How to unrate multiple album ratings at the same time? I'm using iTunes 12.2.1.16 and today I realized that there is something called 'album rating'. This messes up my ordering according to the track rating. Suddenly there are songs appearing with hollow stars that I never rated.

I found out that this is the automatic album rating from iTunes. So far so bad. I also managed to disable it for one album.

But how can I unrate my entire library? In the album view I can select multiple albums, but not set the album rating...

iTunes driving me crazy again...

It's about deleting the album rating, not the track rating.

I was looking to do the same thing the OP requested here. This was my solution:
Open the Music app (formerly iTunes in macOS 10.14 and earlier) and do one of the following:

create a new smart playlist with the criteria that album rating does not equal zero stars (the star to the left of the first star) then open up that smart playlist and select all the songs therein
sort tracks by album rating and select all the songs that have a non-zero album rating.

Next, open up Script Editor.app and paste in the following script:
tell application "Music"
    repeat with theSong in selection
        set album rating of theSong to 0
    end repeat
end tell

You may need to run it more than once as it may fail as the selection changes while songs are being removed from the smart playlist. After a successful execution, all manual album ratings will be removed. Some albums may still have grayed out ratings: these are from the song ratings themselves and aren't actually album ratings.


Mac OSX not automatically remapping windows key to cmd I'm currently using a Cooler Master Quickfire Ultimate keyboard that works perfect with Windows 7. However, whenever I have it plugged into my Macbook pro (running OSX 10.9.5),
the default mappings don't seem to work.

I've used other keyboards, and the windows key will always re-map to cmd on mac. However, on my new keyboard, this isn't the case. The windows key doesn't seem to do or change anything. The alt key also doesn't seem to get mapped to anything initially.

My ctrl key maps correctly to ctrl on mac, but this leaves me without a command, or an option key.

I went into the "Modifier Keys" panel, and selected my keyboard on the list. Changing command to map to the ctrl key does remap cmd from mac to ctrl on my windows keyboard. Changing the mac ctrl to map to whatever the default "cmd" key is (in this case, should be the windows symbol key), does not work.

This means, when I'm trying to run a program and have to execute commands with the mac ctrl, I have to keep switching the modifier keys around.

I've tried using karabiner to remap keys, but can't seem to figure it out. I looked on the XML key list, but can't figure out how to remap the windows key to the mac ctrl, and the command key to the windows ctrl. How would I go about fixing this?

I fixed the issue!

Turns out that on this keyboard, doing fn + f12 actually disables the windows key. This was turned on by default. This is why nothing was working when I would press the windows key. I pressed fn + f12 again and now everything works :| weeks of frustration all due to me not looking at my keyboard layout :(


How do I ignore units in Numbers? I'm trying to do a simple calculation of 12 $/h multiplied by some other cells which represent days and hours. This is a simple multiplication on Google Spreadsheet, but in Numbers units are automatically added (ie. 252d, 8h) and this somehow resulting in totally wrong calculation results.

How do I force Numbers to not insert this unwanted extra data? Changing the cell formatting from "automatic" to "number" doesn't seem to have an effect. I want it to behave like other spreadsheet programs.

Turns out you have to wrap every formula that generates a duration in DUR2DAYS or DUR2HOURS to convert to a number.


Multiple IP addresses in Safari Is it possible to choose which IP address will be used to browse the web? I am connected to a VPN which created tun interface with different IP addres so now I have two of them.

I would also like to browse the web through the second one, the tun interface.

Yeah, I found the answer.. If you're using VPN via OSX Network settings, there is a setting under Advanced button to "Send all traffic over VPN connection". If you're using OpenVPN with Tunnelblick, the same "Route all traffic hrough the VPN" is under Settings->Advanced->While connected.


How to prevent text messages from my iPhone to my iPad? My text messages from my iPhone are appearing on our iPad, how do I stop that?

On the iPad open the settings app. In FaceTime turn off iPhone Cellular Calls.


Move a row in excel using the keyboard In any editor I move lines around with the keyboard frequently. Using the mouse/trackpad is distracting and slow.  Can the same be accomplished in Excel and I just missed it?

Press Shift ⇧+Space ␣ while on the row you want to move (row 1 in your example in the comments above). This should highlight all of the row.
Press Command ⌘+x to cut the highlighted row.
Using the arrow keys on your keyboard, go to the row you want to insert the cut row before (row 4 if we continue the example).
Press Control ⌃++.


How can I disassociate a single app (e.g., Xcode) from all file types it's mapped to? Every time I get a machine that I install Xcode on, it associates itself with all kinds of filetypes.  E.g., .xml, .rb, even .java!  It's such a nuisance to have to re-associate those file extensions individually.  If I want to open Xcode, I'll open Xcode, but I never want to open Xcode by double-clicking on a script or using open.

Is there any way to globally disassociate Xcode from all file types?  More generally, is there any way to do this for any app (e.g., QuickTime)?

PS: I know about How to Change File Type Associations? but this aims at changing one specific association, not disabling them all at once.

You could delete the CFBundleDocumentTypes array in the Info.plist, but it is also used to define file types like xcodeproj. It would also invalidate the code signature (so you'd have to enter a password to access keychains), and the changes might get overridden by updates. Some applications like TextEdit crash on launch if the Info.plist is modified.

To update the Launch Services database, run /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -R -f /Applications/Application.app/.

You could also unregister the application by running lsregister -u -R -f /Applications/Application.app/, but I don't know if it would get registered again at some point. It would also remove the icons of file types defined by the application.

If you are looking for a faster way to change default applications, take a look at duti. I have published my configuration file (which includes common code and video file types) here.


SQLite Manager 4 : unable to open database file I have recently purchased and installed the software SQLite Manager 4, now I am creating new SQLite3 database and whenever I try to create new table with 'xyz' name with any number of column, it gives me error stating "unable to open database file".

No other details is given on that part. I also searched for FAQ and other user manual, but did not succeed.

Please help me on this part.

Thank you.

SQLite is a file-based database engine, and is therefor dependent on appropriate file permissions.

Check that the directory containing the database file is read-write-executable (rwx or octal 7) by the current user, and also check that the database file itself is read- and writeable (rw or octal 6).


AppleScript to Rename file list to Specific Names I've spent hours researching this and I can't seem to find an answer, so your help would be greatly appreciated!

I have an audio recorder that outputs 16 files that are always named the same.

ORIGINAL FILE NAMES

(TRK01.WAV, TRK02.WAV, TRK03.WAV, TRK04.WAV, TRK05.WAV, TRK06.WAV, TRK07.WAV, TRK08.WAV, TRK09.WAV, TRK10.WAV, TRK11.WAV, TRK12.WAV, TRK13.WAV, TRK14.WAV, TRK15.WAV, TRK16.WAV)

I want an Automator App that changes the file names to the following list.

NEW FILE NAMES

(01_Lav.WAV, 02_HH1.WAV, 03_Piano.WAV, 04_TR AC.WAV, 05_MX AC.WAV, 06_Bass.WAV, 07_ElectG.WAV, 08_KickD.WAV, 09_Vox1.WAV, 10_Vox2.WAV, 11_Vox3.WAV, 12_Vox4.WAV, 13_CrowdL.WAV, 14_CrowdR.WAV, 15_Aux7_R.WAV, 16_MainLR_R.WAV)

This way I can save the Application on a hard drive where I transfer the files to and run it when needed.

I was thinking it would go something like this:

set theFolder to choose folder

set name of file “TRK01.WAV“ to “01_Lav.WAV“
set name of file “TRK02.WAV“ to “02_HH1.WAV“
set name of file “TRK03.WAV“ to “03_Piano.WAV“
set name of file “TRK04.WAV“ to “04_TR AC.WAV“
set name of file “TRK05.WAV“ to “05_MX AC.WAV“
set name of file “TRK06.WAV“ to “06_Bass.WAV“
set name of file “TRK07.WAV“ to “07_ElectG.WAV“
set name of file “TRK08.WAV“ to “08_KickD.WAV“
set name of file “TRK09.WAV“ to “09_Vox1.WAV“
set name of file “TRK10.WAV“ to “10_Vox2.WAV“
set name of file “TRK11.WAV“ to “11_Vox3.WAV“
set name of file “TRK12.WAV“ to “12_Vox4.WAV“
set name of file “TRK13.WAV“ to “13_CrowdL.WAV“
set name of file “TRK14.WAV“ to “14_CrowdR.WAV“
set name of file “TRK15.WAV“ to “15_Aux7_R.WAV“
set name of file “TRK16.WAV“ to “16_MainLR_R.WAV“

tell application "Finder"
    (open theFolder) select
end tell

How would this actually be done?

– user3439894, Thanks for the Help!  This got me really close!

For anyone who needs to do the same thing, here's what I did to make it work. In my circumstance, I needed an application, so I can save it on a hard drive and use it on whatever Mac I'm working on at the time.  I didn't need another service to clutter up my menus.

Here's how it's done:

1) Using Automator, create a "new document" type: "Application"

2) Insert "Ask for Finder Items" box and select Type: "Folders".

3) Insert "Get Selected Finder Items" box (below "Ask for Finder Items" box)

4) Insert "Run Shell Script" box.  Set Shell: "/bin/bash" set Pass input: "as arguments".

5) Type:

cd "$1" || exit 1

mv TRK01.WAV 01_Lav.WAV
mv TRK02.WAV 02_HH1.WAV
mv TRK03.WAV 03_Piano.WAV
mv TRK04.WAV "04_TR AC.WAV"
mv TRK05.WAV "05_MX AC.WAV"
mv TRK06.WAV 06_Bass.WAV
mv TRK07.WAV 07_ElectG.WAV
mv TRK08.WAV 08_KickD.WAV
mv TRK09.WAV 09_Vox1.WAV
mv TRK10.WAV 10_Vox2.WAV
mv TRK11.WAV 11_Vox3.WAV
mv TRK12.WAV 12_Vox4.WAV
mv TRK13.WAV 13_CrowdL.WAV
mv TRK14.WAV 14_CrowdR.WAV
mv TRK15.WAV 15_Aux7_R.WAV
mv TRK16.WAV 16_MainLR_R.WAV

Save the Application to desired location and you're done!


Adding Unicode decorators to text in Pages Is it possible to add a copied (via Cmd+C), for example, vector arrow to  a letter in Pages? If so, how?

You can show the character viewer by selecting Special Characters from the Edit menu. It doesn't support copying characters, but you can add characters by dragging them to text views.


Why Siri says that X is not on my find my friends list? I asked Siri on my Mac "where is X?" and she answered: "X is not on your find my friends list".

Siri can locate this person when I'm using iPhone without any problem. I checked Is there a way to "Find My Friends" from the desktop, rather than iPhone? and I can see the location of this person in Messages app on my Mac. Yet Siri on Mac seems to have a problem with that. Is it a bug or a feature?

I know this is two years ago, but you have to make sure you have added their iCloud email address to their contact. Once you have done this it will work... I have just tested this (August 2019)


How long is it safe to use iOS 7? I have an iPhone 4. I would like to know: since iOS 8 is not going to work on the iPhone 4, when should I be worried about the security of my device, since iOS 7 will eventually cease to be supported by most apps?

The important thing to know is that once an OS is no longer supported, it doesn't immediately become full of security problems. It's also not beyond Apple to give updates to non-current (for want of a better description) versions of iOS for major security problems. Therefore, it's not possible at this stage to say when iOS 7 will be insecure.


My MacBook Air is receiving messages from my parents' phones. I want it to receive messages from only my phone though! My whole family has the same Apple ID to prevent confusion. It has worked in the past, however whenever we add a new device we struggle with this problem. And as if that wasn't frustrating enough, messages that my dad sends to my mom show up on my Macbook as me sending the messages to my mom. I also receive my mom's phone calls on my MacBook and my iPhone 6. I have already checked the settings on all said devices and none of them have iCloud message sharing enabled. Additionally, all the devices can be contacted by only one number/email and none of them share anything except the Apple ID. Help would be much appreciated! Thank you!

In Apple world if you are using same Apple ID, your messages and information are shared across devices.  That is the reason why you are seeing the messages sent by your family members on your macbook.

I would advise you to create separate Apple ID for every individual or disable iMessage from their personal devices. So that the device that was disabled for iMessage would not sync messages across devices.

Hope this helps!


How to execute Terminal command using selected text? I want to bind a shortcut to run a command in Terminal with text that I selected while web browsing. How could I do this?

You can achieve this by making an automator workflow and saving it as a service.

Open Automator.app, choose to make a Service.

In the top menu set "Service receives selected" to "text" in "any application".

From the Actions, Library menu search for "Get Value of Variable" and drag to the right in the workflow area.  Again in the Actions, Library search for "Run AppleScript" and drag to the workflow area.

In the "Run AppleScript" action enter the flowing code:

on run {input, parameters}

    set terminalCommand to item 1 of input

    tell application "Terminal"
        activate
        do script terminalCommand
    end tell

    return input
end run

Add a variable by clicking on the little double bar icon at the bottom of the window and then right-clicking in the variables frame to create a new variable.  Name your variable anything you like.  When your done your workflow should look like below.  Save it and name it something like "Run in Terminal".  Now when your in a web browser you can right click and navigate to Services and you will see your "Run in Terminal" command, which will open up terminal and run the highlighted text.


MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015) high temperature I know there are plenty of articles here about CPU reaching very high temperatures but I am still concerned about mine.

I bought a used MacBook Pro Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015 (i5, 2.7 Ghz) computer this week. This is not my first MacBook Pro (I had 2012 non retina model) but it has never reached 100C unless I played games or did some video rendering.

What makes me really worried is that CPU temperature easily reaches 100-105C when I open Adobe Bridge and click "Space" keyboard button to generate a 100% image preview. I know that it's using CPU graphics processor for this task but is it really normal for the temperature to get critical when doing such a simple task? The fan runs at around 2000 RPM until the CPU temperature reaches <100C. Then the fan starts running really fast and keeps the temperature at around 95-100C if I continue doing my tasks.

I know that MacBooks are built to work under high CPU temperature but I also know that high temperatures are not good for the lifetime of hardware. Should I be concerned about CPU temperature getting critical values so easily?

The temperature of my MacBook is around 40C when idle, 50-70C when I am browsing or watching online videos, I can never hear the fan until the temperature reaches critical 100-105C values.

Is it really normal? I don't want to believe that a 1 year old MacBook Pro can have a big amount of dust inside the fan or thermal paste to be dried out so quickly.

Thank you and I appreciate your comments.

As a starting point I would reset both your NVRAM and your SMC. See below for instructions.

Reset your NVRAM

Newer Macs use Non-Volatile Random-Access Memory (NVRAM). It may be worth you resetting this. Here’s how to:

Shut down your machine. Yes, a full shut down, not just logging out.
Press the power button and then press the commandoptionpr keys. You have to make sure you press these keys before the gray screen appears or it won’t work.
Hold those keys down until your Mac reboots again and you here the startup chime.
Let go of the keys and let your Mac reboot normally.

Note: When you log back in you may need to readjust some of your system preferences (e.g. mouse speed, time and date/timezone, etc).

Reset the SMC

Your computer's System Management Controller (SMC) can also be reset. To reset this on your particular MacBook Pro, here’s what you do:

Shut down your computer
Keep the power cable plugged in.
Press at the same time shiftoptioncontrol (on the left side of the keyboard) and the power button
Let go
Turn your computer back on with the power button.

After doing both these, let us know how you go.

Compare CPU temperatures

Also, as a point of reference, this resource (which can be filtered) will give you an idea of the wide range of temperatures that Macs can work with. However, after you've reset both the NVRAM and SMC you can monitor your CPU temperature and then use this resource to compare your temps to other comparable models.


What does it mean if IPSW file is not signed anymore? So I wanted to jailbreak my iPhone and I was interested in it before but I never really took the time to. Research properly. Forgetting that I might jailbreak in the future, I updated my phone to iOS 9. I didn't really like iOS 9 and the fact that you can run a jailbreak on it.

I researched a little and found out that I can restore with an IPSW file and I was stoked. However, it seems that Apple only “signs” down to ios 8.4.1, an UN-jailbreak able version of iOS.

What does it mean if an IPSW file is not signed? And what would happen if I were to put an unsigned version of iOS on my phone?

I got the IPSW file from this website. I have tried researching pretty much everywhere but I cannot find an answer.

Easily spoken, you could say ipsw files are not complete.  They're missing that so-called signature.  It's like a contract; it has no value without the signature.  Every time you install new firmware on the iPhone, iTunes calls to the Apple servers and ask for that approval signature.  For numerous reasons, Apple doesn't give out those signatures for older firmware versions.

There's not much you can do.  The only thing you can do is downgrading to 8.4.1 and hope one day somebody releases the jailbreak for it.  But for now, you're stucked.

UPDATE: As of Oct 2015 Apple stopped signing 8.x.  As of Oct 2016 Apple stopped signing 9.x.  While this answer is not correct any more it still describes the general idea behind Apple firmware signing.


In itunes 10, where is the " Store Full Resolution Photos" option? I can't seem to find this option any more.  has it moved ??

Apparently it has been removed according to a discussion on Apple's forums


Apple magic keyboard weird behavior I connected Apple's magic keyboard to an iPhone 7 and started to experiment if I can take it with me on a journey.

I soon realized that it does not have any special characters to my language. I started to search for a button that alters the letters to get those special chars (alt + letters; cmd + letters). After a while I discovered some strange behaviors of this keyboard:

I can not type capital T with left Shift.
Backspace works as delete button (removes text from right side of cursor).
Right and left arrows works as HOME and END buttons.

Also I noticed that arrow keys and backspace works if I reconnect with device. Whenever I hit left SHIFT + T the phone opens dropdown menu to select onscreen keybord type (Emoji and two other options). After this again arrows and backspace does not work.

My guess is that I accidentally activated some mode to get a Latvian layout and now need to reverse that. Any way to fix this?

Keyboard model: A1314

Also I found a whole thread where people have exactly the same problem, but no solutions for years: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3357507

I'm going to defer to people like @nohillside and @Tom Gewecke for internationalization and keyboard setups, but you can rule out a factory reset of Apple bluetooth devices quite quickly assuming you have a Mac computer you can borrow and pair to the keyboard in question.

Enable Bluetooth in the menu bar
Hold Shift and Option keys when you click on Bluetooth icon (and you can let go of the modifier keys once the menu is visible).
Choose Debug - Factory reset all connected Apple devices or choose the specific device - navigate to the sub menu and choose Factory Reset

I'm guessing this is less than 50% your issue, but if it does - you'll be set (or have fewer items to chase down) and know how to reset Apple Bluetooth devices.


Changing terminal color I would like to know how to change the terminal color, so whenever I run
ls it will return the name of:

Directories in red
Files in blue
Executable files (those you do ./file) in light green

How do I do that?

Usually this is done with

ls -G

Personally I'm using an alias, e.g. in .bash_aliases which is loaded by .bash_profile

alias ls="ls -G"

However, there's another option, i.e. turning on CLICOLOR in your shell, e.g. by adding the following to your .bash_profile

export CLICOLOR=1


Using an iPhone 4S in South Korea My brother will soon be going to South Korea to teach English and he is wanting to make sure that his phone will work properly with a local carrier. The phone is SIM unlocked (we verified it with an Orange UK SIM card that I picked up last summer in England). So, does anyone know of a South Korean carrier that supports iPhones?

The iPhone 4S is from Sprint in the USA originally and they unlocked the GSM SIM slot for me because I was going to spend some time in the UK.

Will this GSM-unlocked CDMA phone work with any South Korean carriers?

It will work on KT (they even sold the 3GS which wasn't CDMA), and possibly others.

He may need to get the IMEI registered with the network before the SIM will work in it though as they are very protective over their networks (this was true up until 2010 at least, although they may have become more relaxed on this since then).


What operating system was installed on the original Apple 1? I am trying to research how software enabled users to interact with the hardware on the original Apple.

What operating system was installed on the original Apple 1?

According to Mactracker, it was "Apple Integer BASIC with optional Cassette Interface".


How can I edit pure text file stored in iCloud Drive from iPhone? I tried to edit textfile via Pages, but it does not handle pure text file?! I can not believe it. Any idea how to edit / read it?

I use Textastic for basic coding on my iPad but it is also available for iPhone. However, it is $8.99 so you will have to judge if it is worth it. Most coding apps will work with straight text files without altering them with formatting. I also see one called Fast Keyboard on the iTunes store that is free if you just need to edit a text file once in a while and re-sync it with Dropbox or something.


Is it possible that my MBP (running Yosemite) can remote turn on my iPhone 4S's (running iOS 8.1) personal hotspot? I heard somewhere (urgh! not a good start to a question) that with Yosemite + iOS 8.1, i can now turn on my iPhone personal hotspot remotely, and then try and connect to it (assuming the iPhone is near).

Is this correct? what's this feature called and how can i do this?

Currently, I always have to goto the general settings on my phone and then manually turn on the personal hotspot. This works perfectly (i'm posting this via my 3G connection, right now).

cheers for any help :)

The feature I'm after is called: Instant Hotspot

It seems like an iPhone 4S cannot do this feature. From what people are saying, it's an iPhone 5 or newer. Apple also confirm this.

Sad.Panda :(


Alert time discrepancies when synchronizing calendars between iOS 6 and OS X 10.8 Mac running OS X 10.8.2 and iPhone running iOS 6. There is an issue synchronizing the alert times of events created on Calendar. Both devices are set so that the default alert times are 30 min before the start of the event.

When creating an event on the iPhone, with alert (say 5 minutes before the start) which is different than the default 30 min, after synchronizing it appears on the computer with alert time equal to the default (30 min before start) and not the 5 min as created on the iPhone.

When creating an event on the computer, with alert (say 15 min before start) which is different than the default 30 min before start; after synchronizing, it appears on the iPhone with two alerts, one equal to the created on the computer (15 min) and another, equal to the default (30 min).

In both cases, after synchronizing, the alert time stays as created on the device on which the event was created. After the second synchronization, nothing changes on either device, although there is discrepancy between the alert times on both devices. In iTunes, the checkbox in front of Calendars in "Replace information on this iPhone" is unchecked.

I am not sure if this started after upgrading to iOS 6 or OS X 10.8, as I upgraded within 1-2 weeks and didn't notice the exact time when the problem started, but the problem didn't exist with iOS 5.1.1 and OS X 10.7.

Any ideas how to fix that?

Edit: iTunes either via USB or Wi-Fi is used for synchronizing. Nothing in the settings has changed since upgrading the computer to 10.8 and the iPhone to iOS 6 (at least not changed by me, the new versions of the operating systems may have changed something).

Assuming you can still reproduce this on the current version of iOS and OS X, this would be a great bug report to get engineering to fix whatever is causing the data to not sync.

You only need a free developer account to submit the bug report:

https://developer.apple.com/bugreporter/

It looks from your description that you're not making any configuration mistakes, but I'd re-do both account setup steps before filing a bug to be sure your case is reproducible.


Change behavior of click on desktop Sometimes when I click on the desktop, Finder opens. How can I disable this in OS X 10.9?

For what it's worth, it was already happening in Mountain Lion.

The reason is because you didn't exit that finder window last time you exited logged out or shut down your mac.

If not that then you have some form of malware on your computer


Can I store all the content of my previous iPhone in a new iPhone using iTunes? I have an iPhone 4S with multiple backups in my computer and I'd like to buy a new iPhone.

Can I connect the new device to the computer and immediately store all the content from the previous iPhone? I want to move all the photos, messages, etc.

Yes.

The easiest way to do this is to do a full backup of your iPhone 4s via iTunes.

Then you would connect the new iPhone to iTunes as well and then do a Restore from the iPhone 4s backup to your new iPhone.

Important

The iPhone 4s was available in various sizes, namely 8GB, 16GB, 32GB and 64GB. So you will need to ensure that your new iPhone has as a minimum the same capacity as your old one.

You should also select the "Encrypt local backup" option as this will "allow account passwords, Health and HomeKit data to be backed up". Of course, in your specific case, an iPhone 4S doesn't have health and home data.


Macbook Air OS X 10.8.4 Trackpad Pinch Zoom not working in Firefox 23.0.1 I recently updated my OS X to 10.8.4 and updated Firefox to 23.0.1
Now the pinch zoom feature on my trackpad does not work. It works fine in Safari. Will appreciate any suggestions to solve this problem.

You can restore the zoom feature by changing the values of the related prefs on the about:config page.

browser.gesture.pinch.in -> cmd_fullZoomReduce
browser.gesture.pinch.in.shift -> cmd_fullZoomReset
browser.gesture.pinch.out -> cmd_fullZoomEnlarge
browser.gesture.pinch.out.shift -> cmd_fullZoomReset
browser.gesture.pinch.latched -> false


Is it safe to delete a TimeMachine backup subdirectory with the rm command? I deleted a TimeMachine backup subdirectory with:

rm -rf /Volumes/.../Backups.backupdb/.../2017-06-07-125321

Then later I realized that I could do it better with the standard utility and did this for another subdirectory

sudo tmutil delete /Volumes/.../Backups.backupdb/.../2017-06-07-125444
Password:
Deleting: /Volumes/.../Backups.backupdb/.../2017-06-07-125444
Deleted (44.4G): /Volumes/.../Backups.backupdb/.../2017-06-07-125444
Total deleted: 44.4G

Now, how to I verify that the TimeMachine backup at /Volumes/.../Backups.backupdb/ is still reliable since the first rm ... command I ran, can presumably be destructive in some way?

The Basics
The first command you ran, included the rm -rf flag, this (as you are no doubt aware of) removes the files and folders within the given directory (i.e. recursive deletion). It means that you will no longer be able to recover from this backup. It did not affect the parent (or higher) directories.

The rm command should be used with caution, as you rightfully point out. It can absolutely delete everything (permanently) with one wrong command. I, therefore, recommend to always use the TimeMachine command itself to delete the backup - included since OS X Lion.

Deleting with Time Machine

Terminal:
sudo tmutil delete /Volumes/drive_name/Backups.backupdb/[MAC-NAME]/YYYY-MM-DD-hhmmss

Manually:
As you are concerned with maintaining the interity of the backup setup, you may like to consider using the following method instead (extracted here):

Enter time machine
Select the backup
Right click on the backup (on the finder window)
Select 'Delete Backup' (you may be prompted for a password)

Conclusion
You first command did not affect the root directory to which any past or future backups are/will be stored. You can test it out by going to TimeMachine in the menu bar and selecting Back Up Now, alternatively, you can try to recover to a backup made an hour earlier to discover whether the data is there, it is, because the rm command only removed the contents of the given directory.

Additionally: When rm becomes destructive
It is not unless you are totally new to the command or become complacent in your ability to apply correct procedures with the command, that you begin to make mistakes. If you are interested in some of the donts when using the command, how about this and this article, both make for an amusing read if you have a minute spare.

I hope I was able to interpret your question correctly, do let me know if that made sense to you or if you have any follow-up questions. I'm more than happy to assist where I can.


Mavericks - VPN command line I see a lot of third party apps that offer the ability to turn your Mac into a VPN server. It seems the VPN server functionality is built into OS X from what I've read but you need OS X server to get the GUI or a third party tool.

So if it's built in, can I configure VPN (DNS, IP, users, etc) from a command line instead of using some GUI? If so, how would I go about configuring everything?

I want to enable VPN on my Mac Mini (Mavericks) so I can use my iPhone to VPN into my home network. I have an Airport Express and have the proper ports forwarded to my Mac already.

On Mac OS X the VPN connections are handled by a daemon vpnd, which should be started at boot by altering /etc/hostconfig so that the line VPNSERVER is set to "-YES-".

Don't do that until you have read and understood the man page for the vpnd configuration plist file and written the file. You can get a good explanation of the file and a template with man vpnd -s 5 at the command line. While testing you can run vpnd from the command line with the "-d" option which stops it going to the background and prints the log info to your terminal session - just the thing for watching it all go wrong.

Have fun! Frankly I pay the $20 or so for the Server app and get the GUI for stuff that fraught with peril - you don't want to get the security on a VPN wrong.

BTW - If you're going to be playing at the command line then here's a tip - you could have learnt most of that by starting with apropos vpn at the prompt.


Hard drive partition cannot be removed I tried to install windows with bootcamp assistant but an error occurred and the installation failed (I don't remember the error message). Bootcamp assistant then tried to remove the partition it created but it was taking too long (over an hour) so I closed the program and restarted it. Now I can't click continue as this error shows up.

I tried to remove the partition using disk utility but the minus button is greyed out.

I am new to macOS and have no idea what to do. My goal is to remove that partition and and install windows. Any help is much appreciated.

I would suggest the following:

1) backup your data - but you already did that didn't you..

2) Wipe and partition the drive from scratch and install macOS and windows from the start

Hopefully you will have a clean fresh install for both.


File's image well displays PNG icon not actual PNG I would like to replace the standard icon for an Automator application that I created with a PNG.  Unfortunately, the resulting icon is the generic PNG icon, not the actual PNG image.

Steps:

downloaded the desired image (512 x 512)
verified that the image had a transparent background
Opened the file's inspector window (⌘+I):

Dragged the PNG to the image well:

The final result:

Is there a way to get the actual icon to be used?

Copy paste the .png image onto the icon shown in the Inspector.

Open the .png with Preview
Select all with CMD+A
Copy with CMD+C
Select the application of which you want to change the icon.
Press CMD+I to open the Inspector
Click on the icon and paste the copied image using CMD+V

I have no clue why that works differently compared to dragging and dropping the image.


iCloud connection after upgrade to High Sierra Nov 13th I upgraded to High Sierra. During the boot proces the password for iCloud is asked (I think I entered it correctly). However a spinner started spinning (basically forever). So I shutdown the Mac (button back) and rebooted. Systems works okay. Except for iCloud.

Update:
I managed to delete my previous accounts towards iCloud. However I'm not able to connect/recreate accounts again.

iCloud asks for UID/PW and after that a never stopping spinner occurs.
No difference for wrong UID or Password.

I checked the UID/PW for correctness using different devices/websites.
Also tried other AppleId's.

What can I do to get this working again?

I had the same issue and fixed it as follows:

In your user folder, go to ~/Library/Keychains/ (hold down the "option" key when clicking in the "Go to" menu to show the Library folder).

In that folder, there are the regular keychains, plus some folders with monstrously long names like F2555809-AAC0-5CFA-BEF6-57BB56345BIUR or some such.

I deleted those folders only.

After a restart, my email accounts and everything else had been logged out and the system requested a log-in password to my Apple ID. I was able to re-enter it, and since then, all iCloud services have worked fine, including Photos, iCloud Drive, iMessage, etc. - even text replacement is now syncing fine.


What's the latest iOS that iPhone SEs shipped with? I found a similar question, but it's a few years old, and the answer wasn't definitive. Here's the question:

Did the 64GB iPhone SE ever ship with iOS 10 installed?

I need an iOS 9 device (for access to some old apps) since my iPhone 6 got caught in an Activation Error loop. I was gonna buy a sealed iPhone SE, since those originally shipped with iOS 9.3, but wanna be sure they never left the factory with anything higher, and if they did, how I can tell which is which.

While the iPhone SE originally shipped with iOS 9.3, you'd most likely not find find a recently manufactured one coming pre-installed with iOS 9.3 (or a later version of iOS 9.x).

iPhone SE models was discontinued on March 21, 2017 (16 and 64 GB variants) and September 12, 2018 (32 and 128 GB variants). Either one of these models, which you'd most likely find with a reseller who is still selling them, would most likely come pre-installed with either iOS 10 or later (but still below iOS 13).

If iOS 9.x is what you are looking for to access iOS 9 exclusive apps, here's the list of iOS devices that can't be upgraded past iOS 9.x. Getting access to one of them could serve your purpose:

iPhone 4S (latest operating system: iOS 9.3.6).
iPod Touch 5th generation (latest operating system: iOS 9.3.5).
iPad 2 (latest operating system: iOS 9.3.6 (Wi-Fi + cellular (CDMA)), iOS 9.3.5 (Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + cellular (GSM))).
iPad 3rd generation (latest operating system: iOS 9.3.6 (Wi-Fi + cellular), iOS 9.3.5 (Wi-Fi).
iPad mini (latest operating system: iOS 9.3.6 (Wi-Fi + cellular), iOS 9.3.5 (Wi-Fi).

Source: List of iOS devices


Fixed GPU-deactivation but Wi-Fi is not working and textmode remains After
GPU-defect Macbook Pro 2011 does not accept csrutil disable anymore (10.13.6)

So… this worked quiet well. I was able to deactivate SIP with the stick. Then I realised that my OS and Start Volume still contained data so I had to delete it and reinstall macOS. For some reason my Wi-Fi wasn't working anymore (no symbol on the top right). So I had to install macOS with a ethernet cable. After the installation I trief to continue the tutorial:
(GPU problem - Boot Hangs on Grey Screen… )
with Part 2: "Improve thermal and power management"
But the kext was not found so I assumed that with my reinstall it got lost.

So I reseted the NVRAM and went through the process again. It worked and I did everything until part "Preventive measures for future use". But why is my wireless still not working and not even appearing on my top right?

And is it right that when I boot all these "white texts of black screen" are appearing before the apple logo? Can/should I deactivate this? But a big thanks already!

Partial answer addressing the "textmode" (verbose boot) problem:

What you called "textmode" in an earlier version of your question is really the verbose boot mode. There is nothing special or malicious or negative about it. Within the tutorial it is just employed to make it easier to get to know immediately the point of failure during boot should anything go wrong with the tutorial.

If you followed the tutorial it is to expected to be there. If everything works and if you do not like the aesthetics of it:

type in Terminal:

  nvram -p

that should output something like:

 boot-args  -v

To get rid of this "textmode", you need tot type

sudo nvram boot-args=" "

Confirm its deletion with another nvram -p and see thge parameter -v for the boot-args gone. Next boot should then be graphical again.


Getting a text file with list of installed apps on iPhone or iPad? Is there any simple way to get a list of all of the installed apps on my iPhone or iPad, that I can save to a text file?

I'm guessing it needs to be done from iTunes or an external app that manages iDevices. Any tips?

If your device is not jailbroken, there isn't much you can do to get a list, without doing some writing. That being said, there are many iDevice managers (such as iFunbox) that provide an easy interface.

To see all of the apps on your phone with iFunbox:

Open iFunbox.

Connect your iOS device to your computer with a USB cable.
Select "Managing App Data" from the toolbar along the top of the window.

Scroll down to the "All My Apps" section.

Here. you find a nice grid of all the installed apps on your device.


How do I re-center Spotlight search bar (Mac)? Spotlight search bar is no longer centered, how do I put it back?

Click and hold the Spotlight icon on the menu bar, until the Spotlight window has returned to its original location.


NFS share from Linux with accented and non-ascii characters - files work in terminal but not programs I have my music and movie collection on a linux server and the file names contain non-ascii characters. This is in itself no problem as the music server also runs on the same server and everything is fine.

The server's locale settings are:

root@lms:~# locale
LANG=C
LANGUAGE=
LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8

and the clients (macOS Sierra) are:

09:15:38 ~$ locale
LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ALL="en_US.UTF-8"

But I am using OS X / macOS on my desktop computer and would like to manage the files (tagging, sorting, ...) by using OS X programs. I have created an NFS share on the linux server as follow:

/exports/Music          192.168.1.201(rw,async,crossmnt,no_subtree_check,insecure,all_squash,anongid=1002,anonuid=501) 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0(ro,async,crossmnt,no_subtree_check,insecure,all_squash,anonuid=501,anongid=1002)

and mounted on the Apple:

lms:/exports/Music on /Volumes/Music (nfs, nodev, nosuid, mounted by rainerkrug)

My problem is that I can not copy the files with non-ascii characters using Finder (finder tells me

The operation can't be completed because one or more required items can't be found. (Error code -43)

Where error code -43 meand "File not found".

But I can copy the file from the terminal.

This is also reflected as I can not open the file on the external volume by using right mouse click, but I can open the local one which I copied using the terminal, or that other programs (e.g. Metadatics for editing tags) can not see or work with the files.

This whole thing sounds rather strange to me, as macOS and Linux can work with the non-ascii characters (accented characters in particularly), but macOS has problems when accessing on the share?

Is there anything I can do except changing the file names to ascii characters?
Are there mount options I should set?

I should mention that this problem is not new in Sierra - it was there under ElCapitan as well.

OK - I found here https://discussions.apple.com/message/21199204#message21199204 the answer. I quote:

  After much reading I learn't there are multiple ways to construct the
  same unicode character, and so for efficient comparision there is a
  concept called normalisation ( http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr15/ ).
  After normalising with the same algorithm the representiation of any
  character will be consistent.

  Sadly there are multiple normalisation algorithms and no concensus on
  which to use. Apple use NFD, where as most other operating systems use
  NFC. NFS does not specify a normalisation method, so OSX cannot
  confidently convert out of the box.

  All I needed to do to fix this was to tell NFS that my NFS shares used
  NFC. Then all the files with the odd characters appeared and read
  fine.

  I did this by adding this line to /etc/nfs.conf on the Mac.

  nfs.client.mount.options = intr,locallocks,nfc

Works perfectly.

Addition:
The options intr,locallocks are not related to character encoding so the solution should be workinf=g without these, i.e.

nfs.client.mount.options = nfc

Although I haven't tried this as these two options make sense in my usage scenario.


Safari: using dtrace to investigate iCloud Tab Sync I'm investigating how Safari syncs tabs through iCloud.

To start, I really want to know how Safari is updating its shared list of tabs, which means monitoring it or some background daemon for file creations and modifications. (My hypothesis being: when I open a new tab on my phone, iCloud sends a push to my Mac which updates Safari's "iCloud Tabs" list.)

I'm trying to use dtrace to monitor Safari's file opens, with something simple like:

sudo dtrace -n 'syscall::open*:entry /execname == "Safari"/ { printf ("%s", copyinstr(arg0)); }'

but dtrace prints out this error:

dtrace: error on enabled probe ID 7 (ID 160: syscall::open:entry): invalid user access in action #1 at DIF offset 24

(This is the same error as someone asked on Apple's forums)

Debugging a strange iTunes permissions problem with DTrace had information about a similar issue with iTunes, but I don't quite understand what backflips they performed in gdb to get iTunes to be dtrace-able.

Can someone help me understand Debugging a strange iTunes permissions problem with DTrace: what's the error caused by, and what's the resolution?
Do you have any additional knowledge/information about iCloud Tab syncing? What process syncs them? Where are they stored on-disk?

The file that contains the iCloud tabs is:

~/Library/SyncedPreferences/com.apple.Safari.plist

It's a binary file, so you can use plutil to convert a copy to JSON/XML for processing. I expected the syncing to be via bird but some light spelunking with brctl log -w and other light snooping don't reflect changes I make to the tab database. There are quite a few nice projects on github that parse this file in python, JS as well as a nice menu bar app:

https://github.com/josh-/CloudyTabs

Knowing where the data persists on disk shows that syncdefaultsd is the owning process:

sudo fsusage -w | grep com.apple.Safari

Sadly, that private framework and daemon are basically undocumented by Apple save for what you can glean from the launchd plist for the service.


How can I read the video input from a game cube on the iMac screen The Game cube has a video output wire that looks like this :
How can read the video input on an iMac with this? What do I need to buy? What software should I use?

If you have an iMac with a Mini-DisplayPort or Thunderbolt port (21/27 inches) .

You can use your iMac in target screen mode using this kind of adapter : Mini-DisplayPort to Composite

If your iMac is older (20/24 inches) you won't be able to use your iMac with your GameCube.


How does one switch from a 5GHz to 2.4GHz band? I am trying to figure out how to switch the band on my router, using an Apple Time Capsule, MacBook Pro 2017. Is this possible? I want to be on 2.4GHz. I have this new Amazon Wand and it will not set up on 5GHz. Can anyone help?

The way that I ended up fixing this issue was by resetting my network from scratch. The 2.4GHz network/channel (as well as the 5GHz) became available/enabled and I used it to set up the device.


No sound except with Headphones on MBA The sound output is not stuck in digital mode, actually the output is stuck in "headphones mode". It works when the headphones are plugged in.

Plugging in or replugging the headphones does not change mode from headphones to digital, it stays on headphones. It does not solve the problem either. There is no red light. Instead there is a white light. Blowing at it failed to work.

I had a similar problem when I used an older version of AirParrot, it would not switch the Audio back to Built-In. Had to manually go into preferences.

If you checked the System Preferences -> Sound -> Output and System Preferences -> Sound -> Sound Effects and it does not show Built-In option when headphones are out:

Make sure there's nothing stuck in the AUX port, no dust pieces or
anything. Or is it USB headphones?
Then I would reset PRAM and NVRAM to clear your computer's
inner caches. If it resets it and makes it right until the next time
you plug teh headphones in and  it happens again, try different
headphones, does it do the same?
Try to get your hands on another bootable copy of Mac OS, could be
you may need to reinstall the System folder, which should not
affect any of your data. Just select this option when you do a Restore (but backup your system anyway).

If still the same, I would bring it in to Apple store since they will diagnose it for free.


Will the Apple Watch function properly if worn on inside of wrist? I plan to use my Apple Watch Sport predominately for tracking fitness goals. I am curious if turning the watch to the inside of my wrist will affect its performance when measuring my heart rate. (I like to use kettlebells, so I will surely smash the screen if I keep the watch on the outside of my wrist.)

Today I wore my Apple Watch on the inside of my wrist while weight lifting. I tightened it one additional notch compared to how I normally wear it during daily activities. Otherwise I had noticed that it would often lose my heart rate, even on the top of my wrist. This usually happened when my arms were vertical and/or the particular exercise required me to twist my wrists.

I am happy to report my heart rate was detected without skipping a beat. The main downside is Activate On Wrist Raise is very finicky. I suppose that is to be expected since the Watch assumes it's being worn on the top of your wrist.

Possibly-relevant piece of information: I am Vietnamese with fairly light skin on the inside of my wrist. Your mileage may vary if you have darker skin.

Also note that I'm only verifying the proper function of the heart rate monitor. I haven't tested distance or step count estimates while wearing the device this way, although I don't see why that should affect those functions.

Edit: I tried again the following day and the Watch lost my pulse on occasion, on either side of my wrist, even when tightened as much as possible. I slid the Watch up my wrist a little and my pulse was detected correctly again. I think this is because when the Watch is too low, movements of your hand tug on the skin and make it harder to measure your blood flow.


Is there a way to tell which files I accidentally renamed to *.jpg aren't actually JPEG images? I have a folder with many thousands of files, which due to an error had their extensions misnamed, all files now have the .jpg extension.
In all the .jpg files I would like to find the non-image files.
Is there a command-line way to identify which files are an actual image and which files are not?
I thought of looking for files without a preview, but cannot find a way to search files without a preview.
Here's an axample file that has a .jpg extension, but is not a real image:

You can use file FILENAME to determine the type of data in a file.
$ file image.jpg text.jpg pdf.jpg
image.jpg: JPEG image data
text.jpg:  ASCII text
pdf.jpg:   PDF document, version 1.4

So, file *.jpg | grep -v JPEG should give a list of all non-JPEGs with the ".jpg" extension
Also, assuming there are PDFs you can rename them in one go
find . -type f \
    -exec sh -c 'file "$1" | grep -q PDF' _ {} \;  \
    -exec sh -c 'echo mv -- "$1" "${1%%jpg}pdf"' _ {} \;

Remove the echo  in the second line once you verified that the output looks ok.


Why my app is starting in /private/var/folders/hl instead of it's real location I get an application that I need to start in it's own folder instead of that it starts here:

/private/var/folders/hl/dhpt8nq95tv84ptt9pl23hb40000gn/T/AppTranslocation/636B3A57-76A9-446C-B2AD-28B4A5571A34/d/

how can I force it to start on it's original location ?

I found a way I just moved my application and its dependencies from it's location to ~/Applications/ and its. I hope it will help someone.


Unable to reformat/repartition CoreStorage logical volume (Fusion drive) I created a fusion drive on my MacBook Pro running Mountain Lion and it worked like a charm for a while, but it somehow got corrupted.

Now I am unable to reformat or repartition the whole thing.

> diskutil cs list

CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
|
+-- Logical Volume Group 40B334F6-6988-4727-9A2B-48E7999F4047
    =========================================================
    Name:         MacintoshHD
    Size:         558926610432 B (558.9 GB)
    Free Space:   135995392 B (136.0 MB)
    |
    +-< Physical Volume AC91E9F8-CAAA-48B9-A000-93E559F5D2DD
    |   ----------------------------------------------------
    |   Index:    0
    |   Disk:     disk0s2
    |   Status:   Online
    |   Size:     59162722304 B (59.2 GB)
    |
    +-< Physical Volume 1319D374-879E-418F-88EF-5AA163B4105C
    |   ----------------------------------------------------
    |   Index:    1
    |   Disk:     disk1s2
    |   Status:   Online
    |   Size:     499763888128 B (499.8 GB)
    |
    +-> Logical Volume Family 3E85E6B1-4E99-4CBD-A34E-E720A090F373
        ----------------------------------------------------------
        Encryption Status:       Unlocked
        Encryption Type:         None
        Conversion Status:       NoConversion
        Conversion Direction:    -none-
        Has Encrypted Extents:   No
        Fully Secure:            No
        Passphrase Required:     No
        |
        +-> Logical Volume 76A3020B-B3C2-4905-9E09-2EBB5470261C
            ---------------------------------------------------
            Disk:               disk2
            Status:             Online
            Size (Total):       556000083968 B (556.0 GB)
            Size (Converted):   -none-
            Revertible:         No
            LV Name:            HD
            Volume Name:        HD
            Content Hint:       Apple_HFS

> diskutil cs delete 40B334F6-6988-4727-9A2B-48E7999F4047

Started CoreStorage operation
Ejecting Logical Volumes
[ \   \   \   \   \   \   \   \   \   \   \   \   \   \   ]

I remain stuck there and cannot delete the Logical Volume Group, or do anything at all on it's components.

By now I would be satisfied if I could just wipe /dev/disk0 and /dev/disk1 completely and start over, but unfortunately this does not work either :

> diskutil zeroDisk /dev/disk0

Started erase on disk0
Error: -69879: Couldn't open disk
Underlying error: 16: POSIX reports: Resource busy

I hope someone will be able to help me, I have absolutely no idea how to recover this computer!

I also posted this question on Apple's forums, but I expect a better answer answer and more importantly a longer shelf life!

I was able to delete a mess I made trying to delete my Raid 10 in diskutil (which ended up looking similar to above) using the commands below in Terminal.app. May or may not work with fusion but it's easier than booting up again.

Get rid of the volume - copy paste the logical volume name where it says "Logical Volume Name", without the quotes:

diskutil cs deleteVolume "*Logical Volume Name*"

Free the disk - copy paste the volume name where it says "Physical Volume Name", without the quotes:

diskutil cs removeDisk "*Physical Volume name*"

Repeat these steps as needed.


Can a thunderbolt 3 cable be used on MacBook 12inch for data transfer? I just got a new 13-inch MacBook Pro  with Touchbar and I need to transfer my data from my old MacBook 12 to it. While using migration assistant over wifi, it always has errors or got stuck so I'm going to try the target disk mode. I did some research and a YouTube video says I need to use Thunderbolt 3 cable, so I just went to a local hardware store to buy the cable.

However, the stuff there told me a Thunderbolt 3 cable will have adaptability issue on my 12inch MacBook and recommend me buying a 5Gbps USB-C cable. Thinking I might use thunderbolt 3 in the future and their price difference is not that large, I will definitely choose a thunderbolt cable if it can be used. Speed is not an issue.

I am answering my own question. Short answer: NO.

I received my Belkin Thunderbolt 3 cable today (https://www.amazon.com/Belkin-USB-IF-Certified-Thunderbolt-Compatible/dp/B0725DW6D3/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1511766135&sr=8-4&keywords=belkin%2Bthunderbolt%2B3&th=1 the 1.6 foot one). By directly connecting my new MacBook Pro and MacBook 12inch, the new MacBook Pro still couldn’t recognize that 12inch MacBook. I did some more research just now, and on this page(https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201462 scroll down to the bottom), it seems that a USB-C 3.1 cable is the only way that does the work. The shop assistant was right.

I am not sure if it could work with other situations, but unfortunately it doesn’t work with target disk mode. Btw, the cable doesn’t have any problem since my 12inch MacBook was charging when connecting to the new MacBook Pro.


Macbook Pro won't go past OS X Utilities My early 2011 Macbook Pro which uses 10.6 Snow Leopard is going straight to OS X Utilities upon startup, no matter whether I use any startup keys or what those startup keys are. I have tried safe mode, resetting PRAM and SMC, recovery mode, everything I know of. Upon pressing the power button, the computer immediately turns on and chimes like normal, then goes to the white screen with the apple and a progress bar. After 5-10 minutes, it asks me to select a language, and then proceeds to OS X Utilities. I tried repairing the hard drive in Disk Utility with first aid, but it says it can't complete the repair. I tried erasing the hard drive (I have a recent backup), but it always tells me "Erase process failed." I tried restoring from Time Machine Backup, and although it found my backups on an external hard drive, it doesn't seem to recognize them.

Now here is what seems to have triggered the issue: I had just downloaded OS X Capitan and was attempting to install it, but the installation failed after the part where the computer restarts. When I go to Disk Utility I see Capitan there, but as with my hard drive, I can't erase it and neither can I eject it. When I go to "Reinstall OS X" it launches right into the Capitan installation, not the OS X 10.6 installation CD which is in the drive. Soon into the installation process, after it asks to verify my information with apple, a message pops up: "An error occurred while preparing the installation. Try running this application again." That's as far as I can get, and to clarify, I haven't been able to get beyond OS X Utilities at all.

I have another fresh hard drive that I could swap, but when I did swap it and then turned the computer on, it just goes to the apple and the spinning circle and stays there forever.

Yesterday I also exchanged the RAM and the battery, but I put the old ones back in and it still behaves the same so  I don't see how that could be the issue.

I'm nearing my wit's end as it seems I've tried the few options available at this point, and I would be grateful it anyone has any suggestions or hypotheses as to what's going on and how I could go about fixing it.

EDIT (in response to Daniel): I tried starting up from the DVD installer by holding C down -- it just goes to the apple, the spinning wheel, and after a while ends up on a blank white screen. I've left it going like this for several hours so I'm pretty sure it's not just a matter of waiting. This is what it does every time, even when I startup pressing "option" and then choose the OS X install disk. Interestingly, when I startup with "option," my hard drive is labeled "OS X Install Disk," I guess because it is still in the process of trying to install Capitan.

When I put in my spare, clean hard drive, it actually does boot up from the install disk. However, when it comes time for me to choose where to install OS X, the computer recognizes the hard drive but says I can't install it there (no reason given).

Does all this suggest there is a problem with the hardware on the computer?

I tried repairing the hard drive in Disk Utility with first aid, but it says it can't complete the repair

Upon this kind of error, the first thing to understand is that you can't
achieve anything of any value with your internal disk as long as it is
in this unusable state.

This explains fully that your Mac is automatically trying a recovery.

Get (or make) a bootable USB key or DVD installer (they should be safe and obviously not built with your unsafe MacBook Pro).

Boot from it.

Start Utilities, Disk Utility and try to repair your internal disk
from a safe version of Disk Utility.

If you succeed,

then install a clean version of the version of MacOS X you can install
from an external safe medium (USB key or DVD installer),

else replace your internal disk.


Is it possible to reduce memory usage by iTunes 11 on Mac? I have iTunes 11.0.1 running on Mac OS 10.8.2 with quite a large music library, some podcasts and my iPhone connected. According to Activity Monitor, the iTunes process is taking 1.6 GB real memory, and 4.26 GB virtual. How can this be? Of 16 GB in my machine, I have 60MB free. Is it automatically grabbing all free memory?

Does anyone know any tricks for reducing this and/or making iTunes less greedy?

If your iTunes is using this much memory, something is wrong.

Just how large your library is? My 700 GB audio + video library takes far less than 500 MB of physical RAM and I actually have my virtual memory disabled.

I will suggest you do the following,

a) Quit iTunes more often.

b) For testing, create a new clean library and monitor the memory usage

c) For testing, reinstall iTunes

Good luck. If you have any more question, comment below!


How to properly escape spaces in the results of mdfind to use them in a for loop Trying to answer the question Are true dynamic folders (NOT a “Smart Folder” SavedSearch) possible? I stumbled about the problem to loop the results of an mdfind search as quoted or escaped paths.

Code snippet:

for File in $(mdfind -onlyin $MusicSamples 'kMDItemAudioBitRate >= "44000"  && _kMDItemUserTags = "Sample"')
do
    ln -s $File $DrumFoldr
done

The for loop should create soft links of all matching files in the folder $MusicSamples or its sub folders in the folder $DrumFoldr. The loop works for files with paths/file names without spaces.

The answer to a similar question simply suggests to quote $File (... "$File" ...). This doesn't work - it simply creates broken soft links with names of the contiguous strings in the original file name: a file named "1. Artist - Song - Mix.mp3" will create four or five soft links: "1.", "Artist", "Song", "Mix.mp3"  and "-".
Escaping the spaces by piping the mdfind results to a sed command replacing a space with an escaped space \  will result in something like "\ 1.", "\ Artist" etc.
Creating an array of the mdfind results with:

result=()
mdfind ... | while IFS= read -r filename; do
  result+=("$filename")
done

and using it in for File in "${result[@]}"; do ln -s "$File" $DrumFoldr; done doesn't work either.

How do I properly escape those spaces in the paths?

I just solved a similar problem as I was trying to iterate over mdfind's results of an image search.
counter=0
mdfind image -onlyin $1 | while read line; do
    ((counter = counter + 1))
    echo "$counter: $line"
done
exit

So adapting that to your problem, this should work:
mdfind -onlyin $MusicSamples 'kMDItemAudioBitRate >= "44000" && _kMDItemUserTags = "Sample"' | while read File
do
    ln -s $File $DrumFoldr
done


Accidently upgraded from iOS 13.2 to latest iOS 14, how to revert? iPhone popped the new update ready to install screen and I accidently hit install instead of later as I always do. It's now in the process of installing. How may I revert back to previous 13.2 once installation is complete?

You may not roll back from iOS 14 without a jailbreak. Sorry to bear news you may not have expected.

https://9to5mac.com/2020/09/22/ios-14-jailbreak/


Mac Hard Drive Testing Tools and SMART Analysis How good is SMART (Self Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) for really finding and predicting drive problems for regular hard drives and now, for SSDs.

From what I understand, different testing tools on the market report different levels of SMART levels. For example, Disk Utility, Scannerz, and SMARTReporter all seem to report what I would call a catastrophic failure level, meaning they don't report details, just, for lack of better words, "good", "maybe", and "failing" (please forgive my super high-tech terminology. :-) )

Others like smartmontools, TechTool Pro, and I think Drive Genius (not sure on that) can report a lot more detail with a lot of different parameters.

The reason I ask is this. I had a drive in my system and I was preparing to do a clean install on it of Mountain Lion. I have TechTools Pro and thought just for kicks I'd check out the SMART status on it to make sure everything was OK before reformatting the drive and doing the install. It came back and reported nothing wrong. In fact, it looked great.

I went ahead and started doing the install, and about 20 minutes into it the thing starts tapping. If you've ever seen a drummer do one of those rhythms where they're tapping on the drum rim instead the actual drum head, that's about what it sounded like. After maybe about 30 seconds of this the thing starts screeching like crazy. The install terminated. I put an old Snow Leopard install disc into the system and boot off the DVD, and now its saying the drive is unusable and that SMART status has failed.

If I checked this drive with extensive SMART capabilities just about 45 minutes before and it reported no problems, what good is SMART testing? Since I'm considering replacing the drive with an SSD, is SMART any better on that?

Thanks.

SMART testing is of limited value in many cases, and cannot often predict failure of a hard drive. This is because different hard drive manufacturers implement different parts of the spec and (as you mentioned) different software and OS manufacturers look at different pieces of the spec in interpreting the SMART status.

Beyond that there are certain mechanical issues that can be difficult or impossible to predict. If your hard drive is tapping now, there are many things that could've caused the mechanical failure and it is hard to say if SMART had a way of knowing about it beforehand.

SSDs can and do support SMART. Rather than explaining, this Server Fault thread explains it quite well.


Data still syncing with separate apple IDs So I moved to college and decided it was time for me to make my own apple ID. Up to that point I shared an account with my mother. Since updating my phone all of her contacts are on my phone. I created a new apple Id to keep all of our content separated. I now have a mac and want to use the cloud to get data from my phone but do not want to share everything with my mom. Everything on my phone that requires apple ID has only my account not hers. Help?

If I get what you mean, you would probably like Family Sharing. It allows you to share data with another Apple ID, but keep thing separate (e.g your mom can download iTunes things from your account and you can download things from her account, but she can't read your iMessage and you can't read hers).


How to reenable Java Preferences After installed JDK7, I disabled Java 1.6 in Java Preferences. Then I found the system cannot launch jars by new JDK 1.7, so I want to reenable 1.6, but I cannot relaunch preference again, it told me No compatible version of Java 1.5+ is available.

What should I do to bring it back?

This is a partial answer and will need adding to, mainly to show the change in Info.plist and an official reference for it.

It seems (from this blog) that the structure or the Info.plist in running packaged Java apps has changed. The blog says in Mountain Lion but I would have the same issue in Lion, the issue is the change in Java.

Thus I can see two ways of running pakaged apps

Install java 1.6 from Apple (running Mongo.app uses this one for me)
Repackage the app using the suggested AppBundler


Back up other drive using Time Machine I'm trying to diagnose & fix some problem on my MacBook Pro - the machine randomly hard-crashes instantly & shuts down.

I have a somewhat-old Time Machine backup of the drive on an external USB disk, and I would like to update that backup.  The problem is that it keeps crashing in the middle of backups, then forcing a complete disk scan, which takes a really long time, so it never gets to complete a new snapshot.

To try to make progress, I created an external bootable drive, which I can use to get the laptop started.  I can also mount my Time Machine backup drive - both are external USB drives.  I was hoping to tell Time Machine to resume backing up the laptop's internal drive to the Time Machine drive, but I don't see any obvious way to do that.

Is there some way I'm missing?  Maybe using tmutil from the command line?

Time Machine is optimized to create and maintain a history of file-level backups of all files/folders on your system. What you rather need is a disk/image level backup which just dumps the whole drive onto an external drive. You can afterwards either copy the whole image back again or, probably more useful, get specific folders back.

The two applications people tend to use for this are CCC and SuperDuper!. You also need an additional external USB drive at least as big as your internal drive.


Mountain Lion on Unibody late-2008 Macbook? I'm currently having a late-2008 Unibody Macbook with Snow Leopard installed. It runs really great!

However, I'm thinking of installing Mountain Lion. Mainly to use Filevault 2.

Will my Macbook run with ML?

It has the following specs:

2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB 1066 MHz DDR3
40GB Intel 320 SSD

Your system specs are above the minimum requirements, so you should be fine. Lion and Mountain Lion do require more than the 2 GB RAM than Snow Leopard needs to run smoothly, in my experience. You've already got 4 GB, so that should be okay for all but the most busy systems with many large apps running simultaneously.


Is it possible to have a URL that will open an app on an iOS device, without the app being specially coded to handle that? Is there like a default url scheme, like openapp://Facebook, that would open the Facebook app (or whatever) if you click that URL from Safari on an iOS device? Or is there some other way to accomplish this?

And does the app have to be specially coded to handle this?

My company has an app but we don't have the budget right now to update it to handle any special URL schemes, but I'd really like a way to open it directly from a button on the web site.

The app have to be coded for it, and the server needs some configuration too.

Check this for more information: Support Universal Links.


Mac OS High Sierra how to see Username for the failed login attempt I am able to see the failed login attempts made on High Sierra via the command:

log show --predicate '(eventMessage CONTAINS "Authentication failed")' --style syslog --last 1h

However it does not tell which user did the attempt fail for. Is there a way for system admin to see the username as well for the failed and successful login attempts ?

By Login I mean local login from the Lock screen or upon system reboot.

The command to retrieve logs for failed attempts was from this question:

How do I see all my failed login attempts (macOS High Sierra)

But the answers to that question stopped short of telling how to see username of failed attempt in logs.

Is it possible to see the username for failed and successful attempts?

After reaching out to Apple and not getting the answer, I was finally able to find the answer to this. To see the redacted information i.e. one that is marked as '< private >' I needed to turn on private mode. Here is the command to do that:

sudo log config --mode "private_data:on"

Now you can lock your screen and log back in and from now on the logs will show all the information that was earlier redacted and marked ''.

Hope this helps someone else looking for the answer.


How to show hidden files in finder? In terminal I ran:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

and

killall Finder

If I CMD + SHIFT + G  /usr/local/.git I can see the folder.

However, if I CMD + SHIFT + G and go to /usr/local I cannot see the folder.

You have to let Finder know that you want a Boolean value (true or false):

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool TRUE


macOS - How do I remove the restart-time update installer? I've been having a problem with Security Update 2019-004 10.13.6. When it was time to restart to complete the update, the screen went black and the mouse cursor moved to the top left corner (I could still move it using the mouse). After a while it was obvious it was stuck, and the only way out was to power down using the power button.

I've also tried installing it in Safe Mode, no luck. I also tried Internet Recovery and the problem persisted.

Whether I try to restart or shutdown, same problem.

Surely there's an issue with whatever program or script whose job it is to install the update. I've done quite a bit of "googling" and cannot find where/what it is and how to remove it so that it won't try to execute. If I can't find that, the only way to ever be able to restart/shutdown properly ever again might be a clean install, which I'd rather not do (lots of stuff configured on this iMac...)

The machine is a mid-2011 iMac running High Sierra.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Re-installing as suggested above will fix the problem - temporarily! The next day you will end up in exactly the same situation, unless you stop all automatic updates from taking place.

The cause of the problem is a BUG in the 2019-004 10.13.6 High Sierra update, affecting my Mac Mini Server mid-2011, and obviously more mid-2011 machines.

I have forwarded the info to Apple, but don't hold your breath wile waiting for a correction. Mid-2011 machines are close to extinct and all updates for those will soon, if not already (?) stop from being developed.


How can I disable a USB port that is drawing too much power? One of my USB ports is being constantly disabled by my OS because it is drawing too much power, without a device attached. Is there any way to permanently disable the port?

Short answer is no, you can't disable a USB port.  Additionally, if you are having this issue with nothing attached to it, it's definitely a hardware issue.

First thing is to do an SMC reset.

If that doesn't fix the issue, you need to take it in for service because it's likely a logic board or component (connector issue).  If I had to guess, it would be a short to ground of the 5V power rail on the USB connector.  However, without actually getting hands on with it, it's only a hypothesis at best.


How can I prevent FaceTime from launching when I plug in an external video camera? We have iMacs that we use as industrial control computers, and we connect FireWire cameras into them via Thunderbolt adapters. On previous OS X versions, we would have to go into the preferences for iChat / Messages and prevent them from automatically launching when these cameras were connected, to make sure those applications didn't mess with our own video software.

However, on Mavericks these preferences have disappeared, apparently because now FaceTime is the application that automatically launches when an external FireWire camera is plugged in.

FaceTime seems to lack any formal exposed preferences, so is there another way to disable the automatic launching of this application on the connection of an external camera (a preference setting written at the terminal, etc.)? If so, how would we do this?

You can control which applications automatically open after attaching a camera to your Mac using the native Mac application, Image Capture. Try plugging in you camera and then launching Image Capture. If the camera is recognized by the app, there will be a drop down menu visible in the bottom left-hand corner of the app. Click the drop down menu to choose which application to automatically open when the camera is attached (in your case, choose "No Application").

If for some reason Image Capture does not recognize your camera, the drop down menu will not be visible. In that case, I'm not sure how to fix your problem.


How to recover trashed GUID partition table? I did something stupid. I ran (something like) diskutil partitionDisk /dev/disk2 GPT HFS+ newdisk against the wrong disk. It was one of those moments where you realize what you've done, as you're doing it. So it only ran for (literally) about 0.25 seconds, or less, before being terminated (^c), like it was all part of a single motion. But it was long enough to trash the existing partition table.

testdisk

I thought I'd be able to recover the original GUID partition table with testdisk, but apparently not. Maybe because it wasn't just damaged or erased, but already overwritten with a whole new GUID partition table, volume label, etc. I'm not really sure, I didn't write the software or study it comprehensively.

photorec

The data was largely, (if not completely) untouched, and easily recovered to a separate disk with photorec. Although it's not as if nothing happened, because the filenames and directory structure is all busted up. I mean, I'm greatful, but I can't realistically recatalogue 2TB of assorted files. If it were a project or something where I needed to extract some files, it woud be a godsend, but this is my perpetual dropbox where I hoard.. everything.

So, the data is obviously still there, but the pointers are gone. Is there a better way out of this situation? I feel there must be but at this stage I don't know enough about the ins and outs of data storage to do it, or to even really properly articulate my ideas about it.

addendum

PS: I'm not going to tell you what you can and can't do, but be careful if you're going to copy/paste commands like these. That's what happened to me, I couldn't remember the exact syntax, so I copied it from one of the questions/answers here on Stack Exchange, with the intention of altering it to suit my needs. Problem is, this included the invisible newline/linefeed character at the end of the formatted textbox, causing the command to execute as soon as it's pasted to a shell. Also, diskutil typically doesn't require elevated priveleges. So there's no warning, non prompt, it just happens.

Because the GUID Partition Table was erased, there is no way to turn back. That GUID partition table is the last reference to data unless you can do some hardcore forensic data recovery.

Data recovery software that you can get rely on the GUID PT to never have been erased to locate data.


External hard drive won't show up on finder (theres more to this) So I plugged in my hard drive, and deleted a file on it, a .nfo file. I forgot I had a file in the trash and so when I ejected the disk, my mac prompted me an alert like "disk is in use" with a force eject button. I force ejected without thinking, because I really didn't think any of my files were in use (I checked the usual places like whether a video file was playing somewhere etc.) When I try to plug it back, I realise it doesn't read or appear on finder. I've restarted my computer and still nothing. Other hard drives work so its definitely an isolated problem. Any ideas?

Update: I can't do a Disk Utility repair? the option isn't even available

You should be able to see your drive in Disk Utility, even though the data may be corrupted, so you may need to wipe the drive in order to make it usable again.


Why is my screen bowing out on my iPhone 5? Why is my screen popping out of my iPhone 5? And how can I fix it?

Update: I fixed it! Here is what the old battery looked like:

Nice issue, it happened to me just a couple of weeks ago.
I solved it taking the iPhone back to the Apple Store (3 years old, not covered by warranty). They replaced my iPhone with a refurbished one in 10 minutes for free. I think this is the best solution.
Otherwise you can try to fix it on your own. The issue here is that the battery is collapsing and expanding, pushing your screen away from the case.
Here is a useful illustrated guide for DIY fix. Here is the replacement kit (part + tools).


How do I set my mac to ask what disc I want to boot from without having to hold alt? I can switch between OSX, Windows and a network drive, but I cannot seem to find this option anywhere.

rEFIt

  rEFIt is a boot menu and maintenance toolkit for EFI-based machines like the Intel Macs. You can use it to boot multiple operating systems easily, including triple-boot setups with Boot Camp. It also provides an easy way to enter and explore the EFI pre-boot environment.

rEFIt allows you to sync partition tables
customize:

set default  to boot from
define wait time before a boot option is selected
configure the rEFIt boot screen


Where can we find Apple Technical White Papers? I've been able to locate a few technical papers using Google, but they're mostly hosted by various (sometimes shady) websites. Is there an official repository of recent (High Sierra or Mojave) white papers available on the internet?

https://kryptera.se/assets/uploads/2014/10/WP_FileVault2.pdf
https://webobjects.cdw.com/webobjects/media/pdf/CDWCA/CA_Evaluating_And_Deploy_White_Paper.pdf
https://csrc.nist.gov/CSRC/media/Publications/sp/800-179/rev-1/draft/documents/sp800-179r1-draft.pdf
http://m.softchoice.com/cms/brands/apple/pdf/OSX_Lion_ActiveDirectory.pdf

Developer Documentation

Apple publish their technical documentation, including occasional white papers, on the sub-domain developer.apple.com.

Apple currently promotes https://developer.apple.com/documentation as the official source of technical information about their products.

Archive

The archived documentation contains many useful documents. These are marked as no longer being updated, but their contents are accurate at the date of publishing.

Of particular interest will be the technical notes. These documents contain a wealth of information, such as the excellent TN2083: Daemons and Agents and TN2124 Mac OS X Debugging Magic.


Are pictures taken by camera apps worse than the default iPhone camera app? There are hundreds of camera apps on the App Store. I always feel that using the default camera app provides the best results, however some camera apps contain features that I like (burst mode, etc.). I was wondering if apps such as Camera+ and Awesomize have an impact on the quality of photos?

The quality should be exactly the same.  They both use the same API, so unless Apple applies some proprietary image algorithm on the picture, the source pixels are identical.

However, when those apps use the "burst" mode, then the quality of course will be decreased because they are in effect decreasing the resolution of the image for faster capture.


How to socksify apps in mac os Is there an analog on mac os for http://linux.die.net/man/1/socksify ?
So that i can use it like on linux: socksify mongo ....

I use proxychains-ng which can be configured to use a SOCKS proxy. It is available via Homebrew: brew install proxychains-ng.

Note there is a known limitation on 10.11+ that SIP prevents hooking of system binaries - see GitHub issue #78 - but it can be used with anything installed via Homebrew, as the binaries are in directories not affected by SIP. For example, to use (Homebrew installed & linked) curl through a Tor SOCKS proxy, your .proxychains/proxychains.conf would look like this:

[ProxyList]
socks5  127.0.0.1   9050

Check curl is Homebrew, not system version:

$ which curl
/usr/local/bin/curl

proxychains4 curl http://ipinfo.io then does this:

[proxychains] config file found: /Users/me/.proxychains/proxychains.conf
[proxychains] preloading /usr/local/Cellar/proxychains-ng/4.11/lib/libproxychains4.dylib
[proxychains] DLL init: proxychains-ng 4.11
[proxychains] Dynamic chain  ...  127.0.0.1:9050  ...  52.58.99.202:80  ...  OK
{
  "ip": "194.71.109.74",
  "hostname": "tor.keff.org",
  "city": "Stockholm",
  "region": "Stockholm",
  "country": "SE",
  "loc": "59.3333,18.0500",
  "org": "AS41281 Scaling Networks AB",
  "postal": "173 11"
}

The README caveats explain why it does not work for everything, but it may be worth a try.


Does Find My Mac stop working after the system has been wiped? Possible Duplicate:
  If Macbook has been wiped, will “find my iPhone” still work?

I lost my Macbook Pro recently. I had activated iCloud on the computer, so Find My Mac is operable.

If the thief wipes the hard drive, and installs a fresh operating system, OSX Lion or Leopard, for example, then will I still be able to locate my device? In particular if the thief installs Leopard (which obviously doesn't support Find my Mac) will Find My Mac still work?

If the thief just wipes the harddrive, there is a slight chance that your device will still show up in Find My Mac as the association is saved in the NVRAM which persists even after a drive format.

However, if the thief or new owner clears the NVRAM in any way, or reconfigures iCloud with another account and enables Find My Mac for it, the association will be deleted or overwritten, and you will no longer be able to track your device.

See this question for more on the subject.


How to deactivate ALL transitions/fades/motions in iOS 9? Is there a way to deactivate ALL transitions, fade and motions effects throughout the iOS?

When I tap on the Safari app, say, I want to open Safari immediately, not sit through a split-second of fade motions before opening Safari. When rapidly switching between apps this is very aggravating.

I'm already on Reduce Motion and Reduce Transparency. But I want to go beyond this and have no motion whatsoever.

Jailbreak Solution

1. Speed Intensifier - has tons of options to change

Add Philip Wong’s  repo at: https://pw5a29.github.io/ and add it as a Cydia source.

2. NoSlowAnimations - has only few options to change

NoSlowAnimations is available in the BigBoss repo on the Cydia store. BigBoss is already available in Cydia as one of the default repos.


How do I delete an equation in Grapher? What it says in the title. There is no obvious way for me to remove an equation in Grapher. I used Grapher a few years ago and I probably knew how to then, but I cannot remember now.

Click the equation in the sidebar and press ⌫backspace.


Does a third party fixing my Mac have access to my files? My old Macbook kept flashing between a prohibitory symbol and a folder with a question mark. Internet recovery stopped working when I tried to use reinstall Sierra OS, so I initially gave up on fixing it. Now, someone I don't really know is going to try fixing it for me.

If possible, I'd like to know if they'd have to access/search my files to fix the issue? I'm a bit of a private person, so I'd like to know what's going to happen. Would it be better to take it to an Apple store instead?

In order to repair a Mac you will (generally) need an administrative password as doing things like reinstalling software and the like requires an admin password.

Even if you create a separate admin account for this person to use in effecting repairs an unscrupulous person would have no trouble getting into your stuff.

Unless you have put your personal information inside an encrypted .DMG file. Then even if you do create an admin account just for the repair guy the chances of him getting to any of your personal stuff is practically nil.

So no they don't have to access your personal files to effect a fix and an honest tech would never do that. Hey if I have to give my Mac over to Apple for repairs I back up my profile and then delete it and create a temporary profile for them to use, just in case.

But if you can't back it up then your next best thing is to put your stuff in an encrypted DMG for the duration and pray there is no data loss. Also pray that your tech is a scrupulous, ethical, person. Regardless, at that point, there is little or nothing to see anyway.

I learned a long time ago in the IT biz, the stuff on most people's computers is uninteresting to everyone but the owner. And that combined with ethics keeps me out of other people's stuff. be sure you trust whoever looks at your Mac.


Why is always on Hey Siri only available on the iPhone 6S? At the latest unveiling by Apple and mentioned in this post, they announced a new feature on the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus: you can have 'Hey Siri' enabled always rather than just when plugged into a power source.  After downloading iOS 9 to my iPhone 6, I optimistically checked to see whether this feature was present in the settings, but to no avail - 'Hey Siri' is still restricted to when the device is plugged into a power source.  Yet, surely this is a software-related matter rather than anything to do with the hardware.  Why is the ability to have 'Hey Siri' enabled when not plugged into a power source restricted to the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus? Has Apple made any explanation of this, or is there some other evidence which accounts for this?

The best you can do is to use an external battery pack and then it will work even on the six :)

In addition I actually like the way it works now on an iPhone 6, because when I go to bed I just say 'hey Siri good night' and I can verify that my phone is plugged in if Siri replies


Can I remove battery while my iPhone 4s is still on? I've had this annoying problem with my phone that has happened a few times now. Basically it just totally freezes. My top button is broken, so I can't turn the phone off using that. My assisted touch no longer works, because the screen is pretty much completely frozen.

In the past the only way I've been able to really deal with this problem is by draining the battery and then plugging my phone in to turn it on. This seems to reset it and then it works again. In order to drain my battery I can either ask Siri questions (but unfortunately this also stops working after a while...plus it's annoying as hell), or play music from my iTunes. Playing music from my iTunes does the trick, but it usually takes almost 24 hours to completely drain my battery. Suggestions on draining faster are appreciated...

For today though, I have my first day of work tomorrow and it just went out. I kind of really wanted to have a functional phone for my first day, so I'm a little more desperate. I'm wondering if it would be okay to remove the battery/unplug it and put it back in while my phone is in the frozen state. Obviously the whole phone isn't frozen since it can play music, but the screen and all buttons just don't work. Could this break my phone? Do I have a pretty good chance of nothing bad happening? Thanks lemme knowww.

It should be possible to perform a reset of the phone by holding the 'home' and 'power' buttons for ten seconds. That should cause the phone to reboot.

If you can't do this (e.g. broken power button), then I don't see why removing the battery would not cause the phone to be shut down.

I don't see why it would cause any lasting damage, at any rate.


How to force iOS to install iPhone Apps? The iPad let me install iPhone Apps, which is good. However, if an App has an iPad and an iPhone version, iOS forces you to install the iPad version (the iPhone option is not available).

I want to install Google Chrome for the iPhone on my iPad, is that possible?

If an app is "Universal," then it will contain code for both the iPhone and the iPad.  When launched, iOS detects this, and the app will automatically display a UI that is appropriate for that device.

The only way to change this behavior would be to modify the core system behavior, which could be done only on a jailbroken phone.

The exception is found in applications where the developer has two completely separate applications for iPhone and iPad.  In that case, you could force the iPhone app to be installed on an iPad.


How to speed up my MacBook? 2009 MacBook running OS X 10.7.5,
2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo,
4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3.
92.13 GB free out of 499.25 GB.

Logging in takes a couple minutes, opening applications takes anywhere between 5-30 seconds. What can I do to speed it up just like when it was new?

I had a white MacBook with roughly the same specifics (except for a 160 GB HD) and it wouldn't run so slowly.

You can try the following software fixes:

Go to System Preferences -> Users and disable unnecessary login items. These items are executed right after login.
Go to /Library/StartupItems and disable unnecessary startup items. These items are executed before login, just after boot. This is safe because essential system scripts are not placed there. Don't touch anything in /System/Library, instead.
Use Activity Monitor and identify third-party daemons and processes that are running in background. Disable/uninstall unnecessary software.
Open Console and look for unusual error messages.
Clear ~/Library/Caches and /Library/Caches.
Check and — if needed – repair your hard drive. You can do this booting with Recovery HD.
Check and repair permissions with Disk Utility.
Go to Dashboard and close unnecessary widgets. Some widgets run in background and use system resources.
Only if you know what you're doing, you could also check third-party kernel extensions.

Hardware improvements:

Buy a SSD. The spinning hard drive is the greatest bottleneck in modern laptops.
If you're running short of RAM, consider upgrading to 8 GB if your machine supports it (4 GB should be enough, though).


Failure To Boot/Verify Disk My (mid 2011) MacBook Air’s been working perfectly fine, but today decided to 1) crash 2) throw me the “startup disk not found” error.

I know it’s an old computer, but still I run disk verification in Disk Utility decently regularly, and in Recovery mode it doesn’t indicate any issues with the hardware. Somehow the data volume’s become corrupted.

I plan to find a hard drive, make a disk image from the volume & then reinstall.

Is there anything else I can do or any way to check whether this will happen again?

Do I need a new computer?

Your partition map and your file system are two different things; kind of like the difference between a car and it's driver.  In your case, the "car" may be fine, but the "driver" is impaired, so you're not going anywhere (likewise, if the car is totaled, it's unlikely the driver is also fairing poorly).

File systems get corrupted for any number of reasons.  You can easily fix this with a reinstall of macOS; from Time Machine is the best method.
It's possible that your SSD is failing.  In that case, you can replace it with another and have your MBA back up and running.

Finally, running Disk Utility "regularly" doesn't do anything to prevent failures like this.  It's a much better practice to regularly do backups.


macOS Sierra scrolling behavior in Terminal is really weird After upgrading to macOS Sierra, one of the things that bugs me is the altered scrolling behavior in Terminal, using the Trackpad.

See screencast here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUWO6-oOLoA

When scrolling using the Trackpad (second part of the video), the scrolling is very sensitive and jittery. There's no way to scroll just one line of text for instance.

Any insight into this behavior, or way to revert to the previous one?

This has been bothering me all during the Sierra betas and I couldn't get anyone to address it.

The issue is that there's a minimum scrolling speed now. You can really see it if you use inertia scrolling. You let go and it slows down but then when it gets to a certain speed, it never goes slower than that. And then it stops abruptly at the same time it would have if it had been slowing down normally.

What you're seeing is a side-effect of this. And I haven't found a solution yet.

And this scrolling behavior is ONLY in Terminal as far as I can tell.

Go to bugreport.apple.com. I am filing more reports.


i phone 5 screen replacement Is there a difference between these two replacement parts ?

60 Dollars

55 Dollars

30 Dollars

or is there another one you would recommend ? I am starting to repair IPhones and would like some advice thanks!

There should not be much difference based on the type of products they are.
However quality wise you must do research ex: Reading reviews, googling the product, etc.
I don't really have any recommendation but you can try the research it should help.

Sometimes you gotta go with your gut, and you might also want to check out the return policy with Amazon because you may be able to order it and try it out and return if you don't like it or it's bad quality etc.


How to stop folders being modified when you look in them? When I open a folder, the "date modified" date changes. This is annoying if nothing in the folder has changed. I like to search for things by reverse "date modified" order, i.e. listing things that I have changed recently at the top.

Is there a way of changing this behavior so that the folder's "date modified" reflects the last time something changed in the folder?

ETA. To modify the question a bit, is it possible to change the "date modified" of the folder back to the newest "date modified" of it's contents?

Simply looking in a folder doesn't change the date modified. This only happens if Finder makes a change in the folder, for example to create a missing .DS_Store file. It's not possible to disable the creation of .DS_Store files for local volumes using Finder, see Never create a .DS_Store file again.


Can you tether via bluetooth? I would like my iPad to connect to the internet via a bluetooth modem (in this particular case, a Samsung Omnia with a more convenient pricing plan.)

The iPad has been bought full price and thus should be carrier unlocked. However, when I go Settings → Bluetooth and tap on the device name, the only available option is "Ignore this device."

Is there a way to make this happen?

To be crystal clear:

                                   GPRS/EDGE/3G                 Bluetooth
(Internets) - - - (Mobile Carrier) - - - - - -  (Samsung Omnia) - - - - - (iPad)

I read on forum that one user managed to successfully tether his Omnia to an iPad via the WMWifiRouter, a program that turns the Omnia into a Wireless access point that the iPad can then connect to. I am nearly positive that this will not be able to be done over bluetooth, as the iOS and bluetooth are pretty restricted. Sorry I can't help with the BT issue, and I hope I have provided a decent alternative that you can work with. Cheers.


On iOS, how do I explicitly download a photo or video that's in iCloud while using iCloud Photo Library? I'm an iCloud Photo Library user.  How can I specifically ensure that a specific video/photo is downloaded locally on my iOS device?

Basically I'm looking for the equivalent of a "Download" button available on a photo or video so that it will be available locally on the iPhone.

Basically, there are some apps that don't really handle deal with iCloud based media well, so I want to ensure that the media is available locally so I can accomplish my task in the 3rd party app (Magisto).

If your device is not set to Optimize Storage, it will not remove a download, meaning you can then go open the photo in Photos and it will be there permanently.

Additionally, if it's a short time frame this will work even with Optimize Storage.