BootCamp 5 + Windows 8 troubles (unsupported hardware?) I preordered Windows 8 a while back, and as soon as I got it I tinkered around with BootCamp 4 (which technically only supports Windows 7) to get it up and running, since the only computer I have is a MacBook. It's been running fine, but since there's now BootCamp 5, which includes official Windows 8 support, I'd like to be able to upgrade. I figured the update would be delivered through Apple Software Update, but when I open it it only says there are no updates. So I downloaded the installer from Apple's support website but when I run it all it says is my hardware is unsupported.

The thing is, Apple's website says that BootCamp 5 supports the mid 2010 MacBook Pros and newer, which is exactly what I have.

I don't know what to do. It's not crucial that I get BootCamp 5, but it'd be ideal. Anyone know what I could do?

Note that the 13" MacBook Pro, mid-2010 is NOT supported.  If you have a 15" or 17" model, then you should be able to update to OS 10.8.3 (DO NOT do this if you have a 13" model) and get Boot Camp 5.

Download link for 10.8.3 (only if you have a supported Mac): http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1640

If you have a 13" model and you've updated to 10.8.3, you may be out-of-luck unless you downgrade back to 10.8.2.

As of 10.8.3, they've added checks to the OS (and, it seems, bootloader) to check for a Windows 8 disc.

If your device is unsupported (see link [2] at the bottom), BootCamp Assistant will refuse to help you, stating instead that "Windows 8 is not supported on this Mac."

You can still manually resize the HFS+ partition (the one that Mac OS X is installed on) via the Disk Utility.

However, from my experience, trying to boot to the "UEFI" Windows 8 disc manually (by holding Alt/Option when turning your Mac on) just results in it loading into the Mac OS. (Preventing a Windows 8 install.)

I downgraded to 10.8.2 and was once again able to install Windows 8.

As far as the BootCamp drivers in Windows 8:

Regardless of whether you use the BootCamp 4 drivers (for Windows 7)
or manage to obtain the BootCamp 5 drivers, you will need to
navigate to the "\BootCamp\Drivers\Apple" folder in an Explorer
window in Desktop mode.
Next, go to File -> Command Prompt -> Open command prompt as
administrator.
From there, type ".\BootCamp.msi" to launch the installer.

This should get around any "unsupported machine" issues.

Final note if you have NVIDIA graphics:
Boot Camp 4's NVIDIA drivers are NOT COMPATIBLE with Windows 8.
These will likely result in your screen going black until you restart.  At which point, you should go to NVIDIA.com and download the latest drivers.
You can, potentially, stop these from being installed by using the Task Manager and choosing "End Task" on any NVIDIA installation during the Boot Camp 4 install.

Hopefully, this will help you get around Apple's attempt to force you to buy a new computer.

Official Apple Info:
[1] Apple's Boot Camp \ Windows 8 FAQ: support.apple.com/kb/HT5628
[2] List of which Macs support Boot Camp 5: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5634


How can I reinstall gcc? Im new with mac and tried to install gcc / g++ on an MacBook Air with El Captain. I installed Xcode and used

xcode-select --install

It completed and was successful. However, for some reason I cannot find any version of gcc / g++ in /usr/bin or anywhere else besides the symlinks (cc c++ gcc g++) that point to nothing. I tried

gcc -v

and received the error

-bash: gcc: command not found

And when I try to reinstall the command line tools again with code-select I get

xcode-select: error: command line tools are already installed, use "Software Update" to install updates

Is there any way I can simply start over with the install of the command line developer tools?

Is Xcode installed in the normal location? (i.e. in /Applications?)

What do you get back from,

$ xcode-select --print-path

Can you see gcc at the following location,

$ ls -l /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/bin/gcc
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  18560 16 Mar 00:31 /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/bin/gcc

If the path from xcode-select is not pointing to /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer then try forcing to this location,

sudo xcode-select --switch /Applications/Xcode.app


Where does Homebrew store its installed packages list? I found myself with this problem:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/46459152/cant-chown-usr-local-for-homebrew-in-mac-os-x-10-13-high-sierra

The recommended solution was to uninstall and then reinstall Homebrew, so that's what I did... but I didn't do a "brew list" before to check which packages I had installed. Oops.

I do have a Time Machine backup of my Mac, so I thought I'd plug in the drive and then, using the Terminal, navigate to the backup volume and then to whatever directory/file Homebrew uses to keep its database of installed packages.

Which directory should it be?

If I understood correctly, here is the list of the folder HomeBrew creates while installing it on your machine.

Homebrew installs packages to their own directory and then symlinks their files into /usr/local.

And when you do brew list, it shows the tool that you get from it under Cellar Folder. So you can check all this folder to get rid of it properly.

For example, if I install wget as "brew install wget" then when I run brew list, it shows me as


Set iPhone volume to maximum when connecting to a Bluetooth speaker Normally I like to keep my iPhone volume quite low, so that when audio plays, it isn't too loud at first.

However, when I connect my iPhone to a Bluetooth speaker, I want the iPhone's volume to be maximum, so that the audio that gets outputted to the speakers isn't too soft, and I can from then on control the audio with the speakers instead of the iPhone.

Is it possible to have the iPhone automatically increase its volume to maximum only when connecting to Bluetooth speakers?

For instance, when attaching headphones to the iPhone, it has a different volume setting for them, versus without headphones. I'd like something similar when connecting Bluetooth speakers.

Some Bluetooth speakers use the phone volume control to determine the speaker volume which is much simpler than having 2 independent volumes. It works both ways too, if using volume buttons on the speaker then the iPhone volume slider updates instantly. Its similar to how using line-out was better than headphone for connecting speakers via a cable in the old days. I'd suggest trying a speaker with that feature and see if it works better for you, like the Anker Sound Core Sport for example. The Amazon Echo and Sony devices don't have it unfortunately. I'm not sure if it remembers the volume level but think it does.

Update:
This feature is called Absolute Volume Control and was added in the Bluetooth spec AVRCP v1.4 so look for devices that support that.


Does battery condition have anything to do with macbook pro performance? Hello I'm using a mid 2015 MBP.

My battery lasts 1-2 hours now, I got this text Condition: Replace Soon on the battery icon.

Other stuff are my computer sometimes heats up, gets really slow and fans start working extra hard while working on basic stuff, like running Chrome. I have to close the lid, let it rest a bit then continue where I left off.

Could this have anything to do with battery or could it be something else?

I'm a developer and I need a lot of software open at all times without my computer lagging on me. But I also do not prefer to get one of the new macbooks if a simple battery change will fix this problem.

So is battery condition the reason for poor MBP performance?

Yes, it could have something to do with the battery - and yes, it could be something else. In short, it's not possible to know without examining your actual hardware.

The "Replace Soon" warning combined with the fact that the battery lasts only for 1 hour really means that you should get the battery replaced. It is not going to get better by itself. Nor is unusual - getting 4.5 years of life out of a battery is actually quite good.

If the battery problem causes extra heat - either from the battery itself, charging circuits or elsewhere - it might be the source of your computer heating up.

The source of the heating up might also be something else entirely. For example it could be as simple as a broken or very dirty fan. Replacing the fan could fix the problem.


Chrome in full screen weird behavior when pressing option + command + M If I have a Chrome window in full screen and press "option + command + M", my screen goes blank, opening a new blank chrome window. Is this some kind of chrome bug?

Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWi-1GF-4OU

Yeah it's a visual bug. Option + Command + M is a shortcut to minimise all the windows of the frontmost app to the Dock.

However, you should not be able to minimise windows which have been put in full screen mode. Most apps will simply not respond to the minimise shortcut if they are in full screen, but Chrome will go black.

You can restore the windows by clicking on the Chrome tab in the Dock.


Can you undo close all Finder windows (alt + click the red close button)? I just inadvertently closed around 20 Finder windows in one click, each related to ongoing projects in them, by clicking the red window button and having "alt" key pressed.

Is there something I can do to reopen all the windows that have just been closed?

It might be too late for me now but if I make this mistake again it will save me a lot of time to reopen these windows.

This functionality is not available natively in Finder, but it can be gained by the use of third party software such as XtraFinder and perhaps Default Folder X. Please note though that you would have to check compatibility as you don't specify what version of macOS you're using.

Another option that may interest you is to access your recent folders. To do this:

Ensure you have Finder active
Click on the Go menu
Hover over the Recent Folders sub-menu
You'll now see your most recently opened folders
Select the folders one by one to reopen them

Notes:

This is not an undo option, but at least you can easily reopen most of your Finder windows (although not likely as many as 20 of them).
I have no affiliation whatsoever with either XtraFinder or Default Folder X.


time on MBP doesnot update I am using MBP running yosemite(10.10.1) retina 15inch mid 2014, it is not showing correct time. It just started time from the time i closed the lid. even why do auto synch with time server or apple time server. it doesn't.

I have this problem on my work laptop occasionally. By looking at the system log in Console I found that SystemUIServer had hung. Going into Activity Monitor showed that SystemUIServer was not responding & force quitting the process instantly fixed the issue for me and my menu bar clock began keeping the correct time again.
See if that works for you.


Accessing 3rd party app files in iCloud from Windows Very closely related to this question: Are files saved to iCloud via 3rd party applications accessible from icloud.com web interface through browser?

Is there any way to access files stored by 3rd party apps in iCloud from a  Windows PC?

In my specific case, I use IAWriter on the iPad, and love the automatic syncing feature it providers through iCloud. However, I can't seem to be able to access the synchronized files anywhere else - at least not through the web interface.

Is there any way to do this?

I don't think one is able to access 3rd party app data via www.iCloud.com. You may have a couple options despite that, the first being to get a Mac. Honestly, that's probably not very practical for you. Otherwise, IAWriter, may have a way to log into your account there and access files - a feature not uncommon with apps like that. If neither of those options work, then you will probably have to wait until they put out an app for Windows (which may not be very high on their list if it is on it at all.


Dynamically setting HOME environment variable in a launchd script? Continue from this topic, I ended up with:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
  <dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.saltstack.minion</string>
    <key>EnvironmentVariables</key>
    <dict>
      <key>HOME</key>
      <string>/Users/quanta</string>
    </dict>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
      <string>/usr/local/bin/salt-minion</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
  </dict>
</plist>

but I am wonder that: is there any way to set HOME variable dynamically? (instead of fixed code - /Users/quanta)

I have tried to add an EnableGlobbing key to the plist:

<key>EnableGlobbing</key>
<true/>

then changed the value of HOME variable to the tilde:

<key>EnvironmentVariables</key>
<dict>
  <key>HOME</key>
  <string>~</string>
</dict>

and restart the salt-minion. Here is what I get:

MacBook-Pro.local:
    - /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/pathname.rb:853:in `expand_path': non-absolute home (ArgumentError)
    -   from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/pathname.rb:853:in `expand_path'
    -   from /usr/local/Library/Homebrew/global.rb:25:in `cache'
    -   from /usr/local/Library/Homebrew/global.rb:44
    -   from /usr/local/Library/brew.rb:17:in `require'
    -   from /usr/local/Library/brew.rb:17

It seems that expansion is only enabled for strings in the Program or ProgramArguments keys.

You are right: launchd performs tilde-expansion only for ProgramArguments. But you are free to let a shell do the job:

<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
    <string>/bin/sh</string>
    <string>-c</string>
    <string>export HOME=~; /usr/local/bin/salt-minion</string>
</array>

Note that the ~ in this example is not interpreted by launchd (using EnableGlobbing) but by the shell itself.


Does macOS Sierra run Xcode 7.x? Is Xcode 7.x functional running macOS Sierra to submit builds to iTunes Connect?

Submitting apps built with beta versions of an OS or beta versions of Xcode are not officially supported, but you can build apps with a normal version of Xcode on a beta OS by changing the OS version prior to archiving the app inside Xcode.


Boot Camp keeps booting to Ubuntu instead of Windows I have a macos and Windows 10 already installed.  I went ahead and installed ubuntu via EFI, and I think I really messed something up.

Every time I boot and select Windows it goes to the purple Ubuntu boot manager. I really need access to Windows, as it has my work files on there.  Is there a way I can go back to having boot camp launch windows instead of Ubuntu?

I can access Ubuntu, however.

Why are you even using Bootcamp it’s not necessary.. just install a boot loader and pick whatever you need at the start. If you want to run particular windows apps just use Wine Wine Is Not an Emulator


Discounted price and purchase prompt on iOS App Store For a couple of days, I have been getting this issue with my iPhone. For some Apps, It says

  This discounted price is only available to customers who own a previous version of this item. To purchase this item at full price, click buy.

while trying to update it. How do you make the iOS device  update the apps.

Additional Information about my phone:
iPhone 6+
iOS version 12.4.1
App Store Australia

I have this same problem on an iPad.
If I uninstall the app I'm able to install the new version - but like you there are 10 apps I have this same problem with.

My suspicion is that these apps were installed when the iPad was setup to use Apple Account "A". A number of weeks ago I switched the Apple Account of the device to be account "B". So I think the problem is that the app store is preventing an app, installed by "A", being upgraded (for free) by "B".

Is anyone able to confirm this hypothesis?

UPDATE: Yes, this was my problem. I used the old account within the App Store and I was able to update those 10 apps.


How can I force the application switcher to stop following the dock and instead show on my main display in Mavericks (OS X 10.9)? I understand the App Switcher follows the Dock. Other answers here confirm as much.

However, is it possible via some hidden command-line preference to force the Application Switcher to display on the main display at all times? Whereas "main display" is the display in the System Preferences > Displays > Arrangement preference with the menu bar.

I personally have my dock hidden on my left-most display, but even switching the dock position to the bottom is a hassle since it requires first launching the dock from the desired display before switching the app switcher's location.

If you are OK with losing the new features of Maverick's multiple displays, open System Preferences, click Mission Control, the uncheck the box that says, "Displays have separate spaces". Log out, then log back in, the problem should be resolved.


is it possible to batch rename from a list, using a bat file like rename filename.txt newfilename.txt? So I teach a class and a few of my students have Macs. Literally the only thing I have encountered is this .bat issue.

We use Excel to start with a list of filenames in one column, and a list of new filenames in the other column, and then create a bat file. The new names are not intuitive and they do not follow a pattern, so typical logic can't handle this; we must rely on the list.

Do Macs have something that can work? I would love to provide a solution.

This is what it looks like in windows (this assumes all files are in the same folder, and the bat file runs  from the root; it is just as possible to use fullpaths)

rename accounting2016.xls ID0001.xls
rename vacationphoto01.jpg ID0042.jpg
rename BuildingPlans.docx ID0189.docx

If I read the question correctly, you are generating the batch file from some sort of exporting process from the Excel columns containing the command and two file names?

In such a case you can just change the rename command to "Mac equivalent" mv. The file now contains

mv accounting2016.xls ID0001.xls
mv vacationphoto01.jpg ID0042.jpg
mv BuildingPlans.docx ID0189.docx

Then you can run the commands listed in the file with e.g. Bash:

bash renames.txt

Note, that if the file names contain whitespace or other special characters you should surround them with quotes, but I think that is the case also in Windows.


Transferring Messages from old Mac to new Mac I have a new Mac and I didn't use the Migration Assistant to move my data. I want to now transfer my old messages from my old Mac to my new Mac. It appears all the old messages are in buried in the old Mac's Library folder.

Is it possible to migrate and merge my old messages from my old Mac to my new Mac?

If so, how?

Note, I do (did) use iCloud iMessage on the old and new mac, but it doesn't appear all my old messages were downloaded from iCloud to my new Mac when I setup my new Mac and iCloud. I'm not sure that's even how it works.

I was able to retrieve my ~/Library/Messages folder from a backup and copy it to a new Parallels macOS VM under the my Home folder on that VM. When I logged into the VM, I saw all my old messages.


Mail spelling checker will not stop This is driving me crazy.

I have gone into Preferences and set spellchecking -> NEVER

But it will not stop!

:
  :

This gets my goat. I rarely if ever make spelling errors, and it is constantly getting in my way.

Is there some way to get rid of it once and for all?

EDIT: I use Mavericks' native speech recognition; maybe there're some conflict?

They blue lines are alternate speech recognition hints. Spelling is in red, not dark blue.

I don't know of a way to disable the blue lines directly other than enunciating in a way that the engine has less uncertainty about what you are dictating.


Replacing rubber spring/cup under Tab key cap To make a long question short: What's the proper way to replace a rubber spring (inverted cup-like thing) under a keycap, specifically the Tab key on a unibody design MacBook Pro or Air?

Details: I just bought a used MacBook Pro (so it's out of warranty), and noticed the Tab key felt spongy. Also, after first opening up the laptop, the key seemed to be stuck down until I tapped it a few times.

I had a replacement rubber spring from my old MacBook, so I tore the one off the new laptop and put that one in its place, without gluing it down or anything. Right away after that I noticed that pressing Caps Lock would sometimes trigger a tab; maybe one time in seven or eight presses. Worried I had shorted something, I shut down, repositioned the spring, and booted back up, and things seemed normal again.

Satisfied with the way the Tab key was now behaving, I decided to superglue the spring as instructed on laptopkey.com:

Squeeze a small amount of super glue onto a sheet of paper. Then dip the
edge of the rubber cup into the super glue. Then place the rubber cup in
its place. Let it dry. You want to have the minimum amount of glue on your
cup, just enough to make the cup stick while installing the hinges onto
your keyboard.

I let the glue dry for a few seconds before putting the key cap back on, and while I was waiting I pressed on the spring a few times to make sure it was still springy. Unfortunately, I got way more glue on the spring than I had intended, and it oozed out a little. I also later realized the spring was displaced a little from where the original one had been (as evidenced by the still-visible metal circle under it).

When that was done and I booted back up, I found the key to be better than before, but it still seemed to require a little more pressure than other keys, and it didn't make the same clicky sound when I hit it. I decided to live with that. However, when I opened the laptop again this morning, I found that the Tab key, although it still works, moves up and down very slowly; it takes a second or two to pop back up after I press it. There really isn't any tactile feedback to speak of, so it's worse than when I started. Tapping it quickly a few times didn't cause it to release, the way it used to.

I'm about to order a new rubber spring and hinge kit (and maybe a key cap). How should I install the new spring to make the Tab key act like new again? Is there a specific way I should clean off the old rubber and super glue?

These sort of surgeries are always "twitchy" at best. Worse, the new butterfly key design makes these way harder. With the original chicklet style keys, a good technician would get 50 to 90% success rate. I would expect the inverse - high failure rates on the 2015 and newer key designs.

The tolerances in the keyboard area (mostly the scissors) are very, very thin - and at some point, extra hard superglue or some cup that's 0.2 mm to the left of where it should be will require you to get a proper replacement.

In the pre-unibody days, the keyboards were a single piece that you could easily exchange.

Now, the keyboard is screwed into the unibody frame, so it's a very deep surgery to get everything removed and then handle more than 50 exceptionally small screws to get at the back sides of the pieces where the rubber springs that yield the touch for each key are mounted.

Lastly - even if you do replace things - the keyboard action is not what it was (and most likely even close) - so if you're the type of person that would keep on typing even if the key cap was missing entirely - go for a repeat repair on the rubber nubbin with a razor blade and superglue. If not, it's time for a proper repair or using an external keyboard while you save money for a replacement.

If you were to get a precision knife to clean out the prior repair and choose a more flexible adhesive, you might have better luck.


Apple TV play media stored on Airport Extreme hard drive? The current gen Airport Extreme (802.11ac, you know... the tall white one) is capable of having a network accessible hard drive connected directly to it. Now that the new Apple TV can run apps, can I use the Airport's connected hard drive as a media server and have the new Apple TV access its content directly? Maybe by running the Plex app (or similar)?

VLC should do the trick. I confirmed I can access the drive inside my Time Capsule using VLC on my Apple TV.

I imagine it will also access the files on a USB-connected drive. Not tested the latter though.


How do I find the windowid of Google Chrome to pass to screencapture -l I'd like to use screencapture -l to do automated screen captures of Google Chrome. This requires knowing the windowid of the Google Chrome process that's running.

For apps that support Applescript, this question has the answer. But that solution doesn't work for apps that aren't scriptable, like Google Chrome.

Is there any way to retrieve the windowid from a running Google Chrome process from a Python script? I know that the Quartz Debug app can do it, but that's a GUI app, so it can't be invoked via script.

You can do that with GrabFS, a screenshot filesystem for OS X. (Download at the bottom of the page. Works fine for me on 10.8.2 with OSXFUSE) It gives you the textures of any processes windows as files which you can simply copy. To update the screenshot, copy again.

Looks like this (converted from TIFF to PNG to save space.):
You'll likely need to do a little shell scripting to automate this, but that will be easy.


OSX Lion 10.7.3 update has broken Safari This happened right after I have upgraded to 10.7.3 via Software Update utility. Or maybe even 10.7.2 unfortunately cannot recall now.

Before update I saw nice page saying that Safari cannot connect to remote host.

Now I'm getting meaningless garbage. See sample screenshot. (My reputation is not high enough to post images)

Does anybody knows how this can be fixed?

Just to be clear, nothing is listening on localhost:8000

Update to Safari 6.0 has fixed the problem.


Can I list files ordered by date added to a folder from a command-line tool like ls? I need to build a script that shows files in the same order as the default Downloads folder in the dock, ordered by Date Added, newest first. I can't seem to find the option in ls.

Any other way to do it?

Simpler (Faster) solution:

mdls -name kMDItemFSName -name kMDItemDateAdded -raw * | \
xargs -0 -I {} echo {} | \
sed 'N;s/\n/ /' | \
sort


Preventing iCloud out of space pop-ups on 128gb iPhone 6s Is it possible to prevent the iCloud out of space pop-ups from appearing on my iPhone?

It pops up every other time I use my phone. I have basically the default+$5 20GB iCloud plan,  but don't plan to upgrade.

I don't think it's a good usage of iCloud to backup all 128gb of my iPhone... (I'm actually about 90% capacity - obsessive video/photos)

You can't turn off the out of space message, instead you will need to manage your iCloud storage space.

To manage your storage first find out what is stored in iCloud. Settings > General > Storage & iCloud usage > Manage Storage.

Backup size to iCloud storage usage is not a 1:1 relationship as your question suggests, I.e. 128gb of iCloud storage is not needed to backup a 128gb phone.  Music and Apps are good examples of items not included in the backup.

Photo's and videos are stored in your iCloud space but as part of iCloud photo sharing, not a "backup".  As your question suggests this is the largest use of space on your phone, you might want to switch off iCloud photo sharing (settings > iCloud) to save the space.  Another good solution might be to switch this item off and download the Dropbox app, and let it backup photos and vids.

Another iCloud space waster might be old device backups.  A new device won't overwrite the old devices last backup.  When that backup is no longer needed it must be manually deleted.

"default+$5 20GB iCloud plan" makes no sense, you likely either have free 5gb plan or the next level up is 50gb for 99cents a month.  5gb should be plenty to backup your 128gb phone, if you turn off iCloud photo.  My 64gb phone is at about 52gb but my backup is just 1.6gb after compression and subtracting what's not backed up as part of a backup.

In summary, and to directly answer your question.  No you can't turn off the out of space errors, you must manage the use of iCloud space instead.


How to type Logic Symbol in Pages? How can I type logic symbol like "＆ - → ↔ " and so on in pages?

You could also import a file like this to TextExpander:

not,¬
or,∨
and,∧
l,←
r,→
lr,↔
ll,⇐
rr,⇒
iff,⇔
all,∀
some,∃
nsome,∄
neq,≠
xor,⊻
nand,⊼
nor,⊽
oplus,⊕
qed,∎
equiv,≡
top,⊤
bot,⊥
vdash,⊢
models,⊨
nmodels,⊭

I made a text file for HTML5 entity names based on http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-entity-names/byalpha.html. Many of the abbreviations are the same as TeX / LaTeX character commands.


Trouble with GUID HDD recovery in testdisk I had a power failure while using two of my hard drives (two WD Red 4 TB, each one nearly full, HFS+ data only, no OS on the drives) in a dock.

Since then I was able to recover almost all my files with DiskDrill but some are corrupted, some have lost their name and directory.

Since I have nothing more to lose here, I put my hands in it.

I am trying to rebuild the GPT with testdisk, but I failed several times.
So I've already written few times on gpt with testdisk, I've also tried the method using testdisk to find sectors of partition and pdisk to write them, but it failed.

Now I am trying again with testdisk and wxhexeditor.

I am looking at every occurrence of "HFSJ", the first one match the sector testdisk had found 529400 (271430664 in hex).

But I can't find any EFI partition. Is there a way I can fix that? And rebuild GUID partition scheme?

Here is the result of sudo gpt -r show disk2:

start        size  index  contents
           0           1         PMBR
           1           1         Pri GPT header
           2          32         Pri GPT table
          34      529366
      529400  7812357952      1  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  7812887352     1149783
  7814037135          32         Sec GPT table
  7814037167           1         Sec GPT header

Follow-up: I tried what you recommend with the following result:

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk2
Unmount of all volumes on disk2 was successful
sudo gpt remove -i 1 disk2
disk2s1 removed
sudo gpt add -i 1 -b 40 -s 409600 -t C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B disk2
disk2s1 added
sudo gpt add -i 2 -b 409640 -s 7813365344 -t 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk2
disk2s2 added
diskutil verifyVolume disk2s2
Started file system verification on disk2s2
Verifying file system
File system check exit code is 8
Error: -69845: File system verify or repair failed
Underlying error: 8: POSIX reports: Exec format error

this is beyond my understanding!

Initially partitioned with Disk Utility (as GUID pt, 1 partition, HFSJ) I would expect the partition tables of your WD Red 4 TB disks to look like this:

     start         size  index  contents
         0            1         PMBR
         1            1         Pri GPT header
         2           32         Pri GPT table
        34            6
        40       409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
    409640   7813365344      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
7813774984       262151
7814037135           32         Sec GPT table
7814037167            1         Sec GPT header

with the EFI = 409640 blocks and the empty default Apple spacer of 262144 blocks. All aligned to the 4096 Byte physical block size the resulting HFSJ partition starts at block 409640 and has a size of 7813365344 blocks.

You may just test this by removing the current partition (below I assume the disk identifier of the external drive is disk2 - use the disk identifier you have found in your environment):

diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk2
sudo gpt remove -i 1 disk2
sudo gpt add -i 1 -b 40 -s 409600 -t C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B disk2
sudo gpt add -i 2 -b 409640 -s 7813365344 -t 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk2

If asked don't initialize any volume.

Now verify the volume:

diskutil verifyVolume disk2s2

After further investigations it turns out that one of the two external disks contains an additional recovery partition. After adding a 3rd partition like this:

     start         size  index  contents
         0            1         PMBR
         1            1         Pri GPT header
         2           32         Pri GPT table
        34            6
        40       409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
    409640   7812357952      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
7812767592      1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
7814037128            7
7814037135           32         Sec GPT table
7814037167            1         Sec GPT header

and the help of Disk Warrior (to restore broken file systems) both main volumes of the external disks have been salvaged.


Disable autosave in Preview Preview, by default, persists edits to the underlying file immediately. (i.e. if you crop something, the underlying file becomes cropped). I find this behavior very irritating.

I tried enabling Settings->General->"Ask to keep changes when closing documents". With this, Preview still persists the change to disk, but asks if I want to keep the change when I close the app.

A 2012 answer to a similar question suggested

defaults write -app 'preview' ApplePersistence -bool no

This does not seem to have any effect.

Is there any way to make Preview behave like a normal application? I want my changes unsaved and transient until I specifically hit save.

Per Turning Off Auto Saving In TextEdit And Other Mac Apps on the "Mac Tricks and Tips" website:

Open System Preferences
Go to "General"
Enable "Ask to keep changes when closing documents"


IMAP synching issues on OS X Mavericks I am new to OS X. Yesterday I set up my email accounts in Mail. It immediately synchronised my emails from my inbox. However, since then I don't get my mails, although I see them through webmail.
I heard Mail in Mavericks had problems with IMAP, so I tried to install Thunderbird and Postbox as well with the same result which means I can see the emails I received before yesterday, but none of the new ones.
I even tried rebooting but that did not help either.

What is the problem and how can I solve it?

UPDATE:
I do not use gmail, my account is hosted by a private provider.

Up front I have to say that it is known factor that mavericks has (had) some issues with IMAP mail providers. There was an upgrade that supposed to address that.

All in all, make sure you have the correct IMAP settings at your provider.

Here is an example for Gmail.

Starting from the settings in your web mail client (ie Gmail)

Go to your web mail (gmail) and in settings, check all folders (Google calls that Labels) you want to see on your computer (show in IMAP).

Just to make sure:

Disable junk mail filtering in your Mail.app on your computer
Disable all Rules in your Mail.app on your computer.
Also take a look for new mails in the Archive folder, which is an equivalent to the Googles "All Mail" folder.

In Mail.app under Window--click on the activity and see it work once you click the Get Mail. It will show you what is going on.

Here are recommended setting for Apple mail from Gmail:


iPhone 7 Plus not appearing on Airdrop So I just got myself a new iPhone 7 Plus and I am having some issues with Airdrop. While I can send files to other devices just fine, the other devices cannot see my iPhone. Airdrop is turned on for Everyone and I already tried rebooting the device. Maybe there's some other setting that I am missing?

Try going into Settings > General > Reset > Reset network settings.

That will also clear out any remembered WiFi networks so you will have to re-authenticate. But I have found that doing this often fixes a variety of network-bound problems.


Enable horizontal scroll for TextEdit in Yosemite (Mac OS X 10.10.2) Is enabling horizontal scroll for TextEdit (for Mac OS X 10.10.2) possible?

After going to Preferences and checking or unchecking the box labeled "Wrap to page", the text still wraps to the next line once it reaches the end of the TextEdit window.

Wasn't horizontal scrolling possible in previous versions of Mac OS X? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

TextEdit doesn't work based on a page format. Since it doesn't know how wide your page is, it can't know when to wrap. You'll have to rely on something like Pages if you want to create a document based on a specific page format.


How do I remove notifications from certain websites not in my Chrome or Safari browsers? I am getting notifications from sites I have visited in the past such as SitePoint. I have gone to the Chrome extensions and I do not see it there and I checked out my MacBook notifications, nothing there regarding these sites and yes I have also checked out the Internet Accounts, nothing there either.

How do I stop receiving those annoying notifications from these vendors?

I don't mind the alerts, I just want to end them for some particular vendors.

Go to safari preferences and then in websites tab. Second last in the list is notifications. Edit whichever you want.

Might have similar for chrome. I don’t use it so don’t know.

In Firefox, searching settings for permissions gives me the option.


Why does Fluid open Google links instead of sending them to my default browser? I have Fluid apps for Trello and for MSO chat. Trello's URL whitelist consists only of *trello.com* and Chat's is similarly limited:

Clicking links to any other URL opens the page in Chrome, my default browser. This works perfectly in all cases except with Google documents. Fluid always tries to open Google docs in another tab in its own window, instead of sending it out to my default browser.

I can't figure out where this behavior is coming from. Has anyone else ever experienced it? What's the fix?

Developer of Fluid Here. Basically, this is a bug.

It stems from the fact that Google is the search provider supported in the toolbar search field. Therefore google.com URLs are currently always white-listed.

I would like to fix this eventually.


Numbers Won't Open On My MacBook Pro with OS X 10.8.5 I'm not a tech or computer expert - I understand clear directions, but not tech-speak, so I'm going to put this as plainly as I can…

I've updated to the most recent system, OS X 10.8.5, on my MacBook Pro. My Pages and Keynote applications are opening and functioning fine. However, when I attempt to open and utilize my Numbers application, it either either does nothing, or flashes a message that the document can't open.

I have tried to search other answer sites for insight into what might be going on, without finding a direct answer. Would you please explain to me why this might be happening, and how I can troubleshoot the problem?

The first thing to do when troubleshooting an iWork app that connects to iCloud is to test launching the app from a brand new user. This will isolate whether your user settings are causing problems or the problem is truly with the App itself or the OS install.

Open System Preferences
Select Users & Groups
Make a new user - test or something obvious.
Log out of your current user (users if you have fast user switching enabled).
Log in to the new account.
Open Numbers.

At that point, you can see if the console app has information about Numbers from the current user launching the app and the previous user. Console app is in /Applications/Utilities.

Since this won't actually solve the problem you may need to edit the question or ask a new question - but it should help inform you if the problem relates to your documents in Numbers or the Numbers app itself. From there, you'll have a more narrow problem to ask/chase/fix.


How to restore default fonts on Mavericks? I have deleted the Lucida Grande font from my system, and system bars and menus are full of weird characters. I cannot use my MBA properly. How can I restore system fonts without losing my data?

You can also copy the font from the recovery partition:

diskutil mount Recovery\ HD;hdiutil mount /Volumes/Recovery\ HD/com.apple.recovery.boot/BaseSystem.dmg;sudo cp /Volumes/OS\ X\ Base\ System/System/Library/Fonts/Base/LucidaGrande.ttc /System/Library/Fonts


Toggle Show Date and Time via AppleScript How can I toggle the "Show date and time in menu bar" option via AppleScript. I'm using OSX 10.10.4.

I am looking for a working example in AppleScript.

Here is some code that's working on my elderly MacMini'09. "delay" may have to be adjusted ...

tell application "System Preferences"
    activate
    tell application "Finder" to set position of window 1 of process ¬
        "System Preferences" to {1200, 1000}
    set current pane to pane id "com.apple.preference.datetime"
end tell
tell application "System Events" to tell process "System Preferences"
    delay 0.5
    click checkbox "Datum und Uhrzeit in der Menüleiste anzeigen" of ¬
        tab group of window 1
end tell
quit application "System Preferences"

I left German strings in the script to avoid home-brew English "translations" > DIY !
Directly upon System-Preferences' launching, its app window is "hidden" to some corner
There's a delay as otherwise things would not work before the final shutdown ...

... Oh, btw, I would recommend to install a keyboard shortcut via Automator/services (all apps)


In the light of the FREAK TLS vulnerability, how may I disable insecure cipher suites manually in Safari? A research group named SMACK has released a vulnerability known as FREAK which can be used for man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack. The vulnerability is due to an old ghost created by USA Government (NSA, more specifically) where in, years ago, they convinced several organizations to use weaker keys, known as export-grade keys for any software that was to be used outside the borders of USA. While the use of strong keys is wide spread now, several servers still have support for the weaker keys.

The group discovered that this vulnerability can be exploited by using a client and making a connection via a weak key. Once the key is generated by the server, it is reused until the server is restarted which can potentially be months. The group was able to crack this weak server key in 7.5 hours using Amazon EC2. Once this is cracked, potentially all the communication can be downgraded to use weak keys and MITM'ed.

The attack mainly addresses OpenSSL (e.g. Android) clients and Apple TLS/SSL clients (Safari) in conjunction with vulnerable web servers but not Firefox, Chrome or IE.

How may I disable some or all of the insecure Cipher Suites manually on the client side by e.g. editing some configuration files in Safari, using an appropriate Safari extension or modifying binaries directly to immediately fix the vulnerability especially in older Safari versions probably not updated by Apple? Is it possible at all?

The Cipher Suites in question are:

CipherSuite TLS_RSA_EXPORT_WITH_RC4_40_MD5         = { 0x00,0x03};
CipherSuite TLS_RSA_EXPORT_WITH_RC2_CBC_40_MD5     = { 0x00,0x06};
CipherSuite TLS_RSA_EXPORT_WITH_DES40_CBC_SHA      = { 0x00,0x08};
CipherSuite TLS_DH_DSS_EXPORT_WITH_DES40_CBC_SHA   = { 0x00,0x0B};
CipherSuite TLS_DH_RSA_EXPORT_WITH_DES40_CBC_SHA   = { 0x00,0x0E};
CipherSuite TLS_DHE_DSS_EXPORT_WITH_DES40_CBC_SHA  = { 0x00,0x11};
CipherSuite TLS_DHE_RSA_EXPORT_WITH_DES40_CBC_SHA  = { 0x00,0x14};
CipherSuite TLS_DH_anon_EXPORT_WITH_RC4_40_MD5     = { 0x00,0x17};
CipherSuite TLS_DH_anon_EXPORT_WITH_DES40_CBC_SHA  = { 0x00,0x19};

and maybe some more.

Safari on OS X uses Secure Transport for SSL/TLS, the same implementation which is linked in cURL, App Store, etc. Secure Transport does not have any user configurations available. Therefore, it is not possible to modify Safari cipher suites.

Anyway, Apple recently released Security Update 2015-002 which fixes this issue.

  Impact: An attacker with a privileged network position may intercept
  SSL/TLS connections

  Description: Secure Transport accepted short ephemeral RSA keys,
  usually used only in export-strength RSA cipher suites, on connections
  using full-strength RSA cipher suites. This issue, also known as
  FREAK, only affected connections to servers which support
  export-strength RSA cipher suites, and was addressed by removing
  support for ephemeral RSA keys.

  CVE-2015-1067 : Benjamin Beurdouche, Karthikeyan Bhargavan, Antoine
  Delignat-Lavaud, Alfredo Pironti, and Jean Karim Zinzindohoue of
  Prosecco at Inria Paris

You can examine Secure Transport client with something like, curl "https://www.howsmyssl.com/a/check" | tr ',' '\n'. As someone pointed out, it is also a good idea to use Firefox or Chrome which use NSS instead.


Chrome keeps creating Application folder in Home folder So has anyone noticed Chrome (around version 39?) keeps creating an Application folder in their Home folder?

The only way I've verified that it is Chrome is that after a fresh boot, it was the only app I ran and then the Application folder was created. I still may be wrong that it is indeed Chrome.

Haven't been able to find any documentation on this and how to disable it. Or I may just be searching with incorrect keywords.

So how does one disable this behaviour?

Google Chrome has a feature called App Launcher. If you install any apps from that part of the store the browser will put shims for the apps in ~/Applications (it also puts an identical copy in ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Web Applications/LONG_RANDOM_IDENTIFIER/). If it is doing this then you should have a folder within ~/Applications called "Chrome Apps". You can see the Chrome developers making the decision to use the ~/Applications folder here. If you have installed any Chrome Apps, just uninstall them and delete the "Chrome Apps" folder and then Chrome shouldn't recreate the folder.

If you are using Chrome Canary, by default it installs shims for Gmail, Google Drive, Google Search and YouTube. But if you delete the "Chrome Canary Apps" folder it doesn't appear to recreate it.

There are other applications that install to that folder though. On my own machine Steam has installed shims for games and GitHub has chosen to install there app there instead of /Applications for some reason (I may have been prompted, I don't recall).

Like Tetsujin said though, having an Applications folder within your own user account isn't really anything to worry about.


Do any of these Steam software titles run without internet connection? I'm having difficulties playing games without a live connection to the internet (actually to the steam servers).

Is this a configuration issue or a limitation in the following game titles:

Tomb Raider 2013
PAYDAY 2
Dead Island

I'm hoping to host multiplayer games with my friends without needing Wi-Fi or LAN that connects to the Internet or an external / central game server.

On the Steam website (through the links you listed) the only one listing "broadband internet connection" as a requirement is TR 2013. The other two have no requirements for internet connection indicated.

That said, I have not played any of those games so I cannot certify that the specifications are correct. But I would think they are pretty careful with those, given all the debate going on regarding internet connection requirements for gaming.

On the other hand, I am quite sure that if you want to host multiplayer games with your friends you DO need some kind of LAN connection (wi-fi or wired).


Can you auto subscribe to a podcast directly from an iphone? Normally I subscribe to podcasts from my Mac and it downloads the latest ones automatically.  I was told that I can now just download podcasts from my iphone directly.  I didn't see any ability to subscribe to podcasts directly from the iphone.  Is that possible so when i wake up in the morning i automatically have the latest episodes downloaded?

I don't know if you can subscribe to podcasts within Apple's own Podcasts app. You can, however, subscribe to any podcast with the excellent Downcast app.
With Downcast you can set it to check for podcasts at a certain area. For example, when you get home, it will check for and download your podcasts.


View Artwork in Sidebar - iTunes 11 How can I view the artwork in the sidebar in the latest version of iTunes 11 ?

It appears that this is no longer a function (even hidden) in the new iTunes. To me, this looks like another useful feature got dropped. The closest thing I've found so far is clicking the cover in the top display pops out a resizable window (a-la coversutra). Sorry mate.


How should I properly format my iPod nano 5th generation? I've been the happy owner of an iPod nano 5th gen, 8Gb for a few years.
Over the years, I've added and deleted many songs, lyrics, album art, etcetera, and I recently assumed that something was corrupted in the drive: when I would add new album artwork to a song, it would either not work or add the album art of one song to a lot of other totally unrelated songs.

This thread is excellent to start troubleshooting, but didn't really help on a iPod nano (diagnostics mode is limited on this model).

Permissions Repair (or actually "First Aid" as it is now called) didn't find anything.

So I backed up all the songs I had on the it to my MBP. I also checked that the files were not corrupted.

I would like to restore the device the best possible way, before I put the tracks back on it.

When I launched the (brand-new) El Capitan's Disk Utility, there was a new setting I hadn't seen in previous versions, called "scheme".

The options are:

GUID Partition Map
Master Boot Record
Apple Partition Map

I'm not really sure which one to use for an iPod nano, and couldn't find anything online.

The best way to handle an iPod Restore is to do it from iTunes.

iTunes knows what it is & how to format it - it will even actually format differently depending on whether you have iTunes on a PC or Mac, to enable easier file handling afterwards.

If it's a model with a lock switch at the top [red dot visible] switch the lock off first [white dot] - Some models will crash if you don't.
Plug it into the computer, launch iTunes if it doesn't launch automatically.
Click the device icon in the top bar, choose the iPod if you see multiple devices listed.
Click Restore. Follow the onscreen instructions.
You will need to resync afterwards.


Python 3.3.3 on Macbook pro, can't open IDLE at all I'm having trouble with running python on my Macbook Pro OS X 10.9.1.

Two days ago it was running with absolutely no problem and now it won't start up.

I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling, and update the Tkinter and Tcl/Tk etc.

It appears in the dock for a second then disappears. Any help would be appreciated.

See this important note on the official Python website about Tcl/Tk and IDLE on Mac OS X. You should install a third-party version of Tcl/Tkl to solve your problem.

  Python's integrated development environment, IDLE, and the tkinter GUI
  toolkit it uses, depend on the Tk GUI toolkit which is not part of
  Python itself. For best results, it is important that the proper
  release of Tcl/Tk is installed on your machine.

  [...]

  If you are using Python from a python.org 64-bit/32-bit Python
  installer for Mac OS X 10.6 and later, you should only use IDLE or
  tkinter with an updated third-party Tcl/Tk 8.5, like ActiveTcl 8.5
  installed.

  If you are using OS X 10.9 Mavericks and a Python from a python.org
  64-bit/32-bit installer, application windows may not update properly
  due to a Tk problem. Install the latest ActiveTcl 8.5.15.0 if
  possible. (Also, a critical OS X 10.9 problem that could cause Python
  to crash when used interactively has been fixed in the current 3.3.3,
  2.7.6, and pre-release 3.4.0 64-bit/32-bit installers.)


App store charging twice for same app In Decemeber 2010 I purchased Goodreader for iPad, was emailed this statement:

GoodReader for iPad, v3.1.2, Developer: Yuri Selukoff (4+)
£0.59

I installed Goodreader on a new iPad just a few days ago.
I was notified I'd been charged again for it:

GoodReader for iPad, v3.18.6 (4+)
 YURI SELUKOFF   App    £2.99

I don't understand why and it's hard to find any definitive info about this (aside from forum posts).

What could be to blame? The price change? The change of developer string (to upper case)? At one point Apple forced me to change my Apple ID from a usernae style to email address style. Could that be the cause?

This isn't the only app this has happened with.

I don't know if GoodReader re-issued a new build that was similar in name, but costs more money or if there was a mix up on your account.

Your best bet is to report a problem from within the purchase history using iTunes on a computer since it will have the order numbers (actually they are alphanumeric strings) for both purchases so you can ask Apple's billing support if indeed my guess is the case.

You could also look over the purchase history on iOS - but a developer could remove an old version of an app for sale, and it would no longer appear in the purchased history for download.

Lastly, you could reach out to GoodReader support and ask them if they had a paid upgrade somewhere between the two versions you have in your purchase history. Support for each app is always available from the App Store as well if you want to use that link rather than the one I dug up above.


How to set up Time Machine to back up to a specific folder in my Synology NAS? I'm trying to set up Time Machine to back up to my Synology NAS. I need it to back up to this folder:
/Shared/BACKUPs/MacBookPro2010
So on my Mac I go to Finder -> Go -> Connect to server
and specify:
afp://192.168.1.105/Shared/BACKUPs/MacBookPro2010
I then provide user and password and it connects.
But when I go to time machine and click "Select Backup Disk" it shows "Shared" and if I select it, it starts dumping backup files into the root Shared folder on the NAS.
How do I coax it to put the backup into /Shared/BACKUPs/MacBookPro2010 instead?

Time Machine requires a drive or shared volume. Time Machine will not work with a nested folder. On your Synology, set up the destination directory as a shared volume to your Mac.
See Synology's How do I back up files from my Mac to Synology NAS using Time Machine?

This article will guide you through the process of backing up data from your Mac to Synology NAS using Apple's Time Machine, a backup utility included with macOS 10.5 and later.


How do hard reset an iPhone 8 + I googled the same question and found instructions that said press volume up, volume down then hold the power button. The problem I have is it just gets the off button. What I want is more details e.g. how long should I wait, how quick does the button press need to be, any other tricks

Note the photo was taken on an android due to iPhone issues

The instructions outlined in the screenshot are pretty much spot on. However, the missing bit from your point of view relates to Step 3.

Basically, you need to keep the power button down for about 10 seconds before the iPhone will reboot. You can let go once you see the Apple logo.


Why does OS X prevent access to a folder if it ends with the word ".service"? I am sharing a win 7 folder and trying to access it from Osx.

Everything works but if the folder is named something ending with the words ".service" the folder is not accessible any more, the icon is changed and if I try to access it I get the message below.

If I remove the word "service" the folder is accessible again.

The machine is hosted inside a VmWare Fusion machine but I don't think this could be a problem, maybe something related to osx-bsd naming for services.

As I am working on folders where I can't change the names is there a way to prevent this behavior?

If Finder thinks it is a bundle, maybe you can right-click on it and "Show Package Contents"...


Bootable USB for Windows 7 isn’t showing up on MacBook Pro 12,2 I made a Windows 7 installation USB using Microsoft’s installation tool on my Windows PC. When I boot the Mac while holding Option. Only the Mac disk appears. The USB is NTFS. I checked if anything is wrong with the USB and nothing seems wrong. I’m not using Bootcamp because it only accepts Windows 10.

Is there any way to get it to appear? I don’t want to install Windows 7 in my Mac OSX disk using Virtual box.

The Boot Camp Assistant will not accept Windows 7 because your Mac is a 2015 model. Starting in 2015, Apple eliminated including a legacy BIOS with the Mac firmware. Windows 7 can only BIOS boot and therefore can not be installed on your Mac. It does not matter how you create the flash drive or what method you use in an attempt to install.


Copy file to protected directory using AppleScript I'm trying to simulate Finder's file copy, but to a protected directory, using AppleScript.  The goal is to copy a single file but elevate when needed, like Finder will behave when doing it manually.

Initially I tried to use do shell script [...] with administrator privileges

This didn't work, I believe due to sandboxing, osascript the shell commands could read from my Desktop directory when run as me, but were blocked when run as administrator.

I tried to use the copy command, but quickly found that it's NOT for copying files.  This is confusing, many solutions are still using it.
I'm reading that duplicate is likely the keyword I should be focusing on but I'm struggling with using POSIX file and when using alias.

An example of a test without elevation:
set posixSrc to (POSIX file "/Users/darwin/Desktop/test.txt") as alias
set posixDst to (POSIX file "/Users/darwin/Desktop/test2.txt") as alias

tell application "Finder"
    duplicate posixSrc to posixDst
end tell

An example of a test with elevation:
set posixSrc to (POSIX file "/Users/darwin/Desktop/test.txt") as alias
set posixDst to (POSIX file "/Applications/My Special App.app") as alias

tell application "Finder"
    duplicate posixSrc to posixDst
end tell

Unfortunately, between POSIX and alias, I'm struggling to figure it all out.  Some errors I receive:
error "Finder got an error: Handler can’t handle objects of this class." number -10010

error "Can’t make \"/Users/darwin/Desktop/test2.txt\" into type alias." number -1700 from "/Users/darwin/Desktop/test2.txt" to alias

error "Finder got an error: AppleEvent handler failed." number -10000 from file (file "Macintosh HD:Users:darwin:Desktop:test.txt")

error "Finder got an error: AppleEvent timed out." number -1712

I'm currently testing these with Script Editor but a solution in Terminal is welcome as well.

Got it...
tell application "Finder"
    set posixSource to (POSIX file "/Users/darwin/Desktop/test.txt" as alias)
    set posixDest to (POSIX file "/Applications/My Special App.app/Contents/" as alias)
    duplicate file posixSource to folder posixDest with replacing
end tell

... and the one-liner:
tell application "Finder" to duplicate file (POSIX file "/Users/darwin/Desktop/test.txt" as alias) to folder (POSIX file "/Applications/My Special App.app/Contents/" as alias) with replacing

Some important distinctions from failed attempts:

You can't alias a file which doesn't yet exist.  For destination, use the destination's parent folder instead.
You can't copy into the root of an Application bundle (e.g. My Special App.app).  You must copy into the My Special App.app/Contents instead.
Pay special attention to the keywords file and folder as they're provided to the duplicate command.
When a problem occurs, it can deadlock Script Editor.  Wrap your duplicate call in ignoring application responses [...] end ignoring to speed up testing which results in timeouts.
When converting to a one-liner you'll need to use the keyword to after the application name.


Would it be safe to use Ubuntu on an unsupported Mac? I run OS X El Capitan on a Unibody MBP 13-inch mid-2009 and support for El Capitan is likely going to run out in fall, so as El Capitan is the last OSX update supported for my MBP, I will stop using OSX in a few months. The MBP still runs fine though hardware-wise so I’m thinking of just using it with Ubuntu. I’m just wondering if this would be unsafe as I can’t get any updates anymore for Mac OS X or if it doesn’t matter and I’m fine using Ubuntu security-wise? Thinking of things like maybe firmware updates that would have to be tailored to MBP hardware and supplied by Apple (but I’m really just guessing). Any advice is appreciated, thank you!

This should be fine.

A mid-2009 MBP won't be seeing any firmware updates from Apple.

If you ever found some reason you needed to run macOS on the machine, you can boot from a USB stick. Consider prepping that USB stick before you switch to Ubuntu.

Linux can definitely help breath new life into an older Macbook. You may want to consider a lighter-weight desktop environment or window mananger to maximize that benefit, though.


Perl library locations, and System Integrity Protection My system perl seems to have a bunch of cruft left over from previous installations:

% which perl
/usr/bin/perl

% perl -V | perl -ne 'print if /INC/...//'
  @INC:
    /Library/Perl/5.18/darwin-thread-multi-2level
    /Library/Perl/5.18
    /Network/Library/Perl/5.18/darwin-thread-multi-2level
    /Network/Library/Perl/5.18
    /Library/Perl/Updates/5.18.2/darwin-thread-multi-2level
    /Library/Perl/Updates/5.18.2
    /System/Library/Perl/5.18/darwin-thread-multi-2level
    /System/Library/Perl/5.18
    /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.18/darwin-thread-multi-2level
    /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.18
    .

Among the stuff in /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.18/darwin-thread-multi-2level is an old version of Moose.pm that doesn't work, so I want to get rid of it:

% perl -MMoose -e1
Invalid version format (version required) at /Library/Perl/5.18/Module/Runtime.pm line 396.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted.

% perldoc -l Moose
/System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.18/darwin-thread-multi-2level/Moose.pm

However, I can't:

% sudo rm /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.18/darwin-thread-multi-2level/Moose.pm
Password:
override rw-r--r--  root/wheel restricted,compressed for /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.18/darwin-thread-multi-2level/Moose.pm? y
rm: /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.18/darwin-thread-multi-2level/Moose.pm: Operation not permitted

I'm guessing that in my various OS updates over the years, Apple has moved some of my user-installed modules to this /System/Library/Perl/Extras directory, but then protected it with System Integrity Protection, so now I can't get rid of it (easily).  Does that sound likely?

If so - how the heck did this stuff get there?  According to What is the "rootless" feature in El Capitan, really? , any extra junk in /System that Apple didn't want there should have been moved to /Library/SystemMigration/History/Migration-(some UUID)/QuarantineRoot, right?  I've never disabled SIP on this machine.

So: what's the best way to deal with this?  I can temporarily disable SIP and blow away /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.18 or whatever - but I'd like some assurance that this isn't something Apple actually expects to be there.  Is there a definitive list of what should be present in /System on my OS (which is High Sierra, 10.13.4 (17E199))?

A couple ideas:

Examine the manifest in the latest High Sierra installer or do a clean install on spare disk and compare it to your system
Check the dates on the various directories

A couple comments:

When I do a 10.x upgrade, i.e from Sierra to High Sierra, I always do a clean install consisting of backing up my home dir, reformatting the drive, then installing OS and reinstalling apps and restoring my files. Removes the crud from previous versions.
For any development work (perl, python, java, shell scripts, etc.) on my Mac I never use the Apple supplied versions - I always use something like MacPorts or install and compile my own if necessary - that way you can manage the versions you use and also escape Apple's redesign of standard locations for libraries, include files, etc. Take it one step further and use docker and docker-compose if you really want to avoid this problem.


What does "when iMessage is unavailable" mean? In the settings for the iOS 5 Messages app there is an option to send messages as SMS "when iMessage is unavailable". Under what conditions is this the case? Is it merely the obvious (no data connection available or the iMessage server is down, or the message sits undelivered for a time), or is it more subtle (for example, the service simply not having had time to confirm that the recipient has iMessage enabled, or that the recipient's device cannot be contacted at the time of sending)?

Phrased another way: what are the conditions under which an (intended) iMessage wold go undelivered, and are there other events that would cause a message to be delivered as an SMS?

It means either

when the device is unable to determine if a message has been delivered over the iMessage transport successfully. When a successful delivery occurs you see a little 'Delivered' notification below the message in the history, and after a period you should have the option to resend as an SMS
or the recipient has no registration with the iMessage server to indicate that it could use the iMessage transport and will use SMS instead.


Why does the iPhone 4S weigh more than the iPhone 4? It's been commonly noted that the iPhone 4S looks the same, but that its internals have been upgraded. Despite that, the iPhone 4S weighs more.

What causes the added weight?

Just because internal hardware has been upgraded, this does not mean that the phone will not weigh more.

After all, upgraded hardware is different hardware.

Still, if that is not sufficient to you take a look at the teardown of the two phones. You will see that the internal design differs, which can cause weight difference.

teardown iPhone 4
teardown iPhone 4s


Alternative to Tuxera NTFS and MacFUSE? Im trying to mount files to an NTFS format drive, I read on the internet that either Tuxera NTFS or MacFuse work for such things. However TuxeraNTFS filled my USB drive with space that should be free after file deletion, and I had to use windows to access the drive and delete the hidden folders created by Tuxera. MacFuse never installed correctly and states that "MacFuse does not appear to be installed"..

Is there any other reliable program that 100% works with NTFS drives ?

Platform : rMBP Mountain Lion OSX 10.8

Thanks

There are several programs that provide NTFS support. However, I would hesitate to claim that any of these programs can provide 100% compatibility and support.

Here's a subset of the NTFS list in Richard Austin's Blog Champion's discussion of OS X file system choices:

Tuxera - I've used this program with no issues in Lion and Mountain Lion
Paragon - site claims to support Mountain Lion, personally haven't used
OSX Fuse - a freeware successor, don't know if it works with Mountain Lion, personally haven't used

I don't have a retina MBP to test with, but any of these should offer you a good starting point. Since you've already tried Tuxera, Paragon appears to be your best bet, while OSX Fuse would be a good option to try out.


Cannot Install or Update Apps in App Store - Error 13 I can currently no longer update or purchase software in the Mac App Store.

I have cleared Safari's cookie cache, cleared ~\Library\Caches\com.apple.appstore logged in and out again, but none of these help.

The error message is:

We could not complete your request. There was an error in the App Store. Please try again later. (13).

Anyone else experienced this? Any fixes?

In the console I am seeing:

17/08/2011 15:30:15.384 com.apple.SecurityServer: Failed to authorize
right 'system.install.software' by client
'/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/PackageKit.framework/Versions/A/Resources/installd'

[6043] for authorization created by '/Applications/App Store.app' [9337]

Update: I logged in as admin and the App Store works fine. So some sort of Prefs file is hosed in my main user. Does anyone know which one it would be?

I seem to have fixed the problem.

I used opensnoop to follow all file accesses while the app store was running.
I spotted that
~/Library/Cookies/com.apple.appstore.plist
was being accessed - this file had not been deleted by Safari when I cleared all cookies!
The file had incorrect permissions - I deleted it.
Now the App Store seems to be working again.

Opensnoop is a great tool!


How to attach file to Outlook from terminal using Applescript? I'm writing an Applescript so that I can attach a file to Outlook from the terminal in the following way:

$ attachToOutlook myreport.xlsx

Where attachToOutlook is aliased to osascript /path/to/my/script/attach

This is my current implementation:

on run argv
  tell application "Microsoft Outlook"
    set theContent to ""
    set theAttachment to item 1 of argv
    set theMessage to make new outgoing message with properties {subject: ""}
    tell content
      make new attachment with properties {file: (item 1 of argv )} at the end of theMessage
    end tell
    open theMessage -- for further editing
  end tell
end run

but I'm getting the following error:

attach:263:264: script error: Expected expression, etc. but found “:”. (-2741)

How can I fix this?

A couple of issues. First, you need to make the new attachment to the message, not to the content. Second, the attachment should be a posix file. Third, you can't just send a file name, you have to tell Outlook where the file is by including the full path.

I've written my own version included here, adding the subject and content as variables passed through the command line.

Note: Call with the following, replacing  with the actual account name.

osascript testterm.scpt '/Users/<user name>/Desktop/test2.rtf' 'Test Subject' '
This is a test content for an email test
'

AppleScript code in testterm.scpt:

on run argv
    set theAttachment to item 1 of argv
    set theAttachment to theAttachment as POSIX file--convert to posix file
    set theSubject to item 2 of argv
    set theContent to item 3 of argv
    tell application "Microsoft Outlook"
        set theMessage to make new outgoing message with properties {subject:theSubject, content:theContent}
        tell theMessage--tell theMessage (not theContent) to add the attachment
            make new attachment with properties {file:theAttachment}
        end tell
    open theMessage
    end tell
end run


Automator or AppleScript Rename Workflow Is it possible to automate the following action:

Example

Folder name: "TEST" the name of the file inside the folder is: "Evelyn.jpg".

How do I rename the folder using the name of the file inside of it:

Result

Folder name: "EVELYN" the name of the file inside the folder is: "Evelyn.jpg".

Any ideas how to achieve this with Automator or AppleScript?

Here's a script:

set thefolder to "path:to:folder" as alias
tell application "Finder"
    set filename to name of first item of folder thefolder
    set oldDels to AppleScript's text item delimiters as string
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "." as string
    set itemname to first text item of filename
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to oldDels as string
    set name of thefolder to itemname
end tell

It gets the name of the first item in the folder, clips off the extension, and renames the folder.

Note that it doesn't convert to uppercase as in your example. This is less than trivial with AppleScript, but let me know if it's real important and I can give you the code.


iPhone SE occasionally won't receive calls, I get missed call notification instead At first I didn't think that was such a big problem, because it happened only every now and then, but now it's becoming frustrating, because I missed some important calls because of it.
Long story short: Sometimes I simply won't receive a call, instead I get a missed call notification, sometimes even few minutes after I was called.
'Do not disturb' is turned off, so that cannot be a problem. Sometimes I don't receive a call even while using a phone.
Has anyone else had such problems before?

Kind regards

It's probably worth rebooting the phone, just in case, & checking your carrier settings are up to date [Settings > General > About] but ultimately I'd speak to your carrier.

I had a similar issue last year which was resolved by getting a new SIM. Apparently, I'd had the old one so long I was several firmware generations behind & the new card just fixed it immediately.


What is the difference between this disks (0 and 1) on my Mac? I want to know how does my Mac use this disks. What is the difference between this disks (0 and 1) on my Mac? And what is the difference between internal and synthesized?

I would be appreciated if you will tell in details.

The primary difference is that disk0 is your physical disk and it contains three things: GPT header table, EFI partition (that does not share space with the other partition disk0s2), APFS Container (that does not share space with the other partition disk0s1).

disk1 is how the APFS container is shared out to store other files that all share free space.

The details of APFS are on WWDC 2016 where this was introduced. The image above is from this developer documentation - https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/file_system/about_apple_file_system

Since you are on Mojave or older, you don't need to worry about all the Catalina changes (yet) but here is the best listing of technical details on how this shared space using APFS containers will work for macOS in the future:

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

To return to your question, the only place you store files in in Macintosh HD - disk1s1, the other synthesized volumes VM, PreBoot, Recovery are for the system to store things it rebuilds and you don't need to back up as part of your normal use of a computer.


How do I save a screenshot with the ISO 8601 date format with Applescript? I am building a script that saves many consecutive screenshots. I would like to save the files in the ISO 8601 date format.

To get the date in ISO 8601 format, use:

on date_to_iso(dt)
    set {year:y, month:m, day:d} to dt
    set y to text 2 through -1 of ((y + 10000) as text)
    set m to text 2 through -1 of ((m + 100) as text)
    set d to text 2 through -1 of ((d + 100) as text)
    return y & "-" & m & "-" & d
end date_to_iso

on date_time_to_iso(dt)
    set {year:y, month:m, day:d, hours:h, minutes:min, seconds:s} to dt
    set y to text 2 through -1 of ((y + 10000) as text)
    set m to text 2 through -1 of ((m + 100) as text)
    set d to text 2 through -1 of ((d + 100) as text)
    set h to text 2 through -1 of ((h + 100) as text)
    set min to text 2 through -1 of ((min + 100) as text)
    set s to text 2 through -1 of ((s + 100) as text)
    return y & "-" & m & "-" & d & "T" & h & ":" & min & ":" & s
end date_time_to_iso

You can call these with, for example:

set dt to current date
date_to_iso(dt)

gives something like "2013-10-23"

set dt to current date
date_time_to_iso(dt)

gives something like "2013-10-23T14:00:05"

Source: AppleScript Date to ISO Format


Speed Up iTunes Sync on 192 kbps I have something like 1450 songs on my iPhone 4S, and I have iTunes transcoding the files to 192 kbps as I don't have enough memory. The only problem is that the sync takes from 3 to 4 hours!

Is there any way I could speed it up?

My iPhone runs iOS 6.0 and my computer, Windows 8 Dev Preview.

If this is the first sync, it has to transcode everything, which naturally takes a long time. If you check your Activity Monitor you'll probably see all cores at 100%. You could buy a computer with a faster CPU... or just be patient.

The first sync used to take about a day for me with 5000 songs on an old Core 2 Duo MacBook. At least you can stop the sync and it'll resume where it left off when you get back.


What is the Mac equivilent of ALT+PrintScreen? I've just started using Delphi to create OSX programs. I'd like to be able to take a screenshot of just the currently active window on the Mac and save it to the clipboard. On Windows you press [Alt] + [PrtScn].

What is the equivilent on a Mac?

To take a screenshot of a window press: ⌘ cmd+⇧ shift+4 and then press Spacebar. With this hover the mouse over the window You want to take a screenshot of and press Left mouse/trackpad button.


How do I prevent OS X from making ".filename" files? I'm not sure of the consistency but sometimes OS X makes hidden .filename files where filename is a name of another file in the same directory. I want to know how to disable this since USBs I insert and copy / move files to / from keep having this and it's annoying to have to delete them every time I plug the USB onto a non-Mac computer.

What format is the volume in? If you mean the AppleDouble files that start with ._, they are not normally created on HFS volumes. They are used to store metadata like extended attributes, ACLs, and resource forks on non-HFS volumes.

You can delete the ._ files with find:

find /Volumes/volume -name ._\* -delete

If the volume is in an HFS format, you can use dot_clean to remove the ._ files after merging the metadata stored in them with the metadata stored in native formats:

dot_clean /Volumes/volume


Why iCloud for Windows 10 is not working? I downloaded the latest iCloud software for Windows 10. It installed but is not working properly. It is not downloading the photos from the iCloud.

Is there any way to ensure that the photos are downloaded to the local PC desktop? (I tried Download Photos but it is still not downloading.)

For the benefit of all, I would like to answer the question. Yesterday I uninstalled the icloud for windows 10 and then reinstalled it from Microsoft store. To my surprise it started working after 10-12 hours as I clicked on Download Photos , it asked me which photos to download.


Cannot access directories over SMB (permissions error) I am unable to access directories like ~/Documents, ~/Downloads, or ~/Desktop via SMB — the SB share on which they exist can be accessed, but not the directories themselves (trying to browse them gives permissions errors)
In Console.app, I have (for kernel), e.g.,
System Policy: smbd(7706) deny(1) file-read-data /Users/alex/Documents

This appears when I try to access ~/Documents.
How can I fix this so ~/Documents and similar dirs are accessible via SMB?

In the Privacy tab of the Security & Privacy system preference pane, make sure that either:

smbd appears and is checked in the Full Disk Access list, or
smbd appears with Documents Folder checked below it in the Files and Folders list.

If you need to add smbd, it can be found in /usr/sbin.


How to disable autohide dock autohide when the app closes I'm not an AppleScript Ninja but so I followed this link to automatically hide dock when it opens Unreal Engine

tell application "System Events"
  set autohide of dock preferences to true
end tell
tell application "UE4Editor" to activate

But, how to disable autohide when Unreal Engine closes? I'm running this script as an App.

Is there any way I can integrate this script to Unreal Engine app? So, I don't have to click on this app manually & everything is done for me behind the scenes automatically?

If you do not want to worry about creating a race condition and having to close UE4Editor before shutting down, as mentioned in the other answer, then there is a nice app called EventScripts, for $3.99 USD at the App Store, that you can use to trigger AppleScript scripts and or Shell scripts when certain events are triggered.

Here's an example AppleScript script that will hide/show the Dock when UE4Editor launches/quits:

on run eventArgs
    set theAppName to applicationName in eventArgs
    set theTrigger to trigger in eventArgs
    if theTrigger is "Application launched" and theAppName is "UE4Editor" then
        hideDock(true)
    else if theTrigger is "Application quit" and theAppName is "UE4Editor" then
        hideDock(false)
    end if
end run

on hideDock(b)
    tell application "System Events"
        set autohide of dock preferences to b
    end tell
end hideDock

In Script Editor, save the above AppleScript code as, e.g., UE4Editor - On Open and Close.scpt in ~/Library/Application Scripts/net.mousedown.EventScripts/, (after EventScripts is installed).

Now in EventScripts, add the same script twice, while setting the Event for one to Application launched and the other to Application quit.

Now, when UE4Editor launches, the Dock is hidden, and when UE4Editor quits the Dock is unhidden.

EventScripts has a long list of events it can trigger a script on. Check out the links below for more information:

EventScripts - Developers Website
EventScripts - Mac App Store Preview
EventScripts - Available Events and Parameters
EventScripts - Example Scripts

Note: I'm not affiliated with the developer of EventScripts, just a satisfied customer.


Macbook gets stuck on Grey Screen, won't boot normally I've tried many steps so I'll list them here, I can do a reinstall but I prefer to figure out the actual cause of the problem and I don't think a reinstall will solve it.

Macbook 2007, OSX version 10.7.5

I was watching a YouTube video when something weird happened to the screen and the computer froze, so I forced a shutdown by holding down the power button.  Ever since, I'm not able to boot up.

I get past the Apple logo, but it instantly goes grey.  I've even tried booting from an external drive and the same thing happens.

I've tried replacing the SSD with another working SSD, but same thing. So it can't be the drive.

I can boot into Safe mode, I've repaired permissions and disk, a restart normally still hung on the grey screen.  I can still get into Safe mode no problem and I don't think a reinstall will solve the issue because of this.

I've booted into Single user mode, ran fsck -fy and everything was ok.  Still can't boot.

Can't boot into recovery disk, same thing happens with grey screen.

Tried Command+V to verbose boot but it didn't hang on anything, it just boots and then goes to the grey screen.

I reset NVRAM and SMC, didn't accomplish anything.

Any one have any ideas?  Any more steps I can take that I haven't thought of?

I too had this problem twice. The first time the system got stuck, and switched itself off. Then later when I was trying boot it got stuck at the grey screen. When I contacted Apple for support, they told me that my harddrive is not working anymore and replaced it. All data lost. The second time when it happened was when I tried to restart the system and it got stuck at the grey screen. I tried removing all the devices connected to the system and switched it back on. This time it worked. Let me know if I can be of anymore help :-)


iPhone 5s: texts and calls show numbers instead of names I have an iPhone 5s. All contact phone numbers show up in the list as names. How do I get names, not numbers to display for received texts and calls?

Put people in your iPhone contacts, when you put people in the Contacts application it is best to put in the full telephone number and the country of the person then the iPhone will use the telephone number formatting of that country.

I live in the Netherlands and I have setup my iPhone as such, when I create a new contact by default (unless I change the country) they are listed as being in the Netherlands. The country code for the Netherlands is +31, the "+" is the convention for country code.

If I type in a mobile phone number (the prefix code for mobiles is '6') say
+31 6 12345678 then the iPhone will format it that way. If I type in a fixed land line number, say +31 40 1234567 then it will put in the spaces to correctly identify the region code '40'. If I put in other people from other countries with other formats for phone numbers, say +1 123 12345678 for something in the US, the iPhone will automatically put in the correct spacing.

And you will see the person's name, not number, for incoming and outgoing calls.


Compatibility of oldish iPhones, Apple's policy, future perspective I'm shopping for a used iPhone. I would not use it as a personal phone, just as a device to explore Apple's apps, for professional reasons.

I wonder what older models are still compatible with recently launched apps developed for new devices.

Is there some official road map about support from Apple and back compatibility policy?  How far back in iPhone version can I safely go to buy a cheap device that will last at least one year?

Here's the list of iPhones that currently support iOS 11:

iPhone 5S
6
6 Plus
6S
6S Plus
SE
7
7 Plus
8
8 Plus
iPhone X

With the exception of the last 3, you can find reasonably inexpensive (probably not 'cheap') used iPhones that should last for another 1-3 years.  Apple doesn't post roadmaps as to upcoming devices or the iOS versions that support.


How to safely install rEFind from recovery mode? I want to dual boot OSX and Linux on my Macbook Air, and to do this, I read that I need to install rEFind. If I try doing that I get a message in the terminal:

**** ALERT: SIP ENABLED! ****

rEFInd cannot be installed because System Integrity Protection (SIP) seems
to be enabled! You must install rEFInd from your Recovery installation or
from another OS. To install from the Recovery system:

  1. Reboot
  2. Hold down Command+R as the chime sounds
  3. When the OS has booted, select Utilities->Terminal
  4. Change to this directory with the 'cd' command; it will probably be under
     /Volumes/Macintosh HD/Users/kramer65/Downloads/refind-bin-0.10.4
  5. Re-run this script.

If you believe SIP is NOT enabled, you may attempt an installation anyhow,
but it may fail.

For more on this subject, see http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/sip.html

Do you want to attempt installation (Y/N)?

So I followed the instructions. I rebooted into recovery and then tried to install rEFind again, but I get the same message.

When I try to install rEFind from recovery mode, can I safely ignore the message about SIP and type in Y to continue installing rEFind? All tips are welcome!

Though you shouldn't see this message (even with SIP enabled) in Recovery Mode you can type Y and continue installing rEFInd.

A less rocky but time consuming way is to disable SIP in Recovery Mode by entering csrutil disable in Terminal.app.

After rebooting to your main boot volume open Terminal.app, enter csrutil status and if SIP is disabled, install rEFInd.

Then reboot to Recovery Mode again and enable SIP again with csrutil enable. After rebooting you should get the rEFInd boot window.


How to troubleshoot 802.11ac bandwidth problems I have a new Macbook Air with 802.11ac, and a new Airport Extreme with 802.11ac.  I'm trying to transfer a large file across my LAN (I have a network drive attached to network via wired ethernet).

If I transfer the file over (wired) ethernet, I'm seeing transfer speeds of 60-70MB/sec, which seems reasonable.  But if I transfer the same file via wi-fi, I'm only seeing rates of 15-17MB/sec.  If have tried to remove as many variables as possible by connecting my computer to the same cable that is connected to the Airport Extreme, and in that case I'm seeing the fast (60-70MB/sec) speeds, but the same transfer over wi-fi -- even if my laptop is right next to the Airport Extreme -- is much slower.  I have confirmed that the laptop is connecting to the Airport Extreme via 802.11ac.

My assumption is that 802.11ac operating properly should have produced transfer speeds just as fast as what I was seeing over wired ethernet.  What am I missing?  Is it possible there's a software bug, or perhaps a configuration problem?

I would run /System/Library/CoreServices/Wireless Diagnostics to see if the tool can pick up on any problems with channel or interference. The drop off in speed seems too large to account for a switch from wired ethernet MTU to the overhead for WiFi, but it could be something that will get tuned with an update.

The good news is you get free support within 90 days of purchase so you could call AppleCare or visit a genius bar to review the Wireless Diagnostic scans and have them escalate the case to engineering at no cost to you if this slowdown persists. I'm sure they would be very interested in a test case where the hardware and software isn't working as expected.

In the mean time, you might have more details on SNR and Transmit Rate that might point to a reason why your transfers are slower over wireless than over wired.

You can even see how this tool can be used in action in this answer - where I turned on a microwave to show that there was some interference from that device.


osx - How to override automatically enabled proxy (I am using a 11" MacBook Air, Early 2015, provided by my school)

There is software hard-installed on my computer that automatically enables a proxy (under "System Preferences..." -> "Network" -> "Advanced" -> "Proxies") about every 5 minutes which inadvertently breaks a lot of services like the app store, simply uploading images to imgur, using lightshot at all, a lot of games I play from launching, etc. etc. I am able to use these services for just a few minutes right after I disable the proxy but pretty soon the hard-installed software enables the proxy itself again. I was wondering if there is literally any way around this. Maybe my own program that keeps the proxy disabled, counterproductive to the proxy enabler.

If I am being confusing, let me explain what I go through:

I go to do something (play a game, download an app, etc.)
It is not working.
I click on the apple logo, then choose: "System Preferences..." -> "Network" -> "Advanced" -> "Proxies"
I notice "Automatic Proxy Configuration" is enabled, with an address (to a .pac proxy I guess) put in.
I simply uncheck "Automatic Proxy Configuration".
I click OK, and "Apply".
I am able to access the software now. (play a game, or download an app, etc.)
Soon, usually just a few minutes, the proxy is magically enabled (checkbox is checked) again.
Repeat!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

I don't think you're going to find a "legitimate" way around this.  The owner of the machine has installed this, and they desire that it remain turned on.  It would be a poor security measure indeed which could be disabled without the owner's consent in any sort of simple way.

If you have admin access you may be able to determine which process is doing this and terminate it.

I am using a company-supplied MacBook Pro.  If I want to access internal company resources, I have to leave the stuff they've installed in place.  I have admin access, but cannot see some of the software my company has installed.

I believe that you have basically two choices:

Reinstall El Capitan, overwriting the existing install [this might
cause problems with access to school resources]
Install El Capitan on an external drive, then boot from it when you seek
to do the things that the proxy is preventing.

Some replacement SSDs come with external cases; you could replace the internal SSD with your own clean El Capitan SSD and then boot from the external one when you need school access.

All of this is probably contrary to some acceptable-use agreement you signed when you accepted the school-supplied machine.  Take care.


How do I connect my IPad Air 1 to the internet via ethernet without creating an AP? How do I connect my iPad Air to the internet with an ethernet cable without creating an access point or a wireless signal/hotspot of any kind?

My first attempt was a duplicate of this fella

But, there's a couple problems with that setup:

Two of the core components he said are "Needed" link to non-existent websites (Lightning to USB Camera Adapter & USB Ethernet Adapter)
Every other USB 2.0 ethernet dongle I purchase has a driver that needs to be installed, which isn't easy with the iPad
Even in his setup iPad says it cannot connect to the device

I'm using these:

Insignia USB 2.0 Powered Hub
Insignia USB 2.0 Ethernet Adapter
ASUS Dual-band Wireless-AC1900 Gigabit Router
iPad Air (with the latest software updates)
Lightning to USB Camera Adapter

You almost certainly need the geniune Apple USB Ethernet adapter, because it's probably the only USB Ethernet adapter that iOS has drivers for. Even if you find another adapter that uses the same chipset, Apple's drivers probably won't load unless the dongle identifies itself as an Apple product.


Can I use a whiteboard marker to write on my thunderbolt monitor? I was wondering, since it´s glass, it shouldn´t be a problem, right?

Dry erase markers have organic solvents in them which may cause damage to the optical coatings on the display's glass face. Also, depending on the coatings, it may actually be difficult to leave visible lines with a marker. Without details on the display construction, it's hard to know without trying. Given how bloody expensive the things are, I wouldn't risk it, but I won't say it's impossible.


iPhone 3GS Keeps Rebooting My 3GS keeps having a strange issue, but I think I've found a pattern.

First let its battery get low enough to where it turns off on its own
Recharge it enough to come back on
After coming back on, every 5 minutes the 3GS just reboots randomly

To fix it, the only thing that works is to do a restore from iTunes (which sucks if the backup is kind of old)

It is out of warranty, has anyone had this issue? Would a new battery help? I'm also wondering if jailbreaking it might help to where there is something I can do command line to fix it (I'm proficient with Linux/SSH).

My wife uses this phone, and it's hard to get her to keep it charged. I'm running iOS 5.0.1.

I had this issue with my Girlfriends iPhone 3G, as you say the only way to resolve is to a restore in iTunes.

So are you and your wife running iOS5 or is the 3GS on another version?

Once that is done it is worth upgrading (if you haven't already) and make the iPhone sync with iCloud and store your backup there. This way if it happens again you can easily restore to an up to date version.

Hope that helps!


Does the password on OSX user account prevent someone from viewing your /user folder if they have the HD in an external enclosure? Ive got a strong password on my user account on my macbook pro running OSX, which will prevent someone from booting up my laptop and logging in and viewing my files, but will this stop someone from being able to remove the HD from my laptop put it in a external hard drive enclosure and view all of my files using finder on another machine ?

Or are all the files stored in my user account encrypted using my user account login password ? If not how can i prevent someone from accessing these files if they get there hands on my laptop and remove the HD ?

Im running OSX 10.10

Unless you have turned FileVault on which encrypts your drive your files can be read by anyone who has physical access to your machine. They don't need to take the disk out and put it into an external enclosure, they can boot into single user mode which can read every thing or boot into the recovery partition and either reinstall the OS without deleting data or I think add admin users or boot of a Linux USB drive.

If you need to protect your data you must encrypt it and the Apple way is top use FileVault and then you need a password to read the drive.


Where is the hard drive in a Mac Book Pro 15" (early 2011)? This morning I am hearing an occasional periodic quiet clicking type noise from my macbook, from roughly the lower right quadrant, underneath the arrow keys.  I have no CD/DVD in the optical drive.   The noise repeats 5 to 10 times and then quits for a while, and it repeats at a regular rate of less than a second.

My question is: is that where my hard drive is?  If not, what is in that spot?

As you can see in iFixit's teardown, the hard drive is located in the lower right corner. The lower left is pretty much just the battery, which doesn't really have any mechanical parts that could make a clicking sort of noise.

Perhaps listen a little closer and see if you can isolate the noise better. I would also strongly recommend making regular backups if you don't already, as a clicking hard drive is not a good sound, if that is where it's coming from.


Installing US International Keyboard Layout in Mountain Lion How can I install US International Keyboard Layout in Mountain Lion (step by step, please!)?

OS X comes with a version of the layout preinstalled, but it just has to be enabled in System Preferences.


Why is my ac wifi signal weaker than my b/g/n; does it matter? I have a new AirPort Extreme and a mid-2014 MacBook Pro. Both devices are 802.11ac but (according to iStumbler) my ac signal is weaker than my b/g/n signal (no matter where I move my antenna).

Why is my ac signal is weaker than my b/g/n signal? Does that mean that my (brand new) MBP is performing worse than a b/g/n machine would?

The ac is 5GHz signal.

The way the radio waves work is the higher the frequency the lover the range.

However, the signal strength is only one factor.

With your signal strength on 5GHz network you will still get much higher data throughput, then on the b, g, n (which is on 2.5 GHz WiFi).

Unfortunately the 5GHz is also more sensitive to the interferences (like for the microwave ect..)

Signal strength:

Since the Radio waves jungle are controlled by our Government, you can not exceed the given power output to boost the signal (otherwise you might have Jumbo-jet landing in your backyard). Engineering the multiple antennas (arrays) can help directing the beam from the broadcasting station to the receiver, to help with the distribution of the 5GHz signal. Standard antennas are ommi-directional (broadcast equally in all directions). Using a directional antenna is the solution here, where the beam goes focused in one direction.


Persistant phantom volume mount points, how to prevent? Every time I reboot my Mac a mount point for a drive I don't even have connected is recreated in my /Volumes/ dir.  I can delete it, but next time I reboot it comes back.  How can I find out what is creating this?

P.S.  At one time I did have CCC along with some other backup utilities installed on this system, that were setup to backup a volume of that name, but they have been removed.

If you removed Carbon Copy Cloner by dragging it to the trash, I'm guessing there may be remnants of CCC still on your system.

Check these locations and delete them these if they exist:

/Library/Application Support/com.bombich.ccc
/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.bombich.ccchelper.plist
/Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.bombich.ccchelper
/Users/yourname/Library/Application Support/com.bombich.ccc


How to prevent filename overlapping on an image preview? After upgraded to El Capitan, the image in Finder preview are overlapped by the filename, e.g.:

Is there an option to prevent filename overlapping image preview?

i was just having the same issue and came across this question.

I think I solved it. Go to Finder > View > Hide Preview. Then click Show Preview, it should fix the glitch. Did for me. Good luck.