Cannot use Dictionary When I Try to use Apple's built in dictionary, I only get Wikipedia:

As you can see, I have enabled English and Français, But I only get Wikipedia. I also don't have the 'Apple Dictionary' in the Reference Sources.

This is a bug in the macOS 10.12 Sierra GM (Golden Master).

Apple has released a few more builds since its keynote on September 7. The first build was 16A320.

To update to the current build there are two options:

Wait until macOS Sierra's release date (tomorrow, September 20)
Download the latest macOS Sierra installer from the developer center.

What is your current macOS Sierra build number?


How to make Mac's mouse icon to be left hand friendly? I'm left handed and want to have a mouse icon that pointed to top right corner instead of to left. In Windows I've made my own mouse theme to achieve that. Then how about Mac?

You can use the following app called Mousecape:

https://github.com/alexzielenski/Mousecape/releases/tag/0.0.5

After downloading, installing both the app and the helper app, do the following:

Go to the Mousecape preferences and choose “I am left handed”.
Dump the system cursors into a cape from the menu: “Capes” → “Dump
Cursors”
Apply the Cursor Dump cape (right click → apply)

Done!


What is memory pressure, and how do I relieve it? I have had my machine for more than a year now, and I'm looking at Memory Pressure in the Activity Monitor.

What is this memory pressure and How do I "relieve" this memory pressure from my system?

I've done reboots, and it shows clear for a while, but eventually builds back up.

Memory Pressure is a better indicator of the health of the virtual memory system than the traditional UNIX measure of free, inactive and active pages.

For a brush up on the previous measure, have a read at:

Isn't Inactive memory a waste of resources?

Now, the caching of files is drawn as a good thing (green memory pressure) and you will only see the pressure raise in the main window of Activity Monitor when you have a large proportion of wired memory or the system starts swapping RAM to storage and evicting too many cache pages.

The image from your window looks perfectly fine - so I wouldn't worry about reducing the pressure. If you want to reduce the pressure, you can do so by quitting apps and then letting the system manage that memory. If your Mac can accommodate more RAM, adding RAM would reduce the pressure for the same line up of programs running and using memory.


Making music CDs with ITunes I have 4 CDs I made from music tracks using iTunes and I was wondering if those are MP3 or some other format. Is it possible to read them with a non-MP3 player, such as a car CD player?

If you create a playable CD with iTunes, then the software converts them to a format that can be played through any hi-fi or CD player and burns that to a disc. If it was a data CD you used, then that works in a similar way to a USB flash drive, just copying the files and burning them to a CD. These will not be playable in a CD player, but you can get the files off from a computer.
Hope this helps.


set up Caps Lock as a shortcut for changing the input language I want to set up Casp Lock as a shortcut for changing the input language. There are some solutions like this. But it requires installing some software and doing tricks. Is there a way to do it in a neat way, say through terminal command?

Yes, you can use Caps Lock to change input language without third-party software.
All you need is a custom-made keyboard layout (usually made with Ukelele ) that has two alternative sets of characters bound to Caps lock=on and Caps lock=on and Shift=on states.

Pros: zero-lag, no weird key remapping hacks needed
Cons: buit-in input source indicator becomes useless, looking at the Caps LED is not very convenient for touch-typists.

To mitigate the "cons" I use lightweight third-party app called Capster that changes the icon in the menubar depending on the Caps lock state.
I also use small Applescript to disable Caps lock delay.

I'm using this method for many years and never looked back.

This is my bundle for Russian language (with additional Ukrainian characters bound to alt+key)
https://github.com/falcn/Caps-layout


Can't download apps on IPad 2 Whenever I go to try and download an app it tells me that I have already purchased it and don't need to pay again then the download stops. I am using iOS 7. The download stops in iTunes.

I've had similar problems in the past and my solutions were pretty simple.

Sign Out and Sign in iTunes & App Store, in the settings app.

Delete your iCloud and Sign in, in settings.

  Make sure you select keep data and select merge when you sign back in.


How do I change the sheet color in Numbers 3.x? Right now the sheet color is white. But it is hard on my eyes. How do I change the sheet  color to black? I'm using a Numbers 3.x in OSx 10.9.3

This is currently not possible. The closest workaround as far as I'm aware is to fill the area with a locked rectangle of your desired colour.

You can provide feedback to Apple regarding this at the following page:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/numbers.html


Delete a standard user from Mac OS I created a new Admin account in Sierra High and needed to delete the previous admin account which is marked now as the standard user. However, after unlocking as admin and selecting the respective user that I would like to delete, I see the - sign is marked as Grey.

This is all accounts and I would like to delete the mac user account,

$ dscacheutil -q user | grep -A 3 -B 2 -e uid:\ 5'[0-9][0-9]'
name: mac
password: ********
uid: 501
gid: 20
dir: /Users/mac
shell: /bin/bash
--
--
name: chaklader
password: ********
uid: 502
gid: 20
dir: /Users/chaklader
shell: /bin/bash

How do I delete the respective account? I find a code snippet to run on the terminal, i.e, sudo /usr/bin/dscl . -delete "/Users/mac". Should I try that and will work out?

Update:

As an answer suggested, I'm not logged in to the the fast user switching menu.

As it was asked, I run who in the terminal and get the result,

$ who

chaklader console  Dec 28 06:01
chaklader ttys000  Dec 28 14:51

So, in brief the other user, mac was not in the terminal.

The – button is greyed out for a user when the user is still logged in with Fast User Switching. Log out the other user you're trying to delete, then return to System Preferences with this user account and try again. You can restart to be sure that user is inactive as well.

You can delete a user from command line and you need to be careful you have the exact short name correct or you will erase the wrong data. In this case, the short name is mac. Run the following to delete the user and separately delete the user's home folder. If you want to keep the home folder, don't run the rm command.

sudo dscl . delete /Users/mac
sudo rm -rf /Users/mac

If the dscl command fails, reset the password on the account and retry the above commands.

sudo passwd mac


Mac stuck at loading bar, doesn't start My mac is stuck at a white loading bar on the start up. I start the mac up, wait and at about 40% the loading bar stops my mouse appears for a moment (i can move it) and dissappears as a rotating transparent loading circle appears, and then it stops, the mouse cursor appears again, dissappears and the circle loading bar becomes whiter and keeps loading again, this over and over again slower and slower. When i try Safe mode the same thing happens.

However when i start the mac in recovery mode (command /R) the mac runs perfectly but then disk utility, disk verification and repair disk preferences don't do a thing when i reboot afterwards. I've also checked the file system, reset nvram and the smc and nothing happened but the screen became brighter and the boot sound got louder.

I've also tried to reinstall yosemite to 10 but the same thing happened after installation, but there was no apple logo. Then when you try and reboot it, apple logo appears and the same thing happens, smd you still can get into recovery mode.
It was working fine until now except i couldn't update or download anything from the app store.
I really need this so if any of you experts have any question please ask.

Maybe you have a problem with the internal private ram used by the system so it cant’ boot up. You can try this manipulation (2 or 3 times to be sure).

If it doesn’t work, try booting your Mac without extensions (as explained here).

If it still doesn’t work maybe you can try to install macOS from the recovery partition to an external hard drive and then boot up by maintaining alt before the Apple logo. If it works maybe you have a problem with your hard drive or the partition table (GUID) and if it doesn’t work it’s most certainly a hardware problem.


How can I move everything from my MacBook Pro Retina mid 2012 to a new MacBook Pro without reinstalling everything I have a MacBook Pro 15 Retina (mid 2012) that has my working environment set up - Parallels Desktop with Windows machine, some software for Mac and Windows.

I am to start using a new MacBook Pro Retina 13 (2013) tommorow.

Is there a backup and restore procedure for Mac I can use to have a reinstall everything-free migration from one machine to another?

My MacBook Pro is Running the latest OS X Mavericks 10.9.3.

Thanks

Several ways to do this, you have partially answered your own question... Most "hassle free" way would be using Migration Assistant on both Macs.

The procedure is described with a step by step procedure below:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5872

I would suggest you avoid the Wi-Fi option altogether, due to a lot lower speeds than a thunderbolt cable, but it can be used if you have no thunderbolt cable, or no external HDD that you can create a Time Machine backup on.


How to change the order of input method I am using OS X 10.8

I wish I could change the order of input method.

How do I do that?

To setup input order (taken from here):

Go to System Preferences
Click on Language & Text and select Input Sources Tab
Select language which have multiple input orders like Chinese for example
Whilst highlighted click on Keyboard Shortcuts button to the right
Check "Select the previous input source" and "Select next source in input menu"
Now click on the keyboard shortcut for both the options as mentioned in point 5 and enter your convenient options
you can now use those 2 new setup shortcuts to easily cycle between input sources.


Cannot link X11 xQuartz 2.7.1, no architecture amd64? I Cannot link X11 xQuartz 2.7.1, no architecture amd64???????
I have a simple program that uses X11.  it runs fine in an old xcode on an Intel Mac.
But now I have a mac Mini M1 and xCode cannot find a xquartz amd64 architecture.
I have done a bunch of -L /usr/opt/X11   linker control lines  but still no go.
Any ideas?   The xQuartz documentation is mum about what architecture it supports!
I think it is finding the right library path as NOW it doesn't complain about not finding the entry points like XCreateWindow, instead it complains about the wrong architecture.
Thanks,
grg

There is a port of Xquartz to Apple Silicon - searching the web does give a few links
One I found https://github.com/XQuartz/XQuartz/issues/14#issuecomment-754400158 is by the person who maintains XQuartz

Yeah, it works fine and has since very early in our bringup of Apple Silicon Macs. There just isn't a package available because nobody has taken over managing releases, so your best bet is to use MacPorts.

and from https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/native-x11-support-on-apple-silicon.2274198/

X11 in MacPorts is functional and native on the M1. (I should know, I did some of the work to get it running.)

sudo port install xorg

MacPorts equivalent of Xquartz.app is X11.app.


Booting Mountain Lion in 32-Bit Mode There are certain applications I use that required me to boot in 32-bit mode in OS X 10.7 (Lion). I could do this by holding down the "2" and "3" keys upon startup. This no longer works since I have upgraded to OS X 10.8.

Is there still a way I can force Mountain Lion to boot in 32-bit mode?

No,
Mountain Lion only boots using a 64-bit kernel which does not support loading 32-bit kernel extensions.
via Arstechnica


How can I back-up an external drive while preserving attributes, folder creation date and showing progress? Final goal

Create a copy of all files one external hard drive to another external hard drive, both formatted as HFS+.
Preserve the folder creation date.
Preserve finder colour label.
During the copy I want to see some kind of progress indicator.

Using cp

If I copy using

cp -a /origin/folder/ /destination/folder

this only preserves file creation dates, not folder creation dates.

Using rsync 3.1.3

If I copy using rsync 3.1.3 (installed via Homebrew)

rsync --recursive --info=progress2 -hhh --xattrs --times --crtimes /origin/folder /destination/folder

this preserves folder creation dates, colour labels, but riddles the output with below errors (I can't hide them with the --quiet option), so I cannot keep track of the progress

rsync: get_xattr_names: llistxattr("/origin/folder/filename",1024) failed: Operation not permitted (1)

Just after I posted this question I found a solution.

I noticed that the rsync: get_xattr_names errors all had one thing in common: the files that raised the error where always ._ files.

I read that ._ files are used to store information that would go into a HFS+ extended attribute. As I'm copying between HFS+ drives I figured I don't need these files.

So I added an --exclude argument to my rsync command which excludes all filenames that start with ._

rsync --exclude="._*" --recursive --info=progress2 -hhh --xattrs --times --crtimes /Volumes/origin/ /Volumes/destination

The command:

Filters ._ files beforehand (--exclude="._*"), preventing get_xattr_names errors.
Preserves the folder creation dates via the --times --crtimes argument.
Preserves Finder colour labels via the --xattrs argument.
Shows progress in a human readable format via the --info=progress2 -hhh argument.
(Added bonus: preserves custom folder icons as well, via the --xattrs argument)


View and edit/delete photos with Mac Photos App without importing I would like to view my photos and edit or delete the ones that I don't like. I would also like to do this while keeping the photos in their original location (e.g. an external SD card).

Is it possible to use Mac Photos App to do the edit/delete without importing the photos?

As long as the SD card can support the size, create the Photos Library in the location of the SD card (formatted as Mac OS extended (Journaled). You may also have to drag the photos from the SD card into the newly created library from the Finder rather than use the normal import interface sidebar from within the Photos application.


Siri: "Play all songs shuffled" in iOS 10 If I am currently playing a song (unshuffled) and use Siri to "Play all songs shuffled", Music continues playing the same song even though Siri is showing that "Shuffle" is considered on. Tapping Next does nothing. Is there a workaround for this?

Hmm, odd, I always tell Siri to "play my music" and it starts to play my library shuffled, works eventhough I'm playing one track on repeat (one track from one album).

I always have shuffle on, you can try that!


Is there a way to enable HiDPI scaling for external monitors on MacOS? https://www.macrumors.com/2016/09/23/loss-of-resolution-scaling-macos-sierra-update/

Is there a workaround to get HiDPI mode on external monitors on macOS Sierra?

Use SwitchResX. It allows you to enable HiDPI mode. It also offers the possibility of "faking" a HiDPI mode by scaling (I use a fake 1080p HiDPI on my 2K thunderbolt display). No remarkable performance issues reported.


Display brightness issue on MacBook Pro I'm using a 2011 13" MacBook Pro. For the past few days the brightness always resets to full on boot up and just when the spinning wheel stops loading (before desktop loads), it dims automatically to the level I've set it at.

The brightness level is sometimes maintained during boot up but its very sporadic.

I've already tried resetting SMC and PRAM but neither seems to have helped.

I thought my new Mountain Lion install had something to do with it so I reinstalled Snow Leopard but the issue still persists.

What could possibly be the issue? Any help will be appreciated.

I've also noticed that my Macbook Pro boot sequence only occasionally ups the brightness to full when rebooting. (However, I reboot so rarely that I don't really mind.) I thought it was just me! I'm running OSX Lion (10.7.4), btw.

I like the suggested answer that the user preference value isn't read soon enough, but I suspect that the issue is that the appropriate driver isn't loaded until the last moment. From what I understand, the user prefs would be readable at any time during the boot sequence (assuming the root/boot disk volume is mounted, anyway), but if the driver isn't loaded, the value wouldn't be applied. That would account for the display being really bright for some time, but it doesn't explain the occasional (for me, about every second bootup) dimmer value.

Of course, if the dimmer code is part of the BIOS, that's completely wrong, and it probably would be down to when the user prefs were read and fed to the driver!

The strange unpredictable behaviour may depend on what sequence of events occurs when shutting down; it's possible (though not probable) that in some situations, the brightness register isn't reset when shutting down. This probably wouldn't happen if the machine was off for some hours/days/weeks. It would be interesting to see if there's a pattern to the behaviour though!

It might be possible to re-order the sequence so that the display brightness setting is applied sooner rather than later, but it will still be some number of clock cycles between the LED backlight being turned on and the appropriate driver load/preference read.


Cursor changes position in input line after I highlight some text to overwrite it My problem is that when I highlight some text (doesn't matter where or in which application) in order to write over it the cursor, sometimes, suddenly changes position causing a lot of typos.

Let's say I've searched the phrase "stack exchange apple" in Google.

Now I want to search for stack overflow so I first highlight "exchange" and "apple" this way:

and then I simply type "overflow" in order to write over the highlighted text. What I sometimes end up with is this:

And I can assure you that I didn't press any arrow keys or trackpad or mouse button of sort. I simply wrote in the keyboard "overflow" but what happened is that after I pressed "O" the cursor changed position and the word ended up like this.

I'm running macOS Sierra v10.12.4 on a Mid-2014 15" Macbook Pro

Are there things that can fail or settings to help with this?

The most likely culprit once you rule out Bluetooth mouse / trackpad and any wrist or liquid input is hardware.

If you can reproduce this on a clean os install onto an external drive (to avoid wiping your normal drive and files and apps) it could be:

failing battery pressing underneath the trackpad
failing or damaged capacitive sensing grid
failing chip that processes the capacitive touch sensor

It's unlikely to be software, but I'd still download and install a clean and updated os to be sure unless you have close and easy access to hardware service.


How can I run a job once a day with launchd, regardless of when the computer is on? I would like to run a shell script daily, but not necessarily at a specific time. The computer the script runs on is switched on at irregular times, and no assumptions can be made when that will be.

For that, I would like to get launchd to behave a bit like anacron: It only needs to run the job once a day, at any convenient time.

Most posts I have seen here or on other sites describe things like "running every day at 05:00", which is not helpful for me if the machine is off at that time...

How do I write a launchd plist specifying that behaviour?

Launchd will run your jobs next time the mac wakes from sleep. So if you shut down your mac, this won't work. You will need to put your mac to sleep to get your daily script to run when the mac wakes if the last time it should have run was during the sleep duration.

man launchd.plist:

  If the system is asleep, the
       job will be started the next time the computer wakes up.  If multiple intervals transpire
       before the computer is woken, those events will be coalesced into one event upon wake from
       sleep.

Or in other words: You don't have to do anything specific, it's the default behavior anyway.

If you also want to run the command once after reboot, add

<Key>RunAtLoad</Key>
<true/>

to your launchd plist.


Risk vs benefit of using LastPass on Chrome in OS X? Some time ago I made the switch from Firefox to Google Chrome. When I was on Firefox I was a heavy user of LastPass. Part of the reason was that Firefox didn't use OS X's excellent Keychain Access program for password management. Is this still the case?

Now I've been on Chrome for quite some time and I am pleased with the way it integrates with OS X, exp. re: Keychain Access.

There is a LastPass extension for Google Chrome. I wonder if I'm missing out on much by not using it. I also wonder if, in some ways, my data are less secure if I put all my stuff out there 'in the cloud'. Thinking of recent missteps by Dropbox et al. makes me a little queasy. There are other concerns such as making a large number of highly random passwords and storing them in LastPass, only for LastPass to be sold. All of a sudden I'd have quite a task on my hands to get all those random passwords back.

With these things in mind, is it advisable to use, and rely upon, LastPass in a Chrome-only OS X environment? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I don't have enough experience and knowledge of the LastPass folks to answer your questions. The dropbox issue is a non-issue if the data stored on the site was encrypted well before it ever was sent off your computer.

In general, I have different criteria for selecting software that is critical for me. Some random plug in, pictures, a cool app that doesn't store say, banking information. I'm all about giving people the benefit of the doubt.

My core operating system and my password generator/manager isn't time for that sort of experimentation. I am very happy using 1Password and understand their business model. Yes, for a time it was free, but it was obvious that they had a sustainable and reasonable pricing model. Now that they have (I hope) millions of users, they can charge a modest cost to ensure they have great response, great support and most importantly, great engineering. I will make more allowances for initial downsides when I believe more in the long term decisions of the company making my core tech and less likely to dabble in newcomer efforts (no matter how worthy they seem).

I would evaluate whatever software you choose by trying LastPass, 1Password and several others with fake data, but not trust your critical information to software until you are comfortable knowing who made it, how they secure data, and that they won't likely sell out to a low bidder at the first wave of $25k.  The value of millions of people to add to a corporate mailing list is attractive to owners that don't have an otherwise viable business model. I try hard not to be part of their short sell-off strategy by giving them my most valuable information for free.

I hope this helps you frame your decision and someone else that has gotten comfortable with LastPass weighs in with their take on your questions. It's a good one and high time more users start holding their authentication credentials a little closer and more securely between sites.


Mac book pro Sierra does not shutdown - stays idle with a black screen and mouse pointer I'm having trouble shutting down my MBP early 2015 model(MF839) with retina display. Sierra had been working smooth for almost 2 months and now I'm getting this issue.

Once I shut down, the screen goes black with just my mouse pointer visible on screen and stays like that forever until I long press the power button to force shut down.

I had faced similar issue when I installed Sierra OS, and that time
it was due to MySql incompatibility. Solved it by reinstalling MySql.
I'm sure some process is blocking my mac to shut down correctly.
Tried sudo shutdown -h now and it works.
I've tried turning off the FileVault and reinstalling MySql, but didn't help.
I've tried resetting PRAM and SMC. I've tried reinstalling Mac OS(in
recovery mode keeping all the applications and data intact).
I couldn't point out any processes causing this issue from Activity
Monitor or from the Console logs. Tried searching for the
shutdown-log file and could n't find it.

Only option left for me is to take it to service center and they will just format and reinstall my mac(I would loose all my data and have to reinstall every single app once again).

Any thoughts on this?

Thanks,
Sudheesh CM

The solution I have found  after long suffering this problem in High Sierra after trying to upgrade from version 10.13.5 to 10.13.6. I deleted these files through terminal, then rebooted.

You may need to run with admin permissions, i.e. "sudo rm -f etc." and enter your admin password when asked:

rm -f /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow.plist

rm -f /private/var/db/.AppleUpgrade

rm -f /private/var/db/.SoftwareUpdateAtLogout

reboot


Touch ID doesn't work on MacBook Pro 2019 I have troubles with Touch ID on my MacBook Pro 2019 all the time, it just don't recognize my fingers. If I try to add a new fingerprint the red lines animation doesn't show up like nothing is touching the sensor.

I was going to take my laptop to repairs but accidentally discovered the offender is my LED desktop lamp. My laptop usually sits on a stand and there is a desktop lamp shining right on the keyboard from about ~50cm. If I turn the lamp on - Touch ID stops working, if I turn the lamp off - it does work flawlessly. It seems like bright LED light shining on my finger somehow interferes with Touch ID sensor. Go figure!


How to make bootable CDROM or USB from floppy? I have a bootable floppy that boots just fine on old PCs.
I want to boot it however on my 2015 Macbook Pro, which does not have the BIOS (whereas my 2013 MBP did).
So I cannot on the 2015 model even boot a Linux CD.

I have an ISO header that will let me create a readable CDROM, but not a bootable CDROM. (Command is: cat isoheader.img floppy.img > cdrom.iso)

The Apple bless command gives an error when I add the --legacy switch.

What to do?

PS: I cannot use bootcamp as I do not have enough free drive space.

If you don't have the ISO use disk utility to take an image of your floppy.
Use the app from etcher.io to "burn" this ISO to a USB drive.

Now if the image itself is not bootable, that might be a better answered on a different stack-exchange.


How to change JAVA_HOME with a Bash script I have created a Bash script with the following line:

export JAVA_HOME="/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_75.jdk/Contents/Home" 2> bash_errors.txt

I have also made the file executable

chmod 777 bash_test

When I run the script and check

java -version
java version "1.8.0_65"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_65-b17)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.65-b01, mixed mode)

However if I run directly in Bash

export JAVA_HOME="/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_75.jdk/Contents/Home"

And then check

java -version
java version "1.7.0_75"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_75-b13)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 24.75-b04, mixed mode)

The path changes.  Furthermore, if I change the script line to

sudo export JAVA_HOME="/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_75.jdk/Contents/Home" 2> bash_errors.txt

I get the following in the bash_errors.txt file

sudo: export: command not found

So I know the script is executing, but JAVA_HOME doesn't change when executed from script.

What am I not understanding?  How do I change the JAVA_HOME environment variable from a script?

My goal is to permanently change JAVA_HOME from 8 to 7 - I am eventually going to add .bash_profile to my default directory.

  Edit

Trying to change files mentioned in linked reference are read only, even using sudo vim:

When you are executing a script, you are creating a new process off the interactive shell that lives for the length of your script.

By default this child process inherits your interactive shell environment, and you can alter/modify it. So the contents of the JAVA_HOME environment is altered in the child process, but the child process can't affect the environment of the parent process in your interactive shell.

You can setup the environment for your interactive shell in various places depending on the shell (~/.bash_profile is one for bash as you alluded to in your question).  See the linked answer in the comment to your question for the best way to 'permanently set' environment values.


BootCamp partition error even though my drive is one partition I am attempting to install Windows 8.1 on my machine (a mid 2014 MacBook Pro running El Capitan) and I keep running into a BootCamp error in the first step that says

  The startup disk must be formatted as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume or already partitioned by Boot Camp Assistant for installing Windows.

However, the startup disk is partitioned as a single HFS+ partition as verified by the output below:

$diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                  Apple_HFS MAC HDD                 499.9 GB   disk0s1

Why does Boot Camp think my disk is not partitioned correctly?

I've read several posts about this error message, but all describe how to repartition the drive instead of why a correctly partitioned drive may cause this error.

I was able to install Windows after doing two things. I'm not positive which one did the trick as I did them both in between an attempt to run bootcamp. These are the things I did in order:

Install reFind... doing this added the missing EFI partition that was mentioned I was missing in the comments for this question.
Use the reFind partition editor to fix the Master Boot Record (MBR) table for my HDD. This partition editor can be found on the reFit menu (launched by choosing the reFit option on the reFind menu)

After this, I launched mac, started boot camp, and the 'status: partitioning disk' message/bar restarted and then it was able to finish partitioning and I have since installed Windows successfully. Any hints on why this finally worked would be much appreciated!

Also, something to note is that after I installed reFind, my partition table (output to diskutil list) was:

/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_HFS MAC HDD                 500.1 GB   disk0s2


Transfer file between iPhones using Bluetooh Can I transfer data between two iPhones via Bluetooth?

Yes.

There's an AppStore app called Bluetooth Fileshare ($0.99), but it has very low reviews. Also, check out Bluetooth Photo Share (free) if you're only interested in transferring photos.

If you have a jailbroken iPhone, you can use iBlueNova ($5.99), but there might be better/free ways to do file transfer if you're already jailbroken.


Export from Notes.app to Markdown format? Using notes is handy as you can have it in multiple devices and makes transition almost effortless. I'm willing to move some of these to Markdown so I can share the content and add formatting to it.

Is it possible to be done by default? The only export option is to PDF. If there is some hack that I can apply I'm happy to spend some cycles on that but maybe there is already an option I'm missing.

I've find a few questions pointing to apps to directly do this (Editor or notes application with Markdown support?), but I'm trying to find an alternative with the native app.

Unfortunately the native app does not offer this.

There is an app available for macOS in the App Store called Exporter that offers this. I am not affiliated with the software.

Another option is exporting to PDF in Notes, (File > Export as PDF…), then exporting to Markdown using a website like this one: PDF To Markdown Converter


Reinstalling from Time Machine, what changes? I'm having an issue that seems may be resolved by formatting and reinstalling, but if I do this and then recover from Time Machine during the install (assuming a backup just prior to the format), would anything be different? My issue may be the result of some kind of corrupted file associations or something so if the restore operation is a copy it may fix it, but if it's a bit for bit backup I don't see it making a difference.

If it matters, I have a early 2013 Retina MBP which has an SSD.

As a rule of thumb system files are preserved from the fresh install and your data is copied from the Time Machine.

You've mentioned file associations — I presume you're referring to file associations with your own files, and therefore a Time Machine restore would copy those associations. The main exception to this is if the application that the file is associated with is missing. Then the file would change it's association to the 'next best' app.

From the rule of thumb you can generally guess what'll be restored and what'll be left alone, but feel free to add more specific detail to your question.


unable to restore backup because not enough space I tried restoring a backup I created from my iPhone (it had more than 20Gb free out of 64Gb) but when I wanted to restore this backup I found out the backup iTunes created was 61.5Gb, so whenever I try restoring it says not enough storage. Any way I could restore data still? I know I have 22Gb of photos, if it could help.
I have tried to factory reset my phone so I can choose the "restore from itunes backup" option, and still I had the same problem.

That backup is awfully larger than it should be. I dont think you'll be able to restore it on that size, you'll need a 128GB model for the update to work since most OS sizes are between 8GB - 4GB of that base memory. Thats why you are having problems.


iOS 11 Ringtone for No Caller ID Is there any way (even a brute-force workaround) to assign a unique ringtone to "No Caller ID"?

Manually assigning a ringtone to all contacts and setting the default ringtone to something different is not an acceptable solution to the problem, because both unknown callers and No Caller ID callers will use the default ringtone.  I would like a ringtone that's unique specifically for No Caller ID.  Thanks!

The following is an old trick, I don't know if it's still working :

Create a new contact called something like Non-Caller or No-Caller
Enter 000-000-0000 for the phone number.
Assign your unique ringtone or/and block it

src: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6040239

Personally, I'm using the Truecaller app:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/truecaller/id448142450?mt=8


Battery cycles for rMBP and recharges? So I got my first Apple laptop, a Retina MacBook Pro.

I heard that its best to let the laptop discharge until 0% in order to restart the battery cycle or something like that. However I know that lithium batteries have no memory effect and the only thing I would be restarting is the time estimator that shows how much time is left for use.

I may be wrong so I want expert advice from you guys here, do I need to do anything regarding charging my laptop?
Also, how much time am I supposed to expect when surfing the web, you tubing, Facebook, occasional Photoshop, Dropbox, etc.?

I think the best advice can be given by Apple:

http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html

In a nutshell, don't store it at extreme temperatures, store it at 50% charge if it'll be off for a long time, use it occasionally (don't leave it plugged into the wall 24/7/365), or at the very least do a complete discharge every month or two, is my understanding of how best to treat it.

As to expected life, I'm seeing about 6 hours realistically on my MBPr (2.6GHz), with the screen brightness at something I can actually see.


How can I backup my entire iTunes Match library to an external disk? My built-in SSD is relatively limited when it comes to storing all my media files, which is why most of my iTunes library lives in the cloud via iTunes Match, for streaming on demand.

In the near future I'm going to be disconnected from the internet for about a month, and I want to have a offline copy of all my music so I can continue to listen to it, but I don't want to download it all to my main iTunes library.

How can I create a separate, offline library containing every song I have in iTunes Match?

The solution is relatively simple. Make sure you have enough space available on your external drive (I needed about 100GB).

Hold option (alt for Windows users) when opening iTunes and choose to create a new library. Save this library to a location on your external drive.

Turn on iTunes Match, select every song (⌘+A), right click, and choose download. Wait as your entire music collection is downloaded.

Now you can switch between your local library and offline library whenever it suits you by holding option as you start iTunes and choosing your preferred library.


MBP won't restart or shutdown (macOS Sierra) I'm desperately trying to fix the issue which doesn't let my MacBook Pro restart/shutdown properly. When I click on restart or shutdown, it gets stuck when the display gets black (but still slightly on, also keyboard lights are on) forever (once let it try to restart/shutdown the whole night).

When I bought the mbp, it was El Capitan installed. I've upgraded to Sierra (now 10.12.3) and then problems started, but I'm really not if it happened right after the upgrade or sometime later.

After booting into safe mode, restart/shutdown works.

Things I've tried so far:

close/force quit all apps before restart/shut down
relaunch finder before restart/shut down
removed all apps from login items
tried another user profile
ran "First Aid" on Disk Utility
restart/shut down works after booting into safe mode
reseted SMC
reseted NVRAM
ran Apple Diagnostics (no issues)
ran cache clearing commands:

rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/*;
rm -rf ~/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/*;
sudo rm -rf /Library/Caches/*;
sudo rm -rf /System/Library/Caches/*;
atsutil databases -removeUser;
sudo atsutil databases -remove;
sudo atsutil server -shutdown;
sudo atsutil server -ping;
sudo rm -rf /var/folders/*

deleted all printers
tried shutdown -r now
removed com.apple.finder.plist & com.apple.sidebarlists.plist
ran a system update so permissions are going to be repaired

Fixing permissions on my drive solved the issue.  I was able to find a solution on this Apple Discussion thread.


Offline iPhone app to recognize Japanese words I am looking for an offline iPhone app to recognize Japanese words:

I take a picture of a kanji or Japanese word or short piece of Japanese text
The app recognizes the kanji and converts it to text that I can copy and paste where I like (for instance in a dictionary)

Note: Several such application rely on the weocr web service. But I am looking for an offline app, that can be used without connecting to the Internet (for instance in the subway). Sharp phones are very good at OCR, and they don't need to access the internet to recognize kanjis.

If it doesn't need to be OCR from a photo, you can turn on the Chinese handwriting (traditional) 'keyboard', and draw it with your finger.  This works for characters that are the same in hanzi and kanji (which is most but not all).  Then you have text you can look up in any offline dictionary, e.g., Kotoba.


Need offline iOS GPS app for Southeast Asia Looking for recommendations for a good offline GPS tracker for SE Asia (Singapore, Cambodia, and Thailand, specifically). I was looking at Gaia GPS, but I can't quite tell from their site if they support anything outside of the US and Canada.

The idea is that I want to have GPS tracks of my wanderings so I can later sync them up with the photos I take (it'll make it a lot easier to figure out what I'm looking at in my pictures when I go to work with them months after I get back). I'll be in areas with terrible cell reception, so ability to track solely on GPS is a must - otherwise I'd just be using RunKeeper.

I'm planning to take my 3GS just because it'll be easier to get a SIM card, so whatever it is has to support the 3GS. This should be mostly fine since the 3GS runs iOS 6, but figured it was worth a mention.

Thoughts?

Gaia GPS has many map sources that cover SE Asia. I am one of the developers, and you can email support@gaiagps.com if you have any questions.


How to get Gmail Categories in macOS Mail app? I'm using the default Gmail inbox, where emails are magically filed under the proper tab: Primary, Social, Update and Forum.

In Mail on OS X Yosemite (10.10) however, all end up in the Inbox.

I can see my custom labels (I use several) under "Google" in the left panel. Under Mailboxes, I have of course the standard Inbox, Drafts, Outbox... But the Gmail tabs appear nowhere, not even as folders.

I could maybe create rules on Gmail that would match the tabs, e.g. if this is a "Social" email, then add a label "Social", but this seems clumsy.

Is there an easy/elegant way to enable it?

EDIT

You can follow the instructions from this page (too long to reproduce them here). It boils down to creating server filters for each category (=tab), in order to archive the email from your inbox and apply a label on it. Then, it will show nicely in OSX Mail. Some caveats though:

The search function in Mail does not work on all folders at once
You lose the small tab counter, telling you for instance you have 3 new emails in Social. The counter resets itself as soon as you hit the tab in Gmail. Not in OSX Mail

Unfortunately, Gmail doesn’t expose its “Categories” to IMAP. I'm using Mail.app as my email client, and I had the same desire to have my mail categorized with Gmail’s bayesian-or-whatever classifiers, so I found a fix.

This workaround uses filters to automatically apply labels to categories. Once labeled the old fashioned way, they can then be exposed to IMAP.

Go to Gmail/Settings/Filters
Using a search operator enter category:[chosen category] in the “Has the words” field and click “Create filter with this search.“
Check “Apply the label:” and select or create new label
(optional) Check “Also apply filter to matching conversations.“
Create filter
Go to Gmail/Settings/Labels and show the label in IMAP
(optional) Hide the label from label and message lists

This will link up your Gmail categories to your Mail.app.


How can I stop Parallels Desktop from listing Apps from a VM available in Spotlight? I'm trying to stop Windows apps installed on a VM in Parallels from appearing in Spotlight search results on the host Mac. System details:

Mac OS: 10.12.6
Parallels Desktop Business Edition Version: 11.2.3 (32663)
Windows OS Version (running in Parallels): Windows 10 Pro 1709

I've made sure that in Parallels setting for this VM, the setting Options ➡ Applications ➡ Share Windows applications with Mac is set to false:

In addition, as suggested here, I've added ~/Applications (Parallels)/ to the Spotlight privacy blacklist:

Finally, as suggested by @JMY1000, I rebuilt the entire Spotlight index on my Mac, by following these instructions.

And yet still, I can see Windows Apps listed in Spotlight results:

What can I do to remove Windows apps from Spotlight results?

I just figured it out after searching the sources below.

System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy
Drag your "Applications (Parallels)" folder onto the "Privacy" tab

I also added the folder with my Parallels VM (called "Parallels" in screenshot below) just to be sure I wasn't indexing any Parallel's info

Exiting System Preferences will rebuild the Spotlight index without Parallel's apps

Note: If you have Alfred installed, go to Alfred Preferences > Advanced > Clear Application Cache

Sources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeGQeTrAcn8
http://www.zenandmac.com/2013/06/03/how-to-prevent-parallels-applications-from-appearing-in-alfred-search-results/
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201716


MBP Touch bar control strip gone The control strip of my touch bar is not working anymore. Even after a full restart or start in safe mode.

There's nothing on the 'screen'. (Neither in Mac or Windows via Bootcamp)
It doesn't respond to taps.
In keyboard preferences the usual touchbar related properties are gone as well, as if my Mac doesn't even have a touch bar.

The Touch ID part (fingerprint) works fine though...

Any steps I can take to diagnose this?

The first things I would do are resetting your NVRAM followed by resetting your SMC. If resetting these doesn't resolve it, run Apple Diagnostics.

Before doing any of the following, ensure your MBP isn't connected to any external devices (e.g. display, external hard drive, etc).

Resetting the NVRAM on Late-2016 MacBook Pro models

To reset the NVRAM on all Late-2016 MacBook Pro models (with and without Touch Bar) follow these steps:

Shut down your machine. Yes, a full shut down, not just logging out.
Press the power button and then immediately press the commandoptionpr keys.
Keep these keys pressed down for at least 20 seconds!
Let go of the keys and let your Mac reboot normally.

Note 1: When you log back in you may need to readjust some of your system preferences (e.g. speaker volume, screen resolution, startup disk selection, time zone information, etc).

Reset the SMC

Your MacBook Pro has a system management controller that can easily be reset. To do this on your particular model, follow these steps:

Shut down your computer
Keep the power cable plugged in.
Press at the same time shiftoptioncontrol (on the left side of the built-in keyboard) and the power button
Let go
Turn your computer back on with the power button.

If this doesn't resolve the issue, use Apple Diagnostics to test your hardware.

Run Apple Diagnostics

Follow the steps below to run Apple Diagnostics:

Fully shut down your Mac
Restart your Mac
Immediately press the D key and keep it down until you see the Diagnostics screen appear
Wait for Diagnostics to finish (this typically only takes a few minutes)
Once complete, one of two things will appear on the screen:

a No issues found message
a brief description of any errors found plus further instructions

If the diagnostics test does find errors, take a note of what they are

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


Is there an iPhone application that can play music from arbitrary shoutcast server? I know of private shoutcast servers that transmit music and I would like to hear from my iPhone on the go

TuneIn Radio will let you add custom URLs (including ShoutCast server URLs) to your bookmarks list and stream from them. It will also keep your playlists in sync across multiple devices, record streams for, find local streams using your current location and more. You but it the app store. And when you're at your Mac, you can use their browser-based desktop app to keep listening and access your bookmarks.

To add a ShoutCast server as a custom URL use:

ipaddress:port/stream/x/

Where:

ipaddress is the IP or host name of the machine hosting the ShoutCast server
port is the port where ShoutCast is broadcasting on the server
stream is the name of the stream from ShoutCast
x is the number of the stream

Once you add the custom stream to your bookmarks it should be available from any TuneIn Radio application or their web app.


Can you change MacBook Bluetooth ID so two os can be seen as different hardware? Is there a way to change the OSX Bluetooth ID that is used by external Bluetooth devices during automatic paring?

I run 2 or more OSX installations on separate MacBook partitions.  Devices do not automatically re-connect again if a device is paired with partition 1 and partition 2 boots up and tries to connect.  I need to manually unpair the device in OSX and then re-pair it.  Seems this could be avoided by changing the Bluetooth equivalent of an Ethernet MAC address at the OS or driver level because both partitions assign the same address.

Is changing Bluetooth identity possible on macOS or with a tool?

Partition 1

Partition 2

Automatically pair the same set of Bluetooth Devices, while booting MACOS from 2 independent partitions:

(Each partition contains the whole MACOS)

Use identical Bluetooth.plist file on multiple partitions:

I presume that your partitions both contain the entire MACOS, and they do not share any system storage space. I recommend simply to:

Setup all the Bluetooth devices after booting with partition 1.
Copy the ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist file to a USB drive.
Boot from partition 2.
Replace the partition 2 ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist with the file from the USB drive.

Let me know if this worked out for you.


Enable standby mode / deep sleep on SSD macs with mounted SD-card This question arose from the comments page of The Nifty Minidrive's Kickstarter page

The Nifty Minidrive is essentially a microSD card adapter that fits perfectly into the SD-slot of the MacBook Pro / Pro Retina / Air so that a microSD card can be used as additional storage.

However a backer came across this apple support document which explains that for a Mac to be able to enter Standby mode one criterium is that it must "Have no SD card inserted".

This is a potential deal breaker for many backers.

Is there a way to enable deep sleep mode even though an SD card is inserted?

(I have no way of actually testing this, but does an inserted SD card which isn't mounted prevent deep sleep as well? If it doesn't it should be possible to make a script that unmounts the SD card before the Mac goes to sleep and mounts it when it awakens?)

SleepWatcher works fine with Mountain Lion. I've written an extensive guide to address the exact problem to unmount and auto re-mount of SD Cards and any external HDDs using sleepwatcher.


Can I update both of my mac with the single purchase of OSX I would like to purchase OSX 10.8(Mountain Lion) using my apple account.

The question is am having two mac computers with snow leopard, Can I update both of my mac with the single purchase?

any help?

Yes. With one purchase you can uptate all your macs that are linked to your iTunes account you own.

How to upgrade to 10.8 on Apple.com.


EarPods pause/play when moving I have encountered a strange behavior twice already, with two separate EarPods headsets. After about a year of using the headset, the cable near the jack gets slightly worn out and it causes really irritating behavior - when bent, it pauses/plays song while listening to music. It also hangs up a call just by bending.

Anybody encountered this behavior? Is there something I can do or the only thing is to just throw it away and buy a new one...again?

EDIT:

Just to clarify - it is definitely not shake to change feature. I tried it with the phone being stationary and just fiddling with the cable.
This question doesn't provide any solution or answer to my question - "what can I do".

Misuse is dramatically shortening the life of your cables.

Flexing the cable near the plug will eventually break down the cable shielding, causing electrical shorts, with random results.

First, buy a new headset.
Second, either learn to treat it gently, or invest in some Sugru which is great for protecting the point where a cable meets the plug.


Has it been ever possible to implant a monitoring device or software in a Macbook that cannot be detected by antivirus? I have a several-year old pre-unibody Macbook and am wondering if my family member could have ever put some kinda tracking or monitoring device or software in it either directly or by remote access? I don't exactly know how they would do such a thing. I recently ran Norton antivirus with nothing found, but can it miss some things sometimes? For example i am concerned about it being GPS-tracked or my computer activity being monitored by unknown screen sharing or keyboard tracking ... etc etc

Yes. It is possible, including through Mobile Device Management (MDM) applications which are generally legitimate, and through more nefarious means as well. Since it's such a broad topic, addressing the many ways that someone could do this would be too open-ended. Think of how a school is able to track a computer it has issued to a student, in terms of location, screen-watching, and the sort.

To guarantee, at least from the software side, that this is not happening, you'd want to perform an Erase and Install. In terms of any sort of hardware implementation, that is such an unlikely scenario that I'd count it out.

If you want to check for MDM, most often they will install a Profile onto your computer. This can be seen in System Preferences -> Profiles (fourth row down). It will only appear if a profile is installed.


Toggle `fn` key via keyboard shortcut Has anyone figured out a way to toggle the function keys on and off via key board shortcut on a macbook? Even remap the fn key to work more like the caps lock where you do not need to hold it down. It would be really nice to just remap the caps lock to toggle function keys, instead of using it for capitalizing.

You can use http://pqrs.org/macosx/keyremap4macbook/ (KeyRemap4Macbook) to set a new function key.

If you're on a macOS Sierra beta, this won't work. Risks with beta software...


2015 MBP - how to force integrated graphics? I have a specifically

  MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015) MacBookPro11,5

(indeed "AMD Radeon R9 M370X 2048 MB Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB")

You can easily (when they finally fixed that) force it to discrete, just "disable switching" in control panels.

However I want to use integrated exclusively only.

Unfortunately, after extensive googling I could only find this issue discussed for the older '11, '12 models.

(Since this particular variant from 2015 is the single worst product ever made by Apple, I think everyone's just thrown it away, so you don't see much about it!  :O  )

Does anyone know how to force a 11,5 to use integrated only?  Thanks.

gfxcardstatus is no longer maintained but I recreated it for modern macOS:

https://github.com/CodySchrank/gSwitch


How do I create a shortcut to IPython's interactive shell on the dock? I have successfully installed IPython. I can open the interactive shell by typing this from the Terminal:

ipython qtconsole &

Is there a way to create a shortcut on the dock that executes the command above?

Open AppleScript Editor (/Applications/Utilities) and type this:

do shell script "open 'ipython qtconsole &'"

Save it as an application and add it to the dock.


Detect application focus event using applescript It it possible to detect application focus event using applescript? What I'm trying to achieve is to open ios simulator when I focus on text editor. I know how to activate simulator but can't figure out how to detect when the editor is active.

A simple solution, using AppleScripts immanent capacities

[I am a little ashamed to admit that due to an "unhappy localisation" I did not realise there is a perfectly suitable way to make AS-scripts repeat periodically. The English term "Stay Open Application" in its German version ominously re-translates to "Display after run-handler". ]
(I will leave parts of my workaround solution at the bottom, because of its own merit.)

This …

on idle
tell application "System Events"
    if frontmost of process "TextEdit" is true then ¬
        tell application "name_of_simulator" to activate
    return 2  -- this number tells System at what intervals to execute
end tell
end idle

… is really all you need.
Save this code in ScriptEditor, check "Stay Open" application (or similar) and run the app.
(Close ScriptEditor if you like.)

  "Working solution" to detect change of frontmost
  application
  [ … ]     AppleScript's
  problem is the "timing"…           <==
          WRONG !!!

  In order to display my current workspace's index in the right-side
  menu bar (as in older OSX versions: [2]) I use –and recommend!–
  Mat Ryer's app "BitBar" that lets you place any script in
  its plugins folder. Their names, e.g. "workspace.2s.sh", cleverly
  determine the interval between executions of the script:
  "2s" denoting every two seconds (minutes, hours, days…).

  #!/bin/bash _/¯ osascript /Users/userName/.config/bitbar/Workspace.app calls a script that
  compares my desktop picture to a stored list and so returns my
  workspace number.


Does the Microsoft Intellipoint software work with Mountain Lion? I've been using the Microsoft Intellipoint software with Leopard, Snow Leopard, and currently Lion, to provide mouse cursor movement that feels a lot more like Windows. Has anybody tried installing this on Mountain Lion, and found it to be compatible or not?

I believe I have discovered the real reason why this happens and the cleanest work around (version 8.2 doesn't fix this for me).

Why this happens:

The issue for me was tracking speed (and mouse acceleration!) reverting to the OS X default and not using Intellipoint settings. After trying to learn AppleScript for 2 hours to hack around the issue and adjust my sensitivity settings through an automated script to adjust the preference pane, I remembered there should be a process called 'MicrosoftMouseHelper' loaded for the Intellipoint to work, and I noticed it wasn't running on a clean reboot. This, I believe, is the issue as it must be run to activate the hardware and software features for the mouse. (Use Activity Monitor to check yourself if this is running on clean boot and it likely won't be running, or if you already opened the preference pane as per @tquang's suggestion, kill MicrosoftMouseHelper process and see the mouse behaviour change). When you open the Microsoft Mouse preference pane, the above process starts and stays in memory after you close the system preferences, hence why you only need to open the preferences then close, and why @tquang's approach works rough-enough.

Heres my cleaner/less-intrusive solution:

Open Finder.
Navigate to: /Library/PreferencePanes/.
Right click on "Microsoft Mouse.prefpane".
Select Show Contents.
Navigate through Contents > Resources.
Leave the above open, and now open System Preferences.
Select Users & Groups.
Click on your user, and click Login Items.
Go back to your Finder window, select the file "MicrosoftMouseHelper", and drag this into the login items area on the right-hand side of the login items page (in the System Preferences window).
Intellipoint settings should now be loaded at login, overriding the default OS X settings for pointer speed, scrolling, and buttons.


Midi keyboard sustains note after key is depressed I have been using a midi keyboard with the third party app Playground Sessions, and it worked fine.  I broke the midi cable connecting my keyboard, and since I replaced it (with the same model cable) every time I play a note on the keyboard, it sustains on the app long after I depress the key.  Also, the keyboard no longer registers by the name (Yamaha) on midi devices in the software, but instead says "VIEWCON..."

The keyboard sounds fine on its own when not connected to the computer.

I've tried a second brand new cable with the same problem, so it's not that.

I've deleted and reinstalled the driver multiple times.

I've tried on a different computer, and with GarageBand.  Same problem.

When I connected a sustain pedal (long after the problem arose), pressing the sustain pedal causes the computer to play a note (E above middle C, for what it's worth).

I've swapped the in/out midi connection.

Any other ideas?  I'm on El Capitan on one computer and Mojave on another.  No difference.

According to my research of your problem (and I do not have have your set up to confirm).

Not sure what did you do to break something else aside of the cable, but following instructions might help.

Since the Yamaha is wrongly identified as VIEWCON lets hope it is just the Driver (software)

Follow the instructions here to remedy the problem.

Pay attention to the section how to remove and reinstall. (page 7)


iPad stuck in Guided Access Hello I haven't used Guided Access in a while and I needed to use it again. I had previously set a passcode and I went to use it expecting it would ask for a new passcode, but it must've used the old one. I have no idea what the old one is and I can't get anything off. I had tried holding down Home/Lock for 10 seconds but it just seemed to start up, unlock itself and go back to the app I was on.

Guided Access was still turned on and I have no idea how to remove it.

If you continue to be unable to guess the passcode by brute force attempts, you can connect the device to a computer that has synced the device and unlock things with a sync.

Also, this article shows an alternate method involving a reboot, force quit, and other manipulation of settings in a specified order. Hopefully it helps if you can't use the two "approved" methods above.

http://blog.technguide.net/2012/08/how-to-get-out-of-guided-access-on-ios6/

  Hold the Lock Button
  Slide the Slide To Power Off slider [If touch is disabled/you're unable to slide it, do a hard reset — hold the lock and home button for 8 seconds until the Apple Logo appears]
  When your iDevices powers up, immediately exit the app that automatic open.
  Go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Guided Access
  Click Set Passcode
  Enter new password
  Reboot again.
  Wait for the app to automatically open and Triple tap the home button
  Enter the new password
  Unlocked!


Photo app in Yosemite I just had Yosemite loaded onto my laptop and there is no Photo app (nor iPhoto). I do have ImageCapture, but I would like to work with my albums in either Photo or iPhoto. Can't find it at the AppStore to download... How can I get one of them? Thanks.

Keep posted for updates!

Make sure you check for updates to your system. Also, upgrade your system to El Capitan to get a better experience and new features.


Is a 16GB iPhone supposed to only have 11GBs available? I have a iPhone 5S and it's reporting a capacity of 11.8GB. I would have thought that 16GB would mean 16GB?

You can check on Apple's storage capacity guide here, but in short may be caused by two factors:

The system reserves a portion of your storage for itself, system files, system partitions, buffer, metadata, etc. Regarding this, I am not entirely sure how much capacity this stuff uses, but you cannot delete it; iOS needs it to run.
When they say that the phone includes a 16GB flash drive, they mean 16000000000 bytes (decimal system), which is about 14,89 GB in binary system (1024*1024*1024=1GB). As the guide says:

  The way decimal and binary numeral systems measure a GB is what causes a 32 GB storage device to appear as approximately 28 GB when detailed by its operating system, even though the storage device still has 32 billion bytes (not 28 billion bytes), as reported.


Dual Boot screen is not coming after installing win 7 via boot camp! I have installed the win7 on macbook white (via boot camp), and now I am not getting the dual boot screen at the start up, instead windows is starting by default :(

How I can fix this issue? Have I done something wrong when I was installing win 7?

Thanks

The Mac will not show the Startup Manager screen to you every time you boot. You can set a "default" partition to boot from, or hold "option" while it boots to get the Startup Manager.

To change the default, you use "Startup Disk" under System Preferences for Mac, if you are on Windows you can use the Bootcamp Utility in the system tray.

AFAIK, I don't think there is a way to get it to show the Startup Manager every time you boot without holding the option key.


troubleshooting Finder (and disk access?) speeds — Dropbox extension problems? I am on Yosemite 10.10.3, though in the public beta program (which now is in sync with releases). I am also in the Dropbox beta, now on 3.5.58, for what it's worth.

File access is curiously slow now. It could be a hardware issue, like the old spinning HDD dying in my MBP. That said, things often stall when Save or Open dialog boxes open up, and more often than not the Dropbox extension crashes afterwards.

Displaying the contents of folders is also slow, in the dialog boxes or Finder windows themselves, like in this question.

How should one start diagnosing such an issue?

I understand I could forget the Dropbox beta. I could also talk to them. But this has been crashing ever since Yosemite went to public beta testing, and no update to the OS nor Dropbox ever fixed this. The Dropbox beta is not that far ahead from the release anyway.

Is there anything to check here other than a reinstall or even a migration to a new mac?

I regularly run Onyx, so everything what it would do (incl. permission repairs) has been done recently. That said, Onyx's hardware check regularly complains about the disk, which needs to repaired after booting from the recovery disk. I don't know why this is recurring. Esp. as the problem is usually the disk size being off by a little.

[I'd paste screenshots of Disk Utility from booting into internet recovery, but they do not upload. Here are two links to them on Dropbox.]

I checked system.log, and saw no I/O errors, though most of my log is filled with these lines every second:

Apr 23 15:07:23 dhcp-7-125 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.photostream-agent[92911]): LaunchServices returned a bundle URL that does not match with the LoginItem's known association.
Apr 23 15:07:23 dhcp-7-125 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.photostream-agent): Service only ran for 0 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 10 seconds.
Apr 23 15:07:23 dhcp-7-125.nber.org com.apple.usbmuxd[49806]: HandleUSBMuxDictionary client 0x100608890-duet/NULL using library 1.2.5, running usbmuxd-344.6
Apr 23 15:07:23 dhcp-7-125.nber.org com.apple.usbmuxd[49806]: MuxTCPInputSCE received RST for 0x11-b22be791bfd836141f0489b3045fe82d713378b2@0xfd120000:2345->0x100608890-duet/NULL:33702: handleConnectResult: failure - 61

If this can be related to the Dropbox issues, here is another extension crash report from this morning. (Too large to show here, link is to a txt on Dropbox.) I've been sending these to Apple since last summer or so, neither OS X updates or Dropbox betas and releases seem to have fixed the issue.

Kill the service from terminal:

$ launchctl remove com.apple.photostream-agent

Then go into Apple / System Preferences... and check your iCloud settings. Often this is caused if iCloud photos or disk is on, but the Photos app has sharing off.


rsync on macOS Catalina : filename overflows max-path len by 2 I am trying to use rsync to transfer files to a Macbook Pro, like this :
rsync -avn --delete /Users/name/ fab@remote.local:/Users/home_name_from_old/

Unfortunately, I get the following errors on some files/directories :
filename overflows max-path len by 2

Here an example of what I get when I perform this operation of rsync above :
filename overflows max-path len by 2: Phd_2019_2020/Travail_2_Etude_de_la_stabilite_des_C_l_Probleme_avec_TAKAHASHI_ie_2_plateaux_dans_la_derivee_des_Cl_et_aussi_faire_varier_Omega_DE_sur_CAMB_et_regarder_si_les_P_k_changent_21_OCTOBRE_2019/Main_Directory_Work/TSAF_Main_Directory_STARTED_from_13_NOVEMBRE_2019/Test_Comparaison_SUITE_TAKAHASHI_STARTING_BY_USING_CAMB_PYTHON_CAR_PROBLEME_CUTOFF_SITUE_SOIT_A_2e-5_ET_LAUTRE_A_2e-4_ESSAYER_LA_METHODE_DINTERPOLATION_IMPLEMENTE_DANS_CAMB_avec_boost_accuracy_2_ET_k_per_login_75_29_DECEMBRE_2019/STUDY_of_PIC_SUITE_JE_PLOT_2_Pk_FOR_2_VALUES_DE_Omega_m_DIFF_IE_2_STEPS_DIFF_DONC_2_MEME_Z_FAUT_ETRE_DANS_ZONE_PATHO_cad_2e-4_CAD_LA_1st_MISE_EN_EVIDENCE_DU_PIC_AVEC_600_photoZ_ET_600_Pk_FILES_ET_JE_PLOT_AVANT_ET_APRES_CA_SUGGESTION_DE_LEWIS_05_01_2020/CAMB-1.0.12/fortran_original/SAVE_IMPORTANT_SCRIPTS_ET_Archive_current_Cl_MISE_EN_EVIDENCE_DES_2_PLATEAUX_DE_TAKAHASHI_AVEC_DER_15_PTS/Analysis_Pk_vs_Step_der_15_pts/Archive_WP_Pk_der_15_pts_step_8.283979084506619e-06/wm_dw2/Pks8sqRatio_ist_LogSplineInterpPk_iz_316.dat

Or yet, now with filename overflows max-path len by 1: error :
filename overflows max-path len by 1: Phd_2019_2020/Travail_2_Etude_de_la_stabilite_des_C_l_Probleme_avec_TAKAHASHI_ie_2_plateaux_dans_la_derivee_des_Cl_et_aussi_faire_varier_Omega_DE_sur_CAMB_et_regarder_si_les_P_k_changent_21_OCTOBRE_2019/Main_Directory_Work/TSAF_Main_Directory_STARTED_from_13_NOVEMBRE_2019/Test_Comparaison_SUITE_TAKAHASHI_STARTING_BY_USING_CAMB_PYTHON_CAR_PROBLEME_CUTOFF_SITUE_SOIT_A_2e-5_ET_LAUTRE_A_2e-4_ESSAYER_LA_METHODE_DINTERPOLATION_IMPLEMENTE_DANS_CAMB_avec_boost_accuracy_2_ET_k_per_login_75_29_DECEMBRE_2019/STUDY_of_PIC_SUITE_JE_PLOT_2_Pk_FOR_2_VALUES_DE_Omega_m_DIFF_IE_2_STEPS_DIFF_DONC_2_MEME_Z_FAUT_ETRE_DANS_ZONE_PATHO_cad_2e-4_CAD_LA_1st_MISE_EN_EVIDENCE_DU_PIC_AVEC_600_photoZ_ET_600_Pk_FILES_ET_JE_PLOT_AVANT_ET_APRES_CA_SUGGESTION_DE_LEWIS_05_01_2020/CAMB-1.0.12/fortran_original/SAVE_IMPORTANT_SCRIPTS_ET_Archive_current_Cl_MISE_EN_EVIDENCE_DES_2_PLATEAUX_DE_TAKAHASHI_AVEC_DER_15_PTS/Analysis_Pk_vs_Step_der_15_pts/Archive_WP_Pk_der_15_pts_step_8.283979084506619e-06/wm_dw2/Pks8sqRatio_ist_LogSplineInterpPk_iz_67.dat

and the output of rsync --version :
$ rsync --version
rsync  version 3.1.3  protocol version 31
Copyright (C) 1996-2018 by Andrew Tridgell, Wayne Davison, and others.
Web site: http://rsync.samba.org/
Capabilities:
    64-bit files, 64-bit inums, 64-bit timestamps, 64-bit long ints,
    socketpairs, hardlinks, symlinks, IPv6, batchfiles, inplace,
    append, ACLs, xattrs, iconv, symtimes, no prealloc, file-flags

rsync comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.  This is free software, and you
are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions.  See the GNU
General Public Licence for details.

I guess the path is too long. How do I circumvent this problem?

Rsync has internal buffers to hold the names of files. These are hardcoded to have a value MAXPATHLEN which is defined to be an OS dependant value or  1024 in the code from https://github.com/WayneD/rsync/blob/d2a97a7ab492e0d0548708251309e077e6aa8c8b/rsync.h
So you path names are too long for either macos or rsync


How do I display stop, pause, play and rewind audio file controls on my iMac? How do I display stop, pause, play and rewind audio file controls on my iMac?

I can see my volume control no problem. I can't see or find any controls which will allow me to play an audio (voice) file and then pause, rewind, advance, stop, or play the file. Once started the voice file continuously plays without control - except the volume!

Does such a rare and complicated device as an audio control set-up actually exist on a Mac? If not, where do I go to obtain this ability?

Online searches happily tell me all about video controls. Not what I want!

There is nothing specifically built in to the macOS that allow the keyboard to control audio file (Music, voice notes, etc.) on the Mac.

Normally music and voice notes sync with and play in iTunes. And in iTunes you can select a song and tap the spacebar to play and pause but to move back and forth in the song or audio file you must use your mouse to move around in the file by clicking before or after the moving play indicator. You can also drag the play indicator back and forth to control where you want to play from.

But neither iTunes nor Quicktime player (seem to) allow the keyboard to control skipping forward or backwards in a song or other audio file.

If that does not answer your question you may need to give us a specific use case and how you would like to control playback. There are quite a number of audio playback and editing applications out there and they all have different controls.


How can I transfer my Google Chrome bookmarks to my iPad? I have been looking around for a method and haven't been able to find one, any suggestions?

Google Chrome

....is now available for iOS.

Just activate (bookmarks) synchronisation on your PC and iPad. Go to New Tab > Favorites > Computer Favorites.

  From the App Store description:

  Sign in to Chrome to sync your open tabs, bookmarks, passwords, and omnibox data from your computer to your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. Pick up right where you left off.
  Send pages from Chrome on your computer to your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad with one click and read them on the go, even if you’re offline.


See history of Today tab iOS App Store On iOS 12, the App Store contains a "Today" tab, showing curated apps:

Some days ago, they showed a beautiful game, that I would love to download.

Unfortunately, I cannot find it anymore, since I found no way of getting to the "Today" tab of past days.

My question:

Is it possible to show the content of the iOS 12 "Today" tab of previous days?

Related: iOS - App Store Stories

The maximum you can look back for is 7 days. There is a website called Sensor Tower which lets you see up to 365 days but it requires a subscription.

Alternatively, for some stories, you can tap on the Share Story button shown at bottom, copy the link and send it to yourself. However, this approach is highly manual, would have required following it since the day App Store redesign was publicly launched. Also, it is not possible to do so if you want to start out today as the older feed entries can no longer be accessed


Does iOS send contacts to Apple servers? When you go to a contact, you can see if that contact has FaceTime.

How does the system determine this capability?

The usual way that other systems like WhatsApp do it is by uploading/synchronizing your entire address book to the operator's cloud servers, or at least phone numbers / mail addresses (some promise not to save it, but still upload for checking, like TextSecure by Twitter).

Does iOS send your contacts to Apple, especially when you enable FaceTime?

I know it does if you enable iCloud sync, or Siri "for better recognition", as they say, but maybe just using iOS by itself without iCloud already means it will be shared with Apple services.

In some instances, yes.  In the Apple privacy policy breakdown, available here, you can see that Apple indicates your contacts are sent to their servers when using Siri:

  The longer you use Siri and Dictation, the better they understand you and the better they work. To help them recognize your pronunciation and provide better responses, certain information such as your name, contacts, and songs in your music library is sent to Apple servers using encrypted protocols.

However, and this is an important point, all the data is encrypted.  Further in that same policy statement is this:

  That said, Siri and Dictation do not associate this information with your Apple ID, but rather with your device through a random identifier. Apple Watch uses the Siri identifier from your iPhone. You can reset that identifier at any time by turning Siri and Dictation off and back on, effectively restarting your relationship with Siri and Dictation. When you turn Siri and Dictation off, Apple will delete the User Data associated with your Siri identifier, and the learning process will start all over again.

So you have the ability to control what info is sent to Apple, how they use it, as well as being able to reset your unique identifier.

I would strongly suggest you visit the Apple privacy policy site to get a better understanding of what data is sent to Apple and how they use it.  You can compare this to other mobile companies to see which one takes better care of your data.  I think it's great that you're interested in the privacy of your data.  It's also great that some companies put this info our there for everyone to see while others don't.


Applying an old EFI update on a new version of OSX I have El Capitan running on a MacMini 2010 that I use as a media player/server. The computer used to be my mother's and I have just noticed that she has never applied any of the firmware updates released by Apple (It is 3 versions behind).

This has created some performance issues (specially with the newly installed SSD), and I would like to apply the upgrades. But the firmware installer refuses to run on El Capitan, saying it is incompatible with this version of the OS.

Is there any solution for this problem? Can I, in any way, install the EFI updates without formatting the disk and downgrading the OS? -- Let's say by creating a live OS boot disk, etc...

Simple answer is you can check for the most recent here and it looks like yours would be available here. You can even get this info from the ol' stalwart Mactracker.
Without the exact model identifier I'm just guessing, but assuming you have even the later version from that year (MacMini4,1), the most recent publicly available EFI updates Apple released (at least as of 10.10.4) do not include that hardware. I haven't re-verified it as of either 10.10.5 or ElCapGM, but you can rip apart their publicly posted EFI package and see the javascript-based installer logic for choosing what models the package can patch. I published a post about the topic, and although I haven't gotten confirmation from an authoritative source like Apple themselves, one could assume the most recent-looking model being MM51.88Z.0077.B12.1506081728 means you're out of luck with patches that fix the 'thunderstrike' vulnerabilities.

And regarding ElCap in particular, since it should have the same hardware support as Mavericks or Mountain Lion, you should be able to confirm it's ready to be upgraded with this command: ioreg -l -p IODeviceTree | grep -E 'firmware-abi.*EFI64'


25+ inch monitor (Macbook Pro and Windows laptop) I have a Lenovo Windows 7 laptop and now I have a shiny new Macbook pro to go with it.

I want to build a workstation where both share the same monitor. Since I code, I want a fairly large monitor with a fairly large resolution so that I can see a lot of code. The only thing better than high resolution is very high resolution. :)

The Lenovo laptop is docked and has a digital output (the unused rectangular white outlet in middle of the picture)

Since I want a large monitor which is going to be a decent investment, I should get one with the best goodies so I can hook up other things to it and use it for other purposes.

So here is a two part question:

Can anyone provide insight on the features to get?
How do I go about choosing a monitor that can be shared between the Lenovo and the Macbook Pro laptops?

This may have less to do with the monitor you get and more to do with how you hook up the laptops to the monitor. When using multiple desktops on a single monitor, I've found KVM switches extremely useful. If you were planning on using a single keyboard for the two laptops, I would recommend this approach. However, I'm not aware of a single keyboard that will give you OS-specific controls for both Mac (command, eject, volume, etc) and Windows (start, etc).


iPhone's MAC address does not seem to be correct My wife's iPhone 11 Pro lists a MAC adddress of 88:A4:79:xx:xx:xx.  This address does not show up on my DHCP client list, but it is connected to the network
There was an unknown device on my network with MAC address of 4A:88:DC:xx:xx:xx.  This address cames up as "No vendor" on MAC lookup sites.
Not knowing that device, I blocked the MAC address.  Subsequently the iPhone is unable to connect to the network.
What is going on?  Why would the phone show a different MAC address than is actually connecting to the network?
Any insight appreciated.

For privacy reasons, iOS randomizes its MAC address so that public Wi-Fi networks (and other Wi-Fi based tracking networks) cannot use your unique unchanging MAC address to track you from place to place.
That 4A:… MAC address has the 2's place bit in the first octet set, which signifies that it is a locally administered MAC address (which in this context means it was randomly self-generated) not the guaranteed globally unique address that's burnt into the hardware. The 88:… address does not have the first octet's 2's place bit set, so it is the guaranteed globally unique address that's burnt into the hardware.
If you go into the iOS Wi-Fi settings for that network, you can turn off the "Private Address" switch to get your iPhone to use its unique, trackable MAC address on that network. See Apple's support document for details on this.


Spotlight indexes wrong HD Mac Mini Server, OSX Server 10.6.8, dual drive

I cloned the first hard disk (HD1) to HD2 using CCC, thus creating a bootable copy.
However, now I discover that when I startup from HD2, Spotlight has been indexing only HD1.

Using a Terminal command to rebuild the Spotlight index doesn't help.
I get the message for HD2: There is no index.
Using the option for all volumes, it only rebuilds for HD1.

This problem is nasty, as I intend to use an Automator script that filters files, and for this it uses Spotlight (I get an error now).

Any ideas how to bring OSX to build an index for HD2?

mdutil -s /Volumes/* will show you the indexing status of all available volumes.

mdutil -i on /Volumes/HD2;mdutil -i off /Volumes/HD1 should do what you're asking for.  might need to sudo based on ownership settings of each.


Apple ID security questions: case sensitive, unicode and accents What is the case with the security questions of Apple ID?

Does it care about case sensitivity?
Also, I know it can accept unicode characters like words in greeks, but does it care about accents in the words of local languages?
E.g. does it make any difference whether I write "Αθηνα" (no accent) or "Αθήνα" (with accent)?

From my experiments with the security questions:

Security Questions are not case sensitive. So "London" is the same as "london".
Indeed it's possible to add a words with unicode characters, e.g. greek words and most likely in other languages, spaces, dashes etc.
But the system will take in consideration any accents in the words.
When answering the security questions, you need to write the exact same word/phrase as it was typed - with the only exception of the upper/lower case.

So for example the greek word "Αθήνα" will be different than "Αθηνα", while the "ΑΘΗΝΑ Ελλάδα" will be the same as "αθηνα ελλάδα"

The above are what I have found out by experimenting with my security questions. Unfortunately, I searched and couldn't find any reliable sources to cite. It seems that there is nowhere this kind of information.

The only reference I managed to find is here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/applehelp/comments/31tquo/are_the_security_questions_case_sensitive/

So, I decided to call Apple Support and ask. The support representative confirmed to me that security questions are case insensitive, I can type in greek letters and that accents are considered.


Command+Tab doesn't switch between full-screen apps If I put iCal.app or Mail.app or iPhoto.app in full-screen mode, I'm unable to access those apps via Command+Tab from my main desktop interface. This seems like an oversight.

What's also puzzling is that if I manually switch to one of the full-screen apps (via clicking on its dock icon) and then use Command+Tab, I'm able to switch between that full-screen app and any other full-screen apps via Command+Tab, but as soon as I switch to a non-full-screen app, then I'm unable to return to a full-screen app via Command+Tab.

Is there a preference setting I'm missing?

Yes - Go to System Preferences / Mission Control and tick "When switching to an application ..."


How to connect to a NAS share using a different user name? I have an iMac running OSX 10.6.8 that automounts a NAS share from a D-Link DNS-320 2-bay Network Attached Storage. On the NAS, both users "user1" and "user2" are members of group "group1".

My user logs in as "user1", but the iMac connects/authenticates to the NAS as "user2".  I am able to disconnect user2 then manually "Connect As..." user1, but even after doing so, the share sometimes shows "Connected as user2". I just want to connect as user1.

How do I get OSX to forget about user2?

The answer was to remove the stored value in KeyChain (there were multiple for the user; had to find the one specific to the IP of my NAS).


Autoupdate the desktop background from an online photo webcam I would like to set my desktop background to a webcam picture that updates several times an hour, for instance to this view of Tegernsee. I am looking for a way to automatically get that picture every couple of minutes from the internet and update the desktop background. How can I do that (I would prefer a bash or applescript solution)?

I have found a way to make this work with launchd. This requires two steps: First creating a script that downloads the webcam picture, and second creating a LaunchAgent plist file that will call the script every so often.

This method will update the background picture of a specific Space, but only while you are on that space (also, when logging in and maybe when waking from sleep).

First step: Creating a script that downloads the picture and changes the desktop background

Create a folder, e.g. ~/Library/Desktop Pictures/Webcam.
Select that folder to be your desktop backgrounds folder in System Preferences → Destkop & Screen Saver.
Write a text file with the following content:

#!/bin/bash
shopt -s extglob # required for fancy rm
# This script updates the desktop background of a specific Space to a webcam picture
# while you are currently on that space.
#
# Choose a webcam:

remotepic=http://www.foto-webcam.org/webcam/wallberg/current/full.jpg

# Choose a desktop backgrounds pictures folder of the Space where you want to see the webcam
# (you have to set this manually in System Preferences → Destkop & Screen Saver):

webcampicturefolder=~/Library/Desktop\ Pictures/Webcam

# check the desktop background pictures folder of the current Space
currentpicturefolder=`osascript -e "tell application \"System Events\" to get pictures folder of current desktop"`
# only proceed if you are currently on the space where you want to see the webcam
if [ "$currentpicturefolder" == "$webcampicturefolder" ] ; then
  localpic="$webcampicturefolder"/$(date +%Y%m%dT%H%M%S).jpg
  backup="$webcampicturefolder"/backup.jpg
  #remove all but the previous backup file and txt files:
  rm "$webcampicturefolder"/!(*txt|`basename "$backup"`) 2>>/dev/null
  # get the new picture unless there is a connection failure (-f flag):
  curl -fs -o "$localpic" "$remotepic"
  # make a backup of the new picture:
  cp "$localpic" "$backup" 2>>/dev/null
  # if no new picture has been downloaded, copy from backup:
  cp "$backup" "$localpic"
  # see http://www.macosxautomation.com/applescript/features/system-prefs.html
  osascript -e "
  tell application \"System Events\"
    tell current desktop
      set picture rotation to 0
      set picture to POSIX file \"$localpic\"
    end tell
  end tell
  "
fi

Save the file, e.g. as ~/Library/Desktop Pictures/Webcam/getwebcam.sh
Make it executable by issuing the following command in the Terminal:

chmod u+x ~/Library/Desktop Pictures/Webcam/getwebcam.sh

Second step: Creating a LaunchAgent plist that calls the script

Write a text file with the following content. You need to adapt the string /Users/myusername/Library/Desktop Pictures/Webcam/getwebcam.sh so it points to the script created in the first step. You cannot use a relative path with ~. Change the dict elements with the "Minute" key as you see fit – you can add more of them. The integer determines at which minute of every hour the script will be called (see also man launchd.plist on your Terminal).

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>me.myname.update-desktop-from-webcam</string>
  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
    <string>/Users/myusername/Library/Desktop Pictures/Webcam/getwebcam.sh</string>
  </array>
  <key>RunAtLoad</key>
  <true/>
  <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
  <array>
    <dict>
      <key>Minute</key>
      <integer>01</integer>
    </dict>
    <dict>
      <key>Minute</key>
      <integer>16</integer>
    </dict>
    <dict>
      <key>Minute</key>
      <integer>31</integer>
    </dict>
    <dict>
      <key>Minute</key>
      <integer>46</integer>
    </dict>
  </array>
</dict>
</plist>

Save the text file to ~/Library/LaunchAgents/me.myname.update-desktop-from-webcam.plist – the name should match the "Label" key in the file.
Load it by issuing the following command:

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/me.myname.update-desktop-from-webcam.plist


How can I get notifications to pop up in my active display? I have an MBA running Yosemite. Apps like Mail, messages, calendar, and FaceTime have 'banner' notifications that pop up in my laptop's built-in display but they don't pop up on my external monitor that's plugged in via a thunderbolt adapter.

How can I get notifications to display on my active display?

Is this even possible or a feature that is yet to be implemented by Apple?

Try this: System Preferences -> Displays and drag menubar (small white stripe at the top of the blue box in the "Arrangement" tab) to your external (attached) display. Built-in notifications will be displayed on the monitor with main menubar.

In addition to this you may wish to explore Growl app (http://growl.info/), which allows you to setup notifications in more sophisticated way and configure them for several displays.


How do I migrate/transfer/copy an iCloud Photos Shared Album to Google Photos? I use an iCloud shared photo album to share photos and videos with my family, but I'm slowly reaching the limit of 5000 photos and videos per album, so I'm considering migrating this album to Google Photos, with its current limit of 20000 photos or videos per album.
How can I copy this iCloud Photos shared album to Google Photos, ideally along with all metadata?

All photos and videos, the reduced resolution stored on iCloud is sufficient
Capture date/time, so that the pictures and videos are sorted chronologically
Comments, at least those I wrote myself, ideally also those added by my family

Because of the big number of pictures involved, I'd like to limit the number of manual steps in this procedure.
Maybe there's even an app for that?

Workflow on macOS Catalina:

Ensure you have enough disk space and bandwidth available for downloading the Shared Album to your Mac.
For migrating a shared album with 4800 photos and videos, I needed approximately 20 GB free disk space.

Create a dedicated account for the migration on your Mac.
This is an optional step. It is useful if you want to back up only the photos and videos from the iCloud Shared Album to Google, and not the other photos from your System Photo Library.
In the System Preferences, under Systems & Groups, unlock to make changes and click the + button to add a user account. Log in with this account. When macOS prompts you to log in to your iCloud account, use an iCloud account that has access to the shared album.

Open Photos, select Shared Albums, and wait for the Shared Album to be synced.
In the meantime, deactivate iCloud Photos in the Photos Preferences, so that your photos and videos won't be uploaded and stored to iCloud another time.
You can monitor the download activity in the Network tab of the Activity Monitor.

Copy the photos from the Shared Album on your Mac (only the photos, videos will be tackled in the next step.)
See Archive or make copies of the information you store in iCloud:
a. Open Photos and select Shared Albums.
b. Double-click the shared album.
c. In the top right corner, next to Showing Only, choose Show only Photos.
d. Select all photos (Command-A).
e. Control click (or right-click) a photo and choose Import.

Copy the videos from the Shared Album to your Photos library.
a. Create a folder on your Mac, e.g. on the Desktop.
b. Open Photos and select Shared Albums.
c. Double-click the shared album.
d. In the top right corner, next to Showing Only, choose Show only Videos.
e. Select all videos (Command-A).
f. Drag-and-drop the videos to a folder on your Mac.
g. With all videos still selected in Photos, open the File menu and, under Export, click Export Unmodified Original for all Videos. Ensure that Export IPTC as XMP is selected in the dialog, and confirm the Export in the same folder.
This creates XMP files containing the date for your videos. The Photos app currently needs this workaround with external XMP files so that the date information does not get lost when you import videos.
h. Import the videos back from the folder to Photos: In the folder, Sort by type or Group by type in the View menu, and select all the video files: Only the video files, not the XMP files. Drag-and-drop the videos to Photos.
i. Delete the folder you used to transfer the videos from the Shared Album to Photos.

Use Google Backup and Sync to automatically backup photos from your Mac.
Select Upload newly added photos and videos to Google Photos in the preferences.
In the Network Settings, it is possible to limit the Upload Rate.

This procedure won't copy comments, though.


How to use Family Sharing on iPhone 4 and other devices? I have multiple devices on 1 apple ID (an iPhone 6, iPhone 5s, iPod Touch 5, iPhone 4) and would like the devices to have separate apple IDs. The iPhone 6 and iPhone 5s have separate apple IDs and the iPhone 4 and iPod touch 5 will have the same apple ID. How can I setup the iPhone 4 to use family sharing even though it does not have iOS 8? Is this even possible?

Thanks!

I turned on Family Sharing for my kids on my iPhone 5 that has iOS 8. After entering their emails, I entered their passwords. On their iOS 8 iPads, purchases from all the family members show up, but not on the iPod 4 or iPhone 4.

However, my kids on those devices still have "Ask to buy" show up. If you want them to have access to all of your apps, you could jailbreak (redsn0w for iPod 4 on iOS 6 and evasi0n for iPhone 4 on iOS 7) and install Account Changer. If it weren't for the "Ask to buy," we would have stayed with Account Changer only.


How to calculate used memory on Mac OS by command line? Below is a screenshot of Activity Monitor on mac os. I wonder what command line I can use to get the memory usage. I tried below command:

$ top -l 1 -n 0
Processes: 399 total, 3 running, 396 sleeping, 2460 threads
2018/03/07 19:54:01
Load Avg: 7.41, 6.55, 6.23
CPU usage: 58.38% user, 12.97% sys, 28.63% idle
SharedLibs: 191M resident, 54M data, 24M linkedit.
MemRegions: 193162 total, 6016M resident, 107M private, 3067M shared.
PhysMem: 16G used (3042M wired), 70M unused.
VM: 2858G vsize, 1100M framework vsize, 178320755(0) swapins, 184739800(0) swapouts.
Networks: packets: 10995802/17G in, 9674758/13G out.
Disks: 15617288/823G read, 11170324/846G written.

These two lines:

MemRegions: 193162 total, 6016M resident, 107M private, 3067M shared.
PhysMem: 16G used (3042M wired), 70M unused.

tells me the Physical Memory(16G + 70M), Wired Memory(3042M) and Compressed memory(107M + 3067M). But I don't know how to calculate the App Memory shown in the screenshot. Does anyone know how to get the App memory value? I need that one to calculate the total used memory on Mac OS.

You can use the macOS equivalent to unix vmstat, which is vm_stat.

➜ vm_stat
Mach Virtual Memory Statistics: (page size of 4096 bytes)
Pages free:                              139824.
Pages active:                           1673261.
Pages inactive:                         1073096.
Pages speculative:                         2909.
Pages throttled:                              0.
Pages wired down:                        788478.
Pages purgeable:                         226206.
[...]

To calculate the memory, multiply the number of pages with the page size (4096 bytes) and divide by 1024 to adjust the prefix to your needs.


Why do ios need restart for bold settings? Why there is a restart required for changing the text boldness in iOS? For text size there is no such requirement, why only for test boldness?

It's not a restart but rather a respring. All that happens is the SpringBoard is restarted, not the actual device rebooting. This is because the bold text option changes the text displayed by the SpringBoard, unlike the text size.


MacBook Pro Mid 2012 startup chime from right speaker only After installing a ssd into my Macbook pro mid 2012 (not retina), i noticed that the startup chime is coming only from the right speaker. (I am not sure if it was always like that or if its because of the installation). However when I am in the OS, both speakers work perfectly fine. I reseted the NVRAM a couple of times already. Is the chime supposed to come out of the right speaker only?

I am pretty sure your MBP always did that. It is something annoying I never really liked about the MBP: They have a "subwoofer" which is situated on the right-hand side of the MacBook. So sounds with a lot of bass always appear to come from the right speaker. Here is what Apple says.


I updated my phone using my husbands itunes acct. and now i've lost all of my contacts and pics and his are on my phone I updated my phone using my husbands itunes acct. and now  lost all of my pics and contacts and his are now on my phone.  How can I get them back.  Doesn't look like I had mine backed up.  Please help.

If you have were using your account before syncing with your husbands account, you probably would have your contacts backed up to the iCloud - under your account.

If that is the case

Go to settings and
Turn off syncing contacts to the cloud.
Save (nonexistent) contacts on the phone.
Back out of settings
Go back in and turn syncing contacts to the Cloud back on...

Here's a test to perform - using a computer's browser, log into icloud.com (using your Apple ID) and go to the Contacts page.  If they are gone, then they are gone.