What happens when I close the lid on my MacBook Pro running OS X? I'm a new Mac user. What happens when I close the lid on my MacBook Pro running OS X Lion?

Is it sleeping? Or hibernating? Something else?

Short Answer
MacOSX uses Hybrid Sleep. When closing the lid, the desktop state is written to both RAM and disk.
Then, while the computer still has enough power for the RAM, it wakes from RAM (sleep). However, in case the power gets cut, the computer wakes from the disk (safe sleep).
Keep in mind, that the battery isn't actually at it's lowest charge when switching to safe sleep. It still keeps some charge left. Therefore, if you want to fully drain your battery, the computer must stay in safe sleep for several hours until the white led stops 'breathing'.
Long Answer
Here is an excerpt of the official Apple Documentation:
On all Macs:

The microprocessor goes into a low-power mode
Video output is turned off, and a connected display may turn off as well, or enter its own idle state
Apple-supplied hard disks spin down; third-party hard disks may spin down

On portable Macs:

The Ethernet port turns off, if applicable

Expansion card slots turn off

The built-in modem, if present, turns off

An AirPort card, if present, turns off

The USB connection only responds to the power key on an external keyboard

The optical media drive spins down

Audio input and output turns off

Keyboard illumination, if a feature of your portable computer, turns off


IPhone Frozen basic reset not working My iPhone has frozen on the slide to unlock screen.

I cannot turn it off or reset it.

The device turns off every minute and restarts to change the time.

Is there a way to stop it?

I have tried to restore using iTunes and this message pops up,

I have gone through the 'more information' on the apple website

Plug it in to USB power or a mac and hold the home button as it enters the reboot cycle. It should show the dock connector and iTunes screen. From there you don't need to restore the device (erasing everything) but can connect to iTunes and try powering off and rebooting with it connected to the iTunes can often help break out of a minor software issue.

Update added to most appropriate answer.

I went to the Apple store and they were able to run diagnostics on the phone, from there they were able to restore.


MacBook Pro 2012 HD locks on boot Today my laptop has started to lock the HD. When booted it either stays black with the fans going nuts or it loads up a dialog to reset pw. In this window I can choose startup disk from the top left menu. The dialog that opens allows me to unlock the HD but the system needs to reboot to use my HD as startup disk. And then it starts all over again...

I've also tried both pram reset, Smc reset and verifying/repairing the HD in disk utility. It still keeps locking the HD when booting up.

Any other suggestions?

I got the machine to boot by starting up in recovery mode and turning off encryption on the drive in mention. Not sure what the implications of not being encrypted is though...

useful links:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201255

https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2011/11/23/using-disk-utility-to-unlock-or-decrypt-your-filevault-2-encrypted-boot-drive/


Will time machine wipe out my old time machine backups if I move it to a new mac (or upgrade os x)? I recently had the IT guys here at work wipe my hard drive and upgrade my mac to 10.8 from 10.6. And other than spending a few days getting it up and running again and spaces being jacked it is going ok.

I was using Time Machine to keep it backed up for a long time and I want to use it again on the same external drive. But I am concerned that my most recent backup from my old backups will be lost if I set it up using the same drive. Will Time Machine wipe all my old data or just the oldest stuff?

Thanks!

No.
Time Machine will just start backing up your Mac along side your old Backups. Your previous machine will be back on Tuesday (or whenever last backed-up) in your timeline, with the new machine after that.


How can I stop my MacBook Pro from automatically sleeping when I lock the screen? Whenever I lock my screen (via either the lock icon -> Lock screen or by using the Control+shift+eject key combination), my screen immediately turns off (not showing the screen saver), and the system seems to sleep.
This is inconvenient because it disconnects me from the network, causing Jabber to go offline / ssh connections to die.

I am constantly connected to AC, and am using the following Energy Saver->Power Adapter options:

Turn display off after: Never
Prevent computer from sleeping automatically when the display is off
Wake for Wi-Fi access

I have a 'late 2013' MacBook Pro running OS X 10.9.1.

Is there any way to stop this from happening?

Had the same problem in my Macbook(15") pro running 10.9.4.

I wanted my Mac to be locked while I was away (so configured hot corners) but at the same time did not want it to sleep (irrespective of whether it is connected to power or not) so that my wifi will be "ON" always for my jabber & mails. So here's what I did to prevent Mac from sleeping:

Open Terminal
Run sudo pmset -a sleep 0

Explanation of the command:

pmset command is to manipulate power management settings.
-a specifies that the setting applies for all conditions (power & battery)
sleep configure system sleep timer
0 to disable

Check out man pmset for more information.


Safari Javascript disables F4 key I have a strange problem with my new MacBook Pro running Sierra.
After visiting some web sites (such as stackexchange, gmail, and web.whatsapp.com), the F4 key stops to work in all applications. All other function keys continue working normally, as well as starting launchpad (which is also on the F4 key). It seems pressing the F4 key does not generate any key code anymore, according to Key Codes.

This happens both with the internal MacBook keyboard as well as the apple wireless keyboard.
Logging out and logging in again (or rebooting) fixes the F4 key, only quitting Safari does not fix it.
Disabling Javascript (via Safari preferences) leaves the F4 key enabled.
Other browsers (Chrome, Firefox) are not affected by this issue.
It is a completely fresh installation of Sierra and happens without installing any additional programs or modifying any settings.  Tested with 10.12.2 and 10.12.3.

Did anyone notice the same issue?

Does anyone have an idea how to debug or prevent this issue?

An easy way to test if you have this issue is by:

Log in.
Start the terminal.
Press Control-v and F4 in the terminal. It should print ^[OS.
Start Safari, go to stackexchange.com.
Repeat step 3, nothing gets printed on the terminal. Pressing Control-v and F3 still prints the correct code for F3, ^[OR.

Based on the info you've provided during our comments history, and the fact I couldn't replicate this issue on five separate computers, including three 2016 MacBook Pros running macOS Sierra 10.12.3, the only solution I have is to try a full reinstallation / test / update process.

IMPORTANT - Ensure you have a full backup before proceeding with these steps!

Shutdown your MBP
Switch on your MBP
Immediately press and hold the CommandR keys until you see the Apple logo appear
When you see the Utilities window appear, select Disk Utility and click on Continue
Select your MBP drive from the sidebar on the left
Click on the Erase button
Click on the Format drop-down list and select Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Enter a name for your disk
Click Erase
When completed, Quit Disk Utility
Select Reinstall macOS from the Utilities window (do not choose the Restore from Time Machine Backup option)
Follow the instructions to reinstall macOS
When installation is complete and you have rebooted, follow the prompts to setup your MBP. However, do not choose to copy files or migrate any data from your backups. Instead, set the MBP up as a totally new computer.
When complete, test to see if your issue still persists
Assuming your issue is now resolved, use the Mac App Store to update macOS, Safari, etc. However, do not copy any of your backed up files yet.
Now test to see if your issue is still gone
If all is good, then copy your backed up data to your MBP again. You can do this by using Migration Assistant (located within the Utilities folder within your Applications folder).

NOTE - If your issue still persists at Step 14 (when you first test for it again) then go through the entire process again. However, this time at Step 3 hold the CommandOptionR keys instead so that you start up from Internet Recovery. This will take longer to do, but eliminates the possibilty of some random problem with the local Recovery partition.


Why is my iOS device calling Google safe browsing? I'm currently using NextDNS as a "pihole" on my device. And recently, while checking my logs, I noticed that my device has been calling Google safe browsing api for the past month

safebrowsing.googleapis.com

I then got concerned as I have completely disabled Fraudulent Website Warning under Safari settings. I have also checked with NextDNS and they told me this is not coming from them either.
After that, I blocked all outgoing queries from them. I then also viewed in the logs that this is happening even when the phone is asleep.
I don't have any google apps whatsoever, and have very little installed apps. I've been trying to think what is causing this. I haven't hard reset yet, as I want to mitigate the issue.
Do you think this could be an iOS issue or what else?
Thanks!

NextDNS has an option for Google Safe Browsing. It's on by default but you can disable it from the nextdns.io dashboard.


Can I charge from portable battery on a Late 2013 MacBook Pro? I don't know a lot about the in's and out's of Apple charging devices.

I have a RavPower 26800 PD USB type C battery, and they are meant to be able to charge a MacBook of various descriptions at least once. I have a similar Anker one but less powerful.

I have a late 2013 MacBook Pro, so it has what I understand is a MagSafe 2 adapter on it. Its also got what looks like Thunderbolt inputs? There must be a way to charge my MacBook from the USB type C battery's thunderbolt port? Or a converter into the original power input?

You would need an inverter to go from USB-C Power Delivery's DC to AC to Apple's Magsafe 2 DC adapter. Going DC to AC and then from AC to DC is inefficient. Also, as far as I can tell, a USB-C PD inverter doesn't exist.

As a quick note: MacBooks with Thunderbolt 1 and 2 do not support charging via their Thunderbolt ports, only via Magsafe. Thunderbolt 3 supports USB-C Power Delivery and MacBooks with Thunderbolt 3 / USB-C ports charge exclusively through them.

Let's consider a new battery that has an AC outlet. RavPower makes a battery pack with an AC socket, but you are hard-pressed to get a single charge for a Magsafe-based laptop. Anker makes the PowerHouse 2, a $500 beast that could charge a recent MacBook Pro 13" about 6 times. (If The PowerHouse had USB-C PD ports, the number of MacBook recharges would certainly be higher, but wouldn't do you any good, as your Late-2013 MacBook Pro uses Magsafe.)

This is assuming that portability is key. If you are in a car (or have a 12V battery that you can clip into), a power inverter could be acceptable.


How to mimic Home Key of Centos or windows in terminal of OSx? I just miss the ability to go to first position of the shell with just 1 keyboard stroke, which I use it often at my office on CentOS ?

I know I can go by Option + left key or Option + Right key to jump word to word but that doesnt help much .

Have you tried fn+left? I'm no CentOS expert, but this works for me exactly as the Home key does when I'm using an external keyboard.


What is the Elo of the Mac Book chess engine at top strength? This will always have to be an approximation, but on a Mac Book Pro with the 2.8 GHz processor, plugged in, and with the engine set to the maximum strength setting, what Elo is it? I don't have direct access to the engine as far as I know, so I can't set it up to run tests against other engines, and doing that manually would be a real pain in the neck. Does anyone know what its Elo is, or if there is another way I could find out? This is assuming that Apple wrote its own chess engine and didn't just use one that was already out there (there are plenty of free, open-source chess engines). I'm also assuming that they don't rewrite the engine with each new version of Lion.

I was really surprised to see that there was no information about this on Google, and that nobody was even curious. Chess Titans speculation is out there but there is very little on the Apple program, which is surprising, because as an expert player I can handle Chess Titans, but Apple's program is much more challenging.

I will upvote guesses, but for the best answer I'd like either the actual Elo (unlikely, since that information probably doesn't exist) or a very educated guess based on tests or some other comparison to other existing chess engines.

For those curious about comparing chess engines or chess computer strength in general, check out the Wikipedia article chess engines.

The Mac chess app is based on the Sjeng engine.

A page on the Sjeng website says:

  Sjeng is probably a bit weaker in bughouse than it is in crazyhouse.
  Most Sjeng's on the FICS have a rating of about 2000 points in
  bughouse, with a top of over 2200 points.

  For standard chess, Sjeng's rating is probably about 2450 ELO [sic]. In
  suicide and losers chess Sjeng beats all but the very best humans, and
  will beat non-specialized programs easily.

So, according to the makers of the engine Apple uses, the Elo is around 2450 in standard mode.


How to autocomplete with LDAP directory in Mail.app? Is it possible to have Mail pull matches from an LDAP directory as I type them in the To/Cc/Bcc fields?

I was able to get this working by adding a new account in Contacts.app.

Contacts > Add Account... > Other contacts account... Countinue
Change CardDAV to LDAP and enter the Server Address

After doing this, Mail began to autocomplete addresses.


"Open in Low Resolution" - what does it actually do? The application information panel on retina MacBooks features a checkbox "Open in Low Resolution" with you are supposed to use when you experience e.g. visual problems (according to Apple).

But what does this box actually do? What happens to the application, what does the window manager do differently?

Say you have you're screen set to standard (using 15" as an example here), then "it looks like" 1440x900 but it is really 2880 x 1800. Making this example easy, say the app runs in fullscreen, then it would usually load with 2880x1800. If you check the "Open in Low Resolution" it will load in 1440x900, thus being less sharp but in some cases better performing or preventing bugs if the app is not optimized.


iPad is iCloud locked to a defunct address I was gifted an iPad from a restaurant owner. This iPad was provided to the restaurant and used to relay orders from a third party service who would deliver their food outside their normal delivery range.

The third-party company that provided the iPad is now defunct, and the iCloud email address has been out of use for long enough to bounce emails back to me immediately.

I am aware of the concept of circumventing iCloud activation lock and that is not what I am looking for. I am looking to have Apple verify that the current account is defunct and to legitimately remove the account from the iPad.

What steps do I take to have Apple review and potentially remove an iCloud account from my iDevice?

You can present the original purchase receipt showing the serial number to Apple to have them unilaterally remove the lock.

The alternative is to revive the "defunct" account. Since Apple doesn't delete them, you can go through the password reset procedure to reclaim access to the defunct iCloud account. Once you are logged in to the locking account, removal of the lock is trivial.

Otherwise, bypassing the lock is not feasible.


Why does my iOS device beep at noon every day? I have an iPod touch (4th gen). A few weeks ago, it started making an alert sound (tritone) every day at exactly 12 noon. There is no on-screen alert, nothing in the Notification Center pull-down. Just a sound. Every day.

I have NO apps in my Notifications (Settings). I have NO alarms set. NO reoccurring calendar items.

Anyone have a clue why my device is doing this?

Under the app in the list, there should be a description of which types of notification an app can send. Look through the list for apps that say 'Alerts' or 'Sounds' and disable the 'Alert Tone' or 'Sounds' respectively.


Run script before restart/shutdown Is it possible to execute a script/command right before OS X is shutting down or restarting?

I'd like to run sudo apachectl stop to stop apache from auto-starting.

You can use a logout hook:

sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LogoutHook ~/.logouthook
echo $'#!/bin/bash\napachectl stop' > ~/.logouthook
chmod +x ~/.logouthook

The value of the LogoutHook key can only be a path to an executable and not a shell command. The logout hook is run with superuser privileges so you don't need sudo.

The defaults command modifies /var/root/Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow.plist. Adding a LogoutHook key to /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow.plist doesn't work.

If a logout hook takes long enough to run, a gray screen is shown until the logout hook terminates. There doesn't seem to be any time limit after which logout hooks are forced to terminate.

Logout hooks were deprecated in 10.4, but I haven't figured out any way to run programs on logout reliably with launchd. I haven't gotten rc.local.shutdown to work either. I don't know any way to run a logout hook before shutting down or restarting but not before logging out.


Working remotely with Mac I've Macbook Pro which I'm using now. I want to buy a new computer and I am between choosing Mac Pro (if new one comes out) and buying a standard PC which will be more powerful than Mac Pro for the same price (4000-5000 euro). Since I want to keep having Mac System for some tasks I thought of buying Mac Mini and connecting to it remotely. I know it's done via VNC but was wondering how's the "work" with it? I mean with Windows systems RDP is quite reliable on newest systems and you can really do a lot without feeling it's actually a remote desktop. With my old "VNC" days it always was somewhat pain to do so. Is it still so? I'm heavy Windows user so I use Parallels a lot but I like some features of Mac (sms sending, photos and few other features) so I would like to have both worlds.. not necessary buying Mac Pro which will be overpaid (hardware wise)

It comes down to this statement:

  I'm heavy Windows user so I use Parallels a lot but I like some
  features of Mac (sms sending, photos and few other features) so I
  would like to have both worlds.. not necessary buying Mac Pro which
  will be overpaid (hardware wise)

Get the PC that you like, get a cheap (even pre-owned) Mac like a Mac Mini or a MacBook Air and connect them via a KVM switch that will handle switching your monitor, keyboard, and mouse.

Or...

You could just get a 4K Video Switch and get a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard that supports multiple devices ([Logitech][3] has a number of multi-device Bluetooth products).  I have a Logitech mouse and keyboard that supports 3 devices each and I easily switch between my iMac, my Surface Pro, and a BSD machine with a BT dongle with no problems.  Obviously, my iMac and Surface have their own screens and I only need the mouse, keyboard, and video on the BSD box when I have to work directly on the console (which is rare)

I do a lot of different work on different platforms and I can say that VNC is horrible over a LAN connection.  If you plan on doing things like Photos or anything graphic related, you are going to want a direct (not remote) video


FileVault blocking macOS Sierra upgrading process from OS X El Capitain I was going to upgrade to new macOS Sierra on my MacBook Air but there's a FileVault process that is encrypting all the files that doesn't allow the installation of the new OS. In the window appears a message that says FileVault encrypting and a blue thermometer under which there's written counting the remaining time that keeps going back and forth.

Is there someone that can help me to solve this problem?

If I try to disable FileVault, it says that I can disable once encryption process is ended.

I'm upgrading from OS X El Capitain version 10.11.6. When I try to stop FileVault it says I can't disable because the encryption process in still ongoing.

P.S. I don't have an engineering background, so please suggest actions what doesn't involve manipulation with code or similar. Thanks a lot!

It's really an interesting system: it's 2 days I don't switch off the pc hoping that the coding process finishes and it's still calculating the remaining time.....

It may be paused... Look in diskutil cs list output for "Conversion Progress" near the bottom.

Conversion Progress:   Paused

If it says "Paused" like above then on 10.11 you can use fsck_cs to fix it. Use the Physical Volume disk id from your diskutil output (disk0s2 in this example):

fsck_cs -y disk0s2


Frame rate of 11 FPS in World of Warcraft after upgrading to Yosemite Any ideas why this started after upgrading to Yosemite? I checked the activity monitor and not much else is going on the network.

It seems you are facing a known issue. Wait for an update I suppose.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/14926302581#3


Lock computer without disabling output to external monitor I want to display a video on an external monitor while the computer is locked (so that no one can walk up and stop the video, access my account, etc.).

Can I do this in OS X? If not, are there any third party solutions I can use?

You could create a screensaver using the video file so that it plays while the screen is locked.

If you're code inclined you may even want to try writing it yourself: http://cocoadevcentral.com/articles/000088.php

Or alternatively, there are utilities that will do most of the work for you: http://iscreensaver.com


How do split panes in Terminal work? I tried to open a split pane to run another command but instead it displays the same in both panes and I can only interact with one of them. I thought it would split the view so I could use the two panes independently like two windows.

I have the Visor installed but I don't think it would interfere.

Terminal - version 2.1.1
Visor custom (84d1873) based on 1.5

It's meant to be like that. See this Super User answer:

  You're misinterpreting the feature. It's not meant for two separate
  terminals. It's intended to allow a
  user to see two different view points
  in the same terminal. For instance, if
  you have 3000 files in a directory,
  and you perform an ls command, that
  output is going to be very long.

  If you use the split pane, you can
  scroll through that long output
  without having to flip back and forth,
  possibly losing your place along the
  way.

  If you want two terminals, use tabs,
  or separate windows.

I would add that, for two separate terminals, you can use separate tabs as well.


Can i charge mag safe 1 laptop via external portable battery ? Ive got a mid 2012 15" Macbook Pro with which has a magsafe 1 power port.

Is it possible to charge this model of laptop with an external battery like the 20000 Mah units you can get to charge phones / tablets ? But with a magsafe adaptor on it ?

The short answer is yes.

You just have to make sure that the battery is putting out between 12 and 18 volts.  Be aware, though that the 20000 mAH is only 2AH (2 amp hours or provide 2 amperes in one hour).  At that rate, you'll only get 36 watts (assuming 18V).

Will it charge?   Yes.  Very slowly.


DNS - Cannot connect to the internet I think I have some sort of dns/proxy issues with my wifi settings. Many apps cannot connect to the internet: Firefox, Team viewer, Steam (works after 2 minutes). Chrome does connect but "Establishing secure connection" message for 30+ seconds on each website.

Currently using my default ISP DNS but also tried Google public DNS.
Proxy protocol: Auto Proxy Discovery (tried on and off) & Passive mode active.

I have cleared DNS cache multiple times, removed network multiple times and it only seems to be happening on this specific device: 2015 MBP Sierra.

Worth mentioning that this specific issue freezes my Mac for a good minute or so.

Anybody has any ideas regarding what is going on here? There is no proxy/dns settings on my router + it is a wireless connection.

My current settings:

Ping (8.8.8.8)

PING 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=0 ttl=59 time=12.657 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=1 ttl=59 time=12.514 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=2 ttl=59 time=11.507 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=3 ttl=59 time=12.764 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=4 ttl=59 time=13.733 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=5 ttl=59 time=12.591 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=6 ttl=59 time=11.241 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=7 ttl=59 time=12.400 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=8 ttl=59 time=21.485 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=9 ttl=59 time=13.148 ms

--- 8.8.8.8 ping statistics ---
10 packets transmitted, 10 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 11.241/13.404/21.485/2.778 ms

Traceroute (8.8.8.8)

traceroute to 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8), 64 hops max, 72 byte packets
 1  * * *
 2  213.105.194.9 (213.105.194.9)  9.585 ms  12.063 ms  10.545 ms
 3  * * *
 4  62.253.175.34 (62.253.175.34)  11.010 ms  28.857 ms  11.516 ms
 5  74.125.48.190 (74.125.48.190)  17.485 ms  19.597 ms  16.406 ms
 6  72.14.232.215 (72.14.232.215)  17.545 ms  18.380 ms  15.319 ms
 7  216.239.57.79 (216.239.57.79)  18.027 ms  18.058 ms  18.314 ms
 8  8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8)  11.559 ms  14.196 ms  11.014 ms

Update: I did a wifi test and got "DNS resolution failure"

Go to: System Preferences - Network - Select your current adapter - Advanced ->
Uncheck the "Web Proxy" && "Secure Web Proxy" option


Finding Firefox bookmarks in Spotlight Is there a program that will allow me to use Spotlight to search my Firefox bookmarks and open the browser window?

First, download this file to your desktop: ffmd.sh
Open a terminal, and run the following:

  sudo mkdir /usr/local
  sudo mkdir /usr/local/bin
  sudo mv ~/Desktop/ffmd.sh
  /usr/local/bin/
  sudo chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/ffmd.sh
  sudo chown root:wheel
  /usr/local/bin/ffmd.sh

Now, schedule the task with crontab. The following line will schedule for 10 minutes:

  0,10,20,30,40,50 * * * *
  /usr/local/bin/ffmd.sh > /dev/null
  2>&1

This script is in the public domain, and intended for those with a little experience with UNIX.

the source is here.


Maximum memory config for Mac Pro 5,1 (mid 2010)? I have a MacPro5,1 with 8 cores (2 quad-core processors) running OS X 10.10.2.  From what I have read as per EveryMac.com's information about this unit it should be possible to have far beyond the normal maximum noted by Apple:

  Actual Maximum RAM

  ...

  Systems with dual processors, which EveryMac.com notes as the "Eight
  Core" and "Twelve Core" models, likewise officially support 32 GB of
  RAM, but again, OWC found they actually can support more. OWC first
  confirmed an actual maximum of 64 GB of RAM running Mac OS X 10.5
  "Leopard" and later increased this maximum to 96 GB of RAM running Mac
  OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" or higher. More recently, OWC yet again
  discovered these dual processor models can support up to 128 GB, but
  only when running a 64-bit version of Windows XP or later or Linux.
  Mac OS X only can support 96 GB of RAM.

I initially had an arrangement of 8 4GB DIMMs. These brought my system up to 32GB.

I then purchased 2 16GB chips in hopes to raise the amount of RAM, however my system would simply not start up at all.  Gave a fast power LED blink.  I subsequently returned this RAM and acquired 4 8GB DIMMs.

Upon installing these, my system still shows 32GB of RAM, but the 7 & 8 DIMM slots are showing empty now at this point.  Two of the DIMMS are being recognized while the others are not, even though there are 4 GB DIMMs in place and 4 4GB DIMMS:

What kind of issue is going on here?  Obviously we're getting mixed messages with the info above about being able to accept much larger memory configurations, but in practice things get quite whacky.

That machine will take 16's - my 3,1 does, to an unofficial maximum of 64GB [or more, according to Everymac, though I've not tested that myself].

The arrangement is not what you would initially think logical.

If you install equal-size DIMMs (for example, all 1 or 2 GB DIMMs) in your Mac Pro, Apple recommends that you fill the slots in the order listed in the table.

Note: If you install different-size DIMMs in your Mac Pro, follow the order in the table. If the DIMM configuration you install doesn't provide optimized performance, the Memory Slot Utility appears onscreen and recommends an improved configuration.

Source: Mac Pro (Mid 2012 and earlier): How to remove or install memory … & previous similar confusion when I upgraded mine ;)


Setting up new iPhone 6 issues and major headaches Old iPhone 5 16Gb all backed up on iCloud. Tried to set up my brand new iPhone 6 but turned out the last (manual) backup attempted on the 5 hadn't fully completed. Reinitiated a new mail backup on my old 5 to iCloud (18 mins), just attempted to set up new 6 using iCloud but get "error connecting to iCloud". Reset new 6, finally logged into my Apple account but showing zero available iCloud backups with which to restore new 6.

Over an hour and I still cannot even use my new 6!  Currently getting out windows laptop to do it all again manually via iTunes. Just feel like taking the 6 back to the shop.

What can I do to ensure a good restore?

iCloud syncing over iPhones of different generations can be tricky. I highly recommend backing up your iPhone 5 directly to your computer (not iCloud) and then syncing that back up file to your new iPhone 6.

Once all the old data is on your iPhone 6 you can then sync it to iCloud through your iPhone 6 (which can be done in the background).

Hope this helps.


Missing App After Downloading I've downloaded Tumblr on to my iPad 2 and the button in the App Store now shows OPEN.

But when I tap the 'OPEN' button, nothing appears (it's just the same!)

I checked it again after resetting the home screen view so it's arranged. I searched for 'T' and there's no Tumblr!

Maybe it's bit blurry, but there's all the apps which started with T. I've searched in the search Spotlight too but also, nothing appears with 'Tumblr'.

Reboot the device by holding both the power and home button until the Apple logo is shown. This will reset the SpringBoard cache which should show the app on the home screen if it's been downloaded (and in Spotlight).


Green screen while starting up MacBook Pro For last two three days I have been experiencing this problem. My MacBook Pro looks like this while booting up:

But after running for 30 or 40 min this thing goes normal, no problem at all after that time. A strange thing is it happens when there is a long gap between successive booting up of it.

I have tried resetting NVRAM and SMC but no luck.

My MacBook config is as follows:

macOS Sierra Version 10.12.5
MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015), 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5, Memory 8GB 1867 MHz DDR3, Graphics Intel Iris Graphics 6100 1536MB

Any help?

Seems like a hardware issue, probably GPU. Run Apple Diagnostics and something GPU heavy like Unigine Heaven and see if it exhibits any issues. In any case, I'd say take it into an Apple store and explain your situation.


Missing emojis from iPhone English keyboard on iOS 9.3.1 How do I restore missing emojis to the English keyboard on my iPhone 6?
They were there, and after a reset of my phone and restoring it from a computer backup, the emojis are missing.
I tried rebooting my device and that didn't work.
What should I do?

Go to Settings, then general, then keyboard, then keyboards, then add keyboards, then find "Emoji" and add it.

Edit: thanks Tom.


Remove file association for folders So, I'm developing software, where I organize code in different folders.
I got a folder named Company.Software.Logic.
This is used on different OSes (developer chooses him/herself).
But beeing on Mac, this causes a problem. It says my folder is a "Logic Pro-project".
I do not have Logic Pro installed, and I don't intend to ever install it.
I want my folders to be treated like folder, not application specific files.
Anyone know how to turn this "feature" off?
Renaming folders is a NO GO option.

You can change the association of an extension using RCDefaultApp. However, it is no longer supported & in the past year the original site has vanished. It was already ancient, but has worked since about 2004 without change.
It does still work for certain in Mojave, possibly Catalina, but as far as I'm aware, not Big Sur.
You can get it from file sites like CNet, MacUpdate, Softpedia etc
There's a modern replacement for RCDefaultApp called SwiftDefaultApps but it doesn't do Extensions.
tbh, your choice of extension was unfortunate. Macs reserve certain extensions to make into virtual packages; Logic is one of them. It doesn't rely on you having the app installed, it's right down at system level, as a known extension.  In effect it's the same as calling a folder company.project.app or company.project.zip & wondering why it misbehaves.
As a workaround you could right-click > Show Package Contents, but you'd have to do this every time.


How to access WebDAV shared folder on Mac OS X Server Mac OS X Server supports WebDAV and allows iPhones/iPads to connect, store and retrieve files.

While Mac OS X can access WebDAV servers from the Finder using "Connect to Server" (Command+K) attempting to connect to the root of a Mac OS X server or any other assumed location results in an error:

  There was a problem connecting to the server “theserver.domain.com”.
  Check the server name or IP address, and then try again. If you continue to have problems, contact your system administrator

I can only guess that there is some special URL/URI that is necessary but what?

Here is how it partially works.

The server's WebDAV interface is presented from a virtual directory "webdav". If your server is at

https://theserver.domain.com

then the beginning of your WebDAV access starts at:

https://theserver.domain.com/webdav/

This will typically be your "home folder" if the server is setup to offer users home folders.

And while it does not represent your actual directory structure , all other shared volumes are tacked on to the end of that. So if you mark a folder as shared with "WebDAV" thusly:

then the access would be:

https://theserver.domain.com/webdav/swap/

Caveats:

URI is case sensitive
username aliases are not respected, you must use the "short name" for login, even from the Mac OS X Finder's friendly login dialog
Wiki storage access with WebDAV ... still not clear on the URI


How to remove available resolutions from a monitor? I've connected my 2007 Mac mini to a vizio TV display using a dvi to VGA adaptor.

OSX correctly identifies the display so the DDC is working, yet OSX is also providing several resolutions which the display can't actually support.  When someone changes the display resolution, usually inside a game, the display stops working and I have to go through a bit of effort to make the system usable again.

I'd like to force OSX to only display 1920x1080 in the available resolutions.

Is there a way to only permit OSX to display one available resolution for this monitor?

I have not used this application, but apparently you can do that (and much more) in SwitchResX, available here: http://www.madrau.com/indexSRX4.html

On this page it says that "SwitchResX can also block unused resolutions": http://www.madrau.com/functions/custom/custom.html, and since the software allows to create display settings for individual applications (described here: http://www.madrau.com/functions/app/app.html), maybe you can even disable certain resolutions in that game and other relevant apps only.

SwitchResX is shareware and costs 14 USD. You can try it for free for 10 days.

If you want to disable available resolutions manually, edit this file

/System/Library/Frameworks/IOKit.framework/Versions/A/Resources/IOGraphicsProperties.plist

In there is a section that looks something like this:

    <key>gtf-resolutions</key>
<array>
    <integer>640</integer>
    <integer>800</integer>
    <integer>1024</integer>
    <integer>1280</integer>
    <integer>50332928</integer>
    <integer>67110144</integer>
    <integer>1344</integer>
    <integer>1400</integer>
    <integer>1600</integer>
    <integer>1920</integer>
    <integer>100665344</integer>
    <integer>2304</integer>
</array>

These are all widths, the height is calculated by the system. You cannot delete the maximum resolution, it is not listed in this file but comes from the monitor itself.

Add or delete resolutions from that section.

I have not tried this myself, and you are doing it at your own risk.

Note: To edit this file, you must either be logged in as root, edit it using sudo in the Terminal and a terminal-based editor such as vi, or use an editor that unlocks the file for you such as TextWrangler. Or, and this might be the best way, copy the file to the Desktop, edit it, and then drag and drop it back to the correct location holding down the Option key (you will be asked for your Admin password).

It might be a good idea to create a backup of the original file before you make any changes.


How do I create a shortcut link from the dock to an application? I'm trying to put a link to Outlook Express in my dock but can't see how it's done. When I right-click on the application icon in a finder window, "Make Alias" is not one of the options available, so I can't make a shortcut and then move it down to the dock. If I drag the application icon itself down towards the dock it simply makes another copy of the entire application on the desktop. For some reason I can get a "Make Alias" option from this version (why would the right-click options be different depending on whether the same icon was in a finder window or on the desktop???). And I can then move the alias icon into the dock. But when I then delete the unneeded copy of the application on the desktop, the alias no longer works because it was linking to that copy rather than the original. I'm sure this must be simple but can I find any information on the Help files...?

I'm running OSX 10.6.8, so no I don't have a launchpad icon in the dock.

For any app you want to add to your dock as a shortcut, the process is as follows:

Launch the application. The application's icon will appear in the dock.
Right click the application's icon in the dock.
Go to "Options".
Select "Keep in Dock".

Now the application's icon will remain in the dock as a shortcut when you quit the application.


macOS Mojave Safari favicons I have a MacBook Pro model A1502.  It's got Mojave version 10.14.4 and Safari 12.1.

I use Top Sites a lot, and they've always had favicons.  Today that changed so that when I go to top sites, it shows the website page instead of the icon.

I've tried (many times) going to Safari > Preferences > Tabs and clicked Show website icons, but it hasn't changed.

What else can I do?

Looked like this:

Now shows website page thumbnail

close Safari
delete  /Users/Daisy/Library/Safari/Favicon\ Cache (insert your username where appropriate)
delete /Users/Daisy/Library/Safari/Touch\ Icons\ Cache
delete /Users/Daisy/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari
restart Safari

Now watch all blank icons being auto-filled by Safari after a few seconds.

This should work unless the websites that the icons you are missing can no longer be retrieved from the web (website is down, inaccessible etc).

Alternatively, you might try to just delete the offending icon (keep the pointer above it for two seconds to get a close/pin control toggled visible), then open the desired page and drag its favicon to a new window with TopSites again.

To find these folders:

Press Cmd+Shift+G in Finder or select Finder Menu > Go > Go to Folder
or just open Terminal and type

rm -rv /Users/Daisy/Library/Safari/Favicon\ Cache

rm -rv /Users/Daisy/Library/Safari/Touch\ Icons\ Cache

rm -rv /Users/Daisy/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari


After update, now I'm getting "Disk not ejected properly" every time my Mac sleeps Been running El Capitan since it was officially released. Updated to 10.11.4 a few days ago. I have a WD Elements USB 3.0 drive connected to my Mac mini (directly to the rear ports, not via a hub). Ever since the update to 10.11.4 whenever my Mac goes to sleep and I wake it up again, I get a notification to say the "Disk was not ejected properly".

This has never happened with this drive before, not on Mountain Lion, Mavericks, Yosemite or El Capitan until now.

I have another external caddy also with a full size 3.5" drive in it. This is powered by the mains.

It seems to me that the Mac is now terminating power to the USB 3.0 port prematurely (before the disk has had a chance to unmount properly ?), I do not get the message for my full-size disk that is permanently powered.

Tried adding the disk to the spotlight ignore list but to no avail.

Anyone else notices this issue?

I have the same problem with my LaCie 6TB drive which is used by Time Machine and is USB 3 connected. The problem only started after upgrading to 10.11.4. I don't have the problem with my 10.11.4 MBP using Wi-Fi to backup to my 3TB Time Capsule. I have reported the problem to Apple and await a solution.


Backing up the iCloud Photo Library when it won't fit on my internal drive I love the iCloud Photo Library. Formerly an Aperture user, I enjoy having my entire library available on every device and now use it as my master repository. I upload raw files into it, taken from my DSLR, and of course the photos my iPhone takes. It's great. None of the devices I have, carry sufficient storage to download the entire library and so I have them all set to 'optimize'. Which is fine for day to day use, and even while editing as it downloads when needed. But I keep reading horror stories about libraries getting wiped out through bugs in Apple's software, and just generally speaking am getting increasingly worried I have just 1 copy of my entire library: the copy in iCloud.

So, I want to back up my library. But my drive is too small to make a copy of the library onto it. So, how?

"Attach an external drive" ... I tried doing this. And while I can store the library on the external drive, this then means I no longer have ANY photos on my laptop when I'm not at my desk.

"Create a second library with different sync settings" ... It's not possible to have 2 different libraries both sync down from iCloud, it turns out.

What other options do I have?

Can you set your library to be on the external drive, turn on the setting to keep originals locally, then download everything.

Then take a copy of that library on the external drive, turn off the setting to download originals locally, and move the library back to the internal drive?

I can't see why that would not work ...


Bootcamp and Filevault 2 boot to OS X before a restart allows Windows to load I've got a mid 2011 MBA with Windows 7 running via Bootcamp. In Lion, i've enabled Filevault 2.

Normally, when I turn my laptop on, I first enter the filevault password before the laptop boots into OS X.

If I am trying to boot into Windows, I hold down alt/option, select the Windows partition and let the laptop boot. However, what seems to happen is, the filevault screen that normally shows when I first turn my laptop on shows, I enter the password and I seem to end up in OS X! I then need to restart, hold down alt/option and select the Windows partition again. This then gets me in.

Is this normal behaviour? Or is there something I need to change?

I think it's a timing issue, you need to ensure that you press the option key early enough in the boot process to stop the normal boot and subsequent Fielvault login.  The best way to do this is to ensure you have not muted the machine to you get the "bong" noise when you start/restart your machine.  You need to hit alt/option immediately when you hear this, and keep it pressed for 5 seconds or so.


Phone-only mode on iPhone Is there a way to switch the iPhone’s functionality to a phone-only mode. In this mode only incoming (and possibly outgoing) calls and SMS messaging would be activated. All other services (location, push, mail) would be disabled. So it would be just like your average seven-years-ago mobile phone which you could leave on during the night (*) without getting awakened by facebook push messages and without fearing to oversleep because the battery drained from downloading all the spam mails you got during the night.

Note that I’m not speaking of do not disturb functionality, which would also silence SMS messaging (which I’d still like to receive) and yet drain more power than needed by having activated location, push and mail services.

(*) alarm clock functionality should also work in that mode (but this could well be the built-in alarm, no other apps should be activated or running in the background)

You could turn off Wi-Fi (Settings -> Wi-Fi) and cellular data (Settings -> General -> Cellular -> Cellular Data) to get a phone which works just like a phone. Possibly disable location services (Settings -> Privacy -> Locations Services) as well if you really want to extend the battery life.

I do believe this would still allow local notifications, though, if you've got any apps that use them (such as some alarm or reminder apps).


How to tell if I'm using HFS+ or APFS? Using diskutil, or other command line tools, how can I determine which filesystem I'm using?

# sw_vers
ProductName:    Mac OS X
ProductVersion:    10.8.5
BuildVersion:    12F45

The easiest way is using the diskutil command line as follows:

diskutil info /

You will see a report which will include something like this for an APFS formatted storage:

Volume Name:              Macintosh HD
Mounted:                  Yes
Mount Point:              /
Partition Type:           41504752-0000-11AA-AA23-01306543EFEA
File System Personality:  APFS
Type (Bundle):            apfs
Name (User Visible):      APFS
Owners:                   Enabled

See under Type to determine what kind of file system is on your root volume.

This will be displayed on an HFS formatted storage:

Volume Name:              Macintosh HD
Mounted:                  Yes
Mount Point:              /
Partition Type:           Apple_HFS
File System Personality:  Journaled HFS+
Type (Bundle):            hfs
Name (User Visible):      Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Journal:                  Journal size 155648 KB at offset 0x3a38000
Owners:                   Enabled

If you want to automate this or use the results in a script, you can use following one-liner:

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Print :FilesystemType" /dev/stdin <<< $(diskutil info -plist /)

Which will produce output:

apfs

or

hfs


Best way to connect Remote Mac with audio from Mac or PC I am in a need of a solution, where I can remotely connect from my PC/Mac to remote Mac Pro or Mac mini with audio coming from it.  I will be using VPN to access Remote Mac, so I couldn't get Airfoil working for me (correct me if I missed something from the tool). I went through several tools such as nuoRDS, SoundFlower (didn't work on Catalina), VNC Pro (paid one also didn't work for macOS).

Any ideal solution that would help me as I am looking for 10-15 users. So purchasing one tool or a year license would be a solution too but per month, per user, per session is quite out of context.

Please suggest anything that you recommend, I will test it.

This will be helpful for everyone if you are looking for something for paid solutions.

I have found a very nice tool named SplashTop.

https://www.splashtop.com/business

Why transmitting audio is not so easy in macOS:

  Apple has discontinued the support of user-space audio plugins (HAL).
  Without this functionality, we can not capture audio from user
  session. The method proposed by Apple (Audio Server) captures audio
  from a single user session on console only.  Therefore all old tool
  does not support audio redirection.

I have tested with FreeTrial on it and it works perfectly as I am looking for. No need to hijack or route audio from any third party.


Sharing keyboard and mouse with Mac and iphone 5 I am thinking of using AirServer or Reflector app to mirror my iphone 5 on to my Mac , which sounds easy , but want to use the same Bluetooth keyboard and mouse(apple ones) paired with Mac , to use for text and writing mails or answering calls on iphone

Is that possible?

Try the Type2Phone app for the keyboard. It effectively turns your Mac into a Bluetooth keyboard that you can connect your iPhone to. Anything you type into the app gets sent to the phone.

Unfortunately there's no way to use a mouse to interact with the touch screen (and frankly, if you've ever used the iOS Simulator, you'd realize it's fairly limiting to do so), but Type2Phone should get most of what you're looking for.


Length of Mini DisplayPort to HDMI cable So, I just asked and had answered this question, Mini DisplayPort to HDMI cable vs. adapter - for MBP mid-2012, about the adapter vs. the cable. I am leaning toward cable now, but was wondering about the 3ft, 6ft, and 10ft versions. I'd likely go with 6ft. But my question is, will there be any degradation in performance due to the length of the cord(s)? In other words, will the 6 perform better than the 10 and the 3 perform better than the 6?

Yes, I realize we're talking about a grand total of about $10 here, but it's less about that than it is about my desire to avoid having to re-replace something! Thank you!

Short answer:

Yes, the cable will be fine.

Long answer:

HDMI and Mini DisplayPort are digital signals, so either the signal works or it doesn't.

As cable runs get longer the signal is more prone to interference and signal loss that can result in no video, but unlike analog video such as composite video there is no loss in quality, just no video at all, or constant cutting out.

Given that you are really only looking at 10ft/3M this isn't very long at all, and as long as you buy from a reputable supplier the cable should state it is rated for 1080p at 60fps and if it was made 3 meters long it should work without question.

In my own experience signal issues with HDMI cables only tend to start to manifest at much longer cable runs over 10 meters / 30 ft, and at higher resolutions or frame rates which exceed what the cable was designed for, or when the cable is not from a reputable supplier.


AirPort Express no power-on - can it be repaired or replaced? I have a first-generation Airport Express that has the common failure of simply not powering on. There are several sites showing how to open or repair the device, but all basically involve destroying the exterior and/or keeping it in two (exposed) parts afterwards.

Is there any way to get this fixed without destroying it? I have no Apple Care - do Apple consider doing repairs (for less than the cost of a new one)? It seems like a waste to chuck it and buy a new one. Or perhaps it is announced as a manufacturing defect? I couldn't find anything like that. Any chance of a friendly Apple Store employee getting a replacement, at least saving the full cost?

I don't believe that the Airport Express is considered a serviceable product. As you have seen from the repair sites it isn't easily opened. A repair from Apple isn't likely to be available or cost effective. It never hurts to ask though -- especially at the Genius Bar where they have some discretion depending on your situation.

Without destroying the exterior, you are likely faced with getting a replacement. You could save some money by buying a refurbished Airport Express from Apple. And perhaps even sell your old one for parts on eBay in case someone else wants to split it open.


How to remotely connect Macs across different networks? I'm trying to connect two Macs that are not in the same Wi-Fi network.
I'd like to use terminal instead of available Remote Desktop programs.

My remote Mac had already all the preferences active in "sharing" prefs.
Problem is... while I can do that from the same network using

open vnc://name.IpAddress

But I have no idea how to do that from different networks. I'd like to be able not only to enter the remote Mac, but also see the screen.

I do have full control over the hardware and software from beginning to end. The Mac will never have a monitor attached and runs my scripts and my software only. I buy the hardware, install my software, and ship. I am able to have the machine connect to their Wi-Fi so that I have all the system info needed uploaded to the database. Like local IP address... and basically everything I tell the script to do.

How can I remotely connect to the Mac from a different network ?

Assuming you have a central and stationary management unit (a Mac) and several remote Macs (1:n relationship), I would choose an inverted VPN-approach:

Set up a VPN-server on your central Mac. The network address of the VPN-net mustn't collide with local network addresses. Port-forward all necessary ports to your Mac on your local router. Depending on your Internet service provider and your Internet connection get a dynamic DNS-address.
Set up VPN-clients on the remote Macs and connect them to your central VPN-server. The clients mustn't route all traffic via the VPN-connection.
Enable Screen Sharing on the clients
Connect "locally" with your VNC-app.

Since the question misses some details (e.g. macOS versions/number of remote Macs/safety rules in the remote networks/24-7 service/Internet & network stability locally and remote etc.), I can't answer the question in all its particulars.


Do the current Apple USB Keyboards support charging the iPad? As the new owner of an iPad, it was disappointing, but not surprising, to see a "not charging" in the upper right hand corner of my iPad when I connected it via USB to my Apple Keyboard from 2007. However, connecting it directly to my MacBook Pro from 2010 does charge the iPad, so it seems it's just a simple matter of my USB keyboard not drawing enough power.

Is this something that Apple has updated/changed about their USB keyboard since I bought mine in 2007? The products are otherwise identical. If not Apple, are there any third parties that have keyboards that will supply the necessary power to charge an iPad?

Yes, but only with the iPad in sleep mode.
The iPad requires at least 500mA from a USB port:

Apple peripheral devices may request more than 500 mA (Milliamps) at 5 V (Volts) from a port to function or to allow for faster charging. Such Apple peripheral devices include:

iPad
iPhone
Alluminum Wired Keyboard*

About wired keyboard we get the information:

*When connected to a computer that supports a connection of 1100 mA at 5 V, the first port on the keyboard to have a device or peripheral connected to it that requests standard 500mA power will receive that power. At that point, 100 mA at 5 V is available through the remaining port on this keyboard. This keyboard does not support extra power out of its two ports simultaneously; it requests extra power from the host computer to provide power out of either one of its two ports, then the second keyboard port receives the standard 500mA.
Note: Apple computers and displays that were introduced before 2007 support only 500 mA at 5 V from their ports and do not offer additional power.

[source 1 from support.apple.com]
As the wired keyboards can provide the minimum 500mA required by the iPad (just like older Macs can), it should be possible for it to power the iPad. However, it can not provide an additional current which would allow for faster charging.
But, the new iPad can only charge in sleep mode when connected to a low powered USB hub:

The fastest way to charge your iPad is with the included 10W USB Power Adapter. iPad will also charge, although more slowly, when attached to a computer with a high-power USB port (many recent Mac computers) or with an iPhone Power Adapter. When attached to a computer via a standard USB port (most PCs or older Mac computers) iPad will charge, but only when it's in sleep mode. Make sure your computer is on while charging iPad via USB. If iPad is connected to a computer that’s turned off or is in sleep or standby mode, the iPad battery will continue to drain.

[source 2 from support.apple.com]


-bash: alias: /path/to/folder: not found Mac OS Sierra, 10.12.3

I inserted this line into my .bash_profile:

alias myfolder="cd ~/path/to/folder"

But when I type this into Terminal:

source ~/.bash_profile

I get this error:

-bash: alias: Users/myuser/path/to/folder: not found

Basically, I want to be able to type "myfolder" from anywhere in the directory structure and have it change to that alias path. But I haven't been able to get it to work.

EDIT: Sorry, I was already using the cd command. Edited the question to reflect this.

You are mixing bash alias, macOS alias and (soft-)link.

The bash alias requires some executable to be called but a path to a folder is no executable.

So use alias myfolder='cd ~/path/to/folder' in your .bash_profile to change to the desired directory. ~/path/to/folder has to be a valid path of course - or it won't work.


Small external hard drive in time machine I have a external hard dive that is smaller than the hard drive of the computer. Can I use that external hard drive as time machine but select just the most important information to be back up and perhaps a second hard drive for the rest?

Yes, in System Preferences > Time Machine, select the small drive, click the options button and exclude anything you don't want to back up.


Changing Chrome's User Agent? Is it possible to change Chrome (or Chrome based browsers) user agents on OSX? I dont see a menu or preference option for doing so.

This link shows how to do it using Terminal. The Terminal command that opens Chrome using the Safari user agent string:

open /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app   --args -user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_5_3; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.19 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.2.1 Safari/525.19"

I tested this, and it works with the current version of Chrome. You can find various User-Agent strings here.


Do Apple Geniuses check if computers are "lost" with iCloud's Find My Mac before performing firmware password resets? Firmware password protection1 is nice, but would the Genius Bar actually mind my "lost" status noted online if my computer ends up in a store to reset the firmware password (which is the easiest method to reset it)? Do they match the serial this way?

I doubt it, and even if they did, you should not rely on it.

I assume you are concerned about the case where your laptop gets stolen; you want to protect your data. In that regard, the firmware password is utterly useless, the thief could just pull the drive out and access your data anyway.

I suggest you look into something like FileVault 2 instead.


Recover certain files from Time machine from previous Mac I just got my new Macbook Pro Retina and update it to Yosemite. I now want to recover/get some files from my Time Machine backup of my previous Macbook but don't want to migrate my whole Time machine onto my new Mac. So for example I want some folders from my Documents folder of my older Mac, but not the whole folder. And some specific Apps/Programs and not all of them.

I'm working on a Synology NAS so I don't have a backups.backupdb folder. I can open the network folder "Time machine" and there is my Computer name. But when opening I just find a list of files called "ff", "fe",... The main Computername folders are called computername.sparesbundle. So its not like the Machine drive & file hierarchy. Is there any other option? When trying to "Browse Other Backup Disks" via Time machine itself it opens the Time machine "star wars" but shows my current working computer instead of the Time Machine backup.

Thanks in advance!

The following worked with my Synology NAS:

Browse to the network drive in Finder
Double-click on the sparse bundle file for the computer you want to access.
Click on the "Time Machine Backups" disk image in Finder (added to the left-hand pane by step 2 above).
Open the backups.backupsdb folder inside this disk image.
Continue as per previous comments.


Applescript read specific data out of iWork Numbers I am trying to get data out of a table in Numbers. I have an index number, I need to get the name associated with it in applescript. (Eventually I need to set names of files with one of columns of this number sheet)

here is what I got:

tell application "iTunes"
    repeat with theTrack in selection
        set theFile to location of theTrack
        tell application "Finder" to set theName to name of theFile
        set surahNameAsString to characters 1 thru 3 of theName as text
        --set album of theTrack to surahName
        set surahNumber to surahNameAsString as integer
        log ("here")

        set aName to my getAName(surahNumber)

        --set the year of theTrack to 1985

    end repeat
end tell

on getAName(surahNumber)
    tell application "Numbers"
        activate
        set t to front document's active sheet's first table's cell whose value is surahNumber
        --set t to front document's active sheet's first table's first column
        repeat with c in t
            set theValue to c's value
        end repeat
    end tell
    return theValue
end getAName

this is how I solved it:

tell application "iTunes"

    repeat with theTrack in selection

        set theFile to location of theTrack
        tell application "Finder" to set theName to name of theFile

        set ayahInSurahCount to 0

        --set ayah information from the name of the track

        set surahNumAsString to characters 1 thru 3 of theName as text
        set surahNumber to surahNumAsString as integer

        set ayahNumberAsString to characters 4 thru 6 of theName as text
        set ayahNumber to ayahNumberAsString as integer
        -- finished

        set track number of theTrack to ayahNumber
        set genre of theTrack to "Genre"
        --getting information from the number sheet
        set aName to my getAName(surahNumber)
        --set englishName to my getEnglishName(surahNumber)
        -- finished
        set the album of theTrack to surahNumAsString & "-" & aName
        set artist of theTrack to "Abdul Basit"
        set shufflable of theTrack to false
        --set description of theTrack to englishName
        set name of theTrack to ayahNumberAsString & " - "

    end repeat
end tell

on getAName(surahNumber)
    tell application "Numbers"
        activate
        tell document 1
            tell sheet 1
                tell table 1
                    set ret to value of cell 1 of row surahNumber
                    --set value of cell 5 of row 1 to "Salam"
                end tell
            end tell
        end tell
    end tell
    return ret
end getArabicName

on getEnglishName(surahNumber)
    tell application "Numbers"
        activate
        tell document 1
            tell sheet 1
                tell table 1
                    set ret to value of cell 3 of row surahNumber
                end tell
            end tell
        end tell
    end tell
    return ret
end getEnglishName


When using VSCode on macOS, randomly a `sysdiagnose.tar.gz` will be generated I'm using Microsoft's Visual Studio Code (VSCode) to develop TypeScript. All versions are their most up-to-date (and this was happening with 10.15.6, so it's not a 10.15.7 issue).
Randomly a Finder window will pop up at /private/var/tmp with a new sysdiagnose dump.
The file is called sysdiagnose_[date stamp]_[MacBook Pro machine details].tar.gz. When unpacked, it contains an entire folder structure full of dumps.
As such it's massively unhelpful! Which one do I need to care about?
I've checked Console.app but it also isn't very helpful unless you know what you're looking for. I do see a pile of events generated by spindump but they all just say Already saw task <private> [10437] in this stackshot, ignoring second instance. I don't see anything obvious immediately before these events.
What might be causing this, and how do I go about using these tools to figure out what it is?

Most likelely you hit Control-Option-Command-Shift-. now and then which triggers system diagnostics (see How do you get system diagnostic files from macOS?) for details.


MBA can't connect to Hotspot I've a weird problem with my MBA (2011 model) since the upgrade to Mavericks. There is a certain set of hotspots to which I can't connect anymore. I'm not sure which ones specifically, but there are several. Works well on the phone and tablet (both Androids).

I've got the feeling that it has something to do with the IP configs I receive - has anybody seen similar behavior and found a solution?

I've now found some more info on it, and it seems that the route is somehow mangled:

On the non working connection my routing table is:

Shu:~ blitz$ netstat -nr
Routing tables

Internet:
Destination        Gateway            Flags        Refs      Use   Netif Expire
169.254            link#4             UCS             0        0     en0
#somehow, the next line is duplicated
192.168.182        link#4             UC              0        0     en0
192.168.182        link#4             UCSI            2        0     en0
192.168.182.1      20:4e:7f:8b:36:81  UHLWIir         1      208     en0    992
192.168.182.240    127.0.0.1          UHS             0        0     lo0
192.168.182.255    ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff  UHLWbI          0        1     en0

On a working connection, the table is this one:

shu:~ blitz$ netstat -nr
Routing tables

Internet:
Destination        Gateway            Flags        Refs      Use   Netif Expire
default            192.168.1.1        UGSc           33        5     en0
169.254            link#4             UCS             0        0     en0
192.168.1          link#4             UCS             2        0     en0
192.168.1.1        84:7a:88:66:c5:79  UHLWIir        34       66     en0   1170
192.168.1.150      127.0.0.1          UHS             1       25     lo0
192.168.1.255      ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff  UHLWbI          0       16     en0

Any clue where the duplicated line got there and how i can get rid of it? And matter of fact, what does it even do?

[EDIT]
Some Debug infos: the BOOTP response as printed from dhclient

  IME: 2014-02-20 19:38:48.818
  IP: 192.168.182.1 (20:4e:7f:8b:36:81) > 192.168.182.245 (10:40:f3:81:df:32)
  OP: 2 (BOOTPREPLY)
  HTYPE: 1 (Ethernet)
HLEN: 6
HOPS: 0
 XID: c9ab89bc
SECS: 0
FLAGS: 0
CIADDR: 0.0.0.0
YIADDR: 192.168.182.245
SIADDR: 0.0.0.0
GIADDR: 0.0.0.0
CHADDR: 10:40:f3:81:df:32:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00
SNAME: .
FNAME: .
OPTION:  53 (  1) DHCP message type         5 (DHCPACK)
OPTION:   1 (  4) Subnet mask               255.255.255.0
OPTION:   3 (  4) Routers                   192.168.182.1
OPTION:   6 (  8) DNS server                192.168.182.1,83.169.184.225
OPTION:  15 ( 19) Domainname                frederix-hotspot.de
OPTION:  51 (  4) IP address leasetime      600 (10m)
OPTION:  26 (  2) Interface MTU             1500
OPTION:  54 (  4) Server identifier         192.168.182.1

The leases file, compared between working and non-working is - with the same access point:

10c10
<   <date>2014-02-23T16:23:13Z</date>
---
>   <date>2014-02-23T16:17:40Z</date>
13c13
<   AgEGACHWzY0AAAAAAAAAAMCotokAAAAAAAAAABBA84HfMgAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
---
>   AgEGAMmrigAAAAAAAAAAAMCotokAAAAAAAAAABBA84HfMgAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

However, some more observations I've made:
- the error only comes up in very specfic envrionments
- It only happens after I've used the mac for a certain amount of time, usually after a work day (time is probably the wrong thing, but maybe programs I've used for work)
- A reboot fixes things - so it strongly points to my machine being the culprit here!

Has anybody seen similar behavior and found a solution?

Nope, never seen this before, but I've noticed that the default route is missing in the routing table of the non-working connection.

The default route is needed so that packets for destinations not listed in the routing table can be properly routed and delivered.

You can fix it by adding the route like this:

sudo route add default <IP address of router>

In your case:

sudo route add default 192.168.182.1

This treats the symptoms, not the disease. To find out what's wrong download dhcpdump from http://www.mavetju.org/unix/general.php, compile it in Terminal:

cd ~/Downloads/
tar xzf dhcpdump-1.8.tar.gz
cd dhcpdump-1.8
make

and run it:

sudo ./dhcpdump -i en0

You'll get an output similar to this:

  TIME: 2014-02-18 10:04:03.832
    IP: 0.0.0.0 (e0:f8:49:27:4e:22) > 255.255.255.255 (ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff)
    OP: 1 (BOOTPREQUEST)
 HTYPE: 1 (Ethernet)
(...)
OPTION:  53 (  1) DHCP message type         3 (DHCPREQUEST)
OPTION:  55 (  9) Parameter Request List
    1 (Subnet mask) 3 (Routers) 6 (DNS server) 15 (Domainname)
    119 (Domain Search) 95 (LDAP) 252 (MSFT - WinSock Proxy Auto Detect)
    44 (NetBIOS name server) 46 (NetBIOS node type)

OPTION:  57 (  2) Maximum DHCP message size 1500
OPTION:  61 (  7) Client-identifier         01:e0:f8:49:27:4e:22
OPTION:  50 (  4) Request IP address        10.0.0.31
OPTION:  51 (  4) IP address leasetime      7776000 (12w6d)
OPTION:  12 (  8) Host name                 avallone
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

  TIME: 2014-02-18 10:04:03.934
    IP: 10.0.0.1 (c4:3d:c7:a6:a3:98) > 10.0.0.31 (e0:f8:49:27:4e:22)
    OP: 2 (BOOTPREPLY)
 HTYPE: 1 (Ethernet)
(...)
OPTION:  53 (  1) DHCP message type         5 (DHCPACK)
OPTION:  54 (  4) Server identifier         10.0.0.1
OPTION:  51 (  4) IP address leasetime      86400 (24h)
OPTION:   1 (  4) Subnet mask               255.255.255.0
OPTION:   3 (  4) Routers                   10.0.0.1
OPTION:   6 (  4) DNS server                10.0.0.1

The important part for us is option 3 in the BOOTREPLY packet:

OPTION:   3 (  4) Routers                   10.0.0.1

Is it missing in the answer your Mac gets, or are there other options like static routes (option 33) that might confuse the BSD network stack?

(You could also use sudo tcpdump -i en0 -s 1500 -XX port bootps or port bootpc to analyze the DHCP packets but dhcpdump offers a much more readable output.)

Which is the value of RouterIPAddress in/private/var/db/dhcpclient/leases/<interface>,<count>-<MAC address> when the connection is not working? As an example, this is my DHCP lease file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>IPAddress</key>
    <string>10.0.0.31</string>
    <key>LeaseLength</key>
    <integer>86400</integer>
    <key>LeaseStartDate</key>
    <date>2014-02-21T07:04:53Z</date>
    <key>PacketData</key>
    <data>
    (...)
    </data>
    <key>RouterHardwareAddress</key>
    <data>
    (...)
    </data>
    <key>RouterIPAddress</key>
    <string>10.0.0.1</string>
    <key>SSID</key>
    <string>hotspot</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Any clue where the duplicated line got there and how i can get rid of it? And matter of fact, what does it even do?

It looks like your Mac can't properly process the DHCP reply from the router. You can delete the duplicated line with:

sudo route delete -ifscope en0 -net 192.168.182 -link 'link#4'

Since the duplicated routes have the same destination and gateway I don't think they will hinder network functionality, as you can see, only one of them is being used, the one with Refs greater than 0:

192.168.182        link#4             UC              0        0     en0
192.168.182        link#4             UCSI            2        0     en0


Can I buy American AppleCare+ and use it in Europe? I recently bought an Apple Watch Series 2 in Germany. I now want to buy AppleCare+. When I go to this site and get to the "Purchase" page, United States is chosen by default and the price is $50. If I switch to Deutschland, the price becomes 65€, which is considerably more expensive for some reason.

Will there be any issue if I go with the US AppleCare+?

Where can I purchase the AppleCare Protection Plan?

  Depending on the Apple product, the AppleCare Protection Plan is available at the Apple Online Store, Apple Retail Stores, and many Apple Authorized Resellers including many wireless service providers. Apple recommends that you purchase the AppleCare Protection Plan in your country of residence, because each AppleCare Protection Plan has terms and conditions specific to consumers in the country or region in which the plan is offered. Please see the AppleCare Protection Plan Terms and Conditions for complete details.

source: https://www.apple.com/asia/support/products/faqs.html

So Apple provides different protections based on your region of the world and the applicable ToS.

I was asked to clarify

Apple's ToS for AppleCare is country-specific based upon where its purchased. So if you purchase a US plan, the language includes only language about certain laws in US states where they diverge from the general contract. Same goes for the EU - if you buy an EU plan certain countries have variations on the laws.

That said, from briefly perusing AppleCare ToS, all of them seem to offer the ability to take your device to "an Apple Retail Store" to have it repaired under warranty and no further qualification is given. If you've purchased a warranty outside of your own country I'd presume that that means you can get it repaired anywhere Apple has a store.

I am not an Apple rep nor does this answer have any weight on what Apple actually might do. I'm guessing your intention with this question is to save a few bucks on your AppleCare. In that case, I'd ask if it's worth about the ~15 euros difference in price to protect what is likely a >1000 Euro device?


Can I change how often Lion's "Versions" feature saves files? Is it possible to change Versions' save frequency?

For some kind of work, one hour's worth of work is too much to lose!

I haven't been experimenting with this for long enough to be an expert yet, but I think you're confusing two semi-separate features: autosave and versions.

Autosave saves frequently -- in TextEdit, it seems to save after about 30 seconds of inactivity.  But it doesn't save a new version, it just saves the current document state.

Every hour and/or every time you explicitly save a version (Command-S), it saves a restorable version -- one that you can revert to if you decide you've made a mistake in editing.  Once saved, the "version" does not get updated; you can revert to it, or go into the Browse all Versions interface and copy content from it, but it's essentially frozen.

Autosave protects you against forgetting to save changes.  Versions protects you against mistaken edits you wish you hadn't made.  They operate on different time scales (and as far as I know, neither has customizable timing).


iOS "PodCast" app fils up my phone; doesn't pre-download podcasts I want I've started using Apple's Podcast app and I've encountered some unexplainable behavior.

I have it configured to download podcasts and only keep the last 5 unplayed.
Nevertheless, it periodically downloads months and months of Podcasts that I haven't heard. In the process, it fills up my iPhone.
However, it's frequently the case that it hasn't downloaded the most recent podcast. This is really annoying to me, because I'm using the Podcast app when I'm underground, in the subway, and there's no Internet access.

Is there any solution to this? Have other people seen the problem?

If you go to a particular podcast settings, the options available are better described, and may explain the behavior you are seeing:

The option "Limit episodes" has a description that reads:

  Limit the number of new episodes shown in the Unplayed view

Which does not appear to define how many episodes are downloaded but only how they are displayed.

This description is not present if you go to the app settings on the iOS Settings app.

On a separate setting you can choose to only download new episodes, all episodes or all unplayed. My guess is that marking "Only new" will help with your issue, but it depends on what is considered new by the app of course.


Algorithm used in Mac OS Calculator I am trying to understand the algorithm used in basic calculator of Mac OS but I couldn't crack the logic behind certain operations.
I could understand the following operations,
Input: 2+3x3=
Output: 11
Input: 2+3x3==
Output: 33
Explanation: The value of [2+3x3=] is 11, when we press = again,
the following operation is done,

Current Value (11) LastUsedOperator(x) LastPressedNumber(3) [11x3] = 33

But I couldn't understand these and I don't understand why these operations are supported,
Input: 4+3x3x3x=
Output: 135
Input: 4+3x3x3x==
Output: 3645
Input: 4-3x3x3x=
Output: 81
Input: 4+3x3x3x==
Output: 2187
I would like to know the algorithm used behind these operations.

Honestly, I think it is a bug in the calculator, though possibly it could be defended as some sort of usability concession. Note: I am confining my analysis to the floating-point calculators. The programmer calculator behaves differently.
The general rules seem to be

If you do not enter a number between pressing an operator key and pressing =, the number on the display when you press = is used as the operand. In most cases, pressing -= yields zero.
After pressing = once, additional presses apply the last operator and operand to the displayed value.
The bug is that if there is a low-precedence operator (like +) being deferred because a higher precedence operator (like x) is computing, the low precedence operator moves to the end of the equation for the initial computation.

Examples from the original question
Input: 4+3x3x3x=
Output: 135
Explanation:

4+3x puts 4 on the stack while it computes the higher priority 3x...
3x3x3 is 27
When you end with x= it has to decide what to do for the final x to complete the equation. What it does is replace the final operator with the deferred operator and shift the rest left, then it takes the  currently displayed number, which is 27, adds it as the final operand.

you had 4 + (3x3x3x and a display showing 27
the calculator probably should convert that to 4 + (3x3x3x27)
instead it makes a bigger jump and converts it to (4x3x3x3) + 27

Like I said, probably a bug. You end up with
4x3x3x3 + 27 which is 108 + 27 which is 135

Input: 4+3x3x3x==
Output: 3645
Explanation:

From the previous example, the last entered operation is x and the last number used is 27, so you get 135 * 27 which is 3645

Input: 4-3x3x3x=
Output: 81
Explanation:

Just like the first example, except 108 - 27 is 81

Input: 4+3x3x3x==
Output: 2187
Explanation:

Just like the second example, except now it is 81x27 is 2187

Additional examples
Note: Below, ^ represents the xy power function, which has higher precedence than x.
Input: 4+3x2^=
Output: 38
Explanation:

Display shows "2" when = is pressed, so operands are 4,3,2,2 and operators +,x,^ become x,^,+
4*(3^2)+2 -> 4*9+2 -> 36+2 is 38

Input: 4+3x2^==
Output: 1444
Explanation: (4*(3^2)+2)^2 or 38^2
Input: 2x2x3^=
Output: 192
Explanation:

3 is on display when = is pressed , ^ has precedence over x, which shifts to the end, so operands are 2,2,3,3 and operators x,x,^ become x,^,x
((2x2)^3)x3 -> 4^3x3 -> 64*3 is 192

Input: 5+7x3^=
Output: 1718
Explanation: 5x(7^3)+3


Why does voice dictation not always appear on the new iPad? The new iPad supports voice dictation for voice input, but apparently only sometimes. I understand that some things should not support it, such as password inputs and URLs, for example. What dictates (excuse the pun) where this functionality is offered, and where it is not?

The following conditions must be met in order for dictation to work:

You must be connected to the Internet for dictation to work.
You shouldn't be using audio on your device (e.g. if you are on a FaceTime call, the button will not appear.)
You must be focused in an text field which is formatted for normal text (more about this below.)

Developers (and even Web Developers) can choose which keyboard layout will be visible to the user, via the UIKeyboardType property. Here's an example of several different keyboard layouts and what they look like on an iPhone (without dictation).

The dictation button is available in the following keyboard types:

Standard (UIKeyboardTypeASCIICapable)

But is not available in the following:

Telephone (UIKeyboardTypePhonePad)
URL (UIKeyboardTypeURL)
Email (UIKeyboardTypeEmailAddress)
Zipcode (UIKeyboardTypeNumberPad)


Change resolution of different images from different folders Hej guys,

my case is like this :
i have cover images under diffrent folders

 books -->book1_folder--->images_folder-->cover.jpg

 books -->book2_folder--->images_folder-->cover.jpg

 books -->book3_folder--->images_folder-->cover.jpg

 books -->book4_folder--->images_folder-->cover.jpg

 books -->book5_folder--->images_folder-->cover.jpg

 ..

 ..

 ..

 books -->book85_folder--->images_folder-->cover.jpg

Now i would like to duplicate those cover.jpg image , one is original cover.jpg and another one with lower resolution with a name cover_thumb.jpg.

so finally i would like to have it like :

 books -->book1_folder--->images_folder-->cover.jpg, cover_thumb.jpg

I found few solutions with mac preview tool, but its not duplicating all images at once.

Any smart solution for this case,

There is a function called Folder Action.

Right click on the originating folder.

Select Folder action

Now select the Action you want (in your case Duplicate)

You can modify the script if you want to to suit your needs, but it will basically make copies of files at the moment they are added to the original folder in a newly created folder.


Airdropped .avi between OSX 10.10 and iOS 8 not found I just used Airdrop to transfer a .avi file between OSX 10.10 and iOS 8. After that I can't locate file in iOS. I searched it in Videos and Photos. Where is it? And how I can delete it if I can't use it?

You can only send and receive iOS-compatible video files such as .m4v, etc.


How to select part of the text of a link in Safari 14.0 on macOS 10.15.7 I asked a very similar question before: Select and copy part of the text from a link in Safari
How can I copy only a section of text from a hyper link? For example in google results:

How can I copy "Inosuke Hashibira" from that link?
Previously, the only solution was to use a custom extension or userscript.
Now two years have passed, and I can't figure out how to add custom extensions anymore. I also don't really want to go through all the trouble of installing a userscript manager just for this, especially since Safari's not very friendly to extension developers and often breaks them every update, and (probably because of this) developers don't seem to care for supporting Safari.
How can I select part of a link in Safari nowadays?

Not the most eloquent way of doing it but still delivers results without any extension.
Hover over link, open contextual menu (two finger press), select 'Inspect Element' (this will open split window and land you on selected element),

double click on text between span tags (to make text field 'active'), copy needed part of text, close split window.


Spotlight not indexing attachments of exchange Mail I recently got a MBP and really love how quick spotlight is. I'm reading my exchange email via the Apple Mail app. The messages are indexed by spotlight but the contents of the attachments are not.

Any idea how I can enable/fix this?

Spotlight is now indexing the attachments :-). What I did is the following. (Not sure if it will solve anybody else his problems but you never know)

I wanted to know if the issue was Exchange specific so I made a new gmail account and sent an email with an attachment to that account. That attachment got indexed. I opened the attachment and then saw that it was located somewhere deep down in ~/Library/Mail. I then also checked if Attachments were really downloaded by the exchange client by looking for *.pptx files by running

find . -name "*.pptx"

in ~/Library/Mail. When I used spotlight after that I all of a sudden could find all attachments in email. So I guess adding the gmail account to mail triggered spotlight somehow


Transfer Windows Apache Configuration to OS X My normal development enviornment has always been in Windows, but I finally scrounged up the money for a nice Mac Book Pro. I've managed to get everything I need set up Git, My Working Copy Repo, Web App is building without issue but I have a very indepth Apache config that has a lot of vhosts and rewrites in it that allow me to access the inner pages of my web app on a dev enviornment which I didn't write myself (I find apache configs daunting).

If my version of apache on OSX matches the version on my Windows PC, can I just copy the config folder over and restart apache for it to work?

Thanks in advance

You should probably not blindly copy the entire Apache config directory. To start there will be several parts of the configuration that point to various files and folders that will be different.

The Mac stores the Apache config files in /etc/apache2 so I suggest you have a look at the files in there and compare them to your existing Windows files so that you can make the required changes.

Then before you make any changes copy the entire /etc/apache2 directory to somewhere safe so you can always roll back if you fail.


RAID questions with ML I'm looking to build a NAS box and putting ML on it.

I currently have two drives that are configured as RAID one that I am pulling out of a NAS box.

I have one drive that I'd like to add to the two already RAID drives, but I'm not sure if that's possible.

And is it even possible to have one drive with data on it and then create a RAID with another diver without it removing/formatting the data that is currently on the main drive?

My initial reaction from how you staged your question: building a NAS from the ground up is a complex set of interrelated dependencies in both hardware, software and connectivity. You might be better off purchasing a ready-made or self-contained NAS unit.

You need to ask what you expect from a NAS: lots of storage or redundancy. The two-drive RAID you mention could be configured a couple of ways, and you may not be able to read the volume without the original RAID controller from the NAS.

Your inquiry into starting with one drive then adding additional drives sounds like some JBOD (just a bunch of disks) setups. JBOD only offers los of storage, but no redundancy.

RAID and NAS can both be elements of a storage solution, but in and of themselves, the two acronyms can also spell HEADACHE.


How do I disable double-click to launch iTunes and play song in OS X Mavericks In Maverick, whenever I double-click a track to rename it, iTunes launches and the track plays in iTunes. Very annoying. How do I disable (or re-assign) the double-click to launch/play in iTunes command? Thanks in advance.

In the Finder?  You can't.  That's what double-clicking does.  To rename, single-click after selecting the file, or press return.


Creating a symbolic link in /bin is not working I've tried three different ways to create a symbolic link to Sublime Text on my Mac and, after restarting terminal each time, it still keeps telling me command not found. I'm using a Mac with Yosemite (OSX Yosemite, 10.10). How can I create a symbolic link so I can open Sublime with the sub command?

One

ln -s 'Applications/Sublime\ Text.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl' /bin/sub

Two

ln -s "Applications/Sublime\ Text.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl" /bin/sub

Three (no quotes)

ln -s Applications/Sublime\ Text.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl /bin/sub

You're missing the '/' at the beginning of your app and sudo as /bin is owned by root and you can't actually write to it as a normal user. As you currently have it, it would only work if your present directory was the system root. This assumes of course that the Sublime Text app is in your main Applications folder.

Try this…

sudo ln -s /Applications/Sublime\ Text.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl /bin/sub

One afterthought: It's considered bad practice to change the content of /bin and /usr/bin because any upcoming OS X upgrade may wipe the content there. /usr/local/bin is the usual place to install user-provided binaries in, so

[[ -d /usr/local/bin ]] || sudo mkdir /usr/local/bin
sudo ln -s /Applications/Sublime\ Text.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl /usr/local/bin/sub

might be the better option.

Or (as you probably never need to run Sublime Text from within a shell script), simply define a bash alias

alias sub=/Applications/Sublime\ Text.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl

which should be added to your bash startup file to make it stick

echo "alias sub=/Applications/Sublime\ Text.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl" >> ~/.bashrc


Quit Safari app automatically after closing tabs I come at macs from a windows perspective and it bothers me that Safari stays open after I've closed all tabs. I don't like needing to then go and either quit from the top bar or cmd-click-quit the app in the dock.

I've seen that there's a way in the terminal to close the app, but that's just as much work as closing it manually. I want it to automatically close when there are no open tabs.

Is there a way to switch Safari's settings so when no tabs are open, the app quits?

You can force quit safari easily by holding down the Control key and then clicking on the icon on your Dock. Once the sub menu comes up, click on Quit.


Using existing DVI/VGA monitors with a new Mac Mini I currently have a PC with dual monitors. This PC is on it's way out and I want to replace it with a new Mac Mini, using my existing peripherals. The current monitors are a 27" Dell (2560x1440) running on dual link DVI and a smaller, much older, 19" (1280x1024) running on a VGA cable. I was thinking that I should be able to run the VGA monitor with adapters HDMI -> DVI -> VGA using the included HDMI -> DVI adapter and buy the mini DisplayPort -> dual-link DVI adapter to connect the Dell monitor to the Thunderbolt port.

I'm not sure that all these adapters will work together properly though, so I'm looking for some advice. Will this all work together properly, or will I have to get a new monitor(s) as well?

The mini DisplayPort to DVI adapter will work great, so your 27" monitor is in.

The VGA monitor is problematic. HDMI and DVI share almost identical digital video signals, so any HDMI to DVI adapter (like the included one) has few (if any) conversion chips in it and the output DVI port will be DVI-D (digital only). DVI to VGA adapters also don't have conversion chips because they use DVI-I or DVI-A ports (A is analog only and I id both analog and digital): they take the DVI analog signal and move it straight to the VGA port. Unfortunately, that means that you cannot go from HDMI to VGA via DVI. You'll need a more expensive converter like this or this.

tl;dr: You can't go from HDMI to VGA without a converter; see the links for examples. For the dual-link DVI you need, the adapter you mentioned that will use the Thunderbolt port will work excellently.


Xcode from App Store Stalling at About 11 Minutes Remaining I'm trying to install Xcode from the App Store onto a Mac mini (the vast majority of my experience with PCs involves Windows and Linux). I've tried three times, and each time it stalls out at around 11 minutes remaining.

What could be causing this problem? This is a refurbished Mac mini, with the latest version of Sierra installed, and very little else.

Is there another way to download and install the software?

The Xcode install takes an unusually long time even on a modern system, and the time estimates are often inaccurate. Just leave it be for a while -- it may take as long as a few hours.

Installing an SSD in the Mini will help significantly.


Anyone remember the name of this iOS sharing app? A long time ago, there was an iOS app that was quite innovative for the time. The way it worked was that two iDevices on the same Wi-Fi network that wanted to share data (for instance a picture) would launch this app and come to a virtual "table". The edge of the table would be a recipient. To send the picture, the sender would choose what to share and bring it to the table, and then swipe the picture off a particular edge of the screen, and it would slide in on the recipient's device. As far as I can recall, the UI was white.

Can anyone name this app?

Mover

  Put something — a contact, a photo, a video, a file — on the Mover table, connect two iOS or Mac OS X thingies to the same Wi-Fi network and slide away. It's that simple, really.
  (Yep, you can also use Bluetooth between iPhones, iPod touches and iPads, if you're on the go!)

∞labs, the developer of Mover, shut down a while ago and the app is no longer available.


Apple source code on the application loading Is the source code of the application loading process is open?
where I can find it?

I want to understand better (in bits and bytes) what exactly happens from the moment users double click an app till the moment it's actually running on the latest macOS.

Can someone please refer me to the appropriate source code?

Private and Proprietary to Apple

Unfortunately no-one here will be able to show you this code, the macOS Finder is not open source. Only a portion of underlying operating system is available as open source.

Launch Services

The Launch Services framework is responsible for launching graphical applications. See the Launch Services Programming Guide for an overview.

Fundamentals

macOS's core, Darwin, is derived from FreeBSD. If you want to learn about the fundamentals of launching a new process, study today's FreeBSD code.

Fork

You will also want to fully understand fork and how processes are created in UNIX like environments.

Fork (system call), Wikipedia:

  In computing, particularly in the context of the Unix operating system and its workalikes, fork is an operation whereby a process creates a copy of itself. It is an interface which is required for compliance with the POSIX and Single UNIX Specification standards. It is usually implemented as a C Standard Library (libC) wrapper to the fork, clone, or other system calls of the kernel. Fork is the primary method of process creation on Unix-like operating systems.


Occasionally, HomePod has trouble playing anything I ask it to, until I restart it. Why? Every now and again, I ask HomePod to play something, and it replies with “Hmm, I'm having trouble playing that”, regardless of what I’ve asked it to play, or whether it’s in my library or not.

If I restart the HomePod (unplug it from power, and plug it back in), it works fine again. I don’t often ask it to play music; usually I just use it as an Airplay speaker for my Apple TV/iPhone/Mac.

Are there any known bugs that cause it to sometimes stop being able to play music?

Aha — I think the solution to this is on Apple’s support forums: https://discussions.apple.com/message/33564794#33564794

In short, HomePod seems to be unable to play music directly when it was last used as an Airplay speaker for Apple TV.

I confirmed that this was what was happening by going into the Airplay screen on my iPhone (open Control Center, and force-press on the Airplay icon in the audio control widget). There was an area in there showing me that my HomePod was receiving audio from my Apple TV (even though I’d put my Apple TV to sleep). When I tapped that to stop HomePod playing audio from the Apple TV, HomePod was able to play music when I asked it to.


Slow write speeds with APFS encryped external SSD I bought an external SSD with a USB 3.1 gen 2 enclosure. I'm on macOS 10.13.6 with a MBP (late 2013).

Using APFS I get write speeds of around 390–405 MB/s. So far, so good.
However formatting the drive to APFS (encrypted) results in way slower write speeds of around 250–260 MB/s.

Is such a performance loss of nearly 40% normal for an encrypted drive, or am I doing something wrong?

I used a 10GB test file and cp to measure the performance. Copying through Finder results in similar performance.

According to these benchmarks performances found here on APFS, APFS encrypted, HFS and HFS+ encrypted, your loss of nearly 40% may be surprising as you are writing and not reading.

Testing environment summary :

Hardware : 2017 MacBook Pro, 16 GB 2133 RAM

OS : macOS 10.13 High Sierra

Have you encrypted your already APFS formatted SSD to an APFS encrypted or have you completely reformated your APFS drive to an APFS encrypted ?

If you didn't reformat before your second performance speed test, this may be a cause.

Finally, if you did completely reformat your hard drive, this answer may be interesting :

Extremely slow write speed to encrypted external drive on Mavericks


How can I clear photos from an iPhone? I'm trying to delete my camera roll, I imported in to iPhoto, then deleted all the photos with Image Capture. As soon as I open the Photos app on the iPhone it just starts downloading everything again... Any ideas? I'd like to keep my photo stream working, just not keep the whole camera roll on the phone.

First, make sure what you're seeing is actually Camera Roll and not Photo stream.

Tap Settings > General > Usage.
Wait for the "Storage" section at the top to populate (can take a
while).
Tap "Photos & Camera".
Tap "Camera Roll".

This will display the usage for each section. If it's Photo Stream then you have your answer. If it's actually the Camera Roll re-populating then you should check iTunes and make sure that "Sync Photos from" is unchecked.

If it was checked, uncheck it and do a sync again. That should clear it out.