How to store and retrieve S/MIME certificates in Open Directory (LDAP) of macOS Server? Is it possible to use the Open Directory of the macOS Server app to store and retrieve S/MIME (X.509) certificates with the user data?

Background:

I would like to share our public S/MIME certificates over our LDAP, so they can automatically be retrieved from any (supporting) client without having to import them manually.

I have found articles that claim it is possible in general with OpenLDAP, but how can it be done with Open Directory? I understand there are the attributes userCertificate and userSMIMECertificate for this. Are they available in Open Directory, and if not, can they be added? And once they are added, can they be updated through the Server app or just from the command line?

The server is on Sierra in case that matters.

I'd appreciate any reply or comment or link to a howto that could help.

Found it, and it's fairly easy (as one would expect from macOS). I'll explain step by step.

How to store S/MIME certificates in Open Directory

Launch the Directory Utility app, either directly from Spotlight, or (that's how I found it) by going through System Preferences > Users & Groups > (authenticate if necessary) Network Account Server - Edit (or Connect if you haven't yet) > Open Directory Utility
Select the Directory Editor on the top
Select Viewing: Users, if not selected by default, then click on a user, and the user's set attributes will be shown
To add an attribute, by clicking on the lock above, authenticate to get into edit mode - note that, this time, you must authenticate with the directory admin credentials, because now we want to edit the directory entries
Click on the + sign below the attribute list to add a new attribute
As you will see, the userCertificate and userSMIMECertificate attributes are already available from the dropdown list
Select one of them, then press OK
When you click on the attribute, its data are shown below the attribute list
You can toggle between Text and Data view – to add an S/MIME certificate, either copy paste into the text view or just drop the file in the Data view
That's all!

I believe, the S/MIME certificate data should in PEM format, but I am not sure about it.

How to retrieve S/MIME certificates from Open Directory

In order to enable clients to retrieve S/MIME certificates from Open Directory (or any LDAP actually), here's how to do this on a Mac client:

Use the Directory Utility app, as explained above, to add the LDAP server to the search list on the client Mac (also explained here). Make sure that the LDAP server is added in the Search Policy list under Contacts. The Contacts server in the Server app need not be enabled.

After you have successfully added the LDAP server, open your Contacts app on the client. There should be a new entry Directory Services on the left sidebar. Click on it, then, in the Search field, enter the name of a user in your LDAP directory. The directory entry should then be displayed, and left of the email address, you should see a small certificate symbol  similar to the symbol in Mail app that is displayed for signed emails. When you click on it, the S/MIME certificate retrieved for this user will be displayed.


Siri Sounds Robotic in macOS Sierra Since I upgraded my MacBook Pro(mid-2012) to macOS Sierra the voice which is being used by Siri is unnatural.It sounds like the old iOS 6 Siri.I downloaded all the dictation voices but the problem persists.Somwhere on the internet I found a solution saying that enabling checkboxes under App Store auto-update fixes the issue but Siri still sounds the same.Does anyone have a concrete solution?

The Siri natural (enhanced) voice has to download. If you've got a slow connection it might be a few days before Siri has the voice that you have become accustomed to.


Proper way to reassign installed macOS to another Apple ID? I have a MacBook Pro (2009) which has seen it all from 10.5 and up to now where it is running 10.11 on an SSD drive.  I want to give this machine to my son, who has his own Apple ID.

macOS is installed belonging to my Apple ID, which I want to transfer to his Apple ID. I created an admin account on the machine and married it to his Apple ID, and rebooted the machine with the “Reinstall current macOS version” keychord down. We got all the way through logging in, but then App Store complained that the macOS 10.11 download was not available to him. Repeating with my AppleID showed that the download was available to me.

My theory is now that macOS is only available if you have “purchased” it (or if it was otherwise registered as eligible). I thought that this could be fixed simply with having a user on an eligible system, but apparently not.

What is the easiest way to reassign? Going back to 10.6 and then upgrading, sounds like a lot of work I'd like to avoid if possible.

You will need to erase the disk to change ownership, not just reinstall macOS over the current install.

  You should erase your startup disk in these circumstances:

  You’re selling or giving away your Mac, so you’re clearing your Mac of anything associated with you, your data, or your Apple ID.

To do that, boot into Recovery Mode by holding ⌘ cmd r during boot. Then follow Apple’s instructions for Erasing your startup disk and Reinstalling macOS:

  Select Disk Utility from the utilities window of macOS Recovery, then click Continue.
  Select your startup disk in the sidebar of Disk Utility.
  Select the disk name, not the volume name indented beneath
  it.
  Click the Erase button or tab.   If you don’t see an erase button or tab, select the volume name indented beneath the disk name,
  then look again.
  Complete these fields:

  Name: Enter a name for your disk, such as “Macintosh HD”.
  Format: Choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
  Scheme (if available): Choose GUID Partition Map.

  Click Erase to begin erasing your disk.
  When done, quit Disk Utility to return to the utilities window.
  Choose Reinstall macOS from the utilities window.
  Click Continue, then follow the onscreen instructions. You’ll be asked to select a startup disk and click Install.
  To verify eligibility to install macOS, your Mac serial number is sent to Apple, and you might be asked for your Apple
  ID.
  Your Mac restarts to a setup assistant after installation is complete.
  Complete the setup assistant with your son’s information.

Completing Setup Assistant is what will assign the OS license to the owner’s Apple ID.


non-apple headset on ipad I tried using my non-apple headset on ipad and it worked. This same headset is what I used on my android phone, but when I plugged it on my phone it won't work anymore. There's no headset logo appearing on my screen. Does this have anything to do about plugging the headset to the ipad?

No, not as such.

You might have damaged the headset or the plug on the Android phone inadvertently, but it is not because you have plugged the headset into an iPad.


How can I figure out what program is starting and quitting? I'm running 11.1 on an M1 MBP. A couple of times an hour, some app starts up, very briefly puts an icon in the Dock, and quits. It's kind enough to also steal focus when it starts up, so if I'm typing, suddenly my typing goes somewhere else.
Is there a way I can track what apps start and quit, so I can figure out what is doing this and make it stop?
I thought maybe I could use execsnoop for this, but it tells me the SIP is turned on and exits.

Well the obvious solution is to temporarily disable SIP and run execsnoop as you’ve yourself identified.
There is a cruder and less reliable way which doesn’t require SIP disabled. The next time you see this happen, quickly go into Terminal and run
$ log show —-last 1m —-info —-debug —-predicate='sender contains "launchservicesd"'

That will show you the last 1 minute of breadcrumbs from Launch Services, through which it is likely that your mystery process is being invoked. If it’s not, you won’t see it there. Look for (and/or grep) lines containing CHECKIN and DEATH.


Install OS on iMac with blank hard drive Is is possible to get a late 2010 iMac with a blank/new hard drive up and running with the latest OS and XCode?  All the answers I've seen involve duplicating or restoring an existing OS.  Is there a way to do it from scratch?

Is is possible to get a late 2010 iMac with a blank/new hard drive up and running with the latest OS and XCode?

Yes.  The late 2010 iMac (both 21" and 27" models) had the capability of having their EFI upgraded to support Internet Recovery.
There are a few caveats here:

Internet Recovery (hold ⇧Shift⌥Option⌘CommandR) will install the last version that was installed on that Mac.  If it's pre High Sirra, you'll have to install that version then upgrade.

The EFI should have been patched via normal system upgrades.  It's unlikely that the iMac wouldn't have been upgraded in the last 8 years, but if it hasn't, you need to install Lion (10.7.3) and then install the patch (download here)

You need a "decent" Internet connection.  You'll be downloading not just the installer, but the entire OS.  If your connection is flaky, it's likely to fail.

Options

Use Internet Recovery as detailed above
Take to an Apple Store and they will assist with the download and install
Have a friend, colleague, or family member create a USB installer for you.

Finally...
Once you have your system installed (even before you install XCode), do a Time Machine backup so that you have an image of your system in it's pristine state in case you have to install macOS on a blank drive again.


How can I extract an .xz archive graphically on Mac OS X 10.4? Recent versions of StuffIt will extract .xz archives, but they will not run on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. And using something like Fink, it should be possible to install xz-utils on 10.4, so that .xz archives can be extracted from the Terminal.

But is there any graphical application that will run on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, and which will extract .xz files?

It's OK if this application supports extracting .tar.xz archives in a single step, but not necessary, because if it extracts the .tar.xz file to a .tar file, even an older version of StuffIt can extract that.

Not graphically, but this showed up in searches so for those of us who want to do it from the command line using Homebrew:

$ brew install xz
$ xz -d to-extract.xz


Emptying trash, with file-in-use: Is there any difference between 'skip' and 'continue'? If you delete a file, but it's still in use (e.g. a document still open), and then try to empty the trash you get something like this:

As best I can tell the three options do the following:

Skip: ignore this file and keep trashing the rest
Stop: stop trashing files
Continue: ignore this file and keep trashing the rest

As far as I can tell, Skip and Continue do exactly the same thing. I've tested this by deleting a few files, and using either option they seem to trash all the other files.

But it seems weird that Apple would supply two buttons which do exactly the same thing.

So does anyone know of any technical difference in the behaviours of the Skip vs Continue buttons?

I'm using 10.10.3 Yosemite, but I believe the options have been like this for a few major versions.

I couldn't find any documented proof but still, here is my answer.

When you first hit above shown error, it means you can

Skip i.e. don't try to trash mentioned file and continue trashing the rest
Stop i.e. stop trashing for now
Continue i.e. you have closed mentioned file (it's not in use anymore) and OSX can continue trashing it

If you just click continue or fail to close the open file, OSX skips them and hence the confusion.

Most of the in-use files I have seen are plists which needs to be unloaded before deleting

Extra info after some experiment:

Above said is mostly true in situations when trash contains plists or in general you trashed some app

For example:

If you create a text file → Open it → Trash it while the file is still open → Try empty Trash → No problem i.e. Trash empty without any error and file still open

But If  you start some app (like MAMP in my experiment) → Launch it & start services → Trash the app → Try empty trash → You will get the above said error → Open activity monitor → Kill all related services & hit continue → Trash empty


App Store keeps asking me to type in verification code after password, but I'm receiving no verification code The title is the question. I only own a MacBook and whenever I try to log in to the App Store I get the message: "An Apple ID verification code is required to sign in. Type your password followed by the verification code shown on your other devices."
I'm not sure what this means. If the message makes sense, shouldn't I have received a text message on my (Android) phone that's connected to my Apple ID?
I'm able to log in to my Apple ID on the website perfectly fine. What am I supposed to do here?
The OS that I'm using is Mavericks btw. Thanks!

This happens because you have enabled 2-factor authentication on your Apple-ID (which is a good thing). Mavericks was created before this 2-factor authentication method was available for Apple-IDs and thus do not know about it. In order to still support logging in from Mavericks, you have to enter not only your password in the password field, but your password followed by the 2-factor verification code (6 digits).
The verification code is shown automatically on trusted devices (such as iPhones, iPads and Macs). If you haven't got a trusted device and are logging in through a web site, an iOS device or a recent macOS version, you'll be able to choose to have the verification sent as a text message or voice call. However, if you only have your Mavericks Mac, it is too old to support that feature.
I would suggest upgrading your macOS version to the latest possible version. 2-factor authentication is fully supported with Mac OS X El Capitan (10.11). Your MacBook running Mavericks should be fully capable of running El Capitan as well.


No voice feedback when using Siri with American accent in iOS 9.0.2 I'm using Siri with American accent in iOS 9.0.2. But it doesn't have voice feedback, even though in navigation mode in Maps. Once I switch to British accent, Siri speaks. Is that a bug for Siri in recent iOS update?

Siri and "Speech" on iOS seem to be tangled since iOS 9. Here's how to fix it:

Go to Settings -> General -> Accessibility -> Speech -> Voices -> English -> and download both "Siri Female (Enhanced)" and "Alex".

Note: Make sure to stay in the settings app while the download is completing. If you leave the app or go to another page within settings, the download will cancel.

Let me know if that works ;).


How can I identify and uninstall all apps installed by a certain user? I have a Macbook that was also used by a previous employee of my job. I made the mistake of not reformatting the entire thing when I installed it. Now I have a new Mac app store ID, but the apps previously installed under his ID keep asking for his app store password - my assumption is this is to update themselves.

How can I identify and uninstall any apps previously installed under a different Mac App store ID other than my current one?

I think your best bet might be to come at it from the other end of the problem.

Open App Store, sign is as you if you didn't already, then check your own Purchased list.
Anything not in that list will belong to someone else.

Unfortunately, that will likely include the OS itself, which may cause future issues, especially if you don't know the old user's credentials, or if they ever change the password.

Wipe & start afresh would have been better, in the long run.


Homebrew (unlike Macports) does not put programs ahead of system's Macports inserts /opt/local/bin/ ahead of /usr/bin in the path, and so if the same program exists in both folders, the Macports-installed one takes precedence.

I'm unclear on how Homebrew manages this issue. Taking a concrete example, say I run brew install git, I now have

> /usr/local/bin/git --version
git version 2.14.2
> git --version
git version 2.13.5 (Apple Git-94)

To use the more recent (git 2.14), it's tedious to use /usr/local/bin/git. Also, giving more priority to /usr/local/bin on my own may have undesirable side effects.

What's the standard way to run updated Homebrew programs when they collide with ones already on macOS? For python I've seen that Homebrew avoids collisions by requiring users to type either python2 or python3. This is less clear for the case of git.

General convention is in fact to put /usr/local/bin ahead of /usr/bin.  This is doable via editing the /etc/path file or sudo launchctl config user path "/usr/local/bin:$PATH".  This will cause executables in /usr/bin to be shadowed by the ones in /usr/local/bin.  The Homebrew FAQ suggests this.

Homebrew recipes will deliberately not link any programs into /usr/local/bin that could potentially cause system-wide conflicts (homebrew executables are actually installed in /usr/local/Cellar and symlinked to /usr/local/bin).  When you install a potentially conflict-causing package, homebrew will warn you about it, and say something to the effect of "We didn't automatically link this package.  If you really want to, you can run `brew link ..." Homebrew is generally pretty good about being respectful of existing system packages.

As an empirical anecdote, I have always shadowed /usr/bin with /usr/local/bin and have never run into any issues.  YMMV, of course.


How to download Bootcamp drivers without Bootcamp assistant? I'm setting up my MacBook Air for a Windows-only boot setup.
This was easy enough. It already had rEFIt on it, I just connected a Windows 7 boot thumb drive, and away I went.

However, it seems Apple does not let you download Bootcamp drivers outside of their assistant tool. Reinstalling OS X just for the drivers is ridiculous.

This laptop no longer has OS X on it at all. How do I get the required drivers? I cannot find them anywhere on Apple's support pages.

Every other manufacturer has their drivers available for download.

How do I download the Windows drivers for my 2010 MacBook Air without the BootCamp Assistant?

Yes, It is possible to download the Bootcamp drivers outside of the Bootcamp tool:

Updated:

timothy-sutton's answer will make your life so much easier, go there first
For Windows 7 through 10, Apple have published a table of 'which download you need for which model' at https://support.apple.com/kb/HT5634. Win 7 download might work for Vista.
For WinXP, see robmathers' answer.
The hard way which follows here, taken from
http://www.cafe-encounter.net/p682/download-bootcamp-drivers is your fallback if you want or need to work it from scratch.

Download from Apple the http://swscan.apple.com/content/catalogs/others/index-lion-snowleopard-leopard.merged-1.sucatalog file. Don’t double-click it.
Open the index-lion-snowleopard-leopard.merged-1.sucatalog file in a text editor or word processor.
Search for each occurrence — as at August 2012 there were 6 — of BootCampESD.pkg. For instance, the one I needed is http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/33/54/041-2011/pRtCDYcWShMLxFggy3TzFzmfnnWQNFQBfJ/BootCampESD.pkg
Notice in each such URL, the /041-2011/ or similar /041-XXXXX/ bit of it.
Below each such occurrence, notice the URL for a file with the same 041-XXXXX in it and ending in English.dist, e.g. 041-2011.English.dist
Paste the URL for each such English.dist file into your browser and open that url. Here’s a list of them:

http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/11/05/041-0925/g27es04pw9re5ggrfp3vuf8ew6r53asfz8/041-0925.English.dist
http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/53/34/041-4776/TpFRDjFyRJjSvtyj2vFsPyx2bH2NSYvwN9/041-4776.English.dist
http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/55/51/041-3891/se4uhpqng48t842cdsosqh28lft54fmswl/041-3891.English.dist
http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/32/15/041-4775/hgMfrNHd9W8W7d8n4JyqSFLksk5TYr2HXN/041-4775.English.dist
http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/32/33/041-2303/W5jKtsQhhMgMXs3TKhPDqLXrpXyY2HdXMN/041-2303.English.dist
http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/33/54/041-2011/pRtCDYcWShMLxFggy3TzFzmfnnWQNFQBfJ/041-2011.English.dist

Search for the Model Identifier for your Mac. For instance MacBookPro5,2 or Macmini4,1.

For instance the 041-2011 file contains these models: MacBook2,1 MacBook3,1 MacBook4,1 MacBook5,1 MacBook5,2 MacBook5,3 MacBook6,1 MacBook7,1 MacBookAir1,1 MacBookAir2,1 MacBookAir3,1 MacBookAir3,2 MacBookPro2,1 MacBookPro2,2 MacBookPro3,1 MacBookPro4,1 MacBookPro5,1 MacBookPro5,2 MacBookPro5,3 MacBookPro5,4 MacBookPro5,5 MacBookPro6,1 MacBookPro6,2 MacBookPro7,1 MacBookPro8,1 MacBookPro8,2 MacBookPro8,3 MacPro1,1 MacPro2,1 MacPro3,1 MacPro4,1 MacPro5,1 Macmini2,1 Macmini3,1 Macmini4,1 iMac5,1 iMac6,1 iMac7,1 iMac8,1 iMac9,1 iMac10,1 iMac11,1 iMac11,2 iMac11,3 iMac12,1 iMac12,2
How do you know your Model Identifier? Open System Information, and look in the Hardware Overview section. i.e. click Apple menu -> About this Mac -> More Info… -> Report -> Hardware -> and now read down the Hardware Overview looking for “Model Identifier:”

Having found your 041-XXXXX number, download the BootCampESD.pkg url that has your number in it. Again, here’s a list of them:

http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/55/51/041-3891/se4uhpqng48t842cdsosqh28lft54fmswl/BootCampESD.pkg
http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/32/15/041-4775/hgMfrNHd9W8W7d8n4JyqSFLksk5TYr2HXN/BootCampESD.pkg
http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/32/33/041-2303/W5jKtsQhhMgMXs3TKhPDqLXrpXyY2HdXMN/BootCampESD.pkg
http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/33/54/041-2011/pRtCDYcWShMLxFggy3TzFzmfnnWQNFQBfJ/BootCampESD.pkg
http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/53/34/041-4776/TpFRDjFyRJjSvtyj2vFsPyx2bH2NSYvwN9/BootCampESD.pkg
http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/11/05/041-0925/g27es04pw9re5ggrfp3vuf8ew6r53asfz8/BootCampESD.pkg

Be patient as it’s probably 600MB.
Once your pkg is downloaded, double click it and install to a folder on your hard drive so you know where to find it.
The folder contains a nest of folders, the last of which contains a dmg disk image file. Double click to open. Voila. Here are your Windows installer files.
Copy them to a USB drive, or a burnable CD. It’s still 660MB or more, so it’s a full CD worth of burning time.
Done. You can now proceed with Boot Camp assistant Windows installation.

source: http://www.cafe-encounter.net/p824/bootcamp-drivers-direct-download-of-bootcampesd-pkg . The page was aimed at people struggling with BootCamp, but either way, it gets you to the BootCamp.pkg file, which contains the drivers.

You still need open the OS X installer pkg file to get the the contents out, and to open a DMG file. If you are already in Windows, 7-zip will open it: http://www.cafe-encounter.net/p860/opening-a-bootcamp-driver-download-on-windows-7-or-8-with-7-zip


JavaScript run by AppleScript to click button and fill text in Safari I’m not managing to execute JavaScript in Safari anymore.

I have this working script for Chrome.

set caseID to "11111"
end tell

####################################### time #########
set myDate to date string of (current date)

set myTime to time string of (current date)

set myDateTime to myDate & " - " & myTime

set textToSave to "MY TEXT HERE
HERE
HERE
" & myDateTime

tell application "Google Chrome"
    delay 0.1
    execute front window's active tab javascript "document.getElementsByName('9.9.5.4.5.CSInfoInspector.1.1.1')[0].click();"
    delay 0.1
    execute front window's active tab javascript "document.getElementsByName('05.5.54.5.CSInfoInspector.1.1.5.41.3.7.57.1')[0].value=" & quoted form of textToSave
    delay 0.1
    execute front window's active tab javascript "document.getElementsByName('5.5.4.5.5.CSInspector.5.1.7')[0].value=" & quoted form of caseID

end tell

I converted to Safari here:

set caseID to "11111"

####################################### time #########
set myDate to date string of (current date)

set myTime to time string of (current date)

set myDateTime to myDate & " - " & myTime

set textToSave to "MY TEXT HERE
HERE
HERE
" & myDateTime

tell application "Safari"
    delay 0.1
    do JavaScript "document.getElementsByName('9.9.5.4.5.CSInfoInspector.1.1.1')[0].click();" in current tab of window 1
    delay 0.1

    do JavaScript "document.getElementsByName('05.5.54.5.CSInfoInspector.1.1.5.41.3.7.57.1')[0].value=" & quoted form of textToSave in current tab of window 1

    do JavaScript "document.getElementsByName('5.5.4.5.5.CSInspector.5.1.7')[0].value=" & quoted form of caseID in current tab of window 1

end tell

The result do return on AppleScript but Safari actually take no action
Result:
"11111"

Basically the script is suppose to click on a button to have a pop windows and fill up the text
What am I doing wrong?

My system:
OS X 10.13.2 (17C202)
Safari Version 11.0.2 (13604.4.7.1.5)

So unlike Chrome where you can just adding few line with different JS code,
in safari you have to added for each code do JavaScript and mention the document / tab

e.g :

tell application "Safari"
    delay 0.1
    do JavaScript "document.getElementById('accountEnabledSelection').value=1" in current tab of window 1
    do JavaScript "document.getElementsByName('demo')[0].click();" in current tab of window 1

end tell


New MacBook Pro: Migration Assistant or Time Capsule? I'm in the process of buying a new MacBook Pro.

My actual notebook is a MacBook Pro Core Duo which dates back to July 2006.

My actual operating system is Snow Leopard, and I have a Time Capsule unit in place since 2010, so my backups are OK.

Now the question is: when my new computer arrives it'll have Lion; I'd like to take back my whole digital life from my backups in Time Capsule, but I'm wondering they are coming from Snow Leopard. Could this represent a problem for system restore?

Would it be better in this case to proceed with a Migration Assistant operation?

It actually doesn't matter. If you install Lion you can use the Time Machine backup as the source for restoring all data through Migration Assistant. It works exactly the same as if you put your old machine into target disk mode and use it as a drive for Migration Assistant.

(I was really surprised to find this out a couple of days ago when shuffling hard drives - 3 bad SSDs in a row, long story - and I was not allowed to select Time Machine to restore from because it was too large for the 240GB SSD, after using a 750GB spinning disk for a while - even though I had carefully excluded enough data to be sure it would fit. Then when Migration Assistant came up it allowed me to use the Time Machine drive to restore all the data I wanted anyway - all 90GB of it. All's well now, and this unexpected feature of Time Machine saved me some time.)


Hard drive backup issue in Mavericks My hard drive had some bad sectors recently, so I backed up, re-formatted, and clean installed Mavericks.

Everything seemed to work fine until couple days ago when I tried to look at some photos I recently imported to iPhoto, things got stuck and sometimes wouldn't move at all for up to 40 seconds, I knew it was a hard drive issue.

I tried to use the os x disk util to verify and repair disk but it all came up green.

when I try to run time machine it transfers REALLY REALLY SLOW and than gets stuck and says backup failed.

what should I do?

I had the same problem as you few years ago.

You definitely have the sympthoms of bad sectors. If you can't backup with Time Machine I advise you to back your data from the finder by yourself and skipping the files that can't be read.

Edit : You won't be able to backup all your files. You can't retrieve the data stored on the dead sectors.


How to update iMovie on Mid 2009 MacBook Pro About a year ago I bought a used Mid 2009 MacBook Pro and it came with iMovie. The user before me clearly didn't update iMovie regularly, as the version is 9.0.9.

I know i can update it to 10.1.1, but since the person didn't update it regularly, new versions of iMovie have come out, that are not compatible with my Mac. How can I update iMovie to 10.1.1 because 10.1.6 is not compatible with my Mac.

I know this is not what you are asking however if iMovie will update to the latest version on your Mac there is a hack (that I used on Sierra) that lets you run the latest version of iMovie. I would make a copy of iMovie first, in case something goes awry. But this trick, worked for me.

It involves a simple script and some Terminal work but is not especially difficult, if you can get the current version installed on your Mac.

But to be sure make a copy of your current version and if it updates, a copy of the new version too. If it goes south you can revert!


How does the Docx rendering in Pages compare to Mac Office 2011 It's about time for me to bit the bullet and buy either iWork 09 or MS Office 2011.  My main concern is rendering docx files (I've been using OpenOffice for many years, but the .doc and .docx rendering is still suspect).

How do they compare?

Does Pages render a docx file at least 95% accurate?

From the info online I understand that Pages cannot save in docx format.

Which do you prefer?

To clarify
I'm talking about more complex layouts.

To answer my own question.

I've found that Pages does a much better job at rendering more complex DOCX layouts than OpenOffice currently. Pages does not save in DOCX format.

BTW.... You can get pages for $20 through the new Apple App Store :)


Export - import iPhone keyboard shortcuts as text file? On an iPhone, if you go to Settings > General > Keyboard > Shortcuts you can define text shortcuts that expand into longer words.

Is it possible to export this list of shortcuts in a single text file?
Is it possible to import a text file to be used as shortcuts?

This could be useful to configure the same shortcuts on an iPhone and a Mac, on 2 iPhones, to make a text backup, to make quick edits on a textfile…

From dastrobu:

There is an unofficial command line tool, which does exactly what you want, its called shortcuts. You can install it via homebrew

brew install rodionovd/taps/shortcuts

You can list your current replacements via

shortcuts read

You can import new ones via:

shortcuts import <input.plist>

There are also these commands:

shortcuts create <shortcut> <new phrase>
shortcuts update <shortcut> <phrase>
shortcuts delete <shortcut>

Source: How to export Text replacements from the Keyboard System Preference from shell?


Send text messages to iphone by email I'm looking for a cheap hack to text myself alerts whenever my server is down. (I know there's services like Nagios etc, I don't want to get into that.) I'm already sending out emails, so I'm looking for a quick way to add my phone as another recipient to the list of emails.

I know individual carriers have different ways of doing this, but I'm looking for something apple-specific since all of the members on my team have iPhones but with different carriers.

Try IFTTT. This lets you set up recipes that can do things, such as send an SMS when an email is received. The contents of the SMS can be customised based on the contents of the email, such as including the subject and/or body of the email in the SMS.

The tag is customisable and optional.


Change Apache root directory I am having problems changing the Permissions on the "username.conf" file in the /etc/apache2/users/ folder.  It needs to have the permission of
-rw-r--r--   1 root  wheel  298 Jun 28 16:47 username.conf
but I am not able to achieve this.

I have tried changing the permissions with the command
sudo chmod 644 username.conf;and it didn't change.

I am using this tutorial: http://coolestguidesontheplanet.com/forbidden-403-you-dont-have-permission-to-access-username-on-this-server/

When I check the permission of the file, it's
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  155 Jan 23 23:30 Owner.conf

When I navigate to http://localhost/~Owner/ , I get 404 Not found.

The permission command chmod 644 is actually working!

The permission of your file Owner.conf is -rw-r--r--.

The chmod command works by specifying (1) the permissions for the file owner - in this case root, (2) the permissions for anyone in the same group as the file owner - in this case the group is wheel, and then (3) the permissions for everybody else (global permissions).

For each of the three above groups of users, the possible permissions are read, write, and execute. Full permissions would look like this: -rwxrwxrwx.

The permissions are specified using binary notation. 1 means the permission should be set, and 0 means it should not be.

Thus, setting chmod 644 sets permissions 6 - or 110 in binary - for the file owner, and 4 - or 100 in binary - for the group and for everybody else.

This creates the permission string -110100100. This translates to: -rw-r--r--.

Note that in your question above, the username.conf and Owner.conf both do have permissions of 644.


Numbers not creating a line graph I'm quite new to Numbers (and spreadsheets programs in general) but I need to create a simple line graph based of a spreadsheet but for some reason Numbers is not making the lines of the graph even though the data is there.

What I'm doing wrong?

It is a bit hard to say from the picture you have shared but you may not be doing anything wrong at all. Here is a chart I created with similar data with yours.

I just selected the numbers to be charted (but did not select either the header row or the header column) and then clicked on Chart in Numbers toolbar at the top and selected the icon representing the 2D line chart.

Numbers behave in a weird fashion sometimes in creating charts in my experience. This happens to me occasionally even when I am creating simple charts. When this happens, I create a new file, copy the data only to the new file and create a new chart usually using the same steps. Those steps that have failed in my first trial usually work in the second trial!


.putty/randomseed in home folder I have recently found out that there is a hidden folder in my Home Directory named putty with a file named "randomseed" inside. I know PuTTY on Unix stores its data there, and I have read around that FileZilla might actually create that folder. Problem is, I have never used PuTTY and can't remember installing FileZilla on my MacBook Pro. I have looked at the date the folder/file were last opened, and it was months ago so it was impossible for me to find out whether it coincided with installing any apps.

For good measure I have deleted the folder and the file within it. I have even downloaded and opened FileZilla just to see whether that folder was going to be regenerated but no.

I am aware that finding out where it came from is going to be impossible, but I'm looking for reassurance that it might not be anything malicious, like someone trying to connect to my machine via SSH or something, (all the Sharing options in my System Preference are disabled).

If anyone has any idea about this please let me know, I am a bit worried.

Thanks a lot!

This file is generally created by FileZilla on macOS. However, that’s not the only app to do so.

Check if you have any other FTP client app or remote file management app. A while ago, on one of our development Macs, I found this file to be created when the only non-bundled app that we installed was Xcode. The last modified time of the file used to change every time Xcode was launched.

It is advisable to delete the file from your Home directory and keep watching the location for any signs of it coming back.


Can't format o repartition any USB or Flash Drive I am trying to format an SD card and an USB flash drive.
When I use the Disk Utility application I receive the following message:
"Couldn't open device"
I also tried via terminal and the message I get is "-69877: Couldn't open device"
If I try to repartition the drives I get the same message.

Please note that those usb flash drives and SD cards work fine in Parallels/Windows7 setup.

This may be a problem with Disk Utility.app and diskutil. I would recommend booting into recovery mode (CMD + R at startup) and verifying the main hard disk. If this turns up fine then a reinstall or restoring from a backup where the problem did not take place is the way to go.


SpeechRecognitionServer not found in Mavericks with applescript? I am trying to use an applescript to get speech input from a user and then perform and action. However, the code i'm using was made for osx lion. When I put it into applescript editor, the editor gives me a pop-up asking where "speechrecognitionserver" is. How do i find it? I'm on OSX mavericks right now.

the code is here:
http://media.pragprog.com/titles/mrhome/code/GivingYourHomeAVoice/osx-voice-automation.scpt

Right at

/System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/SpeechRecognition.framework/Versions/A/SpeechRecognitionServer.app

When it asks, click Browse and type command ⌘+shift ⇧+G, then paste the path in.

With that specific script there are a few errors (you'll need to get rid of the Âs with find and replace, and there is a comment after a line continuation character in else if voiceResponse is "pause music" or Â¬   -- <callout id="code.osx-voice-automation.scpt.miscmusic"/>). After doing that I got it to run on my machine.

Oh, and if you're wondering how I found it - mdfind is Spotlight's Terminal interface, and it shows hidden files, so when I ran mdfind SpeechRecognitionServer it came up with the path.

Final script (this isn't going to fix your original problem):

with timeout of 2629743 seconds
    set exitApp to "no"
    repeat while exitApp is "no"
        tell application "SpeechRecognitionServer" --
            activate
            try
                set voiceResponse to listen for {"light on", "light off", ¬
                    "unlock door", "play music", "pause music", ¬
                    "unpause music", "stop music", "next track", ¬
                    "raise volume", "lower volume", ¬
                    "previous track", "check email", "time", "make a call", ¬
                    "hang up", "quit app"} giving up after 2629743
            on error -- time out
                return
            end try
        end tell

        if voiceResponse is "light on" then --
            -- open URL to turn on Light Switch
            open location "http://192.168.1.100:3344/command/on"
            say "The light is now on."

        else if voiceResponse is "light off" then
            -- open URL to turn off Light Switch
            open location "http://192.168.1.100:3344/command/off"
            say "The light is now off."

        else if voiceResponse is "unlock door" then
            -- open URL to unlock Android Door Lock
            open location "http://192.168.1.230:8000"
            say "Unlocking the door."

        else if voiceResponse is "play music" then --
            tell application "iTunes"
                set musicList to {"Cancel"} as list
                set myList to (get artist of every track ¬
                    of playlist 1) as list
                repeat with myItem in myList
                    if musicList does not contain myItem then
                        set musicList to musicList & myItem
                    end if
                end repeat
            end tell

            say "Which artist would you like to listen to?"
            tell application "SpeechRecognitionServer"
                set theArtistListing to ¬
                    (listen for musicList with prompt musicList)
            end tell
            if theArtistListing is not "Cancel" then
                say "Which of " & theArtistListing & ¬
                    "'s albums would you like to listen to?"
                tell application "iTunes"
                    tell source "Library"
                        tell library playlist 1
                            set uniqueAlbumList to {}
                            set albumList to album of tracks ¬
                                where artist is equal to theArtistListing

                            repeat until albumList = {}
                                if uniqueAlbumList does not contain ¬
                                    (first item of albumList) then
                                    copy (first item of albumList) to end of ¬
                                        uniqueAlbumList
                                end if
                                set albumList to rest of albumList
                            end repeat

                            set theUniqueAlbumList to {"Cancel"} & uniqueAlbumList
                            tell application "SpeechRecognitionServer"
                                set theAlbum to (listen for the theUniqueAlbumList ¬
                                    with prompt theUniqueAlbumList)
                            end tell
                        end tell
                        if theAlbum is not "Cancel" then
                            if not ((name of playlists) contains "Current Album") then
                                set theAlbumPlaylist to ¬
                                    make new playlist with properties {name:"Current Album"}
                            else
                                set theAlbumPlaylist to playlist "Current Album"
                                delete every track of theAlbumPlaylist
                            end if
                            tell library playlist 1 to duplicate ¬
                                (every track whose album is theAlbum) to theAlbumPlaylist
                            play theAlbumPlaylist
                        else
                            say "Canceling music selection"
                        end if
                    end tell
                end tell
            else
                say "Canceling music selection"
            end if

        else if voiceResponse is "pause music" or ¬
            voiceResponse is "unpause music" then
            tell application "iTunes"
                playpause
            end tell

        else if voiceResponse is "stop music" then
            tell application "iTunes"
                stop
            end tell

        else if voiceResponse is "next track" then
            tell application "iTunes"
                next track
            end tell

        else if voiceResponse is "previous track" then
            tell application "iTunes"
                previous track
            end tell

            -- Raise and lower volume routines courtesy of HexMonkey's post:
            -- http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=144749
        else if voiceResponse is "raise volume" then --
            set currentVolume to output volume of (get volume settings)
            set scaledVolume to round (currentVolume / (100 / 16))
            set scaledVolume to scaledVolume + 1
            if (scaledVolume > 16) then
                set scaledVolume to 16
            end if
            set newVolume to round (scaledVolume / 16 * 100)
            set volume output volume newVolume
        else if voiceResponse is "lower volume" then
            set currentVolume to output volume of (get volume settings)
            set scaledVolume to round (currentVolume / (100 / 16))
            set scaledVolume to scaledVolume - 1
            if (scaledVolume
            tell application "Mail"
                activate
                check for new mail
                set unreadEmailCount to unread count in inbox
                if unreadEmailCount is equal to 0 then
                    say "You have no unread messages in your Inbox."
                else if unreadEmailCount is equal to 1 then
                    say "You have 1 unread message in your Inbox."
                else
                    say "You have " & unreadEmailCount & ¬
                        " unread messages in your Inbox."
                end if
                if unreadEmailCount is greater than 0 then
                    say "Would you like me to read your unread email to you?"
                    tell application "SpeechRecognitionServer"
                        activate
                        set voiceResponse to listen for {"yes", "no"} ¬
                            giving up after 1 * minutes
                    end tell
                    if voiceResponse is "yes" then
                        set allMessages to every message in inbox
                        repeat with aMessage in allMessages
                            if read status of aMessage is false then
                                set theSender to sender of aMessage
                                set {savedDelimiters, AppleScript's text item delimiters} ¬
                                    to {AppleScript's text item delimiters, "
            set current_time to (time string of (current date))
            set {savedDelimiters, AppleScript's text item delimiters} to ¬
                {AppleScript's text item delimiters, ":"}
            set hours to first text item of current_time
            set minutes to the second text item of current_time
            set AMPM to third text item of current_time
            set AMPM to text 3 thru 5 of AMPM
            set AppleScript's text item delimiters to savedDelimiters
            say "The time is " & hours & " " & minutes & AMPM
            --else if voiceResponse is "make a call" then
            --  tell application "Skype"
            -- -- A Skype API Security dialog will pop up first
            -- -- time accessing Skype with this script.
            -- -- Select "Allow this application to use Skype" for ¬
            -- -- uninterrupted Skype API access.
            --    activate
            --   -- replace echo123 Skype Call Testing Service ID with ¬
            --   -- phone number or your contact's Skype ID
            --      send command "CALL echo123" script name ¬
            --      "Place Skype Call"
            --    end tell
            --  else if voiceResponse is "hang up" then
            --    tell application "Skype"
            --      quit
            --  end tell
        else if voiceResponse is "quit app" then --
            set exitApp to "yes"
            say "Listening deactivated. Exiting application."
            delay 1
            do shell script "killall SpeechRecognitionServer"
        end if
    end repeat
end timeout


How do I transfer pictures from iPhoto to iCloud Drive? I have 17000 pictures in my iPhoto library. How do I transfer them to iCloud Drive?

Find the location of your iPhoto library (usually in ~/Pictures) and move it to the iCloud Drive folder in Finder. Once the library has moved, you can switch library in iPhoto by launching iPhoto with ⌥, then selecting the new library location.


How to disable AddressBookSourceSync in El Capitan AddressBookSourceSync continually prevents idle sleep.  I don't use address book syncing and in previous versions I used just to delete the app.  However this is now prevented by System Integrity Protection.

Is there an approved or easy way to disable the app (via a launcher or property list or something)?  Or do I have to disable SIP remove the app and then (if I can) re-enable SIP?

EDIT

It occurs to me that because SIP acts only on the boot disk, it is easy to delete the file by just booting from another disk (eg USB) and accessing the main HD from there.

Not sure if this is really a good idea, but you can run this (as yourself, not root) in Terminal:

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.AddressBook.SourceSync.plist

FWIW, I had the same problem and even after following the instructions in Tetsujin's link, turning off all Contacts accounts in System Preferences, logging out of iCloud, blowing away the AddressBookSourceSync directories in ~/Library/Caches and ~/Library/Application Support, and of course many reboots, I could not get AddressBookSourceSync to stop blocking sleep. This command “fixed” it. AddressBookSourceSync no longer runs and pmset -g reports nothing preventing sleep.

You can undo the effect with this command:

launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.AddressBook.SourceSync.plist


How do I navigate backwards forwards when there's no physical or screen buttons? I went on a movie streaming site and a bunch of "popups" came up, like suddenly I was in the appstore or some completely different tab. The real tab I wanted to go to is probably somewhere opened too, but what do I do now?

You were probably switched to the App Store app through a URI scheme. The web page will still be open in Safari. You can either switch back to Safari normally using the home screen or through multitasking.


Which OS for a 2GB RAM MacBook Air from 2011? My Macbook Air from mid 2011 has 2 GB RAM, its processor is 1.6 GHz i5, 64 GB of flash storage. Its OS is the one it had originally, Lion.

Many apps require to upgrade the OS - e.g Slack. Yet I don't think going for Sierra with 2 GB RAM is a good idea, and I can't upgrade the RAM as it is impossible on new Macbook Airs.

Which OS would my MBA handle, would Yosemite or Mavericks be manageable for it ?

It will take Sierra - which means unless you already have any earlier OS in your App Store purchase history, that's the only one you can get for it.

Source: Everymac


How to cancel a text that hasn't sent, before it does send? I accidentally sent a text while my iPhone was in Airplane mode. I realised upon further consideration, that I would rather not send it.

Is there any way to cancel the text before taking the phone out of Airplane mode and make sure it doesn't get delivered?

Failed delivery of a message while in Airplane mode is represented by a Not Delivered subtext below the message text. To safely delete it without sending, simply tap and hold on the message, tap More..., select the message by tapping on the checkbox shown towards left and tap on Delete Message button.

Alternatively, delete the entire message thread by navigating back to list of messages, swiping left on conversation thread to reveal the Delete button and tapping Delete button shown at the bottom.


Mac needs to repair library after changing location of home directory I recently reinstalled Yosemite to fix the notorious WiFi bug, and i have two hard drives, one SSD which i reserve for apps and boot, and the other HDD for data (including user data).

I started up my mac made a user account on the SSD (aside from my original one, this is a safety precaution in case the HDD goes down and i need to log in to an account on the SSD), then i copied my user folder to the HDD and went to the advanced settings for that account and pointed it to the new location on the HDD.

When i logged into my account that now has a home folder on the HDD a screen pops up saying OS X needs to repair your Library to run applications. Type your password to allow this

I type my password but it just pops up again in an infinite loop.

One strange thing to note is four ? symbols on the dock for keynote, pages, and other apps that i haven't had installed (And haven't even purchased).

Why would simply copying the fresh user folder from my SSD to my HDD (both were formatted during install) cause this error?

When i force restart and log into the admin account on the SSD i can point my user folder back to its original folder on my SSD (since i did not delete it) and then log into it and everything is normal (and there are no ? symbols for apps i don't own on my dock either.

NOTE: I got this same error after upgrading from El Capitan (10.11) to Sierra (10.12), so hopefully this will work for your issue.

Steps I took to resolve this:

Open Terminal and copy the following: "defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES" (do not sudo) and hit return. Then type "killall Finder" and hit return.
Using Finder, select Go > Computer > Macintosh HD > Users > User Folder > User Library. Right click and select Get Info > Permissions
In info Library window, unlock to make changes and ensure there are no other users except User and Everyone. Toggle “Read & Write” to “Read” and back to “Read & Write”. Select the gear icon to apply to enclosed items.
Close all credential prompt dialogs by hitting Cancel until the prompts stop. Reboot your system and the issue should be resolved.


MacOS 10.13.5 - Updated yesterday, getting spammed with System Extension Blocked I updated my Macbook yesterday to the most recent update. After restarting I got spammed by tons of System Extension Blocked messages.

Opening Security Preferences - THERE IS NO ALLOW BUTTON.

How can I get around this? This is super frustrating. And it isn't just for Parallels. I get it for other apps too.

I had the same problem. This answer on a different copy of this question is a solution with a tradeoff: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/327816/292890

Summary is: cmd-R on boot to get Recovery Mode, then open Terminal by clicking on Utilities > Terminal. Once open, enter the following command:

spctl kext-consent disable

It disables kernel extension security confirmations altogether, which of course hurts your security, but it does prevent all the confirmation popups. That's also less drastic I think than disabling SIP entirely.


"brew install rtorrent" now failing to build This morning, I tried to launch rtorrent on Mac OS X 10.10.3, and it failed with a "symbol not found" in libtorrent (I've lost the backtrace from my screen).

Tried a bunch of stuff, as documented below, but no luck on getting it to build.

I've seen that error before, and as I recall, it requires rebuilding libtorrent, so I did

brew uninstall rtorrent libtorrent
brew install libtorrent
brew install rtorrent

The latter now fails due to an error in make. Using brew install -vd rtorrent shows the following:

libtool: link: g++-5 -g -O2 -DNDEBUG -D_THREAD_SAFE -I/usr/local/Cellar/libtorrent/0.13.4/include -o rtorrent main.o -Wl,-bind_at_load  libsub_root.a ui/libsub_ui.a core/libsub_core.a display/libsub_display.a input/libsub_input.a rpc/libsub_rpc.a utils/libsub_utils.a -lncurses -lcurl -L/usr/local/Cellar/libtorrent/0.13.4/lib -ltorrent
Undefined symbols for architecture x86_64:
  "std::__basic_file<char>::is_open() const", referenced from:
      rpc::parse_command_file(std::__cxx11::basic_string<char, std::char_traits<char>, std::allocator<char> > const&) in libsub_rpc.a(parse_commands.o)
[...]

and so on for lots of pages. So it appears to be a linker failure?

In Brew Install Rtorrent not Working, it seems the problem is with gcc 5.0.1. I tried following the instructions there (downgrade to gcc 4.9.2):

brew switch gcc 4.9.2

That works, but then brew install rtorrent fails even more spectacularly:

checking for Cppunit - version >= 1.9.6... no
checking whether the C++ compiler works... no
configure: error: in `/private/tmp/rtorrent20150526-82101-c1xxo5/rtorrent-0.9.4':
configure: error: C++ compiler cannot create executables
See `config.log' for more details

I look in config.log, and the problem is here:

configure:3319: checking whether the C++ compiler works
configure:3341: g++-4.9    conftest.cpp  >&5
dyld: Library not loaded: /usr/local/lib/libisl.10.dylib
  Referenced from: /usr/local/Cellar/gcc/4.9.2/libexec/gcc/x86_64-apple-darwin14.0.0/4.9.2/cc1plus
  Reason: image not found
g++-4.9: internal compiler error: Trace/BPT trap: 5 (program cc1plus)
./configure: line 3343: 82310 Abort trap: 6           $CXX $CXXFLAGS $CPPFLAGS $LDFLAGS conftest.$ac_ext $LIBS 1>&5

That ain't good. Wonder where libisl10.dylib might have gotten to?

Oh, I did manage to get this working. Thought I'd answer my own question. The key was to create a symlink for the missing libisl.10.dylib so that gcc 4.9.2 runs correctly, then recompile libtorrent, then reinstall rtorrent.

Step 1: Downgrade gcc to 4.9.2.

brew switch gcc 4.9.2

Step 2: Ensure the symbolic link for libisl.10.dylib exists.

cd /usr/local/lib
ln -s libisl.dylib libisl.10.dylib

Step 3: Uninstall and reinstall libtorrent.

brew uninstall libtorrent
brew install libtorrent

Step 4: Reinstall rtorrent.

brew install rtorrent

Step 5: To be safe, switch gcc back to the latest version.

brew switch gcc 5.1.0


Can't see this emoji  on macOS I just found I can't see this emoji  (Flag of ROC — Republic of China, Taiwan), which is rendered as a cross in a box, on my mac with macOS 10.13.5.

I bought my Mac in China, but my language regional preferences are all set to the U.S. Is there any way to make this emoji visible again?

Here is a screen capture of how this is displayed on my computer:

Probably connected to where you bought the machine.  From Emojipedia:

The flag for Taiwan, which may show as the letters TW on some platforms.
This flag is hidden from the emoji keyboard on iOS devices where the region is set to china. Chinese iPhones won't display this flag and will instead show a missing character tofu (□).


Any risks in creating custom OS X extended attributes? Is there any risk associated in creating your own custom extended file attributes?  For instance:

should I be worried about naming collisions?
is there any file instability or increased risk of data loss associated with adding extended attributes?
is there anything else I should be concerned about that I'm not thinking of?

Extended attributes could be very useful to me for keeping track of file metadata that doesn't have any where else to be kept, and which I would like to keep about my important files with my important files.  But I'd like to know what possible downsides there are before I start adding them to my files.

So far the only risk I've found is that some applications will overwrite the custom extended attributes.  TextEdit is one such example.  It will remove the attribute and add a quarantined attribute in its place, which will cause the Finder to give you a warning (that it was downloaded from the internet) when you open it.

So if you don't want to lose the metadata you've added to your custom attributes, don't open in unsafe applications like TextEdit.  TextMate and SublimeText 2 and vim don't damage your data, however.

(And as for name collisions, just follow the reverse DNS naming that Java uses.  For example 'com.yourdomain.yourcustomname'.)


Listing all the groups to which a user belongs in macOS I want to know the groups of some user.

$dscl . list /groups filterByUSer theFindUser

Is this possible (even if I have to enumerate all the groups and then filter by user) in a straightforward manner?

Try the command given below.

id -Gn [user]

On my Mac, the output from id -Gn davidanderson is given below.

staff everyone localaccounts _appserverusr admin _appserveradm _lpadmin _appstore _lpoperator _developer _analyticsusers com.apple.access_ftp com.apple.access_screensharing com.apple.access_ssh 2 1

The delimiter could be changed from a space to a comma by entering the following.

groups="$(id -Gn davidanderson)"
groups="${groups// /,}"
echo "$groups"

Here, the output would be as follows.

staff,everyone,localaccounts,_appserverusr,admin,_appserveradm,_lpadmin,_appstore,_lpoperator,_developer,_analyticsusers,com.apple.access_ftp,com.apple.access_screensharing,com.apple.access_ssh,2,1

I am using High Sierra, macOs 10.13.4 and a bash shell.


Why can I not access my own website - unknown host? I have a website - www.birupakhyadash.com - which I am not able to access. The traceroute to the address returns the error: unknown host.

I have tried to clear the dns cache and disable the adblockplus browser extension, but for some reasons I am still unable to access the site.

How can I fix the "unknown host" error?

How is your system getting its DNS resolutions?

Do you have DNS servers configured in your router config or in your NIC config? If you don't and it is not pushed to your router from your ISP maybe try setting them yourself.

Use Google's DNS;

8.8.8.8
8.8.4.4

Or OpenDNS;

208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220

If you have custom DNS servers set either in your router config or your computer's NIC config, maybe those are failing. Try removing them.

Are you able to access the site from any other computer or network other than your own?

Are you accessing the website from your home network, company or school network, some other private network? Your website might be blocked!

Have you made any changes to your website's DNS record recently, which might still be propagating?


Is it okay to install OS X on an external drive, and then install that drive as an internal drive? My internal drive is suffering hardware failure, so I bought OS X Snow Leopard (to upgrade my iMac from Leopard), a new drive, and a cheap external USB 2.0 enclosure.  My plan is to install a clean copy of Snow Leopard on the new drive as an external drive, restore a time-machine backup to it, and then finally swap the new drive into the iMac.

The main reason I'm doing it in this order, instead of just putting the drive in first, is timing.  It's easier to install OS X on a fresh drive and restore the time machine backup during the week, when I have less time to mess with it, because those are fairly hands-off activities.  I plan to do the drive swap this weekend when I have time for it, as I hear it is a fairly involved process to replace the internal drive on an iMac.

I've done this several times and never had a problem. Just make certain your external drive uses the correct partition scheme (GUID for Intel Macs) and format.

I once forgot to change the partition scheme and, as a result, couldn't run firmware updates until I reformatted the drive.


People will finish updating when Photos is in the background Photos on my phone and my laptop both say this at the bottom of the People section of the app. There has been no noticeable progress made in the past few weeks. It looks like all the people it has "identified" were carried over from when I manually tagged them in iPhoto years ago.

Is there a way to jumpstart this process or restart it?

From this article:

  Launch the Photos app on your Mac.

  Select the picture that has the person's face you want to create a
  profile for.

  Click on the Info button on the top right side of the Photos window.
  It looks like an i with a circle around it.

  Click the Add button next to Add Faces.

  Relocate the tag circle to the face of the person you want to create a
  profile for.

  Click on Click to Name.

  Name the person. If the name is in your contacts, it will appear in
  the suggested list.

  Click the Close button in the info window when you're done.

  Click on the People album in the sidebar under Library.

  Select the new People profile.

  Click on Confirm Additional Photos to see if the Photos app has
  automatically registered any additional pictures with that person in
  it.


How can I use a keyboard shortcut to run two or more keyboard shortcuts I'm using Due app on the mac, and I'm wondering if it's possible to have one keyboard shortcut to run the app, reset the running timer ( command+ shift+ s) and then run the timer again (command + S)
is it possible to do this ?

Write an AppleScript that launches your shortcut(s), then assign a shortcut to that AppleScript.

These two steps have been asked/answered on here previously.  See:

How can one invoke a keyboard shortcut from within an AppleScript?
How do I assign a keyboard shortcut to an AppleScript I wrote?

It's probably a better idea to write the AppleScript to do exactly what you want it to do rather than just execute shortcuts, but the option is there.


Excluding Chrome's session storage from Time Machine Is it advisable to exclude ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Session\ Storage/ from Time Machine backups? It certainly sounds like a prime candidate, but I am unable to find confirmation anywhere, which surprises me given that Chrome is fairly widely used.

Since you're concerned about this occupying space unnecessarily, you could the exclude the folder. While you're at it, you could exclude the following folders since the rest (apart from Session Storage) are not useful to backup repeatedly/regularly either:

  ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Session Storage
  ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Local Storage
  ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Application Cache

In more recent versions of Chrome/OS X, these folders may be located in:

/Users/$USER/Library/Caches/Google/

Note that excluding Session Storage will prevent your sessions from being backed up - so you cannot restore back to older sessions from a backup.
Excluding Local Storage will prevent restoring the storage used by some/many web sites that use local storage to store information (to support offline use or for longer term identification).


Swollen battery for the past few days - MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015) I checked with Macbook Pro mid-2015 15" swollen battery and I am asking this question. My MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015), details enclosed, is working perfectly. For the past two days I noticed a strange bulge in the bottom and the lid isn't closing correctly.

I have been handling it really carefully - dust free, never dropped down, etc. And here are some more information about the machine. Should I continue using it with the bulge or should I do anything to reduce the bulge? As this is my only source of income with the work I do here and there's no alternate for me.
I always use it in a clamshell mode (lid closed, power connected, external monitor, keyboard and mouse always connected). I cannot remove the power cable, if I do so, the system switches off in clamshell mode.

To use closed-display mode with your Mac notebook, here's what you need:

An AC power adapter or an external display that provides power over USB-C or Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C).
An external keyboard and mouse or trackpad, either USB or wireless.
A USB-C to USB adapter or cable if you're using a USB mouse or keyboard with a Mac that has USB-C ports.
An external display or projector.

I have been using my MacBook Pro in the above setup for about three years. It's been 39 months since I bought it and here's the Battery Information:
Model Information:
    Serial Number:  D86XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
    Manufacturer:   SMP
    Device Name:    bqXXXXXX
    Pack Lot Code:  0
    PCB Lot Code:   0
    Firmware Version:   702
    Hardware Revision:  1
    Cell Revision:  3244
Charge Information:
    Charge Remaining (mAh): 8623
    Fully Charged:  Yes
    Charging:   No
    Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 8909
Health Information:
    Cycle Count:    8
    Condition:  Normal
Battery Installed:  Yes
Amperage (mA):  0
Voltage (mV):   12817

AC Charger Information:
    Connected:  Yes
    ID: 0x0aa1
    Wattage (W):    85
    Family: 0x0085
    Serial Number:  0x00XXXXXX
    Charging:   No

I recently installed coconutBattery and here are some details about that.

The cycle count is also very less. I am not sure why it got so much swollen and it also affects the trackpad and other things, I really hope it doesn't come out breaking. Should I continue using? I have booked an appointment with AASP on Monday, but I do have a heavy usage on this weekend - tomorrow and day after. Geographically, I am in London, if it helps. Please advice me.
Happy to provide more information if possible.

You should definitely locate a service provider that can run a test today / tomorrow. Remote service is easy for this and quick and consider getting a backup and then take your computer to the Apple Store if they are open in your country.

https://locate.apple.com
https://support.apple.com/15-inch-macbook-pro-battery-recall

This is the battery airbag inflating to prevent a problem like fire or failure. Protect your data immediately, the hardware also needs attention. You may be covered by a safety program about the Apple batteries in the MacBook and it has precautions to take. In the past, these original batteries have exploded. I would take it to Apple Store immediately.
Also if the battery continues to swell it will eventually break something inside your computer. Others have mentioned that a swollen battery broke the trackpad on their MacBook Pro. All the more reason to take it to an Apple Store even if you think you are out of warranty. This design is like crumple zones in a car - the hardware is designed to save life in the event the design tolerances are exceeded. If the car is going to crash, it might as well do so safely. Same with a battery, if it’s getting over charged, it might as well let you know clearly and safely.
I also found this fairly recent (2019) article about Lithium Polymer batteries and off-gassing.


How to log in to turn off Num Lock on a MacBook Pro when you can't login? How do I turn off Num Lock on my MacBook Pro when I can't log in to get to System Preferences?

Try disabling mouse keys. System Preferences > Accessibility > Mouse & Trackpad > Uncheck mouse keys if it is enabled.


How can I encrypt a folder in OS X Mavericks If possible, how can I encrypt a folder with a password on OS X Mavericks?

OS X doesn't ship with a folder by folder encryption. You can create an encrypted sparse bundle which acts as a folder that is decrypted once it mounts and stores all contents in an encrypted form on disk.

Enable advanced image options in Disk Utility:

defaults write com.apple.DiskUtility advanced-image-options 1

Open Disk Utility (found in /Applications/Utilities/).
Select File → New → Disk Image from Folder… or press ⌘ cmd+⇧ shift+N.
Select the folder that contains your files and press Image.
Choose sparsebundle as the Image Format, and choose the level of encryption you require.

Choose a password to encrypt the image. Make sure to uncheck the Remember password in my Keychain box if you want to be prompted each time you attempt to mount the disk.
Click OK. Disk Utility will create a sparse bundle to hold your files. Don't forget to delete the original folder.

You can make an alias (or a symbolic link, symlink for short) to folders in the encrypted folder to hide much of the difference between a disk image and the actual encrypted folder if desired. Alternatively, you can mount this disk image in a custom folder (instead of /Volumes) for even smoother access.


"APFS Container Resize error code is 49153" when adding MS-DOS (FAT) partition I am trying to create a 20GB MS-DOS(FAT) partition on my Macintosh HD drive.
Upon defining the partition in Disk Utility and running the process, it throws up this error...

Running operation 1 of 2: Add “parrot” by splitting “Macintosh HD”…
Resizing APFS Container designated by APFS Container Reference disk1
Verifying storage system
Using live mode.
Performing fsck_apfs -n -x -l /dev/disk0s2
Checking volume.
Checking the container superblock.
Checking the EFI jumpstart record.
Checking the space manager.
Checking the object map.
Checking the APFS volume superblock.
Checking the object map.
Checking the fsroot tree.
Checking the snapshot metadata tree.
Checking the extent ref tree.
Checking the snapshots.
Checking snapshot 1 of 1.
Checking the APFS volume superblock.
Checking the object map.
Checking the fsroot tree.
Checking the snapshot metadata tree.
Checking the extent ref tree.
Checking the snapshots.
Checking the APFS volume superblock.
Checking the object map.
Checking the fsroot tree.
Checking the snapshot metadata tree.
Checking the extent ref tree.
Checking the snapshots.
Checking the APFS volume superblock.
Checking the object map.
Checking the fsroot tree.
Checking the snapshot metadata tree.
Checking the extent ref tree.
Checking the snapshots.
Verifying allocated space.
The volume /dev/disk0s2 appears to be OK.
Storage system check exit code is 0.
Shrinking APFS Physical Store disk0s2 from 250,790,436,864 to
230,790,434,816 bytes
Shrinking APFS data structures
APFS Container Resize error code is 49153
A problem occurred while resizing APFS Container structures.
Operation failed…

I have added Macintosh HD to the list of files excluded in Time Machine preferences as well trying tmutil thinlocalsnapshots / 9999999999999999 in the terminal.

Any help is appreciated.

Try this workaround:

Instead of creating a FAT partition, create a APFS partition of the desired size with Disk Utility.
Select the APFS container that contains the new partition and click Erase on the toolbar:

Select MS-DOS (FAT) from the pull down menu, correct the name of the partition as necessary and press Erase:

This will replace the APFS container with a FAT partition.


Apple QuickTake™ 150 camera pictures in QuickDraw format… Apple QuickTake 150 camera pictures in "QuickDraw picture" format cannot be opened by any software I have.

At some point in the dark reaches of the past, I recall being able to Save As… but at the time, I was ignorant of what was to come and was concerned with using as little disk space as possible. 150KB seemed big at the time.

I think the files are compressed as a few .tiff format duplicates fluff-up to over 6X its native format size. Preview shows the thumbnail image as it is compatible; but, the image is blank.

Now, years later, I would like to recover as much of as many past family photos as I can.
It may be that some utility is available. I'm patient and I have a few minutes — my alternative is futility.

Greedy me. I want it all. TIA

I was in the same situation. Finding photos I had taken 20 years ago on my Quicktake 150, but was not able to open them. But I found a solution. There is a OS 9 emulator for OSX that i installed, then i installed the quicktake on the os 9 system abd was able to open and then resave the pics as tiff that OSX can open.


is there any c++ compiler for ipad2? I am a student in college and just started to learn C++. I have an iPad 2 and no computer (it broke and I will not buy another one). So I want to find an app that seems like codeblock for Windows. The ability to run code and maybe can fix it is a big plus. Thanks a lot!

No fully functional IDE exists on iOS to make runnable apps without jailbreaking  but you can sign up for a free Amazon Web service account and get an ssh client and program "on the iPad" assuming you have a network account.

An app like nimbus or textastic would be an ideal companion once you were clear how compiling elsewhere fit your desire to learn.

Xcode is currently only available for Mac OS X to develop programs that run iOS and cocoa touch (not which is very much not C++ - even though Xcode can be used for C++).

Have a look at this question on learning C which will apply almost entirely to C++ on iOS.

Is there a C compiler for iPad?


Issue with Move to iOS android app to migrate to iphone I'm trying to migrate some data from an old Samsung phone running Android 4 to an iPhone 5s running iOS11.

The issue I'm stuck with is that when I setup the iphone and select move data from android, it gives me a 6 digit code, but on the Android device is expecting a 10 digit code.

Is there anything that can be done?

Any help would be great.

Thanks,

I think you found a solution in meanwhile.
Anyway I faced the some problem yesterday and I even contact Apple to get some information. They said me that the version installed in my new brand iPhone XS is now accepting just 6 digits instead the 10 Android was requesting me. And proposed me to use another app called MCBackup which is a contact transfer and save app for android and iOS.

Then I start to think a bit. First I tried the current version of Move to iOS which didn't run on my android. So I started to look into a older version what I got this morning. The one I found was from 2018 called Move to iOS 2.10.0 (com.apple.movetoios_2.10.0-2100_minAPI14(armeabi)(nodpi) and it can be downloaded at https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/apple-inc/move-to-ios/move-to-ios-2-10-0-release/#downloads.

Please assure that this is the version, older ones (1.57 and 1.59) do not work, I tried.

I hope I could help some other who intent to migrate all Android's data to the new iPhone...


Getting 3 beeps on restart after RAM install... is the RAM really bad? I have a 2009 iMac and wanted to bump up the RAM to it's max capacity.

I did a quick search and found that it is supposed to handle 8GB. I Bought 2 4GB sticks from Crucial (supposedly a good brand) and installed them according to the instructions.

On restart, I got 3 beeps which is supposed to mean that the RAM is bad. I tested various configs of the old RAM with the new RAM and am able to use either of the old 2GB sticks and either of the new 4GB sticks with no issues but can't put 2 new 4GB sticks or even 1 4GB stick by itself.

It has to have an old stick in to be able to boot. When it boots the RAM shows as 6GB and seems to have no issues. So what's the deal and how common is it that the RAM is "just bad" and has to be exchanged? (See attached images for clarification)

Your comment of "supposed to handle" is key here. Apple supports up to a specific amount of RAM in upgradable Macs. Now guessing Apple's motivations is generally discouraged here (and celebrated elsewhere...), it is not a stretch to extrapolate why.

The "supposed to handle" comes from at least one person reporting that more than the supported amount of RAM worked fine on their Mac. In some models perhaps a lot more than one. So putting more RAM in a system that will reportedly work with more than officially supported is not much more than "my cousin Jane put more than the supported amount of RAM in her 2009 iMac and it worked fine."

Apple likely did not set the maximum RAM supported arbitrarily. There are likely technical reasons why certain Macs only support up to a certain amount of RAM. And you are one of the 'lucky' few experiencing an edge case where manufacturing tolerances have conspired to make your iMac one of the unlucky few that don't support more than Apple's Officially Supported specification.

In this particular case there are two possibilities. One, that your particular iMac does not support the amount of RAM you wish to install, PERIOD. Or two, that the RAM Crucial has provided you is defective in some way (doubtful from your testing scenario) or just incompatible with your particular iMac. And perhaps another manufacturers RAM would work fine.

Personally I would go with number one. But if you have more fortitude than I you could try exchanging the RAM or getting a refund and trying another brand.


Sharing wifi from mac to iphone I Googled how to do share my wifi connection from my Mac (new Macbook Pro)  to my iPhone (5S) and I tried their way.
System Preferences > Sharing > Internet Sharing
but then i don't have the same options they showed me.

I have share your connection from: Thunderbolt bridge, wi-fi, bluetooth PAN, and bluetooth DUN.

When I choose wifi, which is what I'm supposed to chose from what i've read, I only get two options in the to computers using: Thunderbolt bridge and bluetooth pan but no wifi and neither is working

All the other share you connection from options allow me to do so with computers using wifi thunderbolt bridge and bluetooth pan.

What should I do? Thanks

Can you please attach a screenshot?
You should have this screen in your sharing options (System Preference - Sharing):


VMB (Vodafone Mobile Broadband) without Java I have a VMB key that I use with a SIM card to connect my MacBook to the Internet while mobile.
Recently I've formatted my Mac and I decided to avoid installing Java. No problem until I tried to install latest VMB software: it's based on Java!

Are there some alternative softwares independent from Java?

Luckily, there is usually a way to avoid installing Java while still using your mobile internet dongle.

The software they bundle with these devices is based on Java because it is multi-platform. They code one app to handle the functionality and deploy it. However, the drivers (for Windows) and kexts (for Mac) are not based on Java and use native code.

You need to ask yourself a question: do I need the SMS and extra functionality that their software provides? If the answer is no, then you can set up the device in the Network preference pane manually and avoid using their software (and thus avoid installing Java) at all.

If you have run the package installer they provided to you, great. If not, run it now. This should install the kext (and the horrid software) in to /System/Library/Extensions. You may find you get a pop-up notification when you do this telling you a new network interface has been found.

Open "System Preferences" and click on "Network" to open up your network settings and there should be an extra interface listed on the left named something similar to "Vodafone Mobile Broadband" or "Huawei" (depending on the make of the device). If not, click the "+" and add it to your interfaces.

Select the interface and on the right-hand pane you should see a few fields there; one for "Number", one for "Username" and one for "Password". Generally, these are consistent across all networks, but if the settings I provide here don't work then get hold of your service provider and they should give them to you.

Under "Number" type '*#99#' and leave username and password blank. Then, click the "Advanced" button to open the advanced overlay, and under "Modem" select the brand of the device that you have (it should be listed at the bottom). Leave the rest of the settings as they are, usually the defaults are correct, and simply change the APN to "internet". This is the one variable that will probably cause the most hassle as I know that at least here in South Africa each network has deviated from the standard "internet" now with the addition of LTE.

Click all the "OK"s and "Apply"s to save the settings and, with the device plugged in, click "Connect". If all the settings are correct (and hopefully they are) then you should connect to the network and be able to browse. If not, then get hold of your service provider and ask them for the correct APN and dial settings.

Good luck!


How can virtual memory be greater than the total available space? Why does my MBP sometimes report VM Size: 300+ GB in Activity Monitor under System Memory tab, when my hard disk size is only 250 GB (total) and RAM is 4GB? I know it can't magically get that extra space, but what is it trying to tell me?

It's all imaginary since virtual memory doesn’t need to exist until a program stores something specific. In this case, some combination of programs is saying to the OS they might some day use that much space. Don't worry unless:

the swap space grows past your ram size
active + wired ram is greater than 75% of physical RAM. (3GB in your
case)

Basically, this idea makes memory handling faster as the system is running. Since programs keep asking for more and more memory, the system lays out un-mapped chunks of virtual RAM with tons of space in between each process' allocation. This makes some very common memory calculations easier and faster and makes it very unlikely that the regions will ever overlap. When virtual memory regions overlap, it's more costly to pause things and re-map the memory under a running program.  All this mental olympics involving virtual memory makes your mac run faster.


Opening a terminal window to a specific directory from a bash script How can I write a bash script in Mac OS X that opens a Terminal window in a specific directory?  I'd assume something like:

open /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app

But that does nothing (maybe it's loading the Terminal application which is already open instead of launching a new Terminal window).  And of course it doesn't cd into a directory as I haven't specified that...

Here is a small script I knocked up :

#!/usr/bin/osascript
on run argv
  set dir to quoted form of (first item of argv)
  tell app "Terminal" to do script "cd " & dir
end run

If you save this and make it executable

chmod +x script_filename

and then run it

script_filename ~/Desktop

then it will open up a new terminal window and change to the directory in the argument.


Switch music playing from iPod to Mac when getting home is there a way to automatically 'transfer' the music you hear on your iPod touch (4. generation) to the Mac?

What I want to do:

I am listening to music while I am on my way back home. I get home and my iPod touch connects to my access point. My Mac is awake and could be directed to play music via Remote on my iPod touch.

Can I sync both devices so they play the same song at the same time, so I can turn off my iPod and put away my headphones, but continue listening via my Mac?

Funny question - never loose the flow...

The only way I see is that you install a tool like Airfoil and have your Mac simulate an AirPlay device. Then once you get home and your iPod is logged into your WiFi you could select your Mac as the speaker.


Airdrop w/o cellular and internet I read that Airdrop will work without internet access. Will Airdrop work without access to a cellular network? Thanks

Yes, since AirDrop is also available on the iPod touch and on the Mac which doesn't even have cellular options.

AirDrop is using an Ad-Hoc service for its communication.

This is a nice article on how AirDrop works.


Unarchive a file with a set of provided password list Is there a possibility like in jDownloader, where password protected files are automatically extracted by trying all passwords one by one which are provided by the user?

Something like this:

$ unarchive foo.rar --password-list baz.txt

Get unar from http://unarchiver.c3.cx/commandline
Extract the archive and put unar (and lsar) somewhere your shell can find it.
Run

while IFS= read pwd; do
    unar -p "$pwd" ARCHIVE
done < password-list.txt


Problem with returning to iTunes when in full-screen mode I've a problem with full-screen mode in Lion.

Let's say I opened iTunes and set it to full-screen mode. I start a video in iTunes and when I exit from the video it turns back to iTunes as it should but the iTunes window is in another desktop even though in the header I see iTunes as the active application.

In order to see the iTunes window I've to click to the iTunes icon in the Dock or use the application switcher.

BUT this problem doesn't appear when I don't use iTunes in full-screen mode.

In my opinion it's an issue with me upgrading to Lion from Snow Leopard. I'm thinking of a fresh install but even though it's easy to do it will take some time so I would really appreciate your suggestions on the matter.

I've had similar problems with other applications running in full screen mode. This is not a problem with your install per say, it's a bug/feature/the way things are. Don't do anything drastic like reinstall the OS because you won't solve the problem.

When this happens I generally move back to the full screen app using Quicksilver. You can do the same thing using the built-in spotlight search ⌘ + spacebar or through Mission Control.


How to prevent all usb mass storages from mounting at boot On a Mac Lion 10.7.5 I have 5 USB external disk and I'm not using them all the time so I want to prevent it to mount at boot and only mount the one I need when needed.

How can I achieve this ?

Thank you

It depends on how you clarify 'mount at boot'. Do you mean the user login or the actual system boot...

Anyway, here are two ways you can handle this.

You can use one of the Startup shortcuts. In your case holding ⏏ during startup will eject all removable disks. To be honest, I am not 100% if your external USB drives are seen as such.
Edit your /etc/fstab file, the file systems table. This table contains info on how to mount which disk. If the file does not exist, you can create it. Manual pages are here.

At this to your /etc/fstab.

# device-spec     mount-point     fs-type     options
LABEL=VolumeName  none            hfs         noauto


How to stop the Apple Music ads every time I launch the Music app? Lately, the Music app on my iPhone XR has been showing the "Join Apple Music!" call-to-action interstitial screen pretty much every time I launch it. Usually this happens when I'm in a bad-network area, too, so it takes a few minutes before it appears, preventing me from playing my locally-stored music and playlists.

I neither have nor want Apple Music, and I have disabled Apple Music on my device through the respective control panel:

And yet I still get the interstitial ad for Apple Music at least once a week, if not more. Is there any way to disable this "feature?"

I hate to say, but I’ve not been able to find any way to accomplish this so I’m going to recommend just using a different music app with your same music library that the native Music app creates and manages.

For me, I love the Cs music player and it does an amazing job at using your existing music library and lets you avoid using the native app any time it disappoints you.

Cs Music Player by Mike Clay

I think this used to be called the cesium player if you search for other reviews or don’t want to try this app. What it does for me is it knows which songs are Apple Music and coached locally, so I don’t incur data charges and just want to shuffle songs I already downloaded. I also prefer this app over Apple for several local library situations (classical music, better for me interface, etc...)


Use MacBook as a monitor and controller for iMac I have an iMac and I also happen to have a MacBook Air. What I need is this strange layout - I want to be able to control my iMac with my MacBook. I also want to be able to  share my iMaс screen to my MacBook's. So ideally I have a single machine - iMac responsible for all the hardware and the MacBook as just as an external display and a keyboard with a touchpad. How do you achieve this?

You can't really use the MacBook as display or keyboard. What you can do is control the iMac remotely via Screen Sharing. This is a builti in function in OS X since 10.5:
Screen Sharing.

Please note that his is not a workable solutions for anything that requires fast display refreshes as all data is send via your network.

There are several instruction out there:
http://macs.about.com/od/usingyourmac/qt/Mac-Screen-Sharing-How-To-Connect-To-Another-Macs-Desktop.htm


mac os x what the two forward slash root is? On my mac os x I have two roots the second one has two forward slashes. //  wondering what that is. I searched everywhere but cant find any information about this.

This is a strange part of the POSIX specification.

See unix, difference between path starting with '/' and '//'.

Two slashes in the beginning of a pathname are interpreted in an implementation-defined way. As far as I know, only cygwin actually takes // to mean something different than / (//FOO maps to a network drive called FOO, / maps to the local root). On most other systems / and // are the same. Note that /// is interpreted as /.

Your shell is I suspect bash and it keeps the // just in case the OS does something special with it. On OSX it is the same as /.


Notifications from Apple TV on iPhone asking to allow login to Apple ID Got a 3rd gen Apple TV for my mom. Works fine.

A while back I started getting notifications when it was turned on. These appeared on my iPhone & iPad saying something like someone is trying to access Apple TV or iCloud. I can’t remember what it says and I took a screenshot but I can’t find it now.

Any time Apple TV comes on, the Internet goes out then it comes back on, I get a notification on my phone and iPad saying someone’s trying to access  with an option to allow or not and then you give some kind of code.

That code that your iPad and iPhone are asking for is the two-factor authentication code. If you dont see a code on your Apple TV then the next best step for you is to go to http://www.appleid.apple.com and then sign in, get the code from one of your devices, then when in your account go under "security". In security look for two-factor authentication ON. If it is on, click edit on the far right hand side in security then you'll see "turn off two-factor authentication".

You'll want to turn it off in order to bypass the requesting of a code. Once you attempt to turn it off it'll ask you to create 3 security question (with answers) and double check your birthdate & rescue email (if you have one).

Once you've turned off two-factor authentication all of the devices that you are signed into will ask your to "update" your Apple ID by putting in your password to the account. It knows that you changed the security type to your account and wants to verify that you permitted it. After that you should have no problem getting the Apple TV working again.

***You may need to reset the Apple TV and its connection to your internets signal if its still not working. The above fix is just to get rid of those prompts, but it wont fix the connection.

Let me know if you have any concerns/questions/issues.


Can I delete the app that created my Passbook passes? I've created two boarding passes in Passbook using the Easyjet airline app. My question is: Can I delete the app now that the passes are in Passbook? Or will deleting the app remove the passes from Passbook?

Deleting the app will not delete the Passbook, they are independent things.

Is the same thing that an app that create entries in you calendar, when you delete it, it won't delete the calendar entries.


Homebrew wants me to delete /usr/local/lib? From the Homebrew installation page :

  We recommend you delete /usr/local/include and /usr/local/lib

But my /usr/local/lib contains the following files:

$ ls /usr/local/lib
charset.alias                   libgettextsrc.la
gettext                         libgpg-error.0.dylib
libasprintf.0.0.0.dylib         libgpg-error.dylib
libasprintf.0.dylib             libgpg-error.la
libasprintf.dylib               libiconv.2.dylib
libasprintf.la                  libiconv.dylib
libassuan.0.dylib               libiconv.la
libassuan.dylib                 libintl.8.0.2.dylib
libassuan.la                    libintl.8.dylib
libcharset.1.dylib              libintl.dylib
libcharset.dylib                libintl.la
libcharset.la                   libksba.8.9.6.dylib
libgcrypt.11.6.0.dylib          libksba.8.dylib
libgcrypt.11.dylib              libksba.dylib
libgcrypt.dylib                 libksba.la
libgcrypt.la                    libpth.20.0.27.dylib
libgettextlib-0.17.dylib        libpth.20.dylib
libgettextlib.dylib             libpth.dylib
libgettextlib.la                libpth.la
libgettextpo.0.4.0.dylib        libusb-0.1.4.dylib
libgettextpo.0.dylib            libusb-1.0.0.dylib
libgettextpo.dylib              libusb-1.0.dylib
libgettextpo.la                 libusb-1.0.la
libgettextsrc-0.17.dylib        libusb.dylib
libgettextsrc.dylib             libusb.la

What are these files for? Is it safe to delete these files?

That's kinda the problem; Homebrew doesn't know what they are either, and randomly sourced libraries tend to break builds.  (MacPorts makes the same recommendation.  In fact, I was under the impression that was one of the things Homebrew relaxed.)

If you don't know what they are or if they're used, the simplest solution is

$ sudo mv /usr/local /usr/local.keep

and watch to see what breaks.  Chances are they're used by whatever's in /usr/local/bin, though, so look there first.


How to Use BTsync's file sharing by Bluetooth? I established the bluetooth connection between the devices.
However, the speed download/upload still stays low (< 1 MB/s) between the devices while it should be much higher with Bluetooth 4.0 in both devices: Macbook Air Mid-2013 (adapter) and Samsung Galaxy S4.
BTsync should use local network to share data between the devices in the sharing.

I contacted the BTsync support about the issue

  Unfortunately we don't support bluetooth
  so Sync establishes connection through LAN or internet, if there are
  firewalls and NATs it can be established through relay server. But
  Sync uses the best possible connection for synchronization. We'll
  don't plan supporting bluetooth in nearest future but we'll think
  about it.

So it is completely technically possible to support file sharing in the local network by Bluetooth.

How can you enable BTsync file sharing by bluetooth in OS X with Android?

This feature request is now active in their development.
However, it can take some years to get it because of limited resources in their development. I will let you know when I get more pieces of information about the issue. There are some tickets which has to be solved before such a feature can be implemented.


Toggle Ink's WriteAnywhere with AppleScript How can you easily toggle the Ink preference pane setting "Write Anywhere"?

With this script you can toggle the Write Anywhere setting on and off, however it opens the System Preferences in the background:

tell application "System Preferences"
    reveal (pane id "com.apple.preference.ink")
end tell
tell application "System Events"
            tell application process "System Preferences"
                click checkbox "Allow me to Ink in any application" of group 1 of tab group 1 of window "Ink"
            end tell
end tell

I use it for toggling WriteAnywhere from the "Radial Menu" of my Wacom tablet.


Portable encrypted USB stick I would like to have an encrypted USB stick that I can use with Windows and OS X.

I could format it as FAT32 and then have a encrypted image files (more than one due to the file size limitation of 4GB) that I could mount on both, and have the software to do it on the stick itself.

Any suggestion on the best format?

Buy a USB flash drive that uses hardware encryption, where the unlock mechanism doesn't depend a software client, then format it however you prefer. An example of this would be a USB flash drive with a a biometric sensor which can scan a finger, or a built-in keypad where you can enter a PIN to unlock the drive. Several vendors sell hardware encrypted flash drives like these, including Apricorn and Imation.