How can I copy a working Mac Os X Tiger 10.4 install to my new HDD without destroying the Mac Os 9 installed? I am restoring an ancient PowerPc iMac and I have a very peculiar situation.
The iMac has a new ssd drive where Mac Os 9 is installed and works perfectly.
I would like to install also 10.4 Tiger but the original install disks are long gone and burning a bootable disc seems impossible (I tried anything).
The old 20GB hdd contains a perfectly working Tiger install and I could connect that HDD via USB because I have an adapter.

Is there any method that would allow me to end in a situation where I have both working and bootable operating systems on the new ssd?

Maybe copying the old disk to a partition on the new one?

Oh goody a classic MacOS question...

The nice thing about the classic MacOS is that once it is installed you need little else besides the files in the system folder. Yes there is the "blessing" of the system folder but if it is your intention to use it in a "Classic Environment" inside macOS then you should not need to worry about that.

Connect the drive with the macOS Tiger installation and boot from that. I think that will work. Some older Macs cant boot from USB. Failing that can you put it in an old firewire enclosure?

The goal here is that once booted into macOS Tiger just drag the folders from the classic install on the SSD to your Tiger drive. Put them at the root of your (Tiger) Mac HD and take the whole system folder, applications folder and anything else you need.

I did this a while ago and while I was at it I made a zip archive of the whole thing, "just in case." Just in case happened and I unzipped the files and it worked a treat.

Once you have done that you can use an old (shareware) copy of Carbon Copy Cloner to "back up" the Tiger drive with MacOS 9 on it to the internal SSD.


iPhone storage increasing over time My iPhone 5s storage increases for some reason. It used to have 4.3 gb yesterday and now it’s 7.48 gb! I didn’t do much. My photos are still there. I’m scared. What do I do and why is it happening?

Also system is decreasing size.

There are a few potential reasons for this.

If you installed a system update, the update data will be removed post update which can result in a large amount of space being.
Apple have begun to implement several space saving features into iOS, which offload unneeded content to iCloud Drive or just remove it.
You may have removed some optional system content, such as dictionaries, which freed up space.
Rebooting your iOS device can sometimes free up some space, as iOS is based off of BSD so logs and temporary data may be expunged on reboot.


In Numbers, is there a way to get the row instead of the value when using a MAX or MIN Function? In Numbers, is there a way to get the row instead of the value when using a MAX or MIN Function?

For example, let's take this sheet:

bread  10
cheese 20
meat   35

What I am trying to do is to show the most expensive food by comparing all price values, getting the row number of the MAX value and then print the respective food on that line.

Using INDEX(MATCH) this can be easily accomplished.
Formulas
This formula returns the food label:
=INDEX(Foods, MATCH(MIN(Cost),Cost))

The INDEX function returns the value in the cell located at the intersection of the specified row and column within a collection of cells or from an array returned by an array function.
The MATCH function returns the position of a value within a collection.

This formula returns the Row number:
=ROW(INDEX(Foods,MATCH(MIN(Cost),Cost)))

The ROW function returns the row number of the row containing a specified cell.

Replacing MIN with MAX returns the row with the Max result.

Further information on these functions can be found in the Functions reference.

ROW
The ROW function returns the row number of the row containing a
specified cell.
ROW(cell)
• cell: An optional cell reference to a single table cell. The
referenced cell that can contain any value, or be empty. If cell is
omitted, as in =ROW(), the function returns the row number of the cell
that contains the formula.
Examples
=ROW(B7) returns 7, the number of row 7.
=ROW() returns the absolute row number of the cell containing the function


Black screen after failed restore - G5 I tried to restore a G5, something went wrong and now I have this at startup:

dyld: library not loaded: /usr/liblibconv.2.dylib
Referenced from /bin/sh
Reason: Incompatible library version: sh requires version 7.0.0 or later, but      libiconv.2.dylibprovides version 5.0.0

Can anyone help please?

I don't have a Tiger cd as I was restoring using Disk Utility.  I;ve tried various methods for booting from USB but the G5 doesn't seem to give them any power at boot.

The resolution to my problem was somewhat messy.

The black screen I mentioned was a result of a failed osx restore. It failed because of a bad dmg. The machine then suffered a kernel panic and I guess it was unable to roll back te changes it had made.

I removed some ugly looking ram and cleaned te others, reinstalled osx from disk using a new drive and have so far not experienced any problems.

Problem caused by dodgy dmg installation and dodgier ram


iHome Mouse drivers for OS X I have an iHome wireless 5 button laser mouse model iH-M130ZR and I can't find any drivers to be able to program the buttons. By default, left/right/scroll clicks work, but I can't get any response from the other buttons. Does anyone know of a program or drivers that will let me take advantage of these other buttons? Even to just be able to use the side buttons for back/forward in browsing would be great.

I haven't tried it myself, but I've heard good things about USB Overdrive. While the name of the utility implies that it's USB-only, it also works for devices connected via Bluetooth.

Another possible option is SteerMouse.


Spotlight keeps forgetting not to index BOOTCAMP partition For special needs, I must mount BOOTCAMP partition as read-writable.

I also add BOOTCAMP partition into Spotlight Privacy because it needs not to be indexed.

But once every few days, Mac forgets about it and BOOTCAMP disappears from Spotlight Privacy.

Is there any workaround?

I believe you can add a file named:

.metadata_never_index

to the root of the volume you don't want indexed.


How do 2 phones share ITunes and Calendar entries? My husband and I just got iPhones 4 running iOS 6, what we're looking for is to share ITunes and Calendar entries.  We have one computer and right now have Outlook for a calendar.  I want to be able to make one entry on the calendar and have it show up on both phones.  Can I use Outlook to accomplish this?  Or is there an app out there that will sync the computer calendar with both our phones?

My fiancé and I do this quite regularly simply using the iCal app that is part of the phone. We logged in under the same Apple ID and shared only the calendar & contacts (on her phone b/c she doesn't need/want my email). Doing this, we're able to sync calendar and contacts, which is really useful if one of our batteries die.

But you want to use Outlook, it is possible with Outlook, but I think it requires an Exchange service to sync. I'm not 100% sure on that, but I am pretty sure that's what it takes (without manually syncing).

I believe this post will be very useful for you :)


How to get Safari Intelligent Tracking Prevention How can I get Apple's Intelligent Tracking Prevention in Safari Web browser?

Is it dependent on my Safari version, my macOS version, or both? If so, which versions?

Is it dependent on my Safari version, my macOS version, or both? If so, which versions?

Intelligent Tracking Prevention was first introduced in Safari 11 in macOS High Sierra 10.13 along with iOS 11 both of which were released in September 2017. It is available in macOS 10.13, iOS 11 and later.

The same can be configured by going to Safari Preferences → Privacy → Website tracking: Prevent cross site tracking.

To configure the same in iOS, go to Settings app → Safari → Prevent Cross-Site Tracking.

ITP2 went into affect in iOS 12/Safari 12 during an update release. This update to ITP includes workarounds that marketers created.

You can upgrade to Safari 12 while running macOS 10.12 Sierra. Safari 12 release notes can be referred to here:

Safari version history


Is it possible to upgrade 2.26 GHz processor to 2.4 GHz? I recently bought a 2009 macbook that I thought would have a 2.4GHz processor (along with 4GB of RAM) but instead has a 2.26GHz processor with 2GB of RAM. (I expected it to be 2011.) I got it fairly cheap so I'm not entirely surprised, and the seller takes the blame for sending the wrong one out, but doesn't have any replacements and I really can't afford to buy another one even after a refund (shipping prices, ugh.)

The laptop itself is fine, and I wouldn't mind keeping the 2009 version if it wasn't for the specs. Is there a way to increase the processor speed without breaking the bank? I bought the laptop in the hopes that it'd be able to run (mainly) PS CS5 and the sims 4. This only fulfills one of those tasks, and is actually slower than the 2007 model I had before, which had 4 GB of RAM. I can take care of the RAM issue, but I really do need the better processor. Thanks!

Sorry, the MacBook Pro processor is soldered on and removing it would likely destroy the logic board. I still have a 2009 MacBook Pro and it's fine, not to say that I wouldn't want a newer MacBook, though.

Btw: Get an SSD for it. Replacing the hard drive with one cut boot up time in half for me. I personally recommend Intel.


Sync Wi-Fi password from iOS to macOS? I've noticed that unlike on macOS, I can't access my Wi-Fi passwords when in iOS (only browser passwords are populated in my Settings → Safari → Passwords).

Is it possible to sync that Wi-Fi password (or all Wi-Fi passwords, doesn't matter) somehow from my iOS device to my macOS device?

Wi-Fi passwords are synchronised over iCloud Keychain and your iOS device will use stored AirPort network passwords when connecting to a Wi-Fi network. However, they do not show in Safari passwords since they are not for use in Safari. You cannot access stored Wi-Fi network passwords on iOS.


Is it too much paranoia to be suspicious of software that require a separate "Helper App"? I was out trying to find a good system monitor application and decided to give a shot to Monity, which has gotten several good reviews from respectable journals.

What bothers me is that the application that comes from the App Store is only a portion of the software. The software asks for download of a so-called Helper App for free, in order to get additional panel (which would be what I am after essentially).

There is little to no documentation why this helper app is required and the fact the fact that a portion of the software doesn't go through Apple's control doesn't give me any good vibes.

I know that Apple has certain hinders that prevent developers to reach system resources, but in most cases I have seen at least some explanation to what the helper contains by the developer. In this case there is no information on the dev homepage and I didn't get a reply to my email to the developer.

So the question is: What specific controls do apps go before they are on App Store? In other words, why would a dev choose not to deploy his/her program (or parts of it) on the App Store?

All applications sold through Mac App Store have to be sandboxed. Being in a sandbox restricts what the application can do quite a lot. For example they can not access files in folders to which you did not grant them access explicitly via the system Open File dialog. The complete sandbox documentation can be found on the Apple Developer pages, but the important thing to note is that it is very restrictive.

Having a system tool that can live in it is near impossible. Also note that Apple itself does "cheat" when it comes to the sandbox rule. For example the XCode is accessible via Mac App Store but it is not sandboxed (because it wouldn't work if it were).

In general though, sandboxing is a good thing. The only way to be really sure if an app is behaving well or not is to see if there were complaints or signs that the developer can not be trusted. Note, however, that before the Mac App Store existed all applications were distributed via other channels and most of the time things went fine.


Erase certain messages in Messages on OS X I like having the Messages app on my Mac, but I have one problem: When I delete a message thread on my iPhone, it doesn't delete from my Mac. In other words, if I delete three messages from the same person, on my phone, I see the previous messages and the later messages but not those specific ones. But on my Mac, they're all still there. And I don't see a place to delete them on my Mac the same way you delete them on the phone.

Deleting messages on an iOS device doesn't delete them from any other device.

You can remove message threads by clicking the × on the right of the contact.

You can remove individual messages by right-clicking the message and selecting Delete.


How to check for internal damage after a fall? Without taking the mac apart since I tend to break things easily. Wasn't a really huge fall about 2-4 feet. Landed upside down and no visible damage.

If your mac is running the most El Capitan (OS X 10.11.x), and was made after 2012, you can perform the Apple Hardware Test (instructions see Method 1). If the mac was made before 2012, or is not running OS X 10.8.4 or above, you will have to follow the second set of instructions I will include in this guide.

Method 1

Disconnect all cables, with exception to the power adapter (which is required to continue), keyboard, mouse, Ethernet cable, and display.
Power off your computer, then power it on using the power button located on the computer.
Press the 'D' key on the computer while starting up, but before the grey screen appears.
Wait for a minute or two, and select your language.
To perform a quick check, you may press the t button, or return.
To perform a thorough check, you must select "perform extended testing".
The status of the check will appear in the bottom right of the screen.

Method 2

See step one through step 3 in method 1.
Follow onscreen instructions.

Sources:

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH18765

https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT201257


Music Transfer from Laptop to Phone for Immediate Use When my music transferred from new macbook air to my iPhone 6 it seemed to become stored in the cloud rather than available to me on the phone when I want to play it and I am not always near wi-fi. I purposely purchased an iPhone 6 with 64k memory to avoid not being able to hear music and now it has happened anyway?

Under Settings > Music on your iPhone, what is the position of the iTunes Match and Show All Music settings? If Show All Music is off, only tracks that have been recently played or explicitly downloaded from the cloud will appear in the Music app.


MATLAB and Objective-C in Sublime Text 2 Is there a way to set Sublime Text 2 (running under OSX) so that it can identify MATLAB (.m) files and Objective-C (.m) files automatically? Meaning that ST2 would be able to differentiate between each one and apply it's special syntax highlighting rules. I have already seen this behavior in the all mighty VIM and Emacs.

You may want to have a look at /Users//Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 2/Packages/Matlab.sublime-package. It's a simple ZIP file containing a bunch of XML (Plist) files.

In the Sublime Doc for syntax definitions you'd be able to find a documentation of how to create (and edit) syntax definitions.

For an example have a look at the perl syntax definition, it contains a key named "firstLineMatch" which is not used in the Matlab syntax definition. But you could add one and create a file magic for/in your Matlab files.

Update : I just gave it a go and it doesn't seem to work. Do be fair TextMate can't do it either.

Update 2 : After some more investigation: The question about firstLineMatch came up in the Sublime Forum. The file extension is taking precedence over firstLineMatch right now. So there's not much that can be done. With firstLineMatch working you could do nice things. And this would mean that no file magic would be necessary since the syntax of Obj-C and Matlab files is different.


Photos do not show up in iTunes When my iPhone 5c is connected via lightning cable the photos are showing up on one of my macs - which has El Capitan.  The photos do  not show up on another one that has High Sierra (and it did not show up earlier when that computer was on Sierra either).

Here is what is available:

What configuration is needed to get the photos tab?

You have to disable icloud streaming photo on settings, otherwise you cannot see the photo menu below others. After disabling it you will be able to see all folders of photo


MacBook Pro: How to disable discrete GPU permanently from EFI? I'd like to disable the NVidia GTX 750M GPU on my MacBook Pro 15" (Retina, Mid 2014, Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite). I know I can use GfxCardStatus but I read I could have a more permanent solution by changing some EFI flag.
My question is:

How can I disable the discrete GPU from EFI?
I assume this is persistent across multiple reboots. I'd also want to know how to undo it if needed.

Update:
The question is basically whether the command mentioned in GfxCardStatus github issue comment here is correct or not, and how to undo it if it doesn't work.
.
An answer to this alone is a correct answer, but it'll be awesome if you can also tell me:

If you force integrated graphics in GfxCardStatus, Mac OS X (up to Yosemite at least) doesn't allow you to use multiple monitors (even though the built in Iris Pro can do it).
If I disable the discrete GPU from EFI, will macOS think that the integrated GPU is the one installed and will it let me use multiple monitors with it?

I heard that the same EFI setting is responsible for not even showing the integrated GPU to other operating systems than macOS and you have to trick it somehow to think it's macOS.
Is that true? And if yes, how to do that?

You can permanently disable discrete graphics card following next steps:

UPDATE! Try to edit NVRAM variable from Single-User mode

The procedure described in the steps 1-3 worked for me until macOS Sierra, but with the upgrade to High Sierra, I started getting a pinkish/reddish screen and I was unable to enter Recovery mode to repeat step 3 as I had to do in previous upgrades. Searching in internet, I stepped into this GitHub issue explaining you may be able to replace steps 1 and 2 with the following command, that you can execute in Single-User mode (boot pressing cmd+s):

sudo nvram fa4ce28d-b62f-4c99-9cc3-6815686e30f9:gpu-power-prefs=%01%00%00%00

1. Prepare a Bootable USB pendrive with a non GUI Linux

1.1 Download ArchLinux ISO

You need a working computer for that and a spare CD/DVD/USB drive.
Download the latest Arch Linux ISO image.
Then you could either simply burn this ISO to CD/DVD (which later could be either inserted to MBP's SuperDrive or External DVD Drive connected to MBP by two USB cables) or create a bootable USB.

1.2 Creating the bootable USB with the .iso

First, you need to identify the USB device.
Open /Applications/Utilities/Terminal in MacOS and list all storage devices:

diskutil list

Your USB device will appear as something like /dev/disk2 (external, physical). Verify that this is the device you want to erase by checking its name and size and then use its identifier for the commands below instead of /dev/diskX.
A USB device is normally auto-mounted in macOS, and you have to unmount (not eject) it before block-writing to it with dd:

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskX
Now copy the ISO image file to the device. The dd command is similar to its Linux counterpart, but notice the 'r' before 'disk' for raw mode which makes the transfer much faster:

sudo dd if=path/to/arch.iso of=/dev/rdiskX bs=1m

After completion, macOS may complain that "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer". Select 'Eject'. The USB device will be bootable.

2. Use Linux to change EFI vars

2.1 Boot to it

Insert this CD/DVD/USB to Macbook Pro, hold Option key (alt) while booting.
Choose "EFI boot" (that is your bootable installation media).
When the menu shows, press "e" key to edit the GRUB options of the Arch Linux archiso x86_64 UEFI CD menu entry while it is selected at the main screen, add nomodeset to the end of this line and press Enter.
If everything is done correctly, you will find yourself at the Linux console! (It takes some time so be patient and wait for the prompt)

2.2 Clear existing EFI vars

Looks like efivarfs filesystem is mounted by default! So you can already cd /sys/firmware/efi/efivars and ls to explore this directory and see if there is a gpu-power-prefs-... variable (where ... is UUID of this variable).

If there is such a variable, it's better to remove it with rm.

rm gpu-power-prefs-…
If you are getting the "operation not permitted" message while attempting to rm, it means that efivarfs has been mounted as read-only and you need to remount it with read-write permissions and try again:

cd /
umount /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/
mount -t efivarfs rw /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/
cd /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/
rm gpu-power-prefs-…
If this also fails (you still can’t erase the file), use chattr command to disable file immutability and then erase the file:

chattr -i "gpu-power-prefs-…”
rm gpu-power-prefs-…

2.3 Create a new gpu-power-prefs-… file

printf "\x07\x00\x00\x00\x01\x00\x00\x00" > /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/gpu-power-prefs-fa4ce28d-b62f-4c99-9cc3-6815686e30f9

2.4 Add immutability to the gpu-power-prefs-… file

This chattr command is supposed to lock a file to make it accessible only by "superuser" - and so that, while booting, your EFI will have no chance to screw up your gpu-power-prefs-... variable under any circumstances

chattr +i "/sys/firmware/efi/efivars/gpu-power-prefs-fa4ce28d-b62f-4c99-9cc3-6815686e30f9"

2.5 Unmount efivars and reboot

Change to the root directory to unmount efivars:

cd /
umount /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/

Guarantees that your EFI variables are flushed to efivarfs filesystem. Please unmount it safely before rebooting.

reboot

3 Remove AMD / NVIDIA kexts

Note: You might need to do this every time you update your OS, since it normally regenerates these kexts. You may want to favourite this answer for reference so it is accessible from another device when you need it.

After disabling the dGPU using Arch, normal boot would hang halfway but safe boot will work.

3.1 Move AMD / NVIDIA kext files to a backup directory

Remove all the AMD (or NVIDIA, depending on your card) kext files in the Terminal in Recovery Console. Trying to remove them in Single User just gives sandbox errors, so don’t do it in Single User Mode! (the one that you boot with cmd+s).

If you have FileVault, unlock it first.
Boot into Recovery (cmd+r) directly. If it fails, then repeat step 2 and retry (dGPU could get active again after booting into the os with AMD / NVIDIA kexts).
Start Terminal (This commands are for AMD. If you have NVIDIA, change accordingly)

diskutil cs list (find Logical Volume UUID: last item)
diskutil coreStorage unlockVolume UUID (UUID: from previous command)
cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD
mkdir AMD_Kexts
mv System/Library/Extensions/AMD*.* AMD_Kexts/
reboot

I found the procedure in this link, where you can read the attribution of the different sections and a discussion thread on the topic.

I tried it myself on an early 2011 MacBook Pro with a faulty discrete graphics card, that was unable to boot even with the overheating trick, and ended up with a fully functional computer!


Keeping New and Old Ipads My wife gave me a new IPad for Christmas. I want to keep the other Ipad for the use of my 6 year old daughter that has countless games on that Ipad. How I can keep applications that interest me (like QuickOffice Pro) of my old Ipad and leave the rest of the applications on the old Ipad to my daughter?

The easiest thing is to back up the old iPad to iCloud or your computer using iTunes.

Then restore the old backup onto the new iPad Air (you need to erase all content and settings to get the device clean for the restore).

When the setup asks if you have a backup, load that on the new device.

delete all apps and settings on the old iPad that should not be there.
delete all apps and settings from the new iPad that should not be there.

At that point, you can use the two separately. Look to perhaps turn off automatic downloads. At some point you can wipe the old iPad and let your daughter start buying her own apps or split things with a mix of the old Apple ID and her new Apple ID as well - you can mix purchases unlike iCloud settings.


Tweetbot marks some tweets with a blue corner Some tweets in my twitterfeed is marked with a blue upper right corner, and some kind of bookmark icon on it.

What does it mean?

It's a Tweet Marker feature.

it indicates your last read tweet.  When using another app that uses Tweet Marker, it will automatically scroll to that tweet so you know where you were.


MacOS Big Sur - how do I disable/ skip verify on opening dmg I have 2015 MBA running Catalina that at some stage in the past I managed to configure that when opening my own created dmg files (used for business data storage with encryption security) it no longer goes thru the verify process when opening - just straight to asking for the password.
So I have bought a new MBA and installed Big Sur with clean install. Now I get the verify process each time I try to open my dmg files. Tried sudo defaults write com.apple.frameworks.diskimages skip-verify TRUE but it does not work. (In fact on my 2015 MBA, this flag is not set anyway).
It is extremely time consuming to have to go thru the verify process every time I want to open (several) of my data dmg files.
In response to a comment, I have set up a service as a work around that executes an automator service using shell script:
hdiutil attach -noverify "$@"
However, I find that I need to run the service twice in order to have the dmg file appear in finder - am I doing something wrong?
Finally - are there any other alternate solutions - given diskimagemounter does NOT verify dmgs when opening in my MBA running Catalina.

sudo spctl --master-disable
Above is the line that disables gatekeeper in Terminal.
This is not a practice recommended by security experts or Apple, yet it totally disables any dmg verification.
I use third party firewalls and security tools while keeping gatekeeper off.


What are safe CPU temperatures ranges under heavy load in the unibody Macbook Pro? I noticed that under heavy CPU load, the temperature differences between the CPU and CPU heatsink are very high:

picture from iStatPro; 2.0 GHz quad-core i7 (2635QM) Sandy Bridge; Macbook Pro 8.2

That's a difference of 41°C! Is this safe? Is this normal?

When using the discrete GPU, an entry "GPU heatsink" will show up. The temperature difference between the GPU and GPU heatsink are never more than 10°C. This is why I think that the something's wrong with the CPU cooling.

I have never removed the CPU/GPU heatsink in this Macbook Pro.

This model of MacBook Pro has a totally passive heat sink, so the two temperatures you mention are on the main die / logic board and not some measure of how hot your heat sink itself is running. The only way to correct this difference would be to have a new logic board installed (or get a new CPU mounted on your logic board).

As a technician, I'm more worried when the heat sink isn't closer to ambient than to the core when stressing the CPU with constant computing load. Then, it might be worth it to crack the case and re-apply the thermal paste between the metal cover (the CPU heatsink) on the logic board and the finned device (a.k.a. the Mac heat sink part) that gets the heat from the CPU heatsink to the air flowing out the back hinge area of your Mac.

If you had a faulty CPU you should be able to expose that in a geek bench test where it would throttle itself down under premature overheating. If you still had warranty left, I would open a support ticket (visit a genius bar or call AppleCare) to document this. They can then enter your concerns and offer a logic board swap if you are out of spec. I've had good luck getting concerns on the record and having Apple cover a repair if they had the chance to cover it under warranty, chose not to, and then the device failed within a few months after warranty.


Best way to disable SSLv3 in Chrome for Poodle vulnerability Fixing Chrome for the Poodle vulnerability seems to be more difficult on OSX than the other Operating Systems

This seems to work...

Exit chrome

Open Applescript editor

Enter this script

do shell script "open -a /Applications/Google\\ Chrome.app --args --ssl-version-min=tls1"

click run.

Check on this page, (you may need to cmd + R) refresh the page.

https://www.poodletest.com/

But is there a better way, or have I missed something?

Source: How do I disable SSLv3 in Safari (OSX & iOS)

Here is a patch, which is renaming Google Chrome/Chromium inside startup file and placing a script for calling browser with --ssl-version-min=tls1 parameter. No wrapper needed.


External SSD may have failed. Options? This is my first question on AskDifferent.

I'm a photographer and have been using an external SSD to keep my Lightroom Library (develop and album metadata only, the picture files are on other devices). I usually have the SSD drive connected to a powered USB3 hub.

I am on assignment in Tanzania and a couple of days ago there was a power outage and soon after a generator was turned on. During the short outage, the laptop switched to battery power, but the USB hub lost power. After power was restored, my laptop and other external drive that were connected at the time are fine, but this crucial external SSD is not mounting anymore. Disk Utility doesn't show either the disk or volume. Plugging in/out, rebooting or shutting down do nothing. It seems to me like the SSD is "(dead?)". Any idea if there is a way to "force-recognise" the drive in case it is still working? If not, could it be that a part of the drive "got fried"? If that is the case, is it possible to somehow send it in for repair/recover to salvage the data? Unfortunately I haven't done a backup of my catalog for about 2 months, so many hours of work on the pictures and albums would be lost.

The volume is formatted as exFat (because I also use it with a video recorder that needs this formatting).

Thanks in advance for any help!

I'm assuming that you tried to connect the USB enclosure directly to your Mac to eliminate the USB hub as a point of failure.  If you haven't give that a shot as your hub may have taken the brunt of the surge

If it still doesn't work, there's a good chance that your drive may be fine but the USB to SATA interface of the enclosure got fried.

For a "quick and dirty" fix, get a USB to SATA adapter.  I keep one of these handy for doing all sorts of diagnostic work exactly for exactly the scenario you are experiencing.

This is basically a USB enclosure for your SSD without the "enclosure" part.   You will just need to open up your existing enclosure and remove the drive.  Don't worry about damaging the enclosure, right now it's dead and you're dead in the water if you can't get your data.  Just be careful not to damage the drive or the drive's SATA/power connectors.

Once you have the drive extracted and connected, you should be able to access it like you did before.

This bring us to the points that bears repeating...

Always make backups of your Lightroom catalog.  If on assignment, do it daily.  I am totally an amateur photographer and I back up my LR catalogs every time I open LR.
You learned (unfortunately) the hard way about power surges.  When that generator kicked on it probably sent a surge of current down the line.  A backup generator doesn't provide the nice, clean power you've come to expect from the utility company.  Get a quality surge protector (like APC) or better yet, get a battery backup (again, like APC) to sit between your outlet and your expensive equipment.  It's much more cost effective to have a $100 UPS die than all your equipment and work.


Bought a brand new SSD Samsung 850 evo, plugged in, restart macbook, hold option, and no disk utility screen So I bought Samsung 850 EVO, 250GB, and plugged it into my Macbook (Mid-2010, Macbook 7.1). I installed it without mounting screws, because I don't have screwdriver to unscrew the ones from the old HDD (Toshiba, 256GB). I have on a USB thumb drive (16GB) installation of El Capitan, made using DiskMaker 5. Surprisingly, when I restarted the laptop and immediately hold the Option key, nothing happens except the blue screen and a cursor on it. There is no recovery screen or anything (that was actually supposed to happen). I then replaced the SSD with my old HDD and everything works fine as before. Anyone knows what might be the problem? I will go and buy the adequate screwdriver, but I don't know which one though. WHen I try manual installation through terminal I get this message at the end of the process:

Couldn't mount dmg /Volumes/Install OS X El Capitan/Install OS X El Capitan.app/Contents/SharedSupport/InstallESD.dmg (error code 112)Mount of outer dmg failed.

Try using a different thumb drive, because it sounds like yours is broken. Do the same thing and let me know how it goes.


Add shortcut for iTerm on Mountain Lion I am trying to add shortcut for opening iTerm when I press F1. I added an application shortcut with this key but it does not work. I want to fire iTerm instantly irrespective of what application is currently running when I press F1. Any help would be appreciated.

I recently moved to mac from Linux.

Take a look at this: http://iterm.sourceforge.net/scripting.shtml
as mentioned in this solution: https://superuser.com/questions/455915/mac-os-how-can-i-launch-the-iterm-terminal-with-a-specific-profile-from-autom

It is not just creating the shortcut, you need to tell iTerm to actually "open a new terminal". Otherwise, the best you can get is to have the last active terminal to pop-up and get into focus.


iTunes "Check for Update" button puts up a dialog box asking for a file This is on Snow Leopard.

When I plug in my iPhone or iPad into iTunes and click the "Check for update" button, it puts up a dialog box asking me to choose a file. This is supposed to happen if you press option while clicking Check for Update [which I'd done once], but now it happens every time. Restarting iTunes makes no difference, and it happens both on iTunes 10.4 and 10.5.

How can I get iTunes to check with Apple for an update? Thanks.

I am on Lion but had a similar problem. Based on info here: http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#featuredarticles/FA_Deploying_iTunes/Introduction/Introduction.html , which says that 'the file selector dialog only appears only if automatic detection of iOS updates is turned off', I tried removing ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iTunes.plist.

This fixed things for me.  Quit iTunes before you do this, and move the plist file somewhere so that you can restore it if necessary. (It may be possible to change this preference setting without messing with the plist; however, I couldn't immediately spot where to do it in the UI).


How to replace fusion drive and restore MacOS? I have 2014 Mac Mini with fusion drive running Catalina. If I replace original fusion SSD with bigger one, can I restore Time Machine backup or reinstall OS?

you should go to ifixit site and look to see if they talk about replacing the drive. There are several ifixit sites devototed to the Mac Mini. One site is here.


Bypassing dead relatives Apple ID? My Auntie died unexpectedly without leaving her icloud information (pretty standard!) I've restored her ipad as I thought it would reset her passcode as I couldn't guess it but now it's asking for Apple ID. I've tried everything but I can't guess her secret info or get into her emails until I go see my grandad and get her phone (he literally lives at the other side of the country.) So now I have this ipad and my cousin has iPod touch which is acting as a paper weight. There must be a way around it as this must be a fairly common thing surely? I don't have her death certificate, there isn't a will and my grandad (next of Kin) is 86 and quite flustered about everything and he's about had enough.

Ive looked online for a bypass but no luck, as it's not reported stolen surely it can't have an anti theft lock?
Thank you

It is likely that you will need to prove to Apple what has happened. EG you are now the legal owner of the iPad and have legal access to her account.

Call Applecare and ask them what the procedure is for these circumstances. I suspect (if they can help) it may involve a death certificate, a copy of the will and a notarized letter from the executor of the estate giving you access.

But then I am guessing...


Snapping Preview windows with BetterTouchTool make search buggy I use BetterTouchTool in order to be able to maximise windows to half the screen by dragging them agains the edge of the screen. When I do this with Preview windows and then attempt to search in the document, the user interface gets messed up, so I have no Done button to get rid of the search results. See below gif for illustration. There should be a Done button at the upper right.

Can anybody confirm this weirdness? Is this a BTT bug or can I do anything myself?

If you uninstall this software does Preview behave?

It is likely an interaction with Preview and this software. And maybe something else on your system. I would suggest contacting support on this product directly.


What does nsurlsessiond transfer? nsurlsessiond makes numerous calls to apple.com over port 80. From other posts I have learned that some of this is iCloud, system updates and similar data. Is there some analysis available about what exact data is transmitted?

nsurlsessiond can be called by so many different things in different cases. You can monitor what's being downloaded using (requires SIP disabled):

sudo fs_usage -w | grep nsurlsessiond


Only display on Thunderbolt works. Camera, audio and USB ports do not Very similar problem as this question, only the display itself is working on the thunderbolt monitor (I only have one, unlike the linked question which had two) with a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013). No camera, no audio, no power to USB ports on the display. If I disconnect the thunderbolt display from the MBP, then power does go to the USB ports.

OS X 10.10.5 (14F1509)

(more details below which probably don't amount to much)

This is actually the 2nd Thunderbolt monitor I've had recently. My company exchanged out my previous one, which had similar issues. The prior Thunderbolt was fine, then one day the display would not turn on, attached devices no longer received an active charge. Power would return to USB ports if display was unplugged from the MBP. Then a day or two later, everything went back to working, but the new monitor had already shipped out.

Replacement monitor worked fine the first day, then (of course) the day I shipped back the prior one, started acting consistently as described above - display only, no camera, audio or usb power.

I tried the SMC reset steps (about three times, in case it was sensitive to pressing all 4 keys "at the same time" in just the right way). That hasn't worked.

There is a known similar issue with certain 27' Thunderbolt displays going black, and having connection issues. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204450

Can you check the firmware version of the Thunderbolt display?

Apple Menu > About this Mac > System Report > Thunderbolt (from left sidebar) > Thunderbolt Display.

The latest firmware version should be 26.2 and the latest Port Micro Firmware Version should be 2.0.7.


iPad 2 HDMI out connecter Can the iPad 2's HDMI out adapter, work on the iPhone 4 with ios4.3, as a complete mirror, rather than just video out.

Also on the iPad 2 when using the HDMI out mirror will the onscreen keyboard be displayed on the external screen?

The iPad 2's HDMI adapter works as mirror for the iPad but only as video out for the iPhone 4. Also it's only in 720p for the iPhone.

the onscreen keyboard being displayed but my best guess is yes unless your using a bluetooth keyboard.

Hope that helps.

  EDIT : it does indeed display the keyboard. When using as a mirror it will only fill the aspect ratio of the iPad but when watching a movie it will fill the screen.


How can I tell which application is using the network? Very occasionally when using my Mac, I notice my internet connection slowing down. Using Activity Monitor I can see that it's because something is downloading data at the full rate my connection can support --- but I don't know how to tell what's responsible for it. It can be caused by several different things (Dropbox syncing; some app doing an automatic update; most recently it was a video buffering in a browser tab that I'd forgotten about) so it'd be really handy to have a way to tell which app is responsible for the network use. Is such a thing possible in OS X? Ideally I'm looking for a free solution. (Command line is OK.) I'm on Snow Leopard if it makes a difference.

Firewalls
You could use Little Snitch or HandsOff. They are great firewalls and both have a "Network Monitor" feature, that will do the job:

Little Snitch includes a Network Monitor, showing detailed information of all incoming and outgoing network traffic.
A status icon in the menu bar provides a summary of current network activity, and a monitor window with more comprehensive information pops up automatically in case of new traffic events.
Hands Off is an application to monitor and control the access of applications to your network and disks. Being able to monitor the normally unnoticeable activities enables you to make informed decisions regarding the transfer of your private information, hence avoiding confidential information leakage.

The network monitors of: Little Snitch (left), HandsOff (right)
Nettop
A free and built-in cli solution (unfortunately it is not included in Snow Leopard) would be nettop. nettop groups traffic by program and port and measures various network statistics.
Other
There are few other programs, that capture and measure traffic (iftop, wireshark, tcpdump), but they don't know the originated pid. To make the connection you should use netstat.


iPhone drastically slowing down wifi Every time I connect my iPhone to the home wifi the connection slows down drastically. I don't have any uploads running neither system updates so I cannot understand what is causing this issue.

I have checked on the router if I can limit the bandwidth but this cannot be done. I have also tried to reset network settings without success.

The iPhone was bought in the states (I think) and I am using it with a wifi for th Italian market. Could this cause the problem?

Any suggestions appreciated.

You'll want to check the diagnostics offered by the router.

In some cases your router could be "beam forming" to maximise bandwidth to a single device (such as a laptop). If you have relatively bad conditions, this could be necessary to get good speeds. By bad conditions I mean for example neighbouring WiFis networks interfering, noise from other equipment, big distances between router and device or objects blocking the signal (walls for example).

If you add another device to the network, such as the iPhone, the router could be forced to stop "beam forming" because you have too many units connected or similar. That could give you worse performance on the existing units, even though the iPhone is not transmitting/receiving any actual data.


Ethernet Adapter Windows Driver - how to find for BCM5701 I am having troubles with finding driver for my Apple Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter.

I checked the version and I have a BCM5701 chip. These Broadcom drivers don't support my adapter.

I want to get it working under my second PC Lenovo X1 Carbon with Windows 10 64-bit

Where can I find drivers to this ?

This is for Windows 7, but should work for Windows 10

A quick search on the Apple Support site, I was able to find instructions on downloading the correct driver.  I have condensed them here for quick reference:

Download the Netxtreme Mobile/Desktop Driver.  It will say that it's not supported, but the .inf file does include the requisite driver entries
Unzip the drivers to a temporary folder on your hard drive (preferably your Desktop so it's easy to find)
Connect the adaptor to the thunderbolt port
Reboot Windows

Windows should automatically detect the adaptor now and install it. You may need to point the installer at the location where you unzipped the drivers.

If that doesn't work, you will need to do this through Device Manager

Go to Start > Control Panel > Hardware & Sound and open Device Manager
Click the name of your computer at the top of the device tree
Click Action at the top of the window and choose Add Legacy Hardware
Click Next
Select "Install hardware that I manually select..."
Choose Network Adaptors
Choose "Have Disk"
Browse to the location of the drivers you unzipped earlier.
Click the .inf file
Select Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet from the list of drivers available
OK and install

You may need to reboot again with the adaptor plugged into the Thunderbolt port to finish the job

Note:  Again, these instructions and driver downloads are for Windows 7.  Thought they should work with Windows 10, it is not guaranteed.

If having both OS X and Windows 10 support is important, consider getting a USB 3.0 to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter.  I have personnaly used this exact adapter on an iMac, a MacBook Pro, a Mac Mini (Dual Boot w/ Win 7) and a Surface Pro 3.


Remote dual boot, how to select OS to boot I'm installing Bootcamp ( Win7 64bit if that matters ) on my Mac Mini, since you need to pick the OS to start up while booting, how can I do this remotely?

Example:

VNC into OSX, reboot the machine, how do I select either OSX or Windows? Is there an option I can pass in while rebooting?

You can use BootChamp to quickly restart in Windows from OS X. To restart in OS X from Windows see OS X Lion - Start up using Mac OS X or Windows:

  Restart directly in Mac OS X from Windows:

  Click the Boot Camp icon in the system tray and choose “Restart in Mac OS X.”

A more tedious way is to set the startup disk to the other OS every time and then restart. From the OS X Lion - Start up using Mac OS X or Windows page linked above:

  Set the default operating system:

  Do one of the following:

  In Mac OS X, choose Apple > System Preferences and click Startup Disk.
  In Windows, choose Boot Camp Control Panel from the Boot Camp system tray item.

  Select the startup disk with the operating system you want to use by default.
  If you want to start up that operating system now, click Restart.

The Apple support page for OS X Mountain Lion - Start up using Mac OS X or Windows contains the same instructions for OS X Mountain Lion.


How do I edit current shell command in VI I have seen in blogs on Linux machines you can edit the current bash shell command in VI (or whatever the EDITOR is set to) by pressing ctrl-x,ctrl-e.

This doesn't seem to work on 10.8.  Any ideas on how to edit the current bash command in the default editor?

You want set -o vi (add it to your ~/.bashrc). Then, to edit the current line, just hit Esc to enter command mode.

See http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bashref.html#Readline-vi-Mode

To edit the current command in a full-screen editor, set your VISUAL environment variable to vim (I assume you want vim), then in command mode in the current comment, hit v.

To show the mode in the prompt:

$ cat ~/.inputrc
set editing-mode vi
set show-mode-in-prompt on
set vi-ins-mode-string +
set vi-cmd-mode-string :


What process handles Force Touch? The Force Touch (URL previews and word definisions) of the trackpad of my MacBook Pro 13" TouchBar often stops working and it works again after a reboot, but I'd like to find a quicker way to make it work again.

What's the process that handles Force Touch on macOS? Then I could try to kill it and see if it works again after restarting.

I did not find the process, but I found out that if the force touch issue is limited to Safari, just restarting it fixed the issue in my case. I guess having multiple days of uptime does have some drawback once in a while.


I don't have administrator account on my mac On my mac I have 2 accounts and the both are normal account. So in this moment I don't have a Administrator account, only one that was in the past a administrator, but now is not.

How I can have again a Administrator account?

You can create a new administrator account by restarting the Setup Assistant:

Boot into Single User Mode: Start/restart your Mac. As soon as you hear the startup tone, press and hold ⌘ + S until you see a black screen with white lettering. (If you end up back on the login screen after a flash of the black screen with white lettering, enter your password and it will return to the black screen.)
Check and repair the drive by typing /sbin/fsck -fy then ↩ enter - as directed by the on-screen text.
Mount the drive as read-write by typing /sbin/mount -uw / then ↩ enter.
Remove the Apple Setup Done file by typing
rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone then ↩ enter.
Reboot by typing reboot then ↩ enter.
Complete the setup process, creating a new admin account.

Note that this may result in the new account being logging in automatically when the system is restarted, replacing whatever account may have been set to automatically log in previously. If you need to retain access to the original account without knowing its password, this may mess that up.


How to partition External HD for both Time Machine and other purposes? I have retina MacBook Pro with 256GB and a 1TB external HD.

That external 1TB hard drive I want to use for several things, one of them is to backup my system.

Is it possible to partition using Disk Utility the 1TB external HD, so that I can use the external HD for some other things?
If so, what is the size of the Time Machine partition I need to create?

You can make the partitions any size you want. The larger you make it, the more backups you can save. TM deletes the oldest backups when it needs more space. You can also define what you backup in TM options. I don't like the methodology, but it takes the approach to back up everything.

You have to exclude things for which you don't need backups. For example, you may not want to back up the System itself. You may not want to backup some apps - where you can reload the installers.

Basically, you want to backup only stuff that you don't want to lose. So documents, images, music, work, etc.

If you have a 100GB of that stuff, you may want to make a 200GB partition. Then, other than a full backup of this data, TM has 100GB to make incremental backups of things you create or change.

I hope this helps. From your question, it appears that you know how to partition the disk so I did not go into that. Let us know if you need more on that.


Choppy audio playback on Chrome I just got a Macbook air, and I am noticing that audio playback on Chrome is noticeably choppy (e.g. when watching a Youtube video).

Audio playback is great on iTunes and Safari, but not in Chrome. Any ideas on how to fix it?

I know this was from a while ago, but I had a similar issue and stumbled across this temporary fix. By default, Chrome launches with the wrong audio buffer rate. You can manually set it to the right one by launching Chrome through terminal, but that's a pain in the butt to do every time. So you can create a shortcut with automater to do it for you:

Open Automater
Choose "Application"
Search for "Run Shell Script"
Drag the "Run Shell Script" action into the place to the left
Paste the following into the Run Shell Script text box:

open /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app --args --audio-buffer-size=2048

Then just save that application, quit chrome, and open it to start chrome with the right buffer.

NOTE: I've noticed that this only works for a while. If you, for example, close your laptop and open it back up, the audio may not work correctly again. No idea why.


Favorite list of servers of "Connect to Server" window disappears Usually, when I connect to a server (cmd "⌘" + K), I can see the list of my favorite servers :

But after upgrading to El Capitan (Mac OS 10.11.X) and after freshly booting my MacBook, this list sometimes disappears and I can't add a new server to it ("+" button doesn't works) :

Does anyone have a similar problem and knows how to resolve it?

I had this problem too. Here's how I fixed it: delete the folder ~Library/Application Support/com.apple.sharedfilelist/ and then use Activity Monitor to kill the sharedfilelistd process belonging to your user. Then I relaunched Finder for good measure. Works now!


In-App Purchases - How can I know who did the charge-back? App purchases and in-app purchases can be cancelled with charge-back if you send a message to iTunes Store Support within a time frame of a few days and provide them a good reason.

I'd like to know if is possible to know what Apple-ID or User did the charge-back.

Take the following behavior of an User. (you in this case means the app developer):

User makes a $99 in-app purchase and receive YYY 'Gold Coins';
User buys in-app stuff using the 'Gold Coins' (Potion, cards, whatever);
User receives the items and requests a charge-back;
Apple accepts the request and gives user the $99 back;
Apple informs you that you received a charge-back, but does not specify anything related to user like device's UDID, account or anything;
Without user info, you can't remove the in-game items user got through the purchased coins;
User shares this behavior with other users;
Everyone does the same;

What will happen? Game/app 'economy' becomes hell and you get nothing.

So, is there any secret way (or a not so simple to notice option that I've missed somewhere) on iTunes Connect that allows you to know WHO did that so you can act properly by removing the items/cash/whatever (or even temp/perma ban if the behavior continues)?

You are not privy to customer details from any of Apple's App stores unless you are selling a subscription and the user opts in to sharing data.

Other than requiring the users to make an account to play and working within Apple's UUID / temporary device ID framework, you have no realistic way to determine who is spending money or who is asking Apple for a refund.

Have your lawyer (or you if you're the business person responsible for agreements) look over the terms and conditions that explain when you do and do not get customer data.

Barring that, you can always open a support ticket with developer support since you are a paid developer to ask them to look into any patterns of unusual sales for your specific application. When there is a problem, I've found them to be very helpful in sorting out what's proper and how to adjust things to fit the App Store rules into your business model.


How can I see how long my computer has been active (as in not idle) I've seen a variety of solutions to check how long my machine has been idle, and I know I can check how long since last reboot with uptime, but I'm curious if there's a way to see how long since my computer was last idle. Maybe since the last time the power save settings kicked in, or last time since the screensaver turned on / monitor turned off, etc?

I'm fine using an applescript or shell command to determine this, if those are the best solutions.

You can also find the idle time in UNIX by running

ioreg -c IOHIDSystem

And looking for the returned HIDIdleTime

Or you could run a shell script on idle like so, just call it every 30 seconds or so using LaunchD. Make sure to put the launchd xml file in /Library/LaunchDaemons so it runs even when no user is logged in, or /Library/LaunchAgents/ if you only want it to run when someone is logged into the machine.

#!/bin/bash
idl=$"`ioreg -c IOHIDSystem | awk '/HIDIdleTime/ {print int($NF/1000000000); exit}'`"
idletime="600"
if [ $idl -gt $idletime ]; then
#Your
#Code
#Here
fi


SSH to a device that connects to the internet via shared LAN I have a Raspberry Pi connected to my Macbook Pro with a LAN cable.
The network from my Mac is shared with the Raspberry Pi through this cable.

Is it possible to ssh from my Mac to the Raspberry Pi through the LAN connection?

Yes, this is possible. It depends on the network addresses you assigned the mac and the Raspberry Pi. For example, if your mac has one interface (en0) on one IP range and the other interface (en1) on another, you can log in via the connection (either en0 or en1) that is on an accessible network.

In my case, I can reach my home computer via a port forward from the internet. This is done by using a router that allows me to forward specific ports to specific internal IP addresses.

 -> (port 22 ssh) -> <172.16.0.5:22>

So, once I'm on my internal machine <172.16.0.5> I can then ssh to a machine connected to my machine via the en1 (wireless network) say 192.168.0.5

So, if you set up a connection from your mac to your raspberry pi on a private network, you can just ssh to your main machine and then to the private ip.


Crazy battery numbers I'm getting crazy battery numbers in my ancient (but fully operational) PowerBook G4 2005 running Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.11. The battery is very nearly shot. The numbers reported by coconutBattery also reported by System Profiler.
How can I reset those crazy Maximum Battery Charge and Current Battery Capacity to actual numbers?
I've removed the battery and done a SMC reset with no change.

I would look for a different app. It may be hard to find one for your system. Several I looked at were for newer system versions than you have. You can try the Edurance app which supposedly has options to increase battery life or use an increased speed of your mac. The downside is that this app is $20.00.  That's a lot to pay when many apps for battery life are free. They supposedly have a free trial. There was no minimum system given for this app so it may run on 10.4.
There is also a way to determine the number of cycles your battery has used. The instructions are given here. In this link, there are other links to determine the maximum cycles your battery has before it needs a battery replacement. Once you determine how many cycles your battery has you can go to one of the links and see if it includes your model.


How do I update the Mac Pro (2013)'s display drivers under Windows? I'm trying to run the HTC Vive setup software (yes, I'm aware the Mac Pro's GPUs are underpowered for VR; I've got an external GPU enclosure on its way, and am trying to do some initial room setup and installation while I wait.); but I'm getting the following error when I attempt to launch ViveSetup.exe:

Failed to create OpenGL context for format QSurfaceFormat(version 2.0, options QFlags(), depthBufferSize 24, redBufferSize -1, greenBufferSize -1, blueBufferSize -1, alphaBufferSize -1, stencilBufferSize -1, swapBehaviour 2, swapInterval 1, profile 0). This is most likely caused by not having the necessary graphics drivers installed.
Install a driver providing OpenGL 2.0 or higher, or, if this is not possible, make sure the ANGLE Open GL ES 2.0 Emulation libraries (libEGL.dll, libGLESv2.dll, and d3dcompiler_*.dll) are available in the application executable's directory or in a location listed in PATH.

Does anyone know how I can upgrade the drivers for Apple's AMD FirePro D700 (which appear to be at "FireGL V") to something supporting OpenGL 2.0?

use at your own risk but bootcampdrivers.com may have a solution for you...


my Mac and my iPhone show wrong time zone I set my Mac to receive the date and time from time.europa.apple.com, and my iPhone is set to find a time zone automatically. But they both show me incorrect time. one hour later. Well,  I live in St-Petersburg, Russia, and some years ago we had this "timezone changing", to not differ from Europe, but later we returned back to the previous. So is the Apple server set up incorrect, or do I have to change something?

The server has nothing to do with the time zone. It supplies the time in UTC+0, and it is up to your devices to use their knowledge of your time zone to work out what the time is where you are. For your Mac, in the Date & Time preferences, check where your Mac 'thinks' it is:

The same applies for your iPhone:

If it is identifying you as being in the wrong time zone, or if the time zone is correct but the time is wrong, I suggest setting your time zone to St Petersburg manually, and seeing if that fixes the problem. I just tried setting my time to St Petersburg manually, and it appeared to be the correct time, so I don't think Apple's information about Russia's time zones is out of date.


Is there an alternative to Dropbox which has an smaller CPU overhead Ok, this is not necessarily strictly Mac, however it does affect my Macs differently.

I have an 5 years old iMac which is ok with Dropbox running all the time, while my brand new MBP (2017) struggle with Dropbox's CPU overhead (struggles is an exaggeration but it does get the fan running at full blast most of the time). I'm a heavy user and have the higher plan, which means there are some files that are constantly being modified, yet I find it extremely annoying to have it happening.

Is there an alternative which uses less resources?

This annoyed me too so I built Rsync Client.  It's like an FTP app but uses rsync, and it only runs when you invoke it, so it's not relentlessly chewing resources. It works with many backend storage service providers, so you control where your data goes.


Any suggestions for an ultra-lightweight spreadsheet-like application? Does anyone have a suggestion for an ultra-light spreadsheet application which is very fast and snappy?

I do most of my deep analysis using advanced statistical programs and I manipulate small-to-medium sized text files using an editor like TextWrangler. However, I occasionally want to put small amounts of data, like from a csv file or cutting and pasting data from an HTML table, into a spreadsheet for some quick manipulation.

Under Windows I used to just fire up Excel, but the Mac version of excel is painfully sluggish for this task and Numbers or OpenOffice are not much better. Plus it takes forever for Open/Neo-Office to fire up, when all I want to is a very quick task.

Are there any lightweight applications made for this task? No charting functionality, no advanced computational features, just a number grid with very simple calculations. Basically, the TextWrangler/Textastic equivalent of Word/Pages/NeoOffice but for grid data.

Not sure if anything will ever beat Excel for Windows XP.

But I think Google Spreadsheets are a close second. Zippy enough without all the graphics and sluggishness of Numbers / Excel for Mac.

Then again, it runs in your browser.

HTH.


Macbook Pro Retina (mid-2014) shutdowns with -128 code I have a Mid 2014 Macbook Pro, which was just serviced at Apple (battery replacement). While they were replacing the battery they cocked up the main board with CPU, RAM etc and replaced that for free. Here I thought - nice service, I got my old CPU/RAM replaced, almost like new my Macbook! :D
Obvisouly in the shop no issues were present for the n-minutes I examined it. Home, under a week of usage, started shutting down in a most peculiar way:

Screen goes black, but still remains backlit for 30 or so seconds.
Then the laptop fully shuts down

No apparent reason was found. So I went throught SMC and the memory reset procedures - no luck. Apples startup diagnostics alaso did not show anything.
Looking at shutdown logs I get latest a kernel panic with code -128 (RAM issues?):
kernel: (AppleSMC) Previous shutdown cause: -128
So I wonder wtf is actually happening. I manage to write this entry while in safe mode, could it be a software issue still? Not likely installing unreal engine and quixel mixer caused the cockup... But am at a loss if -128 can influence that in any way.
Any tips? (Not sure if Apple provides warranty on repairs in case it is an actual RAM issue)

Here is a post suggesting disabling the Thunderbolt Ethernet Driver solves the issue.
Another post suggests the nocrashmbp utility which says 2013-2015 MacBook Pros are susceptible:

The CPU has several power states and voltages.  Some CPUs have become unstable at the extremely low voltage on one of it's cores.   The CPU will sometimes briefly dip into that power state, and if it happens to be on the core wherein it is unstable you will see the “silent” crash.  Screen goes black, a few seconds later it dies completely.  This condition was observed with external test equipment, as well as through internal cpu voltage monitoring.


iPhone 5 all outgoing calls fail I have an iPhone 5 which I purchased (from India) in Nov 2012 and now it is out of warranty. I found an old SIM Card, which I purchased from Singapore when I was visiting that country, and put it inside my phone just to check if it still works or not.

I asked my friends to call me on that number, they could hear the phone ringing tone but my phone was not ringing so after that I switched back to my local SIM which was working before.
Now I am unable to make any calls from my number, all outgoing calls fail immediately with a "Call Failed" message and I can hear 2 beeps. I can receive Incoming calls, send and receive texts and can browse the internet using 3G data connection on the same SIM.

I tried the my local SIM in other phone and it works perfectly fine which confirms that there's no issue with the service provider.
I Tried some other local SIM in my iPhone 5, that doesn't work either.

This is definitely some issue with my iPhone 5. What could the issue be?
I am really worried because it is out of warranty now.

Another solution I found to this problem:

Open Settings -> Phone -> Show Caller ID

It'll take some seconds to load the and show a loading indicator, after that is done the phone will be able to make and receive calls


How can I put the folder containing my iCloud documents in the Finder sidebar? iCloud documents live in ~Library/Mobile Documents. But if I try to drag said folder to the Finder sidebar, I get a "do not enter" sign, and it won't add. How can I put my iCloud documents folder in the Finder Sidebar?

First, make an alias to the ~/Library/Mobile Documents folder. Then, drag the alias to the sidebar.


Time Machine offers to erase disk data (format), will it delete all my partitions? So, I'm trying to perform my Macbook backup on my 3TB drive. This drive is currently has a GPT table with 4 partitions:

BackupMain
BackupKubuntu
BackupWindows
BackupMac

Before BackupMain, there are 3 free MiB, before BackupMac there are free 256 MiB and after BackupMac there are other free 256 MiB (I read around 128 MB were required after partitions, so for safety I wasted 512 MiB! :P )

BackupMain is NTFS, BackupKubuntu is EXT4, BackupWindows is NTFS, BackupMac is ExFAT, I thought it was usable but looks like I need to format to hfs.

Now, Disk Utility from OSX gets stuck (probably due to the Ext4 partition which it's not detected correctly). I need to replace BackupMac with a proper partition that can be used for Time Machine.

What command line should I use? I currently found Create new partition in unallocated space with diskutil but it's a bit complicated because it's not my specific usecase (and doesn't say how to delete a partition first)
If I use Time Machine to "Erase Disk", will it actually erase it or only the specified partition? Because the dropdown menu asks me to choose a partition, but then says "delete disk"
Time Machine uses the same stuff as Disk Utility? Not interested in getting stuck, I prefer command line tools if that's the case

Look at Erase a volume under EXAMPLES in the diskutil man page.

diskutil eraseVolume HFS+ UntitledHFS /Volumes/SomeDisk

In this case the command line you'll probably want to use is:

diskutil eraseVolume HFS+ BackupMac /Volumes/BackupMac

However check that the command line is formatted as needed before executing it.

I tested this on a 2 volume disk and it only touched the 1 targeted volume leaving the other intact and the target reformatted HFS+, which is what you want for the Time Machine backup.

Note: It may need to unmount all volumes on the disk so make sure nothing is open on the other volumes before hand.  While it may unmount the other volumes not to worry as it will only erase and reformat the target volume and remount upon completion.


How do Mac file imports from SD cards work when the option is set to delete after import? My uncle recently imported files from his SD card and there were serious errors. I have no idea WHY that's occurred, but the videos I took are once in a lifetime. I shot on .MOV format, but the card also contained some other Nikon camera format.

Images taken on both the Nikon and the Canon were imported. But he says that there was some problem with the videos. He mentioned "convert" and "mpeg4". I asked him what the net size after import was, and he said 20 MB. That's impossible even if conversion occurred because the videos are, in their basic format, at least a few gigabytes.

So did my Mac import, then delete those SPECIFIC files or did it format the whole thing?

There are many programs that will import photos from a memory card, so you might want to get more information so that people don't have to guess.

Image Capture imports images and then once they are verified - deletes only the files. This deletion is easily reversed with run of the mill "camera card software" that recovers deleted files. See https://www.prosofteng.com/picture-rescue-2/ for one example of that.

The other Apple software generally works the same (iMovie, iPhoto) - but if these photos are really irreplaceable - you could get a professional quote to recover the files and interview your uncle to understand what he did or look over the Mac to see what software is installed and rule out something that would reformat the drive.


connecting a LAN printer while using the 3G network I have set up a point of sale station using a 3G iPad. I have a LAN printer that connects to a WiFI router that doesn't have an Internet connection. I want to use the 3G to connect to the Internet while being connected to the router's WiFi network for printing. It seems on the iPad the WiFi connection prioritises  over the 3G dropping my Internet connection. Is there a way I can make this work for me?

No, this cannot be done.

The WiFi and the 3G connections can't be brought up at the same time on an iPad.

You could turn on WiFi when you need to print and get back to 3G after that, or use a service such as Google Cloud Print to print documents from the Internet.

The Google Cloud Print solution requires a computer connected to the Internet and to the printer.


iPhone 6, iOS 11 boot loop/restore bar loop I have a problem with my iPhone 6. It randomly went off, and when I tried to power it on again it became stuck on boot loop (Apple logo is displayed, going black, and Apple logo is displayed again) over and over. I've done some research, and I tried all solutions, such as restoring the phone via iTunes, ReiBoot, and other similar software everything goes fine, but when progress bar is displayed on the phone, it stuck, and it is not moving at all.

I don't have any idea what more I can do more...

Now that you have confirmed an Error 9 message with iTunes, I can say with certainty that you're NAND IC (that is the chip that has all of the data) is corrupted. This requires removing the NAND and reprogramming it with a specialized tool like this one, reballing the IC and then re-soldering back into place. This will mean that you will lose all of your data so hopefully you have a backup of the data.

This is not a DIY repair, you will need to find a repair shop that does micro-soldering repairs.


Pages 5.1 underlines some words as misspelled, but does not allow me to "Ignore/Learn Spelling" I am using Pages 5.1. When I misspell words, spellchecker underlines them in red. I am usually able to either "Ignore Spelling" or "Learn Spelling" when I right-click the word:

But for some words, those options do not appear despite spellchecker underlining them in red:

This can be particularly annoying when I use recurring names. Why can't I "Ignore Spelling" or "Learn Spelling" on these words? And is there a way to fix it?

I create technical papers, and many words are not recognized by spellchecker. Some words can be learned using control-click but most can't be used at all until added to the dictionary. This is very annoying and time-consuming.

The one things that helps me add words is to use the arrow cursor keys to move the insertion point to the end of the word or past the space and then back a space to "jog" the software into letting you add the word.

If that fails, quitting the app or restarting is sometimes effective.


Can't access entirely shared HDD on Windows Server So i have a whole entire network on windows, with a WS2012 R2 installed as Domain Controller, a few hiccups here and there but everything is working

I recently added a 6tb disk, and shared it all, it's pretty much their profiles disk.

Thing is, the mac in question, can't access that folder

It acesses everysingle other shared folder, no problem (he's the owner, so admin account) but that folder, it just can't.

It says it can't find the "can’t be opened because the original item can’t be found"

EDIT :

So more info on the problem.

I have 4 disks
Boot/Win
DATA
Production
Backups

There are multiple folders on DATA that are shared and the Mac acess it without problem.
Recently we formated the PRODUCTION folder and fixed loose folders leaving only 6 folders

Production/a
Production/b
...

We then shared the HDD with EVERYONE.

Now the problem

The windows machines have no problem accessing that share and the sub folders, but the Mac just wont connect.

Is it a ntfs problem? If so why does it acess the DATA hdd without problems? I tried to install fuse but don't know what to do after installing it

Is it a shared the HDD problem? Should I share the inside folders instead?

To mention the Production folder is a 3tb folder ntfs gpt

Accessing Window's shares on macOS is actually pretty simple but you must follow a couple of Windows login rules.

Set a username and password for the account you want to access the drive on that Windows server and give it the appropriate permissions on that server. It sounds like it should be in the Administrators group, but your choice.
When you connect to the PC from your Mac and it asks for a username and password you must "Fully Qualify" the username like this: [DOMAIN] \ [USERNAME]

I am assuming here that you are using an AD Domain account to access the Windows server which is Microsoft best practices for a Windows DC. For example.
Say I have a server in an AD (Active Directory) Domain and the domain is called "Americas." I would create the user I want in the Americas domain and give that account the appropriate permissions on the server in question. If we assume my AD username is "stevec" and my password is "123456" then I would log onto that server like this:

Username: americas\stevec
Password: 123456

For completeness sake if you need to access a server (or really any Windows PC) that is not in a domain you preface your username with the name (formerly called the NETBIOS name) of the PC on the network, a backslash, and then your username on that PC.


How do I close cfprefsd so that I can update Flash on mavericks I have downloaded the Flash 12 updater and tried to run the update. The updater complains that I need to close cfprefsd.

When I force quit cfprefsd though the Activity Monitor, it restarts it's self. I tried shutting down all my applications that were running, but this also caused cfprefsd to restart after force quit via Activity Monitor.

I have googled this with out many helpful results.

Any suggestions?

Software  OS X 10.9.1 (13B3116)

There are actually two cfprefsd processes running. One is the daemon owned by root and the agent owned by the logged in user.

If you kill both then the agent will respawn, notice the missing daemon and get it respawned.

If you just kill the daemon it takes a while to respawn so you should be able to run the updater.

At the command line :-

ps ax | grep cfprefsd

which will list the two processes with the process ID in the left column -

7308   ??  S      0:00.05 /usr/sbin/cfprefsd agent
7365   ??  Ss     0:00.02 /usr/sbin/cfprefsd daemon

so then

sudo kill -9 7365 and enter your password when prompted.

or whatever the PID is and quickly run the updater.

Why Adobe thinks it needs to have this process out of the way is a question for another day but Adobe updaters are known for their quirks.


Reminders: repeat reminder based on date last completed I'd like to be able to add custom repeat periods for Reminders starting from the date / time I last completed the item.

eg. Service Car: Repeats 3 months after last completion

Is there a way to do this?

I’ve been waiting for this feature for years, and Apple never adds it. Useful for so many things: If I want to get a haircut every 6 weeks, but I’m late getting it by a week or two when I’m busy, I still want to wait 6 weeks before I get another haircut after that.

The point of Reminders is that I can record them and stop thinking about them. If I have to say to myself, “oh, it’s not time yet for a haircut because I just got one 4 weeks ago”, that’s having to remember it.  Or if have to adjust the Reminder, that’s more effort than I should have to put into it.

So I’ve been using GoodTask for about 2 years now, simply because it offers “Repeat after completion”.


What is this green symbol on the touch bar? I've seen this green symbol on the touch bar of a MacBook Pro, as shown in the image below. I have no idea what it could mean or what it signifies.

Some details about it:

It only comes on when the touch bar is "asleep", in that there isn't anything else displayed on the touch bar. Activating the touch bar makes it go away.
It appears to be three toned.
I cannot interact with it. Touching it does nothing.
Sometimes it flashes. The rate of flashing is variable and doesn't seem tied to anything sensible that I can find.
It is right next to the power button at the end of the touch bar.

Some details about the computer:

13-inch, 2018 MacbookPro
Running macOS Catalina, 10.15.3

Any ideas?

This is no icon or a symbol but rather a hardware error.

The greeninsh flashing rectangle next to the TouchID button has been recognized as sign of a faulty Touch Bar in several cases:

Video:

Guide to AppleCare for Mac & Overnight Shipping (title is misleading!)

Online Forums:

Flashing Touch Bar rectangle (text only)
2017 MBP touchbar flashing issues (text, the pics and videos linked in the thread don't work for me)
little white box on touch bar when macbook pro is asleep. anyone know what it is? (the issue was reinterpreted as a "feature": It’s your sleep notification light)


MacBook Air Running super slow after Catalina update My MacBook Air(13-inch, Early 2015) 8GB RAM is running macOS Catalina 10.15.2.
Now the mac is Super Slow and booting time is consistently 90 seconds +.

Every app that I open the rainbow cursor comes up.

I cannot multi-task, open multiple tabs on chrome else it hangs and slows down. The Netflix, YouTube and any video I am playing is running with a slight lag and it is not smooth as it was previously.

I have done resetting the SMC and PRAM reset and still no improvement.

How can I improve the performance?

Step one is to open Activity Monitor and check if your drive is IO bound.

Next, once you're sure you're not waiting for storage to do work (by letting Spotlight and iCloud and all the expected programs to finish their work), then look at which programs are taking energy and finally look at the CPU to see what processes are busy.

After a day or two post install and letting the system clean up, it should be substantially faster or you should be able to razor focus on specific apps that are tripping up your Mac. We're seeing excellent performance after upgrading to Mojave and now Catalina across the board on our fleet of Macs. Comment or ask a follow on question if you need more help with pinpointing your blocking process or app.


Clicking on external link opens a tab in wrong Chrome window The setup

2 monitors are connected to my Mac Pro 4.1 running El Capitan 10.11.4
Monitor 1 is a desktop monitor
Monitor 2 is a TV
My default browser is set to Chrome (Version 46.0.2490.71 (64-bit))

How I use the computer

I usually have multiple Chrome windows opened at the same time. At least a window for each monitor, but sometimes more.
When I'm watching movies/tv-shows and other entertainment stuff i use the tv and use the Chrome-window on the tv for stuff related to entertainment.
The desktop monitor is used for school/work stuff and researching different things, so i use the Chrome window there for that kind of stuff.

Problem scenario

Now lets say I have a Powerpoint slideshow or an email with a link in on the desktop monitor, and I click  that link, then a new tab would sometimes be created in the wrong Chrome window on the tv, even though i just used the desktop monitor Chrome window.

How I normally work around the problem (in a less than optimal way)

I normally resolve it by right-clicking the Chrome Dock-icon -> Settings -> "assign to Desktop on monitor x", which will move all the Chrome windows to monitor x. But it's becoming a bit annying because i would have to setup the window size everytime i do this.

So I'm wondering if someone in here knows of a better solution to open windows in the "current" Chrome window.

Links are opened in the newest window, so the solution would be to open your media Window and move it to the TV first, then open another window for other things on your main display.

EDIT: When it comes to preference, I too wish there was a way to change this behavior. Opening in the most recently focused window makes sense to me.


How can I keep a macbook running when the display is closed? I bought a macbook pro retina 13" few days ago. I have never had a mac before and I don't know where can I set the computer to keep running when I close the display.

The laptop came with os x 10.8.4.

Any help?

If you have an external display, then just closing the lid generally works.

Apple calls this "closed clamshell" mode or closed display mode.

But if you only have the macbook, and you want to be able to close the lid without sleep, for instance to move it from one class to another at school without having to use sleep etc, then it's more tricky.

One option it to enable internet sharing in Preferences, this requires the OS to stay running in case anyone wants to connect, but it does potentially leave you open to unwanted connections.

Another way is to run an app like NoSleep to do the hard work for you, it's free - check the link.

But there is no simple setting for doing this built into the OS.


Why does Apple's website break with 2o7.net blocked? I have an /etc/hosts block on 2o7.net and it seems that Apple's metrics.apple.com is a DNS alias for 2o7. When navigating apple.com with Chrome or Safari, I get the following:

Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 404 (Not Found)
http://metrics.apple.com/b/ss/appleglobal,appleusmac,appleusmacbookpro/1/H.…er%3BQuickTime%20Plug-in%207.7.1%3BSharePoint%20Browser%20Plug-in%3B&AQE=1

Whenever I get this message Javascript seems to break and pretty much even link on the site is ignored. I'm not sure if this is a browser bug.

I don't want to unblock 2o7.net but would obviously like the site to work. Any ideas?

dig metrics.apple.com gives

;; ANSWER SECTION:
metrics.apple.com.  4107    IN  CNAME   appleglobal.112.2o7.net.
appleglobal.112.2o7.net. 249    IN  A   66.235.133.14
appleglobal.112.2o7.net. 249    IN  A   66.235.138.2
...

so you could try to dynamically update your hosts file every hour or so:

grep -v metrics.apple.com /etc/hosts > /tmp/raw-hosts
echo $(dig metrics.apple.com |
       grep ^appleglobal |
       head -1 | cut -c 35-) metrics.apple.com appleglobal.112.2o7.net >> /tmp/raw-hosts
mv /tmp/raw-hosts /etc/hosts


Applescript : refer to an app from a variable I sometime use Safari, sometime Safari Technology Preview,
I was thinking that would be nice to just refer it once in a variable a bit like this

set SafariBuild to "Safari Technology Preview"

tell application SafariBuild to ¬
    do JavaScript ¬
        "document.querySelectorAll(\"[class=\\\"icon-chevron-left\\\"]\")[0].click();" in tab 2 of window 1

Obviously that's not working, but is there something in the same spirt that would refer to an app without changing all the tell application ?

As already mentioned in a comment by red_menace, "The target for the tell statement is needed at compile time."; however, here is an alternative method:

Example AppleScript code:

set SafariBuild to "Safari Technology Preview"

if (SafariBuild's contents = "Safari") then
    tell application "Safari" to do JavaScript ¬
        "document.querySelectorAll(\"[class=\\\"icon-chevron-left\\\"]\")[0].click();" in tab 2 of window 1
else if (SafariBuild's contents = "Safari Technology Preview") then
    tell application "Safari" to do JavaScript ¬
        "document.querySelectorAll(\"[class=\\\"icon-chevron-left\\\"]\")[0].click();" in tab 2 of window 1
end if

Or you could use choose from list, as in this example AppleScript code:

choose from list {"Safari", "Safari Technology Preview"}
if result is not false then
    set SafariBuild to result as text
else
    return
end if

if (SafariBuild's contents = "Safari") then
    tell application "Safari" to do JavaScript ¬
        "document.querySelectorAll(\"[class=\\\"icon-chevron-left\\\"]\")[0].click();" in tab 2 of window 1
else if (SafariBuild's contents = "Safari Technology Preview") then
    tell application "Safari Technology Preview" to do JavaScript ¬
        "document.querySelectorAll(\"[class=\\\"icon-chevron-left\\\"]\")[0].click();" in tab 2 of window 1
end if

Note: The example AppleScript code is just that and does not contain any error handling as may be appropriate. The onus is upon the user to add any error handling as may be appropriate, needed or wanted. Have a look at the try statement and error statement in the AppleScript Language Guide. See also, Working with Errors.


safari cannot play audio in wikipedia The safari in my iPhone 6 can not play audio file in Wikipedia,  for example, the following picture shows a audio file one a Wikipedia page but I cannot play it. what's wrong with it and how to fix it?

Actually, Wikipedia provided solutions for this, Wikipedia:Media help (audio and video)

  It is highly recommended that you use a program which is capable of playing both Vorbis audio and Theora video since these two different media formats are often in the same digital container format, Ogg.


OSX Window server vulnerabilities on catalina This question will be a long one, as I have given lot of time in doing research and also I have attached all my research in the question itself.
The window server/ display server used on linux is X11, on which OSX's window server XQuartz (now almost deprecated) was based on. Recently it was discovered in 2013 that this X11 has a very big vulnerability. article here.
The above article mentions the following

For those that don't know, X was originally designed and released in
1985 and X11 in 1987. X.org replaced X11 and was originally released
April 6, 2004. When X was originally conceived, the computing world
was in a completely different state. Both X and X.org lack a few very
important security features that are critical for modern era usage and
hardware:

All X applications have access to everything on your screen
All X applications can register to receive every keystroke, regardless of which window said keystrokes are typed within
Applications such as browsers can be remotely controlled such that keystrokes can be forged as if the user were typing them
The xhost + option can completely disable any security on the display

Older XQuartz (used by apple) was very much based on this X11, and hence these vulnerabilities were also there on MacOS.
XQuartz official website mentions the following

The XQuartz project is an open-source effort to develop a version of
the X.Org X Window System that runs on OS X. Together with supporting
libraries and applications, it forms the X11.app that Apple shipped
with OS X versions 10.5 through 10.7.

In 2017, apple made a shift away from this XQuartz as the main display server/ window server as mentioned here.

About X11 for Mac
X11 is no longer included with Mac, but X11 server and client
libraries are available from the XQuartz project.
Apple created the XQuartz project as a community effort to further
develop and support X11 on Mac. The XQuartz project was originally
based on the version of X11 included in Mac OS X v10.5. There have
since been multiple releases of XQuartz with fixes, support for new
features, and additional refinements to the X11 experience. Apple is a
contributor to the XQuartz project and has worked to ensure that X11
works as expected with macOS and latest available versions of XQuartz.
X11 server and client libraries for macOS are available from the
XQuartz project at www.xquartz.org. Download the latest version
available.

Currently apple uses the following mentioned in this answer from 2016 (almost 4 years old) which is also valid today as mentioned here on apple's website.
My question now; Is this mentioned technology, currently used by apple still as vulnerable as the X11 on major linux distros? Is the freely accessing other running apps' data and keystrokes vulnerability still there today or has it been solved?

Apple does not use X11 or XQuartz in any way. It's an entirely third-party app, created to run the X windows environment inside Apple's own Quartz graphics system.
The last build of XQuartz was released in 2016. Most people only use it to run particular software, like FontForge. They are unlikely to use it as a general computing environment.
I suspect that the security problems you mention only exist within the X environment, rather than bleeding out into MacOS's own window server. Apple has introduced all sorts of security features to restrict applications' operations and scope of influence, so I would be very surprised if these flaws existed.


How to view movies stored on external drive on my iPad? I have and external HD (it doesn't need extra power, just USB) that contains a lot of movies. I know that I can transfer those movies to the iPad via iTunes, but the iPad is almost full.

Is there a way where I can connect the iPad to the external HD and watch my media?

You can connect USB devices to your iPad with one of Apple's USB camera connection adapters, but there are a number of limitations and requirements to make this work.

There are also drives now that are specifically designed to work with Lightning connectors — if you are viewing this page from a Google search and don't have a drive yet and want to see if you can make this work, you might want to look into buying one of them instead.

If you already have a non-Lightning USB drive and want to use it with your iPad, read on.

Limitations

The drive must either be externally powered (plugs into the wall) or require only a tiny amount of power. I wasn't able to find exactly how much power the port is allowed to supply, but it almost certainly won't be enough for a hard drive — flash storage/solid state only.

Note: It might be possible to skirt this requirement by using a USB hub which draws power from an external power supply. I wasn't able to find definitive information about whether this works, though, so do some testing before buying anything.

The drive must be formatted in a certain way. I don't have the kit myself, so I can't test this, but some sources claim it must be FAT/FAT32/exFAT formatted and others that it must be HFS+ formatted. NTFS definitely won't work. (This may be a variable dependent on your iOS version — test it out with another drive first that you don't mind reformatting a couple times.)

Establishing the physical connection

If you have an older iPad with the 30-pin dock connector (1st, 2nd, or 3rd generation iPad), you will need the iPad Camera Connection Kit (discontinued, but available from Amazon or other places).

If you have a newer iPad with a Lightning connector (any iPad Mini, Pro, Air, or the 4th generation iPad), you will need the Lightning to USB Camera Adapter ($29) or the Lightning to USB 3 Camera Adapter ($39). The more expensive one's only advantages are that it will allow you to charge your iPad simultaneously, and if you have a 12.9" iPad Pro it will allow you to transfer data with USB 3 speeds.

If your iPad is jailbroken

If you're jailbroken, it's pretty easy. Simply use a file manager like Filza or iFile and view the files from there, or a media viewer like Kodi (formerly XBMC).

If your iPad is not jailbroken

If you aren't jailbroken, it is still possible to view movies on an external drive, though it necessitates that you have enough spare storage on your iPad to hold a movie, that it's fine to either reorganize or duplicate your movies, and that all your movies are already in iOS-readable formats (I wasn't able to find a list of supported formats for this, but it's a fair bet that MKVs are out, for instance).

On your computer, copy the movies you want to watch to a "DCIM" folder at the root of the drive.
You may need to also rename the movies to something like "DCIM_1234" — sources vary as to whether this is a required step.
Connect the drive to your iPad with the adapter and open the Photos app.
It should now prompt you to import your media.
Select the movie(s) you want to copy to your iPad and tell them to import.
Once the import has finished, you can unplug the drive from your iPad (no "eject" button is necessary).
Your movies will be in the Photos app as though they were videos you took with a camera. You will need to watch them in Photos or in a third party app which can view media in your Photos library.

If any of the requirements of that method aren't an option, there may still be a way to do it with a third-party app, though I wasn't able to find any options in my research while writing this answer. If I find any further information about this in the future, I will update my answer to include it.


Permissions error when exporting slideshow as a movie in iPhoto I recently upgraded to Lion.

Now when I try to export an iPhoto slideshow as a QuickTime movie it goes through the initial rendering process but an error message appears with the iPhoto logo saying that I don't have permission for this task.

I've seen some people report issues with permissions and the desktop and/or other user folders. Try repair permissions with Disk Utility


Numbers if cell is equal to X or Y Is it possible to test a cell using IF against multiple strings? So for example, I want the function to output Fruit in cell A2 if cell A1 contains the string Apple or Orange. I can only come up with this in cell A2:

IF(A1 = "Apple"|"Orange", "Fruit", "Not a fruit")

This results in an error.

This is thankfully quite easy. You can achieve what you want using the OR function in Numbers (this function is also found on Microsoft Excel):

IF(OR(A1 = "Apple", A1 = "Orange"), "Fruit", "Not a fruit")

The argument for the IF function here is OR(A1 = "Apple", A1 = "Orange"). This OR function tests whether any of the arguments are correct; if they are, it returns TRUE. If none of them are correct, it returns FALSE.


iPhone crashes during restore I have an iPhone 5s, bought 14 months ago (without Apple Care, so out of warranty).

Background Information:

Since I updated to iOS 8.1.1, my iPhone has been crashing infrequently, in: Blue screen, Apple logo, back to blue screen, Apple logo, etc. This would solve itself after an hour or two (sometimes more), and the phone would then be useable again.

However, even though it would take a long time sometimes, eventually the phone would crash again. I went to my local Apple Premium Reseller (iCentre Delft, the Netherlands), and they said I should restore the phone via iTunes. I did and it worked fine for approximately 5 days. But then, this morning, it crashed again. Same thing as before. But this time it DID NOT go back to usable, and I decided to try and hook it up to iTunes again. It wasn't recognized, however, and therefore I could not restore my phone. I called Apple Support, and they said I should put the phone into recovery (DFU) mode. I did, and it clearly shows the iTunes logo with the lightning cable. But now comes the problem:

The problem:

When I connect to iTunes, I get the normal messages requesting me to reset the phone (2). It starts just fine, but when the first white appears on the bar on the iPhone, it gets stuck (while the bar in iTunes keeps moving). 10 seconds later, and the blue screen pops up again, after which it heads back to the basic recovery mode screen. On iTunes I get error 9, which shows USB connection issues. However, I doubt that this is the case and suspect that it gives this error because it has nothing else to give.

Does anybody have any suggestions?

Got a new iPhone, after complaining to Apple. They wanted to charge me €250 at first, but I got it for free today. Long live US customer service :D


How to obtain a list of files contained in a folder (as a text file) I have a huge folder containing musical scores and books (mainly in .pdf).

I would like to create a text document (TextEdit will do just fine) which contains the complete list of the folder's content (possibly even divided into subfolder).

Is it possible?
If not in a TextEdit file, maybe in Numbers?
Is there any Automator process that can update that file so that when I add or modify a file, an entry is added / modified?

Open Terminal
find TOP-FOLDER -type f -print | sed 's_/_,_g' > ~/filelist.csv
Import ~/filelist.csv into Numbers or Excel


App Store links don't work when App Store is running I have a 32 GB iPad 3 with WiFi. If I try to follow an app store link, like from Safari or AppShopper, it will activate the running instance of the App Store but will not navigate to the link destination. If I force close the App Store and try again, it will launch the App Store and navigate to the right destination.

The problem is 100% reproducible. I have tried restarting the iPad and disabling\enabling Safari.

I've also found this link which describes my problem (here), but I can't figure out how to apply the solution there without losing my data.

It's annoying, but if you force close the App Store each time, it will pull up the correct link when you reopen it.