What's the best iPhone SIP apps work internationally and allow recording? So far, Siphon is the best SIP app I've tried.
MobileVOIP and TruPhone are very nice too (and don't need jailbreaking).
Other apps offer at least some SIP features such as Nimbuzz, Fring, Viber and even Skype.
Apple's FaceTime audio clearly is an option for some

While I have all of these, I hardly use any of them, for a variety of reasons.

I'm looking for a more ideal third party app that should:

Integrate with both Address Book and the iPhone's native recent calls
Replace phone.app and load rapidly to place phone calls
Have international number support
Allow call recording

As a plus,
- Support Skype, Google (talk, voice, etc) and integrate with other options if possible

I've used Acrobits SoftPhone (link goes to their site, iTunes link below) for some time, thought admittedly very sparsely and only for the simplest of use cases, so, much of this is taken from their site.

Use the OS' Address Book: Yep, it maintains it's own "quick list" (favorites) however.
and global Recent Calls list: Nope, maintains it's own (pretty sure this one is impossible anyways, "private APIs" and all that).

Load as fast as Phone.app: I call this subjective, because Phone.app is always running, which gives it an inherit speedup compared to anything else. Acro's SoftPhone does support the VoIP backgrounding, and even push, so you can "Swipe To Answer", but it still takes at least a couple seconds to do. (At least that's how it feels, comparatively speaking.)

International Number Support: I think this is not so much a client feature as much as it is a feature of your server you SIP register to. This one is unknown to me as I've never attempted to call an international (outside the US) number.

Allow Recording: Yes. Upon tapping the record button, a voice announcement is played, and then conversation is recorded and able to be replayed from the app.

Skype: Nope

Google Voice: Yep, but to what extent, I am unsure. Per their website:

  GoogleVoice users:  Though we have integrated GoogleVoice, Acrobits Softphone's main use is as a SIP client.  You can setup Acrobits Softphone to initiate GoogleVoice calls through other types of numbers, but to get the full functionality of Acrobits Softphone, you need to have GoogleVoice linked to a SIP Account.

Rest: If it's SIP, it should work.

Bonus: It supports ZRTP. Zimmerman's encrypted RTP protocol for SIP calls. Free for incoming calls, in-app purchase for initiating calls using it.

iTunes Link: Acrobits Softphone.


MacOS Bug Sur can format drive but can't mount it I have an USB-stick and I can format the Stick but when I try to mount it following error occurs:
The error is on german, it means "Mounting of "Ohne Titel" has failed. (com.apple.DiskManagement.disenter -Error -119930873)"

I can't find any solutions online and don't know what to do.
There are no data on this stick so I can easily format it.

After a bit of "googling" I can see the problem occurs to other people too.
Try to follow the guide proposed below before you go a step further.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252126476
Just to reason a bit more on the problem: have you modified the settings of the stick via software or hardware ( e.g. moving an unlock button)?
This guys solved with a software different from Disk Utility, but I don't think it is necessary.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252081600


Where do I get the correct Boot Camp Support Software for my machine? I have an old Macbook running Snow Leopard. I have used Boot Camp (3.0) to install Windows 7. I understand that after installing Windows I need to install the Boot Camp Support Software.

Before installing Windows 7, Boot Camp Assistant gave me the option of downloading the support software. However, it turned out that this wasn't possible. I got the error message "Download could not continue. The Windows support software is not available online." So I installed Windows hoping I could get the support software from somewhere else.

I've downloaded several versions of the support software from:
https://support.apple.com/downloads/%255C%2522Boot%2520Camp%25203%255C%2522

…but none of these work when I run them in Windows. I get one of two messages: "This version of Boot Camp is not intended for this computer model" and "Boot Camp x64 is unsupported on this computer model".

I have also tried running the setup on the Snow Leopard install DVD. With this, I get the message: "Boot Camp x64 is unsupported on this computer model"

Windows works but I don't have audio so I want to install the correct drivers Can anyone point me to the correct version of the support software?

Specs of my installation:

Macbook Core 2 Duo (4,1) Early 2009
OS X Snow Leopard (fully updated)
Bootcamp Assistant 3.0.4
Windows 7 Professional

If you follow the links given in this tutorial, you will find the drivers for your Mac can be downloaded from the Apple website Boot Camp Support Software 4.0.4033. If you are installing 64 bit Windows 7, 8 or 10, then you can follow the instructions given as the accepted answer to the question Using Boot Camp Support Software 4.0.4033 to install 64 bit Windows 7 or 8.


How do I sync contacts between 2 iCloud accounts? I need to sync my contact list with my husband's phone. We both have our own iCloud accounts.

The easiest way to do this as a one time thing, is to open Contacts.app on a Mac that is set up on your iCloud account. Select all contacts and drag them to the desktop. That will export them all as a .vcard file.

Then move the file to another account on a Mac set up with your husband's iCloud account. Open Contacts.app, and drag the .vcard file into the app.

That will get all of your contacts into his account. But this will be a one time thing, and you may get some duplicates.


Protecting the palm-rest area of a MBP with a non-permanent cover I have a new MacBook, and love using its keyboard. However, I fear that the area where I rest my palms will get dirty over time - a shame, considering how great the unibody aluminum looks!

The industry standard of protection solutions seems to be the Moshi PalmGuard. What I don't like about it is that it's permanent: you stick it onto the machine. It promises to come off without a trace, but I would still prefer a solution that I can put in place, and remove whenever I want.

Are there any solutions for this? I do not use the trackpad, so it could well cover the entire front area for my purposes.

I love a clean mac and have seen all sorts of ones with all manner of paint, grease, and plain old skin oil and dirt. I would worry about the keyboard more than the palm rests. (the area with speaker perforations and the keyboard tray area)

I always start with plain water to clean, then move to either alcohol or a light detergent (very watery mix) with no colors or scents if possible. I use that all over the mac - but the aluminum area you indicated is both solid and not affected by much stronger cleaners. I have seen macs with nail polish and acrylic paints come clean in that area.

As long as your cloth is damp and not dripping, even cleaning the trackpad area won't introduce liquid to the battery bay. It's of course best to have the mac off, just in case there is a spill to avoid a short.


How do I delete files open in Preview? I'm having an issue with "Preview" on the Mac. When I open a document with it, I can't find the button to delete it while in preview. What I have to do now is open Launchpad to drag the document to the Trash. Does anyone know how to delete a file while in Preview?

According to this answer, you can't delete the last file that's open in a Preview window:

  Preview won't allow you to cmd-delete, or "move to trash", or even drag and drop to trash, the last file it has open.

If there is more than one PDF open in a single Preview window however, you can delete them up until the last one.

Those questions might also be helpful for you:

How do I "Move to Trash" in Preview in OS X Lion? - Super User
Preview- move to Trash - Ask Different
Deleting a file from inside Lion’s Preview.app - Ask Different


iOS shortcuts: Is there any way to input key presses into a call after it is connected? What I'm looking to do is create a shortcut to call into a work conference line that has a fairly complex set of key presses and voice input needed to connect. Here are the steps for manually connecting:

Call main number
7
Wait (comma pause)
1234#
Wait (comma pause)
Speak name
#

In the contact phone number itself, I have everything through number 5 working with a series of well timed “pauses” (i.e. NNN-NNN-NNNN,,7,,,1234#,,,).  Technically I can make the whole series work this way if I'm content to speak my own name but this is an exercise in curiosity more than necessity.

I can get Siri to speak my name from text (not sure if it will be heard by the phone mic yet).  But I can’t seem to pause that step until the previous steps are complete.  Since I can’t anticipate how long it will take for the call to initially connect, I can’t simply pause that step for a fixed number of seconds.

The other thing I can’t figure out is how to automate the final # keypress (in the shortcuts command chain) after the voice input where the call is already connected.

Any help is appreciated... Thanks.

FYI, I ran this and discovered that unless you turn on the speaker phone, the spoken audio will come through the phone headset.
You could try doing this as a shortcut.
Step 1, you would have to have the phone dial the sequence that you have listed with the pauses.  That would have to be a pre-set contact.
Step 2, you have to set a Wait. You'd have to set the seconds that you need to wait for the call to go through, step through the dial in prompts, before this next step.
Step 3, turn up your volume to 100%
Step 4 would be to speak your name. You enter in your name and you can choose the voice you want to speak it. (see top.)
Good luck!


Clicking "Downloads" in Finder does nothing. How can I repair it? When I click the Downloads item in the Finder, it does nothing.

The previously highlighted item remains highlighted.

How can I fix this?

If I open a console/bash prompt I can see that ~/Downloads exists.  The mode is 755 and I am the owner.

I can think of two different ways to address this:

Method A)

Remove the "Downloads" icon from the side bar (hold the cmd key, drag it out of the side bar)
Navigate to your home folder, and drag the "Downloads" folder back to the side bar

Method B) Caution: this will completely reset any changes you made to the Finder sidebar

Go to your user's "Library" folder (in Finder, hold the "Alt" key, and and pull down the "Go" menu at the top of the screen. You should see "Library" as one of the options)
In ~/Library/Preferences folder, move "com.apple.sidebarlists.plist" to the Trash
reboot (or log out of your account, and then log back in again)


What determines the limit on voicemail storage on an iPhone 7? My iPhone 7 stopped taking voicemails. I dialed it from a different number and got the automated message, "voice mailbox is full." I contacted my carrier, Credo Mobile, and they explained that voicemail storage occurs on the iPhone, not in my carrier account.
On the iPhone 7, I went into Settings, General, iPhone Storage, Phone, and saw that Voicemails took up only 12.3MB. (This was after I had deleted some voicemails and was again able to leave a message.)
Is there, then, some constant, fixed, number of bytes that my phone can store as voicemail? Or is it a fixed number of messages? Or if I reduce the amount stored by some other app---say, Voice Memos, which today uses a whopping 14.86GB---will there be more room for voicemails?
These are not several questions, it is a single question with several possible suggested answers.
(Because of spam phone calls and robocalls, there is a steady drizzle of unwanted voicemails into my iPhone 7 so that even if no one calls me that I care about, the voice mailbox will get full.)
Note that one response to Can I devote more room to my voicemails? states, in the context of Verizon,

Voicemail is handled by the carrier. The size of your mailbox depends on the plan & features you have with Verizon, not on the free space available on your phone.

But Credo Mobile customer service---a live human being speaking with me---unequivocally stated the opposite for their service. In addition, when I logged into my account on Credo Mobile, https://www.credomobile.com/customer/account/login,
I found no option to set or change the amount of voicemail storage. Also, there are no voicemails in my online account. For instance, I cannot go online and listen to voicemails. There is no list of voicemails online.

Whoever you spoke to one the phone was wrong, your carrier limits the number of voice mails you can have stored.


How can I rename a song in iTunes with a keyboard shortcut? I can hit the up and down arrows to navigate a playlist in iTunes 10.5 but hitting F2 doesn't allow me to rename a song.  I have to grab the mouse and do a finicky click, wait, click to highlight the song and then rename it.  Can I just assign F2 to this?  Or can I use an existing keyboard shortcut?

Incidentally, I know I can hit Command-I, and then Command-2, tab to Name, change the name, and hit Return, but this sub-optimal.

Bonus points if you can explain how I would assign such a shortcut to highlight the Genre of a song, which is my more common use case (long story).

fn + return works while navigating with the up and down keys.
Edit the song, then press return again to submit changes.

For the other columns just press tab to reach the desired column.


Found a 52.1GB file related to google in mac 'private' folder. can I delete this? I checked the storage on my macbook and discovered the 'system' was using nearly 150 GB.

I looked around online and discovered the app OmniDiskSweeper. I gave it a go and discovered a massive file that appears to be related to google chrome, located in /private/var/folders/j9/T/com.google.Chrome/zip_cache-9F00A5C9-014F-4D48-AC13-2F74C26F4Fc7-31472-000034BBAF5DAD8A

Does anyone have any idea what this could be, and how it could be so large? can I delete it?

When i try manually searching for any of those files in finder, it turns up blank.  omnidisksweep is the only way I can see it (that I know of anyways) and thus the only way to delete it as well.  I really want to destroy this file but afraid to destroy some crucial thing on my computer.

Any advice greatly appreciated!

It's a cache file with a name associating it to the browser Google Chrome.

Anything under the path /private/var/folders/* can be deleted and will be repopulated/rebuilt after the next boot.

That is: do not delete /private/var/folders/ itself!

But below that, you may trash anything and then reboot.

Note that a few files will be in use or protected, so you could only delete them via the Trash after a reboot.

In this case: make sure Chrome is closed, then trash only the big file you found and delete the file. Leave the rest as is.


How can I wirelessly get videos off of a new iPad? If one has a New iPad and uses it to shoot video, is there a way to wirelessly transfer videos off the iPad and onto my Mac?

We've established that PhotoStream is for still photos only, so that won't be the solution.

You could use iTunes Wi-Fi syncing.

Prior to iOS 5, you would have to plug in your device to sync with iTunes.

As of iOS 5, 2 new features were introduced:

iCloud
Wi-Fi syncing with iTunes

For people like me that mainly used iTunes for backup purposes, iCloud eliminated the need for syncing with iTunes altogether. However, there are people that still sync with iTunes and thus Wi-Fi syncing could help.

It does the exact same thing as syncing with the cable but you don't need to have anything attached. Both computers just need to be on the same Wi-Fi network. Apple has all the steps necessary in order to get this working.

One of the things lacking on Apple's page is how to force a sync from your device. On an iPhone, you would do the following:

Launch Settings.
Navigate to General > iTunes Wi-Fi Sync
Press Sync Now. (Note: This will only appear if you have set up Wi-Fi syncing according to Apple's directions and that computer is on and connected to the same network.)


How to uninstall Git? Anyone know how to uninstall Git?

I would like to uninstall Git using the Uninstall.sh file that came in the git-2.0.1 install bundle.

I am unable to find the Uninstall.sh file using Terminal. When I enter "git --version" in the command line, I get "Illegal Instruction" in my Terminal window. (See image below).

I would like to uninstall Git and then reinstall it. Perhaps the Git download was corrupt. Any ideas? I am running Mac OS 10.6.8.

Thank you!

You mean you need to do

cd "/Volumes/Git 2.0.1 Snow Leopard Intel Universal"
sudo bash uninstall.sh

?


What websites can I use to get games in my schools IPad? I want to download games in school iPad but I don’t have the AppStore. What are some websites that I can use?

Short answer you can’t download games outside of the AppStore, but, you can search on google for html games

NOT RECOMMENDED, doing this is on your own responsibilities

And the long answer, you can download games from the Internet through Safari, but it’s (almost) only games that are breaking the law or for other reason isn’t allowed in the AppStore, they may contain malware/viruses, content kids shouldn’t watch or they may even steal your data.


Other Data on Apple - How do I clean cache and other unused data on Mac How do I clean cache and other unused data on Mac?

Normally, you should not need to 'clean' caches. You will not recover much space, and the OS will immediately try to re-populate the caches, so the space will be filled again.

Apple's utility for Managing Storage is not always accurate in its categories (nor is the Storage display in About This Mac).

Usually, most stuff on your storage is yours. User data. Stuff you've created or downloaded. Click on File Browser on that window you've shown. That will give you a list of things on your disk, sorted by size. Then you can see what's taking the most space.


I can not connect to SMB shares after upgrading macOS from Mojave to Catalina Before I upgraded, I used Command K to connect an SMB share. I had upgraded macOS from Mojave to Catalina yesterday. When I use Command K to connect that SMB share, it doesn’t work.

Does the new macOS disable SMB? Help me please, it has decreasesed my work efficiency.

I had the same problem and solved it in a strange way,
As we are all aware Mac user has actually 2 names: one is the username (the profile name if i may) and the Display name.

Prior to Catalina , when authenticating with an SMB share from a Windows computer , I was using the display name (although it is a full name with a space - strange for the traditional windows user...) and everything was cool.

In Catalina , I found out I can only use the username, windows cannot authenticate with the display name.

of course , before I got to this point I have checked/enabled SMBv2, created the NetBios file in the MAC and all the other hints I could find, which obviously did not do the trick for me.

hope this helps


How to determine which files are on SSD on Fusion Drive? My question is:

  How can i determine which files are on the SSD "partition" on Fusion
  Drive?

I have an iMac with 1TB Fusion Drive, and it would be good to know which apps or data are on which partition.

  Is these information included in the file information or where do i
  have to look?

Terminal is no problem, so i'm not searching for a easy answer.

EDIT: diskutil list shows me my partitions. But i cannot navigate through /Volumes/... into the specific SSD partition. There must be a way to navigate into each partition, right?

OS X does the same.

Because the Fusion drive is one logical volume, there are no separate "partitions" to browse to determine this. You can however check which drive an given file is stored on with some command-line utilities.

Determine Your Drive Setup

First we have to figure out how the SSD and HD portions of the Fusion drive are identified in your system.

Run diskutil list in Terminal.
You should see output similar to this:

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *121.3 GB disk0
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_CoreStorage 121.0 GB disk0s2
3: Apple_Boot Boot OS X 134.2 MB disk0s3
/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk1
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk1s1
2: Apple_CoreStorage 999.3 GB disk1s2
3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk1s3
/dev/disk2
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD *1.1 TB disk2

Take note of labels of the disks with a GUID_partition_scheme line. In this case, that's disk0 and disk1. These are the two physical disks, and we can see by the sizes, the smaller one (disk0) is the SSD, meaning disk1 is the HD while disk2 is the logical volume.

Monitor Disk Activity

Now we need a way to monitor disk activity for each device.

Open Terminal, enter iostat -d disk0 disk1 1, replacing the disk numbers with those you found in above.
Run the command, and leave the Terminal window open. You should see output similar to this:

       disk0           disk1
 KB/t tps  MB/s     KB/t tps  MB/s
 26.52  13  0.33     9.35   0  0.00
 0.00   0  0.00     0.00   0  0.00
 0.00   0  0.00     0.00   0  0.00
 0.00   0  0.00     0.00   0  0.00

This shows you the disk activity on a per-device basis, updated every second. The MB/s columns are the most relevant.

Read a File

Now we'll read a file, and use our monitoring solution to discover which drive it resides on.

Open a second Terminal window, and run dd if='/path/to/some/file' of=/dev/null. Replace the path with the proper path to the file (be sure it's quoted if it has unescaped spaces or other special characters).
In the terminal window running iostat, watch the to see which disk shows some activity when dd is running. That's the drive the file resides on.
For large files (especially those on the HD, the dd process may run for a while, you can safely quit it with control+C

Readings like this indicate that disk0 (the SSD in this example) contains the file:

       disk0           disk1
 KB/t tps  MB/s     KB/t tps  MB/s
 28.49  13  0.37   113.92   0  0.00
 31.70 4500 139.29     0.00   0  0.00
 31.64 3870 119.56     0.00   0  0.00
 31.58 3294 101.58     0.00   0  0.00

Whereas these readings indicate that the file is stored on the HD:

       disk0           disk1
 KB/t tps  MB/s     KB/t tps  MB/s
 0.00   0  0.00   128.00 275 34.33
 0.00   0  0.00   128.00 255 31.83
 7.62  53  0.39   126.90 178 22.03


How to make a LaunchAgent with StartCalendarInterval I want to start replacing crontabs with LaunchAgents. My first attempt is not working.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.nocturnal.mcworldsBackup</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
            <string>~/bin/mcworldsBackup.sh</string>
    </array>
    <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
    <dict>
            <key>Hour</key>
            <integer>4</integer>
            <key>Minute</key>
            <integer>30</integer>
    </dict>
</dict>
</plist>

The script mcworldsBackup.sh works fine standalone. I've made it log a timestamp to a file each time it runs and so far launchd has not executed it a single time.

I've checked and repaired the permissions of my Disk using DiskUtility, the plist is in ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.nocturnal.mcworldsBackup.plist with permissions 0644, same as all the other .plist files already in there. They're all owned by me:staff.

If I grep for mcworldsBackup.sh in /var/log/* I find nothing, no clues as to why it's not being executed.

After I first created the plist I have logged out and logged back in, also rebooted the computer several times even though the documentation says you only need to login.

You must specify the full path in ProgramArguments. Things which your shell normally expands, such as ~ and * are not expanded by launchd.

After making those changes, this LaunchAgent worked for me.

You said you made these changes, but it didn't fix it. It is possible that you did not reload the LaunchAgent after making the changes.

Troubleshooting LaunchAgents

You can check if your LaunchAgent is currently loaded by running

launchctl list | grep com.nocturnal.mcworldsBackup

If it is not running, you can load it by using

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.nocturnal.mcworldsBackup.plist

If you make any changes to the plist file, you will need to unload it using

luanchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.nocturnal.mcworldsBackup.plist

You will then need to load it again, using the command from above.

If you want to force the LaunchAgent to start now, instead of waiting until 4:30, you can run

launchctl start com.nocturnal.mcworldsBackup

You can then list it using

launchctl list | grep com.nocturnal.mcworldsBackup

The first column of the result is the PID of the process, if it is currently running. The second column is the exit code returned last time it was run. Use this to check if it ran properly. If not, the error message is written to /var/log/system.log.


iPad photo blogging recommendation Simple question:
What is the simplest, most minimal app for both creating/managing blogs and posting photos from the built-in camera?

I don't know what the simplest is, as I cannot claim to have used them all, but I can suggest using a Tumblr blog with the Tumblr iOS client (or one of the various other Tumblr compatible ones), as it's pretty straightforward at both the web and iPad client end.


How to get rid of "You have new mail." in zsh I'm using zsh with prezto as my shell with iTerm as terminal app.

I always get the message "You have new mail" when opening a new prompt. I don't have any new mail in Mac Mail and I don't run a mail server.

How can I get rid of this message?

Thanks

Whether zsh checks for new mail can be adjusted through the MAILCHECK parameter as described in zshparam(1). It specifies the interval in seconds between checks for new mail, a zero turns off the checks completely. So just put this into your zsh configuration file:

# don't check for new mail
MAILCHECK=0


What is a typical Notability's file size? I don’t think I can research from the vendor, and I want to plan if I choose to use this app.

What if the notes contains that 20-minutes lecture/audio clips - what is the size for each of these attachments?

I can't say for sure but my whole Notability folder is less than 300Mb and it includes over 300 notes including pictures, pdfs, text books, etc.


Messages having issues logging on recently on Yosemite? Just within the last day or two I have had Messages go out on me.  It happened with 10.10 and then the same is occurring with 10.10.1.  I see that others around the web are experiencing the same or a similar issue from the way things are phrased, yet no one seems to have a clear answer.  One individual seems to have gotten some help by talking with Apple and having them look at their Apple ID account and changing something on Apple's end... but after being on hold for an hour and them telling me that they're just going to have to have someone call me back, I thought I'd start asking for some additional input here:

The first indicator of the problem is simply this message in iMessage whilst trying to sign in:

I then discovered the following messages in my system.log associated with each time I attempted to login via iMessage:

com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.imfoundation.IMRemoteURLConnectionAgent): The _DirtyJetsamMemoryLimit key is not available on this platform.
com.apple.SecurityServer[56]: Session 100180 created
com.apple.SecurityServer[56]: Killing auth hosts
com.apple.SecurityServer[56]: Session 100178 destroyed
logind[71]: -[SessionManager getClient:withRole:inAuditSession:]:241: ERROR: No session dictionary for audit session 100180
logind[71]: _SMGetSessionAgent:73: ERROR: __SMGetClientForAuditSessionAgent failed 2
IMRemoteURLConnectionAgent[6887]: SACShieldWindowShowing:925: ERROR: NULL response

Anyone have an idea on what may resolve this?

In this order, try this:

Sign out of iMessage on all devices (if you want to be lazy, just the computer)

Remove iCloud from the computer (in the Accounts tab -- don't worry, we'll be putting it right back on)

Restart the machine

Repeat in reverse (add your iCloud account back, and then sign into iMessage).

That's basically what AppleCare would have you do.


How to publish the Places map from Aperture with geotagged pictures? So I have a set of pictures taken along the way of a road trip. They were taken with an iPhone so they're geotagged but we could be dealing with manually geotagged pics, doesn't matter. I want to publish the equivalent of what I see in the Places section of Aperture. A map (any provider is fine) fully scrollable and or zoomable, with my set of pictures on it. Pics could be thumbnails or pins until you click on it, it doesn't matter.

Is my only solution the iPad iPhoto app and its journal feature? (never used it so I'm just guessing) Would that do the trick? Any other Mac software out there (dare I dream of an Aperture plugin?) that could do that?

One solution that I used before is to publish it on Flickr and use their map feature. I think I can directly share the link to the map with my friends. One needs to make sure to include geolocation data when uploading.

As an aside, not crazy about Flickr anymore, my subscription is about to expire and I would like to find something else, hence the question !

EDIT: A better solution seems to be picasa, with an upload to picasa web and options to get a google map online or a Google Earth kml file.


Will it be fine to charge my iPad with 61W MBP charger I have a MBP charger which is 61w. I normally use it for charging my MBP. Can I use it to charge my iPad 5th Generation? Will it cause any damage?

Yes it is safe and shouldn't cause any damage. The iPad actually determines the power it receives.

For more information look at this article


Use 2019 Macbook Pro trackpad with 8th generation iPad I've seen software to link a MBP's keyboard to other devices, but is this possible for MBP's trackpad? I want to be able to use my MBP trackpad with my iPad. Even if I have to develop the software myself, where would I start?

Yes, it is possible to relay the MBP's trackpad inputs to other devices in general.
Using the MBP trackpad with any iPad and in general is unfortunately not possible.
If you want to develop the software yourself, you would be looking at creating two applications:
First a small application on the Mac that captures the trackpad input similar to how VMware and Parallels Desktop captures trackpad input. It needs to forward it to the iPad using for example a network protocol.
The second application is an iPad app that speaks the same protocol and thus is able to take in the input from the trackpad. You would then react to that input in your application like you react to touches from the user.
You can use this open-source project to inject the trackpad input into your app:
https://github.com/Ret70/PTFakeTouch
However take note that this will only work with your own app. You cannot use the trackpad input to control other third party apps (unless you have convinced them to use your protocol), or to control Apple's default apps.
If you're willing to jailbreak your iPad, you can control other third party apps and Apple's default apps by injecting your trackpad inputs into the system.
You could even use this open-source project instead of building your own iPad app to inject the inputs:
https://github.com/xuan32546/IOS13-SimulateTouch
It features a simple network protocol that you can send trackpad inputs to and have it injected as touch events on the iPad.


Messages brings macOS to its knees with soagent and callservicesd When I launch Messages on macOS and attempt to do anything at all with it (or even, it seems, if I just wait a while until a message is received) the two processes soagent and callservicesd start maxing out CPU and don't stop until Messages and they are all force quit.

Messages is in effect now unusable on my Mac. My iCloud account is the only one that syncs contacts and the only one used in Messages (the use of multiple accounts in either case is suggested as a trigger of the bug).

What can I do to fix this? Deleting and readding all of my Internet accounts is not an option.

Update: The trigger for this behavior seems to be Apple's (terrible) spell check. I can use Messages without soagent taking over my machine until I mistype. But one mistyping, and Messages hangs for a while, and then soagent takes off and can't be stopped except by force quitting.

Searching for errors containing "contacts" I get:

error   08:33:58.523010 -0500   accountsd   "Cannot check access to a private account type: <private>"
error   08:33:58.526106 -0500   accountsd   "Cannot check access to a private account type: <private>"
error   08:33:58.561595 -0500   accountsd   "Cannot check access to a private account type: com.apple.account.AppleAccount"

and

default 08:38:32.371678 -0500   AppleSpell  Rebroadcasting external notification ABDistributedDatabaseChangedNotification from process accountsd (<private>)
default 08:38:32.405900 -0500   suggestd    Rebroadcasting external notification ABDistributedDatabaseChangedNotification from process accountsd (<private>)
default 08:39:33.801123 -0500   ContactsAccountsService There was an error while trying to load accounts. We'll return an empty array. Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4099 "The connection to service named com.apple.AddressBook.ContactsAccountsService was invalidated." UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=The connection to service named com.apple.AddressBook.ContactsAccountsService was invalidated.}

As the issue is related to the spell checking feature I would suggest you to reset text replacement.

You can erase (or save, if learnt spelling matters for you) all files in:

~/Library/Spelling

Do not forget to kill the spell process (something like AppleSpell) but remember to quit Message.app before doing so.

Also try to delete all the entries (if you ever added one) by hitting minus sign in Settings.app > Keyboard > Text Replacement

Note that your problem seems to be closely related to this one (as pointed out in some answers). To sum up the solutions discussed:

Navigate to ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.soagent/Data/Library/Preferences and delete (Drag to Trash) the com.apple.soagent.plist and then Restart the computer.
The second solution was pointed out by Everett.


Adding a desktop button to the Dock or Menu Bar I am an Apple newbie, I want to know how I can add a desktop button that takes me to the Desktop either in the Dock or in the menu bar at the top of the screen.

While you could create an AppleScript application that triggers Expose's reveal Desktop function, save it, and put it in the Dock, an easier solution would be to use Hot Corners. Then, when you put your mouse in a screen corner, it reveals the desktop.

If you wanted to go the AppleScript route, you'd create a script that said tell application "System Events" to key code 103, save it as an application, and put that application in the Dock.

To go the hot corners route, in Lion, the preferences is under Mission Control in System Preferences.

While it is certainly feasible to create a program that puts an icon in the menu bar to reveal the Desktop, it requires programming techniques beyond the scope of this site.


Can I control the music player on my iPhone from a PC? Is there any app (or otherwise) that allows me to select audio tracks to play, or even just skip to the next track on my iPhone 4 via a PC connected to the iPhone by USB?

Bowtie should solve your problem. It's a free desktop app that talks to a .99 cent app that you download on the iPhone:

Bowtie


How to quickly turn on/off active corners? Is there any way to turn on/off active corners?

I want to use it but someone is coming fix something and they are going to use my comp and they have big troubles with active corners (Windows users).

I am on 10.6.2 and I do want to keep the settings so when they leave I can start using it right away.

I would suggest enabling Guest access or creating a new user account. If you create a new account, make sure it has non- administrator status! Do this by going to System Preferences -> Accounts, and clicking the + button at the bottom left corner. Alternatively, you can just have them log in as a Guest, which you enable from the same pane, and after which anything they've worked on will be deleted from your machine. In both cases, you don't have to mess with your account or any of its settings, and things are just as you left them once your friend is finished with whatever they need to use your machine for.


Failing to connect to WiFi network with MacAuthEvent error I'm unable to connect to any WiFi network. When attempting to connect, before the popup prompting me to run network diagnostics, the console shows the following in the logs:

7/14/14 8:52:06.000 AM kernel[0]: ARPT: 1668.667864: MacAuthEvent en0   Auth result for: 00:1f:f3:c1:c1:5a Auth timed out
7/14/14 8:52:09.000 AM kernel[0]: ARPT: 1671.337424: directed SSID scan fail

I was able to connect to a network briefly after disabling Bluetooth, but the activity resumed shortly after.

The network card appears to be on:

    $ networksetup -getairportpower en0
      Wi-Fi Power (en0): On

and connecting with a USB ethernet adapter is fine, so I suspect the issue is limited to the wireless adapter.

This is occurring on a late 2013 13" MacBook Pro (2.4 GHz i5, 8 GB memory 1600 MHz DDR3) running 10.9.4.

I found a number of similar threads, with similar symptoms, however, the key difference was that the Auth result had succeeded, and the issues were occurring after succeeding and initiating the next phase of the connection. This is happening on ALL wireless networks, with other devices able to connect without issue.

Has anyone seen this before? If it's failing to pass this step, is there the possibility of a network-hardware issue?

UPDATE:

Was unable determine the source of the issue, but resetting PRAM and NVRAM seems to have fixed it. Apple suggested using a new network location, but this worked only intermittently.

It might be your WiFi hardware, but you can test it using following steps to manualy onnect:

Manually connect to WiFi

Turn On

networksetup -setairportpower en0 on

Find

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/A/Resources/airport scan

Connect

networksetup -setairportnetwork en0 WIFI_SSID_I_WANT_TO_JOIN WIFI_PASSWORD

If above does not work you have a deeper problem.

Before you go, try using the BSSID instead the network name.

  airport -A=ssid -BSSID=bssidname -password=password

If you do not know the BSSID (who does), use this to find it:

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/A/Resources/airport -s

This will give you all SSID and BSSID in your scan range.


Safari does not change focus to the web page after address bar search After completing a search in Safari (tested on version 13.1.2 and 14.0 with Catalina 10.15.6), the address bar remains in focus after pressing return. With other major browsers (including Chrome, Firefox, and Edge) the web page comes to focus after pressing return.
Safari not changing focus from the address bar to the web page is problematic for example when using DuckDuckGo as the default search engine. DDG allows navigation with j and k. The navigation requires the web page to be in focus and not the address bar.
Switching the focus from the address bar to the web page seems to require an extra step in Safari (such as pressing esc or clicking the web page) compared to other major browsers that switch to the web page automatically after pressing return. Is there a way to change the behavior in Safari to automatically switch focus to the web page after pressing return?

I have removed extensions and tried various settings.

I was searching for the same answer that you are looking for, and I know that this answer is not the exact solution you were looking for, but it may ease the frustration a bit until a better solution is found.
I remapped my Caps Lock key to function as the Esc key, so after I do a search from the address bar, hitting Esc is a quick and ergonomic keypress away that lets me keep my fingers on the home row.
If you're extra fancy and like to remap Caps Lock to Control, there's a solution to that as well. Using the free app called Karabiner Elements, you can remap the Caps Lock key to both Control, if held and another key is pressed, and also Esc, if pressed by itself.
If using Karabiner Elements, and you need Caps Lock functionality, you can either assign it to the Control key or, what I do, is assign it to toggle when I press both left and right shift at the same time.
I hope someone else finds a true solution or that Apple updates Safari with at least an option to change this behavior.


Hiding Apps for power saving iphone 5s On my iphone 5 I could make apps "disappear" by double clicking on the home button and then temporarily remove the ones in regular use by holding finger on them until the shook then cancelling by pressing the cross.This preserved battery power. On the iphone 5s this system doesn't work. Anyone have an answer?

You double-tap the home button as usual. The method of killing apps is different, though - just swipe the image of the app's screen up to kill it. This is a very nice feature as you can see what you are doing in an app before you zap it.


No menu items in Itunes's Account menu work. Can't sign into account I've recently migrated to a new mac, and since then I have not been able to sign into my account on iTunes. No items on the Account menu do anything when clicked. It also shows authorise this computer, and de-authorise this computer at the same time. Clicking any of these have no effect whatsoever.

When in the iTunes store, clicking on Account in the footer does nothing. When going through the Apple Music signup process in iTunes and click "Already have an account" does nothing. Any ideas what could be the issue here?

Downloading and reinstalling iTunes fixed the issue.


Getting Time Machine to only back up when idle My TM backups are causing some disruption to my work while they're running, be it a backup to a network drive that's taking up all available wifi bandwidth or a backup to an attached zfs volume which causes very heavy cpu usage (due to the gzip-9 compression settings I use...)

I'm looking for some way, even a dirty hack, to get TM backups to only start while the computer is idle for over a few minutes and to stop when mouse/keyboard activity resumes.

TM is by default set to 60 minutes interval.

But you can change that to, lets say, 5 hours or any number without any hack.

Run this command in Terminal using seconds.

  sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-auto StartInterval -int 18000


Does iPhone Xs Max have a SIM card slot? I’m confused by the store listing and want to make sure I’m not tricked into buying an eSIM only iPhone.

Yes. Dual SIM iPhone Xs Max does have a regular nano SIM card slot and additionally an eSIM.

There's no such thing as an eSIM only iPhone.

From the iPhone Xs Max Tech Specs web-page:

Quoting the footnotes from the Tech Specs page:

  eSIM will be available later this year through a software update. Use of eSIM requires a wireless service plan (which may include restrictions on switching service providers and roaming, even after contract expiration). Not all carriers support eSIM. Use of eSIM in iPhone may be disabled when purchased from some carriers. See your carrier for details. To learn more, visit https://support.apple.com/kb/HT209044.

From the linked support article, Learn about Dual SIM with your iPhone Xs or iPhone Xs Max:

  You can use two cellular plans with your iPhone Xs or iPhone Xs Max, a nano-SIM, and an eSIM. An eSIM is a digital SIM that allows you to activate a cellular plan from your carrier without having to use a physical nano-SIM. Here's how to set up and use a cellular plan using an eSIM

Additionally, exclusively for Chinese Market, Apple has introduced a dual SIM iPhone with support for two nano SIM cards without an eSIM.

Quoting from the support article, Learn about Dual SIM with iPhone Xs Max in China, Hong Kong, and Macau

  In China, Hong Kong, and Macau, you can use Dual SIM with your iPhone Xs Max and two nano-SIM cards. This gives you two phone numbers to make and receive calls and text messages.


Can't mount (Core Storage) encrypted volume anymore I use the following setup:

SSD: System
Internal HDD: Data (Documents, Music, etc.)
Both disks are encrypted via the Core Storage utility.

It seems I can't mount the "Data" disk anymore.

I wanted to download a random pdf which failed. ("Downloads Folder" is on "Data" Volume)
Restarted the machine and now all aliased folders which refer to the "Data" volume have a question mark overlay rendered on their icon.

It's not possible to mount/unlock the "Data" disk through disk utility a.
The "Data" volume is, according to DiskUtility quite full (only 16MB left).
I have the suspicion that this small amount of space left in combination with the encryption causes some trouble.

What to do?

edit: output of diskutil cs list

+-- Logical Volume Group 5898542B-F53F-46A6-B529-C31152081292
=========================================================
Name:         Data
Status:       Online
Size:         499763888128 B (499.8 GB)
Free Space:   16777216 B (16.8 MB)
|
+-< Physical Volume C6AAFA40-7F30-40C3-BC1E-A71A3C3DA757
|   ----------------------------------------------------
|   Index:    0
|   Disk:     disk2s2
|   Status:   Online
|   Size:     499763888128 B (499.8 GB)
|
+-> Logical Volume Family 77CFA80C-6CEA-4FA5-8855-567C90FD2513
    ----------------------------------------------------------
    Encryption Status:       Unlocked
    Encryption Type:         AES-XTS
    Conversion Status:       Complete
    Conversion Direction:    -none-
    Has Encrypted Extents:   Yes
    Fully Secure:            Yes
    Passphrase Required:     Yes
    |
    +-> Logical Volume E2DB4126-C04C-4AE1-B1AC-CDFF0218D537
        ---------------------------------------------------
        Disk:                  disk3
        Status:                Online
        Size (Total):          499428339712 B (499.4 GB)
        Conversion Progress:   -none-
        Revertible:            Yes (unlock and decryption required)
        LV Name:               Data
        Volume Name:           Data
        Content Hint:          Apple_HFS

Strange that the status says "Online" as well as that the encryption status is "Unlocked". If it's unmounted and not accessible it shouldn't be in unlocked state.

Not sure if this will be helpful, but I just wrote a script to unlock and mount a core storage Encrypted Disk like yours for myself. I had the same problem where I could get the disk unlocked, but not mounted. I finally realized that I needed a command to mount it after it was unlocked.

In terminal, you first have to unlock the Encrypted Disk and then you can mount it with a separate command. For you, that would look something like this:

diskutil cs unlockVolume E2DB4126-C04C-4AE1-B1AC-CDFF0218D537 -stdinpassphrase

You will be prompted for the password to the Encrypted Disk. After this, your drive will be in an unlocked and unmounted state, so you still need to mount it with this command:

diskutil mount E2DB4126-C04C-4AE1-B1AC-CDFF0218D537

In case you were wondering, E2DB4126-C04C-4AE1-B1AC-CDFF0218D537 is the UUID of the disk you want to mount. I'm no scripting or CoreStorage pro, but your problem seemed similar to mine, so I hope this can help you. I got all this info from the diskutil man page if you run into any problems.


Locking down iOS devices I have around 200 iOS devices that I have to keep track of in an internal network (they never leave the network) and there are several things I need to do on them.

Completely disable certain apps/features in iOS (like iCloud and Maps)
Be able to send push notifications by device (make something appear on the screen/make a noise)
Install internal apps over the air

I am currently using OSX Server's Profile Manager, but I cannot lock down the devices enough with profiles, it also doesn't have the ability to "ping" them. It seems like there is a way to install internal apps over the air but I have not tried it yet.

Ideally my solution would be using free/open source software.

Any suggestions would be great.
(all devices are running iOS 6.1.2 as of writing this post)

You cannot disable Apple Maps. iOS does not provide a method to do this.

The best free MDM tool I know of is Meraki (aside from Profile Manager itself). However, I'm not 100% convinced it will do everything you need. Also Meraki was recently purchased by Cisco and I am a bit concerned about its future. You will also receive sales calls from their staff trying to sell you on additional features.

To accomplish your objectives on the cheap, I recommend looking at AirWatch. We use this in our enterprise to manage several hundred iOS devices and it works quite well. There are other tools that can do this as well. A great full-featured guide to MDM differences is EnterpriseiOS.com.


Super quiet audio recording in Quicktime 10.4 using Soundflower-2 on Yosemite Now that the Soundflowerbed app is retired, I haven't been able to record my Mac's system audio :(
Following the instructions from mattingalls' Soundflower-2 installation guide, (https://github.com/mattingalls/Soundflower/releases/tag/2.0b2), I rebooted, and then created a Multi-Output Device in Audio MIDI Setup, to be able to listen to the audio through the built-in speakers along with sending it through Soundflower 2CH,  But I'm getting a super low audio volume when I try to record through Quicktime 10.4. Even with the volume cranked, there's very little sound in the Quicktime recording, and yes, I did make sure to adjust the volume before switching to the Multi-Output Device in Sys. Prefs.

Here's my setup:

I'm working on a mid-2012 MacBook Pro Retina, still running Yosemite (oooold, I kno, but I can't update just yet- some of the software I need to use isn't compatible with the latest OS)

Any advice or link to a free Soundflower alternative would be greatly appreciated :)

I'm not sure if you've tried this, but the more important one is the volume you have routed to soundflower. To achieve a similar volume coming out of your speakers and still getting a louder recording, you'll have to lower the output volume and raise soundflower's volume.

Also, I'm not sure about you but soundflowerbed works all right for me.


How to find local trends on Twitter for iPhone? I think we can all agree that the "# Discover" button in the official Twitter for iPhone app is a big waste of screen space. I never really rely on Twitter to "Discover" anything other than that which is said by those who I follow. But if there was one thing I did want to discover, it would be local trends. Is there any way to access this information in Twitter for iPhone? Is there another app that better serves this information?

From my experience, the Twitter App uses location services for Trends. Is that enabled on your phone? Like you, I don't use the #Discover page often because it is just not relevant to me.


Why does iTunesConnect ask for export compliance for every iOS app submission? Although I like the new iTunes Connect interface, there's a massive let down on my app: it will ask for my encryption compliance form each time I submit a new binary.

In the "old" iTunes Connect website, it was only asking if the encryption scheme changed (and required a new form, which is understandable), here I have to provide it for every single binary I want to submit.

This slows down the validation process for about 3-4 days each time, which is really frustrating.

Does somebody have the same issue?
Is there a solution to skip this step ?

Each submission could end up live on the store and each change could have export implications.

You could not update things if it's a hassle to do the paperwork, but I don't see any chance that this will be relaxed due to the severity of the penalties Apple would face if they didn't ask and a developer did add content that needed to be classified according to U.S. Law.


How to sync Keychain passwords between iOS and macOS? I'd like to share passwords between macOS and iOS. I've enabled iCloud keychain, moved all relevant passwords in Keychain App to iCloud but for some reason they don't appear in my iPhone. I check my passwords and there's nothing there. How can I debug this?

Only passwords stored via Safari are synced between devices. Passwords manually added to Keychain App are not sent to iOS.


Listing in Terminal the last mounted volume Attach(1)ing different copies of the same dmg file create in /Volumes folders representing each image. Let the first image be called Image; the subsequents will receive an incrementing number in their tail, e.g. Image 1, Image 2 and so on.

However, detaching Image 1 and then attaching another instance will recycle the the numerical id, so that my last image will actually be Image 1.

This means that I cannot rely on ls(1)'s output (by default sorted lexicographically) to determine the last mounted image. I don't seem to have more success with ls -U or diskutil's output either.

I may very well be missing something. Is there any way to reliably determine in bash the latest mounted image? Thank you.

The last line from the output of mount would be the last filesystem mounted.


How can I import GoPro mp4 video to iMovie 11? I have video in an MP4 file from a GoPro camera.  It imports fine into iMovie on my iPad Mini and I can edit it there, but I'd rather edit in iMovie 11 on my Mac (OSX 10.9).  However, iMovie 11 won't import the GoPro MP4 video files.

They play fine on Quicktime Player on the Mac, but iMovie refuses to import them.  Quicktime says the MP4 files contain "GoPro AVC encoder, 1280x720 AAC, 48000 Hz stereo, 29.97 FPS".

Why does iPad iMovie work but not the iMovie 11?  Do I have to get a converter to convert to a different encoding?  If so, which encoding?

This problem solved itself when I upgraded to the final OS 10.9 (Mavericks) and installed the latest iMovie.  Now I can import MP4 files from the GoPro right into iMovie.


What version of Mac Mini supports Leopard 10.5.8? Does Leopard 10.5.8 support the first-ever Mac Mini (M9686*/A, M9687*/A, I think)?

Or do I need one of the later ones?

I'm buying my first-ever mac this Christmas.

Yes Leopard supports all Intel and all PowerPC based machines over a minimum CPU speed and the original Power PC minus are in that ranges. Apple doc

Snow Leopard (10.6) only supports Intel based machines


Skype notifications disappear while there are unread messages, on iPhone I have an iPhone SE with iOS 13.2.2 and latest Skype.

Today I noticed, that notification about new messages in Skype are not shown on the lock screen.

What happened was that I has a chat with a contact, then I locked the phone and put it into my pocket. Then it vibrated once, and again later. I took the phone, turned on the screen and, there were no notifications shown.

I unlocked and there, there were new messages in Skype.

Then after a minute I locked the phone again, but now I held it in my hand, with screen on (but locked). Then after a while the phone vibrated again and a notification for Skype appeared but disappeared again immediately. This happened a few more times, for each incoming Skype message (all from same contact).

Is this some bug? Or setting? It worked fine before, even today.

Try going into your Skype settings (the settings app, not the Skype app) and scroll down until you see Skype, then click on Skype and check if Skype notifications are on.


Can the transparencyd daemon traffic be dropped without adverse effects? Based on what the transparencyd daemon is for (explained here) I have the impression so far there is no harm in blocking that traffic. Until now, every time my firewall drew my attention onto that outbound trancparencyd traffic, I blocked it and experienced no adverse effects.
Am I missing something, or is there indeed no harm in blocking transparencyd traffic?
(I am on Catalina. Perhaps things got worse in Big Sur.)

Since the questions was asked I have systematically blocked all the transparencyd traffic, and have not experienced any adverse side effects.


OS X Yosemite always mounts usb-hdd to the new folder I have a Seagate Free Agent HDD drive with NTFS formatted.
Since there was trouble with writing to NTFS partition in Yosemite, I've installed OSXFUSE from dmg package and ntfs-3g from homebrew and it becomes writeable.

But, I've noticed, that every time, I connect the hard drive, It mounts to the new folder.

OSX will normally create a directory/folder as the mount point in the /Volumes/ area for a drive. When you unmount the drive, the system should also remove all references of the mount point from /volumes/. I.e the folder it created.

But in this case when I unmount my drive the system is not clearing the mount point folder it created in /volumes/

for instance here is output of listing Volumes folder:

$ ls -l /Volumes/
total 16
d--x--x--x+ 3 root          admin   102 Jan 24 12:57 FreeAgent Drive
d--x--x--x+ 3 root          admin   102 Jan 24 13:01 FreeAgent Drive 1
drwxrwxrwx  1 nikolaygolub  staff  4096 Jan  9 01:35 FreeAgent Drive 2
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root          admin     1 Jan 24 12:50 LV -> /

As you can see the old mount point folders still exist and each new one increments with a number increases.

I've tried to remove all folder after disc ejecting, but it didn't help. I've noticed following messages in log file:

24/01/15 13:02:10,654 ntfs-3g[782]: Version 2014.2.15 external FUSE 27
24/01/15 13:02:10,654 ntfs-3g[782]: Mounted /dev/disk3s1 (Read-Write, label "FreeAgent Drive", NTFS 3.1)
24/01/15 13:02:10,655 ntfs-3g[782]: Cmdline options: volname=FreeAgent Drive 2,local,negative_vncache,auto_xattr,auto_cache,noatime,windows_names,user_xattr,inherit,uid=501,gid=20,allow_other,nodev,noowners,nosuid
24/01/15 13:02:10,655 ntfs-3g[782]: Mount options: volname=FreeAgent Drive 2,local,negative_vncache,auto_xattr,auto_cache,allow_other,nodev,noowners,nosuid,allow_other,nonempty,noatime,default_permissions,fsname=/dev/disk3s1,blkdev,blksize=4096
24/01/15 13:02:10,655 ntfs-3g[782]: Global ownership and permissions enforced, configuration type 1
24/01/15 13:02:10,764 fseventsd[20]: failed to make the directory /Volumes/FreeAgent Drive 2/.fseventsd (5/Input/output error)

How can I fix this? It looks like a minor issue, but I don't want to periodically clean up folders after OS.

I want to achieve normal behavior for mounted NTFS drives: I want to be able to write to them and I don't want to manually delete folders, created during automount.
I don't have any problems with that in OS X Mavericks.

P.s. Yosemite is the worst OS X ever.

Firstly you should not need any extras to mount NTFS drives.

You do not make it clear what you want to achieve.

I have an old FreeAgent I used for Windows backup. I DON'T want it to automount, so I have the following in etc/fstab see edit detail below

#
# Warning - this file should only be modified with vifs(8)
#
# Failure to do so is unsupported and may be destructive.
#
UUID=E00F307A-9295-482E-8A79-2FA2C922F3CD none ntfs rw,noauto
⋯
LABEL=Tempy none ntfs rw,noauto

I can use DiskUtility to mount if I want to access these.

If you want to auto mount in a specific directory you can create an entry to do this. If you do create a directory and edit fstab.

NOTE you should use vifs, which requires a knowledge of vi commands, so you should look at man vi to discover the basic commands.

 :q! quits
 :wq saves
  i to insert


How to preserve MacbookPro battery from degradation? Platform: OS X: Yosemite 10.10.4; MacbookPro 15" Retina (mid-2015).
Fact: There is aging for battery in any case - using or not. But while using - there is difference of how to use. My questions - in order to minimize battery degradation:

How often should I totally discharge battery ?
Is degradation rate is a matter of full cycles or it doesn't matter
to what highest and lowest level I charge or discharge laptop ?
Most (99%) of the time I am connected to power - which leads to 100%
charge level always. But many sites say, like following link:
http://www.runpcrun.com/laptop-battery-use-and-storage-guidelines
say, that better to keep battery 40% charged than 100%. How to
achieve that (there is no ability, as far as I know, to manually
limit charging battery level) ?
Do you have empirical evidences to prove or disapprove this
expectations ?
I ask this since to replace battery in Macbook Pro is hard to be
done - many screw types, many modules do disassembly, using glue to
grasp components without moving inside. And therefore I prefer doing
this rarest I can. How much time (how many years) it typically takes
upon your experience to get to buttery degradation of 40% capacity
compared to Day-1 of using your Macbook Pro ?
After 2 minutes of laptop using - the internal temperature (CPU,
RAM, Battery) gets to 85-90 degrees (Celsius) and stays so till I
turn off (sleep) laptop - for 12 working hours every day. Is there
something I can do about heat (both in general, and regarding
battery especially)?

What else should I do or know to not be frustrated later ?

Your battery life is based on age and cycles, not so much what you use them for.  Your battery has no idea if you are streaming music from your favorite service or your are crunching numbers to calculate ∏ to the nth digit or just surfing Stack Exchange.
The more draw you put on it, the more it is going to discharge requiring you to plug it back in to recharge it.  Basically, the more you use, the more charging cycles it is going to go through.  Video uses more CPU, so more draw, so more recharging.  Sleeping, virtually no power draw, so less recharging.
You can get good info on battery life directly from Apple:  www.apple.com/batteries/
So, how do you lengthen the life of your battery?  Reduce the number of cycles it going to need to go through.  Optimizing/Updating your software, turning off services can all help; but only so much.  Paying attention to the ambient temperature and not operating it in extreme conditions definitely helps; but I doubt you are in the Arctic or in the middle of the Sahara so this doesn't apply as much as you would think.  However if that's the case, battery life is not your biggest concern.
In the end it comes down to you are going to have to replace your battery.  When is the question and there is no prognostication for that.  If you have work to do, do it.  If you want to watch a video, watch it.  If worrying about the battery is something that you have to do because you can't (or is very difficult to) afford to replace it when it can no longer hold a charge, this is not the device for you.
Since Apple, Dell, Lenovo all warranty their batteries for a full year and offer extended battery warranty for a relatively small amount, you can probably expect at least 2 years with good performance.  They have already run the numbers and wouldn't warranty something they knew there was a good chance they would have to cover.  Remember, they are betting you won't have to use the warranty service.
My advice if this is really a concern is to find out how much battery replacement is and budget for it.


What is causing Photoshop to always stay on top? I'm on Mac OS X El Cap. And I'm using PS CS 6 Extended.

If I switch to Photoshop, and do my work, then try to switch to say Chrome via cmd+tab, Photoshop stays on top.

My questions:

What might have caused this? Did I accidently click something on my Mac that makes Photoshop float?
How can I fix this problem to have PS behave like any other app in terms of visibility.

It's not a complete fix, but I have found that if I click on Chrome in the dock instead of switching via the keyboard, then it does let Chrome be on top.


Does Apple recover tax paid to government on sales on apps? I signed up to sell my apps on the Apple app stores, and the agreement says:

  Apple shall collect and remit to the competent tax authorities the
  taxes described in Section 3.2 of this Schedule 2 for sales of the
  Licensed Applications to End-Users located in the following countries,
  as updated from time to time via the iTunes Connect site:

  Albania Australia Austria Belgium Bulgaria Canada China* Croatia
  Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Greece
  Hungary Iceland Ireland Italy Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Malta,
  Republic of Netherlands New Zealand++ Norway Poland Portugal Romania
  Slovakia South Africa Slovenia Spain Sweden Switzerland United Kingdom
  United States

Does Apple recover this tax from me? In other words, will I end up paying more than 30% to Apple when a user from one of these countries buys my app?

Apple handles the sales of your app. Technically Apple is the seller, so they collect the taxes. That is why Apple gets 30% of every sold app.

The 70% you get from an app sale are royalties. You only need to add it to your Income Tax.


Multiple skype instances on iphone Is is possible to run multiple instances of skype client on an iphone.

I would like to be able to to login to two separate skype accounts and have the run simultaneously.

Is it possible?

For instance, if there was an unofficial skype client, I could install it along the official one with different user name.

Not possible with the official Skype App.

Running unofficial Skype client is possible, but recently Skype changed the rules and pushed out third parties, running Skype gateways (like Fring).


iPhone 6 causes Bose Mie2i to skip tracks I purchased Bose MiE2i in ear headphones today and as I am walking the track skips forward every 5-10 seconds or so. If I stand still there is no issue.  I performed a hard reset and verified I was running iOS 8.2 with no change. I duplicated at a table moving only the phone and not the cable to rule out a short (it still skipped).  I tried my wifes iPhone 6 and had the same results.  I used a regular iPod shuffle and it works fine.  I am thinking it has something to so with the step monitor in the health app but there is no way to switch it off to verify.  Any ideas?  Jim

Turn off shake to shuffle in Settings > Music


Keynote on the iPad does not to the projector (VGA output)? On an iPad, when we hit play for a Keynote presentation while connected to a projector via VGA cable, the app closes down.

What tricks are there for getting iPad-Keynote to work with a projector?

we called Apple they said we need to re-set the iPad


What are some quality small business management programs? I manage a small lawn business, I currently use about 12 tabs in Excel and keep track of customers, expenses, income, payroll, etc. I now have an iMac and am wondering what quality small business management programs are available.

There's always Office for Mac if you like Excel, Numbers, and a host of other business apps. Check out the Mac App Store's "Business" section for more. Do realize, however, that Office for Mac isn't exactly the same as it is on Windows, and may not necessarily be worth the hefty price tag.


Apps disappeared after unlocking, backup and restore of my iPhone I unlocked my iPhone yesterday and backed up and restored my data using iTunes, however my apps did not come back onto my phone when I restored from backup.

How do I find them on my computer in my backup, and restore them to my iPhone?

Probably you didn't transfer your purchased apps to iTunes before you restored the phone. Under normal circumstances you would have gotten a warning message about this. Look under Applications in iTunes, check the iPhone tab and see if your apps are listed there, if not they are not backed up. If you have connected your iTunes software with your iPhone Apple account the apps should sync automatically.

Only way to get them back otherwise is to go to Appstore and download them again. Easiest way is to enter Appstore, go to the Update tab and press Purchases/Not on iPhone. (Using the same Apple-account you won't have to pay for your purchased apps again.)


The operation couldn’t be completed. (MCMailErrorDomain error 1045.) I'm experiencing an issue sending out email using Mail.app on my MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2013) running OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 (14C94b).

... shortly after hitting "Send message" button, I'm receiving following error:

The operation couldn’t be completed. (MCMailErrorDomain error 1045.)

I have NO problem sending out email from my iPhone 6, using same settings and from same network and I am able to connect to remote smtp server via Terminal.app as well.

I rechecked my username, password and the rest of the settings MULTIPLE times and not really sure what else to do...

Any ideas?

I had the same problem in Mail / OS X 10.10.2.

After long searches for an answer, I solved the problem simply inserting again my passoword for the SMTP account.

Even though the stored password was correct, it didn't work until I inserted again the password. Go figure why it didn't work before !!


Is there a default location for 'linux too applications' I recently moved to OS X from Windows 7. In Windows, pretty much everything gets installed to C:\Program Files\[application name] or C:\[application name]. In OS X /Applications seems to be roughly equivalent to C:\Program Files for all the consumer apps that I use.

But when it comes to a 'linux too' application (e.g. Python, Postgres, Node JS to name just a few) they seem to get installed all over the place. Only after spending a few minutes guessing and using find did I discover that Postgres executables were installed to /Library/PostgreSQL/9.1/bin/, v8 and Node were in /usr/local/bin. Often times these differ to the equivalent paths that I see Linux users refer to.

Is there a better way to discover where my apps are being installed than by having to use find each time? Shouldn't I be able to predict it with rules of thumb something like 'all database apps should go in /Library' so that's where I know to look for postgres, and 'all compilers and languages go in /usr/local/bin' so that's where I know to look for v8 after it's installed?

The short answer is, unfortunately, no there isn't a default location.

But it's not complete chaos.

For command line tools that ship with the OS or get brought in by Apple-supplied applications like Xcode, you'll find it all in /usr/bin. That includes things like the OS X default Python and Perl as well as the Xcode-supplied gcc, clang, make and the other command line developer tools Xcode installs.

For non-Apple command line tools, if the application is well-behaved, it should put them in /usr/local/bin.

Some .app packaged applications that install under /Applications offer command line tools (for example subl offered by Sublime Text 2). If I want to use these from the command line I'll generally make a symlink from /usr/local/bin to the tool under the .app file for the application rather than put the application-specific path on my PATH environment variable.

If you use a package manager like Homebrew to install and manage your command line tools then it's not too much of a hardship to make /usr/local/bin the place for everything you use. Homebrew does a very nice job of keeping it neat and clean and all in one place for you. I can't speak to how well MacPorts or Fink keep things contained under one sub-tree like this.

The exception to the rules are OS X-default daemons like Postgres and such. Those can get scattered and there really isn't a very good way to track them down aside from find and maybe mdfind from the command line.


Removing a specific app from spotlight I use textWrangler for all my text editing needs.  I abhor textEdit.  The problem comes when I search spotlight if I stop at text and hit enter then textEdit will launch.  I want to remove textEdit from my spotlight without deleting the app itself.

I know I can keep a folder from being indexed.  But I want a specific app/file to not be included.

And I know the simple answer is just "don't type text".  But that isn't really an answer.  I don't want to think to type.

Yes, you can exclude a specific application from Spotlight search results from its Privacy pane in OS X Yosemite.

Along with TextEdit I have TextWrangler and Sublime Text 2 installed under OS X Yosemite.  If in Spotlight I type text the listed order is:

TextEdit
TextWrangler
Sublime Text 2

If I go to System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy and drag and drop the TextEdit application bundle onto the list area of the Privacy pane and close System Preferences and go back to Spotlight and type text the listed order is now:

TextWrangler
Sublime Text 2

So, just do as I did and it solves your issue.


Can Mac system updates recover accidentally deleted kernel files? We commonly know that system updates will fix the kernel defects that have been discovered or not previously disclosed, to make the OS more secure.

However, what if I accidentally deleted some kernel files, will a new system update recovers the kernel files I deleted?

System updates (on any system) only modify targeted files which need improvment or removal.

They might accidentally repair a file you have damaged.
They might also accidentally damage a file you have fixed. But this isn't their target.

A full install will of course reinstall any file you removed.


Macbook Pro Keyboard Functions Stopped Working on Bootcamp I have a MacBook Pro 15" with Mountain Lion 10.8.

I've had the laptop for about 8 months now and I installed Bootcamp probably around a week after I got it. Everything worked perfectly, which was awesome. Installed the support drivers and everything.

Today I booted into Windows and the keyboard functions have stopped working. For instance the keyboard backlights wont work and the volume buttons do nothing. I tried rebooting a few times into mac and back or back into Windows and nothing works.

Anybody run into this sort of things before? Have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

It sounds like a drivers issue.

Try re-installing the drivers for Windows and reboot. You can download the drivers from here. Please double check that your version of Windows is 7 64-bit or 8.


What makes Catalina make a shell script quarantined? I am routinely editing shell scripts (bash). One of them gets quarantined whenever I modify it. When I run it, I get the error:
$ ./opg.sh
-bash: ./opg.sh: /bin/bash: bad interpreter: Operation not permitted

The solution is to reset the quarantine flag. Then the script runs:
$ xattr -d com.apple.quarantine opg.sh
$ ./opg.sh
Missing or invalid option ...
Must be one of: start, stop, status, check, or log

My question: why is that ? I have tons of other bash scripts, in the same directory and in other directories. I can edit them and they do not get quarantined. Only this one does. Any idea why ?
It does not seem to be related to the editor I use (I use bbedit and textedit - same effect).
I guess it must be something to do with the content of the script. But I can't see what ...

This can be fixed in BBEdit by doing this:

  Check and see whether sandbox access is allowed (in BBEdit's
  "Application" preferences). If it is not, allow it and I think that
  will solve this for you.

Source: https://twitter.com/siegel/status/1161105160212484097


How can I send an iMessage from a different Apple ID than the one the device is registered to? We have a family iPad that is registered to my Mom's Apple ID. I'd like to be able to use iMessage, but with my Apple ID, not her Apple ID. Is there a way to do this without deregistering the iPad?

iOS devices allow you to use different Apple IDs for different purposes. You can set the Apple ID to be associated with Messages in Settings > Messages.


Print HTML to PDF while retaining hyperlinks I'm trying to create a PDF document from an HTML document.

Of course it's easy to do this using the built-in PDF Printer, however, this does not retain hyperlinks.

I've tried wkhtmltopdf which looked very promising, but it crashes on every attempt.

Is anyone aware of any other options for generating a PDF document from an HTML document while retaining URL links?

Found an answer over on SuperUser.com: wkpdf

Free, works perfectly. All hyperlinks retained.


Sudo password doesn't work even if I have no password I've erased the password from preferencenow I can log in without using any password but when I run a sudocommand terminal ask me a password if I insert nothing or the old one it return error. What's happen?

sudo requires a password by default on Mac OS X.

Apple's knowledge base article explains more, Mac OS X: sudo command requires a non-blank admin password:

  In Mac OS X v10.5 through 10.5.8, if you press the Return key at the
  password prompt without entering a password (even if the user has no
  password, which is not recommended), the command entered will not
  execute and you will be returned to a command prompt.

  In Mac OS X v10.6 or later, if you press the Return key at the
  password prompt without entering a password, the message "Sorry, try
  again." will be displayed and you will be prompted for a password
  again.

  If your administrator account has no password (a blank password),
  you must give that user a password before using the sudo command.

If you must remove the need for a password to use sudo, you can edit the /etc/sudoers file using visudo command. A thread on macoshints discusses how:

  Use the visudo command as root.

  Look for the line:

  %admin  ALL=(ALL) ALL

  Change it to:

  %admin  ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

Requiring a password is highly recommended. Removing this check reduces the security of your Mac and exposes your computer to attack or abuse.


Does (High) Sierra set a higher bar for menu bar apps? Previously with El Capitan, an app such as smcFanControl (2.6) could furrow in an obscure way into the OS.

Has something changed in either Sierra or High Sierra? After sleeping and waking up, the same app (in the same version) now requires re-entering the sudo password, or otherwise it fails to run in the menu bar.

It has nothing to do with a (perceived) "higher standard" for menu bar icons, it has to do with the privilege level of the process you are attempting to run (or restart from sleep).

In this case, to access the process that controls the fans, you need to have root level privileges.  Until you grant those privileges to that process, it won't run and thusly won't show up in your menu.


Wi-Fi no longer connecting to the internet I keep getting this message:

"Wi-Fi has the self-assigned IP address 169.254.10.243 and will not be able to connect to the Internet."

I was connected and my Wii and iPhone were using Wi-fi through my Airport card. I tried to set up a new network, but it won't connect with it.

How do I get rid of the self-assigned IP address?  I have rebooted everything. I also dumped files from the library that a help group told me to do:

Go to /Library/Preferences/SystemConﬁguration
Delete the following:

com.apple.airport.prefrences.plist
NetworkInterfaces.plist
Preferences.plist

Shut down computer
reset PRAM

I changed the channel to a lower number. Any suggestions? I have an iMac.

It sounds like you were sharing your ethernet internet connection with your Wii and iPhone via your internal Airport card. The wireless strength indicator in the Menubar on your Mac should have a little arrow pointing up if this is your situation. Check System Preferences/Sharing/Internet and make sure you are still setup to share your ethernet connection via Airport. Also make sure you ethernet cable is still plugged in.


Screenshots don't write file The screen shot shortcuts ⌘ Command ⇧ Shift4 or ⌘ Command ⇧ Shift4  do not write a file.

The latter shows the cross hair and let me define an area but that's it.

Copy to clipboard works for both screen and selection area. Grab can write a file too.

The issue occurs only with my user account but not with another (I created an new user to narrow down the failure area). My humble conclusion is that it must deal with my specific environment/configuration, but I have no clue how to narrow it down further or pin-point to the error prone configuration:

System preferences → Keyboard → Shortcut does not give any hint: No error no warning.

Both shortcuts are assigned to the two system functions "save picture of screen as a file respectively save picture of selected area as a file.

I did disable/enable the checkbox, too;  no effect. I changed the target directory forth and back and restarted the UI Server; no obvious effect.

Any idea how to figure out the root cause or better, how to fix the problem?

tl;dr

Open the terminal and write

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Desktop
defaults write com.apple.screencapture target file
killall SystemUIServer

Explanation

Being on Mac OS 10.14 (Mojave), I ran into the same issue. At one point the screenshot shortcuts 'would not work' anymore.
(I was able to save a screenshot to clipboard using Cmd+Shift+Ctrl+3, but it wouldn't work to save a screenshot to the desktop anymore.)

Looking at the output of defaults read com.apple.screencapture in the terminal, I noticed a target = clipboard; being set:

{
    "last-messagetrace-stamp" = "568547998.720744";
    location = "/Users/kim/Desktop/";
    target = clipboard;
}

Changing the target back to file (defaults write com.apple.screencapture target file) and restarting the SystemUIServer (killall SystemUIServer) would restore the expected behaviour.

It looks like the new screenshot controls which were introduced in Mojave overwrite the target setting (Cmd+Shift+5, see the official apple support page for more information). When selecting "Clipboard" in the "Save to" menu, the target in com.apple.screencapture will also be set to clipboard. For some reason, this setting will then also affect the "take screenshot to file" shortcuts.

Note: Of course, you could also reset the target setting in the new screenshot controls. Just choose any folder location in the "Save to" option (e.g. Desktop, Documents or any other location) and the target should be set to file again.


Can launchd run programs more frequently than every 10 seconds? I have some services like this that I'd like to run almost immediately after files are modified.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC -//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN
http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd>
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>test</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>say</string>
        <string>a</string>
    </array>
    <key>WatchPaths</key>
    <array>
        <string>/Users/username/Desktop/</string>
    </array>
</dict>
</plist>

Even if ThrottleInterval was set to 1 or 0, they are only run at most every 10 seconds.

9/9/12 4:57:05.457 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[138]: (test) Throttling respawn: Will start in 7 seconds
9/9/12 4:57:09.541 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[138]: (test) Throttling respawn: Will start in 3 seconds

man launchd.plist only says that programs aren't run more than every 10 seconds by default, but doesn't mention that ThrottleInterval couldn't be set below that.

ThrottleInterval <integer>
This key lets one override the default throttling policy imposed on jobs by launchd.
The value is in seconds, and by default, jobs will not be spawned more than once
every 10 seconds.  The principle behind this is that jobs should linger around just
in case they are needed again in the near future. This not only reduces the latency
of responses, but it encourages developers to amortize the cost of program invoca-
tion.

You could keep the program or script running for 10 seconds and watch for changes every second:

#!/bin/bash

start=$(date +%s)
prev=

until (( $(date +%s) >= $start + 10 )); do
    new=$(stat -f %m ~/Desktop/)
    [[ $prev != $new ]] && say a
    prev=$new
    sleep 1
done

Or the same in Ruby:

#!/usr/bin/env ruby

start = Time.now
prev = nil

until Time.now >= start + 10
  current = File.mtime("#{ENV['HOME']}/Desktop/")
  `say a` if current != prev
  prev = current
  sleep 1
end

But is there some way to bypass or decrease the time limit? It also applies to folder actions.

There is no way to bypass or decrease the time limit.

Apple's documentation regarding Creating Launchd Jobs states the following:

  Important If your daemon shuts down too quickly after being launched, launchd may think it has crashed. Daemons that continue this
  behavior may be suspended and not launched again when future requests
  arrive. To avoid this behavior, do not shut down for at least 10
  seconds after launch.

Your program or script needs to keep running for at least 10 seconds. Consider implementing a loop to check for file modification dates in the last ten seconds, sleeping for ten seconds, and repeating.

Alternatively, you can watch specific files using the kqueue or FSEvents APIs. This StackOverflow question may be helpful, File-level filesystem change notification in Mac OS X.


What devices can I Airplay to? With AirPlay will I be able to stream to iPhone, iPod Touch, and/or iTunes, or is it only to Apple TV and 3rd party speakers?

Yes.

Airplay is really a technology platform that allows for streaming media on a local network. It isn't concerned with the type of device that is producing the media or consuming it.

To start with, support may be limited and may not come from Apple. However, certainly that will change with demand. For example:

There is an iOS app called AirPlayer which allows streaming of media to an iPhone/iPod/iPad.
There is a Mac proof-of-concept app also called AirPlayer which allows streaming of media to a Mac.


Possible to preload apps in supervisor mode and prevent them from being uninstalled? I don't have a Mac or a personal Ipad to experiment with. I am trying to prevent a user from removing certain apps (not all apps). Can I stop the user from removing individual apps on a supervised device?

You can stop the user from deleting any app, or from deleting any Apple-system app.

You cannot with the current iOS stop the user from removing specific individual apps on a supervised device.


Block device from accessing the Internet, but not Wi-Fi I have an Apple Airport and I would like to find out how to configure devices that can access the home network but be blocked from accessing the Internet.

I know how to block a device from accessing Wi-Fi completely, but all I want is to limit a device from accessing the Internet. I still want the device to be able to connect to other computers, the file server, the printer, etc. on the local network.

I am hoping for a router-based solution, such as discussed here.

Is this possible with Airport?

To prevent a device from accessing the internet, but allowing it to access files on a local network over Wi-Fi you can setup an ad hoc network.

The ad hoc network will be hosted by your Mac and devices, like your Eye-Fi card* or your kids laptop, can connect to it and access shared local folders.

Turn Airport On

Click on Create a Network. The following screen will appear:

If you want password protection, check Require Password and type a desired password.

Hit Ok. Now you're Mac is broadcasting a network.

The Eye-Fi support page explains how to connect to an ad hoc network.

Note on the Eye-Fi card: according to this website only the Eye-Fi Pro and Eye-Fi Pro X2 can connect to an ad hoc network.

General note: if you want other devices to access files and folders on your Mac those files and folders have to be shared. How to do that is suitable for another question.


Visual Studio For Mac If I want to use VS to use Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Android do I have to keep Xamarin Studio installed on my Mac? VS has always been my favorite IDE, I don't really like Xamarin Studio.

According to the System Requirements for Visual Studio for Mac:

  NET Core SDK 1.1 is required to use .NET Core projects and features. It can be downloaded and installed separately, and requires Mac OS X
  El Capitan 10.11 or higher.
  Xamarin.Android requires the 64-bit Java Development Kit (JDK).
  Xamarin.iOS requires Apple's Xcode IDE and iOS SDK.
  Xamarin.Forms can target both Android and iOS platforms, given the requirements listed above.

It makes no mention of Xamarin Studio being required.


osascript to trigger a hot key with multiple modifier keys in OBS Streamlabs is not working I want to activate a hotkey in OBS Streamlabs with applescript/osascript.
So this works perfectly fine and as expected using the F17 key (I have a larger keyboard with a numpad):
osascript -e "tell application \"System Events\" to key code 64"
But trying
osascript -e "tell application \"System Events\" to key code 13 using {option down, shift down, command down}"
...doesn't work.
When I type option-shift-command-w manually on the keyboard, however, the hot key is triggered.
Here's the strange thing: I can trigger the hotkey if it's simpler, like "command-w":
osascript -e "tell application \"System Events\" to key code 13 using command down"
Running this command will trigger the command-w global hot key and closes out the current app.
Quoting the curly braces used with the compound modifier keys did not help. I also tried a simpler, 3-keypress combo:
osascript -e "tell application \"System Events\" to key code 13 using {control down, command down}"
This did not work either.
So how can I use multiple modifier keys here?

OK, here is a workaround to the problem. Unfortunatley, this really isn't an answer as it doesn't explain why, at the lower OS level, the problem exists in the first place. It just works around the limitation by mapping key strokes with one or more modifiers to single keystrokes. Perhaps people who are more familiar with the keyboard at the lower levels of the OS can use this solution to figure out what might be happening.
Anyway, as mentioned, OBS Streamlabs can respond to single keystrokes as hotkeys that are simulated with applescript. For example, you can tell OBS to recognize "1" on the number pad as a hotkey. The problem, of course, is that using a single key as a hotkey will also generate that character in the terminal or any other app you are working in. So the trick is to tell OBS to set up a hotkey for numkey 1 and then remap a key stroke with one or more modifier keys to that single numkey 1 keystroke.
The low-level remapping can be accomplished with the free app Karabiner elements
So, using the app, I remapped the command + Num-1 combination to Num-1. So now when I run this simple script from the command line...
osascript -e "tell application \"System Events\" to key code 83 using command down"
...no character gets printed by the key stroke simulated by the one-liner above and the hotkey now gets triggered.
By they way, I could not figure out how to send keyboard output generated by an apple script to /dev/null. It doesn't appear to be possible, as best I can tell. So something like command + Num-1 that creates a "silent" keystroke is needed.
So, with this method, I can have a hotkey for all the rarely used keys on the keypad. I can also use all function keys that are not getting used by another app.


Mobile data Network selection In settings > mobile data > network selection, there is an option called automatic. I turned this off, and it seemed to show which other mobile networks there were available, e.g. EE, 3, and so on. I stayed on my network and did not connect to any of the others. I was wondering what would happen if I chose to connect to one of the other networks shown?

Try it & see.

Probably nothing will happen unless they have a partnership agreement with your own network - which usually applies more to roaming, abroad & would automatically switch if you just left your Network set to Automatic.
If you have no contract with the other network, they will not feel obliged to connect you.


Entering path containing spaces in Terminal Working on my MacBook Pro, I want to change the location of my iPhone backup to an external drive, but when entering the command on the CLI I hadn't noticed that the destination drive has a space in the name (HARDDRV BKUP). How would I enter the following

ln -s /Volumes/HARDDRV BKUP/iphonebkup/Backup/ ~/Library/Application\ Support/MobileSync

using "HARDDRV BKUP" as the name of the external drive in Terminal?  If I recall correctly, the CLI doesn't interpret SPACES the same way, and capitalization is important to take into account as well, correct?  Can someone here correct this for me?

I am new at using the CLI and most of my experience is using the GUI, so I am getting very frustrated and don't have the energy to research all my notes on this.

Choose one of the following:

Surround the part of the path containing spaces in quotes:

ln -s /Volumes/"HARDDRV BKUP"/iphonebkup/Backup/ ~/Library/Application\ Support/MobileSync
               ^            ^

Surround the entire path in quotes:

ln -s "/Volumes/HARDDRV BKUP/iphonebkup/Backup/" ~/Library/Application\ Support/MobileSync
      ^                                        ^

Escape the space with a backslash \:

ln -s /Volumes/HARDDRV\ BKUP/iphonebkup/Backup/ ~/Library/Application\ Support/MobileSync
                      ^

Case sensitivity is important in these cases.


How to pin output volume control to screen? I am looking for a program with a small window that allows me to adjust my computer's audio volume. I would like this window to be pinned over all applications/windows at all times. It would occupy a small area on the right side of my screen (for example).

I understand that I can adjust the output volume with the speaker icon in the menu bar by click, click, drag. I would prefer to have the ability to change the volume on the fly, with simply one click.

I understand that there is a dedicated volume decrease button and a dedicated volume increase button in the top row of keys on the keyboard. But using these buttons to set the desired volume actually takes me more time than setting the volume with the click, click adjustment via the menu bar speaker icon.

It may be that I'll need two separate applications to accomplish what I want: one application to adjust the volume, and another application to keep the window of the other application pinned on top of all other windows. The first application is what I need help finding.

For example, I tried an application called Volume Mixer. It offers a handy audio "mixer" that even allows you to simultaneously set and independently control differing volume values for different applications. But, it offers no method to keep the mixer dialog open; if you click outside of this dialog, the mixer dialog automatically minimizes back into the menu bar icon. And, because the dialog is not a true "window," I can't use another application to pin the dialog on top of everything on screen. I don't know of a program that is able to keep a menu bar icon pressed permanently.

The easiest option would be to just use the Sound dialog in System Preferences. But it is too wide and bulky; it contains a lot of controls that I don't want. It would occupy too much of my screen.

In short, I am looking for a simple, basic, unobtrusive, and compact volume control slider/knob/interface that I can permanently keep on top of all windows.

OS X El Capitan, version 10.11.6.

The MacBook Pro with Touch Bar supports sliding the volume button directly to control the volume, thus in one swipe you can adjust the volume. The volume control is pinned to the right side.


Where can I find Siri's file, folders, database in ios files (I'm root) I would like to modify some things on the OS including the 'Hey Siri' phrase, I've tried a global grep but no luck yet.

If someone has an idea, he is welcome

There's not just some file you can just go edit for the "Hey, Siri..." phrase. There are localized language files for Assistant (Siri) and the rest of iOS that contain information about what certain words and language in general looks like to a computer. I'm fairly certain that these files are located at /System/Library/LinguisticData/. There are people who have modified the "Hey, Siri..." phrase before, so it's not impossible, but it's not just a simple edit of some .plist somewhere.


iPhone 'My Number' is missing in the settings app - can I get it reinstated? My number tab is not showing any number and it's blank. I am unable to tap on it to input the number myself. Hence, iMessage and Facetime can not be accessed using my phone number.

How can I get my iPhone to re-read my SIM card or cellular service so that it shows in the settings app and I can try again to set up messaging using my proper cellular number to combine with my AppleID/iCloud account?

I can’t reproduce this, but here is how I would troubleshoot it and why:

Put the device in AirPlane mode and then power off.
Start up and then go to settings (still in AirPlane mode) and look at the cellular data information / carrier information / phone information. Perhaps record/screen shot the MEID/IMEI and SIM information.
Open and re-seat your SIM card while in AirPlane mode still.
Connect to WiFi and check for updates, update the iOS to the latest and then disable AirPlane mode.
Power down and back up one more time while cellular and WiFi are enabled.
In the settings app - reset network settings - this should restart one last time.

At this point, you can be sure the SIM isn’t trivially failing and the iOS had a chance to talk to the cellular carriers. At this point, I would back up the device and then erase all content and settings. Now make a tea or coffee and get ready to call/engage tech support for your cellular carrier and explain you’re needing help knowing why your device isn’t working with their service. They can’t really say there’s a bug with iOS or your apps if you’re willing to repeat the reset network settings / power cycle / erase all content and settings. They might say - check with Apple and Apple would say, restore the device and if it still doesn’t work go back to the carrier.

At that point, the carrier is really on the hook for providing you a reason why your service isn’t working. Similarly, Apple support will be a breeze to erase / restore / rule out trivial failures and fix this in almost all cases without waiting hours on either call.