How did I set this annoying window margin on MacOS app and how to remove it? Some time ago I pressed a weird key combination that seemed to add a margin to the top and bottom of active application window (in this case, iTerm2). See screenshot below:

It doesn't happen on any other apps. Just this one, so it is like the OS or Window manager has remembered this setting for this specific app.

I have no idea what the key combination was or how to remove this margin. It's very infuriating.

I use Spectacle to resize/re-position windows so I suspected it may be related to this app but it has no mention of being able to create window margins.

Any ideas? Perhaps someone knows where the OS stores application-specific window properties?

I eventually figured this out and the cause is specific to iTerm2 rather than MacOS.

There is an advanced setting in iTerm2 called "Terminal Windows Resize Smoothly" which when set to "No" forces the terminal window size to snap to the current font grid. This is what caused the margin and prevented me from resizing to remove the margin. Setting this to "Yes" or holding CTRL when resizing the iTerm2 window allows the window to resize to any size rather than snap to grid.

Hooray!


Why is my MacBook visibile on Bluetooth after Yosemite install? Since upgrading to Yosemite (from Mavericks) my MacBook Pro (Retina mid 2014) is visible (in "advertising mode") on Bluetooth (at least to my iPhone). It was not visible prior to Yosemite, and there's nothing that I did on my iPhone (that I can recall) to make this happen.

Why is my Mac visible on Bluetooth, and how do I hide it again?

Bluetooth needs to be in advertising mode for Yosemite's Handoff to work.

To disable Handoff in Mac Yosemite: Select System Prefs > General  and uncheck "Allow Handoff between this Mac and your iCloud devices".


How to have two different versions of MongoDB installed at same time? Is it possible to install both mongodb 2.6 and 3.2 on the same Mac?  I’ve been using mongodb 3.2 (Installed with homebrew) for a while but needed to install 2.6 to support an older project.  I used brew install homebrew/versions/mongodb26 and got some issues with conflicting files, which I could sort out later.

Possible conflicting files are:
/usr/local/bin/bsondump -> /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb/3.2.10/bin/bsondump
/usr/local/bin/mongo -> /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb/3.2.10/bin/mongo
/usr/local/bin/mongod -> /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb/3.2.10/bin/mongod
/usr/local/bin/mongodump -> /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb/3.2.10/bin/mongodump
/usr/local/bin/mongoexport -> /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb/3.2.10/bin/mongoexport
/usr/local/bin/mongofiles -> /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb/3.2.10/bin/mongofiles
/usr/local/bin/mongoimport -> /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb/3.2.10/bin/mongoimport
/usr/local/bin/mongooplog -> /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb/3.2.10/bin/mongooplog
/usr/local/bin/mongoperf -> /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb/3.2.10/bin/mongoperf
/usr/local/bin/mongorestore -> /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb/3.2.10/bin/mongorestore
/usr/local/bin/mongos -> /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb/3.2.10/bin/mongos
/usr/local/bin/mongosniff -> /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb/3.2.10/bin/mongosniff
/usr/local/bin/mongostat -> /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb/3.2.10/bin/mongostat
/usr/local/bin/mongotop -> /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb/3.2.10/bin/mongotop

But if I try to start mongod, by running /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb/3.2.10/bin/mongod I get the error 2016-11-15T14:26:08.132+0000 [initandlisten] exception in initAndListen: 28574 Cannot start server. Detected data files in /data/db created by storage engine 'wiredTiger'. The configured storage engine is 'mmapv1'., terminating.

I’ve also lost my database for 3.2, which appears to have been overwritten while installing 2.6.

Has anyone got this working?

I know this is an old question but I was looking for a way to have version 4.x and 3.x and found this to be the easiest solution.

Install the versions of MongoDB you want with brew.

You can find which versions are available with brew search mongo. If you don't see the version you want run brew update. I'm installing the latest version (4) and version 3.6:

brew install mongodb
brew install mongodb@3.6

Start the version you want with brew service

brew services start mongodb

Switch to a different version:

Make sure you are backwards compatible:

mongo --eval 'db.adminCommand({setFeatureCompatibilityVersion: "3.6"})'
Stop mongod:

brew services stop mongodb
Unlink the current version of MongoDB:

brew unlink mongodb
Link the new version of MongoDB:

brew link --force mongodb@3.6
Start MongoDB version 3.6:

brew services start mongodb@3.6
Check your version:

mongo --version


Time Machine Backup: separate configurations for different drives? I have limited storage on a NAS to which Time Machine backs up documents. I’ve excluded system file directories and a few more to save space. I also have a large portable drive. A few times a year I back up pretty much everything to that.

Right now, I’m doing that by removing one drive before adding the other. Then I change the list of excluded folders, wait till the backup is done and repeat.

Is there a quicker, more reliable way to do this?

"A few times a year I back up pretty much everything to that."
I suggest you use a cloning software package for making your once in awhile copies.
I use Time Machine to get a historic copies of my files and a cloning software package to get a bootable clone of my Startup Disk.
Carbon Copy Cloner will copy your Startup Disk to an external  FireWire drive.  You can boot from the external drive to verify that you have a good clone. When you upgrade your existing Startup Disk, you can at any time boot from your external drive and go back to your existing system.
Slightly modified excerpts from SuperDuper's webpage...

SuperDuper is the wildly acclaimed program that makes recovery
painless, because it makes creating a fully bootable backup painless.
It's incredibly clear, friendly interface is understandable, easy to
use, and SuperDuper's built-in scheduler makes it trivial to back up
automatically. And it runs beautifully on both Intel and PowerPC Macs!
Give SuperDuper a workout on your own system. Clone to your heart's
content, for free. See what else is possible. When you're convinced
that SuperDuper is a terrific solution — and a great value at $27.95 —
you can register right from the application and start using its
advanced features immediately!

Disk Utility
Apple has included an option in Disk Utility – ‘Restore’. This option in Disk Utility allows you to copy the entire data of your hard disk to another hard drive or any external media.
dd command
-- the dd command is not for amateurs. -- you have been warned. --
You can use the dd command to backup a drive or partition. You need to be familiar with /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.  I added this section for completeness.
# save
dd if=/dev/disk0s10 bs=4096m | gzip | dd of=~/disk0-s10 bs=4096m
# restore
dd if=~/disk0-s10 bs=4096m | gunzip | dd of=/dev/disk0s10 bs=4096m

This is riskie if you have never done it before. It may be hard to figure out the correct drive name.

How do use dd:
get a second disk the same size or larger.

What the unix name of the disk will be depends on how you attach the disk.

without the old drive attached to
diskutil list
df

attach the new drive before booting.
repeat the above so you can figure out the name.

Now, that you name the names, you can copy the old disk, /dev/disk0,  to the new disk, /dev/disk1.

sudo dd if=/dev/disk0 bs=4096m |  sudo dd of=/dev/disk1 bs=4096m

# this command should do a block by block copy
# this way you will get the whole disk.
# if= is input
# of= is output

mac $ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         999.3 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD           *999.0 GB   disk1
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2
                                 B5476F09-70EA-41C6-8655-72485151AD19
                                 Unencrypted
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *4.0 TB     disk2
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk2s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Backup - Mac Mini       999.3 GB   disk2s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             784.2 MB   disk2s3
   4:                  Apple_HFS Backup - Time Machine   2.0 TB     disk2s4
   5:                  Apple_HFS Boot - for Fun          49.5 GB    disk2s5
   6:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk2s6
   7:                  Apple_HFS 1T Backup               985.1 GB   disk2s7
mac $
mac $ df
Filesystem      Size   Used  Avail Capacity   iused    ifree %iused  Mounted on
/dev/disk1     930Gi  864Gi   66Gi    93% 226596185 17296037   93%   /
devfs          193Ki  193Ki    0Bi   100%       669        0  100%   /dev
map -hosts       0Bi    0Bi    0Bi   100%         0        0  100%   /net
map auto_home    0Bi    0Bi    0Bi   100%         0        0  100%   /home
/dev/disk2s2   931Gi  765Gi  166Gi    83% 200428475 43553456   82%   /Volumes/Backup - Mac Mini
/dev/disk2s4   1.8Ti  1.6Ti  147Gi    92% 441119165 38598628   92%   /Volumes/Backup - Time Machine
/dev/disk2s5    46Gi   29Gi   17Gi    63%   7590207  4490899   63%   /Volumes/Boot - for Fun
/dev/disk2s7   917Gi  771Gi  147Gi    84% 202019436 38487474   84%   /Volumes/1T Backup
mac $

http://www.stellarclonedrive.com/disk-utility-to-clone-mac-drive.php


usbmuxd takes all sockets : no other network connection possible Our build bot Mac mini has a big problem since a few weeks:
It seems that usbmuxd will open plenty of sockets and let them linger around.

At some point, there are more than 50000 sockets opened in netstat and lsof, and no other connection is possible on the computer.

In the console, I see a lot of messages like these:

30/10/2014 11:22:25,975 com.apple.usbmuxd[81562]: _SendAttachNotification Device xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx@fe80::xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx._apple-mobdev2._tcp.local. has already appeared on interface 4. Suppressing duplicate attach notification.

Everytime this message appears, 2 sockets are created and linger in "CLOSE_WAIT" state:

$ sudo lsof -i -n -P
usbmuxd   81562       _usbmuxd 1270u  IPv4 0x880c67ed43a38017      0t0  TCP 192.168.0.29:55159->192.168.0.247:62078 (CLOSE_WAIT)
usbmuxd   81562       _usbmuxd 1271u  IPv6 0x880c67ed3a50a4f7      0t0  TCP [fe80:4::xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx]:55184->[xxxx:xxxx::xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:4529]:62078 (CLOSE_WAIT)
[... 1000's of lines like this]

Note also that this appears to be the case only when my iPhone 4S is not connected through wire to the Mac.
As soon as I plug the device, the count of lingering sockets stops increasing.

Restarting the usbmuxd service seems to drop all open connections, so this is a temporary solution (but we have to do it every hour (!)).

Anybody have a hint on what is happening?

I had the same problem: As soon as iTunes was started, the count of sockets in CLOSE_WAIT grew until the machine was out of sockets.

This must have been a bug in usbmuxd and seems to be fixed in iTunes 12.1: zero dangling sockets for half an hour on my machine.


iPad is stuck in Guided Access My daughter accidentally turned on the Guided access, and the dilemma here is that we forgot the password, and we can't turn off the iPad to reboot, because it is stuck in app which she is using. How can I remove the Guided Access ?

That is a dilemma. If you know the password to access the iPad itself, hold the home and power button down until the iPad reboots.

When it starts, it should not boot back into Guided Access and you shouldn't have to remember the password.


Can I assign a gesture to Mission Control on an older MacBook? I have an older MacBook (2006) that I want to use the four finger swipe to enable mission control. It is not the glass trackpad, but it does have two finger scrolling. Is there any way to enable this?

You can assign a hot-corner in Mission Control. This replaces the previous Exposé hot-corner.


How to change bluetooth device type on Mac (e.g. force recognition of bluetooth device as a keyboard) In Bluetooth Preferences on my Mac, my wireless keyboard simply shows up as a bluetooth device and is not recognised as a keyboard.

Is there a way to force the Mac to recognise this device as a keyboard?

The reason I need to do this is so that the keyboard shows up as an option in the "Select Keyboard" drop down in System Preferences > Keyboard > Modifier keys.

Please see attached screenshot of device only being recognised as standard bluetooth device.

Go into System Preferences > Keyboard and then click on the Set Up Bluetooth keyboard button and see if you are able to properly configure your bluetooth keyboard that way.


Is there a way to force "low power" graphics? Is there a plist or hidden config to set my graphics/energy preference to "Always use low power/ integrated graphics"?

Seems like energy saver preferences only allow choosing between:

Smart auto graphics switching
Always use high-powered graphics

gfxCardStatus is an unobtrusive menu bar app for OS X that allows
  MacBook Pro users to see which apps are affecting their battery life
  by using the more power-hungry graphics.

https://gfx.io

By this way you can simply disable your graphic card by an icon in your menu bar.


Same dedicated Windows drive for Boot Camp and VirtualBox? I am going to be setting up a new (to me) Mac Pro 4,1 with multiple internal hard drives.  I want to run Yosemite most of the time with Windows 7 virtualized in a window for a few programs I need to run that require Windows.

Occasionally, though, I would like to boot directly into Windows at startup for maximum performance (for games).

Is it possible for VirtualBox and Boot Camp to share the same Windows installation?  In other words, can I dedicate one hard drive, or one partition, to Windows 7, and then either

choose to boot from that drive (or partition) at startup, or
boot into OS X, run VirtualBox, and have Windows inside the virtual machine boot from the same Boot Camp drive (or partition)?

My goal is not only to save disk space (by installing Windows and the software I need to run under it in just one place, rather than on one real drive and one virtual drive) but also to avoid having to buy multiple Windows licenses.

The answer is No. Sorry. I have done this already. Here is the problem. VirtualBox and your Apple use different hardware. If you try to switch between the hardware you are going to drive windows insane.

If you first install Windows using VirtualBox's virtual hardware and a physical disk partition, then switch to Apple's physical hardware with the same physical disk partition then you have to run Microsoft's "System Preparation Tool". This tool is meant to be run once, not repeatedly. See
the procedure at this link

The other problem would be now are you going to activate the software for both machines. Are you going to active while running under VirtualBox or BootCamp?

When you boot between the physical Apple hardware and the virtual VirtualBox hardware, the Windows operating system is going to detect the change. For example, the two machines do not share the same MBR. Each MBR will have a different signature. Windows stores this signature in its boot partition and compares the value with the MBR when booting.


Hostname in X11 window title How can I make the hostname show in the title of an X11 window?

In Linux environments, ssh -Y foohost; ...; bar-gui will open an xwindow for the program with the title "bar-gui (on foohost)". That is, the hostname is automatically appended to the X11 window title when it is running on a remote system. I am running programs on multiple remote systems and I need to tell them apart.

Example: Note the hostname in the title of the window on the right.

I would like to have the same behavior from a mac client.

(I am not looking to change the terminal title.)

Workaround: xdotool can be used to manually change the title of an x window.

ssh -Y foohost
...
bar-gui &
pid="$!"
# Wait for bar-gui to actually load
win=$(xdotool search --pid "$pid")
xdotool set_window --name "bar-gui (on foohost)" "$win"

This workaround is not ideal so I'm not making it an answer. It needs xdotool installed to work. This would not work great as a bash script or function. There are possibly better ways to use xdotool, but this was the first thing I got working.

Note: Doing ... --name "bar-gui (on foohost)" ... from a linux desktop would cause the title to appear as "bar-gui (on foohost) (on foohost)" because it still appends the hostname automatically.

I am still looking for the mac desktop to automatically include the hostname of remote x11 applications in the window title.

This depends on shell configuration and the exact terminal involved; most things support XTerm Control Sequences though terminals can be configured to deny the use of those escape sequences. What Linux systems often have is shell configuration (usually under /etc/profile.d) that automatically runs the escape sequence to set the title to the hostname. This can also be done manually:

printf "\033]2;this is a test\007"

which should set the title

if not, you'll need to configure the terminal to allow that escape sequence, which will be under the preferences or in a configuration file somewhere, depending.

This can be done automatically from a shell configuration file by generating the appropriate escape sequence with the hostname (or whatever other data you might want):

printf "\033]2;%s\007" $(hostname)


Memory leak in Message after a sleep I am acually running Mac OSX 10.8.2 on a 2.5GHz Intel Core i5 @ 4 Go (1600 MHz) DDR3.

I am using Apple Message apps for synchronizing my SMS with my computer. The problem is that everytime my computer come back from a sleep, I have a memory leak in Message and I need to quit the process in the Activity Monitor because It's freeze my computer.

As you see, on the screenshot, Message use 1.45 GB and will continue to grow up if I don't quit the process.

I haven't found anything about this memory leak, and I would like to know If someone know how to fix the problem. When I Quit Message, I can reopen it and it works without any problem.

I would file a ticket with Apple.  It needs to be addressed, and Apple is very good about following up.

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html


Install 10.8 on an external drive from 10.9 I have OS X v10.9.
I downloaded v10.8 installer from the AppStore in order to install it on an external drive.
However, when launching the installer it says that it can't be installed on this computer and give no option other than quit.

What's the easiest way to do install 10.8 on an external drive when I already have 10.9 installed?

I'm aware that there are some answers about downgrading from 10.9, but I wonder if there is any easier way than the hard process described in other places for downgrading.

Edit: THIS IS A MID-2011 MBP so it did not come with Macericks pre-installed.

I would bet you tried to install Mountain Lion on a Mac that shipped with Mavericks. Unfortunately (for driver reasons) it is not possible.

If you want to run an older OS X on your mac I would suggest try a VM like VirtualBox or VMWare.


How can I protect a preference file? I use Mobile Me to synchronize the settings of three different Macs, but I have some problems with specific preference file because one of the Macs runs Mac OS X Lion.

I would like to avoid that specific preference file is overwritten in the Mac running Mac OS X Lion. How can I do that?

You want to remove "write permission" from the file, so it cannot be written to. If you block MobileMe from writing to it, you will also be blocking the application from writing to it, which could cause problems.

Via the command line:

chmod u-w file.plist # u-w means "Remove Write from User"
chmod u+w file.plist # Undo: add user write permissions back again

From the Finder, do CMD+I (Get Info), and under "Sharing & Permissions" at the bottom, set it to read only.

If you need to write to the file (perhaps for the application to work properly), you can temporarily make it write-able, or approach this with a different solution. For example, you could use DropBox, link the file to DropBox from all your Snow Leopard computers, and just not link the file on the Lion computer.


Moving Notes.app notes from one computer to another without using iCloud I had a bad experience with iCloud overwriting files between 2 laptops in my account (moving to my new laptop soon), so I took my new laptop off of iCloud. Now I don't have all my notes. I'm afraid of reconnecting to iCloud while the other laptop is still connected for fear of having important files overwritten again. Can I just copy the folders that hold the Notes.app from one to another. My old one is running High Sierra and the new one is Mojave.
I tried copying the folders relating to notes in both Containers and Group Containers and it didn't seem to work. No notes still on my new laptop.

I do not want to export them one at a time and then have to reimport them so I was hoping to do it that way. I have a lot of notes. Or is there a "safe" way to reconnect to iCloud? I'd like to at least disable Desktop and Documents prior to reconnecting but would rather avoid that altogether.

Thanks for the suggestions. I was finally able to get my notes. After backing up my old laptop to a hard drive, I signed off of iCloud. I then signed in to iCloud on my new laptop and it gave me a screen where I could uncheck Documents and data. So I unchecked those.
After hitting Next it brought me into iCloud where I could individually add what I wanted iCloud to store. I only checked Notes. I then started Notes and didn't see all my notes at first, but then noticed there was an iCloud section listed in the sidebar of my  Notes app. Clicking on that showed all my notes from iCloud. However, these notes do not stay with the Notes app when you sign out of iCloud. They disappear even if you tell it to keep a copy of all files on your Mac. So I had to log in again and let it load all my iCloud notes. From there it was an easy task to copy from the iCloud section into new notes in my local h/d section since they were all in the same app. Once I copied them all over (one at a time) they stayed on my new laptop even after signing out of iCloud.


Can iTunes songs be transferred from one account to another account? My son, who's now an adult, has been using my iTunes account (I don't use iTunes) that I created for him many years ago and he's accrued a large legal iTunes library.

He will be leaving home in the near future.
The problem is how can I transfer everything he's purchased into his own iTunes account?

He plans on creating his own iTunes account before leaving.
Is it even possible to transfer these thousands of songs from my account to his?

Note : This is all Windows PC based.

No, unfortunately, you can not change 'ownership' of the files to another account. You would have the same issue with a married couple that bought all the music on one account, but then got divorced. This happened with my dad and his ex-wife's account, and we contacted Apple to make sure.

The most 'legal' route would be to possibly convert this current account into his new account. As in, change the contact, billing, and email address to use his info. This way, his account just moves with him. If you ever wanted to make an account, you could create a new one.

The closest thing you could possibly do otherwise is when he has his second account set up, turn on Home Sharing on both machines. He could then add this music to his new library, and your account could authorize it.

Another option would be to possibly use iTunes Match. He could copy all of the files he purchased into his library, and turn on iTunes Match. Then delete those files locally, and re-download from iTunes in the Cloud. This would remove DRM on some files, so he could play them, and have them in his library. (This is the path my dad chose).

The legality of either of the last two methods though is questionable, since that's not really the design of the service. Although, this may be more of the 'right' thing to do than illegally download them. I am not a lawyer, so what I say in regards to that is only in observation or feeling, not official.

In the end, with DRM'd files, and many Terms of Use of digital files, the purchaser is the only one who owns the 'rights' to the files. While he may have purchased them on an account you owned, you are actually the owner, etc. iTunes does not let you transfer this ownership, but they do provide services like the two above to help families.


Can I suppress update notices for apps that require a greater iOS version than my iPad supports? I am using an iPad 1 with various apps installed. When I get app update notifications, the app may be greyed out because it requires iOS 6, which the iPad 1 does not support. These update notices always remain on my iPad - is there some way to get rid of them?

No - iOS 6 and lower have no provision to hide updates for apps that are live on the store and a higher version than what you have installed.


Why should I observe a limit of sixteen partitions per disk with OS X? I read things such as:

Mac OS X may be unstable with more than sixteen partitions
up to sixteen partitions on a external drive.

Also I understand that in a sixteen-slice environment, the full installer for OS X Mountain Lion may be unable to add an Apple_Boot slice for Recovery OS.

If there's a limit

Why the number 16?

References

Red Hat Bugzilla Bug 460390 – Can't make apple boot partition catch 22 during install (netinstall CD): comment 8 (2008-11-15)

  … more than 16 partitions on the drive … Mac OS X did boot with the
  whole drive formatted (as several partitions), or with more than 16 partitions,
  but it did not recognize the entire drive, and may not have been stable. …

.Drives, partitions, formatting w/Mac's + PC's: Apple Support Communities (2012-12-05)

  … up to 16 partitions on a external drive …

A maximum of sixteen partitions per GPT disk may be for one or both of the following:

compatibility with other BSD variants
UNIX certification/conformance.

Key points

In theory, a GUID Partition Table (GPT) disk can have an unlimited number of partitions.

A Microsoft implementation of GPT allows a maximum of 128 partitions.

The OS X kernel, libraries, and utilities are drawn from a number of open source projects, including FreeBSD, GNU, NetBSD, and OpenBSD.

Some BSD variants have a maximum of sixteen partitions.

Sometimes misunderstood

Mac OS X: Mac OS Extended format (HFS Plus) volume and file limits

  Volume and file limits in Mac OS X

  Maximum number of volumes (all Mac OS X versions): no limit …

That is:

volumes per operating system
not partitions per disk.

Expect the operating system to handle:

thirty-two or more volumes spread across two or more disks
and so on.

Further reading

disklabel(8) OS X Manual Page (2004-09-03)

Frequently asked questions about the GUID Partitioning Table disk architecture (2009-08-04)

  …The Microsoft implementation of GUID Partition Table is limited to 128 partitions. …

OS X Glossary (2010-07-09)

  BSD
  Berkeley Software Distribution. Formerly known as the Berkeley version of UNIX,
  BSD is now simply called the BSD operating system. The BSD portion of Darwin is
  based on 4.4BSD Lite 2 and FreeBSD, a flavor of 4.4BSD.

Unix 03 Conformance Release Notes (2010-09-01)

  … FreeBSD, GNU, NetBSD, and OpenBSD … make an effort to
  follow industry standards …

www.bsd.org (2011-03-30)

How-To Dual Boot FreeBSD, Linux, and OpenBSD with GNU Grub (undated but Copyright © 2000 - 2012)

  … OpenBSD's disklabel allows up to 16 partitions. …

Register of Open Branded Products: five product standards for which Mac OS X Version 10.8 Mountain Lion is registered (2012-07-10)

BSD disklabel – Wikipedia (2013-01-27)

  … BSD disklabels traditionally contain 8 entries for describing partitions.
  These are, by convention, labeled alphabetically, 'a' through to 'h'. Some
  BSD variants have since increased this to 16 partitions, labeled 'a' through to 'p'. …


Can the alert sound in Mountain Lion's notification center be customized? Is there a way to change the default "Basso" alert sound in Mountain Lion's Notification Center?  What I'd really like is support for application-specific notification sounds, so I can tell without looking at the screen whether a notification is from, say Mail vs. iCal.  Is this possible, and if so, is it something the application controls or NC controls?  If not, at least the ability to change the sound from Basso to something else would be an improvement.

An even better Idea is to got to ~/Library/Sounds and create a sound file with the same name as Basso.aiff and it will supersede Basso without the need for deleting a system sound file.


Removing from dock when quitting Many programs are not removed from the dock when quitting them (using apple-Q) or when closing their visible windows. I know this behaviour is on purpose, but I don't like it. Is their a way to consistently enforce that programs are really closed (i.e., the process is terminated), and hence removed from the dock when quitting / closing the windows?

I found an answer here: https://superuser.com/questions/53935/getting-mac-os-x-applications-to-close-after-last-window-closed

Essentially, there's a program called RedQuits that automatically quits application when you close the last window.

BUT, it does no work for Yosemite. So still no dice.

The thing about applications not closing when hiting Cmd-Q was probably me misremembering things, because I couldn't find back any application doing that.


How should I demonstrate a functional iOS application to a client? I hope this is the right place to ask this question, since it isn't actually programming related.

I work at a company which is taking the first steps in iOS development, and we realised that there is a problem on how to demonstrate a fully functional developed application to a client.

The situation is quite simple:

Let us say some company (referred as "client") asks us to develop an application about whatever. The client can be geographically distant or even in another country. The client owns its set of iPhones/iPads and at end of development, it would like to run the app on their phones, so they can see it works and is fully functional.

So, the question is how to do it? How to make an app demonstration to this client on their iPhones?

We haven't done this before, but we realised that there is no other way to install an app from any source apart from the Store, or compiling it from a developer Xcode environment. I mean legally. We also understand that it takes quite a lot of time to deploy an application to the Apple Store, in order for Apple to check it out and other stuff.

Please, correct me if I said something wrong, but we are in the baby steps of this, and we would like to understand a bit more about all these issues.

So, are there any technical solutions to this problem? I mean, which do not involve sending phones by mail, and anything like that.

Yes, there is a way to install apps on stock OS iOS devices, other than from Apple's App store or when tethered directly to the developers Mac.

An enrolled iOS Developer can sign an app with an Ad Hoc Distribution certificate and a mobileprovision file which includes the UDID's of the client's devices.  You can email this app and provision file to a client.  Then the client can install this app (and the mobileprovision files required for it to operate) using the iTunes app on their Mac or PC.  Or the client can download direct to their device from a (OTA) web page using HTTPS plus a manifest plist.

This is very commonly done for beta testing of iOS apps.

Ad Hoc provisioning expires at least once per year, so these apps are only temporarily useable.  A Developer is limited to no more than 100 UDIDs max total per year, so can only do this for a very limited number of clients.


iTunes backup record auto merge I got my Mac OS10.8.2, last month (Jan 2013), I had backup one iPhone using iTunes "Backup Up Now". Yesterday I did another backup again. But my Jan 2013 backup has not found in the Restore record. Is it auto merge?

I go to ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/[ID] only got 1 record which is last modified by yesterday date.

How do I retrieve my January record?

The reason why I need my January record is my photo.
Jan - Backup my iPhone (with 1 years photo), due to full to photo cannot take more picture into the iPhone storage. After backup, I removed all the photo.
Jan - Feb: I take around 1000 new photos.
Feb - Yesterday my iPhone sleep button got problem, I need to claim warranty, then I backup again. Then I found only 1 record in my restore record.

However, I can see my iPad got few records with date listed beside it.

Anyone can explain to me what is going on to iTunes, am I able to restore back Jan backup record?

iTunes stores the most recent backup of your iPhone in ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/[ID]   iTunes does not keep any history of your iPhone backups.  It is a copy of the current state of your photos and other data on the iPhone.

To recover an earlier version of your iPhone backup relies on however you backup your Mac.

Time Machine backups include the MobileSync folders.  So you could retrieve an old iPhone backup from Time Machine, replacing the current backup in ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/[ID], and then restore your iPhone.  This would, of course, replace all your current photos (and other data) with that from the old backup.  Probably, not quite what you want.

I suggest using iBackupBot which is able to open any folder on your Mac containing iPhone backups.  So find an old iPhone backup in Time Machine, retrieve the whole folder to your Desktop (or somewhere convenient) and open it with iBackupBot.  Your photos will be in the Media/DCIM/100Apple/ folder.  You can then extract these to your Mac.

If you don't want to use additional software (like iBackupBot) then you can find your photos in the ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/[ID] folder of an old backup.  The files have cryptic names and no file type, but your photos are all there - just hard to find.  Sorting by size might help you get to the right files.

If you use some other backup method for your Mac, then use that to find and retrieve the old backup folder.

If you don't backup your Mac, or don't backup the MobileSync folder, then I am sorry to say you have lost them.

In future, I suggest you transfer all photos from the iPhone to your Mac using, for example, iCloud and Photo Stream.

Additional: No backup of Mac hard disk.  Not all is lost - perhaps.  In January your pictures were on your hard disk.  Though they have since been deleted (by a more recent iTunes backup) at least some of the data which was you photo files is probably still there in the free space.  This now getting well beyond the original question.  Now we are talking about:

How to recover files which have been deleted from the hard disk.  There are utilities which can help - for example Disk Drill.  But, I think that should be new topic and that may get answers from those with recent experience of file recovery.


Can Disk Utility format an SD card with FAT32? In the pulldown for "Format", there are only the following options (other than various Mac OS Extended variations): MS-DOS (FAT) and ExFAT.

Selecting "MS-DOS (FAT)" will automatically format as FAT16 or FAT32 depending on the target's size.


What is the correct way to prevent MacBook Pro (mid-2010) from sleeping on lid close? I have MacBook Pro 13" mid-2010 (MacBookPro7,1), and sometimes I need it to work with the lid closed (long compilations, etc. while I'm on the go). I have tried InsomniaX, but it has no effect. I enable it via the menu bar icon and it displays "enabled", but, if I close the lid, my notebook will go to sleep in a dozen seconds or so. Any way I can prevent this? I know about the heat issue; it doesn't bother me.

In order to work with Lion, InsomaniaX has been updated to version 2.0.


TextMate: open file windows is weird In TextMate, I have recently my open file that is become weird:

No way to come back to a normal window.

Does anyone know how to do?

Try deleting the ~/Library/Preferences/com.macromates.TextMate.preview.plist file while TextMate is closed and then reopen it.

Note: You might want to backup the file first before deleting it.


Can I build an iOS app which has access to Apple Mail? I would like to build a tool which analyses someone's emails.

Is it possible on iOS or OS X to build something which gets access to emails?

Yes it is possible to get access to a user's e-mails. This assumes the e-mails are stored on a server and the user gives you access. This will be the case for those using IMAP based e-mail accounts and for those using GMail.

You will not easily be able to access e-mails uniquely stored within  Mail.app's stores. See How can I access emails in Apple Mail programmatically?


Is it good to keep my MacBook Pro on charge? I recently got the new MacBook Pro 2018 and would like to look after the battery better as I need it for university and would keep it for at least 3 years.

I understand that they are lithium-ion batteries and have a recommended max cycle counts of 1,000. A cycle count is counted as charging it x%, discharging x% and charging x% (if I remember).

If I were to keep the MacBook Pro on permanent charge, I will not have any extra cycle counts. However, would this cause any damage to the computer or not? I also think I read somewhere (a few years ago) about batteries breaking in (just like an engine). If this does happen, how long would this take?

If it helps, I have the 15".

These days, keeping your laptop plugged in as much as you like isn't going to make a significant difference to the battery life. The Li-ion batteries in modern MacBooks don't need calibrating, they don't suffer from the "memory" problems that NiCd batteries did, and when they hit full charge, they just allow the battery to drain by a couple of percent before trickle charging back up to 100% again.

Apple's most recent battery health tips can be found here: https://www.apple.com/batteries/maximizing-performance/


MacBook Pro case that ventilates and protects against dust I like to use my MacBook remotely and therefore I need to leave it standby. I normally put away my MacBook in a slipcase. I guess this isn't a good idea when I use the MacBook (remotely) because of the heat and necessary ventilation.

Are there any solutions for using a MacBook remotely and still be able to protect it against dust? Some sort of a case that has ventilation?

Here is a possible solution for you.

Normally you would not need additional (forced) ventilation since MacBook does that as long it gets fresh air access.

  Product Highlights

Protects from Dust & Scratches
Access to Ports & Sensors
Two-Piece Snap-On Design
Ventilated Opening Minimizes Heat
Scratch-Resistant Hard-Shell


MacBook Pro GPU Diode over 100 degrees Celsius hot? I was playing Trine 2 yesterday and checked the inside temperatures with iStat Pro after playing. It showed the GPU Diode at being 107°C hot. Is that bad for the GPU Diode or other components inside the MacBook Pro?

I was using it at normal room temperature and the MacBook Pro was sitting on a wooden desk.

Right now the GPU Diode is at 6°C and the GPU itself is at 25°C, and all I'm doing is browsing with Safari.

I have the late 2011 17" MacBook Pro.

Yes, that is bad.

Apple's fan controls favor quiet over safety and tend to key off the CPU temperature, ignoring the fact that the GPU can go far out of spec even while the CPU remains relatively cool.  3D games in particular can burn out the GPU because of the native control's bias toward CPU temperature.

If you are going to play video games on an iMac or MacBook, I strongly recommend obtaining fan control software and setting a steep profile so that the fans spin aggressively with CPU temperature, thereby keeping the GPU from going out of spec.  If you are playing games in Boot Camp, having a separate fan controller is absolutely essential.

It sounds like you may already have some damage to the GPU or motherboard.  If you are still under warranty or AppleCare, try to find an artifact that you can reproduce at the Genius bar and get the GPU/motherboard replaced.  Remember that the system will be cold when you get there, so it may take a while to reproduce heat problems.  The Geniuses like to use the iTunes visualizer as a test case, but if you have an offline game that produces  problems that will work as well.

In any case, increasing the fan speed to keep the GPU temperature down while playing 3D games will greatly extend the life of your system.


Time machine external disk ejects before backup is complete I'm creating the first full backup on a new 3TB drive.  Time reports just over 1TB will be needed.  Drive returns a disconnect message and time machine stops after every 100-300mb.

My Mac runs High Sierra OS - 10.13.5

This sounds like the connection to the drive is not stable.
Try using another cable and changing ports on your Mac and on your external Drive if it has multiple ports.

If the problem persists the device is probably faulty and needs to be replaced/repaired.


My Toshiba hard drive doesn't work on Windows machines At first I was struggling to get my Toshiba Hard drive to appear (so I could use it) on my MacBook Pro (as I wanted to put all my photos, iMovie videos etc on there) so I eventually found a way by going to my settings and clicking time Machine and so on. Now that everything from my MacBook Pro is on the Toshiba hard drive, I plugged it into a Windows laptop (so I could put my photos etc on there) and it doesn't even pop up so I am unable to access my photos etc on there and put them on the Windows laptop, but when I plug it back into my MacBook Pro it shows the hard drive with all my pictures etc on there!

If you're using Time Machine on the disk, the disk is Mac OS Extended formatted which can't be read by Windows without additional software.

You can use the Boot Camp drivers which integrates HFS read/write into Explorer.

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL830

Alternatively, you can use HFSExplorer:

  HFSExplorer is an application that can read Mac-formatted hard disks and disk images.
  It can read the file systems HFS (Mac OS Standard), HFS+ (Mac OS Extended) and HFSX (Mac OS Extended with case sensitive file names).


How can I tag movies for use in iTunes/AppleTV? I'm rolling over my AVI's to MP4 for my new AppleTV.
Is there a good program out there for tagging the movies with their appropriate details?

Also, I noticed iTunes will get "Album Artwork" for some movies and not others.
I don't know if that's related though.
I am doing this conversion on a Windows 7 box.

You can do that in iTunes, select each file and click Get Info on the context menu. You can even tag several files at once if they share common info, such as the episodes of a series.

Also, you can add covers in the same manner. Just paste from IMDB or (as I do) from the iTunes browser previews


How do I rotate an iPhone photo on my iPhone without losing EXIF data? I have iOS 4.3.3.

Are there any apps or methods that allow simple rotating of an iPhone photo (taken where the level sensor picked the wrong orientation), without losing the EXIF information?

Using ExifWizard app, it seems Adobe PS Express and PerfectPhoto both lose the original exif data upon rotate and save.

I know iOS 5 has a built in rotate feature but I'm not running iOS 5 here.

Photogene2 is a handy iOS photo editor and has an EXIF viewer in app. Currently $0.99


Menus overlap/hide Menu Extras. How to access? If I have a bunch of menu extras (the things on the top right side of the menu bar, such as time, date, battery status, and other OS X icons, plus 3rd party icons from QuickSilver, DropBox, etc.), sometimes they are hidden if the foreground application has a lot of or long-named menu items.

Is there a way that I can access the menu extras that are not displayed because the menu items get priority? I can switch to an app that has fewer menu items, but sometimes the menu extras operate on the foreground app, so this won't always work.

I've searched far and wide for a way to do the same thing. The best I can come up with is an app called AccessMenuBarApps.


More than 2500 systemwide processes on OSX 10.9 Attempts to raise the maximum number of systemwide processes above 2500 fail.

$ sudo sysctl -w kern.maxproc=2500
kern.maxproc: 2500 -> 2500
$ sudo sysctl -w kern.maxproc=2501
kern.maxproc: 2500
sysctl: kern.maxproc: Invalid argument

In an archived Apple article, it's mentioned that as of OSX Server 10.6, maxproc was 2500 for each 8 GB of installed RAM.

I'm running OSX 10.9 (non-Server), with 16 GB of RAM, on a 2012 MacBook Pro.

By comparison, the ubuntu linux VM running under OSX supports over 30 000 processes without any special configuration.

Is it possible to raise this limit above 2500?  I've already run up against the default limit of 1000 without a great deal of effort.

Unfortunately it seems like maxproc is limited to 2500 with OS X unless you install OS X Server. With Server installed you can run the serverinfo tool to set high performance mode.

Just tried this myself and it seems to work.

$ sudo serverinfo --setperfmode YES
Server performance mode was enabled.

Rebooted.

$ sudo sysctl kern.maxproc
kern.maxproc: 5000

I didn't even need to change maxproc, after rebooting it was already set to 5000.


Is there somewhere I can write my name on iPod touch, for if I lost it? Where in my iPod Touch I can write my name and phone number, so if I lost it or it been stolen and found by the police (as I read that happened), someone could call me to go get it back?

No, but you can create an image that has your name and contact info on it, then use that as your lock screen wallpaper.

You could also create a note on the device or an "emergency/lost" contact in the address book, but both of those require you to not use a passcode to use the device. A wallpaper with contact info works even if the person who finds your iPod can't unlock it.


Hidden files & folders after executing Killall Finder command As the picture depics some of my folders turned grey after I executed Killall Finder command. For your information, I run a macOS 10.14.6.
Do anyone know what this means, and how to get it back to normal again?

Thank your for your time

Yoenca

They're hidden files & folders.

Since Sierra you can toggle visibility simply using  Cmd ⌘   Shift ⇧   .  [period]

Prior to Sierra you would need to toggle visibility in Terminal or by script & then kill the Finder to make the changes register.

See How to show hidden files on mac without Terminal for the scripted method.


Prevent Terminal from overwriting preferences on exit When a user loads my C++ program, I want Terminal to look a certain way. I solved this by wrapping my program in an AppleScript .app which overwrites ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Terminal.plist (making a backup first) before opening the program. With a subsequent killall cfprefsd, this works (if Terminal wasn't open to begin with!), but I don't want to mess up the user's own Terminal preferences. So, after calling my program I overwrite  ...Terminal.plist again with the backup of the original settings.

The problem is that when my program is done and Terminal closes, its preferences are automatically overwritten with that of the current window, meaning the user is stuck with the look I set for my program. I tried to counter this by having the AppleScript wait until Terminal was closed and then overwriting the plist with the backup once more, which works, but if my app were to be closed before Terminal then this fails of course. And the whole process seems pretty hacky to begin with.

Can I prevent Terminal from overwriting its preferences when it closes? Or even better, can I have my code run in a terminal that looks the way I want without messing with the user's settings? Preferably I wouldn't use Terminal at all to run my code (so it also doesn't fail when Terminal was already open), but I think the only alternative is writing my own...

I'd look into what can be done with applescript using the scripting dictionary.

script editor > file > open scripting dictionary

I do not know the details of what you are doing but here are some coloring options.


Login problem on my Mac I can’t log in to my Mac because my wireless keyboard isn’t responding. Mouse is working ok. Green light is flashing on keyboard. Tried changing batteries.

Plug in any USB keyboard to make sure the OS is working and then triage and troubleshoot the wireless keyboard.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204621


Mac Pro 4.1 (flashed) High Sierra Firmware Update I just created a USB Installer for High Sierra and tried to install my Mac Pro 4.1 (flashed to 5.1).

But the installer wants to do a Firmware Update too and says I have to shutdown and press the power button until the EFI beeps.
But this Shutdown button in the installer is greyed out so I can't proceed.

Any help?

I found this on MacRumors...

Yeah you get a firmware update! :eek: first time the 5,1 has gotten a
firmware update in ages! I did not get it when updating from DP1 to
DP5 but if you make a DP5 installer, it says you must update your boot
rom before you can install and it tells you how, the shut down button
did not work for me but going to the apple menu and hitting shut down
worked for me :) then i followed the normal hold power button until
flashing power light and bam it did the firmware update! and im using
a flashed 4,1 to 5,1 Mac Pro! so yeah looks like flashed 4,1s are so
identicial they happily take the High sierra boot rom update! :D

So it looks like you'll be OK if you:

Click the shut down button which lets the installer write the firmware to disk.
Go to the installer menu and click "Shut down".
After the machine shuts down, hold down the power button for 15+ seconds until you hear a beep. The power light will flash quickly a few times before it beeps
Release the power button and allow the firmware update to proceed. DO NOT shut down the machine during the firmware update.

Reading further down that thread -

Just a heads up to update the firmware on a Mac Pro 4,1 or 5,1 you
have to install an EFI video card (this is true also if your flashing
a 4,1 to a 5,1) if you dont have a EFI video card then it won't update

Note: I gave up after about 6 pages of that thread, but the general consensus seems to be the above instructions do work.
Let us know how it goes - I have a similar machine...
Update April 2018
I just attempted this myself [eventually]. I first stripped all except the boot drive [Samsung SSD in the optical bay] & keyboard/mouse. Successfully got the Restart button to work, no probs, but the firmware update didn't succeed after holding the button until the light flashed.
After a bit of Googling, I found a note that said to hold the button not only until the light flashes, but keep holding until you hear the beep tone. After doing that, it worked & all went smoothly after that. The OS update is actually a separate process, which I hadn't realised until that point.


Can my iPhone tell me where I have recently been walking? I sometimes get very fuzzy short-term memory after a neurological event. When it happens, I'm told I often leave and take a walk. I want to use my iPhone to figure-out where I end-up walking when this happens.

I know this happened today. The recent calls log reveals when I placed  calls and who I called while this was happening. But, I sure want to know the route I walked outside. At least, could I see where the calls were placed?

I was running once with a run tracking app when I had this memory issue, and that gps tracker of course showed where I walked. But, since this app chews-up battery life tremendously, I can't leave it always on in the background. Maybe can anyone recommend a very low battery consuming app that I can always have running that records my gps coordinates?

Option 1 - Google Maps Location History

One of the easiest solutions for background location tracking that takes very low amount of energy. Download Google Maps and Enable "Location History".

How to Enable Google Maps Location History

Open Google Maps
Tap Menu and then Settings
Click Personal content and then scroll down to "Location settings"
Click to Turn "Location Services is on."
Set Location Services is set to Always with iOS Settings.

You can later view your visited locations at google.com/maps/timeline or on Google Maps "Timeline" tab.

Option 2 - Apple Frequent Location History

iOS has a feature called frequent locations built it's system. Apple provides you with lesser location history and detail. To access the information:

Go to the "Settings" > Privacy > Location Services > System Services > Frequent Locations.

You will find some of the frequent locations you have visited if it's already been turned ON.

Option 3

As mentioned by Owlsnipes in the comment, Moves(acquired by Facebook) is an activity tracker which runs in the background which can record all the movements and classify it as running,walking and driving. It's a pretty neat app and I've used it myself in the past.


How to restore a 10.1 backup to an iPhone with 10.0.2 without updating to the newest iOS available on itunes (currently 10.2)? Specifically, my backup is for 10.1 but the existing iOS on the phone is 10.0.2. When I plug into iTunes, it does not even show my backup from the "Restore Backup" option.

While I would prefer to have the full backup, the firmware is the most important to me. Does anyone know if there is a way to do this?

Backup and restore doesn't change firmware, only user data. That is how iTunes is designed.

Same with the regression, backups do not go backwards. Only forwards. You can restore a backup from an older version to a newer version of iOS.

Best case, you export the data to a computer or online service and find a way to jailbreak or buy a device with the older OS. Then you could import the data as opposed to the backup.

Also see:

Can I install any iOS version I wish by picking and choosing which firmware to restore?


What Linux variants can be installed on an 1st generation Apple TV? I want to install some version of Linux on my 1st gen Apple TV.

What Linux variants can be installed on an Apple TV?

Bonus points: is this even a good idea?  How useful is the Apple TV as a computer?  Do you have a link to detailed tech specs?

The first generation Apple TV had a pretty low powered Intel CPU, as you can see in the specs here. So in theory, you should be able to run just about any Linux distro, just a question of how much hacking you're willing to do.

There are a bunch of resources for doing this, but a good one is at the atv-bootloader project. There are tools to create a nice USB stick that should do most of the work for you.

As for how useful it is, don't expect much for general purpose computing - after all it's a 1 GHz Pentium-M with 256 MB of RAM. But it may do reasonably well for some home theatre tasks, or if you need a home automation server or similar box.


Xcode 6 and MacBookPro 2014 128 Gig with Yosemite - OVERHEATING and Long Load Time I have a BRAND new Macbook Pro running Yosemite and xCode 6.1. EVERY TIME I try to open xCode it completely overheats my computer and takes 15 minutes to open xCode. I have no idea what is happening. I was going to remove and reinstall xCode but it is now done through the Mac App Store. Any help or advice would be much appreciated!

If you have a Developer account you can download the DMG directly form here


How do I send mass text on an iPhone? I have an iPhone 4s and want to send a mass text. How do I send a mass text to 30 people without sending to everyone else in my Contacts?

You can send messages to a Contact Group - start to type the Group's name, then select when you see it in the list...


Why are sent emails not deleted when I delete a conversaion in Apple Mail? According to the docs, when a conversion is deleted, "all of the messages in a conversation will be deleted".
Somehow, when I delete a conversation, sent emails are not deleted which creates orphans in the "Sent" folder.
What am I missing?

These are two totally different entities.
The confusion comes in from a misunderstanding of how messaging works.  It' helps to understand the concepts:

Your Inbox are what you received via your incoming server
"Conversations" is a collation of related messages you've received by your email client.  There's no conversation the server is aware of.
Sent Messages are messages that were transmitted via your outgoing server

What's important to know is that as far as your server is concerned, there's no such thing as a "conversation."  There are just messages in folder (Inbox, Outbox, Sent, Junk, etc.).
"Deleting the conversation" is nothing more than a feature that was implemented to help organize your Inbox.


Transferring the registration of an iPhone I currently own an iPhone 4s and would like to gift it to a friend. It is currently registered to me but i want to register it to his name so that I don't have to involve myself in warranty issues or repair issues. How is it possible to transfer the registration to another person?

You can do so but visiting this link here:
My Support Profile
After you login with your registered Apple ID, you can see all your registered devices. Click on the device and "unregister".
Once that is complete, your friend can do the same to register it under his/her Apple ID.


Connectivity from iMac to TV via HDMI cable I connected my iMac to my TV via HDMI cable. The desktop background shows up on the TV, but no other content. Oddly, a couple of the items in system preferences show up, but nothing else. How can I see what's on my computer on my TV screen?

On your iMac, click System Preferences > Displays > Arrangement, and check the box that says "Mirror Displays".

This will essentially mirror your computer's screen to your TV connected through HDMI.


Using select.kqueue() to tell when file is modified in python? How can I use select.kqueue() to find out when a file in a folder has been modified?

Found this: https://github.com/gorakhargosh/watchdog that seems to be working like a charm!


iPad App that loads website This is a general question about iPad apps.

We have a conference coming up where we want to use some iPads and have an app that only displays our website.

So pretty much safari – though minus a browser/url bar and minus pinching / zoom so it functions like an app, without letting users navigate away to any other domains.

From what I understand there is no point trying to develop a site specific app that just displays a website because understandably, the apple store doesn't want that kind of stuff in it's store.

I just need something that acts like a shell.

Thoughts?

Sure, theres a thing called Guided Access, you can "crop" the area where they may not touch, anything in that zone wont work if tapped, and if you tap the home button they will be asked to enter a passcode.

To enable this:

Settings -> General -> Accessibility -> Guided Access

Enable Guided Access
Set a passcode at Passcode Settings
Enable Accessibility Shortcut

Now go into Safari, press home button 3 times, start Guided Access, then draw a block on the address bar and the toolbar at the bottom. Tap Start to begin or Options in lower left corner for more options.

To exit, press home button 3 times and enter passcode.

Hope this helps! :)


How to change Macbook Pro (late 2013) screen and top cover I had an crash accident with my MBPro (late 2013). MB fall down and crashed to its top left  corner. There is a damage to unibody (its not so big problem for me, I can live with it) but there is bigger problem because probably damage of Retina display - when I look at a screen with dark background I can see very tinny and randomly distributed shiny white pixels. It is not much visible but I think it might be some bigger problem with display.

I would like to change the whole top cover. Is it possible to buy this component? Where? Does anybody have some experience with this replacement?

I have exactly the same problem with my MacBook (as I bought it in such a condition). I bought the screen from eBay. Its quite easy to fix if you follow the instructions on iFixit. You should consider buying only display, not the whole top assembly, as the prices really different. If your top cover is OK, you don't need to buy it, its possible just to change LCD matrix.


"Xcode helper" would like to control this computer. Is this request legit? I haven't seen this request in earlier version of xcode. Why does XCode Helper require this permission?

If you are using UI testing on macOS, then yes, this is legit:

  macOS needs permissions granted to a special Xcode Helper app. You are prompted for this automatically on your first use of UI tests.

(see Apple Developer Docs).

This is needed because UI testing uses the accessibility features of macOS to drive your UI during the test runs.


Which Exchange Email apps for iPhone 5 allow advanced font and layout controls? What I need in my Microsoft Exchange 2010 mail client:

send e-mails in the text font I want
send e-mails with my HTML signature
reply to e-mails without unformatting the e-mail being replied to
having the sent e-mail look just as it was sent by Microsoft Outlook itself
no artifacts like having the replied e-mail sent as an HTML attachment

Coming from an Android, I had this with Touchdown.

What do you recommend for iPhone 5? What's the best, well integrated with the device, Exchange 2010 mail client?

Try Mail+ for Outlook. It is similar to the native iOS experience. Though it currently doesn't offer all of the features you mentioned, I know there is a new update coming by the end of February which will have rich text editing and better reply experiences. Apple severely limits the ability to use push notifications, so don't expect too many iOS mail clients to provide.


Can changing iPad motherboard to older version bypass iCloud lock? I was curious to know if its possible to change the motherboard of an iPad to reset its software version? The iPad is locked to my friends late grandpa, and hence locked to his name.

I was using it without any problems until one fine day when the iOS upgraded from 6.0 to 7.0 and after that it was asking the iCloud password of the device, which unfortunately none of us knows. Then I kept the iPad as a decoration, until today, when it struck me, that probably changing the motherboard might help to reset the software version to an earlier iOS version.

Or are there any other possible technical solution to bring back the iPad to life, instead of running around solicitors and lawyers?

This is a genuinely bought family iPad / not stolen etc duly passed on to a family member.

For most intents and purposes, the motherboard is the iPad. The rest of it is just parts which surround the motherboard -- case, battery, screen, etc.

All of the device's storage is on the motherboard -- placing a new motherboard into the shell of another iPad will not give you access to data which was stored on the old iPad, because the storage was all on the motherboard you removed.

If your goal is simply to have a working device, you can continue, of course. But if you want to get access to the data you had on the old iPad, you'll want to look into other solutions.


Printing directly from Finder with Print Dialog? Looking for a way to start printing a PDF directly from the macos Finder with a keyboard shortcut (e.g. Cmd + P), but instead of sending it directly to the printer, opening the Print Dialog.
Can I change these settings in macOS 10.12 somewhere?
Thank you for any help!

Printing "directly from finder" does not happen.
Print Dialogs are always app-specific:
Even if you seemingly don't notice it, MacOS opens at least "Preview", prints the document/graphic and closes the app afterwards.

Your best bet would be an app like Karabiner Elements (free) that's able to sequentially open a file and execute the print command (typically with a print dialogue), using just one user-defined shortcut.

Since a sequence of keys pressed is a "Complex Modification" you'd have to edit KE's ~/.config/karabiner/karabiner.json and add this kind of code (after: "rules": [ ):

{ "description": "Finder: open file in app, open print dialog",
  "manipulators": [
      { "conditions": [ { "bundle_identifiers": ["^com.apple.finder"],
                          "type": "frontmost_application_if"
                      } ],
              "from": { "key_code": "p",
                        "modifiers": { "mandatory": ["right_command"] }
                      },
        "parameters": { "basic.to_if_held_down_threshold_milliseconds": 5 },
   "to_if_held_down": [ { "key_code": "o",
                          "modifiers": ["right_command"]
                      } ],
   "to_after_key_up": [ { "key_code": "p",
                          "modifiers": ["right_command"]}
                      ],
      "type": "basic"
      }
                  ]
}

As opening an app takes some time the different commands (open / print) are "separated" through "held_down" and "key_up" definitions.

Be aware that a "comma" (,) may be necessary either in front of the first or behind the last bracket, IF there are other rules in the json-file.

(If you prefer the left command key on your keyboard the "from"-part would say: ["left_command"].)


Are all four SO-DIMM slots user-accessible in the 27 inch iMac (Late 2012)? I'm going to buy a new 27" iMac, but I think that the RAM on the Apple Store is really too expensive.

My plan is to buy with minimum (2x4GB) RAM and replace everything with 4x8GB.

Are all 4 slots designed to be user accessible, removable and replaceable?

The Tech Specs page on the Apple site states:

8GB (two 4GB) of 1600MHz DDR3 memory; four user-accessible SO-DIMM
slots
Configurable to 16GB or 32GB.

so yes, all four slots are user accessible.


Port Forwarding on macOS Sierra I've switched to macOS Sierra and am not able to get port forwarding working for localhost (http and https) using the loopback interface lo0. I'm using pf and following the existing instructions for El Capitan but without success:

https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/230331/81267, http://blog.brianjohn.com/forwarding-ports-in-os-x-el-capitan.html

Basically, I setup ifconfig:

sudo ifconfig lo0 10.0.0.1 alias

Then I create a pf anchors file: /etc/pf.anchors/myorganization

rdr pass on lo0 inet proto tcp from any to 10.0.0.1 port = 80 -> 127.0.0.1 port 3000
rdr pass on lo0 inet proto tcp from any to 10.0.0.1 port = 443 -> 127.0.0.1 port 7000

Add a reference to it in pf.conf (had to disable and then re-enable SIP to do this):

rdr-anchor "myorganization"
...
load anchor "myorganization" from "/etc/pf.anchors/myorganization"

I test the anchors:

sudo pfctl -vnf /etc/pf.anchors/myorganization

and the result looks good:

...
TRANSLATION RULES:
nat-anchor "com.apple/*" all
rdr-anchor "com.apple/*" all
rdr-anchor "myorganization" all
...

I've enabled them:

sudo pfctl -evf /etc/pf.conf

I've added localhost to my /etc/hosts

127.0.0.1   localhost

But when I browse to http://localhost I get ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED. If I browse to http://localhost:3000 the site is working fine.

Update
I turned on pf logging and tried without the 10.0.0.1 alias:

rdr pass log (all) on lo0 inet proto tcp from any to any port 80 -> 127.0.0.1 port 3000
rdr pass log (all) on lo0 inet proto tcp from any to any port 443 -> 127.0.0.1 port 7000

And the first time I hit http://localhost, I see the log:

00:00:00.000000 rule 4294967295/8(ip-option): pass in on en0: (tos 0x0, ttl 1, id 59674, offset 0, flags [none], proto IGMP (2), length 32, options (RA))
    192.168.0.106 > 224.0.1.60: igmp v2 report 224.0.1.60
00:00:00.204784 rule 4294967295/8(ip-option): pass in on en0: (tos 0xc0, ttl 1, id 0, offset 0, flags [DF], proto IGMP (2), length 32, options (RA))
    192.168.0.3 > 224.0.0.252: igmp v2 report 224.0.0.252
00:00:00.093232 rule 4294967295/8(ip-option): pass out on en0: (tos 0x0, ttl 1, id 11047, offset 0, flags [none], proto IGMP (2), length 32, options (RA))
    192.168.0.77 > 224.0.0.251: igmp v2 report 224.0.0.251
00:00:00.111608 rule 4294967295/8(ip-option): pass in on en0: (tos 0x0, ttl 1, id 60629, offset 0, flags [none], proto IGMP (2), length 32, options (RA))
    192.168.0.106 > 239.255.255.250: igmp v2 report 239.255.255.250
00:00:00.102426 rule 4294967295/8(ip-option): pass in on en0: (tos 0xc0, ttl 1, id 0, offset 0, flags [DF], proto IGMP (2), length 32, options (RA))
    192.168.0.3 > 224.0.0.251: igmp v2 report 224.0.0.251
00:00:00.000120 rule 4294967295/8(ip-option): pass in on en0: (tos 0xc0, ttl 1, id 0, offset 0, flags [DF], proto IGMP (2), length 48, options (RA))
    192.168.0.3 > 224.0.0.22: igmp v3 report, 2 group record(s) [gaddr 224.0.0.251 is_ex, 0 source(s)] [gaddr 224.0.0.252 is_ex, 0 source(s)]

Subsequent hits to localhost add nothing to the logs and I see that the loopback interface lo0 doesn't show in that log, just en0 (Ethernet), so I'm not convinced this log output is relevant to the problem. I also tried adding en0 and en1 to the /etc/pf.anchors/myorganization file but same results.

My answer to the question: What is the modern way to do port-forwarding on El Capitan? (forward port 80 to 8080) is still valid.

You have several frictions/misconfigurations in your setup though:

There is no need to establish an additional network address (i.e. 10.0.0.1) for lo0 if you don't have a second http/https host.
A redirection:

rdr pass on lo0 inet proto tcp from any to 10.0.0.1 port = 80 -> 127.0.0.1 port 3000

will only redirect a request for 10.0.0.1:80 to 127.0.0.1:3000.

A request for localhost:80 (which translates to 127.0.0.1:80 and not to 10.0.0.1:80) won't be redirected because there is no appropriate rdr ... line and you will get a connection error.
Even adding the line 10.0.0.1    localhost to /etc/hosts will not salvage your problem because localhost seems to be hard coded to 127.0.0.1.

To get your redirection working unload pf.conf with sudo pfctl -d. Then check your anchor and pf.conf:

rdr pass log (all) on lo0 inet proto tcp from any to any port 80 -> 127.0.0.1 port 3000
rdr pass log (all) on lo0 inet proto tcp from any to any port 443 -> 127.0.0.1 port 7000

and

...
scrub-anchor "com.apple/*"
nat-anchor "com.apple/*"
rdr-anchor "com.apple/*"
rdr-anchor "myorganization"
dummynet-anchor "com.apple/*"
anchor "com.apple/*"
load anchor "com.apple" from "/etc/pf.anchors/com.apple"
load anchor "myorganization" from "/etc/pf.anchors/myorganization"

Then parse/check myorganization  with sudo pfctl -vnf /etc/pf.anchors/myorganization and load pf.conf with sudo pfctl -evf /etc/pf.conf.

In some rare cases you may have to add an additional line:

::1     127.0.0.1

to your /etc/hosts file. This doesn't seem logical though and may apply to older Sierra versions only. I haven't been able to confirm this.


How do I associate a launchd 2 plist with its domain and service targets? What exactly are these "domain" and "service targets" and how do I associate them with plists for use by launchd?

OS X 10.10 introduces a new launchctl API for managing LaunchDaemons and launching plists. Log messages and man pages suggest that keys like KeepAlive and RunAtLoad should no longer be used and that subcommands enable; bootstrap; and kickstart should be used in preference to load -w and unload -w

However it is not clear from the man pages how to associate a plist with the "domain" and "service target" it talks about and without which these commands cannot be used with existing plists that seemingly were quite sufficient for OS X 10.9

For example [updated]:
A basic plist we are trying to "launch"; seemingly bootstrapped into "system" domain but subsequently not recognised in "system"

# pwd
/Library/LaunchDaemons
# cat com.iainhouston.django.plist
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC -//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN
http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd >
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
     <key>Label</key>
     <string>com.iainhouston.django</string>
     <key>ProgramArguments</key>
     <array>
          <string>/usr/local/virtualenvs/django.iainhouston.com/bin/gunicorn</string>
          <string>--bind=127.0.0.1:49202</string>
          <string>--workers=2</string>
          <string>superlists.wsgi:application</string>
     </array>
     <key>Disabled</key><false/>
</dict>
</plist>
# launchctl bootstrap system com.iainhouston.django.plist
/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.iainhouston.django.plist: Service is disabled
# launchctl enable system/com.iainhouston.django.plist
# launchctl kickstart system/com.iainhouston.django.plist
Could not find service "com.iainhouston.django.plist" in domain for system

Motivation

The system log records that launchctl -w load ... complains when we use KeepAlive with RunAtLoad that This service is defined to be constantly running and is inherently inefficient. so we are motivated to use the new interface.
Not only that, we have significant problems with excessive processor usage that we want to control by providing the appropriate on-demand keywords so, again, we are motivated to understand how to interact with the new launchd .... not easy with the docs as they stand!

If you can, file a bug with Apple regarding incomplete or unclear documentation.

launchd appears to have been rewritten for OS X 10.10 and is likely still in flux for a few minor versions yet.

Domains and service targets appear to be an abstraction of the various folders available for launchd job tickets. They also allow a means for launchctl commands to target specific sessions; a feature that should allow a launchctl command to affect other user sessions.

However, as of OS X 10.10.1, the launchd.plist man page makes no mention of deprecated KeepAlive or RunAtLoad keys.

Apple suggest avoiding KeepAlive and RunAtLoad because the intention is to avoid ever launching a process without a guarantee of work to be done. Both keys remain and are required for many tasks.

The best reference document remains Technical Note TN2083, Daemons and Agents. This document provides a great insight into launchd and Apple's intentions towards how background processes should be implemented.


Use headphone jack as line in for microphone on MacBook Pro Retina MacBook Pro Retinas dropped the line-in (microphone) jack that previous MacBook Pros had. Sometimes I want to plug in a 1/8" microphone, but there's no option to switch the input from "internal microphone" to "line in".

Is there a way through the command line or 3rd party utility to reverse the direction of the headphone jack to use it as a line in for a microphone?

For those Macs with a single shared input/output jack, the key to using a microphone is to have the correct plug. I'm guessing your're not seeing the input options because your microphone jack doesn't have three rings on it (Apple headsets with microphone have three rings)? If that's the case, you'll need to get a splitter cable so that the Mac realises that a microphone is available. See here for more information.


Ukelele generated custom keyboard layouts not working in Lion? I created a custom keyboard layout with Ukelele (http://scripts.sil.org/ukelele) in Snow Leopard (idea is to generate scandinavian letters with Alt-key, otherwise have a pretty much standard U.S. layout).  After the upgrade, the old installed (to ~/Library/Keyboard Layouts) layout wasn't working.

Ukelele seems to work OK in Lion, but whether I put the generated keylayout in a bundle or single file, or save it "/Library/Keyboard Layouts" or "~/Library/Keyboard Layouts" doesn't seem to matter.

Help?

EDIT:

@Sergio, I cannot choose the layout in Input Sources.
One keylayout file I tried: http://semeai.org/~sjl/us-scands.keylayout

BTW Off-topic: I don't know if I'm going blind or something, but I can't seem to locate the Library directory in Finder.  I need to copy stuff to and fro from my home directory.

UPDATE:

I've been trying to get this work on my machine for a few hours now and I just thought to try out with a random layout from the 'net; http://colemak.com/Mac was the first to hit the radar.  I did the same thing as with my layout, saved it under Library, and it shows under Input Sources.  My layout still doesn't.  I'll try to create a layout from scratch, see if that helps.  BTW, apparently "New from current input source" in Ukelele is broken in Lion.

UPDATE 2011/08/15:

@Tom:

Copied your keylayout (it naturally ended up in my Junk folder):

midgard (01:55) >ls -l ~/Library/Keyboard\ Layouts/MongolianQWERTY.keylayout
-rw-r--r--@ 1 sjl  staff  44536 Mar 13  2008 /Users/sjl/Library/Keyboard Layouts/MongolianQWERTY.keylayout

Logged out, logged in, isn't showing in Input sources (I'm looking very closely between "Maori" and "Myanmar - QWERTY").

I've also uninstalled bunch of software and plugins giving suspicious messages to system.log, but hasn't helped.

UPDATE 2011/08/16:

I created a test account, and lo, the layout works perfectly for it.  Also the bug in preferences doesn't show for that account.  When trying this on my own account, there are no errors in Console logs with the suggested keywords (I can't seem to locate console.log file, though).

UPDATE 2011/08/16 later:

Nuking Library/Caches (and relogging) didn't help.

UPDATE 2011/08/17:

I did

% find Library -name "*.plist" -exec mv {} {}.renamed \;

and restarted, but it didn't help.  I restored the situation with

% for file in `find Library -name "*.plist.renamed"`; \
  do mv "$file" "${file//.renamed/}"; done

addendum: I also went through all the .plist files with plutil -s as described in http://www.askdavetaylor.com/can_i_check_my_plist_files_in_mac_os_x_for_problems.html.  There was some brokennes, but in very unrelated applications.

UPDATE 2011/09/10:

I went the extra mile and moved my whole Library away using another account, login in with my own account and observing stuff still not working.  I have copied the layout to /Library/Keyboard Layouts, from where it works for a test account, but not for my own.  Also, if I delete all the custom keylayout files, from everywhere, the Character Viewer and the Keyboard Viewer appaer as selectable to the Input Sources menu and also show under the International menu in the menubar.  As soon as I copy a keyboard layout to Library (home or system), the viewers disappear from both the menu and the Input Sources.

Any ideas how I could get more information from the system? I tried Command-V on boot for verbose boot but that didn't give any extra information for this issue.

SOLUTION FOR POSTERITY:

Adapted from http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1896?viewlocale=en_US for Lion:

sudo rm /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.IntlDataCache*
sudo find /var/ -name "*IntlDataCache*" -exec rm {} \;

Restart.

The layout you gave the link to works fine for me.  Are you sure that your copy of the file ends only in .keylayout and not .keylayout.xml or something else?  You have done logout/login after installing it, right?


How do you turn off the Bedtime app alarm if you wake up before it? I've updated my phone to IOS10, one of the features I quite like is the bedtime app (and no longer needing a 3rd party app). Whilst the features are pretty easy to figure out I can't seem to figure out... how to turn off the Bedtime app alarm if you wake up before it?

E.g I woke up before the app, left the room, came back and the alarm was going off. Ideally I wanted to stop it before it started.

To reiterate you will do the following.

Swipe up from the bottom of the screen. This will bring up your control center.
Tap timer.
Tap the bed time tab.
Switch off the whole thing by sliding the switch somewhere near the top to off.

Note, I'm visually impaired  so I'm depending on what my screen reader says the switches are to slide. If I'm wrong adjust where the switches are on your interface.


What kind of NFC-Tag is only readable in Shortcuts App? I just got my iPhone 11 pro max and wanted to see, if it can read the nfc enabled wrist band of my local gym. There are several nfc-apps[1] on the app store and additionally the shortcuts app is capable of reading nfc-tags.

When scanning the wrist band with the shortcuts app, it is recognized. But every other app does not recognize it.

Are there different flavors of nfc? Is this just a iOS quirk? Is there a reason why only the shortcuts app can see this tag?

Background:

The local gym has some kind of nfc-based member-card. In fact its not a card, but a wrist-band with a tiny nfc-chip in it as it seems. The wrist band reader on the door is made by a company named "Gantner".

In the long run I want to get rid of this silly red wrist band and just use my apple watch. But I think this is not (yet) possible. Nevertheless I am curious to understand what is stored in this band and how nfc works in this case.

Update: Added Apps

[1] NFC for iPhone, NFC-Tools, NFC21 Reader, Simply NFC, NFC TagInfo and a few others.

NFC is a standardized set of protocols - so in that sense "NFC is NFC". However the standard allows for multiple types of tags (i.e. your wrist band has an NFC tag embedded in it).

Currently the standard allows for 5 different types of tags, which vary in speed, capacity, mode settings, etc. For example you can set tags to be read-only or rewritable, and some types allows you to change from read-only to rewritable and vice versa, and others do not.

On top of that, NFC tags are produced by many different companies, allowing you to pick from a huge variety of form factors (dimensions, weights, etc) in various materials.

However the reason your tag is not readable by other apps is not because of these differences, nor that iOS has quirks.

It is simply so that apps tend to limit the tags that they scan to the ones associated with that app. I.e. no need to scan any random tags, if you're only interested in very specific ones. The phone actually scans every tag, but the app filters those out it is not interested in.

The Shortcuts app allows you to use more or less any tag - so it will do just that.

Update: You have updated your question indicating the specific apps you have used. You have tried to use generic apps that should read "any" tags - and thus app specific filtering is not your problem.

However your problem is instead that on iOS 12 and prior, the system allowed apps to read only tags encoded in the NFC Data Exchange Format (NDEF). Your tag must likely is not encoded in NDEF, and thus cannot be read by those apps.

On iOS 13 that limitation has been lifted. However, app developer must change their apps to expand the types of data encodings they can read. Those app you have tried aren't updated to read the specific type of tag you have.


Need detailed help on how the Apple Business Program works I want to ask a question about the Apple Business Manager program, but I need to give some background.

At my job, we are an iPhone Dev shop.  We build our code using ionic/cordova and then compile it down to scope, which I build.  Here is the difference.  We currently use Apple’s Enterprise License to build our product, and then export it to a third party site (NOT the Apple App Store), to get around the stringent Apple review process.  It is what it is.

Ok, so now with WWDC19 (https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2019/304/), Apple has REALLY tightened up the leash for the Apple Enterprise Program.  Both our new clients, plus my dev team’s request for a new Enterprise license (all with unique DUNS numbers), were declined, as Apple is pushing us to to the Apple Business Manager.

I looked at the link found above, but it is rather high level and “assumes” I already have an Apple Developer account and are using Apple Connect.

In short, I desperately need some help.  Before I loose rep points, let me say that I have searched the web for the steps, and nothing quite meets my needs.

Here is my understanding (please help and don’t flame me).  I am not a novice. I just come from an android background).

1) In order to use the Apple Business Manager, we first have to build and publish the app (via Xcode) to Appleconnect to have the app reviewed.

In order to do this, I need the followin:
1) Valid appleid and an enabled $99US Apple developer license (and accompanying provisioning profile).
2) Tax and Billing (credit card info) for my Apple Id in Apple Connect account.
3) I build my app using Xcode 11 using both my valid apple developer license + provisioning profile and team account.
4) Once built, I distribute the app to the AppStore.  When prompted, I DO NOT export it locally.  I upload it directly to the AppConnect portal.  Successful upload assumes that all the previous billing stuff (in #1) has been approved and validated.
5) This begins the Apple review process.

Is this it?  I DO NOT want this app to go onto the public app store, as it is a B2B app (meant to house sensitive client data).  Once the review process has completed, (for lack of a better term), how do I get the app to the Apple Business Manager site of things?

I did some googling, and there is mention of a VPP program.  So once the review is over, do I get the option of getting a VPP link? Do I then have the option of providing this link to Apple Business Manager, or can I provide this link to our 3rd party?

The steps you describe are correct, yes. There's however no need to do it manually like you describe - you can just choose Distribute in Xcode to automatically send your archived build to Apple. Just like you would if the app was going on the App Store.

The difference between putting the app on the App Store, and doing what you want, is simply this one step: On App Store Connect in the "Pricing and Availability" tab for your app, you have to select "Available privately as a custom app for business". This marks your app as private and makes so that the public cannot find it on the App Store.

When you have selected that it is a private, custom app for business, you'll be prompted to provide the IDs of the customers you want to be able to get the app. When you publish your finished app, those customers will see it in Apple Business Manager.

The customer will be able to buy the app, and install it on devices using either MDM (centrally install the apps) or using redemption codes (where the enduser enters the redemption code on the App Store).

There's no special "link" that you need to provide to your customer.


How to export to $PATH permanently because .bashrc file doesn't exist in $HOME directory I am trying to figure out macOS and want to install Composer which was not a problem....but I need the Laravel and Symfony installer and in the documentation it says that I need to export the variable in .bashrc file.

Normally that file is in /home/username/ directory on Linux

But where is the .bashrc file on the Mac? How to export to the PATH?

It should be stored in /Users/username/. To append something to your .bashrc file use

echo foo >> ~/.bashrc

Make sure to use >> and not >, as the latter will overwrite the file.

As @fd0 said, you probably want this in your .bash_profile to make sure it loads. I would append to your .bash_profile like this:

echo "export PATH="$HOME/path/added:$PATH"" >> ~/.bash_profile


Transfer rate between Hard Drives I am on a 2012 Mac Pro. I just asked it to copy my iTunes music folder which happens to be 40GB. Now, SATA shows a 3Gb speed, so ~320Gb of data should take all of 110 seconds. I know 3Gb is the high end for the SATA itself, and the drives are much lower. So instead of 2 minutes, even 20 makes sense.

I'm looking at 26 hours? Any ideas what can cause this? Fortunately, the need to back up this amount of data is rare. Just wondering what's up.

I would open up activity monitor and see what the effective instantaneous (and recent) transfer rate for data and more importantly iops.

Often many small files tax the total amount of IO operations and it's not a bandwidth issue at all. Large files that are stored sequentially on the filesystem (or when the platters and heads can not delay the transfer) will typically hit between 30 and 80 MB/s on a Mac Pro that's otherwise idle.

Similarly, more than 1,000 iops would saturate most pairs of SATA drives and perhaps far fewer IO could be limiting depending on catalog and file fragmentation or just long head seek times.


Apparent display bug with Arabic letter sequence lam meem alef I've noticed that on Mac, in any of three Web browsers (Chrome, Safari, Firefox), the sequence lam mim alef (لما) is sometimes displayed incorrectly. It should look like this:

But instead it looks like this:

(Ignore the black/white color flip -- I had to take screenshots in different contexts.)

Notice,

The mim is completely gone!
The lam has the "hat" on it that's normally associated with the initial form. This is expected, because it's in the initial position.
But it also has a tail sticking out to the right, which is not normal for an initial form.

By contrast, the following letter sequences seem to be displayed correctly:

(lam+mim, and mim+alif).

And the "compulsory" ligature lam+alif is displayed correctly:

Where the sequence is displayed incorrectly:

In some web pages, such as this one (look for آلمان / Germany)
In the URL bar (and status bar) of Chrome, Safari, and Firefox (try this Forvo URL).

Where the sequence is displayed correctly:

On some web pages (e.g. Forvo or Google Translate)
In LibreOffice
On Windows (I tried the above "where it doesn't work correctly" places)

Since it works in some web pages and not others, and not in the URL bar, does that mean it's likely to be a font problem?

When I copy and paste the characters from a place where they display correctly to a place where they display incorrectly, they display incorrectly. I.e. they're the same characters, but the display is different depending on where they're shown. (And the reverse is also true.)

I happen to be using these letters in a Persian context, but they're Arabic letters and I believe the issues are the same.

I'm not an expert on either Arabic or Persian, so there could be something I'm missing... please let me know if I'm misunderstanding the issue. However I've searched the information I could find on Arabic and Persian ligatures, and there doesn't seem to be anything corresponding to this display form.

Also if anyone can suggest a better place to ask this question, I'd appreciate the tip.

This is normal for some fonts, including Apple's default Geeza pro. In certain situations Lam plus meem becomes a ligature with the meem coming first and hard to recognize.  See this.


Is it possible to remove/uninstall Quicktime Player 7? Is it possible to remove/uninstall Quicktime Player 7?  I installed it back when my system was running Snow Leopard and now I'm on Mountain Lion I no longer need it but I can't see a way to remove it.

OS X seems to allow just moving it to the trash, which is probably the recommended way to remove it.

If you use an application like AppCleaner, check that it doesn't actually try to delete files for the new QuickTime Player:

The bundle identifiers of the old and new version are com.apple.QuickTimePlayer and com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX. The only files it found for the old version were:

/Applications/Utilities/QuickTime Player 7.app/
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.quicktimeplayer.plist
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.quicktimeplayer.plist.lockfile
~/Library/Caches/com.apple.helpd/Generated/com.apple.QuickTimePlayer.help/


How to remove duplicate devices in "text message forwarding" on my iMesssage setting (iPhone) I have reformatted my MBPr/MBP (have both) multiple times and now, they are also appearing multiple times on my iPhone (Setting => iMessage => Text Forwarding).

Any ideas on how to remove duplicate/unused ones? Thank you

If you reset your iCloud password, the old services will be removed from: Settings > Messages > Text Forwarding


What data repair and recovery options exist for a missing APFS Volume? I am using an OWC Envoy Pro enclosure with an Apple Samsung SSD out of a 2015 MacBook Air. It's plugged into a 2017 iMac 27".

The External SSD) randomly gets ejected and as a result of this random ejecting I have now lost the volume. Only the base SSD drive/name and container are there.

Is there anyway to recover the data or the entire APFS volume?

How to Recover Lost Data from APFS Volume on Mac

https://recoverit.wondershare.com/harddrive-recovery/how-to-recover-lost-data-from-apfs-volume.html

It will cost you $40

or this one https://www.ibeesoft.com/data-recovery-software/mac-data-recovery.html

You can always try to do it your self with Disk Utility.

https://blog.macsales.com/44912-new-capabilities-limitations-how-disk-utilitys-restore-feature-changed-in-high-sierra


MacBook Pro 2016 15" w/ Touch Bar battery and overheating problems I bought my base model 15" MacBook Pro w/ Touch Bar the day it was released, and I just received it yesterday. I've been copying and downloading all the data and files that I needed and the battery didn't last me more than 5 hours, if even 4. I have no idea what is wrong with it, but it's really overheating and I almost never hear the fan running, which also alerts me.

Today I played Crossfire, a game with very basic graphics, on Windows 10 Bootcamp and it was ON FIRE! I had to close the game because of the laptop's temperature. Again, I did not hear the fan.

Things I've done:

Reset the System Management Controller (SMC)
Run hardware diagnostics by restarting and pressing the D key while booting. This was the first time I actually clearly heard the fan. The overall results were that it found no hardware problems.
I called Apple, but they had no idea what they were telling me as they were following a written script, although a Senior Advisor was talking to me regarding the issue.

Now I have had it just for two days so far, and I have a two-week return period. Should I wait more and see how everything will work out, or should I return it?

Has anyone experienced the same issue? Is there anything else for me to try?

How did you reset the SMC? There are different processes depending on Mac model. Just to make sure, in your case the process is as follows:

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

Also, do you actually know what the temperature is? If so, please add this to your question as it's a bit hard for the community to help/comment without knowing what it is. You can use software such as Monit, Fanny (an unfortunate name!) or iStat Menus to measure temperature and fan speed.

Regardless, as a point of reference, this resource (which can be filtered) will give you an idea of the wide range of temperatures that Macs can work with. It may be a bit too early to include any data for your model, but there is a lot of data for MacBook Pro models listed. As an aside, my MBP temp is regularly between 66 and 81 degrees, and my fans are regularly at 6200 RPM when my CPU usage is high.

All that said, if I was in your shoes and confident that it's overheating and the fans aren't activating as they should, then I'd be making a Genius Bar appointment to have them test it. If a Genius Bar appointment isn't possible, and you have the option of returning it, then maybe that's what you should do and buy another one.

Finally, in terms of your battery life, was the 4hr-5hr range just your initial range, or has it only lasted that long consistently? I ask because downloading and copying all the data you needed on your MBP is likely to be a much greater burden on your battery than normal everyday usage.

Feel free to post back if you get any more info or have any other questions.


Where can I find a list of Apple preferences/plist files & what they're used for? Does anyone know of a resource that lists the Preferences files/plists (pertinent to OS X and Apple applications, not third-party apps) found in ~/Library/Preferences (and the other locations too, but that would be a start) and what they're used for?

I've been looking around and can't find anything.  The closest I found was this chart compiled by appleexaminer.com — but that only covers a few items, and the obvious ones at that.

It's fairly easy to figure out which files in ~/Library/Preferences are used by Apple applications and which app.

All the Apple ones start com.apple and then almost all continue with the name of the application or part of the system that they are a preference for - some examples com.apple.ScreenSharing.plist or com.apple.TextEdit.plist

With the less "specific" ones once you know more about how the back end of the System and Finder hang together you start to realise what they are, for example com.apple.LaunchServices.plist is the one that defines your personal URL and file type handlers as that is done by LaunchServices.

Mac sysadmins tend to slowly get a list of the more important ones as we use them to push preferences out to our managed Macs. If all else fails I use InstallEase, the free utility from Absolute, to snapshot a Mac then change a preference and do another snapshot to see what changed.


Dark grey bar at the bottom of Chrome in iPad The grey bar in Chrome in the image above in iPad OS blocks form fields at the bottom of the screen. I believe it is the auto fill feature Chrome has. I know it is not the shortcuts bar and also predictive text is off.

Is it possible to get rid of this bar to get more space on screen?

You cannot remove that grey bar because it's an area of the virtual toolbar with additional tools that  will appear like Undo/Redo, Cut, Copy, and Paste. The "up and down arrows" is like hitting Tab and ShiftTab to cycle between fields on the webpage.  It usually doesn't show unless there are fields to navigate or items in the clipboard.

It appears in Firefox, Safari and Brave browsers as well.