How can I irreversibly prevent Safari from being used for web browsing? I have a content blocker set up just the way I want it as a Firefox extension, but I've recently been cheating by switching over to Safari.  I want to reclaim distraction-free browsing but after an exhausting effort I can't figure out a good way to "break" Safari 13 on Mojave.

Rootless won't permit uninstallation (nor do I see that being advisable).

I tried using Gatekeeper to prevent Safari from being launched.  Supposedly

sudo spctl --add --label "BlockedApps" /Applications/Safari.app
sudo spctl --disable --label "BlockedApps"

should have done the trick, but some have reported this trick doesn't work and indeed it did nothing to stop Safari from launching.

I got my hopes up with WasteNoTime only to find such extensions aren't supported by Safari anymore.

Apps like Cold Turkey are overkill, since I only want to prevent web browsing using Safari.  Apps like 1Focus aren't powerful enough.  Foiled at every turn.  Is there a trick to "breaking" Safari?

Enable parental controls in System Preferences and black list Safari on Mojave and older. On Catalina it’s called screen time, but you can blocks apps like a safari there as well.

If you need the high security option, get the self control app. Warning, you will not be able to use the internet or blocked sites until the time you enter passes. If you mistakenly choose one day rather than one hour (or worse), you will have to erase your Mac or wait for the time to expire.

https://selfcontrolapp.com


Where are \ { and } on an Apple Wireless Keyboard - French? I am using an Apple Wireless Keyboard - French.

Could anyone tell me how to type \ { and }?

\ = Option ⌥ + Shift ⇧ + :
{ = Option ⌥ + (
} = Option ⌥ + )

You can display the layout in the Preferences (Language & Text - Input Sources - Show Input Sources in Menu bar).


Crazy Memory usage on Transcend 128GB JetDrive 130 Expansion Card for MBA I've just received my new JetDrive Lite 130 designed for Macbook Air. When I plugged it in, I was happy to see 128GB available on the empty card. However, I copied 16GB of files to it and the Finder now tells me only 89.3GB is available. That's 39GB less space for 16GB of usage! The folder itself shows 16m bytes and 25GB on disk, whereas on my ssd, it shows 16m bytes and 16GB on disk.

Has anyone else any experience of the same happening? I can understand some additional memory being used up, but 250%!!

I've also heard not to reformat these cards because there are speed optimisations applied during the factory formatting. Is this true?

I've emailed Transcend support anyway, so I'll post their response when I hear back.

As mentioned in my original question, the SD Association (of which Transcend are a member) cite performance impacts as a reason against using standard drive formatters.

However, they have a formatter available for download at https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4. On Mavericks, I reformatted my drive using this utility and recopied my files.

The results were as follows:

A single file 14.57GB took 4 minutes to copy. This is the exactly as advertised 60MB/s write speed.
80k files (16GB), however took 92 minutes to copy. which reflects about 5MB/s

In both cases, however, the info window was as expected showing a reasonable amount of memory usage and memory remaining. So, this solved my original problem.

As a comparison, I decided to reformat as a Journaled and found the following:

14.57GB file took 10 minutes to copy, which is only about 50% of the advertised max speed.
80k files (16GB) more importantly took only 10.5 minutes.

For me, sticking with a Journaled format is a no brainer, particularly if writing lots of small files, which I will be. It also may allow me include this on a Fusion drive, although I haven't investigated this yet.

TL;DR - It is probably best to reformat to a Journaled partition as it provides a more consistent write speed of about 30MB/s, no matter the file sizes. ExFAT ranged between 5 to 60 MB/s speeds, depending on the number of files being written (lower number is faster).

UPDATE: Transcend replied to recommended a replacement.


Vibrate on notification in Silent Mode When my iPhone is in Silent Mode from the side switch I only ever get vibrations when specific apps receive a notification, such as TweetBot/Facebook, however I'm not getting them from quite a few other apps such as Fallout Shelter/Spotify. I was under the impression that enabling Sounds under the Notification preferences switched on the vibration notification when the phone is silent, but it doesn't seem to be working.

I'm sure I'm missing something obvious but I can't see it.

It's under the app's discretion whether to alert the user with vibration when silent mode is enabled. You can contact the app developer's through the link on the App Store page.

For notifications from apps like Fallout Shelter, I like the fact that the notification doesn't cause a vibration as its there when I next check the lock screen and I regard those notifications as less important (I don't need to be interrupted for those kinds of notifications) although I agree there should be an option to enable/disable this by the user. This would have to be something implemented within the specific app.


Unable to login to El Capitan Macbook Pro after booting, works after waking from sleep I've got a macbook pro running El Capitan and when I wake it up from sleep, the password works fine.  However, when I power it on from being shutdown or restart it, the password no longer works.  I have another admin account I can use to reset the password but I've done this twice now and it keeps happening.  I'm doublechecking that the caps lock is off and that I'm not mistyping the password or accidentally pushing the shift key or something.

This link https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT202842

Talks about how to force people to enter their passwords twice in order to login. It doesn't say so, but I read into this that it's possible to have a different password for unlocking the machine and for logging on.

I also remember once having a problem where the machine was asking for both passwords even though I had autologin enabled and the passwords where the same. I think I had to reset the PRAM or something like that. Sorry, was a while ago and haven't had the problem since.

Some other links that may give you clues:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6626285?tstart=0
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204837


Console on 10.2.5 not showing history before Console.app started I know that I used to be able to start up Console to see things like what happened due to a system error: you could just fire it up and search for the most recent "boot" and look at the events before that to see what had happened.

Now, however, it seems that my scrollback in Console.app is limited to the moment I started it. That is, I would have to have it running all the time in order to see what's going on on the system, and what I described above (i.e., seeing what's going on around a boot/reboot) is impossible.

Is this now the new behaviour? I admit I hadn't looked at it for a while (probably an OS version or two).

I should mention that I had to restore my machine recently from a Time Machine backup. That's the only notable variable I can think of.

Ah, as Phong notes, this is a duplicate of Sierra Console.app show earlier data.

The short version is that the Sierra Console.app behaves this way currently by design (although there are a couple of workarounds noted in the other answer, depending on what you want).


How to make File Open dialog more similar to Finder window? In previous versions of macOS, the File Open dialog had a "Show sidebar" button, "Show items as" and "Group items by" radio buttons in the toolbar.

In Mojave (not sure in which version this was changed), they're hidden under a hamburger menu:

Is there some way to make the File Open more similar to the Finder window, like in previous macOS versions?

Natively, without the use of third-party software1, no, the Toolbar of a Open File… window is not customizable in macOS Mojave, and its layout was changed from what was the norm in previous versions. It was not customizable in previous versions as well.

That said, you can still use the default Finder keyboard shortcuts to manipulate the window's view instead of using the button menu on the Toolbar.

For Hide Sidebar / Show Sidebar use: ⌥⌘S  (Option-Command-S)

Show items as:

as Icons  ⌘1
as List   ⌘2
as Columns ⌘3

Note that other default Finder keyboard shortcuts may apply; however, I only tried the ones already mentioned.

1 Per a comment, there is Default Folder X, $34.95 USD, that may have some functionality that could be useful.

Note that I have no affiliation with its developer nor have I used it. At that price, I probably wouldn't either.


Can I display top charts in my app using album artwork from iTunes? I have used this iTunes API to display the top charts in my app but recently I received an email from Apple about the complaints that Recording Industry Association of America  (RIAA) want to take my app down because of the infringement of album cover artwork. I have seen a lot of others apps are showing the artwork, like:

iMusic
Music Player & Unlimited Songs 4+

and many more.

It seems to me that what Apple's email says is going to be the most important thing here.

For example are they asking you to remove the artwork? Or are they just trying to inform you that they're getting complaints?

My thinking would be that since you're publishing an app on Apple's App Store that you'd have to take their email as a strong indicator of what you can do (or need to do).

As a registered Developer, you can also call Apple Developer Program Support in your country for clarification/guidance.

Finally, if Apple wants you to stop showing the artwork, it may be worth mentioning the other apps to them. However, it is entirely possible that Apple has also written to their developers too asking them to take the same action.


Is there a way to delete or remove my apple email address completely from my apple iCloud account Looking for a way to keep my apple account but remove my iCloud email address from being active or able to receive emails in any manner. Similar to how google allows you to do what is listed in this article:
https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/61177

I suggest you change the email address associated with your iCloud account to a new address.
Change your Apple ID Steps below taken from Apple Support document (US) HT202667
If you no longer use the email address that's associated with your Apple ID, you can change it. You won’t lose access to your contacts, purchases, or other account information.
How to change your Apple ID to a different email address

Go to appleid.apple.com and sign in.

In the Account section, choose Edit.

Choose Change Apple ID.

Enter the email address that you want to use.

Choose Continue.

If you changed your Apple ID to a third-party email address, check your email for a verification code, then enter the code. If you didn't get the email, click this link.

If you use services like iCloud or Messages to share with friends and colleagues, sign in to those services with your updated Apple ID.


Easy way to bulk change folder icons in Mac In order to change the icon of one MAC folder, all we need to do is:

Open the image
Copy the image from the menu ("Edit" -> "Copy")
Right Click on the folder and click "Get Info"
Click the icon at the top-left
"Edit" -> "Paste" from the menu

At this point I want to bulk change the icons for all my (sub)folders (let's say in one specific master folder).  How is that possible ideally with a script or an existing software? Some extra notes and questions below:

Please note that the images are saved in the subfolders and they are
unique.
In Windows you can simply change the hidden file of each folder called desktop.ini Can we use an .ico file for that? That would come handy in case there are images in the folder (jpeg and png) and only one icon (ico)

With the upcoming push to sign and notarize applications, there is some great technical information on how to use the Icon folder and data fork as the equivalent to the desktop.ini idiom.

https://eclecticlight.co/2019/07/20/how-to-add-a-custom-icon-to-an-app-without-breaking-its-signature/


iOS Spotlight searches displays really old contacts as tophits I have had this problem a while, especially through the iOS 9 and iOS 10 versions. Every time I pull down for searching from the springboard and type in a name of my contacts, iOS somehow lists my oldest and most unused as "top hits". Eg. if I have two contacts with a similar name, and one I have called 100 times the last month, and the other I haven't called or texted in 5 years, it is only the inactive one that is listed as a Top Hit. I have to scroll much further down to find the person I alway call.

Is there some way to reset the contacts so that people I actively call and text will appear under Top Hit?

I have tried suggestions from New iOS9 Spotlight search not finding contacts but didn't help.

My contacts are synced to iCloud and have been so for some years through multiple upgrades of OS X and iOS versions.

I experienced a similar glitch with iOS 10 as well.

The only way to clear the Spotlight searches without using third party apps is this:

Make sure you're running the latest iOS (Settings > General > Software Update).
Force restart your iPhone (hold the power + home button until the Apple logo appears. iPhone 7 (Plus): hold the power + volume up button).
Disable Spotlight: Go to Settings > General > Spotlight Search. Disable "Siri Suggestions", "Suggestions in Search" and "Suggestions in Look Up" as well as "Contacts", "FaceTime", "Messages" and "Phone".
Go to Settings > iCloud . Disable "Contacts".
Force restart your iPhone once again.
Connect your iPhone to your Computer using a USB cable and create an encrypted backup with iTunes.
Verify that the backup was created successfully. Look for a phrase like "Last backup: 10:23 AM").
Restore your iPhone. Select your device on the left side in iTunes and press "Restore...". You may need to remove "Find my iPhone" first to continue.
Wait for you iPhone to reappear in iTunes.
Select "Restore from backup" and choose the backup you created in step 6.
Wait for iTunes to finish restoring your backup.
Re-enable the settings you disabled in steps 3 and 4.

Please let me know if this works for you.


Transferring multiple files from one folder to another using Terminal I am a new user of macOS, so please accept my apology in advance if my question sounds very trivial or stupid.

I have a folder that contains 13000 images. I want to transfer those images into three different folders in such a way that five thousand images go into two different folders each and remaining 3 thousand go into the third folder.

After searching for a while, I used the following command to transfer first 5000 images but it didn't work. Here are my steps:

I went into the source folder that contains the images
Used this command to copy the images cp  head -5000 ../Paras_valid, but it did not work.

Could anyone help me how to copy the multiple files into different folders?

This is more difficult than it may seem. The following assumes that all images to be copied are in the same directory (no sub directories).

cd "PATH/TO/Paras_all"
count=0
find . -maxdepth 1 -iname '*.png' -print | while IFS= read line; do
    if [[ $count -lt 5000 ]]; then
        echo cp "$line" ~/"Documents/TARGET1"
    elif [[ $count -lt 10000 ]]; then
        echo cp "$line" ~/"Documents/TARGET2"
    else
        echo cp "$line" ~/"Documents/TARGET3"
    fi
    ((count++))
done

Replace -name '*.JPG' to mach your images and TARGET1 etc by the actual names. If you run the code like that it will just print the commands. Remove the echo if the commands seem to be correct.

PS: It's probably easiest to put everything in a file with #!/bin/bash in the first line, make the file executable with chmod +x NAMEOFFILE and then run ./NAMEOFFILE.


removing 'recent' files names from finder in MacOS There are about 5000 recents in my recents on finder. Can these be deleted or does this also delete the files themselves

I'm assuming you are talking about Finder > Go > Recents

Files there cannot be deleted without deleting the files themselves. It's just an alternate view of the files on your computer.

(If you are instead talking about the Apple Menu > Recent Items or Finder > Go > Recent Folders, those both have a "Clear Menu" option at the bottom of the menu)

see:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8137012


How can I disable the Screen Saver on the login window? How can I disable the Screen Saver on the login window?

I believe this does the trick (at least it seems to have worked for mefor several hours now):

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.screensaver loginWindowIdleTime 0

This disables the screensaver in the loginwindow.


Generate Keychain password when MacOS doesn't prompt? When signing into Skype, the password fields don't offer the Keychain password-generation option. Is there anyway to generate a password and store it manually in Keychain?

I need keychain to remember it, as there's no way I'll remember QW45FX-ASDASD style passwords, and MS won't let me re-use all my memorable phrases, as they've been passwords previously.

For apps like that, not only will it not offer a suggestion, it probably won't remember whatever you put in it manually.

For things like this, I either try to use their web-page equivalent, which at least will get it into Keychain so I can look it up manually next time, or if there is no web option, you can make keychain generate passwords manually, though you still have to do this manual search for it each time, then copy/paste to the app…

From Keychain Access, + button or  Cmd ⌘   N
Give it a memorable name, account name & then click the key button lower right.
You can choose length & password type.

Once completed click Add.

Alternatively, if you also have an iOS device with the same app & password if you fill it in there manually, then Keychain will remember it, but only auto-fill it for iOS, not for the Mac app.

File this under irritating. ;)

Late thought - watch out if you get iOS to add it to keychain after doing this manually from macOS, because you will likely end up with two independent entries.


Is it better for iOS to sync Gmail contacts using Exchange ActiveSync or the CardDAV protocol? To date I've been using Google Sync as an Exchange account to synchronize contacts between Gmail and my iPhone.  However, Google very recently announced support for syncing Gmail contacts using CardDAV, and that now seems to be the suggested method according to Google's help page.

Both seem to work.  Are there any discernible reasons to prefer one over the other?  What are the known advantages or disadvantages of using Exchange versus CardDAV for this purpose?  Going beyond the basics, do they vary in their ability to promptly push updates from other devices, resolve conflicts, handle unusual fields, preserve battery life, etc.?

(There have been a few earlier questions about iOS/Gmail contact synchronization.  However, these all predate Gmail's CardDAV support, and therefore do not address the question I'm posing here.)

I used Active Sync since I got my very first iPhone, and switched to CardDAV the day Google announced support for it. I can say without a doubt CardDAV is the way to go

With CardDAV, you will get you much more accurate synchronization than with Active Sync. First, as has been mentioned, you can synchronize more than 3 e-mail addresses. In fact, I have 31 e-mail addresses myself, and they finally all sync up with my iPhone. Even more importantly, two-way sync works now. If you make an edit on your iPhone, it won't clobber the field in your Google Contacts. For instance, editing e-mail addresses on your iOS device won't change their labels in Google Contacts to Other instead of Home, Work, and whatever custom fields you might have had.

In particular, custom fields are preserved in both directions. This is especially important if you want to use Siri to "Send an e-mail to my brother". The Brother field in Google Contacts was not correctly imported into iOS through Active Sync, and if you allowed Siri to save who your brother was in your contacts, the import back into Google Contacts mangled everything up, including all other fields that you did not edit.

Finally, phone numbers also all sync in both directions without trouble using CardDAV.

To me, two-way editing (or the lack thereof) was the biggest problem with Active Sync. I never, ever edited any contacts on my iPhone using Active Sync because I didn't want to have to fix all the fields on a desktop later on. Now I can do it freely and haven't noticed any data corruption.

The main gripe people have concerning CardDAV is the lack of push. However, for me Active Sync push was so slow anyway that the slight delay of Fetch barely makes a difference. Plus, my experience with the reliability of Push has been less than stellar (connections that die and are never re-established, primarily). I've found the polling model to be far more robust.

What you may want to avoid while using CardDAV is updating a contact in Gmail or on your iPhone, then immediately updating the same contact in the other. This will likely cause one of your modifications to get overwritten by the modification made in the other direction.

Update 1: The one oddity I've found in two-way syncing relates to the Google Voice phone number type. For some reason it doesn't sync correctly in either direction (it becomes "Phone" on your iOS device when entered in Google Contacts, and Other in Google Contacts when entered from an iOS device). My only guess can be that the field has a special meaning to Google.

Update 2: There is another strangeness with the iPhone phone number type. It will make it to your iOS devices correctly if entered as such from Google Contacts. However, if you specify iPhone as a phone number type from an iOS device, Google Contacts will change that to Mobile. The iOS device that originally specified iPhone will retain it as its phone number type until that contact is updated again from either Google Contacts (without first changing the phone number type to iPhone) or from another iOS device. I recommend only entering iPhone as a phone number type from Google Contacts. Contacts with that phone number type should also only be edited from Google Contacts if you care about listing iPhone as their mobile phone number.


What should I be looking for in a used iPod touch? I am considering buying a used iPod touch. I really don't know too much about buying used iPod touches. What should I watch out for when I am looking at used iPod touches? (If it makes any difference, I am going with Craigslist rather than Ebay)

First thing to look for is whether the unit has suffered water
damage. All Apple devices have two moisture sensors. One in the
headphone jack and the other in the cable connector port. They will
colour pink or red on water contact:

The next thing is the physical condition of the unit. Scratches,
scuffs, or other physical signs of trauma. This one is rather
intuitive, but what people don't often look for is 3rd party repair using shoddy parts. Look for bulges in the seal around the screen or scratches on the screws (which are signs the unit as been opened). A keen eye can find these discrepancies, and if you do, steer clear. Knock off, aftermarket displays (or so-called OEM replacements) don't have the same capacitative capabilities that the original units do.
Check the battery next, make sure it charges and shows the correct
charge/not charging icon. If the unit responds when a cable is
connected and disconnected, then there likely won't be any damage to
either the internals, the battery, or the connector.

At the end of the day, trust your gut. If it even smells like too good of a deal, walk away. Ideally, it would be great to find a unit that is still under warranty and then extend that warranty with Apple Care. Another avenue would be to look to Apple's website for refurbished products. They all come with the same warranty as all new Apple products. Honestly, this would be the way I would go about it. You will get a "like" new product at anywhere up to a 30% discount. Like this 64 GB iPod Touch.


Writing emails in different languages in Mail.app How can I write emails in another language, with a spell check for that language?  Is there a language dictionary to opt for?

If "Automatic by Language" does not give adequate results, you can set the dictionary to a specific language in Edit > Spelling and Grammar > Show Spelling and Grammar.


How to use Xcode 6 debugging for single C file Xcode 6 has Run, build, pretty much everything in debug menu greyed out for a single C file that I open in Xcode. This is a prebuilt program. I wish to debug it, and make changes to the file, but it seems that it must be a project to use debug functionality. Is this true?

I am in university so I wish to have single files as they are submitted like that. If it is not possible to debug on Xcode, are there any better recommendations?

Thanks.

You need to have project in order to be able to debug in Xcode. Xcode has to know how to compile/link/build Your files. You can make it very quickly by creating Command line tool. Go to File -> New.. -> Project... ⌘⇧N. Choose OS X -> Application -> Command Line Tool. On the next screen choose language to be C. Then You'll have new project with main.c file where You can start coding and debugging.


Is there any shortcut/easy way to switch this system proxy settings? Sometimes I need to send my traffic to a proxy, sometimes I don't.

Currently, I have to go to the settings every time to click it.

Is there any simple way for me to switch this? For instance, use a shell command to do this.

This can be done with networksetup.

Get all services:

networksetup -listallnetworkservices

Then with the proper service (e.g Ethernet or the name of your USB 10/100/1000 LAN adapter) enter

sudo networksetup -setsocksfirewallproxy <networkservice> <domain> <port number> <authenticated> <username> <password>

or

sudo networksetup -setwebproxy <networkservice> <domain> <port number> <authenticated> <username> <password>

to configure it (which isn't necessary in your case, because you already entered all necessary values).

e.g.

sudo networksetup -setsocksfirewallproxy Ethernet 127.0.0.1 18080
sudo networksetup -setwebproxy Ethernet 127.0.0.1 18080

To simply toggle it on or off use:

sudo networksetup -setsocksfirewallproxystate networkservice on | off
sudo networksetup -setwebproxystate networkservice on | off

e.g.

sudo networksetup -setsocksfirewallproxystate Ethernet off
sudo networksetup -setwebproxystate Ethernet off

man networksetup will reveal other proxy options (gopher, ftp, etc.)


How to completely erase the Photo Library on an iPhone? I decided to delete all of my iPhone's photos and videos so I copied everything to iPhoto and deleted everything on my phone. After that, I decided to backup my phone through iTunes. Then I reinstalled iOS 7.1 through iTunes (via ipsw and Restore phone). After a few minutes, I was able to restore everything. The phone is much faster than before. The only problem is, the Photo Library still consumes space.

Photos and videos shared through MMS or iMessage take up space. You can delete these to reclaim space from Messages.

Source: http://forums.everythingicafe.com/threads/iphone-camera-roll-empty-but-storage-2gig.105115/#post-1047178


Why is Apple using an older version of OpenSSL? With the newest OS X Update (10.10.5), Apple is introducing OpenSSL 0.9.8. I browsed through the official OpenSSL page, and there I could get Version 1.0.2.

My question is: Why is Apple using an older Version of OpenSSL? Is it because of deprecated functions in Version 1.0 or what is the reason behind it?

Source: Apple Security pages

Why is Apple using a vulnerable version of OpenSSL?

It isn't.

If you click on the link you posted in your question, you will see that this update patches a number of vulnerabilities which exist identically in OpenSSL 0.9.8, 1.0.0, 1.0.1, and 1.0.2.

So, in other words, the version you are later suggesting as an alternative, 1.0.2, was just as vulnerable as 0.9.8 was, and both were fixed at the same time.

  With the newest OS X Update (10.10.5), Apple is introducing OpenSSL 0.9.8. I browsed through the official OpenSSL page, and there I could get Version 1.0.2.

Apple is updating OpenSSL to 0.9.8zg, which is just 2 months old, and only 4 weeks older than 1.0.2d.

  My question is: Why is Apple using an older Version of OpenSSL? Is it because of deprecated functions in Version 1.0 or what is the reason behind it?

That is something you will have to ask Apple. My best guess is that 0.9.8 is the version they did their compatibility testing with, and upgrading to a newer version would require a completely new round of testing for a component that is deprecated anyway. Since it is deprecated, newer software (which would possibly rely on newer features) shouldn't use it anyway, and older software which still uses it doesn't use the new features (because they didn't exist) and might even be broken by an update, so why bother?

As long as the OpenSSL community still maintains the 0.9.8 branch, Apple doesn't even have to do the work of backporting patches.

Note that this is nothing unusual. Apple shipped an old version of Ruby for a very long time, and they generally don't update during a release cycle, only in between releases. Linux distributions as well BSDs and other Unix distributions also typically don't update versions during a release, they only apply bugfixes and security fixes. Debian, in particular, generally doesn't even fix all bugs, only security vulnerabilities and bugs which might result in loss of user data – any change, even a bugfix is a potential incompatibility and a potential for new bugs; known bugs are better than unknown ones!


How does (stereo) sound work with Thunderbolt displays? Apple's Thunderbolt displays, I understand, have stereo speakers in them.  How does it work if you have two Thunderbolt displays plugged into your computer?

Do both displays play the same sound, so you get left-and-right sound from your left display and left-and-right sound from your right display?
Do you get sound from only one, so you get left-and-right sound but only on one half of your desk?
Do both speakers in the left display become the left speaker, and both speakers in the right display become the right speaker?

I'm curious how this works.

Both displays show up as audio input and output devices on your Mac and you can pick one or the other to route audio in to from applications. You might be able to create an aggregate device out of them and use them as a four channel output source, but that would not turn out well sonically speaking. You can see it here.


Where's my free space gone on my MP3 player? I have a Sansa Fuze MP3 player, it's 4 GB.

I plug it in my Mac I have a capacity of 3,7 GB of which apparently 1,8 GB is in use.

Problem is I only have arround 120 MB of MP3s on it...

Who's stealing my free space ?

Here are DiskInventoryX screenshots. I have the same results with du and the terminal.

It might also be the trash -- I'm not sure how DiskInventoryX copes with trash directories on external drives. It might be worth emptying your trash while the drive is mounted.


How to get Reading List items as links I just have a billion items in Safari's reading list and I would like the links to all of them.

Is there a way to get all of the items in your reading list as links (maybe in a text document)?

I whipped up a Python script to read the plist file referenced in the question patrix mentioned in the comments.

#!/usr/bin/env python
import plistlib
from shutil import copy
import subprocess
import os
from tempfile import gettempdir
import sys
import atexit

BOOKMARKS_PLIST = '~/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist'
bookmarksFile = os.path.expanduser(BOOKMARKS_PLIST)

# Make a copy of the bookmarks and convert it from a binary plist to text
tempDirectory = gettempdir()
copy(bookmarksFile, tempDirectory)
bookmarksFileCopy = os.path.join(tempDirectory, os.path.basename(bookmarksFile))

def removeTempFile():
    os.remove(bookmarksFileCopy)

atexit.register(removeTempFile) # Delete the temp file when the script finishes

converted = subprocess.call(['plutil', '-convert', 'xml1', bookmarksFileCopy])

if converted != 0:
    print "Couldn't convert bookmarks plist from xml format"
    sys.exit(converted)

plist = plistlib.readPlist(bookmarksFileCopy)
 # There should only be one Reading List item, so take the first one
readingList = [item for item in plist['Children'] if 'Title' in item and item['Title'] == 'com.apple.ReadingList'][0]

if 'Children' in readingList:
    for item in readingList['Children']:
        print item['URLString']

Copy and paste that into a file, name it something like readinglisturls.py. Then make it executable by running chmod +x readinglisturls.py in the Terminal. Then you can run it in the Terminal and it will print out any Reading List URLs. If you want the URLs in a file, you can redirect the output to a file by running /path/to/readinglisturls.py > myfile.txt in the Terminal.


How does one download El Capitan from the App Store using High Sierra The link from Apple's support page redirects to the Mac App Store but upon clicking download you're met with an error message saying you "This version of OS X can't be installed on the computer"
Note: I've tried 4 different MacBook Pro TouchBar but none will download it.
I'm only looking to download El Capitan so I can create a USB installer for an older Mac.

If the older Mac has a recovery partition, there are three different key combinations you can use to select different O.S. versions to install from internet.

If it doesn't have a recovery partition, you might still be able to use Internet recovery.


SMEStorage with Dropbox on the iPad I was looking around for ways to get my iWork documents from iWork into Dropbox; going through a forum post on the dropbox website I came accross SMEStroage do any of you use this? If how does it work?

SMEStorage is a cloud storage service, similar to DropBox itself. In the scenario you are referring to, you can use the SME Storage API directly to upload to an external file provider like DropBox.

Effectively like DropBox you can store everything on the SMEStorage Servers and then access it from any OS/Device as long as you have an internet connection.

From reading the documentation it is really a more advanced DropBox service, which allows developers to use their API to have a central point for accessing various storage options.

From what I can determine, like iCloud, the application needs to support the actual API and interface to be able to store data through it, and since iWorks on iOS only supports iCloud, I am not sure if it will solve your problem.


Since upgrading to OS X Mavericks, I can't open any files on a SMB share from my Windows 8.1 PC I have a PC with Windows 8.1 and a Mac with Mavericks. I have a folder on the Mac that is shared with the PC. When I'm on the PC and I try to open a file that is shared by the Mac, such as an ISO file (a disk image), then I get a message saying that I cannot open the file, or the file is in use (it depends on the app/filetype). I have the same problem when I open a video file. Strangely, text files and PDF files are just fine. And if I copy any of the problematic files to the local Windows disk, then I can open them just fine.

The specific error messages are:

AVI files opened in VLC: "Your input can't be opened. VLC is unable to open the MRL."
ISO files opened by Windows Explorer: "Sorry, there was a problem mounting the file."

This only started happening after I upgraded to Windows 8.1 on the PC and Mavericks on the Mac. Mavericks upgraded its SMB version from SMB1 to SMB2, so perhaps that is related?
Does anyone know what the problem might be, and how I could fix it?

Thanks in advance!

This seems to be a known issue as I remember running across a work-around the other day at TUAW:

http://www.tuaw.com/2013/10/27/did-mavericks-kill-your-network-drive-access-heres-a-fix/

Basically what they are telling you to do is replace the SMB:// in the Go > Connect To Server... dialog box with CIFS://

I gather this forces the Mac to use an older version of the SMB networking standard that is the default on Mavericks. Not sure if this will work in VLC and not sure how to compensate for the issue on a PC but this should help when you are working on the Mac end of things...


How to use an iPhone to answer calls of another phone via Bluetooth? I have an iPhone 8 and I would like to use it to answer calls of my older Android phone, which I still keep and I have another line on it. How could I pair my iPhone to the other phone to use the iPhone as a Bluetooth headset?

This is not something you can do, at least without jailbreaking it.


No sound on Macbook Air Yesterday I tried to use Apple TV, it connected but I realised that I don't have Airplay so I disconnected the Apple TV. I then transfered some files using a USB and after that I have no sound on Mac. I get a stop sign when trying to change volume. There is no output device listed. I have restarted many times, tried using the headphone port and USB headphones. USB headphones work, but the headphone port for regular headphones wont work at all. I can get sound through USB headphones or if I pair Mac with Apple TV, we get sound on our tv but no picture. I just want sound back on my Mac.

Please can anyone offer any advice or solution?

This discussion in Apple Support Community may shed some light.  First, check to see that Mute is not checked.  You may need to reset the system PRAM.  Here are the steps: (From Apple Support)

  If your Mac doesn’t seem to be remembering your speaker volume,
  display resolution, or the disk it should be using during startup, you
  may need to reset your computer’s PRAM.

  Resetting PRAM may change some system settings and preferences. Use
  System Preferences to restore your settings.

  Important:   To print these instructions, click the Share button  in
  the Help window, then choose Print. Choose Apple menu > Shut Down.

  Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Option, Command (⌘), P, and
  R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.

  Turn on your Mac.

  Immediately press and hold the Option-Command-P-R keys. You must press
  this key combination before the gray screen appears.

  Continue holding the keys down until your Mac restarts, and you hear
  the startup sound for the second time.

  Release the keys.

  After resetting your computer’s PRAM, you may need to update your
  speaker volume, display resolution, and startup disk preferences. For
  more information about PRAM, see the Apple Support article About NVRAM
  and PRAM.

If you are nervous about doing so, if you have an Apple Store close by, you may wish to make an appointment with the Genius Bar.


Is it possible to change the default gateway of the DHCP server side of an Airport Extreme I will try to be brief. In my career I have always used the upper end of the subnet for network devices. For instance, I use .250-.254 for network devices such as the routers. I am very fond of using .254 as the default gateway for internal networks. Is there a way to change the private network default gateway of the Airport Extreme to x.x.x.254? As an example, the factory default network is 10.0.1.0/255.255.255.0 with a default gateway of 10.0.1.1. I would like to change the gateway to 10.0.1.254.

By the way, I think this community has put together a fantastic site.

Just configure the AP in Bridge-mode so it's running DHCPD and distributing addresses.

Then, on the internet tab configure it statically and give it the high IP you want. You probably want to configure the range to be 1-253.

Personally, I find Airport Utility 5.6 to be better than the 6+ versions. You might want to give that a try too (see here for how to get it).


Garageband additional software download status in Mac Where Can I see about the Garageband additional software download status, when it got opened for the first time? And how to stop it manually?

version detail:
mac os high sierra 10.13.4
garageband 10.3.0

update:
I was thinking, if there might be a window/option where we could see the status of download and can pause or stop in that window itself.

GarageBand app does the download (spinning up a com.apple.MAContentInstallation helper process), so to stop it - save your work in any open app documents and quit the app.

You should have been notified of this like so:

The downloads go to your user library, but before trying to clean that out - what happens if you reopen the app and watch the dialogs and/or see the options in the GarageBand menu Sound Library sub menu?


Is there a way to transfer an iPad 2 to a different user without losing the game scores? I just bought a new iPad and would like to give the older iPad 2 to my kid. He's used the iPad a lot to play a variety of games, all under my user account. Is there a way to create a new user account for my kid (I'll make it part of Family Sharing, etc) without losing the game scores?

The saved games are usually stored locally on the device, even if they are synchronised by iCloud. If you sign out of your iTunes account and sign in with his new one, there shouldn't be any loss of save game data at all.

If, however, you want to wipe the iPad and set it up anew for him, you'll need to backup the save information and restore it to the iPad after the clean install. To do this, I would recommend iMazing (formerly Disk Aid). It's a great app, available for both OS X and Windows, that lets you drill down into your apps to retrieve data.

I would recommend doing a full backup in iTunes first, then use iMazing and save the "Documents" and "Library" folders from each app with a save game, so you have two backups just in case anything goes wrong. Then, once you've restored the iPad to factory settings and reinstalled the games, just use iMazing again to copy the folders back in to their respective apps.


Is it possible to disable MacBook trackpad under Windows 7? Is it possible to disable trackpad when running Windows 7 on Macbook Air/Pro? Anyone with this setup can confirm that it's possible?

(I don't use this setup yet, I'm just thinking about it, and want to make sure it supports my needs).

Well, good news. I figured out how to stop that annoying errant cursor from suddenly moving my typing to an unintended place.

Ignore all you have read above.

On the Start bar at the bottom on your screen, far right find the Boot Camp icon.
Click it
See "Boot Camp Control Panel..."
Click it
Click Yes to allowing to proceed
See at the top tabs "Trackpad"
Click it
unclick Tap To Click
click OK

Voila!

Now touching the track pad won't move the cursor...only pressing down to "click" it will.


127 million bytes but 204MB on disk? Am I missing something basic or is this a bug ?

It's not beyond the realms of possibility. Allocation block size is 4k. If every file was 5k, then they'd each take up 8k on disk, which gives 218MB.


Delete Application from iPhone 5.1 Simulator Strange Moment !!!

I was testing my iPhone App on iPhone 5.1 Simulator. App ran very fine. But got strange situation at the time of removing App from Simulator. I followed these steps to remove the App from Simulator :

1) Long Press on App Icon.

2) Step-1 resulted in this Situation. (that's usual) :

Problem :

When Clicked on that "X" mark , to remove the App , I didn't get Alert (usually with title "Delete yourApp" , Description "Deleting yourApp will also delete all of its data" and two Buttons of "Delete" and "Cancel").

The Screen got hanged. I tried several times but same Result.

Why this happens and what to do to solve the Problem ?

Note :  I have tried to Reset it but Resetting the Simulator removes all the Apps from the Simulator. I am curious to find some way to remove that single App from Simulator.

Go to the iOS simulator menu and choose Reset Content and Settings...

Why this happens is harder, but it's just development and you are working with a simulator, not a real device. Sometimes it's faster to get out the broom and clean the floor to start freshly.

If you are curious, the simulator filesystem is stored in the following location:

  ~/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/version

So if you want to poke around and delete things, you could try to exercise the phantom app, but I don't see you saving time by somehow editing the filesystem and hoping the simulator would work once it's broken in the manner you describe. The normal way to delete an app is to press the X and since that's broken, who knows what else is out of sync. Better to start fresh and not waste more time when the system says there is a problem with the simulator.


Power suply Watts and charging time - Apple iphone I understand that a device only draws as much current as it needs. So assuming the power supply and the device have the same voltage (5V), using a power supply able to provide more amperage (= more watts) will not change anything.

However if the power supply can't provide enough current (nominal current of the device), that will either overheat the supply and/or the voltage in the circuit will drop.

Also regarding the voltage it is important that it be the same.

If that of the power supply is higher than the device, the current in the circuit will be too high (assuming the power supply can supply this new level of amperage) with a risk of frying the device.
if that of the power supply is lower, then the device might not be working properly as not enough current circulates inside.

My question is regarding the statement that new iphones can be charged with both the 5W and 12W charger, the charging time being faster with the latter.

How comes? To me either the 5W matches the device's inputs and the 12W shouldn't change anything, that is, it works but not faster. Or the 12W is the correct one but then it would mean that with the 5W the power provided is too low and we are in the case explained at the top where the power supply rating is below the device requirements, which can create issues.

The only explanation I can think of is that the circuit in iphone is more complex and somewhat intelligent with variable internal resistances to regulate the amperage and adapt to the power supply specs. Would that be correct?

Apple chargers have distinctive "charger signatures", in a form of different voltage combination on D+ and D- lines, see for example this answer, and many-many similar answers. That's how an Apple device "knows" what is the power capability of a particular charger, and takes more current (by changing input parameters of their internal battery charger) and therefore charges faster from a 12W charger than from a 5W charger.


Why won't iBooks wirelessly sync epubs or PDFs to my iPad? I'm aware of this question but it is now quite old. If I create a collection in iBooks on OSX (Yosemite, 10.10.3) and add a book (epub - not puchased via iBooks), it does not sync to my iPad (3rd gen, iOS 8.2) over wifi. The name of the collection itself is synced to the iPad but it is empty. Both devices are on the same wireless LAN and connected to the internet.

I believe syncing used to be via iTunes and this was the only way I could get books to sync to my iPad previously but this should now work using only iBooks. I have already performed the 'Move books from iTunes' operation from the iBooks menu on OSX.

'Sync Collections' is switched on in the iPad iBooks settings. I'm looking for a wireless solution, not USB sync.

I don't know if you still need this issued solved, but I struggled a lot to sync my ePubs (not bought through Apple) between my Apple Devices.

Here is the solution I've come up with (This can be done on both OSX or iOS):

Save your ePub/PDF file on iCloud Drive (inside a folder, just for organizational purposes);
Then open that file from the iCloud Drive folder into iBooks.

This way, the instance  of your ePub/PDF will be the same running on both your iDevice iBooks and your Mac iBooks.

All changes that you make (add bookmarks, highlights and current page) will also sync.

Regarding your collections, they will behave as they should syncing normally between devices.


iPhoto Problem with colored spinning wheel I just spent hours in iPhoto making a slide show for my daughters wedding.  I have not yet saved my work because was still tweaking and all of a sudden got colored spinning wheel.  Is there a way I can save my slideshow before restarting computer to try and get rid of spinning wheel.

You could try leaving it for a while and see if it recovers on its own, but it probably will not. Unfortunately if an application is in that state, there's usually nothing that can be done. I don't know if iPhoto has auto-saving but I don't think it does.

You don't need to restart your computer to fix it, though. Click on the Apple menu then select Force Quit. Click on iPhoto and click Force Quit. You can then restart iPhoto and see if any of your work reappears.


Error when encrypting .dmg disk image I have a .dmg file of approximately 32 GB and I want to encrypt it. When I try to, using Disk Utility > Images > Convert, I get an error "status 28". Any idea what this means?

Can you go into your files and see what the general date of "Modification" for disk util, bluetooth, bootcamp, etc. All the SIP protected applications should all be roughly one date.

I ask because if you didn't get updated properly, disk util got left behind and you need the combo updater I believe.

10.11.3 if you didn't want to update: 10.11.3 Combo Updater
10.11.4: 10.11.4 Combo Updater

Ensure they're "combo" updaters. Even if you're at 10.11.3 or 10.11.4, download and run it anyway, it won't do any harm at all. It'll replace all those programs and files to be correct.

Disk Utility is either having issues with conflicting permissions, or its a bad flash drive. (Also check your FileVault certificate after you encrypt it, if it gives you one.) May not since it isn't internal disk encryption.


Create custom shortcuts and assign them to F keys I recently migrated to OS X 10.10 from Ubuntu 14.04 (Linux). In Ubuntu, I could make any key of my keyboard do anything I liked. I used to have the F1, F2, and F3 keys set to function as the red, yellow, and green buttons at the top left of the screen (which are the same as in OS X). This was ridiculously useful, and I want to do this on my Mac, but I don't know how I can.

I've already used Karabiner to map the current functions of the F keys to their Fn + F* equivalent. So instead of lowering the brightness with F1, I can do so with Fn + F1.

I have read that you can add a shortcut by going to System Preferences > Keyboard > Input Sources, and then clicking on the + icon. But using Yosemite, my + icon is not there, so I cannot add the "close window", "minimise", and "maximise" shortcuts. Besides, though I can see in the shortcut list that some shortcuts use F keys, I'm not able to assign F keys to any shortcuts myself.

So I would like to:

In particular, make shortcuts to close, maximise, and minimise and window. (In general, create customised shortcuts to do anything a terminal can do.)
Assign this custom shortcut to F keys, overriding F keys' default behaviour to adjust screen brightness, volume, etc.

First of all, You don't need Karabinier to change F* keys behaviour. It can be done in Preferences -> Keyboard -> Use all F1, F2 etc. as standard function keys.

Then to assign keyboard shortcut to Terminal You have to switch to Shortcuts tab, select Application Shortcuts then click + sign. There You can choose application in which this shortcut will be working. There's also text input to enter Menu Item name (for example: Close, Minimize etc. check how it's named in Your Terminal app).

NOTE: There's no Maximize Menu item, I can find only Close and Minimize.
If You want to install 3rd party app for this, I'd recommend Better Touch Tool where You can set a lot more actions to keyboard shortcuts and mouse/trackpad gestures. Here's an example for BTT:

Picture 1 taken from osxdaily.com


iPod Touch 4th Gen dock with AC or USB power and audio out? I have scoured the internet looking for a dock that will allow me to charge an iPod Touch 4th Gen which includes a jack to connect it to an external stereo system.

I understand this can be accomplished with a standard USB charging cable (plugged into a USB-AC converter) and a male-to-male audio cable, but I'd like a classier way of docking the iPod.

The Apple Universal Dock provides both a 30 pin connector for charging and/or syncing as well as a 3.5mm audio output jack.


Why does my Terminal window close automatically? I need to use my Terminal window on a MacBook Air but it closes about 10 seconds after I open it.  Is there a setting or is it possible another program is causing it to close?  If I type quickly I can run say diskutil but it closes after it runs.

If you have a system administrator that has blocked terminal, you should get permission from your system administrator to unblock it.


What devices are supported for bluetooth in OS X Mavericks I just tried to connect my stereo to my mac via bluetooth. However, my mac does not find the device. Is this expected? Which devices does OS X Mavericks support for bluetooth? Although bluetooth uses a common standard it does not necessarily mean that all devices that supports bluetooth are supported by any other bluetooth device.

It depends on your hardware.

You can click on the Apple Menu - then about this mac then support (in the tabs in the window) then lastly User Manual.

From there, you can know your model year and model. Most OS X macs support the following profiles:

http://support.apple.com/kb/PH10549

A2DP
AVRCP
DUN
FTP
HCRP
HSP
HID
OPP
SPP


iPhone stuck in Recovery mode. Trouble restoring iPhone - what could I do? I have an iPhone 3G. I am trying to restore it but have had trouble all day. This is what I have done so far:

Run redsn0w 0.96b6
Use iPhone1,2_4.2.1_8C148_Restore.ipsw as the current firmware.
Run redsn0w with default settings until the iPhone enters DFU mode
Everything from redsn0w's perspective runs great - the phone installs the jailbroken data, and reboots, as expected.
I then open up iTunes and still get a "an iPhone was detected in recovery mode" error. My iPhone shows the frustrating image of the USB cable plugging into iTunes.

What could I be doing wrong? I'm at my wits end here.

Thanks.

A program called the firmware umbrella can be used to "kick a device out of recovery mode".


How to BCC email from iPhoto '11 iPhoto '11 has beautiful email templates that make it a great choice for sharing pics with friends. I can't seem find a way to send emails with the recipients in a BCC field, forcing me to break a cardinal rule of mass emails--putting all the addresses in the TO field OR first email myself and then forwarding the email, which is kind of a pain.

Any fix for this from iPhoto itself?

Go into preferences at the bottom of the "General" tab tell iPhoto to email from Mail instead of iPhoto itself.

The other option, if you don't want to give up on this functionality right inside of iPhoto, you can email it just to yourself and then "resend" it (rather than forward, resend avoids the indentation).


Previous Owner's Apple ID Stills tied to App Store after Clean Install I've purchased a 2009 iMac, bought Mountain Lion from the App Store and performed a Clean Install, but when I open up the App Store, I still see messages to update apps that the previous owner had installed (I don't own them), furthermore, I'm prompted to sign in with his Apple ID in order to download these updates.

I thought that when I did a clean install, all of his information should have been deleted. Am I wrong? How could I get rid of this problem?

Now that you are on Mountain Lion, you can boot to recovery mode and re-erase the entire Macintosh HD (or whatever name the OS volume has). Perhaps your definition of clean install didn't actually clean the offending apps or you are connecting another hard drives with apps purchases from the previous owner's account. (The app store will offer to update any apps it sees, not just the ones in /Applications)

Here is a long article on recovery, but details at the bottom show explicit steps you would take to prepare an external drive to install Mountain Lion. You will want to perform those steps from Disk Utility when booted in recovery mode.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718

Note, that if the previous owner had "redeemed" the iLife apps (as described in the article above), those will remain tied to their account so for you to install them, you will need to purchase iPhoto, iMovie and GarageBand since they are not part of the Mountain Lion software upgrade you purchased, but after a clean wipe, you won't have those applications and could only see them if you had a copy somewhere other than the wiped drive or signed in to see past purchases for that previous account.


Time Machine backup between networks I have a computer on network A that I would like to backup via Time Machine to a drive connected to a computer on network B. Can this be done? Would I need a VPN? I just need the network B computer's drive to show up as Shared to the computer on network A.

No, this cannot be done as far as I am aware. It may be possible to hack together some way to fool it into working, but I would be willing to bet that it would eventually (and by 'eventually' I mean 'fairly soon' not 'some day before the sun goes out') fail.
Unless you have some specific reason to have to use Time Machine, I would recommend using CrashPlan instead of Time Machine. While there is a 'for pay' option with CrashPlan, you can use it completely free to back up to another computer anywhere. It doesn't matter if it's on the same network or across the Internet. You can set a very high encryption rate and customize the amount of CPU that the program uses. You also get much more control over the frequency of backups and how long information is retained. All in all it is a much better option than Time Machine or Time Capsule, in my opinion.

(I have no connection to the company except as a paying customer who is very satisfied with their service. I backup all of my laptops across the LAN to one 'retired' MacBook which has a very large external drive attached.)


Is Cmd+F10 that mute the Mac a built-in OS X keyboard shortcut? I just discovered that the combination of Cmd+F10 (without any Fn key pressed) muted my mac. I wanted to know if it was a built-in keyboard shortcut as it does not appear in the System preferences.

If you have 'Use all F1, F2 keys as standard functions' unchecked, that's the behaviour.
With or without the Cmd key, F10 mutes. Incidentally, so does Ctrl/F10 or Shift/F10.


How does Rosetta 2 work? I'd love to understand more about how Rosetta 2 works. The Apple Developer article is brief. Has anyone done a deep analysis on how Rosetta 2 works, how it is invoked and whether it's possible to use it via an API?
Some questions:

How are x86_64 applications launched under Rosetta?
Is it possible to dynamically invoke translation for a portion of x86 instructions?
Might it be possible to bridge Rosetta to QEMU or similar to allow fast virtualization of Intel Docker images?

Rosetta 2 works by doing an ahead-of-time (AOT) translation of the Intel code to corresponding ARM code. It is able to do this efficiently and easily mainly because the M1 CPU contains a special instruction that switches the memory-ordering model observed by the CPU for that thread into a model equivalent to the Intel x86 model (TSO - total store order). This has to do with how programs can expect memory consistency to work when having multiple processors (i.e. cores in this case).
User's can observe the translation the first time they launch an Intel app on the M1 as the first launch is slow. The translated code is cached and used on subsequent, much faster launches.
If you have a binary that is valid for several different architectures, you can specifically invoke Rosetta 2 by specifying that you want to launch the Intel code. You can do that from the terminal like this:
arch -x86_64 ./mycommand

Note that this setting also applies to any program that the "mycommand" process should choose to run.
Rosetta 2 as delivered by Apple in macOS Big Sur is not setup to dynamically invoke translation for a portion of x86 instructions. It is entirely focused on doing an AOT translation of the whole binary in advance. There's no user interface for translating a few small set of instructions on the fly. Rosetta 2 does include a JIT engine that allows translating instructions on the fly (for example if you run an Intel-based browser with a JIT JavaScript engine) - it is however not a general purpose JIT-engine that you could use for other purposes through an API or similar.
If you want to do that for research purposes or just out of "pure interest", then you could just take the instructions you want to translate and add them to a simple application shell (essentially adding them to a simple main()-only C program for example) and run it. The cached, translated version of the program then includes the translated instructions for inspection.
The cache is available in these folders:
/var/db/oah/
/System/Library/dyld/aot_shared_cache

There's no immediate way of "bridging" Rosetta 2 to QEMU to allow fast virtualization of Intel Docker images. QEMU contains its own Intel x86 emulation, so you could get it to run Intel Docker images on the M1 without involving Rosetta 2 at all. In this case, "fast" is a very subjective measure.


How far can one go with an app before having to pay for the developer license? We are using the iAd framework, which I know you need the 99$ developer license in order to be served ads. But you also need the 99$ developer license in order to go live in the AppStore. My question is, how far can one go before having to pay this? I.e. can we do the Testflight for beta testing before having to pay that fee? Or by then will we have to have committed the 99?

The reason I ask is because, if the app store ultimately rejects the app you have effectively flushed the cost of the license down the drain.

You'll need to sign your binary before submitting it for review. In order to sign it, you'll need to have a paid developer account.

This also is valid for TestFlight. From Apple's page on TestFlight:

  Apps made available to external testers require a Beta App Review and must comply with the full App Store Review Guidelines before testing can begin. A review is required for new versions of your app that contain significant changes.

Keep in mind that it's not a "license" for one app. There is no real limit on the number of apps you can develop and submit with one developer account.


resetting git path after clean install I just reinstalled mountain lion and seem to have lost git in the process. I tried following this post : Why is Git not found after installing OS X Lion? but although I can cd into /usr/local/git I get /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/binwhen I echo $PATH

How can I change the path so I can go back to using git? Sorry if this is an obvious question, I'm fairly new to git/terminal commands.

Update:

I tried as suggested in another post and it seems to be working again:

sudo -s
mkdir -p /usr/local/bin
ln -s /usr/local/git/bin/git /usr/local/bin/git
exit

Touch your .bash_profile to create it if you have none:

touch ~/.bash_profile

Now, add this line to the above file at the end of the file:

export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/git/bin

Then, run this in the terminal

source ~/.bash_profile


Late 2008 13" MacBook not detecting brand new battery I bought a broken late 2008 13" Aluminum Unibody MacBook on eBay. Supposedly, according to the listing, Apple had said the original battery needed to be replaced. The other issue was the slightly-damaged battery cover. The computer arrived and, upon powering on, did not even detect a battery indicated by the [x] mark on the screen. Hitting the battery indicator button on the side of the case also indicated no battery. I assumed the battery was completely shot and I bought a replacement third-party battery. The computer doesn't detect this battery either. I've performed PRAM and SMC resets. I tried two different magsafe chargers to eliminate the possibility of a bad charger.

At one point, I was looking at the system report and the magsafe led suddenly changed to orange from green and the computer powered off suddenly before immediately turning to green.

I haven't removed the logic board but I have removed the bottom cover and I don't think this has any liquid damage. The computer works perfectly aside from the battery issue.

I notice the original battery seems to have terminals on the walls of the battery connector that the replacement battery does not. See photos below:

Original battery (notice the gold terminal at the far end of the battery socket wall)

The replacement battery (notice the gold terminal seen in the other battery isn't here)

Note: this model is the late 2008 13" unibody, aluminum MacBook. This is NOT a MacBook Pro but actually the only aluminum MacBook ever made. It is very similar to the MacBook Pro but has subtle differences which should be noted.

I later deduced the problem to the logicboard. I bought a replacement board which successfully detected the same battery. I didn't bother testing the old battery. Strangely, the original board is perfect with the exception of the battery circuit.

The  issue could be the battery connector on the board or something more complicated.


Using Location services abroad without roaming charges I have an offline maps application (maps.me) on my iPhone 5S GSM.

Can I use the location services function abroad without getting charges for roaming when Cellular data is turned off?

(Only data is turned off. The normal telephone network is active and online.)

Please see the screenshots below for my current configuration:

If you need any further information, please ask in the comments.

As long you are using the Network provide they will charge you. Voice or Data or both.

Location service also works with GPS, Bluetooth (only short range) and WiFi.

As long you are in a free WiFi (and turn off voice and data) it is the best way to avoid any surprise charges.


Service like "Opera Max" for OS X? There is an app for Android called "Opera Max" which compresses all Internet data systemwide no matter which app you are using. It can give amazing data savings.

Is there any similar service for OS X? It would be really useful when one is on a limited data plan like a 4G hotspot.

I'm not interested in the built in compression in browsers like Chrome and Opera. I'm looking for a systemwide service.

An interesting idea, but I don't think such a service exists for OS X. There would have to be a complementary service on the other side of the internet connection to uncompress the data, which is what the Opera Max service does for Android users.

If you read the Opera Max FAQ, they write that... "We're working hard to bring Opera Max to new regions. To ensure a high-quality experience, we have to buy, ship, and set up new servers all over the world."


tmux on mountain lion I have recently upgraded to mountain lion and every time I start a new tmux session, I get the following warning:

│warning: unsupported new OS, trying as if it were 10.6-10.7

Is this anything I should be worried about?

That message comes from my reattach-to-user-namespace wrapper program that let’s you (e.g.) access the pasteboard inside tmux. You are using an old version of the wrapper (from prior to Mountain Lion).
The old wrapper does work correctly under 10.8; the message just means that you are using a version from before 10.8 was available/verified. So there is nothing to worry about, but it may get annoying seeing the message every time you start a new tmux pane/window.
To get rid of the message, you should upgrade to a newer version of the wrapper. If you previously installed via MacPorts of Homebrew, just upgrade via that package manager. Otherwise, download the latest tagged source (or pull into your previous Git clone), rebuild it (e.g. type make), and copy it to the location that your tmux default-command setting uses.
Both MacPorts and Homebrew currently package the 1.1 version, which suppresses the message when running on Mountain Lion. The 2.0 version also includes the program’s name in such messages so that the source of any future messages will be more obvious.


screenshots storage place back to desktop impossible I previously changed the settings of which folder to save screenshots.  Now I want to go back to the default settings, storing it on the desktop.  I have read what to do, in Terminal enter:defaults write com.apple.screencapture location /Desktop/ then killall SystemUIServer.

However, even after restarting the laptop, when I make a screenshot or a partial screenshot, I hear the sound of the shot but it doesn't appear on my desktop (or anywhere else).  How can I get the screenshots to appear in the default folder?

The problem is that the command:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location /Desktop/

will set the default location for screenshots to be /Desktop/. What you actually want is to set it to be /Users/yourusername/Desktop/.

Try this, replacing yourusername with the username for your account:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location /Users/yourusername/Desktop/


Errors publishing from Calendar app to WebDAV Share on same machine I am currently attempting to publish a calendar in OS X 10.8. The calendar is a local "On My Mac" calendar residing within iCal/Calendar on the Mac. The same Mac has Server app installed. I have configured the Server app with a single File Share (named "webcal"), which is provisioned to share over WebDAV only. I have also setup Open Directory and created a user account to access this WebDAV share.

As a test, I opened up Finder > Connect to Server. Using the credentials, I successfully was able to mount https://localhost/webcal and read/write to the share. However, when I attempt to publish into this share directly from iCal/Calendar, I receive the following error message:

The calendar “Untitled” couldn’t be published. http://kitchenipad@localhost/webcal/Untitled.ics is not a location that supports this request.

By checking in Console I was able to locate the following corresponding entry:

7/10/13 1:27:28.186 PM Calendar[6311]: Validation error: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=1570 "publication is a required value." UserInfo={
    CalManagedObjectType = CalManagedPublicationError;
    NSLocalizedDescription = "publication is a required value.";
    NSValidationErrorKey = publication;
    NSValidationErrorObject = "<CalManagedPublicationError: 0x7fbcbd70cee0> (entity: PublicationError; id: 0x7fbcbd7dfab0 <x-coredata://60115C98-1B7D-4B6F-B812-690F22C8374C/PublicationError/p45> ; data: {\n    code = 405;\n    domain = CoreDAVHTTPStatusErrorDomain;\n    publication = nil;\n    userInfo = nil;\n})";
}

Due to the project I'm working on I will need to have WebDAV and iCal client working on the same physical system. I'd like to avoid having to virtualize the server as well. Does anyone have a clue as to why this might not be working?

Any reason why you don't just turn on the Calendar service in the Server app and navigate to "http://yourdomain.local/webcal"?


Where can I find logs for failed sudo attempts on macOS Sierra? I am aware that older versions of OS X use secure.log, but I have been unable to find any definite answers as to where the the output log goes for for attempting to run a command with sudo privileges on a non-admin account, on macOS Sierra. When we see the command feedback "this incident will be reported"; where is that reported to and how can I see it on macOS Sierra.

The sudo logs now go to the new unified logging system in macOS 10.12, which can be searched using the log command.

For example, to show all sudo logs from the last 3 hours:

log show --style syslog --predicate 'process == "sudo"' --last 3h

To search all sudo logs for messages containing the string "user NOT in sudoers":

log show --style syslog --predicate 'process == "sudo" and eventMessage contains "user NOT in sudoers"'

Use man log or log help show to learn more about how to use the command.


Sharing iTunes purchases My daughter shares a mac with me and we often want the same songs but have separate iTunes accounts. How do we share our music so we don't pay twice for the song on the same computer?

Copy the protected music file as you would normally.  When you play for the first time any protected files from a specific iTunes account, it will prompt you to authorize the machine.  I believe the current limit is 5 machines, and you'll have to be connected to the internet when you enter your credentials, but after that it will be able to play any song from that account.

You can also look into iTunes Match, though honestly I've encountered so many issues, I can't recommend it outright.


How to set a Calendar alert for AFTER completion of an event? I would like to set calendar alerts to happen at the scheduled completion time of my events - whatever that may be.  I can't seem to figure out a way to do this.  You can create alarms that go off before an event starts, at the start time, or a fixed number of minutes after start time.  But is there a way to set an alarm that triggers AT OR AFTER the completion time of an event, without having to specify the exact date & time?

Just enter an alert at a customized time (which is equal to end of the event).

This works for iCal 5 (Mac OS X 10.7):

and also for iCal 7 (Mac OS X 10.9). It looks a bit different though:


How to get total amount for each client in a list automatically? Let's say I have a long list of clients in one column of a Numbers table, most of them occurring multiple times, and in the adjacent column are amounts due for services received, as depicted below. What is the easiest way to automatically add up all the amounts for each client and have them appear either in a third column or in a new table next to his or her name? That is, for Ava I would like the total of 300 + 800 + 1200 + 1600 = 3900 to appear somewhere next to her name, for Chloe it should be 450 + 950 = 1400, and so on.

Ideally, it should require as little maintenance as possible. For instance, if a new client is added to the list, a new entry/row should automatically appear in the third column/new table with that person's name and the sum of all their amounts.

This works with the formula sumif(). In your example the formula would be something like this: SUMIF($A$2:$A$22,A2,$B$2:B22).


Folder action acts on files not specified in the workflow I just started using Automator for the first time. My folder action gets two Finder items: say 'foobar1.pdf' and 'foobar2.pdf' files, and copies them to another folder.

It works but there is a side-effect: also the auxiliary files with the same name but different filename extensions (.aux .nav .snm .toc and .out) were also copied.

To solve that I created another folder action to send 'foobar1.aux', 'foobar1.nav' and so on to the Trash. But to test it, I did not add 'foobar2.aux', 'foobar2.nav' and so on. The new script works—the files are send to the Trash but now there is a beneficial side-affect: the auxilary files for 'foobar2' are also deleted even if they were not included in the workflow.

Is there a logical explanation for this behavior? Any way to avoid the side-effects?

A Folder Action workflow will give you every file when a change is detected in the specified folder, including ones you are not interested in.

Your problem is with Get Specified Finder Items. It just adds items to the list of files to process. It doesn't filter anything!

Use the Filter Finder Items action instead to filter the list returned by Finder. You can do it any number of fields/options including name, extension and type.


iMessage and FaceTime account wrong After my recent software update my iMessage and FaceTime account changed to my husbands on my iPad.  How do I change it back to mine?

That is a very generic question to ask in this community. Please try following this tutorial http://osxdaily.com/2014/08/01/change-apple-id-ios/ to sign out of your husband's iCloud account completely (i.e. iCloud, iTunes etc), and be sure to sign in with your own.

If you remove his login information by logging him out and using your credentials instead, there shouldn't be any reason why the problem should persist.

Good Luck, let me know how you get on.


iOS-style PageCapture app for OSx? I like the iOS PageCapture here. I want to find it for Desktop. Where can I find such whole-browser-page-screenshotting app for OSx?

Paparazzi isn't a good app. I used it and it didn't work or was very slow to load.

I use a lot Layers Shot and W3Capture, they save the multiple pages or sites and also capture ones whole pages. Layers save as PDF, PNG, TIFF or PSD file. W3Capture, as PDF (separated pages) and PNG (one whole page). I also used a lot Web Slices (free), a sites sncreenshot app.

Go to the Mac App Store, search the apps and follow the apps:
(I can't pots more than two hyperlinks)
1) Layers Shot
2) Web Slices

Out of Mac App Store, W3Capture's link: http://www.bitsdujour.com/software/wcapture/

More apps that I didn't test yet:
Lightshot Screenshot (it's in Mac App Store and it is free)

I hope this answer help you. Good luck with these apps!


Backing up networked iMacs I have an iMac connected by wire to an external (non-Mac) hard drive which is used to store back-up images via Time Machine.  I want to buy a second iMac and network the two together.  As far as I understand it, this will mean that (subject to permissions) any user can sit at one of the machines and see/use the contents of both hard drives.

How do I now back-up both iMacs to the same hard drive? I can't afford to buy the expensive Time Capsule.

Suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

You can use one USB drive to back up multiple OS X Macs. Just connect the drive sequentially to each.

You could cycle the drive daily, weekly, monthly or hourly.

Each backup is kept separate and yes, anyone can read the backup files from either computer if they are an administrator of either Mac.

You could also make use of Crash Plan software to back up each Mac to the other over the network. That way you could have Time Machine on one Mac cover both of the computers - one directly and the other backing up the crash plan data.


Can't print from OS X 10.7 to shared printer on OS X 10.6 I have a network with 2 Mac OS X computers in it.

When I try to print a text document from my upgraded OS X 10.7 to the shared printer on OS X 10.6, my print job gets stuck at the "job pending on server" message.

When I look at the printer spooler on the 10.6 machine, I see the job as "printing" and the message "sending data", but the printer doesn't print anything. There's no reaction at all, and yes – I checked the cables.

Solved the Problem. The shared Printer was connected to a Belkin USB Hub, which again was connected through an USB slot to the Mac OS 10.6 Laptop. I disconnected the printer from the Hub and plugged it straight into the usb slot of the laptop, when I tried again print out a document, it succeeded


Using different bluetooth mouses and keyboards on a MacBook I was wondering if it is possible to get a wireless mouse and keyboard less expensive than Apple's that would still work the way Apple's do - without the need to use extra USB toggles for bluetooth connection?

My MacBook Air has only 2 USB ports and connecting a mouse and a keyboard would leave me without either one or both USB ports.

I know it might be reasonable to buy some device to get 'more' USB ports, but I'd like to find out if there are any mouses and keyboards on a market that a MacBook would recognize without the need to use their own USB bluetooth adapters. Thanks in advance!

Yes, it's possible. You just need a proper mouse/keyboard that is intended to work that way (via bluetooth).
I know that logitech actually has some of these.
A quick research give me this or this.


Are there any ipad applications or utilities that allow you to enter handwriting into a text field? I've seen various iPad applications that allow you to take notes in your own handwriting. I'm wondering if there are any options for allowing a user to input handwritten data into input fields on web page and convert the handwriting into text.

For example, Windows Tablet edition had this functionality built in. They had an "Input Panel" button, which resembles a small window with a pen over it. You would then write your text in the Input Panel window and the Tablet PC would automatically convert it to text after a short delay.

I'm hoping to find something similar for the iPad, if it exists.

There is no native way to input handwritten data into input fields on a web page.  However there are a few workarounds (not elegant but may help).

Using an application like WritePad for iPad, you could handwrite your text, have the application convert it to text and then cut and paste the text into the browser.


line 1: syntax error near unexpected token `newline' with HTML + shell script I've been learning the shell with a great tutorial, linuxcommand.org. After a lot of learning and practice with navigating directories, editing files, etc, I've moved on to writing shell scripts.

One of the first tutorials linuxcommand.org has is using HTML in a shell script to return some system info. You can check it out here . I'm currently on the 'Command Substitution and Constants' section.

One of the first things in the tutorial said the file could be used by redirecting the standard output to .html:

    ~me$ ./sysinfo_page > sysinfo_page.html

my script looks exactly like the one on the link, but I'll post it anyway:

(the only difference is linux uses the env var $HOSTNAME, I'm on OS X and it's $LOGNAME)

#!/bin/bash

# sysinfo_page - Generate an HTML page based on system information

title="My System Information"
RIGHT_NOW=$(date +"%x %r %Z")
TIME_STAMP="Updated on $RIGHT_NOW by $USER"

cat <<- _EOF_

        <title>
        $title $LOGNAME
        </title>

$title $LOGNAME

$TIME_STAMP

_EOF_

When I type into the command line:

    ~me$  ./sysinfo_page

it gives me the contents of only the HTML, but it isn't formatted and still displays the tags. I'm assuming that by redirecting the standard output to a .html extension would give me the formatted HTML page, without the tags but I wouldn't know because, after giving chmod rwx permission with 755, I type:

    ~$me  ./sysinfo_page.html

And get this error:

./sysinfo_page.html: line 1: syntax error near unexpected token `newline'
./sysinfo_page.html: line 1: `'

I understand by what I've read that < > indicates a placeholder, but that's the HTML syntax...and exactly how it works on the tutorial. I thought maybe adding a <!DOCTYPE> would fix it, but didn't. My question is, what am I doing wrong here? How can I get it to display the HTML page correctly?

HTML is not a script, it's a markup language. You need a browser to render HTML. To view it, you probably want

open sysinfo_page.html


Sync Outlook 2013 with iTunes 12.5.1 Recently upgrade iPhone 6S to 10.1  and iTunes to 12.5.1  Mainly use iTunes to sync my Outlook contacts and calendar via USB cable only (not Wi-Fi).  Appears to begin sync and stops part ways through process and sounds as though sync is complete.  Do not use iCloud for sync.

In case you don't want to use iCloud, you can try 3-rd party software called AkrutoSync. Unfortunately, there's no way for syncing over USB, only via Wi-Fi or over the Internet. The best part is that this software works with iPhone's native apps which I found very convenient. Here's a link to their website: http://www.akruto.com/sync-iphone-with-outlook/

The bad thing is that you have to reconfigure this software each time you want to switch between syncing over the Internet to syncing via Wi-Fi.


iPhone 5 (iOS 10.3.3) getting pretty hot within brief usage of 5-10 minutes I've been using an iPhone 5 for about a year and have never faced this issue. Due to some reason which I am unaware of, whenever I use it in an air-conditioned room, it gets pretty hot from both back and front.

This happens even when I am just using the flashlight or the built-in Camera app.

I checked with a mobile workshop, but it was of no use. Got the battery replaced with a new one, but to no avail.

How do I overcome this heating issue?

While there could be a variety of reasons for an iPhone to warm up, the common ones include using it while it's charging, using a bad (cheap, 3rd party) charger, bad battery (can be ruled out as you mentioned you got the battery replaced), one or the other component failure due to ageing (iPhone 5 was released in 2012 and were last produced in 2013 before being discontinued), using a rouge app (a non-performant app which may cause device heat up on slower devices, usually happens with some 3rd party apps and certain resource intensive games) etc.

Luckily, you iPhone has a built-in heat sensor and if it gets warm beyond a point, it will show a warning sign and shut down automatically. So, while heat up could be a concern, there should be no real threat of serious damage (again, it is preferable to use Apple original charging equipment).

While there could be no concrete answer for the issue, I'd experiment with tweaking with various parameters mentioned above.


How do I show content of hidden password boxes? About 1 year ago, I set up FTP access on a webserver that's being used for our client. The project temporarily stopped and is just resuming now. I need to set up the same FTP access on another computer. I already forgot the password we used for it before and I can't seem to locate the email detailing the server info. Our server admin is currently unreachable so I have to come up with a solution myself.

I am looking for a tool similar to this one, but for OS X 10.6.8.

If it helps any, the FTP client I used is Transmit.

I just solved my question. As it turns out, the password is stored in the Keychain Access. I just searched for the server and ticked the "Show password" checkbox on that particular item. Problem solved!


Did the "Gift This App" option go away? I regularly gift apps to friends, but now I can't find the Gift button anywhere: Not in the sharing menu of the iPad's app store where it used to be, not under the disclosure arrow on the iTunes store under OSX. Did Apple deactivate the ability to gift apps?

Edited to add: No really, the menu options just don't seem to be there anymore. This is what it looks like when in the Mac version of the iTunes store:

And this is what I see in the iPad version of the app store:

Either way, the gift option isn't where it used to be.

It's there for me both in iTunes and the iOS App Store (on an iPhone, don't have my iPad handy to test). That's in the Canadian store, FWIW. Things can and do vary by country, and for that matter by what CDN node you're connected to, so it may be different for others. Best advice is to wait it out and try again in a little while, in case there was a glitch somewhere along the line.


How can I transfer contacts between SIM cards? I've bought a new iPhone 5S and inserted a nano SIM into it by purchasing a nano sim with same number. How can I get contacts from my old sim to new SIM?

in an iPhone you can not put addresses to the sim card, only from the sim card to the phone. You can use an "old" phone form before they were smart (e.g. Nokia): copy the addresses into the phone from the sim card 1, put another sim card 2 in and read the addresses into this sim card.


An app downloaded from the Mac App Store re-installs itself after I delete it. How can I remove it permanently? The app in question is iCare by Chen Yuhua. I have tried uninstalling the proper way through launchpad and also manually by removing all files and system files that are returned by Searching "iCare" and "Yuhua".

In both cases, the app immediately reappears in the updates tab of the Mac App Store. The developer told me that the problem is with the store, not his app.

So, how can I permanently remove it so that it doesn't reinstall itself?

Some troubleshooting tips:

Open the Mac App store and choose the menu Store > Sign Out
Log out of your account (save work and then choose the menu Apple > Log Out ...
Log in and hold the shift (this prevents apps from automatically starting. If you miss the timing, just continue - things will be slower as a result)
Disconnect any network cables and turn off WiFi
Restart your Mac (Apple Menu > Restart)

At this point, you've disabled the checks and tools the app store will use to try and continue a download.

Open Launchpad and delete any copies of that app (and any others you wish to clean up).

Once that's done, restart your Mac.

Reconnect WiFi and network
Open the Mac App Store
Sign in again
Check for Unfinished Downloads (under the Sign in option)

At that point, you should be save from further intrusion of the App Store.

There's some great information on the tools here:

App Store repeatedly asking me to update


Iterm2 BrokenPipe Failed to exec /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin: No such file or directory PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin Backstory: I've been given a lender computer from the school I'm attending and I was attempting to npm install global packages for my react-native project. I was able to install the packages, but my programs didn't appear to know how to actually access those globally installed packages. That's my theory at least. So I started going down the google rabbit hole ...

The first error I was getting was:
expo command not found (expo being Expo CLI, the react-native related package I had install globally numerous times by now), so I went to the provided site and entered the suggested command: echo $PATH in terminal.

After running Echo $Path the above author said:

check if `/users/me/.npm-global/bin` is in your path.

The response from my machine was: /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:

The author than proceeded to say:

If it isn’t there, you will need to add it to the path.
Open up ~/.bash_profile then add the following line to the bottom:

Well, it appeared that I didn't have a ~/.bash_profile, I assume it said no such directory found or something to akin to that. I can't simulate this error anymore because well ... my terminal at this time immediately crashes on startup.

So, I visited this stackExchange question which asked "How to create ~/.bash_profile and ~/.profile". I followed the steps from the top solution which by all accounts, seemed to successfully create the file.

With the file now seemingly made, I returned back to the original linked site and entered ~/.bash_profile which opened the file and "add[ed] the following line to the bottom:"

# NPM global installs
export PATH=$PATH:~/.npm-global/bin

Follow that I returned to the shell and entered: source ~/.bash_profile.
I don't have access (currently) to the error I was getting when I entered that command in the shell, but I believe the error was something related to the directory wasnt found.

Anyway, I changed something ... I think(?) I added the line source ~/.bash_profile to the nano terminal window where I earlier entered the above command ... but at this point I can even get back there to confirm that was the case.

So that's where I am now, I still can't access the globally installed files or at this point even open my terminal without it instantly closing.

On last thing, i entered usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin in the iterm2 > preferences > profiles > general > command destination. That's exactly where I am now and why my iterm broken pipe error says what it says.

Question asker here ...

I had the fortunate luck of working through this in a screen share with a graduate from the school and the solution we found regarding my issue is that I had this in my .bash_profile file:

source ~/.bash_profile
export PATH=$PATH:~/.npm-global/bin

So, the immediate issue was the source ~/.bash_profile, this was causing the piping error and crashing all my terminals.

Q: How did we access this file if terminal was broken?

A: I went into vscode (any text editor will probably work just the same) and opened the files path. So, vscode > file > open > X's MacBook Pro > untitled > Users > X > clicked open. This opened all the files (including the hidden one we want access to) and opened the file named .bash-profile.

In the .bash-profile file I updated it from what was posted above to whats posted below and saved it.

export PATH=$PATH:"~/.npm-global/bin"


Does apple have a volume purchasing program (vpp) that includes Macs? I have about 25 Mac users that I admin for and I can't seem to find a volume licensing/purchasing program for Macs.  Does one exist?

For example, Apple has removed iWork physical boxes from just about everywhere near my office and I can't get them from any of my vendors online.  The only way to get iWork now appears to be through the app store, but I don't want my users to be using their apple id's for the purchases.

There is a business-specific Apple Store located here: http://store.apple.com/us_smb_78313/browse/campaigns/business/introduction

Apple also maintains a fleet of direct-to-business sales personnel that you can talk to for volume purchases and after-purchase care for your staff. To contact them, call 1-800-854-3680.


How long can I expect my system to be unusable during an upgrade to OS X Lion? I just downloaded Lion and am pretty eager to install it, but I can use every minute I have, so I'd rather not install it now if it means my system is unusable for 30+ minutes.

How long should I expect a Mac to be unusable during the upgrade process?

It's a safe bet that most people are out of business for less than an hour. Of course, you'll probably be spending hours exploring all the new features, so you might want to count that against your system being unusable for "real work" due to "exploration and play".

Since you can't easily interrupt things and won't have use of the mac once the installer logs you out to start the upgrade, do give yourself a little window in case things run long.

Here are some ballpark numbers people are reporting for upgrades with real life amounts of data on their macs:

iMac / Mac Pro + SSD: 8 to 15 minutes
iMac / Mac Pro + HD:  12 to 20 minutes
Portables: 15 to 30 minutes
full drives / Air with HD: 30 to 45 minutes

Furthermore, you won't really know how long it will take if problems crop up moving thousands of tiny files or the process hangs. Then you will need to research what to do if trying again doesn't sort things out for you.

Even if your install should take 15 minutes, why risk it until the pressure is off?

The problem with any prediction is that there are four parts to the install:

common prep tasks (pre-download any updates - lion won't have many to pre download now since it's new)
a file system check of all your data (to avoid problems with bad files or bad file system structure)
the standard install (move the old, write the new - most macs capable of Lion will be within 50% of each other for this part)
upgrade script to crawl through all the your files and programs, upgrade things, and then delete the now un-needed files.

Parts 2 and 4 are where "slow installs" take the majority of your time.

Most people will be done in less than an hour - but you can't really know if your install will go long until you let it start. It matters little that other people had a good experience if your is going to be especially slow.

You can run a full file system check before starting to be sure your directories won't trap the installer in an infinite loop, but other than deleting things like un-needed apps and files that might need "migration", you can't speed up the parts of the process that depend on your pre-existing data.


Unable to connect to car via Bluetooth? I recently got a 5th generation iPod touch. I was trying to connect to a car over Bluetooth, but it won't even show up on my iPod (and yes the car's Bluetooth was on). My iPod is on iOS 7.0.4. Any ideas?

Edit: yes, My iPod's Bluetooth was on

You need to open both your cars bluetooth settings (there should be something like "pair new device") and your iPod's bluetooth settings.
That way the devices can get paired. This only needs to be done the first time. From then on, the connection should work automatically.


Why doesn't Windows 7 boot with BootCamp? I installed Windows 7 (from MSDNAA) with BootCamp on my MBP (late 2008). After using the BootCamp utility on OSX I restarted the computer and the installation of Win7 began. This first time, there were no partitions to choose as destination. After a restart, I could install Win7 on the Bootcamp partition.

Now every time I try to start Win7, a black screen appears and nothing happens anymore. I tried it with hitting "alt" and choosing windows from the boot menu, I tried rEFIt and choosing windows, I tried selecting windows from the startup disk menu in OSX... I installed Windows at least 5 times, but always get the same problem. The strange thing is: the Windows partition appears in OSX and I can browse the Windows folder, the program files, ...

Any idea what I can try now?

I had weird issues trying to get boot camp to load/run windows.  Tried everything and it turned out to be the RAM.  I put back in the factory RAM, installed boot camp, then put back my newer RAM after it worked.

It may not be your issue, but thought I would try.


Why does iOS take so long to start up? My MacBook Pro running Lion boots in maybe 30 seconds. My original iPad, however, takes several minutes. Why is this? I understand the MBP has a much better processor and more RAM than iPad, but surely that can't cause that much difference—especially since OS X is vastly more complex than iOS.

Related: Why do iOS devices take such a long time to turn back on?

Well - at the most basic level iOS and Mac OS X are the same kernel and startup processes using launchd and standard unix-heritage programs.

iOS has full sandboxing and arguably tighter access control infrastructure to build up - so in some ways, iOS does more to start up than Mac OS X does.

Once you add on mac things, of course it is more extensible so many people have much bigger loads to lift on an OS X reboot than an iOS boot.

I would argue that all the above arguments are moot and to a first approximation, you are seeing the CPU capability of the Mac hardware shining as well as the read speed of the mac storage as opposed to the iOS storage and the effects of more RAM being a better advantage and more than offsetting the larger library and binary size on Mac OS X.