would take the phone powering off or a really long time even switching between apps before it would have to reload; however with Scrabble - it seemed like I could answer a text message and the app would restart and ask me to log back in.

With iOS 7, this behavior seems different and completely predictable.  No matter what app I am using, if I switch to mobile Safari, that app will need to reload - even if only 2 seconds have passed, but I can switch to any other app, or do anything else short of powering off the phone, and the app I returned to would start where I left off.  Switching to Safari forces any other app to reload when switching-every time.

Can anyone confirm this?
Is it a function of something I can control?
What is it a function of?

iOS will kill apps if it needs to.

There's not really much you can do about it, without jailbreaking. iOS will automatically manage an app's memory, and will kill an app if another app requests more memory. Also, apps using a large amount of CPU will cause iOS to kill other apps so that the foreground app always has the best experience.

If you find that it's killing apps more than it should be, try using apps with less memory usage. For example, try only opening one tab in Safari, then switch apps and switch back. It should be less likely to be terminated if it has less tabs open since there will be less memory usage.

For more information about multitasking, see:

iOS: Understanding multitasking


How to go to alias from terminal? By alias, I mean the folder shortcut created when you right-click a folder in Finder and select "Make Alias". I can traverse symbolic links in Terminal with cd, but it doesn't work on aliases: bash: cd: example-alias: Not a directory. Is it possible to change directory to an alias's destination in Terminal?

To enable cd'ing into a folder alias I've found the following at Mac OS X Hints.

Compile the source code below with the following command:

gcc -o getTrueName -framework Carbon getTrueName.c

This will create the ‘getTrueName’ executable in the same directory as the source. You can add it to your PATH, or just copy it directly to /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin so it’s easy to access.

C source code for getTrueName (copy the text and save the file as getTrueName.c in your home directory):

// getTrueName.c
//
// DESCRIPTION
//   Resolve HFS and HFS+ aliased files (and soft links), and return the
//   name of the "Original" or actual file. Directories have a "/"
//   appended. The error number returned is 255 on error, 0 if the file
//   was an alias, or 1 if the argument given was not an alias
//
// BUILD INSTRUCTIONS
//   gcc-3.3 -o getTrueName -framework Carbon getTrueName.c
//
//     Note: gcc version 4 reports the following warning
//     warning: pointer targets in passing argument 1 of 'FSPathMakeRef'
//       differ in signedness
//
// COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
//   Copyright 2005 by Thos Davis. All rights reserved.
//   This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
//   modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
//   published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the
//   License, or (at your option) any later version.
//
//   This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
//   WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
//   MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
//   General Public License for more details.
//
//   You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public
//   License along with this program; if not, write to the Free
//   Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston,
//   MA 02111-1307 USA

#include <Carbon/Carbon.h>
#define MAX_PATH_SIZE 1024
#define CHECK(rc,check_value) if ((check_value) != noErr) exit((rc))

int main ( int argc, char * argv[] )
  {
    FSRef               fsRef;
    Boolean             targetIsFolder;
    Boolean             wasAliased;
    UInt8               targetPath[MAX_PATH_SIZE+1];
    char *              marker;

    // if there are no arguments, go away
    if (argc < 2 ) exit(255);

    CHECK( 255,
      FSPathMakeRef( argv[1], &fsRef, NULL ));

    CHECK( 1,
      FSResolveAliasFile( &fsRef, TRUE, &targetIsFolder, &wasAliased));

    CHECK( 255,
      FSRefMakePath( &fsRef, targetPath, MAX_PATH_SIZE));

    marker = targetIsFolder ? "/" : "" ;
    printf( "%s%s\n", targetPath, marker );

    exit( 1 - wasAliased );
  }

Include the following in ~/.bash_profile or create a new file ~/.bash_profile with the following content:

function cd {
  if [ ${#1} == 0 ]; then
    builtin cd
  elif [ -d "${1}" ]; then
    builtin cd "${1}"
  elif [[ -f "${1}" || -L "${1}" ]]; then
    path=$(getTrueName "$1")
    builtin cd "$path"
  else
    builtin cd "${1}"
  fi
}

You probably have to restart Terminal to load your modified .bash_profile.

Tested in Yosemite 10.10.2 & gcc 4.2 (Xcode 6.2) and it works.

A similar approach is available at superuser.com


What is the complete, authoritative way in which Mac OSX 10.9 and later builds its PATH? I have read just about every article on this subject.  To wit, I know about:

launchctl setenv
/etc/launchd.conf
/etc/paths
/etc/paths.d/*
/etc/profile
/etc/bashrc
~/.profile
~/.bashrc
~/.MacOSX/environment.plist
~/Library/Preferences/.MacOSX/environment.plist

Let's start whittling all this craziness down:

From other reading, I know that on Mavericks anything that relies on an environment.plist is no longer supported or read.
I know that /etc/profile erases any PATH previously set by launchctl setenv or present in /etc/launchd.conf, and uses a default set of paths appended with anything found in /etc/paths.d/* and /etc/paths.
I also know that applications launched via Spotlight or the Dock obviously don't read your ~/.profile or ~/.bashrc.

That leaves launchctl setenv and /etc/launchd.conf (same thing, really).

At any rate, in my case I find that in a Terminal window—I should stress I have none of the following files: ~/.profile, ~/.bashrc, ./bash_profile—I find that the output of env | grep PATH has /opt/subversion/bin appended to the end of it.  This string does not show up in any of the sources listed above, so it must be coming from somewhere else.  I was not aware of there being anywhere else for it to come from.

So then: how does Mac OS X Mavericks build its PATH variable?

You're trying to understand the theory and that's great.  I'll just say that from practical experience, you can modify .bashrc, .profile and/or .bash_profile and the path setting will stick.  I prefer ~/.profile simply out of habit.  My teammates all use .bash_profile.  Either way it works as long as you pay attention to the order of processing precedence.

Here are a few other thoughts on the matter:

Homebrew wants me to amend my PATH (stackoverflow)
How to correctly add a path to PATH (stackexchange)

Hope that helps.


Filtering files by source with Automator I want to sort my Downloads folder and want to use Automator for it. The Files & Folders library gives me plenty of options, however I was not able to find an action which let me filter files by their source.

  I want to sort files by the URL I downloaded them from. Is there an
  Automator action I am missing? Or do I have to use Apple Script for
  that?

The Filter Finder Files gives me the options for filtering by name, date etc., but not by source. How can I accomplish this task?

Based on your comment, 'I want to say "PDFs downloaded from URL contains "bank name" move to folder "banking"', here is how I'd do it in Automator:

In Automator, create a new Workflow, adding the following Actions:

Find Finder Items, with settings:

Search [Downloads]
[All] of the following are true
[Kind] [is] [PDF]

Run Shell Script,  with settings:

Shell [/bin/bash]
Pass input [as arguments]
Replace the default code with the example code below.

for f in "$@"; do
    [[ $(mdls -name kMDItemWhereFroms "$f") == *bankname* ]] && echo "$f"
done

Note: In the code above, replace "bankname" in *bankname* with the actual bank name in the URL.

Move Finder Items, with settings:

To [Banking]   [] Replacing existing files

Check Replacing existing files if appropriate.


iPhone 5s won't charge When I put my iPhone 5s on charge, it takes around 5 seconds to turn on and show the Apple logo. Then it turns on to show my lock screen and dies straight away.

It has been doing the same thing for the past 4 hours. What should I do?

We'll need to troubleshoot the charging method first - then the device itself.

Troubleshooting the charging method, adapter, cable:

Compare packaging and writing on the cable:

  To identify counterfeit or uncertified cables and accessories, look carefully at the accessory's packaging and at the accessory itself. Certified third-party accessories have the MFi logo on their packaging. An Apple Lightning to USB cable has "Designed by Apple in California" and either "Assembled in China," "Assembled in Vietnam," or "Indústria Brasileira" on the cable about seven inches from the USB connector. You'll see a 12-digit serial number at the end of this text.

Compare connectors and laser etchings:

  You can use the Lightning connector, USB connector, and laser etchings to identify counterfeit or uncertified Lightning accessories. Compare the images below of certified Apple accessories and counterfeit or uncertified Lightning accessories. These are only a few counterfeit products. There are others.

Lightning to USB cable, Lightning-connector end:

The Apple-certified will have:

  Single piece Smooth Rounded, smooth contacts - (Image)
  Width and length of Apple boot is consistent (7.7 mm x 12 mm) - (Image)
  Gray/metallic faceplate insert - (Image)

vs. counterfeit or uncertified will have:

  More than one piece Rough or inconsistent finish Squared contacts with an uneven surface - (Image)
  Varying width, length, or thickness - (Image)
  White or black faceplate insert - (Image)

Lightning to USB cable, USB-connector end:

The Apple-certified:

  Interlocks on USB shell are trapezoidal Interlocks are equally spaced from edge - (Image)
  USB contacts are gold-plated - (Image)
  USB surface is smooth and consistent Surface of USB shell is flat - (Image)
  Surface of the insulator for the USB connection is uniform and flat - (Image)

vs. counterfeit or uncertified:

  USB shell interlocks have right angles Interlocks are inconsistently spaced - (Image 1 Image 2)
  USB contacts are silver-plated - (Image 1 Image 2)
  USB surface is rough or grainy Surface of USB shell has a detent or retaining divot - (Image 1 Image 2)
  Insulator for USB connection has notches or indents - (Image 1 Image 2)

Source: Apple

Troubleshooting the device itself:

Plug into power by one of the below methods:

Plug your charging cable into a USB wall adapter, then plug the adapter into the wall.
Plug your charging cable into a USB 2.0 or 3.0 port on a computer that's on and not in sleep mode. Don’t use the USB ports on your keyboard.
Plug your cable into a powered USB hub, docking station, or other Apple-certified accessory.

If your device won’t charge or charges slowly:

If you have very low battery and plug into power, a black screen or a black screen with a red battery might appear for a few minutes. Follow these steps and try again after each:

Check your charging cable and USB adapter for signs of damage,* like breakage or bent prongs. Don't use damaged accessories.
Use a wall power outlet and check for firm connections between your charging cable, USB wall adapter, and wall outlet, or try a different outlet.
Remove any debris from the charging port on the bottom of your device, then firmly plug your charging cable into your device. If the charging port is damaged, your device probably needs service.
Let your device charge for a half hour (If your device is unresponsive afterward, learn what to do).
Force restart your device: Press and hold the Sleep/Wake and Home buttons at the same time for at least 10 seconds, until you see the Apple logo. Then let your device charge for another half hour.
If your device still won’t power on or charge, take your device, charging cable, and charging adapter to an Apple Retail Store or Apple Authorized Service Provider for evaluation. You can also contact Apple Support.

Source: Apple


iOS Home Screen Shortcut URL I would like to save a URL to my home screen (iOS). The URL includes an authorization key that is handled on the Apache server that serves the site.

http://www.host.com/key-foo

When I navigate to this website and create a home screen shortcut, the URL of the shortcut ends up as:

http://www.host.com/index.html

This breaks the shortcut because the authorization key is required. They key is used client side (React JS) and the Apache config is there so that we still direct all requests to index.html. The relevant Apache config is:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^/key-(.+)$ /index.html [P]
ProxyPassReverse "/" "http://localhost/"

How can I make my iOS home screen shortcut URL = http://www.host.com/key-foo (which, for the record, is the URL that is saved if I create a regular Safari bookmark).

Answering my own question.

There's a property in my ReactJS app's manifest.json that is read by my home screen shortcut:

"start_url": "./index.html"

Removing this property solves the issue and the home screen shortcut now has the correct (unaltered) URL of http://www.host.com/key-foo.


iTunes sync management I have an iPhone5 that was synced to a PC when I first got it.

I had an older BlackBerry that had hundreds of pictures and I wanted them transferred to the iPhone which is why the sync happened. I had a friend do it, and now I'm trying to upgrade the phone to iOS 8 but I don't have enough space.

I tried to delete some photos but I noticed that hundreds of these photos are in albums that are labeled "from My Computer" and are unable to be deleted.

I no longer have access to that original computer that synced the photos, what can I do if I want to keep the photos, but remove them from the phone?

Right now what I'm doing is emailing each photo to myself, that way I have the actual photo file in a non-locked-down format, and then syncing the iPhone to a new computer with 0 photos to clear the previous sync.

I find this restriction from Apple rather backwards logic and not very user friendly. Why lock down photos? They aren't copyrighted MP3 files or MP4 files, they are photos that I personally took, and the fact that I can just email them to myself to create new copies of the file shows that this security lock down isn't secure at all. Disappointed with the decision makers on this one.


What does this mean: "mds: (Warning) FMW: event:1 had an arg mismatch. ac:2 am:51" mds: (Warning) FMW: event:1 had an arg mismatch.  ac:2 am:51

This error shows up in my system.log file regularly. Searching on Google turns up few useful results.

One search result points to iTunes plug-ins/add-ons, all of which I have removed with no change; I still get this error.

Since the error is coming from mds I tried resetting Spotlight, but nothing changed. I have also cleared caches, fixed permissions, run maintenance scripts, verified/repaired the file system in Disk Utility, verified Time Machine backups, even did a surface scan of my hard drive. Anything I could think of that might effect the file system and cause trouble for mds.

I'm at a loss. Does anyone have any clue what this means and how I can make it stop?
EDIT: During Spotlight re-indexing (with sudo mdutil -E /), I got a while lot of...

7/20/12 3:27:43.796 PM com.apple.mdworker.pool.1: PSSniffer error: Invalid argument

...and...

7/20/12 3:53:19.098 PM com.apple.mdworker.isolation.0: failed to parse embedded CMap.
7/20/12 3:53:19.098 PM com.apple.mdworker.isolation.0: syntax error, unexpected DICTSTART.

...each repeated many times over in short bursts.

The same error I had before also came up during and after re-indexing.

These are undocumented internal error conditions and most people outside of Apple can't say for sure what they mean. I wish I had a better, more concrete answer, but here are some ways to poke at your system to get a hint at which file is causing these errors to be emitted...

mds == indexing service. rule of thumb == don't f**k with it unless you know what you do.

Have you reset the spotlight database using any command line tools? (mdutil or mddiagnose) or conventional methods adding/removing directories from the privacy pane in System Preferences?
Does mdutil -s -a
-v say anything useful?
Disabling dropbox may help narrowing the cause

Lastly, watching for other mds related console output might be helpful.


iPhone: Wrong alert noise I've got my iPhone set to use the Telegraph alert noise:

But whenever I get an alert from Twitter, I always hear three noises: Tri-tone, then Telegraph, then Tri-tone.

The triplicate of alerts is slightly bothering, but not overly. I think they're due to both the Mail and the GMail apps announcing I have mail.  I'm not sure which is which, but I hear Tri-tone and Telegraph when I get mail.

I'm just sick of Tri-tone, and would rather not use it at all.

Is there any way I can change the Twitter alert and the GMail(or Mail) alert to use Telegraph rather than Tri-tone?

The built-in Mail app should use the Telegraph tone that you've set for New Mail.

The Twitter client and the GMail app have their own alert tones, and if those apps don't let you change the sound I'm afraid the OS can't either.


Xcode Service: Do I need a separate Mac for OS X Server on Mavericks? I am an iOS developer and I want to implement continuous integration in Xcode.

I have received the following email from Apple:

  As an iOS developer, you can now take advantage of continuous integration in Xcode by creating bots with OS X Server for Mavericks that automate the process of building, analyzing, testing, and archiving your apps. As the bots do their work on the remote Mac, Xcode on your development machine displays the build and test reports. Bots can generate a regular release for your QA team, be configured to execute on every check-in, and even test your apps on connected iOS devices.

I have downloaded OS X Server for Mavericks and its looks like an application.

My question is can I install OS X Server on my development iMac machine and implement continuous integration? Or do I have to have a separate Mac for OS X server to run Xcode Service?

The short answer is, yes, you can install OS X Server and the Xcode Service on your development iMac. You do not need another Mac for the server.
In detail, there are two parts to this question:
1. Can you install OS X Server on your development Mac?
Yes, you can install OS X Server on your development iMac. You do not need another Mac for the server.
From the time of OS X Lion, OS X Server is just another application you buy from the Mac App Store and install. You can install it on any Mac that already has the OS X client version.
The requirements to run OS X Mavericks Server are:

Mac computer running OS X Mavericks.
2GB of memory.
10GB of available disk space; some features require additional disk space.

2. Can you install the Xcode Service on the development Mac (without using another Mac as a server)?
Yes, you can install the Xcode Service on your development Mac. The Xcode Continuous Integration Guide states (emphasis mine):

Note: A continuous integration workflow typically relies on one or more development Mac computers running Xcode and on a separate server running the Xcode service. However, you can install OS X Server and run the Xcode service on your development Mac. Such a configuration can be helpful for evaluating how to adopt continuous integration. Afterward, you’ll find it more useful to have a dedicated server running the Xcode service, hosting your repositories, and remotely performing integrations.


Is there an iPhone app for outlining that has a decent web/desktop companion? I am looking for an outliner app for iPhone, with either a desktop or web counterpart.

Evernote should work for you, there are web/desktop (PC/Mac) and iPad apps, as well as the iPhone app.


MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2016) graphic card issues First of all this is my hardware:

When i power on my new mac book pro (with touch bar) i figured out a strange problem (i think is related with my graphic card).

This is the procedure to get that issue:

Power on my mac
Type my credentials
the first window i open (in this case the "spotlight" window) appears in this way:

There are a lot of white pixel ...
Then if i close the spotlight window and i open again that problem disappear.

If i restart my mac i don't have this problem. It only happen if i shut down my mac and then power on it again. In this example i used "spotlight" but happen the same with the "Finder" app.

---EDIT---

My GPU:

Intel HD Graphics 530
Radeon Pro 450

Yes i have this issue on my interal display (external monitor never used).

---EDIT 2---
SMCand NVRAMdidn't fix the problem.

---EDIT 3---
After many call to "Apple Care" they figured out that my mac book pro has some hardware issues. They offer to me a substitution. Of course i said yes. In 2 weeks they will send to me a new one.

That does seem a little strange. As a starting point it may be worth resetting both your SMC and NVRAM. Instructions follow.

Resetting the SMC on your particular MBP

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

Resetting the NVRAM on Late-2016 MacBook Pro models

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

Shut down your machine. Yes, a full shut down, not just logging out.
Press the power button and then immediately press the commandoptionpr keys.
Keep these keys pressed down for at least 20 seconds!
Let go of the keys and let your Mac reboot normally.

Note: When you log back in you may need to readjust some of your system preferences (e.g. speaker volume, screen resolution, startup disk selection, time zone information, etc).

Once you've tried these, let us know how you go.


Hide/Remove a Key from Keychain Access Is there a way to hide a key (i.e. a wifi WPA key password) from being listed in Keychain Access but still have OS X be able to use it? We're a school and we we don't want users to be able to access keychain and see the WPA key of the wifi password.

It doesn't even have to be hidden as long as the user can't get access to being shown the password.

My first idea is to use Parental Controls to restrict access to Keychain Access:

System Preferences > Parental Controls > Add the account that will be used > Apps > Limit Applications > Check all the boxes except Utilities > Keychain Access

If you need the users to be able to open Keychain Access (For example, to manage their own keychains), you can set up the login keychain so that it doesn't unlock automatically and allow/require end users to create and use non-login keychains.  To set the login keychain so it doesn't automatically unlock, open /Applications/Utilities/Keychain Access, go to Preferences > First Aid, and uncheck the last three checkboxes, "Synchronize login keychain password with account", "Set login keychain as default" and "Keep login keychain unlocked".

Neither of these are exactly what you're asking, but should solve the problem.


Change Spotlight weather forecast from Fahrenheit to degrees In El Capitan Spotlight, you can search for weather forecast. Is it possible to change from Fahrenheit to Degrees?

I'm not really sure, but if you change Fahrenheit to degrees in the Notification Center add-ons ? (it's the case for Siri on iOS)

Or perhaps if you change your region :

Last chance in the Language & Region advanced section with the units parameter :


iPad app with variable speed video playback? I would like to watch recorded lectures at 1.7x of their original speed.

Which app will allow me to do that?

I built Swift Player for iPhone and iPad that will allow you to change (speed up) the playback speed of video and audio from the device or even directly from websites like YouTube, etc.

You can find out more information on the product's website.

Note: This is a product that I have developed.


"First Aid found corruption that needs to be repaired" I was trying to re-install Windows through Bootcamp, and it was stuck at partitioning. I quit Bootcamp, and now in the disk utility I get this error, even when in recovery mode:

  First Aid found corruption that needs to be repaired. To repair the startup volume, run First Aid from Recovery

I am backing it up right now, but how can I fix this? It's my school computer with important stuff, so any help is appreciated. It's a MacBook Pro (Retina, Late 2013) running macOS Sierra.

Fixed my own problem:

I went into internet recovery mode (Cmd+Option+R) on startup and was able to repair the disk from disk utility inside of internet recovery. I guess it was cause recovery was on the disk I was trying to fix.


Index of files to backup I'm looking for something similar to http://www.indexyourfiles.com/ for the mac.

What I want to do is create a backup of my file index which is portable and can be searched through even if you don't have actual access to the files.

Any clues?

Br

A quick search of "disk catalogs" on MacUpdate revealed some of the apps that used to be much more common. NeoFinder (formerly CDFinder) and Disk Catalog Maker
were well-rated. A search of the Mac App Store would I'm sure turn up more, though they all seem to have become more expensive.


Does ctrl-A and ctrl-E on a mac work the same as HOME and END on Windows? Coming from a Windows Machine to a Mac - one of the things I missed was the HOME and END keys when editing a text document.

Then I discovered:

ctrl-E # move cursor to end of line
ctrl-A # move cursor to beginning of line

Which seems to do the same thing.

I'm wondering if this making too much of an assumption or I'm missing something. Although I've tested it, I'm asking the question because there might be a different scenario I've missed that makes it different.

My question is: Does ctrl-A and ctrl-E on a mac work the same as HOME and END on Windows?

In fact this convention is coming from the Emacs text editor on Unix.
Windows copied it 30 years later :).

Of course, this is working in:

emacs

and these 2 shells which inherited the editing line shortcuts of emacs:

bash
zsh

and these Apple graphical interface software:

Calendar
Messages
Notes
TextEdit
LibreOffice
Pages
Finder

On the other hand, this convention is failing in:

vi

and I suspect in some other softwares which have their own set of shortcuts without enough freedom to keep these very old and useful ones.


Stetting up your Mac install phase is taking a long time; save to reboot? A friend of mine just got a new iMac from Best Buy. Installation phase went fine (I'm pretty sure OS came installed). She got to the "Setting up your Mac" phase and it's been stuck for about 3 hours right now. Never took this long before in dealing with Macs, ever.

Knowing potential problems with powering down during an install, I've been avoiding the turning-it-off-and-on-again option. Is it save to power down and reboot? I really don't know what OSX does during this step so I've been avoiding this possibility.

Today is Dec 26; Apple's servers might be overwhelmed with installs right now but I can't be certain since I've never purchased Macs anywhere except from Apple directly.

[FYI I have told her to contact Apple care and I suspect they might tell her to do something like that.]

I don't know the model iMac it is; she hasn't gotten back to me on our iMessage conversation. Once I know it I'll post it here. I'm pretty sure the computer is new since she got it from Best Buy; I at least know it's a clean HD.

Thx.
Matt

I had the same thing with my Non-retina MacBook Pro 13 back in August. I actually had to reboot several times because it hung up on me (after waiting several hours).

Nothing was harmed, the setup process should resume from where you left off.


Get my PKG Installer To Prompt and Store Admin User/Pass On Mac OSX, the third-party command line tool I have needs to run as super user unfortunately. I'm building a front-end GUI for it. My Qt/C++ application is using QProcess to shell out to Bash and run this command via echo "{PASS}" sudo -l "{USER}" -S {COMMAND}. I'm successful with that -- just as long as I have the Apple ID user/pass.

Is there a way my PKG installer can graphically prompt for Apple ID user/pass? Second, how would you recommend I store this securely?

From this documentation...

http://s.sudre.free.fr/Software/documentation/Packages/en/Package_Settings_Customization.html#6

...it states that Apple PackageManager files (.PKG) files have an option to run with Administrator privileges. It specifically states:

  If you install anything in /Applications or /Library, this option
  should be enabled.

Also, in this documentation...

http://s.sudre.free.fr/Stuff/PackageMaker_Howto.html

...it states that Bash scripts that you run will run under Administrator privileges (root) and therefore will not require sudo authentication to do powerful tasks.


need to move videos from iphoto to Lacie external hard drive i am on a Macbook air with yosemite 10.10.5 and my video exports fail.

Trying to export it thru Photos menu - select file >  export and choose my to LaCie share external HD but got that error.

...im able to drag or copy the file to my desktop and from there move it to the external HD but can't do it directly, don't know why. tried to export it to my internal HD but didn't let me either. already looked into this post How to move all iPhoto video files to an external disk or a NAS?

You nailed the problem when you tried to export to your desktop instead of the external drive. It's the export process that's broken.

You could pursue two avenues:

Dig into the video format of one specific file and work through that here.
Contact Apple support since your version of Photos is likely new enough to get support (or free support on twitter would get you the Apple KB that lists what video formats are supported for export.


Black screen of death with question mark file My MacBook screen went black while I was working and then started blinking with this file image:

I was not able to get the MacBook to recover, and I ended up pressing the power button and losing my work. When this happens is there something I should do to get back to my work, or is powercycling my only option?

Details about my setup:
MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015)
Processor: 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory: 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Graphics: Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB
Sierra 10.12.3
No Time Machine set up.

This is usually a sign that the Macbook can't detect your hard drive. So, something happened while you were working that caused your hard drive to either stop spinning, or just to not be recognized by your system anymore.

One option:
Unless you have experience taking apart Macbooks, and have the appropriate drive sled to offload data from your (possibly) failing drive, I'd highly recommend taking it into a Mac service place so that they can copy the data off your drive before it completely fails (if it hasn't already). That's your best bet for data recovery.  While they've got it apart, they can put in a new drive (I'd recommend an SSD upgrade if you have a spinning disk currently, since it'll speed your machine WAY up).

The other option is if you have another Mac and a thunderbolt (or firewire if this is an old mac) cable, you can try repeatedly rebooting while holding down the T-key. This boots into Firewire/Thunderbolt Target Disk Mode, which basically turns your laptop into an expensive external hard drive. When hard drives start to fail, occasionally you'll be able to reboot several times and they'll work again. Do that, and if/when it works, then plug into the other Mac and immediately copy off all of your most important files, followed by your less important files, since the drive could fail again at any time.

Hope this helps and you can recover your data!


What Internet connection speed do you need to watch iTunes's 4K movies? I'm looking for ballpark figures for what 4K movies from iTunes use in terms of network bandwidth.

Is this documented or something that's a known range?

Apple recommends a minimum speed of 25 Mbps for 4K streaming

Find and watch movies with 4K, HDR, or Dolby Vision - Apple Support

A nice tool to estimate what bandwidth is needed for various video formats is the Black Magic Disk Speed Test app: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/blackmagic-disk-speed-test/id425264550?mt=12


Time Capsule not accepting encryption password My setup here is several MBPs backing up to an Apple Time Capsule. Backups are encrypted.

I boot to recovery mode on the MBP I want to restore to (Cmd+R).
Choose to restore from a Time Machine backup.
Choose the Time Capsule in the list, and enter its network password. Works fine. I can now see the backups.
Choose the particular MBP backup image I want to restore, and am prompted for its encryption password.
Enter this, but it doesn't work. Wrong password, apparently. Tried repeatedly.

If I boot the MBP normally I can see in Keychain Access that the password I'm typing is 100% correct. No doubt about it.

I made sure to set the keyboard language correctly in recovery mode (it defaults to US English but I'm British). Still locked out.

I can browse the backup just fine when macOS is booted. I doubt the backup is corrupted but, like I say, in recovery mode I'm not even getting far enough to find out. The password for the encrypted backup image just isn't being accepted.

I've had this happen too in the past when I was utterly sure I had the right password, and I ended-up just abandoning the backup and starting with a fresh install. I can't do that here.

Anybody got a clue as to how I can access this backup? Why do I have a feeling I'm encountering one of those serious bugs that Apple knows about but brushes under the carpet?

An update for people in 2019. We had the same problem, luckily we could still access the keychain and check. In our case the password was truncated to 28 characters from the 32 we had written.


Setting dock position to immutable not working I tried to make the dock position immutable by using this command:

  defaults write com.apple.dock position-immutable -bool yes

and then

  killall Dock

But this didn't work. It did write somewhere the line:
"position-immutable" = 1;
as this appears in the output of

  defaults read

However, it has no effect on the dock behavior. Is there no way to prevent it from jumping around? I'm willing to install whatever tool is necessary to accomplish this.
Thanks

I have tried the setting and this works fine with macOS 10.12 Sierra:

defaults write com.apple.Dock contents-immutable -bool yes; killall Dock

edit: sorry, I misread the command. The command to lock the position works too:

defaults write com.apple.Dock position-immutable -bool yes; killall Dock


How to make continuity and handoff working [iPhone 5S; iOS 8.1][Macbook pro mid 2012] I could not find proper steps to use both continuity and handoff with voice calls. I managed to do the following till now and I was able to make calls from Macbook but not receive calls that came to my iPhone. Here are the steps I did,

In Macbook pro:

Enabled the "Allow handoff between this Mac and your iCloud devices"
in Settings->General.
I ensured both my Mac and iPhone are using the
same iCloud account.

In iPhone:

Settings->FaceTime, I have enabled 'iPhone Cellar Calls'.
Settings->General, I have enabled Handoff & suggested apps

I tried to pair iPhone bluetooth and my MBP. But I am unable to do so. I could see my iPhone in the list of devices in MBP, but when I pair, I get the message 'Make sure network access is enabled'.

What else I should do to get continuity and handoff to work? If I am correct I should be able to,

Make calls from Mac [Possible as of now]
Receive calls that I get form iPhone in Mac Use

Device Information:

iPhone 5S Gold, AT&T. iOS 8.1 (12B411)
MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012). OS X 10.10 (14A389)

I am unable to get the below feature working, [Receive calls]

Unable to pair iPhone,

Unable to send text messages,

In your iPhone, go to Settings > General > Handoff & suggested apps and make sure Handoff is enabled.


My iphone is empty and useless after ios update I updated my iphone 4 ios today. But now when i on the iphone it shows an empty screen with IPHONE written in bold, when i unlock it, it shows me a list to select language, when i select it shows me another lis to select country. When i select a country, it takes me to wifi and a button that shows connect to itunes. When i click on connect to itunes, it shows a usb pointing to a music icon. I can't do anything on the iphone apart from this. I don't have a wifi connection and i can't get a pc now. What can i do, please ?

The USB pointing to iTunes icon means you need to connect your iPhone to iTunes. I think if you don't have a wifi connection and can't get to any PC with iTunes then you will have to wait until you get either one of those. Maybe you can ask a friend to bring a laptop round or go to theirs. Or try and find a wifi without a password nearby somewhere. Also I think most McDonald's have free wifi. Not sure if this will work as I haven't set up a new iOS device since 4S but go back to wifi and click skip. Then try to use your carrier's cellular network to set it up. Hope this helps.


Don't Sleep Network Connection / VPN If I let my computer sleep my VPN connection seems to die. Mac shows it as still being up, but nothing over the VPN works until I reconnect and disconnect.

I am happy to have a my monitors sleep, but I want my network and VPN connection to stay active.

I'm running Yosemite with a wired connection. Anyone know how I might get this to happen? I'm open to using Caffeine or something like that, but with 3x 30 inch monitors my power bill will suck if I don't let them sleep (and turning them off is annoying because all my windows get rearranged).

Just put your displays to sleep in the energy saver settings (like in the picture below) and it should work.

Please check the answer at serverfault for the reason why the VPN-connections breaks.


Is it possible to have dual internal hard drives in a 2009 mac mini? I want to have an SSD for the OS, and the existing disk that came with the unit.

Is this possible?

There are three possible models of Mac mini that came out in 2009: Early 2009, Late 2009, and the Late 2009 server variant.

The server variant comes with two hard drives already (and no optical drive), so I'm assuming you don't have that one. However, since the server and non-server variants use the same case, it seems a safe assumption that you could fit a hard drive in the space usually taken by the optical drive. Getting the hard drive to be held properly in that spot might be difficult, but maybe one of the optical drive replacement caddies could help.

There doesn't seem (and I don't remember there being) a significant physical difference between the early and late 2009 models, so I think the same assumption would apply.

In any case, be sure to check the iFixit (or similar) teardown before you start and do tell us if it works (or if it doesn't)!


Compress files with the output name same as Parent Folder with Automator I've been searching the internet for a solution to this.  I would like to create an Automator workflow that will zip the selected files, name the zip the name of the Parent directory and save that zip in the current directory.

I can't seem to find a way to get the parent directory. I've kinda hit a wall here. Could anyone help me out?

In Automator:

Add Get Selected Finder Items
Add Run Applescript

Inssert this code for the Applescript:

on run {input, parameters}
 set pathList to {}
 repeat with itemNum from 1 to count of input
 tell application "System Events"
 copy POSIX path of (container of (item itemNum of input)) to end of pathList
 end tell
 end repeat
 return pathList
end run

Output/Results:

2013-05-11 00:06:02 +0000: Get Selected Finder Items completed
2013-05-11 00:06:02 +0000: Conversion from Files/Folders to Files/Folders completed
2013-05-11 00:06:02 +0000: Run AppleScript completed
2013-05-11 00:06:02 +0000: Workflow completed

{"/Users/Desktop", "/Users/Desktop", "/Users/Desktop"}


How can I measure, that how much data of internet I used on MAC for a certain period of time? I'm using Mac Book Pro. For internet I use modem. My question, Is there any way to find out how many data (in GB) I have already used for a certain period of time (in 30 days).
Or It will count the amount of data I'll use in coming month or something? Is there any apps to measure it? I'm talking about used data. Not bandwidth. If anyone knows, please share it with me.
Thanks in advance.

Did you try the activity monitor thats built in to OS X? Use spot light to find/open activity monitor and click on the network button near the bottom and it will display the data sent and received since the last restart.


Sierra Spotlight vs mdfind vs finder I have seen several Sierra/Spotlight questions posted but none are what I am experiencing.

I am not receiving any errors when re-indexing. My migration to Sierra from El Capitan went without a glitch. However Spotlight does not return accurate results. Files I know exist do not show up.

My first and second thought was there is a corrupt mdstore, Rebuilt mdstore multiple times to no avail.

Observation 1  - mdfind in terminal works as expected. Finding all the files expected. However Spotlight does not.

Observation 2 - In Finder when using the first available search box the results are wrong and identical to spotlight results

Observation 3 - In Finder when using secondary search boxes (click + sign to open up additional search boxes) and clearing the first search box then all files are found as expected identical to mdfind.

So now I only use mdfind or finder with detailed search boxes and all is ok

Is this a bug in Spotlight and not an mdstore issue?

Sound like a bug to me

thanks

Regarding Observation 1:

As far as I understand, this is a long-standing bug in the way Spotlight is constructed (going back to Lion or even earlier). In Sierra it has just been acerbated to the point, where I have completely abandoned Spotlight and am using the Find (CMD+F) function in Finder. With this function I find all the files I am expecting to find and have also a larger array of options to choose.

According to my understanding the issue arises as Spotlight searches by strings and has some odd rules for defining strings, which appear to not be consistent at all.

Regarding Observation 2 and 3:

If a Spotlight search has been started the CMD-F function only returns the same as the Spotlight search. I can't figure out why it does do so. So you need to shut down the Spotlight search first to get a result with Find that is different from the Spotlight search result. It looks like the search results are not refreshed in between the two searches.

Further Observation to the issue of not refreshing search results:
You search a file with Spotlight. Upon locating it you move it to a different folder. You use undo. From now on the file is found by Spotlight in the original folder even if it is moved again. But don't delete it - it is not a copy - it actually has been moved, Spotlight just refuses to acknowledge this.


Can time capsule and airport express utility see my browsing history I am a lodger in someone else's house.  They have a time capsule, various airport express base stations and several wifi networks configured.

I am delegated to only use network 1 and I am wondering, can the landlord, using airport express utility see my browsing activity i.e. the actual websites and URLs that I visit?

In principle they can since it is the same as a public server.

However, if you are using the HTPPS mode then it will become difficult for them to encrypt it.


Reset device list on Apple Developer Portal The limit of registered devices on the Apple Developer Portal has reached 100, and I can see a Reset button on devices list.

I am just not sure what this reset button will do. Delete all the devices or delete selected devices?

I cannot risk clicking on the button without knowing what it does since it's a company account. Can anyone please help me with this?

From the Account Management - Apple Developer support page:

  Resetting Your Device List Annually

  If you are the Account Holder, you can reset your list of development devices each year using Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles. You can register up to 100 of each device type for testing and Ad Hoc distribution per membership year. At the start of your new membership year, Account Holders, Admins, and App Managers will be presented with the option to remove listed devices and restore the available device count to 100 when first signing in to Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles.

  Although you may remove a device from your account during the year, it will continue to count against your device limit. When resetting your list, make sure to remove all devices you no longer use for development before adding any new devices.

Now, to answer your question:

  I am just not sure what this reset button will do. Delete all the devices or delete selected devices?

You can either remove all or selected devices.

Once every year, at the time of renewal of your Apple development program membership, you are given an option to remove registered device UDIDs and add new ones.

After you click on the Reset button, you'd be presented with the list of all the devices currently added in the Developer Portal. You can choose what devices to carry over in the next membership year and what devices to drop. You can claim the slots occupied by the devices that you no longer wish to use in future.

During the membership year, removing devices doesn't automatically free up the slot occupied by them (you get a limit of 100 development devices per year).

So if you have reached the limit and want to replace some of the devices with newer/different ones, this is your once in a year chance to do so.

  I cannot risk clicking on the button without knowing what it does since it's a company account. Can anyone please help me with this?

Clicking the reset button won't immediately reset the list of devices. So you need not worry about it. You'd be resented with on-screen-instructions to help with further action.

It would be advisable here to select and remove only those devices which are no longer being used for app development and/or testing. This would free up an equal number of slots for adding new/other devices during the year.

Note: Removing a device does not prevent you from re-adding it into the Developer portal.


A question about installing kernels (related to running Hydrogen with Atom) I have a really basic question, but the more I read, the more confused I get: How do I install pip so I can install kernels?

This question came about when I tried to install the Hydrogen package to use in Atom, the text editor (to help me learn Python). I finally succeeded in installing Hydrogen, but got stumped by the missing kernels (not sure which ones I need, so I am willing to install them all). But I can't seem to install the kernels without pip.

I have a vague understanding of the implications of global vs local installations--I get that certain Python installations aren't compatible with local or global kernel installations (I hope I have the terminology right.) But I saw several warnings about installing pip for "a homebrew based python installation", but I am not sure whether Python on my laptop is installed via homebrew (nor how to find out).

So if Python(2.7) came pre-installed on my MacBook Pro (High Sierra), can I just do sudo easy_install pip (as suggested) from the command line--withOUT causing issues?

I first posted this question in StackExchange and was advised to seek help here. Frankly I wasn't sure whether this was a Mac question or a Atom question.

Thanks in advance!

I had the same problem. I solved it by making the first line of my script:

#!path/to/python

I type which python and use the result in first line of script. Now Hydrogen works every time.


Customize title bar color of application windows I'm a software developer and my daily work involves about 8 or 10 different applications or web-based tools. I work on a 13" MB Pro without an external monitor, and typically I use the touch pad's app exposé function to quickly switch between windows. Most of the applications have a characteristic look, so my brain is usually pretty quick to identify the particular window that I need. Lately, however, both as a result of some uniformity trends in web and application design as well as the particular set of tools my latest job requires, all the windows look the same and it's hard to distinguish applications in exposé.
GitHub? White screen, black bar on top. AWS console? White screen, black bar on top. Outlook? White screen, black bar. Postman, Jenkins, various StackExchange sites? You see where I'm going with this... App exposé basically shows a lot of very similar looking windows. A few of these allow theming, but it requires that you have full control over the application or web site, so it's not always an option.
My question now: is there a way in Mac OS to customize the window title bar color on a per-window basis to make them look more distinct? Are there some other visual customization utilities available? (I noticed, e.g., that Microsoft Teams is able to put a colored frame around a window that's shared with the team).

This is not possible. You could disable SIP and edit the System's CAR files with ThemeEngine, but this isn't recommended, since you could destroy your Mac's UI.


Is it possible to restart an iPhone? I just want to restart my iPhone not turn it off + turn it back on.

In Android there is an option.

You force restart iPhone simply by pressing and holding both the home button and the power button until you see the Apple logo. For this force restart both buttons are held simultaneously.

I have been in at least one situation where the phone would not power off and the only way to get the phone back working was to force restart.

This is similar to holding the power button down on a computer and crashing it entirely, and just like a computer, is typically only needed on rare occasions when nothing else will work. Refer to this KB document for more information: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1430.


Key pattern for the functional keys? I'd like to know the key pattern for the functional keys (F1, F2, F3....)

I recently purchased a separate media controller for my MacBookPro, it has the ability to map it's buttons to certain key patterns. I'd like to define two of the buttons on it to be Previous Song (F7) and Next Song (F9). But the controller isn't recognizing the key patterns.

I've tried just hitting the F7 key, which it doesn't recognize. I've also tried defining the key pattern as (F7 + fn-key), which it recognizes, but doesn't do anything, it just makes the "does not compute sound" that Mac's make.

So what is the correct key-pattern for specifying the functional keys at the top of the keyboard?

From my brief research the media keys are passed as events.

As an alternative solution, perhaps you can use a solution similar to the one illustrated here:

Define the keypress you want to perform an action (Using Keyboard Shortcuts in System Preferences or a third-party application like USB Overdrive)
Write an AppleScript to perform the action you need:

tell application "iTunes"
    next track
end tell


Unable to boot into Ubuntu 13.04 on Mac Today I decided to erase OS X and install Ubuntu - unfortunately something went wrong and now I am asking this question on live mode on Ubuntu.

So basically all I did was create a bootable USB stick from OS X, restarted, then held down ⌥ alt/option, choosed the stick, installed Ubuntu and erased OS X.

All was good, and after installion it said "successful installation" and restarted the computer. I did that, and a blinking question mark appeared on the screen. My MBP could not find any bootable partition.

Any idea what can I do to get Ubuntu up and running?

By the way, I want to point out there is no OS X partition left on my drive - I didn't use any kind of program for dual boot, since I wanted to install OS X on another physical drive.

You can't simply install Ubuntu on your internal drive, because Apple's EFI and GRUB (the bootloader) don't get along.

You will also need an EFI bootloader, like rEFInd (a fork of rEFIt):

  rEFIt is a boot menu and maintenance toolkit for EFI-based machines like the Intel Macs. You can use it to boot multiple operating systems easily, including triple-boot setups with Boot Camp. It also provides an easy way to enter and explore the EFI pre-boot environment. Source: The rEFIt Project


Open multiple urls from Terminal I can open one chrome window through

open https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

I can also open multiple URLs by multiple lines

open https://www.youtube.com/
open https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

The following won't work though

open https://www.youtube.com/ && https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

but it works with

open https://www.youtube.com/ && open https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

I want an elegant inline expression like

open ('https://www.youtube.com/','https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page')

How to do that?

Just supply all of the URLs you want to open as arguments to a single open command:

open https://www.youtube.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

The open command has been written to handle this.

The reason it doesn't work with && is that in shell syntax, && is a delimiter between different commands, not between arguments to the same command. So it was trying to run https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page as a separate command, which doesn't work.

More specifically, && runs the second command only if the first command succeeds. There are a number of command delimiters you can use with different meanings:

cmd1 ; cmd2    # Runs cmd1 and then cmd2 (just as though they were on different lines)
cmd1 & cmd2    # Runs cmd1 and cmd2 simultaneously, with cmd1 in the background
cmd1 | cmd2    # Runs cmd1 and cmd2 simultaneously, with cmd1's output piped to cmd2's input
cmd1 && cmd2    # Runs cmd1, and then if it succeeds runs cmd2
cmd1 || cmd2    # Runs cmd1, and then if it fails runs cmd2


C compiler with openmp support on Mavericks via Homebrew I need to have a C compiler with openmp support. I installed gcc49 via Homebrew but still the configure script of the library I like to install (nfft) complains: You don't seem to have a C compiler with OpenMP support installed which is required for threaded NFFT. I have the Command Line Tools installed (as this is requested by installing Homebrew). gcc -v delivers Configured with: --prefix=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr --with-gxx-include-dir=/usr/include/c++/4.2.1
Apple LLVM version 5.0 (clang-500.2.79) (based on LLVM 3.3svn)
Target: x86_64-apple-darwin13.0.0
Thread model: posix. So it points to the version in Xcode and seems not to support openmp. On the other hand, gcc49 should support openmp. How do I now get this to work?

You called the Xcode gcc which is gcc 4.2 iirc. To use your Homebrew gcc just run gcc-49 and to compile with OpenMP support append -fopenmp.

Example with g++ for C++11:

g++-4.9 -fopenmp -std=c++11 omp_code.cpp -o omp_executable

This should give you insight about gcc and show that it's just a symlink to Xcode's llvm.

ls -la /usr/bin | grep gcc

You could just change the symlink to your new gcc-49, but you should be careful, as this might break other things for you.

If gcc-49 isn't available for you, you still have to add Homebrew to PATH.

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

To permanently add this to your PATH, add these lines to your ~/.bashrc . If you use a different shell, you need to find the right file for it (~/.zshrc for zsh i.e.)

Invoke 'brew doctor' to see if Homebrew is set up correctly.


Can I backup an arbitrary file on iCloud? If I open iCloud in System Preferences, it says I have 5 GB of storage available.  I'd like to use it to back up some zip archives of source code.  Is that possible, or can you only access that storage through specific programs?

Update - I've accepted the answer about the Mobile Backups folder, but I it is not quite what I want for a backup system, so I'm not going to use iCloud for this. If I delete a file from Mobile Backups, it will disappear from the iCloud folder, but I want protection from accidental deletion.  I want plain old file storage.

Yes you can — iCloud can be used to sync anything that you wish.

Open ~/Library/Mobile Documents and create a folder (call it anything you wish).
Inside, put whatever documents you would like to sync over iCloud.
That folder will sync with other Macs (and jailbroken iOS devices, and on the web too if you have a Apple Developer licence).

Alternatively, you can symlink a folder on your Mac in to the Mobile Documents folder so that the files remain in their original location.


Set text for macOS floating text screensaver from command line I've tried a variety of different ways to change the message for the "message" screen saver on macOS 10.10.3.  When I change it through the GUI, at least the following plist file is updated:

~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.ScreenSaver.Basic.UUID.plist

When I try to update this file as root using:

defaults write /Users/myusername/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.ScreenSaver.Basic.UUID.plist MESSAGE "test"

or

defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.ScreenSaver.Basic.UUID.plist

after closing the prefs window, when I subsequently re-open the sys prefs and view the screen saver settings, they still show the old settings.

The following command to restart the prefs engine doesn't work either:

killall cfprefsd

If I modify the above files using defaults without opening the system prefs, then restart, strangely, the screensaver reverts to the default computer name after the restart.

Ultimately I'm trying to enforce a custom screensaver with floating text on all my macOS machines.

this thread is no.1 in Google for "macOS screensaver text" query, so I decided to put my answer here.

Currently (macOS High Sierra 10.13.5) if you want to change the text of your "basic" screensaver you have to type:

defaults write ${HOME}/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.ScreenSaver.Basic.plist MESSAGE "your message"

after that it's necessary to reload:

killall cfprefsd

after that you can test your changes with running a Screen Saver from a command line:

/System/Library/CoreServices/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine

For my needs I wrote a small script that inserts a ten-minute time interval in the screen saver (to show how long the break takes). It's here macOS ScreenSaver Text.

Hope this helps someone. Cheers.


What hidden features have you found in iOS 6? This is the required hidden gems questions for iOS 6.

Here are the rules:

One feature per answer
Also include how you use the feature or why it is useful
Must be an under-documented feature. No "flag pole" features like VIP's in Mail.

Alarms can now make use of songs not just built in tones. Edit your alarm and select sound and then pick a song.


How can I set a different scrolling direction for mouse and trackpad in Lion? I want to give the new scrolling behavior in Lion a try (both on the built-in as well as on the magic trackpad).

But on my Mouse (a Logitech Anywhere MX), I don't want reverse scrolling. In preferences, it seems as if there were two different settings (one in the mouse prefPane, the other in the trackpad prefPane), however changing one always changes the other.

Is it possible to set this behavior independently?

Scrollreverser (free app) actually supports configuring the scrolling direction for each kind of device separately.


Why find and exec with multiple conditions doesn't work without parenthesis? I have two very similar find commands only one of which works. Since it's relevant, I must mention that there are no files with .c or .hpp extensions.

# That one works
find ~/src/ \( -type f -iname '*.cpp' -or -iname '*.h' -or -iname '*.c' -or -iname '*.hpp' \) -exec echo {} \;
# That one doesn't
find ~/src/ -type f -iname '*.cpp' -or -iname '*.h' -or -iname '*.c' -or -iname '*.hpp' -exec echo {} \;

Well, neither work as you expect. Let's look at the one that "doesn't work" and apply the parentheses and logic that are implied.

find ~/src \( -type f -a -iname '*.cpp' \) -or \( -iname '*.h' \) -or \( -iname '*.c' \) -or \( -iname '*.hpp' \) -exec echo {} \;

No action is applied to files that end in cpp, or file system objects that end in h and c. Only file system objects that end in hpp are echoed because -exec negates the default behavior of find to print. You could add -exec echo {} \; or -print at the end of each enclosed parentheses but that's silly.

Let's fix the "one that works"

find ~/src -type f \( -iname '*.cpp' -or -iname '*.h' -or -iname '*.c' -or -iname '*.hpp' \) -exec echo {} \;


iPhone ring notification on the computer Is there a way with Bluetooth or WiFi or something that will display on my mac mini's screen that there is an incoming phone call or SMS and who its from with possibly a photo?

Edit

I'm currently on a non-jailbroken phone, so would be most interested in solutions that would work a non-jailbroken phone. On the other hand... if the only solution (seamless preferably - ie the phone talks to the computer, not through a 3rd party server out in the internet someplace) is with a jailbroken phone, this would be a reason for me to do it...

As far as I know, there's no way to do that directly with a non-jailbroken iPhone.  (I would love to be wrong about that, though.)

You might be able to set up your phone with a third-party service to get functionality like this.  For example, using Google Voice with an app like GrowlVoice ($5).  GrowlVoice can provide real-time SMS notifications, but I'm not sure about real-time call notifications.


Trackpad 1 pair with windows 10 I'm using windows 10 on my MBP, and my trackpad (Bluetooth) won't work, unless I disable the bluetooth, then it works... So, how can I have both trackpad and bluetooth?

So, I solved it by going back to OSX, removed the trackpad from the Bluetooth settings, then disabled bluetooth. I paired the trackpad with a tablet to test, and it paired, so I logged back to windows 10, then it paired with the '0000' code.

Strange, but it worked.


Bluetooth headset A2dp on iPad not working This seems like a basic tech support question, but google is failing me....

I just paired a bluetooth headset (single ear) with my iPad. This headset is known for having a very good a2dp profile built in and is advertised to allow one to stream music from one's smartphone in addition to taking calls.

So far the only app that has given me audio in the headset is Talkatone (a VoIP app). iTunes U, iTunes, google chrome, safari, and YouTube output audio through the iPad's speakers.

How do I configure any of these apps to use my headset for audio?

My mistake.  I did consult the headset manual, which had one sentence about A2DP, which just said essentially "it only works on phones that support it".

In fact, all I had to do to move from where I was to the headset working as I expected was to force-close and reopen each iPad app that I wanted to hear through the headset.


Are OS X shutdown cause and sleep cause numbers listed/explained anywhere? The numbers in which I'm most interested

-2
0
3
5

… I might add to that shortlist.

What do those numbers mean; where might we find authoritative explanations?

Somewhere in Apple open source, maybe?

Background

There's a suggested answer for -60, a question about -81, a debatable suggested answer for -108, discussion of -128, -72, -62, -30, -2, 0, 3 … and so on, but unless I'm missing something:

nothing like an Apple-provided list of explanations of the commonly seen numbers.

Examples

Three messages recently sent by kernel on a MacBookPro5,2:

2014-03-31 09:04:49.000 kernel[0]: Previous Shutdown Cause: 5
2014-03-31 11:01:24.000 kernel[0]: Previous Sleep Cause: 5
2014-03-31 14:47:00.000 kernel[0]: |Previous Shutdown Cause: -60

Possibly relevant to some cause numbers

Error codes in http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/CarbonHeaders/CarbonHeaders-18.1/MacErrors.h

that's in Apple open source for Mac OS X 10.6.2 but not in open source for Mac OS X 10.6.3
the source code for 10.6.2 is almost identical to what's installed under MacOSX10.8.sdk
it may be sensible to treat some of those error codes as deprecated.

The precise meaning of the codes is not publicly documented, although according to @grgarside's website for Shutdown Causes, the causes for the ones listed in the question are:

5

  Correct Shut Down. Shutdown was initiated, from the OS X Shut Down menu or other shutdown command. This normally does not indicate an issue with your system.

3

  Hard shutdown. Check power button.

0

  Power disconnected. Check power supply/battery.

-2

  vTypErr = -2, /*invalid queue element*/

Most likely it's a hardware issue such as faulty logic board, a video card or RAM.

Related:

Previous Shutdown Cause: -2
macOs Sierra "previous shutdown cause: -2"?

For a full up-to-date list, see Shutdown Causes.

See also: List Of Mac OS X Error Codes.

Here on Ask Different, there have been a number of questions about shutdown causes:

-60: What is shutdown cause -60?

  Bad master directory block (badMDBErr).

-62: Kernel: "Previous shutdown cause: -62"

  Watchdog timer detected unresponsive application, restarting the system.

-64: Random Kernel Panics with Shutdown Cause: -64
-104: Shutdown cause: -104

  Possibly linked to battery issue.

-108: What is Shutdown Cause -108?

  Likely memory issue.

-112: Shutdown cause -112

  Restart cause logged when it freezes in a hard manner.

-128:

Tracking down hard shutdown cause—software? hardware? overheat?
Shutdown Cause -128

In general, -128 is unknown hardware problem, but commonly it can be related either to memory issue or to the battery time span (at the end of its useful life).

If you've got negative numbers very often, Apple is more keen to get your Mac to the repair, as it usually indicates problem with your hardware.

General suggestions in case of further problems:

Reset the SMC and Reset NVRAM (which you did).
Run an Apple Hardware Test.
Log a kernel panic.
Install EtreCheck app to find serious problems on your Mac.


How do I copy files from old iMac (2009) to usb using single user mode if I can't remember the exact names of the files? My old iMac (2009) won't boot and can't be repaired in single user mode. I want to back up a few files before rebooting, but can't remember the exact name of the files. Is there a command that copies all files, or is there a way of seeing what is on the harddrive?

First open a terminal. There you can do all things you would do with Finder.

The Terminal offers a range of commands you can use:

To see, what is in the current directory, run ls.
To copy a file, use cp <from> <to> (and replace  and  with the correct filenames or paths)
To see where disks are mounted, you can use df, mount or ls /Volumes
To change folders use cd <foldername>

You don't need to fully type out all filenames. You can use autocomplete using the Tab key.


Quicktime freezes every single time I'm finishing a recording I used to be able to take screencasts with QuickTime just fine for over a year now. But suddenly, every time I try and go above 3 or 4 minutes, by the time I finish, QuickTime just freezes. I can only kill it. When opening it the next time, it presents to me only part of the recording.

What could possibly cause this?

I got Yosemite v10.10.5 and QuickTime v10.4 (build 833.7)

@fbara was right: It is the ram, but it is not obvious. Basically, what I am recording now requires a whole variety of software to be open at the same time, quickly reaching the limits of my Air's 4GB of RAM.
Once you use more than 70-80% of your ram, stuff starts getting compressed and swapped, and apparently, Quicktime cannot quite work with that.

Solution: Get more RAM and send complaint letters to Quicktime for not informing you why your recordings fail.


How to find closest AppleCare service provider A friend is considering buying a MacBook pro AppleCare package. She lives on the Canary Islands, and is getting a new MacBook soon.

Is there any official information on what kind of AppleCare services are available there? I don't seem to be able to find that information anywhere on the Apple site - and I don't speak Spanish, so searching apple.es is out of the question.

You can use http://www.apple.com/buy to find a reseller or for third-party AppleCare support. For the Canary Islands, you could use http://www.apple.com/es/buy; either open a UK/US version of the same page side-by-side, or use Chrome to translate it.

In any case, I can see a result when searching /es/buy/ for "Canary Islands" under "Servicios":

UNIVERSOMAC, S.L.
ROBAYNA, 13, LOCAL IZQ
38003 - SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE
Tel. +34 922 226 086
Authorised Training Centres
Apple Authorised Service Providers