Sort folders first, then files [El Capitan] I am aware there are many posts about this problem, but many are just workarounds for Finder. However I use console more often then Finder because of programming.

I am also aware of something like this (after getting coreutils):

alias ll='gls -la -h --group-directories-first'

But thats just another 'plugin' or external utility, which does the job well but doesn't answer my question.

I also found out that Dropbox web also sorts your files according to the User Agent. If it is changed from the Develop menu in Safari to IE or Firefox/Chrome (Widows) then it sorts folders first.

I get that OS X and Windows must be rebels so they use different sorting but frankly it's a mess when you got plenty files and they all get mixed up.

Does OS X have a system wide setting for this so when I type ls -la output is sorted folders first then files and both are alphabetically ascending (a to z)? Or is the sorting mechanism related to the implementation of program/application which is displaying files?

I think the simple answer is no, if the question is whether the native ls command can be configured to list directories before it lists non-directories. One of the comments suggests a shell pipeline, but rather than going to that trouble it might be easier to write a script.

The following python code is by no means intended to be a complete substitute for the ls command, but complicating it to handle more of what ls provides feels doable (python's argparse module would help with that).

#!/usr/bin/python

import os
import sys

for top in sys.argv[1:]:
    for (name, dirs, files) in os.walk(top):
        print("{}:".format(name))
        for dir in dirs:
            print("{}/".format(dir))
        for file in files:
            print(file)

What makes the separation of directories from non-directories easy in this example is that python's os.walk does that for me, in its return value. The use of os.walk implicitly imposes the equivalent of ls -R, but that should be easy to fix by adapting code from os.walk, which is native python code built on top of os.listdir and os.path.isdir, rather than invoking os.walk directly.

With respect to the question of native capabilities versus external utilities, python is native to recent releases of MacOS. Where scripting like this ranks compared to pulling in external functionality is a matter of taste.

There might be an invocation of find which fits your criteria, similar to the ls pipeline in a comment, using the -type option in multiple invocations of find, but to me that feels clumsy compared to python code.


PowerPoint 2011 for Mac: How to Save As PDF and Hide Hidden slides? I'm using Microsoft PowerPoint 2011 on a Mac. When I use "Save As..." and choose PDF format, I would like a PDF that has all the slides except for slides marked as Hidden in my slide deck. But I always get all slides in the PDF.

This is a problem, of course, because hidden slides are hidden because they aren't ready for public viewing.

I would think there should be an option to suppress hidden slides, but I can't find one. My colleagues who use Windows do seem to have the option on MS PowerPoint for Windows.

It is possible to suppress hidden slides during Print... but then I am at the mercy of print formatting, and the PDF contains print margins that I can't suppress.

Has anyone found a solution for this?

Solution:

There appears to be no way to make "Save As PDF" skip hidden slides on the Mac version of Powerpoint.

So the workaround is to use Print instead, and print to PDF within that dialog. One can fix the margin issue this way:

Open the Print dialog.
Click Page Setup... to choose a paper size.
Change the Width and Height to match the full width and height of the paper you choose. For example, if you select Letter size, the default width and height are 10" x 7.5", so change it to be 11" x 8.5".
Now one can print to paper or print to PDF and get the full bleed, and hidden slides stay hidden.

Instead of Save As... PDF, Print->"Save as PDF".  You can get around the print margins by setting up a printer/presentation that has no margins, "full bleed".

A few important steps:

First, go to File -> Page Setup and make sure that you've got the dimensions there identical for the default paper size in the printer.  In my case, it's 8.5 x 11 inches for Letter size paper.  Read the dialog box carefully, and select the option that lets you set a size larger than the printer will allow.
In the print dialog, make sure you do NOT have "scale to fit paper" checked.

You should now see that the print preview in the print dialog is edge to edge.


nvram -p... strange results I am having problems running the /usr/bin/purge commands on my iMac with Lion since the last upgrade. Someone suggested me that I may be running in safe mode and asked me to type "nvram -p" on terminal. According to this person, I should have any variable listed, but I have these:

efi-apple-recovery (an array)
fmm-computer-name
fmm-mobileme-token-FNM
EFICapsule_result
System AudioVolume
EFIBluetoothDelay

Each variable assigned to a bunch of stuff, specially the first and the third. Is this what I should see typing nvram -p on terminal?

thanks

If your NVRAM was set to boot into safe mode, you need a boot-args variable set to -x.

Safe mode on: sudo nvram boot-args="-x"
Safe + verbose mode on: sudo nvram boot-args="-x -v"
Clear verbose and safe flags: sudo nvram boot-args=""

The details on these settings are straight from Apple Mac OS X: Starting up in Safe Mode.


Changing GPS location of Apple routers I have recently moved and have moved all my network gear with me.   Have approximately 4 wifi spots that I have re-set up in my new house.

To save battery apple devices also use location of known wifi hotspots to give locations.   My problem is that I suspect that this is a crowdsourced information gathering.   Sometimes my devices show themselves at my old house (while at new house).   I have waited for 2 weeks now, trying to use location services as much as possible to train apple about the new location of the wifi spots.

Is there anyway to force or speed up the change?   My alternative is to change the name of the hotspots, but do not want to go through the hassle of setting everything (range extenders, devices) again.

There's a company called SkyHook that sells a wifi-based geolocation product to many companies, but not sure if Apple is one of them. It was a couple of years ago though.

You can ask them to update their database here: http://www.skyhookwireless.com/submit-access-point. If Apple is doing their own geolocation services now, you're likely out of luck.

ETA: changing your (E)SSID probably won't do anything; the location services are more likely to use the BSSID, which is the wireless MAC address of the equipment.


iPhone: Rule based email forwarding? Is there a way to establish rules for mails processed on the iPhone (4s, iOS 6.1.3)?
In my case, I am interested in automatically forwarding certain emails to another email account once I receive them.

At first glance it isn't possible in a stock installation of iOS 6 and using the default mail app. If you jailbreak your phone, it appears that at least one tweak, Mail Enhancer Pro, will allow you to have rules on your iPhone itself.

However, there are a number of good options, other then jailbreaking, that may work.

First, if you use an IMAP email account, then you may be able to use your computer to route the mail. The changes will obviously reflect on the device. For example, if you have a Mac, then you can use Mail.app to create a rule to forward particular emails to the address you desire.

Second, depending on who provides your email, you may be able to route the mail there. I would say Gmail is an example of that. If you go to your Gmail account and navigate to settings, you can set up rules in there.

iCloud mail provides rules as well. If you go to www.iCloud.com -> Mail -> Settings (icon in the upper left corner). You can select the Rules tab and set up actions that would work apply to the mail you receive to your @me.com, @icloud.com, or @mac.com account.


Simple AppleScript script terminates early I have an AppleScript script for Music that processes the selected tracks and modifies the track name.
Basically, it works.
If I select one item, it works without fail.
If I select multiple items, it will correctly modify the first item. Sometimes it will stop there; other times, it will process several more items. Rarely, it will process the entire list of selected tracks.
I've put in a delay to see if that would help, but it doesn't.
Any idea why this might be happening?
Here's my code:
tell application "Music"
    set selectedTracks to selection
    if selectedTracks is {} then return
    if (get class of (item 1 of selectedTracks)) is not file track then return

    repeat with i from 1 to (length of selectedTracks)
        set thisTrack to item i of selectedTracks
        tell thisTrack to set {trackName} to {get name}

        set my text item delimiters to {"/"}
        set theResults to text items in trackName
        set newTrackName to item 2 of theResults
        set newArtist to item 1 of theResults

        set newTrackName to my removeLeadingAndTrailingSpacesFrom(newTrackName)
        set newArtist to my removeLeadingAndTrailingSpacesFrom(newArtist)

        set name of thisTrack to newTrackName
        set artist of thisTrack to newArtist

        delay 1

    end repeat
end tell

on removeLeadingAndTrailingSpacesFrom(sourceString)
    repeat while character 1 of sourceString = " "
        set sourceString to text 2 thru end of sourceString
    end repeat
    repeat while last character of sourceString = " "
        set endIndex to (length of sourceString) - 1
        set sourceString to text 1 thru endIndex of sourceString
    end repeat
    return sourceString
end removeLeadingAndTrailingSpacesFrom

I can't test this properly without messing up my own music library, but I suspect the problem is with this line:
set selectedTracks to selection

If Music is being true to form, this would pass back the current selection as a reference to a list of tracks. Passing by reference means that the list is stored in Music.app and the script retrieves items as needed; it also means that if the selection changes during script execution (which it probably does, since you're changing track names) it will throw off the indexes and references within the script. This might cause errors, or may just trick the repeat loop into think it has worked through all the items, when in fact they've merely disappeared from view.
The solution would be to dereference:
set selectedTracks to (get selection)

This should convince Music.app to pass an explicit list at the beginning of the script, so that changes in the selection would not propagate back to the script.


which certificate/identifiers/profilers should be used for python script to be distributed as a pyinstaller build/bundle outside the app store? My program works as follows
In a while loop, it checks for the active window change - AppKit library used
from AppKit import NSWorkspace

active_window = (NSWorkspace.sharedWorkspace().activeApplication()['NSApplicationName'])

if the active window changes to from some other window to google chrome, I need get the url from the chrome's current tab using apple script as :
url="""tell application "System Events"
        tell application "Google Chrome" to get the URL of the active tab of window 1 as string
        end tell"""

This script is running fine, I can able to get the current window name and also url
I need to know which kind of identifier, provisioning profile, certificate should be used for the same
Im confused of choosing the certificate
I don't have any idea if I need to have a  provisioning profile
Im not going to place this app in mac app store, I just wanted to use this app to support another electron application
Any help is appreciated

Outside the App Store you can use any ad-hoc or self signed certificate, but I recommend using an official developer account Developer ID for maxim ease of use.
Letting Apple notarize your app by signing your developer ID certificate, helps people trust your app.
Notarization is free for everyone except the submitter of the app. To notarize a specific item, You have to posess a current developer signing certificates. These can be obtained from an annual paid or free developer account (if you qualify for a free account).
The certificate type differs if you sign an installer vs signing an application.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/notarizing_macos_software_before_distribution/resolving_common_notarization_issues#3087721

When code signing items like Mach-O files, disk images, bundles, apps, command line tools, photos, and so on, sign with a Developer ID Application certificate. Sign installer packages with a Developer ID Installer certificate.


Something prevents me from reaching no space left on iPod I want to reach the disk space limit of my iPod touch to handle the 'no space left' condition in my app. In order to do that, I've been sending big files to fill the space of the disk.

I send the files with iTunes, but somehow the memory limit is never reached. It seems that everytime I try to reach the limit with these transfers, iTunes is automatically copying older files from my ipod to my macbook in order to create space for the new files. At least it seems so, but I'm not sure. Something else could be happening but I don't know what.

My iPod touch is on iOS 9.3.5 and I have the latest macbook pro.

I don't know if this was available on iOS 9.5 but on iOS 11 there is an option to conserve space on ios devices. What this does is remove apps that you haven't used to make rooom for new apps or files. I suppose it only removes Apple Store apps since you can easily restore those. this sure sounds like what your iPod may be doing. On my iphone this is turned on by going to Settings/General/iPhone Storge. There is an option there to turn it on. To turn it off go to 'iTunes and App Store' and scroll down to Offload Unused Apps and turn it off there.


How to create a universal (script) file for a Mac, based on several Terminal commands I have several Terminal commands I use for troubleshooting purposes, by typing them in one by one into the terminal window.

These commands require the user's password to be entered.

I'm looking for a way to create a universal (script) file with these commands. I want to be able to run the file on a Mac just by double-clicking on it or dragging the file over the Terminal icon.

I have never done anything like this before. Is there any way to create such a script? Please advise.

Short answer

A .command script should do the trick

Step-by-step

Open TextEdit and create a new file
Convert it to plain text by clicking Format > Make Plain Text
Add your commands, one per line.
For example, you could do:
#! /bin/bash
cd ~/Desktop
mkdir myCoolFolder
cd myCoolFolder
Run chmod u+x ~/Desktop/myCommandScript.command in your terminal, where ~/Desktop/myCommandScript.command is the path to your script. This will give the terminal permission to run the file.
You're done!  Double-click the file to run. Dragging over the terminal icon will also work.

Notes:

If you need to do something that requires root (admin) access, you can prefix your command with sudo. When the script runs, you'll have to enter your password (and be an administrator)
If the end user isn't an administrator, but you need to do something that required root access, you can use su someAdminName, which will perform the command as someAdminName (you'll need his password).

You can also see here on Stack Overflow for a bit more information.


Unable to reset password in Recovery Mode Unfortunately, I am unable to log in to my Mac Mini OS X (10.8.5). I am trying to recover the password with Recovery Mode by pressing CMD + R.

I executed the resetpassword command, but the window that appears doesn't list my volume and I can't select my user account.

recovery mode

I called apple support team for further help. They took required information from me and helped to reinstall OS. My data is erased as previously i did not kept any backup and after reinstallation it was like new MAC machine.


Is there a desktop twitter client that has a built in browser? I really like the iPad version of twitter, in that it opens up links to the right of your stream. No need to go anywhere else. Of course, the new browser based client opens photos on the right. But Twitter for Mac only opens up links in your regular browser.

Does anyone know of a desktop client that has its own built-in browser?

Hibari gets you part of the way there. It shows inline image links in the timeline.

Personally, I don't see how loading other links automatically is all that desirable or safe.


Differences migrating using Target Mode vs Migration Assistant on source machine? What are the differences between using Target Mode and Migration Assistant on the source machine during a migration? Are different files transferred; is speed (all else being equal) different?

Assume for simplicity a Mavericks-Mavericks migration.

If by Target Mode you mean loading the HD of the old computer onto the new computer and drag-dropping files, then the difference is that Migration Assistant knows what it is doing.

You could have done this in the old Mac OS Classic days, but now there are tons of hidden files and locations that you would never remember to transfer over.

You should really use the migration assistant unless you have a good reason not to.


Can two external displays be driven from one Thunderbolt port? I have the new MacBook Air which only has a Thunderbolt output (no HDMI or DVI) and I have 2 external monitors. How can I get this all hooked up (at the lowest cost, if possible)?

EDIT:
After using the DualHead2Go ME, I'm half-satisfied; it does split my single external port into 2 DVIs, but the externals act as 1 with double the width, so the resolution is very off and weird to look at. Looking back I probably should have bought the Pro to support both of my externals, but with my current Air this is the best I can do for 2 externals.

While Apple's display adapters will let you connect one of these external monitors, there's also the Matrox DualHead2Go Digital ME which will connect two external DVI displays (I've never seen or used one, ymmv).


How restore my Mac with boot camp partition from time machine I have my Mac boot camped with windows 7, unfortunately my hard drive was corrupted on the Mac partition, the windows partition is OK, I fixed the Mac partition but right now I can restore my Mac from time machine backup.
The time machine backup process works almost 40% and then stop and appear an error:

  An error occurred while restoring from backup.
  Restart your computer and then try restoring again

Do I need to format all my hard drive and then restore my mac from time machine or is there other help available?

I would try a two step restore to see if the problem is with the Mac Partition (likely) or the drive (hopefully not the case) or the backup (hopefully not the case).

Boot to recovery HD and erase the Mac partition (be careful of course to just delete the Mac data - not the entire drive with Windows side.)
Run OS installer and just install the OS.
When the setup assistant runs, then try to migrate data from the Time Machine drive. Keep it disconnected until after the OS install in step 2 finishes.

Also, you might look at the logs during installation (Command-L, Command-3) to watch for I/O errors on the drive to rule out hardware errors.


Quick Look sometimes shows blank panel in Mavericks I have OSX 10.9.2 and on some photos the Preview shows blank panel instead of the image. Sometimes it opens the image, other times it's blank (for the same image).

I can't find similar reports on the web. Also is there some alternative way to do that? To integrate some third-party app to show photos when tapping space bar.

Try:

defaults delete com.apple.finder QLEnableTextSelection; killall Finder

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6018924?start=15&tstart=0


I am still receiving emails on an old Apple ID address How can I stop receiving emails on an old Apple ID which I have amended in my account and is no longer showing there?

On your Apple ID, there are three places where you can have an email set under Name, ID, and Email Addresses.

1.Apple ID and Primary Email Account - This is the email account that is associated with the user name of your AppleID. It is the email account that you enter when you log into your account or when you try to buy something on the iTunes store.

2.Alternative Email Addresses - These are addresses that you set up for your account that are also associated with your Apple ID. They are usually an @icloud.com or an @me.com. It is possible that the email is there, but you probably would have seen and removed it from there.

3.Notification Email Address - This one is towards the bottom of the page and may have been missed, especially if you updated on a MacBook or laptop screen. Your notification email address will be used in addition to your primary email address to notify you when changes are made to your account.

If it is not in any of these three places on your Apple Account, then you may need to get in touch with Apple Support.

You can also go to the mail settings and click off the notifications emails from Apple, that way they don't come to you.

One other possibility is that if you at some point in time had two Apple IDs or that someone else had your email on their account (family member, etc.), it could be possible that that one is still active and has the email you are receiving emails from on. So if you had a personal Apple ID and one for work or one for a sibling, maybe the email you do not want to receive emails form anymore is set there.

Best of Luck.


MacBook Pro will not boot, begins to load then hangs with white screen I am unable to get my MacBook Pro to boot. It turns on, and the Apple logo + loading bar appear however after a minute or so of loading it eventually changes to a white/grey screen and just hangs.

The machine is a 15-inch MacBook Pro from early 2011 running OSX 10.10.5.

I have booted in verbose mode and I couldn't spot anything untoward however similar behavior was observed, just in verbose mode.

I can get to a shell with cmd+s but I'm not too familiar with OS X so I'm not sure where to begin looking for hints about the failed boot.

I tried to enter recovery mode by booting and holding alt and was able to get the screen up where you pick the recovery drive, but I experienced the same failed boot behavior as described above.

Prior to all this the laptop had a bit of an episode where the video went very funny, top half of the screen at the bottom, and the bottom at the top with some horizontal bars of random colors, like colorful TV static... And it flashes a bit like this just before it hangs at boot... leading me to think it might be something video card related but this is my only clue so far...

Can anyone help me as to where to go from here? Such as boot logs found from the command line, or diag commands I can run?

This is a known issue - More about that here:  https://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro-videoissues/

Luckily there's a free MacBook Pro Repair Extension Program. You can lookup your MacBook serial number if it's covered by warranty.


What is the optimal setting for importing CDs? When you use iTunes to import a CD you have several options -- "AAC Encoder," "AIFF Encoder," etc.

I'd like to have the best possible sound quality and avoid any sort of lossy compression.

Which setting, if any, allows me to do that?

I noticed the "Apple Lossless" option, but it sounds a little proprietary. I'm suspicious. So I guess my goal is the above, but using a cross-platform standard file format if possible.

I would recommend using the AAC MPEG4 set at 320KBS. We have done blind tests between this & uncompressed in a hi-fi shop, and no one has been able to tell the difference. AAC is a great codec & 10 years newer than MP3. The other option (if you have the room) is to leave them uncompressed.


What is the current state of syncing Google Tasks and iOS Reminders? Right now Siri says "You don't have any reminders," whew. But then Google Tasks tells me I have at least 9 things to do today. Whoops.

Yes, I know this question has been asked before, but the answer is a moving target as integration with outside services gets tighter. And yes, I know there are third party services IFTTT, for instance. And I know there are other apps that provide reminder/task integration with Google Tasks (I use GoTasks).

But...

I like Google Tasks because it is integrated with my GCal.  And it would be swell to have Reminders integration. Then Siri could schedule and access my tasks.

What is the current likelihood I will be able to easily integrate iOS Reminders with Google Tasks?

I suggest leaving this question open, to reflect the moving state of this integration. I will check this as answered if someone offers native or relatively simple integration.

Update: Awesome, I just got the "Popular question badge" because this question has has more than 1000 views. But uh, not awesome: Not one upvote? And only one semi-sorta-answer?  Hmm.

This service is no longer available as of some time in 2016, therefore the link is broken. Original answer preserved below for reference.

This is as close to "native" as I could find: a service which provides Reminders sync, and imports them from Google.

Sign in with a Google account
Add the Tasket account on iOS via Setting > Mail, Contacts, Calendars
You're all set!

http://tasket.mobi/faq


Delete iTunes U downloads without removing their reference I have many iTunes U videos that take a lot of space on my disk.
I don't really need them on my disk but I would like to keep their reference in my iTunes U library so I can re-download them when needed.

How can I do that?

Delete the videos. Then right-click on the course title and select Show all available items. This will restore the complete list of available episodes.

You can also do this by option-clicking on the disclosure arrow of the course. The arrow needs to be closed before option-clicking in order for this to work.


Can't mount writable images in Disk Utility I'm trying to add a file to an ISO then reburn it.  In Disk Utility, I mount the original ISO, choose "Create From ..." to create a new image file with "read/write" access and save it.  When I mount the new image file, it's read-only and I can't change it or add files.

What am I doing wrong?  Why can't I mount the image with write permissions?

Let's assume you have a physical or virtual FAT32 or ExFAT formatted drive. You could mount the ISO file and then copy all the files to this drive. I would recommend using the Terminal application to do the copy. Using the Finder application may result in the creation of ._* files. Although these files can be removed by using dot_clean.

To create a legacy bootable ISO file, use the command given below.

hdiutil makehybrid -o windows10.iso /Volumes/ESD-USB -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 8 -eltorito-boot /Volumes/ESD-USB/boot/etfsboot.com

In this example, the name of the drive shown in the finder was ESD-USB. The -boot-load-size was set to 8 sectors, because the size of the etfsboot.com file was 4096 bytes and the sector size is 512 bytes. ( 8 * 512 = 4096 )


Can Apple MDM see what youtube videos I have watched? So I was just interested In how Apple MDM works and what my device manager could see. However i am not sure whether they can see what youtube videos I Have watched at home not on my school network.
I have provided a picture of all the rights on the mdm profile if you do need more info just tell me. By the way my youtube history was paused

Page 10

MDM can see:

Device name
Phone number
Serial number
Model name and number
Capacity and space available
iOS version number
Installed apps

MDM cannot see personal data such as:

Personal or work mail, calendars, contacts, SMSes or iMessages
Safari browser history
FaceTime or phone call logs
Personal reminders and notes Frequency of app use
Device location


Kingston SV100S2/128G on MacBookPro 6,2 (late 2010) issue I just upgraded the harddrive with the Kingston SSD (100V series), did restore with Time Machine, immediately noticed the battery doesn't seem to play nice, it charges, but the time estimate is quite off. On a 100% full charge, it shows it can run shy of 3 hours, with the computer doing nothing. Another thing is it seems the battery drain is crazy fast.

Does anyone else have the same/similar issue?

another thing is, I am running Snow Leopard, and Trim support says "no", but it is supported on my drive. is that normal?

OS X doesn’t support the TRIM command (which is usually tied with the OS and an NTFS volume), however, a few benchmarking have apparently reach the conclusion that OS X’s performance with an SSD drive is not affected like it was in Windows (with TRIM Disabled).

In other words, Windows without TRIM suffered massive performance degradation over time. With TRIM, Windows did well.

OS X, on the other hand, having no TRIM support, didn’t suffer the performance degradation in the first place. The interesting article can be found here at bit-tech.net.

TLDR Version (and I quote):

  While we know SSD performance is affected by the OS - after all, you need Windows 7 for TRIM support - but for OS X not to suffer from performance degradation when it's using an SSD seeming stunning to the point of being difficult to believe.

(Emphasis added)

TRIM aside, your battery problem might be mitigated by a few things and there are a few recommendations about how to make it work better under OS X.

The original article is a blog post found here which I suggest you read for more detailed information.

In short:

Modify Sleeping mode so it doesn’t save the content of RAM to drive when closing the lid (if you do this and remove the battery while in sleep, you lose the ram contents and will have to restart your computer).
Hard Drive Sleep: turn it off, SSD has no reason to go to sleep.
Sudden Motion Sensor: You can also disable this, an SSD has no moving mechanical parts that may be affected in case of a sudden impact.
Enable noatime for SSD filesystems. This will make the SSD write less info. (If you’re using FileVault make sure you read the article)
Spotlight: The article suggests disabling it if you don’t use it, but I wouldn’t do that.

On top of all that, I recommend you do a few things:

Check this question and answers on this site about how to identify possible CPU processes that may be hogging your CPU and therefore eating your battery life.
Perform a full battery cycle charge. All the relevant information is in Apple’s Battery Page, which is linked in this question on this site too, with some more interesting links you might want to follow.

To address your question, it shouldn’t happen, as SSDs are usually more energy efficient than mechanical drives. I bet either spotlight or time machine are doing some work and draining your battery life.

Try starting your machine in safe mode (hint: press ⇧ shift after the chime) and monitor your battery life there. Don’t forget to perform the battery tips before doing that.


Is it possible to create a new 8gig partition as installer in lion is it possible to create, let's say 8gig partition in your HD and create an installer just like having it created in usb to dvd, so that I can do a clean re install Mac OS Lion?

You can do a clean reinstall from the recovery partition without needing any external media:

Hold command-R on startup
Erase the Macintosh HD volume from Disk Utility
Choose Reinstall OS X

If you don't erase the OS X volume first, Reinstall OS X does an upgrade install.

See OS X Lion: Erase and reinstall Mac OS X.

"Startup disk" probably means the main OS X volume (like Macintosh HD) here:

  Select your startup disk from the list on the left, and then click the Erase tab.

If you erase the whole drive, it also erases the recovery partition and EFI partition, and your Mac will try to start up in internet recovery mode when it is restarted.


Can't login to iMac even with correct password first time, works with the same password after another user logs in and logs out I use an iMac (late 2013, with Sierra v10.12.6) where 3 user accounts are setup. Every time I login after restart, I am not able to login with my account (say, user1) even with the correct password, the password box just shakes indicating wrong password.

Then, user2 is able to login into his account with his own password. After that, he logs out and I try logging in as user1 with the same password used as before, it lets me in.

This happens every time, so I have to ask user2 to login first, logout and then, I try logging in. I have tried resetting my password few times, but the same scenario happens after every restart.

Has anyone encountered a similar issue and can advise any options here ? I do not want to delete any of these accounts and create afresh.

The comment from daniel Azuelos provided the solution for me. I had to remove and re-add my own user to the Filevault (since I was added already apparently):

sudo fdesetup remove -user myuser
sudo fdesetup add -usertoadd myuser


Why can I not backup my replacement iPhone after restoring an iCloud backup? I replaced my iPhone 6 with an identical phone, restored the most recent backup from iCloud.  I now cannot backup to the cloud without adding more storage.  Why?

Go to Settings > General > Usage > Manage Storage (iCloud) and delete the backup for your old phone.   The new phone will overwrite it own backups, just like the old phone did.  It won't overwrite the backup for another device (I.e your old phone).


Yosemite upgrade process stuck for hours - Cmd-L not working Today I started the upgrade of my Mid 2011 iMac 27 from Mavericks to Yosemite. Initially it got stuck at the end of the first part of the installation. I could however pull up the installation log using Command-L and so I could tell it was still doing something. Eventually it completed and rebooted. It then got into the Completing Installation phase with a similar progress screen. It's been at "Less than a minute remaining" for the past 4 hours and no sign of activity. I also can't pull up the installation log by pressing Command-L. I just hear the familiar error sound when I try that.

I do use Homebrew so there's probably a lot of stuff in /usr/local causing the installation to take a long time, but I figured that's what caused part 1 of the installation to take so long, but it doesn't explain why part 2 is taking even longer.

Mavericks was installed on an external SSD (Lacie Rugged series) connected through thunderbolt. I now read that some people are experiencing problems with 3rd party SSD drives in Yosemite (yeah, I know I should have checked that before starting the upgrade, but who would have known?).

I'm not sure what to do now: just power off the computer and see if it continues finalizing the installation process after I restart it? Or just wait until tomorrow morning and see if it's still stuck? Even though I have a time machine backup on an external drive I don't want to risk losing my data forcing me to do a restore. Any advice?

Alright so I waited it out only to come back this morning to see that it was still stuck. I've waited several more hours until 10 am this morning which comes down to a total wait of 18 hours. I went ahead and manually rebooted and it looks like the upgrade was completed successfully after all.

Please note that this is not me suggesting you should reboot if the installation seems stuck. In general you should just be patient and wait. In the first phase of the installation press Command-L to show the installation log and you can verify it's actually doing something. Note that it can take a while for the installation log to show up after pressing Command-L.
In the second phase if it gets stuck you can't view what it's doing so it's pretty much a gamble if you decide to reboot it when it seems to be stuck.

I rebooted with my external backup hard drive disconnected to make sure my backup stays intact when things turn sour after all.

I verfied the disk and the permissions with Disk Utility and some permissions were off so I've repaired those. I'm now in the process of fixing Apache, but I'm guessing that's because of the differences between Apache 2.2 and 2.4.


Display time zone in photos app for mac I'm trying to display the time zone that an image was taken in in the Photos app for Mac. I've seen screenshots of this being done but I can't seem to figure it out myself.

What is a way to do so?

If you want to see the capture time on an image, select it and press ⌘ cmd+i or go to Window > Info to see the Info Pane.

If you want to change that information, select the image you want to correct and then at the top menu select Image > Adjust Date and Time

This menu will appear that lets you adjust said information.

Source and more info


Outlook 2011 category colors - Windows Color Palette? Does anybody know what are the RGB "equivalents" of the category colors that MS uses in the Windows version of Oulook 2010?

Just starting to use a Mac "for real work" (vs tinkering with it as a set-top player in the past). I'm setting up my Mac Outlook/Office environment "just so" and one of the things I'm missing is to be able to construct the same categories and associated colors that I have been using on Windows.

I've been mucking around, and I already have the proper list of categories loaded, but I can't figure out what are the equivalent to the MS-provided colors. The Apple-supplied palette is to "bright" for my taste. I've seen that it's possible to create new colors/palettes (while in the Windows version it's not - that's an improvement IMO), but I haven't been able to find the RGB specs of the colors themselves...

Thanks!

EDIT: To clarify, the "colors" I'm looking for are the ones you get in Outlook 2010.

I've got a screenshot of the ones I mean:

They have names such as "Olive", "Blue", "Dark Red", "Dark Maroon"....

Using /Applications/Utilities/DigitalColor Meter.app set to RGB as Actual Value, 8-bit and then hover over each color to find it's RGB color values.

Color Values:

## COLOR       HEX     (RRR GGG BBB)
 1 Red         #E7A1A2 (231 161 162)
 2 Orange      #F9BA89 (249 186 137)
 3 Peach       #F7DD8F (247 221 143)
 4 Yellow      #FCFA90 (252 250 144)
 5 Green       #78D168 (120 209 104)
 6 Teal        #9FDCC9 (159 220 201)
 7 Olive       #C6D2B0 (198 210 176)
 8 Blue        #9DB7E8 (157 183 232)
 9 Purple      #B5A1E2 (181 161 226)
10 Maroon      #daaec2 (218 174 194)
11 Steel       #dad9dc (218 217 220)
12 Dark Steel  #6b7994 (107 121 148)
13 Grey        #bfbfbf (191 191 191)
14 Dark Grey   #6f6f6f (111 111 111)
15 Black       #4f4f4f ( 79  79  79)
16 Dark Red    #c11a25 (193  26  37)
17 Dark Orange #e2620d (226  98  13)
18 Dark Peach  #c79930 (199 153  48)
19 Dark Yellow #b9b300 (185 179   0)
20 Dark Green  #368f2b ( 54 143  43)
21 Dark Teal   #329b7a ( 50 155 122)
22 Dark Olive  #778b45 (119 139  69)
23 Dark Blue   #2858a5 ( 40  88 165)
24 Dark Purple #5c3fa3 ( 92  63 163)
25 Dark Maroon #93446b (147  68 107)

Note: color values returned by color meter might be slightly different based on the selected color profile.

Make a custom color and use the RGB Sliders and enter the decimal values above.


Parental Controls Through Terminal I have it setup so that my son only has 1 hour of computer use per day. He commonly needs extensions, and I think the only solution to do it while I am away is through terminal. Is there a way to extend the remaining time via a terminal command? Please note that I am only looking at answers through terminal not other 3rd party software.

Thanks.

You can change /Library/Managed\ Preferences/Username/com.apple.familycontrols.timelimits.v2.plist under the key time-limits there are 2 dictionaries you may need to consider :

weekday-allowance
weekend-allowance

Both have a key "secondsPerDay" you may change.

You may edit the .plist by converting it to XML using sudo plutil -convert xml1 theFile and then edit it with your favourite command line editor.


How do I open an iOS app that I transferred to my Mac? I downloaded an app on my phone and transferred it to my MacBook Pro and I got a file of the app. Whenever I click on it, it says the app already exists in my iTunes library and do I want to replace it. How do I open the app so I can use it?

I think there is a misunderstanding here. An iOS app (from your iPhone) cannot run on your MacBook Pro.

If you want to use a similar app on your Mac, I suggest you check if there is a Mac version of the application you want to use. You can search on the Mac App Store or on the app website.


Is there a way to set a Finder Shortcut for 'Tags…' in macOS 10.14 Mojave? Prior to Mojave, I used a custom Shortcut (System Preferences>Keyboard> Shortcuts>App Shortcuts) for the 'Tags…' command (Finder, File>Tags…), as in this answer: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/112852/63961.

After updating, this shortcut stopped working, and the keystroke no longer appeared in Finder's File menu next to 'Tags…'. The custom setting was still present in System Preferences.

I've attempted to reset this by clearing the old shortcut and re-creating it, with a variety of different keystrokes, and with alternate spelling for 'Tags…' (i.e., with three periods for the ellipsis character). Other custom shortcuts do work in Finder, for menu items either already having built-in keystrokes, or when no built-in is present. The Finder Toolbar button for the 'Tags…' command works fine, as does the menu item itself.

In Finder, go to preferences, then Tags. Remove all favorite tags, and the shortcut should work.


Prevent a process from being killed by any user mode means I use Freedom to help me stay focused while working. Sometimes I will be so disillusioned with my work, that I will go to such lengths as to try and kill the process from the terminal.

I'd like to prevent myself from doing this. Is it possible to elevate the process so that it can't be killed by any means, including by using sudo kill <process ID> from a terminal?

On macOS it is not possible to create processes which can‘t be killed by a user who is able to sudo. So the short and simple answer to your question is NO.


Diagnosing 2011 Macbook Air Webcam SYMPTOMS

FaceTime indicates no camera is available
The website: WebCam Test indicates a webcam could not be found
OS X Version 10.11.6 "System Report" Hardware -> Camera -> No video capture devices were found

The camera was last used with FaceTime in January.

QUESTION

Are there any command line diagnostics that can be performed to determine why the Webcam is unavailable?

UPDATE

Apple Hardware Test Results: No camera list under "Hardware Profile" Tab.

Alert! Apple Hardware test has detected an error.
4HDD/11/4000000:SATA(0,0)

Chances are your OS X installation is broken.

First run Apple Hardware Test, restart and hold D.

Still not showing in System Hardware profile ? Slim chance but it wont hurt, reset your SMC and PRAM.

Still not working ...

Make backup to Time machine (external drive)

Restore your OSX , restart and hold Command-R that will get you in to Restore screen. Follow the instructions.

Still not working...add new MacBook Air to your Christmas wish list.

Buy a cheep USB video camera so you can survive till then.


Mac menu bar not showing some icons? I'm running Yosemite 10.10.1 on a MacBook Air (early 2014), and I'm not seeing some icons on menu bar and folder and on browsers too. I have been trying to look for what's wrong on System Preferences, but I can't seem to find the answers! I attached the images to make it more clear.

To boot up in safe mode you can hold down the shift key when restarting.

I would go to the Finder and open any window and right click or control click in the gray part of title bar. See what your settings are set to.

There is also a new update to the system 10.10.2 that was just released. Maybe this will fix it, along with a bunch of other problems we have all been having with Yosemite. (I hope! :).

As far as the menu icons, I know that some of the system settings as in airplay there is a button that says "Show mirroring options in the menu bar when available" and there are more I am sure.

Good luck my friend.


Syncing Jailbreaked Ipod Touch As the title says, I jailbreak-ed my iPod touch for about a week by myself and now I want to sync it to iTunes without unjailbreaking the iPod.

After I plug my iPod touch into the computer, I opened iTunes manually and nothing happened. I then looked for information on how to unjailbreak it. I found out that I need to press the sleep/power button and the home button, after the steps, on my iPod there's a picture saying to plug the iPod onto iTunes and I did so. Then I pressed for the iTunes to restore my iPod, and it said that an error happened.

Please, can anyone help me either to sync my iPod without unjailbreaking? But if there's no way, can anyone teach me how to jailbreak my iPod Touch safely?

Also, now my iPod screen is stuck on the image that tells me to connect to iTunes.

You can unjailbreak an iPod or any other iDevice by restoring the device from a previously unjailbroken backup or you can download the latest update from Apple for your device and install that. IF there is one.

Apple doesn't want people jailbreaking so all you have to do is update the IOS or restore to an old non-jailbroken copy and it will 'unjailbreak' it.


Better Way To Show Running Applications in OS X Lion I'm looking to either find a better method (visually) to show running applications on my Macbook Pro. The easiest method would be to increase the size (or make more prominent) of the running program indicator(s) that are present on OS X dock:

Alternatively I would be open to some other method that provides the same "at a glance" feedback as to what is running without having to manually launch a process.

I have looked at a lot of Apple related blogs and Google'd around to no avail. I could obviously increase my stock resolution of 1920 x 1200 to something larger but overall I am very happy with this resolution so I would prefer an alternate method. I also really have no desire to hook up to a larger monitor.

The easiest way to do this (in my mind) is to not have any applications permanently stored in your Dock.  In other words, the only applications down there are running ones. (This is what I do, and it works great; I can at-a-glance see what's running without having to use cmd-tab).

That being said, OS X is moving in the direction of "you shouldn't have to care".  Things like Sudden Termination and User Interface preservation are aiming to make it so that a process can disappear silently in the background, but quickly come back when you need it.


User & Groups settings text top down and reversed When I go to settings -> user & groups then, all text and components in the container are reversed like the picture and clicking a component will not response anything.

It is shared mac mini with OS X Yosemite 10.10.2, I connected it with VNC client.

Logout and login do not help.

Can somebody help me how to fix it?

Edit

After reboot the mac, it is corrected.

I don't know why it happened but rebooting the mac solved this issue. I filed this issue to Apple.


Is it possible to install an iPhone app in MacBook Pro? I use an application WeChat in my iPhone a lot, as typing on a smartphone is less convenient than typing on a keyboard, I would like to be able to use that application on my MacBook Pro.

The OS in my MacBook Pro is Mac OS X Lion 10.7.5 (11G63). I have also installed VMWare Fusion.

So I am thinking if it is possible to install a virtual iOS 7 on my MacBook Pro, then install WeChat inside?

Could anyone help?

PS: WeChat does provide a web version where we can chat in a web browser, but it is not as good as the iPhone application, it is unacceptably slow...

Nope.

The only way you can run iOS apps on OS X is if you have the iPhone Simulator and have a version of the app specifically compiled to run on the simulator.

The iPhone Simulator (available from Xcode) is not an emulator and can't run ARM code, which means that it has to run a specific version of iOS 7 designed for OS X, and is not able to run iOS apps that have not been designed to run on this version of iOS 7 (i.e. IPAs from the App Store).


Messages.app / iMessage hijacking text messages Text messages to my number are received either by my phone or by Messages.app (iMessage), but not both. If I leave my computer on then I will inexplicably not receive texts on my phone (until the computer goes to sleep, I suppose).

How do I configure my devices so that Messages would contain the same information as my iPhone?

OS X 10.10.1, iOS 7.1.2, iPhone 5s, MacBook Pro 2009

I think it is s matter of having wifi on at your Mac. Once it goes to sleep, wifi is off and you receive iMessages on your phone. Right now, the only thing I found that worked is either have your data on at all times on your phone or make sure your Mac is turned of when you leave.


Latest OS X update causes Finder crash (SIGSEGV) Does any one know how to fix an error like this?

Exception Type:  EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000102e50cf2

My Finder keeps crashing after updating my Mac this morning. I've tried TotalFinder but this also crashed as if it was Finder.

Any ideas?

The tickets shows OS X 10.8.3… but my Terminal shows this:

jycr753:~ hakunamatata$ sw_vers -productVersion
10.8.5

jycr753:~ hakunamatata$ system_profiler SPSoftwareDataType
Software:

    System Software Overview:

      System Version: OS X 10.8.5 (12F45)
      Kernel Version: Darwin 12.5.0
      Boot Volume: hakunamatata
      Boot Mode: Normal
      Computer Name: jycr753
      User Name: jycr753 (hakunamatata)
      Secure Virtual Memory: Enabled
      Time since boot: 2:01

I've also tried looking at kextstat to make sure that I dont have any kernel extensions, and it all looks fine…
Log error

The solution for this was actually google drive, its kernel extension was creating conflicts with finder if the icon was showing in the status bar.


Can I get podcasts on my iphone and stop them on my mac? Now that podcasts can get auto-downloaded directly to my iphone, i no longer need to sync with my mac but when i use itunes on my mac, i constantly see podcasts downloading.  Given that i never listen to podcasts from my mac, is there any way I can stop these from downloading to my mac without causing issues with my iphone?

The way I did it was to plug my iPhone into my Mac as I would normally to sync it and then select the iPhone in iTunes and go to the 'Podcasts' menu to disable 'Sync Podcasts', clicking on Apply to confirm the change. Once I was sure this was disabled, I re-synced my iPhone and double checked there were no issues as the fix was still easy at this point! There were none so I moved onto the next phase - now you can either:

Delete the podcasts from iTunes altogether (I did this as my main aim was to save space on my SSD), or
Change the iTunes podcasts settings to only update manually (i.e. if you don't click on Refresh in the podcast section of iTunes, they will not download)

It's been a couple of weeks for me and no problems so far.

Hope this helps! Sorry I can't put up any screenshot to help guide you through yet, I don't have enough reputation points to do this yet as I've just discovered this board :)


Is is possible to use remote desktop to a Mac via direct cable or wireless? I develop on Windows, but I need a Mac for iPhone development.  So I'm thinking of getting a Mac mini or a MacBook for the Mac part, and connecting to it as needed from my Windows machine. A mini, in particular, doesn't come with a monitor or keyboard or mouse, so this would be the only way to use it.

The question is: sometimes I travel and so I'm away from my network.  In this situation, is it possible to plug a cable directly from my Windows machine to the Mac and do remote desktop this way, or do both machines have to be on the same network and router and the sharing done via IP address in the usual way? Alternatively, can I skip the network entirely and remote desktop machine to machine via wireless signal?

First off, it's important to note that Apple's Remote Desktop is not Microsoft's Remote Desktop, and the two are not interchangeable. That said, you can still use various VNC products to connect from the Windows machine to the Mac.

From there, it's standard networking. If you want to leave the Mac Mini at home, you'll need to make sure that you can access the required ports, whether by port forwarding, or by an SSH tunnel/VPN allowing you to connect to your home network.

If you bring the Mac Mini with you, then you can easily create an ad hoc Wi-Fi network to connect them both too, in which case they will be on the same network, and you can connect that way. (You may need a monitor and keyboard attached to the Mac Mini at some point to configure this.)

Additionally, the Mac can automatically make any standard Ethernet cable into a crossover cable, such that an Ethernet cable connecting your Mac to your PC will create a network connection for the two machines, which, again, you can use as a standard network to connect from one to the other.

The network can be WiFi, direct point to point ethernet, point to point thunderbolt, point to point firewire or over a wired switched network of any of the above carriers.


Macbook Pro Mid2012 Lags I have a macbook pro mid 2012 and recently I upgraded it by changing the RAM to 16GB and HDD to 500GB SSD. It was fine for a while but now it lags a lot whenever I play any games or even when I am normally using it. I did Memory and Hard drive test and both of them were fine. I even replaced my RAM because I read it somewhere that I should replace my RAM when these things happen, but still the problem occurs.

While upgrading my Hard drive I cloned my old hard drive and then transferred that to the SSD, I don't know if that's what causing the problem.

If you run Yosemite or El Capitan, enable the native OS X trim support with the Terminal command : sudo trimforce enable, followed by a restart.
For older OS X versions try the TRIM enabler from Cindori Software.


Reset External HDD password without losing data I set a password on my external HDD using disk utility. Now I am trying to access my HDD however, I cannot access it even if I am trying to give right password. Is there a way to reset this password without losing any data?

Highly unlikely.

The purpose of disk encryption is to make it so that someone unauthorized (that is, who doesn't know the password) can't access your data. Being able to reset the password and still get at the data defeats the purpose.

If you used that drive on a different system, and you allowed that system to save the password so it could automatically access the drive, then there is a slim chance that it could be sitting that other machine's Keychain Access secret store. (Whereby you'd open the Keychain Access app, authenticate, scan all the list of entries for the one that looked like your drive, click it, likely re-authenticate again, and it'd [in theory] show you the password to use on the first machine.)

Other than that, set the drive aside and see if the password comes to memory at some point in the future. Reformatting the drive will lose the data. Trying to get at it without the password ought to look like jumbled bits -- and you certainly don't want to alter them for fear of corrupting the underlying information.

For the future, always-always-always squirrel device access and/or recovery passwords somewhere away secure, whether on paper or in a password vault (like 1Password, LastPass, or some other similar secrets manager).

Sorry this wasn't the answer you hoped for.


The macOS installation I never prompted, couldn't be completed My MacBook Pro is running High Sierra at the moment and I have been pretty bothered by the Mojave notifications in last weeks, which I have always ignored because I don't want to update at this moment.

Yesterday I got the usual notification asking me to perform "updates". I said "try tonight". Nowhere in my mind I would say that this includes an OS update, and I think everyone can agree?

Got to bed, woke up (late morning) and the machine was not displaying anything - just the touch bar lit. So after a while I forced a shutdown.

When restarting, I got a The macOS installation couldn't be completed dialog, with a console showing the crash logs. At this point my mind was just a huge "What the...?!" and reboots did not solve the problem - macOS would try to perform this installation again, and fail.

There was an option to save the log file and I did, here it is. The important part seems to be

Feb 17 11:14:00 MacBook-Pro ReportCrash[551]: Crashed Thread:        0  Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
Feb 17 11:14:00 MacBook-Pro ReportCrash[551]:
Feb 17 11:14:00 MacBook-Pro ReportCrash[551]: Exception Type:        EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Feb 17 11:14:00 MacBook-Pro ReportCrash[551]: Exception Codes:       KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000000000018
Feb 17 11:14:00 MacBook-Pro ReportCrash[551]: Exception Note:        EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY
Feb 17 11:14:00 MacBook-Pro ReportCrash[551]:
Feb 17 11:14:00 MacBook-Pro ReportCrash[551]: Termination Signal:    Segmentation fault: 11
Feb 17 11:14:00 MacBook-Pro ReportCrash[551]: Termination Reason:    Namespace SIGNAL, Code 0xb
Feb 17 11:14:00 MacBook-Pro ReportCrash[551]: Terminating Process:   exc handler [0]
Feb 17 11:14:00 MacBook-Pro ReportCrash[551]:
Feb 17 11:14:00 MacBook-Pro ReportCrash[551]: VM Regions Near 0x18:
Feb 17 11:14:00 MacBook-Pro ReportCrash[551]: -->
Feb 17 11:14:00 MacBook-Pro ReportCrash[551]:     __TEXT                 000000010f04c000-000000010f063000 [   92K] r-x/rwx SM=COW  /System/Installation/CDIS/macOS Installer.app/Contents/MacOS/macOS Installer

I got out of this mess by choosing Startup Disk among the options and selecting Macintosh HD.

I have a few questions and would appreciate any help.

Why did this happen? Is it really because of my "try tonight" to the updates notification? Isn't this crazy? I have seen now that Safari was updated, and that's the kind of update I was expecting.
[Related] How can I prevent this from happening again?
When I will be ready to upgrade, what should I do in order for the installation to NOT fail like it did?

I can't answer all your questions, but we are seeing this issue fairly commonly in our workplace, with (I think) one specific update.  The fix is as you describe - choose the Startup Disk from the Utilities menu, select the main HD, and reboot.  It doesn't happen again.


MS-DOS (FAT32) USB to MS-DOS I am attempting to set up bootcamp for my 2013 MacBook. I have a 16gb USB for the Windows ISO. The USB was formatted in MS-DOS (FAT32). I need just MS-DOS for bootcamp. I attempted to switch it using Disk Utility but when i erase and select MS-DOS it just erases and reverts back to (FAT32)? any way how to fix this?

For all practical purposes MS-DOS is MS-DOS (FAT32) nowadays, see https://www.howtogeek.com/235596/whats-the-difference-between-fat32-exfat-and-ntfs/ for instance:

FAT32 is the oldest of the three file systems available to Windows. It was introduced all the way back in Windows 95 to replace the older FAT16 file system used in MS-DOS and Windows 3.
[...]
Limitations come with that age, however. Individual files on a FAT32 drive can’t be over 4 GB in size—that’s the maximum. A FAT32 partition must also be less than 8 TB, which admittedly is less of a limitation unless you’re using super-high-capacity drives.


Booklet creation El Capitan Since I passed to El Capitan, good'ol Create Booklet 1.2 (http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/21068/create-booklet) won't work anymore (it used to be free, but is now paid for). All the available booklet creation programs cost something and I simply can't afford them.

So I went on a hunt to use Automator and/or AppleScript. I only found this site which does not seem to be maintained anymore, I also tried to contact the webmaster/owner, but none of the available e-mail addresses work (they came back with a delivery failure): http://automatorworld.com/archives/create-pdf-booklet/

Does anyone have an idea how to create such an applet for Mac?

What would be the (mathematical?) formula and/or the routine to start such a project with Automator/AppleScript?

I found a method that works for me. In this thread (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7253885) I discovered that you can create a print plugin in Automator that will do close to what you want.

Go to Automator and first create a new print plugin.

Next search for Rename PDF Documents and add-drag that into the workflow. You will not actually need to change anything or use the rename tool. It was what fixed the problem in the other thread.

Last search for Create Booklet and add-drag that below the rename section.

Finally save the print plugin.

It should allow you to go through the PDF menu on the print dialog and allow you to create a booklet on the Desktop. You'll just have to go through the extra step to open it and and print it out.

Hope it helps.

The whole print plugin should look like this:


Macbook won't boot, possibly HDD issue I am posting this for a friend who is having this problem but obviously can't post this himself as his computer will not boot up. He started having problems after a video game crashed during online multiplayer. The game is Minecraft, which is written in Java. He was able to send me this from his iPad.

"Console generates a huge log about detailing how the java application stub crashed. So I shut down the computer, note, regular, controlled shutdown, not force shutdown. Then when I go to reboot, the HDD boots up, and makes its little boot up noise. The screen is the usual eggshell white. Then, it makes the HDD shut down sound, and the screen goes to black. I tried this three times, same result. Right now, I'm just waiting, hoping that it's overheated or something. Any ideas?"

Wait a little bit, and then try booting in Safe Mode, as described in HT1455. Then, try opening Java Preferences.app in /Applications/Utilities and unchecking all of the versions of Java you have to disable them. If you can reboot without Safe Mode after disabling Java, you might want to try re-installing your Java game or Java itself.


What happens when you make a free app paid? My app has always(4 months) been free and I am wondering if I make it paid, will it be in the new paid apps category?

It is not new in sense of app but new in sense of paid app.

That's up to Apple.  They decide what apps to feature.  The App Store gets thousands of new/updated apps every day and not every new app will be featured.  If your app provides some special service or interesting presentation, it's possible your app will be featured.


What are possible consequences for the screen, when doing the replacement of iPhone 5s home button I need to replace the fingerprint sensor along with the home button on my iPhone 5s, but I am afraid of what would the consequences be on the screen. Right now, the screen assembly seems to be perfectly flush and tight with the frame. In particular, I know that there are often problems with closing it after the repair. Will I be able to close it just fine and will it be perfectly flush as it is right now? Any experiences guys? Any iPhone 5s repair masters? Thanks for any advice.

As long as you apply common sense when replacing Touch ID/the home button you should be fine:

all screws go back to the same thread they came from
tighten the screws so they won't stick out
make sure to properly align the screen to the top of the case first
pay attention to the flex cables - put them in all the way into the ZIF connector

I recommend to watch a few 5s display repair videos if you never have replaced a screen before. This should give you a better idea what diffuculties may arise.


CPU cores have a temperature near 80 °C and then the fan starts to work. Can it be dangerous? (not for Core) I have the same question, but about Core.

This one I want to ask whether such a temperature is dangerous for other Components, then Core?

I have read some advices to adjust Fan Speed, cause if you use
MacBook with default configuration it can damage after 3 or more years some of your internal hardware components cause of hot air. The advantage of such a default configuration is
quietly working MacBook.

Are there any information about it?
If its opinion is completely wrong why such Tool as Macs Fan Control are more or less popular?

Intel CPU is designed to work up to 125 C
Your Mac will auto-shut down at 105 C
So the 85 C is almost normal temperature.
Download an install Intel Power gadget made by Intel  to see most acuate information about your CPU
Opinion:
In my opinion the Macs Fan Control is for people who like to play around, your Mac is perfectly capable taking care of it self.


Combining Thunderbolt ports I've a Macbook Pro retina 15'', mid-2012 with nVidia 650M graphics card. I've a 4K Dell monitor attached but the result is a bit choppy and my guess is that it's because of the bandwidth limitation on the Thunderbolt port?

If so, can I somehow combine both thunderbolt ports and connect the external to both together?

Thanks

Your computer has a "Thunderbolt 1" port. Apple states in this FAQ article on thunderbolt ports as an answer to question #25:

  4K Ultra HD TVs are supported over HDMI or with Thunderbolt to
  high-speed HDMI adapters. Thunderbolt 2 is required to use a 4K
  display. All Thunderbolt 2 models support 4K displays at 30Hz in
  Single Stream Transport mode. Some models support 4K displays at 60 Hz
  in Multi Stream Transport mode. See HT6008 for more information on
  using 4K displays. Specific 4K DisplayPort displays are supported on
  Thunderbolt with a mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable.


Application keeps bouncing on dock and won't open I have a game (Borderlands 2: Game of the Year edition) directly purchased through the App Store. I've been playing this game for a month until it started to have this error everytime I launch it: the application just keeps bouncing on the dock and does not open even for an hour of waiting. Force Quit option do not work but when I click on the "bouncing" icon on the dock, it disappears. The application is not the "Force Quit application" list when I hit command + option + esc. Any workaround on this error?

Disclaimer: I do not own Borderlands 2 and so I cannot predict what the results of this process will be. Your safest bet is to go the Mac App Store page for Borderlands 2 and use the Borderlands 2 Support link. All Mac App Store apps are required to have a ‘support’ link, although some are more useful than others. The one for Borderlands 2 looks like it will lead to actual, official support, so I suggest you try that first.

That being said, the following is the troubleshooting technique that I use when trying to figure out why a Mac App Store app won’t launch.

Use at your own risk, etc. Remember that I’m just some guy on the Internet (allegedly!) giving you free, un-guaranteed advice. I almost always have a complete, recent, fully bootable backup on my Mac just in case something goes wrong. So should you, especially before mucking around with stuff.

1) Quit The App

We’re going to be moving the app’s preferences file, and you don’t want to do that when it is running. That would be a bad idea.

2) Use the Finder:

Use the Go → Go to Folder menu item

Enter ~/Library/Containers/ as shown here:

Click “Go” (or press Enter) and you will see all of the various “Containers” used on your Mac.

n.b.: Tread carefully. Apple hides the ~/Library/ folder because mucking around in there can cause problems.

This is what mine looks like:

Yours will look different but similar. Hopefully you will be able to tell which one goes to the you are trying to fix.

I am going to use com.multimarkdown.composer.mac (MultiMarkdown Composer 2) just because it’s easier to work with a specific example.

Find the “Saved Application State” folder for the app which will not open.

You will find it inside the app’s “Container” folder (above) → Data → Library → Saved Application State

Inside that folder will be one more, which ends with “.savedState” and contains the information used to restore the windows which were open when you quit the app.

Move that folder to the Desktop, or even the Trash if you want. Then re-launch the misbehaving app.

If it still won’t launch I’d repeat the process but instead look inside the ”Preferences” folder instead of ”Saved Application State” and I’d look for the file which doesn’t look like a link or an alias (in this case, com.multimarkdown.composer.mac.plist) and I would copy that file to the Desktop or the Trash, understanding that I was effectively deleting all of my saved preferences. Then re-launch the misbehaving app.

If that didn’t work, well, then I’d probably do something desperate like move the app’s entire folder from ~/Library/Containers/ (such as ~/Library/Containers/com.multimarkdown.composer.mac/) to the Desktop or the Trash and try one last time.

After that I might even delete the app and download it again from the Mac App Store.

(If you need to see any of the images in a larger size you can find them all at http://media.tjluoma.com/askdifferent/116501/.)


Disk Utility is saying that I have twice as much storage as I do, causing partitioning problems I am trying to partition my internal HDD so that I can install Windows 10. I tried using Boot Camp to do this (which is where I think the problem started) but it failed so I am trying to do it manually.

Now when I open Disk Utility it looks like this:

When I then click partition the 'pie chart' adds up to 6TB, which is twice as much storage than I have:

When I try taking away the left hand partition and apply, it fails. If I add another partition, it duplicates that too.

When I look at storage in the 'About This Mac' tab it shows Macintosh HD twice, each HDD looks exactly the same.

Does anyone know why this might be happening?

Any help would be really appreciated.

My Mac info:

OS X El Capitan Version 10.11.6
iMac (27-inch, Late 2012)
Processor 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory 32 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2048 MB
Storage 3TB SATA Disk

Output of sudo gpt -r show disk0 entered in Terminal:

       start        size  index  contents
           0           1         PMBR
           1           1         Pri GPT header
           2          32         Pri GPT table
          34           6
          40      409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
      409640  4293286064      2  GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  4293695704     1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  4294965240  1565305744      4  GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  5860270984      262144      5  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  5860533128           7
  5860533135          32         Sec GPT table
  5860533167           1         Sec GPT header

Output of diskutil cs list entered in Terminal:

CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
|
+-- Logical Volume Group D60F9C59-F78F-4DA6-A77E-BFCBAA1CCDE7
    =========================================================
    Name:         Macintosh HD
    Status:       Online
    Size:         2999599005696 B (3.0 TB)
    Free Space:   0 B (0 B)
    |
    +-< Physical Volume 4B824E44-314C-483C-8767-67B3C5006A65
    |   ----------------------------------------------------
    |   Index:    0
    |   Disk:     disk0s2
    |   Status:   Online
    |   Size:     2198162464768 B (2.2 TB)
    |
    +-< Physical Volume 9BF5F397-185C-4561-B24B-D38C3C81442F
    |   ----------------------------------------------------
    |   Index:    1
    |   Disk:     disk0s4
    |   Status:   Online
    |   Size:     801436540928 B (801.4 GB)
    |
    +-> Logical Volume Family E8825944-F8B2-4073-8806-1B9B1FED716D
        ----------------------------------------------------------
        Encryption Type:         None
        |
        +-> Logical Volume 17FA23EF-79C7-41E2-A04B-AFA3F449624C
            ---------------------------------------------------
            Disk:                  disk1
            Status:                Online
            Size (Total):          2998978236416 B (3.0 TB)
            Revertible:            No
            LV Name:               Macintosh HD
            Volume Name:           Macintosh HD
            Content Hint:          Apple_HFS

I don't know the history of your iMac but your internal hard drive is pretty messed up.

The drive is partitioned to five slices:

the EFI partition at index 1 with a size of 209 MB
a Physical Volume at index 2 with a size of 2.2 TB
a Recovery HD partition at index 3 with a size of 650 MB
a Physical Volume at index 4 with a size of 801 GB
a Boot OS X partition at index 5 with a size of 134 MB

Additionally the device contains a Logical Volume Group (CoreStorage). CoreStorage is a logical volume manager, which is an additional layer between device/partition and a volume.

A Logical Volume Group is based on one or several Physical Volumes (which can be one or several physical devices/partitions) and may contain one or several Logical Volume Families/Logical Volumes.

On one disk the common layout of a LVG is: LVG < one PV (disk0s2) > one LVF > one LV (disk1).
On two disks (e.g a Fusion Drive) the common layout of a LVG is:  LVG < two PVs (disk0s2 & disk1s2) > one LVF > one LV (disk2).

Your actual disk (disk0) has a non-standard layout: LVG < two PVs (disk0s2 & disk0s4) > one LVF > one LV (disk1). This may happen after resizing the CoreStorage stack and adding an additional partition in the then unallocated disk space, formatting it as HFS volume and adding it as a second Physical Volume to the already existing Logical Volume Group.

I can't really explain the origin of the Boot OS X volume (disk0s5).

To salvage the mess, backup Macintosh HD with Time Machine, boot to Internet Recovery Mode, repartition the internal drive to one (main) non-CoreStorage partition and restore the backup:

Booted to your main volume attach your Time Machine backup drive. Go to the menubar and initiate another Time Machine backup cycle by choosing "Backup now...".
Detach the Time Machine drive after the backup is done
Restart to Internet Recovery Mode by pressing alt cmd R at startup.
The prerequisites are the latest firmware update installed, either ethernet or WLAN (WPA/WPA2) and a router with DHCP activated.
On a 50 Mbps-line it takes about 4 min (presenting a small animated globe) to boot to a recovery netboot image which usually is loaded from an apple/akamai server.

I recommend ethernet because it's more reliable. If you are restricted to WIFI and the boot process fails, just restart your Mac until you succeed booting.

Alternatively you may start from a bootable installer thumb drive (Yosemite or El Capitan) or a thumb drive containing a full system (Yosemite or El Capitan).
Open in the menubar Utilities/Terminal
Enter diskutil cs list
You will get an identical output as in your question
enter diskutil cs delete lvgUUID (with lvgUUID: the UUID of your Logical Volume Group). In your case that's diskutil cs delete D60F9C59-F78F-4DA6-A77E-BFCBAA1CCDE7.

The command should delete all CoreStorage items.
Enter exit in Terminal
In the main Recovery Mode Window open "Disk Utility"
Choose the main disk (not one of the volumes!) and hit the Erase button.
Repartition the main disk to 1 partition, OS X Extended (Journaled) and GUID partition map.
Attach your external Time machine backup drive
Quit "Disk Utility" and open "Restore from Time Machine". Choose the external drive as backup source and restore the latest Time Machine backup on your empty internal drive.
After restoring the backup, quit all apps and reboot to your main drive.


Can't swap Caps Lock and Esc keys using Seil I'm using Seil to remap the Caps Lock button.

Following by instruction I've deactivated Caps Lock by setting it to ‘No Action’ in System Preferences → Keyboard → Modifier Keys.

Then went to Seil's ‘Change the caps lock key’ and set the keycode to 53. Now it works as Esc key and it's functional.

Now I want to make the Esc key work as Caps Lock.

In Karabiner in ‘Change Escape Key’ section I've checked ‘Escape to CapsLock’ checkbox. However it works in completely the wrong way. By pressing Esc button it changes capitalisation, but as well as by pressing Shift+Esc buttons. Also in that mode the Caps Lock button works as a usual button by changing capitalisation.

But if I change it to ‘Shift-Escape to CapsLock’ box then everything works except for one thing, I have to press Shift+Esc to change capitalisation.

So it's not actually a swap between the Esc and Caps Lock buttons.

Am I missing something? How do I fix this problem?

The problem is that you are setting up a recursive key binding.

Seil changes caps lock -> esc
Karabiner changes esc -> caps lock

So in the end when you hit caps lock or esc you will still get caps lock.

caps lock -> esc -> caps lock

When using Seil and Karbiner together you must follow the Input Even Modification Chain to determine the key press outcome (see Example 2 and Plural settings in Karabiner from the link).  You have to pay attention to the input event order.

Seil propagates to...
System Preferences > Keyboard > Modifier Keys... which propagates to...
Karabine

In other words, you CAN’T swap just two keys with the Seil & Karabin method you are trying. It will always create a caps lock key press recursion issue.

Rather, you should try to remap both keys with Karbiner only to create a private XML mapping file. This is because Karabiner by itself does not allow you to create recursive event modifications.

I hope this makes logical sense and helps.


How do I create a network automount with Open Directory in 10.8 Server? I am running Mac OS X 10.8 "Mountain Lion" Server and using Open Directory to provide managed preferences and user accounts to the Macs on our local network.

Any AFP shares on the Open Directory server "Victoria" which are marked as "Use this sharepoint for home directories" are automatically added to Open Directory as automounts. But I want to add other automounts, specifically those on a different AFP server, and one on an NFS server.

In 10.6 Server this could be done using the "Server Admin Tools" app. This app doesn't work with 10.8 Server. How do I create a network automount with Open Directory in 10.8 Server?

You can use the Directory Editor that is part of Directory Utility (in /System/Library/CoreServices) to add a new automount record. I recommend using the existing record as a template for your new mounts.

The image above references the Mounts container in the /Local/Default node. You would obviously want to choose the LDAP node that represents your Open Directory node (victoria).

Here is some additional info on creating automount records in Directory Editor.


Does Mountain lion download Apple's JDK or the OpenJDK when attempting to load a Java app? When you first try and load a Java application (eclipse, run mvn commands etc) Lion prompted you to download a JRE/JDK. From my understanding this is still Apple's version of Java and not OpenJDK.  Will Mountain Lion still have Apple's Java available the same way or will it prompt you to download OpenJDK?

It prompts you (just tried to open Aptana). I let it install and

java -version

gives

java version "1.6.0_33"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_33-b03-424-11M3720)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 20.8-b03-424, mixed mode)


How can I free up space to reinstall macOS (Catalina)? Ok, I’m in a bit of a pickle here. I wanted to install the latest macOS 10.15.1 update today and was initially told that I needed to “free up more space”, since the upgrade expects about 19 GB of free space. Ok, I did that and the upgrade installer launched (after a restart). Unfortunately, it told me (again) that I do not have enough free disk space and I was supposed to restart the machine to free up more space. Ok, I tried that but I am now stuck on the login screen. Every time I login the loading bar progresses to about 50% and the screen just turns black.

I went to the Apple store today and they mentioned I should just try to re-install macOS.

I can see the answers suggested here on how to accomplish that: Mac stuck in restart cycle after failed macOS Catalina update

However, when trying to recover / reinstall macOS - the installer also tells me - you don’t have enough free space to reinstall macOS.

So I am left wondering - why is there no option (e.g. in Disk Utility) to selectively free up some space. It seems the only options I have are:
1. create a full disk image (through Disk Utility)
2. Wipe the disk
3. re-install macOS

It would be great if I could somehow launch a terminal or something similar to free up some space. With the latest macOS, is there still a way to launch into “terminal login mode” - I believe this used to be possible.

Btw. I did try “safe boot” and all the rest without success.

Any help on how to free up just a bit of space so I can launch the macOS installer would be much appreciated!

Ok, so I found this: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201573

Single-user mode

Turn on your Mac, then immediately press and hold Command-R to start up from macOS Recovery.
Select Disk Utility from the Utilities window, then click Continue.
From the Disk Utility sidebar, select the volume that you're using, then choose File > Mount from the menu bar. (If the volume is already mounted, this option is dimmed.) Then enter your administrator password when prompted.
Quit Disk Utility.
Choose Terminal from the Utilities menu in the menu bar.
You can now enter UNIX commands. When done, choose Apple () menu > Restart.

The key is step number 4 & 5, which allowed me to launch a terminal window while the correct volumes were mounted. I am currently re-installing macOS.


How to turn off iPhone without power button? My iPhone's power button is broken. How can I still turn it off to send it in for repairs? I found another answer, but it does not really help.

If you go to Settings>General>Accessibility>AssistiveTouch and flip the switch to "on," you will find a black square with a white dot in the middle.

When you tap the white circle for AssistiveTouch, tap "Device," then LONG PRESS on the "Lock Screen" option.  You should be set!


Finder- getting rid of divider bar in every new window I have had new finder windows open with a weird divider bag (marked in red in picture below) on the right side for quite some time now. I have dealt with it by dragging the bar to the right until it disappears but am starting to get annoyed having to do this every single time.

I tried several ways to reset the finder size but they have not helped getting rid of the weird bar thing.

Please let me know if you have any idea what could fix this. I am running macOS Mojave 10.14.4.

Looks like you have enabled "Preview". Type Shift-Cmd-P to toggle it (or toggle it in the View menu).


Is there a truly user friendly guide on how to handle iOS Certificates and Provisioning Profiles? – Xcode 7.3 / iOS 9.3 I'm getting a warning that The provisioning profile "iOSTeam Provisioning Profile: *" is expiring soon. I'm not sure what to do and the Apple documentation, even the Quick Start Guide, is overwhelming and confusing for me.

Some developers say "Just wait until it expires, Xcode will then offer to fix it.", others like Jared Sinclair adamantly oppose doing that. I'd do what he suggests, but I'm not sure how and would likely mess up stuff.

Is there a truly user friendly guide on how to handle iOS Certificates and Provisioning Profiles?

It's hard to know what specific step you're stumped on - since an error signing development builds will cascade and cause issues when you upload. Uploading can have new issues if you don't have problems running development builds.

The outline I use is:

https://developer.apple.com/support/code-signing/

It breaks down the steps to code signing which also deals with profiles. I'll assume you are set up with a proper app / bundle ID in iTunes connect. If that needs guidance, you can refer to this diagram from https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/IDEs/Conceptual/AppDistributionGuide/Introduction/Introduction.html

The green boxes are the iTunes Connect portions you need to accomplish in the web app or iTunes Connect iOS app.

If the full process is too much, just focus on breaking up the process into smaller chunks or try reviewing the quick start guide.

Worst case, if you don't have the time to work through things - you could see about partnering with another developer or paying someone to help you set things up. If you want to focus on the coding - outsourcing the management to someone that's already done the learning and has a handful of apps through all the steps can probably save you time struggling with things that don't in the end make a better app but help you navigate the systems for submitting apps.


Retina MacBook Pro - Quad core vs. Dual core and virtual machines (VMware Fusion) I am looking to get a Retina MacBook Pro and I am really torn between the portability of the 13" dual core i7 and the four cores of the 15" quad core i7. The majority of my work will be done using a virtual machine (VMWare Fusion). For this reason no matter which machine I choose I will be going with an SSD and 16 GB RAM. Also, I'm not really concerned with price as I really want to get the best performance. Portability vs. performance is my biggest concern. This laptop will serve as my dedicated workstation.

Though I would prefer the smaller form factor of the 13" Retina MBP I am concerned that the dual core i7 might not be fast enough to handle multiple virtual machines running at the same time. Within the virtual machines I will be running Windows 8, SQL Server, Visual Studio 2013, and IIS.

Does anyone know just how much difference the quad core would make as compared to the dual core as it pertains to running virtual machines? Also, dies the dedicated 2 GB graphics card available on the 15" come into play at all when dealing with virtual machines?

I would say that will depend on your work. If performance is of the essence, go with the 15" model. You're also going to appreciate the extra screen estate when having documentation and your code side by side.

Graphics however, play little role when it comes to virtualization especially when you don't run any graphics-intensive apps.


Caps lock + letters A to l not working on mac USB keyboard I am on the verge on snapping my brand new 27" iMacs keyboard. It's the latest USB model. I can't even login to my system because my password contains the letters I have said are not working. All was working fine yesterday.

I can confirm caps lock and letters A to L are not responding. Every other key works as expected.

Has anyone got any ideas before the keyboard becomes two and the iMac goes out the window?

Seems like a hardware problem you should be able to replace it under the warranty if no liquid was spilled over it.


What is the correct ownership for subdirectories in /usr/local After a few reckless uses of chomod (and some history I don't recall, apparently) I currently have the following ownership in my /usr/local:

drwxr-xr-x   13 Rax   admin   Caskroom/
drwxr-xr-x   87 Rax   admin   Cellar/
drwxr-xr-x    3 Rax   admin   Frameworks/
drwxr-xr-x   17 Rax   admin   Homebrew/
drwxr-xr-x    2 Rax   admin   Library/
drwxr-xr-x    6 root  wheel   MacGPG2/
drwxr-xr-x  654 Rax   admin   bin/
drwxrwxr-x   16 Rax   admin   etc/
drwxr-xr-x  118 Rax   admin   include/
drwxr-xr-x    4 Rax   admin   info/
drwxr-xr-x  438 Rax   admin   lib/
drwxr-xr-x    3 Rax   admin   libexec/
drwxr-xr-x    5 Rax   admin   man/
drwxr-xr-x    7 Rax   admin   mysql-utilities-1.5.3/
drwxr-xr-x  111 Rax   admin   opt/
drwxr-xr-x    3 root  wheel   remotedesktop/
drwxr-xr-x   42 Rax   admin   share/
drwxr-xr-x   10 Rax   admin   texlive/
drwxr-xr-x    6 Rax   admin   var/

Is this the correct default ownership for current (≥ 10.12.5) macOS? Should I change some of these (back) to root:wheel?

Out of the box - root:wheel has ownership of /usr/local and 0755 permissions. It's really up to you what you want. Since you clearly have homebrew or remnants of that, I'd do whatever brew doctor says you need to do for the user account you want to run things. I'd say keeping user:admin permissions is just fine for almost all cases in that part of the directory.

I have user:admin and 0775 permissions on everything but /usr/local itself and /usr/local/remotedesktop which match and are root:wheel with 0755.


How can I backup all my jailbroken iPhone apps saves before restoring to new firmware? I have a jailbroken iPhone (3Gs, iOS 4.0.1, bb 5.13.04). I want to get jailbroken & unlocked 4.3.1 , but I cannot do it in other way than restoring from custom pwned firmware, so all my saves and app data will be erased.

How can I back up all my app data and games saves to restore them after firmware upgrade?

Thanks in advance.

There is an insanely detailed step by step process on how to do this using the cydia app appbackup on http://applemonday.com/2011/04/jailbreak-data-apps-ios-appbackup/ which basically grabs all your app data and puts it in one folder for you to ssh into and get.


Problem Installing Lion on MacBook2,1 using USB I have a Macbook2,1 with 4GB RAM, Intel Core 2 Duo 2GHz and Leopard 10.5.8 and I need to upgrade it to Lion. I've downloaded Lion installation dmg file and restored it to a USB disk using Disk Utility.

But when I restart my MacBook holding option key, it doesn't show the USB disk. it only shows my hard disk. I've tried an external DVD-Drive (since the original DVD-Drive is not functional), same problem. Also I've tried restarting through Startup Disk preferences, same problem.

Any idea?

Thank you all for your help. I finally managed to make it work. It seemed the problem is somehow related to USB boot support of MacBook2,1. This is how it worked for me:

use these 5 steps if you're upgrading from 10.5.X to 10.7.X

Copy /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist to desktop
Open it in an editor (I used TextEdit)
Under ProductVersion change 10.5.X to 10.6.X
Save and Authenticate
copy it back to /System/Library/CoreServices/ overwriting the original SystemVersion.plist

use these 8 steps if you have a problem with USB boot.

Using BootCamp Create a 5GB partition
Open Disk Utility
Select Lion installation file (DMG) and click on Open
From main pane Click on Restore Button
From left pane Drag and drop ESD (below the DMG) onto Source
From left pane Drag and drop the newly create partition onto Destination
Click on Restore button below Destination
Restart and hold Option key. Now the partition is available in the boot menu.


Keyboard shortcut to mute audio in OS X El Capitan? I can't find the default keybinding to mute the sound in OS X El Capitan. I just want the whole OS to be muted.

Running osascript -e "set Volume X" from the terminal is not what I want to do. Because I need to store the current volume somewhere and launch a script on a specific key. It just seems like wrong approach.

F10 and any combinations of it with Command or Control did not help.

Try toggling the F-key functionality in System Prefs > Keyboard > Keyboard

If your generic keyboard has no Mac-compliant  Fn  key, it may be your only solution. The hardware keys don't transmit in the same way as 'regular' keys.

This script works for Yosemite, but not El Capitan…

set myVolume to get volume settings
if output muted of myVolume is false then
    set volume with output muted
else
    set volume without output muted
end if

An additional possibility could be to switch to another Sound output, one that is currently silenced, like, for example, Digital Out.

From Using Apple Script to Manage Sound Output Selection

You could save this as a Service in Automator, then call it with a hot-key

(*
Applescript to toggle between two sound outputs by Line number, ¬
as they appear in the Sound Control Panel. Based on code by ¬
Arthur Hammer https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/209434/85275
*)

set outputA to 3 --change this to the actual 'line number' of your first desired output
set outputB to 4 --change this to the actual 'line number' of your second desired output
--the rest of the script will use these vales as a switch

tell application "System Preferences"
    activate
    set current pane to pane "com.apple.preference.sound"
end tell

tell application "System Events"
    tell application process "System Preferences"
        repeat until exists tab group 1 of window "Sound"
        end repeat
        tell tab group 1 of window "Sound"
            click radio button "Output"
            if (selected of row outputA of table 1 of scroll area 1) then
                set selected of row outputB of table 1 of scroll area 1 to true
            else
                set selected of row outputA of table 1 of scroll area 1 to true
            end if
        end tell
    end tell
end tell
--tell application "System Preferences" to quit
--remove the comment '--' tag above to make the control panel quit afterwards, leave for testing.


How to let htop display all columns correctly when using the Homebrew Terminal profile? I've installed htop with :

brew install htop

But when I run it with sudo htop, the user column is not fully displayed. Some parts are missing.

How to display it correctly?

P.S.: I'm using the Homebrew Terminal profile.

Go to the menu Terminal -> Preferences... -> Profiles -> Text

and select Use bright color for bold text

Now you can see everything.


When I tether a MacBook Pro to an iPhone/iPad, how can I restrict what apps use it? I want to prevent Dropbox, Skydrive/OneDrive, and Google drive from syncing (for example) when my laptop is connected to my phone.

In other words I'd only like to sync email, use VPN, and permit Chrome in these instances.

Is there a product, technique, or hack that will allow me to restrict what apps are permitted to use my internet connection?

Check out Little Snitch.  It's intended to let you know what apps are using the network at what times, but you can use it's permission function to deny internet access for all apps except the ones you care about.

You can download it for free, it will work for 3 hours before you have to turn it back on again.  Or you can purchase the full version so that it's not time limited.

I have no affiliation with it, other than being a satisfied customer.

EDIT: additionally, it will let you setup different deny/allow profiles so that you can set it up once and then just "flip the switch" next time.


Force USB to accept a large file? I have a 64GB USB (3.0) drive that is "compatible" with Mac OS. I can copy files from/to the disk at will. However, I want to move a file that is about 6GB to the disk. To my surprise, an error message appears saying that the file is too large for the volume's format !!

Now I know I have 50GB left on the disk, so can someone tell me a way that can just force the file into the disk and ignore the warning message ?

In your case, the problem is the file system on the drive as opposed to how it is connected to your Mac.

The drive is most likely formatted as FAT32 system. This is a typical partitioning format that is supported by practically all computers (windows, linux and mac os). FAT32 limits file sizes to 4GB and device sizes to 2TB (or 16 TB for 4 KB sectors). For you to be able to store a file greater than 4GB in size, you'd need to reformat the drive to either ExFAT (file size is limited to 16EB, or 16 BILLION TB) or a MacOS partition format (called HFS plus, file size limited to 8EB, or 8 BILLION TB). I'd recommend the MacOS partition format for it's reliability, but only if you're working in a strictly Mac OS environment. HFS plus is NOT supported by Windows. If you need to transfer files between computers of various OSs, I'd recommend ExFAT.

Note: Changing partition formats WILL DELETE ALL DATA ON THE DRIVE, so make sure you back up all the data on the drive before you start.

Back up all your files on the USB drive onto a secure location on your Mac.
Open Disk Utility by searching it in spot light or opening it from /Applications/Utilities
Select your desired drive on the left side.
Go to the "Erase" tab.
Choose your desired partition format from the drop down menu, and name your drive as you please.
Click "erase"
Restore the files back to the drive.


How do I install sv.net/classic with wine on macOS? How do I install sv.net/classic on macOS? That's a program you can use to submit information about your employee for german general social welfare insurance purposes and records.

I don't want to buy licenses for VirtualBox and Windows.

The ITSG support page about linux and macOS gives me a hint that I could use wine for this purpose, but it doesn't give a detailed step-by-step guide for wine newbies like me.

Download and install the current version of XQuartz (as of this writing, it is version 2.7.11).
Download and execute the "Installer for Wine staging" from the wine macOS download page.
Execute “Wine Staging” and execute the next steps in the console which opens.
Get winetricks

wget  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Winetricks/winetricks/master/src/winetricks
chmod +x winetricks

Install cab extract, which is required by the installation of jet40 afterwards (this assumes that you already installed the packet manager brew):

brew install cabextract

Install the dependencies mentioned on the sv.net support page:

sh winetricks mdac28
sh winetricks jet40
sh winetricks vb6run
sh winetricks ie8
sh winetricks wininet

Download Setup.exe from the sv.net download page on the ITSG web site.
cd into the directory where you downloaded the installer and run the installer in wine, keeping the default settings :

 wine Setup.exe

Configure wine:

winecfg

In tab “libraries”, add ole32, oleaut32 and olepro32
Start sv.net:

 wine "C:\Program Files\svnet\svnet.exe"

In sv.net, under the “Info” menu, click the “Einstellungen” button to set up the network connection and select the “Direct” connection mode. The network test will fail, but it’s OK, the further operations will work.