Run multiple instances of Telegram I have 2 iphones and use 2 seperate Telegrams.  The 2nd one is assigned to me by the external project phone I'm assigned to and that company uses Telegram extensively.  There is 1000's of employees communicating in multiple groups.  There's a lot of traffic.

Current setup:

Main account / OSX: Official OSX telegram.app
Main account / iOS: Official iOS telegram.app
2nd account / OSX: Official Windows app running in an VMWare XP box
2nd account / iOS: iOS Anyways Messenger

For the iPhone I could live with the Anyways Messenger even though it hasn't been updated for a long time and contains a lot of bugs.

For OSX I'd really would like to be able to run 2 instances of the official Telegram app, without having to run my VMWare.  Any suggestions?

Telegram offers 2 official versions of their OSX app.

Version 1 is the official maintained version, both available as direct .dmg download on the Telegram website and in the Appstore.

Version 2 is also official, but it's the deprecated objective-c version, also offered as direct .dmg download.  While it's no longer supported, it does still run - and uses separate user credentials.  Newer features are not available, but otherwise it runs fine.


How to make the Feedback Assistant app visible in the Launchpad? I can open the Feedback assistant app from the path /System/Library/CoreServices/Applications/Feedback Assistant.app but it is not visible in the Launchpad in Mojave 10.14.6 .

How do I make it visible and open it directly from the Launchpad rather than having to pin it onto the Dock?

If you place an alias of the Feedback Assistant in the, e.g., Applications folder in Finder, it will show in Launchpad, without having to pin it to the Dock.

In Finder, navigate to, or use: Go > Go to Folder…

/System/Library/CoreServices/Applications

Select the Feedback Assistant app and then drag and drop while pressing ⌥⌘ to the Applications folder to create an alias.

Feedback Assistant will now appear in Launchpad.

Note that while it will now appear on the last screen of Launchpad nonetheless, it can be dragged and dropped to where you'd like it on the screen or different screen.


iPhone photos uploaded on iCloud - not appearing in photos mac when connecting iPhone via the cable iPhone 6S - IOS 13.3
MacBook pro - El Capitan.

I have enabled iCloud Photos on iPhone - with Optimize iPhone Storage.

On Mac, I haven't enabled iCloud Photos, as I don't wish to have all my local photos library being uploaded to iCloud.

My ideal use case would be to have iPhone uploading photos to iCloud, as a first layer of getting the photos out of the iPhone, then periodically to connect my iPhone to my mac and import all the recent/not imported photos from it to my local mac library.

However, when I connect the iPhone via cable to my mac, Photos app can't find any new photos on it - although they exist there.

So I am wondering if this is expected behavior and if there is a way to achieve my ideal use-case?

Also, isn't there an one-way of syncing, for example to have my Mac only getting/downloading images from iCloud, instead of doing both uploading and downloading?

Now that I am thinking of it, maybe the Optimize iPhone Storage might be preventing this, as the original images do not reside on the iPhone - however, shouldn't I be able to access/see those as not imported on my mac?

What would be the workflow, if I turn off the Storage Optimization? Would the iPhone upload the originals to iCloud and also keep them in its local drive? Would that allow me to connect it to my mac and import the photos?

You have three questions here and I'll try to answer them, as they are intertwined, but in general it is better to ask one question at a time:

  isn't there a one-way syncing?

Sort of. There is Photo Stream which allows you to upload the iPhone's images from the last 30 days, which you can then import into your photos library. In your case, you'd have to enable iCloud Photos and My Photo Stream on the iPhone and only enable My Photo Stream on the mac. It would mean though, you have to import your photos/videos at least every 30 days to stay up to date. The support site is quite clear and even explains the differences.

  maybe the Optimize iPhone Storage might be preventing this

Yes. That is exactly whats happening. Only actually downloaded photos/videos will show up on your mac. You could (if its just a very little amount oh media you want to import) manually download them before connecting to the Mac and afterwards import them.

  What would be the workflow, if I turn off the Storage Optimization?

Turning off storage optimization would mean your iPhone would redownload all previous media and save them locally and also keep them on iCloud. Future photos/videos would be saved on iCloud and on your iPhone. This would allow you to import any media on your Mac.

I hope this helps.


Blank lines appearing in a CSV exported from Excel, only on 1 Mac, other Macs don't see them My colleague and I both use Macbook Pros on the latest Mac OS.

He exports CSV files from MS Excel for Mac and sends them to me, but when I receive them I open them in a text editor and there are blank lines on every other line.

Weirdly though, when he opens the same file on his machine in the same text editor, he does not see blank lines. Which makes me wonder if this is a setting on his machine.

I know Windows and Mac treat line endings differently, but we are both on a Mac. And Sublime should be the same on both machines.

When I upload them to our linux server, linux agrees with me (our scripts see blank lines in the CSVs and have to be ignored).

He is creating CSVs using the UTF-8 format.

If you look at your file with od -cx you will notice that every lines is terminated by the sequence: 0x0d 0x0a i.e. a carriage return followed by a newline.

There is most probably a difference between your 2 Sublime Text preferences in their way to manage the carriage return.

The next best explanation is a difference in extension you gave on your 2 text files which set Sublime Text in a different way to manage the character carriage return == 0x0d (coming from the last century type writers).


How can I copy the URL of a file downloaded by Google Chrome? As a new Mac user, I'm surprised to see that Chrome doesn't track the list of downloaded files anymore. I can't even see the current download speed in the Finder.

I want to copy the URL of a file being downloaded, because I want to download it from another machine, in turn because the network I'm currently connected to is just too slow. How can this be done?

Selecting the file and doing Command+i will bring up the file's Info. Under the More Info section you'll find the Where From information, which is the URL where the file was downloaded from.


What steps can help burning an iMovie '09 project to DVD when the program crashes? I have been working on an iMovie multimedia (picture, music, titles, etc.) project for six months using iMovie '09. Six months later it is not allowing me to further add anything to the project, and iMovie keeps crashing on me. I decided to stop, and burn it to iDVD. I have now tried at least 3 times to export project to iDVD to burn this disk, and after two hours of supposed copying; I come back to my computer to find out iMovie "Quit Unexpectedly"! The project is approximately 200MB. I just deleted the iDVD preferences playlist, and did verfy and repair disk permissions in Disk Utility.  Any ideas on what to do next?

I would start by checking out Software Update to make sure that there are not any current updated for iMovie '09. I would then just try to export the project in a resolution of your choice to the desktop (or wherever you prefer), and just use Disk Utility to burn it from there. This will make sure that you at least have a hard backup of the project, and this may be more effective as you're not trying to run two programs at once (as iMovie is transferring to iDVD). This is key as your system may not have enough RAM to do two high-end processes at once (I don't know your system, so this is only an assumption). This being said, I would try to make sure that you have the fewest amount of programs running during this time period I would then try to take the exported project from the desktop, and throw it into iDVD to burn it with the menus of your liking. I hope this helps, and let me know if you have any more questions.

Note: If you are on a laptop make sure it's plugged in, and that you are running a program like Caffeine to keep it from falling asleep during this process.


Incomplete FTP transfers with Yosemite (Transmit & FileZilla) I'm having weird issues when uploading files via FTP. I'm not entirely sure, but I think I never observed this problem before using OS X 10.10:

File uploads via FTP in both FileZilla and Transmit are often and non-reproducibly incomplete. Text files just end somewhere in the middle of a line, yet both FTP clients report successful transfers. The next time I try uploading a file it might either just work or it might be chopped at a different position. It seems entirely random.

This does not seem to happen with SFTP connections. Also, I successfully uploaded the very same upload queue to the same server using FileZilla on a Windows machine – without any problem.

I wonder if somebody has had similar issues or even a solution.

Regards,
Daniel

Same problem but with cyberduck, tested on multiple computers and to various ftp servers. For now I've resorted to the upload options in cpanel which works fine, but that is not a good solution.


Can I control the shutter speed of a photo from an iPod Touch 4th gen? Is there a Camera app that will let me control the shutter speed of a 4th gen iPod Touch? Camera+ for some reason doesn't support this.

Edit: I mean shutter speed, not exposure.

You can tap on an area of the picture you are taking to adjust the image settings (including the exposure) to that area of the image.


Is it possible to burn a MacOS application on a disk? I have made a game in Xcode (Objective-C) and I now have a finished product. I know a few people that are willing to test the game. I thought it might be cool to give the game to them on a disk, like how you’d buy real games in a store. But I don’t know how, or if it’s even possible.

I have a MacBook Pro with built-in optical drive. My application is about 4GB.

Does anyone know if it’s possible to do this? And if it is, how would I do it and what do I need?

Yes, this is possible. Your MacBook Pro's built-in optical drive is a "Super Drive" and capable of writing to at least CD-R and DVD-R disks.

Buy writable CDs and DVDs and insert them into your Mac. macOS's Finder includes the ability to write to these disks.

See How to Burn Files to a DVD / CD on Mac OS for detailed instructions:

  Create a new folder on the desktop (or elsewhere) and place the files you want to burn to the disc inside that folder
  Select the folder you just created containing the files you wish to burn to the DVD / CD
  With the folder selected, pull down the “File” menu and choose “Burn ‘Folder’ to Disc…”
  You’ll be presented with a “Burn Disc” window, when you see this, insert the blank DVD or CD disc into the drive
  Insert a blank disc to burn files to
  Label the disc you want to burn accordingly, and optionally choose a burn speed, then click on “Burn” to start the process


Does an iOS app have the ability to set iOS Safari cookies? My specific interest is in the context of the Facebook for iOS app, but it can be asked of an iOS app really.

Given all the recent changes to Facebook and the way that Facebook cookies are not cleared when you log out of Facebook I've become keenly interested in knowing how my access patterns to Facebook can result in tracking cookies sticking to me.

What I'd like to know is: if I use an iOS application, like the Facebook for iOS application, can I end up with session cookies set in iOS Safari that relate to Facebook? Or are all login cookies related to Facebook completely contained to just the Facebook application?

The iOS security sandbox prevents App store apps from writing to the Safari app's data directories, including wherever Safari writes cookies.


Apple Time Capsule will not start -up, light stays amber I unplugged my Time Capsule today to tidy up the wires. After plugging back in it refuses to start.

Have tried resetting by sticking pencil in the back
Tried leaving, it's been stuck in Amber for 3 hours now

I believe it's third generation, that's about it.

Any ideas?

Does it appear at all in your list of wifi access points on any of your devices? If so, try to connect to it and see if there's anything mentioned in the Air Port Utility app.

If it doesn't, I managed to find this discussion on the Apple Discussions forum regarding Time Capsules being stuck on the amber light at startup. The possible problems suggested by those forum-goers include:

Failing power supply
Failing HDD

If your Time Capsule is within warranty, it'd be worth it to take it in and have them look at it. Unless it's a failing HDD, however, it's not looking like there's a lot in the way of DIY repairs for the device.


AppleScript Quicktime Player to play audio file generates error My Quicktime Player (Version 10.3 727.4) can play mp3 files without any problems, but when I use AppleScript I get an error message:

  The document “audio.mp3” could not be opened. The file may be damaged or may not be a movie file that is compatible with QuickTime Player.

I've been trying different sound files, different compressions, aif, wav, with the same result.

A minimum script goes:

set audioFile to "/Path/to/the/audio.mp3"

tell application "QuickTime Player"
    activate
    open audioFile
    play the front document
end tell

Does anyone have any suggestions of what I'm doing wrong or any other solution to script a media player.

A pure guess would be that you are passing it a text/string reference rather than a file ref.

try set audioFile to POSIX file "/Path/to/the/audio.mp3"


Macbook Pro limits resolution of Samsung U28D590D to 1920x1080 I use a MacBook Pro late 2011 and I recently bought a Samsung Screen U28D590D 28" which could, normally, bring me a resolution of 2560x1440 with DisplayPort.

But, my screen recognizes my MBP only with Mini-DisplayPort → HDMI connection. Mini-DisplayPort → DisplayPort connection doesn't work and I'm limited to a 1920x1080 resolution. Why is this happening and how can I fix it?

I looked up the specs and that display supports 4K resolutions.  2011 model Macs do not support 4K displays.  I understand that you're trying to run it at 2560x1440, which Apple specifically says that model MBP supports for external displays.  However, here's the issue you're running into...

To get that 4K resolution, you must have either an HDMI 1.4 or DisplayPort 1.2 source.  HDMI 1.4 is definitely out.  You cannot get anything higher than 1080p over a MiniDP -> HDMI adapter.  So that leaves just DisplayPort 1.2 as your only hope.

I cannot verify whether or not the MiniDP port on 2011 MacBook Pros actually supports DP 1.2.  Apple doesn't say on their spec pages and there is argument among tech sites as to whether or not it's does.  But let's say for argument's sake that it is supported...

4K displays require the use of a specific feature of the DP 1.2 spec, called Multi-Stream Transport (MST). Even if the MiniDP port on your Mac is DisplayPort 1.2, both the GPU and the driver must also support MST in order to drive a 4K display.  Even though you're not trying to run the full 4K resolution on it (which you definitely cannot do), the screen may still be attempting to negotiate an MST link over the DP connection even though it doesn't need to and is failing to do so.  That would explain why you don't see anything.

The first thing I would do is check your display's menus to see if there are any settings relating to disabling MST support (maybe called SST mode?).  If so that might just be your golden ticket.

If that doesn't work, try running it over DisplayPort in a Windows BootCamp partition with the latest AMD graphics driver.  If it can work at all then Windows will be able to do it because the drivers are supplied directly by ATI/AMD and BootCamp Windows does not have to worry about graphics switching with the Intel HD graphics controller.

If you can't turn off MST support and it works in Windows fine, then then it might still be possible to use that screen over DP in OS X.  Apple advertised that the new Retina MacBook Pros could support 4K displays but caused kind of a stink because only some 4K displays actually worked (and even then, only at 30Hz refresh instead of the usual 60).  This was due to the lack of driver support in OS X for MST streams.

They fixed that as of the Mavericks 10.9.3 update.  HOWEVER, that fix is only reported to apply to 2013 Mac Pros and Retina-display MacBook Pros.  I'd bet you a sandwich that they didn't backport that fix to earlier models.

So here's the bottom line:

IF the MiniDP port on the 2011 MacBook Pro is DisplayPort 1.2,
-- and --
IF Apple backported the MST fix to non-retina MBP models
-- OR --
You can disable MST mode on your display,
-- Then --
You might be able to use that display the way you want.

There are a lot of ifs there.  If none of those things is true, then you may well be screwed.


How can I unsubscribe from iOS pre-releases? I added the pre-release profile to my primary iPhone so that I could use Night Shift. I considered the stability risk a fair trade off, because f.lux significantly improves my life, and I wanted that benefit on my iPhone as well. iOS 9.3 is out now, and I'm currently on a stable version. I don't need any pre-release features anymore but, I still get prompted to update to new beta versions. To prevent this, I've removed the profile in Settings.app, but the update prompts continue to appear. How can I re-enter the "stable releases only" upgrade path?

Usually, the procedure for doing this is to delete the profile in the Settings app, then restart the phone. If you didn't reboot then it's possible that it still thinks you have the profile.

Make sure you have not accidentally allowed it to update to a beta version (for example 9.3.1) as it's possible that if you are currently running a beta version then you might still get the later betas.


Every time I enter an url into safari it goes to a previously visited part of it Like I'm trying to go to the homepage of tv-series.me, but it keeps going to tv-series.me/psych-episode-1-blabla even though I literally type "tv-series.me" and press GO. But it just keeps going back to that page. Is that normal?

It is normal. It allows you to get to pages you previously visited or, if you prefer to visit only the URL you've typed thus far, you simply hit backspace and then enter.

Safari's autocomplete model is slightly un-ntuitive at first (especially if you're used to shell completion) because it offers not the shortest unique completion but something else which is almost always longer.

From my non-scientific observation, I'd say the algorithm most likely uses the most visited URL which matches what's already been typed or, all being equal, the most recently visited.  Which makes a lot of sense when you think about it AND understand that you can always ignore Safari's guess by either continuing to type or hitting backspace.


How can I password protect the web.me.com/USER? Mobile me users have web.me.com/USER to use it as a HTML server. Is there a way to password protect some/all of the contents?

It appears that .htaccess files aren't supported, so someone came up with a javascript solution:

http://leonstafford.com/wp/encrypt-web-pages-on-mobileme.html

Here's some information on how it was possible to password protect the public folder in the mac.com implementation me.com, it may be relevant.

http://homepage.mac.com/rfwilmut/notes/faq.html#3_Public_Folder


Can't remove U.S. from the languages and input methods menu I wonder if I can remove the U.S. language of the languages list.
Because I use a shortcut to cycle through input methods, and don't want to land on U.S. as ArgenPinYin is already a modified U.S. international keyboard layout, so I don't need the plain U.S.
Is there a way?

It appears that OS X requires a keyboard layout that it recognizes as producing latin characters to be selected as one of the choices in the menu, and it does not recognize ArgenPinYin as one of them. I can deselect the US layout if I select German or Portuguese, for instance, but not if I select Greek or Pinyin - Simplified.

So yes, U.S. can be removed as a language, but some other keyboard layout that OS X recognizes as a Latin layout must first be selected.


Regular USB thumb drive rubber-ducky? I just thought of this amazing April fools prank: I was going to make my friend think that his Mac was hacked using a rubber ducky. I realized that it'd take a long, long time to develop, so I decided to get started today. Anyway, I don't have a rubber ducky. I have a thumb drive, though, and I was wondering if I could put some sort of file in the root directory of the thumb drive that would turn it into one. Is there a way to do it so that when the computer reads the drive, it would think it's a keyboard? Or do you need a CPU in the ducky? Thanks in advance!
P.S. I know this might not be on-topic for this site, but I couldn't find another one that this question would fit into more.

I was wondering if I could put some sort of file in the root directory of the thumb drive that would turn it into one.

No this wouldn't work
Auto-running applications is not supported in macOS (see stackexchange question How do I automatically run an application on USB attach or CD insert on Mac OS X?).  You would need to persuade your target user to run a program/script in which case it is just a program/script and nothing like a rubber ducky.
A rubber ducky only looks like a USB - it simulates keyboard input through hardware. Hak5 describe history of USB RUBBER DUCKY here:

Did you know the first USB Rubber Ducky was invented by Hak5 founder Darren Kitchen while working as a sysadmin?
Tired of typing the same commands to fix printers and network shares again and again, the device evolved out of laziness.
He programmed a development board to emulate the typing for him - and thus the keystroke injection attack was born.
Needing a case - a miniature bath time friend, the rubber ducky, was requisitioned.

and current version is

Featuring a fast 60 MHz 32-bit CPU, convenient type-A USB connector, Micro SD expandable memory, programmable payload replay button, JTAG interface with GPIO and DFU bootloader


Could an upgrade edition of Windows be used to install boot camp if you connect two external DVD drives? I found the following FAQ on Apple's website:

Why can't an upgraded version of Microsoft Windows XP or a full version of Microsoft Windows XP that does not include Service Pack 2 (SP2) or later be used for installation?
An upgraded version of Microsoft Windows XP cannot be used because you are required to validate your copy of Windows by inserting an original Windows CD, but there is no way to eject the first disc until after Windows installation is complete and the Boot Camp drivers from the Mac OS X 10.6 DVD are installed.

And so I was wondering if you had two DVD drives hooked up to a MacBook Air, could you install boot camp using an upgrade version of Windows 7?

What are you trying to upgrade it from? If the answer is WinXP, then no.
From Apple's 10.6 bootcamp install pdf:

Upgrading to Windows Vista or Windows 7
You can upgrade Windows XP to Windows Vista or Windows Vista to Windows 7.
Note: If you’re using Windows XP, you cannot upgrade to Windows 7. You can perform
a clean install (also called a custom install), which erases your Boot Camp partition.
Before you perform a clean install, make sure you have the installation discs for all your
programs and a backup of your personal files and settings. You can restore them after
the installation.


Macbook Pro i7, Hard Disk space filling up before my eyes (Mavericks) I have 84GB free on my Flash hard disk but in 3 hours it fills up to 0B.
When I restart the 84GB is there again and something starts eating my HDspace again.

With Grand Perspective it does not show where this space went.
In daisydisk it is in hidden space (also with administrator scan)
On About my Mac, the space went to 'Other'.

It is not the Snapshots of Time machine (I turned TM off).

This thread (What is filling up my hard drive so fast?) did not help me out, so I try again.

Thanks

gvb found the application that kept filling up his drive by running:

sudo fs_usage -f filesys

(at my suggestion) in a Terminal. This command allows you to monitor file system usage, such as reads and writes by different processes.

In his case, "Avid App Man Helper" was filling up the drive continuously. Once this application was removed, his hard drive space was freed and no longer being continuously filled by this process.


Comparison of the new macbook air and iMac Core Duo 2 2.66 I am planning to buy the new Macbook Air 13", as I need something more mobile, but only have a limited budget. So the Air 13" seems like a perfect solution.

Currently I have a iMac which I bought nearly 4 years ago. And I need to know if it is worth changing for a MBA. I use the iMac for adobe photoshop, illustrator, After Effects, etc. Nothing high end just basic stuff graphic programming, no advanced video editing.

I am just wondering what is more powerful the new Macbook Air 13" Hashwell 1.3Ghz Intel Graphics 5000, 4GB Ram. For the graphics programming I will be doing on it.

Or my iMac:

2.66 Core Duo 2
Nvida Graphics 256
4GB Ram

Just a side note, what is the new MBA like for doing iOS development using the latest version of Xcode? Would it be slow?

The 2010 11 inch Air is so much faster than a Core 2 Duo - top of the line, 15 inch MacBook pro that it's really not much of a comparison between the newer 2013 Air and anything that isn't a pro based logic board (the 27 inch iMacs tend to be the highest of end "mobile" processors with logic boards that tend towards the pro range).

Unless you need a larger display, I see no reason to shift your entire workload to any of the three last Air machines if you don't wait undue minutes for builds in Xcode to complete. From where I sit, the SSD drives and the 2013 processor lineup make for extremely productive workstations in the Air form factor.


How can I sync Reading List with Windows? Is it possible to use Safari's Reading List on my Windows machine and have it synced with the one on my Mac/iOS devices?

According to Apple's support docs, Safari 5.1.1 for Windows will sync the Reading List via iCloud.

  Safari 5.1.1 includes support for iCloud, a breakthrough set of free cloud services. iCloud stores your Safari bookmarks and Safari Reading List and automatically pushes them to all your devices.

I believe you would need to have Safari up to date. Then, install the iCloud Windows control panel and configure it to sync Safari content.

Then, enable iCloud on all of your Mac/iOS devices, and you should be good to go.


How do I set it so Apple Notes checklist items don't move when completed? Googled it, can't find out how to do it. Seems like I saw a setting dialog pop up once.

Found it.

Settings > Notes > Sort Checked Items > Manually


How to quit an app in OS X Yosemite I have this annoying BitTorrent app that won't quit. I first tried right clicking and force quit from dock. It does show 'App not responding', however, on clicking 'Force quit' nothing happens, and the app persists in the dock with the black dot below:

So I next opened 'Force Quit' from Apple menu, and clicking it launches the list of processes open, and sure there I see BitTorrent. However, same here, on force quitting it, nothing happens, the app name is still there in the list of open apps.

So I next open Activity monitor, and check if it is there. However, as you can see, it is not there:

However, if I switch to the energy tab, I see BitTorrent there, but it shows as disabled, and consequently I am unable to quit it by clicking the cancel button at the top left (which is disabled):

So I login to my terminal, and type top to see whether the app shows up, and it doesn't.

Then I try launchctl list to see which things were launched by Apple at startup, and spot something like com.bittorrent.BitTorrent.307036. So I run sudo launchctl remove com.bittorrent.BitTorrent.307036, and still nothing happens, the app remains frozen in the dock.

Finally, I tried killall -9 Dock and it does nothing. This is happening quite frequently off late. Last day it happened to my Outlook app, I had to restart to get rid of it. How do I solve this problem?

Your last screenshot is showing the apps that were running in the past 8 hours. You can try running ps -e | grep -i bittorrent in Terminal.app to confirm, but it doesn't appear to be running at this time. Relaunching the Dock should make the icon disappear, unless it's a side effect of autotermination:

  In Lion [and subsequent versions of OS X], an ostensibly "running" application may have no associated process (because the operating system automatically terminated it in order to reclaim resources) and an application may have a process even when it doesn't appear to be running. Applications without processes. Processes without applications. Did Lion just blow your mind?


How to install Google Android image in Parallels How to start an original Google Android image in Parallels Desktop?

If I just try to create a new virtual machine from the img from Factory Images for Nexus Devices (e. g. for Pixel C), it tells me: „Unable to detect operating system“:

And if I continue selecting Android manually, it tells me: „No boot device is available“:

How to install this image as a virtual machine in Parallels?

Or how to find the right Google Android image which is possible to install in Parallels?

I'd like to use an official Android image from Google without a risk the image will contain any Adware etc.

That's not really how this works. The Android device images are not bootable images or installers or something. They contain a packed copy of the Android OS specifically built for the targeted device as well as all required hardware drivers. No virtualisation software will find any bootable code in such a firmware file.

Also most VMMs (including Parallels) virtualise x86/x64 processors, while almost all Android devies use an ARM processor. You could try an x86 port like Android-x86 or Remix OS.


Two SSDs in a Macbook Pro with OSX on one and Windows 7 on the other Is it possible to have a setup like this?

What I want to be able to have is one SSD with OSX Lion and another SSD with Windows 7 in a usual dual boot setup.

If you use a conversion kit to fit the second SSD into the optical drive bay there is no reason why this shouldn't work. Personally I equipped my MBP late 2009 with a HD and a SSD (which ran dual boot some time ago) using Optibay Conversion Kit, but there might be cheaper ones on eBay.


CTRL scroll zoom on Mavericks gone I used to be able to hold down CTRL and zoom by scrolling the mousewheel, but that is not longer possible on Mavericks.

I've searched around and found many people saying it's in System Preferences → Accessibility, typically accompanied by an image like this:

Unfortunately, that's not how my Accessibility window looks. All I get is this (and no, it's not under More Options):

Naturally, I tried searching in System Preferences, too:

Excitedly, I click Mouse, just to get disappointed:

There's nothing under Trackpad, either:

So what's wrong? Where did it go? Why does it show up on some Mavericks installations, but not mine? I have the newest version of Maverick (10.9, 13A603) made from a clean installation. Can it be because other people have upgraded from a previous version of OS X that had the feature?

Press ⌘ command+⌥ option+F5, then select Enable zoom scroll gestures.


New TimeMachine backup on the same drive I have recently successfully cleaned my hard drive and restored data with the TimeMachine backup. Now I would like to prepare backup of "new" system. Do I have to clean the drive first?

If you're asking about multiple backup of the same Mac on another backup volume, then no, that's not possible as the Time Machine will backup the same Mac and effectively overwrite the most recent backup.

If on the other hand you're asking about backing up multiple (different) Macs on the same backup volume, that's possible. I back up 5 Macs onto my NAS regularly.


Odd bug in iTerm — Why is my name wrong? I opened up iterm and it says "jessica-s-phone" I'm not sure what the term for that is. I checked my profile and it isn't there.

It should be the name of your computer. If you go to sharing in the system preferences you should see "Computer Name" there.


Missing Push Notification Entitlement When submiting a app fro review I got the following message:

  Missing Push Notification Entitlement - Your app appears to include
  API used to register with the Apple Push Notification service, but the
  app signature's entitlements do not include the "aps-environment"
  entitlement. If your app uses the Apple Push Notification service,
  make sure your App ID is enabled for Push Notification in the
  Provisioning Portal, and resubmit after signing your app with a
  Distribution provisioning profile that includes the "aps-environment"
  entitlement. See "Provisioning and Development" in the Local and Push
  Notification Programming Guide for more information. If your app does
  not use the Apple Push Notification service, no action is required.
  You may remove the API from future submissions to stop this warning.
  If you use a third-party framework, you may need to contact the
  developer for information on removing the API.

But I couldn't find how to remove the Push Notification service in the link that was supplied.

How do I remove Push Notification service from my app?

Apple probably won't reject your app on this basis, they're just letting you know that you're referencing an API that you haven't set up at Apple's end.

You could try removing the following methods from your AppDelegate.m :

- (void) application:(UIApplication*)application
    didReceiveLocalNotification:(UILocalNotification*)notification

- (void) application:(UIApplication *)application
   didRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithDeviceToken:(NSData *)deviceToken

- (void) application:(UIApplication *)application
    didFailToRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithError:(NSError *)error


HD in caddy seems inactive and blocks application this is the premise:

Recently I removed from my mbp 15 (2012) the internal Superdrive and replaced it with a caddy + 1 Tb hard disk.
I already replaced the original HD with an SSD. Since I'm a programmer and I work intensively with my mac, I thought installing the caddy+HD was a good idea: this allows me to have intense write/read session over the HD rather than the ssd. Furthermore I moved all the general purpose files on the HD (music, documents and so on) by just copying it.

This said here is the strange thing. When I import music into iTunes from the HD it takes so long that the most times it start the color wheel and it blocks iTunes. Or while I'm working on a text file or source file it gets blocked while saving.

To me it looks like the hard disk goes to sleep from time to time (randomly????) and it blocks all the applications that are using it. The most obvious and tangible problem is given by the music player (that's why I spotted this problem). Sometime for example it is playing the music and by skipping from one song another it blocks for a while (keep in mind that I don't import things in the iTunes library cause this means a raw copy of the same things.. ).

Any clue is appreciated in spotting any problem or misconfiguration or whatever..

In system preferences -> energy saving you can disable putting HDDs to sleep. If that doesn't help my first guess would be a faulty cable or caddy.


How to list all files with Finder Comment using unix? How i can get path of all files, folders which has Finder comment and also the comment.

Like this:
/path/here/file.txt TAB finder comment is here
/path4/here2/folder TAB finder comment is here

I could first use this to find all items with comment:

mdfind kMDItemFinderComment == '*'

And then find the comments:

mdls -name kMDItemFinderComment pathhere

But is there a way to get all in single command?

This will do the trick:

 find . -xattrname com.apple.metadata:kMDItemFinderComment \
        -exec printf %s\\t {} \; \
        -exec mdls -name kMDItemFinderComment -raw {} \; \
        -exec echo \;

Breaking this down a little:

find looks through the current directory (.) (and everything "below") for files with an extended attribute (-xattrname) called com.apple.metadata:kMDItemFinderComment.
As it finds each file:

the first -exec argument uses printf to print out the file path and a tab (\t) character.
The second -exec runs mdls to read the actual comment.
The third -exec just prints out a newline (\n) character.

Note that the find command is recursive, so this solution will look through subdirectories as well.

If you require absolute paths then use find `pwd` instead of find .


How do I delete a book from iBooks on Mac Book Pro How do I delete a book from iBooks on MBP OSX.

In your library, select the book you want to delete, then press the Delete key.

https://support.apple.com/guide/books/delete-books-from-your-mac-ibks67184a3a/mac


What is Fetch > Automatically in iPhone in Settings > accounts and passwords? I found this puzzling setting in iPhone Settings > accounts and passwords (for iOS 11):

Is Fetch > automatically the same as Push?.  How does it work with Google Contacts, Gmail, etc?

Fetch is for use where Push doesn't work - for instance on POP3 accounts, rather than IMAP.

It simply goes to look if you have any email ready to download, every 5, 10 mins... whatever you set the interval to be.

iCloud mail, for instance can Push. If there is mail for you, it will literally push it at your phone, no checking required.


How to evaluate the state of the OS X Server.app from a shell script? I need to evaluate if the OS X Server.app has been installed and if it has been started or not. This I need to do from within a shell script.
I could check for existing folder names, but I would expect it cannot truly make sure that the Server.app is installed and up and running so that I can run the serveradmin command.
Anyone with a suggestion?

This is a follow-up question to my previous question: Configure the OS X Server from .pkg postinstall script

It can be determined by running the following command:

serverinfo --configured

To evaluate the result of the command within a shell script use the -q option and encapsulate it in an if-statement:

 if serverinfo -q --configured;
 then
    echo configured;
 else
    echo not_configured;
 fi

The serverinfo gives two options to determine if the Server.app is just installed or configured:

--software [PATH]
    Returns status 0 if the root volume has a server OS installed
    Use optional argument PATH to specify mountpoint of alternate volume
--configured [PATH]
    Returns status 0 if the server is configured
    Use optional argument PATH to specify mountpoint of alternate volume

So if the serveradmin --configured command "fails", you could check if is installed:

 if serverinfo -q --configured;
 then
    echo configured;
 else
    if serverinfo -q --software;
    then
       echo installed;
    else
       echo not_installed;
    fi
 fi


64-bit ports of 32-bit Apple apps I've delayed updating to Catalina due to a few applications which I will lose access to, due to them being compiled for 32-bit architecture. While the third-party apps are not overly difficult to address, there is one Apple app which I still use and rely on, Pages '09, and cannot go without.*

Are there any ways to find 64-bit ports of 32-bit Apple apps, like Pages '09 ?

*Before anyone comments, yes I know that there are newer versions of Pages, but when I'm writing, I much prefer the UI of the older version, so newer versions are a non-option.

There is an application/patch called Retroactive that might let you run Pages '09; not quite sure, as the documentation isn't that specific.I know it addresses Aperture, and I plan on trying it after I patch my '11 MBP to run Catalina


free way to stream to ipod touch without jailbreaking Is there a free way to wirelessly stream content to an iPod Touch (if it helps, 4th gen with latest 4.3.5 installed) without jailbreaking? If not, will iOS 5 enable me to do this?

There are a lot of options for this. The easiest ones use a native iPhone application that will cost you a small amount (usually around $2.99 on the app store). But you asked for a free solution so I'll start with that:
Free Option
Jackson Chung over at Makeuseof.com has written a detailed explanation of how to stream your iTunes music library to your iPhone/iPod/iPad for free. It wont be the greatest experience so I'm going to include a couple of the paid options below as well.
Paid Options
These two options use a iOS application to enable the streaming:
StreamToMe — $2.99 on the App Store

Use StreamToMe on your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad to play video,
music and photo files streamed over WiFi or 3G from your Mac or
Windows PC. No prior conversion or syncing required (huge number of
formats supported without conversion) just tap the file and it plays.

AirPhones — $2.99 on the App Store

AirPhones sends the audio from your computer to your iPhone or iPad
with virtually No Latency. Perfect for wireless, synched audio.

Finally, this option does not require an application installed on your machine as it runs a small server that is accessible via an iOS-friendly web interface on your device.
Remote Buddy — €19.99 on their website

The most powerful remote control solution for the Mac®. Control more
than 100 applications, virtual keyboard and mouse, presentations,
media center software and important system settings right from your
iPhone™, iPod® Touch, your Apple® Remote or one of the many other
remote controls supported by Remote Buddy!


Chrome slow when loading local virtual host I'm developing a local website with MAMP. I've configured a virtual host (hosts files, and apache vhosts).

/etc/hosts file:

127.0.0.1   domain.com

MAMP Vhosts config

<VirtualHost *:80>
    DocumentRoot "/route/to/folder"
    ServerName domain.com
</VirtualHost>

It all works fine, but in Chrome sometimes the local website takes a few seconds to load, when it should load instantly. I've narrowed down the problem to Chrome as it works fine 100% of the time with Safari.

When this happens in Chrome, the status bar at the bottom says "resolving host". It would seem like it's waiting for a DNS server to respond... but isn't the hosts file overriding any DNS calls?

Any ideas what might be happening?

The solution was to move the domain in the /etc/hosts file to the same entry as localhost.

127.0.0.1   localhost domain.com

See this StackOverflow thread.


Cannot add permissions to a file share in File Sharing Preferences I have a freshly built instance of OSX 10.9.4 running on a Late 2009 Mac Mini with two serially connected firewire Drobos.

I can add both of these external drives to the Shared Folders list of the "File Sharing" preferences list, but I can only add and modify the users and their permissions for one of the two shared drives.

If I click the plus icon on the share that doesn't have any users or permissions, I can select a user, but nothing appears in the "Users" panel. Any other type of folder works except the second Drobo device.

Furthermore, the second drive appears to be sharing more or less in the default way, with an authenticated user having full read and write access and an unauthenticated user having read only access.

Does anyone know how I might go about troubleshooting this issue? It seems strange that it would occur on a fresh OSX build with only one application installed (VLC).

The hard drive I installed the fresh copy of OS X 10.9.4 completely died last week. I suspect that this hard drive failure was unrelated to the issues, but when I re-installed OS X again and went to add the share drives, everything worked as normal.

I suspect that this is an obscure bug, but if you come across this issue, a reinstall may fix it, as this worked for me.


Change the Option+R/L shortcuts to Control+R/L I would like to remap the Option+L/R shortcut on my Mac keyboard to Control+R/L. I don't want to use the modifier keys dialog because I only want to change these particular shortcuts.
Any help would be appreciated.
Bill

In the first example below Option-L/R arrow does the same after adjusting the keycodes as Control-L/R arrow.

The previous behavior Option-L/R arrow (e.g opening/closing a folder in list view) is lost.

If you want a different behavior you have to modify/precise your answer.

To make this work you have to use a third party tool: Karabiner.

Download, install and open Karabiner
Open in the menulet Karabiner -> Preferences
Open the tab Misc & Uninstall
Hit the button Open private.xml
Open the file private.xml with an appropriate editor
Enter the customized keycode

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <item>
      <name>Change Option L/R arrow to Control L/R arrow</name>
      <identifier>altlr2ctrllr</identifier>
      <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::CURSOR_LEFT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_OPTION, KeyCode::CURSOR_LEFT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_CONTROL</autogen>
      <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::CURSOR_RIGHT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_OPTION, KeyCode::CURSOR_RIGHT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_CONTROL</autogen>
  </item>
</root>

Save the file
Open in the menulet Karabiner -> Preferences the tab Change Key
Hit the ReloadXML button
Enable the remapping. It should be listed at the beginning.

And if you are really asking for "Option+L/R shortcut on my Mac keyboard to Control+R/L" - which can be read as alt-l to ctrl-r and alt-r to ctrl-l in contrary to the headline - then use

          <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::CURSOR_LEFT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_OPTION, KeyCode::CURSOR_RIGHT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_CONTROL</autogen>
          <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::CURSOR_RIGHT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_OPTION, KeyCode::CURSOR_LEFT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_CONTROL</autogen>

If you want the opposite (Control-L/R arrow does the same as Option-L/R arrow) use this snippet instead. The previous behavior of Control-L/R arrow is lost.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <item>
    <name>Change Control L/R arrow to Option L/R arrow</name>
    <identifier>ctrllr2altlr</identifier>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::CURSOR_LEFT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_CONTROL, KeyCode::CURSOR_LEFT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_OPTION</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::CURSOR_RIGHT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_CONTROL, KeyCode::CURSOR_RIGHT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_OPTION</autogen>
  </item>
</root>

If you want to swap ctrl-L/R-arrow with ctrl-L/R-arrow then use either both of the above keycode changes or this one:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <item>
    <name>Swap Control L/R arrow and Option L/R arrow</name>
    <identifier>swap_ctrllrarrow_altlrarrow</identifier>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::CURSOR_LEFT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_OPTION, KeyCode::CURSOR_LEFT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_CONTROL</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::CURSOR_RIGHT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_OPTION, KeyCode::CURSOR_RIGHT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_CONTROL</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::CURSOR_LEFT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_CONTROL, KeyCode::CURSOR_LEFT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_OPTION</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::CURSOR_RIGHT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_CONTROL, KeyCode::CURSOR_RIGHT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_OPTION</autogen>
  </item>
</root>


Does Windows or Linux have any tools for accessing a FileVault2 encrypted drive's contents? I'm looking to mount (and access files on) my FileVault2 encrypted drive on a non-OS X box, and am wondering if anyone has done this with Windows or Linux.

On Linux, the libfvde project aims to support decoding FileVault2. Yogesh Khatri wrote an overview article where he suggests starting with libfvde's wiki.

On Windows, the company Passware claim support for decrypting FileVault2 drives as part of Passware Kit Forensic 13.1. A CNet article mentions the software and highlights the feature in an included screenshot:


How do I get my audiobooks to show up under the Audiobook section? I have audiobooks copied to my iPhone that I didn't buy on iTunes. How can I get them to show up in the Audiobooks section?

It's annoying having them mixed with music, because I usually use shuffle.

It's easy to tell iTunes that an audio file is an Audiobook. That will automatically put it in the right section, and not play it when shuffling.

Select the tracks you want to mark as audiobooks and go to File-> Get Info-> Options. Set Media Kind: to Audiobook.


Homebrew not updating to latest commit I'm trying to update Homebrew on my Macbook Pro, but Homebrew says it is already up-to-date. However, I know this is not the case as I have another Homebrew install on another Mac, which is at a later Git commit.

The brew config on my Macbook Pro:

HOMEBREW_VERSION: 0.9.9
ORIGIN: https://github.com/Homebrew/brew.git
HEAD: 06fe347de97975dc01e726f87bf07a56a6fb713e
Last commit: 4 weeks ago
Core tap ORIGIN: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core
Core tap HEAD: a05941384bcd8e4ef846237aba79d14dc47d757f
Core tap last commit: 4 weeks ago
HOMEBREW_PREFIX: /usr/local
HOMEBREW_REPOSITORY: /usr/local
HOMEBREW_CELLAR: /usr/local/Cellar
HOMEBREW_BOTTLE_DOMAIN: https://homebrew.bintray.com
CPU: quad-core 64-bit haswell
Homebrew Ruby: 2.0.0-p648
Clang: 7.3 build 703
Git: 2.9.2 => /usr/local/bin/git
Perl: /usr/bin/perl
Python: /usr/local/bin/python => /usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.12/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin/python2.7
Ruby: /usr/bin/ruby => /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/bin/ruby
Java: 1.8.0_25, 1.7.0_67
OS X: 10.11.6-x86_64
Xcode: 7.3.1
CLT: 7.3.1.0.1.1461711523
X11: 2.7.7 => /opt/X11

And on my Mac:

HOMEBREW_VERSION: 0.9.9
ORIGIN: https://github.com/Homebrew/brew.git
HEAD: f64befdd783cbb01a05cd4d76a9f9f6d810d2eab
Last commit: 2 hours ago
Core tap ORIGIN: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core
Core tap HEAD: ad4c80538a0f4c44ccc0e0681b890ec7578d19c4
Core tap last commit: 36 minutes ago
HOMEBREW_PREFIX: /usr/local
HOMEBREW_REPOSITORY: /usr/local
HOMEBREW_CELLAR: /usr/local/Cellar
HOMEBREW_BOTTLE_DOMAIN: https://homebrew.bintray.com
CPU: quad-core 64-bit haswell
Homebrew Ruby: 2.0.0-p648
Clang: 7.3 build 703
Git: 2.10.0 => /usr/local/bin/git
Perl: /usr/bin/perl
Python: /usr/local/bin/python => /usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.12/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin/python2.7
Ruby: /usr/local/bin/ruby => /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/2.3.1/bin/ruby
Java: 1.8.0_05
OS X: 10.11.6-x86_64
Xcode: 7.3.1
CLT: 7.3.1.0.1.1461711523
X11: 2.7.7 => /opt/X11

I know the Homebrew versions are the same. But the HEADs are quite different, and this means I can't brew upgrade to the latest versions of some packages (e.g. git, gcc).

Why is this happening, and how can I force Homebrew to update to the latest commit?

Resetting the Homebrew repository fixed this for me:

cd $(brew --repo) && git fetch && git reset --hard origin/master && brew update

Via Homebrew - Update Bug
Via Kevin Deldycke - homebrew/update


Waking up rMBP via Keyboard Attached to TB Display Doesn't Work rMBP has 10.8.2 installed. Both TB display and rMBP are brand new as of last a few days ago.

I've got a USB mouse and keyboard (wired) plugged into the TB display. The TB display is hooked up to the mac via the TB port. After I go to the apple logo and click Sleep, I cannot wake the mac up by hitting keys on the external keyboard or clicking the external mouse. In order to get it to wake up, I have to either open the screen on the laptop or press a key on the laptop's built in keyboard.

Has anyone else experienced this problem? I've also had problems with the Mac not waking up from deep sleep (hibernatemode 3). Is 10.8.2 simply trash?

Yep, I'm seeing the same thing. After deep sleep, my MBPR connected to my TB display won't wake up and starts spinning the CPU. I've only experienced this after I've shut my MBPR. The work around - I shutdown the MBPR now after I use it.


Change Image thumb background : How to see white image in thumb? I am facing this issue from long time and search many time but can't get any usefull solution.

In finder we can see image as thumb. But background of thumb is white color.
And if image is white than both color match and we see just white square.
like this:

Due to this its become hard to get right. I have to go through all image preview to select one.

Is there any way to change background color of thumb? Or any other way to deal with this problem?

I don't know of a way to fix this in the Finder.

The images your are looking at are most likely "web ready" meaning that they have been stripped of much meta data that takes up extra bytes which would slow the loading of the images into a browser. Without a pre-generated icon the Finder creates them on the fly and does not always create a meaningful icon.

The approach that I take is to use GraphicConverter's built in image browser which is highly configurable and -- if desired -- provides a huge amount of additional information.


Power adapter green light blinking on - non genuine adapter I recently acquired a new power adapter 85W for my macbook pro retina late 2013. I made sure the specifications matched the official Apple adapter and in fact I have not noticed any performance issues.

The problem is the green light on the magnet connector is sometimes blinking. I am wondering if that could could cause any damage to my battery or have some other issues. Otherwise it charges properly and battery duration is normal.

This is the product by the way: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Magnetic-Charger-MacBook-Retina-Display/dp/B00BJ97CWU

Thanks!

A blinking LED is not a signal that the original MagSafe Power Adapter would output, so it's hard to say why it does that, perhaps contact the manufacturer. But it sounds like there's something wrong with the adapter.

It is technically possible that a faulty power supply hurts your battery or even your machine (as in logic board, etc.). I have experienced several MacBooks that have been bricked by 3rd party batteries in my time as an Apple Technician.


Safari giving "kCFErrorDomainCFNetwork error 303" when visiting a site I am currently having problems visiting archive.org

example link

Safari 12 (and 13 b4) on Mojave shows the following error:

kCFErrorDomainCFNetwork error 303

Things I've tried:

disable all extensions
Develop > Empty Caches
trashing Safari.plist
booting into Safe Mode
recovery mode + Disk Utility First Aid
different DNS servers

All have had no effect.

Strangely, the problem does not appear in Safari Technology Preview, Chrome, Opera or Tor.

OK, this solution is the strangest thing. I found the solution on a Russian site, but now that the search terms for the solution are known you can find at some other sites.

The problem is a result of Safari holding too much local data for the site in question and failing to deal with that correctly. I use archive.org a lot so I had lots of LocalStorage and Cookie data for that site. The fact that this data is only in Safari, and none of my other browsers explains why they could browse the site just fine.

So, the solution:

Go into Safari > Preferences > Privacy
Search for "archive.org"
Click Remove
The problem goes away

Here's a video showing the problem before and after: https://imgur.com/gallery/d1P1FCi

I've reported this to Apple with full logs as radar #14814758.


AppleScript tell application "Finder" can't use special characters I found this question about the possibility to exchange windows paths with mac users and vice versa.
How to translate between Windows and Mac -style file locations?
It's working great for me, but for some reason the finder won't open paths with special characters in it. For example ä, ö, ü (which are common in germany).
I thought they are converted or something. So I removed the tell application part and replaced it with return mylocation to see whats happening. The returned path is the correct one and also special characters are in it.
Why does the finder not open it? Is there any workaround for this?
I paste the code here, so we talk about the same thing without confusion:
on searchReplace(theText, SearchString, ReplaceString)
    set OldDelims to AppleScript's text item delimiters
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to SearchString
    set newText to text items of theText
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ReplaceString
    set newText to newText as text
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to OldDelims
    return newText
end searchReplace

on run {input, parameters}

    set myClip to the input
    set mylocation to searchReplace(myClip, "<", "")
    set mylocation to searchReplace(mylocation, ">.", "")
    set mylocation to searchReplace(mylocation, ">", "")
    set mylocation to searchReplace(mylocation, "\\", "/")
    set mylocation to "smb:" & mylocation
    set mylocation to searchReplace(mylocation, " ", "%20")

    tell application "Finder"
        open location mylocation
    end tell

    # after setting the location, set Finder to topmost, or delete this section if you dont want that.
    tell application "Finder"
        activate
    end tell

    return input
end run

I fixed it by decoding the umlauts like this:
considering case
    set mylocation to searchReplace(mylocation, "Ä", "%C3%84")
    set mylocation to searchReplace(mylocation, "ä", "%C3%A4")
    set mylocation to searchReplace(mylocation, "Ö", "%C3%96")
    set mylocation to searchReplace(mylocation, "ö", "%C3%B6")
    set mylocation to searchReplace(mylocation, "Ü", "%C3%9C")
    set mylocation to searchReplace(mylocation, "ü", "%C3%BC")
    set mylocation to searchReplace(mylocation, "ß", "%C3%9F")
    set mylocation to searchReplace(mylocation, "ẞ", "%E1%BA%9E")
end considering


Messages - Is there a way to implement an "archive" feature? For those of us for whom text messages often represent an undone or unorganized task, it would be helpful to have an archive feature in Messages apps. That way, we could see which messages have not yet been responded to or dealt with.

As it is, it's very easy to forget to respond.

Does anyone know of a solution?

No.

Neither is this functionality built into the Messages app, nor is it possible to enable it by any means.


How can I "say" to another Mac? I have two Macs in our house (iMac and MacBook Pro).

I would like to use the say command-line utility to type something on my MBP and have it speak on the iMac, rather like an intercom system.

Plus, it could be hilarious to send messages to my wife while she is using the iMac.

Can this be done?

Since the two Mac are in the same house, I assume they're both on the same network.

First of all, you need to activate Remote Login on the Mac where you want the sound out.

Go to System Preferences > Sharing and check the Remote Login checkbox.
Then, using your computer, open Terminal and type this

ssh <user>@<computer name.local>

Where <user> is your wife login and <computer name> is the name of the other computer.

Now, it's as if you're having Terminal open on your wife's computer and you can say whatever you like.


How do i replace an apple ID on a used iPhone 4? I have given my dad my old iPhone 4, and I bought a new 4S. He put a new sim card in and used the phone but now 'his' contacts have appeared on my new iPhone i.e. the old phone retains my apple id.
How can I 'erase' my apple id from the old iPhone and reinstate it with my Dads apple id ?

Important to note that there are two apple IDs that can be linked to phone.   One for App Store purchases and one for ICloud.   Just remove account from iCloud menu and settings and add the account to new phone.  Best to make an Itunes backup of old device before you do that.

If you want to clear phone going to your dad can also Erase all Content and Settings in Reset option of the General Settings menu.  (After backup and checking that everything you need is on new phone)


How to maximise the life of the Apple battery charger set (for Magic Mouse) batteries? I purchased a magic mouse battery charger set today. It had a battery charger and 6 batteries. Now I put 2 batteries into the magic mouse and 4 batteries are in the box. My question is how to maximise the life of these batteries??

I use only one pair of batteries by charging / discharging and until the day the battery completely dies and no longer charges? (will that happen??) and then I switch to the next pair.
I use one pair and keep another pair in charging. Once this becomes completely drained, take the last pair from the box put it to charge, put the completely drained ones into the box and take the charged ones into the mouse. So i keep cycling like this?

Any other suggestions?

Lithium batteries do not like complete discharge, so do it at 10% or higher. You can leave them as long you wish in the charger, it will stop charging when full.

The battery charger it self has no limit on life time, yet again, it has to work harder if completely drained battery is to be charged.

If for some reason you have to leave the batteries on the shelf (in the box) for longer periods (months) then do it a 40% charge and keep them cool (15 Dgr. Celsius preferred).

Then when you notice the ones currently in use are at 20% start charging the replacement (from the box).


Is it possible to livestream the screen of an iPad? I have been looking for a way to livestream the screen of my iPad to Discord or some similar service so friends can watch but I haven't been able to find any clear info if this kind of thing is even possible, let alone which apps support it. Discord and Twitch seem to not support it in their apps at least.
I know Airplay is for streaming to TVs but this doesn't seem to be useful for me. Is this possible to do? My first preference would be streaming to Discord but alternatives would be good as well.

Yes. Engage screen recording and you will see which apps allow you to stream from that app. Also, Airplay to an AppleTV or video out often can be sent to an HDMI capture card.
To try this you could use Zoom or WebEx or TeamViewer or Microsoft Teams. We pay for and use the last two at work widely, but I believe all of them let you try and use the app for non-commercial uses after registration.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207935

Also, the squirrels are awesome. Check out if you broadcast from a computer and share your iPad to it. Amazing things are possible for sharing now from iOS 14.


Display pressed shortcuts as an overlay on the screen On this great Ruby on Rails screencast, every time a shortcut combination is pressed it shows up on top of the screen, and it shows up so often that I find it hard to believe it was placed by hand when editing the movie.
Is there any application that does this?

Not sure which specific screencast you're speaking of, but they may be using Keycastr.


How to find apps registered to a different iTunes account An acquaintance of mine bought a used iPhone. The previous owner was a  friend. They installed some apps that the new owner wanted, but used the previous owner's iTunes account for convenience.

Now she has a new Macbook and wants to connect the iPhone to the iTunes running on it.

iTunes, however, refuses to do so before getting authorization for 10 apps that were registered using the former friend's account. This is what the dialog looks like (in German, sorry):

the friend is no longer a friend, so there is no way to get their password for the authorization. iTunes won't tell me which the 10 apps are.

I have no problem with just removing the 10 apps and reinstalling them, but I'm scared that they'll contain important data (like her Whatsapp which is chock full with contacts and chats).

Is there a way to tell which 10 apps are connected to the previous owner's account?

You can go into iTunes on a computer and go into her account. From there you can look at all past purchases (also includes free apps) made with that account.

Find the apps that are on the device but not in her account. Those will be the apps from the previous owner.


Are there any downsides to cloning an HDD to an SSD? I'm setting up a MacBook (2009 unibody, for the record) for a friend. There's currently a regular HDD in the machine, and I'm going to be putting a fresh install of Mountain Lion and iLife on it, along with fully updating the machine and preinstalling some useful third-party apps. I've also advised said friend to put an SSD in the machine, so my plan was to do the long-winded part of this on the current HDD, then when the SSD gets delivered, clone the contents over using CCC so it's good to go.

My question, then, is this. Is cloning from an HDD to an SSD absolutely no different to doing all this installing and configuring on the SSD directly, or are there any kind of optimisations or etc that the install process carries out when it's aware it's being installed onto a different type of drive? My instincts say no, but I don't want the machine to incur a performance penalty because I took a shortcut. Thanks for any advice!

Your question probably arose from awareness of "hot zones" that OS X automatically manages on HDDs (where the location of files on the physical disk has a bearing on performance). On SSDs, the location of files does not have any bearing on the performance. So there shouldn't be any issues cloning from the HDD to the SSD using Carbon Copy Cloner.

These responses from Mike Bombich (creator of CCC) from the official CCC discussion forums would be useful to you:
Clone to SSD on new iMac
Installing an SSD in a MacPro


How to check what keyboard type is installed in MacBook Air by serial number? I have unpacked MacBookAir 13". How to check using serial number or other information from the box if MacBook is equipped with English keyboard layout or with other?

Can you provide the part number?  I think the standard English keyboard model is MD231LL/A (from the Apple US online store).


How can I enable AFP access logging on macOS server? I tried to turn on AFP access logging on macOS Server 5.6.1, but don't see any entries when accessing the volume from clients running macOS 10.13.5

My AFP settings list as serveradmin settings afp

afp:maxGuests = -1
afp:afpTCPPort = 548
afp:clientSleepTime = 24
afp:replyCacheQuantum = 32
afp:maxConnections = -1
afp:sendGreetingOnce = no
afp:reconnectTTLInMin = 1440
afp:clientSleepOnOff = yes
afp:loginGreeting = ""
afp:errorLogPath = "/Library/Logs/AppleFileService/AppleFileServiceError.log"
afp:errorLogTime = 0
afp:activityLogTime = 7
afp:errorLogSize = 1000
afp:kerberosPrincipal = "afpserver/LKDC:SHA1.XXX@LKDC:SHA1.XXX"
afp:recon1SrvrKeyTTLHrs = 168
afp:idleDisconnectOnOff = no
afp:reconnectFlag = "no_admin_kills"
afp:activityLog = yes
afp:reconnectKeyLocation = "/private/etc/AFP.conf"
afp:loginGreetingTime = 1315436086
afp:adminGetsSp = yes
afp:fullServerMode = yes
afp:idleDisconnectMsg = ""
afp:updateHomeDirQuota = yes
afp:serverStoppedTime = 1530836567
afp:activityLogPath = "/Library/Logs/AppleFileService/AppleFileServiceAccess.log"
afp:authenticationMode = "standard_and_kerberos"
afp:admin31GetsSp = no
afp:shutdownThreshold = 3
afp:TCPQuantum = 1048576
afp:allowSendMessage = yes
afp:idleDisconnectTime = 10
afp:loggingAttributes:logOpenFork = yes
afp:loggingAttributes:logDelete = yes
afp:loggingAttributes:logCreateDir = yes
afp:loggingAttributes:logLogin = yes
afp:loggingAttributes:logLogout = yes
afp:loggingAttributes:logCreateFile = yes
afp:tickleTime = 30
afp:specialAdminPrivs = no
afp:noNetworkUsers = no
afp:idleDisconnectFlag:adminUsers = yes
afp:idleDisconnectFlag:registeredUsers = yes
afp:idleDisconnectFlag:usersWithOpenFiles = yes
afp:idleDisconnectFlag:guestUsers = yes
afp:recon1TokenTTLMins = 10080
afp:guestAccess = yes
afp:allowRootLogin = no
afp:activityLogSize = 1000
afp:afpServerEncoding = 0
afp:createHomeDir = yes

Looking at the specific text logs above in an editor and looking in console app, I can’t find any sort of obvious AFP service logging.

What needs to get changed to log the date and time when an AFP share is accessed through this server?

Have the same issues with 10.13.6
No resolution yet. Only the workaround:

log stream --info --debug --predicate='process="AppleFileServer"'


How to play music from iPod in Macbook iTunes? I would like to play music from iPod in MacBook's iTunes with wireless (over Wi-Fi).

Please advice how to setup to get that function.

That feature is only available on iOS 5 for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. If you have one of these devices with iOS 5, connect your device via USB, open iTunes. After your device shows up, under the primary device tab (should default to it), towards the bottom, there will be a checkbox to "Sync this i(Phone, Pad, or Pod) over Wi-Fi." Check the box, and you should be set.

You must be on the same Wi-Fi, and have your computer on with iTunes open for it to actually sync in the future.


Cached restored files and their logs after the force shutdown (crash). Where are they? Where can I find the cached files or logs from which Mac OS X restores to its current position after the force shutdown (hard freeze problem)?

Moreover, same question with Google Chrome: from where does it restore previous tabs after the crash?

Thank you in advance.

Some of the files used in restoring applications are located at ~/Library/Saved Application State. These files are updated while an application is running, and if it crashes they are used by the system to restore it (if the application crashes during the restore process, OS X offers to discard the saved state when relaunching a second time).

But some applications such as Chrome store more information elsewhere. Chrome stores your open tabs and other data in
~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default. There I see files such as Last Session and Last Tabs. (For comparison, Safari uses ~/Library/Safari/LastSession.plist.)


Unable to pin notes and add tables in Notes, High Sierra So, two of the key features of High Sierra is that its Notes app has the ability to pin notes and add tables. However, both of the actions are inactive. Is there some trick on using them?

I'm using Macbook Air 13' 2017, High Sierra 10.13.1

If you’re signed in to more than one iCloud Mail account on your iOS device or Mac and have notes syncing turned on, you can only use the new Notes features with your primary Apple ID account.

https://support.apple.com/kb/HT204987

Add some notes to the On My Mac location (enable from Notes Preferences) — if you're able to use the features, it looks like the location/account you're using doesn't support those features.


How to put file into clipboard without losing control characters? I have a .txt file originated from Windows, so its line endings are \r\n. Running cat or echo on that file makes those control characters go away. How can I display the file (even in raw bytes if possible) while preserving the original control characters from Windows?

pbcopy will take input piped or redirected into it, and store it in a "pasteboard" (i.e. clipboard). So to copy a file verbatim, use a redirection:

pbcopy < dosfile

To paste, use Commandv or

pbpaste | some_command
pbpaste > some_file


Why iPhone apps gets pushed to background after sometime? As we know iOS pushes apps to background after some time if you keep the phone idle.

I notices that this doesn't happen with the native apps like phone, messages and mail.

It comes really handy when you are opening the mail app and it opens quickly. but any third party app like Gmail app for iPhone doesn't behave this way. each time I open it, it takes 1 minute to open.

Push works perfectly though but opening the app takes lot of time.

Can anyone advice on how to prevent that? there must be some tweak by which we can prevent selected apps from being purged after inactivity and make them available all the time?

You can only prevent this on a jailbroken phone. Apple trusts its apps not to hog the battery and are OS-level apps so they can run in the background. All other apps from the AppStore are not first class citizens. When they go in the background, their state is saved and restored when they are opened again. This is to prevent them from constantly updating content and draining your battery.

Long story short, you can only get that sort of control when you jailbreak. Note: if you are not careful and run many programs in the background after jailbreaking, your battry life will be really poor.


MacBook Pro freezes with beachball on login (OS 10.7 Lion) EDIT 8/21/11:  It appeared that this issue may have been fixed in Update 10.7.1, but it reoccured just recently.

Recently after upgrading to Lion, my MBP refuses to allow me to login.  I can see the screen and move the pointer, but the password box refuses any entry, and after about ten seconds my pointer turns into the beachball completely freezing up my mac.

I was able to temporarily fix the issue by upgrading my system from 4 to 8 GB of RAM which I already had on order, but after a couple boots, it has returned to it's unusable state.

I have researched some other sites, including the Apple Forums, but I haven't found any great solutions.  I'm wondering if anyone else has/had seen this issue, and knows of a good fix that I can utilize until Apple issues an update.  (which I will have to install somehow after logging in)

I have a 15 in, 2.4 Ghz i5 MacBook Pro from Spring 2010.  I dual boot with Windows 7 under bootcamp and I have a firmware password set.  Both instances of the freeze have seemed to occur after coming back to the mac side from W7.  I have regular time machine backups.

Disable Automatic Graphics Switching

EDIT:  In diagnosing the issue, you should update to the latest 10.7.2 update

After browsing the Apple Discussions Forums more thoroughly, it seems that disabling automatic graphics switching in the energy/power settings of system preferences seems to prevent the freeze.

This forces the MacBook Pro to use the discrete graphics chip which will consume more battery life, but you can manually switch to the other chip using the utility, GFXCardStatus (http://codykrieger.com/gfxCardStatus) This should make the computer usable until Apple issues a fix in 10.7.1 or whatever is next.

Unfortunately, users may have trouble just logging into their system to change this setting.  Typing in the password quickly (before the freeze starts) worked for me, but you may have to boot into safe mode instead (hold down shift on boot).


Is it safe to close the lid while an app (Xcode) is updating - during "installing" phase? I have an early 2014 MacBook Air running Catalina (10.15 - 19A602). Updating Xcode always takes an inordinate amount of time, and it's usually the "installing" phase (looking at Launchpad) that takes most of it.

Currently, I see "Installing, 7.78 GB of 7.78 GB" displaying in Launchpad.

Given that Xcode is the worst offender of all apps that update from the store in terms of update time, is there a better approach for updating it to make it more predictable/interactive? Is a delete-and-clean-install a better alternative?

Yes, it is perfectly safe to close the lid during updating of Xcode. The update process will of course pause, but resumes automatically when you open the lid again later.

I don't think a method exists to make the update timing of Xcode more predictable or interactive. The progress indication they share is all we get, and it may sometimes be off by a lot.

Delete-and-clean-install seems to work quicker for me in some cases at least. However, I haven't experienced any negatives coming from updating Xcode in place (except the wait while updating).


Search inputs are synced accross applications, how to disable? A colleague of mine has macOS 10.15 (Catalina) and complained about the following thing: He uses the search bar in Mail and searches for something. Then in Xcode he presses CMD+F and sees the same email address there as the search input. We have checked and that is not in the system clipboard.

This synchronization of search strings might be a helpful idea, but in practice it does not make sense to search for things across applications. Is there some way to disable this behavior?

Search input uses the same 'hidden' copy buffer that unix uses in Terminal, called the 'kill ring'. The 'kill' command has a second part, called 'yank'

These are used on text editors/terminals/emacs etc using  Ctrl ⌃   K  &  Ctrl ⌃   Y

In effect they are copy & paste, they just save to a different buffer than the regular. As far as I'm aware you cannot disable them, only replace the content with the next 'kill', the same as the regular  Cmd ⌘   C  &  Cmd ⌘   V  copy/paste.

How to Geek has a good explanation of how to use it, though not hot to disable it.
How to Use macOS’ Built-In “Kill and Yank” as an Alternative Cut and Paste


Can I customize the ToolStrip to include Automator scripts? I want to include special actions in Finder such as showing or not showing hidden files.

most of the time I want to have a clean clutter free system, however there are times I need to dig into the library or other system locations.

It would be nice to have a way to use the touch bar to create a clutter free Finder experience that can be enabled/disabled.

Is it possible to include scripts in the Toolbar feature of Finder or any other app?

BetterTouchTool has an alpha version which supports the Touch Bar.
You can use the ‘Open Application / Script / File’ action in BTT to launch your Automator app.


Using Fluid.app is there a way to switch tabs periodically? I'm using Fluid.app as a way to display content from URL for monitoring my servers and other services in my data center. I have a few tabs open in this fluid.app window to display another URL with other data.

I'd like to see if there is a way, to make fluid switch tabs every 20 seconds. Can this be done?

Developer of Fluid here. This AppleScript is supposed to do what you are asking, but it's causing a crash in the current version of Fluid (1.8.3). I'll look into it.

tell application "<Your Fluid App Name Here>"
    tell browser window 1
        repeat
            set c_ to count of tabs
            set idx_ to index of selected tab
            set idx_ to (idx_ + 1) mod (c_ + 1)
            if idx_ is 0 then set idx_ to 1
            set tab_ to (get tab idx_ of it)
            set selected tab of it to tab_
            delay 20
        end repeat
    end tell
end tell


iTunes Match turning off occassionally I am experiencing weird problem with my iTunes Match subscription. Ever since upgrading to iOS 6 my devices spontaneously turn off iTunes Match this happened twice so far:

First shortly after upgrading my iPhone 4S and the new iPad to iOS 6. I upgraded, downloaded some songs and about a week later all my devices (inc. PC and a MacBook Pro) got iTunes Match turned off. This wasn't a problem for PC and MacBook as iTunes doesn't erase the music from them, but I had to download all the songs on iOS devices again.
Second time happened today - my PC and iPad got iTunes Match turned off. Again - no problem for PC, but have to download my music onto iPad all over again. You can imagine how time consuming this may be especially considering you cannot upload the music from desktop iTunes once you have iTunes Match on.

Any ideas why this might happen? There is absolutely no involvement from my side when this happens. All ma devices run latest Apple software (iTunes, OS X and iOS).

Where should I report it if I wanted to complain about it to Apple?

Are you logging out of your Apple account?

One possibility is that you are being logged out of your Apple account for some reason, either automatically or manually. If you are logging out of your account manually, then that's probably disabling iTunes Match because the service is attached with your account.

There are several situations in which you will be logged out of your Apple account automatically. For instance, when I first started using iTunes Match, I noticed that for some reason iTunes Match kept turning off. I later realized that it was because I had apps from different accounts installed (such as two accounts from different countries), so when I logged in to a different Apple account from the one that I use for iTunes Match so that I could update some of my apps, iTunes Match would disable itself.

Try clearing the cache

The cache could also be causing problems. I know that it this happens on the desktop version of iTunes; I'm not so sure if the iOS version also has cache problems, or at least I don't know if it's possible to clear any part of the cache on iOS.

To clear iTunes's cache, here are some helpful instructions.


"Email already in use" Apple ID error message. How can I set it up? A little over month ago I received an email from the Russian Apple website, asking me to confirm my email to complete the registration of my Apple ID. I am thinking someone possibly used my email by mistake. I did not click the authentication link. The message stated that if it wasn't me who registered, I shouldn't worry.

However, now I am trying to create an Apple ID but I get the error message:

  "Email already in use"

I have never registered for an Apple ID with my email address. Resetting the password through email authentication does not send me any email.

What can I do?

I am thinking someone possibly used my email by mistake. I did not
  click the authentication link. The message stated that if it wasn't me
  who registered, I shouldn't worry.

I highly doubt someone else could register with your email, since you stated right afterward you yourself had registered with it.

Try clicking this link then fill out the information required:

https://iforgot.apple.com/iForgot/iForgot.html


MacOS SSH connect using key I'm trying to connect to my host using SSH key. I've generated a key pair and added public key to authorized keys to the server.

However I'm unable to connect to server using my private key. Every time I connect it asks for the password.

I've tried to run ssh-add my_key_name and it said that it's fine and been added. But it is not working.

Also I've tried to add to my config

Host alias
    HostName host
    User user_name
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa

It also is not working. ssh alias working but still asks for password.

To connect using SSH keys you need to copy the key from your machine to the remote server using ssh-copy-id user@remote_ip_address.

You will be asked to enter the password for the remote server and the key will be copied.

If you generated a key pair using a password then you will always have to enter that password when connecting. If not, you can simply connect using ssh user@remote_ip_address and you will be connected to the remote machine.


Will it do any harm to cannibalise an old hard drive as an SSD enclosure? I have an old G-Tech Mini portable hard drive (FW800, bus-powered) that I don't need any more, so as an experiment I took the actual hard drive out and replaced it with a 512GB Crucial M4 SSD. I would like to use it as an external boot drive over FireWire 800 to speed up an old 2007 iMac.

So far, it seems to be running great! The drive shows up and is nice and fast. But I'm worried that this isn't a 'proper' hard drive enclosure - it could be that it was only designed to work with its original hard drive. I have no idea whether the SSD takes more or less power than the original drive. There is a very slight whining sound when the drive operates, but I can't remember if that was always there. The G-Tech drive was a model from about 5 years ago.

I know that with FW800 and without TRIM I won't be getting the best performance out of the drive, but I'm not worried about that. I just need to know that the chassis won't do any physical damage by delivering the wrong voltage or whatever. Am I doing any harm to the drive and/or enclosure?

The SSD draws a lot less juice from your power supply and doesn't produce as much heat as a spinning hard drive.  You could say your enclosure is quite over-engineered for your SSD.

I would be concerned if you'd try the opposite (putting a spinning harddrive into a SSD enclosure).

That being said it would be better if you'd put the SSD directly into your iMac.  Or swap the drives.  It's not that difficult and you'll probably gain quite some speed.


Can I use electrical tape instead of the plastic tab when replacing my hard-drive? I'm replacing the hard-drive on my 2010 Macbook Pro, (This machine just keeps going, and I'm finally upgrading it to a SSD!) and I'm almost done (it's simple enough) but the plastic tab from the original hard drive just won't stick to the new SSD. I was wondering if I can use some electrical tape instead? I know that short-term it shouldn't be an issue, but these machines can get really hot and I'm afraid that the tape might turn into a gummy mess inside my computer over time. Has anyone tried this? Did it last?

I definitely would not use electrical tape. Honestly, if for some reason you do not have the plastic tab that came on the HDD, then you can go without it when you replace it with the SSD. The opening is large enough you can get a finger between the SSD and the side rails, should you ever need to replace it. You can see this article for another opinion on the matter.


Can Time Machine files be restored across different OSs? I am backing up my MacBook Air that runs OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 to an external Hard Drive using Time Machine. I have another older MacBook that runs Mac OS X 10.6.8. If I wipe the hard drive of the older macbook can I restore it using my the Time Machine that was created using OS X El Capitan? Any issues that I should be aware of?

Each mac can only run versions of macos that apple allows.

You need to look up your older machine in a database like http://mactracker.ca/ to find out if it supports el capitan.

There is a five release difference between the two macOS.  The new OS will use much more ram and run slow on an old machine.


Login and password in Safari private mode Is it possible to auto-fill or save passwords for certain sites in Safari private mode?

Saving passwords is disabled in Private Browsing.

AutoFill is not automatic, but you can AutoFill manually:

iOS: focus on the username or password field and tap ‘AutoFill Password’ above the keyboard.
macOS: Edit → AutoFill Form (⇧⌘A)


tmux on Mac, how can I enable vi mode for the command line I want to be able to hit escape and then use vi navigation keys like b (back a word). I can do this in my regular terminal sessions by setting set -o vi in my .bashrc file.

However it's not working in tmux. I added set -o vi in my .tmux_conf file, but it only works for 1 "hit" then I get switched back into insert mode after hitting the key.  So if I press [escape] i can go back one word with [b] but then the next [b] just inserts the b character.

How can I make that 'vi' mode work in my tmux sessions the same way it does at my 'plain' bash shell.

Add set -o vi to the ~/.bash_profile file


iPhone Button Combo to View Owner Info? Is there a button combo you can use on a locked iPhone to view it's owner info?

I once left my phone at airport security, and they called me on the PA system and showed me how they pressed a button combo to view the owner info.  I don't remember what the combo was.  I've found someone's phone now and would like to do the same to see if I can return it to them.

You can tap on the Emergency button on the iPhone lock screen to access Medical ID. If a user has set Medical ID and has enabled it's display on the lock screen, the owner information can be obtained.

Here's how you can access it as well as set it up.

Suppose you found a random iPhone and attempt to unlock it. After failing to authenticate via Touch ID/Face ID, the iPhone would present you with the lock screen. It would look somewhat similar to this:

Tap on Emergency and it would take you to the Emergency Call screen. If the owner has already setup Medical ID, it would be shown in the bottom left corner.

You can tap on the Medical ID button to view the owner info. Important identifying information such as owner name, photo, height etc. along with Emergency contact numbers can be accessed if set.

If you wish to set the Medical ID information for your own iPhone and want the same to be accessible via the lock screen, go to Settings app → Health → Medical ID and tap Edit to provide your information. Once done, enable Show When Locked under Emergency Access.


Is an external GPU possible for MacBook Air 2012? I work with machine learning and 3D rendering, both of them need powerful GPU, and my laptop completely lacks it. I had an idea to buy a PC with good GPU, but then I found several articles which says that using an external GPU (eGPU) may be possible for Macs, but there are different technical and software restrictions.

So, can I use eGPU for my MacBook Air? If so, what GPU, anyone or only some of them? And what other devices I'll need to combine, get everything work correctly?

Here are (the most important, I think) details about my laptop:

macOS Sierra
Version 10.12.6

MacBook Air 13-inch Mid 2012
Processor: 1,8 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory: 4 GM 1600 MHz DDR3
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4000 1536 MB

Thunderbolt Bus:
Firmware version: 23,4
Link Status: 0x101
Speed: up to 10 Gb/s x2
Receptacle: 1
Link Controller Firmware Version: 0.12.3

For macOS Sierra or earlier, you can use automate-eGPU.sh to enable your eGPU.

For macOS High Sierra or later, you will require purge-wrangler.sh to get your eGPU up and running.

Regardless of a high success rate of these workarounds, it is recommended that you purchase an eGPU setup you can return for a full refund in case things don't work out.


Can iBooks be read without a data connection? If I am out of my service area can I still read a book in iBooks on my iPhone?  If not, is it possible to download part of the book and read it while I am out of the area?

Yes, iBooks can function normally while not connected to the internet. As long as you have the book(s) present in the iBooks app before you get out of coverage you will be fine.

If you are out of your coverage area and connect to another network, or roaming, you might have additional expenses for using another network.


How to hide screen when logged into remote iMac I use Back-To-My-Mac to log into my office computer from home and vice versa.  Normally, after I log into my home laptop, I darken the screen for both energy efficiency and privacy and that works fine.  However, when I log into my iMac at work, I noticed the next day that the screen-darkening trick is virtually pointless as far as privacy is concerned (I share an office).  The lowest brightness setting of the screen on my iMac is nowhere near a level that would prevent others from watching me work.

Is there a way to darken or hide the display on an iMac when logged in remotely?  I've been searching for a solution and cannot find one.

Awhile back, I discovered an even better, simpler, more reliable, and free way to accomplish the goal of screen sharing without people being able to mess with the remote mac or observe you working.  All you have to do is:

Create a secondary user on the remote mac.
Screen share into your account (assuming it's the one that has the screen locked).
Use fast user switching to switch accounts to the secondary account
Lock the screen of the remote mac using the apple menu -> "Lock Screen" option
End the screen sharing session
Screen share into your account again (which no longer is showing on the screen of the remote mac).

Viola!  You can now work without anyone messing with your keyboard or watching what you're doing.  Much more reliable of a method than Shades and free too.


What gamma to use to calibrate MacBook Pro 2016 display? I use the X-Rite i1Display Pro colorimeter to calibrate all my monitors and I want to calibrate my 2016 MacBook Pro, but I'm not sure if I should stick to the 2.2 gamma settings or raise it to the 2.6 DCI-P3 color space gamma settings because apple automatically converts SRGB values into DCI-P3 colors space to perform matching by using Gamma 2.2 while preserving 2.6 for DCI-P3 tagged content.

Does anyone know which one is best to use?

Very briefly, as it's too long to be a comment, but not authoritative enough to be a full answer...

I've not worked in P3 at all - but for sRGB, Adobe98 or ProPhoto the general 'rule' is to set your monitor to default & let the i1Profiler handle it from there - I guess for a laptop monitor, that would be done automatically as the OS gives up control to the Profiler.
It will usually correctly self-detect your monitor's capabilities.

Use the Advanced settings for finer control, especially to use a larger colour Patch Set, which I've found can make quite a difference. [tbh, some of the settings in advanced you will just stare at blankly - for those, just go with default ;)

Your Photoshop etc workflow should always be set to keep your input profile, so you only ever go to sRGB at 'Export For Web' or the newer 'Export As...'.
So long as you allow Photoshop to handle your working space, as sRGB, Adobe98 or ProPhoto [& never set your monitor profile to it! ] then your workflow should be good from start to finish.

BTW, your monitor profile is always applied "live" to the screen by any colour-management-capable software & should never be in your actual workflow, only in your system Display Prefs, which the Profiler ought to set for you when you save the profile.

If you need to regularly output to specific ICC profiles, then make sure they are in ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Color/Proofing/ & you can soft-proof with gamut warning much more easily.
If your output will be to sRGB, then no amount of profiling will actually make it faithfully transition to the rest of the world, because of the range of horribly approximate devices it will be reproduced on.

Profiling your camera would be a separate QA & would need a ColorChecker Passport etc.


Unable to start computer after using sudo crontab -e I've set it so that my Mac will forcefully shutdown at 12:00 everyday. But I try to turn it back on, it shuts down again right after.

What command did you put in the crontab file itself, shutdown -h now ?

Boot into single user mode (Command-S) to edit out the offending crontab entry and try the pmset method.

The command sudo pmset repeat shutdown mtwrfsu 12:00:00 (noon) or ...00:00:00 (midnight) will accomplish what you are looking for without using crontab.

To cancel this, execute the command sudo pmset repeat cancel


Mac OS X Lion Terminal I have a question about my terminal. When I started out working with Rails on my Mac terminal, I would have lines that looked like this as the route for my $:

Nicholass-MacBook-Pro:sample_app nbkincaid$ rails console

But now, I get lines that look like this:

pal-nat184-103-166:desktop nbkincaid$

I'm pretty sure that I didn't change anything, so why does it give me the pal-nat....$ instead of the Nicholas...$?

The string "pal-nat184-103-166" is your computer's hostname, which can be changed dynamically by routers or other network devices through DHCP.

If you want to set it to a static string, you can do so by adding the following line to /etc/hostconfig

HOSTNAME=Nicholass-MacBook-Pro


Tile Finder background image in Snow Leopard I have seen a guide/tip on the internet to make Finder tile it's background by editing ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist however the guide is now outdated and no longer works on Snow Leopard.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to go about this?

It can't be done right now.  Even if you made a background image in Photoshop the size of your display and used that, you'll find that with certain views (eg narrowed windows), you'll still see the edge of the image.

Someone somewhere just might write an app to do this, and in my opinion it would be popular.

Until then, we're stuck with just colors.


Preview access not operating My computer won't allow me to access to the preview function. This has automatically opened documents in the past. I gat a fault 1712.

Pure guess…

Open ~/Library/QuickLook
Open Library/QuickLook
Remove all plugins
Test
Replace one at a time until you find the crasher.
See if there is a newer version.


"Z" windows position lock I frequently running into strange problem on Lion: my windows constantly being locked on z position (sometimes you can see this feature in some apps as "Window->Stay in Front/Behind"). But I really don't understand why is this happening, windows in this apps haven't such a feature (Preview is example).
I'm heavily using keyboard shortcuts and suspect that I'm just accidentally triggering some system shortcuts for locking windows.
Am I right, does such exists? If not, what can be responsible for such a behavior?

If you switch applications while you launch an application it can lead to the frontmost window being not the active window. This is a problem I encounter quite often, it also happens when you launch an application and another one spawns a window. I'm unsure if you mean this, but it seems to be normal behavior. Looks like

In this case, the iTunes window is the frontmost window (recognizable by its buttons drawn colored), while iTerms window is drawn over the iTunes window. iTunes is also the active application as you can see on the menubar.


Stuck during High Sierra installation and now no startup disk found I was upgrading my MacBook Air from Sierra to High Sierra, but the installation failed and the last line of log window was an error about directoryd.

I restarted and then came across the blinking folder with question mark. So I tried recovery mode (Command + R). Disk Utility shows my Macintosh disk properly and there is no problem with it (I checked it with First Aid), but I cannot see any disks on Startup Disk window. what can I do to bring it there?

I have "Install High Sierra.app" on my external drive, can I use it somehow to install the OS?

I used the image to create an USB installer stick of macOS High Sierra and reinstalling the OS solved my problem.