How do I change the partition table for my hard drive? I have an external hard drive with Master Boot Record partition table.

I wish to change that to GUID so that I can modify the partition on the fly next time. How do I do that? Is it possible to do with disk utility?

(Similar to this, but I have an external hard drive)

This is done the same way with external or internal drives.

Start your Disk Utility (Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility). In the left pane, select the disk for which you wish to change the partition table (select the disk, not one of its partitions, disks are at the "top levels" in the tree view in the left pane).

In the right pane, select the "Partition" tab. You must repartition your drive in order to change to GUID, so in the "Partition Layout" dropbox select "1 partition" (or however many you want).

Click on the "Options..." button right below the list view showing your partitions and select "GUID partition table". Adjust your partitions as needed and hit "Apply".


restore Mac OS Mountain Lion to factory settings without discs or time machine backups I installed XCode 3 on Mac OS Mountain Lion 10.8 and now I am getting the Apple BSODs.

Can I do a system restore without having the discs as I seem to have nothing to use, also I have no Time Machine backups setup.

I cannot get into the machine (as it gets stuck in a infinite boot loop) unless I hold SHIFT and go into Safe Mode. Cmd + R doesn't work, so I can't get into recovery mode.

Thankfully I have little to no data on the disk that I want to keep, so i'd happily return to factory settings - but I don't know how, or even if this is possible.

Here is the screen I am getting on my iMac:

OK,

Reading you question lets clarify few things first.

You say Control-R! but it has to be the Command-R.

Then you say you can get in to the Safe mode!. If so:

With your Mac running in Safe Mode, you can troubleshoot the issue you were having, such as by deleting an application that's causing problems, removing a startup or login item that's causing issues, or launching Disk First Aid and repairing permissions.

If you get in the CMD-R mode use the option 4 first to see if it can be repaired.

If your Mac problem is a little less common — your hard drive has failed or you’ve installed a hard drive without OS X, for example — Internet Recovery takes over automatically.


Keyboard shortcut for "Revert Changes" in closing dialog? A few releases of macOS (Mac OS X) ago, many native apps (such as Preview, TextEdit, etc) changed their closing dialog options from "Don't Save", "Cancel", and Save"…

…to "Revert Changes", "Cancel", and "Save".

The former set of options is still available in most third-party apps, as shown in the first screenshot above.

"Don't Save" and "Revert Changes" do the same thing, but the former set of options can be activated from the keyboard via commandd, esc, and return, whereas the latter has no shortcut for "Revert Changes" (as far as I can tell).

Call me picky, but this renders the native apps nearly worthless.

Has anyone yet found a way to activate "Revert Changes" from the keyboard, rather than having to use the trackpad to click the button?

I've tried mashing various key-combinations into the keyboard. I've tried tabbing and option-tabbing. I've tried creating a keyboard shortcut for all apps in Syst Prefs. I wonder if there's something to enter into Terminal? And I'm not interested in changing the tab key to focus on all interactive elements. Thank you.

Your screenshot doesn't seem to show it, but for me [Revert Changes] has a blue outline...

...which means it can be activated with the Space Bar.

I literally just figured this out (even relative experts can learn something new every day!), but apparently it's been a feature of macOS for quite some time.

(BTW, to change which button is outlined (and therefore which button is activated by the Space Bar), use the Tab key.


Mac -- HDMI to USB/Thunderbolt I know there are small USB boxes which are able to pass through image from HDMI (and record it) to computer. Is there something similar which would enable me to see stuff from HDMI on my Mac?

Why: I am trying to discover possibilities how to use iMac, which I might be buying, as a target screen. I read there was this possibility for older iMacs, but only with other Apple computer. I want to connect PS3 or in future maybe some other console/device.

If I understand you correctly, what you are looking for is a video capture device.

The way it works is video that is sent out from another source like a game console, DVD player, or even another computer it captured by this device and encoded to video.

One that a client of mine has used and seemed to like very much is this one by [Elgato][2]

Now, if you are looking to buy a Mac (I am assuming iMac because of the built in display) and using it as a target screen, it is important to know that while it is possible on some iMacs, it's not possible on all and only possible with other Mac hardware.  See Apple Support for full details.

If having an external display for other devices is a high priority, don't get an iMac - get a Mac Mini instead and get a high quality monitor with multiple inputs.


socketfilterfw and repeating error messages Every two seconds I get the following messages via Console:

Standard    13:47:41.404793 +0100   socketfilterfw  MacOS error: -67065
Standard    13:47:41.405321 +0100   socketfilterfw  UNIX error exception: 3
Standard    13:47:43.393518 +0100   socketfilterfw  MacOS error: -67065
Standard    13:47:43.393927 +0100   socketfilterfw  UNIX error exception: 3

And they keep on and on.  Turning off the firewall, they disappear, of course.  Now I wasn't able to find the meaning of the mentioned error codes.  Does anybody know what goes wrong here?

The program causing the error is WiFiSpy, see here: https://itunes.apple.com/de/app/wifi-spy/id541505649?mt=8


How can I get application windows to remember my desired position for them? It's insanely annoying having the email reply pop directly over my Firefox window every time I hit reply to an email in Mail. Each time I drag it over to the vacant space on the left of my primary display, and EVERY time it returns when I reply to an email.

Finder has similar issues with Cmd+N, resize, close. Open a window, resize it, close it, immediately open another new window, and it's where the original one was.

Is there a system-wide or third-party solution for forcing applications to place new windows where I left their previous ones?

This is by no means a perfect fix, but I use Divvy as my solution to this issue - probably the single best Mac addon I've ever bought. It's not free but it has global keyboard shortcuts which would mean a badly placed window is a ctrl+something away from being perfect again.


Preview copies aliens. How to change the encoding/make it work? Preview copies aliens! Literally. Here is a screenshot:

The text selected on the pdf was copied (Cmd+C) and pasted (Cmd+V) from Preview to TextEdit. What did I get? A bunch of aliens.

I'm guessing this is an encoding issue. Is there a way to change encoding in Preview or something? Is there a way I can check what encoiding it is using and then choose the appropiate on TextEdit? Here is the text, just so you can see the squares for yourselves (No aliens, apparently that error character only appears on native OSX apps and not browsers).

(I must admit OSX's error character is pretty amusing).

The PDF file has been protected. You can’t copy-paste text from it. Plane 16 is displayed when a character is in the “private” area of the Unicode specification. This has been deliberately done to prevent you from copy-pasting.

Also, this is not OS X’s error character. It just appears when it encounters something in the private area of the Unicode spec.

A PDF file optionally contains a mapping to the Unicode private area for each character in the font. This particular PDF contains such a map, so it will display the correct glyphs only in a PDF reader.

Simple English: The PDF file is full of characters, which are mapped to different places in the Unicode private area. Normally, it would just display Plane 16, but because the PDF file contains a map which translate the private area characters into readable latin glyphs (a, b, R, F, etc), you see words in the PDF but aliens in other places.


Where are iTunes music files located, if they are not in Music/iTunes/iTunes Media? I recently rented a MacBook Pro because I needed to take mine in for a hardware recall. Before giving mine up, I transferred the folder ~/Music/iTunes and the file ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iTunes.plist to the loaner laptop in order to have my music available. (I also made two separate Time Machine backups right before taking it in, and had an online backup service for extra peace of mind.)

As it turned out, only a fraction of my library was available in iTunes, some of the oldest files in my collection plus my purchases. (Also, when I made my first iPhone backup on this laptop, that large portion of the library disappeared from Music as well.)

My best guess is that, as an inexperienced user sometime in the past, I had turned off "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library" in iTunes Preferences. (I can't know for sure because I don't have my original Mac, but only those older files are in Music/iTunes/iTunes Media.) So as I added new tracks collected over time, they were added to iTunes but somehow not into that media folder.

I had deleted those source files over time, however, and they remained viable in the iTunes library. So now I am looking for where exactly they were located, so I can try to restore them from backup.

The iTunes Library .xml file located at ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Library.xml contains location information for your media files. I just checked and I can pull up locations (or last known locations) of all my tunes from there, even if the files themselves have been moved.


Is there any IDE for iPad? Possible Duplicate:
  HTML / CSS / Javascript editor for the iPad?

Is there any IDE like Notepad++ for iPad? I want to create HTML pages with CSS and jQuery on my iPad.

Haven't used it myself, but Textastic ($10) should help you with a lot of what you're looking to do.

http://www.textasticapp.com/


How to find the current temperature of an iPhone's CPU? There are extremely useful utilities like iStats for viewing the CPU temperature on a device running macOS.
Is there a way to view the current CPU temperature of an iPhone?
Note: the reason I want this info is because an app I regularly use runs some very heavy processes which heat up the phone to very hot temperatures in around 15 minutes. I would like to be able to take the phone's temperature before and after 15 minutes of using that app.

There's a lot of temperature information in sysdiagnose in iOS, might be a good place to start.


A way to test System Integrity Protection SIP (NOT about how to enable/disable)? When I first began using 10.11 El Capitan I had to disable SIP in order to run some stuff, and to avoid some crashes. The crashes were probably likely down to some kext I had leftover from older software installations, etc. Not sure.

Is there a way short of enabling SIP to test to see if I have impermissible kexts or anything else in the protected areas that will gag the machine? I don't really wanna go through tons of booting iterations in the hopes of finding things that hang or crash the machine.

To rephrase, this is not about how to enable or disable SIP, but how to programatically or automate a test to determine status of SIP.

I know you can check whether SIP is on or off in terminal with this command:

csrutil status

I think you might be looking for a more detailed analysis though.


Podcasts stay on iPhone even when asking to synch 0 episodes I have an iPhone 4 (A1349), updated to iOS 7.1.2. I synch on a McBook Pro.

My issue is that I have unchecked synch podcasts in iTunes, and yet podcasts are still listed on the phone's Podcasts app. I have tried both to uncheck Sync Podcasts in iTunes and to keep it checked but to uncheck the Automatically include ... box. In both cases the podcast app still lists the podcasts I subscribe to, and some episodes under those folders. The episodes listed include cloud as well as downloaded episodes. The episodes are playable. An example of such a podcast is Freakonomics Radio, but all my subscriptions are listed.

Turning off the sync options will stop your phone syncing new episodes, but it won't remove the episodes that have already synced.

If there are episodes on your iPhone that you want to remove just drag the entry for the episode to the right to reveal a Delete button. Tap the Delete button and it will remove the episode from your phone.


Why do some contacts on the favorites screen on Phone.app show initials and others an icon? In iOS 7 the contacts in my favorites screen in Phone.app that don't have a photo show either initials or a person icon. Why not just one or the other and what determines which image a contact will get?

I think this is best shown with a picture:

The icon is displaying because that contact's "name" is entered as a business name, and their "First" and "Last" names are blank.


Credentials format to login into Windows Domain? How do I login into a Windows based server from a Mac ? domain\username or domain/username or just username ? Nothing seems to be working so far, is there any other way ? Thank you.

Generally speaking logging onto a windows domain from a Mac takes the form of:

[DOMAIN]\[USERNAME]
[PASSWORD]

so if I were a user in the Microsoft Active Directory domain with the username of johnny.appleseed and my password was 1234qWer, that would look like

microsoft\johnny.appleseed
1234qWer

Note that the username and the password are not case sensitive I generally use all lowercase for simplicity's sake.

Note that you must have a username assigned to you in the domain with the necessary permissions on the target server for that particular login/username. Without that it will never work.

If the target (Windows) server is not domain-joined then you would use the name of the computer (sometimes called the NETBIOS name) on the network in place of the domain. But you must have a username, password and the appropriate permissions created on that server for the login to work.

I also find that when connecting to a PC via the GO > Connect to server dialog it sometimes helps to use the IP address of the target server, if you are not connecting using the server's name. Examples below.

smb://192.168.1.1/share
smb://bigserver/share


Watch alarm now seems weak I love the watch for silent alarms.  The last couple days the haptics have seemed weak and i've slept through it.  Timers seem normal.  Anyone else seen this?  Any solution?

watchOS 4.3.1

I have a Watch S2 with 4.3.1.  I haven't noticed any changes during my alarms or notifications.

Check to make sure your haptic strength has not been accidentally lowered:

Open the Watch app.
On the My Watch tab, tap Sounds & Haptics.
Scroll down to Haptic Strength.  Is it in its normal position?  To make is stronger, move the slider to the right.
For even stronger haptics, turn on Prominent Haptic.


How can I convert HTML/Rich Text to Markdown in Automator? I have an Automator service that takes selected text and saves it in a file. However, bold, italics, and linked URLS aren't preserved. Is there a way I can convert it to Markdown before I save it? When I searched Google, I only found guides to convert plain text to HTML.

HTML to Markdown

Brett Terpstra has written these automator services to help manipulate markdown in OSX.

One of these services does convert HTML to Markdown (which answers one part of your question), and any of these services can be individually added and assigned a shortcut if you so please. I myself use Markdown to RTF to send pretty emails written in md.

However, none of the services seem to do RTF to Markdown. And so deeper into the rabbit hole of RTF clipboard extraction I went...

RTF to Markdown

First I found this post and this SO question. The key, I found, is to use OSX built-in pbpaste (or osascript) and textutil.

And so, I've written a simple RTF to Markdown service for anyone who is still looking to compliment Brett's services mentioned above, it simply converts input to HTML and pipes result to the "HTML to Markdown" service.

  Note: RTF HTML output is not always what you are looking at because of how the style is converted, so I would go with HTML to Markdown where possible.


OS X timezone incorrect without internet connection After rebooting my macbook and my wifi is off, usually timezone changes randomly.

I tried to uncheck the "Set date and time automatically" option
Tried to uncheck the " Set time zone automatically "

Nothing helps, I want to set a default timezone/time to remember without internet connection

( can't really tell if its timezone-related but time/clock is always incorrect after boot without internet connection )

System Preferences shows this

Reset the PRAM, by holding the keys cmd-alt-P-R during startup. If the symprom does not go away, the PRAM battery is the culprit.


Name does not appear in top right corner in iCloud and incorrect time zone is set The times in my iCloud calendar are all wrong.

The answer I found to fix this is to click on my name in top right hand corner — only problem is that my name does not appear there and I can find nowhere to access settings for the time zone.

iCould currently shows "Pacific time zone" and I need it to be set to "Australian Eastern Summer time".

I suspect you missed a step on the answer you were looking at - you should be doing this on the iCloud site, not in iCal.

Goto iCloud.com, log in, then you should see your name in the top right corner:

Click there, and you should get an account preferences pop-up where you can set your time zone info:


nfc option for NFS mount on Mavericks doesn't work I have updated MacOSX to 10.9 (Mavericks). I want to mount NFS shares from a Linux server with the nfc option because I have filenames with non-ASCII characters. But when I mount the network share it seems nfc is not working:

$ sudo mount -t nfs -o resvport,async,nfc 192.168.1.12:/media/disk1/downloads /Users/me/download/
$ mount | grep downloads
192.168.1.12:/media/disk1/downloads on /Users/me/download (nfs, asynchronous)

And the character issue (accents, ñ...) is there: they are shown as ??

Very late answer, but you should add nfc to /etc/nfs.conf

nfs.client.mount.options=nfc

man mount_nfs for details of the options.


Exporting a Video in Quicktime in OS X Lion Shows only Audio I'm trying to export a video in OS X Lion to either 480, 720, or 1080 but it only exports the audio file. After the export, the file is in .mov format but, when I play it, the file shows nothing, only the audio is played. Before I updated to Lion, I could export videos just fine. How can I resolve this issue?

Make sure that the "Audio only" option is not selected in the Export window.


Is it possible to left-align the URL in the Safari address bar? As of Safari 8 on OS X Yosemite, URLs in the URL bar are displayed centered. This looks really nice, but I’m a web developer and I often need to change just part of an URL to test something. To do that, I need to click somewhere on the URL, reposition my cursor over the newly-left-aligned address, and then click again to place the insertion point.

Is there a way to get Safari to display URLs left-aligned all the time?

Not sure it's exactly what you want, but  Cmd ⌘   L  will select & left align, same as if you'd clicked it - so you could do it as you're mousing towards it.


How can I make 3 external displays function with my 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro (Mid 2014)? How can I make 3 external displays (4 total, or 3 if running in closed book mode) function with my 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro (Mid 2014)?

Regardless of closed-book/clamshell mode, I am unable to make 3 external displays function. I am able to connect it all and power any given two at a time and it obviously has enough power, but it doesn't seem to want to run 3.

I've read mixed answers as to whether it can support 2 or 3 external displays. Someone in a thread on OWC says it can and they show a 15" MBP powering 3 externals.

Is there something I'm missing or a work-around?

The 15" and 13" MacBook Pros are vastly different machines. The 15" has a dedicated video card that may help support that many displays. The 13" uses Intel's embedded video hardware, and it likely does not (at least not in OS X). As the user states in that post, it seems technically possible to run 3 in Linux, but it appears restricted in OS X.

That said, you could always find a USB-based video adapter and use it to run and additional display. It would function independently of the internal hardware.


What does "Sound Check" in iPod settings do? On my iPhone (though I'm sure it's on iPods and iPads as well), under the iPod settings, there's a toggle "Sound Check". What does it do?

It enables what basically is just normalization. It scans the library for track volume information, and updates the normalization metadata if necessary. It also honors it, of course.


Open Terminal.app with directory from a given URL? With the URL <file:///Library/Fonts> (for example in a note in NV) I can open the finder with the given location. Can I do something similar for the terminal? That is, if I write for example (doesn't work, that is the question!) <terminal://Library/Fonts> the Terminal.app should open a new window and cd to that directory.

Opening a New Terminal Interactively

As of Mac OS X Lion 10.7, Terminal has a “New Terminal at Folder” Service you can enable in:

System Preferences > Keyboard > Services > Files and Folders

With this Service you can open a new terminal by selecting a folder or file path in any application and choosing this Service in the contextual menu (Control-Click or Right-Click) or the Services submenu in the application menu.

It doesn’t support “file:” URLs, but you can select the path part of the URL “/Library/Fonts” and use the Service with that.

There is also a “New Terminal Tab at Folder” Service.

Opening a New Terminal Programmatically

If you need to open it from a command line or shell script, you can use the open command to tell Terminal to open a directory pathname or “file:” URL:

open -a Terminal file:///Library/Fonts

(This is equivalent to dragging a folder, file path or “file:” URL onto the Terminal application, which opens a new Terminal at that location.)


How to fix the error: "AppleSpell" tried to hijack endpoint "it (Apple)_OpenStep" from owner? I have 3 macs that all produce this error repeatedly in the console, and I cant figure out the root cause of it.  It leads to various system stalls and memory issues.

(Currently troubleshooting on Yosemite 10.10.3 on a 2011 imac, 8 mb of RAM.)

  5/6/15 11:21:31.433 AM com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.user.502) Service "com.apple.xpc.launchd.oneshot.0x10000038.AppleSpell" tried to hijack endpoint "it (Apple)_OpenStep" from owner: com.apple.xpc.launchd.oneshot.0x10000004.AppleSpell

Ive read through various forums, some suggest its a hard drive failure, but all tests have shown my drive is totally fine, and because its a problem occuring across 3 different machines, I doubt its a HD issue.

From what I understand, this is created by the systems system wide-spell check system.  This error hits the hardest when I have any mail applications open (mail, outlook, airmail, etc).

Has anyone discovered a fix to nip this issue in the bud?  Id like to avoid disabling it completely - but if it comes to that, is there a way to do so? Ive already disabled the option within Yosmites PrefPane.

Any help would be vastly appreciated.  I miss having my sanity.

Let’s dig into the stalls and memory errors directly as this message cleared up for me on updating the OS. Any chance you would like to make a follow up question, just link in the comments below and I’ll gladly have a look.

There are more than one libraries, and you’re calling the older one and not the newer one, so this is just a versioning issue that happens from time to time AFAIK.


Update applied by hand, how to tell App Store app? Net is slow at my home, really slow. It would have taken a week to get Xcode 12.4, so instead I got the package from Apple onto my laptop elsewhere, brought it home, transferred it over, and installed it. Worked great, I'm currently using it.
But the App Store app thinks it still needs to be updated. Is there a way to tell it what's up?

If it’s working I would leave it be until the next update. Fiddling with a signed app can make it not run.
I would recommend getting content caching on your slow network. You can even take that storage and Mac to a fast network to get the App Store apps cached to an external disk and bring that cache back to the slow network. Subsequently  when you update at home, the update comes from your local network cache and not Apple. New bits come in incrementally and update the cache until old apps age out when storage pressure grows and forces out the old bits to keep the freshest ones cached.

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/set-up-content-caching-on-mac-mchl3b6c3720/mac

The iCloud caching is also a huge benefit for slow networks. We use these at work extensively. Instead of 50 Xcode installs, only one downloads and the rest are cached locally.


Battery not charging? (Even after SMC reset) So, I've seen a couple topics like this that already exist, but none solved my problem. I plug in my charge to my 13-Inch MacBook Air, Early 2015, and the LED light did not turn on, and the battery icon on my mac says that the battery is not charging. I am 8% right now, and am not losing power, but not getting any either.

I tried the obvious: Unplugging and plugging the charger to my computer, unplugging and replugging it into the outlet, both at the same time, flipping the charger upside down, restarting my computer, and tried every different outlet in my house. I have a few extra charger extenders, (where you take out the two prongs and replace it with a longer cable) so I tried changing those out, and changing back to a two prong, all with no luck.

It was working perfectly this morning, and I haven't done anything to my computer or charger, such as spilling something on them or dropping them. I don't know whether the problem is with the computer or the charger, and can't test it because I only have one of each.

So I looked up this problem, and basically every source said to do an SMC reset, and I basically tried every single variation of it I could find.

I would be happy to provide any other specs that you think are necessary to know.

Keep in mind when explaining this, that I am very tech-savvy when it comes to software, but I know almost nothing about hardware or electronics.

Thank you in advance.

Do you have another charger? If yes and if that works, maybe your first charger was damaged. Maybe there's a wire inside of it has broken or something, or the charger became loose (in wires or plug). But if you tried another charger and nothing happened, maybe the problem is in you laptop.


Cannot change any Bluetooth settings On my MacBook Pro 2018 I can't change any Bluetooth related settings anymore as long as no external dongle is connected.

Examples: If I turn it off, next start it is turned on again. If I remove a device, next time it connects automatically again. I can't see any new devices nor add them.

It just seems like there is a Bluetooth config somewhere which has been set to read-only.

I've already tried everything I could find via Google: Reset the Bluetooth module via the debug menu, remove all Bluetooth-related .plist files, even completely wipe and reinstall macOS, but nothing did help. I tried Mojave and High Sierra.

I already tried to get some Debugging info but "Bluetooth Explorer" from the Additional Tools for Xcode by Apple does not start at all, so I can not access any information.

Edit regarding the external dongle: When an external BT dongle is connected, everything works just fine. But obviously, I can only change settings and devices of that dongle. When I plug it out again, the problems reappear.

Try resetting the Bluetooth module.

⇧Shift⌥Option mouse click on the the Bluetooth menu bar item > Debug > Reset the Bluetooth Module.


Rubberized stylus, not moving smooth on iPad glass, any tricks? I have a Targus stylus for my iPad, with a rubber tip.

This tip, however, does not move smoothly over the glass on the iPad, but seems to have too high friction. It didn't have this when I bought it, and I also have a different stylus that is much smaller, also with a rubber tip, that still moves smoothly over the glass.

The large one, however, gets "stuck" on the screen. Not like glue "stuck", just doesn't move as smoothly as I'd like.

What tricks can I use to get it back to how it was when I bought it? Has it accrued fat from my fingers or something like that I can wash off, or are there other things I can do? Has anyone experienced this and solved it?

I think most of these answers are pure speculation and the long term effects on your iPad's screen are at question.

I would suggest that you simply look to replace the stylus as it has evidently worn out. It may be that they are not very durable products, but I certainly wouldn't recommend trying to hack a solution over just buying a new stylus.


Automatically eject disk image x minutes after mounting So I have an encrypted disk image that I use to store sensitive files. However, I often forget to eject it when I'm done, which obviously negates the whole point of encryption. What I'd like is some tool, setting, etc. (perhaps a cron job?) that monitors when a specific disk image is mounted, waits a specific duration of time, and then displays a message notifying the user of imminent ejection. If the user does not opt to reset the timer, or doesn't respond, the image is ejected. Alternatively, it could also eject when the screen saver activates. Do any tools like that exist?

You can use a cronJob and an apple Script

unMount a disk with AppleScript :

set mountedDiskName to "AirPort Time Capsule"
set diskIsMounted to false

tell application "System Events" to set diskNames to name of every disk
if mountedDiskName is in diskNames then
    set diskIsMounted to true
end if

if diskIsMounted then

    //  put a sleep or a notification here, see explanation below

    log "Disk Found, unmounting now..."
    do shell script "diskutil unmountDisk" & space & quoted form of mountedDiskName

else

    log "Disk Not Found, mounting now…"
    mount volume "afp://AirPort%20Time%20Capsule._afpovertcp._tcp.local"

end if

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/29332873/os-x-applescript-to-check-if-drive-mounted-and-mount-it-if-not

Make a cronJob to run the Script :

* * * * * osascript ~/Desktop/theScriptToBeExecuted.applescript

How can I configure my computer to run an AppleScript at a specific time? Caveat: without using iCal

Put a sleep or a notification in "if diskIsMounted", because if you mount your disk at the cronTab start, your disk will be ejected before the end of your backup ;)

**I provide you a simple idea and some code to help you, you will certainly have to modify some code.


Create a USB stick with Windows installer on it I google it before but I was not able to find what I want. I want to make a stick with windows 10 on it from my mac (MacBook (13-inch, Mid 2010)) and I want to instal it on a PC (not an apple product). Everything I find online are people doing the USB on a mac and installing on another mac or on an windows and instaling on another windows.

Beside that my Boot Camp Assistant look like this:

instead of like this:

P.S.: please ignore the error mesage, I was not able to find any screen shot without it, but the page looks similar

This is based on my own experience of creating a Windows 10 installer on a USB:

Step 1: Download VMWare Fusion and use the 30-day trial. You do not need to do this if you already have a computer with Windows 10

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

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

Step 4: Plug in your USB, it should be around 8 GB. VMWare Fusion should detect the USB and ask to connect it to the virtual windows. Connect them.

Step 5: On the virtual windows, search up windows 10 creation tool and click the first one from Microsoft. Follow the instructions for downloading the tool.

Step 6: Run the tool and follow the instructions on the tool. Choose your connected USB when it asks where to install. (Make sure to click create installation media for another pc)

Step 7: Once it finishes, eject the USB from the virtual windows and your Mac, then plug it into the PC you want to install windows 10 on.

Step 8: Restart the PC, and depending on what type of PC you have, you should want to enter either the boot selection or BIOS. If you can get to the boot selection screen, you should use your arrow keys to select your USB connected. If you get to the BIOS, you will have to change the boot order and get the USB above your hard drive, then save.

Step 9: It should restart automatically and the Windows 10 creation tool should start. Follow the instructions. Once done, you can remove the USB and it will boot up into your hard drive with Windows 10.

I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear enough, reply if there’s any problems. This worked for me on a 2014 MacBook Air, and should for you.


How to use Xcode 4 mergetool in a standalone fashion? I sometimes have to make git merges on the console. Up to now, for resolving conflicts, I was using Xcode 3's FileMerge (you can open it on the console using the 'opendiff' command). If conflicts show, I use 'git mergetool' which automatically invokes opendiff for each of the conflicting files.

However, Xcode 4 features a much nicer mergetool component for resolving conflicts. I believe this component is part of the Xcode 4 executable, rather than standalone. It allows you to preview the merged file, and directly edit merged code on a case-by-case basis, which makes merging complex conflicts incredibly fast and satisfactory.

Is there any way to use the Xcode 4 mergetool when invoking 'git mergetool' from the Terminal?

I cannot find an executable for this tool inside the Xcode 4 bundle. Any hack that achieves this would be welcome.

opendiff takes two filename arguments, and an --ancestor parameter with a third filename, to produce a three-way diff, and a --merge parameter to say the output file to use for the conflict resolution.

So go:

[mergetool "opendiff"]
    cmd = "opendiff \"$LOCAL\"  \"$REMOTE\" \"$(if test -f \"$BASE\"; then echo \"--ancestor $BASE\"; else echo \"--ancestor $LOCAL\"; fi)\" --merge=\"$MERGED\" "
[merge]
    tool = opendiff

That should make git use opendiff as its merge tool, when there are merge conflicts.

That said, I VERY much prefer DiffMerge from SourceGear, which is a free diff and three-way-merge tool that does much better, word-oriented, conflict resolution. And in DiffMerge's documentation there's what to tell git to make it the default diffing and merging tool.


My 2016 13" MacBook Pro's screen goes black when it is opened vertically beyond 90 degree I have experienced this issue today. I closed my MacBook as usual when I had something to do. Then I came back, tried to use it again. However the screen went dark when it was opened vertically beyond 90 degree.

I went on the Internet to search for this problem and tried to resetting SMC, but it did not work. How can I do to fix this problem?

Welcome to Ask Different. This sounds a lot like a hardware issue unfortunately - specifically a loose display cable. For MacBook models 2016 - present, the display cable is integrated into the display itself, so you will need to get the whole display replaced. Please see the attached article for further information regarding the issue. Sorry and best of luck.


Latest Model 13" MacBook Pro i7 - Disk slow beyond belief It seems that all disk operations are 50x slower. Reboot time = 15 minutes. Dekstop freezes every time disk accessed.

Is there anything I can do? The machine is virtually unusable. This has been going on for 3 days now.

Have you tried booting from the install disc and running the disk utility?
Once you get booted from the disc you can go to the menu and start the disc utility.

You can run verify disk to make sure it isn't a problem with the drive.

You can also check the permission's on the disk to see if that is the issue.


How to install a specific version/build of Safari? A customer has reported a bug in Safari 10.1.1 (11603.2.5) which I cannot reproduce in Safari 10.1.1 (12603.2.4) on macOS Sierra.

Everything is updated in the App Store.

Is it possible to install a specific build number of Safari?
If not, what accounts for the different builds on different machines?
Are there release notes available at the level of build numbers?

I do not think you can find level of builds for Safari. As long as you are running the current latest version of Sierra, You will have the latest version of Safari.

To find the latest updated version and patch details you can track them on Apple Support.

The last updated for Safari came on 15 May 2017 - Safari 10.1.1

Supported OSes - OS X Yosemite 10.10.5, OS X El Capitan 10.11.6, and macOS Sierra 10.12.5


Does TRIM have my pictures in memory somehow? I have a new iPhone 7plus.  My 17 year old helped back up my old iPhone before we left on vacation last week.  My new phone was activated but not synced before we left.  When we got back, I asked him to sync my phone thinking that still needed to happen.  Well, it erased all my pictures from our trip and took my phone back to the backup before Spring Break.  I have called Apple and an independent company and told there might be a tiny bit of hope in something on my phone called TRIM.  I am obviously not technical and have no idea what this is.  Any help is appreciated.  Is there any possibility in retrieving my pictures or not?

Regrettably TRIM is unlikely to be relevant to recovering your lost photos.

  A trim command (known as TRIM in the ATA command set, and UNMAP in the SCSI command set) allows an operating system to inform a solid-state drive (SSD) which blocks of data are no longer considered in use and can be wiped internally.

However, a data recovery organisation may still be able to extract photos from your iPhone's storage. Much depends on if the location on the storage has been erased or if the original files are encrypted.

The technical details of how your photos could be recovered is better left unknown; it is unlikely to directly help you. Contact a couple of reputable data recovery organisations and ask them for quotes.

This is a horrible situation to be in. I hope you are able to recover the photos. Good luck!


Early 2011 MBP Hard Drive Noise - What IS normal? I bought an early 2011 (the current model at the time of writing) 15 inch, 2.2GHz MacBook Pro.

I had a previous generation model, pre unibody model which I loved and performed like a star.

Performance wise I am loving the machine but the hard drive makes such a noise under normal operation it's untrue. It sounds like a fan, but I assume there is no cooling where the HD is, but it bellows. It's not the fans - they are happy sitting there at 2,000 RPM. It can be reduced to what I would consider normal levels but putting my right hand directly above it. Very gentle pressure is enough to stop this happening. I am not sure if it is pressure or touch (e.g. grounded) related.

There are a bunch of people on the Apple discussion forums with the same issue, but nothing from Apple, not help from the geniuses/applecare and no obvious "fix". I just dropped a big chunk of change on the machine - I don't want to have to open it up or replace the drive just to make it bearable.

Any suggestions?

Examples: http://www.google.com/search?q=early+2011+macbook+pro+hard+drive+noise&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a

I can tell you, this isn't normal.

You shouldn't hear the hard drive very much at all, and only a little chatter when you're using it extensively.

Since you've clearly established that it's a hardware problem (because pressure fixes it), you should probably try to get it fixed. Rather than open the machine and do it yourself (violating your warranty), you should get Apple to fix it.
Since your computer is pretty new, it should definitely be a free repair.

You can take it to the Apple Store and tell Apple what happens. They'll take it and do some tests, then replace the drive (or whatever part they think needs it).

Make sure you back up all your data first; you won't get your old drive back.


Photos missing in iCloud, only thumbnails available locally - can I extract the thumbnails? I have around 1700 photos that I've discovered are missing from my iCloud storage.  (These are family/baby photos that we desperately don't want to lose.)
When I try to download the photos from iCloud to Photos I get the following error:

I can see full-screen thumbnails in the Photos app (and they mostly look to be a decent resolution) but when trying to export/share the file it must be looking for the original and gives this error:

Is there any way to export the thumbnails from the Photos app?  I've had a look through the SQLite database file and can't see any blob data that could be thumbnails, although I may have missed it.
I'm hoping someone has a better idea than just taking screenshots of each photo individually, which is the only option I can think of right now.

Unfortunately you are looking in the wrong place.
By default the Photos.app (macOS Catalina) stores everything in redundantly named "Photos Library.photoslibrary" usually kept in the ~/Pictures folder.
If you right(or control) click on the .photoslibrary file and select Show Package Contents it will open a new finder window. I have my Finder set to display columns but the thumbnails are all stored in one place:

Once inside the .photoslibrary package file they are in:
iPod Photo Cache/FXX/T####.thmb
As above. There are not real big or very high resolution but they are something.


Accesing iphone gps position from the macbook? I observed that an ipad (wifi) connected to a personal hotspot made by an iphone does get also the GPS position.

The question is how can I get this from a MacBook Pro?

I would like to use it with apps like Google Earth.

I don't have an iPhone 4 to test this, but I assume Core Location will do.

Here's a simple sample application with a map (and coordinates).

Lucubrator is also an option, and comes with some more information.


How to run iOS app on device without attaching device to Mac? My client has an iPhone and iPad at his place and wants to check the app being created by us at our place.

We are able to check the iOS app on our registered iPhone by attaching it to our Mac and running Xcode with the proper certificate.

The client has provided the details for their device (the UDID and other details). Now my issue is that how can the client run the app on their devices?

My team uses Test Flight for managing and deploying beta iOS applications. It's easy for both the developer and the tester to use, as it does all the provisioning and distribution for you. It also happens to be free to use.


Is it my imagination or do iPods charge faster using a car charger? Maybe I'm crazy, but it sure seems like when I plug my electronics (iPhone, iPod, etc.) into a car charger it gets up to a full charge MUCH faster than if I use a regular charger and an outlet.

Do these devices charge faster from car adapters, or am I imagining this? If so, why?

The answer to this question is that "it depends" and it is actually quite possible that your car charger is charging your devices faster than the AC charger you use at home. In both cases, there is significant power available at the source to do the charging relative to the number of watts being used to charge the device. That is, both the AC wall outlet and the cigarette lighter socket are both going to have "hundreds" of WATTS available if not more whereas the device being charged is only going to be consuming maybe "tens" of WATTs at the most during peak charging rates.

Therefore what makes the difference is the amount of power being OUTPUT by the particular charger itself....you just need to check the ratings of the charger and see how much power than can each OUTPUT. The output power is simply VOLTS times AMPS for the DC power that your device is likely to be using.

Some wall chargers that are very inexpensive have very small power supplies in them and only put out a limited amount of charging current at the rated charging voltage for your device. Others may be quite a bit beefier and will be output up to or above the maximum the device will take. Similarly for the car adapter.

Given that the DC source from the car is directly available and a very low cost regulator can be used to generate a regulated charging voltage without having to convert using a switching power supply from an AC line, it seems more than likely that you have a car charger that charges quicker than your home unit. Also, it is possible that the device accepts a variable input DC voltage and can take the 9V to 12V range from the car directly. In this case, it is quite possible that the car charger will end up delivering significantly more charging power than the AC charger.


Can my iPhone search for Wi-Fi only when in a specific location? Searching for Wi-Fi uses battery, and it's annoying when the "Choose Network" dialogue box pops up when an iPhone is Wi-Fi enabled, but I don't have any desire to connect to a network.

Is there any built-in function or iPhone (I have a 4S) app that enables Wi-Fi ONLY when the phone is in a certain location -- say "home"?

This seems fairly basic enough, as the phone always knows where I am, and accurately when Location Services are activated. Any help?

No, there is no way to do this.

Also, wifi is only searched for when you actually go to use your phone. It won't search for wifi networks constantly while the phone is in your pocket. Your iPhone is very good at managing its own battery usage. Checking what SSIDs exist is very battery efficient.

Lastly, you can turn off that annoying prompt that comes up whenever networks are discovered. It'll still automatically connect to wifi networks that you trust, but that dialog will never appear.


Can I set the sender/reply-to address in iOS mail for an ActiveSync account? I have a Google Apps account for mail.example.com, but actually use addresses @example.com (e.g. tony@example.com, whereas the account is tony@mail.example.com).  This isn't ideal, but I'm stuck with it for now.

In iOS mail I have this account setup as an Exchange account (i.e. not IMAP), which means that there isn't much in the way of settings.  Email I send from this account comes from tony@mail.example.com, which works, but I would prefer tony@example.com (this already works fine on the Desktop/browser).

Is it possible to change the sender/from/reply-to header in this situation?

(I wasn't sure whether this was an iOS mail issue and so should be asked here, or a Google apps issue and so should be asked on webapps.se, or if it's just not possible. Feel free to bounce me if appropriate!)

Unfortunately, no; it's not possible to specify a "Send From" address with an Exchange ActiveSync account. An Exchange Activesync account will always use the primary email address associated with it as the address the message is sent from.


How can I find out whether my MacBook is supported by Lion? Lion requires MacBook Late 2008 Aluminium or Early 2009 to install/upgrade. How can I find out whether my MacBook is capable of running Lion if I forgot when I bought it?

About This Mac > More Info... will give you a model # and serial #. With those, Apple can tell you whether your machine is compatible. Or you can look in the table on this iMac page on Wikipedia to identify your machine.  Or compare the physical requirements for Lion to what you find in About This Mac.


Concerned I may have accidentally dropped malware (or something) onto my system First time poster in this part of Stack Exchange - apologies I have posted in the wrong section.

In short I have an iMac running 10.8. Most of the time I quite happily get about my business but about every 3-4 years I do something stupid. Today was one of those days.

Basically I was looking at an alternative method of running Mame (currently use the OpenEmu route). Basically downloaded SDLMame, then was going to go the QMC2 front end route for a GUI. Downloaded both, but when downloading QMC2 (from what is a legitimate site) - installed the package and it installed a folder into my Applications folder with no permission to access it. In short, I didn't like that at all (as that is a fairly non-standard thing), deleted the folder (securely) without installing the application file, and then ran Intego Virus Scanner with week old definitions, and ClamXAV. Neither picked anything up when downloading the packages (I always check all downloads that way) and neither picked anything odd up on my system afterwards (after deleting). In short my iMac hasn't behaved erratically since but I just wish to be 100% so is there anything else further than I can do? I have also run Etre Check, and it didn't pull anything obviously abnormal except for the fact that I need to update my Flash as there has been a new recommended version released etc.

I expect I may be having an over-reaction and it is possibly standard for that emulator (had never used it before) but I take the better to be safe than sorry approach.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

It looks like you did your due diligence and there is no evidence of a real malware problem - it sounds like their installer just screwed up the permissions.

Fire up Terminal, and do an ls -l of your Applications folder, looking for the QMC2 folder. I'd be willing to be it did something like installing as root (I bet the package asked for your password, right?) and missed correcting the permissions.

Once you've found it, you can do a chown (your username) -R (QMC2 path) to set everything to your user.


macos external USB keyboard command key not working I have a reliable external keyboard that worked normally with a macbook pro (2018). I've upgraded to a new macbook air and the command key isn't working with the external keyboard. For example I can't use any keyboard shortcuts such as ⌘-space for spotlight. It appears to be just the command key.
Other examples:

⌘C, ⌘V not working
⌘, for preferences not working
Menu bar items (such as Edit > Copy) have the ⌘C greyed out instead of black font.
Other keys work normally: tab, Enter, Ctrl-L (for clearing terminal screen for example).
Laptop keyboard working fine.

Attempted (failed) fixes:

Reboot
Reset SMC (also PRAM, NVRAM)
Check USB connections on different ports
Delete Libarary Prefs com.apple.HIToolbox.plist
Repeat the keyboard detection (Prefs > Keyboard > Change Keyboard Type...)

Keyboard type:
Coolermaster Quicksight Rapid-i mechanical keyboard. I have used it successfully with work laptops (windows and macbook pro) as well as an iMac (2012).

Solution: Switch Modifier Key Assignment
For some reason the new macbook is detecting the Command ⌘ key as Alt and vice-versa.
Preferences > Keyboard > Modifier Keys... and switch the ⌘ and Alt keys.
Now it works. This was a painful experience so I'm sharing what I wish I had found online. I didn't discover that the command key was actually working until troubleshooting on https://keyboardchecker.com.
The Menu list shortcuts are still greyed out. I don't have a solution for this, but its cosmetic as the shortcuts still work, even ones I assign in keyboard prefs.


OSX 10.13.4 'Sets up your Mac' every login I just upgraded to 10.13.4, and every time I reboot or login I get the "Setting up your Mac" screen. It also adds the default apps to the dock (such as Siri and Downloads folder). If I remove those two and log out or reboot, the next time I log in I get the same "Setting up your Mac" as well as the default apps again. This happens on two machines I have; a MacBook Pro and a Mac Pro.

Has anyone else seen this behavior and, more importantly, have a fix for it? Or is it just a bug in 10.13.4?

I have the same problem for a while. One of the reasons may be third-party security software, e.g. ESET Cyber Security.

Uninstalling it might work for you, though it didn't for me.
I've uninstalled ESET but mbp High Sierra still brings back icons (Siri, Maps, iBooks, Photos).


How to Revoke Automator warning dialog? I clicked unwillingly on "Don't show this message" and now it does not appear.

How can I revoke it to be shown as previously?

The solution is to "Reset Warnings" in Automator main menu ->
Reset+Restart Automator:


MySQL can't start: Symbol not found: _clock_gettime I just did a fresh install of MySQL with Homebrew, when I start it, it says:

%> /usr/local/homebrew/bin/mysqld
dyld: lazy symbol binding failed: Symbol not found: _clock_gettime
  Referenced from: /usr/local/homebrew/bin/mysqld
  Expected in: /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib

dyld: Symbol not found: _clock_gettime
  Referenced from: /usr/local/homebrew/bin/mysqld
  Expected in: /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib

Trace/BPT trap: 5

Any ideas?


Unable to change payment information to NONE in iOS Appstore Ever since adding an iTunes gift card to my account, I'm getting verification requests like crazy. I can't even download free apps. It takes me to my payment info and when I try to select none, I continually get a message under the payment info that says "you must verify your payment info to continue"

I don't want a credit card on file and would really like the none option to work. My ID shows I still have iTunes credit.

Apple is simply trying to make it easier to purchase apps if you decide to do that in the future. Providing the security code on the card lowers the fees Apple pays to the credit card processing company since it is evidence you are in physical possession of the card.

You aren't required to provide a credit card at all just to sign up. When you are prompted for the credit card type, Apple gives the option to chose "None". If you choose this while purchasing a free app, it will allow you to sign up without a credit card.

Apple provides walkthrough steps for doing this on both a computer and on an iPod touch or iPhone.

If this method is not available in your country but your country does have iTunes Store gift cards available, you can purchase one gift card and use it to create an account. You'll have to pay a little up front of course, but you won't have to provide a credit card before starting to purchase the free apps.


how to expand bootcamp boot partition to previously existed NTFS data partition Some time ago I've partitioned my disk using this scheme: shrinked OS X partition, created NTFS data partition for Windows, then installed Windows on Bootcamp partition.

Recently I installed Parallels Desktop ("run Windows from the Boot Camp partition" mode) which, expectedly, ruined my data NTFS partition: Windows doesn't see it any more, there's just no disk shown under Windows; partition shows as "Unallocated" in Computer Management > Disk Management.

Now I want to split the data partition space between my Bootcamp disk and OS X partition [1], so I have only one partition for Bootcamp and another for OS X.

How can I resize bootcamp partition and OS X partitions without ruining either of them?
After resizing, I would also like to upgrade my OS X from 10.8.5 to latest Mavericks, which sounded impossible with two-Windows-partitions setup.

[1] -- as I didn't found a reliable way to have both Windows data partition and regularly update OS X without harming that partition (1, 2).

To share with other users facing a similar situation, here is how I solved the problem--and avoided completely reinstalling OS X and Windows. For reference, my OS X version was Mountain Lion when I started solving the problem--and I needed to upgrade to Mavericks in the end.

Back up Windows partition with WinClone to an external HDD
Run "Backup now" in Time Machine to make sure I have a latest backup of OS X partition
Under OS X Disk Utility, remove Windows system partition (which is typically labeled BOOTCAMP)
In OS X Recovery boot, remove OS X partition and create it from the scratch (make it use whole HDD space)
Install a clean OS X (my MBA 2011 allowed only Lion--if I remember correctly, it's fine as long as it's not a later release than my Time Machine backup)
Restore my OS X partition from Time Machine. It makes Recovery Partition disappear, we'll fix it in the next step
From AppStore, reinstall Mountain Lion. It's only needed to re-create the Recovery Partition.
Under OS X Disk Utility, manually create a FAT partition for Bootcamp following WinClone support article. WinClone will convert it into NTFS in the next step.
This is where you decide how HDD space will be split between OS X and Windows.
Restore Bootcamp partition from your backup (#1) to the Windows partition you created in #8.
Boot Windows under Bootcamp; it can run CHKDSK automatically, reporting that volume could be dirty--but didn't find any problems.
If you use Trackpad++, it needs to be reinstalled now. Boot Windows under Bootcamp, reinstall PowerPlan Assistant first, then Trackpad++.
Under OS X, re-create virtual machine in Parallels.
Upgrade to Mavericks.
Move to Bootcamp system partition all the data files that were originally stored on Windows data partition (provided you have their backup).

The only problem that's left at this point is that Parallels freezes VM when used in "all apps in one window" default mode (which is not Coherence, Fullscreen or Modality mode). Will seek solution for it later; at least it is stable for a week now in Coherence mode.

Before following the above sequence, I tried to recreate data partitition with Windows, converting the unallocated space that sized exactly like the lost partition. Failed: I found that there is a new partition which originally wasn't there: sized 620MB, but it didn't appear as recovery partition among Startup Disks on boot. Didn't try deleting it though, maybe it could help.


Can't use iTunes songs in iMovie 10? -"protected & unavailable" I can't seem to use any of my purchased songs in iTunes - basically, any of my iTunes music - in an iMovie project.

I go to the music/iTunes tab in a project and I just get a notice that x-number of songs are protected and unavailable. Does this mean that now I literally can't use any music I bought in iMovie? I was working on just a personal video and have been able to use all the songs in my iTunes library in past versions of iMovie.

I can't find an answer about it anywhere.

Do you have itunes Radio? We had a similar problem that we had downloaded a song through iTunes radio. The song is on the computer, but since we didn't purchase it we can't use it in any other program other than iTunes. We had to delete the song, and then purchase it through the store.


Since update to Mojave SD card disappears after sleep Since an update to Mojave, the SD card which I use permanently in my MBP
always gets unmounted after longer sleep and importantly, it does only remount after restart.

I know this question has been posted several times. However, the only solution I found which is supposed to solve this problem automatically (the tool "Mountain") is

A) not doing the job

B) crashes the mac sometimes I guess after hitting the "reactivate USB drives command

Anyone has a solution for that?

here some system.log details during sleep:

Oct  3 00:13:43 XXX-MacBook-Pro kcm[5005]: DEPRECATED USE in libdispatch client: Setting timer interval to 0 requests a 1ns timer, did you mean FOREVER (a one-shot timer)?; set a breakpoint on _dispatch_bug_deprecated to debug

Oct  3 00:15:23 XXX-MacBook-Pro kcm[5011]: DEPRECATED USE in libdispatch client: Setting timer interval to 0 requests a 1ns timer, did you mean FOREVER (a one-shot timer)?; set a breakpoint on _dispatch_bug_deprecated to debug

Oct  3 00:18:53 XXX-MacBook-Pro kcm[5070]: DEPRECATED USE in libdispatch client: Setting timer interval to 0 requests a 1ns timer, did you mean FOREVER (a one-shot timer)?; set a breakpoint on _dispatch_bug_deprecated to debug

Oct  3 00:18:53XXX-MacBook-Pro syslogd[63]: ASL Sender Statistics

Oct  3 00:20:07XXX-MBP kcm[5085]: DEPRECATED USE in libdispatch client: Setting timer interval to 0 requests a 1ns timer, did you mean FOREVER (a one-shot timer)?; set a breakpoint on _dispatch_bug_deprecated to debug

Oct  3 01:20:44 XXX-MBP com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.privax.osx.provpn.update): Service only ran for 601 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 10199 seconds.

Oct  3 01:20:44 XXX-MBP com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.sandboxd[124]): Service exited due to SIGALRM | sent by kernel_task[0]

Oct  3 01:20:44 XXX-MBP syslogd[63]: ASL Sender Statistics

Oct  3 01:20:53 XXX-MBP kcm[5093]: DEPRECATED USE in libdispatch client: Setting timer interval to 0 requests a 1ns timer, did you mean FOREVER (a one-shot timer)?; set a breakpoint on _dispatch_bug_deprecated to debug

Oct  3 01:21:12 XXX-MBP com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.getdropbox.dropbox.garcon.XXX[726]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by Dropbox[545]

Oct  3 01:21:16 XXX-MBP com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.getdropbox.dropbox.2252[545]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by Dropbox[5117]

What I also get is the following ReportCrash message:

com.apple.message.domain: com.apple.crashreporter.writereport.crash
com.apple.message.signature: sshfs
com.apple.message.signature2: UNBUNDLED ||| ??? (???)
com.apple.message.signature3: UNKNOWN
com.apple.message.result: NO
com.apple.message.summarize: YES
SenderMachUUID: XXX

So its a problem with disk sleep. Actually the one have to disable it manually. In Terminal type: sudo pmset -g and than sudo pmset -a disksleep 1410065408.


Contact photo not displaying in Messages app How can I display the contact photo in my Messages app?  My device is running iOS 10.3.3.

4"-screen iOS devices (including your 5, as well as the 5S, C, and SE) no longer have the option to display contact photos.

If you decide to upgrade to a larger phone, check to make sure that zoom is turned off and show contact photos is turned on.


Where is data from Software Update server located? We have a Mac Mini running Server 4.0 and are using the Software Update service. Where are these file stored?

This was accidentally set to Automatic and we are wanting to just manually manage company updates. We turned the service off and removed the updates but the storage is still being used.

The standard directory in Yosemite/Mavericks where the update packages are stored in folders and sub-folders is here:

"/Library/Server/Software Update/Data/html/content/downloads/"

The DocRoot may be customized though.

Entering the following in Terminal to get a previously customized DocRoot should work:

 /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'print :updatesDocRoot' "/Library/Server/Software Update/Config/swupd.plist"


Long command in terminal.app cause a bug If I am in the last line of Terminal.app and enter a long command, it does not create new line, but instead overwrites the same line.

How can I solve this bug?

I have a hunch that this is primarily caused by your accented characters (çã) in your directory name, because this is not a problem by default:

Special characters, unprintable or otherwise, frequently cause problems with classic terminals / shells.

Try opening a new terminal tab/window, and see if this problem occurs immediately, or if it doesn't occur until after you enter a directory with special characters.


Connect a Lacie Thunderbolt only drive to a USB port? I have a huge Lacie Thunderbolt only drive and I want to connect it to pre-thunderbolt computers but no matter where I look there doesn't seem to be a device or adapter which can achieve such.

I've looked at Lacie, Apple, and all over the internet but nada, nothing, zilch..  Rather than toss the drive in the attic I'd like to give it some new use but the machines it will connect to don't have a thunderbolt.  Newer drives at least give you the option of using both but I was wondering if anyone out there might have some suggestions.

Thunderbolt is PCI express, so you would need an older machine to have a PCI express bus or card and then add an adapter card which would cost far more than a new USB drive.

I don't think that adapter (which is eminently makable) would be brought to market due to the cost of the "solution" to be implemented.

If you need a drive that connects to old and new computers, perhaps trading your awesome Thunderbolt drive for a USB one would make sense, but you might instead put the files on an internet share to do short term sharing of the data.


How can I boot to Windows on my Mac? I have a MacBook Pro that I installed Windows 8 on via Boot Camp. I've managed to boot to it, before, but since then I've made two new partitions on the disk, and I'm afraid it's messed things up since I can't boot to Windows anymore.

Now when I select which partition to boot to, I can only see my Mac OSX, A backup partition, and the Recovery partition. The Windows partition does appear in Disk Utility though.

What have I done wrong?

Try going to System Preferences...

There in the System row go to Statup Disk

And select the Windows partition.

Restart...

During Startup try holding the option key. You should be able to select the partition you will boot from.


Until when is my device going to be supported? I got a MacBook Pro 13 inch, mid 2012 version. I would like to know if Apple does discontinue support (e.g. OS updates) for devices and if so, how I can find out what the max is going to be for my laptop.

I found the following: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201624

Does this mean that devices will be supported until they have been out of production for 5+ years?

Software updates are separate from hardware support. The page you referred to is purely hardware and how long you will be able to get replacement parts.

Software updates (i.e. macOS, iOS, Pages, Numbers, etc…) are subject to the hardware limitations and what hardware is needed in order for Apple to support that configuration. For example, my 2012 Mac Mini will run macOS Sierra, but it won't use the Apple Watch to unlock it because the version of BlueTooth in that Mac won't support that feature.

Every year when the new OS update is announced there is also the supported hardware list. This year's macOS update (10.13, High Sierra) will support all machines that were supported under last year's update (10.12, Sierra), but last year there were some machines that were not able to be updated from 10.11 to 10.12 (my Mac Pro can run 10.11, but not 10.12 or later).


How is it possible to have global hotkeys in OSX? By "global" I mean that kind of shortcuts that I am using in Windows and that are set within and for an application but that can be used when that application is hidden or minimized (not on top). (e.g. the ones discussed here.)

I see that in this article here on "OS X Mavericks: Use global keyboard shortcuts" that shortcuts are called "global" but in a different sense - it seems to me - because they are only available if the given application is already active (focused upon, on top, like for example a text editor in which I can write) but not if it is not in this position (for example: if the text editor is open and ready for writing, then, the shortcuts available for an audio player will not be accessible).

So, I am not referring to the media keys on the keyboard, but to ones that I can set in an application and then can use when other application is active and actively used.

When adding some shortcuts for vlc under Keyboard settings, they are not global in this sense.

You can assign a shortcut to a script like this:

tell application "System Events" to tell process "VLC"
    click menu item "Step Forward" of menu 1 of menu bar item "Playback" of menu bar 1
end tell

For example save the script in ~/Library/Scripts/ in AppleScript Editor and then use FastScripts to give it a shortcut. Or if you have bought the Powerpack for Alfred, you can create a workflow with a Hotkey trigger connected to a Run Script action.


Connecting Mac Book Pro 2017 to 2 Projectors via USB C Just wondering can I connect my 13" MacBook Pro to 2 HDMI projectors? I would like to extend the displays ( 3 display, 1 laptop screen and 2 projector screen) instead of duplicating if that is possible.

I have purchased one of USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter from Apple, and if it can connect up to 2 additional extended displays, I will go for another one.

According to Apple's Technical Specifications  13” 2017 MacBook Pro is able to support 2 external displays.

Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display at millions of colors and:

One display with 5120x2880 resolution at 60Hz at over a billion colours
Up to two displays with 4096x2304 resolution at 60Hz at millions of colours
Up to two displays with 3840x2160 resolution at 60Hz at over a billion colours

So, three total screens is a yes, four or more is a no. What’s undetermined is if you can run closed clamshell and have three distinct and active external displays and nothing on the internal display.


Logic Pro X Keyshortcut settings - can they be saved to iCloud Drive? how do I make sure that the Logic Pro X Keyshortcut settings are somehow fetched from the iCloud Drive every time?

I keep switching from machine1 to machine2 to machine3 and I think I've had to keep recreating the shortcuts from scratch about maybe 5-10 times over the course of the past 8 years.

Could Symlinked files somehow help with this?

According to Apple, the personal key command set is at ~/Music/Audio Music Apps/Key Commands. Fingers crossed that this can be changed into a symlink.

The solution is two-fold.

Here's part one.

Launch Logic Pro X.
Go to Logic Pro X -> Key Commands -> Edit
You will now see the Key Commands window. Click on the Options on the top-left corner of the window.
Choose Export Key Commands and save it to the Music/Audio Music Apps/Key Commands -folder.
Quit Logic Pro X.

Here's part two:

Now launch Finder and enter the Music -folder.
Locate the Audio Music Apps -folder.
Select it and Copy it to Clipboard.
Now, while in Finder, press Cmd-Shift-I to enter your iCloud Drive.
Paste the Audio Music Apps -folder there (or wherever on the iCloud Drive you would like to place it.
Wait till the whole folder and all of it's contents have been uploaded to the iCloud Drive.
Open the Terminal.
Navigate to ~/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs (use TAB to autocomplete Mobile\ Documents.)
Type pwd
Now type cd ~/Music
Type open . to open the Music -folder in Finder.
Delete the Audio Music Apps -folder.
Return back to the Terminal.
Type cd ~/Music to make sure you are there (just in case you started improvising and quit Terminal and are now in your home folder (~/)
Now type ln -s ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs - but when you type Mobile, press TAB to auto-complete Mobile\ Documents.
That's all, you can close Terminal.
You can now see that an Alias Folder for Audio Music Apps appeared in the Music -folder in Finder.
Launch Logic Pro X.
Go back to Logic Pro X -> Key Commands -> Edit
This time, select Option -> Import Key Commands and pick the keyboard shortcut file.
Verify that your customized keyboard settings have been accurately loaded.

From now on, your EXS24 Sampler settings, Keyboard shortcuts and other settings will be safely saved to iCloud Drive.


Why do I have repeated "Are you sure you want to open it?" messages when launching applications? My Security settings are set to "Mac App Store and identified developers". I'm still getting this problem though I've allowed the app to run more than once as an Administrator. Specific apps that are experiencing this problem are Coda 2 by Panic, PDFpenPro by Smile Software, and Firefox.

Panic and Smile Software are identified developers if I'm not mistaken. And Transmit by Panic opens fine without these warnings.

Any idea why this is the case?

Solved the problem! The quarantine metadata was not clearing correctly for some reason. I fixed this by doing:

sudo xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Coda\ 2.app

Big thanks to Thomas Reed in the Apple discussion forums - Link to answer.


I want to make my Iphone in German Language , Which is currently in English Language I want to make my Iphone in German Language , Which is currently in English Language,how can i make it ? Currently German Language option is Not available in Settings/others/languages.

Settings → General → Language & Region → iPhone Language → search for German.


Iphone5S calendar not showing entries over 30 days old I Phone 5S not showing calendar entries over 30 days old.

By default, the iOS Calendars app only synchronizes and retains the last months’ worth of events on your device, regardless of how much data is stored in whatever cloud or desktop calendar application you’re synchronizing with.

This can be changed in the Settings app; under the Mail, Contacts, Calendars section there is an option near the bottom to set how much of your calendar data you want synchronized and retained on your device, with options for two weeks, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months or everything regardless of how old.


Does deleting user account on macOS also deletes their installed apps? On a Mac with more than one user account, I can open apps installed by other users through Spotlight.

If I delete the other user accounts, will their apps get deleted too?

On macOS, an app bundle (.app file) can technically be located anywhere. Although, in the most general case, apps are installed in the shared /Applications directory and in some cases in the directory with same name in the users Home directory ~/Applications (or more completely /Users/<username>/Applications).

Deleting a user account deletes the users Home directory. Thus, all the app installed by user in the root /Applications directory remain unaffected.

Usually, when deleting a user account, macOS gives an option to preserve their Home directory contents. Any app installed in the Home directory can technically be carried over and used.

In short, to put it simply, since users files are hidden from each other, if you were able to use an app installed by other user, you will continue to have access to it even after their account is deleted from macOS.


Is there a network usage utility that shows data usage by network connection I use my Mountain Lion MacBook Air to connect to the internet using various methods. At home, I use my wired connection, which does not have a cap. Sometimes though, I connect via my iPad, which uses LTE, and does have a bandwidth cap. At other times, I connect through 3G on my iPhone, where the bandwidth cap is even lower.

Is there a utility which would run on my computer and automatically track and record the amount of data sent. I am interested in seeing the data by connection (which WiFi network I connect to) and be aggregatable by date (so I can see for today only, month-to-date, previous month, etc). For example, I would like to be able to see how many megabytes of bandwidth I have used in March 2013 while connected to a WiFi network called "Bob's LTE" or May 1st through May 8th 2013  while connected to "Bob's iPhone".

Does such a beastie exist?

If you are looking for simple real time statistics, checkout iStat Pro.
It is a widget that provides a lot more than just network information.

http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/status/istatpro.html

Surplus Meter or Net Monitor look like they would do exactly what you want:

http://mac.appstorm.net/roundups/internet-roundup/4-ways-to-monitor-bandwidth-usage-on-your-mac/


Keychain won't remember my SSH password when connecting to server I routinely develop on two different servers.

One server requires my private SSH key stored in ~/.ssh/id_rsa. This part of the story works fine.

The other server should not require any SSH keys, yet OSX shows me this password prompt every time I connect:

It doesn't matter whether I press OK or Cancel, because there's no public key on the server. And so obviously there's no password either.

Why won't the password dialog remember my password in the keychain? I've checked, and an SSH item shows up in my Keychain Access app, yet the prompt still appears, every time I SFTP or SSH to the server.

I'm guessing it might have to do with either a misconfigured server, or the fact that the username I connect with is the same for both servers. If you could confirm that the problem is either of these it would be helpful, thank you.

There is a lot of conflicting information I've read whenever I look up information on using ssh-agent (passphrase saving/reusing process) under Mac OS X. Most resources seem to suggest that simply issuing ssh-add -K will let you store your passphrase, and will automatically configure OS X to launch ssh-agent automatically and load your stored passphrase.

Note: Running ssh-add -K will only work if you have your private key file in one of the common locations, those locations being limited to: ~/.ssh/id_rsa, ~/.ssh/id_dsa, ~/.ssh/identity. If the file is located anywhere else you should specify that path after the -K in the command above.

The reason you are getting the key file passphrase dialog when connecting to the second (key-less) server is likely because the default configuration of SSH servers is to use public key authentication first, and 'keyboard interactive' authentication second.

Because you have a public key with a standard name/location (~/.ssh/id_rsa), your OpenSSH client helpfully submits the private key in order to allow the server to match it against an allowed authorized_keys file.

There are a small handful of ways to prevent this, the easiest two being to pass a flag on the command line, or add it as a permanent configuration item in your ~/.ssh/config file.

When connecting to the secondary/key-less server, you can add -o "PubkeyAuthentication=no" when connecting. Something like ssh -o "PubkeyAuthentication=no" me@devserver2.
Open up ~/.ssh/config in your favorite text editor, create it first if you must, and enter the following:

Host devserver2
    User me
    PubkeyAuthentication no

Now, if you simply type ssh devserver2 the username and pubkey configuration will be read in and used, and you should be prompted for your password and nothing else.

(Note: Replace devserver2 with the actual hostname of the server. Alternatively, pick a nice hostname, such as devserver2, and add a property between User and PubkeyAuthentication called 'Hostname' and put the name or IP address of the server there. Afterwards, you actually can simply type 'ssh devserver2' and all the configuration properties will work their respective magic.)


Will turning off and delete photos via icloud preferences on macbook delete my iphones photos? I was writing a note in my notes app when a popup came up saying my cloud was full, it prompted me to go to references, so I did.
Now in iCloud preferences I see the following:

For a while now I have wanted to turn off iCloud saving of my photos.
Question: If I click the "Turn off and Delete" for photos, will it delete my photos from my phone?

No, the pictures will still be available on your iPhone if you click Turn off & Delete. The images will then be deleted from iCloud within 30 days.
No matter what, I would definitely make a backup of preferably both your iPhone and the Raw photos/videos e.g. to an external hard drive to ensure even if something goes wrong you don't lose your data.


Address bar in Safari gone! The address bar in my safari broswer has disappeared... I have quit my safari browser and reopened it, but the problem persists. This is what it looks like  I have no idea why this is happening, but i use safari as my main browser so it has all my bookmarks, etc so i can't really just stop using it. Please help, thanks.

Right click in the empty area > "Customize Toolbar" > drag the address bar back up.

You probably accidentally command-dragged it out.


Burst images will not upload when sharing to iCloud via iPhoto I took burst photos with my iPhone 6.  Plugged into iMac, iPhoto opens, I pull all the images off my phone and into a new iPhoto event, they are no longer on my phone.  Now I want to share them using iPhoto -> Share -> iCloud -> New photo stream.  When I do this only the non-burst images get uploaded.  Why?  I want them all.  I do not have Photo Stream turned on.  I don't know if that matters.  I don't want it on.

I am running the latest version of OS X Yosemite & iPhoto 9.5.1.

Thanks!

If you take photos with burst mode or image stabilization on your iPhone 5s, only the photos you select as favorites when using burst mode and the final composite image shot with image stabilization are added to My Photo Stream.

If you want all burst-mode photos uploaded to My Photo Stream and your iPhone has iOS 7.1 or later, go to Settings > Photos & Camera and turn on Upload Burst Photos.

Source: iCloud: My Photo Stream overview


What is the difference between the sudo and su command? What is the difference between the sudo and su command? Why does OS X handle these different than Linux?

OS X handles sudo and su identically to Linux.

sudo is a command that, without any additional options, will run a command as root. For example:

% touch /newfile
touch: /newfile: Permission denied
% ls -l /newfile
ls: /newfile: No such file or directory
% sudo touch /newfile
% ls -l /newfile
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  0 Apr 27 11:45 /newfile

su on the other hand, will switch the current user to root (again without any extra commands). In the example below, I have to run sudo su, since I don't know the root password for my system:

% whoami
alake
% sudo su
$ whoami
root

The key difference between sudo and su is sudo runs a command as root, whereas su makes you root. Much like other command line utilities there are a number of alternative ways to use both sudo and su, if you're interested you can always run man <command> eg. man sudo to get more information.


Why does my USB audio device have problems with Google Hangouts? The audio sent to the person I'm talking to is very faint when using my USB audio headset and Google Hangouts, even if I turn the level up high in System Preferences. In Skype, everything is normal. What could be going on?

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014)

10.10.2

Plantronics .Audio 478 Stereo USB Headset

Chrome

update: it seems that refreshing window (essentially re-joining the hangout) causes the correct mic to be detected.

Make sure you've selected the Plantronics device in the mic chooser window in the Hangouts settings once the Hangout has begun (gear icon.)

Change the default setting (which should be the internal mic on the Mac if there is one:)

To Plantronics:

(I have the Blue Snowball connected in this screen cap.)


Aperture: Import content of smart folder Is there any way to import the content of Smart Folder into Aperture library?

Or may be choose any criteria during importing, like file kind, date etc.

BTW: Can I see a size of all checked files?

Update: I know I can choose from this set but may be any more options...

Is there any way to import the content of Smart Folder into Aperture library?

The only way I found is to select all content of Smart Folder in Finder and drag it into Aperture project.


Mounting Linux filesystem I would like to read from an SD card containing the filesystem and OS from a Raspberry Pi running Raspbian / noobs.  I have installed ext2fuse (on Mac El Capitan 10.11.6):

$ brew update
$ brew tap caskroom/cask
$ brew cask install osxfuse
$ sudo shutdown -r now
$ brew install ext2fuse
$ sudo shutdown -r now

Now when I put in an SD card (with Raspbian linux OS on it) I get the following:

$ diskutil list
/dev/disk2 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *8.0 GB     disk2
   1:             Windows_FAT_16 RECOVERY                1.2 GB     disk2s1
   2:                      Linux                         33.6 MB    disk2s5
   3:             Windows_FAT_32 boot                    66.1 MB    disk2s6
   4:                      Linux                         6.8 GB     disk2s7

But calling the following results in an empty directory being mounted:

$ sudo /usr/local/opt/ext2fuse/bin/ext2fuse /dev/disk2s7 /sd
$ cd /sd
$ ls
.
$ sudo /usr/local/opt/ext2fuse/bin/ext2fuse /dev/disk2 /sd2
/dev/disk2 is to be mounted at /sd2
fuse-ext2fs: Resource busy while trying to open /dev/disk2

Additionally I can't figure out how to unmount them.  Previously I used "eject all" option from clicking the eject icon next to the "boot" or "RECOVERY" mounted partitions in finder.  Calling the following doesn't work:

$ diskutil unmount /sd
(null) was already unmounted
$ sudo umount /sd
umount(/sd): Resource busy -- try 'diskutil unmount'
$ rmdir /sd
rmdir: sd: Resource busy
$ sudo mkdir /sd
mkdir: /sd: File exists
$ diskutil umount force /sd
Unmount failed for /sd

** edit **
Don't know what I did but I can now sudo rmdir /sd and they are removed.

Remove ext2fuse with brew uninstall ext2fuse.
Download fuse-ext2 available at the git homepage and unzip it in your Downloads folder
Follow these instructions:

brew install m4
brew install e2fsprogs automake autoconf libtool
cd ~/Downloads/fuse-ext2-master
./autogen.sh
CFLAGS="-idirafter/$(brew --prefix e2fsprogs)/include -idirafter/usr/local/include/osxfuse" LDFLAGS="-L$(brew --prefix e2fsprogs)/lib" ./configure
make
sudo make install

Mount the partition(s) e.g. disk2s7:

sudo fuse-ext2 /dev/disk2s7 /sd -o allow_other,force,rw+

Tested & verified in a virtual 10.11.6 El Capitan machine!


Can't upgrade to Catalina - only Catalina Beta is available Stupidly self-inflicted issue here.

For whatever reason, my initial upgrade to Catalina didn't go well. It could not be verified first time around. Restarted. Update not found. Restarted again and retried a number of times but still no luck.

Stupidly followed these instructions as I was getting desperate and thought they might apply to the standard Catalina installation. They did not (I should have noticed 'beta' in the URL.)

This had the effect of macOS Catalina no longer being available through Software Update. Only macOS Catalina Beta:

I ran sudo softwareupdate --clear-catalog as instructed here, which removed macOS Catalina Beta, but now I'm apparently all up-to-date on Mojave.

Even attempting to download the Catalina installer through the App Store gives me this error message through Software Update:

Is there any solution here? I'm getting the feeling my only solution here is an OS reinstall.

Thanks!

You don’t have to erase your current OS to make a new Catalina volume and install it cleanly.

How much space do I need to make a bootable Catalina volume on my Mojave Mac?

Once you get the version you want installed, you can migrate over the data or not as you please.

This saves you from having to erase first to test the install / get ready to erase the old OS that’s stuck in beta land.


iTunes fails to sync I just bought a new iPhone. I'm trying to sync music to it. iTunes get stuck in "Waiting for changes to be applied..." for what seems like an endless period of time.

Furthermore all of the songs appear on my phone, but they have the cloud icon next to them, which means they aren't actually present on the phone, only the metadata is.

Photos and other data syncs without a problem.

I've tried unchecking the "Sync Music" button in iTunes, but now it still hangs.

How do I even start to figure out what's gone wrong? Does iTunes have crash logs or something?

edit The following message appeared in my Console: 12/18/14 09:49:39.223 AppleMobileDeviceHelper[2164]: 2164:2072015632|AppleMobileDeviceHelper.m:_getDisabledDataClassNamesFromLockdownForTarget| ERROR: Could not find a device with the target identifier d595ce677d5209b98bbdfcfba7d0b020388da8cb. Assuming there are no disabled data classes.

The device is plugged in to my laptop directly (no 3rd party USB adapter)

You are SO not alone in this. Apple are a disgrace. Their 'updates' have rendered useful devices almost useless. I can now no longer sync calendar, photos, music or apps. iTunes just crashes at step 6 'copying'. Have reinstalled iTunes (ms7-64bt), have reset iphone5s (and lost a heap of stuff in process). iPad exactly the same but am keeping it well away from iTunes for now. Total b****dy shambles.


Is Safari allowing extensions to be installed by stray clicks in a web page? Sometimes when I go to visit my parents, they ask me to fix their Macbook because something is wrong with Safari. The find that there is an extension installed and that it has set the home page in the browser. Unfortunately I don’t remember the name of the last one but I think it was “Smart Search” or “Safe Search” or something like that.

I know how to uninstall an extension, but I’m wondering how it gets installed in the first place. I think my parents know enough about computers to not download and install random programs of the internet so I suspect they are getting tricked into clicking something in a web page. But, is that possible? Can a website install an extension on the sly like that? It’s never happened to me.

They're running macOS High Sierra 10.13.5, Safari 11.1.1.

It’s far more likely they installed software that says it’s for “playing videos” or “flash player malware / adware” or just installing Java which loads cruft now a days unless you carefully read and correctly opt out.

If you run Malware Bytes anti Mac - what specific malware and adware are your parents getting in to? That would give you specific bad actors and then be able to target specific behaviors or training needed.

You could try installing a locked down browser like Brave, but I’m guessing they’ll want something that has un-desired add on and you’ll either need to outsource the cleaning or remove the admin account. Even iPads get hijacked with bad ads that pop up scam messages. It’s a never ending war of social engineering that you’re fighting here.


Is it possible to remove all installed terminal applications and extensions back to native without doing a clean OSX install? Basically I would like to know if it is possible to remove all php, apache, homebrew, mac ports etc. installs back to native without doing a clean install of the OS?

If not is the best way to go about having a mac in this state to do a clean install and then revert some of the folders back using time machine i.e. the applications folders, documents etc?

Firstly, you should be sure why you would like to do this and what a fresh environment would provide. This is going to be a bit tedious to do since you have multiple sources for the installs.

For homebrew, follow the steps in this answer to uninstall homebrew.
For MacPorts, follow the steps from the uninstall MacPorts page page.
For PHP and Apache, it may not be simple to revert them to what the OS came with if you installed these outside of solutions like homebrew, MacPorts, MAMP or XAMPP.

The non-tedious way, which may take longer to complete, is to

Clone your drive (using a tool like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! or Clonezilla).
Reinstall the OS afresh.
Then use Migration Assistant to bring everything over from the clone. You would have to uncheck the "Other files and folders on ..." option in Migration Assistant to prevent it from bringing back the locations that homebrew, MacPorts, etc., use. This method would also skip many files (like in /Users/Shared) that you would have to copy over manually from the backup.


Can a "normal" user see all processes with htop? Can I see all processes with "htop" or does it make sense to use "sudo htop" ?

I use htop in the terminal (installed via brew / homebrew). My useraccount on the macbook is a default user no special rights restrictions. OS-Version Mojave.

https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/htop

Yes, you can see all processes with htop as the default user.

Note that if you for example use virtualization to run multiple systems on one, htop will only show you the virtualization program as a process - not the processes running within that virtual machine.


What version of iTunes dropped synchronization support for iPod Classic? I have an 6th generation iPod Classic (model MC297LL).  Current versions of iTunes no longer support this device, so I'm using an older Mac to sync my music, using iTunes 10.5.2.  My primary machine is a 2015 "Core i7" MacBook Pro (model MacBookPro11,4).
To avoid having to keep a decade+ old desktop computer set up in my house, I was hoping there might be an OS version compatible with my MacBook Pro that I could install that had a still-compatible version of iTunes.  Specifically, I plan to install it as a bootable partition on an external drive.
According to this OS compatibility chart, the oldest version of the OS that can be run on my laptop is OS X Yosemite 10.10.3.  I've installed OS 10.10.5 using the installer proved by Apple in its How to get old versions of macOS documentation.  This comes included with iTunes 12.2.1.16.  However, I do not see my iPod Classic show up when I connect it, which leads me to suspect this version of iTunes is too new.
Before I spend even more time tracking down and installing version 10.10.3 of OS X and/or an older version of iTunes compatible with Yosemite, I would like to know whether this is even doable on this machine.  The History of iTunes Wikipedia article makes no mention of when support for the iPod Classic was dropped from iTunes, and I have not had luck finding this information in a web search.
What version of iTunes dropped support for syncing music with the iPod Classic?  What is the latest version of iTunes that supports it, and the latest version of the Macintosh operating system that it can be run on?

iPod classic continues to be supported when device syncing was moved from iTunes into the Finder. No device support was removed from iTunes.
If you're having trouble synchronising an iPod with a newer Mac, that sounds like a specific issue that would warrant a specific question.
I can't find the Twitter thread I saw on this topic, but I've found this video that also demonstrates it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fV3itfJyyMM.

An Apple Support article for Big Sur also mentions syncing of iPod classic/nano/shuffle: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mchl923c1147/mac


Mac Mini won't wake after sleep with Mountain Lion I have a late 2012 Mac Mini with Mountain Lion installed.  I have had the Mini for around 6 weeks and am using as a media server.

When the Mini goes to sleep (either automatically or by manually telling it to) it refuses to wake up.  The power light is pulsing.

The Mini is connected via HDMI to a home cinema receiver (which is in turn connected to a TV) and has an external USB hard disc and USB hub attached.  There is a wireless keyboard and mouse attached via USB also.

In the Energy Saving preferences I have all tick boxes enabled apart from "put hard discs to sleep".  I have tried the wireless keyboard, mouse and the Apple Remote app to wake the Mini to no avail.

Any ideas?  I really need it to sleep and wake when needed as thats an essential feature of a media server.

Try resetting the NVRAM / PRAM as noted About NVRAM and PRAM

  Resetting NVRAM / PRAM

  Shut down your Mac.
  Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command (⌘), Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
  Turn on the computer.
  Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys before the gray screen appears.
  Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
  Release the keys.

See if the sleep problem still occurs, if it does try resetting the SMC as noted Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC).

  Resetting the SMC for Mac Pro, Intel-based iMac, Intel-based Mac mini, or Intel-based Xserve

  Shut down the computer.
  Unplug the computer's power cord.
  Wait fifteen seconds.
  Attach the computer's power cord.
  Wait five seconds, then press the power button to turn on the computer.

If the problem still persists and you are running OS X Mountain Lion version 10.8.2, there may be a sleep bug that is effecting the reliability of sleep on a lot of Macs as discussed Problem with waking from sleep with 10.8.2

  My Mac Pro (early 2009 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon) won't wake from deep sleep after installing OS X 10.8.2 . I have the default setting set for sleep. The only way to "wake" the machine is to hold the power button down to shut down and then restart. I've reset NVRAM (pram) and tried removing power cable. Nothing helps.

Since your Mac Mini is very new I would also consider contacting Apple Support and see what they offer as a solution and at the least notify them of the issue, I am sure they are working on a fix probably scheduled to be included with the next OS X update.


"Home screen pinch" in iPhone 4? In iPad there's a nice "Home screen pinch" gesture where pinching with four or more fingers acts as the home screen button.

This could be useful for me on my iPhone 4 as well, since the home screen button sometimes does not react well. I am aware that for jailbroken phones it is possible (and easy to use). Is it also possible on non-jailbroken phones? (Just upgraded to 5.1).

No. This multitouch gesture (as well as a few others) are iPad only. The gestures existed for iPhones and iPods in the iOS 4.3 Beta, but were removed before the public release. iOS 5.0 re-introduced the gestures for iPad.


iOS iMessage keyboard not popping up My keyboard on iMessage won't pop up.  Just the subject/message line is showing at the bottom.  I searched the internet for solutions and tried what was suggested: powering off/on and hard reset (sleep/wake+home).  The only thing next to try is backup and restore but that will take a long time.  Is there something else I can try first?

I had the same problem. Turns out that my iphone was trying to connect to an Apple bluetooth keyboard. I turned off bluetooth on the iPhone and the keyboard re-appeared immediately. No need for a reset or hard boot.