An automated iTunes? So I've wanted this for a really long time but I'm not 100% sure how to do it. I basically want to be able to have iTunes play a radio station when I come home.

I was thinking of being able to have a script run every ten seconds or so to see if my iPhone has joined my wireless network, thereby opening iTunes and playing that radio station. After it starts playing, it kills the script from checking again till 12 hours later. (I'm giving an example of 12 hours since I don't want to be at home already and suddenly have music suddenly starting for no reason).

So where should I start? Am I even starting in the right place? Is there something better than this? I need some help and direction! I feel what I want is relatively simple...  :-/

For a start, you could look at ControlPlane to trigger iTunes when you come home.

from http://www.controlplaneapp.com/about/ :

  ControlPlane allows you to build configuration profiles, contexts in ControlPlane lingo, for your Mac based on where you are or what you are doing.  ControlPlane determines where you are or what you are doing based on a number of available evidence sources and then automatically reconfigures your Mac based on your preferences.  Evidence sources can include your current location, visible WiFi networks, attached USB devices, running applications and more.


Photos imported via webinterface cannot be edited on iOS devices When I import photos via webinterface to iCloud, I cannot edit those images on the iPhone or iPad (both running iOS13). I run into this error. This only happens when these images were uploaded via webinterface. Uploading the exact same files via iPhone (by attaching an SD card to the device) lead to me being able to edit these images also on other devices.

I can confirm that this is not a blanket restriction and I have uploaded some images via iCloud (tested a PC / Windows 10 and macOS Catalina) web app.

I would upload an image that isn’t already in your library as a duplicate as I believe the system is trying to match duplicates.

Once that’s done, you will likely need to wait out whatever processing is stuck on your specific library or engage Apple support since they would need to look server side to investigate why specific images are stuck.

Expect to spend at least 30 minutes on the phone with Apple to collect information and/or try the “FAQ” steps and eventually if there isn’t a workaround or quick fix, you’ll be asked to make a support PIN to engineering or higher tier iCloud support can look at your specific sync data.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202650


PF port forwarding not working I have the following rule in a file in /etc/pf.anchors/

rdr pass on lo0 inet proto {udp,tcp} from any to self port 25 -> 127.0.0.1 port 1025

The intention is to forward all local traffic to port 25 onto port 1025, this is so sent emails can be captured before they are sent for testing email delivery on websites locally.

I then have added rdr-anchor "foo" and load anchor "foo" from "/etc/pf.anchors/foo" into /etc/pf.conf.

When I run pfctl -v -n -f /etc/pf.conf I get the following:

Loading anchor foo from /etc/pf.anchors/foo
rdr pass on lo0 inet proto udp from any to 127.0.0.1 port = 25 -> 127.0.0.1 port 1025
rdr pass on lo0 inet proto udp from any to 10.0.1.3 port = 25 -> 127.0.0.1 port 1025
rdr pass on lo0 inet proto tcp from any to 127.0.0.1 port = 25 -> 127.0.0.1 port 1025
rdr pass on lo0 inet proto tcp from any to 10.0.1.3 port = 25 -> 127.0.0.1 port 1025

So it looks as if it should be working, however if I run an nmap scan on the port it says closed, or if I send a test email with echo "This is the body of a text test-mail" | mail -s "Email test" test@test.com the email is not caught, but also doesn't seem to get sent.

The most strange thing is that I have pretty much the same configuration for pf on my work Mac and the forwarding works fine.

Any ideas would be great as I don't even really know how to debug this issue.

Turns out that I'm special and the issue wasn't with pf at all. The problem was that postfix wasn't started! It'd still be interesting to know a way to test port forwarding though if anybody knows a tool for that.


I selected to send SMS instead of iMessage to a contact once, and it won't switch back, Why? I sent an SMS text instead of using iMessage to a family member when I had bad cell service about a week ago. I have FaceTime-d with them since and even deleted and recreated their contact info, but my iPhone and MacBook still keeps sending SMS texts to this one specific phone number. It is not doing this for anyone else that is sending my family member iMessages, so I know it's on my end.

I've tried logging out of iCloud on my phone and MacBook and turned "Send as SMS" on and off. I have even tried deleting the contact, and re-creating it.

What am I doing wrong?

The easy way to fix this is to look at the contact card. (Assuming the issue is on your side of the sending)

You could temporarily move the phone numbers to the notes section and delete them. Then sending a message has to go via iMessage if their email is registered for iMessage.

If not, just add back their mobile number and initiate an iMessage to them from the address book/contact card view. Tap the chat bubble next to their email or phone to initiate an iMessage transmission.

It's often required to start a new thread if you keep sending to the wrong email/mobile number since Messages wants to hold on to the way the last message was sent and not jump back to iMessage if the other person's AppleID hasn't claimed the mobile number, so keep in mind the problem might be on the other person's account - not your address book or contacts.


Disk unmount failing ; Unable to install Lion OSX. Ends with a kernel panic I have been trying to install Lion OSX but it fails with a kernel panic. I was trying to erase my disk and reinstall Snow Leopard as before, but the disk erase failed with an unmount failure error. Can anyone help?

This could simply be a failed hard drive. Have you tried repartitioning the drive rather than erasing it?


How to switch select between buttons using only keyboard I am trying to keep my fingers on the keyboard as much as possible and would like to be completely mouse-free in some applications, such as Sublime Text.  E.g., I can initiate a file opening or closing using just the keyboard but I do not know how to navigate close or open file dialogs using the keyboard alone.  More specifically, how do I switch between selected buttons?  E.g. tabbing works in other OSs I am familiar with (e.g. Windows and Linux KDE) but here I cannot tab between Save and Cancel buttons when I want to close a file.

Using the tab key between save and cancel buttons works for OS X too. You only have to enable it:

Go to System Preferences
Go To Keyboard
Go to the tab Keyboard Short
On the bottom of the window, set the radio button to "All controls":

From now on, when you see a OK/Cancel window the OK button is blue and can be pressed using the return key, and the cancel button has a outline which can be pressed using the space bar:

But the real trick is: You are now able to press the tab key to move the outline to another button and hit the space bar to press the highlighted button.


What could trigger low *data* mode on a iPhone besides the manual switch? Something is enabling low data mode on wifi on my iPhone(s) from time to time. I usually only notice when I see apps not updating or when I install or want to update an app. It then asks "Are you sure because of xx MB?".
I use (automated) shortcuts in my daily life, but low data mode isn't even an option via shortcuts, only low power mode, which does not trigger low data mode switch inside the wifi profile. My shortcuts do control airplane mode and wifi switch, but I am at loss how any combo's of that could result in low data mode.
Qv1: Does anyone have any idea what could enable wifi low data mode (besides the manual switch inside a wifi profile)?
Additional remarks:

low data mode is also a switch somewhere under mobile data, this question is not about that switch; only the wifi variant.)
low power mode is not active when I encounter this state so the battery icon is green.

Additional remarks added after comments and time:

Wifi profiles are synced accross devices, iPhones and Macs. (Thanks jksoegaard.)
I disabled the checkbox 'Connect automatically...' for most Wifi networks inside the Mac settings because I do not want the Mac connecting to Wifi networks automatically. (It is connected via Cable.)
Due to unclear circumstances I had to uncheck all the checkboxes again, it seemed to have forgotten my preferences.
Later on, I encountered my phone in low data mode again.

The evolved question:
If there is a true causality, I don't know for sure; might be a coincidence. I can only guess on what caused the Mac (wifi) setting's amnesia, so I cannot reproduce it.
Qv2: Could you somehow unintentionally cause low data mode (inside wifi profiles) on your iPhone by changing settings on your Mac related to the same wifi profile?
(Low data mode does not exist on MacOS wifi profile as far as I know.)

In regards to my comment, triggering off low data mode for Wifi.

Wifi Low Data Mode

To turn off WiFi low data mode regarding your Wifi connection, instead of cellular low data mode. This should not interfere when you change your cellular connection to low data mode.

Step 1: Open Settings and go to Wi-Fi.
Step 2: Tap the name of your WiFi network.
Step 3: Enable or Disable Low Data Mode

Suggestions: Update to the latest operating system, as well.

You might also notice that sometimes applications will not be allowed to refresh their data in the background, and FaceTime calls as an example are not the same quality as they normally would be. The same goes for streaming video, as well.

Enable Or Disable Low Data Mode For Celluar

Step 1: Open the Settings app and go to Cellular Data > Cellular Data Options.

Step 2: Enable or Disable Low Data Mode.

Step 3: Might be Celluar Roaming


Connecting multiple screens to the 2016 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar I'm thinking about buying the new MacBook Pro with 4 USB-C ports.

I want to attach two screens, mouse and keyboard and ethernet to the MacBook Pro while using the fewest number of USB-C ports possible.

So what I need is an adaptor with:

two DP or HDMI ports (or one DP port with daisy chaining support)
two or more USB ports
an ethernet port

Best case would be a hub to which all devices are connected with a single connection to the MacBook Pro, including power supply. Worst case if attaching the MacBook Pro to the devices would require me to use all four of USB-C ports.

Given the answers up to far, I can tell that:

Daisy chaining might or might not work with the MacBook Pro (since it requires DP1.2 which is supported by the graphics chipset, but it's uncertain if it's supported by the MacBook Pro itself)
I can attach the monitors with two cables as a last resort, leaving me with two ports for the remaining peripherals.

What I still don't know:

Would daisy chaining work with a hub or does it require the first monitor to be directly attached to the MacBook Pro?
Does some kind of hub exist supporting attachment of all listed devices with a single upstream connection to the MacBook Pro?

We have a brand new Late 2016 Macbook Pro and 2 Apple/LG 21.5 USB-C 4K monitors. Daisy-chaining/MST does not work. We are using the monitors and nothing else with the original cables.
Only way to get it to work is to connect each to individual USB-C ports on the MBP.
Sad but true.


Can the Epson V700 be used with an Airport I have a MacBook Pro, Snow Leopard, and an Epson V700 Scanner.

I'm thinking of buying an Airport Extreme or even better, an Airport Express (cos it's cheap).

Can I use the Epson V700 via the Airport as if it was connected locally via USB?

Apple talks about printers but not dedicated scanner, any ideas...?

cheers!

You cannot scan over the network using the USB port of the airport express. It is only for printing.

Apple does not explicitly say that scanners are not supported, but it is not one of the official uses of the USB hub. I have not heard anyone being successful in this, and AFAIK there are no hacks/third party s/w to do this (like AirFoil for streaming audio).

I personally have tried, in vain. I have a HP all in one, but the Snow Leopard does not recognize the scanner functions. I have to physically connect the scanner for this to work.


Can I use 4G LTE (Cellular Data) and Airplay using Wifi w/ No Internet connection at the same time? I've looked for an answer to this but still haven't found one that works.

I want to use my iPhone as my primary source of internet. I am currently an ATT Uverse DSL customer, but I want to cut the cord and use our current DSL modem/router, the one and only Motorola NVG510 for it's wireless signal only so that my wife and I can airplay from our phones to our Apple TV.

Is it possible to use our Cell Data to stream a video and then airplay that streaming video to our Apple TV at the same time?

*Using the iPhone as a hotspot is not an option.

See my response to this question on the Apple discussions.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5770041?tstart=0

Basically, use a static configuration for your WiFi Network, but leave the Router IP address blank.  The LTE icon will be displayed, and the mobile network used for all non-local traffic (ie, Internet) but you will still be connected to the WiFi network can can use all local LAN resources.

Edit:  I also notice you said use it as your primary Internet connection.  I originally assumed that you meant only for the iPhone.  If so, then my response above should work for you.  If you meant use it as your primary Internet connection for all other devices (laptops, etc) in your home, then of course the only way to do that IS to use your iPhone as a hot spot.  That's kind of the definition of a hotspot.


Where does Safari Web Inspector store images? I am currently running OS X El Capitan, Public Beta 3 and trying to download images within the Safari Web Inspector.

What I did:

Opened a website in Safari.
Opened the Web Inspector.
Selected one of images from the Images folder.
Right-clicked and selected "Download Image".

Unfortunately, nothing happened.

Should the images be downloaded to the Download folder? Am I missing something, or is it a bug in the latest Safari Beta?

This indeed looks to be a bug.

You can watch all file access on your system with the opensnoop command. This requires root access - run it, then try hitting the download button - you'll see no access from Safari.

Time to hit Feedback Assistant and tell them what's going on!

The earlier comment is a good workaround - once the image is displayed, just hit CMD-C to copy it for pasting elsewhere.


Mac keyboard layout incorrect when using Windows 7 and VMWare Fusion I have a Macbook Air (Late 2010) and am running Windows 7 Home Premium via VMWare Fusion. It works great, except that I have to press the key labelled as '@' (i.e. shift 2) to get a quote mark ", and vice versa - press the quote key to get an @.

How can I configure Windows to know that I am using a Mac keyboard? It detects the keyboard currently as a standard PS/2 keyboard. I live in the UK so the keyboard might be set up for UK as well.

You are using a US keyboard layout. Switch it to UK.


Reset screen saver settings on timer or on load My company changes my screensaver settings to some default they want. I want to keep my settings, so I would like to change the settings either on a timer or on login back to the settings I have chosen.

Can someone suggest the best method for doing this? Every day I come in my screen saver settings have been reset

I run OS X Yosemite.

When i set it in screensaver settings I get the following from

defaults -currentHost read com.apple.screensaver

{
    CleanExit = YES;
    PrefsVersion = 100;
    idleTime = 600;
    moduleDict =     {
        moduleName = Shell;
        path = "/System/Library/Screen Savers/Shell.qtz";
        type = 1;
    };
    moduleName = XXXXXX;
    modulePath = "/System/Library/Screen Savers/Flurry.saver";
}

I XXXXX'ed out the moduleName because it's set by the company

If you want to change screen saver with applescript:

tell application "System Events" to set current screen saver to screen saver "Flurry"

Replace "Flurry" with the screen saver you prefer. You then need to use the many available ways to execute the code when necessary.


Will recompiling bash to avoid Shellshock cause more harm than good I wasn't particularly worried about Shellshock until I learned that a malicious DHCP server may be able to exploit my DHCP client to run arbitrary code on my system. It's not clear to me whether Macs are vulnerable, but if so, I want to fix it ASAP.

That said, the version of /bin/bash on my Mac is code-signed by Apple.

$ spctl --verbose --assess --type execute /bin/bash
/bin/bash: accepted
source=Apple System

If I follow these instructions and replace Apple's /bin/bash with one that I compile myself (hence not code-signed by Apple), am I setting myself up for trouble?

Macs don't use Bash for DHCP, so that particular vulnerability does not apply. Unless you run a vulnerable web server or have restricted remote access accounts, it's not worth the trouble to recompile Bash on OS X.


Migrate data from iPhone 4 to iPhone 4s I have a Verizon iPhone 4. What the easiest way to migrate my data & settings from the iPhone 4 to a new Verizon iPhone 4s [I'm expecting one in a few days]?  I want my new iPhone 4s to be just like my current iPhone 4 but with IOS5.

Plug in your old iPhone 4. In iTunes, right click on the device in the left column. Choose "Back up" from the listing. When the back up is complete, disconnect the device.

Next, plug in your iPhone 4S. Pull up the context menu again but this time choose "Restore from Backup..." and choose the most current back up from the list.


Mac Pro Early 2008 fails during boot I'm trying to diagnose an issue with a Mac Pro Early 2008. When I received it, it just doesn't boot: when I pushed the power button, it started for less than a second, and then it automatically shutted down. No chime, no gray screen, no apple logo.

I opened it, removed one of the memory risers, and kept pressed the diagnostic button when I started it. After doing it, the Mac booted properly. When I reinserted the memory raiser, it just won't boot, but the power led stays on anyway (not shutting down after 2 secs)

So, I returned the mac to the owner and it worked by one day. At the next day he had the same trouble. I instructed him to open the case, press the Diag button, and it just started again.

But, I have a few questions: is this related to the SMC? As i seen before, letting the computer unplugged for 15 seconds is "enough" to reset the SMC, and Mac Pro, from Early 2008 doesn't have a SMC_RST button. What I'm doing when I press the Diagnostic button then? Why it boots when I do that?

And, on the other hand, where can I find a place to interpret what diagnostic leds are telling me.

Thanks guys!

From what you've described/tried so far this sounds like it's a RAM related issue.

Keep track of which RAM is which (label each stick) and experiment with different configurations. The most important thing to try out would be swapping the RAM between the reisers and testing. This should help you ascertain if it's the particular reiser that's at fault or the RAM in that reiser.

Also, make sure that the RAM configuration is correct!
Check that it is here

You may also want to consider the PSU, logic board or CPUs - really though only an Apple tech with access to known good spares can really confirm this.

Regarding the SMC; When you unplug the machine for more than 15 secs the SMC resets. This is the official way to reset the SMC, hence the lack of a reset button.

When you press the diag button you are doing nothing more than telling the system to light up some extra diag LEDs that are usually not lit during standard boot procedure.

See this table for a list of boot/diag LEDs

Note the LEDs which will not light unless the diag button is pressed

The system will boot when you press this button because the LEDs are used to check that the system is getting through the various POST (power on self tests) during boot. The LEDs can tell you where and why the boot is failing.


Limitations on iOS background tasks I'm thinking of doing an alarm clock for iPhone with music as alarm sound.
I have also evaluated similar apps.
They all seems to share the same limitation.
If the app is not active when the alarm is triggered music cannot be played.

So the question, is this a limitation in iOS ?

If the app is not the active running app, then, unless it meets strict criteria, it cannot start itself to perform such an action. There are a number of limitations for VOIP apps and music players to allow them to stay running, but in your case what would probably work best is a local notification that uses a custom notification sound. This allows you to register a notification for the time of the alarm which will be triggered regardless, as it will not be your app doing the work, but the OS instead which obviously maintains the notifications daemon at all times. Certainly for a "real" push notification you can then have a custom sound, I recall the demo at the relevant WWDC where an ESPN app used a clip of music from their TV channel as the sound, but I am unsure if you can acheive the same with a local one - I don't see any reason why not. Obviously there will be limits on file size and possibly length also, so a full track of music may not be possible.


Missing "show package contents" cmd I was trying to extract the contents of a .pkg file, and right clicking on it should usually allow the context sensitive Show Package Contents option.  However, it does not seem to show on any .pkg file I can find on my system.

I have since expanded the contents on the command line using this command:

StuffeMac:Desktop stuffe$ pkgutil --expand AirPortUtility56.pkg ./dan2/

Which worked fine, and inside this package was another .pkg file.  Right clicking on this and Show Package Contents is back again, but only for the one I just expanded...

What's going on?

Show Package Contents is not for showing the contents of .pkg files, it's for showing the hidden structure for Applications (and other bundles), which are actually folders. You can use the program Pacifist to look at the contents of .pkg files.

To answer the question in your comment, here's how you can tell in Terminal. When you perform an ls -l command, directories have d as the first character in the line.

516 $ ls -l
drwxr-xr-x    3 steve  admin         102 Jan  6  2011 Form Viewer.app
drwxrwxrwx@   3 root   admin         102 Jan 18  2010 FormViewerFonts.pkg
-rw-r--r--@   1 steve  staff  2157020198 Jun 30  2012 MacTeX-2012.pkg

In this example, the first two entries are bundles and the last isn't.


How can I save multiple pics in iMessages to Camera Roll? There are lots of photos in the iMessage History between my girlfriend and me. I wanna save all the pics to the Camera Roll. How can I do this? Thanks in advice!

Launch the Messages app.
Tap on the text thread that has the pictures and/or videos.
Tap on Details in the top right corner.
Scroll down to the Attachments section and press and hold on one of
the pictures or videos you'd like to save.
Tap on More in the popup menu.
Tap to select all the photos you'd like to save.
Tap on Save Images in the bottom left corner to save them to the
Photos app.

Source


Set default skin tone for all Emojis in Emoji keyboard in iOS 11? It appears that it is only possible to change each Emoji’s skin tone individually by tapping and holding on the Emoji key and selecting another skin tone in the pop-up menu.

Is it possible to set a default skin tone to be used across all the supported Emojis?

No. Due to the way it is implemented, it is not possible to set a default skin tone to be used across all the supported Emojis in iOS Emoji keyboard.

Each Emoji remembers its last used skin tone. Also, the recently used section shows all the skin tones variations used for a single Emoji.


Pages and Numbers have generic app icon in Dock I have a MacBook Pro 13" Unibody Early 2011  running macOS 10.13.6 (the latest it will support).
I wanted to replace the HDD with a 256GB SSD so I did a fresh install to the SSD in an enclosure then ran Migration Assistant.

As far as I can see everything is working OK, but there are couple of anomalies .
The Dock icons for Pages 8.1 and Numbers 6.1 seem to be some generic app icon.

I deleted the Dock entries and ran from Launchpad, but the icons remain.
In Finder the icons in Applications look OK although not in Launchpad.

I deleted  com.apple.dock.plist and ran the command  killall -KILL Dock

How can I restore the correct icons?

1)  In a Finder window Go to Applications.

2)  Locate the application's icon and do a Get Info.

3)  In the top left corner of the Get Info window the correct non-generic application icon should be displayed.

4)  Select that icon using the mouse.

5)  Do an Edit->Copy on the icon in the top left corner of the window.

6)  Do an Edit->Paste on the icon in the top left corner of the window.

7)  You may have to provide an administrator password.


Why can't Preview export some TIFFs to PNG? Some TIFFs can't be exported to PNG in Preview. What is preventing this and how do I correct it?

This happens when the image is in CMYK.

PNG does not support the CMYK color mode therefore Preview won't suggest it for the export.


Why do I need internet to listen to my music library? I was taking a walk yesterday, and I was listening to music in my personal library. No Apple Music subscription. After awhile, my music stopped. I checked, and it said something about needing internet to access music and turning on cellular music in settings or something like that. It happened again today at the mall.  I'm confused... I thought that my personal library was on my device. Is it? By the way, I am using an iPod touch 6th generation and running (gulp) iOS 9 public beta. My best guess is it's the beta. Maybe they don't want all my music on my device in case I have to reset it. But wouldn't it be backed up to iTunes?

Yipee! I figured it out! My problem is, as I forgot to mention in the question, I just got a new iPod. Aaaaaaand, I never realized it, but apparently when you get a new device, you have to download all your music into your library. Otherwise, you can still listen to it, but only over internet. Probably to save space. Downloading your songs can be done by tapping on the song or album, and then tapping "Make available offline".

Thank you everyone for your help!


Missing Mac partitions - unrecognized file system Apparently, I installed Windows 7 via bootcamp and created a new partition in Windows (which probably affected the partition table).

After restart, I can't see Macintosh HD in startup disk (it only shows Windows, which bluescreens when booted)

So I ran cmd+R to boot to Internet Recovery Mode, select Disk Utility and tried to repair the disk, but it said 'Unrecognized file system' (I forgot to take a screenshot) but it looks like this:

In my case, Macintosh HD become disk0s2. I tried to repair the disk but failed.

Try to run diskutil cs list from Terminal and didn't show any disk.

Running gpt -r show /dev/disk0 yields the following:

-bash-3.2# gpt -r show /dev/disk0
      start       size index   contents
          0          1         MBR
          1  488493055     1   MBR  part  66
  488493056  248700928     2   MBR  part  66
  737193984  239577136     3   MBR  part  66
  976771120       2048

Is there any way to recover my Mac partition so it can be booted?

I think of doing the recovery via internet (reinstall) but my data seems to be lost after reinstall.

Windows' Disk Management has overwritten the GUID partition table with an MBR partition table. This usually only effects the partition table but not the content of your disk (though it seems to be gone)! To restore a proper GUID partition table, the MBR has to be deleted and a proper GUID partition table has to be restored.

The particular obstacle here is: the OP neither has a thumb drive nor a second Mac or an external drive.

The answer below is NOT intended for users WITH a thumb drive or an external disk! If you have one of those devices much easier solutions exist.

Preparation:

Restart to Internet Recovery Mode by pressing alt cmd R at startup.

The prerequisites are the latest firmware update installed, either ethernet or WLAN (WPA/WPA2) and a router with DHCP activated.
On a 50 Mbps-line it takes about 4 min (presenting a small animated globe) to boot into a recovery netboot image which usually is loaded from an Apple/Akamai server.

I recommend ethernet because it's more reliable. If you are restricted to WIFI and the boot process fails, just restart your Mac until you succeed booting.

Alternatively you may start from a bootable installer thumb drive (preferably Yosemite or El Capitan) or a thumb drive containing a full system (preferably Yosemite or El Capitan). If you boot to a full system and login as admin you have to prepend sudo to execute some commands like gpt ... or newfs_hfs ...!

Remove the MBR and modify the GUID partition table

Enter diskutil list and gpt -r show /dev/diskX (with diskX: the disk identifier of your internal disk (probably disk0) to get an overview. In the commands below I assume the disk identifier is disk0.

You should get the following output (the types may be different in your diskutil listing:

-bash-3.2# diskutil list
/dev/disk0
    #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
    0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *500.0 GB   disk0
    1:                       NTFS                         253.5 GB   disk0s1
    2:                       NTFS                         122.4 GB   disk0s2
    3:                       NTFS                         124.1 GB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1...~/dev/disk12 belong to the recovery system

-bash-3.2# gpt -r show /dev/disk0
      start       size index   contents
          0          1         MBR
          1  488493055     1   MBR  part  66
  488493056  248700928     2   MBR  part  66
  737193984  239577136     3   MBR  part  66
  976771120       2048

Now replace the MBR by a GUID partition table:

diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk0
dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/disk0 count=1 bs=512
gpt create /dev/disk0

Add the EFI partition in the partition table:

gpt add -b 40 -i 1 -s 409600 -t C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B /dev/disk0

Now you can either guess the old content of the GUID partition table or you can install OS X to a new partiton - without overwriting your old OS X partitions - and try to detect the sizes of the old partitions with appropriate tools (like Test Disk/wxHexEditor).

Installing a new OS X

This will destroy the content of the Windows partition(s).

Add a new partition in the (old) OS X part of your disk to protect it.

gpt add -b 409640 -i 2 -s 488083416 -t FFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFF /dev/disk0

This might be superfluous.
Add new partitions in the (old) Windows part of your disk. The first one is a new system partition, the second one a recovery partition:

gpt add -b 800000000 -i 4 -s 100000000 -t 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC /dev/disk0
gpt add -b 900000000 -i 5 -s 1269536 -t 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC /dev/disk0

Now you have to format the new partitions:

diskutil list
newfs_hfs -v "TempSystem" -J /dev/disk0s4 #use the proper partition found in diskutil list. It should have a size of ~50 GB
newfs_hfs -v "Recovery HD" -J /dev/disk0s5
diskutil mount /dev/disk0s4

Exit Terminal by entering exit and quit it.
Open Restore OS X and install OS X to the partition TempSystem
Configure the new system and enable internet access. Don't initialize any "unknown" volumes if asked.
Enable the root user
Log-out as admin and log-in as root
Download and install wxHexEditor

Detect the start block and type of your old OS X volume and the start block of your old Recovery HD with wxHexEditor:

The approach is similar as in my answer here: HFS+ invalid number of allocation blocks

Since the start block of a main partition and the size of a recovery partition have fixed sizes/boundaries you can usually calculate the proper GUID partition entries of your old partition(s).

Hint: While working with wxHexEditor don't use copy and paste. Enter everything manually! You might accidentally write directly to your disk.

JHFS+ or CoreStorage partition?

First you have to determine, if you had a JHFS+ or CoreStorage partition at index number 2.

Open the Calculator. Open wxHexEditor. Check that you work in read-only mode ("Options" -> "File mode" -> "Read only"). In the menubar go to "Devices" -> "Open disk device" -> choose the appropriate diskNumber. Probably it's disk0. The disk should have further partitions (disk0s1 - disk0s5). Please try to arrange the wxHexEditor window like in the examples below with straight red lines.

Then hit the "Go to offset"-button (marked with the green circle) and enter 409640 exactly like in the picture below. Sometimes you have do that twice to jump to the correct sector. Re-check the correct sector by entering the offset (marked red) in the Calculator and divide it through 512.

The first 3 sectors of a CoreStorage partition look like this:

The first 3 sectors of a JHFS+ partition look like this:

If you get a fundamentally different picture stop here.
Where does the Recovery HD partition start?

That's probably the most difficult part because you have to find a string which is not very specific.
Jump almost to the end of your old second partition (in your case ~1000 MB/1953125 sectors less than 488493056 = 486539931)

Then enter "HFSJ" like in the picture below, search for this string two times and make readable! hand-written notes of the different offsets. To restore your old OS X you have to boot to Internet Recovery Mode later and all on-screen findings in the current temporary OS X will be lost!

The reason to search for the string "HFSJ" is that all HFSJ+ volumes contain this string in the third sector of its partition. The string may also occur later and at the end!

You may have two really different results depending on the partition type:

Calculate the sector number of the first finding. In my example (see picture above) it's 68069452800/512=132948150. Continue searching and calculate the sector of the second finding. In my case it was 68069454848/512=132948154 (no picture).
The difference between the two finding is 4 blocks (=2 KB).

This is typical for the boundary between a JHFS+ partition and the Recovery HD. The Recovery HD starts then at the sector of the second finding - 2 (in my example 132948154-2=132948152).
Calculate the sector number of the first finding. In my example it was 67733904384/512=132292782 (no picture). Continue searching and calculate the sector of the second finding. In my case it was 68069454848/512=132948154 (no picture). The difference between the two findings is 655372 (~336 MB)

This is typical for the boundary between a CoreStorage partition and the Recovery HD. The Recovery HD starts then at the sector of the second finding - 2 (in my example 132948154-2=132948152).

With these results you should be able to restore your GPT properly. Quit wxHexEditor. If you are asked to save changes don't save them!

Boot back to Internet Recovery Mode and open Terminal
Enter diskutil listand gpt -r show /dev/disk0
Remove the second partition (the protective FFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFF type partition):

diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk0
gpt remove -i 2 /dev/disk0

Since the EFI and the Recovery HD usually have fixed sizes you can calculate the start and end block of your main volume.

Calculate the size of the main volume: the start block is 409640.
The end block has been found in the section "Where does the Recovery HD partition start?": 1 less than the start block of the Recovery HD.
The size is then StartBlockOfRecoveryHD-409640.
If you've found a classical JHFS+ earlier the following command should fix partition 2:

diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk0
gpt add -b 409640 -i 2 -s StartBlockOfRecoveryHD-409640 -t 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk0

If you've found a CoreStorage partition earlier the following command should fix partition 2:

diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk0
gpt add -b 409640 -i 2 -s StartBlockOfRecoveryHD-409640 -t 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk0

To rebuild the Recovery HD enter:

diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk0
gpt add -b StartBlockOfRecoveryHD -i 3 -s 1269536 -t 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk0

Now you may try to mount and verify your old OS X volume:

diskutil mount /dev/disk0s2
diskutil verifyVolume /dev/disk0s2

If you get an error mounting or verifying the volume its boundaries might be wrong. Stop here and consult me.
If the verification was successful you may either boot to your old OS X volume and check if it works and delete TempSystem and the new Recovery HD later or delete both immediately. The downside of booting to your old OS X volume first is that you have to boot to Internet Recovery Mode once more to delete TempSystem and the new Recovery HD.
To delete both dispensable partitions booted to Internet Recovery Mode enter:

diskutil list
gpt -r show /dev/disk0
diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk0
gpt remove -i 4 /dev/disk0 # remove the partition starting at block 800000000
diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk0 # remove the partition starting at block 900000000
gpt remove -i 5 /dev/disk0

Depending on the partition type (HFSJ+ or CoreStorage) you may either use diskutil resizeVolume ... or diskutil cs resizeStack ... to expand your recovered OS X volume.

Estimating (guessing) the proper GUID partition table entries

Guessing the partition often works because a default "one-visible-volume" OS X install has very characteristic start blocks and sizes of all partitions:

A classical partition map of a Yosemite install without any Boot Camp partition would probably look like this on your Mac:

sudo gpt -r show disk0
      start       size  index  contents
          0           1         PMBR
          1           1         Pri GPT header
          2          32         Pri GPT table
         34           6
         40      409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
     409640   975093952      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  975503592     1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  976773128           7
  976773135          32         Sec GPT table
  976773167           1         Sec GPT header

All start blocks and sizes of partitions are aligned to 4096 bytes blocks - they are all dividable through 8 (e.g. 975093952:8=121886744)!

After installing Windows with Boot Camp Assistant the main OS X partition is shrunk and the Recovery HD is moved:

sudo gpt -r show disk0
      start       size  index  contents
          0           1         PMBR
          1           1         Pri GPT header
          2          32         Pri GPT table
         34           6
         40      409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
     409640   486813880      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  487223520     1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  488493056   488280072      4  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
  976773128           7
  976773135          32         Sec GPT table
  976773167           1         Sec GPT header

The fourth partition is the NTFS partition. Some Windows installs add a second EFI partition:

  488493056   488280072      4  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7

->

  488493056      204800      4  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
  488697856   488075272      5  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7

After partitioning the Windows partition from within Windows the partition map was overwritten and replaced by a MBR partition map:

gpt -r show /dev/disk0
      start       size index   contents
          0          1         MBR
          1  488493055     1   MBR  part  66
  488493056  248700928     2   MBR  part  66
  737193984  239577136     3   MBR  part  66
  976771120       2048

Now one may assume that the first 488493056 blocks (block 0 - block 488493055) are untouched (except the MBT of course) and still represent the former OS X part. Since you already replaced the MBR by a GUID partition table and recovered the EFI partition in a previous step you only have to restore the main OS X partition and the Recovery HD.

Here the assumption is: the last block of the first MBR partition is the last block of the Recovery HD. By counting backwards you can now restore the Recovery HD and the old OS X volume:

Fixed size of the Recovery HD: 1269536
Start block of the second partition: 488493056 - 1269536 = 487223520 (the start block of the Recovery partition)

The fixed last block of the EFI partition and the start block of the Recovery partition determine the start block and the size of the OS X volume:

Size: 487223520 - 409640 = 486813880
Fixed start block: 409640

Now derive the proper commands to restore the GUID partition table:

gpt add -b 487223520 -i 3 -s 1269536 -t 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk0 # add the recovery partition
gpt add -b 409640 -i 2 -s 486813880 -t 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk0 # add the main OS X partition

Verify the main volume with:

diskutil verifyVolume /dev/disk0s2

This approach might fail because sometimes unallocated disk space (usually 2048, 102400 or 204800 blocks) is added by disk partitioning tools. The unallocated disk space might be added at the end of a MBR partition

After accessing the remote Mac and inspecting the disk the final probable solution - following the wxHexEditor part of the answer - seems to be:

gpt add -b 487222344 -i 3 -s 1269536 -t 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC /dev/disk0
gpt add -b 409640 -i 2 -s 486812704 -t 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC /dev/disk0

Since some mounted volumes exist on disk0 and the protective partition (i=2) has to be removed before the original old partitions can be restored the complete command queue looks like this:

diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk0
gpt remove -i 2 /dev/disk0
diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk0
gpt add -b 487222344 -i 3 -s 1269536 -t 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC /dev/disk0
diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk0
gpt add -b 409640 -i 2 -s 486812704 -t 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC /dev/disk0


What is the best free option for automatic ftp sync with finder? I was quite happy when I found out that Finder had native support, but it didn't take long until I realized it was read-only access.

What is the best free option for automatic ftp sync with finder? I am using El Capitan. I'm not interested in very much functionality, just the ability to edit files.

TextWrangler

You can use BareBones' Text Wranger. It is a free texteditor with onboard ftp capability. TextWrangler is BBEdit's little brother, and BBEdit is one of the best text editors. I use this text editor at least since Mac OS 7.6 And, just like BBEdit, TextWrangler does not suck.


Generate an iOS Project (.xcodeproj) with AppleScript How can I generate an iOS project (.xcodeproj) with AppleScript (without XCode)?

You could create an empty iOS Xcode project once, put it somewhere on your disk, and then use an AppleScript to copy the folder (.xcodeproj is basically just a folder) to the desired destination.

(But I can't think of a single use for this...)


iPhone 6S (iOS 9.3.2) starts switching off whenever battery is low So I have an iPhone 6S running iOS 9.3.2 and recently, I have observed this very annoying trend.

The phone switches off automatically when the battery level is around 15-25% [It always happens in this range].

I might not be using a very power consuming app, maybe writing a mail or checking my messages and it turns off. When I switch on the phone again, it automatically turns off within a minute.

Only when I leave it as it is for 15 minutes maybe, it turns on again.
This is not regular but does happen once every 4-5 days.

Is there anything I can do to investigate and maybe get rid of this issue?

Thanks.

This happened to me when my iPhone 5 battery died. If it's less than a year old, take it to an Apple Store or Authorized Reseller for replacement.
If it's older and you don't have an AppleCare plan, you can buy a compatible battery from eBay; I did and has worked great for over a year.

It may even happen that Apple replaces it for free if it's a batch of defective batteries (mine was, but I replaced it before the announcement.

You can check the health of your battery with coconutBattery if you have a Mac.


Mac randomly crashes, main boot volume disappears Retina Macbook from 2017 running Mojave here.
Every few days, my mac suddenly and randomly freezes (sometimes at times without user input) and crashes. When it tries to boot again, it fails and signals that it's missing a bootable partition.

In this state, it fails however much I try. I then boot into Recovery Mode. Recovery Disk Utility can not detect the Macintosh HD (APFS with Filevault) boot volume anymore. I fiddle around with the OSX reinstall service (also can't detect it) as well as time machine, restart a few times, go into recovery again (without any difference) and sometimes, when I'm lucky, on reboot everything is fine again. Without repair or rescue.

Here is a photo from Single User Mode diskutil list at a time when it just happened, when the boot volume disappeared:

I don't know at all what this is about. Of course I never created these images by myself.

When my Mac boots up again, everything is back to normal. The boot volume is back and those strange ones disappeared. Apple Diagnostics doesn't detect any hardware issue. However, when running fsck, I get the following error:

Checking the container superblock.
Checking the EFI jumpstart record.
Checking the space manager.
Checking the space manager free queue trees.
Checking the object map.
Checking volume.
Checking the APFS volume superblock.
The volume Macintosh HD was formatted by hfs_convert (748.1.46) and last modified by apfs_kext (945.200.129).
Checking the object map.
Checking the snapshot metadata tree.
Checking the snapshot metadata.
Checking snapshot 1 of 5.
error: dstream (id 2938340) does not have an associated dstream id object
warning: snapshot dstream corruptions are not repaired; they'll go away once the snapshot is deleted
error: dstream (id 3440445) does not have an associated dstream id object
error: invalid file extent (id 0x8603957554) logical address 135168 (expected 0)
Snapshot is invalid.
The volume /dev/rdisk1s1 could not be verified completely.

The problem didn't occur until some time ago. I now have a feeling that it's happening more and more often. And sometimes I'm not lucky and can't get access back for hours.
Any help would be greatly appreciated! Does this look like a hardware or software issue? Is it related to APFS? Is my Mac dying?
Would this be an issue Apple would take good care of when I send it in - and what happens if they can't even replicate it?

Thanks for any input.

Edit 1: I heard from several MacBook 12 users with the same problem. They said it was after all identified as a faulty logic board that had to be replaced.

Edit 2: The clean install didn’t help. I’ll send the device in for repair, praying that they find something.

To answer your question, is it hardware or software.

Suggested course of action would be

1- Back up you data

2- Do a "Clean Install"

That should eliminate an formatting issues your SSD had.

If problem occurs again, your SSD needs Replacement/Repair.


New Apple ID not pushed to iPhone I recently changed my Apple ID from an old email address to my current one. I updated the Apple ID in iTunes and then synced my phone with iTunes. Now, however, when I try to download new apps (or update existing ones), I get the standard notification asking for my Apple ID Password, however the Apple ID that is displays is my old Apple ID. When I enter in my password, it tells me that "Your iTunes Store password was incorrect. Please Try again".

I believe the problem is that for some reason iTunes is not pushing my new Apple ID to the device. Anyone know how to rectify this problem?

On your iPhone, go into Settings -> Store, sign out of your old Apple ID and sign in with your new one.


Where is the purchase history on iPhone apps? How do I find out if I've already purchased an iPhone app?

I don't have a credit card so I'm worried about how I can pay to download apps if they're really not free. Even if I have chosen NONE in the billing method, they will still allow me to download paid apps even if I didn't select a payment method.

I created an iTunes account to download free apps through my iPhone. When I was making the account, there was an option on how to pay the bills:

choose a credit card
other means, or
simply choose the "NONE"

I chose "None" because I thought that it would still prompt for credit card information if you were to purchase an app that needed payment. I only wanted to download free apps and that's also why I chose "none".

After a few days of downloading free apps, I clicked on updates and noticed one of them saying that since I already purchased it first, the update was at a discount.

I cancelled the update since I have no credit card.

Days later I noticed the same app in the store, but free. Trying to install it, it would not download and said there was an update pending on my previous version. I waited for a screen to appear about payment information, but none came.

I wanted to cancel paying for this update but haven't seen the option to do so.

I don't know if my wanton clicking means that I've paid for this app without realising it. I have my billing address on there, so maybe there will be a bill coming along.

You can see your purchase/download history in the App Store application on your device. It is in the Updates tab. This feature was introduced in iOS 4.3.3.


Mac Pro 3,1 no signal to monitor I received a 2008 mac pro 3,1 in pieces from a friend. He said that he was having trouble with the graphics cards cutting in and out and and then the power supply (PS) failed. I got a used power supply on ebay and put it all back together. It turns on, the graphic card (GC) ati 3870 fan powers up but there is no signal to the monitor. I tried all my monitors and two cables and still nothing on the monitor.

I tried several different macOS versions (10.6 , 10.7 and 10.11 ) settling on  Lion. I moved the GC to all the different PCI slots, I pulled the GC from my 2006 mac pro, (an ATI 5770), which I know is compatible and still the same results. It boots up. With LION OS 10.7, I booted in safe mode and blindly typed in fsck -fy command and waited, then typed reboot and it rebooted. It will boot to target mode and I can access the drive from 2006 Mac Pro in disk utility and verify it. I have done pram and smc resets, and just for fun I tried the old PS and it fired up as well. I then did all of the above with the original power supply re-installed

I have connected the power cables for both cards I tried,  there is nothing else in the other pci slots. It has an optical drive and I tried it with it installed and without. I have tried booting with a HD in different slots with no other drives installed.

I found my install discs and booted from both. I think it booted, as there is still no signal to the monitor. Drive spins up and I can hear it read the disc.

What are other reasons can there be for a monitor to not receive a signal but the graphic card still powers up ( I.e. fans on ). Assuming the graphic cards and the monitors I have tried are functioning properly in/on other machines?

I have been searching and reading this Q&A and discussion forums and posts for days and can not find any more info other than it might be possible it is logic board?? If it is a logic board problem what could it be and how do I address it?

Advice OR ideas would be appreciated.

Assuming that it is definitely a Mac Pro 3,1 (i.e. early-2008 Mac Pro model), the logic board should contain some diagnostic LEDs. These were used by technicians for troubleshooting purposes, so you may be able to leverage off these to isolate your problem.

The following chart explains each LED:

As you can see, normally LEDs 3, 4, 5, and 6 are off. In other words, they shouldn't be lit up unless there is an error. If any of these are lit up, then you know you have the corresponding problem explained in the Indicates column.

As for the other LEDs (1, 2, 7, 8, and 9) you will need to press the DIAG_LED button (it's next to the LEDs) to display them. Use the Color column to determine the status (i.e. this indicates the LED colour).

I would check all of them, but obviously you'll want to pay particular attention to LED 7. If LED 7 is not lit up as green when you press the DIAG_LED button, then you know the GPU hasn't been configured.

Once you've done this, let me know how you went.

[UPDATE]

Okay, since you're only getting LEDs 2, 8 and 9 light up upon pressing the DIAG_LED button, we know that the computer isn't recognising the GPU because LED 7 is not green.

One of the issues you mentioned in your question was a potentially faulty power supply. I would actually re-install the one you bought on eBay. The reason for doing this is that some GPUs need more power to function, which is available from connectors on the logic board. And if you have any question marks over the original power supply, it's probably best to put it aside (although I acknowledge the one you bought was a used one).

Now I have seen instances of the ATI Radeon HD 5770 needing to have the auxillary power connected in order to run. So it may be worth looking for the connector on the logic board (usually it's close to the front of the board, under the plastic slot holders). So I'd plug that in (if not already) and see if that gets it working for you. Make sure you check the cable is connected properly at both ends!

If not, in terms of general troubleshooting when there is no LED 7 lit up, you would want to try each of the following (NOTE: I know you've already done some of this, but for the sake of completeness and other users I am still including them):

make sure the power supply and its cables are properly connected
make sure the graphics card is seated correctly
try the graphics card in each of the PCI slots
try a different graphics card
try replacing the PS3 power supply cable (as this is what supplies power to your PCI slots)

Normally if you have no joy after all of the above troubleshooting steps, I'd say it's time for another logic board.


How to batch rename files to random characters? I have a lot of photos with me that I want to rename. I want them to be 10 random characters. Is there a way to do it?

I am running macOS Sierra.

I didn't try anything yet.

I would prefer a free solution to this problem.

The following script assumes that the photos to be renamed are in your Pictures folder. This will rename every file in your Pictures folder to a 10 character random string of letters and numbers while keeping the file extensions intact.

#!/bin/bash

chars=( {a..z} {A..Z} {0..9} )

function rand_string {
    local c=$1 ret=
    while((c--)); do
        ret+=${chars[$((RANDOM%${#chars[@]}))]}
    done
    printf '%s\n' "$ret"
}

for file in ~/Pictures/*
do
    ext=$(echo ${file} | sed 's,^.*\(\.[^\.]*$\),\1,')
    mv "$file" ~/Pictures/"$(rand_string 10)"${ext}
done

If the files to be renamed are not in your Pictures folder then edit ~/Pictures accordingly. The ~ is simply a shortcut for the users home directory. So ~/Pictures = /Users/YourUsername/Pictures. Note that the * tells the script to match any file found in ~/Pictures. Also note that you can change the number of characters generated by changing the number 10 of (rand_string 10)to any number you like.

Copy and paste this into a plain text file and name it something like: rename_pics.sh
Open your Terminal (use spotlight to find it if you don't know it's location)
In your Terminal type chmod 755 rename_pics.sh and press Enter
Then type ./rename_pics.sh in your terminal and press Enter to run the script.


Left-align Safari Favorites labels Is there a hack to make the items in Safari's Favorites bar be left-aligned rather than centered?

I've never gotten used to having to scan visually for the folder I want.

I'm using Safari 13.1.1 in Catalina 10.15.5 and all of sudden my folder items in Favorites bar became center-aligned from left-aligned. My Favorites in Safari had never been realigned since Tiger (OSX 10.4 in 2004)! All I did was to add a new folder item which got added to the left and after moving it to the right of other items, the Favorites became center-aligned. I cannot restore to original behavior and it's frustrating when I had to move my cursor further to the right on the folder items than where they used to be! If only I get access to HTML, XML, Java code for the Favorites bar, I can change the alignment! Someone did a workaround by creating one or more folders on the right with name ".        ." (blank chars with leading and trailing periods) to shift the alignment of other folder items to the left. But this doesn't work well when changing the screen size.


App to replace some of my acronyms I saw a video at some point recent.  In the video, the guy had an app that would replace certain phrases with other phrases.

Example:

I type "afaik" and it replaces it with "as far as I know".

My iPod is a gen2 running iOS v4.x and jailbroken.

The most prominent app would by TextExpander, available for Mac OS and iOS. Another alternative would be Typinator only Mac OS.

Another option (on iOS 5) would be shortcuts (Settings -> General -> Keyboard). You can add shortcuts and replacements as in your example. This is probably the best solutions as it is free and works in all apps. (TextExpander works only in some, that explicitly support it.)


Acronis True Image / Noron Ghost equivalent for Mac What is the equivalent software for Acronis True Image or Norton Ghost on a Mac?

I really need to know the equivalent software at the two levels:

Disk imaging that allows one to restore the entire bootable system, along with the applications quickly.
Allow for incremental image creation with scheduling options. In this case one base image is created initially and subsequent deltas are then created with backup schedule.

I have been using Acronis TI for several years to create block-level disk images of my Win 7 (and prior windows) successfully. I have been able to restore my windows system within minutes of crashes.

I am using a Macbook Pro now and before I upgrade to Mavericks, I'd like to create a disk image of my MBP HD, so that if something goes wrong, I can easily recover from it in a snap.

There are a number of utilities that will capture a Mac's disk image from a live system. CCC is one of them and works well, SuperDuper is another which also works well. But to get many of the features that would be equivalent to Ghost or Acronis... I am not sure as my needs at work are pretty simple as I only have a few Macs.

I hear that FileWave has a solution but I have no experience with it, but it might be worth investigating.

The folks at afp548.com have an active community of Mac SysAdmins and they cover a number of workflows that allow you to image large numbers of Macs in similar ways as Ghost and Acronis. It might be worth your while to check that out.


Can Xcode compile C programs? For the last couple of hours, I have been trying to find and install a gcc compiler so that I can compile C programs using eclipse C/C++ IDE. Eclipse doesn't come with a compiler, so I tried to find one but I haven't found a way to get one. I looked up Xcode in the App Store and I heard from some sites that it can compile C programs. Can it compile C programs? Is it better than Eclipse? If not, does anyone know where I can find a gcc compiler for my Mac? I'm running Mac OS X Lion.

This is the version of Eclipse I am running: http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/packages/eclipse-ide-cc-developers-includes-incubating-components/indigosr2

To get a free C/C++ compiler you have to download Xcode. It includes two C compilers; clang (the compiler Apple currently supports) and an old version of gcc. (Note current versions of Xcode >=5 I think only have clang) Make sure you install the command line tools if you want to use the compilers from outside Xcode. (These command line tools also seem to be available from Apple's developer site if you register but I would get them via Xcode unless you have a very good reason and understand the difference).

All other compilers I know of use one of these two compilers and their binary tools to set themselves up. (e.g. package management systems like macports, fink and homebrew need these command line tools to run parts of their infrastructure as well as to compiler their ports - however these package managers include ports of  other c compilers e.g. newer versions of gcc.)

IDEs like Eclipse use these command line compilers to do the building of programs.

There are some commercial compilers like Intel's C++ compiler but I do not know if these require Xcode or are C compilers.


Will iPhone remote earbuds work with 6th Gen iPod Nano? ....will iPhone remote earbuds work with 6th Gen iPod Nano? My brief internet search (random Google searches, Apple forums) yielded no results.

Yes it does.  I just tried it the other day to see what it does.  The only thing that does not work is the mic.  It will control the play, pause, volume up and down.  Really sweet!


Can you export/capture the contents of a Genius Mix? In iTunes, I know you can save a Genius Playlist, and you can see a few songs ahead in a Genius Mix by looking at Up Next, but is there any way to actually save a Genius-Mix-generated playlist?

Or is it that the Genius Mix playlist doesn't even exist (more than the few songs in Up Next)?  Like, is iTunes just popping another random song (of the appropriate category) on the end of the list?


Printing out weird code instead of actual print jobs I support a few macs for our staff and one of the macs in question starting having an issue where when the job would reach the printer instead of the job printing out, a bunch of jumbled code would print out instead. This has happened on multiple printers even after removing all current printers and resetting the printing system on the OS and adding the printers again fresh. I haven't been able to find anything about an issue like this on the net yet and was hoping for a solution short of wiping and re-imaging the HDD.
Both Word 2011 and webpages viewed from Safari were sent as test print jobs. The OS is 10.9.5 and both printers are Ricoh models, though different ones. I specifically downloaded the correct drivers and both were setup via LDP and IP address.
I have tried physically deleting all printer drivers from the library folder and was prompted to download and reinstall the printer drivers as I setup the printers again to test but the same issue happened again.
Here is an example of what happens.
A simple word 2011 document with only the words: test print
returns this

%!PS-Adobe-3.0

%APL_DSC_Encoding: UTF8

%APLProducer: (Version 10.9.5 (Build 13f109

14 blank pages

14 dict begin/FontName /KUFZPG+Cambria def
/PaintType 0 def

then a bunch of dup callouts and multi-line string of alphanumeric characters and the closing brackets on those opening tags.

/Encoding 256 array 0 1 255[index exch/ .notdef put}for

That 'weird code' is actually PostScript, and is the raw data of the print job.

If this is a large network printer, these models very often have different LPD queues to which you can send the job. These can define the expected input data. (E.g. my HP 5200 has "RAW", "AUTO", "BINPS", and "TEXT" as LPD queues.) Check the manual of the printer, and see what print queues are offered, and make sure you configure the 'Printer' in MacOS to send to a particular queue.


Rosetta 2 installation on M1 MBP fails I'm trying to install rosetta 2 via command line, using this command:
/usr/sbin/softwareupdate --install-rosetta

Source: https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2020/11/17/installing-rosetta-2-on-apple-silicon-macs/
The problem:
I'm receiving this error:
softwareupdate[981:12251] Package Authoring Error: 001-79711: Package reference com.apple.pkg.RosettaUpdateAuto is missing installKBytes attribute

Terminal screenshot:

The question:
How can I get rid of this error and install rosetta 2 properly?

Don't know about the error message but the command also reports Install of Rosetta 2 finished successfully. So to check whether Rosetta actually got installed

Install an "old" application not recompiled for M1 yet (if you don't have one, any free application from the Store which hasn't been updated since May 2020 will do)
Run it to see if it works.

You can then also check in Activity Monitor by enabling the "Architecture" column there. If any process shows as"Intel", Rosetta is installed


Is there any native Mac OS X 10.15.3 keyboard layout that contains all ASCII characters plus č, ç, è, ǩ, ò, š, and ž? I am creating a conlang that uses all ASCII characters plus č, ç, è, ǩ, ò, š, and ž. Is there any natively supported Mac OS X 10.15.3 keyboard that contains these special characters?

ABC Extended can make all those and more I think.
https://sites.psu.edu/symbolcodes/mac/codemacext/
but it's easy to make a custom layout with whatever you want using
https://software.sil.org/ukelele/


Keyboard Maestro: How to write to /etc/hosts file So I have been using an app called Self Control to block certain sites globally on my machine so I'm not distracted when I work. The method this program uses is edit your /etc/hosts file and redirect your blacklist of sites (facebook.com, youtube.com, etc) to 0.0.0.0. This is cool, but I was thinking that I could make a Keyboard Maestro macro for this instead.

I'm new to Keyboard Maestro and it's a bit intimidating to get into. Does anyone have any recommendations for creating a macro that will open, append, save, and then close your system's hosts file?

Have Keyboard Maestro run an AppleScript, which runs a shell script, which changes your hosts file:

do shell script "cp ~/hosts.tmp /etc/hosts" with administrator privileges

Simple! :)

The "with administrator privileges" part will cause it to prompt you for the sudo password.


How do you trash items on new Mac Photos? IPhoto had a trash bin, I need to delete images when and if I want, but I can't find the bin on the new Photos? The whole new system is freaking me out, I preferred the old.

Hit the delete key while a photo is selected or while viewing a photo. To recover photos, a "Show Recently Deleted" option is available in the File menu. On this screen you can permanently delete a photo or recover it within 30 days.


Disadvantages of 32 bit mode I have a Cisco VPN client in OSX 10.6.8, which runs only in 32 bit mode.

Are there any serious disadvantages of switching to 32 bit mode permanently?

Not inherently.  32 bit mode should run fine as long as all your drivers and binaries include a 32-bit version, which is currently the case unless you specifically downloaded 64-bit versions.  It should even use a little less ram.

But:

Mountain Lion will be 64-bit only, so I don't expect universal binaries to include 32-bit versions forever.
I have "slimmed" all my binaries to delete the 32-bit version.  If you have ever used such space-saving utilities, the slimmed apps won't work.


Mojave screen shots take a long time to save directly to desktop I very often take screen shots, and have my system configured to save them directly to the desktop, without the intermediate processes.
This question has been asked a lot. For example, see the following:
Capturing screenshots on macOS Sierra is very slow
Screenshot taking a very long time to appear on desktop
However, none of the situations and solutions discussed there are applicable.

The questions above talk about 5-6 seconds to save. On my system it takes 15-20 seconds. This is a 2017 iMac; not a slow machine.

A lot of the discussion talks about Google Backup and Sync. I have never used these.

Some of the discussion talks about turning off anti-virus. As I test, I turned off Bitdefender. It made no difference.

Any other ideas?
EDIT: several posters have suggested unchecking "Show Floating Thumbnails". This has never been checked on my system, as explained in my comment to an answer below. This suggestion does not solve the problem.

What worked for me on macOS Mojave to have screenshots saved to my Desktop instantaneously, was to uncheck Show Floating Thumbnail from the Options menu when pressing ⇧⌘5.

This change carried over to the other screenshot keyboard shortcuts too.

Note that I still allow Spotlight to index my Desktop too.


What does using right/left/up/down key and option/command key together mean? Using right/left/up/down keys with Fn key can do the same as page down / page up / home / end on a PC.

Some mentioned about using right/left/up/down keys with either option or command key in http://www.apple.com/shop/question/answers/mac/how-can-i-make-the-home-and-end-keys-on-the-apple-extended-keyboard-work-as-line-commands-rather-than-page-commands/Q7HY7K2UFDTUK7J7C .
What do they mean under OS X?

Thanks.

⌘+← or → jumps to the left/right end of the current line
⌘+↑ or ↓ jumps to the top/bottom of the current page
⌥+← or → jumps to the left/right adjacent word
⌥+↑ or ↓ jumps to the start/end of the paragraph
(all terms are respective)


RTSP feed with ffmpeg and the Mac camera I have two Macs in my network. On the first one I want to capture the FaceTime camera via ffmpeg and make a RTSP feed available on the network, which I can watch on the second Mac.

I successfully implemented something close to this (not true RTSP, but instead RTP streaming over UDP) with the following hardware and software:

2012 Macbook Pro, macOS Mojave 10.14.6
ffmpeg version 3.4.8
ffplay version 4.3.2 (my executable was named ffplay4)

List the audio and video input devices with ffmpeg -f avfoundation -list_devices true -i ""
On the 2012 MBP, the first video device (index 0) is FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in) and the first audio device (index 0) is Built-in Microphone.
The video capture/sending and the video receipt/playback can be done on the same machine, or ffmpeg can send to a remote IP.  In this example, it is sending an MPEG transport stream over UDP to the loopback address 127.0.0.1:9988 but that could just as easily be the IP address and port of another Mac:
ffmpeg \
  -f avfoundation \
  -pix_fmt yuyv422 \
  -video_size 320x240 \
  -framerate 15 \
  -i "0:0" -ac 2 \
  -vf format=yuyv422 \
  -vcodec libx264 -maxrate 2000k \
  -bufsize 2000k -acodec aac -ar 44100 -b:a 128k \
  -f rtp_mpegts udp://127.0.0.1:9988

To receive and play the video:
ffplay4 -i udp://@0.0.0.0:9988

It may take a few seconds to start up and there will be a few errors at first, but the video should begin playing in ffplay4 within a couple seconds.
Bonus: this stream is also viewable with VLC (version 3.0.12).  File->Open Network->URL rtp://@127.0.0.1:9988.  Again, it will take a few seconds (5-10) to begin displaying the video.
Happy streaming.


Map keyboard key to unix command Simple I am looking for a way to map a keyboard key to a unix command. It could be as simple as literal as opening up terminal and pasting a required bit of text.

You could use a tool like Keyboard Maestro but it might be a bit overkill.

If you just want to execute a command in Terminal and close the window again:

Put command in a shell script
Make it executable (chmod +x ...)
Move shell script to a convenient place (e.g. our Desktop)
run shell script/command by double click


On iOS11, can I highlight PDFs and make notes with my finger? I've seen a number of reviews that show the functionality of being able to highlight PDFs on iOS11 using the Apple Pencil, however, I'm wondering if I can do this with my finger on the normal (non-pro) iPad?

Yes. iOS 11 allows markup with finger of PDF’s opened in the Files App or previewed. Works on iPad and iPhone.  No need for a pencil unless one needs finer control of drawing.

The example below is a markup of a webpage that was saved as a PDF using my finger.


Google + won't let me see my photos, they ask me to upgrade safari Google + won't let me see my photos, they ask me to upgrade safari.
My Safari update is ok  I have MacPro Book OS x  10.6.8

The only way to update Safari is to update your OS. I would try opening Google+ in Chrome which has been updated for 10.6 more recently than Safari.


Data recovery on MBP 15’s SSD corrupted drive? It seems like I’ve used up all space on my MBP, and when I rebooted it it became corrupted/inoperable (when I go into disk utilities, Macintosh HD is “unmounted”, and when I press “mount”, nothing happens. On internet recovery, the same thing gives me “Alert: couldn’t mount disk”. Clicking “Repair” gives me “Alert: Partition map repair failed while adjusting structures to fit current whole disk size.”)
I was wondering if it’s possible to recover any data from it? I have some sensitive documents that haven’t backed up due to poor internet connection. On disk utility it says the drive could not be mounted and I can’t find the drive via the terminal.
Thank you!

Is your drive formatted as an HFS+ (macOS Extended) or APFS volume? If it’s HFS+, you can try DiskWarrior. (Though, from the sound of it, the corruption may not be in the volume itself but rather in the partition map, and I don’t know if DiskWarrior is able to fix those errors. May be worth reaching out to their support team.)


How do I get F6 on a Mac to click into the address bar on Chrome? On Windows I just tap F6 to do the same thing as clicking into the address bar on Chrome, on Mac it does nothing even after I make the F keys "standard function keys" in keyboard settings, but nothing I do makes F6 on the Mac keyboard do the same thing as Command+L.

I've tried going into [Apple icon] > System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > App Shortcuts > + icon, then added Google Chrome.app and set "Jump to the address bar" as F6 (based on Google's Chrome shortcuts doc), but to no avail.

The following works for me under macOS 10.13.5 and Google Chrome 68.0.3440.106.

Under System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > App Shortcuts I added Google Chrome's Open Location… menu command, as shown in the image below. Note the ellipsis at the end has to be there!

On an Apple wireless keyboard with default System Preferences > Keyboard settings, I can press F6 when in Google Chrome and it does the same as the default ⌘L does.

On a MacBook Pro with default System Preferences > Keyboard settings, I have to  press FnF6 when in Google Chrome and it does the same as the default ⌘L does.

On a MacBook Pro while changing the default System Preferences > Keyboard settings, i.e when checking [√] Use F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys, I can press F6 when in Google Chrome and it does the same as the default ⌘L does.


Does XQuartz work on macOS Mojave? The latest version is from 2016:

https://www.xquartz.org/

I will try it out .. but wonder if there were some pointers / warnings about this..

Yes, the latest version of XQuartz works just fine on my macOS Mojave machine with absolutely zero issues.


Outlook 2016 Search no results 16.16.8 We've been having a issue at our work where a handful of users have a problem with the search in Outlook 2016 for Mac. We have tried re-indexing their Spotlight. Doesn't resolve the problem. We have tried to manually reindex Spotlight via Terminal We have tried We have tried using Microsoft's Outlook re-indexing tool (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4483875/outlook-for-mac-support-utilities). Nothing works.
All the users that had this problem have changed to a new Mac. It is a fresh install and nothing has migrated from their old computer. Their search worked on the old Mac but no longer on the new Mac. Their search in webmail works perfectly.
We have transfered many computers but not all users have this search problem.
Has anyone else seen this issue? Is it the recent Microsoft Office update that has affected the search/spotlight?
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

There is a problem with Outlook and Mojave talking to Spotlight (maybe specifically after an upgrade?), I've also found that this is an issue with Fusion Drives as well as it slows down Spotlight indexing. Microsoft is aware of the issue and is looking to investigate.

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/search-doesn-t-work-in-outlook-for-mac-after-macos-upgrade-b73de6f1-aeb9-4720-bbbe-de65ab50012e

I've tried all of their steps in your link previously, currently, I'm using Onyx to fun the full maintenance scripts (Launch Services, and Spotlight Index). It's worked for me, for now...


Taptic Engine stopped working on my iPhone 6s One fine day, the Taptic engine on my iPhone 6s decided to stop working. The phone is being used normally and there was no mishandling, dropping, jerks/shocks to the device or exposure to moisture/liquid.

This has happened previously a couple of times, where restarting the device has generally resolved the problem, but not this time. It has been around 4-5 days and the Taptic engine simply won't give any feedback when force touching an app icon, receiving a call etc.

I have tried restarting the device multiple times, and have also reset the device entirely, but to no avail.

I am running iOS 12.1.4 (current as of this writing). How do I resolve the issue?

I got the device inspected at an Apple authorized service provider. Post inspection, I was told that the Taptic Engine motor has failed. The only available resolution when the Taptic Engine motor fails is a replacement with a new one.

I got the same replaced and the device is working normally after that.


iCloud Books: Failed to Load Book Because the Requested Resource is Missing Since updating to iOS 9.3 and 10.11.4, I've decided to finally try and get my eBooks all fixed up and synced between my devices, since I swap between my iPhone and iPad often when reading.

I'm using ePubs. They work fine on my Mac. When I download them directly to a device through "Copy to iBooks" through mail or through iTunes, they read fine on the iPad and the iPhone.

However, when I activate the new iCloud Books, half the time the book opens on the cover with the spinning gear. After a short time (10 seconds or so), I get the error: "Failed to Load Book Because the Requested Resource is Missing."

I am pulling out my hair trying to figure this out. I've run the ePubs through the Calibre ePub covert and even edited them in Sigil. The ePubs are perfect in direct download to the device, but about 85% of the time, they give that error whenever downloaded from iCloud Books. I've compared the ones that work to the ones that don't and can't find any differences.

I'm totally lost. Can someone PLEASE tell me what the hell I'm doing wrong?

The most likely reason is that you were using different versions of the same book, or two different books are name the same, something like that. The Apple Books app remembers the position for one version of the book, but can't find it in the new version, and pops up the error.

Source: http://richardexplainseverything.blogspot.com/2016/05/fixing-failed-to-load-book-because.html


Why is Push notifications required for GPS to work? How are they related? How is Push notifications used in iPhone Maps application?

After jailbreaking my Push notifications and GPS are not working. I know I can install Pushfix from Cydia but it costs money but my question is why? Why should I fix Push for GPS to work.

iPhone 3G on iOS 4.2.1 unlocked with iPad baseband 6.15.00

As far as I know, they are not related. If I turn off push, either on my jailbroken iphone or my girl's unjailbroken one, GPS and maps keep on working just fine.

edit: Reading little bit more on pushfix I'll try to explain what became clear to me.

Push and Maps or GPS are still unrelated.

Jailbreaking is a legal procedure to make your iPhone free from "apple locks". That's where the name came from.

With that, a jailbroken iPhone can do things apple doesn't allow, but without a proper tool installed "jailbreaking" does nothing.

pushfix is a tool to fix a problem on the push notifications brought by activating the iphone without an authorized SIM (a.k.a. Hacktivated iPhone). pushfix was further improved to fix other problems, probably brought by the same Hacktivation, such as Wifi and GPS.

I highly recommend you do a lot more research and get familiarized with the terms and issues related to iPhone (yes, that's a lot of reading and quite complicated) or just get an Android! ;)

Here are some good starting points (other than the link already provided):

http://www.google.com/search?q=iphone+jailbreaking
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_jailbreaking
https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/jailbreak+iphone

And some good sources:

http://thebigboss.org/jailbreak-now
http://blog.iphone-dev.org/ (very technical and complicated)


How do I prevent iPhone from alerting twice when a text message arrives? How do I prevent the iPhone 5 from beeping twice when a text message arrives?

It beeps twice when there is a new message. I only want one notification. How do I have only one notification instead of two? It plays the notification sound, waits about 2 minutes, then plays it again if the phone is not touched. How do I turn double notification sounds off?

Settings App -> Notifications -> Messages -> Repeat Alerts

change that to "never."  :-)

Let me know if that helped...


What is the correct application to call to be able to use date? In AppleScript if you have a string with a date and try to convert it to a class of date it will error out in Finder and System Events.  Example:

set testDate to "Friday, September 21, 2018 at 6:54:29 PM"
set testResult to date testDate
return testResult

renders:

When placing the above code in a System Event:

tell application "System Events"
    set testDate to "Friday, September 21, 2018 at 6:54:29 PM"
    set testResut to date testDate
    return testResut
end tell

returns:

  System Events got an error: Can’t get date "Friday, September 21, 2018
  at 6:54:29 PM".

Trying to place the above in a Finder tell:

tell application "Finder"
    set testDate to "Friday, September 21, 2018 at 6:54:29 PM"
    set testResut to date testDate
    return testResut
end tell

  Finder got an error: Can’t get date "Friday, September 21, 2018 at
  6:54:29 PM".

What should I use to be able to convert a date string to an actual date if I'm already using either System Events or Finder?  The only alternative I've found is to create a handler:

tell application "System Events"
    set testDate to "Friday, September 21, 2018 at 6:54:29 PM"
    return my stringDate(testDate)
end tell
on stringDate(theString)
    set attempt to date theString
    return attempt
end stringDate

How can I do a date conversion in a System Event or Finder tell block?

There's been discussion in comments with the supplied answer but given the system specs of:

macOS High Sierra version 10.13.6

and copied solution:

tell application "System Events"
    set testDate to "Friday, 21 September, 2018 at 6:54:29 PM"
    set testResult to my (date testDate)
end tell

Opened a new Script Editor:

Pasted code solution:

Compiled code solution:

Ran code solution:

Issue still persists.

That's interesting, I had never noticed this oddity of AppleScript before.  Strangely, if you create the date object using a string by value, neither System Events nor Finder has a problem:
tell application "System Events"
    set testResult to date "Friday, 21 September 2018 at 6:54:29"
end tell

is absolute fine (the format of my date string is different to yours, as per my system settings).
It's only when referencing the string's value using a variable that the issue presents itself:
tell application "System Events"
    set testDate to "Friday, 21 September, 2018 at 6:54:29 PM"
    set testResult to date testDate
end tell

as you pointed out, is not allowed.
Solution:
It turns out the solution is to refer the job to the top-level AppleScript object using my (or AppleScript's):
tell application "System Events"
    set testDate to "Friday, 21 September, 2018 at 6:54:29 PM"
    set testResult to my (date testDate)
end tell

Note to other users: AppleScript date strings are formatted according to your system's date/time settings, therefore a direct copy-n-paste of any of the above snippets—either mine or the OP's—may still generate an error.  You need to determine the appropriate format to use for the date string on your system, which is most easily done by examining the value returned by the AppleScript command current date, and using that as a template.


Save HTML as PDF without metadata (e.g. date/time, URL) In Safari or Firefox, saving a web page as PDF (⌘P > PDF > Save as PDF...) includes the page's title, URL, page number, and date/time in the resulting PDF.

Is there a way to generate a PDF without this metadata?

Yes.
Before you save the PDF select "Show Details" and select Safari (or whatever) from the drop down, then uncheck "Print headers and footers".

Then save as PDF.


Since Mavericks, I can't mount ISO files on my Mac over a network Since upgrading to OS X Mavericks, when I want to mount an ISO file that's on my Mac from my Windows 8.1 PC (so, mounting a Mac share on a Windows computer, so I am accessing the file from the Windows PC), I get an error saying it can't mount it. I have to copy the file to the PC to mount the ISO file.

Is this due to how Mavericks switched from AFP/SMB to SMB2? Is there a way to fix this?

It sounds more to me as if it's a Windows issue than a macOS issue, even though I realize that it didn't start until after the Mavericks upgrade.  Have you tried any other mount tools, such as CloneDrive or PowerISO?  It may be worth trying a couple of other tools as a test.  Are you able to mount the ISO from another Mac?


How to show or hide Keyboard Viewer with a keyboard shortcut? I would like to display and hide the Keyboard Viewer using a shortcut.

Is there a way to display the Keyboard Viewer via a keyboard shortcut?
Is there a way to automatically display the Keyboard Viewer once I switch to a specific language?

Launch Keyboard Viewer with a Service (Improved)

You can launch the Keyboard Viewer with a shortcut by using Automator and the OS X Services functionality.

The Keyboard Viewer program lives at /System/Library/Input Methods/KeyboardViewer.app (in versions prior to Lion, it may be at /System/Library/Components/KeyboardViewer.component/Contents/SharedSupport/KeyboardViewerServer.app). You open it with a hotkey by using Automator to create a simple launcher service.

Open Automator and select Service as the type of your new document.
Set the options (at the top of the workflow area) to "Service receives no input in any application".
Add the Run AppleScript action to your workflow, and replace the text with the following lines:

if application "KeyboardViewer" is running then
    quit application "KeyboardViewer"
end if

activate application "KeyboardViewer"

-- wait until the window has been closed, then end the KeyboardViewer process
set numberOfWindows to 1
repeat until numberOfWindows = 0
    delay 5
    tell application "System Events"
        tell process "KeyboardViewer"
            set numberOfWindows to count windows
        end tell
    end tell
end repeat
quit application "KeyboardViewer"

Save with a name like "Open Keyboard Viewer", then open Keyboard Preferences to the Keyboard Shortcuts tab. Select Services in the left pane and scroll to the bottom, where you should see the name of your Service under the General Section.
Make sure the box is checked to enable it, then select it and click add shortcut to set a hotkey.
After setting the hotkey, open the Services menu in any application (i.e. Finder > Services), then close it. For some reason my hot key didn't work until I did this.

A couple notes:

The script requires that you check the Enable access for assistive devices box in the Universal Access preference pane.
Closing the Keyboard Viewer window doesn't actually quit the application, and as Lri points out, it can be a bit of a resource hog, so the repeat loop checks every 5 seconds if Keyboard Viewer has any open windows, and if not, quits the process.
If you're running a pre-Lion OS, you may need to replace the instances of KeyboardViewer with KeyboardViewerServer. I don't have anything pre-Lion handy to test this (if someone else could report back in the comments, that would be great.
Because the script loops until the Keyboard Viewer is closed, the Automator spinning gear icon will show in the menu bar until it closes.


Select text-replacement without adding a space? I have set up Lion text replacement to replace a three-letter short-code with my full email address. It works great, and I recommend you all do it. :-)

But - in order to confirm the auto-replacement, I need to press the space key (similar in iOS). Often for web-forms, etc. I don't want that space to be there.

Does anyone know if there is a keystroke which will select the suggested text auto-replacement without adding a space?

I don’t know how to do this with Lion’s text replacements, but you might want to consider TextExpander, which performs a similar task. You don’t need to add a trailing space to open a snippet, which is what you’re looking for, right? e.g. my email address in TextExpander is set off with the shortcut ;g, no space required.

[Duped from comments per dan8394’s request]


How can I solve an iPhone 4S restore failure loop? My iPhone crashed while it was connected to the computer. I performed synchronization and left the phone so it can recharge. When I looked it after some time I saw Apple logo. I have tried multiple times to reset it (power + home) but every time it just stuck on Apple logo.

After some time I gave up and decided to restore it but even that didn't work. Each time it just stuck on the progress bar. Here are things I have tried:

different USB ports
different sync. cables
different machines (desktop and laptop)
windows and mac
DFU mode

every time same result.

Bringing iPhone to the Apple store is not an option because I am in a unsupported country without the Apple stores.

Try RecBoot from sebby.net for Mac (and Windows).

The RecBoot application lets you put your iPhone into and out of recovery mode easily.


Importing Notes from one mac to another? I was making extensive use of Notes on a loaner laptop for work.  I just got my permanent machine, and after updating from the backed up data on CrashPlan, I found my notes didn't make it over.  I looked into the issue, saw what I needed to copy over, and asked the build tech to email me the contents of group.com.apple.notes from the old machine.  I extracted the zip he sent me, and in Notes ran "import notes" on the directory he sent.  It doesn't seem like anything was copied over.  Any idea why this might not work?  Am I copying the wrong directory, or importing incorrectly or otherwise missing a step?  What are the actual files that need to be copied over?  Both old machine and new are running El Capitan.

The ‘Import to Notes’ function imports text files. Notes itself stores its files in a SQLite database, which is contained within the group.com.apple.notes group container.

~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.notes/

To use this as your Notes database, quit Notes and copy the contents to the group container on your current system.


iOS 14 Messages swipe left to right to mark read I have noticed that swiping a message left to right in iOS Messages is suddenly pinning it instead of marking it read and it appears that the is no longer a quick way to mark a message read without opening it.
I am wondering if there is a way to change the behaviour back to how it was (mark message read by swiping left to right)?
Didn’t find any tips on that by googling.

Unfortunately, there is no way to change that behaviour back, as can be done with emails.
You can still bulk mark messages as read by clicking on Edit > Select messages > Click on the messages > Read.


iPhone - contacts show up in contacts but not in messages My question is the opposite of Contact names are gone, but still shown in Messages. I don't think I did anything to cause this, but yesterday out of the blue, some of my messages did not display the name of the contact, only the phone number. The same holds for phone calls. Yet the contacts are just as normal in Contacts. For the most part, it seems that older contacts are less likely to have their name and to only have their number. Some contacts have a new text chain opened for some reason. I sometimes get a message sent to myself as it thinks I am two people. I have contacts both in iCloud and Gmail.

Aided by suggestions from website, I have tried a ton of things, like:

Turning the phone off and on
Restarting the phone
Toggling short names off and on
Toggling iCloud-Contacts off and on (and using the delete from iPhone option)

Import SiM contacts from both Gmail and iCloud

What else should I do?

The answer is from Some text messages showing phone number not contact name  My language was set to English. I selected English again and it fixed it!


Can I set a specific Time zone for an app in macOS? In macOS, I can use the code below to set specific language for Word.app, can I use some similar code to set a specific Time zone for an app?

defaults write com.microsoft.Word AppleLanguages '("de")'

Background
With standard UNIX CLI tools you can set the environment variable TZ=<XXX> with a timezone and any application that runs within the shell where this was done will pick it up and use its value as their timezone.
Using TZ
For example, you can use this command to get the complete list of valid values to set TZ= to like so:
$ sudo systemsetup -listtimezones

And here I've listed just the first 10:
$ sudo systemsetup -listtimezones | head
Time Zones:
 Africa/Abidjan
 Africa/Accra
 Africa/Addis_Ababa
 Africa/Algiers
 Africa/Asmara
 Africa/Bamako
 Africa/Bangui
 Africa/Banjul
 Africa/Bissau

For this example, I'm going to use Tokyo's timezone, so we can find it like this:
$ sudo systemsetup -listtimezones | grep -i tokyo
 Asia/Tokyo

CLI Example
We can see the effect of setting our shell to this like this:
# My default timezone, EDT
$ date
Sat Apr 13 22:44:55 EDT 2019

# Using Tokyo's
$ TZ=Asia/Tokyo date
Sun Apr 14 11:44:59 JST 2019

GUI Example
In my limited testing this same approach works with GUI applications as well. In this example I installed this application that I found called the-clock.
$ brew cask install the-clock

Now we can invoke it like this from the shell:
$ '/Applications/The Clock.app/Contents/MacOS/The Clock'

It looks like this when you run it in the menubar at the top:

Now if we invoke it with the environment variable set:
$ TZ=Asia/Tokyo '/Applications/The Clock.app/Contents/MacOS/The Clock'

And look in the menubar:

We can see that the timezone was changed when we invoked the GUI application.
What about defaults?
In investigating any methods that you could use with the defaults command I didn't find anything compelling that led me to believe that you could do this through the defaults as in your example.
These resources led me to believe that you cannot:

CHANGE MACOS USER PREFERENCES VIA COMMAND LINE
Is there any way to save Mac OS X preferences into a shell file?
A database of hidden settings for Mac OS X

References

output from timezone.txt


Is there an option/shortcut in Safari 6 to focus the search results after a search? When I write a search query in the url bar in Chrome, I want the focus to go on the search result.

In Chrome I can search for something, then hit tab and select the results with my arrow keys (and open the link with return).

Is there any option/shortcut to focus the page after search?

Let me make a clarification.

The problem is real, and we got it with the unique URL bar behaviour in Safari 6.

If you make a google search from the URL bar, Safari doesn't bring the focus to the document, but (for some reason, e.g. assuming you continue with typing new search keywords) leaves the focus in the URL bar. This causes that you can't instantly use the very advanced keyboard handling of Google's search results pages - which is: from the input field TAB gives you a selector arrow and you can navigate with keyboard arrows.

For using the search result page's keyboard handling, you have to bring the focus to the document. Now, whether it's easy or not depends on your keyboard settings in System Preferences. If the setting which says "Full Keyboard Access: In windows and dialogs, press Tab to move keyboard focus between:" is set to "Text boxes and lists only", then it's easy to bring the focus to the document by hitting Tab only once. But if it's set to "All controls" (which actually happens a lot if you're accustomted to using the keyboard in UI navigation), then Safari brings you through all the bookmark bar items and such buttons when you hit Tab. This is definitely a no-way.

You always need to switch back to "Text box only" (by hitting Ctrl-F7). The problem is that in this mode you can't navigate between form elements like checkboxes and buttons.

In Chrome the problem doesn't exist, because Chrome always brings the focus to the document when doing a search.

Apple should definitely address this issue.

Until then, a workaround can be that you hit Ctrl-F (moves focus to in-page search), then hit Tab 4x.