iCloud backup size after iPhone migration I use iCloud backups for long time.  When I started out I could easily backup a 128GB iPad Air and a 32 GB iPhone5s to the 5GB of default iCloud storage. I recently switched phone to a 64GB iPhoneSE and now the backup size increased a lot with no apparent reason.  Here's a screenshot of how the storage breaks down.  It's in German, but I think it's clear. There is about 1GB of app data including photos and the total backup size is 4GB.  Before the switch to the new phone it was 2GB total with 1GB app data.  What are these 2GB and how can I get rid of them?

Update: Here is another observation. If I delete my iCloud backup and do a fresh backup it comes at about 2GB total size (which is what I expect).  After two days including taking lots of pictures, transfering them to the Mac, syncing them back etc., however, I was back at 4GB.

After talking to Apple Support and trying various things, I conclude that this is a bug in iCloud.

I've made the following observations:

Backups to iTunes always have the size they should have (about 2.8GB in my case)
Backups to iCloud when first created are of the correct size and then constantly grow (after I month I saw about 10GB).
Apple Support has no solution to offer except to periodically delete the iCloud backup and recreate it from scratch.

For reference, this only started after I migrated my iPhone 5S to an iPhone SE via an iTunes backup.  Before this migration iCloud backups worked as expected.

Edit in 2018: indeed the bug was fixed later and backup size went back to normal a few weeks after this answer.


How did my Mac end up with iPhone 4S as my host name in the user prompt in OS X terminal? The other day I was searching for Xcode iOS 5 tutorials. About a day or two later, I noticed my terminal prompt is now "iPhone4s : myusername". Naturally , my biggest fear is that there could be a worm or trojan horse on here. I look up the current procedure for checking the most current Mac Malware and the system turned up clean. I followed the examples to edit the PIF with the code:

PS1="\h : \u\$"

and it does not get rid of the "iPhone4s" prefix. I checked the System Preferences > Sharing and the name for the computer is correct.

How do I go about making sure the system is not hacked, and how to get rid of the iPhone4s name? I have 3 accounts created on this system. The other 2 are not affected.

It turns out it was just as our Unix guy had said.  The iPhone4s Host name is only present when I am at work and my mac book is accessing the companies wireless network. When I am away, the terminal shows the proper hostname. We are a mac centric company but we use all windows servers. Apparently, that makes a situation ripe for these strange DHCP anomalies.

Thanks for the help.


AirPlay Mirroring games to AppleTV? So I've been looking into being able to send video wirelessly from my mbpro to my tv. One of my questions is can you actually mirror a fullscreen game to the AppleTV? I mostly only play minecraft and that uses the new os fullscreen.

And does AirPlay mirroring allow closing of the laptop like using displayport to hdmi? That would also help out the graphics card.

So what are the limitations, if any, of AirPlay mirroring?

And if this is not possible, are there any other hardware that will accomplish what I want?

If your hardware supports it, it will work.  My mid-2010 mini doesn't, but my son's mid-2011 mini does support it.  He plays games on the Apple TV + big-screen TV.  He even brings his Bluetooth keyboard and mouse into the TV room, and they're close enough to the Mac mini to work.

Performance is NOT great on the high-framerate FPS kind of games, but should be good for Minecraft.

Even when your HW does not support the built-in mirroring, there are some third-party SW that enables it.  Try AirParrot, Beamer, and Bruce (no affiliation).


Why is my jailbroken iPhone not booting? I have an iPhone 3GS with firmware version 3.1.3 running on tethered jailbreak (blackra1n). Yesterday the wifi didn't work so naturally I:

reset network settings (as I did once or twice before).
got the recovery mode screen (as expected).
Connected it to my laptop.
ran blackra1n.

and then, instead of booting like it normally does, my iPhone just rebooted itself and went back to recovery mode. I tried doing this several times with no luck. Has this happened to anyone? Any solutions?

Thanks.

Edit: This is pretty urgent, as currently I don't have a cell phone, so I would appreciate even half-ideas if you have any and don't have time for a full answer.

Update: I have restored my iPhone, but now I am stuck on activation, and can't seem to solve it. Tried using redsn0w, but it's stuck on "Waiting for reboot" after the second upload. Any ideas?

Update 2: Got redsn0w to complete the process, but after it finishes, it just goes back to the iTunes/emergency call screen...

Update 3: I was able to perform restore to 3.1.3, but now I just get the apple logo and it doesn't do anything... It seems problems are just piling on...

I've had this happen once before. Is your phone in an "endless loop" of reboots? If so, my solution was to put the phone in DFU mode and restore it and just try the jailbreak over again. Sometimes things get loopy and it just doesn't work correctly. Give it another shot.

How to Put an iPhone Into DFU Mode


Is there a totally 'clean' full-screen mode web browser? As the title describes, I'm looking for a totally clean full screen web browser with quick navigating options in Mac OS X.

To be specific, I don't want url bar, toolbar or anything else when in full screen mode. Although I've known that safari can hide toolbar in full screen after a few tweaks, navigating seems to be a big pain and I hate moving mouses. I'm also looking for something like sublime text's pop out input bar: with a quick gesture and some simple input, I can reach most of the functions a mouse can do in few seconds.

Does a browser like this even exists for Mac OS X?

EDIT: @dwightk has provided two feasible options in the answer below using plugins for chrome and safari. But I would like this question to remain open if anyone know more solutions

Have you seen Vimium for Chrome?

I'm not sure if there is a way to hide the toolbar in Chrome, but the vim extension for Safari might be the last step you need for navigating using only the keyboard.


What is the difference between a local Mailbox and an archive in Apple Mail? In Apple Mail in MacOS High Sierra I move all old sent and received mails out of the IMAP folders into a folder that is displayed as "Local" in the sidebar:

That way I archive all my old mails and remove them from the IMAP folders from the internet. Whenever I get a new Mac, I export those local folders and import them back into Mail on the new Mac. So my archive stays complete and searchable.

But Apple also has this thing called "Archive":

Which is not displayed under "Local" but its content is actually stored under local.

So what is the actual functional difference between the two, except from them having different icons?

The 'Archive' folder that Apple Mail uses with IMAP accounts is still on the IMAP server.
In short, it's just a default folder to move email to, for people who like their Inbox empty.


OSX Preview: Bug in the size of PDF Highlights When I highlight text in OSX's Preview the size of the highlight becomes huge. These two images illustrate the problem (In the first image I am highlighting the text and the highlight is normal, in the second image you see the applied highlight which four-five times as tall):

and

However this does not happen with all PDFs. I am currently experiencing the problem with some PDF slides that most likely have been saved/exported/printed from PowerPoint (Windows). The problem is especially problematic when highlighting multiple lines, then the highlight becomes completely illegible (can't see which line it starts nor stops at).

Anyways of fixing this by myself? Or will I have to report it to Apple and then wait for a possible update/fix?

I can't seem to avoid this problem, but I can get around it by restarting OSX Preview when it starts happening. When I reopen OSX Preview highlight works as it is supposed to (normal hight on highlights). Note: If I however save the PDF with a faulty highlight, the faulty highlight will still be there when I reopen the PDF – new highlight will work fine, but old ones are not corrected by saving and restarting OSX Preview.


IMAP setting for hotmail in Outlook v14 for mac os x I got for a few years a hotmail account and get my mail into outlook with POP setting.... everything is fine... But now i got a iPhone and iPad and there is some setting to get IMAP hotmail (m.hotmail.com) wich work fine for ipad and iphone, but NOT for outlook...

How to make outlook sync hotmail as IMAP ?

The following settings (as provided here: Windows Help) should work.
This works for me apart from one, ah, small glitch (compare here: Question 76499).

Incoming (IMAP) Server
Server address: imap-mail.outlook.com
Port: 993
Encrypted Connection: SSL

Outgoing (SMTP) Server
Server address: smtp-mail.outlook.com
Port: 25 (or 587 if 25 is blocked)
Authentication: Yes
Encrypted Connection: TLS


Process not running but app shown in dock I have an applescript that runs automatically and relies on the application "Contacts" to be running. Occasionally, it fails when the "Contacts" process mysteriously disappears from the activity monitor, although the dock still shows it as running.

The following will NOT work:

Applescript "tell application "Contacts" to activate
Applescript "tell application "Contacts' to quit
(both respond with "application not running)
Applescript "do shell script killall launchserviced" followed by "killall dock" executes ok but doesn't solve the problem

Only solution is to MANUALLY quit "Contacts" from the dock and then reactivate it but that solution is not satisfactory because it requires a manual intervention.
Any ideas as to a) why the error happens and b) how can I cater for the error by quiting "Contacts" from applescript ?

Any ideas will be appreciated

....

In response to bmike's comment;

Running OS X 10.10.5 and here is the relevant section of the applescript

set todaysdate to (current date) as text

*tell application "System Events"

try
    set myprocessid to (get id of process "Contacts")
on error number errorno
    display dialog errorno
    if errorno is equal to -1728 then -- process not found
        try
            tell application "System Events" to run application "Contacts"
        on error number errorno
            if errorno = -600 then
                display dialog errorno & todaysdate as text
            end if
        end try
        do shell script "/bin/sleep 3" --and allow enough time for the app to activate
    end if
end try

end tell

This section attempts to activate "Contacts" if it finds the process is not running (error -1728). It then attempts to run the app but it always errors out with -600 (app not running). A simple applescript to quit the app also errors out with -600.

So, if the process is missing, the app cannot be activated and quit does not work either.

Thanks for your comments

I seemed to have at last found a way to get over this. It's rather crude, but worked for me.

if errorno = -600 then
                    tell application "System Events"
                        tell process "Dock"
                            click UI element "Contacts" of list 1
                        end tell
                    end tell
                    delay 10 -- allow sometime for the process to appear in the process list
                    tell application "System Events"
                        tell process "Contacts" to set visible to false -- run hidden
                    end tell
                end if

By forcing a click in the dock, the process re-appears in the process list and then the app can be quit, or restarted, or whatever. Weird.


Can I transfer and view xvid (avi) videos on an iPad? What type of video files can I watch on my iPad?

I usually only have .avi files; is there an app that will allow me to play them?

You could also try AirVideo, which will convert and stream xvid (and other formats) from a local PC.  You can connect to it via local network or remotely as well.http://www.inmethod.com/air-video/index.html


What other browsers are available for iPad As the question says, what other web browsers are available on the iPad?
I would ideally like Chrome or Firefox.

Dolphin Browser

Gestures: create a personal symbol to access the websites you use the most
Visit your favorite sites with one touch.
Tabbed browsing
Bookmarks Bar
Full Screen Mode


How do I search for apps on iOS 14? Prior to iOS 14 it was possible, from any of the home pages, to flick down and search for an app. For example, with a simple workflow consisting of

flick, "p", "c"

to find PCalc.
But since installing iOS 14 this capability seems to have been lost. When I take those steps now I'm unhelpfully offered things like the website of the "Porsche Club of America" or the Presbyterian Church (sites I've never visited and have no interest in) or a stock ticket for PCA (whatever that is, I don't even have stocks or use the stocks app). And if I type out "pcalc" and hit Search I get an App Store link to a version I don't want, and useless web links about the app:

In order to find an app now it seems I need to run through all of my home screen pages in order to get to something called the App Library:

page, page, page, page, [view I don't need], "p", "c"

Is this now the only way to find apps?
How do I search for apps in iOS 14? Is the App Library now the only way to do this?

PCalc is my top result for a search for ‘pc’ on iOS 14.
If you've only just updated to iOS 14, your device will likely still be indexing. This is probably the same issue as macOS where Spotlight search is very wrong right after an OS upgrade.


If I buy an Iphone in Dubai, will I be able to install and use Skype/Whatsapp in other country? I am from Brazil and I am planning to buy an iPhone 7 in Dubai. I know that iPhones bought in Dubay have Facetime blocked at the hardware level. But, I would like to know if I will be able to install and use other alternative applications like facebook, skype, WhatsApp in Brazil.

In general, no. Apple performs geographic restrictions (and allots warranty service contact) via the country in which the device is sold and not based on where you take it or reside. In most cases, you don’t have warranty issues, but check the iOS page when you are shopping for iPhone online if you care about getting all the possible encryption, freedom to use any apps:

https://www.apple.com/iphone-7/ios/

At the bottom is usually something like:

  Some features, applications, and services are not available in all areas. Click here to see complete list.

Also, you’ll want to watch where Apple doesn’t even support the device and instead the carrier is used to implement whatever restrictions the government requires:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204042

The note about FaceTime being permanently blocked in addition to encrypted FaceTime and such could easily apply to more services either now or going forward.


Should the S be a capital letter in the iPhone S series? For the iPhone S series, should the S next to the number be a capital letter or not? (iPhone 6s or iPhone 6S.)

On the official Apple site it's always written with small "s".

You can also use iPhone 6 ;)


Free screen grabber for OS X I'm looking for an app that lets me capture a rectangle, puts it up to an image bin, and puts a link to the image into my clipboard.

Dropbox does this, with one problem: it doesn't link to the image. It links to a page containing the image, but it isn't trivial to extract the image from the link.

The reason I want a link to the image is because I use IRC, and most good IRC clients are smart enough that if I enter the URL for an image, the other users of the channel Will see the image. However, if it is linking to a page containing the image then that is no good: they will just see a web link and they will have to click it, and it will open up a new browser window, and that annoys people.

I've also checked out Jing which is very nice, only it suffers the same problem.

EDIT: I started writing a script https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21371254/osx-automatically-upload-screenshot-to-imagebin-and-put-url-in-clipboard

So far it uploads file, puts a link into the clipboard and make some noise. Can anyone finish it off?

If you have ssh access to some server, you might use a script like this:

f=$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S).png
screencapture -i ~/Sites/upload/$f
printf %s http://example.com/$f|pbcopy
scp ~/Sites/upload/$f user@host:public_html

To make scp not require a password, run ssh-keygen, accept the defaults in every step, and then run ssh user@host 'mkdir -p ~/.ssh/;chmod 700 ~/.ssh/;cat>>~/.ssh/authorized_keys;chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys'<~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.


Send a notification to my iPhone when a website's content changes I would like to be notified quickly (ideally within an hour) if a certain website (that is not under my control) changes. Any changes to the HTML should trigger a notification.
Since I am not always monitoring my email but I have my iPhone on me most of the day, I am probably looking to receive a push notification or SMS message once that happens.
Any recommendations for an app or service that can help me with that? I am willing to pay for it.

Urlooker offers paid plans that monitor for changes up to as frequently as every 30 minutes and has email notification built in. You can monitor the whole page or selected elements only.
Urlooker offers integration with Zapier and ifttt if you prefer actions offered by those platforms to be triggered.


Yosemite file permissions/ownership issue I'm no stranger to OSX and a while back I upgraded to Yosemite at rollout.

I'm a web developer an I'm encountering a strange behaviour with file permissions ever since upgrading. For example, I'm using the command line to pull in files through Git or Composer. Previously, when I did this, I was automatically the owner of these new folders and files and had read/write access.

However, when I perform the same operations, I'm no longer the owner and have to go about chown and chmoding various folders in order to get going.

I haven't heard of anyone else experiencing this. Any ideas?

Chris

I found the solution which was much more localised.

I needed to chown -R my composer directory. For some reason, I wasn't the owner. After running this command, the issue was resolved.


Apple accounts and a workplace Mac? I am getting a MacBook Pro today, in order to build an App.

My question is simple (I hope):

Can I set up a company account through Apple, for Appstore purchases, etc.?

Or?

Do I have to set up a personalized account?

Bear in mind that in the future, I might not be the person that works on future apps, so the machine might transition over to someone else.

You can setup an account for a company, just use a company e-mail address that isn't strictly your own (ideally, something generic like appleid@company) and fill out the correct fields on the sign-up section.

You can also use this account to join the developer program with Apple - although this might be what you meant anyway.

When signing up, I'd still use your name - this can easily be changed, but fill out the company details (and, I suppose, credit card).


How do i delete an untitled folder in Albums iPhone 5 PHOTOS app iPhone 5, iOS 8.3, PHOTOS

How do I delete an untitled folder in Albums iPhone 5 PHOTOS app?

Once again I am stumped, I can't delete a folder in Albums in the Photos app on my iPhone 5, 8.3.
From my camera roll I can select Albums. there is an album called untitled folder,
I select the EDIT BUTTON ON THE TOP RIGHT expecting to be able to delete it, but no.

I tap to the left looking for a red delete button, none, I pull to the right looking for delete, no, I tap the album nothing.
The only thing that happens is when I hit DONE, it goes back and becomes part the camera roll ext,

Delete photos and video synced from iTunes when you can’t access the originals.

You can delete photos you synced from iTunes by syncing them with a new folder.

These steps will remove all of the previously synced photos from the device.

To delete photos that have been synced from a computer that's no longer accessible:

Create a folder on the computer that you now sync with, and add a single photo to that folder.
In the Photos tab in iTunes, click the box next to "Sync Photos From."
In the pop-up menu next to "Sync Photos From," choose the folder you created in step 1.
Apply the change.
Uncheck "Sync Photos From."
Apply the change again.

Your synced photos will now be removed from the device.


Show installation date of packages installed with Homebrew? Homebrew shows me all packages that I have installed with brew leaves. However, it doesn't show me when was a package been installed.

Is it possible to make Homebrew show the installation date of packages?

brew ls -lt lists installed packages, sorted by last modified date of the package installation directory, newest to oldest.

Equivalent results can be obtained with:

find /usr/local/Cellar -type d -maxdepth 0 | xargs ls -lt

With this incantation, sort order can be changed by adding -U (creation date) or -u (last access date) to the ls -lt

$ find /usr/local/Cellar -type d -maxdepth 0 | xargs ls -ltU # creation aka *installation date*
$ find /usr/local/Cellar -type d -maxdepth 0 | xargs ls -ltu # last access aka last use date

Add -r to ls -lt to reverse order, oldest to newest.

brew ls -l lists installed packages in alphabetical order.

It's unknown to me whether Homebrew affects a package folder's creation date during brew upgrade, so be aware that learning the first installation date of a package may be elusive.

The -a option for brew ls -l appears to be no longer available.


PDF software to read many documents side-by-side in iPad? This thread is a part of the major thread about using iPad for education purposes here.

When I do my homework, I often need to recap lecture notes and at the same time do assignments. Before my printer broke, I printed everything -- now with my iPad, I use only the screen. The problem is that I have only one iPad and so I am looking for a software using which I could read many PDFs at the same time. Does such a PDF reader exist?

I have used PDF Expert but it lacks this feature. I have also tried apps such as iAnnotate but cannot find this feature.

Side by Side allows you to read up to 4 different PDFs side by side on an iPad.


Avoid download 100.000 mails from gmail when using Apple Mail When I am using Apple Mail, it insists on downloading the full body and attachment 100.000+ email I have on gmail, which eats up my hard drive, and makes the interactive search function annoyingly slow.

Is there any way to make Mail only create indexes for Subject/From fields, and keep all the actual mail content remotely?

Possibly, it could cache "new" mail locally (from the last week or so), but to cache the full body of every single mail from years ago is just insane with the amount of mail one has these days.

Apple's mail on 10.11 and older will download all the mail that the server tells it about. The macOS 10.12 mail has a setting to optimize mail storage that might store header information for all mails, but not download the body and attachments of older emails.

You can opt in to that from the Apple menu - about this Mac - storage - manage, but it seems to only be offered when you have significant storage burden from Mail and/or specific mail server configurations.

Since that's how the mail client was designed and codes, you will need to go to gmail's web interface and hide some of the folders from IMAP access to prevent mail from ever seeing the messages. Exchange has a setting to determine a time range of mail to sync, but google and IMAP do not have that feature.

Gmail -> Settings -> Labels

Most people I know that use mail like you describe (keep all of it all the time) choose to not show All Mail in IMAP and then just clean their inbox when the volume becomes unwieldy.


Filezilla Explicit FTP over TLS not working with Airport Extreme There is a security certificate exchange that occurs at the start of the connection process which doesn't seem to work when the Airport Extreme is used as the Internet access point.  When I switch to using my iPhone as a  Personal Hotspot, it works fine.  Any ideas on what the missing configuration might be?

Looks like Airport Extreme acts as an ftp proxy, see https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2047569
And to make use of this proxy for FTPS connections it has either to do SSL man-in-the-middle (which causes certificate check to fail) or to reject the SSL upgrade (e.g. AUTH TLS command). Another way would be to do only the login with TLS and switch then back to plain text (CCC command), then the proxy could maybe listen to PORT commands.

Further discussions see https://discussions.apple.com/message/21689470


Macbook Pro 2018, trackpad issue because of swollen battery or faulty trackpad? I have a weird trackpad issue on my 15" 2018 Macbook Pro since a few days now. I suspect it's caused by a swollen battery, but I'm not totally sure.

Here is the issue,:

Force Click almost never works, if it does it's only for a few minutes after booting in the morning
right click (two fingers click) works fine for a little while after start up then stops working on part or the trackpad after a while
the longer I use the computer the larger the area where I can't right click gets, starting from the upper middle and extending downwards
after a few hours I can only right-click  on the sides and bottom third of the trackpad and sometimes even a single click (one finger click) doesn't work on the upper middle of the trackpad

Given that the issue worsens depending on how long I use the computer I think it's a hardware and not software issue.
SMC and NVRAM + PRAM reset didn't help.

I have then noticed that my battery might be swollen, at least the bottom of the device is as pressing lightly on the lower right side makes the upper left rubber side lift by a few millimeters, same for the other side.
To be clear, the trackpad itself seems perfectly flat, but the underside of the computer seems swollen.

However I'm not totally convinced it is the battery as System Report seems to consider it healthy.
Furthermore, I'm not sure a swollen battery could affect the trackpad, as if I understand it correctly, on newer trackpads the clicks aren't mechanical but generated by pressure sensors.

I can't get my computer to an Apple Authorized Service Provider (no official Apple Store in my area) before a few days/a week and also went out of warranty about 2 month ago.
So I'm turning to stack exchange to have an opinion on the issue and see if the device is still safe to use for a little while, as apparently swollen batteries are potentially dangerous.

We can only speculate wether the issue is caused by the swollen battery.

HOWEVER

A swollen battery can be a hazard and should be swapped either way.
Apple offers extra warranty for batteries that are swollen (2-3 years from purchase depending on the device). An AASP (Apple Authorized Service Provider) should be able to swap the Top Case (which will include the battery as well as the trackpad) under the extended warranty free of charge.


Some iPhone/iPad photos do not appear on the map of iPhoto It happens to me sometimes that using iPhone or iPad, I take pictures in open air environments, but later, when photos are exported to iPhoto, they do not appear on the Map. What could be the cause?

You can add or correct wrong GPS-data to your photo with the app iMetaPhoto.

I had the same problem, I took 4 photos at the same location, but only the last photo was correctly geotagged. Wit iMetaPhoto you can take this correct GPS-data and save it to the wrong ones.


FileVault & multiple admin users' privacy Using FileVault 2, when connecting a disk in target mode, the disk is locked and can only be unlocked by users authorised to do so. However, once it is unlocked, all contents are accessible to the User unlocking it. Is there a way to keep individual users' files encrypted, while making the 'general' part of the disk, and the files belonging to the user unlocking the disk accessible?

In general, you can't keep any files from an administrative user that knows how to modify file permissions.

FileVault is to keep untrusted users out of the entire disk - so you cannot allow an admin user/password into the hands of someone you don't trust.

You can make individual disk images and encrypt them with passwords that are not shared and that will ensure that other Admin accounts cannot look at the files. They could copy the store somewhere else and try to brute force things, they could install keyboard monitoring software to hope to catch you typing the passphrase, but they can't get into each user's private store without another piece of information.

This was one benefit of the older FileVault implementation where each user had their own store / their own key and the risk of cross contamination of user files was lessened.


How do I prevented the hackers (secret intel) manipulating my terminal again How do I prevented the hackers manipulating my terminal again so that my terminal works correct again?

Here in the Netherlands we perform cybertest at the company where we work and the attacks are performed by the Dutch goverment AIVD (the group who also caught the Fancy Bear hackers). A hacker has root access on my MacBook Air. How do I know that(it was announced that we would get hacked)? The hacker is capable of running the:

sudo hostname 192

The hacker explicitly ran the command above. The hacker also manipulates my bash. I executed the command-line

sudo dscl . list /Users | grep -v '^_'

and see four users:

daemon
nobody
jen
Root

I don’t know where to look at since my bash is manipulated. In my terminal only the commands that I performed two days ago are shown. The commands of yesterday and today are not shown. Even if I perform

Example:

Last login: Mon Aug 27 17:37:19 on ttys001
192:~ jen$ history -c
192:~ jen$ history -w

Last login: Mon Aug 27 17:38:49 on ttys002
192:~ jen$ history
    1  nano doc.txt
    2  cat doc.txt

How do I prevented the hackers manipulating my terminal again so that my terminal works correct again?

I am not victim of social engineering, I did not opened any links or files via mail or downloaded some application. I use the laptop only to work on highly confidential stuff.
I only uses software delivered by Mac on my system. (I did not download any files via mail and I don't use any browser) I use this laptop to write mails only(Nothing more).

Most likely you have sprung to an incorrect conclusion - that your Mac was hacked.

The most likely cause of "unwanted" or "surprising" host name changes is that your DHCP server gave your computer a new hostname. The DHCP server could be a router/modem in your own house, a system at your ISP or indeed hardware at anywhere you have connected to a WiFi network (such as a coffee shop, school or whatever).

Removing sudo rights from yours won't help this problem, as the DHCP client on your Mac will still be able to change your hostname.


OS X client to OD if master is down When joining an OS X client to OD, it seems you use the server of the master OD. However, if the master is down for reboot or maintenance, how does the client know to contact the OD slave?

Would it be advised to create a DNS entry, lets say od.example.com, list both server IP's in the A record?

You should specifically not try to do any DNS or similar trickery to achieve failover. The way OD failover works is that the OD data includes configuration records listing all of the OD servers (master and replicas). The clients store (& periodically update) copies of this list, so if they ever have trouble contacting their primary server (generally the one they were told to bind to), they have a ready list of other servers to try.

(It's actually more complicated than this if you have locales defined, since that overrides the basic server list. But the same principles apply; just define the locales in OD, and the clients will automatically download the info they need.)


Updating to Mojave & enabling FileVault at the same time Recently I decided to update to Mojave. Additionally, FileVault encyption was mandated remotely. Upon the reboot all hell broke loose.

The output of "diskutil apfs list" tells me Macintosh HD is "Not Mounted" while its Encryption Progress is stuck at 0.0% (Paused) (Locked).

Nothing seems to happen when I try to mount the drive using Disk Utility. Well, it does manage to unlock the drive after asking for the password (for some reason it doesn't accept the password the first time and I have to enter it twice).

After a recovery reboot (at this stage the disk is locked):

# diskutil apfs unlockVolume disk2s1
Passphrase: (...)
Unlocking any cryptographic user on APFS Volume disk2s1
Error unlocking APFS Volume: Couldn't mount disk (-69842)

The disk is now unlocked.

# diskutil mount /dev/disk2s1
Volume on disk2s1 failed to mount; it appears to be an APFS Volume which might be locked
Try "diskutil apfs unlockVolume"

# diskutil apfs unlockVolume disk2s1
Passphrase: (entering the password here)
Unlocking any cryptographic user on APFS Volume disk2s1
Error unlocking APFS Volume: The given APFS Volume is not locked (-69589)

# diskutil mount /dev/disk2s1
Volume on disk2s1 failed to mount; it appears to be an APFS Volume which might be locked
Try "diskutil apfs unlockVolume"

# fsck_apfs /dev/disk2s1
** Checking volume.
** Checking the container superblock.
** Checking the EFI jumpstart record.
** Checking the space manager.
** Checking the object map.
** Checking APFS volume superblock.
** Checking the object map.
warning: omap (oid 0x9a64f): invalid om_flags (0x2)
mount_apfs: mount: Input/output error
error: mount_apfs exit status 73
** The volume /dev/disk2s1 could not be verified completely.

Now, after another fresh recovery boot I've done the following:

Unlocked the drive (unlockVolume) with the -nomount option.
Disk Utility > First Aid gave me the following

Repairing file system.
Volume is already unmounted.
Performing fsck_apfs -y -x /dev/rdisk2s1
Checking volume.
Checking the container superblock.
Checking the space manager.
Checking the object map.
Checking the APFS volume superblock.
Checking the object map.
warning: omap (oid 0x9a64f): invalid om_flags (0x2)
error: er_state->esrb_version is 2, should be 1
Encryption Rolling data structures are invalid.
The volume /dev/rdisk2s1 could not be verified completely.
File system check exit code is 0.
Restoring the original state found as unmounted.
Operation successful.

The "error: er_state->esrb_version is 2, should be 1" and the "Encryption Rolling data structures are invalid" parts are new.

Thank you for your time.

Fixed! What helped to move the needle is Target Disk Mode. Another Mac was able to unlock and mount the disk and it eventually completed its encryption that was stuck at 0.0% otherwise.


Terminal won't choose new window settings at startup I've been running into an odd behavior on 10.7 where editing Terminal preferences to launch a new window setting via "On startup, open" doesn't result in the changed terminal after a quit/launch.

Any idea what I may be doing wrong and/or how to trigger the new style?

It sounds like Lion's resume feature is confusing the cause-effect relationship between settings and application behavior.

The "On Startup, open" should work, assuming that you had no windows open when you closed Terminal.app.  Lion's resume feature is enabled for Terminal.app by default, so quitting the application before closing any windows will yield the same windows the Terminal is re-launched.

The simplest fix is this:

Make sure you've closed all Terminal windows.
Restart Terminal.app.

In the normal course of events, the resulting window should have the "On Start, open..." settings. If the steps above do not fix the issue, then I recommend deleting your Terminal preferences with a backup so that you can revert if needed.

Disable Resume for Terminal.app

You can also just disable resume for Terminal.app. Run the following command and re-launch Terminal.app twice:

defaults write com.apple.Terminal NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool false


sendmail fails complaining: create file maildrop Permission denied When trying to use sendmail from a script, it fails with

postdrop: warning: mail_queue_enter: create file maildrop/690025.14220: Permission denied

Output from ls -la /var/spool/postfix looks like this which is identical to the output on another Mac with working sendmail:

total 0
drwxr-xr-x  16 root      wheel      544 24 Sep  2016 .
drwxr-xr-x   6 root      wheel      204 21 Okt  2016 ..
drwx------   2 _postfix  wheel       68  8 Jan 17:22 active
drwx------   2 _postfix  wheel       68 11 Feb  2017 bounce
drwx------   2 _postfix  wheel       68 24 Sep  2016 corrupt
drwx------  11 _postfix  wheel      374 11 Feb  2017 defer
drwx------  11 _postfix  wheel      374 11 Feb  2017 deferred
drwx------   2 _postfix  wheel       68 24 Sep  2016 flush
drwx------   2 _postfix  wheel       68 24 Sep  2016 hold
drwx------   2 _postfix  wheel       68  8 Jan 17:22 incoming
drwx-wx---   2 _postfix  _postdrop   68 12 Feb  2017 maildrop
drwxr-xr-x  10 root      wheel      340  8 Jan 17:22 pid
drwx------  26 _postfix  wheel      884  8 Jan 17:22 private
drwx--x---   7 _postfix  _postdrop  238  8 Jan 17:22 public
drwx------   2 _postfix  wheel       68 24 Sep  2016 saved
drwx------   2 _postfix  wheel       68 24 Sep  2016 trace

I've searched the net for solutions and tried them, but they don't seem to work.
sudo postfix check gives me these messages:

postfix: Postfix is running with backwards-compatible default settings
postfix: See http://www.postfix.org/COMPATIBILITY_README.html for details
postfix: To disable backwards compatibility use "postconf compatibility_level=2" and "postfix reload"
/usr/sbin/postconf: warning: /etc/postfix/main.cf: unused parameter: mydomain_fallback=localhost

The last line is repeated approx. 20 times.

sudo postfix set-permissions results in the same output, plus

chown: /usr/libexec/postfix: Operation not permitted

When I try sendmail with sudo (no idea if that should work), I get

postdrop: warning: unable to look up public/pickup: No such file or directory

Any ideas how to fix that?

Unfortunately I only found the solution reinstalling postfix... workaround I know... and then killall postdrop.

apt-get install --reinstall postfix

killall postdrop


Office 2016 beta on Mac I have coworkers that are using many features that are in office 2013, 2016 for Windows,  and I want to get office 2016 for Mac. I don't have office 365, I just want the local version.

How can I get it?

Office 2016 for Mac has a stable release available for Office 365 subscribers. It'll be available as a standalone purchase at some unspecified date in September. Until then, it looks like Microsoft has taken their beta down. What you could do is wait as long as you can bear to live without Office and then sign up for a free trial of Office 365, and then unsubscribe and buy Office 2016 once it comes out in September.


Why have symbolic links between files in folders at same depth? I noticed that in macOS, the /usr/local/Cellar folder contains binaries installed using Homebrew, and that /usr/local/opt has symbolic links to a bunch of those binaries. I haven't used symbolic links much, but as I understand it, the purpose of them is to create a link in a convenient location to a file/folder that acts as a copy of that file/folder, without having to move that file/folder from its original location.

So my questions are:

Am I correct in my understanding of symbolic links there?
If so, why would you create symbolic links in one folder (/usr/local/opt) to binaries in another folder (/usr/local/Cellar) that is at a similar location/depth in the file structure? Under what circumstances would you use these symbolic links where you couldn't just use the binaries?

Am I correct in my understanding of symbolic links there?

Yes. Symbolic link, as the name implies acts as a link to a file/folder located elsewhere. Accessing the link is generally equivalent to accessing the file/folder.

  If so, why would you create symbolic links in one folder (/usr/local/opt) to binaries in another folder (/usr/local/Cellar) that is at a similar location/depth in the file structure?

If you'll carefully observer in this particular case, the binaries corresponding to all the various installed formulae are in different folders. There's a separate folder corresponding to each installed formula under /usr/local/Cellar. Within the folder for formula is a folder containing version number, followed by installed files for the formula.

Via symlink under /usr/local/opt, the installation location for all the formula are brought in one place.

For knowing the exact purpose of why /usr/local/opt folder is created by Homebrew, you can refer to this post on Stack Overflow:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/35337601/why-is-there-a-usr-local-opt-directory-created-by-homebrew-and-should-i-use-it


How can I permanently unhide invisible files on mac (not just make invisible files visible!)? I have a few invisible files. I want to turn them into visible files. That is, I do not just want to make my invisible files show up in the Finder (I have that already, -they all show up) - but I'd like to turn them into normal, unhidden files, just like all my other files.

How can I do this on my Mac?

There are two ways that I know of to hide a file on macOS:

Start the file name with a . (period) -- this is carry over from Unix systems and the Finder still to this day honors the tradition.
Assign the hidden attribute to the file. To do this, you would use the chflags command-line program via the Terminal app.

Thus to reveal all hidden items in the Finder, one would have to do two things:

Enable in Finder viewing of items that start with a . (period). This is what you have already done.
Find all files and folders with the hidden attribute and remove the attribute with chflags nohidden. You can script this with various command-line programs or you could use something like Batchmod application do to so for you.


Plug headphone not support with macmini I have a Macmini 4,1. I tried to use plug headset with mic for skype call, but it doesn't work.

I can hear the voice from the other end, but my voice can't be heard on the other end. I tried with two or three headsets, but results the same.

Then, a friend asked me to try using USB headset, I brought it from one neighbour and now it works fine.why?

Is it a problem of my macmini, or all macmini would behave like this?

Referring to the answer, I have to decide to buy a new USB headset or not.

Here are the specs for this mini according to Wikipedia. Note that this Mac (and most Macs I'm familiar with) has an audio line-in which is a high-level input, but no mic-in (low level). That means you'll need an external microphone amplifier between the mic and the line-in input. The USB mic is doing all of that for you - amplifying the mic and converting the audio signal to digital.


Clarification on upgrading the OS and using OWC SSD? I have a Early 2015 version Macbook Pro which has 126 GB HD / 10.11.1 El Captain OS on it. I wanted to upgrade the SSD. I decided to go with OWC. Transcend Jetdrive 820 for my Macbook model is on bit higher price.

However, OWC doesn't support El Captain. Whether it is possible to upgrade the OS to High Sierra on the current SSD and then replace the SSD with OWC SSD? Whether that will work?

Where does it say OWC doesn't support El Captain? I can not image why the version of macOS would matter. I assume you would put the new drive in the computer and then install the current macOS. Afterwards you would run the Migration Assistant to copy your files to the new SSD.

In other words, I do not see the need to change or update your existing drive before swapping with the new SSD.


"Other" Storage space in Sys Info I have  MBP with Lion.  In my Sys Info it says 170.12GB of space is being used by "Other".  How do I determine what this Other space is and how to clean it up if possible?

"Other" is all the files on your drive that aren't Audio, Movies, Photos, Apps, or Backup; in other words, all your documents and other saved files (and any media files in a format that System Information doesn't recognize as media files).

If you want to determine what files are taking up a lot of room on your drive, a tool like OmniDiskSweeper (free from OmniGroup) can help you identify where and what the files are that are taking up large amounts of space on your drive. Note that you might end up wanting to "clean it up" and you might discover that the space is taken up by files that you value and want to keep.


Use iPad socket adapter with MacBook Pro charger I have an iPad. Can I use its socket adapter (the part of the charger the connects to the socket) in my MacBook Pro charger

Yes.

The socket adapter of iPad and Macbook Pro have the same standard:(2.5A 250V~).
So they are interchangeable.


Windows 8 version specifically for Mac I really dont understand this. My school sells products to students via onthehub.com.

They offer a separate version of Windows 8 Pro that they claim is specifically for Macs. How does this make any sense? They say it is tailored to work with parallels or bootcamp and those type of things.

I am assuming they are only making the claim for 'security' sake? Let me know your two cents. I really just want to use it on my PC.

Perhaps they have selected an OEM version or otherwise made sure that the version being selected somehow addresses the need they perceive their Mac community would prefer.

The upgrade pricing seems odd since OS X isn't an eligible version for consumer upgrades, but perhaps the university has negotiated a special agreement and wants to only offer the upgrade price to Mac users and not PC users?


Is it possible to view two Apple IDs at the same time on the Find iPhone app? Do you need the same Apple ID to find my iPhone ? I have 3 iPhones 2 with the same Apple ID 1 with a different I'd can it be done?

If you add the second Apple ID as a family member on Family Sharing, you can see all your Family devices on Find my iPhone.

Or you can enter the credentials of the second Apple ID on any phone on the Find my iPhone app -or iCloud- and look for it.

If you’re willing to let some functionality out (no remotely playing sound, or locking and changing passcode), you can use Apple’s Find Friends and invite any Apple ID. You can then see the user on a map, set geofences and get informed on that user movements, but they can remove you at any time.


iPhone Backups on Network drive By moving my iTunes Library to a network drive, will iPhone/iPad backups also be stored on that network drive? (If not, is there a way to set this up?)

On a Mac, iDevice backups are stored in strangely (seemingly randomly) named subfolders in ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/
This is outside of the ~/Music/iTunes folder (standard Library location on Mac OSX).

You'd be wanting to take a copy of all the files and folders within this folder and put them on your network drive. I've not tested if a restore of these items works following a system reinstall and I suspect that iTunes may do some extra stuff behind the scenes to pair these backup folders and files to the devices that they came from.

Backup location on Windows (Assuming system drive is C:\)Windows XP
C:\Documents and Settings\user\Application Data\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup

Windows Vista/Windows 7
C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup

(edit) Just realised that this probably doesn't fully answer your question, however, I've found this discussion which is along the lines of changing where iTunes reads/writes its backups


iPhone 6s noticeably slower (geekbench) I have got an iPhone 6S on October of 2015.

Sometime in 2016, I downloaded Geekbench 3, to benchmark the device.

My baseline results are: (5 runs)

Single: ~2500 (2450-2550)
Multi: ~4400

Now, I feel like my iPhone is becoming slower, so I did the benchmark again. (11 months later)

My new results are: (5 runs)

Single: ~1500 (1200-1800)
Multi: ~2100

And it seems that it is somewhat dependent on the battery percentage (low battery => low result. but even 100% battery is ~1700)

I understand these are synthetic benchmarks, and are not fully representing the device's performance, but it seems odd, and I want to know if my device is defective? Do I have a case for a phone replacement? Or, am I reading too much into it, and devices just decay over time?

Note: I'm not sure if this is relevant, but my device is part of the apple recall for battery replacement, but because the apple re-seller in my country does not supply phone replacement, I did not change it.

It would appear to be an intentional change in how the phones perform as the battery ages, to prevent early shutdown in exchange for slower performance.

From Geekbench - iPhone Performance and Battery Age

  Performance and Battery Age So what’s going on here?

  First, it appears the problem is widespread, and will only get worse
  as phones (and their batteries) continue to age.

  Second, the problem is due, in part, to a change in iOS. The
  difference between 10.2.0 and 10.2.1 is too abrupt to be just a
  function of battery condition. I believe (as do others) that Apple
  introduced a change to limit performance when battery condition
  decreases past a certain point. Why did Apple do this? kadupse on
  Reddit offers the following explanation:

  "Many iPhone 6s devices were shutting down unexpectedly, even after
  the battery replacement program (Which many people weren’t entitled to
  use). Because degraded batteries last much less and end up with a
  lower voltage Apple’s solution was to scale down CPU performance, it
  doesn’t solve anything and is a bad experience… but it’s better than
  having your device shutdown at 40% when you need it the most."

  Apple acknowledged the sudden shutdown issue that affected the iPhone
  6 and iPhone 6s earlier this year. However, does the same issue affect
  the iPhone 7? Apple appears to have added a similar change to iOS
  11.2.0 for the iPhone 7.

  If the performance drop is due to the “sudden shutdown” fix, users
  will experience reduced performance without notification. Users expect
  either full performance, or reduced performance with a notification
  that their phone is in low-power mode. This fix creates a third,
  unexpected state. While this state is created to mask a deficiency in
  battery power, users may believe that the slow down is due to CPU
  performance, instead of battery performance, which is triggering an
  Apple introduced CPU slow-down. This fix will also cause users to
  think, “my phone is slow so I should replace it” not, “my phone is
  slow so I should replace its battery”. This will likely feed into the
  “planned obsolecense” narritive.


How macOS detects apps that stopped responding? Sometimes apps stop responding to user events probably due to bugs or unexpected edge cases. But it's different from a crash because an app may stop responding for some time and then "start responding" again, for example Photoshop may get stuck when opening huge images because processing might take some time, but eventually it loads the image and continues working fine.

And I am wondering, on the technical level, how the operating system detects such cases to offer the user an option to force quit the app.

GUI programs on macOS (and most other graphical operating systems) work by having a main loop that empties a so called "message queue". Some times this is called a "message pump".

Messages are put in the message queue by the operating system's windowing subsystem to tell the application about things that happened - for example "the mouse was clicked at (x,y)" or "the window was resized to size (width,height)".

The application then pulls these messages from the queue, processes them, and then waits for new messsages.

If the application for some reason isn't pulling these messages from the queue for a period of time, macOS will say that the application is not responding. This is all it is.

Many GUI application split their execution in multiple "threads" - which can be thought of as a program streams executing at the same time. The main thread is responsible for the main message loop, whilst other threads can be responsible for network communication, disk I/O, background calculations, etc. However any changes to the graphical user interfaces that is managed by the operating system must go through the main thread.

If for some reason the main thread is busy doing something else than GUI work, then it could be marked as non-responding. This could be because the program is stuck in an infinite loop, or is in a deadlock waiting for some resource or similar. The program will never recover from this state, but the operating system can't know this.

Another reason for the main thread to be busy could be that it is saving a large file, waiting for communication on the network, or doing a large calculation. After that is done, the program will start pulling messages from the queue again, and will be responding again. Usually programmers do a lot of work to ensure that nothing like that happens on the main thread to ensure that the program is responsive at all times.


Set meta/command/⌘ key as Launchpad shortcut? I would like to set the command key ⌘ as the shortcut to open Launchpad, is that possible? I've tried in the System Preferences, but it won't let me.

To make this work you have to use a third party tool: Karabiner.

In the customized keycode below I assume that you haven't enabled the consumer key function in System Preferences but have to access the consumer keys by using the fn+F1...F12.

In the example below just the left command key launches Launchpad if hit once. A second hit will close Launchpad again.

You can use either the left or the right command key as usual otherwise (e.g. open files with cmd+O or print cmd+P)

Download, install and open Karabiner
Open in the menulet Karabiner -> Preferences
Open the tab Misc & Uninstall
Hit the button Open private.xml
Open the file private.xml with an appropriate editor
Enter the customized keycode

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
    <item>
        <name>When you type Command_L only, start Launchpad</name>
        <appendix>(Change Command_L lazy start Launchpad)</appendix>
        <identifier>remap.command_l_lazy_to_launchpad</identifier>
        <autogen>__KeyOverlaidModifier__ KeyCode::COMMAND_L, KeyCode::VK_LAZY_COMMAND_L, KeyCode::LAUNCHPAD, ModifierFlag::FN</autogen>
    </item>
</root>

Save the file
Open in the menulet Karabiner -> Preferences the tab Change Key
Hit the ReloadXML button
Enable the remapping. It should be listed at the beginning.


MacBook connected to ghost network I have a MacBook and it has been giving me a weird issue since today morning. I have a WiFi at home and when I booted up my laptop it showed connected to my Wi-Fi network even when the router was switched off.

I tried rebooting my laptop and turning the AirPort on and off, but I faced the same issue. It still showed connected to the wifi network that had been off for the past couple of hours.

The net did start to work when I switched on the router but I still can't figure out why this was happening.

You are actually connected to the AirPort.  Whether the router is up or down wouldn't matter, as your wifi will show the stats of your connection only to the AirPort device.


When I search on Podcasts on iPad Pro, found podcasts are in German not English I bought the iPad in German and I made my country Germany back then. Now when I search on Podcasts, all podcasts shown are in German language. How to fix that? I want to see Podcasts that are in English too.
I have iPadOS 14.5 betta.

You can simply select the language in the settings app.
Open the settings app, locate the Podcasts tab and set your preferred language. Simply open the Podcasts app and search in English. Results will now show English podcasts.

If this does not work, use the Feedback App to report back to Apple that there is a bug, since it is working for me on iPadOS 14.4.


How do I make a voice-reply via Apple Watch send, and not delay by a variable amount of time? When I send an iMessage on Apple Watch there is only a "don't send" button, but I have no confirmation if/when this message is actually sent.

Many times when I send a message, later to check the time (within 5 seconds or so), the message is still "pending"

How do I

Get a confirmation that a message was actually sent (as in UX, a whooshing sound, a tap... etc)
Get rid of the delay when sending an iMessage.  Sometimes when the message is syntactically correct, I want to just go on doing something else, like checking the HopStop's ETA to my destination.

After you've dictated your message, you can immediately send it by opening Siri and saying "send".

You can also say "don't send" to cancel your message.


Command + fullstop VS Ctrl + C Is there any difference between ctrl+c and cmd+. when stopping a terminal process?

They are exactly the same. ⌘ CMD+. sends SIGINT just like ⌃ CTRL+c. I've checked this with this python script:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import signal
import sys
def signal_handler(signal, frame):
    print('You pressed Ctrl+C!')
    sys.exit(0)
signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, signal_handler)
print('Press Ctrl+C')
signal.pause()

It's made this way for backward compatibility, earlier versions of Apple keyboards did not have ⌃ CTRL button. Please read Max Ried comment bellow.

code from: https://stackoverflow.com/a/1112350/3488699


One of my keys activate the command key for no reason I cannot use one of my keys (specifically the 0 key) because whenever I press it, it activates the command key without me even touching it. Please help, this happened randomly. I was on discord at the time if that helps, but now I can't even log in without having to hold enter so I can press the 0 key. Even if I change the command key to something else like the control button it presses that button instead.

Also, now the / key activates =.
Same with the esc key, it activates `.
F12 lowers the volume and activates the up arrow.
Left Arrow activates ; activates . The keyboard is wireless, and the mac is Mac OS Sierra.

edit : Now it just stopped doing it? the glitches have stopped. That's strange.

What model Mac are you using, there has been some issues with the keyboards on some of the newer Macs.

you can use canned air to clean things out on these keyboards.

or if that doesn't work there is a replacement program:

https://www.apple.com/support/keyboard-service-program-for-macbook-and-macbook-pro/


System Preferences - 'Allow the apps below to control your computer'. What is the extent of 'control'? Question
MacOS Catalina - System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Privacy -> Accessibility
What does granting 'control (of) your computer' include?
The following question from 2013 provides some very broad information:
What does Security & Privacy/Accessibility enable?
but I would greatly appreciate any more specifics that people can provide.

Background
Even if I trust an app now (no mean feat), there is always the possibility that it could suffer a supply-chain attack in the future.
I would like to understand more about the damage that an app could do if I grant it access to my Mac.

Research
I found the following page in the Apple Developer documentation:
https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/LanguagesUtilities/Conceptual/MacAutomationScriptingGuide/AutomatetheUserInterface.html
It seems like one example of 'control' could be for an app to instruct Safari to open a particular (malicious) website?

As you saw in your research, the accessibility api allows one app to control other apps on your computer, in much the same way you do with your mouse and keyboard. These apps can resize windows, click buttons, type words, copy and paste, etc.
If you want an app to be able to do any of these things for you, you will need to grant access to the accessibility api (ie, "allow it to control your computer"). If you'd rather it not have that ability, or if there's no reason for it to have that ability, deny access.
Zoom is an example of an app that I do not allow to use the accessibility API. It asks, but I don't know why, because there's no reason Zoom should ever need to click or type in my place.


How to use Bluetooth PAN and WiFi simultaneously in OSX On my Macbook Pro I connect to the Internet via Bluetooth on my iPhone, which does not work when connected to a WiFi network.

How do I tell OSX to route WAN traffic over my Bluetooth connection, while still being able to communicate with other machines over WiFi?

You should be able to achieve this by making adjustments to your routing table. Have a look at the manual page for route on how to tell your Mac to send your default traffic over the PAN, and traffic for those other machines to your wifi interface.

One of your challenges I know from experience is going to be that your Mac will drop them upon reboot. And when you address this and make the routes persistent, the second challenge occurs in that and the routes will get in the way in situations other the one for which you need them.


How to Steam Video from iPhone to WiFi-Enabled HDTV Just bought my first wifi-enabled HDTV.  I have a feeling this is a "duh!" question, but I can't find a clear answer.  Is it possible to stream a video from my iPhone to the HDTV?  I've heard of Chromecast, Apple TV, Roku, and various iOS apps but I'm not clear if / how any of them would do what I want.

If your tv can act as a DLNA client (specifically it should be a DMR - Digital Media Renderer) you should be able to do it with [ArkMC] app for iPhone1. Haven't tried it though.


2012 Macbook Pro second SSD I have a 2012 MacBook Pro with a 500GB Samsung SSD running Mojave. I  replaced the optical drive with a hard drive and everything worked fine.

Recently, I replaced the old hard drive in the optical bay with a new HP 128GB SSD. With the HDD, my boot time was around 14 seconds. Now, with the SSD, it hangs for a second and then opens Disk Utility. I tried to click anything in Disk Utility and it continues to hang again.

I am about to pull it apart in frustration and format the darn thing with my clone cable. What could be causing the hanging and how should I format it if I am only storing code?

The "hang" is most likely caused by the HP SSD being pre-formatted for Windows computers (NTFS) which macOS cannot read by default.  If you wipe the drive with a macOS compatible format, it will likely fix the issue.

Using Terminal, issue the following command:

$ diskutil eraseDisk HFS+ Untitled GPT /dev/diskX

HFS+ is the format of the new drive
Untitled is the name of the new drive
GPT is the partition scheme
/dev/diskX is the drive identifier (use diskutil list to obtain identifier)


What are the "sleepimage" and "swapfile" documents? I was using Disk Inventory X and found a file called sleepimage in /private/var/vm/ It takes up 4 GB! I also found numerous other files in the same folder called swapfile0 swapfile1, etc. What are they and are they safe to delete so I can free up space? (almost 10 GB)

swapfile0, swapfile1 and so on are swap files. You can sort of think of them like "backup" RAM. When your computer doesn't have enough RAM to accomodate the memory requests of all your programs (which is almost always, this is normal), it uses these files to "write out" part of what it had in RAM.

The sleepimage has a very similar use, except it's used only when your Mac hibernates/wakes up.

Deleting any of the swapfile* files is likely to mess up your system, but you can safely delete sleepimage. However, it's kind of pointless, it will probably be recreated the next time you put your computer to hibernation. If you really want to delete it, you'd have to use sudo rm, since root owns the file.

Finally, it's normal for the sleepimage to take up to 4 GB; it will usually take the same space as your RAM.

EDIT You can delete /var/vm/sleepimage safely, but it will be recreated when you put the Mac to sleep. If you run sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0; sudo rm /var/vm/sleepimage, the Mac will use a normal sleep mode (like desktop Macs by default) and it won't recreate /var/vm/sleepimage. See this post with more information.


How do I determine which application handles a global shortcut? I have some global shortcut that does nothing apparent, but is overriding the combination in all applications. The shortcut is Command+Alt+F, which overrides the "Google Search" in Safari, and the Replace in Sublime Text 2.

Is there any way to determine which application this shortcut is actually being handled by, or what action it is triggering?

I've re-installed the OS many times since, so the original issue no longer bugs me. But I did find a third party application "Shortcut Detective" (http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/labs/) that comes very close.


Strange behaviour of symlink /var I have a pretty new MacBook and got this from our central IT department pre-installed.
I experienced a problem, which I first thought was related to Terraform, but after investigation this seems to be a general problem at all.
Having a look at simple cat commands:
ls -al /var/tf-test/
total 8
drwxrwxrwx   3 root     wheel   96  3 Aug 11:00 .
drwxr-xr-x  30 root     wheel  960  3 Aug 10:57 ..
-rwxrwxrwx   1 user     wheel  198  3 Aug 11:00 backend.hcl

cat /var/tf-test/backend.hcl
I am fine

pwd
/Users/user/tf-test

cat ../../../var/tf-test/backend.hcl
cat: ../../../var/tf-test/backend.hcl: No such file or directory

This is pretty strange ....since cat should resolve the symlink und should automatically point to the real path, right?
This basically leads to my Terraform to not deploy anything, since Terraform is generating a relative path from the current directory to a backend-config (a parameter) and then couldn't resolve it:
pwd
/Users/user/tf-test

terraform init -backend-config /var/tf-test/backend.hcl
Initializing the backend...
Error: Failed to read file
The file "../../../var/tf-test/backend.hcl" could not be read.

Permissions seems to be ok, isn't it?
ls -la /
drwxr-xr-x    6 root  wheel    192 28 Mai 01:32 private
lrwxr-xr-x@   1 root  admin     11 13 Jul 13:05 tmp -> private/tmp
lrwxr-xr-x@   1 root  admin     11 13 Jul 13:05 var -> private/var

Guys, this freaks me out.
Any ideas how to fix this?

I would probably start with two things.

sudo -s
Judicious use of file hopefully can help pick apart the error in thinking, permissions or execution here.

File should report correct results all the way back to root, and then all the way back to /private/var - once you’ve got a string of good results - repeat the sequence of file checks to test ../../var/whatever
# file ../../var/
../../var/: directory
# file ../../var/com.twocanoes.tcscryptotoken.tcstoken/
../../var/com.twocanoes.tcscryptotoken.tcstoken/: directory
# file ../../var/com.twocanoes.tcscryptotoken.tcstoken/token.sh
../../var/com.twocanoes.tcscryptotoken.tcstoken/token.sh: POSIX shell script text executable, ASCII text

If you are on Catalina - realize you are crossing filesystem boundaries and firmlinks are in play as well as sym links. You can tell that with a df command and if it shows you have a Data APFS volume in addition to the system volume. Hopefully you don’t need to wait for terraform to fix deployment - it might be a simple error, but this is why we’re moving everything into /usr/local so that we get user and non-system installation off the read only disk of macOS sooner rather than later.
# diskutil list|grep Macintosh
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD - Data     122.0 GB   disk1s1
   5:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            11.2 GB    disk1s5


How to create a self signed SSL server certificate on OS X 10.7 for HighPoint RAID management server? When having multiple Mac machines running Highpoint RocketRaid controllers and the HPT Web RAID Management software v1.68, results in having multiple copies of an identical self-signed /usr/share/hpt/hptsvr.pem ssl server certificate.

$ openssl x509 -text -in /usr/share/hpt/hptsvr.pem -issuer
Certificate:
    Data:
        Version: 3 (0x2)
        Serial Number: 0 (0x0)
        Signature Algorithm: md5WithRSAEncryption
        Issuer: C=US, ST=California, L=Fremont, O=HighPoint Technologies, Inc., OU=HPT, CN=127.0.0.1, CN=localhost, CN=mac.local, CN=127.0.0.1
        Validity
            Not Before: Sep  5 17:38:59 2011 GMT
            Not After : Sep  2 17:38:59 2021 GMT
        Subject: C=US, ST=California, L=Fremont, O=HighPoint Technologies, Inc., OU=HPT, CN=127.0.0.1, CN=localhost, CN=mac.local, CN=127.0.0.1
        Subject Public Key Info:
            Public Key Algorithm: rsaEncryption
            RSA Public Key: (512 bit)
                Modulus (512 bit):
                    00:bc:cf:96:35:88:80:5c:06:df:bb:c6:13:5e:36:
                    e4:a6:73:76:fa:83:e1:31:4f:65:53:bb:67:d6:39:
                    89:82:a5:1e:fe:db:07:9e:71:8c:19:80:f4:9d:67:
                    9f:9a:2f:2e:ab:e8:32:72:47:81:6a:20:56:7a:d4:
                    60:e0:f6:29:b9
                Exponent: 65537 (0x10001)
        X509v3 extensions:
            Netscape Cert Type:
                SSL Server
            Netscape Comment:
                HighPoint Technologies, Inc.
            Netscape SSL Server Name:
                mac.local
            Netscape SSL Server Name:
                127.0.0.1
            Netscape SSL Server Name:
                127.0.0.1
            Netscape SSL Server Name:
                localhost
    Signature Algorithm: md5WithRSAEncryption
        35:20:88:6a:71:81:7d:fe:8c:09:bb:56:9c:66:42:ce:fd:e2:
        9a:d0:3d:fb:e6:a3:0f:63:ae:1f:99:5d:ea:29:95:cb:95:f3:
        6a:15:86:33:a8:33:93:da:18:76:e9:ed:d3:18:cc:3b:d9:72:
        06:cc:dd:b0:b7:f1:a4:2e:ac:ca
issuer= /C=US/ST=California/L=Fremont/O=HighPoint Technologies, Inc./OU=HPT/CN=127.0.0.1/CN=localhost/CN=mac.local/CN=127.0.0.1

The result is that newer versions of Firefox - like v30 - are only able to open the first instance of such a self signed certificate, and access to each other copy - running on a different hostname - is blocked with this message: sec_error_reused_issuer_and_serial.

The Apple Certificate Assistant located at /System/Library/CoreServices/Certificate Assistant.app fails to create a correct certificate for the Highpoint SSL web server.

My first try is to use the Apple "Certificate Assistant" application. However its generated self signed certificate doesn't work (no https connection within 30 seconds). When comparing the Highpoint cert versus Apple generated cert, the differences are "Signature Algorithm: sha256WithRSAEncryption" and "X509v3 Subject Alternative Name" (Apple), versus "Signature Algorithm: md5WithRSAEncryption" (Highpoint) and deprecated Netscape extensions like "Netscape Cert Type: SSL Server", "Netscape Comment: HighPoint Technologies, Inc." and two times the "Netscape SSL Server Name: 127.0.0.1" and "Netscape SSL Server Name: localhost" and "Netscape SSL Server Name: mac.local" (Highpoint).

How to create a unique self-signed certificate replacing Highpoint's default .pem on Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) preferably on the command line?

When having created overlapping or re-use hostnames/ip addresses, resulting in the sec_error_reused_issuer_and_serial error, delete the built-in certificate using terminal:

$ sudo rm -v /usr/share/hpt/hptsvr.pem

And restart the raidman-httpsd daemon using this command:

$ sudo systemStarter restart raidman

A new .pem file based on a matching hostname and ip address will be created on the first https request.


How to use ABC Extended with standard British PC keyboard layout The ABC Extended input is fantastic for inputing several diacritics, but it only seems to assume apple's own layouts, i.e. it doesn't recognise the standard British PC layout. Is there a way to make it work with the standard British PC layout, particularly re: the symbol mismatches between the two?

Standard British PC has shift+2=" and shift+'=@.

The Apple British layout has shift+2=@ and shift+'=".

In British PC, the key left of 1 is ` ¬, but in Apple British it is  § ±.

In British PC, the key left of z is \ |, but in Apple British it is ` ~.

In British PC, the rightmost key of the asdf row is # ~, but in Apple British it is \ |.

Suppose I definitely do not plan to use the Apple British layout at all, but may need to work with the standard British PC layout. Is there a way to reconfigure certain things for the ABC Extended input to be compatible with the standard British PC layout?

Update -- Problem solved with Ukelele. I copied the layout of the current input source and then manually adjusted the key mappings (including the shift modifications etc.). It took me just a few minutes.


ffmpeg working from command line in Terminal but not in an Automator shell script! I have just compiled my own copy of ffmpeg on my system and it's located in the following path:

/opt/local/bin/ffmpeg

When I run the following command in Terminal.app, it runs smooth:

ffmpeg -i /Users/Amit/Documents/input.avi -c:v copy -c:a aac -b:a 384k -strict -2 /Users/Amit/Documents/output.m4v

However, a similar command run as a shell-script in an Automator service fails:

for f in "$@"
do
    ffmpeg -i "$f" -c:v copy -c:a aac -b:a 384k -strict -2 "${f%.*}.m4v"
done

Up until now, I had a pre-compiled build of ffmpeg on my system located at:

/Applications/Scriptlets/

And my Automator shell-script had the full path (/Applications/Scriptlets/ffmpeg) instead of just ffmpeg; and it worked fine. However, today I decided to compile a fresh copy of ffmpeg using MacPorts and removed the earlier version from my Applications/Scriptlets folder. Now, this ffmpeg works fine in Terminal but gives an error whenever I try running it from a shell-script inside of an Automator workflow. Am I doing something wrong here? Please help!

The Automator script does not automatically share your Terminal.app profile. Paths to additional tools may not be found because Automator's script can not find them.

Try expanding your script to include the absolute or full path to the ffmpeg you want to use:

for f in "$@"
do
    /opt/local/bin/ffmpeg -i "$f" -c:v copy -c:a aac -b:a 384k -strict -2 "${f%.*}.m4v"
done

Alternatively, bring in your Terminal.app profile using the approach to this question, My Automator Workflow fails because it fails to find the git command within the 'Run Shell Script' command? Need help.


MacBook Pro Early 2015 barely charging I got a second-hand MBP about a week ago and today I noticed that when I ran the battery to around 50% it wouldn't charge back. I installed coconutBattery and it shows the charging rate fluctuating at 0-10W.

How do I make my MBP charge properly? Could this be due to faulty charger? I already tried a SMC reset.

Just to clear this up, this was a 13'' MBP.

I've tested with other chargers and other people's MacBooks and found out my charger was faulty. Got a new one and everything is fine.


Web-based wireless login: remember password When connecting to some wireless networks, the first webpage that I try to load redirects to a login screen.  It becomes possible to access the internet only after logging in.  I'm sure most people here are familiar with the situation.

It seems that OS X is smart about this and it brings up this login screen in a separate window as soon as I connect to the wireless network.  I don't need to open a browser and log in separately.  The system show me the login page as soon as I connect to the network, which is quite convenient.

Question: is it possible to coerce this special window to remember the username and password, like browsers are able to?

The special window is an instance of Safari, just without all the navigation bits.

Why don't you try copy-pasting the URL of the login screen to your browser, typing in your password, and telling safari you want to save it when it asks?


Google Drive on 3rd Partition with Windows 7 and Bootcamp I have searched far and wide, hoping someone here has answer.

The goal is to have OSX and Windows 7 on bootcamp, with a 3rd partition that both OSs read/write.

Then Google Drive is installed on both OSs, and the sync'd google drive folder is located on the 3rd partition.  (The goal of this is to not have google drive use 2x the memory because it is replicating the data on both OSs)

I've read accounts of this setup being successfully used with Dropbox, but not google drive.

The latest saying it doesn't work, but no details stating why.
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/drive/8OHJt7NvdR8/8CJiBdaxs_4J

Hoping someone here has had success with this approach.

It can be done.  I have two Macbooks setup like this.  Partition 1 is Mac, 2 is Google Drive, 3 is Windows.  All can be seen, written and read from both OSX and Windows.

To do this, run bootcamp assistant and partition the drive so that the Mac OS partition is the size you want the OSX + Google Drive to be.

Do not install Windows yet.  Reboot into OSX, then go to disk utility, and partition the OSX partition again, this time call the second partition as Google Drive. You will now have 2 OS partitions, and one NTFS.

Now reboot, and hold down alt to choose to boot from your windows installation media.

Choose advanced installation, and select the partition that you want to install Windows on to. You may need to choose to format the partition too.

Windows will install.

Now reboot into OSX, setup Google Drive and choose advanced.  It will ask you to choose where Drive is located.  Here's the tricky part..... if you choose the new partition, it will say it's not empty.  So you need to show hidden files (there's many tutorials and methods on line to show how to do this).  Now you need to delete these 4 files.  Each time I've done this has been trial and error.  Programs like BlueHarvest may help, but you will need to use Terminal and various delete commands to get them to go and do in the correct order. It took me about 45 minuets last time.  I lost track of the correct order.  When they all do delete, have the Google Drive setup assistant ready to choose the now empty partition. Select the drive and  it will start to sync and you're done.

I use Paragon and Mac Drive 9 to allow full read / write from both OS.

Mac and Google partitions are Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and Windows is NTFS.


Getting MAC Address from known network I lost my old router, and I need to know its MAC address, only info i got is the log of my Mac (Yosemite), i have found that with this command i got a lot of info about the preferred networks (saved networks) on my Mac.

defaults read /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.airport.preferences KnownNetworks

And it outputs something like:

"wifi.ssid.<77696669 2d756e65>" =     {
    AutoLogin = 0;
    Captive = 0;
    ChannelHistory =         (
    );
    Closed = 0;
    CollocatedGroup =         (
    );
    Disabled = 0;
    LastConnected = "2014-09-19 19:20:23 +0000";
    Passpoint = 0;
    PossiblyHiddenNetwork = 0;
    RoamingProfileType = None;
    SPRoaming = 0;
    SSID = <77696669 2d756e65>;
    SSIDString = "heeeyomywifi";
    SecurityType = Open;
    SystemMode = 1;
    TemporarilyDisabled = 0;
};

But i see no MAC address :(, could this be done? or shall I search somewhere else?

Pending how long was the last connection, you could find the answer in your Console log.

I have it showing the information for last 7 days. Back to Dec 23. 2014

In Console type MAC in the search window.

Look for MacAuthEvent

In systemlog7.gz file.

EDIT:

If it is older than that:

Use Terminal and type mdfind systemlog

if it shows ....PreviousSystemLogs try that one. (highlight the find and use Reveal in Finder)

If it does not show it in Terminal then look for it in the hidden folder /private/var/db under .cpgz archive that you have to unpack.


Can Macbook Pro handle 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies on the same wifi network without getting dropouts? I'm connecting to an SFR 'La Box' optic fibre wifi router / modem in France (with 180Mbs down, 10Mbs up) - which has a feature I've not come across before on a wifi router:

parallel 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks - using the same names and passwords by default

As explained in the system settings:

  You have at your disposal two types of networks Wi-Fi (2.4 GHz b/g/n and 5GHz a/n/ac). Both networks have a common name: Numericable-abcd. These two networks can be configured and used independently. You can disable or enable your convenience your Wi-Fi networks.

Using a mid-2015 15" macbook pro - and experiencing random wifi "dropouts":

macbook menu bar shows a full strength wifi signal / connection
browser / app will say you're not connected to the internet
internet TV still works - indicating that it's not a problem with the router's external connection.
turning macbook wifi off then on - or waiting a few minutes - fixes the problem

Also - I only seem to get a 25-30m wifi range - which seems low (at least for a 2.4GHz system).

Is my model of macbook pro able to switch seamlessly between frequencies on the same network - or would I get better performance by turning one network off (or using different network names) ?

Could the wifi chip become 'confused' by having parallel networks - and could it be what's causing the loss of connection and/or lack of wifi range ?

System Settings Screenshot:

Chances are, it's your WiFi router.

I was having the exact same issue with 2 Macs (iMac 27 Late 2012 and a 2009 MBP) as well as a Microsoft Surface Pro 3.  I had both 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks and would get random, but continual dropouts that would lose Internet connectivity.

I disabled each network individually, first the 5GHz , then the 2.4GHz.  Running on one frequency at a time, had no effect - I still kept dropping connections.  I even completely disabled the WiFi in the router and connected another router running DDWRT acting solely as a WAP that was only capable of 2.4GHz.  Even that had problems

What I found was that the build quality of even the so-called best routers (Netgear, D-Link, Asus, etc.) were still of poor quality.  I ended up getting an "Enterprise Grade" wireless access point - the Ubiquiti UAP-AC - did my problems go away.

When I say, go away, I mean go away instantly.  From the time I installed this WAP, I have yet to have an Internet drop out.  Period.  I haven't had a single one in the month and a half I have had it installed.  The fix was instantaneous.

If you do go this route, what you will have to do is turn off the WiFi on your router and just use this external WAP.  Installation was super easy - it took about 10-15 mins total and I had my network up and running in no time.


Switch Spaces via Mouse I am using two Spaces on my mojave and I can use Ctrl + Left/Arrow to change the screen.

But isn't there a way to use only mouse to change the space instead of using keyboard?

If you use a Magic Mouse, then yes!
Head over to System Preferences > Mouse. You will find an option there to set it to a two finger swipe to the left/right.

For other mice, ususally no. Some mice, like Logitech Master support all kinds of stuff though with the Logitech Options.
A workaround would be to set a Hot Corner (System Preferences > Mission Control > Hot Corners), then you don't need your keyboard, but it'll take longer.


how to use the + on the numeric keypad for "+p in vim, Mac Os X Under Mac OS X, in vim, when I issue the command "+p using the numeric keypad for the + in normal mode, instead of pasting stuff from the system clipboard Vim enters insert mode and inserts the letters kp.

The same kind of thing happens to me under Linux when I have the Numlock off, however, my Apple Keyboard (usb keyboard) does not have a Numlock key, instead it has a Clear key.

Does anyone have any ideas of how to get around this and so that I can use the keypad for entering the + in +p"?

It’s Vim, feel free to remap anything to anything you want.

To detect what you numpad + sends to Vim press C-v then + on numpad – you will see something like

^[Ok

^[ is escape, so you may command your Vim

:map "<esc>Ok "+

Now it should work as expected by you.

However, it would be better to do this kind of mappings not in Vim but in your terminal emulator (which you have not mentioned) by two reasons:

In Vim you have to map all possible prefixes explicitly. You can perform :map <esc>Ok + but it won’t affect "<esc>Ok.
Mapping <esc>Ok to something will add a delay in processing single <esc> press (see :h timeoutlen).


Finder doesn't remember settings In my "Documents" folder I want files with same extension to be one after another.

So I open view settings options and select "Sort By: Kind", then click "Use as Defaults":

When I switch the folder to "Downloads" then back to "Documents" -- my sorting is lost -- the file list is sorted by name not by kind.

Did I use correctly "Use as Defaults"? Or is it a bug?

It turns out that if I use "Sort By: Kind", it works only if column "Kind" is shown.

Looks like a bug to me, because it allows me to sort initially, but doesn't after showing this folder again.


Active Directory Home Folder on Startup We've recently integrated all of our Macs to our Active Directory environment, and some of our users have MacBooks. When "binding" their laptops to the domain, I enabled "Create mobile account at login" so that they wouldn't have to be connected to our network in order to login to their account. Doing this set up a user's home folder on our server, which automatically connects on startup. Here's the thing: If they aren't connected to the network, the home folder on the server can't be found. It takes about forty-five seconds to a minute before getting the error (see below) saying it couldn't connect to the server, and as you might expect, it's frustrating a few of our users (myself included).
Is there any way to prevent this home folder from trying to connect on startup? I checked the Login Items, and nothing was in there.
Thanks!

Do you have "Force local home directory on startup disk" checked?


Close recent windows of an application I'm using Selenium in order to control multiple Firefox sessions at the same time.

In this context, the OS handles each Firefox window as a different application.

I want to build a workflow that'll allow me to close all the recent windows of Firefox (leaving the "oldest" one working), but I couldn't find any way to sort them by their opening date.

Any help would be appreciated!

Try to access window menu of Firefox, the oldest window at top of the list


How can I make my iPod Touch home button more responsive? I am finding that lately, quite often pushing my iPod Touch's home button doesn't generate any response - I have to push it again really hard. I'm not sure if it's an issue with the OS or with the hardware.

I haven't jailbroken, and my iPod touch is a new 4th Gen 8GB model bought in September 2011.

Any help is much appreciated.

The unresponsive iPhone/iPod Touch home button is a known problem. I had an iPhone which started with the same problem as yours. At first the home button worked with just a soft touch, and from any angle. Then it started to work only with a hard press and not at all from certain angles. Finally, it either completely ignored presses, or responded to a single press as if it had been pressed twice (multitasking bar appeared).

It was still inside the one-year warranty, but I bought AppleCare anyway, figuring that it might recur. I took it to an Apple Store and the guy played with it for a minute, told me I had a faulty device and gave me a brand new iPhone. The home button can't be replaced, so they just give you a new one.

My advice it to take it to an Apple Store if there's one nearby, or if not call Apple and report the problem. Most likely you'll get a new, working iPod Touch.


Airport Extreme not working with new modem I have an Airport Extreme that was previously connected to a, well lets say not great modem. So I replaced the modem with 'Nucleus Connect', which is Fibre I think. (I live in Singapore and they installed this here). And I have a problem, my airport extreme just does not work anymore! I plug it into the modem and power source, but it flashes amber. Here is what I have done:

Factory default reset
Power down computers
Power down airport extreme
Power down modem

So what now!? In my Airport Utility here are the problems:

No DNS Servers
No Internet Connection

Also, the router shows up sporadically in Airport Utility and when it does,  it shows up but with a warning sign and my only option is to forget it.

Can someone point me to troubleshooting steps to resolve this issue?

The Amber light could mean many things.

Steps I would take:

Install new firmware http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1481?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

Second:

Factory default reset

Does your modem have a router built into it?  If so, you need to put that either into bridge mode or router behind router mode.


How do you change your UID in OS X Mountain Lion kimvais @ kimvais ~ $ id
uid=501(kimvais) gid=20(staff) groups=20(staff),404(com.apple.sharepoint.group.3),405(com.apple.sharepoint.group.4),502(com.apple.local.ard_reports),503(com.apple.local.ard_interact),500(com.apple.access_ssh),501(com.apple.local.ard_admin),401(com.apple.access_screensharing),402(com.apple.sharepoint.group.1),403(com.apple.sharepoint.group.2),12(everyone),33(_appstore),61(localaccounts),79(_appserverusr),80(admin),81(_appserveradm),98(_lpadmin),100(_lpoperator),204(_developer),504(com.apple.local.ard_manage),506(access_bpf),406(com.apple.sharepoint.group.5)

How do I change the 501 to something different give by my IT (so that my NFS mounts have correct UIDS) without breaking my system. Changing all the file ownerships I can handle "manually".

First, I have to say that doing this is using a sledgehammer to crack a peanut but here it is.

You will want to change your userid then you will want to change the owner of all your files. You don't want to be logged on as yourself when you do this.

sudo dscl . -change /Users/YourUserName UniqueID 501 1001

is indeed the correct way to do it.

Then :-

sudo find / -uid 501 -exec chown 1001 {} \;

To change the ownership of all your files. This should stop almost all of the breakages inherent in doing this.

I assume there is some perfectly good reason for you not to be using ITs Active Directory or LDAP server to log on to your Mac and avoid all of this problem. This is the accepted way of getting around all these problems, not to mention you will then already be authenticated making mounting the NFS shares easier. Once you've done a network login you can shift your documents from the old local account to the new network account and life is hunky dory.


Icon for CD drive disappears and reappears every few seconds In one of our company MacBooks (MacBook7,1), the CD drive acts weirdly - any time a CD is inserted, the icon will appear for a few seconds in the desktop and finder, then disappear for another few seconds. This keeps happening, and the CD can't be accessed.

I'm totally new to the Mac environment and workflow, so excuse me if the answer is fairly simple.

Sounds like the CD drive is malfunctioning. This could be caused by many different problems, from partially detached cables inside the laptop to just a dirty CD slot and/or laser lens. One simple weird trick is to take a can of compressed air and give the CD slot a blow-out when not loaded with a disc.

There are CD laser lens cleaning discs, including this version with a 3.5" floppy disc cleaner included!


Can I use bootcamp to install another instance of OSX? Can I use bootcamp to partition my HDD and install another instance of OSX?

I want to run a test instance to try out untrusted software.

The boot camp assistant seems to insist on installing an instance of windows.

You dont need Bootcamp for that. Just open Disk utility and partition your disk. Then install OSX on the second partition. Then in your Start disk preference choose which OS to start as default or just hold option key on boot to select which os to run.


How to prevent VLC from setting as default player? I have VLC & Elmedia players. I want to use Elmedia as a default player, but VLC is set as default for all extensions, and I can't change it.

If I choose "Always open with" for some media file, VLC still stays default for this extension.

How to fix it? macOS Catalina.

Right-click (Control click) on the type of file you want to always open with Elmedia. Click 'Get Info'.

In the 'Open With' section, select Elmedia from the drop-down menu. To apply this change to all files of this type, click the 'Change All' button. Repeat with any other file types as desired/when they come up


(SheepSaver error) Sorry, the desktop folder on the startup disk could not be created. Try unlocking the disk I've been having problems with a SheepSaver installation (see my other question Unusual problem with Swoop on Mac OS 9.0.4 under SheepSaver) so decided to start from scratch and create a second SheepSaver installation. But instead this time I followed the instructions from here http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/sheepshaverwrapper.html

All was going well, but when I get to step 3b I get this error

If I click OK, SHeepSaver just starts again and gives the same error.

The startup disk is a disk image created in Disk Utility and it has to be locked to work with sheepsaver, so its not like i can unlock it. Plus it's an image of the Mac OS 8.5.1 install CD.

I searched the various mac OS 9 / Sheepsaver forums, but this error message doesn't seem to be discussed anywhere.

What gives?

How do I fix it?

Any ideas welcome. :)

I had a look at the SheepSaver Wrapper page you're using and think they've essentially been too clever by half. I followed it a few times and ran into various problems I then had to resolve myself.

If I was you, I would stick to the setup at emaculation instead.

However, if you're going through all this effort to try and play Swoop (as per your other question) I suggest it's just not worth the effort. Just my two cents worth.


About how large is a clean install of OS X? If you were to wipe a hard drive clean and install OS X Mountain Lion, with one user account and no user data files. (so simply OS files) How large, in disk space, would OS X (how much hard drive space would be used on that unused system?)

The Install OS X Mountain Lion.app I have is about 4 GB, but the uncompressed size shown by Pacifist is about 9 GB. My initial snapshot of a 10.8 VM was about 11 GB, but about 1 GB was taken up by /var/vm/swapfile.

If you have a laptop with 4 GiB of RAM, /var/vm/sleepimage will take up about 4 GiB after you put the laptop to sleep once.


Can I transfer my TextMate 2 settings to another Mac? I am switching to a new Mac and want to bring my TextMate 2 settings with me from my old Mac. I don't see an obvious way to do this, and searching hasn't brought anything up. Do I really need to re-set everything up again from scratch?

Or is there a way to export/copy TextMate 2 preferences/settings from one computer to another?  Thanks!

I've managed to get pretty far on my own, so I'm posting an answer.  If someone else has a better way, I'll be glad to accept their answer.  I ran into some gotchas along the way, so I wanted to share those as well.  Here are the steps I took.

Make sure TextMate is not running on your new Mac.
On your old Mac, tar up the TextMate and Avian folders under ~/Library/Application Support:

$ cd ~/Library/Application\ Support
$ tar cfz TextMate.tgz TextMate
$ tar cfz Avian.tgz Avian

(You may or may not have the Avian directory.  If not, skip instructions related to that.)

Copy those two tar files to your new Mac and place them under ~/Library/Application Support, and then extract them:

$ cp TextMate.tgz ~/Library/Application\ Support
$ cp Avian.tgz ~/Library/Application\ Support
$ cd ~/Library/Application\ Support
$ tar xfz TextMate.tgz
$ tar xfz Avian.tgz

Copy the TextMate .plist files from ~/Library/Preferences on your old Mac over to the same locations on your new Mac.  For me this was the following two files:

$ cd ~/Library/Preferences
$ ls | grep -i textmate
com.macromates.TextMate.preview.LSSharedFileList.plist
com.macromates.TextMate.preview.plist
$

(Here is the 'gotcha' which took me awhile to figure out.)  You need to unquarantine the files you just copied over to your new Mac.  Do this (on your new Mac) by clearing the extended attribute com.apple.quarantine as follows:

$ cd ~/Library/Application\ Support
$ xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine Avian
$ xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine TextMate
$ cd ~/Library/Preferences
$ xattr -d com.apple.quarantine com.macromates.TextMate.*

The -r and -d options to xattr say to handle all files in those directories (recursive) and delete the attribute specified.  If you get a bunch of permission errors, place sudo in front of the xattr commands.

The above appears to have restored the majority of the TextMate "behaviors" from my old Mac to my new Mac.  I still had to open up the TextMate -> Preferences menu and do a side-by-side comparison, checking and unchecking boxes for various settings that did not transfer over with the above steps.

Update:

If you have a .tm_properties file, e.g., ~/.tm_properties, you'll also want to copy that over to your new Mac.