recombine iMovie clips from miniDV without volume problems between them? I am using iMovie to import miniDV videos. The tapes are pretty old (~20 years) and there are numerous errors on them. As a result, iMovie creates lots of individual clips. When I try to recombine them, iMovie makes the volume fade in and fade out between each clip, and it's horrible. Is there any way to get iMovie to get the sound to line up?

I've also tried using QuickTime Player to record the video. That works pretty well for most of my video, but not for all of my video.

This could have two reasons:

Transition between clips

 If you can see that symbol between your clips you have a transition between the individual clips. Delete the transition and the audio blending is gone.
Audio blending

If you see these inverted parabola arms on the audio it means you have an audio fade out and fade in. Drag from the end of each fade to the beginning/end to your clip and it should be gone.


How to make the OSX text substitution available everywhere? As it currently stands, the OSX text substitution feature seems to require an application to actively support it to be available - which many do not.

Is there a way to make the text substitution available everywhere? If I'm not wrong this should be possible, I am thinking of a program that achieves this by doing something like hooking into the keyboard input on system level and performs the substitution by sending additional keystrokes after detecting that a shortcut has been entered. (E.g. after entering (c) it sends three delete keycodes followed by the substitution.) However I didn't find anything like this through my Google searches.

I'd also be content with a solution that requires me to select the text-to-replace and hit a keyboard shortcut to perform the action.

Does a program like this exist, or is there any other way?

You could try any of these:

TextExpander
Atext
Typinator


Time Machine is backing up itself? I have a MacBook Pro 13 inch 2017, 2 USB-C ports, MacOS 10.13.6, with about 90 GB content, 120 GB total HD. It gets its first backup onto a pristine, just reformatted, 500 GB external drive, via USB. The drive is connected via a USB to USB-C connector (in case this could be an issue).

The backup starts fine, then it goes past 90 GB and it keeps ballooning until it "runs out of space". I made a small clip of the window  that displays this process which I can't show here but here is the display on the first frame: "Backing up 325.82 GB of 358.40 GB" and on the last: "Backing up 326.00 GB of 358.60 GB". I can see, looking at the screen, as both numbers just keep climbing up and up.

There is nothing else connected to the computer.

What's going on? It seems the backup goes into an infinite loop.

It would be very strange to have TM back itself up... That said, we can check! Go to System Preferences > Time Machine > [Options...]. The drop down pane that appears has "Exclude these items from backups:" If your external drive is not listed there, it might actually be backing itself up. Click the plus under the list box and try to select your external drive. If it now appears in the list box, click [Save] and try to backup.


Activitate Voice Dictation from Bluetooth Keyboard Getting to know my new iPad and I really like the voice dictation, but I can't figure out how to activate it from my Apple Bluetooth Keyboard. My workaround is to turn off the keyboard so I get the onscreen version. Is there a better way?

As of iOS 5.1, Voice Dictation is not capable of being started from external keyboards.

There is a workaround.  The solution is that when you want to dictate, press the ⏏ key (eject) on your external keyboard.  This should bring up the virtual keyboard on the screen, from which you can then start dictation.

Note: This key doesn't work like other function keys until you have tapped into a text entry field and have the flashing cursor.


Mac OS S Snow Leopard Single User - can it be used on more than one machine? Does this only apply to the family software? I purchased a single user copy of OSX Snow Leopard so that I could upgrade to lion. Once I have upgraded my memory, I will download lion.  could I then sell my copy of Snow Leopard? can someone else use it once it is off of my home Mac? what if I sell the disc now? can someone else use it?

I am not a lawyer, so take this all with appropriate caution.

The Snow Leopard License states

  Transfer. You may not rent, lease, lend, sell, redistribute or sublicense the Apple Software. Subject to the restrictions set forth below, you may, however, make a one-time permanent transfer of all of your license rights to the Apple Software (in its original form as provided by Apple) to another party, provided that: (a) the transfer must include all of the Apple Software, including all its component parts (excluding Apple Boot ROM code and firmware), original media, printed materials and this License; (b) you do not retain any copies of the Apple Software, full or partial, including copies stored on a computer or other storage device; and (c) the party receiving the Apple Software reads and agrees to accept the terms and conditions of this License. You may not rent, lease, lend, redistribute, sublicense or transfer any Apple Software that has been modified or replaced under Section 2H above. All components of the Apple Software are provided as part of a bundle and may not be separated from the bundle and distributed as standalone applications. Apple Software provided with a particular Apple-branded hardware product may not run on other models of Apple-branded hardware.

While you cannot "sell" the software (because you don't own it; Apple does, and licenses it to you), you can make a one-time transfer of your license to someone else (and could charge them for it), so effectively, yes, you sell your copy, as long as you don't keep Snow Leopard around after that.

So what happens if you upgrade to Lion?

The Lion license states

  you are granted a limited, non-transferable, non-exclusive license to download, install, use and run for personal, non-commercial use, one (1) copy of the Apple Software directly on each Apple-branded computer running Mac OS X Snow Leopard or Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server (“Mac Computer”) that you own or control;

So the computer has to have Snow Leopard installed at the time you install Lion, but the Lion license never states you have to continue to own Snow Leopard. So perhaps if you install Lion and Snow Leopard is obliterated from your computer, you can sell Snow Leopard -- but wait, there's more.

Under Transfer, the license states:

  A. If you obtained the Apple Software preinstalled on Apple-branded hardware, you may make a one-time permanent transfer of all of your license rights to the Apple Software (in its original form as provided by Apple) to another party, provided that: (i) the Apple Software is transferred together with your Apple-branded hardware; (ii) the transfer must include all of the Apple Software, including all its component parts, printed materials and this License; (iii) you do not retain any copies of the Apple Software, full or partial, including copies stored on a computer or other storage device; and (iv) the party receiving the Apple Software reads and agrees to accept the terms and conditions of this License. For purposes of this License, if Apple provides an update (e.g., version 10.7 to 10.7.1) to the Apple Software, the update is considered part of the Apple Software and may not be transferred separately from the pre-update version of the Apple Software.

So you can't sell 10.7 because you're now using 10.7.1. But 10.7.1 isn't a separately licensed, separately purchased piece of software. They don't explicitly say anything about a separately licensed version. So no road blocks yet... BUT

  B. If you obtained your license to the Apple Software from the Mac App Store, it is not transferable. If you sell your Apple-branded hardware to a third party, you must remove the Apple Software from the Apple- branded hardware before doing so, and you may restore your system to the version of the Apple operating system software that originally came with your Apple hardware (the “Original Apple OS”) and permanently transfer the Original Apple OS together with your Apple hardware, provided that: (i) the transfer must include all of the Original Apple OS, including all its component parts, printed materials and its license; (ii) you do not retain any copies of the Original Apple OS, full or partial, including copies stored on a computer or other storage device; and (iii) the party receiving the Original Apple OS reads and agrees to accept the terms and conditions of the Original Apple OS license.

If you sell your computer, and it didn't ship with Lion, but rather you upgraded it via the Mac App Store, you are not allowed to transfer your copy of Lion to the new owner. You are told to re-install the operating system that shipped with your computer, which, in this case, should be Leopard or earlier. So you can't downgrade to Snow Leopard, because you've transferred your rights to that operating system to someone else.

All in all, if you want to be sure, seek legal advice from a competent lawyer, but from a layman's reading of this, it sounds legitimate to me to sell SL once you've upgraded to Lion.


Fixing a corrupted OS X Mail structure after an import of mailboxes from the previous system volume Due to various and persisting problems, I had to reinstall 10.8.2.

What I did

Shut down iMac with internal system disc A.
Started 10.8.2 recovery system
Copied iMac's system disc A to an external disc B as an image using Disc Util
Erased system disc A as HFS / journaled
Run a clean install on A

Then, I told OS X Mail to import old mailboxes from B into the fresh Mail system.

Ugly result

Unfortunately, I got tons of tons of deeply nested folders, which eventually contain email:

/Import-5
  V2
     POP-something
        Drafts
          0563726277
              Data
                   9
                     7
                       8
                          Mails
                            <this folder finally contains some emails>

Not hardly to see, I can't use these imported folder structure any more.

Question

Is anybody aware of a tool to fix such problems?

That "ugly" result is not a corruption or mistake, it's the way the Mail folder is structured now.

If you've been messing with its contents, I'd suggest emptying ~/Library/Mail/V2 and starting over again from your original source, re-importing or using Migration Assistant.

No, I don't know why either.


What is webfilterdnsd process? What is webfilterdnsd process running on my machine? Its started by user "nobody". Not able to find any other information on it online. How can I get more information on processes running on my mac?

Although it doesn't answer your question directly, the excellent

http://triviaware.com/macprocess/all

is a web resource that describes many Mac processes.

It describes webfilterDNSd as:

"Process is part of clean OS X install however there is no description available from credible sources at this moment. Use supplied link for related google search."

There's a comment section by which others that know might be able to answer your question.


Unable to delete Dropbox folder from my local hard disk I have installed Dropbox app on Mac. This created a folder named "Dropbox" in my home folder.
I copied a large folder into this Dropbox folder.
The syncing of this folder is taking a lot of time so I have unlinked the Dropbox folder from Dropbox app (Dropbox app preferences -> Account -> Unlink the dropbox). Now when I try to delete this "Dropbox" folder I get the below error:
  The operation can’t be completed because some items had to be skipped.
For each item, choose File > Get Info, make sure “Locked” is deselected, and then check the Sharing & Permissions section.
When you are sure the items are unlocked and not designated as Read Only or No Access, try again.

I have seen the 'Get Info' and see that the folder has 'locked' checkbox not ticked and also in users I see that I have read&write access
I also restarted my Mac but I still get the same error
How do I delete this folder(including all its sub-folders). How can I force delete this folder?
I am able to move the folder to Bin but I cannot delete the folder from Bin. I was doing 'Delete immediately' option and the folder is not getting deleted. How do I get the free space on my hard drive back?

Assuming the folder is in the Trash now:

Open Terminal
cd ~/.Trash
rm -r Dropbox

If the folder isn't in Trash, skip the second step.


Cable Channels on Apple TV? I am thinking about getting an Apple TV.  I already have Netflix and Amazon Prime accounts, and I understand that there are apps on the Apple TV that will give access to those.  How do I get access to broadcast, and cable channels on the apple TV?  Are there apps for that?  Keep in mind I want everything to be legal and on the up and up.  Thanks for your help!

There are many Apple TV apps for streaming services (e.g. PlayStation Vue, YouTube TV, etc.) that will replicate the functionality of a traditional cable subscription.  Your best bet would be to try doing a search in the App store to see which ones are available and what their capabilities are.


Is there a video player for OS X that will float to top and avoid the cursor? Is there a video app that can float on top and avoid the cursor? The problem with VLC is that I use the "Float on Top" feature while VLC takes up 1/4 of the screen. However sometimes I would like the access the menus below VLV, and therein lies the problem. I don't want to constantly move VLC just to access the menus below it.

Is there a feature or app that can move the video player out of the way from the cursor and return to its' original position afterwards?

You can use afloat. This lets you configure VLC to float on top and be somewhat transparent when you move your mouse over it, as well as allowing clicks to pass through to the application behind.


vim ignoring .vimrc syntax highlighting I had a ~/.vimrc with some basic syntax highlighting that was working fine until I upgraded to Catalina. Running vim -V I see it loads my vimrc but it totally ignores anything in it. If I run :so ~/.vimrc inside vim it also ignores it, but if I run the commands from the vimrc one by one then it accepts them.

How do I get vim to source my vimrc again?

My syntax rules were being overwritten by later files in the load order, for some reason this happens now when it didn't before. The solution was to copy my .vimrc into ~/.vim/after/syntax/syncolor.vim (the filename matters too apparently)


How To Sandbox Individual Applications On OS X Mavericks I am trying to Sandbox Firefox on OS X.  I know on Linux, you have AppArmor.  On Windows, you Sandboxie.  Is there something built into OS X that will allow me to Sandbox individual applications?

Yes, Apple included a sandbox facility with the release of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard in 2006. This facility includes sandbox, sandboxd, sandbox_init, and sandbox-exec.


Tab not working on Microsoft Word 2011 I'm not sure what's going on here, but whenever I go to a new line, tab doesn't work.  It doesn't work in other lines of the same paragraph either, but if I go back to a previous paragraph, hit tab, delete the tab in that paragraph, and then go down to where I want the tab, it lets me do it.  But then the problem will pop up again in the next paragraph.

How can I fix this problem and what is causing it?

After further experimentation, I've found that just clicking into another paragraph and clicking back does the trick, most of the time anyway.

After even more experimentation, I've discovered that by inserting a blank line at the end of the document, I can solve the problem for the most part.  It usually only occurs when I'm trying to put a tab on the last line of a document.  However, this isn't a perfect solution and I'm still having the issue sometimes.

I experience the problem of tabs not working when making math tests. The problem is very repeatable, and can be replicated in the following simple experiment:

Get a new document and set one tab (say a left tab at 3.0 inches).
Type "Solve " and insert a formula, say "2x=6".
Use the right arrow to exit from the formula.

You may now type any non-tab characters that you wish, but hitting the "tab" key does not insert a (tab) character.

To fix the problem, do any of the following after leaving the formula:

Type (spacebar) (left arrow) (tab), OR
Paste a previously copied (tab), OR
Click to place the cursor at any point not within the formula, and click to place the cursor at the end of the line. Now type (tab).

My theory is that a flag is set to keep the (tab) character from being used within formulas, and that exiting the formula using the right arrow key does not reset the flag, but clicking outside the formula or backspacing does.


Using Apple Remote Desktop for managing iOS devices? Im currently evaluating using Apple Remote Desktop for multi laptop and desktop management. Can it also be used for iOS device management ?

We've got a range of devices - iPhone, iPads which are company owned. As well as staff who have their own iPhones which we install email, and specific business apps for them to use.

Its very tedious having to manually type all of the usernames and passwords into each device and app to get them setup is there a way i can do this from my desktop via Apple Remote Desktop or something similar ?

UPDATE Dec 18

Now that iOS 12 allows 3rd party remote management software like Bomgar and Teamviewer (see article here) of iOS devices. (All be it view only, with no control)

Dose Apple Remote Desktop now offer the similar functionality including control ?

Unfortunately Apple Remote Desktop does not support managing iOS devices at this time. The closest parallel would be Apple Configurator 2 which targets iOS automation in a similar manner to Remote Desktop.

I suggest investigating MDM solutions:

Profile Manager in Apple's OS X Server app
Casper Suite or Bushel by JAMF Software

These three options run either on any Mac you have or can be hosted in the cloud.


How do I use pf/IceFloor to block an outgoing connection to an IP address? I am running an application that regularly phones home and reports a little more information than I'm comfortable with. I would normally add the reporting server's hostname to /etc/hosts, but the app does not perform a DNS lookup and connects directly by IP. I am looking to use Lion's built in PF firewall to achieve this.

I understand that a commercial utility like LittleSnitch would make this a trivial endeavor. However, this is not a viable solution for me. I find their asking price too high, and the built in firewall should be able to do the trick.

I've been using IceFloor to modify the PF configuration to block incoming connections with great success. However, I'm running into some problems blocking outgoing connections. From what I've read, the following rule should be correct:

block return-rst out quick on en0 inet proto tcp from any to xxx.xxx.230.191

It should block only TCP packets to that IP and reply with a RST packet. It seems to be blocking the packets properly, but instead of returning an RST packet, it is silently dropping the outgoing packets. This is causing the app to hang while it waits for the connection attempt to timeout.

Is this rule written correctly to achieve what I would like to achieve? Has anyone else attempted something like this using PF?

My friend, if memory serves me well, you will need to add

net.inet.tcp.icmp_may_rst=0

to /etc/sysctl.conf, and then modify the running kernel-

sudo sysctl -w net.inet.tcp.icmp_may_rst=0

That should do the trick.  If no /etc/sysctl.conf exists, here is a shortcut:

sudo echo “net.inet.tcp.icmp_may_rst=0” >> /etc/sysctl.conf
sudo chmod 644 /etc/sysctl.conf

Hope that resolves the inconsistency with PF.

F.


Snow Lopard with Yosemite host I have an old app I need to run. How can i run SL as guest with Yosemite as host with MacBook Air 2011 and vbox? I own SL retail and the MacBook Air is apple, there shouldn't be any legal issues.

You are only allowed to run a Server version of Snow Leopard in a virtual machine.

From Lion you are allowed to run the same guest OS X as the running host OS X - and you are allowed to install a client version of the OS.


Popup screen becomes full screen when application is full screen I am using Eclipse. When I open popup window (e.g. "Open Resource") and the application is in fullscreen, the popup window also becomes fullscreen too. It is quite annoying. I don't know how to fix it.

I found that I was using jdk8u152 which caused the issue. After I rollback to jdk8u151, the problem doesn't exist anymore.


Help me reset the terminal after sudo command mistake I recently installed a cracked version of a program and it instructed me to block outgoing connections by following the instructions below.

Step 1

Click the "Go" menu, select "Utilities," and then double-click "Terminal" to launch the utility.

Step 2

Type "sudo cp /private/etc/hosts ~/Documents/hosts-backup" (omit the quotes here and throughout) to create a backup of the "hosts" file before editing. You can open this file later if you find the changes you made to your system resulted in unintended behaviors.

Step 3

Type "sudo nano /private/etc/hosts" in the Terminal window, and then press the "Enter" key. "Sudo" indicates that you want to gain administrator access, "nano" tells Terminal the program to use -- in this case, the Nano text editor -- and the pathname indicates the location of the "hosts" file.

Step 4

Type your administrator account password, and then press the "Enter" key. You must set up a password for your account to make changes in Terminal. If your account doesn't have a password, select "System Preferences" in the Dock, click "Users & Groups," select your administrator account, click the "Change Password..." button, and then enter a new password.

Step 5

Press the down arrow key to position the cursor below the default set of rules. Don't edit any of the existing rules as they set your current firewall settings and allow your computer to function properly.

Step 6

Type the domain IP address of the website you want to block communication with in a blank line followed by a space and the domain name. Use the format "0.0.0.0 domainname.com" and put each entry on a separate line.

Step 7

Close the window, enter the Terminal application again, and then type "dscacheutil -flushcache" to reset the cache and apply the new rules.

I only made it to step 3. I was asked to insert my password and since then my computer has been slower and the color wheel will not stop spinning when i open certain programs. I'm even having trouble force quitting programs and youtube videos refuse to load.

Is there any way that the Terminal can be reset or this problem can be rectified?

In step 2 you copied the original hosts file to a backup location at ~/Documents/hosts-backup (i.e. in your documents folder).

All you should need to do is rename that file to hosts and then copy it to /private/etc/hosts (overwriting the edited file) to undo any damage that you may have done.

However if you only got to Step 3 you may not even have edited the file yet - in which case a reboot should be sufficient.


Malware? .systemRootModeFile in ~/users/me/library Non-techie person asks:

There is a .systemRootModeFile in ~/users/me/library.

Is it malware, something horrible?

In the hidden library folder in ~/users/me I have a folder named .f5cd.
Inside that is a folder hierarchy of .java/.systemPrefs/_!%... - the last one being a string of about 25 characters - and the folder name is in bold.

Inside that is a file prefs.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<!DOCTYPE map SYSTEM "http://java.sun.com/dtd/preferences.dtd">
<map MAP_XML_VERSION="1.0">
  <entry key="EXPDATE" value="4994"/>
  <entry key="REGVER" value="2"/>
</map>

and also within the .systemPrefs folder are two more files
.system.lock and .systemRootModFile.

.systemRootModFile and the other files you mentioned are part of Java system preferences and are safe. See this thread.


How to prevent the Photos app from launching cloudphotosd, photoanalysisd, etc? A number of the background services used by the Photos app perform functions I'm not interested in benefitting from (and in some cases, actively do not want). Primarily these are photoanalysisd and cloudphotosd. I'm reasonably certain that the former is not strictly necessary for the Photos app to operate (if needed for some features); I'm slightly less certain about the latter but that isn't precisely the thrust of the question. (photolibraryd I'm aware the app needs in order to run properly at all, and so I'm not touching it).

Where I seem to be stuck is that their launching does not appear to respect launchctl disable. Indeed, launchctl print gui/$UID includes both daemons within the disabled services section, with the flag set to true, while neither are running, and the Photos app will still trigger these to be launched as soon as it is started. It isn't enabling them in launchd, as the flags remain unchanged when I check after testing by launching the Photos app.

Considering the possibility I was disabling them in the wrong launchd domain, I went on to try disabling them in the system domain, to no avail - launching Photos still starts these two services as soon as it starts.

I also attempted to use the legacy launchctl unload -w pattern on the corresponding .plist file in /System/Library/LaunchAgents/, but was informed by launchctl in that case that the service could not be found.

In case some volatile state needed to be flushed or reloading done, I shut down and rebooted the system subsequent to ensuring that those services were flagged as disabled. They still returned as soon as the Photos app was launched.

launchctl blame gui/$UID/cloudphotosd simply stated that the service was launched for xpc (mach), which doesn't really tell me much (the cross-process communication here is probably just the photos app launching the service).

I'm wondering how to really disable these particular background processes, so that they cannot be launched by the Photos app, without out and out deleting them from the system or making other "destructive" changes. Or in other words, while I could probably simply find their actual executables and move them somewhere for archival, not being all that familiar with the functioning of launchd I'm curious as to whether there is a way working within its system to really forbid certain services from being launched. I thought that was launchctl disable... but it seems not, as that does not appear to have any effect in this instance.

EDIT: Should clarify, this is on macOS 10.14/Mojave.

Try running chmod -x on the binaries. This will prevent them from launching at all until you make them executable again.

I don't know how SIP will affect this, since you're modifying built-in programs. You may have to disable it.


How do I uninstall rEFIt? I installed rEFIt in order to install boot camp via a USB key. Now that Boot Camp is installed, I no longer need rEFIt, so I'm trying to uninstall it.

I followed the uninstall directions for "Removal when using rEFItBlesser", because when I installed it, I ran "rEFIt.mpkg" (i.e. the installer package). I trashed the "efi" folder, and "rEFItBlesser". I restarted the computer twice, and the menu still appears when the computer starts up.

It seems that the solution is the same one listed there under "troubleshooting". Initially I was thrown off by the wording used. I thought that "If Mac OS X no longer starts up.." meant OS X didn't start up at all, but what it really means is "If Mac OS X does not start up automatically instead of rEFIt..."

I just followed the directions listed there and now it uses the default boot sequence.


terminal mac - bash command not found, permission denied and '&gt' in prompt I tried to change colours in Terminal following this guide:

  http://voidcanvas.com/ubuntu-like-mac-terminal/

I created bash_profile file, saved and quitted Terminal. Now when i open Terminal I get this

Last login: Mon Oct 17 01:36:24 on ttys000
-bash:  : command not found
-bash:  : command not found
-bash:    git: command not found
-bash: gt: command not found
-bash: /dev/null: Permission denied
->> $

the last line is changed in StackExchange's text editor, I do not understand why please look at the uploaded photo below - this is how it looks in my terminal

I deleted bash_profile and I still get the same.

Every command I write is followed by:

-bash:    git: command not found
-bash: gt: command not found
-bash: /dev/null: Permission denied

What should I do it to stop it?

Update from comments: Here's what I put in the file.

export CLICOLOR=1
export LSCOLORS=GxBxCxDxexegedabagaced
parse_git_branch() {
    git branch 2&gt; /dev/null |
    sed -e '/^[^*]/d' -e 's/* (.*)/ (\1)/'
}
export PS1="\e[0;35m-&gt;&gt; \e[1;34m\W\e[0;32m\$(parse_git_branch)\e[0;37m $ "

The &gt; is a syntax error, apparently caused by HTML markup in whatever source you copy/pasted this from.  Where you see &gt; the author intended > and where you see &lt; the author intended <.  If there's an &amp; that will need to be replaced with a literal & etc.

See a listing of HTML entity codes for a somewhat more exhaustive list.


Persistant name on Finder tabs I'm looking for a way to always display a label on Finder tabs instead of the current folder name, to differentiate them when folder name is not relevant.

(Long story) I use tabs to switch between several projects which are in different folders. But when I'm not at the "root" folder of a project, the name of the Finder tab is not the one of the root folder project (but the subfolder name) and I can't quickly recognize where each project is.

I'd like to attach a project name on each tab of the same window (above the window, in the toolbar, under the tab, or better, instead of the tab name).

Any idea of an app that could do that ? (It has to be displayed everytime I ⌘-tab switch on the Finder, knowing that I always have windows under the Finder's one – so no, it can't be an text on the wallpaper).

Thanks!

DragThing made the trick! (And does a lot more.)


Forgot to remove sim card and possibly sign out of icloud before selling! A couple of weeks ago, I sold an old iPhone 5. It hasn't been used for 3 years, and I can't remember what version of iOS it was running.

It just occurred to me that I did not remove the sim card.

I looked into it and apparently iPhone sim cards don't store any data, everything is stored on the cloud. That's fine. Then I realized that I don't remember actually signing out of iCloud!

I selected the erase all content and reset option. It asked for my password (I think twice) and maybe my 4 digit pin?

The phone erased within a minute and I saw the "welcome" page.

I honestly don't know if I signed out of the cloud or logged out of find my iPhone!

I tried to gain access to iCloud online (I'm using android now) and while I have my apple ID and password, I had set up a 2 factor authentication to my phone number that no longer exists, as I cancelled the number when I changed provider and did not need the cloud as I'm using android! I also have no other trusted devices.

As far as I understand I can now no longer access my cloud.

I checked the find my phone section as it wasn't locked and it shows nothing? Maybe I did sign out of it, or maybe the phone is off?

As I said the phone definitely did reset, would it have automatically signed me out of cloud? And is the inactive sim card in the phone ok?

Feeling stressed out, what are the chances the person I sold to can access the content on the phone?

If you did a "Erase All Content and Settings" - then you have definitely logged the device out of your iCloud account. This function deletes everything stored on the phone, including accounts, app settings, app data, the apps themselves, documents, photos, etc.

If you had "Find My iPhone" enabled, the buyer of your phone would not be able to setup the phone without entering your username and password. I.e. they would have complained to you by now that the phone is essentially bricked. As weeks have gone by, it is far to assume that you either logged out of "Find My iPhone" or never had it enabled on this phone.


Stop-sign after boot and "Still waiting for root device" Need some advice regarding a problem starting up my Mac Mini (mid 2011).

The other day I was browsing websites when the machine froze with the spinning beachball. So I was forced to power off/on my machine.

The machine started and showed Apple logo with spinning wheel as usual. But then the logo turned into a stop / prohitbited sign (a circle with crossing line). And everything stucked there.

I try other options several times by booting with:

Shift pressed (safe boot) - Apple logo appears then changes to stop-sign as before
Option pressed - Gray screen, nothing happens
Cmd-R - Gray screen, nothing happens
Cmd-Opt-R - Gray screen, nothing happens
Cmd-Opt-P-R - Double 'Ding' sounds but nothing happens.
Cmd-s or Cmd-v - This switches to black screen and show the text in my attached image. The most notable thing was the repeated message 'Still waiting for root device'

All my search results are telling this is a harddrive problem. Is there anyway I can confirm this? I have an external CD/DVD drive but not the Lion installation media ..

Luckily machine is still under 1 year warranty, but losing all the data in my drive wil be a great pain ..

Thanks!

Apparently some important System Files got corrupted somehow. Although unable to boot, your data should still there.

You could retrieve your data by connecting your Mac Mini to another computer by FireWire. To do so just:

Connect the computers with the FireWire cable.
Boot your Mac Mini holding down T.
The Mac Mini's HD will be mounted as an external HD in the non-corrupted computer.
Find and save your valuable data.

Afterwards, making a Clean Install is the usual and fastest way of solving this issue.

I guess you can get this done for you in the Apple Store, though. Even more, if the machine stills under warranty.


⌘+L shortcut not working in Chrome Quite frequently I experience cases, where the ⌘+L shortcut will not work in Chrome.

This shortcut does the same in Safari, Chrome and Firefox. It jumps to the URL bar of the browser.

How can I troubleshoot this problem?

Several postings on the Chromium issue tracker, such as this one and this one, suggest that this is because some plugins (such as Flash) are consuming the keystrokes whilst running. Does this happen whilst Flash is running, or can you pinpoint an occasion when it always happens if a certain plugin is loaded?


Mac Terminal view is Screen Sharing is Enabled Is there a way to use Terminal to check to see if Screen Sharing/Remote Desktop is enabled? Or is there a file which will have a YES/NO of it?

The one catch; it must work without sudo or admin privileges.

You can do so by checking for the existence of the launchd files in /etc:

[[ -f /etc/RemoteManagement.launchd ]] && echo 'enabled' || echo 'disabled'

or for screen sharing:

[[ -f /etc/com.apple.screensharing.agent.launchd ]] && echo 'enabled' || echo 'disabled'


Can't play albums in iTunes I know you've been dealing with this for two years.  However, none of the recommended solutions works for me.  iTunes will play one song, and stop.  Or, it will play one song - over and over and over.  I am using iTunes vsn. 12.0.1, updated on 10/21/14, on a Mac running OS 10.7.5.

This is often caused by iTunes' insistence on only playing songs that are 'checked', even though you can't tell whether they're checked or not except in Songs view.

If you don't need the functionality that checking songs is used for (syncing with other devices, or limiting what appears in smart playlists), you can turn it off by unchecking Preferences > General > Show List Checkboxes. Then iTunes will play any selection you like without stopping.

If you don't want to disable checkboxes, as @Buscar웃 says, the Up Next list is your (somewhat unintuitive) friend.


Pages: keyboard shortcut for inserting an equation Pages has a new feature to add latex equations. As a latex user, I find this extremely useful!

A feature that would make my life even better would be a keyboard shortcut that pushes the "insert" button in the popup window (see the screenshot below). Is it possible to do and how?

Thanks!

You can use the keyboard shortcut Command + Enter to invoke the Insert button and press the Esc button to invoke the Cancel button.

If you have keyboard navigation enabled (System Preferences app → Keyboard → Shortcuts → Use keyboard navigation to move focus between controls, refer to the screenshot below), it is generally possible to move focus to onscreen control using the Tab key and invoke the control currently in focus using either Enter or Spacebar key. However, it doesn't appear to be the working in the given case. So the aforementioned keyboard shortcuts should be your recourse.


Python 3 Not Updating in Shell on Mac Mini M1 My Mac Mini M1 shipped with Python 3.8.5.
I first installed Anaconda, then downloaded Python 3.9.1 (macOS 64-bit universal2 installer),  installed that and ran Update Shell Profile.command.
IDLE runs the correct version (3.9.1) however typing python3 --version at command line yields: Python 3.8.5
where python3 results in the following:
/Users/fa/opt/anaconda3/bin/python3
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.9/bin/python3
/usr/local/bin/python3
/usr/bin/python3
How do I get the shell to point to the most recent version (3.9.1)?

You can use pyenv to manage your python3 versions installed on your system.
To install pyenv:
You can do the following:
# if you dont have homebrew already, install it by:
/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

# install pyenv with homebrew
brew install pyenv

# source pyenv in your .bash_profile if you are using bash
echo 'eval "$(pyenv init -)"' >> ~/.bash_profile

# source pyenv in your .zshrc if you are using zsh
echo 'eval "$(pyenv init -)"' >> ~/.zshrc

Open a new terminal or source your bash_profile or shell profile by: source ~/.bash_profile or source ~/.zshrc.
Now to install a new version, you can check the list by:
pyenv install -l | grep anaconda

Find the version you want to install, and install it by:
pyenv install <python-version-to-install>

Now you will be able to see all the different python versions that you have installed by:
pyenv versions

You can choose any of the above output as your global Python from the previous command by:
pyenv global <your-installed-version>

For more details see their git repo at: https://github.com/pyenv/pyenv


Access to time capsule from main router? I'm currently having a Linksys router which gets an IP from my ISP. I have 2 Macbooks which are getting a DHCP lease from this router.

When I connect a Time Capsule to the router, the Time Capsule will get an IP from my router, which will be in the same subnet of my Macbooks.

My questions:
(a) will I be able to use Time Machine to backup my 2 Macbooks to the Time Capsule?
(b) will I be able to access a Time Capsule sure from a Windows laptop which is in the same subnet of the Macbooks/Time Capsule?

Yes - once you have things set up - Windows, iOS and Mac will all see the Time Capsule even when it's not running the network and your router still handles routing.

Of course it depends on how you set up the Time Capsule since out of the box, it will want to be a router and you could hook things up in a troublesome manner unintentionally. The time capsule has a firewalled connection (The WAN port) that if you use, you have to tear down several settings to allow someone from "outside" the network to see the drive. The Time Capsule has several internal ethernet ports as well as potentially joining the network over WiFi which wouldn't be firewalled.

I would set up the Time Capsule in bridge mode so it doesn't turn on DHCP/NAT, etc and connect to your router if possible over ethernet to one of the LAN ports and not the one WAN port. The ports you want look like this:

As long as it's in bridge mode and you connect over WiFi or a LAN port, everything should be fully functional and all Macs and PC will see the Time Capsule as if it were running the network. It might also function for bonjour sleep proxy and other nice to have items - but that also depends on the router settings.


Make middle-click on app icon in dock show app window exposé once more In earlier versions of OS X (Snow Leopard, maybe?), middle-click on an open application's icon in the Dock would have the same effect as right-click -> show all windows.

In (Mountain) Lion, this is no longer the case. Middle clicking on the icons in the dock has no effect whatsoever.

Does anyone know how to bring this functionality back?

I didn't find any hidden preferences for it with gdb, but there is a preference that makes scrolling up show all windows:

defaults write com.apple.Dock scroll-to-open -bool true
killall Dock


Open app in background from Terminal I'm trying to open an app in the background from the Terminal by using the -g or --background flags like so

open -g -a Franz

Unfortunately, the app isn't opening in the background. I've also tried the j flag, which is supposed to hide the app, according to the help:

Usage: open [-e] [-t] [-f] [-W] [-R] [-n] [-g] [-h] [-b <bundle identifier>] [-a <application>] [filenames] [--args arguments]
Help: Open opens files from a shell.
      By default, opens each file using the default application for that file.
      If the file is in the form of a URL, the file will be opened as a URL.
Options:
      -a                Opens with the specified application.
      -b                Opens with the specified application bundle identifier.
      -e                Opens with TextEdit.
      -t                Opens with default text editor.
      -f                Reads input from standard input and opens with TextEdit.
      -F  --fresh       Launches the app fresh, that is, without restoring windows. Saved persistent state is lost, excluding Untitled documents.
      -R, --reveal      Selects in the Finder instead of opening.
      -W, --wait-apps   Blocks until the used applications are closed (even if they were already running).
          --args        All remaining arguments are passed in argv to the application's main() function instead of opened.
      -n, --new         Open a new instance of the application even if one is already running.
      -j, --hide        Launches the app hidden.
      -g, --background  Does not bring the application to the foreground.
      -h, --header      Searches header file locations for headers matching the given filenames, and opens them.

The app opens in the foreground as if the I had simply called

open -a Franz

Any idea why this doesn't work and an alternative?

If you call the command open with --hide it works (at least in Sierra MacOs). For instance

open -a /Applications/Skype.app --hide

Also, the j flag helps some

open -gj -a /Applications/Skype.app


Apple Mail Client without “All Mail” folder For a long time I had Apple Mail connected to my gmail account without without the "All Mail" folder.

After adding a second account I noticed that mails sent to myself skip the inbox because I had an "All Mail" folder. So now the question rises:

Will I break something by disabling the "All Mail" IMAP folder (within Gmail settings)?

On my iOS devices I noticed that my mail had "Delete", but after an update it had "Archive", and after updating again "Delete". I though the pattern was that odd minor releases delete mail, and even minor releases archive mail... but now I am getting concerned and want to get my settings right.

Now more seriously. I thought that mail clients did not need to know how Gmail deletes mail since any IMAP delete request just deleted mail from one folder, but never from the server. So in theory, I expected to be OK without the "All Mail" folder.

In the GMAIL settings, it says show or not the All Mail folder in IMAP:

So, it is your choice to show the All Mail folder on your computer or not.

There is nothing to break by choosing which folders will show on your computer from mama google's web email.

The All Mail folder is a feature of the Gmail, not your email program. So if you do not want to see it locally then disable it. Also All mail is just a bucket where a duplicate from all other folders reside for easy search. It is not real folder, just a collection of emails from other folders.


Reinstall MacOS or/vs Reformat? My current install of Catalina has gone a bit wonky. Every other time I start it up it displays the circle with a line through it, so I do a hard restart and it will then boot into Catalina.
I'm trying to move to Big Sur and wondering if I should do a fresh install/reformat, or if i should do a Reinstall MacOS from the recovery screen.
From what I understand Reinstall MacOS just rewrites the OS files, but keeps everything else intact like document, downloads, apps, etc...?
Should I upgrade to Big Sur first? Or Reinstall Catalina, and then upgrade to Big Sur? Or just a fresh install? (Running an iMac Pro)

The "circle with a line through it" is known as the prohibitory symbol. Typically this means that your startup disk contains a version or build of macOS that your Mac can't use. In your case it seems something else is going wrong, but, if I read between the lines correctly, it seems your main goal is to upgrade to macOS Big Sur anyway.
The best course of action is really to make a full current backup of your system and then reformat your drive before re-installing macOS.
You have a number of options open to you, such as using the Option-Command-R keyboard shortcut at startup to upgrade to the latest macOS that is officially compatible with your Mac (and assuming macOS Big Sur is compatible, then this will be what is installed).*
If using this option you'll have the ability to reformat your drive using Disk Utility first before opting for the Reinstall MacOS option. More information on using macOS Recovery to reinstall the Mac operating system is available on Apple's website: How to reinstall macOS.
Another option is to just create a bootable installer for macOS and then boot up from that to install macOS Big Sur. You can opt to fully reformat your drive before doing the installation. More information is available from Apple's website: How to create a bootable installer for macOS.
Regardless of how you go, the main thing here is that you're broadly following this order:

make a full and current backup of your system
reformat your drive
reinstall macOS
transfer across your files etc

Following this order means whatever is causing your 'wonky' Catalina installation really shouldn't come across with you.
NOTE: -
Keep in mind that many users have had issues with macOS Big Sur, so whether you should make the jump yet is really only a decision you can make.
* If your Mac has the Apple T2 Security Chip and you've never installed a macOS update, this will install the latest version of macOS previously installed on your Mac.


What tool do I best use to automatically cleanup / correct / complement the song info of all songs in my iTunes library? Possible Duplicate:
  Is there any features like winamp auto tag exists for iTunes?

Please suggest both mac and windows tools.
Please also tell us about your experience with this tool.

I find that dropping my music files onto MusicBrainz Picard almost always finds the correct name and fills out missing or incorrect information. It has a slightly steeper learning curve than some of the alternatives but the results are, in my experience, usually better.


Mail replies do not use the receiving address as the reply from address When I reply to a mail message, the reply is sent using the default email address as defined in mail.app, and not the email address that it was originally addressed to.

I have all accounts correctly set up and active.

To make it use the correct address, I need to manually select the account I want to send the email through. I am using OS 10.8 recently updated it. It did not happen with previous OS.

This may be because a certain account is locked into a particular SMTP server.

Open Mail Preferences by typing Command + , or Mail -> Preferences
Click the Accounts tab.
Click on an account and make sure "Account Information" is selected.
In the "Outgoing Mail Server" section, make sure the "Use only this server" is not checked.
Do this for every account.


Can I change the application icon of an Automator script? I have created a couple of automator scripts. I was curious if there is a way to change the application icon on those scripts to something other than the robot.

After the script has been created do the following :

Find the source app with the icon you want
Get Info of the source app (cmd-i)
Click on the icon inside the source app's info window
(Not the one in the big Preview section at the bottom, if you have one of those; the little one in the top-left corner.)
Copy it (cmd-c)
Get Info of the automator script (i.e., the destination app) (cmd-i)
Click on the icon inside the destination app's info window
Paste the icon from the clipboard (cmd-v)

This method works for every files in Mac OS X.


Why have my apps from the store suddenly started exiting with code 173? My iMac is running current OS/X Yosemite 10.11.3. It's a big development machine, not rebooted for some weeks. It has many apps from the Mac app store, among them TextWrangler and Clocks. Suddenly (it worked yesterday) TextWrangler wouldn't launch. The listing from Console showed

2016/02/16 11:12:38.116 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.barebones.textwrangler.64672[94023]) Service exited with abnormal code: 173

and it wouldn't do anything else until I threw it in the trash and re-downloaded it from the app store. Then I noticed Clocks wasn't running (it, too, worked yesterday). It gave the same error code 173 and was fixed by re-downloading.

I see from Why do App Store applications transferred into ~/Applications on another machine not launch? that error 173 is caused by the app receipt being invalid.

Is there some reason why receipts for some of my apps from the store would suddenly become invalid?

Yesterday (February 14, 2016), one of the Mac App Store certificates expired and it also was the deadline for developers to include a new intermediate certificate in their app signing chain. The former causes the receipt validation code used by many apps to fail and the latter is the longer term "cure"

https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=02092016a

Developers were emailed at least two times about this change but didn't have a lot of time to submit apps for review - based on the time it typically takes a review for a Mac App Store update to get processed even if it's approved on the first submission.

Users need to launch each one of their MAS apps while connected to the internet to renew intermediate certificates or deal with apps that need to be re-downloaded.

An app with an invalid receipt should exit with a special code (173), which informs OS X to present a Sign in to use this application on this computer dialog.

However, a separate bug in OS X can prevent this dialog from appearing. In this case, users will see an app which simply exits on launch. (Console.app reports that the app is exiting with code 173, but OS X forgets to show the dialog).

Two scenarios that you should be aware of:

If you usually use an app from a location without Internet access, make sure that you launch the app to revalidate it before you head out.
If a app is crashing at launch and not showing you the dialog, you've hit an OS X bug. Deleting the app and re-downloading the app from the store should fix the issue.

Horrible situation that Apple is very aware of.


One Apple ID being used for multiple phones. How to create a new Apple ID for one? I have a question regarding using the same Apple ID for multiple phones. I have let my dad use my Apple ID to purchase apps and stuff, and now I realize that he uses my ID for iCloud, and all our photos and everything are instantly shared on both of our phones. Can someone please help to walk me through the process of setting up a new Apple ID? Or do I have to go see one of the tech guys in Apple store for this matter?
Thank you!

Go to http://appleid.apple.com and grab a new Apple ID.
Open the Settings.app on your dad's iPhone.
Select "iCloud" and scroll to the bottom of the page.
Select "Delete Account".

Don't worry, this won't delete the actual Apple ID account, it will just remove it from the phone.
Now login to the new Apple ID.


Share a Mail.app mailbox between multiple computers I have a Mail.app mailbox on my Mac where I archive mails received from an IMAP account which has a relatively strict quota on mailbox size (500MB). I write mails into the archive once a month (as I reach my quota), but I read from it frequently. The archive mailbox has grown to a couple of gig in size. Having just bought a second Mac, I'd like to share this mailbox across Mail.app on both Macs. Please can some suggest a good solution for doing this? I am reasonably happy to ignore concurrent access problems as a) I will almost certainly never make concurrent writes to to the archive, and b) concurrent reads should be ok for most systems that I can imagine.

My first attempted solution was to move the .mbox file to Dropbox and soft link (ln -s) that file (actually a directory) back to its original location. However when I opened Mail.app the mailbox disappeared. Any suggestion on how to get this to work would also be appreciated.

I had a similar problem a few years ago and decided to move to a better email service. I chose Gmail, mainly because of the >10GB storage.

You can migrate your locally stored messages via IMAP. Once you set up your Gmail account, add the IMAP server to Mail. Then drag and drop all the messages you want to migrate on the Gmail inbox. IMAP will do the rest.

Adding the IMAP server to multiple devices will obviously keep them all in sync.

In general, I would recommend this over using a local option. IMAP is a superb protocol and I don't see the advantage of trying to sync the local archive in any other way.


Change colour of browser address/search bar In OSX would it be possible to change the background colour and/or text colour of the address/search bar input field of a browser (Chrome, Safari, etc)? Not just the highlight colour (System Prefs > General > Highlight color) but as a permanent colour change, independent of focused or highlight state.

Mock up attached.

I'm completely new to OSX/app development and have no idea if this style setting made in the operating system or in the browser app? (Or if it's even possible to change at all).

I'm currently interested in the possibilities of how to achieve this - with the ultimate end goal to be able to toggle the override on or off when necessary.

The Search Bar highlight colour is controlled by a System Preference.

System Prefs > General > Highlight color

This works for Safari & Chrome - though it also changes your highlight system-wide.


Expanding Flash Storage with SDXC I see on a Macbook Pro, you can expand your current storage space with SDHC or SDXC. Being a Linux user I know you can use RAID to expand storage with 2 disk, so storage looks like 1 HD. However, most of the time this setup happens when NO O/S is currently installed on 1 of the 2 storage units.

Would is be possible to expand my storage from the current internal flash storage that host the O/S to a SDXC card, so the storage virtually looks like 1 hard-drive from the mac os desktop?

This should be resolved software wise, however I do not think Disk Utility can accomplish or this can be naturally accomplish with out erasing the OS 1st(Which I do not want to do).

The only viable options for RAID using just 2 drives would be RAID 0 or 1.

RAID 1 wouldn't increase your storage, so 0 is the only remaining choice.

Even if you could RAID an internal fixed drive to a removable SD card (& without first formatting both), the drive would only be 'whole' so long as both were present (& still functional.)
If either drive was missing (or broken) the entire RAID would be irrecoverable.

Trusting an entire RAID to the vagaries of an SD card would be playing russian roulette with your data.


'Go to Folder' disabled from new Finder window When I open a new Finder window, i.e. ⌘ N
I am unable to access the 'Go To Folder' option. (Either via the 'Go' menu, or ⌘ Shift G)

However, I've noticed the option is available within the Open dialog of another application (e.g. TextEdit).

Is there anyway to make this option available in a new Finder window?

OSX 10.12.1

It's possible the feature has been disabled. You can delete the override using the following:

defaults delete com.apple.finder ProhibitGoToFolder && killall -HUP Finder


Crash of anything contacts-related After updating an iPad 2 to iOS 5, I lost the ability to do anything contacts-related:

The "Contacts" app disappears the moment I start it
Composing an email works until I try to select a "To" address, at which point the compose window disappears
Opening the "Mail, Contacts & Calendars" section of the Settings causes the whole Settings thing to disappear.

When installing iOS 5, I chose to sync the contacts to iCloud, at which point whatever screen I was using disappeared just like all of the above do.

The only advice I've found so far is "wipe it clean and reinstall". I tried that, but the crash remains. The crash is fixed only if I don't restore the backup.

Is there anything I can try that would not involve me retyping all the contacts and re-configuring all the settings?

It sounds like a corrupted contacts file. Restore your iPad from backup, then go into iTunes and tell it not to sync contacts to your iPad. This should remove all the contact data. Now try to open Contacts. If it opens and it is empty, it is good. If it still doesn't open, then this method won't work. Assuming it opened, go back into iTunes, tell it to sync contacts again. This will add all the contacts from your computer back onto your iPad. (This assumes that you store your contacts on your computer in the Address Book app. If not, you probably will lose all your contacts...)


My Graphic Card on Macbook Pro 2020 doesnt work correctly This is my Macbook:

And when I open google maps, 3d view, then my fan starts working very loud. And this is how it looks:
Is everything ok with this? Is my graphic card working fine?

Having the fan ramp up while performing complex graphical work is not unexpected.
As for the picture anomaly: does this occur 'everywhere' in Google Maps, or just one location?
If there's no similar problem when performing any other graphically intensive task, then I would not point at the graphics hardware as the source of the problem.


How can I setup my printer to print in black and white as default? Is it possible to set up a printer, so it will always print in black and white?

@ughoavgfhw's answer is incomplete. Some applications (like Google Chrome) will not use the last used preset, but will use the default preset. In order to have such applications adhere to your default settings, you have to interact with the underlying printing system CUPS. These steps will get you there:

Run cupsctl WebInterface=yes using the Terminal application (only required once).
Browse to http://localhost:631/
Go to Printers
Select printer to modify
Choose Set Default Options from the second drop-down
Under Basic set Output color to Black (this step might be different for your printer)
Hit Set Default Options and presto!


Swap CMD and Alt only on external keyboard On my external mechanical keyboard the Super/Windows/CMD key is between Ctrl and Alt, but on the Mac keyboard it's between Alt and Space.

Can I swap CMD and Alt only on the external keyboard?

There is a section dedicated to this under  → System Preferences → Keyboard:

Open Modifier Keys… and reassign them from here:

These settings are specific to each external keyboard you have connected. They will “stick” between reboots, as well as whenever you unplug an external keyboard and plug back it in.


Finder crashing about once a minute: Segmentation Fault I just had to send my MacBook Pro in for a logic board replacement. It seemed fine at first when I got it back, but now I realize that Finder is crashing about once a minute. From system.log:

May  1 09:27:27 CFArgument-2 com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[280] (com.apple.Finder[1790]): Job appears to have crashed: Segmentation fault: 11
May  1 09:27:27 CFArgument-2.local ReportCrash[1793]: Saved crash report for Finder[1790] version 10.9.2 (10.9.2) to /Users/adam/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Finder_2014-05-01-092727_CFArgument-2.crash
May  1 09:27:27 CFArgument-2.local ReportCrash[1793]: Removing excessive log: file:///Users/adam/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Finder_2014-05-01-090714_CFArgument-2.crash

And the contents of that log file.

I would really, really rather not have to take it back to the Apple Store for a fix. I've just spent the last 4 days without it at all and have lots of work to get done and of course I'm on a tight deadline.

Any ideas what could be causing this or how I can fix it?

It seems like the Google Drive sync app was causing the problem. This was something that was enabled before sending my laptop in for repairs. Disabling it now, the crashes have stopped.

I don't know what's wrong with it and I haven't tried reinstalling it to fix it.


Shift key stuck in software after login, reboot fixes this I have a very wierd issue with my macbook air early2015. The shift key is almost always stuck after I wake the computer and login. However this does not affect text for some reason, I can still use the shift key normally in all text fields. It does however affect the slow animation and multiple selection stuff that happens while pressing shift, which makes using the mac almost impossible.

This is always fixed after I reboot, but 9/10 times the key is stuck again after I wake it up and login. Additionally, the problem only happens if the laptop was sleeping long enough for the login screen to appear. The key works fine on the hardware side so I'm pretty sure its a Software thing.

I also couldn't find anyone else with this problem.

I have a workaround which works and involves going to the login screen. Sometimes that is enough to fix. If that doesn't work, switch to the guest user and then log out. That always does it for me.


How to factory reset a MacBook Pro 2011 with a messed up GPU I have a 2011 MacBook Pro 15" which I want to clear all data on the hard drive but leave the OS.

The GPU works badly. Apple logo at startup is green, there is a lot of green… and after boot-up it ends on a white screen.

And thus I cannot get far with the normal methods (methods which use the display).

Is there another way I could do this reset?

There are apparently quite some options left now.

Boot into SafeMode. Hold shift key on StartUp
You will get unaccelerated display but the drivers for the GPU are not loaded and you should have still full access to the disk. Delete to your heart's content.
Take out the drive and mount it into an external case. Attach it to another Mac and do with it what you like to do.
Circumvent the discrete GPU by using this procedure This will give you an internal dsiplay with graphics acceleration from the Intel GPU. Remove all the stuff you like in that now resurrected MacBook Pro.
Create a USB-installer and boot from that thing. The installer should not use the discrete GPU and gives you the option to wipe/format the drive. That would be the true "factory reset".


Can I boot from Snow Leopard DVD on 'normal' pc? Just wondering if I have a copy of of snow leopard 10.6, if I put it in a typical pc that runs windows will it boot or do nothing?

It will not boot. Sharing knowledge about making it boot is against the rules here.


Struggling to remove Contacts from Messages So I just purchased a Macbook Pro second hand and his contacts are still synced to the messages app on the bottom of the screen on the homepage. Is there any way for me remove his contacts and sync my contacts instead?

Yes it is possible.

Select the "Preferences..." item in the Messages menu. Select the accounts tab. There you should see which accounts that are connected to the Messages app. Remove the existing account(s) and the add your own account.


Is there an SVG version of the Finder icon from macOS Big Sur? In a project I'm working on, we have icons to represent different platforms. Since we support both macOS and iOS, we don't want to use the Apple logo for either because it's ambiguous between those two platforms. Currently we are using the Finder icon from macOS Big Sur.
However, we are looking to replace the platform icons with SVG files (preferably lightweight ones), so that they will look great at any resolution, while being smaller in file size. Is there any way I could get an SVG version of this icon without re-creating it?

I decided to just trace over the macOS Big Sur Finder icon in Inkscape, and it turned out pretty great.
It's simplified compared to the PNG that Apple provides, there's no shadows around the icon and no shading on the eyes and mouth, but that might not be noticeable anyway at small scales. I compressed the SVG file using the svgcleaner tool, it's 1,729 bytes.


Can I measure time by counting frames and trusting the '240 FPS' of my iPhone 7+ slow motion? I'm using a slow motion video recorded using an iPhone 7+ to track something but would like to avoid using a chronometer to know the time the process is taking. I need to measure about 10 seconds with an uncertainty of at most 0.1 s. Is this possible by just counting 2400 frames of my homemade video?

An easy, but not 100% accurate way of ensuring this, is simply to right-click the video in Photos on your Mac and select "Get Info". This will show the average number of frames per second over the whole video. This is usually not exactly 240, but extremely close.

Obviously as it is an average it can vary very slightly from one range to another within the file, but for most usages this is just fine.

If you want to be absolutely precise, you'll need to look inside the HEVC file itself, to see exactly how many frames are in each second in the file (i.e. look at every second by itself - not doing an average over the whole file). This requires you to be proficient with video file formats at a programmer level.


How can I change the default width of Finder columns? I have found OS X's default column width to be a bit too narrow. Is there any way to make it wider?

I know how to resize columns manually, but it's annoying to repeat the process every time I open a new folder. Can I force Finder to "remember" the new column width? Also, if this is possible, can anyone point me toward the official Apple documentation that describes how to do it?

In column view in the Finder, you can resize columns by positioning the mouse pointer over over the thin line that separates column panes, and dragging it to the left to make it narrower or to the right to make it wider.

To make the Finder remember the new width, hold down the option key(⌥) while dragging the pane separator to the desired width.

The best documentation I can find on this from Apple alludes to the fact that holding down option resizes "all columns at once" but does not explicitly say that this makes the change persistent.


Can FileVault show the login window as 'name and password', not 'list of users'? Normally, Mac OS X lets you choose to show the login screen as a list of users (you click to enter the password), or two text fields (you enter the username and password):

But, I use FileVault 2. So, when I first turn on the computer I'm greeted with the login screen (with a blue background).
This is fine, except for one thing: It's a list of users.
But, for a variety of reasons, I prefer the 'Name and password' style.

Is it possible to have FileVault give a prompt for username and password, instead of a list of users?

I'm quoting this directly from a post in this thread at Apple Discussions:

This isn't a bug. This is the way FileVault-2's EFI boot authentication UI is built. When your Mac first starts up, EFI-boot takes over to decide what to do. It either continues to bring up the system to the typical OSX login screen, which is managed by OSX's system preferences, or it starts a special EFI pre-boot where it displays the FV2 unlock screen with the icons of designated OSX accounts approved to unlock the disk. Once you log on, the EFI unlock sequence carries forth your credentials, performing a single signon.
I have submitted a UI request (not as a bug) to be able to either edit the EFI boot screen (look at /usr/standalone/i386/EfiLoginUI directory, none are editable using normal applications) or ask that a feature is included, probably in the FV system preference pane, to add a custom banner.

For now, there doesn't appear to be a way to change it.


How can I sync Mac Calendar with my own server? How can I sync Mac Calendar with my own server? Not one of Google, not one of Apple, iCloud. But my own.

Launch System Preferences
Select Internet Accounts
Select Add Other Account…
Select CalDAV account

You can then configure the calendar to synchronise with. The calendar must support CalDAV to work with macOS.


OSX Sierra Notes & Reminders sync disabled On all my other devices(iPhone, iPad, another Macbook) I am able to sync my iCloud notes just fine. For some reason my work's Macbook on Sierra is unable to sync and the checkbox is completely disabled. Any ideas of how I can get around this?

Check for a MacOS update, if you have one do it. If not then continue below.

Does your work MacBook have any work-installed profiles in your system preferences?

A lot of times companies don't allow certain features to be accessed. If there is a profile or a preference there that isnt a default preference then it was installed.

If you don't have any profiles or special preferences then I would check to see if you can access www.icloud.com and see if you can visit the site on your work MacBook. If you can then great, if not then its likely that the server is blocked, which means that it is either blocked from the network.

If none of the above apply, then there are 2 things that you can do to test and see if its a software issue.

Sign out of iCloud and then sign back in and see if the issue continues.
Try it in safe mode to see if there is something else that could be preventing it.
Create a new user account on that MacBook and sign into iCloud with the same Apple ID account. See if the issue continues.

If they still don't work with either of those troubleshooting steps then you need to backup the Mac with Time Machine and then the next step is to re-install MacOS and then once its been installed, try it again. It should work if none of the above did.


Change the way how finder truncates file names Finder truncates file names (and other things). Is there a way of changing this behaviour?

example: i have a file with a names

long_file_name_that_i_do_care_about.txt
long_file_name_that_i_do_not_care_about.txt

but what i see is

long_file_..._care_about.txt
long_file_..._care_about.txt

So my main question is how get Finder to cut off only the end of the file so i can actually see the difference? And why is Finder truncating dates and file sizes too?

I don't believe there is a way to change that - it's thought that it is more common to have the part of the file that differs be at the end of the name (i.e. Holidays and other important days 2010.xls vs. Holidays and other important days 2011.xls).

As to the dates and file sizes being truncated, are you using the List view in Finder? You can change the column width to see more.


Microsoft sculpt keyboard unresponsive on Mac OS Sierra This is really frustrating me. I have a Microsoft Sculpt USB keyboard and have just got a new Macbook Pro with touch bar, and it is just not pairing with the keyboard.

The keyboard connects via a Nano tranceiver, which is plugged into my USB-C port via an adaptor. I can see that this is successfully connected in my system information:

The first time I connected the keyboard, I got a keyboard setup assistant dialogue as described in this question prompting me to press some keys on the keyboard to set it up. When I press the keys as requested, nothing happens.

Now, nothing pops up, and the keyboard is just completely unresponsive. However, I can see the keyboard is there as one of my input sources when I click 'Modifier Keys...' in my keyboard system preferences: .

Really pretty stuck on what to do here. I can't find any drivers or other settings that I might change to fix this.

https://www.themtparty.com/karabiner-settings-microsoft-sculpt-keyboard/

the Karabiner download allowed my Sculpt keyboard to work on my El Capitan system.  I'm excited as the keyboard suddenly stopped working a few weeks ago for no reason.  Happy for this download, will donate coffee $ as suggested


How do I stop App Store multiple downloads I upgraded to Mavericks a couple of days ago.
Yesterday I "upgraded" Numbers and Pages (incidentally don't do this - they have LESS functionality).

Now App Store is trying to download Numbers and Pages again. I have already downloaded Numbers at least twice, now it is trying again!

How do I stop this?

I may have caused this by clicking "Update" more than once or selecting "Check for unfinished downloads".
Unfortunately App Store no longer gives any indication when you click "Update"

Check to see if you still have the "iWork '09" folder in your main Applications folder.  The updated versions don't replace the old ones there, so the App Store keeps seeing the previous version and thinks you need to update.  (iMovie and GarageBand have the same issue; previous versions were installed into a folder inside the Applications folder.)


MacBook Pro 17 2009 - fails to turn on after optical drive upgrade The optical drive on my MBP stopped accepting discs, so I removed the optical drive and replaced it with the optical drive from my MBP 15 2009. Now it doesn't start.

During the upgrade I disconnected some cables, one of which I failed to reconnect, is this the issue?

How do I make my MBP 17 bootable once more?

Based on this iFixit guide (see step 13), you seem to have disconnected the subwoofer/right speaker cable incorrectly, damaging the socket in the process (supported by this diagram on page 185 of the Apple Technician Guide of the logic board, labels working counterclockwise from the top right.)

Page 113 of the same guide details how to properly remove the cable: it appears that you somehow damaged the socket whilst removing the cable.

I'm not sure why this would cause your Mac to fail to boot however: perhaps it's an incompatible Superdrive, though my belief was that they are compatible. Can you detail how far you get into the boot process and look for any additional damage that may have occurred?


Automate Fn key switch when opening Excel So Microsoft released a free preview of Office for Mac, and it is pretty sweet.

One of my biggest problem when using Excel on a mac has always been that the most popular/frequent shortcut (F2 -> edit cell) was not available on macs (there was a default replacement, cmd-T I think, but not half as handy as F2).

Now F2 is here in the preview, great! But one still has to either press the Fn key, or switch the whole Fn key row (link from Apple page). Hence the question:

Is there a way to either:

selectively only switch the F2 key, or
switch the Fn key row automatically when opening Excel?

I think the best way to achieve this is to install a keyboard mapper program. I use Karabiner. Once installed (might need a reboot?) you'll then see a menu bar icon that looks like a rounded square probably with the word 'Default' next to it; it is suggesting you're using the default mapping profile. Click on it and select 'Preferences' to access Karabiner's prefs applet so you can edit the private.xml file and add in the mapping below. You should be able to find a button for "Open private.xml" under the "Misc & Uninstall" tab of the preferences window.

Put this into your private.xml file:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>

  <!-- ============================================================ -->
  <!-- Make F2 send as Ctrl-U for formula editing -->

  <appdef>
    <appname>Excel</appname>
    <equal>com.microsoft.Excel</equal>
  </appdef>

  <item>
    <name>F2 becomes Ctrl-U in Excel</name>
    <identifier>private.map_F2_to_ctrlU</identifier>
    <only>Excel</only>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::F2, KeyCode::U, ModifierFlag::CONTROL_L</autogen>
  </item>
</root>

That will now make it that when you hit F2, it will send to Excel the Ctrl-U sequence instead. Whatever F2 was doing before will no longer work, but it appears to be some kind of cut-and-paste.

Note that I am doing this on a wired apple extended keyboard (from a Mac Pro) where F2 doesn't require Fn (the alternate functions like volume do), so I don't know what the non-numeric keypad or laptop keyboards will do, but perhaps you'll have to add either KeyCode::FN or ModifierFlag::FN to the left side of that mapping if it doesn't work right away. Then again, the Fn behavior might be a keyboard preference- I don't recall off the top of my head.

It is worth pointing out that in the mapping file I created for this, I defined it in a way that this mapping will only be valid for the Excel application, it won't do it for any other application.

The only other thing you might need to do in the preferences window is under the "Change Key" tab, there will now be a checkbox for "F2 becomes Ctrl-U in Excel" which will need to be checked.

Let me know if that works. FWIW, I've used Karabiner for a few years now as a way to map the Right-Option key as a Windows Menu/Context key when running under Citrix Receiver (remote login to work PC) and it has worked well for me and updates have been painless.


Charging Earbuds Charging Case 5V DC (USB C) with 96W Apple Macbook Charger? Today I connected my 96W Macbook Pro Charger to my Mpow M9 Wireless Earbuds Charging Case (purchased a week ago) which also has Type C charging port. Within few seconds of connecting, smoke started coming out of the charging case. I quickly unplugged the cable but it was too late. The charging case is now non-functional and ear buds are of no use.

Was I being stupid of connecting this charger to this device which states that it should be connected to 5V charger? Instead, should the charging case adapt to the different charger despite it being a lot higher watts/volts than required?

Was I being stupid of connecting this charger to this device which states that it should be connected to 5V charger?

Technically, no, you were not bring stupid.

The charging capacity of the charger can be larger than the device so long as the device conforms to the charging specifications.

Is the Macbook 12 inch's USB-C charger interchangeable with other USB-C chargers or devices?

  Within few seconds of connecting, steam started coming out of the charging case.

That’s not steam.  It’s the “magic smoke” and you let it out.  In all seriousness, the case got burnt to a crisp.

Now, if the charger is USB-C, one would assume that it’s compatible with other USB-C type chargers that conform to the USB PD (Power Delivery) specification.  It sounds like this device doesn’t.  Reading the user manual, it doesn’t list USB-C PD, but refer to it as a “Type C charging port” (page 3). It also lists the charger as a “5V output charger” (page 12) with no reference to USB.

This is very misleading because it makes you believe you can use a USB-C charger with this device. In fact, you can only use a charger that only outputs 5 volts, it’s not clear if it’s a bona fide USB charger that’s being used.

IMO, this is a horrible design.  They should have used either a USB mini port or USB-C that conformed to the Power Delivery specification.

Now, the USB Power Delivery specification has four normative voltages: 5V, 9V, 15V, and 20V.  The charging device will negotiate with the charger as to how much voltage to deliver.  By default, it supplies 5V.  So, it should work.  Since it got fried, this is clearly a case of a faulty design or manufacturing defect of the charging case.


How do I add custom DNS server and preserving default DNS of ISP in OS X Mountain Lion I'm using OS X Mountain Lion. I'm using dnsmasq to set up wildcard localhost domain names, such as http://local.dev, to point to localhost. But I have to add 127.0.0.1 in my system preference -> network settings.

After I set up 127.0.0.1 as the DNS server, the ISP's default DNS servers were over wrote by mine. This was preventing me from accessing websites. It's not a big deal when I don't move my computer, I could manually enter the ISP's DNS server. But if I change places, the ISP's DNS changes.

I also tried to use google's DNS server, but it's not working in some instance. How can I reserve (or update) the ISP's DNS server without deleting 127.0.0.1 as a DNS.

Thank you in advance.

Yep. You can do this, /etc/resolver is your friend.

$ man 5 resolver:

  domain
  Domain name associated with this resolver configuration.
  This option is normally not required by the Mac OS X DNS search system when the resolver configuration is read from a file in the /etc/resolver directory.   In that case the file name is used as the domain name.

Simply put you can place nameserver 127.0.0.1 inside a file you create called /etc/resolver/dev

You'll need to reload/restart. It'll then direct any requests to *.dev to your local nameserver.

Your network connection DNS remains on automatic, so it will cope with any changes in your environment.

Edit: I've just found https://serverfault.com/a/164215/163311 and http://www.echoditto.com/blog/never-touch-your-local-etchosts-file-os-x-again which have a few more details and include dnsmasq setup details.


macOS Calendar adding its own alerts I recently got a MacBook, and I've added a few Google accounts to the Calendar app. Ever since I did, I've been getting alerts about the event after it's already passed or in progress. It seems as though Calendar.app is adding alerts to the event on its own; this didn't happen before I added my Google account to the macOS calendar.

The only alert that is supposed to be there is ‘Alert ten minutes before start’. Every other alert there has added somehow.

I've seen this behavior quite a bit with the calendar application when I dismiss the reminders. More specifically, if you snooze, "remind me tomorrow" or otherwise "kick it down the road", it seems to pick up these additional reminders. This is with a combination of iOS and macOS devices on the same shared calendar.

I think this comes about because you have a reminder several hours or days ahead of the actual event.

Suggestion? If you have something that you want to remind you on a daily basis, instead of kicking the reminder, just set it to a daily repeating reminder instead. That way you can get the benefit of being nagged about it but also you can just dismiss / mark completed today and hear about it again tomorrow without building up the multiple reminders.


Macbook Air iPhoto does not see albums on the iPad I have a number of photo albums on my iPad. When I connect my iPad to my macbook air and go to iPhoto I only see the photos in my camera roll.

I want to transfer my photos on my iPad to my mac. I can't sync my photos because it was synced with another device previously and I don't want my photos on my iPad to be deleted. I need to get the photos onto my mac first before I sync.
When I had a PC I could simply go to the iPad and select the photos and copy and paste them. I cannot find any place on the mac where I can browse the photos on the iPad?

Am I missing something?

Please help. I am starting to thing I made a huge mistake getting the macbook air.

You could use a 3rd-party app such as the free WiFi Photo Transfer to access all those pictures on your MacBook Air. It uses a web browser to access the photos, so you don't have to install any software on the MacBook Air or deal with syncing.

The whole process is easy:

Launch the app on the iPhone or iPad
On your computer, you type in the address it tells you to in a browser.
You can then choose to either download a specific picture or entire albums.

Another benefit is that none of the pictures are sent to the Internet.


iMac 21.5-inch Mid 2010 won't boot into OS X after installing Ubuntu, will boot into grub rescue So, as the title says, I have an iMac 21.5-inch Mid 2010 model and I installed Windows 8.1 with Boot Camp. After attempting to uninstall Ubuntu and Windows in Disk Utility (in OS X and Recovery) it would always give me an error,
"Partition failed with the error:
The requested size change for the target disk or a related disk is too small. Please try a different disk or partition, or make a larger change."

What I have tried:

I have tried resetting PRAM/NVRAM with Command + Option/Alt + P+R, nothing.
I have tried holding X to Start up from an OS X startup volume when the Mac would otherwise start up from a non-OS X startup volume. Using Startup key combinations for Mac, still nothing (did work before).
I have done things in grub rescue such as ls (lists partitions and disks) and attempted to boot back into Ubuntu.
I have tried holding Option/Alt to get into the startup manager, still boots to grub rescue.
I have tried holding Command + R to boot into Recovery, worked before, not working now.

What I can't do:

Can't use another Mac to do anything such as target disk mode (no firewire cable).

My iMac Specs:

iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2010) - Technical Specifications

21.5 inch, 3.06 Mhz, has OSX 10.10 installed with Windows and Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS.

Fixed after many days. I noticed that the keyboard wasn't initializing during boot so I picked up a new keyboard(something I didn't even think of at the time) and it initialized. I held the Option/Alt key and to prevent this from happening again I installed rEFInd.


Partitioned hard drive and now missing half the space I partioned my hard drive and now I have half of the space I originally had even after I deleted the partion. How do I get my space back??

You can tell APFS to grow the container to fill the disk as follows:

diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0

This is non-destructive, and will automatically grow it to fill the actual disk - that's what that last 0 means.

Full explanation:

Usage:  diskutil APFS resizeContainer <inputDisk> limits [-plist]
        diskutil APFS resizeContainer <inputDisk> <newSize> [<triple>*]
        where <inputDisk> = A Container Reference DiskIdentifier (preferred)
              or a Physical Store DiskIdentifier
              <newSize> = the desired new Container or Physical Store size
              <triple> = a { fileSystemPersonality, name, size } tuple
Resize an APFS Container. One of the Container's Physical Store disks will be
resized, and therefore the Container which it defines will be resized by an
equal amount. You do this by specifying a new Container size; to preview the
current available range, you can instead specify "limits"; no change will be
made. A new size of zero is taken as a request to do a grow-to-fit operation.
If the new size implies a shrink, you can specify ordered triples in the same
manner as `diskutil partitionDisk`, etc, to fill the partition map's free
space gap that would otherwise result. If there is more than one Physical Store
and you specify a Container Reference, the appropriate Physical Store will be
chosen automatically. Ownership of the affected disks is required, and all of
the Container's Volumes must be unencrypted or unlocked.
Example:  diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk5 110g
          diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 110g
          diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk5 0
          diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk5 1.5t jhfs+ foo 10g ms-dos BAR 0


Wifi Reception iPhone 6s Vs XR I got a brand new iPhone XR and noticed that the it has quite poor wifi reception compared to iPhone 6s. On speed test I got 18.03mbps on 6s while only 4.92mbps on XR! Could this be due to thick XR body or should I get it checked. I noticed youtube videos take time to load on XR compared to 6s!
Is this normal or shall I get it checked out?

Typically the Wi-Fi antenna is kept close to the outer shell of the phone, so overall thickness shouldn't matter. This may be due to your wireless router being an older model and using an older standard than the XR was designed for (Wireless G/N, for example). Have you performed the speed test with both devices one after another, and have you attempted a test with a different Wi-Fi connection point to see if the problem is the router rather than the phone?


Would and SSD or RAM be the better upgrade in this situation? I feel I'm making this post more for validation than anything, but I want to get some of your opinions as well.

My friend contacted me the other day asking how she could make her MacBook Pro run a bit faster. I had her send me a screenshot of what she has and it's a Mid 2009 MBP with 4GB of RAM. I had her send me a screenshot of activity monitor and it shows she was using 8 MB of swap. In my mind, she is going to see a better performance boost from upgrading to an SSD instead of RAM, here's why:

Her swap memory is already pretty low. Now, she is running 10.10.1, which is more RAM hungry, but that's the beauty of an SSD. Even if she does need more RAM, her swap will be much more efficient because it's on an SSD. And, when it's not needing it, any read/writes will be exponentially faster than the current 5400 rpm 320 GB drive she has now.

She talked to her brother who said to her "upgrading to an SSD you won't see a difference unless you game." Which I then let her know is complete and utter.... you know. So I decided she could upgrade to 6GB of RAM for cheap and then get an SSD all for under $250. She told me that would be her ceiling.

Tonight she told me that because of what her brother said and another friend of hers said she is going to get a 1TB spinning drive and 8GB of RAM but she still wants me to help install it. I think a 1TB is honestly a terrible idea since that will most likely make read/writes slower, but that's just me.

So tell me... do you think my logic is faulty? Is more RAM really going to be a huge upgrade for her? Or am I making sense by thinking "if swap is needed, it's better it be from an SSD than get more ram that you aren't using in the first place?"

Your logic is sound. Just something to keep in mind is that while yes swap is much faster on a SSD, it is still much slower in respect to RAM and both should probably be upgraded. But yes she would see the most improvement by going to a SSD

Just as a side note 10.10.1 will try to pre-cache as many things as possible in RAM so apple uses 'memory pressure' to reflect the systems demand for RAM.


Office Word 2011 for Mac scrambles hyperlinks with different schemes I have a very urgent question.

I made my dad buy a MacBook Air just 3 days ago, I configured it completely and installed Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac, so far so good.

There is only one bad downside: Every Word document (.doc) which has hyperlinks with custom schemes (i.e: test://, whatever://) gets converted automatically to some weird file pointer scheme stuff. For example:

Example 01: "testing://onetwothree/" -> "file://localhost/testing/::onetwothree::"

Example 02: "one://two/" -> "file://localhost/one/::two::"

However, using "http://", "mailto://", "file://" works with whatever you put after them.

Typically, I'm looking for one simple solution: tell the Word not to validate the hyperlinks present on the document, whether the document is opened, saved, a hyperlink is created or edited, so they will not end up being converted/changed.

PS: This behavior is not present on Windows Office (any version), only on Mac Office 2011.

I have heard that Word Macros CAN overwrite the behavior for built-in function callbacks, something like VBA Scripts (correct me if I'm wrong).

Any help?

As for the 'weird' file pointed scheme, that's just what Office '11 does with non-standard URLs. It is actually attempting to create a link to file on the computer's filesystem.

To have Word not create such links, in Word go to the Preferences > AutoCorrect > AutoFormat as You Type tab and un-check "Internet and network paths with hyperlinks".


How can I get OSX Mavericks to notice a DNS change in `/etc/hosts`? A common way to "block" a website (eg, to eliminate it as a distraction) is to edit /etc/hosts and point the domain to the loopback address. Eg:

# Stop goofing off
127.0.0.1 youtube.com

On Mavericks, I find that changes like this are seemingly ignored by the OS; after editing the file (with sudo) and saving, the site that should be blocked still loads.

I've tried resetting my DNS cache as follows:

dscacheutil -flushcache
sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder

But the site still loads.

How can I get OSX Mavericks to notice a change to /etc/hosts?

According to the the hosts(5) manual page, the /etc/hosts file is used by mDNSResponder. Your attempts are correctly flushing the computer wide cache but you also need to flush the browser's private cache.

After each edit of /etc/hosts reset the mDNSResponder cache using this Apple technical note, OS X: How to reset the DNS cache:

sudo dscacheutil -flushcache

After doing this, reset your browser caches:

Safari: use the menu item Safari > Reset Safari.
Chrome: use the menu item Chrome > Clear Browsing Data.


iMac wiped clean, no install disc I just bought two iMac's at an auction, they were both wiped clean before the sale. The problem is when I turn them on I'm getting a screen with an icon of a folder with a question mark. So the guy wiped them but didn't reinstall it, or so I believe.

I did not get any of the disc's for the computer because it was a school sale, so I have no idea how I can installed the system so I can use them. I do have a Macbook Pro running Mac OS X version 10.6.8, however the disc that came with it didn't work on the large iMac's, which I figured it wouldn't.

My question is what do I do at this point? Is there a way to start them, Do I need to buy a disc?

Unless your MacBook Pro lacks a FireWire port, you can use Target Disk Mode to have the iMac reboot and act as a FireWire drive.

From there, you could use Disk Utility (or Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper or other tools) to make a bootable copy of the MBP's OS onto the iMac's drive.

Alternatively, you might buy Mountain Lion or use a past Lion purchase from the app store to download an installer and run it from the MBP. You could choose to install the OS onto the "external drive" that is the iMac. Then you could chain the second iMac (or repeat this activity).

It really depends what OS you want and can run on the iMacs.

Your first step is to run the serial number of the iMacs to this page and see what Apple's service name for each Mac. From there, you will know what OS shipped and if the Mac can run Lion or Mountain Lion.

http://support.apple.com/manuals/#

Just enter the serial number in the address bar past the # or enter it into the form on the web page. You can always order replacement media from Apple, but there will be a charge for that. The other suggestions to buy a retail packaging DVD to install will likely be an inexpensive way to acquire an install OS once you have determined what OS can run and which OS you want to run.


How to view a PDF at its original size? A friend sent me a PDF with a UI mockup claiming it is 1024x768.
It is, indeed:

However, View > Actual Size (⌘0) zooms in so much that the PDF takes up almost all 1920x1200 screen estate that is available.

How do I view the PDF at its original size?

Turns out, there's a Preview preference that controls what actual size actually means:

If you want points to correspond directly to physical pixels, choose the first option.
(Not sure how it affects Retina displays though!)


Time Machine keeps asking to create new backup? Every time a backup completes I get this message -

'Time Machine completed a verification of your backups. To improve reliability, Time Machine must create a new backup for you.'

I am backing up to Lacie Network Space 2 drive via wifi.

Does anybody know how to correct this?

This will not get fixed until Time Machine re-engineer its approach and move away from using a remote-mounted disk image over the network.

The problem lies due to network connections inherently being unreliable (more so wireless networks). However the file system (HFS+) was built for locally-attached disk and assumes that the connection is mostly reliable. Using Time Machine over the network is like writing to a hard drive in which you often unplug the cable mid-transfer. Eventually corruptions occur.

The only way to correct this is to file a bug report to increase the priority of fixing this within Apple's engineering group.

More information here.


How can i have makefile/shell script call /Applications/application.app? OS Mac OS X 10.6.6
emacs 23.2.1

I'm currently trying to install magit on carbon emacs using their proposed make solution. I'm an almost complete makefile newby so I might be on the complete wrong path altogether.
Makefile displays:

%.elc: %.el
$(BATCH) --eval '(byte-compile-file "$<")'

which gets expanded to:

emacs -batch -q -no-site-file -eval "(setq load-path (cons (expand-file-name \".\") load-path))" --eval '(byte-compile-file "magit.el")'

What I do understand. However it comes back with:

Cannot open load file: subst-ksc

What after a bit of googling reveals some missing libraries. I also realized that the emacs referenced in the expanded command is pointing to /usr/bin/emacs which is one big file, I don't see the normal lisp / site-lisp / etc directories. I also know that my prefered emacs is carbon emacs located in /Application/Emacs.app which just opens when clicking on it, or alternatively, I can open it in with the terminal:

open /Application/MyApp.app

Finally the title question: How can I make Makefile using the Emacs.app on the applications directory? I hope someone here knows the answer, or can point me to alternatives.

regards,
Jeroen.

To use the Emacs.app from shell you need the unix executable embedded inside it. It is at Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs (I don't have this version of emacs so the capitalisation might differ)

An alternative is to use open to start any app from the workspace using open.

e.g.

open -a Emacs.app --args <all those passed to emacs>