Building webkit2-gtk with macports, errors sys/types not found Trying to build webkit2 with macports, I get

:info:build /usr/bin/cc -c  -I/opt/local/include -fno-common
-DPERL_DARWIN -mmacosx-version-min=10.14 -pipe -Os -isysroot/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.14.sdk
-fno-strict-aliasing -fstack-protector-strong -I/opt/local/include -DPERL_USE_SAFE_PUTENV -m64 -O3   -DVERSION=\"1.85\" -DXS_VERSION=\"1.85\"  "-I/opt/local/lib/perl5/5.28/darwin-thread-multi-2level/CORE"   SSLeay.c :info:build clang: warning: no such sysroot directory: '/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.14.sdk' [-Wmissing-sysroot] :info:build In file included from SSLeay.xs:141:
:info:build /opt/local/lib/perl5/5.28/darwin-thread-multi-2level/CORE/perl.h:684:10:¡™ fatal error: 'sys/types.h' file not found
:info:build #include <sys/types.h>
:info:build          ^~~~~~~~~~~~~
:info:build 1 error generated. :info:build make: *** [SSLeay.o] Error 1

Is sys/types.h provided by netports, or a third party POSIX-compat package?

Your problem is that you have specified a non-existent sysroot directory.

Currently you have specified the following:

/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.14.sdk

This is usually due to either not having Xcode installed, or having it installed in the wrong version. Even if Xcode runs, it may not be "installed". Check that the App is in /Applications, if not drag it from wherever you extracted the .xip into the Applications directory.

In your case, I would suggest installing Xcode, if it's not already installed, or update it to the latest version to get the 10.14 SDK.

If you're willing to update Xcode for some reason, you can change your sysroot to match the older version of Xcode like this:

Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk

This path points to the latest installed SDK versions. Hopefully it will be enough to build webkit2, or you will be forced to update Xcode.


In APFS two boot containers (10.15.x on one and 10.14.x on the other) that share a common data container? On an APFS volume, can I have two boot containers (beta 10.15.x on one and 10.14.x on the other) that share a common data container so that I can switch between startup disks while keeping the same home folder & data?

Or is there a better way to accomplish the same goal?

Sorry. I used "container" incorrectly. I should have said:

...can I have two boot volumes (beta 10.15.x on one and 10.14.x on the other) that share a common data volume so that I can switch between startup disks while keeping the same home folder & data volume?

I would say you need 2 systems and one third volume to do this the right way. It’s long been possible and sometimes preferred to have your user home folder apart from the boot system.

10.14 has a combined default user data and system - add your main user with a home folder outside that, but shared with APFS so that all the free space combines.
10.15 has a read only system and a paired user data volume with firm links. Add the same main user outside these volumes.

You will certainly have some breakage and possibly much breakage when you use things like Photo Library, podcasts, music and more when the 10.15 system reads the data structure and modifies / migrates then in the user folder on disk to a newer structure. When the OS boots back to 10.14 this breakage will show and depending on your needs, you might need to keep two parallel home systems, so I would make a good backup of the 10.14 side before you boot to 10.15 and open anything more complicated than isolated documents.


Is there a way to select only all odd/even pages in the Preview app? Is there a way to select only all odd/even pages of a PDF document in the Preview app in order to print them via the "Selected Page in Sidebar" option?
I'm using the latest available version of the macOS Big Sur, 11.3.

The usual way of selecting Odd or Even pages only for printing is found in the Print dialog itself, in the "Paper Handling" section.
So Preview doesn't replicate this in the Sidebar. (Though it conceivably might be useful for other functions.)


Using two Apple IDs on one Mac I have a personal Apple ID which I use for iTunes and iCloud on my MacBook Air and iPhone. Now I have a MacBook Pro which uses different iCloud account.

I want to know if I can use my earlier Apple ID on this new Mac just for Apple music?

Apple Support document, Sign in with your Apple ID appears to advice against it.

It is quite possible to use different Apple IDs for iCloud and iTunes. Even the Apple Support document, Sign in with your Apple ID - Use different Apple IDs for iCloud and iTunes mentions it.

Use different Apple IDs for iCloud and iTunes
We recommend that you use the same Apple ID for all Apple services on your device—including the iTunes & App Stores and iCloud. Using multiple Apple IDs might be confusing and cause issues with accessing purchased content or using some services.
But if you already have different Apple IDs that you want to use with iCloud and the iTunes & App Stores, follow these steps.
On your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch:

If you're using iOS 10.3 or later, go to Settings and tap Sign in to your [device]. Enter the Apple ID that you want to use with iCloud. Go back to Settings, scroll down, and tap iTunes & App Stores. Tap Apple ID: [your name] > Sign Out. Then sign in with the Apple ID that you want to use with iTunes.

If you're using iOS 10.2 or earlier, go to Settings > iCloud and sign in with the Apple ID that you want to use with iCloud. Go back to Settings > iTunes & App Stores and sign in with the Apple ID that you want to use with iTunes.

On your Mac, go to System Preferences > iCloud and sign in with the Apple ID that you want to use with iCloud. Go to iTunes > Account > Sign In. Enter the Apple ID that you want to use with iTunes.
If you use multiple Apple IDs and want to restore your device from a backup, you can learn more about iCloud or iTunes backups.
If you have multiple Apple IDs, you can’t merge them.

So, it is feasible to use separate to use separate Apple IDs for iTunes and iCloud. To use the desired Apple ID for Apple Music, simply launch iTunes, and in the Menu bar go to Account → Sign Out. Now sign in with the desired Apple ID.


How do Apple engineers reset EFI password on new MacBooks? Apple state:

  Only Apple retail stores or Apple Authorized Service Providers can unlock these computers protected by a firmware password.

  If you cannot remember the firmware password for your MacBook Air, schedule a service appointment with either an Apple Retail Store or an Apple Authorized Service Provider.  If you plan to visit an Apple Retail store please make a reservation at the Genius Bar using http://www.apple.com/retail/geniusbar/ (available in some countries only).

What do such engineers do to recover or reset the firmware password?  I long ago forgot my MacBook Air's firmware password, but haven't needed it until now.  I'm quite comfortable opening up my laptop, even if it voids my warranty, but cannot find any information on how the reset is performed.

With older models, one needed only to change the hardware configuration (e.g. amount of installed RAM) and then reset PRAM three times to force a reset of the firmware password.  I presume this is not possible because the MacBook Air has no user-removable parts (since RAM is soldered to the motherboard, for example) but it is not clear what alternatives exist.

Apple probably require all those in the know to keep it to themselves, but no doubt some hacker has figured it out. I'd be grateful if they would share!

It's not the sort of thing a hacker can easily "figure out" -- as I understand it, the procedure involves calling Apple's Service Provider Support, proving you're an authorized service provider, reading them a code from the computer and typing in the countercode they give you...

Mind you, that doesn't mean you're out of luck.  If you have admin access, and a 10.6.x install DVD or USB key for your Mac, this MacEnterprise posting has instructions to use setregproptool to enable/disable the firmware password.  If you have Lion, it's probably on the recovery partition somewhere, but I haven't investigated.


Unable to migrate between 10.5 machines When a MacBook fails at my workplace, we, in the IT department*, swap the computer for another one and migrate the user's account over (using the Migration Assistant).

I have found lately that we are having problems migrating users from Mac OS X 10.5 systems (which is what we have licenses for) to other 10.5 systems, and haven't been able to figure out why.

Here's what I've determined:

Migration works perfectly when:

I migrate from 10.4 to 10.5
I migrate from 10.5 to 10.6

When I migrate from 10.5 to 10.5, I get:

occasionally, the migration assistant refuses to recognize that I've plugged in another Mac in target disk mode.
often, I can see the machine, and accounts that should reside on it, but they all show up as being 0 KB in size, and the migration assistant refuses to transfer a sum total of 0 KB.
Distressingly, I've seen some accounts show up at what seems to be the right size, but other accounts, that only reside on the destination computer and aren't on the source computer at all, also show up!
I have not been able to migrate using a network cable at all; even with the airports turned off and an ethernet cable between two MacBooks, after I type in the verification numbers shown on the destination onto the source, the two computers do not see each other.

I've wondered if our 10.5 image is messed up.  For a time, I though that perhaps the older image, on the machines we were migrating from, is to blame.  However, I see these sorts of issues using a freshly installed version of Leopard on both machines, either 10.5.0, or 10.5.8.

If I use the Setup Assistant (which occurs at first boot) to try to migrate files, it will claim that the other computer does not have Mac OS X installed.  (Sorry, I don't have the exact wording handy).

[Incidentally, if no one has an answer, have other people managed to migrate users from Leopard to Leopard successfully?  I could swear we've done it in the past, but I haven't been able to reproduce it!]

*: I am assuming this question fits here better than at serverfault, because it is a procedure regular users can perform.

Yes, i'm the IT Manager for an Ad Agency using mostly Macs, and i've done it all, 10.4-10.7 and it's almost never a problem. Are you using AD or something for authentication? Migrating from 10.4 all the way up to 10.7 has always worked for me.

As a suggestion, try installing Applejack on the system and running it. It's an excellent a ppm, and has sorted out issues for me more than a lot of times.. It's been a lifesaver.. Also, Are you using Firewire? or Ethernet to migrate user accounts? Ethernet is by far the fastest/best way to migrate user accounts between 2 machines

Wow, that was totally wrong. Sorry, i was not paying attention when i wrote that...
EDIT: Firewire 800 is the fastest, Firewire 400 is the next fastest, Ethernet is the slowest, and Wireless is unusable.. Sorry... Msg me if you are still having problems, and I'll try to help!


U.S. Layout § Symbol I bought my MBP with Turkish layout and I am using in U.S. layout. On my external keyboard, I have apostrophe ` symbol behind the 1, as it should be, but on my Mac's keyboard, with same settings, there is the § symbol (and I don't know what is that) I want just apostrophe symbol behind the 1 key, do you have any idea to solve this problem?

You can use Karabiner to customize shortcut on your keyboard as you please, give it a try !


How to activate terminal auto completion on macOS Catalina I've just clean installed macOS Catalina and the usual way of activating auto complete does not work for me. I use the default shell zsh:

1 Type in terminal nano ~/.inputrc
2 Paste the following on separate lines

set completion-ignore-case on
set show-all-if-ambiguous on
TAB: menu-complete

3 Hit control+O to save changes to .inputrc followed by control+X to exit nano
4 Open a new Terminal window or tab to open a new session with autocomplete enabled

What am I missing?

If you have done a fresh install then you need to be aware that the default shell has changed to zsh which as I understand it doesn't read .inputrc.

So either change your default shell back in System Preferences -> Users & Groups or
use .zshrc instead for your configurations


Standard Windows Keyboard - wrong keys recognised I have a classic British Windows keyboard plugged into my Mac Mini. I'm sure I had it working but now it's not... I can choose between these two layouts but neither is correct:

My keyboard, like every other UK PC keyboard, has backslash to the left of Z, and nothing to the right of [ & ].

How can I reset this - reinitialise the keyboard?

Delete the keyboard prefs file at /Library/Preferences/com.apple.keyboardtype.plist & reboot.
That should allow you to try again with the setup.

The layout you're looking for [I think] is this one for British PC, which looks correct for my standard UK PC extended keyboard.


Installation of Adobe Creative Suite 6 hangs at AdobeHelp on Mac OS X El Capitan I have been attempting to install Adobe Creative Suite 6 Production Premium after upgrading to Mac OS X El Capitan.

The installation seems to go along flawlessly until it attempts to install "AdobeHelp". Running ps -aux shows the the following command remains executing:

/Volumes/CS6\ ProdPrm/Adobe\ CS6\ Production\ Premium/payloads/AdobeHelp/InstallAdobeHelp appVersion=4.0.244 appId=chc pubId=4875E02D9FB21EE389F73B8D1702B320485DF8CE.1 installerArg1=-silent installerArg2=-eulaAccepted installerArg3=AdobeHelp.air

I tried killing the process, (As suggested for the same issue on Windows) however this had no effect.

I tried manually running the command, (With sudo) which output the following on first attempt and then ceased execution:

DVFreeThread - CFMachPortCreateWithPort hack = 0x29441d0, fPowerNotifyPort= 0x29437f0
DVFreeThread - CFMachPortCreateWithPort hack = 0x29497c0, fPowerNotifyPort= 0x2949090
2015-10-02 12:10:28.713 Adobe AIR Installer[564:9294] !!! BUG: The current event queue and the main event queue are not the same. Events will not be handled correctly. This is probably because _TSGetMainThread was called for the first time off the main thread.

And then this on the second attempt and remained executing indefinitely:

DVFreeThread - CFMachPortCreateWithPort hack = 0x282c2e0, fPowerNotifyPort= 0x281af40
DVFreeThread - CFMachPortCreateWithPort hack = 0x282e110, fPowerNotifyPort= 0x282d9e0
DVFreeThread - CFMachPortCreateWithPort hack = 0x422b90, fPowerNotifyPort= 0x421ee0
DVFreeThread - CFMachPortCreateWithPort hack = 0x423470, fPowerNotifyPort= 0x423450

Here is a workaround for this issue:

Restart the system, as the installer had to be force quit, and could not be relaunched easily.
Mount the ProductionPremium_CS6_LS7.dmg disk image. (Or I assume any of the other CS6 products)
In Finder navigate to CS6 ProdPrm, then Adobe CS6 Production Premium, then payloads, then AdobeHelp, and execute Adobe Air Install.app.
Once the previous step is complete navigate to CS6 ProdPrm, then Adobe CS6 Production Premium, then payloads, then AdobeHelp, and execute AdobeHelp.air.

Note: As Karl pointed out, the AIR installer bundled with certain CS6 products may not install on Mac OS X El Capitan. If this is the case, you will need to navigate to https://get.adobe.com/air/ and and download and install Adobe AIR.
Once the previous step is complete navigate to CS6 ProdPrm, then Adobe CS6 Production Premium, and run Install.app.


Combine files from terminal I created two files

$ 'test' > test.md
$ 'hello' > hello.md

try to combine them

cat test.md hello.md > combined.md

Unfortunately, the newly combined.md is blank.

How to combine files from terminal with commands?

You need to 'echo` your words into the files.

echo test >test.md
echo hello >hello.md
cat test.md hello.md >combined.md


Game Center Set Up OSX Mountain Lion I'm trying to play a game that I just bought that uses the Game Center on OS X Mountain Lion. This is the first time I have a game that uses the Game Center. I'm able to log in with my Apple ID. It asks me to set up my Game Center account. I choose create a nickname and I check the tick-boxes if I want want my profile public or not and to add my contacts. After I click continue I get a window that says saving but it never saves, never gives an error message. How do I get this to work?

I was having the exact same problem. I was picking my true nickname (lizzie) and it just kept spinning and spinning and never would save. So, I decided to try a nickname I KNEW no one would have (my name spelled backwards). It saved immediately. Maybe your nickname is too common? Try something truly unique. Hope that works for you.


Unable to update or download apps on iPhone 6 - process hangs When I attempt to update any app on my iPhone 6, the little process circle that appears after you click "update," just continues to swirl, remaining in that state as long as I let it. I have to quit the app store app or reboot my phone to get it back to the update button (even if I try pressing the swirly circle, it does not change).
I've tried a hard reset, tried deleting any recently added apps. Some apps I'm unable to delete, because they appear to be in a transitional state (partially greyed out, like they're downloading or updating) and, I cannot see any third party apps when I go into settings, manage storage - it loads all the native apps, then appears to be in the process of loading the rest, but never continues. It shows i have 2.5gb available memory, so I should be able to at least update some apps, unless that figure is not correctly representing everything on my phone.
I'm running iOS 9.0 and am extremely apprehensive about updating, because my phone was bricked for two days when i updated it to 9.0. I have an iPad air 2,which i had no trouble updating to 9.0, and am experiencing no issues with now - I'm able to update and download apps fine. And yes, I did log out of the iTunes app store, then back in, but it made no difference. I've not connected it to iTunes on my computer, because I'm currently servicing my pc.
Any ideas? I've tried everything i can think of.

It seems you're in a tight spot and have a pretty tight knot tied up with some really solid thinking.

Let's unravel things a bit. Get out a piece of paper and start writing times and limiting things you change to one at a time.

Put the phone in airplane mode and power it off. (note what you did and the time)
Power it on while disconnected and go delete all the apps that are stuck that you can afford to lose and re-download. (keep writing times and actions :-)
Check your storage usage and make sure each app gives you a number. If you can't get the usage numbers to paint while in AirPlane mode, start deleting things that take a lot of space. Movies, songs you can re-download until the device is working.
If you can't get it to a sane place in AirPlane mode, consider a call to AppleCare or just getting a backup to iTunes and wiping the device.

If you can resolve the transitory apps and get things working, go ahead and re-connect to the network and see if you can let the rest of the apps download. If so, proceed:

Turn off all background refresh in settings > general
Turn off Handoff (same place - higher up)
Set the time wrong - about 4 minutes in the past
Enable automatic time setting and verify that it returns to the correct time
Reset network settings (which will clear up several things and perform a minimal restart)
Pick one app that's small. Clicker is a good one Try downloading it.
If that fails, sign out of the App Store and power off the phone
Start the phone and try to download Clicker again.

If that fails, Apple support might be needed to assist. You could try changing your network (use LTE or cellular data if you're on WiFi now) or change WiFi to another location. The good thing about your notes is you will have some very specific times and steps and can start to notice patterns and perhaps ask a follow on question if needed.


Which Intel "generation" is my Mac's CPU? While glancing through the marketing page of High Sierra, I read from the first footnote that:

  […]  The playback of 4K HEVC content requires a Mac with a sixth‑generation Intel Core processor or newer.

I don't know which nth generation my iMac's CPU is. How do I find this information?

About this Mac says "Processor 2,8 GHz Intel Core i5", but no mention of a "generation".

You can get the processor generation by running the following command in Terminal:

sysctl machdep.cpu.brand_string

If the output contains a dash and a number after your "iX"-Core model, the first digit after the slash is the processor generation. See: Intel® Processor Numbers: Laptop, Desktop, and Mobile Device

Examples:

2nd Generation : Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2760QM
5th Generation : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5257U CPU @ 2.70GHz
6th Generation : Intel(R) Core(TM) m3-6Y30
8th Generation : Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-8350U

If the dash is missing, it's first generation (or a different CPU altogether), e.g.:

1st Generation : Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU 750 @ 2.67GHz

Different approach:

sysctl machdep.cpu

Gives you detailed CPU information.

From machdep.cpu.extmodel:

0 for a "Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU T7400 @ 2.16GHz"
1 for a late 2009 iMac-i5 "Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU 750 @ 2.67GHz"
1 for a Mac Pro (Mid 2010) "Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU W3530 @ 2.80GHz"
4 for a 2015 macbook pro (4th generation)
4 for a "Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770HQ CPU @ 2.20GHz" (4th generation)

Although it's inconsistent:

4 for a 2016 macbook "Intel(R) Core(TM) m3-6Y30" (6th generation)
5 for a "Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6820HQ CPU @ 2.70GHz" (6th generation)

From fsb's comment below:

  According to Intel, the generation is the first number after the "-" (in machdep.cpu.brand_string)


Can my Thunderbolt Macbook Air drive my Mini DisplayPort iMac as an external display? I've run an iMac as an external display for a Mac laptop before, but am wondering if my new setup can work like that. I have:

2011 Macbook Air with Thunderbolt
2009 iMac with Mini DisplayPort
mini DisplayPort cable

Can I drive my iMac from my laptop? I've had no success so far, despite manually putting my iMac in Target Display Mode using cmd-F2. I can get the setup to the point where both screens turn blue (as expected) but then my iMac reverts to showing the iMac's desktop, not that of the laptop.

According to this source, this should work. This other source confirms it. These are the troubleshooting steps I would try:

Run all software updates on both the iMac and MacBook Air. A lot of times there are firmware updates that address issues like this.
Open System Preferences > Displays and click Detect Displays.
Reset the PRAM on both the iMac and the MacBook Air by restarting the computer and holding ⌘+⌥+P+R on boot but until you hear the POST chime twice. Then you can let go and boot normally. Be sure to do this on both machines.

Try going through these steps and let me know if you're able to resolve the issue.


Remove pages from Pages I have decided to turn my two page document in Pages to just one page. I cannot seem to delete the second page. It is the flyer template.

If you delete everything on the second page, the second page should disappear. Maybe the template needs to be removed or there are spaces on page 2 that you don't see.

To avoid a lot of guesswork, the function "View -> Show invisibles" should make obvious what is on the page:

Invisible characters will then show on the page:


Is it possible to switch between spaces with Command+Number in Lion? In Snow Leopard I could switch spaces by pressing ⌘+Number. Is there a way to turn that on in Lion?

Yes you can. Just changes the shortcut setting in the System Preferences>Keyboard>Keyboard Shortcut. You will find Mission Control section for shortcut, and there is entry called Switch to Desktop.

You could define your own shortcut here.


Can you turn off or disable the display on an iMac? I'd like to turn off my iMac display while connected to it via a remote desktop session.  I'm using TeamViewer or LogMeIn, and unfortunately the screen stays on during those sessions when it really doesn't need to be on.

Is there any way to set the screen to off while in use?

Note:  I don't want to put the display to sleep because that will only last until I start typing or move the mouse.

You can try RedScreen (I don't have an iMac to test it). I read that it can not only decrease the screen brightness beyond OS X defaults (like others do) but also control the screen backlight. You can bypass the default red tinting mode and just use these brightness controls.


Lost one side of AirPods, buy another side to complete the pair I lost my left AirPod. Can I buy a right AirPod (used) and pair it with my left one?

TLDR: Yes it's quite possible a used AirPod (only risk is incompatibility) can be paired to your current AirPod by following these directions (quoted below).

Apple's If your AirPods are lost article is a good starting point (originally linked by IconDaemon).

Before seeking a replacement, make sure you've attempted to find the missing AirPod using Find My iPhone.

If you need to replace it, Apple recommends you "get the serial number and then contact Apple Support for a replacement" - presumably to make sure their versions are compatible.

Regarding setup, you can check out Set up your replacement AirPods or charging case:

  Put both AirPods in your charging case.
  Open the lid and check the status light. It should flash amber.
  Press and hold the setup button on the back of the case for 5 seconds. The status light should flash white. If it still flashes
  amber, connect the case to power, close the lid, and wait 10 minutes.
  On your iPhone, go to the Home screen.
  Open the case—with your AirPods inside—and hold it next to your iPhone. A setup animation appears on your iPhone.
  Tap Connect, then tap Done.

If you're interested in buying a replacement directly from Apple, you can find more information under AirPods Repair (note that this is US specific, you can find the locale specific page here), where they list a replacement of a lost AirPod as costing $69 + tax + $6.95 shipping fee.

I personally would not want to use somebody's used AirPod, but if necessary I would clean out the earwax and wipe it down with a tissue soaked in hand sanitizer.


Macbook Pro Mid-2015 Backlight Burning Bright When I arrived at home today, my Macbook Pro was frozen. When I rebooted, the backlight looks like this:

After logging in, I can still see the backlight edges, as if it's turned too brightly, or "burned out".

The model is a MJLQ2. External monitor outputs work fine. I turned off Flux and Night Shift, but the problem persists. Calibrating white point did not fix it either.

Is this reparable and is it covered under warranty?

Is it repairable?

Yes.  The backlight or the entire screen assembly can (should) be replaced.  This is something you can do yourself with a replacement LCD and the instructions from ifixit.com.  It's basically removing the back panel, disconnect the display and WiFi cables, then detaching the assembly brackets/hinges.

  is it covered under warranty?

When did you purchase it?  Within 1 year (US) it will be covered.   Is you MacBook Pro still covered under AppleCare (extended warranty)?  If not, it's likely this will be an out-of-pocket expense.

Check your Apple service coverage to verify.


One key is not working anymore The 0 (zero) key on my Mac keyboard does not work anymore. Is there some kind of ascii code to type this character?

You may need to connect a USB keyboard if you need to make a change or enter 0 as part of a password, but once you're logged in you can copy / paste the 0 and also enable the keyboard viewer in system preferences.

That lets you get a 0 from the pointer / mouse / trackpad

Additionally, you could shift your keyboard mapping to Dvorak (left or right) and use a different physical key until you decide to get it repaired or see if you're ok using unicode hex input method.

With the unicode hex keyboard, you hold down option and type hex (0030 for zero) instead of ascii code.

How can I type unicode characters without using the mouse?

The main problem with unicode entry is the 0 is used quite a lot, so you'll probably want to set up a shortcut to convert another character to 0 or get a bluetooth keyboard.

To make a shortcut, go to system preferences/keyboard/text/replace with.  To create a custom layout where 0 is on a working key, try Ukelele.


GOM player not running video I am trying to run movie on GOM player for Mac, when I open the movie, GOM player name appears on top of menu bar, but no player appears.

The same .avi file opened well in VLC player. I found out that if there is any other file of same name as .avi but of different extension exist in the folder, GOM player won't run that .avi file. As I have XVZ.avi and XYZ.srt, player didn't opened the file, then I changed the file name to XYZ2.avi. It opened.

What could be the issue?

I'd say it's an issue with GOM Player subtitle renderer.

It's probably trying to open/read the subtitles but fails and this failure makes it impossible to play the video (it's probably a bug in GOM Player, since most player would just skip the subtitle and play the movie anyway).

I'd suggest you try another player, VLC is fine, Perian works great with QuickTime or MPlayerX which is free on the Mac App Store. And they all play subtitles, also.


USB-Serial Controller doesn't appear in Network I'm running El Capitan (10.11.2) and have had all sorts of problems with my USB-Serial cable after upgrading to El Capitan.

I have the latest drivers for my TrendNet TU-S9 USB-Serial Cable dated 11-10-2015. I've also tried getting the PL2303 drivers (dated 10-22-2015) from Prolific.

I unplugged the cable, uninstalled the old drivers per the instructions, rebooted, installed the latest drivers, rebooted, and plugged in the cable.

Under System Information-USB, I do see USB-Serial Controller D in the list of USB Devices. In /dev, I do not see tty.usbserial. Also, I do not see USB-Serial Controller as a possible interface in Network within the System Preferences. I just see Bluetooth PAN, FireWire, Ethernet and WiFi as possibilities when I try to add a new interface.

I've uninstalled and reinstalled several times and just can't get it to work. It is as if something is not letting the drivers be installed. I'd be grateful for any possible suggestions.

The aptly-named mac-usb-serial.com should be able to help you.

The real issue is conflicting drivers. In my experience, sudo kextunload AppleUSBFTDI has worked on both OS X 10.10 and 10.11, if you want to skip the linked troubleshooting steps (you should not).


MAMP Pro OS X Lion FTP - Cannot Find wp-content directory I am trying to develop a WordPress theme locally on my Mac (running OS X 10.7.3) running MAMP Pro, and am having trouble utilizing FTP.

I know in 10.7, FTP has been deprecated, but was able to get FTP up and running via this tutorial: http://osxdaily.com/2011/09/29/start-an-ftp-or-sftp-server-in-mac-os-x-lion/

Now, it accepts the FTP credentials, but says it cannot find the wp-content directory.

Via MAMP Pro, I've got it setup with a bunch of subdomains. For example this wp install is at something like this:

wptest.ryankeefer.computername.local

I'm wondering if it is trying to find the wp-content dir at "ryankeefer.computername.local" rather than where it's actually at (wptest.ryankeefer.computername.local). Any ideas on how to get it pointed to the right place?

I can obviously get around the FTP portion for adding and upgrading plugins to the wp-content/plugins/ directory directly, but would like to have the FTP option as well.

To find a folder on your filesystem open the Terminal.app then run (omitting $):

$ find / -name "wp-content" -type d

Or since you're looking for the wp-content for wptest:

$ find / -name "wp-content" -type d | grep -i wptest

Alternatively you could look for MAMP's httpd.conf file, open it in your favorite editor, and locate the DocumentRoot path for the subdomain you're trying to access:

$ find / -name "httpd.conf" -type f

Take the path that is returned and paste that in to your FTP client's path bar, or use Finder to browse to that path.

As a recommendation, I think you'd be better served by not FTP'ing to your local machine unless you have some fancy reason for doing so. FTP by itself is insecure, deprecated and moving forward I'd recommend you enable Remote Login (under System Settings -> Sharing) and transfer files using SCP... though I'd just use Finder, or point your editor directly to the path of your development environment.


Why does App Store start updating Xcode when latest version already installed? I have installed Xcode 11.0 manually from an Xcode_11.xip file. My Xcode installed successfully and it shows version 11.0 in its about page. But whenever I boot my Mac, the App Store always starts updating the same version 11.0, which is around ~7GB. It never succeeds before I turn my Mac off due to my low bandwidth.

On the next boot, it again starts updating from the beginning. That's an annoying situation for me and I need to stop updating from App Store app. Or if it's possible, I need to let App Store point to the manually installed version and stop bothering me.

How can I get rid of this issue?

System Software Overview:

  System Version:   macOS 10.14.6 (18G103) Mojave
  Kernel Version:   Darwin 18.7.0
  Boot Volume:  Home
  Boot Mode:    Normal

Xcode: Version 11.0 (11A420a)

Here is a tweak that you can try:

Go to Finder -> Applications
Move Xcode.app to trash. (Here it will ask you if you want to cancel update).
Agree to cancel the update.
Go to Trash -> Xcode.app, right-click and click on "Put Back"
Re-start using Xcode and continue with your work.

Also, while you wait for XCode to update and you are in a slow internet connection, go to https://developer.apple.com/download/more/ and download the latest version of XCode dmg using your Apple ID. The latest is 11.1 and they have 11.2 beta also.


What is "iTunes Device Support Upgrade"? What I know:

Component of "Software Update" (and is visible when you open the list).
Requires reboot
108 MB (for Sierra)
is hidden in the "Updates Installed in Last 30 days list
(probably) is not part of the auto-installing "Install system data and security updates" track

First appeared with "macOS Mojave 10.14.5, Security Update 2019-003 High Sierra, Security Update 2019-003 Sierra".

Tried Apple sites and some basic googling.

The iTunes Device Support Update addressed a rare issue that could cause problems with updating and/or restoring devices through iTunes on macOS. This update was not required for Windows versions of iTunes.

This update was recommended for any macOS users who use iTunes to update or restore their iOS devices. It ensures that these updates/restores work properly.

[UPDATE]

Below is a screenshot taken from the Mac App Store app running within El Capitan showing the iTunes Device Support Update and its description:


No way to send a text message I have updated to the new 10.0 and now my message screen only shows my messages and an edit option. How can I write a text to someone not in my contacts? I have no box on my message page for new text.

Click the Compose button in the top-left of the window, then enter the recipient and message.


Open Scripting Architecture Reference Lots of documents, like this one, refer to the "Open Scripting Architecture Reference," which sounds useful to me. But I can't find it anywhere. Googling the title gets lots of non-authoritative links where people have posted old PDFs of what presumably is an earlier version of the same thing.

Where is it?

Have a look at https://applescriptlibrary.wordpress.com or use the search engine of your choice. The exact document you ask is here:

https://applescriptlibrary.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/open-scripting-architecture.pdf

It's listed as legacy and from 2007. See my comment above about carbon API such as this being deprecated when 10.8 Mountain Lion was released. It might be better to just use the current guide you linked above unless you have specific needs to do research or support older OS and tools.


Is it okay for a brand new 13" MacBook Pro Retina to not sit flat? So I've got this new 13" MacBook Pro Retina... a beautiful machine by all accounts! Here's the thing though: It doesn't sit flat. As in, if you put it down on a flat surface, all four of the rubber feet on the bottom won't touch the surface. Only three will (just like a wobbly, uneven table). It's not really a big deal except:

When I rest my palms on the palm rest areas to type, the Mac wobbles and makes a tapping noise, and...
I'm worried that if the casing is bent or just not straight that it's putting stress on something internal or that it's an indication of poor build quality and there might be other problems.

Am I insane? Should I just shut up and enjoy this beautiful Mac? Or is this a valid concern?

P.S. I assure you, I'm testing this on a truly flat surface.

If a unibody Mac is wobbly, I'd have it serviced sooner rather than later. The tolerances inside are crazy tight in some cases, so a warp could cause subsequent damage to sensitive and costly parts. A trained technician can tell at a glance if the damage was external or due to manufacturing issues.

Now, that being said, I've seen dozens of Macs where people reported they were off and most were the table it sat upon, and not a bend in the unibody frame of the Mac. You can test by measuring how many sheets of printer paper fit under the leg(s) that has(have) a gap.

Then rotate the Mac 1/3 of a turn and repeat the measurement. Then take it to a second flat surface and do the measurement one last time if you're not convinced that it's the frame instead of the surface that is off-level.

Any wobble that's less than three sheets of paper is probably nothing to worry about, but what if you needed a logic board repair 10 months down the road and today, your Mac is bent out of tolerance and you were denied warranty coverage since you didn't report the bend until then? Only by getting it checked will you know if yours was out of tolerance and have a service record to point to in case of a warranty repair question later.


What happens if I accidentally interrupted iOS software update on iphone I was updating my iPhone and I accidentally pressed the home and lock button together thus interrupting the update. It has directed me to a link where I was instructed to connect the iPhone to iTunes and download the update. (I clicked update; not restore, of course.)
My question is will there be any harm to my data?

Answer

No. If your iPhone works after performing a force reboot (holding the Home button and the sleep button for a few seconds), you are good to go.

Explanation

iOS downloads the delta update first and starts the update process. You may have interrupted iOS while extracting the update files or checking them for consistency.

Additional information

The update will probably appear in Settings > General > Storage. Feel free to install the update using your iPhone or a computer with iTunes installed.

Did this answer your question?


What software for video editing should a G5 Tower Use? My friend has a G5 Tower and would like to create some music videos for his band. I've looked into Final Cut Pro, but unfortunately the latest version is Intel only.

I assume if we went that route, he would need Final Cut Pro 5?

What are his alternatives? For now it would be safe to say the development would be done as a hobby.

Thanks.

iMovie, part of Apple's iLife suite, is an affordable video editing solution for a hobbyist.


Is there a way to fix, or disable, secure input? After a MacOS update last week, Secure Input has started blocking advanced keyboard shortcuts in Alfred, BetterTouchTool, and even my Logitech mouse options.

I have repeatedly tried to quit the programs reportedly blocking it, and this never works. About 60% of the time it's just login_window that is keeping Secure Input on.

Until last week, I'd never had this problem, however it now happens multiple times per day. The only fix I've found so far is to logout/login or restart the machine.

Is there ANY fix for this?

The quickest fix seems to be to but your mac to sleep, and then waking it again. This forces you to log in. After logging in, my experience is that secure input is usually disabled.


OS X Case-sensitive issues? It's been a few years since I tried a case-sensitive install of OS X and I'm wondering how it is these days? I had to revert to case-insensitivity before due to Adobe CS but I think that's fixed now.

I recently had an issue deploying code to a linux server and having a js require statement fail due to case differences. Took me awhile to realize the issue.

If there aren't any major problems I'll probably do a clean, case-sensitive install of El Capitan this fall.

Here's a similar question but old: HFS+ case-sensitive or case-insensitive -- which type to use for the primary drive partition?

Recent Experience

For what it's worth, I recently used a loner MacBook Pro for a week while mine was in the shop. Because I mostly use my mac to develop software for unix servers (typically using case-sensitive ext4 file systems) I decided to give HFS+ case-sensitive another try.

For me, all core OS X applications worked perfectly and I didn't notice any stability issues with the system at all. Also, most of my third-party software worked without a hiccup.

But there were exceptions. When I decide to give this a go, I already had in mind a number of programs I expected to break, and a few of them did. Most notably, ALL Adobe software refused to run. Because Creative Cloud requires that it is installed on your boot volume, a case-sensitive boot disk is a show stopper.

Generally, though, there are better-built alternatives to these brittle codebases. For example, I began using Affinity's Designer and Photo instead of Illustrator and Photoshop, which almost perfectly fit my use cases.

There were a few pleasant surprises: Backblaze continued to work and Microsoft's Remote Desktop was still able to be used.

I don't have any other Microsoft programs so I can't comment about Office apps, etc, which might be a bit iffy.

My Plans

Once every few years, I totally rebuild my system from scratch instead of upgrading. I'm planning to do this when El Capitan is officially released, and I will be using a case-sensitive file system. As I see it: any software that is unable to run with case sensitivity is probably not something I want to be running at all. If there is something that I absolutely need, I can always run it inside a case-insensitive VirtualBox VM.

[[ Update 2015-10-15 ]]

I've now been on HFS+ Case Sensitive for over 2 weeks on El Capitan, and I haven't had a single issue. Of course I haven't even bothered to install the software I knew wouldn't work (Adobe), but I haven't run into an issue with any Apple software, App Store apps, or open source code. If you spend a good amount of time developing for unix systems, I'd highly recommend making the leap.

[[ Update 2016-09-23 ]]

Well, it's been about a year now, and I'm never going back. I'd encourage all developers to always use a case sensitive filesystem. Also, it should be noted that the successor to HFS+, APFS, will become the default filesystem for macOS, iOS, and watchOS next Spring, and as of now it's only available as case sensitive.


Mail.app in OS X — IMAP and Archive Mailbox subfolder creation I am using Mail.app with an IMAP .com email address:

For some reason, at 10.9, Mail changed and now the special "Archive" Mailbox doesn't allow for new subfolders to be added within the "Archive".

It isn't possible to add subfolders via a menu or to drag existing folders into the Archive.

The only workaround I have found to add subfolders to the Archive mailbox is to add a new Mailbox (in Sidebar for the IMAP Account, Right click / New Mailbox…) Choose the account and for the name box enter:

Archive/"Name of the New Folder" (without quotes, remember the slash!)

This will create a new subfolder within Archive. :)

Anyone know any other way?


Remove audio device which is not kext When I had some problem with the audio (apparently boom crashed in background) I checked the Sound Preferences in System Preferences, and found a extension called DeviceName, I don't remember myself installing this, and it doesn't have any kext installed along it, How Do I uninstall it?

You have an audio driver.
Check out the path below to see if you can make progress
/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL

Restart the audio service
osascript -e 'do shell script "launchctl kickstart -k system/com.apple.audio.coreaudiod" with administrator privileges'


iPod touch 4th gen restore broken So the device is jailbroken, and I'm trying to sell it so I'd like to update and wipe it. It works perfectly, all my apps, music, videos, etc. are on the device, and even after trying to flash it clean, restore from itunes, etc. the device still boots up just fine when I try and use it. It's the strangest thing.

When you perform the reset, do not "restore from backup", as iTunes will prompt you to do when it detects the "empty" device.  Instead, press cancel, and your iPod Touch should be empty.

For the most security, you should perform the erase from the device itself - In Settings, go to General, and select Reset; then, select "Erase All Content and Settings".  It may take a while, but it is a secure way to erase the device.


Install pdfroff on macOS What's the recommended way to get the pdfroff command working on macOS?

It appears groff v1.19.2 comes still bundled with macOS 10.13, but pdfroff not anymore. So do I need to reinstall the entire groff using homebrew. Or is there a better way?

There is also this pdfroff.sh script on opensource.apple.com, which seems to work when executed with sh pdfroff.

It is recommend to install groff from Homebrew.

Apple's built-in groff is pretty outdated (version 1.19.2) and doesn't include pdfroff.

Homebrew's supplied version on the other hand is up-to-date with recent version available (version 1.22.3).

Install the required packages (GNU troff and Ghostscript) by running:

brew install groff gs


After Catalina upgrade and server to 5.9, AFP ACL access locked, SMB access ok After upgrading a file sharing server to macOS 10.15.3 and Server 5.9, we can mount our shared volumes via AFP but can not open them because of permissions.

We can access them through SMB but are then having a very old issue (documented somewhere else in this forum I think) where ACL's have to be propagated again up to 10 times a day.

Remote access to the shares with SMB is also complicated due to classic 445 port issues that we don't have with AFP (port 549).

What I have tried:

Propagated permissions via "view info" screen
Propagated permissions with TinkerTool
Removed permissions with TinkerTool
Again propagated permissions with TinkerTool
Removed, restarted then reinstated all the shares/users-groups in File Sharing/prefs panel.
Restarted server several times

To no avail, problem is still there. What other things should I try?

The problem has been solved after investigating the sharing, groups & users and permissions setup with a remote desktop app.

All shared folders resided on an external drive which was an old system drive. Remnants could be found like a /bin, /sbin, /usr the usual symlink suspects and some other files and folders (all invisible). The groups & users were properly set up. Permissions for the disk and file & folders were set (but rather unclear to me).

The basic problem/bug could't be found, because time was short (and I was lazy).

My proposal was: building everything from scratch

Add an admin to each sharing group (if not done already)
Disable sharing for the drive (or the shared folders)
Copy all shared folders to a second external drive, remove all ACLs and use (sudo) chown ... -R ... to reset all major folders and their content to adminuser:admin
Format the external drive to JHFS+
Create as adminuser a main folder Shared on the drive:

mkdir /Volumes/ExternalDrive/Shared
ls -ale /Volumes/ExternalDrive/Shared
total 0
drwxr-xr-x   2 adminuser  admin   68 Feb 11 18:55 .
drwxrwxr-x  10 root       admin  408 Feb 11 18:55 ..

Copy all major subfolders back to /Volumes/ExternalDrive/Shared

Example/Result:

ls -ale /Volumes/ExternalDrive/Shared
total 0
drwxr-xr-x   4 adminuser  admin  136 Feb 11 19:10 .
drwxrwxr-x  10 root       admin  408 Feb 11 18:55 ..
drwxr-xr-x   2 adminuser  admin   68 Feb 11 19:10 develop
drwxr-xr-x   2 adminuser  admin   68 Feb 11 19:10 finance

Apply chmod 750 to the main subfolders:

chmod 750 /Volumes/ExternalDrive/Shared/develop
chmod 750 /Volumes/ExternalDrive/Shared/finance

Apply group ACLs (I named the dev group develop and the fin group finance - like the folders)

Examples (the example ACL allows full access to all sub-subfolders - every user of the respective group can really do anything, so be aware/fine tune it):

chmod -R +a "group:develop allow readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,list,search,add_file,add_subdirectory,delete_child,file_inherit,directory_inherit" /Volumes/ExternalDrive/Shared/develop
chmod -R +a "group:finance allow readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,list,search,add_file,add_subdirectory,delete_child,file_inherit,directory_inherit" /Volumes/ExternalDrive/Shared/finance

Result:

ls -ale /Volumes/ExternalDrive/Shared
total 0
drwxr-xr-x   4 adminuser  admin  136 Feb 11 19:10 .
drwxrwxr-x  10 root       admin  408 Feb 11 18:55 ..
drwxr-x---+  2 adminuser  admin   68 Feb 11 19:10 develop
 0: group:develop allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,file_inherit,directory_inherit
drwxr-x---+  2 adminuser  admin   68 Feb 11 19:10 finance
 0: group:finance allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,file_inherit,directory_inherit

Enable (AFP) sharing for the Shared folder or share each main subfolder (i.e. develop, finance etc.)

In the first case all users can access the Shared but have no or restricted access to subfolders. Example (member of the develop group opens the share - other groups' members have no access at all, except if a user is member of several groups and develop is one of it)

In the second case (e.g. sharing develop and logging in as member of the develop group)

If you need to have personalized sub-subfolders (access for one user of the group only), you have to stop the "global" group ACL and add a new user ACL.

AFP-Sharing worked again afterwards.


Lost Pages file in iCloud after update to Yosemite Recently I upgraded my Mac to OS X Yosemite and after that all of my Pages files which were saved in iCloud in my MacBook are lost and I can't find them in in my MacBook or in icloud.com online.
Is there any way to find them? Or is there any folder in my computer or online which saved iCloud files before syncing?

The iCloud Drive directory is located within Mobile Documents. You can access iCloud Drive via Terminal with:
cd Library/Mobile\ Documents/
credit

Note that the Mobile Documents directory could not be found in Finder. You can get a list of sub-directories in Mobile Documents by typing
ls in Terminal. For example, the iCloud Drive directory for Pages.app is
cd Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~pages
Try to find your documents in these directories. You may better keep offline to avoid iCloud syncing errors, if any, continue deleting your local files. If files are there, copy them out using cp.
If not, please try to log out your iCloud account in System Preference.app and re-log in. This enables OS X to re-fetch the iCloud files index and sync them again. However the chance it works is small, because your files are already missing on iCloud.com.
My guess is that some wrong operations delete all local iCloud Drive documents, and this change is synced to iCloud.com so all your online files are also deleted. The last solution would be to recover your files in iCloud Drive from a Time Machine backup.
Hope things go well!


Can I turn a Windows machine into an AirPlay destination? Is there software available that'll make a Windows PC running XP appear as an AirPlay destination in my Mac's iTunes? I'd like to be able to stream audio from my Macs to a Windows machine I use as my home theater PC that's connected to my stereo.

If you only want to stream audio, try Airfoil Speakers, part of Airfoil for Windows


Why does macOS Preview show different sizes before/after resize? An image saved locally on my MacBook Pro (macOS Mojave 10.14.3) has a size of 4.4 MB, as you can see in the screenshot below:

4.4 MB is the original size of the image, which has a resolution of 6000x4000. I want it to be 1000px wide. Opening macOS Preview to resize it, the software tells me that the size of the target image would be 152 KB:

Clicking OK and then checking the size of the new image, now macOS tells me it's 136 KB:

Why does macOS give me two different values?

Mac OS hasn't actually generated the new image when it gives the estimated size. With JPEG images, the content of the image affects the file size because image complexity impacts the ability for the algorithm to compress the file. What you see before completing the resize is Preview's best estimate.


Quicktime: Grey background upon resume in fullscreen mode A clip that was played in fullscreen mode will not appear in fullscreen mode.

Instead, it's slightly shifted, resized and has a grey background.

I've removed the Quicktime plug-in Perian, but this behavior is persistent.

What's causing this? How can I fix this?

This is an annoying bug in QuickTime Player. There isn't much you can do about it, I'm afraid.

Closing and then reopening the file usually fixes it, but if it doesn't you can try logging out and then back in.

If QuickTime gets so 'confused' that it can't open properly, quit using cmd-opt-q to prevent it from saving what's open. That should allow you to open it up and try again.

As always, file a bug report on the Apple website.


How can I install all brew packages listed in a text file? Does Homebrew offer anything similar to pip's pip install -r requirements.txt feature? I have a new MacBook Pro arriving today, so one of the first tasks will be to migrate my brew installations. I've already performed a brew list > brew.txt command. Will I be able to use this to install all the packages it lists in one command on the new machine?

xargs brew install < brew.txt

No need to cat the file (see Useless Use of Cat Award) and xargs instead of a for loop to avoid IFS.


MacBook Pro shuts off on battery power with new battery I recently replaced the battery on my Early 2009 MacBook Pro as I was having issues with it shutting off without warning when running on battery power. However, this hasn't resolved the issue and it continues to only work when plugged into AC power.

I've reset the SMC multiple times, PRAM and all the other basic things as far as I know, so suspect it may be a short on the logic board or something along those lines. I also tried unplugging all connectors from the main board other than those absolutely necessary and seeing if it still shut off on battery, which it did, so don't think it's anything to do with ports, keyboard, optical drive, etc.

What ways can this be fixed? Will it have to be a straight replacement of the logic board, or is it possible to track down a short and resolve it?

You’d really need to have current / voltage probes to tell where the fault lies. In a shop with resources to order test parts, you’d still try a second battery before doing a logic board swap if you don’t have the tools or skills or documentation to diagnose the precise voltage levels in and out of the power transformer(s) that are driven by the battery.


What constitutes the "completeness" of an app for eligibility in testflight? I am trying to get my app into testflight for testing with "external" beta testers.  The app is nowhere near complete, it is totally non-functional, and is intended as a starting point for my team to discuss UI elements.

Is my app ineligible for test flight until it constitutes a certain level of "completeness" by Apple's standards?  Does anyone know what those standards are?  Do they differ from the requirements of completeness for an app on the store?

This information is detailed by Apple on their Testflight page.

  When you add the first build of your app to a group, the build gets
  sent to beta app review to make sure it follows the App Store Review
  Guidelines. This is the only beta version of your app that requires a
  full review, and testing can begin once it’s approved.

Drilling down into the App Store Review Guidelines under Beta Testing, there is this statement:

  Any app submitted for beta distribution via TestFlight should be
  intended for public distribution and should comply with the App Review
  Guidelines.

Bottom Line: Your Beta app is going to get reviewed once, and the expectation is that it's "ready" for distribution.  An app that doesn't function is, by definition, not ready for distribution.

You will have to use an alternate distribution method if you want to get out incomplete - totally non-functional builds.

Get devices and load them from Xcode and ship them out or have people ship you their devices is the next best method if you don’t want to use a wireframe / mock up tool to get past the initial design phase and you have a minimum viable product to share with Apple for Apple hosting and distribution to your test group.


Airport Extreme + USB Drive vs Time Capsule The price between an airport extreme and 2TB Time Capsule is quite a lot (£100) and as far as I can see the only different is that the Time Capsule has a hard drive built in.
Is there any problems with buying an airport extreme and a (£70) 2TB USB hard drive and just plugging it in to the back? Will I still be able to use Time machine? And will I be able (like my last question) be able to use the same drive for windows backup?

(I'm not sure why Apple would charge so much more if you can use them separately?)

According to Apple, Airport Extreme with attached disk is not supported for Time Machine. It might work, sometimes, but with a backup system, people usually want more than "might work sometimes".

Sources:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2038
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/15139.html
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.7/en/mh15139.html


Can I use my 2011 iMac as a Thunderbolt display for my PC? I have an 2011 27" iMac, it has two Thunderbolt ports. I also have an Asus Z87 Deluxe Quad motherboard which has two Thunderbolt ports. I recently got a Thunderbolt to Thunderbolt cable from Apple.

I've seen another article on here who was able to connect the exact same motherboard to an Apple Thunderbolt Display (not the actual mac computer but the external display version) and it worked, so I know the thunderbolt port can act as a video output.

I've enabled the iGPU on the motherboards Bios, connected it all up but nothing happens. The mac just loads as normal and so does the Windows pc.

Am I missing a step or is it just not possible?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

iMacs can be used in Target Display Mode, but only from another Mac.

This is a specific support mode, Mac to Mac, it is not the same as connecting an external display to a graphics card.

See OS X Yosemite: Use another Mac as a display


Repairing/ Fixing/ Finding parts for very old Macbooks? I'm using a Macbook Pro 13" mid 2010 model and I recently had a visit at the service centre to purchase a new battery. Out of curiosity, I initiated a conversation to understand more about repairing older, or very old Apple products and the technician mentioned it "could" be hard or impossible to find parts for very old Macbooks. She referred to very old macbooks as Vintage macbooks. So any apple product whose manufacturing date exceeds 5 years from any current date qualifies as a Vintage product.

I'm not sure about the technician's words. I understand not many might want to continue with very old hardware, and rather buy a newer product. But, is it really hard or impossible to find parts and repair very old macbooks? More precisely, how easy would it be to find parts for, or get a 12 year old macbook repaired?

The technician used proper terminology per Apple.  Apple defines a vintage product as one that was discontinued more than 5, but less than 7, years ago.  Apple defines an obsolete product as one discontinued more than 7 years ago.

Your Mac is 3 1/2 years old, thats not yet very old.  With Apple notebooks I typically expect about 6 - 7 years of solid use.  Right now a 7 year old MacBook Pro can still run Lion, which is still fully supported by Apple, thus, in real world terms, making it not yet obsolete, even by Apple’s terms.

When it comes to finding parts for a Mac that fits Apple’s definitions though, that becomes tricky if you insist on “new” parts.  I emphasize new because any of Apple’s service parts for Macs over a year or two old carry a high likelihood of being reconditioned, meaning they were returned to Apple through service channels, diagnosed, fixed, strenuously tested then re-certified for use.  Apple Authorized Service Providers (AASP), including AppleCare & Genius Bar, are able to still order parts for vintage Macs, but that part supply is no longer replenished.

So, say you need a logic board for a vintage MacBook, an AASP can place an order for a logic board and if one is still in stock then the order will be fulfilled.  If none are in stock then the AASPs (non-Apple only) only other option is going with one from a non-Apple source, whether it be a spare they have or from another reseller.

If you need a logic board for an obsolete MacBook then an AASP (non-Apple only) only has the option of finding one through another reseller or using a used spare they have on hand.  Situations like this are typically the reason a lot of old Macs get retired.

When it comes to sourcing parts on your own there are several reputable vendors that deal in refurbished Apple parts. A few examples:

iFixit - iFixit is also a tremendous resource for walk throughs for the majority of repairs you might encounter with just about any Mac.

PowerBook Medic

MacFixiIt

eBay is also a handy resource although, as always, exercise caution and proper sense when buying from eBay.

As to your specific question, of how difficult would it be to find parts for and repair a 12 year old MacBook... As of right now the oldest MacBook is just shy of 8 years old, so we can't answer your exact question.  However, finding parts for and repairing that 8 year old MacBook is still quite possible in most cases, although many would find it cost prohibitive, meaning they would rather put the $200-400 towards a new or used Mac rather than fixing an 8 year old model.

There ARE 12 year old PowerBook G4s though, and those follow the same idea I laid out in the previous paragraph.  Repair is often possible, although finding logic boards seems to be a bit tougher these days, but it often doesn't make financial sense to repair rather than to replace.

Source - I worked in the Apple break/fix ecosystem for 6 years, for both an AASP and as a Mac Genius.


How do I open a OneDrive file in Preview using Applescript? How do I open a OneDrive for Business file using Preview using Applescript? I’ve tried this so far:

tell application "Preview" to open POSIX file "Users/myname/One Drive - MySchoolOrCompany/path/to/file"

However, I get this error message from Preview (filename is the name of my file):

  The file “filename” couldn't be opened because there is no such file.

I have checked and the file path is correct.

I figured it out. I didn't have a forward slash before Users:

tell application "Preview" to open POSIX file "/Users/myname/One Drive - MySchoolOrCompany/path/to/file"


External Display and Blurry Fonts on El Capitan I am one of the many who have extremely blurry fonts on external displays connected to my 2014 MacBook Pro. The solution for me has always been to follow this guide which runs a ruby script and puts the result in an overrides folder.

EDIT: By turning off the new "rootless" feature of El Capitan I was able to gain access to the overrides folder, however it does not appear to have worked. Anyone had any luck fixing the blurry fonts on external displays for El Capitan?

The location of the Overrides directory changed to /System/Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides/. Note that you will need to disable System Integrity Protection to add files there.


Sync Mail app tasks with Gmail/Google Apps Is it possible to sync Mail.app tasks with Gmail / Google Apps so they appear either in Tasks or as email messages?

BusySync might do what you want. The price is preposterously high though.


Why is my iMac shutting down randomly? I have a late 2012 27" iMac running El Capitan (10.11.5). It is a 3.2 GHz i5 with 32GB of 1600MHz DDR3, 3TB fusion drive. It's worth noting that as of right now I can't get Graphics/Display information from the System Info tool.

While using the the mac, it randomly powers off. It will not power on again until I have unplugged it for a minute or two.

Within the last 6 months, Apple Genius techs have replaced:

Logic Board
Harddrive
power supply
Power supply connector cable (not sure what this actually is).
GPU? I don't remember if they replaced the GPU, but one of the last times I had it serviced they deliberately ran a graphics "stress test" for a few hours before letting me pick it up again and the test came out fine.

Here is a portion of my Console log right before the last startup:

http://pastebin.com/raw/5NKKMkA1

My GPU has been restarting a lot recently as well. I can provide more from the gpuRestart kernel logs if necessary.

How do I trouble shoot this issue? I don't see any errors in the Console logs and when the mac starts back up, there is no dialog indicating that it knows it recovered from an error.

Other notes:

Hardware check was clean.
Identical mac plugged in on the same surge protector and not having issues.
Bluetooth is disabled.
I am using a USB mouse, keyboard and headset.
My mac 'otherwise' feels healthy - nice graphics when playing a game, no UI slowness in other apps, wifi is fast. I/O is fast.
I am the only user on this mac, other than the guest account.
I cannot correlate shutdowns to running any specific program. I have changed from using Chrome to Safari with no luck. I have been running nothing but Finder when crashes happen. I have also been playing games when crashes happen.

I am trying to debug this myself after countless sessions with Apple support repeating the same steps for an hour only to get to a point where they ask me to take it in to a Genius appointment only to have them say they can't reproduce it.

Have you checked your device temperature? I had a similar problem with an old MacBook Pro and it was randomly shutting down because it was overheating.

You can check temperature with SMC Fan control or iStat Menus.

Check on System Monitor the power usage, that's always helpful to check what process can be making your device overheating.

In my case was chrome plus some developer tools that i use at work.


How do I cat a deleted file which is still open by its inode? I have deleted a file I still have open. I want to save that file. I know its inode number.

I think that sleuthtools icat would work for me except for the following.

$ sudo icat -f hfs /dev/disk0s2 3720257 > /path/to/some_new_filename

Error opening image file (raw_open: file "/dev/disk0s2" - Resource busy)

Since the block disk /dev/disk0s2 is in use by the Kernel, use the raw disk:

/dev/rdisk0s2


Does the App Store update Java, if installed? If I installed Java (or an older version), will the App Store update my local installation, even though I installed, and updated it outside of that?

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1572

Java6 provided by Apple should be updated by the App Store, given any newer versions will be released (which i doubt).

(Tested with Mavericks & Apple Java RE 1.6.0_51 in a VM. It was updated to Apple Java RE 1.6.0_65 by App Store)

Java7 & Java8 provided by Oracle use their own update services.


Rename volume with bizarre name A MacBook Air with a SSD, the boot drive, name consisting of 220 double-quote characters.
MBA 2014 with Sierra 10.12.6 (not high sierra)
These did not work:

From a finder window, R-click in name column Dialog popup - "The name  can't be used.  Try using a name with fewer characters, or with no punctuation marks"
From finder window, sidebar - just to be exhaustive, same result
From the Info dialog.
From the terminal.

At the user home directory:  diskutil rename /Volumes/oldname  new name .  I get the message "could not find disk for /Volumes".  I tried using single-quotes around oldname, but same result

diskutil rename lets you specify the original location in ways other than by name.
I think some variation on this will work for you: diskutil rename disk1s1 "NewHDDName2"
Running diskutil list first should let you figure out the identifier for the volume.


Keychain: Ask password before autofill Is it possible to have Keychain ask for the admin password before autofilling other passwords or credit card information?

I am already using keychain quite a bit. But I'm also realizing that other people use my computer occasionally and in that case, I would like my passwords to be off limits. For many of us it's not just passwords, but also credit card information that are stored in Keychain.

I am aware that with the menu bar icon, one can Lock all Keychains. My experience with that was, though, that it renders the computer practically unusable. Too many services need access to the keychain, like accountsd. And unless a password is typed in, the password prompt will stay on screen at all times.

Not sure how to require password for keychain but here's how I handle sharing my computer:

My admin account is password protected and I have a "Guest" account setup that anyone can access without my intervention (just choose the account). It sets up a clean/empty environment every time. None of your data will be there and anything they create will not be stored.


Packet sniffer for MacOS Mojave and above I'm looking for a packet sniffer app that runs on MacOS in a GUI (I know I can accomplish some functionality with native CLI utilities like tcpdump).

Previously I used Packet Peeper, however it doesn't seem to run in MacOS 10.14 Mojave (the application opens and seems to run, but no window appears).

* Other questions have also mentioned PP as the solution, but they're all fairly old.

1 - Wireshark

If you have brew installed it's trivial to install Wireshark via a Cask.

$ brew cask install wireshark

This will install both the GUI and CLI versions. The GUI version is called wireshark and should show up in Launcher. The CLI version should show up in your $PATH as tshark.

GUI

Invoking the GUI will show you a selection window from where you can select which network interface to analyze. NOTE: on my system we'll use en0.

A double click on en0 and you're in selecting packet data.

CLI

To use the CLI it's about as difficult.

$ tshark -i en0 | head
Capturing on 'Wi-Fi: en0'
137     1   0.000000 192.168.1.95 → 172.217.6.42 UDP 65 56557 → 443 Len=23
    2   0.111321 192.168.1.95 → 172.217.5.110 ICMP 70 Echo (ping) request  id=0x4300, seq=39758/20123, ttl=255
    3   0.118526 172.217.6.42 → 192.168.1.95 UDP 70 443 → 56557 Len=20
    4   0.150560  192.168.1.2 → 255.255.255.255 UDP 223 44779 → 7437 Len=173
    5   0.152892 192.168.1.87 → 192.168.1.255 BROWSER 241 Browser Election Request
    6   0.155246 192.168.1.10 → 192.168.1.255 BROWSER 239 Browser Election Request
    7   0.157628 192.168.1.69 → 192.168.1.255 BROWSER 243 Browser Election Request
    8   0.161358 192.168.1.95 → 172.217.5.110 ICMP 70 Echo (ping) request  id=0x4300, seq=40014/20124, ttl=1
    9   0.168584  192.168.1.2 → 192.168.1.95 ICMP 106 Time-to-live exceeded (Time to live exceeded in transit)
   10   0.194384 172.217.5.110 → 192.168.1.95 ICMP 78 Echo (ping) reply    id=0x4300, seq=39758/20123, ttl=47 (request in 2)
280 tshark: An error occurred while printing packets: Broken pipe.

NOTE: Wireshark has excellent tutorials and guides on line once you're past the install.

2 - tcpdump

If you want something even lighter, you can use tcpdump to capture all types of traffic, not just TCP.

$ tcpdump -i en0 -n | head
tcpdump: verbose output suppressed, use -v or -vv for full protocol decode
listening on en0, link-type EN10MB (Ethernet), capture size 262144 bytes
20:01:20.630058 IP 192.168.1.95 > 172.217.5.110: ICMP echo request, id 17152, seq 21845, length 36
20:01:20.681163 IP 192.168.1.95 > 172.217.5.110: ICMP echo request, id 17152, seq 22101, length 36
20:01:20.688948 IP 192.168.1.2 > 192.168.1.95: ICMP time exceeded in-transit, length 64
20:01:20.728713 IP 172.217.5.110 > 192.168.1.95: ICMP echo reply, id 17152, seq 21845, length 36
20:01:20.732391 IP 192.168.1.95 > 172.217.5.110: ICMP echo request, id 17152, seq 22357, length 36
20:01:20.747365 IP 65.190.128.1 > 192.168.1.95: ICMP time exceeded in-transit, length 64
20:01:20.783439 IP 192.168.1.95 > 172.217.5.110: ICMP echo request, id 17152, seq 22613, length 36
20:01:20.803827 IP 174.111.103.48 > 192.168.1.95: ICMP time exceeded in-transit, length 36
20:01:20.820382 IP 192.168.1.2.44779 > 255.255.255.255.7437: UDP, length 173
20:01:20.834717 IP 192.168.1.95 > 172.217.5.110: ICMP echo request, id 17152, seq 22869, length 36
tcpdump: Unable to write output: Broken pipe

References

Wireshark User’s Guide
tshark man page
tcpdump Examples — 50 Ways to Isolate Specific Traffic
tcpdump tag from Unix & Linux Stackexchange Site


How can I keep my MacBook Air's battery cool? It seems that the best advice for battery longevity on my MacBook Air is to keep the battery cool. It doesn't have powerful fans like the MacBook Pro, so I would think that overheating is even more of a problem on an Air than a Pro. What are the best ways to keep the MacBook Air cool?

Note: this isn't a duplicate of this question since that question (and the answers) deals with how to prevent the fan noise.

Apple only provides a few recommendations.

Use the computer on a hard surface:

  Using the computer on a soft surface like a couch, pillow, bed, or your lap can trap heat requiring higher fan activity. Using the computer on a hard flat surface like a table or desk allows for optimal radiation of heat.

Don't block the fans:

  Make sure the vents remain unblocked to allow your computer to perform at its best.

On the MacBook Air, the fans are located in back.


How can I update billing information for the non-managing account in a family sharing group? This morning I tried to download an app off of the app store, and it asked me to verify the billing information for the master account. I am in college, and share downloads with my family. The app store wanted the security code for the card on the account. This was an old card, and my father switched cards this morning in the billing information. I have restarted the app store and my computer, but the old card number still appears in the billing verification window in an un-editable field.

He does not remember the old security code. I also tried looking at the billing information through iTunes, and the account page keeps failing to load despite a strong internet connection. How do I edit the billing information?

Update: Account information loaded after 15 minutes in plain HTML:

Signing in and out of the account did nothing. I clicked Manage in System Preferences, and navigated to the family settings. There was no area to view, let alone edit the billing information:

The billing information was not updating on my end because it was not entered correctly on the parent account. Errors in the expiration date of a card or the security code make it seem as though a new card is in use on the parent account, as the new card number will show up. Security information will need to be verified on the parent account before any family accounts can make purchases.


iTunes 12.5+ plist setting for View As -> Songs by default? I find the the default view of songs to "Songs" too white and it's irritating / abominable to view Playlist that way. It does't show enough details for my taste so I'd rather see something else than the current default view (Playlist):

Instead, I would like to see content directly as the Songs view instead:

Does anyone know of a plist setting (in com.apple.iTunes.plist) to change the default view of songs to "Songs" instead of the Playlist setting?

I don't know how to change the default view mode for new playlists, but you can run a script like this in Script Editor to change the view mode of all existing playlists:

tell application "iTunes"
    user playlists whose special kind is none and smart is false
    repeat with p in result
        set view of browser window 1 to p
        tell application "System Events" to tell process "iTunes"
            click menu item "Songs" of menu 1 of menu item "View As" of menu 1 of menu bar item "View" of menu bar 1
        end tell
    end repeat
end tell

I use a script like the one below to create most new playlists. It requires GNU xargs and readlink which you can install by running brew install findutils coreutils.

osascript -e'on run {a}
    set l to {}
    repeat with f in (get paragraphs of a)
        set end of l to POSIX file f
    end repeat
    tell application "iTunes"
        if number of l is 1 then
            tell application "Finder" to set n to name of (item 1 of l as alias)
            delete playlists whose name is n
            set p to make new user playlist with properties {name:n}
        else
            set p to make new user playlist
        end if
        with timeout of 0 seconds -- don't exit with an error if the add command takes over 20 seconds
            add l to p
        end
        set view of browser window 1 to p
        tell application "System Events" to tell process "iTunes"
            click menu item "Songs" of menu 1 of menu item "View As" of menu 1 of menu bar item "View" of menu bar 1
        end tell
    end tell
end run' "$(printf %s\\n "${@-$(cat)}"|gxargs -rd\\n greadlink -f)"

If the System Events application is not on the list of applications in "System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility", the script above results in an error like this: 636:751: execution error: System Events got an error: osascript is not allowed assistive access. (-1719).


Is anyone successful with Apple TV in enterprise network? In our school environment, we have a WPA2 network with simple username/password for joining all our Apple TVs. Eventually we replaced this with hard-wired Ethernet connections. Faculty and staff join another WiFi network which students may not access. This network allows staff to see Apple TV in AirPlay while students may not.

The problem is we have incredible inconsistency with some users experiencing periodic disconnects while others are fairly consistent. We checked with a number of other schools experiencing the same problem, and we also checked with two outside networking companies to evaluate our network health. Health is good. Pinging many different end points, we see packet loss is unusual. We have come to the conclusion that the problem is in the Apple TV device, not our network.

I read that using Apple TVs in this way is in a sense creating a use case for the device as they were never intended to be used in such an environment. I want to find success stories where relatively large schools (1200+ staff and students) have deployed Apple TVs and used them without the problems we are having.

Some other things we did based on research:
Turn off sleep mode
Disable screen saver
Turn off Bluetooth
Upgrade to Generation 3 Apple TV
majority iPads are 3+ but there are some iPad2

We have a similar setup at our school, approx. 1300 students and an Apple TV in every room, most of which are connected to Dell projectors and Promethean interactive whiteboards. Like your setup, our ATVs connect via Ethernet.

And yes, we've had our fair share of teething troubles since adopting Apple equipment in 2012, particularly with dropped connections. Apart from poor IT practise and usage from staff we've had a few network issues that, once identified, have made things much more reliable.

Before last summer all our access points were set to dual-band operation, allowing the Macs to select network settings automatically. This worked reasonably well until a Cisco firmware update in the summer when things went downhill. Airport diagnostics indicated the 2.4GHz band was pretty busy so we made the Mac VLAN 5GHz-only. Having all clients connecting on 5GHz has massively reduced the number of dropped connections and reliability overall has significantly improved. Incidentally this have the knock-on effect of killing AirPrint on our Epson Workforce printers so they've had to be wired in.

Our biggest problem though has come from teaching staff using MS PowerPoint. Prior to 2012 all our staff used Windows and Office for all their needs, and it was deemed necessary to ease the transition to the Apple environment by giving Staff access to Office Mac 2011. I'm no fan of Office but it's what the staff are used to. Our PowerPoint problems come from staff thinking they are saving time by loading up a day's worth of teaching material into PowerPoint, which then frequently crashes and takes AirPlay down with it. Occasionally we can sort AirPlay issues out by cycling the Wi-fi off and on again, but frequently it's more of a case of logging the teacher off and back in again, or restarting OS X in the worst cases. Teachers using Keynote are almost never affected.

A couple of other things...

Occasionally (and generally while using PowerPoint) a teacher will try to connect to the ATV in their room but it will randomly connect to a completely different ATV elsewhere in the building. We nailed that by passwording each ATV using the room number as the password.

We've also had issues recently with a number of ATVs refusing to wake up automatically when attempting to connect to them. This has come as a result of a software update which failed on those units. They would otherwise work ok but would have to be turned on manually. Restoring the units via Apple Configurator brought them back to full functionality. - Note, this can also be done via iTunes but iTunes doesn't cache the downloaded firmware and so does a fresh download for each unit to be restored. Restoring via Configurator is much quicker as it checks to see if it has already downloaded the firmware.

Hope this gives you some ideas...


What is the /bin/[ '[' file in OS X? See the screen shot.

There is the '[' file at /bin.

What is the '[' file? What does it do?

This command is for comparing values, checking file types etc.

Here's a man page:

NAME
 test, [ -- condition evaluation utility

SYNOPSIS
 test expression
 [ expression ]

It's usually used like this:

if [ -f /etc/passwd ]
then
   echo "Yes"
else
   echo "No"
fi

For more info, please read the man page ( man [ ).


Disable "Spring Effect" when scrolling over the maximum limit I'm not sure if this is a global OS X setting or per-app implementation of an Apple API. Anyway, is it possible (specifically on Google Chrome) to disable that visual "spring effect" (I don't know how to call it) that we have on Mavericks when scrolling up/down or swipe right/left and we reach the boundaries of the page?

I mean this one:

In the past, it was possible to disable the so-called rubber band effect by using this little command in terminal:

defaults write -g NSScrollViewRubberbanding -int 0

To revert the changes you used:

defaults delete -g NSScrollViewRubberbanding

You need to restart the apps to see the changes (or reboot the whole system).

Alas, I am no longer sure if it works. I tried it on Yosemite, but it seems to be obsolete now. Worth giving a shot, though!


Any way to open a URL in a script without having it open in a browser The situation: My mobile carrier offers for free to send SMS notifications by following a URL.

What I'd want: Include these URLs in various scripts to get notifications when I'm away from keyboard.

The problem: I can't find a way to open the URL silently (that is without opening it in a browser), the simplest thing:

do shell script "open https://myurl"

opens a tab and brings my browser to the front, so I'd have to close the tabs either manually or with some other lines in the script.

Is there's a more elegant way to do as if I had followed the link without showing it in a browser?

For sure there are dozens of tools to do this.

python scripts
ruby scripts
swift scripts
javascript scripts
shell scripts

I’d start with bash and shell, but you could do this in dozens of ways. Javascript and bash are all easy to call from AppleScript as well if you want to start there. The curl command ships with all macOS so let’s start there. Open the terminal app and type:

curl https://myurl

Once you get the basics of calling, you can determine if you need authentication or to post / get to an API to trigger the actions you need, but all of the above scripts will not open a browser and will retrieve / hit the web site with a real request that can make things happen.


How can i put selected images from photos app on macbook to the camera roll on iPhone 5? So i import images from my dslr to the photos app on my macbook which works perfectly but I only want to put a few of them onto my phone so it appears in my camera roll. I am aware of syncing an album through Itunes however they do not appear in the camera roll.

Is there a simple method to transfer select images from photos to the camera roll?

As long as both devices are in the same WiFi network and have Bluetooth enabled you can use AirDrop to send pictures between devices:

select the photos to share
tap/click on the sharing icon (and select AirDrop)
wait for the target device to appear
send it over


How to prefix an area code when dialing with iPhone? I just moved to Idaho, and here everyone has the same area code (208 for the whole state). Unfortunately I still have my old phone number. So when someone texts or emails me a phone number they never include the area code. When I try to dial it with my iPhone I get an error from AT&T that I need to first dial the area code.

If I type the area code, and then try to paste the number in that will replace the area code. I am not able to get a edit point anywhere by the end of the phone number in the keypad screen. The only options I have found is to paste the phone number in notepad or somewhere that allows editing, add the area code, then copy and paste that into the keypad. Either that or cache the phone number outside the phone and then re-enter it manually.

Is there some way to tell the iPhone to assume 208 is the area code when none is provided, or at least a way to edit a phone number from the keypad to add an area code?

(I realize there is probably an app for that, but it seems like a pretty common thing that should be supported by the iPhone without an extra app step.)

It may not be a perfect solution, but what I do is store all numbers in my contacts with 1 and the area code. That way it dials appropriately no matter where I am (it doesn't change the billing details - a local call is still a local call, whether it includes the area code or not).

Also, maybe this is a carrier specific thing, but any texts I receive from numbers not in my contacts show up with the full +1(123)456-7890 formatting.


MacBook Pro stuck on GRUB minimal Bash at startup I had a dual boot Linux Mint 19 and macOS on my MacBookPro11,2. Since the CPU was overheating with Linux, I decided today to delete the Linux partition.
Little problem, when I start my MacBook Pro now, I just have this menu on startup:

  "GNU Grub version 2.02 - Minimal BASH-Like line editing is supported
  grub>"

If I type ls, this is what I get:

  (hd0) (hd1) (hd1,gpt2) (hd1,gpt1).

What could I do to boot into macOS?

Output from diskutil list disk0.

/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2: FFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFF               228.8 GB   disk0s2

Use Startup Manager

When you use Startup Manager to select a startup disk, your Mac starts up from that disk once, then returns to using the disk selected in Startup Disk preferences.

Press and hold the option key immediately after turning on or restarting your Mac.
Release the Option key when you see the Startup Manager window.

  If your Mac is protected by a firmware password, you can release the key when you're asked to enter the password.

Select your startup disk, then click the arrow under its icon, or press Return.

  If you press and hold the control key during this step, your selection is saved in Startup Disk preferences, so it persists until you change it.

If your Mac is using OS X Lion 10.7.3 or later, you can also use this method to start up from your Time Machine backup disk. Startup Manager identifies your Time Machine backup as ”EFI Boot.”

References
The above answer was copied from "How to select a different startup disk", https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202796, January 29, 2019.


On iPad Pro, does some apps stay full screen even when working in a 2 app side-by-side mode? Because Pokemon Go has a bug on the iPad version and I cannot see the number of Pokeballs remaining to catch a Raid Boss (due to aspect ratio of iPad about 4:3, not the same as iPhone's 16:9), so I want to use the 2-app-side-by-side method to see if I can somehow change the aspect ratio of the app.

So I either run Pokemon Go and slide in a Safari, or run the Safari and slide in Pokemon Go.  (By running Pokemon Go, and then slide from bottom up of the screen to see the dock, and then touch-and-hold an app and move it to the edge of the main screen area).

Either case, I see Pokemon Go running as a full screen app.  Is it true? Some apps cannot run as a side-by-side app but must remain full screen?

Yes, that is true. The app must be compatible to run side-by-side - and if the app is not, there's nothing users can do about it other than encourage the developers to add the support.


Symlink to hidden file I have 2 macs, and use Dropbox a lot. On my MacBook I have one folder synced with Dropbox (through a symlink, ln -s ~/folder ~/Dropbox) that is actually in my ~/Library directory, so it's hidden. It was a while ago, but I somehow got symlinks to work for it (I cant remember how now!). On my new iMac when I do it, the symlink file won't work, because it's linking to a file it doesn't have permission to see (needs sudo password).

Can anyone remind me how I did this (or show me a new way?).. Thanks

EDIT:
As pointed out, ~/Library is not hidden at all :) ... I have no idea why Dropbox won't upload it then. This happened before on my MacBook, and I can't remember what I did to fix it..

Symlinks work for hidden files.

When you

ln -s ~/hiddenfile  ~/folder/hiddenfile

there is a new file. But of course, you can't see it.

  If the files name begins with a point (".vimrc"), you can't see it
  because finder doesn't show files with a point before the actual name.


OSX Server: should I use Open Directory? I'm currently setting up an OSX Server (Mavericks) in a small company (10.9 on the clients as well), and I'm trying to decide what the best approach is to manage accounts.

The accounts will not be used for roaming; everyone has their own workstation, and never has any desire to log into other machines. This appears to eliminate the need for home directories on the server.

Now I'm wondering whether I should create Local Network Users or Local Users (in both cases without a home directory on the server). What is the advantage of using Open Directory to manage Network Users rather than creating Local Users and leaving Open Directory switched off?

There are no other servers or off-site networks involved that we need to 'hook into', so that is not something that seems to lead to a requirement for an Open Directory server.

Is there any reason why I should not just create Local Users instead? What can they not do that Local Network Users can do?

EDIT: While I'm still interested in the answer to this, I've since elected to set up accounts using Open Directory. I could not find a reason not to, and I figured that there might be services that require it of which I'm unaware at this moment. This will hopefully ease future migration.

For a small company, it's not even clear you would set up network users to start with. The costs associated with setting up and running that might be more than it would cost to support a handful of Macs.

Without knowing a few items such as exactly how many accounts, how many Macs, how different the Mac users are (are you setting up a lab with 15 identical machines or is each belonging to a user that has software needs different than all the rest.) Also, your decisions on how much users should support themselves (or can even support themselves) would go into the decision on how best to manage IT time and dollars to support the users.

There often is no best answer other than starting with something that has a chance of working and then iterating as you learn what is really needed in your specific shop.

That being said, if you make Local Network Users they can log into client machines and use the services (file sharing, backup, etc..) from the server but not log directly into the server. Local Users get all the benefits of network users and also get a home directory stored on the server and can log in there as well.

I'd start with two resources for planning your deployment:

Take Control of OS X Server by Charles Edge (to be published by Tidbits - currently available as pre-release chapters online)
Apple Pro Training on OS X Server Essentials by Arek Dreyer and Ben Greisler

The former is easier to get started and organized more in terms of functional tasks and the latter is an exhaustive reference and covers about all the mechanics of how the software operates and is configured.


How to manage a large number of external servers mount paths? During my typical workflow I need to connect to 10 to 15 different servers (samba and ftp), depending on the work I am doing. Usually I press cmd + K in the Finder and select one of them in my Favorites list. Some of the servers I also placed in the sidebar's Favorites to connect to them quicker. However, this is also awkward as the list in my sidebar is already rather long and some servers have the same name, which cannot be changed there.

Can you recommend a better workflow or a tool when working with a large number of servers?

You can create aliases and put those anywhere. In Finder, navigate to a shared folder or any path inside, then create an alias. You can create an alias by ⇧⌘-dragging a folder.

You can place this alias anywhere in any hierarchy, such as a folder in your documents, and when opening the alias, Finder will resolve the alias and connect to the relevant server.


Can I share my iMac's internet to iPhone or iPad over USB? I have an iMac, connected to the Internet via Ethernet, and an iPhone 4. I would like to share the iMac's Internet connection to my iPhone via the USB Cable (because my wife dreams of a wifi-less household).

I've set up Internet Sharing, specifying "sharing from: Ethernet  via: USB IPhone", but when I test, the iPhone cannot connect to the Internet. Is there something I need to activate on the iPhone?

iMac, mac os x version: Mountain Lion, 10.8.4
iPhone 4, IOS Version: 6.1

This works on macOS 10.12 and iOS 10 without needing a jailbreak or other app.
Later macOS 10.13 enhanced this feature as part of asset caching and Apple Configurator 2 features for multiple iOS devices sharing the Mac network. This is out of the box support, built in to the OS with no extra first party apps or modifications needed.
Before iOS 10 and macOS 10.13, USB tethering only worked in one direction or for one device. Before macOS 10.12 - internet service used to flow out of iOS but not in to iOS from a Mac over USB.


Is there official documentation about upgrading your iOS app's minimum requirements? There are a couple of questions addressing what happens when you upgrade the minimum iOS of an app and there are still users on older iOS versions.
The answers don't seem to agree with each other. Some say that the user sees no update, but others say the user does see that there's an update available, but that she should update their iOS first.

To get rid of uncertainty, I was wondering if anyone knows if there's official documentation from Apple about this and where to find it?

update

The question here is an example of the question being answered, but only for the case where the device is actually capable of updating to the new iOS. The answer is also enlightening, but fails to provide any official Apple documentation on it.
This documentation might not exist (I couldn't find it), but I thought it worthwhile to throw the question out there.

Nope, not yet at least. Whenever my apps need an upgrade to their minimum requirements due to a new version of iOS, I always have gotten an email explaining everything.


Does a ThunderBolt cable increase resolution on a monitor or just frame rate? I'm curious what does having a ThunderBolt display over others mean?

A) A cable cannot "increase" the resolution of one source to a destination. However, if the cable provided more bandwidth than your previous cable, the system would seem to upgrade the speed because of the extra bandwidth available.

Think of it in terms of a highway with cars. If your old cable is only a two-lane highway, you can only put a certain amount of cars on it. Now if your new cable is an 8-lane expressway, then you can put so many more cars on it and even though the speed of the cars does not necessarily increase, there are more cars and more bandwidth and less traffic.

B) As for the LG Electronics 34UM88-P, it supports thunderbolt 2.0 as well as DisplayPort - both of these are supported on the Mac Mini.

Source: https://www.lg.com/us/monitors/lg-34UM88-P-ultrawide-monitor