Can't open text file from Finder without extension even though execute flag is not set Running Big Sur 11.3.1
I've got loads of text (UTF8) data files coming in from another Mac that I'd like to just double click or drag and drop to BBEdit or TextEdit. The files have no file extension and I'm not supposed to be changing the names unless I work from duplicates. The files can be opened from a file dialog but that's a bit tedious. When I drop on BBEdit I get messages that say the file cannot be opened because the developer is unknown and "macos cannot verify that this app is free from malware". That's an absurd message for a text file. Any thoughts on fixing this? (already tried chmod -x)

When I drop on BBEdit I get messages that say the file cannot be opened because the developer is unknown and “macOS cannot verify that this app is free from malware”. That’s an absurd message for a text file. Any thoughts on fixing this?

You’re right, it is an absurd message, and unfortunately, it can happen with any file that you’ve downloaded from the Internet. It doesn’t have to have the executable ‘bit’ set.
The ‘fix’ for this would have to come from Apple.
However, in the meantime, the only thing you can do is remove the Quarantine flag:
xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine '/the path/to/The File'
For more information about this bug, see:
Serious flaw in macOS: quarantine can stop you from opening documents – The Eclectic Light Company


grep: command not found This is a very weird behavior. Lately, whenever I am trying to find a process on console with ps aux | grep foo, it is returning a grep: command not found. Ok, that could be something that I changed and did wrong, but the problem is that, after a few tries, it suddenly knows what grep is:

MM:.dev$ ps aux | grep foo
-bash:  grep: command not found
MM:.dev$ ps aux | grep foo
-bash:  grep: command not found
MM:.dev$ ps aux | grep foo
-bash:  grep: command not found
MM:.dev$ ps aux | grep foo
MM            70953   0,0  0,0  2699108    744   ??  Ss   10:32AM   0:08.77 foo bar
MM             3756   0,0  0,0  2423356    204 s004  R+   10:12AM   0:00.00 grep foo

Any ideas why is this happening?

As suggested, this is what I get when a enter type grep after both, the one failing and the one working:

MM:.dev$ ps aux | grep foo
-bash:  grep: command not found
MM:.dev$ type grep
grep is /usr/bin/grep
MM:.dev$ ps aux | grep foo
MM             5694   0,0  0,0  2433796    676 s006  S+   10:47AM   0:00.00 grep foo
MM:.dev$ type grep
grep is /usr/bin/grep

Looking at your output, there seems to be an extra space before grep in the error message. I assume this is coming from a still pressed Opt/Alt key after typing the pipe symbol (so you basically are typing Opt-Space instead of just Space). Try ps aux |grep foo (without a space between the pipe and the g).


PDF only readable with Acrobat on macOS and iOS I'm frequently given PDFs with images where the images are not (or not properly) rendered on macOS (or iOS), but which others say that they can read on other OSs. These files are always readable in Acrobat, but the Images do not show in any other app or browser (neither Preview nor Skim or PDF Expert).

From asking around it's clear that I'm not the only person with this issue.

What's going on here and how can I, or the creators of the PDFs, fix it?

iOS

Using the example PDF in the comment below I was able to confirm that some images do not display correctly on my iPad:

Compare the "sidebar" images on page 12-14 for some that are either missing entirely or display incorrectly.

Compare this:

To this:

However, they were able to be viewed using PDF Viewer Pro by PSPDFKit

(Note: I tested using the free version of the app. There are additional features available as an in-app purchase but they are not needed to view these images.)

Unfortunately I was not able to get PDF Viewer Pro to export the PDF into a more 'universal' PDF.

Mac

When I opened the same PDF in Preview on my Mac (running High Sierra), it appeared to show the images just fine, even the ones that did not appear correctly in iOS, so I'm not sure why you're having issues viewing it on macOS, unless you are using an earlier version?


Why can't Siri add the relationship for an account? I'm using Siri in German, and one of the examples mentions the command:

  Meine Mutter ist Diana Pelzl

That is, My mother is Diana Pelzl. So, I say something similar to the above German sentence, and Siri comes up with:

  Okay, should I remember that Diana Pelzl is your Mother?

Of course, I tap Yes. Now, Siri replies:

  Sorry, I can't add the relationship for this account.

Why would it say so?

iOS 5.1
Contacts are currently synced with Google through an Exchange account, following the procedure here: Setting up Google Sync with your iOS device - Google Mobile Help

I had the same problem, hopefully your problem is occurring for the same reason, and the following solution will help you.

Step 1: Make sure you have set up iCloud for your iPhone, which I am sure you have.

Step 2: Go to Settings>iCloud and turn off Contacts. If you are experiencing the same problem I had (i.e. no iCloud contacts set up) it will not matter if you delete or save when prompted, that is up to you.

Step 3: Delete the current contact that is assigned to your iPhone/Siri (this will also remove it under "My Info" in the Siri settings).

Step 4: Go to iCloud.com on a computer, log in, and select Contacts. Now press the + button on the bottom right of the first "page," and create a contact with your name/information.

Step 5: Once created, select your contact, press the Settings button on the bottom left, and choose Make this my card.

Step 6: On your iPhone again, return to Settings>iCloud and turn Contacts back on, selecting merge when prompted.

Step 7: Go to Settings>Mail, Contacts, Calenders; scroll down to the section under the Contacts heading, select Default Account and choose iCloud.

Step 8: Return to your contacts.

a) if your name is already there (matching the one you created at iCloud.com). Select it and look under the Linked Cards heading, to make sure that there is a link to your iCloud contact. Also, check under Settings>General>Siri to make sure that it has the the contact in the My info box.

b) if it is not there, create a new contact, and enter your first and last name exactly as it is entered in iCloud (it is not necessary to provide information beyond your first and last name). Now press done, and you should see your iCloud account appear below the Linked Cards heading. Select the iCloud account and you can make changes to the contact from your phone, including adding relationships that will work with Siri (e.g. Mother, Father, Brother, etc.). You should also be able to use Siri as you have tried in the past, but only got the "I can't add that relationship to this account" response.

Optional Step 9: If it still does not work, you may want to try using this process to add your important "relations" contacts to your Contacts List via iCloud.com, and adding the relationships to you contact on iCloud.com as well.

I hope this helps! Good luck!


Stuck on Grey Screen During Startup I updated to Yosemite on Saturday and everything has been working fine, I have been able to shut down and startup as normal until today.

A couple of days ago I forced my Early 2011 MacBook Pro to shut down and now it will no longer get to the login screen.

I hear the chime, the Apple appears with the Yosemite status bar underneath, it takes a long time to get about halfway then both the Apple and status bar disappear leaving just a blank grey screen.

I can get into Single User mode, using "fsck -fy" it reports that everything is OK.
I can't get into Safe Mode, I just get the Apple and status bar followed by grey screen
I have reset PRAM
The Internet Recovery globe and status bar appear followed by the Apple and status bar then grey screen
Holding Option I can select my disk but there is no Recovery Disk displayed. The image of my hard drive that appears has a custom icon that I haven't used for at least 5 years which is very odd indeed.
I have a bootable Yosemite USB, holding option I can select that but it just brings up the Apple and status bar then grey screen.

So basically everything other than Single User mode ends up at a blank grey screen.

I'm at a loss, any help would be greatly appreciated.

NOTE
My left fan is faulty, I have ordered a new one online. I have been using SMCFanControl to monitor it, if the computer has been feeling hot I have been increasing the RPM for a minute to cool it just to be safe until the new fan arrives. Last night I increased the RPM and SMCFanControl became unresponsive which is why I forced the computer to shut down because I couldn't reduce the fan speed back to normal.

Early 2011 MacBook Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10)

It is already become usual when new OS update finally break defective GPUs.

You didn't state what exact model of early 2011 you have but if it is 15" or 17" it just may be it since Radeon HD in those models tend to break.

If yours MBP is indeed with Radeon GPU try to use towel method i.e. wrap it into bath towel (dry of course) after startup and let it sit and become really hot. Try to restart after it. If it working you might try this approach


Installing Lion from custom DIY DVD or USB fails After upgrading to Lion my computer is really slow. Chrome-takes-a-minute-to-open-a-tab slow. I decided to do a clean Lion install and copy all my stuff to see if that fixes it, so I got a new hard drive for this.

I burned the Lion image to a DVD and also a USB memory. The first time I tried installing, everything seemed to go well until rebooting. I got a kind of forbidden sign and a spinning wheel (with the gray boot background).

I booted from the DVD again and it said "Install failed, try again." but the installer wasn't run again. I found it on / by using the console and run it manually. Both from the DVD and the USB I did several installs, making sure the Internet connection was working before starting and in all cases it finishes, reboots and it looks like the partition in the hard drive is not bootable. It won't boot from hard drive.

Any ideas what's going on and/or how to solve and perform this clean install?

Thank you.

It's hard to know where the failure lies, but you might be able to get around the issue by re-installing Snow Leopard from media and then running the installer you have saved on the DVD/USB. This will avoid having to try the "official" Lion install and see if your installer is the cause or the mac has issues of it's own.


High Sierra DNS fails intermittently for LAN-local hosts I have a local domain for my home network, which uses .loc as a TLD (not .local). Name resolution for hosts on that network always works using dig or nslookup from a terminal, but intermittently fails everywhere else. One day it will work fine and I'll start regrowing my hair, and the next I'm unable to ssh to another machine to save my life.

Is this an mDNSResponder/Bonjour issue? I have tried simply disabling mDNSResponder, but SIP disallows it (and IT is unlikely to go along with disabling SIP). Flushing DNS doesn't help. What else can I try?

mac:~ user$ sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder
mac:~ user$ scp ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub user@kube1.domain.loc:/id_rsa.pub
ssh: Could not resolve hostname kube1.domain.loc: nodename nor servname provided, or not known
lost connection
mac:~ user$ dig kube1.domain.loc

; <<>> DiG 9.8.3-P1 <<>> kube1.domain.loc
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 59092
;; flags: qr aa rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;kube1.domain.loc.          IN  A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
kube1.domain.loc.       900 IN  A   10.0.0.130

;; Query time: 4 msec
;; SERVER: 10.0.0.10#53(10.0.0.10)
;; WHEN: Thu Feb  1 18:59:51 2018
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 48

mac:~ user$

macOS doesn't treat its DNS server list as having any sort of priority at all, it just scatters queries across all of them in a semirandom fashion. Set it to only use the internal DNS server, and you should get much more reliable lookups.


TestFlight review process vs. App Store review process Is it possible to pass the TestFlight review process and then fail the App Store review process with the same build?

In other words, if my build successfully passes the TestFlight review process, is it re-reviewed with more stringent requirements before being accepted into the App Store?

Yes, because the TestFlight review is not as thorough or complete.

The assumption (based on what I've seen over a few years as a developer) is that builds in TF are still in development and things can change.  It's not a slam-dunk that builds will be accepted into TF because they do some review on them.

For the AppStore, a full review is performed again as if you didn't do TestFlight.  I'm guessing they review any notes from the TF team but I don't have proof of that.

So yes, it's possible to be in TF and then fail the AppStore review.  It’s also possible for the opposite to happen, you could struggle more in TF review and then breeze through the store process.


Photoshop—"scratch disk is full" error Using a Macbook Air, I have 60Gb free space on my hard drive, yet I can't crop an image (W x H, Resolution setting) because "the scratch disks are full".

What does the error mean? How do I fix it? I can't imagine Photoshop's doing an operation that requires more than 60Gb of spare disk space...

I found this guide here with a simple Google Search.

If you are getting a "scratch disk full" error when attempting to crop an image, you probably have accidentally entered the size and resolution values in the options bar for the crop tool. You could have also possibly entered the values in the wrong units. This can cause massive render issues as it will try to generate an incredibly large file, ultimately causing the error. The solution to this issue is to press clear in the options bar after selecting the crop tool, but before you drag a crop selection.


How can one reset the tutorials that run for preinstalled OS X apps on first run? I'll give a bit of back story so this makes more sense:

I was pre installing and configuring some stuff for a family member's new Mac mini. It was shipped to my place so they haven't ever used it and in the process of setting things up I had to run iTunes and other included apps.

The first time you run them, they open up a pop up that guides you though basic usage. How can I reset that before I hand it to them, so they see the tutorial when they first run the app?

There are also some non-Apple programs, like Office 2011 and Spotify, which I would like to do this for. So any general pointers that could help with that would be appreciated.

I'm not sure this are the movies you are referring to, but Apple has made a lot of useful tutorials about using a Mac. From beginner to some more experienced...
You can find them on the Apple website.

And to answer your other questions, you can find extensive documentation and how-to's about Spotify and Office for Mac on their websites.


Apple Music - Allowing Explicit Content Disabled I've just started using Apple Music and searched for Metallica. And most of their albums are greyed out. After sometime searching for the answer i could see that all the Albums with the Explicit Content is greyed out.

I checked my Itunes settings and as i figured, the setting for "Restrict Music with Explicit Content" is checked.
But here is the strange part : I cant 'uncheck' the option. The option is checked and greyed out.

Anyone have any idea how to uncheck that option and get access to Explicit Content?

Note: My apple account belongs to the Indian Store.

This is the reply i got after chatting with the customer team for over half an hour - Due to the laws between the countries. The iTunes Store in India does not offer explicit content on the music store!!!


How can I reproduce this magnification effect for my own screen shots? Does anyone know how to make the great-looking magnifying glass, shown in Apple's image, shown below? I really like the shadow! I'd love to know what software Apple uses for this.

In Preview you can now add shadowed magnification. I think this was new in El Capitain. But it is not the same shadow. My guess is that effect is produced in Quartz Composer (if they want to "eat their own dog food").

See interface:


Can I use iTunes to sync a folder of photos onto my iPhone without losing my iPhone Camera Roll? Say I have an iPhone Camera Roll with 1,000 photos or videos in it, and on my Mac, a folder called "Pictures From Brazil". I want to copy that folder's pictures onto my iPhone, but I want to keep everything in the Camera Roll.

Can I use iTunes to do this (syncing photos using the Photos tab in the iPhone section of iTunes), or if I turn on "Sync Photos" to copy that folder to my iPhone, will that overwrite my Camera Roll and / or remove its contents?

Yes, you can safely sync a specific folder from your Mac to your iPhone via iTunes without overwriting your iPhone's Camera Roll.

You don't specify your version of iOS, but typically what will happen is that the sync will create an additional album in the Photos app on your iPhone. So, using your example, if you use iTunes on your Mac to sync selected albums and then select the "Pictures From Brazil" folder, this will add an album on your iPhone called "Pictures From Brazil".

This additional album doesn't impact your Camera Roll at all.


Is there an easy way to remove some of the built-in apps on macOS Mojave? In the past I was able to do sudo rm -rf /Applications/<app name>. The following resources indicate that this will no longer work without dealing with System Integration Protection (SIP):

How delete an application that is bundled with macOS?
https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/976402-how-to-remove-defaultbundled-apps-in-macos-mojave/

The motivation is that I am not motivated to accept updates for apps that I do not expect to use within the foreseeable future.

Is there an easy way to remove some the built-in apps that I do not wish to update, such as GarageBand, Keynote, Pages, etc., without dealing with the SIP tool?

P.S. (edited): I completely understand that there may not be any easy or even difficult way to remove some built-in apps such as Safari, Siri, System Preferences, etc. This scope of this question is hereby limited to the some apps such as GarageBand, Keynote, Pages, etc.

Go to the Applications folder in the Finder tool;
right-click on the unwanted application;
click "Move to trash", and enter the password if requested by the system;
then empty the trash.

Note the following exceptions:

In case an unwanted application is in the Utilities subfolder, the first step should be to navigate into that subfolder.
There are some applications such as Safari and Siri for which there is no "Move to trash" option.

Each of these steps should be well documented. I would be happy to add some more pointers upon request.


Upload photos to specified photo album, on iPad Are there any ways to move photos from the default album to a specified album?

Maybe there exist some iPad apps for that?
I know how to do that using iTunes, but you know, it's very uncomfortable :(

Unfortunately, no.  The iPad (as of 3.2.1) does not support the manipulation of photo albums by code running on an iPad through any approved mechanism.


How to install an Adobe app from another Mac using Remote Disc? I recently deleted some Adobe files & now when I try to reinstall Photoshop Elements I get the error message: "installer failed to initialize."

Adobe is no help at all.

I can't restore the files I deleted (not even sure which missing files are needed), so the Adobe installer won't work at all.

I'm told I can use Remote Disc to use my Macbook Pro to install it on my Mac Mini. Or maybe use Migration Assistant to transfer Elements from my Macbook Pro to the Mini.

How does this work? Suggestions?

Thanks for any assistance!

First, on the machine with the optical drive, go to System Preferences > Sharing and make sure "DVD & CD Sharing" is turned on.

Then, on the machine without the optical drive (the one where you want to install the software), open a Finder window and select "Remote Disc" in the sidebar (if you don't see it, go to Finder > Preferences > Sidebar and make sure "CDs, DVDs, and iPods" is checked under the Devices category). You can also navigate to root (/) and you'll see it there too.

Provided the two machines are on the same wifi network, Remote Disc will show the contents of the optical disc in the other machine, and from there you can run the installer or do whatever you need to do.


Can anyone interpret verbose shutdown messages? I almost always boot up in Verbose mode so I can see what's happening during boot up/shut down. Usually critical errors make themselves obvious, some lesser errors aren't so obvious but can be cleared up, and yet other errors aren't really errors at all and should be expected. I've fixed a bunch of things on startup, and now I'm trying to figure out messages I see on shutdown.

I'm basically just wondering if anyone can be an interpreter and tell me if any of this is bad or should not be happening, or if it all just looks normal.

Sorry for posting these messages as a photo. I'm not sure where to find a text log, if there is one:

It looks like there are a lot of processes that are staying alive until the system finally gives up on them and kills them all. If this is to be expected, that would be helpful to know. If not, how can I make the shut down run more smoothly?

Oh, and can anyone explain the anonymous.sudo processes? Is that okay? Where might that come from?

Thanks for any illumination you can offer!

It depends on each executable.

The closedown process sends a signal SIGTERM to each process and the process should then cleanup and shut itself down. This includes subprocesses and that appears to be most of the lines in your log - perhaps the parent does not shut its subprocesses down when it does, also see Unix zombie processes in wikipaedia

I would suggest that the original parent has not behaved 'properly' but probably does not matter unless there become many more zombie processes when the OS could run out of process handles.


Removing all printer stuff I don't use any printers now, but I have in the past.
Systems Preferences / Printers & Scanners shows "No printers are available".
However, /Library/Printers still contains over 200Mb of stuff.

How can I clean the contents of /Library/Printers and any other folders that contain printer stuff?

I suppose /Library/Printers protected by SIP and so sudo rm will not work, nor is recommended.

I'm running El Captain 10.11.6 (15G21013).

Apple says it is safe to remove the content of /Library/Printers: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203343#remove.

I did that after resetting the printing system, just to be sure.


iOS - Restricting device to work with a single app only I wish to lock my iOS devices into running a single app only. I have surveyed Guided Access Mode, but it doesn't persist between restarts, and have to be re-configured (by pressing the Home button thrice).

The requirement here is for the iOS device to behave as if it is capable of running one app only. I wish to practically restrict the device to use a single specific app, unaffected by power interruptions.

Is it possible to enforce this behaviour using a MDM solution? (Starting the device with a specific app launched automatically upon device power up/restart and restricting user from suspending it by pressing Home button).

Since the use-case entails locking the device to run only a specific app, all the other required device settings will be configured using a MDM solution.

The desired functionality is called Single App Mode, and is available for supervised devices.

An iOS device can be setup for Single App Mode using a Mobile Device Management (MDM) software.

A few articles shedding light on this topic are quoted below:

How to use iOS Single App Mode

  Single App Mode (SAM), often referred to as “Single App Lock” is a feature for supervised devices that restricts the device to running only one app. While Single App Mode is enabled, the selected app will stay in the foreground.

Set up your iPad to give tests and assessments

  Autonomous Single App Mode is a feature of assessment apps that locks iPad in to the app for testing. If your app doesn’t support Automatic Assessment Configuration, you can set up your iPad for Autonomous Single App Mode using Mobile Device Management (MDM) software. Your MDM software installs a profile that identifies your testing app on the device.

How to Setup Kiosk Mode & Lock Your iPad to Just One App – Part 2

  In iOS version 9, Apple introduced “Supervised Mode” which enables a feature called “Single App Mode” on your iOS device. Single App Mode is a feature for supervised devices that restricts the device to running only one app. While Single App Mode is enabled the selected app will stay in the foreground, even after the device is rebooted.


How to move or export all Photos' library contents to a hierarchical by-date filesystem structure? I have rather large Photos.app library consisting of >50 years of family photos and videos. With Catalina I've been really unhappy with some bugs that have lost a couple months of recent photos and video and Apple has remained mum on the issue.  I've decided that my data will be more safely stored in a filesystem hierarchical data system that I can use with other apps and can manually manage going forward.

How can I export an entire Photos.app .photoslibrary contents to such an organization (YYYY -> MM -> DD) while retaining timestamps and any other pertinent metadata?

Photos Takeout app can export Year-wise, Album-wise and Date-wise folders from Photos for Big Sur, Catalina, Mojave and High Sierra, for libraries of up to 2 terabytes in size, while preserving folder hierarchy and metadata. It's not meant for iPhoto. [Disclosure: I do customer service at AIL, developer of this app.]


Phone stopped connecting to Wireless iPhone 5: Since yesterday my phone stopped working to wireless at work.
I asked other people and no one had issues with connecting to wireless.
I went home and no issues with connecting to home wireless either.
So it is just me and my phone having issues connecting to work wireless.

What troubleshooting steps do you suggest? I tried the "forget this network" and re-joining it again but that didn't solve it.

UPDATE
: One thing I found out is that when I am at my desk with whatever router they have around that area, my wireless doesn't work. But when I go to kitchen area with whatever router they have in that area, it connect and works fine.

You could try Settings -> General -> Reset -> Reset Network Settings.

From the docs:

  This will reset all network settings including:

  previously connected Wi-Fi networks and passwords
  recently used Bluetooth accessories
  VPN and APN settings

More information about troubleshooting WiFi networks is available here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1398


Keyboard and Mouse start behaving oddly. I've had to restart my Mac to fix this I imagine I'm hitting some serious of hotkeys but on rare occasions, my Mac will start handling keyboard AND mouse clicks in an odd way.

This just happened and, all of a sudden, here are some of the oddities that were happening.

Whether caps lock was on or off (as indicated on my keyboard by the light), ALL TEXT WAS IN CAPS.
In parallels, if I clicked on some text and moved my mouse, the text would highlight as I moved my mouse, as if I were holding down the mouse button.  I wasn't.
In Chrome (in macOS, not my parallels OS) clicking on a link would open a new tab.

There were some other odd behaviors but I didn't catch them all.  I was able to restart the machine from the macOS menu and, thankfully, this turned off whatever mode was turned on.

So, any idea what happened and how to cancel next time?  I have a hunch that this is an accessibility feature, but I have no idea what that would be much less how to turn it off.

(Just in case these details are required, I have a 2017 MBP, and I'm on the most up-to-date version of macOS High Sierra.)

The symptoms you are describing point to a stuck key which is plaguing the new 2016 through 2018 MacBooks and MacBook Pros with the new keyboard.  My guess is that one of the Shift keys may be (becoming) stuck.

Text in all caps
Text being selected as you move your mouse
New Tab/Windows opening when you click a link

Try using an external keyboard - this will confirm if the problem is the built in keyboard or not.  If the problem goes away, the keyboard needs to be replaced.

Update (from comments below):  Since you're using an external keyboard, it's entirely possible that that keyboard is having issues.  Try using KeyCodes (free app) to see what keys are being pressed.  If a key is stuck, it will show up in this event viewer.


Will iRig connect my electronic guitar to my MacBook Pro? I know Apogee iJam can do this, but it's a little expensive for me. iRig can connect a guitar to iOS devices, but will iRig connect a guitar to a MacBook Pro?

If your Macbook Pro has the single 3.5mm jack that can take input and output then iRig should work just fine for you.
Someone asked a similar question here. If you're looking for something ultra cheap you could always get a 1/4" to 3.5mm adaptor to plug your guitar into your Mac. I did this for a very long time until I could afford higher quality hardware. These things run as low as $2 at some places, here is one for example. Hope this helps!


Which country in Europe offers Macbook Air 13" with US keyboard (with wide enter)? I would like to buy a Macbook Air, but I don't like the small and narrow Enter (return) key, small left Shift and the extra keys that you can buy in Czech stores/eshops that sell Apple products.

This is what I do NOT like:

And this is what I want:

I really hate the small Enter and the small left Shift and the extra keys. Could somebody help me where in Europe (which country) or maybe in nearby regions (North Africa, Israel or maybe some country in the Middle East) can I buy Macbook Air 13" with US keyboard?

What about store.apple.com?

I have bought two Macs with a US keyboard from the Finnish store. US means the standard US layout with a single row return key. The International English and UK layouts have a two row return key.

You can probably get them from eBay as well.


How can I ignore conversations in Outlook 2011 for Mac? Outlook for Mac 2011 does not include an "ignore conversation" feature out of the box.  Is there a way to simulate that with other functionality (e.g. categories, rules, plugins, etc)?

What I want to accomplish is to be able to flag a certain email  subject as something I'd like automatically deleted.  And to do so easily with a click or two.  Is this possible?

After searching over the net and various forums, seems this feature is not present in the outlook on mac.


Can't Find MacPorts (installed on OS 10.8.5 How can I find MacPorts after it's been installed? I'm trying to use it to open GIMP but can't locate it. GIMP gave me the message "There is no application set to open the document fimp-2.8.14.dmg.torrent - so, that's why I downloaded MacPorts, and now I can't find THAT - Please Heeeeelp - Thank you!

For run MacPort you have to write sudo /opt/local/bin/port in your Terminal window.

Alias in .zshrc :

alias port='sudo /opt/local/bin/port'

However, a .torrent file can be open with uTorrent or Transmission without using MacPorts.

.torrent files explained : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torrent_file


If a guest user installs cracked software / malware, is the original user compromised? I created a login for my housemate on my MacBook.

I have since learned that they have installed cracked software.

How well am I insulated by macOS security architecture against this breach?

If you didn’t give the guest admin privileges, you’re pretty well protected.

There’s a basic rule when it comes to privileges - what one admin can do, another can (un)do.  This means that if you gave your house mate admin privileges, you gave him/her the same rights you have to modify the system.

So, let’s assume the worst case and say you did give him admin privileges.  “Cracked” software doesn’t automatically mean malware is attached.  But, again assuming the worst, whatever malware installed was done do with (worst case again) root privileges.

While SIP, Gatekeeper, and Catalina’s new read-only system volume do a considerably good job protecting your system, you can still do some critical damage.  Worse, you could have a keylogger installed that captures login credentials, personal info, and everything required to steal your identity and drain your bank account.

Start with Malwarebytes and scan your Mac for threats.  Personally, I would always have that nagging feeling that it's quite not cleaned.  For me, only a full erase of the drive and only a clean reinstall would give me piece of mind.

This again is if you gave him admin access.  If you didn’t, pat yourself on the back for not doing so, delete the account completely and don’t allow him back on your machine.


How can I create a folder named like the current date in bash So I'm messing around in my .bashrc making different aliases and playing with my prompt. I'm trying now to make an alias that will move into a specific directory, make a new directory based on the date, and make a new file. All in one alias. Here's what I've done...

export DATE="$( date +%d-%b )"
alias hw='cd ~/Java/Homework/257; mkdir $DATE; cd $DATE; vim'

Now if I go out and run hw Client.java it should move into ~/Java/Homework/257/27-Jan/ and open a new file called Client.java in vim. It all works beautifully except the date variable doesn't work right. It moves me into the ~/Java/Homework/257 directory and makes two directories. One called date and another called +%d-%b and puts the Client.java file in the date directory.

I thought my date variable export simply wasn't working but when I type $DATE at the command prompt it gives me 27-Jan like it should. So does anyone know what could actually be causing this? A friend of mine did something very simliar to this using a slightly different format string for the date and his works just fine. The only thing I have different on my computer is bash-completion from homebrew but I don't see how that would effect my date...

export DATE="$( date +%d-%b )"

You need to actually execute it. Otherwise you just assign a string value. Since you're missing quotes around the $DATE, it will be interpreted as two separate arguments, date and +%d-%b.


Merging PDF files Together I’m looking for a workaround to not buy Adobe Acrobat since this is the only time that I had needed it since using a computer for the last 20 years and I need to do just this 1 job with it.

I’m trying to use Preview viewer to merge pdf files together and I was successful at doing it just a minute ago yet can’t seem to replicate my steps again. I open 2 pdf files in 2 separate Preview viewers (one being an older version) then drag a page from one sidebar into the next sidebar to correlate my multiple pdf file.

But the Save and Save All option is grayed out and the Save option is only allowed in the drop down submenu under File. It would be nice if they weren’t :/ But I have seen a Save All option button when I try to close the Preview viewer and this document looks like it’s saved somewhere but never says to where and I can’t find the file name under the Search bar option.

Does anyone here know a work around on how I can do this please? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated thank you very much.

You were actually doing it correct, its just that when you want to save it, you actually have to export it as a separate file. If you wish to keep the same file name, you'll have to save it as a different name 1st, then delete the original and rename the new one.

Here is the step by step guide:

Combine two PDFs

  Open a PDF in Preview.
  Choose View > Thumbnails to show page thumbnails in the sidebar.
  To indicate where to insert the other document, select a page thumbnail.
  Choose Edit > Insert > Page from File.
  Select the PDF that you want to add, then click Open.
  To save, choose File > Export.

Combine part of a PDF with another PDF

  Open the PDFs that you want to combine in Preview.
  In each document, choose View > Thumbnails to show page thumbnails
  in the sidebar.
  Press and hold the Command key, select the page thumbnails that you want to add to the other document, then let go of Command.
  Drag the selected thumbnails into the sidebar of the other PDF, then
  release where you want them to appear.
  If your Mac has macOS Sierra or earlier, drag the thumbnails
  directly onto a thumbnail in the other PDF.
  To save, choose File > Export.

You can view more information and details here:
https://support.apple.com/en-ph/HT202945


Login keychain disappears on login Running 10.8.2 on MacBook Pro, sometime after upgrading to Mountain Lion 10.8.1 I started getting the message box that passwords, etc. could not be saved to keychain.  I did the usual (repair permissions, repair keychain).  It would make a new login keychain which is usually fine until I reboot my system (but not always) and then the login keychain disappears again.  Any suggestions?

Try running repair permissions from the recovery partition so the keychain isn't in use and can properly be repaired.


94 photos and 463 MB I have an iPhone 4s 16 GB. I realized my photos took up a lot of space so I put most of them on my USB drive. I only kept 94 of them on my phone. But they still take up 463 MB of data. I looked at each photo on my laptop and they all took up between 100 and 600 KB each. There's ONE photo that takes up 3 MB but that's it. The rest are only a few hundred KB. I tried using that Phonecleaner thing and it did nothing. Also restarting my phone. Plus I have nothing saved to icloud or any shared photos or anything synced from my computer (I've never even signed into iCloud. EVER.). Just my normal album. 94 photos. Is there a reason why it's taking up so much storage space with so little photos?

Are there any photos in your "Recently Deleted" album? These still count towards your photos storage.

Try signing into iCloud and uploading the photos to iCloud Photo Library (enable at Settings > iCloud > Photos). The size of your iCloud Photo Library (Settings > iCloud > Manage Storage) should represent the size of the photos on your phone.

Some people have suggested performing a hard shut down (hold Power and Home buttons for 5 seconds until screen goes black) to reset Storage usage info.


Apple Pages: Use a different header for odd an even pages In Apple Pages, is it possible to use a different header for odd and even pages?

I have searched around and found this guide, but I think it's for the old version of Pages (as it is from 2006 and have the interfaces buttons mentioned don't exist).

There are also guides on how to use different headers for different sections, but that is different from odd and even pages.

This is currently not possible with Pages, as it was with Pages '09.

If you need this functionality, you can still use Pages '09 if you have it, but opening a document from Pages '09 with different headers for odd and even pages will cause such headers to be removed (and a warning thrown in Document Warnings).

You can provide feedback to Apple here:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/pages.html


How to drag icon in Preview to a folder and copy instead of aliasing? After downloading a PDF, Preview automatically opens and I'm able to look at the file. Often times I want to move the file to somewhere other than Downloads.

In Mavericks I'm able to click on the title and choose a new location in the drop down under the Where: item as shown in the screenshot.

If I already have a Finder window open to the folder where I want to move the file it would be faster to just drag the icon from the title bar to the Finder. However, the default behavior is to create an alias. I've tried using modifier keys to make this a copy operation instead of an alias but without success.

Is there a trick to make this work or should I be submitting an enhancement request to Apple?

Hold down the alt (option) key before dropping the icon in the Finder. That copies it for me, and that's been standard behavior in the Finder forever.


Restore multiple minimized windows? This question particularly deals with the latest version of Google Chrome on Mountain Lion, but the underlying premise applies to other browsers/applications as well.

What I am wondering is: is there a way (via keyboard shortcut, or third party application) to open a series of minimized windows simultaneously?

For example, in Google Chrome, one might have four windows open (each with a set of tabs), that you minimized with ⌘ cmd + M. This leads to a few questions:

Once minimized, is there a keyboard shortcut to bring that window back?
Is there a keyboard shortcut that would bring all minimized windows back?

I would like to restore all minimized windows with a keypress, not just one at a time.

The opposite keyboard shortcut for the cmd+M is the

cmd + Tab

that will bring up all open windows

keep holding the cmd key

scroll till you find lets say Chrome

still holding the cmd key use up down arrows that will bring all open windows with in that app.

THIS QUESTION WAS ANSWERED HERE:

Actually there a multiple ways doing the minimizing and the maximizing all windows at once.

I prefer the cmd + F3 to hide all at once. Then F3 to show all.

Then there is a 3 party app called Witch.


How do I show 'Names and Pictures' by default in Messages.app? I am running the latest Mavericks version, 10.9.2.

There is an option for this in the View menu.

It should carry over to every conversation.


macOS Sierra changing color profiles at startup I have seen this issue discussed for previous macOS iterations, but there never seems to be a solution.

I have yet to find much discussion for Sierra and I am getting quite frustrated. I run a digitization lab (we work with archival materials) and our workstations are all Macs.

We have used ColorMunki to create custom profiles for all our screens for years, but now that we have upgraded the computers to Sierra, we're having an issue. ColorMunki still operates perfectly fine, but every time a computer is turned on, it fails to select the correct profile at startup and comes up horribly blue.

And it's not that the system does not remember my selection - if I go to System Preferences -> Displays -> Color, it suddenly jumps to the correct profile without clicking anything else and will stay selected, to my knowledge, until the computer is restarted again.

Night Shift is not on, and I have tried deleting what extraneous profiles I can, but it seems to do nothing. This is happening to several different computers, so it's not an isolated issue.

Anyone know anything?

You may need to re-install the software.

Please follow these steps:

Backup your current color profile.
Uninstall the X-Rite ColorMunki software.
Restart your Mac.
Re-Install the X-Rite software.
Install the X-Rite device manager.
Create a new color profile or import your backed up profile.
Restart your Mac to check for the previous issue.

Did this answer help?


Check if G5 is a SMP one? How do I check if a G5 PPC mac has 2 CPUs or not?

When booting it up under Linux (Debian 8) only one CPU seems to be detected:

cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor   : 0
cpu     : PPC970FX, altivec supported
clock       : 1800.000000MHz
revision    : 3.0 (pvr 003c 0300)

timebase    : 33333333
platform    : PowerMac
model       : PowerMac9,1
machine     : PowerMac9,1
motherboard : PowerMac9,1 MacRISC4 Power Macintosh
detected as : 337 (PowerMac G5)
pmac flags  : 00000000
L2 cache    : 512K unified
pmac-generation : NewWorld

And the kernel should support SMP:

uname -a
Linux g5 3.16.0-4-powerpc64 #1 SMP Debian 3.16.7-ckt20-1+deb8u3 (2016-01-17) ppc64 GNU/Linux

Does an SMP G5 Macs has 2 heat sinks installed - or is it one big one?

Is there perhaps a OpenFirmware command that lists the CPU details?

I'm not sure about OpenFirmware commands, but your PowerMac G5 only has 1 processor since it's a 9,1. I'll edit this later if I can find any. It looks like it's possible in Single User Mode, but I'm not sure about via OpenFirmware.


iTunes smart playlist based on folders? I have 2 folders one called "Ambient" and one called "Dance", sometime I add new songs to these folders and then I do File -> Add Folder to Library

Is there a way to have 2 playlists, based on the songs' directory ?

Smart playlists use the META data that is stored within the audio files themselves to make selections based on your criteria.  Example of META data include the song title, length, rating, and so on.  The folder that the audio file is stored in is not considered meta data, and is not referenced at any point within the audio file itself - this is managed by the iTunes library XML file instead.  So you cannot do exactly what you are doing, but you might be able to acheive it by changing your methods.

Instead of splitting your tracks by genre into seperate folders and then importing them, change your methods to tag the files with the appropriate META data after importing to select a suitable genre.  After importing tracks, no matter where they are located (and as an aside I would always reccommend using both allowing iTunes to manage your media, as well as copying into your library rather than just referencing them to their existing locations) just select them all, right click and select get info, and them change the genre to either Dance, or Ambience etc.  Then create a smart playlist that searches for audio files that match the Dance or Ambient genre META data.


5K Display (only one) and MacBook Pro mid-2015 DG Radeon 370x Which 5k displays supports by my MacBook Pro mid-2015 with Radeon M370x and how it's done?
Is some one saw articles or tests about MBP 2015 and 5k displays?

Right now I'm replacing my two old fullHD 24" displays and after few weeks of tests I don't like two 4k 27" displays... I returned them.
I don't want two displays anymore...
I want one but ultrawide (21:9), for now I'm thinking about LG 38UC99-W with 3840x1600, but soon there will be new 5k ultrawide LG 34WK95U with resolution 5120x2160.
First LG 38" 4k works with my MacBook but if MBP works with 5k displays... there will be possibility that it will work with 5k Ultrawide...

Per the technical specifications, your MacBook will support a maximum resolution of 3840x2160 which is technically UHD 4K (16:9)

Can you connect a 5K display?

Yes, but it will show at the 4K resolution if you use one Thunderbolt cable.  If you use two, you can drive a 5K and the display must support MST (Multi Stream Transport).  In this scenario, only one external display is supported.

See Using 4K displays, 5K displays, and Ultra HD TVs with your Mac for more details.

Bottom line: you can only display up to the maximum that your source can push.  In other words, you can drive two monitors at 4K or one at 5K


iCloud setting on iPhone changed without user intervention I have an iPhone 5s, running iOS 9.3.2.

About an hour ago, I restored my iPhone and set it up as a new iPhone.

When I signed into iCloud on my iPhone, I turned off all the features I do not use (I only use Find my iPhone and calendar/contacts syncing), and proceeded to connect my iPhone to my Macbook (early 2015 13" Pro model, running OS X 10.11.5) in order to sync the apps, music and podcasts that had been downloaded by that point in time.

After completing a sync for the first time, I checked my iCloud settings about 15 minutes after setting up iCloud on my iPhone and noticed that the Backup feature had been turned back on, even though I hadn't been back into iCloud settings and even though turned it off when I first signed in.

Contextual information:

Phone was not jailbroken/has never been jailbroken.
I definitely turned off the Backup feature the first time because I
made sure to see that "Off" was next to the iCloud Backup option.
I don't use the backup iPhone to iCloud feature at all.
None of the other features that I had turned off changed back
to On, just the backup feature.
I had just wiped and restored my iPhone/did not use a backup when
setting it up as new.
My Macbook was also freshly installed (reinstalled about three hours
before doing my iPhone).
I'm the only person who uses this phone and no one else had touched
it (while setting up my Macbook and iPhone, I was alone).
This issue happened only once before - this "issue" being that I reinstalled the OSes on my Macbook and iPhone, set both of them up and then came back to see
that one of the iCloud settings on my iPhone had changed by itself
(in this particular instance it was Photos syncing, which I don't
use). In the numerous times I've reinstalled my Macbook and iPhone in the past year, it hasn't happened.

So, has anyone had settings change themselves? What could explain this setting turning itself back on again? Am I just being paranoid about something malicious already being on my iPhone? Honestly, I don't have much but reinstalling my Macbook and iPhone so many times before takes a lot of time, effort and money.

Kind of happened to me. Log out of iCloud and log back in. And delete the backup using iCloud manage storage on a computer, idk why but it never works on my phone for me


Removing uninstalled Command Line Tools from AppStore updates I have deleted the Xcode Command Line Tools from my machine by essentially removing the folder. However, AppStore still shows updates from the CLI tools, which obviously I don't want.

I've been trying to properly understand where AppStore looks to figure out what needs updating, but I haven't been able to find a certain answer yet. I tried editing the updatejournal file, but that didn't help, so I've since restored it.

I started to suspect that the fact that pkgutil shows some CLTools-packages might be the cause of this. Forgetting them does not work however as the bom are neither in /var/db/receipts or /Library/Receipts (the pkgutil --forget essentially fails because of this).

I did however find them after a lot of searching in /System/Library/Receipts. Those I can't delete though due to the system security. I can of course bypass that and delete them to see if it works, but I don't want to do that "just to see".

I would like to find a proper solution to this.

Any ideas what I should do here?

I managed to fix it, it seems like I suspected, the problem was the boms in the /System/Library/Receiptsfolder.

So I booted into recovery mode, disable SIP, moved all files from that folder that had com.apple.pkg.CLTools*in their name, and the update in the App Store went away. Then I booted into recovery again to enable SIP.

It doesn't feel quite right to disable the security, but I gave it a try in this case as other similar problems seemed to be related to lingering bom files, so perhaps it makes sense.


How can I download the Lion installation file? I just got my new Macbook Pro 15" - it had OS X Lion pre-installed.

Is there a way I can download the OS X Lion ISO (legitimately) so I will be able to have it in case I need to reinstall ?

If I look in the app store it doesn't appear that I purchased Lion (since it came pre-installed). I am aware of the internet recovery option but am looking for a way to download the file now so I can recover later without an internet connection.

Recovery options for Macs with Lion pre-installed are documented in HT4718:

Recovery HD: recovery partition on hard drive, accessible by booting with Cmd-R pressed til the Apple logo is displayed
Internet Recovery: If you got a new (empty) hard drive, your Mac will boot into an internet recovery mode

Recovery in both cases requires internet connectivity.

You can use this to your benefit by rebooting your Mac into recovery and connect a USB drive. Go through the steps to link your Apple ID to that Mac for a Lion reinstall. Choose the external drive for the install. You should be able to catch the process at a reboot and save the 10.7.2 installer for later. Worst case is you miss it and the system deleted the installer application. Just open the App Store and hold option when selecting Purchased. You can generally re-download things once the store knows you get a copy of Lion.


Apple's Profile Manager (MDM) is suddenly unable to updates settings on enrolled iPads So I just noticed that all new iPads (and old ones that we removed from groups and added to other groups) is no longer able to push settings to the iPads.

The iPads are all on very different networks, and installing apps on them all seem to work.

I'm guessing this is a bug that was introduced in the last Server update. Running 10.9.2 and Server 3.1.1

Anyone else experiencing this or know what might be causing it?

So I managed to fix this here, but the reason it's failing is really strange.

I removed the Security & Privacy payload from the settings, which mostly consists of OS X settings, but also has "Allow sending diagnostics and usage data to Apple" setting for both OSX and iOS. I had a sneaking suspicion that this was somehow messing up since it mostly consisted of OS X settings, and turns out I was right.

Now WHY this would mess it up is baffling to me, I'll file a radar with Apple here as it's clearly not intended to fail as this payload belong to the OS X & iOS section. (And either way you can have both iOS devices and Macs in the same group, so OS X specific settings shouldn't cause problems for the iOS devices).


Lion opens lots of windows automatically after a restart. How can I stop that? Lion opens lots of windows automatically after a restart. How can I stop that?

It's very annoying.

Is there a way to stop this?

I found an option in System Preferences ("Restore windows when quitting and re-opening apps") and disabled it but it doesn't seem to affect anything.

What you are experiencing are the benefits of working with resume. A feature introduced with Mac OS X Lion.

It restores the state of the computer when shut down. Very useful, when having to restart because of some installation procedure.
It reopens the used windows of applications. Quite useful since you do not have to navigate to a files location. Instead, just open the needed application to open the file.

Unchecking the box does not have a permanent effect. This can be achieved by manual tweaking.
Disable Resume upon login permanently
Open the Terminal and enter:
curl http://goo.gl/Z4EFC -L -s -o ~/fixlogin.sh && md5 -q ~/fixlogin.sh | xargs -I % mv ~/fixlogin.sh ~/%.sh && chmod +x ~/121dca51e66073624da420b6e1be61d9.sh && sudo ~/121dca51e66073624da420b6e1be61d9.sh ; rm ~/121dca51e66073624da420b6e1be61d9.sh

This command downloads a script and fully installs it. Voilà, you are done.
If you want to revert to the default behavior of resume in lion, type this.
sudo defaults delete com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook

Kudos to Hexbrain who wrote the script.

Disable Resume when launching apps
You can also disable Resume for applications on a per app basis. See these answers here.


Uninstall default PHP on El Capitan My Mac has the default installation of PHP 5.5 at /usr/bin/php and I want to remove it the right way because I want to have PHP 7 instead of this. So far no luck on how to uninstall the right way. I can't simply rm -rf /usr/bin/php because there's a lot of other components like php-cli, php-fpm, etc to be removed as well as apache and mysql.

In my opinion, the right way is to set your path to prefer your installation of PHP.

Apple restricts PHP so you can't delete it without bypassing the system integrity protection
Apple will update those files any time it pleases, so you're always needing to re-do whatever steps you take to modify the system
If you make a virtual environment like docker or just using correct paths to your installation, those are portable and don't need any sort of extra work.

If you really need to delete those files, you would boot to recovery HD and disable SIP. Then delete all files and associated libraries (with the potential to break Apple tools if you delete something the system actually runs at some point) and then re-enable SIP as desired. I would make a good backup before changing SIP just in case you wish to recover the system after deleting things.


Debugging Wifi issues on my iPhone Sometimes I try to connect to a Wifi network and the only things that connect are the IP Address and the Subnet Mask - the other fields (DNS, Router, Search Domains) are still blank. My iPhone shows it's connected to the wireless network (three blue bars in upper left corner) but I never get connection in this case.

What is actually happening when I only get Subnet Mask and IP Address? What can I do to troubleshoot the issue? I feel like I have a really vague notion of how to troubleshoot any sort of Wifi issue besides "turn everything off and back on again."

In a nutshell - you are seeing the difference between a local physical network and the IP infrastructure needed to route packets out of that local network.
Probably the iPhone obtained the IP address and the network via BOOTP instead of DHCP.

The best resource for troubleshooting is this article by Apple. Since it is more general than your question - I'll go on a bit in case to cover background and some concepts.

The three bars means your hardware can talk to the base station hardware. It will pass packets and discover all devices connected to that network. Since some networks are not ever connected to the internet - you only need an address and a netmask but not the other information.

Once the basic link is up, From a network perspective - the iPhone allows for three methods for configuring the IP4 WiFi network stack. Do note that IPv6 and other automatic route finding protocols like Bonjour may allow some things to work when DHCP fails - but you don't see them in the preferences and not everything will work in this case.

DHCP
BootP
Static

With Static - you are on your own and have to know and enter all the fields by hand. BootP is an older method for a device to ask for network information from a router and DHCP servers typically answer either flavor of request transparently. (i.e. most DHCP implementations react and supply information if asked via BootP protocol too - DHCP has more bells and whistles, so it's more common these days)

It is a valid DHCP response from the server to send back any, all or none of the information so you really need to know how the router is set up to know if information is being lost or corrupted when it's sent or if the router simply isn't sending that information. In practice if the router is not received in the DHCP response the router sends in response to your phone's request for DHCP information, the iPhone sends all information out to the physical device that answered the DHCP request and hopes for the best.

In practice - I almost always see the routers field (DHCP option 3) filled - so the most likely problem when this happens is a software malfunction in the router or simple bad networking due to range, interference, overload or incompatibility.

Many DHCP servers have BOOTP disabled and don't answer BOOTP requests,
as the client would end with insufficient information to connect and use the internet.
Some client may use BOOTP at first and if it doesn't work they will request the information with DHCP.
With BOOTP only some predefined fields like IP address and network (subnet mask) can be sent to the client, but not a geatway needed to reach beyond the local network (Internet).
DHCP has many options defined for the client, like routers (DHCP option 3) as default gateway to the Internet, domain-name-servers (DHCP Option 6) for DNS name resolution and many other.

If you have access to the router or can experiment over time and with other WiFi clients (phones, laptops, pads) you might be able to tell if the router is overloaded/broken/interfered or if that's just how it is answering DHCP requests - just with the basic information. In all likelihood - if your phone works on other networks, you didn't somehow break it just for this one network and you can wait it out or try again (which helps if the root cause is temporary interference or overload), or stay off that WiFi until it's fixed by the owner.

Apple devices seem to use the last method used to configure the interface (BOOTP or DHCP). Furthermore they seem to stick to that setting for a long time, not trying the other method after a few failures.

The best order for client devices to use would be DHCP first and BOOTP as a last resort. BOOTP nowadays is only useful for devices which boot (the OS/installation) from the network and even here DHCP should be used to get the full configuration of the client.


If I'm an Apple iOS developer, can I do iOS upgrades, downgrades within the registered devices? I have an iPad 2 GSM with iOS 4.3.5 that I would like to upgrade to iOS 5.1.1.

I tried to upgrade using an Apple 5.1.1 image, without success due to the signing window for 5.1.1 being closed.

If I enroll in the Apple Developer program ($$$) will it be possible for me to upgrade to iOS 5.1.1? How about downgrade to other versions (e.g. 4.1)?

No, being enrolled within the Apple Developer's Program does not provide you with any kind of special downgrade possibilities.

In the other hand, being a Developer grants you the ability to upgrade to the newest yet-to-be-released version of iOS.

So, being the iPad 2 eligible for iOS 6, you won't be able to upgrade it to iOS 5.1.1 instead, enrolled as a Developer or not.


Intro to OSX System directory conventions I'm using macs since 8 years now and have a computer science background.
I know, that when installing software, OSX is not as nasty as windows.
Meaning, instead of dealing with dll libraries and stuff that is installed somewhere in the system, apps in osx usually - by convention - should only use folders like "Application Support" and "Preferences" for their stuff.

Since, there are apps, that don't follow conventions I'd like to know, what structure is encouraged by the system and what not. So I can know for example which folders in ~/Library/ I can delete without sacrificing system stability.

For example in my user-lib folder I had stuff like "MonoAndroid" from which I know where they came from (xamarin) and from which I know whether I want to delete them, because I'm not using the app assosiated with that anymore.

I suppose that the user directories are not that of a big problem with deleting stuff, but there is always this one app, that keeps files also in higher dir's (like said xamarin).

Additionally, I want to clean up a friend's mac, and since I was not using that, I'd like to have and intuition of "what belongs where" and what not.

Is there a guide or something?
Or a good documentation about where stuff should go and which folders should not been touched? I searched for that, but did not find anything good, really.
Until now I have based my knowledge about osx on knowledge about unix and half knowledge from usage.

Unix knowledge will help a lot as long as it is not following Linux or other conventions exactly (Linux is Unix like whilst OSX is a Unix based on BSD)

Some description is given by Apple in this developer documentation (The link does not seem to be exact but look for the OSX part not IOS) There are several sections which are too long to list here.

One is for UNIX-specific directories but I am surprised to see "/usr—Contains non-essential command-line binaries, libraries, header files, and other data." They might be non-essential but removing this will break a lot - you should only change things in /usr/local

Another is The Library Directory Stores App-Specific Files The main sections are

Application Support -  app data files except those associated with
the user’s documents
Caches - app-specific support files that your app can re-create easily.
Frameworks - frameworks that must be shared by multiple apps
Preferences - app-specific preference files used the NSUserDefaults class or CFPreferences API

Treat this as a guide as many (Most?) apps do not follow this 100%.

Mono has in the past put things in the wrong place e.g. in /usr/bin Other apps use Preferences not via the API. Other apps use directories in ~/Library itself e.g. Mail.app


Share MacBook Ethernet connection with Nintendo Switch via USB I have a MacBook that is connected to the Internet via an Ethernet-to-USB adapter. I am already successfully sharing this connection with an iPhone via the Sharing panel in System Preferences, per the instructions here.

What I'd like to do is also share this connection with a Nintendo Switch that is connected to the MacBook via USB. Is this possible?

I've tried enabling the "To computers using: USB 10/100/1000 LAN" selection, but that doesn't seem to work. I wonder if there is something else I need to do or troubleshoot to get this working.

Is the Nintendo Switch already connected to the MacBook?  How?
Do you have more than one USB to Ethernet adapter?  If you don't then you will likely need more.
The Nintendo Switch is not a general purpose computer and so has very limited support for devices plugged in by USB.  It will support many USB to Ethernet adapters, so the easiest way to get a network between the two is to use USB to Ethernet adapters on both the MacBook and Nintendo Switch and connect them by an Ethernet cable.  An Ethernet crossover cable might be necessary but most Ethernet adapters can use the more common straight through cables in cases like this too.
This means your MacBook will have two USB to Ethernet adapters, one to where you get your internet, and the other connected to the Nintendo.  You will have to set internet sharing to share from one to the other.
It might be cheaper and easier to use some kind of Ethernet switch, hub, or access point instead.  Without knowing the situation you are in this might not be possible.


Can not restore my iPhone 5 because of restriction passcode I was half asleep when I put a restriction passcode on for my child to play on it.

I went to restore it so I have to turn off "find my phone " but I can't because of the restrictions. How can I solve this?

You can refer to this Github project to recover restrictions passcode from an unencrypted backup.
https://github.com/gwatts/pinfinder/blob/master/README.md


How do I permanently delete data from a game when I delete it from my iPhone/ipad I have been trying for weeks now to delete a game and all of its data and every time I do this and install the game again it comes back with the previous data. I want to delete the game and start again as a new customer with no pre-existing data. Although it says it will remove the game and all of the data when trying to delete it does not.

Is there a way to permanently delete the data when I delete the game from the iPad and iPhone?

If the game is saving game data via iCloud, the data might have not been deleted when you removed the app from your iOS device.

Go to Settings > General > Usage

There will be a section called iCloud with a Manage Storage option. Tapping this will load all your data stored on iCloud.

Under the Documents & Data section, check to see if your game has data saved to iCloud. If it does, simply tap on it and tap on the edit button in the top right hand corner to bring up the Delete prompt.


Caps lock option for input switch is absent I have a MacBook Air 11" and a MacBook Air 13": the 11" is lot older than the 13". Although High Sierra is installed on both MacBooks, on the 13", I can't find caps lock option in Settings-> Keyboard-> Input Sources, but on the 11" it is present. I even don't know what to search for: both laptops have the latest update installed from the App Store.

+Go to Apple > About this Mac and double check that the machine is actually running 10.13 and not 10.12 (caps lock does not work for Russian in 10.12).

+Add an Arabic keyboard to your input sources list and restart.

+Do a safe boot

+Set up a new user account and see if you have the same problem when logged into that.


convert 30 pin docks for lightning devices I recently upgraded from an Iphone 4 to a 5s.

I have 4 different docks that worked with all my previous Iphones and Ipods - I just swapped out a cheap plastic holder around the connector that could hold my new device.

They sell two adapters for this in the Apple store, but it's useless for me since:

It costs £25 per adapter. That's £100 ($160) for the 4 docks, which is insane
The short one is an inch long and doesn't hold the base of the phone (the way every dock expects) which means that the phone will just fall over if I try to use it.
The long one also doesn't support my Iphone in a vertical position

I need an adapter that sits on an old Apple dock, but that holds the base of the phone so that it stays upright.

I can't find anything that does this online, and most of what I can find states that it can't support audio in the small print. When I ask in shops they look at me like I'm crazy and then try to sell me a USB cable.

90% of the Iphone docks sold still have the the (now obsolete) old Apple connector. It seems like a massive oversight that nobody makes a dock adapter.

Are there commercial sources of 30 pin dock adapters that:

Support audio function equivalent to apple’s 30 pin to lightning adapters.
Holds the phone upright (y'know, as if in a phone dock)
Optionally include the adapter so I don't need both a prop and a cable/dongle to replicate the old drop-in flip function of these docks.
(Ideally) is reasonably priced

My solution to your problem is to use the longer 30 pin to lightning adapter and lie the phone down rather than prop it up dock style, but I get the convenience of just dropping in a phone on any dock and not having to repurpose/recycle otherwise functional docks prematurely. I also just use one cable and bring it with my device rather than fixing all the docks (as I still use them with 30 pin devices more than I do with lightning devices).

If you don't mind the longer cable, get the Cradle with Audio port from Belkin - especially if you want the analog audio option or don't want to add height on top of the docking station.

If you need a commercial insert, the best one out is the Kickstarted project that ended funding 31 Jan 2013 that now sells the Flybridge insert commercially in packs of 1, 2 and 5 to save on both shipping and the per-unit cost.

Since these have been in the wild for more than a year, I've not heard of major problems and you might even find someone to fabricate a similar plastic insert if for some reason you don't want an injection molded piece or your docks aren't among the ones listed as compatible with the product.


Parental Controls always asks permission when browsing websites I don't want to add some websites, but Parental Controls always asks permission when browsing them.
Are there any solution to fix this issue? How can I just block them?
Many thanks.

You can do this with your hosts file, if you are comfortable using terminal

Manually

Open Terminal
Type sudo nano /etc/hosts then hit return
Tap the down arrow to move your cursor below the line that says 127.0.0.1 localhost
Type in 127.0.0.1 and then the address of the site you want to block, making sure to keep a space between the numbers and the address. For example, 127.0.0.1 facebook.com will block Facebook, or 127.0.0.1 google.ca.
You must do this for any name it may resolve to, for example, if it was google, you must to 127.0.0.1 google.ca and 127.0.0.1 www.google.ca and every other resolver: 127.0.0.1 www.facebook.com and 127.0.0.1 facebook.com would need to be entered into the hosts file.
To exit nano, you must press control (^) + x then Y then return / enter
Type sudo dscacheutil -flushcache do restart dns services. This will activate your changes.

Automatic Blocking

You could do this at the DNS level instead, resulting in no bypass available unless they have the administrative password.
CleanBrowsing is one of many services that allow for blocking at this level. See IP address list and Setup Instructions for more info.

Basically, if the user goes to any site CleanBrowsing deems inappropriate, it will block it, and make it so it will not resolve (identify the domain to the correct IP address) to go to the correct website, and will instead display a page saying that "this address is blocked" or something to that result.

The DNS Addresses are as follows

  Family Filter

  Blocks access to all adult, pornographic and explicit sites. It also
  blocks proxy and VPN domains that are used to bypass the filters.
  Mixed content sites (like Reddit) are also blocked. Google, Bing and
  Youtube are set to the Safe Mode.

> IPv4 address: 185.228.168.168 and 185.228.168.169
> IPv6 address: 2a0d:2a00:1:: and 2a0d:2a00:2::

  Adult Filter

  Blocks access to all adult, pornographic and explicit sites. It does
  not block proxy or VPNs, nor mixed-content sites. Sites like Reddit
  are allowed. Google and Bing are set to the Safe Mode.

> IPv4 address: 185.228.168.10 and 185.228.168.11
> IPv6 address: 2a0d:2a00:1::1 and 2a0d:2a00:2::1

  Security Filter

  Blocks access to phishing, malware and malicious domains. It does not
  block adult content.

> IPv4 address: 185.228.168.9 and 185.228.169.9
> IPv6 address: 2a0d:2a00:1::2 and 2a0d:2a00:2::2

Setup for this is as follows:

1. Open System preferences
2. Go to Network > Select the interface being used
3. Click Advanced
4. Click DNS
5. Remove any old listings, as they are likely to be used for resolving first.
6. Press the ``+`` button located in the bottom left, then add the desired servers.

  Please note to use the servers listed above, both the IPv4 and IPv6 addresses.


Is there a way to use my mouse or trackpad with my iPhone I'm looking for a way of using my trackpad to virtually tap things on my iPhone screen.  I realize this is a long shot, and iOS quite possibly makes this impossible, but I'm sure I'm not the only person who wants this, and this is the best place to ask.

I can use any bluetooth keyboard with my phone, and using Type2Phone I can direct a bluetooth signal from my laptop to my phone while it charges, and while I'm mainly using my laptop.  But then using the touch screen is very awkward.  I'd like to do the same thing with my trackpad that I do with my keyboard, so if I need to briefly use an iOS app while I'm working, I don't have to repeatedly take it off the stand every time.

While you can pair a bluetooth keyboard with an iOS device and use it, Apple does not support for pairing a bluetooth mouse or trackpad.

I did find that there is a third-party app for use on jailbroken iOS devices that allow you to do what you want. It provides an alternative Bluetooth Stack which provides the ability to use the trackpad or mouse. See here for more info.


Mysterious apps with strange names and no Icons showing up on my iPhone I was going through Settings app → Screen Time → Always Allowed, and noticed a couple of mysterious entries. I ssed the first ones, you can see them in the pictures, but there are more all throughout the list of apps.

Anybody else got something similar and/or knows what they may be?

I am using an iPhone X running iOS 12.2.

In my case they were webpages that I had added to home screen from Safari

Reference: Apple Discussions


Apple MacBook Pro will not do updates I have this MacBook Pro running OS X Version 10.9.5 and it works perfect in every way except for one thing; it will not get updates.  When I go to "About This Mac" and click on "software update" it will close out the window and --that is all.  I am back on the desktop.  there is no error messeges, or anything.  Any ideas what I can do to fix this?

Three things to try - report back & we can tweak this answer.

Try Launching App Store directly from the Applications folder, rather than via About this Mac.
Clean out the App Store prefs & caches...
Open Terminal & copy/paste each of these 3 lines, hitting Enter after each
rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.appstore.plist
rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.storeagent.plist
rm ~/Library/Cookies/com.apple.appstore.plist
and again for the caches
rm -r ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.appstore
rm -r ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.storeagent
Make a new admin account...
System Prefs > Users & Groups
Unlock the prefs, if locked, & click the plus button at the bottom.
Set up a new Admin [not Standard] account, then try logging yourself out & into that account instead.
Test method 1.


Black/cracked screen Last month I dropped my iphone4 and cracked the front screen really bad, but still worked. About a week ago I dropped it again and cracked the backing, again, still worked perfectly fine, but the other day I was talking on the phone and after I hung up it randomly went black screen and would not light up yet it still rings when someone calls. Therefore it still works but the screen does not. I Just need to know if there is a way that I can access my phone (pictures ect..) out side of icloud? Being a dummy I did not use icloud. ever.

By the way, I only have a PC so, phoneview will not work for me(so I think).

Try an app called iFunBox, I believe there is a windows version. It should be able to assist you with recovering your information.


Is it possible for my husband to receive message on his phone that have been sent to me. Is it possible for my ex husband to receive my message on his phone. Because I don't understand how he is finding out things he shouldn't know and relieving pictures sent to me that I have not sent to him. How do u stop this from happening.

Do you share an AppleID? More generally, does he know the password to your AppleID. If so, then yes, he can tell Apple that his phone (or Mac) is one of the places you want your messages to be delivered.

If that's not what you want, change your password.


How (and why) do 3rd-party iOS 6 apps communicate to their makers when they are not the active app? I've noticed from my DNS logs that domains associated with a small minority of my 3rd-party apps are accessed approximately every half hour or every hour, even when the relevant app is not active, and even when the phone is locked.

My understanding in the past was that 3rd-party apps do not execute unless they are the active app, and that notifications all come through a centralized Apple service. What mechanism is being used to allow this communication, and what reasons are there for these apps to need to phone home so frequently when there is no app activity?

Apple documents high level functionality in an article on background processes:

iOS: Understanding multitasking - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4211

You could look at archive.org to look at a version of this for iOS 6, but pretty much everything from iOS 7 applies in iOS 6 except for the new "background app refresh" functionality.

If you wanted a deeper understanding on how multitasking works, I would start with this section of the developer documentation:

App States and Multitasking

Without capturing APNS traffic (or using Instruments to trace the OS while it runs), it's hard to tell if 30 minute access are a result of Local Notifications or perhaps push notifications being sent from the server side causing the app to wake periodically. Hopefully this is enough to get you started on tracking things down.


SVG Editor with nice ui and text editor Do you know a nice svg editor for MAC OS?

My needs are:

Nice svg produced
Splited view with text editor

Inkscape works great on Mac OS:
http://www.inkscape.org/

I have used is for years to produce icons and logos in SVG and then export to PNG for the web.

I've never had the need but the features list does list "Live watching and editing the document tree in the XML editor".  I believe that's what you meant by "text editor".  I hope that Inkscape works well for you.


How to prevent accidental deletion or move of folders/files in Mac? I have recently got a new Mac and keep accidentally moving folders around when using the trackpad and have managed to delete a couple folders as I am not used to this whole trackpad business. Is there a way to get a confirmation whenever a file/folder is moved or deleted in Mac to prevent this till i get more used to the trackpad?

You might want to set yourself up a Standard User Account in System Preferences. Or maybe better is removing some of the multi-touch abilities in your System Preferences (such as disabling Tap to Click, Look up, or any setting you don't find particularly to your liking)

Setting up a Standard User (System Preferences > Users & Groups > "+" ) allows you to add a new person to your computer who doesn't have access to everything like a normal Administrator does.

In computer terms the hierarchy is Guest, then Standard, then Administrator, then Root. The Root is the computer itself and can do anything and everything it wants. Admins have similar flexibility with files and folders that belong to them but anything out of their reach requires a password. Standard accounts and Guests can do much with an Admins name and password, Guest files are typically deleted after logging out so what they do isn't meant to last. Consider these tips with a grain of salt and let us know if you need further help.


How to set Word default save location as "On My Mac" How I can disable the default online save location in current versions of Word for Mac? I see that it is possible to "Set Default location" to online locations, but I don't see a way to do the same for "On My Mac" locations.
The animated .gif demonstrates that sometimes it prompts for saving online and sometimes it prompts for saving locally:

Initially I click the red dot on an unsaved document with "Test Doc 1" in it
It prompts to save online, so I click to "On My Mac" and save it to Downloads
I repeat for a 2nd document (which was behind) having "Test Doc 2", except
this time I cancel before saving, and click the save icon instead
that causes a prompt to save on my mac, which I do (and then the .gif repeats)

I find this behavior confusing and because of it I have often saved things online and been unable to find files.
My main point, however, is that I want to set it so that it NEVER has the initial online save prompt. I have looked for answers and the only option seems to be to sign out of my Microsoft account. But when I do this other problems come up, such as wanting me to sign in and long opening times as it looks for a connection (I have a slow connection). I'd be happy to use Word without being connected if there's a way to do this without introducing these problems.
I have already sent a request regarding this (lack of a) feature. What I'm looking for is a work-around. I suspect those at MS are unlikely to change this situation since it benefits them.
I have Microsoft Word for Mac Version 16.37 on a Microsoft 365 subscription.

If you're not using the OneDrive app, uninstall it, it will change the default save location for the other Office products to “On My Mac”.
I did not find any option allowing to do otherwise (tests done on the version 16.49 of Office).


Unable to backup/upload to iCloud on iPad due to full storage I have a supervised iPad that was used to make training videos, the issue is that they have nigh completely filled the device of videos. I am unable to use iTunes to manage it as the device is locked to a single computer which happens to be in a different country, as such sending it back there just to have it sorted is a last case scenario.

The issue is that no matter what type of backup I try and perform, the system is reserving 6GB for itself and the videos taking up the remaining 10GB of the 16GB device, which basically fails every single backup attempt due to insufficient space (Just to confirm I got 50GB limit on iCloud, with 0GB in use). Is there no way to tell the system to re-evaluate what it's keeping reserved because I am pretty sure it's just a bunch of old backup references or temporary files. Also how much space is required on the device to perform this backup?

So I left the iPad overnight and it successfully uploaded everything to iCloud despite having very little available space. I believe this may have something to do with the fact that I manually started a backup via Settings->Name->iCloud->iCloud Backup->Back Up Now rather than using iCloud Photo Library/Sharing function. The backup did complain about not having sufficient space but at some stage it seems to have kicked in, perhaps the device re-evaluated what it was reserving in system storage and made sufficient space.


iPhone 4S in reboot loop after using Hacktivate tool So, I have an iPhone 4S that I'm trying to run Linux on (no idea if it's possible), and after fiddling with it for a little while I ended up needing to set it up again - which I could not do because it was in iCloud Lock mode, i.e. Activation Lock.

Googling around for a crack to get it out of that mode, I came across a so-called iPhone Hacktivate tool.  That worked fine, or so I thought - the phone is now in an endless reboot loop.

Now, I will not take "bricked" for an answer.  (I might just have to set this project aside for a long time, put it on the slow burner so to speak).

If you guys have any advice on getting it out of the reboot loop that it's in, that would be great.

Key to getting it out of the reboot loop, I think, is getting it into DFU mode so that it can be factory reset or sommat.  I can get it into recovery mode, however since the reboot loop began iTunes hasn't been able to recognize it, and so I'm not sure if I'm successfully getting it into DFU mode.  (Strangely, the process is to hold power+home for 10 seconds, then release power and keep holding home for 10 seconds, but at the same time, the process to hard-reset an iPhone you hold power+home for 6 seconds.  I'm not sure if the hard reset is always part of getting the phone into DFU mode, but it's definitely hard resetting, and iTunes is not reporting a phone in DFU mode.)

EDIT: In case u r wondering, I did not steal this phone.  Here is a picture of some facebook message history that I obviously doctored should prove it.

EDIT 2: Just saw this question, will try.

EDIT 2 was indeed the answer.  I do not know why the phone had to be connected to a computer without iTunes before iTunes would recognize it in DFU mode, but that's what appeared to be the case.


How to change credit card data for Apple ID? How can I change my credit card data? My credit card was stolen and I want to use a new one for paying apps. I don't know how to do that.

One way is to go to http://apple.com, click "Store" in the top menu and then click "Account" and "View Account" as in the below screenshot.

Under "Account settings" there is the choice to "Change your default shipping or billing info", click that link and then enter your Apple ID e-mail and password to login. You'll see a box with the heading "Payment Information" under Account Information, click the Edit button there.

You will then see a form for entering your payment information, add your new card details on the right and click save. The card you enter here will be used on the Apple Online Store, iTunes and Apple App Store.


Is there a way to record a video call on the ipad? Video call could be w/ Skype, Facetime, etc I need to record a video call to someone on an iPad.

Any suggestions on what /how to do that?

I'd be using a Windows PC or iPad2 on my end.

Try plugging it into your computer then open quicktime. Right click quicktime > New Movie Recording > click the dropdown menu  > Select your iphone + change any sound settings you desire.

Might need to tweak a bit on windows. Also, make sure you deal with the legality of recording video calls.


Importing/Exporting Preview Signatures on OS X 10.10 (Yosemite) One of the things I always backup when re-formatting a Mac are the digital signatures I have saved in Preview. For this, my go-to reference used to be here: Can I export my signature from Preview on one Mac and import it on another?. But OS X 10.10 (Yosemite) seems to be doing things a little different.

Since Preview seems to be storing the signatures in a new, non-obvious location now, I've been using the opensnoop utility (http://osxdaily.com/2011/04/22/monitor-mac-os-x-filesystem-usage-access-with-opensnoop/) to see what files are being touched when I am working with Preview's signature creation feature.  Below is a sample capture:

501    791 Preview       26 /System/Library/Security
501    791 Preview       -1 /Users/user1/Library/Containers/com.apple.Preview/Data/Library/Security
501    791 Preview       25 /var/folders/l_/47ypnnb951qdym78xvjgsn8r0000gn/C/com.apple.Preview//mds/mdsDirectory.db
501    791 Preview       25 /Users/user1/Library/Keychains/login.keychain
501    791 Preview       25 /Users/user1/Library/Keychains/login.keychain
501    791 Preview       26 /var/folders/l_/47ypnnb951qdym78xvjgsn8r0000gn/C/com.apple.Preview//mds/mdsDirectory.db_
501    791 Preview       27 /private/var/db/mds/system/mdsDirectory.db
501    791 Preview       26 /var/folders/l_/47ypnnb951qdym78xvjgsn8r0000gn/C/com.apple.Preview//mds/mdsObject.db
501    791 Preview       25 /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AnnotationKit.framework/Resources/Base.lproj/AKSignaturesView.nib
501    791 Preview       25 /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AnnotationKit.framework/Resources/Base.lproj/AKSignatureCaptureView.nib
501    791 Preview       25 /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AnnotationKit.framework/Resources/Base.lproj/AKSignatureGestureCaptureView.nib
501    791 Preview       25 /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AnnotationKit.framework/Resources/en.lproj/AKSignatureModelController.strings
501    791 Preview       -1 /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AnnotationKit.framework/Resources/en.lproj/AKSignatureModelController.stringsdict
501    791 Preview       26 /System/Library/Security
501    791 Preview       -1 /Users/user1/Library/Containers/com.apple.Preview/Data/Library/Security
501    791 Preview       25 /Users/user1/Library/Keychains/login.keychain
501    791 Preview       25 /var/folders/l_/47ypnnb951qdym78xvjgsn8r0000gn/C/com.apple.Preview//mds/mds.lock
501    791 Preview       26 /var/folders/l_/47ypnnb951qdym78xvjgsn8r0000gn/C/com.apple.Preview//mds/mdsObject.db_
501    791 Preview       27 /private/var/db/mds/system/mdsObject.db
501    791 Preview       26 /var/folders/l_/47ypnnb951qdym78xvjgsn8r0000gn/C/com.apple.Preview//mds/mdsDirectory.db_
501    791 Preview       27 /private/var/db/mds/system/mdsDirectory.db
501    791 Preview       26 /var/folders/l_/47ypnnb951qdym78xvjgsn8r0000gn/C/com.apple.Preview//mds/mdsObject.db
501    791 Preview       25 /Users/user1/Desktop/sample.pdf

Looks to me that there is something to be found in the file path:

/Users/user1/Library/Containers/com.apple.Preview/Data/Library/Security

but when I try to traverse to the directory, the system tells me that path doesn't exist. I have also noticed that within the KeyChain Access utility, if you look at the contents of Local Items --> Passwords you will see that OS X now creates individual entries for different signatures now labeled Signature Annotation Privacy.

Welcome assistance on my quest to figure out how to locate, export and import Preview's digital signatures from one Yosemite machine to another.

It's a little too obvious now.  The image data is recorded as the password entry in KeyChain.  So, to copy a signature, create a signature on your new Mac by camera or touchpad.  Then:

Find the desired "Signature Annotation Privacy" entry in KeyChain on your old Mac.
Right-Click and "Copy Password to Clipboard"
Paste the text (base64 is all printable) into a text file
Copy the text file to your new Mac
Find the new "Signature Annotation Privacy" entry on your new Mac
Highlight and delete the Password field from that entry
Copy the contents of the text file to your clipboard
Paste the contents into the password field
Save Changes


No SIM Card installed error in iPhone 3g My device iPhone 3G shown " "No SIM Card installed" 'insert a valid SIM With no PIN lock to activate iPhone' " It is in Emergency mode so please give me a solution if there is..? It comes when i am tried to Updating the ios From 4.1 to 4.2.
i am in india and i got it from USA. i didnt have any USA sim.. so please tell me what i do?

Thank you.

Consider the possibility for your SIM card to have failed. It happened to me and I had to go to a phone store and get a duplication of it. Here in Europe it costed me 6€ to have a duplicated SIM. It took about an "hour" to be activated, but after that, it started working.

Try using your SIM card on another phone if you have one around or go to an Apple Store and see if you can test the SIM there.


Hand-writing annotations on Keynote or PDF slides For teaching purposes I would like to be able to handwrite on slides as I give a presentation, ideally with a Wacom graphics tablet which I already own.
Powerpoint would work really well for this, unfortunately I am using Keynote to make the slides because I need the LaTeX support which Powerpoint doesn't have. So in particular I can't easily convert these slides to Powerpoint.
I can convert them to PDF, though. Is there a good way to annotate slides during a presentation for either a Keynote or PDF presentation?
EDIT: In Preview, I can annotate the document but only when it's not in Presentation mode.

Preview has a sketch function that you can use to “write” after a fashion.
I don’t possess a wacom graphics tablet so no idea how it would perform with that.


Merge PDF annotation I send the same PDF file to different reviewers and got differently annotated versions back.

Is there a way to combine the annotations into one file?

If this is a let-me-google-that-for-you-question, I am sorry. Please give me the keywords. All I found were articles about merging (the pages of) different PDFs into one file.

You can do this simply with Adobe Acrobat Professional. I tested this with Acrobat Professional version 8.3.1 on my Mac OS X 10.5.8 system.

Pick one of the annotated files to aggregate the comments. Open it with Adobe Acrobat Professional. For each of the other files, select the menu command Comments... Import Comments..., and from the resulting File Open dialog select each of the other files in turn. Acrobat will read the comments from the selected file and place them into the first file. A Comments List opens at the bottom of the window, showing all the comments in the document.

You now have a PDF file with all the comments in it. Save it under a different file name, and carry on with your work.

Note that you make this much easier for Acrobat if everyone marks up the same PDF file. Acrobat can import comments from one version of a document to a different version of a document, but it the comments won't always end up in the right place. The menu command Comments... Migrate Comments... is intended to help you get comments from the PDF form of an older document to the PDF form of a newer revision.

Acrobat Help content has useful entries for Import Comments.

In my humble opinion, every knowledge worker who touches PDF files should have a copy of Acrobat Professional (not just the free Reader). I may be biased — I worked for Adobe for many years, and I still hold their stock. But I believe that being able to do operations like importing and combining comments is hugely valuable for knowledge workers.


Replace USB port on logic board Mac mini late 2012 The USB ports stopped working. I tried resetting NVRAM, and all non- physical solutions. It seems it is a hardware malfunction, so is it possible to replace the USB port only on the logic board of a  Mac mini Late 2012 - 2.3 ghz Core i7?

It's possible but difficult, especially if you aren't experienced with soldering electrical devices.

The other problem is that your USB ports may be fine. For example, the problem could be with the USB controller on the logic board (especially if all of your USB ports stopped working!)

While your question states you have tried all non physical solutions, that doesn't actually specify what you've tried. So I'd recommend you reset the System Management Controller (SMC) and test your hardware.

Reset the SMC

Shut down your Mac mini
Unplug it from power
Wait 15 seconds
Plug the power cord back in
Wait for an additional 5 seconds
Press the power button to turn it back on

Run Apple Hardware Test

Your model Mac mini uses Apple Hardware Test. To use this, follow these steps:

Shut down your Mac mini
Restart your Mac mini
Press and hold the D key before the gray startup screen appears.
After a while, Apple Hardware Test (AHT) will start.
When prompted, select your language and click the right arrow.
When the AHT console appears, you can choose to run Basic tests by clicking the Test button. However, I suggest you select the "Perform extended testing" checkbox before you click the Test button.
Your test results will appear in the window in the bottom-right of the console.

Note 1: that the extended test will take some time. Take a note of the results and report back.

Note 2: If pressing and holding the D key at Step 3 doesn't work, start again at Step 1 and, at Step 3 press and hold both the OptionD keys instead. This will try and run diagnostics from the internet instead, so you will need to allow more time for it to complete.


How to make smart playlist that contain more than 1 artist I want to make smart playlist that contain more than 1 artist.

Example:
I want to make smart playlist which artist are: Matchbox Twenty, Savage Garden, and Train.
If I fill the box like this:

The playlist will be empty.

Switch the first part

Match "all" of the following rules

to

Match "any" of the following rules