Do all Cinema Displays emit noise at reduced/minimum brightness? I've a 30" Apple Cinema Display (A1083 EMC2011) that makes a noise when lowering brightness (low brightness = more noise, full brightness = no noise).

Gently slamming the side of the screen usually makes the noise go away, for a while, but it always comes back sooner or later.

The phenomenon reminds me of the floor lamp in my living room, which also makes a similar (albeit somewhat louder) noise when dimming down the light.

What I'd like to know is: Is this "low brightness" noise present in all 30" Apple Cinema Displays? (In which case I can save myself the time of asking a hardware guy to dismantle it in search of a cure.)

PS! I should mention that I use the screen with a Apple Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI-adapter. I don't know if this would contribute to the problem.

It is not normal for the aluminum or polycarbonate cinema displays to make audible noise. They have been used 24x7 for a decade in recording studios and 3D and production cutting rooms where we put the CPU in a sound isolating box and never had to mitigate a Cinema Display due to noise until they start to fail. Many of these places are very low light so brightness is often way below max for us.

When the power transformer starts to fail, that can then make the display make noise and these displays and power bricks were manufactured in pairs so swapping power supplies from two working pairs would make both get noisy. Don’t just assume the part that makes noise is the culprit.

Like Allan and bmike have said there is something wrong with your display when driven by the adapter that supplies the transformed power from mains.

If you have to hit something to make it behave properly... Well an Apple Cinema display is not a mid 60s-era color TV and that should not happen.

You can do two things

Replace it
Have it repaired

Repair could be conditioning or filtering the mains power so the Apple power supply does less work and filtering.
Locate a new power supply that makes your display quiet again.
Have the LCD panel disassembled and inspected. If physical hits and taps alter vibration, it might just be a failed internal physical mount that needs repair.

I would imagine that #2 might cost more than the value of a replacement unless you’re unable to source a matte LCD panel of that size.


Siri stopped working Since iOS 8.1 Siri stopped working for me. The sound and wave animation appear, but it seems the microphone does not register my speech, or it is not processed by Siri.

I have read various "solutions" and tried to troubleshoot it, but I am running out of ideas.

I have tried, turning Siri on and off again :), restarting the phone and resetting different settings (including the network settings). Nothing seems to work.

Any ideas, how can I resolve this?

I have iPhone 5s and iOS 8.3 and my siri stopped working after replacing broken glass. My current workaround is to use the headphone microphone.

I think iPhone when using SIRI does some sophisticated background noise reduction. For that it uses additional microphones I think for iPhone 5s and up there are three all together.

Try to use the iPhone supplied Headset microphone I am certain this will work for you. This is my current workaround and it works all the time..


How can I update my (super old) Mac OS when the App Store shows no available updates? I am pretty computer-dumb. I am still operating on Mac OS X 10.10.5  MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2012 with Yosemite) and have started to lose functionality - some websites don't open, softwares don't work, etc. due to my outdated browser. When I go to the app store to view available updates, there are none. Months ago I tried to manually update the OS to Catalina (I think) and it completely crashed my computer; I had a smart friend restore it, but it is back to the old OS. How do I get something more functional so I can download new browsers, etc?

I would start first opening this link in safari.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208969

Don’t take the bait in step 4 trying to get you Catalina, You want this next link first...

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/macos-high-sierra/id1246284741?ls=1&mt=12

While it’s downloading check your backup is solid. The upgrade and updates don’t intentionally erase data, but better safe than sorry.
Also, seriously consider an internal SSD if you move to APFS and past High Sierra.


Automater/Applescript page viewer/downloader loop I have some 9500 individual audio files I am trying to download which:

a) require a login to a website
b) are located at subdirectories which ?redirects? to a download link

(eg. www.whatever.com/product/download/id/1234
==>
prompt to download the whatever-file-name.mp3)

Can someone help me write a applescript/automator app that will visit
"http://www.blah.com/product/download/id/1"
wait until download finishes,
+1
then visit:
http://www.blah.com/product/download/id/2
loop until 9600

set theint to 1
set theurl to "http://blah.com/"

repeat until theint = 6
    tell application "Google Chrome"
        set URL of active tab of window 1 to theurl & theint
        activate
    end tell
    set theint to theint + 1
    delay 5
end repeat

works fine so far..
need to change 5s delay to something like 'when download finishes'.. any help?


Can an Apple Track Pad and Magic Mouse be used at the same time? I have a New 2011 iMac which came with the magic Mouse, I would like the option of having a trackpad as well for multi-touch gestures and scrolling up and down etc, but would also like the mouse for times when moving windows around and for programmes like Final Cut and Photoshop where for me a mouse is easier to use.

Will they work together well with out interfering? obviously I will not be scrolling with one and moving with the other, I just want to switch between the two as and when I want.

I would only like answers from personally experienced sources.

Yes, it works fine. I have both on my 2010 iMac, and as long as you don't try to use them simultaneously, there are no problems.


What happens to an in-progress `7-day phased release` on the App Store when a newer version is published? Curious what would happen when version 1.1 is on day 2 out of 7 of a 7-day phased rollout in the App Store, and you publish a 1.2 upgrade.

Would it:

A. Immediately release 1.1 to the remaining 80% of users?

B. Leave the 80% of users on 1.0 until they get 1.2?

It would not immediately release 1.1.
If your publish 1.2 with immediate availability, then all users will be upgraded to 1.2 the next time the auto-update process on their decice kicks in. This means that both 1.0 and 1.1 users would be updated at the same time.
If you publish 1.2 with phased roll-out, then that phased roll out will run independently from the other one. I.e. 1.1 is not released immediate to the remaining users, nor are users left on 1.0 until they get 1.2.


Error while updating macOS I'm trying to install High Sierra 10.13.3 Supplemental Update. But I'm getting an error, which is 'The request timed out. (-1001)'

You need a VPN or to change your network. It seems there is a firewall blocking the Apple server.


How to clear browser cache for just one specific site in Mobile Safari? I'm doing some testing on a mobile site in development and there are many updates and changes happening to this site. In order to test afresh and clear any JavaScript or what-not that is held in the cache on my iPhone I need to clear the site from the history.

However, i'm not too keen on wiping all my browser history as I don't want to have re-sign into every site I'm currently logged into or have cookies for. This testing could last several months and the thought of having to clear my history and sign into all my various accounts every time is not that appealing.

Is there a way to specifically clear out the history of just one domain from my history without wiping all my cache out?

I could (and do) have other browsers on my iPhone (chrome, opera - if that even counts as a browser) but as Safari is the browser the target audience will mostly use I need to keep with this one predominantly.

I don't know if this is exactly what you want, but if you open Settings, then click on Safari, then scroll down and click on Advanced, then click on Website Data you will get a list of websites that have stored data. You can click Edit then remove the data from just the sites that you want to remove stored data from.


How do you color code folders in Mavericks? I used to be able to color code each folder in Finder.

I know I can use tags in Mavericks, but is there a way to restore the ability to actually color code folders?

Thanks.

Unlike colours, tags one not mutually exclusive. You can set multiple tags for one file.

This may explain why Finder no longer displays the colour like before.

Sadly, it will only display a maximum of three colours on the right of the filename. It looks like these three colours are the last three in the list.


Chrome putting itself in the Dock whenever it wants. So I have Google Chrome installed on my Mac & randomly it will put itself in my dock, where it normally doesn't reside. It is usually about every two weeks or so, but sometimes its within a few days. It is the only application to do so. It puts itself as the first application (immediately after the finder) regardless of what else is on the dock.
Of note: I rarely use Chrome as I usually prefer Safari or Firefox. I may open it once every few months.
I can't seem to find anyone else who has had this problem. Suggestions?

Make sure the chrome auto updates are not running - it could be adding itself back when it checks for updates.


nVidia + Mavericks Drivers Is anyone aware of official nVidia drivers for 9x series cards and OSX Mavericks?

I'm aware of these but they only seem to support 8 series cards and I have a 9800GTX+

Looking at the nVida site and using they driver find engine they do not have the driver, so nobody else would have it.


Pressing a wrong key sheds blue light on whole screen in iTerm Pressing a key that doesn't do anything, sheds a blue light on the screen for a moment, and it's quite annoying.

For example, in iTerm, since pressing Down Arrow Key doesn't do anything, so it sheds blue light on the screen to let me know there is something with what I'm doing, but it's pretty annoying.

I use Vim for development, and time and again, I press Esc to switch between different modes, and this thing annoys a lot. Is there a way to get rid of it?

Still have no idea what's wrong with it, but searching on Google gave me the following command to execute, and it did the job:

sudo killall coreaudiod


Why is the System Preferences lock decorative and no longer preventing changes when locked? If I recall correctly, the little lock icon in System Preferences used to prevent changes without unlocking it and providing username and password. Either my macOS is broken, or this isn't the case anymore.

Here is a little animated GIF showing that I can make random changes in the Security and Privacy system settings without unlocking.

I'm running 10.15.2 macOS Catalina. Am I mistaken on the purpose of this lock? Did it change at some point? Or is my macOS just insecure?

On Mojave, the categories with no padlock requirement are Contacts, Calendars, (no app has requested access to Reminders yet), Photos, Camera, Microphone, Automation and Advertising.

Those requiring Admin password are Location, Accessibility and Full Disk Access.

Analytics does not require unlocking to change Share iCloud Analytics but does for Share Mac Analytics and Share with App Developers which are otherwise input inhibited.

Former list permissions didn't require me to enter root password as far as I remember. So it shouldn't ask on a later time either.

You can check whether password is required or not by

tccutil reset Microphone

or any other item like AddressBook. See this blog for the same

https://www.felix-schwarz.org/blog/2018/08/new-apple-event-apis-in-macos-mojave or man tccutil.

As for those protected ones, +- buttons are given and they are greyed out if padlock is locked.


Is there a way to see System Information before first user is added? I have a Mac that someone asks me to help them sell.  They already wiped the hard drive and put a fresh installation of macOS on it. Upon boot, it's at the "Welcome" setup with no users intialized yet.

Is there an easy way to see the System Information and version of macOS currently installed on this machine without creating a new user? I'd like to leave this machine in a clean state without having to re-wipe the hard drive with a new installation.

The following assumes that the Recovery HD has the same version of macOS installed on the Macintosh HD for the accuracy of OS version information.

If you boot the Mac to Recovery Mode, you can access System Information from Terminal using the following command, e.g.:

/Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/usr/sbin/system_profiler

You might what to minimize the output and use and of the following options:

-listDataTypes  - Lists the available datatypes.
-detailLevel level - Specifies the level of detail for the report:

mini - Report with no personal information.
basic - Basic hardware and network information.
full  - All available information.

To get just a Hardware: report, use:

SPHardwareDataType

Example:

/Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/usr/sbin/system_profiler SPHardwareDataType

On my system the outout of the above command was:

Hardware:

    Hardware Overview:

      Model Name: MacBook Pro
      Model Identifier: MacBookPro10,1
      Processor Name: Intel Core i7
      Processor Speed: 2.8 GHz
      Number of Processors: 1
      Total Number of Cores: 4
      L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
      L3 Cache: 8 MB
      Memory: 16 GB
      Boot ROM Version: MBP101.00EE.B12
      SMC Version (system): 2.3f36
      Serial Number (system): <Information omitted for security reasons.>
      Hardware UUID: <Information omitted for security reasons.>

Notes:

To boot to the Recovery HD, press CommandR when booting the Mac. See also About macOS Recovery

Also, have a look at the manual page for system_profiler

If you want to just get information for some of the -listDataTypes listed, you can add each on the command line, e.g.:

/Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/usr/sbin/system_profiler SPHardwareDataType SPSoftwareDataType

The system_profiler command can be run directly from single-user mode, by pressing CommandS when booting the Mac, without having to provide the fully qualified pathname, however depending on how much information you want from system_profiler, you may need to pipe the output to more to less, etc., as scrolling in single-user mode is not as easy as from Terminal when booted to the Recovery HD.

That said, if all you want is the basic output shown under Hardware: and Software: from using the system_profiler command, then use the following command in single-user mode:

system_profiler SPHardwareDataType SPSoftwareDataType

Note that the software info from single-user mode is that which is install on the Macintosh HD, unlike from the Recovery HD it's that of the OS X Base System and while it should be the same, it may not. The hardware info is accurate in either case.


exclude certain mailaccounts from sound notifications In iOS6, on iPhone 5, how can I disable sound and vibration for a specific mail account only? I have one mail accounts that is a bit to highly frequented, which results in a lot of ringing and vibration. However all the other mail accounts behave just fine.

Unfortunately I only see one global setting for the whole mail app.

You should be able to accomplish this from the Notifications section of the Settings app, which allows you to set the kind of alerts each app uses:

In that panel, each of your mail accounts will be listed separately, and can be configured individually. I have one account, for example, set to not even badge the Mail.app icon, let alone play sound:


What happens if you run "open /Applications/*" I recently read in a blog post don't run open "/Applications/*" otherwise many tabs will reopen, But I ran it in Terminal and then suddenly all my apps in my Applications started to open my Mac started to heat up to 60 C and fans 1460 RPM I immediately force quit all the apps.What does "open Applications/*" do? and what is the meaning of *?

This command opens all apps in the /Applications folder. The * means everything in there. For example, to open all apps in /Applications that starts with S you would type open /Applications/s*. Since the * is by itself that means everything.


Can Dual Link DVI do 4K at 60Hz? I've got a 4K monitor attached via Dual Link DVI. It does 4K, but only at 30Hz.

It does 60 Hz up to 2560x1440; anything above that is 30Hz.

Is that a limitation of DVI?

A single dual-link DVI connection can deliver up to 2560 × 1600 at 60 Hz. Achieving 4K at 60Hz requires two dual-link DVI cables, or DisplayPort 1.2 or HDMI 2.0.

So, yes, as you put it, that's a limitation of DVI.


Where does this strange output in Terminal come from? Everytime I open my terminal I get a little notification error:

declare -x Apple_PubSub_Socket_Render="/tmp/launch-jsWpOJ/Render"
declare -x DISPLAY="/tmp/launch-yARwMh/org.macosforge.xquartz:0"
declare -x HOME="/Users/Austin"
declare -x LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
declare -x LOGNAME="Austin"
declare -x OLDPWD
declare -x
PATH="/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/opt/X11/bin:/usr/local/git/bin:/usr/local/MacGPG2/bin"
declare -x PWD="/"
declare -x SHELL="/bin/bash"
declare -x SHLVL="1"
declare -x SSH_AUTH_SOCK="/tmp/launch-PWYfTW/Listeners"
declare -x TERM="xterm-256color"
declare -x TERM_PROGRAM="Apple_Terminal"
declare -x TERM_PROGRAM_VERSION="326"
declare -x TERM_SESSION_ID="EA9B2123-82A5-470E-8F9D-328367CEE7BD"
declare -x TMPDIR="/var/folders/hb/ss6hsppn5497rzzmnx81hh8r0000gn/T/"
declare -x USER="Austin"
declare -x __CF_USER_TEXT_ENCODING="0x1F5:0:0"
declare -x __CHECKFIX1436934="1"

I don't really know how to get rid of this, I think it might have something to do with XQuartz or X11. Can anyone point me in the right direction to fix this?

The reason I was getting the output in my shell for every environment I created was because my ".bash_profile" had a some statements that didn't evaluate to true. The shell was looking for a path that didn't exist anymore, so I had to update the current path so the bash didn't generate an error.

Thanks everyone!


How to capture the H.264 stream of a Logitech c920 camera I am using a Logitech c920 HD Pro Webcam with my Macbook Pro 17" (early 2011) and Mac OS Mavericks 10.9.5

I am able to record videos with Quicktime 10.3 where I have two options for "quality" with this camera: high or maximum.

The file size gets very large, especially in "maximum" where 80 seconds in an black and white (colour setting to 0) take up 2.6 GB already.

I think this camera is providing a H.264 stream which already should be compressed much more but Quicktime seems not to be able to load from that stream.

Also, the quality of the video seems to be rather blurry and not really Full HD.

I tried to install Final Cut Pro because there where some links on the net that provided this tip. With Final Cut Pro in its test version come several codecs that might provide a solution. But Final Cut Pro is not any more compatible with Mavericks.

Any hints how to capture the pre-compressed stream from the camera instead of the raw material?

This is a partial answer, but from what I recall the C920 doesn't stream in H264 by default. I think it defaults to MJPEG (which would explain the blurriness), the 3rd option being YUV.

If you follow this thread, you'll see that I had to change the streaming mode using v4l2ctl (in Linux) to obtain a H264 stream. Assuming you've got a Linux computer somewhere:

#this sets the C920 cam to H264 encoding, framerate 30/1:
v4l2-ctl --set-fmt-video=width=1920,height=1080,pixelformat=1

Hopefully, the configuration remains after unplugging the webcam, allowing you to use it on OSX...

If you're interested in a less "native" solution than QuickTime, the rest of the thread describes how to use gstreamer, either by rtp streaming or local capture. I didn't try it on OSX but you can try replacing v4l2src by osxvideosrc:

gst-launch-1.0 -vvv osxvideosrc \
! video/x-h264, width=1920, height=1080, framerate=30/1 \
! queue max-size-buffers=1 \
! matroskamux \
! filesink location=/tmp/video.mkv

... which should give you a Matroska file.


Set OS X Server for remote-only administration I have a Mac Mini with OS X Server in another room with nothing attached but the network cable. I manage it remotely using Apple's Server and Remote Desktop.

Is it possible to disable "locally" using the machine. As to avoid:

Someone attaching a display and seeing my activity.
Someone taking over the server control by ending my Remote Desktop session.

Cheers

Unfortunately as long someone has physical access to hardware they can do pretty much anything with it. (depending upon they skills).

Your only semi safe solution would be to put it in a lock box.

Then set up password for log-in screen and password for idle (sleep mode).


Recursively remove all invalid characters from text files in place I have several thousand text files, some of which contain invalid UTF-8 characters. I want to recursively remove all invalid characters from these files in place.

I am aware that many similar questions have been asked before, such as: how to remove non UTF-8 characters from text file but I have not found one that is both recursive and operates in place.

The great thing about UNIX commands is that you can combine them together. iconv doesn't know how to recurse into directories, but find does. It can call iconv on every file it sees.

(These commands will convert all files in the current directory and all directories within. Make sure you are in the directory you want to convert all files in recursively.)

To change all files with the extension .txt:

find . -type f -name '*.txt' -print0 |
    while IFS= read -r -d $'\0' filename; do
        iconv -f utf-8 -t utf-8 -c "$filename" > "$filename".iconv_cleaned_utf8
        mv "$filename".iconv_cleaned_utf8 "$filename"
    done

I suppose this code requires some explanation. What it does is:

find prints out all the filenames of the files involved, separated by a null byte (the null byte is the only invalid character for a file path)
bash reads the filenames and loops through them
iconv converts the file to a tempfile with an extra extension
we mv the tempfile to replace the original file.

If they have different extensions (this is for any and all files under the current directory), remove the -name *.txt

It's a bit cleaner if you have the sponge utility from moreutils, but that is not installed by default.

find . -type f -name '*.txt' -print0 |
    while IFS= read -r -d $'\0' filename; do
        iconv -f utf-8 -t utf-8 -c "$filename" | sponge "$filename"
    done


Can you higlight a region (*not* text) in Preview? I often have to work with large scanned pdf documents (law reports, not that it matters).

It's quite handy to be able to highlight key passages, but for the most part these documents have not been run through OCR, and so each page is just an image.  (I'm not interested in OCR-ing them myself, either.)

As a result, Preview's highlight tool doesn't work, as it expects to be highlighting text.

When I'm working on Windows, I use Foxit Reader's 'area highlight' function to work around this.  Basically, that just creates a transparent yellow rectangle when you click and drag.

In Preview, I can do the same thing by creating the rectangle manually, but that is quite fiddly takes far too long.

Is it possible to configure the highlight tool to just highlight the region you click and drag over, rather than the text in that region?

I could not find a way to do this using Preview.  I tried to cheat by using the line drawing tool, and setting the color to a transparent yellow.  Unfortunately, Preview doesn't seem to allow transparency with its shape tools. (To see what I mean, draw a line, then bring up the color picker window and move the Opacity slider around -- it's either all or nothing.)

As an alternative, I suggest Adobe Reader (I receive no commission).  Its text highlighter has the same limitation as Preview's, but its line drawing tool supports transparency. Open up the Comment pane on the right, then the Drawing Markups section. Right click on the line tool and select Tool Default Properties to change the lines' color, opacity, and thickness. You also might want to enable Keep Tool Selected so you can quickly highlight multiple areas.

Instead of the line tool, you might prefer the rectangle tool.  Follow the same steps as before, but additionally set the Fill Color to be the same as the Color (and make sure the Transparent checkbox is NOT selected for the Fill Color).


App Store ID & a different iCloud ID? I have two sperate Apple ID accounts as I had to factory reset my phone, I created a new one a few months ago. My first Apple ID (before the factory reset) can connect with iCloud, but not the App Store - there is a problem with this one about billing on it but I've never purchased anything only free apps, so it doesn't let me update any apps or my phone software. After the factory reset my second Apple ID works with the App Store, but I'm not able to access iCloud because of my security questions (can't reset them either :(). & I would like to have all my music & pictures on there. So I was wondering if there was a way to keep the first Apple ID logged into my iCloud & the second Apple ID logged into my iTunes & App Store?

Anything would be helpful! Thanks

There are instructions on how to set this up on Apple's support site, see towards the end of https://support.apple.com/HT204053.

Basically you open Settings on your iOS device and

configure/use one AppleID to log into iCloud
configure/use the other ID to log into iTunes & App Store

Having said that, I would still recommend to address the issues you have with your current account. To verify your billing details, log into the Store and update your information (if it doesn't work in the iOS device, you can use any computer running iTunes for this, just don't forget to log out within iTunes afterwards); to recover your second account, start with https://iforgot.apple.com/.


Macbook Bootcamp Windows 10 WiFi issues I have a Macbook Air 13" (mid 2012) on which I installed Windows 10 via Bootcamp a while ago. It all runs smoothly and works fine except for the WiFi.

The internet connection breaks frequently (which means that I am not able to access the internet). I am though still connected to the WLAN network at any time (often it says "no internet, secured"). Disconnecting and reconnecting to the WLAN network is the only way to get it back to working. I noticed the same behaviour in different networks. Other devices do not show interrupts.

When using OS X the connection is fine all the time.

I already reinstalled the broadcom driver and deactivated the option that the system can disable the device for energy management reasons (I don't know the exact name of this option in english, sorry).

What else can I do? Did anyone have the same issue or a similiar one? Thank you in advance for responding.

Deinstalling Cisco VPN Client fixed my problem.

There seems to be a problem with updating from Windows 8 to Windows 10 when Cisco VPN Client is installed (https://superuser.com/questions/947651/no-network-connection-after-upgrading-to-windows-10).

Although my Windows 10 was a fresh install, deinstalling Cisco VPN Client helped me getting a stable internet connection.


Disabling startup items that run on their own I've found a couple apps that seem to be able to launch themselves on startup, despite that they don't appear in the usual places...

- Login Items (in the Users preference pane)
- /Library/LaunchAgents
- /Library/LaunchDaemons
- /Library/StartupItems
- /System/Library/LaunchAgents
- /System/Library/LaunchDaemons
- /System/Library/StartupItems
- ~/Library/LaunchAgents
- ~/Library/LaunchDaemons
- ~/Library/StartupItems

At least some of these apps (e.g. Day One and Pauses – both from the Mac App Store) seem to be launching an item from their own internal LoginItems folders:

/Applications/Day One.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/Day One Reminders.app
/Applications/Pauses.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/PausesLauncher.app

As good citizens, both apps allow you to disable the launch-on-login behavior, but it's disconcerting that this behavior doesn't seem to be controllable from a system-wide preference, and I'd like a way to systematically identify/control these login items. So, the (two-part) question is:

What is actually controlling whether/how these app-specific launch items are being activated, and
How can I get an inventory of all these login items?

[edited for clarity 2013-03-20 11:22 PT]

Day One seems to store the login item in /var/db/launchd.db/com.apple.launchd.peruser.501/overrides.plist:

$ /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Print _com.apple.SMLoginItemBookmarks:com.dayoneapp.dayone-agent' /var/db/launchd.db/com.apple.launchd.peruser.501/overrides.plist
book 0(UserslaurTorrents
                        Day One.apContentsLibrary
LoginItemsDay One Reminders.app $4HXh?kld ????$A????H???A?1M?$5DF7A03E-A7FB-3E80-B61D-F10CD8BF7B5D?/?0c75ae904b0f99cb3a794e7360629c822a0f4a14;00000000;0000000000000020;com.apple.app-sandbox.read-write;00000001;01000002;0000000000641712;/users/lauri/torrents/day one.app/contents/library/loginitems/day one reminders.app??????D|@l 0 ? ? ? ?  0 <???????D

Changing this to true in that same file disabled it:

<key>com.dayoneapp.dayone-agent</key>
<dict>
    <key>Disabled</key>
    <false/>
</dict>


How can I turn off the dizzying iOS 7 motion effects? My girlfriend is getting that well-publicized nausea/dizziness/"carsickness" from iOS 7's motion effects, though I'm not sure if it's because of the wallpaper or the animations overall. What can she do to tone them down? Are there options built into the software?

Yes, she can change the behavior.

From Apple's page on "iOS 7: How to reduce screen motion":

  Learn how to reduce screen motion in iOS 7.

  iOS 7 uses a parallax effect to create the perception of depth on your Home screen and elsewhere. When this feature is on, you may notice that your:

  Wallpaper, icons, and alerts shift slightly as you move your phone.
  When setting a wallpaper in Settings > Wallpapers & Brightness, the photo or image will be slightly zoomed and cannot be scaled to fit to the screen.

  You can change this behavior by enabling Settings > General > Accessibility > Reduce Motion.

  Note: If zoomed, you will need to rescale your wallpaper to fit to the screen.

  Additional Information

  To learn more about iOS 7, refer to the user manual.

Also see "What are some hidden or undocumented features in iOS 7?" here.


OS X Mavericks Maps: can't send direction to iPhone First of all, I have solved the problem. It took me quite a while to figure out, so I'll share the solution here in case anyone runs into the same problem.

To put it short, you should be able to see a "Send to $NAME_OF_YOUR_IPHONE" entry in the share menu of Maps.app. If you don't, then turn on "Documents & Data" in OS X's iCloud settings (System Settings-->iCloud). If you want more context, read on.

First you need to make sure you Mac is running OS X 10.9 (which is sheer nonsense, how would you have Maps.app otherwise); your iPhone is running iOS 7 (I guess most iPhones do); and your Mac and iPhone are signed into the same iCloud account. If you do, and you don't get the right share entry, then don't try to sign out iCloud on your Mac, as some people suggested. I've tried it myself and it does not work for me. The problem is that, I'm not a big fan of mobile devices, so I usually have the "Documents & Data" sync option off; as soon as I signed out and signed in again, I turned off "Documents & Data", so nothing happened. Only when I turned it on and relaunched Maps.app did I begin to see my iPhone on my Mac.

So, that is my trick and it worked here. I'm not sure whether it would work for others, so if you tried my trick and nothing happened, please don't complain to me. Thanks.


Putting MacBook Pro SSD into an external cradle My old MacBook Pro (2010) is now dead. It had a 500GB Samsung SSD inside (in replacement of the original HDD).

Some of the data where not in my time machine: I would like to extract the SSD and put it in an external USB cradle. As the SSD was the boot drive, do I need some special operation to read it when I'll attach it to my new computer, or is it enough to just put it in the external USB box?

--- EDIT ---
I put the SSD in an external USB3 cradle: the system mount it, but shows it empty! How can I retrieve my data?

You don't need to do anything in particular. AFAIK, the fact that it was the boot drive should not affect it in any way. Just be careful to not boot accidentally from it when you startup your computer.


How to stop an iPhone 3G from using cell data, ever? My wife has inherited my iPhone 3G and it's using a few megabytes of GPRS data every month even though she doesn't deliberately use any services that cost mobile data. The problem is that she doesn't have a data plan, so these few MB's cost as much as a few gigabytes would with a data plan.

1: How can I set up the iPhone 3G (OS 3.1.3) so that it absolutely never sends or receives any data except on wifi?

2: Also, what is sending/receiving this GPRS data if it isn't the user? My wife never launches the web browser or other Internet-needing apps.

Please don't simply suggest the obvious get a data plan because my wife doesn't want one. She wants to use the thing as a cell phone and for text messaging, but certainly absolutely positively no Internet or e-mail or whatever, except when she's on our home's wifi.

I thought I had thoroughly turned off mobile data. Here's what I've done so far (written from my memory, might be inaccurate):

Settings > General > Network:
- enable 3G = off
- cellular data = off
- data roaming = off

SBsettings:
- 3G = off
- data = off
- bluetooth = off
- location = off

Based on all this, the damn thing should only use wifi, but somehow it uses GPRS data anyway. Argh!

Solution:
Well, I didn't manage to turn off the mobile data usage despite all your very useful and helpful suggestions. Instead, I spoke with the provider and they offered me 8 months of 1GB-per-months for free, and after that I'm free to cancel it or continue at €7 per month (or whatever the rate will be at that time). They also gave me the money back for the data costs on the last bill. Very good customer service, thank you tele.ring of Austria.

In my country (Australia) we are able to ask the mobile provider to disable data on our accounts to ensure we cannot use any at all, and thus cannot be charged for it unwillingly. It might be worth calling up the provider and asking if they can disable the data service.


Is it possible to pair two separate sets of AirPods to a single iOS device? I'm aware that iOS 13 allows the audio from two separate sets of AirPods to be shared - however, I'm interested in whether two sets of AirPods can be paired to a single iOS device and listened to individually. As an example, you may have a set that you use at work, and another set at home - is this setup currently allowed by iOS?

Yes - I have AirPods Pro and AirPods and use them when I need the features of one or the other. They both pair to my devices so I can use whichever one I choose to open and use with the same device that’s playing.

What’s new in iOS 13 is one source can go to two devices - not that two different pods can pair simultaneously and connect sequentially like in the past.


How to import tasks from OmniFocus into 2Do? Is there a way to import tasks from OmniFocus into 2Do?

2Do currently has no import menu command, but you can use its URL schemes to create new tasks very flexibly. See 2Do URL Schemes. You can use the ofexport package to get your tasks out of OmniFocus, and then use some Applscript magic to generate the URL schemes and send them to 2Do. I haven't done this yet myself but am considering it were I to move to 2Do. An example AppleScript that might help can be found here.


Force USB C MacBook to run off AC power Is there a way to force a MacBook to stop charging the battery when it hasn't reached 100% and then run off of AC power? There was a way to do with with MagSafe 2 chargers.. What about USB C MacBooks?

I know battery topics are a bit contentious, but hopefully people won't argue about that too much. The best charge level to keep a Li-ion battery is around 40% and I'd like to elongate my battery health when keeping my MacBook stranded on the desk for extended periods of time. I ask also just out of curiosity as this was possible with older MacBooks. I would appreciate it if no one submitted an answer explaining to me why I am wrong—if you want to do this, please view this question as a curious thought from an Mac enthusiast.

No.  You can’t do this.

In fact the Mac, if needed, runs off both battery and AC (mains) to extract the most amount of performance from the machine.

This is all handled by the SMC and there’s nothing in the OS that gives you access to any of it.  In fact, not only is there no software access, you can’t even get the technical specifications of the chip itself from Texas Instruments (TI) nor can you purchase it from electronic suppliers - it’s “locked down” by Apple.

As for the battery issue, it’s been asked/answered several times already:

Battery Full Alert
Should I disconnect my MacBook Pro's power cord when the battery is fully charged?
Battery - Shut down or sleep an MBP
How to preserve MacbookPro battery from degradation?

The link you supplied from Battery University is about storing batteries not using them.  It’s not realistic or practical to keep batteries charged at that 40% level because you’d be tethered to a power outlet all the time.

So, as I’ve said many times before, since the main factors that govern the lifespan of your battery are cycles and age, use your MacBook for what you bought it for and stop worrying about micromanaging the charging process.


Application icon keeps reverting to generic/default icon I changed the icon of my Google Chrome application by going to the application -> get info -> clicking on the small icon in the top left of the window it opens -> pasting the new icon. It works, the icon changes, but after some indeterminate period of time, it reverts to this:

What is going on here ?

update: tried putting them in the Resources subdirectory of the chrome app like so, but to no avail

It probably reverts back to the original icon after each update. You can also change the icon by going to Macintosh HD/Applications/Google Chrome/Contents/Resources and replace the file titled app.icns with your own modified icon file. It has to be the same filename and extension. This may stop the icon reverting depending on if future updates rewrite this file.

I hope this helps


Saving a Word Doc directly to Finder When I try to "Save as…" a Word document, I used to get a Finder window and could then save it where I wish.  Instead, I now get a short list of possible places to save it.  What happened to the Finder dialog box?

So the Save... dialog box is not as tall as it used to be?

Apple hides the directory structure by default when you first go to save a document and points you to the ~/Documents directory.

To get the listing back click on the downward pointing arrow to the immediate right of the "Save..." or "Save As..." filename. That will expand the dialog box to show the directory structure and allow you to navigate to where you want to go.

Downward pointing arrow location:


I have the music logo stuck when I click music, I have turned it on and off, hit the music app and it's still frozen.

What other options do I have to fix this issue?

I perform a restore with iTunes from a previous backup and I was able to get past the screen.
After the restore I hit the music App and now I am able to use it .


What are good bi-directional, real-time synchronization utilities between Mac local folder and web server? I have an iMac that is connected to my local network (and, subsequently, the Internet) that has a folder named DocShare.

I have a web server hosted off-site through a hosting company, with a similar folder called Online DocShare that hosts an online repository of files that would be related to the DocShare folder on my iMac. This server supports WebDAV, (S)FTP, SSH, etc. for file transfer.

I would love to find a way to have those two folders, one locally on my iMac and one on my server, synchronize so that anytime I upload a file to the local DocShare, it will appear on my Online DocShare, and vice-versa. It would be great if changes to files could be reflected, and if I deleted/modified/created a file on either side, it would reflect on the opposite folder.

So, it would be real-time syncing with a constant connection to the web server, or a scheduled sync process every time interval. So far, I have found a handful of programs for Windows, but none that do this for Mac.

If possible, I would love to see it in a GUI, with a possible command-line add-on (not necessarily command-line exclusively). Please let me know what possible options I have, or if I'm all washed up and there isn't anything that does this sort of thing.

Unison is my go-to tool for a bi-directional file sync. (Mac binaries are available on a contributor's site.) I tend to think of it as a more interactive, configurable, and bi-directional version of rsync. Since it's a good *nix citizen, it can be automated via your favorite method. It's open-source and has ports to major OS platforms.

Unfortunately, Unison is no longer under active development, which may or may not be an issue for you. (I think the last time I used it was under 10.6.) But, it does fit your requirements nicely:

It handles bi-directional sync and works great on large files and data sets.
It can run in a completely automated way or interactively (where your review and confirm every change).
It runs over SSH.
GUI and CLI interfaces are available. (FWIW, the Mac GUI version, while nice/convenient, was always slightly flaky for me.)
Its end-user documentation is excellent and thorough.
It has configuration options for a multitude of use cases.
It has a design principle of leaving things in a Good State at all times, which makes it easier to recover should the connection be lost at any time.

And here's the main selling point for using it (for me, at least):

For remote SSH targets, it logs into the remote machine, runs a separate copy of Unison there to scan for changes, and then reconciles the state with your local machine to only transmit the bits (or bytes :-)) that differ, much like rsync does. This makes it very efficient with bandwidth, and it's also able to maintain caches of its file index on each side to make subsequent scans faster. For large data sets, this is a huge deal.

There are other Mac-specific tools for file synchronization, but, IIRC, they tend to assume that the filesystem is local, and are either very inefficient with bandwidth or very presumptuous about file "changes" (metadata, actual data) on large remote files / data sets.

Unison worked the way I needed it to, was reliable, and made me confident in using it due to its great documentation. Thank you, Benjamin C. Pierce!


AT-DP200 with Thunderbolt Display I have heard of an issue with using the AT-DP400 DVI-MDP Adapter with a Thunderbolt display. I heard it will output a max resolution of 720p not the 2560x1440?

Has anyone tested this setup?

Found these on the manufacturer's web site:

  Note2: The DP400 requires Dual Link video card which support 2560x1440 in order to output 2560x1440 to a display. Please make sure you card is Dual Link.

  Note3: The AT-DP400 will not support 2011 iMac 27-inch with
  Thunderbolt connection, Atlona is working on a new product which will.


Regulate Internet usage on iPhone 4S? Is there a way to regulate Internet usage on iPhone 4S? I'm looking for a program that enables me to put a limit on the time spend online (on certain sites).

Perhaps not exactly what you want, but you could try any of the browsers which offer parental controls, such as mobicip.

Here is a little how-to for setting up mobicip.


How to download the Command Line Tools for Xcode without the Downloads for Developers webpage? I'm trying to install the Command Line Tools for Xcode so that I can use homebrew to install some packages I need for some rudimentary programming exercises; I would rather not install the entirety of Xcode (again) as it's pretty bulky for something I rarely use, and I prefer a minimalistic IDE. Supposedly, Apple has released the command line tools separately, but for whatever reason, when I sign into the Downloads for Developers page, I get some sort of weird error where the page will not populate with downloads the majority of the time, and even when it will (rarely) I can't find the command tools I'm looking for.
Apparently you can also download the OSX GCC Installer from Kenneth Reitz's blog, but it seems to be obsolete now that there's an official Apple version.

Are there any other avenues I can pursue? What could be going on with the website?

The command line tools aren't offered via Xcode 5.0.1, but I was able to install them via this terminal command.

xcode-select --install

It will prompt you that it needs the command line tools and will offer to install them.  Worked like a charm for me.


How do I set Google as Safari Homepage on my iPhone? I wish to set Google as Homepage for Safari on my iPhone. I’ve tried to do it through Settings app, Safari settings and notifications but to no avail.

How do I accomplish this?

Unlike the desktop version of Safari, there is no concept of setting a Homepage in Safari for iOS. You can't set a Homepage to open automatically when you open a new tab in Safari for iOS.

But there's another approach that you can take to achieve the similar end-goal. The idea of using a Homepage in a browser, is to have a way to open the website that you visit very frequently and do so quickly.

Using Safari for iOS, you can add a shortcut to a website on your iPhone's Home Screen. It will appear just like a regular app icon, but tapping on it will open the corresponding webpage in a Safari tab, thereby serving similar purpose as a Homepage.

To add a websites to your iPhone Home Screen, simply start by opening the website (Google in your case) on your iPhone:

Now, tap on the share icon (rectangle with an upward facing arrow) shown in the toolbar at the bottom to reveal the share sheet:

Now, in the bottom row, tap on the Add to Home Screen item. The icon image is set to the website favicon and the name to the webpage title. You can change the name that will be displayed for the website. To confirm, tap on the Add button:

Upon tapping the Add button, Safari automatically goes to background and the recently added icon is shown on the iPhone Home Screen:

The icon behaves just like other app icons. You can move it to a different page on the Home Screen, move it into a folder etc. You can add as many website shortcuts on your iPhone Home Screen as you want. Technically, the icon is simply a bookmark for the website and thus occupy minuscule space on your iPhone.

You can easily remove them just like you remove any other app from your iPhone. Simply tap and hold on any icon until they all start to wiggle and cross button appears on the top left. Tap on the cross button to remove the website bookmark from your iPhone Home Screen:

Now, you can also do away with opening Google in Safari altogether. You can use Safari address bar itself to directly search for your query on Google or other select search engines. Simply open a new tab in Safari and start typing your query, and the search engine suggestions will be shown below:

You can tap on a suggestion to search for it directly, or tap on the Go button to search for the query that you have typed, using the configured search engine. By default, the search engine is set to Google. You can configure to use another search engine instead of Safari by going to Settings app → Safari → Search Engine and selecting the search engine of your choice from the available options:

Thus, technically speaking, by default, Google is already configured as your Homepage in Safari for iOS and you don't need to take any additional step (or do whatever is mentioned in the long post above ).


Macbook turns off after a minute – not in safe mode, but in all recovery modes Problem

My friend's Macbook Pro Retina Early 2015 turns off abruptly to a black screen (as far as I can tell without logs) after booting. Takes ca. 1 minute.
The last thing he remembers doing differently is plugging in an external sound card (but it didn't crash until the next day). Supporting that, audio doesn't work in safe mode and we see no internal sound device in normal mode.

The odd thing is: We can boot into safe mode and it runs fine (except sound). However, when trying to boot into Recovery mode (on disk or online), it turns off before the mode is fully loaded.

Tests/Diagnostics

The D hardware test says the hardware is fine.
In Safe mode, we can run First Aid and it complains "invalid btn_btree.keycount" and "fsroot tree is invalid – which it cannot fix. We could probably fix this in Recovery mode (but can't get in there) or in Single user (but this is Mojave, so doesn't exist).

When trying to boot into Online Recovery mode, it reproducibly: downloads everything, starts booting, then flickers to black once, then shows a beach ball, then turns off.

Things we tried:

resetting NVRAM, SMC
moving all Kexts in Extensions to the Desktop
plugging in the external Soundcard again

Next, our questions are:

Can we somehow fix the recovery partition from Safe Mode? Is there another way to run Disk Util (Target Disk?)
Can we somehow wipe the SSD and then restore from Time Machine?
Will creating a bootable USB stick help? Any reason to hope that this doesn't also just turn off (which seems likely to us given that Internet Recovery does)?
There is a new Mojave update which we could try installing in safe mode (but somehow we suspect that won't work/help)

And yeah, warranty is up. The disk is encrypted and has a firmware password. He has a current back-up and no money, so we'd prefer to somehow wipe the disk completely than take it in (problem is we don't know how – target disk mode?).

Update

He took it into a shop and the guy says the logic board gets too hot to touch within 5 seconds, so must be broken. I don't know why that does't leave any shutdown logs. We are guessing safe mode works because it puts so much less stress on the logic board? We were still thinking about killing all sound kexts or something like that, because he cannot afford the replacement.

I would test booting from an external drive running a clean installed OS. If the problem persists, then it's almost certainly a hardware problem. If not, then you are in a good place to repair the issues on the internal disk.

It is odd that Safe Mode works, but Recovery doesn't. I presume this is without the audio hardware attached? What is the audio device? Does it require drivers?

It is certainly worth trying to install the Mohave update (or a Combi installer for maximum restoration of any corrupted system files).

Failing all of this, I would take it to an Apple Store. It might be out of warrantee, but they can still diagnose and fix problems. It's possible, depending on your location, that statutory consumer rights may supersede Apple's own warrantee, if it is a hardware fault.


I installed the Stamps.com Connect to my computer and I can't uninstall I installed the Stamps.com Connect to my OS X Macbook. I cannot get rid of the stupid thing. I cancelled my subscription the day I created it but I cannot get the icon off of my menu bar not can I delete it from my applications. I have not been able to use the command key to drag the icon because that just opens it in the menu bar. In the applications file, it will not let me delete it because "it is in use." I am at my wits end. Please help. Thanks!

Your application is probably running in background, so you have to "kill it" before you can uninstall it.

Using Activity Monitor, find the Stamps.com Connect process and double click on it (using Acrobat as an example because I don't have Stamps.com; the process is the same, however).

You will then be presented with another dialog which will allow you to quit the running process:

Select "Quit."

You should then be able to uninstall the software.  As for uninstalling it, I recommend using AppCleaner.  I have used it for many years and it has been successful in removing even the most stubborn of Apps.  Plus, it's free.


I installed Xcode but I still don't have gcc in my terminal I just got a Mac and I'm a complete newbie, so this may be kind of a really easy question, but I wasn't able to solve it with Google or F1.

I was trying to run a C program from the Terminal that comes with mac, but when I used gcc test.c, it said -bash:  gcc:  command not found.  I looked up the error on Google and discovered that I needed to download Xcode.  I did that and installed it (I think, after all it runs), but I still don't have gcc in my Terminal.  What can I do?

Great question — this recently changed, so I suspect many other people are wondering the same thing.

In the latest version of Xcode, the command line tools are distributed as a separate package. Luckily they're very easy to install:

Open Xcode, and open the Preferences window (⌘+,).
Switch to the Downloads tab.
Click "Install" (or "Update") next to "Command Line Tools". You can also configure automatic updates, and additional Xcode components.

Note: since these tools are actually a completely separate package, you can install the command line tools without installing Xcode, if you don't need Xcode and want to save some disk space. They can be downloaded separately from the Apple developer site.


how to auto download a certain attachment in mail I have looked on stack exchange and other sites for a simple applescript. I have found more complex scripts that it's hard for me to understand (not knowing a lot about the applescript syntax). So, here's my dilemma:
I need to automatically download an attachment (i.e. named "blank expense report") to a specific folder (i.e. "Inbox"). That's it. I can setup the mail rule with parameters to find the attachment I'm looking for:

I just need a simple script to download the attachment.
I have looked at these but just got confused trying to alter them and actually messed up some non-essential files on my computer. So, I'll stop copying and pasting code and just ask for some help.
Questions I looked at before this.
Save attachments from Mail.app based on subject
Automatically Save Attachments in Mail.app in 10.8 Mountain Lion

This is an edited version — quite possibly not the best one — of the script shown in this answer to the Automatically Save Attachments in Mail.app in 10.8 Mountain Lion thread, I've tested it and it works:

using terms from application "Mail"
    on perform mail action with messages theMessages for rule theRule
        tell application "Mail"
            repeat with eachMessage in theMessages
                repeat with theAttachment in eachMessage's mail attachments
                    set attachmentName to name of theAttachment
                    if attachmentName is "blank expense report" then
                        set savePath to "Macintosh HD:Users:yourUsername:Inbox:" & attachmentName
                        try
                            save theAttachment in file (savePath)
                            on error err
                            display display "The Following Error Occurred:" & err
                        end try
                    end if
                end repeat
            end repeat
        end tell
    end perform mail action with messages
end using terms from

This script will save the attachment named "blank expense report" in a named "Inbox" at Machintosh HD:Users:yourUsername:Inbox. Be sure to change the value of savePath variable accordingly to your needs.


iPhone is not backing up to iCloud My iPhone 6S on IOS 9.3.2 has been set in iTunes so that it automatically backs up to iCloud. However it only backs up if I manually choose to do so from the iPhone.

The phone is charged at night and has a working WiFi connection, it is running a sleep monitor app.

Why is it not backing up and what do I need to do to make it do so?

The reason behind is because your device is not locked.
As stated in this Apple document that in order to "Automatically back up with iCloud Backup"

Make sure that iCloud Backup is turned on in Settings > iCloud > Backup
Connect your device to a power source
Connect your device to a Wi-Fi network
Make sure that your device's screen is locked
Check that you have enough available space in iCloud for the backup


Removing an icon from Mac OS X menubar when Cmd+Drag won't work I noticed this message icon show up on my menubar and I can't tell which app it belongs to. I've tried to click on the "settings" gear but it doesn't take me to anything.

The icon is a square chat icon - I would upload it but I don't have enough reputation points on this site yet to do so.

I'd like to:

Figure out which app this icon belongs to
Disallow the service/app from running on my system
Remove it from my menubar.

How can I do this?

If it is opened at login, check login items in the Users & Groups preference pane, {~,}/Library/Launch{Daemons,Agents}/, or /var/db/launchd.db/com.apple.launchd.peruser.501/overrides.plist.

You could also try opening Activity Monitor and quitting all processes that seem suspicious.


Complete mess with iMessages and SMS messages and different devices.....help I wonder if anyone on this amazing site can help. I have an iphone (have had for years). Recently it went automatically to 'blue' imessages as default.  This caused problems as it requires me or the receiver to be in wifi range for messages to be delivered, so I disabled it on my phone. So now all my messages sent are GREEN sms messages via the mobile telephony system (i.e. normal). These are free to me as included in my monthly contract.

Now the challenge - I think that OTHERS' phones are defaulting to iMessage when sending to me, but obviously not arriving with me as I have disabled iMessages.  Instead, it looks to them that the message has been sent to my phone - but the message then delivered to my iPad (which largely resides with my daughter now) as this has iMessage.

So the problem is this: how can I keep iMessage on my iPad (which could be useful sometimes) and NOT deregister my phone number with AppleID (as it may be useful somtimes when travelling to turn iMessagess back on) BUT make any attempt to send me a message to my telephone number go via SMS telephony rather than iMessage. The only solutions I can see would require them to turn off 'iMessage' default, but that is not do-able. At the moment, both sides (them, sending messages which look like they have been safely sent, and me, scratching my head about the lack of response to my SMS texts to some friends) are left in the dark.  It's not even as if the sender realises it hasn't arrived - the message simply goes to my iPad instead.

As I see it, at the moment, Apple has behaved very badly indeed in making the old system incompatible with the new one they are trying to establish, and making it impossible to set a 'first try iMessage then do SMS if there is a contract and the message has not gone to the phone number via Wifi'condition.  They are essentially making life difficult for people to move from iPhones, but in this case I even have an iPhone and simply want others to be able to text me in a way which gets through.
Any ideas? Is anyone else affected by this?

Use this apple self help tool to de-register your phone number from iMessage.  At that point Imessage will still work with an email address.  But you can't have it both ways, the problem you are encountering is that other phones ask the apple server if you are reachable by iMessage and if you are thats how the messages are routed.

You didn't ask, but you shouldn't need WIFI for iMessage to work correctly.  If it does not then likely you have changed carriers and kept the same number.  If that is the case, log out of iMessage on all devices, de-register the number with the above tool, and then re-log in, letting your number get registered.


How to extract applications as IPA files on iOS9? As of iOS9 Apple stopped allowing iTunes or any other application to backup apps to IPA files. When it comes time to do a restore, one must download all apps. This can either be done to iTunes or on the iOS device itself. The reason is because in iOS9 apps are "thinned" so that data only necessary for an iPad does not waste storage space on an iPhone.

Tools like iTools and iMazing and CopyTrans used to offer the functionality to backup apps to IPA, but have not added support for iOS9.

To question, how to backup apps to IPA so that they can be restored without downloading them again?

If you are jailbroken, there is a solution that can be batch scripted.

Install sbutils and ipainstaller from cydia

ssh to phone and run these commands:

sbbundleids > backup.txt
while read line; do
ipainstaller -b $line
done < backup.txt

and then to install the apps:

ipainstaller *.ipa

I tested a few and it allows to upgrade apps directly from app store without fuss. (same appleid, obviously)


How to prevent reopening of all programs after power outage When shutting down or logging out regularly, there is an option to reopen, or not, all the programs and their respective windows upon logging in again.

That option for me is unchecked, and the OS seems to remember that choice.

Likewise, in the General panel of System Preferences, I have it set to NOT reopen windows/documents when relaunching programs.

However, if the new login occurs after a power outage, every single program that was previous opened gets opened up and attempts to load the windows that were open, rendering my computer basically unusable for almost ten minutes or more (I often have dozens of programs open and we won't even talk about number of tabs on Chrome).

Is there a way to suppress the relaunching of programs and previously opened documents permanently and definitively?

I'm on Sierra.

For others looking for an answer to this, specifically to prevent applications restarting after a power failure, see this other AskDifferent post:

Avoiding all apps reopening when OS X crashes

The important part is to prevent the OS from writing to the ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.loginwindow* file(s) which are used to record which applications are open at any given time, and informs the OS of which applications to restore in the case of a power failure.

If you need to ensure that your system's start-up sequence is the same regardless of a manual or timed power-on, as well as a restart in the case of a power failure, then the details provided at the linked answer above, are the solution you need. This is particularly useful in cases where the system is being used to power a kiosk or a similar setup.

I recommend following the "GUI method" outlined in the linked answer, which first involves emptying the file of any references to currently open applications, then locking the file, using the Get Info window's Lock option. This prevents the file being written to going forwards, and ensures the file remains empty of references to currently running applications. As such the system will restart from a power failure, in the same way as it would under normal start-up conditions.


Is this a feasible security measure for my retail iPod Touches? I'm considering using several iPod Touch devices as mobile computers in a retail setting.
If I did do this, I'd have to provide some measure of security for them.  I'm thinking of using the retail anti theft towers.

I've found some two inch by two inch stickers that are designed for library books.  In theory all I'd need would be towers of the same frequency as the stickers.

The fourth generation iPod Touch teardown shows that the screen is easily lifted from the body of the device and shows an EMI shield covering the rest of the device.

Would it be possible to attach one of these stickers and still have the screen close flush against the body?  Would it sitting between the screen and the bulk of the device interfere with the ability of the detection tower to detect the sticker?  Would the sticker interfere with the performance/lifespan of the iPod Touch?

Basically, is this a feasible security measure?
If someone knows how Apple secures their retail iPod touch/barcode scanners that would also be very useful.

You'd be better off looking for a sticker to put on top of your security sticker, and stick the sticker sandwich on the back of the device. Just use something that would be too time consuming to remove before trying to exit with the device, which would set off your alarm.  The theory being that by not hiding your effort to thwart a theft, you may deter the theft to begin with. Otherwise, it looks like a free iPod touch that nobody will notice is gone. I'd make it as obvious as possible that there's a thief detector installed on the device.

Also: read about Find My iPod Touch


macOS Automator run Expect Script How do I run a expect script in macOS Automator?

As it is possible to see in the picture, there is no such option
its a script of type:
!/usr/bin/expect

expect can be called from an Automator action but it must be indirect.

Within your Automator Run Shell Script action, call out to expect with something like:

#!/bin/sh
expect -f /absolute/path/to/expect/script


Sleep / hibernation logic on OS X I'm wondering what is a logic of sleep/hibernate of the OS X System.

On the lid closing MacBook should go to sleep - it is obvious but.. What if the machine is running only on batteries and it is in sleep mode for a long time (until complete discharge of the bateries). Does OS X will store RAM on disk to keep user work safe?

It depends on how you have configured the hibernate bits in the power manager.

Setting aside desktop machines which by default to not write anything to persistent storage when the system enters sleep, the default behavior is to write a copy of RAM to storage so that either power remains to wake the machine from RAM or the system will detect the sleep image and restore from that rather than booting from a clean state.

You can set more exotic combinations using pmset and a shell, but it is not officially "supported".


Mackbook Pro Retina and health? I just changed from a normal macbook pro to the gorgeous mbp retina display, I have been using it 3 days and Im starting with headaches and eye pain!
I really dont know wats happening, I mean the display is beautiful but although I use it in the minor bright Im still having eye and head issues!

If anyone can help me with an experience or something it would be really nice.

Because objects are smaller a sharper your eyes are trying to focus on that.

The constant focusing strains your eye muscles, resulting in eye pain and headache.

I would see a optometrist and get a prescription, or just buy a reading glasses at any store, starting a 0.5 strength to see it that helps (they cost around $5)


Restoring a Modern Mac Laptop from an External Backup Drive Is it possible to "re-clone" a modern mac laptop (i.e. no removable hard drive) from an external (non Time Machine) hard drive?

That is, I'm about to buy a new Mac laptop for the first time in 5 years, and I'm reviewing my backup strategy.  I've typically kept an up to date external hard drive with a recent version of my machine cloned (via a program like SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Clone), and if I ran into hard drive failures I could just pop the cloned drive in my laptop and be back up and running right away (restoring files from between the last clone and failure for other, external backup sources)

It's my understanding modern mac laptop don't have removable hard drives -- it's all SSD chips permanently attached to the mother board. It's also my understanding Thunderbolt doesn't have an equivalent to Firewire's target disk mode.

So, if my new Mac laptop fails and Apple gives me a replacement laptop (or I buy a replacement laptop), is there a way to take this fresh machine and re-clone its hard drive so it matches what's on my external backup drive?  Or am I left manually copying files from my backup?

I think the 'modern equivalent' of your anticipated disaster recovery scenario could still be done by CCC, with caveats.

Receive new machine, ready with Recovery partition & brand new OS, clone CCC boot partition back to new boot partition. Assuming parity with machine/drivers etc, i.e. like for like, then I foresee no issues.

The same maybe couldn't be said if the new machine was different, newer - as you cannot anticipate the new architecture - for that you'd need Time Machine, to be certain.


Is there a way I can import ReadItLater's exported html file into my Instapaper? Is there a way I can import my ReadItLater's exported html file into my Instapaper?

Though I don't have a tool now, I guess it can be done in couple of ways. Yes, no one click solution.

Email each url to your personal instapaper id (Refer this Lifehacker article)
Can parse your export list and use simple API from Instapaper to add the links to your account. Refer API docs

Update:

As I said earlier, it is not a one click solution but doable. As a matter of fact, I did create an extension for chrome to do this. Here is the link http://minus.com/mc3va2C

Update 2:

The source of the extension is available @ https://github.com/palaniraja/RIL2Insta


Is there a way to order all the files and folders automatically? I am new to OS X, but there's one thing that annoys me a little bit, which is that every time I have to clean up all the files (by name, for example) because they are always pasted in an unordered way.

I would not like to lose time to order them every time I change the content of the folders.

Instead of using Clean Up By, use Arrange By. This both cleans up the layout and sets the default sort order for the folder for the future so that any modifications to the folder will update the sort order.


TestFlight download link returning HTTP error 404? I opened the link https://developer.apple.com/testflight/, and then clicked on the Download button. It shows me HTTP error 404.

The link returning the HTTP error 404 is:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/testflight/id899247664?mt=8

Can anyone please let me know what I did wrong?

That link is working for me so either your network is not routing enough traffic correctly to the server or the farm of servers Apple operates to run the store has one endpoint that's failing or down.

If you try again in 30 minutes or try from a different network (LTE / different carrier / different WiFi network) that might help you isolate if the network error is close to your device.

You also would want to do the usual things to rule out software or run time corruption on your iOS device. Restart the device - test other store links - sign out and back in to your App Store on a known good network.

In the end - you'd contact Apple online store support after you're sure it's not your device.


How to move all of my mails to external HD and make them appear only when its connected I have 200 GB of mails, and I would like to place them in an external hard drive, and to make the appear, in the Mail.app, only when this external HD is connected.

Is this possible?

Confirming your requirement.

You want to remove all (or specific account) emails (from mail.app) from your hard drive and move them to a external drive. (this is not to have a copy of your emails on the hard drive).

Than you want the Mail.app to use that external drive from now on as email database.

One way to accomplish this is as follows:

It is called symbolic link. What it does is you create a link in your mail so it looks for your emails on the external drive.

Step 1: Find the file you need to move and move it.
The Mail files are stored in /Users//Mail and /Users//Mail Downloads. To get to these files, open a new finder window and press Command+Shift+G and type “/Users/(YOU)/Library/” . This takes you to the Library folder, where you’ll see both Mail and Mail Downloads. Grab both of those files and move them to your external drive.

Step 2: Delete the files you moved from the Library folder. (if you worry about deleting then just move to desktop for now). In other words, make it so that the files do NOT exist in your Library folder, but they DO exist on your external drive.

Step 3: Create a Symbolic Link to the folders on the external drive.
Download the SymbolicLinker App and install it by clicking the “SymbolicLinker.service” file within the DMG file. Once installed, you can then go to the files on the external drive, right click and select “Make Symbolic Link” at the very bottom of the menu. This will create a folder right next to the actual folder.

Step 4: Move the Symbolic links to the Library folder. If you’ve already closed the Library folder window, re-open with the instructions from Step 1. Once open, drag the symlink files on the external hard drive that you created in Step 3, over to the Library folder. Once they’re both in the library folder rename them so they have the EXACT same name as the actual files did (in other words, remove the “symlink” at the end of the file name).

If you’ve followed all the steps you should now have links in the Library folder that point to the actual folders that are now on the external drive. From here on, it’d probably be a bad idea to rename your external drive. You might be able to without it breaking, but it doesn’t sound like it’d be a good idea (test first). Also, if the external drive isn’t mounted on the OS (it’s not plugged in) then you’ll be unable to open Mail (since the files for Mail are on the external drive now).

Copyright 2003-2011 Nick Zitzmann.


FTDI USB to serial module doesn't work in Catalina I can see FTDI module in system report

But in arduino it doesn't show up

I read that macOS comes with USBSerial.kext which can handle this but I don't see it working for me.
I have tried installing FTDI driver and I can see .kext in /system/library/extensions and still doesn't work.
Response from FTDI regarding signed drivers

Apple are moving from what are called Kernel Extentions (.kexts) to what are called Driver Extensions (.dexts) for the implementation of drivers starting in macOS Catalina (10.15). Currently .kexts are still supported in macOS Catalina, however after the beta release they issued an update which stopped our driver from loading. This update required our driver (FTDIUSBSerialDriver.kext) to be re-signed and notarized, we completed this process with an updated Apple Developer ID (as they lapse every two years). Unfortunately when Apple issued our new Developer ID to re-sign and notarize the driver package they did so without the .kext support option enabled (as .kexts are being deprecated it is no longer automatically included). This is why there is a code signature issue with our driver, currently we are waiting on Apple issuing us with the correct Developer ID to be able to sign .kexts for macOS Catalina.
As such our current VCP driver available on the website has a signature issue and wont load. However if the device you are using implements a default FTDI VID/PID combination it should be picked up by the inbuilt AppleUSBFTDI.dext driver and present accordingly in the ‘/dev’ folder on your system in the following form:
/dev/cu.usbserial-xxxxxxxx
/dev/tty.usbserial-xxxxxxxx

UPDATE: Module works with High sierra 10.13.6

I followed the FTDI forum as well and got it to work with their 2.4.4 driver. Keep in mind that only the old 2.4.2 driver is available on their website as of now.


Import photos from external disk into iCloud Photo Library via MacBook Air with not enough HD space I have 60 GB of photos on an external hard disk.
I also have a MacBook Air with an empty iPhoto app. The MacBook has 15 gigs left of HD space.

Can I import these photos directly into the iCloud Photo Library?

I can only find articles which explain how to upload your complete library to iCloud, after which it starts optimising for storage. However I don't have enough space to fit all  my photos on the internal hard disk.

First, you will have to update to Photos app on OS X, as iPhoto is not compatible with iCloud Photo Library.
Activate iCloud Photo Library and subscribe a storage plan that accommodates your pictures and anything else you have there (iOS Backups, for instance). Select the "Optimize Mac Storage" on the Photos app Preferences > iCloud pane.

Then import batches of 10 GB or so of your pictures to the empty Photos app library; given you will have only 5 GB left I assume it will start optimizing right away. When you regain some space, you can add another batch.


How can I limit the headphone max volume on OS X? So I hurt my ears from excessively loud music last week at work. I'm well aware of the volume down key of course, but I tend to crank it up too much throughout the day without noticing it.

I need a limiter and it needs to be system-wide, since I listen to various other sound sources aside from iTunes. This isn't really an issue on my phone, since I can set a volume limit in the iOS settings.

Is there an equivalent built-in or third-party fix for OS X Lion?

I now got a working solution based on one of the links in Michiel's answer, but let's spell it out more clearly.

What I did was to

Download volimiter, a faceless CLI application.
Pair it upp with Lingon, a launchdaemon manager.
Set volimiter to launch on login with preferred setting:

volimiter .6

.6 means 60% of volume.

Works terrific!


Outlook 2011 search doesn't work anymore Whenever I use the search-field on Outlook 2011 I get "No results".

After installation it worked for a while, but now it's just quit on me...

Any tips to make it work again? Resetting some index, recalculate some tables or something equally obscure?

Thanks

Outlook for Mac search uses Spotlight. Check Spotlight settings to make sure Outlook isn't excluded. If not, rebuild Spotlight index database. Lots of free utilities like ONYX for this or terminal command: sudo mdutil -E


How do I bridge a wifi connection from MacOS [I have used WiFi bridging in Windows 10 to share my WiFi with other devices. This was done on my Mac using Windows 10 on Bootcamp.  Specifically, I want to share WiFi to WiFi.

How can I achieve the same on macOS?

Here's what I'm seeing in Internet Sharing:

I assume your question is how to share the WiFi internet connection you have with other devices on a cabled network.

You do this by opening System Prefences > Sharing and selecting Internet Sharing:

For "Share your connection from" choose "Wi-Fi".

For "To computers using" select the network that you want to share it with - usually this is "Ethernet".

This achieves connection sharing by using NAT.

If you actually want to bridge your WiFi connection with a cabled connection, so that devices on your cabled connection would work like they were connected directly to the WiFi, it can be achieved like this:

Open System Preferences > Network.

Click the cog wheel below the device list and select "Manage Virtual Interfaces".

Click the plus button and select "New Bridge".

Select "Wi-Fi" and the network you want to share it with - usually this is "Ethernet".

Click Create.


What to do with "There was a problem enabling iCloud Backup" on iPad? I just upgraded to iOS 5 on my iPad and during the intro session it asks you if you want to "back up to iCloud".  Choosing yes, gives the error "There was a problem enabling iCloud Backup".  Any ideas?

The iCloud System Status page lists several problems on 13 October.
Others have said they had the same problem, so maybe one of the troubleshooting pages linked from the iCloud Backup Support page might help?
Later: Yes, it does help. this linked page 'iCloud: troubleshooting creating backups' lists specific error messages and says of yours:

"There was a problem enabling iCloud Backup."
There are various reasons that this can occur. If you receive this alert, wait and try again later. If you receive a more specific alert message as well, make any required adjustments and try again. If you continue to receive this generic alert, contact iCloud Support for assistance.


How To Identify Process From A Toolbar Icon or Window? How does one identify which process is behind a certain tool bar icon without having to rely on asking someone on the know or just killing processes until the icon in question magically disappears? For X11 there are tools like xwininfo. Is there anything similar for (older) OS X versions like Mavericks?

An example case: How to figure which process (by process ID) has produced the highlighted icon on my toolbar? I'm happy to do some programming if necessary, but would rather not reinvent the wheel here.

A partial solution to this problem would be to use Accessibility Inspector, as described on one of answers. However, quite often it does not reveal enough information (nor does it allow one to go get all the way to the process ID without some manual labor on the way).

For example, for the icon above Accessibility Inspector is not much of help:

You can use Accessibility Inspector bundled with Xcode. Then select the element and press ⌘CMD+F7 to lock the element. Then Select AXApplication in "Hierarchy" and then Go To Element button. There under the accessibilityTitle You'll have the name of the application.

Here's the screenshot where You can find 1Keyboard app selected.


If I remove my apple ID account on my Iphone 4s, does it delete the data on iCloud on that device only? If I remove my apple ID account on my Iphone 4s, does it delete the data on iCloud on that device only? I already have an Iphone 5s which is using the same apple ID. And planning to sell my Iphone 4s. Please help me. Thanks!

Removing your Apple ID account from your iPhone should have no affect on the data stored in iCloud. You can safely sign out of iCloud and related services from your iPhone. In doing that, read the prompts to confirm that you are not as they look rather ominous at times, but should only be telling you that data will be removed from the phone.


how do I backup apps stored on the phone? I've recently made iTune backups (not iCloud) of my iDevices and iTunes copied the apps to the local drive. I tried doing the same thing on my wife's iPhone but the apps arent' getting copied. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. But I'm only pressing backup on iTunes.

Thanks! :)

Go to File -> Devices -> Transfer Purchases from "iPhone". If that doesn't do it, authorize first with Store -> Authorize This Computer... with the same Apple ID you used to purchase those apps, and then try again.


The volume can't be ejected because it's currently in use After working with an external USB backup disk I want to cleanly unmount the drive. When pressing the 'eject' button Finder warns me with the message:

"The volume can't be ejected because it's currently in use."

or

"The disk "Diskname" wasn't ejected because one or more programs may be using it.".

or when trying to use the Terminal: umount /Volumes/Diskname

"umount(/Volumes/Diskname): Resource busy -- try 'diskutil unmount'"

As far as I am aware, I am not using this disk but Finder says I do, so I must be wrong. I prefer a clean unmount of the drive. As I am in the middle of doing multiple tasks, logging out and logging in is not preferred as is the installation of third party software.

Terminal command lsof might be of use here, but personally I think this is too complex for such a 'simple' problem and to be honest, I do not know how to use it properly.

My question: How do I know what program is using my drive so I can properly quit that program and eject my drive?

lsof is indeed your best bet. The fastest and easiest way would be this :-

sudo lsof /Volumes/myDrive

It can take a couple minutes to run, but once it's complete, it gives you a list of open files on the disk. The output will look something like this:

COMMAND    PID  USER   FD   TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF  NODE NAME
mds         89  root   19r   DIR   52,3      432     2 /Volumes/Photos
mds         89  root   23r   DIR   52,3      432     2 /Volumes/Photos
Finder     681 alans   14r   DIR   52,3      432     2 /Volumes/Photos
QuickLook 2158 alans    9r   REG   52,3  1141591 78651 /Volumes/Photos/_tmp_iphone_10_backup/APC_1546.JPG

In this case, it's the QuickLook application that has a file open. Closing the application directly is the best way to fix the issue. However, that's not always possible. For example, QuickLook doesn't show up as an application you can get to in the Dock.

If you can't close the application manually, you can use the kill command to terminate it from the command line. To do that, use the PID from the second column as the ID to kill. From the above example, it would be:

kill 2158

Note that sometimes that doesn't work and a more aggressive form of kill must be used. Here's a series of escalating aggressiveness (using the example PID of 2158):

kill 2158
sudo kill 2158
sudo kill -INT 2158
sudo kill -KILL 2158

You should be able to eject the disk once the process/application has been killed.

One final note, lsof can take a minute or two. It can also hang, but you should give it at least a few minutes before you decide that's what happened.

Also, sometimes the base command sudo lsof /Volumes/myDrive won't find anything. If that happens, try adding the +D argument (i.e. sudo lsof +D /Volumes/myDrive). That will do a top down scan of the disk. It'll take longer, but it should pick up anything that's causing the disk to be un-ejectable.

(Hat tip to Alec Jacobson's post for extra details.)


Import HEVC video from iPhone 7 to Final Cut Pro The video format in iPhone 7, new iOS 11, changed to HEVC and will not show up in Final Cut Pro browser. Can not drag from Photos to FCPX.

The only solution until Apple release the next version of Final Cut Pro X is to not shoot in HEVC, or convert before moving to FCP.

  If you haven’t yet shot video you need to edit with FCP, there’s an
  easy fix.

  Go into the phone’s Settings and choose Camera. Then choose Formats.
  There you’ll find two options. By default, High Efficiency will be
  checked. You want to check Most Compatible.

  If you have existing HEVC footage you need to edit in FCP, there’s a
  slightly less easy workaround.

  Import the clip into the Photos app on your Mac. Then, once it’s fully
  imported (which could take a little while depending on how much video
  we’re talking about here), then just select the clip(s) you need and
  Export them from Photos. Photos will export them with a codec that
  Final Cut Pro X can read. So once the clip(s) is/are exported from
  Photos to whatever location you chose, then open Final Cut Pro and
  import the clip(s) you just exported from Photos.

Source: You can’t yet edit iOS 11 iPhone video in FCP X, fix likely coming soon


Where can I find a list of bugs in the current release of OS X? I thought perhaps this question would be a list of bugs, but it's been closed.

Is there another place out there where I can find this info? And when I say the current release I mean whichever release is current at the time that you're looking for the information.

Certainly Apple does not provide such info and I have never seen any place which systematically compiles user complaints into that kind of list.  So as far as I know, the answer is "no".


AppStoreConnect - Cant Submit App For Review ? So I've been working on my own app , I finally finished everything and my app is ready to publish , I completed each step to publish my app to the AppStore . So I visited AppStoreConnect to publish my app , But I cant submit the App because the "Submit App Review" button isnt clickable .

Any idea why this is occurring ?

The most likely cause for this is the holiday schedule. As per Apple:

  App Store Connect Holiday Schedule: Dec 23–27

  Make sure your apps are
  up to date and ready for the holidays. New apps and app updates will
  not be accepted December 23 to 27 (Pacific Time), so any releases
  should be submitted, approved, and scheduled in advance. Other App
  Store Connect and developer account features will remain available.

If you feel this isn't the cause for your issue, then the next thing to check is that you haven't forgotten to provide some info in one of the required fields. Any fields with missing data will be highlighted for your convenience.

One thing that also catches people out is the Build. Make sure you've clicked on the + symbol to choose the build you want to submit.


Can you buy a Series 2 Apple Watch body-only? I already own, and still use my original release Apple Watch, released Spring 2015. I love the bands that I own and have no need nor interest in another one.

Apple's Gallery and Pre-Order page lists the body and bands together, is it possible to buy a Series 2 Watch Body only, and forego the band?

Apple Watch bands fit the watch based on its size, either 38MM or 42MM, and are interchangeable between both series, however at the present time Apple only sells the Apple Watch, either series, with a band. There is no SKU available in the computer to order without a band.  This information is current as of this moment having just contacted Apple sales directly, at the local Apple Store, seeking to purchase an Apple Watch without a band.


Get a DVD onto my iPhone Is there an official way to take my DVD and put it on my iPhone?

There isn't an "official" way but a common and easy method is to rip the DVD with a utility like HandBrake and then drop it in iTunes to sync with your iPhone. The US Supreme Court ruled that

  nothing in the agreement prevents you
  from making copies of DVDs. Nothing
  requires that a DVD be present during
  playback.

So yes, it is legal. source


Do Banners always slow down an app when they appear? I have an iPad 2 and I've noticed every time I receive a Banner style notification (the temporary pop in bar at the top of the screen) inside of a game app the game visibly stutters for half a second.

Is this just how banners always affect performance? If I disable banners for an app will that eliminate the speed hiccup or is this a problem with the behind-the-scenes notifications too?

This is the current state of iOS. You'll notice that incoming calls and pop ups (the old style notification) also negatively affect the performance of current app.


What is lsof -i | grep -E "(LISTEN|ESTABLISHED)" composed of? I got advice to check if an iTunes app sends data to the cloud using this command line

lsof -i | grep -E "(LISTEN|ESTABLISHED)"

Can someone please explain how this works? How does the pipeline work here?

First lsof is executed:

lsof - list open files

with the option -i:

  -i [i]   selects  the  listing  of  files any of whose Internet address
                  matches the address specified in i.  If no address  is  speci-
                  fied, this option selects the listing of all Internet and x.25
                  (HP-UX) network files.

So you get a list similar to this:

Safari      252 pfitz   33u  IPv4 0x1052718d4b4f54ef      0t0  TCP localhost:49289->localhost:6263 (ESTABLISHED)
Safari      252 pfitz   36u  IPv4 0x1052718d4b4f54ef      0t0  TCP localhost:49289->localhost:6263 (ESTABLISHED)
iTunes      254 pfitz   28u  IPv4 0x1052718d460f9d07      0t0  TCP *:49196 (LISTEN)
iTunes      254 pfitz   30u  IPv4 0x1052718d460fb4ef      0t0  TCP *:daap (LISTEN)
iTunes      254 pfitz   31u  IPv6 0x1052718d37b6b627      0t0  TCP *:daap (LISTEN)

with a lot more entries. To filter the entries one uses grep:

  The grep utility searches any given input files, selecting lines that
  match one or more patterns.  By default, a pattern matches an input
  line if
       the regular expression (RE) in the pattern matches the input line without its trailing newline.  An empty expression matches every line.
  Each
       input line that matches at least one of the patterns is written to the standard output.

  grep is used for simple patterns and basic regular expressions (BREs); egrep can handle extended regular expressions (EREs).  See
  re_format(7) for
       more information on regular expressions.  fgrep is quicker than both grep and egrep, but can only handle fixed patterns (i.e. it does
  not interpret
       regular expressions).  Patterns may consist of one or more lines, allowing any of the pattern lines to match a portion of the input.

and the option -E does the following:

  -E, --extended-regexp

  Interpret pattern as an extended regular expression (i.e. force grep to behave as
  egrep).

The regex in this case is "(LISTEN|ESTABLISHED)" which means just print the lines with listen or established.

Conclusion

lsof builds a list with all Internet connections.
To be useful it needs to be filtered with grep
So it gets filtered with the regular expression which is looking for either LISTEN or ESTABLISHED


Keeping my birthday private I was required to give my birthday when creating an Apple ID. How do I now keep this information private? I see it has appeared on my Google calendar and I am hoping it does not appear on my contacts' calendars as well.

Your birthday will be private. Read the privacy policy if you're concerned about it.

If your birthday appears in your calendar, it's probably because your birthday has been added to your private card in Address Book. There's an option to show birthdays in Calendar. However the birthdays are only showed to you, not your contacts.

Beware of entering an erroneous birth date. Apple can ask you your birthday to verify you're the actual owner of the Apple ID for security purpose. So if you enter a false birthday, be sure not to forget it.


LibreOffice doesn't have an icon In the application menu LibreOffice has no icon. How can I add it to it?


How to start using an inherited iPhone? My relative died and I inherited her iPhone. Her number was disconnected. Can I get a new phone number and a SIM card from a store? How can I start using this phone?

You may be limited in your choice of carrier, but as you surmise, the thing to do is visit a store. If the phone was locked to a specific carrier, you may need to get your plan from the same carrier, particularly if your preferred carrier is a CDMA carrier like Verizon. If you prefer to use a GSM carrier, the carrier can provide a SIM card and should also be able to unlock the phone from the previous carrier. (Provided, of course, the phone in question has a SIM card slot. I believe the original iPhone 4 did not if it was on Verizon or Sprint.)

The other caveat is that if it was running the iOS 7 software and your relative turned on the activation lock feature, you will not be able to use the phone until you gain control of her Apple ID. Going to visit an Apple Store may be able to help with this.


iOS birthday calendar duplicates not removable My iPhone is suffering from a bug which seems to be quite common and talked about on the web. Despite my research on Google, Apple Forums and Ask Different I still not have a solution...

In the iOS Calendar App there is 2 'Birthday' calendars bellow the 'other' section when I tap the 'Calendars' button at the bottom of the screen and there is no option to remove them (neither in the app nor in the iPhone Settings). The only available option is to uncheck them.

Strangely only one contains birthdays from my Contacts Adresse Book while the other one is empty.

I only use iCloud for Contacts, Calendar and Reminders accounts (my other Google and Exchange accounts are set on Mail only).

I tried many solutions found around the web including ones given by Apple (turning off Calendar, Contacts and Reminders in iCloud settings, and then turning back on after a while), I tried solutions given by users (closing apps, deactivate iCloud, rebooting the phone) and I tried restoring my iPhone.

Note: I have an iPhone 7 Plus with iOS 11 installed and an early-2015 MacBookAir. I'm also using iCloud since the beginning of its existence.

Thank you in advance for your help!

EDIT:

As asked in the comments here is somes screenshots for clarity (feel free to ask more, i'll upload as soon as possible).

Sorry for the French language in second screenshot (as well as for the cropped aspect, I don't have access to a computer for now). Note that I tried to uncheck the "show birthday calendar" in iCloud Calendar Settings and  when I came back later it was still enabled (I didn't forget to hit the save button, however and I tried several times).

What email addresses that you have added to your device have calendar checked on as an option?

Its likely that your calendars are the possible culprit. Try turning off the ones you don't need.


How to disable Acrobat Reader in Safari? In Safari, the default PDF-Viewer in Safari is "Preview".

Unfortunately, since I installed the Acrobat Reader, this default changed to the Acrobat Reader, which is extremely annoying.

How can I change this back to "Preview"?

Go to the "Help" menu in Safari and select "Installed Plug-ins". This will open a new tab displaying information about all of the currently installed plug-ins. Find the entry for Adobe Acrobat. Below it will be a line that reads something like:

Adobe® Acrobat® Plug-in for Web Browsers — from file “AdobePDFViewer.plugin”.

Note the name of the file from that line.

On your hard drive you will find a Library folder.  In that folder will be another folder called Internet Plug-Ins. Inside that folder you should find the file that was shown in the "Installed Plug-ins" tab. The full path should be /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/AdobePDFViewer.plugin. That file needs to be deleted.  Dragging it to the trash will do the trick.

If you are not sure you want to delete the file, you can move it to another location. For instance, you could create a new folder named "Disabled Plug-Ins" in the "Installed Plug-Ins" folder, and move the file to the new folder.

Then quit & relaunch Safari.

Adobe acknowledges this is a "known issue" and recommends this procedure.