iMac screen froze while in use, shutdown, restarted, got worse iMac (approx 7-8 yrs old)

Screen froze while in use. Shut down for 10 mins. Restarted, graphics came on distorted. Apple logo in the middle of screen with small broken lines and specks all over the screen.  It tried to load but froze up again. Had to push power button a few times and hold it down to shut off.

Sounds like a dead graphics card. If it's really that old you'll be out of luck to get a replacement card from Apple. Ask a local service provider to be sure.

If you want to rule out software, try booting from an external drive. RAM would be a small possibility as well.


How do I convert a 24-bit/96 kHz FLAC to anything else? I have some FLAC files I want to convert to AAC, but I can't because my go-to program, Max, throws an exception (The call to ExtAudioFileSetProperty failed.) when it tries to convert 24-bit/96 kHz FLAC (16-bit is no problem) to any other format.

So is there another good program for converting from FLAC?

Personally I use a tool called X Lossless Decoder, or XLD for short. I use it for converting FLAC to Apple Lossless regularly, and it’s never hiccupped.
From the project’s page:

XLD can decode following formats:

(Ogg) FLAC (.flac/.oga)
[…]

and:

XLD supports various output formats. It can convert audio files into […] MPEG-4 AAC (QuickTime/CoreAudio), MP3 (LAME), Apple Lossless, FLAC […].

XLD is free, and is still being actively maintained. Highly recommended.


difference between "Development certificate" and "Developer ID certificate" I am reading the pdf (from Apple) named App Distribution Guide.
In page 155 it is written that every team member can create a "Developement certificate", that the team admins can create a "Distribution certificate" (which is used to be able to update the app in iTunes Connect) but only the team agent can create "Developer ID certificate".
What actually is this?

Page 160:
"Developer ID certificates are used to distribute your [Mac] app outside the Mac App Store."


How to fix Mail stuck importing messages from a Time Machine backup? I'm setting up a new Mac from an old one, and everything's working perfect, except for getting Mail set up.

This is what I'm seeing with Mail:

The "Time remaining" figure just keeps increasing, while the "Imported X of Y messages" number gets stuck on 14.

I've tried searching Apple's support community, but none of the suggestions there have helped. Any ideas on how to fix this?

If it is IMAP or Exchange you can skip this process and just add your account afterwards.

I would not advise to skip it if it was a POP3 account because usually it means you only have a local copy of those mailboxes and won't get synced when adding the account again.


How is the UUID for a user used by macOS? In the Advanced Options for a user under the Users & Groups System Preference, there is field for UUID and a button for Create New next to it. How is the UUID used by macOS and what are the implications of changing it?

The UUID (aka GeneratedUID, so Google that one instead) is used by Open Directory Services on macOS X. You can see this and more using the macOS app Directory Utility. Read more the book Apple Training Series: Mac OS X Directory Services.

Ownership and Permissions problems would result from a change of UUID. Not just regarding files and folders, but other data such as that in Calendar.

PS: I no longer see the Create New button in High Sierra.


OSX Sierra hangs when accessing Printers there is a situation that I can't resolve. It is related to the "Printer & Scanner" service on the Sierra. When I upgraded to it any app which tries to resolve the printer list crashes, including the System Preferences.

I've already tried copying the default settings file:

sudo cp /etc/cups/cupsd.conf /etc/cups/cupsd.conf.old

sudo cp /etc/cups/cupsd.conf.default /etc/cups/cupsd.conf

That didn't help.. So in a nutshell, I can't use the printing on my laptop, including 'export to pdf' on Chrome.
Do you know what might be happening here?

Thanks!

Boot to Safe Mode by holding shift on boot.
In System Preferences → Printers & Scanners, right-click on any printer and choose Reset printing system… and enter your administrator password.

If you still can't open the printers list in Safe Mode, temporarily move the contents of /Library/Printers elsewhere, reboot to Safe Mode once more, then try the steps above again.


Restoring from backup does not restore some applications - I need their data badly Well, I've got my iTunes backup restored to my iPhone. Unfortunately, I've had an important application for me - Photo Drag Pro, which was probably now removed from the App Store. However, I need to restore data from that application.

The application itself shows for a few moments on a home screen, noting "Wait" and then disappears. Is there a possibility to restore that application, possibly with data? It means a lot for me!

The actual app isn't backed up in the iOS backups, but the data for the app is backed up (unless specified not to by the developer - very rare) and a reference to the app is stored so that it can be re-downloaded from the app store. That's why you saw the "Wait" icon while it tried to download.

I would go into the App Store app and tap Updates > Purchased and triple check if you can download Photo Drag Pro from here. (The policy on whether developer-removed-from-sale apps appear in this list changes more frequently than I pay attention ;) I assume right now it won't appear, but it's worth checking.)

If that doesn't work, then your only option may be to try to pull the data for Photo Drag Pro out of the backup using a third party tool that reads iOS backup files. There are a handful of options; the one I work on is called Decipher Backup Browser https://deciphertools.com/decipher-backup-browser.html. You can use this to open and save the files from Photo Drag Pro out of the backup and onto your computer. If you need help locating the Photo Drag Pro data in the "All Files" section of DBB, there's contact links on our website and we'll help (and feel free to mention Kelly specifically if you want to make sure your email gets directly to me!)

(Note: As I mentioned, I'm a developer for the software I linked to. I want to make sure I'm up front about that!)


Terminal could not find command "$ php -v" I recently try to install ionCube loader and when I tried to check my PHP version via Terminal, it gave me an -bash: $: command not found.

How can I fixed that?

The $ is just an example for the shell prompt in whatever instruction guide you are reading (used to indicate that you should run the command from your standard user account. A # would indicate that you should run the command as an admin/root user). Just run

php -v

instead.


Airport Extreme to 3 Sony Airplay speakers I'm was wondering, before purchasing the Airport Extreme , if it was possible to connect my 3 Sony Airplay speakers  to the 3 LAN Ports of the Airport Extreme and airplay simultaneously as multi-room audio from my Iphone ?

Can you connect multiple Sony Speakers?  Yes.  Why wouldn't you be able to?

The AirPort Extreme is just like any other WiFi router in as much it is a router, a switch, and a WAP (Wireless Access Point) like any other wireless router.

The Sony speakers are just like any other WiFi speakers in as much they are clients on a WiFi network.

The real question here is does iOS support streaming to multiple AirPlay speakers simultaneously?

Currently, the answer is NO.  This is a limitation of iOS.

However, there is an App called Airfoil Satellite which gets your around this limitation.


How do I un-trust or remove blacklisted root CAs from mobile Safari on my iPhone or iPad? The DigiNotar root CA has been compromised and has been blacklisted by Mozilla and Chrome. I've already un-trusted their root CA in Keychain on my OS X devices, but how can I do something similar on my iPhone and iPad?

Edit: I'd like to do this without having to jailbreak any device.

Edit: The i0S 5 update from Apple removes the DigiNotar root CA from your iDevice and also gets rid of trust for MD5-signed certs. See this Ars Technica article for details.

You don't. (not without jail breaking iOS) More sadly, we've gone from the situation on iOS 4 -> 5 ->6 -> iOS 7 and still cannot choose what certificates are trusted by the OS.

This is either a bug in the iPhone configuration utility or an unimplimented feature. If you care, do reach out to apple to ask for this.

http://www.apple.com/feedback or http://bugreporter.apple.com

Unless you are comfortable writing a technically correct bug, the feedback link is a better avenue. Calling AppleCare or asking for this at the genius bar might also be worthwhile.


Why am I notified about some missed calls via a text from +8888? Most of the time when there's a missed call, it shows up when I go to Phone app->Recents. Sometimes I get a text from Rogers (+8888) telling me the number and when they called. When that happens, it doesn't show up in the Phone app.

I've got an iPhone 4, iOS 7, although this has been happening for longer than I've had iOS 7.

5 seconds with google showed me this: http://forums.crackberry.com/blackberry-pearl-flip-f85/rogers-sends-8888-text-message-every-time-someone-calls-332862/

Seems to be a "service" Rogers offers where they notify you if you miss a call. You need to call their customer support line and ask them to disable the "Whocalled" service on your contract.


Using CSR8510 A10 based Bluetooth 4.0 (Low Energy) dongle with mid-2011 iMac I recently purchased a CSR8510 A10 based Bluetooth 4.0 (Bluetooth Low Energy aka BLE) dongle and I'm using it on a mid-2011 iMac that doesn't have Bluetooth 4.0 support. Just plugging it in doesn't appear to work, the CSR8510 A10 device appears in the USB device tree, but there is no indication of Bluetooth functionality.

To diagnose the problem I run the LightBlue OS X app and on launch it displays a dialog with the "Turn Bluetooth ON" message and "Press Done when it is on". If I push the "Done" button it just displays the dialog again. So it appears that it sees the device, but it isn't initializing.

Is there a way to get this device working?

Edit

I tried the instructions here mentioned by dwightk, but they don't appear to be effective.

I also tried the instructions here, but they don't appear to work either.

Note: When checking the CBCentralManager.state the value CBCentralManagerStatePoweredOff is returned.

Oh snaps, I'm going to make you happy @ThomasW.

Okay so after you do the HCI bootmode thing? You also need to whack /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist and bounce your system.

If you have both internal Bluetooth and this adapter you may also need to use Apple's "Bluetooth Explorer" (via developer.apple.com no ADC subscription required, get the "Hardware Tools" bundle) and pick a different device.

Just got this working tonight via the change to bootmode and subsequent removal of the existing plist and my Magic Trackpad is totally happy, will test other devices later, it's been a long evening.


bind application to file of particular names(rather than suffix) I want to open all makefiles with TextWrangler. But since makefiles have no suffix so binding a type of file to TextWrangler does not work.

How can I tell Mac to open any file named Makefile with TextWrangler?

There is no way to do this, you can change the application opened on a per instance basis using the standard methods, however this will not apply to all other files of the same name.

There are two workarounds, but those do involve a slightly more user movements, click->mouse move ->click) instead of double-click

TextWrangler adds an menu item to the right click (ctrl-left click) menu for all files to "Open File in TextWrangler"
Drag the files into the TextWrangler app (or a shortcut) to open the files directly.


What is the equivalent of the 'gsettings' command on OS X? Under Ubuntu it's possible to get various settings information via gsettings command in terminal. For instance, current wallpaper path can be obtained via

$ gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.background picture-uri
'file:///home/jdoe/Pictures/wallpaper.png'

List of items on dock

$ gsettings get  com.canonical.Unity.Launcher favorites
['application://wps-office-et.desktop', 'application://wps-office-wpp.desktop', 'application://wps-office-wps.desktop', 'unity://running-apps', 'unity://devices']

Is there something similar for OS X ?

The most approaching command line interface on MacOS X is the command defaults. All the settings are hierarchically structured inside domains, which are separated by dots (as in Ubuntu settings).

To get all the domains containing settings (the equivalent of gsettings list-schemas), enter:

defaults domains

and for a human readable version, enter:

defaults domains | sed -E 's/, /\
/g' | sort


Anyone able to connect gioteck VX-1 (PS3 controller) via Bluetooth? I have a Sony DUALSHOCK 3 SIXAXIS controller, I can use it as a USB controller on my OS X Mountain Lion MacMini and it works perfectly.  I have it set up in Bluetooth so that when it is not connected via USB, I just press the Playstation Logo and it connects instantly via Bluetooth.  In my humble opinion, Sony DUALSHOCK 3 SIXAXIS controllers are overpriced, so I bought a gioteck PS3 VX-1 Wireless Controller for $29.99.   It is identical in every way to the Sony controller except the shape and that it doesn't come with a lithium ion battery and instead takes two AA batteries or a battery pack like the ones you put in an XBox 360 controller.  The "Cheap" controller works identical to the Sony controller when connected via USB.

My goal here is to play four player games with the whole family without spending nearly $200 on PS3 controllers.

The problem (I think): gioteck did not properly set the values transmitted via Bluetooth upon connection. The Bluetooth Type is "Unknown" instead of "Peripheral", the Name is "PLAYSTATION(R)3Conteroller-ghic" instead of "PLAYSTATION(R)3 Controller", the Services are not set instead of "PnP Information Wireless Controller", the Major Device Class is "0x1f" instead of "0x5", the Minor Device Class is "0x0" instead of "0x2", and as expected the Product ID and Vendor ID are different from the Sony.

My guess is that most of the details I listed above don't come from the Bluetooth device itself but are looked up based on Major Device Class and Minor Device Class (but I really don't know much about how Bluetooth devices work).

So my question:  Anybody know if there are files on my OS X 10.8 that I can modify so that my "Cheap" PS3 controller that works via Bluetooth on the PS3 can also work via Bluetooth on OS X?

Here are all the details I have:

The one that works:

The one that doesn't work:

Ok, I got it to work.  I would not recommend using this technique, but it works, I hope someone posts a better solution.

Set up gioteck VX-1:

Get a Sony controller and set it up (See Next Section, if you don't have a Sony controller, you can copy my values, which may work, just remember that the steps below will be slightly different since you will be copying details from this thread instead of from your Sony controller)
Follow same instructions as in Step 1, but using your gioteck VX-1 instead of your Sony controller, write down the gioteck's address as soon as it is displayed.
Bring up terminal and type:

cp /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist ~/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist
cp /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist ~/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist.backup

Open your ~/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist in Xcode
Expand HIDDevices
Click on HIDDevices
Click on the (+) to the right of HIDDevices
In Item 0's Value column type the Address you wrote down in step 2
Save and close the file
Turn Bluetooth off
Type the following in Terminal:

sudo cp ~/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist
cd /Library/Preferences
sudo chown root:wheel com.apple.Bluetooth.plist

Turn Bluetooth back on.
Press the big round middle button on the VX-1 (where the Playstation logo would be on a Sony control)
Your controller should connect now automatically without asking you to enter a passcode to pair, but it won't work as a game controller at this point and after less than a minute, it will disconnect, but at least you know that you have done all the steps correctly so far if it doesn't prompt you for a passcode and it is listed even when the status is "Not Connected".
Bring up System Preferences->Bluetooth.  You should now have PLAYSTATION(R)3 Controller listed (the Sony controller), and PLAYSTATION(R)3Conteroller-ghic list (the VX-1)
Click on the Sony controller in the list (if you don't have a Sony controller, as stated in step 1, just know you will use details from this thread instead of from your Sony controller)
Write down your Sony's Address
Open ~/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist in Xcode again
Expand DeviceCache
Now, expand your VX-1's address (mine was 00-0e-3d-de-c9-19)
Expand your Sony's address (mine was 34-c7-31-1b-2b-e7)
Now drag the nodes of you VX-1 one by one to match the order of your Sony nodes (just to make them easier to compare) as you compare their values, when you encounter that your VX-1 is missing a node, right click the node within Sony, click copy, then right click your VX-1 and click paste. Then drag your newly pasted node within your VX-1 so that the order of your VX-1 nodes match the order of your Sony nodes (again, this is just to help you not miss anything).  While you compare and note the differences mentally, don't change any VX-1 values yet, your just copying missing nodes from Sony at this point.
Now that the address nodes for your Sony and VX-1 contain the same number of nodes in the same order as each other, note that the following in your VX-1 should match your Sony exactly:

PageScanMode           Number  0
InquiryRSSI            Number  0
PageScanPeriod         Number  0
SupportedFeatures      Data    <80001808 7a8207fc>
ProductID              Number  616
PageScanRepetitionMode Number  1
Services               Data    <040b7374 7265616d 74797065 6481e803 84014084 8484074e 53417272 61790084 84084e53 4f626a65 63740085 84016902 92848484 1b494f42 6c756574 6f6f7468 53445053 65727669 63655265 636f7264 00949284 84841149 4f426c75 65746f6f 74684465 76696365 00848411 494f426c 7565746f 6f74684f 626a6563 74009492 84848406 4e534461 74610094 95068404 5b36635d 34c7311b 2be78686 92848484 0c4e5344 69637469 6f6e6172 79009495 18928484 84084e53 4e756d62 65720084 84074e53 56616c75 65009484 012a8495 95008692 84848419 494f426c 7565746f 6f746853 44504461 7461456c 656d656e 74009484 014301a0 0284014c 0492849f 9e848401 71a28200 00010086 8692849f 9ea19581 0a028692 84a3a005 a000a101 92849f9e 84840173 a3018686 92849f9e a1958107 02869284 a3a006a0 05a10892 8484840e 4e534d75 7461626c 65417272 61790093 95019284 a3a006a0 05a10692 84ad9502 9284a3a0 01a001a1 0292849f 9ea19581 09048686 9284a3a0 01a001a1 0292849f 9ea19581 00018686 86868686 92849f9e a1958104 02869284 a3a005a0 00a10192 a8869284 9f9ea195 0d869284 a3a006a0 05a10f92 84ad9501 9284a3a0 06a005a1 0d9284ad 95029284 a3a006a0 05a10692 84ad9502 9284a3a0 03a001a1 02928484 8412494f 426c7565 746f6f74 68534450 55554944 009b9284 9b950284 045b3263 5d010086 86869284 a3a001a0 01a10292 849f9ea1 95138686 86869284 a3a006a0 05a10392 84ad9501 9284a3a0 03a001a1 029284bf 92849b95 02a60011 86868686 86868686 8692849f 9ea19581 0c028692 84a3a001 a001a102 92849f9e a1958180 3e868692 849f9ea1 95810102 869284a3 a001a001 a10292b3 8692b392 84a3a004 a005a113 92849b95 1384055b 3139635d 57697265 6c657373 20436f6e 74726f6c 6c657286 8692849f 9ea19581 09028692 84a3a005 a000a101 92a88692 849f9ea1 95810602 869284a3 a006a005 a1819a00 9284ad95 019284a3 a006a005 a1819800 9284ad95 029284a3 a001a000 a1019284 9f9ea9a3 22868692 84a3a004 a005a181 94009284 9b958194 0084065b 31343863 5d050109 04a101a1 02850175 08950115 0026ff00 81037501 95131500 25013500 45010509 19012913 81027501 950d0600 ff810315 0026ff00 05010901 a1007508 95043500 46ff0009 30093109 32093581 02c00501 75089527 09018102 75089530 09019102 75089530 0901b102 c0a10285 02750895 300901b1 02c0a102 85ee7508 95300901 b102c0a1 0285ef75 08953009 01b102c0 c0868686 86868692 849f9ea1 95048692 84a3a006 a005a10d 9284ad95 029284a3 a006a005 a1069284 ad950292 84a3a003 a001a102 9284bf92 849b9502 a6010086 86869284 a3a001a0 01a10292 849f9ea1 95118686 86869284 a3a006a0 05a10392 84ad9501 9284a3a0 03a001a1 029284bf 92849b95 02a60011 86868686 86868692 849f9ea1 95810e02 869284a3 a005a000 a1019284 9f9ea9a3 00868692 849f9ea1 95810302 869284a3 a001a000 a1019284 9f9ea9a3 21868692 849f9ea1 95810201 869284a3 a004a005 a11b9284 9b951b84 055b3237 635d536f 6e792043 6f6d7075 74657220 456e7465 72746169 6e6d656e 74868692 849f9ea1 95018692 84a3a006 a005a103 9284ad95 019284a3 a003a001 a1029284 bf92849b 9502a611 24868686 86869284 9f9ea195 810b0286 9284a3a0 01a001a1 0292b386 92849f9e a1958100 02869284 a3a001a0 01a10292 b3869284 9f9ea195 09869284 a3a006a0 05a10892 84ad9501 9284a3a0 06a005a1 069284ad 95029284 a3a003a0 01a10292 84bf9284 9b9502a6 11248686 869284a3 a001a001 a10292b3 86868686 8692849f 9ea19581 08028692 84a3a005 a000a101 92eb8692 849f9ea1 95068692 84a3a006 a005a109 9284ad95 039284a3 a001a001 a1029284 9f9ea195 816e6586 869284a3 a001a001 a1029284 9f9ea195 6a868692 84a3a001 a001a102 92b38686 8692849f 9ea19581 05028692 84a3a005 a000a101 92a88692 849f9ea1 95810d02 869284a3 a005a000 a10192eb 8692849f 9ea19581 02028692 84a3a001 a000a101 92eb8692 849f9ea1 95810101 869284a3 a004a005 a1139284 9b9513a7 57697265 6c657373 20436f6e 74726f6c 6c657286 86868692 84969297 92849d95 0c929e92 84a3a001 a002a104 92849f9e a5a28201 00010086 86921592 84a3a004 a005a11a 92849b95 1a84055b 3236635d 504c4159 53544154 494f4e28 52293320 436f6e74 726f6c6c 65728686 920f9284 a3a001a0 01a10292 849f9ea1 95028686 92fc9284 a3a006a0 05a10892 84ad9501 9284a3a0 06a005a1 069284ad 95029284 a3a003a0 01a10292 84bf9284 9b9502a6 12008686 869284a3 a001a001 a10292b3 86868686 8692cb92 84a3a001 a001a102 92849f9e a195814c 05868692 ec9284a3 a001a001 a10292b3 8692f292 84a3a006 a005a103 9284ad95 019284a3 a003a001 a1029284 bf92849b 9502a612 00868686 868692b4 9284a3a0 05a000a1 0192a886 92139284 a3a001a0 01a10292 849f9ea1 95816802 868692fa 9284a3a0 01a001a1 0292b386 92079284 a3a006a0 05a10992 84ad9503 9284a3a0 01a001a1 02920b86 9284a3a0 01a001a1 02920d86 9284a3a0 01a001a1 0292b386 868692da 9284a3a0 06a005a1 0d9284ad 95029284 a3a006a0 05a10692 84ad9502 9284a3a0 03a001a1 029284bf 92849b95 02a60100 86868692 84a3a001 a001a102 92f28686 869284a3 a006a005 a1039284 ad950192 84a3a003 a001a102 9284bf92 849b9502 a6000186 86868686 86868686 86>
ClassOfDevice          Number  1,288
ClockOffset            Number  0
LastServiceUpdate      Date    Dec 24, 2012 11:00:29 PM

Verify that you changed ClassOfDevice's VX-1 value to the value that the Sony had: 1288, I can't remember but I think VX-1 had 7997.  I think that the most important things are the ClassOfDevice, LastServiceUpdate, and Services (but not in that order).  Any node that I did not list in Step 23 should be present in VX-1, but have values that do not match the Sony.  If you ever go to System Preferences->Bluetooth, click on PLAYSTATION(R)3Conteroller-ghic, then click on the little gear icon/down triangle, and click Update Services, it will probably wipe out all these changes, so don't do that.
Save and close ~/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist
Repeat Steps 10-13
Now when you click the big round circle button in the middle of your VX-1, it should connect instantly via Bluetooth and work in all your Sony SIXAXIS compatible OS X games.

THE SECTION REFERENCED IN STEP 1 ABOVE:

Plug in controller using USB cable
Unplug controller (You have 15 seconds to complete the next steps through 6)
Ignore pairing request
Open System Preferences->Bluetooth
Click on the PLAYSTATION(R)3 with status of Connected (there will be more to the name after the (R)3)
Click on the gear down triangle icon at bottom of list and then click Add to Favorites
Go back to the same menu from Step 6 and pick Update Services
Some people say that at this point you need to turn off Bluetooth (uncheck On) and wait for the lights on the controller to stop flashing) and then turn Bluetooth back on, then connect the controller via USB.
Click on the gear menu and pick Disconnect.
Now, with your controller listed in the Bluetooth list with a status of Not Connected and with your USB cable disconnected, press the Playstation logo button.  Your controller's status should change to Connected, stay connected for more than a minute (for as long as you are still using it) and work in the games and apps that support the PS3 controller.  If not, I don't know WTF, and no, I do not know how to make the lights stop flashing.

Any time you stop using the controller, disconnect it via System Preferences->Bluetooth or hold the Playstation logo button for 10 seconds to power it off.


What exactly does Background App Refresh in iOS 7 do? I upgraded to iOS 7 yesterday, and I read that iOS 7 allows applications to not only update themselves in the background, but also retrieve current data (like stocks, weather etc.) so they are already up-to-date when I launch them. Nice.

But what if I'm not at home in my WLAN, and my data plan is limited? Are data updates still fetched? As far as I know, app updates only happen in WLANs, but what about weather data etc.? The preferences screen says:

  Allow apps to refresh their content when on Wi-Fi or cellular, or use Location Services, in the background. Turning off apps may help preserve battery life.

Does this mean that apps that use location services can also drain my mobile data plan at will? Can I prevent that from happening (i.e. allow location services but prevent background data updates if not in a WLAN)?

The setting to enable or disable Background App Refresh is applicable for both WiFi and cellular. There is no way to disable it only for cellular data. So yes, apps that use location services can drain your cellular data plan.

Possible solutions:

Restrict which apps are allowed to use background refresh. You can thus limit the amount of data usage by turning on this setting only for the apps that you need background refreshes for.
Turn off cellular data for specific apps from Settings->Cellular (this page also shows the cellular data used by your apps). This would completely restrict those apps only to WiFi all the time though.


To install Pandoc's manuals I run cabal install pandoc pandoc-citeproc as described in the manual.
I get nothing from man pandoc.
Pandoc exists in brew but I would like to know how you get pandoc by manuals too.
I would like to read man pandoc_markdown.

How can you install pandoc with manuals?

There is pandoc --help as well as the online documentation/user guide. I have pandoc installed via Homebrew and I also have no man pages.

erik@Eriks-MBP:~$ man pandoc
No manual entry for pandoc


OS X 10.10 File Vault - Restore from Time Machine Backup Just for my curiosity and knowledge, from a Software and Hardware stand point prospective, if for any reasons I can not retrieve my Mac File Vault Password and luckily I have a Time Machine Backup (normal backup, not encrypted), after I erase my HDD and reinstall the OS X and restore from Time Machine Backup, does the entire data comes back to my MAC without any issue? Such as: ask me again for my File Vault password?

Thank you so much and have a wonderful day.

No. Given the scenario you describe (re-install, restore from Time machine backup) the previous Filevault2 password will be gone.

Just make sure you did not exclude important files in System Preferences > Time Machine > Options...


Why can't I see thumbnails in the finder? Most of the instructions I've found online (this, for example) say all I have to do is select "show icon preview" in the finder view settings.  But that doesn't seem to be working.  What's the problem here?

This is OSX 10.8.5.

This just happened to me and it was fixed by relaunching Finder:

Alt + Right Click Finder in the Dock > Relaunch
Cmd+Alt+Esc > select Finder > Relaunch


Convert MTS video to OGV (OGG) format via Terminal Is there a way to convert MTS video format to OGV? And how could you set desired size of output file or file resolution?

It could be done with ffmpeg. First, install it with vorbis support:

brew install ffmpeg --with-libvpx --with-theora --with-libogg --with-libvorbis

After that, run command:

ffmpeg -i input_file.mts -acodec libvorbis -crf 21 -r 30000/1001 -deinterlace -vpre lossless_medium -y -threads 0 output_file.avi


AppleScript Save As Dialog in Safari Reader Save As PDF I have an AppleScript to open move a Safari webpage into Reader view and then to Save As a PDF.

I would like it to Save As the PDF with default filename, but always in the same specific location. I'm not sure how to do this.

Currently the AppleScript runs as:

tell application "System Events"
tell application process "Safari"
    set frontmost to true

    repeat until window 1 exists
    end repeat

    # Render page in Safari Reader
    keystroke "r" using {command down, shift down}

    delay 0.02

    -- Print; wait until the sheet is visible
    click menu item "Print…" of menu 1 of menu bar item "File" of menu bar 1

    repeat until sheet 1 of window 1 exists
    end repeat

    set thePopUp to first pop up button of sheet 1 of window 1 whose description is "Presets"
    click thePopUp
    click menu item "Default Settings" of menu 1 of thePopUp --replace if desired with your preferred preset

    click menu button "PDF" of sheet 1 of window 1
    click menu item "Save as PDF…" of menu 1 of menu button "PDF" of sheet 1 of window 1 -- Save as PDF...
    tell application "Finder"
        set filesavepath to "/Users/Ariel/Google Drive/To print"
    end tell
end tell

The final bits of the AppleScript, from 'tell application finder' do not actually make the Page save in my desired location. Please could you help me to this. Thank you for any help.

Here's how you'd do this:

Go into the finder, and drag whichever folder you want to use for this into the "Favorites" section in the sidebar (enable the sidebar in the view menu if it isn't showing).
Run this script, but replace menu item "Xcode" of click menu item "Xcode" of menu 1 of pop up button "Where:" with the name of the folder you added to your favorites.

tell application "System Events"
    tell application process "Safari"
        set frontmost to true
        tell menu bar 1
            click menu item "Show Reader" of menu "View" of menu bar item "View"
            click menu item "Save As…" of menu "File" of menu bar item "File"
        end tell
        tell window 1
            repeat until sheet 1 exists
            end repeat
            tell sheet 1
                click pop up button "Where:"
                repeat until menu 1 of pop up button "Where:" exists
                end repeat
                click menu item "Xcode" of menu 1 of pop up button "Where:"
                click button "Save"
            end tell
        end tell
    end tell
end tell


Hard drive not showing up on Mac Mini A1347 I have a Mac Mini A1347 that was wiped out before given to me. It has a 320 GB hard drive but it is not showing up when I attempt to install "El Capitan". I am trying to format the partition but it does not even show up. Here is a screenshot I took of the only thing that appears (the bootable usb flash drive with el capitan):

Any help in finding and formatting the 320gb drive in preparation for the "El Capitan" install would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks.

Note: The screenshot was taken from a separate device.

Update #1

I exited "Disk Utility" and was back at the "OX X Utilities" menu.  There I opened up terminal and typed:

diskutil cs list

I get back the following message:

"No CoreStorage logical volume groups found"

I don't understand what has happened to the 320 GB hard drive.  It is completely gone.  Could it be a bad hard drive cable on the mini mac?

I had exactly the same problem (on an iMac). And no, if the system doesn't see it, you can't do anything to test it. Opening the computer is the way to go. I opened mine and discovered that one of the Sata connectors (my Sata cable had two connectors : data and power) had come lose. It might be something similar, although most probably I'd say disk is toast.

What you can do once you open the computer is put your disk in an external enclosure and test it with another computer to see if it's recognized and properly formatted (even if it's not properly formatted, it should show up, but as long as it's in the enclosure, why not format it correctly if you see it's not). That will save you the trouble of closing the Mac mini after unplugging and plugging the Sata cable on a bad disk. If the disk is fine, check the Sata cable and Sata connectors, and try again. If you computer still doesn't recognize the disk, you probably have a bad Sata cable. Could be a bad Sata connector on the motherboard, but that's unlikely.


How to remove date from Calendar.app dock tile? I want to remove the current date from the Calendar.app dock tile. I have changed its icons (by replacing the icns-files inside the .app) however it still shows the current date over the icon. How can I remove this date?

Disclaimer: This is an untested (edit: now tested by OP) modification of the Calendar.app, you may do it at your on risk. Back up your computer to an external drive first.

Doing the following will stop the Calendar dock icon from having that date overlay.

If we right-click on Calendar in the Applications folder, an option comes up that says "Show Package Contents". That will reveal some (not all) of the inner workings of the Calendar app.
If you navigate to _CodeSignature and then CodeResources, you will find some of the resources the Calendar app uses to operate. Searching for dock inside that file reveals data keys including
<key>Resources/Calendar.docktileplugin/Contents/_CodeSignature/CodeResources</key>. This points us to a file that may well control the Calendar icon (notice Calendar.docktileplugin).
So let's go there. Follow the file tree: back up one step, go to resources, and find the Calendar.docktileplugin folder. Deleting this folder will stop the Calendar app from automatically putting the current date on top of your calendar icon (Edit you might want to save a backup of this plugin as I mention in Edit 2 below).

There you have what I believe is the solution to your problem.

Edit: If the Calendar app crashes on launch, try deleting the original key (from step 2). If that doesn't work, my solution might not be so good.

Edit 2: Save a backup of the Calendar.docktileplugin folder (like maybe on your Desktop) before deleting it and remember where it went so you can always put it back if the Calendar app just crashes or if you want to restore the Calendar icon to original anytime.

Let me know if this helps.


Will the new iPad be world ready? The specs for the third generation Verizon iPad say that it will be GSM/EDGE compatible. Does this mean that the Verizon new iPad will have a SIM card slot? Will I be better off with a Verizon iPad if I wanted the ability to connect to either CDMA or GSM networks?

Edit:

Will the Verizon model have a SIM tray? Will it be locked to Verizon? (Say I wanted to buy an iPad SIM card later from AT&T, would I have that option?)

Yes.
(It's a "world iPad" for both the AT&T and Verizon model.)
Whether a device functions worldwide for a specific wireless standard depends on the frequency bands that it supports.
E.g. The new iPad supports LTE, but only the frequency bands 700 MHz and 2100 MHz which are not used outside the US.
The iPhone 4S has been called a world phone, because it supports all the frequency band used for GSM worldwide:

850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz

The new iPad supports the same GSM frequency bands for both the AT&T and Verizon model. Therefore it's a "world iPad".
Of course you need a SIM-tray, to make use of this. Like the iPhone, the iPad has a Micro-SIM card tray.


"Free space" partition is unformatable/unerasable/unmergeable from Disk Utiliy MacBookPro11,3 High Sierra AFPS

After having recently reduced the size of APPLESSD AFPS partition there is now a "Free space" partition between the previous and the next one. Unfortunately, it is impossible to resize, merge, erase or format the free space partition with Disk Utility. Actually merging is accessible through - button but it fails with an internal error saying a disk could not be found. The same in recovery mode and SIP disabled. Disk Utility doesn't find any error.

"Free space" isn't displayed in Windows disk manager, instead the previous partition is displayed with its size before shrinking. Nonetheless it is displayed in Linux gparted, so maybe I could format it and it would then be again mergeable/erasable from Disk Utility but I am not sure of this.

Any suggestion about how to solve this issue ?

(now Boot Camp Assistant crashes after introduction panel, this may be related)

diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk4         70.0 GB    disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_APFS Container disk3         99.9 GB    disk0s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data                         75.5 GB    disk0s4
   5:       Microsoft Basic Data                         224.0 GB   disk0s5
   6:       Microsoft Basic Data NOTHING                 209.7 MB   disk0s6
   7:       Microsoft Basic Data UBUNTU                  208.7 MB   disk0s7
   8:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         219.2 MB   disk0s8
   9:                 Apple_APFS Container disk2         96.5 MB    disk0s9

/dev/disk4 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +70.0 GB    disk4
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume APPLESSD                63.3 GB    disk4s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 19.4 MB    disk4s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                517.8 MB   disk4s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      1.1 GB     disk4s4

sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk0
      start       size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
     409640  136660240      2  GPT part - 7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  137069880   58653384
  195723264  195039232      3  GPT part - 7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  390762496  147456000      4  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
  538218496  437450752      5  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
  975669248     409600      6  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
  976078848     407552      7  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
  976486400       2048
  976488448     428032      8  GPT part - 7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  976916480     188547      9  GPT part - 7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  977105027         32         Sec GPT table
  977105059          1         Sec GPT header

Welcome to the joys of a not quite fully functional Disk Utility in the land of APFS. To be fair, it's difficult in a GUI for the app to figure out exactly what you want to do.

I can't see the container list in the left pane of Disk Utility but I'm assuming that "APPLESSD" is living in an APFS container all of it's own. To reclaim that space you need to "grow" that container to gobble it up.

This page has a fair explanation of the process.

With APFS you are actually better to add a volume to the container rather than partition it. All the volumes in a single container share the space so you don't need to worry about getting the size wrong and adding and deleting volumes is a trivial task. Once your container is back to the right size select it in the left pane and then "Add APFS Volume" in the Edit menu.


Prevent auto-pairing for certain devices (Bluetooth) I have a Early 2011 Macbook Pro 13" running OS X 10.10.1 (Yosemite).

At work, I have a Apple Magic Trackpad and an Apple Wireless Keyboard, both which use Bluetooth. When I get to work, my Mac automatically connects to both of them (if Bluetooth is on).

At home, I have a Belkin F8Z492-P Bluetooth Audio Adapter hooked up to my stereo (sorry, no product page available). If Bluetooth is on, my audio will automatically be routed to the Bluetooth adapter (which is something I rarely want).

How can I make OS X automatically connect to my trackpad and keyboard at work but not automatically connect to the bluetooth audio adapter at home?

Currently, I shut Bluetooth off when I get home, but I'd like to avoid toggling Bluetooth when I get home/when I get to work, since it is quite annoying to start typing on the wireless keyboard and have nothing happen, or not have audio when I get home.

If this is not possible, can I prevent OS X from switching my audio automatically when connecting to the Bluetooth audio adapter?

I had the same problem and FINALLY found a workable solution. Run this in your terminal. After this you just need to manually connect to your bluetooth audio system.

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist DontPageAudioDevices 1


Buying an app on one device; rating from another Is there some restriction on which device you can rate from?  I like to browse the iOS app store via iTunes from my MacBook, so I often stage apps there for download on the next sync with my iPhone. I just tried to rate a so-installed app from my iPhone and (after typing in and submitting  a review) it said that I need to own the app before I can review it. Is there some sort of synchronization that I have set inappropriately?

If you buy the same app using the same iTunes account from different iOS devices, you can rate the app from any of the devices. Synchronization is done between the device you rated the app and Apple's iTunes App Store.


My 2014 MacBook Pro is not able run external monitor at high refreshrate I recently bought a Acer 2K 144Hz monitor to pair with my 2013 Retina MacBook pro. I am connecting the monitor to the MBP via Thunderbolt port to DisplayPort cable. As far as I know, my MBP should  support Thunderbolt 2, which should be able to drive the monitor at 2K 144Hz.
Even though I do see the monitor running at 2560x1440 resolution, I see the refresh rate is only 60Hz. Going to the display settings, the refresh rate option is greyed out and is set at 60hz.
Any pointers on what could be the issue here? Could it be caused by a faulty Thunderbolt to DP cable?

There is no issue, 60Hz is the highest refresh.
According to the official specifications, that model Mac has a refresh rate of (HDMI)

Support for 1080p resolution at up to 60Hz
Support for 3840-by-2160 resolution at 30Hz
Support for 4096-by-2160 resolution at 24Hz

As for DisplayPort, the released standard for  DisplayPort at the time this Mac was released, was 1.2a.  The maximum resolution and refresh rate was 4K (3840x2160 @ 75Hz) or 5K (5180x2880@ 30Hz).  That doesn’t mean Apple “enabled” those resolutions/refresh rates. They’ve been known to “cripple” features like daisy-chaining which was possible with DP 1.2 but not possible with the MacBook Pro.
The cable may be able to support the bandwidth but, more importantly, the graphics chip must be able to drive that frequency.


Where is trash in new Photos app? iPhoto had it's own trash, and when you've emptied it, files moved to the system trash. I cannot find this in the new Photos app. When I delete files, they don't appear in the system trash.

There is no Trash any more - instead there is Recently Deleted, same as on the iPhone etc. which will countdown 30 days before final deletion unless purged manually or recovered beforehand.

In OS X 10.10 Yosemite, you can access it from the File Menu > Show Recently Deleted. In OS X 10.11 El Capitan, there is no menu item, but it can be accessed from the "Albums" tab, where you'll find the recently deleted folder in the familiar shape of the trash bin of yore.

You exit, once finished, by clicking any other category, or if you don't have the Sidebar open, any Header - Albums etc.


OSX crashes and reboots several hours after going to "sleep" (lid closed) I have a MacBook Pro as my work laptop. When I go home, I close the lid and take the laptop with me. Very often, the next time I open my laptop I find that the OS restarted "because of a problem". This reboot may happen several hours after the lid is closed, as the sound from my laptop back indicates.

What is the best way to understand / debug why this is happening? Can I get some useful information from log files?

The laptop is MacBookPro11,3, with Intel Core i7 processor, and 16 GB of RAM. The programs that are usually running before crash are iTerm, Finder, Microsoft Outlook, and Chrome. I also run a Vagrant VM with a bunch of processes in it for work. My coworkers run exactly the same codebase and none of them is having the same problem.

In my case the issue was related exactly to VMWare. Before putting my laptop to sleep I suspend the VM and the issue doesn't happen. That's a "pause" button in the VMWare UI.

Edit:

Looks like VMWare sleep functionality is buggy. I once got my entire VM getting to the point of no return. I simply use vagrant suspend these days before putting my laptop to sleep. No need to bring up VMWare UI.


How do I edit custom repeat intervals for events on iOS? I created an event on my Mac's calendar that was scheduled to repeat every Tuesday and Wednesday. Later, on my iPhone, I wanted to change the repeat interval to Wednesday and Friday instead, but I couldn't figure out how to do so.

When I went to edit the repeat interval for the event on iOS, the only options were (a) the custom interval for Tuesday and Wednesday (selected), (b) none, or (c) the default intervals like daily, weekly, etc.

I thought that tapping on the custom interval would let me edit it, but instead it just re-selected it. However, when I selected a different repeat interval instead, the custom interval disappeared entirely, and there was no option to create a new custom interval.

(I also created a new event entirely and found that the Repeat settings don't include a "custom" option in that case, either).

So it is just not possible to create or edit custom repeat intervals on iOS? I'm running the latest iOS 7.1 on an iPhone 4.

This article on OSX Daily teaches that using Siri can result in custom reminder intervals. To my knowledge, the custom reminder interval, once specified, cannot be edited.

http://osxdaily.com/2013/04/10/custom-repeat-reminders-iphone-siri/


Catalina update not showing I installed MacOS 10.15 public beta when it came out and I've updated to a few other betas. Since Catalina update came out, I've not been able to install it because it doesn't show up. I've deleted the beta profile and I'm still not getting the update.

When transitioning from a beta to a release version of the OS, you won’t be able to do it via Software Update.  Instead, open App Store and install the release version from there.


Battery is draining with "Power source: Power adapter" in macOS Catalina I've noticed a strange problem with my 2018 MacBook Pro. Sometimes, when I use it with the (original) adapter, it says that the power source is power adapter, but the battery is still draining and not charging:

This is a huge problem as the level of charge can become very low before I even notice it. Also, I'm not doing any resource-intensive work. As an experiment I left it running and observed the charge get down to 40% before I disconnect the cable and reconnect so the charging would start.
What may be causing this issue?

I found that I could get a port that was not working to start working by unplugging the cable at the power adapter (leaving it plugged in at the laptop) and then reconnecting it. It's not clear to me what this is doing or if it's placebo, but it's odd.


Mac driver for Lenovo L2230x Monitor At work, I'm connecting my MacBook Air 11" to a Lenovo L2230x Monitor (aka L2230xwA) to extend my display.
Given that the MacBook Air has no Ethernet connector, today I thought I might put the monitor's USB Port Replicator feature to good use. Long story short, this monitor embeds a USB 2.0 Hub that connects to your laptop through a USB-A to USB-B cable and exposes:

3 downstream USB ports
1 Ethernet 10M/100Mbps port
Multimedia ports: audio line-out + microphone-in jack

The 3 USB ports work out of the box, but no luck with the Ethernet port!

In the user's manual (pdf), the steps are simple:

  Install the USB Port Replicator driver for L2230x Wide [...]
  Connect a standard 10 Mbps / 100 Mbps Ethernet connector to the Ethernet  connector on the monitor, and wait until the device is fully configured by the Windows operating system.

So I looked for a driver, but on the Lenovo support page I could only find the USB driver for Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP.

Where could I find a driver to be able to use the Ethernet port?
Or did anyone find a workaround to make use of it on a Mac?

I guess you're chances are very small getting the monitor's Ethernet port working on OS X.
Probably you would need a modified kext - best place to ask would be the hackintosh sites - but you would have to be cautious with every OS X update as that could change the kext and leave you without working ethernet port...

You could however use one of the USB ports on the monitor to connect the Apple USB Ethernet Adapter for ~30$ and you're save.

You'd lose one USB port and 30 bucks, but I'd say it's better than the hacked solution over long time and you have an Ethernet adapter you can take with you, rather than carrying the monitor around ;)


Tell application next track inside repeat I am trying to define script to play next on iTunes an Spotify like this.

on run {input, parameters}
    set apps to ("Spotify", "iTunes")
    repeat with thisApp in apps
        tell application thisApp
            next track
        end tell
    end repeat
end run

But on the tell block, I keep getting: "Expected end of line but found identifier."

How can I use application's name as iterable var in this case?

This format will work:

set apps to {"Spotify", "iTunes"}
repeat with thisApp in apps
    if (thisApp's contents = "Spotify") then
        tell application "Spotify" to next track
    else if (thisApp's contents = "iTunes") then
        tell application "iTunes" to next track
    end if
end repeat


Forward email on without opening How to forward email without opening it.  I am getting scam emails and do not want to open but forward onto report it.

If you disable showing images in the Settings app (Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Load Remote Images) then the sender will have no way to tell that you looked at the email.

So, make sure you turn that on, then open the email and forward it. You can turn the option back on again when you are finished.


How to rewind/fast-forward audio messages in iOS Is it just me or is there really no way to rewind or fast-forward audio messages received with the Messages app (iMessage)? I have iOS 13 on my iPhone.

I found one way (tested on iOS13).

Long press on the audio in Messages, a pop up will appear with 3 options: "Copy", "Save" and "More..."
Choose "Copy"
Switch to the Files app and go a folder of your choosing (I chose a folder under "On my iPhone")
Long press and chose "Paste"
Open as audio file, where you can scrub, pause, fast-forward, etc.


I accidentally removed way too many files with `rm -rf`. Anyway to recover? While trying to move a git repository, I ran rm -rf desktop and wiped every file I had there.  Normally this would not be that big of a deal since I use GitHub, but I had several hundred screenshots / PDFs that I would like to recover.

What's the best way to go about this (if there is any)? From what I've read I it seems I need to download some external software, but can't seem to figure out which is best.

I am running OS X 10.10.4 on a MacBook Pro, and unfortunately never set up Time Machine.

What you do need to do is stop using that drive until you have sourced your recovery software of choice. Every file you write increases the chances of total loss.

You need something that can scavenge the actual data still on the drive itself & hopefully recognise enough contiguous data that it can recover the files - hence anything that writes to the drive, including even booting from it, will lessen the chances of success.
You cannot, of course, use the same drive to recover to - you would be overwriting what you are trying to rescue.

Something like maybe Data Rescue or Disk Drill specialise in this type of recovery . The trouble with having done rm -rf is your files never even went through the trash, they went straight to data heaven, so a scavenger is your only hope, I think.


GUI PGP / GnuPG application I encrypt all of my documents before storing them in the cloud with GnuPG. My wife needs access to the documents, but running gpg -d foo.pdf.gpg at the command line is annoying to her.

Does anyone know of a GUI app for PGP / GnuPG for MacOS X? It would be great to simply drag an encrypted file to it, be prompted for a private key passphrase, and then get the unencrypted file.

If nothing like this exists, I can probably whip one up in Clojure pretty easily, but I figured it was worth looking for one first.

You can also use gpgtools (https://gpgtools.org) it is got all the possible GPG tools you are probably going to need (they also have a gpg plugin for Apple Mail) and adds  Services for signing/encrypting/decrypting/etc. to the contextual menu (right-click->Services).


terminal script to search CSV file 2 parts to this, can't see where I'm going wrong

The 1st part works--get my BSSID through the airport command:

myBSSID="/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/A/Resources/airport -I | grep BSSID | awk '{print $2}'"

then (this is where I get EOF or syntax errors):
pass that value to awk, which will search a file (APtable.csv) for that string, and give me the adjacent value to it:

awk -v theBSSID=$myBSSID '$1 == theBSSID {print $2}' '/Users/russell/Desktop/APtable.csv'

You do not need to pipe to grep and then to awk in the first line as awk can do what's needed by itself. Also the way you have the first line written, it is missing the $(...) around the commands.

In the second line you're missing the field separator in the awk command, which in a .csv file normally is a comma. So I added that to the awk command.

Use the following two lines:

myBSSID="$(/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/A/Resources/airport -I | awk '/BSSID/{print $2}')"
awk -F ',' -v theBSSID="$myBSSID" '$1 == theBSSID {print $2}' "$HOME/Desktop/APtable.csv"

I noticed the output of the airport command didn't report the BSSID correctly in that if left out some zeros.

If that's the case on your system and the .cvs file has proper info, then try the following:

myBSSID="$(system_profiler SPAirPortDataType | awk '/BSSID/{print $2}')"
awk -F ',' -v theBSSID="$myBSSID" '$1 == theBSSID {print $2}' "$HOME/Desktop/APtable.csv"

Note that system_profiler SPAirPortDataType isn't as fast as using airport but if the output of airport is dropping some of the zeros, then you'll need an alternative if the BSSID's in the .cvs file have all 12 characters, not counting the colons, which they should.

The following could be used to incorporate both methods in a bash script so as to only use the second method if the length of myBSSID is less then 17 characters, as 17 is the correct length.

#!/bin/bash

myBSSID="$(/S*/L*/P*/A*/V*/A/R*/airport -I | awk '/BSSID/{print $2}')"
l="${#myBSSID}"
if [[ $l -lt 17 ]]; then
    myBSSID="$(system_profiler SPAirPortDataType | awk '/BSSID/{print $2}')"
fi
awk -F ',' -v theBSSID="$myBSSID" '$1 == theBSSID {print $2}' "$HOME/Desktop/APtable.csv"


On the lookout for an iPad 2 case that integrates a keyboard but doesn't block the camera I currently have an iPad 2 with a Smart Cover. I am looking for a keyboard that can be attached to the device so that I will always have the keyboard with me in a convenient manner. Some requirement for the ideal keyboard:

Compatible with the Smart Cover
Keys aren't exposed when the keyboard is "stashed away".
Leaves a hole for the rear camera.

I really like the Logitech® Fold-Up Keyboard; however, it blocks the camera. Depending on the hardware inside, I may be able to drill a hole in the back of the shell, but it would only help for those times that I have the keyboard out. I probably won't ever want the keyboard out while taking a picture with the rear camera. Which keyboards (if any besides the given one) meet all or most of the criteria?

Unfortunately, I don't know that a case meeting all of your criteria exists. It might be time to dig out the dremel tool and DIY.

My iPad keyboard solution is to use an inCase Origami Workstation and the Apple Bluetooth Keyboard. I don't carry the keyboard most of the time, but it does go into my bag if I think I'm going to be in a fixed location and do extended writing and when I  travel—where it generally stays in my hotel room for use at the desk. This doesn't meet your strict criteria, but it may be an acceptable compromise.


Windows 10 install very slow on Mid 2012 MacBook Pro I made a Win10 USB installer using the media creation tool on my PC and I have a SSD in a drive caddy which replaced my DVD drive.

I want to clean install Win10 to this SSD but the Win10 installer takes hours - no joke - to boot up and then it takes forever to start the setup.

I already installed it before but when booting from the disk after install it just ends in a boot loop. The USB drive should be working fine I don't think it's the problem. And the SSD in the caddy also works fine.

Any idea why this is happening and how I can install Win10?

It had something to do with the problem I solved here:   HGST 1tb in mid 2012 mbpro not working in sata bay but drive seems fine.  After I solved that issue, the Windows install worked normally again


Install python pyqt4 on macOS 10.12 Sierra? pyqt4 is deprecated, but is still required for some applications, like electrum.

homebrew says that it will not install. this is not possible without rewriting the program.

can anyone advise of a workaround to install pyqt4?

Anaconda python (https://www.continuum.io/) provides binaries for a wide variety of packages including pyqt and all required support libraries.  Similar to virtualenv, conda allows separate environments to be created with different versions of the packages; in your case, various versions of qt 4 and qt 5.

Download the 20MB bash installer for Python 2.7 http://conda.pydata.org/miniconda.html

install with bash Miniconda2-latest-MacOSX-x86_64.sh

The following packages are required for electrum:

conda create -n electrum python=2.7 pyqt=4.11.4 dnspython ecdsa pbkdf2 protobuf requests six
source activate electrum

Additional dependencies not available in anaconda can be installed via pip:

pip install dnspython jsonrpclib qrcode slowaes

You can then install electrum as usual:

git clone https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum.git
cd electrum
pyrcc4 icons.qrc -o gui/qt/icons_rc.py
python setup.py install

The resulting command will be in the bin directory of the electrum environment.  This can be symlinked into ~/bin as follows:

ln -s ~/anaconda/envs/electrum/bin/electrum ~/bin

You can now run electrum from the terminal even when the anaconda environment is not loaded.

electrum


Is the used vulnerability closed after a jailbreak? If a vulnerability is used to jailbreak an iPhone or iPad, is that vulnerability typically closed/fixed as part of the jailbreak (itself, or a recommended next step) ?

In other words: if a new release of iOS fixes a security hole, then can the user have that hole fixed on his device while keeping an older version of iOS (jailbreaked)? Or is it a choice: either the pros of jailbreak (but with a known vulnerability) or no vulnerability (and newer iOS), but no jailbreak?

Jailbreaking doesn't immediately make older iOS immune to vulnerabilities with newer iOS, but it has been possible to install tweaks which protect against certain exploits.

These might not be the same implementations as with the newer iOS, but serve to protect against specific exploits. For example, SpectrePatch is a jailbreak tweak for older versions of iOS to protect against Spectre.

A survey of a broad range of security professionals would be iOS devices are less secure when jailbroken.

https://www.tomsguide.com/us/iphone-jailbreak-risks,news-18850.html


how do I create a resource (room) in Exchange so it can be viewed like a calendar using iCal/Calendar? We use Exchange 2010 and a mix of Macs and Windows PCs. However we are 75% or more Mac users. Most using Macs use iCal/Calendar and not Outlook.

We can create a resource/room that shows up in the location option when creating a new event. That works just fine. However we would like to be able to view this as a daily/weekly/monthly view using iCal (10.7) or Calendar (10.8).

Is it possible to see all the booked times for a given period (daily, weekly, monthly view like in a personal calendar)? Right now we have to create an event, add the room as the location, add an invitee and then look at the 'show availability' option to see times. It only shows one day at a time and requires you scroll through day after day to see a particular day.

Reason we would like this is we use the room for meetings, but visitors use it for internet, reading, etc. We would like our admin to be able to quickly look up the rooms availability for the day to let them know if/when it is open.

There is no way to directly view Availability (free/busy) information in either Apple iCal/Calendar (Snow Leopard, Lion, or Mountain Lion) or Microsoft Outlook 2011 (through SP2, at least) for an Exchange 2007/2010 room or equipment resource.

However, you can grant shared access for your account(s) to the Exchange resource calendar through Exchange management tools. Once that is done, you can add it the client for review of its schedule, as if it were another person's calendar for which you have sharing/delegation rights.

Apple iCal/Calendar: Preferences > Accounts > Select your Exchange account > Delegation tab. Click the "+" to add the resource calendar for which you have access.

Microsoft Outlook 2011: File > Open > Other User's Folder. Enter the resource calendar's information as the User and choose "Calendar" as the Type.

As long as your account has shared access to the resource calendar, you will be able to see it listed as another calendar in either application's sidebar. This sidebar entry will persist until you remove it.


Will HFS+ extended attributes be lost on FreeNAS? I have FreeNAS server partially set up on an HP Microserver, but just realized that I may lose all my extended attribute metadata on the files that come from my Macs (which is what most of my computers are).  This metadata is somewhat important to me, so if FreeNAS will lose this data then maybe I need to rethink my strategy.

I was going to use FreeNAS for both Time Machine backup and as a file server, so the metadata would be relevant in both cases.

Will FreeNAS keep the metadata if I connect to it using AFP, or will it lose the metadata?

FreeNAS supports the creation of AFP file shares for general use with OS X systems. For Time Machine backups, you need to make sure to specifically enable Time Machine support (Disk Discovery enabled and type set to Time Machine) on a particular AFP share you intend to use.

Further clarification:  AFP currently supports Unicode file names, POSIX and access control list permissions, resource forks, named extended attributes, and advanced file locking.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Filing_Protocol


Why does "(null)" want access to my Twitter accounts? Have anyone seen this message before, when accessing the official twitter app?

"(null)" would like access to twitter accounts

I have an iPod Touch with iOS 5, not jail-broken.

Is it a virus?

It is a bug in the Twitter app, not a virus. (null) is simply what the program gets when trying to insert a nonexistent name into would like access to Twitter accounts.

I would report this as a bug to Twitter.


What is Safari Service worker ? Would disabling it affect website performance? For the past three days, I have seen Outlook and Twitter service workers trigger randomly, even if I never opened those sites in non-private mode. They consume 2 threads and distract me. Then I force quit them.

Before applying the solution in

How to disable service workers in Safari 12.1? (Mac)

I need to know

Why do websites use it?
What would be the impact if I disable all of them ? (I'd prefer if I can handle it on case by case basis)

Service Workers can be used by web sites to handle functionality such as:

Enabling Offline mode when you have no Internet connection
Receiving Push Notifications
Caching data files for faster load times
Synchronizing data in the background to provide streaming updates
Trigger data refreshes based on for example location changes

The impact of disabling the feature depends on the sites involved. Some would just continue working as normal, but perhaps work a tad slower - others would loose functionality, such as offline mode or push notifications - and again others would stop working completely as they insist on that feature working.


How do I reorder the programs in the 'open with' window of a file? I want to reorder (not change the default program) the programs suggested in the menu when I click on 'open with' for a file.

Is that possible, if yes, how?

Unless someone comes up with some heavy magic, I'm going to say: "No". Apple lists the apps that can open that file type in alphabetical order. (Higher versions of the same app are listed first.)


Macbook mid-2010: no power after ssd upgrade I changed my HDD to a SSD using ifixit guide on my MacBook Unibody Model A1342 (mid-2010).

But after reconnecting the battery, the Mac seems to be dead (MagSafe light off, no chime, no fan, nothing). I tried another charger that works perfectly with another Mac with no success.

Any chance that this is "only" a battery issue? Or has the logic board died? Is there any other possible solution?

EDIT: Finally, I changed the logic board and the Macbook is back to life...

No light on a MagSafe adapter means it's not seeing the (one wire) charging circuit of your MacBook Pro.

So, this is unfortunately not a battery issue.  It's further confirmed by no fan spin and the fact that you eliminated the charger from the equation by testing it (successfully) on a different computer.

You may have shorted something during your swap or it could be just coincidence.  However, there are a couple of things to check before resigning it's a logic board issue:

check/clean your MagSafe port.  It could be just coincidence that your MagSafe port is dirty/blocked and preventing you from powering/charging your MacBook
double check your connections; you may have missed one or more or may have accidentally disconnected something.
check your DC In board. It's a relatively inexpensive part that's fairly easy to swap out.  If anything was going to "go" this would be the most likely part


Move iTunes folder outside Music folder iTunes by default stores its settings, the iTunes Library.itl file, and the music library audio tracks, inside the \Users\username\Music\iTunes folder.

I don't want my Music folder polluted with program settings, especially because I'm synchronizing that folder on the cloud.
Via the settings panel I can only change the path of the audio tracks, but the settings remain in the default position.

Is there a way to completely move the iTunes folder to another path?

PS: I've looked at the answers to What is the safest way to move the iTunes Library from one hard drive to another?, but the focus there is on moving the media library only, not the whole iTunes directory.

Yes. Quit iTunes. Move the iTunes folder to the desired location. Then, make a symbolic link to the moved iTunes folder, drag that symbolic link to the Music folder, rename the link to be exactly "iTunes" and you are done.

An alias won't work. It has to be a Symbolic Link.

I made my symbolic link using an Automator Service. Automator is not set up to make Symbolic Links out of the box, so you have to get something third-party to enable it. Here is a link to a good article on how to get the piece you need and also how to make and use the Automator Service. Here is the link:

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/automator-create-symbolic-links-dropbox-mac/

There are other ways to make a Symbolic Link but you only need one, so here you go.

You don't have to change anything at all in iTunes. That's the beauty of this method. The symbolic link satisfies iTunes' need to have an iTunes folder in the Music folder, while pointing to the real iTunes folder somewhere else. Just be sure you name your Symbolic Link "iTunes" after you move it (don't try to rename it before you move it-- you will be trying to name it the same thing as the real iTunes folder).

You can always throw away the Symbolic Link and put the iTunes folder back in the Music folder if you'd like, so you really have nothing to lose. Try it!


Cancel an autocorrect suggestion while typing When I am typing, OSX helpfully offers and inserts corrections for me.

However, sometimes I do not want these corrections, as they can ruin an otherwise flawless piece of writing (see the below example.)

Lifting my hands from the keyboard, gripping the mouse and then dragging the mouse across my frictious desk before contracting the muscles along my entire finger to squeeze the mouse and activate its clicking procedure actually takes a very long time.

How can I cancel autocorrect suggestions without needing to use my mouse?

Hitting ESC to get rid of the autocorrect suggestion works for me.


Thunderbolt 2 to Display Port I received a 2015 MacBook Pro with two Thunderbolt 2 ports. Can I use a Mini-DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable?
According to Apple:

Thunderbolt and Thunderbolt 2 are not the same as Mini DisplayPort . They have the same shape, but use different symbols on the cable and port. However, this port does support Mini DisplayPort for video output, so you can use a Mini DisplayPort cable to connect a Mini DisplayPort display.

It seems you can, but I have had trouble with Mac-related compatibility before, so I want to make sure.
Thank you.

I assume you want to use this with a DisplayPort compatible monitor:

Yes you can. As you quote:

However, [Thunderbolt 2] does support Mini DisplayPort for video output

This is definitely correct and I can confirm that this works on a similar machine. The cable you show should work as intended.

What doesn't work is using a Mini DisplayPort as Thunderbolt 2, e.g. for transferring data to a hard drive. But you want to use Thunderbolt 2 as a video output, which is one of the intended use-cases of TB2, similar to the newer TB3, USB-3 and USB 4 (which in theory equals TB 3) connectors.


How do I rearrange the order of Spotlight categories? I believe I used to have the ability to rearrange the search categories shown in Spotlight, but I can't drag to rearrange within System Preferences > Spotlight anymore (El Capitan). Is there some other way to do this?

Apple removed this feature in El Capitan. I searched deeper in spotlight's plist file:

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Spotlight.plist

But I can't find any way to re order the entries in this version of OS X.

Further Reading:

[Help] Reorder results in Spotlight searches
5 Great New Spotlight Search Tricks in OS X El Capitan


Autocomplete is broken in Google Chrome I use Google Chrome as browser. I like the feature that it autocompletes the web-address when I start to type. e.g. when typing "app" it's autocompleted to "apple.stackexchange.com" and I just need to press enter.

But now the autocomplete feature seem to be broken on Mac OS X for me. It works fine on Windows. Now on Mac OS X when I start to type an address it is autocompleted, but just for a small part of a second, then the autocompletion disappear, so I never have the change to press Enter so I can use the autocompletion.

How can I fix this? Is there any settings I can change? or is it a bug?

This didn't work on version 12.0.742.112 and it doesn't work in the current version (13.0.782.107).

Try this (reference):

Turning on/off Auto-Suggestions
1. Clear your browsing history
2. Click the Tools menu
3. Select Options
4. Click the Under the Hood tab and find the Privacy section
5. Select/deselect the 'Use a suggestion service to help complete searches and
   URLs typed in the address bar' checkbox.
6. Click Close.


How to restrict Internet, not just web, access for the guest account? How do we set up the guest account so it restricts Internet access to all applications and scripts in all ports?

Using parental controls only restricts web access, and I'm looking how to prevent any application to access the Internet.

I'm looking for a free solution that works even if the (guest) user runs malicious scripts. USB access is required for the guest account.

In Ubuntu we can restrict user access with a command like this:

sudo iptables -A OUTPUT -p all -m owner --uid-owner example_user -j DROP

Please read this carefully and have another device with internet access, in case you are locking yourself out.

In OS X you will use the OpenBSD based tool pf which stands for "packet filter".

Helpful man pages are man pfctl and man pf.conf
You need sudo access.

Edit /etc/pf.conf to your desired needings:
An example pf.conf would be simple as this and look like this

## blocking rule
block out user guest

Now activate pfctl with sudo pfctl -e and load your config with
sudo pfctl -f /etc/pf.conf.

For checking the syntax of the config file you can use pfctl -nf /etc/pf.conf.
If you want to deactivate the firewall, pass the command pfctl -d.

Testing the new configuration is as simple as curl -I apple.stackexchange.com. The firewall should block this for you.

However, I'd be careful with restrictions. If you are losing your Mac or it gets stolen, the guest account is the only account which one will be has access too(hopefully) which in return should have access to the internet to track it down(if "Find My Mac" is enabled).


How does Mac OS keep track of moved files? An application I was using had a .dockset file stored in my home directory. I moved this file, and the application automatically updated the location of the file. I notice a similar effect when moving files that I'm currently editing in apps like Xcode, TextEdit, BBEdit, Preview, iWork, etc.

How does Mac OS keep track of these file movements?

Most Apps don't use the Bookmarks (mentioned by Matthieu) for this purpose, because Bookmarks are meant to locate a file after the app has been quit in between), but rather either keep the file open while the app runs, or reference the file using its File ID (aka CNID or objID), or simply by using a NSURL object that keeps track of the file.

The secret to this working is that HFS(+) volumes assign each file and folder a unique number (the CNID), and so even if the file is renamed or moved, it can be looked up by that number again. Bookmarks also make use of this number by storing it for this purpose.

This also means that if you place your file on a file system that does not support file IDs, e.g. on a SMB network volume or a FAT formatted disk, renaming and moving of such files may NOT be detected by those apps, because there's no alternative tracking mechanism in this case.

See also Apple's Technical QA1113: The /.vol/ dir and volFS.

APFS, Apple's new volume format, does support File IDs as well, BTW.


I deleted my appdata\roaming\apple computer\mobilesync\backup files and now I can't backup I deleted my appdata\roaming\apple computer\mobilesync\backup files.  Now I can't backup.

When I press Back Up Now, it waits a few seconds, then comes back and nothing is backed up.

How do I make it backup?

Did you delete the Backup folder too? If so, if you recreate the Backup folder, you should be able to back up again :)

Windows 8 and 10: In the Windows search bar type %appdata% (with the percents) and press return/enter. A file browser window will open to the Application Data folder. (or Roaming inside of Application Data)
Windows 7, Vista, XP: From the start menu, select Run. In the run box, type %appdata% (with the percents) and press return/enter. A file browser window will open to the Application Data folder. (or Roaming inside of Application Data)
From there, navigate to Apple Computer (creating if needed) > MobileSync (creating if needed), and then create the Backup folder again.

If that's not it, can you let us know what error you're seeing in iTunes, and what version of Windows you are on?


How to clear drive space used by Apple Mail App without removing Internet Accounts? I'm no longer using the Apple Mail app built into OS X and it is consuming 20GB+ of space from old mail. However, I do use Calendars and Messages on those accounts. I unchecked "Mail" on those accounts, but that doesn't clear the space. If I try to remove the Internet Account, it warns that it will delete all my Messages (the Messages App messages), which I don't want to do.

It has been suggested that I simply delete the folder where Mail App stores the messages ~/Library/Mail/V2 and/or ~/Library/Mail/V3.

Can I safely free up space from mail messages from Mail using this method?

Is there another method to safely do this?

Apple Mail stores its stuff by default under ~/Library/Mail/V2 and V3

You can free up space in there. (of course a Time Machine backup would be a good idea before deleting the content of these folders)


Legitimate user or hacker -Terminal? I have recently used the terminal and entered the command sudo -s and then dscl . -list /users  so I could see all accounts/users who have access to my mac.

How do I know which names are supposed to be there and which aren't? Luckily I read on another post that nobody and daemon appeared in their list so that calms me down slightly, but does anyone have a link to a list of which accounts are suppose to be there?

Right now, there are over 25 names, a lot look like file locations but I am freaked out!

All users account starting with an _ are automatically generated by the system. For example, _lp is an account used to manage the Printing Services without the use of the priviledged account root.
This is a separation of priviledges and a good protection.

For all other account names,
daemon and nobody are also generated by the system.

For the remaining accounts, let's say you see a suspect user account bond, use the following command:

finger bond

to check what bond account is used for and when it was last used to connect on your system.


Internal Mic stopped recording voice, but hears case/keyboard touching Since this morning I am unable to record my voice on my Macbook Air 2012 internal microphone but the microphone can hear me touching the keyboard, the Macbook case…

I tried to tweak system preferences, enabling/disabling noise ambient reduction and so on without success. Tried to reboot a couple of times with no luck.

Any idea on what should I try next?

I’m on Mountain Lion (10.8.3).

Screen is

my microphone is working on the side from your laptop use a needle to pinch and clean out the hole from the microphone


Difference in executing a command line in a different ways Just so I understand the difference between executing the command line in Bash Terminal macOS Mojave.

Let's take for example the installation of a package named: stackexchange.pkg

What are the differences between the two command line below? Is the result the same? Pros and Cons?

/usr/sbin/installer -pkg path_to_stackexchange.pkg -target /

sh -c /usr/sbin/installer -pkg 'path_to_stackexchange.pkg' -target '/'

When you use sh with its -c option, the argument after -c is taken as the command string to run. Thus, when you run

sh -c /usr/sbin/installer -pkg 'path_to_stackexchange.pkg' -target '/'

sh will run the command "/usr/sbin/installer". It will not pass on the rest of its arguments, because they're not part of the command string. If you want to include arguments, you'd need to do something like this:

sh -c "/usr/sbin/installer -pkg 'path_to_stackexchange.pkg' -target '/'"

The double-quotes make that a single long argument to sh, so it'll execute the whole thing and pass -pkg etc as arguments to the installer command.

(BTW, in the shell, quotes don't nest. Nesting quoted strings inside quoted strings -- like the single-quoted arguments inside that double-quoted argument -- isn't really a thing. In this case it does work, because the inside a double-quoted string, single-quotes are just regular characters. In more complicated situations, things can get weird and confusing.)

So what's happening to those other arguments after the command? Well, the command string (the argument after -c) functions a little like a miniature shell script, and those are passed to that mini-script as arguments. But they're not passed to the commands in that mini-script, unless the mini-script explicitly passes them on:

sh -c '/usr/sbin/installer "$@"' installer-thingie -pkg 'path_to_stackexchange.pkg' -target '/'

Here, inside the mini-script, the "$@" expands to the arguments to the mini-script (i.e. -pkg, path_to_stackexchange.pkg, etc.), thus passing them on to the installer command.

But what's that installer-thingie argument? That's the name the mini-script is run under, so it'll show up as $0 inside the mini-script. Basically, it functions as a placeholder, and you could put pretty much anything there. "sh" is a common choice.

As for the pros and cons of using sh -c to run commands: unless there's some reason you really need to run another shell, just run the command directly. Running it with sh -c is more complicated and confusing, and (as you've experienced) easy to get wrong.

As @DavidAnderson pointed out, using sh -c is also less efficient, because it creates an additional shell process. If you look at the process tree for running installer directly (and assuming your interactive shell is zsh), it looks like this:

zsh───installer

But with sh -c, it's like this:

zsh───sh───installer

...it ran an sh process under your interactive shell, and then that ran installer as a subprocess.

On the other hand, if you prefer confusing complexity and inefficiency, there's no reason to stop at one unnecessary shell; why not add another sh -c to run the sh -c command?

sh -c "sh -c \"/usr/sbin/installer -pkg 'path_to_stackexchange.pkg' -target '/'\""

or even

sh -c "sh -c \"sh -c \\\"/usr/sbin/installer -pkg 'path_to_stackexchange.pkg' -target '/'\\\"\""

(did I mention that nesting quotes can get complicated?)


Sharing files with my friend I want to share files with my friend.

I used Sprend.com to share it. But my friend could not open it.

My friend is using an Ipad mini MD528KN/A.

She has no access to a computer.

I am using a PC.

How to solve the problem.

Regards Gustaf

Depends on the file, a LOT.

The iPad has no (visible) filesystem. So unlike a Mac or PC you can't move things around as you wish. You have to have an application that will deal with it in the form you send it via the method you send it by.

Yes you can send an .mp3 but there is no way to then add it to the music.app without a Mac or PC and iTunes. The same goes for MS Office files, Photoshop files and many other proprietary file formats.

Perhaps if you edited your question to say specifically what kind of file and what she needs to do with it, we could be of more assistance.

Like @stuffe said a free Dropbox account could help you with this. Dropbox will let you play videos right in their file browser as long as they are generally playable on your Mac (EG H.264, MP4, MOV files, etc.) Dropbox is free for up to 2GB of storage.


Change the default Dock stack content display style I love the Dock stacks. But I always use the list view option. I don't really fancy the default "Automatic" option. Do you know if it is possible (maybe using the defaults command?) to set the default way to display the content of a Dock stack?

Thanks in advance for your help! :-)

This would change the style of all stacks to list, but you have to relaunch Dock to apply the changes:

for n in {0..19}; do /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set persistent-others:$n:tile-data:showas 3" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Dock.plist; done 2> /dev/null

You could run it every 8 hours by running EDITOR=nano crontab -e and adding a line like 0 */8 * * * for n in ....


Using AppleScript to lock screen I need an applescript which locks my Mac in the same way pressing shift+ctrl+eject would. I tried two different approaches, but both failed. The first one was to search the internet for a script, which failed. There are only solutions with screensaver or other applications, which I don’t want. I just want to use what I described. The second one was to tell applescript to press the three keys which didn’t work. If someone could tell me how to lock my Mac or how to tell applescript to press three keys, I would be really happy, because I am getting kinda’ frustrated.

Getting information from this answer and this answer:

Press the Spotlight button at the top right of the screen (Cmd + Space)
Search Keychain Access. Open this
Open Preferences (Cmd + ,(comma))
Check Show Status in Menu Bar
Press the Spotlight button at the top right of the screen (Cmd + Space)
Search Automator. Select this
Create new Service
Search Run Applescript next to the Actions and Variables buttons. Double click this
Make sure the checkboxes are Service receives no input in any application
Paste this Applescript:

tell application "System Events" to tell process "SystemUIServer"
    tell (menu bar item 1 of menu bar 1 where description is "Keychain menu extra")
        click
        click menu item "Lock Screen" of menu 1
    end tell
end tell

Save this Automator as something like Lock screen (note: code in GIF is different!)

To make a shortcut:

Press the Apple button at the top left of the screen
Click System Preferences
Click Keyboard
Click Keyboard Shortcuts tab
Click Services
Find the name of the service you just created
Click the blank space on the right
Type your shortcut in

Use your shortcut in any application!

OR...:

You could buy Alfred
You could use Cmd+Shift+Eject


Can you recover a password stored in Apple Remote Desktop? I have two servers that haven't been touched in ages. Their passwords have been forgotten and I have a Mac where Apple Remote Desktop has saved their passwords. Can I view those saved passwords? I'd prefer not to reset both these servers and start from scratch.
What I've checked so far:
Keychain Access - This appears to only store the ARD password. I presume this password encrypts the connection details separately (and I recall the password here being the one I used to setup ARD in the first place).
The documentation (for V2 anyway) suggests data is stored in three places, user library plist, /Library plist, and /var/db/RemoteManagement/: images.apple.com/remotedesktop/pdf/ARD_Admin_Guide.pdf
The data in /var/ seems to be an sqlite3 database with usage statistics
The /Library/ plist seems to be nothing eye catching.
~/Library/ plist (in containers nowadays) has all the machine details but I don't see anything resembling a password (encrypted or not). Oh, they're stored with the key name "accessCredentials". Time to learn how to decrypt.

I’ve finally found something that does what I need.
https://github.com/ygini/ARD-Inspector
ARD Inspector can open and view the details in the com.Apple.AppleRemoteDesktop.plist including the encrypted  password(s). You must have the ARD “master password” in order to decrypt the information.


Cleaning my Macbook screen *under* the shield I have a Macbook Pro 13" Unibody Early 2011. In the last few months the transparent shield protecting the screen has separated at the bottom letting dust in. It's still attached at the top.

How can I safely clean the screen under the shield?
Once I've cleaned it, how can I keep the shield from separating?

To do this the risk of further damage is rather high as I had to do this before on the same Mac. You will need a heat gun to heat the edge of the screen so you can pull it off then after it is separated you will need microfiber cloths and denatured alcohol (available in the paint section of any store) to wipe the LCD and glass cover perfectly clean. After finished you can use your glue of choice to put it back together however keep in mind pretty much any glue you use will not come back off without breaking something, so there is no turning back. Personally, either use an external screen or buy a new one off eBay (which is what I did). I found with mine it separated because the hinge cracked and wasn't able to tell this till after I opened it.


How can I change the volume of the notification sounds on the AirPods Pro? Using Siri or the iPhone volume controls, it is possible to change the volume of the audio content being played through the AirPods Pro. However, so far I have not found a way to change the volume of the notification sounds that are being played when I receive a message, when I switch to Transparency mode and back, etc.
I tried to call up Siri and change the volume while Siri is on screen, but this didn't work.
These noises are incredibly loud, and I really would like to reduce their volume. Is this possible?

The sounds used when switching between transparency modes don’t seem to be adjustable, but notifications can be adjusted.
You can adjust the notification volume used both when AirPods are connected and when they are not (the volume will be the same for both).
Go to “Sounds & Haptics” in settings, and adjust the volume slider to your desired volume (note that the ringer preview will come out of your phone even with your AirPods in).
You can test the volume in your AirPods by previewing one of the “sounds and vibration patterns” below.
—
For more control, you can set volume of ringer and alerts to be set by the volume buttons (directly below the slider).


Is there any alternatives to Karabiner in Sierra, which lets you use whatever keybindings you like to open an application? I have used Karabiner on El Capitan, but it is no longer working in Sierra. I used it to do whatever I like to do via keybindings, such as the followings:

Open an application
Switch to different languages
Automatically back to English when I open Alfred
Automatically back to English when I try to type in the search box in Chrome or Safari
Open any folders in my filesystem
Delete a character
Move to the first or last part of the sentence

However, all of them are no longer working as Karabiner doesn't work in Sierra and the developer has not found much progress so far, which would likely take far more time to finally adjust to Sierra. I’ve not had success with Karabiner elements and specific tasks like swapping the colon and semicolon.

So I would like to use any alternatives, if any, to let me set whatever keybindings I want to do the set of tasks above. Is there any such app or workarounds on system that makes it feasible?

You should try 'Keyboard Maestro' as an Alternative. You can bind actions to different Application-States as Macros, f.e. when Application X is open, do Y etc.

They offer a Testperiod, so you can try before you buy and test if it is meeting your requirements.


Can I use an HFS+ usb disk with encryption enabled with a Time Capsule (2TB is mine) I have a 2TB Time Capsule (version 7.6.1) and I want to connect a USB disk formatted as HFS+ with encryption enabled (on MAC OS X Mountain Lion). When I connect it directly to my iMac, it asks for a password (if it's not already in the keychain) and then I can see it mounted. Is there a way to give the password when it's connected to the Time Capsule or it doesn't support encrypted disks at all?

As far as I can tell from reading Apple documentation and other users' experience (I don't own a Time Capsule myself) you can't use encrypted HFS+ drives.

According to http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2426 Time Capsule only supports HFS+, HFS+ with journaling, FAT16 and FAT32, which would rule out encrypted HFS+:

  The AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule support USB storage
  devices that are formatted as Mac OS Extended (HFS-plus), FAT16, or
  FAT32. Formatting a storage device as Mac OS Extended with journaling
  is recommended, as it may provide some more resilience if the device
  is removed or powered down while in use.
  Note: ExFAT and NTFS formats aren't supported.

If encrypted HFS+ were supported Airport Utility would provide some means for entering the password to decrypt the attached harddrive. The password would then be used by NetBSD, which is the underlying OS that exports the disks contents over the network, to mount the drive. This doesn't seem to be implemente yet.

Maybe someone actually owning a Time Capsule can test it and chime in.


Run script before every Time Machine backup? I would like to be able to run a bash script just before Time Machine runs, every time
This script generates some content to be written on a file which needs to be backed up by TM.

I have looked around, but surprisingly no one seemed to have asked this before. Any idea?

That's not possible as far as I know. There aren't any real “hooks” into Time Machine.

However, you can do something nearly as good: you can disable the automatic backups that Time Machine does and run it manually instead:

#!/bin/sh

run_your_command_here

run_another_command_here

and_so_on

tmutil startbackup --block --auto

exit 0

Note this bit from man tmutil

  The --auto option provides a supported mechanism with which to
  trigger "automatic-like" backups, similar to automatic backups
  that are scheduled by the system. While this is not identical
  to true system-scheduled backups, it provides custom schedulers
  the ability to achieve some (but not all) behavior normally
  exhibited when operating in automatic mode.

It is not clear to me what the difference is, but it's worth noting that one exists.


Is there a free Office App for the iOS to read Word, Excel, PowerPoint & OneNote files? I've looked around the AppStore for this but have not found one yet. Maybe my keywords are all messed up. Is there an app that will allow me to read files created by Microsoft Office on the iOS?

These can be displayed by IOS with no software involved, other than OneNote.  The trick is getting the files onto the device.  Email is one way; you can view these files, other than OneNote, as attachments, using the ioS Mail app.

Another alternative is to use a sync service client (e.g. dropbox) to access the files.


Incomprehensible information in system diagnostic report When I open Console app and go to the "System diagnostic report" I can see awdd files. In the file while I can see for example:

  ($0éÞÊ ú©åÞ)ÚÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÚÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÚÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÚÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÚÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÚÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÚÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÚÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÚÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÚÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÚÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÚÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÚÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÚÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÚÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÚÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÚÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÚÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÚÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÚÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÚÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÚÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÚÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÚÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÚÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÚÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÚÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÚÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÚÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÚÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ (08@HPZða ¨ü1 ªÿÿz ¿´åÞ)($0ß     ¾´åÞ)
  System Profile:
  AirPort: spairport_wireless_card_type_airport_extreme (0x14E4, 0x112), Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0

what is that mean the characters?! I can see this in each awdd file. What can I do?

You are correct to find them incomprehensible - those are not plain text files but instead binary formatted files.

What you can do is focus on the high level task and see if you even need to look at those files in the first place. Usually there are easier options than reverse-engineering the binary format for debugging issues.


Use Apple monitor as second monitor for windows pc I've an Apple monitor 27' with thunderbolt port, such the one in the picture below. Do you know how if it could be used as external monitor for a windows pc, that has not thunderbolt port?

You have to add thunderbolt to the PC for this to work. Sorry there’s not a better fix.

HDMI to Thunderbolt Display?


Prevent the slide-out from appearing in fullscreen safari In full-screen Safari 13.0.5, when I move my mouse cursor to the left of the window, a sidebar slides out showing my reading list and bookmarks.

Often I was intending to click something at the left of the window, or just accidentally moved my cursor there. Then the slideout ends up interrupting my action or blocking my view of the web page.

How do I stop this sidebar from appearing when my mouse is at the left of the display?

This upvoted answer for macOS El Capitan (apparently) doesn't work for me.

There isn't a way to stop this from happening with conventional methods (i.e. through settings or modifying a .plist file.) It has also been around since Safari 9 from what I can glean from my researches. Search on this site, and in Google in general, to find ways to 'trick' Safari by moving the Dock to the left side of the screen, changing some parameters through a defaults write command to a .plist file and setting up some trackpad swipes and whatnot. Complicated and ultimately a kludge.


Import sound file into Music memos Is there a way to import an audio file (of either format) into Music Memos on iOS?

I want to try to utilize the “automatic” drums of the app on some older guitar recordings. From what I can tell, the drum function listens to a memo and tries to play along, so wouldn’t it be neat if we could hand it a recording from another source and tell it “Here, put drums on this”?

I’ve been looking through the iPhone file structure in PhoneView, but I fear I lack the deeper understanding. Otherwise, copying a recording with the right format into where Music memos stores recordings, I imagine one could convince the app that this is a legit memo file. You know?

Your music file must be a .caf file.
Open Settings → Music Memos and see what the ‘Use iCloud’ switch is set to.
You don't need to change it, just keep it in mind for step 5.
Find your music file in the Files app, such as in the Downloads folder if it came from Safari.
Long press the file and choose Move (or Copy).
If the switch in step 2 was on, find Music Memos under ‘iCloud Drive’.
If the switch was off, find Music Memos under ‘On This iPhone’.
Move/copy the file to that location.

This worked for me with a test caf file and iOS 13.5.