Where does Microsoft RDP 8 for Mac store its configuration I want to find a way to share some Microsoft RDP configuration information with my team.

Where does Microsoft RDP 8 for Mac store its connections and configuration?

If you want to share a configuration you can select the target under My Desktops and either right-click and select Export or from the Microsoft Remote Desktop File menu select Export.

The file that contains the information shown in the Microsoft Remote Desktop window, sans any passwords which are stored in your Keychain, is located at:

/Users/$USER/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.rdc.mac/Data/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.rdc.mac.plist


Display Distortion on Retina Macbook Pro 2014: Is it always the LCD? I have a 15" MBP Retina from mid' 2014. Out of the blue the bottom 2/3 of the display turned a dim grey. Randomly this part of the screen will ghost images, flash white, and return to translucent grey. I have ruled out a software issue by resetting PRAM, SMC, and booting it into Windows.
My question is this: What possible parts could be causing this?

(On a possibly related note... I noticed under About This Mac > Serial Number: Unavailible)

Combined with the lack of a serial number I'm thinking hardware damage. Possibly liquid spill or drop damage. Any pictures of the logic board?


Can't sync iPhone 5 due to old OS X version I just bought an iPhone 5 and I want to synchronize it with my iTunes library but when I connect the iPhone to my Mac I get a message saying that the iPhone can't be used because it requires iTunes version 10.7 or newer, but when I try to install the required iTunes version I get another message saying that my version of OS X is too old.

As my Mac is from 2009 I can't upgrade to a newer version than the 10.5.8.

Do I seriously have to buy a new Mac to get my iPhone 5 synchronized with my iTunes?

i tried this and it worked for my iphone 5

check pls: https://discussions.apple.com/message/21665313#21665313
pushc6

Re: iTunes won't sync my music, movies, ringtones... Anything!

Apr 30, 2013 4:39 PM (in response to YoshiCookie)

I was experiencing the same problem and tried all sorts of stuff, including items in this thread with no luck, this is what ultimately worked for me.

Download iFunBox (or other utility that gives you access to the filesystem)
Delete the _iTunes_Control folder
Delete everything in the Purchases folder
Force a sync in itunes
Force delete itunes, then re-download using your same apple id
Profit.

So far I haven't seen any weird problems, other than my songs now sync.


Disabling desktop switching animation on El Capitan On Yosemite I used totalspaces to modify this behaviour as well as having a grid layout... I understand that totalspaces no longer works without doing some system modifications.

The animation I wish to eliminate/speed up is the default space switching animation, which for me is invoked by either swiping left/right with three fingers or ctrl+ left/right.

Is it possible to kill or speed this up?

Edit: One year later, we're on Sierra now.... please send help

Edit: Two years later, I still check this thread and any solution still appreciated!

Try pasting this into Terminal.app:

defaults write com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration -float 0.1

It is supposed to

  Make all animations faster that are used by Mission Control.

Source: http://www.defaults-write.com/10-terminal-commands-to-speed-up-your-mac-in-os-x-el-capitan/


Geektools Shell Problem In order to monitor the filesystem activity on my computer, I found command "sudo fs_usage", which works very well in Terminal. Then I had the idea to display those system activities (written) on my desktop wallpaper.

I downloaded the app "GeekTool" and created a "Shell" widget with the command:

echo "root password" | sudo -s fs_usage

But it doesn't work :(

You can circumvent the need to enter a password to use fs_usage by means of the sudoers file.

Warning: I am not a security expert in any way, and modification of the sudoers file should only be performed with extreme caution. I don't think this particular solution would be a security issue, but again, I’m not an expert.

Open Terminal, type sudo visudo, and enter your password.
Scroll down using the arrow keys to the “User privilege specification” section.
Look for a line that starts with your username, or failing that, one that starts with %admin.
Position the cursor just below that line and press A to enter insert mode.
Add the following text on its own line:

yourusername ALL=(root) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/fs_usage

Press esc, then type :wq enter to save your changes and quit.

You will need to restart GeekTool. I don’t think you need to reboot for the changes to take effect, but if it doesn’t work, try that.


APFS Fusion Drive with external USB on 2018 Mac Mini For fun, I've bought a USB thumbdrive from a reputable brand, and was able to build an APFS fusion drive (with the internal SSD as the main, and the USB thumbdrive as the secondary) on my 2018 Mac Mini, which came with Mojave, as follows:

Reboot into Mojave's recovery
In Startup Security Utility, choose "Medium Security" and choose "Allow booting from external or removable media"
In Terminal, list all disks

$ diskutil list | head -40

Then delete the APFS volume:

$ diskutil apfs deleteContainer disk0s2

Then create a Core Storage Fusion Drive:

$ diskutil cs create "Fusion LVG" disk0 disk4
$ diskutil cs createVolume <identifier> jhfs+ "Fusion" 100%

Exit Terminal and go to Disk Utility. Format the drive as APFS.
Reboot into internet recovery mode with Opt-Cmd-R and install Catalina.

The problem is as follows. The installation finishes correctly, and leaves you with a running system. However data gets corrupted when the fusion drive contains too much data to solely exist on the internal drive. I've checked this by copying one file multiple times and then checking the MD5 sum.

Why have I been able to create a fusion drive that actually corrupts data? Why did it go wrong?

This is a bad idea for lots of reasons. You're lucky that the Mac can boot from a Fusion drive that's half T2 and half external USB.

I suspect the T2 disk controller is at the root of the problem. Possibly because of its built-in encryption. Perhaps the Fusion magic moves encrypted blocks off the SSD without decrypting them?

Even if it did work, using a USB thumb drive is going to massively compromise the speed of the  fast internal portion.

I don't think that 'expanding' the internal storage into a bigger logical volume, either with Fusion or RAID is going to be workable.


How to make Google Calendars sync *all* data with iOS On my iPad, Calendar doesn't show all events (from all of history) from my Google calendars. Only the last 1.5 months or so.

I had the same issue with iCloud calendars, but when I changed the sync duration setting in Settings → Calendar, the problem got fixed.

However, I still only see recent events from my Google calendars.

What I encountered was a simple bug, not a GCal limitation.

What I did was removed Google Calendar completely from my iPad, then re-enabled it, waited until all was downloaded, and voila.

Phew!


Color code for vi on terminal on Mac? I have been using my school's tux for a while. It was built with nice color code for each syntax for each programming languages. I want to do the same on the machine that I just purchased. When I invoke

vi filename

The view was plain black and white. How do I customize so that when I view the script/code files on terminal, it will have nice color code? For example, if statement will be read, string will be purple, etc.
As far as I know, it may have something to do with .profile file?

Add the following to your ~/.vimrc:

filetype plugin indent on
set term=builtin_ansi
syntax on

If you’re using iTerm, use this instead of line 2:

set term=xterm-256color


iMac 21.5” mid-2010 SATA Specification Does the 21.5” mid-2010 iMac support the full 6 Gbps SATA III standard?

Your systems SATA port is only SATA II (3.0 Gb/s) . So It Will Not Support . For Details :-

  https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/454939/Can+SATA+III+HDD+be+installed+on+mid+2010+iMac+Intel+21.5%22


Fix Terminal error message "-bash: /etc/profile.d/rvm.sh: No such file or directory" I am trying to remove the following Terminal error message:

-bash: /etc/profile.d/rvm.sh: No such file or directory

I recently uninstalled RVM (Ruby Version Manager) from my MacBook Air. The terminal error appeared after I finished the RVM uninstall. The error appears every time I launch Terminal. My troubleshooting so far (seaching google etc.) lead to suggestions to modify my bash files. I have checked the two files listed below and found nothing pointing to "/etc/profile.d/rvm.sh"

~/.bashrc
~/.bash_profile

Am I missing a bash file that is causing the error? I was assuming the error had to stem from one of those two files listed above, but obviously I was wrong.

You should also look at /etc/profile file, as it may have references to /etc/profile.d/rvm.sh.

It's also worth it to read the manual for bash, as it lists all files bash will look at for configuration. This will be towards the end of the man page. To read it, in Terminal.app type man bash.

Finally, you can run, again in Terminal.app, the following command:

grep -R 'rvm.sh' /etc

This will look for all files inside /etc, recursively, that contain rvm.sh text in them.


How to fix MacBook, not reconnecting to wireless network on wakeup? MacBook Air 11" - Mid 2011

My MacBook is not reconnecting to the wireless network on wakeup.

Is there a setting or something that I'm missing?

Every time MacBook Air (2010) waked-up from sleep it would ask to choose network to re-connect and then took about 20 sec to actually connect. same if I turn wifi off and then on again.

solution that worked for me was: system preferences -> network -> SET SERVICE ORDER.." (in sub-menu next to "+"/"-" (create/remove service) at the bottom of  services list on the left).

DRAG WIFI TO THE TOP in Service order list -> "OK" -> "APPLY"

After that I am back to no "choose network to connect" pup-up's and wifi connects in 3 seconds. Hope that helps.


Unable to install app from web on iOS 8 I had tried to download the SE iPad app after upgrading from iOS 7 to 8. However, nothing happens when I click the download link. For those unfamiliar with the SE app, it's still in beta, so it has to be downloaded via web. It is accessed via an itms-services:// URL. (It's a bit of a secret exactly what it is.)

It worked just fine before the update. I never had 8.0 or 8.0.1.

Is there any known info on not being able to download apps from the web?

My bug report on Meta.SE is here: Unable to update app on iOS 8.0.2

This appears to be a bug with enterprise distribution in iOS 8. If you updated to iOS 8 and had an app with the same bundle identifier installed (i.e. the same app) then you'll be unable to install the app.

A workaround is to change the bundle identifier in the distribution plist. This doesn't require the actual bundle identifier of the app to change, just the distribution plist. Alternatively, you can wait until Apple fixes it.

SE have used the workaround to fix the iOS app beta distribution, as discussed in chat and on the aforementioned meta question.


Show folder a file is contained in with finder list view in OSX 10.8.4 I am trying to consolidate files that may be spread around my mac (photos in this case).  I can tell the finder to search for images, but I am very used to in Windows where I can search for the file type across the computer, and then show a column in the details view that shows the path where the file is located.  So far, I cannot find such a thing in the list or coverflow view in the finder.

I know i can see it in the properties of the files, but it would be very helpful to see it at a glance for multiple files, instead of individually.  But since I can't sort by their folder location, I can't even assume that the file after it in the list is in the same folder, so I can't even infer where they are based on pictures around it.

Is there a way to show the path where a file is in a finder search?  Or lest that, perhaps something that could print out where the files are into a text document to help the search?

Download Alfred 2. It is an excellent application that allows for a streamlined search of your computer's files, and it also allows has other uses such as opening other applications or webpages. It shows you the location of the file that you're accessing, so for example if you type "chrome" it will show the option of opening Chrome in its application location.

A useful shortcut is "apple click" which then opens up the location of the file.


Does Google Photos replace images on the device with low quality versions the way iCloud does? On iCloud, under “optimize storage” there is an option to save photos to iCloud and replace the ones on the DEVICE with low-quality copies.
Does Google photos work the same way? Does selecting “high quality” or “free up space” replace original photos?

Uploading photos to Google Photos doesn't replace or change anything on the phone.  The application will ask you if you want to remove the photos from the Camera Roll after uploading them.


Mountain Lion - Finder - Search by file name I just upgraded from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion and I seem to be missing one bit of functionality that I used all the time in Finder. I could press Command+Shift+F and search for files by file name. Now pressing Command+Shift+F takes me to the "all my files" folder.

Did they reassign the keyboard shortcut for search by file name?

The keyboard shortcut was changed to ⌃⌘F.

If you open a window with ⌃⌘F, there is no indication in the UI that Finder is matching only filenames other than that the "Name matches" item in the suggestion list is selected:

Finder should only match filenames even if you don't press return though.


Which audio interface standard (or API) does macOS use? For instance: Windows supports DirectSound & ASIO, Linux supports PulseAudio & Jack, etc.

A basic google search currently does not seem to answer this basic question.

Apple's main low-level Audio Framework / API for macOS 10.0+ is Core Audio .

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/coreaudio

  Framework

  Core Audio

  Use specialized data types to interact with audio streams, complex buffers, and audiovisual timestamps.
  SDKs

  Overview

  The Core Audio framework (which is not an umbrella framework for the other services in Core Audio, but rather a peer) declares data types and constants used by other Core Audio interfaces. This framework also includes a handful of convenience functions.

Apple actually supports multiple frameworks & APIs, including AudioUnit & OpenAL.

Core Audio is actually based on OpenAL.


Upgrading from Windows 8 to 8.1 RTM on a Boot Camp partition Have anyone been able to upgrade/install Windows 8.1 on a Boot Camp partition?
When trying to upgrade to 8.1 RTM it goes into blue screen on first boot, claiming that "A required device is missing" and then rolls back the update:

This is the error message I get after rollback:

0x101 - 0x20017

UPDATE: When upgrading via the Windows Store, I get this error message after rollback:

0xC1900101 - 0x20017

I am very happy to report, that, at least with 2012 15" Retina Macbook Pros (and I think a good chance with all other relevant Mac models), that there is a method to upgrade Windows 8 to 8.1 (even Enterprise, in my case) without the need for a DVD or USB drive.

You simply mount the ISO and run the setup file from the mounted disc, while following the steps I lay out below (and actually, I think that even just extracting the files from your MSDN ISO (or running the update from the Windows Store), would work as well!):

(Again, I have a 2012 15" Retina Macbook Pro, currently with OS X 10.8.5 (Mountain Lion), Bootcamp 5.0 (no rEFIt, just simple bootcamp setup), and until 30 minutes ago, Windows 8 x64 Enterprise EN-US.)

First preparation step, is to make sure, in both Win 8's Bootcamp Control Panel settings AND Mountain Lion's System Preferences, to set the Windows partition as the default boot drive. I checked thoroughly on both sides and rebooted a couple times to make sure Windows was what it would ALWAYS boot to no matter what I chose (via alt key) the last time.
To make sure you can do a seamless 'in-place' upgrade, keeping your 'Windows settings, personal files and apps', you need to make sure the 'target language' of your 8.1 ISO is the same as your Windows 8's 'host language', so if you have an EN-GB Windows 8 you should download the EN-GB 8.1 ISO if you want to do a full in-place upgrade instead of a clean or half-way reinstall. (However it may be possible to just change to EN-US from EN-GB by carefully changing ALL system language and regional and keyboard settings to EN-US and deleting all instances of EN-GB temporarily to make it a match - I cannot confirm this though.)
Simply mount your ISO and run its setup.exe to start the install process. To mount natively in Windows 8, right-click on ISO in Windows Explorer and 'Mount' is at the top of the context menu. If it is not, follow this guide to temporarily make the option visible in Windows Explorer.
The install process will take you through the upgrade, painlessly through about 5-6 reboots, and each time, because it has been carefully set and checked (on  both sides of Bootcamp) to ALWAYS boot into Windows partition by default, you are secure in Windows properly continuing through the install process every time. (I have installed Windows from extracted ISO folder on C drive before, so even non-mounting may work in this instance as well.)

Done.


Edit a date value in plist from terminal I am trying to edit a date value in a plist to todays date.  I found a previous question on here relating to it, but i get an error every time.

Here is what i am using

defaults write com.test.name.plist TestAppFirstSeen $(date +"%Y-%m-%d %l:%M:%S +0000")

This is the error i get:

defaults[10761:276123] Unexpected argument 11:43:25; leaving defaults unchanged.

Any idea what i am doing wrong?

I'm surprised the original solution ever worked, but maybe the defaults command changed in recent versions. Try

defaults write com.test.name.plist TestAppFirstSeen "$(date +'%Y-%m-%d %l:%M:%S +0000')"

Also, %l gives you the hours between 1 and 12. If you want 1 to 24 use %H instead.


Apple 27" Thunderbolt/Cinema Display DPI I've recently purchased an Apple Thunderbolt 27" display and having connected my second monitor side by side, I can see the DPIs between the two displays are different.

My other monitor, a Samsung SyncMaster is 92dpi, so what DPI is the Thunderbolt display (and by inference) the Cinema Display?

Apple's site just lists the the dimensions and the panel size and you can estimate using basic math that the DPI is approximately 109.

However being the fact fascist that I am, 109dpi just sounds plain wrong; so either the assumption that the pixels are square is wrong, or the dpi is wrong (say 108 or 110) and the display is not quite 27"

Is there any empirical evidence of the display's DPI or pixel structure that will cement the DPI figures?

Is there an official statement from Apple (perhaps a slide in a Keynote somewhere) thats shows the actual DPI, or tech document I've missed that states it.

Your calculation is solid. Everywhere I've seen it 109 PPI (which is probably what you intend with DPI) is what people report for the Thunderbolt Cinema Display:

Retina display Macs, iPads, and HiDPI: Doing the Math (updated)

The TUAW article has this nice picture to catalog various pixels per inch densities:

The linked article above even has a Google-hosted spreadsheet with details on the data behind the table.


Cannot update Microsoft Office Word 2011 to 14.2.3 on OSX I just purchased Microsoft Office 2011 for MAC and installed it on my rMBP OSX 10.8.2 running Mountain Lion. The installed version from purchase is 14.2.0. I tried installing  14.2.3 but it failed due to a specific file that was not found :

Office 14.2.3 can't be installed on this disk.
A version of the software required to install this update was not found on this volume.

So I went to the site and downloaded 14.2.1, but that didn't install either with the same message. Also tried 14.2.2, but still the same error.

I want to add that the actual installation failed (tried twice), however Office 2011 appeared in the application folders and Word works fine.

Not sure what can be causing this, any idea ?

I had this issue once. I ended up backing up my data via Time Machine (for a get out of jail card) and then removing Office in it's entirety, rebooted my Macbook Pro, and then proceeded to reinstall Office 2011. Once I had the Office suite reinstalled the software  allowed me to apply all subsequent updates without issue. This worked for my particular instances / issue, results may vary depending on software environment.


Ubuntu Disk isn't showing up at Boot I recently installed ubuntu on a flash drive, following all of the instructions on the ubuntu website.

When I started up my mac, it didn't appear in the boot menu. Has this happened to anyone else here booting their thumb drives onto their macs? If so, what did you do to fix this?

(I asked this on the Ubuntu forums as well, but I thought that it would be relevant here as well)


How can I use an external HD to boot from in Snow Leopard? Recently my OS X Snow Leopard has been taking a really long time to boot up. Suspecting that something might be wrong with the HD I did a disk verification using the Disk Utility. It showed me an error message stating that i need to repair the disk using the disk utility from the installation disk.

However, my CD ROM does not function properly and I am unable to boot from the installation disk.

Is there any way I can use an external HD to boot from?
Any solutions that you could suggest?

[EDIT]
Unfortunately I dont have access to another mac

You will need a USB drive (8GB) and access to another Mac or a functioning CD ROM drive. You can use any external drive instead of a USB drive, but be aware that you'll have to format the drive and you'll loose any content on it.

The procedure to make the external HD bootable is explained at Upgrading to Snow Leopard without optical drive


Outlook 2011 - clicking email addresses inside the application opening in Apple Mail I use Apple Mail for my personal mail, and Outlook 2011 for work.  I have Mail as my default client, as when browsing the web / writing mail, I want to send all emails from that account.

However, I use Outlook for work.  When I need to send a new email to someone in outlook, say an email, and their name is blue and highlighted, I click their name. However, it opens a new mail message in Apple Mail instead of Outlook.

How can I have Outlook know that if I'm using Outlook, I want to send new messages FROM Outlook?  I hope the question is clear!

Setting Default mail Client tells your system to use that one when requesting email from other applications. (outside of Email).

While in Email (Outlook or Mail) they will do as told.

In your case using MS Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint with email link in one of the documents, will by default use the chosen default mail client.

There is a simple work around.
Since you are probably not using heavy duty MS Office applications to handle your Mail.app but do so with Outlook, I would make the Outlook the default mail application.
Now you can use Mail as email and Outlook will be the default mail client for your work.


Do people that are called through FaceTime show up on my carrier's bill? I was just wondering if FaceTime calls show up on my carrier's (Sprint) bill as a regular call, like the number that was FaceTimed and when and the length of the conversation.

Facetime uses Wifi or Cellular data so will not show as regular calls on your carrier bill.

  You can use FaceTime on any of these devices on Wi-Fi: iPhone 4 or later, iPad Pro (all models), iPad 2 or later, iPad mini (all models), and iPod touch 4th generation or later (only iPod touch 5th generation or later support FaceTime audio calling).
  With a cellular data plan, you can also use FaceTime without Wi-Fi on any of these devices: iPhone 4s or later, iPad Pro (all models), and iPad (3rd generation or later).

Details of your FaceTime call history are stored locally on your device.


Wi-Fi taking up lot of memory Since the last major upgrade to macOS Mojave, I have the Wi-Fi process taking up a lot of memory and in an exponentially way. Time to time I need to force quit it in Activity Monitor because it takes too much memory (around 5 GB). Did anyone else faced the same issue and was able to resolve?

I am using a MacBook Pro 15-inch 2017 with macOS Mojave 10.14.

Edit: I've recently noticed that the Wi-Fi process uses a lot of memory when connecting to the internet through personal hotspot on iPhone.

I think this is a normal situation as well - see my answers here:

Why is my Wi-Fi process using 3GB of memory?
Why is my Wi-Fi Process eating >2GB memory

I don't think there is any leak or issue on Apple side - just some programs you run open lots of connections and if they have bugs or you have more tabs open one day versos another and the specific web pages with trackers in the hundreds can really pile on - so the explanation could be more about what specific requests are made each session you use your Mac.


How do I enable cover flow in iTunes 11? I just installed iTunes 11 and I cant seem to find any place to activate the cover flow.
Did they remove it? Can I re-enable it? If I can't, does anyone know of a way to downgrade with out uninstalling and re-installing?

EDIT: I am using Windows XP operating system.

It's gone. You could perhaps look for a different program to browse your library or revert to iTunes 10.


What's the difference between chat.db, chat.db-shm and chat.db-wal There are 3 files used to save Messages on Mac.

chat.db
chat.db-shm
chat.db-wal

What are each of them for?

Per this great answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/12948036/475228

The shm and wal are standard indexing and checkpoint files that accompany the main database file. Nothing special on th messages side other than using the sqlite3 format to store the data to disk.


Series 2 Apple Watch Battery Drain in Absence of iPhone Can anyone else confirm if their Series 2 Apple Watch battery drains faster when it's not connected to iPhone?  I leave my watch at home when I go to work, because my work poses too many threats for it, and it seems the battery dies faster in this situation.  I assume it's because the watch is looking for the phone.  Anyone else experience this?  Are there any settings to change to fix this?

Thanks.

Yes, my Series 2 drains faster if it's not connected to iPhone. I put the watch in Airplane mode to save battery when it's not near the iPhone. It lasts much longer. You should try that.


Switching from Windows shows all files in git as modified I don't know if I should write here or StackOverflow, but I recently switched from Windows to MacOS and plugged in the eHDD which had my website projects on there.
I forgot to push the updated code to git before moving so I wanted to do that now.
The problem is when I open the folder, it shows that every single line is modified and all files are modified.
Is this a permissions issue or something?
The eHDD is formatted as NTFS, but the projects were extracted from a .zip archive

Seems like a duplicate here.
Resolved the issue hard reseting the staged files: https://stackoverflow.com/a/41041699/12034488


Unable to remove file or change permission on mac as root. I cant remove files from /Library/Extensions/ even if i run bash script as root.

I also tried to change flags with

chflags -R nouchg
chflags -R noschg
Here is output for ls -l even after chmod -R 777:

drwxr-xr-x  3 root  wheel  96 Aug  7 12:25 FileProtect.kext
rm -rf returns following:

rm: /Library/Extensions/FileProtect.kext: Permission denied

What can be reason for such behaviour?

There are a 2 reasons I can think of why this file (well, directory) might not be deletable.

Check for the "restricted" flag. This is part of SIP, and you should be able to see it via ls -lO /Library/Extensions/FileProtect.kext. If following the group you see "restricted" then this file is flagged as being protected via SIP. This shouldn't normally be the case for a file under /Library/ but people do the weirdest things.
The kext itself is blocking the delete operation. As it's in /Library/Extensions, there's a reasonable chance it's loaded automatically. If it implements a kauth vnode scope listener or a MAC policy, it can arbitrarily deny file operations, including deletions.

In either case, the solution is to boot into the recovery environment and to delete it there.


Import date of a certificate into keychain? I have a certificate in my keychain, and i need to see when did i introduce it.
I can't seem to find a way to so. The properties of the certificates don't include that. Is there a log of keychain events somewhere that could help or anything?

Thanks

Keychain Dump

There is no automatic history of the Keychain kept on Mac OS X. You can see everything stored within a keychain file using the following command:

security dump-keychain ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain

authd.log

A rotating log of authentication related actions is kept. This may have logged the granting of rights needed to import the certificate. It is unlikely but the only place Mac OS X, by default, logs authorization and authentication related activity.

You can see the log using Console.app within the /var/log/authd.log range of files.


Macbook pro disable charging when connected to external monitor via thunderbolt 3 port I can connect external monitor to macbook via type C port. But the battery starts charging when I do so.

This causes the laptop to always be charged at 100% (which is not good for battery life)

How do I avoid this charging when the monitor is connected to laptop?

I spoke with Apple chat support. They did not have a solution for this issue.

My tested and working solution is as follows:

I bought 2 things

HDMI Cable (one end connected to external monitor)
USBC to HDMI converter (one end connected to macbook)

Now, the macbook does not charge because of external monitor connection.


Is there a capability difference between 3D Touch and Force Touch? Wired claims that there is a difference because 3D Touch can detect levels of pressure, but in my experience Force Touch can as well.

For example, pressing the fast forward button in QuickTime with more or less force will switch between 2x, 4x, 8x etc. speed.

Is there any capability difference between the two haptic/Taptic features?

This is a lot like asking if there's a difference between a Nissan Leaf and a Maxima. Both are cars, they seat 4 people, and they move around. The technology powering them though, is radically different. Wikipeadia has the 3D Touch redirect to the Force Touch page, which is misleading (and incorrect). This article does a slightly better job explaining it, though it sort of steps on its own tail. Basically, Force Touch reacts based on the actual force (hard, medium, soft) where's de 3D Touch reacts based on the kind of touch (or tap): quick, prolonged, etc.

EDIT:

On second reading, you ask more about capability than implementation. 3D touch is definitely more sensitive than Force Touch, but with only the 6S just rolling out, we'll need to wait and see what Apple chooses to do with this enhanced capability.


The iPhone is synced with another iTunes library error Message Whenever I select to manually manage music and videos, I get an error message that says "The iPhone is synced with another iTunes library. Do you want to erase this iPhone and sync with this iTunes library?"

I haven't connected my iPhone to any other computer, the one I am using now is the original it was connected to (Windows PC), why is this message appearing? The only reason I can think of that it thinks it is a new iTunes library is that I updated to iTunes 11 recently. Is there anything I can do to fix this without erasing my iPhone?

The fact is you are switching to manual syncing, thus everything will be removed and synced back on your device. You don't have to worry if everything is in your iTunes library.

Or you could leave it to the automatic version of sync and you don't get a warning like this.


MacBook keeps connecting to guest network (Airport) Every time I open my MacBook Pro (restart or from sleep) it is always connected to my Guest Network. I have to manually connect to my regular network in order to access my other apple devices and use airplay. I connect via an Airport time capsule.

Select System Preferences / Network / Advanced and drag your regular network to the head of the list. You may also remove the guest network from that list by selecting it and pressing the - button.


How to sync iCloud cal with Exchange I use an Exchange server for work email and calendar, and I use an iCloud/iCal calendar at home and freelance business.

I want to sync all my iCloud calendar items - not contacts, email or anything else.

How can I do this?

The two services are not designed to easily merge with one another. There are numerous syncing tools available, but when you have multiple sync services interacting with each other (in this case: iCloud, middle man service & Exchange are each their own sync service) you dramatically increase the chance of serious sync corruptions.

As your goal is to see all of your calendars everywhere, I recommend setting up both services on all of your devices. You will want to use the following apps, depending on platform, for an ideal experience and visibility to both calendars:

Mac: use Apple Calendar (formerly, iCal). See this guide for setting up both account types.
PC: use Outlook. See this guide for setting up iCloud in Outlook. See this guide for setting up Exchange accounts in Outlook.
iOS: See this guide for setting up iCloud. See this guide for setting up Exchange.


can anyone explain the default view of top on OS X 10.10 There are a lot of fields that are not described in the man page (as far as I can tell anyway).  In particular these 3:

BOOSTS         %CPU_ME %CPU_OTHRS

If you run man top, under the -o description (sort order), it lists the following short descriptions:

          cpu_me CPU time charged to me by other processes.
          cpu_others
                 CPU time charged to other processes by me.
          boosts The number of boosts held by the process.  This is followed by the number of times the process has transitioned from unboosted to  boosted  in brackets.  An asterisk before the value indicates that the process was able to send boosts at some point since the previous update.  For more information about boosts, see xpc_transaction_begin(3).

(the other two are self-explanatory, but boost basically refers to the times when a process is making a call that then increases it's run priority temporarily (boosted), and then drops it back down to normal after a period of time (unboosted))


Does iPad rotate right sooner than it rotates left (or up or down)? If I don't have screen rotation lock turned on on my iPad 2 (OS 5.1) and am trying to use it in portrait mode, it's constantly rotating to the right when I don't want it to. Since it felt overly sensitive, I did a test to see how far it would have to tilt off of flat to rotate to a given direction.

To change rotation to up, down, or left, I needed to tilt it maybe 40 degrees off of flat. To change to right rotation, though, it only took a tilt of maybe 20 degrees.

I have the 'Clinometer' app (a fancy level), and its readings seem more or less accurate, so it doesn't seem like a problem with the accelerometer. Do others experience the same thing? Is there any setting I can change to tweak this?

I've just tried with an iPad (3rd gen) running 5.1, there doesn't seem to be a difference when I tilted left or right. At least, not a 20° difference.

But there could be. Since starting from iPad 2 there's the Smart Cover, people are more likely to tilt the iPad to the right, to have it in "typing mode" so Apple could have lowered the angle necessary to rotate the screen.


Password protected video I want to protect my instructional video with a password. There is a use case.

When a user wants to play an encrypted file, the encrypted file will pop up a dialog box to request the user to enter a Playback Password. This dialog box will display the machine ID of the user's apple device. The user can send his/her own machine ID to you, and you can create a Playback Password based on the user's machine ID. After that the user can use this Playback Password to play your file on his/her device. Since the Playback Password is created based on the user's machine ID, the user will not be able to share the Playback Password with other users. Since the Playback Password is bond to the user's device, the user will not be able to re-distribute your files.

Is there some software that helps me to obtain this purpose?

I seem to have secured the streaming video from the web site well enough, but a lot of the members want video files because they don't want to have to deal with wi-fi to play the video while they conduct the class.

There is no doubt someone can just shoot the video from the screen, but I want to slow down the proliferation of my video.

The software you are looking for is called "Digital Rights Management" software, often abbreviated to "DRM".
Searching for this term will find a wide range of third party tools and solutions for protecting your videos. The offerings will range from massive companies like Adobe with their Access solution to numerous smaller companies.
Protecting Streamed/Online Content
Controlling access to a video file to be played on viewer's computer is a difficult problem. Your best option is to provide online only access to your video content. By serving the video content yourself, you can more easily control access.
Have you considered using YouTube and their paid channel service?
Protecting Local Content
There is currently no built-in DRM mechanism included with Mac OS X. Requiring a user to install a third party video codec is likely to limit your audience.
However, Flash remains a popular plug-in and can be used to provide digital rights management. Flash works both in the web browser and for stand alone applications.
Searching for flash protect local video returns software claiming to support multiple platforms, including Apple:
Protect Software

We protect your software, video and content effectively against
illegal copies and sharing. On CD/DVD/BD, USB-Stick, in local networks
or via the Internet - We have the best solution for copy protection.

Brightcove

Robust content protection across
every screen is an essential part of any video monetization strategy.
Brightcove helps you protect your content and your business model with
the most advanced encryption and DRM technologies, as well as
geographic, time-based and user-based restrictions, to prevent
unauthorized access, downloads, and copying of your valuable content.

Multimedia OwnerGuard

Multimedia OwnerGuard is designed to support a wide range of
Multimedia Files including (swf, flv, mp4, f4v, 3gp, avi, rm, mkv,
3gg, 3g2, mov, m4v, m4a, f4p, f4a, f4b, mp3, mpg, asf, wma, wmv, aac,
ogg, aif, flac). Now you can use full features of OwnerGuard DRM
Technology to protect and distribute your Flash SWF, FLV and many
other media files while OwnerGuard protects your digital ownership
rights.

SWF Protection

Encrypt and protect Flash SWF files from decompilers. Protect not only Actionscripts, but also all images, sounds, buttons and sprites resources in your SWF files.

Try a Flash Based Solution
Try one of the Flash based video protection programs returned by the search above; I have no experience with any, so will not directly recommend one. The list above is extracted from the first page of Google results.


What is the difference between a tap and a click? I can click on both my Magic Trackpad and my Magic Mouse but I can tap on neither, if my understanding is correct.

On my Magic Mouse all I can do is click. Same with Magic Trackpad.

What am I missing? I have searched web but it is hard to get relevant answers.
I am using a mid 2011 iMac with 10.11 beta but this has bothered me since Lion.
I have enabled Tap to click, but the situation is the same and my basic question is what is the difference?

Edit 2

After several reboots the trackpad now responds to tap, mouse does not.

According to this article: Turning On Mac Touch-To-Click Support from the Command Line you have to enable the feature in the command line:

Enable the general tap-to-click behavior:

sudo defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad Clicking -bool true

Enables tap-to-click for the Magic Mouse:

sudo defaults -currentHost write NSGlobalDomain com.apple.mouse.tapBehavior -int 1

Enable tap-to-click at the login and boot screens of OS X:

sudo defaults write NSGlobalDomain com.apple.mouse.tapBehavior -int 1

and reboot your Mac.

To disable all this enter in Terminal:

sudo defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad Clicking -bool false
sudo defaults -currentHost write NSGlobalDomain com.apple.mouse.tapBehavior -int 0
sudo defaults write NSGlobalDomain com.apple.mouse.tapBehavior -int 0

and reboot again.


Switching MBP from hard drive to SSD I have a mid 2010 13" MBP that I am wanting to last me a couple more years.

It was suggested I get a SSD to replace my hard drive, so I bought it but need to know some stuff before switching to it.

I have an external hard drive that I back everything up to. After I have backed up everything, what's the best way to go about putting back the Mac OS, iTunes, Microsoft Office, Pictures, Documents, etc. that I want on the SSD? I don't want to put everything back onto the MBP, just things I use most often.

You can "restore" to a new Mac during setup from a Time Machine Backup. This would be the most straight forward solution, but it won't let you selectively pick and choose what to restore.

An option still involving Time Machine would be to exclude locations that you don't want to backup and restore fully (such as the Applications folder) and just backup that folder manually onto some external hard drive.

A clean way would be to just install Mac OS X fresh onto that hard drive and copy everything "by hand". This gives you most control over which files will be copied and which you don't need anymore, but it'll take you much longer.

In regards to how to do it all (install Mac OS X onto your new SSD hard drive), I would consider this:

Currently I assume you have three hard drives. The first one inside your MBP (the internal hard drive). The second one in your external hard drive (1TB Seagate with the Time Machine Backup on it). And the third one is your new SSD (currently not in any case).

OPTION 1 (if you can't tinker with your external hard drive)

Attach the external hard drive (Seagate) to your MBP.
Partition the drive into 2 partitions with Disk Utility (hopefully this will work without having to erase everything)
Install OS X from your MacBook Pro directly onto the external SSD drive. You probably have to download the installer again and need to select the correct install target partition during the setup.
Build the SSD into your MBP.
Start the MBP while holding the OPTION key then select the external OS X partition (also well explained here: http://osxdaily.com/2014/10/18/clean-install-os-x-yosemite/ - this also applies to El Capitan)
Now repeat the OS X installation procedure onto your internal SSD drive
Restart the MBP and hold OPTION again, this time select the internal SSD
Restore with Migration Assistant or manually.

OPTION 2 (if you can't partition your external hard drive)

Install the SSD drive into the external hard drive case (switch it with the external hard drive)
Connect the external hard drive (with SSD inside) to your MacBook Pro through USB
Format the SSD to whatever you prefer and Mac OS X supports (HFS+ usually)
Install OS X from your MacBook Pro directly onto the external SSD drive (over USB)
After installation is completed build the SSD from the external case into the internal MacBook Pro (this is the first and only time you open the MBP).
Put the second (external) hard drive (with your Time Machine Backup on it) back into the external hard drive case (to connect over USB).
Restart the MBP and connect the external backup over USB, then start the Migration Assistant, which will let you restore from a TM Backup.

Alternatively, you can also put your original hard drive from the MBP into the external housing in Step 6 and just copy everything manually (and skip Step 7).


Path bar High Sierra doesn't work with search results on SMB fileserver Yosemite

High Sierra

Hi there!

At our Prepress department I’ve updated some iMacs from Yosemite to High Sierra.
When I search in Yosemite on the SMB fileserver for a specific file, I see after a while the search results in the Finder window. If I select a found file I see the full path in the Path bar at the bottom of this Finder window. (See the first screenshot.)

But when I do the exact same search command in High Sierra on this SMB fileserver, I see the same search results. But when I select a found file in these search results, I don’t see the file path. In stead of that I see only the icon of the file. (See the second screenshot.) Also the found files are showing blank file icons.

When I perform in High Sierra a search command on the internal drive or a USB stick the full path of the found file is visible.

I guess the absence of the file path in High Sierra has something to do with the SMB protocol.
Apple has discarded the AFP protocol in High Sierra and uses SMB instead. Yosemite still uses AFP so i guess thats why the full file path is showing.

My question: is it possible to make the full file path visible again in High Sierra when selecting a file in the search results on a SMB server?

Either this was a bug that is fixed in 10.13.4 or the upgrade and restart has fixed this.

If you can run a reinstall of your OS in cases like this, it might help.


Is there a way to archive Live Photos to the filesystem on macOS? I like the ability to take Live Photos on my iPhone.

I bought a Mac and I can see them in the Photos App, but when I transfer them to my personal folders in my account, the live effect is lost.

Is there any way to transfer them to folders without losing that Live feature?

What I have found is the ability to export the .JPG and .MOV versions of the same photo to a folder in Mac.

Go to File-> Export-> Export unmodified original. Then chose the folder. This created a .JPG and a .MOV file with the same first name. I imported both of them together using cmd+shift+I and they appeared as one.

I checked (but not thoroughly) through Pictures-> Photos Library.photoslibrary right click-> show package contents. Couldn't find mov files. I recommend someone to check it.


Is it possible to keep Mac App Store apps in the user application directory? I have a MacBook Pro configured in the following way:

120GB SSD
    70GB OS X boot partition (10.8.2)
    50GB BootCamp partition
750GB WD HDD
    Essentially all used as my Home folder

Is it possible to keep some of the larger (less frequently used) application in my ~/Applications folder while still allowing the MAS purchased apps to receive updates? A simple alias will certainly not do the trick, but is there a way to create a symlink that will allow the linked file to receive the upgrade?

I'd like to remove some of the larger, less frequently used applications from the (space-limited) SSD… This makes me appreciated the elegance required in creating the FusionDrive framework!

Thanks in advance!

I do not know if there is such a possibility to have this as a default behavior but you could simply move the application to your user application directory or anywhere else.

Finder by default creates an alias when you drag an application out of the /Applications folder. However, if you hold down the "Command" key while dragging your applications, they will move to wherever you drag them.

If you want to go a geekier route, you can also use Terminal and execute this command:

sudo mv /Applications/your-application.app ~/Applications/

After promting for your login password everything is fine. Be sure to be administrator of your system.

This certainly works for me. I can use the application as usual and it receives all updates via the Mac App Store.


How can I ssh mount an Ubuntu server's filesystem? I posted this question on Stack Overflow, and the one response mentioned, "I guess from your mention of opendiff that you're using Mac OS. The recommended way to get sshfs on Mac OS used to be macfuse, but it looks as if that is no longer supported, so you might be better off with FuseX. (Only being a very infrequent Mac user, I can't personally vouch for either of those.)"

I followed the FuseX link and it said basically, "This is dead; you can subscribe to the Google group," and I followed that link, and it said basically, "This group is dead; do XYZ if you really want to be able to access it."

Is there any good, currently appropriate way to ssh mount an Ubuntu filesystem?

You can use Transmit. It’s a commercial program, but it does what you want.


Account Disabled and Information Wrong? So today I went to buy something on the itunes store, but it said that I had to change my password since the account is pretty old. I did that, then tried to log in again, but it said my password was wrong. I kept entering it in and eventually my account got disabled. To disable it I have to enter security questions that I never set, and enter in my birthday, which apple constantly says is wrong. I click on the email option, but no email comes in to the recovery email that I set up. Please help!

The only solution is to call Apple Support. Just go to the Apple ID support page and enter the information as it affects you. (I think going to "Apple ID" -> "Disabled Apple ID" would suit you best). I recommend calling telephone support, but you can also email them like suggested. Either way, it would be best to have a device connected to that ID.


I broke my PATH by editing my ~/.bash_profile and Bash will not recognize most commands in .bash_profile I accidentally set the path to:

PATH="~/Tools/apache-maven-3.3.3/bin"

and now the default path is gone. Nothing in Terminal works anymore:

Korays-MacBook-Pro:~ koraytugay$ ls
-bash: ls: command not found
Korays-MacBook-Pro:~ koraytugay$ mkdir test
-bash: mkdir: command not found

I can not see hidden files in Finder so I can not modify .bash_profile from Finder as well.

How can I fix this situation?

The simplest way is to restore from a backup e.g from Time Machine
However if the last backup is long enough ago that there is other changes you want to keep the you can edit .bash_profile

In terminal

In a terminal you can use the full path to the editors ( /usr/bin/emacs /usr/bin/vi or /usr/bin/nano) to edit ~/.bash_profile

e.g.

/usr/bin/nano ~/.bash_profile

Or you could open it with the default text editor (by default TextEdit) via:

/usr/bin/open ~/.bash_profile

In GUI - from Dock or Finder

But also you can do this from TextEdit (or other GUI editors) by File->Open and go to your home directory. Depending on if you have set Finder to show all  files or not show hidden ones (the default) you will either see .bash_profile in the list or you can hit ⌘ CMD+⇧ SHIFT+. which reveals hidden files in Open/Save dialogs. (the shortcut is from this answer)


Aperture 3 - Faces - Is there a way to change a person's name across all photos? I have many of photos of someone tagged using the "Faces" feature in aperture 3. They've changed their name since getting married, and I'd like to update my photos in aperture to show their married name.

I can't find any way to do this or anything else online. Every mention of aperture faces renaming refers to changing the name of a single face in one photo. Is doing a bulk change like this possible?

Also, if it's possible to do this in iPhoto, can someone let me know how that works too?

As per Frizlab's comment, if you click on a name in the list of faces in aperture (the thumbnails on the corkboard screen), then you can edit the name there, and it applies globally.


OneNote seems stuck with keychain. Can't log in This is what happened: I upgraded my passwords on different services, including Microsoft's, which I only use it to work with OneNote. As expected, all apps with login changes asked me to re-login, no issues there.

Except with OneNote. I've been using OneNote in this MBP Sierra for a long time without any problem. It prompted me it couldn't sync with the cloud, understandably, and asked for the correct login info, so I did like I did with other apps. But here's what happens:

I enter my e-mail, click Next:

And that's all she wrote. I can't put in a password; it gets stuck there forever. I've tried reinstalling; reinstalling with a mac reboot in between; uninstall, update everything and install back... Always cleaning the plist's, cache's, etc. with CleanMyMac. No luck. It's the only office product I use. And it gets stuck whatever I write as the username.

I can log online fine. But OneNote in local is stuck.

I've talked to the "Office support team" on the chat, and then over the phone, to no avail. The phone assistant who was supposed to be the last resort could only tell me to sign out and in again, having missed that I'm not logged in. Well, they did give me a link to prior versions, same problem. So I'm thinking something's fishy with my mac.

I've observed weird behavior from the Console. At the beginning you could tell the thing was in a loop:

After reinstalling back the newest version again, I see this:

But then it goes back to the last capture with green arrows.

Reading "keychain" there made me think maybe OneNote has always stored the password there (I don't recall, honestly) and it has some meltdown because it's not a valid password anymore. So I opened the Keychain app and found one instance of "OneNote" with the password "M" (??). Weird. I deleted that entry... and it's still stuck the way you see it from the captures.

What can I do? Are there any caches or files I should do something with? It's still seemingly prompting the keychain...

I like to do a quick test by making a new user account on the Mac and log out of the user account with the problem, in to the new account and try launching and re-licensing the apps.

Outlook seems to pull the most reliable licenses, followed by Word / Excel / PowerPoint, but I don’t know you can’t start with OneNote - just that I typically use another app.

That being said - here is one official KB on fixing keychain permissions and three super helpful / open-source scripts to help with removing licensing entries so you can get a fresh launch. FWIW - reinstalling almost never fixes a license or keychain issue, but it does solve other issues from time to time, so good you ruled that out already.

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/office-for-mac-repeatedly-requesting-keychain-access-ced5a09c-3099-47cb-9190-e961bf63e240
https://github.com/pbowden-msft/NukeOffKeychain
https://github.com/pbowden-msft/Unlicense
https://github.com/pbowden-msft/FlightReset

I like to start with nuking the keychain first, then proper clean unlicensing and if all else fails, resetting the flight (Insider slow / fast / etc...). You might check what license you have before starting - it would be good to be clear if your’re a serialized volume license, O365 or other licensing scheme.


What's the services/running processes manager in Mac OS X? I installed MySQL but I am unable to see if it is running or has stopped. How do I see what are the currently running services corresponding to the "Services" interface in Windows?

For most of the "services" (called Daemons or Agents) you can check:

In terminal: sudo launchctl list

For example only MySQL you can filter the output of the command above, like sudo launchctl list | grep -i mysql. Note -i is to make the filter case insensitive.

These can be controlled with a GUI named Lingon.

There are some other "services", that will install themselves in:

/Library/StartupItems

For those, there is a command like
ps -ef |grep /Library/StartupItems to view whether it is loaded and running. But there isn't a generic mechanism to stop, start or restart.

In which category your MySQL installation falls is impossible to say, as your question is lacking details on what exactly you have installed, what its source is, how it was installed, etc..


Why does the contrast change when you zoom out of an image on Preview on mac? If you click on an image file in finder on the mac and press the space bar, Preview will preview the photo for you. After doing this, you can zoom in on the image (by pinching two fingers apart from each other). When you do this it's like a gray layer with low opacity appears over the image (as if there is less contrast). When you zoom out all the way, and continue doing the zoom out motion with your fingers it's as if this gray layer disappears (and the resulting image often looks better.)

If I open the image in another photo editing app, the image with the apparent gray layer is what opens. Thus, it looks like what I perceive as a gray layer is in fact just the image itself. Thus, I'm guessing preview applies some sort of filter when you zoom out all the way of an image and continue zooming. Does anyone know what kind of changes this filter is making (because most of my images look a lot better and have much better contrast with this apparent filter)?

I searched Google now because I also want to know. It's almost like when you zoom out more contrast appears and as soon as you lift your fingers from the touchpad an soft/grey overlay get's applied...


How to install Windows 7 on Mac mini server? Previously I installed Windows 7 on a Macbook Air without problems using Boot Camp Assistant and the excellent directions here.

Now I am trying to install Windows 7 on a Mac mini server and I encounter error with every approach I take. I already have a bootable USB disk with Windows 7 installer.

First I tried to install Windows 7 directly booting the installer. Installer refused to continue displaying an error mentioning something about GPT drive.

Second I tried to install using Boot Camp, but it does not exist on Mac mini servers!

So I copied the Boot Camp Assistant app from Macbook Air, and selected the option "Download the Windows Support software for this mac". It was not able to find and download anything.

I thought I could handle the driver issues later, I used Boot Camp Assistant to make the 500 GB harddisk Windows installable. Then I booted into the installer, selected BOOTCAMP partition and formatted it. Installer did not continue displaying 0x80300024        error.

I run out of ideas and am rather frustrated. Are there any simple instructions on how to install Windows 7 on Mac mini server? Or how can I solve my problem and install?

Boot Camp requires a $29 Snow Leopard OS X DVD (not the server DVD) and an external drive. The MacBook Air SuperDrive works excellently with no driver hassle.

Sorry I don't have a list of drivers and steps to make up for the work done on the OS X since I'm a wimp and will pay good money to save an hour or two my time. Apple only bundles the Windows Drivers for it's hardware with the client version of OS X (AFAIK)

I hope if someone else has done the hard work, they post their experience. The official Apple solution is simple and works well.


Unchecking "Enable mouse Keys" using keyboard? I wanted to test the Mouse Key functionality on my MBP and so went ahead and checked the enable mouse keys option under Universal Access settings.

As expected the trackpad was disabled and I was able to use a combination of Number and alphabet keys to move the pointer around.

However, for the life of me, I just couldnt figure out a key to uncheck the box with the pointer right over it.

I tried the return key, spacebar.....what not.

I ended up doing a force power off and power on.

Anybody know what key is used for triggering a selection??

Thanks

Here is the mbp 15 inch keyboard layout:

Press right option key five times. That will disable Mouse Keys. Or you can press the M key to emulate a click.


OSX System Logs: What would a port scan look like? Im considering programming a script to scan a system log in search for an entry indicative of a port scan, in doing so, potentially giving me a heads-up if anyone is taking interest in me.

I already have a program like this which alerts me through the notification centre on the event of an SSH Authentication failure, however im unsure specifically which system log i would be looking at and what exactly the entry for a detected port scan would look like.

There are also some other considerations i must take into account first, such as: does OS X even record port scans? and are port scans so common on the internet that such a program would be pointless?

In summary: Which System log would record a port scan and what would the entry syntax look like?

Thank you in advance.

Scanned my device using 3 seperate port scanners and 1 System.log entry remains common between them:

Kernal[0]: Limiting closed port RST response1


Enable home directory sites in Lion server? I had a Leopard server with a few hundred users (students), and each of them was able to maintain their own web content in their Sites folders in their home directories -- and they could access them (from either inside or outside the network) by going to http://ourdomain.com/~studentname.

Just migrated to a Lion server, and everything is working perfectly, except now visiting any of those home directory sites nets us a 404. I can't find anything in the GUI apps that looks like it could help with this... am I missing something?

I've already tried re-creating the whole OD structure, but that hasn't helped.

Found it: The UserDir module in Apache2 defaults to public_html. So ~studentname was being directed to /Users/studentname/public_html. Which doesn't exist in any of the users' folders.

What does exist is /Users/studentname/Sites, so I just added this line to the httpd.conf:

UserDir Sites

...and it's working perfectly now. Awesome!

Many thanks to @bmike for pointing me in the right direction.


WhatsApp on iOS plays voice notes on Speaker. How can i force it to play them on my BT Headset? I got an iPhone 5 with iOS 7 paired with a Sony DR-BTN200 headset. Whenever i get a voice note on WhatsApp and i play it back, music pauses on my BT headset but the voice note is played from the phone's little call speaker (Not even the loud speaker) so it's pretty hard to listen to them.

Any ideas on how to fix this? [Jailbreaking is out of the question as this phone has been lent to me]

Slide up from the bottom you'll find "airplay"  tap it and select iphone speaker


Alternative to iTunes? Over the past decade I've come to acquire a random selection of large hard disks from my older computers. While most of the stuff on it isn't vital, there are fair bits of music I made over the years just sitting on them.

I'd like to have all these files stored in some kind of library kinda like the way iTunes does it... HOWEVER.

A lot of it is either crap, or the disk may even contain large groupings of game audio files etc.

I don't want to bog my actual iTunes library down with this nonsense. So can anyone recommend me an alternative that will essentially scan these old disks and add any content to its library.

You could create alternative iTunes libraries.

Just hold the Option key while starting iTunes and point it to a new directory. To go back to your main library quit iTunes and start it again while holding the Option key.

If you are on Windows, the Alt key should have the same function, I don't remember which one.


Change Whatsapp-for-Mac notification sound I'm here to ask you if is possible to change Whatsapp for Mac Notification sound. I tried to find any not-sound in library folder and into Whatsapp's Package contents without no result. Could you help me solving this trouble? Thanks in advance.

To the best of my knowledge this is not possible with the current desktop version of WhatsApp.

Some users have tried changing the notification sound on their iPhones in the hope it would also change it on their 'synced' desktop version, but this doesn't work either.

And, as you've stated, showing package contents doesn't seem to reveal any audio files.

However, the desktop version has only been around for about six months, so it's ripe for user feedback. I'd send an email to support@whatsapp.com.

Good luck!


Revert to 9.3 from 10 beta 1 I took a backup on icloud and installed ios 10 beta 1 now I want to go back to iOS 9.3, so I used the option reset settings and data but still I'm on 10 beta 1. Please help me out.

Ps- I don't have my laptop with me nor I made any backup on iTunes.

Well, If you don't have a backup of iOS 9.3, you might not be able to get your data back. Haven't tried it, but if you downgrade, and then set it up as a new device, and then restored your data from iCloud, you might get your data back. Don't take my word for it.

Also, you will need to have access to a computer running iTunes. You cannot go back to iOS 9 without it.

To downgrade to a fresh install of iOS 9.3 there are a couple of steps, and you need a good internet connection, a computer with iTunes, your device, and a cable to connect the device.

Head over to ipsw.me (On a Computer) and download the latest iOS 9.3.x ipsw
still being signed by apple (It is in green) for your device. As of July 8, iOS 9.3.2 is being signed by apple for all supported devices.
Connect your iDevice to your computer running iTunes, and make a full backup just incase. (Worst case scenario, you'll have to go back to iOS 10 if you don't get your data back from iCloud). The download is 1-2 GB, and it might take a while depending on your internet speed.
Go to the Summary Page of iTunes (Should automatically show up when you connect your device and open iTunes).
Alt+Click the "Restore" button (On a Mac, option+click), and select the ipsw file you downloaded earlier.
After a while, it will have restored your device, and you should be back on a clean copy of iOS 9.3.x.
Try restoring your data from a backup on iCloud, or try from the full backup you made earlier on iTunes. It will restore your data, however, I have no clue if it will take you back to iOS 10. (Again, worst case scenario, you will have to stay on iOS 10, and you won't lose your data since you have 2 working backups on iCloud and iTunes)

Remember, don't try out beta software, especially not the first beta. If you do not know what you're getting yourself into, or if you do want to try out beta software, do it on a different device or make sure you have a working backup before you jump ship.


Hyperlinked iOS mail signature, any ideas? I am a support technician for a school district. I've found it helpful to have links in my email signature to our helpdesk form, staff directory, HowTo documents, etc. Using meaning titles as opposed to raw URLs...  For the sake of cosistancey, I'd like to be able to have the same/similar signature on my iPad as I do in outlook.

On the iPad, i've attempted to embed HTML but after testing it all I receive in an email is the uninterpereted code, not a nice clickable link.  I've google around and looked in the app store and haven't been able to find a solution or someone saying that this isn't possible.

My last attempt a googling a found this for OSX's mail app and it gives me alittle hope that what I want may be possible.

http://allforces.com/2006/04/14/css-signatures/

Any help would be appreciated!

Have tried MarkdownMail?

What you would have to do is to write your email in Markdown in the app, then paste your signature (there's a TextExpander functionality in the app so you can reuse it easily)
The app will then generate an HTML version and directly paste it into a new mail.

All you'll have to do is pick the subject, the recipient and send it.


Shortcut key to send new Messages.app text I was wondering if there is a way to have a system wide shortcut key to display Messages.app with the "New Message" window open so that I can quickly send messages.

Something like the little popup in Notifications sidebar would be perfect! See screenshot!

I use a Quicksilver Trigger to open Messages, and since I always have the main Messages window open I just use ⌘N to create a new message. Not a one stop solution, but I use it constantly at work.


How to always reveal the Safari Downloads Folder despite it being on another desktop? I use different desktops as project spaces.  This generally works great and feels organized.  I can work on multiple concurrent projects and context-switch at will when I want to resume work on a different project.  However, there's one problem when it comes to the downloads folder...

If I reveal a downloaded item (using Safari's downloads button and the magnifying glass icon next to a download), and then at some point switch desktops/projects, download a new file, and do the same thing to reveal the new item's location in the Finder, the Finder gets focus, but the front-most Finder window is whatever happened to already be opened on that desktop - not the downloads folder.  If there's no Finder window already open, the desktop gets focus.  That's because the downloads folder is already open on a different desktop.  I am forced to search through my desktops to find the already-opened downloads folder and either move it to the desktop I'm working on or close it, go back, and re-open it from Safari.  I suppose I can select the downloads folder from the Finder's Window menu, but I'd rather not have to switch desktops to get to the file I want.  Ideally, the downloads button/menu in Safari would just behave as expected.

Can anyone think of a way to get Safari's downloads button to always reveal an item's location and force it to open a new finder window if the current desktop doesn't have one already (but another one does)?  Can I force Safari to always open a new Finder window to the downloads folder?  Can I create my own downloads button in the Safari toolbar that does what I want?  Is there some good folder action to automatically close the downloads folder when some clever thing happens?  Is there a way to assign JUST the downloads Finder window to all desktops?  It seems silly that this isn't already handled intuitively by Apple.

I just tried to recreate your issue, and with multiple desktops, some with already-open Finder windows, when I click Show in Finder on Safari, which is on a desktop without any Finder windows, I get the file location shown in a new Finder window on the same desktop as Safari. I tried to mess it up but I couldn't.

One thing you might want to try, is on the Dock, right click Finder, under Options choose "None" under Assign To. Both Safari and Finder had this option selected when I was retracing your steps.

Since this is a half-baked "answer", I wanted to make this into a comment however I currently lack the rep required.


How do I type the euro value sign € on a Mac? I've tried bashing on my keyboard with the ⌥ alt/option key pressed with the ⇧ shift key pressed but I do not seem to be able to find how I can get the euro value sign.

⇧ shift+4 gives the dollar sign: $

What keystrokes do I need to use to get the euro € sign?

On an American English keyboard you can type the European Currency symbol (€) with Option + Shift + 2.


Cant see the bundle folder on iOS 8 I'm a developer and usually I need to see my app folders with programs like iExplorer or iPad File Explorer and I installed the released to the public version of iOS 8 into a device and now I can't see the bundle folder of any app, only Library, Documents and tmp.

How do I read files from iOS devices over USB from a Mac?

Sorry, I forgot I posted this question. The answer is iOS 8 now stores the bundle on a separated folder. Programs are still no able to read it.


Can I make "Do Not Disturb" permanent? I've come to accept that there's no way to turn off Notification Center, but I'd at least like it to not disturb me.

You can schedule a Do Not Disturb time, but there doesn't seem to be any way to make it 24 hours a day.  If I make it 0:00 to 0:00, it's never on.  If I make it 0:00 to 23:59, it floods me with notifications at the tick of midnight.

Unfortunately, on the Mac, Do Not Disturb turns off automatically at midnight.

Is there any way to permanently enable DND?

I used the hacky workaround in this post on my slightly older Macs and it worked like a charm.

https://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/os-x-10.8-turning-off-notification-center-permanently

  Turn OFF Notification Center Permanently

  Here's the best way to permanently kill the Notification Center. Open the terminal and type:

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.notificationcenterui.plist

  The Notification Center icon will disappear from the Menu bar at the top. There will be a visible gap, but the system will close it up the next time you click the mouse. Notification Center has been terminated.


Start brew-installed applications from terminal I just set up homebrew on my new macbook and used the brew and brew cask commands to install some applications. I can now open the applications from the launchpad but not from the terminal.

I know it's not working because the applications have not been saved to one of the directories in my $PATH variable, but none of the installation guides I have read for homebrew mention how you can set it up to put links to the binaries there. Some tutorials mention you should change the order of directories in your /etc/paths file, but I already did that and my problem persists.

Can anyone help me out? :)

Add the following to your ~/.bash_profile:

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

This prepends /usr/local/bin to your existing $PATH.


Attaching OneDrive File to Email in Outlook App I'm using the Outlook mobile app for iOS as well as OneDrive. I'd like to attach files from OneDrive when I compose an email in Outlook, so I click on the paper clip, then choose Attach File, then there is a page titled "Files" and at the top are a list of cloud service providers, such as Google Drive, Box, etc. (picture at the end)

Unfortunately there is an X next to each of these, and I accidentally clicked on the X by OneDrive, assuming it was an arrow ">". Now that option has disappeared. Have I permanently lost the ability to attach files from OneDrive to my emails? How do I bring this back?

It's not clear to me if this "Files" page is just a part of Outlook, or if it's related to the Files app bundled with iOS. The whole thing is a mess.

This modal is unrelated to iOS Files app — it’s a custom presentation by the Outlook app. The app displays common account providers in the list to help promote the ability to log in to these providers for the purpose of attaching files, with the ‘x’ button to dismiss this.

The ‘normal’ way of adding a storage provider to Outlook with or without actually having a file to add is through Outlook’s settings. Open Outlook’s settings using the gear icon from within the app, then choose Add Account followed by Add Storage Account. You can then choose a provider from the full list of available providers.


How do you sync iPhone 5 with macbook to import iMovies? I tried to contact Apple for support since I just bought iMovie for my iPhone 5.  They just shut me down, no response.  I figure it was because my macbook is an older model and out of warranty.  I can get my movie clips to show up in iMovie on my macbook.  How do I get the new movies I made on my iPhone into my macbook for editing and filing?

iMovie for Mac and iMovie for iPhone are unfortunately two separate and incompatible tools. You simply won't be able to transfer the iMovie projects to iMovie on Mac.


What to do when having I/O (kernel panic) errors with Samsung 830 SSD on a mid 2009 MacBook Pro? I am trying to upgrade my mid 2009 13" MacBook Pro with a Samsung 830 SSD but I am experiencing a lot of issues.

The issues starts at installation time, when I sometimes get a kernel panic when I try to setup the system with the SSD in pace of the original HDD.
If the installation succeeds, the game is not over. I can still reproduce I/O errors running BlackMagic Disk Test Speed.
I never tried to go on since I feel that the system is unreliable for day to day usage.

I did both PRAM and SMC reset, but none of them seems to be effective. My Mac and the SSD firmware are updated to the latest versions available.

I also tried to replace the original SATA cable (Which works fine with the original HDD) with another SATA cable coming from another Mac but I get the same error again.

I exclude RAM issues too. I tested with different RAM banks (All of them working perfectly) and the SSD problem is still there.

The very same SSD is working properly on a Windows machine and on another Mac, so I would exclude a disk failure and I guess that there is something wrong with my Mac. The SSD also works perfectly when used in a USB box.

Do you have any suggestion on what should I do next?

This is my 2 cents worth. I have no specific experience for Samsung SSDs but I do have a fair amount of experience with Mac Laptops and MacMinis with SSDs.

I am post specifically because I have been fighting with an apparently "similar issue" and have come to the conclusion that SSDs are more tricky than hard drives fro a troubleshooting point of view. I have had to return a few SSDs to the manufacturer ( distributors ). In fact, I returned one to OWC just today that has resisted attempts to update it's firmware - twice over several months and began exhibiting poor performance and I was having kernal crashes that I believe were SSD related. I use a utility called "Trim Enabler" for two reasons: 1) I like to watch metrics that perhaps give insight on storage health - the observable health parameters of the SSD and a second Harddisk on my 2012 MacBook Pro and 2) because it turns on the Trim functionality which SOME SSDs like ( need ) or something....

While OWC ( macsales.com ) is a Mac specialty supplier and appear to be experts and have been good to me over the years, but in this case of SSDs, they have failed to come up with a way that I have access to test my own SSDs or a surefire efficient way to identity if the SSD is the issue or if firmware update will help and thus I returned the SSD today and replaced it with a Crucial SSD which uses different firmware - Sandforce firmware. I have experience with the Crucial SSDs for almost 4 years on Mac's and they seem to work well. It was Crucial who told me to used the 3rd party software called Trim Enabler to "enable trim" after I experienced significant performance issues that Crucial tech support believed was because the SSD was not doing necessary maintenance on itself - i.e. Trim.

Now with all that said, I believe there is still a bit of black magic going on - perhaps it is just marketing and/or marketing secrecy so that SSD makers secret sauce does leak out. Personally, I don't like the effects of the secret sauce on the end user's ability to get genuine information and tech support so they can make informed decision on their purchases of SSD.

Even so, I might recommend you try a OWC or Crucial SSDs based on those companies recommendations and warrenty policies. I no long expect trouble free saling or perfect performance or zero maintenance for a busy SSD. I have never done firmware updates on hard disks but SSDs appear to need these firmware tweeks.

I would love some genuine information at the global statistics level, so that I can better gauge my experience against what the global pool experience is showing.


How do I stop a 2012 iMac internal Fusion drive from powering up I want to completely stop my internal Fusion drive from powering up, since I no longer use it and it is very noisy.

My late 2012 27” iMac came with a Fusion drive, which has long since stopped working correctly. In fact, I long ago began using an external Thunderbolt drive for macOS and documents; now using Mojave 10.14.6.

I no longer use the internal drive(s). I also disassociated the two parts of the Fusion drive and reformatted them as 2 separate drives, one becoming a 120GB SSD, and the other a larger hard disk drive. The Fusion drive is labeled as follows: “Type: SATA Internal Physical Volume” “Device: disk1s2”. The SSD part of the disk still usually mounts. The SATA hard drive only mounts occasionally at start-up, and often dismounts itself after unsuccessfully getting stuck reading. (It will show up for a while sometimes and start to show the hierarchy, before shutting down.)

I prefer not to physically open the iMac to remove the drive (apparently, it's not a simple operation).

My big problem is the noise from the internal disk trying to spin.

I would like to completely disable the internal Fusion drive. I see some suggestions online from many years ago, and many previous versions of macOS, using Terminal commands, but am unsure if they would still work, and I don’t have much experience.

Suggestions? (This Mac has run 24 hours a day since 2012. I’m not tossing it. It still works great.)

I want to completely stop my internal fusion drive from powering up, since I no longer use it and it is very noisy.

You cannot prevent your mechanical drive from powering up.

It’s a standard 3.5” SATA hard drive with a power connector directly connected to the power supply.  There’s no switch or command you can issue that will cut off the power to the drive.  Repartitioning it and wiping it clean won’t prevent it from spinning up and doing its periodic reads.

The only solution is to disconnect it.

However, since you have to go through the trouble of cutting through the adhesive holding the glass, you might as well upgrade the drive to an SSD.  I’ve done this exact procedure - it’s not difficult, just time consuming.


How to route map between two distinct points? I feel that this must be a common and easy feature on the iPhone. I am looking for the ability to map between two distinct points on the iPhone by thumbtack.

I understand you can do it via explicit address, but this is not often at hand and this method runs against several use cases (e.g. Mapping run route).

How to do this?

Drop a pin and add the location to your bookmarks.
Drop another pin and tap the directions button.
Select the first location as the location in your bookmarks and the second location should already be set to the second dropped pin location.


Apple captive portal detection does not pop up web sheet browser I'm an engineer developing a captive portal system for use at hotels.  I know Apple devices do captive portal detection upon joining a wireless network to see if the user is behind a captive portal by attempting to load http://www.apple.com/library/test/success.html.  If this URL does not load, or is redirected, the device assumes it is behind a captive portal and loads up the terms or login page in a websheet browser.

The problem is that we are properly redirecting these requests, but no Apple devices I test with present the websheet browser.  I'm wondering if we need to provide a wispr response, or some additional information.  Has anyone else had experience with this?

Apple devices do captive portal detection upon joining a wireless network to see if the user is behind a captive portal by attempting to load http://www.apple.com/library/test/success.html.

It is no longer the right case. The url now begins with captive.apple.com, followed by unique generated path.

  The problem is that we are properly redirecting these requests, but no Apple devices I test with present the websheet browser. I'm wondering if we need to provide a wispr response.

Yes, you have. You ve got it. This is the 2nd half of the matter.


X11 app launching seemingly randomly Since a month or two, I started seeing an X11 icon in my dock.
Killing it does not kill any other app.

Is there any way to see what process launches this app?

One way would be to open Activity Monitor, and check the process ID (PID) of running programs that are immediately before and after the X11 process.


How to unload a disk in mac os x Mavericks so that you can partition? (failed to unload disk) I want to expand my startup disk space from 25gb to 40gb using this guide:
http://blog.kyodium.net/2010/11/increase-disk-and-partition-size-in.html

But if I do umount /dev/disk0s2 as the article says then it says the disk is busy.
If I do diskutil unmount /dev/disk0s2 like the terminal advices then it says it failed to unmount.

I can't go to disk utility and do this either because then it gives this message:

That's why I'm using this article that says you need to use the terminal to expand the disk instead and here is what I've tried:

Try booting form external disk:

Create it first with your OS X version.

Attach the USB **boot** drive to the Mac and reboot
Hold down the OPTION key during boot, then select the attached boot drive (typically has an orange icon at the boot menu)
At the boot menu, choose “Disk Utility” (if using an Installer disk, pull down the “Utilities” menu to access Disk Utility)
Go to “First Aid” and verify the disk, then repair if needed
--> Now perform the original task that threw the “Couldn’t Unmount” error


How can I disable wireless captive portal support? On a particular wireless network, most internet access is blocked by a captive portal but certain websites are not blocked, e.g.:

http://www.apple.com/ is redirected to a captive portal login page.
http://www.my-university.edu/ is accessible without having to log in.

I want to access a website that is not blocked. When I try to connect, however,

iOS automatically displays the captive portal after connecting.
iOS automatically disconnects after I close the captive portal.

How can I escape this aggressive automation?

As documented in the Apple knowledge base:

  If you cancel before logging in to the network

  Tapping Cancel on the Log In screen disassociates the device from the captive Wi-Fi network.

  If you joined the network from the Wi-Fi screen using the ⓘ button, or you joined less than eight minutes ago, you'll see a message telling you the network isn't connected to the Internet. You can choose one of these options:

  Use Without Internet: this option will dismiss the Welcome screen, turn off Auto-Login for the network, keep your device associated with the network, and allow you to interact with the network in other ways.
  Use Other Network: this option will dismiss the Welcome screen, disassociate your device from the network, and return you to the Wi-Fi Settings screen. From there, you can choose a different network.
  Cancel: this option will return you to the Welcome screen.

Therefore you can (now—I don't know in which version of iOS this was introduced) click cancel and then "Use Without Internet".


Email stuck in outbox but can't access it I have Office 2011 installed on Mac OS 10.6 and I tried to send an email to multiple recipients and got this error: The message could not be sent because it has unresolved recipients. And now, every time it does Send/Receive I get this error: A message could not be sent

The problem is that the message got stuck in Outbox but I can't access it, can't delete it, nothing. Any idea how I could get rid of it?

Open the AppleScript Editor found in /Applications/Utilities.
Paste in the following three lines:

tell application "Microsoft Outlook"
  delete every message of outbox
end tell

Click the Run button at the top and this should delete every message in your Outbox.


Split audio and video into two separate files Is there a way (I'm thinking using QuickTime perhaps) of taking a video+audio file and splitting it into two separate files, one of just the video, and one of just the audio? I know that in Finder, there's a context menu item "Encode Selected Video Files" which lets you encode it as audio-only, but not as video-only.

Thanks!

ffmpeg supports demuxing without re-encoding:

ffmpeg -i input.mkv # show stream numbers and formats
ffmpeg -i input.mkv -c copy audio.m4a # AAC
ffmpeg -i input.mkv -c copy audio.mp3 # MP3
ffmpeg -i input.mkv -c copy audio.ac3 # AC3
ffmpeg -i input.mkv -an -c copy video.mkv
ffmpeg -i input.mkv -map 0:a:1 -c copy audio.m4a # stream 1

-c copy is like -vcodec copy -acodec copy. -map 0:1 means file 0, stream 1. -an means audio none.

-- Edited: -map 0:1 => -map 0:a:1 (pick 2nd audio not just 2nd any stream)


How to download a webpage's all images at once? For example, I love military decorations, and here's Wikipedia's Service Ribbon, how can I download all the ribbon images at once instead of clicking them one by one and then select "Save image as"?

Automator
Use OS X's Automator.app to find, extract, and save the images from your current web page. The combination of Actions needed are:

Get Current Webpage from Safari
Get Contents of Webpages
Save Images From Web Content

To learn more about using Automator, see Apple's Mac Basics: Automator.

Terminal
An alternative approach is to use curl through the command line, What's the fastest and easiest way to download all the images from a website.


No master volume in the new iPod Touch 5? I used to have an iPod Touch 3, then I upgraded to the latest iPod Touch 5 a few weeks ago. I noticed that there is no master volume. For instance, now, when I am just browsing Safari, and I change the volume, it changes the volume for "sound effects" (background noises from notification). But when I open a game or listen to music, and I change the volume, this is for "games/music". So the two volume sliders are different.

This is new to me, but I'm sure that some of you have experienced this before. Perhaps it even existed in the iPod Touch 4 that I skipped? Anyway, is there a way to get back the master volume method that used to exist, where one slider would control the volume for everything?

This separation of "sound effects" and "games/music" exists in iPod Touch 4 as well. There is no way for tuning a master volume on these devices. But you can set the "sound effects" volume as constant (Settings - Sounds - turn off Change with buttons) and pressing volume buttons will only change the "games/music" volume.


Sips not working with pict, qtif and sgi files The terminal command sips -s format pict /path/to/image.ext --out /path/to/output.pic ouputs Error: Unsupported output format com.apple.pict even though if you do man sips and go down to format, there is written that it supports jpeg | tiff | png | gif | jp2 | pict | bmp | qtif | psd | sgi | tga.

Is this normal and can you fix it anyway?

Not the definitive answer but be careful with sips. It seems to me sips itself has been updated but the man page remained the same. On my Mac PICT creates no output at all and PSD creates a file that is totally garbled when viewed in Photoshop. It seems you can also export to PDF, and the result opens just fine in Adobe Acrobat, but when opened in Photoshop or Illustrator what you see is very, very different of what should be there ...


Why is my Time Capsule backup getting stuck on "preparing backup" or "cleaning old backups?" Had my iMac 2009 21.5" hard drive replaced a few days ago, from a 500GB to a 1TB. This was done by an authorized Apple repair dealer. I have been trying to run backups through Time Capsule but it seems to be getting hung up at one stage or another. Why is my Time Capsule backup getting stuck on "preparing backup" or "cleaning old backups?" The new hard drive has caused a huge positive difference in performance, which is suffering as the Time Capsule and backups get "hung."

Run tmutil status for a much clearer idea of what's actually happening. Keep running the command and the NumberOfChangedItems should be changing if the backup is taking place. Until then, the command will inform you what's being processed.


How to add a libreoffice launcher for writer? I have libreoffice 4.3.4.1 on OS X 10.10, it only has one libreoffice launcher in spotlight/launchpad. Is it possible to add launchers for subprograms like writer, calc, impress, draw... ?

As of version 6, in the OsX version of LibreOffice there are NOT separate applications to be run.

It is possible is to create a "launcher" for each LibreOffice components, for example with Applescript, and then to add the resulting app to the Dock or in the Applications Folder -to be indexed by spotlight.

The single line Applescript:

do shell script "/Applications/LibreOffice.app/Contents/MacOS/soffice --writer &> /dev/null &

launches Writer (to launch the other components you use their names instead of writer, that is --calc, --impress, --draw, --base, or --math)

Save the Applescript as an app, and even change its icon (you can google for Libre Office icons or you can search for them http://www.iconarchive.com) and the "illusion" is complete


Wifi not working after Bootcamp setup So I just used Bootcamp to install the Windows 10 technical preview and all was working well until I couldn't find the Wi-fi settings. I have trawled through everything and it seems to be a problem with my drivers. (I could not find BC support software from Apple for Windows 10). I have no idea why I can't connect to the internet on windows and no idea on how to fix it. If you look up the issue on the internet there always seems to be something that they have that I don't (Such as a WINSTALL Drive.

Help would be much appreciated.

Basically, Apple does not support running Windows 10 on Macs older than the 2012 models. This does mean you can not run Windows 10 on an older model, just that you are on your own to figure out how.

Windows is designed to use older drivers when newer ones can not be found. The drivers for Apple hardware is included in the "Boot Camp Support Software" (BCSS). If Apple did not supply Windows 10 BCSS for your Mac, you should use latest available BCSS that Apple documents is designed for your Mac.

One myth I put to test was: "Downloading the BCSS using the Boot Camp
Assistant will produce newer software than directly downloading from the internet". I have iMac (21.5" mid 2011) running OS X 10.11.3. I used the Boot Camp Assistant to download the BCSS for Windows 8.1 to a flash drive. I also directly downloaded the BCSS for Windows 7 from Boot Camp Support Software 5.1.5621. I then used Windiff.exe to compare both downloads. They were identical. I am not saying this is true for all Macs, it just happened to be true for mine.

To install the BCSS after Windows is installed, open the BootCamp folder and execute the setup.exe application. If setup.exe will not execute, right click on the icon and select Trouble compatibility.


After installing iOS 11 public beta, then deleting profile, will I receive the official release of iOS 10.3.3? I'm currently using an iPhone 5S.

I installed the iOS 11 Public Beta a few days ago, and found that downgrading would risk my phone being stuck in recovery/DFU mode. I was wondering, if I deleted the profile (which would opt me out of receiving beta updates), would I get the update for the official release of iOS 10.3.3? And would I be able to install it, even when my phone is running on iOS 11?

No, you won't get an update to iOS 10.3.3, as this would amount to downgrading (not updating) your iOS, which isn't possible at all (except by restoring the iPhone from an old backup).


How to change the text cursor (caret) size Is there any way to change the size of the blinking text cursor (not the mouse cursor)? It is sometimes quite hard to find after switching to another application.

I'm using macOS Sierra, if that's relevant. It's easy to find how to change the mouse cursor size, but I don't see a setting for the text cursor, which is rather tiny. :-(

Your quest on how to change the text cursor is an unusual one outside the norm of utilities offered.
Therefore an Apple Tech Supporter or Developer  may advise you as to the best avenue. Please go to apple support: https://support.apple.com next click on the white area box: Search Apple Support... a drop down window appears. Select 'Contact Apple Support' now click on 'talk to us' and select the method of contact i.e. personal phone call from Apples Support team or on-line chat.
The Apple Representative will guide you through the process as needed if available.  To the Best of my knowledge, it's best not to guess or take the advise off of the Internet unless trusted. Ask Apple directly sense this is a valid request but not offered in the OS X Sierra utilities.
Authored Statements:  ysureican Fogarty


How to disable an email account when the password has changed? Is there a way to temporarily disable "Mail" for a given account when the password has changed other than deleting the account (see screenshot below)?

What cannot be seen on the screenshot is the following message:

  There was a problem accessing your account. Please re-enter the password for [email address]

Disconnect from the network, then enter the password. The device can't check the password with the server, so enables the switches anyway, then you can switch the Mail toggle off to disable it.


Command to list available webcam/video devices? Is there a way to list all webcams that are available to my Mac (e.g. FaceTime camera) using Terminal?
I know there's
diskutil list

to list all disks attached to my Mac, but is there a command that does the same thing for input cameras?
Things I've already tried:
system_profiler SPCameraDataType

This doesn't list the identifier with associated number, which is the information that I need from the list.
ls -ltrh /dev/video*

I tried this too, but I'm pretty sure this only works for Linux/Ubuntu, which I know nothing about.
Thanks in advance.