Is it possible that a photo went through without me knowing? My phone gets glitches a lot. My texts would be jumbled and mismatched. Some photos would only appear in “camera roll” but not in “moments.”
I was texting someone, and accidentally clicked on a bad photo. I closed out of it before it could send the person, but is it possible that it went through without me knowing?
Is it possible that I could send something but not have it show up in the text thread on my phone?

iOS will always tell you if a message is sent or not. It only won't show up if you delete the message yourself. Of course, there is always a chance of there being bugs, but this is unlikely. If you didn't hit send, there is very little chance it actually sent.

If you have a Mac or another iOS device, you can open up the Messages thread on that device to see if it sent.

In the future, if you accidentally send a message, shut down the device immediately, and when you power it on, turn on airplane mode. If you go to the message thread, it should show an error with sending the message.


Is there a black&white option for color printer when using air print? airprint is pretty cool. On my Mac and PC I could setup a separate profile to use my color printer in black&white mode. Is it possible to do the same when using air print from iphone/ipad?

The built-in AirPrint doesn't allow this sort of functionality as of iOS 4, but if you get the HP ePrint app, you should be able to do B&W printing and manage other settings. This of course only works if you have an AirPrint/ePrint HP printer, it won't work with any other printer that you've hacked to set up with AirPrint.


Mac Google Chrome Not Responding; how to investigate and fix? Just now while using Chrome with an infinite number of tabs and windows, it stopped responding with a colorful spinwheel. The computer is still working, but every other application moves 30x slower whereby every action I make will be delayed by ~2 seconds, even if its a simple click. I waited for about 10 minutes to unlag but its still the same.

I opened activity monitor and started quitting all Chrome subprocesses. After about 3 minutes, computer is completely fine now, but Chrome main process is still showing as not responding:

How do I investigate what's going wrong? And how can it be fixed?

(Btw, I remembered having a similar issue 2 months ago and I managed to fix that one after much googling, but I can't remember how I fixed it.)

My friend, ask yourself how deep you desire to know and how far you are willing to go.  If you desire merely a working Chrome, reinstall it and hope that all will go better.

If you want more than that, then let us explore what tracing and profiling can tell us.  You will need Xcode and need the command-line tools installed.  If you have chrome still running, then pull up a Terminal, and let’s profile chrome for a minute when it starts beach-ballin’.

sudo sample $( pgrep Chrome ) 60 -f ~/Desktop/chrome.profile.txt

You can also use Instruments for the same:

sudo instruments -l 60000 -t Time\ Profiler -p $( pgrep Chrome )

You likely will spot something in there that takes up most of the time.  Time now for trace.  When you are ready, straight bust a dtruss on Chrome, to see the low level:

sudo dtruss -a -f -n Chrome 2> ~/Desktop/Chrome.trace.txt

Let it run for a minute.  Then stop with CONTROL-C, as I recall, off the top of my head.  Then examine that trace file!

Enjoy, and Good Yule,

F.


Paste text with AppleScript without simulating cmd-v with System Events I would like to be able to use AppleScript to paste the clipboard's text into the foreground application. Every solution I can find online uses tell app "System Events" to keystroke "v" using command down. However, I am running this script with a keyboard shortcut, so I may already be holding down keys when this command fires, which makes the paste fail because more keys are pressed than just cmd and v. I know that I can use delay to give myself time to release the keys, but that feels like a hack (and ideally the paste would be instantaneous).

Is there a way to use AppleScript to paste without simulating the shortcut cmd-v? Thanks.

Edit: Also, if there is a way to use AppleScript to copy selected text without simulating cmd-c, that would be much appreciated as well.

I managed to find the following solution.

tell application "System Events" to tell process (name of current application)
    tell menu bar item "Edit" of menu bar 1
        click menu item "Paste" of menu 1
    end tell
end tell

delay 0.1

The delay is there to give the system time to copy before using the clipboard.


How to store proxy credentials on macOS so they are used by system services? I'm using macOS Sierra 10.12.6 behind a corporate NTLM proxy. My browser and other applications are using the system proxy settings, in which I have saved my username and password for authenticating with the proxy. This is working fine.

There is a persistent problem with system services that try to access information on the internet and don't see to have access to the proxy credentials in my user account. I see the following popup every couple of minutes, and whatever I do (updating my credentials in System Preferences, or pressing "Not Now"), the popup keeps coming up again and again:

The text in the popup reads:

  Proxy Authentication Required

  Enter the password for the HTTP proxy http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:yyyy in System Preferences.

What can I do to stop this popup from appearing?

Things I have tried so far:

Updated my credentials in System Preferences (Network > Advanced > Proxy)
Copied the credentials entries from my login keychain to the System keychain, since I read a recommendation for that in a blog post or forum question.

None of these has worked, I get this popup every couple of minutes, and there does not seem to be a pattern to when it shows up.

Update 1:

As soon as I enter my credentials by clicking the System Preferences button in the above dialog (which I can force by e.g. opening Safari and starting to type a URL in the location box), two records are created in the login keychain, both with identical content:

  @ xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (username)    Internet Password     Today, 09:10    --    login

Both records look identical, with the same name and attributes. Both show that the application that requested this is AuthBrokerAgent:

Update 2:

I've also tried this suggestion: https://discussions.apple.com/message/23848961#message23848961, copying the authentication entries from the login keychain to the system keychain and then rebooting, but it did not fix it. In fact, the dreaded "Proxy Authentication Required" box showed up again while typing this...

Update 3:

I've used Wireshark to take a look at the traffic between my machine and our proxy:

The proxy returns with a 407 Proxy Authentication Required and Proxy-Authenticate: NTLM, which is in line with my expectation, since our proxy uses NTLM.
Some examples I've seen in the traffic (e.g. iCloud) then send back an NTLMSSP_NEGOTIATE response.
The proxy comes back with an NTLMSSP_CHALLENGE request
The service responds with NTLMSSP_AUTH and my username, which it must have gotten from somewhere.
The proxy finally responds with a 200 Connection established

To me, this shows that in general the proxy authentication works fine, if the system can get the username and proxy from somewhere. The question remains how/where to store the username/password so that all system services can find it. Some system services (I assume) don't have any means to find the proxy credentials where I'm currently storing them.

This is most likely expected behavior if your system/network administrator has configured the proxy force authentication that requires more than just a basic authentication scheme.
From Microsoft's page Handling Authentication under About HTTP Authentication section:

There are two general types of authentication schemes:

Basic authentication scheme, where the user name and password are sent in
cleartext to the server.
Challenge-response schemes, which allow for a
challenge-response format.

Challenge-response schemes enable more secure authentication. If a
request requires authentication using a challenge-response scheme, the
appropriate status code and Authenticate headers are returned to the
client. The client must then to resend the request with a negotiate.
The server would return an appropriate status code with a challenge,
and the client would then require to resend the request with the
proper response to get the requested service.

If the proxy you are using utilizes the basic authentication scheme, what's saved in your keychain will suffice to authenticate you.  If a challenge response scheme is being used, you will most likely have to provide more info - in this case - re-enter your password - to authenticate; and this is what you are seeing.
NTLM Authentication Process
This is much more than just storing credentials.  The client must generate a response based upon a generated request from the server.  Following is a very abridged description of the authentication process from the client/server perspective per  Microsoft's documentation

The client sends the user name to the server (in plaintext).

The server generates a 16-byte random number, called a challenge or nonce, and sends it to the client.

The client encrypts this challenge with the hash of the user's password and returns the result to the server. This is called the
response.

The server sends the following three items to the domain controller:

User name
Challenge sent to the client
Response received from the client

The DC validates the encrypted challenge and response.  If authenticated, access is granted.

The third step above, requires the client to hash a random number it got from the server.  This inherently means there's nothing to be stored on your macOS client.
At a very minimum, you need to be joined the Active Directory domain.  This means you need Kerberos support enabled and configured properly for your specific organization.
There's a key phrase in the "Handling Authentication" document I linked above:

If authentication is required, the INTERNET_FLAG_KEEP_CONNECTION flag
should be used in the call to HttpOpenRequest. The
INTERNET_FLAG_KEEP_CONNECTION flag is required for NTLM and other
types of authentication in order to maintain the connection while
completing the authentication process. If the connection is not
maintained, the authentication process must be restarted with the
proxy or server.

(Emphasis mine)
Based on your the symptoms being presented it appears that your organization requires authentication to the proxy; your username/password are valid, but it keeps (re)asking for authentication.  It's probably because you are losing the connection state and having to do this all over again.  Which further emphasizes the point....
To solve this issue, you will need to contact your network admin to assist you with the authentication issues.


How do I type a tilde in spanish keyboard? It is difficult work with the Terminal if you can't type the tilde. Does anybody know how to do this using a Spanish keyboard?

Using a Spanish keyboard and Spanish keybindings the tilde is altñ. Using English keybindings (System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Input Sources) and a Spanish keyboard it's still altn.
If you immediately enter a / afterwards, you don't need an extra space.

Note: On some keyboards the two alt keys are different. To get the tilde, you may have to use the alt gr key located to the right of the spacebar.


Apple Health draining battery following iOS 14 update Since updating to iOS 14 (now 14.0.1) Health is draining my battery even though I don't use it much. For example, just one minute of use

results in 37% of battery use

and I need to recharge 2-4 times (iPhone XS) to get through a day, rendering my phone pretty much useless.
What causes this and how do I fix it. Is it another bug with iOS 14?

If you have a welltory app or other third party integration, check it’s not stuck in a loop.
Past that, here are some general ideas.
Consider ruling out a temporary backlog of data processing if you updated iOS  in the last 36 hours. If for some reason you think it’s stuck or taking too long, one force quit of the device and then a normal restart and observe things for 24 hours worked for me.  Also, be sure any app writing data or reading data are disabled / up to date. Health could just be the abusee if other apps are poking it too much or wrongly.
You can also always back up and restore if you think your device needs that.
I do not do this lightly, but there are cases when the saved application state for things like Photo processing, health app processing and others can get stuck.

Back up your device - you need to be ready to erase and reinstall, so be sure you have a solid backup or save important app data to the cloud and verify it.
One time - power down the phone cleanly. (Slide to power off)
Verify that the issue of high battery usage continues. Consider deleting other apps that interact with health / photos (you have a backup - this is a short term deletion).
Then force power off the device - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201412 - this discards all saved application state.
The device will start all the processes again - expect high CPU / high heat, high battery drain until the processes complete.
If you can’t wait any longer - erase the device entirely and do not restore the backup.

Now - be sure the energy is low / the OS is good, and it idles properly - now do the erase / restore to get your apps and data back. Also, be sure to get any updates - X.0 releases are tested very well, but often without lots of live data - so it’s almost always the data we bring to the update that reveals bugs - not that an empty phone on X.0 release is buggy.
The only solution is to not update the first 2 weeks of a new release and let others find / report / triage / isolate these situations.


Mail signatures--assigning to specific users Is it possible to assign a Mail signature to specific recipients? I want my signature to appear in emails I send to some people but not appear in emails I send to other people. Thanks.

No. This isn't possible with a standard install of OSX Mail.app.

What you can do, as I am sure you are already well aware of, is set up multiple signatures, and manually select the signature that you desire to use. What you can do in the case of wanting no signature is set up a "signature" labeled "Empty", and then put nothing in there. Then have that set to default, or the other way around.


Do Macs come with any programming language available from the Terminal? I need to do a few little scripts on my Mac but I don't really want to install Xcode or Python for a full environment, just a quick command line deal.
Does macOS come with anything suitable out of the box?

As an example I want to process files in a directory and do some custom logic.

You have good old bash (or csh, or whatever). You can use it to write shell scripts.


Use another Macbook Pro with touchbar as secondary screen I have two MacBook Pros with touch-bar (with USB-C ports of course), and I wanted to know if there is a chance to use this other MacBook as secondary screen.

I tried to connect them together by plugging USB-C cable in both, but I don't see Arrangement tab in Display settings. Am I missing something, like software solution?

You can only use iMac as a secondary screen with Mini DisplayPort to Mini DisplayPort. Target Display Mode lets you use the built-in display on a supported iMac as an external display for another Mac. To use your iMac as a display in Target Display Mode, connect it to another Mac using the correct cable (see System Requirements below).

However,

Connecting two MBPros to create an extended screen won't work. Use VNC viewer as Remote Desktop if you want else I don't see any option as I am daily working on Apple devices and people has come up with this request many time.


Advantage of doing a clean Install of Mountain Lion? I have Mac OS X Lion 10.7.4 installed in my Macbook Pro. When I upgraded to Mac OS X Lion from Snow Leopard I did a clean install since some applications weren't compatible with Lion. I am planning to Upgrade to Mountain Lion now. Is it recommend to do a clean install? What are the advantages of doing so?

Installing cleanly gives you the advantage that you will know if an error is due to the "as-shipped" condition of the software before you add your data and applications to the mix. The installation of a new OS is the primary time when people notice corruption of a filesystem or other hardware type errors since a machine can often keep running well with some little errors. But relinking all the kernel extensions and drivers and knowing that your accessories and applications will all take to a major new OS is a lot of change. Spending a little extra time up front can help isolate issues if you have them.

By running the migration later, you have more control over things and can also choose to hand migrate anything first that you don't trust the tools to automate.


Why would SetFile be unavailable after upgrading to Mountain Lion? I have Xcode installed, and have used the SetFile command (installed with Xcode) for some time.  I just upgraded to Mountain Lion, though, and find that it is suddenly unavailable.  I verified that the upgrade did not wipe out Xcode—it's still there, and it runs fine—so I'm baffled as to why I suddenly cannot use SetFile.  All I can find by Googling points to installing Xcode (for people who don't have it).  What could be the problem for me?

Also, all my dot files seem to be unharmed, and my PATH looks normal, so I'm at a loss.  What can I do?

You might need to install the command line tools from within Xcode.

Launch Xcode, go to Preferences, and from the Downloads tab, install the Command Line Tools if not installed yet.


Applescript not returning string I have a list called num. I have converted it into a string. I want to return that string so that the next action called "New text file" in my automator workflow can get the string. This is my code -

on run {input, parameters}
    set num to {1,2}
    set f to ""
    repeat with x in num
        set f to f & x & "\n"
    end repeat
    return f
end run

It doesn't return anything.

EDIT: As some of you have asked. I am going to elaborate on the question. My automator workflow, takes some parts of some text in an email, it retrieves all the phone numbers in the group which is specified in the text of the email, and stores them in a text file.

the variable 'cat' has the list of contact groups

This is the full code:

on run
    set cat to value of variable "cat" of front workflow (*I have already defined the variable elsewhere in the workflow*)
    set num to {}
    set f to ""
    tell application "Contacts"
        repeat with i in cat
            set inGroup to group i
            set phoneProps to value of phones of inGroup's people
            set end of num to first item of first item of phoneProps
        end repeat
    end tell
    repeat with x in num
        set f to f & x & "\n"
    end repeat
    return f
end run

This code is supposed to be followed by a 'new text file' action which should take the output of the previous action ('run applescript') as input. That doesn't happen as for some reason, applescript refuses to return the value even when I am getting the desired value when using 'display dialog'.

UPDATE: I am now posting the entire workflow

Input-
In mail app -
An email with this content - "#a, #b Q: this is a question for all of you."

Workflow -

1) Run Applescript
Code -

 on run {input, parameters}

    tell application "Mail" to set theMessageText to content of (get first message of inbox)
    set topic to text ((offset of "#" in theMessageText) + 1) thru ((offset of "Q" in theMessageText) - 1) of theMessageText
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ", "
    set bowords to words of topic
    set o to length of bowords
    repeat with i from 1 to o
        trim_line(bowords, "#", 0)
    end repeat
    bowords
end run
on trim_line(this_text, trim_chars, trim_indicator)
    set x to the length of the trim_chars
    -- TRIM BEGINNING
    if the trim_indicator is in {0, 2} then
        repeat while this_text begins with the trim_chars
            try
                set this_text to characters (x + 1) thru -1 of this_text as string
        on error
                -- the text contains nothing but the trim characters
                return ""
            end try
        end repeat
    end if
    -- TRIM ENDING
    if the trim_indicator is in {1, 2} then
        repeat while this_text ends with the trim_chars
            try
                set this_text to characters 1 thru -(x + 1) of this_text as string
            on error
                -- the text contains nothing but the trim characters
                return ""
            end try
        end repeat
    end if
    return this_text
end trim_line

2) Set Value of Variable

Sets the output of previous action to 'cat'

3) Run Applescript

on run {input, parameters}
    tell application "Mail" to set theMessageText to content of (get first message of inbox)
end run

4) New Mail Message

Appends the text from previous action to the bod of email

5) Run Applescript

The code that @Tetsujin gave in the answers

6) New Text File

7) Add attachments to front message

8) Send Outgoing Messages

9) Run Applescript (Deletes the email)

Code -

on run {input, parameters}
    delay (10)
    tell application "Mail"
        set theMessages to (get selection)
        repeat with eachMessage in theMessages
            set theAccount to account of (mailbox of eachMessage)
            move eachMessage to mailbox "Trash" of theAccount
        end repeat
    end tell
    return input
end run

on run
    set cat to value of variable "cat" of front workflow (*I have already defined the variable elsewhere in the workflow*)
    set num to {}
    set myString to ""
    tell application "Contacts"
        repeat with i in cat
            set inGroup to group i
            set phoneProps to value of phones of inGroup's people
            repeat with i in phoneProps
                try
                    set myString to myString & "\n" & first item of i (*gets first number only*)
                on error
                    set myString to myString & "\n" & "blank field" (*covers for empty phone number, otherwise would halt on error*)
                end try
            end repeat
        end repeat
        return myString
    end tell
end run


Unable to sign in to iCloud on iPhone My friend gave me his old iPhone and reset everything so I could use it. I set up an iCloud account, but when I try to sign in, it says that my username (which is my email) is invalid. How is that possible when I can use the same email to sign into my iCloud account online? What should I do?

Check your network settings, also go to iforgot.apple.com and enter your first and last name as well as the Apple ID email address to make sure that the account exists. If it does not identify it then it may be that you didn't verify your email address. If it does identify it then you may need to try restarting the device and the network connections to see if you are able to sign in (also sign in to the Apple ID page to verify that you can sign in after you have identified it as an Apple ID).


Having video issue, not sure how to describe it I have a mid-2009 Mac Pro with dual video cards.  About a year ago I started noticing an odd video artifact on one of my monitors.  I'd be scrolling something vertically and part of it would freeze, then catch up with the rest.  I'm now seeing it happen horizontally as well, while watching a video.  In each case it seems to be isolated to one area of the screen, though I'm not sure of that.

What could be causing this, and/or what are the right keywords to research it online?  Searching for video and split was not helpful at all. :)

You already installed the official drivers
nVidia to see if this problem is solved?
is a two graphical cards Nvidia GT120?
look here: http://www.geforce.com/drivers


Mac mini 2011 mid - temperature issue I have a mid-2011 Mac mini with an Intel i5 2.3 GHz processor.

When I checked the temperature, it was 90 degrees Celcius. The computer was running for three days. It didn’t work on anything.

Is this temperature okay?

You can use this app to test if your fan works.

but if the problem is not solved you can replace the thermal paste.


MacBook Pro 13 will not recognize battery and will not charge after battery replacement Did not start my MacBook Pro 13 for 5 weeks. when I tried it was completely dead and would not start up even with charger on it. I ordered a new battery and now it works when pugged into charger but won't charge. Shows battery at 0%. it is like it doesn't recognize the battery and I have reset and still does nothing for the charging aspect. as soon as I pull charging cable out of port it goes dead again

I assume this an old-style (pre-unibody) Mac with a removable/user-replaceable battery pack... If so, contact the seller; you could have been shipped a dud. If it's an aftermarket, non-apple product, you should also visually check to make sure it fits properly, and that all the contacts  are clean, undamaged, and seem to be connecting. As I remember from doing the same thing, some of those 3rd-party packs were less than perfectly machined.


What sources of funds can be used for peer-to-peer Apple Pay? Peer-to-peer Apple Pay was announced during the 2017 WWDC keynote.

How does the money enter your Apple Pay account in the first place?

Does it come from a linked credit card, as in how Apple Pay traditionally  works?  If so, would the transaction be considered a cash advance or a purchase by the credit card company?
Does it come from a linked bank account or a linked debit card?  If so, does that mean giving Apple a pre-authorization to withdraw money from your bank account?  Also, is there an imposed or customizable limit to how much money can be withdrawn?
Do you buy credits to be added to your Apple Pay account using gift cards, at a convenience store or at an Apple Store?

Apple Pay Cash is being introduced in the US first, with iOS 11.2 and watchOS 4.2 betas.  Both parties in a peer-to-peer transaction must have a suitable version of the software and have signed up for Apple Pay Cash.

Cash can be sent from a linked credit card (which incurs a 3% fee) or debit card.

Received cash is stored in an Apple Pay Cash card in Wallet.  It can be used for purchases or sent to a bank account.


How to extend the functionality of Open and Save dialogs of OS X applications? On Windows there are several third-party applications that can be used to improve the standard Open and Save dialogs.

I am looking for features like:

Being able to delete files from the these dialogs.
Being able to move files.
Remember dialog size or common directories per application (not all apps are able to do things like this).

If the solutions are commercial, please mention the price.

Step one - try the free trial of DefaultFolderX (30$).

Step two - buy it.

These is no step three. It's that good.


AppleScript - Changing Width of Dialog Box and Adding Text I have a normal display dialog working using AppleScript within the Editor. How would one increase the width of the display dialog and add text under the input field and above the buttons. In advance, thank you for your time.

display dialog "EXAMPLE" with icon alias ((path to me) & "Contents:Resources:ICON.icns" as string) default answer (do shell script "SHELL SCRIPT HERE " & quoted form of (text returned of (display dialog "Enter String:" default answer "" buttons {"OK"} default button 1 with title "EXAMPLE"))) buttons {"OK"} default button 1 with title "EXAMPLE"

Regarding "Changing Width of Dialog Box", I know of no method to decrease the width of a dialog box.

  How would one increase the width of the display dialog

One unsophisticated method to increase the width of a dialog does exist.

A dialog will automatically widen to accommodate the full width of (so as to not truncate) a button title. Consequently, you can add space characters to the button text (spaced out evenly on both ends for a symmetrical appearance) to increase the overall dialog width.

Using your sample dialog:

It looks funny to have such a broad button, but this is better than nothing, I suppose.

Using this method, you can make an AppleScript dialog as wide as your screen.

I'd prefer that this trick worked with the dialog title instead. But, if a dialog title exceeds the length of the dialog, the dialog title will simply be cut off, and an ellipsis will be appended.


How do I find where the file for a particular mp3 that I can see in iTunes is? OS 10.6

How do I find where the file for a particular mp3 that I can see in iTunes is?

-- How can I see what folder a track is in?

-- And how do I know which file in that folder it is?

Select the song in iTunes and type ⇧+⌘+R to trigger Show in Finder.

Alternatively, you can also right-click the item in iTunes and choose this option from the contextual menu.

From there, you can navigate up the folder hierarchy by holding the ⌘-key and clicking on the folder in the window title bar. You might also want to enable Show Path bar in finder.


outlook: apply rule to past messages I use outlook as client for an exchange server.

I created several rules that are local to the mac (as opposed to server side rules), and I want to apply them for past messages.

I can't find a way. - Even when I create the rule, I don't see any option to apply it to past messages.

It would be fine also to be able to move several selected messages to a folder, but when I create a filter it seems also difficult!!!
If I select all messages in the filter, upon right click on one of them, the selection goes away (because of the message preview I think)

If I select multiple messages in Inbox, right click is working and I could move all of them, but I must perform multiple selection manually...

Is it that difficult on Outlook 2011 overs 14.3 ?

Here are the instructions for Outlook for Mac 2011 and 2016.

Basically you have to select the folder or messages you want to apply rules to, then on the Message menu, point to Rules, point to Apply, and then click a rule or click Apply All. You can also right-click or use the toolbar to get to the Rules menu.

The problem I was having is this only works for client-side rules. From my link: "Manually applying rules works only for On My Computer rules. You cannot use Outlook for Mac to manually apply server-based rules." So if you have a server-side rule (which is the default and is probably what you want), you'll have to duplicate it as a client-side rule to get it applied to existing messages.


How do I debug an out-of-control "kernel_task" process? Just recently I noticed my battery life having a pretty significant drop and the "kernel_task" process using quite a bit of CPU (a constant 1-6% on my 2.8ghz dual-core i7, 2010 MBP). Obviously I think the kernel_task's CPU usage is contributing to the battery drop and I need to find out why.

Searching Google, it seems kernel_task is OS X's version of Windows's "svchost.exe" - the notorious do-everything process that you can't ever truly debug, you have to just manually flip switches until one of them works.

Is there any way I can more easily get to the bottom of the out-of-control kernel_task activity? I haven't tried a reboot because if that does "fix" it, it doesn't really fix the underlying problem.

Activity Monitor shows the CPU usage. When I hit Inspect, it shows 77 threads, 2 ports, hours and hours of CPU time, Context Switches going up about 400 per second, and Mach Messages In and Out both going up at about 6,000 per second.

How can I somehow inspect or monitor this kernel_task process and figure out what's actually using all this power?

(note: my current suspects are the recent 10.6.7 update, Firefox update from 4 beta 10 to RC, or ScreenResX - these are all things I've done recently that I can think of)

I had a similar question about how to identify files and programs connected to kernal_task using the following terminal command:

kextstat -l -k | awk '{n = sprintf("%d", $4); print n, $6}' | sort -n

This will display various kexts and the memory associated with them.  For example, 6184960 com.apple.driver.AirPort.Brcm4360 is a big hog for me, but I can't do much about it if I want to use wifi.

One of the suggestions I received was to look up all non-Apple kexts are taking up memory by piping the above to grep -v com.apple.  It's possible that some non-Apple programs are using up your resources.  You should be able to remove those without breaking anything.

The age old solution of course is to restart your computer.  Sometimes that's all it takes to set processes back to their normal levels of CPU usage.


To get extended views in XCode? To install command-line tools for XCode requires running

xcode-select --install

This was not visible in the download tab of the software

However, I have an intuition that those settings can be extended.
I would definitely like to see all those components possible to install for XCode.

How can you extend the settings in the XCode GUI?

You can't extend the downloads pane per say, but you can download more tools from the same location by going to Xcode → Open Developer Tool → More Developer Tools….

Upon logging in with your Developer ID, you can see the full list of tools, including the Command Line Tools.

I would list them here, but they're behind the developer login so can't be posted publicly.

There are even more Developer downloads, relatively unrelated to Xcode, accessible by removing the for Xcode - search criteria:

https://developer.apple.com/downloads/index.action


How can I find the serial number of my Mac mini? Do Mac mini come with a unique serial number? How do I find it?

It is a model without optical drive.

Yes. They come with unique serial number. You can find the serial number as per Apple Support Document.

Mac mini: How to find the serial number

In Mac OS X

On most computers with Mac OS X, you can find the serial number in the About This Mac window.

On the surface of the computer

On Mac mini (Mid 2010 and later) computers, the serial number is printed on the metal frame without a bar code:


What is the keyboard shortcut to insert a comment during track changes in Word? When I am editing a Word document using track changes it would be nice not to have to got to the mouse to insert a comment at the cursor (since this is most of what my editing consists of).

What is the keyboard shortcut to insert a comment at the cursor in MS Word on a Mac when using track changes?

I am running Word 14.2.5 and OS X 10.5.8

Insert a comment
⌘+OPTION+A

Turn track changes on or off
⌘+SHIFT+E

From here


Is there an app that allows an iPhone-to-iPhone local network call with shared music? My wife and I started going to a gym recently.  We each have our own separate workouts and we listen to music through our earbuds.  We realized though that this has reduced our evening chat time, so I had this idea to "call" each other to idly (verbally) chat during our separate workouts at the gym.  And I was wondering if it was possible for us to listen to the same music as we chat.  I've tried a bunch of different searches, but the best I can figure is that we can make an actual phone call and listen to our own separate music.  We have unlimited plans, so that's a possibility, but I think it would really be nice if we were listening to the same music (with independent volume control, i.e. voice versus music).  Is there an app that will do this, ideally just over a local network (as opposed to making a call that routes through a cell phone tower or some internet service)?

Short answer no. I found a link to an article that explains this.

  Playing music or any other audio while on a phone call is easy:

  While on an active phone call, tap the Home button to get to the home
  screen Open the Music app, find any song or podcast, and press play
  Return to the phone call screen by tapping the green titlebar Music
  (or any audio) plays immediately, but instead of outputting through
  the external speakers, it will be played through the ear speaker. This
  prevents the music from being piped through to the other end of the
  phone, and that means the other end will never know you’re jamming to
  Milli Vanilli to make it through their tortuously boring phone calls
  and wait times.


Where are my emails stored and how can I mark them as read from commandline? I am constantly getting emails of the form "Node  status bad", "Node  status ok", "Node  status unknown" and I would like to know, for example, if an email of the form "Node 3 status bad" came in and then 20 minutes later "Node 3 status ok" came in, how to mark them both as 'read'.

I am pretty good at commandline scripting and was wondering where these files are located in my directory structure. I can easily write a script to parse the files and search for keywords, etc. - I'm not worried about that - I'm just wondering:

(1) what folder/directory are these emails stored in (on my local system)

and

(2) Is there a way to mark them as 'read' from commandline? That way I can script that command to these files automatically under certain conditions.

I suspect that your answer here will be mail rules, and AppleScript. Rather than relying on parsing out the raw messages, you can create a rule to filter on the bad status messages and then run an AppleScript, and another on the Ok.

To learn about AppleScript and the Mail dictionary: enter Introduction to Scripting Mail

Mail rules are set in Preferences on the Rules tab.

AppleScripts for mail are installed in $HOME/Library/Application Scripts/com.apple.mail/ Helpfully, when you choose AppleScript from the rules dropdown it'll give you the option to open that folder.

You can probably accomplish this with a single script, run when an OK message is received, to check the inbox for bad messages and mark them as read, along with the current message.

Assuming you mean shell scripting by command line, which is comparable to AppleScript - if anything AppleScript is easier, being designed to be English-like and quite readable.

To view the available commands in AS for Mail.app you can open Script Editor (Applications/Utilities), then File->Open Dictionary. Open the Mail dictionary for the command reference guide.

Alternatively, you can try this the *nix way here, but, on a Mac, the Mac way is often easier.


Fit 2 video clips in iMovie side by side without cropping When using iMovie's side-by-side feature, it cropped the clips automatically by default.  How do we make it to fit the clips into the final clip without cropping any parts of the images?

Clip1:

Clip2:

iMovie resulted:

Desired result:

With the Video overlay settings set to Side By Side, you should see the Cropping be activated. Click Cropping, then set the style to Crop to Fill and extend the crop to be the entire size of your input video. Repeat this step for the other video clip.

Add one of the clips to the timeline and drag the other clip above the existing clip in the timeline.
Go to Adjust → Video overlay settings, set the video overlay style to Side by Side and the side for the current clip.

Go to Adjust → Cropping and set the cropping style to Crop to Fill

Drag the bounds box to the edges of the selected clip.
Repeat the previous two steps for the other clip.


Can't get Terminal to Display Colour (Mavericks) I've recently been working on a script to backup files, etc. for my own use but recently I thought it may look nicer if I was able to cleanup and have everything nice and tidy (with colours and what not). I was unable to complete this though. In a shell script I have written the following and despite what multiple combos I've tried I am unable to get this working.

Testing this on Mavericks as I can't update to Yosemite yet.

echo '\033Some text'

Can somebody shine a light on this?

Try:

echo $'\e[34m''some text'

or

echo $(tput setaf 1) some text

For more detailed information, see this post:
https://superuser.com/questions/33914/why-doesnt-echo-support-e-escape-when-using-the-e-argument-in-macosx


macOS Mojave update - what was updated? My macOS laptop showed a prompt top-right of the screen to restart and install updates. It took about 30 minutes so I guess it was something serious.

Now MySQL (through brew) won't start so I'm looking for clues.

Is there a way to see release notes for recently installed macOS updates?

I found a list in System Information > Software > Installations, ordered by install date, and it shows two entries for "macOS 10.14.2 Update" with today's date but it doesn't give any more information.

Knowing what was updated might point me in the right direction. Thanks

Apple's Downloads

Apple provide release notes for each update in the macOS Downloads section of their support site.

As an example, macOS Mojave 10.14.2 Update, states:

  The macOS Mojave 10.14.2 update improves the stability, compatibility and security of your Mac, and is recommended for all users.

  This update:

  Adds RTT (real-time text) support for Wi-Fi calling
  Adds a menu item to News for opening a story in Safari
  Resolves an issue that may prevent iTunes from playing media to third- party AirPlay speakers.

  For more detailed information about this update, please visit: https://support.apple.com/kb/HT209149

  For detailed information about the security content of this update, please visit: https://support.apple.com/kb/HT201222

Follow the detailed information links for specific changes that are included.


Explicit content music not appearing on my iPhone I have added to my iPhone a new album which includes explicit music. When I check on iTunes I can see the music is on my iPhone, but when I search for these songs on my iPhone I can't find them.

What do I have to do to make this album visible?

One thing you could check is whether Resrictions are enabled on your iPhone.

To do this:

On your iPhone tap on Settings
Swipe up and tap on General
Look for the Restrictions option and check to the right of it to see if they are Off or On.
If Restrictions are Off, then it won't be a restrictions issue and you can skip the rest of these steps.
If Restrictions are On, and you know the restrictions passcode, then tap on Restrictions and enter the passcode.
Once the Restrictions list appears, swipe up until you see the Allowed Content list
The second item on the list includes your Music restrictions. Tap on this and check to see if Explicit is enabled or disabled. If it's toggled to Off then you can't play back explicit music. If it's toggled on (i.e. it's green) then you can.

NOTE: If you get to Step 5, the restrictions passcode is most likely not the same as your iPhone's normal passcode. So if you try entering that and it doesn't work, do not keep trying to enter it. Instead you will need to speak to the person (e.g. a parent) who would have enabled restrictions to begin with.


Should I buy all new memory or combine with old? I tried googling for answers on this, but couldn't actually find any decent information. I have a mid 2010 Macbook Pro, which according to Apple supports up to 8GB of ram. I already have a single 4GB stick installed, and from what Google tells me about the identifiers from System Information, it's a Corsair (I haven't actually opened the machine to try and verify.)

I need more memory, as I'm constantly bumping up against the limit and the system starts swapping instead. Now my question is, what configuration will yield me the best performance? Two 4GB sticks? One 8GB? If I go for a configuration with two 4GB sticks, is it better to get two new ones or just add a single 4GB (presumably same make and model) to the one I already have?

The 8GB would be via two 4GB modules.

As far as replacing vs adding, the DIMM slots are dual channel so you'll just want to make sure they match. Look again in System Information at the speed column. It will likely say "1066 MHz". In that case, when shopping around, just make sure you're looking for a 1066MHz DDR3 4GB 204-Pin module. It doesn't have to be the same brand.


One monitor has an orange tint while the other does not My macbookpro is connected to two external monitors.
The monitors are Dell U2715H

However somehow on one of the monitors looks like the night shift is turned on, and the other are not.

If I tried toggling the night shift setting, the orange tint just
switches screen.

I have tried unplug and plug. The effect stays the same.

I have tried the built-in monitor and fiddled brightness and
contracts settings. No effect. There is also not other color
temperature options.

Is there anything I can do to fix it without restarting the machine?
It is a 'MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2017)' running 10.14.6


Does the new Macbook Air have a 1000 battery cycle limit? I know that since 2009 Apple has been advertising the 1000 battery cycles that'll last for around 5 years under normal use for Macbooks and Macbook Pros. I don't see them advertising it in the new Macbook Air, is it the case that they have the same long lasting battery or not?

Yes their design limit is to exceed 1,000 full charge cycles. Quoting from Apple on batteries:

The built-in battery of your MacBook,
MacBook Pro or MacBook Air is designed
to deliver up to 1000 full charge and
discharge cycles before it reaches 80
percent of its original capacity.

I have been bowled over at how well the internal battery chemistry holds up over time. Of course, bad batteries fail prematurely all the time and need to be swapped, but my gut feel is way more of these "go the distance" than all the older removable batteries.


Get Apple ID security questions over email I have forgotten the answers to my security questions, but I don't want to/have time to call apple support and have them tell me my questions. Is there any way to maybe reset/get them over email?

No - Apple won't email you security questions.

You can self-serve at https://iforgot.apple.com or interact with Apple support. Emailing those questions would be a large security breach given that email encryption is not commonplace or supported for Apple's consumer support division.


How to get Safari back in iOS6 on iPod Touch? I have an 4th Generation iPod Touch, running on iOS 6.0 and my Safari has vanished.

Regression:

It is not shown on the home screen
When I try to tap links to web pages, they only become highlighted (as they should), showing I am tapping them, and when I take my finger off the screen, nothing happens.
When I try to search for things (For example, tree) on the search page on the home screen, there is no 'Search Safari for tree.' It does not come up with 'Search Wikipedia for tree.' either
I have tried fully restoring my device, which did not work also

Check the settings under General > Restrictions. If Safari is disabled there, it vanishes from the UI altogether.


Macbook Air will only Boot in Safe Boot So after multiple startup problems with my Macbook Air i managed to get it to boot once upgraded the OS to Catalina hoping that it would solve previous startup problems.

Also ran First Aid from Disk Utilities but it still will not boot normally.

I can access Safe Boot but cannot access Recovery or MacOS Utilities ..

I have checked the RAM in System and they both have OK Status so i believe this to be some other hardware or driver issue.

My question is if i cannot access MacOS Utilities or Recovery mode how can i format and reinstall OS to rule out software issues ?

I start in safe mode occasionally when my machine is acting up. I do so because certain startup items, especially 3rd party ones, can cause problems. I'd turn off all startup items and see if that helps with your problem.


Possible reasons (other than Open Firmware Password Protection) for not being able to boot into single user mode? Recently I was attempting to install some new software for a user. I followed these instructions to create a new admin-level account but when I held down cmd+S while booting it still booted into the regular login GUI, rather than into Single User Mode. The user doesn't have Open Firmware Password Protection installed -- what other reasons could there be for cmd+S not working?

Core Storage

If FileVault 2 is enabled for the OS X startup volume, then EfiLoginUI will present a graphic login dialogue before the start of OS X – seconds after the startup chime.

If the startup key combination is timely, then startup should proceed to single user mode after a user's passphrase has been entered.

Firmware

Whilst I don't know the model of your Mac, I can draw attention to a 2011 topic that was resolved in MacRumors forums:

Mac Mini won't recognize Apple Aluminum Keyboard startup keystrokes

Wireless keyboards

Apple Wireless Keyboards: Using startup keys

If I recall correctly, one type of Apple wireless keyboard is (or was) known to be problematic … at the moment I can't find a reference – sorry.


How can I update my macOS 10.14.6 to latest version? I am using a 2019 MacBook Pro and I haven't updated the macOS in a while.
Now when I want to update it to the latest version (macOS Catalina).
Every time I try it in System Preferences, I get an error (connection lost or time out).
And I also can't download it from Apple website, because macOS Catalina requires macOS 10.15, and my macOS version is 10.14.
This error occurs on another mac too. What should I do?

macOS 10.15 is macOS Catalina. The former is the major version number for macOS, while the latter is the marketing name. Both are essentially the same operating system.
So, you do not need macOS 10.15 to install macOS Catalina. You can go to Mac App Store and search for macOS Catalina, or use the following link to access the macOS Catalina page on the Mac App Store:
https://apps.apple.com/app/macos-catalina/id1466841314
Once you have the page open, click on the GET or the  button to download the macOS Catalina installer.
Once downloaded, the installer would launch automatically and guide you through the installation of macOS Catalina 10.15.
Using the Mac App Store would also let you automatically get the current latest update of macOS Catalina, which is macOS Catalina 10.15.6 (6th point release of macOS Catalina).
Should you encounter any issue with installation, make sure you are logged in with an account with administrative access.
Also, make sure you have a backup of your critical data for a very less likely case where the installation may fail.


Gmail notifications in Notification Center I am looking for a way to see new emails that I received show up in the notification centre. Right now I am following the advice gleamed from this page but when new emails come in all that happens is that I get a notification on my desktop in the upper right corner. However, when I open the notification centre it says "no new notifications". This isn't terribly useful because I want to see all my new emails at a quick glance in the notification centre.

If I am away from my desk I am not going to be able to see all the emails that I missed.

Edit: I am using Safari on OSX 10.9.5

I assume you are talking about a Mac with OS X?

To make the Notifications stay till you dismiss them for emails received in Mail.app:

Open the system preferences + Notification.

Click on Mail.

Choose the "Alerts" (not the Banners).

It will stay displayed till you click Close. After that it is no longer in the Notification center.

This is not the same as the original Gmail notifications. To get those:

You need to be signed in to Gmail and have Gmail open in your browser to see desktop notifications. If you want to use that, then you need to use Chrome browser with a extension called "Checker Plus for Gmail ". With that extension you can configure the duration and other stuff.

If you want to filter the Notifications, you can use the mail.app Rules.

For example for Junk mail make a rule to mark it as read, and it wont show in the notifications.

You can play with the Mail-Rules for other emails you do not want to see in the Notification (set them as read).


Where can I get a signed iOS 8.2 .ipsw file for iPhone 4S? Until about a week ago, Apple offered a signed version of iOS 8.2. Now the file is not signed anymore. Is there any place where I can still download the signed version of the file? Does anyone still have a copy?

Background: I'm writing an iOS app that I'd like to test on my iPhone, but my version of Xcode can't handle iOS 8.3. As far as I can tell, there are only two ways of making Xcode compatible with my phone: either upgrade OS X to Yosemite or downgrade iOS to 8.2. I'd rather downgrade the phone, I only use it for testing anyway.

Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xcode#Version_comparison_table
https://ipsw.me/iPhone4,1

(Or did I misunderstand the signing process? Maybe the file hasn't changed, and the signing somehow happens during installation?)

UPDATE: Yes, I did misunderstand the signing process - during installation, an Apple server has to approve the file for the phone. :-(

But I found another way to make Xcode on Mavericks talk to my iOS 8.3 phone: I downloaded Xcode 6.3 from developer.apple.com, installed it to /Applications/Xcode-6.3.app, and copied /Applications/Xcode-6.3.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform to /Applications/Xcode-6.2.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform. Started Xcode 6.2, and could run and debug apps on my phone from Xcode. Also works for Xcode 5.0. More details: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/29556950/iphone-running-ios-8-3-shows-up-as-ineligible-in-xcode-6-2-any-solution/29727982#29727982

Apple stops signing the old OS within a week or so of a new one coming out, for all devices that can support that OS.

After that, there's no way to go back, unless you saved your SHSH blob from the prior version's installation.

You should be able to get Xcode 6.3.1 from Apple Developer or update from the App Store.


Frequent Locations didn't record a location I have Frequent Locations turned on and it does a great job recording everywhere I go and for how long. A few nights ago I was at a residential address for about an hour, however Frequent Locations did not record it. Is there a reason why?

If you don’t go to a certain location at the same time on a regular basis, your iPhone will obviously not be able to detect a pattern in your various locations.

It means that you must go to a place around the same time, on the same days, for a certain amount of time for your iPhone to establish a pattern.


Flash Player 11.8 install fails with error code 30 listed in console I am installing the most recent Flash Player 11 for Firefox/Safari, and after running the .pkg from Finder the installation always fails at 50%. I find this error in the console at the end of installation:

8/11/13 12:46:07.911 PM [0x0-0xf30f3].com.solidstatenetworks.awkhost: 2013-08-11
12:46:07.910 Adobe Flash Player Install Manager[1628:707]
Install failed with error code: 30.

This has happened for the past few minor releases, not just current (11.8.800.94). How can I complete the installation? I am running Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.

I completed the installation by running the installer as root from the shell, under its mountpoint at /Volumes. The full path to the installer executable's directory is /Volumes/Adobe Flash Player Installer/Install Adobe Flash Player.app/Contents/MacOS

This thread in Adobe forums describes the underlying problem - the current user can't write to a directory the installer needs. Instead of chmod'ing the folder, I already had root enabled, and went from there successfully.

Update: Commentor is right, root is too risky. Follow the chmod route.


Can't use keyboard when resuming from sleep On a Macbook Pro, with Lion: I usually set it to sleep at the end of the working day, and resume from sleep in the morning. Sometimes, I can't type the password after resume, and I have to reboot it the hard way, because the left side of the keyboard isn't responding (I can only type on the right side).

Is it a common problem, or is it just on my machine?

Sometimes it can take a while for the sleepimage to make the login/password field active (there should be a blue line round the inside of the box when its active). I've noticed this behaviour in both 10.7 and 10.8 (but not in 10.6) on occasion, but no consistently. Usually when it happens it takes about 10 secs or so before I can type.

However, if you're saying you can type some characters (from the right side of the keyb) but not others (those on the left) that sounds most definitely like a hardware issue.

Try connecting an external keyboard and seeing if the problem appears on that too. If no, you've a hardware issue. If yes, post back.


How to change FAT32 file attributes under OS X? FAT and FAT32 file systems support file attributes like "read only". How can I change those under OS X? The standard chmod command does not seem to do the trick. How else can I do this?

Under OS X, the FAT/FAT32 file system Readonly attribute is set when a file is locked. When a file is viewed in the Finder application, a small lock will appear on the file icon. This Readonly attribute can be set or unset by highlighting the file and then selecting "File->Get Info" from the menu bar. The Readonly attribute can then be modified by checking or unchecking the box labeled "Locked".

This also can be done from the command line. First, to view the attributes use the command below.

ls -lO <filename>

To set the Readonly attribute use the following command.

chflags uchg <filename>

To reset the Readonly attribute use the following command.

chflags nochg <filename>

To set the Hidden attribute use the following command.

chflags hidden <filename>

To reset the Hidden attribute use the following command.

chflags nohidden <filename>

To set the Archive attribute use the following command. Note: this command is the opposite of what one would expect to enter."

sudo chflags noarch <filename>

To reset the Archive attribute use the following command. Note: this command is the opposite of what one would expect to enter."

sudo chflags arch <filename>

  Note: The System attribute does not seem to have an OS X equivalent. So even if the Windows command attib can alter the System attribute, the OS X command chflags can not.


Command line to disconnect or connect 802.1x authentication I have been searching for a terminal command line to disconnect or connect 802.1x authentication, but not the network interface. I was searching some help pages and it showed command lines to export and import 802.1x settings/certificates but not disconnecting and connecting.

This button is tied to the eapolclient. When it's connected, you can disconnect it by killing the eapolclient process:

$ ps ax | grep eapol
83601   ??  Ss     0:00.05 /System/Library/SystemConfiguration/EAPOLController.bundle/Contents/Resources/eapolclient -i en0
$ sudo kill 83601

When I do this the GUI button switches to show it's disconnected. The bad news is, I don't know how you can start it again :(

Perhaps you can achieve the same by turning the interface off/on:

 sudo ifconfig <interface> down
 sudo ifconfig <interface> up


How do I change Mission Control shortcuts from the command line? I have been trying to figure this out for a long time. I have a pretty typical Mac OS provisioning script:

https://gist.github.com/ryanpcmcquen/b2e608311f286a4ab3e1

I would like to change the Mission control shortcuts to all be Ctrl+Alt+... instead of Ctrl+.... For example, the default is: Ctrl+Up to activate Mission Control. I would like to change this to Ctrl+Alt+Up, because the current shortcut conflicts with other programs I use.

Note that I am already aware of how to do this through System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts, I am looking for a scriptable, command line solution.

EDIT:
Thanks to @user3439894 I went through and made a script to change all the plist keys to what I want them to be. The only issue is, it does not work.  :-(

Here is what I have so far:

#!/bin/bash
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist AppleSymbolicHotKeys -dict-add 32 "{enabled = 1; value = { parameters = (65535, 126, 2883584); type = standard; }; }"
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist AppleSymbolicHotKeys -dict-add 33 "{enabled = 1; value = { parameters = (65535, 125, 2883584); type = standard; }; }"
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist AppleSymbolicHotKeys -dict-add 34 "{enabled = 1; value = { parameters = (65535, 126, 3014656); type = standard; }; }"
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist AppleSymbolicHotKeys -dict-add 35 "{enabled = 1; value = { parameters = (65535, 125, 3014656); type = standard; }; }"
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist AppleSymbolicHotKeys -dict-add 79 "{enabled = 1; value = { parameters = (65535, 123, 2883584); type = standard; }; }"
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist AppleSymbolicHotKeys -dict-add 80 "{enabled = 1; value = { parameters = (65535, 123, 3014656); type = standard; }; }"
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist AppleSymbolicHotKeys -dict-add 81 "{enabled = 1; value = { parameters = (65535, 124, 2883584); type = standard; }; }"
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist AppleSymbolicHotKeys -dict-add 82 "{enabled = 1; value = { parameters = (65535, 124, 3014656); type = standard; }; }"
chown -Rf `whoami` ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist;
defaults read com.apple.symbolichotkeys

This is not a direct answer although I hope the information presented herein will help you get to a direct answer.

I can tell you what changes in which file when you change the default keyboard shortcut for Mission Control from Control-Up Arrow to Control-Option-Up Arrow.  It's the "Item 2 Number" of the "parameters" Array in the "value" Dictionary of the "32" Dictionary and "34" Dictionary of the "AppleSymbolicHotKeys" Dictionary in the /Users/$USER/Library/Preferences/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist file.

Here's a defaults read representation of the com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist file structure as it relates to the changes made under the defined circumstances above.

Mission Control with the default of Control-Up Arrow

{
    AppleSymbolicHotKeys =     {
        32 =         {
            enabled = 1;
            value =             {
                parameters =                 (
                    65535,
                    126,
                    2359296
                );
                type = standard;
            };
        };
        34 =         {
            enabled = 1;
            value =             {
                parameters =                 (
                    65535,
                    126,
                    2490368
                );
                type = standard;
            };
        };
    };
}

Mission Control changed to Control-Option-Up Arrow

{
    AppleSymbolicHotKeys =     {
        32 =         {
            enabled = 1;
            value =             {
                parameters =                 (
                    65535,
                    126,
                    2883584
                );
                type = standard;
            };
        };
        34 =         {
            enabled = 1;
            value =             {
                parameters =                 (
                    65535,
                    126,
                    3014656
                );
                type = standard;
            };
        };
    };
}

The BUGS section of the defaults man page says:

  Defaults can be structured in very complex ways, making it difficult
  for the user to enter them with this command.

And this is a perfect example as it will be a very complex command line using defaults to write the target values to the target array elements, if it's even doable.  Just an FYI... If you're going to attempt to do a defaults write com.apple.symbolichotkeys ... command make sure you've backed up the target file first.

The other option is to use an AppleScript to change the settings by navigating the System Preferences GUI and that too will be a little complex in comparison to setting a top level object, which the target here is not.  I'm not even sure it's doable however if I needed an automated way then I'd figure it out however I do no have the time to figure out either method, sorry.

At least you now know what changes where and from there you may be able to either figure it out on your own or get additional help with knowing this little bit more.

Here's a clipped image in Xcode of the com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist file.

BTW I trapped the changes using a third party utility that logged the filesystem changes and then converted that information to a more human readable output to provide this information.


Can keynote pause on the first slide, wait for a trigger, then loop to conclusion? I'm using keynote 8.2 and have the show working just fine showing 218 slides automatically. But I do not want it to auto start. I want the the first slide displayed until triggered, and then I want it to play through until it's back to the first slide and want it to stop there until triggered.
Is it possible to have a Keynote deck pause at one slide only, but play the rest through?

You can do this inside of Keynote. Right-click on the Animate tab at the top of the right sidebar. You don't need any transition effect so to simplify things I'll use none. Now click on Select All from the Edit menu item. you can see all your slides are selected by looking at the snapshots on the left. Now go back to the right sidebar and where it says Start Transition, pull the menu down and select automatically, and set the delay for the time you want each slide to appear. Now unselect all the slides and click to select 1st one only. Now go back to the right sidebar and for this one slide change the Transition to Automatically with a delay of 600 secs. That's the maximum delay so slide show will start automatically after 10 minutes.
Now you have your animation set up you can click the play button at the top of the Keynote window. This will bring up the 1st slide but it will do nothing until you click. Then it will start displaying all the slides for the number of seconds you entered.  if you need a longer or shorter time for a specific slide, click on that slide in the left sidebar and then in the right sidebar change the Delay Time to a new value.  Now try playing it again.
After you have all the delays set you can also go to Keynote Live at the top of the Keynote window and click that button. This will allow you to issue invitations and then saves the presentation so all you have to do is click on the Green Play button at the top and the presentation will begin.
The 10-minute max delay time was the only way I could get the presentation to stay on slide one for any length of time.  Maybe experimenting with the setting you can find a better way.


how to start/stop/restart processes As a new comer from Windows OS, I wonder how to start/stop/restart a service on Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.8 ?(it's straight forward on Windows using its Task Manager).
I tried Activity Monitor, but it only kills processes, it does not start them.
I tried the command: launchctl stop *servicename*  and then the command launchctl start *servicename* after I hit return on keyboard after each command the terminal does not show any message so it must be successfull, but when I check out the result in Activity Monitor, it sounds that this command is useless because it has no effect on that process in Activity Monitor.

p.s. I'm sure I typed the right name of the process, I grabbed the name from the list using the command : launchctl list

EDIT: (ps auxwww command output lines)

line1:

zend 204 0.0 0.1 602396 2684 ?? Ss 10:53AM 0:00.72 /usr/local/zend/gui/lighttpd/sbin/lighttpd -m /usr/local/zend/gui/lighttpd/lib -f /usr/local/zend/gui/lighttpd/etc/lighttpd.conf -D

line2:

root 202 0.0 0.0 623124 756 ?? Ss 10:53AM 0:00.00 /usr/local/zend/bin/watchdog -c /usr/local/zend/etc/watchdog-lighttpd.ini -u zend -g zend -s lighttpd

I'm using MAC much years, and never needed to use the launchctl command. If mean never, mean in normal usage, of course sometimes needed use it when installing somethings from the macports - for onetime load of startup files or so.
I'm wondering, why you need start/stop/restart services with launchctl? Asking because if you not an experienced OS X users you probably will screw the system "harmony" :). So, in this case - IMHO - better to ask the specific problem, so ask how to start/stop the specific service.

I don't see a problem with asking the wider question as to how services are started and stopped if it enables the OP to better understand the underlying mechanics of the system.
As to why you would want to do this, one good reason would be to remotely kill errant processes on remote machines via Apple Remote Desktop. I do this frequently for our network users at school and it can save a lot of leg work (as well as avoiding entering repetitive terminal commands).
ARD users will want to kill processes by name rather than by PID as the process ID isn't necessarily the same each time the process is initiated...
sudo killall coreaudiod

...would be a useful command for ARD users as it's repeatable regardless of PID, whereas...
sudo kill -1 211

...would very likely only work to kill coreaudiod on the occasion that its PID was actually 211, and definitely wouldn't be an ARD command worth saving for future use. This may seem obvious to "advanced" users but unfamiliar users may not realise the difference.


Deleting folders in my Desktop using terminal in recovery mode Unfortunately, today I wanted to update my operating system from Catalina to Big Sur. I had more than the approx. 12Gb required to installed (if I remember correctly I had around 21Gb available). Later, when only 2 minutes were left to finish the installation I had ´An error occurred preparing the software update - Big Sur´. This ended up in a loop after rebooting as described here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252038616
The problem is that apparently, the installation required way more than those 12G, so the only way I can think of getting out of this is to start in recovery mode, and use the terminal app to delete folders that I have in my desktop. Once this is done I hope the installation of Big Sur will work.
I am now in the terminal (bash 3.2) but I don´t know how to get to my desktop. After I type cd /Volumes I can see via ls that there are the files .fseventsd , Macintosh HD - Data , Macintosh HD and macOS Base System.
I assume that the files and folders in my desktop are in Macintosh HD - Data but I can´t access to it. I tried cd Macintosh HD - Data without result, the prompt out is ´cd: Macintosh: No such file or directory´.
I don´t know how to access the desktop and delete files from there.

First, back out of Terminal and open Disk Utility. Use that to mount the data volume. Once it's mounted, you can go back to the Terminal and cd /Volumes and ls. You should be able to cd into that directory and find Users/your username/Desktop from there.


Where did this Data folder come from? Does anyone know where this folder came from? I don't believe that I created it, but it doesn't seem that it comes by default because there is nothing in it. The folder I'm referring to is the one titled Data in case that was not clear. Thanks for any ideas you may have.

If you have a backup, then go ahead and delete the folder. You are correct that it's not something Apple installs. Lots of third party database software like mongodb work best with a /data mount point - so if you can correlate the creation date on that folder with running an install script or package you might be able to infer which process created that folder.

There isn't an auditing system you can read to determine when or what installed a change generally - so use Finder to get information on the folder or perhaps try a tool like Pacifist to check receipts - maybe you will be lucky with a package claiming the creation of that /Data directory.


What are some ways to work with / search flagged emails on iOS? The Mail App on iOS 5 adds support for flagging emails, but I can't seem to find a way to actually put this feature to use.

Is there a way to search for flagged emails?

Is there a way to cleverly auto-filter flagged emails into a folder?

I know that using GMail as an IMAP server automatically duplicates flagged messages in the "Starred" folder - but if you are using another email service, is there any way to make flags useful on iOS?

In iOS there's very little you can actually do with the flags except for visual cues.

On the Mac however, you can filter flagged email into a Smart Mailbox which will keep a live view of your mail matching search criteria, such as mail flags.


How to put MacBook to sleep using only an attached Windows keyboard? I have a new MacBook Pro that I leave plugged in and closed because I use an external display, keyboard, and mouse.
My monitor, keyboard, and mouse are also used by my PC.
When I'm finished with work, I'd like to be able to easily sleep the Mac so that my monitor can automatically switch over to my home PC.
Apple docs say:

Option–Command–Power button* or Option–Command–Media Eject : Put your Mac to sleep

But my Windows keyboard doesn't have a "Media Eject" or "Power" button on it.
What are my other options for easily putting my Mac to sleep?
I already know I could use the mouse to click Apple > Sleep. And I could open the lid and use the power button. But I'd prefer a keyboard command.

Give the Sleep command on the Apple menu a keyboard shortcut in: System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > App Shortcuts
Notes:

On a Windows keyboard the Windows logo key is the ⌘ key.
System Preferences may first need to be closed for the keyboard shortcut to take affect.


Why is the width of `~` different than `➜` on iTerm2 when using zsh with spaceship-prompt? Using iTerm2. Installed zsh, spaceship-prompt and FiraCode.

Why is the width of ~ different than ➜?

Ok, found what’s going on... SPACESHIP_CHAR_SYMBOL is set to ➜ (Heavy Round-Tipped Rightwards Arrow, unicode U+279C) by default vs → (Rightwards Arrow, unicode U+2192) which has the right width. PR in the making.

Submitted a PR to spaceship-prompt.


Maxima and Jupyter - will Homebrew work? I'd like to give Maxima a try in a Jupyter notebook on my Mac.  Is the Homebrew version of Maxima up to the task?

I did try following the instructions at https://github.com/robert-dodier/maxima-jupyter , but I immediately got a non-informative error:

% curl -L -O https://github.com/robert-dodier/maxima-jupyter/archive/master.zip
% unzip master.zip && cd maxima-jupyter-master
% rlwrap maxima
Maxima 5.43.2 http://maxima.sourceforge.net
using Lisp SBCL 2.0.0
Distributed under the GNU Public License. See the file COPYING.
Dedicated to the memory of William Schelter.
The function bug_report() provides bug reporting information.
(%i1) load("load-maxima-jupyter.lisp");
;
; compilation unit aborted
;   caught 1 fatal ERROR condition

loadfile: failed to load load-maxima-jupyter.lisp
 -- an error. To debug this try: debugmode(true);
(%i2)

I installed both maxima and jupyter via brew, here are their versions:

% maxima --version
Maxima 5.43.2

% jupyter --version
jupyter core     : 4.6.3
jupyter-notebook : 6.0.3
qtconsole        : 4.7.3
ipython          : 7.13.0
ipykernel        : 5.2.1
jupyter client   : 6.1.3
jupyter lab      : not installed
nbconvert        : 5.6.1
ipywidgets       : 7.5.1
nbformat         : 5.0.6
traitlets        : 4.3.3

Any advice?

I have successfully installed Maxima-Jupyter on macOS using Homebrew.
brew uninstall maxima # (if you have already installed)
brew install sbcl gpg zmq gnuplot
brew edit maxima

Edit Formula/maxima.rb. Comment out "--enable-sbcl-exec",
                          "--enable-sbcl",
#                         "--enable-sbcl-exec",

Save and quit
brew install maxima -s # you need -s to compile from source

Assuming you have quicklisp installed successfully,
unzip maxima-jupyter-master.zip
cd maxima-jupyter-master
maxima
(%i1) load("load-maxima-jupyter.lisp");
(%i2) jupyter_install();
(%i3) quit();


iPhone requesting password for different Apple ID when updating apps after updating iOS My iPhone 5 was updated to iOS 8.3 with a different computer. Now the apps I downloaded before the updates by computer was made, are now bothering me a lot. Any time I want to update them, my iPhone asks me to enter the password for the Apple ID of that computer I used to update it.

The computer you used to upgrade iOS was apparently signed into a different Apple ID when you upgraded your device. The thing that doesn't make any sense is that the Apple ID signed in on the computer shouldn't matter - you should have to sign-in on the device with a a different Apple ID for it to matter.

That said, you can try signing out of the App Store on the device (App Store app > bottom of the Featured tab > tap on the button that says "Apple ID: xxxx@xxxx" > Sign Out), then sign back in with original Apple ID.


I administer a Mac OS X Server email server and it is down. Can you help? I hope this is a stupid question [with an obvious answer that I am missing] ...

My email services have suddenly stopped working and nothing I do seems to affect the problem.

Existing mail accounts are broken.  New mail accounts can't be created because the account "fails to access the [specified email server].  This happens on my local servers and on external servers.

This happens on both of my local machines, one running Leopard Server and the other running Snow Leopard Server.

The Network Utility ping function succeeds with "support.apple.com" but fails on "apple.com"

How could one work, but not the other?  Is this even related to my problem?

The failed pings are completely unrelated to your mail issue. It is true that apple.com is blocking icmp traffic (ping uses icmp) and the endpoint at support.apple.com is not blocking this traffic. This is possible because each of those hostnames point to different servers/endpoints with different filtering rules on each.


Are old users eligible for introductory pricing? We are introducing a free trial using the introductory pricing provided by Apple in StoreKit. The subscription has been available for a long time. My question is, if a user had subscribed before the introduction of Free Trial and has now cancelled the subscription, will this user be eligible for Free Trial now?

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/storekit/in_app_purchase/offering_introductory_pricing_in_your_app

In the above link, under the subheading Determine User Eligibility, in point 2

Will either Subscription Trial Period or Subscription Introductory Price Period be true for the above user?

Probably, yes. Given the quote from Apple's documentation below (emphasis mine):

  Based on the receipt, you will find that new and returning customers
  are eligible for introductory price or free trial discounts as
  follows:

  New subscribers are always eligible.
  Lapsed subscribers who renew are eligible if they haven't previously received an introductory price for the given product (or any product
  within the same subscription group).

However, do ask App Store Connect Inquiries directly. They will be able to provide an absolute and authoritative answer.


How To Display IP Address In Control Center? I'm looking for a tweak/trick/tip that will display my internal ip in the control center when I pull it up.

what options are available?

[options for jailbroken devices are fine too]

edit: I know there's ShowIP for NotificationCenter, I'm basically looking for the same thing but for Control Center instead.

Found the answer doing some of my own research:
CCSystemStatus on BigBoss.
CCSystemStatus Review:

In his review of CCLoader, our jailbreak guru Jeff mentioned the fact that developers would be able to tap into the tweak and create their own sections in Control Center. That is the basis behind CCSystemStatus, a new iOS extension by vsnraindev that displays your available storage, IP address, free RAM and other system information about your iOS device in Control Center…
With numerous jailbreak tweaks available for viewing system information on iPhone, it only seems fitting that there be one for Control Center too. CCSystemStatus is enabled by default after installation, and its position within Control Center is adjustable using CCLoader. The tweak adds two lines of information to Control Center, and the section can be tapped to display a second page of info.
The eight different items displayed are your wireless IP address, cellular IP address, free RAM, average system load, wireless network SSID, gateway MAC address, and free space on both the device and /var directory. The tweak is compatible with the iPhone only at this moment, and it is available now for free on Cydia in the BigBoss repository. There are no options to configure outside of those in CCLoader.


What is the difference between a Mac mini and a Mac mini server (late-2012)? I've been over the tech specs for both the high-end mac mini with the fusion drive and the mac mini server (http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/mac_mini) and I cannot find more than a single difference; the server has two HDDs (oh, and it ships with os x server installed).

Am I missing something or are you paying $200 more for a second HDD? Or $150 more for a 1TB fusion drive vs 256GB SSD and 1 TB HDD?

You have to decide what you want in terms of storage, performance and OS since there is no option to have 2x1TB drives in the $799 model and there's no option to have a 1TB Fusion Drive in the $999 model.

Essentially, you're paying $200 more to get OS X Server and for the ability to have a second hard drive (doing it yourself is an option if you can follow guides on iFixit and have the tools and accessories required).

Choose the $799 model with:

A 1TB Fusion Drive - $250
OS X Server - $19.99

Total: $1068.99 (but you'll have a faster drive but half the storage space of the default $999 model).

Choose the $799 model with the default 1TB drive:

add another 1TB 2.5" 5400 rpm drive - about $80+ (approximate cost from newegg)
OS X Server - $19.99
The Mac mini Dual Hard Drive kit from iFixit - $49.95

Total: $948.94
Hassle of doing it yourself: Priceless


MacBook Pro retina 2012 vertical line I have this vertical line at the side of my MacBook Pro, any idea what could be causing this/how to fix it?

This looks like an issue with your display, your flex cable, or some thing in the graphics part of your motherboard (a bad gpu, bad gpu solder balls, or a bad tantalum capacitor for the gpu).

If you feel comfortable, reseat the video flex cable and see if that solves it. If you don't feel comfortable opening your laptop, you'll need to take it in for repair.

Messing around inside a computer can always cause issues, even for experienced technicians, so if you feel uncomfortable doing it, don't risk it. You could permanently damage components.


OS X Mavericks moving notification bar I just got OS X Mavericks and the new notification bar (as seen in the right of this link) in the top right is bugging me. Is there a way to remove or move it, so the search bar is the first thing in the top right?

You can do this with Bartender.

This allows you to rearrange and hide menu bar items, including items that Apple prohibit from moving such as Spotlight or Notification Center. It also lets you move items to a secondary bar or to be hidden until a keyboard shortcut is pressed.


Deleted /Library/Python folder. Is it possible restore? I am on Mac OS X 10.7.2.
I deleted old python library folder before upgrading to newer python.
But I found later that I should never delete the factory-shipped python.

  The Apple-provided build of Python is installed in /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework and /usr/bin/python, respectively. You should never modify or delete these, as they are Apple-controlled and are used by Apple- or third-party software.

Is there a way to restore what I deleted in the folder?

I guess you may either restore from your Time Machine backup, or copy it back from another Mac running the same 10.7.2


Why is the top button on my iPhone 3Gs not working consistently? My iPhone 3Gs got slightly damp (not wet) from being in my pocket in a rain storm.  Since then, the top button (power on/off) is not working consistently.  By that, I mean that sometimes when I hold the button down, the screen goes black as expected.  Other times, nothing happens, and I have to press it multiple times to get the iPhone to respond.  My iPhone 3G had the same type of issue that began after being exposed to salt-spray air at the beach.

I couldn't find any real information about the problem online using obvious search terms (iPhone 3Gs top button problems, iPhone top button problems, iPhone power button problems, etc).

Any ideas for easy solutions?  The phone's a year old (just out of warranty, not that water damage would be covered anyway), and I was hoping it'd last at least another few months.  I'm capable of basic repairs, but my skill with a soldering iron is limited, at best.

I'm afraid you've busted your iPhone. There's no easy solution.

That power button is known to be a weak spot, and submitting the phone to excess humidity (or direct moisture) is never a good idea, even if you weren't planning to be in that storm.

From your description it sounds like the switch is slowly corroding. It will not get better, only worse over time. I'd suggest to have the phone serviced as long as it's otherwise still in good condition, or give up and replace it sooner than planned.

You could also try to repair it yourself by opening it up and cleaning that switch, but it might not even be possible, and worse: you risk breaking your phone. Have it serviced instead.


How can I turn off the photo preview when I plugin in my iPhone on my PC? When I plug in my iPhone 3GS into my Windows XP machine, it automatically opens up Word and displays a preview of all my photos from my phone.

I believe I may have accidentally selected an option to always do that. How do I turn it off?

Connect your phone to the computer.
In Windows, click Start > Settings > Control Panel > Scanners and Cameras.
Right-click on "Apple iPhone" > Properties.
Click the tab "Events".
Click the radio button "Take no action". Then OK.

Now when you connect the phone, nothing should happen.


Passing arguments to 'Run Shell Script' in Automator I want to make an Automator workflow to run a shell command. For example, I want to receive text input from the user and treat that input as a shell command instead of text. I have tried passing argument as stdin but still not able to make it work. Here is a simple example of what I am trying to do:

The user input some text, say, 'xyz'. I want to pass this text to shell script as follow

echo "$1/"

to get xyz as the output of the shell script to show in show result action of Automator.

When passing input to Run Shell Script in Automator you need to change Pass input: to stdin to Pass input: as arguments as shown in the example workflow below.


How can I keep track of twitter usernames in Address Book? I want to add twitter names to my contacts in Address Book. But I cannot find an obvious place to do so.

The best fit would be as instant messaging username, but twitter is not listed among the services. I there a way to add a service here? Does anyone know where they are stored?

I could add a new "twitter" label, but I can't stand the "AIM" or "Yahoo" behind it.

Any ideas are welcome.

Thanks to the comments on Ipacheco's answer, I ended using a new url labeled "twitter" with a format of "tweetie:@someone" instead of the http:// link to the twitter homepage. This opens up tweetie for Mac and iPhone (now named twitter) whenever you click the link.


Game Centre Apple ID help I just bought a new iPod Touch and I want to give my old iPod Touch to my child. He uses the same games that I do which I am logged into in the Game Center.

Is there any way that I can keep the progress in the games that he has on his iPod now and for it not to affect the progress of my games on my new iPod? Or is it just best to give him his own Apple ID and he can start his progress all over again?

You could set a new apple ID just for the game center for him (or you) and keep other apple-id logins the same for everything else.  It seems there are some games where the gamecenter only manages leaderboard stats, etc, and others where your actual game progress seems to be tied to the id.

But on the other hand, problems will likely occur when using some games where your progress is going to sync to his device and vice-versa.  This seems like a worse option to me -- imagine this for a words with friends type of game.  And not sure what happens if you try to play each other.

Sort of an opinion-based question, but I guess what I would do is look into it on a game-by-game basis and find out what exactly sync through the gamecenter account for the important ones, and if there's any way to simply temporarily move off gamecenter on one device for those apps (and then eventually tie it to another account?

Or if it turns out there's only one or two apps that would be affected, one of you just bites the bullet.


Do I have to create a contact entry for *myself* to use Siri? Siri keeps telling me "I know nothing of you who are or where you live"

Yes you do. Siri uses the contact information from the contact you select in Settings → General → Siri → My Info.

If you do not have a contact selected there, Siri will not know your address, etc.


My USB Devices seemingly disconnect at random intervals I have a Early 2008 24" iMac.  On my USB ports, I have my wired keyboard, my external Seagate HD (for Time Machine), and I have a joystick. For quite some time, it seems like all of my USB devices keep disconnecting, and then reconnecting. This is particularly bad when it comes to my backups.

What can I do to stop this behavior from happening, and what more do I need to provide to help with this very annoying.

Are there any USB hubs connected or the devices connected directly to the mac?  If there is a hub, consider disconnecting it and seeing if it helps.  If not, does the problem go away if you remove one of the devices? I have seen some weird issues with a device intermittently shorting out.


Strange behavior within MS Word: using Command-Shift-L launches Safari sometimes It seems that Command-Shift-L were tied to safari. It is however also tied to "create bulleted list" in Word - which is an action I happen to (want to) do frequently.

How does one change or disable the built-in shortcuts for apps (in this case safari) ?

Update  I found the following under system preferences | keyboard |shortcuts|apps

But as you can see there is nothing specific to Safari here.

Another update I just closed down Word and opened it up. The behavior seems to have been fixed: bullets are now appearing.  It is very strange that the given key combo had been consistently and repeatably redirecting to safari before Word was restarted.

Yet another update  This behavior recurs - even after restarting Word. The shortcut works a few times, then a bit later - and I do not understand what triggers the change in behavior - the shortcut changes behavior to launching Safari   Just have no idea what is happening here.

The issue was a bit difficult to find: that shortcut is linked to "Search with Google".  But the result is that Safari is launched - with whatever is in the clipboard as the search query to google.

The resolution is to uncheck the "Search with Google" checkbox in the services | shortcuts | searching area.  Afterwards the Mac shortcut for bulleted paragraph works properly (and always)


Can I copy and paste iDevice backups to an external drive? I need disk space and thus would like to move an iDevice backup to an external drive temporarily. The online guides which show how to do this go into too much detail, showing you how to make symlinks in order to keep the backup on the external drive. Since I want to move the backup temporarily, I don't need all of this.

Can I copy and paste the backup to the external drive, delete the original backup, and then copy and paste the backup back when I have plenty of space?

Yes, you can do this.

However, if you have a Time Machine backup1 you should already have these backups included, so you could potentially negate the need to copy the backup twice.

Either way, I'd do a fresh backup of your iDevice before proceeding.

1 You should definitely have some sort of backup regime in place, even if it isn't via Time Machine.


Output of "${OSTYPE:6}" on old releases of Mac OS X I'm writing a shell script that I want to be theoretically compatible with very old versions of Mac OS X (I say "theoretically", because I lack any super-old machines to actually test with). The script uses the output of ${OSTYPE:6} to determine which release of Mac OS X it's running on.

On a machine running 10.13 High Sierra, echo ${OSTYPE:6} returns 17. On a machine running 10.10 Yosemite, it returns 14. Logic thus suggests that the command would output "15" on 10.11 and "16" on 10.12.

(This is useful, because it allows me to include lines like if [[ ${OSTYPE:6} -ge 14 ]]; then DoThing; fi to run DoThing on any system running Yosemite and newer.)

Does this pattern hold for old releases as well? For example, would the command return "4" on the original 10.0?

I ask because, well, it would be odd to start at 4, so I'm worried that somewhere in history, the number was incremented by a point update.

That sounds very much like it's returning the Darwin version.

Your theory works well from 10.15 Mojave [18] back to 10.2 Jaguar [6] but fails before that, as Darwin was 1.x.x at that point.

There's a full list at Wikipedia - macOS


Enable macOS "Dark menu bar and Dock" without password or restarting Is there a way to programmatically enable the macOS "Dark menu bar and Dock" option (found in System Preferences > General) via a Terminal command, without having to restart the Mac?

There is a way to change this option in the Terminal, but it requires the use of sudo and seems to require a restart, neither of which I want to use.

I could do this via the Terminal using AppleScript, but as far as I can tell it would require GUI scripting and my having to allow Terminal to control the Mac in the Accessibility settings.

Unfortunately, changing system preference files will always require administrative permissions, which is something the user has to explicitly give your script.

Fortunately, there is a way to accomplish this without changing system preference files! Using AppleScript, one can ask the system event daemon to change the system appearance.

I'm testing this on my work laptop, which doesn't allow me to change Accessibility preferences, so I don't even know if Terminal is enabled there (I suspect it's not). Additionally, this does not do any GUI scripting! (I recorded the below gif with System Preferences not running) Instead, it performs the same action that checking the box in System Preferences performs, but without needing access to that checkbox.

Hope this works for you!

AppleScript

-- Toggle dark mode
tell application "System Events" to tell appearance preferences to set dark mode to not dark mode

-- Enable dark mode, even it it's already enabled
tell application "System Events" to tell appearance preferences to set dark mode to true

-- Disable dark mode, even it it's already disabled
tell application "System Events" to tell appearance preferences to set dark mode to false

Bash

Don't wanna have something kick off an AppleScript? I'm with you. You can execute any AppleScript from bash (and thus the terminal) passing it as a string to the osascript -e command:

# Toggle dark mode
osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to tell appearance preferences to set dark mode to not dark mode'

# Enable dark mode, even it it's already enabled
osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to tell appearance preferences to set dark mode to true'

# Disable dark mode, even it it's already disabled
osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to tell appearance preferences to set dark mode to false'

I have made a proof-of-concept app that shows off this technique, plus a couple others:

macOS Dark Mode Switcher


What is Game Center friend recommendation based on? My iPad game center app shows friend recommendations. That list includes people that I do not know, people I have heard of but have never had direct contact, as well as people whom I regularly communicate with but never via Apple products. It is freaky. What information is friend recommendation based on?

It's friends of your friends and people who have some of the same games installed as you.


How can I bulk-edit Address Book, in particular to split the contents of First Name into First Name, Last Name? Following a MobileMe import of a Windows XP AddressBook legacy, there are hundreds of entries in the Mac Address Book like this:

First: Harry Potter
Last:
First: Fred Flintstone
Last:

It appears that what happened is that both the First and Last names in the Windows XP Address Book migrated to the Firstname field in Mac Address Book.

Is there a way to bulk-edit these?  Going through the GUI means click on first name, highlight tail, cut, click on last, paste, next.  It would be nice to do that in a text editor or with a wee perl script.

Can the Address Book be exported as structured text and subsequently replaced by modified structured text?

If you are comfortable with AppleScript, you should be able to get it done using this web page as a starting point: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20070813135408868

Otherwise, you can export one or more cards in the vCard format, open that up in a file editor and it looks like a properly separated name field looks like this: "N:Smith;Joe;;;" so if yours look like "N:Joe Smith;;;;" and you are comfortable with regular expressions you should be able to work out a search and replace that would look for 'N:(word1) (word2);' and replace it with 'N:(word2);(word1)'. I think that would give you the right number of ';'.