shortcut for cycling between different windows of Finder on Mac (not the tab)? I have macOSSierra 10.12.5, I have checked the keyboard shortcuts in system preferences and  Cmd ⌘   `   (command + backtick) is enabled indeed!
Yet, when I open two finder windows (not the tabs), I cannot cycle between them. I explicitly have to right click on the finder icon in the doc and select one of the open folders. This is bad, really bad for productivity, since I have to switch every time between mouse and keyboard.

Is there a way out of this ?

Thanks

Besides checking on System Preferences / Keyboard / Shortcuts that the shortcut is indeed active and enabled, check also on the "Window" menu on a Finder window. There should be the shortcut. In this case Command + `".

As you've been suggested as well, check that your PHYSICAL keyboard has this key and doesn't require a modifier (like SHIFT) to be used. If you're using a foreign keyboard set, like a spanish or azerty keyboard, for example, you need to find out what the right key is.

Another idea would be to go to System Preferences / Keyboard / Input Sources and enable "Show input in menubar". You'll get a new menubar icon, from which you can select "Show Keyboard Viewer". In this tiny keyboard you can see where your keys are mapped. Maybe (just maybe) your tick (`) key is not where you think it is. This viewer should help you.


Can I see any information about which machines are authorized against my iTunes account? When I just opened iTunes and authorized my Mac against it for purchases, it told me there were two machines authorized against my iTunes account (therefore, one other one). However, I can't think which that other one would be - I've had various virtual machines etc. configured against iTunes in the past. Are there any ways to find out any more about it (hostname, OS, etc.) so I can check out the situation and potentially deauthorize it?

I'm aware of the limit of 5, and I'm aware of the ability to deauthorize all of them and start again. I'd just prefer to keep things clean and not have stray authorizations hanging around if I can.

I also have the same problem and unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a way to view this kind of information at present. This is corroborated by several Apple Support Community threads here, here and here.

As you say, the only option seems to be to either try to figure out which machines are currently authorized and deauthorize them using iTunes (particularly difficult in the case of multiple VM's or machines you no longer have) or deauthorize all and start again.


What Macbook have you tried QuickerTek QCard2 with? I wonder which versions of Macbook Air/Pro is QuickerTek QCard2 (2-port) compatible with?

Anyone tried? With which Macbook? Did it work flawlessly? Any compatibility problems?

Buyer beware since this is a total ripoff. I bought one of these overpriced MacBook Pro QCard2 – 3 Port for $149, which turned out to be a used late 2013 13″ MacBook Pro Retina airport/bluetooth card. iFixIt has these for $79.95, so I got ripped off by these bozos.


How do I hide the Spotlight icon on Yosemite, but keep the Spotlight functionality? I use Spotlight in OS X, and I have long disliked its attachment to the menu bar.

Now, in Yosemite, Spotlight shows up as an overlay in the middle of the screen when summoned, much like other launcher utilities like Quicksilver or Alfred. But the Spotlight icon is still stuck in my menubar, even though clicking it now shows a totally detached overlay.

The traditional way to disable the search icon (chmod 600 /System/Library/CoreServices/Search.bundle/Contents/MacOS/Search) also disables Spotlight completely. I want to keep Spotlight functionality, but kill the (now useless) menubar icon, since I can summon Spotlight with Cmd+Space.

I've also tried Bartender, which works but is both pricey ($15 to remove an icon!) and quirky (it takes a while to startup, so my menu bar ends up shifting around for up to a minute after logging in)

What's the best way to remove the Spotlight icon?

So I got fed up with this and decided to fix it the hard way.

I found out where Spotlight initializes the status bar item, and I just patched the status bar size to zero. This requires editing the Spotlight binary. (Note that Search.bundle is just the little stub that gets loaded into SystemUIServer to allow Spotlight.app to control the status bar).

You'll have to use the Terminal to execute some commands.

For OS X 10.10 (Yosemite):

cd /System/Library/CoreServices/Spotlight.app/Contents/MacOS
sudo cp Spotlight Spotlight.bak
sudo perl -pi -e 's|(\x48\xb8\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00)\x42\x40(\x48\x89\x47\x10\x48\xB8\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x36\x40)|$1\x00\x00$2|sg' Spotlight
cmp -l Spotlight Spotlight.bak
sudo codesign -f -s - Spotlight
sudo killall Spotlight

For OS X 10.11 (El Capitan):

cd /System/Library/CoreServices/Spotlight.app/Contents/MacOS
sudo cp Spotlight Spotlight.bak
sudo perl -pi -e 's|(\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x47\x40\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00)\x42\x40(\x00\x00\x80\x3f\x00\x00\x70\x42)|$1\x00\x00$2|sg' Spotlight
cmp -l Spotlight Spotlight.bak
sudo codesign -f -s - Spotlight
sudo killall Spotlight

The cmp -l line should print out something like the following:

248855   0 102
248856   0 100

If it prints out nothing, then the patch failed. I have tested this on OS X 10.10.3 (Yosemite) and OS X 10.11.5 (El Capitan; SIP off).

What this patch is doing is replacing the status bar width value (36.0, or 0000000000004240 in floating-point hex) with zero, so that when the status bar item is loaded it simply renders with a width of zero, i.e. it is invisible and doesn't affect the layout of the bar.

Screenshot before doing this hack:

Screenshot after doing this hack:

Menu icon is gone but Cmd+Space continues to work.

To revert, do the following:

cd /System/Library/CoreServices/Spotlight.app/Contents/MacOS
sudo mv Spotlight.bak Spotlight
sudo killall Spotlight


How can I get Screen Time to really limit Screen Time? What I’m finding is that ST (even on iOS 13.1.x) doesn't work very well.

In particular, I find that even with access supposedly blocked from 7pm to 9am on every day except Saturday (when I limit access to 1 minute, since 0 does not appear possible), access to the following apps does not appear to be properly blocked at times clearly outside of 7pm to 9am period:

Messages
Netflix
YouTube

This makes no sense to me. Messages is the worst offender. I've tried specifying the apps individually under App Limits (and yes, blocking is checked) and the categories (Social Networking and Entertainment), but it makes no difference!

I've tried disabling Screen Time and reenabling it, but that didn't help. I also reset all settings.

Here are some screenshots:

Go to “always allowed” (located in the screen time settings and uncheck any apps you do not want to be accessible during a screen time lock).


Converting Automator Action in applescript to bash script I just wrote an Automator app using AppleScript (along with a couple of bash lines) to start FTP with a single click. However it runs more than a tad slow. Here's the code:

set ftpstatus to "off"
try
    do shell script "echo \"QUIT\" | telnet 127.0.0.1" & " ftp 2>&1 | grep  \"Escape character is\" > /dev/null"
    set ftpstatus to "on"
on error
    set ftpstatus to "off"
end try
if (ftpstatus = "off") then
    set ipaddr to IPv4 address of (get system info)
    set sun to short user name of (get system info)
    do shell script "sudo -s launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ftp.plist" with administrator privileges
    tell application "Finder" to display alert "FTP Launched and ready for file-transfer" & character id 8233 & character id 8233 & character id 8233 & "Address: ftp://" & ipaddr & ":21" & character id 8233 & "User Name: " & sun
else
    do shell script "sudo -s launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ftp.plist" with administrator privileges
    tell application "Finder" to display alert "FTP session closed"
end if

Here's what the code does:

Check if FTP server is running
If yes, turn it off and throw a message box saying "FTP session closed"
If no, turn it on and throw a message box saying "FTP session open" along with my IP address and username

This script works like charm but since it's too slow, I am wondering if there's any way to convert it to a bash shell script. That should speed up things a lot. Any suggestions?

I'm not sure I understand correctly - if in the third line of Your script You're checking whether ftp service is running You can use following script:

#!/bin/bash

launchctl list | grep ftpd

if [ $? != 0 ]; then
    IPADDR=$(ifconfig -a | perl -nle'/(\d+\.\d+\.\d+\.\d+)/ && print $1' | grep -v 127.0.0.1)
    launchctl load "/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ftp.plist"
    osascript -e "tell application \"Finder\" to display alert \"FTP Launched and ready for file-transfer\" & character id 8233 & character id 8233 & character id 8233 & \"Address: ftp://\" & \"$IPADDR\" & \":21\" & character id 8233 & \"User Name: \" & \"$USER\""
else
    launchctl unload -w "/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ftp.plist"
    osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to display alert "FTP session closed"'
fi

Run this a sudo.
Explanation:

To check if job is running use launchctl list.
To get ip address quickly use my perl script (You may want to grep it differently in order to get rid of additional IP addresses.
The only problem now is that Finder app is not brought to front but this can be solved if needed.


External webcam slow and lousy on a Mac mini? I run a 2012 Mac mini using a Logitech C920 HD Pro USB 1080p Webcam with it. Recently I've noticed it's really laggy. Even in a Skype test window or camera settings, it lags about a second and is very jerky.

Tests show I am getting about 1fps. I tried the Logi Capture app as suggested and it presented more settings but none helped.

Also: audio doesn't work on it. It reports as a microphone but didn't work as one.

Also: maybe a non-issue but my webcam device name is reported as "HD Pro Webcam C902 #2" - why #2? Some apps have a drop-down showing two cameras, this one and .

It seems to me like it's surely a driver issue but I cannot see Logitech provide drivers, and MacOS doesn't seem to recognize webcams as a category in Settings.

One thing I spotted while researching was about the Mic issue, it talked about changing the sound settings on the device:

But, on my Mac that Format drop-down is non-editable:

That might be a MacOS version discrepancy but I do feel for whatever reason, it is not properly supported at the hardware level.

So, I fixed it. By unplugging it, and plugging it back in to a different socket! Suddenly I get audio and the video is perfect.

It's not much of an answer but it was the solution for me!


Cannot use ssh/ping domain name after connecting to openvpn I've got two macs, both on the same network, both using Tunnelblick to connect to vpn.
Both with same settings. Both connect fine and both have the same settings for DNS and search domain applied after connection.
The only difference actually is that one is Lion and second one is Mountain Lion. That's the end of the differences.

After connecting to my vpn on Mountain Lion I cannot ping nor ssh to any address using domain name. And I don't mean local/private domain. I mean google.com for example. Nothing!
However, when using nslookup/dig/host domain name is resolved just fine.
On the second machine with Lion everything works just fine. With the exact same settings.

Any thoughts?

I've already tried adding -AlwaysAppendSearchDomains and it didn't work [why would it, google.com is not under the search domain specified in my dns settings...].

I solved my problem by switching to Vicosity. After installing Viscosity I imported my Tunnelblick configuration and have been able to connect to the VPN of my company instantly. In opposite to Tunnelblick Viscosity is not free. But the price is fine for me.


Is there a way to make Safari open a dark blank page? I have Safari set to open a blank page when I open a new tab. I like it better than what it is normally set to, but unfortunately I work late a lot and the giant white area on the screen bothers my eyes a considerable deal. Does anybody know a way to make the blank page darker so that it's easier on the eyes?

Just for reference, here's the blank page I'm talking about: http://cl.ly/image/1l1P47351D1o

There may be other ways to do this, but a simple way would be to create your own homepage, which could look anyway you like. Then, just set the Homepage in Safari to point at that file.

Make a file called "home.html" with these contents:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html style="background:#333;">
<head>
    <title>New Tab</title>
</head>
</html>

Open that file with Safari, and use the preferences dialog to set the homepage to the current page. Also set new tabs and windows to start on your homepage.


Am I able to run OS X 10.11 on my Mac or not? I have a Mac. It is running Mac OS X 10.6.8. It is ten years old, came out in 2006.  I go to the App Store.  The listing for OS X 10.11 claims it is "compatible with 10.6.8", but when I "get" (click on the Get button) the update, it comes up with a message that says "...cannot be installed on this computer."

What am I doing wrong?

Checking everymac none of the Macs listed is eligible to run 10.11 El Capitan.

The latest supported system for Xeon/Core 2 Duo processor equipped Macs from the year 2006 is 10.7.5 and 10.6.8 for Core Duo.

Being "compatible with 10.6.8" means that any Mac running 10.6.8 and supporting 10.11 can be upgraded directly. Macs supporting El Capitan either contain Core 2 Duo (2007-2010), i3/5/7 or Xeon (2008-) processors.


Can Macs be put in hibernation voluntarily? I know that when you put your Mac laptop to sleep and the battery dies, next time you plug it in it will wake up from the state it was prior to being put to sleep. There are also hacks to get this behavior with a desktop Mac (except it triggers when you put the Mac to sleep and unplug it).

Is there a way to trigger this behavior without cutting power, and that will still let me put my Mac to sleep normally? Like Windows 7's Hibernate option.

You could use DeepSleep.
I know this is a widget, but if you want an application, do the following :

Download the widget and uncompress the zip file containing it, but do not install it.

Right-click on the widget, the select Show Package Contents.

Copy the DeepSleep Application where you want.


iMac screen won't turn back on after a sleep session in Windows 8.1 I do a lot of hardware programming, and some of the chips I write applications for don't have IDEs and/or compilers that are compatible with anything other than windows, so I do use Windows quite often. I have recently decided to dedicate my personal laptop to my main operating system, Linux, and move Windows over to my other computer, iMac. The problem I have been encountering ever since I installed Windows 8.1, though, is that the screen won't turn back on after a sleep session. Has anyone else had a similar problem? How did you overcome it?
Note: I have already set my screensaver time to none and that didn't seem to fix anything.

I have a 2011 iMac which I have been having the same issue with since windows 8.  For me, it is an issue with when "turn off the display after..." is set. I have turned off this feature, and my PC just goes into sleep mode instead. It is slightly inconvenient though, as I can't run things in the background during.


Mac repeatedly getting stuck at progress bar I have lately been experiencing this problem on my Mac book pro 13" mid 2010 where it usually hangs and doesn't  resume normal working. I try to restart the computer but it gets stuck at the progress bar. I have tried everything from safe mode boot, PRAM reset, disk utility first aid in recovery and time machine restoration but the problem persists until I reinstall OSX (it worked the last time at least). Now it has hit again. Need suggestions on how to deal with it. I'm using Mac OS X El Capitan and it gets stuck at approximately the 90% mark.

Could be due to kernel extensions you have installed, I had the same issue and posted a blog tutorial on troubleshooting and fixing something like that:

https://smyl.es/how-to-fix-mac-osx-stuckhanging-on-progress-bar-will-not-boot/

To troubleshoot, startup your Mac in Verbose mode (after you hear the chime):

Hold down one of these key combinations on your keyboard immediately after pressing the power button to turn on your Mac, or immediately after your Mac begins to restart:

Command (⌘)-V

Continue holding the keys until you see white text on the screen.

Start up your Mac in single-user mode or verbose mode

Mac OSX Recovery

Mac Startup Key Combinations

Starting in Verbose mode should give you enough output information to debug the problem even further.  See my blog post for more in depth information and how I resolved my specific issue.

Cached versions of blog post:

Google:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://smyl.es/how-to-fix-mac-osx-stuckhanging-on-progress-bar-will-not-boot/

Archive.org (WayBackMachine):
http://web.archive.org/web/20161218201511/https://smyl.es/how-to-fix-mac-osx-stuckhanging-on-progress-bar-will-not-boot/


Restore 10.8.2 to original developer settings So I am at a point in a rabbit hole of troubleshooting programming problems (a lot of it seems to involve my gcc and fortran compilers, but I have long lists of libraries interfering with one another) where I feel I need to just (somehow) get a blank slate and reinstall everything (and strategically not do a number of things), I have my time machine backups for everything, as well as file backups for all of my regular content. And have done the basic prep as recommended here

I am wondering if there are any other steps you might recommend either before reinstalling my OS, or instead of doing so(might uninstalling and reinstalling XCode help?)?

Thanks for any help- desperate times call for desperate measures!

A common development configuration these days is to use separate guest OSes for development and testing.  With so many different OS's and configurations to test on, it seems like the only viable single-cpu solution.

In my personal experience, I tend to have the host OS tailored to looking up documentation and one Guest OS specifically for Development.  Then for each OS I will be testing on, I get the OS install image and make a new VM.  Those Guest OS's I modify as little as necessary to ensure their stability.

I still keep all my important files on the host OS's file system so that Time Machine will still pick them up.  Nonetheless, if you're hosting Mac OSes, a Time Capsule or some sort of shared AFP would still be viable if you chose to back them up.  I don't include the VM boot disks in my backups for the host OS - they change often and are rather large.

Generally I regard VMs as a disposable OS.  After initial configuration, I archive the VM boot disk and only touch it if I need to restore.

Also, if you're using VMWare, you can use Snapshots before installing your packages.  This is a good deal more convenient than doing a fully Time Machine backup, as is often want to do after messing with system files.

It sounds like you're not past the point of no return on your host OS.  You can probably still go this route, and you might find it better in the long run.


Print .docx without Pages.app Sometimes I simply want to print Microsoft Word documents. If I view them in Quick Look, they display as I would like to print them. However, when I try to print them from the Finder, it opens Pages.app and the rendering is significantly different.

Is there anyway to print the document as Quick Look renders it?

You can open Word documents with the built-in TextEdit app.

It will display and print them the same way (as far as I can tell) as QuickLook does.


Can Find My iPhone be linked to multiple devices? I lost my iPhone 7. While tracking it with Find My iPhone, it died and is now offline. I can't see its last location. I have tried for a week now waiting to see if someone turns the phone on so I can track its location.

If I sign into my Apple ID on my old iPhone 5, will I still be able to see my iPhone 7 on Find My iPhone if someone turns it on later?

Yes, you can have multiple devices linked to a single Apple ID each with Find My iPhone turned on, and they will be tracked individually. You can switch between showing different devices (or all devices) using the link at the top of Find My iPhone.


How to add/remove applications from "File and Folders" inside "Security and Privacy" -> Privacy Tab How to remove these bunch of files from here.
I use VS code, when I debug a program it asks for this permission that a file that is created while debugging wants to access your Document folder. And every time I have to allow it and then those files end up in Privacy -> "Files and Folders".

Run
tccutil reset SystemPolicyDocumentsFolder
tccutil reset SystemPolicyDownloadsFolder
tccutil reset SystemPolicyDesktopFolder

They are case sensitive.
Sources:

https://www.felix-schwarz.org/blog/2018/08/new-apple-event-apis-in-macos-mojave "Configuration Profiles" section.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/api/resources/intune-deviceconfig-macosprivacyaccesscontrolitem?view=graph-rest-beta
https://github.com/chernandezba/zesarux/blob/873f31b9db563369039909d4d841e004fd77c443/src/docs/mac_os_catalina_users_permissions.txt
https://developer.apple.com/business/documentation/Configuration-Profile-Reference.pdf

If the above is too cumbersome,
tccutil rest

which resets all permissions across all profiles.
tccutil.py is outdated and even after disabling SIP, it will not give meaningful info about the database:
/Library/Application Support/com.apple.TCC/TCC.db

https://github.com/jacobsalmela/tccutil/issues/18#issuecomment-655420138


What to do before you sell, give away or trade in your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch? I just upgraded to the iPhone 5 and plan on selling my old iPhone 4. However, I want to make sure I don't keep any personal information (photos, emails, contacts) on the device. Since both iPhones are synced with iCloud, I'm not sure that I am safe to just start deleting stuff without those same changes being synced to the new device. What is the appropriate way to clean up the old iPhone to be ready to sell?

Apple has documented the steps required in a support article.

If you have Find My Phone enabled, disable this otherwise the buyer will be contacting you to get your account to activate the phone. This can be achieved by switching the Find My iPhone option in Settings > iCloud.

Then en Settings > General > Reset and choose Erase All Content and Settings.

This will wipe all personal data off the device (including all apps) and when it restarts it will be at the beginning of the wizard to set up a new device.

This will not effect any other devices linked to the same iCloud account, it purely clears the current device.

This process is necessary as Apple added an Activation Lock in iOS 7. Details can be found here and the support article is located here.


OneDrive not syncing on mac I have OneDrive on my new computer and I have about 50gb to upload using the OneDrive client from the Mac App Store. It scans the files but always hangs after trying to upload a few kilobytes. Any help?

Unless you have paid for additional OneDrive storage, you will only get 10 GB of storage to begin with. This may be why.

Also, you may want to contact Microsoft if you have paid for additional storage.


WhatsApp voice call overrides iPhone's "do not disturb" I've noticed recently that even though my iPhone (running iOS 11.2.5) has "do not disturb" mode on at night, WhatsApp voice calls go through as usual. So far, the only solution I could come up with is turning vibrations off in the sounds settings. Is there a better way to handle this situation? If not, who should I contact in this case? Apple or WhatsApp?

Thank you!

This is intended behaviour. Do Not Disturb only enables Apple's features like phone and messages. It does not affect third-party applications.
From this Apple Discussion:

It has nothing to do with Apple's software. Do not disturb only affects Apple's core iOS features - the telephone app, the messaging app and iOS notifications service.  It does not interact with or affect third party apps.

If you want Whatsapp to implement the feature you need to contact them:

If you want WhatsApp to implement something similar, then you need to suggest it to the WhatsApp developers.  Or, close WhatsApp at night, and disable it in background app refresh in settings.

To provide a similar setting on Whatsapp you can close it at the desired time and turn on background app refresh which will prevent it from updating and receiving messages.
To turn off background app refresh
Go to Settings -> General -> Background app refresh and turn of Whatsapp.
To completely turn all apps of from refreshing click at the top where it says background app refresh and click off.


Enterprise iPad: Limit which wifi network can connect to I'm looking for a policy setting or a creative solution here. Is there a way to restrict the wifi networks an iOS device can connect to? We have business issued iPads, but are worried that they can be taken off-site and access company data elsewhere. If we could restrict that only the company wifi can be used, and no other public or home networks, we could mitigate this security concern. Ideas?

It is not possible to do this with Apples MGM tools.


Attaching files to OmniFocus If I drag a file into an OmniFocus task, it will create a link to that file. Is there a way to actually place the file inside the task instead of just creating a link?

1st way: Hold Alt/Option while dragging.

2nd way: Select file in Finder and press your clippings shortcut


sound quality difference between USB cables I am currently reading about Digital-Analog-Converters in a magazine. In one section about connecting an iPod, it says that the sound via a USB cable such as the one from Audioquests Cinnamon is significantly smoother and more velvety compared to the official USB cable from Apple.

Also, a standard USB cable: In the description of Audioquest "Coffee", they are claiming that there is a huge difference. And they cost about 280€! Or their "Diamond" version costs about 550€! Here is some review, again claiming that there is a difference. Here is another review. And here another one.

How can that be? The signals which go through the cable are digital. How can there be any difference?

(Just for reference, I also asked the same question on AVP.SE with similar answers.)

The digital path, as long as it is good enough to work, will not make any difference.

A long or poorly shielded USB cable can cause noise problems on the power supply side of the attached device. I have seen this on electronic test equipment using long and very thin USB cables. This has manifested itself as a 50Hz buzz on the 5V line which is then picked up by the ADC in the device. I would imagine it would be the same for any sound card.

Most cables are however fine.

The particular articles linked to sound like the usual made up audiophile rubbish though.


External drive for Time Machine and sharing files cross platform I have read through this question and the associated apple kb article. I know that I can use an existing external hard drive and time machine can backup to it without affecting the other files.

However, it seems that is only the case if the external drive is formatted as HFS+. So if I want to have an external drive that I can use to store files that will be used by both Mac OS X and Windows 7 (and possibly linux), is my only option to partition the external disk?

Partition 1: HFS+ (Time Machine backups)
Partition 2: exFAT (Docs, Music, Videos for use by W7 and OS X)

Is there another way to accomplish this without having to partition the external drive?

I would suggest using Mac Drive by Mediafour: http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive

I've used their product for years and it has always been rock solid. I'd say at $49.99, it is reasonably priced too. And honestly, you may find a free solution, but to me, data integrity will always trump a slight to the wallet.

That is if you absolutely want one partition, but considering that one is a dedicated Time Machine repository, I would advise against it. While Time Machine makes a simple folder with all the backups (Backups.backupdb), it is ill-advised to store anything else on that particular partition. I know people that do it without problems, and all Apple says about the practice is the following:

  Note: Time Machine works best if you use your backup disk only for
  Time Machine backups. If you keep files on your backup disk, Time
  Machine won’t back up those files, and the space available for Time
  Machine backups will be reduced.

But again, it's just good to keep things separate in my opinion. I'm not one for arbitrary compartmentalization, but in the case of backups, maybe letting them have their own room might not be such a bad thing.


After updating to iOS 6, iPhone will not charge from Mac Pro USB ports Immediately before I downloaded and updated to iOS 6, my phone charged in my computer's tower front USB port. Immediately following, it will not. I plugged it into my wall charger at home and it charges fine. Has anyone run into this and/or solved it yet?

This is a rather peculiar problem, and I have not found any more widespread reports of this problem.

Try rebooting everything; that often helps.


Recover a deleted contact without iCloud backups When I was deleting contacts on my iPhone yesterday, I mistakenly deleted another one with similar name! Any idea how to get it back? I don't have any backups to iCloud.

Follow this:

Logon to iCloud.com
Go to Settings
At the bottom left you will see Advanced and "Restore Contacts"

From there you will be able to restore a previous backup that iCloud has done.


iCloud lock - how to interpret the number of asterisks present I forgot my pin to my phone so I hooked it to my computer to do an update/restore.

When the update/restore was done, my phone is now icloud locked and I'm getting this screen:

I can't remember what email I used for this but my question is:

can "t*****@m*****.com" only be equal to something like

tjones@mjones.com (i.e., 5 characters where the asterisks are representing the number of characters)?

Or can it be:

tjohnson123214@mjohnson25345342343@co.uk

(i.e., (1) are the asterisks only a place-holder for any length of text? And (2) must it end in .com or was apple being lazy in how they designed this screen?)

Note this was updated to iOS 9.1 and the phone is an iPhone 4s.

The number of dots is not indicative of the number of characters missing at all—there could be 5, more than 5 or less than 5. The characters shown, however, are correct, including '.com'.


can utilising the cpu fully (400% for dual-core hyper-threading cpu) damage mbp I have recently bought a rMBP with i7 4578U intel 4th generation cpu. iStat usually shows cpu temperature readings of ~50 degrees which is normal.

Today, because of a buggy library code, my cpu had to run at 400% for 10mins or so before I have realised it was a bug causing this. The fan was pretty loud and iStat showed 99 degrees. However, as soon as I've terminated the process hogging the cpu, it went down to 80s in a second which means iStat readings might be inaccurate..

So, my question is, might this have damaged my computer somehow?

Thanks in advance.

Your Mac and Intel CPU have means of protecting them self from self destruction.

You Mac has thermal senors (same one that the istat uses) to monitor temperature and do something about it.

The Intel CPU has also a build in circuit to shut down before any damage is done due to overload or heat.

So no, no damage has been done in that short period.

However, running at elevate temperatures for extended time (days) will eventually reduce the life time of the CPU, by creating junction leakages and interconnect issues, that is why there is a build in circuit (inside the CPU) to stop that.

Credentials: I am a CPU design engineer.

PS

You Mac does not need iStat, that one is only for you to feel better, or not.


Why is OS X giving me a warning about installing apps when I try to open an XML file with Webstorm? I've extracted some XML files from an email attachment. I would like to open them in Webstorm instead of Xcode. But when I try to use the "Open With -> Other" and pick Webstorm, I get a message about being unable to install the app. That doesn't make any sense, since xml files are just text. Screenshots:

Are XML files somehow defined as apps by OS X? Is there a way to change that? Is this a bug?

I have verified that the file is just xml and it can be opened by WebStorm with no issues. This seems to be a Finder/security issue.

Open Terminal and type xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine followed by a space, then drag the file or folder of files that you can't open directly into the Terminal window, and push return. You should now be able to open the file directly.


Thunderbolt to USB 3 adapter I have a thunderbolt to usb 3 adapter & it is plugged into the thunderbolt port. I also have an ac wifi adapter usb 3 plugged into the thunderbolt adapter. It works fine, but my question is, in Network in system preferences shows the ac wifi adapter as connected but the thunderbolt port shows inactive. Confused about this.
MacBook Pro 17" early 2011 - Sierra.
Thanks

That makes sense. The USB adapter has a driver and is active.

Thunderbolt isn't getting a network address since you don't have a direct network on that port. You would have an active connection if you went thunderbolt to thunderbolt on another Mac or PC or a direct thunderbolt to gigabit ethernet adapter.

Don't over think the network pane - as long as the end device is listed, you are good to go without worrying about what's between it and the CPU.


how to know imac crash reason last day i put my mac on the whole night for downloading xcode.however today i noticed that it is shutdown in the morning.i used the "last" command to know when it was shutdown.it is showing time 11:00am and a word crash besides.how can i know the reason for this crash.is there any tool or utility to know the reason.is there any log of it stored in mac

Use Mac OS X's Console (found in /Applications/Utilities) to monitor your system logs by filtering their contents.
Check first system.log and console.log. Logs display their information in reverse chronological order,  scroll down to reach content around 11:00am.


Restore app windows to their original Spaces When re-opening an app, all of its windows end up on the first Space, regardless of their original placement:

Original layout: one app has two windows open, each in a separate Space

+-----[ Space 1 ]-----+  +-----[ Space 2 ]-----+
|                     |  |                     |
|  [Chrome window 1]  |  |  [Chrome window 2]  |
|                     |  |                     |
|                     |  |                     |
+---------------------+  +---------------------+

Incorrect layout after app restart: both windows are in the first Space

+-----[ Space 1 ]-----+  +-----[ Space 2 ]-----+
|                     |  |                     |
|  [Chrome window 1]  |  |                     |
|  [Chrome window 2]  |  |                     |
|                     |  |                     |
+---------------------+  +---------------------+

Is there a setting or an app that would make it possible to have apps restore their windows in the Spaces they were originally located before the app was quit?

edit 2:  This still doesn't COMPLETELY work for me as well: some windows are restored and some are not. The new bug id in Chromium is 1012034, and it still needs your votes!

edit: It was implemented in the latest development version (Chrome 79)!

Though, by default, in compliance with Apple's UI requirements, this feature still won't restore the workspaces if you exited Chrome with Cmd-Q. Quoting sdy, the feature author:

  For folks who want Chrome to always restore windows to their original spaces, you can set that by running this command in a terminal window (for Canary, use com.google.Chrome.canary):

defaults write com.google.Chrome NSWindowRestoresWorkspaceAtLaunch -bool YES

  To go back to the default behavior, run:

defaults delete com.google.Chrome NSWindowRestoresWorkspaceAtLaunch

Original answer:
There is a bug #74812 in Chromium. Vote for it!

Same question on Superuser.


MacBook pro 15 inch 2019 screen flickers with purple horizontal lines when iPhone is near my MacBook screen When i bring my iPhone near my MacBook pro screen, the screen flickers with horizontal lines. I have tested the flickering with iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max. All the devices are up to date with the latest software. I noticed that the flickering is not happening when I keep the device at aeroplane mode.
Has anyone encountered this issue?

This sounds like the MacBook's hardware is very much more susceptible to RF interference than it ought to be. You should never see artefacts such as those. It might be that there is a build fault (e.g. accidental omission of some shielding component), or some other hardware fault that is causing the unusual sensitivity issues.

You should take the computer to an Apple authorised service centre where you can demonstrate the issue for assessment and repair options.


How can I merge primary APFS partition with other empty APFS partition? Using the latest Macbook Pro with currently High Sierra 10.13.1, I was using bootcamp for a year, and I decided to get rid of the Bootcamp partition this morning. The Bootcamp utility would not let me erase this partition, so I decided to do it through Disk Utility.

I did everything I could to "erase" it, but I can't find any way to merge this 58GB partition with my primary Macintosh HD one.

In Disk Utility, if I want to erase the container Disk2, it tells me that an internal error occured... The BOOTCAMP partition is actually formatted as APFS...

$ diskutil list

How can I merge those two partitions ?

EDIT : The BOOTCAMP partition is now gone but I can't extend the primary one ...

If anyone still looking for answer.

Step 1: Delete the container

sudo diskutil apfs deleteContainer disk0s3

this will change the container to Apple_HFS Untitled                98.9 GB    disk0s3

Step 2: Erase the volume

sudo diskutil eraseVolume "Free Space" %noformat% /dev/disk0s3

Step 3: Resize the container

sudo diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0


Why does iTunes Match match only some songs from the same album? Throughout my library I'm seeing cases where some songs from a given album that I've imported from CD are matched by iTunes Match, while others — on the same album — are not recognized and are instead uploaded (at a lower bitrate):

What accounts for this difference in treatment of tracks from the same album? Is there anything I can do to acquire the high bitrate tracks?

It's been confirmed elsewhere that metadata alone will not give success in matching (if it were, someone would quickly find a way to just create thousands of dummy files with the right metadata). Some audio fingerprinting is going on, and you can test it by changing the metadata of one track to that of another one, and see if if matches the audio or the metadata. Still, metadata plays a role as well.

MacWorld have a note on the problem of one or a few songs not matching from an album:  Basically, it seem to affect specific songs (rather than just randomly failing every n:th song). Two possible reasons for this:

The audio or metadata specific to that track confuses the matching algorithm (as we know, audio fingerprinting is not an exact science)
There is a rights issue with particular tracks that Apple haven't been able to find agreement for.


Inconsistent app update sizes in App Store and Launchpad I saw there was an update for Xcode in the App Store that said the update size was 7.8GB. However, when I was updating the app, Launchpad said the update size was 3.59GB.

What is the actual update size, and why is there a discrepancy?
I'm currently using macOS Catalina, but I think I noticed the issue in Mojave as well.

The App Store supports compression and differential downloads that saves you time and bandwidth by only downloading the differences between the current version and the version, you already have installed.

This explains why the updated version can be listed at 7.8 GB while only 3.59 GB are downloaded.

Note that it is not possible to download differentials in all cases. In those case you download the full package. Also note that if a differential download fails (for example due to the internet connection breaking up) - then a full download is attempted on the next try.


Installing Casper; a program that needs to be placed in a directory on my PATH I need to install software but I don't understand how to do so.
I have downloaded a file which contains 5 files which includes a
Unix Executable file which when I open displays this:

Last login: Tue Jul 19 14:07:37 on ttys001
laurens-MacBook:~ Lauren$ /Users/Lauren/Documents/casper-2.1/casper-1 ; exit;
/Users/Lauren/Documents/casper-2.1/casper-1: binary file /usr/bin not found
logout
Saving session...
...copying shared history...
...saving history...truncating history files...
...completed.

[Process completed]

One of the files describes how to install the program..but I don't understand how to interpret these instructions...

Any help would be very much appreciated!

  Installation Instructions for Casper
  2/09/2009

  To install Casper the entire contents of this directory should be
  placed somewhere on your filesystem. Then, the file casper should be
  edited such that CASPERBASE points to this directory. Lastly, the
  edited casper should be placed in a directory that is on your PATH.

First of all the casper-2.1-release.tar.gz file would not extract successfully for me using the normal default OS X way and I tried three other and different methods. I was able to extract the contents however I had to set the casper file to executable after the extraction with the one method that successfully extracted all files. The other normal and default OS X method failed to extract beyond the casper-2.1-release.tar tar-ball. IMO There is something wrong with the casper-2.1-release.tar.gz archive file.

The picture below shows the line in the casper bash script executable that the "Then, the file casper should be edited such that CASPERBASE points to this directory." is referring to.

Line 19 is where you set CASPERBASE= to CASPERBASE=${path_to_casper_directory}, e.g.:

CASPERBASE=${$HOME/casper-2.1}

As I extracted the archive to my Home Folder.

Then for the part of the install instructions "Lastly, the edited casper should be placed in a directory that is on your PATH." I then edited my ̃/.bash_profile file, and added the $HOME/casper-2.1 directory to my $PATH, e.g:

export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/casper-2.1

I then closed Terminal and reopened it for the change to take effect.

Note the picture below is showing the contents of the casper-2.1-release.tar.gz file in Pacifist however it could not extract the highlighted casper file, while it did extract the other files.  I had to use Zipeg to extract all files but had to set the casper file to executable after the extraction, using chmod u+x casper while in the casper-2.1 directory in Terminal.


how can I filter out unwanted search results in Alfred (ie node_modules folder, caches) Been a user of Alfred for a long time, however whenever I search anything I get a lot of FUD results due to alfred also indexing all my web project node_modules directories.

Is there any way to path-match and exclude all results from within a /node_modules/ directory? This would greatly improve the utility of the search.

Go to Preferences -> Spotlight -> Privacy (TAB)
Then add the folders you want to exclude to that list.


OSX 10.11.3 keeps crashing when logging in When logging in on my MBP (from stand by) it crashes in the middle of typing the password, and goes back to the user selection screen. When click on my user icon, and then typing in the password again, it works. However all apps are reset, of course. i.e the browser tabs are gone, and some programs lose the unsaved work etc.

This started happening since updating to 10.11.3 from 10.11.2. Is this a known thing? Is there a solution?

My Macbook Pro is the 2013 Retina edition, if that helps.

Try and Boot in Safe Mode by holding Cmd-Shift right after it boots.


External Monitor Blurry text and Sluggy Mouse on MBP 2020 I have bought the MBP PRO 2020 13" after lot of struggle convincing my family for lot of money. Thinking it would help me ease my work and help me with my work.
However,The problem is I feel like I have made a blunder on taking the decision. I have Dell P2719H 27" Monitor and Logitech M331 Mouse.
I have used HDMI Cable to connect to my External monitor and tried costly HDMI cables as well (Belkin).
The mouse is very sluggy, I tried to move my pointer one place to another place. pointer became big and suddenly stops.
I'm feeling frustrated after an invested lot of my money in this thought that I will improve my productivity but I'm going behind fixing these issues for last ten days. Can anyone please help me.
Looks like I have time travalled to 2015 to have this kind of display text and sluggy mouse.
Any solution please help me to get rid of these both. Kind of losing my productivity on these things rather than focus on other work-related stuff.  I have reset my OS thought would help the issue and upgraded and downgraded. Now on Catalina.
System report :-
Intel Iris Plus Graphics:

  Chipset Model:    Intel Iris Plus Graphics
  Type: GPU
  Bus:  Built-In
  VRAM (Dynamic, Max):  1536 MB
  Vendor:   Intel
  Revision ID:  0x0007
  Metal:    Supported, feature set macOS GPUFamily2 v1
  Displays:
Colour LCD:
  Display Type: Built-In Retina LCD
  Resolution:   2560x1600 Retina
  Framebuffer Depth:    30-Bit Colour (ARGB2101010)
  Mirror:   On
  Mirror Status:    Hardware Mirror
  Online:   Yes
  Automatically Adjust Brightness:  No
  Connection Type:  Internal
DELL P2719H:
  Resolution:   1920x1080 (1080p FHD - Full High Definition)
  UI Looks like:    1920 x 1080 @ 60 Hz
  Framebuffer Depth:    30-Bit Colour (ARGB2101010)
  Main Display: Yes
  Mirror:   On
  Mirror Status:    Master Mirror
  Online:   Yes
  Rotation: Supported
  Automatically Adjust Brightness:  No
  Connection Type:  Thunderbolt/DisplayPort

How is your HDMI cable connected to your USB-C on the MBP side?
I had similar issues and realised that certain combinations of HDMI or HP Display port cables in conjunction with cheap Ali-express converters to USB-C resulted in either a blurred external monitor or even sometimes in the MBP monitor being blurred and the external monitor being perfectly clear.
So if you have the chance, try using different cable combos, just to see if it makes a difference.


How do I check the active audio codec for a bluetooth connection in Big Sur? How do I check the active audio codec for a bluetooth connection in Bug Sur?
In Catalina, you used to be able to option-click on the Bluetooth item in the menubar, and then it would show more detail about every item including the codecs for audio devices. Now it still shows the additional detail but not the audio codec.
How do I see the audio codec being used now -- for instance, to ensure that my headphones are using AAC and not SBC?

Download Bluetooth Explorer, open it, then navigate to Tools > Audio Graphs. You can see at the bottom the active codec - in this example I'm using AAC.

Note that Bluetooth Explorer is no longer included in the latest Xcode Additional Tools bundle. The last version I could find was for Xcode 11, and it now crashes sometimes on Big Sur, but still does the trick. Download it here: https://developer.apple.com/download/more/?=additional%20tools


How to swap windows using JIS keyboard I have got a JIS keyboard layout recently, I always swap between windows using command + ` , now I have no idea how to do it.
Here is the layouts of two found on the internet.

JIS and US keyboard layout

Is one of the keys on the right side of the keyboard (like ろ or ￥) maybe backtick?

If not, you can remap some key to backtick with KeyRemap4MacBook. Save a file like this as ~/Library/Application Support/KeyRemap4MacBook/private.xml:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <item>
    <name>test</name>
    <identifier>test</identifier>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::JIS_UNDERSCORE, KeyCode::BACKQUOTE</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::JIS_YEN, KeyCode::BACKQUOTE</autogen>
  </item>
</root>

Then open the KeyRemap4MacBook application, press the ReloadXML button, and tick the checkbox for the setting.

The shortcut for moving focus to the next window can also be changed from System Preferences:


Just upgraded Mavericks server to 10.9.2 and my virtual hosts partially work Just upgraded Mavericks server to 10.9.2 and my virtual hosts partially work. We have four... wiki.blahh.org, crm.blahh.org, server.blahh.org and helpdesk.blahh.org. All of the web files are on the server and all A name records in DNS point to server.blahh.org's IP address... 192.168.1.5. wiki and cdm resolve properly and show the proper website, server.blahh.org shows the default (which is also correct) but help desk.blahh.org also shows the default server page and doesn't show the proper website.

What is going on?

All of the virtual host directives look okay but I can't figure it out.

First, check permissions on everything.

Are the vhost directives all in one file or different files in the vhost directory?

Second, could we have a look at the virtual host directives?


How to remap delete and shift+delete keys to delete and permanently delete a file in Mac OS X Lion? I would like to delete and permanently delete a file in finder using del and shift+delete (windows style).

Is there any way to remap this in OS X lion?

If you want to delete files immediately, you can copy the files, open Terminal or iTerm, type rm -r  and press ⌘V.

If you want to delete the files securely so that they cannot be recovered with an application like DiskWarrior or DataRescue, you can use srm -srf. srm uses the 35-pass Gutmann algorithm by default, but -s only overwrites files with a single pass of random data.

You could also create a service like this:

osascript -e 'on run argv
    set text item delimiters to linefeed
    tell application "Finder"
        display dialog "Delete the following files immediately?" & linefeed & linefeed & text items of argv
    end tell
end run' "$@"
[[ $? != 0 ]] && exit 0
rm -rf "$@"

I didn't use an Ask for Confirmation action, because it can't be used to display the paths specified as arguments, and the dialogs shown by it don't get keyboard focus.

The service cannot be used to delete a file if deleting it would require superuser privileges.

You can give the service a keyboard shortcut from System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Services. The shortcut recorders don't allow entering ⇧⌦ as a keyboard shortcut, but you can first give the service some temporary shortcut, then close the System Preferences window, then run something like f=~/Library/Preferences/pbs.plist; plutil -convert xml1 $f; open -e $f, and then change the key equivalent to $&#x007F;:

<key>(null) - Delete Immediately - runWorkflowAsService</key>
<dict>
    <key>key_equivalent</key>
    <string>$&#xU007F;</string>
</dict>

$&#x007F; is ⇧⌦ (where ⌦ is Mac forward delete / Windows delete). ⇧⌫ would be $&#x0008; (where ⌫ is Mac delete / Windows backspace). The format used for the shortcut strings is described in http://lri.me/keybindings.html.

As for making ⌦ (Mac forward delete / Windows delete) move files to the trash, you can modify Finder's property list:

defaults write com.apple.finder NSUserKeyEquivalents -dict 'Move to Trash' '\U007F'
killall Finder

However that also makes pressing ⌦ move a file to the trash when you are renaming a file.


Change language in OS X El Capitan in login menu I have a Mac Mini with OS X El Capitan and I'm trying to login, but my password is Russian and I can't change the language, because Russian isn't available in language menu. I am using a keyboard other than Apple's.

You'll need to enable the ability to change keyboard layouts on the login screen.

You'll need to log in to your account. Open System Preferences -> Users & Groups. Select Login Options on the lefthand side, then check the box labeled "Show Input menu in login window".

Now at the login window, click the Input menu (shows the name of the currently selected input source next to a keyboard icon) in the upper-right corner of the screen, then select the desired input source or keyboard layout.

If you don't see the input source you are looking for, move the pointer over Other Input Sources, then select the input source from the complete list that appears.


Internal drive on MacBook won't appear on desktop Why doesn't internal drive appear on desktop after a fresh install of Snow Leopard 10.6.8?

Since Snow Leopard the hard drives aren't shown on the Desktop by default. However if you upgraded from Leopard or earlier it does honor the original settings. However, some updates will disable this setting during the upgrade.

Have a look under Finder preferences and make sure the Hard Disk box is ticked.


Apple Magic mouse often loses connection I have mac mini late 2011, up to date mac OS X and fully charged batteries. It still loses connection about 10 times per hour. It's really annoying

I've tried to remove Bluetooth.plist file, but it didn't help.

Is it solvable issue?

I use Wi Fi, and bluetooth apple keyboard.

The thing is, you can fix your mouse with just your fingers. Simply remove the back cover and bend it so that ends curve up on the Apple logo side. Then, replace the cover. This is why buying a new mouse can fix the issue: Over time, the back cover starts to bend so that there is more room between it and the batteries.


How to put Magic Trackpad 2 into Discovery Mode I have a Magic Trackpad 2.  I previously had it paired with my Mac.  I then had it set up to work with another computer.  I now want to use it with my Mac again and it will not work.

I have followed the suggestions in this question to no avail.

I have tried resetting the Bluetooth module on my mac.  I have tried clearing all the connected devices from my mac.  The trackpad is fully charged.  It works when connected via a wire.  I've tried turning the trackpad on and off and that does not help.  My Mac just can not see it via Bluetooth.

Is there a way to force the Magic Trackpad 2 into discovery mode?

To setup a Magic Trackpad 2 you have to connect it to your Mac using the Lightning cable.

Connect the Trackpad, make sure device's power is on, setup using Bluetooth section of System Preferences.

Here is the Apple support article with the steps I described:

Set up your Apple wireless mouse, keyboard, and trackpad


Install macOS High Sierra.app does not appear to be a valid OS installer application I downloaded High Sierra from the App Store, then tried creating a USB installer using Terminal but I get the following error:
# sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/My-USB-Name/ --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app

/Applications/Install macOS High Sierra.app does not appear to be a valid OS installer application.

The High Sierra directory is present, I'm able to press tab on my keyboard to auto-complete the paths.
After Googling the error, I found this Reddit answer, but I'm not sure what he's talking about or why it should be done, so I haven't tried it.

"Move the directory /macOS Install Data (which is downloaded after you run through the installation once) to be Install macOS High Sierra.app/Contents/SharedSupport"

The USB I'm using is 64Gb and freshly formatted using Disk Utilities.
These answers didn't help solve my issue. I think I have the "stub" in my Applications folder as the High Sierra .app is only 14MB.
I can't figure out how to install the full High Sierra installer
My specifications:
sh-3.2# system_profiler SPSoftwareDataType
Software:

    System Software Overview:

      System Version: OS X 10.8.5 (12F45)
      Kernel Version: Darwin 12.5.0
      Boot Volume: lily
      Boot Mode: Normal
      Computer Name: lily’s MacBook Air
      User Name: System Administrator (root)
      Secure Virtual Memory: Enabled
      Time since boot: 12:37

Here's what you need to do (example follows High Sierra):

Format a USB stick with format Mac OS Extended, scheme GUID Partition Map and name it Untitled
Get and run the installer from https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208969
Run through the installer all until you are asked to restart, but then exit the installer
sudo mkdir /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/SharedSupport
sudo cp -R /macOS\ Install\ Data/ Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/SharedSupport/
sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled

And... if you get an error while installing OSX, e.g. "Installer resource error", then follow these step:

ctrl+command+shift+alt+H and open the Terminal
cp -rf /Volumes/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/SharedSupport/* /Volumes/Untitled/macOS\ install\ data/
Reboot!

You're welcome!


High Sierra reFind/ dual boot Has anyone successfully installed reFind after installing high sierra? I have been attempting to install reFind since I need an ubuntu machine. My current issue has been that I apparently have SIP and that is messing up the installation. Has anyone found a way to bypass this issue?

SIP would only be a problem if you wanted to install rEFInd to your macOS boot volume. This was the preferred way to install rEFInd and its predecessor rEFIt. Currently, rEFInd is usually installed ether in a FAT32 formatted EFI partition or a ~200 MB JHFS+ (Macintosh OS Extended) formatted partition. Choosing either of these types of partitions has the following advantages.

You do not have to disable SIP to install rEFInd.
You can use the Startup Manager to set your Mac to default boot to rEFInd.

Installing to an EFI partition has the following pros and cons.

Pro: Since the partition is FAT32 formatted, you can manipulate the rEFInd files from Ubuntu.
Con: If Windows is installed and uses the EFI boot method, then you have to create a new ~200 MB partition just for rEFInd.

Installing to an JHFS+ partition has the following pros and cons.

Pro: You can add a label to the Startup Manager menu instead of the generic "EFI Boot" label.
Con: You can manipulate the rEFInd files from Ubuntu if you turn off journalling, but this still is not recommended.

I should add that you do not need rEFInd to boot Ubuntu on your Mac. Your Mac can boot Ubuntu from the Startup Manager. This has the following pros and cons.

Pro: You do not need to install rEFInd.
Con: You have to manually copy some Grub/Ubuntu files to a location compatible with the Startup Manager. If an Ubuntu update changes these files, then you would be responsible for updating the copied files.

You also can use the bless command to set your Mac to boot Ubuntu as the default. You would have to execute this command from macOS Recovery or disable SIP.

Some the questions, with an accepted answer, you might consider viewing are given below.

Triple boot macOS High Sierra, Ubuntu, and Windows without rEFInd
Dual-Booting OS X or macOS with Linux without rEFInd


Macbook Pro Ram and/or Processor broken? I am experiencing several problems with my MacBook Pro early 2011.

It all started about two months ago with my wifi card. It lost connection to the network every few hours. The symbol in the status bar of MacOS X kept showing that I am connected, but there was no network connection. When I tried to disable and enable again I could not enable it anymore until I rebooted. This behaviour occurred in the beginning approximately every two or three hours and in the end it happened minutes after rebooting. Now MacOS shows most of the time, but not always, a wifi symbol with a white x in the middle.

About three weeks ago, it started that I could not send my MacBook to sleep anymore. In the beginning I investigated the problem only a little bit, tried to create a new user account and see if this user could send it to sleep, but that did not work. Three days ago, I read more about this problem and Apple says you should try booting safe mode and see if it can go to sleep in this mode. I tried it, it did not work and when I tried to boot back to normal mode I got a “prohibited sign” after I saw the Apple Logo while booting.

I tried to reinstall Mac OS X on the partition on which it was already installed to keep my personal files, but the installation got stuck and failed. I made a backup of my files and did a fresh installation which also failed when I did it using the recovery partition. I tried it again from a USB drive installer and it worked.

After that I used the Apple Hardware Test and the quick test found a memory error: 4MEM/9/40000000: 0x83b52598 I upgraded the RAM on my own years ago with two 4GB chips. After the test I replaced one of the chips with one of the built-in 2GB chips and neither the quick nor the extended test failed. After one day of working with my MacBook I did again three more extended tests, out of curiosity. The first one of these failed with an 4MEM/62/40000000 0x838da618 the other two, I did them several hours later, succeeded without errors.

During the backup process (before replacing the ram) I booted Ubuntu from a USB drive and two out of five or six boots stopped with a couple of errors, I will attach a screenshot of these errors.

Are these errors also RAM related or might it also be a broken processor?

What can break a memory chip? Is it normal that this happens from time to time?

Thanks for your help.

While hard drives are the most likely component to die in any computer, memory can and does fail from time to time. An "Early-2011" model will be nearly four years old now so it's worth considering an HDD replacement at some point (these were some of the first systems to feature SATA-III controllers so you will be able to take full advantage of current SSD speeds).

However, if AHT is detecting memory issues then that's the area to focus on. Booting from USB is obviously independent of any potential hard disk issues and boot failures are nearly always guaranteed to be down to memory issues.


How can I reduce the 70 GB of storage that is classified as system space on my MacBook? Am using Mac Book Pro 2017 model 128 GB.Am using ios development purpose. but some time memory management alert. Here my mac using system space above 70 GB. How can i reduce my system space.

You can use the build-in Storage Management.app for inspecting what file is consuming large amount of disk space

Another software Daisy Disk is very useful for disk space visualising, so you can easily find out the large directories or files by checking the sector area (for directories that contains its files and sub directories)


Cannot play videos in my iPad Air after upgrading to iOS 8.0.2 After upgrading my iPad Air to iOS 8.0.2 I can no longer play videos in any application.

I've tried playing videos in Safari, Youtube, MVP Video Playlist, and any other app you can think of and nothing, I even tried playing purchased videos from iTunes in Apple's own Videos app and it just doesn't work.

Is anybody else experimenting this issue?

After posting this same question in Apple Support Communities Diavonex quickly replied with a simple solution:

  (A) Try reset iPad

  Hold the Sleep/Wake and Home button down together until you see the Apple Logo.

  Note: Data will not be affected.

  (B) Close all apps in the multi-task window

  1.Double-click the Home button.

  Swipe the app's preview up to close it.
  Preview will fly off the screen.

Reference: https://discussions.apple.com/message/26841501#26841501


iOS app for marking businesses on a personalized map I need an app for iPhone (iOS 8) that would:

allow me to save places on a map and group them by categories (e.g. restaurants, bars, clubs, ...)
be more useful if I could change the name of the locations and add some comments to remember details of the place
filter by categories and geolocation (e.g. to see only restaurants or only bars that are close to me)

Sounds like an opportunity to create an app!

Google Maps allows you to save your own maps (My Maps) where you can add locations and place short notes about them. You can not categorize or sort.

With Yelp, you can save locations and make notes, but its limited beyond those features.

The closest I have seen to what you are seeking is an app and website called Findery. It is a mapping app that allows you to save and create notes on specific locations. you can include links, videos etc if you like. While these notes are meant to be 'found' by others, you can make them private. In addition, it has a feature called 'Notemaps' that allows you to categorize your notes in separate maps, like 'Been here', or 'favorites' etc.

I am not affiliated with any of these, just a user.


Creating a new contact in contact list but it doesn't show I've found lately that whenever I add a new contact it then doesn't show in my contact list either in the app or the phone. If I receive a call from them their name shows and if I want to send a message I can type in their name but I can't search for them if I want to call them for the first time.

I haven't changed any settings in my phone and wonder how to make this change.

Sounds like an issue with contact groups.  There are two places to check.

First from a contacts list screen click "Groups" in the top left and see if you have any contact groups that are unchecked.

Second go to Settings > Contacts and see what default account is set.  This effects what group is used when creating new contacts.


Where is my Skype profile picture stored on OS X? I took a profile picture for Skype using the "Capture a picture from a video camera" button found in the Skype profile dialog.  Now I want to use the picture for other things but I cannot find where the picture is being stored.  Any ideas?

(OS X Lion 10.7, Skype 5.3)

Took me a while to find this, but here's the profile picture directory in Mountain Lion:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.ImageKit.RecentPictureService/Data/Library/Images/Recent\ Pictures/


How to import notes to iPhone I have an iPhone 6S running 10.1.1 and I have some notes to import to my device. I don't know how to do that. Any help would be appreciated.

You can do that using iCloud Drive or your PC or your mac. Below link has decribed simply how you can do that and which files support. If your file type is not listed in that list, then you have to convert it before importing.

https://support.apple.com/en-lk/HT205793

Thanks


Unnamed faces in my oven Iphoto is putting a high number of unnamed faces in pictures of food in my oven. It's not happening in other pictures, at least I can't see another pattern.

Why is this happening and how can I avoid this?

iPhoto is not as wrong as one might think.

Examining the first picture carefully i indeed found some faces:

Dramatically increasing contrast and saturation of some channels and lowering brightness of the residual channel the villains come to light:

While the two inside the oven are just interested in the food, the other two create the impression that they are up to no good outside the oven.

So get a new stove because your current one seems to be irretrievably lost to the creatures. And don't always mistrust iPhoto presenting dubious results.

;-)


RAID 1 with Two LaCie 5Big Thunderbolt I'm looking at getting a LaCie 5Big Thunderbolt unit for archiving purposes. I would like to get a second one and use Disk Utility to create a Mirrored RAID Set from both of them so that I have a backup of my data. Both LaCie units would be set to be RAID 0 so that I have maximum space available. Am I able to do what I intend to do?

My next question is, assuming I can set them up as a Mirrored RAID Set, would I then be able to swap out a drive on each of them (one at a time, giving the RAID time to rebuild) to increase storage capabilities?

I'm currently planning on getting two 10TB units as that will supply me with enough storage for quite some time. However, I would like to be able to swap out the smaller drives with larger ones in the future.

Firstly, RAID shouldn't include your backups. Something catastrophic hitting one, will hit the other. Eg. fire, burglary, etc.

Ideally, you want to keep one set off site. Using the 2 disks you can keep one at a friends, and sync the up periodically. There are tools that allow you to do this. Alternatively, something like BackBlaze, Amazon Glacier, will give you huge or unlimited storage that is remote and protected.

Secondly, when setting up RAID you want to think about your priorities. Are you optimizing for speed, redundancy, etc.

I you want to have one unit in house, and one remote and periodically updated, you're probably better off with RAID5, which is a better mixture of redundancy and speed.

Finally, RAID won't allow you to upgrade disks singly.

Alternatively, using a something like Zevo's ZFS you can configure the Big5 as a JBOD and feed the disks into a ZFS RAIDZ. This will allow you to mix and match disk sizes, and upgrade over time. It will also keep better control of your disks, checksum all the data, and a host of other features.

Personally, I'm a big fan of the ZFS approach, as I think the performance and security are better than a plain RAID.

RAIDing using OSX software, on top of a RAID in the LaCie box is asking for some complex failure.


Shell Script Synchronise Folder with External HDD I have a Back-Up HDD (not TimeMachine) with only very important data backed-up there. Every once in a while, I connect the external hard disk and sync the files per hand. As the files I am syncing are always the same, it came to my mind that I could automate the whole process as a shell script.

However, I could not find a helpful command that compares A to B (which will then ask me to sync if sync is necessary). I have found rsync but the documentations did not explain how to synchronise a single directory.

I also haven't figured out how to change directory to an external HDD connected via USB.

This is easy to accomplish using rsync.
The easiest route is to open terminal and type rsync -r and that drag the source folder to the window, followed by the destination folder. -r stands for recursive, so it will look inside the folder and its subfolders. I just synced a folder on my desktop and a mounted USB drive with this command:

rsync -r /Users/My-User/Desktop/Test_folder /Volumes/My-USB-Drive/Test_on_USB

It actually creates the Test_folder inside the Test_on_USB folder.
I'm not an expert on all the options, but you can find them here: http://everythinglinux.org/rsync/

Let me know if that accomplishes what you're after.


Can I dictate if an attachment is included in the text or as a thumbnail? Occasionally I wish to send a photo or file to open with the message text and at times I wish to send as an attachment that needs to be opened by the receiver. How can I determine this?

One way of dictating the choice is to choose what format you send the mail in. If you send mail as plain text then the attachment will need to be opened by the receiver (although the receiver's mail client may choose to provide a preview with the message, much like Mail.app does for some images and PDF documents). If you send the message as rich text (Format -> Make Rich Text) you can choose to place images etc. in the message and they will be visible in place to the receiver (depending on the capabilities of the receiver's client).


How to increase value of tcbhashsize parameter in OS X I am running OS X 10.11 - El Capitan. I am trying to tune my TCP setting for better network / Internet performance. Most of the settings I have been able to modify permanently through /etc/sysctl.conf configuration file.

I am trying to modify the value of net.inet.tcp.tcbhashsize to increase the number of TCP connections served and improve TCP lookup speeds. In Free BSD, it can be modified through /boot/loader.conf, but this file does not appear to exist in OS X.

How can this value be modified in OS X?

sysctl is the tool of choice for this. sysctl net.inet.tcp.tcbhashsize will tell you its value, and sysctl -w net.inet.tcp.tcbhashsize=new_value will set the value. However on my system I got the error sysctl: oid 'net.inet.tcp.tcbhashsize' is read only when I tried to set the value – no idea if it's possible to set this value in some way without compiling and running your own kernel.


My MacBook seems to be an insomniac (won't sleep) As of several days ago, my MacBook refuses to go to sleep either automatically or manually. I have taken the following troubleshooting measures to no effect:

Reset PRAM
Rest SMC
Boot in SafeMode
Verified that the lid sensor was working (my MacBooks's status light responds when it's closed)

Anyone have any ideas would could be causing my MacBook's incompetence?
I'm on 10.7.2 btw.

UPDATE: I found the solution to the problem: I had unnecessary sharing services enabled despite not using them for weeks. Turning these off fixed the problem :)

I found my answer here.

To sum up:

Open a terminal
Run "pmset -g assertions"
Check the output if there is any process preventing the system from sleeping.

In my and apparently many people's cases, it was actually an unused printer driver that seems to be in "in use" state. I deleted that printer driver (not all of them!) and my system now goes to sleep peacefully after closing the lid (even on power).

Lion seems to keep the system awake if the power is connected and there are any services or devices shared to others.

Btw, I am still getting that sound assertion failure when the system goes to sleep.


What is causing Word to start selecting text while I type? Periodically while typing in Word on a 2019 MacBook Pro, my keystrokes are captured by some sort of search mode that causes them to select text instead. In the example below, while I was typing "synonym", the letter "n" did not print to the screen, but caused the selection of text until the next "n" in the paragraph. Then when I typed the letter "p", the selection expanded to cover the next letter "p".

What is making me enter this mode and causing Word to select text by itself like this? Is it related to brushing the touchpad somehow?
Update: This seems to happen especially when I type the letter "y". And it also happens in Outlook.

I asked and answered this question over at SuperUser. It turns out to be a Word shortcut for extending your selection, bound to F8. It only happens to me on the MacBook Pro touch bar, because of the much more sensitive function keys that I can brush when I type 'y'.
You can disable this shortcut by going to Tools > Customize Keyboard, selecting the category "All Commands", searching for "ExtendSelection", and clicking Remove for the F8 hotkey.


Reloading altered keyboard layout When using Ukulele, how can I get an altered keyboard layout in ~/Library/Keyboard\ Layouts to be reloaded without rebooting?

According to a thread in the Ukelele group, changing the key layout ID before installing can cause OS X to load the new layout. This should be done on a working copy of the layout bundle, not an installed one, and may not work in newer versions of OS X (I could not get it to work under High Sierra). If changing the ID doesn't work for you, logging out and back in again should reload keyboard layouts.
Steps:

Open a working copy of the layout bundle in Ukelele. Note this can't be an installed, active layout (i.e. one in a relevant "Library/Keyboard Layouts" folder).
Generate a new ID:

In Ukelele's list of keyboard layouts for the bundle, right-click the layout and choose "Set Keyboard Name and Script…".
Change the script (e.g. from "Unicode" to "Roman"), taking note of the original value.
Click OK
Repeat the last 3 steps and change the script back to the original value.
Save the layout.

If an older copy of the layout is installed, remove it from the relevant "Keyboard Layout" folder.
Copy the updated layout to the relevant "Keyboard Layout" folder.

Under the hood, this changes the "id" attribute of the root <keyboard> element in Contents/Resources/<name>.layout within the bundle.


How do I create a symbolic link to a directory with a space in it? I was trying to create a symbolic link using the following command:

ln -s "~/Foo Bar/" Foo

... but it didn't work (i.e. when I go into finder and try double clicking it, it says that it's pointing to an invalid path and prompts me to delete the alias or fix it). I had to rename the folder to FooBar and then run the following command:

ln -s ~/FooBar/ Foo

How can I create the link without having to remove the space from the folder's name?

I'm looking for a way to do this in Terminal and not in Finder's UI.

The quote marks are preventing ~ from being expanded to your home folder, so you need to either quote just the part with the space in it:

ln -s ~/"Foo Bar/" Foo

Note: exactly how much is quoted doesn't matter, as long as the space is in the quoted portion and the ~/ isn't. ~/Foo" "Bar/, ~/"Foo Bar"/, ~/Fo"o B"ar/ etc are all equivalent. Also, single- and double-quotes have the same effect on spaces (although they differ on other characters), so ~/'Foo Bar/', ~/Foo' 'Bar/ etc would also work.

You could also use an escape to prevent the space from being treated as a separator:

ln -s ~/Foo\ Bar/ Foo


Wifi Connection Problems I'm having a WiFi sharing problem.

I'm using my ipad air as a hotspot for my mac osx leporad (which has a airport card). My mac recognizes my ipad but when I click on it nothing happens. so I went to system presences and tried to add a network there and when I get to enter your password, I do that and it says connection timed out or password invaild......(Which I know the password it right)

If my mac can detect my ipad hotspot why won't my mac connect to it?????
Anyone please help me! Also I have a Mac OS X 10.5

Thankx

To set up a hot spot on your iPad, start by opening Settings and navigating to General > Network. (Note: you will need to have the Cellular Data connection turned on.)

You can set up your personal hot spot by tapping on the giant setup button, which will check with your carrier to see if the feature is supported, and if it is, allow you to turn the hot spot on. If your carrier doesn't support it, you'll get an alert telling you as much.

Enter a password that has to be minimum 8 characters long.


How to start Internet Recovery Mode of El Capitan with multiple OS installed? Thank you for your time. Here is my problem:

A) Goal

Start into Mac OS X El Capitan internet recovery mode and temporarily disable System Integrity Protection (SIP) to use (X11 functions of) Wineskin.

B) Situation

I've got two systems on my 2011 MacBook Pro as partitions:

Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.8; this is the default startup disk and the "factory set" OS (actually Lion) of the computer.
Mac OS X El Capitan 10.11.6; apparently without a recovery partition...
I access this OS via the startup manager ([Opt key] at Mac chime).

C) Problem

To boot into (internet) recovery mode I normally would press [(Opt +) Cmd + R] at the Mac chime and then disable SIP from the Terminal (csrutil).

As of the system configuration above, if I do this, it starts into internet recovery mode of Snow Leopard, where I cannot change the status of SIP because the csrutil command does not exist yet in this OS, of course.

But my intention is to start into internet recovery mode of El Capitan, not Snow Leopard.
How can I achieve this with this configuration?

D) What I've tried so far

Enter the startup manager ([Opt] at chime), choose El Capitan and then hit [Cmd + R].
= Does not start any recovery mode.
Change the default start up disk to El Capitan and hit [(Opt +) Cmd + R] at the chime.
= Starts into Snow Leopard recovery mode...
Create a recovery partition this way.
= Does not work; Recovery Partition Creator 4.0.4 seems broken.

E) Additional Questions

Those don't have to be answered necessarily, but if you do: Many thanks!

I'd like to avoid reinstalling El Capitan to create a recovery partition since I believe in a simpler solution. But as a last straw, I'd do that of course. Would this be advisable?
If I installed El Capitan on an external drive, could I disable SIP from there (or its recovery partition) or would I run into the same problem?
Could I disable SIP via Firewire Disk Mode; that is from another computer (in this case OS X Sierra)?
Could I start into El Capitan recovery mode from verbose mode?
I'm probably mistaken, but does the EFI partitions which I see in terminal (diskutil list) have anything to do with the recovery mode? If yes, could I start into that (from verbose)?
Out of curiosity: Why didn't create El Capitan no recovery partition in the first place? (There is none when I do "diskutil list" in Terminal, only a "Boot OS X", but that's probably something about Snow Leopard...)

Thank you very much in advance!

Regards Jeremy

3 Solutions, or more likely workarounds
(Found them myself, but thanks to Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen anyways!)

To reiterate and clarify: I want to start in recovery mode of El Capitan on a MacBook Pro 2011 which has said OS as a partition and on another the ("factory set") Snow Leopard. Since El Capitan had - for an for me unknown reason?! - no recovery partition installed, my actual goal was to start internet recovery mode of El Capitan. This did not work since whenever I pressed [Cmd + R] at the chime, it started into recovery mode of Snow Leopard, which doesn't contain the wanted terminal command "csrutil" yet.

I went with option E)2. (above) and installed OS El Capitan on an empty external disk. After rebooting and holding the [Opt key] at the chime, I was able to choose the recovery partition of the newly installed system on the external drive, and afterwards disable SIP.

Thorbjørn Ravn Andersens solution will probably work too: A bootable USB stick - that's essentially the same as I did, but might be faster (?)... A third solution is probably (E)2.) reinstalling El Capitan to get the recovery partition (again?).

But even though those solutions (might) work, all of them include the time and space consuming (re-)installing of El Capitan. Since El Capitan should also have a internet recovery mode option it's unfortunate that one does not seem to be able to boot into that, if you have multiple (and older and "factory set") OS installed. (Option D)2., change the default start up disk to El Capitan and hit [(Opt +) Cmd + R] at the chime, should be working, but doesn't...)

So my Question is actually not solved completely, so I'll leave it open...
Thanks to every one who can give further advise! :D


Can you charge a 2018 Macbook Air through a USB-Hub? In other words I want to plug the hub into my Macbook Air and the power into the Hub

[Power]-->[Hub]-->[2018 Macbook Air]

I bought 2 hubs and neither seems to be able to do this. I tried a VANMASS 9-in-1 USB HUB and a Sicotool 8 in 1 Type C Combo USB C Hub Adapter

In either case the Macbook Air shows

AC Charger Information:

  Connected:    Yes
  Wattage (W):  5
  Charging:     No

update

Okay so I tried a bunch of things. First off I'm using an Anker 60W Powerport 6 as power. I made the assumption, I guess wrong, that given the power adaptor that comes with the Macbook Air is 30W that this Anker 60W would deliver enough power. But apparently that's wrong. If I connect it directly to the Macbook Air it just says

AC Charger Information:

  Connected:    Yes
  Wattage (W):  12
  Charging:     No

So, apparently the hub is taking 7W?

I plugged the Apple 30W USB-C Power Adaptor into the hub and I get

AC Charger Information:

  Connected:    Yes
  Wattage (W):  19
  Charging:     No

So now the question is, if I go out and buy say the Apple 87W USB-C Power Adaptor and plug it in to the hub will in finally start charging through the hub?

if I go out and buy say the Apple 87W USB-C Power Adaptor and plug it in to the hub will in finally start charging through the hub?

Answer: Yes, I went to the Apple store, plugged on the Apple 60W USB-C Power Adaptor and System Info shows the Macbook Air was charging.

So I guess the 60W Anker is not 60W for a single port


Does iOS keyboard "allow full access" setting allow use of data from default keyboard? Does the allow full access setting allow third party apps access to what's been written previously using the default keyboard?

Or can they only access data that is written using the the third party keyboard app?

The 3rd party keyboard app are restricted to access data entered only using the app and not be iOS built-in keyboard.

The apps are sandboxed and have access only to what’s typed using the keyboard. It cannot read what’s entered using either the system keyboard or other third party keyboards.


Launchd to terminate what it starts I have a launchd plist that uses StartCalendarInterval to start my python script at the desired time and day of the week.

Now I want to create a launchd plist that both starts and terminates a different python script at selected times.    Where is the "KillCalender" command or equivalent?

Essentially, I want the program the controls my Christmas lights come on at 1800 and go off at 2200.

I suppose I could write the main loop in my python program so it terminates at 2200 but I was hoping launchd could do this for me.

I would look into the ExitTimeOut value for launchd.plist:

  TimeOut

  The recommended idle time out (in seconds) to pass to the job. If no value is specified, a default time out will be supplied by launchd for use by the job at check in time.

  ExitTimeOut

  The amount of time launchd waits before sending a SIGKILL signal. The default value is 20 seconds. The value zero is interpreted as infinity.


How can I install OS X Lion on a new HDD? I need OS X Lion on a new HDD that I am preparing to install in a MacBook.

Since I don't have an existing disk to boot up and Apple isn't selling flash drives with it (or are they?), how do I use it for booting?

Something to keep in mind: I may ultimately be restoring a partition with a Time Machine backup, but I need to boot in OS X first to get to Disk Utility or the Time Machine restoration interface.

If you have a copy of Lion already downloaded you can use the instructions here to create your own. The installation image is in the downloaded package and can be restore using Disk Utility.

  Add the InstallESD.dmg image to Disk Utility
  Select empty USB drive and go to restore tab
  Make the InstallESD the source
  Make the USB Drive the target
  Click Restore

Alternatively you can purchase a Lion install USB drive from your local Apple Store or online here for $ 70.00.

If you only redoing the actual OSX partition and already had Lion installed, you can use Cmd+R during boot to access the Recovery partition which will allow you to download OSX Lion or restore from Time Machine.

Mountain Lion is only available to registered developers with access to the Mac Developer Section, but the manual process above works exactly the same.


Showing Macbook screen on a larger monitor When I connect the Macbook to a TV monitor it does not duplicate my screen.  It shows the Yosemite screen.  It doesn't change as I open different files.

Go to System Preferences > Displays and turn on Mirroring. This will duplicate the main window onto the TV monitor.

You can alternatively decide to put the Menu Bar at the top of the TV monitor instead of the MacBook, or choose to put the menu bar at the top of both screens. These preferences are found in the Displays Preference Pane.

By default, the split screen puts the secondary display (the TV monitor) to the right or left of the main (MacBook) screen. Move the mouse pointer off the right or left edge of the MacBook screen and see if the pointer appears.


Simulate iOS's "reduce white point" feature on OS X El Capitan I've become fond of iOS's "reduce white point" accessibility feature to reduce the intensity of bright colors, which makes the screen much easier to use in the dark -- nicer, in my opinion, than simply turning down the brightness.

On OS X El Capitan version 10.11, is there a way to simulate this feature using native OS X tools, or ones available on the internet? I couldn't find anything.

Thanks for the help.

This is a solution that work nicely, but it is not free.

Gamma Control - is a professional app to control the brightness of color on your mac. Really useful to correct color & black on any projector, that's why I paid for it at first ~25$.

Get it in the App Store

The put these setting on:

1- Max brightness on you mac

2- In Gamma Control put the White Point Luminance as you like (between 0.3 and 0.6 I enjoy)


iPad Air unable to run IOS 8.3 update despite over 19GB iCloud storage available Only approx 200 M of internal drive storage left, but over 19GB of iCloud storage available and yet I am unable to run the latests iOS update as there is not sufficient space.

Could someone explain why that is? Is there anything specific I need to do so the iCloud storage can be used for the update? I'm sure I ran updates based on free iCloud storage space alone in the past and worked fine.

iCloud storage has no correlation to a Device's available space to allow installation of an update.

To show how much space is free on the device:

 Settings > General > Usage > Under 'Storage' > Manage Storage

From here you can see what is Used vs Available, and you can even see what apps are using the most.

You can always update via iTunes by directly connecting the iPad to a PC/Mac, this will by pass any space issues on the device usually.


How to recover deleted voicemail from iPhone 4S? I have the iPhone 4S. This morning, I had 2 unheard voicemails. I attempted to listen to them but no sound was delivered and the progress bar did not move. A few minutes later I looked down and my messages were no longer there. Is there any way to recover these deleted voicemails?

If you did actually delete the voicemail, a new cell should have appeared if you scroll to the bottom of your voicemails.

Then, tap on Deleted Messages, and you should get this screen:

Now, tap on the voicemail that you would like to delete, and press Undelete:

Hope this helps!


Does Numbers on the iPad pro allow you to sketch with the Apple Pencil? Using Apple Numbers a lot on my iPad iOS 9.2.1

Due to the limited availability, I haven't seen anyone sporting an Apple Pencil with an iPad Pro. Stores in my area have the iPad Pro but no Pencil.

Does Numbers on the iPad pro allow you to sketch with the Apple Pencil? What happens when you sketch on the Numbers canvas? Can you freehand a simple sketch?

Short answer No

The background that tables, graphs, images etc. rest above is just a workspace.

It's not a canvas. (Just to be complete I did try it with my Pencil in my iPad Pro)


Display scroll bar for longer I'm one of these people who likes to grab the scroll bar and move it around now-n-then when I'm not using the scroll wheel on my mouse.

But what I find really annoying is I have to scroll to get it to appear, which is fine, but it disappears before I can grab it.

How can I increase the duration that the scroll bar shows before it disappears?

Run

defaults write -g NSOverlayScrollerHideDelay -float 3

where 3 is a value in seconds and quit and reopen applications to apply the changes.

I found the preference key by running mdfind kMDItemContentType=public.unix-executable -onlyin /System|xargs strings 2>/dev/null|grep -E '^[[:alnum:].-]{10,80}$'|grep -i scroll.


App Store Broken Download Xcode (Mac Os X Mountain Lion) Debug, Reset doesnt help! I started download Xcode 4 within App Store, it made some 200MB, then I had to move and closed my MBP.

Afterwards it didnt restart the download and I was getting nervous clicking around.

End of story: App Store shows Xcode as "ready to install" (which is aboslutely impossible since there have been over 1G still to be loaded with not a too good broad band connection)

Clicking on install just yield and endless "wait.."

I also used the Debug view to "Reset Applications" - still shows as "ready to install"

Under /Applications there is no install X Code folder to delete

Viewing the download folder (from debug view) there is also nothing to delete

So the question is: how the hell am I supposed to fix this broken download?

Now Xcode shows directly as "Xcode.app" in /Applications.
Is there anything there ?

I deleted the (full) app from my /Applications folder, relaunched App Store and it was possible to click on "Install" again.


Completely recover space from sparse bundle when "hdiutil compact" is not enough Current situation: I have a large sparse bundle image whose size is reported as 91GB (cmd+I from Finder). Its contents, instead, are only 80GB. hdiutil compact does not shrink the image:

Starting to compact…
Reclaiming free space…
..............................................................................
Finishing compaction…
Reclaimed 0 bytes out of 25.6 GB possible.

So there are 11GB of space that I cannot recover.

How I got there: Before getting into this situation, I had ~27GB of smallish files (MP3s, from 2-8MB) that I deleted from the image. I then ran hdiutil compact, but it only recovered 16GB of those 27GB, leaving 11GB of wasted space.

Any idea? Google is failing me.

Either recreate the image, or defragment and repeat hdiutil compact. For defragmentation, I use iDefrag.


How to access the IR sensor of MacBook Pro Mid 2010 to be able to use non apple remotes I have an Audio to IR accessory for my iPhone which works very well with most of the TVs and DVD players as the app that comes with it supports them.

I was wondering if it would be possible to write an iPhone App + Mac App that would let me control my MacBook Pro similar to how Apple remote works.

Is the IR sensor on MacBooks accessible to third party applications ?

Any Open Source Projects, SDK's or hacks you nice people can point me towards ?

You may want to investigate candlair, or its big brother, Remote Buddy (google them). Candlair I believe only supports apple remotes, but remote buddy should let you configure other types of remotes with relative ease (they have a supported hardware list which is significantly larger than the stock IR port's driver). I've never used it though since my apple remote does everything i need. Good luck!


MacBook Pro displays Apple Logo and Prohibitory Symbol My  MacBook Pro 15" displays the  Prohibitory Symbol on start-up. What can I do to fix it?

The Apple website mentions what a prohibitory symbol means:

  Prohibitory symbol

  A circle with a line or slash through it means that the selected startup disk contains a Mac operating system, but it's not a macOS that your Mac can use. You should reinstall macOS on that disk.


Can we run OS X apps inside X11 (XQuartz)? I'm wondering if that is possible, so that I can use some X11 window manager for everything.

No. Native OS X apps don't call down to X11 protocol and no one (Apple or other) has implemented any sort of shim/translation layer/conversion tool to port over the API.

It would surely involve slowdown, reduced acceleration, possibly loss of fidelity and loss of functionality.


lagging cursor from magic mouse and magic trackpad I have a brand new mac mini 2012 connected to a Thunderbolt display. Since the Thunderbolt display was connected, I sometimes get a lagging cursor, meaning that moving the mouse/trackpad leads the cursor to follow the position very slowly. I have connected both, a Magic Mouse and a Magic Trackpad.

I'm trying to track down this issue but up to now, no avail. I've already connected another Magic Mouse, but same here.

Any idea welcome.

EDIT: if only the trackpad or the mouse is attached, it gets a bit better, but still not acceptable. I also moved around my WiFi-station and the Mac mini - not better.

Thanks for the hint with the radio interference, that seemed to be a large part of the problem.

In the end I did a lots of thing to get it going (consider it took like 6 hours all in all):

I switched to cable network in that room (almost). WiFi and Bluetooth definitely where interacting negatively. BTW: cable networking feels so much better!
the WiFi base-station was moved away from the Mac mini to the opposite side of the room.
the Magic Trackpad is switched off most of the time. It looks like there is some kind of interference between Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad.
I deinstalled or updated any system preferences app, especially everything that has to do with GUI control.

Why I didn't move to a cable-mouse? I'm used to work with the swipe gesture a lot, and I'm not aware of a cable-mouse that understands Mac gestures.