Internet Sharing Issues (WiFi to Ethernet) For some reason my internet sharing has decided to stop working. It was perfectly fine about a day ago, no issues, no hiccups, but today it differs. It won't work at all.

I'm connecting my MacBook Pro Early 2011 model (Running 10.8.2) to a Windows computer via ethernet (I'm still waiting for the wireless card to come). It was working without an issue until I unplugged my MacBook Pro while Internet Sharing was on. Now when I connect it again (while IS is on) it will show connectivity on the Mac, but no internet on Windows. Here is what I see when the cable is connected (to both machines) and Internet Sharing is on:

... and the following:

As you can see the option "Share Your Connection From" is for some strange reason blank, and yes, I have tried countless times to turn it off, click Wifi, and turn it back on. When done so the "WiFi" will only display on the dropdown-list until I close the Internet Sharing option.

I have also noticed that even when I don't have Internet Sharing on, my MacBook Pro still connects to the ethernet and actually states: "Ethernet is currently active and has the IP address 169.254.16.1."

I would appreciate any help, thank you in advance.

I don't have a definitive answer, but I've got some ideas to start, and perhaps we can narrow it down as you try some things and provide more information.

For starters, check the lock status of the Sharing Preferences. The lock icon in the bottom left corner should be open when you make changes. I've run into some problems where the interface would allow me to make changes, but they wouldn't save because it was locked.

If it is open, set up sharing as you would, then lock it after. See if that makes the configuration stick.
Try removing /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.nat.plist (you may want to make a backup copy just in case). Then try re-enabling Internet Sharing (which should regenerate that plist file). It's possible something got corrupted in the configuration file.


Why do I have two OS X Catalina volumes? This:

And this:

Should I be concerned?  Should I remove one?

No, this is perfectly normal for Catalina; it is for security reasons. Macintosh HD has the OS. It is a read-only volume separate from other files on your Mac. Your personal files and data are stored in the Macintosh HD - Data. See this Apple support page for more details.


Can I use AppleScript to delete files on NAS listed in a file? I am cleaning up my iTunes folders. I realized that there are more than 3k of files which are actually not in iTunes. I identified them and I have all of them inside a text file called "untitled.txt" in the format below.

/Volumes/Multimedia/Music/ITunes Media/Kiko/Come On Up/Come On Up.mp3
/Volumes/Multimedia/Music/ITunes Media/Kiko/Traxxxx/Traxxxx.mp3

The files are sitting on my NAS so my question would be what would the script look like and will it read the NAS file format (I think it is ext4).

As an alternative to using AppleScript, it is so much easier just to do it in Terminal using bash, e.g.:

while IFS= read -r line; do echo rm "$line"; done < /path/to/untitled.txt

Run it as is with the echo command to have a look1  at its output, and if it look okay, then run the command again without echo in it.

Note that when run without the echo command, the path file names will be quoted, so while with echo command will show as e.g.:

rm /Volumes/Multimedia/Music/ITunes Media/Kiko/Come On Up/Come On Up.mp3

However, without the echo command, the rm command with the path file names will execute as e.g.:

rm "/Volumes/Multimedia/Music/ITunes Media/Kiko/Come On Up/Come On Up.mp3"

Thus handling path file names that contains spaces.

1Hint: Enlarge the window in Terminal so you see the full line without it wrapping on the screen as this will make it easier to see any anomalies, if any.


El Capitan and memory Since installing El Capitan on my mid-2013 27" iMac with 16 GB of memory I often get a "not enough memory" message particularly when using Word, but also some crashes when trying to print from Word or Adobe.  I was not having any of these issues before installing El Capitan.
Any suggestions.
Thank you

memory could mean two things. RAM memory will clear up after you restart. And physical memory is used to store things.

Your Mac sounds young, so it might be a RAM memory problem. Try restart a few times.

If that doesn't work, type sudo purge into your terminal. That will manually free your RAM memory.

Lastly, there is a option to clear up NVRAM memory. If you clear NVRAM up, it will clear up your settings for system volume and mirroring and stuff. The way to do that is restart, after you hear the boot-up sound, hold down following keys: Cmd + option + p + r

To clear out physical memory, in the other hand, is simpler. Move things to usb and delete unwanted apps and plugins.


Cut out parts from videos I know I can trim videos at the beginning or at the end with QuickTime Player — And practically any other video-editing-app.

But is there a simple way to cut out parts within a video — say ad-breaks in a tv-recording?

I mean, sure, it might be relatively simple to do with iMovie, but than I have to import and export — and that takes some time.

Isn't there a simple solution (probably without long re-encodings during import/export) to cut out parts out of mp4-videos?

Example:

|AD|---Movie---|AD|-------Movie-------|AD|---Movie---|AD|

I want to trim the video and cut out the ads, so only the «Movie»-parts remain (as one file).

|-------------Movie-------------|

You can also trim from the middle with QuickTime player, not just from the end. Position the marker at the start of your edit, and do commandY (Split Clip), Then move the red line to the end of the region you want to remove and split it again there. You can now select the mid portion of the video (it should get a yellow border) and delete it.

See below for the view when you have done both splits, but not yet deleted...


Screen freezes on MacBook Pro 2008 Today, my screen froze suddenly, and since the I have this problem reoccurring in certain intervals. I ran /sbin/fsck -fy and got the following results. I assume this is something with the processor? Would be nice if someone could help me out here.

I have to say that I have a bad battery, but as long as it is plugged in, it shouldn't be a problem?

Also, i unfortunately dont have the hardware diagnosis dvd and cant get it to run by holding down d.

So I found the problem. It was one of the RAM slots that caused the problem. After removing one of the RAM chips everything runs fine and stable for over a week now.


How do I click a button using AppleScript? I'm trying to press a button in TeamSpeak using applescript, here is my code:

tell application "TeamSpeak 3 Client" to activate
tell application "System Events"
    tell process "TeamSpeak 3"
        click menu item "Connect" of menu "Connections" of menu bar 1
        delay 2
        click button "Connect"
    end tell
end tell

and here is an image of me hovering over the button in accessibility inspector

All I want to be able to do is figure out how to push my button using the information given to me in Accessibility Inspector, but with my code I get the error "System Events got an error: Can’t get button "Connect" of process "TeamSpeak 3"." Here is a screenshot of the window the button is directly inside:

You also need to specify the parent objects.

activate application "TeamSpeak 3 Client"
tell application "System Events" to tell process "TeamSpeak 3"
    click menu item "Connect" of menu "Connections" of menu bar 1
    click button "Connect" of window 1 of window 1
end tell


Does OS X Have An Inbuilt "Self Cleaning" Feature? Does OS X have an inbuilt effective "self cleaning" feature/mechanism. If so does it need to be turned on by default, and how often does it take place, (or is this something that is determined by the user).

Is it advisable to use apps such as CleanMyMac or CCleaner for example ? (or are they more harmful than good).

Applications such as CleanMyMac or CCleaner are unnecessary for your Mac. They can clear certain caches or preferences that can interfere with the proper functionality of your other applications - they'll be recreated anyway the next time you use the software. Unless you're in dire need of extra space on your hard drive, I wouldn't suggest trying to erase caches using cleaner applications. If anything, invest in an external hard drive and move some of your larger files over.


Will I be able to receive my WhatsApp chat history when i change my phone I have been using a sim for two months on my iPhone and now I gave that sim to my cousin. What I am worried about is will she recieve my WhatsApp chat history when she downloads WhatsApp to her phone.

WhatsApp works on the phone number, not the phone, so you need to transfer your number

From the WhatsApp FAQ

  Before you stop using a particular phone number or phone, you should migrate your WhatsApp account to the new number or new phone.

  For a simple way to delete your old account number and migrate your data to a new number, use our Change Number feature.


Will a new keychain be synchronized over iCloud? If I create a new personal Keychain, in this example I called "Test", everything I save into my new "Test" goes to my iCloud too? Or remain just local into my computer?

This keychain will remain local. Only keys/certs/etc in the iCloud Keychain will be synchronised over iCloud.


Messages.app on mac: search in history i've a problem, i'm able to search for string in messages.app. It actually tells me all the matches for every conversation, the problem is that is shows only the last match, how can i go through all the results?

You can simply use

⌘ + G in order to jump to the next occurrence

and

⌘ + Shift + G in order to jump to the previous one.


How to get designated apps to open on designated desktops I would like to get TextMate and Safari to open in the same desktop, but have looked in System Preferences and can't see where to do this?

Leopard and Snow Leopard had this in System Preferences, but I can't find it in Lion.

Thanks in advance for your help.

When you have at least two spaces in Mission Control, you can access the necessary options via right-click on the app icon in the dock:


Can I bind a Launchpad shortcut on my [PC] mouse? I have created a shortcut for Launchpad using the keyboard, but cannot figure out how to make one for the 4th button on my mouse. This would eliminate the need for even using the dock...for the most part.

One option would be to use BetterTouchTool:


Severe GPU throttling freezes 2019 MBP16 after 30 minutes of Civilization VI My brand new 2019 Macbook Pro 16" (macOS v10.15.7) suffers from severe GPU throttling after 30 minutes of playing Civilization 6. The freeze causes visual GPU artifacts that extend beyond the game's window while consuming 1100% CPU. In Windowed Mode it is sometimes possible to force-quit Civ6 and recover system stability. I've read online that these thermal issues do not occur with top-line AMD Radeon 5600M GPU.

Is there any known software fix that can prevent this catastrophic breakdown, perhaps by limiting the GPU clock's speeds?
Personally, I invested in this machine as a musician and a professional programmer to do live music and video performances, so if the GPU freezes in the middle of a concert, that will be unacceptable. Machine details:

Machine: 2019 Macbook Pro 16"
Processor: 2.3Ghz 8-core i9-9880H
GPU: 8GB AMD Radeon 5500M
View Mode: Full Screen or Windowed
Graphics Detail: Low to Ultra. Seems to happen faster at Ultra.
Displays: No external displays.

Suspected causes in order of likelihood:

Flawed Thermal Design on MBP16. My machine idles at 70-85degC out-of-the-box.
Badly applied Thermal CPU Paste at Apple's factory
Faulty AMD Radeon 5500M drivers
Faulty 5500M Hardware (GPU)
A bug in Civ6. Unlikely because this should not cause visual artifacts outside of the game.

In the meantime, I am in a battle with Apple to replace my £3200 Macbook Semi-Pro.
Here is a related question, but mine should not be considered a duplicate.

I wrote a answer to a similar question; it comes down to the design of the MacBook in relation to the thermal requirements of the CPU and GPU.
So, as to your suspects, I concur that poor thermal design being right there at the top.  As for poor application of thermal paste, it may be a factor, but even the most perfect application of the most efficient thermal paste will only account for a minuscule improvement in heat transfer.
I don't believe it's faulty drivers - could they be more efficient?  Sure, what couldn't?  I also don't believe that you have a faulty GPU, however, the way to confirm that is to benchmark the GPU.  Essentially stress test it to see if it fails.
Could it be a bug in Civ6?  That's likely as well.
As for the reliability of the machine to do the job, I believe you'll be fine for what you bought it for - programming and music.  These machines are very popular for both of those tasks and personal experience with using a Mac in audio recording/production found that even lower end Macs with ample memory and no GPU were up to the task.
I find that MacBook computers (and most laptops for that matter) aren't the appropriate platform for games.  There's a reason most of the gaming rigs you see are desktop builds with ridiculous cooling mechanisms at the forefront.  In fact, I've seen a 2012 iMac (which is essentially a MacBook Pro in a desktop config) outperform a 2015 MacBook pro with essentially the same specs.  The iMac was able to run it's CPU at a higher speed for longer because it remained cooler longer.
Bottom line:  You should be safe with your Mac for work purposes and if you want to game, I'd build a gaming rig.  Besides, it's just pragmatic to keep your recreation off of the device that pays the bills, but that's just my philosophy so YMMV.


Is there a way to auto mount SMB storage without nobrowse option? I want to create an permanent SMB mount and read SMB storage in Finder. So I read following articles.

Create a Permanent SMB Mount in OSX (Updated)

Automounting NFS share in OS X into /Volumes

After that, auto mounting SMB storage has worked properly. But Finder can't read the storage because of nobrowse option which I didn't set. Is there a way to auto mount SMB storage without nobrowse option?

The details are as follows.

$ sw_vers
ProductName:    Mac OS X
ProductVersion: 10.9.4
BuildVersion:   13E28
$ sudo sh -c "echo '/- auto_smb -nodev,nosuid' >> /etc/auto_master"
$ sudo sh -c "echo '/../Volumes/share -fstype=smbfs,soft ://user:password@ipaddress/share' >> /etc/auto_smb"
$ sudo automount -vc
$ mount | grep smbfs
//user@ipaddress/share on /Volumes/share (smbfs, nodev, nosuid, automounted, nobrowse, mounted by tommy)

Edit to FALSE and remove the # in the following line in /etc/autofs.cfg:
#AUTOMOUNTD_NOBROWSE=TRUE


Why is there a time lag when I put my iPhone on loudspeaker? With the phone raised to my ear conversations are fine, but as soon as I put it on loudspeaker, there's a time lag.

The same goes for the phones in the conference rooms at work.

Why is this and can I fix it?

The main technical problem with most speaker phones is that they are not full duplex.

This means, that unlike a normal phone conversation, both parties cannot speak at the same time. To avoid feedback, the system mutes the microphone most of the time and instead tries to detect when you are about to speak.

When both parties are on speaker phones, this system works quite badly since the normal conversation queues of "mmmm, uh-huh, go on..." can cause it to cut the real conversation off at times.

To fix this, don’t use speaker and use headset or Bluetooth for your mic.


Choppy audio with headphones I have a MacBook Air with Yosemite, and no matter what I use- iTunes, Safari, chrome, etc, the audio comes out choppy like a cd when it skips, but this only happens when I'm listening through headphones, and I've tried multiple pairs. Is there anything I can do to fix this myself?

Thanks

I would submit that this is probably not something you will be able to fix yourself. It seems to me that your headphone jack is broken. Try blowing really hard into the jack in hopes you might dislodge some dirt or sand, but it most likely just faulty.


How do I move an iPhoto '11 book project from one mac to another I have iPhoto '11 with Photostream set up on my Mac Mini and on my Macbook Pro. I'm getting rid of the macbook pro, but have a photo book I've been working on on it that I want to move over to my Mac Mini (to finish up the work and print it). Is there a way to do this? I have the same pictures on both computers, I just can figure out how to move the project...

The only way to move a project is to move the Library that contains it. There is no way to move a book from one Library to another.


Question Regarding Bootcamp and Windows 7 I am possible going to install windows 7 on my iMac using the standard bootcamp setup and have a question about this setup.

I will store all of my large movies on the mac and will need good access to them, once windows 7 has been installed is it able to access HFS+ partitions at a reasonable speed and more importantly, will i be able to create an SMB share of the folders on the mac through windows?

Thanks for any feedback.

I recently installed Windows 7 using BootCamp on my MacBook Pro, Yes, I am able to access all the files on my mac HD.


Automatically backup JailBreak iPhone DCIM photo directory Hi I heard that you can write cron job into plist and put it to JB iPhone /Library/LaunchDaemons folder in plist format

I would like to backup the photo folder every 300 seconds, so I put a com.backup.plist like this into /Library/LaunchDaemons folder

<?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>KeepAlive</key>
    <true/>

    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.backup</string>

    <key>Program</key>
    <string>/bin/cp</string>

    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>-u</string>
        <string>/private/var/mobile/Media/DCIM/100APPLE/*.*</string>
        <string>/private/var/backup</string>
    </array>

    <key>StartInterval</key>
    <integer>300</integer>

</dict>
</plist>

I have created a folder of /private/var/backup with access right of 777 mobile:mobile

I rebooted the iPhone, however, the script just doesn't work

Does the failure refer to the "cp" command access right?
or should I change the /private/var/backup folder access right to something else?

btw I'm running iOS 4.3.3 Jailbreak iPhone 4

Many thanks for reading

According to Wikipedia's article on cp:

  To copy a directory to a directory (-r or -R must be used)

So try adding <string>-r</string> to the list of arguments. Reboot your device and after 5 minutes (300 seconds) check if it worked.

Ad@m


Country/region change in App Store on iPhone I am unable to change the country in my iPhone 6s in App Store. It requires credit/debit card information which I currently don't have. I want to download a free app.

You will probably not be able to change country via your device due to this reason of it asking you to add CC details.

Your next option is to log into Itunes on your pc change your country and there it will give u the "none" option .

Now if u dont have that option available then u have an outstanding debt on your account from a previous purchase wether it was the last thing u brought or something previous to that. You need to clear the debt first by either adding new cc or buying a gift card adding it to the istore and the amount owing will automatically be deducted.

Thanks ,  hope this helped


Can I mark an email as read on the Apple Watch? After I receive an email, I can preview it easily from the notification. If it's just an email I don't need to react, my workflow is to just leave it there as read. However, I can't seem to figure out how to mark an email as read on the Apple Watch, so now I have to dismiss the notification, take out my phone, force touch the email and mark as read.

The option on the bottom of the notification are ’Reply’, ‘Flag’, ‘Delete’, ‘Mark as unread’ and ‘Dismiss’. What is the difference between ‘Mark as unread’ and ‘Dismiss’, since both leave the message as unread. Shouldn't ‘Mark as unread’ be ‘Mark as read’ instead?

When you've previewed the email, that's marked it as read. Therefore the option is to undo this action and mark it unread. If you just want to leave it read after you've previewed it, close the notification and it'll be read.


MAMP PRO uninstalled but Terminal commands still exist. How to remove them as well? Source:
  To "uninstall" MAMP, you only have to delete the MAMP directory and
  everything returns to the original state

I uninstalled MAMP using the Uninstaller from Applications/MAMP PRO. I checked all checkboxes to restore everything. Surprisingly after that, typing mysql -p or php -v still works:

I saw that another MAMP directory exists in Applications. When I removed (still stays in the Trash just in case) it I got:

slick-mac:~ slick$ php -v
-bash: /Applications/MAMP/bin/php/php5.6.2/bin/php: No such file or directory
slick-mac:~ slick$ mysql -p
-bash: /Applications/MAMP/Library/bin/mysql: No such file or directory

and that almost does the trick but finally how to remove all those references. I would like to completely remove those commands (php, mysql, etc.)

Am I missing some symlinks?

EDIT:

I've found this for php in /usr/bin

slick-mac:bin slick$ ls -alh | grep php
-rwxr-xr-x     1 root   wheel    10M 18 Oct 09:47 php
-rwxr-xr-x     1 root   wheel   3.2K  9 Sep 17:30 php-config
-rwxr-xr-x     1 root   wheel   4.4K 23 Aug 11:22 phpize
slick-mac:bin slick$ pwd
/usr/bin

should I remove those 3 items?

Probably you added one or more bin directories (containing mysql and php) to your $PATH. Remove them.

The three php* files in /usr/bin belong to the default OS X system and are completely legit.


My CPU is running slow after a system restore (4x0.8 GHz). Turbo Boost is definitely not working. And how can I fix it? Last weekend, my Macbok Air suffered a heart attack and I ended up doing several hard shutdowns due to an unresponsive system. In the end I had to do a full system restoration.

Everything is working fine now except for one thing: The CPU is slow. Much slower.

CPU related computing is much slower than before, even though I can't tell for sure how much exactly. When running Ubuntu, I monitor the clock speed and see that all four cores are running constantly at 0.8 GHz. The same is true for OS X when using the Intel Power Gadget. It used to be 1.8GHz to 2.6GHz. (Macbook Air 5-2, i5-3427U)

$ sudo modprobe msr ; sudo turbostat
cor CPU    %c0  GHz
         11.50 0.80
  0   0  13.34 0.80
  0   2   7.76 0.80
  1   1  18.47 0.80
  1   3   6.44 0.80

Could this be a software related issue? What should I do then?

I guess you see that a hidden assumption is that the firmware is corrupted. This is why I tried to reinstall the latest firmware for my Mac from https://support.apple.com/kb/HT1237. But when I install that file I get the error: "This software is not supported on your system." Most probably because the latest firmware version is already installed.

Using the Intel power gadget (above) shows your CPU running at low speed.

In normal case that would be fine if there is no load.

I have MBA with 1.8 GHz Intel Core i5 and runs at 0.85 at normal use, how ever it does spikes to 1.8 + under load.

Since the computer processing speed depends on more than one factor (CPU +SSD read/Write+RAM)...

I would say you (your mac) is a candidate for the Apple Hardware test.

UPDATE:

If you have faulty battery (as reported by your hardware test based) then your Mac will automatically limit the CPU speed to about 1/2 (as designed by Apple.)

So fix the battery and you good to go.


Geotagging with Photos or other app I've got ~100GB of photos that I've imported into Photos. Photos stayed in place because they are in date related subfolders. I would stay with original sorting as it is more usable with other photo apps.

I decided to add geocoding to photos manually (without gpx track). Photos app does its job. I also rotated couple of the photos (my old camera doesn't have orientation sensor). So I would like to save back changes to original photos (overwrite them).
The problem is that I'm not able to export photos into the same directory structure that I've used originally. So it is a real pain to export than overwrite images manually. Other issue is that I will lost the original file dates of the photos (Photo app creates file with current date).

Is there any app that able to hand this situation?

You can use HoudahGeo to write location information back into the original image files.

Using the media browser in HoudahGeo, add the photos to a new project
HoudahGeo will ask about camera clock settings. Click OK, you don’t need accurate timestamps for this procedure
Select EXIF/XMP export from the Output menu
Use the following settings:

Uncheck “Selected images only”
Check “Geotagged images only”
Tag: “Original images”
Uncheck “Create copies”. Be sure to have a backup
XMP Sidecars: “Write to sidecar if present”
Uncheck “Notify media library”
Select Coordinates and other properties you want to export
Be sure NOT to export timestamp. You did not give HoudahGeo accurate information on the camera clock setup

Full disclosure: I am the developer of HoudahGeo.


Wi-Fi interface missing I have a Macbook Pro from 2011 currently running OS X Yosemite 10.10. Before i upgraded to Yosemite, i was experiencing a common wifi issue that was that the wifi disconnected from the internet and it couldn't be turn on or off; sometimes, when i turned on the mac, a "No hardware installed" message showed.
I replaced the wifi card but the problem persisted and now that i upgraded the OS, the configuration didn't recognise any hardware and no Wi-Fi interface is shown on Network Preferences.
I know there is a file Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/NetworkInteraces.plist that contains these interfaces information.

Is there anyway that i can configure this file to add the wifi card? or is there something else that i can do? knowing that replacing the wifi card didn't solve the problem and that it may be a software issue?

Thanks

It's possible that Wi-Fi service is disabled in your system, check by:

sudo networksetup -listallnetworkservices

If you see an asterisk (*) next to your WiFi, that means the service is disabled. Enable it by:

networksetup -setnetworkserviceenabled WiFi on
networksetup -setairportpower en0 on

Same for any other network services which are disabled. See also this post and this post.

Then restart your system to start these services at startup.


Preventing iCloud from syncing internet accounts in OS X Mavericks I have an email account that I wish to add to only one computer.

Unfortunately when I create the account, iCloud automatically syncs it with my other machines.

Any way to prevent it from doing that?

iCloud syncs Internet Accounts through the Keychain. You can disable Internet Accounts syncing by disabling the Keychain service in System Preferences → iCloud.


How to close a window without the application quitting? The OS X menu allows exit, minimize and maximize:

  I know the following shortcuts:

Exit:      command+Q
Minimize:  command + M
Maximize:  ?

When I use command+Q to exit the behavior differs from clicking the red button.  I want the UI to close and the application to remain running.  Instead, the application exits entirely.

How can I accomplish this with a keyboard shortcut?

Typically, an application will offer a way to both close the UI and quit the application. These are usually standardized to command ⌘+W to close the UI/window and command ⌘+Q to quit the application.

Some applications will still quit entirely when you use command ⌘+W, such as Preview. You can usually rely on this shortcut to close the window without quitting, however.

I should also point out that the red button in the top left does not "quit" the application as you mentioned in the question body. It will close the window (just like command ⌘+W).


AX88179 ethernet adapter keeps dropping connection I am running macOS Catalina 10.15.3 with a USB-C hub from Minix, which has an ethernet port. Inside is an AX88179 chip for which I installed the correct driver. When I start my MacBook or when I plug in my USB-C hub everything works fine. The interface is called 'AX88179 USB 3.0 to Gigabit Ethernet 2'

However, after a few minutes the connection stops working. In the network overview it shows the green dot with 'connected'. When I use the 'Renew DHCP Lease' option the dot becomes orange with the 'Self-assigned IP' message. I see a wrong subnet mask and get an IP that is not within the network (169.254.44.151). The cable is running straight to my modem/switch. WiFi is working just fine all the time.

What I tried:

check if my Firewall is off, it is
deleted the com.apple.alf.plist file
removing and re-adding the ethernet interface in the network pane. This does not work at all.
Running sudo tcpdump -i en9 port 67 or port 68 (running sudo ifconfig tells me it is en9) and then renewing the DHCP lease. I get the following line a few times: [time] IP 0.0.0.0.bootpc > broadcasthost.bootps: BOOTP/DHCP, Request from [MAC address I suppose] (oui Unknown), length 300 and am still stuck with the 'Self-assigned IP'.

How can I fix the issue of the dropping ethernet connection and/or the self assigned IP?

The fact that WiFi is working fine, tells you that the issue isn’t related to your OS.  Especially, your firewall can’t be an issue because a firewall won’t allow DHCP traffic then suddenly block it while simultaneously continuing to allow it for another interface.  The tcpdump is telling you that the DHCP client that requests the IP from the server is working fine.  The “oui unknown” means that the Organizational Unique Identifier (first 3 octets of the MAC address) can’t be found.  Which means it can’t identify the chipset.
That leads us to....
This chip, made by ASIX Corp is an off brand, low cost chip used in many discount peripherals also made by off brand and discount manufacturers.  In fact, a number of products based on this chip like this Plugable USB to Ethernet not only doesn’t list macOS as supported, it actually says not compatible with Catalina.
The problem then is the adapter and not your Mac.  Steer clear of off-brand products and look for adapters that use quality chipsets like Anker USB Ethernet Adapters (I personally use this brand due to their reliability and warranty; 18 months).  Generically speaking, look for chipsets from known, market leaders like Intel, Broadcom, Qualcom, Texas Instruments, etc.  Chances are, the WiFi adapter used by Apple for its AirPort adapter is a Broadcom.


How do I publish an ical calendar? I am using a MacBook Pro running 'Lion'.  I would like to make one of my calendars in 'ical' available to one person for at least reading.  If that is not possible, I would like to publish the calendar.  Apple's website fails to explain these necessary steps:

How do I publish a calendar that responds to my newly added schedule items;
How do I inform the other person(s) how to access the calendar;
How do I know that that other person has even looked at the calendar even once? (aside from asking them in person)
Does the Macbookpro calendar even 'play well' with dissimilar devices, say the iPad, or the iPhone that this other person might be using?
Is it even possible for people using a conventional browser on a non-Mac device to access such a calendar.

I'm set up on iCloud to share such things as photos, calendars, etc.

Make sure you have Calendar set for sharing in the System Preferences > Mail Contacts & Calendars > iCloud
Confirm that System Preferences > iCloud similarly sets 'Calerndars' to share
Login to your iCloud www page (or at least set it up);
Select 'Calendar' from the WWW page;
Pick the one Calendar you want to share from the left hand side of the WWW page;
In the following dialog, click the [email] button and enter the email address with whom you want to share.  The email does not necessarily have to be coupled to an Apple Account/ID.

Optional steps:
7.  Check that you are able to get 'cc:'d on that outgoing email that 'invites' the other to join in sharing;
8.  Add a calendar entry;
9.  Ask your friend to check visibility of new entry on iPad
10.  Ditto for all other Apple devices.

When Apple's 'iCloud' makes the Calendar available for sharing, a Green Icon appears just to the right of the name of the Calendar.  This icon means the calendar has been made available.  It doesn't mean that anybody has actually looked at the calendar.

On your friends side, they should perform the following steps:

Open their email, and if necessary, check the Trash or Spam folders to find your invitation;
Accept;
Open their Calendar application, iCal;
Make sure that the 'visibility' of your calendar is toggled 'ON' with a check in the box appearing at the brown top margin on the left by clicking [Calendars];
It wouldn't hurt to have them try to add a calendar entry in a reciprocal manner to the same Calendar to see if you can see it.
If you are having trouble still, check that their Settings-> Mail, Contacts, Calendars -> iCloud is set to swap Calendars with the iCloud

If you have a falling out or otherwise part ways with your friend, you can easily 'unpublish' your calendar (or even just stop updating it) from within the iCloud website.

For extra credit, try to see if you can get the receiving device to 'ping' in response to new calendar entries.  This would be similar to push notifications.
Go to the receiving person's iPad Settings-> Notifications -> Calendar to get Badges and Alerts set to 'on'

In "Settings->Mail, Contacts, Calendars->Fetch New Data" you can setup what to do.  iCloud-> 'Push' seems to be fastest.

As per Q3, above, it seems that you still have to ask the person if they've accepted the invite and looked at a calendar entry.  MacBookPro plays well with iPad. I tested this out.  Not clear how well the published calendar works with PC users.


Should I trash old CS6 programs before reinstalling CS6 on same disc? After experiencing hardware problems on a MacMini, I need to reinstall CS6 on the internal SSD. I used Utilities/Adobe/CS6 installer to uninstall CS6 programs. These remain on the SSD but are now inoperable. Is it advisable to manually remove and trash these old CS6 program files on SSD (freeing up disc space) before reinstalling from original CS6 DVD?

Er... in answer to my own question, I came upon the Creative cloud cleaner tool at https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/cc-cleaner-tool-installation-problems.html, followed instructions and cleared all old adobe CS applications before reinstalling CS6.


Mounted directory not listing in terminal Normally, I mount a remote drive to a directory on my Mac and it all works fine. I can open, edit and save my files in a text editor and they save back to the server, using the following to perform the mount:

sshfs root@*.*.*.*:/var/www Documents/AWS/EC2/Linode

This morning however, I get the following error:

fuse: bad mount point `Documents/AWS/EC2/Linode': Input/output error

On the terminal, I listed the content of Documents/AWS/EC2 and Linode is missing. So, I decide to recreate it but the system complains it already exists.

I'm stumped. Can anyone help, please?

I found a solution based on the following steps:

Find the culprit sshfs process: $ pgrep -lf sshfs
Kill it: $ kill -9 <pid_of_sshfs_process>
Force unmount the "unavailable" directory: umount -f Documents/AWS/EC2/Linode


mail.app rejecting correct password for gmail accounts Mail.app has stopped accessing several of my gmail accounts.  It gives the generic error "Mail can't connect to the account "xxxx".  Enter the password for user "myusernamehere".  When I enter the correct password, it circles back to this error. Going directly to gmail, I can login with that same password.

One of the two accounts with this problem is a new one I was setting up, but the other is my "main" account which has been in use with mail.app for years.

The fix is to login to the google account affected, and then go to https://www.google.com/settings/security/lesssecureapps and select "Enable" for the question "Access for less secure apps."

Apparently this results from a change Google made several months ago to improve security, which is indeed becoming more and more important as Google accounts are tied to a wider and wider range of uses.  It is a mystery to me why it suddenly prevented my logging in now, but I wanted to share the solution I found in case anyone else encounters the same problem.


macOS closes all my applications when I lock my screen When I lock my screen with ControlCommandQ and return after more than 10 minutes, macOS has closed all my open apps and tries to restore them, which often leaves my applications in half restored states.

This did not happen before. Also a few times I have been logged out randomly, causing the same issue.

I'm using macOS High Sierra 10.13.6.

Security and Privacy settings:

Advanced, Log out after x minutes is not checked.

Any guesses for why this happens?

Open System Preferences from the Apple menu in the top-left corner. Open the "Security & Privacy" preference pane. Click on the "Advanced..." button in the bottom-right corner. You may need to unlock the pane using the padlock icon in the bottom-left corner.
I think you'll find "Log out after XX minutes of inactivity" ticked. Untick it.

Reference: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/140077


How does Google Voice access the microphone on the iOS through the browser? Apple hasn't approved the Google Voice app so Google created it as a web page.

My understanding is that the web browser doesn't (currently) have access to the hardware (such as the Microphone).

So, how does Google access the Mic through the browser?

It doesn't access the phone hardware directly. Instead, you enter the number and Google's servers call the number entered and simultaneously calls your iPhone on it's number.

Merging those two calls happens in google's servers, putting both you and your recipient in communication through their hardware.


Mac OS-X disk file format I need to format an external hard disk on a MacBook Pro (USB2 connection).
In the disk utility, Erase tab, I can only choose between these formats:

MacOS Extended (Journaled)
MacOS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled)
MS-DOS (FAT)
ExFAT

I do not get the following options, which should be available:

MacOS Extended
MacOS Extended (Case-sensitive)

OS-X version: Lion 10.7.5

Reason: it seems that an unjournaled MacOS disk is accessible from Linux and Windows.

Unless you have a very good reason to choose otherwise, it is highly recommended to use a journaling file system to ensure data integrity. In the case of Lion and Mountain Lion, the default is MacOS Extended (Journaled). Case-sensitivity at the disk level can mess with certain apps, and the OS makes it look like files are indeed case-sensitive when you interact with them on the command line.


Negotiated link speed considerations for SSD choice? If my negotiated link speed is 3 GB (instead of 6 GB), does this still mean I'm using SATA III on my early 2011 Macbook Pro 17-inch laptop?

I ask because I'm currently upgrading my HDD with an SSD for this early 2011 Macbook Pro 17-inch model; does my negotiated link speed affect what kind of SSD's I should consider?  For example, are there any SSD's that I would need to steer clear of?

Also, can someone explain the difference between installing the SSD in the main drive vs. the optical drive?  What is the difference exactly and how can I take full advantage of it to maximize the performance of my early 2011 Macbook Pro?  For example, if I put a Crucial M500 into the main drive bay, would updating the optical drive bay as well make absolutely any difference in my performance?

Here are a few links I considered (and a few others like it), but it did not help answer my specific questions: Is there a way to tell if I can use a SATA III SSD in my early 2011 MBP 15"? and What is an SSD drive's negotiated link speed?

Think of it as the chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

Yes, there is. You need to look at the specs on the speed of each of your drives. Check in the About this Mac in your toolbar and go to more info, System report, the the sata section under Hardware.

In terms of the optical and main drive bay's, it doesn't matter which you use if both are capable of the same speeds. In most cases dealing with older models, the traditional hard drive bay provides the better speeds than the optical. I've read before that the optical bay will not always match the traditional bay.

I'd put my SSD in the main bay and your secondary drive in the optical. You can configure which drive to boot from within System Preferences if you choose otherwise.

I'd def put my OS and your applications on the fastest drive and use that to boot from. If you are using a regular hard drive to place in either of the bays then I'd also recommend you put all you media and other large less accessed files on that (especially if storage space is a concern or for some reason you are concerned about read/writes on your SSD).


I sold my old iPhone and it says “offline” will texts messages still show up in it? I sold my old iPhone to my boyfriends ex girlfriend, I think I went in settings and reset all content and settings.
Will my old texts still be on it? And could it still be receiving my text and iMessages?
On “find my iPhone” the device is on the list, but it says “offline” does that mean I didn’t wipe it correctly and all my old texts and pictures and everything are still on it for her to go through?

Change your AppleID/iCloud password, that way if the account is still on the device it would ask for a password and become disabled.


Resolving Time Capsule Problem Broke IPv6 Tunnel Some time ago my Time Capsule's light was blinking amber. When I opened the Airport Utility, it indicated that my IPv6 tunnel was down, I assume due to the remote IPv4 host being down. I was given the option to Skip or Ignore the problem. I believe when I skipped the problem, the light remained blinking amber, it wasn't until I chose the 'ignore' option that the light returned to solid green.

Since that day, I've been completely unable to use my IPv6 tunnel.

Considering that World IPv6 Day is underway, I would love for my tunnel to work again... How do I undo the damage I've previously done?

It appears that my Client IPv4 (as configured on the TunnelBroker website) had gone out of date. I was unaware my IP address had changed since after changing ISPs some time ago.

But I figured it out. Bring on the v6!


How do I access the user Library from a Time Machine backup? Possible Duplicate:
  How do you access the user library on a time machine backup

I need to access my library folder in a time machine backup that is from a different mac.

How can I do this?

The real problem is that I backed up with time machine, reinstalled the OS and when I tried to put everything back I ran into problems. I tried using migration assistant, and it transferred everything but my user (which is basically just applications). I was able to right click on the time machine icon and browse what is in the backup file - thus manually restoring all of my data, however, without having access to the library folder there are many things I am unable to copy over.

The Library folder is probably just hidden by Finder. You can show hidden files by running this in Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool true && osascript -e 'quit app "Finder"'

Changing true to false reverts the setting.


Reset Forgotten Restrictions Passcode (Updated For 2017) I know this question has been asked before, but none of the techniques shared work anymore.

You can still make use of iBackupBot to reset the restrictions passcode. Before you would just reset the restrictions passcode by inserting a line of code, however since that no longer works you have to find the encrypted version of the restrictions passcode and decrypt it using a website (http://ios7hash.derson.us/).

Here's the source and step-by-step procedure - https://www.techbout.com/reset-restrictions-passcode-iphone-ipad-ipod-8365/


FFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFF partition type for primary partition I was trying to erase dual boot Ubuntu from my drive partition of 75 GBs. I erased it using disk utility, and followed some steps online to remove the partition.

Now all I see is my primary partition has TYPE Name : FFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFF

How can I fix it and add that 75GBs to my primary partition of 175 GBs. I search other similar post, but didn't understand anything over there.

Output of gpt -r show /dev/disk0 :

  start      size index contents
      0         1       PMBR
      1         1       Pri GPT header
      2        32       Pri GPT header
     34         6
     40   3932000     1 GPT part - 4846465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
3932040    262151
4194191        32       Sec GPT table
4194223         1       Sec GPT header

Output of fdisk /dev/disk0:

Disk: /dev/disk0            geometry
Signature: 0xAA55
      Starting              Ending
#: id    cyl     hd   sec   -  cyl   hd  sec  [   start -     size]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
1: EE   1023    254    63   - 1023  254   63  [       1 -  4194223] <Unknown ID>
2: 00      0      0     0   -    0    0    0  [       0 -        0] unused
3: 00      0      0     0   -    0    0    0  [       0 -        0] unused
4: 00      0      0     0   -    0    0    0  [       0 -        0] unused

Note: This answer assumes the Mac only has one internal drive.

Follow the steps given below.

Determine the partition offset and disk size in blocks. To do this, enter the command given below in a Terminal application window.

diskutil info disk0s2 | grep -e Offset -e Size

Below is an example output where the block size is 512 bytes. From the output, the partition offset and disk size can be determined as 409640 blocks and 195312500 blocks, respectively.

   Partition Offset:         209735680 Bytes (409640 512-Byte-Device-Blocks)
   Disk Size:                175.8 GB (175790436352 Bytes) (exactly 343340696 512-Byte-Units)
   Device Block Size:        512 Bytes

Below is an example output where the block size is 4096 bytes. From the output, the partition offset can be determined as 76806 blocks. To get the disk size in 4096 bytes blocks, the value of 390625232 512-Byte-Units needs to be divided by 8 to get 48828154 blocks.

   Partition Offset:          314597376 Bytes (76806 4096-Byte-Device-Blocks)
   Disk Size:                 200.0 GB (200000118784 Bytes) (exactly 390625232 512-Byte-Units)
   Device Block Size:         4096 Bytes

Use the key combination Option-⌘-R to boot to macOS Recovery over the Internet.
Enter the commands below in a Terminal application window. Here, you will need to replace <offset-in-blocks> and <size-in-blocks> with an actually numbers.

Disk=$(diskutil list | grep "(internal, physical)")
Disk=${Disk/ *}
gpt -f remove -i 2 $Disk
gpt -f add -i 2 -b <offset-in-blocks> -s <size-in-blocks> -t apfs $Disk

For example, if you used the output from the first example in step 1, then you would enter the commands given below.

  Note: The commands are case-sensitive.

Disk=$(diskutil list | grep "(internal, physical)")
Disk=${Disk/ *}
gpt -f remove -i 2 $Disk
gpt -f add -i 2 -b 409640 -s 343340696 -t apfs $Disk

  Note: Below is the legacy version of the above commands. You can use these commands, if the above two commands generate an illegal option error message.

Disk=$(diskutil list | grep "(internal, physical)")
Disk=${Disk/ *}
diskutil unmountdisk $Disk
gpt remove -i 2 $Disk
diskutil unmountdisk $Disk
gpt add -i 2 -b <offset-in-blocks> -s <size-in-blocks> -t 7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC $Disk

Boot back to macOS.
Enter the command given below to recover the free space.

sudo diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0


Does apple sign macOS as they do it for iOS As we know Mojave 10.14.3 is already released but 6gb non pausable download is not possible due to network issues I’m having, so I’m trying to install the initial mojave 10.14(18A391) downloading through torrent or other trusted sites and then update to 10.14.3

My doubt is

can i install 10.14 now?

Is apple still signing 10.14(18A391) like they do for iOS?

The update process on macOS and iOS is very different.

Apple does not sign macOS installers/updates individually for each device. This means that there is no requirement that Apple "still signs" these updates for them to work and be installable.

This means that as long as you have an valid upgrade that at some point worked, it will always work in the future (you might have to set your computers clock back if the upgrade file is several years old though).

In general you should be very careful when downloading upgrades from a different source than Apple itself. Never install the upgrade without confirming that the file is identical to the original Apple file. This is commonly done by taking an MD5 checksum of the file, and comparing it to the known good checksum.

You can find the MD5 checksum of a file by running the following command in the Terminal:

md5 filename

where you replace "filename" with the actual name of the file, you want to checksum.

The md5 checksum looks something like this: ecfcaab9ad3d019ee982abdc84eff102 (just an example)


Aperture to automatically import videos Is it possible to have Aperture import videos alongside pictures when importing from a phone. It can handle videos, but when it shows me the list of things to import, only pictures are displayed.

Aperture 3.2.2 imports video and stills by default for me from my iPhone with iOS 5.0.1. Are you perhaps using older software or different hardware?

The only time I've seen Aperture not show items for import is when you take more photos / videos after the import window is open and the new captures will not show until you disconnect and reconnect the USB 30 pin connector.


Finder too optimistic about free space? Below is a storage overview from "About this Mac" on Lion, running on a Macbook Air.

It says: backups 71.07 GB. No data is in the "Other" area, which seems a bit weird, because I have at least 20 GB worth of data from a Virtual Machine image and several other data files:

I decided to turn local backups off with sudo tmutil disablelocal

Then the overview changed to the following:

This would make more sense to me, given my "other" data.

Next, I decided to turn local backups on again with sudo tmutil enablelocal.

The overview now changed into the following:

Part of my "other" storage moved back into "backups" it seems. What the hell is going on? Is this due to the usage of hard links in Time Machine?

Note that Finder tells me that I have 136.69 GB free because it thinks it is clever by not counting Backup space claimed by Time Machine, while in fact this space could just be shared space with the original files:

I'm confused. Please explain what is going on here.

EDIT: note that when I completely turn off Time Machine (through the GUI), the folder /Volumes/Mobile Backups disappears and in the "About this mac" window, around 70 GB is in the "Other" area. When I turn on Time Machine again, this number decreases and gets added to backups.

Several things are happening here:

It sure looks like there are bugs in the space determination with mobile backups.
It's hard to tell in Finder since your user may not have permissions to read / calculate file sizes in many.
Your spotlight database is suspect and might need rebuilding (where much of the data that System Information uses to make those nice colored bar graphs)

I would try three things to see if you can get a better view of your data.

Turn off local time machine
Set all local drives to be private in Spotlight
Boot into recovery mode and verify the boot volume / repair / back up if needed
Remove the volumes from Spotlight privacy and wait for the reindexing process to finish

You also might want to look into a tool like WhatSize which can measure folder and file sizes as the administrator (root user). Also, using df and diskutil list in the terminal will help you get a lower level look at actual file system data size summaries.


When I log into App Store on my iMac I get a notification on my iPhone saying someone's trying to log in. But the location is wrong So I want to buy something on the App Store on my iMac.

I logged in and I instantly got a notification on my iPhone saying that there's an iMac trying to log into my Account (I don't know why. That's the first time since forever). However, the location is wrong. It says that the iMac is about 200km away from my actual position (which is wrong).

I'm afraid that someone kind of bypassed my login? Is that possible? Or is it just a bug that it's showing the wrong location?

As your question states, you received the notification on your iPhone instantly after logging into your account via your iMac. Since you know you just logged in, and then instantly got the notification, the chances this was just a coincidence and someone bypassed your login at the same time, is extremely unlikely.

Much more likely is that the location data was off. There are many factors that can be used to determine someone's location and the accuracy of location data can be affected by all of these.

For example, if your iMac is connecting through a VPN then the location it displays may be totally different to where it actually is, even to the extent it appears to be in another country/continent/hemisphere. This is only one example, as I'm sure you would know if you are connecting via a VPN.

Other factors affecting location include WiFi networks (SSIDs in particular), the method of your internet connection, IP addresses, core location constants, and the list goes on.

Sometimes, depending on the configuration of your router, the DNS servers being used can change and this too can affect accuracy.

So, in a nutshell, you need not worry. However, it is good practice to regularly change your account password, so perhaps this is a good reminder to do just that! :)


How to Sync MacOS Applications + Preferences across multiple Macs without OS X Server? Will the following work?  If not, can someone propose better alternaives to solve this problem?

Summary problem:  I want to sync multiple MacBook Air's, Pro's and possibly Mini's with the same user-account info, for only one account--call it myuser.  All systems will have the same MacOS major rev.  eg: they're all 10.7 or 10.8 or higher.  I do NOT want to employ OS X Server for the synchronizing.

Summary, proposed solution:  git-sync the Preferences and /User/myuser directory, rsync the Application directories, and use known-working mechanisms (Dropbox, IMAP) to sync everything else.

Details.

Migration Assistant is unreliable for complete copy/sync per this and this and my personal experience.  ChronoSync, per this discussion looks interesting, but I don't know exactly what it's doing for Preferences... and I want to exactly what's going on.  I've also restored TimeMachine backups and found they do not replicate the environment I backed up (huge disappointment).  I'm an experienced system admin on non-MacOS sytems, so consider me a control freak.

I've used git to sync Terminal.app/shell settings in /User/myuser and Thunderbird profile(s) across multiple Macs (git branching for diff Thunderbird profiles on different Macs if/as need be provides useful flexibility).  Despite the lack of depth of git's file-metada management, this has worked well.  I'd like to git-sync (to a "central-repository" server/service like Bitbucket) the following directories across my Macs, employing branches as needed/wanted for unique customizations:

/Library/Preferences
/Library/PreferencePanes
~/Library/Preferences
~/Library/PreferencePanes

(Everything else in ~/Library and /Library appears to be uninmportant or automatically regenerated.)

Then I plan to rsync the following together (git is less useful here due to ease of recreating installed applications plus less practical due to size of /Applications):

/Applications
~/Applications

I realize I may need to close all pertinent applications+processes in order to properly sync the Preferences and Applications spaces and avoid running-process locks and related problems.

I'm not as familiar with any Preference-management-magic that might be in auto-deployment systems like Absolute Manage, Casper, Munki, Sikuli, Salt and similar tools.  Would love to know if there's Preference-management capability/knowledge/know-how in these tools, and if so, how to reuse said knowledge.  Each of the said tools seem to address a broader scope of requirements and present a higher barrier to entry/employment.  I'd rather just start with my very easy to setup git-based method on ~/Library/Preferences (and the like) going.

All of the other directories on these systems--particularly in /User/myuser--are being synchronized via other means, like Dropbox, IMAP email, and similar, already-proven methods like rsync.  I'm less certain rsync will work for copying /Applications, hence the specific call-out above.

Seems like ChronoSync could help in a limited way. The support pages have warnings on syncing ~/Library. See ChronoSync - Syncing your Home folder.

You could try Unison for everything instead of multiple tools and approaches (one caveat is that Unison was last updated in 2009; it's source is available under GPL though).

References:
Unison Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Using Unison on Specific Operating Systems


How do I see version numbers of my apps on iOS? The App Store is telling me I have an update to an app that is currently installed, and it shows the new version. How do I see the version I currently have?

The closest thing I was able to find is a Cydia app called AppInfo, but I can't jailbreak yet (nor am I comfortable doing so).

Is there another way? The ideal answer could be done on the device itself, but barring that, I'm ok with transferring something to my Mac and viewing it there (e.g. with iExplorer).

On your iPhone:

Open the Settings app
Go to General->Usage
Under the Storage section, wait till it shows the list of apps
Click on the app you're interested in to see the App Version, the App Size and the amount of data it has stored on the device.

This works only for third party apps. The Apple provided stock apps will not show this information.

In iOS 11 the method described also works for Apple provided stock apps.


Position all slides titles at the same exact coordinate - Keynote So I have about 70 slides in my keynote presentation.

I've been looking everywhere trying to position all my titles of all 70 pages to start at the exact x,y coordinates position.

I couldn't find it an option to do that.

Result :

Right now, if I pressed down arrows, I see that my titles are not line up, some of them are too far left, and some are slightly off not in same position because I been eyes-ball and position each one of them best I can to the left edge.

Is there a way to do it ?

From Keynote type some text on a slide. Select the text and on the top right side be sure to click on Format. Then on the line below Format click on Arrange. In the pane that appears, you can set the x and y positions of the text. There is an option below that to lock this into place.


Is there a systemwide .bash_profile file? The order of directories in my path is messed up, and I'm trying to correct it. Some of the path seems to be coming in from somewhere other than my user bash config files (I'm using both .bashrc and .bash_profile).

Is there a system wide bash_profile (or other config files?) file which is executed before user specific ones? If so, where is it located by default?

The answer seems to be yes.

Check out the FILE section of Bash Man page

FILES
   /bin/bash
          The bash executable
   /etc/profile
          The systemwide initialization file, executed for login shells
   ~/.bash_profile
          The personal initialization file, executed for login shells
   ~/.bashrc
          The individual per-interactive-shell startup file
   ~/.bash_logout
          The individual login shell cleanup file, executed when a login shell exits
   ~/.inputrc
          Individual readline initialization file

In addition to that, shell paths are also loaded from /etc/paths and the files (if any) in /etc/paths.d by /usr/libexec/path_helper (which is executed as part of /etc/profile).

Lastly, there's also /etc/bashrc, intended for functions and aliases (while /etc/profile is designated for system wide environment and startup programs).


Files synced by Synk Pro have wrong owner on both synchronized Macs – how can I fix it? I sync some folders within my Home folder between two Macs (running Lion and Mountain Lion) using Synk Pro, a commercial live file sync application. I have the same account name on both computers.

After syncing, some of my files on both computers are read-only, and they also aren't owned by me, but by the macports account – why?

To be able to modify files, I've used Get Info to change permissions of some files to read/write for 'everyone', and I used the app Permissions Reset to reset permissions back to original, but it doesn't change the permissions of sub-folders/files, and I have a huge file tree, so doing this manually is practically impossible. And Disk Utility does nothing to user data.

How can I fix this?

--
Added info:

As suggested, I ran the commands id -u and id -u macports on both computers. The result is that on the MacBook Pro, my account has uid 501 and macports has uid 502, and on the iMac it's the other way around.

The files appearing read-only to you is probably only because you are currently not their owner.
    What's likely happening is that the synced files retain the numeric owner-id from the source machine, and since that numeric uid in this particular case corresponds to the account macports on the target machine (in both transfer directions), macports has become the owner.

To verify that your account on each computer has the same numeric uid as the macports account has on the other machine, type the commands id -u and id -u macports in the Terminal in your account on both computers.

Fixing the cause of the problem

When information was submitted that the syncing is done using Synk Pro, I had a look at the Synk Pro web site and the app, and in the 'Advanced' settings I noticed the "Ownership:" option, which by default is set to "Copy If Possible".
    Since it looks like Synk Pro transfers files' numeric uid, and there's no option for mapping this uid to another uid/account on the target computer, the way to make synced files be owned by you is to change the "Ownership:" setting to "Ignore".

Fixing the files

To fix the permission problem for the already synced files, you only need to change the owner of the files to your own account. Since (in this case) all of your synced folders are within your Home folder /Users/youraccount, you can do this with the following command in the Terminal when logged in to an administrator account (you'll have to give sudo the password of the admin account):

sudo chown -R youraccount /Users/youraccount

using the actual account name (also known as short user name) of your own account in place of youraccount. The account name is the same as the name of your account's Home folder in the /Users folder.
    This will change all files and folders within the folder /Users/youraccount to be owned by youraccount (-R is for recursive), which should give you write-access to all of your files.

Since you earlier gave write-permission to 'everyone' for some files to be able to modify them, you may want to remove those permissions. This command:

sudo chmod -R u+w,go-w /Users/youraccount

ensures that the owner of your files, and no-one else, has write permission on them.

Type man chown and man chmod for more info about these commands.

Advice against using Finder to fix a folder's permissions

(I will update the below later)

Note: It is possible to change ownership and permissions of all files and folders in a folder tree using the Finder, by use of the controls at the very bottom of the Sharing & Permissions section of a Get Info window as shown in the picture in the question. One problem with this is that an account's home folder, and the standard subfolders therein, such as Library, Documents, Public and so forth, have special permissions (by use of ACLs) preventing them from being deleted among other things, and you don't want these special permissions to be removed or propagated to other folders and even files, so you should not use this unless you know very well what you are doing.


Stop Firefox from asking me about blocking Flash Lately it seems like there's a new "critical" update to Flash every week or so. And every single time this happens Firefox begins prompting me to Allow or Disallow flash on every single website I visit which uses it. Until in frustration I give in and update Flash.

The thing is, I don't necessarily want to update flash. I also don't want to continually click "Allow" on a multitude of websites.

Is there a global configuration setting that either says "Allow Flash forever on all websites" or "Stop asking me I don't care, just leave me alone already Firefox"

Note: Flash is already set to "Always Activate" so that doesn't work.  This is something new that's just begun happening and it happens across all platforms I use firefox on - Linux, OS X and Windows.

You need to disable the automatically redownload of blocklist.xml in about:config, as described below - source: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Blocklist.xml

  blocklist.xml is a file in the profile folder.

  blocklist.xml contains a list of add-ons that Mozilla considers to be harmful to the user (contains security vulnerabilities, adversely affects browsing experience, etc.). Any installed add-on on the block list will be disabled and any attempt to install an add-on on the block list will result in an error. A list of the add-ons currently on the block list can be found on the Mozilla Add-ons Blocklist page.

  blocklist.xml is by default automatically downloaded once a day from mozilla.com. The blocklist functionality can be disabled by extensions.blocklist.enabled, be modified to point to a different URL by extensions.blocklist.url, and changed in frequency by extensions.blocklist.interval.

  Editing

  blocklist.xml is by default automatically redownloaded once a day. As such, any changes made will be overwritten. If you wish to edit this file manually, it's recommended you turn off the update functionality by changing extensions.blocklist.url to be null.

  The syntax of the file is described here.

  Moving

  This file can be moved to a different profile without any extra effort, but since it's automatically overwritten once a day, there's no point.

  Deleting

  Deleting blocklist.xml will clear the block list until the file is redownloaded.


Long press some key in ios is not working I'm using iPad with Bluetooth keyboard and I find that long press is not recognized, say, I long press "k" and iPad work the same as I just press once. That isn't ideal as I'm trying to ssh and use vim.

The API for apps to be able to detect keys being held on external keyboards is new with iOS 13.4. Apps need to be updated to support this. Contact the developer of the app you’re using to add this.


Is there a shortcut to connect Bluetooth headphones on iOS? Every time I want to use my Bluetooth headphones with my iPhone (iOS 12) I have to open Settings, tap Bluetooth, then select the device.
Is there a way to connect with less friction?

Confirm that your iPhone Bluetooth is always on

Confirm that you don't have a competing device trying to connect to your headphones

Depending on your headphones, they may have a parameter in which they only auto-connect to the last device.  Do you connect them to anything else?

Experiment a little bit with the connection - What is the exact sequence by which you try to get them to auto-connect?  Maybe you need to unlock your phone before turning on your headphones?  Or try opening whichever app you're using to listen to music (I assume) before turning on your headphones.

If none of that is useful this article on AppleToolBox discusses various Bluetooth troubleshooting specifically written following the iOS 12 update.

Good luck!


I don't have permissions to open my files? There are several questions that seem similar, e.g., TextEdit shows dialogs about not having permission to open any files, but they're not exactly the same and none of the suggested fixes work.  Correction: when I posted, I forgot that one of the ideas in those posts I hadn't tried.  Because I was doing a long slow backup via rsync, I did not reboot.  This morning after that completed, a reboot has removed the problem.  But it would still be nice to understand why, and how to prevent—since it happened again today (see comments).

For more than a month, I've been using the "re-open windows on login" option to keep a few Textedit files easily accessible.  No problem noted with an occasional save or opening a new one.

But today, I cannot save any of them nor open any new ones in my home directory.  OS 10.12.1

There are no ACLs in the entire /Users tree.
There are no extended attributes on the file I am trying to open
There are no extended attributes on ~ nor on /Users
Windows I want to save have not yet been, so can't have extended
attributes
sudo chmod -R u+r,u+w /Users did not fix it
sudo rm -rf ~/Library/Autosave\ Information did not fix it
touch created the file, and vim can open, edit, and save it.
The school has a service which monitors the LAN for suspicious traffic.

There are some recent unusual events which don't seem capable of causing this, but just in case:

A post-graduate student's MacBook Air failed right before her
comprehensive exams.  She's blind, so learning Windows overnight was
not an option
I created a non-admin account for her on my MacBook Pro (MBP), help her set up VoiceOver, copied in her ~/Documents and a few other important items, and changed the UID (she was 502 on hers and 504 on mine)
Exams took three days (long difficult essay questions) during which she probably closed the lid to 'sleep' between tests rather than log out or shut down.
She logged out and handed me the MBP around ten hours ago.
I updated MalwareBytes and a scan found and removed OSX.Genieo (which AFAIK has to do with adware, not home permissions).  The previous version never found anything and I suspect wasn't even scanning (it took less than a half-second to say that it found nothing in over 500GB!)

Any ideas on a fix or a cause?

This post fixed my TextEdit permission problem:

https://www.cnet.com/news/fix-permissions-errors-for-sandboxed-applications-in-os-x/

I quit TextEdit, manually cd'd to ~/Library/Containers, and moved
com.apple.TextEdit to my home directory out of the way, then restarted
TextEdit, and I was able to open files for which I was previously getting
permission errors.


How can I download Mac OS X El Capitan without app store? I was going to install a new copy of El Capitan via my USB drive, but it turns out it's dead, it's been corrupted. I erased everything before that, so I'm stuck with the installation screen.

How can I download a new copy of El Capitan? As you know, Safari comes preinstalled. I also have a Windows computer, so I'm open to suggestions.

Here's my Macbook Air Model:
MacBook Air "Core i5" 1.4 13" (Early 2014)

You can't really download the OS X El Capitan installer app without the App Store.app easily. You can download the raw (unverified) pkg installer though, but to verify it and convert it to a legit OS X Installer.app App Store.app and a newer OS X system is required again. So simply downloading it on a Windows system won't help.

To solve your problem simply boot your MacBook Air to Internet Recovery Mode by holding altcmdR after turning it on.

In the OS X Utility window choose "Reinstall OS X" (or similar) which will download and install the original OS X your Mac came with (10.9 Mavericks).

After configuring your system open App Store.app and download OS X El Capitan. If you haven't purchased it previously use the answer in How to download OS X El Capitan from the App Store even if never downloaded before macOS Sierra was released or purchased is grayed out.


Is there a iOS5 bug regarding the video app forgetting at which time a video has to be resume? After upgrading my iPhone 4 to iOS 5 I recognized, whenever I close a movie mid-play by clicking Done and selecting it again, it will just restart and not remember where it was before.

This was remembered in the previous iOS release when videos where still located in the Music app.

The videos were not purchased through iTunes but converted from avi with ffmpeg (just to be complete).

Is this a known issue?

No - this general behavior wasn't changed in iOS 5 as part of the video / music app split.


Unable to install apps on new iPhone 11 Pro Max because I have to purchase them first Yesterday I got my new iPhone 11 Pro Max which is an upgrade from an iPhone 6S. I backed up my iPhone 6S first (to iTunes on a Mac) and then proceeded to set up the new iPhone 11 Pro Max by restoring from the iPhone 6S backup.

After the restore was complete there were many apps that still needed to download from the App Store. Their thumbnails were on my home screen, but the apps needed to download. So I placed my new iPhone on charge and left it connected to Wi-Fi thinking that today all of the apps would be downloaded. While many of them were, quite a few (about 20) were not. They do have the cloud icon on them though and when I tap on the icon they seem to start to download but then I get a message that says

  Unable to Install "App". You must purchase this app to install it.

Example screenshot follows.

Now I know I purchased them already using the same Apple ID. I also confirmed this by checking my purchased history. Furthermore, when I tap on View in App Store, it opens up and instead of getting the GET option like you do when you haven't purchased an app before, I get the dot option that you tap on to install an app again.

My problem is that tapping on the dot doesn't do anything. Clearly the app is still available, but I can't download it.

What to do?

You just need to delete the app (or, more specifically, the icon placeholder for the app) from your iPhone's Home screen. Then when you go to the App Store again you should get the cloud download symbol indicating you've previously purchased the app. Tap on that and it should download just fine.

To delete apps from the Home Screen on iOS 13, follow these steps:

On your iPhone's home screen, long press on the app icon and let go
From the options that appear, tap Rearrange Apps
Now you'll see the familiar jiggle action and the associated cross at top left of the icon
Tap on the cross to delete the app
Now proceed to the App Store to download it again


Why does Image Magick fail to read fonts? I'm trying to create a simple contact sheet of all the photos in a directory using Montage:

$ montage -font Helvetica -pointsize 10 *.png contact_sheet.jpg

However, I keep getting a error reading the font file:

montage: unable to read font `Helvetica' @ error/annotate.c/RenderFreetype/1239.

I've tried several fonts, including Arial, and putting the font name in quotes, but get the same error.

Leaving the -font option blank returns:

unable to read font '(null)' @ error/annotate.c/RenderFreetype/1239

I've found that installing GhostScript fixes the problem. Using brew: brew install gs


Trouble in Automator's Shell Script after OS X 10.9 Mavericks upgrade I've got a problem. I use from lot of time an Automator's shell script:

cat >> ~/Dropbox/ClipBoard/Appunti\ Mac\ del\ $(date +\%Y-\%m-\%d).txt

It ever worked but, after Mavericks upgrade, it return an error while running: "ambiguous redirect (1)". Trouble should be depending from date's code, because using

cat >> ~/Dropbox/ClipBoard/Appunti\ Test.txt

it runs correctly. I tried modifying code or adding some quotes, for example

cat >> ~/Dropbox/ClipBoard/Appunti\ Mac\ del\ $ (date “%Y-%m-%d”).txt

but the trouble persists. How can I correct it?

I think you were close and that the following should work:

cat >> ~/Dropbox/ClipBoard/Appunti\ Mac\ del\ $ (date "+%Y-%m-%d").txt

You had smart quotes in your sample and that won't work and you left out the plus in the quoted format string which you had included in your original.


Terminal commands not found: Short explanation.

After I've created .bash_profile file and added the line export PATH=/PATH/TO/YOUR/sbt/bin:$PATH into it, my terminal stopped working properly. Could you please help me to fix the problem?

Long explanation.
All I wanted and still want is to install Scala.
I followed this instruction:

  Mac OS X If you use the homebrew package manager, simply type brew
  update and then brew install sbt in a Terminal prompt.

  Otherwise, install sbt by following these steps:

  Download sbt from here: http://scalasbt.artifactoryonline.com/scalasbt/sbt-native-packages/org/scala-sbt/sbt/0.12.4/sbt.tgz
  Unpack the archive to a directory of your choice
  Add the bin/ directory to the PATH environment variable. Open the file ~/.bash_profile in an editor (create it if it doesn't exist) and
  add the following line export PATH=/PATH/TO/YOUR/sbt/bin:$PATH

  Verify that sbt is installed correctly: Open a new terminal (to apply
  the changed .bash_profile) using the Terminal application in
  /Applications/Utilities/ and type sbt -h, you should see a help
  message from sbt.

First, I tried it with Homebrew and followed this instructions. It didn't work well, so I decided to go through the steps above. After I created the .bash_profile file and added the line export PATH=/PATH/TO/YOUR/sbt/bin:$PATH (with the valid path, of course), terminal went crazy. Your help is more than welcome!

EDIT:

Ina:sbt ps1$ echo $PATH

//Users/ps1/Documents/PS

If the path includes spaces, you're going to need to quote it.

Your line export PATH=/Users/ps1/Documents/PS 1/whatever-else/:$PATH causes Bash to interpret the PATH=/Users/ps1/Documents/PS part as the full first argument to your PATH—telling export to set the PATH to only the section before the space. If you use export "PATH=/Users/ps1/Documents/PS 1/whatever-else/:$PATH", it will interpret the entire PATH=/Users/ps1/Documents/PS 1/whatever-else/:$PATH as part of the first argument. By convention, most people only quote the right side of the equals sign, because it looks nicer, it's the only thing that needs quoted, and bash automatically concatenates strings with no spaces between them.


Are there any good Apple Watch apps to track roller skating? I've looked around for a bit but i wasn't able to find any app to track roller skating. The only app that i found is iSkate but it's pretty outdated and it costs about 10€ that it's too expensive to me.

there is! I use an app called 'sports tracker'. There are a lot of different kind of exercises to track, including roller skating ;


Making room to take a photo - transfer to the cloud How do I manage my settings so that I can take a picture?  My storage says I have 11.76GB used and Available Zero KB.  I actually have 32.49 GB available in Icloud....How do I free up space and how do I take what I have and transfer to the cloud?  Thanks for your help - J

I had this problem on an iPhone and I found that all the pictures I deleted went to a trash bin (Recently Deleted). Until that is emptied, the storage will not free up.


Where is the hard disk in the mid 2012 15" Macbook pro with retina I was following various guides for replacing the hard drive. However my mac does not seem to have the standard 2.5" SSD/SATA drive: see this screenshot:

The black rectangular sections are too small to be 'normal' 2.5hdd's as can be seen here when comparing to the SSD:

Does anyone know

what are those rectangular black compartments
how do I swap this (or another smaller?) SSD into the MBPro?

All the black compartments are the Li- Ion Polymer batteries which power your MacBook Pro.
You won't be able to swap a 2.5'' drive in your Macbook because the Mid 2012 Retina models use a flash memory module.
Here you can see a guide to upgrading the SSD.


Updating OS X to NOT the latest version I have a macbook that is running OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion); for various compatibility-related reasons I would like to upgrade the system, but not to El Capitan. Yosemite (OS X 10.10) would be dandy. The App Store, of course, only offers an upgrade to El Capitan, currently the newest OS X version.

I know that it is possible to restore a computer to the OS it had prior to an upgrade, but is it possible to upgrade to a (never-seen before) OS version that is not the latest available?

Edit: This question is related (but only if Yosemite had been downloaded via the App Store in the past).

You can download old versions on the Apple website: https://support.apple.com/downloads/macos
Edit:
This is where you will find installers (going back to El Capitan)
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372


Is it possible to retrieve SMS messages that have been deleted from my iPhone? I have read a lot about this online and would like to confirm once and for all.

Is it possible to retrieve SMS messages that have been deleted from my iPhone?

I know it is possible to get access to the sms.db file but that only holds the current SMS messages. I tried that and was successful in getting it off the phone but when checking the contents there were no deleted messages.

And this would not be relying on any backups either, i.e. I backed up my phone, sent a message and then deleted it without backing up before deleting. Is that SMS gone for good?

You could try to recover information from the sqlite file using for example a hex editor. Here is a quote from SQLite FAQ:

I accidentally deleted some important information from my SQLite database. How can I recover it?
If you have a backup copy of your database file, recover the information from your backup.
If you do not have a backup, recovery is very difficult. You might be able to find partial string data in a binary dump of the raw database file. Recovering numeric data might also be possible given special tools, though to our knowledge no such tools exist. SQLite is sometimes compiled with the SQLITE_SECURE_DELETE option which overwrites all deleted content with zeros. If that is the case then recovery is clearly impossible. Recovery is also impossible if you have run VACUUM since the data was deleted. If SQLITE_SECURE_DELETE is not used and VACUUM has not been run, then some of the deleted content might still be in the database file, in areas marked for reuse. But, again, there exist no procedures or tools that we know of to help you recover that data.

Hope this helps.


How to configure Apache for XAMPP on Mac OS X Lion to use mod_rewrite? I am totally newbie when it comes to .htaccess or Apache. I don't know how it works.

My URLs are like http://localhost/category.php?category=something and I'd like to get the variable value as something in category.php but I'd like to show the URL as http://localhost/something

How can I do this? Please help.  Thank you in advance.

I haven't tested this exact string but in your htaccess file you can try:

Options +FollowSymLinks

RewriteEngine On

 RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^(.*&)category=([^&]+)(&.*)?$ [NC]

 RewriteRule ^category\.php$ /%2? [R=301,L]

How familiar are you with regular expressions?  That's probably the biggest hurdle to get over with mod_rewrite.

This particular version is intended to work for multiple parameters (optionally) and category can be first or not first.   The other parameters if present are just discarded -- they still sent to your php code, just don't appear in URL.


MacBook software speaker problem I've found that the speakers on my 2008 Core 2 Duo MacBook aren't being used by Mac OS X. Some applications such as Skype that output directly to the speakers work, but the system (and any apps that use the system setting) are mute.

Before you recommend blowing in the headphone jack, there is no red LED and there is nothing there. If I can hear Skype clearly through the internal speakers, it's not the headphone jack.

Running Mac OS X 10.7.5 Lion as non-root administrator user.
Model identifier: MacBook4,1

Output device is internal speakers. I can hear the startup chime as well.

If applications can still send sound to your speakers but the system does not, it sounds like your default output device is something other than your speakers. Hold down the Option key and click on the volume icon in your Menu Bar (or go to System Preferences > Sound > Output). Under "Output Device:" select the device you want to use, probably "Internal Speakers." Make sure your volume is up, then try playing a sound again.


any way to remap keys for only one app? I've seen the system wide tools (that all seem to just manipulate the default key bindings) that allow you to swap keys around, but has anyone found a way to swap keys for just one application? (no, the app in question doesn't offer it, and the author was a bit of a prick about it when I asked if they could enable an option to adjust them.)

I'm talking about real keys like home, end, page up, page down... not shortcuts.

Keyboard Maestro might be your thing. Make a new command group which only applies to the application in question, then for each key you want to remap, make a new command with a hotkey trigger set to the real key and an "Insert Text" action set to what you want the key to be.

The only shortcoming I've found so far is that it can't handle the in-built volume control keys on an Apple keyboard. It can detect them & act upon the event, but it can't suppress the volume change. In fairness, nothing else can either. Most programs I tried can't even detect it. Keyboard Maestro is the king of the pile.


Turn off non-Wifi Internet access on iOS I want to use internet only via Wifi, and be asked if I want to use the internet via my SIM (3G or so).

How can I do that? Is there a setting for it?

you can turn off cellular data (or your internet over your SIM) when you go to Settings->Cellular (or Mobile data) and then turn of Cellular data.
Or in Romanian:
Configurari->Conexiune celulara and turn off Date celulare

this way you'll use only your wifi connection (if you're connected to WiFi).


DV, QuickTime or iMovie I have some video in .dv format. It comes from old VHS digitalized. The quality is not good, they are spots of 30 seconds and each one has around 300MB. I have a new iMac with the last operating system. I have a lot of them and I have done some test in a couple to see the options.

If I click to one of the .dv it opens with QuickTime. If I file > export 720. It is saved to .mov and it have around 10MB or less. (remember from 300MB the original .dv). The quality seems the same.

If I import the .dv to iMovie and share > file > 720 and quality medium it is saved to .mp4 and it is around 40MB.

The original .dv with 300MB seem too big, specially when they do not have a good quality. Is it good to save it to .mov or .mp4, do I loose anything?
I do not see any difference of quality between QuickTime.mov 10MB or  iMovie .mp4 40MB Why that difference of MB? is it a good option to save it to QuickTime just because it has less MB?

Thank you

The DV format files are in a format designed in 1995, the compression of video has gotten, ahem, a bit better in the ensuing 20 years. That is why the file size looks so big. It is big.

.dv is a compressed format, but the audio remains uncompressed. What you need to do is go through the manual of the camcorder (usually available online) that shot the video (or something similar) and see what resolution it shot at.

Then you just convert the .dv file to an mp4 at the same bitrate and resolution and that will give you, probably, the best quality output. MPEG Streamclip and Handbrake should be able to do the conversion (if I recall correctly).

Or you can blow up the movie in Quicktime and choose the one that looks the best. It all depends on how much time you have to work on this.


copy simulator from one mac to another mac osx I'm the user with the less internet speed, one of my friend downloaded iPhone Simulator in his Xcode 4.5 to test the code in iOS 5.1, 5.0, 4.3 os too, now if I want those simulators in my mac, is there any way from there I can copy those simulators and simply paste it somewhere in my XCode.app folder that I will get those simulators in my Xcode too? --- I'm taking this as an advantage for not downloading the same thing again and save the time!

I came to know that, we can find the iPhone simulators here for XCode 4.3 or higher versions,

  /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/Applications/

Have anyone tried this before? or some other way to get this other than downloading.

As @patrix told me to tried on my own self, I've do so, I got the simulator from here,

  /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/SDKs

and copy the simulator sdk you want to add in your xcode, and paste it on the same path as above in your mac. That's it.


Playing audio books on iOS 5 As the new Music application in iOS 5 seems to have an extremely broken behavior for some audiobooks, I am looking for alternatives.

I have several audio books that have a series of many MP3 files, one for each chapter (e.g http://www.amazon.com/dp/1455826235/).  In iTunes I had all files for these audio books set to have the 'Audiobook' kind.

It seems like the new behavior for the Music application is to play the current selected track until the finish, and then stop playing, it does not continue on to the next track like on a music album.

I do not want to revert back to an earlier version of iOS, and I would like to avoid having to change all my audiobooks to be seen by iTunes as music, but how can I listen to my audiobooks?

I have also tried playing the audio books through the Audible app, and through Bookmark.  But neither of them show that I have any audiobooks on my device, but I am certain I have them, since I can play them in the music app, one chapter at a time.  I was able to see them and play them using those apps before I upgraded to iOS 5.

Is there any fixes for this? Is there any external apps that can actually play audiobooks syced from iTunes in iOS 5.

The Audible app will play any audiobooks in your iTunes (now Music) library on your iPhone. To make this work, select the "My Library" menu item and then click the button for the "iPod Library". Clicking either "iPod Library" or "Audiobooks" will then show all of the books in your library, including non-Audible.com books...i.e. books synced from iTunes.


Change background colour for PDF when Viewing When a PDF is opened, its actual background color is often white. On Windows, several PDF viewers have the ability to set the background color to another one, which doesn't modify the PDF file itself. You can just think that it adds a virtual color when a file is opened by those software. But when you open the same file by other softwares, it still has white background.

I often need to read many articles (PDF format) a day, and white background make my eyes feel uncomfortable.

Does Preview have the same feature? Or any plugin to do this?

So Preview does not have this feature, but more on that in a moment.

f.lux

I would strongly recommend you take a look at f.lux.

  f.lux makes your computer screen look like the room you're in, all the time. When the sun sets, it makes your computer look like your indoor lights. In the morning, it makes things look like sunlight again.

f.lux will adjust (you can modify the strength) the colour of the whole screen to make it easier on your eyes. You can set it to be on all the time, or automatically come on at night time. People love it.

Now, back to your question...

Adobe Reader for Mac does support this. Once you install the 400MB app, you can change the background colour in Preferences (⌘ cmd + ,) > * Accessibility** . Check Replace Document Colours, and set the right colours you want.


how to make everything open on external monitor I m using MBP with a external screen. I want everything I open to open up in external monitor as I got really bad neck pain, so If I look down at laptop screen I can't do anything else due to pain.
ATM I can drag the window of application on external monitor but the contextual menu remains on laptop as well as dock.
How can I make sure that external screen is used or/and the laptop screen isn't used.

Apple has a support page which describes how to set the external monitor as your primary display.
Alternatively you can attach an external keyboard/mouse and just close your laptop.


How to set the python environment for LaunchDaemons I have installed Python 3 via Homebrew, on my Mojave system, and have it symlinked to /usr/local/bin/python.

I have a LaunchDaemon plist as follows:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>test</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
          <string>python</string>
          <string>--version</string>
        </array>
        <key>RunAtLoad</key><true/>
        <key>KeepAlive</key><true/>

        <key>EnvironmentVariables</key>
        <dict>
            <key>PATH</key>
            <string>/usr/local/bin/python3</string>
            <key>PYTHONPATH</key>
            <string>/usr/local/lib/python3.7/site-packages</string>
        </dict>

        <key>StandardOutPath</key>
        <string>/var/log/test.log</string>
        <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
        <string>/var/log/test_err.log</string>

    </dict>
</plist>

However, this still returns Python 2.7.10 which is installed by default on the Mojave system.

How do I set the path up for this LaunchDaemon so that is has access to the Python 3 environment instead?

Additional info:

For the full plist I am using, the program calls python at some point (python isn't the entry point), hence requiring the PYTHONPATH being set to point to the site-packages where some additional packages have been installed.

The error which pops up there is:

Your PYTHONPATH points to a site-packages dir for Python 3.x but you are running Python 2.x!
     PYTHONPATH is currently: "/usr/local/lib/python3.7/site-packages"
     You should `unset PYTHONPATH` to fix this.

I suggest that you use an absolute path in ProgramArguments, so

    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
    <string>python</string>

would become

    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
    <string>/usr/local/bin/python3</string>
    ..........

Your PATH variable is not correct. Change it to

    <key>PATH</key>
    <string>/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin</string>


WiFi connected but not working after a while, unless i turn it off and on again (macosx sierra) I have a MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012) MacOsX Sierra 10.12.3 (16D32) and I have a weird issue with my office's WLAN: I can connect to WiFi, and navigate on internet, then (usually after around one minute) it stops working: I'm still connected (the top-right icon shows the wifi interface it's still on and connected to the network), but pages don't load anymore and request end up in timeout errors. If I turn WiFi off and on again everything works again for a while then it stops and I have to turn wifi off/on again. So the loop takes place.

I can't figure out what the problem is and isolate it, everything seems ok. I guess this is likely a network (router) problem, since it only happens at work, but my colleagues apparently don't have this problem. Plus, if it were a routing problem, why does everything works again after a simple wifi interface reconnection laptop side i.e. without doing anything router-side?

EDIT:
I've done some test and it turns out after apparently loosing connectivity to internet it's still possible to ping public hosts. So, I guess, network is up,  DNS work correctly, and the problem should be limited to http data forwarding on port 80 (so, likely a routing problem)

Go to Network in System Preferences. Go to Advanced, and check the DNS Servers. You should have 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4, add those if they are not on there. Now check if your ipv4 is set to DHCP, and turn off ipv6 if it is on.