Cannot access TimeMachine backups from before clean install of macOS Recently I did a clean install of macOS Catalina on my 2014 13" MacBook Pro. Before doing the clean install I backed up my computer with TimeMachine, and in fact I have been backing up with TimeMachine for years. After reinstalling macOS Catalina, my plan was to just go into the TimeMachine backups and pick and choose the files that I needed, since the vast majority of what I need day to day was already in iCloud Drive.

However, now when I into the TimeMachine Backups.backupdb folder, I see backups dated from before I did the clean reinstall but they have the name that I changed my computer to after the clean reinstall and they do not show any of the data from before the reinstall. In fact they just contain Macintosh HD - Data, Macintosh HD and Recovery folders, with Users inside of Macintosh HD - Data, with a folder for my current username (and not the username from before the reinstall) inside of Users, and that home folder only contains Movies, Music and Pictures.

In short, I can't access any of the data from before the clean reinstall even though TimeMachine has folders for all the backups going back over 6 months, but they all have the same structure as I described above and do not contain any of the data I need. The TimeMachine disk however shows just about the same amount of space occupied as before the reinstall, ~250Gb.

Is there any way that I can access my old files?

Time Machine can be tricky and sometimes you really need to reformat your external drive and start over. But you could check several things, like are you using HFS+ on your external Hard Drive? Did you repair permissions of your external hard drive with 'Disk Utility'? Is the internal and external hard drive name still the same? Is your user short name the same?
You could also try, within the information panel of your ext. hard drive, to ignore permissions and user.


Recovery Mode is taking too long to erase my USB stick I had some problems with my USB stick so I wanted to erase it via Disk Utility but a "Operation failed" message appeared.

So, I am currently erasing it via Recovery Mode.

However, it is taking too long and it's stuck in "Mounting disk" message.

Any solution? What happens if I shut down my computer and just use another USB stick?

Please help ASAP.

Thanks.

Here's a trick that I've used before.  On the Disk Utility sidebar, if you select the storage device, not the partition, you have the option to completely erase the disk and rebuild the partition table.  It looks like this:

Compare this to what you see if you just try to erase and reformat the partition:

Notice that the "Scheme" option is missing.  If you use this option (which I believe is what you're trying to do), then it's trying to work with the existing partitioning and metadata, which has the potential to cause problems like what you're seeing.


How to set up an iPhone or iPad to act as an Apple TV (4K) remote? I can't find the Apple TV (4K) remote, and tried to set up my iPhone or iPad as the remote.  But the Apple TV was on a different Wifi router before, and the iPhone and iPad remote app turned the wheel repeatedly and can't find the Apple TV device.

Is there any way to make it work?  Such as moving the iPhone or iPad 2 feet away from my Apple TV and have them "hooked up"?  I guess one possibility was if that Apple TV sent a token to iCloud for my account long before, and can let me download that token to my remote app to authenticate it is the same user trying to use the remote functionality but I guess such functionality is not there (yet)?  Is there any method at all?

A side note is, if a new remote needs to be purchased, I supposed it can still hook up to my existing Apple TV (4K), or else there really is no point in selling a remote by itself?

From the link you referenced, it tells you exactly what's required to use your iOS device as an AppleTV Remote

  1. Check that your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch is on the same Wi-Fi network as your Apple TV or AirPlay 2-compatible smart TV

You need to have both the iOS device and the AppleTV on the same network.

  Is there any way to make it work? Such as moving the iPhone or iPad 2 feet away from my Apple TV and have them "hooked up"? I guess one possibility was if that Apple TV sent a token to iCloud for my account long before, and can let me download that token to my remote app to authenticate it is the same user trying to use the remote functionality but I guess such functionality is not there (yet)? Is there any method at all?

Proximity and tokens are not methods that have been implemented so while it an interesting concept, it simply doesn't exist.

  A side note is, if a new remote needs to be purchased, I supposed it can still hook up to my existing Apple TV (4K), or else there really is no point in selling a remote by itself?

Yes.  You can (re)pair a new Apple Remote with your existing AppleTV.  You can get more info from the Apple Support document If you lost the remote for your AppleTV.


Can you activate your iPhone 5/5s/5c with iOS 8.1 with any nano SIM card? I just got a new iPhone 5/5s/5c and it comes with a fresh install, or factory reset, of iOS 8.1.

I didn't get a SIM card with the phone, and it will not let me activate/use it without one.

I am concerned about the finicky behavior, and even the technical aspects of this.

Do I just simply buy any nano SIM and pop it in and it should be okay? Or is there a specific one I need to buy?

I do not have service or Apple ID but I can make one. I do not wish to pay for service (such as calling/texting) since I only want the device for gaming and other stuff (Skype and other VoIP) to communicate, such as Wi-Fi for internet, etc. Can this be done?

Can anyone clarify this for me?

I work as an IT for my company and part of my job is to manage the mobile phones (iPhones), as long as the phone is not carrier-locked, any nano-sim is ok to unlock it. In my experience, even if the SIM is not activated can be used.


Mac dictation custom commands not working I use the Mac Yosemite (10.10.3) built in dictation extensively, and I find it does a really good job of understanding my speech, at least when I'm speaking in complete sentences.

I also use the dictation commands that you find under accessibility in system preferences, Like scroll down and scroll up. (It even does a really good job of telling the difference between when I say "scroll down" as a command and when I say it as part of a sentence.)

BUT I can't for the life of me get any custom commands to work. For example, I have tried to bind "Close this" to cmd-w, and "tooth paste" to "success" (as an experiment).

I can't get dictation to recognize these commands, ever. I seem to be following the steps shown on every tutorial. It just doesn't seem to work.

(FWIW, I can't get many other commands to work either. For instance, "select previous word" will happily write that text, without dictation realizing that it has just recognized a command! About half the time that I select something and say "delete", it performs a delete, and the other half of the time, it writes the word delete.)

I have been experimenting with the dictation app a lot recently since some  RSI issues. Had issue with user created commands at first. Not sure if you got yours working yet but we'll add my scenario and fix for general FYI:

multiple choices of the same app in the app List : for example Google Chrome showed up twice. When I created a user command and chose the first Google Chrome app in the list. User created command did not work. When I chose a second Google Chrome option it works. Somehow and I'll have to sort that out I have multiple choices of the same app. So maybe check that.
increased memory: overall dictation working better since I increased memory on my computer from four gigabytes to sixteen. Actually a whole lot better. And I know dictation uses a lot of your memory. For example if you open up Activity Monitor you can see the resources being used and what application using it. And when you're low on memory features in certain applications are sacrificed or affected.

One last suggestion or maybe more of a qualification Beyond your OS what hardware are you working with – ie what type of Mac product an what year–information found in About this Mac


Change default payment Uber? Whenever I request a ride it defaults to Apple Pay so I have to change it to my card. I don't see a way to make it so that it defaults to my card every time.

If you create a business profile it will then create a personal profile as well, both profiles allow you to select a default card!


Virtual backgrounds for any videoconferencing or webcam application I assume the answer is no, but does macOS provide a way (or is it feasible via user application software) to enable (force) the use (via software from a single application) of e.g. a custom virtual background for any (all) videoconferencing applications that may access the front camera?

I assume the answer depends on what means MacOS provides to application developers for managing the video stream. But for example, can one user application in macOS modify the video stream for all other user applications? (e.g. assuming already that macOS does not provide itself an end-user friendly interface to define virtual backgrounds).

By virtual background I am referring to the ability of customizing the background on a video call so that people can see the person looking at the camera in front of the camera, but the user can use a e.g. static picture or animation for the background. Examples include this feature supported from Microsoft Teams, or this one from Zoom.

The answer is yes. Applications can create a virtual camera, which other applications will have available in exactly the same way they have the built-in camera on a laptop available, or a USB-connected camera for example.

The application would need to read the images from your real camera, insert your virtual background, and then expose it as a virtual camera.

For example see virtual webcams such as: OBS Virtual Camera or Webcamoid.

If you combine the OBS Virtual Camera program with OBS Studio, you can use the green screen (chroma key) features to get the setup you're looking for.


Can different user accounts have separate Time Machine Backup drives? If I have two users accounts on one Mac is it possible to automatically use a different Time Machine drive for each user's data?

No, because Time Machine works at the filesystem level of the whole disk, not just the files owned by any given user. In other words, Time Machine backs up the entire Macintosh HD, sans exclusions, and doesn't know or care about individual users from this perspective.

Have a look at: How Time Machine Works its Magic


Why does the Magic Mouse prevent me from clicking with my trackpad? It often happens to me that I open my MacBook Pro to use it while traveling, only to find out that I can't use it because the effin' Magic is locked away in some luggage, and the trackpad is not clicking. Of course I cannot turn the Bluetooth off, since the trackpad doesn't click. But the weirdest thing is that I always turn the Magic Mouse off before putting it away (I move the slide on the bottom so that the green color is not showing), yet it still prevents me from using the trackpad!

Why does that happen? What's with this brilliant design choice that one couldn't use the trackpad if one also has a Magic Mouse?

This is a feature, not a bug. The idea is that you might want to disable the trackpad if you are using a mouse because, for example, you accidentally hit the trackpad with the palm of your hand.

I thought it was turned off by default, but in any case, here’s how to turn it on or off:

System Preferences » Accessibility » Mouse & Trackpad

[ ] Ignore built-in trackpad when mouse or wireless trackpad is present

For more details: OSX Daily: Ignoring Built-in Trackpad Input When Using External Mouse with MacBook

Turning Bluetooth On / Off Without the Mouse

1) If you have brew installed, you can easily install blueutil via brew install blueutil. Then you can disable Bluetooth by going to Terminal and typing:

blueutil --power 0

2) “Full Keyboard Access” can also help:

Once that is enabled, open Bluetooth preferences in System Preferences and press Tab to highlight the “Turn Bluetooth Off” button, as shown here:

Then press the Spacebar to turn Bluetooth Off.

3) If you use Alfred or LaunchBar, I suspect they probably have tools to allow you to toggle bluetooth as well.


Is there a keyboard shortcuts for switching tabs at Safari? At Photoshop, you can use command+~ to switch tabs, is there a keyboard shortcuts for switching tabs at Safari?

Select previous tab: ⌃⇧⇥ (control-shift-tab), ⇧⌘← (shift-command-left), or ⇧⌘[ (shift-command-[)
Select next tab: ⌃⇥ (control-tab), ⇧⌘→ (shift-command-right), or ⇧⌘] (shift-command-])

You can customize the shortcuts from System Preferences:


MacBook pro unresponsive / slow after startup After starting my macbook it is very slow/ not responding at all to mouse clicks and keystrokes. I do not get the famous beachball but just the normal pointer. On windows that are already open i can scroll content with the mousewheel or two fingers on the pad, but thats all the response. If i have a browser open it will respond to mouse over/hover but not to clicks.

I have not been able to find the cause for this, i have started up in safe boot, but after a while that gets the same problem, the disk shows to be ok and i started on single usermode to run fsck which also shows ok.

I have enough drive space and no processes / tasks eating away resources as far as i can see.

I run osx 10.6. On a macbook pro with 4gb ram, 500GB hdd, core i7

Any ideas or help would be very much welcome

Try one of these:

If your Mac is always slow, check the Activity Monitor.app for resource hogs. Alternatively you could enter top -o cpu in Terminal.app, and check the %CPU column.
If your Mac is only slow at startup, check your login start items in System Preferences → Users & Groups → Login Items.


Two iPhones, buth synced but with different contacts I have two iPhones and I would like to have them nicely synced calendar and task, but to keep different contacts. One is an office phone and I would like not to have my private numbers etc. Currently, on my old phone I have mail + contacts synced with Google, and Calendars, Reminders on iCloud, same as on my MacBook Air.

Can I sync some data but not all of it?

Only way I can think is to set up as 2 [or more] groups - so the contacts are there but not in your 'current' list.

That's how I logically separate my business from personal contacts.

Uncheck the groups you don't want to see on each phone


How to avoid 'Move to Applications folder' prompt? I downloaded the zip file of iterm, unzipped it and copied the iterm.app folder to /Applications from terminal. When I open the iterm file in applications, I still get the prompt to move it to Applications folder. Tried moving it to Users applications folder too. How do I avoid this error?

Although this is hard to check, it seems like Gatekeeper was being overly-protective, but has since been adjusted.

When using macOS Sierra (10.12) or later, if an app is in /Applications/ but prompts to be moved to /Applications/ when run, then chances are very high that the app has recognized that it has been subjected to Gatekeeper’s “app translocation”. If you’re interested in the details you can find them online, but the practical effect is that if you went into Terminal (or iTerm) and ran

ps auxwww | fgrep -i YourAppHere

You would see a path that is not /Applications/YourAppHere.app but more like /private/var/folders/[something-random-looking]/AppTranslocation/YourAppHere.app.

The preferred way of moving apps around (according to Apple) is with the Finder. If you drag an app from the ~/Downloads/ folder to /Applications then it will not be 'translocated'.

If you insist on not doing things Apple’s preferred way, your only option is to remove the quarantine flag from the app. This will remove all of Gatekeeper’s protections, so use at your own risk. You can remove the quarantine flag using this command:

find "/Applications/iTerm.app" -exec xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine {} \;

Replace "/Applications/iTerm.app" with the appropriate app name as needed, obviously.

You will need to re-launch the app for the app translocation to go away.


How to instal Window 10 on an External drive for a MacBook Pro 2019 I read several articles and watched several YouTube videos about how to make a bootable Windows 10 on an external SSD using Bootcamp.  However, all of the tutorials are using either an iMac or older MacBook Pro.  I haven't seen one with new MacBook Pro yet.
for example this guide.

Why do all of these tutorials not work on my new MacBook? These ways are expired?
see this question from the Apple Support Communities.

This is based on my own experience of installing Windows 10 on an external drive:

Step 1: Download a virtual machine to run Windows on. I used VMWare Fusion and used a 30-day trial. You do not need to do this if you already have a computer with Windows 10

Step 2: Search "windows 10 iso image" and click the first link from Microsoft. Download it.

Step 3: Open the VMWare application and upload the Windows 10 iso image onto it, and run Windows. You do not need to do this if you already have a computer with Windows 10

Step 4: Go on your virtual Windows and download WinToUSB from this: https://www.easyuefi.com/wintousb/.

Step 5: Open the WinToUSB tool and upload the same Windows 10 .iso image onto it, and choose which version to install. Connect your external drive to your Mac, make sure it connects to VMWare, and select it once it shows up on WinToUSB.

Step 6: Wait until the tool installs Windows 10 onto the external drive. While this is running, go to the Bootcamp app and ONLY download the Windows Support Software.

Step 7: Once the WinToUSB tool finishes installing, you can close out of VMWare by shutting down from the virtual Windows. The connected external drive should show up on your mac again, and drag the Windows Support Software folder into the drive.

You should now have an external drive with Windows 10 on it, and the Windows Support Software on it as well. You can boot from it by restarting and holding option and choosing the external drive. Use the Windows Support Software to install the correct Apple Drivers in the external drive when inside the Windows 10 boot.

This was the method that worked for me on an Early 2014 MacBook Air on High Sierra and should work on yours unless something in Bootcamp Assistant changed.


Persistent vertical blue line (Macbook pro 13 mid 2010) Can anyone help me understand what this is? The line is persistent and i'm not sure it's because of a faulty LCD or something else. Is there a way to fix it?

That looks very much like a column of stuck pixels to me. Similar happened on one of my devices recently.

Only fix is to replace the screen.


Accidentally deleted files using GNU find -delete - how to recover? I was playing around with OSX find and GNU find from findutils (v 4.4.2) package for learning purposes. GNU find has a -delete option, which is self-explanatory. What isn't, however, is that "Use of -delete automatically turns on the -depth option", which means it will recursively remove the current working directory content without a warning.

The problem is I accidentally executed such a command on my system, instead of remote shell session.

I tried to research the internals behind -delete but all I could come up with was official GNU findutils docs.

As I realised what happened, I turned off the system to prevent possible overwriting of sectors. Then, I took a "standard recovery approach" using

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac
Prosoft Data Rescue 3
Disk Drill
Mac Data Recovery Guru

but to no results. The removed directory was actually a git repository with many small files. As close-to-zero disk operation was made since the deletion, I doubt all of them could get overwritten. It's not a disastrous situation because I'm obviously pull the repository content from remote. Still, I loose unpublished local branches and files under .gitignore.

Are there any OSX mechanisms I could use to get these files back?

OS X maintains deleted files in the local time machine storage area if you have enabled (or the system has enabled) a local store.

tmutil snapshot

If you can make a snapshot, you can enter Time Machine and recover these files. If you get an error like **Local snapshots are not enabled.
** then you don't have the ability to recover the files from the OS level. Since there is no other undelete mechanism in the filesystem, you have a good survey of recovery tools (I use Data Rescue pretty much exclusively) and your only third option would be to locate a viable backup of the system or the files in question.

I make a habit of enabling the local store and forcing a snapshot before doing anything as root or anything I might regret from the terminal. Having made mistakes like this over the years, I've learned to have that "premonition" to check backup and double check the syntax. In general, I try to make a list of files to delete and save it to a file so I have a pause and a second script that does the removal rather than piping them together. It's not going to help, but it's my experience and way to mitigate when I can't ensure a good backup.

sudo tmutil enablelocal
sleep 8 && tmutil snapshot


How to show all running launchctl daemons/agents? When I run:

sudo launchctl bslist

... it shows all the running /System daemons, but I have some running from /Library/LaunchDaemons and it is not showing those.

How can I show them all?

From launchctl's man page (apple seem to have misplaced  the man pages so an external one is here https://www.unix.com/man-page/osx/1/launchctl/)

launchctl bslist lists "Mach bootstrap services "

To get all jobs loaded into launchctl use sudo launchctl list

Daemons are not necessarily the former and other things but daemons are in the list


How can I remove an apple id I can't get my ex husbands apple id out of the family  ipad. Now I have a ton of apps to update and he won't give our kids his password to update them.

The easy and sure way to start over is to restore the device to factory defaults and wipe everything away. If you don't want that, you'll have to learn how the settings app uses AppleID and decide which ones you want to delete from the device and which you can live with on the device.


USB Mighty Mouse odd behaviour I am having an issue with my mouse, it seems to slow down by about 50% when the cursor gets to a button or something clickable.

Dose any one know what this issue might be?

I have plugged in a wireless Microsoft mouse and its not displaying the same issue.

Ok this is how I sorted the issue out.

So apparently this is a system feature.

I installed a application called Steermouse found here.

The application has a option to disable this feature.


iPhone 5s fingerprint sensor My fingerprint sensor on my iPhone 5s is not working, but the home button is working. I want to replace the fingerprint sensor. Is it possible to just buy a new fingerprint sensor - home button assembly and replace it, and will it just work? I heard stories that fingerprint sensor is somehow hard wired with the motherboard and no other fingerprint sensor can replace the original one. Is this true?

The only way to replace or repair the fingerprint sensor is for Apple to do it for you.

It is tied to the secure enclave in the CPU & any unauthorised tampering will disable it.


Can I view local/unix mail (`mail` in the Terminal) in Mail.app? I use cron to run some jobs, but since that's the only thing I use my unix mail for, having this run through Mail.app would be a nicer experience than seeing "You have new mail." in the Terminal.

How can I do this?

Brutal solution: set up postfix to handle outgoing mail, and create a ~/.forward file forwarding all mail to your "real" mail account. Not for the faint of heart but, then again, neither is running cron jobs. :)


Removing EFI partition from external Disk? A few months ago I decided to format an external HD that I wish to use with my Mac mini, but I can not use 100% of it.

In the formatting process, a partition called EFI appeared. When I open the Disk Utility app, the partition is not displayed, but it was displayed by the command line using diskutil.

Here is the Disk Utility:

From the command line: diskutil list

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS MAC HD                  881.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:         Microsoft Reserved                         16.8 MB    disk0s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                118.9 GB   disk0s4

/dev/disk1 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *640.1 GB   disk1
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:       Microsoft Basic Data HD Caio                 639.9 GB   disk1s2

How can I recover the space lost to disk1s1?

EFI partition is a partition that stores boot files for operating systems, but since it is an external drive, it's not needed. When you erase your disk and create a new GUID Partitioning Table on it, macOS will automatically create an EFI partition. If you don't want that EFI partition, you have a few options:

You can erase your disk and create a new MBR instead of GPT. To do this, follow these steps:

Open Terminal. You can use spotlight to find it
Make sure your external disk is inserted. Type diskutil list and identify your disk (in the output you provided, it looks like it's disk1).
Type diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ MYDISK MBR diskX and replace diskX with the actual disk's identifier (for example, disk1)
Your disk will be erased without an EFI partition now.

You can use diskpart.exe to partition the disk on Windows. Windows doesn't create an EFI partition.


Is using a key shortcut for restart (Cmd + Ctrl + Power) bad in any way? I restart my Mac (for various reasons) often, about once a day. Recently I found about the key shortcut to do this: Cmd + Ctrl + Power. I really like this because it's fast and avoids that annoying prompt about "reopening windows when coming back".

My question: is using key shortcut Cmd + Ctrl + Power forceful, aggressive or potentially damaging in any way (like losing recent data)? Or, it is the same thing as doing it by clicking the menu options ( -> Restart... -> Restart).

Command + Control + Power button will force a restart without any intervention from the system. Applications will not be closed in a proper way and everything that is not yet written to disk will be lost.

It is definitely not safe.

You could use Command + Option + Control + Power button to shutdown and then Power button to start.

  Quit all apps (after giving you a chance to save changes to open documents), then shut down the computer


Issue with bridging Ethernet to Wi-Fi I've connected a Pi directly to my iMac via Ethernet cable. The Pi has an address 169.254.121.172 and the iMac has an address 169.254.10.117. I can connect to the Pi via SSH and can ssh back to the Mac ok. Internet sharing has been turned on (sharing Wi-Fi to Ethernet). I just can't resolve any addresses on the Internet. I have added the iMac's IP as a gateway and when I traceroute to 8.8.8.8 I can see it hitting the iMac but the packets get no further. There is a bridge0 which has an IP 169.254.10.117 and it does resolve when pinged from the Pi. I'm running Yosemite 10.10.5. Ideas anyone?

the 169.254.x.x address space is known as Link-Local addressing & by definition does not leave the building.

  In a computer network, a link-local address is a network address that is valid only for communications within the network segment (link) or the broadcast domain that the host is connected to.

  Link-local addresses are usually not guaranteed to be unique beyond a single network segment. Routers therefore do not forward packets with link-local addresses.

Source : Wikipedia - Link-local address

A link-local address is usually self-generated by a computer if it cannot find a DHCP server.
If your network has no DHCP server [your router ought to contain one] then you need to use manually-assigned addresses in the same subnet as your router/gateway. Nominally, for a home or small business, these would be in the 192.168.x.x space.


MacBook Pro 13'' 2017 (A1708) after year of use showing 50% capacity I'am really shocked. Coconut battery shows 55.8% from Full Charge Capacity and battery is jumping in charge (like 90% after 5 minutes 50%).

And some time ago was "Service Battery" label, but after it have disappeared. It's not ok, I understand. Have checked serial for replacement program and it's not for my laptop. My keys are ok, and I can't replace top case by this.

I was at authorized service (I'm not from country where apple devices officially, just authorized). There they can replace it only for ~500$. I don't know what to do.

Please help, maybe advice?

Shut down the laptop, then turn it on while holding the D key. It will open the Apple Diagnostics Test (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202731). After the test is done, the results may show if there's something wrong with your battery. If there are critical errors, I'm afraid that you may have to replace the battery. Is your laptop still on warranty? If it is, you can actually do it for free at an Apple Authorized Service Center, it doesn't have to be an Apple Service Center.


Clone OS X installation from Virtual Machine to Mac Mini I did a new OS X installation via Parallels as a Virtual Machine and configured it as Node for our Jenkins Build Server. I did this because I wanted to do an isolated installation to test adding all the needed packages and then either reinstall our Mac Mini (the "real" Jenkins Node) or clone the system and put it on the Mac Mini.

And that's the point: Does anyone have experience cloning an OS X from one Mac to another?

Each OS X installation is specific to the hardware model and characteristics of the Mac. The installer creates a set of drivers and configuration files for the specific hardware. So you cannot really clone from VM unless it is exactly the same as your Mac Mini.

Try migration. I am not sure if you can migrate from a VM but you can always try. Make sure that VM is visible on the network (give it its own IP address).


iPod Reverse Tethering via USB I want to use my computer's net connection for my iPod Touch via USB cable.

Creating a wireless AP is not an option as I do not want to setup an AP.

iPod Touch - IOS5.x
Computer - Win7

Bonus - OSX option as well

From all my research your request is not possible. Only wireless via internet sharing on your windows 7 machine or the mac.


AppleScript: Activate all mail rules with "sort: " in their name I would like an AppleScript to activate all rules that have the string "sort: " in their names.

As far as I know this is how to enable a mail rule:

tell application "Mail" to set enabled of rule "sort: foo bar" to true

How do I get the names of all mail rules?
How do I filter these names for containing the string "sort: "?

Pretty simple one-liner:
tell application "Mail" to set enabled of rules whose name starts with "sort: " to true

You don’t even need to get all those rules or their names; however if you want to do so it’s just as straightforward:
tell application "Mail" to get name of rules whose name starts with "sort: "

Note: your example starts with sort: but you asked about strings containing that string. If that is what you want then swap contains for starts with in the code I provided.


Macbook is running, but black screen I have a Macbook Pro (2015). When I switch on, I can hear the fan noice but screen remains black, no backlight (No light on the Apple logo in back). I checked brightness, restarted mac several times, reset the System Management Controller, followed these steps but no luck. Any ideas?
EDIT: Battery is dead

You could try resetting NVRAM and PRAM. They store system settings that might be related to the problem.

Shut down your Mac, then turn it on and immediately press and hold these four keys together: Option, Command, P and R. You can release the keys after about 20 seconds, during which your Mac might appear to restart.

Apple's instructions


Why does the main OS menu bar disappear when I am in Safari? I am running OS X 10.8.2 on a MacBook Pro with a 27" Cinema Display. Just this week I noticed that when I switch over to Safari the Main Menu Bar (not the Safari menu bar) disappears. I have checked to make sure that I am not in full screen mode. I also checked the desktop settings and don't see anything that would turn that off. The menu bar shows when I am in any application other than Safari. Again, this is the main menu bar, not the safari menu bar.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Screenshot:

Strange I am having same issue when I log in. But changing desktops a few times solves the issue. So I think its a graphic bug


Disk Drive Partition: Single vs Multiple Just for my curiosity and knowledge, from a Software and Hardware stand point prospective, what are the pros and cons of creating 2 (two) partition and saving OS X + Applications on one partition and Users Folders Data on the second partition, vice versa doing the traditional way and use the standard single partition?  What are the benefits?

Thank you so much and have a wonderful day.

If you are comfortable using Terminal.app, I recommend multiple partitions.

Moving Home

These questions explain how to move a user account to a separate partition:

Is there a safe way to move the /Users folder to a separate volume/drive?
How to make the Users Directory a different partition in Snow Leopard?

Considerations, Benefits, and Choices

Hardware

It is difficult to justify the choice based solely on the impact to the storage hardware.

If the same content is spread across one or more partitions – but always on a single physical drive – then the hardware impact is largely be irrelevant.

Roughly the same number of read and writes will be performed on the physical drive either way.

Software

From a software perspective, there are benefits to separating mostly static content from your frequently changing content.

OS X and your applications will largely remain static. They will be read many times but rarely changed.

Your user files will be likely be read and written frequently.

Applications

Well behaved applications will continue to just work. A consumer Mac application that requires a single partition should be considered faulty.

Some applications will write content within the /Library/ folder on the OS X partition. This content is likely to be caches and content shared across multiple users. It should never be content specific to a single user.

Smarter Back Ups

With separate partitions, you could choose to only back up your user files with Time Machine. If you back up drive is small, you could choose not to back up OS X and your applications.

In case of a disaster, your own files would be safe but you would need to download and re-install OS X. Services like BackBlaze take this approach; only user files are backed up.

Easier Clean Updates

As a developer, I have OS X on a separate partition to my files. This has historically made it easier to test with multiple versions of OS X. It has made blanking and re-installing a clean copy of OS X possible.

Encryption / FileVault2

You can choose to encrypt all, some, one, or none of the partitions using the full disk encryption built-into OS X, FileVault.

If you only have one partition, the choice becomes encrypting nothing or everything.

Create a Fallback User

If you decide to move your user area off the OS X partition, I recommend creating a second administrator user account on the OS X partition. This back up account will be useful in case of future problems. If your other partitions do not mount, or you need to demonstrate the computer works but without decrypting your personal files, this fallback administrator account can be helpful.

The "Right" Partition Sizes

The difficult choice to make with multiple partitions, is how large each partition should be? This will depend on your applications.

In general try and leave 10 – 20% of your OS X partition free. This will allow for caches and other temporary files to be created, grow, and shrink while the computer is running.

An approach might be to determine how much you can safely back up and version. Then pick sizes based around that figure. Better to live frugally but be well backed up, than risk losing irreplaceable personal files.


Can you partition the HD of a G3 iMac for OS 9 and OS X? I have an old Tangerine iMac G3 in nice condition, I installed a clean copy of OS 9 on it and I can run the "iMac Demo Summer 1998" interactive demo which is neat.

I'd like to install OS X (Tiger) on it.  (I know it will work because it was running Tiger when I got it.)

However, after installing OS X, I know the OS 9 interface will be gone for good, and I probably won't be able to run the old demo anymore.

My question is, can you partition the hard drive in the iMac so I have one OS 9 partition that is completely separate from the OS X partition, so I can startup which ever OS I want to show off to my geeky friends?

Thx!

Yes. My old notes had me putting OS 9 on the first partition but I'm not sure if that's compulsory or just recommended.

Then in OS 9 you have control panel to choose your startup disk and in OS X you have a system preference.

In fact it's technically possible to have both OS 9 and OS X installed on the same partition. Install OS X first and then OS 9. You may find later versions of OS X will have trouble blessing the OS 9 folder if it is in the same partition but it certainly worked up till 10.4

Check out this old Apple tech note: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1732


a problem with the area locked SIM card, how can I unlock my iphone? I recently updated my iPhone 4 to iOS 7; however, I need to fully unlock my iPhone (which I inserted a SIM card into). How do I do this?
Note: my sim card is from Tahiti (French Polynesia). Can you help me resolve this problem?

You should be able to just call up your network carrier and they can unlock it. I had the same thing. Just be prepared to wait couple weeks as the carriers say it takes up to 3 weeks to unlock. Or you can use a third party site like http://unlockingofficial.com I used this site couple times and worked great. It still takes a few days to get unlock though.


Why are almost-blank ._ files being created by macOS and applications? Using information found on this site and across the web, I have discovered how to transform most of the binary data in a ._ file to readable text.

However, most of the files that I have examined look like this:

Mac OS X       "
        @
ATTR
This resource fork intentionally left blank

After reading another Ask Different question and the Matt Deatherage explanation that Graham Perrin linked to in his answer, I am still quite confused. Especially considering that Matt said this:

  Note that "._MyFile" is not "a resource fork", and not "metadata", but could contain either or both of these.  It contains anything that
  the Mac OS X file system supports but the volume's own format does not.
  You rarely see "._" files on HFS Plus because HFS Plus supports all the
  metadata that Apple has defined, now or in the past.  You see a lot of
  them on UFS, FAT16, or other old formats that don't support rich
  metadata because the OS has to put this stuff someplace.

  ...

  IF YOU DELETE ._MyFile OR SIMILAR COMPANION FILES, YOU ERASE ACTUAL FILE
  SYSTEM DATA THAT A PROGRAM ON YOUR SYSTEM HAS EXPLICITLY SET.

  ...

  If you want to move the disk back to your Macintosh and have the files
  all work properly, I strongly recommend that you leave companion files
  alone.  Deleting companion files is corrupting the file.

Wow...sounds like those files are pretty damn important according to Matt! Yet upon inspection, I have tons of them (mostly videos that I've played once on this Mac through VLC) that say nothing more than "this resource fork intentionally left blank".

So why the heck are these being created?! Am I missing something that is important by running xxd -p /Volumes/Videos/._<Name of movie file> | sed 's/00//g' | tr -d '\n' | sed 's/\([0-9A-F]\{2\}\)/0x\1 /g' | xxd -r -p | strings | sed 's/ptb[LN]ustr//g' on the offending files?

In my experience, these days it's pretty rare for there's files to contain anything of much importance, though it is possible a piece of software might choose to do so.

Historically it wasn't too uncommon for a file to have both a data and a resource fork, application binaries especially did this. I can't think of any modern software that uses a resource fork anymore though, so it's unlikely this is why you are seeing these files. Most of the API's are long deprecated, and Apple doesn't recommend using it to store arbitrary data.

You can check for such content on a file using cat filename/..namedfork/rsrc | xxd (on the main file, not the ._ file), though it might be necessary to move it to an HFS or APFS file system first, not sure. The xattr CLI tool should show it too.

The main thing these files are used for currently is storing extended attributes (which have some size limitations). Things like Gatekeeper quarantine info, last line and column edited in a text editor, or resume time in a video player.

You can inspect this information using the xattr CLI tool, though it might be necessary to move it to an HFS or APFS file system first, not sure.


How to connect Surface Pro 6 to Apple Thunderbolt Display 27" I want to connect a Surface Pro 6 to an Apple Thunderbolt Display 27".

What do I need to do to transfer display signals to the Apple Display?

Unfortunately, you can't connect Surface Pro to Apple Thunderbolt Display as @jksoegaard suggested because Thunderbolt Display can be connected to thunderbolt port only. Trust me, I have both, I've tried, it's not working and it makes sense it doesn't. When Surface Pro comes equipped with thunderbolt port instead of miniDisplay Port, it should be possible, but right now, it is not.


Deleting all but the most recent Time Machine backup I just bought a new Mac and I'm manually migrating everything over given that it's been a while since I did a clean install and that the new Mac has less storage than my existing one. I will be wiping the old Mac after I do the migration.

However, I have about 600GB worth of Time Machine backups for the old Mac on the NAS which I'd like to shrink to make space for Time Machine on the new Mac. I just want the latest Time Machine backup to serve as an archive in case I forget to move some files when I wipe the old Mac.

Is it possible to (easily) delete all but the latest snapshot of the Time Machine backup?

Thanks

Assuming OSX 10.8 or later, you could use a combination of find and tmutil

tmutil delete <path> will remove the snapshot at <path>

while

find /path/to/backups/ -maxdepth 1
will list all of your backup snapshots.  The last one ( Latest ) is a link to the latest one.  You can be a little creative and use find /path/to/backups -name 2\* -maxdepth 1 to list only the "real" directories (all the dates which start with 2014, etc).  And, finally, (thanks to this link) you can get a list of all but the last snapshot:

find /path/to/backups -name 2\* -maxdepth 1 | sed \$d


Where exactly is the Google Chrome sync passphrase? Where exactly is the Google Chrome sync passphrase? I need it to enable sync between various devices. I've looked through keychain and haven't seen anything that exactly matches.

I have an entry called GoogleContactSyncService which is an application password, then I have a Google Chrome Sync Passphrase which is stored as a secure note, but I may have added that. Try the former.

If this isn't it, then it is likely an application specific password. Go to your Google Account, revoke the prior Authorization and then generate a new password. If the one I said above isn't it then I have a feeling that what happens is that when you enter the passphrase it generates a much larger authorization token from it which is stored in keychain. The app password doesn't get stored.

Update

I think that you needed to record it, which is likely why I have a secure note in my keychain where I stored the passphrase when I set it up. If you didn't do something similar, or write it down when you set up, then you won't have it.

What is on your computer is the encryption key that is generated by a key derivation function (password hash). Basically you enter the passphrase and the function creates a large, pseudorandom private key with the passphrase as the seed for the random function, though Chrome's algorithm is likely more complex than that. Enter the same passphrase into the function and the resulting key will return the same key. However you shouldn't be able to go in reverse and use the key to generate the passphrase.

There is a possibility that if you didn't choose to use a different passphrase that it will be your Google account login password. If you have change your Google account password, try the older passwords to see if that was the one used as the passphrase. If you generated an app specific password and you didn't record it then the synced data is locked. You will have to reset and start from scratch.


CPU cores have a temperature near 80 °C and then the fan starts to work. Is it too late? I have MBP 13, 2015.

When I watch some videos CPU Core 1 and 2 have a temperature near 70-80 °C. At this time the fan starts to work with some 1300 rpm.

Is it a bad temperature in the meaning of long term condition for the cores' life?

Should I configure my fan to increase the rpm at lower temperatures?

No, it is not a "bad" temperature. If your MBP 13" 2015 model is configured with the default CPU, it is specced to work at up to 105° C. So running at 70 or 80 degrees is no problem at all.

In general you should never change the configuration of your fans away from the defaults supplied by Apple.


Xcode 6.4 does not start on OS X 10.10.5 Yosemite As of this morning, Xcode 6.4 stopped launching on my Mac running OS X 10.10.5 Yosemite.

I tried to launch with

sudo open --new /Applications/Xcode.app

but got

LSOpenURLsWithRole() failed with error -10810 for the file /Applications/Xcode.app

I've reinstalled Xcode, but get the same result. I've tried Disk Utility and antivirus software and my system seems to be clean.

Any ideas how I should proceed, short of reinstalling OS X?

Make a new user account (admin role) and log out.

If you can start Xcode from Launchpad or Finder in the new account - it's a user level issue. If not, then start with system issues like restart / reinstall latest combo updater or safe boot.


The document “X” could not be autosaved. You don’t have permission I have a Mac OSX Lion file share over the AFP protocol in our office and users are having trouble saving to it. Here's the process:

Open an existing file on the server
Make changes
Save changes, error: "The document “X” could not be autosaved. You don’t have permission."

Additional notes:

Users cannot save new files directly to the server (same permissions error); however, they can save the file to their desktop first and then drag it to the server in the same location.

Here is a print out of the permissions for that particular directory:

The permissions appear to be wide open...right?

For what it's worth, here is a screenshot of the error:

Any ideas what I can do to resolve this issue?

Which place do you have users created on the server?  Are they here:

Or are they here:

The important question is are they local users (which will give you the behavior you have) or are they local NETWORK users?


Is there way to quickly call the active contact on the Message app? Oftentimes, in the middle of texting, I find myself wanting to call the other party instead.

However, in order to do that, I would have to scroll all the way to the top of the message history, just to get to the CALL button.

Is there a faster way to do this? Tapping on the contact name seems to be a logical trigger, but it doesn't work.

Tap on the status bar will bring you to the top of the message. A quick way to get to the call button.


Why is there a hosts.equiv file in my /etc folder? I'm running OS 10.11.1 on my Macbook Pro.

I should also preface my question with the admission that my knowledge of the Mac OS is practically zero.

I was looking at (not editing) the hosts file in my /etc folder on my standard account that I use for everyday internet browsing. While going to the /etc folder, I noticed the existence of a hosts.equiv file.

For every previous incarnation of my Macbook that's run Mavericks/Yosemite/etc, I've never noticed a hosts.equiv file before in the /etc folder.

Running man hosts.equiv in Terminal lets me know that it's a list of trusted hosts/users for remote authentication...which I have absolutely no use for or knowledge of how to even implement.

My question is: the mere existence of the hosts.equiv file isn't evidence that my machine is compromised, right? When I open the file with Text Edit, there's nothing listed in it.

If you are concerned that a file isn't installed by Apple then check the package receipts-

pkgutil --file-info /private/etc/hosts.equiv
volume: /
path: /private/etc/hosts.equiv

pkgid: com.apple.pkg.BSD
pkg-version: 10.6.0.1.1.1249367152
install-time: 1324303327
uid: 0
gid: 0

mode: 644

You can then check the BOM file-

lsbom /private/var/db/receipts/com.apple.pkg.BSD.bom | grep hosts.equiv
./private/etc/hosts.equiv   100644  0/0 0   4294967295

Note the last 0 is the file size and the last field is the check sum of the installed file. Now check the check sum of the file-

cksum /private/etc/hosts.equiv
4294967295 0 /private/etc/hosts.equiv

Note the check sum is the same as what is recorded in the BOM file and cksum reports the file size as zero bytes.


Changing the range of addresses served to clients connected via Internet Sharing Macbook Pro Running 10.7.4 attempting to share ethernet connection via Airport(Wi-Fi) and trying to serve 192.168.1.x addresses to connected clients.

I've tried the guidance provided here (Dead link as of June 2016) and the  article Mac OS Hints: Change the default subnet for Internet Sharing
My com.apple.nat file has the following:

NAT =     {
    AirPort =         {
        40BitEncrypt = 0;
        Channel = 0;
        Enabled = 0;
        Extreme = "";
        NetworkName = *****;
        NetworkPassword = <*****>;
    };
    Enabled = 1;
    NatPortMapDisabled = 0;
    PrimaryInterface =         {
        Device = en0;
        Enabled = 0;
        HardwareKey = "";
        PrimaryUserReadable = Ethernet;
    };
    PrimaryService = "352E1799-A5BD-45F7-8C1C-49A963899CFC";
    SharingDevices =         (
        en1
    );
    SharingNetworkNumberStart = "192.168.1.0";
};

But no dice. ifconfig still shows en1 as 10.0.2.1
I've rebooted, made sure System Preferences was closed. en1 up'd and down'd

I'm guessing I need to be modifying a different file. I've looked at the binary for InternetSharing but it has way too much cruft in the file for me to confidently edit it.

Any help?
Thanks!

This is specifically for Ethernet > Ethernet Sharing connections, rather than WiFi (it might work for WiFi but I haven't tested) - I thought the answer would best belong here, for Google.

Tested as working up to El Capitan 10.11.5

Apparently since Yosemite, adding just the SharingNetworkNumberStart key is no longer sufficient.
Also, System Prefs caches the NAT file located at /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.nat & will just overwrite your settings again, if you do things in the wrong order.
Actual addresses are, of course, your choice.

Switch off internet Sharing.
Close System Prefs
In Terminal type these 3 commands

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.nat NAT -dict-add SharingNetworkNumberStart 192.168.0.0
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.nat NAT -dict-add SharingNetworkNumberEnd 192.168.0.20
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.nat NAT -dict-add SharingNetworkMask 255.255.255.0

Open System Prefs > Network
Select what is to be your shared port & set as follows

Configure IPv4: Manually
IP Address: 192.168.0.1
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Router: 192.168.0.1
Then in Advanced... > DNS add the same Router Address as DNS server, in this case 192.168.0.1

OK, Apply.
Switch on Internet Sharing

Test your Bridge address in Terminal with ifconfig -a  & check the line inet 192.168.0.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.0.255 is what you expected.

Info worked from Mac OS Hints: Change the default subnet for Internet Sharing


Devices folder in Finder? Is there anyway that I can view the /dev folder with its contained pseudo-files inside of Finder? I can access it just fine in the terminal with cd /dev, but in Finder it doesn't show up even with AppleShowAllFiles active.

No, just had a fiddle and it appears there is no way to do that.

Neither of these work:

In terminal:

open .

will open the current directory in Finder.

Unhiding it with:

sudo chflags nohidden dirname

Does not work either. (Error --> chflags: dev/: Operation not supported)


App for printing to Samba printers via iOS document sharing I am Looping for an iOS app supporting "document sharing" which would allow me to print to a Samba printer.

Use case:

open a document (e.g., a PDF) with the app (via the iOS document sharing/document picker functionality, see note below)
print to a Samba printer (with authentication).

An example:

open the Dropbox App
choose a PDF and click on the share button
in the list of apps able to open a PDF there should be (among others) the printing app
the printing app should then send it to a Samba shared printer

Does such an application exist?

I am looking for an iOS app able to print on an existing infrastructure, not to build an infrastructure to share a printer via AirPrint.

Note: Document sharing is a feature since iOS 8 which allows application to provide documents to other apps via document picker. You can for example open Word file in the Dropbox App using the Microsoft word App

Note 2: I am not looking for a specific app for a single printer/model but a generic one supporting a Samba printer with a PS or PCL gener

Printers

I work at a school and we have a printing solution in place for iOS.  However, there is no way to print from an iOS device directly to a shared printer without a middle step unless the printer has built in support for AirPrint.

The printers at our school do not support AirPrint, so the solution that we have is as follows:

Printers are installed on the network (Existing Infrastructure)
iOS Devices would like to use the printers
Install desired printers to be used by iOS devices on a Mac and share the printers
Have an intermediate software to publish the printers, there is many out there but we use Papercut
Printers are now advertised in a Bonjour fashion
iOS devices can see the printers and print to them

The is just a general overview of how it work at my school, but the idea would be similar everywhere.

Document Sharing

The easiest way that I have found to share document on your network to iOS devices is via WebDav.  It is basically file sharing over HTTP.  You'll need some sort of Web Server to host the files and then setup a WebDav share.

Types of Web Servers could be as simple as a basic user level NAS that supports HTTP sharing (WebDav) or as complicated as having a Web Server that hosts Virtual Directories to network shares.

Once you have a WebDav server setup, the app I recommend is WebDav Navigator.  From this app you'll be able to see all the files on your Web Server that you have shared.  You can add authentication and permissions to fit your needs.

Put it all together

Once you have Printing and WebDav setup you can easily print documents from a network location, you may need a few additional apps on your iOS device. Here are some examples:

Print a PDF

Locate the PDF file in WebDav Navigator on your share.  Open the file, you may need to open with the Adobe Reader app, or another PDF reading app.  Print the PDF to your desired printer.

Print a Pages, Number, or Keynote

These 3 apps all have built in support for WebDav. Each app is much the same, so from the app itself - to save a file on WebDav Click on the share button --> Send a copy --> Choose file format --> Choose WebDav from the list --> Save it on your share

To get a Pages, Numbers, or Keynote file WebDav.  Go to the page where you can see all your Documents and Click the Plus button in the top left corner. You should see Copy From WebDav.  If you don't see it, click on the More button and you'll find it there.

Once you have the file in Pages, Numbers or Keynote, you will be able to print directly from the app to your desired printer.

Hope this helps

EDIT

Some more info about Papercut

First of all have a really good ready through the iOS setup from Papercut. It goes through step by step how to get Papercut to work on iOS devices.  The article is very good.

Papercut doesn't have an iOS app (However at our school we call it the Printing App).  It simply installs a Web Clip that links to the Papercut server.  Basically a similar site to their Web Print but shows each user their Printing Queues and print jobs that are waiting to be released etc.  Users have to be logged into this site before they will be able to print.

We also have multiple network zones.  Our are separated by vlans and you are right bonjour will not work across network zones.  The work around for up was to buy USB to Ethernet adapters / thunderbolt to Ethernet adapters and plug them into our Mac Mini. I have 5 networks on the Mac Mini all up and it works great for everyone.  As you can see this will quickly be a limitation if you have more than 6 network zones (4 USB slots, 1 thunderbolt, 1 native Ethernet - at least on my Mac Mini).  The next thing to look at would be an mDNS repeater that forwards bonjour traffic across networks.  Avahi is the main one that comes to mind but there is others.

Again, hope this helps


How to use Mission Control with multiple monitors? I'm using a MPBr + Yosemite with 2x 27" monitors.

I also use parallels with Win8 for development.

I'm hoping to have 2x 'spaces'. (I'm not sure if that's the best way to describe this). Each space uses BOTH monitors.

1st space (space_1) is my OSX space. This is where I will do my email/slack/chrome.
2nd space (space_2) is Parallels in full screen mode, which will extend over both monitors.

My outcome is this:

When i click on the chrome or email or slack icon in my dock, BOTH monitors display the content of space_1. (eg. email/slack/chrome windows).
When I click on the windows application in my dock, everything in space_1 disappears away .. and suddenly my windows environment takes over BOTH monitors ... and this is what I call space_2.

I'm trying to do this with Mission Control but it's not working right. When i click on a mac app or a windows app (in the dock) only one of the two monitors changes .. not both :(

It's very frustrating.

Is this possible? Can what I'm asking, be done?

Help me AskDifferent, you're my only hope.

Why not use one "space" and place the parallels apps on monitor 2 and mac apps on monitor 1?

Spaces is like completely new environment of all monitors attached and can't be used in different way.

Maybe this question is a bit old and it's available since Yosemite and El Capitan.


How to delete all NSLog's & comments from my Xcode application? Is there anyway to delete the NSLog lines from the app by any trick/tool? I usually use NSLog's in each & every method to understand the flow of control & to know about the values of the app's variables. I also use lots of commend lines to explain the nature of methods and variables.

But, in some stage, these NSLog's & comment lines confusing the program understanding (It's to me). So I need to again & again deleting/creating this logs & comments. Is there a way to show/hide them by any trick in Xcode?

Thanks in advance

as a Dev, I can offer these two methods, although I agree with Daniel, that Stack Overflow is a better place to ask this.

Anyway, the first is a simple replace.

Shift-Option-f. Then type NSLog. That will find all the occurances of NSLog in your app.

Then switch find to replace. Then replace "NSLog" with "//NSLog". That will comment out all of them.

A second - better option takes a bit more work.

First, do the above but instead of replacing the string with "//NSLog", replace it with something like "DLog".

Then, in the prefix.pch file.. Write something like this:

#ifdef DEBUG
#    define DLog(...) NSLog(__VA_ARGS__)
#else
#    define DLog(...)
#endif
#define ALog(...) NSLog(__VA_ARGS__)

This way, while your app is in debug mode, all the logs will appear, but when you move your app to release mode, the logs are hidden.

Hope this helps.


Does Macbook Pro have a hardware or software issue? (Constantly Stuck on White Screen) My Macbook Pro Late 2011 (running on Sierra) has suddenly started having the white screen problem and I've tried the following:

NVRAM, PRAM and SMC reset (could not get past loading bar after
entering my user password)
Running in Safe Mode (could not get past loading bar after entering
my user password)
Running in Single-User Mode (fsck shows no problem with the SSD
drive, got white screen after "exit" command)
Running in Verbose Mode (got white screen after I was in verbose mode
or got white screen after "exit" command)
Running in Target Disk Mode (connected with a thunderbolt cable, I
was able to login to my account on the second Macbook by choosing the
main Macbook's SSD from boot selection menu at the
startup on the second Macbook. I copied everything on my main SSD to
an external HDD, so erasing the drive would not be a problem. However, the
second time I've tried this, I could not get past the loading bar after
entering my user password - just like I couldn't on the main Macbook)
Running in Target Disk Mode (this time as an external drive, on the second Macbook I got
the error "macOS could not fix this hard drive, you can still access
files but reformat it asap". So, I thought the SSD on the main Macbook has a problem and
it was causing this problem!)

After this, I've erased the main SSD and tried to install a fresh macOS Sierra into the empty SSD. However, I got a white screen in the middle of the installation! (side note; I was installing from a bootable external HDD via USB).

After many tries and fails, somehow I was able to come to the final stages of installation (where you create a user name, password etc.). I entered the information and hit finish, then the computer just froze (the cursor and everything). I could not finish the installation on the main Macbook.

-Bear with me here-

I was not ready to give up, so I put the main Macbook into Target Disk Mode and I finished the installation on the second Macbook. Logged in, could see my fresh desktop.

I hoped it would work just as fine on the main Macbook, but now I cannot even see the user login screen. The only thing I can see is the Apple logo and the progress bar that never finishes loading (because it gets interrupted with a white screen, it fills 3/4 approximately).

So my question folks, does my Macbook Pro Late 2011 have a hardware or software issue? If it is hardware, what could it be? Keep in mind that I do not have anything plugged in or changed any hardware recently.

Thanks for reading, hoping for an answer.

Cheers & stay safe!

UPDATE: I've installed a fresh macos Sierra to an external HDD and plugged it in my main Macbook Pro, selected that drive using Option key and I still can't get past the loading bar with Apple logo (get white screen).

You've tried replacing all the software and the issue still persists, so it sounds like a hardware issue.

RAM is the easiest hardware to test, so I'd suggest running memtest86+ on your Mac for a while to see if it picks up any problems.


How can I disable shift + control + scroll zoom in chrome? I use ⌃ ctrl + ⇧ shift + ⇥ tab to move between tabs in Chrome, but if I scroll with the touchpad it'll zoom the page. This happens quite a lot and it's frustrating. Is there some way I can disable the ⌃ ctrl + ⇧ shift + scroll shortcut?

This is what happens:

If I might say so, why are you using the 3 keys to switch between the tabs.

In Chrome it is enough if you use two keys to switch tabs.

control + tab

If however you prefer to modify the the Chrome shortcuts, visit this website

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/shortcut-manager/mgjjeipcdnnjhgodgjpfkffcejoljijf


Hide a Fluid app toolbar using applescript I've been trying to hide the toolbar from a Fluid app application using applescript, but it doesn't seems to be working at all. I've also tried on Safari (fluid apps are built on top of safari web engine).
I'm able to "click" on every menu item, but not on that one. The script seems to be finding the menu item there, as I tried to run another piece of code inside that conditional in specific.

So this is what i've been doing:

tell application "System Events"
    tell process "Test App"
        if menu item "Hide Status Bar" of menu "View" of menu bar 1 exists then
            click menu item "Hide Status Bar" of menu "View" of menu bar 1
        end if
        if menu item "Hide Bookmark Bar" of menu "View" of menu bar 1 exists then
            click menu item "Hide Bookmark Bar" of menu "View" of menu bar 1
        end if
        if menu item "Hide Tab Bar" of menu "View" of menu bar 1 exists then
            click menu item "Hide Tab Bar" of menu "View" of menu bar 1
        end if
        if menu item "Hide Toolbar" of menu "View" of menu bar 1 exists then
            click menu item "Hide Toolbar" of menu "View" of menu bar 1
        end if
    end tell
end tell

I'm not quite experienced on AppleScript by the way, so if I'm doing something wrong, please, correct me =]

Thanks in advance.

It the target app does not have focus then there is no menu item to click of its process.

Add tell application "Test App" to activate before trying to click a menu item.

tell application "Test App" to activate
tell application "System Events"
    tell process "Test App"
        if menu item "Hide Status Bar" of menu "View" of menu bar 1 exists then
            click menu item "Hide Status Bar" of menu "View" of menu bar 1
        end if
        if menu item "Hide Bookmark Bar" of menu "View" of menu bar 1 exists then
            click menu item "Hide Bookmark Bar" of menu "View" of menu bar 1
        end if
        if menu item "Hide Tab Bar" of menu "View" of menu bar 1 exists then
            click menu item "Hide Tab Bar" of menu "View" of menu bar 1
        end if
        if menu item "Hide Toolbar" of menu "View" of menu bar 1 exists then
            click menu item "Hide Toolbar" of menu "View" of menu bar 1
        end if
    end tell
end tell

Also note if there are any timing issues you may have to add a delay command after the activate command, e.g.: delay 1


Mac App Store: Downloads just don't start (Mojave) I want to download apps in the Mac App Store and the apps won't start to download. As you can see in the pictures below, the spinner starts spinning but nothing gets downloaded, the download simply doesn't start. I am logged in with my account. I tried logging out of the App Store and logging in again, restarting the Mac etc, nothing helped.

This is a relatively fresh installation of Mojave 10.14. Before with High Sierra 10.13 everything worked fine. It's a Late 2013 MacBook Pro 13". Installations are allowed from App Store and identified developers.

Some screenshots from Console output below.

I believe there can be multiple reasons for this behavior and various solutions. Too bad that app store simply does not give any indication of what is wrong with it.
The problem happened to me too. Nothing from this topic helped me, including restarting the App Store, logging in and out of the App Store, doing the above after opening a new connection with a VPN, much closer to California (I'm in Europe).
The only thing that worked is going to Activity Monitor and force-killing appstoreagent process. The app started to download at once. After force-killing appstoreagent, there was no need to log out and log in again in the App Store. Updates and downloads just work again.


How can I configure OS X Mavericks to use a UK PC keyboard layout? I'm using a non-mac USB UK keyboard with Mavericks.  Because Apple's idea of a UK keyboard is different to a non-apple UK keyboard, some symbols are wrong, e.g. " and @ are swapped.

How can I get set my keyboard layout to match a non-mac UK keyboard?

If the British PC layout from apple is not right, some alternatives can be found at

http://liyang.hu/osx-british.xhtml


Desktop image is not showing in Mountain Lion with dual monitor I have a MBA connecting via HDMI to Samsung Monitor.
Problem is desktop background for Samsung monitor is not showing. There is only grey desktop and doesn't have any changes even I try to change the image of the desktop at System Preferences.
Changes for the MBA desktop is ok.
Is that a mountain lion bug?

Restarting the Dock seems to work for me, however I don't know what is causing this grey desktop background.

To restart the Dock, type this into Terminal and press enter:

killall Dock


Is it possible to stream music TO an iPod touch via bluetooth? Say you have the iPod connected to a dock to your home stereo.  Is it possible to pair another bluetooth enabled device with it and stream music to the iPod?

In effect making the iPod like those Bluetooth adapters out there that add Bluetooth capability to the iPod dock.

If you are sending audio from a Mac or PC this is very doable using the Rogue Amoeba product AirFoil:

http://www.rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/speakers.php

It doesn't go over bluetooth, but WiFi similar to AirPlay - but it might be the closest you can get without jailbreaking iOS. I don't know of a specific jailbreak mod, but it's not something iOS/OS X does natively.

You might also be in the situation of these other users:

iPhone as 'headphones' for computer
Connect iphone to multiple output devices to play music

For sending bluetooth audio to a home receiver, I'd spend the money for a dedicated device like Belkin's as it remembers up to 6 paired devices and uses wall power. It's quite tiny even though the image below is large.

http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-Stream-Bluetooth-Music-Receiver/dp/B00IL7BWGA/


Remove blur "effect" in Preview when changing pages I have been using Preview for reading lecture notes and slides (compiled using Beamer and edited in Xournal). Now, whenever I go to the next slide, I see a blurred version first which seems to be a cached image of the slide (nowhere near vector graphics) and then the page renders to smooth and clear text. I am using a 2018 MacBook Pro so I am assuming that hardware is not a bottleneck here.

Is preview designed to behave in this way? Can this behaviour be changed?

Clarification: I am not referring to the transition animation when changing pages using the trackpad. I change pages using the keyboard and the blurring looks like an actual rendering delay.

In short: Preview cannot be changed. The problem is not one at the application level, but in the way that MacOS's Quartz engines renders images. For some reason, the OS 'sharpens the focus' of the image over half a second or so.

It may be possible to change the parameters of such animated effects for a given application, but it will only be possible in Preview if Apple's developers have included a mechanism to do so within the app. None is documented and it seems unlikely that Apple would go to such trouble.

If you don't like the effect, then leave Feedback for Apple. You may prefer to use another viewing app, but it will have to use different image rendering libraries from those present in MacOS.

(Apropos of nothing, I'm currently writing a replacement app to make up for Preview's shortcomings, and I haven't found any method of changing this animation. Yet.)


Microphone has about one minute dictation limit on iPad Air 2 My iPad microphone cuts out after about one minute of dictation. I've tried using Google and Word but the same limitations apply. Does anybody have a solution?

I just tried it on my iPhone and I didn't get the dictation longer than one minute to work either. I don't know if it's a bug or a "feature", but I would assume it is limited by iOS.


software to create timeline from excel data for mac I'm looking for a free or cheap product to create a timeline from an upload of an excel file, simple data (year and description). Any thoughts?

BEEDOCS Easy Timeline or Timeline 3D

Both of BEEDOCS timeline creation software for Mac will let you import a tab-delimited file (which you could export your Excel file as) into a 2D or 3D timeline.

You can also include photos, audio, or movies in your events, as well as web links and 3D motion graphics.

Aeon Timeline

You can also create timelines from data using Aeon Timeline:


What's wrong with HDMI? I have seen comments in various posts here to the effect that HDMI is to be avoided.
Can anyone explain what the problem is with HDMI, and why it's a bad thing?
More specifically, I have a 2nd monitor with three inputs: HDMI, DVI, and VGA. I'm currently using the HDMI port, connecting directly with the HDMI port on my Mac mini.
Is there any reason why I should use some sort of adaptor from one of the Thunderbolt ports to the DVI instead?

HDMI is an AV (Audio/Visual) interface that is designed for consumer devices.  DisplayPort is focused on the computer industry.  As such, one functions better in a compute environment than the other.
Founders and Industry Adopters/Supporters
HDMI:

The HDMI founders were Hitachi, Panasonic, Philips, Silicon Image, Sony, Thomson, RCA, and Toshiba. Digital Content Protection, LLC provides HDCP (which was developed by Intel) for HDMI. HDMI has the support of motion picture producers Fox, Universal, Warner Bros. and Disney, along with system operators DirecTV, EchoStar (Dish Network) and CableLabs.

DisplayPort:

DisplayPort (DP) is a digital display interface developed by a consortium of PC and chip manufacturers and standardized by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA). The interface is primarily used to connect a video source to a display device such as a computer monitor, and it can also carry audio, USB, and other forms of data.

One was developed by consumer electroncs manufacters and supported by movie and television studios as well as cable service providers.  The other was developed by PC and chip manufacturers with standardization provided for by the long standing VESA.
This is further reiterated by PC World article from 2019: HDMI vs. DisplayPort: Which display interface reigns supreme?

Though you’ll find it [DisplayPort] alongside HDMI on most late-model, high-end video cards, as well as in Macs and laptops marketed to business users, it rarely appears in Windows PCs aimed at consumers. It’s also rare as hen’s teeth in consumer electronics devices.

Empahsis mine
Your Mac
Your Mac has been using DisplayPort whether it was the native mDP (mini DisplayPort), the Thunderbolt (1, 2 or 3) port or the USB-C port in Alternate Mode.  Only a few Mac computes had native HDMI ports (i.e. Mac mini).
So, going from native DP to DP is going to be the most reliable connection.  There's no conversion.  No conversion = higher reliability.
Converting the Signals
The signaling of HDMI and DisplayPort are very different.  It's not just re-aranging the pin outs of the display signals, the voltages and the presence/absence of a clock sync all contribute to the reliability of the signal.

DisplayPort was designed to replace VGA, Digital Visual Interface (DVI), and FPD-Link. The interface is backward compatible with other interfaces, such as HDMI and DVI, through the use of either active or passive adapters.

Yes, you can convert a DisplayPort signal to HDMI, but I don't recommend it.  Again, no conversion is better, but if you must use HDMI, use an active adapter because it recreates the actual HDMI signal including the clock signal.  A passive adapter cannot do this.

My Opinion on HDMI
Personally, I find HDMI very flaky especially when it comes to audio.  On every single HDMI interface (non-computer) in my house, regardless of how new or old the equipment is, audio will drop out.  The fix is to switch to another input and switch back.  Apparently, it gets out of sync and the switching of inputs "re-syncs" it.
From a computer perspective, in the office, we've had mixed results.  Some computer to HDMI connections work flawlessly.  Others only get a blank or blue screen.  I resolved it by getting active adapters.
However, my greatest experience came when trying to convert a MacBook with a broken LCD (re-purposing a student computer) for a digital signage project.  The 55" Television only had HDMI and I simply couldn't get the MacBook to talk to the TV properly.  I had to get a PC with a video card with HDMI to make it work and at least twice a week, I had to reboot it because the signal became corrupt.  However, the Mac that I had attached to the Dell monitor via DisplayPort ran for months without issue - the only reboots came when we had to apply updates or change the content.


Could I install my OSX system into and boot from the external hard drive I have a model of Retina MBP late 2013, my internal hard drive is failing and I do not want to by an ssd replacement...(quite expensive!).
I have a Sumsung MZ-750250B with a hard drive enclosure and with usb3.0 connection cable. Now could I install the OSX system into this hard drive and boot from it every time? And whether the reading and writing is fast enough?

Thank you.

Yes, this is possible. For full details refer to How to set up and use an external Mac startup disk. If you have any problems, feel free to come back here and search for an answer (or ask another question if you can't find a solution).

In terms of your Samsung MZ-750250B, if you actually meant a Samsung MZ-750250GB then this is actually a SSD and supports a sequential read speed of up to 540 MB/s and a sequential write speed of up to 520 MB/s. I think you'll find this is more than enough for everyday use.


I want to make an Apple ID, but someone has already used my email to create their own. How do I kick them out completely? Since this person has used my email as their login, I was able to reset the password since it was listed as the primary email.

Unfortunately this person has set their own security questions and rescue email, and there doesn't seem to be a way to reset them using the primary email account.  This account seems otherwise empty, there are no devices, no data.

How do I stop this person from using my email address as their Apple ID?

You'd have to try negotiate that one with Apple.

I had the same issue with an Amazon account & the only way I persuaded them was by actually being the only one who could reply to mail sent to that email address.

[BTW, it's still not easy as their first assumption would be that you hijacked/phished someone else's email account.]

After comments, moving more info into this answer...

The way I did it was to ask them to send a specific message, that only the receiver of the email could reply to.
The possible responses could come from me, him, or possibly both of us.
In fact, as the other user was never going to receive that mail, the response only came from me.

Because I'd already been receiving emails intended for him, I could also provide details of the contents of those, too, including a list of his recent purchases.

Amazon [& me, because of the incorrect email address] already had his snail mail address, so presumably they could sort out a new, correct, email address with him using that method - or put a big banner on his account saying 'get in touch'.
I don't know how they did sort it out because, of course, I couldn't get into his Amazon account, I was just getting his Amazon email.


ssh command crashes after key exchange Had this strange issue crop up today that I haven't experienced before. I execute ssh <remote ip> and ssh crashes with the following exception:

dyld: lazy symbol binding failed: Symbol not found: _timingsafe_bcmp
  Referenced from: /usr/local/bin/ssh
  Expected in: /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib

dyld: Symbol not found: _timingsafe_bcmp
  Referenced from: /usr/local/bin/ssh
  Expected in: /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib

Abort trap: 6

I have run the command with the verbose flag and can see this is happening directly after the key exchange between the local machine and remote host.

Things I have tried:

Restarting terminal
Restarting machine
Removing all ssh programs in /usr/bin and replacing them with those of a colleagues mac
Booting to recovery mode and replacing libSystem.B.dylib with the one that ships with macOS
Installing openssh with homebrew
Removing openssh
Adding a PATH to /usr/bin

Note the same error appears on other commands such as scp.

Assuming that you're (probably) using homebrew's ssh, I found this reported bug in the openssh formula, which apparently can be fixed by upgrading macOS to 10.12.3:

  Right, that symbol wasn't in 10.12.0, […]
  You can fix it by building from source or by upgrading to 10.12.3.


What solutions are available for using iPad as an extended desktop? Occasionally, I would like to use my iPad (3rd gen, iOS7) as a second screen (an extension, NOT a mirror) for my Macbook Pro (Mountain Lion).

Is this possible without paying for an app in iOS7? Does Mavericks or iOS7 include any new related functionality? I am aware that there have been improvements for second displays in Mavericks.

See also: How to use the new iPad (3rd gen) as a second screen? and Is it possible to use an iPad as an additional computer monitor?

You will need an app to get this working properly, the nice new features in Mavericks are still essentially limited to traditionally connected displays via cables (DisplayPort/HDMI/Thunderbolt), rather than wireless connections.  There are many you can try, but my (unaffiliated merely personal preference) recommendation is Air Display.

Note that because the 2nd screen will be transferred over Wifi, you need to ensure that the iPad has a solid connection to the same LAN as your main Mac - being close to your Mac might be no good if they are both a distance away from the router...  As such, any usage of the iPad 2nd screen that requires fast refresh of window contents might not perform in any way like a proper monitor would, but it should be great for normal non video/gaming OS X apps.


remote "desktop mouse" with Magic trackpad emulator for iPad or Mac Book I would like to control my desktop Mac with a Magic trackpad or Magic mouse "emulation".

I have an iPad and an Macbook Air too. So my questions are:

There are some iPad App to emulate a Magic Trackpad to control my desktop Mac?
There's any way to connect my Air trackpad to the desktop Mac?
Any idea to make it possible maybe with Apple Remote Desktop or any other tool?

Thanks

EDIT: I just found this one, looks very good!
http://www.bttremote.com

Software KVM
You might want to take a look at these two additional packages - they don't support iPad but will allow you to use your Air in conjunction with your desktop.

Synergy Which used to be free - and can still be downloaded for free if you pull a nightly build

ShareMouse which costs maybe $50 or so

Both are virtual KVM software that allow multiple computers to share a single (or multiple) keyboard mice
ShareMouse is the more advanced software and it will let you use the Mouse/Keyboard from all connected computers - as well as it supports dragging a file from one computer to another.  Its probably the one I'd recommend as I have used both at work where I have a single keyboard/mouse I use for both a windows & mac machine
Synergy is less advanced but costs less money and also will run over UDP & TCP which allows you to tunnel it though networks
Synergy can also be obtained for free if you want NO support by getting the nightly build at:  https://synergy-project.org/nightly
These programs will also allow you to MIX operating system so you can share 1 mouse/keyboard between a Windows Desktop and a Mac Laptop for instance.
Summary

ShareMouse - Costs more but is easier to use and more advanced
Synergy - Costs less / free - harder to setup and limited to 1 "control" keyboard/mouse


How can I prepare for Apple WWDC 2018 event live broadcast and rebroadcast? I expect I will not be able to view the livestream of the WWDC main public keynote event.

Has Apple announced any plans for non-attendee viewing of WWDC keynote and events?

To prepare for 2018 WWDC I would recommend three things:

AppleTV and updating it now for the Live Stream and Rebroadcast of the main presentation in the morning and afternoon of the first day. These keynote events are highly viewed and usually available for on-demand viewing and professionally produced.
WWDC app on the App Store is also very good if you are a registered developer as you can watch many of the sessions live and should expect to be able to rebroadcast.
Safari web browser is the third best option - in past years -there were not any sort of YouTube or third party browsers.

As to why these three avenues were selected last year is that the sessions under developer NDA require authentication with an AppleID. Also, on a technical level - the streaming used the latest QuickTime codecs for presumable efficiency, quality. Also, there would be marketing synergies of potential value to Apple by using their own technology for a high stakes  / high pressure / high expectations and in demand public event.

Hopefully this helps people prepare for the 2018 remote viewing of the sessions at this year's developer conference.

—-

As a postscript - the WWDC app is showing the live stream on rebroadcast within hours of the main event completing.


MS Word for Mac: How to make all equations aligned to the left of the document and NON italic by default I am writing a doc with thousands of equations. Every time I create a new equation it is centered horizontally on the document and the Cambria Math font is italic.

How do I make by default all new equations non italic and centered to the left.

I am using MS Word 16.17 for macOS.

On the menubar,you can find Format - Equation options.
There are a lot of options to adjust, but there is no italic option.

If you equations are similar or  have something in common.
You can make a template with non italic and centered to the left(e.g just a =).
Then save it as a new equation,you can insert your template each time.


Computer or iPhone glitch My computer recognizes my iPhone 5 but not my iPhone 4 and yet both are recognized by iTunes.

I've tried all the received suggestions: restarting the computer and iPhone 4, changing the USB cable, changing ports- but to no avail.

Your iPhone 4 needs to generate a pairing record and trust the computer.

First go through each of the steps. Don't skip steps and do them in order.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204095

If you don't see this message when you try to sync the phone over USB with iTunes, then you can remove all pairing records as follows:

Back up iPhone 4 (to the cloud or a computer)
Erase iPhone 4 (settings -> erase all content and settings)
Restore the backup to iPhone 4
Connect iPhone 4 to the computer over USB and be sure you Trust when prompted on the iPhone.

If the above doesn't work, then restore the phone and repeat the third and further steps above.


How to unlink iPhone 5s from former staff member's Apple ID? Former staff member left iPhone 5s which is linked to his Apple ID. Sign in to iCloud pops up all the time.  Find My Phone feature was on. I've asked him to remove this phone from Find My Phone which he did. Here is instructions how he did it https://support.apple.com/kb/ph2702?locale=en_US

Now, although he removed iphone from his iCloud account, the phone still asks to sign in to his iCloud. I cannot reset it, erase the data and anything else.

So the question is does removing iPhone from "Find my Phone" remotely (online) logs off from iCloud?
How can I sign of from his iCloud and reset the phone? Erase it?

Thank you.

Did you try restoring the phone using recovery mode?
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201263

That should update the settings when it try and reactivate that its been removed from the former apple id.


Is it possible to use custom fonts in Mobile Safari? I need to install a font in iPad2, and Safari must be able to use it. Is it possible?

Solution:

I'm developing a iPad2 app using a web wrapper (PhoneGap) and a JS framework (Sencha Touch 2). I need to use custom fonts, for that I need to convert my TTF file (http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fontface/generator) and link the stylesheet.

No, you cannot install fonts on any iOS device without jail breaking or by creating an app.

But Safari can itself display fonts placed on a server with appropriate html code in the page.


iTunes 11.2.2 moves song to top after editing When I've finished editing a song attribute (like the title) and hit enter, iTunes moves this song to the top of the browser. It's very jarring and bad for editing a bunch of files in succession. It also occurs if you click outside of the edit box, so it's not specific to pressing enter.

I realize that I can avoid this by bringing up the Info pane for each song and then clicking "next"/"previous" instead, but this is a hassle and it would be great if iTunes did not move the library after editing.

Does anyone know of a fix/hack for this problem? I don't remember it happening in the past, though I don't edit lots of song titles all that often, so it's possible I just never noticed.

Right click on the iTunes Coulomb headers.

That brigs up the long list of choices.

Un-check the Date Modified and Added.

Click on Name coulomb and sort alphabetically.

Now after editing it should stay put.


How to configure MacOS firewall to block outgoing IP ranges? Recently I was watching a Gizmodo journalist's videos about her experiment with blocking outgoing connections to Google, FB, Microsoft and Apple. I wonder if it is possible to modify MacOS's built in firewall to block IP ranges that I specify, like all known FB ranges, coinhive etc.?

I used to configure ipfw but this seems to have gone away. I'm running Mojave.

I do not want to run any closed-source program like Little Snitch to accomplish this. I just want to configure Apple's firewall if possible.

It's not that complex with use of Pf firewall that's been ported from OpenBSD to MacOS quite a while ago. The whole ruleset could be as simple as:

#
# Block outgoing connections to IP ranges given in a table
#

# A persistent table to keep a list of IP networks for blocking
table <toBlockOut> persist { 0.1.2.3/32 }

# local TCP/IP is always allowed
pass quick on lo0

# Attempts to send packets to IP networks kept in the table
# should never work
block out quick to <toBlockOut> no state

After you've saved that minimal ruleset into say pf-block-out.conf file, you can apply it with sudo pfctl -ef pf-block-out.conf — from Terminal. Similarly you can add or remove entries to the table w/o need to re-load the ruleset:

$ sudo pfctl -t toBlockOut -T show
   0.1.2.3
$ sudo pfctl -t toBlockOut -T del 0.1.2.3
1/1 addresses deleted.


Always show mobile version in safari OS X I do not know where to public my question and in fact i hope that it is the right place :)

I really like mobile version of one web site, but at the same time i hate full version of it. Is it possible to make redirect in safari on my OS X? Possible do you know some extensions, tips and etc.

I checked ip adresses of that two version and they are the same. So i cannot just edit the hosts file.. Hope you know a solution. Thank you.

You have to enable the Develop menu of Safari, then you can choose your user agent.


Downgrade from El Capitan to Mavericks I upgraded my MacBook Air early 2014 to El Capitan from Yosemite.
I'm encountering random lags , especially while app switching.

Is downgrading to OS X Mavericks possible ? (My MBA came preinstalled with Mavericks)

If your Mac originally came with OS X Mavericks installed and you do not have a separate USB Installer for OS X Mavericks or never downloaded a complete OS X Mavericks Installer from the App Store, from which you can create a USB OS X Mavericks Installer, then you'd have to wipe the HDD/SSD  so the Recovery HD was not there and then start the Mac using OS X Internet Recovery (Command-R). Without the aforementioned USB Installer then OS X Internet Recovery is the only way to get what originally shipped on your Mac back.

Note: If in the past you had downloaded the full Installer for OS X Mavericks from the App Store but no longer have it you can still download it again from the App Store under Purchased and then create a USB Installer from it.

Be sure you are properly backed up before proceeding to reinstall, by whatever means.


Use OSX Mail from Panther (10.3) with iCloud email address I'd like to use OSX Mail from Panther (10.3) with an iCloud email address. When I punch in the valid iCloud account info and server ids, both smtp.mail.me.com and imap.mail.me.com servers fail to connect.
I saw a reference to app-specific passwords some Apple docs, but I couldn't get that to work.
What am I missing?
Thanks!

In 2018, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla deprecated TLS 1.0 and 1.1 effective March of 2020. TLS 1.2 was created in 2008, and thus postdates Panther.
Unfortunately, this seems to imply that Mac OS X Mail in Panther does not support the security protocols currently required to access iCloud mail servers, or any other modern web server requiring a secure connection.


How to create a bootable Ubuntu USB stick using OS X 10.10.2 I have downloaded the ubuntu-14.04.2-desktop-amd64.iso. How do I create a bootable Ubuntu USB stick using my Macbook Air which is running OS X 10.10.2? I cannot create a bootable CD, since the Air is designed without the optical drive.

Follow these steps to create an .img file from the .iso file you have, and then copy to the USB stick. This will also change the filesystem that is on the USB to make it bootable.

Open the Terminal Application.
Type command to convert the .iso file to .img using the convert option.

hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o /path/to/target.img /path/to/ubuntu.iso
Insert your flash media.
Type command to determine the device node assigned to your flash media (e.g. /dev/disk2).

diskutil list
Type command to unmount the flash (replace N with the disk number from the last command; in the previous example, N would be 2).

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskN
Type DD command (replace /path/to/downloaded.img with the path where the image file is located; for example, ./ubuntu.img). Prepend the device path with "r" for the raw path which is much faster than without the "r".

sudo dd if=/path/to/downloaded.img of=/dev/rdiskN bs=1m

Note: your file might also be called downloaded.img.dmg. That's okay.
Type command to eject the flash drive.

diskutil eject /dev/diskN
Restart your Mac and press alt/option key while the Mac is restarting to choose the USB stick as the boot disk.


Battery or power adapter problem? I have a problem charging my battery.

When I plug my power adapter into my MacBook Pro, the power adapter's light turns green (it doesn't change to orange) and my monitor light turns on (which means the laptop is getting power from the adapter)—but the battery wouldn't charge.

However, when I use my friend's power adapter, my battery does charge.

Is there a problem with my power adapter or something else?

PS: when I use my friend's magsafe it
  charges my MacBook Pro.

Sorry if this is too obvious, but if your friend's magsafe charger indeed charges the battery without any problems, then it certainly seems like the problem is in your charger. (Somewhere in it; the cord, magsafe adapter, or some other part.)


Missing File in Download stack I have a file that shows up in my 'Downloads' stack with the filename nMEMp5Qv.exe.part.

However, when I open Finder, the file is not in the Downloads folder.

Also, I can't delete the file from the Stack as you normally can...?

Any ideas/thoughts?

1 . Delete the stack from your dock and drag the download folder again into the dock and try
Download stack ? Check you download history -
sqlite3 ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.QuarantineEventsV* 'select LSQuarantineDataURLString from LSQuarantineEvent'


Changing Finder's Font Size - Lion I open My Documents in finder.  Click CMD-J and change the font size to 10.  I choose set as default.  The font size looks right on My Documents.

Then I navigate to Applications, and the font size is 12.

Is there a way I can change my font size on all folders?

Thanks!

You have to delete the .DS_Store files in each folder.

How to do that? Via Onyx. You can also unhide all invisible files (.DS_Store files are invisible) and delete them one by one.

After that, you can "set default" in the root folder and it should be in all the folders below

  / -> /Applications
        / -> /Documents etc.


Failed to launch iTerm2 Possible Duplicate:
  iTerm2 terminals close immediately with “argpath=login error=No such file or directory”

iTerm2 is immediately closed after launch with the error:

"argpath=login error=No such file or directory"

If I switch from login to command (with bash -l) I'm getting the following error:

"argpath=bash error=No such file or directory"

I'm running OSX Lion.

How this can be fixed?

Looks like there is some problem with reading whatever iTerm2 reads as a login shell.  Try changing the preference in 'Profiles/General' to a specific command (i.e. /bin/bash) and see if that works.

Additionally, does Apple's terminal work?  could you do something like

echo $SHELL
bash

and see if bash actually exists on your machine?  Bash is quite unfussed on what login items you have, so make sure you have a minimal .bash_profile and .bashrc in your $HOME

Give it a try and let's see if we get enough info to help you.