Random Untitled Folders Appearing So I've been getting an issue where my computer will randomly create untitled folders on the desktop, last night as much as 12! This has been going on for weeks now.

I am a software developer and am using MacOS Sierra Version 10.12 with a Mac Pro (Late 2013), 3.5 Ghz 6-Core Intel Xeon E5 with 16GB 1866 Mhz DDR3, AMD FirePro D300 2048 MB.

I've read some issues of people having this problem here (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5555689?start=0&tstart=0), but the discussion is outdated.

1.) I disconnected from internet and left the computer on all night, the folder appearing still occurs.

2.) I have no screen sharing computer control apps

3.) I've looked into a fix where you delete the ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.desktop.plist but that file does not appear to exist??

Please any ideas are appreciated as its very annoying how it fills up the desktop every morning.  I'm not sure how to reproduce the error on command yet.

Attached is only plist files I could find.  I'll upload screenshot of untitled folders tomorrow or when it happens again.

Ok so I finally figured out the issue (at least for me).  It turns out that some games when you have multiple monitors do not use true full screen and so right clicking can create accidental new folders to appear on the desktop.

In particular the game League of Legends was culprit in this.  I found out after doing some more research and noticing this only seemed to occur after the game.  There does not appear to be a remedy for this yet.


Changing the Region changes the Language on iOS11? I'm really confused about changing Language verse Region on an iPhone running iOS11.

Apple discusses here about changing the Language and the Region:

  "For iOS, changing the language restarts Springboard and quits running
  apps. So the next time you launch an iOS app, it uses the new language
  setting. ... For iOS and Mac, the region and calendar settings can be
  changed at any time, even when your app is running."

So, I take that to mean that if I change the Language, the App will have to be restarted.  But, if I change the Region, the App will not have to be restarted.  I've been chasing my tail for an hour or more wondering why my App was shutting down when I was just changing the Region.  Then I read the text on the screens, below, a bit closer.

My iPhone is running English (U.S.).  I go to Settings>General>Language & Region.  This is what I see:

I go to the Region button and I click it. And it shows me a long list of countries.  Here's what I see (note it says Region at the top of this list):

I click United Kingdom and then Done at the top right.  Then I see this:

It is giving me the choice to confirm my selection of English (U.K.) or to stay with English (U.S.).  But note also that it says:

  "Would you like to change the iPhone language to English (U.K.)?"

So, here's my confusion. Why am I being asked to change the Language at this point when I'm clearly choosing a Region? What am I missing here?

rmaddy made a comment in response to the above:

  You are being asked if you want to update the language in addition to
  the region change. This is because your current language is US English
  and you are now choosing a region which generally speaks UK English.
  So iOS is being helpful and offering you the additional option of
  changing the language that best suits your new region. If you choose
  the "Keep ..." option then only the region is updated and not the
  language.

That made a lot of sense and I thought it was the answer but I'm noting that all of the following scenarios (some of which only seem to be changing the Region) still result in my App shutting down and I am having trouble reconciling that fact with the documentation which says:

  For iOS and Mac, the region and calendar settings can be changed at
  any time, even when your app is running.

Scenarios which result in my App shutting down:

I change Region from United States to United Kingdom, click Done and
then choose "Change to English (U.K.).  As per rmaddy's comment, I
think this changes both the Language and the Region.  App shuts
down.
I change Region from United States to United Kingdom, click Done and
then choose "Keep English (U.S.).  I think this changes just the
Region to U.K. but leaves the Language as U.S.  App shuts down.
I change Region from United States to U.S. Virgin Islands, click
Done and then Choose Continue when it says, "Would you like to
change the region to U.S. Virgin Islands."  App shuts down.

Please note that the app which is shutting down is one I am developing. Written in Objective-C for iPhones and iPads for iOS9 and up.


How to change the default file manager for OSX? I've downloaded muCommander and find it better than Finder. When I open folders with QuickSilver it still uses Finder, though. How do I change this behavior?

You cannot change Finder. But you can download a third party file manager and add it to login items: System Preferences - users & groups - login items


How to deal with IPv6 in Wireshark? When I look up google, I get an IPv6 address and not an IPv4 address
This is giving me issues in Wireshark with the source since I can’t manage to map the different addresses for the same name.

Can I force lookups to be IPv4 or do I have to handle more than one type of address to use wireshark?

What you are seeing is IPv6 dns servers that your Mac is getting from your router. Note that IPv6 dns can still return IPv4 addresses so you will need to handle both sets of addresses since some servers and networks are now IPv6 only.
IPv6 is a replacement for the older and more common IPv4 that you are used to seeing. Why? Because the world is literally running out of IPv4 IP addresses and the new IPv6 is an enormously larger address space (3.4×10^38 addresses).
There is nothing wrong with your Mac. You should leave it alone. Changing that to an IPv4 address, while possible, does nothing for you. And, in fact, it would be like someone deciding to go back to horse and buggy transportation instead of his car because he thinks horses are prettier. Certainly your call and certainly possible but not necessarily the most efficient use of your time and effort.
The conversion from IPv4 to IPv6 is taking longer than many people expected but it is happening and eventually the old IPv4 addresses will not be used. My advice to you, "get used to the new standard."
For some time, you might try disabling IPv6 entirely or force your Mac to use openly IPv4 based DNS services, but you will break things and be limited even today on what you can do by excluding the possibility of interacting with IPv6 networks.


OWC SSD freezes regularly I installed a new 115GB SSD with a clean lion install in my MacBook pro (2010) with the data doubler containing my old seagate hdd.

The install took over five hours, which made me pretty suspicious to begin with.

But now I'm seeing why: every 30 seconds or so, whatever app is using the disk seems to completely freeze.

Examples:

Chrome accessing cache

App store downloading Xcode

Sublime text saving a file

Safari doing anything

Dropbox sync

I've turned off hard drive sleeping, which helped a bit but the benefits appear to be gone. I've also switched te hibernate mode to kill the image and disabled spotlight. The only general solutions google has suggested that I have yet to do are turn on TRIM (which OWC does not recommend for their drive) and add the noatime mount option.

I'm doing a permissions repair now, but I could use more suggestions.

Fs_usage and logs don't show anything that catches the eye.

I've got a OWC Mercury 115GB in my MacBook (2007) and encounter the same problem although never as severe as you describe.  It was fairly frequent (multiple times an hour) while I was running FileVault2 but once I turned it off, it became much less frequent (perhaps once an hour).  Normally, I see a complete freeze of the system, not just the application, for about 30 seconds.

SSD garbage collection seems like a likely suspect.  In theory, the Sandforce controller plus the larger scratch pool on the OWC drive makes TRIM unneeded but if GC is the issue, maybe TRIM would reduce the frequency.  That said, I read lots of reports of people seeing a similar problem when they hacked their system to support TRIM with 3rd-party SSD's under Snow Leopard.  I stopped following the discussion when I upgraded to Lion so I don't know anything about current experiences.

I try to keep at least 30GB free.

5+ hours seems like a crazy long time to do a Lion install so maybe you have a different problem.


how to re-enable services in an app (Microsoft Remote Desktop in particular) I am fairly confident I could use the service below in MRD before. I am not sure when I lost them, maybe it is related to the Yosemite upgrade (I noticed this on 10.10.0) or some recent MRD update (8.0.9 from Mac App Store). In any case, the Services menu (from the app's menu on the menu bar) lists the services I want to use, but all are greyed out an inaccessible. Why is that? Can one undo this?

I checked the services under the Keyboard preference pane, and they are enabled. They also work in other apps.

It is not related to any restriction on any specific RDP connection, even without connecting, the services are unavailable.

The services is simply an automator workflow left under ~/Library/Services, with running AppleScript:

on run
    repeat with theItem in (the clipboard)
        tell application "System Events" to keystroke theItem
        delay 0.01
    end repeat
end run

Some (perhaps all) services are context specific. They will only be offered/enabled when they can be used.

For example, a service that is meant to act on a piece of text will only offer itself when text is selected.

You can try this yourself in Safari. Select a piece of text in Safari and check the Services menu, you should see numerous options including "Add to iTunes as a spoken track" and "Make New Sticky Note". However if you visit the Services menu in Safari when nothing is selected you will see "No Services Apply".


Why does the keypad show strange entries on my iPhone? Why does the top of the keypad show an exorbitant amount of numbers when I press the paste button?

At the bottom are all the websites I visit.  I can get rid of them.
I have cleared everything and not signed into anything.

If you paste text, it translates the letters into numbers as represented on the keypad.  For example: 1800 BUY NOW becomes 1800289669

If you've copied text instead of just a number, or if you've copied a link behind a number, you might actually be pasting a web address like http://www.apple.com which is changed to 488799927753266 after stripping punctuation.

Go to the Notes app and paste there.  What is actually stored in the clipboard?


Flash not working on a specific site in Safari 7 Mavericks I've tried the following site in Safari:

http://www.2dayfm.com.au/listen/

which seems to activate plugin but stalls while loading:

This site works fine in Chrome... It may well be a site specific problem but in case I've overlooked some setting I thought I'd ask?

I've tested flash on the adobe website and it seems to be fine, and also I've checked preferences for the site to allow flash but still no luck... Anything I can try?

Clearing Safari's cookies solved the problem for me.


Is there anything like NVELO Dataplex (hybrid SSD/HDD software) for OS X? I'm interested in upgrading my old MacBook to using an SSD and moving the data drive to where the DVD drive is using an optibay.

Often SSDs come with a licence for NVELO Dataplex software (which is windows only). This software is basically a windows driver that keeps track of commonly used files and moves then to the SSD, thereby giving you a hybrid SSD.

Is there anything like NVELO Dataplex for OS X or should I just put OS X and applications on the SSD, and put home folders on the HDD using symbolic links?

This is an old question, but for the benefit of anyone who comes across it: Apple introduced this capability under the name Fusion Drive in late 2012. Officially you can only get a Fusion Drive as a build-to-order option on a new Mac, but many people have reported success with configuring their own using the diskutil Terminal command in OS X 10.8.2 or later.


Passing osascript via .Net CORE gets syntax error: A unknown token can't go here The following command,

osascript -e 'tell app "terminal" to do script ("idevicesyslog -u UUID | tee 'ios_syslog.txt'")'

(where UUID is the hard-coded device id) works fine in Terminal. It opens a new window and runs the script, but when I pass it in via a .Net CORE api call I get the above syntax error.

Even just osascript -e 'tell app "terminal" to do script ("idevicesyslog")' fails with the same error.

Any thoughts?

WORK AROUND:
I solved the issue by putting the above in an Applescript and calling the script from C#. Meant having to add a non .Net file to the project which can only be edited on a Mac (so far as I know). Script is:

on run argv
    tell application "terminal"
        activate
        do script ("idevicesyslog -u " & item of argv & " | tee '" & item 2 of argv & "'")
    end tell
end run

The script was called by using System.Diagnostics.Process and passing in osascript.exe and the two arguments into the ProcessStartInfo constructor.


Dashboard widgets run in background [10.9] I have a webclip in my dashboard on mavericks with play.spotify.com in it and i like to control my music from there, but as soon as i go out of the dashboard the music stops.

I had this working a year back but that was on a other version of mac osx.

Is there a way to allow the dashboard to keep running even if im not looking at it.

Found it there is a little 'i' icon in the right corner of the dashboard webclip (if you hover over it with you mouse).

By default there a check box "Only play audio in dashboard" unchecking this will keep on playing!


How to disable sound when switching Firefox tabs with ⌘1-⌘9 I use the keyboard shortcut ⌘1-⌘9 to switch to tabs in Firefox. In OS X every time I do this there's a sound, which can become annoying when the volume is turned up.

I looked in about:config for anything matching sound but wasn't able to figure it out. Does anyone know how to disable this sound?

That’s certainly not a Firefox sound, at least not one that I’ve heard in the past.

Do you have any Extension? Try disabling them all for the sake of testing.
Any other application running that could be using the same shortcut? (Safari uses that to access the quick bookmarks where ⌘1 corresponds to the 1st on the left (next to Top Sites) and so on. However, the lack of bookmark, doesn’t produce a sound on my system. I even have “Play User Interface sound effect” checked in Sound Preferences pane.

My bet is that you have something else running and that is causing the “bonk”.


BlueBoard software cannot run because "/mnt: No such file or directory" I have connected BlueBoard to Mac. While running program with use of Terminal I receive this error. How can I resolve this?

mount -t FAT12 /dev/disk2 /mnt
mount: realpath /mnt: No such file or directory
make: *** [program] Error 1

macOS doesn't have a /mnt directory/folder (it's not Linux)

You can fix this by mounting in a directory that you have read/write permissions to like your home folder.  Just make sure you create the directory first.


HDMI display behavior on startup I have a display connected to the HDMI port of my laptop. When I start up the computer with the display plugged in, the built-in display does not turn on, and the external display becomes the primary. I can fix the issue by removing and reconnecting the HDMI cable, but I am curious as to why this behavior is the default.

OS 10.10.4
MacBook Pro Retina 15" mid 2015 (model 11,5)

It sounds like you have the external display set as the primary display.  Take a look at this article on how to set your primary display.

Set the Primary Display on a Mac


How to restore messages when Messages in iCloud is enabled? How can I restore deleted messages when Messages in iCloud is enabled?

Historically one would just restore the iPhone to an earlier iCloud Backup however I have attempted to do that but since Messages in iCloud is enabled the deleted messages are not restored.

By paying for increased iCloud storage and having regular iCloud Backups one would hope that there is some way to restore these deleted messages even with Messages in iCloud enabled?

Messages are not included in your iCloud backup as they automatically upload to iCloud. After you restore to a backup you need to stay  connected to iCloud and your messages will download.

From this Apple Discussion:

  When you use Messages in iCloud, your text messages automatically upload to iCloud. They aren’t included in your backup. After you restore your device from iCloud Backup, stay connected to Wi-Fi so that your text messages can begin to download.

From this Apple Discussion:

  When you delete a message, photo, or conversation on one device, it’s removed from all of your devices. And since all of your attachments are stored in iCloud, you can save space on your device.

If the messages are deleted it is not possible to recover them:

  Correct, my assumption (incorrect it seems) was that because the message history is now stored in iCloud, a message could be deleted from my device, but the message history could be accessed/reloaded again later. It seems that's not the case.


"Date created" on hard drive; cloned? Can I tell whether my hard drive has been cloned? I had a repair done and do not know what they performed on the computer; they may have replaced my hard drive with the same model and cloned my information to it- I am not entirely sure if they did this. I have a Macbook Pro, 2012 model.

I read online somewhere that the Volume Creation date, or "date created" would update to the time when the clone was done- basically when the volume was created on that new drive. All other information would be identical. Is this one way to tell...? Please let me know. Thanks all!

On your Mac, you can use Terminal to see the amount of data you've written to your drive.

Open Terminal and enter the "diskutil list" command.

Find your physical drive on the list, which includes partitions and virtual disks. In my case, my physical is disk0.

It is usually disk0.

Enter this command: "iostat -Id disk0" or similar (depending on the number for your drive).

You will see three values listed:

KB/t = kilobytes per transfer
xfrs = number of transfers
MB = number of megabytes transferred

The value listed under MB is the total number of megabytes that you have written to your drive from when it was first installed to now.

In your case been 2012 model I suspect somewhere around 500GB (500,000MB) to 1000GB...or more.


Is there any possible way to program a LPC1768 Microcontroller(using ULINK-ME) on macOS? Hardware: Keil LPC1768 development board.
macOS 10.14
Flashing/Programming device: Keil ULINK-ME (USB-JTAG adapter)

I have tried the VS Code extension platformIO and mbed Studio(standalone), but none seem to find the connected board/flashing device ULINK-ME.

I have tried the same on a Windows VM running on VMware Fusion with the Keil IDE, that does all of the flashing stuff and that worked, but I would really love to get it natively running on macOS.

macOS seems not to mount the board under /dev/tty.* or anything like that, like probably Linux would do.

If any questions arise about my setup, please comment, so that I can update this post.

I appreciate any proper constructive help.
Best regards.

Apparently it is possible. After a long conversation on the platformIO community forum I was helped. here is the topic click me
And here is a link to a working Blinky(blinking LED) example that's doing all of the configuration stuff needed to upload it properly to the device.
click me - Github


Calculating time with AppleScript I created one start to log a "start time" and save into a plist file, and a an other script to read the start time and calculate the number of time elapsed from the start time and now (reading time)

first script (log time in plist) :

set myDate to date string of (current date)
set [dayLetter, dayNumber, MonthLetter, yearNumber] to the words of myDate
set t to (time string of (current date))
set [hoursInNumber, minutesInNumber, secondInNumber] to the words of t

set startTimeValue to (current date)
set startTimeClear to dayLetter & " " & dayNumber & " " & MonthLetter & " at " & hoursInNumber & ":" & minutesInNumber

set plistR to {startTime:startTimeValue, startTimeClear:startTimeClear}
tell application "System Events"
    set plistf to make new property list file ¬
        with properties {name:"~/Desktop/myTime.plist"}
    set plistf's value to plistR
end tell

second script (read plist)

set NowTimeValue to (current date)
set the plistfile_path to "~/Desktop/myTime.plist"
tell application "System Events"
    set p_list to property list file (plistfile_path)
    -- read the plist data
    set startTimeValue to value of property list item "startTime" of p_list
end tell
set Elapsed to startTimeValue - NowTimeValue

the main issue is, the time given is in second, and if I try yo divid by 60 that give me an hour.

how can I get this time in minutes / hours instead?

Never-mind find the solution :

set Elapsed to (startTimeValue - NowTimeValue as number) / 60


Adding Bounce Message back to Mail in Yosemite Does anyone have an updated version of this workflow for adding a Bounce Message feature to Apple Mail in OSX 10.10.3?

Applescript:

on run {input, parameters}
     tell application "Mail"
          repeat with eachMessage in input
               bounce eachMessage
               delete eachMessage
          end repeat
     end tell
end run

I've followed the guide but do not receive a bounced email into my inbox when testing as a sender.

I'm testing this by attempting to send an email from one gmail account to another. Both accounts are Google Apps for Domains accounts.

Apple removed "bounce" from the Mail dictionary.
So "bounce eachMessage" does nothing and the only effect is the message being deleted ("delete eachMessage")


What is the worst thing that will happen if I do not update iTunes to its latest version? Okay, I like iTunes, and it is a wonderful software. I run it on Windows, unfortunately sometimes when I do update to minor version updates, the whole windows panel of iTunes becomes unresponsive and behave oddly. So I have decided to not update for couple of months. Is it wise, or will it have any security loophole in my computer.

The only way to know this is to watch the release notes for every subsequent version of iTunes and see if the release has any security content.

This will change over time, but the present version of iTunes for Windows is 12.1.2, for which the release notes can be found here: https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1614.

You will note that security is not mentioned for this release, but you do need to be aware of future releases so that you can check their notes when they come out to see if any flaws have arose.

You may find it easier instead to just follow some Mac news blogs, since they typically all run stories when an update is released.

Overall, however, I wouldn't say this is a tremendous security risk.


Difference between dig @www.google.com ns . and dig www.google.com ns I have a mac and am using terminal to try out the dig command. I was trying to use the dig command from a tutorial, which stated that if I use the syntax given below

dig @www.google.com ns .

I should get all the information needed, instead I get the following output.

$dig @www.google.com ns .
;<<>> DiG 9.8.3-P1 <<>> @www.google.com ns .
; (1 server found)
;; global options: +cmd
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached

But when I use the command

dig www.google.com ns

I get the following output

; <<>> DiG 9.8.3-P1 <<>> www.google.com ns
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 15350
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;www.google.com.            IN  NS
;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
google.com.     60  IN  SOA ns3.google.com. dns-admin.google.com. 124846888 900 900 1800 60

So my question is why doesn't the first command work the same way as the second command?

Also when I used the first command format to query the root servers, I got a comprehensive reply. The output is shown below,

Again why the difference in output with the same command?

dig @a.root-servers.net ns .

; <<>> DiG 9.8.3-P1 <<>> @a.root-servers.net ns .
; (1 server found)
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 9504
;; flags: qr aa rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 13, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 13
;; WARNING: recursion requested but not available

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;.              IN  NS

;; ANSWER SECTION:
.           518400  IN  NS  e.root-servers.net.
.           518400  IN  NS  h.root-servers.net.
.           518400  IN  NS  l.root-servers.net.
.           518400  IN  NS  i.root-servers.net.
.           518400  IN  NS  a.root-servers.net.
.           518400  IN  NS  d.root-servers.net.
.           518400  IN  NS  c.root-servers.net.
.           518400  IN  NS  b.root-servers.net.
.           518400  IN  NS  j.root-servers.net.
.           518400  IN  NS  k.root-servers.net.
.           518400  IN  NS  g.root-servers.net.
.           518400  IN  NS  m.root-servers.net.
.           518400  IN  NS  f.root-servers.net.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
e.root-servers.net. 518400  IN  A   192.203.230.10
h.root-servers.net. 518400  IN  A   198.97.190.53
h.root-servers.net. 518400  IN  AAAA    2001:500:1::53
l.root-servers.net. 518400  IN  A   199.7.83.42
l.root-servers.net. 518400  IN  AAAA    2001:500:9f::42
i.root-servers.net. 518400  IN  A   192.36.148.17
i.root-servers.net. 518400  IN  AAAA    2001:7fe::53
a.root-servers.net. 518400  IN  A   198.41.0.4
a.root-servers.net. 518400  IN  AAAA    2001:503:ba3e::2:30
d.root-servers.net. 518400  IN  A   199.7.91.13
d.root-servers.net. 518400  IN  AAAA    2001:500:2d::d
c.root-servers.net. 518400  IN  A   192.33.4.12
c.root-servers.net. 518400  IN  AAAA    2001:500:2::c

I appreciate the help.
Thanks.

The two commands means something very different, which is why you get differering results.

This command:

dig www.google.com ns

means that you want to query your locally defined DNS server about NS records for the host www.google.com.

The locally defined DNS server could be your ISP's DNS server for example.
NS records are records describing which DNS servers hold authoritative records for the host.

The other command:

dig @www.google.com ns .

means that you want to query www.google.com about the ns records for the name ".". As www.google.com is a web server and not a DNS server, you'll not get any reply to your query.

Then your final command:

dig @a.root-servers.net ns .

This means to query a.root-servers.net about ns records for the name "." (i.e. the most toplevel name, the root). "a.root-servers.net" is a DNS server, so it will reply to your query. It also happens to be a special DNS server in that it is one of the root servers that is in place specifically to give you DNS records for the root.


Restoring Boot Camp boot from Windows 10 using High Sierra? I was running out of space on my Windows 10 install and needed to expand it. I restarted in High Sierra and downloaded Camptune. When I started Camptune, the program said my Boot Camp had errors and I needed to fix them to use the program. I let it do that, only to find out the free version only allows 2GB of expansion (useless).

I restarted to go back to Windows 10, and was disappointed to see that Camptune ruined my Windows 10 boot options. It removed Boot Camp from the boot options menu and deleted/relocated the W10 boot sectors. I had it set to auto-boot to Windows, and now I get the "no boot disc detected" error.

The volume is intact and files are still there. I had over 190GB of files in that partition. I'm taking computer programming and had homework on there too.

Things I've tried so far:

diskutil in Mac, no errors found on Boot Camp drive
Camptune, it doesn't recognize Boot Camp partition at all now
REFIT/REFIND, I couldn't install these because the drive is encrypted on boot and SIP can't be turned off
Windows 10 recovery with the Boot Camp USB I used to install it the first time; can't automatically fix startup issues; gives me an error when I try to mount to new drive letter as per that post's answer

How do I fix this?

Edit for Dave:

I already confirmed that the drives were in diskutil. Here's the diskutil list command:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage Mac                     299.4 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                199.5 GB   disk0s4
/dev/disk1 (internal, virtual):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Mac                    +299.1 GB   disk1
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2
                                 B933C069-F78E-4BCE-9BDF-6AE1C7F07CE8
                                 Unlocked Encrypted
/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *16.2 GB    disk2
   1:                 DOS_FAT_32 WININSTALL              16.2 GB    disk2s1

MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2012)
MacOS is encrypted. I sent an email to the refind programmer for instructions on how to bypass SIP.

SIP can be turned off on your Mac. SIP has nothing to do with encryption. You have to boot the Mac in Recovery mode in order to enter the csrutil disable command. Recovery mode can be booted from the internal recovery partition, from the internet or from a USB flash drive. You can also use third party tools, such as rEFInd, to disable SIP.

rEFIt is the predecessor to rEFInd boot manager. rEFIt is now obsolete with respect to the current macOS operating systems. rEFInd should only be installed to either a EFI, FAT or jhfs+ partition. rEFInd should not be installed in the macOS partition.

The most likely reason the Windows 10 recovery solution did not work would be the partitioning of the internal drive. Normally, your Mac should be using GPT partitioning with a full protected MBR. If the partitioning was changed from full protect to hybrid, then the mountvol S: /s command would return the error message The parameter is incorrect. Here, I made the assumption you installed Windows 10 using the Boot Camp Assistant. If you first installed Widows 7/8/8.1 then upgraded to Windows 10, then this answer may need to be altered.

The easiest way to check and update the partitioning is to use the gdisk command. You will need to download and install gdisk. Also to use gdisk from macOS, you will need to disable SIP. You can also use gdisk while booted in Recovery mode.

If you are out of free space in the Windows partition and you can access your files from macOS, then you might what to consider first backing up your files, deleting windows, and then reinstalling Windows into a larger partition. I say this because there is no practical way to increase the size of the Windows partition without using some third party tool. Before attempting this, you would want to backup your files anyway. So, you might as well remove Windows, increase the partition size and reinstall.


Apps cannot be installed anymore because of missing signature I was working on my iPhone 4 with iOS 4.2 (the last one) for a while, when I called my phone operator to unlock the simlock. I followed the procedure, and I saved of my iPhone with iTunes, then restored it, then restored the backup with iTunes (last version). I didn't do anything special but followed the path given by iTunes on a reset / restore procedure.

After the restore procedure, some apps that I have been using for months did not get installed. According to iTunes the two reasons are:

Missing signature,
or Resources modified.

This also happens with newly downloaded applications after the reset.

My iPhone is not (and wasn't) jailbroken, and I don't understand what happened.

How may I solve this problem, without loosing datas, apps, music or photo libraries, or need to reinstall everything from scratch app per app ?

Some additional notes:

Any app that I download now that doesn't want to install from iTunes, can be correctly installed when downloaded directly on the iPhone. And no sync problems with iTunes.
Even updating a working and installed app can cause the problem.
New error with an app download from iTunes : "Unknown error 0xE800000B"
No music (nor anything else) is displayed in the iPod app, but iTunes shows the music, podcatsts, ... as present on the iPhone.

With BitDefender fully deactivated (as it cannot be quit), and ZoneAlarm shut down, it does not change anything. Not a surprise as they where both activated days ago and everything was working fine before the restore procedure.

Problem solved : was a conflict with "ZoneAlarm Free"
Don't know why it hasn't been resolved the first times I had deactivated it. But now, when I shut it down, no more problem with the sync except some rare apps that may really be corrupted I guess.


How does Time Machine work? I want to do a fresh re-installation of macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 on my computer. To do so:

I uninstalled all unwanted apps.
Backed up my computer with Time Machine.

First question

After reinstallation when I use my backup to restore my files and settings, will it restore any unwanted files such as: preferences, directories and leftovers from apps that I had deleted or will Time Machine exclude them and not transfer to my freshly reinstalled macOS?

My second question

Does Time Machine backup caches, temporary files, directories and other similar stuff, which can be generated again without any harm ?

I've been searching a lot recently but I haven't found a clear and conclusive answer.

To avoid a long and fastidious answer:

Time Machine is duplicating (incremental backup) your root folder, i.e. /.
However, you have the ability to exclude folders from the backup (see: macOS Sierra: Exclude items from a Time Machine backup
The answer to question 2: caches and temporary files are not backed up. They are a part of the default exclusion list of Time Machine. You can see the full exclusion list here: /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd.bundle/Contents/Resources/StdExclusions.plist.
The answer to question 1: Time Machine backups folders as Applications Support, Preferences. So, to be short: if you consider that removing an app == moving  in the Trash folder, then you will restore all the files spread on your system by the apps you "deleted" before your last backup. If you deleted them properly by removing the .app and all the linked files spread on your system, you will end up with a clean system.


How do I restrict a novice user from installing configuration profiles on their devices? I noticed some novice users installed some spam configuration profiles which installed some email inboxes on their iOS devices such as 'Daily Bible Verse' or 'WEATHER ALERTS' with a email address ending in @my.minbox.email. This site has more information. How do I setup their device so that they can't install any profile? I think I can do this by creating a profile of my own and installing on their device. There is the following key that might help from Apple's support doc. How would I create a profile with this key and install it?

  allowUIConfigurationProfileInstallation - Optional. Supervised only. If
  set to false, the user is prohibited from installing configuration
  profiles and certificates interactively. This will default to true.

As this key is a ‘supervised only’ key, the device must be in supervision for this key to be functional, otherwise it will have no effect.

Once your device is supervised, you can create and install a profile with the key set. You can create such a profile with Apple Configurator. Choose Restrictions as the payload, then under Functionality, uncheck ‘Allow installing configuration profiles’.

Complete the mandatory General payload, then save this profile and install it on your now-supervised device for the payload to function.


Charge cycles increase? This is a bit weird, I've been doing everything to keep the battery health great and that's what i achieved so far. it's going through 99-100%, but the thing is.. those charging cycles thing are increasing everyday, yesterday it was 32 and today it became 36 even though the health is going well, How to keep it low ? isn't the health dedicated to those cycles ? and which is more important the health or the cycles ?

Your charge cycles increase every time you cycle through the the equivalent of a full battery charge. Mac laptops made since the "unibody" style was released use lithium polymer batteries which should retain 80% of their battery power after 1000 charges. (So if you got 7 hours out of the box, you should still be getting 5.5 hours.)

In general I wouldn't worry too much about your battery health. Lithium polymer is extremely flexible as a battery technology and Apple makes some of the best batteries in the electronics industry. The only way to really ruin the battery is to keep it plugged in 100% of the time. Unplug it at least once a month for 5-10 hours and you should be fine. With 1000 recharge cycles guaranteed Apple is expecting you to replace the system before you ever suffer issues with battery life.


Mail app opens randomly in MacOS 10.14.5 I have mail app open in background i.e. no window open. A new window randomly pops up without any conscious trigger by me. No new mail would have come.

Once it happened while I was in full screen mode of another app and the mail app split the window in half and got opened. This happens even when I am working in non Full-screen mode.

I presume that it has connection with notifications but other reasons are also welcome.

Once, it popped up above other apps, and some accounts were transitioning from offline to online state. I cannot confirm  about Google account as one answer mentions.

Why might this happen but more importantly, how to stop this other than quitting it properly? I want to stop it from opening it altogether, not only in split view.

The answer to Mail opens a window randomly in split screen with my fullscreen window recommends to untick a Mail preference. Unfortunately I get the behaviour even thought the preference is unticked, so I look for other solutions.

This was happening to me for a while, and it became very annoying. I found that if I force closed it and turned the laptop off and on, it worked. If that continues to happen, turn off the WIFI connection and do the same steps.

As to stop the behaviour in split mode, unchecking the checkbox in mail preferences for "Prefer split view while opening messages in full screen view" helps.


Can a 2015 Macbook Air MagSafe 2 connector be filed down to work with a 2009 Macbook Pro? The title pretty much says it all. I ordered a MagSafe 2 power adapter before realizing my MacBook Pro uses the Original MagSafe. After looking at both connectors, it appears the MagSafe 2 connector would fit the MagSafe power port if it were filed down on the edges a bit. However, I'm concerned the power delivery would not match what the computer can handle, and I don't really want to go through returning and buying a new power adapter. Likewise, I wouldn't want to destroy both the adapter and the computer at one go. Does anyone know the specs – whether these two are "electrically compatible?"

I'm pretty much sure there is some difference between MagSafe and MagSafe2 plugs.  Another page for overview is right power adapter and cord
from Apple.
On other hand Apple has made it clear that an adapter with the same or higher wattage than originally provided may be used without problems. So should you have a chance to apply your MagSafe2 plug for your MagSafe notebook - imho that would work


Close all programs after 1min without user interaction I work at a store, which sells Apple computers.

I’m trying to find a way to close all open programs after a few minutes.
It’s because of our Shop Demo Account for customers. After opening all windows, it’s quite messy and I want to get a clean user experience.

All I would need is to close all windows.
It should work like the command:

killall -u admin

BUT without admin permission

AND after 1 min,

WITHOUT user interaction.

Maybe, there is a way to:
close all windows and programs, without showing something like "do you really want to",
log out the demo account, and reload.

I found this, after searching some time, but I don't know if that's what I was looking for and how to make it work:

  Apple Script Log Out:

  on run
    tell application "System Events" to log out
  end run

  You can wrap this up in a bash alias using the osascript command:
  alias maclogout="osascript -e 'tell application \"System Events\" to log out'"

  It is the same as clicking " > Log out [username]...", and will logout after a 2 minute wait

  This is easily combined with the sleep command:
  alias delayedlogout="sleep 3600; maclogout"

  ..or could be combined into a single alias:

  alias delayedlogout="sleep 3600; osascript -e 'tell application \"System Events\" to log out'"

Could someone please give some advice? Thanks!

Here you go. A simple script you can setup to run automatically in the background using launchd or other means of your liking...

#
# From: http://www.dssw.co.uk/blog/2015-01-21-inactivity-and-idle-time
# Returns seconds system is idle, ie no user input...
#
set cmd to "echo $((`ioreg -w 0 -c IOHIDSystem | sed -e '/HIDIdleTime/ !{ d' -e 't' -e '}' -e 's/.* = //g' -e 'q'` / 1000000000))"

#
# How many seconds user can be idle before we log them out
#
set maxIdleAllowed to 60

#
# How frequently we check the idle time, in seconds...
#
set checkInterval to 30

#
# We loop forever...
#
repeat
    set secsIdle to 0

    try
        set answer to (do shell script cmd)
        set secsIdle to (answer as number)
    on error
        # May want to do something fancy here...
        exit repeat
    end try

    log secsIdle

    if secsIdle > maxIdleAllowed then
        logUserOut()
    end if

    delay checkInterval
end repeat

on logUserOut()

# Exclude Finder at minimum because bad things happen, so I am told...
set excludedApps to {"Finder"}

tell application "System Events"
    #set oAppList to get id of every application process whose background only is false
    set {processList, idList, pidList, bidList} to the {name, id, unix id, bundle identifier} of (every application process whose background only is false)
end tell

set i to 0
repeat with p in processList
    set i to i + 1

    log "ID: " & item i of idList
    log "PID:" & item i of pidList
    log "Name: " & p
    log "Bundle: " & item i of bidList

    if p is not in excludedApps then
        try
            log "Quit with out saving app with id: " & item i of idList

            # timeout to prevent blocking by certain apps...
            with timeout of 1 second

                # Use bundle id for some odd apps... soffice i'm talking to you!?!
                tell application id (item i of bidList) to quit saving no

            end timeout

        on error
            try
                log "Giving up, killing pid: " & (item i of pidList)
                do shell script "kill " & (item i of pidList)
            end try
        end try
    end if

    delay 1

    log "" & return
end repeat

# Finally, with all apps closed, kill our session...
tell application "loginwindow" to «event aevtrlgo»

end logUserOut

EDIT: Your question has already been answered really, it's just that your action, after idle time, is different. Take a look here at,

How can I automatically launch an application whenever the Mac goes idle?

EDIT2: There you go. Added routine to close apps nicely if possible, and if not, kill them and logs out.


MacBook Pro stuck in gray screen when booting I've got a Late-2011 15" MacBook Pro stuck in the gray screen when booting AFTER login.
I've tried removing the drive (it's non-retina) and booting from a working bootable Yosemite installer, no luck. (it sees the startup USB drive, the progress bar progresses, but stuck at the gray screen again even without a drive.

Tried NVRAM reset (cmd option P R), it has reset (the login sound's volume changed) but nothing changed.

Tried holding D on startup, AHT doesn't start, instead, it tries to boot into the OS.

Tried Cmd V, it sometimes works and displays the verbose output, sometimes, it acts like I haven't even pressed. Again, stuck after login.

Tried booting again from USB, I select USB (after seeing both drives correctly), but no luck, it's also stuck.

I've stumbled upon this:

Boot hangs on grey screen (even when booting from USB drive with fresh OS X install)

I've tried booting into single user mode with Cmd S, it worked ONCE, I've disabled the graphics extensions just as shown at that post, restarted, but again, nothing changed.

More weirdly, now the Cmd S doesn't work either. It just takes me to login screen without showing the terminal, just as I haven't pressed anything.

Why would this happen? Why would a Mac refuse to enter hardware test mode, single user mode, or refuse to boot from a working bootable Yosemite drive both with or without the main drive installed?

UPDATE: I've run the AHT and got an error:

4MEM/66/40000000: 0x84e0ec98

It looks like a memory issue, but I'm not sure.

UPDATE 2: I've tried reinserting the RAMs and the the problem is not reported anymore. However, the Mac still won't boot.

http://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro-videoissues/

Apple has issued a Repair Extension Program for Video Issues. I was experiencing the same problem and had tired several solutions that worked for a short period of time, but ultimately I was unable to get my MBP up and running last night and brought it into an Apple store. They determined that my issues was in fact a video issue and qualified for free service.

If you purchased a MBP between February 2011 and December 2013 and suspect that your MBP is experiencing the same issue, then check out the page URL above to see if your MBP qualifies for service.

Here's an excerpt from the page

=========

Apple has determined that a small percentage of MacBook Pro systems may exhibit distorted video, no video, or unexpected system restarts. These MacBook Pro systems were sold between February 2011 and December 2013.

Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider will repair affected MacBook Pro systems, free of charge. See below for details on affected models and service options.

Symptoms

An affected MacBook Pro may display one or more of the following symptoms:

Distorted or scrambled video on the computer screen No video on the computer screen (or external display) even though the computer is on Computer restarts unexpectedly

Products affected 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro models manufactured in 2011 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina models manufactured from Mid 2012 to Early 2013


Link Displays Between Two iMacs (Late-2015 Retina running Sierra and 2017 running Mojave) Using Thunderbolt-to-Thunderbolt I'm hoping someone can help me (and that this is possible, considering I just spent an arm and a leg to facilitate this setup).
I have a late-2015 iMac (27" Retina 5K display, running Sierra) and a 2017 iMac (21.5", running Mojave) and am hoping that I can connect them for dual display. I have them connected via Thunderbolt-to-Thunderbolt with the TB2 to TB3 adapter. For whatever reason, I'm not able to use Target Display mode on my 2015 iMac, and I'm suspecting it's because the model doesn't support it. ETA: The other mac doesn't show up in either System Preferences > Displays menu
I'm hoping someone can offer advice as to what I'm doing wrong or a possible workaround for this issue, as I have no use for both iMacs separately but would greatly benefit from using one as an additional display - even if the answer is simply that I can't do it, it will at least allow me to stop spinning my wheels and give up on this pipe dream.
Any suggestions are welcome!

I'm afraid neither of those iMacs is capable of Target Display Mode
Generally it was iMacs between 2009 & 2014 that supported it, no retina iMacs were included.
See Lifewire - How to Use Your Old iMac as a Monitor
Unfortunately, Apple's own KB article on this seems to have recently vanished.


My fiance's iPhone 4 is still running on iOS 5, now that 6.1.3 has been released can I upgrade her to 6.1.2 so she can use evasion? I have an iPhone 4S, CDMA version, iOS 6.1 jailbroken. Therefore no real need to upgrade at the moment. However my fiance's iPhone 4, I have heard, could benefit from an upgrade to iOS 6.1.2 from the iOS 5 she is currently running (jailbroken with absynthe). I was going to do this today- then I found out iOS 6.1.3 was been released, which is not able to be jailbroken. Is she stuck or can she upgrade to 6.1.2 somehow still and use evasions jailbreak?

you can download ipsw file for 6.1.2.  apparantly there is a way to do this for iphone4 but newer hardware will not allow it.


Time Machine backups (2 backups at same time) I have 2 questions regarding time machine backups:

I have a touch bar MacBook Pro 15'' with 256GB SSD (let call it A) and macOS 10.14.3. Currently I perform a Time Machine backup on an external 1TB HD (let call it B). I use Photos with an external 2TB HD (let call it C) in order to maintain the library on an external HD.

1) It is possible, with Time Machine, to backup an external HD into another external HD? I want to backup the Photo library of the HD (C) into an HD (D) (C and D are same size: 2TB) using Time Machine.

2) It is possible to backup A into the external disk B with Time Machine and also, at the same time, backup C into D with the same Time Machine?

By default, time machine excludes external drives that are mounted, but you can add them back into your backup in Time Machine "options" (found on the Time Machine Prefrence Pane). See here for more info: https://www.macworld.com/article/3153995/how-to-make-sure-time-machine-backs-up-external-drives.html

To add an external drive into the list of Time Machine Backup Drives, just use the "Add Time Machine Backup Disk" in the Time Machine preference pane.

Regarding your Question (2), You can not direct a some of your backup to one time machine, and the rest to another, thought that would be a nice feature. I personally use an rsync script that runs nightly to solve a similar problem, though that's nowhere near as convenient (or user-friendly) as Time Machine.


AppleScript to massage URLs I want to have a Services menu item that takes the selected text (a URL) and escapes the percent character and the # character:

Replace % with \%
Replace # with \string#

I copied and edited an exisiting script that does similar text manipulation.  This seems to work fine except when the URL contains a &.

I think this has something to do with needing to use quoted form of string, but I can't quite determine the correct place to specify that.

Sample Input:

http://books.google.com?xxx&xxx%22+xxx#v=onepage&q=%22Search%20String&f=false

Required Output

http://books.google.com?xxx&xxx\%22+xxx\string#v=onepage&q=\%22Search\%20String&f=false

Code:

on run {input, parameters}
set sanatizedURLString to ¬
    (do shell script ("echo " & input & "  | sed 's/%/\\\\%/g' | sed 's/#/\\\\string#/g' ;"))
return sanatizedURLString
end run

This is how I'd code it:

on run {input, parameters}
    set aURL to input as string
    set sanatizedURL to ¬
        do shell script "sed -e 's:%:\\\\%:g' -e 's:#:\\\\string#:g' <<< " & aURL's quoted form
    return sanatizedURL
end run

      Hint: Mouse over and horizontal scroll to see full code.

Notes:

input is a list e.g.:

{"http://books.google.com?xxx&xxx%22+xxx#v=onepage&q=%22Search%20String&f=false"}

set aURL to input as string makes it:

http://books.google.com?xxx&xxx%22+xxx#v=onepage&q=%22Search%20String&f=false

In the do shell script command sed only needs to be called once, not twice as in the original code. sed can take multiple commands by using the -e option, thus no need in this case to pipe the output of one sed command to another sed command.

It is not necessary to echo something to sed as it can process a file or a here string, thus the use of <<< in the do shell script command, followed by & aURL's quoted form which is e.g.:

'http://books.google.com?xxx&xxx%22+xxx#v=onepage&q=%22Search%20String&f=false'

By quoting the value of aURL it keeps the shell from processing any shell special characters in the string.

Thus, when run, the do shell script command looks like e.g.:

do shell script "sed -e 's:%:\\\\%:g' -e 's:#:\\\\string#:g' <<< 'http://books.google.com?xxx&xxx%22+xxx#v=onepage&q=%22Search%20String&f=false'"

      Hint: Mouse over and horizontal scroll to see full code.

The use of : vs. / in the sed command is a personal preference in this case as it makes the command easier to read when having to make multiple escapes.

The use of echo in the original code flattens the list to a string, however I prefer to not use that method in order to make the do shell script command less complicated.


Switch from a not-installed Windows partition to Mountain Lion I tried to install Windows in dual boots (version 4 I think) in my Macbook Pro 10.8. Everything was fine until Windows boot for the first time for it's installation. The operating system was not able to find Windows related drivers on the usb key I used with Bootcamp. So, my mistake was to shutdown and try again, but now Windows can't find my bootable device anymore.

The real problem is that I'm stuck on Windows' booting partition and can't go back to OS X. I tried several times Command+R or pressing T or Option during booting but everytime I face a lock icon with a password field. The password field doesn't recognize my administrator password and I never activated the root user. For testing I tried differents password that could be default one such as 'root' or 'admin' or 'sudo' but none of them actually works. If I can get passed this step, I can actually follow other tutorials.

In brief, is there a way I can switch back to OS X partition without using option key or is there a password for this locked screen?

I wish that I was enough clear to be answered by someone.

That password I think is EFI password.
To reset your EFI firmware password, hold Command and R keys while your Mac is starting to start in Recovery HD. Then, go to the Utilities menu, open Firmware Password Utility and disable the EFI firmware password.

If you don't remember the EFI password, take your computer to an Apple Store
If you don't have any Apple Store nearby, look up here, maybe you will find something good for your situation: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=reset+efi+password+macbook&oq=reset+efi+password+macbook&gs_l=youtube.3...197.5674.0.5891.22.16.0.6.6.0.353.2286.7j5j3j1.16.0.eytns%2Cpt%3D-27%2Cn%3D2%2Cui%3Dt..0.0...1ac.1.11.youtube.1_D0FcEVNL0

P.S. you can try to remove the battery for a couple of minutes, sometimes it helps: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964


How to enable key repeat on Macbook Pro with Yosemite I would like to disable the accent characters options you get when you hold down keys.

I have always used holding keys to repeat letters but all of the sudden it shows special characters and won't let me repeat any keys, even if they do not have special characters. I have been using Yosemite on my early 2011 MBP for a while now and this has never occurred before. Did I do some strange keyboard combination? And is there a way to turn it off, to get proper key repeats back? I have searched for this everywhere in the settings and online, but apparently it is not a known thing.

Thank you very much in advance!

To disable the press-and-hold character palette, you could try running the following command in Terminal.app:

defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false

Apps may need to be restarted for changes to take effect.

To reenable the menu, run:

defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool true


How do I get an new email notification icon on the status bar of an iPod Touch? Is there a way to get a "new mail" notification on the status bar (that indicates the presence of unread email in the inbox) of my iPod Touch Model #MB528LL Version3.1.3(7E18).

I see that the iPhone or other Apple handhelds are capable of an email notification in the statusbar as shown in the image:

I have not been able to find anything in the settings to turn this on, nor have I found an app that adds this functionality.

This is not built-in to iOS, but there are jailbreak tweaks like Notifier, OpenNotifier, et al. If you've jailbroken your device, try searching Cydia.

Once iOS 5 launches, it'll include notification center which consolidates notifications in an overlay that can be accessed by swiping down from the status bar, similar to Android, but still different from what you're asking about.


Time Machine fails since enabling FileVault on iMac with Fusion Drive I have an iMac with a Fusion Drive, and Time Machine configured to back up to an external USB disk.
Everything used to work well, but then I enabled FileVault for the internal Fusion Drive. Since then, Time Machine has not been able to back up:

Clicking the red info button shows:

I left it for multiple days, rebooted the computer, reset NVRAM, did First Aid using Disk Utility for both the external disk and the filesystem in it, all to no avail. This is on macOS Big Sur 11.3.1 (20E241).
diskutil cs list shows that the encryption is complete.
kartick@iMac ~ % diskutil cs list
CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
|
+-- Logical Volume Group B2E1C2E9-637C-4BAB-897B-ABA771347B48
    =========================================================
    Name:         Time Machine Backup
    Status:       Online
    Size:         5000637104128 B (5.0 TB)
    Free Space:   0 B (0 B)
    |
    +-< Physical Volume 91CE72E6-ACB1-4B90-8DA2-FFE4365D4A4F
    |   ----------------------------------------------------
    |   Index:    0
    |   Disk:     disk3s2
    |   Status:   Online
    |   Size:     5000637104128 B (5.0 TB)
    |
    +-> Logical Volume Family 957C53B4-DB6F-4E1F-B743-286CAA1E75A6
        ----------------------------------------------------------
        Encryption Type:         AES-XTS
        Encryption Status:       Unlocked
        Conversion Status:       Complete
        High Level Queries:      Fully Secure
        |                        Passphrase Required
        |                        Accepts New Users
        |                        Has Visible Users
        |                        Has Volume Key
        |
        +-> Logical Volume 0A5A21A4-D46E-4FE8-9663-3AA7EE5EA68E
            ---------------------------------------------------
            Disk:                  disk4
            Status:                Online
            Size (Total):          5000284778496 B (5.0 TB)
            Revertible:            No
            LV Name:               Time Machine Backup
            Volume Name:           Time Machine Backup
            Content Hint:          Apple_HFS

How do I get it to work?

The problem isn't the TM disk encryption, but the system disk Data "Macintosh HD - Data".
You have to wait that the filevault encryption be full.
If your Mac is a laptop model, keep in mind that the encryption requires an electrical connection.
To verify the encryption 2 commands possible :
diskutil ap list or
fdesetup status


MacBook does not sleep when lid is closed I've looked around for answers and can't find something that works for me.

I have a unibody aluminum MacBook Pro and it just doesn't seem to want to sleep when I close the lid. The problem started after installing Lion.

When I close the lid, it appears to go to sleep (i.e. the Apple logo dims) but the status LED stays on and within 5 seconds, the Apple logo is back on. Lifting the screen very slightly reveals that the screen is on at this point.

I know that it's not sleeping and waking when I close the lid because syslog | grep -i "wake reason" does not show a wake entry for the time the laptop wakes up.

So far, I've tried PRAM reset, SMC reset, disabling all sharing and bluetooth options. It does sleep with the lid shut when booted in Safe Mode though. This leads me to believe that it's some kind of software or setting that's preventing sleep but I know no way of figuring this out.

Is there any way to fix this or find out what software is preventing sleep?

A lack of wake reason entries suggests your Mac is never fully sleeping. The sleep mechanism has started but never completes.

Use the following Terminal command to view a detailed log showing your Mac's power history:

pmset -g log

You will see a list of entries in form:

 * Domain: applicationresponse.slowresponse
 - Message: PMConnection AirPort configd plug-in com.apple.powermanagement.applicationresponse.slowresponse 1399 ms
 - Time: 13/03/2012 12:27:53 CET
 - Signature: AirPort configd plug-in
 - UUID: AB482838-2D6E-0000-0000-14BF53E20000
 - Result: Noop
 - Response time (ms): 1399

Look out for applications that may be keeping your Mac awake and active. Applications and other processes can keep your Mac awake if they are providing a service, such as file sharing or remote access. However, processes should be forced asleep after 30 seconds on lid close.

The behaviour you are seeing suggests a kernel extension or IOKit problem. User level processes can not block sleep when instigated by the user.

Do you have any utilities installed that install kernel extensions (kext)? These might include screen recording or audio capture tools; utilities than need low level access to your Mac.


How to open pgAdmin 4? I've installed and am trying to open pgAdmin 4 on my Macbook Pro. However, if I right-click it and select "Open", nothing happens.

Then again, if I try to re-download pgAdmin 4 and drag that into the Applications folder, I get an error message saying that pgAdmin 4 is already in use:

So how do I 'use' pgAdmin 4? The screenshots on https://www.pgadmin.org/screenshots/#1 suggest that I go to localhost:5050, but that just gives me a 'Connection refused' error. Then again, I seem to recall it working earlier and opening a web UI in a new tab in Chrome, so why am I not seeing that now?

I just closed pgAdmin 4 in the Activity Monitor and started it again. Then I see a new tab open up with pgAdmin 4. It apparently is running on a different port (63467) than shown in the screenshots.


Un-initiated transaction I just received an email from Apple Support saying a purchase was made with my account from a previously unknown device. There was a note saying if you did not make this purchase, click here. When I clicked it, I was sent to a site that in no way was connected to this transaction. What can I do?

This is almost certainly a phishing message.

That means the sender is trying to collect your login and password. You should report this message as junk, delete it, and close it and any windows it opened.

If you've provided any details to the website thinking it was Apple you need to immediately change your password via https://appleid.apple.com

Also if you use this password on any other website you should consider these websites also vulnerable and should immediately change the password on all sites which use this password in the following order:

Email accounts + bank accounts
Social media
All other sites


Bash script combine echo say and read Using a bash script on Mac OS X, how do I combine echo, say and read to make it cleaner and less line of code?  The below script works but to me there are too many lines.  Thanks a lot for your help.

#!/usr/bin/env bash

clear

echo -n "Enter your first name: "
say "Enter your first name"
read -r name
echo -n "Enter your last name: "
say "Enter your last name"
read -r lastname
say "Good morning ${name}${lastname}"

You can define functions in bash:

echoAndSay() {
    say $*
    printf "%s: " "$*"
}

echoAndSay "Enter your first name"
read -r name
echoAndSay "Enter your last name"
read -r lastname
say "Good morning ${name} ${lastname}"


Why should I NOT update to Mavericks? I'm not really looking for a single correct answer. I'm just looking for some input regarding the inevitable "gotchas" Apple seems to sneak into every major OS X release that screw over a select handful of people before they have time to resolve whatever feature or app got removed in any given release. I want to know about anything at all; I'm a developer, so even lower-level system tweaks and restrictions have an effect on me.

You (or anyone else) should not upgrade if you don't have a good backup, a good idea how or why it will make your life easier and you don't have a list of software that you need to work so you can check at your workflow won't get ruined or at lease slowed / disrupted.


How to view all the downloaded podcast episodes on the iPhone? I've noticed on an iPhone I am unable to view all (and only) downloaded podcast episodes. I can connect the phone to a Mac and via iTunes I can see all the downloaded episodes but I am unable to delete any of them...

So my question is how to view all (and only) downloaded podcast episodes on the iPhone?

It's been a while since this question has been asked. As of now, you can do it like this:

Click on "Library" in the Podcasts app.
Click "Edit" in the upper right hand corner.
Tap the circle next to "Downloaded Episodes" to check it.
Click "Done". You can now see the "Downloaded Episodes" option below "Library" text (under "Shows" and "Episodes").

This section contains only downloaded Podcasts.


Multiple versions of VS Code on Apple Mac VS Code 1.15.0 and 1.15.1
macOS 10.12.6

Hello, I seem to have managed to install multiple versions of VS Code. I currently have 1.15.0 and 1.15.1. These can be accessed separately by right clicking a file in macOS Finder and selecting either version. However, only one copy of VS Code is showing up in Applications and that seems to be 1.15.0. I've downloaded the latest Darwin build but before installing that, I'd like to get things cleared up so that I don't end up with three versions installed!

Here is the solution (taken from Stack Overflow Several versions of VSCode after update):

Locate the other versions
You can just run each of them, right-click on the Dock icon of the running version and select Options → Show in Finder.
My versions were located here at
~/Library/Application Support/com.microsoft.VSCode.ShipIt/update.OhD5XFk

Delete it
Just delete the whole directory update.OhD5XFk


Can't Open google.com even though there is internet My Macbook Pro cannot able to open up "www.google.com" or "www.facebook.com".
But I can open up bing,msn and a lot other sites.  Oh And also I am not able to Open up App store from my network.

My friend's having Macbook pro too and he can reach AppStore from the same network but not me.

My Macbook Pro is 15inch Retina Display.

Why is this happening.?

I have tried fixing it in all possible ways. I browsed up a lot to sort out this issue.But in vain. I would like to ask is it me who is facing this problem or there is anybody else ? And i do need help.

There have been queries regarding this before as you can see in the below mentioned link. but no proper solution has been mentioned.

  https://discussions.apple.com/message/9276189#9276189

I had the same issue. I could not access Google to do an internet search. It worked fine for years, suddenly one day Google wouldn't open.
Solution: click on Finder, then click on Downloads.
You will find a list of downloads by date, with the most recent on top.
In the past, I clicked on links containing pdf files they would download when I read them. One of those files is causing the problem. It contains some kind of virus. Find the files around the date when the problem initiated and move them to the trash. In fact, move any files that you don't recognize to the trash and then empty the trash.
Problem solved. Google will open.


MacBook Air dual boot Lion+10.6 Can a 2010 MacBook Air internal SSD be configured for the dual-boot of both Lion/10.7.x and Snow Leopard/10.6.x?  If so, how much extra storage space is required for 2 boot partitions vs. one?  Other than storage space, are there any downsides of doing this?  For example, will the (re)boot speed get noticeably slower?

Yes - it's trivial to partition and takes a negligible amount of space away from the drive for the second partition's overhead.

Since that model is supported on Snow Leopard - the installer will run happily to install to any partition that's larger than 6G.

Since the mac stores the default boot volume in NVRAM - there's really no delay in booting unless you hold the option key to get the boot manager and ignore the stored default.

Lion and BootCamp can be a little fussy, but most times you can just resize your current OS to make room for the new one, make a new partition and run the installer.

Windows doesn't like more than 3 partitions on the drive and the BootCamp assistant doesn't want to deal with two mac partitions, so you have to know enough about Disk Utility to do that setup by hand. For SL + Lion - you'll end up with two large partitions and a small Recovery HD at the end of the drive

Here's what one of my macs with a copy of Lion and Lion server looks like. You'll have one less Recovery HD with Snow Leopard.

mac:~ mike$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *160.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS mac                     94.3 GB    disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:                  Apple_HFS server                  64.2 GB    disk0s4
   5:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s5


GMail compose on Firefox on Mac cmd+leftarrow cmd+rightarrow I am using GMail and I cannot move to Firefox from Chrome, because the Cmd+← and Cmd+→ do not work in Compose window as "Move to the beginning of the line" and "Move to the end of the line", respectively.

How can I fix that?

(Mountain Lion 10.8.3, Firefox 20.0)

I accidentally found a nice solution for this. I just started using textbox.io for Firefox and the Cmd+← and Cmd+→ work like a charm.


What is the "rootless" feature in El Capitan, really? I have just learned about the "Rootless" feature in El Capitan, and I am hearing things like "There is no root user", "Nothing can modify /System" and "The world will end because we can't get root".

What is the "Rootless" feature of El Capitan at a technical level? What does it actually mean for the user experience and the developer experience? Will sudo -s still work, and, if so, how will the experience of using a shell as root change?

First: the name "rootless" is misleading, since there's still a root account, and you can still access it (the official name, "System Integrity Protection", is more accurate). What it really does is limit the power of the root account, so that even if you become root, you don't have full control over the system. Essentially, the idea is that it's too easy for malware to get root access (e.g. by presenting an auth dialog to the user, which will cause the user to reflexively enter the admin password). SIP adds another layer of protection, which malware can't penetrate even if it gets root. The bad part of this, of course, it that it must also apply to things you're doing intentionally. But the restrictions it places on root aren't that bad; they don't prevent most "normal" system customization.
Here's what it restricts, even from root:

You can't modify anything in /System, /bin, /sbin, or /usr (except /usr/local); or any of the built-in apps and utilities. Only Installer and software update can modify these areas, and even they only do it when installing Apple-signed packages. But since normal OS X-style customizations go in /Library (or ~/Library, or /Applications), and unix-style customizations (e.g. Homebrew) go in /usr/local (or sometimes /etc or /opt), this shouldn't be a big deal. It also prevents block-level writes to the startup disk, so you can't bypass it that way.
The full list of restricted directories (and exceptions like /usr/local and a few others) is in /System/Library/Sandbox/rootless.conf. Of course, this file is itself in a restricted area.
When you upgrade to El Capitan, it moves any "unauthorized" files from restricted areas to /Library/SystemMigration/History/Migration-(some UUID)/QuarantineRoot/.

You can't attach to system processes (e.g. those running from those system locations) for things like debugging (or changing what dynamic libraries they load, or some other things). Again, not too much of a big deal; developers can still debug their own programs.
This does block some significant things like injecting code into the built-in Apple apps (notably the Finder). It also means that dtrace-based tools for system monitoring (e.g. opensnoop) will not be able to monitor & report on many system processes.

You can't load kernel extensions (kexts) unless they're properly signed (i.e. by Apple or an Apple-approved developer). Note that this replaces the old system for enforcing kext signing (and the old ways of bypassing it). But since v10.10.4 Apple has had a way to enable trim support for third-party SSDs, the #1 reason to use unsigned kexts has gone away.

Starting in Sierra (10.12), some launchd configuration settings cannot be changed (for example, some launch daemons cannot be unloaded).

Starting in Mojave (10.14), access to users' personal information (email, contacts, etc) is restricted to apps that the user has approved to access that info. This is generally considered a separate feature (called Personal Information Protection, or TCC), but it's based on SIP and disabling SIP disables it as well. See: "What and how does macOS Mojave implement to restrict applications access to personal data?"

Starting in Catalina (10.15), protection of most system files is strengthened by storing them on a separate read-only volume. This is not strictly part of SIP, and is not disabled by disabling SIP. See: WWDC presentation on "What's New in Apple [Catalina] File Systems" and "What's /System/Volumes/Data?".

Starting in Big Sur (11.x), the read-only system volume is now a "Sealed System Volume" (a mounted snapshot rather than a regular volume), so making changes to it is even more complicated. See: the Eclectic Light Company article "Big Sur boot volume layout".

If you don't want these restrictions -- either because you want to modify your system beyond what this allows, or because you're developing & debugging something like kexts that aren't practical under these restrictions, you can turn SIP off. Currently this requires rebooting into recovery mode and running the command csrutil disable (and you can similarly re-enable it with csrutil enable).
Modifying the system volume in Catalina requires disabling SIP, then mounting the volume with write access (and then rebooting and turning SIP back on is recommended). In Big Sur, additional steps are required to disable authentication of the system volume before changes, and afterward create a new snapshot.
You can also selectively disable parts of SIP. For example, csrutil enable --without kext will disable SIP's kernel extension restriction, but leave its other protections in place.
But please stop and think before disabling SIP, even temporarily or partially: do you really need to disable it, or is there a better (SIP-compliant) way to do what you want? Do you really need to modify something in /System/Library or /bin or whatever, or could it go in a better place like /Library or /usr/local/bin etc? SIP may "feel" constraining if you aren't used to it, and there are some legitimate reasons to disable it, but a lot of what it enforces it really just best practice anyway.
To underscore the importance of leaving as much of SIP enabled as much of the time as possible, consider the events of September 23, 2019. Google released an update to Chrome that tried to replace the symbolic link from /var to /private/var. On most systems, SIP blocked this and there were no bad effects. On systems with SIP disabled, it rendered macOS broken and unbootable. The most common reason for disabling SIP was to load unapproved (/improperly signed) kernel extensions (specifically video drivers); if they'd only disabled the kext restriction, they would not have been affected. See the official Google support thread, a superuser Q&A on it, and an Ars Technica article.
References and further info: WWDC presentation on "Security and Your Apps", a good explanation by Eldad Eilam on quora.com, the Ars Technica review of El Capitan, and an Apple support article on SIP, and a deep dive by Rich Trouton (who also posted an answer to this question).


When booting using Target Disk Mode, all iCloud, Adobe, Microsoft credentials are lost. Is there a way to keep the credentials? I boot an iMac 5k from a MacBook Pro drive using Target Disk Mode. This is great except all the credentials for iCloud, Adobe, and Microsoft get erased when switching "host" computer. The volume on the MBP is encrypted. Is there a way to not lose my credentials when sharing a boot drive like this?

It's frustrating to open my MBP up later and have to log into everything again, especially since some apps don't work until validated by iCloud/iTunes.

Here's some clarity for anyone looking. The root cause of the sign in when switching the host is that programs often store their license information x'ord (or otherwise encrypted with) a hash of the host hardware. This means that, when the hardware changes, the previously stored configuration is unrecoverable. I've tried spoofing the MAC address, but all programs I test seem to do a deeper hash using the hardware (e.g. system_profiler). I've found a number of workarounds, though:

Stop using apps from the App Store. While the app store uses this hardware hash technique, many indie programs don't. For those, buying directly works (e.g. Moom)
Where possible store the license information in an un-hashed version. For example, Sublime Text supports this by editing the license file (see https://forum.sublimetext.com/t/st3-license-not-syncing/11738)
I've found that the iCloud sign in behavior stopped when I created my own keychain (not the default login) and set it as default. Not using an App Store apps, and using this new default keychain, I get no prompts to log into my iCloud account on start up

After this, some programs that are still offensive are: Office 365, Creative Cloud, and Mathematica. I ended up finally ditching Creative Cloud - I've long switched to other tools, so the one part that I still use (Font syncing), I just downloaded all the fonts locally.

Overall this is pretty good now. After switching hosts, I get zero dialogs to log in. All my main flows work (Thunderbird, terminal, Sublime). Occasionally I have to log in, but much less of an issue than before.

Hope this helps.


How can I figure out if a Safari extension is using unreasonable memory/cpu? How can I figure out if a Safari extension is using unreasonable memory/cpu? I'm not really experiencing any unreasonable sluggishness, but I am starting to pile up on the extensions and was considering pruning the most performance draining ones just for good measure.

Disable the extension.  Run Safari for an hour (normal use) and note the kind of cpu/memory usages you get from it (using activity monitor or top).

Enable the extension.  Repeat.


Location of the resource files for the spinning wait cursor? For a presentation I am making, I want to find my Mac's system's default "Spinning Wait Cursor" resources.

I was told that the cursors are in here:
    /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/HiServices.framework/Versions/A/Resources/cursors

and here:
    /System/Library/Frameworks/WebKit.framework/Versions/Current/Frameworks/WebCore.framework/Resources/

Indeed, one can find some large and vectorized versions of most cursors in the first folder, and some other, smaller ones in the second.

But, there seems to be no beach ball in there.

I know one can find the graphics in high resolution online easily, but for my project I would need to get the original system files.

A screenshot or animated screenshot also wouldn't be what I'm looking for. I couldn't find the info anywhere.

Note 1:
From the GUI, a user can see the spinning wait cursor in various different sizes depending on the settings in System Preferences > Accessibility > Display > Cursor size, and then proceeding to crash their computer.

Note2:
I am not trying to change my OS' appearance.

Can anyone help me find where the resource is?
Is it hardcoded like the startup chime?

Cursors are rendered using CoreGraphics
The Wait Cursor or what is sometimes affectionately know as the "spinning beachball of death" is rendered in CoreGraphics (Apple's 2D rendering engine). Meaning, they are generated on the fly depending on what your preferences are set to (i.e. cursor size).
The CoreGraphics file is located at /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/CoreGraphics.framework/Versions/A/CoreGraphics
From my research I was able to find the parameters for the Wait Cursor: $23766C - $23D66C"
As far as working with images stored in CoreGraphics, I can point you to this tutorial:  Core Graphics on OS X Tutorial
Static Images of Wait Cursor
There is a directory that has static images of the cursors:
/System/Library/Frameworks/GLUT.framework/Versions/A/Resources
Within that directory you will find a number of TIFF files.  The specific file is waitCursor.tiff
Opening the file with preview (open waitCursor.tiff) yields the following graphic (it's quite small):

How I located the file....
The El Capitan cusors link you provided had broken img src links, so I used the one for Yosemite for reference as they are pretty much the same.  The icon you wanted is called the "Wait cursor."
So, using the find command in Terminal, I executed the following:
find /System -iname waitcursor*

The command basically says starting from the /System directory, look for all files with the name "waitCursor" in it regardless of case.
I guessed the format of the name from the file naming conventions in the directory you initially provided.  For example, the "Resize Down" cursor was called "resizedown".


Is there a way to absolutely force a Log Out, Shut Down, or Restart with open tabs and unsaved documents? I could not find any relatively simple way to log out of a public use Mac quickly with many tabs open and unsaved document in the background without resorting to sudo shutdown -h now.

The reason I ask is that sometimes a user will have his/her account logged into the iMacs here at school and they would try to log off and then leave, thinking it has completed but the process is interrupted by Safari and Office apps, leaving their account, mounts, and websites still accessible to the next person who sits down.

Obviously a shortcut string would be nice instead of posting a note telling the person to type arcane things in a terminal. For example, just having them try to find Terminal.app is going to be a chore.

This doesn't seem to make sense because the user can just quit each app and click a few dialog boxes but unlike you and I to whom repeatedly pounding Command-Q while hitting the spacebar and D keys are probably second nature.

At my college, they had an app in the Dock whose icon was a white square with LOG OUT in big red letters. It ran a script (put together with appify or similar) that killed all running apps and logged the user off. This also helped with people who didn't know the Mac and didn't look in the Apple menu for the logout menu item.


Does iPhone 2020 SE support Google Calendar at all? I have added shared Google Calendar's calendar to my iPhone 2020 SE's native calendar. And here is the story:

At 9 am my boss added a meeting for 4 pm
At 10 am I reviewed my daily tasks and I saw that meeting set for 4 pm
At 11 am my boss has changed it to 3 pm
At 3 pm I did not get any calendar notification and missed the meeting
At 4 pm I have opened my calendar and only then I saw meeting "magically" moving from 4 pm to 3 pm

What am I missing? How can I reliable work with a calendar / system / hardware for which 4 hours is not enough to update meetings, schedules and invitations?

It looks like Google/Apple supports it if you're using the latest versions of iOS. Maybe some settings aren't correct on your iPhone?
Go to Settings. Scroll down to Calendar. Select Accounts. At the bottom is "Fetch New Data" Is Push turned on? Also in the list above this you will see some Accounts. What are your settings for Gmail? Fetch > Manual or Fetch ?
Under Settings, Cellular. Is Calendar enabled for use with Cellular? If not and you aren't near a hotspot this could cause your calendar to stop updating.
Google Calendar features that don't work on Apple Calendar;

Email notifications for events

Is this what you were waiting for? An event change notification?

Create new Google calendars

Room Scheduler

The work around would be to use the Google Calendar App in order to get the notifications of event changes.


Borrowing an iPhone 4 - I've swapped the sim but can I access my email and iMessages without loosing the owner's? Can I access my mail and iMessages without wiping the iPhone first?  I want to return the phone to its pre-loan state when I'm done borrowing.

You can do this, however you should just back it up to the owners computer first (with iTunes or iCloud). Then wipe the phone and when you are done with it, the owner can restore all of his data.


Dropbox files are syncing but Finder is not displaying them I'm running Yosemite (and have been for a while) and suddenly new Dropbox files are not showing in Finder.  They are syncing properly, and I can see this in the Dropbox recently updated menu in the top bar, and also on Terminal if I cd to a folder and ls -l.  So they're there, they're just not showing up in Finder.

I recently update my work computer (so the place where the new files usually come from) to El Capitan.  However, the Mac which the new files are not displaying on is unchanged.  I'm assuming this is a coincidence, but it's maybe worth mentioning.

To make sure we are talking apples to apples when referring to dropbox.

In the OS the folder under public called "Dropbox" is not the same as the common "Dropbox" web sharing service.  The apple convention allows other users to drop files for you to access without granting other users access to other files in your user folder.  The apple "dropbox" is located in ~/public/dropbox/
Once you retrieve a file from that folder you would place it in your own file system wherever you want to access it from normally.

If you are using the "Dropbox" web sharing service you would need to install that program and set it up to sync with one of the folders in your home folder outside of the Public folder.

Assuming you are aware of everything I said above the Dropbox program will need to be updated and reconfigured for El-Capitan as new security elements were established to manage access to network resources from programs and services.

I would suggest uninstalling DropBox from your computer (whatever version you have installed) and then installing the updated version configure to the folder you want to sync and reboot your computer.  The files should start syncing then.  If they don't check the console to see what is occurring to block the access.


View in Mac App Store button does nothing The "View in Mac App Store" button used to work in Chrome though, I think I turned it off by mistake though, I'm not sure. The button I'm referring to is under each app's icon and looks like so:

There was a popup (2) which would show a bunch of stuff about opening the App Store app or not and I think there was a check box there that I clicked to not show the popup again though, for some reason when I did this the button itself stopped working and just does nothing instead of opening the app store (if that makes sense.)

Here is example of the popup I'm talking about (this is Firefox's version, however, which is a tad bit different.)

I've checked all the settings in Google Chrome itself (v24.0.1312.52) though, couldn't find anything for this and why I thought, I better ask here.

So, my questions are:

Where is the preference settings to open the App Store again, via the View in Mac App Store button; is it an OSX setting or a Chrome setting?
Is there a way to get the popups working again so I can change the preference if I set it wrong?
If this is in fact a Chrome specific question is this better suited SE site to ask this on?

Mac OSX v10.8.2 by the way.

Thanks!

In Chrome, go to Settings > Show advanced settings... > Privacy > Content settings... > Handlers > Manage handlers... and a window will pop up showing active and ignored protocol handlers. The macappstores protocol handler should be in the "ignored" list. Hover over it and click the X to delete it.

An alternative: try downloading and installing RCDefaultApp – it's a preference pane that lets you adjust protocol handlers, default apps for certain file types, etc. Once installed, go to System Preferences > Default Apps > Apps and you should see "App Store" in the list. Select that and make sure that all of the checkboxes in there (for macappstore, macappstores, etc.) are checked.


Airport connection problem, self-assigned IP address, not able to connect On some wireless networks that others can seem to access just fine, my MacBook Pro won't connect, I get an error like this in the Network pref panel:

AirPort has the self-assigned IP address 169.254.148.134
and will not be able to connect to the Internet.

This occasionally happens with unsecured networks, and also with secured networks where I know the password is right, and the password appears to be accepted.

Can also depend on the router.  Some routers allow you to change the 'index' or 'key' that is in use.  IE - you can define say 4 different keys or passwords that the wireless network can use, then you tell it which one you want to be in use right now.

My experience has been that Macs will always try to connect using index or key 0, never any other key.  The connector (MB or MBP) has to be using the same index or key number for the wireless handshake process to work properly.

I've had situations, therefore, where PC's were connecting just fine to a well-setup network and there was no reason the Mac shouldn't - and an hour or so later I figured out that that's what it had been the whole time.

Frustrating to say the least.  May be fixed now, I think last time I ran into it was an early 10.6.


What font does macOS Mojave use? What font is used in the macOS Mojave GUI? I am specifically looking for the font on the Menu bar.

I did find another post here, but it only showed the fonts for the old MacOS versions.
What's the font in Mac OS X's GUI?

The reason I am posting this question is because I am not sure if the font has changed after Mac OS El Capitan.

The system font used in the current version of Apple's software platforms is called San Francisco. It is a sans-serif typeface which is developed by Apple. It was first released in 2014. It is a proprietary in nature.

You can learn more about the typeface by checking these links:

Fonts - Apple Developer
Typography - Visual Design - macOS - Human Interface Guidelines - Apple Developer
San Francisco (sans-serif typeface)

From the Wikipedia page:

  It was the original system typeface of watchOS and tvOS and has replaced Helvetica Neue and Lucida Grande as the system typeface of macOS and iOS since OS X El Capitan and iOS 9

  Apple restricts the usage of the typeface by others. It is licensed to registered third-party developers only for the design and development of applications for Apple's platforms


I can't change my skype status to online After installing Lion, I have had trouble setting my status to Online.  It will stay on Away.  I can changed it to the other values, but it will not stay in "Online".

I contacted Skype about it and their answer was to uninstall, delete the ~/Developer/Application Support/Skype directory, and reinstall.  I believe that worked once, but it is now doing it again.

Has anyone else had this problem and come up with a solution?

As of Sep 28, 2011, I am using Skype 5.3.0.1093.

It has to do with the general settings of Skype.
In Skype preferences, on the General tab, make sure the "Set my status to Away after 10 minutes of inactivity" is not checked.
This worked for me.


Add a background to an Excel sheet (printed) I would like to add a background image to an Excel sheet covering the whole page and print it.

A background in Excel is only shown on screen and not printed.
Using a large image as header in Excel works but leaves a lot of white space.

I tried generating a 'background' PDF and using pdftk to merge them, which worked well a couple of years ago but I am no longer able to find a working version of pdftk (see for example https://trac.macports.org/ticket/48528).

pdftk excel.pdf background background.pdf output out.pdf

Is there another way to achieve the same result?

Edit

A screenshot of what I was able to achieve with a PDF background:

All the Excel solutions have some margins.

You mention in the comments that you are open to other solutions outside of Excel.  That being the case, I found Apple Numbers to do well with using a PDF form as a background image.  This requires no outside software to modify the original PDF.
Embedding the PDF
To begin with, select the PDF you wish to use.  If it is a multi-page document, I find it works best to separate the pages by copying them to individual sheets.  (They can still all be printed or exported together as a single document from Numbers.)
This example uses a generic Employment Application.
Create a new Numbers document

Use the default blank template and delete the table if desired.  Later, we will add tables that can offer far more flexibility of position over the PDF than can be done with a conventional spreadsheet table.
Paste your PDF onto the sheet.
Set the size to the Original Size using the button
set the position to 0x and 0y
Lock the image so it does not get moved again inadvertently (It can be unlocked at any time for adjustment, then re-locked)

Change the Print Setup

Enter the Print Setup by selecting File > Print ⌘+P
Set the Page Margins to 0"
Set the Header and Footer to -.5" or -1cm

2021 Note update: Numbers currently does not accept negative values for Header and Footer.

Overlay Tables

Add tables over your fields.  These tables can be independent and inter-connected, meaning that tricks like merging cells is unnecessary.  They can be inter-referenced for calculations just as can be done in Excel.

Formatting Tables
Tables can be formatted to taste.

Remove borders
Change font colors
Use formulas

With a little creativity, I think you would be easily able to use Numbers to create your documents.  I would recommend the creation of a template for future use if you need the same document over and over again.
Tip: Saving the finished document as a PDF. Use the Print Dialog to export as a PDF rather than the PDF export feature in Numbers.

Resulting PDF


I have an iPod 5 gen, how do I view my wifi password? I've lost the wifi password My iPod 5 gen is connected to wifi, I've lost the wifi password, how can I view the password on my iPod, could you please give me a step by step guide on doing this as I'm not tech savvy....

You can't see it on Iphone.   Security issue.   If you access the router from OSX it will be in Keychain access.